Top Tech

Sci-Fi Writer Peter Watts Convicted of Assault

SJrX writes "CBC news is reporting that Peter Watts has indeed been convicted of Assaulting border guards, (discussed here). He will be sentenced April 26th."

Memorizing Language / Spelling Techniques?

NotesSensei writes "My kids are learning Chinese in school. While the grammar is drop-dead simple, writing is a challenge since there is no relation between sound and shape of the characters. I would like to know if there good techniques (using technology or not) to help memorize large amount of information, especially Chinese characters. Most of the stuff I googled only helps on learning speaking."

5 Reasons Tablets Suck, and You Won't Buy One

Crazzaper writes "When the iPad launched, a lot of people who didn't care about tablets came out to bash Apple's new device. These same people said 'I would have bought it if it had a full OS,' but in reality full OS tablets existed before the iPad rumors even started. This article gives an interesting perspective on why this happened, and argues that there's five big reasons why more powerful tablets exists but no one cares."

Canada's Top Court Quashes Child Porn Warrant

m.ducharme writes "The CBC is reporting that the Supreme Court of Canada has handed down a decision quashing a search warrant used to obtain the computer of a man accused of possession of child porn. 'Urbain P. Morelli maintained his charter rights were violated when police searched his computer for child pornography after a technician who had visited his home to work on the machine expressed concerns to police.' What the Slashdot community may find notable about this decision is the distinction drawn between 'accessing' and 'possessing' digital images, most particularly the recognition that a user does not 'possess' cached data. From the decision: '[35] When accessing Web pages, most Internet browsers will store on the computer's own hard drive a temporary copy of all or most of the files that comprise the Web page.

The Early Stats on IE9

Last week, Microsoft gave outside developers direct access to the engine of Internet Explorer 9, its upcoming Web browser, without functionality and usability features attached. Redmond said it wanted real-world feedback, and that's what it's going to get. Comparing brands, however, can often be like comparing lawnmowers to bulldozers.

Internet Explorer 9 Will Not Support Windows XP

MojoKid writes "As it turns out, news this week is that the same features that made IE9's hardware-acceleration possible probably aren't compatible with Windows XP. Microsoft initially dodged giving a straight answer to the question of XP support but has since admitted that the new browser won't be XP-compatible when it launches. This has created a small tempest of protest from those users still using XP, but this is less of an arbitrary decision than some appear to think. It's literally impossible to port Windows Vista/Win 7-style hardware acceleration backwards to XP. Microsoft would have to either develop a workaround from scratch or create a CPU-driven 'software mode.'"

Business-Suitable Document Authentication System?

ram.loss writes "The company I work for has decided to go paperless for all memos and internal correspondence. In addition to the central administration, the company has three more or less autonomous, physically separated divisions; that means we do not have a common IT infrastructure across all of them. Since I am the only resemblance we have to an IT department at my division, I have been commissioned with evaluating the available technology to manage and authenticate all correspondence, although it is not my area of expertise (I have a CompSci degree, but for many years have specialized in transportation modeling software). My initial thought was to use a document management system like Plone (this is the system I'm familiar with); from what I have read, that would take care of the management part, but what about authentication? We nee

Naming and Shaming 'Bad' ISPs

An anonymous reader writes "Brian Krebs takes a provocative look at ISP reputations, collecting data from 10 different sources that track 'badness' from a multitude of angles, from phishing to malware to botnet command and control centers. Some of the lists show very interesting and useful results; the ISPs that are most common among the various reputation services are some of the largest ISPs and hosting providers, including ThePlanet and Softlayer. The story has generated quite a bit of discussion in the security community as to whether these various efforts are measuring the wrong things, or if it is indeed valid and useful to keep public attention focused on the bigger providers, since these are generally US-based and have the largest abuse problems in terms of overall numbers.

Madoff's Programmers Indicted

jason8 writes with news that two programmers who worked at Bernie Madoff's investment firm have now been indicted on charges of 'conspiracy, falsifying records of a broker-dealer and falsifying records of an investment adviser,' for their role in hiding the firm's activities (PDF) from the SEC and external accountants. Quoting Reuters: "O'Hara and Perez, employed at the firm from 1990 and 1991, respectively, were primarily responsible for developing and maintaining computer programs in the investment advisory unit at the center of the fraud. Many of the programs were run on an IBM server known as 'House 17,' according to court documents. Prosecutors said the men took hush money to help keep the fraud going and designed codes to make up fake trade blotters and phantom records.

Would You Pay $20 for Access to a Breast Cancer Cure?

It seems safe to describe Andrew Hessel as an unbridled optimist. After all, he’s selling $20 shares in a journey towards a personalized cure for breast cancer, which he says could be feasible in the next few years.

Aluminum giant Alcoa develops new solar technology

In The New York Times on Thursday, I wrote about how aluminum giant Alcoa has become the latest industrial behemoth to jump into the solar business:

ISC Releases the First Look At BIND 10

Ethanol writes "Internet Systems Consortium, producers of BIND 9 (the most popular DNS implementation on the internet), have spent the past year working on a successor, BIND 10. It's entirely new code, redesigned and rewritten from the ground up, and now the first glimpse of what it will eventually look like has been released. 'This code is not intended for general use, and is known to be inefficient, difficult to work with, and riddled with bugs. These problems will all be fixed over the next couple of years, as functionality is added and refined, and the software matures. However, the codebase has a good framework for moving forward, and the software is capable of serving as a DNS server with significant functionality.' (Full disclosure: I work for ISC and I'm one of the engineers on the project.

Letter: Web of democracy

Congratulations on your initiative to get people involved in the election (Welcome to the first e-election, G2, 17 March). For democracy to be real, people need to know how the system works and how to have an effective voice. Democracy Matters is a new alliance of civil society and learning providers to promote education for effective citizenship, which includes the WEA, the National Association of Voluntary & Community Action, and many others. Politics is too important to be left to professional politicians and lobbyists. We are pressing all party leaders to support our efforts to provide practical political education and to implement the Duty to Promote Democracy in partnership with local organisations. Our website, DemocracyMatters.info will go live on Monday to offer more opportunities for people to take part in our democracy.

"Moot" Working On Reboot of 4chan Platform

Hugh Pickens writes "Nick Bilton has an interesting interview with Christopher Poole, known online as 'Moot,' founder 4chan, a jumble of content, hosting anything from pictures of cute kittens to wildly disturbing images and language. Poole, now 22, started 4chan when he was 15 after he discovered a Japanese image-board Web forum called 2chan dedicated to anime. 'The code for 2chan was publicly available and I took it and translated it from Japanese to English using tools online and I threw it up on the Web and sent it out to 20 people,' says Poole. 'I wanted to keep with the 2chan naming and the URL for 3chan was taken at the time so I just jumped to the next number.' Although 4chan gets 8.2 million unique visitors every month, 600 million page loads per month, and 800,000 new posts a day, Poole is working on a new project to reimagine w

Windows Phone 7: Microsoft's exercise in self restraint

Mix10 The key difference between Windows Phone 7 and Windows Mobile is not Silverlight, the Windows Marketplace lock-in, nor the disallowing of native-code applications.

Intel Labs unveils PC power plans

Engineers at Intel Labs are toiling away at a "holistic approach" to energy savings that could result in lower-power processors, shrunken power bricks and batteries, and worldwide power bills shrinking by billions of dollars.

MS testing 'Twittter for business'

Tags: Twitter Inc., Social Computing, Microsoft Corp., OfficeTalk, Social Networking, Microsoft Office, Online Communications, Marketing, Advertising & Promotion, Office Suites

Apple puts out call for iPad apps - but developers can't say a word

It might be a while before Britain gets to see the iPad, but it's just weeks away from launch in the United States - and Apple is beginning to crank up the gears.

On the road: Suzuki Swift 1.3 SZ3 DDiS

In years gone by, cars were not guaranteed to start. The sound of recalcitrant engines and stuttering chokes frequently filled the air, or that part of the air that hadn't already been filled by the sound of exasperated expletives. Back then, it wasn't safe to walk down the street without being press-ganged into jump-starting some stalled motor or other. But all that stuff is now a remote, and therefore romantic, memory. Modern cars always start. The only problem now is knowing how to start them.

Former MySQL Chief Lands at Eucalyptus

Marten Mickos, the former chief executive of MySQL, will soon be named the chief executive of Eucalyptus, another open-source software maker.

VirnetX files second lawsuit against Microsoft

VirnetX announced on Thursday that it has launched another lawsuit against Microsoft, this time claiming that the same patent violations found in Windows XP and Vista from the first suit also exist in Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2.

Malware infected memory cards of 3,000 Vodafone mobile phones

Fast AES encryption, better scalability, and consistent per-core performance make the new six-core Xeon a worthy successor to Nehalem more

IBM adds DB2 to Lotus Foundations small business package

Fast AES encryption, better scalability, and consistent per-core performance make the new six-core Xeon a worthy successor to Nehalem more

The technology newsbucket: Pandora, gaming, Apple's social plans and more

2 Women carry buckets on their heads as they walk the beach route on their way to work in Nungwi, Zanzibar

Palm earnings: 'Underperformance' is disappointing

Things are not looking good for Palm, despite the optimism from executives that they can still turn things around. As expected, Palm reported dismal earnings for its third quarter - and the company said today that fourth quarter revenue would be less than $150 million, less than half of the $305 million that Wall Street was expecting.