rangeva writes to tell us about a twist he has developed on the common Captcha technique to discourage spam bots: HECs encode the Captcha image into HTML, thus presenting an unsolved challenge to the bots' programmers. From the writeup: "The Captcha is no longer an image and therefore not a resource they can download and process. The owner of the site can change the properties of the Captcha's HTML, making it unique,... add[ing] another layer of complication for the bot to crack." HECs are not exactly lightweight — the one on the linked page weighs in at 218K — but this GPL'd project seems like a nice advance on the state of the art.

An anonymous reader writes "A Texas judge has ruled that, if a copyright owner objects to the linking of content from another web site, that link must be taken down. This case, which may have some far-reaching implications, centered around a motorcross website. The site, run by a Robert Davis, provided links directly to live feeds of 'Supercross' events streaming from the SFX Motor Sports site. The company filed suit, claiming that the direct links were denying it advertising revenue. The article cites previous cases, where sites were prohibited by judges from linking to files which violated copyright law (such as DVD decryption software). From the article: 'But in those lawsuits, the file that was the target of the hyperlink actually violated copyright law. What's unusual in the SFX case is that a copyright holder is trying to prohibit a direct link to its own Web site. (There is no evidence that SFX tried technical countermeasures, such as referrer logging and blocking anyone coming from Davis' site.)'"

Datamation writes "Exploit code for Windows Vista (though at this point only proof-of-concept code) has been published to a Russian hacker site, Eweek reports. Certain strings sent through the 'MessageBox' API apparently cause memory corruption. Though this is obviously cause for concern, at the moment it would seem access to the system would already be required to make use of the exploit. Determina has an analysis of the bug. Just last week, Trend Micro reported that Vista zero-days are being sold at underground hacker sites for $50,000."

brian0918 writes "The Imperial College in London is reporting that genetically-engineered blood protein can be used to split water into oxygen and hydrogen. The abstract can be viewed for free from the Journal of the American Chemical Society." From the article: "Scientists have combined two molecules that occur naturally in blood to engineer a molecular complex that uses solar energy to split water into hydrogen and oxygen. This molecular complex can use energy from the sun to create hydrogen gas, providing an alternative to electrolysis, the method typically used to split water into its constituent parts. The breakthrough may pave the way for the development of novel ways of creating hydrogen gas for use as fuel in the future."

jrieth50 noted that a method of using geometric shapes combined with color to store up to 256GB of data on a sheet of paper or plastic. The article says "Files such as text, images, sounds and video clips are encoded in 'rainbow format' as colored circles, triangles, squares and so on, and printed as dense graphics on paper at a density of 2.7GB per square inch. The paper can then be read through a specially developed scanner and the contents decoded into their original digital format and viewed or played."

1up and EGM have had some time in the last month with the next iteration of Microsoft's Halo series. Several folks at the site have put up their impressions of the current build of the game, including some multiplayer feelings from EGM editor-in-chief Dan Hsu, a bunch of nice crunchy details from Mark Macdonald, a nostalgia-laiden look at the game from Luke Smith, and a potpourri of details from Crispin Boyer. From Luke's writeup: "Maybe it was the first shooter I played that had some substance? Maybe it was that my best friend bought me a copy of the game for my birthday and I didn't even have the console yet. Maybe it was all of the traveling to play in Halo tournaments on weekends in college, but somewhere between Halo: Combat Evolved's release and now, Halo became my Mario. It is the game that made me care about video games like I did when I was 10."

UltimaGuy writes to mention a Reuters report, stating that Vista may be delayed again, this time by up to three months. From the article: " The research note, released to clients [by the Gartner Group] on Monday, said the new Windows Vista operating system is too complex to be able to meet Microsoft's targeted November release for volume license customers and January launch for retail consumers. A Microsoft spokeswoman said the company disagreed with the Gartner report and it was still on track to meet its launch dates."

sycodon writes "Global Warming has become more than just a scientific issue and has been portrayed as nothing less than the End of the World by some. However, despite all the hoopla from Hollywood, Politicians and Science Bureaucrats, there is another side, but it's being suppressed according to Richard Lindzen, an Alfred P. Sloan Professor of Atmospheric Science at MIT. From the article: 'Scientists who dissent from the alarmism have seen their grant funds disappear, their work derided, and themselves libeled as industry stooges, scientific hacks or worse. Consequently, lies about climate change gain credence even when they fly in the face of the science that supposedly is their basis.'"

An anonymous reader writes "TrekStor, a German manufacturer of MP3 players has developed the world's most expensive MP3 player. This unique custom-made portable player is based on TrekStor's i.Beat organix mp3 player, and has one GB of memory, 25 hour battery life, supports MP3, WMA, WAV, ASF, OGG audio files, and is cast in 18 carat gold with 63 diamonds (one carat)."

An anonymous reader writes "OSNews has an article making a case for Hi-MD: 'Currently, .mp3 players are all the hype. Everyone has one, and if you don't, you're old-fashioned. I do not have an .mp3 player. I tried to have one, but for various reasons it did not please me. I'm a MiniDisc guy. I've always been. MiniDisc has some serious advantages over .mp3 players, whether they be flash or HDD based.'"

Aranth writes "The staff at Ars Technica has gotten its hands on a demo of Duke Nukem Forever, and has written up a review. It seems the game is near ready for release! As the article explains, the reason it has taken so long to develop is because this is the first real Web 3.0 application- it has 'been rewritten as an Ajax application written using the Ruby on Rails framework' and runs in any web browser, although some seem to have difficulties." Sadly, the game looks to be deficient in the area of ponies. :(((( But, it's playable from my hiptop!! :))))

Micahel West writes "As reported on OpenOffice.org: 'For an undisclosed sum but reputed to be in the billions, Microsoft's Bill Gates has personally bought the leading open-source desktop project. Saying he "was sick and tired of open-source eating away at his profits," the world's richest man decided to put an end to the nuisance and simply buy OpenOffice.org. It will form part of a growing list of Microsoft acquisitions including several erstwhile competitors, a considerable number of prominent politicians, and a few small governments.'"

ToeSocks06 writes "The cutest site i've ever or youve ever seen is this one CLICK IT NOW LOL!!! because they have the cutest pictures you will ever see :) :) :) Like hamsters wearing SO CUTE hats and so many kittens zomg i love kitties especially that brown one i hope they show him with hats to LOLOLOLOLOL!!! Ok I gottta go now bye!!!"

Our marketing department has done extensive research over the last 3 quarters and discovered that our audience is strangely disproportionately skewed towards males. Like, 98.3% males to be precise. To correct this oversight, we have decided to subtly tweak Slashdot's design and content to widen our appeal to these less active demographics. Don't worry! We'll still continue to serve our core audience, but we hope you'll work with us as we try to find a balance that will work for all.