captnitro asks: "I run a small media lab for a department at a large public university. We have about 120 faculty and and equal number of graduate students who from time to time need things like digital cameras, video equipment, projectors, EyeOne units, and so on. (While there is a central location on campus for students, faculty and staff to get some of this equipment, we stock a few specialized pieces that our faculty need.) Since I'm out of the office a lot, I'm looking for a clever way of loaning out equipment that doesn't involve me being there and is secure enough that our administrators deem it "theft resistant" enough to implement. I've looked into small safes with PINs, or card readers (all faculty have IDs with magstripes), blah blah blah, but most of these are prohibitively expensive, so I'm thinking of hacking something together myself.. though I have no idea how I'd do that. Any thoughts?" Solutions could range from the clever and mixed tech (cheap locked boxes with combinations sent through encrypted e-mail), through high tech (use of the existing ID cards system) to unlock delivery boxes. If you were going to set up a system like this, how would you do it?

buckinm asks: "Here's the problem: I have a Windows laptop that I use for work. When I'm at home though, I much rather use my Mac. Since we use Cisco's VPN client at work, I can't mount the drives on the PC from the Mac. What I'd like to know, is there any software out there that would make the PC act like a Firewire or USB drive? I'd want to be able to mount it read/write. I know I could do some sort of rsync of thing when not connected to the VPN, but that seems like too much trouble. I wouldn't be against writing something like that, if I could get some idea of what is required to listen / respond to traffic on the Firewire or USB ports."

Hack Jandy writes "Anandtech has a pretty thorough analysis of Sun's V40z 4-way Opteron server that fits in a 3U. Among some of the more noteable benchmarks include a 2 minute, 30 second Linux 2.6.4 kernel compile! Who would have thought only a few years ago that Sun would be the new champion of Linux and AMD?"

An anonymous reader writes "Jobo AG originally fielded its $550 Giga Vu Pro as a tool for digital photography buffs, but this small embedded computer, running a Linux 2.4 kernel, has much broader potential, according to an article at LinuxDevices.com. A free software development kit for the device is now available at sourceforge.net, along with instructions for loading software into flash memory, a tutorial on turning the device into a Doom game console, and a contributions page for those willing to share their new apps."

ThinSkin writes "It was only a matter of time before PC giant Dell would jump headlong into the HDTV market. But what does a company built around making inexpensive PCs know about HDTVs? ExtremeTech has done a full review with benchmarks on Dell's offering, the Dell W4200HD 42" Plasma HDTV."

EconolineCrush writes "The Tech Report has an in-depth review of Shuttle's new XPC SN25P. At several times the size of a Mac Mini, the SN25P is an entirely different breed of small form factor system; one that supports one 5.25" drive, three 3.5" drives, PCI Express x16 graphics cards and x1 peripherals, up to 2GB of DDR400 memory, and Socket 939 Athlon 64 processors. The system also bristles with USB, Firewire, and audio ports, including digital S/PDIF inputs and outputs, and even has an integrated memory card reader. Looks like a pretty good balance between footprint, portability, and expansion capacity."

fredo123 writes "Almost faster than a speeding bullet. As reported in Muniwireless minutes ago, RoamAD and WI-VOD have tested mobile VOIP over Wi-Fi at over 130 Km/h over an 8km stretch of Interstate highway somewhere near the Mexican border. Gee... I wonder what this is for?" No need to guess: according to the MuniWireless link, "the network is for public safety personnel (police, fire, ambulance and border patrol) first, with various community agencies, schools, business and local residents being added as the deployment expands beyond its targeted coverage areas."

d4 asks: "Thad Starner has been using a wearable computer daily since 1993, and Steve Mann has had an impressive amount of press coverage over the years. But if you want wearable computing in 2005, it seems you must build your own system. Why, after all this time and attention, are wearables still not commercially available?"

Momoru writes "Looks like a woman is suing Hewlett Packard, claiming that their "smart chip" technology, besides giving information about ink usage, is also secretly programmed to not work after a certain certain date." From the article: "HP ink cartridges use a chip technology to sense when they are low on ink and advise the user to make a change. But the suit claims those chips also shut down the cartridges at a predetermined date regardless of whether they are empty." We've reported recently on printer companies making questionable business decisions.

Couch Potato asks: "I'm worried that, come next July, the FCC mandated broadcast flag will soon take away all sorts of fair use rights I have long enjoyed. Given that there are only a few months left to make purchasing decisions, how best can one prepare for the advent of the broadcast flag?"

akintayo writes "Mobile PC released its list of the top 100 gadgets of all time. The number one gadget was the Apple Powerbook 100. And the list does include some older gadgets, most notably the Abacus at #60. The BBC also has an article on the list."

fimbulvetr writes "Looking to put those old processors to work? Tired of catching flack for having hardware, but no use for it? Worry no more! Doc from rabidhardware.com shows us how to employ 7 Cyrix processors to build a spectacular cooking device. Cooking instructions not included. Void where prohibited."

CaptCanuk asks: "I've been charged with finding a system with 16 GB of memory and have had a really hard time in acquiring one (especially with a PCIE 16x slot). Linux is at the forefront of these 'large system memory' systems and beyond beta versions of Windows XP, is the only OS that supports the 64 bit memory addressing required to use this much RAM. When I asked large beige box wholesalers, I'd get comments from 'Why do you want a 16GB harddrive...you want MEMORY? are you sure?' to 'No motherboard supports more than 4GB of memory; everyone knows that'. Where are these mythical large memory systems? Do you think such workstation configurations will become pervasive in the future? Will it take Microsoft's Windows XP 64 bit to legitimize their existence in larger quantities?"

valdean writes "Remember the days of ad-supported dial-up Internet access from the likes of Netzero and Altavista Free Access? Those days, and the business model that supplied them, are long gone... or perhaps not. A new effort is being explored by California-based FreeFi Networks. Last week, the company launched what will be a nationwide network of ad-supported wi-fi hotspots. Ads will appear in what FreeFi calls a "narrow, persistent band of content" across the bottom of the user's screen. To provide incentive to America's coffee shops, they'll share advertising revenues with the hosting venue. Has 'free Internet access' finally arrived?"

kvsnut writes "I4U is reporting about NTT's research project called RedTacton - It 'safely turns the surface of the human body into a data transmission path at speeds up to 10 Mbps between any two points on the body.' There is a pretty interesting site (uses flash) setup to showcase the technology. If you want to jump to a non-flash overview, try here. It be cool if I could sync my Treo (I'm saving for) by just touching a cradle (or heck the PC)."

Adama writes "Lexmark is dead in the water with their hopes to use the DMCA to force their customers to buy their over-priced toner. Their request for another hearing has been denied. Ars has an especially great write-up on this." (See this earlier story for more background on Lexmark's lock-in attempt.)

derek_farn writes "First there were printers that would would only work with vendor annointed ink cartridges; now we have laptops that will only boot with vendor annointed PCI cards. Keeping a list of approved PCI cards in the bios is one way of ensuring that customers renew their maintenance contracts. How else are they going to be able to plug in a PCI card released after the last BIOS update?" My HP laptop is several years old; can anyone confirm this?

savuporo writes "Robots.net is reporting that Linux-based robots are far more common than Windows-based robotics. Especially various Asian robot builders are increasingly selecting Linux and other open-source software as a basis for robot products and research. Linux is also gaining ground in other embedded applications like PDAs and mobile phones." That said, prostoalex writes "50% of all the PDAs sold in 2003 had Palm OS, while Windows family accounted for 37.7% of PDA market. In 2004 Microsoft is the leader of handheld OS market with 43% market share, followed by Palm OS with 36.3%."

prostoalex writes "Scott Mitchell published his rather extensive examination of data structures in C# 2.0 (parts 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 and 6 add up to more than a hundred printed pages)."

Kez writes "Intel's Prescott core has undergone a few changes, and the latest version - Prescott-2M - includes new features, one of which is Enhanced SpeedStep technology. Given the jokes about the heat that the Prescott gives out, Intel had to act. It was inevitable that a power (and heat) saving technology such as SpeedStep would find its way into desktop PCs. HEXUS.net has an article looking at the new Prescott-2M based Pentium 4 660 and Extreme Edition 3.74Ghz CPUs, examining their new features and performance."