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Submission + - FCC wants to regulate violence on TV

Submitted by
An anonymous reader writes: CNN is reporting that the FCC has released a report that claims Congress can expand the FCC's authority to regulate broadcast television. Currently, the FCC can regulate profanity and sexual content, but the new report calls for the power to regulate violence as well.
Wireless Networking

Submission + - Apple the latest company to jump the gun on 802.11

Submitted by
PetManimal
PetManimal writes: "Apple has just released the latest model of the Airport Extreme base station, which besides adding home storage networking capabilities, also pushes a wireless standard that's not even ratified: 802.11n. Although it's not the first "pre-n" wireless gear, the article says it does much better than the Linksys pre-n hardware in terms of setup and ease of use. As for whether the plethora of pre-n hardware on the market now is setting the stage for interoperability problems later on, eWeek reports that wireless vendors are already taking steps to make gear from different 802.11 manufacturers play nice, by releasing new router firmware and client drivers designed to improve interoperability among chip-set implementations, and implementing chip sets from multiple vendors. The draft 2.0 version of the 802.11n standard may be approved in the middle of this year, which could lead to final approval in late 2007."
Education

Submission + - Not So Global Warming

Submitted by OverlordQ
OverlordQ writes: A new report on climate over the world's southernmost continent shows that temperatures during the late 20th century did not climb as had been predicted by many global climate models. This comes soon after the latest report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change that strongly supports the conclusion that the Earth's climate as a whole is warming, largely due to human activity. David Bromwich, professor of professor of atmospheric sciences in the Department of Geography, and researcher with the Byrd Polar Research Center at Ohio State University, reported on this work at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science at San Francisco.

Feed Water on Mars: New Evidence (wired.com)

From feed by wiredfeed
Photographs sent by a NASA orbiter suggests that water may indeed be flowing on Mars. And where there's water, there's at least a chance of life. By the Associated Press.


Announcements

Submission + - nanotechnology battery demo on youtube

Submitted by
h00manist
h00manist writes: "mPhase Technologies will post a video demonstration of its Smart Nanobattery on YouTube today, February 16th at 5 p.m. Eastern time. The video will explain the technology behind its breakthrough development of a "smart" battery based on nanotechnology. The video will illustrate in layman's terminology some fundamental concepts behind the company's smart nano battery. mPhase has proven it is possible to fabricate nanotech-based "smart" batteries, which can store reserve power for decades and generate electric current virtually on demand. The prototype battery is based on a discovery that liquid droplets of electrolyte will stay in a dormant state atop nanotextured surfaces until stimulated to flow, thereby triggering a reaction producing electricity. This effect can permit precise control and activation of the batteries when required."
Space

Submission + - End of the World? Nah,.Only 3 Football Fields Wide

Submitted by
j2xs
j2xs writes: "So a funny thing happened today as I was checking my web stats report. This company was surfing DataRush, so naturally I went out to take a look at 'em... then I found this quote regarding what the world can expect in 2036. Heck, forget that! Look what happens seven years earlier!

"Some believe that all of this is science fiction," Ailor stated, "but we know that an asteroid (Apophis) 300 meters in diameter, large enough to cause serious damage, will pass within 20,000 miles of Earth — closer than our weather satellites — in 2029, and an impact by the same asteroid in 2036 cannot be ruled out. This conference will help improve our readiness should we need to defend our planet in the future."

I for one, am hereby donating my software to the effort !! Hey Aerospace Corporate guy, uhhh, just TAKE the darn software and start modeling its trajectory!!
[nervous laugh turning to whimper...as the screen fades to black]"
Media

Submission + - Is It Possible To Protect Your Kids Online

Submitted by wiredog
wiredog writes: In light of the multiple daily stories about various online predators, and attempts to Protect The Childrentm from them, a Washington Post writer asks

How much can parents protect their children from increasingly pervasive technology and the many bad things that can come from it? How much should they protect them?

Are the MySpaces and Comcasts and Earthlinks of the world completely blameless? As a parent, is it even possible to completely protect your children in this era?
Windows

Consumer Vista Upgrades Moving at Snail's Pace 269

Posted by Zonk from the playing-the-waiting-game dept.
Chester Freeze writes "During the holiday season, many shoppers bought PCs with the promise of quick, free Vista upgrades. The reality has been something else entirely: many Dell and HP customers are being told that they won't receive their copies of Vista before April. 'One source at a major OEM who spoke on condition of anonymity said that the real issue is that OEMs are still not sure which PCs are really ready to support Vista, and which PCs aren't... Customers who qualify for an Express Upgrade also qualify for OEM support for Windows Vista, even if their machines came with Windows XP. The last thing a Dell, Gateway, or HP wants to do is start sending out upgrades to customers who might have video cards that do not have particularly stable drivers yet (or sound cards, or RAID controllers, etc.). This could be a support disaster.'"
PHP

Submission + - PHP Security - Soft Hyphen Exploit

Submitted by
An anonymous reader writes: This hack can be used to make two different pieces of text absolutely indistinguishable to humans. Well this isn't actually a "security" threat, it's a threat to trust. Though the names look different to php, they look absolutely the same to the end user. And with a little trouble, a lot of pranksters can make use of this. End result, you can use any exiting members name on forums, etc. And this is just the beginning. this is achieved by using invisible soft hyphens that are not displayed by browsers, while there's no real security danger, it's a threat to digital trust everywhere.
It's funny. Laugh.

Submission + - Another perspective on intellectual property

Submitted by joejor
joejor writes: With so much controversy over intellectual property rights in software development, it may be instructive (or at least entertaining) to look at another human endeavor that suffers from stolen ideas: stand-up comedy. Radar magazine has an article that describes the long history of cribbing and theft in comedy, by big names and small.

Given the nature of stand-up, where source material has to be broadcast from performer to audience, it often happens that one performer will hear another's bits and incorporate the funniest ones into his own act, without attribution. The perspectives of the comedians interviewed range from enlightened to downright hateful (hmm, sounds familiar).

Choice quote from TFA: "People take plagiarism so seriously in all other forms of media, whether it's music, newspapers, books ... But with comedy, it's like, 'You're on your own.'"
Robotics

Submission + - Robot snowblower lets Pennsylvania man relax

Submitted by davidwr
davidwr writes: A Pennsylvania man can take it easy while his robot snowblower does all the heavy lifting, er, blowing. It's basically a converted golf cart with a snowblower attachment, gear mods, and a remote-control hack. Is this the "must-have geek do-it-yourself-kit" for geeks in snow country next Christmas? Now if only the guys near Buffalo had a beowulf cluster of these babies last week....
Editor: Change icon to Monty Python Stomping Foot
Security

Submission + - Network Computing Editor Wins RSA Hacking Contest

Submitted by richkarpi
richkarpi writes: Network Computing's security editor won the recent RSA Interactive Testing Challenge, er hacking, contest. Read his blow-by-blow description of the events:

>>I squeaked out a win in the tie-breaking challenge the first day with only a few seconds to spare as my opponent was right behind
>>in the hunt to combine three injectable fields into one long javascript function.

Read all the details: For Hackers, By A Hacker
Security

Submission + - Sequoia Voting Machine for $82

Submitted by nursegirl
nursegirl writes: Princeton computer science professor Andrew Appel bought 5 $5000 Sequoia electronic voting machines from a government auction site for $82 last month. He and his students may be performing the first security analysis by people who hadn't signed non-disclosure agreements with Sequoia Voting Systems. Appel says that thus far, the Sequoia voting machines appear to be more secure than the Diebold voting machines examined by another Princeton professor last year.

From the Article

Appel says the ROM chips inside are in sockets — not soldered to the board — and can be replaced in ten minutes by opening a door on the back of the machines and unscrewing a metal cover. With new chips, the machines could be reprogrammed to misreport votes, he says....Appel says he opened the machines with a key that came with them, and was able to easily access the machines' motherboards and memory chips to swap them out. But even without the key, a student of his was able to pick the lock in seven seconds.

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