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Windows Chief Suggests Vista Won't Need Antivirus 361

Posted by CowboyNeal from the steadfastly-bulletproof dept.
LadyDarth writes "During a telephone conference with reporters yesterday, outgoing Microsoft co-president Jim Allchin, while touting the new security features of Windows Vista, which was released to manufacturing yesterday, told a reporter that the system's new lockdown features are so capable and thorough that he was comfortable with his own seven-year-old son using Vista without antivirus software installed."

The End of the iPod Clickwheel 158

Posted by CmdrTaco from the if-it-ain't-broke-fix-it dept.
Rockgod quotes a Mercury News article saying "If a recent patent filing is any indication, Apple Computer may abandon the iconic wheel that has become virtually synonymous with its popular iPod music players. The company had previously explored replacing the click wheel with a virtual one as part of a touch-sensitive display. But now Apple appears to be looking at a third option: a touch-sensitive frame surrounding the display. Rather than click a physical button or press a virtual one on the screen, users would touch an area on the frame to operate their iPod."

Want To Know About the New Apple MacBook Pro? 310

Posted by kdawson from the timely-benchmarks dept.
An anonymous reader writes to tell us about an extremely helpful user who is answering questions from all comers about the new MacBook Pro. "A few days ago, a user by the name 'bcavanau' posted on the macrumors.com forums that he had just picked up a new MacBook Pro. Forum members started asking him about features, specifications, and benchmarks. He was happy to oblige, posting responses to everyone's questions. Eventually the forum thread got out of hand, and he set up a website devoted to answering the questions. If you have a question that hasn't already been answered, email him at the address on the site. He is responding daily and sometimes within minutes. This guy is dedicated. Thanks 'bcavanau', you get two thumbs up." The link to the site is cached via the Coral Content Distribution Network.

North Korea Says It Has Conducted Nuclear Test 1623

Posted by Zonk from the troubling dept.
ScentCone writes "North Korea says that it has conducted its first nuclear weapons test and 'brought happiness to its people.' Japan and China earlier issued an unusual joint statement saying that such a test would be 'unacceptable.' As of 11:10PM EST, the USGS says that it has not detected any unusual seismic activity on the Korean peninsula in the last 48 hours." From the article: "The North said last week it would conduct a test, sparking regional concern and frantic diplomatic efforts aimed at dissuading Pyongyang from such a move. North Korea has long claimed to have nuclear weapons, but had never before performed a known test to prove its arsenal. The nuclear test was conducted at 10:36 a.m. (0136 GMT) in Hwaderi near Kilju city, Yonhap reported, citing defense officials." Update: 10/09 05:50 GMT by J : The U.S. Geological Survey reports a 4.2 magnitude quake; South Korean news is reporting a 3.58 magnitude event; the White House apparently confirms a nuclear test.

Power Suit Promises Super-Human Strength 230

Posted by CowboyNeal from the robocop-coming-soon dept.
anthemaniac writes "LiveScience is reporting out of NextFest on a Japanese-built power suit that amplifies the strength of its wearer. The onboard computer is hooked up to sensors that monitor natural movements, then it inflates cuffs to boost lifting power. The Power Assist Suit could be used by hospital workers to move heavy patients, the researchers say."

Zune — $249.99 On Nov. 14 355

Posted by kdawson from the no-price-war-on-songs dept.
Cubricon writes, "As expected, Microsoft has dropped their price on the Zune in response to Apple's recent iPod updates. Ars Technica has an article that discusses the Zune's use of Microsoft's prepaid 'points' system for songs. Will the masses notice the difference between an iPod and a Zune? Will they want the FM and wireless capabilities?" The Zune lists for $0.99 more than the comparable iPod and songs from the Zune Marketplace will cost just under $0.99.

Charge in 5 minutes, Drive 500 miles? 319

Posted by ScuttleMonkey from the shocking-discoveries dept.
ctroutwi writes "In the wake of rising gasoline costs there have been plenty of alternatives seen on the horizon. Including Hybrids, Biofuels, fuel cells and battery powered all electric cars. CNN has recently posted a story about a company (EEStor) that plans on offering Ultra-Capacitor storage products. The claim being that you charge the ultra-capacitor in 5 minutes, with approximately 9$ (~$.45 a gallon) of electricity and then drive 500 miles."

500 Miles on a 5-Minute Recharge? 854

Posted by timothy from the sure-just-get-in-the-electric-missile-launcher dept.
ctroutwi writes "In the wake of rising gasoline costs there have been plenty of alternatives seen on the horizon. Including Hybrids, Biofuels, fuel cells and battery powered all electric cars. CNN has recently posted a story about a company (EEStor) that plans on offering UltraCapacitor storage products. The claim being that you charge the ultracapacitor in 5 minutes, with approximately $9 of electricity and then drive 500 miles."

Hack Mac OS X With Installer Packages 194

Posted by kdawson from the why-not-to-run-as-admin dept.
nezmar writes, "MacGeekery has a short but insightful piece with examples on how to use a malformed Installer package (.pkg) on Mac OS X to 'insert user accounts with administrator rights and change root-owned system configuration or binary files without prompting the vast majority of Mac OS X users for a password of any kind.'" The article notes that this issue was brought up on the Apple Discussion Boards 6 weeks back and that it was noted there as a duplicate / known issue. It also gives as an example the installation of Parallels, the popular virtualization software, which uses the described technique, but not for nefarious purposes.

Amazon Unbox Video Store Launches 308

Posted by CowboyNeal from the online-box-offices dept.
andrewl6097 writes "Amazon.com has launched it's Amazon Unbox video store. Looks like about 1300 movies and 350 tv series, at $9.99 and up for movies and $1.99 per TV episode. Downloads come with a DVD quality version and a version more appropriate for portable players (using Windows DRM). Also, videos can be re-downloaded from your Amazon media library. Cool!"

FTC Fines Xanga for Violating Kids' Privacy 200

Posted by Zonk from the get-your-parents-permission-to-read-this-post dept.
WebHostingGuy writes "As reported by MSNBC, the FTC has fined Xanga.com $1 million dollars for repeatedly allowing children under 13 to sign up for the service without getting their parent's consent. This is the largest penalty ever issued for violations of the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act." From the article: "'Protecting kids' privacy online is a top priority for America's parents, and for the FTC,' FTC Chairman Deborah Platt Majoras said in a statement. 'COPPA requires all commercial Web sites, including operators of social networking sites like Xanga, to give parents notice and obtain their consent before collecting personal information from kids they know are under 13. A million-dollar penalty should make that obligation crystal clear.'" What impact, if any, do you think this will have on other community sites that may not always follow the COPPA statutes?

Java Regular Expressions 181

Posted by samzenpus from the no-cream-or-sugar dept.
Simon P. Chappell writes "Regular expressions (regex to their friends) are an incredibly powerful addition to most programmer's personal toolkit of techniques. Programming using a language that doesn't support them can be frustrating if you need to do any amount of non-trivial string handling. Java was just such a language until the release of the 1.4.x series. Sure, there were libraries like ORO that would provide regex support, but it wasn't built in and not many companies allow the use of 3rd party libraries. With version 1.4.x, the corporate Java developer in the trench, received the power of regular expression pattern matching." Read the rest of Simon's review.

Has Orwell's '1984' Come 22 Years Later? 1272

Posted by Cliff from the his-words-are-still-precient dept.
gabec asks: "This weekend my mother bought a grille lighter, something like this butane lighter. The self-scanner at Kroger's locked itself up and paged a clerk, who had to enter our drivers license numbers into her kiosk before we could continue. Last week my girlfriend bought four peaches. An alert came up stating that peaches were a restricted item and she had to identify herself before being able to purchase such a decidedly high quantity of the dangerous fruit. My video games spy on me, reporting the applications I run, the websites I visit, the accounts of the people I IM. My ISP is being strong-armed into a two-year archive of each action I take online under the guise of catching pedophiles, the companies I trust to free information are my enemies, the people looking out for me are being watched. As if that weren't enough, my own computer spies on me daily, my bank has been compromised, my phone is tapped--has been for years--and my phone company is A-OK with it. What's a guy that doesn't even consider himself paranoid to think of the current state of affairs?" The sad state of affairs is that Big Brother probably became a quiet part of our lives a lot earlier. The big question now is: how much worse can it get?

You OS Web Based Operating System 223

Posted by CmdrTaco
Juergen writes "You OS comes from the MIT Labs and contains an email client, Chat Function, RSS Reader, and Text Editor. YouOS is a web operating system that lets you run diverse applications within a web browser. Small applications like sticky notes or clocks. Large applications like word processing, mp3 players, and instant messaging. Even better, it's very easy to tweak an existing application or write your own. "

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