Steve Streza writes "My Dream App, a Mac contest in search of the next killer app, features Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak, Apple evangelist Guy Kawasaki, and Xbox and zune creator J. Allard as guest judges for its final round. Visitors can vote for their 3 favorite app ideas, and receive free licenses to both Overflow 2 and the Apple Design Award winning PhotoPresenter. Voting is open until Tuesday at 8:00 PM EDT, at which point the three winners will be announced. The winners, who will have emerged from an initial pool of more than 2,700 entrants, will see their app idea realized as a Mac shareware application and earn royalties on sales. "

About as timely an interview as you can get: Microsoft released Internet Explorer 7 last week, and today we're gathering questions for IE team general manager Dean Hachamovitch. As usual, please follow Slashdot interview rules when posting or moderating questions. We'll publish Dean's answers verbatim as soon as he replies.

writes "IE development team has released a list of CSS changes for IE7. Some of the notable new features are enabling :hover for all elements, and implementing position:fixed, and PNG transparency support. In addition, there is a long list of fixed bugs that plagued previous IE browsers for years. These changes (except for PNG transparency) only work under the <!DOCTYPE> switch to preserve compatibility with previous versions of IE."

A reader writes "There is an interesting blog piece entitled Memoirs of a Bystander: Visual Studio.NET development on OS X w/ Parallels. The piece does a good job talking about development for different environments then the one that you are programming in. " And with the continued rise of more and more heterogeneous environments, this will become more and more common.

We had a story come in from the New York Times reminding people that web surfing in public places Is a way to court trouble. There's nothing in the story that is anything hugely new - but it does lead to an interesting question. What's the worst "on the road" security setups you've seen?

Johan Louwers writes "The Viking mars mission in 1976 might have missed signs of life due to not completely working analysis equipment. GC-MS on the Viking 1976 Mars missions did not detect organic molecules on the Martian surface, even those expected from meteorite bombardment. This result suggested that the Martian regolith might hold a potent oxidant that converts all organic molecules to carbon dioxide rapidly relative to the rate at which they arrive. This conclusion is influencing the design of Mars missions. We reexamine this conclusion in light of what is known about the oxidation of organic compounds generally and the nature of organics likely to come to Mars via meteorite."

MattSparkes writes "For the second year in a row, no team has won the $200,000 prize in the Space Elevator Challenge at the Wirefly X Prize Cup. Three teams were disqualified before the contest even started. Another competition at the event has been held up by confusion. Incredibly, it seems the organisers of the competition are not sure whether the ribbon used was 50 or 60 metres long, and whether any team completed the climb fast enough to win."

Nrbelex writes to mention a New York Times article about the privacy pitfalls of 'no-swipe' credit cards. Despite assurances from the card companies, researchers Tom Heydt-Benjamin and Kevin Fu were able to easily retrieve data from the new cards ... data available without encryption and in plain text. From the article: "They could skim and store the information from a card with a device the size of a couple of paperback books, which they cobbled together from readily available computer and radio components for $150. They say they could probably make another one even smaller and cheaper: about the size of a pack of gum for less than $50. And because the cards can be read even through a wallet or an item of clothing, the security of the information, the researchers say, is startlingly weak. 'Would you be comfortable wearing your name, your credit card number and your card expiration date on your T-shirt?' Mr. Heydt-Benjamin, a graduate student, asked."

Carl Bialik from WSJ writes "Google is attempting to fine tune its hiring process as it ramps up recruiting to keep pace with its success, the Wall Street Journal reports. From the article: 'In Google's early years, [Sergey] Brin or co-founder Larry Page interviewed nearly all job candidates before they were officially hired. A former Google executive recounts how, on occasion, Mr. Brin would show up for candidates' job interviews in unconventional dress, from roller blades to a cow costume complete with rubber udders around Halloween. Even today, at least one of the co-founders reviews every job offer recommended by an internal hiring committee on a weekly basis, sometimes pushing back with questions about an individual's qualifications.' While the interview process can remain 'glacial,' Google's new head of human resources notes that the average number of in-person interviews for each candidate offered a job has declined to 5.1 from 6.2. The company continues to seek overqualified employees who can be promoted quickly."

Nrbelex writes "While other restrictive regimes have sought to find ways to limit the Internet — through filters and blocks and threats — North Korea has chosen to stay wholly off the grid. The New York Times discusses the total lack of 'net access facing the North Korean state, and what it means in the long term." From the article: "The South was illuminated from coast to coast, suggesting that not just lights, but that other, arguably more bedrock utility of the modern age -- information -- was pulsating through the population. The North was black. This is an impoverished country where televisions and radios are hard-wired to receive only government-controlled frequencies. Cellphones were banned outright in 2004. In May, the Committee to Protect Journalists in New York ranked North Korea No. 1 -- over also-rans like Burma, Syria and Uzbekistan -- on its list of the '10 Most Censored Countries.' That would seem to leave the question of Internet access in North Korea moot."

Gracenotes writes "According to the Daily Telegraph, America Online CEO Jonathan Miller notes that AOL might be successful enough to break away from Time Warner and still remain in business. According to Miller, AOL is providing many online services, which provide competition against Google, Yahoo, and other rivals. Since its merger with Time Warner and plummet in value, such features have been increasingly emphasized."

bwfcusa16 writes "The Boston Globe has up a feature story on Weird Al in its Sunday edition. The article refers to his staying power as prince of the parody. It's an ode to his determination, talent, and relevance ... and, of course, the funny." From the article: "Novelty artists--and he is one--have a notoriously short lifespan. They age badly, they run out of gags. But Al, by simply refusing to stop, has turned himself into a sort of cultural Geiger counter, ticking and squawking around the hot zones. The oddity of a humorist titling himself like a pro wrestler (there's no "Funny Jerry" Seinfeld) has long since worn off--he's the champ, and he's earned it.

opencity writes "The Washington Post reports on the two Diebold source disks that were anonymously sent to a Maryland election official this past week. Further investigation has lead individuals involved to believe the disks came from a security check demanded by the Maryland legislature sometime in 2003." From the article: "Critics of electronic voting said the most recent incident in Maryland casts doubt on Lamone's claim that Maryland has the nation's most secure voting system. "There now may be numerous copies of the Diebold software floating around in unauthorized hands," said Linda Schade, co-founder of TrueVoteMD, which has pressed for a system that provides a verifiable paper record of each vote."

frdmfghtr writes "The October 30 issue of Forbes Magazine has an article speculating that Richard Stallman's efforts to rewrite the GPL could threaten to 'tear it apart.' The article describes how the GPLv3 is expected to be incompatible with the GPLv2, causing trouble for Linux vendors such as Novell and Red Hat. The article wraps it up: 'And a big loser, eventually, could be Stallman himself. If he relents now, he likely would be branded a sellout by his hard-core followers, who might abandon him. If he stands his ground, customers and tech firms may suffer for a few years but ultimately could find a way to work around him. Either way, Stallman risks becoming irrelevant, a strange footnote in the history of computing: a radical hacker who went on a kamikaze mission against his own program and went down in flames, albeit after causing great turmoil for the people around him.'"

An anonymous reader writes "Jimmy Wales recently asked the Wikipedia community to suggest useful, 'works that could in theory be purchased and freed' assuming a 'budget of $100 million to purchase copyrights.' He went on to say that he has spoken with a person 'who is potentially in a position to make this happen.' Ideas are being collected at the meta-wiki. Some early suggestions include, satellite imagery, textbooks, scientific journals and photo archives." So how about it? What works would you like to see wikified?