China Removes Cyberwar Video, Denies Everything

Posted by Soulskill on Friday August 26, @11:38AM 

from the it-was-the-one-armed-man dept.

jjp9999 writes"Anyone looking for the video clip showing the Chinese regime launching cyberattacks using script kiddie tactics was greeted with a message stating 'Error Page — This page does not exist anymore,' on the state-run TV website. The propaganda video, still available on YouTube, included a clip showing an unseen user launching a cyberattack against an Alabama-based website of the Falun Gong meditation practice. China's Defense Minister told the Washington Post via e-mail that the video was 'pure action of the producer,' adding that the 'Chinese military has never implemented any form of cyber attacks.' The statement is the common line given by the regime after they're tacked with launching a global cyberattack — including after GhostNet, Operation Aurora, Operation Night Dragon, and Operation Shady Rat were revealed."

Fast Food

I love this commercial

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ldQFUmQcou0&feature=feedrec_grec_index

Acer CEO Declares a Tablets Bubble

Posted by timothy on Thursday August 25, @08:04PM 

from the that-seems-hard-to-believe dept.

retroworks writes"According to a story in Digitimes, Acer chairman JT Wang is predicting the end of 'tablet fever.' 'Commenting on tablet PC's impact on the notebook industry, [Acer chairman JT Wang] pointed out thattablet PC fever is already starting to cool down and consumers are also being attracted by notebooks again with Intel's Ultrabooks and Microsoft's Windows 8 the major attractions.' Back to the old model then... PC and laptop sales, driven by Windows upgrades?"

Mathematical Model Predicts Weight With Varying Diet, Exercise Changes; Findings Challenge One-Size-Fits-All Weight Assumptions

ScienceDaily (Aug. 25, 2011) — Researchers at the National Institutes of Health have created a mathematical model -- and an accompanying online weight simulation tool -- of what happens when people of varying weights, diets and exercise habits try to change their weight. The findings challenge the commonly held belief that eating 3,500 fewer calories -- or burning them off exercising -- will always result in a pound of weight loss.
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Social Media a Threat To Undercover Cops

Posted by timothy on Friday August 26, @06:00AM 

from the which-might-in-some-cases-be-a-good-outcome dept.

angry tapir writes"Facebook has proven to be one of the biggest dangers in keeping undercover police officers safe, due to applications such as facial recognition and photo tagging, according to an adjunct professor at ANU and Charles Sturt University. Mick Keelty, a former Australian Federal Police commissioner, told the audience at Security 2011 in Sydney that because of the convergence of a number of technologiesundercover policing may be 'impossible' in the future."

From http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-14646532

The top 10 festival funnies were judged to be:

1) Nick Helm: "I needed a password eight characters long so I picked Snow White and the Seven Dwarves."

2) Tim Vine: "Crime in multi-storey car parks. That is wrong on so many different levels."

3) Hannibal Buress: "People say 'I'm taking it one day at a time'. You know what? So is everybody. That's how time works."

4) Tim Key: "Drive-Thru McDonalds was more expensive than I thought... once you've hired the car..."

5) Matt Kirshen: "I was playing chess with my friend and he said, 'Let's make this interesting'. So we stopped playing chess."

6) Sarah Millican: "My mother told me, you don't have to put anything in your mouth you don't want to. Then she made me eat broccoli, which felt like double standards."

7) Alan Sharp: "I was in a band which we called The Prevention, because we hoped people would say we were better than The Cure."

8) Mark Watson: "Someone asked me recently - what would I rather give up, food or sex. Neither! I'm not falling for that one again, wife."

9) Andrew Lawrence: "I admire these phone hackers. I think they have a lot of patience. I can't even be bothered to check my OWN voicemails."

10) DeAnne Smith: "My friend died doing what he loved ... Heroin."

The REAL reason for the earthquake

"The Weather Channel says yesterdays east coast earthquake was caused by an unknown fault line running under D.C. and through Virginia. It is now being called Obama's Fault, though Obama will say it's really Bush's Fault. Other theories are that was the founding fathers rolling over in their graves or that what we all believed to be an earthquake was actually the effects of a 14.6 trillion dollar check bouncing in Washington."

Natural Alzheimer's-Fighting Compound Created Inexpensively in Lab

ScienceDaily (Aug. 25, 2011) — Scientists at Yale University have developed the first practical method to create a compound called huperzine A in the lab. The compound, which occurs naturally in a species of moss found in China, is an enzyme inhibitor that has been used to treat Alzheimer's disease in China since the late 1990s and is sold in the U.S. as a dietary supplement to help maintain memory. Scientists believe it could also potentially combat the effects of chemical warfare agents.
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Proposing with portals: how really romantic gamers pop the question

By Terrence O'Brien  posted Aug 24th 2011 7:01AM

Unless you proposed from orbit, chances are your marriage request was not nearly as elaborate as Gary Hudston's. And, perhaps outside of 2008's homebrew Bejeweled proposal, no where near as geeky either. Hudston hired a skilled developer to create series of custom levels for Portal 2 that his potential betrothed would have to play through. When it heard about his apparently not so secret project, Valve even helped him secure Ellen McLain, the voice of GLaDOS, to record original audio. You can check out the hilarious and heartwarming video after the break or just play through the levels yourself by downloading them at the source link. Sadly, unless you happen to be the future Mrs. Hudston, you'll be no closer to marrying yourself off after solving its puzzles.

BoingBoing The Gary Hudston Project

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Evangelical Scientists Debate Creation Story

Posted by timothy on Tuesday August 23, @08:14AM 

from the at-least-no-one-else-has-dogma dept.

Hugh Pickens writes"Polls by Gallup and the Pew Research Center find that four out of 10 Americans believe humanity descend from Adam and Eve, but NPR reports that evangelical scientists are now saying publicly that they can no longer believe the Genesis account and that it is unlikely that we all descended from a single pair of humans. 'That would be against all the genomic evidence that we've assembled over the last 20 years so not likely at all,' says biologist Dennis Venema, a senior fellow at BioLogos Foundation, a Christian group that tries to reconcile faith and science. 'You would have to postulate that there's been this absolutely astronomical mutation rate that has produced all these new variants in an incredibly short period of time. Those types of mutation rates are just not possible. It would mutate us out of existence.' Venema is part of a growing cadre of Christian scholars who say they want their faith to come into the 21st century and say it's time to face facts: There was no historical Adam and Eve, no serpent, no apple, no fall that toppled man from a state of innocence."

Interesting article on how Android use is dominated by the top 10 apps

I bet that developers are looking at this and thinking that they have to go big or go home.  I wish it said what the top 10 were...

http://blog.nielsen.com/nielsenwire/?p=28628

Good Quote

"Any experience can be transformed into something of value."
Vash Young (turn of the century author and motivational speaker)

HTC Unlocks Its Own Phones

Posted by Soulskill on Friday August 19, @04:16PM 

from the perfectly-normal-and-healthy dept.

itwbennett writes"Having just announced that it would continue to run Android on its best phones, HTC is now 'needling' Google by making good on 'promises it made earlier in the year to deliver bootloader unlock tools for many of its most popular Android phones,' writes blogger Kevin Fogarty. In an interview with the Wall Street Journal, HTC CEO Peter Chou said that HTC views unlocked OSes as a way to encourage both ISVs and owners to get more involved developing apps and mods for the phones. Google, which has been trying to lock Android down more, probably doesn't see it that way."

Is Oil Pricing Itself out of the Market?

ScienceDaily (Aug. 19, 2011) — University of Alberta researcher Andrew Leach likes the way Saudi Prince Alwaleed bin Talal thinks. A new paper by Leach, an associate professor in the Alberta School of Business, and fellow University of Alberta economics researcher Ujjayant Chakravorty, posits scenarios that parallel a statement Alwaleed made in May declaring that it is in the best interests of Saudi oil producers to keep oil around the $70 mark to prevent the West from developing alternative energy sources. Their paper, co-written with a colleague from the Toulouse School of Economics , hypothesizes scenarios wherein a narrowing of the gap between developing renewable energy resources and fossil fuel resources might mean a rush to drain the oil from its source.
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Buy Local

I thought this site had some interesting points about why to buy local.

http://www.the350project.net/home.html

HP Kills Its Tablets, Smartphones; Are Personal Computers Next?

Published August 18, 2011

| FoxNews.com

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Reuters

The world's largest maker of PCs wants out of the PC business -- and it's ditching its struggling TouchPad tabletdevice -- to focus on the high-end server and software markets, the company announced Thursday.

By the end of next year, if it sells or spins off the PC division, HP computers could be sold under another company's name.

The change is remarkable for a company that was the top seller in the second quarter of 2011 of personal computers, with nearly 20 percent of the worldwide computer market, according to market research firm IDC. HP's consumercomputer business is also widely credited with introducing the first personal computer way back in 1968 -- though it was IBM's PC that really kicked off the PC revolution.

Dell is the second-biggest maker, with 12.9 percent of the worldwide market. To echo the company's ad campaign, dude, will you be getting one of those instead? In the U.S., Apple held third place in the second quarter with 10.7 percent of the market (an astonishing 14.7 percent growth over last year). 

Why the big move? Though profitable, the consumer business is far less lucrative for HP than its business division.

Never fear, HP fans: The company isn't ending PC sales entirely, just spinning off the computer division -- though plans aren't entirely clear. It's surprising nonetheless, especially for computer users with a head for history: HP made waves in 2002 when it acquired the discount PC business of rival Compaq Computer for a cool $25 billion.

The end of the company's smartphone and tablet divisions is even more surprising news. HP paid $1.8 billion for smartphone maker Palm in 2009, mostly for the webOS software that powered the devices. HP went on to introduce the TouchPad, which has struggled to compete with the iPad and to distinguish itself from the army of Google Android-based gadgets.

HP cut the price for its tablet device in July by 20 percent. On Wednesday, AllThingsD reported that BestBuy was sitting on 270,000 unsold TouchPads -- and was hoping the company would buy them back.

The computer giant makes even less of a stir in the smartphone business. The top 5 manufacturers sold three quarters of the world's smartphones, according to IDC -- and HP wasn't one of them. 

The move echoes one from IBM, HP's rival for the enterprise market, which in 2005 sold off its computer business to Lenovo, the biggest maker of PCs in China.

HP on Thursday posted third-quarter adjusted earnings that topped expectations, but the tech firm lowered its 4Q revenue outlook, Fox Business reported. 

The company also confirmed it is in talks to buy Autonomy Corp., a business software maker. HP shares, which were halted before the news (the earnings were expected after the bell) were off 6 percent at $29.53.

Read more:http://www.foxnews.com/scitech/2011/08/18/hp-kills-tablet-smartphone-pc-divisions/#ixzz1VkwuCZjR

Hand-Mounted Sonar For the Blind

Posted by samzenpus on Sunday August 21, @11:11PM 

from the daredevil-approved dept.

GeekTech.in writes"The Tacit, a wrist mounted sonar device with haptic feedback, is like strapping a bat to your wrist to help you see. It makes use of two sonar ping sensors to measure the distance to the nearest obstacle, the relative distance to an object is then fed back to the user using two servos which apply pressure to the back of the wrist."