Into Tech

NASA is admitting that laptop brought to the international space station in July apparently contained a virus designed to swipe user passwords, though they’re not sure how it happened. The computers don’t control anything mission critical, but are used by astronauts to send email and to track their nutritional programs. The computers were never connected to …

For the last few years, various connectivity providers sold “unlimited” data plans when the reality was the plans weren’t unlimited at all. Many providers are now changing the plans and instituting more clear caps, but it still seems a bit ridiculous to have marketed unlimited data plans and then pulled the rug out from under those who bought exactly …

As far as space monsters go it is less menacing than Daleks or Klingons, but an unwanted intruder has made its way aboard the international space station. Gammima.AG, a malicious password-swiping computer virus, has broken new frontiers, by infecting two laptops on the ISS orbiting 215 miles above Earth.The virus was first detected on Earth in August 2007 infecting machines …

Scientists and scholars in Jerusalem have begun a programme to take the first high-resolution digital photographs of the Dead Sea Scrolls so that they can be shown on the internet. The Israel Antiquities Authority ends a pilot project this week which prepares the way for a much larger operation to photograph the 15,000-20,000 fragments that make up …

The PlayStation 2 hit UK shelves roughly the same time as The Mummy and both seem to be living on borrowed time. This version of the disappointing third movie looks good enough, but looks alone don’t make an arcade adventure. Once you get to the fighting, you’ll find it infuriating to perform due to a meandering camera …

A PC for editing AVCI’ve bought a new HD video camera which records in AVCHD. When I looked at the Pinnacle editing software supplied with it, I read that the minimum requirements include an Intel quad core processor running at 2.66GHz. I have consulted PC World, Dell and HP, and none has a home computer running at this speed. What …

Technology is designed for people to use. The only trouble is that computer interfaces on all types of devices from the home to the car can frustrate many users. But most software interfaces have been designed with a one-size-fits-all approach for mass markets.It’s a problem that has dogged computer scientists for more than 25 years. But now, …

Perhaps the greatest tribute paid by the games world to the skill, attention to detail and single-minded focus in Grand Theft Auto is exemplified by the small number of games that blatantly try to rip it off. So one has to applaud Pandemic’s ambition in creating Mercenaries 2, a free-roaming, sandbox-style action-adventure game, which is pretty much …

The number of models of “Liliputer” - low-cost ultraportable PCs running Windows or Linux - has exploded to more than 100 in less than a year, according to Liliputing.com, a site put together by the freelance journalist Brad Linder.Since the introduction of the OLPC XO laptop last year, more than a dozen manufacturers have leapt into …

Why has Dr John Bond, scientific support manager for Northamptonshire Police, been sent evidence by Boulder City Police Department in Colorado? It’s because he’s developing a new forensic technique that no other police force has. Thanks to his expertise, he’s found a partial fingerprint on a 9mm brass cartridge case used in a 14-year-old Boulder City murder. …

It’s the worst of times, it’s the best of times to be writing a game that works just like a really well-known one. The travails of Scrabulous, the Scrabble (® ™ © and all that guff) playalike, have been well-documented: its meteoric rise to fame via the splendid timesink Facebook, the lawsuit by Mattel and Hasbro …

Summer is over and it’s time to deal with all the snaps vegetating in your digital camera or cameraphone. It is a fair bet that despite the weather more photos were taken this summer than in any previous one, as a result of the explosive growth in digital cameras. Hundreds of companies are falling over themselves to …

Robot warsThe problem with our type of cleverness is, of course, that it so often translates into ever more ingenious ways of killing other humans (Swarms of robots join the army, August 21). As it stands, we can only hope that when our robots truly become intelligent, they will not also inherit our innate and very human viciousness.gal.darkervision.com “In …

One wonders quite what point companies now see in trying to make new MP3 players. Isn’t it an experience akin to being some small mollusc digging down into the sand as the tide goes out? Between the dominance of the iPod and the gradual shift of music-playing functions on to phones - where one feels it’s sure …

Ordnance Survey, Britain’s biggest trader in government information, has robustly defended its use of a lobbying firm, Mandate Communications, to communicate with MPs and other politicians.In a letter to the Guardian, Nicole Perry, head of public affairs, says that the organisation engages “with politicians of all parties who care about the services we provide”. “We have a …

“Captcha is the bane of the internet,” says Matt Mullenweg, who runs the massively popular blogging site Wordpress.com. “I can’t figure them out myself half the time!”He is referring to those squiggly, distorted images commonly seen when registering for internet services such as free email accounts or blogging sites. The user has to type the letters …

American football has had fluctuating popularity in the UK but currently the sport is as popular as it has been since the initial television coverage of the mid 80s. So the latest Madden game - this is the 20th-anniversary edition of the official NFL game - should find a decent market over here. And luckily it deserves …

The 463 blog points us to an interview with Mitch Kapor of Lotus and EFF fame, in which he makes the case for a national Chief Technology Officer. The idea seems to be that technology policy in the United States is currently fragmented among a bunch of different positions, and having a designated top technologist in the government …

The Associated Press has been having a hard time keeping up with the times. While there was the highly publicized situation where it threatened some bloggers with its own, highly questionable definition of fair use, a much bigger deal is that it’s increasingly competing with its own member newspapers by doing things like cutting deals …

Want to know when someone is preparing to take away your First Amendment rights? It’s when they claim that they have a proposal that involves “balancing” those rights with other events (sent to us by Eric Goldman). In this case, the proposal comes from a professor from Brigham Young University, Cheryl B. Preston, who’s proposing …