E5Rebel writes "Gary McKinnon, the UK-based ex-systems administrator accused of conducting the biggest military hack of all time, has won the right to have his case against extradition to the U.S. heard by the House of Lords."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

E5Rebel writes "Gary McKinnon, the UK-based ex-systems administrator accused of conducting the biggest military hack of all time, has won the right to have his case against extradition to the US heard by the House of Lords."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Ever since private equity firm Blackstone came public earlier this year, there's been a strong backlash against the entire industry. Congress is looking to close a tax loophole that effects both private equity and VC firms, prompting some venture capitalists to lash out against private equity executives for drawing political scrutiny and potentially ending the party. But as Andrew Ross Sorkin points out, all of this outrage pointed at the industry (and Blackstone chief Stephen Schwarzman specifically) is a bit overdone. Plenty of executives could accused of having a big ego or of throwing big, garrulous parties in their own honor, as Schwarzman has done. Ultimately, it was the company's IPO that served as the catalyst for the outrage, so Blackstone, simply by virtue of being first to go public, has borne the brunt of it all. That being said, if things start to deteriorate economically, expect even more outrage at any executive perceived as having cashed out at the top.

Late-Eight writes "Researchers from the National University of Singapore, have recently developed a new way to make artificial bone from mineralised collagen. For some time scientists have tried to make nanosized artificial bone materials using various methods, And have recently turned their attention to mineralised collagen, a nanoapatite/collagen composite. This material is highly biocompatible and has the nanostructure of artificial bone. It could be used in bone grafts and bone-tissue engineering, among other applications."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

If you've been in the mobile space for a long time, you may recall the buzz from nearly a decade ago about the concept of the "personal mobile hub." The idea was that computers don't need to be big (even laptop big) general machines, but rather you could break out the components and make for interesting combinations. That is, you could have a small core unit that was basically just a CPU with some wireless connectivity, and then add in additional components as necessary (or simply let other things connect to the hub). So, your mobile phone could connect to the hub to get better wireless capabilities. You could also have a separate storage module for extra storage. Then, perhaps you could have different screen technology depending on what you needed. Or different inputs. The whole idea was to make computing a lot more modular. Unfortunately, pretty much every attempt at doing so failed (often miserably). For years, the concept was championed by a company called IXI, who got a lot of hype but produced little in the way of a product for quite some time. In 2004, it finally came up with a product called the ogo, which was a messaging device sold by AT&T Wireless. However, the other components (the whole point of such a system) never appeared and the device mostly died off (though, it's been revived at times elsewhere).

There's some buzz going around about a new startup called Bug Labs that is in some ways bringing back this very concept with more of an open source/DIY/hacker ethos. Right now, exactly what Bug Labs is doing isn't entirely clear, but it sounds like they're producing something quite similar to the general idea of the personal mobile hub -- but making it very open and encouraging everyone else to develop apps and systems for it. In fact, it sounds like the company doesn't plan on being in the hardware business at all. This is definitely a step forward from the IXI way of doing things, but it still remains to be seen whether or not the market really buys into the idea of modular computing in this manner. The good news for Bug Labs, however, is that if such a concept is going to succeed, it's probably going to take an approach similar to what Bug is doing.

An anonymous reader writes "InfoWeek blogger Alex Wolfe put together a scorecard which makes the obvious but interesting point that, when you list every major DRM technology implemented to "protect" music and video, they've all been cracked. This includes Apple's FairPlay, Microsoft's Windows Media DRM, the old-style Content Scrambling System (CSS) used on early DVDs and the new AACS for high-definition DVDs. And of course there was the Sony Rootkit disaster of 2005. Can anyone think of a DRM technology which hasn't been cracked, and of course this begs the obvious question: Why doesn't the industry just give up and go DRM-free?"

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Doc Searls is moving his blog to a Harvard-hosted WordPress site.

I'm helping him do this transition, the first part is done. His editorial tool, an outliner, is working with WordPress, and knock wood, praise Murphy, he'll be updating that blog, and we'll be archiving the original blog.

If you're reading his blog look for new posts on the WordPress site, and you can subscribe to his newly located RSS feed. We'll be redirecting that as well.

Back in May, we wrote about teachers in the UK demanding that "something must be done" about cyberbullying of teachers. It appears that teachers have had enough of the various online pranks and tricks that kids pull on teachers. However, as we pointed out at the time, the "something must be done" cry seems pretty pointless. Kids are always going to find ways to bully each other and teachers, and there's no magic bullet solution. Apparently, the teachers missed that lesson, because they're back with actual suggestions on what can be done. Dave writes in to let us know that a teacher's union in the UK (apparently one of many) has adopted a resolution asking for a ban on sites used for cyberbullying. Reading the details of the resolution shows the only two sites they name are YouTube and RateMyTeacher.com -- both of which have many perfectly legitimate uses and where cyberbullying takes up a tiny fraction of their usage. More importantly, however, shutting down these sites will have absolutely no impact on bullying -- except perhaps encouraging the kids to turn it up a notch, knowing that their tactics have had the desired impact. There are nearly infinite outlets for the cyberbullying to take place, and shutting down one will simply encourage kids to use a different method of cyberbullying. It seems highly unlikely that the teachers will get their way, but it's nice (ok, more like troublesome) to know that a bunch of teachers seem to think that the best way to deal with problems between people is censorship and blaming the tool involved.

bohn002 writes "In order to coordinate and expand access to the state's broadband data network, Ohio Governor Ted Strickland has signed an executive order establishing the Ohio Broadband Council and the Broadband Ohio Network. The order directs the Ohio Broadband Council to coordinate efforts to extend access to the Broadband Ohio Network to every county in Ohio. The order allows public and private entities to tap into the Broadband Ohio Network — all with a goal of expanding access to high-speed internet service in parts of the state that presently don't have such service."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Raines Cohen is organizing UnGnomeCamp for the day after Gnomedex in Seattle, a week from Sunday.

David Pescovitz: New research from New York University suggests that a combination of three different mental processes our brains use to decode words determine how fast we read. One of the processes, phonics (the familiar method of sounding out a word), accounts for 62 percent of a person's reading rate. "Each reading process always contributes the same number of words per minute, regardless of whether the other processes are operating," the researchers write in their PLoS One scientific paper. According to co-author Denis Pelli, professor of psychology and neuroscience, understanding the role of these processes could lead to better ways of helping remedial readers. The way they conducted the study is fascinating. From Scientific American:

The three processes: phonics (a letter by letter sounding out of words); contextual clues (earlier parts of sentences that help readers anticipate upcoming words); and holistic word recognition, or the physical shape of words...

Using passages from author Mary Higgins Clark's murder mystery Loves Music, Loves to Dance, Pelli and study co-author, undergraduate Katharine Tillman, manipulated passages to block readers from using each of the word-deciphering processes.

To muffle context clues, they shuffled words in a sentence ("contribute others. The of Reading measured"); discrimination via word shape was covered up by inserting random capital letters ("ThIS tExT AlTeRnAtEs iN CaSe."); and to eliminate letter by letter decoding, they substituted similar-looking letters into a word, thereby retaining the ability to use word shape and context, once a reader figured out a previous word ("Tbis sartcrec bes lctfan suhsfitufas").

Link to Scientific American, Link to PLoS One paper

When Apple reported its opening weekend iPhone sales, Wall Street was disappointed that the 270,000 figure it gave out failed to hit much loftier estimates. Of course, this raises the old question: did Apple miss estimates or did analysts mis-estimate? In a sense, the answer is always both, although its worth exploring why the numbers were so far apart. Looking into this question, Carl Bialik notes that Wall Street analysts basically got caught up in emotional hype, as each one tried to outdo each other by making bolder predictions. Their mistakes were exacerbated by the use of small sample sizes, which they mistakenly extrapolated across the country. Analysts make predictions about unit sales all the time for all kinds of products, but you have to wonder how they can accurately predict the future when they can't even correctly gauge what's already happened.

When he was 14, Malawian inventor William Kamkwamba built his family an electricity-generating windmill from spare parts, working from plans he found in a library book.

P Crewe writes "A complaint filed by the Computer & Communications Industry Association accuses the NFL, MLB, and a number of studios of deceptive trade practices, saying that their far-reaching copyright claims systematically misrepresent the rights of consumers to use copyrighted material. 'According to the complaint, such warnings "materially misrepresent" US law. Fair use is given short shrift, and as a result, consumers are left with the impression that any use that the rights-holders do not expressly approve is illegal. "Consumers have the right to use the content in legal, non-infringing ways," CCIA spokesperson Jake Ward told Ars Technica. "Putting these warnings on broadcasts, videotapes, and DVDs is both misleading and threatening."'"

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

David Pescovitz: Atsushi Tomura is an expert craftsman of Japanese kigurumi, animal and monster costumes worn by entertainers at malls, amusement parks, and other locations. His incredible creations look like a Jim Woodring drawing come to life! PingMag visited Tomura's house and interviewed him about the art of kigurumi design.

From PingMag:

...How do you usually transport these kigurumi monsters?
I just lug them onto public transport! (laughs) When I took “Bekkosu,” which was used in the PV for a Japanese band called RIZE, on the train, everyone was staring - despite the fact that it was designed to be compact. (laughs) Also, once a month I serve as a monster waiter at an event in Shibuya. When I show up fully dressed, the streets take on a carnivalesque atmosphere…

I can imagine…. Is that part of your motivation to make kigurumi and cuddly toys?
Of course, there is the feeling of wanting to surprise people. But seeing your own drawings turn into a real thing is the most fulfilling element, I think.

Link (Thanks, John Alderman!)

Mark Frauenfelder: From Tokyo Times:

The Japanese habit of wearing masks during hay fever season may well be what created a fondness for such facial fashion amongst certain people, rather bizarrely resulting in the birth of ‘mask idols’.

The link also includes photos of plaster-cast and eye-patch fashions. Link

eldavojohn writes "While there's been a lot of talk of the open document formats in the states, China is facing the same dilemma. A ZDNet blog examines the issue by pointing out they will most likely merge their current standard with either OOXML or ODF. The bulk of their post points out why OOXML shouldn't be ISO certified and is the biggest problem for Microsoft's standard: 'Another Standard, Microsoft does not support, is the specification RFC 3987, which defines UTF-8 capable Internet addresses. Consequently, OOXML does not support, to use Chinese characters within a Web address.' This would be problematic for many languages, not just Chinese."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

With News Corp.'s purchase of Dow Jones now all but certain, there's a lot of discussion about whether Rupert Murdoch will pull a Mikhail Gorbachev and tear down that (pay)wall at the Wall Street Journal. Yesterday we argued that if the Financial Times wants to raise its profile in the US, it should do just that, as a way of differentiating itself from the Journal. At this point, there's no way of knowing whether Murdoch will make the move first and preempt Pearson (parent company of the Financial Times). You have to figure that he has other things on his mind right now than how best to monetize the Wall Street Journal on