Slashdot Mirror

ShakaUVM writes "A couple of weeks ago without any fanfare or notice in the media, President Obama granted INTERPOL full diplomatic immunity while conducting investigations on American soil. While INTERPOL has been allowed to operate in the US in the past, under an executive order by President Reagan, they've had to follow the same rules as the FBI, CIA, etc., while on American soil. This means, among other things, the new executive order makes INTERPOL immune to Freedom of Information Act requests and that INTERPOL agents cannot be punished for most any crimes they may commit. Hopefully the worst we'll see from this is INTERPOL agents ignoring their speeding tickets." Update: 01/05 02:57 GMT by KD : Reader davecb pointed out an ABC News blog that comes to pretty much the opposite conclusion as to the import of the executive order.

barbarai notes a report by ABC News's Rick Klein: "For those concerned about stimulus spending, the General Services Administration sends word tonight that $18 million in additional funds are being spent to redesign the Recovery.gov Web site. "Recovery.gov 2.0 will use innovative and interactive technologies to help taxpayers see where their dollars are being spent," James A. Williams, commissioner of GSA's Federal Acquisition Service, says in a press release announcing the contract awarded to Maryland-based Smartronix Inc. according to the ABC news blog."

Sniper223 writes with a link to ABC's Blotter blog. That site observes that at least in the realm of US intelligence gathering, the 'are bloggers journalists' question is already decided. "Despite the rap that bloggers simply 'bloviate' and 'don't try to find things out,' as conservative newspaper columnist Robert Novak once sniffed, the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and the National Security Agency (NSA) have altered policies to indicate they're taking blogs seriously, and a growing number of public offices are actively reaching out to the blogosphere. The CIA recently updated its policies on Freedom of Information Act requests to allow bloggers to qualify for special treatment once reserved for old-school reporters. And last August, the NSA issued a directive to its employees to report leaks of classified information to the media — "including blogs," the order said."

jackbird writes "Brian Ross, Chief Investigative Correspondent for ABC news says a confidential source informed him that reporter's phone records are being used by the administration to track down leaks. Apparently reporters for the New York Times, ABC News, and the Washington Post are being scrutinized. The fact that ABC News journalists are even seriously wondering about whether the warning is connected to the NSA's domestic surveillance activities indicates just how anxious many people in Washington have become."

tessaiga writes "ABCNews has an article describing how a student at the University of Alaska (PDF) is conducting research involving supercooling arctic ground squirrels. During hibernation, these squirrels have the ability to reduce their food requirements to almost nothing by supercooling their bloodstream and dropping their internal temperatures to 26F (6 degrees below freezing!). Scientists are investigating how the process occurs without particles in the bloodstream triggering crystalization. The article goes on to mention applications in treating accident victims (to extend the 'golden hour' before brain damage occurs) and human suspended animation."

Baloo Ursidae writes "ABC News is reporting that some little upstart in PA is making dual headed laptops. Orient it like a book, you have two portrait-oriented touch sensitive monitors. Orient it like a laptop, and one of the monitors becomes a soft keyboard. Not cheap, however, they start at $4,000." That is absolutely nuts. More power to 'em!

jonerik writes "For the past hundred years or so motorcycle accidents have had an unfortunate potential for particularly horrific injuries, or worse. Improvements in safety gear have certainly been made in the past few decades, but in some ways those improvements have been balanced out by the tremendous speeds that modern bikes are capable of. According to this article from ABC News, though, Dainese, a protective sports clothing maker in Vicenza, Italy has developed a wearable airbag vest - called the D-Air - designed to cushion riders in the event of an accident. The D-Air vest features a tiny electronic computer referred to as the STM (which stands for Sensing, Triggering, and Memory), which was developed by an Israeli company called Merhav APP. According to the article, the STM contains sensors that monitor the bike's physical motion. 'The sensors onboard the STM will watch for telltale signs -- such as a sudden deceleration force of about ten times that of gravity -- that precede a collision. Once the computer determines an impending accident, the STM blasts the data to receiver in the vest to start the inflation process.' This site also features some pictures of the D-Air vest in action. Dainese plans to begin selling the D-Air vest in Europe in the spring, though American sales will have to wait since the U.S. Department of Transportation has yet to set standards for such a device."

donpardo writes "I upgraded to Flash 6 last week (to patch a security hole). When I right clicked on a Flash ad at abcnews.com, and pulled down to Settings I got a tabbed dialogue box asking if I wanted to give them access to my cam and microphone. Clicking through on the tabs revealed that the microphone and the camera had already been detected and that the microphone was active. I doubt the camera or the microphone were sending information out but this still seems invasive. Here are Macromedia's statements about the mic and the camera. In addition there is a setting to ask how much information the site can store on your computer. The default value is 100K. According to the information statement "Data can be anything from your user name to your current score in an interactive game to a list of stocks in your portfolio ... The data is not public, but the privacy of this data depends on the policies of the web site where the movie is hosted."" I thought the first sentence of this submission was telling ...

Symul writes: "ABCNews has posted a story today about water that, when mixed with a powder derived from the spores of cub moss, behaves much as liquids do in a weightless environment, with the properties of a sponge-like solid. The powder "coats" the droplets of water, adhering to its surface and little else, including itself. Suggested applications have been leak-free water transportation, and small scale lubrication."

Gnight asks: "After reading a recent article at ABC News stating that U.S. citizens work more than any other industrialized country, I have started to wonder more about the subject. So my question is, how much does the average slashdot reader work in a week? Where do you live? and What do you do?" Slashdot did an informal poll on this a long time ago, but it was more from the workday standpoint, though it looked like the majority of us were working 9-10 hour days. Is it still the same today as it was almost 2 years ago?

dachshund writes: "ABCNews.com has an article on some scientists who have managed to bring a corpse's brain cells back to life in a Petri dish. Yikes. Doesn't seem to be a Frankenstien scenario, though-- the main applications have to do with stem cell research. Sort of makes you think, though..."

DaHat writes "ABC News.com is reporting that the latest round of Big Brother Awards are out. This years list includes the FBI's carnivore system being named "Most Invasive Proposal." The NSA won a "Lifetime Menace" award for, allegedly, "50 years of spying" on Americans and others and even the Florida company ChoicePoint was named "greatest corporate invader," for their actions during the Florida recount. Get the whole scoop and whole article here." We should have a different award, the Stalin award or something for entities advancing the destruction of the first ammendment. We can nominate the evil organizations oppressing freedom of speech like the RIAA, the MPAA, and Slashdot.

eastMike writes "ABC News has an article that tells of how "a good chunk of the Internet crashed ? spectacularly" during the election in 1996. I wouldn't have thought this would be much of a concern, but if it had that much of an effect in '96, then who knows. The internet has come a long way since then, but there are also a lot more people using it now." Sort of like the old Victoria's Secret/Super Bowl problem, over the whole net. I doubt we'll see much this year, but it still will be interesting.

hyperstation writes "An article at abcnews.com says that Mir will stay up, thanks to a $27 million donation (that's 750 megarubles) from Russia. Look's like they're not broke after all." *sigh* Someone wake me up when Mir finally falls to the planet.

senort01 writes: "Who couldn't find this humorous? 602P, (the post office will charge for e-mail being sent to make up for lost revenue), a classic Internet hoax, was asked about in the New York Senate debate. Needless to say, both parties aren't going to support it! Thank god!" And for those who prefer their news both more direct and more fun, ContinuousPark writes: "Declan McCullagh's Politechbot mailing list is reporting that the lame e-mail hoax made it into the Clinton-Lazio debate." the_quark helpfully points out not only the famous Bill 602P itself but the USPS's stock page denying its existence.

kylv writes: "Check out this article on abcnews.com telling how a New Mexico group is trying to make the site of the first lunar landing into a National Historical Site."

wecoyote writes ABC News has an article on the completion of the Human Genome Project. Apparently, there is supposed to be a presidential announcement this morning regarding the accomplishment. "

sheckard writes: "ABC News is reporting about the world's fastest 'supercomputer,' but the catch is that it doesn't do much by itself. The GRAPE 6 supercomputer computes gravitational force, but needs to be hooked up to a normal PC. The PC does the accounting work, while the GRAPE 6 does the crunching." The giant pendulum of full-steam-ahead specialization vs. all-purpose flexibility knocks down another one of those tiny red pins ...

hobgadling writes "According to ABC News, physicists at CERN in Geneva have recreated a "quark-gluon plasma", also known as the primordial soup, the state of the universe right after the big bang. The article here says that more experiments will have to be done at Brookhaven National Labs to prove this. " Brookhaven will be starting research in this area this summer - with much more powerful instrumentation.

ozzie writes "George C. Scott, the actor we all know and love from such unbelievably great movies as Dr. Strangelove and Patton died yesterday at the age of 71. Check out ABCNews for more. " Given the current poll, this seems strangely connected - in any case, I remember his role in Dr. Strangelove with fondness. If you haven't seen that classic, rent it tonight.

Dyslexic writes "ABCNews is reporting that strands of DNA can act like semiconductors. After seeing "The Matrix" this makes me only fear the future." The research is coming from two researchers in Basel, Switzerland. Essentially, this research is saying that while DNA makes a good semiconductor, it does not conduct as well as, say, copper. It's real usefulness comes from the fact that "...he knows of no metallic wires that can be made as small or as regular as DNA strands. A strand is 2 billionths of a meter thick, or one-forty-four-thousandths of the diameter of a medium-size human hair ". Uber-thin. I like it.

strredwolf writes "I just heard about this one through ABCNEWS: Intel's being sued in a seperate antitrust case for not releasing the technical specs on upcomming chips to competitors such as AMD, IDT, and Cyrix. I guess Microsoft no longer feels alone in being under goverment scrutiny. "

strredwolf writes "I just heard about this one through ABCNEWS: Intel's being sued in a seperate antitrust case for not releasing the technical specs on upcomming chips to competitors such as AMD, IDT, and Cyrix. I guess Microsoft no longer feels alone in being under goverment scrutiny. "

general_re writes "Found an article on abcnews about Diamond countersuing the RIAA over the release of Rio. I wonder if this is just legal maneuvering or if they really think they have a case? Anyway, I say more power to 'em...why wait for the net and the free market to kill record companies if you can get it over with quicker..."

general_re writes "Found an article on abcnews about Diamond countersuing the RIAA over the release of Rio. I wonder if this is just legal maneuvering or if they really think they have a case? Anyway, I say more power to 'em...why wait for the net and the free market to kill record companies if you can get it over with quicker..."

Andrew Bunner writes "ABCNews.com reports that the Mexican government chose Red Hat Linux to power their elementary and middle school computers. The full story and an interesting rumor on Linux in France are available here (scroll down to the 2nd story...) " I think we mentioned this once before, but check out that picture of a the fedora clad Red Hat top dogs. Positive press in the mainstream. Always good.

Andrew Bunner writes "ABCNews.com reports that the Mexican government chose Red Hat Linux to power their elementary and middle school computers. The full story and an interesting rumor on Linux in France are available here (scroll down to the 2nd story...) " I think we mentioned this once before, but check out that picture of a the fedora clad Red Hat top dogs. Positive press in the mainstream. Always good.

Aharon Chernin writes " This has got to be one of the poorest written FUD articles of our time.. He gets information from an unamed, unproven source. Then writes an article on it. This "source" I bet is a hole in the wall NT admin in a linux shop.. Flame away /.'ers. Aharon "

Plutor writes "Remember that futuristic Ion Rocket that NASA fired into space a couple weeks ago? Well apparently when they tried it on Tuesday, it only lasted four and a half minutes before shutting itself off. Scientists are baffled."

TB writes "Its an article about Amiga, which at the end talks about MS and Red Hat getting a run for their money. The article isnt very accurate, but its a interesting read anyway. Its a prestory to the news to follow this weekend."

kwisti writes "Neil Tagare wants to wire the countries the information age has left behind. Can he do it? He has already wired the world once. Read more about Project Oxygen and Tagere's plans for moving the planet onto a fiber optic network. "

kwisti writes " Another Windows versus Linux story, ABCNews.com compares the two operating systems with twist of David versus Goliath parody. They even feature a picture with Rob Young displaying his Red Hat. :) "

Kurt Gray sent us another reason to hate our legal system. "AA photographer has named JC Penney in a lawsuit because a JC Penney web page linked to an Elizabeth Taylor biography page on the Internet Movie Database, which then linked to another web site that contained two copyrighted photos belonging to the photographer. He is also suing the Internet Movie Database for the link claiming they are distributing his copyrighten works." Someone should start a grassroots campaign to link this photographer's site. If, a hundred thousand people link him, think of all the money this guy could make! I hate our legal system sometimes.

Moody has a piece that an anonymous reader submitted on the sorts of email he gets about Microsoft. The reader who submitted this questioned it, but I get CC'd on tons of these things and don't doubt it for a second. People hate Microsoft with a passion, and are making themselves look like raving lunatics by writing this sort of email. Think before you send these messages! Yeah, Microsoft does a lot of naughty things. Yeah, we'd love to see them crushed into tiny pieces. But insulting anyone who says anything good about Microsoft makes you look stupid, not Microsoft look bad. Read the Linux Advocacy HOWTO at least before you send mail like this. Believe me, it'll be worth your time. If you follow it, you look intelligent, if not, you look like a loon.

Ishan writes "Hey, Here's a story about how some llamas are being employed in Tuba City, Arizona to guard flocks of sheep. Great pets, now if I could only teach them perl.... "

Brian Miller writes "ABCnews.com is running a little test to see how addicted you are to the web. Well considering it is my livelihood I guess I fail." Yeah, I'm fairly certain I failed too. I guess when you average 12-16 hours on the net each day, you might be considered an addict.

barrett conrad wrote in to let us know that news reports have already begun to circulate talking about how most of the iMacs have been sold, and that the stores' inventories are runing low. Good news for Apple, and good news for us. Not such good news for Bill and Intel.

Mr.Martini writes "Redbook woman's magazine find computer tech lousy lovers. waaait a minute! Maybe all the ladies I ask out are Redbook readers. The article does say we're more likely to cuddle though.

dylan durst writes "Either someone is trying to cash in on Truman or the coolest thing to happen live on the net is really gonna happen." Check out this story to read about the first birth to be broadcast on the net. And prepare to tremble in fear, for the future of media is upon us *grin*.

Dave Doolin wrote in to send us a link to the ABC News Answer Geek. I think this is a bit old, but I figured I'd run it because it just seems nice that a more mainstream news source is trying to clarify the age old [H|Cr]acker ambiguity. I hope for a future where we can refer to ourselves as "Hackers" in public without getting dirty stares from cluless folks *grin*.

Mike Hicks sent us this abcnews story where you can read about a conference on technology and the poor. Certainly this is a very real problem- computers can be had cheaply, but for a family on a shoestring budget, a $500 machine is probably out of the question. Will the net become a place where those who can afford the hardware can hang out, and a place where the poor are just out of luck? It's a harsh reality that this conference is going to try to address.

Kelly Price writes "NASA's looking for a name for the International Space Station! ABCNEWS is taking a survey, and right now, at 7536 votes, Station Frontier is ahead of Millennium, with Babylon #6." Let's hope that Hank doesn't win again *giant smile*.

Mike writes "Well, this isn't computer related, but it's damn geeky if you ask me -- this site at ABCNews, talks about the possibility of doing whole body transplants, leaving just one's head. Lots to ponder about, if it ever pans out.... " After studying all morning of my stats final, I think my body is willing to transplant my head.

Manoj Kasichainula sent us This link to a Fred Moody writeup where he talks about his theory that Gates is preparing to break Microsoft up into several smaller companies. This is something I've been arguing over for years. MS needs to be divided into completely independant businesses (OSs, Application, Devel Tools, Books, and all standards defined in public committees like the W3). Moody seems to think Bill is preparing for such a division. Interesting stuff.

Call Billy Crystal to host the TV special. Hanson and the Spice girls will be providing music at the '98 Webbies. Allright, maybe not, but you can read the nominees here. Nominees include several of my favorite sites, (Bert is Evil and Mars Pathfinder. Shouldn't the Deep Blue Chess Site be on here as well?). Thanks to kartik for pointing this out to us.

This ABCNews Article was sent to us by Matt Michie who also says "The author says Microsoft's monopoly is starting to resemble the big-three American automakers in the 1970's. He says the time is ripe for a quick cheap competitor to makes its presence felt like the Japanese did. Sounds like Linux has a good chance to fill that role."

Pay attention to that bill borg icon sitting happily next to this article- Bill Gates is threatening a lawsuit against Steve Boswell who apparently is the guy who created the original image. You can read more at ABC News. They also have a poll where you can vote about it. Hopefully I don't have to yank the icon here! Thanks to Scott Stevenson for telling us about it.

This ABC News story speaks about Wrist Watch Phones! Yes you read correctly, this isn't Dick Tracy Stuff, this is reality. Just a few ounces and they have voice recognition and everything. Wait 'til modems are that small!

Pete Pawlowski wrote in with this story about how the US needs programmers. The big issue here is the immigration seems to be making it far to difficult for programmers to get into the country. I guess that means that those of us who are here should ask for raises *grin*.

This one is quite interesting- it is an intereting article from Christopher Blizzard speaks about Microsoft Temp Employees who are contracted. In this case for over 6 years- all in what seems to be a plot to save a few bucks on benefits packages and stock options. It's not uncommon in corporate america, but MS has been sued and lost over it.