Google sank a cool $168 million into a California solar farm—their latest move in the world of energy. How will this pair with their power company? Will we welcome them someday as our new power overlords? [Fast Company] More

South Korean police say they’ve arrested a farmer for allegedly hiding about $10 million in cash in a garlic field. Police say his relatives made the money by running an illegal Internet gambling site.

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Police find $10 million buried in SKorean field

It took Sony just two months to update its TRIMASTER series of (pretty expensive) OLED monitors, and the two new professional displays the company announced [JP] today (a 25-inch model for $7,400 and a 17-incher for $4,900) are more affordable than the first ones (which went for $16,000 and $29,000 respectively).

Here are the main specs:

• full HD resolution, “Super Top Emission” OLED screen with Sony’s 10-bit panel driver
• interfaces: 2x 3G-SDI, HDMI, composite, audio, Ethernet
• aluminum body
• 89 degrees viewing angle
• a 1W mono speaker

This is the smaller model, the PVM-1741 (the 25-incher, the PVM-2541 is picture above):

Mainly targeting TV, advertising and movie production companies, Sony plans to roll out both models in the second half of this year.

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Sony’s Outs Two New OLED Monitors

France’s new data retention law requires online service providers to retain databases of their users’ addresses, real names and passwords, and to supply these to police on demand. Leaving aside the risk of retaining all this personal information (identity thieves, stalkers, etc — that which isn’t stored can’t be stolen and leaked), there’s the risk of requiring providers to store plaintext unhashed passwords, as Bruce Schneier points out.

Well-designed systems don’t store passwords; rather, they take the password you supply and run it through a cryptographic hashing algorithm that turns it into another string (in theory, this string can’t be turned back into the password). When you re-visit the website and supply your password, it is run through the algorithm again, and then the result is compared to the stored version. That way, no one — not even the provider — knows your password (except you). Again, that which isn’t stored can’t be leaked. Requiring French online services to keep a record of unhashed passwords is a reversal of decades of best practices in security.

The law obliges a range of e-commerce sites, video and music services and webmail providers to keep a host of data on customers.

This includes users’ full names, postal addresses, telephone numbers and passwords. The data must be handed over to the authorities if demanded.

Police, the fraud office, customs, tax and social security bodies will all have the right of access.

Net giants challenge French data law

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France to require unhashed password storage

Photo: Peter Dejong

If we were to prevent a Malthusian catastrophe, we’d better figure out a way to boost crop yield to keep feeding the planet’s growing population. Gertjan Meeuws and other bioengineers of PlantLab have found an answer: a greenhouse where every aspect of the growing condition is controlled, where climate (or even the Sun) is not a factor at all.

In their research station, strawberries, yellow peppers, basil and banana plants take on an eerie pink glow under red and blue bulbs of Light-Emitting Diodes, or LEDs. Water trickles into the pans when needed and all excess is recycled, and the temperature is kept constant. Lights go on and off, simulating day and night, but according to the rhythm of the plant — which may be better at shorter cycles than 24 hours — rather than the rotation of the Earth. […]

Sunlight is not only unnecessary but can be harmful, says Meeuws. Plants need only specific wavelengths of light to grow, but in nature they must adapt to the full range of light as a matter of survival. When light and other natural elements are manipulated, the plants become more efficient, using less energy to grow.

“Nature is good, but too much nature is killing,” said Meeuws, standing in a steaming cubicle amid racks of what he called “happy plants.”

Link

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Sunless Farming of the Future

Love Doritos? Then you’ll get a kick out of this: 102 Doritos flavors from around the world as compiled by Now That’s Nifty blog. My favorite is the “Sausage and Beer” Doritos: Link

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Doritos Flavors From Around the World

You want your food to be really cold, but not frozen – unfortunately, chemical antifreeze kills people. Find out how biological antifreeze is formed, and how companies are going to use it. More

Nearly a month ago, Google made a sweeping shift to its search results, impacting nearly 12 percent of searches with an emphasis on original content and knowledge. Now the search firm is pushing out those changes to all English language users, and incorporating data from users who “Block results from this domain” into further refinements. Have you been happier with Google’s results over the past month? [Webmaster Central Blog] More

Oh Flip, how far you’ve come. And, of course, how far you’ve fallen. Once a spunky upstart with oddly shaped camcorders, you got snapped up by Cisco in Spring of 2009 for a hefty $590 million in stock. Now, according to Pocket-lint, you (and your moustaches) are done for. Cisco CEO John Chambers says the brand is being dispatched as the company refocuses, done in by the proliferation of high-definition sensors into smartphones and PMPs and the like. We had been waiting for the company’s next products (if you’ll recall, a WiFi-enabled Mino HD hit the FCC just a few months back), but at this point, it looks like those hopes and dreams will remain unfulfilled. We’re awaiting comment from the company, and will update as it flies in.

Update: Looks like the “exit of some consumer operations” will lead to 550 employees being left out of work. If you’ll recall, the outfit reported in February that sales of consumer products sank 15 percent, while profits slipped 18 percent as margins slid for a fourth consecutive quarter. Meanwhile, Umi will be integrated into the company’s TelePresence product line and operate through an enterprise and service provider go-to-market model. In other words, Skype just ate Umi’s lunch.

Continue reading Cisco killing Flip line of camcorders, axing 550 employees in restructuring effort

Cisco killing Flip line of camcorders, axing 550 employees in restructuring effort originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 12 Apr 2011 09:32:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Places all over have different ways of celebrating the end of winter and the return of warm weather every year. What could be more fun than a spring-cleaning holiday that includes a water fight? That’s what’s happening in Thailand during Songkran.

On April 12th, old or useless items are thrown out of houses and burned to avoid bad luck, and on the 13th offerings are made to statues of Buddha at the local wat. The Buddha statues are then washed with perfumed water, and Buddhas from important wats are paraded through the streets where the crowds throw more water on them. The water-fight begins in earnest after this, with people dousing each other with buckets and super-soakers on the street.

See videos of Songkran and other spring celebrations at AnyTrip. Link -via Dark Roasted Blend

(Image credit: Flickr user Wyndham Hollis)

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Six Odd but Awesome Spring Celebrations Around the World