The Cuts

HP researchers discovered intelligent memory

Thu, 01 May 2008 13:00:30 GMT

Researchers at Hewlett-Packard have developed a working unit of a memory circuit that has existed in theory for 37 years, which could ultimately replace RAM and make computers more intelligent by tracking data it has retained. The technology, called memristor, could allow computers to make decisions by understanding past patterns of data it has collected, similar to human brains collecting and understanding a series of events. For example, a memristor circuit could be capable of telling a microwave the heating time for different food types based on the information it has collected over time, said Stanley Williams, senior fellow at HP.

A memristor circuit requires lower voltage and less time to turn on than competitive memory like DRAM and flash, Williams said. �Because it [uses] less voltage and less time, of course, it uses much less power,� Williams said. Denser cells also allow memristor circuits to store more data than flash memory. Through prototypes, HP is trying to show circuit designers what memristor is capable of doing. �What we have done is confirmed a concept for a new electronic device that was originally proposed nearly 40 years ago,� Williams said. Memristor is the fourth fundamental circuit element, joining the other three � resistor, capacitor and inductor � that had been known for 150 years, Williams said. The element has properties that cannot be duplicated by any combination of the other three elements.

Qwest offers 20 Mbit DSL in 23 new cities

Sat, 26 Apr 2008 13:09:24 GMT

Qwest Communications International Inc. on Thursday introduced DSL plans with faster download speeds, including one that is the fastest DSL service from a major U.S. phone company. Qwest is charging $104.99 per month for a download speed of 20 megabits per second. For 12 mbps, it is charging $51.99 per month. The prices are $5 lower when combined with local phone service. The plans will be available in 23 of Qwest�s top markets, the company said. By the end of the year, they will be available to 2 million customers. Download speeds on DSL, or Digital Subscriber Lines, from other companies generally top out at 10 or 12 megabits per second. L

ike Qwest�s plans, those speeds are only available in some areas, where the local phone company has drawn optical fiber closer to homes to shorten the distance the signal is carried by copper phone lines. Qwest said it is committed to spending up to $300 million to upgrade its network by drawing fiber into neighborhoods. Verizon Communications Inc. has chosen a different route, drawing fiber all the way to customers� homes. While its fastest DSL service provides 7 mbps downloads, its fiber Internet service clocks in at 50 mbps. Cable companies also have been boosting their speeds. Earlier this month, Comcast Corp. introduced 50 mbps service for $150 per month in Minnesota�s Twin Cities region, where Qwest is the dominant phone company. A check on Qwest�s Web site indicated that the 12 and 20 megabit services are available in Minneapolis.

Computer hacker testifies against News corp

Fri, 25 Apr 2008 12:43:53 GMT

A computer hacker testified on Wednesday that a News Corp unit hired him to develop pirating software, but denied using it to penetrate the security system of a rival satellite television service. Christopher Tarnovsky � who said his first payment was $20,000 in cash hidden in electronic devices mailed from Canada � testified in a corporate-spying lawsuit brought against News Corp�s NDS Groupby DISH Network Corp. The trial could result in hundreds of millions of dollars in damage awards. NDS, which provides security technology to a global satellite network that includes satellite TV service DirecTV, denies the claims, saying it was only engaged in reverse engineering � looking at a technology product to determine how it works, a standard in the electronics industry.

After an introduction by plaintiff�s attorney Chad Hagan as one of the �two best hackers in the world,� Tarnovsky told the court that he was paid on a regular basis by Harper Collins, a publishing arm of News Corp, for 10 years. Tarnovsky said one of his first projects was to develop a pirating program to make DirectTV more secure. But lawyers for DISH Network claim Tarnovsky�s mission was to hack into DISH�s satellite network, steal the security code, then flood the market with pirated smart cards costing DISH $900 million in lost revenue and system-repair costs. Smart cards enable satellite TV converter boxes to bring in premium channels. The trial is expected to last another two to three weeks.

Ubuntu 8.04 Hardy Heron�. free

Thu, 24 Apr 2008 16:41:55 GMT

Today is April 24th, and you may ask, what significance does that have? Well, today is the anticipated release date of Ubuntu 8.04 Hardy Heron. As is customary for Linux distributions, Ubuntu 8.04 includes incremental updates to many of the software packages that make up the system, from low-level details like the window manager and graphics subsystem, all the way up to the bundled OpenOffice.org productivity suite.

The new release is also the first to ship with the Firefox 3.0 browser, which is currently still in late-stage beta testing. This is widely touted as the savior of Linux, as it will bring Linux to the masses. I tried some of the earlier versions a few years ago, when I was building a tv tuner system, but opted for a Windows based machine. Nonetheless, if you are a Linux fanboy, you might want to give this distribution a shot. It is free to download, or you can request a copy be mailed to your physical address.

http://www.ubuntu.com/getubuntu/download

As if you need another reason to touch yourself

Thu, 24 Apr 2008 12:23:47 GMT

Designer Erik De Nijs has put a keyboard in pants. A KEYBOARD IN PANTS!

Wikipedia will publish its print version

Thu, 24 Apr 2008 01:48:46 GMT

This book actually sounds like a good idea. Its probably gonna be like the new guiness book of world records...

Wikipedia, the online community-created encyclopedia, is taking a retro step: It�s trying out a print version. Bertelsmann AG will release The One-Volume Wikipedia Encyclopedia in Germany in September for 19.95 euros (about $31.80); Wikipedia will earn royalties of about $1.59 per copy. Wikimedia, which set up shop in SoMa early this year after moving from Florida, so far has largely subsisted on donations and grants, receiving a little more than $2 million in 2007.

�This is groundbreaking,� said Kul Wadhwa, recently hired as head of business development for the Wikimedia Foundation, the San Francisco nonprofit that promotes Wikipedia. �Getting a big publishing powerhouse like Bertelsmann behind this is a success in and of itself.� Wadhwa doesn�t rule out publication in English and other languages, depending on how well the book sells. The 992-page tome will contain about 50,000 of the Web site�s most popular articles, condensed to eight to 10 lines each. The German site contains almost three-quarters of a million entries, second only to the U.S. version with 2.3 million articles.

Facebook unveils friends chat service

Wed, 23 Apr 2008 09:04:05 GMT

Facebook officially unveiled their much hyped chat service today. The social networking giant flicked the switch on the service which allows users of Facebook to message their friends quickly and efficiently from any page in Facebook. After a user agrees to go online they are greeted with their friends list in a pop up form on within an integrated version at the bottom of Facebook pages. Interestingly the connection doesn�t appear to be SSL so it might be possible for bad guys to sniff any conversations with your friends.

Facebook is in the middle of a re-design aimed to promote aggregation for users personally. In a message to Facebook users the company says �As you have seen in our screen shots, the �Wall� tab of your profile has a new emphasis on recent activity. We think this is the information that your friends care the most about, and the information that will recap what you have been up to lately. This change shouldn�t make you feel uncomfortable, and to ensure this we will be giving you control over what information is displayed about you. What�s really important is that you have a say in what information is being shared about you, and in turn, your friends have an easy way to see it.� It�s not clear how big corporations and businesses will deal with the new chat service as it�s so well integrated it may not be an easy task to block without blocking the whole of Facebook.

Western Digital intros superfast 2.5 drive

Tue, 22 Apr 2008 13:43:02 GMT

Western Digital on Monday unveiled what it is terming the world�s fastest SATA hard drive, a 10,000-rpm model aimed at the enthusiast PC and professional workstation markets. WD�s new WD VelociRaptor 2.5-inch hard drive provides up to 300 Gbytes capacity, and is based on the company�s enterprise-class drive technology. The drive is enclosed in WDC�s IcePack. IcePack is a 3.5-inch mounting frame with a built-in heat sink which the Lake Forest, Calif.-based storage vendor said fits in a standard 3.5-inch system bay and provides extra cooling for high-performance desktop PC and workstation applications.

The new WD VelociRaptor hard drives� performance comes from its 10,000-rpm speed, a 3-Gbytes-per-second SATA interface, and a built-in 16-Mbyte cache. The company said the drives have a mean time between failure (MTBF) rate of 1.4 million hours. Also included are such SATA features as rotary acceleration feed forward to optimize performance in vibration-prone, multi-drive chassis, and SecurePark, which parks the heads off the disk surface while the drive is spinning up, spinning down, and off to ensure that the head never touches the disk surface, the company said. The drives are expected to be available through WD distributors and solution providers starting in mid-May with a suggested list price of $299.99.

4:20

Mon, 21 Apr 2008 21:14:45 GMT

So I noticed nobody posted anything about what they did to celebrate this years 420. I might be a day late, but thats because I was a little fried. So anyways heres a short clip of what my day was like.

PayPal considers blocking certain browsers

Sat, 19 Apr 2008 11:42:37 GMT

As part of an effort to combat phishing, PayPal plans to block older versions of Internet Explorer and Firefox and other �unsafe� browsers from accessing the online payment site. In a paper released at an RSA security conference this month in San Francisco, PayPal said there is a significant number of site visitors using browsers as old as Internet Explorer versions 3 and 4, released in August 1996 and September 1997, respectively. Such �unsafe browsers� lack the latest technology for blocking phishing sites and do not support Extended Validation Certificates, which are digital certificates that establish Websites as trusted during online transactions. Phishing is a deceptive practice used by Web criminals to acquire personal information, such as usernames, passwords and credit card details. Phishers often pose as legitimate businesses in emails to lure victims to fraudulent sites where they are asked to input their personal data. PayPal is among the favorite targets of phishers, along with eBay and online banks.

�At PayPal, we are in the process of re-implementing controls, which will first warn our customers when logging in to PayPal from those browsers that we consider unsafe,� the eBay-owned payment service said. �Later, we plan on blocking customers from accessing the site from the most unsafe � usually the oldest � browsers.� PayPal in February warned people that Apple�s Safari browser didn�t have the necessary security to protect Web users and recommended the latest versions of Microsoft�s Internet Explorer and Mozilla�s Firefox.