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Robotics

Submission + - Grasping at straws, with a robotic hand (wired.com)

Submitted by jcasman
jcasman writes: Wired's got a piece on building a better robotic hand at Standford. The current robot is called "Stair 1.0." If you reach and grab at something, you need to understand if you've succeeded. If not, try again. If still unsuccessful, trying a new approach. "The trick is to build robots that act more like children than machines." Wonder how you build in "giving up"?
Privacy

Submission + - Facebook Revamps New Advertising System - Beacon - (techluver.com)

Submitted by
Tech.Luver
Tech.Luver writes: "Seeking to keep the peace in its popular online hangout, Facebook has overhauled a new advertising system that sparked privacy complaints by turning its users into marketing tools for other companies. Under the changes outlined late Thursday, Facebook's 55 million users will be given greater control over whether they want to participate in a three-week-old program that circulates potentially sensitive information about their online purchases and other activities. Facebook provided two different opportunities to block the details from being shared, but many users said they never saw the "opt-out" notices before they disappeared from the screen. ( http://techluver.com/2007/11/29/facebook-revamps-new-advertising-system-beacon/ )"
Cellphones

Submission + - 3G iPhone officially in works for 2008 (computerworld.com)

Submitted by
An anonymous reader writes: Apple Inc. will release a 3G version of the iPhone sometime next year that connects to the Internet at much faster speeds than the current model, AT&T Inc.'s CEO said yesterday, according to reports by Bloomberg.com. At a meeting of the Churchill Club in Santa Clara, Calif., on Wednesday, AT&T CEO Randall Stephenson said, "You'll have it next year," when asked when a 3G iPhone would appear. AT&T is the exclusive mobile carrier for the iPhone in the U.S.
Wireless Networking

Submission + - New way to ID invisible intruders on wireless LANs (computerworld.com.au)

Submitted by Bergkamp10
Bergkamp10 writes: Australia's University of Technology in Queensland (QUT) has created a groundbreaking new system that can detect invisible intruders on wireless LANs. Wireless networks have been almost impossible to thoroughly secure as they possess no clearly defined boundaries, instead they are defined by the quality and strength of the receiving antenna. QUT Information Security Institute researcher Dr Jason Smith has invented a new system to detect eavesdropping on unencrypted networks or active hijackings of computer sessions when a legitimate user who is logged onto the network leaves the connection. Smith has created a series of monitoring techniques that when used together can detect both attackers and configuration mistakes in network devices. According to Smith, ""the strength of the signal travelling in a wireless network and the round trip time of the signal are both monitored because they will change if an intruder enters the network. Separately monitoring the signal and round trip time is unreliable, but correlating them against each other makes the system accurate," he said. Smith goes on to list further features and benefits of the new system and how threats can be responded to.
Power

Submission + - Glucose to Hydrogen Fuel Cell Developed

Submitted by tetrahedrassface
tetrahedrassface writes: Japanese researchers have made a fuel cell that uses a highly colored molecules incorporated into light-absorbing titania that appear to be able to mimic photosynthetic pathways. This photosynthetic-like electrode is coupled to a platinum electrode and immersed in glucose and enzymes. When light strikes the photosynthetic-like electrode hydrogen from the glucose is liberated and a current across the wire is generated. Currently a couple hundred millivolts are generated. Before there is wild speculation on glucose futures market please note that other materials such as starch, cellulose, sucrose, and lactose can be converted to glucose via fermentation.
Software

Submission + - DJB Releases All Source to Public Domain (google.com) 3

Submitted by
A Sage Developer
A Sage Developer writes: "During a recent conference, Sage Days 6, Dan Bernstein (who has recently come under attack for his licensing policy) was among the invited speakers. During a panel discussion on the future of open source mathematics software, Bernstein declared that all of his past and future code would be released to the public domain (video here). This includes qmail, primegen, and a number of other projects. Given the headache that incompatibility between GPLv3 and GPLv2 is causing developers, will we see more of this?"
Government

Submission + - Swiss DMCA quietly adopted (boingboing.net)

Submitted by roady
roady writes: We have seen a lot of talk about the Canadian DMCA. But few know about the Swiss version recently adopted by law makers, not even the Swiss people. The government and media have been very quiet, probably to avoid a referendum. Indeed, Switzerland is a direct democracy and if 50'000 citizens sign a referendum, the whole country will have a chance to vote against the new copyright law. In this version of the DMCA, sharing a file on P2P networks will land you one year in jail, even though the law mandates a levy on blank media. The history of the law can be read here.
The Internet

Submission + - Internet to reach capacity by 2010 story overblown (computerworld.com.au) 1

Submitted by Gustoman
Gustoman writes: The co-author of a report that received global media coverage claiming the Internet will reach capacity by 2010 says the study was blown way out of proportion. Headlines such as "Internet facing meltdown" and "Internet blackouts predicted by 2010" are way off course, said the report's co-author Johna Till Johnson, president and senior founding partner of Nermertes Research. According to her, all the study concluded is that a mismatch between demand and access capacity will be reached in three to five years that will have to be met by billions of dollars in spending by carriers. It estimates access providers will have to spend between US$42 billion and US$55 billion to close that gap, which could be 70 per cent more than they plan to invest. Otherwise, the next YouTube may be throttled because the Internet will be hard to access. Johnson goes on to explain the merits of the report, including the bandwidth consumption models used and interviews with vendors, enterprises, service providers and investment companies the research firm conducted to arrive at its findings. "We explicitly are not saying the Internet's going to break," she said.
Google

Submission + - Google purges thousands of suspected malware sites (itnews.com.au) 1

Submitted by
Stony Stevenson
Stony Stevenson writes: "In response to a concerted effort by cyber criminals to infect the computers of Google users with malware and make them unwitting partners in crime, Google has apparently purged tens of thousands of malicious Web pages from its index. Alex Eckelberry, CEO of Sunbelt Software, noted that many search results on Google led to malicious Web pages that expose visitors to exploits that can compromise vulnerable systems. Sunbelt published a list of search terms that returned malicious pages, the result of search engine optimization (SEO) campaigns by cyber criminals to get their pages prominently ranked in Google — Sunbelt refers to this as "SEO poisoning."

Let's hope Google has done its research and hasn't purged legitimate sites."
PlayStation (Games)

Submission + - Activision wants PS3 for $199 (zdnet.com)

Submitted by CaligarisDesk
CaligarisDesk writes: Activision CEO believes that the price for the mass appeal of the PS3 should be $199.

"The Wii at its price point is now setting a standard and an expectation, and people say, well, the Wii is less complex technically. I don't think that really matters as much to the consumer," Kotick told the Reuters Media Summit in New York on Tuesday.
The Courts

Submission + - Microsoft sued over Halo 3's consistenet crashes

Submitted by Stony Stevenson
Stony Stevenson writes: A San Diego resident who recently purchased Halo 3 has filed a lawsuit against Microsoft — alleging that the company released a faulty product that frequently crashes when played on the Xbox 360. In court papers filed this week, Randy Nunez charges that Halo 3 "consistently causes the Xbox 360 to crash, freeze, or lock up while the game is being played." Along with Microsoft, Nunez also is suing Bungie. The lawsuit contends that the problem is widespread, and that Microsoft and Bungie haven't taken any steps to fix it.
Technology (Apple)

Submission + - Apple's Tiger upgrade causing catastrophic failure

Submitted by Stony Stevenson
Stony Stevenson writes: Users of Apple's Tiger operating system are reporting that the software grinds to an unrecoverable halt when upgraded to the latest version. According to posts appearing in the discussion forum on Apple's support Web site, Macs upgraded to version 10.4.11 of Tiger are freezing up and refusing to reboot without a clean installation. The culprit, according to some posters on the forum and published reports, may be Boot Camp — a utility that allows Mac users to run Microsoft Windows on their computers. Some users recommend eliminating the utility before upgrading to the latest version of Tiger.
OS X

Submission + - Leopard Incompatible with MacBook, MacBook Pro (appleinsider.com)

Submitted by
Jeeves
Jeeves writes: "Since the release of Leopard, MacBook Pro owners have complained that their keyboard and mouse stops responding under the new OS. The release of 10.5.1 has introduced a slew of new complaints, and it now appears that MacBook and MacBook Pro owners of all hardware generations are affected, rendering the system unusable without the use of external hardware, and with no simple method of rolling back to an OS compatible with their laptops. There is no discernible link between incidents other than the installation of Leopard, and the issue affects owners of laptops which have been pre-installed with the new OS. Apple has not released any statement on the matter, nor any timetable for when they plan to provide a patch. Apple support technicians are unable to provide any assistance to users affected by this issue."
Cellphones

Submission + - Cell Phone Signals Show Real-Time Traffic

Submitted by xrsblu
xrsblu writes: A team of MIT researchers, including Carlo Ratti, is developing a real-time mapping technology that tracks the concentration and flow of cell-phone signals to produce "up-to-the-second" traffic reports. Research is taking place in Rome where urban congestion and tourism bring transportation to a crawl. In addition to steering you away from backups, the information can help you find where the action is, if that's what you're looking for.
Power

Submission + - New Solar Energy Breakthrough

Submitted by
Cognitive Dissident
Cognitive Dissident writes: "According to green blogging site Celsias, a company called Nanosolar has developed a new method for producing solar cells more cheaply and quickly then ever before. "Their PowerSheet cells contrast the current solar technology systems by reducing the cost of production from $3 a watt to a mere 30 cents per watt. This makes, for the first time in history, solar power cheaper than burning coal." Videos of their manufacturing process in action are available on their main page. Their full-scale manufacturing plant goes online next year. Is this the beginning of the solar power revolution?"

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