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Wednesday Aug-20-2008 -- Iphone upgrade doesn't work Apple created a buzz not so long back with the launch of the new iPhone 3G, but that soon turned to disappointment once they got their hands on these handsets. iPhone 3G users have been experiencing a number of problems; these include slow websurfing speeds, dropped calls and weak signals. Since the issues aren't limited to U.S. customers, and users of other handsets don't seem to be complaining, it stands to reason that AT&T's network can't be the cause. More... Aug-20-2008 -- MBTA admits ticket not secure Critics of the temporary restraining order, issued on Aug. 9, by a federal judge in Boston, labeled it an infringement of the students' First Amendment rights and an example of prior restraint on free speech. The judge's order represented a small slice of what the MBTA wants to see. More... Aug-20-2008 -- Robotripping: hands on with the Android SDK beta Google released a beta version of the software development kit for its Android mobile operating system earlier today to much fanfare, but in the rush of breaking the news we only just got a chance to examine the details. Do that and the world will be full of Android users saying to iPhone users: "Can your much more expensive phone to this yet?" The made a big deal about the big buck$$$iPhone displaying the I Am Rich jewel. More... Aug-20-2008 -- MobileMe's Mea Culpa: A 60-Day Subscription Extension Apple is tacking on 60 days of free service to MobileMe accounts to thank users for their patience since the service's shaky start in July. MobileMe users have complained about problems with pretty much every single aspect of the service, so giving everybody a total of three free months of subscription (which is pretty much three times the lifetime of the service so far) is a small consolation for the agony a lot of paying users have had with MobileMe. More... Aug-20-2008 -- Microsoft slackens VM licensing rules Server virtualization technologies allow virtual machines to be swapped from one physical server to another without disrupting end users. Microsoft is apparently trying to give customers added incentive to upgrade to the more pricy SQL Server Enterprise edition, Voce says. More... Aug-20-2008 -- Posted by: Rob Hof on August 19 User intent and context must be understood by search providers, Nadella said. We've made decent progress but have a long way to go." More... Aug-20-2008 -- Google Wireless Plan Angers Audio-Equipment Makers For the first time, Google has launched an advocacy website, FreeTheAirwaves.com , to urge the Federal Communications Commission to allow yet-to-be-developed mobile gadgets to surf the Internet on vacant TV channels. The search giant has launched a web site called, www.freetheairwaves.com , on which visitors can sign a petition urging the FCC to open up unused TV airwaves for super WiFi-like services that Google calls WiFi 2.0. More... Aug-20-2008 -- Bioshock PS3 Set For October 21 "We're confident in a strong second half of the year and look forward to quickly addressing any inventory shortages due to the transition," says Tretton. In the current console cycle, Sony has found itself in an unfamiliar position, trailing Nintendo's Wii and competing neck and neck with Microsoft's Xbox 360 for second place in monthly sales in the United States. More... Aug-20-2008 -- Toshiba's XDE DVD Player: A Threat to Blu-ray? Called the XD-E500, the new technology, announced in the U.S. today stands for XDE, or "eXtended Detail Enhancement", is, claim Toshiba, more than just DVD upconversion. Toshiba demo'ed the player to reporters last week, playing the same disc in an XD-E player and a standard, $70 upscaling (Toshiba) model on side-by-side identical LCD HDTVs. According to reports, the different was subtle, but clearly the XD-E player had a sharper image. More... Aug-20-2008 -- Fees may sink Pandora Despite its huge popularity and its one million daily listeners, Pandora is approaching an abrupt end, as radio webcasting services begin to face increased pressure from copyright owners and record companies in terms of royalty fees. Whereas Pandora is purely open source, having no ties to corporate america/world. More... Aug-20-2008 -- New rocket gets shock absorbers The recommended shock absorber system includes a spring and damper system between the Ares I booster's first and second stages, as well as a set of 16 spring-mounted weights in the aft skirt at the bottom of the first stage. With the shock absorbers in place, vibrations in the Ares 1 rocket should be limited to about 0.25 G's, or one-fourth the force of Earth's gravity, NASA engineers said. More... Aug-20-2008 -- Yahoo Buzz Goes Public The service has been available since its launch in February, however in beta mode only a chosen group of 400 publishers had been allowed to add new links to the site. The service builds on Yahoo's longstanding leadership in the portal category -- itself a business model with a questionable future. More... Aug-20-2008 -- Microsoft Sends Up Trial Balloons for Windows 7 Microsoft's head of engineering for the Windows 7 operating system says there are 25 'feature teams' of about 100 employees each working on the upcoming replacement to Windows Vista. Microsoft kept a low profile on Windows 7 features. More... Aug-20-2008 -- YouTube Starts Testing Out Mobile Ads '''You may have noticed that we started running a test of display ads on select pages of the YouTube mobile site in the U.S. and Japan. And, on a less-sophisticated phone we tested the site on, a text link. More... Aug-20-2008 -- Palm's magic act makes Treo Pro 850 appear, disappear The Treo Pro will operate with Windows Mobile. Why are all the new version of the Palm's only have the Windows version installed on them. More... Aug-20-2008 -- Obama backs $2 billion NASA funding McCain expressed Concerns that increasing NASA funding would contribute to the national debt. McCain's economic plan is based upon a one-year freeze in discretionary spending that would hurt NASA. According to MSNBC's First Read, "McCain spoke at Carnegie Mellon University here this morning and laid out his plan for the future of the economy.The plan is centered around a one-year freeze in discretionary spending -- with the exception of military and veterans programs -- to allow for a 'top-to-bottom review of the effectiveness of federal programs.'". More... Aug-20-2008 -- More than a third of new PC buyers downgrade Vista to XP, survey says New research suggests that more than one in three new Vista PCs is downgraded to Windows XP . Mate, Your lies are wrong. More... Aug-20-2008 -- PS3 getting BioShocked Oct. 21 Headlining the list of new features is the inclusion of the Survivor difficulty mode, Trophy support and the addition of all-new Add-On Game Content. Caught between powerful forces and hunted down by genetically mutated citizens, the player will come to grips with the mysterious and fascinating world of Rapture, a distinct Art Deco underwater utopia gone mad. More... Tuesday Aug-19-2008 -- Google Revs Android, FCC Approves First Phone The New York Times echoed a report earlier in the week from TmoNews in suggesting that the first phone to run the Android software will be announced by handset maker HTC on T-Mobile's network next month and could begin shipping in October. "The tech duo is working on the hotly anticipated mobile software for T-Mobile'''s so-called Dream phone," Moritz wrote. More... Aug-19-2008 -- Obama Suggests $2 Billion In New Funding for NASA Cunningham was similarly unimpressed with Obama's support for an additional shuttle flight, even though Cunningham believes the shuttle is a safe vehicle that should be kept flying after 2010 as a means to minimize the gap. Increasing Opportunities for College Students: Obama will support university programs that partner NASA, DOT, DOD and NOAA with academia to provide hands-on training experiences at the college level. More... Aug-19-2008 -- Nintendo's Wii is the champion console yet again "We're confident in a strong second half of the year and look forward to quickly addressing any inventory shortages due to the transition," says Tretton. No series has offered the sort of consistency and quality (not to mention a whole pile of releases) as Ratchet & Clank. More... Aug-19-2008 -- Will Pandora Play 'The End' Soon? Royalty Rate Hikes Could Be Its ... Despite its huge popularity and its one million daily listeners, Pandora is approaching an abrupt end, as radio webcasting services begin to face increased pressure from copyright owners and record companies in terms of royalty fees. Pandora, one of the first free online radio stations, is on the brink of collapse according to its founder. More... Aug-19-2008 -- Toshiba propels DVD quality to near high definition Toshiba America Consumer Products group is unveiled a new DVD player that it says significantly enhanced existing DVD playback without the need for Blu-Ray discs. The new player will go for $149.99 and can also play DivX, MP3s, WMA and display JPEGs, a capability that is now standard in most DVD players. More... Aug-19-2008 -- Cashing in: Google sued for patent infringement According to the suit filed at the United States District Court in the Eastern District of Texas, alleges that Google Base, AdWords, Blogger, Sites and YouTube illegally use a patent-protected method of 'maintaining an automated and network-accessible database'. Graphon, which acquired the patents in 2005, has already sued Yahoo, IAC/InterActiveCorp, eHarmony, Match.com, AutoTrader.com, CarerrBuilder and Classfied Ventures. More... Aug-19-2008 -- Apple extends MobileMe accounts--again Apple is offering disgruntled MobileMe subscribers another free extension to its subscription-based software after admitting the rollout of its.Mac replacement has been something of a disaster. MobileMe is the successor to Apple's.Mac services. More... Aug-19-2008 -- Russia, Georgia and NASA The war between Russia and Georgia may prove to be a serious problem for NASA, as its capability of sending astronauts to the international space station for future space missions may be severely endangered by the conflict between the two countries, according to The Washington Post. Nelson, who has been lobbying for the waiver, said in an interview Tuesday that reaction to the Russian invasion will sour U.S. -Russian relations. More... Aug-19-2008 -- IT Infrastructure New AMD Server Platform Due in 2009 With Intel's annual conference set to start this week, AMD launched a pre-emptive strike in a press conference on Friday. The NREL said that the solar cell is "extremely thin and light and represents a new class of solar cells with advantages in performance, design, operation and cost." More... Aug-19-2008 -- HP introduces lightweight business laptops The notebook weighs in at just 3.19 pounds, has a 0.99-inch thickness, and offers the road warrior a durable anodized aluminum exterior and magnesium shell that HP calls DuraCase. The HP EliteBook 2530p and HP EliteBook 2730p are expected to be available by early September, with estimated starting U.S. street pricing of $1,499 and $1,670, respectively. More... Aug-19-2008 -- Dell Ponders Rejection Of 'Cloud Computing' Trademark Dell's attempt to trademark the 'cloud computing' term has been thwarted today, with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office sending them a non-final refusal of their application . In addition to being merely descriptive, the applied-for mark appears to be generic in connection with the identified services. More... Aug-19-2008 -- Boston subway hack battle rages on Critics of the temporary restraining order, issued on Aug. 9, by a federal judge in Boston, labeled it an infringement of the students' First Amendment rights and an example of prior restraint on free speech. In an affidavit, the MBTA claimed that the students didn't give it sufficient information about the vulnerabilities beforehand. More... Aug-19-2008 -- Taiwan hopes to force Microsoft into selling XP forever TAIPEI (AFP) — Taiwan's Fair Trade Commission said Monday it has launched an investigation into whether Microsoft Corp is abusing its monopoly status to force consumers to buy its Windows Vista operating system. '''We have received the complaint and are now conducting our own investigation, which may last around six months,'' Chou Ya- shu, the antitrust regulator's spokeswoman, said in a telephone interview. More... Aug-19-2008 -- We must do more to encourage girls to pursue science careers "We are working at the ultimate edge of what is possible -- progressing toward advanced, next-generation semiconductor technologies. The SRAM cell includes a high-k/metal gate stack, a 25 nm gate length, thin spacers, novel co-implants, advanced activation techniques, extremely thin silicide, and damascene copper contacts. More... Aug-19-2008 -- YouTube Starts Testing Out Mobile Ads The search engine giant announced Monday that it is now running a test of display ads on select pages of YouTube mobile sites in the U.S. and Japan. At YouTube, we are constantly testing new ways to deliver the kinds of ads that contribute to the user experience while making the most sense for advertisers, and we've learned a lot about what works for YouTube and what doesn't. More... Aug-19-2008 -- Bigfoot Discovery Declared a Hoax Friday was just the latest episode in the Sasquatch show, as unreal as it may be. The pair said they found the corpse in Georgia's woods and the body is now crammed in a freezer. More... Aug-19-2008 -- Play more Warcraft, receive less malpractice suits Researchers studied the children's statements to see if playing the game improved cognitive and perceptual skills. BOSTON (AP) — Parents, don't put away those video games just yet — today's gamer may be tomorrow's top surgeon. More... Aug-19-2008 -- Palm Leaks Treo Pro Details The Treo Pro will operate with Windows Mobile. The latest set will have glossy black and white color scheme with exclusive features like a 3.5mm headphone jack, wireless button on the side and a microUSB connector. More... Monday Aug-18-2008 -- A crumbling tower: Sony lays siege to the 360's weak spots "We're confident in a strong second half of the year and look forward to quickly addressing any inventory shortages due to the transition," says Tretton. The latest sales figures for the U.S. console gaming market released by NPD Group this week revealed a downward trend for all major hardware producers, although the hierarchy remained unchained compared to last month. More... Aug-18-2008 -- The Bigfoot press conference and the art of selling a website Friday was just the latest episode in the Sasquatch show, as unreal as it may be. Matthew Whitton and Rick Dyer, the alleged "Bigfoot" finders, have held their announced Palo Alto news conference on Saturday, and presented "evidence" of their alleged find, with the help of another infamous Bigfoot hunter, Tom Biscardi. More... Aug-18-2008 -- The US government must now decide whether it will overlook ... NASA's plan was for the interim was to use Russian Soyuz craft (left) to send up crew and cargo to the $100 billion station. The Post notes that NASA has already begun laying off shuttle staff and has stopped buying parts for the aging fleet. More... Aug-18-2008 -- Palm inadvertently leaked its latest Palm smartphone onto the Internet The Treo Pro appears to be the official name of the previously leaked Treo 850 . Formerly known as the Treo 850, the Pro is looking pretty lovely. More... Aug-18-2008 -- Lenovo Announces ThinkPad X301 Notebook In a weirdly casual move, Lenovo has let details slip on the next iteration of its MacBook Air-challenging laptop -- the ThinkPad X300 -- unsurprisingly dubbed the X301. Designed for maximum options for wireless connectivity, the ThinkPad X301 notebook offers models with high-speed mobile broadband and WiFi to connect wirelessly to the Internet, and also with Bluetooth and Ultra-Wideband technology to connect wirelessly to other devices. More... Aug-18-2008 -- NASA cancels spacesuit contract HARTFORD, Conn. (AP) — NASA said Friday it terminated its contract with a Houston company selected in June to supply the space agency's next-generation space suit. DOVER, Del. (AP)- A Frederica business that manufactures NASA spacesuits has filed a protest with the U.S. Government Accountability Office after being denied a $745 million contract. More... Aug-18-2008 -- Pandora May Shut Down Due to Rising Royalty Fees Tim Westergren, the founder of the Internet radio company Pandora, warned that he might have to shut down the service soon because the company's operations are crippled by unreasonable royalties. IMHO, most music on top 40 radio is only there because the RIAA wants it there. More... Aug-18-2008 -- Researchers Found Mixed Stone Age Graveyards In The Sahara A tiny woman and two children were laid to rest on a bed of flowers 5000 years ago in what is now the Sahara Desert. University of Chicago paleontologist Paul Sereno's team says it is the biggest Saharan graveyard ever found from the period between 6,000 and 10,000 years ago. More... Aug-18-2008 -- Scientists create small amounts of safer heparin Heparin is currently derived from pig intestines, and 70 percent of it comes from China - where there is little oversight of the supply chain of rural farmers, slaughterhouses, and manufacturers that produce the drug. ScienceDaily (Aug. 18, 2008) - Robert Linhardt has spent years stitching together minuscule carbohydrates to build a more pure and safer alternative to the commonly used and controversial blood thinner heparin. More... Aug-18-2008 -- Former astronauts John Glenn, Bill Nelson back Barack Obama space plan As president, Barack Obama will establish a robust and balanced civilian space program. Supporting Commercial Access to Space: Obama will stimulate the commercial use of space and private sector utilization of the International Space Station. More... Aug-18-2008 -- Microsoft to unveil Windows 7 features next month Microsoft has told the blogosphere it will reveal more about its next operating system, Windows 7, on 27 October. Our intent with Windows 7 and the pre-release communication is to make sure that we have a reasonable degree of confidence in what we talk about when we do talk," Sinofsky and DeVaan wrote in the blog post. More... Aug-18-2008 -- Caribbean System May Become Tropical Depression Today (Update2) UPDATE: Satellite imagery and radar data from Puerto Rico and the Dominican Republic indicate that the low pressure area centered over the Mona Passage is becoming better organized. Shower and thunderstorm activity has become a little more concentrated within a broad area of low pressure associated with a tropical wave that is located about 750 miles east of the Lesser Antilles. More... Aug-18-2008 -- Legal flap over Defcon talk exposes divide on disclosing security ... MIT students seemed to have hacked the Charlie Card System and could obtain free public transportation for life. As reported by the AP, the 87-slide presentation was handed out to conference participants on CDs on Thursday, even before the conference began. More... Aug-18-2008 -- NASA Has Its Closest Look at Geysers on Saturn Moon NASA's Cassini spacecraft this week identified the source of geyserlike jets of ice erupting from Saturn's moon Enceladus. Cassini's mission was to take close-up shots of the tiny moon's south pole. More... Aug-18-2008 -- Need for Speed: Undercover Set for Release Nov. 18 "Big-budget live-action sequences" that feature "box office sensation" and "international movie star" Maggie Q (Mission Impossible III, Live Free or Die Hard) will further the game's plot, with Ms. Q playing the "seductive handler" Federal Agent Chase Linh. There'''s been some talk of Electronic Arts''' upcoming new iteration in the long-running Need for Speed series, but nothing substantial. More... Aug-18-2008 -- The great (and sometimes serious) debate about Pluto Although Neil Tyson and Mark Sykes disagree on how to classify Pluto and other bodies in the solar system, "there are also many areas on which we will agree," Sykes said. Tyson and Sykes faced off before scientists and educators gathered to discuss the IAU's definition of planets to the exclusion of Pluto. More... Aug-18-2008 -- Key legal win for open sSource SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — In a crucial win for the free software movement, a federal appeals court has ruled that even software developers who give away the programming code for their works can sue for copyright infringement if someone misappropriates that material. The ruling by the U.S. Court of Appeals is seen as having important ramifications for the licensing of open-source software. More... Aug-18-2008 -- Tracking a cyberattack Hackers known as the South Ossetia Hack Crew have directed denial-of-service attacks against prominent Georgian Web sites as the country's Parliament and its president, Mikheil Saakashvili. "The document is the first, and an important step," said Lauri Almann, Deputy Minister of Defense of Estonia. More... Aug-18-2008 -- Google feeds publishers with new AdSense option Right after the Adsense for Content and Adsense for Search options in the Adsense Setup menu is a new option labeled "Adsense for Feeds". Some blog sites are reporting that Google has added the Adsense for feeds option in their Adsense accounts' Setup menu. More... Sunday Aug-17-2008 -- The Bigfoot press conference and the art of selling a website Two Northern California men and two Georgians say they've got a body, a photo and DNA evidence pertaining to the elusive forest-dwelling man-ape and that they'll reveal all at a press conference in Palo Alto, Calif., on Friday. No matter your feelings on the authenticity of this Bigfoot news, you might also like to see our Chupacabra Video shot by the dashboard camera of a Texas police officer. More... Aug-17-2008 -- Cheaper Sony PlayStation 3 Arrives in US Next Month "We're confident in a strong second half of the year and look forward to quickly addressing any inventory shortages due to the transition," says Tretton. There are a lot of arguments to be made for nominating the game console as the ideal set-top box for movie downloading (as Sony has recently recognized). More... Aug-17-2008 -- Flawed Chip To Blame For iPhone Connection Woes? Kim reports, "Yarbrough's complaints stem from spotty phone reception owing to the phone's 3G wireless technology. Each market is different. More... Aug-17-2008 -- Endangered species law in danger from Bush U.S. Interior Secretary Dick Kempthorne's idea of a "narrow regulatory change" is a little like saying gas prices have gone up a tad. Inappropriate? Alert us. More... Aug-17-2008 -- Legal flap over Defcon talk exposes divide on disclosing security ... MIT students seemed to have hacked the Charlie Card System and could obtain free public transportation for life. "I'm not saying the first thing you do when you find a vulnerability is to post it on your blog," Bellovin said. More... Aug-17-2008 -- Graves Found From Sahara's Green Period Archaeologist Elena Garcea of the University of Cassino in Italy helped identify the poorly known cultures so well-preserved at the site. The site has yielded some 200 graves as well as the remains of animals, large fish and crocodiles, shedding light on the Stone Age lifestyle and the way people adapted to climate change. More... Aug-17-2008 -- ISO rejects Office Open XML appeal (redux) The International Standardisation Organisation (ISO) has rejected appeals by four countries to reject Microsoft's Office Open XML formats as an international standard. Office Open XML is the basis of the format that lies behind Microsoft's Office 2007 and Office for Mac 2008 desktop application suites. More... Aug-17-2008 -- Microsoft to unveil Windows 7 features next month Microsoft has told the blogosphere it will reveal more about its next operating system, Windows 7, on 27 October. Microsoft had already said Windows 7 would be on the PDC docket in some manner. More... Aug-17-2008 -- Next-Generation Palm Treo Sighted The Treo Pro appears to be the official name of the previously leaked Treo 850 . People who saw Palm stock as a good risk buy following the transitions last year are happy with 60% or higher profits. More... Aug-17-2008 -- Russia-Georgia conflict could affect NASA funding NASA's plan was for the interim was to use Russian Soyuz craft (left) to send up crew and cargo to the $100 billion station. U.S. Sen. Bill Nelson poses for a portrait while preparing to serve as a payload specialist during a 1986 NASA shuttle mission. More... Aug-17-2008 -- NASA to Take Corrective Action in Spacesuit Contract Protest The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) terminated its $180 million contract with Oceaneering International Inc., a Houston company that was chosen in June to supply the space agency with next-generation suits. A strong national program of aeronautics research and technology contributes to the vitality of the United States aeronautics industry, the efficiency of the U.S. air transportation system, and the economic well-being and quality of life of our citizens. More... Aug-17-2008 -- Caribbean System May Become Tropical Depression Today (Update2) UPDATE: Satellite imagery and radar data from Puerto Rico and the Dominican Republic indicate that the low pressure area centered over the Mona Passage is becoming better organized. Watch the news and hope for the best. More... Aug-17-2008 -- Key legal win for open sSource SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — In a crucial win for the free software movement, a federal appeals court has ruled that even software developers who give away the programming code for their works can sue for copyright infringement if someone misappropriates that material. No, the District Court had it right. More... Aug-17-2008 -- The great (and sometimes serious) debate about Pluto Although Neil Tyson and Mark Sykes disagree on how to classify Pluto and other bodies in the solar system, "there are also many areas on which we will agree," Sykes said. Tyson and Sykes faced off before scientists and educators gathered to discuss the IAU's definition of planets to the exclusion of Pluto. More... Aug-17-2008 -- NASA Has Its Closest Look at Geysers on Saturn Moon NASA's Cassini spacecraft this week identified the source of geyserlike jets of ice erupting from Saturn's moon Enceladus. The spacecraft's signal was picked up by the Deep Space Network station in Canberra, Australia, before being relayed to mission control at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, California, according to a NASA news release. More... Aug-17-2008 -- McCain's Tech Policy: H1B Visas Good, Taxes Bad I think that is an interesting ranking of priorities." Obama's platform also supports regulations to ensure net neutrality, while McCain's does not. More... Aug-17-2008 -- Need for Speed: Undercover Set for Release Nov. 18 Black Box & Electronic Arts officially confirm Need for Speed Undercover, a new installment in the popular racing series. Need for Speed: Undercover is being developed by EA'''s Black Box and is slated for release in North America on November 18 and Europe on November 21. More... Aug-17-2008 -- Dell wants to give you choice, but choice is dead Pieced together details show Dell getting ready to launch new MP3 players and a distribution system to challenge iTunes. Two portable media players are scheduled for early next year, according to three sources. More... Saturday Aug-16-2008 -- The Bigfoot press conference and the art of selling a website Two Northern California men and two Georgians say they've got a body, a photo and DNA evidence pertaining to the elusive forest-dwelling man-ape and that they'll reveal all at a press conference in Palo Alto, Calif., on Friday. This happened a while back on the radio show called Coast to Coast. More... Aug-16-2008 -- In July Nintendo On Top, Gamers Play NCAA 09 For Xbox 360 "We're confident in a strong second half of the year and look forward to quickly addressing any inventory shortages due to the transition," says Tretton. Nintendo in July recorded a Q1 profit of 107.27 billion yen ($996 million) on strong sales for the Wii home video game console. More... Aug-16-2008 -- Apple will fix iPhone 3G problems with software update Kim reports, "Yarbrough's complaints stem from spotty phone reception owing to the phone's 3G wireless technology. The dropped-call problem is global, says Roger Entner, senior vice president at Nielsen IAG. "Apple has had the same problem in every market where the (3G) iPhone is sold," he says. More... Aug-16-2008 -- NASA to Take Corrective Action in Spacesuit Contract Protest A NASA official told Washington auditors in a letter dated Thursday that the U.S. space agency found it had not asked Oceaneering for a required "cost accounting standards disclosure statement," and it would hold "limited discussions" with Oceaneering and United Tech about new proposals. Hamilton had formed Exploration Systems & Technology with a partner to seek the contract. More... Aug-16-2008 -- War in Georgia may put space station at risk The fighting in Georgia could shut down NASA manned space missions for years, fears a U.S. senator. "In an election year, it was going to be very difficult to get that waiver to pay hundreds of millions of dollars to an increasingly aggressive Russia, where the prime minister is acting more and more like a czar," Nelson told the Washington Post . More... Aug-16-2008 -- Graves Found From Sahara's Green Period Archaeologist Elena Garcea of the University of Cassino in Italy helped identify the poorly known cultures so well-preserved at the site. Two seasons of excavation supported by the National Geographic Society eventually revealed some 200 graves clearly belonging to two successive lakeside populations. More... Aug-16-2008 -- Gag Order Fuels Responsible Disclosure Debate MIT students seemed to have hacked the Charlie Card System and could obtain free public transportation for life. One of the pictures included in the presentation the students planned to give. More... Aug-16-2008 -- NASA Has Its Closest Look at Geysers on Saturn Moon NASA's Cassini spacecraft this week identified the source of geyserlike jets of ice erupting from Saturn's moon Enceladus. A special technique, dubbed "skeet shooting" by the imaging team, was developed to cancel out the high speed of the moon relative to Cassini and obtain the ultra-sharp views. More... Aug-16-2008 -- Microsoft to unveil Windows 7 features next month Microsoft has told the blogosphere it will reveal more about its next operating system, Windows 7, on 27 October. Michael Cherry, the lead analyst for operating systems at Redmond, Wash. -based Directions on Microsoft, which tracks the company, said the posting would likely be reassuring to the third-party developers with whom Microsoft works on new software releases, and suggested that the company was broadly on track for the release. More... Aug-16-2008 -- TSA starts allowing checkpoint-friendly bags Savvy travelers can begin ignoring that commandment of air travel beginning Saturday, when the Transportation Security Administration begins recognizing the latest innovation in aviation security -- checkpoint-friendly computer bags. "We believe the proposed penalties are excessive," the airline added. More... Aug-16-2008 -- Caribbean System May Become Tropical Depression Today (Update2) UPDATE: Satellite imagery and radar data from Puerto Rico and the Dominican Republic indicate that the low pressure area centered over the Mona Passage is becoming better organized. The Emergency Operations Center remains at Activation Level 3 (Monitoring) and is prepared to increase our activation level if required. More... Aug-16-2008 -- Burnout Paradise to see rerelease as a downloadable PS3 title The PlayStation Network release will sell for $29.99 and will incorporate all of the recent updates that Criterion has so far released for the game. Criterion Games has taken quite a few risks with their latest Burnout title, nearly all of which have only made the experience more enjoyable for gamers. More... Aug-16-2008 -- Tulip Systems tries to keep other Georgia's Web sites safe Zero Day's Dancho Danchev is having none of it. The New York Times August 13, 2008 Weeks before bombs started falling on Georgia, a security researcher in suburban Massachusetts was watching an attack against the country in cyberspace. More... Aug-16-2008 -- Court: University of California can reject Christian school classes A federal judge has ruled the University of California can deny course credit to Christian high school graduates who have been taught with textbooks that reject evolution and declare the Bible infallible, the San Francisco Chronicle reported. Christian Mom, do you think some one who attended a Scientology high school and was taught the scientology view on the history of our planet should be allowed credit for that? If you don't then you are a hypocrite. More... Aug-16-2008 -- The great (and sometimes serious) debate about Pluto Although Neil Tyson and Mark Sykes disagree on how to classify Pluto and other bodies in the solar system, "there are also many areas on which we will agree," Sykes said. And, round seems like a decent definition, but I would not want a bb pellet to be considered a planet. More... Aug-16-2008 -- Key legal win for open sSource SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — In a crucial win for the free software movement, a federal appeals court has ruled that even software developers who give away the programming code for their works can sue for copyright infringement if someone misappropriates that material. The ruling by the U.S. Court of Appeals is seen as having important ramifications for the licensing of open-source software. More... Aug-16-2008 -- NASA: Mars Lander sends most detailed Martian pics yet LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - NASA's Mars Phoenix Lander has sent back the first-ever image of a speck of red Martian dust taken through an atomic force microscope, shown at a higher magnification than anything ever seen from another planet. The Phoenix lander is currently continuing the work of Opportunity and Spirit, NASA's Mars rovers that had been on the Red Planet's surface for about four years. More... Aug-16-2008 -- Palm Treo 850 reemerges as the (slick) Treo Pro The Treo Pro appears to be the official name of the previously leaked Treo 850 . We already saw spy shots of the Treo 850 back in May, and now Gizmodo (via WM Experts ) has a fresh set , along with a new name for the long-rumored handset: the Treo Pro. More... Aug-16-2008 -- Microsoft Adds ActiveX Fix For Monster Patch Release Critical patch four, Microsoft contends, resolves four privately reported vulnerabilities in Microsoft Office Excel that could allow an RCE attack if a user opens a specially crafted Excel file. In July, Microsoft reported Office Access was falling victim to targeted attacks trying to take advantage of a bug in the ActiveX control for Snapshot Viewer. More... Friday Aug-15-2008 -- What's Behind the iPhone 3G Glitches Om has complained about his frustration with the 3G iPhone, which has poor reception and forces him to spend more time on the 2.5G EDGE network than he thought, but the issue may be with Infineon's 3G chip, according to Richard Windsor, an analyst with Nomura Securities. Must want to have their summer back. More... Aug-15-2008 -- Men call press conference to discuss Bigfoot discovery Two Northern California men and two Georgians say they've got a body, a photo and DNA evidence pertaining to the elusive forest-dwelling man-ape and that they'll reveal all at a press conference in Palo Alto, Calif., on Friday. According to the press release the creature that was discovered is 7 feet and 7 inches tall, and weighs 500 pounds. More... Aug-15-2008 -- Court tells students to disclose hacker secrets in T case The temporary restraining order, issued by a U.S. district judge in Massachusetts, precluded the students from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology from showing at the Defcon conference held in Las Vegas how to benefit from the weaknesses of the system in order to travel for free, The Associated Press reported. The Boston-area transportation authority argued that the presentation would cause "significant damage to the MBTA's transit system," according to an online posting of the lawsuit. More... Aug-15-2008 -- Smartphone Is Expected via Google According to TmoNews we may even be able to order one as early as 17 September from T-Mobile USA. I am returning my iPhone 3G today and if this rumor is true I think this will be my next mobile purchase. If the latest rumors are true, we will see on Sept. 17 T-Mobile's G1 going head to head with Apple's iPhone and HTC's Windows Mobile counterparts, the Touch Diamond and Touch Pro . More... Aug-15-2008 -- Cyberwarfare Escalates Between Georgia, Russia Zero Day's Dancho Danchev is having none of it. The attacks weren't entirely successful, since limited retaliations against Russian sites have succeeded. More... Aug-15-2008 -- Dell Latitude's E-Family Values "Boundaries for businesses are virtual. Speaking at the Asia-Pacific launch of the new Latitude line-up, Michael Dell observed that '''no other demand has shaped the industry more than the need to be mobile. More... Aug-15-2008 -- Intel's new Remote Wake is an alarm clock for PCs Select Intel motherboards with support for Intel Remote Wake technology will be available next month. Orb spokesman Ron Perrotta said the technology provides the ability to leave the PC in a low energy-consumption sleep mode and awaken it from afar in order to do something like download music files from home to an Internet-enabled mobile phone. More... Aug-15-2008 -- Archaeologists get a glimpse of life in a Sahara Eden Archaeologist Elena Garcea of the University of Cassino in Italy helped identify the site's poorly known cultures so well-preserved at the site. BRACELET GIRL. Some 4800 years ago, this 11-year-old Tenerian girl was buried wearing an upper-arm bracelet carved from the tusk of a hippo, discovered by National Geographic Explorer-in-Residence Paul Sereno and his team. More... Aug-15-2008 -- Open Source Copyrights Legally Enforceable, Appeals Court Rules Jacobsen, who manages open source software group Java Model Railroad Interface, accused commercial software developers for the model train industry Matthew Katzer and Kamind Associates Inc of a breach of copyright. A very good ruling, and a very good day, for open source. More... Aug-15-2008 -- NPD: NCAA Football sacks July Sony sold 224,900 PlayStation 3 consoles in the United States in July, according to data released Thursday by the NPD Group research firm. The PS3 posted sales of 224,900 units in July to represent a 99 percent hardware sales growth from the year prior to date. More... Aug-15-2008 -- Apple sends the wrong signal to iPhone customers Jobs said iPhone application developers earned about $21 million during the first month, with the top 10 developers raking in roughly $9 million. A year ago, Apple said it would never allow native apps on the iPhone at all. More... Aug-15-2008 -- AMD's New Sales Pitch: Seeing is Buying In addition to the 4870 X2, the $399 ATI Radeon HD 4850 X2 was released Tuesday. The reviews are in for AMD's new high-end 3D card--the embargoed, but not exactly secret 2GB Radeon HD 4870 X2--and the official results are as enthusiastic as the previews. More... Aug-15-2008 -- Yes, Fire Eagle's cool. It also freaks me out Web giant Yahoo is catching flack more typically reserved for Google this week, as it announced the general availability of location mapping service Fire Eagle. Yahoo has launched a new location-based platform for Web users and developers. More... Aug-15-2008 -- Discord With Russia a Worry for NASA NASA's first manned test flight of the Orion spacecraft that will replace the retiring U.S. space shuttles won't launch until 2014, a year later than the agency hoped, due to funding and technical concerns, program managers said Monday. "The bottom line is that X-37 did not meet the needs any longer, from a headquarters perspective, for the exploration mission," Dan Dumbacher, the former program manager at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala., told Discovery News. More... Aug-15-2008 -- Facebook's global growth catapults it to #1 worldwide 'While the social networking trend first took off in North America, it is beginning to reach a point of maturity in the region,' Flanagan said. "MySpace was only able to 3% worldwide growth over the past year," O'Neill added. More... Aug-15-2008 -- Blizzard raffling additional BlizzCon tix "On behalf of everyone at Blizzard, I want to apologize for the challenges and frustrations you experienced while trying to purchase BlizzCon tickets on Monday and Tuesday," lamented Morhaime. BlizzCon is about the positive experiences you all have had with Blizzard games. More... Aug-15-2008 -- Where on earth are these Microsoft patches? Critical patch four, Microsoft contends, resolves four privately reported vulnerabilities in Microsoft Office Excel that could allow an RCE attack if a user opens a specially crafted Excel file. The five non-critical patches target Microsoft's Office applications: Access, Excel and Powerpoint. More... Aug-15-2008 -- Report: US falling further behind on broadband speeds, reach The report is based on data gathered from about 230,000 Internet users who took the online Speed Matters Speed Test , a project of the Communications Workers of America (CWA). Rhode Island, the smallest state, has the fastest median download speed with 6.8 Mbps, while Alaska, the largest, has the slowest at 0.8 Mbps, says a CWA survey. More... Aug-15-2008 -- NASA Won't Launch Fall Shuttle Missions Early NASA initially canceled Atlantis's STS-125 mission to Hubble after the tragic 2003 loss of Columbia and its seven-astronaut crew. The Hubble launch slipped to Oct. 8 and Endeavour's flight was delayed from mid October to Nov. 10. More... Thursday Aug-14-2008 -- Longtime Battle Lines Are Recast In Russia and Georgia's Cyberwar A representative of the Development Centre of State Information Systems said that by now Georgia has not yet made a formal proposal. Georgia's parliament and foreign ministry sites have also repeatedly been disabled, allegedly by attacks from networks of hijacked computers. More... Aug-14-2008 -- Yahoo introduces services that lets users broadcast their location For all its troubles battling with shareholders and having failed to merge with Microsoft, Yahoo has managed to spit out an interesting new service today: Fire Eagle . "We can bring the same functionality to Yahoo properties," said Tom Coates, head of product at Yahoo Brickhouse, a home for start-up-like projects within Yahoo. More... Aug-14-2008 -- Intel readies new remote PC access function Internet telephony company JaJah proposed to take VoIP services to the masses on Thursday, by partnering with chip giant Intel and playing the green card. Intel has developed technology that allows users to remotely power up their computers and retrieve files across an Internet connection, according to a report on The Wall Street Journal 's Web site Wednesday. More... Aug-14-2008 -- Facebook Stands Atop Social Networking World Social networking continues to burgeon worldwide as sites increase their focus on cultural relevance, new figures suggest. In Latin America, the number of new users on social networking sites rose by 33%. More... Aug-14-2008 -- Defcon's over but MBTA wants gag order to remain Lawyers at a digital rights nonprofit worry that a U.S. District Court ruling banning three college students from detailing vulnerability findings at recent hacker conference could set a dangerous anti-free speech precedent involving the presentation of security research. I'm surprised your client feels that the Report does not pose a risk, given that it contains information my clients intended to keep confidential. More... Aug-14-2008 -- Friday is the big day for Bigfoot believers Two Northern California men and two Georgians say they've got a body, a photo and DNA evidence pertaining to the elusive forest-dwelling man-ape and that they'll reveal all at a press conference in Palo Alto, Calif., on Friday. Whitton and Dryer have given a description of the creature, saying it is 7'7" tall and weighs over five hundred pounds. More... Aug-14-2008 -- Dell courts business nomads with new laptops Branded Dell Latitude ON, the system uses a dedicated low-voltage sub-processor and operating system the company said can enable multi-day battery life. Coinciding with the introduction of Dell's new laptops, the company also launched a new community site called Digital Nomads. More... Aug-14-2008 -- 18-month beatdown: Google search crushing Microsoft, Yahoo According to a four-week study from Hitwise that ended on 26 July, the search engine behemoth grabbed a whopping 70.77 percent U.S. search market share, followed by Yahoo with 18.65 percent. Under the deal, due to take effect after a waiting period meant to help smooth regulatory approval, Google would supply Yahoo with advertising services to run alongside Yahoo's own Web search system. More... Aug-14-2008 -- What May Be Behind the iPhone 3G Glitches Om has complained about his frustration with the 3G iPhone, which has poor reception and forces him to spend more time on the 2.5G EDGE network than he thought, but the issue may be with Infineon's 3G chip, according to Richard Windsor, an analyst with Nomura Securities. In the United States, others have had similar issues, but the ATT 3G network is still fairly new and doesn't have strong coverage, compared to the Optus Network in Australia that has been in place for years (my last Nokia was 3G nearly 3 years ago and worked). More... Aug-14-2008 -- Senator: Georgia Fighting Could Shut Down US Space Program NASA's first manned test flight of the Orion spacecraft that will replace the retiring U.S. space shuttles won't launch until 2014, a year later than the agency hoped, due to funding and technical concerns, program managers said Monday. The agency also discussed budget plans, schedule and technical performance milestones for the Constellation Program. More... Aug-14-2008 -- 'Slow' light to speed up the net A team of scientists, led by Xiang Zhang, working at the University of California, Berkeley, has managed to find a way to cloak 3D objects with the use of especially designed materials that have the ability to redirect light. The new work moves scientists a step closer to hiding people and objects from visible light, which could have broad applications, including military ones. More... Aug-14-2008 -- Congress to Push Web Privacy In the wake of a congressional inquiry into how Internet companies and ISPs track their users' activities, Yahoo on Friday announced that it would it would allow users to opt out of customized advertising by month's end. Whether those changes (and new rhetoric expressing the companies' concern for users' privacy) will ward off government interest in further regulation is anyone's guess; the industry, naturally, prefers self-regulation. More... Aug-14-2008 -- US High Speed Net Adoption Ranks 15th Among Industrialized Nations The report is based on data gathered from about 230,000 Internet users who took the online Speed Matters Speed Test , a project of the Communications Workers of America (CWA). The Speed Matters test was launched in 2006 to bring attention to the disparities in broadband speeds between states and, more importantly, countries. More... Aug-14-2008 -- Science NASA Celebrates Hubble Space Telescope's 100000th Orbit Here's a detail of a new image the Hubble Space Telescope released to celebrate its 100,000th orbit of Earth. The high-energy radiation blazing out from clusters of hot young stars already born in NGC 2074 is sculpting the wall of the nebula by slowly eroding it away. More... Aug-14-2008 -- AMD to Nvidia: Two chips are better than one The new cards combine two ATI Radeon HD 4800 series GPUs using a faster PCIe 2.0-based interconnect and 2GB of frame buffer memory. A win in graphics would be a major boost to AMD, quieting much of the grumbling over the $5.4 billion purchase of ATI in 2006. More... Aug-14-2008 -- Hands-on impressions of Logitech's new clip-and-go mouse Notebook users often find that they just can't use the trackpad on their notebooks and prefer to add a notebook mouse to their computer. I think the Logitech mouse also has space to store the receiver in the battery compartment also (http://www.extremetech.com/article2/0,2845,2327551,00.asp). More... Aug-14-2008 -- Box Office returns to the App Store I can't talk about it and I can't talk about why." More... Aug-14-2008 -- Lenovo Offers Mobile Workstation With Built-In Graphics Tablet Lenovo today introduced the ThinkPad W700, a 17-inch widescreen mobile workstation offering unique innovations like a built-in digitizer surface and color calibrator for graphic artists and designers. Lenovo's ThinkPad W700 is the first to market with the Core 2 Extreme Quad Core processor. More... Aug-14-2008 -- Intel's First Nehalem Server Chips Set For Q4 Production Intel's metronomic "tick-tock" technology road map includes die shrinks like last year's move from 65nm to 45nmthe "tick"and major microarchitecture changes, or "tocks," like Nehalem. Further details about the new chips are set to be revealed at Intel Developer Forum, which will be held in San Francisco's Moscone Center between August 19 and 21. More... Wednesday Aug-13-2008 -- Best Buy to sell iPhones starting Sept. 7 Stand-alone Best Buy Mobile shops, which have opened in about 15 U.S. cities, will also sell the device, which requires a two-year contract with carrier AT&T Inc to operate. We wouldn't expect any of the other Apple or AT&T policies about iPhone purchases to be different for phones bought at Best Buy. More... Aug-13-2008 -- Yahoo's Web Location Platform Fire Eagle Takes Flight Yahoo's Brickhouse incubator opened its latest work: Fire Eagle, a location data management platform for web applications. "We can bring the same functionality to Yahoo properties," said Tom Coates, head of product at Yahoo Brickhouse, a home for start-up-like projects within Yahoo. More... Aug-13-2008 -- Before the Gunfire, Cyberattacks Hackers known as the South Ossetia Hack Crew have directed denial-of-service attacks against prominent Georgian Web sites as the country's Parliament and its president, Mikheil Saakashvili. Amid the obviously more serious real-word consequences in the ongoing Russia-Georgia conflict, the parallel virtual battle has been garnering a fair amount of attention. More... Aug-13-2008 -- Dell Launches E-Series Latitude Notebook Range 'The new Latitude laptops and Dell Precision mobile workstations represent the largest client product development effort in the history of Dell,' said Jeff Clarke, senior vice president, Dell Product Group. The new E-series Latitude and Precision range includes ultra-portables, rugged notebooks and mobile workstations. More... Aug-13-2008 -- AMD Unveils Latest Dual-Chip Graphics Card The new cards combine two ATI Radeon HD 4800 series GPUs using a faster PCIe 2.0-based interconnect and 2GB of frame buffer memory. AMD offered a taste of the graphics capability of the 4870 X2 in June, showing reporters at the Computex exhibition a brief, but very realistic-looking, clip of the company's female mascot, Ruby, being chased down a city street by a four-legged robot. More... Aug-13-2008 -- 'Slow' light to speed up the net Valentine, Zhang, and Zentgraf layered conducting silver and non-conducting magnesium fluoride. In essence, an observer looking at the cloaked object would then see light from behind it, making it seem to disappear. More... Aug-13-2008 -- Navy to restrict sonar use to protect whales The settlement in federal court restricts the Navy's use of low-frequency sonar to training areas near Hawaii and in the western Pacific Ocean. The Natural Resources Defense Council, a plaintiff in the suit, said Navy studies have found that low-frequency sonar can disrupt whale behavior more than 300 miles away. More... Aug-13-2008 -- Facebook: No. 1 Globally Social networking continues to burgeon worldwide as sites increase their focus on cultural relevance, new figures suggest. Friendster was one of the first major U.S networks to translate into Chinese. More... Aug-13-2008 -- Lenovo W700: desktop replacement par excellence Lenovo today introduced the ThinkPad W700, a 17-inch widescreen mobile workstation offering unique innovations like a built-in digitizer surface and color calibrator for graphic artists and designers. Here the W700 packs in DisplayPort, VGA, and Dual Link DVI so it will easily drive extra displays, even large ones. More... Aug-13-2008 -- Ore. contenders differ on endangered species plan WASHINGTON (AFP) — The administration of U.S. President George W. Bush has proposed revisions to the Endangered Species Act (ESA) so that the law can not be used to regulate the emission of greenhouse gases. Big Surprise that it is buisness as usual for the Bush Administration. More... Aug-13-2008 -- NASA's Constellation has a hiccup: First flight delayed to 2014 NASA's first manned test flight of the Orion spacecraft that will replace the retiring U.S. space shuttles won't launch until 2014, a year later than the agency hoped, due to funding and technical concerns, program managers said Monday. NASA plans to land astronauts on the moon by 2020. More... Aug-13-2008 -- Vetting the App Store approval process In the month since Apple opened an online software clearinghouse called the App Store, users have downloaded more than 60 million programs for the iPhone, Chief Executive Steve Jobs said in an interview at Apple's headquarters. Given Apple's 30 percent cut on all software sales, that means Apple has made $9 million during the first month--not bad for a store that is heavy on the free apps and even heavier on the cheap ones. More... Aug-13-2008 -- Mass. agency will argue MIT students should stay gagged Lawyers at a digital rights nonprofit worry that a U.S. District Court ruling banning three college students from detailing vulnerability findings at recent hacker conference could set a dangerous anti-free speech precedent involving the presentation of security research. Opsahl says the judge, during the hearing, likened the students' conference presentation to transmitting code to a computer. More... Aug-13-2008 -- Microsoft Releases 11 Updates for Patch Tuesday, 6 Critical Once the malicious payload was installed, the attacker could then gain full login privileges and take complete control of an affected machine. Microsoft said last week that it plans to implement two new security programs ]] two new security programs giving antivirus, security vendors and some customers early access to soon-to-be-patched vulnerabilities and producing a new exploitability index. More... Aug-13-2008 -- Surprise, surprise: US broadband is slow. Really slow. The report is based on data gathered from about 230,000 Internet users who took the online Speed Matters Speed Test , a project of the Communications Workers of America (CWA). Japanese users leaves U.S. users behind with an eye-popping 63.60 Mb/s download link. More... Aug-13-2008 -- EA Reveals Henry Hatsworth In The Puzzling Adventure Love puzzle games, but also love an adventure? Now you can have both in one game with Henry Hatsworth in the Puzzling Adventure, an exclusive Nintendo DS adventure-puzzle game that adds a new element of fun by combining the action of an adventure game with the challenge of a puzzle game all in one. The game centers on Henry Hatsworth, a quirky character who you must guide on a journey through an adventure through five exotic worlds. More... Aug-13-2008 -- Electronic Art sets 'Madden' sales blitz Word going round the crowd is that the game's publisher, Electronic Arts, will soon post a downloadable version of the cover with Favre in a Jets uniform. Stocks to Watch Today is a daily update on the stocks and market conditions that investors should know about today, written by Barron's Online stocks columnist Bob O'Brien. More... Aug-13-2008 -- Analyst: Infineon chipset possible cause of iPhone 3G issues Om has complained about his frustration with the 3G iPhone, which has poor reception and forces him to spend more time on the 2.5G EDGE network than he thought, but the issue may be with Infineon's 3G chip, according to Richard Windsor, an analyst with Nomura Securities. Of course, Windsor is the same analyst who last year speculated that the original iPhone's screen would begin deteriorating over time, after three to six months. More... Aug-13-2008 -- Hubble celebrates 100000 Working from Space Shuttle Endeavour, the astronauts will also fix a few things. The former astronaut was part of four space flights and undertook space walking to repair the Hubble telescope on a service mission. More... Tuesday Aug-12-2008 -- More Apple iPhone controls revealed The Wall Street Journal quoted Cupertino-based Apple (NASDAQ: AAPL) CEO Jobs as saying that the company also sold about $1 million daily in applications, equaling about $30 million in a month's time. The premium iPhone applications earned something like $1 million per day for the past month. More... Aug-12-2008 -- Cal scientists on the trail of invisibility Researchers at the University of California, Berkeley have developed two new types of materials that can bend light the wrong way, creating the first step toward an invisibility cloaking device. The Berkeley work is part of an emerging field called metamaterial science - the deliberate creation of structures designed to play subtle tricks on all sorts of light waves. More... Aug-12-2008 -- AMD Aims High-end Graphics Cards at Nvidia The new cards combine two ATI Radeon HD 4800 series GPUs using a faster PCIe 2.0-based interconnect and 2GB of frame buffer memory. In June, AMD showcased "Cinema 2.0", highlighted by a "video" of a realistic street scene, that, when paused by an AMD executive, revealed itself as a virtual scene that could be traversed using the "camera". More... Aug-12-2008 -- Go MIT! (or should the students get a slap on the wrists?) Lawyers at a digital rights nonprofit worry that a U.S. District Court ruling banning three college students from detailing vulnerability findings at recent hacker conference could set a dangerous anti-free speech precedent involving the presentation of security research. Anderson said the tools scheduled to be released helped streamline research into whether payment systems from other transit agencies were vulnerable to the same types of attacks. More... Aug-12-2008 -- Web Firms Tell Congress They Track Behavior Without Consent Yahoo already has an existing opt-out program for customized advertising on third party networks, and the set of online privacy options comes as an addition to that. Yahoo said Friday that it will allow users to opt out of custom ads on its network. More... Aug-12-2008 -- VoIP Coming Soon To iPhone 3G "The popularity of the iPhone, along with the emergence of various applications and faster connectivity, makes it an ideal platform for developing applications that incorporate quality real-time VoIP, giving consumers real-world communication experiences like in-game, multi-person chat," says Emerick Woods, GIPS' CEO. "We are excited to enable the iPhone with VoIP capabilities and lead the mobile communications market with our voice processing technology. Global IP Solutions is also the inventor of the internet Low Bit Rate Codec (iLBC), a narrowband speech algorithm designed to optimize calls made over the Internet. More... Aug-12-2008 -- HP Brings DreamColor Accuracy to Mobile Power Users Though HP hasn't announced specific configurations or pricing, the 8730w will offer Intel Core 2 Duo or Core 2 quad-core processors; up to 8GB of memory; and the NVIDIA Quadro FX 3700M with 1GB, Quadro FX 2700M with 512MB, or ATI Mobility FireGL V5725 with 256MB. (The Nvidia Quadro is required with the DreamColor display.) Over at the SIGGRAPH conference in Los Angeles, it's taken the wraps of its new EliteBook 8730w Mobile Workstation - a laptop it claims is the first with an Intel mobile quad-core processor and the first to sport a true high-color display. More... Aug-12-2008 -- NASA pushes back new space program "If we tried to please everybody the spacecraft would not get off the ground." Because of weight and other issues, it said that Orion was being stripped of many redundant and some safety systems. More... Aug-12-2008 -- Perseid meteor shower puts on annual show in night sky If you're a morning person, or at least don't mind getting up really early to see something really cool, you should try to catch the Perseid meteor shower at its peak. Most of the meteors are no larger than a grain of sand. More... Aug-12-2008 -- Intel Plans Quad-Core Nehalem Chips For High-End Desktops Intel's metronomic "tick-tock" technology road map includes die shrinks like last year's move from 65nm to 45nmthe "tick"and major microarchitecture changes, or "tocks," like Nehalem. What do you think of Intel's new branding scheme for Nehalem? Share your thoughts in the forums. More... Aug-12-2008 -- A Hubble Anniversary and a Successful Collider Test Scientists targeted Hubble's camera eye at part of a nebula near the star cluster NGC 2074 about 170,000 light-years from the Earth to celebrate the event. KENNEDY SPACE CENTER -- ''The seven astronauts headed to the Hubble Space Telescope''on the next shuttle mission''are expected to talk to the media''Monday. More... Aug-12-2008 -- The Greater the Threat, the Hotter the Chili The spiciness is a defence mechanism that some peppers develop to suppress a microbial fungus that invades through tiny holes made in the outer skin by insects. Wild chilli plants produce spicy chemicals in their fruit in order to deter fungal invaders, U.S. researchers have shown. More... Aug-12-2008 -- Best Buy kiosks coming to airports Best Buy (Web site: www.bestbuy.com ), the consumer electronics dealer, is to launch gadget vending machines across a number of U.S. airports. Best Buy is partnering with ZoomSystems, a San Francisco, Calif. -based automated vending company that already has Macy-branded kiosks selling Apple iPods and Sony airport locations that sell PlayStation video games, headphones and the Sony e-reader. More... Aug-12-2008 -- Star Trek Online Game Footage Unveiled Developer sheds new light on title. Recently Cryptic Studios released more details on Star Trek Online, and now the first trailer has been unveiled. 12690 Shackvideo. More... Aug-12-2008 -- Ford Pledges High Quality In Upcoming Small Cars TRAVERSE CITY -- In a direct challenge to Toyota Motor Corp., Ford Motor Co.' s quality chief this morning vowed that his company's new line of compact cars will launch with the best quality in the industry. Ford is hoping to build on the quality gains it has made over the past several years, which have allowed the Dearborn automaker to challenge Toyota and other Japanese automakers at the top of influential rankings like the recently released J.D. Power and Associates annual survey of vehicle dependability. More... Aug-12-2008 -- Strong Bad's Cool Game for Attractive People Episode 1: Homestar ... There are two groups of people who don't even need to read a review of Strong Bad's Cool Game for Attractive People, Episode 1: Homestar Ruiner. Strong Bad and friends have been entertaining the internet for over eight years now, combining colorful characters and pop culture reference to create one of the web's rare clean destinations for comedic entertainment. More... Aug-12-2008 -- BlizzCon ticket demand griefs site BlizzCon 2008 ticket sales have been temporarily taken offline while Blizzard alters the website to handle outrageous consumer demand for the event. The makers of World of Warcraft, Starcraft and Diablo have planned a two-day event to be held on October 10th and 11th. More... Aug-12-2008 -- Hitachi kicks out triple media Blu-ray camcorder Record on HDD, SDHC or Blu-ray with the new Hitachi DZ-BD10HA Hybrid Camcorder. Hitachi has integrated a 30 GB hard drive, which reportedly will let you store up to 4 hours, 20 minutes of 1920 x 1080 video or 8 hours, 40 minutes of 1440 x 1080 video on it. More... Monday Aug-11-2008 -- Intel to brand next-gen CPUs 'Core i7' SANTA CLARA, Calif. (AP) — Intel Corp. said Sunday it plans to sell its new generation of chips for desktop computers under the established "Core" brand, with the first chips of the new line to be called Core i7. The Nehalem processor family includes multiple processor cores and an integrated memory controller hub to improve performance. More... Aug-11-2008 -- Jobs: App Store is huge; iPhone has a kill switch Which is why Steve Jobs's memo, manning up to the massive customer dissatisfaction surrounding MobileMe, constitutes a major breakthrough. If it does, it'd be great news for consumers, whose portable music selection is currently limited by the relatively small hard drives in Apple's iPhone and iPod touch. More... Aug-11-2008 -- Steve Jobs: 60 million iPhone apps downloaded Apple, which was collecting $300 for every copy that sold (and at least eight did, developer Armin Heinrich told Silicon Alley News ), may well have received complaints and felt obliged to protect unwitting customers. Nullriver, the developer behind the only known iPhone 3G tethering software for Mac, say it has now managed to make contact with Apple to end uncertainty as to the fate of its much-requested application, NetShare. More... Aug-11-2008 -- The Invisible Man. A scientific breakthrough Now this is a super cool new Science story. An international team has engineered a material that can control visible light's direction of travel -- bending it around objects to render anything from people to large objects like ships and tanks invisible. More... Aug-11-2008 -- MIT hacker: I tried to help MBTA Three MIT students are being taken to court by the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority after receiving information about their plans to disclose sensitive information about several security flaws in the Charlie-Ticket and the CharlieCard systems. The Boston-area transportation authority argued that the presentation would cause "significant damage to the MBTA's transit system," according to an online posting of the lawsuit. More... Aug-11-2008 -- Web Privacy on the Radar in Congress The Washington Post The Washington Post is reporting that Yahoo will allow users to shut off targeted advertising on its Web sites, a decision that comes in direct response to a congressional committee's concerns about consumer privacy. Yahoo said Friday that it will allow users to opt out of custom ads on its network. More... Aug-11-2008 -- Star Trek Online Unveiled Developer sheds new light on title. You'll be able to beam down to planets with your bridge crew, and all that kind of stuff." More... Aug-11-2008 -- Astronomy meets tradition in tonight's meteor shower As night settles in this evening, our planet silently plunges through the orbit of comet Swift-Tuttle, encountering debris left over by the comet each time it approaches the sun, every 130 years. Sometimes you'll see two or even three Perseids streak across the sky in quick succession, all within less than minute. More... Aug-11-2008 -- NBC Faces Olympic Pirates Under the partnership with NBC, Microsoft's Silverlight technology will deliver more than 3,000 hours of on-demand video coverage of the events and more than 2,200 hours of live coverage from China. Wow, the Olympic Games, brought to you by NBC and Microsoft, with the blessing of the benevolent government of China. More... Aug-11-2008 -- Rumour: T-Mobile USA planning portfolio-spanning App Store Unlike Apple's App Store, the one that T-Mobile will create will offer applications for all types of phones that the carrier sells. A handy way to store Web pages on your iPhone or Touch for reading when you'''re oNine. More... Aug-11-2008 -- Defcon 16 Kicks Off In Controversy The three journalists, Dominique Jouniot, Marc Brami and Mauro Israel, representing Global Security Magazine, one of the Black Hat sponsors, were kicked out of the conference after being accused of hacking into the public Wi-Fi network set up for reporters covering the event. After lunch, Isreal, Dominique Jouniot, and Marc Brami from Global Security Mag moved to the table where I was sitting with my colleague Elinor Mills. More... Aug-11-2008 -- Godfather 2 Due in February for Xbox 360, PS3, PC Inspired by the film and Mario Puzo ' s Corleone family drama, The Godfather II game goes beyond the film ' s story by setting players in the world of organized crime in 1960 ' s Florida, Cuba and New York. Electronic Arts and Paramount Digital Entertainment are set to give gamers an offer they can't refuse. More... Aug-11-2008 -- Airlines look to please tech-savvy passengers American flight operator Delta Air Lines has today confirmed a communications deal with Aircell LLC that will enable passengers travelling throughout the continental United States to enjoy the onboard connectivity benefits associated with broadband Wi-Fi access. MD88/90s will be the first planes to get the service, starting as early as September. More... Aug-11-2008 -- Ex-Google Engineers Unveil New Search Engine According to a study completed by the Pew Internet & American Life Project, close to 50 percent of all internet users use the search engines on a daily basis. Pew noted that young, college-educated users with extensive experience of the internet are most likely to head to a search engine everyday, while also pointing out that search is now more popular than checking the news and weather on the web. More... Aug-11-2008 -- New technique IDs substances, not just fingerprints The new technique reveals, in extraordinary detail, the chemical compounds that make up the print and could also find medical uses, since tiny traces of chemicals at our fingertips could signal the presence of a disease or an illness. In (A), mass spectrometry is used to produce a fingerprint by imaging the presence of cocaine; the mass-spectrometry fingerprint can be employed as a starting point for a computerized image (B) generated using commercial fingerprint-analysis software. More... Aug-11-2008 -- Microsoft Investing In 'Open Source' Lab In Philippines IBM has recently started a campaign to promote open source software products. One of the great tech non-events of the last few years involves Linux on PCs. More... Aug-11-2008 -- Facebook Was in Talks to Buy German Social Site When Facebook sued the German leader in social networking, StudiVZ, last month, it contended that the company had illegally copied Facebook's "look and feel" with similar graphics and features. I am German and I can tell you: studiVZ is be the most popular social network in the german speaking world but it is also known for scaring users off due to stupid management decisions as selling the users data (terms) or not protecting the user's privacy. More... Aug-11-2008 -- Canon rolls out three new HD camcorders Canon has launched two new high definition camcorders that record HD footage to their own high-capacity internal Hard Disk Drives (HDD). The Canon HG20 holds 60GB Hard Disk Drive for recording up to 22 hours of HD videos. More... Aug-11-2008 -- 2008 Toyota Prius Try to find one Japanese automaker Nissan has showcased a prototype electric vehicle which is part of their program to develop green technology products. As you might expect, the EV-02 is uncannily quiet, with just a soft and not unpleasant motor whir. More... Sunday Aug-10-2008 -- T sues 3 students before hacker show U.S. District Judge Douglas P. Woodlock issued the order at the request of the Massachusetts Bay Transit Authority, which sued the three students and MIT on Friday. "Nevertheless, the court disagreed with that interpretation." More... Aug-10-2008 -- Apple boots $1000 app from App Store Apple, which was collecting $300 for every copy that sold (and at least eight did, developer Armin Heinrich told Silicon Alley News ), may well have received complaints and felt obliged to protect unwitting customers. The "I Am Rich" app was not a scam. More... Aug-10-2008 -- Airlines look to please tech-savvy passengers Billed as "Wi-Fi with wings," the service will cost a flat fee of $9.95 for flights three hours or less and $12.95 for flights more than three hours. The airline was also named World's Best Domestic Airline by Travel + Leisure magazine. More... Aug-10-2008 -- Olympics Online, With a Hook All of the digital content will be available at no cost, but it will be accessible only to viewers in the United States. In addition to it, Google has created a mobile website as a general repository of Olympic information. More... Aug-10-2008 -- Ignoring poisons back here on Earth The latest heady rumor: that the spacecraft Phoenix now analyzing soil and ice on the arctic plains of Mars had discovered chemicals so startling and so relevant to the search for life on the Red Planet that the White House and the president's science advisers have been secretly briefed, even though NASA would not share the information with the public. During Tuesday's teleconference, the scientists did indeed discuss the perchlorate find and its significance. More... Aug-10-2008 -- Defcon 16 Kicks Off In Controversy The three journalists, Dominique Jouniot, Marc Brami and Mauro Israel, representing Global Security Magazine, one of the Black Hat sponsors, were kicked out of the conference after being accused of hacking into the public Wi-Fi network set up for reporters covering the event. The interloping reporters allegedly swiped passwords belonging to journalists at CNET and eWeek. More... Aug-10-2008 -- Journals week in review: Apple news from Infinite Loop Among admitting that perhaps it wasn't the best idea to launch the whole thing at once (along with the iPhone 3G, iPhone 2.0 software and the App Store) and that the company could have benefited from a month by month roll-out of the features, Jobs announced that the MobileMe team as of last Monday began reporting to Eddy Cue, who leads all of Apple's internet services. Apple's new 3G