The Brad Blog broke the story of the long-sought, yet never-released complete “Risk Assessment Report” of Diebold’s electronic voting systems as commissioned by the state of Maryland from the Scientific Applications International Corporation in 2003. Last night, The Brad Blog released that report exclusively in full as provided by “a patriotic high-level state official” very close to this situation in the Maryland government. The original, never-before-released SAIC report was nearly 200 pages in all as completed, and details a number of extraordinary security vulnerabilities found in Diebold’s AccuVote-TS (touch-screen) voting systems as deployed by the state of Maryland initially in 2002. The version of the SAIC report that was eventually released to the public, after extreme redaction, was a mere 38 pages long.

MobiMate announced the release of the new WorldMate 2006 Professional Edition for Windows Mobile Pocket PC, a new and improved version of the product recently awarded the prestigious Smartphone and Pocket PC Magazine Best Software Award for travel guide software. The new version of WorldMate for Pocket PC includes improved functionality and substantial graphical enhancements. It is being offered free of charge to WorldMate Professional Edition users around the world as part of MobiMate’s policy of constantly improving the products and services offered to its customers.

Boxwave’s Standard Capacity Battery is designed specifically for your BlackBerry 8700 series. The Standard Capacity Battery serves an excellent primary replacement battery. It is a rechargeable lithium ion battery that is specifically designed for your device.

Apple Computer announced the release of a new 8GB model of the iPod nano Red Special Edition. The new 8GB iPod nano, which comes in a red aluminum enclosure and will feature up to 24 hours of battery life, will be able to store up to 2,000 songs. The Red brand was developed by U2 lead singer Bono and Bobby Shriver, chairman of DATA (Debt, AIDS, Trade Africa), to raise money for the Global Fund to help fight AIDS in Africa. Apple will contribute $10 from the sale of each iPod nano Red to the Global Fund.

Last year DARPA launched a project that aims to create real-time translation software. It’s called GALE, for Global Autonomous Language Exploitation. It hired three teams of researchers to chase the problem for up to five years. DARPA’s three choices for GALE contestants were among the best of the best: IBM, backed by a $6 billion annual research budget, SRI International, a $300 million, nonprofit research organization based in Silicon Valley, and BBN Technologies, a $200 million research contractor headquartered in Cambridge. The projects aims to create software that can listen to TV broadcasts or phone conversations and read Web sites in Arabic and Chinese, translate them into English and summarize the key elements for humans.

As you may know, here in America, we’ve been having a lot of discussion about the security and reliability of the computer-based voting machines. Since tomorrow (Tuesday) is Election Day, and the voting machine issue is very much an issue of computing security as well as politics, we’re keeping an eye on it here at Computing Unplugged. We’re hoping everything goes smoothly and there’s nothing to talk about on Wednesday, but nothing is ever that simple and so, we’re likely to publish something on the machines late Tuesday.

If you’ve been to vote and you have some observations on the voting experience using the machines or observations about security — or lack thereof — please send us a note at editor@zatz.com with “Voting Machine Report” in the subject line. Please, please avoid any political commentary. We can only publish information about your technical and operational observations. Politics will only blur the issue.

Microsoft unveiled a new Web site that describes features of the upcoming Zune music store and also revealed that MSN Music will not continue to sell digital songs. The new site outlines details of the Zune player as well as the Zune marketplace, where customers can buy songs individually or subscribe to a monthly music download service. The site already features a few bands and offers downloads of images and videos of Zune advertisements.

SmarTone-Vodafone, Palm, and Microsoft have launched the new Treo 750v from Vodafone, running on Windows Mobile 5.0, in the Hong Kong market. The Treo 750v combines the hallmark Palm experience of a multi-featured mobile phone with email, messaging, Web browsing and organization software all in a new compact design.

Security software maker Symantec rolled out its latest package of antivirus applications for Windows-based mobile devices. Dubbed Mobile AntiVirus 4.0 for Windows Mobile, the product promises to help protect data stored on smartphones running the Microsoft operating system, including offering the ability to wipe out data present on lost or stolen devices.

Google launched a version of Gmail for mobile devices that lets US users do in two clicks what previously took them ten or more. Gmail for Mobile Devices is a free, downloadable Java application. It will work on the nearly 300 types of Java mobile phones in the United States, said Tony Hsieh, product manager for Google Mobile. The software improves on a version of Gmail released nearly a year ago that lets people access their email through a mobile Web browser.