61566405
submission
Penguinisto writes:
A new article up on Bloomberg shows that in at least two hospital chains, your doctor can know more about you than you may want them to: "Information compiled by data brokers from public records and credit card transactions can reveal where a person shops, the food they buy, and whether they smoke. The largest hospital chain in the Carolinas is plugging data for 2 million people into algorithms designed to identify high-risk patients, while Pennsylvania’s biggest system uses household and demographic data."
Question is, how soon before your health insurance broker demands/contracts and gets that kind of information, and what privacy can you expect in the future?
56806091
submission
Penguinisto writes:
Researchers have recently gotten a cool idea: If you want to prove how a dinosaur walked, why not test the theory on today's birds? They decided to test things out by putting prosthetic tails on chicks to provide the same balance issues that a T-Rex (and similar bipedal dinosaurs) faced. The prosthetic tails were periodically replaced with larger versions as the chicks grew. The results were astonishing: After 12 weeks, the chickens' legs were measured, and were discovered to have decreased range-of-motion in the knees while their femurs grew longer... just like the T-Rex. You can also see a nifty video of how they did this.
39159127
submission
Penguinisto writes:
Is it an election-enhancing move, or a sign that the TSA is giving up on the porn industry? Either way, major airports are removing the infamous X-Ray "body scanners" in favor of a less intrusive version that only shows a generic body outline. The new "Gumby" scanners debuted in Boston back in July.
38911359
submission
Penguinisto writes:
The America's Cup hopeful and Ellison's favorite $8 million racing yacht Team Oracle capsized today underneath the Golden Gate Bridge. (video). They were testing out a new $2 million sailing wing when the boat suddenly "pitch-poled", capsizing immediately. 14 people were aboard, though no one was hurt. The 13,000 lb boat was pulled four miles offshore by currents before it could be recovered. According to the crew, the boat can be salvaged, but the new multimillion-dollar sailing wing was a "total loss" as it broke up in the bay.
16602638
submission
Penguinisto writes:
According to the BBC, Segway UK owner Jimi Heselden died yesterday in a Segway accident. No word yet if the device malfunctioned, or exactly how (or why) Mr. Heselden and his device fell off of a cliff and into the river Wharfe in Yorkshire.
6398773
submission
Penguinisto writes:
In a move almost designed to shock the geek world, Seth McFarlane of Family Guy (and Robot Chicken, American Dad, etc) fame has agreed to help Microsoft sell Windows 7. The combination of the two will see a pitch for Windows 7 featuring McFarlane's voice and the crew of the Fox television comedy 'Family Guy'.
3740287
submission
Penguinisto writes:
According to CNET, a request for information by Knowledge Ecology International about a pending copyright treaty was denied. Even stranger, the Freedom of Information Act request was denied for "national security" reasons (PDF). While it is not unusual for the White House of any administration to block FOIA requests for national security reasons, One would think that a treaty that affects civil interests alone wouldn't qualify for such secrecy. Not exactly sure what involvement the former RIAA mouthpiece Donald Verelli (a recent Obama pick for the DOJ) may have in this...
1703619
submission
Penguinisto writes:
It seems that after Comcast has successfully imposed a 250GB/mo. bandwidth cap on its users, AT&T wants to give it a try, starting in Reno, Nevada. However, they intend to have lower caps, based on your rate plan. For lower-end users (768Kb DSL),this means you only get 20GB/mo. max, while the highest-paying users (10Mb DSL) get 150GB/mo. at the most (compared to Comcast's across-the-board 250GB/mo. cap). Initially, AT&T will only impose this on new customers, or existing customers who break the 150GB/mo. limit, but expect to impose this to all customers. The relatively good news? Instead of being cut off, users who reach 80% of their caps will be contacted, then pay $1/GB for every GB used over the limit once it is reached.
820989
submission
Penguinisto writes:
Microsoft and Nikon had launched a recent competition called Iconic Britain", but had actively encouraged participants to scrape images off of the Web, and to submit the ones they thought best represented the UK. Problem is, this encouragement fell a bit short in the 'respecting others' copyrights' department... there has been a discussion thread on Flickr expressing various proofs and shades of outrage by users at having their photos ripped off. CNET News reports that they had contacted Microsoft and was told that Microsoft is currently "obtaining the rights", but does not have them yet (but still displays the images). Competition partner Nikon has pulled themselves out of the promotion entirely.
792411
submission
Penguinisto writes:
According to a somewhat jaw-dropping story in The Register, it appears that Microsoft has performed a trifecta of geek-scaring feats: They have joined the Apache Software Foundation as a Platimum member(at $100K USD a year), submitted LGPL-licensed patches for ADOdb, and have pledged to expand it's Open Specifications Promise by adding to the list more than 100 protocols for interoperability between its Windows Server and the Windows client. While I sincerely doubt they'll release Vista under a GPL license anytime soon, this is certainly an unexpected series of moves on their part, and could possibly lead to more OSS (as opposed to "Shared Source") interactivity between what is arguably Linux' greatest adversary and the Open Source community.
564534
submission
Penguinisto writes:
According to C|NET news, Martin Buckley, who was a product manager for Novell's Systems and Resource Management products (e.g. Zenworks), has quit. Buckley confirms it on his blog. He only cited "certain principles" in doing so. No word on whether those principles involves Zenworks possibly getting killed, or ...?
446616
submission
Penguinisto writes:
Saudi Arabia's Interior Ministry has confirmed that it is detaining Fouah al-Farhan for violation of 'security laws'. Farhan apparently knew it was coming, and warned about it almost two weeks in advance on his blog. Even in Pro-Western Saudi Arabia, laws are known to be rather draconian... while the poor guy most likely won't get his tongue cut out (so far they said that they merely wanted him to sign and post an apology), this bodes not well for attempts at opening up societies in the Middle East.
366249
submission
Penguinisto writes:
C|Net news reports that CIO Stuart Scott has been fired (not resigned, not retired... fired. (this is backed up by official MSFT reports on the matter. Not sure if it's because of something serious, if he got into an argument with one of the Board Members, or what... but it's rare that you see someone literally "fired" in print and otherwise.
