May 2007 Archive

31 May 2007

Australia has backed a plan by St Vincent and the Grenadines to hunt humpbacks as part of its subsistence whaling quota. A consensus vote at the International Whaling Commission meeting has cleared the Caribbean nation to kill four whales a year over a five-year period. Mick McIntyre from the International Fund for Animal Welfare says he is disappointed Australia did not oppose the plan, given its opposition to Japan's plans to add humpbacks to its scientific cull program

The long-suffering customers of RegisterFly should soon be able to manage their names again after ICANN arranged for the transfer of its 850,000 domains to GoDaddy.com. ICANN terminated RegisterFly's accreditation back in March but it took a court order to pry the domains loose so they could be transferred to another registrar

Nanocomp Technologies has found a way to mass-produce long carbon nanotube fibres and thread them into yarns and felts for various purposes. These nanotube fibres are dozens of times stronger than steel, weigh less than plastic, and can conduct electricity. Nanocomp is one of a few companies currently working to commercialise nanotube fabrics. Their main marketing points are reduced power consumption and increased strength in speciality products. Proposed applications include body armor, land, air and sea vehicles, consumer electronics and sporting goods

30 May 2007

Internet Jihadists have declared war on LiveJournal, ostensibly for the sake of the chiiiiiiiiildren. The bampots at Warriors for Innocence claim to be dedicated to hunting pedophiles where they fester but in reality, they hate fandom and fan fiction. At least the effect of their actions has been to shut down a number of fannish communities devoted to writing about romantic trysts between fictional characters. Most badly affected has been Harry Potter fandom, even though Harry Potter has been over the age of consent in the country in which the stories are based since book five

Google has another aquisition under its belt and this one is a little green. Not in the environment sense, but in a secure sense. GreenBorder has developed a way to isolate each internet session from the rest of a users PC. This way threats like viruses, spyware, trojans and malware can be secluded and tossed when users close down their browser window instead of potentially infecting machines. A green border displays around safe pages, and files that are downloaded from the internet can be opened in a virtual environment so as not to infect the rest of the user's machine

Kudos to Dell, who over the weekend gathered up 35 tonnes of old computers in a free recycling day — their most successful to date

The VULTURE Air Vehicle Program is an exploratory development program with the overall goal to develop and demonstrate the ability to deliver and maintain an airborne payload on station for an uninterrupted period exceeding five years using a heavier-than-air platform system. The Government is not interested in approaches that use either radioactive energy sources or employs any form of buoyant flight for this application

29 May 2007

Google is making excessive use of their GeoIP database these days to test new features in a limited area of their choice. Now they decided to only let users from the US use the street view option in Google Maps. If you live in another country, you'd actually have to wait until Google releases the feature worldwide or use a proxy from inside the states. There's another way to avoid Google's IP filter though: Add &gl=us at the end of the URL

Sydney faces more disruption from the APEC leaders meeting in September, with the Prime Minister announcing three major bilateral meetings will be held in the city either side of the summit. A public holiday has been declared on the opening day of the APEC meeting, Friday, 7 September, and large areas of central Sydney will be shut down during the three day meeting. The New South Wales Police Minister, David Campbell, says police will try to keep disruption to a minimum. He says Sydney residents will be advised of any security arrangements for the leaders' extended stay. But he says no plans beyond the APEC summit days have yet been prepared

PSoftware has been wiped from thousands of school computers because of a row over Government funding. Microsoft Office programs have been ordered to be removed from about 25,000 Apple Macintosh computers in schools. The Ministry of Education did not renew its deal for the programs, meaning that students using the Apple computers will not have access to common programs such as Excel and Word unless the school buys the software independently. It is thought to affect around 30 per cent of all schools nationwide

A haul of 28 new planets beyond our solar system has been detected by the world's most prolific planet hunters. The finds were among 37 objects seen orbiting distant stars by a US and Anglo-Australian team in the last year. The finds increase the total number of known exoplanets to 236, more than half of which were discovered by the team

28 May 2007

A new health scare erupted over soft drinks last night amid evidence they may cause serious cell damage. Research from a British university suggests a common preservative found in drinks such as Fanta and Pepsi Max has the ability to switch off vital parts of DNA. The problem — more usually associated with ageing and alcohol abuse — can eventually lead to cirrhosis of the liver and degenerative diseases such as Parkinson's — via Warren Ellis

The People's Liberation Army (PLA) continues to build cyberwarfare units and develop viruses to attack enemy computer systems as part of its information-warfare strategy, the US Department of Defense (DOD) warned in a report released on Friday. These capabilities are part of China's ongoing military modernisation efforts, which have seen the country add dozens of high-tech fighters and ballistic missiles to its arsenal. China isn't alone in building the capability to attack an enemy's computer systems. The US and other countries have developed similar abilities

27 May 2007

A startup plans to release a kind of holy software grail the third or fourth week of June. Lina said its dual-licensed Lina virtual Linux machine will run more or less normal Linux applications under Windows, Mac or Linux, with a look and feel native to each. The concept recalls Java, which has long promised write once, run anywhere compatibility. As with Java, Lina users will first install a VM specific to their platform, after which they can run binaries compiled not for their particular OS, but for the VM, which aims to hide OS-specific characteristics from the application

For years now, newspapers have quietly watched Google index their headlines and offer users a synopsis of their stories without paying them a dime. Google is supposed to make it easier for newspaper readers to find content online. But some in the industry are questioning whether it makes business sense to allow Google to use their material for free

Turning off a gene that has been associated with Alzheimer's disease made mice smarter in the lab, researchers said on Sunday in a finding that lends new insight on learning and may lead to new drugs for memory problems. They said these mice were far more adept at sensing changes in their environment than their mouse brethren

26 May 2007

Ericsson and Telstra have claimed a world first by boosting the speed of live fibre optic links between two cities from 10Gbps to 40Gbps. The trial showed that the existing 1200km optical fibre links between Sydney and Melbourne can operate at 40Gbps without major changes

After years of negotiations, the Tasmanian Government has persuaded US entertainment company Warner Brothers to help raise funds for research into tasmanian devil facial tumour disease. The Government has long argued that Warner Brothers should help fund the research, because it has made millions of dollars from the cartoon character Taz Devil

Pakistani police say they have arrested nine people for abducting people, drugging them and stealing their kidneys for transplant operations. Selling kidneys from living donors is not illegal in Pakistan, which medical experts say has a reputation as the world's kidney bazaar. But police say those arrested in the eastern city of Lahore tricked people then drugged them with tranquillisers before removing their kidneys. Hundreds of rich foreigners come to Pakistan every year and buy kidneys from live, impoverished donors, in a business thought to be worth millions of dollars

25 May 2007

The Electronic Frontier Foundation has filed a lawsuit against psychic Uri Geller after Geller filed a DMCA YouTube takedown notice over a video clip that lasted a few seconds. But there's a second lawsuit afoot. Geller also sued a skeptic over the same video, claiming copyright infringement — via Declan McCullagh

An artist has offered to donate his own head to an Oxford museum — if a collection of shrunken heads has to be returned to South America. Children's author and artist, Ted Dewan is offering to leave instructions in his will for his head to be shrunk and put on display, if the Oxford museum's current collection of 10 heads from the Upper Amazon region has to be repatriated

In an unanimous decision released today, Helsinki District Court ruled that Content Scrambling System (CSS) used in DVD movies is ineffective. The decision is the first in Europe to interpret new copyright law amendments that ban the circumvention of effective technological measures. The legislation is based on EU Copyright Directive from 2001. According to both Finnish copyright law and the underlying directive, only such protection measure is effective, which achieves the protection objective

24 May 2007

A team of American and Irish researchers have discovered that some female sharks can reproduce without having sex, the first time that scientists have found the unusual capacity in such an ancient vertebrate species. Their report that sharks can reproduce asexually through the process known as parthenogenesis is being published online today in the British journal Biology Letters. Researchers have observed parthenogenesis in certain species of birds, reptiles, amphibians and bony fishes, but the new finding suggests that vertebrates' ability to reproduce without sex evolved much earlier than scientists had thought

Rumours about Google acquiring RSS management company Feedburner from last week, started by ex-TechCrunch UK editor Sam Sethi, are accurate and are now confirmed according to a source close to the deal. Feedburner is in the closing stages of being acquired by Google for around $100 million. The deal is all cash and mostly upfront, according to our source, although the founders will be locked in for a couple of years

A new material developed by Dutch scientists has made its way into soft body armor. Dyneema SB61 is a fibre made from an extremely high grade of the common plastic polyethylene. Laundry baskets, grocery bags and milk bottles are all made from polyethylene. It is the simplest of the plastics. Polyethylene molecules are long chains that can be branched or straight. The length and straightness of the chains and the purity of the plastic determines how strong it is. High grade polyethylene has been used to make bulletproof vests for years, but this new material is stronger pound for pound than everything else on the market

Fungus growths have been found in many extreme environments, including the Chernobyl reactor walls. Some fungi have been found whose growth is enhanced by radiation

23 May 2007

The Internet Engineering Task Force has approved DomainKeys, a way to detect spoofed email, as an internet standard. We'll all need to upgrade our email systems to support it, but it sounds like a promising spam blocker 212; via Lifehacker

Gmail upgraded the maximum attachment size from 10 MB to 20 MB. Gmail was quite forgiving and you could send more than 10 MB in some cases, but now it's possible to send at least 20 MB in one message. Of course, few mail providers will accept a such a big message, so it's safe to send messages bigger than 10 MB to other Gmail accounts, to Yahoo Mail Plus or to other premium accounts

People infected with hepatitis C can be cured with existing treatments, researchers have discovered. Standard therapy with pegylated interferon and ribavirin removed all detectable virus in 99% of patients for up to seven years

22 May 2007

As solar panels become more available, affordable and easy to use, the technology has been embraced by Amish communities here in Southern Maryland, in Pennsylvania, Ohio and elsewhere. While connecting to the public power grid is generally frowned upon as an unhealthy intrusion on their simple lifestyle, the Amish have long considered energy sources such as diesel and gasoline engines — and now solar power — a legitimate way to fire up buggy lights and sewing machines and meet the rest of their modest electrical needs

A state-controlled broadcast center in Russia has just seen the result of censorship restrictions imposed by the Kremlin. In a rare show of protest a group of journalists all resigned stating that they could no longer work under the harsh restrictions imposed by the state

A Darth Vader mask has been tendered as evidence as the Darwin Magistrates Court hears charges against Lord Mayor Peter Adamson. The charges relate to the purchase of a $900 fridge and $1,800-worth of gift vouchers which he bought in June last year, then claimed reimbursement from the mayoral donations fund. The prosecution alleges the vouchers were used to buy a number of items including make-up, clothes and a Darth Vader voice changer

21 May 2007

Nine people involved in a community portal Napisy.org were held for questioning by the Polish police force. They will be probably be accused of publishing illegal translations of foreign movies, which is forbidden by Polish copyright law

The Federal Opposition says it will demand answers in Senate Estimates hearings about the cost of the latest Government advertising campaign on industrial relations. The Senate starts a fortnight of hearings today and Labor says it will use them to question the Government on its plans for areas including nuclear power and APEC as well as advertising

20 May 2007

Microsoft has agreed to buy the digital marketing firm Aquantive, in what will be its biggest ever acquisition. The software giant spent almost $6 billion acquiring the agency, in its first bid to tackle the online advertising market

Chinese archaeologists studying ancient rock carvings say they have evidence that modern Chinese script is thousands of years older than previously thought. State media say researchers identified more than 2,000 pictorial symbols dating back 8,000 years, on cliff faces in the north-west of the country. They say many of these symbols bear a strong resemblance to later forms of ancient Chinese characters

Mars has abandoned plans to use animal products in its chocolate, and has apologised to upset vegetarians. The firm had said it would change the whey used in some of its products from a vegetarian source to one with traces of the animal enzyme, rennet. The Vegetarian Society organised a campaign against the move, asking members to voice their concerns to parent company Masterfoods. Mars said it became very clear, very quickly that it had made a mistake. In just one week, more than 6,000 people bombarded the company, which produces the Mars, Snickers, Maltesers and Galaxy brands, with phone and e-mail complaints

19 May 2007

California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger has vetoed a bid by Australian mining giant BHP Billiton to build a permanent natural gas terminal off the state's coastline. In a letter to the US Maritime Administration, Mr Schwarzenegger agreed with earlier rejections of the proposal by the state Lands Commission and the California Coastal Commission. Under the proposal, BHP would have moored a massive floating terminal 22 kilometres off the coast of Malibu, west of Los Angeles, in order to unload liquefied natural gas and process it before pumping it ashore. But the plan met with furious opposition from environmentalists

At least 25 countries around the world block Web sites for political, social, or other reasons as governments seek to assert authority over a network meant to be borderless

A new species of sea anemone has been found in the carcass of a whale that sunk to the ocean floor off the coast of Monterey, California, marking the first discovery of one of these filter-feeding marine animals living in a so-called whale fall. The anemone, called Anthosactis pearseae, is small, white and roughly cube-shaped. It's about the size of a human molar and even looks like a tooth with small tentacles on one side

A record haul of half a million silver and gold coins from a 17th Century shipwreck may have been found just 40 miles from Land's End. US treasure hunters said the coins, worth an estimated £253m, were recovered in the Atlantic Ocean. But Odyssey Marine Exploration, who described it as the largest find of its kind, refused to pinpoint the location. US coin expert Dr Lane Brunner said there was evidence the shipwreck was lying off the Cornish coast

18 May 2007

Veronica Mars is no more. The smart CW dramedy starring blond pixie Kristen Bell as a tough teenage sleuth with wisecracks and style to spare has been cancelled after three seasons

Next week's release of AACS, which is intended to fix the currently compromised version, has a small problem. The patched version has already been cracked. The hacker collective continues to adapt to AACS revisions and is demonstrating a capacity to assimilate new volume keys at a rate which truly reveals the futility of resistance. If keys can be compromised before HD DVDs bearing those keys are even released into the wild, one has to question the viability of the entire key revocation model

Despite being available in research for over 40 years, the holographic storage technology is getting commercialised only now, with InPhase Technologies launching its 600 GB write-once disk and a drive this fall. The first holographic products are certainly not mass-market — a 600GB disc will cost around US$180, and the drive costs about $18,000. Potential users include banks, libraries, government agencies and corporations

Google has outlined plans to develop a universal search model that would offer up Web sites, video, news and other related results — all on the same page. Dubbed universal search, Google's vision for the future of its search service is to scour all its content sources, compare and rank all the information in real time, and deliver integrated search results that offer users precisely what they are looking for

17 May 2007

Digital rights management took another blow on Wednesday, as Amazon.com announced that it would launch a DRM-free music store later in 2007, with the EMI catalog as the first major-label offering

Estonia says the country's web sites have been under heavy attack for the past three weeks, blaming Russia for playing a part in the cyber warfare. Many of the attacks have come from Russia and are being hosted by Russian state computer servers, Tallinn says. Moscow denies any involvement

Carnivorous sponges, 585 new species of crustaceans and hundreds of new worms have been discovered in the dark waters around Antarctica, suggesting these depths may have been the source of much marine life. The team, who scooped samples from as deep as 20,000 feet, found unexpectedly rich diversity of animal life

Hair loss in humans might not be irreversible, suggest scientists who have helped create new hair cells on the skin of mice. It was thought hair follicles, once damaged, could never be replaced. A University of Pennsylvania team say hair growth can actually be encouraged using a single gene

16 May 2007

Mobile phone calls in Sydney's CBD will be blocked by a sophisticated counter-terrorism measure to prevent bomb attacks during US President George Bush's September APEC visit. The president's motorcade will be shadowed by a helicopter equipped with signal-jamming equipment

A Brazilian rancher has been found guilty of killing US-born nun and environmental activist Dorothy Stang. A court in the city of Belem sentenced Vitalmiro Bastos Moura, 36, to 30 years for paying gunmen to shoot the 73-year-old missionary dead in 2005. Sister Dorothy campaigned for poor farmers' rights and to preserve the rainforest from loggers and developers

Evolutionary theorist Charles Darwin thought the voyage of the Beagle was a magnificent scheme allowing him to spend time larking round the world. His delight at the five-year cruise is chronicled in a letter, available online for the first time. The note is one of nearly 5,000 from and to the scientist held in a database at the University of Cambridge. The Darwin Correspondence Project includes summaries of a further 9,000 letters, written from the age of 12

Meebo has launched Meebo Rooms, a rich media chat room product that users can put on their blogs and web sites. They can be private or public chat rooms, and can feature video content from sources such as youtube and NBC

15 May 2007

Around 100,000 users have been infected with malware that has piggybacked on Windows updates. A Trojan, which began circulating in March via spammed e-mail, used an unique technique to download malicious files

South Korea's LG Philips LCD has developed the world's first A4-sized colour electronic-paper &38212; a paper-thin and bendable viewing panel. The e-paper — which measures 35.9cm across its diagonal and is just 300 micrometres (0.3 millimetres) thin - can display up to 4096 colours, the world's second largest liquid crystal display maker said in a statement. It is designed to be energy-efficient, only using power when the image changes on the display

A free programming tool that allows anyone to create their own animated stories, video games and interactive artworks has been developed. Primarily aimed at children, Scratch does not require prior knowledge of complex computer languages. Instead, it uses a simple graphical interface that allows programs to be assembled like building blocks. The digital toolkit, developed in the US at MIT's Media Lab, allows people to blend images, sound and video

MySpace has launched a new tool to assist copyright holders in protecting their video content. Known as Take Down Stay Down, the tool is designed to prevent MySpace users from reposting video content that the site has removed at the request of the content owner

14 May 2007

The San Francisco controller's office issued a favourable review Friday on a proposal by EarthLink and Google to provide the city with free wireless Internet access. The report estimates residents could save $9 million to $18 million in Internet bills annually by having the option of choosing the EarthLink service, which will offer free access as well as a paid service that is cheaper than other broadband options like DSL and cable

The Church Of Scientology is currently engaged in a row with the BBC, a result of an investigation by reporter John Sweeney. Sweeney is investigating the Church Of Scientology, trying to judge changes in the organisation over the last few years; He's trying to discover if they've moved away from the questionable practices and secrecy they have employed in the past. The conflict centres around a YouTube video posted by the scientologists. It shows Sweeney losing his temper with a scientology spokesman. Sweeney's outburst came at the end of a tour of a scientology exhibition which attempts to portray psychiatrists as evil nazi type torturers entitled Psychiatry: Industry of Death which is both gruesome and utterly unconvincing. The BBC appears willing to stand behind its reporter, in spite of the pressure brought to bear by the scientologist organisation — via Slashdot

An attempt to force Google to stop censoring its search results in repressive countries has been rejected by its shareholders. The office of the comptroller of New York City, which oversees New York City pension funds, proposed the motion at the search giant's annual shareholder yesterday. It won support from Amnesty — one of many human rights groups who criticised the company in early 2006 for bowing to pressure from the Chinese government and censoring its search results in China. The motion also named Belarus, Burma, Cuba, Egypt, Iran, North Korea, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Tunisia, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, and Vietnam as countries where governments restrict access to Internet content. But Google's top management, who cast 66% of its votes, did not support the plan, and thus it was rejected

13 May 2007

A skyscraper, to be built in Dubai, is called the Burj al-Taqa (Energy Tower), and it will produce 100% of its own power. The tower will have a huge 60m diameter wind turbine on its roof, and arrays of solar cells that will total 161,459 square feet in size. Additional energy is provided by an island of solar panels, which drifts in the sea within viewing distance of the tower

A new £3.6bn project to upgrade the space communications network for British forces including the Army, Royal Navy, and RAF has gone underway. The first craft, Skynet 5A was launched from Kourou in French Guiana on 11 March 2007. There will be a constellation of three satellites in total. This system is also not an exclusive project for the armed forces, it is actually outsourced to a company called Paradigm Secure Communications. They work with NATO, France, Germany, Canada, Portugal and the Netherlands. They are also seeking new business in the US, Australia, and the Middle East

12 May 2007

Terrorists: You can run. But with that body odour, you can't hide. That's the idea behind a new program from the Technical Support Working Group, or TSWG. The research arm of the government's anti-terror fight is looking to for someone to build a rugged, reliable, and compact system for canine handlers to collect human scent for future use to track a specified target. There are similar systems around today, the group notes. But they're too large and fragile to be used in an operational environment. TSWG wants a handheld, rugged device to do the job, instead. And the group has laid an exhaustive set of criteria for any contractor looking to build the thing

Scientists have developed an artificial plastic blood which could act as a substitute in emergencies. Researchers at Sheffield University said their creation could be a huge advantage in war zones. They say that the artificial blood is light to carry, does not need to be kept cool and can be kept for longer. The new blood is made up of plastic molecules that have an iron atom at their core, like haemoglobin, that can carry oxygen through the body

The US house of representatives today passed a bill outlawing illegal domestic wiretapping by the government. Now government agencies are only allowed to access your private communications under terms of FISA. The Bill ends plans by the Bush Administration that would give the NSA the freedom to pry into the lives of ordinary Americans. The ACLU noted that, despite many recent hearings about modernisation and technology neutrality, the administration has not publicly provided Congress with a single example of how current FISA standards have either prevented the intelligence community from using new technologies, or proven unworkable for the agents tasked with following them

Cult Hammer horror films will return to the big screen after the company behind the movies was sold to a group headed by Big Brother creator John de Mol. At least $50m (£25m) will be spent on new horror films after British company Hammer Film Productions was sold to Dutch consortium Cyrte Investments. The new owners have also acquired the Hammer group's back catalogue — via Pharyngula

11 May 2007

Purdue researchers say they have made a major advance in the design of the internal combustion engine, one that could seriously boost fuel efficiency and cut emissions. A key portion involves building intake and exhaust valves that are no longer driven by mechanisms connected to the pistons, a departure from the way car engines have worked since they were commercialised more than a century ago. The concept, known as variable valve actuation, would enable significant improvements in conventional gasoline and diesel engines used in cars and trucks and for applications such as generators — via Slashdot

An online critic of Scientology was confronted at a routine hearing Tuesday with surprise arrest warrants and thrown into jail. Six years as a fugitive ended in February. (After picketing a Scientology complex in 2000 over the unexplained death of a woman there, he'd been arrested for threatening a religion over a Usenet joke about Tom Cruise Missiles.) But 64-year-old Keith Henson had been out on bail, and was even scheduled to address the European Space Agency conference on Space Elevators, just a few days before he was arrested — via Slashdot

Evil Mad Scientist Laboratories are pleased to report that their project to construct a cheap home-built three dimensional fabricator has been a success. The fabricator is fully operational and has been used it to print several large, low-resolution, objects out of pure sugar

10 May 2007

German researchers at the Frauenhofer Institute said Wednesday that they were launching an attempt to reassemble millions of shredded East German secret police files using complicated computerised algorithms. The files were shredded as the Berlin Wall fell in 1989 and it became clear that the East German regime was finished. Panicking officials of the Stasi secret police attempted to destroy the vast volumes of material they had kept on everyone from their own citizens to foreign leaders — via Slashdot

Japanese scientists say they have genetically engineered silkworms to produce a specific colour. The author of the study, Takashi Sakudoh of the University of Tokyo, says understanding the pigment transport system of silkworms could pave the way for genetic manipulation of the colour and pigment content of silk. In nature, silkworm cocoon colours vary from white, yellow, straw, salmon, pink and green. The colours in the silk are from natural pigments absorbed when the silkworms eat mulberry leaves. The scientists have found that mutated insects produced a non-functional form of the carotenoid-binding protein, known to aid pigment uptake

A man cut off his own head with a chainsaw after stabbing his 70-year-old father to death in their apartment in the German city of Cologne. The body of the offender, 24, was found headless when police raced to the apartment after an emergency call, apparently from the dying father, had been broken off in mid-sentence — via Warren Ellis

09 May 2007

Scientists are eyeing the jet stream, an energy source that rages night and day, 365 days a year, just a few miles above our heads. If they can tap into its fierce winds, the world's entire electrical needs could be met, they say. The trick is figuring out how to harness the energy and get it down to the ground cost-effectively and safely. Dozens of researchers in California and around the world believe huge kite-like wind-power generators could be the solution. As bizarre as that might seem, respected experts say the idea is sound enough to justify further investigation

It is pink and grey, 60cm long and one of the only two venomous lizards in the world. Yet the Gila Monster has proved an unlikely ally in the battle to control diabetes. Scientists have isolated a chemical in its saliva which is similar to a human hormone that helps regulate blood sugar

Hewlett-Packard said it will be beefing up select high-end PCs this week with options including a dual format HD DVD/Blu-ray optical drive by LG, digital cable tuners, Intel Core 2 Quad Processors, and Nvidia's GeForce 8800 graphics cards

08 May 2007

The BBC Trust — the organisation that oversees the BBC's operations — has driven another nail into the BBC's relevancy for the 21st century today by giving the broadcaster permission to use DRM on its online offerings. The BBC has turned its back on its promise to deliver a remixable, DRM-free archive of its video materials to the British public. Instead, it has opted for the iPlayer, a crippling technology that infects PCs and makes them incapable of saving and using some of the files on their hard-drives. At the core of this is a Microsoft technology, the WMV file-format

The last time Apple Chief Executive Steve Jobs took on major recording companies, he refused to budge on his 99-cent price for a song on iTunes. As a new round of talks ramp up this month, however, Jobs has opened the door to higher prices — as long as music companies let Apple sell their songs without DRM. Jobs contends that would tear down the walls by allowing consumers to play music they buy at Apple's iTunes store on any digital music player, not just the company's iPods

An odd-looking Canadian coin with a bright red flower was the culprit behind a US Defence Department false espionage warning earlier this year about mysterious coin-like objects with radio frequency transmitters. The harmless poppy coin was so unfamiliar to suspicious US Army contractors traveling in Canada that they filed confidential espionage accounts about them

07 May 2007

One Laptop Per Child, which aims to bring laptops to schoolchildren in impoverished nations, recently pushed its price per laptop to $175, from $100. India's HRD ministry, which rejected the offer from OLPC, says it thinks it can push that price down to $10. The manufacturing cost has already been scaled down to $47. So far no manufacturer has agreed to the $10 price

An environmental consulting firm and other developers here have come up with a non-perishable food pack that creates steaming hot rice with the simple addition of cold water

06 May 2007

If the bids are real — and the eBayMotors.com auction was stopped once for fake bidding — a modified 1969 Dodge Charger, painted to look like the General Lee from the TV Show The Dukes of Hazzard, nearly became the most expensive car ever auctioned. The auction closed at $9,900,500 at 1:00 pm Friday. That puts it just $1.1 million away from the $11 million paid for a 1931 Bugatti Type 41 Royale Sports Coupe sold by the auction house Christie's in 1987. To date, that is the highest price ever paid for a car at auction, according to Christie's

The Auckland City Council — frustrated at the lack of action by the private sector — is planning a 100km fibre network to provide faster and cheaper broadband across the city. All going to plan, the citywide network could be providing high-speed broadband to thousands of businesses and most residents by 2010, including a wireless network in the central city. The network would be available to customers within 200m of the proposed route, designed to be close to businesses, government departments, libraries, emergency services, schools and universities

Director Rob Reiner has created a fifteen minute sequel to his mockumentary classic This is Spinal Tap. While the short film was featured at the Tribeca Film Festival in April, it won't be released in theatres any time soon. It is available, however, online

05 May 2007

Yahoo has finally made a decision regarding Yahoo! Photos vs Flickr battle, and will be shutting down Yahoo! Photos by the end of the year. Even though Yahoo! Photos currently maintains a higher share of Internet visits, Flickr growth convinced the company to maintain a single photo site from now on

Scientists say they have a vaccine that stops mice getting a brain disease similar to BSE in cattle and which may ultimately protect humans against vCJD. A vaccine that decreases the spread of prion disease in animals would reduce the risk of spread in humans, says the New York University team. It could also be considered for humans, they told a neurology meeting

A crowd of Guyanese villagers lynched an elderly woman they accused of being an evil spirit who drinks the blood of human babies. Authorities in the South American country said the woman raised suspicions with unusual behavior and was set upon by villagers who apparently believed she was an Old Higue — the equivalent of a vampire in the local Obeah religion that blends folk magic and African rituals

04 May 2007

Research scientists at the University of Tokyo have come up with a unique sheet-like material that can transmit electrical energy over a large area to nearby devices without the need for direct contact, so it can be made into a tablecloth or wallpaper and your appliance can be anywhere on a surface to get charged. The system uses organic molecules as transistors, microelectromechanical switches, and miniature copper coils to transmit energy using electromagnetic induction — via Slashdot

Australian defence scientists are developing a dark chocolate for soldiers that does not melt in extreme desert heat and lasts for years. While normal chocolate melts at around 25 to 30 degrees Celsius, the Defence Science and Technology Organisation (DSTO) says the new chocolate will be expected to keep its shape despite extended periods at over 49°C. The researchers are also developing ways to keep the vitamins in the chocolate fresh until it is eaten, possibly years later

One of the world's oldest libraries, at the Vatican, is to close for three years for rebuilding, in an unexpected blow to scholars around the world. The decision to shut the library was made without warning. After the library closes for its summer break in mid-July, it will not reopen until September 2010, the Vatican says. The reason is that some buildings constructed only a quarter of a century ago are now considered unsuitable for the safe storage of ancient books

03 May 2007

The paramilitary Ulster Volunteer Force has declared that it is renouncing violence and will cease to exist as a terrorist organisation from midnight. It also said it will keep its weapons, but has put them beyond reach. However, the arms decommissioning body has said this did not meet the requirements set out in government legislation

Australia's first large-scale working demonstration of a solar energy system has been given the go-ahead. The Federal Government has agreed to fund half of the $14 million project, based on research from the Australian National University. Keith Lovegrove form the ANU says four solar dishes will be constructed in the South Australian outback, and will generate large-scale electricity

There has been a mixed reaction to the Federal Government's new Do Not Call Register which started today. Telemarketers face big penalties if they call people who have added their name to the list. For people who may be sick of fending off unwanted calls during dinner, being able to register for the Do Not Call list may now provide relief. But president of the New South Wales Council for Civil Liberties, Cameron Murphy, says the new list does not go far enough

Google and the French-language newspapers of Belgium said Thursday that they had begun discussions aimed at defusing a legal battle over what content Google could index. The newspapers complained that the search engine's cached links, which show material that may have been taken off the Web by the site owner, offered free access to archived material that the papers normally sell

02 May 2007

Attempts to gag the blogosphere from publishing details of a DVD crack have led to a user revolt. The row centred on a cease and desist letter sent by the body that oversees the digital rights management technology on high-definition DVDs. It requested that blogs and websites removed details of a software key that breaks the encryption on HD-DVDs. The removal of the information from community news website Digg was a step too far for its fans. As quickly as stories relating to the issue were removed, they were re-submitted in their thousands, in an act described by one user as a 21st Century revolt. The site collapsed under the weight of the attack at one point

A noise-negating method that thwarts vibration with vibration could be available for use in apartments, hotels and offices in five years. Wires running through the window link the stamp-sized patches to a computer controller and an amplifier. When a sound-generated vibration rattles the window, the piezoelectric patch senses it. That data goes to the controller, which in turn delivers a specific electric charge back up to the patch, causing it to vibrate at a phase that ideally cancels out the sound vibrations

Skyfacet, a site selling diamonds rings and other jewelery, dropped in Google's rankings and saw a $500,000 drop in revenue in only three months after the site owner paid an SEO to improve the site. Google Hell is the worst fear of the untold numbers of companies that depend on search results to keep their business visible online. Getting stuck there means most users will never see the site, or at least many of the site's pages, when they enter certain keywords. And getting out can be next to impossible — because site operators often don't know what they did to get placed there

Google is having to search the United States for IT workers to staff the search engine's growing operations in Australia. The Silicon Valley-based company will host an Australian-themed open day next Tuesday at its global headquarters in Mountain View, California. The session, branded G'day Google, will urge both American engineers and some of the 100,000 Australian expats in California to help address the chronic shortage of IT workers in Australia

01 May 2007

Canonical and Dell have announced a partnership to offer Ubuntu 7.04 on select desktop and notebook products

Michel Xhaard, A French physician and ardent Linux supporter, is the one man you can all thank for adding support for 352 webcams in Linux. The Open Source OS world may still be a bit of a mess when competing with the ease of Windows, but efforts like this make you wonder. One man with drive, tenacity, and no funding does what no one else can do. And none of the major Linux distributions back this guy's efforts, even the big players dipping into the corporate world's coffers — via Slashdot

A team at London's Moorfields Eye Hospital has made the world's first attempt to treat a sight disorder using gene therapy. They operated on Robert Johnson, a UK man born with a sight disorder which deteriorates with age. At present Mr Johnson, who had genes inserted into one eye, can see outlines during the day, but little at night. It will be several months before the researchers know whether their work has been a success. If it is, they believe that it could be used to treat a wide range of inherited sight disorders

While there is no immediate safety risk, Apple has released a software update to fix battery-performance issues in some of its MacBook and MacBook Pro notebooks

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