Archive for March, 2008

Neal Stephenson Returns with "Anathem"

Monday, March 31st, 2008

Lev Grossman writes to tell us that Neal Stephenson, author of greats like Snow Crash and Cryptonomicon, has another novel due for release in September. The catalogue copy gives us a small glimpse at what may be in store: "Since childhood, Raz has lived behind the walls of a 3,400-year-old ...

Freenet Version 0.7 Release Candidate 1 Available

Monday, March 31st, 2008

apostle5406 writes to mention that the "Freenet" project (a global peer-to-peer publishing network) has unveiled their first release candidate. "Freenet 0.7 is a ground-up rewrite of Freenet. The key user-facing feature in Freenet 0.7 is the ability to operate Freenet in a "darknet" mode, where your Freenet node will only ...

Women’s Attractiveness Judged by Software

Monday, March 31st, 2008

Roland Piquepaille writes "According to Haaretz, an Israeli team of computer scientists has developed software that ranks facial attractiveness of women. Instead of identifying basic facial characteristics, this software has been designed to make aesthetic judgments — after training. The lead researcher said this program 'constitutes a substantial advance in ...

Scientists Look at Martian Salt for Ancient Life

Monday, March 31st, 2008

eldavojohn writes "Is there life on Mars? Maybe not, but a better question might be whether or not it has ever existed on Mars? Scientists are claiming that the best indication for this will be in newly found evaporated salt deposits on Mars which they can use to check for ...

Geeky April Fools’ Day Prank Roundup

Monday, March 31st, 2008

An anonymous reader writes "April 1st is the ultimate holiday for a geek — a little hands-on DIY, a little hacking and a lot of sub-par humor. Popular Mechanics and Instructables have teamed up for five pranks you can build in the office (including a stripped-down version of Gizmodo's CES ...

Windows Forensic Analysis

Monday, March 31st, 2008

Don Wolf writes "Computer forensics is a rapidly growing discipline and an even faster growing business. Whether it's the natural progression of technological science pertaining to crime or perhaps the digression of a few elite information security professionals, computer forensics is every so slowly gaining credibility in the otherwise PhD ...

Researchers Unravel Mystery of Lightning Diversity

Monday, March 31st, 2008

coondoggie writes to tell us that researchers from Penn State and New Mexico Tech have unraveled the mystery of lightning diversity. A new "Lightning Mapping Array" has been able to show detailed models on how lightning acts. "About 90% of lightning occurs inside clouds and is not visible to the ...

Adobe Joins Linux Foundation, Develops AIR for Linux

Monday, March 31st, 2008

2muchcoffeeman writes "Adobe announced Monday that it is joining the Linux Foundation and alpha-released a Linux version of its new Adobe Internet Runtime environment, which allows Internet-enable applications to run on Windows and Mac OS desktops, for Linux. According to Adobe, the alpha version lacks some key features that will ...

Report: Number of GPL v3 projects tops 2,000

Monday, March 31st, 2008

The number of open-source projects that use the GNU General Public License Version 3 has grown to more than 2,000, according to Palamida, which sells software and services for tracking open-source code within a customer's code base.

Adobe joins Linux Foundation, develops Air for Linux

Monday, March 31st, 2008

Adobe Systems released an early alpha version of its rich Internet application platform Air for Linux on Monday, and announced that it has joined the Linux Foundation, a nonprofit organization that promotes and standardizes Linux.