In the next 12 months, starting with a major push this month, Wal-Mart wants to sell every one of its regular customers — 100 million in all — one swirl bulb. In the process, Wal-Mart wants to change energy consumption in the United States, and energy consciousness, too. It also aims to change its own reputation, to use swirls to make clear how seriously Wal-Mart takes its new positioning as an environmental activist — via meta-roj blog
Police have launched a frantic search for three bottles of potentially deadly poison lost after a Shimonoseki Mitsui Chemicals official who had been carrying them went out for a night on the town and got so drunk he can’t remember what he did with them — via Improbable Research
A life-size replica of a Guantanamo Bay detainee has been placed in Disneyland by guerrilla artist
Banksy. The hooded figure was placed inside the Big Thunder Mountain Railroad ride at the California theme park last weekend. It is understood to have remained in place for 90 minutes before the ride was closed down and the figure removed
Jimmy Wales has defied the Chinese government by refusing to bow to censorship of politically sensitive Wikipedia entries. He challenges other internet companies, including Google, to justify their claim that they could do more good than harm by co-operating with Beijing. Wikipedia has been banned from China since last October. Whereas Google, Microsoft, and Yahoo went into the country accepting some restrictions on their online content, Wales believes it must be all or nothing for Wikipedia. We occupy a position in the culture that I wish Google would take up, which is that we stand for the freedom for information
— via Slashdot
Scientists have discovered a tumour suppressing gene which also leads to ageing in stem cells. The gene also known as p16INK4a when removed from knockout
mice resulted in older mice having organs as healthy as younger ones. However they didn’t live any longer than normal mice. The new study was confirmed by three independent researchers from Harvard, UNC Chapel Hill and University of Michigan
Servers participating in the TOR anonymising network have been seized by public prosecutors during a child porn crackdown in Germany. TOR provides anonymity for clients and servers by redirecting traffic through a network of volunteer-operated relays; the German prosecutors may have been trying to locate an anonymous server by examining the logs of the captured relays — via Slashdot
Samsung has developed a new super chip with enough capacity to store 36,000 high-resolution photographs or 40 movie files
A British scientist’s recent announcement that he had found a way to develop a drug that mimics the happy effects of alcohol — sociability and relaxation — without producing next-day headaches or ravaging the body sparked an immediate controversy — via digg
Australian researchers developing a Bionic Eye say early tests have succeeded in stimulating limited visual sensation in people suffering a rare form of genetic blindness
It turns out that to use UnBox, the user has to download software from Amazon that contains a Windows service (ADVWindowsClientService.exe). Tom Merritt over at C|Net reports that the service tries to connect to the internet quite frequently. Even tweaking msconfig could not prevent it. So, in summary, to be allowed the privilege of purchasing a video that I can’t burn to DVD and can’t watch on my iPod, I have to allow a program to hijack my start-up and force me to login to uninstall it? No way. Sorry, Amazon. I love a lot of what you do, but I will absolutely not recommend this service. Try again
— via Slashdot
An incredibly diverse coalition of high-powered public interest groups, industry associations, and corporations have signed an open letter to the US Patent and Trademark Office rejecting the Broadcast Treaty, a US-led UN initiative that could do untold harm to artists, tech and telecoms companies, scholars, and people with disabilities
Geoplasma is planning to build a power plant in St Lucie County, Florida that will generate electricity by vaporising landfill trash and sewage treatment plant sludge with plasma arcs. It will be the first plant of its kind in the USA and the largest in the world. The power plant is expected to destroy 3000 tons of garbage, generating about 120 megawatts of electricity per day. The plant will also supply steam to a nearby Tropicana juice plant. The landfill is expected to be depleted in about 18 years. In addition, up to 600 tons of melted, hardened sludge will be produced each day and will be sold for road construction
Samsung’s US Web site is hosting a Trojan horse that logs keystrokes, disables antivirus applications and steals online banking access codes, according to Internet security firm Websense
New Zealand’s lead state sector agency yesterday responded to criticism of its new digital rights management guidelines, saying the policy does not alter its support for open source software in government agencies
A humiliated Tony Blair was forced to announce yesterday that he will stand down as Prime Minister within a year as he launched a desperate attempt to cling to power
France issued an implicit criticism of US foreign policy on Thursday, rejecting talk of a war on terror
Xerox has lifted the veil from some of its research and development work in the field of printing. They demoed the very intriguing transient documents. These offer the prospect of reusable paper in the sense that the content is automatically erased after a period of time, ready for fresh printing. Inspired by the fact that many print outs have a life-span of a few hours (think of the emails you may print out just to read, or the content you proof read on the train journey back home), the specially prepared paper will preserve its content for up to 16 hours
Australian motor sport legend Peter Brock has died after his car hit a tree during a rally in Western Australia
The NSW Police Force has invested in a biometric tracking system that is capable of combining information from numerous video cameras to monitor people, vehicles and even packages or briefcases
Amazon.com has launched it’s Amazon Unbox video store. Looks like about 1300 movies and 350 tv series, at US$9.99 and up for movies and US$1.99 per TV episode. Downloads come with a DVD quality version and a version more appropriate for portable players (using Windows DRM). Also, videos can be re-downloaded from your Amazon media library — via Slashdot
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