Gamasutra reports that after almost two years of searching, the players of the Perplex City alternate reality game have found the cube. Discovered by Mr. Darley, of Middlesex England, it was turned over to the runners of the Perplex City game today in return for a check worth $200,000. A celebration is planned for the winner and other players on February 24th, somewhere in London. The discovery of the cube ends a long hunt for players of the game, who have been looking for the relic since the game launched in 2005. A second season is already planned, with cards due to be in stores on the 1st of March.

Iddo Genuth writes "After a decade of work, the first millimeter size turbine engine developed by researchers at MIT should become operational by the end of this summer. The new turbine engine will allow the creation of smaller and more powerful batteries than anything currently in existence. It might also serve as the basis for tiny powerful motors with applications ranging from micro UAVs to children's toys. In the more distant future huge arrays of hydrogen fueled millimeter turbine engines could even be the basis for clean, quiet and cost effective power plants."

noahisaac writes "My brother just sent me an article he posted for the Rett Syndrome Research Foundation about a cure for Rett Syndrome, a form of autism. According to the article, researchers successfully re-introduced a fully functional version of the MECP2 gene into mice that had been born with damaged MECP2 genes. Contrary to their expectations, the mice improved. In the article's words, 'restoration of fully functional MECP2 over a four week period eradicated tremors and normalized breathing, mobility and gait in mice that had previously been fully symptomatic and, in some cases, only days away from death.' The ramifications for people suffering from Rett Syndrome are obvious, but mutations of the MECP2 gene are also believed to be the cause of 'classic' autism, and a number of other neurological disorders."

cj writes in with news of a vulnerability in Firefox's stock popup blocker discovered by Michal Zalewski. The vulnerability can allow a malicious user to read files from an affected system. The attacker would "need to plant a predictably named file with exploit code on the target system. This sounds hard, but isn't," according to the article.

stinkytoe writes in with the news that Nikolaus Gebhardt, developer of the cross-platform game engine library Irrlicht, recently had one of his video tutorials taken off of YouTube. A thread on Irrlicht's forum contains a copy of the takedown notice. From Gebhardt's blog: "Viacom, the corporation behind MTV, DreamWorks and Paramount is now claiming they own the copyright on a video of an Irrlicht tutorial. Which is completely ridiculous, of course: The whole thing has been written by me and the Irrlicht team, even textures and skins and logos have been created by me, and an Irrlicht Engine user... simply filmed and published it on YouTube.com. Here is a screenshot of the tutorial, it's really just a 2D GUI rendered using the 3D engine, nothing special at all."

Another anonymous reader tips an essay by Steve Jobs on the Apple site about DRM, iTunes, and the iPod. Perhaps it was prompted by the uncomfortable pressure the EU has been putting on Apple to open up the iPod. Jobs places the blame for the existence and continuing reliance on DRM squarely on the music companies. Quoting: "Much of the concern over DRM systems has arisen in European countries. Perhaps those unhappy with the current situation should redirect their energies towards persuading the music companies to sell their music DRM-free. For Europeans, two and a half of the big four music companies are located right in their backyard. The largest, Universal, is 100% owned by Vivendi, a French company. EMI is a British company, and Sony BMG is 50% owned by Bertelsmann, a German company. Convincing them to license their music to Apple and others DRM-free will create a truly interoperable music marketplace. Apple will embrace this wholeheartedly."

An anonymous reader writes "Photographers from a Canadian company are going house to house, shooting pictures of every house in America, in hopes of building a giant database that can be sold to banks, insurance companies, and appraisal firms. While this activity is legal (as long as the photographers don't trespass on private property to get their shots), there are obviously concerns about security and privacy. Considering that an individual can be detained and questioned by the FBI for photographing a bridge in this country, why should this Canadian company get a free pass? Tinfoil hat aside, something seems very, very fishy here." From the Arizona Star article about the photographing of Tucson: "'The [handout given to people who complain] made it sound like they're doing it for law enforcement, when in reality they're doing it for sales and marketing,' said [a City Council aide], who received several calls about the company."

An anonymous reader writes "Cambridge University researchers, in an investigation for BBC Television's Watchdog programme, have demonstrated a man-in-the-middle attack for the chip-and-pin credit card security system used throughout the UK and Europe. In the attack, the card is inserted into a card-reader that has been tampered with, and the information transmitted in real-time to an accomplice who uses a specially modified card to make a higher-value purchase elsewhere. The modified card-reader shows only the expected amount, but the larger amount is deducted from the victim's bank account. It would not be easy to use this method in practice because the two transactions must be made simultaneously. The same team recently demonstrated a hacked chip-and-pin terminal playing Tetris."