Researchers have found what appear to be remnants of pigment in fossilised feathers, opening the possibility of reconstructing the colors of many long-extinct animals
The EFF has announced Switzerland, a tool for testing if your ISP is interfering with your Net connection . It’s command-line only at this point. Of course the tool is FOSS, and you can contribute to it via its SourceForge project
After witnessing countless corparate attempts to patent common practices or trademark common terms, and seeing the resulting PR fallout, one would think that companies would just stop trying. Dell, however, seems to think that it should be able to trademark the term cloud computing
, a phrase that entered the tech lexicon many years ago to describe software processing that takes place on a distributed network, such as the Internet
A massive project to redesign and rebuild the Internet from scratch is inching along with $12 million in government funding and donations of network capacity by two major research organisations
When TorrentFreak reported about the leak of a BuckCherry track last week, and specifically the band’s response to it, they hinted that this could be a covert form of self-promotion. Indeed, after a few days of research they found out that the track wasn’t leaked by pirates, but by Josh Klemme, the manager of the band
Apple has at last issued a patch for the DNS flaw considered one of the most dangerous vulnerabilities ever to affect the Internet. On Friday, Apple posted a security advisory saying that the patch will fix Apple’s implementation of the Berkeley Internet Name Domain (BIND) DNS server in Mac OS X v10.4.11, Mac OS X Server v10.4.11, Mac OS X v10.5.4 and Mac OS X Server v10.5.4. The DNS flaw allows an attacker to execute a cache poisoning attack, where traffic to a legitimate domain name is redirected to a malicious one after an attack on a DNS server. The user can type in the correct name for a Web site, but get a fake one instead, which can enable a phishing attack. While some users might notice if they’re directed to a odd-looking Web page, many people could be successfully fooled
Mozilla has announced the release of >Firefox 3.1 Alpha 1, Shiretoko
, for developers and testers. Built on the pre-release version of the Gecko 1.9.1 platform, Shiretoko includes a variety of new features. Called an early developer milestone
, the release includes bug fixes, improved Web standards support, Text API for the Canvas Element, support for border images and JavaScript query selectors, and improvements to the tab-switching function and the Smart Location Bar. Shiretoko is available for Mac OS X, Windows and Linux
Ever try to remember who you bumped into at the store a few days back? Or exactly what the company president said at the morning meeting? Well, you’re not alone. And IBM researchers are working on software that just may help you better recollect all the forgotten pieces of your life. This week, the company unveiled software that uses images, sounds and text recorded on everyday mobile devices to help people recall names, faces, conversations and events. Dubbed Pensieve, the software organises bits of collected information, stores them and then helps the user extract them later on
In a case of better late than never, Optus-owned Virgin Mobile is now offering the Apple iPhone 3G, and for cheaper than its competitors in Australia. Virgin Mobile’s Australian web site lists the iPhone as available now
and indicates two iPhone specific post-paid contracts. The lower of these plans includes a full subsidised 8GB model phone plus AU$520 in standard calls and messages credit, and 1GB of data for AU$70 per month over a 24-month term
Amazon has introduced two new payment systems for merchants and consumers, which brings it into a market dominated by PayPal. Google introduced a similar system for merchants and consumers in 2006, also called Checkout, but it has not found favor with online retailers. Auction giant eBay, which owns PayPal, has prevented consumers from using the Google system
A 2,100-year-old computer
found in a Roman shipwreck may have acted as a calendar for the Olympic Games. The Antikythera Mechanism has puzzled experts since its discovery by Greek sponge divers in 1901. Researchers have long suspected the ancient clockwork device was used to display astronomical cycles. A team has now found that one of the dials records the dates of the ancient Olympiad. This could have been to provide a benchmark for the passage of time. The device is made up of bronze gearwheels and dials, and scientists know of nothing like it until at least 1,000 years later
With the Internet increasingly taking on the role of the PC operating system and the growing prevalence of virtualisation technologies, there will be a day when the Microsoft Windows client OS as it’s been developed for the past 20-odd years becomes obsolete. Microsoft seems to be preparing for that day with an incubation project code-named Midori, which seeks to create a componentised, non-Windows OS that will take advantage of technologies not available when Windows first was conceived
Three has launched a 3G SIM and data starter kit for those who want to get their iPhone from other carriers but use it on the 3 Network
A research paper has suggested that a warp drive capable of moving a craft at faster than light speed could indeed be possible. The paper, Putting the ‘Warp’ into Warp Drive
[PDF] by Gerald Cleaver and Richard Obousy, two Baylor University physicists, suggests that the speed of light could be broken by manipulating the fabric of space to create a bubble that a craft would ride upon. Einstein’s laws of relativity would not be violated by such a drive since the craft itself would remain stationary and the bubble of space it moves in would be mobile. This would also shield passengers from the enormous G forces from such acceleration
One of Australia’s largest eBay sellers has gone into liquidation, leaving hundreds of its customers out of pocket and with little hope of receiving purchased goods. The Queensland-based company, which is registered as EBS International but trades on eBay under the name ebusiness-supplies, has had liquidation firm SV Partners appointed as its external administrator
Alaska’s Ted Stevens, the longest-serving Republican senator in US history, was indicted yesterday on seven charges of making false statements about more than $250,000 that corporate executives doled out to overhaul his Anchorage area house
Losing your glasses or forgetting the answer to a quiz question could hardly be classed as a matter of life or death. But that did not stop some callers in Somerset from hitting 999 (the UK’s version of 000) and berating exasperated emergency operators about their wife’s sub standard salmon sandwiches or their difficulties peeling potatoes. Now Avon and Somerset Police in the UK have turned to YouTube to shame timewasters for tying up a line where delays can cost lives. The force has posted the 999 calls on YouTube and hopes it will help track down hoax callers, who face up to six months in jail and a ¬£5,000 fine in court
A new search-engine platform has been unveiled by some former Google engineers. Dubbed Cuil, the new company claims to combine the largest Web index with content-based relevance and user privacy. However, for the moment, it’s pretty lame and has a bit of an issue with associating some unrelated logos and photos with other content
During a visit to Australia this week, Flickr founder and former Yahoo staffer Stewart Butterfield criticised the search giant for its lack of an innovative culture compared to rival Google. I felt like the biggest problem while I was there [was] that management was oriented a little bit too much towards the quarterly results
A new $1,000 spray claims to protect notebook computers, iPods, mobile phones and other electronic gadgets from liquid, making them completely waterproof. The spray, called Golden Shellback Splash Proof Coating, is one thousandth of an inch thick. Sid Martin of the Northeast Maritime Institute, which created the product, said the spray forces the water to roll off electronic gadgets like water off a duck’s back or just like after you waxed your car
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