Silk has made its way from the soft curves of the body to the spongy folds of the brain. Engineers have now designed silk-based electronics that stick to the surface of the brain, similar to the way a silk dress clings to the hips. The stretchable, ultrathin design would make for better brain-computer interfaces (BCIs), which record brain activity in paralyzed patients and translate thoughts into movements of computer cursors or robotic arms. Because it’s so thin and flexible, a silk-based device could reach regions of the brain that were previously inaccessible
Google is investigating a growing number of reports that hackers are breaking into legitimate Gmail accounts and then using them to send spam messages. The problem started about a week ago but seems to have escalated over the past few days
A seller on eBay who drove up prices for goods by secretly bidding for them faces fines of up to £50,000. Paul Barrett used a second account on the internet auction site to also post positive feedback. The company said the case, the first prosecution of its kind in the UK, was a clear warning against the practice of shill bidding to bump up prices
Like microscopic inchworms, cancer cells slink away from tumours to travel and settle elsewhere in the body. Now, researchers at Weill Cornell Medical College report in today’s online edition of the journal Nature that new anti-cancer agents break down the looping gait these cells use to migrate, stopping them in their tracks
A New Aussie-developed browser plug-in promises to protect webmail content from computer hackers and block keyword-related advertising. It works by encrypting email messages at the user’s computer via a browser toolbar. Recipients need to download a free version of the software — called Armacrypt — to decrypt messages. Emails remain encrypted while in transit and in storage on mail servers. It also prevents Google Adwords from filtering email text and serving related keyword advertisements on the webmail page. Instead, Adwords serves generic ads and encryption links
Google’s services are blocked or censored to some degree in one-fourth of the countries where it operates. China is the most polarising example, but it is not the only one. Google products — from search and Blogger to YouTube and Google Docs — have been blocked in 25 of the 100 countries where we offer our services,
wrote Rachel Whetstone, Google’s vice president of global communications and public affairs, on the company’s European public policy blog. In addition, we regularly receive government requests to restrict or remove content from our properties,
she wrote, adding that Google has argued to narrow the scope of such requests when it believes the request is overly broad
The far-reaching demands of an anti-piracy group working on behalf of the movie industry have been rejected by a judge. Federazione Anti-Pirateria Audiovisiva wanted ISP Telecom Italia to take unprecedented action against file-sharing subscribers, but the court decided that the ISP couldn’t be held responsible for the actions of its customers
eBay subsidiary PayPal has vowed to improve customer service in Australia by doubling the number of personnel to manage customer queries and complaints. By next month, PayPal would have made 40 new hires, taking the total tally to 127 customer service agents. PayPal has been progressively boosting customer service levels over the past few months, according to managing director Frerk-Malte Feller. Customer service is very important to us. Apart from adding more people we will also be enhancing our interactive voice response systems,
he said
Today the costs of running a blacklist were made clear, showing that the filter could be a very expensive operation. When a URL is submitted to the Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA) it will cost between $173 and $685 per item to investigate, regardless of whether it is refused classification
or not. The dollar value was revealed in answer to Greens communications spokesperson Scott Ludlam who had asked ACMA how much it cost to action URLs submitted for the Classification Board to classify
Negotiators on Wednesday will publish the first officially released draft of the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement, a new treaty designed to harmonise copyright enforcement around the world
Gargantuan whales and hefty cephalopods are typically thought of as the classic marine mammoths, but they might have to make way for the mighty microbes, which constitute 50 to 90 percent of the oceans’ total biomass, according to newly released data. These tiny creatures can join together to create some of the largest masses of life on the planet, and researchers working on the decade-long Census of Marine Life project found one such seafloor mat off the Pacific coast of South America that is roughly the size of Greece
The Irish government has had extensive private discussions on introducing internet blocking — barring access to websites or domains — according to material obtained under a Freedom of Information (FOI) request. The approach is used by some internet service providers (ISPs) and mobile network operators to block access to child pornography. But increasingly, governments and law enforcement agencies are pushing for much broader use, ranging from blocking filesharing sites to trying to tackle cybercrime and terrorism
The US government is actively trying to figure out how best to handle intellectual property rights, so it has asked the concerned parties to submit all sorts of information in order to better understand what’s going on. The person in charge of this is the Intellectual Property Enforcement Coordinator, and what the RIAA and MPAA have submitted borders on the insane. Well, it would border on the insane if it weren’t totally their modus operandi. The most glaring suggestion
? That computer users install software that would scan the contents of their hard drives, looking for examples of infringement
. If the software discovers what it thinks it infringement, bam! Deleted! I’d be surprised if this were the year 2001, but after so many years of insane RIAA/MPAA stories it’s hard to be shocked any more
Google is unveiling early-stage designs, software code, and documentation of a project whose goal is to let users of the company’s Chrome OS print documents to any printer from any application. Called Google Cloud Print, the technology would dispense with the need to install printer drivers by routing print jobs from Web, desktop, and mobile applications via a Chrome OS Web-hosted broker
Some of the latest security updates for Windows XP will not be installed on machines infected with a rootkit virus. A rootkit is sneaky malware that buries itself deep inside the Windows operating system to avoid detection. Microsoft said it had taken the action because similar updates issued in February made machines infected with the Alureon rootkit crash endlessly. The latest updates can spot if a system is compromised by the Alureon rootkit and halt installation
A former high-ranking National Security Agency employee was indicted on 10 felony charges Thursday for his alleged role in leaking classified information to a news reporter. The federal indictment does not identify the reporter, but several news organizations, citing government sources, named a former national security correspondent for The Baltimore Sun as the recipient of the leaks. Thomas Andrews Drake, a 52-year-old Howard County man who worked as a process improvement
official at NSA from 2001 until he resigned in 2008, is accused of copying and storing classified documents at his home and then destroying the documents and lying to investigators when authorities found out
Flights across much of Europe will be severely disrupted well into Saturday because of drifting ash ejected from a volcano in Iceland, officials say. Much of the airspace across northern and western Europe is closed, with fewer than half the usual number of flights expected to operate on Friday. Hundreds of thousands of passengers have been affected by the restrictions amid the worst travel chaos since 11 September. Scientists say the volcano is still erupting but producing less ash
A new type of malware infects PCs using file-share sites and publishes the user’s net history on a public web site before demanding a fee for its removal. The Japanese trojan virus installs itself on computers using a popular file-share service called Winny, used by up to 200m people. It targets those downloading illegal copies of games in the Hentai genre, an explicit form of anime. Website Yomiuri claims that 5500 people have so far admitted to being infected. The virus, known as Kenzero, is being monitored by web security firm Trend Micro in Japan. Masquerading as a game installation screen, it requests the PC owner’s personal details. It then takes screengrabs of the user’s web history and publishes it online in their name, before sending an e-mail or pop-up screen demanding a credit card payment of ¥1500 (£10) to settle your violation of copyright law
and remove the web page
Data centre executives from Google and other large companies are pushing back against new efficiency requirements proposed by a prominent standards group, saying they are too prescriptive
and don’t leave them room to innovate
All flights to and from Scotland’s airports have been grounded as a plume of volcanic ash drifts across much of northern Europe. Dust from the eruption in Iceland presents a serious risk to aircraft. All Scottish airports have been closed although search and rescue helicopters are still able to fly. Most flights in UK airspace have been suspended until 1900 BST on Friday and passengers were advised to check with their airlines before setting out
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