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Canada

Ontario School Bans Wi-Fi 287

Posted by samzenpus from the balance-the-humors dept.
St. Vincent Euphrasia elementary school in Meaford, Ont. is the latest Canadian school to decide to save its students from the harmful effects of Wi-Fi by banning it. Schools from universities on down have a history of banning Wi-Fi in Ontario. As usual, health officials and know-it-all scientists have called the move ridiculous. Health Canada has released a statement saying, "Wi-Fi is the second most prevalent form of wireless technology next to cell phones. It is widely used across Canada in schools, offices, coffee shops, personal dwellings, as well as countless other locations. Health Canada continues to reassure Canadians that the radiofrequency energy emitted from Wi-Fi equipment is extremely low and is not associated with any health problems."

Comment Bad idea to authorize this (Score 4, Interesting) 456

by frednofr (#33070022) Attached to: Man Wants to Donate His Heart Before He Dies

While this may seem like a good idea at first glance, the implications of accepting such requests could be terrifying:

One could imagine threats such as "If you don't give your heart to patient, we will murder your family one by one".

Desperate people with questionable morals will go to great length to save someone they care about.
Idle

Directed Energy Weapon Downs Mosquitos 428

Posted by samzenpus from the two-pound-hammer-and-ten-penny-nail dept.
wisebabo writes "Nathan Myhrvol demonstrated at TED a laser, built from parts scrounged from eBay, capable of shooting down not one but 50 to 100 mosquitos a second. The system is 'so precise that it can specify the species, and even the gender, of the mosquito being targeted.' Currently, for the sake of efficiency, it leaves the males alone because only females are bloodsuckers. Best of all the system could cost as little as $50. Maybe that's too expensive for use in preventing malaria in Africa but I'd buy one in a second!" We ran a story about this last year. It looks like the company has added a bit more polish, and burning mosquito footage to their marketing.
Science

Using Infrared Cameras To Find Tastiness of Beef 108

Posted by Soulskill from the i-use-a-fork dept.
JoshuaInNippon writes "Might we one day be able to use our cell phone cameras to pick out the best piece of meat on display at the market? Some Japanese researchers seem to hope so. A team of scientists is using infrared camera technology to try and determine the tastiest slices of high-grade Japanese beef. The researchers believe that the levels of Oleic acid found within the beef strongly affect the beef's tenderness, smell, and overall taste. The infrared camera can be tuned to pick out the Oleic acid levels through a whole slab, a process that would be impossible to do with the human eye. While the accuracy is still relatively low — a taste test this month resulted in only 60% of participants preferring beef that was believed to have had a higher level of Oleic acid — the researchers hope to fine tune the process for market testing by next year."
Image

NASA Tests Flying Airbag 118

Posted by samzenpus from the drop-the-cloud-anchor dept.
coondoggie writes "NASA is looking to reduce the deadly impact of helicopter crashes on their pilots and passengers with what the agency calls a high-tech honeycomb airbag known as a deployable energy absorber. So in order to test out its technology NASA dropped a small helicopter from a height of 35 feet to see whether its deployable energy absorber, made up of an expandable honeycomb cushion, could handle the stress. The test crash hit the ground at about 54MPH at a 33 degree angle, what NASA called a relatively severe helicopter crash."

Comment Re:Skype is open to taps (Score 2, Informative) 144

by frednofr (#28817285) Attached to: Skype Apparently Threatens Russian National Security

This paper describes a side channel attack (basically a trojan listening to the sound card when skype is active), not a real attack where skype traffic would be intercepted and decrypted.

If you're smart enough to know how to avoid getting a trojan on your computer, you're fine.

If the encrypted traffic of Skype was compromised, the FSB would probably know about it.

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