From 20 January 2008 new content laws introduced by the Federal Government will force sites to verify the age of users before accessing content intended for mature audiences. The laws bring internet classification into line with Film and Book classification laws and completely prohibits X18+ and RC content from the internet. ACMA (The Australian Communications and Media Authority) claims that adults will not be affected by the new laws, yet user-generated and even chatrooms are required to be assessed for classification and powers are granted to ACMA to send take down
notices to offending sites — via Slashdot
The web site of the National Bureau of Corruption Prevention (NBCP) crashed on Tuesday, just hours after its launch, as droves of people logged on to complain about corruption among officials. The web site (yfj.mos.gov.cn) was closed for most of the afternoon
First-tier notebook manufacturers are increasing the standard installed memory from the current 1 GB to 4GB. They claim the move is an attempt to shore up the costs of DRAM chips, which are currently depressed because of a glut in market. The glut is supposedly due to increased manufacturing capacity and the slow adoption of Microsoft’s Vista operating system. The proposed move is especially interesting, given that 32-bit Vista and XP cannot access 4 GB of memory. They have a practical 3.1 — 3.3 GB limit. With Vista SP1 it seems that Microsoft has decided to fix the problem by reporting the installed memory rather than the available memory — via Slashdot
Given Apple’s marketing toward the young and the trendy, you wouldn’t expect the US Army to be much of a customer. Lieutenant Colonel CJ Wallington is hoping hackers won’t expect it either. Wallington, a division chief in the Army’s office of enterprise information systems, says the military is quietly working to integrate Macintosh computers into its systems to make them harder to hack. That’s because fewer attacks have been designed to infiltrate Mac computers, and adding more Macs to the military’s computer mix makes it tougher to destabilise a group of military computers with a single attack, Wallington says
The application security researcher Jeremiah Grossman described to CSO magazine how he takes extreme measure to stay safe online. The simplest tip he uses: two separate browsers: One, which he calls the promiscuous
browser, is the one he uses for ordinary browsing. A second browser is used only for security-critical tasks such as online banking. When Grossman wants to do online banking, he closes his promiscous browser, opens the more prudish one, and does only what he has to do before closing it and going back to his insecure browser — via Slashdot
The popular BitTorrent site Mininova officially launched its Content Distribution service, an easy way for indie publishers to share their content with a wide audience, for free of course. All the files published with the new Content Distribution (CD) service will be placed on the frontpage as featured content. The publishers don’t need to have any knowledge about BitTorrent because Mininova will create the torrent and make sure it is seeded
Stanford researchers have found a way to use silicon nanowires to reinvent the rechargeable lithium-ion batteries that power laptops, iPods, video cameras, cell phones and countless other devices. The new version, developed through research led by Yi Cui, assistant professor of materials science and engineering, produces 10 times the amount of electricity of existing lithium-ion, known as Li-ion, batteries. A laptop that now runs on battery for two hours could operate for 20 hours, a boon to ocean-hopping business travellers
Channel9 is reporting that Internet Explorer 8 has correctly rendered the Acid2 page in standards mode
A 4,000-year-old clay tablet authorities suspect was smuggled illegally from Iraq was pulled from eBay just minutes before the close of the online auction. Criminal proceedings have been launched against the seller, identified only as a resident of Zurich
Optus has responded to criticism of the move, saying that if a customer wants to avoid paying excess fees they can choose to limit their usage
. Optus provides a set of tools to help customers manage their data usage including data usage alerts via SMS to their mobile phone free of charge, email notifications and access via the web any time
, said an Optus spokesperson.New Optus Fusion customers could be stung by up to $300 in excess usage fees from today, and Optus subsidiary Virgin Broadband has also increased its Broadband at Home
pricing. Optus Fusion plans were previously a no more to pay
broadband deal, as they were shaped to slower speeds once the allowance of 2GB, 7GB or 20GB was reached
Optus is now offering increased cable broadband speed of up to 20Mbit/s, but only those on the latest MyHome and Fusion plans can get it. The speed is double the up to 10Mbit/s
that was previously offered, and matches Optus’ advertised ADSL2+ speed. But users on old plans will not be able to get the higher speed unless they switch to new, less attractive offers
They’re coming and it will be difficult to get away without having one. Google Profiles will be integrated in most Google services so you have a coherent identity and a simple way to manage your contacts
Recent breakthroughs in scramjet engines could mean two-hour flights from New York to Tokyo. This technology, decades in the making, could redefine our understanding of air travel and military encounters. To put things in context, the world’s fastest jet, the Air Force’s SR-71 Blackbird spy plane, set a speed record of Mach 3.3 in 1990 when it flew from Los Angeles to Washington, DC, in just over an hour. That’s about the limit for jet engines; the fastest fighter planes barely crack Mach 1.6. Scramjets, on the other hand, can theoretically fly as fast as Mach 15 — nearly 10,000 mph — via Slashdot
The malware economy is turning into a recognisable traditional IT economy. Leasing botnets? Malware support? Welcome to the new age of computing. One indication of the maturity of the black economy, according to Telafici, was the recent case of a hacker who wrote a packer [software used to bypass antivirus protection], threw in the towel recently as it wasn’t profitable enough — there’s too much competition. They opened the source code and walked away
— via Slashdot
It doesn’t seem like an ideal place to promote solar energy, but foggy San Francisco has come up with an ambitious plan to encourage businesses and homeowners to tap the sun’s power for their energy needs. The program announced Tuesday would offer companies and residents government-funded loans and rebates to offset the costs of installing solar panels
Google appears to be reinventing Wikipedia with their new product that they call knol (not yet publicly available). In an attempt to gather human knowledge, Google will accept articles from users who will be credited with the article by name. If they want, they can allow ads to appear alongside the content and they will be getting a share of the profits if that’s the case. Other users will be allowed to rate, edit or comment on the articles. The content does not have to be exclusive to Google but no mention is made on any license for it — via Slashdot
Movable Type is open source. This means you can freely modify, redistribute and use Movable Type for any purpose you choose
Opera Software has filed a complaint in Europe against Microsoft, alleging that the software giant is unfairly abusing its dominant market position by tying Windows to Internet Explorer
A screen shot posted to the web over the weekend seems to show that Canada’s largest provider of high-speed internet access is exploring a controversial data substitution technique that lets it add its own content to the web pages customers visit. Expect this development to become Exhibit A in the case for net neutrality legislation. Lauren Weinstein, a technology consultant in Los Angeles and a long-time Internet activist, posted a screen-shot of a Rogers-modified Google search page this past Saturday on his blog. Rogers vice president of communications Taanta Gupta confirmed that Rogers is experimenting with this technique as a way to communicate with its customers
New Yorker Alison Wilson was walking down Prince Street in SoHo last week when she heard a woman’s voice right in her ear asking, Who’s there? Who’s there?
She looked around to find no one in her immediate surroundings. Then the voice said, It’s not your imagination.
Indeed it isn’t. It’s an ad for Paranormal State
, a ghost-themed series premiering on A&E this week. The billboard uses technology manufactured by Holosonic that transmits an audio spotlight
from a rooftop speaker so that the sound is contained within your cranium. The technology, ideal for museums and libraries or environments that require a quiet atmosphere for isolated audio slideshows, has rarely been used on such a scale before. For random passersby and residents who have to walk unwittingly through the area where the voice will penetrate their inner peace, it’s another story — via Warren Ellis
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