joshsteadmon - Slashdot User

Submission + - Swedish ISP Deletes Customer ID Info (thelocal.se) 1

Submitted by

NewYorkCountryLawyer

on Thursday April 16, 2009 @12:47PM

NewYorkCountryLawyer writes: "A Swedish internet service provider, Bahnhof, has begun deleting customer identification information in order to prevent its being used as evidence against its customers under Sweden's new legislation against copyright infringement via peer to peer file sharing. According to this report on 'The Local', it is entirely legal for it to do so. The company's CEO, Jon Karlung, is identified as 'a vociferous opponent of the measures that came into force on April 1st', and is quoted saying that he is determined to protect the company's clients, and that 'It's about the freedom to choose, and the law makes it possible to retain details. We're not acting in breach of IPRED; we're following the law and choosing to destroy the details.'"

Submission + - encrypted online storage with encrypted search

Submitted by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 16, 2009 @11:49AM

An anonymous reader writes: Is there a solution for online storage of encrypted data providing encrypted search and similar functions over the encrypted data? Is there and API/software/solution and even some online storage company providing this? I don't like Google understanding all my unencrypted data, but I like that Google can search them when they are unencrypted. So I would like to have both: the online storage provider does not understand my data, but he can still help me with searching in them, and doing other useful stuff. I mean: I send to the remote server encrypted data and later an encrypted query (the server cannot decipher them), and the server sends me back a chunk of my encrypted data stored there — the result of my encrypted query. Or I ask for the directory structure of my encrypted data (somehow stored in my data too — like in tar archive), and the server sends it back, without knowing that this encrypted chunk is the directory structure. I googled for this and found some papers ( http://www.cs.berkeley.edu/~dawnsong/papers/se.ps , http://homes.cerias.purdue.edu/~crisn/courses/cs590T/cs590T_lect14_search_encrypted_data.pdf), however no software and no online service providing this yet.

MIT and the Constant Robotic Gardeners 101

Posted by timothy on Wednesday April 15, 2009 @05:50PM from the integrated-growlamps dept.

Singularity Hub writes "MIT's Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL) is pioneering the field of automated farming. During a semester-long experiment, CSAIL's researchers created a laboratory farm: tomato plants in terra cotta pots with artificial turf for grass. The goal of the experiment: to see if these tomatoes could be grown, tended, and harvested by robot caretakers."

Submission + - Unzipping Nanotubes Makes Superfast Electronics

Submitted by Al on Wednesday April 15, 2009 @05:33PM

Al writes: Two research groups have found a way to unzip carbon nanotubes to create nanoribbons of graphene — a material that has shown great promise for use as nanoscale transistors but which have proven difficult to manufacture previously. A team led by James Tour, a professor of chemistry and computer science at Rice University and another led by Hongjie Dai, a professor of chemistry at Stanford University, both figured out ways to slice carbon nanotubes open to create the nanoribbens. The Stanford team was funded by Intel and the Rice group is in talks with several companies about commercializing their approach.

Intel Responds To X25-M Fragmentation Issue 111

Posted by Soulskill on Monday April 13, 2009 @08:22PM from the problem-what-problem dept.

Vigile writes "In mid-February, news broke about a potential issue with Intel's X25-M mainstream solid state drives involving fragmentation and performance slow-downs. At that time, after having the news picked up by everyone from CNet to the Wall Street Journal, Intel stated that it had not seen any of these issues but was working with the source to replicate the problem and find a fix if at all possible. Today Intel has essentially admitted to the problem by releasing a new firmware for the X25-M line that not only fixes the flaws found in the drive initially, but also increases write performance across the board."

MPAA Spying Case To Be Appealed 132

Posted by samzenpus on Monday April 13, 2009 @04:53PM from the let's-see-what-you-got-there dept.

esocid writes "Back in 2005, the MPAA hired Robert Anderson, a former associate of TorrentSpy's owner, to illegally obtain internal emails and trade secrets. He did so by routing the email from the internal server to his own Gmail account. He subsequently sold 34 pages of stolen information for $15,000 to the MPAA. TorrentSpy owner Justin Bunnel sued them for spying, but lost the case due to a ruling that stated it was not illegal since the information was not intercepted under the Wiretap Act. The EFF called this decision a 'dangerous attempt to circumvent privacy laws,' since it implies that the unauthorized interception of anyone's personal email is legal. The appeal could have ramifications for MPAA president Dan Glickman, as the decision is expected around the time of his contract renewal."

Altered Organism Triples Solar Cell Efficiency 158

Posted by ScuttleMonkey on Friday April 10, 2009 @04:12PM from the shiny-happy-algae dept.

An anonymous reader writes "By harnessing the shells of living organisms in the sea, microscopic algae called diatoms, engineers have tripled the efficiency of experimental dye-sensitized solar cells. The diatoms were fed a diet of titanium dioxide, the main ingredient for thin film solar cells, instead of their usual meal which is silica (silicon dioxide). As a result, their shells became photovoltaic when coated with dyes. The result is a thin-film dye-sensitized solar cell that is three times more efficient than those without the diatoms."

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