Free Republic

<p>PALM BEACH, Florida -- A new computer chip promises to keep police guns from firing if they fall into the wrong hands.</p> <p>The tiny chip would be implanted in a police officer's hand and would match up with a scanning device inside a handgun. If the officer and gun match, a digital signal unlocks the trigger so it can be fired. But if a child or criminal would get hold of the gun, it would be useless.</p>

PHOENIX, Arizona (AP) -- Face-scanning technology designed to recognize registered sex offenders and missing children has been installed in a Phoenix school in a pilot project that some law enforcement and education officials hope to expand. Two cameras, which are expected to be operational next week, will scan faces of people who enter the office at Royal Palm Middle School. They are linked to state and national databases of sex offenders, missing children and alleged abductors. An officer will be dispatched to the school in the event of a possible match, said Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio. "If it works...

Until about 10 minutes ago, I was able to save, in .JPG format, images that were sent to Microsoft Paint from my scanner. Now, all of a sudden, when I save an image, the ".JPG" option is GONE. All I have now are various colors of bitmap .BMP or GIF format (.GIF) which causes a degradation of picture quality. I CAN open a .JPG file. But when I attempt to close it, I get messages described below. I am using Windows 98 on a Dell Insprion 5000 computer with 700 mHZ. Thanks