hastenslowly asks: "I'm a member of a non-profit Association restoring a 1920's gas station, here in the midwest, for National Historic Register status. I'd like to provide an 24/7 'unattended' audio (visual) presentation for visitors using an 'el cheapo' computer, monitor, and mouse. I'd like to connect the entire thing to the doorbell which, when triggered, will start the presentation. Can anyone steer me to some hardware, software (for whatever OS), programming, newsgroup or any other source of info, so I don't re-invent the wheel when I do this?"

mbstone writes: "A California appellate court has upheld [PDF link], 2-1, a Garden Grove, California ordinance requiring so-called 'cyber cafes' to impose a curfew, hire security guards, and install video surveillance cameras capable of identifying patrons. The opinion is a must-read; the dissenting judge called the law 'Orwellian,' and pointed out that 'even the government of Malaysia' was 'too ashamed to enforce' a similar proposal." It appears that the ordinances were enacted in part due to crime involving "gang activity" and to curtail school-children from using the facilities during school hours (unless accompanied by a guardian).

heymarcel writes "After a negative review of the Diebold voting machines by the State Gaming Control Board, it looks like Nevada has gone with a competitor for the upcoming election. And Secretary of State Dean Heller is requiring paper receipts. According to the Associated Press story, Nevada is the first state to do so." There's another story about Nevada voting machines as well. zapf writes "It appears that the major e-Voting machine vendors have banded together to form the 'Election Technology Council.'" Reader SemperUbi writes: "Demand for a voter-verified audit trail is really gaining momentum these days. The Voter Verification Act, introduced yesterday by Senator Bob Graham (D-Florida), would require a voter-verified paper audit trail, ban the use of 'undisclosed' software and wireless communications for voting machines, and require mandatory surprise recounts -- all in time for the November 2004 election. Rep. Holt's HR2239 in the House requires much the same thing. Resistance to both bills may focus on the aggressive timetable, but the effort is worth it -- as Warren Slocum once said, democracy ain't cheap. Take that, Diebold!" And finally, a Maryland newspaper dredges up an internal Diebold email that recommends gouging Maryland if the state wants paper printouts for its Diebold voting system.

theodp writes "AT&T on Thursday fired the latest shot in the escalating Web patent wars, filing suit against PayPal and eBay. AT&T issued a press release alleging that the PayPal and BillPoint payment systems infringe on AT&T's 1994 patent for the mediation of transactions by a communications system. Besides e-Payments, the AT&T patent purports to cover e-Voting, e-Auctions, e-Gifts, e-Donations, e-Wishlists and e-Referrals. e-Gad! e-Yikes!"

CodeDemon writes "It looks like the ISO/IEC JTC1/SC22/WG21 working group has made some headway in reviewing new proposals for the C++ language. The long anticipated upgrade for C++, C++0x, may be just around the corner. Head on over to check out the proposals yourself."

CodeHog writes "The WP reports about a student working on a PhD and how it relates to national (US) security. Very interesting that he has been able to get all this information. It raises some very challenging questions, should some of this information be classified?"

As part of our continuing E3 round-up, ahead of its May 14th start in Los Angeles, the biggest new announcement has been from Activision, which released info on its product line-up (press release via Yahoo) this morning. Highlights include the inevitable Doom 3, Peter Molyneux's latest public speaking project, The Movies, and licenses from Spiderman and X-Men to Shrek, plus Disney Skateboarding (which may actually be good, thanks to cult developers Toys For Bob, of Star Control fame.) Otherwise, it seems Tecmo may be showing a new Dead Or Alive at E3, alongside a DoA fashion show, and Ubisoft will show a more promising new 3D Prince Of Persia and the ever-mysterious Uru: Ages Beyond Myst MMOG from Cyan. Here's links to previous E3 coverage at Slashdot Games.

Slashback tonight brings updates and clarifications on the odds of Apple Computer buying Universal Music, the Evil Bit RFC, and more, including Niels Provos' reasons for moving his cryptographic research tools off-shore.

Milton Linkle writes "One of the first H.323 compliant videophones, that doesn't require a PC, is slowly but surely making it's rounds. This review provides a very good overview of the product, and even includes a few video caps of the device in action. If this product, or others like it eventually take off, we may get to a point where we no longer have a need for traditional telephones."

Pete writes "The guys over at Extreme Overclocking have show how to put a car LCD inside a computer. The article shows how to install VNC remote computing software onto the server, how to manage the server from another computer, and how to use the color LCD to manage the server locally. They also included a video at the end which shows the setup process, and the LCD in action."

Slashback tonight with a round of updates and clarifications on Yahoo! v. France, William Gibson's new book(tour), lowish-tech helping to solve the Columbia mystery, searchable utra-localized information and more. Read on for the details.

Overtone writes "Steve Bellovin of AT&T Labs Research has published a paper showing how to remotely count the number of machines hiding behind a NAT box (in IMW 2002, the Second Internet Measurement Workshop). Your friendly DSL or cable broadband provider could implement this technique to enforce their single-machine license clause. Bellovin explains how to change the NAT software to defeat the measurement scheme, but the fix is complicated and unlikely to appear in commercial home gateways anytime soon."

Ashcrow writes "KDE 3.1 was released early this morning and boasts new usability enhancements, VNC-compatible desktop sharing, tabbed browsing, and a new download manager, among other enhancements. You can read the release anouncement here and start downloading from the closest mirror. Kudos to the KDE Team!"

__roo writes "The New York Times has an article [free registration required] about a researcher at AT&T Labs Research who has discovered a little-known vulnerability in many locks that lets a person create a copy of the master key for an entire building by starting with any key from that building, and it requires little more than a file and a few key blanks."

glassware asks: "Perhaps you know that LED holiday Lights last hundreds of times longer than regular lights. Perhaps you know that your local utility company recommends them for drastically lowering your electricity bill. But my real problem is, where can you find them? I've found lousy battery-operated LED lights in some department stores; but even in the best stores I give up after a half hour of searching, and so far I see only one vendor making them. Surely there must be alternatives. Where do you get your LED holiday lights?"

inonit writes "Well, geez -- after all this US election talk, I got inspired to write my congresswoman. But as a good Slashdotter, imagine my irritation when I found the following note in the "Contact" section: 'In order to send an e-mail to Congresswoman Tubbs-Jones, please complete this form using the Internet Explorer browser. If the Internet Explorer browser is not available, please mail your correspondence to the listed postal mailing address above.' I don't really have the time to check all 435 Congressional sites to see if this is widespread, but it gives me some insight into why all those <sarcasm>foreigners</sarcasm> are complaining about having their governments be beholden to U.S. technology companies. Can someone running IE write my congressperson and ask her to let me write her? Does she only accept phone calls from AT&T customers?" I just tried filling out the form with Mozilla, and ended up at a page notifying me of a search error. (Huh?)

BShive writes "Design Patterns is considered a classic for anyone in software development. The beginning third of the book is a solid introduction to patterns, while the last two thirds of the book is devoted to the patterns themselves. Many of the professionals out there probably already own a well-used copy of this book, but there are others who are wondering what all the fuss is about. The frequency of hearing about this text in discussions piqued my interest enough to buy it for myself. If you are interested in design patterns and are looking to use them, then this should be one of the books on your shelf." Read on for more.

ackthpt writes "A few astute slashdot readers were on to something back when this article was published. After a tip (at e-insight.net) on failing caps over at amdmb I did a little looking around and found this article by Dennis Zogbi on TTI Inc.'s site, which goes into more detail. In a nutshell, many motherboards are now failing due to electolytic capacitors made with an inferior water-based electolyte. Within days or a few months these capacitors build up hydrogen gas and blow the rubber bung out the end of the capacitor, leaking electolyte and causing havoc. The problem may be widespread, as many consumer electronics made with these capacitors may also fail prematurely. Gary Headlee specializes in Abit motherboards, but as his FAQ states, he will work on other makes and the FAQ has more info on capacitor problems."

Huusker writes "Steven Bellovin and others at ATT Research Labs and ICIR have come up with mechanism to stop DDOS attacks. The idea is called Pushback. When the routers get flooded they consult a Unix daemon (/etc/pushbackd) to determine if they are being DDOS'ed. The routers propagate the quench packets back to the sources. The policy and propagation are separate, allowing hardware vendors to concentrate on the quench protocol while the white hats invent ever more clever DDOS detection filters for /etc/pushbackd. The authors of the paper have an initial implementation on FreeBSD."

Lord Custos writes "From ABC News: Your Brain Waves are Better than Sleeping Pills! Everyone has a song in them...literally. And you can use it to put yourself to sleep. Canadian scientists have discovered that deep sleep can be induced in insomniacs by copying the insomniacs brainwaves, turning it into 'music', and then playing this 'audio transcription' of their own sleep brainwave pattern back to them."