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Submission Summary: 0 pending, 1083 declined, 591 accepted (1674 total, 35.30% accepted)

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Media

Submission + - Annals of Improbable Research goes free online (news.com)

Submitted by
prostoalex
prostoalex writes: "Annals of Improbable Research, scientific publication that hosts annual Ig Noble awards, has decided to offer its issue free online, News.com reports. According to the journal Web site, for free visitors can view HTML articles with low-res images or download low-res PDFs. High-resolution PDFs and "traditional on-the-toilet-readable paper-and-ink" issues are still available for a subscription fee."
Movies

Submission + - MovieBeam shuts down (google.com)

Submitted by
prostoalex
prostoalex writes: "Launched four years ago, a $200 box allowing movie rentals for $2 and $4, MovieBeam is being shut down, Associated Press reports. Apparently, in 4 years, the number of subscribers has not crossed the 2,000 members milestone. According to the spokesperson: "MovieBeam had 30 employees and 1,800 subscribers when it shut down, Repko said. She said subscribers who joined the service in March or later were being refunded the cost of the set-top box, which came loaded with 100 films, including extras such as directors commentaries, and could show them in high definition.""
Communications

Submission + - Americans spent more on wireless than wireline (itfacts.biz)

Submitted by
prostoalex
prostoalex writes: "Each December the Bureau of Labor Statistics prepares a report on telecommunications spending among US households. The analyze the previous year, so their most recent release says that in 2006 average US household spent $542 on their landline, and $524 on their wireless bill. They way the curves are headed, 2007 is likely to become the first year when wireless spending will surpass wireline. Associated Press quotes an analyst: "To be sure, when corporate cell-phone use is counted, overall U.S. spending surpassed land line spending several years ago, analysts said.""
Communications

Submission + - Bees can optimize Internet bottlenecks (msn.com)

Submitted by
prostoalex
prostoalex writes: "Georgia Tech and University of Oxford scientists claim bees can help up develop a better Internet traffic algorithms. By observing bees, the researchers noticed that bees pass back information on route quality: "On a basic level, the honeybee's dilemma is a tale of two flower patches. If one patch is yielding better nectar than the other, how can the hive use its workforce most efficiently to retrieve the best supply at the moment? The solution, which earned Austrian zoologist Karl von Frisch a Nobel Prize, is a communication system called the waggle dance." Any practical applications of that? Well, apparently ad servers, serving banners across a variety of servers, can report back on the time it took to generate the page: "As a stand-in for the dance floor, Tovey and his colleagues used what they called an advertisement board, which sent messages to communicate the location of hot Web sites. When one server received a user request to help out at a specific site, an internal ad popped up on the board to attract other servers in the hosting center. As in the hive, ads for locations in demand and offering better income potential lasted longer. And the longer the ads aired, the more they increased the chance that other servers would be recruited to help power the site du jour. Tovey said revenue, page hits or other parameters measuring a site's popularity could all do nicely as online nectar substitutes.""
Communications

Submission + - Converting light into sound (nature.com)

Submitted by
prostoalex
prostoalex writes: "Researchers at Duke are trying to solve the problem of speeding up fiberoptic connections by converting light into sound, then converting it back into light: "To get the information from the acoustic wave out again, a third light pulse, the 'read' pulse, is sent in. When it reaches the part of the fibre being affected by the acoustic wave, the light scatters in such a way as to regain the information that was left behind by the initial pulse. The newly-formed data pulse leaves the fibre, resuming the journey in the same direction as the original pulse, taking the same information with it.""
Microsoft

Submission + - Former MSN program manager indicted for fraud (infoworld.com)

Submitted by
prostoalex
prostoalex writes: "Remember Microsoft Passport service going down in December of 1999 due to the company forgetting to renew the domain name for the service? Turns out, there's more to the story. MSN program manager in charge of buying and renewing domain names for Microsoft properties was indicted with fraud. Carolyn Gudmundson would pay for domain names off her credit card, submitting inflated domain name charges for reimbursement later on, and also managed to convince a company vendor to add her name to the checks addressed to Microsoft Corp. "She is also accused of billing Microsoft for domain name registrations that had already been paid for its Expedia online travel service," InfoWorld says."
Toys

Submission + - Unusual PC upgrades (pcmag.com)

Submitted by
prostoalex
prostoalex writes: "For holiday season PC Magazine runs a list of somewhat unusual PC upgrades. They recommend Thermaltake MediaLAB A2331 for turning any PC into a media center, M-Audio FireWire 410 for basic stereo recording, Sunbeam 20 in 1 Superior Panel for increased connectivity and extra ports, Highpoint RocketRAID 2302 for extra eSATA ports and RAID backup, as well as a few other products. Any unusual upgrades Slashdot readers would recommend?"
Security

Submission + - MD5 proven ineffective for app signatures (win.tue.nl)

Submitted by
prostoalex
prostoalex writes: "Marc Stevens, Arjen K. Lenstra, and Benne de Weger have released their paper 'Vulnerability of software integrity and code signing applications to chosen-prefix collisions for MD5', which describes a reproducible attack on MD5 algorithm to fake software signatures. Researchers start off with two simplistic Windows applications — HelloWorld.exe and GoodbyeWorld.exe, and apply a known prefix attack that makes md5() signatures for both of the applications identical. Is it the end of signed software? Not quite, researchers point out: "For abusing a chosen-prefix collision on a software integrity protection or a code signing scheme, the attacker should be able to manipulate the files before they are being hashed and/or signed. This may mean that the attacker needs insider access to the party operating the trusted software integrity protection or code signing process. An attacker with such access can most probably do more harm anyway, without the need for chosen-prefix collisions, to get official digital signatures on malware.""
Communications

Submission + - 100 Gbps over copper line achieved in Penn State (gigaom.com)

Submitted by
prostoalex
prostoalex writes: "Om Malik reports on Pennsylvania State University researchers reaching 100 Gbps data transfer rate over CAT7 cables manufactured by a French company Nexans: "Ethernet cable like the Category 7 is made up of four pairs of twisted wires shielded to reduce crosstalk. Category 7 is heavier weight wire with better shielding than Category 5 cable. Kavehrad's group did similar analysis on the Category 5 cables in 2003. "A rate of 100 gigabit over 70 meters is definitely possible, and we are working on extending that to 100 meters, or about 328 feet," said Enteshari. "However, the design of a 100 gigabit modem might not be physically realizable at this time as it is technology limited. We are providing a roadmap to design a high speed modem for 100 gigabits." The researchers believe that two or three generations in the future, the technology of chip circuitry will allow these modem designs to be built. Currently, chip design is at about 65 nanometers, but they expect in the next two generations to get to what is required, said Kavehrad.""
Data Storage

Submission + - 1.6 TB solid state drive unveiled (computerworld.com)

Submitted by
prostoalex
prostoalex writes: "BitMicro announced a 1.6TB solid state drive. The 3.5" flash drive supports 4 Gbps data transfer rate. ComputerWorld says: "SSDs access data in microseconds, instead of the millliseconds that traditional hard drives use to retrieve data. The BitMicro E-Disk Altima 4Gb FC delivers more than 55,000 I/O operations per second (IOPS) and has a sustained data transfer rate over 230MB/sec. By comparison, a fast hard drive for example will run at around 300 IOPS.""
Security

Submission + - Tracking online cheaters in poker (msn.com)

Submitted by
prostoalex
prostoalex writes: "MSNBC has a special report on discovering online cheats at AbsolutePoker.com. A Costa Rican company belonging to a Canadian tribe at first denied all the accusations of any cheating going on, but after Serge Ravitch made a scrupulous analysis of the games' events, the reputation of AbsolutePoker.com was at stake. A detailed log file provided investigators with necessary details — an employee and partial owner of AbsolutePoker.com was one of the players, and having direct access to other players' cards allowed him to improve his game substantially."
Toys

Submission + - Cracking Go (ieee.org)

Submitted by
prostoalex
prostoalex writes: "IEEE Spectrum looks at current trends in artificial technology to crack the ancient Chinese game of Go, which theoretically has 10^60 potential endings. Is conquering the game via exhaustive search of all possibilities possible? "My gut feeling is that with some optimization a machine that can search a trillion positions per second would be enough to play Go at the very highest level. It would then be cheaper to build the machine out of FPGAs (field-programmable gate arrays) instead of the much more expensive and highly unwieldy full-custom chips. That way, university students could easily take on the challenge.""
Software

Submission + - 10 things to know about software jobs (applematters.com)

Submitted by
prostoalex
prostoalex writes: "Apple Matters blog gives aspiring software developers 10 pieces of advice. Never stop learning. Most of the stuff you learned in college is irrelevant. You won't make friends right away, and you'll definitely meet insecure people who'll be mean to you for no reason. Make friends with IT — nothing moves a hardware request faster than personal relationship."

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