An anonymous reader writes “When the mainstream media first announced Barack Obama’s ‘victory’ in keeping his BlackBerry, the focus was on the security of the device, and keeping the US president’s e-mail communications private from spies and hackers. The news coverage and analysis by armchair security experts thus far has failed to focus on the real threat: attacks against President Obama’s location privacy, and the potential physical security risks that come with someone knowing the president’s real-time physical location. In this article, a CNET blogger digs into the real risks associated with the President carrying around a tracking device at all times.”

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

QuietR10t writes “A new technique has been developed for detecting and tracking illegal content transferred using the BitTorrent file-trading protocol. According to its creators, the approach can monitor networks without interrupting the flow of data and provides investigators with hard evidence of illicit file transfers. ‘Our system differs in that it is completely passive, meaning that it does not change any information entering or leaving a network,’ says Schrader.” I wonder if it can specifically identify legal content, too.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

wiredog writes “From The Washington Post comes word that three special masters have decided that MMR vaccines do not cause autism. ‘Special master George Hastings said the parents … had “been misled by physicians who are guilty, in my view, of gross medical misjudgment.” … “the evidence advanced by the petitioners has fallen far short of demonstrating … a link.”‘

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader writes “Citing privacy concerns, the Cambridge, Mass. City Council has voted 9-0 to remove security cameras scattered throughout the city. ‘Because of the slow erosion of our civil liberties since 9/11, it is important to raise questions regarding these cameras,’ said Marjorie Decker, a Cambridge city councilor. Rather than citing privacy, WCBVTV is running the story under the headline ‘City’s Move To Nix Security Cams May Cost Thousands.’”

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Greg Chudecke writes “The New York Times recently ran an article on game companies that get input design input from gamers. The Article is Branded as “The Brave New World of Open-source Game Design”. The title may be a little misleading as it isn’t exactly like the game design is open source for editing, however it is interesting that gamers are getting an opportunity to shape the games they play.”

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

BobB-nw writes to tell us that Palm has decided to kill their PalmOS operating system and is instead betting their future on a still mostly unknown Palm webOS. Very little is known about the new Palm webOS, but it will supposedly support HTML5 and enable a local data store so that applications can be used both online and off. All of this is rolled into a Linux framework with a message bus based on JSON. Will be interesting to see where they take it.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

rsmiller510 writes “The EE Times reports this week that Dell has released a hybrid laptop running both Linux and Windows clearly aimed at business travelers. Linux for quick tasks and Windows for more intensive ones, but will such a machine really fly in the business world?”

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

raffnix writes “Today, Finland-based paper group Stora Enso has announced that Google is buying the buildings and most of the Summa Mill site, where production of paper was ceased last month, for approximately 40 million Euros (.7 million). Obviously the space is most likely going to serve as a data center, which has now also been confirmed by Reuters.”

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Zebano writes “Since changing the US constitution is too much work, the Iowa senate is considering a bill that would send all 7 of Iowa’s electoral votes to the winner of the national popular vote in a presidential election. This would only go into affect after enough states totaling 270 electoral votes (enough to elect a president) adopted similar resolutions.”

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

It looks like it may still be quite a while before it actually ends up on store shelves, but this new SmartQ 5 PMP / MID seems like it should be able to at least muster up a bit of interest when and if it is ever released. While complete specs are a little light, and most likely not finalized, the device will apparently boast a 4.3-inch 800 x 480 touchscreen, built-in WiFi and Bluetooth, and four hardware buttons to give the touchscreen a rest once in a while. Not much more than that, unfortunately, although SmartQ does seem to be pitching this one squarely as an internet device first and media player second, so hopefully that means it’ll pack enough capabilities to truly earn that MID moniker.

[Via SlashGear]

Filed under: Portable Audio, Portable Video

SmartQ 5 touchscreen PMP / MID promises WiFi, Bluetooth originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 12 Feb 2009 16:41:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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