Lunch Notes 7-19-2004

[Balandar]

419ers Diversify Into Assassination Threats?

Posted by simoniker on Monday July 19, @01:52PM

from the nice dept.

Richardsonke1 writes "Just when you thought 419ers couldn't get any worse, now they are sending death threats, according to a story at The Register. The emails require you to 'produce a mandatory sum of US$40,000.00 {FOURTHY THOUSAND UNITED STATES DOLLARS} only,into our account given below in nigeria within ninety six hours{96},alternatively you will be SNIPPED and GUNNED down during the period of our oncoming anniversary of fifty years.' All joking of 'snipping' aside, for those people who fall for regular 419 emails, this would terrify many gullible web users."

http://yro.slashdot.org/yro/04/07/19/17521...?tid=111&tid=17

PHP 5.0 Goes For Microsoft's ASP-dot-Net

Posted by Hemos on Monday July 19, @10:45AM

from the classical-battles dept.

Dozix007 writes "Uberhacker.Com reports : Zend Technologies quietly announced last week the final release of the open source PHP version 5. An interesting article reports the different strengths and weaknesses of ASP vs. PHP, and it becomes quite clear that with the release of PHP5, Zend has taken a shot at ASP's heart. The differences from PHP4 to 5 has created a clear advantage for the new preprocessor over Microsoft's proprietery ASP."

http://developers.slashdot.org/developers/...9&tid=126&tid=1

Proof of Concept PocketPC Virus Created

Posted by Hemos on Monday July 19, @08:39AM

from the only-a-matter-of-time dept.

SpooForBrains writes "The Register has reported that "Ratter" of the virus writing group 29A has created the world's first PocketPC virus as a proof of concept. This one has no payload and is polite enough to ask if it can spread, so the dangers are minimal, but it occurs that the possibility of PocketPC and Symbian virii suddenly makes the concept of bluejacking somewhat more sinister."

http://slashdot.org/articles/04/07/19/1131...9&tid=201&tid=1

LivingCreatures- The Beginning Of 'I, Robot?'

Posted by timothy on Sunday July 18, @04:49PM

from the little-freaky-there-now dept.

An Anonymous Reader writes "LivingCreatures.com has released several new photos of the humanoid robot platform that it developed for the USC Interaction Lab. The yet to be named robot is about the same size as an 18-month-old child and will serve as a human-robot interaction (HRI) testbed for studies involving imitation, learning, and the effects that interaction with humanoid robots has on children."

http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=04/07/1...tid=216&tid=126

Science: Ariane Launches A New Way To Get Online

Posted by timothy on Sunday July 18, @01:52PM

from the please-start-this-one-up-quick dept.

pdaoust007 writes "According to the BBC, 'Europe's Ariane 5 rocket has lifted off after three earlier delays, carrying the world's largest commercial telecoms satellite.' There is also coverage from the CBC and some video here." What's really interesting is what's on board that satellite, though: "Telesat Canada, a subsidiary of BCE, has commercialized the Ka-band technology to allow universal high-speed access to internet service. Apparently, this should make high speed access available anywhere in North America. Gear will be $500 and service $60/month ($CDN)."

http://science.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid...tid=215&tid=160

Science: NASA Preps Mars Underground Mole

Posted by michael on Friday July 16, @11:45PM

from the better-hope-they-don't-strike-oil dept.

Roland Piquepaille writes "People at NASA never cease to surprise me. Searching for water or presence of past life of Mars obviously needs drilling beneath the surface. So NASA is developing the Mars Underground Mole (MUM), based on a previous device used for the European Beagle 2 mission. But here is the twist. MUM will include sensors which were previously used to collect spectral imagery of Earth from pilotless aircrafts, especially Hawaii, according to NASA. While the Mole will stay on the surface on Mars and drill up to 5 meters deep, it will transmit data via a fiber optic cable to a digital array scanning interferometer (DASI). And the spectral images produced by the DASI will enable researchers to identify possible water, ice, organics and minerals under the surface on Mars. And this MUM will be a small one, weighing less than a kilogram for a length of only 50 centimeters. For more details and pictures about MUM, please read this overview."

http://science.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid...&tid=134&tid=14