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VirtualBox 2.1 Supports 64-Bit VM In 32-Bit Host 374

Posted by ScuttleMonkey from the big-box-inside-a-little-box dept.
Stephen Birch writes "Following closely behind the mid-November 2.06 release of VirtualBox, Sun Microsystems has released version 2.1. This has a number of new features, but one of the most interesting is the ability to run a 64-bit VM inside a 32-bit host. Another useful feature is integrated host-based networking; no more fiddling around with network bridges. Sun is really giving VMWare a run for their money."
Music

Will People Really Boycott Apple Over DRM? 664

Posted by kdawson from the for-tuppence-and-a-pretty-interface dept.
Ian Lamont writes "DefectiveByDesign.org is waging a battle against DRM with a 35-day campaign targeting various hardware and software products from Microsoft, Nintendo, and others. On day 11 it blasted iTunes for continuing to use DRM-encumbered music, games, TV shows, movies, audiobooks, and apps with DRM, while competitors are selling music without restrictions. DefectiveByDesign calls on readers to include 'iTunes gift cards and purchases in your boycott of all Apple products' to 'help drive change.' However, there's a big problem with this call to arms: most people simply don't care about iTunes DRM. Quoting: 'The average user is more than willing to pay more money for hobbled music because of user interface, ease of use, and marketing. ... Apple regularly features exclusive live sets from popular artists, while Amazon treats its digital media sales as one more commodity being sold.' What's your take on the DRM schemes used by Apple and other companies? Is a boycott called for, and can it be effective?"
Data Storage

Canadian Nuke Bunker To Be Converted Into Data Fortress 197

Posted by timothy from the canada-has-nukes? dept.
miller60 writes "A hosting firm has purchased a nuke-resistant bunker in Novia Scotia, and plans to convert it into a data fortress for financial firms. Bastionhost hopes to attract European financial firms wary of housing sensitive data in the US due to the USA Patriot Act. The facility is one of a series of 'Diefenbunkers' built during the tenure of Prime Minister John Diefenbaker to keep the Canadian government running in the event of a nuclear attack. While not all of these underground data bunker projects work out, a similar nuke-proof bunker in Stockholm, Sweden was recently converted into a stylish high-tech data lair for an ISP."
GUI

Nepomuk Brings Semantic Web To the Desktop, Instead 140

Posted by timothy from the semantic-researchers-play-better-tag dept.
An anonymous reader writes "Technology Review has a story looking at Nepomuk — the semantic tool that is bundled with the latest version of KDE. It seems that some Semantic Web researchers believe the tool will prove a breakthrough for semantic technology. By encouraging people to add semantic meta-data to the information stored on their machines they hope it could succeed where other semantic tools have failed."
Earth

O'Reilly Interview Digs Into the Tech of Storm Chasing 64

Posted by timothy from the started-with-just-a-bicycle-and-some-crayons dept.
blackbearnh writes "If you've watched the Discovery Channel series 'Storm Chasers,' you'll be familiar with Dr. Joshua Wurman and his Doppler on Wheels radar, which he uses to study tornadoes up close and personal every spring. O'Reilly Media spent some time last week speaking to Dr. Wurman about what it takes, technologically, to operate a weather radar in 100-mile-per-hour winds in the middle of a lightning storm. They also talked about the value of this kind of research to both tornado and hurricane research, and how having a film crew around during missions affects the science."
The Courts

Maryland Court Weighs Internet Anonymity 409

Posted by timothy from the when-first-grade-never-ends dept.
Cornwallis writes "In a First Amendment case with implications for everything from neighborhood e-mail lists to national newspapers, a Maryland businessman argued to the state's highest court yesterday that the host of an online forum should be forced to reveal the identities of people who posted allegedly defamatory comments. The businessman, Zebulon J. Brodie, contends that he was defamed by comments about his shop, a Dunkin' Donuts in Centreville, posted on NewsZap.com. The shop was described as one 'of the most dirty and unsanitary-looking food-service places I have seen.' Talk about a Negative Nellie! At least the article didn't say the shop was the 'most dirty and unsanitary-looking food-service places I have seen.'"
Software

Google Native Client Puts x86 On the Web 367

Posted by timothy from the which-can-then-be-virtualized-ad-infinitum dept.
t3rmin4t0r writes "Google has announced its Google native client, which enables x86 native code to be run securely inside a browser. With Java applets already dead and buried, this could mean the end of the new war between browsers and the various JavaScript engines (V8, Squirrelfish, Tracemonkey). The only question remains whether it can be secured (ala ActiveX) and whether the advantages carry over onto non-x86 platforms. The package is available for download from its Google code site. Hopefully, I can finally write my web apps in asm." Note: the Google code page description points out that this is not ready for production use: "We've released this project at an early, research stage to get feedback from the security and broader open-source communities." Reader eldavojohn links to a technical paper linked from that Google code page [PDF] titled "Native Client: A Sandbox for Portable, Untrusted x86 Native Code," and suggests this in-browser Quake demo, which requires the Native Code plug-in.

Comment Re:Why doesn't... (Score 2, Insightful) 221

by carbon 68k (#25988653) Attached to: Google Was 3 Hours Away From DOJ Antitrust Charges

Free Market + Government Intervention & Punishment + Taxpayers Dollers = LOLFAILWHALE ECONOMY

Free Market + Government Suggestion & Aid + Taxpayer Dollers = Working Economy

A "hey, we're probably going to have to sue you if you do this" seems equally like "suggestion" to me. This is part of how the contours of what's permissible and what's not get drawn, and companies in the future will look at this and say "Google and Yahoo went this far, but got warned off. To what extent is our deal like that one?"
The Internet

Who Protects the Internet? 177

Posted by samzenpus from the guarding-the-tubes dept.
strikeleader writes "TechCrunch has an article from an interview with General Kevin Chilton, US STRATCOM commander and the head of all military cyber warfare. Who protects us? 'Basically no one. At most, a number of loose confederations of computer scientists and engineers who seek to devise better protocols and practices — unincorporated groups like the Internet Engineering Task Force and the North American Network Operators Group. But the fact remains that no one really owns security online, which leads to gated communities with firewalls — a highly unreliable and wasteful way to try to assure security.'"
Databases

Searching DNA For Relatives Raises Concerns 199

Posted by kdawson from the database-creep dept.
An anonymous reader calls our attention to California's familial searching policy, which looks for genetic ties between culprits and kin. The technique has come to the fore in the last few years, after a Colorado prosecutor pushed the FBI to relax its rules on cross-state searches. "Los Angeles Police Department investigators want to search the state's DNA database again — not for exact matches but for any profiles similar enough to belong to a parent or sibling. The hope is that one of those family members might lead detectives to the killer. This strategy, pioneered in Britain, is poised to become an important crime-fighting tool in the United States. The Los Angeles case will mark the first major use of California's newly approved familial searching policy, the most far-reaching in the nation."

Comment In before "kill the lawyers" (Score 4, Insightful) 79

by carbon 68k (#25856277) Attached to: <em>Rock Band</em> Creators Hit With Class Action Lawsuit

Settle now. Pay the plaintiff's attorneys, pay the heads of the class action, and make the pedals available for, say, another year.

Almost by definition, it can't be much more expensive than fighting the lawsuit out, and it would make people feel a lot better about buying from the Rock Band franchise in the future.
The Internet

Network Neutrality — Without Regulation 351

Posted by timothy from the but-that's-unpossible dept.
boyko.at.netqos writes "Timothy B. Lee (no relation to Tim Berners-Lee), a frequent contributor to Ars Technica and Techdirt, has recently written 'The Durable Internet,' a paper published by the libertarian-leaning CATO institute. In it, Lee argues that because a neutral network works better than a non-neutral one, the Internet's open-ended architecture is not likely to vanish, despite the fears of net neutrality proponents, (and despite the wishes of net neutrality opponents.) For that reason, perhaps network neutrality legislation isn't necessary — or even desirable — from an open-networks perspective. In addition to the paper, Network Performance Daily has an interview and podcast with Tim Lee, and Lee addresses counter-arguments with a blog posting for Technology Liberation Front."
Media

Monty Python Banks On the Long Tail Via YouTube 222

Posted by timothy from the finally-a-perfect-use-for-the-foot-icon dept.
JTRipper writes "Monty Python seems to have done the right thing. Instead of issuing take down notices of their videos on YouTube, they are doing it better themselves with their own YouTube channel. They are putting all their clips (including snips from their movies) up in a decent resolution, with the only caveat being a link to buying the movies and TV episodes from Amazon."
Science

Scientists Discover Why Sharks Can Swim So Fast 103

Posted by timothy from the goosebumps-might-help-evade-them dept.
MediaSight writes "Shortfin mako sharks can shoot through the ocean at up to 50 miles per hour (80 kilometres an hour). Now a trick that helps them to reach such speeds has been discovered — the sharks can raise their scales to create tiny wells across the surface of their skin, reducing drag like the dimples on a golf ball."
Security

DNS Inventor Tackles Flaw 101

Posted by ScuttleMonkey from the always-evolving dept.
nk497 writes "Dr Paul Mockapetris is looking to fix the flaws in the Domain Name System he helped invent. 'It was never meant to be the only security mechanism for naming data on the internet, but was intended for additional security measures to be added to it later.' The flaws, first uncovered by security researcher Dan Kaminsky over the summer, lets attackers redirect genuine URLs to malicious ones — a problem Mockapetris believes could be solved using digital signatures."

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