eldavojohn writes "NASA's Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) has released a list of the winning businesses that submitted research proposals in 2006. This is the second phase of a three phase award system and NASA has announced the winners. If you click on any of the projects, there is an interesting writeup of the proposal and technical abstract."

BoldAC writes "A geek physician has reviewed the medical literature that explores if a relationship exists between computer use and carpal tunnel syndrome. 'Typing at the keyboard or using the mouse for hours and hours upon end just seems like it has to be horrible for your joints, right?' His conclusions certainly seem to contradict the thinking of many: 'The current research shows that computer use has very little role in causing carpal tunnel syndrome.' It even seems that both Harvard and the Journal of the American Medical Association agree with his conclusions."

As part of our 10-Year anniversary, we've decided to have a little charity auction, with the cash going to the EFF. The items currently up for bidding are 'Triton' (the big old tower case from the first x86 used to host Slashdot from Feb 11 1998 through much of 1999... picture is attached to the story if you're curious). A low numbered UID (3 or maybe 2 digits!) so you can win those stupid low UID pissing match threads. Your URL plugged in the story where we announce the auction winners. Oh the fame! The Slashdot Grab Bag: We're putting stuff around the office in a box- random t-shirts, hats, even an old Nokia NGage. The mystery box could contain anything that we stuff in the box before the contest ends... there's a picture of what we have so far attached. A copy of the watchmen trade paperback singed in Hemos's 1999 house fire. An @slashdot.org email alias (tasteful names only ;) The auctions will be running for like 10 days, and we'll post the results when they come up.

exeme writes "The 2007 Australian election was recently announced and a new completely on-line based political party is running for election to the Australian Senate. Senator On-Line will give Australian residents eligible to vote a chance to vote in on-line polls for every piece of legislation that comes to the Senate. The senator will then blindly vote in accordance with the majority. The party has no position on anything until it is voted on and has been approved by the Australian Electoral Commission as a legitimate party. The party will be running two candidates in each Australian state." I imagine this could have a huge impact on CowboyNeal related legislation down under.

coondoggie writes "Xerox today touted software it says can scan documents, understand their meaning and block access to those sensitive or secure areas so that prying eyes cannot read, copy or forward the information. Xerox and researchers from its Palo Alto Research Center debuted "Intelligent Redaction," new software that automates the process of removing confidential information from any document. The software includes a detection tool that uses content analysis and an intelligent user interface to protect sensitive information. It can encrypt only the sensitive sections or paragraphs of a document, a capability previously not available, Xerox said."

Be Cool writes "According to ZDNet, Microsoft has steered itself into a real trust tarpit with Windows Update: 'See, here's the problem. To feel comfortable with having an open channel that allows your OS to be updated at the whim of a third party (even/especially* Microsoft ... * delete as applicable) requires that the user trusts the third party not to screw around with the system in question. This means no fiddling on the sly, being clear about what the updates do and trying not to release updates that hose systems. While any and all updates have the potential to hose a system, there's no excuse for hiding the true nature of updates and absolutely no excuse for pushing sneaky updates down the tubes. Over the months vigilant Windows users have caught Microsoft betraying user trust on several separate occasions and this behavior is eroding customer confidence in the entire update mechanism.'"