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Google

Submission + - Google to Make British Library Archive Available O (wsj.com) 1

Submitted by
pbahra
pbahra writes: "The British Library today announced its first partnership with Google, under which Google will digitize 250,000 items from the library’s vast collection of work produced between 1700-1870.
The Library, the only British institution that automatically receives a copy of every book and periodical to go on sale in the United Kingdom and Ireland, joins around 40 libraries worldwide in allowing Google to digitize part of its collection and make it freely available and searchable online, at books.google.co.uk and the British Library website, www.bl.uk. As well as published books, the 1700-1870 collection will also contain pamphlets and periodicals from across Europe. This was a period of political and technological turmoil, covering much of the Industrial Revolution, the French Revolution, the introduction of UK income tax and the invention of the telegraph and railway. All of these topics are covered, as are the quirkier matters of the day, such as the account, from 1775, of a stuffed hippopotamus owned by the Prince of Orange."
EU

Submission + - Marietje Schaake: Europe's Most Wired Politician (wsj.com)

Submitted by
pbahra
pbahra writes: "She has been called the most wired politician in Europe. Marietje Schaake, is an MEP for the Dutch progressive liberal D66 party. Here at the two-day summit in Brussels which will help shape the E.U.’s agenda, she is seen by many as one of the few MEPs who really understands what is going on.

“I think many MEPs try [to understand], but they don’t,” she says with self confidence that never strays into arrogance. She gets it, they don’t. And she knows it. Ms. Schaake has long been, if not a lone voice, certainly one of very few, MEPs who have embraced new media and understood its significance. With admirable brevity, her election manifesto in 2009 was expressed in just 10 tweets. But as an MEP in Brussels, she faces an uphill struggle: “I don’t even have wi-fi in my office,” she says. “But you should see the amount of paper I get. Kilos of it.”"
Science

Submission + - Airbus' Vision for 2050. Where's the Cockpit? (wsj.com)

Submitted by
pbahra
pbahra writes: "Airbus have shed light on what the aircraft of the future will look like and how that could change passengers’ experiences when they fly in 2050 with a flashy computer generated video. Of course, it’s a plane they hope one day to build. So, what does the future hold in the eyes of one of the world’s biggest aircraft manufacturers and would any airline actually buy into an idea where space is provided on an aircraft to play virtual golf? From the video it appears that the cabin crew which greet you and guide you towards the correct aisle have disappeared. Instead, they are replaced by hand-print scanners that check you in and then show images of where your seats are. Airbus believes the futuristic web-like roof, providing panoramic views, will be strong enough to withhold the pressures associated with flight. But have Aibus forgotten one really important feature? None of the video images seem to show where the cockpit may be situated. Perhaps there’s no need for them in Airbus’ eyes, but we think it might be quite important."
Government

Submission + - eG8 Publishes Report in Noninteractive, Nonquotabl (wsj.com)

Submitted by
pbahra
pbahra writes: "You could not come up with a better illustration of the clash of cultures that was the eG8 than the post-forum report. Was the output of the two-day gathering in Paris published on a website so people could link to it? Or perhaps a blog so that people could comment on it? Or even a wiki, so the people who attended could contribute and correct mistakes? No it wasn’t. The report is a book. Or rather it is an eBook. Except it isn’t even an eBook, in the sense of something that you can read on your Kindle or other eBook reader. It’s actually a Flash-based page turner, the sort of thing that was all the rage five years ago. It is a digital facsimile of a book. It is the triumph of design over access. Being Flash, you can’t even cut and paste what is in the file. And being Flash it gives complete and total control to the authors. As a user all you get to do is to read it, in exactly the way the authors want you to. It looks good, but you can’t do anything with it, except what the authors tell you to do. Metaphor anyone?"
Hardware

Submission + - The Open Source 3D Printer That Prints Itself (wsj.com)

Submitted by
pbahra
pbahra writes: "For geeks it has to be the ultimate DIY project. A build-it-yourself, entirely open-source 3D printer. And here is the clever thing about it, not only is it an open source project, but it is self-replicating; you can use your 3D printer to print yourself another 3D printer. Called RepRap, it has more than an air of Heath Robinson about it, with its open circuit boards, gears and worm drives. But it is a fully functioning 3D printer, which you can build yourself, for less than £500."
Google

Submission + - Google Redirects Traffic to Avoid Kazakh Demands (wsj.com)

Submitted by
pbahra
pbahra writes: "Google has rejected attempts by the Kazakh government "to create borders on the web" and has refused a demand to house servers in the country after an official decree that all Internet domains ending with the domain suffix for Kazakhstan ,".kz", be domestically based. Bill Coughran, Google senior vice president said in his blog that from now on, Google will redirect users that visit google.kz to google.com in Kazakh:" We find ourselves in a difficult situation: creating borders on the web raises important questions for us not only about network efficiency but also about user privacy and free expression. If we were to operate google.kz only via servers located inside Kazakhstan, we would be helping to create a fractured Internet." Mr. Coughran said that unfortunately, it would mean that Kazakh users would have a poorer experience as results would no longer be customized for the former Soviet republic."
Piracy

Submission + - Spain to Clamp Down on File Sharers (wsj.com)

Submitted by
pbahra
pbahra writes: "A bill that would allow Spain’s authorities to close down illegal websites with limited judicial oversight has caused anger among the country’s Internet users. The law, known as Sinde’s bill (after the current culture minister Ángeles González-Sinde) is designed to close the loophole that sharing sites such as Roja Directa have exploited. If you go to the website today, you will find a pithy warning against Internet piracy, courtesy of the U.S. authorities. The U.S. has exerted considerable pressure on Spain over what it sees as Madrid’s failure to tackle Internet piracy. A banner with the seals of the U.S. Department of Justice, plus two other bureaucracies, informs Internet users that the Spanish domain name, formerly a hub of illegal sports content, has been seized in accordance with U.S. copyright law. But if you do a search, it takes very little to realize that Roja Directa is alive and kicking."
Android

Submission + - German Researchers Find Security Hole in Android (wsj.com)

Submitted by
pbahra
pbahra writes: "German researchers have made a startling discovery. A large number of Google Android smartphones are vulnerable to attack from uninvited perpetrators, who can access your contacts, calendar and private photos, according to three researchers from Ulm University in southern Germany. The finding follows the recent press around Apple and Google collecting user data. While such revelations are becoming commonplace in today's new world of always on, always connected smartphones, the seriousness of what the researchers found is not to be underestimated. By accessing your contacts and calendar, raiders could naturally steal such information, but they could also use such information to figure out when you might be home, for example. They could also alter stored email addresses without you even noticing, and intercept communication. In a blog post, the researchers said that they set out to see if it's possible to launch an impersonation attack against Google services. "The short answer is: Yes, it is possible, and it is quite easy to do so," they wrote."
Privacy

Submission + - Confusion Surrounds U.K. Cookie Guidelines (wsj.com)

Submitted by
pbahra
pbahra writes: "The Information Commissioner’s Office has, with just over two weeks to go, given its interpretation on what websites must do to comply with new EU regulations concerning the use of cookies. The law, which will come into force on 26 May 2011, comes from an amendment to the EU’s Privacy and Electronic Communications Directive. It requires U.K. businesses and organizations running websites in the U.K. to get informed consent from visitors to their websites in order to store and retrieve information on users’ computers. The most controversial area, third party cookies, remains problematic. If a website owner allow another party to set cookies via their site, and it is a very common practice for internet advertisers, then the waters are still muddy. And embarrassingly for the Commission — it's current site would not be compliant with its new guidelines as it simply states what they do and does not seek users’ consent."
Security

Submission + - Apocalyptic Terrorist Threat to GPS “Fancifu (wsj.com)

Submitted by
pbahra
pbahra writes: "A report by the U.K.’s Royal Academy of Engineering on the vulnerability of the GPS system has caused something of stir with apocalyptic visions of a cyber-hell. “Cyber terrorists could cripple banks, send ships floundering on to rocks and bring death to the roads at the click of a mouse,” wrote one British newspaper. The report’s author, Dr. Martyn Thomas, dismissed such reporting as hype. He said aim of the report, “Global Navigation Space Systems: reliance and vulnerabilities” was to highlight the “dangerous over-reliance” on satellite navigation and timing signals, which are vulnerable to disruption, either from natural events such as solar storms, or jamming. While most people think of GPS as a navigation system such as your in-car navigation, it is also used in data networks, sea and air transport, railways and emergency services. It is also a global, synchronized, highly-accurate clock which is used in systems like high frequency trading.
Dr. Thomas described the threat to the national infrastructure by over reliance on GPS as “dangerous, although not very dangerous. However we are on a path that might lead us there if we do not take steps.”"
Science

Submission + - The Car Faster Than a Speeding Bullet (wsj.com) 1

Submitted by
pbahra
pbahra writes: "Formula 1 is seen as the apogee of engineering excellence and automotive power. So it says something that in Bloodhound SSC—the car that, if all goes well, in 2013 will shatter the current land speed record—the Cosworth Formula 1 engine is just the fuel pump. “We are creating the ultimate car; we’re going where no-one has gone before,” said Richard Noble, the project director. The car, which Mr. Noble says takes £10,000 a day just to keep it ticking over, will be powered by not one, but two other engines. The smaller one, the EJ200, is normally found in the British Royal Air Force’s Typhoon jet. Its job is to get the 13.4 meter long car up to 350 mph. That’s when the big one kicks in. The big one is the 18-inch diameter, 12-foot-long Falcon rocket, the largest of its kind ever made in the U.K.. Its job is to catapult the car through the sound barrier to its maximum speed of 1,050 mph. That is, literally, faster than a speeding bullet."
Software

Submission + - A Second is a Long Time in Finance (wsj.com)

Submitted by
pbahra
pbahra writes: "One complaint made of the modern stock market is that it is concerned too much on the short term. A second is a long time in cash-equities trading. Four or five years ago, trading firms started to talk of trading speeds in terms of milliseconds. But in recent weeks trading geeks have started to talk about picoseconds in what is a truly mind-boggling concept: a picosecond is one trillionth of a second. Put another way, a picosecond is to one second what one second is to 31,700 years."
Hardware

Submission + - Net Neutrality Debate in Europe Is ‘Over&rsq (wsj.com)

Submitted by
pbahra
pbahra writes: "Is throwing net neutrality under the bus the price of a modern European telecom network? While the debate over a free and open Internet has raged in the U.S., it appears in Europe that the argument is largely over; net neutrality lost. What we are now arguing about is where to draw the line, not should we draw one at all. The debate spans a spectrum that on the one end says all bits are created equal and free and should be treated thus, through the mid-point that says telcos should be able to manage services on their own networks (prioritizing some kinds of packets over others) and offer so-called tiered services (the more you pay, the better the service), right over to the view espoused by Hannes Ametsreiter of Telekom Austria, that it is my network so I say what happens on it. In the U.S., this has assumed the role of a debate over free speech. In Europe, it has been rather more prosaic."
Social Networks

Submission + - Facebook Could Be Accessed by Every GSM Phone (wsj.com)

Submitted by pbahra
pbahra writes: Facebook could potentially be accessible by every GSM phone in the world, dramatically widening the social network’s global reach after the release of Facebook for SIM by the Amsterdam-based digital security firm Gemalto. According to the GSM Association, there are more than 5 billion GSM connections in the world. The latest subscriber figures for Facebook put it at over 500 million subscribers. The tiny application runs in the phone’s SIM card, rather than on the phone, and gives users access to all of the text-based services on Facebook, such as friend requests, status updates, wall posts or messages. It also offers unique functions: people can sign up for this service and log-in directly from the SIM application. Interactive Facebook messages pop-up on the phone’s screen so people can always share up-to-the-minute posts and events. Users can also automatically search their SIM phonebook for other friends and send them requests.
Games

Submission + - Video: LG Unveils World's First 3D Phone (wsj.com) 1

Submitted by pbahra
pbahra writes: LG Electronics Inc. unveiled the world's first full 3-D smartphone, called the Optimus 3D, as well as a new tablet at an event on the sidelines of Mobile World Congress in Barcelona. With the Optimus 3D, consumers will be able to watch 3-D videos without wearing special glasses as well as capture 3-D content themselves via a special double camera on the back of the phone.In order to make it easier for consumers to share 3-D content online, LG said it has struck a partnership with online video channel YouTube, which is owned by Google Inc.The Optimus 3D is powered by a dual core chip—like most of the smartphones launched in 2011—but it also benefits from a dual channel and a dual memory, which LG said would make it faster for users to switch back and forth between tasks and improve speed when loading web pages. The Optimus runs on Google's Android operating system and has a 4.3-inch screen.

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