Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in New York is developing flexible nanotubes inserted under the skin to create a handheld display — inside your hand. They wirelessly receive data and display reminders and text messages, and the concept has also been broadened to suggest endlessly programmable digital tattoos, while Netherlands-based Royal Philips Electronics is also exploring the concept of the body as a platform for electronics and interactive skin technologies
— Slashdot
Chemist chain Terry White will use Pharmacy Direct to launch its web-based retail drug operations after its $20 million purchase of the online pioneer last week. Pharmacy Direct, which turns over $35-$40 million annually on prescription medicines and over-the-counter lines, faces a brighter future after a period in limbo. The NSW-based former mail-order pharmacy was sold by Wesfarmers for less than half the $48 million Coles paid for it in 2006, as part of Wesfarmers’ plan to shed its non-core retail assets. Coles originally bought Pharmacy Direct and its single warehouse-style store in Sydney’s Silverwater with the apparent aim of wedging the Pharmacy Guild’s campaign against locating chemists in supermarkets. The guild challenged the validity of the deal on pharmacy ownership rules, and the NSW Supreme Court ruled in its favour
Brewster Kahle’s Internet Archive has jumped on Google’s Authors Guild
settlement and asked to be included as a party defendant, claiming that they ought to get the same rights and protections from liability that Google will receive when the settlement is approved by federal court. From the Internet Archive’s letter to Judge Denny Chin: The Archive’s text archive would greatly benefit from the same limitation of potential copyright liability that the proposed settlement provides Google. Without such a limitation, the Archive would be unable to provide some of these same services due to the uncertain legal issues surrounding orphan books
— via Slashdot
He was James Bond’s go-to guy for inventions that included dagger-embedded shoes, radioactive lint and a deadly sofa that swallowed people. Now, Britain’s domestic spy agency — MI5 — is hunting for its very own Q
, of sorts. MI6’s sister organisation, which carries out surveillance on terror suspects inside Britain and gives security advice to the government, is searching for someone to lead its scientific work. Projects could include everything from developing counterterrorism technology to tackling a biological or chemical attack
British scientists have developed the world’s first stem cell therapy to cure the most common cause of blindness. Surgeons predict it will become a routine, one-hour procedure that will be generally available in six or seven years’ time. The treatment involves replacing a layer of degenerated cells with new ones created from embryonic stem cells. It was pioneered by scientists and surgeons from the Institute of Ophthalmology at University College London and Moorfields eye hospital
Law enforcement officials are vastly expanding their collection of DNA to include millions more people who have been arrested or detained but not yet convicted. The move, intended to help solve more crimes, is raising concerns about the privacy of petty offenders and people who are presumed innocent. Until now, the federal government genetically tracked only convicts. But starting this month, the Federal Bureau of Investigation will join 15 states that collect DNA samples from those awaiting trial and will collect DNA from detained immigrants — the vanguard of a growing class of genetic registrants. The FBI, with a DNA database of 6.7 million profiles, expects to accelerate its growth rate from 80,000 new entries a year to 1.2 million by 2012 — a 15-fold increase. FBI officials say they expect DNA processing backlogs — which now stand at more than 500,000 cases — to increase
The risk to spacecraft from a collision with space debris could be reduced by equipping launchers with a gossamer-thin sail
. The idea is to deploy the sail after the rocket has released its payload to amplify the drag of the last vestiges of the atmosphere, and so force the rocket out of orbit. Rocket stages are a particular risk to spacecraft because they often contain large amounts of unused fuel, which can explode when sunlight heats the tank. Leaking fuel can also act like a mini-thruster, pushing the rocket into an orbit where it may cause a collision. One way to tackle the problem is to vent unused fuel in a controlled way, and drain power from the battery, but this is unlikely to eliminate all collisions
A court in Sweden has jailed four men behind The Pirate Bay, the world’s most high-profile file-sharing website, in a landmark case. Frederik Neij, Gottfrid Svartholm Warg, Carl Lundstrom and Peter Sunde were found guilty of breaking copyright law and were sentenced to a year in jail. They were also ordered to pay $4.5m in damages. Record companies welcomed the verdict but the men are to appeal and Sunde said they would refuse to pay the fine. Due to outrage over the verdict, the Swedish Pirate Party has gained 3000 members in less than seven hours. It is now bigger than three of the seven parties represented in the Swedish parliament
Broadband operator Bahnhof is continuing to destroy the IP address details of its customers in an open and fully legal bid to undermine Sweden’s new anti-file sharing laws. Bahnhof CEO Jon Karlung, a vociferous opponent of the measures that came into force on 1 April, has said he is determined to protect the company’s clients. The new file sharing law is based on the European Union’s Intellectual Property Rights Enforcement Directive (IPRED) and allows courts to order internet operators to hand over details that identify suspected illegal file sharers. As such, the law enables Internet Service Providers (ISPs) to retain the IP addresses of file sharers. But ISPs also remain at liberty to destroy information about their users if they so wish
A sophisticated FBI-produced spyware programme has played a crucial behind-the-scenes role in federal investigations into extortion plots, terrorist threats and hacker attacks in cases stretching back at least seven years, newly declassified documents show
A study into spam has blamed it for the production of more than 33bn kilowatt-hours of energy every year, enough to power more than 2.4m homes. The Carbon Footprint of e-mail Spam report estimated that 62 trillion spam emails are sent globally every year. This amounted to emissions of more than 17 million tons of CO2, the research by climate consultants ICF International and anti-virus firm McAfee found. Searching for legitimate e-mails and deleting spam used some 80% of energy. The study found that the average business user generates 131kg of CO2 every year, of which 22% is related to spam
Social news website Digg.com has made key changes to its recently introduced DiggBar. The browser add-on had been much criticised for its use of frames to host
third-party websites within the digg.com domain using an obfuscating short URL, thereby boosting its own traffic figures to the detriment of those third parties. Registered Digg users that have not opted out will continue to see the DiggBar, but they will only see the bar when logged in, and opting out will be made much easier
The National Security Agency intercepted private e-mail messages and phone calls of Americans in recent months on a scale that went beyond the broad legal limits established by Congress last year, government officials said in recent interviews. Several intelligence officials, as well as lawyers briefed about the matter, said the NSA had been engaged in overcollection
of domestic communications of Americans. They described the practice as significant and systemic, although one official said it was believed to have been unintentional
Amazon has said it will not allow online advertising system Phorm to scan its web pages to produce targeted ads. Phorm builds a profile of users by scanning for keywords on websites visited and then assigns relevant ads. It has proved controversial because it scans almost all sites a user visits and there is an ongoing political debate about how a user gives consent. Last month the Open Rights Group wrote to the world’s leading websites asking them to opt out of Phorm
Online auction site eBay has offered to buy South Korean online retailer Gmarket for up to $1.2bn. The offer price of $24 per share is a 20.2% increase on Gmarket’s most recent closing price of $19.96. eBay said it had acquired 67% in the Korean firm, after Yahoo and Interpark agreed to sell their Gmarket stakes. The news comes a day after eBay said it was looking to spin off internet call service provider Skype and list shares in the firm in the first half of 2010
If you’re a Windows user who wasn’t tempted to download Internet Explorer 8 the minute the final release went live, take note: it’s probably about to appear on your system anyway courtesy of Automatic Update. Microsoft’s official IEBlog notes that the final IE8 is already being distributed via Automatic Update to users with earlier beta versions, and will shortly be rolled out as to most Windows users. Microsoft typically rolls outs these updates by region to minimise server impact, so there’s no telling straight away how soon you’ll see it in your suggested update list
Can a data centre heat your home or office? It can in London, where excess heat from servers at the new Telehouse West data center in the Docklands will soon be used in nearby houses and businesses. The Greater London Authority has approved a plan in which waste heat from the $180 million Telehouse colocation facility will be used in a district heat network for the local Docklands community. The project is expected to produce up to nine megawatts of power for the local community, and allow the 130,000 square foot Telehouse West to reduce its carbon footprint by 1,110 tons
eBay is moving away from its traditional laissez-faire approach regarding buyer and seller interactions on its marketplace, and instead will get more involved in transaction disputes. Starting around mid-June, eBay will in some cases issue refunds at its own expense to buyers who claim they either didn’t receive the item they bought, or received a different product. eBay will do this even if it determines the seller wasn’t at fault. In addition, eBay will begin steering buyers to take their complaints to eBay for resolution, as opposed to reporting them to its PayPal online payment unit
The internet auctioneer eBay is to spin off its global online telephone business, Skype, through a stockmarket flotation which will end an unhappy four-year relationship between the two companies. eBay announced tonight that it intends to separate Skype through a public offering of shares by the first half of 2010. Based in Luxembourg, Skype has 405m users and its low-cost service accounts for 8% of the world’s international phone calls
The first reaction many people have to Twitter is befuddlement. Individually, many of those 140-character tweets
seem inane. But taken collectively, the stream of messages can turn Twitter into a surprisingly useful tool for solving problems and providing insights into the digital mood. By tapping into the world’s collective brain, researchers of all kinds have found that if they make the effort to dig through the mundane comments, the live conversations offer an early glimpse into public sentiment — and even help them shape it
RSS – Posts