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United States

Submission + - New tech toys for Department of Homeland Security. (sciam.com)

Submitted by scionite0
scionite0 writes: Gee-whiz know-how — from swarms of tiny airborne sensors to ever-sharper satellite imagery — is being developed by companies chasing potentially lucrative federal, state and local deals.

"We can read fingerprints from about five meters .... all 10 prints," said Bruce Walker, vice president of homeland security for Northrop Grumman Corp. "We can also do an iris scan at the same distance."
The Courts

Submission + - New Attorneys Fee Decision Against RIAA 1

Submitted by
NewYorkCountryLawyer
NewYorkCountryLawyer writes: "The RIAA has gotten slammed again, this time in Oregon, as the Magistrate Judge in Atlantic v. Andersen has ruled that Tanya Andersen's motion for attorneys fees should be granted. The Magistrate, in his 15-page decision, noted that, despite extensive pretrial discovery proceedings, "when plaintiffs dismissed their claims in June 2007, they apparently had no more material evidence to support their claims than they did when they first contacted defendant in February 2005....." and concluded that "Copyright holders generally, and these plaintiffs specifically, should be deterred from prosecuting infringement claims as plaintiffs did in this case." This is the same case in which (a) the RIAA insisted on interrogating Ms. Andersen's 10-year-old girl at a face-to-face deposition, (b) the defendant filed RICO counterclaims against the record companies, and (c) the defendant has recently converted her RICO case into a class action"
Intel

Submission + - 3.4GHz Penryn And Intel Skulltrail - IDF Showcase (hothardware.com)

Submitted by
diggbs
diggbs writes: "Intel let a few members of the press get some hands-on time with their new 45nm quad-core processor, code-named Penryn, at IDF this week. Dual quad-core 3.4GHz processors were configured in a Seabird chipset, dual socket system based on the Intel's Skulltrail platform, for a total of eight cores. The benchmark numbers look pretty sharp as does the system, just in time for the spooky holiday season."

Feed Replace your mouse with a DS, eliminate work-related fanboy downtime (engadget.com)

From feed by engfeed

Filed under: Gaming, Peripherals

Adding to the list of questionably-useful ways to use your Nintendo gear, German hacker Dankredues posted up a little app that lets you use the DS screen as a mouse. While it's no MIDI keyboard or homebrew tilt sensor, the app seems like it could make an interesting and cheap tablet for you to knock out that Princess Peach fanime you keep talking about. Wacom's not going to be losing sleep over this anytime soon though -- right now the software is available only in German, requires you to hardcode your IP address into the source before compiling, and opens two ports on your machine: one each for X and Y coordinates. Ouch. Give the dude some credit, though, he's only 14. True fanboys can prove their mettle by nabbing the software at the Read link.

[Via DS News]

Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments

Office Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the power to bring games to life!
IBM

Submission + - IBM researchers push MRI imaging to nanoscale

Submitted by
TheCybernator
TheCybernator writes: "Researchers at IBM's Almaden Research Center have developed magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) techniques to visualize nanoscale objects. The new techniques are a major milestone in the quest to build a microscope that could "see" individual atoms in three dimensions. Using Magnetic Resonance Force Microscopy (MRFM), IBM researchers have captured two-dimensional images of objects as small as 90 nanometers. (A nanometer is one billionth of a meter; a human hair is roughly 100,000 nanometers in diameter.) "Our ultimate goal is to perform three-dimensional imaging of complex structures such as molecules with atomic resolution," said Dan Rugar, manager, Nanoscale Studies, IBM Research. "This would allow scientists to study the atomic structures of molecules — such as proteins — which would represent a huge breakthrough in structural molecular biology." MRFM offers imaging 60,000 times more sensitive than current MRI technology. MRFM uses what is known as force detection to extend the limits of conventional MRI and view structures that would otherwise be too small to be detected. The imaging breakthrough could eventually have major impact on the study of materials ranging from proteins and pharmaceuticals to integrated circuits — that required detailed understanding of the atomic structure. Knowing the exact location of specific atoms within tiny nanoelectronic structures, for example, would improve designers' insight into manufacture and performance. The ability to directly image the detailed atomic structure of proteins would aid the development of new drugs."
Robotics

DARPA's Artificial Arm Comes With VR Training 71

Posted by CowboyNeal from the right-to-bare-arms dept.
An anonymous reader writes "The first prototype of an artificial limb commissioned by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency can reportedly be controlled naturally, provide sensory feedback and allows for eight degrees of freedom — way beyond the current state of the art for prosthetic limbs. Oh yeah, it also has its own VR environment to learn how to use it."
Windows

Submission + - U of Kansas recommends against Vista, Office 2007

Submitted by
An anonymous reader writes: In an email to all faculty and staff, the University of Kansas IT recommended against installing either Microsoft Vista or Office 2007. Vista is deemed problematic because of hardware requirements and incompatibility with widely used software such as statistical packages, Blackboard and PeopleSoft; Office is zinged because "The radical redesign has moved and/or renamed virtually every feature." Individuals purchasing machines with Vista are asked to "roll back" to XP. Obligatory evolution and Wizard of Oz jokes aside, KU is probably typical of a large organization that has apparently decided after a few weeks of consideration that Microsoft's latest offerings just aren't worth the trouble. How general is this trend?
Windows

Submission + - Vista Sales Strong

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: It seems Microsoft is not only alive, but has been thriving these last few months. Following Apple's solid earnings yesterday comes above-expectations from Microsoft. Profits jumped 65% from the previous year, and sales of its Windows operating system were strong: (from TFA)

Microsoft said it deferred $1.2 billion in Windows Vista revenue to the third quarter, to account for upgrade coupons given to PC buyers during the holiday season before the consumer launch of the new operating system. Excluding this figure, client revenue totaled $4.1 billion, 30 percent higher than last year.

Microsoft Chief Financial Officer Chris Liddell said Vista beat internal forecasts by $300 million to $400 million, and Office 2007 sales were $200 million better than expected.
Operating Systems

Submission + - macbookinux: the first Mac specialized penguin

Submitted by
aiop631
aiop631 writes: "A new project is under way to develop a Linux distribution designed especially for Macbooks: MacBook Linux. This distributions will have advanced Linux technologies built-in like Compiz, OpenOffice and KOffice for office tools, development tools like GCC and Java, and server technologies like Apache and Bind to turn your machine into a server. A powerful package management system similar to that of OS X will be available (yes, no dependency hell). The first stable release date is aimed for later this summer. This is part of a broader project to develop a Linux distribution family for Intel-powered Macs — that is, 3 Linux distributions specialized for MacBooks, MacBook Pros and Mac Pros."
The Internet

Submission + - Children on the News and MySpace

Submitted by
MikeDataLink
MikeDataLink writes: "I recently did a little investigation of my own. I noticed that the news station I watch shows the full names of children and teens on the air when doing interviews and stories. I wrote the names down and then searched MySpace.com for those names in my area. To my not so much suprise, I found a large majority of them with pictures, blogs, and contact information. Is it a good idea for news stations to use a little more caution in showing full names of minors in this day and age or am I over reacting?"

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