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IBM

IBM's Patent-Pending Traffic Lights Stop Car Engines 423

Posted by Soulskill from the even-red-lights-are-going-green dept.
theodp writes "I'm sorry Dave, I'm afraid I can't let your engine idle. The USPTO has just published IBM's patent application for a 'System and Method for Controlling Vehicle Engine Running State at Busy Intersections for Increased Fuel Consumption Efficiency.' Here's how Big Blue explains the invention: 'The present disclosure is directed to a method for managing engines in response to a traffic signal. The method may comprise establishing communications with participating vehicles; responding to a stop status indicated by the traffic signal, further comprising: receiving a position data from each participating vehicles; determining a queue of participating vehicles stopped at the traffic signal; determining a remaining duration of the stop status; sending a stop-engine notification to the list of participating vehicles stopped at the traffic signal when the remaining duration is greater than a threshold of time; responding to a proceed status indicated by the traffic signal, further comprising: sending a start-engine notification to a first vehicle in the queue; calculating an optimal time for an engine of a second vehicle in the queue to start; and sending the start-engine notification to the second vehicle at the optimal time.' IBM notes that 'traffic signals may include, but are not limited to, traffic lights at intersections, railway crossing signals, or other devices for indicating correct moments to stop and to proceed.'"
Space

X-37B Found By Amateur Sky Watchers 109

Posted by Soulskill from the eye-in-the-sky dept.
otter42 writes "It seems that X-37B couldn't stay hidden forever. Launched a few weeks ago, The Flying Twinkie disappeared shortly after separation. Now it has been found in an orbit that takes it as far north as 40 degrees latitude. No additional information has been found about the spacecraft's capabilities or purpose, except for a US Air Force statement that the satellite has no space-weapons purpose. The X-37B is intended to fly for 9 months at a time, opening the door to possible space longevity experiments in addition to its spying tasks."
Government

FCC Revises Broadband Penetration Metrics 149

Posted by kdawson from the end-of-a-long-running-joke dept.
joelt49 writes "Ars Technica reports that the FCC has revised its broadband penetration metric. Previously, if only one subscriber in a zip code received connectivity at 200 Kbps, then the entire zip code was considered to have broadband access. Now, the FCC will count the number of subscribers in census tracts. The FCC has also revised its definition of broadband; previously, it was anything over 200 Kbps. Now, speeds between 200 and 768 Kbps are considered 'First-Generation' broadband, and speeds up to 1.5 Mbps are considered 'Basic' broadband." Unfortunately, the FCC has decided to keep all this new data to themselves.
Wireless Networking

Submission + - Philadelphia's WiFi back online

Submitted by
muellerr1
muellerr1 writes: "A group of local Philadelphia investors is picking up where EarthLink left off last week. EarthLink abandoned their effort to provide municipal WiFi access because they couldn't lure enough paying customers. The project won't use any additional taxpayer dollars, and the new investors are thinking of using advertisements and fees for business use to support free access for ordinary citizens."
Security

Submission + - All your coffee are belong to us

Submitted by Wolf nipple chips
Wolf nipple chips writes: According to Craig Wright at securityfocus, the Jura F90 Coffee maker with its honest-to-God Jura Internet Connection Kit allows a remote coffee machine "engineer" to:
  • "Change the preset coffee settings (make weak or strong coffee)
  • Change the amount of water per cup (say 300ml for a short black) and make a puddle
  • Break it by engineering settings that are not compatible (and making it require a service)
[...] Best yet, the software allows a remote attacker to gain access to the Windows XP system it is running on at the level of the user."

An Internet-enabled, remote-controled coffee-machine and XP backdoor, what more could a hacker want?
Security

Submission + - Leaning Tower of Pisa Secure for 300 More Years

Submitted by
Ponca City, We Love You
Ponca City, We Love You writes: "Medieval architects only got as far as the third floor of the tower of Pisa before it began to lean in 1178 and by 1990 it had tilted more than four meters off its true vertical, with conservationists estimating that the entire 14,500-ton structure would collapse "some time between 2030 and 2040." Now the Leaning Tower of Pisa has been stabilized and declared safe for at least another three centuries after it was anchored to cables and lead counterweights while 70 tons of soil was removed from the north side — away from the lean — and cement was injected into the ground to relieve the pressure. The tilt has now returned to where it was in the early 19th century and architects say there was never any intention to straighten the 56m tower, only to stop it sinking further. Nicholas Shrady, author "Tilt: A Skewed History of the Tower of Pisa" says that the tower was destined to tilt from the outset because of the decision to build the tower "on what is essentially a former bog" and that the tower has previously come close to collapsing in 1838, 1934, and 1995. Although Galileo Galilei is said to have dropped cannon balls from the tower in a gravity experiment, Shrady says the myth is the "result of the overripe imagination of Galileo's secretary and first biographer, Vincenzo Viviani.""
Privacy

IRS Pushes for New Reporting at Expense of Privacy 175

Posted by ScuttleMonkey from the damn-the-consumers-full-speed-ahead dept.
angelheaded writes "Brian Krebs from the Washington Post is reporting that the Bush administration is proposing a new tax collection program that would force credit card companies to report merchants' income to the Internal Revenue Service. The plan has come under fire from privacy groups, who say it will create another private sector database tied to Social Security numbers at a time when ID theft experts are urging companies to wean themselves from the use and collection of such information."

Comment Send outside the firewall? Via UPS (Score 1) 542

by jgt10 (#23507268) Attached to: How Would You Prefer To Send Sensitive Data?
If I don't trust sending something via email, why would I trust ANY kind of electronic transport?

By the time any VPN, PGP, or other encryption method is worked out a flash drive or CD or DVD with the data could be FedEx to the consultant.

Many years ago the pithy comment was "Never underestimate the bandwidth of a station wagon loaded with tapes."

Today it might be "Don't underestimate the bandwidth of a minivan loaded with DVDs."

JGT
The Courts

Submission + - SPAM: First Caller-ID spoofers spanked

Submitted by
coondoggie
coondoggie writes: "The first telemarketers charged with transmitting false Caller IDs (a process known as caller ID spoofing) to consumers were fined and barred from continuing their schemes by a New Jersey District Court judge. Under the terms of a court order announced by the Federal Trade Commission today, two individuals and one corporate defendant have been barred from violating the agency's Telemarketing Sales Rule (TSR) and its Do Not Call (DNC) requirements arising from a telemarketing scheme designed to sell mortgage loans, refinancing services, and other products to U.S. consumers. They were also found liable for $530,000 in damages. In addition to charging the defendants with calling consumers on the National DNC Registry and failing to pay for access to the list, the case was the first brought by the Commission alleging the transmission of phony caller ID information or none at all. Under the DNC provisions of the TSR telemarketers are required to transmit accurate caller ID information so consumers who do not want to be called in the future can contact them and tell them so. [spam URL stripped]"
Link to Original Source
GUI

Submission + - Do Zebra Stripes actually help? (alistapart.com)

Submitted by RyoShin
RyoShin writes: A List Apart, an excellent resource for web development and related aesthetics, has put together an article based on original research by Jessica Enders into "zebra striping". From the article: "Zebra striping [, coloring alternate rows,] is used when data is presented in an essentially tabular form. The user of that table will be looking for one or more data points. Their aim is to get the right points and get them as quickly as possible. Therefore, if we set a task that uses a table, and zebra striping does make things easier, then we would expect to see improvements in two things: accuracy and speed." The conclusion of the peer reviewed paper? It's a wash. Striped tables offered only a slight increase in accuracy and speed overall. The article notes a few other benefits to using Zebra striping, so it's all up to the individual.
The Almighty Buck

Submission + - Congress Considers Orphaned Works Act (arstechnica.com)

Submitted by
I Don't Believe in Imaginary Property
I Don't Believe in Imaginary Property writes: "Congress is considering an orphaned works act that would limit the penalties for infringement in cases where the author could no longer be identified. The idea is that one could declare their intent to use the work with the Copyright Office and if the copyright holder didn't care to respond, they would only be able to get 'reasonable compensation' instead of excessive statutory penalties. Of course, there's still the question of whether this can pass before election time."

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