Thursday, February 28, 2008

FL to "Demanufacture" Voting Machines

That means they'll be destroyed.

Wednesday, February 27, 2008

Canadian Troops: No Facebook!

From Reuters:
Canadian military chiefs have told soldiers not to post personal information on social networking sites such as Facebook because it could prompt attacks by groups such as Al Qaeda, the Canadian Broadcasting Corp. said on Tuesday.

Wilileaks Gets More Help

The ACLU, EFF, Public Citizen, and California First Amendment Coalition and others are all seeking to intervene in the case.

Wednesday, February 20, 2008

Cable Cuts May Have Been Sabotage

The International Telecommunication Union says sabotage may the cause of some of the cable failures which occurred recently.
"We do not want to preempt the results of ongoing investigations, but we do not rule out that a deliberate act of sabotage caused the damage to the undersea cables over two weeks ago," the UN agency's head of development, Sami al-Murshed, told AFP.

via ars

Tuesday, February 19, 2008

A Breathalyzer for Disease

A team at JILA say they have produced one.
It has been well established that people exhale a complex mixture of gases, including oxygen, nitrogen, carbon dioxide, and others, Ye told ABCNEWS.com. In fact, more than 1,000 different compounds are contained in human breath. But along with those common gases and compounds, people also exhale certain molecules that are considered "biomarkers" indicating specific conditions, such as diseases.

Friday, February 15, 2008

Ban the Mosquito!

Sir Albert Aynsley-Green, the Children's Commissioner for England, wants to ban the Mosquito. Not the insect, but the high-frequency device designed to annoy young people so they don't congregate in one area.
"These devices are indiscriminate and target all children and young people, including babies, regardless of whether they are behaving or misbehaving," Sir Al told the BBC. "The use of measures such as these are simply demonising children and young people, creating a dangerous and widening divide between the young and the old."

Thursday, February 14, 2008

The Charming Burka

The Charming Burka is a Bluetooth-enabled garment which sends a self-defined picture of the wearer to other Bluetooth devices in the area, without violating Koranic law. It was designed by Markus Kison as part of the Implants, Wearables and Prostheses project at the Berlin University of the Arts.
Project description
The Charming Burka deals with Freud's idea that all clothes can be positioned between appeal and shame. The Burka was chosen, because it is often perceived in the west as a symbol of repression. A digital layer was added so that women can decide for themselves where they want to position themselves virtually. The Burka sends an image, chosen by the wearer, via Bluetooth technology. Every person next to her can receive her picture via mobile phone and see the women's self-determined identity. The virtual appeals can not be gathered by the laws of the Koran and so the CharmingBurka fulfills the desire of living a more western life, which some Muslim women have today.

via boingboing

Telecom Immunity Vote Imminent

Friday, February 01, 2008

MySpace Deletes Atheist Group

From the Cleveland Plain Dealer:
For the third time in three years, what may be the largest group of organized atheists in the world is struggling to stay on MySpace, said a Cleveland State University assistant professor who founded the site for nonbelievers.

MySpace deleted the 35,000-member "Atheist and Agnostic Group" on Jan. 1, a little more than a month after hackers broke in and renamed the group's site "Jesus Is Love," Bryan Pesta said Wednesday.