1. Who Should - or Shouldn't - Use Linux?
Independence Day may come only once a year here in the land of stars and stripes, but the topic of independence is one that's never far from Linux bloggers' minds. Freedom, in other words, and all the myriad benefits that go along with it. It's an oft-cited reason for using our favorite operating system, and it's also a topic that got examined up close recently by the inquiring minds over at TuxRadar. "We want to know whether the primary reason you use open source software is for its freedom or for its function," the inquiring minds wrote.
2.Porn pranksters have a field day with YouTube injection flaw
Eager YouTube fans were greeted with annoying pop-ups, disabled comments, and even porn redirects over Independence Day weekend as they tried to scope out their favorite videos. A group of malicious pranksters—believed to be from 4chan—was able to take advantage of an cross-site scripting vulnerability in YouTube's comments Sunday, breaking as many video pages as possible before Google stepped in with a fix.
YouTube heavily restricts the use of HTML in the comments for videos, and with good reason. Left to their own devices, users could (purposefully or accidentally) redirect others to sites with malware or porn. YouTube employed a filter to ensure any HTML used in the comments was properly sanitized, but there was a flaw that allowed the 4chan crowd to get past the block with their own scripts.
3. iPhone 4 First Impressions: The One to Get, If You Can Find It
I tried to preorder an iPhone 4 online, but of course, I was one of the hundreds of thousands of potential buyers who could not get through the clogged Apple and AT&T servers on June 15, the first day the companies began accepting early orders. By the time the servers and system recovered enough to let me in, I was facing a "Ships by July 2" notice. Ouch. My buddy has it worse. His won't ship until July 14. However, AT&T did get their shipments in on June 28, and they opened their doors to iPhone 4 sales the next day at 7 in the morning.
4. Nexus One First In Line at the Froyo Dessert Bar
Google has begun rolling out Android 2.2 in over-the-air updates to owners of its Nexus One smartphone. Android 2.2, also known as "Froyo," has several new features, including a few that target the business market. Updates for other Android smartphones will have to wait until their customized interfaces have been tweaked to work well with Froyo. Froyo now lets Microsoft Exchange administrators enforce corporate password policies across multiple devices. Its developers have added numeric pin or alpha-numeric password options to unlock the device.
5. Unusual quantum states may shake up quantum computing
Researchers have found a new method of controlling the quantum states of solid particles, and the research could enable a different approach to quantum computing, according to a paper published inNature.
Using doped silicon, scientists found that they were able to exert control over the solid atoms using terahertz frequency radiation, getting the atoms to oscillate between states normally found in hydrogen atoms. While the equipment they used was very specialized, the authors hope that this new level of coherent control will allow for a different style of entanglement, as well as finer manipulation of quantum information held in excited atoms.
Scientists have had a field day using lasers to perform all manner of quantum manipulations on various particles: trapping photons, entangling them, and sending them over long distances, even using this to perform simple quantum calculations. However, these quantum states are often unstable and hard to control, creating errors and unreliability in their information and in the calculations they perform.
6. Google buys airfare comparison firm used by Bing, others
Forget Googling for the best site to get flight information and the best fare comparisons—soon, you'll just be able to use Google. Google has purchased flight information company ITA in hopes of incorporating ITA's services into new Google tools. Given the wide use of ITA's tools in the travel industry, however, Google may run into problems trying to close the deal
ITA is known for providing some of the best fare comparison searches (my favorite is the flight matrix), and its services are used often by travel agencies and airlines. In fact, ITA's software powers Farecast, which was acquired by Microsoft in 2008 for use in Bing Travel. It is also used by major travel sites such as Orbitz and CheapTickets.
Some worry that Google will kill off ITA's ties to Bing and other flight booking services once the deal goes through—it would be a major loss for the air travel industry if Google decided to keep ITA to itself. However, Google claims on its announcement page that it plans to "honor all existing agreements, and we're also enthusiastic about adding new partners."
It sounds as if Google plans continue to license the technology out while simply giving itself home field advantage; if users can do everything they need at Google, there's less need to head to another site to get the same information.
This is the same reason why the deal might receive some critical scrutiny from the government, though—as noted by IDG, competitors are likely to complain that Google has full control of a vital piece of the airline industry.
7. Automatic origami: "programmable matter" can fold itself
Watch your backs, professional origamists: researchers are working on a sheet of material that can fold itself. The sheets of material, called "programmable matter" by their inventors, use electric pulses to stimulate themselves into various folded shapes.
So far, one sheet can fold itself into a little boat or an airplane, but the creators envision wide-ranging applications for their programmable matter, from shelving to measuring utensils to a modern Swiss Army knife.
The programmable matter actually works much like origami, and the researchers have integrated some origami folding into its development. One of the first steps in the creation of their folding algorithms is to record a step-by-step unfolding of a real origami object, which they can then reverse and apply to the programmable matter sheets.
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