February 2007 Archive

28 February 2007

Virtualisation software vendor Parallels has released an update to its Parallels Desktop virtualisation software for Intel-based Apple Macs. The biggest update to the new version is Coherence, a feature that enables Mac users running Parallels to run and access Windows applications from their Mac desktops via virtualisation rather than switching between operating systems

The Canadian parliament has voted against renewing anti-terror laws that had been introduced after 11 September 2001. The rejected laws included provisions to hold terror suspects indefinitely, and to compel witnesses to testify, and were in some sense Canada's version fo the Patriot Act. The laws were voted down in the face of claims from the minority Conservative government that the Liberal Party was soft on terror, and despite the fact that Canada has faced active terrorist cells in their own country. The anti-terror laws have never been used, and it was viewed that they are neither relevant, nor needed, in dealing with terrorist plots. Hopefully more countries will come to the same conclusion — via Slashdot

When Firefox 3.0 is released later this year, the open-source browser is likely to contain a host of new features, including offline support for Web applications and new bookmark and search features. Mozilla released the second alpha version of Firefox 3.0 earlier this month

One of Australia's best-known rock musicians, Billy Thorpe, has died at the age of 60. The singer suffered a massive heart attack at his home in Sydney's eastern suburbs, early this morning. The singer worked for a series of bands in Sydney after emigrating from England, including in a support act for Johnny O'Keefe

27 February 2007

Australia Post is planning to expand its use of radio frequency identification tags following their successful use in monitoring mail. The organisation has already set up much of the infrastructure it will need to broaden its use of radio frequency identification

Google is planning to sell Australian users licences for its web-based office productivity suite, Google Apps, under a local-currency pricing scheme

A US federal appeals court noted that a federal law was designed to ensure that within broad limits, message board operators would not be held responsible for the postings made by others on that board, adding that, were the law otherwise, it would have an obvious chilling effect on blogger speech

26 February 2007

University of Washington Scientists are reporting that they have a new autonomous underwater vehicle that increases both the attainable depth and duration of deployment over current submersibles. Weighing in at just under 65kg, the Deepglider is able to stay out to sea for up to a year and hit depths of 2,700m

The latest breed of surveillance cameras, known as intelligent video, could transform cameras from passive observers to eyes with brains, able to detect suspicious behavior and potentially prevent crime before it occurs

2a26ref="http://uk.gay.com/headlines/11114">Female koalas enjoy lesbian romps, rejecting male suitors and attempting to mate with each other, sometimes up to five at a time, according to researchers. The cute, eucalyptus-eating wombat-like creatures seem to develop this tendency for gay orgies when they are in captivity. In the wild, they appear to remain heterosexual. Scientists monitoring the marsupials with digital cameras counted three gay interactions for every straight one — via Feòrag

BitTorrent, makers of a technology often used to trade pirated copies of Hollywood movies, is launching a Web site that will sell downloads of films and TV shows licensed from the studios. The BitTorrent Entertainment Network was set to launch Monday with films from Warner Bros., Paramount Pictures, 20th Century Fox, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer and Lionsgate and episodes of TV shows such as 24 and Punk'd

25 February 2007

The appalling delays Australian TV viewers are experiencing getting overseas-produced series is driving many of them to download the shows via BitTorrent and other peer-to-peer networks. The problem is compounded by the fact that Australian viewers are unable to download legal copies of the episodes from the US iTunes web site. According to a survey based on a sample of 119 current or recent free-to-air TV series, Australian viewers are waiting an average of almost 17 months for the first-run series first seen overseas. Over the past two years, average Australian broadcast delays for free-to-air television viewers have more than doubled from 7.9 to 16.7 months

Why pay $20,000 for a commercial link to run your television station when a $10 kitchen wok from the Warehouse is just as effective? This is exactly how North Otago's newest television station 45 South is transmitting its signal from its studio to the top of Cape Wanbrow, in a bid to keep costs down. 45 South volunteer Ken Jones designed the wok transmitter in his spare time last year when he wanted to provide wireless broadband to his Ardgowan home

24 February 2007

The Citizenr company will install a solar generator on your roof, completely for free. You then buy power from it, instead of a regular power company, at a fixed rate that's likely to be lower than the usual power fees. The company will make money on these usage fees, as well as credits from the federal government for spreading the use of solar power. If it sounds too good to be true to you, you're not alone. A number of financial analysts have warned people away from the company — via Slashdot

The recent surge of video sites such as Youtube and Google video are pushing the limits of the Internet's bandwidth, or soon will be. Pieter Poll, chief technology officer at Qwest Communications, says that traffic volumes are growing faster than computing power, meaning that engineers can no longer count on newer, faster computers to keep ahead of their capacity demands. Further, a recent report from Deloitte Consulting raised the possibility that 2007 would see Internet demand exceed capacity. Admittedly, this seems a bit sensationalist, but are we headed for a massive slowdown of the whole internet?

23 February 2007

Xerox is developing a new printing technology which does not require ink of any kind. The new technology includes reusable paper which can be printed and erased dozens of times and has the potential to revolutionise printing

There have been direct observations of chimps in the west African savannah modifying sticks to create spears. They then use these spears to kill small mammals and eat them. It is the first time that an animal other than a human has been directly observed in crafting a weapon for the purpose of hunting or killing

Google's online productivity suite (Google Apps) has already replaced Microsoft products at more than 100,000 small to medium enterprises. Additionally, it's been deployed for serious work-related projects at two of the largest companies in the world. Product manager for Google Enterprise Kevin Gough was quick to point out that although the premier edition of Google Apps only just launched, it's already been adopted by companies like GE, Procter & Gamble, Prudential and Loreal

22 February 2007

Vision Robotics, a San Diego company, is working on a pair of robots that would trundle through orchards plucking oranges, apples or other fruit from the trees. In a few years, troops of these machines could perform the tedious and labour-intensive task of fruit picking that currently employs thousands of migrant workers each season. The robotic work has been funded entirely by agricultural associations, and pushed forward by the uncertainty surrounding the migrant labour force

A federal jury in San Diego has ordered Microsoft to pay $1.5 billion to Alcatel-Lucent in a patent dispute over MP3 audio technology used in Windows. In its verdict, the jury assessed damages based on each Windows PC sold since May 2003. The case could have broader implications, should Alcatel-Lucent pursue claims against other companies that use the widespread MP3 technology

Telstra's rivals have challenged the telecoms giant to prevent a rerun of the $7 billion cable wars of the 1990s by creating an independent infrastructure company to bring fast broadband services to up to 6 million Australian homes. A consortium led by Optus, iiNet and Macquarie Telecom, known as the G9, announced the proposal in July and yesterday provided financial details of the network which would stretch further than one originally mooted by Telstra

Magnificently sophisticated geometric patterns in medieval Islamic architecture indicate their designers achieved a mathematical breakthrough 500 years earlier than Western scholars. By the 15th century, decorative tile patterns on these masterpieces of Islamic architecture reached such complexity that a small number boasted what seem to be quasicrystalline designs, Harvard University's Peter Lu and Princeton University's Paul Steinhardt wrote in the journal Science. Only in the 1970s did British mathematician and cosmologist Roger Penrose become the first to describe these geometric designs in the West. Quasicrystalline patterns comprise a set of interlocking units whose pattern never repeats, even when extended infinitely in all directions, and possess a special form of symmetry

21 February 2007

Two circus clowns have been shot dead during a performance in the eastern Colombian city of Cucuta. The attacker jumped into the arena and fired before fleeing. Local reports say the audience of about 20 people, mostly children, thought the shooting was part of the show before realising both men had been killed. Last year, a prominent circus clown, known as Pepe, was also shot dead by a unknown assailant in Cucuta — via Warren Ellis

The father of the Internet, Vint Cerf, is overseeing efforts by NASA to build a permanent Internet link to Mars by 2008. InterPlaNet (IPN) will serve as a backbone for a future inter-planetary system of Internets. Google vice president and Internet evangelist, Cerf co-wrote the TCP/IP protocol which underpins the Terran internet in the 1970s and began work on the InterPlaNet in 1998. A collaboration between NASA and the Advanced Research Project Agency, the InterPlaNet project is underway at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Houston, Texas. The InterPlaNet protocol is designed to cope with delays caused by the vast distances of space, with data taking up to 20 minutes to travel between the Earth and Mars depending on how far apart the two planets are

SETI@home is a distributed processing client from UC Berkeley that installs on the volunteers' home computers and harnesses their processing power in the search for extraterrestrial intelligence. So far nothing noteworthy has comeout of this massive project... that is until today. One of the volunteers was able to track down his wife's stolen laptop using the IP address that SETI@home client reports back to the server. After getting back the laptop his wife said, I always knew that a geek would make a great husband — Slashdot

20 February 2007

SWAT teams training for drug raids casually shoot target dogs, so guess what they do on the real raids? Fascist scumbags. In anything other than a police state, you'd expect the law enforcers to be held to the highest possible standards of conduct; in the US, the police with the biggest guns are unrestrained by ordinary decency. Slaughtering family pets is what I'd expect of a psychopath — via Pharyngula

Official figures reveal that UK agencies monitored 439,000 telephones and email addresses in a 15 month period between 2005 and 2006. The Interception of Communications Commissioner is seeking the right for agencies to be allowed to monitor the communications of Members of Parliament as well, something which has been forbidden since the 1960s

Over the weekend, SlySoft launched the first version of its HD DVD cracking software designed to let consumers decrypt HD DVD movie discs and rip them to a hard drive. Specifically, the AnyDVD HD software cracks the Advanced Access Content System (AACS), a specification for managing content stored on the next generation HD DVDs

The initial cost of replacing incandescent light bulbs with energy-efficient fluorescent bulbs will be offset by longer-term savings, Prime Minister John Howard said today. Federal Environment Minister Malcolm Turnbull this morning announced standard incandescent light bulbs would be phased out within three years in a bid to reduce energy consumption. Compact fluorescent or low-wattage bulbs cost about $5 more, but are more energy-efficient and save an average of $30 per year

19 February 2007

Today, about 90 percent of the world's electricity is created through an indirect and inefficient conversion of heat. It is estimated that two thirds of the heat used by thermoelectric converters are wasted and released. But now, researchers from the University of California at Berkeley have found a new way to convert this wasted heat into electricity by trapping organic molecules between metal nanoparticles. So far, this method of creating electricity creation is in its very early stage, but if it can scale up to mass production it may lead to a new and inexpensive source of energy

The media industry is clashing with YouTube over its proposal to offer anti-piracy tools only to companies that have distribution deals with the top online video-sharing service. YouTube, owned by Google, plans to introduce technology to help media companies identify pirated videos uploaded by users. But the tools are currently being offered as part of broader negotiations on licensing deals

18 February 2007

After an 8-year-long court battle, Welsh activists have finally been allowed to released a Russian study showing an increased cancer risk linked to eating genetically modified potatoes. While the victory of the Welsh Greenpeace members in the courtroom would seem to vindicate the work of the Russian scientists that did the original research, there are still serious questions to be answered. The trials involved rats being fed several types of potatoes as feed. The rats who were fed GM potatoes suffered much more extensive damage to their organs than with any other type; just the same, serious questions remain about the validity of the findings. The Welsh group wants to use this information to stop the testing of GM crops in the UK, tests currently slated for the spring of this year

Two years ago Philips unveiled a prototype of a functional electronic-document reader, called the Readius, which could unroll its display to a scale larger than the device itself. Unfortunately, that was only a prototype. Polymer Vision, which spun out from Philips in 2006, has redesigned the Readius and turned it into a real product that it is going to be available by the end of this year. There are some notable differences between this Readius and the prototype version, in particular, the ability to display 16 shades of grey instead of just 4 and the connectivity options

17 February 2007

Daring Fireball has posted a humorous, and accurate PR-speak to Plain English translation of Macrovision's CEO's response to Steve Jobs' Open Letter on DRM

AOL now has experimental OpenID server support. This means that every AOL user now has an OpenID identifier. OpenID is a decentralized cross-site authentication system which has been growing in popularity over the last few months. AOL is the first large provider to offer OpenID services, and though they do not currently accept logins to their services with OpenID identifiers from elsewhere, they are apparently working on it. The next big challenge for OpenID proponents is teaching AOL's userbase how to make use of this new technology

Profoundly blind people could get their best shot yet of restored vision with a more advanced bionic eye, researchers have announced. Trials of the new retinal prosthesis will begin shortly, following the success of a prototype that has enabled six blind people to see again. The prototypes were fitted in 2002 to patients who had lost their sight entirely. Within a few weeks all could detect light, identify objects and even perceive motion again. For one patient, this was the first time he had seen anything in half a century, after his sight was destroyed by retinitis pigmentosa, a virus that attacks retinal cells

16 February 2007

Scientists have shown what happens when an infection-fighting antibody attacks a gap in HIV's formidable defences. The National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases-led team say the work could aid HIV vaccine development. They have published an atomic-level image in Nature showing the antibody, b12, attacking part of a protein on surface of the virus. HIV avoids attack by constantly mutating, but this protein segment is a weak spot because it remains stable

A123 Systems claims to have invented a Lithium Ion battery that not only can discharge at very high rates of current but can be recharged very quickly without damage to the cells or overheating. A unique feature of A123Systems' M1 cells is their ability to charge to high capacity in 5 minutes or less. That's a significant improvement over traditional Li Ion, which typically requires more than 90 minutes to reach a similar level of charge. Using this technology, General Motors has announced a plug-in hybrid SUV

New images of a craggy, fissure-filled canyon on Mars provide evidence of long-term underground water flows that may have provided a suitable environment for microbial life, scientists say. The new findings show light-coloured features cutting across dark bands in an area known as Candor Chasma. Dr Okubo and his colleagues believe they are looking at places where rock has been chemically altered by water flowing across the fractures

15 February 2007

The Naval Network Warfare Command says that Chinese hackers are relentlessly targeting Defense Department networks with cyber attacks. The volume, proficiency and sophistication of the attacks supports the theory that the attacks are government supported. The motives of the attacks emanating from China include technology theft, intelligence gathering, exfiltration, research on DOD operations and the creation of dormant presences in DOD network for future action. Onlookers warn that current US defenses against these attacks are dysfunctional, and that more aggressive measures should be taken to ensure government network safety

Almost two-thirds of music industry executives think removing digital locks from downloadable music would make more people buy the tracks. The Jupiter Research study looked at attitudes to Digital Rights Management (DRM) systems in Europe music firms. Many of those responding said current DRM systems were not fit for purpose and got in the way of what consumers wanted to do. Despite this few respondents said DRM would disappear in the near future

Dan Heller, author of the Photography Business Blog and a longtime watcher of the idea of selling photos on the Internet, observed Tuesday that there's low-level buzz about Flickr possibly getting into the stock photo business. He concludes, For Flickr to do it is obvious. Not doing so while they are on top of the game would be suicide. It's an interesting possibility. With some tweaks to the Web site and an opt-in check box on the image upload page, Yahoo and Flickr photographers could begin selling images to the sorts of folks who need to buy stock art — via Steve Andrews

14 February 2007

A coronial inquest in Sydney has been told Indonesian forces involved in the attack on Balibo in 1975 dressed some Australian journalists in army uniform after they were killed. Former East Timorese soldier Fernando Mariz said he was also told the journalists had been shot or stabbed and their bodies dressed in Portuguese Army uniforms for a photo. When Mr Mariz asked why they had been dressed in uniform, the officers replied: In case someone in Australia complains

Enormous deep-sea squid emit blinding flashes of light as they attack their prey, research shows. Taningia danae's spectacular light show was revealed in video footage taken in deep waters off Chichijima Island in the North Pacific

Doctors at a Texas military base are testing a procedure on wounded Iraq veterans that may allow them to regrow portions of lost fingers. The procedure involves treatments with a fine powder called extracellular matrix, which is taken from the bladders of pigs. The substance is what cells latch on to in mammals to allow them to divide and grow into tissue. Scientists who developed the procedure say the substance appears to activate latent biological processes in humans that encourage healing and tissue regeneration. They said the processes are active in human fetuses, which have the ability to regenerate and grow new parts, but the ability becomes dormant after birth

13 February 2007

Not more than two months after discovering a means to extract the HD DVD and Blu-ray Disc volume keys<.q< to decrypt AACS DRM on individual films, we're now getting word that DRM hacker arnezami has found the processing key used to decrypt the DRM on all HD DVD and Blu-ray Disc films

That bit in our American Holiday Video where we were attacked by the rednecks in the Alabama petrol station: I realise now that I should have seen it coming. We'd been warned by some American modernists — ie; Californians — that the southerners wouldn't take kindly to any of our light mockery of the things they hold dear — Bush, heterosexuality, NASCAR, Country and Western, short hair... But I never really believed they would take it quite that badly

12 February 2007

An official replica of the Maltese Falcon used in promo photos for the 1941 film has been stolen from John's Grill in San Francisco. The statue was nabbed out of a locked cabinet where it was on display with signed Dashiell Hammett books and other rarities. John's Grill proprietor John Konstin has put up a $25,000 reward for its return

An animal lover was mauled to death by cheetahs after entering their cage at a zoo in northern Belgium. Karen Aerts, 37, of Antwerp, was found dead in the cage, Olmense Zoo spokesman Jan Libot said. Police said they ruled out any foul play. Authorities believe Aerts, a regular visitor to the zoo, hid in the park late Sunday until it closed and managed to find the keys to the cheetah cage. Karen loved animals. Unfortunately the cheetahs betrayed her trust, Libot said

Google's YouTube and a company called Live Digital will offer no refuge to users who uploaded pirated copies of Fox Television's 24 and The Simpsons onto their video platforms. A 20th Century Fox Television spokesperson said that Google and Live Digital complied with subpoenas issued by the US District Court in Northern California and disclosed to Fox the identities of two individuals who illegally uploaded entire episodes of 24 prior to its broadcast and DVD release

A European-funded project has been launched to store electricity created from wind in refrigerated warehouses used to store food. As the production of wind energy is variable every day, it cannot easily be accommodated on the electrical grid. So the Night Wind project wants to store wind energy produced at night in refrigerated warehouses and to release this energy during daytime peak hours. The first tests will be done in the Netherlands this year. And as the cold stores exist already, practically no extra cost should be incurred to store as much as 50,000 megawatt-hours of energy

11 February 2007

Google quietly added a small feature to Gmail this week called Mail Fetcher. When that feature launched, Gmail became perfect. Mail Fetcher allows users to access non-Gmail email accounts from within the Gmail interface. If you have a Yahoo email account, and a work email account, etc., you can simply access that email from within Gmail, using POP settings. Gmail will now work in a very similar way as Outlook does on the PC desktop

While the US continues to hash out concerns over the Real ID Act, which aims to create a national ID by standardising state driver's licenses, China has already implemented a massive online ID database, which they say will help prevent fraud. Anyone can now send a text message or visit the country's population information centre's web site, to check if the name and the ID number of a person's identity card match. If they do match the ID card-holder's picture also appears, said the Ministry, adding that no other information is available to ensure a citizen's privacy is protected. Completed at the end of 2006, China's population information database, the world's largest, contains personal information on 1.3 billion citizens. Giving public accessing to the database is also designed to correct mistakes if an individual discovers that their name, number and picture don't match — via Slashdot

10 February 2007

The Electronic Frontier Foundation has filed a lawsuit against the Department of Defence and the Army that seeks more information on a military web censorship unit called the Army Web Risk Assessment Cell (AWRAC) after the DOD failed to answer the EFF's Freedom of Information Act request in an expedited fashion. AWRAC's existence was revealed last October in an Army News Service piece that described the unit. The AWRAC team monitors hundreds of thousands of web sites each month and contacts webmasters and bloggers about any security concerns

Call them old fashioned, but the founding members of The Who don't think the Internet is the future of rock, are unhappy about radio's narrow musical focus, and convinced live music is what it is all about

09 February 2007

Yahoo this week debuted a new service called Pipes that lets you remix feeds and create new data mashups in a visual programming environment. The name of the service pays tribute to Unix pipes, which let programmers do astonishingly clever things by making it easy to chain simple utilities together on the command line. Reactions from a number of internet-thinkers are very positive. Tim O'Reilly has an extensive post about why he likes Pipes, and he sees it as a manifestation of ideas that have been circulating for some time now — via Boingboing

Reports are surfacing that EMI is in negotiations with some of the leading music stores to offer a substantial portion of its music catalogue without DRM, with an announcement due as early as today. Under one scenario, music stores like Napster, Real Rhapsody, and others would fork over sizable advance payments in exchange for the right to sell music as unprotected MP3s. Another industry source reports that EMI was also discussing the possibility of selling MP3s on MySpace

Upstart search engine Powerset has just secured an exclusive license for natural language processing technology from Xerox's Palo Alto Research Center. It's a move that some are claiming will allow the small firm to someday challenge Google

08 February 2007

A computer that carries out calculations using tiny bubbles instead of electricity has been developed by US researchers. The microfluidic computer performs calculation by squeezing bubbles through tiny channels etched into a chip. It can perform all of the logical operations needed to make a general-purpose computer. In practise, such a computer would be much bigger than a PC and about a thousand times slower. Nevertheless, the bubble-based computer could lead to improved microfluidic technology for chemical analysis

Google's e-mail service is almost ready to accept all comers, nearly three years after the online search leader shook up the Internet by offering users an unprecedented amount of free storage and displaying ads based on the content of the correspondence. Effective Wednesday, the Mountain View-based company removed the invitation-only restrictions on its Gmail service in Europe, the Middle East, Africa and Brazil. Google opened up the service last year in several other parts of the world, including Japan, Australia, New Zealand, Russia and Egypt. Invitations to open a Gmail account are still required in North America, Asia and most parts of the South America, but Google spokeswoman Courtney Hohne said those restrictions will be lifted very soon. Even then, Gmail will retain a beta tag to signify the company still considers the service to be in a testing phase

A pulse of light can be stopped, transported, and restarted again using a cloud of super-cold atoms, US researchers have shown. The technique could ultimately be used for advanced computing devices or gravity detectors. The experiments demonstrate physicists' increasing ability to manipulate light. Being able to control it in this way could be useful for optical or quantum computers — via Warren Ellis

07 February 2007

The DNS Root Servers were attacked overnight. It looks like the F, I, and M servers felt the attack and recovered, whereas G (US Department of Defence) and L (ICANN) did less well

A new assessment from Deloitte & Touche predicts that global traffic will exceed the Internet's capacity as soon as this year. Why? The rapid growth in the number of global Internet users, combined with the rise of online video services and the lack of investment in new infrastructure

The New Media division will disappear under a wide-ranging restructure announced by ABC managing director Mark Scott today. Mr Scott says the changes will enable the ABC to maintain its leadership in the digital media world. The changes to be introduced in coming weeks in consultation with staff includes pursuing the potential for new revenue streams afforded by digital technology, including video-on-demand, the digitisation of the ABC archive and partnerships to disseminate ABC content more widely

06 February 2007

Steve Jobs has written an essay on the Apple site about DRM, iTunes and the iPod. Perhaps it was prompted by the uncomfortable pressure the EU has been putting on Apple to open up the iPod. Jobs places the blame for the existence and continuing reliance on DRM squarely on the music companies. Quoting: Much of the concern over DRM systems has arisen in European countries. Perhaps those unhappy with the current situation should redirect their energies towards persuading the music companies to sell their music DRM-free. For Europeans, two and a half of the big four music companies are located right in their backyard. The largest, Universal, is 100% owned by Vivendi, a French company. EMI is a British company, and Sony BMG is 50% owned by Bertelsmann, a German company. Convincing them to license their music to Apple and others DRM-free will create a truly interoperable music marketplace. Apple will embrace this wholeheartedly — via Slashdot

To help make kids aware of alternatives to proprietary software the Ile-de-France, the political district of greater Paris, will give 175,000 school children and apprentices USB keys loaded with open-source software. With a word-processing program, audio and video playback capabilities, an email client and an IM client, these are essentially computers on a stick. The council touts this as representing for students a tool of freedom and mobility between their school, cybercafes and their home or friends' PCs

Reintroducing wild wolves to the Scottish Highlands would help the local ecosystem, a study suggests. Wolves, which were hunted to extinction in Scotland in the late 1700s, would help control the numbers of red deer, the team from the UK and Norway said. This would aid the re-establishment of plants and birds — currently hampered by the deer population, they write in Proceedings of the Royal Society B

Kodak's revolutionary new ink can quickly create prints with an archival life of 100 years, versus standard inkjet photos that go the way of toilet paper after 15. And the ink costs half the price

05 February 2007

For centuries, readers thumbed through the crackling pages of Sweden's Post-och Inrikes Tidningar newspaper. No longer. The world's oldest paper still in circulation has dropped its paper edition and now exists only in cyberspace

A German court on Monday ruled that police cannot remotely search criminal suspects' computer hard drives over the Internet without their knowledge. The decision of the Federal Court of Justice in Karlsruhe bars police from using the online Trojan horse method, which involves using a computer program to search through remote hard drives over an Internet connection, unless parliament passes a law explicitly allowing it. Police will still be allowed to seize evidence from computer hard drives when conducting searches in person

Almost all printers secretly print dots without your consent which are invisible to the naked eye and apparently Xerox and possibly others have included this technology which FBI is using to keep an eye even on groups such as Greenpeace and United for Peace and Justice. The EFF has released a guide explaining how to read the date time, and printer serial number from forensic tracking codes in a Xerox DocuColor color laser printout

04 February 2007

I'm sure many people wondered if Google will release a presentation tool, after building Google Docs&Spreadsheets. Well, the answer is yes, and the code-name of the tool is Presently (a play on Writely, the name of the online word processor bought by Google). You will be able to convert a document into a presentation, create slides and view the presentation in full-screen

Germany has ordered the arrest of 13 suspected CIA agents over the alleged kidnapping of one of its citizens. Munich prosecutors confirmed that the warrants were linked to the case of Khaled al-Masri, a German national of Lebanese descent. Mr Masri says his case is an example of the US policy of extraordinary rendition — a practice whereby the US government flies foreign terror suspects to third countries without judicial process for interrogation or detention — via Warren Ellis

03 February 2007

The BBC Trust, an independent oversight body, they are now allowed to release their iPlayer, enabling the download and viewing of BBC owned content such as Doctor Who. Unfortunately the Trust also mandated the use of DRM to enforce a 30 day playable period, and exempted classical music performances from being made available. There will now be a 2 month consultation period. According to one of the trustees, the Trust could still change its mind if there was a public outcry and it was backed up by evidence

A team of scientists from Washington, Wisconsin, and Germany combined a ceramic barium titanate and white-hot molten tin with an ultrasonic probe. The new material was, in some tests, almost 10x more resistant to bending than diamond. As the material cools, its crystal structure changes, causing its volume to expand. Because they are held inside the tin matrix, strain builds up inside the barium titanate, at a particular temperature that energy is released to oppose a bending force

Break out your spandex pants, start practicing your karate kicks; David Lee Roth is officially returning as the front man for Van Halen. Founding band member Eddie Van Halen made the first official announcement, saying It feels like a whole new beginning to be back with Dave and to be playing with my brother and my son. We look forward to going on tour. Roth, an original member of Van Halen, quit the group in 1985. He rejoined the band briefly in 1996, only to quit again a few months later. Roth hasn't performed live with the group since 1984

02 February 2007

Scientists and economists have been offered $10,000 each by a lobby group funded by one of the world's largest oil companies to undermine the IPCC major climate change report. Letters sent by the American Enterprise Institute, an ExxonMobil-funded thinktank with close links to the Bush administration, offered the payments for articles that emphasise the shortcomings of a report from the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change — via Warren Ellis

Given some jelly mixed according to standard procedures and a vertical wall, it is not possible to nail the former to the latter and have it stay there for any significant amount of time. Furthermore, these experiments were conducted by nailing the jelly to a horizontal surface which was then gradually tilted. Nailing jelly to a wall while the wall is vertical is an intractable problem in itself due to the difficulty in picking up jelly with the hands without it disintegrating — via Improbable Research

The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission has issued a warning to ISPs to come clean about their broadband speeds. ACCC chairman Graeme Samuel says he is unhappy with the use of the phrase up to in some advertisements about Internet speeds. He has told the Sydney Institute any service provider continuing to make misleading statements may face litigation

01 February 2007

Police in the United States are investigating a media company for causing a massive security scare after police overreacted in Boston. A marketing campaign for Cartoon Network's Aqua Teen Hunger Force turned into a day-long terrorism scare for the city and a public relations nightmare for Turner Broadcasting System Inc over a bunch of blinking boxes that were mistaken for bombs. Major disruptions occurred throughout metropolitan Boston, beginning at 8am local time and then in the afternoon, as calls came in about suspicious-looking devices attached to bridges, roadways and an MBTA bus station

Fox has given Matt Groening the rights to do four straight to DVD movies for Futurama, even after they cancelled the show a few years ago. The series, has been picked up for more episodes, but not by Fox. Comedy Central will be airing new episodes after the straight to DVD movies have been released

Researchers at the University of Southern California have designed a phosphorescent dye molecule that emits near-infrared light and have used it to make long-lasting organic light-emitting diodes. The diodes could be used to make a cheap and flexible near-infrared display that would be unreadable to the naked eye but could be read with night-vision goggles. Such a display could be integrated into a soldier's uniform or a device that could be stashed in a pocket, allowing soldiers to read communications at night without being spotted by enemy snipers

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