I just read about a new innovation with xbox 360 and how they will install a timer for parents so that they can monitor the time their children spend playing video games.
The application will warn the children when their time is running out. It is easily overridden by parents if they want to give more time to their children or if they want to play the game themselves.
I believe this is such a good idea because so many children are becoming addicted to video games nowadays. They are even creating video games that are "educational" because they think that this is the only way they are going to get children to learn. We need to learn how to disconnect them and putting a limit on how much they are able to play is a great way to start.
The new application will be available in all xbox 360's starting December 4, 2007, and available automatically if your xbox is connected to a broadband network.
Krista Hartford
Sunday, December 2, 2007
Facebook Privacy Issues
In response to Lauren's post...
I joined the "Petition: Facebook, stop invading my privacy!" group last week after I saw two of my friends had joined and I clicked on the link to see what it was all about.
This is the group's motto: "Facebook must respect my privacy. They should not tell my friends what I buy on other sites—or let companies use my name to endorse their products—without my explicit permission."
In an age of open information, social networking shouldn't include a total loss of privacy and personal protection. People join these sites to put themselves out there, through pictures or comments, but what you have been purchasing on internet sites should not be standard "bulletin board" material.
Hopefully the increased awareness of this issue will cause Facebook to not only address the problem but fix it swiftly and permanently. Yet this is the risk/reward factor you must face when you choose to join websites like this and partake in these activities.
-- Tucker Savoye
I joined the "Petition: Facebook, stop invading my privacy!" group last week after I saw two of my friends had joined and I clicked on the link to see what it was all about.
This is the group's motto: "Facebook must respect my privacy. They should not tell my friends what I buy on other sites—or let companies use my name to endorse their products—without my explicit permission."
In an age of open information, social networking shouldn't include a total loss of privacy and personal protection. People join these sites to put themselves out there, through pictures or comments, but what you have been purchasing on internet sites should not be standard "bulletin board" material.
Hopefully the increased awareness of this issue will cause Facebook to not only address the problem but fix it swiftly and permanently. Yet this is the risk/reward factor you must face when you choose to join websites like this and partake in these activities.
-- Tucker Savoye
Russia plans to build a new space port
by Tiffany Rider
The Russians plan to build a new space port for human spaceflight and hope to begin manned missions by 2018.
Russian President Putin signed a declaration of the project last month that allows for the an eastern cosmodrome in the Amur region of Russia, which is along the border with China. The exact site will not be released until 2010, and will take about a decade to complete.
The proposed space port is planned to be built near an existing port for unmanned launches that the Russian government shut down earlier this year, according to ITAR-Tass and reported by CNN. It is unclear whether the new port will built on the same location.
Russia launches all its manned missions from a Soviet-built port leased from nearby Kazakhstan. These launches involved U.S. and other foreign crew members. The Kazakhstan government has criticized the dangers and environmental damage caused by failed Russian launches.
To view the CNN article, CLICK HERE.
To check out the Baikonur Cosmodrome leased to Russia by Kazakhstan, CLICK HERE.
The Russians plan to build a new space port for human spaceflight and hope to begin manned missions by 2018.
Russian President Putin signed a declaration of the project last month that allows for the an eastern cosmodrome in the Amur region of Russia, which is along the border with China. The exact site will not be released until 2010, and will take about a decade to complete.
The proposed space port is planned to be built near an existing port for unmanned launches that the Russian government shut down earlier this year, according to ITAR-Tass and reported by CNN. It is unclear whether the new port will built on the same location.
Russia launches all its manned missions from a Soviet-built port leased from nearby Kazakhstan. These launches involved U.S. and other foreign crew members. The Kazakhstan government has criticized the dangers and environmental damage caused by failed Russian launches.
To view the CNN article, CLICK HERE.
To check out the Baikonur Cosmodrome leased to Russia by Kazakhstan, CLICK HERE.
Saturday, December 1, 2007
More Facebook news.......
Facebook relies heavy on advertising as do other internet sites...but Facebook is trying to turn profits from its members.
Over the last couple of days, over 50,000 Facebook users have signed a petition to stop the new program which "sends messages to users’ friends about what they are buying on Web sites like Travelocity.com, TheKnot.com and Fandango". Apparently, one click of the mouse won't let users opt out of the program.
It said that "Companies like Google, AOL and Microsoft routinely track where people are going online and send them ads based on the sites they have visited and the searches they have conducted".
And that Facebook is sending alerts on the news feeds telling them what goods and services their friends and bought and viewed online.
I haven't seen this service but I do think it crosses a privacy line for those people who don't prefer to have that information shared. Creepy.
By Lauren Darmody
Over the last couple of days, over 50,000 Facebook users have signed a petition to stop the new program which "sends messages to users’ friends about what they are buying on Web sites like Travelocity.com, TheKnot.com and Fandango". Apparently, one click of the mouse won't let users opt out of the program.
It said that "Companies like Google, AOL and Microsoft routinely track where people are going online and send them ads based on the sites they have visited and the searches they have conducted".
And that Facebook is sending alerts on the news feeds telling them what goods and services their friends and bought and viewed online.
I haven't seen this service but I do think it crosses a privacy line for those people who don't prefer to have that information shared. Creepy.
By Lauren Darmody
Teen from New Zealand Remotely Hacked over a million PCs worldwide for criminal use
by Tiffany Rider
A New Zealand teen has been named as the kingpin in a ring of global botnet activity, hacking over a million computers worldwide.
The 18-year-old, known by his online name "AKILL," is being investigated by the FBI after the discovery of at least 2.5 million PCs being attacked by vicious botnets. Botnets have become the most popular weapon for cyber criminals, according to FBI Director Robert Mueller in a statement from CNN. Operation "Bot Roast" was launched by the FBI in 2005 to fight back against botnet activity. This operation helped find damages up to $20 million in theft from hackers using botnets.
Symantec Corp., the leading online security provider, found that more than 5 million computers had been attacked and inhabited by botnets. It is possible that "AKILL" and his ring of hackers, called the A-team, had infected one million of those attacked computers.
The FBI now has taken posession of the teen's computer hardware and other equipment. The teen has not been identified or charged at this time.
To read the CNN article, CLICK HERE.
To check out what Sci-Tech had to say, CLICK HERE.
A New Zealand teen has been named as the kingpin in a ring of global botnet activity, hacking over a million computers worldwide.
The 18-year-old, known by his online name "AKILL," is being investigated by the FBI after the discovery of at least 2.5 million PCs being attacked by vicious botnets. Botnets have become the most popular weapon for cyber criminals, according to FBI Director Robert Mueller in a statement from CNN. Operation "Bot Roast" was launched by the FBI in 2005 to fight back against botnet activity. This operation helped find damages up to $20 million in theft from hackers using botnets.
Symantec Corp., the leading online security provider, found that more than 5 million computers had been attacked and inhabited by botnets. It is possible that "AKILL" and his ring of hackers, called the A-team, had infected one million of those attacked computers.
The FBI now has taken posession of the teen's computer hardware and other equipment. The teen has not been identified or charged at this time.
To read the CNN article, CLICK HERE.
To check out what Sci-Tech had to say, CLICK HERE.
Carbon Dioxide Emissions turned into household baking soda
By Tiffany Rider
Popular Science has been covering in recent months how to reduce global warming and what people are doing to help the environment.
The magazine featured a company called Skyonic, who has created a system that can turn carbon dioxide into baking soda. This system, dubbed Skymine, uses CO2 emitted from smokestacks to create the widely-used household product. The concept of creating baking soda from carbon dioxide has been around for years; the idea for Skymine came from a college textbook passage discussing this idea.
The baking soda produced using this method can be sold for home or industrial purposes, or can be harmlessly buried in the ground.
Joe David Jones, the CEO of Skyonic, believes that this method is better than the idea of shoving carbon dioxide into underground caves. According to Jones, the baking soda created from his Skymine system is cleaner than the food-grade baking soda.
The Skymine system is still in its early stages, with hopes of expanding to a larger scale. If this is accomplished, the harmful challenges with carbon dioxide sequestration may be altered in a positive way.
In the CNET article, the company Novomer is mentioned as another company trying to use CO2 emissions in a positive way. Novomer hopes to use carbon dioxide to create plastics, and other companies hope to use CO2 gasses to create a liquid fuel.
To check out the CNN article, CLICK HERE.
To read the CNET article, CLICK HERE.
Popular Science has been covering in recent months how to reduce global warming and what people are doing to help the environment.
The magazine featured a company called Skyonic, who has created a system that can turn carbon dioxide into baking soda. This system, dubbed Skymine, uses CO2 emitted from smokestacks to create the widely-used household product. The concept of creating baking soda from carbon dioxide has been around for years; the idea for Skymine came from a college textbook passage discussing this idea.
The baking soda produced using this method can be sold for home or industrial purposes, or can be harmlessly buried in the ground.
Joe David Jones, the CEO of Skyonic, believes that this method is better than the idea of shoving carbon dioxide into underground caves. According to Jones, the baking soda created from his Skymine system is cleaner than the food-grade baking soda.
The Skymine system is still in its early stages, with hopes of expanding to a larger scale. If this is accomplished, the harmful challenges with carbon dioxide sequestration may be altered in a positive way.
In the CNET article, the company Novomer is mentioned as another company trying to use CO2 emissions in a positive way. Novomer hopes to use carbon dioxide to create plastics, and other companies hope to use CO2 gasses to create a liquid fuel.
To check out the CNN article, CLICK HERE.
To read the CNET article, CLICK HERE.
Titans of Tech
There was a 60 Minutes segment on Tuesday about the different "Titans of Tech."
The founders of Google were part of this segment. One of the founders had this interactive globe on a screen that shows all the places in the world where google searches are being performed. It is shown by streams of all different colors and dots streaming out of each country. The dots show how many searches are going on each second and the different color lights represent what language they are being searched in.
At the headquarters in Silicon Valley, there is ping pong tables set up and there is a volleyball game every day at noon on their own beach volleyball court.
The founder of e-bay just randomly decided to play around with codes one day and came up with the site. He made it on labor day in 1995 and weeks later people started posting items to sell.
More founders of things like Napster and Amazon were on it listing their reasons of why they started these programs like they wanted to just fool around one day or they wanted to live their life and take chances so they wouldn't have regrets when they were older.
These guys make it sound sooo easy!
By Lauren Darmody
The founders of Google were part of this segment. One of the founders had this interactive globe on a screen that shows all the places in the world where google searches are being performed. It is shown by streams of all different colors and dots streaming out of each country. The dots show how many searches are going on each second and the different color lights represent what language they are being searched in.
At the headquarters in Silicon Valley, there is ping pong tables set up and there is a volleyball game every day at noon on their own beach volleyball court.
The founder of e-bay just randomly decided to play around with codes one day and came up with the site. He made it on labor day in 1995 and weeks later people started posting items to sell.
More founders of things like Napster and Amazon were on it listing their reasons of why they started these programs like they wanted to just fool around one day or they wanted to live their life and take chances so they wouldn't have regrets when they were older.
These guys make it sound sooo easy!
By Lauren Darmody
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