Flamerule writes "A New York Times article has finally provided an update on the status of Grigori Perelman's 2003 rough proof of the Poincaré Conjecture. 3 years ago, Perelman published several papers online explaining his idea for proving the conjecture, but after giving lectures at MIT and several other schools (covered on Slashdot) he returned to Russia, where he's remained silent since. Now, mathematicians in the US and elsewhere have finally finished going over his work and have produced several papers, totaling 1000 pages, that give step-by-step, complete proofs of the conjecture. In addition to winning some or all of the $1,000,000 Millennium Prize, Perelman now seems to be the favorite to receive a Fields Medal at the International Mathematics Union meeting next week, but it's not clear that he'll even show up!"

fraew wonders: "I just received a Microsoft Partner Program package in the usual MSDN sized box (34cm x 25cm x 11cm) that contained a single A5 piece of paper. Nothing more. Previously I've had RAM DIMMs and PCI cards double-boxed in boxes that approached the size of a computer case, so what is the worst example of excessive tech packaging you've received?"

soldack writes "Information Week has an piece on the 12 greatest pieces of software ever. It also notes some that didn't make the cut and why. Their weblog covers 5 others that didn't make the cut."

An anonymous reader asks: "I'm trying to find a solution for encrypting removable media connected to my network's computers. Ideally, the solution would: allow Enterprise deployment and configuration in a Windows XP environment; be free and open source; not require administrative privileges to use (encrypt/decrypt files and media); and allow decryption via freely available and platform-independent methods on the destination machine. I've looked at PointSec for Removable Media, but it requires Windows on both ends. I've also looked at TrueCrypt, but it doesn't appear to limit encryption to only removable media (I don't want users encrypting their hard drives). Slashdot, can you help me?"

Roland Piquepaille writes "Chinese engineers have unveiled a series of robots lately — without releasing lots of technical details about them. In the past two months, I've gathered pictures of robots which can act as waiters in restaurants in Hong Kong or pull rickshaws near Beijing. I've also found a four-finger robotic hand able to play organ, a female robot greeting tourists visiting the Sichuan Science Museum with 'ni hao' ('How are you?' in Mandarin — if my sources are correct), and even a robotic chimpanzee."

TechnoSophos asks: "How can I get the real scoop on the latest scientific research? The fourth-grade-reading-level newspaper version of the story is rarely accurate, and is too focused on the wow factor. On the other hand, neither searching for arbitrary strings, nor browsing by journal or even topic is particularly effective if the task is simply staying up to date with the latest news. I don't need gorgeous graphics, nor do I need someone with a Bachelor's in Literary Criticism telling me what the research is about. I just want the cold, hard facts -- lots of 'em."

rtt writes "Jack Thompson is back on the video game scene and has followed through with his threat to file a law suit against Rockstar, Take-Two and Walmart for Rockstar's upcoming "Bully" title. bit-tech was sent a copy by the man himself which started as follows "Take-Two has until five o'clock p.m., Eastern time, Monday, August 14, 2006, to inform me in writing that it will forthwith provide me with a copy of Bully so that I and others can analyze it to determine whether it still poses a threat of copycat violence in our schools.""

solitas writes "NASA isn't just "going back to the drawing boards" to get back to the Moon, they're also going through the museums and archives so that the new engineers can rediscover/learn how it was done the first time." From the article: "Some old Apollo engineers are even being brought back on a contract basis to work with the young folks, some of whom were not even born when the Saturn V was flying lunar missions. The new manned exploration project, called Constellation, is deliberately drawing upon lessons from the past as the space agency works to meet a congressional deadline of flying the Ares rocket ... In fact, NASA Administrator Michael Griffin has described the new program as 'Apollo on steroids.'"

garzpacho writes "BusinessWeek Online has an interview with Daniel Warmenhoven (CEO of Network Appliances), who joins a growing list of technology executives in saying that the government's search for backdated options among tech companies is going too far: 'It's become a witch hunt. I think the government is looking to find some egregious examples [of wrongdoing] and to publicly hang people for them. That's fine. But where does it stop? I'm not saying the past practices were all good. But I thought the SEC's role was to build investor confidence. What they're doing right now is destroying it, and I don't see the purpose. They're penalizing today's shareholders for events that occurred five years ago. But who is this protecting, exactly? With Enron, every shareholder in the company lost money. The same with Qwest, and with MCI-Worldcom. But I don't know who the injured party is here.'"

denebian devil writes "According to Cory Doctorow at Boingboing, the RIAA has dropped its case against the family of a dead man. 'Today, an RIAA spokesperson, Jonathan Lamy, contacted me today with this statement: Our hearts go out to the Scantleberry family for their loss. We had decided to temporarily suspend the productive settlement discussions we were having with the family. Mr. Scantleberry had admitted that the infringer was his stepson, and we were in the process settling with him shortly before his passing. Out of an abundance of sensitivity, we have elected to drop this particular case.'"

This past weekend, the OSU Linux Users Group descended on a field in Oregon to create a 45,000+ square foot crop circle of Firefox. The photos and write-up are worth checking out.

Quincy A. writes "Last week's exposure of search data on over 500,000 AOL users was a gigantic embarrassment for the company. It may be about to get worse, as the EFF has filed a complaint with the FTC over the incident. 'Citing AOL's own Network Privacy Policy, the EFF says that the company failed to "implement reasonable and appropriate measures to protect personal consumer information from public disclosure."' Among other things, the complaint asks AOL to notify all users affected by the data disclosure via certified mail and provide free credit monitoring for a year."

Gamespot has a few words with Lionhead's Peter Molyneux, who looks back on some of the great games of the past in the days before the Leipzig Conference, where he is slated to give a keynote. Along with some commentary on modern gaming, Molyneux discusses a wish to reimagine titles like Populous, Dungeon Keeper, and Syndicate. Great ideas ... if he ever gets the chance to make them come true.

Stern Thinker writes "In a 2005 poll covering 33 countries, Americans are the least likely (except for Turkish respondents) to assert that 'humans developed ... from earlier species of animals.' Iceland, meanwhile, has an 85% acceptance rating for evolution." The blurb on the site for Science magazine is less circumspect about the findings: "The acceptance of evolution is lower in the United States than in Japan or Europe, largely because of widespread fundamentalism and the politicization of science in the United States."