6915372
submission
Nrbelex writes:
The New York Times reports that about 10 percent of electricity generated in the United States, comes from fuel from dismantled nuclear bombs, mostly Russian. 'It's a great, easy source' of fuel, said Marina V. Alekseyenkova, an analyst at Renaissance Bank and an expert in the Russian nuclear industry that has profited from the arrangement since the end of the cold war. But if more diluted weapons-grade uranium isn't secured soon, the pipeline could run dry, with ramifications for consumers, as well as some American utilities and their Russian suppliers.'
6658011
submission
Nrbelex writes:
The New York Times reports in this week's Science section that hardware and software trojan kill switches are an increasing concern, and may have already been used. 'A 2007 Israeli Air Force attack on a suspected partly constructed Syrian nuclear reactor led to speculation about why the Syrian air defense system did not respond to the Israeli aircraft. Accounts of the event initially indicated that sophisticated jamming technology was used to blind the radars. Last December, however, a report in an American technical publication, IEEE Spectrum, cited a European industry source in raising the possibility that the Israelis might have used a built-in kill switch to shut down the radars. Separately, an American semiconductor industry executive said in an interview that he had direct knowledge of the operation and that the technology for disabling the radars was supplied by Americans to the Israeli electronic intelligence agency, Unit 8200.'
346277
submission
Nrbelex writes:
The New York Times is reporting that "Microsoft has won a high-profile technology industry battle with Google and Yahoo to invest in the social networking upstart Facebook. Microsoft will invest $240 million for a 1.6 percent stake in the company, said Adam Sohn, a director in Microsoft's online services group. The investment values the three-year-old Facebook, which will bring in about $150 million in revenue this year, at $15 billion. "
283057
submission
Nrbelex writes:
Stuart S. P. Parkin, an I.B.M. research fellow largely unknown outside a small fraternity of physicists, thinks he is poised to bring about a breakthrough that could increase the amount of data stored on a chip or a hard drive by a factor of a hundred. If he proves successful in his quest, he will create a "universal" computer memory, one that can potentially replace dynamic random access memory, or DRAM, and flash memory chips, and even make a "disk drive on a chip" possible. It could begin to replace flash memory in three to five years, scientists say.
228177
submission
Nrbelex writes:
The Associated Press (via the New York Times) is reporting that "Google said today that it would bid at least $4.6 billion on wireless airwaves being auctioned off by the federal government — if certain conditions are met. The Internet search company wants the Federal Communications Commission to mandate that any winners lease a certain portion of the airwaves to other companies seeking to offer high-speed Internet and other services. Such a provision, Google argues, will give consumers — who traditionally get high-speed Internet access via cable or telephone lines — a third option for service."
211577
submission
Nrbelex writes:
Bloomberg News via the New York Times is reporting that Google has purchased GrandCentral. 'Google said yesterday that it had bought GrandCentral Communications, acquiring a service that lets people use a single number for all their phones.... GrandCentral users can.. create a single mailbox, accessible over the Internet, for all their phone messages, Google said on its Web site.... GrandCentral, based in Fremont, Calif., was founded in 2005 by Craig Walker and Vincent Paquet, two executives who worked for Dialpad Communications, a Web phone company that was acquired by Yahoo in 2005.'
72704
submission
Nrbelex writes:
Giving David Pogue a break, the Times' Randall Stross makes a fresh and surprisingly accurate review of one of the biggest "features" in the upcoming iPhone and the iPod in general, 'fairplay'. Stross writes, 'If "crippleware" seems an unduly harsh description, it balances the euphemistic names that the industry uses for copy protection. Apple officially calls its own standard "FairPlay," but fair it is not.... You are always going to have to buy Apple stuff. Forever and ever.' Can mainstream media coverage help the battle over DRM or will this warning, like those of the pas, continue to go unnoticed?
66962
submission
Nrbelex writes:
According to the New York Times, 'Warner Brothers, which helped popularize the DVD more than a decade ago, plans to announce next week a single videodisc that can play films and television programs in both Blu-ray and HD-DVD , the rival DVD technologies. Warner Brothers, a division of Time Warner, plans to formally announce the new disc, which it is calling a Total HD disc, at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas on Tuesday.' Will this finally be the end of a very complicated format war?
23760
submission
Nrbelex writes:
While other restrictive regimes have sought to find ways to limit the Internet — through filters and blocks and threats — North Korea has chosen to stay wholly off the grid. Julien Pain, head of the Internet desk at Reporters Without Borders, a Paris-based group which tracks censorship around the world, put it more bluntly. "It is by far the worst Internet black hole," he said.
23756
submission
Nrbelex writes:
Tom Heydt-Benjamin tapped an envelope against a black plastic box connected to his computer. Within moments, the screen showed a garbled string of characters that included this: fu/kevine, along with some numbers. Mr. Heydt-Benjamin then ripped open the envelope. Inside was a credit card, fresh from the issuing bank. The card bore the name of Kevin E. Fu, a computer science professor at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, who was standing nearby. The card number and expiration date matched those numbers on the screen. The demonstration revealed potential security and privacy holes in a new generation of credit cards — cards whose data is relayed by radio waves without need of a signature or physical swiping through a machine.
6178
submission
Nrbelex writes:
Mere hours after iTunes 7's release, QTFairUse6 has received an update which enables it to continue stripping iTunes songs of their "Fairplay" DRM. Some features are experimental but at least it's proof that the concept still works.
