December 2005 Archive

31 December 2005

US Government backed policy changes have led ICANN to redelegate top level domains in such a way as to provide greater state-controlled censorship on the internet, reduce people's ability to use the internet to communicate freely, and leave expansion of the internet in the hands of the people least capable of doing the job

30 December 2005

Microsoft has big plans for the trusty old C:\ prompt. For its upcoming Windows Vista operating system, the company is developing a new command-line interface, or shell — the text-based controls typically accessed by clicking Command Prompt (under Start Menu, Programs, Accessories) in Windows XP

29 December 2005

Millions of Australians who tape TV shows and copy CDs will soon get the right to do it with a clear conscience. The Federal Government will next year legalise the video recording of television shows for personal use, and the transfer of songs from CDs to MP3 players, in a bid to overturn a ban which has made criminals of much of the population

Maglite will soon be adding LED flashlights to their product line — via digg

Vincent Schiavelli, the droopy-eyed character actor who appeared in scores of movies, including One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest and Ghost, died Monday of lung cancer at his home in Sicily. He was 57. He also wrote three cookbooks and many food articles for magazines and newspapers — via Boingboing

28 December 2005

Europe is planning to build their own satellite-navigation network that will be backward and forward compatible. There's going to be five levels ranging from free (1m accuracy) to commercial (1cm accuracy). Provision is also being made for a search and rescue mode where a signal can be sent to confirm that help is on the way. The system will supposedly even work with existing US network after upgrades to the network

As the Fish and Wildlife Service ponders a delisting plan that would turn over management of the wolves to the states, federal officials are baulking at plans they fear would allow hunters to exterminate whole packs

27 December 2005

Australia's wealthiest man, Kerry Packer, has died at the age of 68. Mr Packer, who was head of the Nine Network and PBL, died peacefully at home last night with his family by his bedside

Deep in a remote, fog-layered hollow near Sugar Grove, West Virginia, hidden by fortress-like mountains, sits the United State's largest eavesdropping bug. Located in a radio quiet zone, the station's large parabolic dishes secretly and silently sweep in millions of private telephone calls and e-mail messages an hour. Run by the ultrasecret National Security Agency, the listening post intercepts all international communications entering the eastern United States. Another NSA listening post, in Yakima, Washington, eavesdrops on the western half of the country. Both are part of ECHELON

The volume of information that the NSA has harvested from telecommunication data and voice networks, without court-approved warrants, is much larger than the White House has acknowledged

26 December 2005

The US government has been collecting information on peaceful war protest groups reminiscent of the Vietnam-era investigations. Is anyone surprised? — via morons.org

The US Department of Transportation has been handing millions of dollars to state governments for GPS-tracking pilot projects designed to track vehicles wherever they go. So far, Washington state and Oregon have received fat federal checks to figure out how to levy these mileage-based road user fees. The Office of Transportation Policy Studies, part of the Federal Highway Administration, is about to announce another round of grants totaling some $11 million — via digg

25 December 2005

G-Gnome — creator of the previously mentioned Orac³ — is hard at work on another casemodding masterpiece. His Weapon of Mass Destruction is designed to look like the archetype doomsday device; all tough, machined, stainless steel complete with keylocks, illuminated warning lights ... and a huge timing device that blinked away the hours, minutes and seconds with glowing red finality

Hard-drive specialist Seagate is to acquire storage company Maxtor in an all-stock transaction valued at around US$1.9 billion

A mugger on the run at the Bloemfontein Zoo in South Africa took refuge from security guards in the Bengal tiger's cage. The tiger took exception to his new companion and killed the silly bastard — via Feòrag

24 December 2005

The French Parliament voted into law an amendment to the DADVSI bill that allows free sharing of music and movies over the internet, considering the downloaded files as a private copy. This decision goes against the French government and the music industry's recommendations, who argue the deputies only wanted to show their independence from the government. The initial bill's detractors who pushed for this amendment want a tax for author rights to be paid by everyone on the ISP fees

Miniature gyroscopes are often found in missile guidance systems, but they are now being used to attack a very different type of target, by diagnosing cancer and other diseases. The micro-gyroscopes consist of a chip with a vibrating disc the size of a sand grain which is highly sensitive to acceleration, allowing it to detect motion. Now the technology is being used to weigh proteins and identify those produced by cancer cells. What's more, the detector will be much faster than conventional biosensors

Using a network of cameras that can record number plates, Britain plans to build a database of vehicle movement for police and security services: rollout begins in March

23 December 2005

eBay's plan to allow pets to be sold on its auction site has been howled down by thousands of users, forcing the company to quickly abandon the idea. People feared changing eBay policy to allow sales of creatures other than fish and snails would invite abusive animal breeders such as puppy farms. eBay then proposed limiting online pet postings to animal shelters, but users argued that it would be too difficult to cull the illegal breeders from legitimate shelters

Local importers have begun filing damages claims worth tens of millions of dollars against the Australian Customs Service after computer glitches left shipping containers filled with Christmas stock stranded on wharves

The House baulked at a Senate plan to extend the USA Patriot Act by six months to give Congress and the retarded monkey boy more time to work out their differences, instead forcing the Senate and the administration to accept a one-month extension

22 December 2005

In a delightful example of common sense, Judge John Jones of the United States District Court for the Middle District of Pennsylvania ruled that intelligent design — which bills itself as a scientific theory and states that life shows signs of being the work of an intelligent designer — is in fact reworked creationism and the loony fundies trying to inflict their insanity on students are blatant liars — via The Pagan Prattle

Google and Time Warner have announced that Google will invest US$1 billion for a 5% stake in the media company's AOL unit as part of a partnership that expands their existing search engine deal to include collaboration on advertising, instant messaging and video

21 December 2005

A group of 40 drunken people dressed in Santa Claus outfits went on a rampage through Auckland, robbing stores, assaulting security guards and urinating from highway overpasses. The rampage, dubbed Santarchy by newspapers, began when the men, wearing ill-fitting Santa costumes, threw beer bottles and urinated on cars from an overpass. The men then rushed through a central city park, overturning garbage bins, throwing bottles at passing cars and spraying graffiti on office buildings. The Santas entered a convenience store and carried off beer and soft drinks — via The Register

A while ago, Microsoft stopped updating IE for Mac, freezing it at version 5. But according to Microsoft, all support will cease 31 December 2005, and any official distribution with cease 31 January 2006. They also suggest that Macintosh users migrate to more recent web browsing technologies such as Apple's Safari

20 December 2005

The US National Security Agency has been caught spying on American citizens. According to numerous un-named sources, the retarded monkey boy signed a secret order authorising him to intercept phone calls and e-mails from US persons in communication with persons outside the US, and all without the slightest bit of judicial oversight. It's not like this is anything new, it's just that the targets have changed from those who can help line the pockets of the usual parade of rich, white morons, to those who show an interest in stopping that sort of corruption

Andreas Pavel invented the device known today as the Walkman. But it took more than 25 years of battling Sony and others in courts and patent offices around the world before he finally won the right to say it: Andreas Pavel invented the portable personal stereo player

Polar bears appear to be drowning when they attempt long sea crossings as a result of receding summer ice. New evidence from field researchers working for the World Wildlife Fund in Yakutia, on the northeast coast of Russia, has also shown the region's first evidence of cannibalism among bears competing for food supplies. As the ice pack retreats north in the summer between June and October, the bears must travel between ice floes to continue hunting in areas such as the shallow water of the continental shelf off the Alaskan coast — one of the most food-rich areas in the Arctic. However, last summer the ice cap receded about 320km further north than the average of two decades ago, forcing the bears to undertake far longer voyages between floes

19 December 2005

After starting a small row in cyberspace by trying to come up with its own name for RSS feeds, Microsoft has let it be known that it now accepts that RSS is here to stay, and one division within the company has even accomplished that most unusual of feats: an accommodation with an open source group

A remarkable humanitarian programme is under way in Havana, which aims to restore the sight of six million people through free eye surgery. Launched in July by the 79-year-old Cuban President, Fidel Castro, and Venezuela's Socialist leader, President Hugo Chavez, Operation Miracle has brought daily planeloads of the poor from across Latin America and the Caribbean to Havana for surgery. Cuba provides the medical skills, Venezuela the petro-dollars

In a world first, German scientists, from the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, say they have reconstructed a key sequence in the genome of the woolly mammoth that shows the extinct beast's closest modern relative is the Asian elephant

18 December 2005

Companies and law enforcement agencies are becoming increasing frustrated and concerned at the high amount of fraud at eBay. There are reports that it can take two months for eBay to pass details to fraud investigators, and that even for companies with a special relationship with eBay it can take five days for fraudulent auctions to be shut down. With all the amount of profits that eBay makes, then there is ample scope for additional staff. Frankly, it is totally unsatisfactory

17 December 2005

A sub-orbital mission to determine whether spider-like robots could construct complex structures in space is set to launch in January

Google has launched a new service intended to give searchers fast links to song lyrics, musical artists and CD titles on the main search results page. Google Music will allow a person to type in the name of a band, artist, album or song in the main Google search bar, and results will appear at the top, accompanied by icons of music notes — via Darren Barefoot

Ancient tools found in Britain show that humans lived in northern Europe 200,000 years earlier than was previously known, at a time when England's climate was warm enough to be the home of lions, elephants and saber-tooth tigers

16 December 2005

The European Space Agency is developing a new thruster based on the same physics that power the northern and southern auroras. This new plasma thruster could eventually deliver more power than the efficient ion engines which have been installed on several spacecraft — via digg

Spray Grancrete over a frame of Styrofoam, metal, wood—even woven sugarcane stalks—and in 20 minutes you have a waterproof, fire-resistant structure that has more than twice the strength of traditional concrete and can withstand extreme temperatures without cracking — via digg

A recent study has determined that Narwhal tusks are not for fighting or breaking through ice, but are highly sensitive sensory organs. The close-ups showed that 10 million nerve endings tunnel from the tusk's core toward its outer surface, and can detect subtle changes of temperature, pressure, particle gradients and probably much else

15 December 2005

Google is ramping up its operations in Australia following its acquisition of a local mapping software startup, Where2, snapping up computer science graduates from university campuses to expand its Google Maps offering. The company would not comment on the recruitment drive, but AustralianIT understands Google is looking for 15 graduates to work in the Sydney headquarters of Google Maps, in addition to the 12 software engineers already working there

Two satellites have become the first to exchange information from different orbits using a laser. The feat may lead to super-fast data-relay systems between spacecraft. The laser link took place on Friday between two satellites designed to test communications technologies

14 December 2005

Community Voicemail offers free voicemail boxes to homeless and unemployed people who are seeking work, so they'll have a way for prospective employers to reach them. The programme is very successful too: Workers distributed voicemail numbers to 145 people over six months, and a whopping 70% found jobs within two months — via Boingboing

In recent tests by Stephanie Schuckers, an associate professor of electrical and computer engineering at Clarkston University, she has shown that, among other things, biometric security measures were fooled 90% of the time by simple attacks like Play-Doh moulds. Schuckers' biometric research is funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF), the Office of Homeland Security and the Department of Defence. She is currently assessing spoofing vulnerability in fingerprint scanners and designing methods to correct for these as part of a $3.1 million interdisciplinary research project funded through the NSF

A Google engineer has warned that if the performance per watt of today's computers doesn't improve, the electrical costs of running them could end up far greater than the initial hardware price tag. That situation that wouldn't bode well for Google, which relies on thousands of its own servers

13 December 2005

The American Civil Liberties Union Foundation of Colorado says that the names and license plate numbers of about 30 people who protested three years ago in Colorado Springs were put into FBI domestic-terrorism files

The US Air Force has released its new mission statement, which reads: The mission of the United States Air Force is to deliver sovereign options for the defense of the United States of America and its global interests to fly and fight in Air, Space, and Cyberspace

Photocritic.org has posted a great guide to making your own inexpensive macro photography rig from cannibalised lens — and body-covers and a Pringles can — via MAKEblog

12 December 2005

Engineers at NEC have developed a flexible battery that is less than a millimetre thick that can be charged in half a minute. The battery has been designed for use in applications such as active RFID cards and could provide enough power to keep such cards running for several weeks before requiring a recharge

Yahoo has acquired del.icio.us, a New York-based startup that is considered a pioneer in social bookmarking, a type of online service that lets users save, annotate, and tag their favorite web pages and share their lists with other users

linear has done what was thought to be impossible: he has opened his hard drive and installed a clear acrylic window. And it still works

11 December 2005

The voluntary student unionism (VSU) legislation has passed the Senate. Loony fundie Family First Senator Steve Fielding voted in favour of the bill after doing a dodgy backroom deal with John Howard

Researchers at the Spokane County Regional Animal Protection Service in Washington state say the long, loud pant is the sound of a dog laughing, and it has a direct impact on the behavior of other dogs. When they played the sound of a dog panting over the loudspeaker, the gaggle of dogs at the shelter kept right on barking. But when they played the dog version of laughing, all 15 barking dogs went quiet within about a minute — via Boingboing

The New Oxford American Dictionary is adding podcasting to the dictionary. A year ago it was rejected because not enough people were reading it, but, in a ode to the speed of technology's growth, it is being declared the word of the year. Podcasting has been in the Oxford Dictionary of English since last summer. Podcast beat out words such as lifehack and rootkit for inclusion in the dictionaries. I guess no one needs to know what a rootkit is — Slashdot

10 December 2005

Australian Senators wants Australians' internet connections to be automatically filtered by ISPs. Anyone who wants to view pornography or other adult material (details not specified) must apply to their ISP to be given access to it. Another step towards becoming a nanny state — via Slashdot

A US government study into the prevalence of dodgy web sites has found that 3.89 million domain names, or 8.6%, were registered with false or incomplete information

An Albuquerque TV station has discovered strange landscape markings [BugMeNot] etched in New Mexico's barren northern reaches, resemble crop circles that are recognisable only from a high altitude. Also, they are directly connected to the Church of Scientology. The loony fundies tried to persuade KRQE not to air its report about the aerial signposts marking a Scientology compound that includes a huge vault built into a mountainside that was constructed to protect the works of L Ron Hubbard, the late crap science fiction writer who founded the church in the 1950s — via Feòrag

09 December 2005

A developer has added tabbed browsing of e-mail messages to Mozilla's Thunderbird e-mail client, mimicking one of the most popular features of the Firefox and Opera Web browsers. It is unlikely the feature will be found in Mozilla's imminent release of Thunderbird 1.5 — currently in testing — but software developer Myk Melez has put test versions of Thunderbird online with the tabbed browsing feature included

A new laser welding technique is repairing power station turbine rotor blades in minutes, rather than days, through advances in the way repair metals fuse together. Called In Situ Laser Surfacing, the development is the product of a collective effort by several research institutions and power station operators and has prompted a flurry of international interest

08 December 2005

A company called PetsMobility has come out with PetCell, the first mobile phone for dogs. The phone will allow users to call their dogs in case the dog gets away and also includes a GPS tracking device if the dog doesn't respond to the call. In addition, the PetCell will feature GeoFence, which will alert owners whenever their dogs wander outside a prescribed area

07 December 2005

The US Air Force has unveiled its first hand-held laser weapon that gives security forces a non-lethal option for controlling crowds and protecting areas like checkpoints. While only in prototype form and years away from fielding, the weapon, known as the Personnel Halting and Stimulation Response (PHaSR) system, they claim it holds great promise

Nissan has created a paint that repairs scratches on its own, restoring a car's surface to normal within a week — via digg

06 December 2005

Gay couples are now allowed to legally marry, tying the knot with what is officially known as a civil partnership, and among the first to do so will be veteran rock star Elton John's civil and long-time love David Furnish

A shear thickening material, it is flexible when moved slowly, but when it is compresssed by an impact, its molecules lock together. The Ribcap is a combination soft, flexible beanie and tough helmet. Unfortunately, you will look like a dork wearing it — via digg

In the dense central forests of Borneo, a conservation group has found what appears to be a new species of mammal. WWF caught two images of the animal, which is bigger than a domestic cat, dark red, and has a long muscular tail — via digg

05 December 2005

Shortly after learning of the New Orleans plan for free city-wide wireless internet, Bellsouth withdrew an offer to donate a damaged building to be used for police headquarters

MP3tunes, a company created by MP3.com founder Michael Robertson, has launched an unlimited online digital music storage service, called Oboe. The service costs US$39.95 yearly and lets customers back up and consolidate their music files and also stream their music to various computers

Seems like customers are at a huge disadvantage when dealing with dishonest retailers. This is the story of Thomas Hawk, a man who had a horrible experience with online camera retailer, PriceRitePhoto. In short he was lied to, yelled at and threatened to be sued if he posted the experience on his blog

04 December 2005

South Africa's highest court has ruled in favour of same-sex marriages. The Constitutional Court has struck down a law that bans gay unions and ordered Parliament to draft new legislation within a year. Justice Albie Sachs ruled that the common law definition of marriage as a union between a man and a woman is inconsistent with the Constitution because it does not permit same-sex couples to enjoy the same benefits as heterosexual couples

Mr T, Burt Reynolds and Dennis Hopper have all signed up to deliver celebrity voice content for turn-by-turn driving directions in the Navtones car navigation system produced by Los Angeles-based Wanderlust Media and digital map and location content provider Tele Atlas: Turn left, Fool — via digg

A BellSouth executive is arguing for his company's right to degrade Internet services coming from people he doesn't like. If they like Yahoo, they should be able to slow down Google — via digg

03 December 2005

Scratch-Less Discs are blank CDs with small raised bumps around their perimeters that keep the disc's data from coming into contact with your desk when you set it down, reducing the likelihood of scratches that render discs unreadable. The discs have some other clever features, like a bevelled edge to make it easier to lift them off of flat surfaces. The manufacturer claims compatibility with 99% of CD burners and says that the remaining 1% merely have some problems ejecting the discs — via Boingboing

Sun has announced that it will bundle much of its software and provide it free to customers. Sun said that it would make its Java Enterprise System, Sun N1 management software and developer tools available at no charge. A year ago, Sun started offering its Solaris version of the Unix operating system for free

A device called the Mosquito, invented by Howard Stapleton, is designed to drive teens away by emitting a high frequency noise at 75db. Apparently most older people can not hear the sounds, but teens cannot stand it. Reports are that it works quite well, but some older people can hear it too. He found the prefect irritating sound by experimenting on his children

02 December 2005

In the new war of the Internet based applications, Yahoo is testing creating an email folder as the hub for RSS instead of using a web page for the feeds

Apple has issued highly critical security updates to address more than a dozen vulnerabilities in its Mac OSX operating system

Raytheon has developed a technology for safely detonating all the landmines in disused landmine fields — they drop a shell containing many hundreds of steel arrows into the field, which sets off all the old mines — via Boingboing

01 December 2005

The latest iteration of the open-source browser Firefox is now available for download, featuring upgrades designed to speed page loads, improve navigation, and boost security

iiNet has ended its protest over Telstra's wholesale ADSL prices and has started signing up customers in regional areas again

He works at a Wendy's, and his name is Ronald MacDonald — but now he may be known as the Hamburglar. Two workers at a Wendy's in Manchester, New Hampshire, have been charged with taking money from the safe. One of the suspects is Ronald MacDonald. Police say the restaurant's manager called them early Monday morning and said he saw MacDonald and the other man taking cash out of the restaurant's safe — via Laridian

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