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Technology

Cell-Phone Wars 992

Posted by CmdrTaco from the it-was-only-a-matter-of-time dept.
Makarand writes "According to this article in the Houston Chronicle people fed up with cell phone chatter have declared war against cell phones. They are arming themselves with detectors, jammers and other gizmos to defend privacy, security, sanity and blissful silence. Although jamming cell phones is not legal in the US, pocket-sized jammers are available online and even on eBay. Cell-phone jammers typically work by disrupting the communication between handsets and cellular towers by flooding an area with interference or selectively blocking signals by broadcasting on frequencies used by these phones. The FCC has received very few complaints about jammed cell phones and has never taken action against anyone for that violation."
Censorship

Indian Police Demand Internet Monitoring In Bombay 33

Posted by timothy from the now-appearing-as-mumbai dept.
h4rm0ny writes "Both the BBC and the Houston Chronicle are running stories about planned monitoring of customers at cyber cafes in Bombay. Cafe owners have responded by organising into a group to oppose the moves.
The police want cafes to demand photo id, a home address and maintain records of access for at least a year. The Great Deamons of Justification have been invoked - Terrorism, Paedophillia, Hackers and in this case Users of Adult Sites. On the cafe owner's part - they are countering with questions of liability for verifying customer details and the issues of privacy.
India remains a country with a very low percentage of the population having their own internet connection. Bombay's 3000 cafes are used by approximately 1.5 million people so these new laws would give the police much larger scope to monitor people's online behaviour than in other countries.
Other Indian cities are watching the results closely."
Science

Wind Turbines Kill a Few Birds 991

Posted by michael from the cuisinart dept.
Guppy06 writes "The Houston Chronicle has an article about how a 7000-turbine windfarm in Altamont Pass, California (the world's largest collection) has killed an estimated 22,000 birds during the past 20 years or so of operation, 'including hundreds of golden eagles, red-tailed hawks, kestrels and other raptors(.)' There are efforts to keep the operators from renewing their permit until they take measures to protect bird populations. To put things in perspective the article goes on to point out that the Exxon Valdez spill is estimated to have killed around 250,000, while the whole story can just about be summed up by one quote by a biologist: 'When you turn on your lights you kill something, no matter what the source of electricity.'" Killing 3-4 birds per day doesn't seem too bad. It's a shame that larger, rarer birds are getting killed, but... How many birds would die from the acid rain that a coal power plant would cause?
Music

Canadians [Will] Pay Levy on MP3 Players - Updated 665

Posted by CowboyNeal from the strange-new-sin-taxes dept.
Capt. Canuck writes "According to this Toronto Star story, the Canadian Copyright Board may approve a 20% levy on electronic media tomorrow, including MP3 players and hard drives. With the Canadian Dollar rising and this on the horizon, maybe now is the right time to get that iPod." Update: 12/12 16:33 GMT by M : rcpitt writes "The Canadian Copyright Board has (finally - a year late) issued its ruling on the latest round of blank media levy - the controversial (in the rest of the world as well as Canada) private "tax" on recordable media used to copy music which proceeds go to the music artists in Canada. The ruling by the board and a press release were posted to the Board's web site at 10AM Ottawa (CST) today. The ruling continues the levy amounts from the previous 2 year period (2001-2002) to the end of this period (2003-2004) at the same amounts as previously set but adds new levies on portable (MP3) digital audio recorders of from CDN$2/unit to CDN$25/unit depending on internal storage capacity."
Music

More on the University of Florida 341

Posted by michael from the vote-with-your-tuition-dollars dept.
setzman writes "According to this article, the University of Florida has implemented a software program known as ICARUS (Integrated Control Application for Restricting User Services) to monitor student activities on the campus network. If a user downloads music or videos the system deems to be illegal, they will lose their connection and be punished by being forced to watch industry propaganda, lengthy suspensions of access, or even a written reprimand. Yet the system hasn't resulted in an increase in CD sales? Hmm... Maybe they will figure out another way to improve their failing business model?" We covered this some months ago but the Associated Press is just catching on.
Hardware

Top 10 Personal Computers 387

Posted by michael from the fighting-words dept.
BWJones writes "The Houston Chronicle has posted a story by Dwight Silverman on the ten most popular PC's of all time. His inclusions are for the most part accurate, but his rankings confuse me. For instance, he includes 'hobby' computers such as the Altair, but excludes the Apple I and his ranking of the Compaq portable PC at number one ahead of the Altair, Apple I and II, Apple Lisa and Macintosh. Interestingly, the author also skips other significant platforms entirely, such as the Amiga and Atari computers as well as skipping over the much more significant Tandy products, the TRS-80 line of computers which like the Apple I and II had built in BASIC which helped introduce many people to programming."
Education

MPAA School Propaganda Program Examined 433

Posted by michael from the starving-artist-the-musical dept.
Anonymous Coward copies-and-pastes: "'As part of its campaign to thwart online music and movie piracy, Hollywood is now reaching into school classrooms with a program that denounces file-sharing and offers prizes for students and teachers who spread the word about Internet theft. The Motion Picture Association of America paid $100,000 to deliver its anti-piracy message to 900,000 students nationwide in grades 5-9 over the next two years, according to Junior Achievement Inc., which is implementing the program using volunteer teachers from the business sector." Only $100,000 to advertise to 900,000 students? What a deal! We mentioned this earlier.
Science

Warfare at the Speed of Light 561

Posted by michael from the also-good-for-making-popcorn dept.
unassimilatible writes "From the They Said It Couldn't Be Done Dept., the Oakland Tribune reports that the Lawrence Livermore Labratory is ensuring that the Pentagon, inside of a decade, could be armed with a beam weapon that is near-instantaneous, gravity-free and truly surgical, focusing to such hair-splitting accuracy that it could avoid civilians while predetonating munitions miles away - perhaps someday even being mounted on Humvees."
Space

Astronauts To Repair Shuttle Tiles With Foam Brush 66

Posted by michael from the crazy-glue dept.
lhouk281 writes "Repairing the space shuttle's heat shield on the fly might be easier than originally thought, thanks to a basic, inexpensive item in any painter's tool box -- the foam brush. The brush, which costs less than $1 at most hardware stores, was described by NASA Administrator Sean O'Keefe as the perfect instrument for applying two compounds that together form a Super Glue-like substance to patch potential holes in the shuttle's heat-resistant tiles."
Security

P2P Spam? 340

Posted by CmdrTaco from the bend-over-and-take-it dept.
Sgt York writes "In a NYT article (republished in the Houston Chronicle, no subscription required) experts at CERT, F-secure, Trusecure, and the Hall of Justice (see article) think that SoBig.F is a spam scheme in the making. They say that SoBig.F is the 6th variant in an ongoing experiment with the possible goal of setting up a distributed spam network, to be rented out to the highest bidder. If that is their goal, they are well on their way. Another disturbing note in the article is that "In the case of four of the six programs, a new version was launched immediately after the self-timed expiration date of the preceding one". SoBig.F expires in two weeks. "
Space

Space Wedding Successful 167

Posted by michael from the ground-control-to-major-tom dept.
The Llama King writes "Love transcends all, including gravity, the atmosphere and orbital altitudes. According to this story at the Houston Chronicle, "Yuri Malenchenko didn't let the fact that he's living aboard the international space station stop him from marrying his bride, Ekaterina Dmitriev." The bride was at Johnson Space Center near Houston, while the groom circled 240 miles above her. The honeymoon will have to wait."
Privacy

Predicting H.S. Dropouts With Pervasive Databases 467

Posted by timothy from the you-want-privacy-with-that dept.
rhadamanthus writes "As seen on the Houston Chronicle: 'With a new computer database available at every campus this fall, teachers can keep a virtual eye on every student and identify those at risk of leaving. For the first time, educators can look up a student's attendance, discipline, immigration status, grades, and test scores at one source and use that information to predict dropouts. ... "All students will know someone is watching them, tracking them, and is interested in their success," school board member Laurie Bricker said at a press conference today.' Hooray for surveillance in the HISD."
Unix

State Of The Filesystem 424

Posted by timothy from the upward-tilting-trend dept.
Skeme writes "Have you heard of Plan 9 or Reiser4 but don't know much about them? Are you curious about the improvements free software is making to its filesystems in general? Read my summary of the current developments in the filesystem: namely, what improvements we can expect (a lot), and what Linux and the BSDs can do to improve on the filesystem."
Spam

US Cell Phone Users Discover SMS Spam 314

Posted by CmdrTaco from the its-only-gonna-get-worse dept.
The Llama King writes "It's a bigger problem in Europe and Japan/Asia, but as SMS text messaging or "texting" becomes more popular in the United States, its users are discovering that spammers like it too, according to this Houston Chronicle story. Cell phone companies are trying to stem the spam flood before it starts, worried that users will turn off their phones, thus denying providers revenue."
Biotech

Corn-Based Plastic 305

Posted by michael from the colonel-redenbacher dept.
SolemnDragon writes "CNN.com is offering up an article about the new corn-based plastic-like product being used at Wild Oats Natural Markets. The product looks like plastic, works like plastic... and then turns into compost. Dubbed the 'corn-tainer,' it's being used to serve foods, etc. Available only in the Pacific Northwest stores (of course) or you can make your own at home. And here's more info on Bio-plastic from MSU." Our older story.
The Courts

Ebay Negative Feedback Lawsuit Dismissed 208

Posted by timothy from the silence-is-golden dept.
ccnull writes "Slashdot readers may recall the Ebay user who was suing Ebay over allegedly libellous feedback. That case has now been dismissed under the CDA, essentially giving Ebay 'common carrier' immunity, much like an ISP. Victory for free speech or perversion of justice? You decide."
Space

Shuttle Assessment Tool was Inferior 30

Posted by michael from the you-can-do-a-lot-with-a-spreadsheet dept.
An anonymous reader writes " Shuttle report in Houston Chronicle: 'The computer program Boeing engineers used to predict that a debris-damaged Columbia could land safely wasn't much more than a simple chart of past foam damage, accident investigators said Tuesday.'"
Programming

Are Programmers Engineers? 1002

Posted by timothy from the let-the-french-academy-decide dept.
The Llama King writes "The Houston Chronicle has an interesting story about a debate in the Texas Legislature over whether programmers are really engineers. A quote: " 'It's one of the silliest issues we're having to deal with this session, but it's also one of the most important,' said Steven Kester, legislative director of the American Electronics Association, an organization of computer companies." Are you really an engineer? Or just a code-monkey?"

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