Using an IR led array and some reflective tape, you can track fingers in thin air using the Wii Remote by Johnny Lee, Carnegie Mellon University.

YouTube - Tracking fingers with the Wii Remote

Between 1898 and 1905, he built and flew 11 dirigibles. With air traffic control restrictions still decades in the future, he would glide along Paris boulevards at rooftop level in one of his airships, commonly landing in front of a fashionable outdoor cafe for lunch. On one occasion he even flew an airship early one morning to his own apartment at No. 9, Rue Washington, just off Avenue des Champs-Elysees, not far from the Arc de Triomphe.

Santos-Dumont should be a hacker patron saint.

Alberto Santos-Dumont - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The Protector, which comes mounted with a 7.62mm machine gun, wasn’t originally intended for anti-piracy operations. But according to BAE Systems spokesperson Stephanie Moncada, the robot could easily fill that role. “Down the line, it could potentially be modified for commercial use as well,” she says. Instead of being deployed by a warship to intercept and possibly fire on an incoming vessel, a non-lethal variant of the Protector could be used to simply investigate a potential threat.

Armed autonomous boats.

Robot Boats Hunt Pirates - Navy - Unmanned Surface Vessels - Protector - Popular Mechanics

By Wendy Seltzer

Doc’s post and the impending comments deadline for the next iteration of ICANN’s never-ending WHOIS saga finally pushed me to write up my thoughts on the latest iteration of ICANN debate.

Its interesting that this has cropped up again. It seems that European and Canadian privacy laws have begun to have an impact on the cabal of intellectual property interests and assorted supporting elements who aren't thinking hard enough about the issue who together have foisted Whois requirements on the Internet. I have written extensively and perhaps angrily about this issue in the past. I'm less concerned about the issue than I was in the past because the proxy services exist, and the need to handle subpoenas does provide some economic justification for them. However, there are better ways to handle this problem by far, and whats frustrating to me is the sheer amount of technical and situational ignorance that has been exhibited by people participating in this debate. I have never read an argument for the policies that exist that didn't fall to very simple critical thinking, and yet so many people insist on holding on to these deeply authoritarian ideas.

U: Predictably, ICANN upheld the status quo.

WHOIS Redux: Demand Privacy in Domain Name Registration

While I sat at my desk one day, two of my classmates figured out how to overwrite the entire screen, which seemed kinda naughty at the time. They giggled, did it again, then giggled some more. From curious children, hackers were born.

Forward 40: What Became of the LOGO Programming Language? on Wired Science

PhreakNIC 0x0b

PhreakNIC is an annual gathering in Nashville, TN, for hackers, makers, security professionals, and general technology enthusiasts. Hours upon hours of both informative and entertaining presentations are given by volunteers and many areas are set up with the intent of encouraging socialization. In our 11th year, we are now the longest running non-commercial hacker convention in the United States.* PhreakNIC is organized by the Nashville 2600 Organization, which is a 501(c)(3) tax deductible charity. However, it takes many resources to organize, and help is given to PhreakNIC by other 2600 groups in the South East United States, as well as the Nashville Linux Users Group. Our thanks go out to all who contribute.

This is next weekend BTW. I'm speaking twice.

PhreakNIC Technology and Hacker Culture Convention

School: Did you really name your son Robert'); Drop Table Students;--?
Mom: Oh. Yes. Little Bobby Tables we call him
School: Well, we've lost this year's student records. I hope your happy.
Mom: and I hope you've learned to sanitize your database inputs.

HAHAHA! Sweet.

To be fair, you shouldn't sanitize user input, you should validate it.

And you thought O'Hare was a bad name...

My team at O'Reilly Research has been crunching the numbers on the rise of Facebook as application platform, and we've released a new report today, entitled simply The Facebook Application Platform.

The good news has already been widely disseminated: there are nearly 5000 Facebook applications, and the top applications have tens of millions of installs and millions of active users. The bad news, alas, is in our report: 87% of the usage goes to only 84 applications!

Good News, Bad News about Facebook Application Market: Long Tail Rules

In this free contest, your task is to design a poster for PhreakNIC, an educational conference held in October of each year. For more information see the website.

A Phreaknic poster contest at Worth1000. That is so cool. This makes me very happy!

PhreakNIC Worth1000 Contest

This crack security staff was digging through my bag. They were concerned because I brought a microcontroller programmer:

“Sir, this is an improvised electronic device. You will never be allowed to fly with this.”

Apparently TSA says you can't fly with any custom electronics. Well, TSA doesn't actually say that, but arbitrarily TSA agents are free to decide that. Better not express disagreement. You might get tasered.

ther Pages of Rages » An airport experience