Port of Halifax employing new security measures, can you say minority report?

The CBC is reporting that the Halifax port authority will soon be scanning the veins in the hands of their employees. The technology known as vascular biometrics, created by Identica Canada Corp. of Toronto, is apparently much safer than scanning eyes. Vascular biometrics maps the veins in the employees hand and stores data on an id card, when an employee enters the port they will be required to swipe their card and place their hand on a scanner, the system uses pattern-recognition to determine if the identity matches. "So, you are guaranteed the person carrying the card is the person it was issued to." unless the terrorist is carrying a lobbed off hand... or perhaps I've been watching too many movies!

How Google got its start on this date in 1998

Wired has the tale of a $100,000 check made out on this date in 1998 to "Google Inc." before the company was even incorporated... a quick but interesting read about how Sergey Brin and Larry Page got Google on the move, with a little help from Andy Bechtolsheim.

A better touch based technology?

From Apple's iPhone / iPod Touch to Microsoft's Surface PC, everyone is striving to change the way we interact with our devices and it seems that touch screen is the way to go. One big drawback to touch screen is that your hand momentarily obscures your view as you invoke action on the screen. Researchers at Mitsubishi, Microsoft, and the University of Toronto have teamed up to tackle this problem. Their answer appears to lie in a new technology dubbed LucidTouch, "users can choose to manipulate objects by touching a sensor pad on the back of the device; this allows users to resize images and text, as well as navigate around any graphical user interface without their hands getting in the way of the display." ars technica had an opportunity to view the prototype and has an article chronicling the experience.

Molson Canadian wins Beer Cooling Challenge

The guys at tom's hardware have way too much fun! Some time ago, on a whim, they put a few bottles of Molson Canadian up against traditional liquid coolants to see if beer could compare. At that time the Canadian brew finished second, so they guys at tom's thought they'd have an international challenge to see which regions beer would perform the best. Molson's again came through and holds the title as tom's international best beer - coolant. Check out the video evidence here.

Why you shouldn't attempt to hack your iPhone

Wired has the tale of a would be iPhone hacker who bricked his iPhone while attempting to free it from it's AT&T only service. Looking at the picture, it's a little more than "bricked" it's probably more like "burnt toast". Perhaps he should have waited for the iPod Touch and kept his old cell phone! I don't know about you but I can't really afford to throw that kind of money away with the slip of a screw driver...

Speaking of the iPod Touch, here is a little video courtesy of YouTube and slashgear, the audio is a little poor but you'll get a glimpse of the new iPod in action.

New iPods

Here are a couple of pics of the new iPod Touch and the new iPod Nano, Courtesy of Apple.

Pfizer machines spewing spam about Viagra?

Wired is reporting that a San Fransisco based security firm, Support Intelligence, is claiming that drug giant Pfizer has fallen victim to zombie networks operating within it's infrastructure and appears to be oblivious to the situation. Interestingly enough the spam that the zombies are serving up are largely for products that the company produces! According to Wired, Support Intelligence says "Pfizer computers have been spamming inboxes for the last six months... 138 different Pfizer IP addresses have been blacklisted by various groups". Wired reports that Pfizer has had a recent history of security related woes, "In one breach, a Pfizer employee exposed personal information on 17,000 employees after installing peer-to-peer software on a laptop. In another breach, confirmed Tuesday, a former employee downloaded sensitive data, including social security numbers and credit-card information for about 34,000 Pfizer employees."

Sounds like its time for some changes in the IT department!

Jobs announces new iPod Touch and other enhancements to the line

It turns out that most of the speculation was correct, Apple is launching an iPhone like iPod called the iPod Touch. It functions similarly to the iPhone with a touch screen that orients in portrait or landscape mode, plays music and video, and features WiFi for web browsing capabilities using the Safari browser. The iPod Touch will come in two versions, 8 or 16 gigabytes, and will cost $299 and $399 US respectively. Steve Job's keynote speech is available on the Apple site here or see the BBC's take on the device. It's pretty interesting, I'd have to say that I'm most excited about the WiFi! You'll probably want to get one quickly if you are thinking Christmas gift...

Patent application points to Google's "gPhone" intent?

ars technica seems convinced , like so many others, that Google is planning a mobile phone to rival Apple's entry into the market. Citing a year old patent application for "A computer-implemented method of effectuating an electronic on-line payment includes receiving at a computer server system a text message from a payor containing a payment request representing a payment amount sent by a payor device operating independently of the computer server system, determining a payment amount associated with the text message and debiting a payor account for an amount corresponding to the amount of the payment request, and crediting an account of a payee that is independent of the computer server system.", as evidence. One thing is for sure, the speculation is reaching Apple proportions!

Is it the end of business for Business 2.0?

There are two magazines that I read religiously, Wired and Business 2.0, and I like to think that I have my finger, at least faintly, on the pulse of the tech industry with all of the reading that I do. I had of course heard the rumours in July that Business 2.0 was in danger but I guess it never really occurred to me that it would actually happen. When I received my mail (postal) today I was pleasantly surprised to find an offer to renew my subscription early and receive a second year for the price of one, I immediately put it in my todo list. Imagine my disappointment when I was visiting my usual list of sites this evening and read "Business 2.0 RIP" in a New York Times Bits article. According to the article "employees of Business 2.0 magazine were told today that the monthly publication will close next week, after they finish the October issue." The Times promise more news in tomorrows edition, I'll be waiting anxiously, and I guess I'll be holding on to my cheque for a little while longer. Sad news indeed, if it is true.