December 28, 2012

Senate Renews Warrantless Eavesdropping Act

New submitter electron sponge writes “On Friday morning, the Senate renewed the FISA Amendments Act (PDF), which allows for warrantless electronic eavesdropping, for an additional five years. The act, which was originally passed by Congress in 2008, allows law enforcement agencies to access private communications as long as one participant in the communications could reasonably be believed to be outside the United States. This law has been the subject of a federal lawsuit, and was argued before the Supreme Court recently. ‘The legislation does not require the government to identify the target or facility to be monitored. It can begin surveillance a week before making the request, and the surveillance can continue during the appeals process if, in a rare case, the secret FISA court rejects the surveillance application. The court’s rulings are not public.'” The EFF points out that the Senate was finally forced to debate the bill, but the proposed amendments that would have improved it were rejected. Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Senate Renews Warrantless Eavesdropping Act

Pirate Radio Station In Florida Jams Automotive Electronics

New submitter titanium93 writes “For months, dozens of people could not use their keyless entry systems to unlock or start their cars when parked in the vicinity of the eight-story Regents bank building in Hollywood, FL. Once the cars were towed to the dealership for repair, the problem went away. The problem resolved itself when police found equipment on the bank’s roof that was broadcasting a bootleg radio station. A detective and an FCC agent found the equipment hidden underneath an air conditioning chiller. The man who set up the station has not been found, but he faces felony charges and fines of at least $10,000 if he is caught. The radio station was broadcasting Caribbean music around the clock on 104.7 FM.” Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Pirate Radio Station In Florida Jams Automotive Electronics

Lady Finds Chinese Worker’s Plea For Help Inside Product Bought At K-Mart

A clever Chinese worker smuggled the note above into a Halloween decoration which was later bought at a K-Mart store in Oregon, and the woman who discovered the note felt compelled to share it with the world. Whether this note is a fake or not is still being debated, but Sophie Richardson from the Human Rights Watch claims: We’re in no position to confirm the veracity or origin of this…. I think it is fair to say the conditions described in the letter certainly conform to what we know about conditions in…labor camps…. If this thing is the real deal, that’s somebody saying, “Please help me, please know about me, please react.” That’s our job. Link –via 22Words

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Lady Finds Chinese Worker’s Plea For Help Inside Product Bought At K-Mart

The long slow death of the landline

The CDC reports that more than one third of American homes are now landline-free, with six in ten adults aged under 30 living in households with only wireless phones. In a study carried out as part of the National Health Interview Survey, 35.8 percent of all respondents reported having only cellular telephones. A further 15.9 percent reported that while they had landlines, they received all or almost all their calls on their mobiles. While 34 percent of all adults now live in households with only cellular phones, the number jumps to 40.6 percent when limited to households with children. Fifty-eight percent of renters and 76 percent of adults living with roommates reported having only cellphones. The growth is slowing, though, with the 1.8 percent six-month increase in landline-less homes being the lowest jump since 2008. Even the elderly are abandoning their landlines, albeit slowly: for the first time, more than 1 in 10 of those aged 65 or more reported living mobile-only. Early Release of Estimates From the National Health Interview Survey, January–June 2012 [PDF link]

Magnetically lifted graphite moves by laser, may lead to light-based maglev vehicles (video)

Magnetic levitation is central to the fastest trains we know today, but it’s that dependence on electromagnets and rails that limits how and where it’s used for transportation. Aoyama Gakuin University has a unique alternative: changing the material properties themselves. By floating graphite over a bed of circular magnets, taking advantage of its tendency to generate an opposing magnetic field, researchers can move the graphite just by blasting its edge with a laser. The heat skews the magnetic behavior of that area enough to unbalance the graphite, either in a specific direction or a spin. The research team believes it could lead to maglev transportation or even energy converting turbines that are steered solely by light, with no contact or outside guides: maglev vehicle pilots could have much more control over where they go. Getting to that point will require a much larger scale, but successful development could give technology a very literal lift. Continue reading Magnetically lifted graphite moves by laser, may lead to light-based maglev vehicles (video) Filed under: Transportation , Science , Alt Comments Via: Phys.org Source: JACS

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Magnetically lifted graphite moves by laser, may lead to light-based maglev vehicles (video)

Bluestacks for Mac hits beta, injects a little Google in your Apple

If you’re one of those folks that like to bridge the divide — rocking an Android handset, but rely on a Mac for heavy lifting — we’ve got some good news. Bluestacks , the emulator that lets you run Android apps on your desktop has hit beta on OS X. The tool launched in beta form on Windows in March and an alpha version for Mac landed in June. Now there should be a little more parity between the major desktop ecosystems when it comes to getting your Flipboard and Bad Piggies on. To download it for yourself hit up the source link. Filed under: Software , Apple , Google Comments Via: Android Central Source: Bluestacks

Ken May

Day: December 28, 2012