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Privacy

Palm Pre Reports Your Location and Usage To Palm 314

Posted by Soulskill from the caught-palm-red-handed dept.
AceJohnny writes "Joey Hess found that his Palm Pre was ratting on him. It turns out the Pre periodically uploads detailed information about the user to Palm, including the names of installed apps, application usage (and crashes), as well as GPS coordinates. This, of course, is without user consent or control. The only way he found to disable the uploads was to modify system files."
Math

New Company Seeks to Bring Semantic Context To Numbers 264

Posted by ScuttleMonkey from the quick-create-another-standards-body dept.
A new company, True#, is seeking to bring extensive semantic context to numbers to give them obvious meanings just as certain words have obvious meanings to most readers. "Most of us can probably recognize 3.14159 and the conceptual baggage it carries, but how many of us would recognize 58.44? (That's a mole of sodium chloride, in grams, for the curious.) And the response that would work for words — look it up — doesn't work so conveniently for numbers. Only one of the top-10 hits in Google refers to salt, and Bing fails entirely (though it does offer 'Women's Sexy Mini Skirts by VENUS'). Clearly, we haven't figured out how to make the Web work for numbers in the same way it does for words."

Comment Re:They're called digital cameras (Score 1) 443

by Juergen Kreileder (#28105739) Attached to: Polaroid Lovers Try To Revive Its Instant Film

There's no need for instant film anymore.

Only if you see it from a pure technical standpoint. Photography also is art though, and instant films are the medium some people prefer due to the involved process and style of results. Take a look at sites like POLANOIR, Polanoid, or the various groups on Flickr (my polaroid set).
The Courts

Jack Thompson Spams Utah Senate, May Face Legal Action 319

Posted by Soulskill from the get-some-popcorn dept.
eldavojohn writes "Yesterday, GamePolitics ran an interesting story about the Utah Senate President threatening Jack Thompson with the CAN-SPAM Act. You might recall Utah being Jack's last hope and hold-out after being disbarred in Florida and more or less made a mockery everywhere else. Well, from Utah's Senate Site, we get the picture of what Jack is up to now: spamming his last friends on the planet. The Salt Lake Tribune is reporting on Senate President Michael Waddoups' statements: 'I asked you before to remove me from your mailing list. I supported your bill but because of the harassment will not again. If I am not removed, I will turn you over to the AG for legal action.' The Salt Lake Tribune reports that Waddoups confirmed on Tuesday that he would attempt to pursue legal action under the federal CAN-SPAM Act of 2003 against Jack Thompson."
Space

Saturn's Rings May Be Very Old 125

Posted by CmdrTaco from the even-older-than-bob dept.
Kristina from Science News writes "Combining computer simulations with data about the way starlight shines through Saturn's rings suggests the individual grains are big and thus could have been around a good 4 billion years, not the mere 10 million to 100 million previously suspected. What may have thrown earlier observations off is the chance that the grains aren't evenly distributed, but clump here and spread out there."
Communications

Google Unveils First Android Phone 546

Posted by CmdrTaco from the can-you-hear-me-now dept.
danieltdp writes "Google finally officially launched the first Android-enabled mobile device to hit the market. As expected, the first Android phone will be the HTC Dream (also known as the T-Mobile G1), a device with a large touchscreen and a slide-out physical keypad that will run Google's new mobile platform." You might also not be at all surprised to know that Google is working on an Android competitor to the Apple App store.
IBM

IBM Threatens To Leave ISO Over OOXML Brouhaha 200

Posted by CmdrTaco from the brouhaha-is-a-funny-word dept.
barnackle writes "In addition to threatening to leave certain standards organizations over the OOXML shenanigans, IBM created new guidelines for its own participation in those organizations in an attempt to pressure the ISO and ECMA to be more fair in their approval procedures."
Security

US Responsible For the Majority of Cyber Attacks 205

Posted by CmdrTaco from the we're-number-one-we're-number-one dept.
Amber G5 writes "SecureWorks published the locations of the computers from which the greatest number of cyber attacks were attempted against its clients in 2008. The United States topped the list with 20.6 million attempted attacks originating from computers within the country, and China ran second with 7.7 million attempted attacks emanating from computers within its borders. This was followed by Brazil with over 166,987 attempted attacks, South Korea with 162,289, Poland with 153,205, Japan with 142,346, Russia with 130,572, Taiwan with 124,997, Germany with 110,493, and Canada with 107,483."
Windows

Windows Genuine Advantage Servers Out 300

Posted by kdawson from the single-point-of-disadvantage dept.
krewemaynard writes to let us know that Microsoft has been having major problems with its WGA servers since at least Friday evening. Quoting Ars: "Users of both Windows XP and Windows Vista were writing to say that they could not validate their installations using WGA, and one user even said that his installation was invalidated by the service... The Microsoft WGA Forums are full of problem reports, and Microsoft WGA Program Manager Phil Liu has acknowledged that there is a problem, and that MS is investigating." Update: 07/25 22:10 GMT by KD :Microsoft has identified and fixed the problem and posted instructions for anyone whose system mistakenly failed a WGA check. (The link posted earlier was to a 2006 article.)
User Journal

Journal Journal: How Bush's grandfather helped Hitler's rise to power

Journal by markstevens09

How Bush's grandfather helped Hitler's rise to power

Rumours of a link between the US first family and the Nazi war machine have circulated for decades. Now the Guardian can reveal how repercussions of events that culminated in action under the Trading with the Enemy Act are still being felt by today's president

Ben Aris in Berlin and Duncan Campbell in Washington
Saturday September 25, 2004
The Guardian
User Journal

Journal Journal: The Horrifying American Roots of Nazi Eugenics

Journal by markstevens09

The Horrifying American Roots of Nazi Eugenics
By Edwin Black

Mr. Black is the author of IBM and the Holocaust and the just released War Against the Weak: Eugenics and America's Campaign to Create a Master Race, from which the following article is drawn.

Hitler and his henchmen victimized an entire continent and exterminated millions in his quest for a co-called "Master Race."
Power

Submission + - Germany is getting serious on climate change

Submitted by cagrin
cagrin writes: From the article: "Gabriel told reporters that a progress report on a renewable energy law (EEG) passed in 2000 showed that the country had already surpassed the quota of 12.5 percent set for 2010. He said Berlin was now setting a more ambitious target to produce at least 20 percent of electricity used in the country with renewable resources such as wind and solar power by 2020 and 45 percent by 2030." Nearly half of electricity from renewable resources by 2030: Berlin

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