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Security

Submission + - Call 9-1-1, get yourself killed (livejournal.com)

Submitted by ajb44
ajb44 writes: What do you do if you discover a crime, and the criminals haven't seen you yet? Call 911 on your mobile. Problem is, some recent mobiles now squawk loudly when you do this, potentially alerting the criminals to your presence. A FOAF had this happen to her. Fortunately the criminals had already left, but she's now worried about using 911 when checking her woods for criminal activity. Verizon and Casio techs claimed that this is an FCC mandate, but it's not really clear yet. Please help tell the FCC, Verizon and Casio that this is a dumb idea.
Space

Submission + - Impassable Northwesth Passage is open (esa.int)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: The area covered by sea ice in the Arctic has shrunk to its lowest level this week, opening up the Northwest Passage — a long-sought short cut between Europe and Asia that has been historically impassable. Leif Toudal Pedersen from the Danish National Space Centre said: "We have seen the ice-covered area drop to just around 3 million sq km which is about 1 million sq km less than the previous minima of 2005 and 2006. There has been a reduction of the ice cover over the last 10 years of about 100 000 sq km per year on average, so a drop of 1 million sq km in just one year is extreme.
Enlightenment

Submission + - Creationists Silence Critics with DMCA (richarddawkins.net) 1

Submitted by Gothmog of A
Gothmog of A writes: As richarddawkins.net reports. An organization called Creation Science Evangelism Ministries has been submitting DMCA copyright requests to YouTube resulting in the Rational Response Squad being banned after they protested against videos being taken down and accounts being closed by YouTube. Rational Response Squad are attacking creationism (AKA intelligent design) and promoting the atheist viewpoint.

The copyright requests are claimed to be without merit by the Rational Response Squad since the material in question is covered by fair use or has been declared to be in the public domain.

Behind Creation Science Evangelism Ministries is the infamous Kent Hovind (AKA Dr. Dino) who is currently serving jail time for tax evasion.
Security

Submission + - 700MB of MediaDefender internal emails leaked (torrentfreak.com) 2

Submitted by qubezz
qubezz writes: The company MediaDefender which works with the RIAA and MPAA against piracy (setting up fake torrents and trackers and disrupting p2p) had earlier set up a fake internet video download site designed to catch and bust users. They denied the entrapment charges. Now 700MB of internal emails from the company from the last 6 months leaked onto BitTorrent trackers detail their entire plan, how they intended to distance themselves from the fake company they set up, future strategies, and reveal other company information such as logins and passwords, wage negotiations, and numerous other aspect of their internal business! torrentfreak.com details some of the jems!
The Courts

Submission + - Jack Thompson Suspended 1

Submitted by Dr. Eggman
Dr. Eggman writes: GamePolitics.com has the story the Florida Bar has ordered Jack Thompson to undergo psychological testing and have suspended his license for 91 days. According to his 2005 book, he has been asked to undergo such testing by the bar before, but sued and successfully settled with the bar for $20,000.
Google

Submission + - Free Superfast Broadband Internet from Google

Submitted by kihbord
kihbord writes: Avail of free and super lightning fast broadband internet. Installation kit comes with a FREE wireless router for your home. Service is available free of charge forever. Service is provided only by the best organization on the Internet — Google. Go to http://www.google.com/tisp/install.html to avail of the free service. First come first serve.
The Internet

Submission + - Walmart downloads reject Firefox, Apple browsers

Submitted by babooo404
babooo404 writes: Last week, Walmart launched their online video download service. Immediately there were posts that the service did not work with the Firefox or Safari browsers. There was a collective, "WTF" when this happened as this is 2007, not 1997. Now it appears that reports are out that Walmart has COMPLETELY turned off the ability to get into the application at all by Firefox, Safari or any other browser it does not like.

http://www.centernetworks.com/walmart-in-bed-with- microsoft-no-to-firefox
Businesses

Submission + - Custom Built Computers

Submitted by the eric conspiracy
the eric conspiracy writes: For several years I've been buying custom barebones systems from Monarch Computer based on a recommendation I found on slashdot, and have been happy with the result. However in 2006 they really went downhill, and now appear to be out of business. So I am looking for suppliers whom I can go to for a computer where I can specify the motherboard, case, power supply, memory on a piece by piece basis, get feedback from the supplier as to whether these items would be a reliable combination, and have the supplier assemble the custom system and test it. The system may just be a motherboard and CPU, or it might be all the way to a complete package. Any suggestions?
Microsoft

Submission + - Microsoft wanted to "whack" Dell

Submitted by pboyd2004
pboyd2004 writes: According to emails obtained in Iowa's antitrust case against Microsoft. Microsoft wanted to "whack" Dell over their Linux sales. "We should whack them, we should make sure they understand our value," wrote Paul Flessner, a senior vice president in Microsoft's server applications unit. The email exchange can be found here.
Microsoft

Submission + - MS copies feature, then patents it

Submitted by
jbgreer
jbgreer writes: "Michael Kölling, a senior lecturer at the University of Kent and one of the developers of BlueJ, an educational development environment, realized last year that Microsoft had copied one of the BlueJ features into Visual Studio. Flattery, right? Recently he was informed that Microsoft has filed a patent describing the very same feature. For more details, read Michael's blog entry."
Google

Submission + - Google Sues Leo Stoller for Racketeering

Submitted by
EdwardianDandy
EdwardianDandy writes: "Leo Stoller — the Chicago attorney who has successfully sued companies like Paramount and Northrop Grumman because he claims to own the trademark "stealth" (as in stealth bomber) — has finally been sued by Google for racketeering. Stoller has been harassing Google for years, arguing that he owns the trademark "Google," and submitting forged documents to the courts to prove his case."
Operating Systems

Submission + - BBC To Host Multi-OS Debate

Submitted by Bananatree3
Bananatree3 writes: BBC is currently seeking submissions from all you Microsoft Windows, Mac and Linux devotees "in 100 words or less, why you are such a supporter of your chosen operating system and what features you love about it". They will then select one user of each platform to go head to head in a debate that will be part of the BBC's Microsoft Vista launch coverage on January 30th.
Announcements

Submission + - String Theory Test Proposed

Submitted by Alchemist253
Alchemist253 writes: Theoreticians at a trio of American universities have recently proposed a (non-trivial) experimental test of string theory, often called the "theory of everything." Importantly, it is possible that this test could be carried out in the not-too-distant future when CERN's latest powerful tool, the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) comes online. From the article, "If the test does not find what the theory predicts about W boson scattering, it would be evidence that one of string theory's key mathematical assumptions is violated. In other words, string theory — as articulated in its current form — would be proven impossible."
Education

Submission + - Better than a TI?

Submitted by
aaronbeekay
aaronbeekay writes: "Hey guys, I'm a sophomore in high school taking an honors chem course. I'm being forced to buy something handheld for a calculator (I've been using Qalculate! and GraphMonkey on my Thinkpad until now). I see people all around me with TIs and think "there could be something so much better." The low-res, monochrome display just isn't appealing to me for $100-150. Is there something I can use close to the same price range with better screen, more usable, and more powerful? Which calcs do you guys use? I'm hoping for this to last through college."
Space

Submission + - 'Smoking gun' report to say global warming here

Submitted by
gollum123
gollum123 writes: "from the CNN, Human-caused global warming is here — visible in the air, water and melting ice — and is destined to get much worse in the future, an authoritative global scientific report will warn next week ( http://www.cnn.com/2007/TECH/science/01/23/climate .report.ap/index.html ). The first phase of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change is being released in Paris next week. This segment, written by more than 600 scientists and reviewed by another 600 experts and edited by bureaucrats from 154 countries, includes a significantly expanded discussion of observation on the climate. That report will feature an "explosion of new data" on observations of current global warming. the 12-page summary for policymakers will be edited in secret word-by-word by governments officials for several days next week and released to the public on February 2. The rest of that first report from scientists will come out months later. The report will draw on already published peer-review science. Some recent scientific studies show that temperatures are the hottest in thousands of years, especially during the last 30 years; ice sheets in Greenland in the past couple years have shown a dramatic melting; and sea levels are rising and doing so at a faster rate in the past decade."

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