Wolf nipple chips writes "Craig Wright discovered that the Jura F90 Coffee maker, with its honest-to-God Jura Internet Connection Kit, can be taken over by a remote attacker, who can cause the coffee to be weaker or stronger; change the amount of water per cup; or cause the machine to require service (call this one a DDoC). 'Best yet, the software allows a remote attacker to gain access to the Windows XP system it is running on at the level of the user.' An Internet-enabled, remote-controlled coffee-machine and XP backdoor — what more could a hacker ask for?"

muellerr1 writes "A group of local Philadelphia investors is picking up where Earthlink left off last week. Earthlink abandoned their effort to provide municipal Wi-Fi access because they couldn't lure enough paying customers. The project won't use any additional taxpayer dollars, and the new investors are thinking of using advertisements and fees for business use to support free access for ordinary citizens." The private group won't estimate when the network might be completed (it's at 80%), saying it will take months to assess where the project is and what it needs.

Chardish writes "Forget the hype about Wii Fit — the coolest thing about the Wii Balance Board is its potential as a game controller, and what better way to christen a new peripheral than by rigging it to work with games that predate the peripheral's existence? BodySurf is a (somewhat lengthy) GlovePIE script that manipulates the input of the Balance Board to work with the PC music game Audiosurf. It's fairly sophisticated, and includes Wiimote motion controls, special controls for each character, weight calibration, and a few play options."

Hugh Pickens writes "For years, data center designers have toiled in obscurity in the engine rooms of the digital economy, amid the racks of servers and storage devices that power everything from online videos to corporate e-mail systems but now people with the skills to design, build and run a data center that does not endanger the power grid are suddenly in demand. 'The data center energy problem is growing fast, and it has an economic importance that far outweighs the electricity use,' said Jonathan G. Koomey of Stanford University. 'So that explains why these data center people, who haven't gotten a lot of glory in their careers, are in the spotlight now.' The pace of the data center build-up is the result of the surging use of servers, which in the United States rose to 11.8 million in 2007, from 2.6 million a decade earlier. 'For years and years, the attitude was just buy it, install it and don't worry about it,' says Vernon Turner, an analyst for IDC. 'That led to all sorts of inefficiencies. Now, we're paying for that behavior.'" On a related note, an anonymous reader contributes this link to an interesting look at how a data center gets built.

notdagreatbrain writes "Maximum PC magazine has early benchmarks on Nvidia's newest GPU architecture — the GTX 200 series. Benchmarks on the smokin' fast processor reveal a graphics card that can finally tame Crysis at 1900x1200. 'The GTX 280 delivered real-world benchmark numbers nearly 50 percent faster than a single GeForce 9800 GTX running on Windows XP, and it was 23 percent faster than that card running on Vista. In fact, it looks as though a single GTX 280 will be comparable to — and in some cases beat — two 9800 GTX cards running in SLI, a fact that explains why Nvidia expects the 9800 GX2 to fade from the scene rather quickly.'"

polymath69 writes "According to The Times Online, genetically modified microbes have been developed capable of turning surplus material such as wood chips, sugarcane, or others, not into ethanol, but into a substance which could substitute directly for crude oil. They claim it could be sold for about $50/bbl, and the production process would be carbon negative."

Ian Lamont writes "Nvidia and other chip designers are accusing Intel of 'illegally restraining trade' in a dispute over the USB 3.0 specification. The dispute has prompted Nvidia, AMD, Via, and SiS to establish a rival standard for the USB 3.0 host controller. An Intel spokesman denies the company is making the USB specification, or that USB 3.0 'borrows technology heavily' from the PCI Special Interests group. He does, however, say that Intel won't release an unfinished Intel host controller spec until it's ready, as it would lead to incompatible hardware."

Roland Piquepaille writes "University of Michigan (U-M) researchers have developed an ultra low power microchip which 'uses 30,000 times less power in sleep mode and 10 times less in active mode than comparable chips now on the market.' It only consumes 30 picowatts in sleep mode, which means that a simple watch battery could power the chip for more than 200 years. Of course, this is not a processor for your next computer. It is designed for sensor-based devices such as medical implants, environment monitors or surveillance equipment. However, the design is very clever." Roland's blog has some more information, including a die picture of the chip, known as the Phoenix.

Might E. Mouse writes "Reviews are hitting the net for the first Intel Atom-powered netbooks, and TrustedReviews has posted one for the ASUS Eee PC 901 20G Linux Edition. Has ASUS won the Atom(ic) war before it even started? With features like Wireless-N and a 6600mAh battery good for four to seven hours, that might well be the case. TR rated it highly, but I'm going to wait for their MSI Wind review before making a purchase — their first look at the Wind showed a better keyboard and larger storage." An anonymous reader notes that despite the increased capabilities, the 901 debuts at a lower cost than its predecessor.

I_am_Rambi writes "At the request of theatrical film makers, the Federal Communications Commission on Friday quietly launched a proceeding on whether to let video program distributors remotely block consumers from recording recently released movies on their DVRs. The technology that does this is called Selectable Output Control (SOC), but the FCC restricts its use. The Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) wants a waiver on that restriction in the case of high-definition movies broadcast prior to their release as DVDs." The FCC is soliciting comments until June 25th.

Ian Lamont writes "Westinghouse is the first major electronics manufacturer that has publicly committed to using a 'smart power technology' that will let people use a single universal adapter to power their laptops, cell phones and other electronics. The universal adapters, which use a technology developed by a startup called Green Plug, will act like a hub that several devices can plug into, and will also shut off the power supply when the device is turned off or has finished charging. The first are expected to go on sale in early 2009 for under $100, according to Westinghouse's CTO. Eventually, Westinghouse and other manufacturers that use the technology could stop shipping adapters with their products, because customers may already have universal adapters at home. However, some manufacturers may not be inclined to use universal power adapters: the article notes Apple gets supplementary revenue from the sale of proprietary connectors for the iPod and other devices."

Guysmiley777 writes with what looks like a very late (or very, very early) April Fool's joke: "Denon's $499 Ethernet cable 'brings out all the nuances in digital audio reproduction.' Sure, that seems plausible. After all, nuances in digital signals are so subtle. Oh, and 'signal directional markings are provided for optimum signal transfer.'" Considering that $499 will get you a competent laptop these days, I wonder how big the market is for such a thing — then I look at Stereophile magazine's annual list of recommended components. The "view more images" link shows that they take cable porn seriously at Denon.

tambo writes with the sort of problem more people wish they had: "I've just bought myself an excellent LCD TV. I'd love to be able to access my home server from it for many reasons (music, video, surfing, MAME, etc.) — but my home server is in another room, 30 feet away from the TV and 50 feet away from the couch. I've acquired some gear to send PC audio and video wirelessly (over the 5.8GHz range), so that's all good. My challenge now is trying to send input wirelessly to my PC from fifty feet away. I've thought about getting a wireless USB hub, but that would introduce an additional wireless hop that would probably add to the input latency (and might interfere with all the other wireless gear in my pad.) My best bet now is to get a Bluetooth keyboard and mouse that have an unusually good range, and some of the Logitechs seem to qualify, but it's a gamble. Advice?"

Fantastic Lad, among many others, points out another in a long series of claimed "powered by water" cars, this one by a Japanese company called "Genepax," which interestingly enough does not have so much as a Wikipedia entry. What's scary is the uncritical, even serious-sounding, presentation by Reuters of such extraordinary claims quite unbacked by extraordinary evidence. "Almost sounds too good to be true" isn't the half of it; if cars could be made which would run as "long as you have a bottle of water inside" to pour into the fuel tank ("even tea," repeats this report), not only would you know about the car, but you'd notice the long lines of people buying generators, laptops, and power tools that run on the same technology. The snippet Reuters is carrying says "Jun. 13 — Japanese company Genepax presents its eco-friendly car that runs on nothing but water. The car has an energy generator that extracts hydrogen from water that is poured into the car's tank. The generator then releases electrons that produce electric power to run the car. Genepax, the company that invented the technology, aims to collaborate with Japanese manufacturers to mass produce it." Fantastic Lad, deadpan, goes on: "Check out the Reuter's story and accompanying video. Now, correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't there some sort of conservation of energy thing happening in the whole 'separating hydrogen from water' game? I wonder what the real story is on this. Investment fraud? Magic?" Show your work; bonus points if you use Haiku.

Makoto916 writes "In five years with my current employer as the IT administrator, I've amassed a sizable cabinet of discarded hard drives; just shy of 100, in fact. All of the drives range in size from 20GB up to 300GB. They've all been stored in anti-stat bags, and spot checks of even the oldest ones show that most of them still work. Individually, they're mostly useless for our line of work, which is digital video production. However, the collective storage potential is quite significant. They are of varying size and speed, but the one commonality is they're all IDE. What is the best way to approach connecting all of these devices and realizing their storage potential? On a budget, of course. Now, I'd never use such an array for critical data storage, but it certainly would be useful as a massive backup array to our existing SAN that does store critical data. I have several spare and functioning PCs, but not nearly enough to utilize their internal IDE controllers; even with multiple add-in controllers, it still wouldn't be enough. Not to mention the nightmare of managing a bunch of independent PCs. I've looked into ATA Over Ethernet and there's a lot of potential there, but current 15 to 20 bay AoE cabinets are expensive, and single device enclosures are so rare that they're also expensive. Are there any hardware hackers out there who have crafted their own home-brew AoE systems? Could they scale to 100 drives? Is there a better way?"

An anonymous reader writes "What cool things can be done with the 100,000+ cores of the first petaflop supercomputer, the Roadrunner, that were impossible to do before? Because our brain is massively parallel, with a relatively small amount of communication over long distances, and is made of unreliable, imprecise components, it's quite easy to simulate large chunks of it on supercomputers. The Roadrunner has been up only for about a week, and researchers from Los Alamos National Lab are already reporting inaugural simulations of the human visual system, aiming to produce a machine that can see and interpret as well as a human. After examining the results, the researchers 'believe they can study in real time the entire human visual cortex.' How long until we can simulate the entire brain?"

Stony Stevenson brings news from Rice University about designing integrated circuits with multiple distinct identities, which could be used in new types of hardware-based DRM, among other things. From the news release: "'With "n-variant" integrated circuits, it is possible to design portable media players that are inherently unique,' said Farinaz Koushanfar, assistant professor of electrical and computer engineering at Rice and principal investigator on the project. 'New methods of digital rights management can be built upon such devices. For example, media files can be made such that they only run on a certain variant and cannot be played by another.' Koushanfar said content providers could also use n-variant chips to sell metered access to software, music or movies because the chips can be programmed to switch from one variant to another at a particular time or after a file has been accessed a certain number of times."

afabbro writes "The current issue of BusinessWeek has an expansive article of the history of OLPC and why it has, to date, been a flop. Among the reasons: no preparation for the educational systems expected to use it, uncertain pedagogical theories, poor business management, competition from Microsoft/Intel, and no input from education professionals in designing the software. As BusinessWeek quotes one educational expert, 'The hackers took over,' and the applications are too complex for children to use. To date, 370,000 laptops have been shipped — a far cry from the original 150 million planned to be shipped by end of 2008."

An anonymous reader writes "Good news out of the UK! Techdirt reports that an appeals court has overturned a lower court ruling and has now said that mod chips do not violate copyright laws. The case involved a mod chip seller, who imported mod chips for the XBox from Hong Kong and would sell the chips or mod the Xbox's himself. He was charged with copyright infringement and found guilty by a lower court. The appeals court has dismissed all charges, however."

mollyhackit writes "Here's a how-to guide for building a keyless entry that uses color identification instead of numbers. All eight buttons are initially blue; as you press the individual buttons they change color. Cycle the colors to your particular pattern, and you're in. This lock obviously wasn't designed for high security use since anyone in the same room would be able to see you and your amazing technicolor dream lock's pattern; it's just a fun project and will keep the youngins out of your workshop (timer prevents brute forcing). The RGB buttons are monome clones from hobby shop Sparkfun."