PETN Explosive

The substance used by Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab on Amsterdam to Detroit Flight 253 has been identified as PETN, according to the authorities. Pentaerythritol tetranitrate (PETN) is a highly explosive substance which can be transported in many different ways which makes the chemical a horrible threat to passengers on a plane. Luckily a brave passenger named Jasper Schuringa tackled the terrorist, who tried to ignite explosive device. PETN is highly explosive, colorless and an organic compound. It’s also used as a heart medication stimulant. Officials suspect that the explosives were carried in some sort of soft plastic or latex container like a condom could have been used for the purpose.

Source: http://news.puggal.com/petn-explosive-15513/

Coke Tries Facial-Recognition on Facebook

Coca-Cola wants you to know that Coke Zero is a lot like Coca-Cola Classic. It believes this so strongly that it’s willing to do something unusual to drive the point home, like introducing you to your own doppelganger. Enter the Facial Profiler. The Profiler is a new Facebook application that lets members upload photos of themselves and match them with a similar-looking Facial Profiler user. The idea is that you can find your mirror image, just the way Coke has found its reflection in Coke Zero. The app, which launches today, has been soliciting submissions to build a database with enough photos to reach critical mass. Once a photo is uploaded, its features are analyzed and rated. Users can then vote on the results, which the developers hope will improve its ratings over time. The software is based on the same kind of technology used by law-enforcement agencies to locate individuals within large pools of people.

Source: http://blogs.wsj.com/digits/2009/12/03/coke-tries-facial-recognition-on-facebook/

Amazon's Kindle has copyright protection hacked

An Israeli hacker claims to have broken the copyright protection on Amazon's Kindle e-reader, reports say. The hack will allow the ebooks stored on the reader to be transferred as pdf files to any other device. The hacker, known as Labba, responded to a challenge posted on Israeli hacking forum, hacking.org. It is the latest in a series of Digital Rights Management hacks, the most famous being the reverse engineering of iTunes. The Kindle e-book reader has been very successful since it was launched in the US in 2007. Amazon hopes to have sold a million devices by the end of the year. It leaves it to individual publishers whether they want to apply DRM but books in its main proprietary format .azw, cannot be transferred to other devices. It did not immediately respond to the news but it is likely it will attempt to patch its DRM software. DRM has long divided opinion. While rights holders regard it as a crucial tool to protect copyright, consumers tend to hate it because it limits what can be done with content.

Source: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/8428126.stm

'Seinfeld' over, but Festivus keeps giving

Long before company celebrators bench-pressed fax machines, partygoers performed competitive face-plants into ice water, or family members gathered around an aluminum pole to wield complaints at one another, the common people of ancient Rome began to act up. They were the unruly lot during official religious holidays, the ones who were "raising hell on the streets" while the "elite were putting on their robes," said journalist Allen Salkin. The adverb to describe their behavior, he said: Festivus, the Latin world for "festive." A few thousand years later, and thanks to a "Seinfeld" writer whose father had made Festivus a quirky household tradition, a 1997 episode of the famed sitcom popularized the peculiar day. To hear it from Frank Costanza, the character played by Jerry Stiller, the December 23 observance calls for little more than the erection of an aluminum pole, the airing of grievances and the demonstration of feats of strength -- which preferably culminate in wrestling down to the ground and pinning the head of the household.

Source: http://edition.cnn.com/2009/LIVING/12/23/festivus.holiday/

International spam mastermind fined £116,000

A man accused of being the mastermind of the world's largest known "spam gang" has been fined $A210,000 (£116,000) by an Australian court after admitting his involvement in the international network that could send 10 billion e-mails a day. Lance Atkinson, a New Zealander who lives on Australia's Gold Coast, was also banned from sending unsolicited commercial e-mails for the next seven years by Australia's Federal Court in Brisbane. Mr Atkinson's network which he ran with his brother Shane, who was based in New Zealand, included operations in the US, Australia, New Zealand, China, India, Russia and Canada. It was responsible for e-mails estimated to account for as much as one third of the world's junk mail. The brothers recruited spammers who sent billions of e-mails a day marketing penis enhancement treatments, weight loss pills and prescription drugs. The Australian Communications and Media Authority pursued Mr Atkinson under Australia's anti-spamming laws after tracing more than 100,000 spam e-mail complaints from Australian residents back to him.

Source: http://technology.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/tech_and_web/article6964722.ece