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Biotech

Submission + - Robotic Surgery on a Beating Heart

Submitted by
An anonymous reader writes: Serious heart surgery usually involves stopping the organ and keeping the patient alive with a cardiopulmonary bypass machine. But this risks brain damage and requires a long recuperation. Scientists at Harvard University and Children's Hospital Boston have now developed a device lets surgeons operate on a beating heart with a steady hand. The 'robotic' device uses 3-D ultrasound images to predict and compensate for the motion of the heart so that the surgeon can work on a faulty valve as it moves. The approach should improve recovery times and give a surgeon instant feedback on the success of the procedure the researchers say. Watch a (slightly gory) video of the device in action here
Government

Submission + - Cloud Computing May Draw Government Action (infoworld.com)

Submitted by
snydeq
snydeq writes: "Cloud computing will soon become an area of hot debate in Washington, as the increasing popularity of cloud-based services is putting pressure on policy makers to answer tough questions on the privacy and security of data in the cloud. For example: Who owns the data that consumers store on the network? Should law enforcement agencies have easier access to personal information in the cloud than data on a personal computer? Do government procurement regulations need to change to allow agencies to embrace cloud computing? So far, U.S. courts have generally ruled that private data stored in the cloud doesn't enjoy the same level of protection from law enforcement searches that data stored on a personal computer does, said Ari Schwartz, COO of the Center for Democracy and Technology. 'I do think government has an almost infinite ability to screw up things when they can't see the future,' former Bill Clinton tech policy advisor Mike Nelson added. 'We have to have leadership that believes in empowering users and empowering citizens.'"
Spam

Submission + - Virigina Supreme Court: Spam Is Protected Speech

Submitted by
geoffspear
geoffspear writes: "The Virginia Supreme Court today ruled that the state's anti-spam law violates the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. The ruling hinges on the law's failure to make an exception for political and religious unsolicited bulk email, though the decision was made in a case in which the Court reversed the conviction of a spammer who sent only commercial spam."
Media (Apple)

Submission + - SPAM: NBC crawls back to iTunes

Submitted by yasowhat
yasowhat writes: During his keynote speech of September 9, 2008, Steve Jobs told his audience that NBC television shows, which include the popular Battlestar Galactica and The Office, will once again return to the iTunes store.
Link to Original Source
Spam

Submission + - One less spammer

Submitted by Apathist
Apathist writes: Respect for the dead be damned. There don't appear to be many details yet, but convicted spammer Edward Davidson has died in an apparent murder/suicide, a few days after escaping from a minimum security prison. What do you think, death too severe a consequence for such people?
Security

Fifth Cable Cut To Middle East 676

Posted by CmdrTaco from the now-wait-a-minute dept.
You may have noticed a number of stories recently about undersea cables getting cut around the world. Apparently the total is now up to 5, but the scariest part of this is that Iran is now offline. You can also read Schneier's comments on this coincidence. Update: 02/06 17:42 GMT by Z : As a commenter notes, though the country of Iran is obviously experiencing some networking difficulties, it is not offline.
The Internet

Submission + - CRIA Brings Down Demonoid

Submitted by Voline
Voline writes: As of 09:15 GMT the popular, private, Bittorrent-tracking site, Demonoid, is offline. Attempting to load the site results in blank white page with only the following text on it:

"The CRIA [Canadian Recording Industry Association] threatened the company renting the servers to us, and because of this it is not possible to keep the site online. Sorry for the inconvenience and thanks for your understanding."
Demonoid had previously moved it's servers to Canada from the Netherlands to avoid legal threats there.
Privacy

Submission + - NSA monitors all web traffic: ex-AT&T tech (rawstory.com)

Submitted by Sir Tandeth
Sir Tandeth writes: http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/Story?id=3833172&page=1 A former technician at AT&T, who alleges that the telecom giant forwards virtually all of its internet traffic into a "secret room" to facilitate government spying, says the whole operation reminds him of something out of Orwell's 1984. Appearing on MSNBC's Countdown program, whistleblower Mark Klein told Keith Olbermann that a copy of all internet traffic passing over AT&T lines was copied into a locked room at the company's San Francisco office — to which only employees with National Security Agency clearance had access.

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