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Education

Submission + - Alabama school to be first in US to get XO laptop (al.com)

CountryGeek writes: "Birmingham city schools will be the first in the nation to receive laptop computers designed for children in third-world countries under an agreement completed over the weekend, Mayor Larry Langford announced Monday. Langford signed a purchase agreement for 15,000 laptops from One Laptop Per Child, a nonprofit foundation whose goal is to provide every child in the world with access to technology."
Security

Submission + - Candian Passport Website Privacy Breach (theglobeandmail.com)

An anonymous reader writes: Online passport applicants, using the Canadian passport website, can view other applicants' personal details by merely replacing a character in the URL of their own application. This level of security, from a government website entrusted with such sensitive personal identity information, is shocking — especially when you consider passports are supposed to provide a means of identification, not identity theft.
Government

Submission + - British Village Requests Removal from GPS Maps (nytimes.com) 6

longacre writes: "The tiny village of Barrow Gurney, England has asked GPS map publisher Tele Atlas to remove them from the company's maps. The reason: truck drivers using GPS navigation devices are being directed to drive through the town despite the roads being too narrow for sidewalks, and causing numerous accidents. At the root of the problem lies the fact that the navigation maps used by trucks are the same as those used by passenger cars, which don't contain data on road width or no truck zones. Tele Atlas says they will release truck-appropriate databases at some point, but until then they advise local governments to make use of a technology dating back to the Romans: road signs."
Media (Apple)

Submission + - Klausner sues iPhone for $360M over voicemail

Stony Stevenson writes: Klausner Technologies said on Monday the company had filed a $360 million suit against Apple and AT&T over voicemail patents that Klausner claims the Apple iPhone infringes. New York-based Klausner said the lawsuit also names Comcast, Cablevision Systems and eBay's Skype as infringing its patent for "visual voicemail." The plaintiff seeks an additional US$300 million from the three. The suit alleges asserts that the defendants' Internet-based voicemail products and services violate a Klausner patent. It seeks damages and future royalties estimated at $300 million, according to the press release.
Music

Submission + - Canadian Songwriters Call For Legalized P2P

An anonymous reader writes: Michael Geist is reporting that the Songwriters Association of Canada is calling for the complete legalization of peer-to-peer music file sharing. The SAC proposal envisions a monthly $5 ISP charge in return for unlimited access to music online.
Microsoft

Microsoft's Treatment of Google Defectors 572

Miguel de Icaza (Note, this Miguel is not the Ximian developer, just someone whose small life is fulfilled by trolling under someone else's name) writes "Here is a story revealing just how threatened Microsoft is by Google. While senior partners can expect the full chair experience, some lowly staffers who are putting in their notice are being escorted off campus immediately. Why? Because they've put in their notice to join Google. In Microsoft's eyes, Google is Enemy No. 1. Anyone leaving Redmond for the search leader is a threat. Not because they'll scurry around collecting company secrets — as if Google's interested in Microsoft's '90s-era technologies. Departing employees, however, might tell other 'Softies how much better Google is. If an employee is leaving for Amazon.com or another second-tier employer which doesn't make Microsoft so paranoid, they'll probably serve out the traditional two weeks of unproductive wrapping up. So if you're planning on leaving Microsoft for Google, pack up your belongings and say goodbye to friends ahead of time. There'll be no cake and two weeks of paid slacking for you."
Enlightenment

Submission + - Enlighenment's new roadmap (marc.info)

mu22le writes: Rasterman, the lead developer of the enlightenment project, speaks about the future of the one of the oldest window managers. The letter includes: embedded vs. desktop, the relationship with commercial vendors (openmoko, Everex, gOS), reorganizing the project leadership, and finally a beta release on the horizon!
Biotech

Banked Blood May Not Be As Effective As Hoped 116

URSpider alerts us to two separate research reports published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences pointing to the rapid breakdown of nitric oxide in donated blood as a reason why such blood loses its ability to transfer oxygen, and is sometime implicated in problems such as strokes and heart attacks. Nitric oxide depletion is significant after 3 hours of storage; yet current guidelines allow for storing donated blood for up to 42 days. The article notes: "Several of the researchers, including Stamler, have consulting and/or equity relationships with Nitrox/N30, a company developing nitric oxide based therapies."
Printer

Submission + - Charging More for Printers and Less for Ink (nytimes.com)

rkcallaghan writes: The New York Times (now registration free!) writes: "Today Xerox is unveiling a costly solid-ink printer for businesses that will print color pages at the same price as black and white. The printer, which can handle 30 pages a minute, will cost $2,499, about $900 more than laser printers that operate at similar speeds. The cost of ink to print 14,000 black-and-white ink pages is about $216, in line with the price for a page from laser printers using toner. But the cost of printing in color will be the same, $72 each for the three ink sticks needed for a wide-color spectrum. Laser toner to print the same number of color pages could cost five times as much."
Security

Submission + - List of deliberately insecure images? 3

itchyfish writes: Does anyone know of a good source of deliberately insecure OS images, preferably for VMWare? Googling didn't help much. I'd like to set up a testing lab for some people to practice pen testing, ethical hacking, etc. Of course I could build a bunch of images with specific 'holes' in them myself, but I'm lazy (or smart depending on your point of view) and don't want to do it if someone else has already done so.
HP

Submission + - HP micro-needle to be used in medical patches

Stony Stevenson writes: The same programmable micro-needle technology that's embedded into HP office printers could be ever-so-slightly embedded into arms and bellies via a skin patch to inject time-released drugs to patients.

Crospon, a medical device maker based in Ireland, announced on Tuesday that it has signed an intellectual property licensing deal with Hewlett-Packard to develop a transdermal patch that can deliver doses of multiple medicines via technology that's also used in HP's inkjet cartridge printers. A one-inch transdermal patch could contain up to 90,000 micro-needles that can be programmed to "individually fire" medicine into the skin, said Charlie Chapman, an HP director of intellectual property licensing.

Feed Techdirt: Pump-And-Dump Stock Spammers Made $20 Million (techdirt.com)

Well, we already knew that pump-and-dump stock spam scams worked for the spammers, but we weren't aware of just how well they worked. Apparently a group of pump-and-dump spammers made out to the tune of $20 million before they were caught. Of course, unlike in some cases, these scammers involved the executives of the companies they were hyping up -- though, it's unclear to what extent those executives understood what the scammers were planning to do.

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