Samsung Electronics, the South Korean consumer electronics giant, has made an unsolicited $5.85 billion cash offer for SanDisk, a Silicon Valley maker of flash memory cards that are critical components of popular devices like MP3 music players and digital cameras
Angus & Robertson today became the first Australian book chain to install the Espresso Book Machine, capable of printing, trimming and binding a paperback book on demand within minutes. Shoppers will initially be able to choose from several hundred out-of-print or difficult to get hold of books, but Angus & Robertson said the range would expand daily, reaching 10,000 within 18 months. They would cost the same as the current shelf price of paperbacks or less, the retailer said
Internet surfers will be able to walk through their favourite web sites as if they are characters in a computer game with the launch of one of the first 3D browsers in Australia today. Melbourne-based software developer ExitReality has created software that can be quickly downloaded to computers and that converts standard two-dimensional web pages into virtual rooms. Individual web users are then shown as avatars (virtual people) in the same way as people are featured in virtual games
aaNet and TPG have both tweaked their ADSL plans, offering more quota at most price points
T-Mobile USA plans to begin selling the first smart phone powered by Google’s new mobile software late next month, according to people familiar with the matter, facing off against Apple’s iPhone and Research In Motion’s BlackBerry with a device that blends aspects of both. While some wireless companies working with Google’s Android mobile software have hit delays, the T-Mobile phone is coming out on schedule. Backers are optimistic Android-based handsets can take sales from rivals
In one more shock to a stunned Wall Street, Hewlett-Packard said it will cut more than 24,000 jobs over the next three years. The restructuring is expected to save about $1.8 billion a year
Can a city stop people from posting a link to its Web site? That’s the question at the centre of a federal lawsuit brought by a Sheboygan woman against the mayor and other officials there, in what appears to be a first-of-its-kind case, according to an Internet law expert
The website of popular magazine BusinessWeek has been attacked via SQL injection in an attempt to infect its readership with malware. Hundreds of pages in a section of BusinessWeek’s website which offers information about where MBA students might find future employers have been affected — via Slashdot
The initiation of the World Wide Web Foundation has been launched with $5M of seed funding from the Knight Foundation. From the announcement: Sir Tim Berners-Lee, inventor of the World Wide Web, unveils the World Wide Web Foundation. It aims to advance One Web that is free and open, to expand its capability and robustness, and to extend its benefits to all people on the planet
— via Slashdot
Amazon’s subsidiary the Internet Movie Database will allow users to watch feature films and TV shows for no charge on its web site, www.imdb.com. Over 6,000 titles will be available, including recent episodes of popular television shows like 24 and Heroes and classic films like Some Like It Hot
The use of nonclassified information, whether news accounts or other publicly retrievable information, is gaining credibility within the intelligence community. And officials say there can be good reasons for putting some of that open-source information under the secrecy umbrella. The information might be unclassified but our interest in it is not,
General Michael Hayden, head of the CIA, told the conference
Several industrialised countries, such as Great Britain, Spain, Australia and Italy, offer broadband speeds that on average are just below what is necessary to make good use of broadband applications, according to a study. These applications include watching videos on YouTube, video chatting and small file sharing. Sweden and The Netherlands have the best performing broadband internet connections in Europe, helped by investments in high-speed fiber-optic links and upgrades to cable TV networks, the study found
Scientists may soon shed light on a way to conquer superbugs
with nanotechnology and a simple flip of a switch. A new type of paint for walls and ceilings may, when exposed to fluorescent light, be able to kill superbugs
, antibiotic-resistant bacteria, according to preliminary studies led by Lucia Caballero from Manchester Metropolitan University in England. Many paints are infused with titanium dioxide for its brightening power. But when these particles are small, on the nanoscale of a billionth of a metre, they have more surface area exposed to light. As a result, they create a more reactive environment
If you’re a web developer looking forward to the new tools in HTML 5, the next generation of the language that powers the web, we have some bad news for you — you’re going to waiting a while. Ian Hickson, the editor of the HTML 5 specification, recently outlined the time table for HTML 5 and, even assuming browser manufacturers embrace HTML 5 when it reaches the final draft stage, that puts HTML 5’s widespread adoption at 2012. Worse, the final proposed recommendation won’t be released until 2022
Scientists have made the world’s first synthetic tree: a palm-sized duplication of the elegant process by which trees drink. Known as transpiration
, the hydration process appears to require no biological energy. Scientists theorise that as evaporation occurs on the surface of a tree’s leaves, the resulting drop in water pressure propels water from the earth and through their bodies. The same principle pulls oil through the wick of a candle
The IEEE working group that is putting the finishing touches on the 802.11n 100Mbps wireless LAN standard is about to launch a new project, for a 1Gbps WLAN standard. That would mean gigabit Wi-Fi
Greek hackers were able to gain momentary access to a CERN computer system of the Large Hadron Collider while the first particles were zipping around the particle accelerator on 10 September. Scientists working at CERN were worried about what the hackers could do because they were one step away
from the computer control system of one of the huge detectors of the machine, a vast magnet that weighs 12,500 tons, measuring around 21m in length and 15m wide/high. If they had hacked into a second computer network, they could have turned off parts of the vast detector and, said the insider, it is hard enough to make these things work if no one is messing with it
— via Slashdot
Keeping in step with rival Web browsers from Microsoft and Google, Mozilla has announced a privacy mode
for Firefox 3.1. The update is scheduled to be released in beta form in October
SanDisk has announced a new, 32-gigabyte CompactFlash card that it said can record more than 80 minutes of high-definition video. Called the Extreme III CompactFlash card, it targets photographers
A recently released study has claims that the current Intellectual Property
situation in the world is not working well. Driven by a fear of losing out, and bolstered by an attitude that profit is the aim of IP, progress is hampered. Not only by the entertainment industry, also in biotechnology where medicines are sometimes restricted or withheld, causing deaths
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