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United States

National Debt Clock Overflowed, Extended By a Digit 696

Posted by timothy from the but-don't-worry-balanced-budget's-a-crazy-idea dept.
hackingbear writes "The National Debt Counter, erected in 1989 when the US debt was 'merely' a tiny $2.7 trillion, has been moving so much that it recently ran out of digits to display the ballooning figure: $10,150,603,734,720, or roughly $10.2 trillion, as of Saturday afternoon. To accommodate the extra '1,' the clock was hacked: the '1' from "$10.2" has been moved left to the LCD square once occupied solely by the digital dollar sign. A non-digital, improvised dollar sign has been pasted next to the '1.' It will be replaced in 2009 with a new clock able to track debt up to a quadrillion dollars, which is a '1' followed by 15 zeros. That should be good enough for a few more months at least, I believe." Adds reader MarkusQ, "I know Dick Cheney has assured us that 'Deficits don't matter' but I can't help wondering if we should be fixing the problem rather than the sign."
Politics

Map of Web Content By Perspective 79

Posted by timothy from the imperfect-but-neat dept.
An anonymous reader writes "Cruxlux has a perspective-based search engine up. It provides a map of results laid out by viewpoint. For example, querying 'Obama' shows a map with liberal blog posts, articles, and video clumped together, conservative stuff nearby, and nonpolitical sources farther away. It works for nonpolitical queries too (sports, etc.). It also lets you limit results to certain types of views — you can focus on hot 'Obama' content from a liberal angle, for instance."
Yahoo!

Security Flaw In Yahoo Mail Exposes Plaintext Authentication Info 66

Posted by Soulskill from the who-needs-encryption-anyway dept.
holdenkarau writes "Yahoo!'s acquisition of open source mail client Zimbra has apparently brought some baggage to the mail team. The new Yahoo! desktop program transmits the authentication information in plain text. The flaw was discovered during a Yahoo 'hacku' Day at the University of Waterloo (the only Canadian school part of the trip). Compared to the recent news about Gmail exposing the names associated with accounts, this seems downright scary. So, if you have friends or relatives who might have installed Yahoo! desktop and value their e-mail accounts, now would be a good time to get them to change the password and switch back to the web interface."

Comment Re:Group punishment? (Score 2, Interesting) 156

by tgacid (#22682348) Attached to: Chicago Links School Cameras To Police
On one hand, it could be seen as a punishment against a group, but how much of a punishment is it to have a security camera installed to monitor your own safety? I know my school installed outward-facing security cameras after some deadly violence not to actively go after any troublemakers on the grounds, but to have the option to reconstruct any scenes/entries of people entering the building in case anything did happen.
Programming

When Should We Ditch Our Platform? 622

Posted by kdawson from the future-shock dept.
odoketa writes "My organization recently had to replace our Web developer. It took us an extremely long time to find someone with the necessary skill set. I don't know if this is because of the platform we are running (which I will leave nameless), or simply because the fates conspiring against us. It's easy to assume that languages or platforms are popular based on buzz, but the rubber hits the road when you have to hire someone to maintain that code. How are folks out there determining when you've backed the wrong horse, and getting back on track?"
The Internet

Submission + - TV-Links.co.uk Shut Down (guardian.co.uk)

Submitted by
IanW
IanW writes: "One of the world's most-used pirate film websites has been closed after providing links to illegal versions of major Hollywood hits and TV shows. The arrest and the closure of the site — www.tv-links.co.uk — came during an operation by officers from Gloucestershire County Council trading standards in conjunction with investigators from Fact and Gloucestershire Police."
Programming

Submission + - Speed up your Ajax applications

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: To eliminate redundancy and memory leaks and reduce the amount of bandwidth and the number of small HTTP requests, you must plan ahead on creating, testing, and deploying Ajax performance improvement projects. This article will help you resolve these issues and make your job of speeding up Ajax applications easier.
Security

Submission + - Warning of wi-fi Browser Cookie Hijack (bbc.co.uk)

Submitted by
tgacid
tgacid writes: "Using public wi-fi hotspots has got much riskier as security experts unveil tools that nab login data over the air. Demonstrated at the Black Hat hacker conference in Las Vegas, these new tools make it far easier to steal account details. Identifying files called cookies are stolen in the attack which let hackers pose as their victim. This gives attackers access to mail messages or the page someone maintains on sites such as MySpace or Facebook."
Microsoft

Submission + - Details of Microsoft's new analytics tool leaked (computerworld.com)

Submitted by
hhavensteincw
hhavensteincw writes: "Details of Microsoft's answer to Google's Analytics have leaked online. Screenshots have been posted on the Net of the new "Gatineau" Web analytics tool that Microsoft now says (http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?co mmand=viewArticleBasic&taxonomyId=9&articleId=9027 638&intsrc=hm_topic) will be available in beta this summer. In a blog post, Microsoft's Ian Thomas also reveals that Microsoft will use Live ID(formerly Microsoft Passport) profiles to get its demographic data."
Handhelds

Five Finger Keyboards 177

Posted by CmdrTaco
Tijaska writes "Mobile devices are becoming more capable all the time, but their small screens and keyboards limit their usefulness. This article shows ways in which five buttons located on the edges of a mobile could be used in combinations to generate 325 or many more different characters, making a full-sized keyboard unnecessary. If that sounds like a tall story, remember the case of the retired 93 year old telegraph operator who used a Morse key to send a text message faster than a teenager could send it via mobile phone (see here)."

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