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Submission + - XKCD Artist Randall Munroe speaks at Google (youtube.com)

Submitted by def
def writes: XKCD Artist Randall Munroe gives a pretty amusing talk at Google recently. Munroe on Munroe: "I'm just this guy, you know? I'm a CNU graduate with a degree in physics. Before starting xkcd, I worked on robots at NASA's Langley Research Center in Virginia. As of June 2007 I live in Massachusetts. In my spare time I climb things, open strange doors, and go to goth clubs dressed as a frat guy so I can stand around and look terribly uncomfortable. At frat parties I do the same thing, but the other way around."
Google

Free IMAP On Gmail 440

Posted by kdawson from the bout-time dept.
A number of readers are writing in to tell us that Google is rolling out IMAP support for Gmail accounts. Several people say that some of their gmail accounts offer the IMAP option (in Settings, Forwarding and POP/IMAP) and others do not.
Google

Submission + - Free IMAP on GMAIL? (google.com)

Submitted by
Demaratus
Demaratus writes: "It looks like Google is rolling out free IMAP service on select GMAIL accounts. One one of my gmail accounts, IMAP is now available in addition to POP in the settings for the account. I checked several of my other accounts, but it appears that only one of them has this new feature available. I can't find any information on this anywhere else after a few brief search engine queries, so I figured I'd share this great news with other \.ers. How long until Google rolls out free IMAP to all Gmail accounts?"
The Internet

Submission + - CIA, FBI computers used for Wikipedia edits

Submitted by pilsner.urquell
pilsner.urquell writes: Wikipedia's conflict-of-interest guidelines may have been violated by persons in the FBI and CIA. A new program, WikiScanner, allows users to track the source of computers used to make changes to Wikipedia.

WikiScanner revealed that CIA computers were used to edit an entry on the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in 2003. A graphic on casualties was edited to add that many figures were estimated and were not broken down by class.
Space

Submission + - Scientists break speed of light

Submitted by Lambticc
Lambticc writes: The Telegraph is reporting that German scientists have broken the speed of light while investigating quantum tunneling. Is this the first of many steps on the way to practical interplanetary travel?
Security

Submission + - Orwellian 'Behavior Detection Officers' for TSA (msn.com) 1

Submitted by
Stanistani
Stanistani writes: "According to Newsweek, at US airports some security personnel will be observing passengers for facial expressions which indicate malicious intent. If they believe you look like you might be thinking of causing harm, you can be taken aside for further questioning. Welcome these new overseers: 'Behavior Detection Officers.' Their potentially life-changing decisions will be based on the pseudoscience of 'micro-expressions.'"
Education

Submission + - Genitalia Now Inappropirate in 7th Grade Health

Submitted by firemoose
firemoose writes: A 7th grade health class teacher has been transferred to administrative duties and may be fired for having his students draw male genitalia on a chalk board in class. The district superintendent took action after receiving complaints from parents. He has labeled the teacher's actions as "insensitive" and inappropriate for the mixed-sex students of the 7th grade class. The article quotes a parent and a teacher who believe that the school board may be overreacting, but is only able to cite a 4th grade student who found the idea of genitalia in class offensive.
Google

Submission + - Google Videos, YouTube begin their merge

Submitted by Niddik
Niddik writes: Yesterday I was taking a look at Google Videos, and I noticed that A LOT of the results directed to YouTube (took them long enough). However, it doesn't appear that YouTube directs back to Google Vids yet.

What will come next? Gmail and YouTube accounts merging?
The Internet

Submission + - Charter Communications Hijacks Windows Live Search

Submitted by
Tony Bradley
Tony Bradley writes: "Charter Communications introduced a new "service". Some might call it browser hijacking. The new "feature" from Charter will intercept traffic to your default search engine and redirect you to their Charter-branded, 'powered by Yahoo!' search engine. Charter calls the new feature an opt-in service, however they opted everyone in by default with no notice and force you to allow a cookie to be installed if you wish to stay opted out. They provide a link to visit if you wish to change your settings, but the link is dead. There is no such site. Oh! Charter also feels that only users of Windows Live Search need the benefit of their new feature. Searches aimed at Google, Yahoo or AOL are not redirected, but searches directed to Microsoft's search engine are hijacked unless you have the opt-out cookie. You can get more details, along with screen shots, in this article on About.com: http://netsecurity.about.com/od/webbrowsersecurity /ss/charterhijack.htm"
Communications

Submission + - Inside the Lucasfilm datacenter

Submitted by
passthecrackpipe
passthecrackpipe writes: "Where can you find a (rhetorical) 11.38 petabits per second bandwidth? It appears to be inside the Lucasfilm Datacenter. At least, that is the headline figure mentioned in this report on a tour of the datacenter. The story is a bit light on the down-and-dirty details, but mentions a 10 gig ethernet backbone (adding up the bandwidth of a load of network connections seems to be how they derived the 11.38 petabits p/s figure. In that case, I have a 45 gig network at home.) Power utilisation is a key differentiator when buying hardware, a "legacy" cycle of a couple of months, and 300TB of storage in a 10.000 square foot datacenter. To me, the story comes across as somewhat hyped up — "look at us, we have a large datacenter" kind of thing, "look how cool we are". Over the last couple of years, I have been in many datacenters, for banks, pharma and large enterprise to name a few, that have somewhat larger and more complex setups.

It used to be so that the the SFX industry had the largest, coolest, hottest technology around. Is this still the case?"
Handhelds

Submission + - Switzerland bans the use of GPS units in cars.

Submitted by
An anonymous reader writes: If you're traveling with a GPS in your car to Switzerland, be very careful! As of January 10th, the Swiss authorities (ASTRA) have forbid the use of GPS systems in cars. They also banned the selling of car GPS units throughout the country.
The reason is that the software running on these devices reveal the location of traffic radars, through which less people have been fined in the recent years and thus Swiss authorities miss a lot of money. The controversial ban has been created a large commotion inside and outside the country, forcing the authorities to put an official document online [pdf — in Germans], with answers to most frequently asked questions.
GPS devices such as TomTom, Garmin, Mio, Navman, Medion, Route 66, Packard stand Ring, Sony and ViaMichelin are all in the banned list.
Windows

Submission + - Biggest Windows Vista Annoyances

Submitted by
Deathspawner
Deathspawner writes: "The RTM version of Vista has been final for a while, but many of the biggest annoyances from Beta 2 still remain. Techgage takes a look at the top 8 annoyances found after usage of the RTM for two months. Included in the list is the horrible bootloader, general slowness, DRM, lack of ease and problematic activations. Not to mention the headache inducing "Are you sure?" prompts."
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."

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