Lawmakers want Google to Buzz off over privacy concerns
Google's Buzz social networking service, which launched as part of Gmail in February, was met with considerable controversy. The service automatically transformed users' e-mail address books into public Buzz contact lists, creating the potential for sensitive information to be exposed without user consent.
The Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC) and the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) condemned Google's mismanagement of the service's rollout and lack of privacy safeguards. EPIC filed a complaint with the FTC, calling for the organization to review the matter. A bipartisan group of congressmen are the latest to join the chorus. In an open letter addressed to FTC chairman Jon Leibowitz, eleven members of the US House of Representatives called for an investigation of Buzz and closer scrutiny of Google's pending acquisition of mobile advertising company AdMob.
Read the comments on this post
Read More ...
Plants affect ecology from the bottom up
Despite being at the bottom of the food chain, plants may be able to significantly alter the ecological patterns in their habitats. Generally, ecosystems are studied from a "top-down" perspective: top predators limit the numbers of herbivores, which in turn allows plants to flourish. In a paper published in Science last week, researchers showed that plants can also affect these patterns from the bottom up.
Milkweeds are a family of plants fed upon by a species of aphid, and these aphids serve as prey for a range of invertebrate predators. By manipulating soil nutrient levels and predator access in 16 species of milkweeds, the researchers tried to determine whether milkweed success—here measured via plant biomass—was always determined top-down, by the influence of predators.
Results show that milkweeds face an evolutionary trade-off and can adopt one of two strategies: they can invest their energy in growing quickly and taking advantage of rich soil, or in developing resistance to the aphids. Depending on which strategy was in operation, the milkweed species differed in how important top-down effects were; plants that were most responsive to changes in soil fertility were also the species in which the presence of predators had the biggest positive effect on plant biomass. In other words, the plants that sacrifice herbivore resistance for growth rely more heavily on predators for protection than plants with the alternative, aphid-resistant strategy do.
Apparently, less-resistant milkweed species still played an active role in the ecosystem, as they produce more volatile organic compounds called sesquiterpenes that can actually draw predators to the plants, providing some protection from the aphids. This study suggests that, while top-down effects are important, bottom-up effects based on evolutionary trade-offs in plants may be an underestimated source of variation in ecological communities.
Science, 2010. DOI: 10.1126/science.1184814 (About DOIs).
Read the comments on this post
Read More ...
The LHC starts regular operations at 7TeV
After a few false starts this morning, the LHC started its planned two-year run of continual operations at 7TeV. The first few packets of protons set off a instrument warning that had to be cleared, or couldn't be focused properly. Once those hiccups were out of the way, however, the collisions began and have continued at least to the time that this was being typed. All detectors are recording data, and both the ATLAS and CMS groups have already posted images of some of the hundreds of recorded collisions (such as the one above, which one reader termed "confetti for nerds") online.
CERN's press release says that by the end of the planned 18-24 month run, we'll have enough data to have detected any supersymmetric particles up to 800GeV in mass, up from our current limit of 400GeV. Supersymmetric particles mirror the known ones in the Standard Model, and include candidates for dark matter. It also noted that over 2,000 graduate students will now have something to do with their time.
The US Department of Energy, which runs Fermi and Brookhaven National Labs, has also provided a press release that echoes the one from CERN. Those two labs serve as the primary contact points for the CMS and ATLAS detectors in the US, respectively, distributing data to a huge grid computing system at other national labs and universities. The release is worth reading simply to get a sense of the scale of the grid, as it contains a full list of the participating institutions.
Congratulations to everyone around the globe who has been working for years to get to this moment.
Read the comments on this post
Read More ...
Hacker vows to fight Sony PS3 update, restore Linux support
iPhone hacker George Hotz, aka "GeoHot," was able to finally crack the PlayStation 3... three years after the system's release. He praised the hardware for its security, but now that Sony has responded by removing the Linux capabilities of the PlayStation 3 entirely, the hacker has decided to fight back, warning gamers not to update their systems until he finds a way to keep the Other OS option on the PlayStation 3.
The problem for Sony is that GeoHot is now threatening to release custom firmware for the system, which is quite the escalation from what was previously available from the hacking community. "I never intended to touch [custom firmware], but if that's how you want to play..." Hotz wrote on his blog. Sony may have done much more harm than good with its April 1 update.
Read the comments on this post
Read More ...
How the FBI busted one YouTube nutjob in under a day
When it needs to act fast, the FBI can do so. When a YouTube video came to its attention on Friday in San Francisco, the FBI had a Philadelphia man in custody the next day. A reminder to Internet nutjobs: your IP address can and will be used to hunt you down, so posting threatening rants to YouTube is only a good idea if you're looking to get arrested.
The FBI's affidavit gives us a window into how the investigation unfolded, and into just how quickly the Bureau can turn a YouTube link into a home address when necessary.
Read the comments on this post
Read More ...
The state of the art in water balloons? Speed
It's probably not warm enough yet, but I feel as the temperature increases it's my job to give you some good ideas of things to do out of doors, away from the computer. We've talked about Nerf swords, and now it's time to look at the most efficient way to create water balloons.
Water balloons may be simple as a concept, but getting the balloon around the hose or sink can be messy, and tying off the end can be tricky for those with less-than-nimble fingers. The AquaAntics Water Bomb Factory makes all this easy. You attach your hose, clamp it to a surface, and crank out your little wet grenades much faster. Whether you're a child who dislikes the fuss that comes with water balloons, or you're an adult who sees the wisdom of a quick reload, this is a product that can easily be used to demoralize your opponents.
In just a few minutes you can have a pile of ammunition for your next water war... and that's priceless. Actually, it's $10, but the joy can't be measured.
Read the comments on this post
Read More ...
Solaris 10 no longer free as in beer, now a 90-day trial
Solaris 10, the official stable version of Sun's UNIX operating system, is no longer available to users at no cost. Oracle has adjusted the terms of the license, which now requires users to purchase a service contract in order to use the software.
Sun's policy was that anyone could use Solaris 10 for free without official support. Users could get a license entitling them to perpetual commercial use by filling out a simple survey and giving their e-mail address to Sun. Oracle is discontinuing this practice, and is repositioning the free version as a limited-duration trial.
Read the comments on this post
Read More ...
feature: VoIP in-depth: An introduction to the SIP protocol, Part 2
In Part 1 of our SIP primer, I covered the SIP foundation layers starting from the message structure and ending with the SIP transactions. We saw how phone registrations and proxies could work using these layers. This second part completes the discussion by covering the way SIP defines calls, and in general, any type of communication. Naturally, this installment is built on the previous part, and therefore you should read Part 1, or at least have some prior knowledge, before proceeding with Part 2. Similar to the previous installment, I will also refer here to the latest specs that influenced the basic SIP scenarios.
Read the comments on this post
Read More ...
GNOME's Empathy instant messaging client hits v2.30, matures
Empathy is an open source instant messaging client that is built on top of the Telepathy framework. Empathy became a part of the GNOME desktop environment in 2008 with the release of GNOME 2.24 and is gradually gaining acceptance as the default instant messaging client in a number of mainstream Linux distributions.
Although it has the potential to bring a lot of value to the GNOME desktop, Empathy still suffers from some limitations and lacks several key features that can be found in alternatives like Pidgin. For example, it doesn't support metacontacts or message formatting. It also hasn't traditionally offered a whole lot of compelling GNOME integration to make it a must-have. The program is maturing, however, and will soon offer some impressive new features.
Empathy 2.30, which was released today, brings a modest assortment of feature enhancements and usability improvements. It has a new account management dialog that allows users to see the current status of their accounts. It also has improved support for IRC, better notification when an account drops its connection, a built-in search bar for the message dialog window, and a large number of minor bugfixes.
The improvements in version 2.30 just help to fill in a few of the gaps in Empathy's feature set, but some really impressive stuff will be arriving in the next release. GNOME developer Danielle Madeley recently wrote a blog entry that describes several capabilities that are on the roadmap. The new telepathy-logger service will make it easy for third-party applications to mine and index your instant messaging logs.
Zeitgeist, the activity tracking framework that powers the GNOME Activity Journal, will be able to take advantage of telepathy-logger to generate statistics about the user's instant messaging activity. These statistics will allow Empathy's buddy list user interface to adapt itself based on usage patterns. For example, the buddy list will have a dynamically populated "Frequent Contacts" group to make it easy for you to access the people who you chat with the most.
These planned improvements demonstrate the advantages of having an instant messaging framework that is closely tied to the desktop. As Emapthy matures, it is likely that we will see it make better use of other desktop integration opportunities.
Read the comments on this post
Read More ...
How huge particle detectors actually detect tiny particles
In part one of our series on particle smashers, we described how accelerators either bring together two light particles (like protons) to study new particles, or two heavy nuclei (like gold) to study the interactions of their components. In both cases, the action takes place in a truly infinitesimal space. If you think about how we normally image something—by bouncing photons off it and seeing how they're changed—it's clearly not possible to actually image one of these collisions using this approach, even if we knew precisely where or when a collision would take place.
Yet, somehow, we manage to create the sort of iconic images of collisions like the ones shown above. The detectors in colliders like the Large Hadron Collider and Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider work by looking at some of the items that come rocketing out of the collisions, producing the sort of traces shown here. Given that data, it's possible for physicists to work their way backwards in order to figure out what went on in the collision itself.
Read the comments on this post
Read More ...
Only rare "supertaskers" can balance driving, cellphone use
The past few years have seen a series of studies that indicate the distractions of cellphone use have an impact on driving skills that rivals intoxication, and various governments are responding by instituting bans on the use of tech toys behind the wheel. Despite laws, extensive evidence and a reasonable degree of public awareness, there's no shortage of people using phones behind the wheel, which suggests that many drivers have a great deal of confidence in their multitasking ability. A new study that will be released by the journal Psychonomic Bulletin and Review suggests that, even though most of those people probably are bad at multitasking, a small percent of the population positively excels at it.
The basic idea behind the new study is that even though the studies of distracted drivers are pretty definitive, they typically only measure group behavior, which may obscure a small sub-population that's the exception to the rule. So, its authors set up a standard test of distracted driving, and looked for people who had performance that represented an exception to the group trend.
Read the comments on this post
Read More ...
iTunes 9.1 expected to bring things up to speed for iPad
With the pending release of the iPad, Apple will have outgrown its iTunes software yet again. According to MacRumors, however, iTunes 9.1 will drop around the same time as the iPad launch this Saturday. The release will make a couple of changes to the iTunes Store's categories, improve its Genius Mix feature, and change around the device management interface.
With 9.1, the "Audiobooks" subhead in the iTunes Store will be absorbed into a new source category, "Books," presumably catering to the iBooks app on the iPad. Likewise, MacRumors mentions that Books (as well as other categories) may start displaying content that caters to the capabilities of connected devices—iPad, iPod, or iPhone—in hopes of making content management smoother. There's been no mention of whether the newspaper and magazine deals Apple probably hopes to cut will fall into the (perhaps not-so-aptly-named) Books category.
iTunes 9.1 is also expected to rearrange some of the device managment interface, such as moving the "Check for Update" and "Restore" buttons over to the left side. Users may also be able to automatically convert songs to 128Kbps AAC when they sync the songs to their devices, a feature currently available to only the iPod shuffle. The format change is intended to help users squeeze more stuff on their players while the files remain in their original format on the computer.
Genius Mixes are also getting a couple tweaks to make them easier to organize: users will be able to rename them, rearrange them by dragging, and delete them through a right-click. Geniuses Mixes may also be newly available for play through the iTunes DJ.
Read the comments on this post
Read More ...
Report: Verizon iPhone finally coming; will you switch?
Apple is reportedly developing yet another version of the iPhone for launch this summer, according to "people briefed on the matter" speaking to the Wall Street Journal. On top of this news, the company is also preparing a CDMA version of the new device that will work with Verizon Wireless.
Rumors about Apple developing a fourth-generation iPhone for summer 2010 are neither shocking nor new—the company has made a habit of launching a new iPhone yearly around that time. However, the news of a CDMA version coming from the vetted sources of the WSJ means that this particular element has likely progressed beyond just a rumor stage.
The timing aligns with previous rumors about a Verizon-compatible iPhone launching in the summer of this year, as well as the impending end of AT&T's exclusivity in the US. According to the newspaper's sources, the fourth-gen GSM iPhone will be manufactured by one of Apple's usual manufacturers, Hon Hai, while the CDMA version will be manufactured by Pegatron Technology.
If this is indeed true, how many of you plan to migrate to Verizon? Click through to vote on our poll.
Read the comments on this post
Read More ...
Apple poised to launch mobile ad service next week
Apple may have at least one answer ready for advertisers' concerns over the iPad. The company is rumored to be launching a "revolutionary" mobile ad service to Madison Avenue advertising firms on April 7, according to sources speaking to MediaPost.
The new service will be the first fruits of Apple's acquisition of Quattro Wireless earlier this year. Several publications that are planning iPad versions (whether it comes as an app or iPad-targeted website) have already begun selling high-priced ad placements, but advertisers have concerns about standardized sizes, prices, and interactive functionality. Apple's service may help remedy that by offering developers an SDK to include "iAds." The ads will also leverage Web standards such as HTML5, CSS3, and JavaScript, which has a two-fold advantage: the iPhone is already optimized for displaying content using those standards, and it also negates the need for Flash for ad interactivity.
Read the comments on this post
Read More ...
Snow Leopard updates to 10.6.3, Leopard updates security
Apple released Mac OS X 10.6.3 in both client and servers versions Monday, offering a number of bug fixes, tweaks, and "performance improvements." The updates include a number of security fixes, which are being rolled out to Leopard users as Security Update 2010-002.
For most of us, this third update to Snow Leopard will bring overall improvements to printing, wireless networking, OpenGL-based apps, QuickTime X, certain third-party external USB devices, and of course, photo screen savers. Some other specific fixes that caught our eye include improved secure WiFi connections, working with remote Windows/SMB file servers, Exchange support, mobile account stability, better iDisk sync, and Time Machine backups to a Time Capsule, especially over WiFi. There's also specific fixes for sleep/wake issues when connected to WiFi and problematic iSight pixels for the latest iMac models. Some improvements for pro users include fixes for Xsan and Fibre Channel connections and better performance for 64-bit Logic Pro 9 and Main Stage 2.
Apple has also beefed up the information sent along when you report application and system crashes to Apple. In addition to the Crash Reporter state data, your Mac will also automatically send Apple recent system log info as well as information about the applications and hardware devices on your machine. This information is only sent when you click the "Send to Apple" button in Crash Reporter dialogs, and Apple says the information is anonymized. Such information is often necessary when trying to determine the source of a bug or crash, and is requested by Apple whenever it follows up on a specific crash report. The new version of Crash Reporter merely automates the process of sending all this information from system logs and System Profiler.
Mac OS X Server 10.6.3 has all of the same stuff, as well as improvement to its server-specific features. Podcast Producer got a number of improvements, including working with dual-source video. There are also improvements to working with installation images and sources, including NetRestore, syncing Portable Home Directories, using Server Admin over IPv6, working with Open Directory and Active Directory, and filtering of incoming mail messages. Apple also added a specific security improvement to help prevent brute force password attacks.
The updates include a total of 69 patches for security related issues, though many apply only to server-related components such as Wiki Server, Apache, and iChat Server. A number of patches are also included for the many underlying UNIX or open source components included in Mac OS X, such as PHP, MySQL, perl, curl, CUPS, SMB, and Ruby. There are nine separate QuickTime fixes for possible problems with "maliciously crafted" movie files, and a number of fixes to CoreImage and ImageIO for similar malicious still images. Several Mac OS X system components were patched, as well as ClamAV and firewall software. Those still running Mac OS X 10.5.x get all these security-related fixes in a Security Update.
All updates are available via Software Update, or you can hit the links below for direct downloads as needed.
Read the comments on this post
Read More ...
Early adopters very satisfied with Windows 7
Windows 7 adoption and satisfaction have both been exceptionally high from the start, according to two new reports from Forrester Research. The first report notes that the early adopters which drive the initial success of most tech products are very satisfied with the key new features; consumers who adopted Windows 7 in forth quarter were generally very satisfied with their PCs. The second notes that Windows 7 has been very good at raising awareness, though Microsoft still faces the challenges of making sure it lives up to the lasting legacy of Windows XP while at the same time overcoming consumers' painful memory of Windows Vista. The reports are based on Forrester's Consumer Technographics data.
Windows 7 penetrated the consciousness of the market by the end of 2009, with a strong majority of US consumers aware of the product. Forrester also noticed that the operating system started to break a well-known trend: historically most consumers acquire new operating systems when they purchase their new PC. With Windows 7, however, upgrade behavior was much stronger, almost matching the number of consumers who got the OS with a new PC. Forty-five percent purchased their PC with Windows 7 already installed, 43 percent upgraded their existing PC from an older operating system, and 12 percent checked off the "Other" response.
This new trend is likely due to the fact that Microsoft put particular emphasis on performance with the operating system, partly to make sure to wean netbooks from Windows XP.
Microsoft sold more than 60 million copies of Windows 7 by the end of 2009, and the OS has gained market share noticeably faster than its predecessor. Microsoft needs to keep the momentum going with a solid Service Pack 1 release.
Read the comments on this post
Read More ...
School laptop spy case prompts Wiretap Act rethink
When Pennsylvania's Lower Merion school district installed remote control anti-theft software on student laptops, it had no intention of dragging Congress into a national debate about wiretapping laws and webcams—but that's exactly what it got (in addition to some unwanted FBI attention and a major lawsuit). The key question: should the school's alleged actions be made illegal under US wiretap law?
The Senate Judiciary Subcommittee of Crime and Drugs schlepped out of DC today and wound up in Philadelphia's US District Court, Courtroom 3B, to hold a field hearing on "video laptop surveillance." The trigger issue was Lower Merion, which stands accused of using the anti-theft software to remotely peep on students using their own webcams, even outside of school hours.
Read the comments on this post
Read More ...
Et tu? New York Times, Time going with HTML5 video for iPad
Less than a week after CBS let the cat out of the bag on its own iPad HTML5 tests, more media companies appear to boarding the HTML5 video train. Video services company Brightcove announced Monday morning that it will support HTML5 for its customers, offering "high quality, interactive, and advertising-supported Web video experiences for HTML5-compatible devices." Two major Brightcove clients, the New York Times and Time Inc., are participating launch partners, meaning that these two sources will have the option of ditching Flash in some cases in order to be more iPad compatible.
Brightcove's announcement comes just days before the iPad launch, and the company makes no attempt to hide the fact that this is a major reason for the HTML5 support. More than 1,000 Brightcove customers will be able to "easily expand the reach of their online video initiatives to popular consumer devices including the Apple iPad, iPhone and iPod touch," wrote the company. Brightcove currently provides support for device detection, playlist rendering, and playback of H.264 content, but plans to add support for customization, advertising, analytics, social sharing, and other features over the next year.
With such major names as the New York Times and Time on board, it's pretty clear that media companies aren't holding out hope that Apple and Adobe will kiss and make up. Like CBS, it's likely that they'll keep using Flash on their normal websites while allowing iPhone OS devices to access the HTML5 versions of the videos—at least for a while. The remaining questions are when can we expect Hulu to hop on the HTML5 train, and will Netflix reconsider its stance on bringing its own streaming videos (via Silverlight) to the iPad?
Read the comments on this post
Read More ...
feature: Evony: investigating the game everyone loves to hate
When it comes to casual games on the Web, there are many out there vying for our attention. While we've all played those addictive Flash games our friends have sent us, casual MMOs have been growing in popularity for the past few years. They've become big business, especially when they're implemented through social sites like MySpace and Facebook. Case in point: Zynga, the developer of Farmville and Mafia Wars has an estimated worth of $3 billion.
However, one game on the Web has been accused of being little more than an elaborate scam designed to bilk gamers out of their money. The game, Evony, has an extensive Web presence that has gained a lot of attention for all the wrong reasons, and that's just the beginning of the bad press surrounding the title. Accusations of shady business practices, legal bullying, and physical intimidation surround the game; some of these claims are easy enough to parse, while others are practically impossible to figure out because the real story has become so convoluted that it's a Gordian Knot of facts
Read the comments on this post
Read More ...
Hey students: snitch on pirates, earn $26K a year
Movie studios spying on P2P networks is a phenomenon most users suspect occurs, but have never really seen proof of. Until now, that is—Warner Bros. in the UK has published a job listing for an intern to dig through known piracy mediums in order to "gather information" and report back to the studio. For £17,500 (or US$26,000) per year, this internship sounds like the perfect opportunity for a student to learn about the ins and outs of copyright—and possibly get ostracized by content-lovin' peers.
According to the job listing (PDF) taken from the University of Manchester (first posted by TorrentFreak), the year-long internship would involve combing IRC networks, forums, and other P2P mediums for Warner Bros. and NBCU content. The goal would be to find new networks and private filesharing sites for informational purposes, but that's not all. Warner also wants the intern to be able to develop bots to scan the Internet for links, send infringement notices, perform "trap purchases of pirated product," and collect "intelligence" on pirate activities.
The listing doesn't seem to imply that the company expects interns to turn in specific individuals, but who really knows what Warner expects when it says to "gather information on pirate sites, pirate groups and other pirate activities." It also makes us wonder how Warner plans to protect itself from spies from the outside—that is, members of the "pirate" community who want to learn more about the company's anti-piracy practices. After all, TorrentFreak is already encouraging its readers to apply for the internship so they can provide updates on Warner's efforts.
We reached out to Warner for answers to these questions, but did not hear back by publication time.
Warner Bros. has been in the news more and more lately for its assertive moves in the movie rental space. After talking both Netflix and Redbox into delaying the DVD release of Warner's titles for 28 days after they hit the streets, the studio promptly turned around and gave same-day release rights to Blockbuster. It's clear that the company is still trying to keep the dying DVD sales market alive, and its online anti-piracy efforts are intended to bolster this strategy.
Read the comments on this post
Read More ...
Can "Larry and Sergey Gaylord" lure Google fiber to Raleigh?
Cities across America have been getting, err, creative in their attempts to lure Google's 1Gbps fiber testbed. The mayor of Topeka, Kansas tried to rename his town Google, Kansas, while the mayor of Sarasota, Florida swam with some sharks.
But this is minor league gimmicky; if you want to see a pro in operation, look no further than Raleigh, North Carolina city councilman Bonner Gaylord. His campaign website promises "Thoughtful, practical leadership," though we're not sure that publicly offering to name your unborn twins Sergey and Larry Gaylord really counts as either one.
Gaylord's pledge to name his offspring after Google's cofounders (via Slashdot) comes with caveats: the twins must be boys, and Google must come to Raleigh. One wonders if even 1Gbps fiber can really compensate for all the abuse a North Carolina kid named "Sergey Gaylord" will take on school playgrounds, but we suppose that little Sergey could always go by his middle name.
And there's always the "Boy Named Sue" silver lining, the one where Larry and Sergey both grow up toughened by the ridiculous backstory behind their names.
Does the gimmickry help? It has caught Google's attention, and several of the more ridiculous attempts were noted by the company in a blog post last Friday, the last day to enter one's city. Google insists that it will be evaluating cities based on "site visits, meeting with local officials, and consulting with third-party organizations." Naming rights to one's unborn twins did not make the list.
When the entry deadline officially closed on Friday evening, Google had received 1,100 community responses and 194,000 entries from individuals. The company also posted a map showing the geographical spread of the entries; each large dot shows a city where more than 1,000 residents entered a comment.
Read the comments on this post
Read More ...
No comments:
Post a Comment