The middle-class entrepreneurs of the Victorian era were so successful because they invested their own money and were ruthless
Scientists are developing a smart tattoo that could tell diabetics when their glucose levels are dangerously low. Once perfected, the tattoo will allow glucose levels to be monitored round the clock, and could allow an alarm system that would warn the diabetic if their glucose levels were to fall dangerously
Adobe has announced that it has asked the US District Court to resolve a contractual dispute that Adobe has the right to permit its customers to embed ITC fonts in electronic documents. Adobe is also the same rights with respect to Monotype fonts. Adobe attempted to resolve this matter informally with Monotype and ITC, but was unsuccessful
Walt Anderson, the financier behind such non-traditional space ventures as MirCorp and Rotary Rocket, is bankrolling a new company that intends to change the economics of the commercial satellite business
The idea of an invisibility cloak
has made the leap from science fiction books to an international patent application. The ‘three dimensional cloaking process and apparatus’ for concealing objects and people (WO 02/067196) employs photodetectors on the rear surface which are used to record the intensity and colour of a source of illumination behind the object. Light emitters on the front surface then generate light beams that exactly mimic the same measured intensity, colour and trajectory. The result is that an observer looking at the front of the object appears to see straight through it — via Slashdot
The government of Greece is making heroic efforts to humiliate the nation in front of the entire world, by banning all electronic games
VeriSign could lose its right to sell dot-com
domain names if it fails to address accusations that it violated its contract with global Internet addressing authorities
The Public Anemone is an organic robot set in a rock pool filled with greenish water which reacts to light and touch, much like an real sea anemone. Researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Boston see their robot as a way of exploring artificial life
Wanted: Talented shepherd to manage flock of 600 sheep on remote Lundy Island. Must enjoy virtual solitude. Spouse recommended
Neil Gaiman has won this year’s Hugo for wonderful his novel American Gods
If the next big thing in computers, the grid, comes true, war will know no boundaries. Virtual war, that is. A grid is a kind of hypernetwork that links computers and data storage owned by different groups so that they can share computing power. By comparison, today’s Internet, allows independent users to trade data, not computer resources
Colin Powell has said the United States must publish its evidence against Saddam Hussein before it launches any military action against Iraq
While delegates attending the World Summit wrangled over how best to save the planet’s rapidly dwindling resources, they gave scant indication of leading by example. The 10-day summit, billed as the largest UN conference ever held, is expected to generate between 300 and 400 tons of garbage, and so far, just 20% of it is being recycled
The perennial rumour that Apple is developing its OS X platform for Intel chips has come around again, with Apple reported to be running a parallel x86 version of the Unix-based OS X under the Marklar
moniker
Red Hat plans to build out a growing portfolio of enterprise products with a desktop Linux offering targeted at business users
Venezuela has adopted a policy for the use of open-source software in government wherever possible. They have practical rather than philosophical motivations: keeping cash in the country and promoting local software development
Be the first on your block to drive a Star Wars Land Speeder. This used to be a 1988 Ford Escort and only has 880 miles since built
Shooting and poisoning feral animals is failing to reduce their thriving populations throughout NSW, warns a report on the National Parks and Wildlife Service’s efforts to control pests. Instead, farmers and other landholders must be persuaded to repair the environment to make conditions less hospitable for introduced species
Hot on the heels of the Mozilla 1.1 release, Netscape have launched Navigator 7.0 into the world
When MIT announced in March that it won a US$50 million grant to design high-tech gear for the US Army’s soldier of the future
, the project was hailed as the stuff of science fiction and comic book heroes. The school has grudgingly acknowledged that it copied images from the sci-fi comic book Radix
as part of its winning bid
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