JeremyDuffy writes "I have a photo project of over 7,000 photos. I want to tag them based on location, time of day, who's in them, etc. Doing this by hand one at a time through the Windows 7 interface in Explorer is practically madness. There has to be a better way. Is there a photo manager that can easily group and manage file tags? And most importantly, something that stores the tag and other data (description etc.) in the file, not just a database? I don't care if the thing has a database, but the data must be in the file so when I upload the files to the Internet, the tags are in place."

An anonymous reader writes "The NSA (the secretive intelligence agency that brought you wholesale warrantless wiretapping) has produced a public relations video about its polygraph screening program titled 'The Truth About the Polygraph.' But is the NSA telling the truth? AntiPolygraph.org provides a critique (video)."

adeelarshad82 writes "According to a message posted to a public mailing list dedicated to Chrome OS, a new feature is in the works that will grant users access to 'legacy PC applications' through some kind of remote desktop connection process. Google software engineer Gary Kamark, who first spilled the beans on the feature, calls the process 'Chromoting.' The current speculation amongst Chrome enthusiasts is that the Chromoting process is more akin to a VPN/sharing functionality than anything else. In that case, one would have to leave one's Windows-based desktop or laptop system on in order to access apps via a connected Chrome OS computer — which is hardly a technological leap given that numerous applications today offer users an analogous screen-sharing / remote access functionality."

astroengine writes "Flying above the Australian Outback, NASA's converted DC-8 jet videoed the violent re-entry of the Japanese Hayabusa spacecraft. Flying in front of the disintegrating probe, the mission's sample return capsule can be seen speeding though the atmosphere. According to reports, the capsule landed safely and will be collected by helicopter in the morning." "Bad Astronomer" Phil Plait posts about the successful return as well.

linzeal writes: "Despite it being pretty-much closed off to the world, North Korea is the next boom place for IT and tech outsourcing, PC World has reported. Flash games are being developed there for outside publishers, largely thanks to the home-grown talent. Does this mean that the the cartoon company that makes The Simpsons might use North Korea as well? Well it looks like they already have started."

An anonymous reader writes "There's a fascinating duel going on between two Harvard-associated authors, Steven Pinker and Nicholas Carr, on the topic of the Net's influence on the mind. In a New York Times op-ed, Pinker criticizes Carr's argument, as laid out in his new book The Shallows, that our use of the Net is encouraging us to become distracted, superficial thinkers. The Net and other digital technologies 'are the only things that will keep us smart,' writes Pinker. In a response on his blog, Carr tears apart Pinker's argument, claiming that Pinker's examples should actually make us even more worried about the possible 'ill effects' the Net is having on our minds. Carr concludes, 'We're training ourselves, through repetition, to be facile skimmers, scanners, and message-processors — important skills, to be sure — but, perpetually distracted and interrupted, we're not training ourselves in the quieter, more attentive modes of thought: contemplation, reflection, introspection, deep reading, and so forth.' Behind the debate is the deeper controversy over whether the human brain is fundamentally adaptable ('neuroplasticity') or genetically locked into patterns of behavior ('evolutionary psychology')."

judgecorp writes "Lenovo's new IdeaPads will be using face recognition as a way to replace passwords for users logging onto the laptops. 'Lenovo's VeriFace combines the Windows login and file encryption to password-protect individual files. It identifies users by matching unique features of their faces to photographs taken by the 1.3-megapixel webcam built into the laptop. When Windows users start up their PCs, a camera window pops up in the login frame. The user then just has to adjust their position so their face appears in the window, and VeriFace logs them in automatically.' That could be good, but is the technology really ready for mass market devices? HP ran into trouble when its face recognition software had trouble recognizing people with darker skin."

darthcamaro writes "A year ago, it looked like the .cn country code Top Level Domain (ccTLD) for China was growing so fast that it would displace .com. In 2010 that's no longer the case, as .cn has dropped from being the number two global domain by registrations to number four. And yes, .com is still number one. According to VeriSign, the top 10 list of TLDs in the first quarter was: .com, .de, .net, .cn, .uk, .org, .info, .nl, .eu and .ru. So why did .cn decline? Spammers. 'Many of these are low-priced promotional names that have now come up for renewal at a higher price,' said Pat Kane, vice president of naming services at VeriSign. 'The .cn registration decline was also based on the CNNIC (China Internet Network Information Center) registry's implementation of the real names directive from the Chinese government primarily around verifiable "whois" data.'"

suraj.sun passes along news from Oregon State University, where researchers have discovered a new strain of bacteria that may be able to aid cleanup efforts in the Gulf of Mexico. The bacteria "can produce non-toxic, comparatively inexpensive 'rhamnolipids,' and effectively help degrade polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, or PAHs — environmental pollutants that are one of the most harmful aspects of oil spills. Because of its unique characteristics, this new bacterial strain could be of considerable value in the long-term cleanup of the massive Gulf Coast oil spill, scientists say." In related news, Kevin Costner's centrifugal separator technology has gotten approval for deployment; now it is only waiting on funding from BP.

alphadogg writes "Microsoft researchers have slashed desktop energy use with a sleep proxy system that maintains a PC's network presence even when it is turned off or put into standby mode. Microsoft has deployed the sleep proxy system to more than 50 active users in the Building 99 research facility in Redmond, Wash., according to the Microsoft Research Web site and a paper that will be presented at the Usenix technical conference in Boston later this month. ... Sleep proxies allow machines to be turned off while keeping them connected to the network, waking the machines when a user or IT administrator attempts to access them remotely."

CuteSteveJobs writes "Australian iPad buyers have been forced to buy all manner of unnecessary add-ons, including screen protectors, docking stations, covers, chargers, and extended warranties, due to a reported official Apple policy. Shoppers reported sales assistants said it was 'company policy' or 'Apple policy' to sell the devices only with accessories, or not at all. A store manager for Authorised Apple Reseller JB Hi-Fi said it was 'a bad policy but it was Apple's policy and they couldn't sell one without it.' Other customers were told they must 'buy a Telstra SIM because the iPad is locked to Telstra,' even though it wasn't. The Australian Consumer and Competition Commission and Consumer Affairs are investigating the complaints."

l_bratch writes "A malicious backdoor was added to the UnrealIRCd source archive some time around November 2009. It was not noticed for several months, so many IRC servers are likely to be compromised. A Metasploit exploit already exists."

greymond writes "I was originally hired as an Online Content Producer to write articles for a company website as well as start up the company's social media outlets on Facebook and Twitter. With budget cuts and layoffs I ended up also taking over the website facilitation for three of the company's websites (they let go of the current webmaster). During this time the company has been developing a new website and I was handed the role of pseudo project manager to make sure the developer stayed on course with the project's due date. Now that we're closer to launch the company has informed me that they don't have the budget or staff in place to set up the web server and have tasked me with setting up the LAMP and Zend App on an Amazon EC2 setup. While it's been years since I worked this much with Linux I'm picking it up and moving things along. Needless to say I want to ask for more money, as well as more resources (as well as a better title that fits my roles), but what is the best way to go about this? Of course my other thought is that I'd much rather go back to writing and working with marketing than getting back into IT."

theodp writes "While conceding 'it is clear there should have been greater transparency about the collection of this [Wi-Fi] data,' Google asserted 'we have provided public descriptions of our location-based services' in its written response to Congress (PDF) about whether the public had been adequately informed of its data collection efforts. To prove its point, Google's how-many-times-do-we-have-to-tell-you answer included a link to a blog entry on My Location on the desktop, an odd choice considering that Google is still less-than-clear about exactly what's being captured by the service ('When My Location is active, Toolbar will automatically send local network information (including, but not limited to, visible WiFi access points)'). Congress might also want to evaluate the transparency of this cute Google video, which assured the public of Street View's privacy safeguards, but gave no hint of the controversial Wi-Fi collection."

climenole writes "I came across an email sent by a security vendor, reminding me, no urging me with the liver-transplant sort of urgency, to renew my subscription to their product, lest my pixels perish. I spent a minute or two staring at the email, thinking about all the poor souls out there who do not have the comfort of being a geek and who may actually take the advertisement seriously." That led to this insightful deconstruction of these over-the-top ads, the kind that make it hard to keep straight the malware makers and the anti-malware makers.