Monday, July 10, 2006

Hummer mounted laser destroys artillery shell

SPARTA INC, a Huntsville, Alabama based hi-tech firm has designed and built a HMMWV laser system, called ZEUS, that is being used to destroy unexploaded munitions. The company website is http://www.zeus.sparta.com


Interesting...though in the video, I don't see the hummer. The explosion of an artery shell by a lazer though, is neat.

read more | digg story

TalkShoe Launches Website for User-Generated Live and Recorded Voice Talk

TalkShoe (www.talkshoe.com) has launched a unique website for user-generated live and recorded voice. People can host and join live voice talk shows, discussion groups, and podcasts -- called Talkcasts(TM) -- using telephones, cell phones or Internet voice (voice-over-IP).


Sounds interesting....though some of it is just rehashing the ideas of Podcasting, but if it can make many of the steps of recording, and putting it together, as well as getting people together , then it may help wanna-be podcasters get on there feet.

read more | digg story

Teenagers used to push Zango on Myspace?

A ring of "Myspace profile edit" sites encourage Myspace users to add their "free videos" to their profiles. What they *don't* mention, is that these videos pop open a box that tries to install Zango Adware when someone visits a profile running these movies. Getting what is likely teenagers to unknowingly distribute this stuff is a new low.

Lovely, just what we need today, and IT disaster with school computers and personal computers getting infected with spyware from the same source, oh well, I guess its one more thing that will have to be delt with.

read more | digg story

Magnetic RAM a reality

For decades, we have put up with one form or another of drawbacks in RAM technology. DRAM requires power, and refresh. Flash has a limited lifetime. CMOS requires power and isn't very dense. MRAM steps up to the plate: No maintenance power, 100% retention, high density. Woot!


Sounds interesting, having memory that has both the properties of both a hard drive and memory, it would be interesting if they could make it at the same expense as DDR or DDR2, then it could take the place of RAM. The only question that isn't answered is the read and write speed, if it isn't as fast as current ram, then it will not be possible for ti to take the place of DDR, because in things like gaming, fast ram is required to load data from disk. We will just have to see what the future holds for this emerging technology, as another year, slowly comes into play.

read more | digg story

Saturday, July 08, 2006

A closer look at Apple's educational iMac

For the most part, Apple Computers new educational iMac is a stripped down version of the company's 17-inch consumer offering that ships with a couple of internal component changes but also some outstanding issues, reliable sources tell AppleInsider.


The stripped down part was obvious because of the fact that many parts would have to be removed to make it cheaper. There are several issues that are noted that in my opinion, are not critical to be solved by apple immediately. It still sounds good to me, because of the prices of macs being so expensive, I would rather have one, even though it has interegated, the purpose of it would not be gaming to begin with, at least in my opinion.

read more | digg story

Friday, July 07, 2006

5 Cool Things To Do With Your iSight!

A bunch of cool things you can do with your iSight cam!


Sounds really neat, though I do not have a mac, nor do I have a iSight, but still interesting suggestions to do with an iSight...and a mac..

read more | digg story

Dude struck by lightning blames it on iPod.

Next thing he knew, he was in his bed, bleeding from his ears and vomiting. He was barefoot and had taken off his burned T-shirt and gym shorts. He doesn't know how he got back in the house.


Right...now I've taken Physics, and from what I know from that, it wasn't the iPod. Lighting is attracted, in a nutshell, to the tallest object near the imbalance of charges (I.E. churches, trees, people, lighting rods, etc), and when the tallest location has a small surface area, like a lighting rod, the imbalance in charges dissipates, resulting in a reduction of lighting strikes. In the end, this person, this can be blamed for an unusual imbalance, and the fact that the humidity and other factors in the weather (correct me if I'm wrong) can cause this imbalance and allow lighting to travel better through the air. One more thing, lighting actually strikes backwards, coming from the ground to the cloud. This happens because of the imbalance of charges, with the ground having more charge than the cloud, so the transfer of electrons occurs at the shortest distance. That's enough Physics for one day :).

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Toronto high school (or Microsoft) expels Linux lab

A computer science facility that had been running without a hitch for years is shut down as a Microsoft system is set up across the board. Was it a knock against open source, or just classroom politics?


Sad really, students should have the opportunity to experience both windows, Linux, and even OSX so they have a broader knowledge. I may not completely like windows XP, but when it works, it works, but there are a slew of other issues with it still. If I had a choice I would use Linux, but with the rest of the world personal and business using windows, there is a lot of pressure of a level of conformity. Hopefully Linux, will have a bigger presence in the years to come, when several of the rough spots start to improve.

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The Plot To Hijack Your Computer

"They watch you surf the Web. They plague you with pop-up ads. Then they cripple your hard drive. Inside the spyware underground by Ben Elgin..."


Must be a sad thing to work at a spyware company, with getting all those complaints. To me spyware is just that annoying, that I use Firefox/Flock, and spyware tools like Spybot, and Windows Defender (its free, that's why I use it) to make sure I don't have any spyware.

read more | digg story

Thursday, July 06, 2006

Installing Apache 2.0 and PHP 5 (and MySQL) on Windows XP

He shows you how to install Apache and PHP on Windows XP, as well as how to set up a nice working environment. As a bonus, he also shows you how to install MySQL if you're interested. You can have a complete working server environment on your desktop and be able to do all your test there.


Perfect way to test new website code before putting it live, though it would also be neat to get instructions of setting this up also on linux as well, just to complete it all.

read more | digg story

Microsoft's iPod killer to provide free versions of all your iTunes tracks

To attract current iPod users Microsoft is going to let you download for free any songs you've already bought from the iTunes Music Store. They'll scan iTunes for purchased tracks and then automatically add those to your account. Microsoft will still have to pay the rights-holders for the songs, but they believe it'll be worth it to converts.


Sounds interesting, but even with that, will the mircrosoft portable player have better features, including a user interface, that can beat the slick interface of the iPod. We will have to see about that.

read more | digg story

Open Source Outlook/Exchange Alternative Slahses Costs

Some of these installs were done using the free Community Edition, "which works well for small to medium-sized businesses," says Wilson. Added to which, the AJAX webmail feature blows its competitors "a mile away". "It drives like an application," he enthuses.


Sounds intersting, with the majority of buissnesses using Microsoft Outlook, there have been really very few products, even open source, that have followed the normal standards of Outlook/exchange. Mabe this product will be the first to break that.

read more | digg story

Wednesday, July 05, 2006

Apple Introduces New iMac for Under $900


Today, Apple introduced a new iMac that only costs $899 for educational customers. The computer features a 17 in. screen, 1.83 Ghz Core Cuo, 512 mb of RAM, 80 gig hard drive, Combo Drive, and Intel integrated graphics. Looks like an awesome deal for students around the world.


Nice, from the fact that I'm a student also, I may (note may, becuase it doesn't say that students of k-12 can....though..) be able to eventually snag one of these, now thats a deal for a mac!

read more | digg story

Tweak XP for gaming

Here are some GREAT tips on how to tweak Windows XP for video gaming.


A handy little list of things that can be used to improve your xp gaming experience, as soon as I get on my computer I'm actually going to try them to see if I can improve my gaming on XP.

read more | digg story

One Hosts file to rule them all

Looking for ad-less surfing? Check out this Hosts file, which should be good to suppress 99% of the popups and other annoying ad-engines.


Using these files as add filters and popups is very usefull, because one, the computer when it calls for an http request in the tcp stack, checks this file first, and because they are directed to localhost, the request is caneceled, it is the ultimate way to get rid of ads.

read more | digg story

Tuesday, July 04, 2006

How to make an M80




Celebrate the independance of the country by blowing a little piece of it.
If your nuts you can go a head and do this, though, I would make sure that it even is leagal to get the fireworks needed to do this, though it may not be as enforced in different places. Anyway, explosions, when done safely are just so satisfying to watch, including fireworks blowing up :).

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Little USB puppet jumps to attention when IM buddy comes online






Very cool homebrewed USB gadget: the Availabot. Availabot makes it easy to see when a particular friend of yours is available for instant messaging, even when you
are not sitting in-front of your computer. ... Availabot plugs into your computer by USB, stands to attention when your chat buddy comes online, and falls down when they go away.
Sounds very neat, apparently, they are set up with a specific screen name so only when that screen name is used, the puppet like thing goes up. It reminds me of one of those toys that you push the button under it and it collapses, comes back together again

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What I've been playing- Half Life: Epidode One








After comming back on a week long trip, the first thing I load up, and try is HL2: EP1, which I got on my trip. I've allready finished playing it, and overall it is worth the $16 Dollars that it cost. It is not as frightening as say, Doom 3, but there are some parts that are very dependent on the flashlight. Because it has a limited power supply, once it goes out, it is sort of hard to find you way in several spots. There are also a few puzzles in the episode, though I'm not going to get into details about it. It probibly, on normal took me about 4 or 5 hours, so it isn't long. Overall it is a good start for the series of HL2 episodes.

Friday, June 23, 2006

WidgetBox is a new marketplace for widgets

If you like widgets, there's about to be a whole lot more of them available for use in your blog or profile page.

Sounds interesting, I put my email in to get an invite, to try this out, it may be interesting....

read more | digg story

Hubble telescope's key camera stops working

Doom and gloom for hubble fans? The Advanced Camera for Surveys is out of action with a power supply problem. NASA will spend the next week diagnosing the problem. The good news is that remain confident the camera can be fixed.
NOOO, that isn't good, they definatly need to send up a shuttle to fix it! There is a connection to that telescope and to my family, because a relative of mine worked on the, I think the main lense for the Hubble Space Telescope in the early 90's. From that, I'm a proponent of wanting them to continue to fix the Hubble, because it still brings alot of high quality pictures from space still....

read more | digg story

Thursday, June 22, 2006

Operation Flashpoint PC Release: 5 Year Anniversary

Five years ago one journey ended, and another began....June 22nd 2001: A small Czech game developer with the name Bohemia Interactive Studio releases their debut military action PC title Operation Flashpoint, published by Codemasters. None of us could have predicted just where the story would lead. Five years later we find ourselves looking back at the incredible journey that the game and company have since embarked on."The dream and ambition we had for a deeply involving, large-scale, military combat simulation game, a game which offered freedom of choice, large numbers of forces and vehicles clearly struck a chord with hundreds of thousands of gamers which swiftly led to the game surpassing 1 million units sold.""These last few years we've been busy working hard on our new PC technology, driven by our ongoing vision of an open and extremely large living virtual world that will find its latest incarnation in our new game Armed Assault."Says Marek Spanel, Project Leader of Operation Flashpoint and Armed Assault and co-founder of Bohemia Interactive.
It seems its OFP's 5 year annaversery, and even today OFP is still a fun game to play, even though it has been out for about 5 years, thanks to the large ammount of mods.

Operation Flashpoint PC Release: 5 Year Anniversary

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Wednesday, June 21, 2006

AJAX Remote Desktop

A quick proof-of-concept Java application that lets you view the desktop of a remote computer using a just a web browser!


This seems neat, being able to access a computer via a webpage, though it would need to be passworded and have some encryption in order for it to be safe and practical. I haven't tryed it out yet, but from the description, the idea at least is interesting.

read more | digg story

Sir Modification Movie


This a neat video showing off Sir's stunt mod that was previewed on Total Bf2, and it is a very intersting video and is worth seeing, though when this comes out, you may have to turn down the settings ingame to reduce lag...

Dell laptop explodes at Japanese conference (Pictures)













AN INQUIRER READER attending a conference in Japan was sat just feet away from a laptop computer that suddenly exploded into flames, in what could have been a deadly accident.


Yea, that sucks for whoever had that Dell, because its smoking, and looks burnt to a crisp. What I really hope is that this doesn't happen again, especially on an airplane, because that would be worse; at least the guy wasnt using it, it would of turned into an "explosive" report for him and the laptop. In the end it is good that noone was harmed, except for the laptop.



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Intel Life After "Conroe"

What's the absolute bleeding edge in Intel CPU design for the next five years? "Penryn," "Nehalem" and "Gesher"


Very detailed article describing where intel will go with there future processor cores. It seems from what read in the article, that by around 2009, they will be starting to make processors at the 32 or 22nm size, this seems to be a few years from now, but in my opinion that horizon is not that far off, it is worth a look because it really shapes what they will be doing from now to the end of the decade. Now, will AMD release there roadmap, and will it be just as promising....

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Wii Dev Kits Under $2000 Dollars! 3rd Party Anyone?

Nintendo President Satoru Iwata revealed that Wii development kits would now cost as low as $1,732, opening the doors to even more 3rd party developers and lower game costs! For that price I might just buy one!


It may seem cheap to a developer, but to me, thats pretty expensive to pay for a development kit. Anyway, I have no use for a development kik, sure it would be neat, but I'm more intersted in programming on the computer, but that is just me.

read more | digg story

Encryption project has teen feeling pretty secure

His project, the "Embedded Secure Network Bridge" has already attracted some attention; not bad for a sixteen year old.
Now thats one talented person, and It sounds that his future is set on a good track. He must be a very talented programmer at the age of 16, and with that type of talent, he should go far in the computer hardware industry. I wonder how long until we see encryption via hardware appear commercially....

read more | digg story

How not to Steal a Sidekick concludes.

After a three week saga, that involved a taxi, a stolen sidekick, a girl from corona, a man from Manhattan, and thousands of internet fans, the stolen sidekick saga concludes.


That girl is either nuts, or a very stubborn person, for refusing not to give stolen property back to the orignal owner. She should of known for a fact when she got it that it was stolen, and should of tryed to return it to the person, and when the person that lost it contacted her, she should of just gave it to him back, because that phone that she got was not hers. In reality it didnt have to explode into this epidemic that she started, by just refusing to not give it back...

read more | digg story

Telemarketing on Skype? Our worst fears being realised?

This is my own blog entry but I feel it is important enough digg because it could be such a massive deal. Looks like telemarketing has finally invaded Skype and may already being seriously hampering its connectivity and quality.


It seems a little extreme to think that people are now resorting to telemarketing on skype, because not everone usese that same service. I would think a little higher at the possiblity that it may be a possiblity more overseas, and not as much in the US. I think this mainly because Skype is more popular in Europe/UK than in the US. Overall I'm hoping that this obsersvation of this person is just a freak occurance, because then we would need to set it to block out any other calls comming in, which isn't good, if people get calls on skype from other people not on there list.

read more | digg story

THE CONSUMERIST: Tekserve Ad with over $60,000 in ipods


This is an interesting video that I came across that involves the use of iPods as dominoes for an add. The advertisement isn't really anthing much...but the ipods being used as dominoes is cool.

DIY T1 Wireless Transmitter

You can build your own dual T1 wireless transmitter that serves up to 200 customers. check out the video clip.

Very impressive setup, the mess of routers and such reminds me of what I would set up, but the hilarious part is that the server for that tower is a old 400 mhz computer, doing mail, DNS, webhosting for the people, as well as ftp; naturally it has to be running linux :), alot of stuff that they throw on a such simple computer.

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Monday, June 19, 2006

Construction of Norway's Doomsday Vault Begins Today

"It sounds like something from a science fiction film--a doomsday vault carved into a frozen mountainside on a secluded Arctic island. But Norway's ambitious project is on its way to becoming reality Monday when construction begins on the Svalbard Global Seed Vault, designed to house as many as 3 million of the world's crop seeds."
Seems sorta doomsday paranoid to put all the worlds crop seeds, though, in reality, anything could happen to them, or a species of grain may dissapear. In reality it may be a good theing that Norway is doing it, we'll just have to see.

read more | digg story

Watch TV for free

TVUNetworks let's you watch TV for free from your PC...channels include ABC and ESPN
This is at least at the moment, free, and it includes some channels including ABC, ESPN, ESPN2, and CNN. The system seems to be p2p based, with some of the bandwith being distributed via other viewers. Though the bad thing is that for at least ESPN2, there is at least 30 seconds to one minute delay, so it wont really be truly live. Besides that it is a neat service.

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Sunday, June 18, 2006

Game Console Energy Usage Comparison

While it's obvious that an Xbox 360 would have higher energy demands then a Playstation 1, the curious question is by how much? Even more importantly is the question of whether your console might be costing you money while you sleep. Preposterous you say? Actually quite the opposite!
Well, people who own Xbox 360 might want to have there console unplugged when not in use when the read the ammount of wattage it uses in standby. This is a very intersting article that brings up points of how much power your console is really using.

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Jack Thompson's Video Game Bill Signed Into Law

GamePolitics has confirmed with her staff that Governor Kathleen Babineaux Blanco signed HB1381 into law last night. Under terms of the legislation, it takes effect immediately. The bill defines violent video games as "harmful to minors" in much the same way as pornography.
He is really annoying, and with the government officals not understanding what needs to be acutally done to help this, they are just going to restrict the freedom of the developers of games. The raitings of games were just as a guideline, not to be a law or such, this is just all driven from both the GTA issue as well as Oblivion. If noone comes into focus that can truly help senators and representitives of state and of the national government, then this is going to continue to happen without resistance...

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Amazing NEW in-game Crysis footage. (14 min video)

Entirely new footage from the upcoming first person shooter Crysis. Developed by Crytek, the makers of the award-winning Far Cry. A must view for any serious gamer or anyone with an interest in where 2007 will take gaming.
Now this game is looking good, completely destructable environments, ablity to punch down walls and people using a "strength" mode, customizable weapons and more! I'm definatley looking forward to this game...

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DIY Optical Disc Duplicator


The design is pretty simple and uses gravity for downward movement, so you don't have to worry about a motor slamming the head into the desk.
It may look crude, but I think its cool!

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HOWTO: Homemade headphones

Here are a pair of homemade headphones, all the way from the Takoradi Technical Institute, Takoradi, Ghana.
Now this is neat, if your a DIY person this may be in your alley, for anyone else, the instructions to make your own headphones seem pretty simple, but the end result looks neat also!

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Hard Drive Case Mod (w/ pics)


"Got a box of old hard drives doing nothing? Put them to work housing your new computer components."
Now this guy was creative, using old hard disk platters as a decoration/case mod, somebody really does have some time on there hands, and alot of spare hard drives :).



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Saturday, June 17, 2006

Monty Python: Exploding Blue Danube


It's back, after youtube deleted the old video, I cropped together the exploding blue danube back together, enjoy!

Now that's a long sig!

Free Image Hosting at ImageShack.us
I ran into this while reading a post on the xfire fourms. This guy really has everything but the kitchen sink there. This, at least in my opinion, is the longest signature I've ever seen.

Dog brain in a dish plays Quake 3: Arena

Don't get all PETA on us, we're just the messenger, but a University of Texas scientist has grown a living "brain" in a petri dish using 50,000 nerve cells from a dog. We're sure there are many noble things to be done with a brain in a dish, but this scientist has instead opted for a bit of Quake 3: Arena. Sure, he says it's all about "how the brain makes decisions based on enormous amounts of real time information," so that "we can design adaptable computer systems capable of better pattern recognition." But we know he just wanted a better alternative to getting completely pwned in Online multiplayer. The brain is hooked up to the game via 120 electrodes, and while at first the neurons in the dish are separate and unconnected, over time they start to naturally form connections and fragging like only a brain in a dish can. Be sure to check videos of the Quake 3 action, which track the progress from 4 hours of learning all the way to 9 days of learning.
Interesting.....though I also went to the offical page of the experiemnt, which shows videos of its progress, and it seems to be improving quite abit, after 9 days it does pretty good with combat. What would be neat if they would allow people to actually fight the brain in quake, to give it some more varied learning from other human competitors. The offical article can be found at this location.

Dog brain in a dish plays Quake 3: Arena - Engadget

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Japan's Broadband Under Attack...FROM CROWS!

Tokyo's futuristic image as the world's most technologically advanced broadband internet-enabled city is under attack from a vicious but decidedly low-tech foe: the crow.
Now this is hilarious, the most simple crows are bringing down Tokyo's infanstructure.....I didn't think crows would be that fixated in "eating" fiber optic...

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Mass. school punishes students with electric shocks

"They can be shocked for behaviors including ’failure to maintain a neat appearance’, ‘stopping work for more than 10 seconds’, ‘interrupting others’, ‘nagging’, ‘whispering and/or moving conversation away from staff’, ‘slouch in chair’ ''
I've heard of this place before, of them using techniques to treat disorders including Asburgers Syndrome, or Autism, and I was disgusted when I read this on wikipedia. I personaly am AS, and I'm even more disgusted by what they are doing to help them, including shock therapy, and threating them with various things. Now with public, and viral networking, they will finally be attacked for the things that they have done, because people with Autism and Aspergers syndrome are still human, and should be treated as such, not to be tortured.

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Apple's Windows site mentions Parallels Desktop instead of Boot Camp

Apple's Windows page on their 'Get a Mac' site now mentions Parallels Desktop instead of Boot Camp.
Odd that they would shelve boot camp, because parallels can only do so much, while boot camp allows native boothing, so GPU and other things that are not able to be emulated well, work better, though the trade off from that is that you have to reboot, obviously. Maybe they have something under there sleeve with parallels, we'll just have to wait and see what they are doing.

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Friday, June 16, 2006

Top Ten Strangest Computer Setups

Some crazy and useful computer setups.
Some of these look just plain weird, and there are other set ups that look really neat, especially the super Quake 3 setup. There is even a computer in a whisky bottle! This article is definatly worth a look.

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Bill Gates Legacy : The Top 10 Flops

The Chairman isn't always right.

While Microsoft's outgoing Chief Software Architect Bill Gates has been ahead of the curve in predicting many technology trends, he also has backed some notorious flops.
A good article, that tells of the many microsoft products that floped, with, you guessed it, BOB at number one, and a whole slew of others down the list.

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Neowin.net - The RIAA Says No Dancing To Music On YouTube

We already know that the entertainment industry loves to try to get people to pay for every possible use of their content. Remember the filmmaker who almost couldn't release his documentary because there was a four and a half second clip of The Simpsons playing in the background in one scene? It seems that with the rise of user-generated video, a lot more people are learning about the fun of licensing rights. The RIAA is apparently sending out cease-and-desist letters to YouTube users who dare to put up videos of things such as themselves dancing to music they haven't licensed.

This is ridcuelous, they are not loosing that much money from grainly youtube video audio. They are just being greedy, and wanting every dollar from every way a song could be used....

Neowin.net - The RIAA Says No Dancing To Music On YouTube

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IGN: S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Shadow of Chernobyl Preview

June 15, 2006 - S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Shadow of Chernobyl is one of those games that's going to have a lot to prove when it's finally released. In development before we wrote our first article on the game back in 2002, the game suffered delay after delay and had pretty much disappeared off of the radar until this year's E3, where THQ demonstrated, behind closed doors, what's been done with the game. We were lucky enough to be invited to participate in the showing. Unfortunately, we had to wait until today to share our thoughts. The sad news is that the engine, one of the original selling points, while certainly still decent, isn't quite as lovely as it once was. The good news is the game looks to be on track, thanks to a little guidance from a THQ producer more familiar with working on large-scale products. Features have been shuffled in a positive way, goals have been realigned, and entertainment has become the focus. The most painful thing was having to sit four feet from a screen and watch someone else play instead of getting our hands on the game ourselves.
A very intersting reviwe, getting into the details of a game that his sort of gone off the radar for many years, because I remember when they were saying that STALKER was at the pinnacle of graphics technology, and that was when the Radeon 9700 was mainstream. From the description of the game, it still looks promising, though there are some factors that could lead to its downfall..

IGN: S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Shadow of Chernobyl Preview

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Thursday, June 15, 2006

The Definitive Flock Beta 1 Review

Paul Stamatiou reviews the latest beta from Flock and even shows a few screencasts of nifty features. It's definitely something worth checking out.
I've been using the new flock beta, and it is very promising and is worth it if you use flickr. I honestly perfered useing the orignal flock blogging tool, but the one that they have now is actually stable, which makes me interested because, now I can select text and tell it to blog it and put tags into it, which blogger does not have. So overall if you use many of the web 2.0 sevices, it is worth getting flickr.

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The 11 Most Ground-Breaking Controllers of All Time

GamePro.com recently compiled a list of the most influential, revolutionary, and just downright ground-breaking video game controllers ever released. Did your favorite controller make the list?
Intersting collection of controllers, alot of them are recent including the Wii remote, the XBOX small controller, and more. Its worth a look.

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Advice to Students: Pack a Mac

BusinessWeek Online's Stephen Wildstrom is recommending a Mac over Windows for the first time. Thought you might be interested.


By Stephen H. Wildstrom
Advice to Students: Pack a Mac
Apple's software has improved, but Windows has been stuck in a rut

AMEN to that! Though the only problem is the price, and convincing my parents to get me one for that purpose :).

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Recharge In Flight Without AC Outlet!!

Now this is a very interesting device. InflightPower.com has announced its InFlight Powe USB Unit which allows you to charge small electronic devices via a standard headphone jack found in most airline seats.

Now this is neat, I didn't know that the headphone jacks sent power through them to charge usb items...worth a look if you fly alot, and have to recharge alot of items.

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Wednesday, June 14, 2006

The evolution of the Nintendo Wii remote: Before & After prototype photos

In addition to adding a speaker, there have been numerous usability changes to the Nintendo Wii remote, and the overall shape and size has been tweaked a lot as well. Check out these overlapping photographs.
A good comparison of how the original prototype Revolution controler has evolved into the more mature, streamline Wii Remote. It is worth it to look at the comparison shots.

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10 Strangest (Coolest) Mini Sized Devices

Which ones are your favorites?
An interesting article, though many of the items could be considered novelties (Like Toshiba’s Micro Hard Drive), and others are neat. Though, I woudn't want a micro flash drive, I would definatley loose it easily :).

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BF2142.se previews BF2142

It can sureley be hard to see the connection between heavenly buns, some crazy people from Stockholm, a bunch of retards in a car and dinner from McDonalds, right?But just stay calm and read on, and you will find answers to your questions!On Wednsesday June 7:th around lunch, we all arrived to DICE:s office on Maria Skolgata 83 to, as many of you already knew, test an early alpha-version of Battlefield 2142.


There are many interesting details about how far Dice is with BF2142, as well as some more specific info about certain maps and other info. This preview does not have that many screenshots, but the ones that are of the game, look good. It doesn't seem that the game will have a dramatically better engine, but the graphics are slightly improved.

BF2142.se - BF2142.se previews BF2142

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Developers ditching PS3 in favor of Wii, LucasArts jumps onboard

According to latest EGM
Very interesting revelation, if it is true. If it is not a rumor, then its one of the many nails that will be hammered into the coffin that is the PS3. From many articles that I've read, the trend of what analyists and many major tech news sites is that the PS3 isn't going to do so well, but we will have to wait and see about that.

read more | digg story

The New MacBook Scores Another Editor's Choice Award

"The MacBook effectively defies it's own ancestry and surpasses all anticipated performance levels for a sub-14" laptop. It has even outclassed the MacBook Pro on more than one occasion. Best of all, the MacBook is one of the most affordable high-performance laptops on the market today. "
Good for Apple, that there laptops are getting these great reviews. Though there is one that that I'm curious about, is when they are going to release the new power macs with the intel chips, they have been pretty quiet about that. Though I heard something either on TWiT or on the web that it may sometime in the fall come out, though I'm not sure.

read more | digg story

Tuesday, June 13, 2006

DS Lite Sells 10 Times More Than PSP

For the week ending May 28 Japanese hardware sales figures show that the Nintendo DS outsold the PSP by a factor of 10. The DS Lite sold 295,103 units, while the PSP managed to sell 27,191.
It still bugs me that there are still people who praise there PSP for certain things that is its weaknesses. Actually, the only good thing it has is the large homebrew community, and easy installing of homebrew (with the right firmware), the DS on the other hand is slightly harder, requiring certain hardware, though not that hard. I'm personally a die hard DS person, though the PSP was an interesting product. Though in this battle of the portable consoles, it seems that Innovation has beat pure horsepower, for now at least.

read more | digg story

The Best Games Never Published

TwitchGuru explores the video game industry's development hell to find the greatest games never published.
Very interesting article mentioning about many games that have not come out. Sam and Max: "Freelance Police" was one of the games on that list, as it was good that it did get on the list, as well as Duke Nukem Forever. There are some interesting other games, including something called Sim Mars, which I didn't know existed, apparently it was under development while Maxis was being aquired by EA in 00'. I'm not going to spoil any more about the article, and some of the other interesting titles that didn't either come out, or come to the US....

read more | digg story

PS3 to support free online gaming, and Sony plans e-distribution service

Sony's online gaming service will likely feature free online play, according to comments from SCE president Ken Kutaragi. Article also talks briefly about Sony's content distribution plans.

One thing in that article that interests me is that they are not going to charge for people to actually play the games, while the Xbox360 forces you to pay for that right. This one characteristic may swerve there chances in the console market, though there are other factors, if the other elements of the online are really bad, it may still fail. Though it is too soon to really see, with all indications, minus this, Sony is going to have a shaky start with the PS3. What they really need to do to bring more confidence to the console is to reveal some more info about it, so people are relying on rumors or secret sources, so the rumors dont go flying out of proportion. Because of there secrecy, most of what we know about the console, is mainly rumors, and stuff exrapolated from interviews with people who work with Sony. What we need is some more offical announcements, as well as them finally releasing the beta kits to developers to give them enough time to make high quality games for the system, in order for the PS3 to overcome the many hurdles, including its price, that it has now.

read more | digg story

Report: High Schools Fail To Meet Needs Of Tech-Driven World

Roughly a quarter of U.S. high schools require students to take computer science courses, due in part to a misperceive that computers are for video games and surfing the Internet, says a new report.
A sad statistic to see, and I've already been aware of this, from both my AP Computer Science A teacher, and from average scores here in the US on the exam. I'm personally grateful that the high school I go to has a computer Science program beyond that of other schools, though its still locked into the AP guidelines in a sense, but not completely. Sadly what we need is to shake up this issue, if we can get some good programmers to come out of United States, to get rid of this stereotype once and for all. I'm hoping to become one those, with my obsession of programming, as well as my other talents, not to brag or anything. This will take more than one good programmer to bring it up, and if this issue isn't brought up, its going to be like the Cold War all over again, just instead of the Russians, other countries have more talented programmers, as well as better mathematics and other fields we are lacking in. If we do not wake up to this, the US will not be the technical country it once was. That era brought us Steve Jobs, Bill Gates, Linus Torvald, and other great people, that could be attributed to the past of us trying to out educate children better than the Soviets. Unfortunately we've been lazy and have not kept up to those high standards, though that isn't always true. The high school that I go to has strong math programs, as well as a strong CS program, though the math and the CS could be stronger. Unfortunately if the teachers and administers of high schools do not wake up and understand that if people aren't trained, even decently to use computers, and get people who are interested in them, involved with programming, we won't continue to be a tech hub, Japan, for example, will. This issue isn't something to shove back, nor should it be ignored, we need to bring this into the open and solve this quickly, so we don't loose our lead in the Technology Industry.

read more | digg story

Flock Launches Public Beta

Today at 3 pm PST they are releasing their first public beta version, available for Windows, Mac and Linux machines.


Wow, and to think that they have only been in developent for at around eight months. The last time that I checked out flock, I was really impressed with its flickr and blogging capacities, even though I really heard about it on Inside the Net. If blogging and using web 2.0 is your style, Flock may be something to try, which is what I'm exactly gonig to do, when they release it. Apparently at the time of reading this article, they have not realeased the first public beta version yet...

read more | digg story

Monday, June 12, 2006

New picture secret slot Wii

Nintendo released an E3 CD that has a Wii on the cover with the front flap open. It looks like there is some sort of eye behind the slot!
Well It seems Nintendo is actually following one tech fad, video cameras in consoles. With the Xbox360's camera, and the reportedly PSP upgraded version with a camera, Nintendo has apparently jointed the ranks of consoles with webcams. The only question that hasn't truely been answered is what will it be used for?

read more | digg story

Inside the Lake Braddock Symphony Orchestra: And now for something completely different.....

Inside the Lake Braddock Symphony Orchestra: And now for something completely different.....

The Exploding Blue Danube!, because it is just that funny...Enjoy!

Inside Apple's iPod factories

Extracts from a British newspaper about the people that make iPods. One plant has 200,000 workers!
Wow....sometimes people just don't understand that the things that we tried to overcome during the turn of the century, have now just seemed to move over to third world countries, though there conditions may not be as bad as the workers of the past, but to the standards of today, there conditions are still not great.

read more | digg story

Blizzard Bans 30,000 WoW Accounts

Blizzard, in an effort to crack down on cheaters and gold farmers, announced that they banned another 30,000 accounts from the game last month. Will their efforts prevail, or is the problem too big to handle?
Hmm, Blizzard has been critisized by there means of catching these cheaters, because of there use of a program called warden, which runs on people who play WoW, and scans the active processes to see if any program are suspicious. Though with the huge popularity of WoW, or any game of this type, they are bound to have a decent ammount of gold grinders, as well as cheaters, many mmo's have had this problem, inclusing Star Wars Galaxies, thought not at this extreme.

read more | digg story

In Flight Nintendo DS Lites for Passengers on Japan Airlines

Japanese Airline (JAL) is now offering passengers DS Lites to pass time on flights. The DS Lites's WiFi capabilities have been gutted as wireless devices' use is prohibited on planes.
Now that is nifty, enjoy your flight and get to play there free DS's. Though I've taken my DS, and played on it on an airplane, and they didn't stop me from using it....though, there will be an airline soon (I forget who exactly) who will have WiFi in there planes, now thats something I can't wait for.

read more | digg story

Sunday, June 11, 2006

"Digg Spam" bloggs, and a possible way to fix it

Another post about "Digg Spam", which is a continuation of the series of posts on options and reactions to what many, and I have been doing since the feature appeared on digg...


After much discussion about this topic, in the comments of this particular blog post , a good way to stop the leeching of traffic from Digg has possibly come together in a great way. The commenting system of Digg, after a recent update allows people to thumbs up or thumbs down a comment, if there are enought negative posts on a comment, its burried. This is exactly how the blog system should work, though instead of it being collapsed a certain threashold of negative votes would first determine a suspension of the blogging feature, and then if another ammount of negative votes of a blogged digg article appears, he would be permanently banned from using it. It shouldn't be so hard for this to be implemented. If anyone has comments on this, feel free to speak your mind via comments :).

Why take your Macbook back when you can just eat it?

When davechan asked his sister for a Macbook for his birthday he got what he wished for, sort of. The height and width are actual size but sadly it doesn't run Mac OS X. Mmmmmmm Macbook.


Now this is hilarious, he didn't exactly say that it had to be a real macbook, isnt scemantics great. Oh well, I hope it still tastes good :). One other thing, the link to the site is down so you may want to check out the duggmirror of this site (coral isnt working) to see the pictures, though only thumbnails for now :(. Addionally one person who commented on dugg quoted this hilarious quote about the article: "Cant have your macbook and eat it too.", which is so true.

read more | digg story

Some obsessing about Flickr

This may seem random, but I really enjoy using Flickr :). As you can see, I have a large Flickr collection, but that is mainly because I prefer using it over other hosts like webshots. For one thing it uses a tag based system like many blogs use, and other Web 2.0 services. Also it allows of seeing of EXIF data, multiple sizes of screenies, and the fact that the design of the site makes it slick. This may be a little skimpy of a description of Flickr, but if you have a burdening collection of photos that you want to describe more than just a title or a description, using Flickr over other sites is worth it. I just wanted t o bring this up, seeing that many people I know don't really know about the site, which is sad, and its sort of a promotion, or a plug for the site...

Blogs...have they become all cookie cutter??

After reacting and commention about that recent article, as well about digg spam and blogs has brought many things to lite. From looking at the blogs that post the articles on digg, many are just the same format, as mine was most of the time. I think this has happend because of mainly people reaping the benefits of a dugg article. The digg blog it link needs to be updated, with having the original description, forced in blockquotes, with a box with required ammount of commenting to be added, so that people would haveto write a comment to be able to blog it though diggs automatic way. This, even to my option seems harsh, but it mabe the thing to stop this feeding frenzy, that Even I got into, sadly, though the idea of Digg is still good, it may be killing unique blog content with people just filling there blogs up with the news...The use of the blog feature, has been miss used when, we perfectly have a digg profile that shows this, though it seems to be usually ignored, though mine can be found at http://digg.com/users/compuguy1088. Also from this start, less articles will be posted, unless I have something to say, so my digg profile will be linked to this blog as well.

50 Digg flavoured Spam Blogs

There are really only two reasons these sorts of blogs exist - advertising and pagerank. By taking Digg's content and putting their own ads around it they can suck a little traffic and earn from ad clicks. With any pagerank they aquire they can boost their own legitimate or other spam sites.

Here are 50 digg users' and their spam blogs. :)


Isn't this ironic, I post my optionons aboutit, which are still valid, and that not all of them intentially do it, but it does need to be stopped just as well, its not just me, but other people seem to do it as well, what we need is a petition, or mabe a button network, or something like that to join forces against this.....

read more | digg story

How to delete an undeletable file.

Here is a tip to get rid of these undeletable files.


A thing that many times has happened to me, but once I knew of this trick which I read before this was dugg on digg, these pesky little buggers can be eliminated. I actually had more problems with this from the corrupt downloads, or the odd ways I've downloaded things to cause them. What would be interseting is how these things seem to not delete to begin with.

read more | digg story

"Modded Up" may be right...

It has become an addicting thing to just post digg news and mabe slap a comment on, and it may be that I just try to do too many things at once...but I'm actually goint to try to put more comments into my postings, as well as other content. The intesting thing is that not many people have commented on this, except for him, and his opinion is eithier an hoteaded one, or a strong one to convince me to change it, in a sense, its a semi thanks, to pointing this error out...though he does it pretty much bluntly. Though I've also realized why I blogged more digg things than posted other articles: more hits from it, which now I've understanded is annoying. My other blog, that involves orhestra, has great unique content, but it is viewed quite rarely, and most of the traffic comes from this blog...and that traffic comes from digg. What really needs to be solved, is to find a way to digg content, but mabe a way to encourage unique content, that a blogger writes truely, but can be promoted to get more hits and more people looking at the site, and would not have to become desperate to use digg content, or other means to attract content....which I think from a quick thought Is why i've been digging more, so people would actually look at it, though it has a negative effect to make it look cookie cutter....though I hope there can be a way to solve this pattern of blogs, though this is a level up from the...*shudder* myspace blogs that I've seen, AND THATS a story for another post....

The Hunt for an SWG MMO Replacement...

Recently, I decided to break away from playing endless shooters including BF2, as well as other games like that and get into anotehr MMO, from the recomendatoion of a friend of Wilowah. That game is EVE online. The game in a nutshell is completely in space, and involves space combat. The initial newbie tutorial and the gamplay for a decent of time seems to be simple, but from what I've heard, expands into a bigger perspective as better certs for bigger ships come, then the tactical part of the game comes into play. The game is alot more complecated, and I could go on and on to describe it, but grabbingt the 14 day trial may be a better way to experience it, without me prattleing on (still annoyed at the 50 digg flavoured Spam blogs; though I did get sort of...well addicted to posting them up, I just try to do too much at a same time.) Googleing Eve trials should get you some links to trials. The site for Eve Online can be found at this location.

Free Image Hosting at www.ImageShack.us

Neowin: Mind over matter' no longer science fiction

Using a specially designed skull cap fitted with electrodes, scientists are now able to control a computer, and write characters onto the screen.

As Dr. Brunner concentrates on the "B" of "bonjour" in a keyboard-like grid of letters and symbols taking up half the screen, a computer randomly highlights lines of characters in rapid succession.

Each time the row -- vertical or horizontal -- containing the letter 'B' is illuminated, Brunner's brain emits a slightly stronger signal. It takes the computer about 15 seconds to figure out what letter he is looking at. The system is doubly adaptive, with both the software and the person using it becoming more efficient over time.


'Mind over matter' no longer science fiction

Now this is neat, with this type of technology being developed, interacting with computers won't be comfined to just having to use a keyboard and mice. The only thing I'm worried about is computers that can think for themselves, that would possibly cause computer programmers to lose there jobs...though that's still on the horizon, lucky for me at least..

An annoying article that labels my blog as "Spam"- old habits die hard..

Apparently one person has labeled many blogs, inlculding this one as "Digg spam blogs" labeling that I and other people are too lazy to write our own articles. But I personally many of times blockquote digg hashes and respond to them in different ways, sometimes I may not add anything because I just think its interesting, and emphazize it as a post. Sometimes I may get so aggrevated that I comment about something quite abit.

This person thinks that these exist to:

There are really only two reasons these sorts of blogs exist - advertising and pagerank. By taking Digg's content and putting their own ads around it they can suck a little traffic and earn from ad clicks. With any pagerank they aquire they can boost their own 'legitimate' or other spam sites.


I do not try to boost my stats, heck my stats are miserable, as well as I not really caring for alot of people to read it. This is only a collection of news that is interesting to read, instead of searching many websites, or digg, which constantly changes dynamically. Having the content static helps someone find news that has allready been pushed out from the top news que. He also thinks that:

These blogs are of no or negative value to Digg, and just dilute the value of Digg's unique content. Search engines generally penalise sites for having duplicate content, there's no guarantee G/Y/M will find Digg's original version first.


The content would be spread by other means, IM and other things, so it woudn't be that unique, many news topics also make digg, could be posted earlier by sites like Neowin, that basically rehases a summary and links to the main article, does it make them bad, just because they describe an article that they didn't make?

Here are 50 chumps who cannot write content for themselves. :)


I am not a "chump" though there could be some who collect news just for the hits, I just do it for one to collect news articles that THINK ARE INTERSTING. Though I use the digg descriptions, they are usually good, execpt in those times that they are odd, or incorrect, that I attempt to mention what is wrong. Again I say that there are people who do it just to make there blog better, but I am not in it for that, and I want to say that to anyone who reads this blog, that this is not done in a spam fashion, though it seems like it. There is alot of times just alot of good news articles that I want to spread to people that don't go to neowin, or digg, or have the time to see it, but want it condensed so they can read it at an appropriate time, rather than digging down in digg, or other news sites like neowin, for example. The post about this can be found here.

In the end, it could be that the savory fact that blogging digg content just has such a postive bringing of people, rather than unique (like my orchestra blog) content, though some people do have sucess, but there needs to be more to promote this, as well as better commenting, and as well as digg allowing HTML to put blockquotes in for the allowing of comments, because its been brotken for awhile.

Digg: Soon, Not Just for Geeks Anymore

Digg, the collaborative tech news site, will soon branch out beyond geekdom.

read more | digg story

Final word on DS Lite

The Nintendo DS Lite is officially unveiled in the US tomorrow. Is it worth your time to wait in line?

read more | digg story

CGI simulation of meteor colliding with Earth

The velocity of the meteorite is 70,000km/h. But the meteorite is bigger than we can imagine, so that it appears much slower. In the impact at the same time as colliding The earth's crust of 10km in thickness where ground in the earth is composed is wholly peeled off.

read more | digg story

There's a new OS on the block - HelenOS

It's called HelenOS, and it's based on the SPARTAN kernel, licensed under the BSD license, and they've just released version 0.2.0.

read more | digg story

Sony: "PC Dead, Nintendo For Kids, We Innovate"

Sony execs Richard Brunois and Phil Harrison claim the PC is dead, long live the PS3. As well, they claim that Nintendo is essentially for kids and they are the true innovators.

read more | digg story

Nintendo's DS Lite launch party in New York

"Wouldn't you know it, last night instead of going out and getting our social life on, Paul and I cruised over to Rockefeller Center to the Nintendo World Store for the official DS Lite launch event (it being the eve of June 11th and all)."

read more | digg story

DS Games Respond to DS lite Hardware?

Mario greets you differently on the DS lite when booting up Mario Kart DS. Are Nintendo DS games aware when they're on a DS Lite?

read more | digg story

Dreamcast Modding FAQ (very complete)

A very well compiled FAQ of almost everything to do with modifying the Sega Dreamcast.

read more | digg story

Xbox 360, iPod and Plasma TVs Will Transform In The New Transformers Movie

"According to a leaked script, three of our favorite consumer electronics are going to do a little "transforming" in the new Transformers live action movie courtesy of Michael Bay."

read more | digg story

DIY Hi-def LCD Projector that uses $30-50 bulbs!

PopSci ran this article on how Lumenlab is simplifying LCD projectors for DIY'ers using standard parts. The best part is that it's a Hi-def (you pick the resolution based of the LCD) and then illuminate it with a $30-50 dollar bulb that lasts 3 times as long as a normal projector bulb!

read more | digg story

Will Nintendo Be Added To PhyEd Curriculum?

150 middle schools in West Virginia have started using Dance Dance Revolution in Gym Classes. They are trying to reach today's overweight, yet technologically savvy, kids. Maybe next year they will add Wii Tennis?

read more | digg story

Why the Entire Computer Industry Is Wrong

Nobody likes to be told that they are wrong but we are. It all started 150 years ago when Lady Ada Lovelace wrote the first algorithm (table of instructions). We have been doing it wrong ever since.

read more | digg story

What is Everyone in the World Doing Right Now?

A simple web site for seeing what the world is doing at this very instant. Simply enter what you're doing, and it will show up.

read more | digg story

Power of Ten: To Infinity and Beyond

The film starts on a picnic blanket in Chicago and zooms out 10x every 10 seconds until the entire universe is visible. And then they zoom all the way back down into the nucleus of an atom. A timeless classic.
It is a classic, I've actually saw it this year in Physics, and it is a neat video. It may be old, but it has that element of neatness of going to the ends of the universe and back. If you haven't seen it, shame on you! Its on both Google Video and Youtube, so check it out!

read more | digg story

More PS3 Downgrades On The Way?

The connected PS3-party wet blanket who brought us covert info on the PlayStation 3 has dug up some dirt from a phantom insider who claims the PS3 may see even more downgraded specs.

read more | digg story

Saturday, June 10, 2006

DRM - Is It Worth Going To Jail For?

Want to know how to fight DRM?
Purchase a number of DRM'ed disks,
then walk out the door then back in and
return the merchandise, it would cause
havoc in the retail world for that day.

read more | digg story

Top 50 Game Ending Songs

You will no doubt find some old favourites in the list, and probably a lot of other titles you've never played or even heard of. There are MP3 files for each one of the songs.

read more | digg story

Duke Nukem Forever - Could the wait be over this year?

Stock plunges after dismal earnings report; SEC filing reveals 3D Realms has a $500,000 incentive to finish infamously delayed PC game by year's end. Duke Nukem Forever due by Dec. 31?

read more | digg story

How to: Vista Beta on Your MacBook and MacBook Pro

After a few false starts I have finally got a working Vista up and running on my MBP. This is assuming you already have a working copy of XP installed using BootCamp. Here is what I did:

read more | digg story

Hacker Steals Files from the National Nuclear Security Administration

A hacker has stolen a file containing the names and Social Security numbers of 1,500 people working for the Energy Department's nuclear-weapons agency in Albuquerque.

read more | digg story

Government OK's Wiretapping VOIP

"As upheld in a 2-to-1 decision, companies like Vonage and Skype would have to open up to authorized government intrusion, the same as any landline phone provider -- private networks (like those on college campuses), however, will theoretically remain legally secure from the wiretaps."

read more | digg story

Symantec fine print reveals automatic renewal of subscriptions

I just downloaded Norton Internet Security 2006 and noticed that the fine print reveals that I will automatically be charged for a renewal next year. Why are so many companies sticking it to their customers with this kind of crap. I did not have an option to say yes or no to an automatic renewal.

read more | digg story