Chicago resident Amanda Bonnen sent a 16-word tweet on Twitter about mould in her apartment, and now the landlord has sued for $50,000. A spokesperson for the landlord said, We’re a sue first, ask questions later
organisation. Horizon wants Bonnen to pay $3,125 per word for publishing false and defamatory information on Twitter
Transparent aluminium, a sci-fi material brought to 20th century Earth by the crew of The Enterprise in Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home, turns out to exist after all — if you see in X-rays. To create this exotic state of matter, researchers at the FLASH facility in Hamburg, Germany, took a thin piece of aluminium foil and blasted it with an X-ray laser that can generate about 10 million gigawatts of power per square centimetre. At standard temperature and pressure, solid aluminium is a lattice of ions, with a sea of free electrons in between. The FLASH beam had enough energy to knock an electron out of each ion and set it free, while the photon got absorbed in the process
Google has sold its once-coveted 5% stake in AOL to Time Warner for $283 million, according to a Securities and Exchange Commission filing made public this week, taking a $717 million loss on the $1 billion Google paid for the AOL share in 2005. The transaction was completed earlier this month and reported in the SEC filing, which also disclosed additional details on AOL’s finances. The Time Warner unit had a loss of $1.53 billion in 2008, but reported a profit of nearly $83 million in the first quarter of 2009
For nearly three months, malware planted by hackers on servers operated by Network Solutions intercepted more than 573,000 credit and debt card numbers used to services rendered by the domain registration and hosting service provide
A eucalyptus-like tree that grows in New Zealand is still defending itself from a giant bird that died out about 500 years ago. The lancewood tree changes its appearance twice in its lifetime — an adaptation, a new study suggests, that prevented it from being eaten by flightless moas. As a seedling, the lancewood tree (Pseudopanax crassifolius) sprouts small, brown, blotchy leaves. Then, as a sapling, its leaves grow into footlong spears with tiny barbs along the edge. Finally, the adult lancewood, which can reach a height of 20 meters, sports rounded, nondescript green leaves. Many scientists think that the tree evolved these metamorphoses to avoid moas, the main herbivores on the islands and a relative of emus and ostriches that humans hunted to extinction
More than half of the Internet service providers (ISPs) taking part in the Federal Government’s ISP filtering trial have reported minimal speed disruptions or technology problems. Of the nine participating ISPs, iPrimus, Netforce, Webshield, Nelson Bay Online and OMNIconnect told ARN they had seen no slowdowns in Internet speeds or problems with the filtering solutions in place. Of the remaining four ISPs, Tech2U and Highway1 were unable to respond by time of publication while Unwired and Optus refused to comment
Russia’s most powerful business lobby moved to clamp down on Skype and its peers this week, telling lawmakers that the Internet phone services are a threat to Russian businesses and to national security. In partnership with Prime Minister Vladimir Putin’s political party, the lobby created a working group to draft legal safeguards against what they said were the risks of Skype and other Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) telephone services
The stunning metallic green sheen of the jewelled beetle
is produced by microscopic cells in its exoskeleton. Researchers reporting in the journal Science have revealed that, with no green pigments, these structures make the beetle appear iridescent green. These cells, they said, were almost identical to hi-tech liquid crystals
News Limited has decided to replace its web publishing system, Open Text-owned Vignette, with rival FatWire. Vignette will be replaced over the next few months, according to sources. Vignette has been acquired by Open Text, which announced the completion of the acquisition yesterday. It promised to continue supporting Vignette products and the company’s install base
Internet service provider Karoo, based in Hull, has changed its policy of suspending the service of users suspected of copyright violations. The about face was made following a BBC story outlining the firm’s practice. Karoo issued a statement on Friday, saying that it has been exceeding the expectations of copyright owners
The human body literally glows, emitting a visible light in extremely small quantities at levels that rise and fall with the day, scientists now reveal. Past research has shown that the body emits visible light, 1,000 times less intense than the levels to which our naked eyes are sensitive. In fact, virtually all living creatures emit very weak light, which is thought to be a byproduct of biochemical reactions involving free radicals
Bats use sonar to navigate and hunt. Many have been killed by wind turbines, however, which their sonar doesn’t seem to recognise as a danger. Surprisingly, radar signals could help keep bats away from wind turbines, scientists have now discovered
Today is a big day in Zappos history. This morning, our board approved and we signed what’s known as a ‘definitive agreement’, in which all of the existing shareholders and investors of Zappos (there are over 100) will be exchanging their Zappos stock for Amazon stock. Once the exchange is done, Amazon will become the only shareholder of Zappos stock. Over the next few days, you will probably read headlines that say ‘Amazon acquires Zappos’ or ‘Zappos sells to Amazon’. While those headlines are technically correct, they don’t really properly convey the spirit of the transaction. (I personally would prefer the headline ‘Zappos and Amazon sitting in a tree…‘)
By adding fluorescent dyes to DNA and then spinning the DNA strands into nanofibres, researchers at the University of Connecticut have made a new material that emits bright white light. The material absorbs energy from ultraviolet light and gives off different colours of light — from blue to orange to white — depending on the proportions of dye it contains
The attorney general in Brussels has concluded a three year investigation into the money trails at the the local music royalty collecting agency SABAM. The attorney general concluded that the copyright group is not paying the artists the money owed to them, and will prosecute five managers for forgery of documents and abuse of trust
Google has begun operating a data centre in Belgium that has no chillers to support its cooling systems, a strategy that will improve its energy efficiency while making local weather forecasting a larger factor in its data centre management
New Technology to Make Digital Data Self-Destruct
A group of computer scientists at the University of Washington has developed a way to make electronic messages self destruct
after a certain period of time, like messages in sand lost to the surf. The researchers said they think the new software, called Vanish, which requires encrypting messages, will be needed more and more as personal and business information is stored not on personal computers, but on centralised machines, or servers
The identities of more than four million Britons are being offered for sale on the internet. Highly sensitive financial information, including credit card details, bank account numbers, telephone numbers and even PINs are available to the highest bidder. At least a quarter of a million British bank and credit card accounts have been hacked into by cybercriminals, exposing consumers to huge financial losses
A new ultrasound device, used in conjunction with magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), allows neurosurgeons to precisely burn out small pieces of malfunctioning brain tissue without cutting the skin or opening the skull. A preliminary study from Switzerland involving nine patients with chronic pain shows that the technology can be used safely in humans. The researchers now aim to test it in patients with other disorders, such as Parkinson’s disease
The notorious Kazaa peer-to-peer file sharing service is back from the dead three years after it was shut down by the music industry in a $150 million lawsuit. But the software looks entirely different this time around, with users forced to pay for their music instead of trading tracks illegally
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