The death of the bar code?

Slashdot decries the end of the bar code:

"The University of Wisconsin RFID Lab, principally funded by a dozen Wal-mart suppliers including 3M, Kraft Foods, and S.C. Johnson & Son, believes that RFID could spell the end of the ubiquitous bar code. The big draw? Speeding up supply-chain management. Wal-mart's warehouse conveyor belts presently move products at 600 feet per minute... but they want to be faster. And better informed."

I bet that libraries will see bar codes for a little longer than Wal-mart. RFID technology is certainly mature and available for library use, but the price point remains too high for these institutions who have less capital investment funding than Wal-mart. In fact, the last that I read, the RFID price point is still to high for WalMart but getting closer every day.

Once again, coffee is good

Slashdot bring to our attention a health column in the Independent describing a study funded by the American Cocoa Research Institute.

"A study has found that coffee contributes more antioxidants - which have been linked with fighting heart disease and cancer - to the diet than cranberries, apples or tomatoes."

There has been a lot of discussion recently about defeating CAPTCHAs (Completely Automated Public Turing Test to Tell Computers and Humans Appart). I won't reiterate all of the hacks and arguments here - for many links, see here. What I did want to bring attention to is a set of criteria for evaluating CAPTCHA systems posted yesterday to the web security list by Jeremiah Grossman (link to full message).

He calls it the CAPTCHA Effectiveness Test:

1. The test must be able to be administered where the human and the server are remote to each other over the network.
2. The test must be easy for humans to pass. Less than 0.01% of humans should fail the test on the first attempt.
3. The test must be hard for computer to pass - Computers should have less than a 1 in 10,000,000 chance of guessing the correct answer. (Even after a pre-determined amount of analysis time)
4. The test must be able to be completed by a human in less than a several seconds.
5. Knowledge a test question, answer, or result (or combination thereof) must not impact the predictability of following tests.
6. The test should not discriminate against the blind or the deaf. Or provide a solution to address the issue.
7. The test should not possess a geographic, cultural, or language bias.