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Hardware Hacking

Hackable In-Car GPS Unit? 208

Posted by timothy from the what-I-want-is-an-r2-unit dept.
gigne writes "I'm in the market for a new, in-car GPS/sat nav. I am preferably looking for one that has live, up-to-date traffic information and route planning that doesn't make you want to cry. I'm not quite dumb enough to drive off a cliff, but something that doesn't even try and lead me to watery doom is preferable. The only thing I absolutely must have is the ability to hack it. It would be preferable if it ran GNU/Linux, but given a convincing argument, I would be swayed to another OS. Without wanting the Moon on a stick, what is the best device that would offer a decent modding community and a good feature set?"
Space

Ulysses Space Mission Finally Coming To an End 45

Posted by Soulskill from the four-more-year-four-more-years dept.
Dusty writes "After several false alarms, the Ulysses Mission is finally ending. According to the Spacecraft Operations Manager's latest status report, the last track will be on 30th June 2009 from 15:25 until 20:20 UTC. 'We've tried to bolster our dwindling tracking allocation with some success by grabbing antenna time released on short notice (mostly by the Spitzer Project). However, weekly data return figures are now typically 10% or less. And soon, even 512 bps from 70m antennas will be a thing of the past.' Further details about Ulysses' 18-year mission are available from NASA and the ESA. We discussed the failing spacecraft last summer when it looked like its fuel was going to freeze, but through clever engineering, experts managed to squeeze out another year.
NASA

Buzz Aldrin's Radical Plan For NASA 519

Posted by timothy from the he-was-there-when-it-happened dept.
FleaPlus writes "Apollo 11 astronaut (and MIT Astronautics Sc.D.) Buzz Aldrin suggests a bolder plan for NASA (while still remaining within its budget), which he will present to the White House's Augustine Commission; he sees NASA heading down the wrong path with a 'rehash of what we did 40 years ago' which could derail future exploration and settlement. For the short-term, Aldrin suggests canceling NASA's troubled and increasingly costly Ares I, instead launching manned capsules on commercial Delta IV, Atlas V, and/or SpaceX Falcon 9 rockets. In the medium-term, NASA should return to the moon with an international consortium, with the ultimate goal of commercial lunar exploitation in mind. Aldrin's long term plan includes a 2018 comet flyby, a 2019 manned trip to a near-earth asteroid, a 2025 trip to the Martian moon Phobos, and one-way trips to colonize Mars."
Censorship

The State of Iran's Ongoing Netwar 263

Posted by timothy from the nineties-is-way-late-for-gibson-sterling-et-al dept.
An anonymous reader writes "Following disputed elections in Iran, opposition groups and activists have turned conventional protests into a major threat to the ruling government. The low-intensity protest movement is rapidly becoming the first true netwar of the 21st century. Opposition protesters have shown that within a few hours or less, the information technologies that are the mainstay of modern society can become its weapons, as well. This article examines the current situation in Iran and the part played by new media technologies and strategies, showing how far the theory and practice of netwar has advanced since the concept first emerged in the late nineties."
Math

Statistical Suspicions In Iran's Election 512

Posted by kdawson from the funny-smell dept.
hoytak writes "An expert in electoral fraud, professor Walter Melbane, has released a detailed analysis (PDF) of available data in Iran's controversial election (summary here). While he did not find significant indications of fraud, he does note that all the deviations from the predicted model are in Ahmadinejad's favor: 'In general, combining the 2005 and 2009 data conveys the impression that a substantial core of the 2009 results reflected natural political process... [These] stand in contrast to the unusual pattern in which all of the notable discrepancies between the support Ahmadinejad actually received and the support the model predicts are always negative. This pattern needs to be explained before one can have confidence that natural election processes were not supplemented with artificial manipulations.'" In related news, EsonLinji notes reports in the Seattle PI and other sources that the US State Department has asked Twitter to delay system maintenance to prevent cutting off Iranians who have been relying on the service during the post-election crisis. And if you would like to help ease the communication crunch, reader RCulpepper tips a blog post detailing how to set up a proxy server for users with Iranian IP addresses.
Hardware

Fifteen Classic PC Design Mistakes 806

Posted by CmdrTaco from the i've-made-seven-so-far-today dept.
Harry writes "Once upon a time, it wasn't a given that PC owners should be able to format their own floppy disks. Or that ports should be standard, not proprietary. Or that it was a lousy idea to hardwire a PC's AC adapter, or to put the power supply in the printer so that a printer failure rendered the PC unusable, too. Over at Technologizer, Benj Edwards has taken a look at some of the worst design decisions from personal computing's early years — including ones involving famous flops such as the PCJr, obscure failures such as Mattel's Aquarius, and machines that succeeded despite flaws, like the first Mac. In most instances — but not all — their bad decisions taught the rest of the industry not to make the same errors again."
Security

Calculating Password Policy Strength Vs. Cracking 231

Posted by Soulskill from the one-two-three-four-five dept.
snydeq writes "InfoWorld's Roger Grimes offers a spreadsheet-based calculator in which you can key in your current password policy and see how your organization's passwords might hold up against the number of guesses an attacker can make in a given minute. The calculator includes results for four different password entropy models, and is based on length, character set, maximum age, whether complexity is enabled, and the number of guesses per minute an attacker can attempt. As an example, Grimes assumes an eight-character password, with complexity enabled, a 94-symbol character set, and 90 days between password changes. Such a policy, typical for many organizations, would require attackers to make only 65 guesses per minute to break — not at all hard to accomplish, Grimes writes."

Comment Re:No more Last.fm for me (Score 1) 334

by Deb-fanboy (#28072625) Attached to: Last.fm User Data Was Sent To RIAA By CBS
Yes, I feel a bit suckered here.

I also feel bad because I have recommended people to use them. So in addition to removing myself from LastFm I have to apologise to several friends and advise them to leave also.

It's not that I have any exposure from them it's rather that I have lost all trust in them. What's next, do they sell my details to spammers?
The Courts

FSF Settles Suit Against Cisco 194

Posted by timothy from the good-on-them dept.
Saint Aardvark writes "The Free Software Foundation has announced that they've settled their lawsuit with Cisco (reported earlier here). In the announcement, they say that Cisco has agreed to appoint a Free Software Director for Linksys, who will report periodically to the FSF; to notify Linksys customers of their rights; and to make a monetary donation to the FSF. An accompanying blog entry explains further: 'Whenever we talk about the work we do to handle violations, we say over and over again that getting compliance with the licenses is always our top priority. The reason this is so important is not only because it provides a goal for us to reach, but also because it gives us a clear guide to choosing our tactics. This is the first time we've had to go to court over a license violation.'"
Microsoft

ODF Alliance Warns Governments About Office 2007 ODF Support 312

Posted by timothy from the please-sub-in-the-new-bullet-points dept.
omz writes "The ODF Alliance has prepared a Fact Sheet for governments and others interested in how Microsoft's SP2 for Office 2007 handles ODF. The report revealed 'serious shortcomings that, left unaddressed, would break the open standards based interoperability that the marketplace, especially governments, is demanding.'"
Government

YouTube Video Sends Guatemala Into Crisis 405

Posted by ScuttleMonkey from the you-missed-a-copy dept.
Several have sent word that a YouTube video of recently assassinated lawyer Rodrigo Rosenberg has sent Guatemala into a tailspin. The video of Rosenberg claims that if you are watching, he has been murdered by President Alvaro Colom with help from presidential secretary Gustavo Alejos. "The video spread across the Internet after family members handed it out during Rosenberg's funeral on Monday. In the 18-minute tape, a seemingly calm Rosenberg, sitting behind a desk and microphone, alleges that Colom, the First Lady and two associates were involved in murder, corruption and money laundering. The group, he says, filtered public funds through a state-owned bank for personal gain and to finance drug traffickers. Rosenberg then claims that after Khalil Musa, a prominent businessman and bank board member, had learned of the Coloms' scheme, Musa and his daughter were shot to death in front of a shopping center in April. Rosenberg says the President signed off on the killings."
Books

How Google's High Speed Book Scanner De-Warps Pages 209

Posted by ScuttleMonkey from the onto-dewarping-brains-next dept.
Hugh Pickens writes "Patent 7,508,978, awarded to Google, shows how the company has already managed to scan more than 7 million books. Google's system uses two cameras and infrared light to automatically correct for the curvature of pages in a book. By constructing a 3D model of each page and then 'de-warping' it afterward, Google can present flat-looking pages online without having to slice books up or mash them onto a flatbed scanner. Stephen Shankland writes that the 'sophistication of the technology illustrates that would-be competitors who want to feature their own digitized libraries won't have a trivial time catching up to Google.' First, a book is placed on a flat surface, while above it, an infrared projector displays a special mazelike pattern onto the pages. Next, two infrared cameras photograph the infrared pattern from different perspectives. 'The images can be stereoscopically combined, using known stereoscopic techniques, to obtain a three-dimensional mapping of the pattern,' according to the patent. 'The pattern falls on the surface of (the) book, causing the three-dimensional mapping of the pattern to correspond to the three-dimensional surface of the page of the book.'"
Earth

GPS Accuracy Could Start Dropping In 2010 210

Posted by timothy from the how-to-blackmail-for-tax-dollars dept.
adamengst writes "A US Government Accountability Office report raises concerns about the Air Force's ability to modernize and maintain the constellation of satellites necessary to provide GPS services to military and civilian users. TidBITS looks at the situation and possible solutions."

Comment Re:Linux vs. XP (Score 1) 400

by Deb-fanboy (#27903323) Attached to: Lenovo On the Future of the Netbook
I very quickly swapped my Xandros for the the DebianEee install, and it has been a really good experience.

Having the Eee able to use software from the Debian repository is great.

On the subject of the default distro putting users off. A year ago I attended a course on our Telephone exchanges. The lecturer ( a very experienced Tel. exchange guy which means familiarity with their proprietary Unix like telephone OS ) had just purchased an Asus Eee so that he didn't have to carry a large Laptop on his travels. So the idea is that he has the Eee in front of him, connected to a projector for the class to watch the commands he is putting into the exchanges. We all have dumb terminals for the exchanges, and he is telnetting into our exchanges to demonstrate and correct our programming.

Only problem is that the Eee comes with this sort of Linux thing which doesn't do telnet.

Fortunately I also have the same Eee so I could start him on the road add the repository which contains such extras as telnet, and give him some Linux tuition so that by the end of the course he was starting to appreciate that he actually could use Linux and that it would work for him.

So I agree with many posters here in that the netbook manufacturers have not put the best Linux into their Laptops. They would be better with mainstream distros with a large software repository already available.

Comment Re:Genius (Score 1) 776

by Deb-fanboy (#27158327) Attached to: Favorite on-screen calculator?
and thanks for that because I find genius a very useful tool :-)

It surprised me when iridium went under, I know that where I work (North Sea Oil Platforms) lots of these were purchased and they are still one of the most common backup comms systems.

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