computers

One of the major problems with current cybersecurity measures is that while systems can detect the erratic behavior that heralds an incoming attack, there often isn't a whole lot those systems can do once the attack is underway short of pulling the servers offline, resulting in lost revenues and credibility for Web sites and a loss of key services for users. A new MIT system aims to change that by keeping servers and applications running even as it contains an incoming cyberattack.

Cambodian children grow up in a nation where millions of landmines left by decades of civil war have continued to cripple and kill hundreds of people each year. Now they could get a life-saving lesson from a video game developed by Michigan State University researchers.

In the game, players navigate photos of Cambodian jungle landscapes in search of photos for several adorable cartoon pets -- no cartoon landmine characters here. The point of the maze-like game is to train players and embed warning signals about landmines in their minds.

Nintendo's Mario has long been beloved by geeks and scientists everywhere, as evidenced by a fluorescent bacterial version (seizure warning!) and a Mario "multiverse" that acts as a better guide to parallel universes than "Lost." Now a Carnegie Mellon University student has concocted a playable pixel tribute on an 8x8 LED matrix.

How fast is too fast? According to the laws of physics, the speed of light is a good boundary, as going beyond it opens you up to all sorts of paradoxes and space-time phenomena that are usually the stuff of sci-fi. But a couple of researchers in Austria have come up with a way to compute information faster than the speed of light.

Good news for anyone out there straining to read this text: Pixel Qi plans to ship its 3Qi technology in an easy-to-install DIY kit sometime toward the end of the second quarter of this year.

Pixel Qi’s dual-mode 3Qi displays function as both full-color LCD monitors and e-ink-like, low-power black and white displays, giving laptops and netbooks the ability to toggle between vibrant, video-playing LCD color and an energy-efficient, eye-strain-saving e-reader mode.

There's a new type of vigilante roaming across China. But unlike Batman or other caped superheroes, who work with a few sidekicks at most, this type of faceless vigilante draws power from legions of netizens who channel Internet crowd-sourcing to become "human-flesh search engines" that hunt down and punish wrongdoers in real life. The New York Times reports on the phenomenon.

Apple aficionados and first-adopters will have to wait a bit longer than anticipated to get their hot hands on the iPad. The tablet computer's debut has been moved back to April 3 for the U.S., AP reports.

The future of touchscreen interfaces is: you? A project between a Carnegie Mellon researcher and a couple of creative thinkers over at Microsoft Research have created Skinput, a Bluetooth-enabled device that allows you to use your own skin as a peripheral input device for devices like cell phones, MP3 players or gaming consoles.

In 2006, famed film critic Roger Ebert lost the ability to speak after larynx surgery. Today, thanks to computer voice specialists CereProc, he gets it back. The new voice, which he will debut in an appearance on today's Oprah, samples DVD audio commentaries recorded before Ebert lost his voice.

If the thought of a Wiimote-controlled robot drum circle sounded vaguely disturbing, prepare yourself. This month, composer and software developer David Cope is set to unveil the first musical works composed by his latest creation, dubbed "Emily Howell." Emily is a piece of software that many see as the most advanced artificially intelligent music composer. The program is already stirring fierce debate over its supposed ability to generate creations indistinguishable from those composed by the masters--Mozart, Bach and the gang. Miller-McCune went in-depth with this strange and fascinating tale of creativity in the age of artificial intelligence.

Do you think your connection speed is fast? Do you tout your torrent bit rate? Perhaps your rig is swift, but there's no reason it couldn't be many times faster. The only thing standing in the way is some creative materials science, and researchers at the Georgia Institute of Technology may have just found the key to converting everything from individual computers to data networks into blazing-fast, all-optical transmission devices.

Transistor junction, what's your function now? Irish researchers at the Tyndall National Institute have fabricated the world's first junctionless transistor, a nanotech development that could change the way semiconductors are manufactured.

Gadget lovers are nothing if not fickle, always ditching their older tech for pretty young things. And recently, all the attention on the iPhone and Google's Android OS has made Microsoft seem a bit like Norma Desmond, wandering around the ruins of the Redmond campus muttering "I AM big, it was the platforms that got small."

But now, with the revelation of Windows Phone Series 7, Microsoft is once again ready for its closeup.

Lifehacker today has a nice guide that answers one of the questions I get asked most often by tech-advice-seeking friends: How do I get around my work's web site blocker? Lifehacker's answer is to set up a proxy server running on a machine at your home, through which you can access all the fun sites your IT department doesn't want you to use.

If you didn’t get enough Google with yesterday’s announcement of the purported Twitter/Facebook-killing Google Buzz, check out the news coming out of Mountain View today: Google wants to test an ultra-high-speed fiber network that delivers broadband speeds of one gigabit per second, 100 times faster than the average American’s connection. Over the next several weeks, the company will be accepting proposals for government officials and citizens alike that are interested in testing the network in their communities.