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Hardware Hacking

Submission + - Where to donate old hardware?

Submitted by
An anonymous reader writes: Like many Slashdotters, I have a surplus of old computers and parts that I (and family and friends) no longer have use for. Some of this junk is still useful, and although I'm too busy to sell it piecemeal on eBay, it'd be a shame to just throw it away. I'd prefer to just drop this stuff off, driver disks and instruction manuals included where applicable, at a major charity such as Good Will, AmVets, or the Salvation Army, but I suspect that they wouldn't be able to move it and would end up throwing it away. Anyone have any recommendations for the major charities or any suggestions for recycling options?
Education

Submission + - Inconvenient Truth Too Inconvenient For Schools

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: The Federal Way School Board in Washington State recently restricted the showing of An Inconvenient Truth, Al Gore's documentary about global warming and its potential effects on Earth. An email was sent to the school board that said "The Bible says that in the end times everything will burn up, but that perspective isn't in the DVD" prompting one of the board members to propose a moratorium on the showing of the film. The film is being made available to educators via participate.net, which also provides films such as Fast Food Nation, Murderball (not what it sounds like), and Stand Up. Up to 50,000 copies of An Inconvenient Truth are made available to teachers.
Television

Submission + - Senator to FCC: no broadcast flag for you!

Submitted by Flag waver
Flag waver writes: Senator John Sununu (R-NH) will introduce legislation that will prevent the FCC from creating technology mandates for the consumer electronics industry. As a result, the FCC would be hamstrung in its efforts to revive the broadcast flag. '"The FCC seems to be under the belief that it should occasionally impose technology mandates," Sununu said in a statement. "These misguided requirements distort the marketplace by forcing industry to adopt agency-blessed solutions rather than allow innovative and competitive approaches to develop."' Sen. Sununu previously tried without success to remove the broadcast flag provisions from the massive telecommunications bill that died before reaching the Senate floor during the last Congress.
Television

Submission + - FCC Opens Market for Cable Boxes

Submitted by
fistfullast33l
fistfullast33l writes: "The FCC rendered a decision today against a Comcast appeal that centers on integrated security features in set-top cable boxes. The decision comes at the end of a long standing feud between the FCC and Cable Companies over the matter. The result is that starting July 1st, cable boxes distributed by Cable Companies must not be tied directly to a cable provider via internal security features. This rule is viewed as the first step in creating a market for set-top cable boxes. Comcast does have the right to appeal and has said they will do so. From the article: "Several major consumer electronics manufacturers have argued that if set-top boxes weren't directly linked to the provision of cable service, they could enter the set-top market. Consumers could get a cable card from their service provider that they could insert into a set-top box purchased at a consumer electronics store. The cards would ensure that consumers could only access channels that they paid for.""
PC Games (Games)

Submission + - World of Warcraft now the size of New York City

Submitted by
DeadBugs
DeadBugs writes: "World Of Warcraft has passed 8 Million subscribers. This would put it on par with the population of New York (the largest city in the United States). With the first expansion coming out since the game was released, the game could easily pass 10 million people.

From the press release: "Since debuting in North America on November 23, 2004, World of Warcraft has become the most popular MMORPG around the world. Today, World of Warcraft is available in seven different languages and is played in North America, Europe, mainland China, Korea, Australia, New Zealand, Singapore, and the regions of Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Macau.""
Wireless Networking

Submission + - Is it dangerous to share my 802.11b/g?

Submitted by
oiarbovnb
oiarbovnb writes: "I recently moved into a new house and it took me a while to get my internet connected. For the first couple of weeks, I connected to an unsecured network one of my neighbors provided (they changed the name of the network, so I think they knew what they were doing, but left it open anyway). Now that I have my own internet (cable-modem), what are the problems with sharing this? I already know that they can read any non-encrypted information, but they cannot view information that is sent via https. I also know that I should install a software firewall and have anti-virus going and all that jazz. I named my network "Free!!! Be Nice!" in the hopes that if my neighbors do use my network, they don't try to hose my system. Karma-security I guess you could call it..."
Technology (Apple)

Submission + - Cisco VP Explains Lawsuit Against Apple

Submitted by
Dekortage
Dekortage writes: "The day after Apple announced its iPhone, Cisco sued over the name. Mark Chandler, Cisco's SVP and General Counsel, has posted an explanation of the suit on his blog: "For the last few weeks, we have been in serious discussions with Apple over how the two companies could work together and share the iPhone trademark. ...I was surprised and disappointed when Apple decided to go ahead and announce their new product with our trademarked name without reaching an agreement. It was essentially the equivalent of 'we're too busy.'" What did Cisco want? "[We] wanted an open approach. We hoped our products could interoperate in the future.""
It's funny. Laugh.

Submission + - Scientists create world's largest novelty atom

Submitted by
haja
haja writes: "CNN Reports: Scientists create world's largest novelty atom: Scientists have long been labeled as overly serious, narrowly focused individuals who don't have time for fun. But two University of Chicago atomic physicists proved that even the most buttoned-down professionals are capable of enjoying a good laugh every now and then. Last week, Drs. Marcus Hurley and Thom Fredericks unveiled what they are calling their "most hilarious work to date": an oversize novelty atom that measures "a ridiculously huge" 8.2 x 10-10 meters in diameter."
Robotics

Submission + - iRobot Create: Fully programmable mobile robot

Submitted by paxmaniac
paxmaniac writes: iRobot has announced Create: a new fully programmable mobile robot based on the Roomba robotic vacuum cleaner.

People have been hacking the Roomba since the day it came out. Well, hacking just got a whole lot easier. A command module for the Create provides a programmable 8-bit Atmel micro controller, four DB-9 ports for your own sensors, and a number of sample programs that can be compiled and uploaded to the command module via USB.

Some more details along with some cool applications here.

This looks like the perfect robotics platform for hobbyists, schools and universities alike.
Security

Submission + - What does your dead man's switch do?

Submitted by
LqdEngineer
LqdEngineer writes: "How many of the Slashdot crowd use or have used a Dead Man's Switch designed to perform some action if you don't check in for a certain amount of time? Recently, I decided to put one together using MySQL and some Cron jobs, but I wanted to see what others have their Switches set up to do in the event you fail to check in. E-mails to loved ones? Send encryption keys to friends/family? Hate mail to your boss? Has anyone ever been on the receiving end of a Dead Man's e-mail? I can't even imagine how creepy that would feel."
Classic Games (Games)

Submission + - Angband GPL dream almost real

Submitted by konijn
konijn writes: Angband is together with Nethack and ADOM one of the 5 big roguelikes. Ever since january 20, 1997 the maintainers have been dual licensing their code and now we are looking to find the last of the missing contributors to get it 100% GPL. We need your help to find these last people and get them to support our GPL initiative! You can find more information here : http://entai.co.uk/projects/angband/opensource/ , the list of missing people is here : http://entai.co.uk/projects/angband/opensource/lis t.html
Software

Submission + - Open source Flickr-like app?

Submitted by Zanguinar
Zanguinar writes: I've been a Gallery user for years now. I have a ton of photos, organized by albums, mainly just for use by my family and close friends. However, some of my friends have begun using Flickr. I can't say I blame them. It's got a great design, and I love the tagging concept. However, I'm not eager to store my photos on somebody else's server, and don't want to pay for the privilege, especially since I already run my own web server. But I can't find any Flickr-like software to run on my home LAMP setup. All I want is to be able to tag my photos like Flickr and be able to display them by tag, tag intersection, date, etc. Why hasn't anybody published some OSS to do this yet?
Movies

Submission + - Update to BackupHDDVD

Submitted by calibanDNS
calibanDNS writes: The BackupHDDVD tool, previously discussed on Slashdot, has reached a 1.0 release. Posted by the author, muslix64, the release includes a description that provides some answers to how the attack works. Details of how the volume keys are extracted from the discs are still missing, however.
NASA

Submission + - NASA captures liquid water flowing on Mars

Submitted by
bananaendian
bananaendian writes: "Wikinews reports that
"NASA scientists have announced that the Mars Global Surveyor has captured images taken by the Mars Orbiter Camera, of what is believed to be liquid water "flowing" into "gullies" from below the surface of the planet Mars and scientists also say that the water appeared within the past seven years. The gullies are located inside the Terra Sirenum crater and the Centauri Montes regions of the Red Planet."
See the images for yourself: NASA Global Surveyor"

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