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Google

Submission + - Google wants to be a wireless carrier (bgr.com)

Submitted by zacharye
zacharye writes: Google has already conquered the software side of smartphones and now the technology giant is reportedly in talks to take over the air waves. A report on Thursday claims that Google has held talks with satellite television provider Dish Network regarding the possibility of a venture that would see Google launch its own cellular network and compete directly with the likes of Verizon and AT&T...
Japan

Submission + - One Step Toward a Babel Fish: Real-Time Voice Translation for Phones (ieee.org)

Submitted by the_newsbeagle
the_newsbeagle writes: Douglas Adams's fictional Babel fish, which lived in the brain and could translate any language in the universe, was so incredibly useful that it simultaneously proved and disproved the existence of God. This real-time translation app for mobile phones, offered by the Japanese telecom company NTT DoCoMo, isn't going to freak out theologians any time soon. The company admits it has lots of work to do to improve translation accuracy, and it can currently only translate between Japanese and three languages: English, Korean, and Mandarin. But by allowing phone calls to pierce the language barrier, we just might have taken a step toward the universe that Adams envisioned: one where open communication between people of different cultures leads to an onslaught of terrible bloody warfare.
Security

Submission + - House Subcommittee Holds Hearing on TSA's 'Scanner Shuffle' (house.gov)

Submitted by OverTheGeicoE
OverTheGeicoE writes: The Homeland Security Subcommittee on Transportation Security held a hearing on TSA's recent decision to move X-ray body scanners from major airports to smaller ones, which the subcommitte refers to as a 'Scanner Shuffle.' John Sanders, TSA's assistant administrator for security capabilities, testified that 91 scanners recently removed from major airports were now in storage due to 'privacy concerns.' Although TSA originally planned to relocate the scanners to smaller airports, those plans have been shelved because smaller airports don't have room for them. The subcommittee is also investigating allegations that the machines' manufacturer, Rapiscan, 'may have falsified tests of software intended to stop the machines from recording graphic images of travelers' (VIDEO). Coincidentally, shares of Rapiscan's parent company, OSI Systems Inc., dropped in value almost 25% today, its biggest intraday decline in about 12 years. If wrongdoing is proven, Rapiscan could face fines, prison terms and a ban on government contracting, according to a former head of federal procurement.
Science

Submission + - Artificial Muscles Pack a Mean Punch (sciencemag.org)

Submitted by sciencehabit
sciencehabit writes: Here's a twist: Scientists have designed a flexible, yarnlike artificial muscle that can also pack a punch. It can contract in 25 milliseconds—a fraction of the time it takes to blink an eye—and can generate power 85 times as great as a similarly sized human muscle. The new muscles are made of carbon nanotubes filled with paraffin wax that can twist or stretch in response to heat or electricity. When the temperature rises, the wax melts and forces the nanotubes to contract. Such artificial muscles, the researchers say, could power smart materials, sensors, robots, and even devices inside the human body.

Submission + - Using technology for charity

Submitted by renem
renem writes: Lately i have been thinking of doing some charity but instead of donations or any of that usual things i am planning on doing something like a website that could help them. I have access (and budget) to buy equipment / hosting, i am a web developer, any ideas on how to help?
thanks
Google

Submission + - Google Develops Context-Aware Voice Search For TV (itworld.com)

Submitted by
jfruh
jfruh writes: "Google TV, despite bold predictions from the company's execs, has singularly failed to take over the TV world. Nevertheless, the company is still plugging away, and one development that might have far-reaching impliciations is its new context-aware voice search. "Context aware" is the key to revolutionizing the TV-watching experience: you can say the name of a TV show, the name of a channel, the description of a show, or the description of a kind of video you'd like to find on YouTube, and the TV will show it to you."

Submission + - Global warming stopped 16 years ago, reveals Met Office report quietly released (dailymail.co.uk) 1

Submitted by
bricko
bricko writes: "here is the chart to prove it

        The figures reveal that from the beginning of 1997 until August 2012 there was no discernible rise in aggregate global temperatures
        This means that the ‘pause’ in global warming has now lasted for about the same time as the previous period when temperatures rose, 1980 to 1996

The world stopped getting warmer almost 16 years ago, according to new data released last week.

The figures, which have triggered debate among climate scientists, reveal that from the beginning of 1997 until August 2012, there was no discernible rise in aggregate global temperatures.

This means that the ‘plateau’ or ‘pause’ in global warming has now lasted for about the same time as the previous period when temperatures rose, 1980 to 1996. Before that, temperatures had been stable or declining for about 40 years."
Science

Submission + - Gold nanoparticles dye hair gold

Submitted by LilaG
LilaG writes: Forget gold-plated teeth. Gold-nanoparticled hair may just be the next cool thing. Researchers in Paris have discovered that they can produce gold nanoparticles within strands of hair that will dye white hair gold. Added bonus: the hair glows red when blue light shines on it.

Alas, don't expect to see gold nanoparticle dye coming to your hair salon anytime soon. The process takes days of treatment to produce the full effect. Another downside: the process uses a very strong base, with pH 12.5, making it far more caustic than a perm.
The Internet

Submission + - co.cc goes the way of the Dodo

Submitted by Nexus Unplugged
Nexus Unplugged writes: Free domain provider co.cc seems to have quietly and mysteriously disappeared. No official explanation has yet been provided, but a cached copy suggest that they stopped accepting new registrations some time ago. Speculation, however, seems to come to a single conclusion. From the article:

Due to its free nature (and it’s $10 for as many as you want), Co.CC was abused and used for scams and spamming and was even de-listed by Google at one point although they did re-enable it. Getting back to the article on hand a few days ago Co.CC seems to have removed its DNS records which ultimately has stops its own site from working and every sub domain it provided.

It's worth noting that free domains are still easily obtainable from places like DotTK.

Media

Submission + - Cybersecurity Bill Dies; Presidential Directive Lives; Press Overreacts (cio.com)

Submitted by
Curseyoukhan
Curseyoukhan writes: "The fact that the Senate bill would die had not gone unnoticed by the media, which immediately began inundating readers with calm and carefully considered reporting on the topic, like "Political Gridlock Leaves U.S. Facing Cyber Pearl Harbor." It begins with all the subtlety of a Roland "Day After Tomorrow" Emmerich movie:
"There’s almost universal agreement that the U.S. faces a catastrophic threat from cyber attacks by terrorists, hackers and spies."
This sentence makes perfect sense as long as you don’t stop to think about it. The phrase “almost universal agreement” is of course rhetorically and factually absurd. This is the United States. We can’t even almost universally agree that it’s okay to teach science in schools."
AI

Submission + - Getting Small UAVs to Imitate Human Pilots Flying through Dense Forests (robotwhisperer.org)

Submitted by
diabolicalrobot
diabolicalrobot writes: "The Robotics Institute at CMU has been developing systems to learn from humans. Using a Machine Learning class of techniques called Imitation Learning our group has developed AI software for a small commercially available off-the-shelf ARdrone to autonomously fly through the dense trees for over 3.4 km in experimental runs. We are also developing methods to do longer range planning with such purely vision-guided UAVs. Such technology has a lot of potential impact for surveillance, search and rescue and allowing UAVs to safely share airspace with manned airspace."
Android

Submission + - Android's Alarming Worldwide 2012 3Q Numbers (gartner.com) 2

Submitted by eldavojohn
eldavojohn writes: Gartner's released a report on Worldwide numbers of 2012 3Q phone sales and the staggering results posted from Android have caused people like IW's Eric Zeman to call for sanity. Keep in mind these are worldwide numbers which might be less surprising when you realize that the biggest growth market of them all is China who is more than 90% Android. It's time to face the facts and realize that Android now owns 73% of the worldwide smartphone market. While developers bicker over which platform is best for development and earnings, the people of the world may be making the choice based on just how inexpensive an Android smartphone can be. This same time last year, Gartner reported Android at 52.5% of market share and it now sits at 72.4% market share with over 122 million units sold worldwide. Only Q4 reports will tell if Android's momentum will finally begin to slow to save some chance of competition in the smartphone ecosystem or if the Quickening will be complete.
The Military

Submission + - Invisibility tech demonstration tomorrow in New York City (foxnews.com)

Submitted by Velcroman1
Velcroman1 writes: Invisibility cloaks and deflector shields, once a staple of popular science-fiction, are now the real deal, researchers say. But here on Earth, top researchers have been battling too, not over the fate of the empire but over whose tech will someday shield U.S. ships. Fractal Antenna Systems came out swinging Wednesday over a "perfected" invisibility cloak by researchers at Duke and Imperial College. Company CEO and inventor Nathan Cohen issued a scathingly critical press release throwing very visible zingers — and claiming he invented it first. “[Their tech] makes you more, not less, visible,” Cohen said. The company says a patent-pending deflector shield built off a variant of the technology can divert electromagnetic radiation around an object — and they plan to show it off Friday in New York City, at the Radio Club of America.
Microsoft

Submission + - Woz worries Microsoft is now more innovative than Apple (techcrunch.com) 1

Submitted by yvajj
yvajj writes: According to a techcrunch interview, Woz believes that Microsoft is now more innovative than Apple. Per the interview, it seems as though Apple is now just doing newer versions of the Iphone, and are potentially headed into a rut. Another gem from Woz is the fact that he treats all new hardware as something new to learn from and does not approach it with any preconceptions (irrespective of who the manufacturer is / what OS etc.). A great short interview from Woz.
Science

Submission + - Good news about Deepwater Horizon: oysters didn't eat oil (acs.org)

Submitted by LilaG
LilaG writes: BP is about to shell out billions in the criminal case the U.S. brought against it for the 2010 Deepwater Horizon spill. Some good news has also just come out about the spill's effects on the Gulf: oysters didn't consume much oil from the spill.

That's the conclusion of a study by researchers in Alabama who were already studying the region's oysters before the spill happened — giving them before, during, and after samples to test. Using isotopic ratios, the researchers found little evidence of oil in the oyster's flesh or shells.
IBM

Submission + - IBM kills Lotus brand, readies beta of Notes/Domino Social Edition (networkworld.com)

Submitted by
coondoggie
coondoggie writes: "IBM is planning to release on Dec. 14 a public beta of Notes and Domino 9.0 Social Edition that will no longer use the Lotus brand. IBM has decided to offer a public beta, the first in a long time for Notes and Domino, because of the importance of the release, Ed Brill, director of product line management and in charge of IBM's Collaboration Solutions, said in a blog post."
Crime

Submission + - Crooks steal $1.5M in iPads from JFK (nypost.com)

Submitted by alphadogg
alphadogg writes: A pair of brazen crooks punched another hole in the lax JFK security when they stole a trove of new Apple iPad minis — worth $1.5 million — from the same cargo building that was the site of the 1978 Lufthansa heist featured in “GoodFellas,” according to the New York Post. The crooks struck shortly before midnight on Monday and used one of the airport’s own forklifts to load two pallets of the tablet computers into a truck, according to law-enforcement sources. It's been a crazy year for iPad/iPhone thefts in New York City and elsewhere. http://www.networkworld.com/news/2012/100812-iphone-ipad-thefts-263110.html

Submission + - RIAA Data Shows P2P Users Spend Nearly 50% More on Music Than Non-P2P Users (michaelgeist.ca) 1

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: File sharing of music has been part of the Internet landscape for well over a decade, but the debate over its economic impact continues to rage. The issue has come to fore once again in recent weeks after Columbia University's American Assembly released an excerpt of a report that found that peer-to-peer users purchase 31 percent more downloads than non-P2P users. Michael Geist now reports that the RIAA's response — through the NPD Group — contained basic math errors as it double counted sales data and significantly understated the spending difference between P2P users and non-P2P users.
NASA

Submission + - NASA to encrypt all of its laptops (bbc.co.uk)

Submitted by pev
pev writes: After losing another laptop containing personal information, NASA wants to have all of its laptops encrypted within a months time with an intermediate ban of laptops containing sensitive information leaving its facilities. Between April 2009 and April 2011 it lost or had stolen 48 "mobile computing devices". I wonder how it will be before other large organisations start following suit as a sensible precaution?
Transportation

Submission + - With Pot Legal, Police Worry About Traffic Safety 13

Submitted by
Hugh Pickens writes
Hugh Pickens writes writes: "AP reports that with Pot soon legal under state laws in Washington and Colorado, officials in both states are trying to figure out how to keep stoned drivers off the road as law enforcement officials wonder about whether the ability to buy or possess marijuana legally will bring about an increase of marijuana users on the roads. "We've had decades of studies and experience with alcohol," says Washington State Patrol spokesman Dan Coon. "Marijuana is new, so it's going to take some time to figure out how the courts and prosecutors are going to handle it. But the key is impairment: We will arrest drivers who drive impaired, whether it be drugs or alcohol." Marijuana can cause dizziness and slowed reaction time, and drivers are more likely to drift and swerve while they're high and Marijuana legalization activists agree people shouldn't smoke and drive. But setting a standard comparable to blood-alcohol limits has sparked intense disagreement because unlike portable breath tests for alcohol, there's no easily available way to determine whether someone is impaired from recent pot use. If scientists can't tell someone how much marijuana it will take for him or her to test over the threshold, how is the average pot user supposed to know? "A lot of effort has gone into the study of drugged driving and marijuana, because that is the most prevalent drug, but we are not nearly to the point where we are with alcohol," says Jeffrey P. Michael, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration's impaired-driving director. "We don't know what level of marijuana impairs a driver.""

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