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Wireless Networking

Submission + - Virtual sticky notes make cell phones more useful (networkworld.com)

Submitted by BobB-nw
BobB-nw writes: Engineers at Duke University have come up with a system for one day exploiting cell phones worldwide so that mobile users can easily learn from each other about everything from art exhibits to traffic jams. "Every mobile phone can act as a telescope lens providing real-time information about its environment to any of the 3 billion mobile phones worldwide," said Romit Roy Choudhury, an assistant professor of electrical and computer engineering in Duke's Pratt School of Engineering, in a statement. The engineers have created an application that they call micro-blogging that enables cell phone users to enter site-specific information ("virtual sticky notes"), such as comments or photos or videos to a central server that other cell phone users can tap. Time and location can be logged as well, and attached to the other information.
Media

Submission + - Online chat with Hu Jintao 1

Submitted by samsamsamj
samsamsamj writes: A Danwei piece reported the event, also reported here, and here.

This guy noted the significance that when talking about the media's role, for the first time China's leadership juxtaposed the importance of "aligning to the correct steering" and "reflecting the people's opinions". But as usual, this largely fell on the deaf ears to the western people and their media, as one Danwei comment depicted, "he says *absolutely nothing of any meaning whatsoever*".

Contrary to the western belief that a non-democratic government must be out of touch and against its people, China's government is quite popular among its own people and generally considered nimble and competent. Lord Malloch Brown, UK's Foreign Office Minister for Africa, Asia, and UN, asked here: "How come a government which does not subject itself to electoral test, always impresses one as being more in touch with public opinion and public concerns than many governments that do go to the polls every five years?"

I think this may also be the question the slashdotters ask themselves. What do you know and do not know about China? How many of the beliefs you accepted as commonsense are not as indisputable as you think?
Communications

Submission + - The Positronic Brain, is it just around the corner (vsahost.com)

Submitted by
chyllaxyn
chyllaxyn writes: "Exciton-Based Computing.
Leonid Butov, a professor of physics at UCSD, and his colleagues at UCSD and UC Santa Barbara have built several exciton-based transistors that could be the basis of a new type of computer.
Particles called excitons that emit a flash of light as they decay could be used for a new form of computing better suited to fast communication,
Circuits Eliminate A 'Speed Trap' Between Computing And Communication Signals at Science Daily"
Google

Submission + - The New State Health Plan is Google

Submitted by
theodp
theodp writes: "In yet another case of life imitating Dilbert, the State of Georgia has issued a press release touting the health benefits of Google products for its citizens. According to the release and a follow-up Yo-State-So-Fat Official Google Blog post, this includes AdWords, Analytics, Maps, Earth, Picasa, Gadgets and a branded YouTube channel. 'We're thrilled that Google has joined us in the effort to help everyone in the state lead a healthier life,' said Sally Winchester, a manager for Georgia State Parks & Historic Sites. 'At Google, we are committed to helping our employees lead healthy lives,' added Maureen Schumacher, a Google regional sales director. 'We are very excited that Google products will be used as part of this effort to improve the health and well-being of all Georgians.'"
Security

Submission + - Latest trends in online criminal activity (computerworld.com)

Submitted by
Weblver1
Weblver1 writes: "How much is your stolen identity worth? Not as much as you would expect. Stolen data such credit card numbers and PIN became a commodity with price falling sharply due to the abundance of such available stolen records... Put it shortly (stolen) credit card numbers — Out, Healthcare, FTP, Citrix credentials — In"
Programming

Submission + - What is a program?

Submitted by
capitalG
capitalG writes: "The other day my 83 year old grandmother asked me: "So, what is a program?" After a pause long enough to make her question my credibility, I responded: "A program is a machine made out of numbers." Her eyes went out of focus for a moment and she nodded with a smile. What would have been a better response to the query considering the client?"
Space

Submission + - How big could the universe be?

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: In the past we have repeatedly extrapolated from what we can see to estimate all there is. Up until modern times every previous extrapolation of this kind has been wrong. What makes us so sure we aren't making the same mistake today? Would any reinterpretation of what we currently know in mainstream science be consistent with the a universe that is far far larger than that commonly accepted?
United States

Submission + - US closing its borders, a step too far by the DHS? (cbp.gov)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes:
DHS Announces Pre-Travel Authorization for U.S.-Bound Travelers from Visa Waiver Countries. Getting this [electronic] information in advance enables our frontline personnel to determine whether a visa-free traveler presents a threat, before boarding an aircraft or arriving on our shores.
— said Homeland Security Secretary Michael Cherto

Finally it seems the US is closing its borders even to the trusted countries on the Visa Waver Program. Although the Dept. of Homeland Security is calling it "Pre-Travel Verification" for the countries allowed to travel to the US without a visa, it seems rather as if they are enforcing a pseudo-visa as this Electronic System for Travel Authorization (ESTA) not only bars the usual unwanteds but will also become mandatory in Jan 2009 after the trial period starting next month.
Microsoft

Submission + - Top 40+ Vista Tweaks, Tunes, & Hacks (poormanpcreview.com)

Submitted by
s14sh3r
s14sh3r writes: "Vista: Tweaked, Tuned, and Hacked presents over 40 nifty tweaks and tricks to make Vista run better, faster, and less annoying. Learn how to boot faster, get rid of annoying prompts, customize your bootscreen, activate the hidden "super-admin" account, and even use YOUR video clips as an animated wallpaper (no third-party apps needed!)"
Google

Submission + - SPAM: Google Apps Hacks

Submitted by
stoolpigeon
stoolpigeon writes: "It seems that it wasn't long ago that Google was just a search company. The number of on-line products that fly under the Google moniker, today, is impressive. Google has moved well beyond it's office-suite-like applications and excelled with everything from mapping to blogging to 3-D drawing. "Google Apps Hacks" is a new book from O'Reilly, published in conjunction with their Make magazine. This volume presents the reader with 141 hacks in an attempt to get the most out of a wide array of Google's on-line applications. The result is a quick ride that is rather fun and while a bit shallow at times, provides a great overview of just how much is available out there.

There is one issue that I believe must be addressed up front. The title of the book is quite catch- "Google Apps Hacks". It led me to believe that it would be a book full of hacks. The connection with Make made this seem all the more likely. I guess the definition of a hack is somewhat up for debate. I tend to agree with a couple that I found over at the Urban Dictionary, "A clever or elegant technical accomplishment, especially one with a playful or prankish bent. A clever routine in a computer program, especially one which uses tools for purposes other than those for which they were intended, might be considered a hack." and "A temporary, jury-rigged solution, especially in the fields of computer programming and engineering: the technical equivalent of chewing gum and duct tape." I see hacks as either thrown together solutions or extremely clever solutions that use something in a way that is not really what was part of the original intention for that thing. By either definition, many of the hacks in this book, are not hacks. I may be making a large assumption, but I do assume that many will share my opinion on the definition of a hack, so I think it is important that they understand what this book does contain, if it is not full of hacks.

I think what would be more accurate, and probably much less marketable, is that this is a book of Google Apps snippets, instructions and a few hacks. The hacks themselves are rated in the book as one of three levels — Easy, Intermediate and Expert. There are 141 total as I mentioned and they break down like this; 72 easy, 50 intermediate and 19 expert. That says something all on its own. This is especially true when some of the easy hacks include things like signing up for a Gmail account or accessing your calendar from a mobile phone. The instructions to do those things are not a hack, they are instructions on how to use the software as it was intended to be used. No clever tricks, no thrown together work-around, just documentation for things that are pretty easy to do.

With all that said, I think that the book has a high level of value. I just think that someone who judges it by its cover (which we all do, old sayings aside) may get an unpleasant surprise. What is the value, if it does not lie in providing a ton of hacks? Well, this book is an excellent introduction to Google's many on-line applications. I use many already and still learned of a couple new ones when I read this book. It also does bring all that instruction into one place, and provides a very user-friendly style of instruction. There is also a very nice feature, 8 sections that take the reader "Beyond Google...". Each of these sections informs the reader about alternative software that provides similar functionality to the Google software described in the preceding chapter. This is really a great resource and an unexpected bonus for anyone who reads the book.

The book covers the entire Google Documents family with an overview and then chapters that deal specifically with documents, spreadsheets and presentations. The beyond Google section presents Zoho, EditGrid and the ThinkFree on-line office suite. There are some nice hacks here that revolve around using the sharing capabilities as well as pulling data from all over the web and into documents. For example Hack #27 is one of the expert hacks and gives 5 pages of explanation, with black and white images as well as code snippets, on how to pull data from any web site into a spreadsheet. This also serves as a nifty little example of xpath and uncovers some very cool Google spreadsheet functionality. Hack #29 is another rated expert that uses screen scraping, but this time to add currency conversion capabilities to a spread sheet. I thought these were not only fun but did a great job of opening up my mind to a number of other possible uses for these tools.

The chapter on Gmail is for the most part pretty basic. One of the expert hacks, altering the appearance of Gmail using ones own stylesheet, is useful not only for Gmail but for any site that one might be interested in modifying. The coverage is decent and much of the functionality and interface is very well documented. The other products introduced are Yahoo! Mail, MS Hotmail and Mozilla Thunderbird. One simple hack is the ability to create 'spare' email addresses with the use of periods in the name or the use of '+' to add onto the name. This hack gained quite a bit of attention on the web not that long ago, and is one of the easy hacks, but still very useful.

Many of the hacks, including hack #54, from the Gmail section, originated with someone other than Lenssen. He is careful to point this out, in the text of the hack, which I thought was very cool. Not giving credit would be a real problem, but it didn't need to be so prominent. That hack, by the way, is how to use the undocumented "lang" operator to search messages based on language. Another easy hack that could be extremely useful.

iGoogle is covered, along with instructions on creating Gadgets. I thought the ability to add any flash game as a gadget was fun but damaging to my productivity. The other options presented are Netvibes, Pageflakes and Protopage. This is followed up with Google Calendar and some nice instructions on adding a Calendar xml widget to a blog, or the inverse, embedding a vast array of content into Calendar events. The other options here are Yahoo! Calendar, Microsoft's Calendar and 30 Boxes. These are both followed by the chapter on Google reader and a list of a number of other possible reader services.

The chapter covering photos and video is shorter than the others when taking into account that it covers Picasa, YouTube and GoogleVideo, but I think that there just isn't as much flexibility or need there as in some of the other applications. The chapter on blogging and Google Groups is just the opposite, with quite a few more hacks and some nice tips on getting the most from each of those services.

Google Maps, Google Earth and Sketchup 3D are covered in a single chapter together. There are some nifty hacks here, though some of the more flashy have already received quite a bit of attention all over the internet. For example, the ability to use Google Earth as a flight simulator has already gained a huge amount of attention on most high profile sites, and many blogs, low traffic sites, etc.

The last chapter covers tools like Analytics and ways to go about doing search engine optimization and generating traffic. There are some nice ideas for the individual who really wants to analyze what traffic they have and try to get more. Here there are some good examples of another strength of the book. It does a good job of crossing over between applications. Two good examples here are Hack #133, which covers exporting Analytics data to Google Spreadsheets and hack #136 which is a very clever way to do user surveys using Google Spreadsheets again.

As I mentioned, most of the book is a bit shallow. But that is not always the case. Some of the expert hacks are not too tough, but do require the reader to get a handle on more than just basic concepts and tools. Some are excellent exercises in getting exposed to all kinds of technology. Hack #121 lets the reader know how to create Google Maps overlays on the fly using Python to generate KML, using data that it read from a MySQL database. That's fun stuff and a far cry from hack #1 "How to Get Your Google Account." In fact for some people, the entire book may be worth these gems.

The book has a nice glossy cover and the 9.7 x 8.0 dimensions mean that it doesn't feel to thick for its almost 400 pages. Those pages fly by and each hack is accompanied by plenty of illustrations and code snippets where appropriate. The table of contents breaks things down well, and each hack is named there and the names give an accurate description of the content. The index is acceptable and the two combine to make this a very easy resource to pick up and jump to just the right content. It can be read from front to back, but that is not at all necessary and there is no thread or flow that would necessitate reading it in order unless the reader was completely new to one of the applications presented. In that case, it might be best to work from the introduction of that application first.

The introduction states that Lenssen and his editor used Google Documents to write this book. This is not much of a surprise as Lenssen's own blog is dedicated to watching Google and their doings.

I've found this to be an extremely useful book. I've used it setting up a Google Site. I've learned about some web applications from Google and from others that I didn't even know existed. I get myself into a bit of a tizzy over the whole use of the word 'hack' thing, but that's just the geek in me coming out. Sometimes I think we love to bicker over stuff like that. That aside, this is a solid book full of useful material."
Biotech

Submission + - Massive Cancer Bioinformatics Giveaway (wired.com)

Submitted by ChipOffTheOldMicroarray
ChipOffTheOldMicroarray writes: GlaxoSmithKline just gave lots of costly microarray data to the cancer research community — for free. Its new home is the caBIG website, a massive repository of genetic information run by the National Cancer Institute. The donation makes sense: That sort of data is too much for any one company to swallow and would benefit basic science researchers more than pharmaceutical giants. The resulting academic work, however, could be very useful to GSK and other huge corporations.
United States

Submission + - Non-Christian Sunday school values (washingtonpost.com)

Submitted by
Anonymous Coward
Anonymous Coward writes: "The Washington Post has a story about a center which offers Sunday school in a non-Christian format. Rather than centering on just one religion, all religions are studied by the children. Such as languages, various religious cultures and their traditions. As an atheist, I find this type of Sunday class very beneficial to our communities. As it would allow people such as myself to find a place of fellowship on a Sunday morning. In all, building a stronger, kinder community. The story link: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/06/20/AR2008062002240.html?hpid=artslot"
NASA

Submission + - SPAM: NASA, DoD agree: earth's weather pattern changed

Submitted by
destinyland
destinyland writes: ""If you think the weather is getting more extreme, you're right," the AP reports, citing a new report from 10 government organizations which included NASA, the Department of Defense, and the National Science Foundation. It's not getting as cold at night as it did in earlier decades, there are fewer nights with frosts, and there's more extreme rain and heat, with an increasing frequency of tropical storms (leading to more and stronger hurricanes). Yesterday it was 116 in Palm Springs, while the heavy rainfall in Iowa used to happen just once every 500 years (and now happen every 15). And "Droughts will get dryer, storms will get stormier and floods will get deeper with the changing climate," reads another AP report. "Events that have seemed relatively rare will become commonplace, said the latest report...a joint effort of more than a dozen government agencies.""
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