One of the largest social networking sites in the world is based in Sydney but most Australians probably don’t even know it exists. Friendster, which has nearly 100 million registered users and, according to ComScore, more than 30 million monthly visitors worldwide, is run out of an office in The Rocks
Facebook intends to capitalise on the wealth of information it has about its users by offering its 150 million-strong customer base to corporations as a market research tool. The appearance, later this year, of corporate polls targeted at certain parts of the Facebook audience because of the information they have posted on their pages, is likely to infuriate privacy campaigners
The Pyrenean ibex, a form of wild mountain goat, was officially declared extinct in 2000 when the last-known animal of its kind was found dead in northern Spain. Shortly before its death, scientists preserved skin samples of the goat, a subspecies of the Spanish ibex that live in mountain ranges across the country, in liquid nitrogen. Using DNA taken from these skin samples, the scientists were able to replace the genetic material in eggs from domestic goats, to clone a female Pyrenean ibex, or bucardo as they are known. It is the first time an extinct animal has been cloned
Human error caused a glitch that returned the message this site may harm your computer
for all Google search results for about an hour Saturday morning, the company said, but the mistake was Google’s and not StopBadware.org’s. Google Saturday morning released an update to its list of URLs known to install malicious software and unfortunately (and here’s the human error), the URL of ‘/’ was mistakenly checked as a value to the file and ‘/’ expands to all URLs
, Google Vice President of Search Products and User Experience wrote in an official Google blog post explaining the glitch. Fortunately, our on-call site reliability team found the problem quickly and reverted the file
Expect seven new languages in Google Translate soon: Albanian, Estonian, Galician, Hungarian, Maltese, Thai and Turkish
Complete power failure in a Melbourne data centre has affected numerous ISPs such as iiNet, Internode, Netspace and Westnet
Netspace has released the results of its customer survey on ISP level filtering, which shows strong opposition to the federal government’s plan. The survey found that 78.9% of the almost 10,000
respondents disagreed with the federal government’s plan to mandate ISP level filtering for all Australians, with 61.8% of those strongly
disagreeing. Over 70% of Netspace customers also showed strong opposition to the potential for increased broadband prices and a reduction in Internet performance as a result of filtering
The cast of hit sci-fi comedy Red Dwarf are to reunite for a new two-part storyline which will see them finally return to Earth. Red Dwarf: Back to Earth will air on UKTV digital channel Dave over the Easter weekend
Google has launched Measurement Lab to reveal whether a flaky Internet connection is caused by an ISP, an application, your PC, or something else. Developed with academic researchers, Google’s M-Lab can shed new light on Net neutrality. Google’s Vint Cerf and Stephen Stuart said M-Lab will resolve measurement problems with existing data tools
Telecom New Zealand has announced that its wholesale division will be rolling out super-fast VDSL2 (Very High Speed Digital Subscriber Line 2) technology, allowing it to offer one of the fastest broadband services in the world
A £2 energy saving lightbulb that lasts for 60 years has been developed by scientists at Cambridge University. The researchers have designed a bulb that is three times more energy efficient than today’s best offer and can cut lighting bills by 75 per cent. The bulbs are made using Gallium Nitride (GaN), a man-made substance used in LEDs. It is routinely used in bike lights, mobile phones and camera flashes
The Turritopsis Nutricula is able to revert back to a juvenile form once it mates after becoming sexually mature. Marine biologists say the jellyfish numbers are rocketing because they need not die
A federal court today spanked two telemarketers with some $1.2 million in civil penalties for violating the Federal Trade Commission’s Do Not Call (DNC) Rule. According to the FTC, the companies called consumers whose phone numbers were on the Do Not Call Registry without having obtained their express written agreement or having an established business relationship
with them
Western Digital has gained the honour of releasing the first two-terabyte drives in the market, with units turning up on Australian shelves
Wireless access points could be used by hi-tech criminals to spread viruses and worms. Security holes and the popularity of the devices in cities make them ideal for spreading malware. Using modelling methods from real diseases the team showed how a worm could gradually infect all access points in urban areas. They found that the majority of vulnerable access points would be hit in the first 24 hours of an outbreak
Emperor penguins, whose long treks across Antarctic ice to mate have been immortalised by Hollywood, are heading towards extinction, scientists say. Based on predictions of sea ice extent from climate change models, the penguins are likely to see their numbers plummet by 95% by 2100
Too many of us suffer from a condition that is going to leave our grandchildren bereft. I call it personal digital disorder. Think of those thousands of digital photographs that lie hidden on our computers. Few store them, so those who come after us will not be able to look at them. It’s tragic. Charlie Stross has a good write-up on how he’s tackled this issue over the years and ways to avoid it in the future
An American security consultant who stole hundreds of thousands of online bank passwords by employing a massive botnet that he often administered from work deserves at least five years in prison, prosecutors have told a federal judge. The request for a minimum 60-month sentence, followed by five years of supervised release, came in the case of John Kenneth Schiefer of Los Angeles, who in November of 2007 admitted he was the hacker known alternately as Acid and Acidstorm and wielded a 250,000-strong bot army. Prosecutors rejected Schiefer’s arguments that he should be allowed to continue working as a security consultant, saying the stiff penalty was justified by the extreme callousness and brazenness of his offences
Researchers at Intel, RTI International of North Carolina, and Arizona State University have shown that it’s possible to build an efficient microrefrigerator that can target hot spots on chips, saving power and space, and more effectively cooling the entire system. Their work also demonstrates, for the first time, that it is possible to integrate thermoelectric material into chip packaging, making the technology more practical than ever before
— via Russia Today
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