Slashdot

trainman writes "With the release of Firefox 3, those who have been using self-signed certificates for SSL now face a huge issue — the big, scary warning FF3 issues which is very unintuitive for non-technical users. It seems Firefox is pushing more websites in to the monopolistic arms of companies such as Verisign. For smaller, especially non-profit groups, which will never have issues with domain typo scammers, this adds an extra and difficult-to-swallow cost. Does a service such as this need the same level of scrutiny and cost since all that is being done is verifying domain and certificate match? This extra hand holding adds a tremendous cost and allows monopolistic companies such as Verisign to thrive. Can organizations such as Mozilla not move towards a model that helps break this monopoly, helping establish a CA root authority that's cheap (free?) and only links the certificate to the domain, not actual verification of who owns the domain?"

Iddo Genuth writes to tell us that researchers at the Scripps Research Institute in San Diego have created two artificial DNA bases in an effort to "expand biology's potential." "In the future, [chemist Floyd] Romesberg envisions manipulating the genetic code of bacteria in order to assemble better drugs or even man-made proteins. Until now, the bases only work in bacteria, so human augmentation is currently not possible. Another option is to use alpha and beta to help construct nanomachines to be used for drug delivery. 'This is like jumping from the Stone Age to the Bronze Age,' Romesberg says. 'It takes time to figure out how best to use metal.'" Update 18:10 GMT by SM: Roger writes to share the NewScientist link with a bit more information. There is also the original release text for consideration.

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Microsoft linking silverlight, goatse

sprkltgr writes "Our HR department is implementing new software. The HR Director has tasked me with sending our data out of our network to the consultant that's loading it in to the new package. Obviously this data includes items such as SSN, name, birth date, etc. Upon being told that I would not email this data to her, the consultant asked what my security requirements were for sending the data. What would be on your wishlist for the best way to send sensitive data to someone outside your firewall?"

Leemeng writes "I'm looking for a simple, free, and F/OSS flat-file database program. I'm storing info about Wi-Fi access points that I come across, maybe 8-9 fields per entry. I've outgrown Notepad. This info is for my own reference only; it is not going on a Web server. Googling was unhelpful, with results skewed towards SQL, Access (MS), and Oracle, all of which would be overkill for my purposes. My criteria are: it must be simple, F/OSS, must work in Windows Vista, preferably use a portable format, must not be an online app, and must not require Java. Does such a beast exist?"

IT time-saver or time bomb? Hmm. Let's see. Give users carte blanche in choosing and managing their own PCs. From the article: "In this Web 2.0 self-service approach, IT knights employees with the responsibility for their own PC's life cycle. That's right: Workers select, configure, manage, and ultimately support their own systems, choosing the hardware and software they need to best perform their jobs." You mean, these guys?
http://www.infoworld.com/article/08/04/02/14FE-user-managed-pc_1.html

sproketboy writes "Microsoft-watch is not happy about the state of IE. "Enterprises are holding onto IE 6 and giving Firefox some love. IE 6 usage is going to be a problem for Web developers, because of the browser's weak standards support. If there were a Web equivalent to Frankenstein's monster, IE 6 could be it.""
http://www.microsoft-watch.com/content/web_services_browser/internet_explorer_a_browser_breaks.html

Firefox 3 Beta 5 was released today. This last beta release sports performance-boosting improved connection parallelism. Not only has "the memory leak" been fixed: Firefox now uses less memory than other browsers according to Mozilla developers as well as CyberNet and The Browser World. As for the Acid3 test, Firefox 3 Beta 5 scores only 71/100 compared to 75/100 for Safari 3.1 and 79/100 for the latest Opera 9.5 snapshot. The final release of Firefox 3 is expected in June.

Attorney General Michael Mukasey claims that terrorists sell pirated software as a way to finance their operations, without presenting a shred of evidence for his case. He's doing it to push through a controversial piece of intellectual property legislation that would increase IP penalties, increase police power, set up a new agency to investigate IP theft, and more, according to a Computerworld blog. "Criminal syndicates, and in some cases even terrorist groups, view IP crime as a lucrative business, and see it as a low-risk way to fund other activities," Mukasey told a crowd at the Tech Museum of Innovation last week.
http://blogs.computerworld.com/feds_lie_about_link_between_software_piracy_and_terrorism

Philip J. Fry writes "Intel officially launched its Atom processors for handheld devices today. For the occasion, Scott Wasson at The Tech Report has written a very in-depth piece about the specifics and architectural features of both "Silverthorne" Atom chips and "Menlow," the Centrino Atom mobile platform. The article examines how the two fit together, and how Intel expects them to perform compared to existing ARM products common in today's mobile devices. Wasson concludes that the "Menlow" platform is 'a little too large, too power-hungry, and too PC-centric,' and that we may have to wait for forthcoming system-on-a-chip versions of Atom (code-named Moorestown) before x86 smart phones can take off."
http://techreport.com/articles.x/14458

The BBC are reporting that NASA's twin spacecraft designed to obtain stereo images of the Sun have recorded the first Solar Tsunami. The feature includes a fasincating movie of the images captured.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/7326097.stm

vg30e writes "A Black hole with approximately 3.8 times the mass of our sun has been discovered. With a diameter of 15 miles or so, it is the smallest black hole yet discovered."
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20080401/sc_nm/space_blackhole_dc

I Don't Believe in Imaginary Property writes "According to new memory benchmarks, Firefox 3 uses less memory than other major browsers, including Opera. Due to all the complaints about memory leaks, they've integrated new technology like FreeBSD's jemalloc and a new XPCOM cycle collector. The cycle collector in particular is very important, because it can find many memory leaks caused by faulty extensions and correct them, so buggy extensions will no longer have the impact they once did. They've also modified the cache settings, so they're no longer quite so gluttonous and they no longer bother storing certain things like decompressed image data. With this new low-memory diet, there's even talk of Firefox 3 being more competitive on mobile devices."

Ars Technica has an interesting article showing benchmarks pitting Firefox 3 Beta 4 against IE7, Firefox 2, Opera 9.5 Beta, and Safari 3.0.4 Beta. The article includes a graph depicting FF3's memory usage well below that of the other browsers including Opera, which has long been the fastest browser around. The hope is that with the reduction in memory leaks, firefox will not only continue its climbing market share on the desktop, but also become more competetive on the mobile market, which is currently dominated by good ol' Opera.

The article goes on to explain that they have improved memory leaks in its extentions, but I still wonder if FF3 will use less memeory than Opera once you add in the more popular extentions.

Iddo Genuth writes "Researchers from Eotvos Lorand University in Hungary have published a new study suggesting a primitive communication system may unite virtually all mammals. The theory could help explain why previous research has shown that many mammals, including humans, understand the vocalizations of other species. In the more distant future these findings may also contribute to the development of devices for interpreting the "language" used by mammals and for interpreting human babies."
http://www.tfot.info/news/1134/understanding-dogs-barks.html