The US have put a satellite jammer in space that will allow them to disrupt enemy communication systems at will
The RIAA has been pushing the FCC to impose a copy-protection mandate on the makers of next-generation digital radio receiver/recorders. Never mind that digital audio broadcasting is not significantly greater in quality than regular, analogue radio. Never mind that its music quality is vastly less than than that of audio CDs. In spite of these inconvenient facts, the RIAA is hoping that the transition to digital audio broadcasting
will provide enough confusion and panic that they can persuade Congress or the FCC to impose some kind of copy-protection scheme or regulation on digital radio broadcast
Switchfoot’s new album Nothing Is Sound shipped from Sony with copy protection software on the CD, much to the dismay of thousands of iPod-wielding fans. The band posted a response on their official forum apologising for the protection and detailing ways to circumvent the protection and rip their songs to PC. Switchfoot linked to open-source program CDex’s download page with instructions on disabling the autorunning protection and ripping the files to MP3. Many of Switchfoot’s fans have been upset by the copy protection measures, and it’s nice to know the artists seem to care about the issue — via Slashdot
Zotob.E, Tpbot-A, Rbot.CBQ and IRCbot.worm: all names given to a single worm that wreaked havoc in Windows 2000 systems last month. Among the plethora of identifiers, perhaps the most useful — CME-540 — didn’t make an impact. But that’s about to change. CME-540 was the tag attached to the worm by the Common Malware Enumeration initiative, which is just emerging from its test phase. Next month, the US Computer Emergency Readiness Team plans to officially take the wraps off the effort, meant to reduce the confusion caused by the different names security companies give worms, viruses and other pests
Just last month, Opera was celebrating their 10 year anniversary by giving away free registration codes; now they’ve trumped that by offering Opera for free. Quoth their site, Opera has removed the banners, found within our browser, and the licensing fee. Opera’s growth, due to tremendous world-wide customer support, has made todays milestone an achievable goal. Premium support is available.
Anyone who was on the verge of switching before now has virtually no reason not to — Slashdot
The software, developed by NEC and the Nara Institute of Science and Technology in Japan, goes further than existing mobile phone camera technology by allowing entire documents to be scanned simply by sweeping the phone across the page. As reported, an A4 sized page takes only 3 to 5 seconds to scan, and it is causing copyright concerns
Technology startup U3 is expected to announce Monday the release of USB drives based on its smart computing platform, which lets applications run directly off USB drives, independent of other storage devices. Smart USB drives based on U3’s software and hardware platform will allow users to carry their entire PC in a USB drive, so that when they hook up to a PC on the road, it will have the same look and feel as their work or home PC
Canberra could become the first Australian city to provide its population with digital network access anywhere and anytime across its CBD and suburbs
Hitachi Global Storage Technologies now has a hard drive upgrade alternative for notebook computers that is so simple, most users will be able to increase their notebook hard disk capacity and restore their operating system, applications, and data. The upgrade includes a replacement internal hard drive, a case to convert allow the existing hard drive to be used as an external USB drive, cables, tools, and step-by-step instructions
Manilla Road is a State/RTA funded road. Do not blame Tamworth City Council.
Sign seen by the side of the road during a roadworks created hold-up
Traditionaly screws are poorly suited to many applications, because they displace the material they’re being screwed into, causing brittle substances like plastic and concrete to crack. Now, for the first time in decades, Kenneth LeVey, a stubborn engineer at Illinois Tool Works, has created a radical new design for screws that solves this problem — via BoingBoing
Google has confirmed they are rolling out their wifi network, first in the San Francisco bay area. They are also including a Secure Access programme for use in conjunction with this
The final plan for managing protected grey wolves that migrate into Oregon will prohibit ranchers from killing wolves that attack livestock and will not include compensation for losses to wolf attacks — via Tidepool
CubeSat is a program at Stanford and California Polytechnic State University to assist college and high school students and companies in building their own tiny satellites and launching them into low Earth orbit. The satellites are tiny — they weigh a kilogram and generally measure about 10cm on each side — but they cost far less than conventional commercial satellites. A CubeSat unit costs roughly $40,000 to build and only $40,000 to launch. As part of the program, Cal Poly takes care of the bureaucratic and logistical hurdles. By contrast, a conventional satellite can run between $150 million and $250 million to build and $100 million to launch
Mailinator, the free, temporary e-mail service gets a lot of spam; over a million e-mails a day. And with another cool application of Google maps, the site now shows a Spam Map indicating what sites are spamming mailinator in almost real time. It’s oddly addictive to poke around and see where the spam is actually coming from
The beasties at my friends’ place in Gilgai.
Amber is a small, fluffy, fast-moving missile of excitable Akita puppy goodness
NASA has announced that the US will send four astronauts to the moon in 2018 in a major return to its pioneering manned missions into space. Welcome to 1969
Toshiba has developed two small fuel cell prototypes that can dramatically increase the playing time for mobile music players. A fuel cell unit the size of a pack of chewing gum can power a flash-memory-based player for about 35 hours on a single charge, using highly concentrated methanol as its fuel. For a hard disc drive system, a fuel cell unit the size of a person’s palm could let the player run for 60 hours on a single charge. Toshiba hopes to introduce the products commercially in 2007
The Concerned Women
for America, a backward group of hate-mongering homophobes, have attacked the Girl Scouts for apparently trying to make feminist lesbians out of girls. At least, that’s how they portray it
RSS – Posts