Slashdot Mirror
Domain: berkeley.edu
Stories and comments across the archive that link to berkeley.edu.
Stories · 441
-
Extinct Wildflower Found In California
Del writes "A Berkeley graduate student found the pink wildflower Eriogonom truncatum, known as the Mount Diablo buckwheat. The flower hasn't been seen for 70 years and has been rediscovered on the flanks of Mount Diablo in Contra Costa County." -
Security Skins: Single Sign-On with Images
Appol writes "Berkeley researchers propose a Mozilla extension to stop phishing. They claim that users only need to remember one password and one image for their lifetime to securely log in to any number of sites. They also use uniquely generated visual hashes to "skin" trusted windows and webpages, which is harder to spoof than the SSL lock icon. To verify that the skin is legit, the user has to compare two images, which is easier for novices than verifying a certificate." -
Does Voting Technology Affect Election Outcomes?
l2718 writes "Two economists have just posted a paper online, showing a small correlation between counties' use of paperless electronic voting systems and voting results in the recent presidential election (after controlling for other factors). They found no evidence for systematic fraud by testing several potential indicators. Rather, the voting method seems to affect the relative turnout of different voter demographies. Thanks to Election Law Blog for the pointer." -
Fast Generation of 3D City Models
FleaPlus writes "New Scientist and UC Berkeley News report on research by Avideh Zakhor and Christian Früh on rapidly and automatically generating photo-realistic 3D models (coral cache) of city environments. This is reminiscent of research mentioned here in March, although the approach is rather different. Applications for areas like urban planning, entertainment, emergency response, and the military are discussed. Zakhor's group is also working on 4D systems, to allow for recording of events over time as moving 3D models." -
Fast Generation of 3D City Models
FleaPlus writes "New Scientist and UC Berkeley News report on research by Avideh Zakhor and Christian Früh on rapidly and automatically generating photo-realistic 3D models (coral cache) of city environments. This is reminiscent of research mentioned here in March, although the approach is rather different. Applications for areas like urban planning, entertainment, emergency response, and the military are discussed. Zakhor's group is also working on 4D systems, to allow for recording of events over time as moving 3D models." -
Distributed Computing For Businesses?
Meostro asks: "I've run several distributed computing clients in the past, and it felt nice to contribute to these projects that are saving the world. I recently became the admin of my company's branch datacenter, so my access to computing power has gone from 4 assorted boxes up to 20 servers and around 400 desktops. My ambition has grown by equal bounds, so I want to do some distributed processing on at least a few of these. We do food warehousing and distribution, so there's no protein folding, DSP or weather modelling work that would significantly contribute to our business. I've done some simple work with optimizing routes for our trucks, but our business doesn't seem to present many other problems that require lots of processing. What are some good business-specific tasks you have used distributed or grid computing to work through?" -
Digital Enhancements or Expensive Distractions?
markmcb writes "Berkeley and USC have teamed up to launch a $3.3 million study over 3 years that hopes to shed some light on how today's kids are interacting with technology and the effects that it is having on education. The study aims to determine if digital devices such as computers and cell phones are shaping the way that teenagers obtain and process information. But given the price tag and the goals of the project, how much can this project actually help education? Has anyone out there in the high school level education field seen digital systems improve the classroom to the point that students actually learn more, or do they just tend to be fascinating distractions that detract from the classroom?" -
Nanotech Motors, Biotransistors, DNA Fractals
FleaPlus writes "The American Institute of Physics has a news bulletin describing a couple of interesting nanotech advances. The first is the smallest electric motor in the world, made by Alex Zettl's group at UC Berkeley. The second is a single-protein wet biotransistor. Additionally, Technology Research News reports on algorithmic self-assembly of DNA Sierpinski triangles, by Erik Winfree's group at Caltech." -
Berkeley Grads' Identity Data Stolen
yali writes "Did you get a graduate degree from Berkeley? Or maybe you just applied but didn't go there? If so, your identity may have been stolen. A laptop was stolen containing names, social security numbers, birthdates, and addresses of grad students, alumni, and applicants. University police suspect that the thief just wanted the laptop, but the irony of California's mandatory notification law is that the thief may now know they have something even more valuable. Berkeley has set up a website with information on the breach." -
Wily Octopi Walk on Two Arms
lousyd writes "Offering hope for new forms of ambulatory robots, biologist Christine L. Huffard, at UC Berkeley, has caught individual octopi sneaking away from predators by using two of their arms as legs. They use the other six arms to make themselves look like coconuts or algae. The research is being done as part of a project on robotics. This reminds me of the Far Side cartoon where the cows drop to all fours when humans come around, but resume standing on two legs otherwise." And I for one welcome our new mollusk overlords. -
New Distributed Project Seeks Gravity Waves
fenimor writes "Much like the popular SETI@Home distributed computing project that searches radio telescope data for signs of extraterrestrial life, the new Einstein@Home will search for gravitational waves in data collected by U.S. and European gravitational wave detectors. Albert Einstein's General Theory of Relativity predicted the existence of gravitational waves in 1916, but only now has technology reached the point that scientists hope to detect them directly." -
Making CAPTCHAs Even Harder With 3-D Models
Michael G. Kaplan writes "CAPTCHA (Completely Automated Public Turing Test to Tell Computers and Humans Apart) are commonly used to prevent computers from filling out web forms. Computer vision experts have been able to design programs to foil CAPTCHA with a high degree of success. I have designed a CAPTCHA that is based on the identification of attributes contained in an image generated by the grouping of easily recognized 3-D objects. I call this the Virtual Photographic CAPTCHA and it is likely to remain invulnerable to automated attack for many years to come. A novel anti-spam system necessitated its development." -
The Hippo's Missing Link
hende_jman writes "Working with French Colleagues, Jean-Renaud Boisserie, a post-doc fellow at UC Berkeley, found fossil and molecular evidence that points to a close relationship between the hippopotamus and aquatic mammals. The hippo's evolution has been a contentious issue in biology and through history it has been associated with many animals such as horses and pigs." -
The Hippo's Missing Link
hende_jman writes "Working with French Colleagues, Jean-Renaud Boisserie, a post-doc fellow at UC Berkeley, found fossil and molecular evidence that points to a close relationship between the hippopotamus and aquatic mammals. The hippo's evolution has been a contentious issue in biology and through history it has been associated with many animals such as horses and pigs." -
Plausible Deniability From Rockstar Cryptographers
J. Karl Rove writes "Nikita Borisov and Ian Goldberg (of many, many other projects) have released Off the Record Messaging for Gaim. Encrypt an IM, prove (at the time) that it came from you, and deny it later. The authentication works only when the message is sent; anybody can forge all the messages he wants afterwards (toolkit included). Captured or archived messages prove nothing. And forward secrecy means Big Brother can't read your messages even if he wiretaps you AND grabs your computer later on. All the gooey goodness of crypto, with none of the consequences! They have a protocol spec, source code, and Debian and Fedora binaries." -
Plausible Deniability From Rockstar Cryptographers
J. Karl Rove writes "Nikita Borisov and Ian Goldberg (of many, many other projects) have released Off the Record Messaging for Gaim. Encrypt an IM, prove (at the time) that it came from you, and deny it later. The authentication works only when the message is sent; anybody can forge all the messages he wants afterwards (toolkit included). Captured or archived messages prove nothing. And forward secrecy means Big Brother can't read your messages even if he wiretaps you AND grabs your computer later on. All the gooey goodness of crypto, with none of the consequences! They have a protocol spec, source code, and Debian and Fedora binaries." -
Tremors Predict California Earthquakes
johkir writes "A seismologist at the University of California Berkeley Seismological Laboratory has discovered mysterious tremors deep under the San Andreas Fault that may help predict future earthquakes. The episodes of tremors, which he calls chatter, last from four to twenty minutes and are being recorded from as deep as 40 kilometers beneath the surface -- up to four times the depth of normal earthquakes! These tremors also seem to occur a few weeks prior to detectable surface tremors. Article is published in Science Magazine, but you'll need a subscription, and it is covered in the San Francisco Chronicle and a UC Berkeley press release." -
Tremors Predict California Earthquakes
johkir writes "A seismologist at the University of California Berkeley Seismological Laboratory has discovered mysterious tremors deep under the San Andreas Fault that may help predict future earthquakes. The episodes of tremors, which he calls chatter, last from four to twenty minutes and are being recorded from as deep as 40 kilometers beneath the surface -- up to four times the depth of normal earthquakes! These tremors also seem to occur a few weeks prior to detectable surface tremors. Article is published in Science Magazine, but you'll need a subscription, and it is covered in the San Francisco Chronicle and a UC Berkeley press release." -
Tremors Predict California Earthquakes
johkir writes "A seismologist at the University of California Berkeley Seismological Laboratory has discovered mysterious tremors deep under the San Andreas Fault that may help predict future earthquakes. The episodes of tremors, which he calls chatter, last from four to twenty minutes and are being recorded from as deep as 40 kilometers beneath the surface -- up to four times the depth of normal earthquakes! These tremors also seem to occur a few weeks prior to detectable surface tremors. Article is published in Science Magazine, but you'll need a subscription, and it is covered in the San Francisco Chronicle and a UC Berkeley press release." -
Argument Held in $565 mil Microsoft Patent Case
Grotius writes "As reported in CNET, the United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (the court that hears patent appeals) heard oral argument in an appeal from a $565 million award against Microsoft for infringing patent rights held by the University of California and Eolas. The University and Eolas share the rights to a patent that they claim covers plug-ins and applets that are invoked through a Web browser. The case has broad implications for the internet -- Microsoft could be forced to change Internet Explorer and make it incompatible with some web pages. However, the issue before the court was narrow: Whether Microsoft should have been permitted to present evidence to the jury of prior art in the form of an earlier web browser called Viola created by Pei Wei." -
UCB to Establish Nanotechnology Research Center
foobsr writes "The Daily Californian reports that UCB (with a Interdisciplinary Nanotechnology Club already in place) is investing into a multimillion dollar research center . As it seems, researchers are well aware of the risks (e.g. nanoparticles seeping through skin) that their ambitious research may pose (original press release here)." -
UCB to Establish Nanotechnology Research Center
foobsr writes "The Daily Californian reports that UCB (with a Interdisciplinary Nanotechnology Club already in place) is investing into a multimillion dollar research center . As it seems, researchers are well aware of the risks (e.g. nanoparticles seeping through skin) that their ambitious research may pose (original press release here)." -
UCB to Establish Nanotechnology Research Center
foobsr writes "The Daily Californian reports that UCB (with a Interdisciplinary Nanotechnology Club already in place) is investing into a multimillion dollar research center . As it seems, researchers are well aware of the risks (e.g. nanoparticles seeping through skin) that their ambitious research may pose (original press release here)." -
Water Suddenly Becomes Mysterious
An anonymous reader writes "Logical to assume that scientists know the structure of water. But wrong. A study in April by Anders Nilsson from the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center concluded the molecular bonds are looser than thought. Now a new study by Richard Saykally's group at UC Berkeley appears to debunk the April results. So a new debate is born. Both scientists agree on one thing: They don't fully understand how water molecules interact." -
Blogging Sweeps China
An anonymous reader writes "Dissident astro-physicist, Xiao Qiang, director of the China Internet Project at UC Berkeley, interviews Isaac Mao, founder of CNBlog for New Scientist. Asked what is his strategy to expand blogging under China's censorship regime, Mao's response is typically Taoist: 'What is our strategy? We do not have a strategy. But the information flow in the blogosphere has its own Way. The Way is our strategy: personal, fast, connected and networked.'" -
Earth, a Giant Pinball Machine
An anonymous reader writes "Scientists have long probed Earth's interior by monitoring seismic waves (if earthquakes don't make them, they can be induced with explosives, and one nuke test actually triggered an earthquake!), which reveal the inner structure of the planet. But what if the method is wrong? LiveScience reports on a new study suggesting Earth is like a pinball machine, with sound waves careening around before they get to the surface. What is interpreted as a broad layer change could be nothing more than a localized density variation." -
Berkeley Researchers Analyze Florida Voting Patterns
empraptor writes "Researchers at UC Berkeley have crunched numbers and determined that 130,000-260,000 excess votes went to Bush in Florida. They have held a conference and posted their findings online. You can find articles on their research from CNet, Wired News, and many other sources. While the research used statistical analysis based on past elections and demographics, how else do you verify that a paperless voting system is working properly?" -
Berkeley Researchers Analyze Florida Voting Patterns
empraptor writes "Researchers at UC Berkeley have crunched numbers and determined that 130,000-260,000 excess votes went to Bush in Florida. They have held a conference and posted their findings online. You can find articles on their research from CNet, Wired News, and many other sources. While the research used statistical analysis based on past elections and demographics, how else do you verify that a paperless voting system is working properly?" -
IBM Sponsors Humanitarian Grid Computing Project
BrianWCarver writes "Reuters reports that IBM and top scientific research organizations are joining forces in a humanitarian effort to tap the unused power of millions of computers and help solve complex social problems. Following the example of SETI@home, the project, dubbed The World Community Grid, will seek to tap the vast underutilized power of computers belonging to individuals and businesses worldwide and channel it into selected medical and environmental research programs. The first project to benefit will be Human Proteome Folding, an effort to identify the genetic structure of proteins that can cause diseases. The client is currently available for Windows XP, 2000, ME, and 98." -
Where Is Sun Going With Linux?
jg21 writes "LinuxWorld has an interview with Sun's head software honcho John Loiacono which provides an opportunity to gauge Sun's intentions with regard to Linux in particular, open source in general, and where Solaris fits in. In spite of the assertion "Sun was founded on the principle of open source. We have contributed more lines of open source code than any other entity on the planet except for Cal Berkeley," Sun seems to view Linux somewhat grudgingly, judging from Loiacono's tone: "Linux is something that we'll have to interoperate with because it may exist far beyond whatever Solaris turns out to be." An important read, if only because a Windows-free Loiacono notes that he's been using the Linux-based Java Desktop System for a year. "It is not perfect by any means," he concedes though. Refreshing honesty from Sun's top software exec." -
Tele-Immersion at UC Berkeley
Roland Piquepaille writes "Tele-immersion is a technology which allows cooperative interaction between groups of distant people working in the same virtual environment. At the Center for Information Technology Research in the Interest of Society (CITRIS) at UC Berkeley, interdisciplinary teams are deploying this technology. It involves three real-time steps: taking images of a subject with 48 cameras, transmitting the images over a network, and implanting them in a virtual world. For example, it will allow students and professors on different campuses to meet -- virtually -- and discuss -- lively -- while being in ancient sites of Greece or Italy. The technology offers more promises than academics discussions. Imagine a nurse telling a diabetic how to make an insulin injection while being far away from him. Of course, this technology is facing some hurdles, such as the cost involved to model you with so many cameras. This summary shows you some details about the image processing involved in this project." -
Worker Fired For Running SETI On State-Owned PCs
Formica writes "A programmer working for the Ohio Department of Job and Family Services was fired for running SETI software on a state server. As quoted in this article, department head Tom Hayes says, 'I think that people can be comfortable that security has beamed this man out of our building.' More articles from Google." -
Mysterious Force Affects Pioneer 10 & 11 Probes
JabbaTheFart writes "The Guardian is writing that something strange is tugging at America's oldest spacecraft. As the Pioneer 10 and 11 probes head towards distant stars, scientists have discovered that the craft - launched more than 30 years ago - appear to be in the grip of a mysterious force that is holding them back as they sweep out of the solar system. Some researchers say unseen 'dark matter' may permeate the universe and that this is affecting the Pioneers' passage. Others say flaws in our understanding of the laws of gravity best explain the crafts' wayward behaviour." -
Googling Behind China's Great Firewall
xcham writes "The OpenNet Initiative, a joint project of the Citizen Lab at the University of Toronto, the Berkman Center at Harvard Law School, and the Advanced Network Research Group at Cambridge, have released a bulletin regarding the type of filtering applied to Google by the Chinese government. Most notably, certain keywords are filtered, as well as Google's 'cache' function. More information on how the keyword filtering is implemented is available in a previous bulletin." -
Transportation Retro-Futuristics
jpatokal writes "Flashback to the future with UC Berkeley's Transportation Futuristics! An excellent exhibition of amazing diagrams on how transportation was expected to evolve, featuring flying saucer buses, airplane escape pods and, yes, monorails. But where are the Segways and SUVs?" -
Transportation Retro-Futuristics
jpatokal writes "Flashback to the future with UC Berkeley's Transportation Futuristics! An excellent exhibition of amazing diagrams on how transportation was expected to evolve, featuring flying saucer buses, airplane escape pods and, yes, monorails. But where are the Segways and SUVs?" -
Transportation Retro-Futuristics
jpatokal writes "Flashback to the future with UC Berkeley's Transportation Futuristics! An excellent exhibition of amazing diagrams on how transportation was expected to evolve, featuring flying saucer buses, airplane escape pods and, yes, monorails. But where are the Segways and SUVs?" -
Transportation Retro-Futuristics
jpatokal writes "Flashback to the future with UC Berkeley's Transportation Futuristics! An excellent exhibition of amazing diagrams on how transportation was expected to evolve, featuring flying saucer buses, airplane escape pods and, yes, monorails. But where are the Segways and SUVs?" -
Transportation Retro-Futuristics
jpatokal writes "Flashback to the future with UC Berkeley's Transportation Futuristics! An excellent exhibition of amazing diagrams on how transportation was expected to evolve, featuring flying saucer buses, airplane escape pods and, yes, monorails. But where are the Segways and SUVs?" -
Reverse Firewalls As An Anti-Spam Tool
An anonymous reader writes "VeriSign's principal scientist Phillip Hallam-Baker believes one answer to stopping spammers and even crackers is by using reverse firewalls. He says reverse firewalls should be embedded in every cable modem and wireless access point for home users. "A traditional firewall is designed to stop attacks from the outside coming in; a reverse firewall stops an attack going out," Hallam-Baker said. Apparently, a reverse firewall would reduce the value of recruiting your home PC as a member of a botnet because "normal users have no need to send out floods of e-mail, which reverse firewalls can stop, but they do allow a normal flow of e-mail. "" -
LANL, Sandia Report Losing Classified Data
dread minerva writes "This week, Los Alamos and Sandia National Laboratories publicly reported that sensitive material stored on removable data storage devices was missing." In Sandia's case, "According to the Las Vegas Sun, this 'prompted the lab to halt all classified work Thursday while officials conduct a wall-to-wall inventory of sensitive data.' Sandia also reported that a 'computer floppy disk was missing.' However, according to the Albuquerque Journal, 'lab officials said they don't believe it contains any weapons information or any other information that could harm national security,' only admitting that the material on the disk was classified. Due to these latest events, LANL has shut down all work on classified projects as of Friday." (Read more below.) Update: 07/17 21:21 GMT by T : A correction -- research was shut down only at LANL (not, as I mistakenly claimed, at Sandia) -- and an update: Sandia's missing disk was recovered."These snafus have led the government to open up the labs to defense-contracting bids for the first time in their 60+ year history (until now the labs have been run by UC-Berkeley). As NPR reported on Friday, the researchers at the labs were upset by this move, as they are afraid of the labs losing their academic nature. Perhaps the best question to ask in this situation is why these labs are still using removable data storage devices to store sensitive information."
(Other institutions, including The University of Texas system, are also angling for a share of the lab's management.)
-
BOINC Project to Search for Gravitational Waves
Buzz Skyline writes "Einstein@Home is a new, BOINC-based distributed computing project that will analyze data from the Laser Interferometer Gravitational wave Observatory (LIGO). The goal is to perform a whole-sky, gravitational wave survey of pulsars. Beta-test versions of the Einstein@Home screen saver should be available by the end of the summer, and final release is planned for early 2005." -
SETI@Home Transitions To BOINC
SeaDour writes "The team at SETI@Home have finally released their highly-anticipated new client software based on the BOINC (Berkeley Open Infrastructure for Network Computing) software platform. This new platform promises transparent version upgrades, more efficient work unit distribution, and the ability to seamlessly integrate other distributed computing projects that are also using the BOINC standard. For now, SETI@Home is allowing both the Classic and BOINC clients to run, but eventually they will shut down the Classic data server and force everyone to upgrade. You can read more about the transition here." -
SETI@Home Transitions To BOINC
SeaDour writes "The team at SETI@Home have finally released their highly-anticipated new client software based on the BOINC (Berkeley Open Infrastructure for Network Computing) software platform. This new platform promises transparent version upgrades, more efficient work unit distribution, and the ability to seamlessly integrate other distributed computing projects that are also using the BOINC standard. For now, SETI@Home is allowing both the Classic and BOINC clients to run, but eventually they will shut down the Classic data server and force everyone to upgrade. You can read more about the transition here." -
SETI@Home Transitions To BOINC
SeaDour writes "The team at SETI@Home have finally released their highly-anticipated new client software based on the BOINC (Berkeley Open Infrastructure for Network Computing) software platform. This new platform promises transparent version upgrades, more efficient work unit distribution, and the ability to seamlessly integrate other distributed computing projects that are also using the BOINC standard. For now, SETI@Home is allowing both the Classic and BOINC clients to run, but eventually they will shut down the Classic data server and force everyone to upgrade. You can read more about the transition here." -
SETI@Home Transitions To BOINC
SeaDour writes "The team at SETI@Home have finally released their highly-anticipated new client software based on the BOINC (Berkeley Open Infrastructure for Network Computing) software platform. This new platform promises transparent version upgrades, more efficient work unit distribution, and the ability to seamlessly integrate other distributed computing projects that are also using the BOINC standard. For now, SETI@Home is allowing both the Classic and BOINC clients to run, but eventually they will shut down the Classic data server and force everyone to upgrade. You can read more about the transition here." -
Strategy Videogame Upsets Chinese, Gets Banned
An anonymous reader writes "China's State News Agency, Xinhua reports that China's Ministry of Culture has banned a computer game for 'distorting history and damaging China's sovereignty and territorial integrity'. Paradox's PC strategy game 'Hearts of Iron', was accused of distorting historical facts in describing Manchuria, West Xinjiang, and Tibet as independent sovereign countries in the maps of the game. 'All these severely distort historical facts and violate China's gaming and Internet service regulations,' the Ministry's Game Products Censorship Committee said. 'The game should be immediately prohibited.' [via China Digital]" -
Biochemistry Animations Using SVG
Milo Fungus writes "I've been working on a project for my biochemistry research lab that may be of interest to a few Slashdotters. We study the enzymes in an important biochemical pathway that produces (among other things) terpenes, carotenes, and sterols. I have been making a web-based tutorial to summarize our research, with animations of the proposed reaction mechanisms of the enzymes. I'm finding that SVG is a very good tool for the job because it is easy to learn (because of my experience with HTML) and the file sizes are amazingly small, even for complex animations. The files are typically ~5 KB for a g-zipped animation about 1:00 minute long, compared to 2 MB or more for a lossy-compressed video file of the same length, which is locked into a certain resolution. I have been wanting to do this project ever since I saw Hongyun Wang and George Oster's animations of ATP synthase. I would appreciate any feedback about the tutorial's usablilty, etc." -
SETI@home Turns Five Today
mfh writes "Five years ago today, SETI@home launched a comprehensive program to search for Extra Terrestrial life in the universe, using millions of home computers to help compile useful data that could some day lead to the discovery of advanced extra terrestrial life. Since inception, SETI@home has found 2,568 persistent Gaussians, possible radio transmissions from a distant planet. SETI began in 1960 with the efforts of Cornell University astronomer Frank Drake, whose Project Ozma became the first modern SETI experiment in history." -
SETI@home Turns Five Today
mfh writes "Five years ago today, SETI@home launched a comprehensive program to search for Extra Terrestrial life in the universe, using millions of home computers to help compile useful data that could some day lead to the discovery of advanced extra terrestrial life. Since inception, SETI@home has found 2,568 persistent Gaussians, possible radio transmissions from a distant planet. SETI began in 1960 with the efforts of Cornell University astronomer Frank Drake, whose Project Ozma became the first modern SETI experiment in history."