The state of Hawaii has become the first in North America to require solar water heaters in new homes. The bill, signed into law by Republican Governor Linda Lingle this week, prohibits issuing building permits for single-family homes that do not have solar water heaters.

Not surprisingly, builders and developers were against the bill, saying it would add too much to the cost of new home constructions. But surprisingly, another opponent was the Hawaii Solar Energy Association. Last April, in a story in the Star…

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Those early termination fees (ETFs) that consumers pay for switching cell phones in mid-contract are a great deal, an attorney for AT&T told the Federal Communications Commission yesterday. However many customers beg to differ …

There were some panelists at the hearing who do not see ETFs as a perpetual engine of consumer happiness. These included representatives of various public interest groups, such as Chris Murray of the Consumers Union. Murray characterized ETFs as…

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New memory better, cheaper and more efficient than flash

“A thumb drive using our memory could store a terabyte of information,” Michael Kozicki, director of ASU's Center for Applied Nanoionics, told Wired magazine. “All the current limitations in portable electronic storage could go…

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Dell is guilty of fraud, false advertising, deceptive business practices, and abusive debt collection practices, according to a ruling by the New York State Supreme Court. Damages have yet to be determined, but Dell maintains that it is committed to offering the best possible service.

Customers also complained of long hold times on the phone, frequent transfers to different departments, numerous disconnections, and the need for repeated calls. In many cases, Dell refused to provide service because it had not yet determined…

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Connecticut authorities widened a probe into a security breach at Bank of New York Mellon Corp involving the loss of personal information including Social Security numbers on about 4.5 million customers

The bank, one of the world's largest asset managers, has said that an archiving vendor lost the tapes containing information from its Shareowner Services unit and that there was no evidence that any data had been inappropriately accessed or used.

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In February a Danish court forced ISP Tele2 to block its subscribers from accessing The Pirate Bay, following a similar order late last year to block allofmp3.com. A new proposal before the Danish government would mean that such actions would be quick and easy to do, without the need for a single court hearing.

Let me remind you before you start bashing the government of Denmark. This proposal, which in my humble opinion is full of shit, has been put forth by the 2 biggest parties NOT in the government, They do not represent the government. They have…

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The US State Department has lost over 1000 laptops according to an audit report. Some of the laptops contain high security data.
Nita M. Lowey, a representative on the House Appropriations subcommittee that oversees State Department operations, told Congressional Quarterly that she is concerned? about the security revelations.

Nita M. Lowey, a representative on the House Appropriations subcommittee that oversees State Department operations, told Congressional Quarterly that she is “concerned” about the security revelations.

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The New Jersey State Supreme Court has thrown out IP address evidence obtained from Comcast with a municipal court subpoena. The judges determined that New Jersey’s state constitution guarantees a reasonable expectation of privacy for IP addresses, and only a grand jury subpoena will do.

"The State compares IP addresses to the return addresses found on the outside of envelopes, which carry no privacy protection. But there is an important difference: letter writers choose to include their address on an envelope. They may…

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On January 2, 2008, the Massachusetts State Police sent MediaSentry a cease-and-desist order over its investigative practices in the commonwealth. A recently-unearthed court filing shows that MediaSentry has continued its investigations in Massachusetts at least into February.

We asked the RIAA for clarification on the story, including whether MediaSentry is abiding by the order (SafeNet consistently refers us to the RIAA for comment on matters pertaining to P2P litigation). "We believe that the…

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As of tomorrow, Sunday, March 30?th, the long awaited project iPhone PWNED will be available to the public! - its what weve seen on YouTube and many of us have disbelieved. However, it is real and allows for custom unsigned firmware to be flashed on to the iPhone.

The Devs: Because it is the first time you can fully take control over your device. Previous solutions such as ZiPhone rely on exploits to break into an existing installation of iPhone OS, and install stuff into your device that way. Those…

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A few weeks ago, the Government formally ordered that only free Linux-based software should be used for IT education in high schools, using new the Linux text books developed by State Council for Educational Research and Training and the Free Software Foundation of India.

A few weeks ago, the Government formally ordered that only free Linux-based software should be used for IT education in high schools, using new the Linux text books developed by State Council for Educational Research and Training and the Free…

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The 64-bit encryption method used by GSM networks (AT&T/TMobile/etc), known as A5/1 has been theoretically crackable for 10 years now, but it was very expensive to do so. At Black Hat D.C. 2008 however, a $1,000 solution was unveiled that claims to crack it in 30 minutes, or for $100,000 it can be cracked in 30 seconds.

Security researchers presenting Wednesday at the Black Hat D.C. conference in Washington, D.C., demonstrated technology in development that they say will be able to greatly decrease the time and money required to decrypt, and therefore snoop on,…

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