dcapel - Slashdot User

Submission + - NIST Announces Contest to Replace SHA-1 Algorithm

Submitted by mplex on Tuesday January 23, 2007 @09:34PM

mplex writes: From the article:
'The National Institute of Standards and Technology today announced a public competition to pick a new cryptographic hash algorithm that would become the new federal information processing standard. This evaluation process is expected to run a minimum of three years.'

This is overdue given the known weaknesses with SHA-1 and it's variants

Submission + - Learn how to use the Google API with Ajax

Submitted by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 23, 2007 @06:45PM

An anonymous reader writes: It shouldn't be hard to build on what you learn here and start utilizing the Google API with your Ajax apps. More importantly, though, you will have a pretty good idea of how to use public APIs in general including the one from Amazon, del.icio.us, or anywhere else.

Submission + - Lunar Transient Phenomena

Submitted by Greg Phillips on Tuesday January 23, 2007 @06:36PM

Greg Phillips writes: If you stare at the Moon long enough, you start seeing things. "82 things to be exact," says Bill Cooke, leader of NASA's Meteoroid Environment Group. That's how many "transient phenomena" the group has video-taped since they started monitoring the night side of the Moon in Nov. 2005. see caption"In 107 hours of observing, we've tallied 20 lunar meteors + at least 50 Earth-orbiting satellites + one airplane + one terrestrial meteor = 82 in all." http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2007/23jan_ltps .htm?list964623

Submission + - Microsoft Offers Cash for Wikipedia Edit

Submitted by on Tuesday January 23, 2007 @06:34PM

An anonymous reader writes: Yahoo News: Jimmy Wales have blocked public-relations firms, campaign workers and anyone else perceived as having a conflict of interest from posting fluff or slanting entries. So paying for Wikipedia copy is considered a definite no-no. Microsoft Corp. landed in the Wikipedia doghouse Tuesday after it offered to pay a blogger to change technical articles on the community-produced Web encyclopedia site. Microsoft isn't the first to be blocked; after a some wrangling user MyWikiBiz was banned. Now the list of banned users is growing, has Wikipedida painted it's self into a corner — should the ban also apply to paid resarchers?

Submission + - A Comprehensive List of OOXML Objections

Submitted by

Contact OOXML Supporters Here

on Tuesday January 23, 2007 @06:33PM

Contact OOXML Supporters Here writes: "After all the furor over the proposed OOXML standard of late, Groklaw has now come out with a comprehensive list of reasons why the OOXML standard is deficient. It covers everything from legacy cruft to legal obstacles and provides an excellent summary of all the sensible objections thus far."

Submission + - Canada's Music Lobby Buys Unparalleled Govt Access

Submitted by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 23, 2007 @06:31PM

An anonymous reader writes: Copyfighting law professor Michael Geist, who previously uncovered financial links between recording industry lobbyists and Canada's Minister of Canadian Heritage Bev Oda (who is responsible for copyright policy), has now identified what big cash donations will get you. He reports that Oda met with the President of the Canadian Recording Industry Association on a monthly basis last year just as the government was preparing copyright reform legislation and Canadian artists were calling for an end to P2P lawsuits. Is it any wonder that Canadians seem likely to lose their fair use rights?

Submission + - The Next Generation in Battery Technology?

Submitted by jackd on Tuesday January 23, 2007 @06:21PM

jackd writes: Great article in Technology Review, bordering on "too good to be true" about a small company in Texas who has developed the replacement for the electrochemical battery. No more Litium Ion. From the article: "The company boldly claims that its system [..] will dramatically outperform the best lithium-ion batteries on the market in terms of energy density, price, charge time, and safety. [..] The implications are enormous and, for many, unbelievable. Such a breakthrough has the potential to radically transform a transportation sector already flirting with an electric renaissance."

Submission + - Cheap, safe drug kills most cancers

Submitted by vinividivici on Tuesday January 23, 2007 @06:18PM

vinividivici writes: NewScientist.com reports that a possible cure for cancer has been found in an already used medicine called dichloroacetate (DCA) which is usually used to treat metabolic problems. The article states, Evangelos Michelakis of the University of Alberta in Edmonton, Canada, and his colleagues tested DCA on human cells cultured outside the body and found that it killed lung, breast and brain cancer cells, but not healthy cells. Tumours in rats deliberately infected with human cancer also shrank drastically when they were fed DCA-laced water for several weeks. Could this mean that we are a step away from a permanent cure? Only time will tell.

Submission + - IBM releasees fastest SDK for Java 6

Submitted by IndioMan on Tuesday January 23, 2007 @06:16PM

IndioMan writes: IBM is releasing an SDK for Java 6 and is sponsoring an Early Release Program to gather feedback from the Java community. Product binaries and documentation are available for Linux on x86 and 64-bit AMD, and AIX for PPC for 32- and 64-bits. In addition to supporting the Java SE 6 Platform specification, IBM's SDK also focuses on platform stability, performance, and diagnostics. Its tops on every benchmark.

Submission + - Gonzales actually Questions Habeas Corpus!

Submitted by spiedrazer on Tuesday January 23, 2007 @06:14PM

spiedrazer writes: In yet another attempt to create legitimacy for many of the Bush administration's questionable legal practices, US attorney General Alberto Gonzales actually had the audacity to argue that the US Constitution doesn't explicitly bestow habeas corpus rights on US citizens! In his view it merely says when the so-called Great Writ can be suspended, but that doesn't necessarily mean that the rights are granted. These statements were made while being questioned by Sen. Arlen Specter at a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on Jan. 18

While Gonzales's statement has a measure of quibbling precision to it, his logic is troubling because it would suggest that many other fundamental rights that Americans hold dear (such as free speech, freedom of religion, and the right to assemble peacefully) also don't exist because the Constitution often spells out those rights in the negative. It boggles the mind the lengths this administration will go to to systematically erode the rights and privileges we have all counted on and held up as the granite pillars of our society since our nation was founded.

Also of note is that virtually NONE of the major news outlets seem to be covering this development! A google news search for "Gonzales Habeas Corpus" turns up only 101 hits with no major outlets listed!

You can also See Stephen Colbert's coverage including excerpts from the testimony HERE, just select the third video down on "Exact Words"

One In Five Windows Installs Is Non-Genuine 481

Posted by kdawson on Tuesday January 23, 2007 @06:12PM from the false-positives dept.

snib writes "Microsoft disclosed Monday that, according to reports collected by the notorious Windows Genuine Advantage tool on millions of users' PCs, 22% of all Windows installs do not pass its validation tests and have therefore been deemed non-genuine. Quoting: 'Since WGA launched in July 2005, over 512 million users have attempted to validate their copy of Windows, Microsoft said. Of those, the non-genuine rate was 22.3 percent... [T]he Business Software Alliance... reports that 35 percent of the world's software is pirated (22 percent in North America)...'"

Journal Journal: Sun SPOT: Enabler for the future?

Journal by jdray on Tuesday January 23, 2007 @06:06PM

eWeek is running an article on Sun's SPOT (Small Programmable Object Technology) that looks to be the start of something good, at least from the perspective of every geek that wished they had the tools to develop "the next big thing (TM)" in their basement.

Submission + - Are there images of the Lunar Landers from orbit?

Submitted by

banditski

on Tuesday January 23, 2007 @05:47PM

banditski writes: "We have pictures of Mars rovers from taken from orbit like this photo of Opportunity but we don't we have them of lunar landers from 60's and 70's? At least I couldn't find them. If they do exist, where? And if they don't exist, why not?"

Submission + - Winds of Change from the Ice Age

Submitted by anthemaniac on Tuesday January 23, 2007 @05:39PM

anthemaniac writes: While everyone is arguing about global warming and whether it's our fault and what will happen, one group of researchers quietly looked into the past and found out just how dramatically things can change on this planet. The Ice Age was colder, sure. But now they found that the winds over North America blew east-to-west rather than the modern direction of west-to-east. That means moisture falling on much of the continent came from the Atlantic instead of the Pacific. The researchers think the extra ice intensified winds around the North Pole, pushing the jet stream way south and letting the polar easterlies shift down to our neck of the woods.

Submission + - Ultra High Speed Wireless About to Take Off

Submitted by

oxide7

on Tuesday January 23, 2007 @05:36PM

oxide7 writes: "802.11n might finally get its day " Issues that stifled wide-spread adoption of the high-speed 802.11n wireless standard should be in the past, according to Srini Pajjuri, research analyst at Merrill Lynch. The firm sees several catalysts that should accelerate adoption for 2007. ""

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