Cody Taylor

coondoggie writes “The US Department of Homeland Security’s Science & Technology Directorate recently awarded almost 0,000 to a Kentucky company to further develop a contactless finger print/biometric system. The goal is a machine that can snap 10 fingerprints in high resolution in less than 10 seconds, without human intervention. This goal is beginning to lok feasible. FlashScan3D is working with the University of Kentucky’s Center for Visualization and Virtual Environments, and has developed a technique called ‘structured light illumination’ (WIPO patent description), where a pattern of dots or stripes is projected onto a curved or irregular surface.”

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Apple’s just confirmed iPhone 3.0 firmware is already rumored to add MMS picture messaging and data tethering. Also, Sirius XM has said it plans to give its radio subscribers an iPhone app, and Maine is negotiating a major deal to lease 100,000 MacBooks for its schools.

Some people care about bags; obsession is a better word. (See the Bags subforum of the Every Day Carry Forums for evidence.) How are the straps attached? Is that 1050 denier, or 1600? Makers like Crumpler, Ortlieb and Maxpedition inspire impressive brand-loyalty, but probably no bag maker has customers more enthusiastic than Tom Bihn’s. (There really is a Tom Bihn, too — he’s been designing travel bags since he was a kid; now he has a factory with “all the cool toys” to experiment with designs and materials.) When I started looking for a protective case for my MacBook Pro, I discovered that a few of my coworkers were part of the Bihn Army, and after some Tupperware-style evangelism I was convinced to buy a few items from the Bihn line-up: a backpack (used); then a messenger bag (new); then a mid-sized briefcase, used, which is now my portable filing cabinet. (Take this bias for what you will; I stuck with my previous messenger bag for more than a decade.) For a just-completed trip to Israel, which I couldn’t quite make in true one-bag travel fashion, I brought along one of the newest Bihn Bags — the Checkpoint Flyer — and found it to be worth its (considerable) price. Read on for my review.

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An anonymous reader from the Macmod forum wrote in with this appealing hack: “This is one of the coolest mods I’ve seen all year. Mac Moder EdsJunk submitted this mod to our forums late Thursday night. By cracking open a MacBook he was able to put a second monitor inside of the screen. The end result is sweet. The second monitor can make the Apple logo have any kind of background, like the clown fish, or the flurry screen saver.”

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mask.of.sanity writes “BitDefender has released what it claims is the first vaccination tool to remove the notorious Conficker virus that infected some 9 million Windows machines in about three months. The worm, also known as Downadup, exploits a bug in the Windows Server service used by Windows 2000, XP, Vista, Server 2003 and Server 2008. It spreads primarily through a buffer overflow vulnerability in Windows Server Service where it disables the operating system update service, security center, including Windows Defender, and error reporting. The Romanian security vendor said its removal tool will delete all versions of Downadup and will not be detected by the virus.”

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eggegick writes “My wife has taken a number of college courses over the last three years and many of the classes used on-line materials rather than books. The problem was these required IE along with Java, Active X and/or various plug-ins (the names of which escapes me), and occasionally I’d have to tweak our firewall to allow these apps to run. I don’t think any of these training apps would work with Firefox. All of this made me cringe from a security point of view. Myself, I use just use Firefox, No-Script, our external firewall and common sense when using the web. I have a very old windows 2000 machine that I keep up to date. To my knowledge I’ve never had a virus or malware problem. Her computer is a relatively new XP machine, and this point she feels here computer has something wrong. But now she prefers to use my old machine instead of hers since it seems to be more responsive. We plan to run the recovery disk on hers. Assuming the college course work applications were part of the cause, what recommendations do any of you have when having to run this kind of software? Is there a VMware solution that would work — that is have a Windows image that is used temporarily for the course work and then discarded at the end of the semester (and how do you create such an image, and what does it cost?).”

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

eggegick writes “My wife has taken a number of college courses over the last three years and many of the classes used on-line materials rather than books. The problem was these required IE along with Java, Active X and/or various plug-ins (the names of which escapes me), and occasionally I’d have to tweak our firewall to allow these apps to run. I don’t think any of these training apps would work with Firefox. All of this made me cringe from a security point of view. Myself, I use just use Firefox, No-Script, our external firewall and common sense when using the web. I have a very old windows 2000 machine that I keep up to date. To my knowledge I’ve never had a virus or malware problem. Her computer is a relatively new XP machine, and this point she feels here computer has something wrong. But now she prefers to use my old machine instead of hers since it seems to be more responsive. We plan to run the recovery disk on hers. Assuming the college course work applications were part of the cause, what recommendations do any of you have when having to run this kind of software? Is there a VMware solution that would work — that is have a Windows image that is used temporarily for the course work and then discarded at the end of the semester (and how do you create such an image, and what does it cost?).”

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Several research teams are exploring ways for robots to both recognize and mimic the subtle, nonverbal side of human communication: eye movements, physical contact, and gestures. Mastering these social subtleties could help machines convey meanings to supplement speech and better respond to human needs and commands.

So, if you’re looking around for a great web editor for Linux, just what is the state of editors for Linux and does it get any better than Vi or Emacs? Let’s take a look at what options are on offer today.

Windows 7 may still be in beta, but it’s good enough on a Mac. Whether you prefer a separate partition or a virtual machine, Ars can help you through installing Microsoft’s latest OS on Apple’s latest machines, and point out some pitfalls along the way.