Apr 16 2009

Jefferys student , 16, found with gun – Toronto Star


Canoe.ca

Jefferys student , 16, found with gun
Toronto Star
With the handgun hidden from sight, the 16-year-old walked across the front lawn toward CW Jefferys Collegiate Institute. It was just minutes before 10 am yesterday when the troubled teen walked through the school's front doors.
Teen caught with gun Toronto Sun
Cops arrest teen on gun charge Windsor Star
National Post – Toronto Sun – Toronto Star – Toronto Sun
all 23 news articles
Share

Apr 16 2009

New Data Center Will Heat Homes In London

1sockchuck writes “The heat generated by thousands of servers at the new Telehouse West data center in London will soon be used to heat nearby houses and businesses. The Greater London Authority has approved a plan in which waste heat from the colocation facility will be used in a district heat network for the local Docklands community. The project is expected to produce up to nine megawatts of power for the local community.”

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Share

Apr 15 2009

Academics To Predict Next Twitter and Its Pitfalls

An anonymous reader writes “University researchers in the UK have put together a team tasked with predicting the next big thing in terms of communication technologies, in a bid to tackle ethical pitfalls before they become a problem. This is in the wake of the rise of social networking websites such as Facebook, Twitter and MySpace, which has led to a dramatic increase in the amount of personal information available online.”

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Share

Apr 15 2009

Google is building a social network under our very noses

Google’s first attempts at a social network with Orkut have not proved fruitfulLittle did we know however that whilst we thought Google had made a conscious decision to take steps away from the “social networking” arena, they were building one right under our noses and have the capabilities to grow larger and more useful than any competitor

Share

Apr 15 2009

Cinder Mobile OS Lets Users Send More Power To Slow Apps

alphadogg writes with this excerpt from Network World: “Stanford University researchers are designing an operating system from the ground up to handle the power and security requirements of mobile devices. The Cinder operating system is already working on an Arm chip, and members of the team are working on making it run on the HTC G1 handset, according to Philip Levis, a Stanford assistant professor. Levis spoke about Cinder at the Stanford Computer Forum on Tuesday. If an application isn’t running as fast as the user wants, a Cinder-based phone could include a button to boost the energy allocated to that application, Levis said. Cinder also could allow users to download any code and run it safely on their phones in a ‘sandbox’ mode.”

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Share

Apr 15 2009

Subverting PIN Encryption For Bank Cards

An anonymous reader sends in a story at Wired about the increasingly popular methods criminals are using to bypass PIN encryption and rack up millions of dollars in fraudulent withdrawals. Quoting: “According to the payment-card industry … standards for credit card transaction security, [PINs] are supposed to be encrypted in transit, which should theoretically protect them if someone intercepts the data. The problem, however, is that a PIN must pass through multiple HSMs across multiple bank networks en route to the customer’s bank. These HSMs are configured and managed differently, some by contractors not directly related to the bank. At every switching point, the PIN must be decrypted, then re-encrypted with the proper key for the next leg in its journey, which is itself encrypted under a master key that is generally stored in the module or in the module’s application programming interface, or API. ‘Essentially, the thief tricks the HSM into providing the encryption key,’ says Sartin. ‘This is possible due to poor configuration of the HSM or vulnerabilities created from having bloated functions on the device.'”

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Share

Apr 14 2009

Kelly McParland: The new Karlheinz, just like the old Karlheinz – National Post


Canoe.ca

Kelly McParland: The new Karlheinz, just like the old Karlheinz
National Post
A lot has happened in the world since we last had the benefit of seeing Karlheinz Schreiber on our TV screens, so it’s nice to know some things never change.
Schreiber's credibility challenged Globe and Mail
Schreiber says he stood to earn .8B in commissions Toronto Star
Canoe.ca – The Gazette (Montreal) – Bloomberg – 580 CFRA Radio
all 102 news articles  Langue : Français
Share

Apr 14 2009

NASA Taking Ethernet Into Deeper Space

coondoggie writes “While Ethernet technology has gone places no one would have envisioned 36 years ago, NASA today signed an agreement with a German Ethernet vendor to build highly fault-tolerant networks for space-based applications. TTTech builds a set of time-triggered services called TTEthernet that is implemented on top of standard IEEE802.3 Ethernet. Its technology is designed to enable design of synchronous, highly dependable embedded computing and networking, capable of tolerating multiple faults, the company said.”

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Share

Apr 14 2009

Schreiber's credibility challenged – Globe and Mail


Canoe.ca

Schreiber's credibility challenged
Globe and Mail
OTTAWA – Karlheinz Schreiber has repeatedly said that the only way to uncover the whole truth about his cash payments to former prime minister Brian Mulroney is with seasoned lawyers asking questions and witnesses under oath.
Schreiber was sought .8B broker's fee Canoe.ca
Kelly McParland: The new Karlheinz, just like the old Karlheinz National Post
Canada.com – Toronto Star – Bloomberg – CTV.ca
all 97 news articles  Langue : Français
Share

Apr 14 2009

Facebook Users Get Lower Grades In College

Hugh Pickens writes “According to a survey of college students Facebook users have lower overall grades than non-users. The study by Aryn Karpinski, an education researcher at Ohio State University, found that Facebook user GPAs are in the 3.0 to 3.5 range on average, compared to 3.5 to 4.0 for non-users and that Facebook users also studied anywhere from one to five hours per week, compared to non-users who studied 11 to 15 or more hours per week. Karpinski emphasized that correlation does not equal causation and that the grades association could be caused by something else. ‘I’m just saying that there’s some kind of relationship there, and there’s many third variables that need to be studied.’ One hypothesis is that students who spend more time enjoying themselves rather than studying might tend to latch onto the nearest distraction, such as Facebook or that students who use the social networking site might also spend more time on other non-studying activities such as sports or music. ‘It may be that if it wasn’t for Facebook, some students would still find other ways to avoid studying, and would still get lower grades. But perhaps the lower GPAs could actually be because students are spending too much time socializing online.’ As for herself, Karpinski said she doesn’t have a Facebook account, although the co-author of the study does. ‘For me, I think Facebook is a huge distraction.'”

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Share