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Pleo Review - A Toy Robot Triumph? 112

Posted by Zonk from the would-have-liked-a-nice-cuddly-raptor-better dept.
SkinnyGuy writes "PCMag has one of the first reviews of the new robotic dinosaur. Is it worth $350? I think this reviewer thinks so. 'What most people will have a hard time understanding is that Ugobe's Pleo is one of the most sophisticated personal home entertainment robotic devices on the market today. It easily outshines robot toys from Wow Wee and Hasbro, though both companies offer robots that cost less than half of what Pleo does. Its nearest competitor, the Wow Wee Robopanda, is a good gift for young children, but it's not nearly as adorable, animated, or intelligent as Pleo. (Yes, it can stand up and crawl, but it doesn't look very good doing it.)'"
Security

Internal Emails of An RIAA Attack Dog Leaked 427

Posted by Zonk from the i-believe-this-is-called-comeuppance dept.
qubezz writes "The company MediaDefender works with the RIAA and MPAA against piracy, setting up fake torrents and trackers and disrupting p2p traffic. Previously, the TorrentFreak site accused them of setting up a fake internet video download site designed to catch and bust users. MediaDefender denied the entrapment charges. Now 700MB of MediaDefender's internal emails from the last 6 months have been leaked onto BitTorrent trackers. The emails detail their entire plan, including how they intended to distance themselves from the fake company they set up and future strategies. Other pieces of company information were included in the emails such as logins and passwords, wage negotiations, and numerous other aspect of their internal business."
Security

Boot Sector Virus Shipped on German Laptops 79

Posted by Zonk from the extra-value-for-your-deutschmark dept.
Juha-Matti Laurio writes "A consignment of laptops from German manufacturer Medion, sold through German and Danish branches of giant retail chain Aldi, have been found to be infected with the boot sector virus 'Stoned.Angelina', first seen as long ago as 1994. The affected notebook models (German language) Medion MD 96290 have been pre-installed with Windows Vista Home Premium and Bullguard anti-virus, which reportedly is unable to remove it. A special removal tool was released to clean the laptops. Aldi has shared the same warning as well. Two years ago several thousands of Creative Zen Neeon MP3 players were shipped with a Windows worm Wullik.B."
Software

Jeremy Allison On Microsoft, OOXML and Standards 102

Posted by CowboyNeal from the weighing-in dept.
An anonymous reader writes "OOXML is already Microsoft's "de facto" standard as implemented in Office 2007, so when would any changes arising from the Comments Resolution meeting in February 2008 be put in place? According to Jeremy Allison's latest column, when last minute changes were suggested for the CIFS standard, which Samba exists to disentangle, "the response came back from Microsoft that although the fixes were valid, unfortunately the code was already written and was going to be shipped in the next service pack. End of discussion. It wasn't even in a shipping product yet, but the specification was determined to be unchangeable as they didn't want to change their existing code.""
Portables

OLPC Cost Rises To $188 Per Laptop 270

Posted by Zonk from the still-not-a-ton-of-money dept.
Arathon writes "The amazing '$100 laptop' designed by the 'One Laptop Per Child' program isn't going to make it out the door for that price. CNN reports that the laptops are now expected to cost $188 apiece when they come out later this fall. This is expected to make the program's appeal potentially much smaller, since the developers were relying on the mind-bogglingly low-price to hook governments into the concept of buying laptops for their people. OLPC's spokesman guarantees that the price won't rise further, to 'above $190'. The price differential is being blamed on raw materials costs and currency fluctuation. Is this the end of the OLPC's newsworthiness, or should we continue to hope that it will make the difference that so many have said it will?"

Science vs. Homeopathy 686

Posted by Zonk from the five-bucks-says-science-wins dept.
Mr. E writes "Ars Technica has an interesting look at pseudoscience as it applies to homeopathy. While most discussions about what science is get derailed by the larger controversies surrounding them, Ars chose a relatively uncontroversial pseudo-science to examine so that they could examine the factors which make homeopathy a psuedo-science: ignoring settled issues in science, misapplication of real science, rejection of scientific standards, claims of suppression, large gaps between the conclusion and evidence, and a focus only on the fringes of what we currently understand."
Google

Submission + - The energy problem, and what we can do to solve it

Submitted by
notyou2
notyou2 writes: "Steve Chu, Nobel prize winner and Director of Lawrence Berkeley National Labs, recently presented a talk at Google. It's a balanced look at all aspects of the energy problem and its effects, from global warming to emerging technologies, and well worth viewing. 'Among America's most serious concerns are (i) national security, which is intimately tied to energy security, (ii) economic competitiveness, and (iii) the environment. These issues transcend our national boundaries and have serious implications for the world. At the core of these problems is need to secure clean, affordable and sustainable sources of energy. Solutions must come from a combination of improvements on both the demand and supply side, and science and technology will be an essential part of the solution. After briefly describing the energy problem, the remainder of the talk will describe areas of research that may lead to transforming technologies.'"
The Courts

Vonage Loses VoIP Case With Verizon 150

Posted by CowboyNeal from the time-to-pony-up dept.
cdrudge writes "A federal jury on Thursday said Vonage Holdings Corp. violated 3 of 5 patents of Verizon Communications Inc. and ordered the upstart Internet-phone company to pay $58m in damages as well as 5.5% in royalty fees per month per customer. Verizon said it would seek an injunction to block Vonage from using its patented technology. The jury did reject Verizon's claim of $200m in damages and that Vonage deliberately violated Verizon's patents. As you might expect, Vonage said it would appeal the decision and seek a stay if an injunction is granted. Judge Claude Hilton set a hearing for March 23 on whether to grant an injunction."
Microsoft

Submission + - Windows Vista for free for portuguese students

Submitted by
macnet
macnet writes: "Microsoft is offering 100 thousand copies of their latest operative system to the Portuguese college students and teachers in technology related courses. This offer is part of the educational program signed between the Portuguese government and Microsoft. Microsoft Portugal as included Windows Vista on the Microsoft Development Network Academic Alliance (MSDN-AA) just one month after its release. More info can be found at http://www.microsoft.com/portugal/universidade/pro gramas/univ_msdnaa.mspx."
The Courts

Submission + - Vonage Ordered to Pay Verizon $58M

Submitted by
An anonymous reader writes: A jury ordered Internet phone provider Vonage Holdings Corporation to pay $58 million for infringing on three patents owned by Verizon Communications Inc. Thursday. The eight-member federal jury also said Vonage must pay a 5.5 percent royalty rate on Vonage sales going forward. Jurors concluded that Vonage infringed on two patents covering technology to connect Internet calls to the traditional phone system and also infringed on a third patent involving wireless Internet phone calls.

U.S. Judge Claude Hilton set a March 23 hearing on whether he should issue an injunction barring Vonage's use of the technologies covered by the patents.
Networking

Submission + - How can I connect safely over the Internet?

Submitted by
crayiii
crayiii writes: "Okay, so I've got computers with files and resources, I've got servers with files, PocketPC phones, work computers, laptops with EVDO... All of these connected to the Internet. Now, how do I safely get this all connected into some kind of usable resource pool? I run linux at home and would love to be able to map the space I have on http://www.dreamhost.com/ to use as file storage and offsite backups. I would like to be able to use that same space from windows and my PocketPC phone (Sprint PPC-6700). I have Cisco VPN access for work through a terminal server and a RSA SecureID fob. The problem is I have to log on through a web browser and install an activeX cisco client. Is there something that will work on Linux? How about PocketPC? At work I run air dispersion modeling software and sometimes I need another box to (RE)run a portion or I need to run one for a coworker/counterpart. I have nice Linux boxes at home that I would love to be able to assign some of this work to. How can I safely remote control these machines? VNC? FreeNX? When I'm on the road with my laptop, how can I utilize the resources I have at home and at Dreamhost? I'm looking for a way to converge all of these resources into an easy to use, useful, pool."
Windows

Submission + - Vista Validation Totally Cracked

Submitted by
Brian Gordon
Brian Gordon writes: "The Inquirer reports that cracking group PARADOX has cracked Vista's activation model. The new crack results in an installation virtually identical to that of a legitimately activated license key, which means that cracked installs are eligible for Windows Updates and will pass WGA validation.

From the readme: Microsoft allows large hardware manufacturers (e.g. ASUS, HP, Dell) to ship their products containing a Windows Vista installation that does NOT require any kind of product activation as this might be considered an unnecessary inconvenience for the end-user. The basic concept of the tool at hand is to present any given BIOS ACPI_SLIC information to Windows Vista's licensing mechanism by means of a device driver. In combination with a matching product key and OEM certificate this allows for rendering any system practically indistinguishable from a legit pre-activated system shipped by the respective OEM."

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