Unions have labelled proposed independent contractor legislation worse than Work Choices, warning that the federal Government risks creating an underclass
of IT contractors who will undercut the pay of salaried staff
Seiko Epson has succeeded in getting four online retailers of printer ink cartridges to stop selling a number of third-party ink cartridges designed for use in Epson printers. The four retailers are in Germany and agreed in out of court settlements to stop selling the cartridges, which Seiko Epson asserts infringe upon its intellectual property
realestate.com.au has announcing that it has finalised an agreement to acquire all of the shares in Hubonline Global for A$6 million. REA will acquire 87% of the shares in the company for A$5.2 million at completion, and will acquire the remaining 13% within a likely timeframe of 3 months from completion
Banner ads for the National Australia Bank and St George Bank have mysteriously appeared on Pirate Bay, a bittorrent tracker web site, that directs visitors to potentially illegal content
The US government has asked a federal judge to dismiss the EFF’s civil liberties lawsuit against the AT&T Corporation because of a possibility that military and state secrets would otherwise be disclosed
. The statement concludes by saying: Finally, because the United States intends to assert the state secrets privilege and file a dispositive motion to dismiss this action, the United States requests that discovery proceedings be deferred until the government’s submission has been considered and heard.
You can view the full text of the government’s statement of interest (PDF) on the EFF’s web site
Grand Master Masaaki Hatsumi is the last living apprentice of the last fighting ninja
, Toshitsugu Takamatsu. At 76, he continues to train would-be ninjas, and the AP’s Hans Greimel spent a day at his studio, collecting ninja wisdom like Always be able to kill your students
— via Boing Boing
The California Public Utilities Commission has approved a plan allowing providers of high-speed internet services to test electricity lines to deliver internet access
An artificial insect eye that could be used in ultra-thin cameras has been developed by scientists in the US.The dimpled eye, contains over 8,500 hexagonal lenses packed into an area the size of a pinhead. The dome-shaped structure, described in the journal Science, is similar to a bee’s eye. The researchers, from the University of California, Berkeley, say the work may also shed light on how insects developed such complex, visual systems. Darpa is also funding this project with applications expected for digital cameras and high speed motion detectors
Intelligence agencies and police will be given access to a vast database of biometric
photographs of Australians to be created for the new health and welfare smart card to fight terrorism and more general crime
Some of Canada’s best known musicians, including Avril Lavigne, Sarah McLachlin, Sum 41 and Barenaked Ladies, have formed a new copyright coalition. The artists say in a press release that they oppose file sharing lawsuits, the use of DRM, and DMCA-style legislation and that they want record labels to stop claiming that they represent their views
The introduction of a national smart card with photo ID has upset Coalition MPs and privacy experts who believe it could develop into a national identity card by stealth
Telstra shares could gain in value by almost a quarter if it successfully fought new internet phone technology, otherwise it risked further declines in revenue
Seagate is shipping its 750-gigabyte Barracuda 7200.10 drive. This drive represents an increase in capacity of 50 percent over the previous industry maximum of 500GB and is the first 3.5-inch internal drive in the industry to achieve 750GB using perpendicular magnetic recording technology
Microsoft is entering the social networking market currently led by MySpace.com and Friendster with its own entry, Wallop
India reaped new fortunes in its recent rise as an outsourcing powerhouse. But now India hears footsteps: China, Hungary, and several other countries are luring offshore outsourcing jobs
DARPA is funding a startup the supposedly has a unique approach to detect rootkits. The startup, Komoku, is ready to emerge from stealth mode with hardware and software-based technologies to fight the rapid spread of malicious rootkits
. They have a PCI card that doesn’t necessarily determine that a rootkit is installed, only that the OS has changed dramatically enough to warrant investigation. Microsoft, however, demonstrated a rootkit running in a virtual machine outside of the user’s OS workspace that made detection impossible — via Slashdot
The BBC has posted an online interface into a catalogue of 946,614 BBC radio & TV programmes, dating back 75 years — searchable by category, cast and crew
A Cape Breton man who killed two sex offenders in Maine visited the homes of another four sex offenders but no one answered the door. Maine state police say Stephen Marshall had a global satellite positioning programme on his laptop computer, which allowed investigators to trace his movements — via digg
A startling Internet video that shows someone spraying graffiti on President Bush’s jet looked so authentic that the Air Force wasn’t immediately certain whether the plane had been targeted. It was not so much a hoax, as a ridiculously expensive attempt at viral marketing by Marc Ecko Enterprises
Optus’ bid to wean itself off Telstra ADSL resale and bring more margin back to its broadband business has hit a snag, as technical glitches play havoc with the company’s $150 million Bigfoot project to deploy its own ADSL infrastructure
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