- Baseball Tonight Clubhouse: Lost Out West Visit ESPN.com for the complete story.
- Report: Favre does not have Packer-issued phone A media report in Green Bay is refuting an earlier report that Brett Favre used a Packers-issued cell phone to talk to Minnesota Vikings coach Brad Chidress and assistant coach Darrell Bevell.
- At age 50, Lieberman returning to action in WNBA The Detroit Shock have signed Nancy Lieberman, the team's former coach and a current ESPN basketball analyst, to a seven-day contract, meaning she will become the oldest player to ever suit up for a WNBA game.
- Bartman turns down $25,000 offer for autograph Steve Bartman has refused yet another offer to cash in on the moment he became the most famous -- or infamous -- Chicago Cubs fan in history.
- Reyes, Wagner help Mets rebound against Phillies Visit ESPN.com for the complete story.
- Tomlin: It's on Steelers to tune out owners' turmoil Pittsburgh Steelers coach Mike Tomlin doesn't expect the team's unsettled ownership situation to become a negative -- unless players let it become one.
- Federer loses Rogers Cup opener; Nadal advances Top-ranked Roger Federer was knocked out of the Rogers Cup with a 2-6, 7-5, 6-4 loss to France's Gilles Simon in a second-round match.
- Reports: 'Birdman' decides to fly back to Nuggets Chris Andersen, who played for the Nuggets from 2001-'04, is leaving the Hornets to return to Denver, according to several newspaper reports.
- Stage 18: Tour chasing new leader Sastre Visit ESPN.com for the complete story.
- Report: Olympic swimmer Hardy has positive test Swimmer Jessica Hardy's trip to the Beijing Olympics could be in jeopardy after she tested positive for a banned substance, according to a source.
- Given a Shovel, Americans Dig Deeper Into Debt Practices that produced record profits for many banks have led millions of Americans to the brink.
- Obama Meets Afghan Leader and Discusses Terrorism Topics discussed by Barack Obama and President Hamid Karzai included the “unmet challenges” the Afghan government has to tackle, a spokesman said.
- British Open: Harrington Defends His British Open Title Greg Norman once again faded in the final round, and Padraig Harrington, the first Irishman in 60 years to win the British Open, retained his title.
- Batman’s ‘Dark Knight’ Sets Weekend Record The sixth “Batman” movie made $155.3 million over the weekend, shoring up what has been a wobbly year at the box office.
- Pope Criticizes Materialism In his final address to hundreds of thousands of young Catholics gathered in Australia, Pope Benedict XVI sharply criticized the violence and materialism of the modern age.
- Man Dies in New York City Triathlon A 32-year-old man competing in the Nautica New York City Triathlon after being pulled unconscious from the Hudson River.
- Somali Killings of Aid Workers Imperil Relief Aid workers whom Somalis depend on are fleeing — driven out by what appears to be an organized terror campaign.
- Tour de France: Schleck Takes Tour Lead After 15th Stage Frank Schleck, who started the day just one second behind Cadel Evans in the overall standings, rode into the yellow jersey for the first time in his career.
- Ideas & Trends: We’re Not Laughing at You, or With You Does The New Yorker’s cover really qualify as satire?
- Ford Swings to Quarterly Loss Ford swung to an $8.67 billion second-quarter loss as results were hurt by large write-downs at its auto business and on leases at its credit arm. The company also said it plans to convert three truck and SUV plants into small-car production centers.
- Home Resales Resume Declines Existing-home sales resumed falling in June, dropping 2.6% from the previous month, and the median price dropped from a year earlier as inventories crept higher. Meanwhile, jobless claims jumped last week.
- Weak Data, Earnings Damp Stocks Stocks edged lower as weak jobless claims data and a mixed bag of earnings provided little fuel for a rally. Crude- oil futures climbed above $125 a barrel.
- Voter Unease With Obama Lingers Obama maintained a lead of 47%-41% over McCain in a Journal/NBC poll, but voters voiced concerns about the Democrat's background and values. The key question in the contest isn't over any single issue, but the focus has turned to the Democratic candidate himself: Can Americans get comfortable with Obama?
- SEC, Fed Call for More Oversight Cox called on Congress to give the SEC authority to regulate investment-bank holding companies, while New York Fed President Geithner said that the Fed needs to have a direct role in supervising banks that have access to its funding. (Remarks: Cox | Geithner)
- XM-Sirius Deal Nears Approval FCC commissioners reached a deal to approve the proposed merger between Sirius and XM. The commission's chairman said the final language is still being worked on, but a vote could happen Thursday.
- States Slammed by Tax Shortfalls States are being forced to slash spending and cut jobs in order to close a projected $40 billion shortfall in the current fiscal year. That gap is the result of broad economic weakness at the state and local levels that could cause pain throughout this year and into 2010, a report found. (Report)
- Housing Bill Close to Becoming Law A sprawling bill that reaches deep into the U.S. housing industry is close to becoming law. The bill, which began seven months ago as a modest attempt to help struggling homeowners, will now likely touch a vast array of borrowers, lenders and investors.
- Microsoft's Johnson Heads to Juniper Microsoft executive Kevin Johnson, who headed online efforts and led the bid to buy Yahoo, is leaving to run Juniper Networks. Microsoft plans a reorganization.
- Southwest's Net Income Rises Southwest Airlines posted a 15% increase in second-quarter net profit, as the discount carrier's long-successful fuel-hedging program left it as the only major airline so far not to report a loss in the most recent period.
- XM and Sirius provide details on potential FCC consent decree XM Satellite Radio and SIRIUS Satellite Radio confirm they're talking with the FCC about a possible consent decree to move their 17-month merger effort forward.
- Zimbra Desktop gives Yahoo Mail offline access Yahoo, an early leader in Web-based e-mail, is trying to leapfrog Google with its Zimbra Desktop software, which offers online documents and offline access.
- Sources: Google Video soured company on long-form video In talks with entertainment companies, Google focuses on licensing short-form content and tells studio executives that it doesn't have any desire to become a media company.
- Sounding better in TrueHD, Master Audio? Do the newest compression schemes from Dolby and DTS sound any better than standard Dolby and DTS? The sonic differences are reportedly small to negligible.
- Should the music industry tax you to use the Web? The music industry wants to tax you each year for using the Internet in an effort to stop piracy. Sounds fair, huh?
- Cure iPhone envy with AT&T LG Vu, free with 2-year contract Save a whopping $300 off the AT&T price by ordering the phone through Wirefly. You don't even have to wait on a rebate.
- DNS exploit code is in the wild The urgency to patch clients and servers rises to a fever pitch as code to attack the Internet is released. Two Black Hat presenters had conflicted over the timing of the code release.
- Photos: Pushing cars from pump to plug Advocates of plug-in hybrids touted the vehicles as key to weaning America off of foreign oil at the Plug-In 2008 conference held this week in San Jose, Calif.
- Microsoft looks to 'Mojave' to revive Vista's image CNET News gets an exclusive look at what's likely to become a piece of a new Vista marketing push.
- Geeks make green graffiti Geek artists and pranksters use lasers, LED lights, text messaging, and organic ingredients such as moss to make protests in the street.
- Who Said It: Bush or Batman? Can you guess which of these quotes belong to our president, George W. Bush, and which belong to Batman? It's harder than you think...
- Rush Plays Rock Band Backstage at Colbert Rush playing Tom Sawyer on rock band
- The US is too far gone for 2 parties to fix - 44% agree New Zogby poll asks: I believe the United States' system is broken and cannot be fixed by traditional two-party politics and elections:Agree: 44% Disagree: 53% Not sure: 3%.... and.. 18% would support efforts for their state to secede from the US.
- When Battling Cancer, Do Appearances Deceive? On average, patients diagnosed with pancreatic cancer have only a one-in-20 chance of being alive five years after the cancer is found, according to the National Cancer Institute. The average life expectancy is grim as well. But, can you judge the severity of somebody's illness, based on their appearance alone?
- Cancer center issues warning on cell phone use The head of a prominent cancer research institute issued an unprecedented warning to his faculty and staff Wednesday: Limit cell phone use because of the possible risk of cancer.The warning from Dr. Ronald B. Herberman, director of the University of Pittsburgh Cancer Institute, is contrary to numerous studies that don't find a link between cancer
- The Hottest Female Grease Monkeys Any girl can up her hotness with a set of indispensable skills, but nothing gets a guy's libido racing faster than a sweaty chick who knows her way around the underbelly of our automobile.
- Woman kills self prior to foreclosed home being auctioned Balderrama faxed a letter to her mortgage company at 2:30 p.m., telling them that "by the time they foreclosed on the house today she'd be dead."The mortgage company notified police, who found her body at 3:30 p.m.She left a note for her family saying "take the [life] insurance money and pay for the house." Sadly, I don't think it is covered...
- Save Your Data With One of These Top Backup Programs We test five new apps that make saving--and restoring--your vital data a lot easier than tools you've tried in the past.
- 75 Things That Every Man Should Do Before He Dies In honor of Esquire’s seventy-fifth anniversary, we look at the seventy-five things, from flying a Cessna to building a reputation, that every man should do before he dies.
- Hand over your gun (no questions asked), get $100 "The buy-back program was challenged last week by Dr. Carl Bell, a psychiatrist and president and CEO of Chicago's Community Mental Health Council, who said at a City Council hearing that the guns being turned in "don't work in the first damn place."
- XM and SIRIUS Confirm Discussions to Settle FCC Enforcement Matters (PR Newswire) PR Newswire:
XM and SIRIUS Confirm Discussions to Settle FCC Enforcement Matters — XM Satellite Radio Holdings Inc. (Nasdaq: XMSR - News) and SIRIUS Satellite Radio (Nasdaq: SIRI - News) today confirmed that the companies are in discussions with the Enforcement Bureau of the Federal Communications Commission …
- 3G iPhone Availability (Top Muffin) Top Muffin:
3G iPhone Availability — DISCLAIMER: This page uses data from Apple's site that is retrieved every 15 minutes. — However, it does appear that Apple only updates the data every night at midnight PDT. — I strongly advise calling your local Apple store to check inventory before visiting said store.
- Why Facebook Connect Matters & Why It Will Win (Om Malik/GigaOM)
Om Malik / GigaOM:
Why Facebook Connect Matters & Why It Will Win — Facebook kicked off their second annual developer conference in San Francisco this afternoon with a keynote by founder & CEO Mark Zuckerberg. The overproduced keynote, with too many words repeatedly incessantly, seemed like a lullaby sung by a nanny in a language alien to yours.
- Qualcomm, Nokia Reach Deal to End Fight Over Patents (Don Clark/Wall Street Journal)
Don Clark / Wall Street Journal:
Qualcomm, Nokia Reach Deal to End Fight Over Patents — Qualcomm Inc. and Nokia Corp. said they agreed to end their legal battles, a deal that could bring big benefits to both companies and affect other players in the cellphone industry. — The companies didn't disclose financial details of the settlement.
- Music industry to tax downloaders (Nigel Morris/The Independent) Nigel Morris / The Independent:
Music industry to tax downloaders — £30 ‘licence fee’ set to revolutionise illegal file-sharing — Internet users could face an annual charge of up to £30 to download music, under plans to be unveiled today that aim to tackle illegal file-sharing.
- Attack code published for DNS flaw (Ryan Naraine/Zero Day)
Ryan Naraine / Zero Day:
Attack code published for DNS flaw — The urgency to patch Dan Kaminsky's DNS cache poisoning vulnerability just went up a few notches. — Exploit code for the flaw, which allows the insertion of malicious DNS records into the cache of the target nameserver, has been added to Metasploit, a freely distributed attack/pen-testing tool.
- Apple's MobileMe Is Far Too Flawed To Be Reliable (Walter S. Mossberg/Personal Technology) Walter S. Mossberg / Personal Technology:
Apple's MobileMe Is Far Too Flawed To Be Reliable — People who work for large corporations are used to having their email, contacts and calendar appointments synchronized instantly among their various computers and smart phones. But average consumers haven't had an easy way to do that.
- Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer's Full Memo to the Troops About New Reorg (Kara Swisher/BoomTown) Kara Swisher / BoomTown:
Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer's Full Memo to the Troops About New Reorg — Here is the full memo Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer sent out to the troops about the big changes in its organization, including the departure of Platforms and Services Division President Kevin Johnson, in which he addresses Apple, Yahoo, Google and more:
- Why We Still Need the iPhone App Black Market (Matt Buchanan/Gizmodo)
Matt Buchanan / Gizmodo:
Why We Still Need the iPhone App Black Market — A year ago, we said that no iPhone SDK meant no killer apps. It came, and the apps are here in staggering numbers. But many of the amazing apps and concepts we grew to love as unofficial apps aren't here, and only about 100 of the 900+ apps …
- Microsoft's Latest Web Stumble: Kevin Johnson Out (Kara Swisher/BoomTown)
Kara Swisher / BoomTown:
Microsoft's Latest Web Stumble: Kevin Johnson Out — Kevin Johnson (pictured here), the point person for Microsoft's failed bid to buy Yahoo, is leaving the company to run Juniper Networks. — As the president of its Platforms and Services Division, the smooth Johnson has been trying …
- Researchers Face Jail Risk For Tor Snooping Study An anonymous reader writes "A group of researchers from the University of Colorado and University of Washington could face both civil and criminal penalties for a research project (pdf) in which they snooped on users of the Tor anonymous proxy network. Should federal prosecutors take interest in the project, the researchers could also face up to 5 years in jail for violating the Wiretap Act.The researchers neither sought legal review of the project or ran it past their Institutional Review Board. The Electronic Frontier Foundation, which has written a legal guide for Tor admins, strongly advises against any sort of network monitoring."Read more of this story at Slashdot.
- Spam King Escapes From Federal Prison Bobfrankly1 writes "The FBI, IRS, and the Rocky Mountain Safe Streets Task Force are helping the US Marshals search for escaped 'Spam King' Edward 'Eddie' Davidson. He apparently jumped in a car with his Wife, changed clothes at home, and hasn't been seen since."Read more of this story at Slashdot.
- Big Six UK ISPs Capitulate To Music Industry Barence writes "Britain's six leading internet providers have signed a Government-led agreement to stamp out illegal music file sharing. The six providers — BT, Virgin Media, Orange, Tiscali, Sky and Carphone Warehouse — will implement a series of measures against those found to be file sharing. Offenders may find their internet connection is throttled, or may even have their traffic "filtered" to prevent media files from being downloaded. The ISPs are reportedly reluctant to impose the BPI's preferred "three strikes and you're out" approach of cutting off users' broadband connections."Read more of this story at Slashdot.
- Most Bank Websites Are Insecure Anonymous writes "More than three-quarters of bank Web sites have design flaws that could expose bank customers to financial loss or identity theft, according to a University of Michigan study that will be presented this week at the Symposium on Usable Security and Privacy. The study, 'Analyzing Web Sites For User-Visible Security Design Flaws,' examined 214 bank Web sites in 2006. It was conducted by University of Michigan computer science professor Atul Prakash and doctoral students Laura Falk and Kevin Borders."Read more of this story at Slashdot.
- Ultra-Light Micro Air Vehicles Roland Piquepaille writes "Dutch engineers have built the third generation of the DelFly autonomous air vehicle. The DelFly Micro made its first public flight earlier today in Delft. This micro air vehicle weighs only 3 grams and has a wingspan of 10 centimeters. This very small remote-controlled aircraft carries a 0.4 gram camera. The DelFly Micro, which looks like a dragonfly, can fly for 3 minutes at a maximum speed of 5 meters/second. It could be used for observation flights in difficult-to-reach or dangerous areas."Read more of this story at Slashdot.
- Police Director Sues AOL For Critical Blogger's Name Pippin writes "Memphis Police Director, Larry Godwin, is suing AOL for the names of the authors of the Enforcer 2.0 blog. The blog is rumored to be authored by a Memphis police officer, and is critical of the department, Godwin, and some procedures. Godwin is actually using taxpayer dollars for this and, interestingly, the complaint is sealed".Read more of this story at Slashdot.
- Inside Apple's iPhone SDK Gag Order snydeq writes "InfoWorld's Tom Yager takes a closer look at Apple's iPhone SDK confidentiality agreement, which restricts developers from discussing the SDK or exchanging ideas with others, thereby leaving no room for forums, newsgroups, open source projects, tutorials, magazine articles, users' groups, or books. But because anyone is free to obtain the iPhone SDK by signing up for it, Apple is essentially branding publicly available information as confidential. This 'puzzling contradiction' is the 'antithesis of the developer-friendly Apple Developer Connection' on which the iPhone SDK program is based, Yager contends. 'You'll see arguments from armchair legal analysts that the iPhone developer Agreements won't stand up in court — but those analysts certainly won't stand up in court on your behalf.' Anyone planning to launch an iPhone forum or open source project should have 'a lawyer draft your request for exemption, and make sure that the Apple staffer granting it personally commits to status as authorized to approve exceptions to the iPhone Registered Developer and iPhone SDK Agreements,' Yager warns."Read more of this story at Slashdot.
- Researchers Create Highly Predictive Blacklists Grablets writes "Using a link analysis algorithm similar to Google PageRank, researchers at the SANS Institute and SRI International have created a new Internet network defense service that rethinks the way network blacklists are formulated and distributed. The service, called Highly Predictive Blacklisting, exploits the relationships between networks that have been attacked by similar Internet sources as a means for predicting which attack sources are likely to attack which networks in the future. A free experimental version is currently available."Read more of this story at Slashdot.
- Next Generation CPU Refrigerators Iddo Genuth writes "Researchers at Purdue University are developing a miniature refrigeration system, small enough to fit inside laptop computers. According to the researchers, the implementation of miniature refrigeration systems in computers can dramatically increase the amount of heat removed from the microchips, therefore boosting performance while simultaneously shrinking the size of computers."Read more of this story at Slashdot.
- Attack Code Published For DNS Vulnerability get_Rootin writes "That didn't take long. ZDNet is reporting that HD Moore has released exploit code for Dan Kaminsky's DNS cache poisioning vulnerability into the point-and-click Metasploit attack tool. From the article: 'This exploit caches a single malicious host entry into the target nameserver. By causing the target nameserver to query for random hostnames at the target domain, the attacker can spoof a response to the target server including an answer for the query, an authority server record, and an additional record for that server, causing target nameserver to insert the additional record into the cache.' Here's our previous Slashdot coverage."Read more of this story at Slashdot.