gtzpower writes "Microsoft is inviting hackers to 'Take Your Best Shot' at Vista. 'You need to touch it, feel it,' Andrew Cushman, Microsoft's director of security outreach, said during a talk at the Black Hat computer-security conference. 'We're here to show our work.'" From the article: "A security team with oversight of every Microsoft product — from its Xbox video game console to its Word program for creating documents — has broad authority to block shipments until they pass security tests. The company also hosts two internal conferences a year so some of the world's top security experts can share the latest research on computer attacks." Essentially a tie-in with an article we discussed yesterday.

Aglassis writes "The Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) announced at a conference that they are planning to build a Moonbase by 2030. Since JAXA doesn't currently have a 100 ton-class heavy lift rocket or a human transportation system perhaps now is a good time for JAXA to join in with NASA on the Project Constellation rocket program."

Carl Bialik from WSJ writes "In his first one-on-one interview since Bill Gates's retirement announcement, Steve Ballmer tells the Wall Street Journal he is bullish on Microsoft's investments in online services, and he dismisses as 'random malarkey' the idea that Microsoft is having trouble hiring and keeping the kind of brilliant employees that have always been the company's competitive weapon. Here's Ballmer on Gates's departure: 'As co-leaders of the business, I could allow Bill to be the full-time champion of innovation. And [now] with me really being the guy who's here every day running the place, I must be the champion of innovation.' And on competing with Google: 'We're going to compete. We're going to be in the online business. We are going to have a core around online. We're going to be excellent. That, I would tell people, to count on...'"

ganjadude writes to tell us that while the idea of using electricity to heal wounds was first reported 150 years ago by Emil Du Bois-Reymond, modern scientists may have found a way to practically apply this idea. From the article: "The researchers grew layers of mouse cells and larger tissues, such as corneas, in the lab. After 'wounding' these tissues, they applied varying electric fields to them, and found they could accelerate or completely halt the healing process depending on the orientation and strength of the field."

Ayaka Hahn writes to tell us that they have just released a free game construction kit designed to make Visual Novels easy to construct. The "Blade Engine" was based on a professional Visual Novel engine being used in Japan with the hopes that it would spark greater interest in this medium in the west. From the press release: "In the West, there is a stereotype of: "Visual Novel = Dating Sim Game = Hentai", but that is wrong. Visual Novels CAN be Dating Sim games, Ren'ai games, Bishoujo games but also can be Sci-Fi, Fantasy, Adventure and Horror Fiction games, or anything that the user's creativity comes up with."

Video Blogger writes "The LA Times predicts that the 2008 election will feature the rise of Podcasting Politicians, as strategists from both parties try to ride the latest trends to secure a victory in 2008. 'You'll not only be able to text people with messages, you'll be able to raise money, deliver video, audio, create viral organizing -- where one person sees something really interesting and it gets passed on and on,' says Donnie Fowler, a Democratic strategist."

Udo Schmitz writes "According to an article at Forbes, SCO claims that IBM destroyed evidence by ordering programmers to delete copies of code that could have helped SCO prove its case. SCO's attorney Brent Hatch says that 'one IBM Linux developer has admitted to destroying source code and tests' and that they didn't mention this in public, because it only became relevant now, and that 'the claim was part of a motion SCO filed in March 2006, which has remained sealed'." From the article: "IBM declined to comment, citing a policy of not discussing ongoing litigation. In her sharply worded ruling, Wells criticized SCO's conduct in the case and seemed to indicate she was annoyed with the company. 'I don't know if that's true or not, but that's a question I'm asking myself,' Hatch says. Hatch concedes the Wells ruling represented a setback for SCO. But he says SCO still has a strong case. "

prostoalex writes "Jessica Simpson's 'A Public Affair' will be sold on Yahoo! Music in MP3 format with no DRM attached. According to Yahoo! Music blog, this is a big deal for the major online music store: 'As you know, we've been publicly trying to convince record labels that they should be selling MP3s for a while now. Our position is simple: DRM doesn't add any value for the artist, label (who are selling DRM-free music every day -- the Compact Disc), or consumer, the only people it adds value to are the technology companies who are interested in locking consumers to a particular technology platform. We've also been saying that DRM has a cost. It's very expensive for companies like Yahoo! to implement. We'd much rather have our engineers building better personalization, recommendations, playlisting applications, community apps, etc, instead of complex provisioning systems which at the end of the day allow you to burn a CD and take the DRM back off, anyway!'"

Roy van Rijn writes "According to Forbes, the Commercial Times reported that Taiwanese ASUSTeK Computer Inc. will be delivering PlayStation 3 consoles to Sony starting this month. The news comes amid concerns that Sony may not have enough Cell and RSX chips to meet production goals of 2 million units for launch. The report also states that, Hon Hai Precision Industry Co Ltd, also a Taiwanese company, will soon begin making the PlayStation 3 consoles for Sony too. Total monthly shipments from manufacturers are expected to be 200,000 units per month."

Forbes is reporting on comments made by Microsoft COO Kevin Turner, concerning the corporate search business. At a company conference in Boston, Turner referred to the enterprise search business as 'our house', and warned Google to stay out. From the article: "Those people are not going to be allowed to take food off our plate, because that is what they are intending to do ... Enterprise search is our business, it's our house and Google is not going to take that business"

Your grandparents will be watching golf tonight, so why not watch some sports of your own? If golf isn't your thing, then perhaps multi-ton space vessels slamming each other with lasers and missiles might be more entertaining? Virgin Worlds is carrying some details for the riveting EveTV. Today, the channel is in reruns, but tune in anyway to see some matches from the last few days. Footage from ongoing PVP matches in the space MMOG EVE Online will make your Sunday go by much quicker. From the article: "The commentary is just like a traditional sports cast and the fellows calling the matches seem quite knowledgeable not only on the technicals of play, but also the backgrounds of the competitors. If you have an opportunity to check it out, I recommend it. Kudos to CCP for organizing this event."

kbrosnan writes "Are you a fan of Firefox? Want to spread the word to a friend who hasn't heard of it yet? If you can convince just one person to switch to Firefox before September 15th, you'll both be immortalized in Firefox 2.0's source code."

An anonymous reader writes "Dell has gone to the Consumer Product Safety Commission looking for help determining the cause of death for its exploding laptop. Dell has been blaming the lithium ion battery; the commission seems to have had a few problems with those batteries in the past."

coondoggie writes "With Microsoft aiming to release Vista real soon now, they've been retiring older versions of the Windows OS. For IT outfits it's yet again time to evaluate what stays and what goes, and make plans for the future. Network World discusses the life cycle of Microsoft's software." From the article: "'Generally, it is a bad idea to run unsupported software, but there can be a business case to run it,' says Cary Shufelt, Windows infrastructure architect at Oregon State University, in Corvallis. The university still has some NT machines running in isolation in its labs. But Shufelt says there are security risks in allowing connections to legacy machines and that the university makes sure to minimize those risks. 'We don't allow [Windows] 9.x clients to connect to our Active Directory,' he says. 'But we try to stay current with technology so these issues don't typically come up.' Others say they also stay current to avoid headaches and fire drills."

An anonymous reader writes "The rootkit wars have started to escalate with a rootkit named Rustock which is able to remain hidden from all the popular anti-rootkit tools. It uses some new techniques including not only putting itself in a ADS (NTFS alternate data stream) which isn't seen by normal file system enumeration tools, but even blocks ADS aware tools from seeing the stream. Works in Vista, too! Analysis in both Symantec and F-Secure blogs."