] Plans to build the "world's biggest spiking neural
] network" to mimic the brain were announced by Mountain
] View, Calif.-based Artificial Development at the
] Accelerating Change Conference on Sunday.
]
] The CCortex system will be a "massive spiking neuron
] network emulation and will mimic the human cortex, with
] 20 billion layered neurons and 2 trillion 8-bit
] connections," according to AD's President and CEO Marcos
] Guillen, listed in the Guardian's "The Young Rich" for
] his former position as Director of Red Internauta of
] Spain, valued at 29.6 million pounds.
]
] The network will run on a 1000-processor supercomputer
] cluster operating at 4.8 teraflops, with 1.5 terabytes of
] RAM and 80 terabytes of storage, he said.

This is about 3 orders of magnitude short of the computational power required to simulate a human brain. By Hans Moravec's estimate, this is about as much power as it would take to simulate a rat's brain -- if one had a good model of how a rat's brain worked. Still, a lot of cognitive science has been done with rats, and if these folks are serious, it could be a step forward.

In the article, critics of this approach say that the 10^15 ops/sec estimated requirement is low by 7 orders of magnitude.

KurzweilAI.net

] In particular, we recommend that DNS wildcards should not
] be used in a zone unless the zone operator has a clear
] understanding of the risks, and that they should not be
] used without the informed consent of those entities which
] have been delegated below the zone.

Internet Architecture Board tells Verisign no...

] After spending an evening and morning with the Gnome
] 2.2-based Java Desktop System, I can report that Sun has
] what appears to me to be the most polished and real-world
] user-ready Linux desktop in existence.

The pricing is interesting. As a home user I don't want to pay that much recurring, but on the other hand I think it makes sense for software like this to be sold based on a recurring service model.

Sun's Desktop for Linux - Sneak Peak

] In response to widespread expressions of concern from the
] Internet community about the effects of the
] introduction of the wildcard, ICANN has requested
] advice from its Security and Stability Advisory
] Committee, and from the Internet Architecture
] Board, on the impact of the changes implemented
] by VeriSign. ICANN's Security and Stability Advisory
] Committee is expected to release an objective
] expert report concerning the wildcard later today.
]
] Recognizing the concerns about the wildcard service,
] ICANN has called upon VeriSign to voluntarily
] suspend the service until the various reviews
] now underway are completed.

ICANN Speaks!

"If two companies get their way, pretty soon you'll walk through virtual advertisements in the mall or view television programs the same way Luke Skywalker watched R2D2's playback of Princess Leia's distress message in the first Star Wars movie.

The images would float off your TV screen and into thin air, allowing you to interact with virtual characters right in the middle of your living room. "

Look Ma, No Projection Screen

Abstract
This paper considers the problem of using wireless LAN location-sensing for security applications. Recently, Bayesian methods have been successfully used to determine location from wireless LAN signals, but such methods have the drawback that a model must first be built from training data. The introduction of model error can drastically reduce the robustness of the location estimates and such errors can be actively induced by malicious users intent on hiding their location. This paper provides a technique for increasing robustness in the face of model error and experimentally validates this technique by testing against unmodeled hardware, modulation of power levels, and the placement of devices outside the trained workspace. Our results have interesting ramifications for location privacy in wireless networks.

paper: Wireless LAN Location-Sensing for Security Applications

] When asked why VeriSign did not inform the Internet's
] technical organizations of the change in advance,
] O'Shaughnessy replied: "There's not much I can add
] except to say that our testing and the resources
] we've applied toward this have been in accordance
] with prevailing industry standards for new products
] and services."

If Verisign is not removed I will get involved with an alternate DNS system.

VeriSign sticks with redirect service | CNET News.com

] The Internet Software Consortium, the nonprofit body that
] develops the ubiquitous BIND domain name server, is
] adapting its software so that those users who enter
] mistyped domain names would not automatically end up at
] VeriSign's Site Finder search engine service, AP reports.
] The patch could be available as early as today.

The Register: Bind blacklists Verisign's sitefinder IP

Someone asked me this morning how to parse the MemeStreams RSS feed. So I present this. This is a simple Perl script which uses XML::RSS to parse the headlines from a number of news sites, including MemeStreams, and post them to a Prolite LED sign. There is a lot more in that RSS object then a title, but hopefully you can use this as a starting point for your projects.

LedNews -- Example RSS perl script

] VeriSign/Network Solutions' recent actions to effectively
] "hijack" all unused domain names in the ".COM" and ".NET"
] TLDs (Top Level Domains) for their "Site Finder" service,
] unilaterally and without prior warning or consultation
] with the Internet technical or policy communities,
] represents an arrogant and dangerous abuse of their
] vested, dominant, special position, and have vast policy,
] legal, and technical implications.

Lauren Weinstein, Peter Neumann, and Dave Farber rip Verisign a new asshole. 'Bout damn time someone did it. This is an undercovered story.

PFIR Statement on VeriSign/NSI