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Top news on 3 October 2009 |
The Pirate Bay Sails To a New Home
the monolith writes "Back in August, the company supplying bandwidth to The Pirate Bay was forced to disconnect them. Quoting TorrentFreak: '"It took just 20 minutes before the Hollywood companies telephoned the new host who took over operation of The Pirate Bay," commented Patrik from the ISP which had been indirectly supplying bandwidth to TPB. Despite initially putting on a brave face and standing strong, Patrik's company continued to feel the heat. It is not a large outfit and doesn't have the resources to fight the entertainment industry and its threats. Last night, Patrik could hold off no longer after receiving mounting threats from the entertainment industries, which culminated in threats of a court summons. Having come this far, there is little doubt that IFPI and the MPAA would litigate if necessary. ... On the heels of several rumors today, Patrik said he could confirm news of the move, saying that he believes The Pirate Bay is now hosted in Ukraine.'"Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Fighting "Snowshoe" Spam
Today Spamhaus announced they are releasing a new list of IP addresses from which they've been receiving "snowshoe" spam — unsolicited email distributed across many IPs and domains in order to avoid triggering volume-based filters. "This spam is sent from many small IP ranges on many Internet Service Providers (ISPs), using many different domains, and the IPs and domains change rapidly, making it difficult for people and places to detect and block this spam. Most importantly, while each host/IP usually sends a modest volume of bulk email, collectively these anonymous IP ranges send a great deal of spam, and the quantities of this type of spam have been increasing rapidly over the past few months." A post at the Enemies List anti-spam blog wonders at the impact this will have on email service providers and their customers. The author references a conversation he had with an employee from one of these providers: "... I replied that I expected it to mean the more legitimate clients of the sneakier gray- and black-hat spammers would migrate to more legitimate ESPs — suggesting that it was, in the long run, a good thing, because ESPs with transparency and a reputation to protect will educate their new clients. His reply was essentially that this would be a problem for them in the short run, because it would swamp their new customer vetting processes and so on."Read more of this story at Slashdot.
"Windows 7 Compatible" PCs Must Be 64-bit
Barence writes "Microsoft has started certifying PCs as 'compatible with Windows 7' — and is looking to avoid the mistakes that dogged the Vista-Capable scheme. Whereas Microsoft certified PCs that could only run Vista Home Basic last time around, this time PCs will have to work with all versions of Windows 7 to qualify for the sticker, including 64-bit versions of the OS. Microsoft also claims, 'products that receive the logo are checked for common issues to minimize the number of crashes, hangs, and reboots experienced by the user.'"Read more of this story at Slashdot.
California Requests Stimulus Funding For Bullet Train
marquinhocb writes "Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger requested $4.7 billion in federal stimulus money Friday to help build an 800-mile bullet train system from San Diego to San Francisco. 'We're traveling on our trains at the same speed as 100 years ago,' the governor said. 'That is inexcusable. America must catch up.' Planners said the train would be able to travel from Los Angeles to San Francisco in two hours and 40 minutes, traveling at speeds of more than 200 miles per hour. About time! There comes a point when 'let's add another lane' is no longer a viable option!"Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Honda Makes Nanotube Breakthrough
SkinnyGuy writes "Carbon nanofibers and nanotubes are the future of computers, cars, energy and more, but it won't happen until someone figures out how to make carbon nanotubes more efficiently and in formations that can deliver enough energy and functionality to offer practical solutions for real-world problems. Honda's latest breakthrough could be the first step. Of course, Intel is working on similar carbon nanotube fabrication technology. Whoever finally delivers a practical solution, it sounds like a win-win for us."Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Google Expunges Pirate Bay From Search Results
Barence writes "According to PC Pro, Google has removed all search result links to The Pirate Bay, the notorious file-sharing site. The move is a reaction to a takedown notice issued under the United States Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), although it's unclear who filed the complaint. The ban isn't particularly effective: The top result is now The Pirate Bay's Wikipedia entry, which provides a prominent link to the site's homepage. It's also possible to search The Pirate Bay itself using Google's site search."Read more of this story at Slashdot.
New Comic Book About Logic, Math, and Madness
areYouAHypnotist writes to tell us the New York Times has the scoop on a new comic book about the quest for logical certainty in mathematics. "The story spans the decades from the late 19th century to World War II, a period when the nature of mathematical truth was being furiously debated. The stellar cast, headed up by Bertrand Russell, includes the greatest philosophers, logicians and mathematicians of the era, along with sundry wives and mistresses, plus a couple of homicidal maniacs, an apocryphal barber, and Adolf Hitler."Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Sony Prototype Sends Electricity Through the Air
itwbennett writes "Sony announced Friday that it has developed a prototype power system based on magnetic resonance that can send 'a conventional 100 volt electricity supply over a distance of 50 centimeters to power a 22-inch LCD television.' Unfortunately, Sony's prototype wasted 1/5 of the power fed into it and additional losses 'occurred in circuitry connected to the secondary coil so the original 80 watts of power was cut by roughly a quarter to 60 watts once it had made its way through the system.'"Read more of this story at Slashdot.
ARM and Dual-Atom Processors in New Portables
chrb writes to tell us that Dell's new Latitude Z has finally been delivered as promised, complete with ARM processor. Codenamed BlackTop, the device runs a modified version of Suse Linux, and is capable of near-instant bootup. Dell's research has apparently found that some early users spend 70% of their time in the Linux environment." Relatedly snydeq writes "Colombian computer maker Haleron has designed a netbook that combines Atom processors in an effort to provide the performance of a standard laptop at a price more affordable to Latin Americans. The Swordfish Net N102 includes two Atom N270 processors running at 1.6GHz. Haleron worked for six months to modify Intel's 945 chipset to run the two processors. The processors divide the workload, much like a dual-core processor does, the company said. The netbook, which begs the question, when does a netbook stop being a netbook, comes with Windows XP Home Edition. 'We found that it works best on the Windows XP operating system. Both Windows Vista and the new Windows 7 performed below Windows XP in the load sharing department,' the company said."Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Can IBM Take On Google, Microsoft With iNotes?
CWmike writes to mention that IBM has launched LotusLive iNotes, a system designed to compete with GMail and Exchange that offers email, calendaring, and contact management. "Pricing starts at $3 per user per month, undercutting Google Apps Premier Edition, which costs $50 per user per year. IBM is aiming the software at large enterprises that want to migrate an on-premise e-mail system to SaaS (software as a service), particularly for users who aren't tied to a desk, such as retail workers. It is also hoping to win business from smaller companies interested in on-demand software but with concerns about security and service outages, such as those suffered by Gmail in recent months. LotusLive iNotes is based on technology IBM purchased from the Hong Kong company Outblaze."Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Herschel Releases First Images of Milky Way
davecl writes "The Herschel space observatory has just released stunning five-color images of a section of our own galaxy, showing the complex twisted structures of the interstellar medium that drive star and planet formation. The images are the first produced using two of Herschel's instruments, SPIRE and PACS, simultaneously and show the power of this approach. This image is just 2x2 degrees in size, but future Herschel programs will image the entire galactic plane at this sensitivity and resolution. Full scale science operations with Herschel begin in just a few weeks. More information on the project can be found from the ESA, the mission blog (which I contribute to) and from the SPIRE instrument team. The BBC is also covering this story."Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Postmortem for a Dead Newspaper
Techdirt points out a great postmortem for the Rocky Mountain News, a newspaper that ended up shutting down because they couldn't adapt to a world beyond print. While long, the talk (in both video and print) is incredibly candid coming from someone who lived through it and shares at least some portion of the blame. "It seems like pretty much everything was based on looking backwards, not forward. There was little effort to figure out how to better enable a community, or any recognition that the community of people who read the paper were the organizations true main asset. ... The same game is playing out not just in newspapers, but in a number of other businesses as well. Like the Rocky Mountain News, those businesses are looking backwards and defining themselves on the wrong terms, while newer startups don't have such legacy issues to deal with."Read more of this story at Slashdot.
House Committee Passes "Informed P2P User Act"
An anonymous reader writes "This week the House Energy and Commerce Committee passed the 'Informed P2P User Act' and has sent it along to the full House for consideration. The bill, which appears to have heavy support on both sides of the political fence, simply states that P2P software must not install extra software or prevent users from removing it, in addition to being 'clear and conspicuous' about which files are being shared and getting user consent to share them. 'Rep. Henry Waxman (D-CA), the powerful committee chairman, opened the markup session by warning about "the danger of inadvertent sharing of sensitive information through the use, or misuse, of certain file sharing programs. Tax returns, medical files, and even classified government documents have been found on these networks. The purpose of H.R. 1319 is to reduce inadvertent disclosures of sensitive information by making the users of this software more aware of the risks involved."'"Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Dissolvable Glass For Bone Repair
gpronger writes "Sticks and Stones May Break My Bones, but Glass Will Certainly Mend Them! The old schoolyard ditty may be changed to reflect developments using metallic glass that will dissolve in situ instead of the traditional stainless steel or titanium hardware, which require removal by surgery once the bone has healed. Physics World reports that researcher Jörg Löffler at ETH Zurich has created an alloy of 60% magnesium, 35% zinc, and 5% calcium, molded in the form of metallic glass. Through rapid cooling, the alloy forms a molecularly amorphous glass that slowly dissolves over time, supporting the injury long enough for healing, then slowly dissolving away."Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Red Hat Files Amicus Brief In Bilski Patent Case
I Don't Believe in Imaginary Property writes "Red Hat has filed a friend of the court brief with the Supreme Court in regards to the In Re Bilski case, which has become incredibly important due to the possibility that it could redefine the scope of patentable subject matter in a way that affects software patents. In the brief, Red Hat argues that software should not be considered patentable subject matter because it causes economic harm due to patents being granted with vague subject matter, which makes it impossible to say that a given piece of software doesn't arguably infringe upon someone's patent. They also point out Knuth's famous quote that you can't differentiate between 'numeric' and 'non-numeric' algorithms, because numbers are no different from other kinds of precise information." Read below for the submitter's thoughts on an earlier amicus brief filed in the Bilski case by Professor Lee Hollaar.Read more of this story at Slashdot.
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