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Comment Re:Solar Power? (Score 1) 409

From TFA:
"Why does it cost so much? To power an air conditioner at a remote outpost in land-locked Afghanistan, a gallon of fuel has to be shipped into Karachi, Pakistan, then driven 800 miles over 18 days to Afghanistan on roads that are sometimes little more than "improved goat trails," Anderson says."

Bringing in solar panels would reduce costs in the long run, but the transport investment would be the same or higher. I agree that there are greener ways to handle this. Personally, I think it's insane they provide air conditioning at all.

Comment Re:Shit, this is what I feared (Score 4, Funny) 159

The Person you tagged as being Jane Starz does not have a Facebook account. However: We have found these e-mail addresses, a blog, a Flickr page, twenty-nine forum accounts, pictures from their childhood and two criminal records .
[ ] Would you like to use our handy app to contact this person?
[ ] Would you like to create a Facebook page for this person and add all this data to the page with Just One Handy click?
{Submit} {Cancel} (Wait, that's actually also a submit button, but never mind. Just say yes.)
Government

Submission + - RIAA lobbyist becomes federal judge, rules on file (arstechnica.com) 1

suraj.sun writes: RIAA lobbyist becomes federal judge, rules on file-sharing cases:

Last week, Washington, DC federal judge Beryl Howell ruled on three mass file-sharing lawsuits. Judges in Texas, West Virginia, and Illinois had all ruled recently that such lawsuits were defective in various ways, but Howell gave her cases the green light; attorneys could use the federal courts to sue thousands of people at once and then issue mass subpoenas to Internet providers.

Beryl Howell isn't the only judge to believe this, but her important ruling is especially interesting because of Howell's previous work: lobbying for the recording industry during the time period when the RIAA was engaged in its own campaign of mass lawsuits against individuals. The news, first reported in a piece at TorrentFreak, nicely illustrates the revolving door between government and industry.

ARS Technica: http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2011/03/riaa-lobbyist-becomes-federal-judge-rules-on-file-sharing-cases.ars

Cloud

Submission + - Amazon launches cloud music player (ibtimes.com)

An anonymous reader writes: Amazon.com Inc has launched an online service that would enable its customers to securely store music in the cloud and play it on any Android phone, Android tablet, Mac or PC, wherever they are. The online retailer's latest offerings comes ahead of rivals Apple and Google, which are reportedly working on developing similar systems.
Networking

Submission + - Paul Baran, packet switching inventor, dies (networkworld.com)

An anonymous reader writes: Paul Baran, whose Cold War era invention of packet switching technology helped to lay the foundation for the Internet, has died at the age of 84. A native of Poland whose family moved to Philadelphia when he was a youngster, Baran developed his concept of a survivable store-and-forward communications network while at RAND Corp.in the midst of the Cuban Missile Crisis. That concept of packet switching, a digital communications method involving the movement of data divvied up into what Baran called "message blocks" over shared and distributed networks, later found its way into the ARPANET, which evolved into the Internet.
Music

Submission + - Can you really be traced from an IP address? (pcpro.co.uk)

Barence writes: "Identifying individuals using nothing more than their IP address has become a key part of anti-piracy and criminal investigations. But a PC Pro investigation casts serious doubt on the validity of IP-based evidence.

"In general, the accuracy of IP address tracing varies depending on the type of user behind the IP address,” Tom Colvin, chief technology officer with security vendor Conseal told PC Pro. “Whilst big businesses can be traceable right back to their datacenters, standard family broadband connections are often hard to locate, even to county-level accuracy."

"The reason is that there are a number of sources of IP address information, the accuracy of which deteriorates with the number of hops from the backbone.""

Businesses

Submission + - Intellectual Capital: The New Cybercrime Currency (net-security.org)

Orome1 writes: Cybercriminals understand there is greater value in selling a corporations’ proprietary information and trade secrets which have little to no protection making intellectual capital their new currency of choice, according to McAfee and SAIC. The cyber underground economy is making its money on the theft of corporate intellectual capital which includes trade secrets, marketing plans, research and development findings and even source code. Only three in ten organizations report all data breaches suffered, and six in ten organizations currently “pick and choose” the breaches they report. China, Russia, Pakistan are perceived to be the least safe for data storage, and the United Kingdom, Germany and the United States are perceived to be the most safe.
Medicine

Submission + - Mobile Phone May Rot Your Bones (thinq.co.uk)

Stoobalou writes: Researchers at the the National University of Cuyo, in Mendoza, Argentina, looked at that strange breed — men who wear mobile phones on their hip. They discovered evidence to suggest that the proximity of the mobile phone caused a reduction in bone mineral content (BMC) and bone mineral density (BMD) in the men who wore the phones over a 12-month period, compared to a control group that didn't.
Japan

Submission + - Can Japan Send In Robots To Fix Nuclear Reactors? (ieee.org)

iztaru writes: When it comes to robots, Japan is a superpower, with some of the world's most advanced robotic systems and the highest levels of industrial automation. So it makes sense to ask: Why can't Japan use robots to fix the damaged reactors at the Fukushima Dai-1 nuclear power plant?
Security

Submission + - Iran targets Gmail and Skype with fake SSL hack (pcpro.co.uk)

nk497 writes: "Iran-based attackers hacked a security certificate authority, Comodo, and set up fake certificates for Hotmail, Gmail and Google, Skype, Yahoo, and Mozilla Firefox extensions. The fake SSL certificates have since been blocked by browsers and Microsoft has issued a patch.

Comodo believes the attack is state-based and politically motivated. "It does not escape notice that the domains targeted would be of greatest use to a government attempting surveillance of internet use by dissident groups," said Comodo's Phillip Hallam-Baker."

Iphone

Submission + - iPhone 4 With Belkin Case Survives 1,000ft Fall (winbeta.org)

BogenDorpher writes: "Imagine this. Your iPhone 4 falls for 1,000 feet and survives without a scratch or dent. Pretty amazing stuff.

U.S. Air Force Combat Controller Ron Walker was leaning out of the door on his aircraft to prep for a skydive when his iPhone slipped out of a velcro pocket on his jumpsuit. The phone fell at about 150 m.p.h for roughly 1,000 feet. To give you an idea of how high this is, just think of a 90 story skyscraper."

Transportation

Submission + - Deprivation Study Finds Mobile Info Important (latd.com)

An anonymous reader writes: Latitude Research (www.latd.com) and Next American City (www.americancity.org/) released the results of their Tech for Transit Study last week. Latitude asked 18 participants in Boston and San Francisco to go car-free for a week to uncover how alternative transit measures up to car usage, and what can be done to equalize it in users minds. The report encourages the development of information-based solutions in order to encourage adoption of more sustainable transit.
Firefox

Submission + - Mozilla Firefox 4 Released

Shining Celebi writes: Mozilla has finally released Firefox 4, a couple months behind schedule. It features hardware accelerated graphics, UI performance improvements, a massive boost in Javascript performance, reduced memory usage, WebGL, a new HTML5 parser, App Tabs, tab grouping via the Panorama feature, bookmark and history syncing, and much more. Many users will also be happy to know the status bar has been more-or-less restored after Mozilla removed it in early betas. Firefox 4 scores over 3 times faster on Sunspider, V8, and Kraken.

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