London police launched on 25th of February a new advertising campaign. Posters and TV ads are urging Londoners to turn in people who might be taking pictures of CCTV cameras.

"Thousands of people take photos every day.

What if one of them seems odd ?

Terrorists use surveillance to help plan attacks, taking photos and making notes about security measures like the location of CCTV cameras.If you see someone doing that, we need to know.

Let experienced officers decide what action to take." 

Other posters target households:

"you see hundreds of houses every day. What if one has unusual activities and seems suspicious"

as well as mobile phone users :

"Thousands of people have mobiles. What if someone with several seems suspicious?"

What's going on in London ? Is the Metropolitan police not busy enough ? did they become completely paranoiac ? or do they need some budget increase ?

Where is this so famous British phlegm ?

As a response, many people have already redesigned the posters to point out the absurdity of them. Some samples are available on BoingBoing.

Passengers will no longer be able to pack loose lithium batteries in checked luggage beginning January 1, 2008 as new federal safety rules take effect. The new regulation, designed to reduce the risk of lithium battery fires, will continue to allow lithium batteries in checked baggage if they are installed in electronic devices, or in carry-on baggage if stored in plastic bags.

Common consumer electronics such as travel cameras, cell phones, and most laptop computers are still allowed in carry-on and checked luggage.  However, the rule limits individuals to bringing only two extended-life spare rechargeable lithium batteries, such as laptop and professional audio/video/camera equipment lithium batteries in carry-on baggage

The following quantity limits apply to both your spare and installed batteries. The limits are expressed in grams of “equivalent lithium content.” 8 grams of equivalent lithium content is approximately 100 watt-hours. 25 grams is approximately 300 watt-hours:

• Under the new rules, you can bring batteries with up to 8-gram equivalent lithium content. All lithium ion batteries in cell phones are below 8 gram equivalent lithium content. Nearly all laptop computers also are below this quantity threshold.

• You can also bring up to two spare batteries with an aggregate equivalent lithium content of up to 25 grams, in addition to any batteries that fall below the 8-gram threshold. Examples of two types of lithium ion batteries with equivalent lithium content over 8 grams but below 25 are shown below.
• For a lithium metal battery, whether installed in a device or carried as a spare, the limit on lithium content is 2 grams of lithium metal per battery.
• Almost all consumer-type lithium metal batteries are below 2 grams of lithium metal. But if you are unsure, contact the manufacturer!

Indeed this regulation will first be applicable on US registered aircrafts but as usual we may see this new regulation applicable on all International flights. 

Usually all electrical devices, including batteries, are subject to safety certification so either their are considered to be safe or manufacturer has to review quality and safety of its products. 

I really wonder on which basis these new rules are made from. Did anyone saw any incident statistics, reports etc.. (apart Sony made laptop batteries) or is it just one additional constraints air travel passengers will have to deal with.

After lighters and matches in 06, liquids in 07, 08 will add batteries to the restriction list.

All details are here as well as the complete list of items with air travel restrictions

Toshiba will soon start production of 2 new interesting products which may find their way into future mobile/portable devices.

First are the new SATA SSD (Solid State Drive) drives on 1.8' and 2.5' formats. According Engadget 32, 64 and 128 GB will be available. Speed announced is read 100 MB/s while reading and 40 MB/sec writting.

With such capacity, traditional mechanical hard disk will slowly disappear from portable devices. With no moving parts, a solid state drive largely eliminates seek time, latency and other electro-mechanical delays and failures associated with a conventional hard disk drive.

The second interesting product announced by Toshiba is the so called "Super Charge ion Battery" (SCiB) which is at this stage not intended for portable devices but for industrial systems and electric vehicles.

SCiB Major Characteristics

• Safety : SCiB adopts a new negative-electrode material that offers a high level of thermal stability and a high flash point electrolyte. Its structure is resistant to internal short circuiting and thermal runaway

• Long-life cycle : Capacity loss after 3,000 cycles of rapid charge and discharge is less than 10%. SCiB batteries are able to repeat the charge-discharge cycle over 5,000 times which is equivalent to more than 10 years with a once-a-day recharge-discharge cycle.
• Rapidly rechargeable : Safety characteristics of SCiB allow recharge with a current as large as 50 amperes (A), allowing the SCiB Cell and SCiB Standard Module to recharge to 90% of full capacity in only five minutes.
• High power (practical capacity) : The SCiB has an input-output performance equivalent to that of an electric double layer capacitor.
• Temperature : Extreme temperatures supported with sufficient discharge at temperatures as low as -30°C.

SCiB batteries will first be available on the market in March 2008 with the following specifications:

• Nominal voltage  : 24VDC
• Nominal capacity : 4.2 Ah
• Size : 10x30x5 cm
• Weight : 2 kg

Perhaps these batteries will also find other field of application,  but for portable devices they will need to become lighter and slimmer..but batteries that get charges in  five minutes are definitively very attractive for mobile users. 

What do you think ?  

Sources: Engadget Toshiba 

TGV tests Wi-Fi + satellite link in three TGV trains on its Eastern network. If the experiment proves successful the new service should be generalized, from 2009, to all 52 oars network East.

With combines effort of satellite link and wireless network, in locations, such tunnels and train stations, where the satellite link cannot be established, the wi-fi network takes over to maintain the access to the Web without interruption.

French railways company SNCF previously conducted unsuccessful test using GPRS data network before launching a 2 years research and preparation program to implement this dual solution. Among technical difficulties to overcome are these related to 320 km/h TGV trains speed which causes instability and vibrations. 

The project is done in a partnership with Orange(France Telecom mobile operator), Capgemini, Alstom Transport and Eutelsat.

SNCF will put on board of its TGV a dedicated Web portal providing information about destinations, weather forecast, News, traffic information as well as a real time tracking service. From a technical point of view, TGV trains are fitted with a server where all portal content is loaded prior the journey in order to minimize bandwidth consumption due to its high cost. The tested system has been designed to provide simultaneous web connection for 14 per cent (50 users) of the total capacity of each TGV train (350).

The business plan is not defined yet, but the widespread of the system on TGV Eastern Europe network would represent an investment of 120 millions USD over 4 years. First price estimation given by SNCF Passenger service would be a flat 4-5 USD to access the Web portal during the whole journey and a 4-5 USD per hour to access the Internet.

A very interesting project and definitively a real challenge to maintain permanent web connectivity during a train journey at more than 300 km/h where the 16'000 volt power line running over the train may also create some electro-magnetic interferences and without mentioning all micro interruptions of the satellite link each time the train pass under a bridge or when dense foliage is found within the satellite's line of sight.

Any reader who already had the chance to test the reliability of the service ?

More infos (in French): Journal du Net, CNet France.

Hilarious, "you have to trust me on this"!

Try to imagine CTU's agent, Jack Bauer (24H) saving the world, using hi-tech solutions of the moment…in 1994.

A Collegehumor production. Great job! 

The attacks on Swiss financial institutes with the aim of unjustified enrichment and the threat of the targeted industrial espionage via the internet are the main topics of the fifth semi-annual report of the Reporting and Analysis Centre for Information Assurance.

The report assesses the situation of the first half of the year 2007 in Switzerland and is now available online and clearly shows that the human factor remains the weakest point of ICT security.

Focus areas of issue 2007/I

• Attacks on Swiss financial services
  "Classic" phishing attacks by e-mail with password requests have decreased substantially in Switzerland. Moreover, all such attacks have been unsuccessful. On the other hand, successful attacks with malware have increased. Two-factor authentication systems (e.g. transaction authentication numbers, SecurID, etc.) do not afford protection against such attacks and must be viewed as insecure once the computer of the customer has been infected with malware.

• Industrial espionage and data theft
  The threat posed by targeted state or private industrial espionage continues. Not only the operators of critical infrastructures, the armament industry, or public authorities are threatened. Medium-sized industrial companies as well as manufacturers of luxury articles and fashion are also being targeted. The attacks are carried out by sending targeted e-mails to individual employees which contain malware in their attachments or links to bogus websites.
• Attacks on web servers:
  malware distribution, phishing, data theft Compromising of web servers has increased. The purpose is to use web servers to distribute malware, such as by drive-by infection, to steal data (especially on commercially used servers), to carry out (interim) storage of data (e.g. in connection with phishing), or to distribute messages that are generally political in nature.
• Malware / attack vectors
  Malware is still usually distributed through e-mail attachments or e-mails with links to bogus websites. Using clever social engineering techniques, the victim is deceived into opening the attachment or clicking on the link. Websites installing malware on the computer without any action by the user (drive-by infections) have heavily increased as an infection vector. Vulnerabilities in the operating system, the browser, or other applications are exploited. For a long time now, this no longer only happens on dubious sites, but also on (compromised) serious and well-known sites. Rates of recognition of malware by anti-virus software remain low.

The complete report is available on Melani website in italian, german, french and english.

A complete and useful list of all Internet risks and related protection measures is also available.

Cory Doctorow wrote this Creative Commons-licensed fiction story for Radar Online magazine.

  Une version française est disponible ici

“Give me six lines written by the most honorable of men, and I will find an excuse in them to hang him.” –Cardinal Richelieu

“We don’t know enough about you.” –Google CEO Eric Schmidt

Greg landed at San Francisco International Airport at 8 p.m., but by the time he’d made it to the front of the customs line, it was after midnight. He’d emerged from first class, brown as a nut, unshaven, and loose-limbed after a month on the beach in Cabo (scuba diving three days a week, seducing French college girls the rest of the time). When he’d left the city a month before, he’d been a stoop-shouldered, potbellied wreck. Now he was a bronze god, drawing admiring glances from the stews at the front of the cabin.

Four hours later in the customs line, he’d slid from god back to man. His slight buzz had worn off, sweat ran down the crack of his ass, and his shoulders and neck were so tense his upper back felt like a tennis racket. The batteries on his iPod had long since died, leaving him with nothing to do except eavesdrop on the middle-age couple ahead of him.

“The marvels of modern technology,” said the woman, shrugging at a nearby sign: Immigration–Powered by Google.

“I thought that didn’t start until next month?” The man was alternately wearing and holding a large sombrero.

Googling at the border. Christ. Greg had vested out of Google six months before, cashing in his options and “taking some me time"–which turned out to be less rewarding than he’d expected. What he mostly did over the five months that followed was fix his friends’ PCs, watch daytime TV, and gain 10 pounds, which he blamed on being at home instead of in the Googleplex, with its well-appointed 24-hour gym.

He should have seen it coming, of course. The U.S. government had lavished $15 billion on a program to fingerprint and photograph visitors at the border, and hadn’t caught a single terrorist. Clearly, the public sector was not equipped to Do Search Right.

The DHS officer had bags under his eyes and squinted at his screen, prodding at his keyboard with sausage fingers. No wonder it was taking four hours to get out of the god damned airport.

Read the rest of this entry »

According latest news for OLPC (One Laptop per Child) the 100 USD (actually 188 $) laptop will go into mass production in a week time as the final release of the software image will be given to Quanta by the end of this week.

On November 12, OLPC will launched a campaign "Get 1 Give 1" where you can for 400 USD buy 2 XO laptops, one that will be sent to empower a child to learn in a developing nation, the other one sent to your place. Unfortunately this campaign will only be available in North America.

Until we get an opportunity to have the hands-on this already famous greenish computer,  check New-York Time's David Pogues review and the video below.

AT&T threaten to disconnect its customers (Def. Customer:someone who pays for goods or services) who may criticized its services on the Internet (blog, others sites, etc..). AT&T customers must accept TOS (Terms of Service) where you can find the following statement on the section "Term & Termination".

5.1 Suspension/Termination. Your Service may be suspended or terminated if your payment is past due and such condition continues un-remedied for thirty (30) days. In addition, AT&T may immediately terminate or suspend all or a portion of your Service, any Member ID, electronic mail address, IP address, Universal Resource Locator or domain name used by you, without notice, for conduct that AT&T believes (a) violates the Acceptable Use Policy; (b) constitutes a violation of any law, regulation or tariff (including, without limitation, copyright and intellectual property laws) or a violation of these TOS, or any applicable policies or guidelines, or© tends to damage the name or reputation of AT&T, or its parents, affiliates and subsidiaries. Termination or suspension by AT&T of Service also constitutes termination or suspension (as applicable) of your license to use any Software. AT&T may also terminate or suspend your Service if you provide false or inaccurate information that is required for the provision of Service or is necessary to allow AT&T to bill you for Service

AT&T also reserves the rights to update or change from time to time the terms of the agreement and apparently without notice. It is the customer's responsibility to regularly check, on their website, to check if terms have changed and if he/she still agrees with them as they become effective immediately after being posted on AT&T website.

This Agreement may be updated or changed from time to time. The current Agreement shall be posted at: www.att.net/legal/tos (“Website”). This site will be updated as changes are made. You agree to visit the Website periodically to be aware of and review any such revisions. All changes shall become effective upon posting of the revised Agreement on the Website. Your continued use of the Service following such notice constitutes your acceptance of those changes. If you do not agree to the revisions, you must terminate your Service immediately.

So, Dear and Cherished AT&T customer, if you really expect to have "The World. Delivered" by AT&T, you rather have to be nice with them. Otherwise…… 

Source: Zataz

The Sony A700 DSLR microsite was briefly available on Sony UK website earlier this week. Yesterday, Sony officially announced the A-700 in a press release.

New A-700 specs are the following :  

• 12.4 megapixel CMOS sensor
• BIONZ image processor
• 11 point autofocus system
• ISO 6400
• 5fps (for 17 shots in RAW mode)
• 1/8000th shutter speed
• 3 inch LCD screen (with 921,000 pixels)
• Optional battery grip
• Wireless Flash support
• Both MemoryStick and CompactFlash cards supported
• Size: 142 x 105 x 80 mm
• Weight: 690g
• Price Tag: : 1400€ body only, 1500€ with lens 18-70mm, 2120€ with lens Zeiss 18-80 mm

3 new DT lenses will be available:

• 16-105mm F3.5-5.6
• 18-250mm F3.5-6.3
• 55-200mm f4-5.6

Availabilty : 16th of November in Japan

Sources : Photography Blog, Virus Photo.
Check the A-700 Hands-on preview on DPreview  

Additional pictures on Engadget site.
More information later this week with the official Sony launch.