Now that the dust is beginning to settle on the long-running SCO case, Novell wants to get paid. Now. They’re requesting that the customary stay on SCO’s finances (as a result of their bankruptcy) be lifted so that Novell can begin recouping some of its losses from the protracted legal battle — via Slashdot
Pioneering research into a gay bomb
that makes enemy troops sexually irresistible
to each other has scooped one of this year’s Ig Nobel Prizes. Other winners included work on treating hamster jetlag with impotency drugs, extracting vanilla from cow dung, and the side-effects of sword swallowing. The awards, founded in 1991, mark achievements that first make people laugh, and then make them think
A hacker’s diversion of traffic from a California county government Web site to a porn purveyor spiraled into IT chaos yesterday after a countermeasure applied from Washington essentially deleted the ca.gov domain
Fake Ebay and Paypal e-mails which are used to con users out of money are being targeted by a secure mail system. The online auction site and web pay service are working with Yahoo to use the firm’s anti-phishing technology. The firms are supporting the emerging standard known as domain keys, which block fake e-mails by validating the sender with a digital signature. The technology, called the DomainKeys Identified Mail (DKIM), will be available to millions of Yahoo Mail users worldwide in the coming weeks
More than 100,000 old books previously unavailable to the public will go online thanks to a mass digitisation programme at the British Library. The programme focuses on 19th Century books, many of which are unknown as few were reprinted after first editions. The library believes online access to the titles will help teachers. At full production approximately 50,000 pages per working day will be scanned
New laws going into effect in the United Kingdom make it a crime to refuse to decrypt almost any encrypted data requested by authorities as part of a criminal or terror investigation. Individuals who are believed to have the cryptographic keys necessary for such decryption will face up to 5 years in prison for failing to comply with police or military orders to hand over either the cryptographic keys, or the data in a decrypted form
eBay admitted that it had overpaid hugely for Skype. eBay bought Skype in 2005 for $2.6 billion. Yesterday it warned shareholders that it would have to take an impairment charge of $900 million because it had valued the group too highly two years ago. At the time of the deal, eBay said it would pay a maximum earn-out bonus of $1.7 billion based on various performance targets. It said yesterday that it would pay only $530 million in cash to the Skype founders in the only and last payment of its kind
Radiohead has apparently chosen the path less travelled when it comes to the release of their new album. They are offering two very unique methods of purchase for their new music, the ability to name your own price for a digital download or the ability to purchase a special discbox
which will contain the album on CD and vinyl in addition to a horde of goodies. Will be interesting to see how this new model works out for them and what it might do to more traditional methods — via Slashdot
A variety of migrating birds, as well as bats and even hamsters successfully use a magnetic sense
to navigate on long journeys. Now, a new type of sensor developed by scientists in the US could make it possible for humans do the same trick. Magnetic global positioning works by matching precise measurements of the Earth’s magnetic field with a database of measurements from across the globe
A weapon used to fight spammers is now helping university researchers preserve old books and manuscripts. Carnegie Mellon is using a test to help decipher words in books that machines cannot read by letting sites use them to authenticate log-ins. The test, known as a CAPTCHA (Completely Automated Turing Test To Tell Computers and Humans Apart), was originally designed at Carnegie Mellon to help to keep out automated programs known as bots
Adobe has acquired the online word processor Buzzword, which allows users to create and share text documents on the web. Similar programs are already offered as elements of other free office software suites from Google, ajax13 and Zoho. Microsoft has also announced a new web feature for its Office suite which lets people access documents online
It may seem like an unlikely source of inspiration for a new computer memory technology, but Detective Conan
(otherwise known as Case Closed
) — a popular anime and manga series about a young detective who uses high-tech gadgets to help him solve cases — could have provided the creative spark that led to the development of a protein-based ultrathin memory. Using ferritin, a protein commonly found in both eukaryotes and prokaryotes that facilitates iron storage, scientists from Japan’s Nara Institute of Science and Technology came up with a way to build memory on thinner substrates, thus avoiding the need for energy-intensive, high-temperature processing (often in excess of 1,000°C)
Google is considering a Canadian launch of its Street View map feature, which offers street-level close-ups of city centers. But the company said it would probably blur people’s faces and vehicle license plates to respect tougher Canadian privacy laws
Large PC manufacturers were slated to have to stop selling XP after 31 January. However, they have successfully lobbied Microsoft to allow them to continue selling PCs with all flavours of Windows XP preloaded until 30 June, a further five months. Microsoft also plans to keep XP on retail shelves longer and will allow computer makers in emerging markets to build machines with Windows XP Starter Edition until June 2010
A cross-site scripting vulnerability may mean bad news for Gmail users. The ethical hacking group GNUCitizen has developed a proof-of-concept program that deftly steals contact information and emails from the popular web-based mail service. At the moment there are no wild
exploits for this vulnerability — via Slashdot
Shannon Larratt of BME and ModBlog has made what looks like an emergency post [since deleted] about a hostile takeover attempt of BME — via Warren Ellis
New Zealand police have launched a wiki open at anyone wanting to edit and make suggestions to the Police Act as part of a wider revamp. New Zealand’s current Police Act is nearly 50 years old. In March 2006 a review undertaken. Following this a new website wiki.policeact.govt.nz has been launched to allow people to suggest wording for the new Policing Act. The wiki version of the Policing Act will be viewed by New Zealand parliamentarians, before an official bill is introduced into Parliament — via Boing Boing
Burma’s bloggers are using the internet to beat censorship, and tell the world what is happening under the military junta’s veil of secrecy
Amazon has launched the public beta of its new digital music portal called Amazon MP3, which will feature two million songs from 180,000 artists and 20,000 labels, all without DRM. Separate songs will sell for $.89 or $.99 and albums will range in cost from $5.99 to $9.99, with the best selling albums coming in at $8.99. It looks like it’s locked down to US customers only
Starting 12 November, The One Laptop Per Child Project will sell its affordable XO laptop to Americans for a brief period of time, but there’s a slight catch: US buyers must purchase two computers — one for their own child and one for a child in the developing world — for a total cost of US$399 — via Slashdot
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