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NASA

Submission + - Atlantis Links Up To Hubble For Repairs

Submitted by
An anonymous reader writes: Space Shuttle Atlantis has finally caught up with the Hubble Space Telescope after following it for several hours. The "link up" between the Space Shuttle and Hubble was a very delicate one as the two were flying through space at 17,200 MPH, 300 miles above the Earth's surface. The robotic arm of the shuttle grappled the telescope at 1:14 PM EDT today. The telescope will be latched to a high-tech, lazy Susan device known as the Flight Support System for the duration of the servicing work.
Security

Submission + - Windows 7RC Has A Virus Botnet (therunningtally.com)

Submitted by
Drivintin
Drivintin writes: "There are reports that the Windows 7 RC that was found on torrent, that appeared with the MSDN release, has a major botnet. "The rate of infected machines at one point was growing at over 500 machines an hour, and looks to have over 27,000 installs." The control machine looks to have been taken out, but now all those machines lay as zombies, ready to go."
Biotech

Submission + - Texas Zombies Fire Ants with Phorid Flies (yahoo.com)

Submitted by eldavojohn
eldavojohn writes: What do you do when a foreign species has been introduced to your land from another continent? Bring over the natural predator from the other continent. Scientists in Texas have introduced four kinds of phorid flies from South America to fight fire ants. These USDA approved flies dive bomb ants and lay an egg inside the ant. The maggot hatches and eats away juicy tender delicious ant brain until the ant is nothing more than a zombie that wanders around for two weeks before the head falls off and the ant dies. A couple of these flies will cause the ants to modify their behavior and this will be a very slow acting solution to curb the $1 billion in damage these ants do to Texas cattle ranches and--oddly enough--electrical equipment like circuit breakers. You may remember zombifying parasites hitting insects like cockroaches.
Education

Submission + - UI shifts classes to Friday to curb drinking (wqad.com)

Submitted by Lucas123
Lucas123 writes: Associated Press is reporting that The University of Iowa is shifting some mandatory classes to Friday in the hopes that it can curb binge drinking by its students. The story states that "The U.S. Surgeon General recommends more Friday classes." In other news, the university's website states it's holding a "block party" on Thursday.
Portables (Apple)

Submission + - Apple to issue $100 credit to iPhone buyers (infoworld.com)

Submitted by
InfoWorldMike
InfoWorldMike writes: "Apple CEO Steve Jobs Thursday afternoon responded to a flood of complaints from existing iPhone owners over Wednesday's $200 price cut by promising the company would issue a $100 credit to anyone who bought an iPhone before the change. "I have received hundreds of emails from iPhone customers who are upset about Apple dropping the price of iPhone by $200 two months after it went on sale," Jobs said in a statement posted to the Apple Web site. In the open letter addressed to "all iPhone customers," Jobs defended the price cut, saying "now is the right time to do it. iPhone is a breakthrough product, and we have the chance to 'go for it' this holiday season." He also echoed — albeit in more circumspect language — comments made Wednesday in an interview with reporters from USA Today in which he told disgruntled owners: "There is always someone who bought a product before a particular cutoff date and misses the new price or the new operating system or the new whatever," Jobs said Thursday. "This is life in the technology lane.""
Businesses

Submission + - Indian Software Firm Outsourcing Jobs to US

Submitted by
phobos13013
phobos13013 writes: "NPR is reporting Indian software maker Wipro is outsourcing positions to a development office opening in Atlanta, Georgia. Although, it sounds good for US job growth, although the implication is that firms outside the US appear to be dominating more and more in the global economy, even from developing and underdeveloped regions of the world. Similarly, salaries of IT professionals world-wide are projected to stagnant or possibly fall due to the large pool of qualified applicants in the market today. Likely another reason companies like Wipro and Cognizant see it possible to outsource to the US and still remain competitive."
Operating Systems

Submission + - Sun CEO says NetApp lied in fear of open source (computerworld.com)

Submitted by
Lucas123
Lucas123 writes: "In reaction to NetApp's patent infringement lawsuit against Sun, CEO Jonathan Schwartz today said in his blog that NetApp basically lied in its legal filing when it said Sun asked them for licensing fees for use of their ZFS file system technology. In a separate statement, Sun said NetApp's lawsuit is about fear over open-source ZFS technology as a competitive threat. "The rise of the open-source community cannot be stifled by proprietary vendors. I guess not everyone's learned that lesson," Schwartz wrote in his blog."
The Internet

Submission + - DOJ Questions Net Neutrality Rules (itworld.com)

Submitted by
narramissic
narramissic writes: "In a brief filed Thursday with the FCC, the DOJ warned against imposing net neutrality regulations on broadband providers, saying that net neutrality rules could 'inefficiently skew investment, delay innovation, and diminish consumer welfare' and could also result in increased fees to all broadband users. 'Free market competition, unfettered by unnecessary governmental regulatory restraints, is the best way to foster innovation and development of the Internet,' the DOJ said."
Security

Submission + - Hackers using YouTube to spread latest Trojan

Submitted by thefickler
thefickler writes: Social engineering attacks are showing a strong rise this Summer. The latest trick is manipulating YouTube users to infect their PCs with a Trojan known as the Fake Codec. For most media, a certain codec is required to encode and decode a digital stream such as audio or video. When a user tries to view a video that requires a specific codec, they'll usually get the message, "Codec not found" or "The proper codec to play this media is not installed." Some sites will usually direct you to another website to download the codec; however, an increasing trend in late August is for hackers to direct users to download a fake codec, which will in turn install malicious software on the user's machine.
Graphics

Submission + - ATI/AMD's New Open-Source Strategy Explained (phoronix.com)

Submitted by
Michael
Michael writes: "Yesterday at the Kernel Summit it was reported that ATI would be opening their specifications and now today the embargo has expired and additional information is available on what AMD will be doing for the open-source community. From the Phoronix article, "AMD will be providing NDA specifications, an open-source library, and there is a new open-source graphics driver as a result." Among the open source developers working on this new driver are David Airlie and Alex Deucher with additional development time coming from Novell. The baseline open-source driver will be available on September 10 as well as the specifications from XDS 2007. Mark Shuttleworth has also commented on AMD's latest work for their new closed-source driver and now their open-source contributions."
The Courts

Submission + - Justice Department Opposes Net Neutrality (wsj.com)

Submitted by
thornomad
thornomad writes: "I was saddened (though not surprised) to read that the Justice Department opposes net neutrality saying that it could "hamper development of the internet". While it may seem counter-intuitive to me, they argue that allowing ISPs to provide different levels of service/speed for different content will benefit consumers. They did promise to "continue to monitor and enforce any anticompetitive conduct to ensure a competitive broadband marketplace" — not that anyone was worried about that."
Security

Submission + - Storm Worm botnet - most powerful supercomputer (zdnet.com) 1

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Nearly nine months after it was first discovered, the Storm Worm Trojan continues to surge, building what experts believe could be the world's most powerful supercomputer. By New Zealand computer scientist Peter Gutman's calculations, the Storm Worm botnet "may be the first time that a top 10 supercomputer has been controlled not by a government or mega-corporation but by criminals." Now, according to Finjan security researcher Aviv Raff, the group has started to target tech-savvy computer users. The page displays a legitimate looking download page for the Tor (The Onion Router) network anonymity proxy and a "download now" image that points to a malicious "tor.exe" file.
Microsoft

Submission + - Microsoft cuts $50 from Zune price (yahoo.com)

Submitted by AnonymousCowheart
AnonymousCowheart writes: Microsoft Corp. slashed $50 from the price of its Zune digital media player Wednesday, just before Apple Inc. announced an iPhone price cut and additions to its market-leading iPod line. The 30-gigabyte Zune now costs $199, the Redmond, Wash.-based software maker said on its Zune Insider blog.

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