Logging The Cyber World

Tags: anti-missile, futuristic, israeli tank, tank, trophy tank

HAIFA, Israel – On a dusty, wind-swept field overlooking the Mediterranean, a small team of researchers is putting the final touches on what Israel says is a major game changer in tank defense: a miniature anti-missile system that detects incoming projectiles and shoots them down before they reach the armored vehicles.

If successful, the “Trophy” system could radically alter the balance of power if the country goes to war again against Hezbollah guerrillas in neighboring Lebanon or Hamas militants in the Gaza Strip. Its performance could also have much wider implications as American troops and their Western allies battle insurgents in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Read more here.

Tags: billions of stars, cosmos, galaxy, number of stars, stars

Ever try to count all the stars in the sky? Don’t. Scientists recently announced that there may be a billion (that’s with a “b”) more stars out there than they originally thought.

A buzzy article from the Discovery News explains that astronomers “may have underestimated the tally of galaxies in some parts of the universe by as much as 90 percent.”

How could sky watchers have missed so many stars? Apparently, astronomers rely on ultraviolet light signatures to determine the number of stars in the cosmos. But that might not be the most accurate way to go about conducting a census of the universe. “In the case of very distant, old galaxies, the telltale light may not reach Earth as it is blocked by interstellar clouds of dust and gas — and, as a result, these galaxies are missed by the map-makers.” The story inspired a slew of searches on everything from “how many stars in the sky” to “how to count stars.”

More Details at Yahoo Buzz!

Tags: Google, google tv, intel tv, internet tv, sony tv

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) — Google is working with Intel and Sony to develop a new class of internet-enabled televisions and set-top boxes, according to the New York Times.

The effort, known as Google TV, has been under way for several months and is based on Google’s Android software which is currently available in certain smartphones, the Times, citing people with knowledge of the project, reported on Wednesday.

Logitech International is also involved and is developing peripheral devices, such as a tiny keyboard.

“The partners envision technology that will make it as easy for TV users to navigate Web applications, like the Twitter social network and the Picasa photo site, as it is to change the channel,” the Times reports.

Full details at Wired.com

Tags: browser, fastest browser, internet explorer, new internet explorer

Internet Explorer 9 is ‘crazy fast’ according to Microsoft, but the Sunspider JavaScript results published by the company show that the latest browser from Redmond still lags behind many of its rivals.

The Sunspider results have become a familiar metric in how fast browsers are judged to be, and Microsoft’s IE8 was judged harshly for its poor performance.

At the preview event for IE9 at MIX, Microsoft’s Principal Program Lead Jason Weber insisted that the latest version of Internet Explorer would ‘change the way you think’ with its speed.

Read the full article here

Tags: community, facebook, facebook features, location based, twitter, twitter features

Facebook is expected to enable location sharing in its users’ News Feeds, a move that could automatically make the social network the dominant platform for location-based Web services. Twitter already has a geolocation feature that has been spotted in the wild. Meanwhile, social location upstart Foursquare will offer a free analytics tool and dashboard to give business owners information and statistics about visitors to their establishments. Google is also heavily invested in the future of location and social networking.

Facebook is expected to enable location sharing in its users’ News Feeds, a move that could automatically make the social network the dominant platform for location-based Web services.

A March 9 report in the New York Times cited sources saying Facebook would announce the news at its F8 developer conference, slated for April 21 and 22 in San Francisco.

More on eWeek.com

Tags: Browsers, death of ie6, ie6 funeral, ie6 internet explorer, ie6 last days, ie9

Microsoft sent flowers to last night’s IE6 funeral, thanking the browser for “all the good times.”

The nine-year-old IE6 was laid to rest yesterday in Denver, Colorado, after suffering a “workplace injury” at the offices of a certain search giant in Mountain View, California. Mourners unable to attend were asked to send flowers, and Redmond’s Internet Explorer team was among those who did so.

“Thanks for the good times IE6, see you all @ MIX when we show a little piece of IE Heaven,” read the card, a reference to this month’s MIX tradeshow in Las Vegas, where the company is expected to announce the arrival of a new browser, Internet Explorer 9.

More at TheRegisters

Tags: arctic ocean, doomsday, frozen methane, global warming, methane, siberian sea, temperature rising

Doomsday scenario goes something like this: If global temperatures keep rising, some methane hydrates will melt, sending methane gas bubbling up through the ocean and into the atmosphere. Like any good greenhouse gas, the methane will trap heat close to Earth’s surface, causing temperatures to climb even higher. Hotter temperatures will melt more hydrates, and on and on. In other words, methane hydrates could trigger the mother of all feedback loops. The story, says David Archer, a geophysicist at the University of Chicago, “has a great apocalyptic side to it.”

A section of the Arctic Ocean seafloor that holds vast stores of frozen methane is showing signs of instability and widespread venting of the powerful greenhouse gas, according to the findings of an international research team led by University of Alaska Fairbanks scientists Natalia Shakhova and Igor Semiletov.

The research results, published in the March 5 edition of the journal Science, show that the permafrost under the East Siberian Arctic Shelf, long thought to be an impermeable barrier sealing in methane, is perforated and is leaking large amounts of methane into the atmosphere. Release of even a fraction of the methane stored in the shelf could trigger abrupt climate warming.

More info

Tags: captions, deaf, speech recognition, Videos, youtube, youtube features

YouTube is making the tens of millions of videos it hosts more accessible to the deaf and hard of hearing by putting automatic captions on them.

The Google-owned company said this use of speech recognition technology is probably the biggest experiment of its kind online.

Previously captions were only on a small amount of content.

“A core part of YouTube’s DNA is access to content,” said the firm’s product manager Hunter Walk.

More on BBC News

Tags: botnet, botnet masters, mariposa network, ring network, virus infected computers

SAN FRANCISCO – Authorities have smashed one of the world’s biggest networks of virus-infected computers, a data vacuum that stole credit cards and online banking credentials from as many as 12.7 million poisoned PCs.

The “botnet” of infected computers included PCs inside more than half of the Fortune 1,000 companies and more than 40 major banks, according to investigators.

Spanish investigators, working with private computer-security firms, have arrested the three alleged ringleaders of the so-called Mariposa botnet, which appeared in December 2008 and grew into one of the biggest weapons of cybercrime. More arrests are expected soon in other countries.

Spanish authorities have planned a news conference for Wednesday in Madrid.

Read more at Yahoo News

Tags: Google, google new tools, photo editing, picnik, search giant

Google is adding yet another online service to its growing portfolio of Web-based tools. The search giant today announced that it has bought Picnik, a photo utility that lets users edit digital photos in a Web browser. Picnik launched in 2005 and has 20 employees. Terms of the deal were not announced.

Google’s Intentions
What plans does Google have for Picnik? It won’t say just yet.
“We’re not announcing any significant changes to Picnik today, though we’ll be working hard on integration and new features. As well, we’d like to continue supporting all existing Picnik partners so that users will continue to be able to add their photos from other photo-sharing sites, make edits in the cloud and then save and share to all relevant networks,” says Google product management director Brian Axe in a blog post.

More on PC World