Disappearing Frogs

The International Union for Conservation of Nature says that 1/3 of amphibian species are threatened with extinction.

Remember what biologists said that amphibians are (soon to be: were) an indicator species?

Harbinger of doom.

Canary in the coal mine.

From Scientific America.

Latest In Key Duplication

UCSD scientist have demonstrated a software capable of duplicating keys from photos taken '200 ft' away.

Marvelous.

From Slashdot.

Eavesdropping Wired Keyboard

Martin Vuagnoux and Sylvain Pasini of The Security and Cryptography Laboratory (LASEC) in École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne, have demonstrated the vulnerability of wired keyboard to wireless interception.

The furthest interception the pair has achieved was between two rooms, through a wall of unknown construction. And, as seen int the video, decoding the signal is slow.

I suppose the next question, other than range, would be how to intercept one keyboard's output from among several simultaneously operating keyboards.

HIV Probably Appeared Earlier

Los Angeles Times reports that scientist has determined that HIV appeared sometime between 1824 and 1924.

More Greenhouse Bad News

Sub-sea methane deposits are bubbling to the surface.

From Slashdot.

Windbelt - Electric Generator

Very interesting.

Look at that illustration in the link above. Take a good look at the inset enlargement.

Does that remind anyone something?

Come on...

It looks like the actuator for an electric bell. In fact substitute the 'belt' with a flat metal and you got an armature for an electric bell/buzzer.

It is one of those '*SLAP !* Why didn't I think of that!' moments.

Very nice, very inventive.

Bravo !

Xbox 360 And The Red Ring Of Death

Dean Takahashi writes for the Venture Beat on the events leading to the US $1 billion Xbox 360 recall by Microsoft.

I do believe it is a compilation and a rewrite of his past articles on the subject of Xbox 360 hardware failures. While it is an interesting read, it is rather shallow interesting technical tidbits.

It boils down to a shift in strategy bought about by a change in leadership and leading to the said failures.

From Slashdot.

RFID Insecurity

Those with vested interest in RFID prefer spending money on lawyers instead of improving it.

Mythbusters got busted and was ordered not to air an episode on RFID hacking. Lawyers for Texas Instrument and its customer ganged up on Discovery Channel, who feared lawsuit and loss of advertising, gave-in.

Trust RFID at your own peril.

UPDATE: Adam Savage says maybe he did not get his facts straight.

Blackberry Bold 3G Disconnect

Apparently Blackberry Bold is having 3G connection issues in New York City.

And it seems Blackberry Bold uses a Broadcom 3G chip.

Apple iPhone uses Infineon 3G chip.

Will Apple, Steve Job, the iPhone be off the hook now?

No Bluetooth With Android 1.0

Android 1.0 will have no bluetooth.

Does that mean pundits will stop braying for Steve Jobs' head over the iPhone's limited (very limitied...) bluetooth functionality?

Not a chance.

Pundits will now want Page's and Brin's noogins too.

More heads to roll, the bloodier.

Why North-South Brown Cow?

Seems scientist are also having fun with Google Earth.

According to scientist, probably indulging in some wee time-wasters, deers and cattle tend align themselves to magnetic north or south while grazing or resting.

This means..., um..., that, uh..., well...

Whatever...

CERN LHC User Manual

CERN's Large Hadron Collider's user manual is divided into 7 items you can download from Journal of Instrumentation. FOR FREE!

From Symmetry Breaking via Slashdot.

Polygamy Adds Life... To Men

Ewen Callaway reports for the New Scientist.

Some folks claim frequent blood letting 'cleanses' your body, I wonder if frequent semen 'letting' does the same thing...

*Ahem*

From Slashdot.

Lenovo ThinkPad W700

Not because it has a big screen.

Because it still has a touchpad.

Why can't they have the WACOM digitizer act as a trackpad?

Is it so hard to write a driver that can tell wether a digitizer pen or a finger is in use and, accordingly, adjust the resolution, speed and sensitivity of the digitizer pad?

Is it?

Sea Of Life

Some say our hopes of feeding Earth's burgeoning population is to use our oceans.

But... worldwide, coastal dead zones are increasing.

Fortune: "A chip too far?"

I wondered about software not keeping up with hardware, a reversal of fortunes since the dawn of the age of multimedia.

Fortune is wondering about it too.

I have expressed it then and I will say now, perhaps it is not for the lack of better ideas but the inadequacy of Integrated Design Environments. The frameworks, language and associated bits needed by programmers to turn fuzzy ideas into a mind altering software.

Then again, post-GUI programmers may possess little discipline but do have an overdeveloped sense of entitlement that everything must be laid out accordingly before their exalted presence, before any sort of programming commences.

Portent Of Terrible Things To Come

The United States Air Force 174th Fighter Wing will now be flying the General Atomics MQ-9 Reaper drone.

From Slashdot.

Brian May, Astrophysicist

No, he is not a recently deceased obscure scientist with an unheralded brilliant mind whose contribution to scientific knowledge spans the entire galaxy.

Brian May is, and was, the guitarist for Queen.

He received received his doctorate summer of 2007. His thesis was titled "A Survey of Radial Velocities in the Zodiacal Dust Cloud".

From Slashdot.

Sip... Yep, That's Water Alright

NASA confirms water on Mars.

From Slashdot.

The Economics Of Revenge

As titled in Big Contrarian.

It's about an article in The New York Times on the reserach done by Naci H. Mocan to "draw a map of vengefulness".

And remember those line...

Heaven has no rage like love to hatred turned / Nor hell a fury like a woman scorned.

Well, apparently women are more vengeful...