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Diebold Disks May Have Been For Testers 182

opencity writes "The Washington Post reports on the two Diebold source disks that were anonymously sent to a Maryland election official this past week. Further investigation has lead individuals involved to believe the disks came from a security check demanded by the Maryland legislature sometime in 2003." From the article: "Critics of electronic voting said the most recent incident in Maryland casts doubt on Lamone's claim that Maryland has the nation's most secure voting system. "There now may be numerous copies of the Diebold software floating around in unauthorized hands," said Linda Schade, co-founder of TrueVoteMD, which has pressed for a system that provides a verifiable paper record of each vote."

Compress Wikipedia and Win AI Prize 324

Baldrson writes "If you think you can compress a 100M sample of Wikipedia better than paq8f, then you might want to try winning win some of a (at present) 50,000 Euro purse. Marcus Hutter has announced the Hutter Prize for Lossless Compression of Human Knowledge the intent of which is to incentivize the advancement of AI through the exploitation of Hutter's theory of optimal universal artificial intelligence. The basic theory, for which Hutter provides a proof, is that after any set of observations the optimal move by an AI is find the smallest program that predicts those observations and then assume its environment is controlled by that program. Think of it as Ockham's Razor on steroids. Matt Mahoney provides a writeup of the rationale for the prize including a description of the equivalence of compression and general intelligence."

How to Become Invisible 336

mdm42 writes "Looks like a theoretical physicist at St. Andrews University in Scotland believes that invisibility may be possible. And its not going to be a potion or a cloak, but will come in the form of a device. " Let's just hope that when the invisible woman arrives, she's played more convincingly than Jessica Alba.

Game Console Energy Usage Comparison 364

Broadband writes "Modern gaming consoles consume more and more power, dissipate more and more heat and cause a lot more noise with their cooling systems compared to their brethren a decade ago. While it's obvious that an Xbox 360 would have higher energy demands then a Playstation 1, the curious question is by how much? Even more importantly is the question of whether your console might be costing you money while you sleep. Preposterous you say? Actually quite the opposite! We put every console in our lab through rigorous testing to find the answers to these questions and see who the energy hogs really are. "

Homeland Security Okays Closed Proceedings 281

CNet is reporting that a newly created branch within the Homeland Security Department that brings together many different federal agency employees and private sector players has been given the go-ahead to disregard a law requiring meetings to be open and proceedings public. From the article: "The 1972 law generally requires such groups to meet in open sessions, make written meeting materials publicly available, and deliver a 15-day notice of any decision to close a meeting to the public. The last is a particular point of concern for Homeland Security officials, who anticipate that private emergency meetings may need to be scheduled on short notice."

Online Test Measures Speed of your Brain 256

KingSkippus writes "According to CNet, a company named Posit Science has produced an online test using Flash that uses sounds to measure the speed of your brain down to the millisecond. According to the company, the test 'measures auditory processing (listening) speed—one of many measures of brain function...The faster we can take in information accurately, the better we can keep up with, respond to and remember what we hear.'"

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