Ubuntukitten writes "When some walls in Bocchignano near Roma started to erode, the perfect solution was found in Lego bricks (although some look suspiciously like Duplo bricks to me). FTA: 'At first I thought it would be a complicated procedure to fit the pieces, But as it turned out, the bigger plastic pieces were compatible with the smaller ones, and the Lego held itself in place without any glue whatsoever.' I like the effect. It's like the scene has been created on the holodeck but a few holoemitters are broken ..."

abb_road writes "Business Week sent a reporter to TechTrain's ethical hacker training camp, where, for $4,300, participants spend five days working towards ICECC's 'Ethical Hacker Certification.' The camp serves companies' increasing needs for home-grown white hats, and covers topics ranging from the non-technical (social engineering and policy creation) to code-level attacks (buffer overflows and sql injections). The tuition seems a bit steep for materials that, as the article notes, are 'freely available over the web'--but where else can you play hacking capture the flag?"

hpcanswers writes "ICANN, the governing body for Internet domain names, recently gave VeriSign exclusive control of the top-level .com domain until 2012. Now, nineteen registrars, including GoDaddy and Network Solutions, have petitioned ICANN to reconsider on the basis that VeriSign will most likely increase registration fees. A few of the registrars have also asked the US Department of Commerce to veto the deal." From the article: "The new deal permits VeriSign to increase the price of domain name registrations by 7 per cent in four of the next six years. In the two remaining years, VeriSign will only be able to raise prices if it can show the rises are necessary for security reasons. It also gives VeriSign a presumptive right to renewal of the .com registry, on the proviso that it complies with certain aspects of the agreement."

kaufmanmoore writes "According to an MSNBC report, the head of Google's European arm has said that Google wants to use Google Base for brick and mortar stores to submit lists of goods and prices in order to create an online presence." From the article: "Google would index and package the information into a consumer-friendly search engine, giving its users a virtual supermarket across a number of retail brands. Mr Arora said: 'Google Base is going to have a huge impact on retailers," adding that the move reflected internal research, which found many leading European retailers did not feel they were competitive enough online.'

1up has coverage of the Japanese launch for Final Fantasy XII. The much-anticipated and very delayed game began sales yesterday, prompting more pictures of Japanese gamers in line. If you don't mind spoilers, they also have a fairly extensive preview based on the import version of the game. From that article: "FFXII begins with a stunningly gorgeous full-motion video which depicts a royal wedding in Dalmasca, a small kingdom wedged precipitously between the warring nations of Archadia and Rosarria. But the celebrations are cut short as Dalmasca is dragged into the war and the newlywed prince is felled in battle by an arrow, leaving one very bereaved princess to mourn her loss."

niemassacre writes "According to winxponmac.com, the contest has been won - nearly $14k to narf2006 for submitting a working solution to dual-booting Windows XP and Mac OS X on an Intel-Powered mac. A thread on osx86project.org has confirmations from several testers that the procedure works on the 17" iMac, the Mac mini, and the MacBook Pro. Many sets of pictures and videos (such as this installation video) are floating around (and mentioned in the thread). The solution itself should be posted soon." Poit! Congratulations to narf.