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 The Age |
Computer mouse hits 40
VNUNet.com - The computer mouse is celebrating its 40th anniversary today after first being unveiled by Douglas Engelbart at the Fall Joint Computer Conference (FJCC) in 1968. Computer Mouse Turns 40 Dec. 9, 1968: The Mother of All Demos |
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AP – Google has added a magazine rack to its Internet search engine.
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Macworld.com – ComiXology has released ComiXology for the iPhone and iPod touch, available for purchase and download from the App Store for $3.99.
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 InternetNews.com |
Microsoft Fixes 28 Security Bugs For Patch Tuesday
CRN - By Stefanie Hoffman, ChannelWeb Microsoft issued eight security patches in its December security bulletin, fixing a total of 28 vulnerabilities in Microsoft Windows, Internet Explorer and Microsoft Office that allow remote attackers to launch malicious … Microsoft Patch Day Brings Eight Security Bulletins Eight December fixes delivered by Microsoft |
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Smivs writes with an excerpt from the BBC marking the anniversary of what may be the most famous tech demo outside Trinity site: “The humble computer mouse celebrates its 40th anniversary today. On 9 December 1968 hi-tech visionary Douglas Engelbart first used one to demonstrate novel ways of working with computers. The first mouse that Dr Engelbart used in the demo at the Fall Joint Computer Conference (FJCC) was made of wood and had one button. Much of the technology shown off in the demo inspired the creation of the hardware and software now widely used. … The mouse, which was built by Bill English, helped Dr Engelbart demonstrate how text files could be clipped, copied and pasted as well as showing ways of using computer networks to collaborate on projects or co-edit documents.” According to the article, “A day of celebration is planned in California to mark the 40th anniversary; with many of the researchers behind the original demo reunited to mark the event.”
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Reuters – Electronic Arts Inc warned its fiscal 2009 profit and revenue will fall short of already-low forecasts due to disappointing holiday sales of its video games in North America and Europe.
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Onion Radio News – with Doyle Redland
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John Kelly writes “The current issue of Policy Review has a paper by an American computer scientist and the recent Permanent Undersecretary of Defense for Estonia. Drawing on the Estonian cyber attacks a year and a half ago, as well as other recent examples, they argue that botnets are the major problem. They propose that botnets should be designated as ‘eWMDs’ — electronic weapons of mass destruction. The paper also proposes a list of reforms that would help to limit the scale and impact of future botnet attacks, beginning with defining and outlawing spam, internationally.” Many of the proposed solutions are common-sensical and won’t be news to this audience, but it is interesting to see the botnet threat painted in such stark terms for readers of the Hoover Institution’s Policy Review. For a more comprehensive overview of cyber-security threats, listen to NPR’s interview with security experts on the occasion of the release of a new report, “Securing Cyberspace for the 44th Presidency,” which recommends creating a cyber-security czar reporting to the President.
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jammag writes “Bjarne Stroustrup, creator of C++ and a professor at Texas A&M, weighs in on the problems in today’s CS programs. In particular, Java (there’s too much of it), the quality of graduates (companies aren’t happy), and the need to balance the theoretical and the practical (long overdue). Not pulling punches, Stroustrup even talks about high schools — ‘High schools could teach students to work hard at something (just about anything), to search out information as needed, and learn to express their ideas in writing and orally.’ He finishes by giving advice to working developers: ‘Serious programming is a team sport, brush up on your social skills. The sloppy fat geek computer genius semi-buried in a pile of pizza boxes and cola cans is a mythical creature, best buried deep, never to be seen again.’” Read on for more choice quotes from the quotable professor.
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 Search Engine Watch |
Google Tweaks AdWords For Android G1, iPhone
InformationWeek - The search giant is letting advertisers feature optimized image and text ads for any phone with a full HTML browser. By Marin Perez Advertisers using Google AdWords can now tailor their ad for mobile devices like the iPhone 3G, and T-Mobile's G1. Google Intros Mobile Ads for iPhone Google's Search Advertising Going Mobile on iPhone, T-Mobile G1 |
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 ABC News |
Who Will Obama Name As Cyberspace Czar?
CRN - By Damon Poeter, ChannelWeb If president-elect Barack Obama heeds the advice of a blue-ribbon IT security panel, he'll create a new White House office for cyberspace to be headed by an adviser charged with coordinating the computer security efforts of … Stop blaming Microsoft for cybersecurity woes Obama urged to prioritise cyber-security |
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Building on 25 years of open system innovation and leadership, Sun announced its first open storage product line – ‘Sun Storage 7000 Unified Storage Systems’ radically simplifying the way enterprises manage their storage with breakthrough cost savings, speed and scale.
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Cornwallis writes “In a First Amendment case with implications for everything from neighborhood e-mail lists to national newspapers, a Maryland businessman argued to the state’s highest court yesterday that the host of an online forum should be forced to reveal the identities of people who posted allegedly defamatory comments. The businessman, Zebulon J. Brodie, contends that he was defamed by comments about his shop, a Dunkin’ Donuts in Centreville, posted on NewsZap.com. The shop was described as one ‘of the most dirty and unsanitary-looking food-service places I have seen.’ Talk about a Negative Nellie! At least the article didn’t say the shop was the ‘most dirty and unsanitary-looking food-service places I have seen.’”
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 Straits Times |
Math Gains Reported for US Students
New York Times - By SAM DILLON American fourth and eighth grade students made solid achievement gains in math in recent years and in two states showed spectacular progress, according to an international survey of student achievement, released Tuesday. Study: US students score higher in math Science Exam Shows Plateau in US Performance |
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An anonymous reader writes “Researchers at Harvard University have developed a microfluidic device using ordinary paper and tape. Squares of paper are layered and connected them with adhesive tape, channeling liquid horizontally and vertically in a very small area. Each square of paper has been treated with photoresist material, which creates channels that funnel liquid into tiny wells containing certain proteins or antibodies. The fluid interacts with that area of the paper and turns the well a certain color. It can, for example, detect varying concentrations of glucose. Lead researcher George Whitesides says such paper “lab on a chip” tests may lead to a cost-effective, portable, and accurate method for diagnosing diseases in countries lacking reliable health care. The research appears in the current issue of the Proceedings of the National Academies of Science.”
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Microsoft Corp. today patched 28 vulnerabilities, nearly all of them marked “critical,” in the biggest update since it switched to a regular monthly update schedule more than five years ago.
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 Telegraph.co.uk |
Rock Band 2 Update
IGN - by Daemon Hatfield December 9, 2008 – The first Rock Band on Wii was a disappointment when it arrived a mere six months ago, missing many of the features that made its Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 counterparts so groundbreaking. Uh oh: Guitar Hero sales may have peaked Analysts leery of EA, Guitar Hero |
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Cisco will add real-time translation to its TelePresence high-definition conference technology next year, enabling people in several different countries to meet virtually and each hear the other participants’ comments in their own languages.
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 Boston Globe |
Apple’s (AAPL) iPhone sales could rocket thanks to Walmart (WMT …
Product Reviews - The new deal that Apple (AAPL) is entering into with Walmart (WMT) is big news and not for the $2 reduction in iPhone price but more for the amount of iPhone sales that could become thanks to the partnership. Reports: $99 Wal-Mart iPhone would be atypical, risky move Wal-Mart to sell iPhone before end of year |
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coondoggie writes “Seven leading domain name vendors — representing more than 112 million domain names, or 65% of all registered names — have formed an industry coalition to work together to adopt DNSSEC. Members of the DNSSEC Industry Coalition include: VeriSign, which operates the .com and .net registries; NeuStar, which operates the .biz and .us registries; .info operator Afilias Limited; .edu operator EDUCAUSE; and The Public Interest Registry, which operates .org.” The gTLD operators are falling in line behind government initiatives, which we discussed last month. In light of these developments, Dan Bernstein’s push for DNSCurve might face an uphill slog. Reader data2 writes: “Dan Berstein, the creator of djbdns and daemontools, has created his own proposal to improve upon the current DNS protocol. He has been opposed to DNSSEC for quite some time, and now he has proposed a concrete alternative, DNSCurve. He has posted a comparison between the two systems. His proposal makes use of elliptic curves, while DNSSEC favors RSA. He uses a curve named Curve25519, which he also developed.”
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 BetaNews |
Firefox, Chrome virtually tied for JavaScript speed
CNET News - Google's Chrome now is only a smidgen slower than Mozilla's Firefox on the SunSpider test of JavaScript. Here's the highlight: Though Firefox remains the leader on the SunSpider test, with a score of 2110, Chrome edged very close with 2140. Firefox Beats Chrome in JavaScript Speed Test Mozilla Boosts Stealth, Speed in New Firefox Beta |
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lurking_giant writes “In a report on NewScientist.com, researchers working on development of a space elevator (an idea we have discussed numerous times) have determined that the concept is not stable. Coriolis force on the moving climbers would cause side loading that would make stability extremely difficult, while solar wind would cause shifting loads on the geostationary midpoint. All of this would likely make it necessary to add thrusters, which would consume fuel and negate the benefits of the concept. Alternatively, careful choreography of multiple loads might ease the instability, again with unknown but negative economic impacts.”
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When Microsoft completed its acquisition of San Francisco-based startup Powerset in July, it acquired more than just search-engine technology. In the HBase component of Powerset’s product, Microsoft also acquired open-source code that is actively being redistributed back into the Apache Software Foundation’s Hadoop project.
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AP – Navigating all the “smart” phones out there and picking one for yourself can be tricky, and purchasing one for someone else can be even more daunting. But with plenty of feature-packed options available this holiday season, ranging from the consumer-friendly iPhone to the more business-oriented BlackBerry Bold, chances are you can find a phone that’s a better gift than a reindeer sweater.
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 NewsOXY |
Hot Pockets: Novatel Unveils Wireless, Wallet-Sized WiFi Router
TechNewsWorld - By Walaika Haskins Novatel's new MiFi unit is a pocket hotspot. It connects to 3G cellular data services to deliver WiFi connectivity to whatever devices you have in a 30-foot radius — a computer, an iPod touch, a WiFi-enabled camera, etc. Novatel Announces 'Smart Hotspot' Novatel touts MiFi modem for mobile hot-spot capability |
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Dell and EMC have agreed to extend their worldwide storage partnership, even though the existing deal — which has generated billions in sales for the two companies — doesn’t end until 2011.
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FCC Chairman Kevin Martin has abused his power and suppressed public information during his tenure at the agency, according to a new report from a House of Representatives committee.
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 Special Broadcasting Service |
UPDATE 2-More mobile phone makers back Google's Android
Reuters - By Jennifer Martinez SAN FRANCISCO, Dec 9 (Reuters) – Fourteen of the world's largest mobile phone and chip makers, including Sony Ericsson, Vodafone Group Plc (VOD. More mobile makers join Android alliance Google's Open Handset Alliance gains 14 new members |
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snydeq writes “Ars Technica’s Nate Anderson and InfoWorld’s Paul Venezia provide worthwhile commentary on a recent speech by FCC Commissioner Deborah Taylor Tate (PDF), in which she praised DRM as ‘very effective’ and raised a flag in favor of ISP filtering. Anderson: ‘Having commissioners who feel that the government has a duty to partner with and back educational classroom content from the RIAA; who really believe that ISP filtering is so unproblematic we can stop considering objections; and who think that universities worry about file-swapping because tuition might be raised to pay for the needed “expansion of storage capabilities” (huh?) isn’t good for the FCC and isn’t good for America.’ Venezia: ‘Leave the ISPs out of it — it’s not their job to protect a failing business model, and a movement toward a tiered and filtered Internet will do nothing to stem the tide of piracy, but will result in great restrictions on innovation, freedoms, and the general use of the Internet. There’s nothing to be gained down that path other than possibly to expand the wallets of a few companies.’”
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 Afterdawn.com |
Android phone to emerge Down Under
CNET News - The much-hyped Google Android phone operating system will hit Australia on January 29, in the form of the Kogan Agora and Agora Pro. Unlocked Android Phone: Pricey Outside the US Google Unveils SIM-Unlocked G1 Phone for $399 |
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