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Power

Submission + - China to Tap Combustible Ice as New Energy Source (inhabitat.com) 1

Submitted by lilbridge
lilbridge writes: Huge reserves of "combustible ice" — frozen methane and water, have been discovered in the tundra undra of the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau in China. Estimates show that there is enough combustible ice to provide 90 years worth of energy for China. Burning the combustible ice may be a far better alternative than letting it just melt, releasing tons of methane into the air.
The Internet

Submission + - Scientists Use LEDs to Broadcast Wireless Internet (inhabitat.com) 2

Submitted by MikeChino
MikeChino writes: A group of scientists from Germany’s Fraunhofer Institute have devised a way to encode a visible-frequency wireless signal in light emitted by plain old desklamps and other light fixtures. The team was able to achieve a record-setting data download rate of 230 megabits per second, and they expect to be able to double that speed in the near future. While the regular radio-frequency wi-fi most of us use currently is perfectly fine, it does have its flaws — it has a limited bandwidth that confines it to a certain spectrum and if you’ve ever had someone leech off of your connection, you know that it also leaks through walls. LED wireless signals would theoretically have none of these downsides.
Crime

Submission + - UK Government To Force Child Safety On Facebook? (eweekeurope.co.uk)

Submitted by judgecorp
judgecorp writes: Harriet Harman, the deputy leader of the Labour Party has said that UK government ministers are "taking action" to get Facebook to add a British child protection button (called CEOP) to its site. The move comes after the UK's Daily Mail withdrew allegations that teenagers on Facebook are continually pestered — though Facebook is still considering suing the paper. The campaign apparently ignores Facebook's assertion that it already has better child protection in place and the CEOP button would be limited to the UK.

Comment Re:not that big of a problem (Score 1) 315

by simul (#24113833) Attached to: Massive, Coordinated Patch To the DNS Released

You're right, spoofing would work... but it wouldn't work because you'd have to spoof the same reply over and over. After about 200 identical replies with different tids (damn the source ip) ... i'd block it.

Of course if you didn't care *which* domain you cache-poisoned and you just wanted to cache-poison in *general* then you could randomize the domains. That would be tough to block (although hackers *usually* put detectable patterns in their attacks). It would also be undirected an pointless. You'd have to scan to figure out which website you hacked when you were done.

Also, IP spoofing is getting harder.

While I was working at zoneedit, I would call up ISP's every week following packet spoofing attacks (usually easy to detect once you decide to do it) and demand that they block packets with source addresses way out of their range - usually with some success.

But this really should be the default configuration on ALL routers. You should have to work to "unconfigure" source ip filtering, and you should have to know what you're doing.

Simply require routers to verify the source address (I like to call it "RBGP" or reverse-BGP, so people understand it does not require symmetrical routes) ... and it's gone altogether.
Graphics

Kodak Unveils 50MP CCD Image Sensor 228

Posted by kdawson from the 8176-by-6132-babee dept.
i4u writes in to let us know that Kodak has announced the world's first 50 million pixel CCD image sensor for professional photography (i.e., for medium-format cameras). Engineering-grade devices of the CCD, the KAF-50100, are currently available. Kodak plans to enter volume production in Q4 2008. "At 50 megapixels, the sensor captures digital images with unprecedented resolution and detail. For instance, with a 50 megapixel camera, in an aerial photo of a field 1.5 miles [about 2.5 km] across, you could detect an object about the size of a small notebook computer (1 foot by 1 foot)." Here's CNet's Crave blog with a few more technical details.
Biotech

How To Check Yourself For Abnormal Genes 133

Posted by timothy from the first-grab-some-family-photos dept.
AnneWoahHickey writes "While the State of California was harassing personalized genomics companies, and hindering the development of personalized medicine, Wired was preparing a guide to genetic testing. It explains how to make sense of the massive sets of raw data offered by 23andMe or deCODEme, and a way to check yourself for genetic abnormalities that are not covered by microarray tests. Facing a medical community that is fiercely resistant to change, the fate of personalized medicine is truly in the hands of consumers."
Space

Your Chance to be an Astronaut 302

Posted by CmdrTaco from the sniffle-what-about-me dept.
codewarrior78411 writes "NASA posted a hiring notice for new astronauts Tuesday, on usajobs.com, seeking for the first time in almost 30 years men and women to fly aboard spacecraft other than the shuttle. The agency is seeking 10 to 15 new faces for three to six-month missions aboard the international space station." Requirements include 'Must be a U.S. citizen between 5-foot-2 and 6-foot-3 in height (to squeeze into Russia's three-passenger Soyuz capsule)' 'At least a bachelor's degree in engineering, a biological or physical science, or mathematics' 'three years of relevant professional experience' and most interestingly 'Vision correctable to 20/20. For the first time, the space agency will consider applicants who have undergone successful refractive eye surgery.'

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