Technological Digest VII

Happy New Year everyone!
Still on my vacation in the holy land, so this will be yet another digest. Without further ado:

1. This NY Times article warns about your employer following your online activity past the work hours. You see, things people say, or do online (like blogging ) is held against them and may lead to them being fired. This is not necessarily legal, but is a food for thought.
   I do not hide my identity and I carry a disclaimer, but I can now understand why so many people crave anonymity online.
   
   
2. As if travel in the US hasn't been limited enough, the TSA now add limitations on lithium batteries:
   

   As of January 1, no spare lithium batteries are allowed in checked luggage. Batteries carried in the cabin are subject to limitations on per-battery and total lithium content, and spare batteries must have the terminals covered.

   Read more here and make sure you know the lithium content of your batteries.
   I shudder to ask "what's next" .
   
   
3. 2 months ago I wrote about the return of Netscape Navigator. Apparently, I spoke too soon: AOL, the owner of the Netscape browser technology, decided to retire it. It now recommends everyone use Firefox instead. Read more here. And switch to Firefox, if you haven't already.
   
   
4. An Adobe user manged to prove that his Adobe software spies on him. Once in a while, it sends an encrypted packet to the following IP address: 192.168.112.2O7.net
   Wait a second!!! Since when does an IP address has a ".net" extension? And is that an O instead of a 0 in 2O7?
   Apparently the address belongs to Omniture, a "behavioral analytics company".
   
   So, maybe Adobe just wants to improve their next generation of software by learning users' behavioral patterns, but the fact still remains they are secretly spying on users. Why aren't they notifying you of these packets and allow you to opt out, like every Microsoft software does? For shame.
   
   
5. And finally, a useless (read: no immediate application exists, but we'll think of something later) science fact: researchers from the Technion in Israel managed to inscribe the entire bible (some 300,000 words) on a silicon surface "less than half the size of a grain of sugar."
   It took them about an hour and they've used particles called "gallium ions" to etch the words on the surface. This may have some functions in the future, but in the meantime, you can store your entire library in your sugar box .