New Greenpeace research shows that McDonald’s are partners in forest crime that is creating a trail of destruction right into the heart of the Amazon rainforest — via Warren Ellis
Fairfax has agreed to buy New Zealand internet auction site Trade Me for NZ$700 million dollars
After 145 years, Western Union has quietly stopped sending telegrams. On the company’s web site, if you click on Telegrams in the left-side navigation bar, you’re taken to a page that ends a technological era with about as little fanfare as possible: Effective January 27, 2006, Western Union will discontinue all Telegram and Commercial Messaging services. We regret any inconvenience this may cause you, and we thank you for your loyal patronage
— via digg
The Electronic Frontier Foundation filed a class-action lawsuit against AT&T accusing the telecom giant of violating the law and the privacy of its customers by collaborating with the National Security Agency in its massive program to wiretap and data-mine Americans’ communications — via digg
Sony BMG has finally jumped on the iTunes bandwagon, with the music giant today confirming it had added its roster of artists to Apple’s Australian on-line music store
Sir Richard Branson’s Virgin Group is getting out of the domestic mobile phone market after selling its stake in Virgin Mobile Australia to joint venture partner Optus for AU$30 million. But the Virgin brand will go on after the company granted Optus, Australia’s second biggest telco behind Telstra, a 15-year licence to use the name
Angry members of MySpace, the personal file-sharing website for young adults, are accusing Rupert Murdoch’s News Corporation of censoring their postings and blocking their access to rival sites. The 38 million subscribers to MySpace discovered that when they wrote to each other about rival video-swapping site YouTube, the words were automatically deleted, and attempts to download video images from YouTube led to blank screens. The protests gathered pace, and when 600 MySpace customers complained and a campaign began to boycott the site and relocate to rival sites News Corp relented and restored the links
More than 500 General Electric employees have sued Monsanto along with two related companies, claiming they were exposed to toxic chemicals manufactured for decades by Monsanto
Seems like customers are at a huge disadvantage when dealing with dishonest retailers. This is the story of Thomas Hawk, a man who had a horrible experience with online camera retailer, PriceRitePhoto. In short he was lied to, yelled at and threatened to be sued if he posted the experience on his blog
A group of investment firms is putting their shareholder weight behind asking high-tech companies that deal with repressive regimes to pay more attention to rights violations
The NSA appears to be having its patent applications increasingly blocked by the Pentagon. The fact that the Pentagon is classifying things that the NSA believes should be public is an indication of how much secrecy has crept into government over the past few years
Austar has confirmed it will commence rollout of a broadband network, planning to have broadband in two regional markets by the first half of 2006, with 15 more areas online by the end of 2007
Senator Christine Milne gave a interesting adjournment speech about the culture of fear, intimidation and menace that currently exists in Tasmania as a means of maintaining the power of the forest industry in Tasmania, particularly by Gunns Ltd which, in fact, has become the de facto government of Tasmania and the puppet-master of the Labor Lennon government
. She specifically talks about how their conniving screwed over a young journalist, Wes Young
A Chinese cosmetics company is using skin harvested from the corpses of executed convicts to develop beauty products for sale in Europe. Agents for the firm have told would-be customers it is developing collagen for lip and wrinkle treatments from skin taken from prisoners after they have been shot. The agents say some of the company’s products have been exported to the UK, and that the use of skin from condemned convicts is traditional
and nothing to make such a big fuss about
— via BoingBoing
Intel is to invest AU$37 million in wireless telco Unwired, in an effort to support the carrier’s rollout of wireless broadband based on the forthcoming high-speed WiMAX standard. Unwired CEO David Spence said the proceeds would be used to expand the company’s services beyond Sydney next year, although he would not be drawn on which cities would be first
The Genetiate‘s people claim that with over 500,000 collisions between cars and deer every year, the cost in lives and money is staggering. While insurers pay over a billion dollars in claims annually, over 200 people are killed. Countless other drivers and passengers suffer injuries and other serious medical complications. Many deer and their young suffer the same fate. By implanting the gene of a special jellyfish into deer, the transgenic NightSave deer produced by Genetiate (patent pending) have fluorescing hair and skin when illuminated by car headlights. The implanted gene has no other effect on the deer, who appear normal in daylight. The NightSave project aims to reduce the number of night time deer/auto collisions, saving the lives of both deer and people — via Improbable Research
There’s a rumour doing the rounds that Cisco is considering buying mobile handset maker Nokia in a bid to gain its wireless infrastructure technology
Merseyside Police are appealing for information following the theft of thousands of pounds of mobile phone and consumer durables in a burglary at DHL‘s depot in Aintree, Liverpool, UK. Thieves made off with five lorries loaded with a substantial amount of property including sports clothing, mobile phones and electrical goods. One of the stolen lorries was recovered in Bootle. The four outstanding lorries are bright yellow and marked with the DHL logo, so they shouldn’t be too hard to spot
Like viruses and worms, spyware has become yet another scourge for enterprises. But it is possible, perhaps even likely, that spyware is becoming far more than a mere nuisance. With its potential for being used to do corporate espionage, spyware presents a security threat to more parts of a company than many CIOs might realise
Advanced Micro Devices has fired off a federal antitrust lawsuit against Intel, claiming that its rival has a monopolistic grip on the PC industry. The suit, filed Monday in the US District Court in Delaware, details alleged scare tactics and coercion that AMD claims Intel imposed on 38 companies, including large-scale computer makers, small system builders, wholesale distributors and retailers
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