Forget WEP and WPA; try switching over to the EM-SEC Coating System, a recently announced paint developed by EM-SEC Technologies that acts as an electromagnetic fortress, allowing a wireless network to be contained within painted walls without fear of someone tapping in or hacking wireless networks. The EM-SEC Coating System is clearly the most secure option aside from stringing out the CAT5, and can be safely used to protect wireless networks in business and government facilities
e360 Insight, the spammer that sued Spamhaus, is accused of using a botnet and compromised headers to get their advertising
into the mailboxes of the claimant. These are also the folks that tried to get the Illinois courts to suspend SpamHaus’s domain registration when they wouldn’t play by e360’s rules
Australia’s sluggish broadband speed has drawn the ridicule of business leaders both here and abroad. Australians are typically avid users of new technology once it arrives but the nation’s small population, large land mass and legacy of heavy communications regulation have meant infrastructure plans have been slow to gain traction. Some big names have launched openly scathing attacks on the nation’s broadband speeds in recent months. Rupert Murdoch calls the service a disgrace
and James Packer says installing high-speed broadband should be a top priority for Australia
Google’s YouTube is getting another challenge from the media industry, this time as NBC Universal and News Corp join forces to distribute full-length TV shows and other video over the Internet, supported by advertising. The new venture, which doesn’t have a name yet, will also allow users to download movies and TV shows to own and play back whenever they want. At first, however, the focus will be on showing video streams of hit shows — with ads — such as NBC’s Heroes
and Fox’s 24
A US federal judge has overturned a law designed to protect children from viewing internet pornography, saying it violated the right of free speech. The law made it illegal for websites to provide children access to harmful
material, but it was never enforced. Judge Lowell Reed of Philadelphia said other means of protection, such as software filters, were more effective
Three years after establishing itself as one of the first specialist CRM vendors running its software on Linux, SugarCRM has launched into the project-planning market
VOD and AnyTime have emerged as favourites to grab a deal to supply Australia’s number-three internet company, iiNet, with content for its online movie service, scheduled to launch before the end of June
Deutsche Telekom’s Musicload, one of the largest online music stores in Europe, has come out strongly against DRM on account of its effects on the marketplace and its customers. Musicload said in a letter distributed last week that customers are having consistent problems with DRM, so much so that 3 out of 4 customer service calls are ultimately the result of the frustrations that come with DRM
Vehicles may soon be swapping information about road conditions to warn drivers about jams and dangers. A German research project on show at hi-tech trade fair Cebit envisions a peer-to-peer network for vehicles on a road passing data back and forth. Cars or bikes experiencing problems would pass data that would ripple down the chain of vehicles behind them. Information would be conveyed to drivers via a dashboard screen or through a mobile phone headset
Soon you could be piping digital TV around your home via power sockets. At the Cebit technology fair, German hi-tech firm Devolo is showing off home networking technology that can handle signals from a set top box. While many firms are working on ways to route data via the mains power circuits in the home, Devolo is among the first to use it to send TV signals. Further improvements to the home networking system will help it handle cable and satellite TV signals
SanDisk introduced an 8GB flash memory card for digital cameras and other devices, doubling the capacity of previous versions of the product. In addition, the company unveiled a new micromemory card for mobile phones
The government is heading back to the drawing board after a senate committee found its proposed new smartcard was likely to become an identity card. The Access Card was intended to replace the Medicare card and other benefits cards, streamlining access to a wide range of government health and welfare services. The government had explicitly ruled out its use as a national ID card amid widespread concerns that was what it would become. But in its report released last night, the standing committee on finance and public administration said the card was likely to become in effect an identity card, despite measures aimed at limiting its use
Japan’s Thanko has launched a new music headband just for runners. The VONIA is crafted with the iPod shuffle and other very small audio players in mind. A small pocket at the front holds the player and relays its sound through wires hidden inside the headband itself, preventing tangles during a run. The company has chosen to use bone conduction instead of headphones: sound transmits directly through the skull and leaves the ears free to pick up crucial audio cues from the outside world without affecting audio quality
Thousands of Australians who use internet auction sites like eBay are facing a tax probe into their GST compliance. Online auction sites have been asked by the Australian Tax Office to provide information about sellers who turn over more than $50,000 a year
Whether YouTube suffers the same fate as Napster may depend on the wording of a nearly antique law written long before video-sharing web sites were envisioned
Future spacecraft may surf the magnetic fields of Earth and other planets, taking previously unfeasible routes around the solar system, according to a proposal funded by NASA’s Institute for Advanced Concepts. The electrically charged craft would not need rockets or propellant of any kind. Mason Peck of Cornell University in Ithaca, New York, US, has received a grant to study the idea, which is based on the fact that magnetic fields exert forces on electrically charged objects. He says a satellite could charge itself up in one of two ways — either by firing a beam of charged particles into space, or simply by allowing a radioactive isotope to emit charged particles. The charged satellite would then be gently pushed by Earth’s rotating magnetic field, enabling it to change orbit and even escape to interplanetary space. Early signs suggest the idea may work — via Warren Ellis
The British military is set to take one of its most significant steps into the digital age with the launch of the first Skynet 5 satellite. The spacecraft will deliver secure, high-bandwidth communications for UK and friendly
forces across the globe. It’s not yet the Skynet of Terminator, but how long before it becomes self aware?
Viacom says it will sue Google and YouTube for US$1 billion. Viacom, which owns MTV and Nickelodeon, says YouTube uses its shows illegally. Viacom alleges that about 160,000 unauthorised clips of its programmes have been loaded onto YouTube’s site and viewed more than 1.5 billion times. Google says it is confident
that YouTube has respected the legal rights of copyright holders
Every year, Neil Engelman carefully collects his data, stands before his company’s board of directors and is asked the same question: What caused more outages? The lightning or the squirrels? Four of the past five years, the answer has been the squirrels, says Engelman, vice president of operations for the Lincoln Electric System in Nebraska. Nebraska is not alone. Many states are grappling with a big increase in the number of power outages caused by squirrel electrocutions. Squirrels that fry themselves on power lines and transformers cause tens of thousands of blackouts every year
Microsoft has admitted that its Live OneCare security suite has been accidentally deleting some users’ Outlook and Outlook Express e-mails. According to postings on Microsoft’s OneCare forum, erasures have been caused when the antivirus program finds a virus in an e-mail attachment. Instead of then quarantining that single e-mail, users have reported that entire .pst or .dbx files — the personal folder where non-Exchange Server users’ messages and other details are kept — have been quarantined or, in some cases, even deleted
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