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wiedzmin writes "This month, officials from the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI), armed with fingerprinting machines, iris scanners and cameras hooked to laptops, will fan out across the towns and villages of southern Andhra Pradesh state in the first phase of the project whose aim is to give every Indian a lifelong Unique ID (UID) number for 'anytime, anywhere' biometric authentication. While enrolling with the UIDAI may be voluntary, other agencies and service providers might require a UID number in order to transact business. Usha Ramanathan, a prominent legal expert who is attached to the Center for the Study of Developing Societies in the national capital, said that, 'taken to its logical limit, the UID project will make it impossible, in a couple of years, for an ordinary citizen to undertake a simple task such as traveling within the country without a UID number.' Next step, tying that UID number and biometric information to to their RIM BlackBerry PIN number."

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coondoggie writes "Talk about finding a needle in a cosmic haystack. Scientists this week said they found microscopic shrapnel in a meteorite of a star they say exploded around the birth of our solar system 4.5 billion years ago."

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T-Mobile officially announced its G2 smartphone Thursday, the first phone designed for its high-speed HSPA+ network and possibly the Googliest phone ever.

New rules just set by Apple will seem to open the door for Adobe Flash, likely amid FTC investigation and mounting pressure

Here’s a look at the history of LEGO as a company with insight into their initiatives beyond the bricks.

Stan Shih sure knows how to get a party started. In an interview with Digitimes yesterday, the Acer founder went on record to say that Apple’s products are a ‘mutant virus’ for which PC makers will eventually find a ‘cure’ in the long term. Ouch.

App alert! Google confirmed that the Android market has grown to more than 80K applications. This latest figure is up 10K from the 70K figure announced in July.

PHP North West is a PHP conference with a regional focus, bringing the best of PHP speakers to the north-west of England on Saturday 9th October. A full day of conference speakers over at least two tracks this should again prove to be one of the best events for PHP user-led conferences in Europe. We're also, as last year, having an informal half day of speakers on Sunday 10th October, at the Museum of Science and Industry (MOSI) nearby. With a weekend packed with all things PHP and a ticket price to suit business and hobbyists alike there are no reasons to miss out - see you in Manchester :) PHPNW10: conference.phpnw.org.uk/phpnw10/ Registration: conference.phpnw.org.uk/register/

wiredmikey writes "In a recent investigation, it was discovered that cybercriminals are creating 57,000 new 'fake' websites each week looking to imitate and exploit approximately 375 high-profile brands. eBay and Western Union were the most targeted brands, making up 44 percent of exploited brands discovered. Visa, Amazon, Bank of America and PayPal also heavily targeted by cybercriminals. Banks comprise the majority of fake websites by far with 65 percent of the total. Online stores and auction sites came in at 27 percent, with eBay taking the spot as the No. 1 most targeted brand on the Web today."

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Lookout, a company that offers security data backup services for smartphones, is growing rapidly. Less than two months after the startup surpassed one million users, the company has crossed the 2 million registered users mark. It took just over six months to reach 1 million users.

HTML 5 is developed as the next major version of HTML (HyperText Markup Language) and its already giving hard time to Adobe Flash. Flash usage is facing a

There are lots of easy but not-so-obvious ways to make Google's browser more efficient and personal. Check out this list of tips for power surfers.

An anonymous reader pointed us to an article talking about Google TV and AppleTV challenging the major networks and taking their place in your living room. It'll be a tough battle, amusingly waged on cable company wires in many major markets.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Apple's products are "mutant viruses" that need to be cured, Acer's creator Stan Shih claimed to reporters late Wednesday.

Tootech writes "In a case of "physician, heal thyself," the agency — which forms the operational arm of DHS's National Cyber Security Division, or NCSD — failed to keep its own systems up to date with the latest software patches. Auditors working for the DHS inspector general ran a sweep of US-CERT using the vulnerability scanner Nessus and turned up 1,085 instances of 202 high-risk security holes. "The majority of the high-risk vulnerabilities involved application and operating system and security software patches that had not been deployed on computer systems located in Virginia," reads the report from assistant inspector general Frank Deffer."

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theodp writes "In response to a complaint, Rackspace has shut down the websites of the Dove World Outreach Center, a small 50-member church which has received national and international criticism for a planned book burning of the Quran on the anniversary of the 9-11 attacks. The center 'violated the hate-speech provision of our acceptable-use policy,' explained Rackspace spokesman Dan Goodgame. 'This is not a constitutional issue. This is a contract issue,' said Goodgame, who added he did not know how long it had hosted the church's sites. Not quite the same thing, but would Kurt Westergaard's cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad also violate Rackspace's AUP? How about Christopher Hitchens' Slate articles? Could articles from one-time Rackspace poster child The Onion pass muster?"

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mspohr writes "Just hours after Apple released iOS 4.1 to great fanfare, hardware hackers found a way to jailbreak devices that run the new operating system. More surprising still, there doesn't appear to be anything Steve Jobs can do to stop them in the near future. The exploit in the boot ROM of iOS devices was first announced by iPhone Dev-Team member pod2g. It was soon confirmed by other hackers, who said that because the exploit targets such a low-level part of the operating system, Apple won't be able to stop jailbreakers without making significant hardware changes."

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VLC, the popular open source video player that can handle just about any file you happen to stumble across on the net, is coming to the iPad pending approval.

The next generation of WebOS will make or break HP’s attempt to slide in among RIM, Apple and Google in...

bonch writes "A new study on Greenland's and West Antarctica's rate of ice loss halves the estimate of ice loss. Published in the journal Nature Geoscience, the study takes into account a rebounding of the Earth's crust called glacial isostatic adjustment, a continuing rise of the crust after being smashed under the weight of the Ice Age. 'We have concluded that the Greenland and West Antarctica ice caps are melting at approximately half the speed originally predicted,' said researcher Bert Vermeeersen."

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