TechBlogger

cin62 writes “The number of Internet scammers offering fake versions of the anti-swine flu drug Tamiflu has surpassed those selling counterfeit Viagra, reports CNN. Since the H1N1 virus, also known as swine flu, was declared a global pandemic last month, there has been an increase in the number of Web sites and junk emails offering Tamiflu for sale. ‘Every Web site that used to sell Viagra is now selling Tamiflu. We are pretty sure that the same people are making the Tamiflu as are making the Viagra,’ said Director of Policy for the UK’s Royal Pharmaceutical Society.” This news fits in nicely with a report Wired ran a couple weeks ago about the hysteria behind H1N1.

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Original post by Soulskill

jadoon88 writes to share a series of old Atari 7800 games that have been unofficially open sourced. “Remember Dig Dug or Centipede or Robotron? They used to be favorites when Atari’s 7800 series was still around. Since the era of those consoles is over, and a different world of interactive reality gaming has taken over, Atari has unofficially released source code of over 15 games for the coders and enthusiasts to admire the state-of-the-art (because this is what it was back then). During those times, nobody would have imagined in their wildest dreams the games that Atari’s developers floated into the gaming thirsty market and instantly swept across continental boundaries. But things changed soon after that and a company once regarded as one of the most successful gaming console manufacturers and developers faded away in the pages of our technology’s hall-of-fame.”

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Original post by ScuttleMonkey

one-man orchestra writes “I’m the sole programmer of a small, multi-platform, commercial audio program (a spectrogram editor). After over 6 months on the market, I realized that the program would never just sell itself, and that I need some real marketing done for it. Being a one-man orchestra is becoming increasingly difficult; I only can devote so much time to marketing, my skills in that department are lacking, and I’d much rather spend more time coding. Despite my lackluster part-time marketing effort, I still manage to make a modest living out of the sales. My logical assumption is that with someone competent taking care of that part, revenue could greatly scale up. But what’s the right way to go about doing this? What type of people/company do I need to contact? What to expect? What to look out for?”

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Original post by ScuttleMonkey

Hugh Pickens writes “Retired University of Tennessee Professor Dr. John Reece Roth has been sentenced to four years in prison after he allowed a Chinese graduate student to see sensitive information on Unmanned Air Vehicles (UAVs), also known as drones. In 2004, the company Roth helped found, Atmospheric Glow Technologies, won a US Air Force contract to develop a plasma actuator that could help reduce drag on the wings of drones, such as the ones the military uses. Under the contract, for which Roth was reportedly paid $6,000, he was prohibited from sharing sensitive data with foreign nationals. Despite warnings from his university’s Export Control Officer, in 2006, Roth took a laptop containing sensitive plans with him on a lecture tour in China and also allowed graduate students Xin Dai of China and Sirous Nourgostar of Iran to work on the project. ‘The illegal export of restricted military data represents a serious threat to national security,’ says David Kris of the US Department of Justice. ‘We know that foreign governments are actively seeking this information for their own military development. Today’s sentence should serve as a warning to anyone who knowingly discloses restricted military data in violation of our laws.’ During his trial, Roth testified that he was unaware that hiring the graduate students was a violation of his contract. ‘This whole thing has not helped me, it has not helped the university,’ said Roth. ‘And it has probably not helped this country, either.’”

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Original post by ScuttleMonkey

Techdirt has an interesting look at copyright and the idea that an author is the originator of a new work. Instead, the piece suggests that all works are in some way based on the works of others (even our own copyright law), and the system should be much more encouraging of “remixing” work into new, unique experiences. “Friedman also points back to another recent post where he discusses the nature of content creation, based on a blog post by Rene Kita. In it, she points out that remixing and creating through collaboration and building on the works of others has always been the norm. It’s what we do naturally. It’s only in the last century or so, when we reached a means of recording, manufacturing and selling music — which was limited to just those with the machinery and capital to do it, that copyright was suddenly brought out to ‘protect’ such things.”

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Original post by ScuttleMonkey

It’s been a while since we talked about these devices coming to TELUS, but the BlackBerry Tour, HTC Snap and Touch Pro2 are front and center in our minds today, having just popped up in a new Best Buy Mobile flyer. TELUS has yet to officially announce the two HTC handsets (the Tour popped up on its website this morning) and unfortunately nothing juicy like pricing or release dates are specified for any of the handsets. The flyer is valid from July 3rd to July 30th though so hopefully we’ll get official word from TELUS soon.

[Via Mobile Syrup]

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Original post by Michael Bettiol

If ever there were a holiday that yields colorful and flashy desktop wallpaper, it’s definitely the Fourth of July. Celebrate the Fourth on your desktop with these swanky fireworks wallpapers.

If you’re not going to be shooting your own stunning Fourth of July pictures this weekend, you might as well take advantage of the great photos other people have taken to properly decorate your computer screen for the holiday.

The following gallery is a collection of Fourth of July-themed wallpaper we plucked from collections across the web. Each photo has an attribution link that’ll take you back to the source of the image for your full-size desktop needs. If you know of a stash of Fourth-themed wallpapers online, share the wealth in the comments below!

Photo by esens.

Photo by Joe Penniston.

Photo by twentyeight.

Photo by Tony M..

Photo by Stuck in Customs.

Photo by charness.

Photo by wmliu.

Photo by Jaako.

Photo by Barry Yanowitz.

Photo by brewskizzlr.

Original post by Jason Fitzpatrick

A recent eulogy for open source’s relevance to cloud computing by Redmonk analyst Sephen O’Grady caught the attention of Matt Asay, who breaks down the difficulty of this David and Goliath problem. “In a world where horsepower matters more than the software feeding those “horses,” in terms of the entry cost to compete, and where big vendors like Amazon and Google are already divvying up the market, the odds of a small-fry, open-source start-up challenging “Goliath” are slim. It’s not a new argument: Nick Carr has been suggesting for some time that only a few, big companies can afford relevance in this hardware-intensive business. Given this fact, O’Grady thinks the best we can hope for (and he thinks it’s pretty important) is “a loose coalition or confederation of [open-source] projects and vendors that will together comprise an increasingly viable top to bottom alternative to some of the cloud providers today.” He includes projects like Puppet (Reductive Labs) and Hadoop in this mix, but is careful to point out that he doesn’t see a full-fledged, open-source alternative seriously challenging the closed platforms of Google, Amazon, Salesforce, and the other mega-clouds.”

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Original post by ScuttleMonkey

Many outlets are reporting on the recently released results of the various experiments and observations of NASA’s Mars Phoenix Lander. Most notable is the discovery of nighttime snowfall on the planet, lending credibility to the idea of an active water cycle hypothesized based on earlier data collection. “The papers rely on evidence from a variety of the instruments on the lander, and the description of the data provides an impressive catalog of the various ways that Phoenix could prod and query the Martian pole. In the months before Martian winter shut the lander down, it managed to dig a dozen trenches, taking soil samples from each. These samples went into wet and dry chemistry labs, had their conductivity tested, and were even examined using an atomic force microscope. Meanwhile, cameras and a LIDAR system (a laser-based range detector) scanned the surroundings. The overall conclusion is that the northern pole has an active water cycle. This had been suggested by a variety of evidence from orbital sensors, as well early images returned from Phoenix. It’s also not a huge shock, given the seasonal growth and retreat of the polar ice cap. Still, Phoenix provided some significant details on the cycling of water in the area where it landed.”

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Original post by ScuttleMonkey

Choosing the right sunblock is important, but let’s say you’re more of a DIY type, or maybe your skin is sensitive to many of the common ingredients. The solution is simple: make your own sunblock.

Instructables user scoochmaroo’s detailed guide to making your own sunscreen demonstrates the process either completely from scratch or using a store-bought lotion as a base. She goes as far as to include a chart that gives you measurements for the ingredients based on the SPF you’re aiming for.

Follow the link for the “recipe,” and make your high school science teacher proud by heeding the warnings about wearing gloves and a mask while blending the ingredients (zinc oxide should be on your nose, not in it).

Have you ever tried a homemade sunblock? What do you use to protect yourself from the sun? Let’s hear it in the comments.

Original post by Rosa Golijan