LNS - Technology Blogs

http://www.cnn.com/2008/TECH/science/09/03/arctic.ice.shelf.ap/ -

From the article:

"A chunk of ice shelf nearly the size of Manhattan has broken away from Ellesmere Island in Canada's northern Arctic, another dramatic indication of how warmer temperatures are changing the polar frontier, scientists said Wednesday."

"These changes are irreversible under the present climate and indicate that the environmental conditions that have kept these ice shelves in balance for thousands of years are no longer present," said Muller."

http://tinyurl.com/62nqb2 -

The security mechanisms that keep Microsoft Windows Vista safe have apparently been completely bypassed by security researchers. From the article:

"Researchers who have read the paper that Dowd and Sotirov wrote on the techniques say their work is a major breakthrough and there is little that Microsoft can do to address the problems. The attacks themselves are not based on any new vulnerabilities in IE or Vista, but instead take advantage of Vista's fundamental architecture and the ways in which Microsoft chose to protect it.

"The genius of this is that it's completely reusable," said Dino Dai Zovi, a well-known security researcher and author. "They have attacks that let them load chosen content to a chosen location with chosen permissions. That's completely game over. "

http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.cfm?release=2008-152 -

Scientists have been using a robotic spacecraft to explore what looked to be large lakes on the surface of Saturn's moon, Titan. They couldn't be entirely sure that the features were actually liquid lakes, and not simply very smooth, solid material.

New findings seem to confirm that the observations really do show extensive seas of liquid ethane and other hydrocarbons. In fact, Titan seems to have an entire 'water' cycle of ethane evaporation, rain and rivers.

http://www.internetevolution.com/author.asp?section_id=562&doc_id=159862& -

It looks like the way we communicate on the Internet will be evolving to tackle communications beyond the tiny little planet we call home.

TCP/IP, the communications protocol of the Internet, has done very well for us. However, it has its shortcomings when it comes to transmitting information into deep space. This involves issues such as making sure messages get to their destination safely when there are long periods of disconnection; things such as radio line-of-sight being obstructed by a meteor. If we were to use pure TCP/IP in space, when a link fails in a situation like this, the connection is dropped and must be retransmitted directly from the source.

However, a technique dubbed delay-tolerant networking (DTN) would allow for the 'custody' exchange of transmissions from link to link. Put in simple terms, say you send an e-mail from Earth to Mars - to send some pictures to your favorite deep-space rover of a cute little kitten. During the transmission, a meteor decides to block the radio signal between the two of you. With DTN, a middle-man router (like the one that connects your office or home network to the rest of the Internet) would take custody of the transmission and hold it until it can communicate with the rover - instead of having to transmit the entire message again from your computer.

It seems inevitable that the Internet will evolve to adapt to deep-space communications - to better help astronaut communication, rover-to-rover communication, and other such beneficial communications that are thought of once we expand our little network to the bigger-badder universe as a whole.

http://www.hothardware.com/Articles/OCZ_NIA_BrainComputer_Interface/ -

Sunnyvale-based OCZ Technology has laid claim to being the first to bring a 'brain-computer' interface to the retail market. They have aimed it squarely at the gamer; the device is called the NIA, which is an acronym that stands for Neural Impulse Actuator.

Instead of buttons, sticks, gyroscopes or motion sensors, the NIA reads the body's natural bio-signals and translates them into commands that can be used to control PC games. This evaluation of the NIA shows the product actually works as advertised, with a little practice. It can, in some cases, offer reaction times superior to standard controllers, based on faster trigger response time, and the difference is quite noticeable and immediate.

http://www.pcworld.idg.com.au/index.php/id;1496591483 -

It looks like Christopher Null over at PCWorld.com has laid out what a lot of business and home users are wondering about lately - what does it take to purchase a new computer with Windows XP (READ: *not* Vista) pre-installed on it?

From the article:

"As a rule of thumb, your odds of finding a machine with XP and a sales rep who knows how to configure a machine with that OS are far greater if you call the business sales line instead of the consumer sales line. (Be prepared to fib and say you're planning to buy 25 computers during the next 12 months.)"

http://www.networkworld.com/community/node/29791 -

Anyone who uses a laptop as their primary work computer can probably attest to doing the "laptop drive of shame" at least once - a drive back home, after getting to work and realizing you have forgotten it on the coffee table. With fuel prices burning holes in your pockets, the drive of shame isn't just slightly embarrassing, but increasingly expensive.

There is hope, however. An estimated 30 million Americans telecommute at least one day a month to work, leaving their cars in their driveways (and gas in their gas tanks). An increasingly popular option, telecommuting is beneficial to not only your bank account, but your quality of life. Spending a day at home (without that fake sick-call into work) and taking care of pending work via telecommuting is a nice break - a change of scenery once in a while can do wonders for overall productivity. In addition to these benefits, you are actually helping the overall traffic situation (especially during rush-hour) because when you telecommute, there are just plain less cars on the road.

An increasing number of businesses are contracting Logical Networking Solutions to deploy virtual-private-networking (VPN) solutions so their employees can telecommute from home or abroad when they feel it is beneficial. With telecommuting, your computer creates a secure, encrypted "tunnel" to your work network via the Internet - you can open/save files, print to printers, and if desired, even log into your office workstation to manipulate the keyboard and mouse, seeing everything on its screen that you would see if you were sitting at your desk.

Having options these days such as telecommuting makes one wonder why even more businesses, big and small, aren't taking advantage. Even telecommuting a couple of days a month give you increased freedom in the workplace - and more time at home (or maybe your favorite coffee shop)!

Please contact Logical Networking Solutions at 707-636-5678 if you are interested in telecommuting options for your company.

http://www.eff.org/press/archives/2008/07/09 -

The U.S. Senate yesterday afternoon passed the FISA Amendments Act, broadly expanding the president's warrantless surveillance authority and unconstitutionally granting retroactive immunity to telecommunications companies that participated in the president's illegal domestic wiretapping program. The House of Representatives passed the same bill last month, and President Bush is expected to sign the legislation into law shortly.

http://tinyurl.com/5gaun8 -

You can probably admit that you have had at least *one* experience with Microsoft Windows products that left you shaking your head (or throwing your computer out the window). You'll be surprised that not only are you not alone, even Bill Gates has beef with Windows.

In this leaked 2003 e-mail, Bill Gates chews out his own company over an apparently very bad experience he had with trying to install Windows Movie Maker. The full e-mail is definitely worth the read.

From the article:

"...So after more than an hour of craziness and making my programs list garbage and being scared and seeing that Microsoft.com is a terrible website I haven't run Moviemaker and I haven't got the plus package." --Bill Gates

http://www.bizjournals.com/sacramento/stories/2008/06/09/daily8.html -

According to the Sacramento Business Journal, 'green and healthy' product sales currently account for $209 billion - but, by 2010, it will likely reach more than $400 billion.

The 'green' consumer group, according to Nielsen and NMI, are people who prefer "lifestyles of health and sustainability" - and is not only rapidly growing, but most definitely here to stay.

From the article:

"These consumers are early adopters, loyal to companies whose values match their own, and validated by our research, willing to put their money where their mouths are," said Patti Marshman-Goldblatt, senior vice president for NMI.

This was just way too cool to pass up posting on.

Apparently, Swiss aviation enthusiast Yves Rossy created a one-man "rocket belt" that allows him to fly. It is powered by hydrogen peroxide (H2O2) and is pressurized with air. It flows through a catalysator pack to create super-heated steam - this provides the thrust that propels the pilot into flight.

Completely maneuverable, the skilled pilot can fly forward, backward, sideways, up and down. Actual lift is controlled by a throttle at the pilot's right hand. The left hand controls and operates jets for control. The delicate combination of these two controls permits complete freedom of flight.

See complete video at the following link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P-oQ--U-WaQ

Rocketman website: http://www.swissrocketman.com/srm.html

http://tinyurl.com/6yrytw -

In this computerworld.com article, James Turner examines the upcoming stable release of Ubuntu Linux, 8.04, dubbed "Hardy Heron". It is a great review for those who are interested in what Linux is all about, and a great primer for what Ubuntu users have in store!

http://www.livescience.com/environment/080411-pollution-flowers.html -

Research funded by the National Science Foundataion (NSF) says that the pollutants we are introducing to the air around us - from car exhaust, power plants and other human-originating sources, are causing flowers to lose their scent. This, according to the study, causes bees to have to search further and rely on vision rather than smell, to find the pollination they need to survive and breed.

From the study:

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"The scent molecules produced by flowers in a less polluted environment, such as in the 1800s, could travel for roughly 1,000 to 1,200 meters [3,300 to 4,000 feet]; but in today's polluted environment downwind of major cities, they may travel only 200 to 300 meters [650 to 980 feet]," said study team member Jose D. Fuentes."
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http://tinyurl.com/27o9vm -

From the article:

"The three laptops (VAIO VGN-TZ37CN running Ubuntu 7.10, Fujitsu U810 running Vista Ultimate SP1, and a MacBook Air running OSX 10.5.2) all held out for the first day of the contest (remotely exploitable vulnerabilities), and so the rules were relaxed on the second day to also include any default installed client-side applications. This led to a quick compromise of Safari, and therefore of the MacBook Air laptop. Vista and Linux remained unscathed. On the third day, the rules were changed again: "popular" third-party client applications were added to the mix, and this is where Vista's security features could not keep up.

Hacker Shane Macaulay (with the help of friends Derek Callaway and Alexander Sotirov) of Security Objectives was able to compromise and gain control of the Windows Vista laptop via a previously undiscovered flaw in the latest version of Adobe's Flash software, allowing him to claim the Fujitsu laptop and the $5,000 cash prize."

http://tinyurl.com/2a5ne9 -

Businessweek.com tells us about a fishing village south of the Iceland capital Reykjavik. A new governmental program called "Invest in Iceland" aims to lure companies with large computer server data centers to relocate them in the desolate, icy area. Cooling data centers has been a growing issue - but in Iceland, cooling these increasingly power hungry beasts is nearly free.

From the article:

"It's a testament to the challenges companies face in operating data centers that Google (GOOG), Yahoo! (YHOO), and Microsoft (MSFT) have all checked out this remote corner of the world (although none has made a commitment so far). The reason: Iceland has a rare combination of vacant land, cheap geothermal energy, and chilly climate that makes cooling a data center nearly free.

The tech industry is facing an energy crisis. The cost of power consumption by data centers doubled between 2000 and 2006, to $4.5 billion, and could double again by 2011, according to the U.S. government. With energy prices spiking, the challenge of powering and cooling these SUVs of the tech world has become a major issue for corporations and utilities. "The digital economy is pervasive," says Andy Karsner, Assistant U.S. Energy Secretary for energy efficiency. "The demands for computing will grow exponentially, but electric consumption can't grow the same way." "