29288117
submission
Phurge writes:
Excavating a basement using professional machinery is nothing new but doing it with radio controlled (RC) scaled models is something unheard of. Welcome to the little big world of Joe, from Saskatchewan, Canada.
For the past 7 years (!), Joe has been digging out his basement at an average annual rate of 8 to 9 cubic feet using nothing more than RC tractors and trucks!
And we're talking about the whole nine yards here — he starts by transporting the excavator on an RC truck to the basement, unloads it, digs and uses other trucks to transfer the dirt up to the ground through a spiral ramp! He even has a miniature rock crusher!
"I feel quite fortunate to have stumbled onto this basement excavation idea, it's been a great past time to date dreaming up new ideas to tackle different projects along the way," Joe wrote on the Scale4x4rc forums where he also posted pictures and videos of his feat
650268
submission
Phurge writes:
Are chip makers building electronic trapdoors in key military hardware? The Pentagon is making its biggest effort yet to find out.
"Recognizing this enormous vulnerability, the DOD recently launched its most ambitious program yet to verify the integrity of the electronics that will underpin future additions to its arsenal. In January, the Trust program started its prequalifying rounds by sending to three contractors four identical versions of a chip that contained unspecified malicious circuitry. The teams have until the end of this month to ferret out as many of the devious insertions as they can.
608130
submission
Phurge writes:
Google says: "Based on the way that the bidding played out, our participation in the auction helped ensure that the C Block met the reserve price. In fact, in ten of the bidding rounds we actually raised our own bid — even though no one was bidding against us — to ensure aggressive bidding on the C Block. In turn, that helped increase the revenues raised for the U.S. Treasury, while making sure that the openness conditions would be applied to the ultimate licensee."
http://googlepublicpolicy.blogspot.com/2008/04/cone-of-silence-finally-lifts-on.html
316771
submission
Phurge writes:
Savvy Internet fans in the people's republic have known for a long time, however, that there have been simple ways to get forbidden information. One of those ways was the magical gift of Real Simple Syndication, or RSS. The Great Firewall can block specific web sites all it wants, but as long as there's an RSS feed, many Chinese surfers can use feeds to access otherwise forbidden information.
Unfortunately, China appears to have finally gotten wise to RSS as of late — reports have been popping up from our readers and around the web of not being able to access FeedBurner RSS feeds as early as August of this year. More recent reports tell us that the PSB appears to have extended this block to all incoming URLs that begin with "feeds," "rss," and "blog," thus rendering the RSS feeds from many sites — including ones that aren't blocked in China, such as Ars Technica — useless.
304591
submission
Phurge writes:
It is no wonder those touting m-commerce as the next big web thing tell us Japan is the future blueprint. "Japan is the world's high-tech testbed for a wide range of consumer electronic devices and systems — many of which never see the light of day in overseas markets," says Daniel Scuka, keitai guru and consultant for publishers Wireless Watch Japan. "So keeping up with developments here is vital to knowing what's going to hit Europe and the US 24 months in the future; doubly so with respect to mobile and wireless."
By offering the Japanese a multiplicity of services — and, very importantly, some very cool handsets to use them on — the operators have created what every western mobile service provider is dreaming of: a mobile lifestyle culture that keeps millions reaching for the mobile rather than the fixed internet.
249803
submission
Phurge writes:
http://www.smh.com.au/news/web/veto-for-parents-on -web/2007/08/09/1186530535350.html
"Internet service providers will be forced to filter web content at the request of parents, under a $189 million Federal Government crackdown on online bad language, pornography and child sex predators"
"Today Mr Howard will hail the ISP filtering measure as a world first by any Government, and is expected to offer funding to help cover the cost. Parents will be able to request the ISP filter option when they sign up with an ISP. It will be compulsory to provide it."
