marcan writes "The Homebrew Channel is a tool that can be installed on any Wii (no hardware mods required) that lets you run unsigned homebrew software from an SD card, or upload executables via WiFi or a USBGecko. We've tried to make it friendly for users with a simple GUI, and powerful for developers with direct upload features and reloading which we hope will make testing less painful. The channel can be installed using a DVD if you have a modchip, or using an exploit in Zelda: Twilight Princess which only requires an SD card (or any future hack or booting method). Once installed, it simply shows up as a Channel on the Wii Menu, just like any official channel. Hopefully, this and other recent developments (such as the upcoming devkitPPC r15 toolchain, much improved and with many bugs fixed) will help make the Wii an appealing platform for DIY software. And yes, it also runs Linux."

Lucas123 writes "A vehicle used by an off-site archive company to transport patient data was broken into on March 17. The University of Miami just made the theft public last week, saying the thieves removed a transport case carrying the school's six computer backup tapes. On those tapes were more than 2 million medical records. In fact, the archive company waited 48 hours before notifying the university itself. A University spokeswoman said the school has stopped shipping backup tapes off-site for now."

Pickens writes "Inexpensive GPS devices like the Zoombak (which costs just $200 plus $10 a month) have becomes so prevalent that some people are using them routinely to keep tabs on their most precious possessions. Kathy Besa has a Zoombak attached to the collar of her 5-year-old beagle, Buddy. If Buddy wanders more than 20 feet from the house, she gets a text message on her phone that says, 'Buddy has left the premises.' The small size made possible by chip advances over the last two or three years is enabling many novel uses of GPS tracking. An art collector in New York uses one when he transports million-dollar pieces, a home builder is putting them on expensive appliances to track them if they disappear from construction sites, a drug company is using them after millions of dollars in inventory turned up missing, and a mobile phone company is hiding them in some cellphone boxes to catch thieves."

15-year-old Gemma Anscomb has accepted the Corey Worthington challenge and may have surpassed his mega-party with her internet advertised celebration. When her parents got home they found their dog Bailey had overdosed on ecstasy. Their dining room floor was covered in four inches of beer, their lap-tops, iPods and jewelery had been stolen and they found handcuffs and underwear in their eight-year-old daughter's bedroom. While I appreciate the trend of giant destructive teenage parties and especially the overdosed dog, they all seem about the same to me. What they should shoot for is a party big enough to destroy a neighborhood or region.

uctpjac writes "Jonathan Zittrain, Professor of Internet Governance and Regulation at Oxford and renowned cyberlaw scholar, gave a lecture explaining that the Internet has to be taken out of the hands of the anarchists, the libertarians, and the State, and handed back to self-policing communities of experts. If we don't do this, he believes the Internet will suffer 'self-closure' — the open system will seal itself off when the inability to put its own house in order leads to a take-over by government and business. The article summarizes Zittrain's points and notes, "Forces of organized interests that do not play by the rules, like malware peddlers, identity thieves and spammers are allowing another army of interests — corporate protectionists, often — to demand centralized, authoritarian solutions. This is the future of the Net unless we stop it.'"

While an old meat smoker atop a three-wheel scooter covered in impact-resistant rubber with attached spotlight, infrared camera, loudspeaker and water cannon, may not be Iron Mans new sidekick, it is working for one neighborhood in Atlanta. Rufus Terrill, a bar owner, got sick of the drug dealers, petty thieves and vandals around his downtown location so he built the 4-foot-tall, 300 pound device to fight crime. The robot crime stopper looks imposing but Rufus says that it is quite harmless and that every criminal is given 20 seconds to comply.

sleeplesseye writes "In a speech at the Midem music industry convention in Cannes, Paul McGuinness, longtime manager of the band U2, has called on Internet service providers to immediately introduce mandatory French-style service disconnections to end music downloading, and has urged governments to force ISPs to adopt such policies. McGuinness criticized Radiohead's 'In Rainbows' pay-what-you-want business model, saying that 'the majority of downloads were through illegal P2P download services like BitTorrent and LimeWire'. He also accused ISPs, telcos, device makers, and numerous specifically named companies such as Apple, Google, Yahoo!, Oracle, and Facebook of building 'multi billion dollar industries on the back of our content without paying for it', and of being 'makers of burglary kits' who have made 'a thieves' charter' to steal money from the music industry. The full text of his speech has been posted on U2's website."

Web Goddess writes "The 2007 Darwin Award Winners have been announced. Precarious sex, squashed thieves, animals eradicated with electricity, the obligatory macho competition involving a train, and one computer (which survived.) But think twice before you read them. Do you really want to know about The Enema Within?"

An anonymous reader writes "British TV host Jeremy Clarkson recently wrote a newspaper editorial ridiculing the uproar that had occurred after the British government admitted to losing two compact discs containing the personal information on 25 million people. To support his claim about the overhyped risks of identity theft, he published his bank account information in the article. Proving that some identity thieves have a sense of humor, a week later, he found out that someone had set up an automatic bank transfer for $1000 to a diabetes charity from his account. This comes less than a year after the CEO of LifeLock, an identity theft protection company which publishes the CEO's social security number on its website, himself was a victim of financial fraud. Back in July of 2007, a man in Texas was able to secure a $500 loan from a payday loan company using the CEO's widely publicized SSN. Will this latest incident finally prove that identity theft is real, and that publishing your own financial info is an invitation for fraud?"

hairyfeet writes "Aviv Raff, an Israeli researcher known for his work in hunting browser bugs, has revealed a Firefox spoofing vulnerability which could allow identity thieves to dupe users into giving up their password. According to Mr. Raff Firefox fails to sanitize single quotes and spaces in the 'Realm' value of an authentication header. Raff was quoted as saying 'This makes it possible for an attacker to create a specially crafted Realm value which will look as if the authentication dialog came from a trusted site.' This vulnerability was shown to be in the latest Firefox, version 2.0.0.11 and until Mozilla fixes this vulnerability Mr. Raff recommends in his blog 'not to provide username and password to Web sites which show this dialog.'"

Wednesday, May 28, 2008; Posted: 1:08 PM - by BWW News Desk FEINSTEIN'S AT LOEWS REGENCY, the nightclub proclaimed "Best of New York" by New York Magazine and "an invaluable New York institution" by The New ...

Author Robert Asprin died Thursday in his New Orleans , Louisiana home at the age of 61.

SPRING HILL - Sher Fick hopes her 15-foot-tall interactive tribute to Rapunzel will bring the kid out in art lovers and make some art lovers out of kids.

Re-watching "The Thief of Bagdad ," released today in a glorious Criterion DVD transfer, is not unlike rereading "Treasure Island." Conceived to enchant children, they both requite the adult longing for ...

Action, Adventure, Family, Period Malcolm McDowell, David Barrass, Keira Knightley, Hannah Cresswell An adaptation of the classic Robin Hood story that focuses on Robin Hood's 18-year-old daughter, Gwyn, the ...

Courtesy of Jodie Lynn Nye Fantasy and science fiction author Robert Asprin In the far reaches of Ranke, in the sinister gloom of Sanctuary's Vulgar Unicorn, Hell Hounds, cutpurses and street hustlers raise a ...

A CHARITY boss has hit out at cruel thieves who broke into a kids' respite centre.

Posted by Cory Doctorow , May 22, 2008 10:26 PM RIP, Robert Asprin, science fiction writer and anthologist.

Robert Asprin On May 22, 2008, Bob passed away quietly in his home in New Orleans, LA.

The neighborhoods of Allied Gardens, Navajo and Del Cerro have been hit by a string of 11 burglaries since April, spurring residents to share information and safety tips.