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Submission + - Fingerprints are Unhashable making fingers weaker than passwords (hackaday.com)

Submitted by szczys
szczys writes: Fingerprints aren't secure since you leave them on almost everything you touch. Many people won't realize that fingerprints can be captured and reproduced from casual photographs. It's actually worse than that. The very method with which fingerprints are stored is much weaker than passwords. Fingerprints cannot be hashed. By their very nature, each read of your fingerprint will be a little different which breaks the hashing method. They can only be stored using encryption which requires the same master password each time a new print read is compared to the stored key — a much weaker method than salted hashes which opens these credentials up to theft and brute forcing.
Censorship

Modern Warfare 2 Not Recalled In Russia After All 94

Posted by Soulskill from the it's-the-thought-that-counts dept.
thief21 writes "After claims that console versions Modern Warfare 2 had been recalled in Russia due to complaints from politicians and the gaming public over the infamous airport slaughter scene, it turns out the stories were completely untrue. Activision never released a console version of the game in Russia." Instead, they simply edited the notorious scene out of the PC version. They did this of their own volition, since Russia doesn't have a formal ratings committee.
Power

Submission + - Building your own Solar Panel in your Garage (olino.org)

Submitted by
jeroen8
jeroen8 writes: "A Dutch guy was able to build his own solar panel in his garage which is 3 times less expensive than mass produced solar panels currently available on European market. He bought his solar cells on eBay and created his own solar panel. His cost price is only 1.20 euro per Watt Peak (Wp). This makes you wonder if we are not paying too much for mass produced solar panels, which should in theory be a lot less expensive than something you create in your garage. What do you think? Are we paying to much?"
Microsoft

Submission + - TomTom Sues Microsoft For Patent Infringement (computerworld.com)

Submitted by
CWmike
CWmike writes: "GPS device maker TomTom has shot back at Microsoft with a claim of patent infringement, after the software giant raised concerns in the Linux community with a recent lawsuit against TomTom. In a suit filed earlier this week, TomTom alleges that Microsoft infringes on four patents in mapping software Microsoft Streets and Trips. TomTom is asking for triple damages for willful infringement, since it says it had notified Microsoft about its alleged infringement. Microsoft said it was reviewing TomTom's filing and that it remains committed to a licensing solution and has been for more than a year."
Programming

Submission + - Collaborative Academic Writing?

Submitted by Thomas M Hughes
Thomas M Hughes writes: Despite its learning curve, LaTeX is pretty much the standard in academic writing. By abstracting out the substance from the content, it becomes possible to focus heavily on the writing, and then deal with formatting later. However, LaTeX is starting to show it's age, specifically when it comes to collaborative work. One solution to this is to simply pair up LaTeX with version control software (such as Subversion) to allow multiple collaborators to work on the same document at one time. But adding subversion to the mix only seems to increase the learning curve. Is there a way to combine the power of LaTeX with the power of Subversion without scaring off a non-technical writer? The closest I can approximate would be to have something like Lyx (to hide the learning curve of LaTeX) with integrated svn (to hide the learning curve of svn). However, this doesn't seem available. Google Docs is popular right now, but Docs has no support for LaTeX, citation management, or anything remotely resembling decent formatting options. Are there other choices out there?
Space

First Image of a Planet Orbiting a Sun-Like Star 131

Posted by kdawson from the cold-jupiter dept.
Several readers including houbou and DigitumDei sent links to what may be the first-ever image of a planet orbiting a sun-like star (research paper). The giant planet, the mass of 8 Jupiters, orbits its star at 330 AU, or 11 times the distance to Neptune's orbit. If the imaged object does turn out to be a planet — and it's not certain it is — then theories of planet formation may have to be adjusted. "The bulk of the material from which planets might form is significantly closer to the parent star... The outermost parts of such disks wouldn't contain enough material to assemble a Jupiter-mass planet at the distance from the star... at which the Toronto team found the faint object."
Medicine

India Launches Open Source Drug Discovery 30

Posted by timothy from the with-enough-eyes-all-bugs-are-shallow dept.
sas-dot writes "India today launched a unique collaborative programme to discover drugs for infectious diseases common to the developing countries. The 'Open Source Drug Discovery' (OSDD) programme, launched by the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR), aims to build a consortium of global researchers and bypass the patent regime, which makes drugs expensive." Of course, all those pesky research, development and liability costs help, too.

The Best Gaming Laptop Money Can Buy 161

Posted by CmdrTaco from the money-to-burn dept.
Parz writes "Gameplayer has gone live with their winners for the best gaming laptops money can buy as of Q3 2008. The analysis is broken into three sections to cater for three different budget requirements. There is a detailed explanation of why each laptop was selected, going into each hardware component individually. Regular Slashdot users will remember the site's article from a few weeks ago, which analysed the Best Gaming PCs that Money can Buy. Prices may vary depending on where you live."

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