A US federal judge has overturned a law designed to protect children from viewing internet pornography, saying it violated the right of free speech. The law made it illegal for websites to provide children access to harmful
material, but it was never enforced. Judge Lowell Reed of Philadelphia said other means of protection, such as software filters, were more effective
Activist groups sued the parent company of Comedy Central on Thursday, claiming the cable network improperly asked the video-sharing site YouTube to remove a parody of the network’s The Colbert Report
Four Amway distributors have been ordered to pay Proctor and Gamble over $19 million in compensation. The four had spread rumours that the company was involved in Satanism, and the case has dragged on for over a decade. The judge had earlier decided that Amway itself could not be held responsible for the actions of its self-employed distributors — via The Pagan Prattle
Three years after establishing itself as one of the first specialist CRM vendors running its software on Linux, SugarCRM has launched into the project-planning market
VOD and AnyTime have emerged as favourites to grab a deal to supply Australia’s number-three internet company, iiNet, with content for its online movie service, scheduled to launch before the end of June
There is a new form of contraception available for women. The device is a soft plastic ring that releases the contraceptive hormone directly into the bloodstream. Professor Gab Kovacs from Melbourne IVF says the device is inserted internally and is 99 per cent effective. It contains half the dose of female hormone contained in the lowest dose contraceptive pills
The Pukaki Lagoon Explosion Crater in Mangere, New Zealand, is for sale. Current owners the Pangley family are selling it as aprt of a 62.3 hectare property. According to the realtor, the crater, formerly used for auto racing, would be ideal for a natural amphitheatre — via Boing Boing
Philips hopes that fitting-room fiascos will become a thing of the past if it ever forays into the world of fashion. The consumer electronics giant has come up with a way to change the size, shape and style of clothes by weaving muscle wires
into the fabric. The wires are made of shape-memory alloys that change length according to the small current passed through them. Here’s the idea: you try on a special pair of Philips’ trousers, and connect up to a power source that changes the length of the wires in the fabric until the trousers have the correct waist size, inside leg and width. Then simply disconnect to try the trousers in exactly your size. Philips says the technique could also be used to correctly fit shirts, socks and bras, or indeed any other article of clothing
A recall of potentially deadly pet food has dog and cat owners studying their animals for even the slightest hint of illness and swamping veterinarians nationwide with calls about symptoms both real and imagined. Some of the 60 million cans and pouches of food have been blamed for kidney failure in scores of animals and killed at least 16 pets. Since Friday, nearly 100 brands of the cuts and gravy
style food have been recalled by Menu Foods of Canada, including popular labels sold at Wal-Mart, Kroger and other large retailers
Deutsche Telekom’s Musicload, one of the largest online music stores in Europe, has come out strongly against DRM on account of its effects on the marketplace and its customers. Musicload said in a letter distributed last week that customers are having consistent problems with DRM, so much so that 3 out of 4 customer service calls are ultimately the result of the frustrations that come with DRM
Vehicles may soon be swapping information about road conditions to warn drivers about jams and dangers. A German research project on show at hi-tech trade fair Cebit envisions a peer-to-peer network for vehicles on a road passing data back and forth. Cars or bikes experiencing problems would pass data that would ripple down the chain of vehicles behind them. Information would be conveyed to drivers via a dashboard screen or through a mobile phone headset
Richard Dean Anderson will appear in the upcoming movie Stargate: Continuum. Anderson, who played Jack O’Neill on Stargate SG-1 for eight years before entering semi-retirement, will travel with an 18-person crew to the US Navy’s Applied Physics Laboratory Ice Station in the Arctic next week to film scenes for the direct-to-DVD movie
The maple tree already provides Canadians with a beautiful part of the landscape, a national emblem and the sticky sweet syrup created from its sap. Now researchers have tapped into a new use for the sap: a base for a natural, biodegradable polymer, one they say may reduce our dependence on fossil fuel-based plastics. The discovery could potentially provide a new range of biodegradable products such as more environmentally friendly packaging material, and could be used for medical applications like drug delivery systems and surgical sutures
Scientists studying pictures from Nasa’s Odyssey spacecraft have spotted what they think may be seven caves on the surface of Mars. The candidate caves are on the flanks of the Arsia Mons volcano and are of sufficient depth their floors mostly cannot be seen through the opening. The authors say that the possible discovery of caves on the Red Planet is significant
The Tasmanian Devil, a rare carnivorous marsupial found only on Australia’s southern island state of Tasmania, faces extinction in 10 to 20 years without a cure for the facial cancer now decimating the population. With half the population of this fierce, black furry animal now wiped out, leaving less than 75,000 devils, Professor Hamish McCallum at the University of Tasmania is battling to establish offshore colonies of healthy devils
Soon you could be piping digital TV around your home via power sockets. At the Cebit technology fair, German hi-tech firm Devolo is showing off home networking technology that can handle signals from a set top box. While many firms are working on ways to route data via the mains power circuits in the home, Devolo is among the first to use it to send TV signals. Further improvements to the home networking system will help it handle cable and satellite TV signals
SanDisk introduced an 8GB flash memory card for digital cameras and other devices, doubling the capacity of previous versions of the product. In addition, the company unveiled a new micromemory card for mobile phones
The government is heading back to the drawing board after a senate committee found its proposed new smartcard was likely to become an identity card. The Access Card was intended to replace the Medicare card and other benefits cards, streamlining access to a wide range of government health and welfare services. The government had explicitly ruled out its use as a national ID card amid widespread concerns that was what it would become. But in its report released last night, the standing committee on finance and public administration said the card was likely to become in effect an identity card, despite measures aimed at limiting its use
Japan’s Thanko has launched a new music headband just for runners. The VONIA is crafted with the iPod shuffle and other very small audio players in mind. A small pocket at the front holds the player and relays its sound through wires hidden inside the headband itself, preventing tangles during a run. The company has chosen to use bone conduction instead of headphones: sound transmits directly through the skull and leaves the ears free to pick up crucial audio cues from the outside world without affecting audio quality
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