Ben Edelman recently waded through Gator’s license agreement via Kazaa — all 5,936 words and 63 on-screen pages of it — and found some interesting things. It seems that once you install the hideous program, it is illegal for you to removal it
The Federal Government had rejected mandatory filtering of the internet to stop child pornography and has opted instead to undertake an education and information campaign to teach parents about the perils of the internet
Camera phones will soon have liquid lenses made from nothing more substantial than a couple of drops of oil and water, but will still be capable of auto focusing, and even zooming in on subjects
Exeem is a new file-sharing application being developed by the folks at SuprNova.org. Exeem is a decentralised BitTorrent network that basically makes everyone a Tracker. Individuals will share Torrents, and seed shared files to the network. At this time, details and the full potential of this project are being kept very quiet. However it appears this P2P application will completely replace SuprNova.org; no more web mirrors, no more bottle necks and no more slow downs. Exeem will marry the best features of a decentralized network, the easy searchability of an indexing server and the swarming powers of the BitTorrent network into one program. Once this program goes public, its potential is enormous — via Slashdot
Beijing had received criticism for choosing Microsoft for the three-year, $3.6m deal instead of homegrown software providers, with an official from the Chinese Science and Technology Ministry calling the deal a threat to national security. Chinese law stipulates that domestic software should be favoured in such deals. Nearly two weeks after the contract was signed, the Chinese government’s procurement office announced that it has changed its mind
There’s a new vaccine which has had an incredible effect in clinical trials. The vaccine, composed of human dendrites holding dead HIV viruses, has dropped test patients’ viral load by up to 90% in one year
Brazil says it intends to break patents on commercial anti-AIDS drugs as part of its battle against the disease. The head of Brazil’s AIDS programme, Pedro Chequer, told the BBC it was the only way it could afford to keep up its anti-AIDS strategy. Mr Chequer said Brazil would make copies of up to five drugs next year. Brazil currently makes eight of the 15 drugs it offers in its anti-AIDS cocktail, which is free to those with the disease — via BoingBoing
According to State Department documents, the retarded monkey boy has opposed security measures for new microchip-equipped passports that privacy advocates contended were needed to prevent identity theft
Laws abolishing 800 years of feudal property rights have come into force in Scotland. The legislation — brought in by the Scottish Parliament — is intended to make land ownership simpler and fairer. However, there have been fears that thousands of Scottish households could face unexpected bills as a result. Experts believe some people are unprepared for the introduction of the new legislation and could end up paying up to £400 in compensation — via Paul Mellen
British scientists seeking to protect the environment have designed a biodegradable mobile phone cover that breaks down in soil when discarded and sprouts a flower from a seed embedded inside the case. Researchers at the University of Warwick in central England said the novel device, made from a specially designed polymer, is a boon for the environmentally sensitive
Oragenics, has received permission from the FDA to conduct the first clinical trial in which genetically modified bacteria will be put into people’s mouths. The new bacteria, which are genetically neutered so they do not make the acid that eats away at teeth, would be designed to replace the acid-producing bacteria present in most mouths
Optus has a dirty little secret — a highly lucrative business based on internet phone pornography lines that has been exposed in a Supreme Court judgment against the nation’s second-biggest telecommunications company
The Australian Communications Authority (ACA) is stepping up its anti-spam campaign by deploying forensic technology to collect and examine suspect e-mails to obtain evidence that may be used in court action against spammers. The ACA — which administers Australia’s anti-spam legislation — has signed an agreement to extend use of Australian-developed forensic technology beyond a current closed trial with Pacific Internet to an open trial with all of the Internet service provider’s 20,000-odd users. If the one-month trial is successful, the ACA is expected to deploy the technology to the broader Australian public from early in 2005
The release of Band Aid’s revamped version of the appalling Do They Know It’s Christmas
has put many charitable souls in a bit of a quandary. The fact is, you want to help the Sudanese refugees by supporting this excellent cause, but the single is, well, crap. Technically, this is known as the Band Aid Dilemma — a disturbing condition in which the natural instinct to help those less fortunate than yourself battles the primordial desire to avoid dreadful pop like the plague. There is a solution. Buy as many copies as you can afford. Destroy them in amusing ways, on camera. Send the pictures of to the Band Aid Dilemma
Sony is broadening support for the MP3 file format in its portable music player range. It will introduce a new hard drive-based MP3 player in December, and will offer software upgrades for earlier players with hard drive storage so they can play MP3s too
Lycos has made a screensaver that endlessly requests data from sites that sell the goods and services mentioned in spam e-mail. Lycos hopes it will make the monthly bandwidth bills of spammers soar by keeping their servers running flat out. Unfortunately, the download site was targeted by spammers in a DDoS attack hours after going live
A database of badger DNA is being created to snare criminals who set dogs on the animals and dig-up setts. The RSPCA project, which will cover England and Wales, is the first of its kind for a wild species. It is hoped the database will help bring successful prosecutions against people who dig and bait the animals — via Paul Mellen
The CIA is quietly funding federal research into surveillance of Internet chat rooms as part of an effort to identify possible terrorists, newly released documents reveal. In April 2003, the CIA agreed to fund a series of research projects that the documents indicate were intended to create new capabilities to combat terrorism through advanced technology
. One of those projects is research at the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, New York, devoted to automated monitoring and profiling of the behaviour of chat-room users
Tasmania has become a signatory to an International Seed Conservation Program. The Millennium Seed Bank project aims to collect and conserve 10% of the world’s seed-bearing plants by 2010. So far 16 countries are involved in the project, with 7,000 species of plants already stored in a seed bank in England. The manager of the Tasmanian project, Steve Harris, says seeds from 800 species of native plants will be collected from around the state
Computer engineers were at a loss to explain why the Government had been hit by arguably the worst electronic meltdown in the history of Whitehall. Senior sources said that the specialist troubleshooters called in to deal with the crisis at the Department for Work and Pensions had failed to get to the bottom
of the problem which blanked out up to 40,000 desktop screens. While it has been established that the crash was provoked by an attempt to upgrade the screens, there was still no precise idea why it happened
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