Well, it turns out that Sony may have exaggerated a wee bit in its specs for the gizmo, according to the May 8 issue of EE Times.

In particular:

It turns out that the RGB architecture is very sensitive to the image, and it has a 5,000-hour lifetime for white and a 17,000-hour lifetime for the typical video image--well below the Sony's published specifications, according to the report.

Moreover the panel suffers from differential aging: After 1,000 hours the blue luminance degraded by 12 percent, the red by 7 percent and the green by 8 percent, said the report.

David Morgan | Washington | May 9

Reuters - The FBI on Friday said an investigation into the sale of counterfeit Chinese computer components to the U.S. government has recovered about 3,500 bogus devices with a retail value of $3.5 million.

The criminal probe, code-named Operation Cisco Raider, came amid concerns that counterfeit network components could enable hackers to access secure U.S. government databases, according to sources with knowledge of the investigation.

But one U.S. official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said the components discovered by the FBI are not believed to have made government computer systems more vulnerable.

Kenneth Corbin | May 7

InternetNews.com - A House subcommittee held a hearing today to consider legislation that would codify broad principles intended to prevent Internet service providers (ISPs) from slowing or degrading the delivery of certain content over their networks.

Once again, all sides of the Net Neutrality debate lined up to stake their positions while the House debated how to treat the latest bill addressing how traffic on ISPs should be treated.

At this morning's hearing before the House Energy and Commerce Committee's subcommittee on telecommunications and the Internet, ISPs warned that Net neutrality legislation could slow broadband deployment by imposing heavy regulations that would create uncertainties in the business model.

"The weak state of the economy is front pages news," said Walter McCormick, president and CEO of the U.S. Telecom Association. "But one of the bright spots is broadband," he added, warning that the law could put a "chill" on further investment in the sector.

rupert+murdoch+echostar+codes+hacked+rom

i get the feeling i'm going to have to read several accounts of this unfolding story before i really have a handle on it...

my least question is: how easy is it to burn a ROM anyway?

Rick Merritt | San Jose, CA | May 2

EE Times - The U.S. government fined a consulting firm $45,000 for placing online job ads for computer programmers that said only H-1B visa holders should apply. The case is just the tip of an iceberg of H-1B abuses, according to a lobbying group that filed the original complaint.

The Department of Justice said iGate Mastech Inc. (Pittsburgh) placed 30 online job ads in May and June 2006 asking for only H-1B visa holders. The case is one of 215 the DoJ has handled involving preference for H-1B workers over U.S. citizens since the year 2000.

One of the iGate ads was for a Java programmer in the Midwest. It stated "Only H-1s Apply, and should be willing to transfer H-1B."

Nate Anderson | May 2

Ars Technica - A major new report on broadband policy from the nonpartisan Information Technology & Innovation Foundation (ITIF) suggests that government action alone won't produce a broadband panacea, but that leadership from the top and a carefully-targeted set of policies can do plenty of good. After doing detailed case studies of nine countries, the report concluded that "those that make broadband a priority, coordinate across agencies, put real resources behind the strategy, and promote both supply and demand" do better than those which do nothing.

Critics of the current US approach to spurring broadband deployment and adoption point out that the country has been falling on most broadband metrics throughout the decade. One of the most reliable, that issued by the OECD, shows the US falling from 4th place in 2001 to 15th place in 2007. While this ranking in particular has come under criticism from staunchly pro-market groups, the ITIF's analysis shows that these numbers are the most accurate we have. According to an ITIF analysis of various OECD surveys, the US is in 15th place worldwide and it lags numerous other countries in price, speed, and availability—a trifecta of lost opportunities.

more

TV images to dazzle the jaded

_{The Sony XEL-1 uses organic light emitting diode technology to create a picture that overcomes several shortcomings of the standard plasma and L.C.D. televisions now on the market.}

Arms Race in Space
Wed, 30 Apr 2008 11:31:40 -0500
By Marko Beljac - GNN

It's on. It's expensive. And it could destablize the world.

Revolution MoneyExchange
April 29th, 2008

UPDATE: ASTONISHING RESPONSE FROM CRYPTOGON READERS

Sixteen people have signed up for MoneyExchange accounts via Cryptogon in just over an hour!

— End Update —

I’m very happy to report that there is now a FREE alternative to PayPal available to U.S. bank account holders. Revolution MoneyExchange allows money transfers between members for free; no fees at all to make or receive electronic payments. Believe it or not (I didn’t at first), it’s true.

Benjamin J. Romano | Seattle | April 29

The Seattle Times - Microsoft device helps police pluck evidence from cyberscene of crime
By Benjamin J. Romano
Seattle Times technology reporter

Microsoft has developed a small plug-in device that investigators can use to quickly extract forensic data from computers that may have been used in crimes.

The COFEE, which stands for Computer Online Forensic Evidence Extractor, is a USB "thumb drive" that was quietly distributed to a handful of law-enforcement agencies last June. Microsoft General Counsel Brad Smith described its use to the 350 law-enforcement experts attending a company conference Monday.

The device contains 150 commands that can dramatically cut the time it takes to gather digital evidence, which is becoming more important in real-world crime, as well as cybercrime. It can decrypt passwords and analyze a computer's Internet activity, as well as data stored in the computer.

FBI wants to move hunt for criminals into Internet backbone
By Jon Stokes
April 24, 2008 - 09:35PM CT

FBI director Robert Mueller's testimony to the Judiciary Committee of the House of Representatives on Wednesday gave a tiny glimpse of the future of law enforcement online, and it raised some tough questions about the evolving line between public and private in a networked world.

I need some tech help. Someone is spoofing agonist.org email addresses and spamming everyone and their mother. If you know how to prevent this kind of behavior from the server level access please shoot me an email. I need help.

The traditional narrative of the industrial revolution begins in the mid 19th century in Britain. One obsession of various scholars is to prove a cause for why Britain, including appeals to genetics, while others attempt to prove that Britain was merely in the right place at the right time.

However, this ignores the substantial changes in technology, living standards and organization. It also ignores the profound shift in the energy basis of the Eurasian economy that took place in the 1400-1800 period. More over, it conveniently ignores just how long it took industrialization, in the old sense as being driven by the steam engine, to really become the dominant mode of transportation and production.

The industrialization narrative is not without rivals. Two of the most important are the information narrative, which focuses on movable type, and the gunpowder narrative, which focuses on the ability of fire arms to rapidly raise armies capable of defeating previous armies. Both of these narratives have well known exponents. Together they can be thought of as the informationalist viewpoint: that it was crucial technology in service of unified culture that was the driver of European victory.

Both of these narratives suffer, as pure narratives, from crucial defects, and these defects are sufficient to reject either narrative in its pure form.

If you are in the Stanford California area tomorrow. FCC hearing.
This is a huge deal coming down, as most Agonistas know. If you have
never been to a FCC hearing, it is well worth the effort.
http://www.savetheinternet.com/=stanford

Angela Balakrishnan | Potsdam, Germany | April 16

The Guardian - NASA has been outsmarted by a German schoolboy who corrected its estimates of the chances of an asteroid colliding with Earth, it was reported today.

The German Potsdamer Neueste Nachrichten newspaper said 13-year-old Nico Marquardt came across the NASA miscalculation after conducting a study as part of a regional science competition.

Richard O'Mara | Baltimore, MD | April 15

CSM - Deciphering latent script on ancient parchment makes curator Will Noel's job an Indiana Jones-style adventure

This is about an ancient book called The Archimedes Codex, bought for $2.2 million in October, 1998, at an auction in New York City by an anonymous collector who sent it to the Walters Art Museum, here to be restored, conserved, and probed for its content. It was thought to contain mathematical theses conceived by the genius of Syracuse (287-212 BC), whose name it bears, ideas not found anywhere else in the world.

Bill Dedman | Fort Jackson, SC | April 9

MSNBC - The Pentagon will issue hand-held lie detectors this month to U.S. Army soldiers in Afghanistan, pushing to the battlefront a century-old debate over the accuracy of the polygraph.

The Defense Department says the portable device isn't perfect, but is accurate enough to save American lives by screening local police officers, interpreters and allied forces for access to U.S. military bases, and by helping narrow the list of suspects after a roadside bombing. The device has already been tried in Iraq and is expected to be deployed there as well. “We're not promising perfection — we've been very careful in that,” said Donald Krapohl, special assistant to the director at the Defense Academy for Credibility Assessment, the midwife for the new device. “What we are promising is that, if it's properly used, it will improve over what they are currently doing.”

But the lead author of a national study of the polygraph says that American military men and women will be put at risk by an untested technology. "I don't understand how anybody could think that this is ready for deployment," said statistics professor Stephen E. Fienberg, who headed a 2003 study by the National Academy of Sciences that found insufficient scientific evidence to support using polygraphs for national security. "Sending these instruments into the field in Iraq and Afghanistan without serious scientific assessment, and for use by untrained personnel, is a mockery of what we advocated in our report."

Also see the Raw Story take on this.

Instead of that economic stimulus handout, maybe the gummint should distribute these to voters. Probably wouldn't do any good though--I suspect the widget doesn't work with pathological liars. ~ Petronius

Greeting fellow Windows victims. Here's the Microsoft Security Bulletin for April 2008. Enjoy!

Also, Mozilla today pushed a Firefox patch, bringing it to 2.0.0.14 - a lot of tweaks without a new release. The Mozilloids are on their 5th beta version of "Gran Paradiso", better known as Release 3. I dropped out of the beta program after beta 3. Who has time to test five pre-releases?

Modules and the next version of Windows

Why modular Windows will suck for Microsoft and suck for you
By Peter Bright
Ars Technica
April 05, 2008

There is a growing consensus of opinion forming that Windows "Seven" will be "modular," the concept being that you buy the core OS first and then add to it individual "modules" with logically distinct units of functionality. There are two ways the OS could be modularized in such a fashion, the first being that it could be split into functional "roles," such as "music" or "movies" or "mail & chat." The other option, which is a bit more radical, would be to build on the "Windows Live" software that updates/replaces some of the OS components. For example, Vista's Windows Photo Gallery is replaceable with Windows Live Photo Gallery. The Live version is similar in concept, but includes greater online integration and features.

With both Windows Vista and Windows Server 2008, we can see the first few steps in this modular direction, albeit in different ways. Windows Server 2008 has as one of its major features the idea of "roles". Rather than installing everything and the kitchen sink, with 2008, you install the base OS and then choose one or more roles, such as Active Directory domain controller, Web Server, or Print Server, and the software components to support those tasks are installed accordingly.

This "roles" tack has resulted in the now infamous multiplicity of versions of Windows Vista. If you want Media Center, you need to get Home Premium; if you want hard drive encryption, you need to get Enterprise; if you want Aero Glass, you mustn't get Home Basic; if you want everything, you have go get Ultimate.

Doreen Carvajal | Paris | April 7

IHT - There is no storefront or corporate headquarters for Cybercrime Inc., but savvy salesmen in a murky, borderless economy are moving merchandise by shilling credit card numbers - "two for the price one."

"Sell fresh CC," promised one salesman who offered teaser credit card numbers for samples in New Jersey and Canada. "Visa, MasterCard, Amex. Good Prices. Many countries!!!!!"

Electronic crime is maturing, according to security experts, and with its evolution, clever criminals are adopting conventional approaches that reflect cold business sense - from supermarket-style pricing to outsourcing to specialists acting as portfolio managers, coders, launchers, miners, washers and minders of infected "zombie" computers.

Joseph Menn | April 6

Los Angeles Times - It may launch a proxy war and lower its offer if a deal isn't reached in three weeks, the CEO says in a letter.

Its patience running thin, Microsoft Corp. said Saturday it would turn its $40-billion bid for Yahoo Inc. hostile and probably lower its offer if the companies don't reach a deal within three weeks.

Microsoft vowed to nominate a slate of Yahoo directors who support a takeover if the deadline isn't met.

The world's biggest software company also went out of its way to quash Wall Street speculation that it would raise its 2-month-old offer to seal a deal.

"If we are forced to take an offer directly to your shareholders, that action will have an undesirable impact on the value of your company from our perspective which will be reflected in the terms of our proposal," Microsoft Chief Executive Steve Ballmer wrote in a letter sent to Yahoo's board Saturday.

Yahoo had no immediate response. A person close to the company said its board was reviewing the letter.

Tom Devine | Virginia | April 04

The Roanoke Times - Devine is legal director of the Government Accountability Project, the nation's leading whistleblower protection and advocacy organization.

Big Brother has joined nearly every American family. He lives in the cellphone, if a highly credible whistleblower's March disclosure to Congress accurately reflects telecommunications industry standard operating procedure.

The affidavit of Babak Pasdar, a recognized national computer security expert, raises basic questions that Congress must answer before deciding on telecom immunity, such as "immunity for what?" It raises fundamental questions about whether the reality of privacy still exists, let alone the right. And it illustrates the amazing power of whistleblowers who "commit the truth" to neutralize abuses of massive power that betray the public.

In the fall of 2003, Pasdar was hired by a major telecommunications carrier to overhaul its security. He discovered a mysterious "Quantico Circuit" with access to the entire mobile network that didn't have any security controls. Nor did it have any usage logs making a record of what information flowed through the system. The security breach was unheard of, abandoning basic industry norms practiced in the rest of the telecom's lines.

Global Gridlock:
How the US Military-Industrial Complex Seeks to Contain and Control the Earth and it's Eco-System

by Dr. Kingsley Dennis
Global Research, March 31, 2008

Introduction

The Argentinean writer Jorge Luis Borges once famously wrote of a great Empire that created a map that was so detailed it was as large as the Empire itself. The actual map itself grew and decayed as the Empire itself conquered or lost territory. When the Empire finally crumbled, all that remained was the map. In some sense we can say that it is the map in which we live; we occupy a location within a simulation of reality. Although semanticists say that 'the map is not the territory', within this digitised age the territory is increasingly becoming the map and the separation between the physical and the digitised rendition is blurring. In this context, to 'know the map’ gives priority to intervene upon the physical. In recent years many of us have been scrambling to get 'on the Net' and thus be 'mapped'; within a few years we may find that living 'off the Net' will no longer be an option.

Marianne Kolbasuk McGee | April 2

Information Week - Thousands of employers are scrambling this week to file H-1B visa petitions in hopes that the U.S. government will approve their applications to hire foreign tech workers in fiscal 2009. InformationWeek analyzed the list of companies that had their H-1B visa applications approved last year and the number of approvals they got.

Among the top 10 companies having H-1B visa petitions approved by U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services for fiscal 2007 (which started Oct. 1, 2006) are eight Indian firms -- with Infosys ranked at No. 1 with 4,559 visas -- and two U.S.-based companies, Microsoft and Intel, having a combined 1,328 visa petitions approved. In total, the top 10 companies had 12,876 H-1B visa petitions approved.

Robert S. Boyd | Washington | April 2

McClatchy - Scientists and engineers are racing to develop ways to use light instead of electricity to avoid traffic jams inside computers.

Today's fastest computers employ miles of tiny copper wires to connect multiple data processors packed on silicon chips. Each little ``brain'' — in effect, a miniature adding machine — must exchange information with hundreds or thousands of partners on the same or connecting chips.

The data — symbolized as strings of zeroes and ones — ride the wires in the form of electrical signals, generating heat and wasting energy. Even so, the data can't move fast enough to keep up with the speed of the central processing units.

``The weakest link in the overall capability of the computer is the ability to move information from chip to chip,'' said John Stroman, a computer design strategist at Intel Corp., the big computer-chip maker based in Santa Clara, Calif. ``Moving information around is the biggest limitation on the performance of computers, and it becomes a greater limitation as CPUs become faster.''

Computer scientists think that the solution may be photons, the tiny packets of energy that make up a beam of light. Photons aren't the same as electrons, the fundamental particles of electricity.

ON THE WEB: For more information, go to http://nanophotonics.ece.cornell.edu and click on "Research."