commands

Forget China or Al Qaeda. In a twist that would have been inconceivable even a few months ago, the WikiLeaks.org Web site is being proposed as the first public target for a U.S. government cyberattack.

After the shadowy, document-leaking organization distributed nearly 400,000 classified documents from the Iraq war on Friday, Washington officialdom responded with a torrent of denunciations alleging violations of national security and endangering U.S. military operations.

In a rare point of congruence, The Washington Post and The Washington Times both criticized the release, with the smaller paper arguing that WikiLeaks' offshore Web site … Read more

Along with a cavalcade of handsets, Motorola also announced three new Bluetooth accessories at CTIA Fall 2010. They are the Motorola Finiti and Motorola CommandOne Bluetooth headsets, plus the Motorola Roadster, a Bluetooth car kit/speakerphone.

The Motorola Finiti has three microphones, which combine to cancel out wind and surrounding noise. There's also a stealth mode that will help convert your vocal vibrations into speech, which promises to be useful in especially noisy environments. This utilizes the bone conduction technology we saw in the Motorola HX1. With a special MotoSpeak 2.0 app for Android, you can also listen … Read more

ExifTool is a handy, free Perl-based program for editing the Exif information in digital image files as well as the meta information in other digital files, such as music and movies. It's available in several configurations; we tested the standalone Windows executable version, which doesn't require Perl and omits some of the features of the command-line version but offers essentially the same functionality, including, notably, a command-line capability.

ExifTool downloads as a ZIP file and unpacks as a Windows executable file that we chose to park on the desktop. To use ExifTool, you simply drag and drop a … Read more

The Garmin 3790T, winner of our Editors' Choice Award, has an innovative buttonless voice command system; in this video, CNET editor Antuan Goodwin shows how to use it.

We try to keep our computer organized, but every few months we've realized that it's gotten out of hand again and that it's time to tidy up. Fortunately for us, there are programs like FreeCommander Portable, a basic file management utility that lets users easily move files between different directories.

To be honest, FreeCommander Portable is quite similar to many other programs of this type, but that's not necessarily a bad thing. The interface is plain, consisting of two panes that can be split either horizontally or vertically, with a toolbar and menus across the top. … Read more

Several companies have tried to launch DIY video security systems that promise no-hassle setup for average consumers. But most have failed.

Now Logitech is giving it a shot with its new Alert digital video security system, which it says, "Takes just a few minutes to set-up through a three-step process." The base 750i Master System ($299.99) includes a "smart" HD camera that captures 720p video, both PC and Web software, and free remote viewing on a PC or Mac computer or smartphone (app required).

Anyone looking for an outdoor monitoring solution can start with the … Read more

LAS VEGAS--The United States should decide on rules for attacking other nations' networks in advance of an actual cyberwar, which could include an international agreement not to disable banks and electrical grids, the former head of the CIA and National Security Agency said Thursday.

Michael Hayden, who was the principal deputy director of national intelligence and retired last year, said the rules of engagement for electronic battlefields are still too murky, even after the Defense Department created the U.S. Cyber Command last spring. The new organization is charged with allowing the U.S. armed forces to conduct "full-spectrum … Read more

Routine use of robotic lift trucks may not be far off.

Researchers at MIT's Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory, along with a team of engineers, have transformed a Toyota 8-Series lift truck into an autonomous bot capable of working alongside human supervisors using voice commands or hand gestures.

The 3,000-pound-capacity lift truck from Toyota Material Handling (TMHU) is capable of locating, lifting, moving, and placing supplies while traversing just about any type of terrain. It was demonstrated last month at an event hosted by the U.S. Army Logistics Innovation Agency at Fort Lee, in Virginia.

"Robotic forklifts have the potential to protect both military and civilian personnel working in high-risk environments, such as hazardous material storage facilities, said Brett Wood, president of TMHU.

The demo included a review of the robot's safety features, sensor capabilities, and human-robot interface.

The researchers and engineers developed a complex network of systems to enable the lift truck to navigate real-time conditions faced by lift truck operators (navigating obstacles and interacting with other moving vehicles, for example). To do this, they added a camera, sensors, laptops, servomotors, Wi-Fi, and a PDA.

"We chose the internal combustion Toyota lift truck because it can be operated outdoors on packed earth or gravel and because, with mini-lever control some of its functionality can be controlled electronically rather than solely mechanically," said MIT Professor Seth Teller, who headed the project.

The modified vehicle wirelessly exports video from its own point of view, so the human supervisor, even if hundreds of miles away, can see whatever is nearby (provided there is network connectivity between the lift truck and supervisor's tablet).

In September 2009, for example, the team demonstrated the lift truck operating autonomously at MIT, in Cambridge, Mass., while under the supervision of an operator in Washington D.C.… Read more

AutoBatch It from iRedSoft Technology is a batch image-processing utility consisting of two "modules," one that operates from the command line prompt, and another for timer-based operation that resides in the system tray. The program can save images as JPEG, TIFF, PNG, BMP, and GIF files; add prefixes and suffixes to file names; resize images; and create thumbnails.

AutoBatch It is actually easy to use, even if you don't have much experience with the command prompt. The dialog-based interface has three sections: Image Processing Properties, for setting resizing options; Image Manipulation, which lets you set the interval … Read more