Archive for July, 2009

British Hacker Loses Review of Asperger’s Defense

Friday, July 31st, 2009

Barence writes "Gary McKinnon has lost the judicial review of his case, dealing a potentially fatal blow to his hopes of avoiding extradition to the US. Lord Justice Stanley Burnton and Mr. Justice Wilkie dismissed the review at the Royal Courts of Justice. The review had been assembled to determine ...

Amazon US Refunds Windows License Fee, Too

Friday, July 31st, 2009

rrohbeck writes "Today Amazon credited my card with $65.45. After ordering an Eee PC 1005 HA from amazon.com, I asked them for a refund for the cost of Windows XP via the 'Contact us' form. At first they told me to cancel any items on my order that I wanted ...

11-Word Extracts May Infringe Copyright In Europe

Friday, July 31st, 2009

splodus writes "The European Court of Justice, Europe's highest court, has ruled that a service providing 11-word snippets of newspaper articles could be unlawful. Media monitoring company Infopaq International searches newspaper articles and provides clients with a keyword and the five words either side. This practice was challenged by the ...

Hackers Get Free Parking In San Francisco

Friday, July 31st, 2009

Hugh Pickens writes "PC World reports that at the Black Hat security conference this week, security researchers say that it is pretty easy for a technically savvy hacker to make a fake payment card that gives them unlimited free parking on San Francisco's smart parking meter system. 'It wasn't technically ...

Licensing Dispute Threatens Future of Skype

Friday, July 31st, 2009

tomlins writes "eBay is faced with the prospect of having to close down the hugely popular VoIP app Skype due to its reliance on proprietary code still owned by Skype's original founders, who are threatening to pull the plug on the licensing agreement they have with eBay."

Linux-Friendly Label Printer Recomendations?

Friday, July 31st, 2009

pdkl95 writes "I have been using some small, simple desktop label printers for quite a while now. Unfortunately, it's rapidly becoming clear that my printing needs are for something far more 'industrial strength.' Several of the label printers have failed, and they never really had the management features I wanted. ...

BSkyB To Launch 3D TV Service In 2010

Friday, July 31st, 2009

TheSync writes "The Guardian reports that BSkyB will launch Europe's first 3D TV service in 2010. You will need the Sky+ HD set-top box, and a '3D ready' TV set (glasses-based stereoscopic system such as LCD shutter glasses or polarized glasses). Note that the first 3D TV service was from ...

Prototype Vehicle For the Blind

Friday, July 31st, 2009

An anonymous reader writes "A student team from Virginia Tech Robotics and Mechanisms Laboratory have created a vehicle which allows the blind to drive. The vehicle uses a laser range finder to determine distances and alerts the driver through voice commands and vibration. Tomorrow [Friday] morning, the vehicle will have ...

Malaria Vaccine, Via Mosquito

Friday, July 31st, 2009

CodeShark writes "The AP is reporting that mosquitoes have been used for the first time to deliver anti-malarial vaccine through their bites. According to this article the results were crystal clear: 100% of the vaccinated group acquired immunity, everyone in the non-vaccinated control group did not. Those in the control ...

A.I. Developer Challenges Pro-Human Bias

Friday, July 31st, 2009

destinyland writes "After 13 years, the creator of the Noble Ape cognitive simulation says he's learned two things about artificial intelligence. 'Survival is a far better metric of intelligence than replicating human intelligence,' and "There are a number of examples of vastly more intelligent systems (in terms of survival) than ...