Slashdot Mirror

Makarand writes "A date palm seed found during archaeological excavations at King Herod's palace on Mount Masada, near the Dead Sea, and whose age was confirmed to be 2000 years by carbon dating techniques has sprouted into a young tree.This historic seedling which sprouted 4 weeks after planting has grown six leaves and one has been removed for DNA tests. Scientists hope that the unique seedling will eventually yield vital clues to the medicinal properties of the fruit of the Judean date tree chronicled in the Bible and the Quran and which was long thought to be extinct."

linuxwrangler writes "According to this SFGate article, federal regulators have given VoIP providers 120 days to provide 911 service to their customers. The vote came after testimony from people including a Florida woman who had her infant die after being unable to call 911 from her internet phone. VoIP providers are also required to notify their customers of the deadline and of the limitations of VoIP 911 service."

Afroloop writes "This article (with pics) in the SFGate covers the opening of the new Lucas Headquarters in San Francisco's famous Presidio. It will house up to 1,500 employees by next fall. From the article: 'The Presidio will feature 600 miles of fiber-optic cable. 4,000 processors and 150 terabytes of storage -- massive computing power and speed, with the ability to work 10 times faster than they can today.'"

jeffkjo1 writes "The U.S. Senate has passed the $82 billion Iraq Supplemental Spending Bill (approved by the House last week), which includes the Real ID act driver's license reform (previously reported here.) The National Governors Association has indicated at the possibility of a lawsuit to challenge the constitutionality of the Real ID provisions, which would create national driver's license standards, and a federal database of information from all 50 states."

linuxwrangler writes "Court authorized wiretaps in the U.S. surged 19% in 2004 to 1,710. Court orders relating to terror-related investigations are not included in the wiretap statistics and those warrants reached a record 1,754 last year. Apparently judges have found that law enforcement is unbelievably perfect as they rubber-stamped approvals on every single request they received."

ozone writes " An interview with Verizon CEO Ivan Seidenberg quotes him as saying that 'Municipal Wi-Fi is one of the dumbest ideas I've ever heard' and 'Why in the world would you think your (cell) phone would work in your house?' -- apparently Verizon's own 'Can You Hear Me Now' ad campaign has given customers 'unrealistic expectations' that their phone service will work everywhere. What?"

CTealL writes "Apparently Intuit thinks it's okay to share information about taxes with third paries. According to this article, Intuit is using a third party tracking technology on all tax forms submitted to the IRS. "We could capture your name, your Social Security number or any other information that you willingly pass to a Web site," acknowledged Matt Belkin, who serves as vice president of best practices for Utah marketing giant Omniture, which tracks the online activities of people using Intuit's TurboTax. The IRS disavows any knowledge of this, saying "The IRS does not take a position on Web tracking tools." Makes you wonder where your tax information is going..."

Travoltus writes "The threat of increased misuse of consumer personal data by offshore criminals was first made publicly known with the UCSF Pakistani medical transcriber scandal. Then, in a logical progression of events, it was discovered that foreign criminal interests were offering money to offshored call center workers to surrender consumer data. Now that threat has been realized: Offshored call center staffers at Mphasis BPO have allegedly stolen £200,000 using United States customers' personal information. It is believed that Indian police reacted swiftly to catch the thieves, but only £12,000 has been recovered so far, and it is not really known who orchestrated this theft or where the rest of that money is now. It is also unknown as of yet how much of a mess this has created for the U.S. citizens who were victimized. Let's hope that the people whose information was stolen don't have to go through what other identity theft victims have to endure, to clean up their good name."

catdevnull writes "The SF Gate is reporting that former VP Al Gore is launching "Current" a new CableTV-Internet hybrid. From the article: "Current, the name of Gore's enterprise, hopes to do that by airing a shuffle of short news features, some produced by the network but many submitted online by viewers. Current will also air segments every half hour showing TV viewers what Google searchers are tapping into at that moment -- everything from current events to tourist destinations. It's all directed at a generation that thinks nothing of plugging into more than one media outlet at once." "

Grant Barrett asks: "All I hear from IT directors is Sarbanes-Oxley, Sarbanes-Oxley, Sarbanes-Oxley. SOX, as they're calling it, is taxing manpower, swallowing time, and adding huge administrative headaches--not to mention incurring fees and salaries paid out to staff or third-party firms hired to ensure compliance--and that's just the IT department. How are you dealing? Did you make your compliance deadline even after the extension? Are you joining the the backlash?"

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."

jonathanhowell writes "David Lazarus, The SF Chronicle's tech guy, has an article in today's paper with an interesting investigation into the work you have to do to get a "free" (as in beer) iPod. I'm trying not to call it a scam, because it appears completely legal, if ethically challenged." From the article: "What it doesn't say is that the offer terms will expose you to reams of spam and marketing solicitations, that the user survey is actually a lengthy marketing ploy, and that the sponsor offers needed to qualify for that free music player will almost certainly cost you money."

linuxwrangler writes "Treasury department auditors recently posed as network technicians and attempted to get IRS employees to reveal their usernames and passwords and/or change the password to one suggested by the "technician". The result: over one-third shared their passwords. If there is any good news in the story it is that the 35% figure represents a substantial reduction from the 71% who fell for the ruse in 2001."

linuxwrangler writes "Saying that no one has the right to publish information that could have been provided only by someone breaking the law, judge James Kleinberg ruled that online reporters for Apple Insider and PowerPage must reveal their sources. No word yet on an appeal."

ewhac writes "As reported earlier, a Sutter County, CA, elementary school unilaterally took the dubious step of forcing students, under penalty of disciplinary action, to wear RFID badges with their name, grade, and photo. The RFID tags were read by sensors placed above classroom and bathroom doors (though the latter had been shut off). The system was ostensibly used to automate attendance-keeping. Well, InCom Corp., the company that provided the tech free of charge to the school, has abruptly pulled out, without explanation. The school superintendant claimed to be, "disappointed," at the development. However, some parents are not mollified, and vow to permanently keep such people-tracking technologies out of their schools."

AT writes "The Brittan School District in Sutter County, California, is requiring students to carry RFID-tagged identity badges on them at all times. Readers are currently installed at the doors to all classrooms. Readers were removed from bathrooms when parents protested. The school district is meeting next week to consider parents objections to the system." Relatedly (but not), Leilah writes "The University of California is considering using RFID tags or bar codes to help track their collection of bodies and parts. They are attempting to reopen their body donation program which has been on hold since spring 2004 due to disappearing parts - they've previously had legal trouble over improper disposal as well."

RatBastard writes "SF Gate's Mark Morford asks: Why Does Windows Still Suck? After wtaching his significant other's Windows PC drown in a sea of viruses and worms after only 4 minutes on her new DSL connection, Mark Morford wonders why the masses have not stormed Redmond waving torches and scythes in anger over the never-ending security flaws in Windows. Why haven't they jetisoned the foul beast from Redmond and migrated en mass to the Macintosh or even Linux?"

Lots of submissions this morning about Bill Gates' performance at the Las Vegas Consumer Electronics Show. His Media Center PC presentation crashed. (The presentation is online.) He also gave an interview to CNET, where he described anyone who doesn't support ever-increasing intellectual property laws as "communists". Boingboing has some commentary on that interview as well.

Ant writes "This SF Gate story says stacks of new releases for hungry video game enthusiasts mean it's boom time for an industry now even bigger than Hollywood. The $10 billion video game industry, which generates more revenue than Hollywood, has never released so many highly anticipated blockbuster titles in a single season. It started in August with the game title Doom 3, followed by The Sims 2 in September, Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas in October, then Halo 2, Metroid Prime 2: Echoes and Half-Life 2 last month. In November, sales of video games rose to $849 million, an 11 percent increase from the same month last year and up 77 percent from October, according to the industry research firm NPD Funworld. The industry set a milestone last month when Microsoft's Halo 2 -- a sequel to a futuristic game with an elaborate plot that pits humans against invading aliens -- surpassed Hollywood's opening-weekend movie box office record in just one day of sales."

currivan writes "In a move that's been in consideration for a long time, the Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB) approved new rules requiring employee stock options to be treated as expenses for reporting purposes. One of the reasons so many tech companies have given options to IT/engineering workers is that until now, they haven't counted against profits in quarterly reports. If markets were truly efficient, this wouldn't make a difference, but in reality, the tech industry is strongly opposed to the rule, though it should please Warren Buffett."

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."

yali writes "A new study shows that Game Boys are better than tranquilizers for calming children before surgery. Kids allowed to bring Game Boys into the OR showed no change in anxiety (compared to a small increase with tranquilizers, and a big increase in a control condition.) Kind of puts a different spin on analogies between games and drugs."

Why do the Japanese get all the coolest gadgets, while the U.S. is left with the second-tier, less-innovative ones? The San Francisco Chronicle delves into this age-old mystery and provides a few explanations for those of us who don't live near Akihabara.

Spaceman40 sent in this ZDNet story. PeterPumpkin collects way too many links to Firefox stories: "According to SpreadFirefox.com , there were almost 3 million downloads of Firefox 1.0 in the 5 days since launch, which comes to over 500,000 downloads per day. There are news bites coming out about Firefox everywhere you could possibly imagine. According to a report on MozillaZine, Denmark's largest television channel, TV2, reported on the release of Mozilla Firefox 1.0. PC-WELT, the German equivalent of PC-World, is distributing their own customised version of Firefox to customers." Thomas Hawk writes "Rather than go outside for the past 48 hours, Scott Granneman prefers to burrow in his den and come up with one of the first definitive lists of Firefox links. Good geeking Scott. And way to overcompensate."

A couple of people submitted this piece about retailers using databases to crack down on sub-optimal customers, such as those who return too many purchases to the store. Also has a few tidbits about other database blacklists that are available to companies. Customers avoid intrusive practices; although this story was written by the Washington Post and I have the URL to the original story available, I declined to link to washingtonpost.com because of their intrusive registration.

saikou writes "According to AP Story (via SF Chronicle), brother and sister spammers just got convicted 'in the nation's first felony prosecution of distributors of spam,' while third suspect was acquitted. Jurors moved on to figuring out appropriate punishment (please, please, please give them some jail time. Pretty please). More spam cases for Virgina?"

mstefanus writes "SFGate.com has a story about AMD's 50x15 Personal Internet Communicator (PIC). It is basically a PC with an AMD Geode GX500 366MHz processor, 10GB hard drive and 128MB Memory; running some form of Windows CE. The device is intended as a cheap internet PC for the rest of the world population. AMDBoard has some pictures and specifications. The question is, will it run emm... FreeBSD?"

TAGmclaren writes "The Sun-Sentinel is reporting on computer glitches already affecting the election in - you guessed it - Florida. Of the 14 early voting sites that opened in Broward County on Monday morning, 9 were reporting problems. In Orlando County, the touch screens crashed. More generally, SFgate.com is keeping track of all voting issues across the country - including lawsuits and other ballot problems." Update: 10/19 03:38 GMT by T : Thanks to reader Dale J. Russell for pointing out that "there is no Orlando County. The city of Orlando, Florida resides in Orange County."

mlmitton writes "The San Francisco Chronicle is reporting that the Air Force is actively pursuing antimatter weapons. Such weapons would easy eclipse nuclear weapons in power, e.g., 1 gram of antimatter would equal 23 space shuttle fuel tanks of energy. Perhaps more interesting, after an initial inquiry by the Chronicle in the summer, the Air Force issued a gag order that prohibits any Air Force employee from discussing antimatter research or funding."

jg21 writes "After Java 5, what will become of Calvin Austin now that he's lead engineer - and spec lead - in charge of J2SE on Linux? This interview shows him to be Sun's most personable developer asset after James Gosling. (Gosling BTW, who famously uses Mac OS rather than a PC, has a Linux box and uses the X support on OS X to run Java 5.) Asked what feature in the new Java edition he considered coolest of all, Austin without hesitation replied "Metadata" - the spec lead for that particular feature, Austin's former colleague at Sun Joshua Bloch, was headhunted recently by Google. Now Java, Linux, and Google would be quite a combo. Maybe that's what's fueling all the recent speculation that a Google browser would probably be a browser, feed reader, blog tool, desktop search, online search, gmail, news reader, photo editing, and online photo publishing all rolled into one."

linuxwrangler writes "NASA scientists are wrapping up the recovery of the Genesis Project. Eileen Stansbery of the Johnson Space Center, said the crash, 'will make the analysis difficult but not impossible...There is nothing that is a total loss,' which is truly good news. The JPL has some nice pictures and video of the recovered bits."

kevcol writes "The San Francisco Chronicle has an excellent interview with Intel's CEO Craig Barrett who retires next year. In it, he is asked about topics ranging from labor distribution (oh I'm sorry- outsourcing), the Chinese market, the perils and promise of expanding operations in the Middle East, the state of K-12 schools in the U.S. and declining numbers of home-grown engineers, and more. Notably absent are any questions of AMD. Notice how he likes to pick on sensationalist press by prepending some comments with 'you in the media...'. Anyway, good interview."

An anonymous reader writes "It looks like California will soon be requiring emails to share files. The story from SF Gate has a few details as Ahnold goes on his signing spree in Sacramento. 'Aiding the industry that helped him gain worldwide fame, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger signed legislation Tuesday aimed at discouraging online piracy by requiring anyone disseminating movies or music on the Internet to disclose their e-mail address.' Also he signed a bill to limit the sale of video games."

code_rage writes "Carolyn Lockhead of The San Francisco Chronicle has written an article about one of the most important, but overlooked, political issues we are facing. Baby-boomers will soon begin retiring, which will result in a huge fiscal imbalance (deficits and debts). The article says that the present value of the anticipated debt is estimated to be between $40 trillion and $72 trillion, depending on the source. To put that in perspective, the current national debt is $7.3 trillion.""

Former Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill commissioned a study (free PDF) that was written by Jagadeesh Gokhale and Kent Smetters. To give a sense of how serious the fiscal imbalance is, consider some of the painful measures that the study said would be necessary to balance the books:
- More than double the payroll tax, from 15.3% to 32% of wages
- Raise income taxes by two thirds
- Cut Social Security and Medicare benefits by 45%
- Eliminate all "discretionary" spending (including such constitutionally mandated government functions as the military and the judiciary)

Peter G. Peterson has written a book about the issue: "Running On Empty: How the Democratic and Republican Parties Are Bankrupting Our Future and What Americans Can Do about It." He recently gave an interview at the Council on Foreign Relations. He prefers to express the issue in terms of cash flow, because Social Security and Medicare are "pay as you go" systems (there is essentially no trust fund). The cash flow impacts will be an estimated $783 billion in 2020, increasing to trillions later.

Peterson offers some concrete proposals in the interview, and offers some political cover to the candidates in saying "I have never thought that a political campaign is an optimum environment for serious discussion or practical proposals.

kwings writes "SF Gate (via the AP) is reporting that your pal, Ken Jennings has been beaten after his 75th(!) game. I fully expect Mr. Trebek to hold a wake, or to keep calling the champion 'Ken' for the rest of the season. :) Since they're only up to airing game 41, it will be an interesting few months (or 34 shows)."

An anonymous reader writes "Radio stations are upset because Microsoft is cloning their playlists -- creating sounds-alike internet radio stations without the commercials."

linuxwrangler writes "Actor James Doohan, aka Scotty on the original Star Trek series received his star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame today. This is expected to be Doohan's last public appearance as he suffers from Parkinson's disease, diabetes and lung fibrosis as well as recently diagnosed Alzheimer's disease."

Darren writes "Athletes are going faster, higher and longer and as a result the technology that measures their feats at the Olympics needs to keep up. As a result a number of new devices to help track winners, losers at the Games have been developed, including microchips on marathon runners' shoes, ultrasensitive touch pads in the pool, radar guns at the beach volleyball and cameras that take 1000 images per second."

Roland Piquepaille writes "The robotics actuality is pretty rich these days. Besides the fighting robots of Robo-One and the flying microrobots from Epson (the best picture is at Ananova), here are some the latest intriguing news in robotics. In Japan, Yoshiyuki Sankai has built a robot suit, called Hybrid Assistive Limb-3 (or HAL-3), designed to help disabled or elderly people. In the U.S., Ohio State University is developing a robotic tomato harvester for the J.F. Kennedy Space Center while Northrop Grumman received $1 billion from the Pentagon to build a new robotic fighter. I kept the best for the end. A Californian counselor has just patented the ten ethical laws of robotics. A good read for a Sunday, if you can understand what he means. This summary only focuses on HAL-3 and one of the most incredible patents I've ever seen, so please read the above articles for more information about the other subjects."

sig writes "Senator Edward Kennedy (D-MA) was turned down for a flight from Washington, D. C. to Boston because his name turned up on the TSA No-Fly list. He eventually got on a flight, but was again denied on his way back to D.C. It took 3 weeks of calls to Tom Ridge and the Department of Homeland Security for the ordeal to get straightened out. But what are ordinary citizens supposed to do if the Secretary of Homeland Security won't take their calls?" There's also a New York Times story.

Schlemphfer writes "The San Francisco Chronicle has published a long interview with Craig Newmark of Craigslist. The interview covers topics like running a business with a moral compass, hiring people while finding leadership to grow a website, and last week's eBay purchase of 25% of the site."

Schlemphfer writes "The San Francisco Chronicle has published a long interview with Craig Newmark of Craigslist. The interview covers topics like running a business with a moral compass, hiring people while finding leadership to grow a website, and last week's eBay purchase of 25% of the site."

linuxwrangler writes "Officials at the National Transportation Safety Board are recommending the government require data recorders in all passenger vehicles. David Sobel of EPIC says his group has privacy concerns - especially when drivers are unaware of the presence of the devices. Auto black-boxes have been covered here before."

SteamyMobile writes "As the article says, 'In a sign the Linux operating system may be gaining traction beyond server and other back-room systems, HP said Tuesday it will be the first major PC maker to ship a business notebook computer pre-installed' with Linux. This is great news because, as anyone who has ever tried to run Linux (or even Windows XP) on a laptop knows, laptops come with all kinds of funky hardware, and it's often a mess trying to find and configure the right kernel modules to make things like software suspend work correctly. Having it shipped pre-loaded, and with support, makes it easy for me to decide where I'm getting my next laptop. Linux has been ready for the desktop for a while now, but it is good to see companies like HP acknowledging that."

zapatero writes "The San Francisco Chronicle has an enjoyable read with new Dell CEO Kevin Rollins. He has quite a critique of the HP acquisition of Compaq: 'They had a great, profitable printer business before. They still have a great, profitable printer business. ... Their profits are 70 to 80 percent from the printer business. So that's the area where the profit pool still lives. It's where it lived before. It's where it still is now. So I just ask, what's changed?'"

Shadow Wrought writes "The San Francisco Chronicle is reporting on PBS censoring one of its upcoming drama shows, Cop Shop, due to the chilling effect of the most recent FCC rulings on indecency. Star Richard Dreyfuss offered these choice words as part of a prepared statement, 'It is inescapably censorship under guidelines imposed after the fact by those who are in temporary political power, and so it should be treated as what it is -- a real-world moral and ethical battle with grimly wrongheaded, un-American types who play pick and choose when they define our freedoms of speech and religion as it fits their particular political needs.'"

Shadow Wrought writes "The San Francisco Chronicle is reporting on PBS censoring one of its upcoming drama shows, Cop Shop, due to the chilling effect of the most recent FCC rulings on indecency. Star Richard Dreyfuss offered these choice words as part of a prepared statement, 'It is inescapably censorship under guidelines imposed after the fact by those who are in temporary political power, and so it should be treated as what it is -- a real-world moral and ethical battle with grimly wrongheaded, un-American types who play pick and choose when they define our freedoms of speech and religion as it fits their particular political needs.'"

linuxwrangler writes "Best Buy is one of the retailers that has now decided that the customer is not always right. Best Buy consultant Larry Selden has identified "demon customers" like those who file for a rebate then return the item. OK, I get that one (hey Best Buy: dump those customer-despised rebates and you won't have that problem...). Other categories like customers who only buy during sales are more interesting. Best Buy declined comment on how they are dealing with those customers. Some stores have actually "fired" customers. Welcome to the end result of all that customer information data mining."

yootje writes "A long story about Sony, and how Sony developed: from the first walkman, until the latest competition against the iPod. "

faxafloi writes "SFGate has an article about how remote controls have proliferated in our world like rabbits. Even their inventor, Robert Adler, is befuddled by them. 'Universal' remotes help some, but are not interoperable with enough devices to drive everything, so we're stuck with multiple remotes. The article then describes the new top of the line models, ranging to (ahem) $1699.00." (Of course, there were remote controls of a sort long before Adler.) For another approach to universal remote control -- using a cell phone as display and controller -- read on below.

An anonymous reader writes "This whitepaper describes Intel's research into innovative and futuristic uses of camera phones. Cell phones are already much more than a communication device. In cities around the world, purchasing a soda out of a vending machine can be as easy as dialing your cell phone. Even parking and toll fees are easily paid through a cell phone, and they are used as debit/credit cards to purchase food, services, and gas. Now, the global proliferation of cell phones with cameras brings more opportunities to use mobile phone devices in different capacities -- and the best part is that these applications require no additional hardware. In Intel's research, camera phones are being used as pointing devices, authentication devices, storage devices, and even as user interfaces for systems that, because of cost and/or form factor, aren't able to accommodate a display of their own."