An article from Wired details the exploits of the three young hackers (16,19 and 20) who broke in to the LexisNexis databases and had access to the personal data of over 300,000 people. Of particular interest is the account of how they got access to the law enforcement …

Here's a good article from David Pogue of the The New York Times about a set of ground rules he'd like to see used in the Mac vs PC wars. As far as I'm concerned, life'd be a lot more civil if people followed them.

Intel and Microsoft have started to quietly insert pieces of Microsoft's new Digital Rights Management (DRM) into Intel's latest hardware. According to an article from Digit, Intel's Pentium D (dual core chip) and 945g chipset include support for the DRM technology, although neither Microsoft nor Intel is disclosing how much …

This is probably getting pretty old by now, but there are a lot of people who still seem not to get the point: move to a Mac, reap the benefits. Winn Schwartau (contributor to Networld, author of computer security books, and founder of The Security Awareness Company has switched his …

An article from InfoSync World describes the new Nokia 770 Internet tablet device, a linux-based touch- sensitive WiFi web access terminal. This thing is rumored to be coming out this fall at a price point near $350, making it much more compelling than the larger and more expensive Windows- based …

According to an article on GrokLaw, Trolltech (makers of the Qt toolkit) has announced that they no longer have SCO and Borland as investors. Their products may not be well know, but they are used as part of a number of handheld portable devices, including the Zaurus line from Sharp …

My brother, Derek, is an acknowledged expert in crime mapping (see his web site: CriminalBehavior.org; and his book: Spatial Aspects of Crime), so I pay attention to things like crime mapping software. Google recently released Google Maps and now you can see week-delayed crime stats for Chicago visually via …

As they say in the Circus, "And now for something completely different!" According to this article from Reuters, Portugal is going to be the proud recipient of the world's first production power generation plant to use tidal power. Ocean Power Delivery, a company based in Edinburgh, Scotland and owned partially …

In a major coup for NetFlix, Walmart has bowed out of the mail-order DVD rental business by entering into a marketing relationship with NetFlix. According to a BusinessWeek article, BlockBuster, the other main competitor, may be looking at raising prices or leaving the market altogether in order to cut costs …

Coming "soon" in Longwait, er, Longhorn (the next version of Microsoft Windows--due in December,2006) will be Metro, Microsoft's free-licensed printing file format intended to go head-to- head with PDF and PostScript (the venerable, and completely free, de facto standards from Adobe), according to an article from ComputerWorld. I'm not …

It appears that T-Mobile has realized that it's better to educate customers than to try and pull the wool over their eyes. Recently available is Personal Coverage Check that provides realistic (even pessimistic) coverage information to the street level. Those of you who know my address or are familiar with …

I gotta hand it to Symantec. Despite their blunderous and fearmongering assessment of the pending onset of tragic and multiple Macintosh viruses (no doubt aimed at rescuing flagging sales of their Macintosh products), they seem to be keeping their word on leaving the SecurityFocus free to editorialize as they wish …

Well, the folks at Gizmodo are now showing us a picture of the pop-up ads that are being/will be presented by TiVo during fast forwards, and they're huge. They take up a quarter of the screen. Unfortunately, the center quarter of the screen. Ouch!

The Christian Science Monitor has an article detailing research being done in Australia on using discarded plastics as the source of carbon to refine steel. Although it is a ways off, it's another interesting idea coming out of the green movement. Kudos to the CSM for pointing out that electrolysis …

For those unfamiliar with Wikis, they are a tool for creating collaborative web-based documents that are constantly changing through contributions from a wide group of users. The most famous Wiki is the wikipedia, the online contributory encyclopedia, but they are used internally at organizations to exchange ideas, document changes, and …

Here's an entry from the blog of Paul Graham (author, language designer, and self- described hacker) about the move to Macs by hackers. And in this case, we're talking the old-school hackers, those of us who like to get inside, figure out how things work, and make something new out …

Now, I'd be just about the first person in line to claim that people don't take security seriously enough on computers. However, Symantec may well have reached new heights in the use of FUD (Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt) to promote the sale of product. A number of articles, such as …

According to an article from ExtremeTech, SATA-IO, the organization that runs the Serial ATA specification, has announced extensions to allow for 2m and 8m cable lengths as well as locking connectors for use on external devices.

In 2003, I applied for a patent for a relatively interesting use of RFID in vehicle parts management. Said patent application has been making its way through the process and is now a published application. At this point, the patent is available for review and comment before it finally gets …

Have you ever reinstalled your laptop or desktop machine because Windows just isn't happy with the world and you think it would be better to get a fresh start? Well, if you need to do that and don't want to wait in a hold-queue forever, you probably should take care …