The 25 European Commission member states and nine accession countries have all signed up for a plan that could make e-accessibility mandatory — via digg
Google is now taking on that part of the Internet that has been notoriously difficult to navigate: US Government sites
On top of the tales of the appalling finish on the black Macbooks and discolouration of the white Macbooks that have been doing the rounds, here’s a remarkable thing that the Macworld team has turned up in its lab tests. The black Macbooks, when compared to the top-end white versions (the latter, you’ll recall, are AU$300 cheaper but have no other noticeable configuration differences), are actually slower at a number of tasks than the mid-config white ones. That is, if you leave the disk on the white model at 60GB, rather than upgrading to 80GB — via The Guardian
Bill Gates, the man who started Microsoft and has been its public face throughout its three decades of existence, plans to step away from daily work at the company. Gates announced on Thursday that he will gradually relinquish his current role, ceding the title of chief software architect immediately, while remaining a full-time employee for the next two years. In July 2008, he will become a part-time employee and chairman
Mac users can check off another box in the plus column for owning Intel-based Apple hardware. A start-up company that goes by the name of Parallels has just introduced software that lets Macs run Windows and Mac OS X simultaneously
Two butterfly species have been bred in the lab to make a third distinct species. In a species, individuals need to be capable of interbreeding to produce fertile offspring. The study demonstrates that two animal species can evolve to form one, instead of the more common scenario where one species diverges to form two. There is growing circumstantial evidence for hybrid speciation in Ragoletis fruit flies, swordtail fish and African cichlid fish. Some also suspect the American red wolf could be the product of hybridisation between coyotes and wolves
AOL is breathing new life into Netscape.com with a revamped design — still in beta — that takes a page from the strategy playbook of user-driven sites such as digg.com and del.icio.us
Several Australian newspapers are gearing up to follow the lead of British counterparts in putting exclusive breaking news online before it appears in print and devoting more newsroom resources to the internet
http://email.news.com.au/ct/click?q=44-9npfIZU5YwNkh7gEd8oaX9RR
Amazon.com has started selling groceries, a cautious step into a business that was one of the biggest casualties of the dot-com collapse
Google added a new online photo sharing feature to Picasa, the free software that lets users organise digital photos on their computers. The test Picasa Web Albums offering is available by invitation only and appears similar to popular photo sharing Web site Flickr
The Aymara, an indigenous group in the Andes highlands, have a concept of time that’s opposite our own spatial metaphor. A new study by cognitive scientists explains how the Aymara consider the past to be ahead and the future behind them — via Boing Boing
Millions of Windows users may unwittingly be test subjects for an unfinished Microsoft antipiracy tool. The software maker has been delivering a prerelease version of Windows Genuine Advantage Notifications software to PCs as a high priority
item in the built-in update feature in Windows. The tool, also known as WGA Notifications, is used to validate the authenticity of Windows software installed on a PC
Apple’s iPods are made by mainly female workers who earn as little as £27 per month, according to a report in the Mail on Sunday. The report claims Longhua’s workers live in dormitories that house 100 people, and that visitors from the outside world are not permitted. Workers toil for 15-hours a day to make the iconic music player and the iPod nano is made in a five-storey factory (E3) that is secured by police officers. Apple is currently investigating the sweatshop allegations. [Update: Apple has published their findings]
Small wireless broadband carriers in the bush are being forced to partner or perish as a bizarre consequence of a billion-dollar program aimed at improving regional phone services
Google has unveiled an enhanced version of its popular online mapping program
The proposed services access card is essentially identical to the Australia Card proposal for a national identity card overwhelmingly rejected 20 years ago, according to a privacy study to be released today
Windows Vista will be better equipped to protect itself from malicious rootkits than its predecessor, Windows XP, but because so many legitimate
applications use rootkit techniques, Microsoft has decided to implement two crucial anti-rootkit technologies only in 64-bit versions of its new operating system
A black bear picked the wrong New Jersey yard for a jaunt earlier this week, running into Jack, a territorial tabby, who ran the bear up a tree — twice — via RogueSun
John Perry Barlow — Grateful Dead lyricist, copyfighter, and co-founder of EFF — conducted an electronic debate with ex-congressman Dan Glickman, the head of the Motion Picture Association of America on the BBC’s web site. The exchange is fascinating in that it shows Glickman lives in an information vacuum and doesn’t have a clue about electronic media — via Boing Boing
UK music fans no longer face the threat of prosecution for copying their own CDs on to PCs or MP3 players, as long as the songs are only for personal use. Peter Jamieson, chairman of the British Phonographic Industry, said consumers would only be penalised if they made duplicates of songs for other people. Mr Jamieson also called for Apple – which makes the popular iPod portable music player — to open up its iTunes software so it is compatible with the technology of other manufacturers
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