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      The Slashdot Firehose is a collaborative system designed to allow users to assist our editors in the story selection process. The hose contains submissions, RSS Feeds, journals and Slashdot stories, each color-coded along the color spectrum to indicate popularity. Red is hot, violet is not. Try tagging and voting on the entries below, and by using the 'feedback' menus. Please send comments to hose at cmdrtaco dot net but be forgiving of beta code!

      Submitted by coondoggie on Tuesday May 20, @02:50PM
      coondoggie writes "NASA researchers have developed a nanotechnology-based biosensor that can detect trace amounts of specific bacteria, viruses and parasites. Products will appear later this year using the sensor, that will help prevent the spread of potentially deadly biohazards in water, food and other contaminated sources. NASA's Ames Research Center licensed the biosensor technology to Early Warning under a Reimbursable Space Act Agreement and NASA and Early Warning jointly will develop biosensor enhancements. Initially, the biosensor will be configured to detect the presence of common and rare strains of microorganisms associated with water-borne illnesses and fatalities, NASA said. http://www.networkworld.com/community/node/27979"
      http://www.networkworld.com/community/node/27979
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       [+] submission, tech, nasa

        Get Mammoth CA Real Estate Listings Free[->] 2008-05-20 14:40 stacielr

      Submitted by stacielr on Tuesday May 20, @02:40PM
      stacielr writes "http://www.mammothcarealestate.com/ A new way to conduct business. Never feel obligated to speak to a Mammoth Realtor until you are ready for their personal involvement. Stacie Robbins of Coldwell Banker Mammoth Real Estate in Mammoth Lakes California has a business model that accounts for real estate buyers and sellers being from out of town. "Many of our buyers and sellers are residents of Southern California and other far away areas. This can sometimes add a level of stress to the transaction because of all of the paperwork going back and forth as well as faxing and receiving faxes", said Stacie. She is incorporating emerging technology in the form of online transaction management, internet marketing and advertising, electronic signatures, scanning and emailing documents and up to the minute contracts for purchasing Mammoth Real Estate or selling Mammoth Real Estate. "Not everyone will be as gung ho on the technology as I am, but those that are looking for a Mammoth Realtor who gets it and stays abreast of the latest tools and information in their industry, then there's no question that I'm the right choice for their Mammoth Realtor." The purpose of this story is simple. I want to send you the Mammoth MLS listings you want to receive. But before I do this, I want to give you something for your trouble. I want to give you something you can use right now. You just want Mammoth Lakes property listings and information without having to give your phone number to be pestered by persistent Realtors wanting a sale now, not when you're ready. Am I right? Visit my site now to request your custom list of properties for sale."
      http://www.mammothcarealestate.com/
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       [+] submission, tech, business

        Technology: The Most Annoying Software Out There 2008-05-20 11:39

      Posted by timothy on Tuesday May 20, @11:39AM
      from the to-kick-while-down dept.
      superglaze writes "ZDNet UK has a very entertaining round-up of the most annoying software out there, and everything from RealPlayer and Adobe Reader to Java and Norton Antivirus gets a kicking. 'The internet has brought us many joys. It's rewritten the rules of business and pleasure. And pain. For it allows what may have seemed like bright ideas at the time ('let's use it to make sure our customers have the latest software', for example) to turn into a stinking pit of misery — usually, but by no means always, after marketing gets its fangs in.'"
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       [+] story, tech, software, gui, it, humor, bonzibuddy

        The Next American Frontier[->] 2008-05-20 10:19 Sasa Mitrovic

      Submitted by Sasa Mitrovic on Tuesday May 20, @10:19AM
      Sasa Mitrovic writes "The Wall Street Journal has an interesting article titled "The Next American Frontier". It discusses the inevitable changes that information age is bringing to our lives; Moreover, it outlines the influence this culture will bring to the way we work and the way our careers will develop.

      From the article:
      "The entire world seems to be heading toward points of inflection. The developing world is embarking on the digital age. The developed world is entering the Internet era. And the United States, once again at the vanguard, is on the verge of becoming the world's first Entrepreneurial Nation." ...
      "The great new American frontiers proved to be those of business, science and technology. In the course of the 20th century, Americans invented more milestone technologies and inventions, created more wealth and leisure time, and reorganized their institutions more times than any country had ever done before — despite a massive economic depression and two world wars. It all reached a crescendo in the magical year of 1969, with the creation of the Internet, the invention of the microprocessor and, most of all, a man walking on the moon." ...
      "Newspapers are dying, networks are dying, and if teenage boys playing GTA 4 and World of Warcraft have any say about it, so is television. More than 200 million people now belong to just two social networks: MySpace and Facebook. And there are more than 80 million videos on YouTube, all put there by the same individual initiative." ...
      "The most compelling statistic of all? Half of all new college graduates now believe that self-employment is more secure than a full-time job. Today, 80% of the colleges and universities in the U.S. now offer courses on entrepreneurship; 60% of Gen Y business owners consider themselves to be serial entrepreneurs, according to Inc. magazine. Tellingly, 18 to 24-year-olds are starting companies at a faster rate than 35 to 44-year-olds. And 70% of today's high schoolers intend to start their own companies, according to a Gallup poll." ...
      An upcoming wave of new workers in our society will never work for an established company if they can help it. To them, having a traditional job is one of the biggest career failures they can imagine. ""
      http://online.wsj.com/article/SB121115437321202233.html?mod=rss_Today's_Most_Popular
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       [+] submission, tech, business
      Submitted by Placid on Tuesday May 20, @08:35AM
      Placid writes "The BBC, is detailing Napster's latest download service. The 'new MP3 store', launched today in the US, Canada and the UK, will break away from its usual unlimited download plan to single-track based downloads without DRM. From the BBC article:

      Napster has launched the world's largest online music store without digital rights management (DRM). More than six million tracks will be sold as MP3 files, from all of the major record labels and independents. Napster boss Chris Gorog said the service, which offers songs for 99 cents (79p), moved online music "from under the DRM cloud". The Napster store will compete directly with a similar service from Amazon, the only other online store with MP3s from all the major labels, and Apple's iTunes, which offers a limited number of DRM-free tracks.
      "
      http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/7409865.stm
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       [+] submission, tech, music

        Are you ready for Windows 7?[->] 2008-05-20 07:30 Randall C. Kennedy

      Submitted by Randall C. Kennedy on Tuesday May 20, @07:30AM
      Randall C. Kennedy writes ""Hold the line!" That's the new rallying cry for the core Windows development team. Add new features. Tweak existing ones. But whatever you do, don't make Windows 7 any slower or fatter than Vista. I have little doubt those are the marching orders for Windows 7, given the tight release timeframe of 18 to 24 months plus various reports of early Milestone builds. More ambitious changes would risk another — and potentially fatal — Longhorn-style delay. Windows 7 will be exactly what the internal Microsoft working title conveys: the seventh (actually fifth) generation of the Windows NT code base — the same code base that forms the basis of Windows XP and Vista today."
      http://weblog.infoworld.com/sentinel/archives/2008/05/are_you_ready_f.html
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       [+] submission, tech, windows

        Technology: New Malware Report Hits Vista's Security Image 2008-05-20 05:47

      Posted by kdawson on Tuesday May 20, @05:47AM
      from the cracks-in-the-armor dept.
      An anonymous reader recommends a Computerworld article on a new report from Australian security vendor PC Tools. The company released figures on malware detection by its ThreatFire product, and in its user base 27% of Vista machines were compromised by at least one instance of malware. From the article: "In total, Vista suffered 121,380 instances of malware from its 190,000 user base, a rate of malware detection per system [that] is proportionally lower than that of XP, which saw 1,319,144 malware infections from a user base of 1,297,828 machines, but it indicates a problem that is worse than Microsoft has been admitting to." Microsoft hasn't responded yet to this report.
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       [+] story, tech, windows, security, haha, flamebait, defectivebydesign

        Technology: A Virtualized Linux System For Windows 2008-05-19 19:01

      Posted by kdawson on Monday May 19, @07:01PM
      from the bill-in-the-middle dept.
      getupstandup1 writes "Ulteo today unveiled their Virtual Desktop (screenshots, download) which is a free, full Linux desktop that runs seamlessly on Windows. It's interesting because it's not running under Xen or VMWare, but instead uses the coLinux patch, which they claim allows the system to achieve 'great performance, close to a native installation on the PC.' No need to reboot the system anymore to switch from Windows to Linux." We discussed Ulteo when the Ubuntu-derived distro was announced a year back.
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       [+] story, tech, os, linux, windows, slashdotted, cygwin

        Technology: Blender 2.46 Released 2008-05-19 16:54

      Posted by ScuttleMonkey on Monday May 19, @04:54PM
      from the lots-of-new-toys dept.
      The Penguin Man writes to mention the latest release of Blender, the popular open-source 3D graphics suite was officially launched today. You can download it from Blender.org. The culmination of half a year's work has resulted in many new features including a new particle system, approximate AO, the new cloth simulation system, and much more!
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       [+] story, tech, software, graphics, willitblend, slashdotted, blender

        Inside Lockheed Martin's wireless security lab [->] 2008-05-19 15:10 Anonymous Coward

      Submitted by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 19, @03:10PM
      Anonymous Coward writes "Jason Crawford has learned that if you want to break into secure Wi-Fi networks, you don't need to buy equipment from the black market. Instead, you can buy it from Toys "R" Us, he says. Crawford, who works as a principal investigator for R&D projects at Lockheed Martin's newly opened wireless-security laboratory, says he has figured out how to crack the seemingly secure wireless networks that consumers and corporations use — with nothing more than a cluster of eight PlayStation 3s. Crawford won't go into the details of just how he used the PS 3s to hack Wi-Fi networks, but he says that you don't have to be a top-level hacker to figure it out. Crawford's PlayStation hack is just one of many projects that Lockheed Martin researchers are working on to head off the dangers of technological surprise. In other words, the brains at the company are in a race to discover the loopholes and faults in wireless security before terrorists and cyber criminals do. Needless to say, this requires a tremendous amount of outside-the-box thinking, says John Morrison, chief of the company's Wireless Cyber Security Lab. http://www.networkworld.com/news/2008/051908-lockheed-martin-wireless-security-lab.html"
      http://www.networkworld.com/news/2008/051908-lockheed-martin-wireless-security-lab.html
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       [+] submission, tech, wireless

        Samsung viral: 10 Illusions, 2 Minutes[->] 2008-05-19 13:29 Elijah

      Submitted by Elijah on Monday May 19, @01:29PM
      Elijah writes "Hey All, Thought you guys should check this video out: http://youtube.com/watch?v=AuLJzB_pfgE. It's a new viral from Samsung for the Soul. Basically they cram 10 illusions, rapid-fire style, into one single 2 minute sequence. All in one shot is pretty difficult to do, so it's an impressive bit of advertising. Fun stuff. I figure it may be worth sharing with everybody. Enjoy. Elijah."
      http://youtube.com/watch?v=AuLJzB_pfgE
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       [+] submission, tech, portables
      Submitted by Jim on Monday May 19, @12:28PM
      Jim writes "This month's TechNet Magazine has an interesting point/counterpoint article debating the advantages (or lack thereof) of security by obscurity. See http://technet.microsoft.com/magazine/cc510319."
      http://technet.microsoft.com/magazine/cc510319
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       [+] submission, tech, microsoft

        Taking A Virtual Ride In An RC Car[->] 2008-05-19 12:22 esocid

      Submitted by esocid on Monday May 19, @12:22PM
      esocid writes "A new RC car available at Red5.co.uk offers a completely immersive and interactive driving experience, virtually putting you in the drivers seat. The Vision Tracking System (VTS) Camera Car is equipped with an onboard camera that wirelessly broadcasts VGA video to a pair of LCD goggles, giving you a first-person view of the road. Plus, when you turn your head sideways or up and down, the goggles can track your head motion and send it to the onboard camera, which follows your gaze in real time. So, you can check for obstacles before turning, or just make yourself really dizzy. The device also includes stereo sound to complete the experience. While there are a few other RC cars that have onboard cameras, they generally just beam back images to the handheld controller, rather than a headset. The VTS Camera Car is a step up from your average RC car, with the car, goggles, and 27-MHz radio controller priced at £599.95 (about $1,172). A video of the RC and goggles in action is on the company's website."
      http://www.ohgizmo.com/2008/05/19/vts-rc-camera-car/
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       [+] submission, tech, toy

        Torrent site 'The Pirate Bay' cracks Alexa 100[->] 2008-05-19 11:14 mystermarque

      Submitted by mystermarque on Monday May 19, @11:14AM
      mystermarque writes "The file-sharing torrent portal 'The Pirate Bay' has cracked the list of the most visited sites on the internet — the Alexa top 100. They are not alone either — fellow torrent site Mininova..."
      http://markstechnologynews.blogspot.com/2008/05/torrent-site-pirate-bay-cracks-alexa.html
      + -
       [+] submission, tech, media

        Technology: Google Assists In Arrest Of Indian Man 2008-05-19 10:47

      Posted by CmdrTaco on Monday May 19, @10:47AM
      from the many-shades-of-evil dept.
      An anonymous reader writes "After a Google user posted a profane picture of the Hindu saint Shivaji, Indian authorities contacted Google to ask for his IP address. Google complied. He was arrested and is reported to have been beaten by a lathi and asked to use the same bowl to eat and to use in the toilet. Not surprisingly, Google is a keen to play this down as Yahoo is being hauled over the coals by US Congress for handing over an IP addresses and emails to the Chinese Government which resulted in a Chinese democracy activist being jailed." Readers are noting that these are 2 unrelated cases — the latter is several months old.
      + -
       [+] story, tech, google, privacy, dontbeevil, whygooglewhy, evil

        World's First 'Ultra HD' TV[->] 2008-05-19 09:13 mystermarque

      Submitted by mystermarque on Monday May 19, @09:13AM
      mystermarque writes "In Los Angeles this week, Samsung is hoping to impress visitors to the Society for Information Display (SID) International Symposium with the world's first Ultra HD LCD TV. The screen is..."
      http://markstechnologynews.blogspot.com/2008/05/in-los-angeles-this-week-samsung-is.html
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       [+] submission, tech, displays
      Submitted by MrWeb on Monday May 19, @08:07AM
      MrWeb writes ""Let's say we are looking for some stolen login credentials. How would we look them up? Simple: search engine... ...Interesting, no? We found passwords and usernames stolen from end users on a public caching server — that's right Google cache!""
      http://www.finjan.com/MCRCblog.aspx?EntryId=1957
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       [+] submission, tech, security

        T Mobile's "Hotspot@Home" & Phone upgr 2008-05-19 08:05 gramps94804

      Submitted by gramps94804 on Monday May 19, @08:05AM
      gramps94804 writes "I went with the T Mobile "hotspot@home system and phone last year rather than the more expensive iPhone/AT&T provider. Now I find out that if you want to upgrade to some of the new handsets that are hotspot@home capable (i.e. the Blackberrys), T Mobile is socking it to us older customers. New accout signups get Blackberries for free, we loyal cusomers get the shaft ($289 for a BB 8120, $349 for a curve). Tell me why I shouldn't switch back to AT&T and get an iPhone? I'd be paying about the same for the service, get much better internet and browsing, and probably the same cost for calling plans. Sincerely, GRAMPS"
      + -
       [+] submission, tech, upgrades

        Technology: Japan "Running Out of Engineers" 2008-05-19 05:11

      Posted by timothy on Monday May 19, @05:11AM
      from the plenty-of-natto-to-trade-to-feed-new-ones dept.
      bfwebster writes "A story in the New York Times reports that Japan, a country that rebuilt itself as a technological power after World War II, now faces an increasing shortage of college graduates with degrees in science and engineering. Says the article: 'By one ministry of internal affairs estimate, the digital technology industry here is already short almost half a million engineers.' The article goes on to point out that the overall trend of waning interest in science and technology has been going on for 'almost two decades' and that the shortage is made worse by the traditional reluctance of Japanese companies to hire and use foreign workers. The US has had a similar trend for quite some time: 'Undergraduate engineering enrollment declined through most of the 1980s and 1990s, rose from 2000 through 2003, and declined slightly in recent years.'"
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       [+] story, tech, education, it, science, technology, japan

        Technology: Microsoft Circles Back to Yahoo With New Offer 2008-05-19 02:09

      Posted by timothy on Monday May 19, @02:09AM
      from the soap-operas-never-end dept.
      Ian Lamont writes "Microsoft has come back to Yahoo with a new offer that would involve it buying part of Yahoo. No details have been released, but sources told the Wall Street Journal that part of the arrangement would involve Microsoft selling display ads next to Yahoo search results. No word yet on how this will impact Carl Icahn's proxy war with Yahoo's board."
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       [+] story, tech, yahoo, microsoft, business, money, microhoo

        Technology: Post-Quake, China Cuts Access to Entertainment Web Sites 2008-05-18 19:47

      Posted by timothy on Sunday May 18, @07:47PM
      from the perhaps-a-good-thing dept.
      thefickler writes "The Chinese Government has issued orders that all entertainment web sites and regular television programming be shut down completely for the next 3 days. Only web sites covering the recent tragic 7.8 magnitude earthquake and television stations broadcasting CCTV earthquake programming will be allowed to remain live." Can anyone with Web access in China confirm this report? From an AP story on the state of communications in the country right now, it appears at least that China is (despite ongoing monitoring) allowing freer than usual communications in the wake of the quake.
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       [+] story, tech, communications, censorship, internet, it, troll

        Technology: Dragon vs. Hydra - Competing Development Styles 2008-05-18 09:17

      Posted by Soulskill on Sunday May 18, @09:17AM
      from the head-to-heads dept.
      peterofoz writes "You may recall that we discussed a company which was recruiting talent with a puzzle last December. This turned out to be n-Brain releasing a new product that allows multiple editors to modify the same code in real time to support the collaborative programming paradigm. Now they're back with another challenge: 'Are two heads really better than one? N-BRAIN, Inc. intends to definitively answer this question by sponsoring the Hydra Versus Dragon Coding Competition, a Reality TV-style battle between the world's finest software developers.' Mark June 23rd on your calendars." While n-Brain clearly intends this to promote their software, it will be interesting to see if the competition results support their theory of collaborative development.
      + -
       [+] story, tech, programming, pairprogramming, news, software, nbrain

        Technology: 20% of U.S. Population Has Never Used Email 2008-05-18 06:09

      Posted by timothy on Sunday May 18, @06:09AM
      from the not-necessarily-against-their-will dept.
      Ezratrumpet writes "A recent PC World article notes that 20 percent of the U.S. population has never sent an email. Does this number over- or underestimate the actual number of people who know nothing of email? What are the implications of this statistic to our society? Or are these people just Luddites who mourned the demise of the telegraph and have also never used a telephone?"
      + -
       [+] story, tech, communications, internet, usa, statistics, luddites

        Technology: Dag Wieers Scoffs at Coordinated Linux Release Proposal 2008-05-18 00:12

      Posted by timothy on Sunday May 18, @12:12AM
      from the point-five-year-plan dept.
      Nic Doye writes "Dag Wieers responds to Mark Shuttleworth's recent request to ask major Enterprise Linux distributions to synchronise releases, claiming that it 'is no more than a wish to benefit from a lot of work that Novell and Red Hat are already doing in the Enterprise space.' He's confessing to playing Devil's Advocate here, but it is an interesting view from someone with a large amount of experience in the Red Hat/Fedora/CentOS space."
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       [+] story, tech, os, debian, linux, redhat, space

        Technology: Canadian ISP Ordered to Prove Traffic-Shaping is Needed 2008-05-17 20:47

      Posted by timothy on Saturday May 17, @08:47PM
      from the offer-good-only-in-canada dept.
      Sepiraph writes "In a letter sent to the Canadian Association of Internet Providers and Bell Canada on May 15, the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) have ordered Bell Canada to provide tangible evidence that its broadband networks are congested to justify the company's Internet traffic-shaping policies. This is a response after Bell planned to tackle the issue of traffic shaping, also called throttling, on the company's broadband networks. It would be interesting to see Bell's response, as well as to see some real-world actual numbers and compare them to a previous study."
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       [+] story, tech, internet, communications, government, bellcanada, bittorrent

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