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Power

Submission + - Untapped Energy Below Us (yahoo.com) 1

Submitted by
EskimoJoe
EskimoJoe writes: "BASEL, Switzerland — When tremors started cracking walls and bathroom tiles in this Swiss city on the Rhine, the engineers knew they had a problem. "The glass vases on the shelf rattled, and there was a loud bang," Catherine Wueest, a teashop owner, recalls. "I thought a truck had crashed into the building." But the 3.4 magnitude tremor on the evening of Dec. 8 was no ordinary act of nature: It had been accidentally triggered by engineers drilling deep into the Earth's crust to tap its inner heat and thus break new ground — literally — in the world's search for new sources of energy. On paper, the Basel project looks fairly straightforward: Drill down, shoot cold water into the shaft and bring it up again superheated and capable of generating enough power through a steam turbine to meet the electricity needs of 10,000 households, and heat 2,700 homes. Scientists say this geothermal energy, clean, quiet and virtually inexhaustible, could fill the world's annual needs 250,000 times over with nearly zero impact on the climate or the environment. A study released this year by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology said if 40 percent of the heat under the United States could be tapped, it would meet demand 56,000 times over. It said an investment of $800 million to $1 billion could produce more than 100 gigawatts of electricity by 2050, equaling the combined output of all 104 nuclear power plants in the U.S."
The Internet

Submission + - The Pirate Bay About To Relaunch Suprnova.org 3

Submitted by kungfujesus
kungfujesus writes: The Pirate Bay crew has been working on this secret project for quite some time now. Back in April they wrote a cryptic post on their blog announcing that something was coming. In a response to this announcement TPB admin Brokep told TorrentFreak: "The past, the present and the future. It's all the same, but one thing's for sure, we will radiate for weeks", today it became clear that he was referring to the resurrection of Suprnova. Article Here
Security

Submission + - Point and click Gmail hacking at Black Hat (tgdaily.com)

Submitted by
not5150
not5150 writes: "Using Gmail or most other webmail programs over an unsecured access points just got a bit more dangerous. At Black Hat, Robert Graham, CEO of errata security, showed how to capture and clone session cookies. He even hijacked a shocked attendee's Gmail account in the middle of his Black Hat speech."
The Almighty Buck

Submission + - Our ATM is broken, so you go to jail? (myway.com)

Submitted by Actually, I do RTFA
Actually, I do RTFA writes: A short while ago, slashdot featured an article about possible criminal prosecution for people who took advantage of faulty slot machine software. At the time, many people drew an analogy to an ATM that dispensed too much money. Well, apparently, that too may result in criminal charges. Interestingly, although they suspect that someone may have tampered with the ATM, they are considering charging anyone who withdrew money from the ATM.

This also provides an interesting rejoinder to 'if they can build a secure ATM, why cannot Diebold build a secure electronic voting machine.'
Software

Submission + - First iPhone 3rd Party GUI App Compiles

Submitted by CmputrAce
CmputrAce writes: Well, it's here now. The #iphone-dev team has compiled the first third-party application for the iPhone. Of course, it is the standard "Hello, world." application, but it's native to the iPhone and uses the iPhone's GUI. This opens up the iPhone for development by anyone who can forge through the process of cracking the iPhone, installing the iPhone "Toolchain", writing an application, compiling, translating, and finally installing the application to the iPhone. With the pace of development at present, expect to see commercial "jailbreak" (mod-enabling) applications soon as well. You can already get high-quality applications (Mac) to theme the iPhone and add your own ring tones (Win) for the phone.
Windows

Submission + - Programs cannot be uninstalled in Vista

Submitted by
Corson
Corson writes: "I am surprised nobody seems to have reported this on /. yet. Possibly after one of the latest updates in Windows Vista, two strange things happened: first, the Uninstall option is no longer available in the Control Panel when you right-click on older programs (most likely, those installed prior to the update in question, because uninstall works fine for recently installed programs; the Uninstall button is also missing on the toolbar at the top); second, some programs are no longer shown on the applications list in Control panel (e.g., Yahoo Messenger). A Google search returns quite a few hits on this issue (e.g., here, here, here, and here) but everybody seems to be waiting patiently for a sign from Microsoft. But M$ seem to have no clue or they would have fixed it already. I am just curious how many of you are experiencing this nuisance."
Technology (Apple)

Submission + - The Pixo Secret: iPods Run OS X and Always Have.

Submitted by Redrum
Redrum writes: Everyone thinks that Apple's iPod runs an OS called Pixo, and that the iPhone ushered in a brand epoch based on OS X. That myth has been busted: the iPod runs Apple's own Mach/BSD kernel, and Pixo is only used as a graphics layer. Daniel Eran outlines the story behind Pixo and what OS X means for Apple. It's no joke; the story was confirmed by Tim Monroe, a member of Apple's QuickTime engineering team as is easy to verify yourself: Those OS X iPods? They're Already Here! Pixo, ARM, and the Mac OS.
Wireless (Apple)

Submission + - FSF Rattles Tivo Saber at Apple

Submitted by Ohreally_factor
Ohreally_factor writes: This article at Tectonic suggests that Apple's iPhone might run afoul of the GPL.

In the article, Peter Brown, executive director of the FSF is quoted as saying:

Today, Steve Jobs and Apple release a product crippled with proprietary software and digital restrictions: crippled, because a device that isn't under the control of its owner works against the interests of its owner.

We know that Apple has built its operating system, OS X, and its web browser Safari, using GPL-covered work — it will be interesting to see to what extent the iPhone uses GPLed software.
Is the FSF engaging in SCO-style FUD or might there really be GPLed code in the iPhone? (It's well known that OS X built on BSD, which uses the . . . . (wait for it) . . . . BSD license. Webkit is based on KHTML which uses the LGPL.) Or is the FSF attempting to capitalize on iPhone-mania, trying to get their name in the news by any means possible? At what point does F/OSS advocacy become "Freetarded"?
Biotech

Submission + - Synthetic Biology for Natural Fuel (wired.com)

Submitted by CoolBeans
CoolBeans writes: Making ethanol is easy. Making enough ethanol to fill every gas tank in a developed country is tricky. The Department of Energy has promised $125 million to the Joint BioEnergy Institute, a team of six national labs and universities that will be run like a startup company. They intend to create new life forms that are optimized for alcohol production. The genes of crops that produce large amounts of cellulose will be tweaked to improve the yield per acre and increase drought and pest resistance. Microbes that produce sugar from cellulose and ethanol from sugar will be built for speed and efficiency.
Privacy

Submission + - Newly Declassified Window Film Keeps Out Hackers, (sciam.com) 1

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: A newly declassified window film from CPFilms Inc. (Solutia Inc.) will give war drivers a run for their money. As printed in a recent issue of Scientific American: Once manufactured under an exclusive contract with the U.S. government, this recently declassified window film is now available to the public. But don't expect to see it on store shelves anytime soon. Currently, it's only available directly from the manufacturer, and at prices that will likely make it prohibitive for all but the wealthiest home owners. The two-millimeter-thick coating can block Wi-Fi signals, cell phone transmissions, even the near-infrared, yet is almost transparent, making it no more intrusive than conventional window treatments. It can keep signals in (preventing attempts to spy on electronic communications) or out, minimizing radio interference and even the fabled electronics-destroying electromagnetic pulse (EMP) generated by a nuclear blast.
Security

Submission + - Malware Self-Defense Technologies Evolution (net-security.org)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: This article explores how malware has developed self-defense techniques and how these techniques have evolved as it has become more difficult for viruses to survive. It also provides an overview of the current situation. In order to avoid confusion about what is considered a self-defense technology and what is not, it examines only the most popular and obvious means of malware self-defense. First and foremost this includes various means of modifying and packing code, in order to conceal the presence of malicious code in the system and to disrupt the functionality of antivirus solutions.
The Internet

Submission + - Internet Tax Imminent?

Submitted by
jhigh
jhigh writes: "Proposals to tax the Internet are gaining steam as state legislators see a giant pot of money just waiting to be dipped into. "At the moment, states and municipalities are frequently barred by federal law from collecting both access and sales taxes. But they're hoping that their new lobbying effort, coordinated by groups including the National Governors Association, will pay off by permitting them to collect billions of dollars in new revenue by next year.""
Google

Submission + - Interview: how Google tweaks rank algorithm (nytimes.com)

Submitted by
nbauman
nbauman writes: "New York Times interview with Amit Singhal, who is in charge of Google's ranking algorithm. They use 200 "signals" and "classifiers," of which PageRank is only one. "Freshness" defines how many recently changed pages appear in a result. They assumed old pages were better, but when they first introduced Google Finance, the algorithm couldn't find it because it was too new. Some topics are "hot". "When there is a blackout in New York, the first articles appear in 15 minutes; we get queries in two seconds," said Singhal. Classifiers infer information about the type of search, whether it is a product to buy, a place, company or person. One classifier identifies people who aren't famous. Another identifies brand names. A final check encourages "diversity" in the results, for example, a manufacturer's page, a blog review, and a comparision shopping site. If the user has signed in to Google, they can tell whether a search for "dolphins" is by a football fan or marine biologist. Examples of problems that Google identified and tweaked the algorithm to avoid: a search for "french revolution" returned too many results about the French presidential elections. A search for "teak patio palo alto" didn't return a store called the Teak Patio. http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/03/business/yourmon ey/03google.html Inside the Black Box By SAUL HANSELL, June 3, 2007"

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