Pepsi launches new wireless soda machines nationwide this week. The machines use a wireless Internet connection to process credit-card transactions and report on inventory via a Web browser -- it's the fingerable pop machine, Mark II! Link Discuss (via Meerkat)

E-Lang, a way-cool language for creating secure Peer-to-Peer transactions, has been ported to MacOS X. Link Discuss (via Meerkat)

The terrorists have already won. A blogger's 70-year-old mother is visited by the CIA when her son ships the grandson's xmas gifts to her ahead of their visit. The Feebs want to know why she's taking delivery of a large, ticking box (it was the battery-powered Tonka truck, whirring). Link Discuss (via Meerkat)

Monty Python's Terry Jones critiques the War on Terrorism.

However, finally the 'War on Terrorism' is achieving its policy objectives. Osama bin Laden is looking haggard. We may not have caught him or brought him to justice but, at the cost of thousands of innocent Afghan lives, billions of dollars of US citizens' money and the civil liberties of the Free World, we have got him looking haggard.

Link Discuss (Thanks, Simon!)

More evidence of the power of patents to stimulate innovation. The inventors of a fast and accurate HIV test have exclusively licensed the patents in the US to companies that provide slower, more expensive, less accurate, more profitable tests. These companies are using their license to keep the technology out of America, so that they can continue to profit from their inferior technology. Link Discuss (via Plastic)

Revolting criminal gets 20 years. This Florida man prank-called women and impersonated a doctor, talking them into mutilating their nipples and genitals. The link below is to the newspaper story on his sentencing, but if you've got a strong stomach, go have a look at The Smoking Gun, where they've got court documents detailing the crimes. I can't imagine anyone being convincing enough over the phone to convince the party on the other end to mutilate herself -- if this were a horror novel, no one would believe it. Link Discuss (via Plastic)

So much for actually improving airline security. The Feds are dropping the high-school diploma requirement for airport screeners who've worked a year on the job, on the grounds that anyone who lasts a year in such a crappy, dead-end low-paying job really must be extraordinary. Link Discuss

RSA announces a WEP improvement that allegedly secures 802.11 networks (unlike the current WEP, which is basically useless). Any bets on how long it takes for this rev to be cracked? Link Discuss (via /.)

Good, in-depth look at the tech behind the XBox, PS2 and GameCube. Link Discuss (via /.)

Internet Freak Show. Siklink's got all kinds of nifty pix and text about human oddities, freaks and the weird. Unfortunately, it's really badly organized and hard to navigate, but there are some real nuggets here for the diligent surfer. Link Discuss

Infringing while framing. Swedish cops faked up video evidence used to frame a protester, and now the cops're being sued by the TV networks whose copyrighted footage they used without permission in the fake evidence. Link Discuss (via On Lisa Rein's Radar)