Nook Color’s version 1.4.1 Update

The Barnes & Noble Nook Color’s update v1.4.1 is here and according to Barnes and Noble, it’s the "biggest ever update." Adding apps like Netflix and Flixster, Nook Comic™ books, New PagePerfect™ NOOK Books™ and other enhancements like in-line dictionary support and landscape reading options for books.

The update will roll out automatically over Wi-Fi, but if you’re willing to do minimal manual labor, Barnes & Noble has the update available as a zip file for self-administering.

Fox News successfully creates climate confusion, but only among conservatives ~ ArsTechnica

As it turns out, the survey contained information that can help address this issue. Over 40 percent of the self-identified Democrats sometimes watch Fox, while 17 percent of Republicans tune in to CNN and MSNBC. When the numbers for those viewers were broken out, two different trends were apparent. Among Democrats, it didn’t matter how often they watched Fox; their acceptance of climate change remained roughly steady. Republicans who watched MSNBC and CNN, however, had a much higher acceptance than their peers who maintained a strict diet of Fox.

Read the full article

Happy Birthday Carl Sagan!

Happy Birthday Carl Sagan!
November 9, 1934 – December 20, 1996

If you wish to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first invent the universe. —Carl Sagan

The Little Tablet That Could–Nook Color Updated to v1.2.0, FroYo

It has finally arrived! The Nook Color update v1.2.0 – released yesterday, now brings to the device Android’s FroYo OS 2.2 [though hidden behind a tightly controlled interface], and has created in the e-reader, “the little tablet that could.”

While the BN message boards do show some hiccups with the update, mine in fact went flawlessly.

Highlights in the update included the availability of apps in the curated app-store, a moderately featured and unified email client and flash capabilities for web and enhanced book reading and viewing.

At the moment the content within the BN app-store is anemic to say the least, with all of about 139 apps at launch, but with 5000 member developers registered for the Nook Color SDK, more apps are sure to follow.

Click to continue to the Barnes & Noble press release and for links to the update…

Nook Color Update [FroYo] Coming Soon?

Via nook Facebook page:

“You asked, we listened. This spring, use your NOOK Color to send e-mail and explore popular apps like Angry Birds, Drawing Pad, Lonely Planet Phrasebooks, and Wine PhD. Stay tuned here for news about these exciting new features and when the firmware update will be ready. (P.S. Yes! We said Angry Birds!) What apps would you love to see on your NOOK Color?”

Update: Barnes & Noble has now made this completely official itself, and confirmed that the update will include email support among other “exciting new applications.”

HTC Aria FINALLY updated to Android (FROYO) 2.2

HTC Aria ™ for AT&T Android 2.2 ROM Update | 02.25.2011

This software is an update for the HTC Aria™ for AT&T. Please note that during this update process, the device will be Hard Reset and anything that is NOT part of the Operating System (applications downloaded from Android Market, SMS/MMS, Email, etc)) will be permanently deleted; always make a point of backing up your devices data on a regular basis!

Note: All Music, Pictures, and Video are stored on the MicroSD card and will not be deleted during the update process. All applications downloaded from Market are linked to the Gmail account set up on the device and can be restored to the device using that Gmail account.

Investigative Report: How the BP Oil Rig Blowout Happened–Popular Mechanics

”…the Horizon disaster resulted from many human and technical failings in a risk-taking corporation that operated in an industry with ineffective regulatory oversight. By the time the blowout came, it was almost inevitable. ‘It’s clear that the problem is not technology, but people,’ says Robert Bea, an engineering professor at the University of California–Berkeley. ‘It was a chain of important errors made by people in critical situations involving complex technological and organization systems.’”

”Oil and gas leases are the federal government’s second largest source of revenue, after income taxes…”

”What unfolded over the next few hours could almost have been written as a treatise in the science of industrial accidents.”

”The offshore rush was on, and nothing was going to stop it. ‘when you think you’ve got a robust system,’ says Henry Petroski, a professor of civil engineering at Duke university, ‘you tend to relax.’”

“How can a device that has 260 failure modes be considered fail-safe?”

“The argument revealed the inherent conflict on the rig. BP, which was paying Transocean $500,000 daily to lease the Horizon, wanted to move as quickly as possible. With its costs covered, Transocean could afford to focus more on safety and well control.”

”In the end, 11 men died…But worst of all, says Ford Brett, president of Oil and Gas Consultants International, the blowout ‘wasn’t an accident in the traditional sense, like when someone just hits your car. It was an accident that was totally preventable.’”

Investigative Report: How the BP Oil Rig Blowout Happened

Message To Computer Security Experts From Users: Take This P******d And Shove It!

ARE PASSWORDS  REALLY THAT DIFFICULT?

When it comes to creating passwords for social networks, business [to a lesser extent] or more alarmingly e-commerce programs, most Web users seem to have gotten lazy. That’s the (not particularly shocking) news last month from Web security firm Imperva, which examined data uncovered in a recent breach of a site called RockYou.com: users are simply continuing to ignore experts’ advice.

Fortunately, or not depending on your perspective, there is no paucity of advice on the subject of password selection and protection offered by computer and information security (CIS) experts and analysts – and even though that advice has been around for even as long as a couple of decades now, it is continually evolving.

And yet there will likely be no changes in users’ behavior even with the recent news of the intrusion into web company RockYou and the subsequent pilfering and posting of approximately 32 million user passwords: security analysts were alarmed to find a continuing trend in password choices: one out of five Web users still decides to leave the digital equivalent of a key under the doormat - they choose simple, weak, easily guessed passwords like “abc123,” “iloveyou” or even “password” to protect their data.

There are even some experts like Cormac Herley, Principle Researcher at Microsoft Research who are suggesting that the burden is just too high for users and that it might be entirely rational to reject the experts advice.

It appears Herley might be correct in his assertion [spelled out in detail in his paper] that statistically the overall costs to all users exceeds the relative benefits to the few who might be harmed, yet none of us would appreciate being counted among the statistical few who are indeed compromised.

Vigilance over our digital data is mandatory and the advice offered by experts is valid, but I agree with the assertion made by Herley that the blame lies not with the pallid behavior of computer users, but rather with the complex and incoherent burdens placed upon individual users. More directly: the blame lies with the security experts and the burdens they place upon us.

In order to fix this apparent hole from an individual users point of view there needs to be a universal solution that is far easier to enact than what is about to follow. The human factor is truly security’s weakest link.

Homeopathy: There’s nothing in it ~ The 10:23 Campaign

Latest News:

The Pharmaceutical Society of Northern Ireland has issued draft guidance for members requiring they inform patients that homeopathy does not work.

What is homeopathy?

Homeopathy is an unscientific and absurd pseudoscience, yet it persists today as an accepted complementary medicine.

Ask many people what they think homeopathy is, and you’ll be told "it’s herbal medicine" or "it’s all-natural". Few realise that it’s been proven not to work; even fewer know it involves substances so dilute that there’s nothing left in them. Homeopathy takes advantage of this uncertainty to sit alongside real, proven medicines on the shelves of our major pharmacies.

The 10:23 Campaign

The 10:23 Campaign aims to raise awareness about the reality of homeopathy. We will tell you how it can be proven not to work, why homeopaths’ claims are impossible, why you should care.

The campaign is organised by the Merseyside Skeptics Society, a non-profit organisation for the promotion of scientific skepticism. More information about Merseyside Skeptics is available on their website.

At 10:23am on January 30th, more than four hundred homeopathy sceptics nationwide took part in a mass homeopathic ‘overdose’ in protest at Boots’ continued endorsement and sale of homeopathic remedies, and to raise public awareness about the fact that homeopathic remedies have nothing in them.

What’s the Harm?

If there is nothing in it, it can’t do any harm, right? Wrong! Journalist and science-writer Simon Singh tells us why.

An Open Letter to Alliance Boots

Last year, Boots admitted that they don’t believe homeopathy works. They said they stock it because "customers believe it works". Sign our open letter and demand Boots stop lending legitimacy to nonsense.

Hot Comments

People think it works because of where they buy it- Stop lending credibility to homeopathy!

- Bernard Knappenberger, Canada

Download the leaflet

Not everyone uses the internet, so if you can’t send them a link, download and print our flyer. Give it to family, friends – whoever you think may be interested. We’re sure you will come up with some more creative uses too!

Petition the PM

Figures obtained last year by More4 News revealed that the NHS spends around £4 million per year on homeopathy, money which could have paid the salaries of almost 200 nurses!

We would welcome any move to evaluate on a medical basis (as opposed to a political one) the provision of unproven treatments such as homeopathy on the NHS. So if you are able, we think it is important to support this petition, which calls for the government to instruct the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE) to evaluate whether it is appropriate for the NHS to fund homeopathy.

Ford Start Concept – More than simply a design exploration into the feasibility of a small car.

PRESS RELEASE

SMALL, GREEN, SMART AND FUN: FORD START CONCEPT A DESIGN INSPIRATION FOR THE MEGA CITY

BEIJING, April 23, 2010 – For parts of the world that are growing increasingly urban, the future of the automobile looks small, green, smart and fun in the eyes of Ford designers who created the Ford Start Concept. It’s a design vision inspired for the transportation needs of the world’s mega cities.

Making its global debut at the 2010 Beijing Auto Show, the Ford Start Concept is more than simply a design exploration into the feasibility of a small car. It also demonstrates how Ford will extend the promise of its EcoBoost engine technology story even further – previewing a fuel-efficient petrol Ford EcoBoost engine with just three cylinders and 1.0 liter of displacement, yet the power of a larger, 1.6-liter I4 engine.