But the victory was short-lived. Less than a day after a service known as “AS Troyak” was unplugged from the Internet, security researchers said Wednesday it apparently had found a way to get back online, and criminals were reconnecting with their unmoored machines.
The drama initially raised hopes of a sharp drop-off in fraud, because criminals could no longer communicate with many computers infected with a type of malware known as “ZeuS,” which is mostly used to steal online banking usernames and passwords. Hundreds of criminal operations around the world use the malware.
Its unknown how many computers are infected with ZeuS, [...]

Because of limitations in recycling technology, a common type of plastic used in water bottles and food containers weakens so much when its recycled that it cant be used again for the same purpose. Some small amount of the plastic might make it into another bottle, but more often than not, it instead becomes synthetic carpet or clothing and cant easily be recycled a second time. So when those products are used up, they end up in landfills.
Researchers from IBM Corp. and Stanford University believe they have developed a way to significantly improve the quality of recycled plastic and strip [...]

The experimental devices are designed to keep track of how many minutes they work out, how much food they consume and even whether they are at a fast-food joint when they should be in the park. The goal is to cut down on self-reported answers that often cover up whats really happening.
In a lab in this Los Angeles suburb, two overweight teenagers help test the devices by taking turns sitting, standing, lying down, running on a treadmill and playing Wii. As music thumps in the background, wireless sensors on their chests record their heart rates, stress levels and amount of [...]

Research In Motion Ltd.s “BlackBerry Loves U2″ advertising campaign is part of a trend where brands are stepping into the breach as plummeting sales shrink music labels marketing budgets. Once reluctant to be seen as selling out to corporate sponsors, artists are keen to sign up.
“BlackBerry made the TV commercial with our music and then spent many millions of dollars on media and TV worldwide,” U2 manager Paul McGuinness said by phone from the Toronto leg of the groups multi-city tour. “They provided a budget that [...]

Intel and the university filed a notice of settlement in federal court in Madison, Wisconsin, Oct. 3, two days before todays scheduled start of the trial. The accords terms werent disclosed and were still being prepared, according to the filing.
The universitys licensing agency, the Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation, or WARF, owns a patent issued in 1998 for technology it said improves the speed and efficiency of the chips, which it calls a “major milestone in the field of computer micro processing.” One of the inventors, Gurindar [...]

It hardly looks like it, but the two swimming robots were set loose in the little pool to study evolution, acting out predator-prey encounters from roughly 540 million years ago.
The prey robot, dubbed Preyro, can simulate evolution.
This is not like robot evolution in the “Terminator” movie sense of machines turning on their human masters. Instead, Vassar biology and cognitive science professor John Long and his students can make changes to the tail of Preyro to see which designs help it avoid the predator robot.
“Were applying selection,” Long explains, “just like natural selection.”
Long is among a small group of researchers worldwide [...]

In a report to be released Tuesday, the researchers saw a nearly fivefold jump in arrests for soliciting undercover investigators who posed as juveniles - to 3,100 in 2006, from 644 in 2000, the last time the study was conducted.
By contrast, arrests for solicitations of actual children increased 21 percent to about 615 in 2006, from an estimated 508 in 2000, during a period in which Internet usage also grew sharply.
The disparity indicates that the rise in arrests largely results from tighter enforcement rather than from an increase in the number of offenders, said David Finkelhor, director of the University [...]

The students downed an average of one and a half more drinks during an hour-long excerpt from the U.S. beach movie — with two commercial breaks featuring alcohol — than during the Josh Hartnett romantic comedy “40 Days and 40 Nights,” the researchers said in a study published online today in the journal Alcohol and Alcoholism.
While other studies have shown a correlation between media exposure to drinking and behavior, the Dutch researchers said theirs was the first controlled experiment on whether alcohol seen on TV leaves [...]

Researchers from all over the world converged on Microsofts main campus Tuesday to show off their latest projects in a hall set up like a school science fair. All the programs and gadgets on display were works in progress, and only some will make it into real-world technology.
But even as the software maker tightens its belt to survive the economic downturn, it has pledged to continue spending money on research that doesnt neatly translate into profits.
Researchers from Cambridge, England, traveled to the annual meeting, dubbed TechFest, with a series of prototypes meant for the home. One, called Family Archive, is [...]

The 17-year-old high school junior is ranked by a video game Web site among the best players at “Gears of War 2,” in which soldiers attack the enemy with an assault rifle that has a mounted chain saw bayonet. He says the game teaches him to think on his feet - and that he thinks about succeeding, not slaying.
That intrigues Microsoft Corp.
The software company, which publishes “Gears of War,” is studying the reactions of avid gamers to see whether video gaming can promote learning skills that carry over to the classroom.
“We want to figure out whats compelling about the games,” [...]