Comment Re:Only 10 types of people. (Score 3, Funny) 599
Shit... Now I need a new pub/private key pair; you factored it!
Lie Detector Company Threatens Critical Scientists With Suit 367
An anonymous reader writes "The Swedish newspaper DN reports that the Israeli company Nemesysco has sent letters to researchers at the University of Stockholm, threatening legal action if they do not stop publishing findings (Google translation). An article called 'Charlatanry in forensic speech science: A problem to be taken seriously' was pulled by the publisher after threats of a libel lawsuit." Online translations can be a little wonky; if your Swedish is as bad as mine, this English-language article describes the situation well.
Comment Re:DARPA's new endeavor (Score 1) 191
I am here to rescue you from the terrible secret of space.
Comment Re:Done a lot around here (Score 1) 215
And global cooling in the winter! O noes!
Then again, they might just balance out and leave the entire planet temperate...
Comment Re:Together (Score 1) 324
This also works with dating sites. Gotta make sure the "date" is fresh and hasn't been handled by other prospective customers!
OpenBSD 4.4 Released 235
Linux blog writes "The new version of OpenBSD is available for download. There are lots of nifty new features to try out including OpenSSH 5.1 with chroot(2) support, Xenocara, Gnome 2.20.3, KDE 3.5.8, etc. Machines using the UltraSPARC IV/T1/T2 and Fujitsu SPARC64-V/VI/VII are now supported. It seems amazing to me that they keep delivering these new results on a six-month release cycle."
Choosing a Replacement Email System For a University? 485
SmarkWoW writes "The university I attend is currently looking to change the way in which is provides its students with an email service. In the past they used a legacy mail system which can no longer fit their needs. A committee has narrowed the possibilities down to three vendors: Google, Microsoft, and Yahoo. Representatives from these three vendors will be coming to our college and giving a presentation on the advantages of their systems. We're looking at other services these companies provide such as calendaring and integration with existing software that our university runs. What questions would Slashdot readers ask during these Q&A sessions? Which of these three companies would you recommend? Why? What advantages would each have that college-level students would take advantage of? What other aspects should we consider when making our decision?"
16th World Computer Chess Championship In Progress 183
vmartell writes "The 16th World Computer Chess Championship is now in progress in Beijing, as part of the Computer Games Championship. Currently in the lead are Rybka 3.0, recognized as the world's strongest chess engine and Hiarcs, another commercial engine. Another curiosity is a Java ME based engine running on a Nokia phone, which is currently being trounced by the other engines. A very interesting sideline: before the computer tournament, a Women's Grandmaster played two games against Rybka. The result? Rybka won both games!"
Identifying Manipulated Images 162
Jamie found a cool story at MIT Tech Review. (As an aside, it sits behind an interstitial ad AND on 2 pages: normally I reject websites that do that, but it's a slow news day, so I'm letting it through.)
Essentially, software is used to analyze light patterns in still photographs. Once you can figure out where the light sources are, it becomes a lot easier to determine if an image has been photoshopped.
Robotic Cannon Loses Control, Kills 9 580
TJ_Phazerhacki writes "A new high tech weapon system demonstrated one of the prime concerns circling smarter and smarter methods of defense last week — an Oerlikon GDF-005 cannon went wildly out of control during live fire test exercises in South Africa, killing 9. Scarily enough, this is far from the first instance of a smart weapon 'turning' on its handlers. 'Electronics engineer and defence company CEO Richard Young says he can't believe the incident was purely a mechanical fault. He says his company, C2I2, in the mid 1990s, was involved in two air defence artillery upgrade programmes, dubbed Projects Catchy and Dart. During the shooting trials at Armscor's Alkantpan shooting range, "I personally saw a gun go out of control several times," Young says. "They made a temporary rig consisting of two steel poles on each side of the weapon, with a rope in between to keep the weapon from swinging. The weapon eventually knocked the pol[e]s down."' The biggest concern seems to be finding the glitches in the system instead of reconsidering automated arms altogether."
The Russian Mafia Doesn't Like Spam Either 451
wattrlz writes "Apparently the current champion of v1*gr4 spamming solicited some of the wrong email boxes. Alexy Tolstokozhev was recently found murdered in his palatial spam-bought estate near Moscow. The implications of this hands on method of system administration are staggering." Update: 10/12 15:28 GMT by Z : Good story. Unfortunately, probably a fake.
Submission + - "Illegal" file sharing network eDonkey dis (timesonline.co.uk)
sufijazz writes: "The TimesOnline (UK) website reports that
The second largest file-sharing network on the internet has been severely disabled in a significant coup for the music industry's fight against piracy.
Of course, there are those of us who question whether all file sharing on eDonkey is illegal. But that little question seems to have gotten lost in the entertainment industry's tirade against file sharers."Feed Engadget: Fuji Xerox touts language-translating photocopier (engadget.com)
Filed under: Peripherals
Fuji Xerox has come up with some unique copying systems before, and it looks like its latest photocopier is no exception, with it promising to take a Japanese document and spit out a English, Chinese, or Korean translation on the fly (or vice versa). That's done by networking the printer to a dedicated translation server which, if similar systems are any indication, could well result in some unintentionally hilarious copies. What's more, the device also promises to preserve the original layout of the documents copied, with it apparently making use of some special algorithms to distinguish between text, lines and images. It's just a prototype at the moment, however, so there's no indication as to when or if we might see a commercial version.
[Via Crave]
[Via Crave]
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Office Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the power to bring games to life!
Submission + - Security expert: F/OSS taking over in every niche (itmanagersjournal.com)
pschmied writes: From the article: 'For me, when I'm able to sell the concept of open source, it's because I convince them that the total cost of ownership is the lowest. It's not just that sticker price. You can go out and buy commercial products from IBM and Microsoft, but the open source product works just as well, and chances are, you can find more people familiar and skilled with the open source tools than you are going to find with skills for a particular proprietary product. In the end, this is what has driven TCO down. It used to be an argument that you would have a hard time finding employees with open source skills. Now that's an easier proposition than finding the other.'
Submission + - Google plans new undersea cable across Pacific (commsday.com)
tregetour writes: "Google is planning a multi-terabit undersea communications cable across the Pacific Ocean for launch in 2009, Communications Day has learned.
Google would not strictly confirm or deny the existence of the Unity plan today, with spokesman Barry Schnitt telling our North American correspondent Patrick Neighly that "Additional infrastructure for the Internet is good for users and there are a number of proposals to add a Pacific submarine cable. We're not commenting on any of these plans."
However, Communications Day understands that Unity would see Google join with other carriers to build a new multi-terabit cable. Google would get access to a fibre pair at build cost handing it a tremendous cost advantage over rivals such as MSN and Yahoo, and also potentially enabling it to peer with Asia ISPs behind their international gateways — considerably improving the affordability of Internet services across Asia Pacific."
Google would not strictly confirm or deny the existence of the Unity plan today, with spokesman Barry Schnitt telling our North American correspondent Patrick Neighly that "Additional infrastructure for the Internet is good for users and there are a number of proposals to add a Pacific submarine cable. We're not commenting on any of these plans."
However, Communications Day understands that Unity would see Google join with other carriers to build a new multi-terabit cable. Google would get access to a fibre pair at build cost handing it a tremendous cost advantage over rivals such as MSN and Yahoo, and also potentially enabling it to peer with Asia ISPs behind their international gateways — considerably improving the affordability of Internet services across Asia Pacific."
