Braille Live

Microsoft Reveals Top Ten Threats Removed By Malware Update

It’s been a while since we’ve done a good top malware threats list here, but . This is a tool that runs every month at Patch Tuesday time, so it has very broad, worldwide reach. The downside to it is that it searches for and removes a list of malware that is small compared to that of a real anti-malware product (well, it’s a lot bigger than , but Microsoft has a bigger problem and perhaps we should give Apple some time).
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Phishing Down, Are Scammers Changing Tactics?
SAN FRANCISCO
Internet criminals might be rethinking a favorite scam for stealing people’s personal information. A report being released Wednesday by IBM Corp. shows a big drop in the volume of “phishing” e-mails, in which fraud artists send what looks like a legitimate message from a bank or some other company. If the recipients click on a link in a phishing e-mail, they land on a rogue Web site that captures their passwords, account numbers or any other information they might enter.

IBM’s midyear security report found that phishing accounted for just 0.1 percent of all spam in the first six months of this year. In the same period in 2008, phishing made up 0.2 percent to 0.8 percent of all spam.
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Kaplan EduNeering Celebrates 10 Year Anniversary of the Ethics Communication Coach

Unique Program Provides Compliance and Legal Officers with 2,000 Content Tools to Use in Developing Ongoing
Ethics and Compliance Programs and Impacting Organizational Culture

August 18, 2009 – Princeton, NJ – Kaplan EduNeering, a leading provider of compliance and knowledge management solutions, announced the 10 year anniversary of its Ethics Communication Coach (ECC) subscription-based service. Launched in 1999, the ECC was developed to effect ethical culture change across an organization, five years before the revised U.S. Federal Sentencing Guidelines asked companies to promote an organizational culture that encourages a commitment to compliance.
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Computer Agents Take To The Web
BBC NEWS
Computer “agents” take to the web By Zoe Kleinman
Technology reporter, BBC News

Artificial intelligence technology could soon make the internet an even bigger haven for bargain-hunters. Software “agents” that automatically negotiate on behalf of shoppers and sellers are about to be set free on the web for the first time.

The “Negotiation Ninjas”, as they are known, will be trialled on a shopping website called Aroxo in the autumn.
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Artificial Cornea Restores Vision

Cornea/External Disease DURHAM, NC – A severe allergic reaction to a medication robbed Elma Phifer of her vision two decades ago when she was 39. The reaction scarred her corneas and reduced the ability of her eyes to soothe their damaged surfaces by remaining moist.

She came to rely upon family and friends to help her do many of the activities people with normal vision sometimes take for granted. Now, twenty years and several life milestones later, Elma is able to see again, thanks to advances in ophthalmology research.
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Quartz Precision
BBC NEWS
Silicon Valley’s secret recipe
By Sue Nelson
BBC Radio 4
Spruce Pine, a modest, charmingly low-key town in the Blue Ridge mountains of North Carolina, is at the heart of a global billion-dollar industry. Although this Mitchell County community calls itself the Mineral City, with just 2,000 residents one could dispute the city status. But when it comes to minerals, Spruce Pine has definitely undersold itself.
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Blind Dog Has His Own Seeing Eye Dog

Bonnie and Clyde are a bonded pair of Border Collies-but, in a one-of-a-kind twist, Bonnie serves as a seeing eye dog for Clyde, who is completely blind.
By Kathryn Hawkins. Posted on August 02 2009 Filed under Animals and Pets
General Interest Health and Wellbeing The original Bonnie and Clyde were together until the bitter end-and, though they’re not robbing any banks, the same goes for another couple named for the reckless gangsters: a pair of Border Collies.
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Freedom Scientific Releases New GPS Solution for the Blind
StreetTalk VIP Now Shipping
(St. Petersburg, Florida – July 27, 2009) — Freedom Scientific today announced the immediate availability of StreetTalk™ VIP.

Running on Freedom Scientific’s PAC Mate Omni™ Accessible Pocket PC, StreetTalk VIP offers GPS navigation that takes into account the unique needs of people with visual impairments. The application uses technology from the Sendero Group to determine the best route from point A to point B for either a vehicle or a pedestrian and presents information to the user with synthesized speech and/or refreshable braille.

Jonathan Mosen, Freedom Scientific’s Vice President of Blindness Hardware Product Management, says, “StreetTalk VIP is a powerful tool for exploring your surroundings both virtually and in real time.”
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Freedom Scientific Announces Secure and Compatible Braille Display Initiative
JAWS® 11 to Offer Improved Security and Interoperability
(St. Petersburg, Florida – August 11, 2009) — Freedom Scientific, one of the leading providers of assistive technology for people who are blind, announced its Secure and Compatible Braille Display Initiative today.

The goal of this new program is to follow Microsoft’s move to signed drivers to improve security and compatibility for customers who use a Braille display with JAWS. Under this program, Freedom Scientific will test Braille displays to ensure compatibility with JAWS and then digitally sign the driver. Starting with the JAWS 11 release later this year, only drivers that have been digitally signed by Freedom Scientific will work with JAWS.
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Braille Displays Get New Life With Artificial Muscles

Research with tiny artificial muscles may yield a full-page active Braille system that can refresh automatically and come to life right beneath your fingertips.

Yosi-Bar Cohen, a senior researcher at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif, was inspired during a business trip to Washington, D.C., where a convention for people with visual impairments was taking place.
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