Teen Geek Squad

Giving the finger

2005-07-06T14:15:00.000-04:00

SlashDot: Japanese researchers writing data into human fingernails

"Secure optical data storage could soon literally be at your fingertips thanks to work being carried out in Japan. Yoshio Hayasaki and his colleagues have discovered that data can be written into a human fingernail by irradiating it with femtosecond laser pulses. Capacities are said to be up to 5 mega bits and the stored data lasts for 6 months - the length of time it takes a fingernail to be completely replaced."

Wow. This is pretty sweet. Right now, it seems they can only do it on detached nails. 5MBits works out to be around 625kBytes. I can see it now, you'll have all this data encrypted on your fingernails, and a tiny little RFID chip embedded in there. Those dudes with the really long nails will finally have some purpose in life!

Funny commentary can be found here.

TM

iPod: I've got wood...

2005-07-05T14:24:00.000-04:00

Bit-Tech: Real Wood iPod

I'm deviating a bit from what I normally post here. This isn't news, but rather something pretty freakin' sweet. This guy is apparently covering everything on his desk in hand carved, hand polished African wood. Awesome idea.

From the article:

I have had a 20GB 4th gen iPod since they came out, but I have never liked the white finish. As part of Project Redwood I am also applying a wood finish to just about everything on my desk to have a matching set. And the iPod was not excluded.

|TM|

Braaaaaaains, need braaaaaaains!

2005-06-28T13:28:00.000-04:00

News.com.au: Boffins create zombie dogs

"U.S. scientists have managed to revive dead dogs to life, by using a technique similar to cryogenation, in which the dogs' blood was drained and replaced by a cold, saline liquid. A couple of hours, their blood was replaced, and an electric shock brought them back to life with no brain damage. The technology will be tested on humans within a year."

Uhh. Wait a minute. What? Pittsburgh's Safar Centre for Resuscitation Research? Who knew, right? So, apparenttly, the saline solution preserves organs and tissue, so they can be worked on or repaired. The article cites saving people with batttle wounds, gunshot wounds, or other instances of major blood loss as one of the uses of this procedure. They hope that in 10 years, this could become a life saving process. Sounds like Resident Evil to me...

Sorry I've been incommunicado for so long. Should be back in business now, at least every other day I hope! I'm trying to get on my other contributors to post as well.

TM

Hell Frozen Over?

2005-06-06T15:22:00.000-04:00

Apple: Intel Microprocessors Beginning in 2006

"At its Worldwide Developer Conference today, Apple® announced plans to deliver models of its Macintosh® computers using Intel® microprocessors by this time next year, and to transition all of its Macs to using Intel microprocessors by the end of 2007. Apple previewed a version of its critically acclaimed operating system, Mac OS® X Tiger, running on an Intel-based Mac® to the over 3,800 developers attending CEO Steve Jobs’ keynote address. Apple also announced the availability of a Developer Transition Kit, consisting of an Intel-based Mac development system along with preview versions of Apple’s software, which will allow developers to prepare versions of their applications which will run on both PowerPC and Intel-based Macs."

Well then. What a change of events. Really though, I could care less. Doesn't effect me. Unless of course, I decide to buy a new Mac mini P4 3.8ghz. Ha! Interestingly enough, Apple has been producing OSX for both PowerPC and Intel x86 chips ever since it went into production. This has been in the works for a long time, I suppose.

Sucks to be AMD...

More Fun with BotNets

2005-06-03T13:39:00.000-04:00

The Register: Hackers plot to create massive botnet

"Computer Associates has warned of a co-ordinated malware attack (CMA) described as among the most sophisticated yet unleashed on the net. The attack involves three different Trojans – Glieder, Fantibag and Mitglieder – in a co-ordinated assault designed to establish a huge botnet under the control of hackers. CA reckons that access to the compromised PCs is for sale on a black market, at prices as low as five cents per PC."

Sounds like the script-kiddies are going nuts with these. It's very interesting to see that there is an 'economy' of sorts for the hackers and virus-writers out there. The line about selling access is strikingly similar to ads you commonly see on SlashDot about buying processing time on a distibuted computing network. Interesting.

I leave you with my favorite quote from the article:

"It almost goes without saying but all the MyTob variants, along with the Bagle downloaders, infects only Windows PCs. Apple, Linux and those few souls out there still running OS/2 are all immune, as usual."

|TM|

Ironic

2005-06-03T11:55:00.000-04:00

So, this is going to differ from my normal posts, I promise I'll post something news-worthy later on.

I've been trying to get as much exposure for this blog as possible. One of the things that has been frustrating me is getting it into search-engines.

Of course, knowing that Blogger is owned by Google, I figured that the site would show up in a search just fine. How disappointing.

The ironic thing, is that when I went over to Yahoo (haven't searched there in AGES), and did the same search, and got 4 relevant hits! How about them apples!

Happy Friday, everyone.

TM

What's In your head... Zombie?

2005-06-02T11:18:00.000-04:00

SlashDot: Europe Home to Majority of Zombies

"According to a recent CipherTrust study, the majority of Zombie PCs reside not in the US or China, but in Europe. Of the European zombies, 2/3 were either in Germany, France, or Britain. The results were released with the announcement of CipherTrust's new ZombieMeter. As a response to previous reports of high zombie activity, the London Action Plan launched Operation Spam Zombies in cooperation with numerous governments around the world."

In the past few months, I have heard more and more about Zombie/Bot networks. The whole idea is very fascinating. I can just imagine, middle aged soccer-mom, sitting down at her brand new computer with her blazingly fast broadband connection, and wondering why everything is running so slowly. Little does she know, but she is unwittingly performing a DDoS attack on some corporate server, or sending off thousands of spam e-mails about Viagra, home loans and credit cards. Thank god for Firewalls...

Hmm... Operation Spam Zombies is interesting at best. At least it's not like the programs/webpages designed to spam spammers. They went down in flames, last I heard...

Game on

2005-06-01T10:01:00.000-04:00

Here's one about video games. "A Gamers' Manifesto." This is pretty much a laundry list of things us gamers shouldn't have to put up with anymore.

My favorite is #19 - No more jumping puzzles in FPS games:

YOU CAN'T SEE YOUR MOTHERF***ING FEET. IT DOESN'T WORK.

I couldn't have said it better myself.

(Just as a little warning, the article contains some offensive language --TM)

All Your Seniors Are Belong To Us

2005-06-01T09:53:00.000-04:00

Reuters: Toyota aims to sell service robots by 2010

"Japan's top automaker sees a declining birthrate and aging population leading to growing demand for robots that can help in tasks such as child care and nursing care, the report said."

The Reuters article is very sparse, but I was able to find a ton more information over at Robotics Trends.

From the article:

"The first Toyota humanoid, a 48-inch tall biped robot, played "When you wish upon a star" and the theme song from a popular Japanese comedy show with a trumpet while walking 1.5 km/h and swaying gracefully to the music. In a manner similar to humans, the 77 pound as yet unnamed robot has artificial lips which can alter their position subtly as air is forced through them, enabling it to play a trumpet as it presses the stops with its hands. After completing the tune, the robot bowed to the audience and then waved its arms in response to applause.

Joining the walking humanoid was a wheeled humanoid trumpeter, standing about 40 inches tall and weighing in at 75 pounds. The two robots played a duet of "Bugler's Holiday." "

Ok yeah, playing the trumpet is pretty damn impressive. Especially since they played Bugler's Holiday (remember that tune Ajax?). But, how is having super cool lip control going to translate into taking care of seniors? Wait, no, I don't want to know. Guess we'll have to wait til 2010...

TM

What was that?

2005-05-31T11:35:00.000-04:00

Google Blogoscope: Google Translator: The Universal Language

"Google gave journalists a glimpse of its next generation machine translation system at a May 19th Google Factory Tour. "Google Blogoscoped" offers an excellent overview of the presentation. The system has been trained using the United Nations Documents as a corpus. This corpus is some 20 billion words worth of content. It uses existing source and target language translations (done by human translators at the U.N.) to find patterns it then uses to build rules for translating between those languages. Apparently it was successful where the current version had failed in translating certain phrases. If anyone were capable of making a serious go of MT, that would have to be Google."

It's appropriate that they show this to journalists first. I know firsthand just how much they utilize Google. This will also help out Japanese-junkies like myself in deciphering cool web pages. It sounds pretty damn smart too...

TM

No Pizza for you!

2005-05-30T02:44:00.000-04:00

SlashDot: Stanford Rejects Business School Hackers

"The Stanford Report offers the next chapter in a continuing story about business school applicants manipulating URLs on the ApplyYourself system to determine their personal admission status. Harvard immediately rejected the 'hacker' applicants, but Stanford gave 'offenders' the opportunity to defend their actions. However, none of the competitive applicants 'was able to explain his/her actions to our satisfaction,' according to Stanford's dean, so all were rejected. The story mentions the decisions reached by other schools involved in the mess."

Meh, it was worth a try I guess. That's what happens when you go too far outside the box, I guess?

|TM|

Torrent Trouble

2005-05-27T16:04:00.000-04:00

Wired: U.S. Jacks Torrent Site

"FBI and Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE, agents executed 10 search warrants in nine states in a strike on Elitetorrents.org, a free, members-only BitTorrent aggregator hosted in the Netherlands. On Wednesday, visitors to the site were redirected to a new government-hosted page with a stern warning about the penalties for internet piracy: "Individuals involved in the operation and use of the Elite Torrents network are under investigation for criminal copyright infringement."

Ok, seriously. "The raids came less than a week after the Motion Picture Association of America publicly slammed BitTorrent for accelerating the spread of a pirated copy of Revenge of the Sith."

This is merely buraucracy at work, covering its own ass. I just hope that Bram Cohen's BitTorrent search does ok.

|TM|

More Airport Security

2005-05-27T13:43:00.000-04:00

Wired: For Security, the Eyes Have It

"When we screen based on names, we're screening on the most primitive and least technological basis of identification -- it's the most susceptible to misspelling, or people changing their identity, or fraud."

"Biometrics is the way ahead."

More airport security measures. I think that the younger generation can accept this and see how this will be a benefit, but what about Grandma and Grandpa? I'm sure they'll flip out.

|TM|

Superman, meet your match

2005-05-27T09:39:00.000-04:00

CNET: Airport screeners could see X-rated X-rays

Get ready for electronic portals known as backscatters, expected to be tested at a handful of airports this year, that use X-ray imaging technology to allow a screener to scan a body. And yes, the body image is detailed. Let's not be coy here, ladies and gentlemen:

"Well, you'll see basically everything," said Bill Scannell, a privacy advocate and technology consultant. "It shows nipples. It shows the clear outline of genitals."

Wow. This is crazy. I don't know what to say about this. I experienced some new airport technology recently, when I left Jacksonville. I stepped into a machine (too small on the top, I might add), then was buffeted with small jets of air. It was really Total-Recall-esque, there were little foot marks where you had to stand, a turnstile type barrier to keep you in the machine, and a little LCD showing the machine's progress. I assume this machine checks for chemicals or radiation or something.

The main issue is that the people going through it were definitely a little freaked out, as it was something new, something they hadn't seen before. Imagine how they would feel if they new they were being looked at STARK NAKED. That's where the problem is. Read the article, the last line is classic...

|TM|

Water Now More Awesome Than Previously Thought

2005-05-26T21:37:00.000-04:00

SlashDot: Water Now More Awesome Than Previously Thought

"Wired has a great article about a guy who thinks we can provide unlimited energy , accelerate crop growth, desalinize and purify drinking water, obtain health benefits and provide air conditioning, all by pumping up water from the depths of the ocean."

So since Ajax is being lazy, I wanted to point out this gem to you folks. I agree with the commentors that this guy is a bit off of his rocker, but man, what a cool idea. What a shame this can only be utilized on a small scale.

|TM|

Universal Password?

2005-05-26T17:42:00.000-04:00

Security Skins: Single Sign-On with Images

"Berkeley researchers propose a Mozilla extension to stop phishing. They claim that users only need to remember one password and one image for their lifetime to securely log in to any number of sites. They also use uniquely generated visual hashes to "skin" trusted windows and webpages, which is harder to spoof than the SSL lock icon. To verify that the skin is legit, the user has to compare two images, which is easier for novices than verifying a certificate."

Ok, so what do you think of this idea? I really like the concept of visually based passwords, or the idea of "one password and one image for their lifetime to securely log in to any number of sites". I have too many passwords for too many sites, but it is really the only safe way to operate, for now. If that extension does come out, I know that I'll download it...

Hear ye, hear ye...

2005-05-26T16:35:00.000-04:00

Ok folks, thanks for dropping by.

Henceforth, all posts in this blog shall be of newsworthy content.

We shall discuss the issues presented, and have meaningful (or not)
conversations.

Mainly, this should be fun.

Maybe this weekend, I will set up an email address for ya'll to post to, so
you don't have to be AT the Blogger site.

Have fun folks.....