35 Designers x 5 Questions
35 designers. 5 questions. 5 precise answers. Result: 175 professional suggestions, tips and ideas from some of the best web-developers all around the world. In March we???ve contaced 35 prominent designers and design companies, contacted them and asked to answer five design-related questions, sharing their knowledge and experience with fellows...
The Restaurant Guide
dining guide offering comprehensive restaurant information and reservation services. Search by location, cuisine type
Like Humans, Chimp Males Cooperate With Kin and Non-Kin Alike
Contrary to previous beliefs, chimpanzees work just as well with unrelated chimps as they do with family—yet another trait in chimps once thought unique to humans. (Read on Source)
Likeable Bosses
"Survey suggests bosses not as likable as they think they are" Shanghai Daily, 24 April 2007 A recent survey by 51job.com in China found that almost 60% of employees identified their...
Opinion: Hackers watch for mobile opportunities
(InfoWorld) - What a world. We have to fight off viruses, zombies, bots, phishing, and on and on. Can you believe how many just plain evil people there are in the world? And what is their point? Simple thievery? To prove they are smarter than the rest of us? And think of all the money that's spent on defending, as best we can, against these miscreants or in cleaning up the mess when they get the better of us? Indeed, what a waste.
While viruses have appeared on mobile devices, they are, thankfully, few and far between. Part of the reason for this has been a lack of standardization of software environments on handsets, and part is due to the minimal functionality that is typical on these products. It's hard for the socially challenged to overwrite boot sectors, corrupt data, or otherwise run amok on most cell phones today.
Apple's decision to limit local software execution on the iPhone is undoubtedly due, at least in part, to a fundamental fear of hackers. While the Macintosh hasn't been much of a target for the hacker community, the iPhone could be a lot more tempting. There will be far more iPhones than Macs in the world in just a few years. Plus, Apple partner AT&T doesn't need the support headaches that come with having a large number of users jamming its 800 numbers with reports of bizarre symptoms on their iPhones. Regardless, being a Web services guy, I absolutely applaud Apple for moving the Web services art forward a notch or two with a very capable platform that might indeed replace PCs for many of us over the next decade or so. We don't need to run a lot of local code to have a meaningful IT experience while on the go.
Of course, the iPhone will be hacked over time, requiring updates and fixes, just as is the case with the PC. There are already reports of hackers working diligently to unlock the phone so that non-AT&T SIM cards can be used, and to avoid cellular activation so that the device would be used only Wi-Fi networks -- with VoFi services, of course. Any programmable device runs this kind of risk, and defending against unauthorized code will remain a challenge for some time to come.
Which brings me to a really obscure but very important, shall we say, "opportunity" for hackers. Last year, I wrote about one of the most exciting technology developments in wireless, software-defined radio (SDR). Basically, SDR simplifies radio hardware design by replacing specialized circuitry with software. Among the many benefits of SDR are over-the-air bug fixes, the ability to add new features on demand, and dynamic reprogrammability -- turning, for example, a GSM phone into a CDMA phone or even Wi-Fi or Bluetooth or UWB or whatever on the fly.
With so much software at play here, the question has to be asked: Could an SDR get hacked? Suppose someone figures out how to build a virus that quickly spreads to SDR-based handsets, disabling them or using them as jammers or worse? What if those handsets are being used for public-safety applications? This is not to say that hacking is the only vector for wireless disruptions. After all, anyone can use a jammer to disable communications in a local area, and any moron with a reasonable shortwave transmitter can pretend to be an air traffic controller. That fact that we still use an unencrypted, unauthenticated communications protocol for such a critical service boggles my mind.
The FCC is rightfully concerned about SDR hacking and has issued new regulations for SDRs that mostly attempt to deal with open source software in SDR applications. There is significant concern that open source software creates specific vulnerabilities that hackers could exploit.
I don't think this is very likely for two reasons. First, open source isn't the same as open architectures. Each product vendor would of necessity keep certain elements of their implementation secret, locking out all but the most determined hackers. But secondly, and more importantly, the real issue is how to protect individual phones from ever loading harmful software. We already have pretty good techniques for this from the PC world, and there are many effective approaches to solving this particular security concern. It could even be argued that the technical scrutiny that comes with open source actually enhances security and integrity; the real issue is controlling what software, open source or not, gets onto the mobile device.
As I noted in my last column, the big issue with SDR isn't hackers or security: It is the need to lower the power demands of SDR implementations so that they have a prayer of running on batteries. The road to SDR-based handsets isn't at all paved yet, but open source is a relatively minor concern.
Front Office Trends Hard to Miss
The front office computing market continues to impress me despite the fact that I have been covering it for so long. Early solutions evolved into suites that covered what we once thought were all of the niches possible, but the surprising thing is that all that coverage simply initiates many new niches.
Yahoo! Executive, Garners Technical Award for Data Mining, Knowledge Discovery
Sunnyvale, California - (The Hosting News) - August 15, 2007 - Global Internet company, Yahoo! Inc.'s Dr. Usama Fayyad, Chief Data Officer and Executive Vice President of Research and Strategic Data Solutions, has been honored with the 2007 Innovation Award by the Association of Computing Machinery (ACM).
ACM's SIGKDD Innovation Award is the highest technical award in the fields of data mining and knowledge discovery, recognizing individuals who have either driven significant innovations that have transferred to industry practice in impactful ways or who have significantly influenced the direction of research and development in these areas.
Gregory Piatetsky-Shapiro, Chair of ACM SIGKDD offered, ''ACM SIGKDD is pleased to present Dr. Usama Fayyad with its 2007 Innovation Award. Dr. Fayyad made major contributions to the advancement of the data mining and knowledge discovery field, including machine learning and data mining algorithms that scale to large commercial database systems and the development of fundamental applications in mining massive science data sets that have lead to significant new scientific discoveries.''
Dr. Fayyad's contributions span fundamental technical innovation and significant large-scale applications of science data analysis, commercial practice and commercial database systems. From his early work on applications of data mining and statistical pattern recognition to massive scientific data sets in Astronomy and Planetary Geology to co-authoring new SQL Extensions and leading development work for embedding data mining algorithms inside of Microsoft's SQL Server 2000 system, Dr. Fayyad has led significant scientific advances and new discoveries in these fields. Before joining Yahoo!, Dr. Fayyad led two successful startups focused on data mining, business intelligence and targeting algorithms. At Yahoo!, Dr. Fayyad is responsible for the company's overall data strategy as well as overseeing the Yahoo! Research organization.
Dr. Fayyad remarked, ''This award highlights the importance of technical innovation in real applications and in building analysis systems at a massive scale and I'm honored to be recognized by my peers, leaders of the community and the field as a whole. At Yahoo!, advancements in data mining and knowledge discovery are making it possible for us to better understand how our customers use our products and what the future of the Internet experience will be. We are focused on creating advanced data insights technology that will enable Yahoo! to build next-generation web applications by learning about the dynamics and growth of online communities and the technologies for information navigation of the future.''
The award will be presented at the 13th ACM SIGKDD International Conference on Knowledge Discovery and Data Mining at the Fairmont Hotel in San Jose, Calif. Dr. Fayyad also presented the following plenary addresses: ACM SIGKDD Innovation Award Talk; and From Mining the Web to Inventing the New Sciences Underlying the Internet.
Yahoo! Research is focused on developing the science that will underlie the next generation of technologies and businesses helping to shape the future of the Web. Yahoo! Research continues to be integrated closely with business units and product teams throughout the company, enabling the scientific approach and expertise of the organization to directly benefit Yahoo!'s consumers and advertisers. For example, Yahoo! has incorporated algorithmic research into the company's advanced platforms for social media and search, which allow users to find and share the information that they want, when they want. The company has also leveraged research on marketplace design and pricing mechanisms for sponsored search.
Prior to joining Yahoo!, Dr. Fayyad co-founded and led the DMX Group, a data mining and data strategy consulting company. In early 2000, he co-founded and served as CEO of digiMine Inc. (now Revenue Science, Inc.), a data analysis and data mining company that built, operated and hosted data warehouses and analytics for some of the world's largest enterprises in online publishing, retail, manufacturing, telecommunications and financial services.
Dr. Fayyad's professional experience also includes five years spent leading the data mining and exploration group at Microsoft Research and building the data mining products for Microsoft's server division. From 1989 to 1996 Dr. Fayyad held a leadership role at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) where his work in the analysis and exploration of scientific databases gathered from observatories, remote-sensing platforms and spacecraft garnered him the top research excellence award that Caltech awards to JPL scientists, as well as a U.S. Government medal from NASA.
Dr. Fayyad earned his Ph.D. in engineering from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor (1991), and also holds BSE's in both electrical and computer engineering (1984); MSE in computer science and engineering (1986); and M.Sc. in mathematics (1989). He was founding editor-in-chief of the ACM Newsletter: SIGKDD Explorations from 1997 to 2002. He has published over 100 technical articles in the fields of artificial intelligence, machine learning, data mining, and databases. He is a prolific inventor with over 30 patents issued and over 50 filed patents in the areas of data mining, on-line marketing and the Internet.
ACM SIGKDD - ACM Special Interest Group on Knowledge Discovery and Data Mining, is a premier professional organization dedicated to advancement of Knowledge Discovery and Data Mining research and applications.
Yahoo! Inc. is a leading global Internet brand and one of the most trafficked Internet destinations worldwide. Yahoo!'s mission is to connect people to their passions, their communities and world's knowledge. Yahoo! is headquartered in Sunnyvale, California.
To learn more about ACM SIGKDD, please visit: www.kdd.org.
First Indian Loyalty Driven Travel Portal Launched
... services and solutions in the web and software domains - including web/ software consultancy, web hosting, development/ deployment, SEO/ SEM (search engine optimization and marketing) and ongoing support/ maintenance. This ...
AT&T Establishes New Network Services for Leading Medical Liability Insurer
... for Leading Medical Liability Insurer AT&T Advances Virtual Private Network Services for ProAssurance and Handles Hardware Installation ... develop its network capabilities over the new VPN. ProAssurance subsidiaries form the backbone of one ...
Cheap Computer Deals and Where To Get Them
Cheap Computer Deals - Learn where to find the best cheap computer deals online.
Cram 4TB on Desktop Drives by 2009, Hitachi Says
Hitachi Global Storage Technologies plans to announce Monday it has developed technology that will quadruple the storage capacity of desktop hard drives within the next two years. The new reading-head technology will allow the company to cram more data on hard drives. Desktop computers could attain a capacity of 4TB of storage while laptop storage could reach 1TB, according to Hitachi.
Hard drives are currently doubling in capacity every two years, said John Best, chief technologist at Hitachi Global Storage Technologies. The new reading-head technology will allow an even greater capacity boost while shrinking the size of disk drives, Best said. ![]("http://www.neowin.net/images/icons/viewicon.gif"){kind=icon}
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News source: PCWorld
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Not at the SMX? Want to be? I can help…
Its that kid again, Michael Streko - the one who was unable to write a post because of some crappy car accident, remember it could have been awesome? Well guess what - its going to be awesome. While Rae is out drinking speaking at the SMX I have invaded her blog for the guestwhore post that should have been… (Read on Source)
Getting nowhere
... this video you will need to use Internet Explorer, or download a plug-in for your browser ... your browser which is capable of displaying Windows Media Video files. RED tape is stifling plans ...
Hawaiian Airlines and Pacific Specialist Holidays in Australia launch Hawaii Promotion.
Hawaiian Airlines and Pacific Specialist Holidays in Australia launch Hawaii Promotion..
Microsoft Shows off Data-center Monitoring System
Microsoft is using 2,000 temperature and humidity sensors to better control data-center energy consumption at several of its...
President signs far-reaching housing bill
President Bush Wednesday morning signed legislation that consumers, industry and lawmakers hope will shore up the housing market, provide an emergency safety net for mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and help hundreds of thousands avoid foreclosure.
siteZen Breaks With Traditional Site Builder Pricing, Licensing
siteMagix, maker of the popular siteZen web-site builder, announced that it is breaking with traditional site builder market sales practices to better serve dedicated server resellers and datacenters. Today, the company announced a new Dedicated Reseller Program. The new program mirrors the successful practices of the web server control panel market: deep discounts and licensing flexibility tailored to dedicated server resellers, along with a dedicated sales team.
Olympics Photo Wire - ESPN
 Canada.com | Olympics Photo Wire ESPN - A worker takes a nap near the Olympic flame caldron a day after the closing ceremony for the Beijing Olympics in the Bird Nest's National Stadium in Beijing Olympics, Beijing, China, Monday, Aug. 25, 2008. Powering through my list of thank you notes to Beijing China engages in revelry at Olympics' closing ceremony |
Unfinished Business on Upside for Gold Miners ETF
Interesting action in the Market Vectors Gold Miners ETF AMEX: GDX today largely because...
Bulk Transfer of Best Registration Services Domains to Dotster
ColdWell Banker Launches BlackBerry Interface
Coldwell Banker is continuing to provide wireless device solutions with the introduction of a home search interface launch for BlackBerry. Beginning today, BlackBerry users will be able to utilize this new mobile search experience by visiting coldwellbanker.com on their mobile browser, and consumers with other smartphones can log onto m. ... (Read on Source)
Who Said That?
Here’s this week’s list of cool sites to check out. Have any other neat sites that you think our readers would like to know about? Feel free to talk about it in the comments section of this post! (Read on Source)
Gallery: Top 10 Wired.com Motion Photos, Decided by Us
:
Though Wired.com readers selected 10 excellent photos in our motion photo contest, we here at the photo department like to fight for the underdog. Here are our 10 favorite submissions that we think deserved more attention.
Our next twice-monthly photo contest theme is yellow. Check out the contest page for more information.
Left:
Aswan
Submitted by Damir Ivankovic
Photographer's comment:
"Egypt. Aswan. Night. Boy. Bike. 2008. Pentax K100d + 18-55/3.5-5.6."
: Untitled
Submitted by instamattic.com
Photographer's comment:
"Bird. Seattle. 2006."
: In the Center Lane
Submitted by Steve Hanna
Photographer's comment:
"Approaching the Bay Bridge in San Francisco, California. Motion blur visible on tunnel, cars and Bay Bridge appear static. D300, Nikon 17-55/2.8, f/1.8 exposure 1/10s, ISO 400, handheld, manual."
: Buses and Builders
Submitted by Johnny Caldwell
Photographer's comment:
"Taken on my Iskra, a fantastic Russian medium-format camera made in the 1960s. This photo was taken on 400 ISO slide film, then cross-processed."
: Osaka, Sunday Night
Submitted by J.M. Kezman
Photographer's comment:
"A Sunday night in August in the Minami district of Osaka, Japan. Photo taken with a Mamiya 7II + Fujifilm Provia 400X."
: Pace
Submitted by Erica Gannett
Photographer's comment:
"I give people permission to watch. In most cases, when we are presented with an unusual person, we avert our eyes. I show people that our bodies are beautifully and authentically fragile — not in the sense that life is temporary, but life is mutable. Through visual representations of routines and demonstrations of physical abilities, we find ourselves examining the ordinary but witnessing the extraordinary."
: Red Canyon
Submitted by Dmitri Alexander
Photographer's comment:
"A nighttime ride in the Utah desert."
: Siamese Glow
Submitted by Patricio LQ
Photographer's comment:
"Flashlights, speed lights and tripod on B."
: Boarding Action
Submitted by aaron 4
Photographer's comment:
"Self portrait I took last year. Set the timer for 15 sec, set the camera on the ground and ran to my skateboard. I'm not really that good at skating."
: True
Submitted by Sasha
Photographer's comment:
"London"
Aleratec LightScribe Burn AutoFlip Burn Disc Publisher Now Shipping - Gift with Purchase, 200 Pieces
Aleratec is now shipping its new DVD/CD RoboRacer LS Duplex™, the first LightScribe disc publisher that automatically copies data, flips the disc over and LightScribe labels each disc. Through January 31st, 2009, customers will receive 200 pieces of Aleratec LightScribe Duplicator Grade CD-R media FREE with purchase by mail in rebate. (PRWeb Oct 27, 2008)
Read the full story at http://www.prweb.com/releases/2008/10/prweb1524214.htm
No Prison Time for Romanian NASA and U.S Navy Hacker
... (SMH) for HP-UX. The vulnerability could be exploited to create a local unauthorized access. Linux Kernel versions below 2.4.36.9 and below 2.6.27.5 Unix sockets local kernel panic exploit. Pardus Linux ...
Clue to break-up of ice shelves
A US team produces a computer model to predict the rate at which ice shelves break apart into icebergs. (Read on Source)
Singapore's StarHub Offers Femtocell Service (PC World)
PC World - Singaporean operator StarHub is rolling out a femtocell service that allows mobile subscribers to make calls at home using their broadband Internet connections instead of the cellular network.
Wayfinder Bid a Bold Move by Vodafone
Vodafone's offer for Swedish navigation software developer Wayfinder puts it at odds with competitors like Google and Nokia.
London Markets: London closes lower as HBOS, Lloyds each fall more than 17%
Banks trade sharply lower in a downbeat London market, playing off lender HBOS and its bad-debt charge that's soared to $7.5 billion. Shares of both HBOS and merger partner Lloyds TSB sustain major losses, as the benchmark FTSE 100 surrenders 2.5%.
Name: SyroBro