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Transportation

Study Confirms That Cars Have Personalities 213

Ponca City, We love you writes "A study has confirmed that many people see human facial features in the front ends of automobiles and ascribe various personality traits to cars. Forty study participants assessed cars based on a system known as geometric morphometrics by viewing high-resolution, 3D computer reconstructions and printed images of 38 actual 2004-06 car models and rating each model on 19 traits such as dominance, maturity, gender, and friendliness, and if they liked the car. Study participants liked best the cars scoring high in the so-called power traits — the most mature, masculine, arrogant, and angry-looking ones. Researchers theorized that over evolutionary time, humans have developed a selective sensitivity to features in the human face that convey information on sex, age, emotions, and intentions. The lead researcher explained, 'Seeing too many faces, even in mountains or toast, has little or no penalty, but missing or misinterpreting the face of a predator or attacker could be fatal.'"
Cellphones

Is Anyone Buying T-Mobile's Googlephone? 454

Hugh Pickens writes "Laura Holson writes in the NY Times that she 'wandered down to the T-Mobile store at Ninth Ave. and 43rd St. in New York City to see what kind of crowds — if any — were lining up to buy the new T-Mobile G1 which went on sale Wednesday' and saw no lines out the door, no crowding at the counter, and a complete lack of crowds. The iPhone appears to still be the gold standard and Etan Horowitz writes that the G1 'doesn't do a great job showcasing its potential. It isn't as intuitive as the iPhone, and it may take average users a while to figure out basic and advanced shortcuts and features' and 'may appeal more to techies who value open-source products and don't mind a somewhat steep learning curve.' Part of the reason for slow interest may also be that T-Mobile's 3G high-speed data network won't be up and running in many cities until the end of the year."
Privacy

Submission + - Subpoenas Issued over NSA Warrantless Wiretapping (lawbean.com)

Spamicles writes: "The Senate Judiciary Committee voted Thursday to subpoena documents from the Bush Administration related to the government's admitted eavesdropping on Americans' overseas emails and phone calls without getting court approval. In a 13-3 vote, the Committee decided to authorize chairman Patrick Leahy (D-VT) to issue subpoenas for documents related to the NSA warrantless surveillance program. Nearly any request is going to be met with tough resistance from the White House, and the confrontation over the documents "could set the stage for a constitutional showdown over the separation of powers.""
The Internet

Submission + - EU Examines Search Engines and Privacy Issues (pcworld.com)

Raver32 writes: "European data protection officials are expanding their examination of the impact search engines have on privacy, after initially targeting Google Inc. last month, European Data Protection Supervisor Peter Hustinx said in an interview late Wednesday. A panel of European data protection officials called the Article 29 Working Group decided Wednesday to request information from Google's rivals amid concerns that search engines are holding onto information about the people who use them for too long, Hustinx said. Hustinx, a senior member of the working group, declined to name the companies. However, they are believed to include Yahoo Inc., Lycos Inc. and Microsoft Corp.'s Windows Live.com."

Feed Techdirt: Supreme Court Moves To Limit Shareholder Class-Action Lawsuits (techdirt.com)

The Supreme Court is on a roll. Earlier this week, it shot down an antitrust lawsuit against Wall St. banks for their role in dot-com IPOs. As with most lawsuits stemming from that period, this case seemed mostly about disgruntled investors wanting to blame someone for their losses. Now the Court has handed down another decision that should please the market. In an 8-1 ruling, the Court ruled that if you bring a class action securities lawsuit against a firm, you must supply evidence that corporate officers actually were engaged in or had knowledge of some sort of securities fraud. You can't just sue cause your stock went down and you want somebody's neck to wring. Unfortunately, it sounds like lawyers will find loopholes in the ruling, ensuring that these silly lawsuits will probably continue. But seeing as the only winners in these cases are the lawyers, anything that mitigates them should be good for companies, investors and customers, who end up paying the price of all this litigation in the goods they buy.
Security

Submission + - Crackers Cause Pentagon to Put Computers Offline (time.com)

Anarchysoft writes: "As many as 1500 pentagon computers were brought offline on Wednesday in response to a cyber attack. Defense Secretary Robert Gates reported of the fallout both that the attack had 'no adverse impact on department operations' and that 'there will be some administrative disruptions and personal inconveniences.' When asked whether his own e-mail had been compromised, Gates responded, 'I don't do e-mail. I'm a very low-tech person.' There was no word whether the pony express was affected by the 'cyberattackers.'"
Media

Submission + - Court Ruling Limits Copyright Claims (lawbean.com)

Spamicles writes: A federal appellate panel in Atlanta has reversed its circuit's 6-year-old opinion in a major copyright case, declaring the ruling's mandate on behalf of freelance photographers to be "moot." Until now, publishers could be forced to share with freelancers whenever they reproduce and sell those freelancers' previously published works in merchandise designed for computer access. The new ruling says that reproduction on a CD or other media is not a new use of formerly published issues. The full court decision can be read here (pdf).
Databases

8 Reasons Not To Use MySQL (And 5 To Adopt It) 288

Esther Schindler writes "Database decisions are never easy, even — or maybe especially — when one choice is extremely popular. To highlight the advantages and disadvantages of the open-source MySQL DBMS, CIO.com asked two open-source experts to enumerate the reasons to choose MySQL and to pick something else. Tina Gasperson takes the 5 reasons to use MySQL side, and Brent Toderash discusses 8 reasons not to. Note that this isn't an 'open source vs proprietary databases' comparison; it's about MySQL's suitability in enterprise situations."

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