Friday, October 31, 2008

MTV Bleeps Filesharing Software Names In Weird Al Video

Posted by timothy on Thursday October 30, @07:40PM

from the he-probably-kidnapped-himself dept.

An anonymous reader writes"We've all heard Weird Al Yankovic's 'Don't Download This Song,' which came out a couple years ago, but did you know that MTV is apparently so afraid that kids listening to the song will discover for the first time that file sharing offerings exist that in its video of the song, MTV bleeps out their names? There's a line in the song that lists out Morpheus, Grokster, Kazaa and Limewire (most of whom don't really exist any more), but for some reason MTV considers those names to be bleep worthy."Unless this is all one grand inside joke from Weird Al.

Thursday, October 30, 2008

Methane levels in the atmosphere go way up last year

by EUGENE SANDHU
Oct 30th 2008 @ 5:00PM

Scientists can't totally explain it, but levels of greenhouse-causing methane has jumped in a short period of time.

Even if science wasn't your best subject, we all know that carbon dioxide, or CO2, is the stuff causing climate-change. But other gases also contribute to the problem. Methane, a greenhouse gas that is 25 times stronger than CO2, adds to global warming. Even without humans, methane gets released naturally by stuff like cows and wetlands, but humans increase methane-levels by producing coal and gas.

As the world went industrial, we doubled the amount of methane in the atmosphere. But then, for the last 10 years or so, methane levels pretty much stabilized. Last year, however, methane levels suddenly increased, according to scientists writing in Geophysical Research Letters.

While scientists don't really understand the increase, an unusually warm year in Siberia could have caused wetlands to release more methane than usual. That would, however, only explain an increase in the northern hemisphere -- the higher levels of methane has, surprisingly, been found in atmospheres all over the planet.

REI's Green Footprint

by LESLIE WOLCOTT
Oct 30th 2008 @ 4:30PM

Filed under: Shopping Guide

Do you ever go into REI thinking you'll just pick up a camp stove, or a nice warm fleece, and come out with enough stuff to fill your trunk? I can always excuse buying a little more because I know I'll get some money back with the the end-of-year dividend. That's not the only advantage of REI's Co-op system. Just as many REI members practice leave-no-trace hiking, REI has been recognized for its responsible waste disposal practices.

This week, REI (Recreational Equipment, Inc.) was awarded theEnviroStars Recognized Leader Award. Enviro Stars is an environmental certification program that rates companies' management and reduction of hazardous waste, awarding ratings according to environmentally responsible practices. REI was recognized for recycling 78.8 percent of its operational waste by weight, instituting recycling programs at all REI stores and facilities, and testing green building technology with a retail store prototype initiative, among a number of other initiatives.Those awarded Recognized Leaders program are large businesses that serve as mentors and models for the broader community. REI was chosen for this award, according to program manager Laurel Tomchick, for "comprehensive examination of the organization's environmental impacts" and their efforts to address these impacts broadly.

I spoke with Kirk Myers, REI's manager of corporate social responsibility, who said "We really see that every environmental problem has social aspects, and every social problem has environmental aspects." REI has partnered with several other companies to improve the paper supply chain, by considering the origins of wood fiber, using materials efficiently, and working with supply partners who have high standards for environmental and social performance.

"It is quite an honor. We're proud to receive this award; it's a great acknowledgement that our peers and partners recognize our work towards a critical mass of environmental responsibility" says Myers.

Duplicating Your Housekeys, From a Distance

Posted by timothy on Thursday October 30, @02:51PM

from the keep-your-key-up-your-sleeve dept.

Roland Piquepaille writes"Some clever computer scientists at UC San Diego (UCSD) have developed a software that can perform key duplication with just a picture of the key — taken from up to 200 feet. One of the researchers said 'we built our key duplication software system to show people that their keys are not inherently secret.' He added that on sites like Flickr, you can find many photos of people's keys that can be used to easily make duplicates. Apparently, some people are blurring 'numbers on their credit cards and driver's licenses before putting those photos on-line,' but not their keys. This software project is quite interesting, but don't be too afraid. I don't think that many of you put a photo of their keys online — with their addresses."I wonder when I'll be able to order more ordinary duplicate keys by emailing in a couple of photos.

Daylight Saving Time: Clock-shifts Affect Risk Of Heart Attack

ScienceDaily (Oct. 30, 2008) — Adjusting the clocks to summer time on the last Sunday in March increases the risk of myocardial infarction in the following week. In return, putting the clocks back in the autumn reduces the risk, albeit to a lesser extent. This according to a new Swedish study.

Office Workers Given Blue Light To Help Alertness

ScienceDaily (Oct. 30, 2008) — Research carried out at the Surrey Sleep Centre at the University of Surrey in partnership with Philips Lighting has revealed that changing traditional white-light lighting to blue-enriched white light helped office workers stay more alert and less sleepy during the day.

Amateur Sports Can Lead to Unexpected Health Problems Later in Life

ScienceDaily (Oct. 30, 2008) — Taking up bowling or tennis is an excellent way to stay fit. But if you're not careful, you might find that these amateur sports can have unexpected long-term health risks.

VOLT TO MAKE STAR TREK SOUND EFFECTS, BUYERS TO LOOK FOR MUTE BUTTON

by Tim Stevens, posted Oct 30th 2008 at 7:16AM

Chevy Volt to make sci-fi sound effects, buyers to look for mute button

While gear-head environmentalists prepare to forego the internally combusted symphonies that get their hearts pumping for the sake of a greener and quieter planet of electric cars, some folks at GM are thinking up some... interesting ways to bring new, "highly technical" sounds back into the picture. The Volt, which is intended to run silently much of the time, will apparently be the recipient of some sci-fi-sourced effects; GM's E-Flex Global Vehicle Line Executive Frank Weber saying to expect noises like "when on Spaceship Enterprise you hear the doors close, or use the transporter." That he didn't know it's actually the Starship Enterprise doesn't give us much hope for anything more than what happens when a 10-year-old figures out how to customize sounds in their computers -- random, irritating blats from the speakers whenever you touch anything.

[Via Autoblog]

READ

Allergies May Protect Against Certain Types Of Cancer

ScienceDaily (Oct. 30, 2008) — A new article provides strong evidence that allergies are much more than just an annoying immune malfunction. They may protect against certain types of cancer.

Video: Jules the robot makes convincing argument to destroy humanity

by Thomas Ricker, posted Oct 29th 2008 at 7:43AM

Besides rarely showering, Robotic engineers and researchers also possess a peculiar sense of humor. Trip with us through the uncanny valley as we take a look at the animatronic head developed by David Hanson. Software, developed by the University of Bristol with some help by a professional animator, controls 34 tiny servo motors to mimic facial expressions picked up by Jules' camera. Watch Jules make an ecologically sound case to "destroy humanity" in the video after the break. Indeed, if only Maggie was still in power.

The Assistant Robot cleans almost all that you soil

by Thomas Ricker, posted Oct 29th 2008 at 4:55AM

Sure, it looks like a friendly robot strapped to a mobile toilet, but this robo-maid developed by Tokyo University's Information and Robot Technology (IRT) center won't be assisting with the after birth of your Turducken dinner. Assistant Robot is domestic enough to do the laundry, sweep, and clean up the kitchen... but there are limits what its 3D sensors will respond to. Its creators claim that it can recognize when there's more laundry to do and won't be distracted from completing its task by the roar of the crowd from the television. That gives men about 10 - 20 years to get their act together before this robot could conceivably go production. Hot domestic cleaning action in the video posted after the break.

Undecided Voters May Already Have Decided, Study Suggests

ScienceDaily (Oct. 29, 2008) — Do "undecided" voters actually make their choices before they realize? That is a question University of Virginia psychology professor Brian Nosek and his colleagues are trying to answer.

Tuesday, October 28, 2008

Pregnant Women Consuming Flaxseed Oil Have High Risk Of Premature Birth

ScienceDaily (Oct. 29, 2008) — A study has found that the risks of a premature birth quadruple if flaxseed oil is consumed in the last two trimesters of pregnancy. The research was conducted by Professor Anick Bérard of the Université de Montréal's Faculty of Pharmacy and the Sainte-Justine Hospital Research Center and Master's student Krystel Moussally.

NASA Orbiter Reveals Details of a Moister Mars

Posted by CmdrTaco on Tuesday October 28, @03:30PM

from the alliteration-makes-me-happy dept.

Matt_dk writes"NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter has observed a new category of minerals spread across large regions of Mars. This discovery suggests that liquid water remained on the planet's surface a billion years later than scientists believed, and it played an important role in shaping the planet's surface and possibly hosting life."

Sand thieves in the Caribbean

by CAT LINCOLN
Oct 28th 2008 @ 3:03PM

Filed under: Travel and Vacation

We've all picked up a seashell and slipped it in a pocket as a memento of a beach vacation. But someone in the Caribbean is taking this a giant step further and stealing truckfuls of sand from the beaches that are the islands' primary tourist attraction.

Ironically, it's tourism and a building boom that are creating the underlying market for the fine sand, which is used to create smooth surfaces on construction projects.

There is an ecological cost to the sand thievery. So much sand has been removed from beaches on islands like Grenada that there's no buffer zone from rough seas.

In Jamaica protected mangroves and a limestone forest no longer have protection from the elements. And on other islands over-excavation has damaged water supplies and left towns vulnerable to flooding.

One more thing to think about when you're selecting a vacation destination. And definitely don't take home any sand!

Windows 7 details galore: interface tweaks, netbook builds, Media Center enhancements

by Nilay Patel, posted Oct 28th 2008 at 1:58PM

Microsoft's Windows 7 announcement earlier today was followed up by an extensive demo of the new features during the PDC keynote, and since then even more info about the new OS has flooded out, so we thought we'd try to wrap up some of the more important bits here for you. Microsoft seems to have done an impressive job at this early pre-beta stage, folding in next-gen interface ideas like multitouch into the same OS that apparently runs fine on a 1GHz netbook with 1GB of RAM, but we'll see how development goes -- there's still a ways to go. Some notes:

Obviously, the big news is the new taskbar, which forgoes text for icons and has new "jump lists" of app controls and options you can access with a right-click. You can select playlists in Media Player, for example. Super cool: when you scrub over the icons, all the other app windows go transparent so you can "peek" at the windows you're pointing at.
Gadgets now appear on the desktop -- the sidebar has been killed. That makes more sense for all those laptop owners out there with limited screen space, and you can still see gadgets anytime by peeking at the desktop, rendering all other windows transparent.
Window resizing and management now happens semi-automatically: dragging a window to the top of the screen maximizes it, pulling it down restores; dragging a window to the edges auto-resizes it to 50% for quick tiling. Nifty.
The system tray now only displays what you explicitly say it should -- everything else is hidden, and the controls have been streamlined.
User Account Control settings are now much more fine-grained -- you can set them by app and by level of access.
They demoed multitouch features on an HP TouchSmart PC -- it was pretty cool, although the usual nagging "what is this good for / that'll get old fast" concerns weren't really addressed. The Start menu gets 25 percent bigger when using touch to make it easier to handle, and apps will all get scroll support automatically. There's also a giant on-screen predictive keyboard. Again -- could be amazing, but we won't know until it's out in the wild.
We've always known Microsoft intends Windows 7 to run on netbooks, and we got a small taste during the PDC keynote: Windows SVP Steve Sinofsky held up his "personal" laptop running Windows 7, an unnamed 1GHz netbook with 1GB of RAM that looked a lot like an Eee PC, and said that it still had about half its memory free after boot. (We're guessing it was running a VIA Nano, since most Atoms run at 1.6GHz.)
At the other end of the scale, Windows 7 supports machines with up to 256 CPUs.
Multiple-monitor management is much-improved, as is setting up projectors -- it's a hotkey away. Remote Desktop now works with multiple monitors as well.
Media Center has been tweaked as well -- it looks a lot more like the Zune interface. There's also a new Mini Guide when watching video, and a new Music Wall album artwork screensaver that kicks in when you're playing music.
Devs got a pre-beta today; a "pretty good" feature complete beta is due early next year. No word at all on when it'll be released to market apart from that "three years from Vista" date we've known forever.

That's just the good bits -- hit the read links for piles of more info and screenshots, and we'll keep our eyes out for anything else interesting. Exciting times!

Read - Keynote videos on the PDC site
Read - Technologizer Windows 7 hands-on
Read - Ars Technica Windows 7 interface walkthrough
Read - Laptop Windows 7 hands-on
Read - Windows 7 Media Center revealed

Melamine contamination spreads to eggs

by PATRICIA MAYVILLE-COX
Oct 28th 2008 @ 1:01PM

Filed under: News

First pet food, then the tragic milk and baby formula contamination. Next up on the list of Chinese food products contaminated with melamine? Eggs. Over the weekend, eggs imported into Hong Kong have been found to be contaminated with high levels of melamine, the culprit in the recent milk and baby formula tragedies.

According to a report in the NY Times, this discovery raises new concerns that a far wider range of China-produced food could be contaminated with melamine than previously thought.

The melamine probably got into the eggs through tainted animal feed fed to chickens, who then passed the melamine into their eggs. The discovery was announced Saturday by a Hong Kong government agency. The agency said that the eggs had been imported from a farm in the northeast section of China. The melamine level found in the eggs was almost double the legal limit for food sold in Hong Kong.

According to the report, scientists in China are also worried that tainted animal feed could result in poisonous meat and seafood.

Funny guitar playing motivational speaker

I thought he was pretty talented when we saw him yesterday.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F4Filjve7Bg&feature=related

$125 Million Settlement In Authors Guild v. Google

Posted by timothy on Tuesday October 28, @10:12AM

from the something-had-to-give dept.

James Gleick writes"Authors, publishers, and Google are announcing a huge settlement deal today in their lawsuits over the scanning of millions of copyrighted books in library collections. Google has agreed to a huge payout for books that were scanned without permission, but now they'll be allowed to scan the books legitimately. Most important, they'll be able to put millions of books online, including those still in copyright--not just for searching and not just in snippets. There is a groundbreaking new licensing system meant to make the books as widely available as possible while protecting the authors' copyrights and enabling them to share in the revenue. Some will differ, but personally I think this is a wonderful outcome, for readers and for authors alike."

Student Charged With Three Felonies for Finding Security Flaw — and Reporting it

Posted by ScuttleMonkey on Tuesday October 28, @05:35AM

from the no-good-deed-goes-unpunished dept.

Well, yet another teenage hacker who "did the right thing" by reporting a security flaw is being punished for his actions. Although it definitely sounds like the whole story may not be in the clear yet, a 15-year-old New York high school student has been charged with three felonies claiming that he accessed a file containing social security numbers, driver's license numbers, and home addresses of past and present employees ... and then sent an anonymous email to the principal alerting him to the security flaw."All that was needed to access the information was a district password. School officials have admitted that thousands of students, faculty and employees could have accessed the same file for up to two weeks."

Burden on scientists to educate public on climate change

by PATRICIA MAYVILLE-COX
Oct 28th 2008 @ 9:02AM

Filed under: Climate Change

Bryan Walsh reports on the gap in public understanding that exists regarding climate change in Time last week. The gap, according to Walsh, is between scientists who think that climate change is very serious and needs to be dealt with immediately and the public, who believes for the most part, that it is real, but rarely ranks it as a high priority. In a study cited by Walsh, a UN survey found that 54% of Americans are for taking a "wait-and-see" approach. Similar results were found in Russia, China and India.

According to John Sterman at MIT, "Most of us really don't understand how carbon accumulates in the atmosphere." To stabilize temperature increases, we need to cut carbon emissions drastically according to Sterman, and a "wait-and-see" approach won't work, because by the time we "see" the results of climate change, it could be too late. Even Bill Gates doesn't get this fact according to Sterman,quoting Gates, "Fortunately climate change, although it's a huge challenge, it's a challenge that happens over a long period of time, you know, we have time to work on it."

According to Walsh's interview, the burden is on scientists to better explain the risks of climate change to the public.

What do you think? Do you think the public doesn't understand the role of carbon emissions in climate change? Or do you think they just don't want to make changes?

And that is how the fight was started.

1: When I got home last night, my wife demanded that I take her someplace expensive... ..so, I took her to a gas station..... and that's how the fight started....

2: I tried to talk my wife into buying a case of Miller Light for $14.95. Instead, she bought a jar of cold cream for $7.95. I told her the beer would make her look better at night than the cold cream. And that's how the fight started.

3: After retiring, I went to the Social Security office to apply for Social Security. The woman behind the counter asked me for my driver's license to verify my age. I looked in my pockets and realized I had left my wallet at home. I told the woman that I was very sorry, but I would have to go home and come back later. The woman said, 'Unbutton your shirt'. So I opened my shirt revealing my curly silver hair. She said, 'That silver hair on your chest is proof enough for me' and she processed my Social Security application. When I got home, I excitedly told my wife about my experience at the Social Security office. She said, 'You should have dropped your pants. You might have gotten disability, too'. And that's how the fight started.....

4: My wife and I were sitting at a table at my high school reunion, and I kept staring at a drunken lady swigging her drink as she sat alone at a nearby table. My wife asked, 'Do you know her?' 'Yes,' I sighed, 'She's my old girlfriend. I understand she took to drinking right after we split up those many years ago, and I hear she hasn't been sober since.' 'My God!' says my wife, 'Who would think a person could go on celebrating that long?' And that's how the fight started.....

5: I rear-ended a car this morning. So, there we were alongside the road and slowly the other driver got out of his car. You know how sometimes you just get soooo stressed and little things just seem funny? Yeah, well I couldn't believe it.... he was a DWARF!!! He stormed over to my car, looked up at me, and shouted, 'I AM NOT HAPPY!!!' So, I looked down at him and said, 'Well, then which one are you?' And that's how the fight started.....

6: I took my wife to a restaurant. The waiter, for some reason, took my order first. 'I'll have the strip steak, medium rare, please.' He said, 'Aren't you worried about the mad cow?' 'Nah, she can order for herself.' And that's how the fight started.....

The Second Coming of Virtual Worlds

Posted by ScuttleMonkey on Tuesday October 28, @03:28AM

from the when-someone-asks-if-you're-a-god-you-say-yes dept.

An anonymous reader writes"Things have been a bit quiet on the virtual world front recently but according to an article in Silicon.com, things are about to change. Apparently it's only now that virtual worlds are really going to become a force to be reckoned with. 'Now experts predict the virtual world phenomenon is entering a second phase in which businesses will become shrewder about their involvement in such environments and look more carefully at the tangible benefits they can realize. Emerging technology specialist at IBM, Robert Smart, is confident virtual worlds will become more important to businesses in the coming years.'"

Models Help Assess Biofuels' Sustainability

ScienceDaily (Oct. 28, 2008) — Many agricultural products can be converted into feedstocks for alternative fuel. Now analysis from the Agricultural Research Service (ARS) suggests that they can be used this way without reducing the nation's food supply, soil production capacity or environmental quality.

Healing Process Found To Backfire In Lung Patients

ScienceDaily (Oct. 28, 2008) — A mechanism in the body which typically helps a person heal from an injury, may actually be causing patients with idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (IPF) to get worse, researchers at the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS), a part of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), and their collaborators have found.