Space

Universe Has 100x More Entropy Than We Thought 304

Posted by kdawson from the clean-up-your-room-that'll-help dept.
eldavojohn writes "Previous estimates are now thought to skimp on the entropy of the observable universe. The researchers contend that super-massive black holes are the largest contributor of entropy. Since they contribute two orders of magnitude more than previously thought, the total of all the observable universe is correspondingly higher. The paper highlights (in gruesome detail) new issues that arise with these new calculations — like estimating us a little bit closer to heat death (moving entropy totals from 10^102 to 10^104 out of a maximum of 10^122)."
Desktops (Apple)

Most Mac Owners Also Own a Windows PC, But Not Vice Versa 814

Posted by timothy from the I-was-gonna-tell-you-honest dept.
Barence writes "More than eight out of ten Mac owners also own a PC, according to a new piece of research. The NPD survey found that 12% of US computer-owning households have a Mac. However, 85% of those also own a Windows PC, suggesting that the Mac/PC divide is nowhere near as clear cut as both Apple and Microsoft suggest. Mac owners are also far more likely to have multiple computers in the house. Two thirds of Mac owners have three or more computers in the home, while only 29% of PC owners have two or more PCs."
Biotech

IBM Researchers Working Toward Cheap, Fast DNA Reader 90

Posted by timothy from the reminds-me-of-creepy-ibm-ads dept.
nk497 writes "IBM scientists are working on ambitious research where nano-sized holes will be drilled into computer chips and DNA passed through to create a 'genetic code reader.' A DNA molecule would be passed through a hole just three nanometers wide, while an electrical sensor 'reads' the DNA. The challenge of the silicon-based 'DNA Transistor' would be to slow and control the motion of the DNA through the hole so the reader could decode what is inside it. IBM claimed that if the project was successful it could make personalised genome analysis as cheap as $100 to $1,000, and compared it to the first-ever sequencing done for the Human Genome Project, which cost $3 billion."
Communications

"Father of Fiber Optics" Wins Nobel Prize 74

Posted by timothy from the you-must-be-very-proud dept.
alphadogg writes "Charles Kao, whose work in the 1960s laid the foundation for today's long-distance fiber-optic networks, has won a share of this year's Nobel Prize in Physics (PDF). Kao, sometimes referred to as the 'father of fiber-optic communications,' was formally honored by the Nobel Foundation in Stockholm, Sweden 'for groundbreaking achievements concerning the transmission of light in fibers for optical communication.' Kao's breakthrough discovery in 1966 was to determine how to transmit light over long distances using ultrapure optical glass fibers. This would extend the distance of such transmissions to 62 miles vs. the mere 65 feet allowed under previous technology held back by impurities. The first ultrapure fiber was created in 1970."
Privacy

FBI Investigates Liberator of Court Records 445

Posted by timothy from the stop-doing-our-job-better-than-we-can dept.
eldavojohn writes "Federal court documents aren't free to the public, they cost $0.08/page through a system called PACER. During a period when the US Government Printing Office was trying out free access at a number of courthouses around the US, a 22-year-old programmer named Aaron Swartz installed a small PERL script at the 7th US Circuit Court of Appeals library in Chicago — a script that uploaded a public document every three seconds to Amazon's EC2 cloud computing service. Swartz then donated over 19 million documents to public.resource.org. That's when the FBI took interest in the programmer responsible for this effort and ran his name through government databases. How did he discover this? His FOIA was approved, of course, and he received the FBI's partially redacted report on himself. The public.resource.org database was later merged with that of the RECAP Firefox extension, which we discussed a couple of months back." Update: 10/06 18:22 GMT by KD: Timothy Lee pointed out that the summary as originally posted garbled the Swartz / RECAP connection. Improved now.
GNU is Not Unix

De Icaza Responds To Stallman 747

Posted by timothy from the strong-personalities dept.
ndogg writes "It's no secret that Stallman doesn't like Mono. Miguel, however, has been pretty quiet about those criticisms, until now. It seems he'll no longer be quiet. He's responded strongly to an article by Stallman that criticizes Codeplex about its aims due to its origin at Microsoft. Miguel says Stallman is fearmongering, and is missing an opportunity by his criticism."
Windows

Windows Mobile 6.5 Launched, Panned 202

Posted by timothy from the what-about-the-grassroots-support dept.
Barence writes "It's not Windows Mobile 7, but at least it's here. PC Pro has posted its full review of Windows Mobile 6.5, as found on the new HTC Touch2 handset, which is also reviewed. If you're expecting something to challenge Apple OS and Android, prepare for a very large let-down. The damning quote: 'Business users, as much as consumers, deserve a phone that's quick and intuitive to operate as well as one that hooks in neatly to Exchange and Outlook and is easy to manage centrally. If this is the best [Microsoft] can muster in the year-and-a-half's worth of development time since Windows Mobile 6.1 appeared, we'll be dramatically lowering our hopes for Windows Mobile 7.'"
Encryption

Thawte Will End "Web of Trust" On November 16 127

Posted by kdawson from the fencing-of-the-commons dept.
An anonymous reader writes "Thawte is ending their Web of Trust, including their free Personal Email Certificates, in less than 2 weeks' time. This hasn't been picked up by the media yet. Seems to me a lot of people, including myself, are hurt by this." Thawte is offering a 1-year free VeriSign cert to those holding valid Personal Email Certificates; after that you pay.
Handhelds

Why the Sony PSP Had To "Go" 261

Posted by Soulskill from the it-was-getting-late-and-the-dog-had-been-inside-all-day dept.
We recently discussed the release of the PSP Go, which drew criticism for many design choices that were of dubious value to consumers. Now, Phaethon360 sends in a story about why Sony felt the need to improve upon the old PSP. "As a format, the UMD was holding the entire platform back. Few people (if anyone) bought into the UMD movie hype Sony attempted to thrust back in 2005. Very soon after that, people realized they could rip their DVDs to a memory stick with the same quality. It's ironic how, as the price of Sony Memory Stick Pro Duo dropped and size increased, PSP UMD sales decreased along with it. It doesn't take too many Howard Stringers to figure out what the problem was." Indeed, Sony was complaining of rampant PSP piracy for quite some time. They cited "legal and technical issues" for not supporting the transfer of UMD games onto the PSP Go; undoubtedly they couldn't find a way to keep pirated games from being copied.
Cellphones

Flash CS5 Will Export iPhone Apps 154

Posted by kdawson from the in-by-the-side-door dept.
HanClinto was among a number of readers to send word that Adobe has worked around the inability to run Flash on iPhones and iPod Touch devices. Adobe has been trying to work with Apple for more than a year to get its Flash Player software running on Apple's products, but has said it needs more cooperation from Apple to get it done. Now Adobe has come up with a work-around. At its Adobe Max developer conference in Los Angeles Monday, Adobe announced that the CS5 release of Flash Professional, due in beta later this year, will allow developers to write applications and compile the code to run on Apple devices. Getting these into the app store might be tricky, though.
Government

Ministry of Defense's "How To Stop Leaks" Document Is Leaked 141

Posted by samzenpus from the there's-no-fighting-in-the-war-room dept.
samzenpus writes "A restricted 2,400 page-document put out by the MoD designed to help intelligence personnel with information security has been leaked onto the internet. Wikileaks notes that Joint Services Protocol 440 (JSP 440), was published in 2001 and lays out protocols to defend against hackers, journalists, and foreign spies. it says, 'Leaks usually take the form of reports in the public media which appear to involve the unauthorized disclosure of official information (whether protectively marked or not) that causes political harm or embarrassment to either the UK Government or the Department concerned... The threat [of leakage] is less likely to arise from positive acts of counter-espionage, than from leakage of information through disaffected members of staff, or as a result of the attentions of an investigative journalist, or simply by accident or carelessness.' " Looks like it's time to write JSP 441.
Biotech

Startup Offers Pre-Built Biological Parts 71

Posted by kdawson from the we-can-assemble-it-for-you-wholesale dept.
TechReviewAl writes "A new startup called Ginkgo BioWorks hopes to make synthetic-biology simpler than ever by assembling biological parts, such as strings of specific genes, for industry and academic scientists. While companies already exist to synthesize pieces of DNA, Ginkgo assembles synthesized pieces of DNA to create functional genetic pathways. (Assembling specific genes into long pieces of DNA is much cheaper than synthesizing that long piece from scratch.) Company cofounder Tom Knight, also a research scientist at MIT, says: 'I'm interested in transitioning biology from being sort of a craft, where every time you do something it's done slightly differently, often in ad hoc ways, to an engineering discipline with standardized methods of arranging information and standardized sets of parts that you can assemble to do things.'"
Security

72% of Banks Say Their Employees Committed Fraud 272

Posted by kdawson from the by-the-wheelbarrow-full dept.
yahoi writes "The financial crisis appears to be exacerbating fraud by bank employees: a new survey found that 72 percent of financial institutions say that in the last 12 months they have experienced a case of data theft by one of their workers. Meanwhile, most banks don't want to talk about the insider threat problem and remain in denial, says a former Wachovia Bank executive who handled insider fraud incidents at the bank and has co-authored a new book called Insidious — How Trusted Employees Steal Millions and Why It's So Hard for Banks to Stop Them that investigates several real-world insider fraud cases at banks." The article dispels one assumption that might commonly be made about such insider fraud: "Interestingly, it's not the stereotypical offshore or outsourced employee who's most risky to their organizations. Nearly 70 percent of financial institutions say their full-time employees are most likely to pose an insider fraud threat..." Technology workers placed third in the roster of the job categories most abused.
Television

The First High-Definition TV, Circa 1958 222

Posted by kdawson from the swivels-and-tilts-and-comes-in-purple dept.
An anonymous reader sends us to Gizmag for a look at a recent auction of a large collection of antique TVs. The star of the show was the Teleavia type P111, one of the earliest examples of high-definition TV. This rare 1958 console-stand television was designed by Flaminio Bertroni, who was also responsible for the iconic Citroen DS. The TV featured dual resolution capability, with the higher setting offering better resolution than 720p — 819 lines. This early attempt at a high-def standard, originating in France in 1949, didn't catch on in the marketplace.
Wireless Networking

Netgear WNR3500L Open Source Router Announced 300

Posted by kdawson from the still-making-lemonade dept.
MyOpenRouter writes "Netgear has announced the WNR3500L, a brand new, open source, wireless-N gigabit router customizable with third party firmwares. MyOpenRouter is the dedicated source for Netgear open source routers, with the full scoop including a review with screenshots, how-to's, tutorials, firmware downloads, etc. Here's a review and the downloads page." The router can run popular open source firmware including DD-WRT, OpenWRT. and Tomato. It will list for $140.

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