Comment server is down (Score 1) 1
link is down. repost the link.
Submission + - Rare Video Games Fetch Hefty Prices (cnn.com)
Like2Byte writes: "CNN is running a story about video game collectors and the prices they're willing to pay for ancient video games. As recently at Feb 2010, one video game was sold for $41,300(US). CNN provides a short-list of eight video games that are currently commanding high prices. Time to reach into the attic and find those old 2600 and NES cartridges. Clicky to the source."
Submission + - All Done With Ubuntu (itnewstoday.com)
An anonymous reader writes: Ubuntu, love it or hate it, is quite possibly the most popular Linux distribution around. With an emphasis on community and making the operating system accessible to as many people as possible, it’s easy to see why it’s number one. Unfortunately, Ubuntu and I must part ways, as well as any community involvement I once had with it. What strained this relationship? Read on for a first hand account.
Submission + - Chinese: US power grid vulnerable to attack (nytimes.com) 1
An anonymous reader writes: It came as a surprise this month to Wang Jianwei, a graduate engineering student in Liaoning, China, that he had been described as a potential cyberwarrior before the United States Congress.
Ken Cedeno for The New York Times
Larry M. Wortzel, a military strategist, recently drew attention to the paper.
Larry M. Wortzel, a military strategist and China specialist, told the House Foreign Affairs Committee on March 10 that it should be concerned because “Chinese researchers at the Institute of Systems Engineering of Dalian University of Technology published a paper on how to attack a small U.S. power grid sub-network in a way that would cause a cascading failure of the entire U.S.”
When reached by telephone, Mr. Wang said he and his professor had indeed published “Cascade-Based Attack Vulnerability on the U.S. Power Grid” in an international journal called Safety Science last spring. But Mr. Wang said he had simply been trying to find ways to enhance the stability of power grids by exploring potential vulnerabilities.
Ken Cedeno for The New York Times
Larry M. Wortzel, a military strategist, recently drew attention to the paper.
Larry M. Wortzel, a military strategist and China specialist, told the House Foreign Affairs Committee on March 10 that it should be concerned because “Chinese researchers at the Institute of Systems Engineering of Dalian University of Technology published a paper on how to attack a small U.S. power grid sub-network in a way that would cause a cascading failure of the entire U.S.”
When reached by telephone, Mr. Wang said he and his professor had indeed published “Cascade-Based Attack Vulnerability on the U.S. Power Grid” in an international journal called Safety Science last spring. But Mr. Wang said he had simply been trying to find ways to enhance the stability of power grids by exploring potential vulnerabilities.
Submission + - Money for Nothing
theodp writes: Newsweek's Daniel Lyons confesses to being mystified by all the people tending to their virtual farms and virtual pets on Facebook. Even stranger, he says, is their willingness to spend real money to buy virtual products, like pretend guns and fertilizer, to gain advantage in these Web-based games. Pretend products are a serious business, estimated to grow to $1.6B next year, and have captured the attention of economists and academics who view the virtual economy as a lab for modeling behavior in the real world. Still, Lyons can't help but question whether the kind of people who spend hours online taking care of imaginary pets are representative of the rest of the population. 'The data might be 'perfect' and 'complete,'' says Lyons, 'but the world from which it's gathered is anything but that.
Submission + - Invisibility cloak created in 3-D (bbc.co.uk)
An anonymous reader writes: Scientists have created the first device to render an object invisible in three dimensions.
The "cloak", described in the journal Science, hid an object from detection using light of wavelengths close to those that are visible to humans.
Previous devices have been able to hide objects from light travelling in only one direction; viewed from any other angle, the object would remain visible.
This is a very early but significant step towards true invisibility cloaks.
Abstract and full text (requires login) at:
http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/abstract/science.1186351
other links at:
http://www.physorg.com/news188142611.html
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/8574923.stm
The "cloak", described in the journal Science, hid an object from detection using light of wavelengths close to those that are visible to humans.
Previous devices have been able to hide objects from light travelling in only one direction; viewed from any other angle, the object would remain visible.
This is a very early but significant step towards true invisibility cloaks.
Abstract and full text (requires login) at:
http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/abstract/science.1186351
other links at:
http://www.physorg.com/news188142611.html
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/8574923.stm
Submission + - New Critical Zero Day Found in Firefox (threatpost.com)
Trailrunner7 writes: A month after an advisory was published detailing a new vulnerability in Firefox, Mozilla said it has received exploit code for the flaw and is planning to patch the weakness on March 30 in the next release of Firefox. Mozilla officials said Thursday that the vulnerability, which was disclosed February 18 by Secunia, is a critical flaw that could result in remote code execution on a vulnerable machine. The vulnerability is in version 3.6 of Firefox.
Submission + - Hidden RFID Tags Could Mean End Of Bar-Codes (gizmag.com)
ElectricSteve writes: Researchers from Rice University working in collaboration with a team led by Gyou-jin Cho at Sunchon National University in Korea, developed the new technology which is based on a carbon-nanotube-infused ink for ink-jet printers first developed in the Rice lab of James Tour. The ink is used to make thin-film transistors, a key element in radio-frequency identification (RFID) tags that can be printed on paper or plastic.
Submission + - Google to leave China on April 10 (cnet.com)
tsj5j writes: Google is expected to announce on Monday that it will withdraw from China on April 10, according to a report in a Beijing-based newspaper that cited an unidentified sales associate who works with the company.
"I have received information saying that Google will leave China on April 10, but this information has not at present been confirmed by Google," the China Business News quoted the agent as saying. The report also said Google would reveal its plans for its China-based staff that day.
"I have received information saying that Google will leave China on April 10, but this information has not at present been confirmed by Google," the China Business News quoted the agent as saying. The report also said Google would reveal its plans for its China-based staff that day.
Submission + - Can the US Stop the Global Cyber Arms Race?
Hugh Pickens writes: "Jack Goldsmith writes in the Washington Post that everyone agrees on the need to curb the cyber arms race by creating proper norms of network behavior but that US cybersecurity policymakers are in the habit of thinking too much about those who attack us and too little about our attacks on others. One large hurdle is the federal government's refusal to acknowledge more fully its many offensive cyber activities, or to propose which such activities it might clamp down on in exchange for reciprocal concessions by our adversaries. For example, the US is a leading source of "hacktivists" who use digital tools to fight oppressive regimes. "Scores of individuals and groups in the United States design or employ computer payloads to attack government Web sites, computer systems and censoring tools in Iran and China," writes Goldsmith. The US government has perhaps the world's most powerful and sophisticated offensive cyberattack capability. This capability remains highly classified but the New York Times has reported that the Bush administration used cyberattacks on insurgent cellphones and computers in Iraq, and that it approved a plan for attacks on computers related to Iran's nuclear weapons program. "We are not, like the Chinese, stealing intellectual property from US firms or breaking into the accounts of democracy advocates," concludes Goldsmith. "But we are aggressively using the same or similar computer techniques for ends we deem worthy.""
Intel-Micron Joint Venture Develops 25nm NAND 121
Ninjakicks writes "IM Flash Technologies is a joint venture between Intel and Micron that is targeted for producing NAND flash memory. With a focus on R&D, IMFT has doubled NAND density approximately every 18 months. Tomorrow IMFT will announce the launch of their 25 nanometer NAND technology — a major advancement in the semiconductor industry. Intel and Micron can now lay claim to the smallest production ready-semiconductor process technology in the world. IMFT took members of the press on a tour of the new 25nm fab and it's an interesting view into this bleeding-edge manufacturing process."
Mum's the Word On Google Attack At Davos 217
theodp writes "BusinessWeek reports that the cyber attack on Google was the elephant-in-the-room at the annual meeting of world leaders in Davos. 'China didn't want to discuss Google,' Josef Ackermann, CEO of Deutsche Bank AG and a co-chair of this year's World Economic Forum, said in an interview. China's Vice Premier Li Keqiang made that clear, he added. Even Google CEO Eric Schmidt didn't bring up China, and Bill Gates was mum on the topic in an interview. The reluctance of companies to talk about China illustrates the pressure on them to protect their business in the country, while the US government doesn't want to upset Chinese investors, said Andy Mok of Red Pagoda Concepts LLC. 'People have their commercial interests,' explained Deutsche Bank's Ackermann."
Toyota Pedal Issue Highlights Move To Electronics 913
cyclocommuter writes with an excerpt from a brief WSJ story on increasing electronic control of car components: "The gas pedal system used Toyota Motor Co.'s recall crisis was born from a movement in the auto industry to rely more on electronics to carry out a vehicle's most critical functions. The intricacy of such systems, which replace hoses and hydraulic fluid with computer chips and electrical sensors, has been a focus as Toyota struggled to find the cause for sudden acceleration of vehicles that led the company to halt sales of eight models this week."
Apple's Trend Away From Tinkering 965
theodp writes "Having cut his programming teeth on an Apple ][e as a ten-year-old, Mark Pilgrim laments that Apple now seems to be doing everything in their power to stop his kids from finding the sense of wonder he did: 'Apple has declared war on the tinkerers of the world. With every software update, the previous generation of "jailbreaks" stop working, and people have to find new ways to break into their own computers. There won't ever be a MacsBug for the iPad. There won't be a ResEdit, or a Copy ][+ sector editor, or an iPad Peeks & Pokes Chart. And that's a real loss. Maybe not to you, but to somebody who doesn't even know it yet.'"
Using Infrared Cameras To Find Tastiness of Beef 108
JoshuaInNippon writes "Might we one day be able to use our cell phone cameras to pick out the best piece of meat on display at the market? Some Japanese researchers seem to hope so. A team of scientists is using infrared camera technology to try and determine the tastiest slices of high-grade Japanese beef. The researchers believe that the levels of Oleic acid found within the beef strongly affect the beef's tenderness, smell, and overall taste. The infrared camera can be tuned to pick out the Oleic acid levels through a whole slab, a process that would be impossible to do with the human eye. While the accuracy is still relatively low — a taste test this month resulted in only 60% of participants preferring beef that was believed to have had a higher level of Oleic acid — the researchers hope to fine tune the process for market testing by next year."
