There have been developments in new plastics that exhibit magnetic fields of fractal dimensions. Whereas a simple bar magnet produces magnetic fields that go from the north pole to the south pole, the fields of the new hybrid plastic sprout like branches of a cactus lined with secondary fields that resemble needles. As these fields become increasingly interlocked, they exhibit a unique kind of order. This intensely ordered structure might one day be key to storing information with a very high density — via Slashdot
A man wielding two axes went berserk in the crowded town centre of Waltham Abbey yesterday, leaving two people in hospital and a third in shock, before launching a frenzied attack inside an historic abbey
Hotmail and Yahoo are using Carnegie Mellon developed captcha technology — completely automated public Turing tests to tell computers and humans apart — to stop spammers from automating signups for accounts from which they can send spam. SpamArrest are using captcha too, but to stop incoming spam
The MIT AI Lab, the birth place of the free software movement, walked away from a US$404K study because the government wanted to restrict participation by foreign students — via Slashdot
It’s time for Bob Cringley’s predictions of what will happen in high-tech and high-tech business during 2003
After being administered by for-profit companies since its inception in 1995, the .org Internet domain for organisations and groups is now being overseen by the non-profit Public Interest Registry
Geeky college pranks are not just the purview of big name science and technology schools. Now that statutes of limitations have expired, Stealth Force Beta, a group of constructive vandals
who operated at New Mexico Tech, tell of their exploits — via Slashdot
Michael Robertson, CEO of software company Lindows, has revealed himself as the formerly anonymous donor of $200,000 in prize money in a contest to translate the Linux operating system to Microsoft’s Xbox video game console
McDonald’s has pulled the plug on what had been envisioned as a global digital network linking its fast-food restaurants, headquarters and vendors
Dan Jackson is distributing an unfortunately named program that will remove the security from Microsoft Reader ebooks. Once the security is removed, it then allows the book to be converted to html, text or any other format — via Slashdot
Internet domain name registrar Register.com last week won a preliminary injunction against Domain Registry of America, a reseller of domain name registrations, that it accuses of deceiving Register.com customers into transferring their registrations
Microsoft’s biggest threat isn’t Linux, OpenOffice, or any piece of software at all — its themselves. Over the last eighteen months two distinctly different Microsoft cultures have emerged, often in opposition to each other
New Zealand scientists are redesigning how the ‘Back’ button works in your browser. They point to the fact that the current Back
is more of an Up
in a stack of pages. They propose a system that records all pages visited
Apple is applying for a patent to release devices capable of dynamically changing their ornamental or decorative appearance — via Slashdot
On the internet, you can learn about virtually anything. You can seek comfort from others similarly afflicted by a rare disease or explore such sensitive topics as birth control. Just as long as you’re not connecting from work, a school or a public library
Hole after hole, breach after breach, flaw after flaw is found — and most of the time, it’s in a Windows system. Yet hackers generally don’t exploit them. Why is that?
Renewable Energy Generators Australia said that a report recommending the end to a mandated target for increased green energy use was flawed and would put at risk billions of dollars in investment
Joseph Turow has begun a crusade to de-capitalise the word Internet and, by extension, to acknowledge a deep shift in the way that we think about the online world
Mexico’s equivalent of the RIAA used federal police to raid Grupo Mekong, responsible for half of the 400 million virgin CDs imported each year, accusing them of being in league with the Piracy business in Mexico. The rationale being that record companies buy only 20% of Mekong merchandise, so the other 80% must be going to pirates, disregarding computer users, independent labels or other legal uses — via Slashdot
The frenzied bidding for a tumbledown Northern California town closed at nearly US$1.8 million yesterday on eBay. If the deal goes through, 82 acres of Bridgeville will go to the unidentified buyer who put in a bid for US$1,777,877 just seconds before the Internet auction closed
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