Kevin Trudeau was sentenced to 30 days in jail on a contempt charge for urging his followers to e-mail a judge. Lots of e-mail. The brouhaha began in February, when TV pitchman Kevin Trudeau urged his radio and web followers to deluge US District Judge Robert Gettleman with e-mail so he would side with him in a civil lawsuit pending before the Chicago judge. The judge’s inbox was flooded with hundreds of messages, and his Blackberry froze up. He promptly found Trudeau in contempt of court and sentenced him to jail
A simple cotton T-shirt may one day be converted into tougher, more comfortable body armour for soldiers or police officers. Researchers at the University of South Carolina, collaborating with others from China and Switzerland, drastically increased the toughness of a T-shirt by combining the carbon in the shirt’s cotton with boron — the third hardest material on earth. The result is a lightweight shirt reinforced with boron carbide, the same material used to protect tanks
NASA, US Navy and university researchers have successfully demonstrated the first robotic underwater vehicle to be powered entirely by natural, renewable, ocean thermal energy. The Sounding Oceanographic Lagrangrian Observer Thermal RECharging (SOLO-TREC) autonomous underwater vehicle uses a novel thermal recharging engine powered by the natural temperature differences found at different ocean depths. Scalable for use on most robotic oceanographic vehicles, this technology breakthrough could usher in a new generation of autonomous underwater vehicles capable of virtually indefinite ocean monitoring for climate and marine animal studies, exploration and surveillance
Twitter founder Evan Williams has posted on the official blog that the company will be buying Tweetie, an iPhone app currently available in the App Store, from creator Loren Brichter. The app will be renamed Twitter for iPhone and released in the App Store for free. Williams says that Twitter users have looked for an official app in the store and haven’t found one, so he says that they hope to solve that problem by providing an official App Store location for Twitter
For the second time in two weeks, bad networking information spreading from China has disrupted the Internet. On Thursday morning, bad routing data from a small Chinese ISP called IDC China Telecommunication was re-transmitted by China’s state-owned China Telecommunications, and then spread around the Internet, affecting Internet service providers such as AT&T, Level3, Deutsche Telekom, Qwest Communications and Telefonica
Apple has banned Flash in the iPhone OS 4.0 developer agreement, and Adobe Systems has fired back by citing Apple in its SEC filing. By listing Apple’s Flash ban as a risk factor, Adobe appears to be preparing to ask for government intervention. Apple’s ban on Adobe Flash for the iPhone OS 4.0 affects the iPhone, iPad and iPod touch
When Exit International wanted to ensure its members could access its pro-euthanasia material, set to be blocked under the government’s proposed Internet content filter, it turned to the Pirate Party of Australia. The Pirate Party hates the Internet filter and readily put Exit International in contact with member David Campbell, from Newcastle IT shop ClearComputers. The brief? To teach 70-year olds to bypass the Internet filter. Campbell accepted the challenge, and proved breaking the filter is not just child’s play. Your grandma can do it too
One of the first comprehensive local surveys of data breach costs shows organisations sustained financial losses of almost $2 million on average per incident, with an average $123 spent to deal with each compromised record. The 2009 Australian Cost of a Data Breach study, conducted by US-based Ponemon Institute on behalf of data encryption specialist PGP, examined the actual financial losses incurred by 16 organisations from different industry sectors following a data loss, with breaches ranging from around 3300 to 65,000 lost or stolen records. In the most expensive incident, one organisation spent more than $4m to resolve a single event
Inspired by a standard office inkjet printer, US researchers have rigged up a device that can spray skin cells directly onto burn victims, quickly protecting and healing their wounds as an alternative to skin grafts. They have mounted the device, which has so far only been tested on mice, in a frame that can be wheeled over a patient in a hospital bed
The idea that an annoying, unprofitable social network like Foursquare would turn down $100 million, a not-so-small fortune, is inspired in part by Twitter’s 2008 rejection of a $500 million offer from Facebook. Twitter had no revenue at the time, but the microblogging service thought it was on the verge of becoming a veritable gold mine. Facebook, in turn, rejected a $900 million bid from Yahoo for similar reasons. Both startups may well prove themselves prescient, but their arrogance shouldn’t be copied: Even for a hot startup-of-the-moment like Foursquare, it’s usually best to take the money and run
For $5000 you could buy a round the world air ticket — maybe even two — a Prada handbag, or a dozen Apple iPads. Or you could buy 1GB of mobile data on TPG’s $49.99 Super Cap plan when you go over the 500MB per month cap
Last night the UK Government rammed through the controversial Digital Economy Bill after its third reading and just two hours debate. This means that it will later become law, everyone will stop sharing files online and the music and movie industries will net billions in the years to come. Better still, it has the full support of the people
Google should not expect to be beyond international criticism while it offers the US Government access to its data on request but lambasts other governments for interfering with the rights of online users
On Saturday, John McAllister sat down at a friend’s house near Portland, Oregon to play a game of Asteroids. By Monday, he was still playing. At 10.18pm Pacific, he scored 41,338,740 points, a new all-time high score. In doing so, he beat a record that has stood for over 27 years. The official Asteroids high score of 41,336,440 is the longest-standing record in gaming history, having been set on 14 November 1982 by 15-year-old Scott Safran. He stayed awake for three days to accomplish this feat
A federal appeals court ruled on Tuesday that regulators had limited power over Web traffic under current law. The decision will allow Internet service companies to block or slow specific sites and charge video sites like YouTube to deliver their content faster to users. The court decision was a setback to efforts by the Federal Communications Commission to require companies to give Web users equal access to all content, even if some of that content is clogging the network
I’ve got a lot of ebooks in PDF and other formats, but some e-readers—like, oh, this iPad I just bought—only support specific formats with their default reader apps. What’s the best way to convert those PDFs to ePub? — via lifehacker
In a time where torrent sites increasingly draw the short straw in legal cases brought by copyright holders, the developers of the Tribler BitTorrent client continue working on a decentralised BitTorrent ecosystem. Their latest release includes several features to avoid spam and ensure fast downloads
Turning the tables on a China-based computer espionage gang, Canadian and United States computer security researchers have monitored a spying operation for the past eight months, observing while the intruders pilfered classified and restricted documents from the highest levels of the Indian Defence Ministry. In a report issued Monday night, the researchers, based at the Munk School of Global Affairs at the University of Toronto, provide a detailed account of how a spy operation it called the Shadow Network systematically hacked into personal computers in government offices on several continents
Blu-ray discs may become more than just the prerecorded vehicle for high-definition movies. On Saturday, the Blu-ray Disc Association (BDA) announced new media formats to enable write-once options on 100GB and 128GB Blu-ray discs, and rewritable capability on 100GB discs. The two formats are called BDXL, for high-capacity recordable and rewritable discs; and IH-BD, for Intra-Hybrid Blu-ray discs. Details about the specs are expected to be released within the next few months
Memory sticks and CDs containing the personal details of 9,000 school children have been stolen from a house in north London. The devices storing names, addresses and dates of birth of pupils in Barnet were taken during in a break-in at a council employee’s home two weeks ago
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