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Security

Submission + - UK national ID card cloned in 12 minutes (computerweekly.com) 1

Death Metal writes: "The prospective national ID card was broken and cloned in 12 minutes, the Daily Mail revealed this morning.

The newspaper hired computer expert Adam Laurie to test the security that protects the information embedded in the chip on the card.

Using a Nokia mobile phone and a laptop computer, Laurie was able to copy the data on a card that is being issued to foreign nationals in minutes."

Games

Wipeout HD Loading Ads Scrapped After Uproar 119

RobotsDinner writes "After Monday's story about intrusive, loading-screen ads being retroactively added to the PSN racing title Wipeout HD, the popular uproar has indeed succeeded in getting Sony to pull them. You can put your pitchforks down; your voice has been heard! A Sony spokesman said, 'The ad has been removed from Wipeout HD and we are investigating the situation to ensure that any in-game advertising does not affect gameplay.'"
Space

Submission + - NASA releases hi-res pix of Apollo landing sites (discovermagazine.com) 1

The Bad Astronomer writes: "After much anticipation (years on my part!) NASA has released high-resolution pictures of the Apollo landing sites. The images, taken by the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, clearly show Apollo artifacts on the Moon, including the landers... and in the Apollo 14 site image you can actually see the lunar surface disturbed by the astronauts' bootprints! These are stunning images, reminders of a time when our reach exceeded our grasp, and an impetus urging us to do it once again."
The Internet

Submission + - FCC: 200,000 Cell Towers Need Backup Power (datacenterknowledge.com)

1sockchuck writes: "The FCC is ordering telecom and wireless companies to provide backup power for cell sites and remote telecom facilities, hoping to keep communications networks running during natural disasters. The new rule was prompted by wireless outages during Hurricane Katrina. There are more than 210,000 cell towers in the US, as well as 20,000 telecom central offices that will also need generators or batteries. Municipalities are bracing for disputes as carriers try to add generators or batteries to cell sites on rooftops or water towers. The rules will further boost demand in the market for generators, where there are already lengthy delivery backlogs for some models."
Graphics

Submission + - HiRes Scan of 'Mona Lisa' Reveals Its History

daevux writes: CNN reports that French engineer Pascal Cotte has discovered interesting details of the history of Da Vinci's "Mona Lisa" from a 240 megapixel scan of the artwork. Among the findings are the disappearance of eyebrows and eyelashes probably due to poor cleaning, and differences in skin tones.

Comment Already pointless (Score 1) 348

A lot of my non-computer savvy friends got sick of paying for ringtones about a year ago and figured out how to use free music editing software to create little clips of their favorite songs. In fact, I don't know anyone anymore who doesn't know how to do this. How do these music companies think they're going to get away with charging $6-7 just because they threw in a ringtone?

Netcraft Says IIS Gaining on Apache 666

benjymouse quotes this month's netcraft survey "In the August 2007 survey we received responses from 127,961,479 sites, an increase of 2.3 million sites from last month. Microsoft continues to increase its web server market share, adding 2.6 million sites this month as Apache loses 991K hostnames. As a result, Windows improves its market share by 1.4% to 34.2%, while Apache slips by 1.7% to 48.4%. Microsoft's recent gains raise the prospect that Windows may soon challenge Apache's leadership position."
Space

Submission + - Mars Global Surveyor died from single bad command

wattsup writes: "The LA Times reports that a single wrong command sent to the wrong computer address caused a cascade of events that led to the loss of the Mars Global Surveyor spacecraft last November, NASA investigators reported Friday.

A command that oriented the spacecraft's main communications antenna was sent to the wrong address. The mistake caused a problem with the positioning of the solar power panels, this in turned caused one of the batteries to overheat, shutting down the solar power system and the batteries drained in 12 hours."
The Internet

Submission + - Apple, Opera, and Mozilla Push for HTML5

foo fighter writes: "The insular World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) has been slumbering the past several years: HTML was last updated in 1999, XHTML was last updated in 2002, and no one is taking their largely incompatible work on "next-generation" XHTML or "modularized" XHTML seriously. Both HTML and XHTML are in sorry need of removing deprecated items while being updated to reflect the current practices of web and browser developers yet remaining compatible with legacy Recommendations. The much more open and transparent WHATWG formed in 2004 to address this problem and has been hard at work on developing a draft spec for HTML5 to update and replace legacy versions of both HTML and XHTML. The quality of this work has reached the point that Apple, Opera, and Mozilla have requested the adoption of HTML5 as the new "W3C Recommendation" for web development."
Software

Submission + - What is the best bug-as-a-feature?

Bat Country writes: The workflow system at the department I develop for was hand-coded by my predecessor in a rather short amount of time, resulting in somewhat unreadable code with a number of interesting "features."

When I took over maintenance of the code base, I started patching bugs and cleaning up the code in preparation for a new set of features.

When I was done however, I got a pile of complaints about features which disappeared which turned out to be caused by the bugs in the code.
So that leads me to ask, what is your favorite bug that you either can't live without or makes your life easier?
GNU is Not Unix

Submission + - FSF releases 3rd draft of GPLv3

johnsu01 writes: "The Free Software Foundation has announced publication of the third discussion draft of the GNU General Public License Version 3. Because quite a few changes have been made since the previous draft and important new issues have surfaced, the drafting process has been extended and revised to encourage more feedback. The most significant changes in this draft include refinements in the "tivoization" provisions to eliminate unwanted side effects, revision of the patent provisions to prevent end-runs around the license, and further steps toward compatibility with other free software licenses. The FSF has also explicitly asked the community whether the new patent provisions should apply retroactively to the Microsoft-Novell deal."

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