The US Embassy is warning of a possible terrorist attack on Bali on New Year's Eve.

The Wall Street Journal reports that Google has teamed up with Dish Network to offer a set-top box based on the Android operating system.

Elgato's original EyeTV Hybrid USB tuner wasn't exactly oversized, but the company has nonetheless managed shrink things down a bit for the device's latest revision, and it's added some Windows 7 support for good measure. Most of the size reduction comes from ditching the analog connector found on the previous model (you'll still get an adapter), and you'll also now get a sturdier aluminum enclosure that stays in line with the company's Mac-only roots. Otherwise, you'll get the same support for over-the-air HD broadcasts as before, along with Elgato's EyeTV 3 software, and an included remote control -- all for the same $150 that the original model cost.

Elgato rolls out smaller, Windows 7-supporting EyeTV Hybrid originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 09 Mar 2010 16:43:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Fortune reports on a new research note from Oppenhiemer & Co.'s Yair Reiner claiming that Apple in January began high-level talks with major phone manufacturers expressing its displeasure with what it con...

Let's say you're playing poker and you need one more diamond for a flush. The dealer turns a card, reveals a diamond and you win the hand. Was it skill or luck? The answer is affecting the fates of people across the country accused of breaking anti-poker laws.

This was the year the Academy expanded the number of Best Picturecontenders to 10, largely to give more popular films a chance. YetJames Cameron's Avatar, history's biggest box-office performer, lostthe top prize to The Hurt Locker, the lowest-grossing movie to winBest Picture in recent times. Here is why Avatar got left out.

PCLinuxOS: "The NEW PCLinuxOS Magazine staff is pleased to announce the release of the March 2010 issue of the PCLinuxOS Magazine."

Blog of Helios: "It's spring time in Texas. The Bluebonnets are fixin' to get ready to bloom, today's temperature is going to be around 80 degrees Fahrenheit and a solid date for the second annual Linux Against Poverty is, with a fair amount of certainty... official."

• Power-sharing finalised as assembly agrees to first justice minister since Troubles
• Vote marred as Ulster Unionists oppose measure despite intense pressure on Tories

A 15-year search for a political settlement in Northern Ireland cleared its final hurdle today when unionists and nationalists voted to transfer policing and criminal justice powers to Belfast, creating the province's first justice minister since the Troubles erupted four decades ago.

Sinn Féin and the Democratic Unionist party (DUP), who were barely on speaking terms a few years ago, joined forces with the nationalist SDLP in the Northern Ireland assembly to endorse a deal on policing, hammered out last month.

Northern Ireland's justice minister will be appointed on 12 April and is likely to be David Ford, the leader of the centrist Alliance party.

The breakthrough was marred by a row when the Ulster Unionist party (UUP), which governed Northern Ireland for five decades until the imposition of direct rule in 1972, voted against the deal.

Sir Reg Empey, the UUP leader, who recently formed an electoral pact with the Conservatives, said he had voted no because his party did not believe that the four-party power-sharing executive was functioning properly. Empey, the minister for employment and learning, said: "We exercise our rights, refusing to bow to the blackmail and bullying to which we have been subjected in recent weeks."

The UUP hit out after facing intense pressure from London and the US to fall in behind David Cameron, who has backed devolution of the criminal justice system. Gordon Brown phoned Empey shortly before today's vote, while former US president George Bush pleaded with Cameron last week to persuade the UUP to support the deal.

Empey's unionist rivals, the DUP, who have overtaken the UUP in recent years, focused on what could happen after the vote. The DUP leader, Peter Robinson, who managed to persuade all but one of his 36 assembly members to back the devolution deal, said: "The move is about completing and maintaining devolution, it is about whether we move forward together as a society."

The vote secures an extra £800m for policing and justice that Brown promised the assembly if they backed the transfer. It also adds an extra 1,200 police officers. The prime minister praised the main parties for reaching the deal on an issue that almost broke the power-sharing government.

He said: "Today the politics of progress have finally replaced the politics of division in Northern Ireland. The completion of devolution, supported by all sections of the community in Northern Ireland, is the final end to decades of strife. It sends the most powerful message to those who would return to violence: that democracy and tolerance will prevail. The courage and leadership of the parties who voted to complete devolution at Stormont will be noted around the world."

Matt Baggott, chief constable of the Police Service of Northern Ireland, last night welcomed the vote as a step forward. "Devolution will strengthen our service. It will help to ensure that communities receive the policing service that not only they deserve, but that we are committed to delivering. The financial package is also welcomed … it will help us deal with those who are living in the darkness of the past and who have tried to disrupt this process and the lives of our community."

But there was discord inside Stormont after the UUP and their 17-strong assembly team voted against the move.

Martin McGuinness, Sinn Féin's deputy first minister, denounced the UUP stance, claiming they were doing it to embarrass the DUP. "The UUP declared last night [Monday] that they will not support this resolution," McGuinness told the assembly. "That saddens and disappoints me. They are opposed in my view to the transfer for cynical party political reasons." McGuinness stressed that no single party could control the justice department.

The UUP no-vote will put pressure on the Tories, who will campaign with their allies in the general election, having taken opposing sides on the biggest vote since the DUP and Sinn Féin started sharing power in 2007.

Cameron insisted last night that the Tories had played a constructive role, saying he would maintain his alliance with the UUP. "We want to move Northern Ireland politics forward – to focus on the issues that affect people in their everyday lives – rather than remaining stuck in the past. That is why we remain totally committed to bringing national, mainstream UK politics to Northern Ireland and to ending its semi-detached political status."

Cameron's remarks were designed, in part, to reassure the White House, which fears that a UUP no-vote could harden unionist opinion against the power-sharing executive. Hardline Unionists turned on the DUP tonight.

Jim Allister, the former DUP MEP, who now leads the breakaway Traditional Unionist Voice, claimed his former party had "rolled over in triple somersaults for Sinn Féin". He also suggested the new justice minister would be a "pointless puppet keeping the seat warm for Sinn Féin".

Prior to yesterday's vote the widow of the first Police Service of Northern Ireland officer to be murdered by dissident republicans, urged all parties to back the devolution of policing and justice powers. Kate Carroll, whose husband, Stephen, was killed by a Continuity IRA sniper, said in an appeal to the UUP: "It is heartbreaking that I have to get on this morning to please ask the politicians to get on with their job."

Next steps

What happens next?

The new justice minister will be appointed on 12 April and will be David Ford (below). As leader of the middle ground Alliance party, Ford is seen as a compromise candidate between unionists and nationalists.

Will all aspects of security be under the control of a justice minister?

No. MI5 is not answerable to the justice ministry and remains under the control of the Home Office in London.

How will the final act of devolution impact on the struggle against the republican dissidents?

As MI5 plays the leading role in counterterrorism, the input of the justice minister will be minimal. Outside of London the largest concentration of MI5 officers is at its regional HQ in Holywood, near Belfast.

Will this vote affect the armed campaigns of the republican dissidents?

The Continuity IRA, the Real IRA and Oghlaigh na hEireann – the three terror groups still engaged in violence – will continue to try to undermine the peace process through a campaign of sabotage and assassinations.

• Northern Irish politics
• Northern Ireland
• Ulster Unionist Party (UUP)
• Conservatives
• Police

Henry McDonaldNicholas Watt
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Google's recent announcement of a 1Gbps fiber-to-the-home testbed has communities across the US salivating—but imagine what the Internet might be like if that connection to your home were even faster. Say... 100Gbps. In less than 20 years, such speeds will be possible, but only for companies who installed the right sort of fiber architecture.

The UK telecoms regulator Ofcom commissioned a lengthy report on the future of fiber (PDF) (or "fibre," in this case) from the firm Analysys Mason. In it, the company sketched out the future of fiber capacity with a pair of handy charts. Both are clear: between 2025 and 2030, shared fiber tech will be able to offer 10Gpbs to each user; individual fiber can offer a full 100Gbps. Whether ISPs will support it or not is a separate question.

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Dale Dougherty and Sherry Huss would like to invite you all to a Maker Faire Detroit - Community Planning Meeting, Wednesday, March 10, 2010, 6:00 PM to 8:00 PM. The meeting will be held at the Main Branch Detroit Public Library, 5201 Woodward Ave., Detroit, MI.

In addition to providing updates on the event, the goal of the meeting is to continue to generate ideas, form working groups, and continue to connect with people and organizations that would be interested in bringing Maker Faire to Detroit.

If there are others that you know would like to get involved, please feel free to invite them. This event is open to the public and we'd love to connect with people, groups, and organizations that should be involved with Maker Faire.

If you've attended a Maker Faire Community Meeting in the past, and want to talk about specifics of your curated area, we'll have our Maker Faire team onsite to work with you. Otherwise, we look forward to receiving your submission to the Maker Faire Detroit "Call for Makers" which will go live on March 15th, 2010 at www.makerfaire.com

For more info, see the event page on Socializr.

Read more | Permalink | Comments | Read more articles in Maker Faire | Digg this!

Depending on your skillset, degree and what you want from a job, some of the best jobs in the country may be on your career path.

The transformation of Iraq into a tentative democracy might not have happened without the return of its oil economy. But that might be a problem: every petro state is beset by illiberal pathologies, and Iraq could be next.

Few machines represent The Future like the flying car, and no publication has championed the fantasy more zealously than Popular Science. Here's a look back at its feverish, 77-year-long vision.

netbuzz writes "When the NASDAQ stock index hit its all-time high of 5,133 on March 10, 2000, it had more than doubled in a year and the dot-com bubble was already leaking in a big way. A week later the NASDAQ had fallen 9 percent. A year later it was below 2000. Gone were such poster children of the era as Pets.com, Kozmo, and — who could forget? — Whoopi Goldberg's Flooz. Here's a look back."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Are you a software dev with a Bachelors Degree in Computer Science, familiarity with current Web standards, and experience with browser engines, Linux on embedded devices, and Java? If so, do we have the job for you. Lab126, the group at Amazon responsible for the Kindle, wants you to help "conceive, design, and bring to market" a new embedded browser on a Linux device. Might this be a sign that the company is ready to start taking web browsing on the e-reader seriously? We don't know, but it sure sparked some interesting discussion over at All Things Digital. As Peter Kafka points out, a decent browser for the thing is pretty much a no-brainer in light of the Apple iPad. On the other hand, the idea of a robust browser on the Kindle has its own complications. What about subscription content like the New York Times -- why would anyone pay for something that's available for free on the web, if you're using the same device to view both? And what about all that new data traffic? Surely AT&T will have something to say about that. Of course, we've been hearing enough scuttlebutt about a mysterious next-gen device being developed at Amazon that perhaps this has nothing to do with the Kindle whatsoever. Who knows? These are all questions that will have to be answered sooner or later, but in the meantime we can say with some certainty that E ink is definitely not the best way to troll 4chan.

Is Amazon hiring devs to build a robust web browser for Kindle? originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 09 Mar 2010 16:21:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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It’s my own fault. And so without further ado, I give you the 7 ways I’ve tried to quit and why I failed miserably at them. Hopefully some of you can either relate or let me know what I’m doing wrong.

Few things are more irritating during tax season than the belated realization that you paid more in taxes than you had to.

UNICEF estimates that more than 20,000 children lost their parents in the Jan. 12 quake and its aftermath. Relatives or neighbors are caring for many of these children. Others, such as a group of boys in a Port-au-Prince park, are fending for themselves.

Coffee aficionados have been asking the question: Is Stumptown Coffee Roasters of Portland, Ore. — the most conspicuous exponent of coffee's "third wave" — the new Starbucks? In cities across America, a fervid generation of caffeine evangelists is changing the way we drink coffee.