The Internet Industry Association (IIA) will press ahead with its new internet service provider security code, with plans to launch a quarantine
proposal for infected computers by around June this year
This is freaky future stuff, where you’re the interface. That’s where electronics are heading, apparently. Researchers have developed a way for people to use their own skin as a keypad or pull down menu to control MP3 devices, make phone calls or play games. It’s called Skinput, and here’s how it works: The user wears an armband, which contains a very small projector that projects a menu or keypad onto a person’s hand or forearm. The armband also contains an acoustic sensor. Why? Because when you tap different parts of your body, it makes unique sounds based on the area’s bone density, soft tissue, joints and other factors. The software in Skinput is able to analyse the sound frequencies picked up by the acoustic sensor and then determine which button the user has just tapped
Some Southern California cities fine residents for watering their lawns too much during droughts. But in Orange, officials are locked in a legal battle with a couple accused of violating city ordinances for removing their lawn in an attempt to save water
Edmunds Auto has announced that it will be offering a $1 million prize to anyone who can find the cause of unintended acceleration. As Wikipedia notes, this is a problem that has plagued not only Toyota, but also Audi and other manufacturers. Consumer Reports has some suggestions all automakers can implement to solve this problem, including requiring brakes to be strong enough to stop the car even when the accelerator is floored — via Slashdot
After making the totality of public tweets available to search giants Google, Yahoo and Microsoft, Twitter is now cutting similar deals with smaller players. The partnerships generate revenue for Twitter, which also stands to benefit from new tools that could help users and companies manage the torrent of Twitter messages posted every day. Ellerdale, Collecta, Kosmix, Scoopler, twazzup, CrowdEye and Chainn Search all have licensed the Twitter firehose
of tweets, moves that Twitter expects will lead to a rush of innovation
in the area of real-time search and discovery
Spanish police have arrested three men accused of masterminding one of the biggest computer crimes to date — infecting more than 13 million PCs with a virus that stole credit card numbers and other data. The men were suspected of running the Mariposa botnet, named after the Spanish word for butterfly
Following a DMCA takedown request from Fox regarding an Avatar torrent, Google has removed the BTJunkie homepage from its search results. A few months ago Google erroneously banned The Pirate Bay homepage for which it later apologized. Whether or not the BTJunkie ban is also a mistake is unclear
When state health officials were sued last year for storing infant blood samples without parental consent, they said it was for medical research into birth defects, childhood cancer and environmental toxins. They never said they were turning over hundreds of dried blood samples to the federal government to help build a vast DNA database — a forensics tool designed to identify missing persons and crack cold cases
The web developer whose code was modified to remove references to internet filtering on a government website has asked for it to be taken down. Aleks Bochniak is the original author of a script on Senator Conroy’s official website that was modified to remove mention of the words ISP Filtering
A new photovoltaic material performs as well as the one found in today’s best solar cells, but promises to be significantly cheaper. The material, created by researchers at Caltech, consists of a flexible array of light-absorbing silicon microwires and light-reflecting metal nanoparticles embedded in a polymer. Computational models suggest that the material could be used to make solar cells that would convert 15 to 20 percent of the energy in sunlight into electricity — on par with existing high-performance silicon cells. But the material would require just 1 percent of the materials used today, potentially leading to a dramatic decrease in costs
A Cold War-era nuclear bunker in Britain has been put up for sale on online auction site eBay, and by Monday bidders had pushed the price up to £19,300 (€21,500, US$29,000). A rare opportunity to acquire a piece of Cold War history,
read the sale advert on the web site. Set in a stunning location with glorious views. Your own nuclear bunker within a plot of land and much original equipment.
After being advertised at a starting price of £500 late Thursday, a bidding war saw the price of the underground shelter rocket. Early Monday the price stood at £19,300 after 39 bids
Online news has become more popular than reading newspapers in the US, according to a survey. It is the third most popular form of news, behind local and national TV stations, the Pew Research Centre said
A colossal red granite head of one of Egypt’s most famous pharaohs has been unearthed in the southern city of Luxor, officials said. The 3,000-year-old head of Amenhotep III — grandfather of Tutankhamun — was dug out of the ruins of the pharaoh’s mortuary temple. Experts say it is the best preserved example of the king’s face ever found
Doctors were accustomed to alcohol poisoning by then, the routine of life in the Prohibition era. The bootlegged whiskies and so-called gins often made people sick. The liquor produced in hidden stills frequently came tainted with metals and other impurities. But this outbreak was bizarrely different. The deaths, as investigators would shortly realise, came courtesy of the US government
A classified review of the United States Secret Service’s computer technology found that the agency’s computers were fully operational only 60 percent of the time because of outdated systems and a reliance on a computer mainframe that dates to the 1980s
Microsoft has given up its battle with anti-secrecy website Cryptome.org, after the controversy over publication of Redmond’s internal surveillance guide for law enforcement agencies threatened to turn into a publicity own-goal
Security experts are split over the effectiveness of Microsoft’s efforts to shut down a network of PCs that could send 1.5 billion spam messages a day
Jim Keyzer, a police IT forensics specialist who was leading the Pirate Bay investigation while he was also working for Warner Bros is back in action. Despite all the controversy he is now leading the IT Crime Unit which is tasked with various anti-piracy efforts
Microsoft has won court approval to shut down a global network of computers which it says is responsible for more than 1.5bn spam messages every day. A US judge granted the firm’s request to shut down 277 internet domains, which it said were used to command and control
the so-called Waledac botnet
The Senate has comprehensively defeated a bid to legalise gay marriage, although a third of the senators did not turn up for the vote. Before the gay pride Mardi Gras in Sydney this weekend, the bill was rejected by 45 votes to five, with only the Greens voting to liberalise the marriage laws. But some of the senators who were absent from the chamber are uncomfortable with their party’s official policies opposing a move to let gay couples marry
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