A novel — and natural — way of creating new bones for humans could be just a few years away. Scientists in Italy have developed a way of turning rattan wood into bone that is almost identical to the human tissue. At the Istec laboratory of bioceramics in Faenza near Bologna, a herd of sheep have already been implanted with the bones
A $US2.2 billion ($US2.39bn) lawsuit that targets the Chinese government and several international computer makers is the latest twist in the saga of China’s controversial Green Dam software, which last year was introduced to filter internet content on individual computers. The lawsuit, filed Tuesday by Cybersitter, a California maker of parental-control software, alleges that Green Dam uses copied code from its filtering software. The complaint also alleges that China-based sources attempted to gain access to the private servers that held its proprietary material
As the e-reader market heats up, Amazon is trying to stay ahead of the competition with the international launch of its bigger Kindle DX. Amazon will release the new model, with a 25-cm screen, on 19 January in more than 100 countries. It was launched in the US in May last year. The move follows the introduction of the latest 6-in Kindle in October last year — it ships to 130 countries
As Google launches its Nexus One phone, one call that the company hasn’t made is to the family members of science-fiction author Philip K Dick, who complain the device’s name infringes on one of Mr Dick’s most famous novels. We feel this is a clear infringement of our intellectual-property rights,
said Isa Dick Hackett, a daughter of Mr Dick and the chief executive of Electric Shepherd Productions, an arm of the Dick estate devoted to adapting the late author’s works
Search giant Google has left Australia off the list of countries whose residents will be able to order its self-branded mobile handset based on its Android platform. Announcing the product overnight, Google said it would ship Nexus One devices to buyers in the Singapore, Hong Kong, Britain and the US
Three years after rumours of a Google phone first surfaced, the search giant has taken the wraps off its own branded and designed mobile phone, the Nexus One. Initially available on T-Mobile’s network or unlocked, Google said the phone will also become available from Verizon as well as Vodafone in Europe. Customers can buy the phone now on a new Google Web page, Google.com/phone. It’s US$530 unlocked. The phone costs $179 with a T-Mobile contract. The Vodafone and Verizon options are expected to be available sometime in the first quarter. Buyers must use Google Checkout to buy the phone and must have a Google log-in
A US student who was fined $675,000 for illegally downloading music has asked a judge to reduce the damages or offer him a retrial. Joel Tenenbaum said that the costs awarded were grossly excessive
. The court case focused on 30 tracks that Mr Tenenbaum admitted downloading. He was fined $22,500 per song
A web site that was taken offline by the domain name regulator .au Domain Administration, is now back online and continuing its protest against the Government’s internet filtering policy. The site stephenconroy.com.au, which takes aim at the Communications Minister Stephen Conroy for his policy on what it deems as internet censorship, was taken down by auDA at the end of last month less than two days after it went live
During the first decade of the 21st century we went through over 1.3 billion IPv4 addresses. eighty-one percent of the usable IPv4 addresses are now gone, leaving us with just a couple years’ supply left
Obama administration officials say this new executive order doesn’t allow INTERPOL to do any more than they were allowed to do once Reagan recognised them as a public international organisation. Though clearly the Executive Order does prohibit US law enforcement from searching and seizing INTERPOL records, officials say, those provisions can be waived by the president if need be
The United States has lifted a 22-year ban preventing anyone with HIV or AIDS from entering the country. President Barack Obama says the measure was not compatible with American ambitions of becoming a world leader in the fight against the disease
Aker University Hospital is a dingy place to heal. The floors are streaked and scratched. A light layer of dust coats the blood pressure monitors. A faint stench of urine and bleach wafts from a pile of soiled bedsheets dropped in a corner. Look closer, however, at a microscopic level, and this place is pristine. There is no sign of a dangerous and contagious staph infection that killed tens of thousands of patients in the most sophisticated hospitals of Europe, North America and Asia this year, soaring virtually unchecked. The reason: Norwegians stopped taking so many drugs
Belarus’ authoritarian leader is promising to toughen regulation of the internet and its users in an apparent effort to exert control over the last fully free medium in the former Soviet state. “We will identify any person who disseminates lies and dirt, and will make them answer strictly to the law,” said President Alexander Lukashenko
The rules of political speech on the Internet are usually pretty simple. In America, almost anything goes. In places like China, the censors call the shots. But in India — a boisterous democracy that’s riven by religious and ethnic tension — the game is far trickier, as Google is discovering. In September, lawyers at Google’s New Delhi office got a tip from an internet user about alarming content on the company’s social networking site, Orkut. People had posted offensive comments about the chief minister of India’s southern state of Andhra Pradesh, who had died just a few days earlier in a helicopter crash. Google’s response: It removed not just the material but also the entire user group that contained it, a person familiar with the matter says. The Internet giant feared the comments could heighten tensions at a time when thousands of mourners of the popular politician were emptying into the street
New cyber-monitoring measures have been quietly introduced giving police and Security Intelligence Service officers the power to monitor all aspects of someone’s online life. The measures are the largest expansion of police and SIS surveillance capabilities for decades, and mean that all mobile calls and texts, email, internet surfing and online shopping, chatting and social networking can be monitored anywhere in New Zealand. In preparation, technicians have been installing specialist spying devices and software inside all telephone exchanges, internet companies and even fibre-optic data networks between cities and towns, providing police and spy agencies with the capability to monitor almost all communications. Police and SIS must still obtain an interception warrant naming a person or place they want to monitor but, compared to the phone taps of the past, a single warrant now covers phone, email and all internet activity. It can even monitor a person’s location by detecting their mobile phone; all of this occurring almost instantaneously
The National Airlines Council of Canada, which represents the four largest Canadian carriers, is demanding that the Canadian government act quickly to find a solution to a dilemma created by the US air security plan. The airlines say unless the problem is fixed they will be be breaking the law one way or another if they continue to operate. The US secure flight program would collect the names, genders and birth dates of the estimated five million Canadians who fly through US airspace every year. This directly contravenes Canadian privacy laws
In the wake of public outcry against the Transportation Security Administration for serving civil subpoenas on two bloggers, the government agency has canceled the legal action and apologised for the strong-arm tactics agents used
Swedish hunters have begun culling wolves for the first time in 45 years after parliament ruled that numbers needed to be reduced again. More than half the quota of 27 may have died on the first day alone with nine shot dead in Dalarna and up to nine killed in Varmland, Swedish radio says. Hunters have until 15 February to complete the cull, which will leave Sweden with an estimated 210 wolves. Some 10,000 hunters were reported to be planning to take part in the hunt
The first effects of France’s new law against internet piracy will begin to be felt as the new year begins. The law was passed after a long struggle in parliament, and in the teeth of bitter opposition from groups opposed to internet restrictions. Illegal downloaders will be sent a warning e-mail, then a letter if they continue, and finally must appear before a judge if they offend again. The judge can impose a fine, or suspend their access to the internet
Researchers believe they have identified the source of fatal tumours that threaten to wipe out the wild population of Tasmanian devils
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