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Google

Google Admits To Collecting Emails and Passwords 157

Posted by kdawson from the but-we-didn't-inhale dept.
wiredmikey writes "Alan Eustace, Google's Senior VP of Engineering & Research, just put up an interesting blog post on how Google will be creating stronger privacy controls. Right at the end is an interesting admission: that after Streetview WiFi Payload data was analyzed by regulators, their investigations revealed that some incredibly private information was harvested in some cases. Eustace noted that 'It's clear from those inspections that while most of the data is fragmentary, in some instances entire emails and URLs were captured, as well as passwords.'"

Comment But people stopped doing rolling stops! (Score 3, Insightful) 567

by CLorox (#33061884) Attached to: Tennessee Town Releases Red Light Camera Stats

The article doesn't state how many residents of the town were ticketed as opposed to out of town drivers passing through, but lets pretend it did. Nearly 50% of people in this town flagged, and a little under a quarter were ticketed.... in 3 short months? Not sure how many were drivers from outside the town, but that is a ridiculous sum. Change the law or scrap the camera, this is not working and is a burden to the citizens. I wonder how many traffic collisions will occur because people are slamming on the breaks trying to avoid getting ticketed.

How many of these drivers were traveling at a safe posted speed limit and caught a yellow on a rainy day and had no choice but to either enter a skidding sliding stop or get a ticket. and now due to their unfortunate luck have the added benefit of fighting this in court. Burden to the court, burden to the citizen and a significant expense of time and money. What a racket.
Emulation (Games)

Gameboy Color Boot ROM Dumped After 10 Years 124

Posted by Soulskill from the what's-a-decade-among-friends dept.
An anonymous reader writes "Costis was able to dump the elusive boot ROM from the Gameboy Color by using various voltage and clock glitching tricks. The boot ROM is what initializes the Gameboy hardware, displays the 'GAMEBOY' logo and animation, and makes the trademarked 'cling!' sound effect. Even decapping the CPU had failed previously, but now the boot image and specifics on how it was dumped (along with many photos) are available for download."
Space

Sunspots Return 276

Posted by kdawson from the try-this-proven-acne-cure dept.
We're emerging from the longest, deepest sunspot drought since 1913 (we discussed its depths here) with the appearance of a robust group of sunspots over the weekend. Recently we discussed a possible explanation for the prolonged minimum. The Fox News article quotes observer Michael Buxton of Ocean Beach, Calif.: "This is the best sunspot I've seen in two years." jamie found a NASA site where you can generate a movie of the recent sunspot's movement — try selecting the first image type and bumping the resolution to 1024. The magnetic field lines are clearly visible.
Security

Malicious Activity Grew At a Record Pace In 2008 56

Posted by Soulskill from the until-the-record-is-broken-in-2009 dept.
An anonymous reader writes "Symantec announced that malicious code activity continued to grow at a record pace throughout 2008, primarily targeting confidential information of computer users. According to the company's Internet Security Threat Report Volume XIV (PDF), Symantec created more than 1.6 million new malicious code signatures in 2008. This equates to more than 60 percent of the total malicious code signatures ever created by Symantec — a response to the rapidly increasing volume and proliferation of new malicious code threats. These signatures helped Symantec block an average of more than 245 million attempted malicious code attacks across the globe each month during 2008." Another anonymous reader notes a related report from Verizon (PDF), which says 285 million records were compromised in 2008, more than the total of the previous four years combined.
Space

Submission + - Whistle While You Work? Not in Space.

Submitted by
Ant
Ant writes: "ABC News report that astronauts on spacewalks will never, ever be able to whistle while they work in space. Former NASA astronaut, Dan Barry has seven hours of spacewalking time to his credit. He tried whistling during his spacewalk on STS-96 in May 1999. "It wasn't something I hadn't planned — I thought of it on the fly. It turned out that it didn't work." he said. "You can't whistle because the air pressure in the suit is only 4.3 [pounds per square inch], and normal atmospheric pressure is 14.7 psi, so there are not enough air molecules blowing by your lips to make a sound," he said. Seen on Blue's News."

Feed RFID Chips Shrink to Powder Size (wired.com)

From feed by wiredfeed
Hitachi's new tags measure 0.002 inches square, but store as much information as their much-larger predecessors. The company's still investigating possible uses. By the Associated Press.


Slashdot.org

Submission + - super cheap solar power within a few years?

Submitted by tora201
tora201 writes: The Daily Telegraph has an article explaining that we should be able to expect super cheap solar power within a decade, as a new super thin polymer foil 200 times lighter than normal glass-based solar material comes on line. From the article: Within five years, solar power will be cheap enough to compete with carbon-generated electricity, even in Britain, Scandinavia or upper Siberia. In a decade, the cost may have fallen so dramatically that solar cells could undercut oil, gas, coal and nuclear power by up to half. Technology is leaping ahead of a stale political debate about fossil fuels. (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/money/main.jhtml?xml=/ money/2007/02/19/ccview19.xml)
Wireless Networking

Skype Asks FCC to Open Cellular Networks 292

Posted by samzenpus from the level-the-field dept.
Milwaukee's_Best writes "Skype has just asked the FCC to force wireless phone companies to open their networks to all comers. Skype essentially wants to turn the wireless phone companies into just another network of the kind currently operated on the ground. This would require carriers to allow any phone to be used on their networks, and for any application. Users would simply purchase a voice or data plan (though these could easily converge into a data plan if VoIP calling is used) and then use the device of their choice to access the network of their choice. Think of it as network neutrality for cell networks. Given the competition that exists within the industry, is this needed?"

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