Official figures reveal that UK agencies monitored 439,000 telephones and email addresses in a 15 month period between 2005 and 2006. The Interception of Communications Commissioner is seeking the right for agencies to be allowed to monitor the communications of Members of Parliament as well, something which has been forbidden since the 1960s
Over the weekend, SlySoft launched the first version of its HD DVD cracking software designed to let consumers decrypt HD DVD movie discs and rip them to a hard drive. Specifically, the AnyDVD HD software cracks the Advanced Access Content System (AACS), a specification for managing content stored on the next generation HD DVDs
The initial cost of replacing incandescent light bulbs with energy-efficient fluorescent bulbs will be offset by longer-term savings, Prime Minister John Howard said today. Federal Environment Minister Malcolm Turnbull this morning announced standard incandescent light bulbs would be phased out within three years in a bid to reduce energy consumption. Compact fluorescent or low-wattage bulbs cost about $5 more, but are more energy-efficient and save an average of $30 per year
The media industry is clashing with YouTube over its proposal to offer anti-piracy tools only to companies that have distribution deals with the top online video-sharing service. YouTube, owned by Google, plans to introduce technology to help media companies identify pirated videos uploaded by users. But the tools are currently being offered as part of broader negotiations on licensing deals
Two years ago Philips unveiled a prototype of a functional electronic-document reader, called the Readius, which could unroll its display to a scale larger than the device itself. Unfortunately, that was only a prototype. Polymer Vision, which spun out from Philips in 2006, has redesigned the Readius and turned it into a real product that it is going to be available by the end of this year. There are some notable differences between this Readius and the prototype version, in particular, the ability to display 16 shades of grey instead of just 4 and the connectivity options
Daring Fireball has posted a humorous, and accurate PR-speak to Plain English translation of Macrovision’s CEO’s response to Steve Jobs’ Open Letter on DRM
AOL now has experimental OpenID server support. This means that every AOL user now has an OpenID identifier. OpenID is a decentralized cross-site authentication system which has been growing in popularity over the last few months. AOL is the first large provider to offer OpenID services, and though they do not currently accept logins to their services with OpenID identifiers from elsewhere, they are apparently working on it. The next big challenge for OpenID proponents is teaching AOL’s userbase how to make use of this new technology
Profoundly blind people could get their best shot yet of restored vision with a more advanced bionic eye
, researchers have announced. Trials of the new retinal prosthesis will begin shortly, following the success of a prototype that has enabled six blind people to see again. The prototypes were fitted in 2002 to patients who had lost their sight entirely. Within a few weeks all could detect light, identify objects and even perceive motion again. For one patient, this was the first time he had seen anything in half a century, after his sight was destroyed by retinitis pigmentosa, a virus that attacks retinal cells
A123 Systems claims to have invented a Lithium Ion battery that not only can discharge at very high rates of current but can be recharged very quickly without damage to the cells or overheating. A unique feature of A123Systems’ M1 cells is their ability to charge to high capacity in 5 minutes or less. That’s a significant improvement over traditional Li Ion, which typically requires more than 90 minutes to reach a similar level of charge. Using this technology, General Motors has announced a plug-in hybrid SUV
The Naval Network Warfare Command says that Chinese hackers are relentlessly targeting Defense Department networks with cyber attacks. The volume, proficiency and sophistication of the attacks supports the theory that the attacks are government supported. The motives of the attacks emanating from China include technology theft, intelligence gathering, exfiltration, research on DOD operations and the creation of dormant presences in DOD network for future action. Onlookers warn that current US defenses against these attacks are dysfunctional, and that more aggressive measures should be taken to ensure government network safety
Almost two-thirds of music industry executives think removing digital locks from downloadable music would make more people buy the tracks. The Jupiter Research study looked at attitudes to Digital Rights Management (DRM) systems in Europe music firms. Many of those responding said current DRM systems were not fit for purpose
and got in the way of what consumers wanted to do. Despite this few respondents said DRM would disappear in the near future
Dan Heller, author of the Photography Business Blog and a longtime watcher of the idea of selling photos on the Internet, observed Tuesday that there’s low-level buzz about Flickr possibly getting into the stock photo business
. He concludes, For Flickr to do it is obvious. Not doing so while they are on top of the game would be suicide.
It’s an interesting possibility. With some tweaks to the Web site and an opt-in check box on the image upload page, Yahoo and Flickr photographers could begin selling images to the sorts of folks who need to buy stock art — via CNET
Not more than two months after discovering a means to extract the HD DVD and Blu-ray Disc volume keys
to decrypt AACS DRM on individual films, we’re now getting word that DRM hacker arnezami has found the processing key
used to decrypt the DRM on all HD DVD and Blu-ray Disc films
Google’s YouTube and a company called Live Digital will offer no refuge to users who uploaded pirated copies of Fox Television’s 24
and The Simpsons
onto their video platforms. A 20th Century Fox Television spokesperson said that Google and Live Digital complied with subpoenas issued by the US District Court in Northern California and disclosed to Fox the identities of two individuals who illegally uploaded entire episodes of 24
prior to its broadcast and DVD release
Google quietly added a small feature to Gmail this week called Mail Fetcher. When that feature launched, Gmail became perfect. Mail Fetcher allows users to access non-Gmail email accounts from within the Gmail interface. If you have a Yahoo email account, and a work email account, etc., you can simply access that email from within Gmail, using POP settings. Gmail will now work in a very similar way as Outlook does on the PC desktop
While the US continues to hash out concerns over the Real ID Act, which aims to create a national ID by standardising state driver’s licenses, China has already implemented a massive online ID database, which they say will help prevent fraud. Anyone can now send a text message or visit the country’s population information centre’s web site, to check if the name and the ID number of a person’s identity card match. If they do match the ID card-holder’s picture also appears, said the Ministry, adding that no other information is available to ensure a citizen’s privacy is protected. Completed at the end of 2006, China’s population information database, the world’s largest, contains personal information on 1.3 billion citizens. Giving public accessing to the database is also designed to correct mistakes if an individual discovers that their name, number and picture don’t match — via Slashdot
The Electronic Frontier Foundation has filed a lawsuit against the Department of Defence and the Army that seeks more information on a military web censorship unit called the Army Web Risk Assessment Cell (AWRAC) after the DOD failed to answer the EFF’s Freedom of Information Act request in an expedited fashion. AWRAC’s existence was revealed last October in an Army News Service piece that described the unit. The AWRAC team monitors hundreds of thousands of web sites each month and contacts webmasters and bloggers about any security concerns
Yahoo this week debuted a new service called Pipes that lets you remix feeds and create new data mashups in a visual programming environment. The name of the service pays tribute to Unix pipes, which let programmers do astonishingly clever things by making it easy to chain simple utilities together on the command line. Reactions from a number of internet-thinkers are very positive. Tim O’Reilly has an extensive post about why he likes Pipes, and he sees it as a manifestation of ideas that have been circulating for some time now — via Boing Boing
Reports are surfacing that EMI is in negotiations with some of the leading music stores to offer a substantial portion of its music catalogue without DRM, with an announcement due as early as today. Under one scenario, music stores like Napster, Real Rhapsody, and others would fork over sizable advance payments in exchange for the right to sell music as unprotected MP3s. Another industry source reports that EMI was also discussing the possibility of selling MP3s on MySpace
Upstart search engine Powerset has just secured an exclusive license for natural language processing technology from Xerox’s Palo Alto Research Center. It’s a move that some are claiming will allow the small firm to someday challenge Google
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