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Security

Submission + - Homeland Security Dept E-mail Doozy (wordpress.com)

sbrown3820 writes: "The Department of Homeland Security publishes a report Mon-Fri listing news reports affecting areas of critical U.S. infrastructure such as chemical, nuclear, transportation and others. Today, one of the subscribers innocently replied to the distribution email address that he was changing jobs and wanted DHS to update his email address. He didn't realize his message would set off a chain reaction."
Intel

Intel Salivates Over Virtual World Processing Demands 52

CNet has up an article looking at the lucrative virtual world market for processor companies. An Intel developer forum held in San Francisco this week highlighted the opportunities for selling hardware to both consumers and vendors in the VW marketplace. "[Chief Technology Officer Justin Rattner] showed statistics that indicated a PC's processor bumps up to 20 percent utilization while browsing the Web, while its graphics processor doesn't even break above 1 percent. But running Second Life--even with today's coarse graphics--pushes those to 70 percent for the main processor and 35 to 70 percent for the graphics processor, he said. The Google Maps Web site and Google Earth software pose intermediate demands. Running a virtual worlds server is vastly more computationally challenging, though, when compared with 2D Web sites and even massively multiplayer online games such as Eve Online. An Eve Online server can handle 34,420 users at a time, but Second Life maxes a server out with just 160 users."
User Journal

Journal Journal: Papers Please - Part 2

Michael Righi's preliminary hearing was scheduled for September 20th, but was canceled at the last moment. There is no comment from Mr. Righi on his blog, yet but a Cleveland area newspaper has the story.

Feed Techdirt: Google Can't Figure Out That Its Own Blog Isn't Spam (techdirt.com)

Splogs have been a problem for a while now. Spammers set up sites full of content -- generally stolen from legitimate sites -- in order to grab search traffic and make money from ads or through other means. Blog platform providers don't want to waste resources supporting these sites, so many of them have some form of anti-splog system, including Google's Blogspot platform. But clearly they need more work, since Blogspot's marked an official Google blog as spam (via Infoworld), leading to its disappearance and the takeover of its URL by another blogger. Apparently the system's warning emails to the Google bloggers went unheeded, so after a period of time, the site was automatically taken down, and another blogger swooped in and grabbed the URL. The company realized what happened, and restored the site, but the episode highlights just how poorly anti-spam blog systems tend to work.
Music

Submission + - Has allofmp3.com finally gone down for good?

adavidw writes: "Allofmp3.com is down this weekend in both its English and Russian versions. Is this the end? The Moscow Times is reporting that it is. The site has been down for "maintenance" a few times before, each time leaving people to speculate that it was an actual shutdown. However, with legal options rapidly disappearing and virtually no payment options remaining perhaps this time really is the end for the beleaguered music site."
Censorship

Scientologists In Row With BBC 763

CmdrGravy writes "The Church Of Scientology is currently engaged in a row with the BBC, a result of an investigation by reporter John Sweeney. Sweeney is investigating the Church Of Scientology, trying to judge changes in the organization over the last few years; He's trying to discover if they've moved away from the questionable practices and secrecy they have employed in the past. The conflict centers around a YouTube video posted by the scientologists. It shows Mr. Sweeney losing his temper with a scientology spokesman. Mr. Sweeney's outburst came at the end of a tour of a scientology exhibition which attempts to portray psychiatrists as evil nazi type torturers entitled 'Psychiatry: Industry of Death' which is both gruesome and utterly unconvincing. The BBC appears willing to stand behind its reporter, in spite of the pressure brought to bear by the scientologist organization."

Western Union Blocking Money Transfers to Arabs 904

lowrydr310 writes "Western Union is blocking money transfers to people with Arab names. They have delayed or blocked thousands of cash deliveries on suspicion of terrorist connections simply because senders or recipients have names like Mohammed or Ahmed. 'In one example, an Indian driver here said Western Union prevented him from sending $120 to a friend at home last month because the recipient's name was Mohammed.' Western union claims they are merely following U.S. Treasury Department guidelines that scrutinize cash flows for terrorist links. I agree that Western Union shouldn't allow anyone supporting terrorism to use their service, however I'm fairly certain there are millions of people named Mohammed or Ahmed who aren't terrorists. I wonder if any other financial companies such as banks are doing the same thing."

DVD Format War Already Over? 640

An anonymous reader writes "'Nobody likes false starts' - claims the assertive and risky article "10 Reasons Why High Definition DVD Formats Have Already Failed" published by Audioholics which outlines their take on why the new Blu-ray Disc and HD-DVD formats will attain nothing more than niche status in a marketplace that is brimming with hyperbole. Even though the two formats have technically just hit the streets, the 'Ten reasons' article takes a walk down memory lane and outline why the new DVD tech has a lot to overcome."

Corsair Nautilus500 External Cooling Kit 39

VL writes to tell us that they recently got a chance to review the latest external water cooling kit from Corsair. It seems that in addition to the performance boost it was also extremely easy to use. From the review: "As you can see above, the Nautilus500 was significantly quicker to install than the other two kits. The reason for this is that the motherboard needs to be removed before installation for both the EXOS and Aquagate, but not for the Nautilus500. Keep in mind that we're very familiar with the Aquagate Mini and Koolance EXOS, so those times are about as low as they get (for us anyway). We think we can maybe shave another minute for the Nautilus, but either way, a liquid system installed under 10 minutes is pretty impressive."

An Underground Radio to Save Lives 82

Roland Piquepaille writes "The Duluth News Tribune wrote last week about a communication device which could be a lifesaver for miners. This invention is the brainchild of David Reagor, a physicist at Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL). His prototype radio works at depths of 500 feet and is based on very low frequency electromagnetic radiation and digital signal processors. A commercial version is in the works and could be used not only by workers trapped in a mine, but also by firefighters and other emergency workers to communicate with people in collapsed buildings or subways."

Would You Wear Video Glasses? 239

Roland Piquepaille writes "According to EE Times, an Israeli company has developed a personal video display device that looks like a simple pair of glasses. You can use these glasses with various sources, such as a portable media player or your cell phone. This technology promises to eliminate the dizziness phenomenon usually associated with this kind of display. And with these glasses weighing only about 40 grams, you'll feel that you're viewing a 40-inch screen from a distance of 7 feet." Video screens embedded into eyewear isn't that new, but the footprint of these is smaller than what I've seen before, making them cooler to wear on the subway.

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