Last month's Cornell Copyright Debate of the Century (with EFF's senior IP attorney, a copyfighting media scholar, and the legal heads of the MPAA, RIAA, Universal and Napster 2) is finally available online as a series of torrents in MP3 and Quicktime format, thanks to Allison Muri at the University of Saskatchewan — via BoingBoing x0

The US forced out a top human rights investigator at the United Nations, Egyptian-born law professor Cherif Bassiouni, just days he released a report criticising the US for committing human rights abuses. Cherif Bassiouni says, The US has done an enormous disservice to the cause of human rights in Afghanistan simply because they wanted somebody who was going to look the other way on what their practices were x0

New York State has gone on the attack against spyware and adware by filing a lawsuit [PDF] against a Los Angeles-based marketing company that allegedly installed invasive software onto consumers' computers without proper notice as part of free software downloads. In an announcement today, Attorney General Eliot Spitzer said he had filed the lawsuit against Intermix Media, a 6-year-old Internet marketing company x0

Scientists have built a small nuclear fusion device triggered by changes in temperature. In a surprising feat of miniaturisation, scientists are reporting today that they have produced nuclear fusion — the same process that powers the sun — in a footlong cylinder just five inches in diameter. And they say they will soon be able to make the device even smaller. While the technique is unlikely to lead to power generation, such a device could act as a portable source of neutrons for analysing materials and medical imaging, and perhaps even spacecraft propulsion — via Bruce Sterling x0

After more than sixty-years, a rare bird believed to have been extinct has been spotted in the Big Woods of Arkansas. A kayaker first reported seeing the ivory-billed woodpecker last year. Scientists have since spotted the bird several times and even caught it briefly on video — via BoingBoing x0

The retarded monkey boy has signed into law the Family Entertainment and Copyright Act. A lawbreaker can land in jail for up to three years for distributing a single copy of a prerelease movie on the Internet. The MPAA's president Dan Glickman applauded the move, stating he wanted to thank the congressional sponsors of this legislation for their strong advocacy for intellectual property rights x0

It seems that I missed a perfectly good, zombie virus story from the BBC. There is no justice in the world. It should be noted that, nearly a month on, people still haven't noted the date it was published — via The Path of Now and Forever x0

This is the story of bitchchecker (the hacker), a user who lost it because he thought he had been kicked of an IRC channel by Elch. The hacker comes back on the channel threatening to hack and ruin Elch's machine, and dares Elch to give his IP address. The address given was 127.0.0.1 [english] x1

Security researchers have discovered an attack aimed at would-be visitors to Google.com, one that attempts to download malicious programs onto the computers of people who simply mistype the search giant's Web address. According to security specialist F-Secure, unsuspecting Web surfers may be bombarded with various types of Trojan horse threats, spyware and backdoors when they go to Googkle.com. The scheme is meant to take advantage of sloppy or hurried typists, given that on most keyboards the letter k key sits next to the l needed to type Google x1

Telstra mobile phones were blacked out today following a power failure at a Sydney exchange and a cut cable near Newcastle x0

Tony Blair was told by the government's most senior law officer in a confidential minute less than two weeks before the war that British participation in the American-led invasion of Iraq could be declared illegal. Lord Goldsmith, the attorney general, spelt out to Mr Blair the dangers of Britain going to war without a second resolution. It is understood that he then went on to warn that British soldiers could be hauled before the International Criminal Court x0

Senator Eric Abetz has launched a free open source CMS for use by government departments and not-for-profit organisations. However, a leading IT lawyer and several software developers have claimed it isn't really open source x0

A Jordanian man shot dead his divorced sister after seeing her photo on his friend's camera-equipped mobile in the latest honour killing in the kingdom. The unidentified man shot the 31-year-old mother twice in the head Sunday night and then turned himself in to police saying he committed the murder to cleanse his family's honour. The incident is the fifth example of a so-called honour killing in Jordan this year. Those found guilty usually face sentences of a maximum of one year in jail under Jordanian law — via BoingBoing x0

Thousands of the amphibians have died in recent days in a pond in Hamburg's Altona district, with their bodies swelling to bursting point. The toads' entrails are propelled for up to a metre, in scenes that have been likened to science fiction — via meta-roj blog x0

The French courts have banned DRM copy-protection on DVDs [english], because it is a consumer right to make a backup or to change formats — via BoingBoing x0

Under pressure from competing internet providers, Telstra will deliver its next generation ADSL2+ broadband service to the market at least eight months earlier than expected, according to sources close to the carrier x0

UK music lovers are getting frustrated with restrictions placed on digital music tracks once they buy them from online stores. The magazine reported that people are also being turned off net music stores because of pricing and disappointing sound quality compared with CDs — via BoingBoing x0

What someone sees can be detected by remotely measuring their brain activity — even extracting information that people are not aware they possessed. The newly-demonstrated technique may lead to breakthroughs in measuring consciousness, helping doctors assess coma patients x0

Hong Kong is planning to launch a 1Gbps broadband home service. Although the idea of using shared infrastructure is nothing new for TV/phone/data this appears to be the first to do this over IP at such high speed. The cost is high — US$215 a month. Per megabit, however, this is a very cheap service. This kind of solution only really works in town blocks where cat5 cabling is a realistic option x0

Looks like the Internet Explorer team is trying to catch up to some of the major OS browsers. They claim to have finally added proper PNG support and have fixed numerous CSS bugs x0

A recent study at King's College indicates that the average IQ loss of e-mail users was ten points or six points more than cannabis users. And in another story, it seems that computers make kids dumb and an apparent problem-solving deficit disorder observed in children who use computers x0

The trend of using inbox as a personal database has become more pronounced as the services have dramatically increased their storage capacity in response to Gmail offering a free service with 1,000Mb of storage. For all but the very organised, old e-mails will contain phone numbers that haven't been entered into a diary, names and addresses of contacts, meeting or customer information, useful statistics or competitor information and photos of products and people x0

Spain presented the papacy of Benedict XVI with its first big challenge yesterday when the Vatican and the Socialist government of the Roman Catholic country traded blows in a heated row over its plan to legalise homosexual marriage. The dispute erupted after the government of Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero drove a bill through the Cortes on Thursday that will allow homosexuals to marry and adopt children. The Vatican hit back yesterday by advising Spanish Catholic civil servants to refuse to officiate at homosexual wedding ceremonies, even if it meant risking losing their jobs x0

Suspended animation is poised to move from science fiction to reality: scientists from the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Centre in Seattle have successfully used hydrogen sulphide gas to induce a state of reversible hibernation in mammals for the first time, using methods that could eventually be applied to human beings. The breakthrough promises to allow doctors to slow human metabolism almost to a standstill, protecting critically ill patients from damage to the brain and other organs that would normally be inflicted by oxygen deprivation x0

Google has added a My Search History feature to its online search engine that allows users to view past searches. The technology also lets them search inside the results to quickly retrieve a page they visited in the past. The feature will provide visitors with a relevant history, such as the number of searches performed and the last time they visited a Web page, as well as an overview of similar searches x0

Victoria may become the first Australian state to use electronic voting, with the Victorian Electoral Commission looking into using electronic systems for the 2006 state election. An Electoral Commission spokesman said that the current project was about making voting easier and more private for people with disabilities, rather than a test of e-voting technology for wider use. This is not about introducing wide-scale electronic voting at the next state election, spokesman Doug Beecroft said x0

Sony and Toshiba, which support the Blu-ray Disc and HD-DVD formats respectively, are actively discussing the possibility of a single format. Should they manage to agree on a single format, and gain the acceptance of other companies backing the respective formats, it would benefit both consumers and the electronics and entertainment industries x0

Google Maps UK and Google Local UK have been launched, confirming speculations that the search engine giant would continue to expand its regional services to an international audience x0

Elwood (Woody) Norris has invented a working flying machine, AirScooter. He asked one of his test pilots to demonstrate it for 60 Minutes on a hilltop outside San Diego, California. It can fly for two hours at 90 km/h, and go up to 3,000 metres above sea level. This week, he will receive America's top prize for invention. It's called the Lemelson-MIT award — a half-million dollar cash prize to honor his life's work, which includes a brand new personal flying machine. Woody Norris' and others' inventions are for NASA's The Highway in the Sky. It is a computer system designed to let millions of people fly whenever they please, and take off and land from wherever they please, in their very own vehicles — via Slashdot x0

Many of the world's largest organisations are turning their backs on outsourcing and one in four are actively bringing services back in-house. A survey from Deloitte Consulting reveals that 70% of respondents have had significant negative experiences with outsourced projects x0

Adobe is to buy Macromedia in a stock transaction valued at US$3.4 billion that will see the formation of a content-creation behemoth. The deal, announced early on Monday morning in the US, is expected to close in the fourth quarter of 2005, subject to shareholder approval. Bruce Chizen will continue as Adobe's chief executive and Shantanu Narayen will remain president and chief operating officer. Macromedia chief executive Stephen Elop will join Adobe as president of worldwide field operations x0

Lesli Reed-Brennan, a 19-year-old Los Angeles woman, has sued AOL saying that a former monitor of its kids only chat room seduced her online when she was a lonely teenager, persuading her to send him nude photos of herself and to engage in phone sex. It appears that AOL is being sued for Lesli's own stupidity x1

Nickolas Buckalew, a 17-year-old Morrisville youth, is being held on $100,000 bail after police said he raided a tomb in a cemetery and removed a head from a corpse. Court documents said the suspect allegedly talked of using the man's head as a bong or a pipe for smoking marijuana — via Warren Ellis x0

LED lamps were unthinkable until the technology cleared a major hurdle just a dozen years ago. Since then, LEDs have evolved quickly and are being adapted for many uses, including pool illumination and reading lights, as evidenced at the Lightfair trade show here this week. More widespread use could lead to big energy savings and a minor revolution in the way we think about lighting x0

Doctor Who fan site Output Gallifrey is reporting that David Tennant has been cast as the tenth incarnation of the Time Lord. Tennant, who has recently appeared in BBC dramas Blackpool and Casanova, has been linked with the role of the Doctor since the announcement of Christopher Eccleston's departure x0

Picture a flower that opens when facing the sunlight. In work that mimics that sensitivity to light, MIT Engineer Robert Langer and his German colleagues have created the first plastics that can be deformed and temporarily fixed into shape by light. This material could one day lead to medical devices that build themselves inside a patient's body, or door latches that can be opened with a flashlight — via Science Blog x0

A grandmother stopped an intruder from entering her home by lobbing a heavy garden gnome at him. Jean Collop was woken early on Tuesday morning by the sound of an intruder on the roof of her home in Wadebridge, southwest England. I grabbed the first thing that came to hand — one of my garden gnomes — and hurled it at him, and hit him, she recalled. He lay there and I began to scream. I went back into the kitchen and found a rolling pin in case he came down. I didn't want to break another gnome — via BoingBoing x0

Scientists at Harvard University have shown how ultra-cold atoms can be used to freeze and control light to form the core — or central processing unit — of an optical computer. Optical computers would transport information ten times faster than traditional electronic devices, smashing the intrinsic speed limit of silicon technology. This new research could be a major breakthrough in the quest to create super-fast computers that use light instead of electrons to process information. Professor Lene Hau is one of the world's foremost authorities on slow light. Her research group became famous for slowing down light, which normally travels at 186,000 miles per second, to less than the speed of a bicycle x0

Cyber criminals are starting to use fake blogs to snare new victims. The bogus web journals are being used as traps that infect visitor's machines with keylogging software or viruses — via Geek News Central x0

Indian police have charged 80 people for burying children alive in an ancient Hindu ceremony known as the festival of pits. The ceremony, in which children — some less than a year old — are buried alive briefly and then dug up, happened on Monday in southern Tamil Nadu state x0

BBC, Channel 4, British Film Institute and OU (Open University) issue call to action for Creative Archive Licence. Media and arts organisations, universities and libraries have today been urged to join an innovative new scheme designed to give the public access to footage and sound from some of the largest film, television and radio archives in the UK, as well as specially commissioned material x0

Downhill Battle have a new open source video platform — a publishing tool based off of BattleTorrent and a video player written in Python. They've started a whole new organization to sponsor the project. They say TV channels will be made out of RSS feeds and anybody can subscribe to another user's content channel. The system is being designed for the express purpose of putting broadcasting in the hands of individuals. I like this idea of using recent advances in filesharing and syndication to allow aggregated content to be delivered to your desktop x0

John Pinnock, the Telecommunications Industry Ombudsman, says he needs the power to investigate customer complaints over content issues as well as carriage services. Pinnock said the fact he was prohibited from investigating complaints about content was one of the key limitations of his office x0

Sony's rolling out their new line of flash-based music players to the market these days. More stylish than ever, they surely look like a serious attempt to regain territory lost to the iPod, and perhaps even to create the Walkman of the 21st century. And it looks like Sony has finally given in to consumer pressure: these new MP3 players can finally play MP3 natively, not just Sony's proprietary ATRAC format. But wait — you cannot just put your MP3s onto the device, you have to run them through Sony's obfuscation software first. The obfuscated files, when installed properly on the device, can be played. But you can't just move them around, share them with your friends, whatever. Well, of course the obfuscation scheme has already been broken by a brave hacker — via Slashdot x0

With new features in the latest version of MySQL, like subqueries and a new binary format, the company has become a stronger competitor against much larger companies, and seems poised to bite into their revenues. Even more importantly MySQL might actually spark some fundamental changes in the market x0

Australia's peak communications industry body has cleared the way for the launch of broadband services several times quicker than existing ADSL offerings x0

Telstra BigPond is temporarily disconnecting compromised computers from its network to stem a tide of malware swamping its servers and delaying e-mail and Web site requests x0

One of the fathers of the internet has warned that a surge in demand for new online addresses from devices such as mobile phones could stress the capacity of the world's computer communications system. Vint Cerf, chairman of ICANN, said the current version of the internet had space for more than 4 billion addresses, enough to last until 2020 x0

Australians are driven to pirated music because just 65% of the country's top music tracks are available from the three legitimate online music sites, according to a study on the digital downloads industry x0

Online retail giant Amazon has acquired US-based print-on-demand company BookSurge. The privately owned inventory-free book printing and fulfilment company based in South Carolina already provides a print-on-demand service for out-of-print or hard-to-find books, available for sale on Amazon.com or as a service to other publishers and authors. And other retailers, wholesalers and distributors use its wholesale platform, called BookSurge Direct. But Amazon hopes the deal will primarily allow it to offer a wider range of more rare titles, including foreign language translations, to its readers x0

Notoriously crap ISP, BigPond, has taken exception to a recent Whirlpool survey in which most respondents rated Bigpond's customer service as awful or average. Perhaps, instead of unleasing its PR flunkies, it should be fixing its appalling service x0

ICANN, the internet's authority for web addresses, has officially designated .jobs and .travel to be used the internet, with discussions continuing on other extensions including .asia x0

Mike Bolesta — Baltimore County resident, innocent citizen, owner of Capital City Student Tours — recently found himself under arrest, himself transported to the Baltimore County lockup in Cockeysville, where he's handcuffed to a pole for three hours while the US Secret Service is called into the case. His crime? He shopped at Best Buy, where it seems the staff are so moronicly stupid that they are unable to recognise US$2 bills as the legal tender they are x0

The Wikimedia Foundation hopes to sell an English version of Wikipedia on CD-ROM and DVD before the end of the year. A boxed set of the German language version of Wikipedia has been available since last year x0

A 21-year-old man, Charles Stergios, was sentenced in US District Court in Maine to more than six years in prison for perpetrating an extensive Internet fraud scheme. He was ordered to pay nearly $118,000 in restitution to his victims. It seems that the federal prosecutor had tried to score Stergio a shorter amount of jail time, but Judge George Singal, who was not bound by the plea bargain agreement, decided on a harsher sentence on the grounds that he did not think that the defendant had sufficiently accepted responsibility x0

Primus Telecom will enter the local phone market using exchange equipment being installed for DSL broadband. Primus said it was upgrading 200 exchanges around Australia, with 100 more due to have equipment installed over the next year x0

Foxtel has given rival Optus the unprecedented ability to compete for its entire customer base after inking a deal that ensures Optus upgrades its pay-TV service to digital signals. After months of fighting over the issue, Foxtel's board yesterday unanimously agreed to changes to the companies' content-sharing deal, which are expected to boost Foxtel's pay-TV customer numbers x0