Slashdot Mirror

netbuzz writes "The state of Washington is suing a search engine optimization and Web services outfit, based in Redmond, that has done business under the names Visible.net, Captures.com, and WebMarketingSource.com. In essence, the state says these entities have deceived mostly mom-and-pop sites through unfulfilled performance promises and financial shenanigans after charging up to $10,000 in up-front charges and more in monthly fees. About 90 complaints have been lodged over four years, the state says."

coondoggie writes with this excerpt from NetworkWorld: "What do you get when you mix the government, the court system, company lawyers and Joe Consumer? A serious mess that would send most people screaming into the night. But the Federal Trade Commission is no such entity. It wants to straighten Intellectual Property (IP) out and today said it will hold a series of hearings — the first in Washington, DC on Dec. 5 — it will use to examine IP law and the myriad issues surrounding it. Interested bigwigs from the tech industry, including Cisco, Yahoo and the Computer & Communications Industry Association are expected to testify along with professors, lawyers and other industry players. The patent system has experienced significant change and more changes are under consideration, the FTC said." The FTC held some different, but related hearings this week which addressed topics such as copyright law and DRM interoperability. Transcripts, podcasts, and summaries of the talks are available on the FTC-hosted "Protecting Consumers in the Next Tech-ade" site.

coondoggie writes with this excerpt from NetworkWorld: "What do you get when you mix the government, the court system, company lawyers and Joe Consumer? A serious mess that would send most people screaming into the night. But the Federal Trade Commission is no such entity. It wants to straighten Intellectual Property (IP) out and today said it will hold a series of hearings — the first in Washington, DC on Dec. 5 — it will use to examine IP law and the myriad issues surrounding it. Interested bigwigs from the tech industry, including Cisco, Yahoo and the Computer & Communications Industry Association are expected to testify along with professors, lawyers and other industry players. The patent system has experienced significant change and more changes are under consideration, the FTC said." The FTC held some different, but related hearings this week which addressed topics such as copyright law and DRM interoperability. Transcripts, podcasts, and summaries of the talks are available on the FTC-hosted "Protecting Consumers in the Next Tech-ade" site.

CurtMonash writes "Barack Obama promised to appoint the United States' first Chief Technology Officer. Naturally, the blogosphere is full of discussion as to who that should be. I favor American Management Systems founder and former IRS Commissioner Charles Rossotti. Richard Koman thinks it should be one of the better state CTOs. John Doerr, going in a different direction, thinks it should be his partner Bill Joy. We can bandy names back and forth all month, but first a more fundamental question needs to be answered: What do we need most — a get-things-done CIO (Chief Information Officer), or a more visionary true CTO? I think it's a CIO, and based on his campaign statements it appears Obama agrees. Management of government IT is a huge, generally unsolved problem, and we need somebody deeply experienced to have a fighting chance. Of course, that doesn't preclude recruiting a visionary CTO in addition, but the highest priority is a CIO. What do you think?"

CurtMonash writes "Barack Obama promised to appoint the United States' first Chief Technology Officer. Naturally, the blogosphere is full of discussion as to who that should be. I favor American Management Systems founder and former IRS Commissioner Charles Rossotti. Richard Koman thinks it should be one of the better state CTOs. John Doerr, going in a different direction, thinks it should be his partner Bill Joy. We can bandy names back and forth all month, but first a more fundamental question needs to be answered: What do we need most — a get-things-done CIO (Chief Information Officer), or a more visionary true CTO? I think it's a CIO, and based on his campaign statements it appears Obama agrees. Management of government IT is a huge, generally unsolved problem, and we need somebody deeply experienced to have a fighting chance. Of course, that doesn't preclude recruiting a visionary CTO in addition, but the highest priority is a CIO. What do you think?"

netbuzz writes "The Internet will mark an infamous anniversary Sunday, when the Morris worm turns 20. Considered the first major attack on the 'Net, Morris served as a wake-up call about the risk of software bugs, and it set the stage for network security to become an important area of computer science. It was also the first time many non-techies heard of the 'Net, as the mainstream media covered the story extensively." Reader maximus1 contributes a brief ITWorld story about Robert Morris himself.

netbuzz writes "The Internet will mark an infamous anniversary Sunday, when the Morris worm turns 20. Considered the first major attack on the 'Net, Morris served as a wake-up call about the risk of software bugs, and it set the stage for network security to become an important area of computer science. It was also the first time many non-techies heard of the 'Net, as the mainstream media covered the story extensively." Reader maximus1 contributes a brief ITWorld story about Robert Morris himself.

coondoggie writes "Maybe people are more desperate or maybe there's just too much opportunity to make a quick buck but whatever the excuse, attempts to illegally export technology from the US has gone through the roof. The Department of Justice this week said it has placed criminal charges or convictions against more than 255 defendants in the past two fiscal years — 145 in 2008 and 110 in 2007. That 255 number represents more than a six-fold increase from fiscal year 2005, when the DOJ said about 40 individuals or companies were convicted of over 100 criminal violations of export control laws."

carusoj writes "Squatting on domain names is nothing new, but Twitter has created a new opportunity for squatters, in the form of Twitter IDs. Writes Richard Stiennon: 'Is there evidence of Twitter squatting (squitting?) Let's check. Yup, every single-letter TwitID is taken ... How about common words? Garage, wow, war, warcraft, Crisco, Coke, Pepsi, Nike, and Chevrolet are all taken. My guess is that Twitter squatters have grabbed all of these in the hopes that they will be worth selling in the not too distant future. Of course the legitimate holders of brands can sue for them and Twitter can just turn them over if asked. But, because the investment and risk for the squatter is zero, you are going to see the rapid evaporation of available Twitter IDs.'"

carusoj writes "Squatting on domain names is nothing new, but Twitter has created a new opportunity for squatters, in the form of Twitter IDs. Writes Richard Stiennon: 'Is there evidence of Twitter squatting (squitting?) Let's check. Yup, every single-letter TwitID is taken ... How about common words? Garage, wow, war, warcraft, Crisco, Coke, Pepsi, Nike, and Chevrolet are all taken. My guess is that Twitter squatters have grabbed all of these in the hopes that they will be worth selling in the not too distant future. Of course the legitimate holders of brands can sue for them and Twitter can just turn them over if asked. But, because the investment and risk for the squatter is zero, you are going to see the rapid evaporation of available Twitter IDs.'"

coondoggie sends this excerpt from NetworkWorld: "The US Army Research Office and the National Security Agency (NSA) are together looking for some answers to their quantum physics questions. ... The Army said quantum algorithms that are developed should focus on constructive solutions [PDF] for specific tasks, and on general methodologies for expressing and analyzing algorithms tailored to specific problems — though they didn't say what those specific tasks were ... 'Investigators should presuppose the existence of a fully functional quantum computer and consider what algorithmic tasks are particularly well suited to such a machine. A necessary component of this research will be to compare the efficiency of the quantum algorithm to the best existing classical algorithm for the same problem.'"

coondoggie sends in a Network World piece that begins "The Air Force laid out $29 million in contracts this week to build space-based sensors that could detect threats or hazards and protect satellites in orbit. Assurance Technologies and Lockheed Martin Space Systems will split $20 million of the two-year contract that the Air Force says should ultimately demonstrate a viable sensing capability, as well as integration with other space systems to offer threat and hazard detection, assessment and notification ... The Air Force is looking to protect satellites from ground based lasers or anti-satellite missiles mostly."

bednarz writes "Scientists have demonstrated what is being called the 'ultimate miniaturization of computer memory,' storing data for nearly two seconds in the nucleus of an atom of phosphorus. The hybrid quantum memory technique is a key step in the development of quantum computers, according to the National Science Foundation. An international team of scientists demonstrated that quantum information stored in a nucleus has a lifetime of about 1¾ seconds. 'This is significant because before this technique was developed, the longest researchers could preserve quantum information in silicon was a few tens of milliseconds. Other researchers studying quantum computing recently calculated that if a quantum system could store information for at least one second, error correction techniques could then protect that data for an indefinite period of time.'" Here's the NSF press release with pictures of the apparatus. They claim that this technique is promising because it "uses silicon technology" seems a bit of a stretch — the silicon the researchers employed was a painstakingly grown crystal of extremely high purity.

alphadogg writes with a story that's about the possibilities for the next generation(s) of Ethernet, stuff far beyond 10base-T: "Ethernet has conquered much of the network world and is now headed deep into the data center to handle everything from storage to LAN to high-performance computing applications. Cisco, IBM and other big names are behind standards efforts, and while there is some dispute over exactly what to call this technology, vendors seem to be moving ahead with it, and it's already showing up in pre-standard products. 'I don't see any show-stoppers here — it's just time,' says one network equipment-maker rep. 'This is just another evolutionary step. Ethernet worked great for mundane or typical applications — now we're getting to time-sensitive applications and we need to have a little bit more congestion control in there.'"

CurtMonash writes "Parallel Efficiency is a simple metric that divides the actual work your parallel CPUs do by the sum of their total capacity. If you can get your parallel efficiency up, it's like getting free servers, free floor space, and some free power as well. eBay reports that it amazed even itself by increasing overall PE from 50% to 80% in about 6 months — across tens of thousands of servers. The secret sauce was data warehouse-based analytics. I.e., eBay instrumented its own network to do minute-by-minute status checks, then crunched the resulting data to find bottlenecks that needed removing. Obviously, savings are in the many millions of dollars. eBay has been offering some glimpses into its analytic efforts this year, and the PE savings are one of the most concrete examples they're offering to validate all this analytic cleverness."

coondoggie writes "Nine rocket-powered vehicles will compete for NASA's $2 million, 2008 Northrop Grumman Lunar Lander Challenge, Oct. 24-25. The goal is to accelerate development of commercial Lunar Landers capable of bringing payloads or humans back and forth between lunar orbit and the lunar surface. NASA of course would expect to use some of the technology developed at the Challenge. To win the prize, teams must demonstrate a rocket-propelled vehicle and payload that takes off vertically, climbs to a defined altitude, flies for a pre-determined amount of time, and then land vertically on a target that is a fixed distance from the launch pad. After landing, the vehicle must take off again within a pre-determined time, fly for a certain amount of time and then land back on its original launch pad." Details about the teams involved with the competition are available at the X-Prize website. The event will be broadcast live via webcast next weekend.

alphadogg writes to tell us that one freshman class has a little more than usual to be excited about. When students at Abilene Christian University showed up for their first days of class they were greeted with the choice of either a new iPhone 3g or an iPod Touch plus a package of custom web apps to use on them. "The hardware is part of the Texas university's pilot mobile learning project, which has been gestating for over a year. About 650 first-year students chose the iPhone, and about 300 the iPod Touch, which is a very similar device but without the 3G radio (both devices incorporate an 802.11g Wi-Fi adapter). ACU pays for the hardware, student (or their parents) select and pay for their monthly AT&T service plan."

netbuzz writes "If you're going to market your expertise by inviting 1,200 IT professionals to a seminar about securing data and protecting personal information, it's probably a good idea to protect the personal information of those you invite. On Tuesday, Verizon forgot that advice and blasted each of the 1,200 email addresses to everyone on the list ... and they did it 17 times."

netbuzz writes "If you're going to market your expertise by inviting 1,200 IT professionals to a seminar about securing data and protecting personal information, it's probably a good idea to protect the personal information of those you invite. On Tuesday, Verizon forgot that advice and blasted each of the 1,200 email addresses to everyone on the list ... and they did it 17 times."

coondoggie contributes this snippet from NetworkWorld: "You could probably see this one coming. With all of the confusion and money involved you knew there would be cyber-vultures out there looking to cash in. Well the Federal Trade Commission today issued a warning that indeed such increased phishing activities are taking place. Specifically the FTC said it was urging user caution regarding e-mails that look as if they come from a financial institution that recently acquired a consumer's bank, savings and loan, or mortgage. In many case such emails are only looking to obtain personal information — account numbers, passwords, Social Security numbers — to run up bills or commit other crimes in a consumer's name, the FTC stated."

netbuzz writes "Comic creator Randall Monroe suggested in a recent xkcd strip that YouTube comments would be better — or, more precisely, less idiotic — if only those posting them were forced to hear their words read aloud first. Well, YouTube has gone and made this "audio preview" a reality, albeit an optional one. And, it's not the first time that xkcd has contributed to the betterment of the Internet, as those who are familiar with last year's "Internet census" and its use of a Hilbert curve may remember."

netbuzz writes "Comic creator Randall Monroe suggested in a recent xkcd strip that YouTube comments would be better — or, more precisely, less idiotic — if only those posting them were forced to hear their words read aloud first. Well, YouTube has gone and made this "audio preview" a reality, albeit an optional one. And, it's not the first time that xkcd has contributed to the betterment of the Internet, as those who are familiar with last year's "Internet census" and its use of a Hilbert curve may remember."

CurtMonash writes "As I predicted a week ago, it looks as if the third quarter was ugly for software vendors, due to the economic crisis. SAP said 'The market developments of the past several weeks have been dramatic and worrying to many businesses. These concerns triggered a very sudden and unexpected drop in business activity at the end of the quarter.' My old acquaintance John Treadway, who used to work in Sybase's financial services vertical unit, reports that things are even worse than that in the financial services industry, Wall Street and retail banks alike. So now what? Well, IT is a huge part of capital spending, and at enterprises that have to cut back capital spending, IT is going to get hurt. On the other hand, high-growth companies — Web businesses, analytic services providers, etc. — may try to power through the downturn. And the more directly an IT project affects near-term profits, the more likely it is to survive."

coondoggie writes to tell us that DARPA seems to still be having fun with their funding and continues to aim for the "far out." The latest program, a submersible airplane, seems to have been pulled directly from science fiction. Hopefully this voyage to the bottom of the sea is of the non-permanent variety. "According to DARPA: 'The difficulty with developing such a craft come from the diametrically opposed requirements that exist for an airplane and a submarine. While the primary goal for airplane designers is to try and minimize weight, a submarine must be extremely heavy in order to submerge underwater. In addition, the flow conditions and the systems designed to control a submarine and an airplane are radically different, due to the order of magnitude difference in the densities of air and water.'"

coondoggie writes "Now this is some serious computer theft. We're talking 19,709 pieces of stolen computer equipment from the US Naval Research Laboratory in Washington, DC. The theft included everything from PCs and printer toner to hard drives, software and other office equipment amounting to over $120,000, according to court documents and published reports."

alphadogg writes "The Payment Card Industry Security Standards Council, the organization that sets technical requirements for processing credit- and debit-cards, Wednesday issued revised security rules, while also indicating next year it will focus on new guidelines for end-to-end encryption, payment machines and virtualization. PCI adherence has been pushed big time in the industry to help avoid more big breaches such as the one involving TJX. Those familiar with the standard say it could be expensive to implement and that there are some things those using wireless LANs will need to pay especially close attention to."

netbuzz writes "Apparently tired of waiting to be sued by the movie studios over its new DVD-to-PC copying software, RealNetworks this morning announced it will file a preemptive lawsuit in an attempt to authoritatively establish that the product does not infringe on copyright restrictions. Within an hour or so, the Motion Picture Association of America said it would have a litigation announcement of its own this afternoon."

netbuzz writes "Apparently tired of waiting to be sued by the movie studios over its new DVD-to-PC copying software, RealNetworks this morning announced it will file a preemptive lawsuit in an attempt to authoritatively establish that the product does not infringe on copyright restrictions. Within an hour or so, the Motion Picture Association of America said it would have a litigation announcement of its own this afternoon."

coondoggie sends in a Network World post that begins "It sounds like a math phobic's worst nightmare or perhaps Good Will Hunting for the ages. Those wacky folks at the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency have put out a research request it calls Mathematical Challenges, that has the mighty goal of 'dramatically revolutionizing mathematics and thereby strengthening DoD's scientific and technological capabilities.' The challenges are in fact 23 questions that, if answered, would offer a high potential for major mathematical breakthroughs, DARPA said." Some of the questions overlap with the Millennium Prize Problems of the Clay Mathematics Institute, which each carry a $1M prize.

coondoggie sends in a Network World post that begins "It sounds like a math phobic's worst nightmare or perhaps Good Will Hunting for the ages. Those wacky folks at the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency have put out a research request it calls Mathematical Challenges, that has the mighty goal of 'dramatically revolutionizing mathematics and thereby strengthening DoD's scientific and technological capabilities.' The challenges are in fact 23 questions that, if answered, would offer a high potential for major mathematical breakthroughs, DARPA said." Some of the questions overlap with the Millennium Prize Problems of the Clay Mathematics Institute, which each carry a $1M prize.

As hard as it is to imagine, coondoggie writes with news that the federal government just unveiled a new energy bill that will offer $15 million in assistance to retailers who help to build and adopt energy-efficient technologies. "The US Department of Energy (DOE) announced the first phase of $15 million awards to retailers Best Buy, JCPenney, John Deere, Macy's, SuperValu, Target, Toyota, and Whole Foods Market. Commercial Real Estate Firms such as CB Richard Ellis, Forest City Enterprises as well as the financials groups also saw some of the money. Along with the money the companies will have access to the DOE's Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) and National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) to design, build, tune and operate at least one new prototype building and to retrofit an existing building project."

BobB-nw writes "Watch out Apple, here comes Nintendo. Nintendo plans to launch a new version of its popular DS portable gaming device with a camera and music player function, according to a report in the Sunday edition of The Nikkei Business Daily. The new version will have better wireless capability for connecting to the Internet and will cost under $189, the report said. It will be offered first in Japan, it said. The DS first went on sale in 2004, and a second version, called the DS Lite, debuted two years later in 2006. Both have sold extremely well, with worldwide sales of the DS products at 77.5 million units as of the end of June this year."

netbuzz writes "Someone finally took the time to do a count of all the Google apps marked 'beta.' And with fully 45% of its products carrying that familiar tag — including 4-year-old Gmail — Google says there's an explanation: Beta doesn't mean to them what it has long meant to the rest of the tech community. 'We believe beta has a different meaning when applied to applications on the Web,' says a company spokesman."

netbuzz writes "Someone finally took the time to do a count of all the Google apps marked 'beta.' And with fully 45% of its products carrying that familiar tag — including 4-year-old Gmail — Google says there's an explanation: Beta doesn't mean to them what it has long meant to the rest of the tech community. 'We believe beta has a different meaning when applied to applications on the Web,' says a company spokesman."

alphadogg writes with this excerpt from Network World: "The lifeline linking notorious service provider Intercage to the rest of the Internet has been severed. Intercage, which has also done business under the name Atrivo, was knocked offline late Saturday night when the last upstream provider connecting it to the Internet's backbone, Pacific Internet Exchange, terminated Intercage's service. Intercage president Emil Kacperski said Pacific did not tell him why his company had been knocked offline, but he believes it was in response to pressure from Spamhaus, a volunteer-run antispam group, which has been highly critical of Intercage's business practices."

alphadogg writes "When you file your taxes online, you want to be sure that the Web site you visit — www.irs.gov — is operated by the Internal Revenue Service and not a scam artist. By the end of next year, you can be confident that every U.S. government Web page is being served up by the appropriate agency. That's because the feds have launched the largest-ever rollout of a new authentication mechanism for the Internet's DNS. All federal agencies are deploying DNS Security Extensions (DNSSEC) on the .gov top-level domain, and some expect that once that rollout is complete, banks and other businesses might be encouraged to follow suit for their sites. DNSSEC prevents hackers from hijacking Web traffic and redirecting it to bogus sites. The Internet standard prevents spoofing attacks by allowing Web sites to verify their domain names and corresponding IP addresses using digital signatures and public-key encryption."

alphadogg writes "Network operators and IT professionals already worried about how hurricanes and financial meltdowns will impact their work lives can add another potential catastrophe to their list of concerns: a global pandemic. During a panel sponsored by the FCC in Washington, D.C. this week, representatives from telecom carriers and ISPs discussed what steps they've been taking to prepare for the mass outbreak of a disease such as influenza, and also described the needs and challenges they would have to meet to keep communications up and running during a major global crisis. The most important tool at ISPs' disposal during a serious pandemic, panelists agreed, was that of network and bandwidth management controls."

mattnyc99 writes "Earlier this summer we followed a war robot contest in England. But now, after the Russian onslaught in Georgia, this weekend's TechX Challenge in Singapore takes on a bigger meaning: can small countries keep up with military superpowers by upmodding existing robots for their own needs and then arming them? Researchers in the Far East seem to be struggling with their A.I. research right now, but this could just be the beginning of the 'little guys' fighting back. From the article: 'Chan says the agency wants to use more locally developed robots to help in homeland security and counterterrorist operations. The DSTA's goal is to improve robotic artificial intelligence so it can build machines to perform dangerous tasks — reconnaissance, surveillance and the handling of hazardous materials — that American robots already can. ... Back at Nanyang Technological University, Michael Lau acknowledges the urgency of the research but says the AI for urban warfare just isn't ready. "We don't really believe fully autonomous robots are possible yet," says the Evolution team supervisor. "How does a robot differentiate between friend and foe?"'" We've discussed similar projects from DARPA in the past. Reader coondoggie notes that enthusiasts will be able to participate in the lighter side of robot warfare next month in Texas.

coondoggie writes to tell us that Lockheed Martin has landed a $485 million contract to create the spacecraft for NASA's MAVEN (Mars Atmosphere and Volatile EvolutioN) project. "MAVEN is the second mission in NASA's Mars Scout Program — a series of small, low-cost, principal investigator-led missions to the Red Planet, NASA said. The Phoenix Mars Lander was the first mission under the program. Lockheed Martin is the industry partner on the Phoenix mission. It designed and built the spacecraft, and also provided flight operations and currently surface operations for the lander. The mission has been extended through Sept. 30, 2008."

coondoggie writes to tell us that Lockheed Martin has landed a $485 million contract to create the spacecraft for NASA's MAVEN (Mars Atmosphere and Volatile EvolutioN) project. "MAVEN is the second mission in NASA's Mars Scout Program — a series of small, low-cost, principal investigator-led missions to the Red Planet, NASA said. The Phoenix Mars Lander was the first mission under the program. Lockheed Martin is the industry partner on the Phoenix mission. It designed and built the spacecraft, and also provided flight operations and currently surface operations for the lander. The mission has been extended through Sept. 30, 2008."

coondoggie writes "In what may be the least astonishing news of the day, some major US companies who say they are environmentally recycling electronic waste — aren't. Rather more startling — they are dumping everything from cell phones and old computers to televisions in countries such as China and India where disposal practices are unsafe to people and dangerous to the environment. Controlling the exportation of all of the e-waste plops on the doorstep of the US Environmental Protection Agency which is doing a woeful job, according to a scathing 67-page report issued by the Government Accountability Office today."

netbuzz writes "'Anonymous,' best known for its jousts with Scientology, has apparently hacked Sarah Palin's private Yahoo email account. Contents, including sample emails, an index, and family photos, have been posted by Wikileaks, which calls them evidence that the GOP vice presidential candidate has improperly used private email to shield government business from public scrutiny." Note that there is no easy way to tell if the material on Wikileaks is genuine or a hoax. Update by J : Genuine.

netbuzz writes "'Anonymous,' best known for its jousts with Scientology, has apparently hacked Sarah Palin's private Yahoo email account. Contents, including sample emails, an index, and family photos, have been posted by Wikileaks, which calls them evidence that the GOP vice presidential candidate has improperly used private email to shield government business from public scrutiny." Note that there is no easy way to tell if the material on Wikileaks is genuine or a hoax. Update by J : Genuine.

Julie188 writes "Experts keep screaming that the IPv4 sky is falling. Three such experts were recently asked point-blank to state an irrefutable business case for moving to IPv6 now, and their answer was more plausible than the old refrain (the lack of addresses and a yet-to-be-seen killer IPv6 app). They said that there isn't a business case. No company that is satisfied with all of its Internet services will need to move, even in the next few years. They also pointed out that Microsoft is a unique position in the industry both causing and hindering IPv6 adoption — causing through its IPv6 support in its OSes, and hindering by not extending IPv6 support into very many of its apps."

Julie188 writes "Experts keep screaming that the IPv4 sky is falling. Three such experts were recently asked point-blank to state an irrefutable business case for moving to IPv6 now, and their answer was more plausible than the old refrain (the lack of addresses and a yet-to-be-seen killer IPv6 app). They said that there isn't a business case. No company that is satisfied with all of its Internet services will need to move, even in the next few years. They also pointed out that Microsoft is a unique position in the industry both causing and hindering IPv6 adoption — causing through its IPv6 support in its OSes, and hindering by not extending IPv6 support into very many of its apps."

alphadogg writes to mention that the same working group that brought you the standard for the 802.11n wireless communications is already poised to launch a gigabit Wi-Fi project. "Last year, group members formed the Very High Throughput (VHT) Study Group to explore changes to the 802.11 WLAN standard to support gigabit capacity. The study group is looking at doing so in two frequency bands, high-frequency 60GHz for relatively short ranges and under-6GHz for ranges similar to that of today's WLANs in the 5GHz band, 802.11a and 11n."

alphadogg writes "With costs related to a rogue network administrator's hijacking of the city's network now estimated at $1 million, city officials say they are searching for a mysterious networking device hidden somewhere on the network. The device, referred to as a 'terminal server' in court documents, appears to be a router that was installed to provide remote access to the city's Fiber WAN network, which connects municipal computer and telecommunication systems throughout the city. City officials haven't been able to log in to the device, however, because they do not have the username and password. In fact, the city's Department of Telecommunications and Information Services isn't even certain where the device is located, court filings state."

alphadogg writes "With costs related to a rogue network administrator's hijacking of the city's network now estimated at $1 million, city officials say they are searching for a mysterious networking device hidden somewhere on the network. The device, referred to as a 'terminal server' in court documents, appears to be a router that was installed to provide remote access to the city's Fiber WAN network, which connects municipal computer and telecommunication systems throughout the city. City officials haven't been able to log in to the device, however, because they do not have the username and password. In fact, the city's Department of Telecommunications and Information Services isn't even certain where the device is located, court filings state."

Continuing our coverage of Google Chrome, snydeq points out an Infoworld story about looking at the new browser from a developer's perspective, and another about how WebKit should be the focus of development efforts, rather than the browsers that use it. TGdaily notes that Chrome's search box will fetch all types of data, and can be made to display banking information with little effort. ABC and coderrr have slightly more paranoid articles questioning Google's commitment to privacy. NetworkWorld suggests that Chrome's unique process model (explained here) will require the development of new measurement standards.

alphadogg writes "Sony is recalling 73,000 Vaio TZ laptops because of a possible manufacturing defect that may cause them to overheat, the US Consumer Product Safety Commission said Thursday. The recall relates to a problem with wiring near the computer's hinge, which could short-circuit and overheat in certain circumstances, perhaps burning the user. One person has suffered a minor burn as a result of the latest defect, and Sony has received 15 other reports of overheating computers, according to the Commission."