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Submission + - The Pirate Bay Gets Hacked

Submitted by
An anonymous reader writes: A group of hackers has stolen a list of all 1.6 million usernames and passwords for registered users of file-sharing site The Pirate Bay. Computer Sweden reports that the sensitive information was accessed by a group calling itself Angry Young Hackers (Arga Unga Hackare — AUH). Source: http://www.thelocal.se/7280/20070511/
The Internet

Submission + - Search engines evolution - Enter social search

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: In the beginning search was done with Archie then came Gopher, Veronica and Jughead they indexed files and directories in FTP sites.
WebCrawler was the first "full text" crawler-based search engine. To increase quality of sites displayed in search results, human edited directories such as Yahoo! and DMOZ appeared.
Then came Google. with the concept of link popularity and an improved site ranking which made it the search king ruling till this day. For some time, people feel that Google search results are not good, as sites fight to appear in its first results. Google's link popularity concept seems to be broken and its time for search to evolve again.
Enter social bookmarking. People save their bookmarks online (in sites like del.icio.us) and post links to interesting sites (in sites like slashdot and digg). In a way, people that use these sites act as smart agents and add to these big databases the most liked sites on the web. No company could compete with the man hours people put in saving and tagging their bookmarks. No algorithm could calculate site quality better than humans who use these sites.
New search site 50 Matches is in this search evolution junction. 50 Matches crawls only web sites that were bookmarked or voted for by people, in social / community sites. By combining human indexing with machine indexing, a next generation of social powered search engine is born, tapping into the wisdom of the crowds.
Microsoft

Why Doesn't Microsoft Have A Cult Religion? 535

Posted by Zonk from the hats-would-be-really-weird-looking dept.
rs232 writes "'Apple has one. So does the Java community, Oracle, IBM, and Google. Lord knows anyone who uses Linux or free and open source software is dedicated to spreading the gospel of St. Linus Torvalds and St. Richard Stallman. But does anyone really worship the Gods of Redmond?' While many Microsoft employees are pumped to work there, article author Michael Singer explores why even enthusiastic Microsoft-watchers acknowledge that customers and product developers are unenthusiastic about the software giant. He theorizes that it comes down to passion: Microsoft lost that a long time ago, he says, and so passionate people gravitate to other projects and products."
Software

Submission + - Could we live without open source?

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Of the 118,023,363 sites surveyed by NetCraft so far in the month of May, just over 70 million of them wouldn't work if open source software were to disappear. A Day Without Open Source gives several examples of what would break [and pokes fun at MSN]. However, this got me to thinking. The real question should be: Could we live without open source? All of the proprietary companies that bitch about open source should read this and think about how stupid some of the statements they make are.
Software

Submission + - Proprietary software is from dark ages

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Krish makes this comparison between proprietary software and dark ages where Kings ruled over the countries. He then goes on to argue that open source software is like a mature democracy of the modern world. An interesting take. Complete Story
NASA

Submission + - New Eyes in the Sky

Submitted by
nlhouser
nlhouser writes: "Similar to an aging person that doesnt fit into society anymore, the Hubble would require periodic visits for maintenance along with part replacements, being replaced by something younger and more up-to-date with what humanity requires to understand their own future. And that is where the James Web Space Telescope comes in."
Portables

Submission + - Pacemakers Threatened by iPod Interference

Submitted by
Anders Søndergaard
Anders Søndergaard writes: "From the article:
An iPod-versus-pacemaker study by a Michigan student revealed that three different types of interference can occur between an iPod and a pacemaker: Two types of iPod interference, oversensing and telemetry interference, were the most persistent, while the third type, complete pacemaker inhibition, happened in just 1.2 percent of patients.
(http://www.newsfactor.com/news/Pacemakers-Threate ned-by-iPods/story.xhtml?story_id=023001BY3XS8)

Apparently it's not a good idea to mix iPods with pacemakers, as an iPod can
turn a pacemaker off. I don't know how many of Slashdot's readers use pacemakers (and/or iPods),
but it's interesting to hear that an iPod causes so much electromagnetic interference.
Was this to be expected?"
It's funny. Laugh.

Submission + - Hordes of Monkeys Lay Seige To Indian City

Submitted by
TheTXLibra
TheTXLibra writes: "Hordes of Monkeys Lay Seige To Indian City

According to the story, a three year old in the heart of the town was critically injured by a monkey. A pack of monkeys bit a man and two children, and are vandalizing people's property and pets. Children are being attacked on their way to and from school, and forest officials have received "innumerable complaints regarding the monkey menace".

The monkeys besieging Kokrajhar are the endangered goldden langur, one of the rarest primates on earth, and is sacred to many Himalayan peoples. In other words, they cannot be killed. At best, forestry officials have claimed a plan to tranquilize the monkeys and deposit them deeper into the forests, but as of yet have done nothing.

In early 2006, Delhi's High Court directed a ban on maurading monkeys, but found difficulty when at least one monkey catcher suffered a 72-stitch mauling. They've even been declared a security threat, to the point where a cabinet minister could not enter his office for months, because the monkeys would not let anyone enter.

Previous monkey attacks in the area back in 2001 were found to be false claims by "anti-national" forces to spark violence in the Capital. The recent surge in monkey attacks suggest this finding may have been in haste.

So what does it mean? Are the monkeys reacting to a change in the global climate, perhaps more sensitive to it than humans at the moment? Or is it merely the rapid industrial growth of India, which saw a 10-year high of more than 12%. As more of India's natural habitat is cut down for industry and residential areas, more and more monkeys are moving into human areas, challenging for territory in the only way they know how.

Killing the monkeys is currently out of the question. Per the Indian Wildlife Protection Act of 1972, it is illegal to kill or possess any animal, its skin or body parts. This leaves little to no recourse for the Indians in how to deal with the overpopulation of monkeys, their attacks, thefts, and challenge to territory. If such sieges by hordes of monkeys continue, we might very well see this Act overturned by the Delhi High Court in the near future.

www.telegraphindia.com (visit the link for the full news article)"
Space

Submission + - Canada Has Lower Gravity

Submitted by vparkash
vparkash writes: Its official. Canadians weigh lesser than their American neighbors! The Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (GRACE) satellite system has determined that the Earth's gravitational field over Canada, especially near the Hudson Bay area is lesser than surrounding areas. GRACE is a joint venture between NASA and German Aerospace Center. The system comprises two satellites in LEO, that use a microwave altimeter to detect tiny fluctuations in the earth's gravity with a resolution of around a micron
Announcements

Submission + - Liquids as Future Data Storage

Submitted by
An anonymous reader writes: The researches from the University of Nottingham accidentally discovered that they can write and erase on the surface of so-called ionic liquids — the method that could one day be applied to high-density data storage, making templates for etching silicon chips (photolithography) and a variety of other materials applications.
Enlightenment

Submission + - Are you fat on the inside?

Submitted by eZtaR
eZtaR writes: Discovery Channel News have a story which states that recent studies show that fat surrounding internal organs might be even more dangerous than regular obesity, and even though you don't seem fat with the naked eye, you might have large amounts of fat surrounding your internal organs. I guess it's the only time when some's said "It's what the inside that counts" it's actually been true..
Hardware Hacking

Submission + - Protect a bridge from quakes - don't tie it down

Submitted by holy_calamity
holy_calamity writes: Bridges can be made more resistant to earthquakes by not tying them down properly, say engineers at Buffalo University. In trials on 'shake tables' 9 metre, 9 tonne, steel towers were allowed to totter to the point their legs left the ground by up to 10cm — dampers prevent them from falling over completely. Letting the towers rock out would isolate the structure from the rapid movements of the quake. Two videos show the tests.

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Thus spake the master programmer: "After three days without programming, life becomes meaningless." -- Geoffrey James, "The Tao of Programming"

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