Wired: Top Stories (19 unread)
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Feds Scrape Together $30M for Plug-In Hybrids. That's All?
Posted: June 13th, 2008, 8:45pm EDT by Autopia
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The Department of Energy ponies up a whopping $30 million to help get plug-in hybrids on the road -- by 2016. That isn't nearly enough money, and it's too long a timeline. It's time for the government to make EVs a national priority.
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'Obama Girl' Celebrates One Year Anniversary
Posted: June 13th, 2008, 8:10pm EDT by Threat Level
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Obama Girl has inspired dozens of musical responses from around the globe.
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'Fat Guy Stuck in Internet' Spoofs 'Tron,' 'Star Wars'
Posted: June 13th, 2008, 6:47pm EDT by Underwire
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Adult Swim's new shorty show lays the geek shtick on thick as it follows the exploits of a goofball cyberadventurer and his pals.
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Gallery: Satellites Document War, Destruction From Outer Space
Posted: June 13th, 2008, 6:45pm EDT by Alexis Madrigal
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: Photos: Courtesy AAAS Science and Human Rights, © 2007 DigitalGlobeIf your town was bombed out of existence, would anyone care?
If you live in one of the dusty, poor corners of the world, maybe not. Carnage in developing countries often goes unnoticed in the more wired, wealthy parts of the world.
That's where the American Academy for the Advancement of Sciences' Geospatial Technology and Human Rights Project comes in. It is charged with using the latest in technology, primarily high-resolution satellite photography, to detect and call attention to possible human rights violations.
"I don't consider what we look at to be war in the sense that it's two armies [or] groups of soldiers. These things are slaughters, genocides, butchery and the like," said Lars Bromley, director for the AAAS Science and Human Rights Program, who was profiled in Wired 15.12. "Women and children are the primary targets. It's rare we look at anything that approaches an actual battle."
This gallery presents a variety of before and after satellite photographs spanning the globe, including the most recent photographs from Ethiopia, which helped make the case for what Human Rights Watch declared "crimes against humanity" by government soldiers in the Ogaden region of the country. When before and after pictures are shown, the before shot is above the after shot.
Left: In this before-and-after sequence, you can see the aftermath of a visit by Ethiopian troops to the town of Labigah. In the after shot at the bottom, taken six months after the attack, Bromley's team counted dozens of destroyed buildings. Bromley believes that the blue-grey color of some rubble indicates the presence of ash.
"You still have apparent ash on the ground six months after the attack took place," he said. "It was probably a pretty significant burning event."
That's backed up by the team's ability to pull out the infrared signature from the raw satellite data, and in that spectrum, Bromley said that burned material has a distinctive spectral signature.
"Really what we do is stare at these things forever and verify each structure from one image to another," Bromley said.
: Photos: Courtesy AAAS Science and Human Rights, © 2007 DigitalGlobeBurma's military junta has long been suspected of waging a campaign of repression against its political adversaries in the state of Keren, which borders Thailand. In April, Bromley got reports that the town you can see in the top left image had been attacked. During a break in the monsoon-season clouds, a satellite snapped this shot of the village's former site. All that remains of the village is burn scars.
"This place was attacked and wholesale burned to the ground, which is relatively rare for Burma," he said. "Most of the attacks are shelling and mining and shooting."
Despite presenting this evidence in the United Nations, which caused an international stir, the government in Burma, also known as Myanmar, remains in power.
"We're getting images of human misery on pretty much a daily basis and where do we go from here?" Bromley asked. "Governments are less confident that they can hide these things, but they are more confident they can get away with it."
The settlement in the image pair at left shows burn scars for about 12 to 14 structures. This corresponds with reported attacks in the area on April 22, 2007 (Lat: 18.54 N Long: 97.05 E).
The before image was taken on Dec 13, 2006. The after image is from June 24, 2007.
: Photos: Courtesy AAAS Science and Human Rights, © 2007 DigitalGlobeIn July 2006, intense fighting broke out between Israeli troops and the Hezbollah paramilitary group in Lebanon. As rockets rained down on northern Israel, the Israelis responded with a devastating aerial attack on Hezbollah strongholds in Beirut.
Referring to the neighborhood pictured here, Bromley said, "The so-called Hezbollah suburb in Beirut is the most catastrophic destruction we've ever looked at."
A strange amendment to the Land Remote Sensing Policy Act, which governs U.S. satellite image distribution, prevents the commercial distribution of high-resolution satellite images of Israel, so Bromley's team was unable to assess the damage that Hezbollah rockets did to Israeli towns. Human Rights Watch placed the death tolls of the short conflict at 1,200 Lebanese and 39 Israelis.
As an indication of scale, you can see a soccer field in the lower left-hand corner.
Pictured are close-up satellite images of part of Beirut City before (June 19, 2006) and after (August 12, 2006) attacks.
: Photos: Courtesy AAAS Science and Human Rights, © 2007 DigitalGlobeSince coming to power in 1980, Robert Mugabe has ruled Zimbabwe with an iron fist. These aerial photographs show the erasure of the town of Porta Farm, a settlement that had the bad luck of being in a known opposition area. Bromley wryly called it Mugabe's version of "gerrymandering."
"He destroyed all the homes, because if you don't have a home, you're not gonna vote there," he said.
While seeing the destruction can be easy once you know where to look, finding areas in distress can be difficult. And once they are found, local informants have to be very careful to avoid getting caught distributing this type of information.
"We had really good communications with the people inside, [who were] writing to us on Hotmail accounts in the middle of the night, that kind of stuff," Bromley said.
: Photos: Courtesy AAAS Science and Human Rights, © 2007 DigitalGlobeIn February 2008, the Sudanese government launched a military campaign in Western Darfur to drive out rebels fighting under the name the Justice and Equality Movement. The images show the damage from a single town in the region, Abu Suruj. The areas in red show all of the areas that burned during the conflict.
A UN report on the attacks (.pdf) noted the Sudanese offensive included "aerial bombardments by helicopter gunships and fixed-wing aircraft." In addition to showing the ashy remains of homes, the close-up picture shows what is probably a rebel stronghold in the upper-right portion of the image. Crater impacts, probably from mortar fire, are visible within the ring-like defensive perimeter.
: Photos: Courtesy AAAS Science and Human Rights, © 2007 DigitalGlobeBack in 2000, during a two-year war between Ethiopia and Eritrea over what Bromley described as "literally 10 square miles of the most desolate place on Earth," Ethiopian troops occupied a portion of Eritrea. In the process, they destroyed several Eritrean towns. One of them, Serha, is shown in these images. The seven buildings clearly visible in the top photograph from June 2000 had been destroyed when a new satellite image was taken in August. These images were used in international legal proceedings against Ethiopia that resulted in a monetary settlement for Eritrea, which was never paid. Relations between the countries remain tense.
"The Ethiopians and Eritreans are about to go at it again, hammer and tongs," Bromley said.
He did note, however, that at least in the case of actual national armies, blame can be assigned to countries and politicians. That's not always an option that his team has.
"When you get into Darfur and some of these other places where it's just five thousand kids with guns, you get a more horrific medieval situation."
: Photos: Courtesy AAAS Science and Human Rights, © 2007 DigitalGlobeFrom 2000 to 2004, the Israeli Defense Forces began the construction of a security wall around Israel. As part of that effort, they removed about 2,500 homes in the Gaza Strip. "The Israeli security forces wanted to clear a perimeter and they went in with bulldozers and cleared what they needed to clear," Bromley said.
Bromley did note, however, that the missing buildings in this case were not caused by burning or bombing but by "bulldozers surrounded by tanks."
: Photos: Courtesy AAAS Science and Human Rights, © 2007 DigitalGlobeSatellite images of North Korean prison-labor camps, like this one, helped human-rights groups show the extent of what they called the "hidden gulag" system. By showing the images to escaped prisoners, the researchers were able to estimate the layouts and capacities of the camps. Their stunning estimate that 150,000 to 200,000 people were being held focused attention on the scale and gravity of the situation.
"Governments are less confident that they can hide these things," Bromley said.
But, he noted, atrocities that have long been documented in satellite images and from on-the-ground accounts still rage on.
"We're getting images of human misery on pretty much a daily basis," Bromley said. But his organization can't stop the fighting, and neither can nongovernmental organizations or (generally speaking) the UN.
"Have we ended all human suffering? No. Does that bother me? Yes," he concluded.
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Do Fear the Reaper: Readers Visualize Death Data
Posted: June 13th, 2008, 6:30pm EDT by Wired Science
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Two Wired.com readers, an actuary and a computer scientist, create exclusive visualizations of data on your risk-of-death from a variety of causes.
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The Microhoo Aftermath: What Doesn't Kill Google Makes It Stronger
Posted: June 13th, 2008, 5:29pm EDT by Associated Press
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The dust has hardly settled in the aftermath of the collapse of any kind of Microsoft/Yahoo tie-up but it's already pretty clear Google is in an even stronger position than before. The Google/Yahoo partnership not only gives more reason for advertisers to favor Google, it keeps a potentially valuable weapon out of Microsoft's control.
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RIAA: The Perpetual Litigation Machine
Posted: June 13th, 2008, 5:20pm EDT by Threat Level
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The Recording Industry Association of America dropped a copyright infringement case against a New York family and refiled it with another judge. The original judge was to rule soon on a motion to dismiss. The defense lawyer called the move "judge shopping." The RIAA has sued more than 20,000 for unlawfully sharing music on peer-to-peer networks.
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Build Your Own Iron Man Armor
Posted: June 13th, 2008, 4:10pm EDT by How-To Wiki
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When engaging in close-range combat with terrorists and gun-wielding thugs, few items offer better protection than a custom-built bulletproof suit. Be your own Iron Man by following our guide.
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Extension Developers Race to Support Firefox 3
Posted: June 13th, 2008, 2:50pm EDT by Webmonkey
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The browser is prepped and ready to go, but are the add-ons? Find out which of your favorite extensions are going to be ready for Firefox Download Day Tuesday.
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Gadget Lab Costume Contest: Win a $2,000 Iron Man Phone
Posted: June 13th, 2008, 2:47pm EDT by Gadget Lab
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It's contest time in the Gadget Lab again. For this challenge, we want you to submit a picture of yourself wearing your very own homebrewed, DIY superhero costume. The winner will receive an ultra-rare $2,000 Iron Man phone from LG.
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Screaming-Fast Banshee Media Player Hits 1.0
Posted: June 13th, 2008, 1:00pm EDT by monkey_bites
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iTunes-like media player Banshee released a speedier version of its software today. 1.0 sports some cool features to make playing music on Linux a whole lot more desirable.
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IBM's 'Artificial Passenger' Reads Lips, Tracks Movements
Posted: June 13th, 2008, 1:00pm EDT by Autopia
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IBM's "Artificial Passenger" steering wheel reads your lips, responds to your facial expressions and lets you channel your inner rock 'n' roll drummer in traffic. To which we ask: Why?
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Parsing Yahoo: Move Along, Folks ... Nothing to See Here
Posted: June 13th, 2008, 11:15am EDT by Jack Flack, Portfolio.com
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News from Portfolio.com
Also on Portfolio
Int'l. Fight League Fighting for Its Life
Slideshow: Editorial Cartoons of the Week
Subscribe to Portfolio magazineSo why was it Yahoo, not Microsoft, that revealed to the Wall Street Journal's Matt Karnitschnig that the latter was no longer interested in a full-blown acquisition of the former? Because Yahoo surely wanted to get the word out before any more shareholders punched their ballots, while Microsoft surely enjoyed the idea of Carl's slate getting as many votes as possible.
The Yahoo statement not only begs for the event to be seen as the end of the saga, but also for a good parsing.
Yahoo: Yahoo! Inc., a leading global Internet company, today announced that discussions with Microsoft regarding a potential transaction -- whether for an acquisition of all of Yahoo! or a partial acquisition -- have concluded.
Translation: We're absolutely, positively sure that this time this is actually the end.
Yahoo: The conclusion of discussions follows numerous meetings and conversations with Microsoft regarding a number of transaction alternatives, including a meeting between Yahoo! and Microsoft on June 8th in which Chairman Roy Bostock and other independent Board members from Yahoo! participated.
Translation: We tried really hard. And adult supervision was present.
Yahoo: At that meeting, Microsoft representatives stated unequivocally that Microsoft is not interested in pursuing an acquisition of all of Yahoo!, even at the price range it had previously suggested.
Translation: We're still dreaming of $37 in May of 2008. They're now dreaming of $17 in May of 2009.
Yahoo: With respect to an acquisition of Yahoo!'s search business alone that Microsoft had proposed, Yahoo!'s Board of Directors has determined, after careful evaluation, that such a transaction would not be consistent with the company's view of the converging search and display marketplaces, would leave the company without an independent search business that it views as critical to its strategic future and would not be in the best interests of Yahoo! stockholders.
Translation: It was never consistent with that view, but we were willing to make that sacrifice to stay independent."
Yahoo: Yahoo! remains focused on maximizing value for stockholders by continuing to execute on its strategy of being the "starting point" for the most consumers on the Internet and a "must buy" for advertisers.
Translation: Though we've heard rumors another company may already occupy those positions.
Yahoo: The online advertising industry is projected to grow from $40 billion in 2007 to approximately $75 billion in 2010...
Translation: The growth of the industry will outpace our ongoing share losses within that industry.
Yahoo: ...and the company believes it has the right assets, strategic plan, Board of Directors and management team to capitalize on this growth opportunity.
Translation: It was all just a bad dream. We're so grateful to back in Kansas.
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UK's House of Lords Join the YouTube Generation
Posted: June 13th, 2008, 6:42am EDT by Associated Press
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Britain's House of Lords isn't a bunch of rich, out-of-touch old guys, they want you to know. But somehow that's the lingering impression among much of the populace, at least among those who knows the body still exists. So, to increase their street cred the Lords are releasing some snappy videos on their own YouTube channel -- thus ensuring that there will always be an England.
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ATT Mulls Upcharge for Big Downloaders
Posted: June 13th, 2008, 5:06am EDT by Associated Press
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ATT, the nation's largest ISP, is considering big downloaders more. A spokesman calls the policy "inevitable" but announced no specific plans. Overall bandwidth is surging, ATT says, and the top 5 percent of users eat 46 percent of the total. Other ISPs have secret caps, and Time Warner Cable already has a pilot surcharge plan in Beaumont, Texas.
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Critic Uncovered Judge's Porn Stash
Posted: June 13th, 2008, 4:34am EDT by Threat Level
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Cyrus Mark Sanai went digging through 9th Circuit chief judge Alex Kozinski's personal website after the judge allegedly hosted a court document relating to Sanai's divorce proceedings. The porn and MP3s he found set off a firestorm of controversy.
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June 13, 1983: Pioneer 10 Reaches an End ... and a Beginning
Posted: June 13th, 2008, 12:00am EDT by Tony Long
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1983: Pioneer 10 becomes the first human-made object to pass outside Pluto's orbit and leave the central solar system.
Pioneer 10 must be considered one of the most successful spacecraft of all time. Designed for deep-space exploration, which at the time of its launch in 1972 meant pretty much anything beyond the moon, Pioneer 10 achieved a number of firsts while sending back valuable data along the way. Among the milestones:
Following liftoff, Pioneer 10 achieved a breakaway speed of 32,400 mph, making it the fastest human-made object to leave the Earth. It shot past the moon in a mere 11 hours and crossed Mars' orbit in just 12 weeks. By the time it reached Jupiter on Dec. 3, 1973, Pioneer 10 was moving along at a crisp 82,000 mph.
On July 12, 1972, Pioneer 10 became the first spacecraft to pass through the asteroid belt. NASA described this as a "spectacular achievement" and, considering that asteroids the size of Alaska hurtle through the belt at 45,000 mph, there's no reason to dispute the claim.
Upon reaching Jupiter, Pioneer 10 sent back the first direct observations and close-up images of the solar system's largest planet. It was data from Pioneer 10 that confirmed that Jupiter is mostly a liquid planet.
After clearing Pluto's orbit (considered the boundary of the planetary solar system in the decades before astronomers decided Pluto isn't really a planet), Pioneer 10 continued to send back valuable data regarding solar wind, until its scientific mission ended in 1997.
All attempts to contact Pioneer 10 were terminated following the spacecraft's last transmission of telemetry data on April 27, 2002. Nevertheless, NASA's Deep Space Network received a final, faint signal on Jan. 22, 2003. It's been silence ever since.
Although lost to contact forever, Pioneer 10 continues its endless journey through interstellar space. It's headed in the general direction of Aldebaran, the brightest star in constellation Taurus, forming the bull's eye. According to NASA, it will take about 2 million years for Pioneer 10 to reach Taurus.
So Pioneer 10's mission, originally intended to go 21 months, lasted 25 years and change. As project manager Larry Lasher said, "I guess you could say we got our money's worth."
Source: NASA
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Christian Theologians Prepare for Extraterrestrial Life
Posted: June 13th, 2008, 12:00am EDT by Brandon Keim
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Little green men might shock the secular public. But the Catholic Church would welcome them as brothers.
That's what Vatican chief astronomer and papal science adviser Gabriel Funes explained in a recent article in L'Osservatore Romano, the newsletter of the Vatican Observatory (translated here). His conclusion might surprise nonbelievers. After all, isn't this the same church that imprisoned Galileo for saying that the Earth revolves around the sun? Doesn't the Bible say that God created man -- not little green men -- in his image?
Indeed, many observers assert that aliens would be bad for believers. Jill Tarter, director of the Center for SETI Research, once wrote that finding intelligent other-worldly life "will be inconsistent with the existence of God or at least organized religions." But such predictions tend to come from outside Christianity. From within, theologians have debated the implications of alien contact for centuries. And if one already believes in angels, no great leap of faith is required to accept the possibility of other extraterrestrial intelligences.
Since God created the universe, theologians say, he would have created aliens, too. And far from being weakened by contact, Christianity would adapt. Its doctrines would be interpreted anew, the aliens greeted with open -- and not necessarily Bible-bearing -- arms.
"The main question is, 'Would religion survive this contact?'" said NASA chief historian Steven J. Dick, author of The Biological Universe. "Religion hasn't gone away after Copernican theory, after Darwin. They've found ways to adapt, and they'll find a way if this happens, too," Dick says.
The central conundrum posed to Christianity by alien contact would involve the Incarnation -- the arrival of Jesus Christ as God's representative on Earth, his crucifixion and the absolution of humanity's sins through his forgiveness.
"It would still be true -- but if there are other races and intelligences, then what is the meaning of this visit to our race at that time?" asked Vatican astronomer Guy Consolmagno, who in 2005 penned the booklet Intelligent Life in the Universe?
Some propose that the Earthly incarnation of Jesus some 2,000 years ago redeemed all intelligent creatures, in all places and -- since a space-faring race is likely older than us -- in all times. Others have suggested that Jesus could take multiple forms.
"Just as Jesus is human like you and I, you would find an alien-specific Jesus," said Pacific Lutheran Theological Seminary professor Ted Peters.
But Peters and others also say that aliens may not have fallen into sin, instead existing in a state of grace, neither having nor needing Jesus. In that case, missionaries would have no call to convert them.
"Would sin be the same on another planet as we conceive of it here? Would there even be sin, or would God be present to that species in a completely different way?" says Richard Randolph, a Kansas City University ethicist.
All this, however, assumes that humanity not only encounters new forms of life but also understands them. Other intelligences may be incomprehensible to us, thus intensifying another doctrinal question: What does it mean to be made, as the Bible proclaims, in God's image?
Many astrotheologians argue that God's image refers to our spiritual nature, with our physical forms being irrelevant. Not everyone, however, agrees.
"If there are aliens, the Bible specifically does not say that they were created in his image," said Mark Conn, pastor of the Noble Hill Baptist Church in Springfield, Missouri. "God created many other intelligent beings on this planet, and they were not created in His image."
Conn's church recently met to discuss the issues posed by extraterrestrial contact, ultimately deciding that "if they're there, they're there. It doesn't change a whole lot."
Unlike Peters, Conn suggested that missionary work may be required, something the aliens may not welcome -- especially if, as many postulate, they are technologically superior to humanity and do not have religions of their own.
"Maybe they'll say that they used to need religion but have outgrown it. Some people say that would be a great blow to religion, because if an advanced civilization doesn't need it, why do we?" said Douglas Vakoch, director of interstellar message composition at SETI.
"I don't buy it, though. I think religion meets very human needs, and unless extraterrestrials can provide a replacement for it, I don't think religion is going to go away," he continued. "And if there are incredibly advanced civilizations with a belief in God, I don't think Richard Dawkins will start believing."
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Artifacts From the Future
Posted: June 13th, 2008, 12:00am EDT by Sean Hamilton Alexander
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