JAPANESE CHIPMAKERS Renesas, Fujitsu and Panasonic will merge their fab plant operations to become more competitive.

The three firms are expected to have a basic agreement in place by the end of March, with the new firm established by the end of 2012.

Microelectromechanical systems (MEMS) have stealthily moved from DARPA research to daily use without most of the engineering world taking notice. The devices, which until recently saw service largely as automotive accelerometers to trigger airbags, have busted out big time in the consumer space.

Moxie Marlinspike is encouraging browser developers to support an experimental project to shake up the security of website authentication by moving beyond blind faith in secure sockets layer (SSL) credentials

The Convergence open-source project is designed to address at least some of the main shortcomings that underpin trust in e-commerce and other vital services, such as webmail. The technology, available as a browser add-on for Firefox, allows users to query notary servers – which they can pick – to make sure the SSL certificate served up by any particular site is kosher.

About 650 organisations are authorised to sign certificates.
Hackers able to break into the systems of any of these certificate authorities would be able to issue counterfeit credentials, subverting the whole system of trust.

Convergence, rather than relying on the public key infrastructure that ties together the current SSL system, utilises a loose confederation of notaries that independently vouch for the integrity of a given SSL certificate.

Around 50 organisations have signed up to become notaries, including privacy advocates such as the EFF and technology firms including Qualys

Convergence Beta
http://convergence.io/

In its ongoing fight to launch its nationwide LTE service, LightSquared on Wednesday Tuesday asked the Federal Communications Commission to impose the first-ever standards on GPS device design, claiming such requirements would allow GPS and its 4G network to co-exist peacefully in the satellite bands. While LightSquared would appear to be taking the middle path, the proposal smacks of a political stunt.

Even if the FCC agreed to establish such standards, the rulemaking process and implementing those design requirements would take years, while leaving millions of interference-prone devices in the market that would need to replaced or retrofitted.

In order to prep the L-band for 4G, the government needs to create and enforce standards on the GPS devices to prevent them from stepping outside of their bands.

But in this case, LightSquared is using principle as a cudgel to beat back the commercial GPS lobby so it can deploy its LTE network before it runs out of funding.

Interference in the L-band is a big issue that will take years to fix.

Google issued a beta release of Chrome for Android earlier today. The browser provides support for modern Web standards and includes a number of compelling features that aren’t available in the Android’s default browser. One noteworthy Chrome desktop feature that isn’t included in the mobile port, however, is the integrated Flash runtime.

Adobe has issued a statement confirming that Chrome for Android does not support Flash content. The company also indicated that it does not plan to work with Google to add Flash support to the new mobile browser. Adobe will, however, continue supporting Flash in the current default Android browser.

Anonymous Hacks Syrian President’s Email. The Password: 12345
http://mashable.com/2012/02/07/anonymous-assad-email-password/

Syrian President Bashar al-Assad has been under fire from world leaders to step down this week. He’s also under fire from hacktivist group Anonymous, who leaked hundreds of his office’s emails on Monday.

the passwords commonly used by Assad’s office accounts: 12345. The string of consecutive numbers is the second-weakest password according to a 2011 study.

Translated comments from article:

3D-TV, was paid a year ago, almost 2 000 prices. Now the big 3-D displays are cheaper at best less than 1 in 000.

- Each time you will be a new feature, the products are initially expensive, and slowly lower the price goes until there is yet another story, Verkkokauppa.com CEO Samuli Seppälä explains.

Study the characteristics of low end models. The so-called “3D-ready” flat-screen TVs may require an additional unit joined by a three-dimensional content can be viewed. All models are also not included 3D glasses

Seppala does not recommend buying a 3D TV, unless the consumer is not particularly keen on the film enthusiast.
- The 3D broadcast offering is all too rare in Finland.