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May 17, 2008

Understanding How CAPTCHA Is Broken

Saturday, May 17, 2008 9:10 AM

An anonymous reader writes "Websense Security Labs explains the spammer Anti-CAPTCHA operations and mass-mailing strategies. Apparently spammers are using combination of different tactics — proper email accounts, visual social engineering, and fast-flux — representing a strategy, explains their resident CAPTCHA expert. It is evident that spammers are working towards defeating anti-spam filters with their tactics."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Source: Slashdot

Facebook’s Glass Jaw

Saturday, May 17, 2008 9:00 AM

Facebook finally has a real problem to deal with - an exceptionally rational and well-thought-out strategy by Google that puts the leading social media cloud in the path of a wave of angry users. The only thing Facebook has going for it is that said users don’t yet know they’re angry. With its denial of service [...]

Source: TechCrunch

Categories: Web 2.0

High-Tech Japanese, Running Out of Engineers (Martin Fackler/New York Times)

Saturday, May 17, 2008 8:40 AM

Martin Fackler / New York Times:
High-Tech Japanese, Running Out of Engineers — TOKYO — Japan is running out of engineers. — After years of fretting over coming shortages, the country is actually facing a dwindling number of young people entering engineering and technology-related fields. — Universities call it “rikei banare,” or “flight from science.”

Source: Techmeme

Categories: Web 2.0

Mars Harder and Colder Than Previously Thought

Saturday, May 17, 2008 8:06 AM

coondoggie writes "Turns out that the surface of Mars is stiffer and colder than previously thought. New observations from NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter indicate that any liquid water that might exist below the planet's surface and any possible organisms living in that water would be located deeper than scientists had suspected. NASA made the discovery while using the Shallow Radar (SHARAD) instrument on the Orbiter, which revealed long, continuous layers stretching up to 600 miles or about one-fifth the length of the United States. The radar pictures show a smooth, flat border between the ice cap and the rocky Martian crust, NASA said. On Earth, the weight of a similar stack of ice would cause the planet's surface to sag. The fact that the Martian surface is not bending means that its strong outer shell, or lithosphere, a combination of its crust and upper mantle, must be very thick and cold."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Source: Slashdot

Spielberg pops up on Seesmic (Jemima Kiss/PDA)

Saturday, May 17, 2008 7:45 AM

Jemima Kiss / PDA:
Spielberg pops up on Seesmic — Seesmic, the video discussion site, has gone wild this morning as Steven Spielberg, Harrison Ford, George Lucas and more big names from Indiana Jones 4 join a Q&A session on the site. — It's a simple enough idea but incredibly exciting …

Source: Techmeme

Categories: Web 2.0

Firefox 3 RC1 Out Now

Saturday, May 17, 2008 6:56 AM

Jay writes "Firefox 3 Release Candidate 1 is out now. If yours didn't auto-update, then get it while it's hot! The release came a bit early with Computer World noting: 'As recently as last Saturday, Mozilla's chief engineer said that although the company had locked down RC1's code, it was planning to publicly launch the build in "late May."'" My copy just downloaded — restarting after I save this story. God I hope it's better than the last beta.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Source: Slashdot

Unmanned Aircraft Pose US Airspace Problems

Saturday, May 17, 2008 5:29 AM

coondoggie writes to tell us that congressional watchdogs have called on Congress to create a body within the FAA to oversee unmanned aircraft development and integration. The group cited the rapidly growing unmanned aircraft community and is worried about the possible repercussions. "The GAO also called on the FAA to work with the Department of Defense, which has extensive unmanned aircraft experience to issue its program plan. In addition, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) assesses the security implications of routine unmanned aircraft access to commercial airspace, the GAO said. Even if all issues are addressed, and there are a number of critical problems, unmanned aircraft may not receive routine access to the national airspace system until 2020, the GAO concluded."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Source: Slashdot

Top Tech Toys To Buy With Tax Rebate Checks

Saturday, May 17, 2008 5:00 AM

Your IRS tax rebate check can buy more tech fun than you think. A search for goodies from Apple, Asus, LG, Magnavox, Garmin, and others turns up computers, flat screens, a Blu-ray DVD burner, and more.

Source: Information Week

Apple Nation: Mac Fans, Red Sox Open Boston Store

Saturday, May 17, 2008 5:00 AM

The opening of Apple's largest U.S. retail space, in Boston, drew Mac fans, Red Sox players, a member of Aerosmith, and even a Windows Vista supporter, who said he was there because he likes standing in long lines.

Source: Information Week

World's Newest, Most Powerful Laser Comes Online

Saturday, May 17, 2008 3:36 AM

deglr6328 writes "The OMEGA EP laser at the University of Rochester's Laboratory for Laser Energetics was dedicated today at the Robert L. Sproull Center for Ultra High Intensity Laser Research. The new laser, which has been in design since ~2002 will, at 1 kilojoule per 1 picosecond pulse, be the highest energy petawatt scale laser ever created by far. For a fleeting fraction of a second, it will deliver a beam of infrared light at 1054 nm that is more powerful than the total energy consumption of all human activity on the planet, to a tiny spot the size of the head of a pin. Previous petawatt scale lasers such as the one created at Lawrence Livermore labs in the late 90's (and dismantled in 1999) were capable of only several hundred joules per pulse. The new OMEGA EP laser will be able to manifest power densities sufficient to examine Unruh and Hawking radiation-like phenomena in the laboratory and will have the capability to directly produce nuclear reactions through ultra high electric field initiated photodisintegration."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Source: Slashdot

Best Buy (BBY) Buying Netflix (NFLX) For $44? (Henry Blodget/Silicon Alley Insider)

Saturday, May 17, 2008 2:15 AM

Henry Blodget / Silicon Alley Insider:
Best Buy (BBY) Buying Netflix (NFLX) For $44? — A reader says there was chatter to that effect this afternoon, as Netflix (NFLX) pushed 6% higher on high volume. — Would this make sense? Only if Best Buy (BBY) has been persuaded that the Blockbuster (BBI) - Circuit City (CCI) deal makes sense, which we certainly haven't.

Source: Techmeme

Categories: Web 2.0

Firefox 3 Release Candidate now available for download (Beltzner/Mozilla Developer News)

Saturday, May 17, 2008 1:30 AM

Beltzner / Mozilla Developer News:
Firefox 3 Release Candidate now available for download — Please note: The Firefox 3 Release Candidate is a public preview release intended for developer testing and community feedback. It includes new features as well as dramatic improvements to performance, memory usage and speed.

Source: Techmeme

Categories: Web 2.0

The World's Spookiest Weapons

Saturday, May 17, 2008 1:21 AM

DesScorp writes "Popular Science has a piece on some outrageous ideas for weapons; some came to fruition, and others didn't. And while some of the weapons (atom bombs, chemical weapons, bats with bombs strapped to them that seek out homes and buildings at night) are truly frightening, some of them are also kind of silly, such as the Gay Bomb, and the Frisbee bomb that was labeled the 'Modular Disc-Wing Urban Cruise Munition.'"

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Source: Slashdot

Snackr is an RSS Addict's Dream Come True (Marshall Kirkpatrick/ReadWriteWeb)

Saturday, May 17, 2008 12:55 AM

Marshall Kirkpatrick / ReadWriteWeb:
Snackr is an RSS Addict's Dream Come True — Snackr is a new Adobe AIR app that lets you display items in your RSS feeds in a beautiful scrolling ticker on any edge of your screen. I am absolutely giddy about it after only a few minutes of use. Snackr is something you'd supplement your existing reader with, not a replacement.

Source: Techmeme

Categories: Web 2.0

May 16, 2008

NSF Research Reveals Chain Letter Travel Patterns

Friday, May 16, 2008 11:37 PM

alphadogg writes to tell us that the NSF is researching chain letters and how they travel. The results aren't quite what one might expect, showing a pattern of more selective and circuitous travel. "One surprising finding was that messages often took meandering routes between people who knew each other, often through as many as 100 intermediaries. Many email users also received copies from multiple social groups. The researchers concluded that because messages come from many directions, there's ample opportunity for the messages to be edited along the way."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Source: Slashdot

How Open Is Microsoft?

Friday, May 16, 2008 10:02 PM

Our survey shows that business technology pros aren't convinced that Microsoft is doing enough to shed its old proprietary habits.

Source: Information Week

Can Storage Resource Management Save Us From Ourselves? We Quiz 9 SRM Vendors To Find Out.

Friday, May 16, 2008 10:01 PM

Companies have an expensive storage hangover. Blame the way storage gear is sold, its proprietary nature, or IT's lackadaisical attitudes. Time to fix the problem--or go broke.

Source: Information Week