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Movies

Adobe Flaw Allows Full Movie Downloads For Free 166

Posted by Soulskill from the it's-not-a-bug-it's-a-feature dept.
webax writes with this excerpt from Reuters: "[An Adobe security hole] exposes online video content to the rampant piracy that plagued the music industry during the Napster era and is undermining efforts by retailers, movie studios and television networks to cash in on a huge Web audience. 'It's a fundamental flaw in the Adobe design. This was designed stupidly,' said Bruce Schneier ... The flaw rests in Adobe's Flash video servers that are connected to the company's players installed in nearly all of the world's Web-connected computers. The software doesn't encrypt online content, but only orders sent to a video player such as start and stop play. To boost download speeds, Adobe dropped a stringent security feature that protects the connection between the Adobe software and its players." webax also notes that the article suggests DRM as a potential solution to the problem.
Robotics

Rat-Brained Robots Take Their First Steps 289

Posted by timothy from the aside-from-snow-crash-and-politics dept.
missb writes "Brain tissue cultured from rats has controlled a wheeled robot around a lab, according to New Scientist this week. Researchers in the UK have harnessed signals from thousands of disembodied rat neurons, and manipulated them to get a robot to respond to instructions. The team at the University of Reading in the UK hope their research will help provide treatments for diseases like Alzheimer's and epilepsy."
Microsoft

Submission + - OLPC firmware update supports Windows (olpcnews.com) 2

Submitted by
griffjon
griffjon writes: "The latest firmware release for the OLPC XO is built to support Windows XP, but you won't be able to install any normal XP version, it's a specifically modified one for the XO. It's sad to see a potentially great platform start making changes to support XP, not to mention that XP is only continuing to survive beyond it's deadline thanks to the low-cost laptop market that Linux and the OLPC created"
Security

Mystery Malware Affecting Linux/Apache Web Servers 437

Posted by Zonk from the duck-and-cover-like-tommy-the-turtle dept.
lisah writes "Reports are beginning to surface that some Web servers running Linux and Apache are unwittingly infecting thousands of computers, exploiting vulnerabilities in QuickTime, Yahoo! Messenger, and Windows. One way to tell if your machine is infected is if you're unable to create a directory name beginning with a numeral. Since details are still sketchy, the best advice right now is to take proactive steps to secure your servers. 'We asked the Apache Software Foundation if it had any advice on how to detect the rootkit or cleanse a server when it's found. According to Mark Cox of the Apache security team, "Whilst details are thin as to how the attackers gained root access to the compromised servers, we currently have no evidence that this is due to an unfixed vulnerability in the Apache HTTP Server." We sent a similar query to Red Hat, the largest vendor of Linux, but all its security team could tell us was that "At this point in time we have not had access to any affected machines and therefore cannot give guidance on which tools would reliably detect the rootkit."'"

BUG - "The LEGO of Gadgets" 131

Posted by CmdrTaco from the well-it-looks-neat-at-least dept.
TheBrutalTruth writes "Bug Labs will soon be launching what Webware calls 'the LEGO of gadgets.' From their site: 'BUG is a collection of easy-to-use electronic modules that snap together to build any gadget you can imagine. Each BUGmodule represents a specific gadget function (ex: a camera, a keyboard, a video output, etc). You decide which functions to include and BUG takes care of the rest, letting you try out different combinations quickly and easily. With BUG and the integrated programming environment/web community (BUGnet), anyone can build, program, and share innovative devices and applications. We don't define the final products — you do.'" Looks a bit vaporous, but conceptually interesting.

Intel Core 2 'Penryn' and Linux 99

Posted by CowboyNeal from the two-great-tastes dept.
An anonymous reader writes "Linux Hardware has posted a look at the new Intel "Penryn" processor and how the new processor will work with Linux. Intel recently released the new "Penryn" Core 2 processor with many new features. So what are these features and how will they equate into benefits to Linux users? The article covers all the high points of the new "Penryn" core and talks to a couple Linux projects about end-user performance of the chip."
Education

MIT's SAT Math Error 280

Posted by Zonk from the maybe-they-should-get-a-college-graduate-to-check-it dept.
theodp writes "The Wall Street Journal reports that for years now, MIT wasn't properly calculating the average freshmen SAT scores (reg.) used to determine U.S. News & World Report's influential annual rankings. In response to an inquiry made by The Tech regarding the school's recent drop in the rankings, MIT revealed that in past years it had excluded the test scores of foreign students as well as those who fared better on the ACT than the SAT, both violations of the U.S. News rules. MIT's reported first-quartile SAT verbal and math scores for the 2006 incoming class totaled 1380, a drop of 50 points from 2005."
Software

The Gradual Public Awareness of the Might of Algorithms 169

Posted by Zonk from the interlocking-gears dept.
Soylent Mauve writes "The trend toward data- and algorithm-driven tuning of business operations has gotten a lot of attention recently — check out the recent articles in the New York Times and the Economist. It looks like computer scientists, especially those with machine learning training, are getting their day in the sun. From the NYT piece: 'It was the Internet that stripped the word of its innocence. Algorithms, as closely guarded as state secrets, buy and sell stocks and mortgage-backed securities, sometimes with a dispassionate zeal that crashes markets. Algorithms promise to find the news that fits you, and even your perfect mate. You can't visit Amazon without being confronted with a list of books and other products that the Great Algoritmi recommends. Its intuitions, of course, are just calculations -- given enough time they could be carried out with stones. But when so much data is processed so rapidly, the effect is oracular and almost opaque.'"
It's funny. Laugh.

Smarter Teens Have Less Sex 1285

Posted by CmdrTaco from the still-no-excuse-for-you dept.
Tech.Luver writes "Gene Expression reports, "Tyler Cowen quotes from a new study testing the relationship between grades and delayed sexual activity. Last December I passed a paper along to Razib showing that high-school age adolescents with higher IQs and extremely low IQs were less likely to have had first intercourse than those with average to below average intelligence. (i.e. for males with IQs under 70, 63.3% were still virgins, for those with IQs between 70-90 only 50.2% were virgin, 58.6% were virgins with IQs between 90-110, and 70.3% with IQs over 110 were virgins) In fact, a more detailed study from 2000 is devoted strictly to this topic, and finds the same thing: Smart Teens Don't Have Sex (or Kiss Much Either). ""
Power

Hybrid Cars No Better than 'Intelligent' Cars 883

Posted by Zonk from the i-can't-do-that-dave dept.
eldavojohn writes "There's no doubt been a lot of analysis done recently on energy consumption, especially on the road. Now, a study released today reveals that cars with traffic flow sensors built into them can perform just as efficiently as hybrids. The concept of an 'intelligent' car that communicates with the highway or other cars is an old idea, but the idea of them using sensors to anticipate braking could vastly reduce fossil fuel consumption. From the article, 'Under the US and European cycles, hybrid-matching fuel economy was reached with a look-ahead predictability of less than 60 seconds. If the predictability was boosted to 180 seconds, the newly-intelligent car was 33 percent more fuel-efficient than when it was unconverted.' Now, the real question will be whether or not you can convince consumers that the three minutes of coasting up to a red light or halted traffic is worth the 33 percent less gas and replacing your brake pads/cylinders less often."
Networking

Internet2 Taken Out by Stray Cigarette 315

Posted by samzenpus from the only-you-can-stop-internet-fires dept.
AlHunt writes "A fire started by a homeless man knocked out service between Boston and New York on the experimental Internet2 network Tuesday night. Authorities say the fire, which also disrupted service on the Red Line subway, started around 8:20 p.m. when a homeless man tossed a lit cigarette. The cigarette landed on a mattress, which ignited and led to a two-alarm fire."
Software

Submission + - BitTorrent, Inc. Acquires uTorrent

Submitted by
ColinPL
ColinPL writes: "BitTorrent, Inc. has taken the next step — the acquisition of uTorrent. In an joint announcement made today, the two firms have publicly solidified the merger.

"Together, we are pleased to announce that BitTorrent, Inc. and uTorrent AB have decided to join forces," a forum post on uTorrent states. "BitTorrent has acquired uTorrent as it recognized the merits of uTorrent's exceptionally well-written codebase and robust user community. Bringing together uTorrent's efficient implementation and compelling UI with BitTorrent's expertise in networking protocols will significantly benefit the community with what we envision will be the best BitTorrent client.""

Human Species May Split In Two 1000

Posted by ScuttleMonkey from the if-we-don't-destroy-ourselves-first dept.
gEvil (beta) writes "According to an article at the BBC, an evolutionary theorist in London suggests that humanity may split into two sub-species within the next 100,000 years. From the article: 'The descendants of the genetic upper class would be tall, slim, healthy, attractive, intelligent, and creative and a far cry from the "underclass" humans who would have evolved into dim-witted, ugly, squat goblin-like creatures.'" No missing link here, we already have the troll-like humans to prove it.

Comprehensive Projection of World Oil Exports 490

Posted by kdawson from the firewood-futures-market dept.
Prof. Goose writes, "This article is a comprehensive assessment of world oil exports, defined has the total amount of liquid hydrocarbons that are surpluses in producing countries. This assessment is made by projecting into the future fixed change rates that reflect current trends in liquids production and consumption in all countries where presently the difference between the two factors is positive. The outcome of this assessment is rather worrisome." Here is the money graph through 2020.

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