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Submission + - Who dat say you gotta cease and desist? (neworleans.com)

Submitted by margaret
margaret writes: Now that hell has frozen over and the New Orleans Saints are amazingly good, the NFL has decided to start issuing cease and desist letters for use of the fleur-de-lis, a symbol dating back to the 12th century which has long been ubiquitous in Louisiana culture. Hell, it's on the official city flag. And Quebec's flag too — is the NFL going to go after the Canadians next? Even the guy with the "Who Dat" trademark thinks it's bogus. From the article: "They're not just protecting their marks; that's an attempt to make an example of a small business owner. And the irony of it all is that the NFL doesn't own Who Dat or the fleur de lis — neither one!... Sure, a fleur de lis can belong to the Saints, but in very specific usage, and everybody knows what that is," Monistere explained. "If you go back to 1967, to date, they have registered and used the fleur de lis in a very specific way. They put it on the Saints helmet and on the Saints shield. Its colors are very specific — they're old gold and black. But for the NFL to expand that definition and say that no matter what color and what style of fleur de lis, if you put it on an item, it means Saints, it is, as many believe, is just not correct. The fleur de lis belongs to everyone including the people of New Orleans."
PlayStation (Games)

Submission + - Video gamers make for better killers

Submitted by oxide7
oxide7 writes: Research has found that video games can help adults process information much faster and improve their abilities to reason and solve problems in novel contexts, The US Office of Naval finds. This results in combat fighters that more capable at taking on the enemy than non-gamers. Early indications suggest that cognitive improvements from video games can last up to two and half years, Perez said, but he admitted that so far the results have been relegated to observations and measurements in a controlled laboratory environment.
Science

Submission + - Laser Fusion Passes Major Hurdle (bbc.co.uk)

Submitted by chill
chill writes: The National Ignition Facility at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory has performed their first controlled fusion experiments using all 192 lasers. While still not ramped up to full power, the first experiments proved very fruitful. The lasers create a lot of plasma in the target container and it was worried that the plasma would interfere with the ability of the target to absorb enough energy to ignite. These experiments show that not only does enough energy make it through, the plasma can be manipulated to increase the uniformity of compression. Ramping up of power is due to start in May.
United States

Submission + - Nurse Defeat IRS Paves Way For Education Deduction (yahoo.com)

Submitted by suraj.sun
suraj.sun writes: A Maryland nurse accomplished two rare feats in her battle with the Internal Revenue Service: She defended herself against the agency's lawyers and won, and she got a ruling that could help tens of thousands of students deduct the cost of an M.B.A. degree on their taxes.

The U.S. Tax Court handed Lori Singleton-Clarke her victory last month, saying the 47-year-old Bryantown, Md., woman had properly deducted nearly $15,000 in business school tuition. The Tax Court ruling should make it easier for many other professionals to deduct the expense of a Master in Business Administration degree.

The IRS's rules on deducting work-related tuition are complicated and onerous, ultimately preventing most students from deducting their tuition. But this case clarifies the rules and will likely lead to more taxpayers taking the deduction, tax experts say.

Few taxpayers decide to go toe to toe with the IRS as Ms. Singleton-Clarke did, arguing her case without a lawyer. For good reason: In 2009, individuals won only about 10% of about 300 such cases, according to data from Tax Analysts. Ms. Singleton-Clarke fought her case in Tax Court, a venue where taxpayers don't have to pay the contested tax before going to trial.

Yahoo Finance : http://finance.yahoo.com/taxes/article/108550/nurse-outduels-irs-over-mba-tuition?mod=taxes-advice_strategy
Microsoft

Submission + - What to Expect From Windows 7 SP1 (infoworld.com)

Submitted by snydeq
snydeq writes: The first inklings of a public Windows 7 SP1 beta program are beginning to emerge, with hidden registry keys and a leaked list of post-RTM build numbers surfacing on the Web. 'Beyond the obvious bug fixes and security patches, we'll no doubt see support for the new USB 3.0 standard. Likewise, enhancements to the Bluetooth and Wi-Fi stacks will be slipstreamed in, allowing Windows 7 to retain its mantle as the most easily configured version ever,' writes InfoWorld's Randall Kennedy. 'But perhaps the most significant "update" to come out of Service Pack 1 will be the fact that it exists at all, and that by delivering it to market Microsoft will be signaling that it is now OK for IT shops to pull the trigger on their Windows 7 deployments.'
Portables (Apple)

Thieves Clear Out NJ Apple Store In 31 Seconds 459

Posted by timothy from the you're-soooo-specific dept.
theodp writes "An amazing surveillance tape of a burglary in progress at a New Jersey Apple Store shows five perps in masks smashing the plate-glass doors at 2:05 a.m., signaling to the security guard that they had a gun, and clearing off the display tables with the efficiency of a Indy 500 pit crew. The take: 23 MacBook Pros, 14 iPhones and 9 iPod touches in 31 seconds flat. Estimated value, based on average selling price: $46,345. No word yet on whether Microsoft's Laptop Hunters have alibis."
Networking

Hulu Munging HTML With JS To Protect Content 281

Posted by CmdrTaco from the escalating-arms-race dept.
N!NJA writes "Hulu has started encoding the html that they send to people's browsers, and then decoding it using javascript before rendering it. [...] They then run the character stream through a series of javascript functions to convert it back into plain text before pushing it into your browser using DHTML. That's quite a lot of effort just for fun, so I assume that is to stop screen scrapers from parsing content." I really can't understand all this effort. Boxee displayed the Hulu advertising perfectly. I suspect Alec Baldwin is to blame.
United States

Obamas Give Queen Elizabeth an iPod 649

Posted by samzenpus from the obama-save-the-queen dept.
Ponca City, We love you writes "What did the Obamas give Queen Elizabeth II on Wednesday when they arrived at Buckingham Palace? An Obama aide reported the queen was given an iPod loaded with video and photos of her 2007 trip to the United States, as well as songs and accessories. She also received a rare songbook signed by the composer Richard Rodgers. The gift issue had come up after Prime Minister Gordon Brown visited the White House last month. Mr. Brown gave Mr. Obama a pen holder carved from the timber of an anti-slave ship, receiving in return a DVD box set of American movies, igniting a torrent of criticism in the British press. According to news reports, the queen gave the Obamas a silver-framed signed photograph — a gift she gives to all visiting dignitaries."
Security

New Legislation Would Federalize Cybersecurity 194

Posted by samzenpus from the big-brother-security dept.
Hugh Pickens writes "Senators Jay Rockefeller and Olympia J. Snowe are pushing to dramatically escalate US defenses against cyberattacks, crafting proposals in Senate legislation that could be introduced as early as today, that would empower the government to set and enforce security standards for private industry for the first time. The legislation would broaden the focus of the government's cybersecurity efforts to include not only military networks but also private systems that control essentials such as electricity and water distribution. 'People say this is a military or intelligence concern, but it's a lot more than that,' says Rockefeller, a former intelligence committee chairman. 'It suddenly gets into the realm of traffic lights and rail networks and water and electricity.' The bill, containing many of the recommendations of the landmark study 'Securing Cyberspace for the 44th Presidency' (PDF) by the Center for Strategic and International Studies, would create the Office of the National Cybersecurity Adviser, whose leader would report directly to the president and would coordinate defense efforts across government agencies. The legislation calls for the appointment of a White House cybersecurity 'czar' with unprecedented authority to shut down computer networks, including private ones, if a cyberattack is underway. It would require the National Institute of Standards and Technology to establish 'measurable and auditable cybersecurity standards' that would apply to private companies as well as the government. The legislation also would require licensing and certification of cybersecurity professionals."

Submission + - Google AJAX Libraries API (sourceforge.net)

Submitted by SF:robertob
SF:robertob writes: We are happy to start using AJAX technology in our software. We are starting to use Google AJAX Libraries API to access to Dojo toolkit functionality.
Communications

Submission + - Unpaid bills? Good luck starting future laptops (ap.org)

Submitted by astrojetsonjr
astrojetsonjr writes: AP Technology has a story by Peter Svensson titled Unpaid bills? Good luck starting future laptops

NEW YORK (AP) — As wireless carriers begin to subsidize computers that come with wireless Internet access, they're faced with a quandary: What do they do if the buyer stops paying his bills?

The company can cut off the computer's wireless access, but the carrier would still be out a couple of hundred dollars. The buyer would be left with a computer that's fully usable except for cellular broadband.

LM Ericsson AB, the Swedish company that makes many of the modems that go into laptops, announced Tuesday that its new modem will deal with this issue by including a feature that's virtually a wireless repo man. If the carrier has the stomach to do so, it can send a signal that completely disables the computer, making it impossible to turn on.

"We call it a `kill pill,'" said Mats Norin, Ericsson's vice president of mobile broadband modules.

Laptop makers that use Ericsson modules include LG Electronics Inc., Dell Inc., Toshiba Corp. and Lenovo.

There are positive benefits, like being able to turn off stolen laptops, but the ability for the black hats to extort owners is far higher. Thanks Ericsson, something else to worry about.
United States

Submission + - SPAM: Convert Ost to Pst

Submitted by
Convert Ost to Pst
Convert Ost to Pst writes: "Exchange OST File Recovery Software designed to convert OST to PST files. Exchange OST recovery software convert unusable Microsoft Exchange Offline Storage Files (.OST) file to a Personal Storage File (.PST) file that can be used with Microsoft Outlook."
Link to Original Source
Space

Submission + - Top 10 Mysterious Things in Space (13above.com)

Submitted by mysearch2007
mysearch2007 writes: The more we look among the stars and galaxies, the weirder things seem to get. Even space itself is puzzling, for example. Recent studies suggest that the fabric of the universe stretches more than 150 billion light-years across — in spite of the fact that the cosmos is 13.7 billion years old....Learn more mysteries...!
Earth

Submission + - Leaving computers on all night costs US $2.8bil/yr (yahoo.com)

Submitted by suraj.sun
suraj.sun writes: Leaving computers on all night costs US $2.8 billion a year :

All the power wasted while computers are sitting idle overnight adds up, and one study has finally tried to measure it. The tally: An estimated $2.8 billion wasted on excess energy costs each year in the U.S. alone.

On a CO2 basis, that's 20 million tons of carbon dioxide, about the amount produced by 4 million cars on the road.

1E Energy Awareness Campaign : http://www.1e.com/energycampaign/index.aspx

Y! News : http://tech.yahoo.com/blogs/null/130078

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