Submission + - Aussie lives 12 days underwater on algae-ge
karolgajewski writes: An Australian has managed to live underwater for 12 days generating his own electricity and using algae to generate air.
New Solar Panel Design Traps More Light 334
GoSun wrote in with an article about new solar panels that opens, "Sunlight has never really caught fire as a power source, mostly because generating electricity with solar cells is more expensive and less efficient than some conventional sources.
But a new solar panel unveiled this month by the Georgia Tech Research Institute hopes to brighten the future of the energy source." The new panels are able to produce sixty times the current of traditional models.
Submission + - New sort, quicker than QuickSort
ThomasCR writes: "AI goes unexpected directions. Here, in a collaboration of humans and a program, a new sorting algorithm has been developed. Considerably faster than the well known QuickSort, for which it has been long thought, that it is the fastest way to order an array of integers or floating point numbers.
Apparently not, according to this site: http://critticall.com/underconstruction.html
Is something like that possible at all?"
Submission + - Brussels Wants to Tax WiFi Antennas
mernil writes: "According to brusselsjournal.com "Olivier Maingain, the mayor of Sint-Lambrechts-Woluwe, one of the 19 Brussels boroughs, is planning to tax all "antennas for the transmission of data". Each antenna will be taxed a staggering 4,000 euros per year. [...] While the small antenna on your wireless router could theoretically be taxed, the new tax seems to target WiFi-antennas that can be seen from the outside, i.e. that are positioned on the outside of buildings. If the owner of the aerial cannot be identified the owners of the buildings have to pay the new tax.""
Journal Journal: Vista Still Primed for Double Extension Exploits.
The Register lead me to this Mikko Hyppönen of F-Secure tells us that Vista's default file viewing behavior still "sucks".
Submission + - Phillips invent dynamic pants
Matthew Sparkes writes: "Philips has come up with a way to change the size and shape of clothes by weaving "muscle wires" into the fabric. The wires are made of shape-memory alloys that change length according to the small current passed through them. The idea is that you can try on a pair of trousers and change the length of the wires in the fabric until the trousers have the correct waist size, inside leg and width — then simply try the real trousers in exactly that size. Dynamic pants could also be useful for those Slashdotters with dynamic waist measurements..."
Submission + - From Hyperlinks to Hyperwords.
DataSurge writes: "From an academic research project at University College London to a commercial product used by thousands, Hyperwords 2.1 is now available.
Computer pioneer Doug Engelbart, who invented personal computing (including the mouse, word processing and more) says that “this is definitely the way the Web should be expanding.” Ted Nelson, who coined the term Hypertext, feels that “Hyperwords gives a lot more power to the user.”
The simplicity of the concept belies its power; with Hyperwords all the words on the web, not just links, become interactive.
Users can select any word on the Web and choose from many powerful commands including search, references (definitions & Wikipedia etc.), maps, shop, email, tag, blog and more.Version 2.1 introduces translation and conversion directly in the page as well as technical & usability enhancements and full customizability. This is more than the left click menu, more than dynamic links.
Demonstration video is available on YouTube.com
The company site is Hyperwords.net
Hyperwords is an Extension for the Firefox web browser and is available immediately for free."
Computer pioneer Doug Engelbart, who invented personal computing (including the mouse, word processing and more) says that “this is definitely the way the Web should be expanding.” Ted Nelson, who coined the term Hypertext, feels that “Hyperwords gives a lot more power to the user.”
The simplicity of the concept belies its power; with Hyperwords all the words on the web, not just links, become interactive.
Users can select any word on the Web and choose from many powerful commands including search, references (definitions & Wikipedia etc.), maps, shop, email, tag, blog and more.Version 2.1 introduces translation and conversion directly in the page as well as technical & usability enhancements and full customizability. This is more than the left click menu, more than dynamic links.
Demonstration video is available on YouTube.com
The company site is Hyperwords.net
Hyperwords is an Extension for the Firefox web browser and is available immediately for free."
Submission + - strange attractor [butterfly effect] visualized
Anomalyst writes: Browsing the POVray.org site led me there. Fascinating images. The math as way beyond me, the introduction forewarns of describing the Lorenz attractor, space of lattices, modular dynamics and its periodic orbits. Equations are knot funny (pun, RTFA) but there for your edification anyway. Dunno if it's art, but I know what I like.
http://www.ams.org/featurecolumn/archive/lorenz.ht ml
I was not successful in getting a Coral Cache, URL is reported as blacklisted, so that's the live site, be gentle.
I was not successful in getting a Coral Cache, URL is reported as blacklisted, so that's the live site, be gentle.
Submission + - Science Team Shows Light Is Made of Particles AND
modemuser writes: Light is made of particles and waves, research published in "Foundations of Physics" shows. Team's findings refute 80-year-old belief. http://www.rowan.edu/news/display_article.cfm?Arti cleID=1704
Submission + - MS security guy wants Vista bugs rated down
jcatcw writes: "Gregg Keizer reports that Michael Howard, an MS senior security program manager, says that the Microsoft Security Response Center (MSRC) is being too conservative in its Vista vulnerability rating plans. Microsoft's own bug hunters should cut Windows Vista some slack and rate its vulnerabilities differently because of the operating system's new, baked-in defenses."
Submission + - A Lesson in Security:The Student vs Hacker Rematch
monkeyboy44 writes: After last years entertaining hacker vs. student showdown, InformIT.com once again covered the annual Mid-Atlantic Regional Collegiate Cyber Defense Competition where college students are put to the test. During the three day event, small teams from eight of the areas colleges are handed insecure networks that they have to lockdown and keep running — all while a team of hackers attempt to gain access any way they can. To keep it interesting, the teams also had to perform various tasks, such as program web applications, install IDS systems and more — and if hacked, the US Secret Service was on hand to determine if their was enough data to start an investigation. Once again, the hackers dominated — but not without a few surprises.
Submission + - iPods, Google-Earth at War in Iraq
Boulainvilliers writes: "Policy Review reports that the U.S. Army started to use iPods and Google-Earth in Iraq and
Afghanistan. The Army first created its internal version of MySpace, with personal profiles, photos,
bios, and information on soldiers' professional backgrounds, open only to U.S. Army commanders.
CompanyCommand.com, privately founded by four officers in 2000, grew to 6,200 members by the end of
2006, when the site was viewed about a million times per year. "It's not just information; it's a
personal story, and commanders are able to connect with their peers who share their knowledge." the
report, "War 2.0",
quotes one of the site's founders. The operators now "equip commanders on their way to Afghanistan
with new iPods, fully loaded with video-podcasted interviews with fellow commanders on their way
out." The journal also reports that U.S. officers started to use Google-Earth to map and document
conversations with civilians and local leaders, to create "a spatially and temporally mapped
track-record of trusted or problematic relationships that can be shared with other soldiers.""
Submission + - Caves on Mars ?
RockDoctor writes: The BBC are reporting that the photo-surveying of Mars has revealed seven suspected cave entrances in the Arsia Mons volcanic area.
This has been hinted at before — long sinuous channels in the same region have been interpreted as collapsed "lava tube" caves — but the scale of the suggested entrances (sheer drops of 80 to 130m from the surrounding surface) makes my troglodytic hands twitch for my abseiling gear. 130m would be a bit challenging for a successful base jump though ... hmmm ... ideas ... thin atmosphere ... rocket packs ...
Submission + - Vbootkit: Compromising Windows Vista Security
Alaska writes: "Vbootkit: Compromising Windows Vista Security
Vista is still vulnerable to unsigned code execution. Vbootkit concept presents how to insert arbitrary code into RC1 and RC2, thus effectively bypassing the famous Vista policy for allowing only digitally signed code to be loaded into kernel. The presented attack works using the custom boot sectors.Custom boot sector are modified boot sectors which hook booting process of the system & thus, gains control of the system.Meanwhile, the OS continues to boot and goes on with normal execution .
they will demonstrate it at
1) the HITB Conference Dubai 2007 and
2) Black Hat Europe 2007 .
http://www.blackhat.com/html/bh-europe-07/bh-eu-07 -schedule.html
http://conference.hitb.org/hitbsecconf2007dubai/
the authors are also talking about shell-codes for Vista.
Some of the shellcodes which might be plugged into vbootkit are:
1) Privilege escalation shell code (automagically increasing any process to SYSTEM privileges)
2) Modify Registry so as to start the telnet server automatically , huh
3) disable other protections
4) hiding process and so on.
Since vbootkit becomes the part of OS itself, it can basically do anything that the OS could do.
Also, visit http://www.nvlabs.in/ for more information
Is vista really that SECURE ???? "
Vista is still vulnerable to unsigned code execution. Vbootkit concept presents how to insert arbitrary code into RC1 and RC2, thus effectively bypassing the famous Vista policy for allowing only digitally signed code to be loaded into kernel. The presented attack works using the custom boot sectors.Custom boot sector are modified boot sectors which hook booting process of the system & thus, gains control of the system.Meanwhile, the OS continues to boot and goes on with normal execution .
they will demonstrate it at
1) the HITB Conference Dubai 2007 and
2) Black Hat Europe 2007 .
http://www.blackhat.com/html/bh-europe-07/bh-eu-0
http://conference.hitb.org/hitbsecconf2007dubai/
the authors are also talking about shell-codes for Vista.
Some of the shellcodes which might be plugged into vbootkit are:
1) Privilege escalation shell code (automagically increasing any process to SYSTEM privileges)
2) Modify Registry so as to start the telnet server automatically , huh
3) disable other protections
4) hiding process and so on.
Since vbootkit becomes the part of OS itself, it can basically do anything that the OS could do.
Also, visit http://www.nvlabs.in/ for more information
Is vista really that SECURE ???? "
Submission + - Can you run an open GSM network?
Anonymous Coward writes: "Here in Vancouver cellphone companies are charging ridiculous amounts for basic cellphone plans. I'm wondering if it's possible to run an open/almost free GSM network on a small college campus. Assuming we could find the hardware and get the rights, is there open source software out there to handle all this?"
