StatoilHydro has decided to build the world’s first full scale floating wind turbine, Hywind, and test it over a two-year period offshore Karm??y. The The company is investing approximately 400 million NOK. Planned startup is autumn 2009
The MPAA won judgments totaling $4M against two sites which merely link to infringing content. They’re not arguing that it’s an infringement of their distribution right, like the RIAA has with their making available
argument. Instead, they got the sites for contributory copyright infringement
, just like RIAA vs LimeWire. To translate all that legalese into English, search engines which primarily index copyright-infringing material and the people who run them may not be safe in the US. That applies even if the sites in question do not host any infringing materials, participate in, or encourage the infringement done by their users — via Slashdot
Researchers at the University of Utah describe how the Lamprocyphus augustus’, an inch-long Brazilian beetle, iridescent green scales are composed of chitin arranged by evolution in precisely the molecular configuration that has confounded the would-be fabricators of optical computers. By using the scales as a semiconductor mold, researchers hope to finally build the perfect photonic crystal
A group in Santa Fe says the city is discriminating against them because they say that they’re allergic to the wireless Internet signal. And now they want Wi-Fi banned from public buildings. Arthur Firstenberg says he is highly sensitive to certain types of electric fields, including wireless Internet and cell phones. Firstenberg and dozens of other electro-sensitive people in Santa Fe claim that putting up Wi-Fi in public places is a violation of the Americans with Disabilities Act
One blogger has started an outcry about harassment as it applies to Twitter. While their written stance appears to support the safeguarding of abuse, Twitter appears to be waffling on the issue when it comes to the hard line of enforcement — via Slashdot
Microsoft has announced Office 2007 Service Pack 2 will add support for the Open Document Format (ODF), Portable Document Format (PDF), and XML Paper Specification (XPS). ODF, a rival document format to Office’s native format, has become popular with governments and schools. Microsoft, acknowledging requests for compatibility with ODF, released a converter to allow Word users to open documents saved in the OpenDocument format
First it was mobiles for nothing, now it’s laptops for free, as telcos try to lure customers into their often-expensive 3G mobile data plans. Telstra is offering a zero-dollar laptop to the value of $700 to business customers signing up for a three-year contract on the telco’s Next G mobile data service. But as with $0 phones, there is a catch. The plan costs $99 a month and includes a one-gigabyte data download allowance a month. Go over that limit and you are in for some hefty excess data charges
Carbon nanotubes, the poster child of the burgeoning nanotechnology industry, could trigger diseases similar to those caused by asbestos, a study suggests. Specific lengths of the tiny fibres were found to cause asbestos-like
inflammation and lesions in mice. Use of asbestos triggered a pandemic of lung disease
in the 20th Century
A massive UK government database holding details of every phone call, e-mail and time spent on the internet by the public is being planned as part of the fight against crime and terrorism. Internet service providers (ISPs) and telecoms companies would hand over the records to the Home Office under plans put forward by officials. The information would be held for at least 12 months and the police and security services would be able to access it if given permission from the courts
Microsoft has said it is considering a deal with Yahoo which would not involve a full buyout of the company. Microsoft’s previous offer to buy Yahoo for $33 a share — a figure which valued the company at $47.5bn — was turned down. Last week Yahoo rebuffed billionaire investor Carl Icahn’s plan to oust the current board over the failed merger. Now Microsoft says it is discussing with Yahoo an alternative transaction, but did not provide any detail
ASUS is to embed a lightweight, instant-on version of Linux called Splashtop
into all its motherboards, following good feedback from customers. On Wednesday, DeviceVM, the company behind the distribution, said the hardware manufacturer would be putting Splashtop — which ASUS calls Express Gate
— into a million motherboards a month. Splashtop includes a Firefox-derived browser and the Skype Internet-telephony application
Firefox 3 Release Candidate 1 is out now
A Minnesota woman ordered to pay $222,000 in the first music download trial in the United States may get another chance with a jury. The issue is whether record companies have to prove anyone else actually downloaded their copyrighted songs, or whether it is enough to argue that a defendant made copyrighted music available for copying
Historians have postulated that, without Bletchley Park, the Allies may never have won the war. But, despite an impressive contribution to the war effort, the Bletchley Park site, now a museum, faces a bleak future unless it can secure funding to keep its doors open and its numerous exhibits from rotting away. The Bletchley Park Trust receives no external funding. It has been deemed ineligible for funding by the National Lottery, and turned down by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation because the Microsoft founder will only fund internet-based technology projects
A federal grand jury on Thursday indicted a Missouri woman for her alleged role in perpetrating a hoax on the online social network MySpace against a 13-year-old neighbor who committed suicide. Lori Drew of suburban St Louis allegedly helped create a false-identity MySpace account to contact Megan Meier, who thought she was chatting with a 16-year-old boy named Josh Evans. Josh didn’t exist. Megan hanged herself at home in October 2006 after receiving cruel messages, including one stating the world would be better off without her
CBS agreed to buy CNet Networks for about $1.75 billion, expanding its access to the burgeoning Internet advertising market. The company, which owns the CBS television network, said it offered $11.50 a share for CNet, based in San Francisco, whose board accepted it. The bid is a 45 percent premium above CNet’s closing price of $7.95 on Wednesday
Carl Icahn, the billionaire investor and activist shareholder, proposed a dissident slate of directors for the Yahoo board on Thursday as he tries to force the company to restart talks to sell itself to Microsoft
Not satisfied with a future vision that already includes flexible screens and wafer-thin phones, a pair of Japanese companies has pushed the envelope to come up with far-fetched gadgets that do all of the above without ever going near a power socket. The key to the work by Mitsubishi Chemical and Sumitomo Chemical lies in so-called spreadable electronics — liquids containing molecules of the type used in OLED screens
RSS – Posts