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mrogers writes "The EFF has uncovered a troubling footnote in a newly declassified Bush Administration memo, which asserts that 'our Office recently [in 2001] concluded that the Fourth Amendment had no application to domestic military operations.' This could mean that the Administration believes the NSA's warrantless wiretapping and data mining programs are not governed by the Constitution, which would cast Administration claims that the programs did not violate the Fourth Amendment in a whole new light — after all, you can't violate a law that doesn't apply. The claimed immunity would also cover other DoD agencies, such as CIFA, which carry out offline surveillance of political groups within the United States."

An anonymous reader points out an eWeek story about researchers from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign who are designing a new web browser based on security. The new software, code-named OP for Opus Palladianum, will separate various components of the browser into subsystems which are monitored and managed by the browser kernel. Quoting: "'We believe Web browsers are the most important network-facing application, but the current browsers are fundamentally flawed from security perspective,' King said in an interview with eWEEK. 'If you look at how the Web was originally designed, it was an application with static Web pages as data. Now, it has become a platform for hosting all kinds of important data and businesses, but unfortunately, [existing] browsers haven't evolved to deal with this change and that's why we have a big malware problem.' The idea behind the OP security browser is to partition the browser into smaller subsystems and make all communication between subsystems simple and explicit."

The Narrative Fallacy writes "The LA Times has an interesting story on the state of Wikipedia's finances and how with 300 million page views a day, the organization could be worth hundreds of millions of dollars if it sold advertising space. Without advertising the foundation has a tough time raising its annual budget of $4.6 million. The 45,000 or so individuals who contribute annually give an average of $33 each, so campaigns, which are conducted online, raise only about one-third of what's needed. As Wikimedia adds features to its pages, such as videos, costs will rise. 'Without financial stability and strong planning, the foundation runs the risk of needing to take drastic steps at some point in the next couple years,' said Nathan Awrich, a Wikipedia editor who supports advertising."

jellybeans writes "MadPenguin.org takes a peek into the world of Linux as it looks going forward. "I hear this argument all the time. How companies trying to make Linux more accessible, through any means necessary, so long as they abide by the GPL, are working against the vision of Linux from the beginning. This is asinine. The vision, based on my own interpretation of Linux was always about choice."

Physicists and astronomers have shown how some solids behave like liquids on the nanoscale. This is a major step forward in discovering how to measure polymer substances using nanoscale technology. The researchers explore the properties of the large class of natural and synthetic materials on the nanoscale.

http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/~3/228765827/080201085631.htm

The Wildlife Conservation Society has called for protection of a recently discovered site in Nigeria where millions of migratory swallows (Hirundo rustica) gather to roost each night. Scientists say the site is only one of two known roosts in Cross River State, a coastal region in southeastern Nigeria. Preliminary surveys indicate that the site may attract millions of swallows and be of international significance. The roost appears to be under threat of destruction from advancing farms and may require conservation measures to survive.

http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/~3/228765822/080130190501.htm

An anonymous reader writes "According to numerous posts on Apple's discussion forums (several threads of which have been deleted by Apple), as well as a number of popular video editing blogs, Apple's recent QT 7.4 update does more than just enable iTunes video rentals — it also disables Adobe's professional After Effects video editing software. Attempting to render video files after the update results in a DRM permissions error. Unfortunately, it is not possible to roll back to a previous version of QT without doing a full OSX reinstall. Previous QT updates have also been known to have severe issues with pro video editing apps."

Mz6 wrote with a link to an article on The Independent site about a most unusual scientific theory. "Some scientists suggest that our love of the mobile phone could cause massive food shortages, as the world's harvests fail. They are putting forward the theory that radiation given off by mobile phones and other hi-tech gadgets is a possible answer to one of the more bizarre mysteries ever to happen in the natural world — the abrupt disappearance of the bees that pollinate crops."

Career Hot Potato asks: "I've been out of school for little more than a year and I have only good things to say about the job market. So far, there doesn't seem to be any lack of demand for a good .NET developer. I've got to admit, though, I feel a little disloyal at this point. Several great job offers have come my way and I've taken them. My resume is starting to make me look a bit restless and it worries me. Until now I've just chalked it up to 'I'm just settling in,' but now another opportunity has been dropped into my lap. Would I be digging my own grave by taking this job? It'd be my fourth job in 16 months but each offered a promotion and a 30% to 40% raise. I know better than to put a price on job satisfaction but I'm pretty certain I'd be happy there. Is being branded as a 'hot potato' enough to keep you from switching? What's your price on this stigma?"

Michael writes "http://lunapark6.com/?p=2916 Preview of Beryl 0.2.0, with explanations of new & improved features (live thumbnail previews in the taskbar, 3d application switcher, improved 3d cube dekstop), with awesome screenshots to show what they do. The author says "I must say that the improvements in Beryl 0.2.0 are impressive. The live window thumbnail previews and the application switcher are features that I use on a daily basis. The improvements to the rotating 3d cube, makes Linux feel fun and exciting. To think that the Beryl project is only 6 months old, its definitely exciting to think of what they may be able to accomplish in another year or two. Now that I am happily using Beryl 0.2.0, other desktops (Windows, OSX, non Beryl Linux Desktops) just feel really antiquated. Awesome job guys!""

firenurse writes "Fox news has an interesting story titled "Microsoft Windows Vista's Nine Most Annoying Features". According to the article, "Windows Vista tries hard to protect us from ourselves. One unintended consequence is that it will sometimes block actions that we purposefully generated — and not even recognize that we selected the option." The link is here. http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,250344,00.html "

The Federal Trade Commission made final its ruling that the memory chip designer violated antitrust laws, imposing limits on the royalties the company can charge.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/02/06/technology/06chip.html?ex=1328418000&en=93e69d549c63dcbf&ei=5088&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss

Intel's plans to develop an x86-based system-on-a-chip line are beginning to emerge as potential customers are being briefed. Codenamed 'Tolapai', the part is based on the 32-bit Pentium M processing core. "Add to that 256KB of L2 cache, an DDR 2 SDRAM controller - 400-800MHz memory supported - and an integrated South Bridge component that provides PCI Express connectivity, USB, SATA, Gigabit Ethernet, a cellular link and even RS-232, and you've got a list of the key functionality the SoC offers. The chip will have security algorithm acceleration hardwired in." Intel has plans for Tolapai in mobile devices, and handhelds running on Windows Vista. Tolapai is also part of Intel's plan to spread the x86 instruction set across the range of computing devices, from handhelds up to servers."

hint writes "Fabrice Bellard finally released the QEMU Accelerator (aka KQEMU) kernel module under the GNU General Public License. KQEMU allows the QEMU system emulator to run unmodified Operating Systems at near native speeds. Compared to other Open Source virtualization solutions such as Xen, KVM or VirtualBox which all rely on the QEMU code, KQEMU has the advantage of running unmodified 32 bit and 64 bit Operating Systems, of not requiring newer CPUs supporting hardware virtualization, of being ported to Linux, Windows, Solaris and FreeBSD and of being natively supported by QEMU."