bshver - Slashdot User

Submission + - Sony Planning 80GB PS3

Submitted by

narramissic

on Thursday March 29, 2007 @08:41AM

narramissic writes: "Included in a filing made by Sony to the U.S. Federal Communications Commission (FCC) earlier this month regarding a change to the PlayStation 3's Bluetooth module is notification of a new PS3 game console with a higher-capacity hard-disk drive. From the cover letter: 'The model CECHE01 to be added by the difference of the capacity of hard disk.' It then says the new model will have an 80G-byte drive."

Submission + - Terahertz spectrum for wireless communication

Submitted by holy_calamity on Thursday March 29, 2007 @08:24AM

holy_calamity writes: A first step to allowing wireless data transfer over a currently unused part of the electromagnetic spectrum are reported in New Scientist. Terahertz radiation exists between radio and infrared. A new filter created at the University of Utah can filter out particular frequencies, a prerequisite for using it for data. The abstract of the paper in the journal Nature is freely available.

Submission + - Most impressive game AI?

Submitted by

togelius

on Thursday March 22, 2007 @01:03PM

togelius writes: "I have the feeling that when developers make the effort to put really sophisticated AI into a game, gamers frequently just don't notice (see e.g. Forza). Conversely, games that are lauded for their fantastic AI are sometimes based on very simple algorithms (e.g. Halo 1). For someone who wants to apply AI to games, it is very interesting to know what AI is really appreciated. So, what is the most impressive game AI you have come across? Have you ever encountered a situation where it really felt like the computer-controlled opponents were really thinking, that there were "someone in there"?"

Submission + - IBM Asks Court to Declare Linux Non-Infringing

Submitted by

A Cyclic Graph

on Tuesday March 20, 2007 @03:59PM

A Cyclic Graph writes: "We finally have a redacted version of IBM's Reply Memorandum in Support of Summary Judgment on Counterclaim 10 in SCO v. IBM. In short, IBM is asking the Court to declare that Linux doesn't infringe upon any of SCO's purported intellectual property. This document is the last word on that matter until the Court either declares there to be no doubt that Linux is free of infringement, or decides that that issue has to be decided by the jury. In their brief, IBM points out that SCO puts forth a convoluted set of non-answers referencing each other to disguise it's inability to answer IBM. Their set of cross-references is so complex that Groklaw readers graphed the claims to make what little sense of them they could."

Submission + - TrueCrypt 4.3 Released

Submitted by

RedBear

on Tuesday March 20, 2007 @03:50PM

RedBear writes: "A new update to the best open source transparent encryption software has been released. Sadly there is still no Linux GUI or Mac OS X port in sight. If you are one of the thronging hordes who have been patiently awaiting ubiquitous multi-platform encryption please consider donating time or money to the cause, and add your voice to the forum so the developers get some idea of how many of us need this software to work on other platforms. For those not in the know, TrueCrypt is (the only?) open source encryption software capable of creating and mounting encrypted virtual disk images that can then be worked with transparently like any other storage drive, with data being encrypted and decrypted in real-time. These virtual disks can be created as files, or entire partitions or physical drives can be encrypted and mounted transparently. Also including features like plausible deniability, steganographically hidden volumes, unidentifiable partition headers, traveller mode, and your choice of the strongest available encryption algorithms up to and including multi-algorithm cascades, it is practically the Holy Grail for advocates of free ubiquitous encryption. Now, if only it was platform independent. From the site:

We are pleased to announce that TrueCrypt 4.3 has been released. Among the new features is full compatibility with 32-bit and 64-bit Windows Vista, support for devices and file systems that use a sector size other than 512 bytes (such as new hard drives, USB flash drives, DVD-RAM, MP3 players, etc.), auto-dismount when a host device (e.g., a USB flash drive) is inadvertently removed, and many more. In addition to new features, there are many significant improvements.

To reduce load on their servers here are some Coralized versions of all the links above:

TrueCrypt home page
Future development goals
Forum thread about Mac OS X version
Donations page
General forum
Plausible deniability
Hidden volumes
Traveller mode
Encryption algorithms
Multi-algorithm cascades
Version history"

Submission + - What tech to backpack around the world with?

Submitted by ryrw on Thursday March 01, 2007 @09:50PM

ryrw writes: I'm planning to spend a year backpacking around the world and the hardest question I have to answer is: What technology do I take with me? Aside from the obvious (digital camera, ipod, et. al.) what technological devices would you you take? Specifically, I wonder if I should bring my nice and shiny MacBook Pro. I can think of lots of uses for it (offloading pix, updating blog, email, etc.), but I'm worried it will be lost or stolen along the way. Does anyone have experience with travel while toting technology?

Submission + - Secure private key storage for UNIX?

Submitted by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 01, 2007 @04:39PM

An anonymous reader writes: Microsoft Windows, from 2000 forwards (except ME) offers secure certificate and private storage at the OS level in what is called a protected store. Offline, its encrypted by a combination of the user's password and a session key stored on the filesystem. When the OS is running, the private keys stored are available to the logged in user, optionally encrypted with another password. The keys are stored in protected memory, so no applications can access them without going through the Microsoft CAPI calls. This code also is FIPS 140-1 level 1 (the best one can get for software cryptography modules) compliant.

This functionality (especially certified FIPS 140-1 or FIPS 140-2) would be nice to see in UNIX variants. MacOS's keychain functionality is similar, but stores at the application level, and is not FIPS compliant. An implementation of the protected store functionality will allow applications like Firefox, Thunderbird and gpg to have one common place to obtain private keys and certificates rather than maintaining their own individual keystores. An additional application for this would be the ability to use hardware PKCS #11 tokens.

I am wondering why this functionality does not exist at the OS level in most OSes except Windows. A number of applications on many platforms have this functionality, but its at the app level, with their own keystores, and not a standard at the OS level.

Slashdot Top Deals