Swarms of robots that use electromagnetic forces to cling together and assume different shapes are being developed by US researchers. The grand goal is to create swarms of microscopic robots capable of morphing into virtually any form by clinging together — via Warren Ellis
Sellers Give Negative Feedback on eBay Changes
EBay’s highly touted cut in sellers’ fees is not so clearly a boon for sellers as it may appear at first look. However, in some scenarios, sellers actually will end up paying more than they did before. In one comparison, the fees increased by 33 percent. What is more, eBay’s changes to its feedback system have many sellers up in arms. Feedback, of course, has been the centre of the self-policing aspect of eBay through which buyers and sellers rate each other. Now, for the first time, sellers will not be able to leave negative or neutral feedback about buyers
Foxtel has officially unveiled its new HD service, including the new Hi-Def box, at a media conference in Sydney. The new service is called Foxtel HD+, but pricing and release date haven’t been announced yet
Sweden plans this week to charge the people running Pirate Bay, one of the world’s most visited websites, with being accessories in breaking copyright law. Pirate Bay helps web surfers share copyrighted music and film files, which is illegal in many countries, including Sweden
The world’s most powerful functional rail gun capable of accelerating projectiles up to Mach 8 has been delivered to the Navy. The new rail gun is a 32-megajoule Electro-Magnetic Laboratory Rail Gun. The Navy eventually hopes to have 64-megajoule ship mounted rail guns. The lab version doesn’t look particularly menacing — more like a long, belt-fed airport screening device than like a futuristic cannon — but the system will fire rounds at up to Mach 8, drawing on tremendous amounts of electricity to generate the current for each test shot — via Slashdot
Here’s something that isn’t an urban legend — Snopes, the popular urban legends reference site, has been pushing malware, for at least six months, to users via ads displayed on its web site. No one seems to have called them on it until recently — Slashdot
A distributor of internet file-swapping software abruptly postponed the launch of its free online music service until it can finalise music licensing deals — a detail the company omitted when it threw a star-studded coming-out party over the weekend. Qtrax’s ambitious, ad-supported music service promised unlimited, advertising-supported music downloads with the blessing of the major recording companies. That claim began to unravel just hours before Qtrax’s scheduled debut on Monday when Warner Music Group issued a statement that it had not authorised the firm to distribute its artists’ music. Other major record labels soon followed
Amazon announced in a press release today their plans to sell DRM-free music worldwide through the Amazon MP3 store beginning later this year. This news is being viewed by some as the latest volley in Amazon’s digital music sales war with Apple’s iTunes. Since Amazon has completed its plans to offer DRM-free music from all four major record labels, the global availability of the MP3s can only be excellent news for customers — via Slashdot
Fraud Sciences, a private company, has developed technology designed to differentiate between real and fraudulent transactions. eBay’s online payments division, PayPal, will pay US$169 million for an Israeli security company specialising in detecting online fraud. The deal should close within 30 days
Europe’s top data protection officials are working to clarify a grey area of internet law: the legal status of an IP (Internet Protocol) address. The question of whether an IP address should be considered private data occupied much time at a hearing earlier this week at the European Parliament regarding Google’s planned acquisition of DoubleClick. If a person can be identified by an IP address, then the address is private, said Peter Schaar, the German data protection commissioner and chairman of the Europe-wide privacy group, the Article 29 Committee
The Oregon attorney general’s office is investigating the Recording Industry Association of America’s practices regarding 17 University of Oregon students accused of copyright infringement. While the AG isn’t minimising the seriousness of copyright violations, his office has submitted a brief questioning the data mining tactics and subpoena practices employed by the RIAA
Sophos claims that they are detecting 6,000 new sites daily that have been compromised to serve malware to unsuspecting site visitors, with 80% of site owners not aware that they have been compromised — though this figure is probably on the low side — Slashdot
The Swiss authorities have warned a company that tracks file sharers for copyright violations that its tactics violate the country’s telecommunication law
After the inevitable clamour to declare Blu-ray the one true
high-definition optical disk format, comes the drive to make the technology more compact and — crucially — cheaper. Foremost in the hardware race is Sony, which has developed the world’s smallest Blu-ray reader/writer module that also happens to be less costly than existing models
The body which oversees the internet may become independent from the US Government for the first time, paving the way for one of the world’s most important resources to be run by the private sector
A confidential informant says Google will stop monetising all domains if they are less then five days old. This potential new policy change by Google could stop all Domain Tasting in its tracks. The Add Grace Period (AGP) is a time period when registrars can delete a domain at no cost, but in this time frame a registrant could register millions of these temporary domains and place Google Adsense for Domains on them. The result is the ability to produce millions of temporary websites that literally generate millions of dollars in income per week for Google
Reports are beginning to surface that some Web servers running Linux and Apache are unwittingly infecting thousands of computers, exploiting vulnerabilities in QuickTime, Yahoo! Messenger, and Windows. One way to tell if your machine is infected is if you’re unable to create a directory name beginning with a numeral. Since details are still sketchy, the best advice right now is to take proactive steps to secure your servers — via Slashdot
An internet group calling itself Anonymous has declared war on the Church of Scientology, in the form of an ominous posting to the YouTube site — via Slashdot
Jennifer Stoddart, the Privacy Commissioner of Canada, is wary of DRM, and she’s not afraid to tell other branches of government about her concerns. Stoddart has just sent a public letter to Jim Prentice, the Canadian Minister of Industry, telling him that his impending copyright reform bill should not protect any DRM that gathers and transmits personal data
A US-based anti-spyware company has registered the .com.au.com
domain name, which experts fear could be used by cybercriminals to create more convincing phishing attacks
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