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Power

Submission + - A light-powered toothbrush?

Submitted by
Roland Piquepaille
Roland Piquepaille writes: "Would you like to use a light-powered toothbrush which needs no toothpaste and no batteries? It's already available in Japan and North America and it costs about $30. Its rod contains titanium dioxide that generates a plaque-removing electrochemical reaction. This 'solar' toothbrush of the future 'works by releasing electrons that then react with the saliva in the mouth and help to breakdown plaque.' It just needs some light — so you'll be able to wash your teeth in your garden or on your balcony. And as it has no batteries, this is a very eco-friendly device. It is currently tested today by 120 students at the University of Saskatchewan, Canada, but it's already available online. But read more additional references and to see how the light-powered Soladey toothbrush works."
Security

Submission + - SPAM: French gov't plans to disconnect content pirates

Submitted by alphadogg
alphadogg writes: The French government has a plan for cutting music and film piracy on the Internet: cut off the pirates' Internet access.The penalty is part of a range of measures to deal with the unauthorized copying of music and video online proposed by the French Ministry of Culture including watermarking content, tracking surfers' activities, and creating a registry of those accused by copyright holders of piracy."We can't accept for much longer that artists be deprived of the fruits of their work," one government official said.
Link to Original Source
Announcements

Submission + - CS Games: rank your coding skills

Submitted by
LinuxRulz
LinuxRulz writes: "For those of you who are still at university, rejoice, for the 2008 edition Computer Science games website is now open for registrations. For those who haven't heard of the event, the CS Games are a North American inter-university computer science related competition with challenges in debugging, ai development, scripting, team programming, algorithms and more. Last year's event attracted more than 300 participants from 30 universities. If you want to value your knowledge and make your university stand out, this is your chance!"
Security

Submission + - Using Google to crack MD5 passwords. (lightbluetouchpaper.org) 2

Submitted by
stern
stern writes: "A security researcher at Cambridge, trying to figure out the password used by somebody who had hacked his website, ran a dictionary through the encryption hash function. No dice. Then he pasted the hacker's encrypted password into Google, and Shazzam — the all-knowing Google delivered his answer. Conclusion? Use no password any other human being is ever likely to use for any purpose, I think."
Linux Business

Submission + - The impact of pirated software on free software (tlug.jp)

Submitted by
jmglov
jmglov writes: "Dave Gutteridge has an interesting take on why people are not interested in saving money by using a free-as-in-beer OS like Linux or *BSD: because Windows is free. At least, that is an all-too-common perception, thanks to bundling and piracy. Bundling is a well-known problem to the adoption of Open Source operating systems, so Dave takes a look at the piracy issue in depth. His title may offend you, but his well-written article will most likely get you thinking hard about the question, "how much *does* Windows cost?"."
Space

Submission + - Very Beautiful, Stunning Magic Act In Outer Space

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: No mirrors, no trapdoors, no hidden passageways, no transparent wires were present at this spectacular magic show held on 11 May 2003 at 20:03:04 UTC high over the Russian Federation. The featured act: Put Earth's Moon in Earth's atmosphere without causing any celestial havoc. Fortunately for us earthbound folks, an Expedition 7 crewmember aboard the International Space Station was at the show with a camera. And he took a picture — a gorgeous NASA photograph (via photo no. 61) — of the Moon appearing to float inside Earth's atmosphere.

Feed Engadget: Researchers devise thermally-activated flexible display (engadget.com)

From feed by engfeed

Filed under: Displays

The race to create bigger smaller and better flexible displays now has yet another participant, but Weijia Wen and colleagues at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology are putting a toasty twist on their iteration. The team has reportedly developed a "flexible, thermally-activated electronic display made from a mixture of metal nanoparticles and plastic," which costs far less than most similar alternatives to create and measures just 150-microns in thickness. Moreover, these units are able to change hues based on the surrounding temperatures, and while only fixed patterns are available for viewing at the moment, the crew hopes to implement an array of "thermal pixels" in the future for more dynamic opportunities. A display that warns you of an overheating machine / battery / toy -- who woulda thunk it?

[Thanks, Alan]

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Office Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the power to bring games to life!
Portables (Games)

Submission + - The best digital comics for your PSP (pocketgamer.co.uk)

Submitted by
marcellizot
marcellizot writes: "The PSP harbours a dark and geeky secret. The PSP is a closet comic fiend, devouring page after page of speech bubbled frames, savouring every luridly coloured image with its huge high resolution cycloptic eye. Portable gaming specialist Pocket Gamer has decided it's high time the PSP was outed as the gift to comic lovers it really is, with a run down of the best PSP comics and graphic novels out there."
Displays

Submission + - Matrox TripleHead2Go Digital Edition reviewed

Submitted by
Might E. Mouse
Might E. Mouse writes: "Matrox has made some refinements to the original TripleHead2Go and has released a digital version of the device. Bit-Tech has a review of the TripleHead2Go Digital Edition up today and on the whole it fares pretty well, but like the older version there are still some drawbacks. From the article: "On the whole, I am very impressed with the TripleHead2Go but there are some definite drawbacks that you might want to consider before taking the plunge. Not every game is supported and you can't guarantee that games you're wanting to play in the future will have support for the super-wide resolutions that the TripleHead2Go can handle.""
Microsoft

Journal Journal: XBox 360 Fix Will Cost $1.15 billion.

Journal by ozmanjusri
Microsoft has admitted that the XBox 360s' "Red Ring of Death" is a real problem, and has set aside more than a billion dollars for warranties on the troubled console.

In what is likely to be the largest warranty payout of all time, Microsoft will repair or replace all failed consoles, reimburse customers who have already paid for repairs and extend the warranty from one year to three.

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And it should be the law: If you use the word `paradigm' without knowing what the dictionary says it means, you go to jail. No exceptions. -- David Jones

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