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Biotech

Building the Bionic Man 129

Posted by samzenpus from the we-can-make-him-better dept.
nk497 writes "Will we soon be upgrading body parts like the components inside our PCs? 'Human enhancement' technologies are quickly evolving, making it easier to treat health conditions — and make us more powerful. Neural implants are already being used to restore vision, but in the future it could be used to give us better than 20/20 eyesight. Bionic arms will extend beyond prostheses, and be used to help boost our strength — handy for working in a warehouse and for soldiers. 'We use tools all the time to enhance our natural functions, and physical interaction is increasingly usurped by the virtual connections afforded by computers, smartphones and the internet,' said one researcher. 'So connecting these tools directly from the brain is perhaps not so far-fetched.'"
Google

Free Software Activists Take On Google Search 254

Posted by Soulskill from the just-hope-the-spammers-don't-download-it dept.
alphadogg writes "Free software activists have released a peer-to-peer search engine to take on Google, Yahoo, Bing and others. The free, distributed search engine, YaCy, takes a new approach to search. Rather than using a central server, its search results come from a network of independent 'peers,' users who have downloaded the YaCy software. The aim is that no single entity gets to decide what gets listed, or in which order results appear. 'Most of what we do on the Internet involves search. It's the vital link between us and the information we're looking for. For such an essential function, we cannot rely on a few large companies and compromise our privacy in the process,' said Michael Christen, YaCy's project leader."
Government

Multi-Target Photo-Radar System To Make Speeding Riskier 506

Posted by Soulskill from the time-to-finish-building-that-stealth-buick dept.
mrquagmire writes with this excerpt from Engadget: "Go easy on the gas, Speed Racer, because Cordon is on its way. Developed by Simicon, this new speed sensor promises to take highway surveillance to new heights of precision. Unlike most photo radar systems, which track only one violator at a time, Simicon's device can simultaneously identify and follow up to 32 vehicles across four lanes. Whenever a car enters its range, the Cordon will automatically generate two images: one from wide-angle view and one closeup shot of the vehicle's license plate. It's also capable of instantly measuring a car's speed and mapping its position, and can easily be synced with other databases via WiFi, 3G or WiMAX."
Politics

The White House Responds To We the People Petition 920

Posted by samzenpus from the thank-you-for-contacting-citizen-support dept.
First time accepted submitter Nysul writes "The White House, aiming to gather the opinion (or marketing data) of the internet nation, asked for our thoughts by creating the We the People site and now it has responded to some of the more popular petitions, such as marijuana reform and separation of church and state. You probably won't be surprised at the answers."
Graphics

NVIDIA Launches 3D Vision 2 76

Posted by samzenpus from the more-real-than-real dept.
MojoKid writes "NVIDIA just announced their next generation of 3D Vision technology that claims to deliver greater realism and immersion for 3D games, movies and photos. 3D Vision 2 is very similar to NVIDIA's original 3D Vision. The technology is backwards compatible with NVIDIA's first gen 3D emitter technology. However, NVIDIA has made a number of physical and technical tweaks that enhance the technology in a few key ways. NVIDIA's active-shutter glasses have been redesigned with 20% larger lenses and the company has worked with partners to bring new, larger, full-HD 3D Vision compatible monitors to market. NVIDIA has also developed a new technology dubbed LightBoost that ultimately results in brighter on-screen imagery and better environmental lighting characteristics in 3D content as well."
Cellphones

Florida Reduces Penalties For 'Sexting' Teens 295

Posted by Soulskill from the more-time-to-work-through-their-shame dept.
SonicSpike sends word that Florida has changed how law enforcement deals with teenagers who send racy pictures to each other over their phones. Quoting CNN: "Before Saturday, a Florida teenager who sent or received nude photos or video could have been charged with a felony and forced to register as a sex offender. But a new law, recognizing the proliferation of cell phones and computers, eases the penalties for 'sexting' infractions. A first offense is punishable by eight hours of community service or a $60 fine; the second is a misdemeanor and the third is a felony. ... Under House Bill 75, teens who receive explicit images won't be charged if they took reasonable steps to report it, did not solicit the image and did not send it to someone."
NASA

NASA Briefing on New Mars Finding This Afternoon 231

Posted by Unknown Lamer from the mulder-found-exploring-face-of-mars dept.
ipsender writes with a NASA announcement: "NASA will host a news briefing on Thursday, Aug. 4, at 11 a.m. PDT (2 p.m. EDT) about a significant new Mars science finding. The briefing will be held at NASA Headquarters in Washington. The new finding is based on observations from NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, which has been orbiting the Red Planet since 2006." You can catch the briefing online at the NASA TV site.
Input Devices

Microsoft Releases Kinect SDK For Windows 137

Posted by timothy from the go-forth-and-wiggle dept.
soricon writes "Microsoft made good on its promise to release an official Kinect SDK for Windows, opening the door for multiple educational, research and enthusiasts groups to create new and innovative uses for the popular full body movement sensor. Currently in beta, the SDK requires Windows 7 and at a minimum, a dual core machine with a DirectX 9.0c capable graphic card and it is free to download."
DRM

Patch For The Witcher 2 Removes DRM Shortly After Release 166

Posted by Soulskill from the minimizing-inconvenience dept.
A reader writes with this excerpt from Ars Technica: "A little over a week after its release, The Witcher 2 is getting its first patch, and with it all versions of the game will now be DRM free. 'Our approach to countering piracy is to incorporate superior value in the legal version,' explained development director Adam Badowski. 'This means it has to be superior in every respect: less troublesome to use and install, with full support, and with access to additional content and services. So, we felt keeping the DRM would mainly hurt our legitimate users. This is completely in line with what we said before the release of The Witcher 2. We felt DRM was necessary to prevent the game being pirated and leaked before release.'"
Transportation

The End of the "Age of Speed" 531

Posted by samzenpus from the taking-it-easy dept.
DesScorp writes "'The human race is slowing down,' begins an article in the Wall Street Journal that laments the state of man's quest of aerial speed: we're going backwards. With the end of the Space Shuttle program, man is losing its fastest carrier of human beings (only single use moonshot rockets were faster). 'The shuttles' retirement follows the grounding over recent years of other ultra-fast people carriers, including the supersonic Concorde and the speedier SR-71 Blackbird spy plane. With nothing ready to replace them, our species is decelerating—perhaps for the first time in history,' the article notes. Astronauts are interviewed, and their sadness and disappointment is apparent. In the '60s and '70s, it was assumed that Mach 2+ airline travel would one day be cheap and commonplace. And now it seems that we, and our children, will fly no faster than our grandparents did in 707s. The last major attempt at faster commerical air travel — Boeing's Sonic Cruiser — was abandoned and replaced with the Dreamliner, an airliner designed from the ground up for fuel efficiency."
Mars

Mars Rover Down? Spirit Stays Silent 91

Posted by CmdrTaco from the sleep-well-good-sir dept.
astroengine writes "One year after NASA's Mars Exploration Rover Spirit stopped communicating with Earth, mission managers have announced that they will give the stranded rover one more month to send a signal before they scale back the search. But things aren't looking good. In the words of JPL-based Mars rover driver Scott Maxwell, 'Spirit was so close to us, just a year ago. Snap your fingers, and she's a hundred million miles distant and we can't even prove she's alive.'"
Security

Hacker Posts His Crime On YouTube, Lands In Jail 176

Posted by samzenpus from the bad-ideas dept.
wiredmikey writes "A former contract security guard who admitted hacking into a hospital's computer systems (where he worked), was sentenced to 110 months in Federal prison. Why did he do it? He admits that he intended to use the bots and the compromised computers to launch DDoS attacks on the websites of rival hacker groups. The FBI says he posted video of himself hacking into the hospital computers on YouTube — While the theme of 'Mission Impossible' played, he described his hack, step by step, including the insertion of a CD containing the OphCrack program, which allowed him to bypass all security. The FBI found the CD containing the OphCrack program in McGraw's house and found the source code for the bot on his laptop."

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