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Earth

Gold Nanoparticles Turn Trees Into Streetlights 348

Posted by samzenpus from the elf-approved dept.
An anonymous reader writes "Street lights are an important part of our urban infrastructure — they light our way home and make the roads safe at night. But what if we could create natural street lights that don't need electricity to power them? A group of scientists in Taiwan recently discovered that placing gold nanoparticles within the leaves of trees causes them to give off a luminous reddish glow. The idea of using trees to replace street lights is an ingenious one — not only would it save on electricity costs and cut CO2 emissions, but it could also greatly reduce light pollution in major cities."
Displays

Why Are We Losing Vertical Pixels? 1140

Posted by CmdrTaco from the for-you-uriah dept.
An anonymous reader writes "Switching from 1600x1200 to wide 1680x1050 to HD 1600x900, we are losing more and more vertical space, thus it is becoming less and less simple to read a full A4 page or a web page or a function call. What's the solution for retaining the screen height we need to be productive?"
Science

Morphing Metals 121

Posted by samzenpus from the forge-ahead dept.
aarondubrow writes "Imagine a metal that 'remembers' its original, cold-forged shape, and can return to that shape when exposed to heat or a magnetic pulse. Like magic out of a Harry Potter novel, such a metal could contract on command, or swing back and forth like a pendulum. Believe it or not, such metals already exist. First discovered in 1931, they belong to a class of materials called 'shape memory alloys (SMA),' whose unique atomic make-up allows them to return to their initial form, or alternate between forms through a phase change."

Submission + - Wikileaks "a clear and present danger"

Submitted by
bedmison
bedmison writes: "In an op-ed in the Washington Post titled "WikiLeaks must be stopped", Marc A. Thiessen writes that "WikiLeaks represents a clear and present danger to the national security of the United States.", and that the United States has the authority to arrest its founder, Julian Assange, even if it has to contravene international law to do so. Thiessen also suggests that the new USCYBERCOM be unleashed to destroy WikiLeaks as an internet presense. From the article:

"With appropriate diplomatic pressure, these governments may cooperate in bringing Assange to justice. But if they refuse, the United States can arrest Assange on their territory without their knowledge or approval. In 1989, the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel issued a memorandum entitled "Authority of the Federal Bureau of Investigation to Override International Law in Extraterritorial Law Enforcement Activities."

This memorandum declares that "the FBI may use its statutory authority to investigate and arrest individuals for violating United States law, even if the FBI's actions contravene customary international law" and that an "arrest that is inconsistent with international or foreign law does not violate the Fourth Amendment." In other words, we do not need permission to apprehend Assange or his co-conspirators anywhere in the world.

Arresting Assange would be a major blow to his organization. But taking him off the streets is not enough; we must also recover the documents he unlawfully possesses and disable the system he has built to illegally disseminate classified information.

This should be done, ideally, through international law enforcement cooperation. But if such cooperation is not forthcoming, the United States can and should act alone. Assange recently boasted that he has created "an uncensorable system for untraceable mass document leaking." I am sure this elicited guffaws at the National Security Agency. The United States has the capability and the authority to monitor his communications and disrupt his operations.""
Iphone

Submission + - Microsoft Can Deblur Images Automatically (microsoft.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: At the annual SIGGRAPH show. Microsoft Research showed new technology that can remove the blur from images on your camera or phone using on-board sensors — the same sensors currently added to iPhone 4. No more blurry low light photos!
Microsoft

MS Design Lets You Put Batteries In Any Way You Want 453

Posted by timothy from the dis-orientation dept.
jangel writes "While its strategy for mobile devices might be a mess, Microsoft has announced something we'll all benefit from. The company's patented design for battery contacts will allow users of portable devices — digital cameras, flashlights, remote controls, toys, you name it — to insert their batteries in any direction. Compatible with AA and AAA cells, among others, the 'InstaLoad' technology does not require special electronics or circuitry, the company claims."
Transportation

Submission + - Youtube video leads to arrest for speeding (examiner.com) 1

Submitted by JoshuaInNippon
JoshuaInNippon writes: A 42-year old man was arrested outside of Osaka, Japan in connection with a Youtube video of him going more than 130km/h (80mph) over the speed limit on his 1300cc motorcycle. The man reportedly borrowed his friend's camera and videotaped himself speeding at well over 180km/h in a 50km/h zone, illegally passing cars multiple times in the process. The man's friend then distributed the video online. Local police say they received an anonymous tip about the Youtube video and investigated. It then took them nearly half a year before making the arrest, but the motorcyclist, who apparently admitted guilt, is now likely facing both multiple fines and jail time. Japanese police say it is the first time they've used evidence from the internet to pursue such traffic violations. With a multitude of similar speed enthusiast home videos on Youtube and other sights, might more careless braggers start facing legal problems?

Submission + - China's Human Flesh Search Engine

Submitted by
Hugh Pickens
Hugh Pickens writes: "The NY Times has an interesting article about Human-flesh search engines — renrou sousuo yinqing — that have become a phenomenon in China: they are a form of online vigilante justice in which Internet users hunt down and punish people who have attracted their wrath. The goal is to get the targets of a search fired from their jobs, shamed in front of their neighbors, or run out of town. It’s crowd-sourced detective work, pursued online — with offline results. “In the United States, traditional media are still playing the key role in setting the agenda for the public,” says Jin Liwen. “But in China, you will see that a lot of hot topics, hot news or events actually originate from online discussions.” In one well known case, when a video appeared in China of a woman stomping a cat to death with the sharp point of her high heel, the human flesh search engine tracked the kitten killer’s home to the town of Luobei in Heilongjiang Province, in the far northeast, and her name — Wang Jiao — was made public, as were her phone number and her employer. “Wang Jiao was affected a lot,” says one Luobei resident . “She left town and went somewhere else." The kitten-killer case didn’t just provide revenge; it helped turn the human-flesh search engine into a national phenomenon. Searches have also been directed against cheating spouses, corrupt government officials, amateur pornography makers, Chinese citizens who are perceived as unpatriotic, journalists who urge a moderate stance on Tibet and rich people who try to game the Chinese system. “The idea that you manage the local bureaucracy by sicking the masses on them is actually not a democratic tradition but a Maoist tradition,” says Rebecca MacKinnon. “It’s a great way to divert the qi, the anger, to places where it’s the least damaging to the central government’s legitimacy.”"

Comment Re:Yes (Score 1) 605

by foxcob (#30608266) Attached to: Do Your Developers Have Local Admin Rights?
I have to say I am one of those morons who uses my admin privileges to turn off virus scanning. On a development machine where I am constantly compiling the virus scanner is devastating to performance. This may be due to the fact that we use Symantec, but with the virus scanner checking every file being read and written, or checking the compiler everytime it is invoked from the build script is unacceptable. I know I can setup special rules in most scanners for this, but I have still noticed a terrible loss in performance on the rest of the machine. On the other hand, I haven't had a virus in years. Mostly because I am a knowledgable user who doesn't open / install just anything I see. I do occasionally do whole system scans, and if I'm unsure about something I get, I scan it explicitly before opening. But again, I am a moron who used my admin privileges to save lots of time and disable virus scanning.
Windows

Submission + - Draconian DRM revealed in Windows 7 4

Submitted by
TechForensics
TechForensics writes: "A few days' testing of Windows 7 has already disclosed some draconian DRM, some unrelated to media files. A legitimate copy of Photoshop CS4 stopped functioning after we clobberred a nagging registration screen by replacing a .dll with a hacked version. That's not so much a surprise, but what WAS a surprise: Noting that Win7 allows programs like Photoshop to stealthily insert themselves in your firewall exception list. Further, that the OS is crippled towards allowing large software vendors to penetrate your machine. Even further, that that crippling is responsible for disabling of a program based on a modified .dll. Remote attestation, anyone? And then finding that the OS even after reboot has locked you out of your own Local Settings folder; has denied you permission to move or delete the modified DLL; and refuses to allow the replacement of the Local Settings folder after it is unlocked with Unlocker to move it to the Desktop for examination (where it also denies you entry to your own folder). Setting permissions to "allow everyone" was disabled! Re media files, the days of capturing an audio program on your PC are gone if the program originated on your PC. The inputs of your sound card are severely degraded in software if the card is also playing an audio program (tested here with Grooveshark). Under XP you could select "Stereo Mix" or similar under audio recording inputs and nicely capture any program then playing. Microsoft appears to be pandering to Big Music for its own reasons unrelated to consumer satisfaction. This may be the tip of the iceberg. Something *really nasty* is lurking under the surface of Win7. Being in bed with the RIAA is bad enough, but locking your own files away from you is a device so outrageous it may kill the OS for many persons. Many users will not want to experimenting with a second sound card or computer just to record from online sources, or boot up under a Linux that supports ntfs-3g just to control their files. (You never seem to know in Windows 7 when the "Access Denied" message is going to strike.) It is certainly beginning to be crystal clear why the coming WinFS will not be a good thing for userland, and a Very Good Thing for Microsoft and its partners."

Comment Re:Asterisk. (Score 1) 686

by foxcob (#24921989) Attached to: How Do You Deal With Telemarketers?
Are you using POTS lines to your CO? Also what particular interface hardware are you using. Is it any of the Digium hardware? You also mentioned VOIP. Are you using this in conjunction with POTS or as your primary connection? I am interested in asterisk for my own home use, and other peoples' home setups are sometimes a better starting point than trying to wade through asterisk's website.

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