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Space

Voyager 2 Set to Reach Termination Shock 308

Invisible Pink Unicorn writes "A computer model simulation developed at UC Riverside has predicted that in late 2007 to early 2008, the interplanetary spacecraft Voyager 2 will cross the termination shock, the spherical shell around the solar system that marks where the solar wind slows down to subsonic speed. At the termination shock, located at 7-8.5 billion miles from the sun, the solar wind is decelerated to less than the speed of sound. The boundary of the termination shock is not fixed, however, but wobbly, fluctuating in both time and distance from the sun, depending on solar activity. Because of this fluctuation, the spacecraft is also predicted to cross the boundary again in middle 2008. The article abstract is available from The Astrophysical Journal."
User Journal

Journal Journal: 'We don't do open source because there's no one to sue' 1

Linux is carrying a detailed article regarding the security debate raging in corporations about using Open Source. One interesting quote: "We don't do open source because my lawyer says there's no one to sue," says Phil Maier, vice president of information security at Inovant, Visa's technology deployment division. "The lawyers had the final say." Maybe Shakespeare was right after all ....
Education

US School Curriculum to Include Online Safety? 137

Stony Stevenson writes to mention that the US National Cyber Security Alliance (NCSA) is pushing for school's to include cyber-security, online safety, and ethics lessons in their normal curriculum. "The National School Boards Association reported that 96 per cent of school districts claim that at least some of their teachers assign homework requiring internet use. But there is still no formal education on how to stay safe, secure and ethical online, despite the fact that the internet, like the real world, has threats and dangers which students may come across in the normal course of a day. These include communications from identity thieves, online predators and cyber-bullies."
Handhelds

Submission + - Where in the US can you get JUST a Cell Phone? 6

arakon writes: I am looking around for a cell phone for my technically challenged mother and all she wants is just a phone, and yet there seem to be no carriers in the US that carry a plain cell phone with good reception and battery life. All of them bundle camera's, pda's, mp3 players and a kitchen sink with a battery life of 2 hours, all for the low price of $350 or more...

Having looked around, the Motorola F3 is exactly what she wants but it doesn't seem to be available in the US. If we order it online will it work on US carriers? Are there any comparable products out there with a similar feature set and price range available for US networks? I appreciate the help.
Communications

A Whitelist for Phone Calls? 151

javacowboy asks: "I've been getting lots of strange phone calls lately. Most of the time, my phone would ring less than three times and then stop before I can answer. Then, a couple of nights ago, I got a call at 3am in the morning. It had stopped ringing by the time I woke up. *69 revealed a number with an area code of 632, which does not exist. I called the number, and the call would not complete past the area code. I want a product or service with which I can set up a -whitelist- of numbers that I allow to make my phone ring. Any number not on the list, or an unlisted phone number, tries to call me, and the phone doesn't ring at all. I would pay as much for this service as I would pay to have my number removed from the phone directory. Is something like this possible? If so, how would I do it?"
Patents

Submission + - Breakpoints have now been patented

Anonymous Coward writes: "Breakpoints have now been patented. http://www.freepatentsonline.com/20030208745.html "A method for debugging including the steps of receiving code having a software breakpoint function therein, running the code for the purpose of debugging, monitoring the code to detect the presence of the software breakpoint function, recognizing the software breakpoint function, determining an action to be performed based on the software breakpoint function, and implementing the action. The present invention also includes an apparatus for implementing the method for debugging and a medium embodying a program of instructions for execution by a device to perform the method for debugging." Where's the prior art on this one?"
Google

Submission + - Google's Evil NDA

An anonymous reader writes: Google claims that it's motto is "Do No Evil" — but they sure have an evil NDA! In order to be considered for employment there, they require you to sign an agreement which forbids you to "mention or imply the name of Google" in public ever again. Further, you can't tell anyone you interviewed there, or what they offered you, and you possibly sign away your rights to reverse engineer any of Google's code ever. And this NDA never expires. Luckily, someone has posted the contents of the NDA before he signed it and had to say silent forever.

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