Filed under: World wide web, Web services, web 2.0

I’ve a hard time reading some of my favorite blogs, including Eee Personal computer News and Blogeee because, well, I don’t talk German or French. Not fluently anyway. Historically, I’ve tried to deal with this limitation of mine by subscribing to each site’s RSS feed and trying to figure out what articles are about by squinting at the headlines, scratching my head, and looking at the photos. Each now and again I find something I think might be interesting and I pop it into Google Translate. But I’m fairly certain I’m missing some interesting stories this way.

Mloovi is a new service that makes it much easier to follow a blog or news site published in a language you don’t talk. Mloovi basically takes the contents of the feed, runs it through Google Translate, and then syndicates a new feed.

There are a few limitations to Mloovi-generated feeds. First, you’ll occasionally be confronted with an advertisement, but Mloovi needs to make money somehow. Second, Mloovi strips images from RSS feeds and only shows a partiel feed even if a web site’s original feed was full text. But Mloovi can still be massive time saver if you want to follow some foreign language sites. Mloovi works with any languages supported by Google Reader, including Chinese, Japanese, French, German, Hindi, Norwegian and English.

Mlovi also has a handy widget that lets web publishers offer subscription links in mulitple languages.

[via ReadWriteWeb

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dstates writes “The Columbus Post Dispatch reports that the Say of Ohio is suing Premier Election Systems (previously known as Diebold over malfunctions in electronic voting machines. Election workers found that votes were ‘dropped’ in at least 11 counties when memory cards were uploaded to computer servers. The same voting machines are used nationwide. The company blames a conflict between their software and antivirus software for the problem and states that an advisory was issued on the subject. The Ohio lawsuit contends that the company made false representations and failed to live up to contractual obligations and seeks punitive damages.”

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snydeq writes “Sure ‘legacy systems archaeologist’ ranks as one of the 7 dirtiest jobs in IT, but COBOL skills might see a scant revival in the wake of California’s high-profile pay-cut debacle. After all, as Fatal Exception’s Neil McAllister points out, new code may in fact be more high-priced than old code. According to an IDC survey, code complexity is on the rise. And it’s not the applications that are growing more complex, but the technologies themselves. ‘Multicore processing, SOA, and Web 2.0 all contribute to rising software development costs,’ which include $5 million to $22 million spent on fixing defects per company per year. Do the math, and California’s proposed $177 million nine-year modernization project cost will double, McAllister writes. Perhaps numbers like those won’t deter modernization efforts, but the estimated 90,000 coders still versed in COBOL might find themselves in high demand teaching new dogs old tricks.”

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gringer writes “Dan Kaminsky presented at the Black Hat conference in Las Vegas on Wednesday, and stated that the DNS vulnerability he discovered is much more hazardous than most have appreciated. Besides hijacking web browsers, hackers might attack email services and spam filters, FTP, Rsync, BitTorrent, Telnet, SSH, as well as SSL services. Ultimately it’s not a question of which systems can be attacked by exploiting the flaw, but rather which ones cannot. Then again, it could just be hype. For more information, see Kaminsky’s power point presentation.” Update: 08/07 19:48 GMT by T : There’s also an animation of the progress of the patch.

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NewYorkCountryLawyer writes “MediaSentry, now called ‘SafeNet,’ the RIAA’s illegal, unlicensed investigator of choice, has been hired by the Peoples Republic of China to provide DRM for the Olympics coverage. The PRC says it ‘owns exclusive rights to the broadcast of all audio and video content via online and mobile distribution channels across Mainland China’ and wants to protect it from ‘piracy.’ I wonder if the Chinese government is aware of MediaSentry’s track record — i.e. all the good things it has accomplished so far for the Big 4 record companies.”

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dstates writes “The Columbus Post Dispatch reports that the Say of Ohio is suing Premier Election Systems (previously known as Diebold over malfunctions in electronic voting machines. Election workers found that votes were ‘dropped’ in at least 11 counties when memory cards were uploaded to personal servers. The same voting machines are used nationwide. The company blames a conflict between their software and antivirus software for the problem and says that an advisory was issued on the subject. The Ohio lawsuit contends that the company made false representations and failed to live up to contractual obligations and seeks punitive damages.”

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Vapon writes “A lady noticed her personal was running slower after she had brought her personal in to be repaired. She took the personal to a second repair shop where they found that one of the problems was that her webcam would turn on whenever it detected her around and was taking photos and uploading it to a website. The repair technician that installed the software has done this to at least 10 women and has pics of at least one undressing.”

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Filed under: Consumer experience, Competitive strategy, Ford Motor (F), General Motors (GM)

U.S. automakers, late to recognize the sales implications of spiraling gas prices, have started to adjust their business models, in at least one modest respect: some luxury vehicles are now being designed to run on regular unleaded gasoline, USA This day reported Thursday.

Regular unleaded gasoline, with an 87 octane, typically costs 20-40 cents less than premium gasoline, with a 91 octane.

Ford (NYSE: F) and General Motors (NYSE: GM) are encouraging dealers to promote their no-premium-gas luxury cars’ potential, as a selling point for consumers with budgets pinched by $4 per gallon gasoline, USA Today reported Thursday. Ford rose 5 cents to $4.99, while GM fell 15 cents to $10.10 in mid-day Thursday trading.

Auto mechanic Eddie Renn, based in Larchmont, N.Y., said the fact that automakers are manufacturing more vehicles designed to run on regular gasoline “is an improvement,” but he questions why the automakers are using a lower gasoline cost as a selling point for luxury vehicles. Renn added that his auto repair business isn’t affiliated with any auto manufacturer.

Does gas price matter for luxury automobile owners?

“If you’re driving a luxury automobile and you’re concerned about a 20 or 30 cent difference a gallon, maybe you shouldn’t be driving a luxury automobile.” Renn said. “The luxury automobile owners who come in here [to his gas station] aren’t concerned about the price of gas, I have the ability to tell you that.”

Renn stated most new vehicles, excluding sports cars and other cars, are designed to run on regular gasoline. A higher percentage of older cars — particularly those built before 2000, require a higher octane, either mid-grade gasoline (also called ‘plus’) with an 89 octane, or the aforementioned premium gasoline, with a 91 octane.
Check your car’s owner’s manual: it should specify the minimum octane required, Renn said. If you still have a question and your automobile is still under dealer warranty, call your dealer, he said; if the warranty no longer applies, ask a competent, trustworthy mechanic.

As automobiles age, some might require a higher octane than their owner’s manual requires, Renn added, but many won’t. A sign of inadequate octane? A ‘pinging’ sound while accelerating or driving up hills, he said.

“But don’t buy a higher grade of gasoline unless you need it,” Renn stated. “It’s the biggest rip-off since $4 lattes.”

Auto Sector Analysis: Now that U.S. automakers have found a way to get certain luxury vehicles to run on regular gasoline, it’s probably a good idea that General Motors and Ford continue their efforts to increase gas mileage, including cylinder deactivation, enhanced fuel burn techniques/injection systems, and reduced friction processes, among other engine and design technologies.

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Death Metal Maniac writes “New microchip passports designed to be foolproof against identity theft failed the test when a researcher was able to manipulate one in minutes. The cloned passports were accepted as genuine by the personal software suggested for use at international airports. According to the article: ‘A personal researcher cloned the chips on two British passports and implanted digital images of Osama bin Laden and a suicide bomber. The altered chips were then passed as genuine by passport reader software used by the UN agency that sets standards for e-passports.’”

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Slatterz writes “The members of a hacking ring responsible for stealing more than 40 million credit and debit card numbers from retail organizations in the US have been caught and charged. The case before the US Department of Justice is believed to be the largest hacking and identity theft case ever prosecuted. The criminals allegedly obtained bank details by hacking into the retailers’ computer networks and then installing ’sniffer’ programs to capture card numbers and password details as the customers moved through the retailers’ credit and debit processing networks.”

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