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Technologist: Sniffing Bombs With Mobiles

Posted by Jeff from Newsweek

The project, known as Distributed Nuclear Detection by Ubiquitous Cell Phone, would help locate dirty bombs or nuclear weapons by "triangulating" the source of radiation when people carrying mobile phones pass by. (The greater the number of equipped cell phones, the greater the precision: phones closest to radioactive material will register stronger signals.) The Purdue project and others like it represent a "major shift" in combating radiation terrorism, says Rita Colwell, a former director of the National Science Foundation and now a professor at the University of Maryland.

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'Eternal Sunshine' director said to be behind Microsoft Seinfeld commercial

Posted by Jeff from Computer World

If as one expert said Seinfeld is the perfect pitchman to showcase Vista as the operating system of the 1990's, the director of Eternal Sunshine, a story about breakups in which the protagonist has his memory erased to forget the pain of his ex-girlfriend, may be the perfect compliment to this whole effort. The campaign is already a joke, can't wait to see the rest of it.

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Rise of the rat-brained robots

Posted by Jeff from

Via

: AFTER buttoning up a lab coat, snapping on surgical gloves and spraying them with alcohol, I am deemed sanitary enough to view a robot's control system up close. Without such precautions, any fungal spores on my skin could infect it. "We've had that happen. They just stop working and die off," says Mark Hammond, the system's creator. This is no ordinary robot control system - a plain old microchip connected to a circuit board. Instead, the controller nestles inside a small pot containing a pink broth of nutrients and antibiotics. Inside that pot, some 300,000 rat neurons have made - and continue to make - connections with each other.

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Spam campaigns target msnbc.com, CNN

Posted by Jeff from MSNBC

Spammers have upped the ante in their efforts to trick news consumers, switching from e-mails with tabloid-style headlines to impersonating major online news services. On Wednesday, e-mails that appeared to be from msnbc.com landed in inboxes worldwide, promising breaking news and confusing some recipients.

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Is Google a Media Company?

Posted by Jeff from

While Knol is only three weeks old and still relatively obscure, it has already rekindled fears among some media companies that Google is increasingly becoming a competitor. They foresee Google's becoming a powerful rival that not only owns a growing number of content properties, including YouTube, the top online video site, and Blogger, a leading blogging service, but also holds the keys to directing users around the Web.

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Hint of new Apple product generates blogosphere buzz

Posted by Jeff from Seattle Times

Colegrove thinks Apple might unveil a 7- to 10-inch laptop, joining the many other PC companies that are offering relatively low-cost and lightweight laptops. "If you look at Apple's products - the iPhone, the iPod touch - what's next?" she said. "It's natural that you'll see [touch technology] with notebook computers."

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On The Hill: Privacy Behind Bipartisan 'Net Data-Collection Probe

Posted by mediaman from

Worried about privacy issues, top House Democrats and Republicans are jointly questioning data collection practices of Internet network operators who tailor Internet advertising based on a consumer's Web surfing activity.

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Technology | Hi-tech criminals target Twitter

Posted by Newshogg from BBC News

It was only a matter of time before this happened. Puts the whole issue of 'who do we trust' back in the frame (if it ever left). But will make the Twitterati sit up and think?

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Air Force cracks software, carpet bombs DMCA

Posted by Garrett from Ars Technica

Last week, a US Court of Appeals upheld a ruling on software piracy. The organization doing the piracy, however, happened to be a branch of the US government, and the decision highlights the significant limits to the application of copyright law to the government charged with enforcing it. Most significantly, perhaps, the court found that because the DMCA is written in a way that targets individual infringers, the government cannot be liable for claims made under the statute.

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Google Says Complete Privacy Does Not Exist

Posted by Jeff from

In a submission to court, Google is arguing that in the modern world there can be no expectation of privacy. Google is being sued by a Pennsylvania couple after their home appeared on Google's Street View pages. The couple's house is on a private road clearly marked as private property.

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After the Election, Will Obama’s Online Army Target Congress?

Posted by Shemuses from

Eight million list members. One million MyBarackObama members. Nearly two million Facebook/MySpace "friends." A couple of million online donors. By the time November comes around, those numbers will have grown - and Barack Obama is likely to be on his way to the White House. Assuming he wins, what will he do with his online following? Will Congress be next in his sights? Obama will be the first true president of a different media age, the era of networked communications, so will he use the new online tools to shape his millions of supporters into a club to shift votes on Capitol Hill?

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The Newest YouTube Stars: Campaign Managers

Posted by Shemuses from Washington Post

As of yesterday afternoon, Sens. John McCain and Barack Obama had uploaded 1,410 videos on their YouTube channels -- 224 from McCain and 1,186 from Obama. Surprisingly, some of the more interesting, revealing of these videos were posted by their campaign managers. While they may not have been watched as heavily as others, these four videos tell us about the respective campaigns' differing online strategies.

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