Lucas123 writes "A new type of flash memory, called array-based memory, could offer a terabyte of data on a single chip within the next decade by bypassing current NAND memory technology, which is limited by the miniaturization capability of lithography. According to the Computerworld story, start-up Nanochip Inc. is being backed by Intel and others, and over 11 years has made research breakthroughs that will enable it to deliver working prototypes to potential manufacturing partners next year. And by 2010, the first chips are expected to reach 100GB capacity."

cayenne8 sends us to Newteevee.com for a blog posting reporting from the Digital Living Room conference earlier this week. Gerard Kunkel, Comcast's senior VP of user experience, stated that the cable company is experimenting with different camera technologies built into its devices so it can know who's in your living room. Cameras in the set-top boxes, while apparently not using facial recognition software, can still somehow figure out who is in the room, and customize user preferences for cable (favorite channels, etc.). While this sounds 'handy,' it also sounds a bit like the TV sets in 1984. I am sure, of course, that Comcast wouldn't tap into this for any reason, nor let the authorities tap into this to watch inside your home in real time without a warrant or anything."

christian.einfeldt writes "Stanford Law Professor Larry Lessig really 'gets it' when it comes to the efficacy of distributed open source code production. Now he is attempting to use distributed production methods to expose corruption in the US Congress with the launch of another 'CC' organization — this time it's called 'Change Congress'. CC (as opposed to cc for Creative Commons) would invite users to track whether US legislators are willing to commit to Change Congress' four pledges. CC will rely on users to record and map the positions of candidates who are running for open seats in the US House and Senate. Change Congress will use a Google mash-up to create a map depicting which legislators have taken the CC pledge, which have declined, and which have signaled support for planks in the Change-Congress platform. The four pledges (which are not numbered 0 through 3) call for greater transparency in government, and less influence of private money in shaping legislation."

Lucas123 writes "The US International Trade Commission said it will launch an investigation into possible patent infringements involving Sony's Blu-ray players and other technologies using laser and light-emitting diodes, such as Motorola's Razr phone and Hitachi camcorders. The investigation was prompted by a complaint filed in February by a Columbia University professor emerita who says she invented a method of using gallium nitride-based semiconductor material for producing wide band-gap semiconductors for LEDs and laser diodes in the blue/ultraviolet end of the light spectrum. Her complaint asks the ITC to block imports of LED and laser diode technology from Asia and Europe. The total market for all types of gallium nitride devices has been forecast at $7.2 billion for 2009 alone."

markybob writes "Ubuntu Hardy 8.04 beta has been released. It features GNOME 2.22 and uses Linux kernel 2.6.24. Furthermore, it uses Firefox 3 beta 4, and PulseAudio is enabled by default. To ease the transition of Windows users, it includes Wubi, which allows users to install and uninstall Ubuntu like any other Windows application. It does not require a dedicated partition, nor does it affect the existing bootloader, yet users can experience a dual-boot setup almost identical to a full installation."

ArieKremen writes "Israeli Avraham Trakhtman, a Russian immigrant mathematician who had been employed as a night watchman, has solved the Road Coloring problem. First posed in 1970 by Benjamin Weiss and Roy Adler, the problem posits that given a finite number of roads, one should be able to draw a map, coded in various colors, that leads to a certain destination regardless of the point of origin. The 63-year-old Trakhtman jotted down the solution in pencil in 8 pages. The problem has real-world implementation in message and traffic routing."

An anonymous reader writes "In July 2007, Richard Doherty of the Envisioneering Group (BD+ Standards Board) declared: 'BD+, unlike AACS which suffered a partial hack last year, won't likely be breached for 10 years.' Only eight months have passed since that bold statement, and Slysoft has done it again. According to the press release, the latest version of their flagship product AnyDVD HD can automatically remove BD+ protection and allows you to back-up any Blu-ray title on the market."

Pickens brings news that researchers from Rice University have discovered that it's possible to store hydrogen inside buckyballs. Hydrogen can be an excellent power source, but it is notoriously difficult to store. The buckyballs can contain up to 8% of their weight in hydrogen, and they are strong enough to hold it at a density that rivals the center of Jupiter. "Using a computer model, Yakobson's research team has tracked the strength of each atomic bond in a buckyball and simulated what happened to the bonds as more hydrogen atoms were packed inside. Yakobson said the model promises to be particularly useful because it is scalable, that is it can calculate exactly how much hydrogen a buckyball of any given size can hold, and it can also tell scientists how overstuffed buckyballs burst open and release their cargo."

I Don't Believe in Imaginary Property writes "Bruce Schneier has an essay on the mind of security professionals like himself, and why it's something that can't easily be taught. Many people simply don't see security threats or the potential ways in which things can be abused because they don't intend to abuse them. But security pros, even those who don't abuse what they find, have a different way of looking at things. They always try to figure out all the angles or how someone could beat the system. In one of his examples, Bruce talks about how, after buying one of Uncle Milton's Ant Farms, he was enamored with the idea that they would mail a tube of live ants to anyone you asked them to. Schneier's article was inspired by a University of Washington course in which the professor is attempting to teach the 'security mindset.' Students taking the course have been encouraged to post security reviews on a class blog."

Multiple readers have written to tell us of the latest developments out of Intel. Earlier this week, Intel announced the Atom brand of low cost, low power consumption processors. The CPUs, measuring only 25 square millimeters, are the result of the Silverthorne and Diamondville projects. The announcement has caused this CNet columnist to question whether Intel can "spur innovation in ultrasmall devices the way it has in the PC and server industry." Concurrently, Intel has increased its production of 45nm processors to a rate of roughly 100,000 chips per day. As TG Daily notes, the massive investments Intel has made into chip production will make it difficult for AMD to catch up.

souls writes "The folks at Wikileaks are calling for a boycott against eNom, Inc., one of the top internet domain registrars, which WikiLeaks claims is involved in systematic domain censoring. On Feb 28th eNom shut down wikileaks.info, one of the many Wikileaks mirrors held by a volunteer as a side-effect of the court proceedings around wikileaks.org. In addition, eNom was the registrar that shut off access to a Spanish travel agent who showed up on a US Treasury watch list. Wikileaks calls for a 'global boycott of eNom and its parent Demand Media, its owners, executives and their affiliated companies, interests and holdings, to make clear such behavior can and will not be tolerated within the boundaries of the Internet and its global community.'"

An anonymous reader writes "Despite all the emphasis on protecting Olympic copyrights in China this year, the official web site of the Beijing Olympics features a Flash game that is a blatant copy of one of the games developed at The Pencil Farm. Compare the game on the Olympic site with 'Snow Day' at The Pencil Farm."

Brian Stretch sends us to the National Review for an interview with Stanford professor Lawrence Lessig. Lessig talks about money, politics, money in politics, and his decision not to run for an open seat in Congress. From the interview: "Lessig hates corruption. He hates it so much, in fact, that last year he announced he'd be shifting away from his work on copyright and trademark law... to focus on it... 'One of the biggest targets of reform that we should be thinking about is how to blow up the FCC.'"

dynamator writes "I live about 550 meters from my Verizon central office. I pay for their higher-tier 'Power Plan' DSL service, which boasts 3 Mbps down and 758 Kbsp up. For the past year, I've enjoyed excellent performance on this line. However, this past month Verizon has been hooking up my neighbors with FiOS, their new fiber-to-the-home system, and guess what, my connection speed and dependability have taken a nosedive. What can I do to build the case that this is really happening? Will anyone, least of all Verizon, care? Are they making me a fiber offer I can't refuse?" We discussed a few times last year what Verizon may be up to.