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Hardware Hacking

Web Server On a Business Card 169

Posted by kdawson from the at-your-service dept.
mollyhackit writes "We've seen tiny Web servers in the past, but rarely ones that are home-built. Here's a guide to building your own tiny web server with a footprint no larger than a business card. The design uses two major chips. One handles the SPI to MAC/PHY translation for the ethernet jack. The other chip is a PIC24F, which hosts a simple web server and reads files stored on a microSD card. All components run at a low 3.3 volts. Part of the compactness of the design comes from the PIC24F having programmable pins; only four jumper wires were needed. The single-sided SMD design is easy to manufacture at home. Part 1 covered many of the 24F's features and both posts have full code available."
The Internet

Case Against Video-Sharing Site Dismissed 131

Posted by timothy from the separating-tool-from-tools dept.
NewYorkCountryLawyer writes "A California copyright infringement case brought by an adult video maker against a video sharing web site, Veoh Networks, has been thrown out, based upon the 'safe harbor' provision of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act ('DMCA'). In a 33-page decision (PDF), the Court concluded that Veoh was covered by the DMCA, and had carried out its duties to comply with takedown notices in a reasonable manner. The Court rejected the plaintiff's arguments showing possible ways that users could do an end-around, saying that the law requires 'reasonable' compliance, rather than perfection, and noted that the DMCA is 'designed to facilitate the robust development and world-wide expansion of electronic commerce, communications, research, development, and education in the digital age'."
Networking

Level of IPv6 Usage Is Vanishingly Small 626

Posted by kdawson from the nine-hundred-days-to-exhaustion dept.
An anonymous reader writes "The impending IPv4 address allocation shortage has led to a lot of speculation on the future of IPv6 (including here). A new study says that Internet IPv6 migration is not just going slowly — it has basically not even begun. After spending a year measuring IPv6 traffic across 87 ISPs around the world, the study concludes 'less than one hundredth of 1% of Internet traffic is IPv6... equivalent to the allowed parts of contaminants in drinking water.'"
Windows

One Third of New PCs Downgraded To XP? 617

Posted by CmdrTaco from the if-only-they-could-just-be-not-bought dept.
CWmike writes "More than one in every three new PCs is downgraded from Windows Vista to Windows XP, either at the factory or by the buyer, said performance and metrics researcher Devil Mountain Software, which operates a community-based testing network. 'The 35% is only an estimate, but it shows a trend within our own user base,' Craig Barth, the company's CTO, said. 'People are taking advantage of Vista's downgrade rights.' Last year, Devil Mountain benchmarked Vista and XP performance using other performance-testing tools and concluded that XP was much faster. Barth said things haven't changed since then. 'Everything I've seen clearly shows me that Vista is an OS that should never have left the barn.'"

Comment Re:I want TSoT back (Score 0) 48

by quest(answer)ion (#24200509) Attached to: First Real Gameplay Video of New Prince of Persia Game

Honestly. I loved that game because it was so unique. It had such a light-hearted feel to the action and made the prince a very likeable character. The second two had the boring "dark tormented hero" theme I've seen a thousand times.

/seconded.

the hero of the recent games was, unfortunately, a one-dimensional sword/demonchain wielding piece of cardboard. while that was entertaining in some of the cutscenes, i'm sure "lololol, are they serious?" was not what the developers were going for.

the graphics do look pretty, but graphics and gameplay weren't really lacking in the most recent installments--just character design and storytelling.
It's funny. Laugh.

DataStorm V1.0, a Full-Auto Floppy Disk Cannon 153

Posted by kdawson from the tres-bouchee dept.
Bob Loblaw writes "I ran across a huge stash of floppies at our office, and after some discussion, it became clear that rather than throw them away, we should build a gun that fires floppies. I had just bought a welder so this was a challenging first project. After about a month of work in my garage at night the DataStorm was born. It was constructed of scrap metal, a kid's bike, a weed-eater motor, and an electric screwdriver. The most difficult task ended up being how to add spin to the disk without significantly reducing its velocity. After a week and a half of trying different options, a stack of zip ties was found to work best. Since we had so much time in it we elected to shoot an infomercial showcasing the device, and had to learn to shoot & edit video as we went. It was basically an office joke that spiraled out of control. My wife is not amused. At all. I hope you like it."
The Courts

UK ISPs Want Copyright Holders to Pay if Users Sue 147

Posted by Zonk from the that-road-goes-both-ways dept.
I Don't Believe in Imaginary Property writes "After the recent draft legislation in the UK, which would create a 'three strikes' policy to cut off anyone accused of online piracy, the ISPs are asking for liability protection when users are wrongly identified. They're worried that when users are wrongly blamed for piracy, as has happened in several widely-reported investigations already, they will turn around and sue their ISP. The ISPs, of course, think that the record companies — or whoever else wrongly identified the file sharers — should be the ones to pay out any such judgments. The British Phonographic Industry, however, disagrees and wants the ISPs to simply use their Terms of Service to disconnect people. Apparently, that means they think that the ToS should be able to remove any legal recourse people might otherwise have against being misidentified."
Microsoft

Microsoft Misleads On Canadian Copyright Reform 107

Posted by kdawson from the can't-have-it-both-ways dept.
An anonymous reader writes "As the battle rages over a Canadian DMCA, Microsoft Canada has published an op-ed in a political newspaper that Michael Geist describes as astonishingly misleading and factually incorrect. Microsoft tries to argue that Canadian copyright law provides no legal protections, even after it received one of the largest copyright damage awards in Canadian history just one year ago."
Security

Details of Cyber Storm War Games Released 96

Posted by Soulskill from the defending-against-gravitic-mines dept.
I Don't Believe in Imaginary Property writes "Apparently, the participants in the U.S. 'Cyber Storm' war games are familiar with the Kobayashi Maru, because some of them tried to cheat by hacking the games themselves. They also prepare for some very interesting scenarios. Among other things, the organizers are worried about having too many people on the 'No Fly' list show up at an airport, finding 'mystery liquids' in the subway, and having bloggers reveal the classified location of railcars with hazardous materials. The Department of Homeland Security has already analyzed the results of the games, and plans to hold 'Cyber Storm 2' in March."
Microsoft

Microsoft Launches IT Superhero Comic 285

Posted by Zonk from the humor-doesn't-come-from-the-comic dept.
willdavid writes "Paul McDougall reports in InformationWeek on Microsoft's new online comic. The Heroes Happen Here comic strips are being created by Jordan Gorfinkel, a former DC Comics editor who helped revitalize the Batman series. 'Tech workers who in the middle of the night fix a downed server or take on a computer virus don't really have extraordinary powers. It just seems that way. But a new comic book has debuted in which IT pros literally are superheroes. The daily Web comic, called Heroes Happen Here, features tech savvy crime fighters like Lord Firewall, who "stands between chaos and order" and says things like "begone vermin!"'" And because it's never easy, in order to read the archives of the comic you're going to need to install Microsoft's Silverlight.
Communications

How Pervasive is ISP Outbound Email Filtering? 281

Posted by Zonk from the making-me-nervous dept.
Erris writes "A member of the Baton Rouge LUG noticed that Cox checks the text of outgoing email and rejects mail containing key phrases. I was aware of forced inbox filtering that has caused problems and been abused by other ISPs in China and in the US. I've also read about forced use of ISP SMTP and outbound throttling, but did not know they outbound filtered as well. How prevalent and justified is this practice? Wouldn't it be better to cut off people with infected computers than to censor the internet?"
Technology

The Next 25 Years in Tech 166

Posted by Zonk from the technosticating-the-future dept.
PCWMike writes "PCs may disappear from your desk by 2033. But with digital technology showing up everywhere else — including inside your body — computing will only get more personal, reports Dan Tynan for PC World's 25th Anniversary. While convenience will be increased by leaps and bounds, it will come at a profound loss in our sense of what privacy means. 'Technology will become firmly embedded in advanced devices that deliver information and entertainment to our homes and our hip pockets, in sensors that monitor our environment from within the walls and floors of our homes, and in chips that deliver medicine and augment reality inside our bodies. This shiny happy future world will come at a cost, though: Think security and privacy concerns. So let's hope that our jetpacks come with seat belts, because it's going to be a wild ride.'"
Biotech

Pope Denounces Some Biotech as Affront to 'Human Dignity' 1158

Posted by Zonk from the weighing-in dept.
eldavojohn writes "Today in a speech the pope denounced human cloning, embryonic stem cell research and artificial insemination, citing them as a violation of 'human dignity.' That said, the pope did 'appreciate and encourage' research on stem cells from non-embryonic cells in the human body. The pope encouraged the Vatican to be a leading voice in the philosophy and discussion of bioethics. 'Church teaching certainly cannot and must not weigh in on every novelty of science, but it has the task to reiterate the great values which are on the line and to propose to faithful and all men of good will ethical-moral principles and direction for new, important questions,' Benedict said."

Researchers Reference Flocking Birds to Improve Swarmbots 62

Posted by Zonk from the shine-your-shoes-while-composing-a-song dept.
inghamb87 writes "Scientists have studied flocks of starlings and cracked the mystery behind the birds' ability to fly in large formations, and regroup quickly after attacks, without getting confused and ramming into each other. While the information is cool, some scientists seem to think that the best use of this knowledge is not to aid our appreciation of nature, but to make more effective robot swarms. We've talked about swarming robots many times before, but usually researchers look to insects for inspiration."
The Internet

P2P Fans Pound Comcast In FCC Comments 306

Posted by kdawson from the do-not-fiddle-my-bits dept.
Not Comcastic writes "Two weeks after officially opening proceedings on Comcast's BitTorrent throttling, angry users are bombarding the FCC with comments critical of the cable provider's practices. 'On numerous occasions, my access to legal BitTorrent files was cut off by Comcast,' a systems administrator based in Indianapolis wrote to the FCC shortly after the proceeding began. 'During this period, I managed to troubleshoot all other possible causes of this issue, and it was my conclusion (speaking as a competent IT administrator) that this could only be occurring due to direct action at the ISP (Comcast) level.' Another commenter writes 'I have experienced this throttling of bandwidth in sharing open-source software, e.g. Knoppix and Open Office. Also I see considerable differences in speed ftp sessions vs. html. They are obviously limiting speed in ftp as well.'"

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