SSuite Office Software

Editor's Note

We have recently added a whole bunch of digital document formats to our word processors. Now you are able to export all your important documents to a digital format of your choice, thereby saving you on paper, printer ink, and the electricity necessary to produce your documents in hardcopy format.

An added bonus is that the recipients of your digital documents no longer need to have expensive proprietary software installed on their computer to open them. Any web browser and image viewer are capable of opening these wonderful digital image formats without a problem. You will also have no formatting errors or problems either. Your documents will look exactly as you produced them when being opened by the recipient.

Very nice indeed

Digital document formats found in our word processors:

• Portable Document File Format -- ( *.pdf )
• Portable Documents File Format -- Text Only ( *.pdf )
• Windows Bitmap File Format -- ( *.bmp)
• Windows Enhanced File Format -- ( *.emf )
• Portable Network Graphic File Format -- ( *.png )
• Joint Photographic Experts Group -- ( *.jpg )
• Tagged Information File Format -- ( *.tiff )
• Graphics Interchange File Format -- ( *.gif ) - animated format
• SSuite Presentation File Format -- ( *.ssp )

So start saving trees, electricity, and money by using our digital document formats.

They can all be found in the following software:

• SSuite Office - Personal Edition
• SSuite Office - Blade Runner
• SSuite Office - WordGraph
• SSuite Office - Excalibur Release
• SSuite Office - Premium HD

Mother Nature will certainly thank you for doing your part to save her. 

Have fun.  

Tech Company To Build Science Ghost Town In New Mexico

New Mexico, home to several of the nation’s premier scientific, nuclear and military institutions, is planning to take part in an unprecedented science project - a 20-square-mile model of a small U.S. city. A Washington, D.C.-based technology company announced plans Tuesday to build the state’s newest ghost town to test everything from renewable energy innovations to intelligent traffic systems, next-generation wireless networks and smart-grid cyber security systems.

Although no one will live there, the replica city will be modeled after a typical American town of 35,000 people, complete with highways, houses and commercial buildings, old and new.

Costly SSDs Worth It, Users Say

When you're paying $30,000 for a PCIe flash card, it had better demonstrate an ROI. While users are still struggling with why solid state storage cost so much, when they target the technology at the right applications, the results can be staggering.

For example, when Dan Marbes, a systems engineer at Associated Bank, deployed just three SSDs for his B.I. applications, the flash storage outperformed 60 15,000rpm Fibre Channel disk drives in small-block reads. But when Marbes used the SSDs for large-block random reads and any writes, 'the 60 15K spindles crushed the SSDs,' he said.

Why Patent Reform Won't Happen Anytime Soon

If people had understood how patents would be granted when most of today's ideas were invented, and had taken out patents, the industry would be at a complete standstill today.' So said Bill Gates in the 1980s. Now, of course, Microsoft is one of the biggest software patent holders around. And that's the key to the problem of software patent reform: the companies that had the most incentive to face the problem found it cheaper and easier to buy up patent war chests instead. And Congress won't act unless big stakeholders (read: big companies) make a stink.

Sony Hires Former Homeland Security Infrastructure Protection Chief

Months after the great PlayStation network attack things are starting to get back to normal around the gaming world. While it doesn't seem like another hack attempt will take place anytime soon Sony is fearful that it could happen again. Sony announced today via their corporate news feed that they have hired Philip R. Reitinger, a former Homeland security official, as Chief Information Security Officer at Sony.

Russia Wanted To Shut YouTube Down For Piracy

A recently leaked confidential diplomatic cable reveals Russia's growing interest in shutting down copyright infringing websites. 'Russia's Deputy Minister of Economic Development said that not only do U.S. sites continue to offer pirated Russian movies, but that YouTube and Google should be shut down for not respecting local laws'.

The U.S. government has previously attacked torrent and link sites hosted elsewhere in the world, extradited foreign nationals for piracy and provided training on how to shut down piracy websites. 'Voskresenskiy went on to state that, in his opinion, no country in the world is prepared to fight Internet piracy. He argued that all existing laws, including laws in the U.S., are antiquated and do not address new technological trends.

As an example, [Voskresenskiy] stated that YouTube and Google (as YouTube's owner) should be shut down because they do not conform to current Russian IPR laws. He admitted that this was not feasible, but continued to emphasize that these entities need to follow local laws, even if the laws are outdated,' the cable adds.

Rent Your Own Botnet

New research shows that the TDSS/TDL-4 botnet, widely considered one of the largest and most sophisticated, can be rented via a Web storefront available to all comers. Researchers from Kaspersky found that the latest version of TDSS installs a file that sets the machine up as a proxy for anonymous browsing, and then phones home to awmproxy.net, which rents the proxies for rates from $3 per day to $300 a week. The curators of this service even created a Firefox add-on to help customers. 'Interestingly, AWMproxy says it accepts payment via PayPal, MasterCard, and Visa.

Wicked Lasers Introduces Handheld One-Watt Green Laser

Wicked Lasers, famous for last year's 1000mW handheld blue laser, and infamous for its handling of six-month-long backorders, is now selling a green version. There are three power levels, each priced at $1/mW (300mW, 500mW, 1000mW).

Since the eye is far more sensitive to green than to blue, this is pretty much the state of the art in putting-dots-on-stuff technology. Wicked Lasers sent out an email promising to handle backorders much better this time."

There is currently no disclaimer that this is not a lightsaber on their site, so we can only assume that this version is.

World Population Expected To Hit 7 Billion In Late October

A new report documents the prodigious rate at which the world's population is growing. It was just 1999 when we reached 6 billion. And now within the next month or two we will have surpassed 7 billion. What does the continued increase in world population mean for humanity and for the the planet?

BMW Working On Laser Headlamps

LED headlamps are only just trickling onto the market - mostly on high-end cars - but now it seems a certain German automaker has plans for laser headlamps. 'Laser light is the next logical step in car light development ... for series production within a few years in the BMW i8 plug-in hybrid,' says BMW. Lasers have the potential to be simultaneously more powerful, more efficient, and smaller than other headlamp types. Before you get too excited, though: the output of laser headlights will be modulated for safety.

Obama Admin Wants Hackers Charged As Mobsters

The Obama administration wants hackers to be prosecuted under the same laws used to target organized crime syndicates, according to two officials appearing in front of the Senate Judiciary Committee on Wednesday morning.

Associate Deputy Attorney General James Baker and Secret Service Deputy Special Agent in Charge Pablo Martinez said the maximum sentences for cyber crimes have failed to keep pace with the severity of the threats. Martinez said hackers are often members of sophisticated criminal networks.

"Secret Service investigations have shown that complex and sophisticated electronic crimes are rarely perpetrated by a lone individual," Martinez said.

HTC Sues Apple Using Google Patents

Apparently to stay viable in the IP wars, HTC secured some patents from Google (who purchased them originally from Palm Inc., Motorola Inc. and Openwave Systems Inc.) on the 1st of September. The patents were used to fire a new salvo of shots across Apple's bow today, September 7th. HTC filed infringement claims against Apple in federal court in Delaware, suing based on four of those patents that originally were issued to Motorola. Additional complaints were filed with the US ITC based on the other patents.

Scientists Create New Type of Superconductor Wires

Scientists in Israel have used technology created at a US-funded national research lab to created a new kind of wire spun from sapphire crystals, that is a vastly better conductor than traditional copper wires. The research could have profound implications for renewable energy since much of the generation is in remote locations. It could help bring more electricity from renewable sources to cities.

Find My IPhone Used To Locate Plane Crash In Chile

Late last week, a military transport aircraft with 17 people on -board went missing near Robinson Crusoe, Chile. The relatives of one of the crash victims logged into Find My iPhone and were able to isolate the coordinates of the last known whereabouts of the plane before it crashed. From the article: 'Rear Admiral Francisco García-Huidobro explained the founding that garnered a lot of attention today, and it has to do with an iPhone belonging to one of the victims of the aereal accident in Juan Fernández, in a beach in Bahía Carvajal.

The phone signal could be captured thanks to the GPS system, however, water ended up shutting it down. Nevertheless, García Huidoro explained that they managed to plot the last position from where the signal was last generated, which will be made public tomorrow.

Single-Chip DIMM To Replace Big Sticks of RAM

Invensas, a subsidiary of chip microelectronics company Tessera, has discovered a way of stacking multiple DRAM chips on top of each other. This process, called multi-die face-down packaging, or xFD for short, massively increases memory density, reduces power consumption, and should pave the way for faster and more efficient memory chips. Multi-die face-down packaging is exactly what it sounds like, with memory dies stacked on top of each other like roofing tiles.

Much like a normal desktop DIMMs and laptop SO-DIMMs, each of the stacked dies is wired to each other in series - but in this case, the connections are much shorter, as they only have to run a few micrometers to the chip below it. This is where all of the power and speed enhancements come from: shorter interconnects mean less power is needed (and thus less heat is dissipated) and signals propagate faster.

How Killing the Internet Helped Revolutionaries

In a widely circulated American Political Science Association conference paper, Yale scholar Navid Hassanpour argues that shutting down the internet made things difficult for sustaining a centralized revolutionary movement in Egypt. But, he adds, the shutdown actually encouraged the development of smaller revolutionary uprisings at local levels where the face-to-face interaction between activists was more intense and the mobilization of inactive lukewarm dissidents was easier.

In other words, closing down the internet made the revolution more diffuse and more difficult for the authorities to contain.

As long as we're on the subject, reader lecheiron points out news of research into predicting revolutions by feeding millions of news articles into a supercomputer and using word analysis to chart national sentiment. So far it's pretty good at predicting things that have already happened, but we should probably wait until it finds something new before contacting Hari Seldon.

Defunct Satellite To Fall From the Sky

The huge Upper Atmosphere Research Satellite (UARS) is expected to re-enter Earth's atmosphere in an uncontrolled fall in late September or early October. Much of the spacecraft is expected to burn up during re-entry, but some pieces are expected to make it intact to the ground, NASA officials said. The U.S. space agency will be taking measures to inform the public about the pieces of the spacecraft that are expected to survive re-entry.

According to a NASA press conference today, you have a 1-in-21 trillion chance of being hit by falling debris. Who's feeling lucky?

New Legislation Would Punish Mishandling of Private Data

A bill introduced Thursday by Senator Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) would regulate the handling of consumers' private data and punish companies who screw it up (e.g. Sony). These rules would require companies to follow specific storage guidelines and ensure that personal information is stored and protected correctly.

Companies that do not adhere to these security guidelines could be subject to stiff fines.' Blumenthal told the NY Times, 'The goal of the proposed law is essentially to hold accountable the companies and entities that store personal information and personal data and to deter data breaches. While looking at past data breaches, I've been struck with how many are preventable.

Algorithmic Trading Rapidly Replacing Need For Humans

Algorithmic trading, also known as high frequency trading (HFT), is rapidly replacing human decision making, according to a UK government panel which warned that the right regulations need to be introduced to protect stock markets. Around one third of share trading in the UK is conducted by computers fulfilling commands based on complex algorithms, said the Foresight panel in a working paper published yesterday.

Nevertheless, this proportion is significantly lower than in the U.S., where three-quarters of equity dealing is computer generated. The Foresight panel, led by Dame Clara Furse, the former chief executive of the London Stock Exchange, argued that there are both benefits and severe risks to algorithmic trading. There was 'no direct evidence' that the computer trading in itself increased volatility, it said, but in specific circumstances it was possible for a series of events with 'undesired interactions and outcomes' to occur and cause massive damage.

Mystery of Vanishing iTunes Credit Shows No Sign of Fading

Back on November 28, 2010, somebody started a thread on Apple's support forums about someone spending more than $50 of his iTunes Store credit on iPhone apps. That discussion thread has since swelled to more than 45 pages, with nearly 700 posts. 'Someone - or some group of someones - seems to be able to spend iTunes gift card credit without permission, buying apps that users don't want.

And whoever's doing the hacking seems pretty good at it: Hundreds of users have seen their iTunes credit stolen, and the hack shows no signs of slowing, ten months after it was first reported.' Apple has refunded certain accounts, but not in all cases. Apple suggests that the hack stems from weak, easily guessable passwords, and/or phishing attacks where customers are fooled into entering their passwords into hackers' forms.

5 Years In Prison For Selling Fake Cisco Gear

A Virginia woman was sentenced Friday to five years in prison for leading a 'sophisticated' conspiracy to import and sell counterfeit Cisco Systems networking equipment. In addition to the prison time, Judge Gerald Bruce Lee of U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia also ordered Chun-Yu Zhao, 43, of Chantilly, Virginia, to pay US$2.7 million restitution and a $17,500 fine.

Intel, Google Team To Optimize Android For Smartphones

Intel and Google announced on Tuesday that they would partner to optimize future versions of the Android OS for smartphones and other mobile devices using Intel chips. Intel CEO Paul Otellini demonstrated a smartphone with the upcoming Medfield chip running on Android during a keynote at the Intel Developer Conference being held in San Francisco.

However, Otellini didn't mention the version of Android running on the smartphone. Intel wants to make x86 the architecture of choice for smartphones, and porting Android will provide a larger opportunity to the chip maker in the smartphone market, Otellini said.

Intel Mandates Universities Receiving Funds Not File Patents

Since January, four U.S. universities have agreed to host Intel Science and Technology Centers that will be funded at the rate of $2.5 million a year for five years. But wait, there's a catch: the company has made it a condition that in order to receive the millions, your university must open source any resulting software and inventions that come out of this research funding.

Inferno OS Running On Android Phones

Employees at Sandia National Labs have put the Inferno OS on Android-based phones, replacing the default Java UI. Applications are written in Limbo rather than Java. The full announcement is at the bitbucket repository, and a short video demonstrates some of its capabilities.

SpyEye Botnet Nets Fraudster $3.2M In Six Months

The SpyEye Trojan has a well-earned place of respect in the cyber-underground as an adaptable and effective piece of malware. Those same traits have also made it a bane for countless victims and the security community, and new research provides yet another reminder of why. According to security researchers, a hacker in his early 20s known by the alias 'Soldier' led a bank fraud operation that netted $3.2 million in six months.

Powered by the SpyEye crimeware kit and aided by money mules and an accomplice believed to reside in Hollywood, Soldier commanded a botnet of more than 25,000 computers between April 19 and June 29 that compromised bank accounts and made off with the profits. Most of the victims were in the U.S., but there were a handful of victims in 90 other countries as well. Among the affected organizations were banks, educational facilities and government agencies.

NRO Declassifies KH-9 Satellite

The Big Bird, formally known as the KH-9 Hexagon satellite, was first placed in orbit in 1971 after its development by the National Reconnaissance Office (NRO), making it one of the most advanced spy satellites of its time. It is believed to have produced images of the Soviet Union, China and other countries that held strategic importance for the U.S. government through the Cold War. But it was never seen outside the intelligence community.

This weekend, it will be available for all in the Washington area to see, but only for one day. To celebrate its 50-year anniversary, the NRO, along with the Smithsonian Institution, is for the first time publicly displaying the newly declassified relic at the Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center in Chantilly, Va. In doing so, the intelligence agency is prompting more than just a little bit of excitement among reconnaissance experts and technical hobbyists.

Inspector General Investigated For Muzzling Inconvenient Science

Federal biologist Charles Monnett was placed on administrative leave July 18 pending final results of an inspector general's investigation into integrity issues. The investigation originally focused on a 2006 note published in Polar Biology based on a unique observation of four dead polar bears. The investigators acknowledged that they had no formal training in science, but later demonstrated a complete misunderstanding of science, the peer review process, and at times basic math with questions like 'seven of what number is 11 percent?

They also expressed concern over the fact that the note was reviewed by Monnett's wife prior to submitting the paper for peer review. When nothing turned up, the investigation turned towards Monnett's role in administering research contracts. But documents released by PEER, a watchdog and whistle-blower protection group, suggest even that investigation is off base. Monnett has since been reinstated, albeit in a different position. Now the IG handling of this case is itself under investigation following a PEER complaint that the IG is violating new Interior Department scientific integrity rules.

Pledge Asks Chinese Hackers To Reject Cybertheft

Two prominent Chinese hackers have released a convention calling for the rejection of cybertheft and are asking their peers to support it, as China is increasingly seen as the source of international hacking attacks. The two hackers, Gong Wei and Wan Tao, released their 'Hackers' Self-Discipline Convention' to the Chinese media and posted its contents on the Internet.

The hackers declined to offer further comment, but the document presents itself as a moral code that outlines appropriate hacking activities. The document states that hackers will not obtain money through stealing from the public. Hacking groups will also not spread knowledge or tools that are meant to take income. 'The public's privacy, especially that of children and minors, will be protected,' the document says. Any activity to buy or sell people's private information is considered inappropriate.

Gamers Piece Together Retrovirus Enzyme Structure

Gamers have solved the structure of a retrovirus enzyme whose configuration had stumped scientists for more than a decade. The gamers achieved their discovery by playing Foldit, an online game that allows players to collaborate and compete in predicting the structure of protein molecules. After scientists repeatedly failed to piece together the structure of a protein-cutting enzyme from an AIDS-like virus, they called in the Foldit players. The scientists challenged the gamers to produce an accurate model of the enzyme. They did it in only three weeks.

Siemens To Exit Nuclear Power Business

German industrial giant Siemens is turning the page on nuclear energy, the group's CEO Peter Löscher told the weekly Der Spiegel in an interview published on Sunday. The group's decision to withdraw from the nuclear industry reflects 'the very clear stance taken by Germany's society and political leadership.' Along abandoning nuclear power, Germany wants to boost the share of the country's power needs generated by renewable energies to 35% by 2020 from 17% at present.

Seagulls Spreading Resistant Bacteria On Beaches

Dr. Patrice Nordmann has disclosed the results of a small study that looked for resistant bacteria in seagull poop landing on Miami Beach in Florida. During April 2010, they collected 52 stool samples and found within them 83 isolates of gut bacteria such as E. coli. Wired's Maryn McKenna writes, 'Seven of the E. coli carried genes that direct production of CTX-M enzymes, a troublesome resistance factor that protects bacteria from the very broad category of drugs called extended-spectrum beta-lactams and that has recently spread worldwide.

In addition, 14 of the E. coli were also carrying the gene for the CMY-2 enzyme, which confers the same ESBL resistance on Salmonella. Nine of the isolates were multi-drug resistant.' This has led some scientists to the conclusion that this is one avenue these bacterias are taking in human infections worldwide. The resistance factors identified in the seagull feces match ones that cause highly resistant infections in humans, and correlates with data collected on beaches in Portugal, Sweden, and France.

Thin Film Transforms Any Surface Into Touchscreen

Open up a cardboard tube, roll out a transparent film just millimeters thick, apply it on a flat object and *tada* you've got an interactive touch surface. Cambridge-based Visual Planet just launched its new massive-sized multitouch thin film drivers so you can create touchscreens from 30 to 167 inches in size! Their touchfoil is a transparent nanowire embedded polymer capable of sensing the touch of a finger, or even pressure from wind and translating that to a computer interface. It works on glass, wood, and other non-conductive surfaces.

The Saga of the Virtual Wallet

Fourteen years ago, Microsoft Wallet promised 'secure, convenient purchasing on the Internet.' That was then, this is now. TechCrunch reports that the first commercial for Google Wallet has been unveiled, and it stars Seinfeld's George Costanza and his overstuffed, exploding wallet. At launch (TBD), Google Wallet will allow you to use a Google Nexus S 4G (from Sprint) to tap-to-pay using Citi MasterCard cards or the Google Prepaid Card.

Not to be outdone, PayPal offered a video sneak peek of its upcoming virtual wallet offering, which is promised to be more than 'just shoving a credit card on a phone.' In May, PayPal sued Google over electronic wallet technology, alleging that the search giant hired two of its former execs to obtain trade secrets for a mobile transactions project.

The (Big) Problem With RIM

Research in Motion, by all accounts, had a terrible week. But things might get even worse. The Canadian technology company posted dismal quarterly earnings numbers, missing revenue and sales targets, while margins continued to shrink. Co-CEO Mike Lazaridis conceded the PlayBook had been thwarted by a lack of apps and content, not necessarily by a weak platform. Like Apple with its iOS, and Microsoft with Windows, creating a successful platform will be dependent on the eco-system it supports, but RIM hasn't shown ability to foster that.

Speculation has begun as to whether or not RIM will wind up having a PlayBook firesale in the same vein as the TouchPad.

Microsoft Taking Apple's Walled Garden Approach For Metro Apps

Microsoft will be taking a walled-garden approach to Metro apps, only allowing enterprises and developers to side-load Metro apps in Windows 8, while everyone else will have to go through the Windows Store.

Note that this only applies to Metro apps; the model for traditional desktop apps won't change.

MS: 'Is Android Really Free Software?'

Google has complied with the requirements of the GNU General Public License for Linux, but the Apache license on the rest of Android does not require source release. Google has said it will never publish the source code of Android 3.0 (aside from Linux), even though executables have been released to the public. Android 3.1 source code is also being withheld.

Thus, Android 3, apart from Linux, is non-free software, pure and simple. ... Android is a major step towards an ethical, user-controlled, free-software portable phone, but there is a long way to go. Hackers are working on Replicant, but it's a big job to support a new phone model, and there remains the problem of the firmware.

Even though the Android phones of today are considerably less bad than Apple or Windows smartphones, they cannot be said to respect your freedom."

Gang Used 3D Printers To Make ATM Skimmers

An ATM skimmer gang stole more than $400,000 using skimming devices built with the help of high-tech 3D printers, federal prosecutors say. ... Apparently, word is spreading in the cybercrime underworld that 3D printers produce flawless skimmer devices with exacting precision. Last year, i-materialize blogged about receiving a client's order for building a card skimmer. In June, a federal court indicted four men from South Texas whom authorities say had reinvested the profits from skimming scams to purchase a 3D printer.

US Military Moving Closer To Automated Killing

A recent article in the Washington Post, A future for drones: Automated killing, describes the steady progress the military is making toward fully autonomous networks of targeting and killing machines. Does this (concern|scare|disgust) any of you? Quoting: 'After 20 minutes, one of the aircraft, carrying a computer that processed images from an onboard camera, zeroed in on the tarp and contacted the second plane, which flew nearby and used its own sensors to examine the colorful object.

Then one of the aircraft signaled to an unmanned car on the ground so it could take a final, close-up look. Target confirmed. This successful exercise in autonomous robotics could presage the future of the American way of war: a day when drones hunt, identify and kill the enemy based on calculations made by software, not decisions made by humans.

Imagine aerial "Terminators," minus beefcake and time travel.' The article goes on to discuss the dangers of surrendering to fully autonomous killing, concerns about the potential for 'atrocities,' and the nature of what we call 'common sense.

Feds Call Full-Tilt Poker a 'Global Ponzi Scheme'

Popular (and heavily advertised) poker website Full-Tilt Poker was sued today by the US government, following an investigation that revealed it to be a massive Ponzi Scheme. The principals in the company set up a complicated system to direct funds from subscribers' poker accounts into their own bank accounts. This was in contravention of their own claim that users' money was untouched. Players' accounts amounted to $390 million, but the company only has $60 million in the bank, having over time distributed $440 million to its own directors and executives.

Casio Paying Microsoft To Use Linux

Will Tux be a rainmaker for Microsoft? GeekWire reports that Microsoft has struck a deal with Casio to provide Casio's customers with coverage for their use of Linux in Casio devices. The agreement, which calls for Microsoft to receive payments of an undisclosed amount, is an implicit acknowledgment of Microsoft's longstanding claims that Linux violates its patents, an assertion that members of the open-source community have long disputed.

What You Eat Affects Your Genes

Tiny bits of genetic material, called microRNAs, can make their way from the food you eat into your blood stream, and change how your genes are expressed, according to a new study. A team of Chinese scientists found tiny bits of white rice microRNA floating around in people's blood after a meal.

When they looked at what was happening on a cellular level, they found that the microRNAs were changing gene expression, decreasing levels of a receptor that filters out LDL (bad) cholesterol. When the scientists gave mice both rice and a chemical to block the microRNAs, their levels of that receptor returned to normal---showing that the microRNAs weren't just swimming through the blood stream, but acting on genes in the animals' cells.

Microsoft Dumps Partner For Fake Support Call Scam

Microsoft has broken its relationship with one of its Gold Partners, after it discovered that the partner was involved in a scam involving bogus tech support calls. India-based Comantra is said to have cold-called computer users in the UK, Australia, Canada and elsewhere, claiming to offer assistance in cleaning up virus infections. The calls used scare tactics to talk users into opening the Event Viewer on Windows, where a seemingly dangerous list of errors would be seen.

This 'evidence' was used to trick innocent users into believing they had a malware infection, and for Comantra to gain the users' confidence. Duped users would then give permission for the support company to have remote access to their PC, and hand over their credit card details for a 'fix.' Security firm Sophos says that internet users have been complaining about Comantra's activities for over 18 months, and it has taken a long time for Microsoft to take action. Comantra's website still retains the Gold Certified Partner logo, although their details have been removed from Microsoft's database of approved partners.

Apple Too Big For the Dow Jones Industrial Average

Apple is clearly the hottest tech stock on the market right now and the company is clearly at the vanguard of technological innovation. Consequently, many have wondered why Apple isn't part of the Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJIA). As it turns out, Apple's astronomical share price effectively prohibits the company from joining the DJIA as it would disproportionately influence the index.

The Looming Video Codec Fight

With both Apple and Microsoft promoting HTML5 standards, you'd think that there would be joy in software freedom land. But instead there's another fight brewing. 'While it is true that HTML5 video is a step in the right direction, we also have to take into consideration the underlying codecs used to deliver the video content,' says blogger Brian Proffitt.

The problem, says Proffitt, is that Microsoft and Apple's browsers will be supporting only the proprietary H.264 video codec by default. But Google supports only the WebM (VP8) and Ogg Theora codecs. 'So, basically, if Ogg Theora content starts making a dent in Apple and Microsoft's bottom line, or that of the MPEG LA's, then expect to see a lawsuit or two headed Google's way after 2015,' concludes Proffitt.

NASA Rolls Out Space Exploration Roadmap

NASA and the space agencies of a variety of countries, including members of the European Union, Canada, Japan, Russia, India, the Ukraine, and South Korea, have rolled out the latest version of a space exploration roadmap (PDF). NASA and its partners have created two scenarios, called 'Asteroid Next' and 'Moon Next.'

This represents the continuing argument over which destination astronaut explorers should go to first. Should it be an Earth approaching asteroid, as President Obama insists? Or should it be the moon, as many people in Congress, NASA, and NASA's partner agencies suggest? In any event, all roads lead to Mars in the current plan. Both visits to an asteroid and to the moon are considered practice runs for what will be needed to go to Mars.

World's Oldest Running Car Up For Sale

A very special car will cross the auctioneers block next month - it's the world's oldest running motor car, a historic 1884 de Dion Bouton et Trepardoux Dos-a-Dos Steam Runabout. The second prototype built by Count de Dion, the car participated in the world's first automobile race, which only attracted one competitor. It completed the course, and although it's arguably not possible to have a race without two competitors, this is the car that 'won' that race, achieving a claimed top speed of 37 mph on the straights.

US Gov't Pays IT Contractors Twice As Much As Its Own IT Workers

The U.S. federal government pays outside IT contractors nearly twice as much for computer engineering services as it pays its own computer engineers, and 1.5 times more for IT management work, according to a non-profit watchdog group. 'The study points out that IT specifically "is widely outsourced throughout the federal government because of the assumption that IT companies provide vastly superior skills and cost savings.

The Project on Government Oversight says its salary comparisons prove that those cost savings are not being realized. However, the comparisons do not address any cost savings that might be achieved through the skills, processes or systems that private IT services companies might deliver. The POGO researchers say that the federal government itself does not know how much money overall it saves or wastes with its sourcing decisions and has no system for doing so.

The Dead Sea Scrolls and Information Paranoia

Today Google and the Israel Museum have made the famed Dead Sea Scrolls available for online viewing. This is a great step forward for scholars and those curious about the oldest known copies of many biblical texts. But why has it taken nearly 50 years for the contents of this material to be made fully public? Blogger Kevin Fogarty thinks the saga of the scrolls since their discovery - along with the history of religious texts in general - is a good example of how people seek to gain power by hoarding information. In that regard, it holds some important lessons for the many modern debates about information security and control.

Senator Goes After 'Brazen' OnStar Privacy Shift

U.S. Senator Charles Schumer (D-NY) sent a letter to the Federal Trade Commission to get the agency to investigate recent changes navigation and emergency services company OnStar made to its privacy practices. Schumer said, 'By tracking drivers even after they’ve cancelled their service, OnStar is attempting one of the most brazen invasions of privacy in recent memory. I urge OnStar to abandon this policy and for FTC to immediately launch a full investigation to determine whether the company’s actions constitute an unfair trade practice.

Robot Workforce Threatens Education-Intensive Jobs

For years, robots have been replacing workers in factories as technology has come to grips with high-volume, unskilled labor. An article in Slate makes the case that the robot workforce is poised to move into fields that require significantly more training and education. From the article: 'In the next decade, we'll see machines barge into areas of the economy that we'd never suspected possible - they'll be diagnosing your diseases, dispensing your medicine, handling your lawsuits, making fundamental scientific discoveries, and even writing stories just like this one.

Economic theory holds that as these industries are revolutionized by technology, prices for their services will decline, and society as a whole will benefit. As I conducted my research, I found this argument convincing - robotic lawyers, for instance, will bring cheap legal services to the masses who can't afford lawyers today.

But there's a dark side, too: Imagine you've spent three years in law school, two more years clerking, and the last decade trying to make partner - and now here comes a machine that can do much of your $400-per-hour job faster, and for a fraction of the cost. What do you do now?

New Supercomputer Boosts Aussie SKA Telescope

Australian academic supercomputing consortium iVEC has acquired another major supercomputer, Fornax, to be based at the University of Western Australia, to further the country's ability to conduct data-intensive research. The SGI GPU-based system, also known as iVEC@UWA, is made up of 96 nodes, each containing two 6-core Intel Xeon X5650 CPUs, an NVIDIA Tesla C2050 GPU, 48 GB RAM and 7TB of storage.

All up, the system has 1152 cores, 96 GPUs and an additional dedicated 500TB fabric attached storage-based global filesystem. The system is a boost to the Australian-NZ bid to host the Square Kilometer Array radio telescope.

Global Internet Governance Fight Looms

The global fight among governments over control of the Internet is heating up amid a flurry of documents, the opening of the United Nations' General Assembly (GA) and next week's Internet Governance Forum (IGF). Will the change in Internet governance result in states like China and Russia exerting more control over what is allowed on the Internet?

The United States has so far comprehensively outmaneuvered attempts by other governments to seize control of the Internet, helped by the fact that it holds the keys and represents the status quo. But how long will it continue to be able to do so?

Man Charged in Model Airplane Plot To Bomb Pentagon

A 26-year-old Massachusetts man with a physics degree was arrested and charged Wednesday with plotting an attack on the Pentagon and the U.S. Capitol with remote-controlled model aircraft, authorities said. Rezwan Ferdaus, a U.S. citizen from Ashland, Massachusetts, planned to use model aircraft filled with C-4 plastic explosives.

As a result of an undercover FBI investigation, Ferdaus, who has a physics degree from Northeastern University in Boston, was charged with attempting to provide material support and resources to al Qaeda for attacks on U.S. soldiers overseas. His federal public defender couldn't be reached immediately for comment.

FBI Leaves Cleared Names On Terrorist Watch List

According to a recent FOIA request the FBI doesn't always take names off of the Terrorist Watch List even when those people have been cleared of charges or had charges dropped. 'If an individual is acquitted or charges are dismissed for a crime related to terrorism, the individual must still meet the reasonable suspicion standard in order to remain on, or be subsequently nominated to, the terrorist watch list,' the once-classified memorandum says. The New York Times is running a story about it as well saying the data is even used by local police officers to check names during traffic stops.

Canadian Ice Shelves Halve In Six Years

The CBC reports on new research that shows thousand-year-old ice shelves (much different than sea ice) are breaking up and have been reduced by half in a region of Canada over the last six years. 'This summer alone saw the Serson ice shelf almost completely disappear and the Ward Hunt shelf split in half. The ice loss equals about three billion tonnes, or about 500 times the mass of the Great Pyramid of Giza.

More detailed pictures can be seen at The Conversation, with a quote from Professor Steven Sherwood, Co-Director of the University of NSW's Climate Change Research Centre: 'The real significance of this, in my view, is that this ice has reportedly been there for thousands of years. The same is true of glaciers that have recently disappeared in the Andes. These observations should dispel in one fell swoop any notion that recent global warming could be natural.