More trouble for Hubble

BALTIMORE, Maryland (AP) -- The main camera on the Hubble Space Telescope has shut down unexpectedly for the second time this year, the operators of the orbiting observatory announced Friday.

The Space Telescope Science Institute, which coordinates use of the telescope, said the camera shut down Saturday.

Program managers at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt and at the institute were investigating the cause and what action to take.

In the meantime, observations on the Hubble were being rescheduled to use other instruments, the Baltimore-based institute said. more »

IBM to Build Supercomputer Powered by Video Game Chips

SAN FRANCISCO, Sept. 6 - The Department of Energy said Wednesday that it had awarded IBM a contract to build a supercomputer capable of 1,000 trillion calculations a second

read more

WHAT THE BLEEP DO WE KNOW?!

is a new type of film. It is part documentary, part story, and part elaborate and inspiring visual effects and animations. The protagonist, Amanda, played by Marlee Matlin, finds herself in a fantastic Alice in Wonderland experience when her daily, uninspired life literally begins to unravel, revealing the uncertain world of the quantum field hidden behind what we consider to be our normal, waking reality.

Pennsylvania town gets tough on immigration

Hazleton cracks down on illegal immigrants as Hispanic population soars

NBC VIDEO

• City to vote on immigration
July 13: The mayor of a Pennsylvania town on Thursday weighs a proposal to curb illegal immigration by ordering its undocumented residents to leave. NBC's Rehema Ellis reports......read more

A Wireless Chip the Size of Grain!

HP has announced the development of a miniature, wireless data chip that according to the company, is capable of providing broad access to digital content in the physical world.

"Memory Spot", a research team at HP Labs, has developed this memory device based on CMOS (a widely used, low-power integrated circuit design). The chip is just about the size of a grain of rice or smaller (2 mm to 4 mm square). These chips can be fixed on a sheet of paper or stuck to any surface, and the company says, will eventually be made available as a booklet with self-adhesive dots.

Some of the potential applications of this device include storage of medical records on a hospital patient's wristband; provision of audio-visual supplements for postcards and photos; help in the pharmaceutical industry's fight against counterfeit; beefing-up of identity card and passport security; and supply of additional information for printed documents.

Ed McDonnell, memory spot project manager, HP Labs, said, "The Memory Spot chip frees digital content from the electronic world of the PC and the Internet, and arranges it all around us in our physical world."

HP claims that the chip has a ten megabits-per-second data transfer rate, which is ten times faster than Bluetooth wireless technology, and comparable to Wi-Fi speeds, giving users instant retrieval of information in audio, video, photo, or document form.
.............................read more

Microsoft shutters Windows private folders

Following an outcry from corporate customers, Microsoft is removing an add-on feature to Windows that allowed users to create password-protected folders.

The feature was introduced as a free download last week. Almost immediately, people raised questions over how businesses would grapple with the ability of individual workers to encrypt their data.

"Private Folder 1.0 was designed as a benefit for customers running genuine Windows," Microsoft said in a statement to CNET News.com on Friday. "However, we received feedback about concerns around manageability, data recovery and encryption, and based on that feedback, we are removing the application today. This change will take effect shortly." ...........read more

Wounded Warriors

Wounded Warriors was founded in March, 2003 to support the Soldiers, Airmen, Sailors and Marines who were evacuated from Afghanistan and Iraq to the Landstuhl (Germany) Regional Medical Center for treatment for injuries and wounds stemming from Operations “Enduring Freedom” and “Iraqi Freedom”.


Because of the financial support Wounded Warriors received, we were able to support other military hospitals in the States and Iraq by purchasing laptop computers and other morale items to be used by the staff and patients. »more

Military contractors make billions on the front line

Business is booming for those willing to tackle one of the most dangerous jobs on Earth. Lucrative U.S. government contracts go to firms called on to provide security for projects and personnel -- jobs that in previous conflicts have been done by the military. read more

The Complete, Unofficial TEMPEST Information Page

Across the darkened street, a windowless van is parked. Inside, an antenna is pointed out through a fiberglass panel. It's aimed at an office window on the third floor. As the CEO works on a word processing document, outlining his strategy for a hostile take-over of a competitor, he never knows what appears on his monitor is being captured, displayed, and recorded in the van below.

Firefox snaps at Microsoft's heels

Mitchell Baker does not look like a typical technology geek. The first thing that makes her stand out is the dyed red hair, draped in a style that is perhaps best described as more new romantic than new economy....Read More

Google has released a Linux

version of the popular Picasa image management application. Built with Wine, it doesn't perform as well as native applications.Read More

Firefox Victory

It's just one minor battle in a war it likely won't win, but Mozilla's Firefox has tasted victory--and it is little and orange....Read More

Ubuntu open source OS available on Sun Sparc servers

Ubuntu, one of the most popular desktop Linux distributions, will be available on Sun Microsystems Inc.'s UltraSparc T1 processor-based servers starting in June....Read More

Microsoft chatting about buying Ebay

THE New York Post has confirmed that Microsoft has been involved in top secret discussions to buy eBay. Apparently the Vole wants to merge eBay into its MSN portal as part of its war on Google. Talks have ... Read More

Forensic Felonies

A new law in Georgia on private investigators now extends to computer forensics and computer incident response, meaning that forensics experts who testify in court without a PI license may be committing a felony....Read More

Dell and Google team up in bid to break Windows

MICROSOFT'S dominance of the computer software market came under attack today after PC giant Dell and internet search engine Google reached a landmark deal....Read More

How A Criminal Might Infiltrate Your Network

One of the great mysteries in security management is the modus operandi of criminal hackers. If you don't know how they can attack you, how can you protect yourself from them? Prepare to be enlightened....Read More

Bloggers can shield sources

In a decision that could set the tone for journalism in the digital age, a California appeals court ruled Friday that bloggers, like traditional reporters, have the right to keep their sources confidential. ...Read More

Proof

The daughter of a brilliant but mentally disturbed mathematician, recently deceased, tries to come to grips with her possible inheritance: his insanity. Complicating matters are one of her father's ex-students who wants to search through his papers and her estranged sister who shows up to help settle his affairs. read more

Brute Force: Cracking the Data Encryption Standard

Brute Force: Cracking the Data Encryption Standard is the story of the life and death of DES (data encryption standard)In the early 1970s, the U.S. government put out an open call for a new, stronger encryption algorithm that would be made into a federal standard, known as FIPS (Federal Information Processing Standard.). Numerous solutions were submitted as the DES candidate, including one from IBM. The IBM solution, originally called Lucifer, was chosen to be used as the encryption algorithm. After that, it became known as DES....Read More