Twitter has suspended the accounts of at least two torrent sites and removed all of their followers. No reason for the suspension has been given other than that the sites in question abused
Twitter’s service. Both sites were updating their accounts with newly published torrents daily
Mammoths had more than woolly coats to protect them from the frigid conditions of their sub-zero stomping grounds, scientists have discovered. The extinct beasts had a form of antifreeze blood that kept their bodies supplied with oxygen in the sub-zero temperatures, according to a study of DNA extracted from 43,000-year-old mammoth remains
Red Hat and Novell won a verdict in a case brought by a Texas company that claimed their Linux-based products infringed patents for ways to share icons across computer workstations. IP Innovation, a unit of Acacia Research, accused Red Hat and Novell of infringing three patents that cover a computer-based graphical user interface that spans multiple workplaces, and lets users access icons remotely, according to court documents. A jury in Marshall, Texas, yesterday sided with Red Hat and Novell’s defence that the patents were invalid
Movie director James Cameron, of Avatar and Titanic fame, is helping to build a 3-D camera for the next robotic rover that NASA will send to Mars. NASA announced this month that Cameron is working with Malin Space Science Systems Inc. of San Diego to build an updated camera that, if completed in time, will be installed on the Mars Science Laboratory rover, which has been dubbed Curiosity. The rover’s cameras will be the machine’s science-imaging workhorse
, according to the space agency. Curiosity is scheduled to be launched in 2011
SF writer Peter Watts, a Canadian citizen, was sentenced three days ago in a Port Huron, MI court. There’s not a lot of detail in the story, and although he is still being treated like a terrorist (cannot enter or pass through the US, DNA samples) he was not ordered to do any time in jail, was freed, and has returned home to his family. The judge in the case was, I believe, as sympathetic as the legal system would allow him to be — via Slashdot
Japanese scientists from Tokyo University have invented a new substance that consists of 95% water. Obtained by adding two grams of clay and a small quantity of some organic matter into normal water, this new substance is jelly-like and is considered proper for usage in medicine for the long-term to stick tissues together. The study period is scheduled to end in September 2010, if the scientists can succeed in increase the density of the substance, it can be used to produce ecologically clean plastic materials
The next release from Ubuntu, the (relatively) popular Linux desktop operating system, is due out April 29, and it’s looking very nice. Want to give it a go? Here’s how you can load in the stuff you need–MP3s, DVD playing, and quick settings access–in a matter of minutes — via ITworld
London’s secret stories are everywhere around the capital – London’s greatest places, secret locations, weird tours, we pinpoint those of interest to you. Create your own additions, tours, and share them — via The Shady Old Lady’s Guide to London
Amazon today announced the launch of its cloud services out of data centres in Singapore following strong demand to open a hub in the region. Amazon Web Services (AWS), which provides a platform where customers can pay for computing power and storage on pay per use, has been operating out of the US since 2006. This has meant heavy traffic charges for those companies based in Australia making use of its services. The company has now decided to follow requests to house its offerings closer to home
Symantec has announced it will buy encryption vendors PGP and GuardianEdge Technologies to boost its line-up. The security company plans to integrate encryption products from PGP and GuardianEdge into its data loss prevention suite and endpoint protection products
The United States continues its reign as the king of spam, relaying more than 13% of global spam, accounting for hundreds of millions of junk messages every day, according to a report by Sophos. However, most dramatically, China — often blamed for cybercrime by other countries — has disappeared from the dirty dozen
, coming in at 15th place with responsibility for relaying just 1.9% of the world’s spam
A moth new to science and found nowhere else in the world has been formally recognised as living in the UK. The 3mm-long micro moth, which lives in Hembury Woods in Devon, was recognised as a new species this year. This week, the biologist who discovered it is presenting the Natural History Museum of London with one of the first known specimens. The receipt of this type
specimen will mark the official acceptance of the moth’s existence in the country. The tiny micro moth, which has a wingspan of just 6mm, was first spotted in 2004
So here goes my justification for why WordPress makes a lot of sense for many simple web sites, including the non-blog ones. The shorter version is that WordPress provides good infrastructure of web publishing and gives you tools to build an interactive web site. And I think this is common knowledge in the WordPress community — via iface thoughts
Spammers will try to hide a spammed web site’s location by obfuscating the site’s URL. This will look like a giant URL with lots of numbers and other garbage in it. Spammers will pay $300 for a program to encrypt these URLs, but you can decode them right here for free — via netdemon
It is no secret that pro-copyright lobbyists are exploiting child pornography to get file-sharing sites pulled offline. They have done so for years. Their ultimate goal is to use child porn as an excuse to impose a global Internet filter, and with a new directive being presented in the EU their strategy seems to be paying off. In 2007, a year after the Swedish police raided The Pirate Bay’s servers in Stockholm, there was a seminar in the same city titled Sweden — A Safe Haven for Pirates?
There, in a room filled with like-minded souls, Johan Schlüter of the Danish Anti-Piracy Group took the stage with the ultimate plan to curb piracy. Child pornography is great,
he said enthusiastically. It is great because politicians understand child pornography. By playing that card, we can get them to act, and start blocking sites. And once they have done that, we can get them to start blocking file sharing sites
Kevin Rudd has put another election promise on the backburner with his controversial internet filtering legislation set to be shelved until after the next election. A spokeswoman for Communications Minister Stephen Conroy said yesterday the legislation would not be introduced next month’s or the June sittings of parliament. With parliament not sitting again until the last week of August, the laws are unlikely to be passed before the election
Hewlett-Packard will purchase Palm for $1.2 billion. That works out to US$5.70 per share for the company that invented the PDA and was instrumental in kicking off the smartphone craze. That’s a 23 per cent premium over the Wednesday closing price on Palm’s stock of US$4.63. The deal has been approved by both companies’ boards of directors and is expected to close by the end of July
Australia’s biggest tobacco companies say the Government’s decision to introduce plain packaging for cigarettes will only provide a boost for the black market trade. But anti-smoking groups and health advocates have backed the move, calling it a groundbreaking policy
Apple wants the fastest chip for its mobile devices and has bought another chip maker to gain an edge over its competitors. Apple has acquired a small Austin, Texas, company called Intrinsity, known for making zippy versions of a computer chip often found in mobile devices. The deal, which closed late last month and was confirmed by Apple on Tuesday, shows the company continuing to try to gain an edge in the mobile device market by purchasing technology and chip experts
Purveyors of fake anti-virus or scareware
programs have aggressively stepped up their game to evade detection by legitimate anti-virus programs, according to new data from Google. In a report being released today, Google said that between January 2009 and the end of January 2010, its malware detection infrastructure found some 11,000 malicious or hacked Web pages that attempted to foist fake anti-virus on visitors. The search giant discovered that as 2009 wore on, scareware peddlers dramatically increased both the number of unique strains of malware designed to install fake anti-virus as well as the frequency with which they deployed hacked or malicious sites set up to force the software on visitors
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