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Portables (Apple)

Submission + - Ticketed for using a hands-free device with my cel (tidbits.com)

Submitted by
scooteristi
scooteristi writes: "Full story at: http://db.tidbits.com/article/9180 ...Officer Wright turned his lights on and signaled me to pull over, which I did. "License and registration." Mindful that I had two officers tailing me, I couldn't think of any traffic laws that I had violated: "Officer, why did you pull me over?" "Under Virginia State Law it is illegal to wear headphones," he replied. "I'm wearing the hands-free device that came with my iPhone," I said, and I showed him my iPhone.... ...Now considering that in jurisdictions like Washington, D.C., and New York, it is mandatory that one use a hands-free device with a cell phone, it struck me as very odd that here I am in Virginia being pulled over for using one. Yet...using a hands-free device in the State of Virginia can be legally problematic."
Space

Photonic Laser Thruster Promises Earth to Mars in a Week 413

Posted by CowboyNeal from the buckle-up dept.
serutan writes "Using lasers to drive spaceships has been a subject of interest for many years, but making a photonic engine powerful enough for practical use has been elusive. Dr. Young Bae, a California physicist, has built a demonstration photonic laser thruster that produces enough thrust to micro-maneuver a satellite. This would be useful in high-precision formation flying, such as using a fleet of satellites to form a space telescope with a large virtual aperture. Scaled up, a similar engine could speed a spacecraft to Mars in less than a week."
Communications

Submission + - Tmobile DATA Centers Down? (hauntedcincinnati.com) 1

Submitted by
Randy M. Karshner
Randy M. Karshner writes: "Tmobiles Data Centers from the Mississippi East all seem to have went down around 7pm EST, With millions of customers they have managed to keep this rather quiet so far wouldn't you say? I first noticed about 7 when all text messages stopped, even those sent to my own hand set. A quick call to Tmobile confimed this and that the first ETA they had was hopeful to have it fixed by 10pm EST. Looks like they are two plus hours over and still climbing. Why no coverage on this?"

Feed Science Daily: New System Helps Aircraft Avoid Turbulence (sciencedaily.com)

From feed by sdfeed
A new turbulence detection system, now being tested, is successfully alerting pilots to patches of rough air as they fly through clouds. The system is designed to better protect passengers from injuries caused by turbulence while reducing flight delays and lowering aviation costs.
Music

Submission + - Led Zepplin Effect (guardian.co.uk)

Submitted by
jd
jd writes: "According to the web administrators handling the upcoming Led Zepplin reunion concert in tribute to Ahmet Ertegun, over twenty million people attempted to log onto the site to buy tickets. Those familiar with the Slashdot Effect can guess what happened next. The entire Pipex backbone, which supplied the website with connectivity, disintegrated. Not just one upstream pipe, mind you, the entire backbone frazzled under the impact. At the time of writing this, the site for booking the tickets is reachable. Geeks are warned in advance that there are no usage statistics or bandwidth consumption monitors on the websites."
Privacy

FBI's Unknown Eavesdropping Network 362

Posted by Zonk from the hiya-big-bro dept.
An anonymous reader writes "Building off the design mandates of CALEA, the FBI has constructed a 'point-and-click surveillance system' that creates instant wiretaps on almost any communications device. A thousand pages of restricted documents released under the Freedom of Information Act were required to determine the veracity of this clandestine project, Wired News reports. Called the Digital Collection System Network, it connects FBI wiretapping rooms to switches controlled by traditional land-line operators, internet-telephony providers and cellular companies. It is intricately woven into the nation's telecom infrastructure. From the article: 'FBI wiretapping rooms in field offices and undercover locations around the country are connected through a private, encrypted backbone that is separated from the internet. Sprint runs it on the government's behalf. The network allows an FBI agent in New York, for example, to remotely set up a wiretap on a cell phone based in Sacramento, California, and immediately learn the phone's location, then begin receiving conversations, text messages and voicemail pass codes in New York. With a few keystrokes, the agent can route the recordings to language specialists for translation.'"
Education

Submission + - New theory on 5,000-year-old Iceman's death (www.ctv.ca)

Submitted by CmpEng
CmpEng writes: ROME, Italy — Researchers studying Iceman, the 5,000-year-old mummy found frozen in the Italian Alps, have come up with a new theory for how he died, saying he died from head trauma, not by bleeding to death from an arrow. Just two months ago, researchers in Switzerland published an article in the Journal of Archeological Science saying the mummy — also known as Oetzi — had died after the arrow tore a hole in an artery beneath his left collarbone, leading to massive loss of blood, shock and heart attack.
Handhelds

Submission + - Canadian villagers petition for cell phone ban (www.ctv.ca)

Submitted by
CmpEng
CmpEng writes: ""NEW DENVER, B.C. [Canada] — To some residents of New Denver, the greatest threat to their way of life is not terrorism, but cellphones. Citing concerns over health and a change of culture, about 250 people — roughly half the population of the southeastern B.C. village — are petitioning against Telus's plan to install an antenna and bring cellphone service to the community. 'People come here because in New Denver it feels like you're living 50 years ago and we would lose that if we had an influx of cellphones. Our teenagers would all start using them,' said Julia Greenlaw, chairwoman of the Healthy Housing Society.""
Sun Microsystems

Submission + - Sun changes stock symbol to JAVA

Submitted by _damnit_
_damnit_ writes: The wounded ship that was once SUNW is now JAVA. CEO Jonathan Schwartz announced on his blog that they will change their NASDAQ stock symbol to try and capitalize on the success (?) of Java. For a long time people have been waiting for Sun to monetize Java. Having JAVA as one of NASDAQ's most active doesn't really address that issue but Jonathan is thinking outside the box I guess. Now if they could just gain revenue they could stop laying off staff.

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