Telstra logs customer history for new filter

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27 June 2012
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Telstra has admitted to tracking the websites visited by Next G mobile customers, as part of the development of a voluntary internet filtering system.

The tracking was first picked up by members of the Australian Network Operators group, who noticed that requests made to a web server from port 80 on a Telstra mobile device, would immediately be followed by a request from an IP address in the US, hosted by Rackspace.

After inquiries on the anomaly by ZDNet Australia, Telstra today came clean and admitted that it is working on a new cybersafety tool called Smart Controls, that will block certain sites from appearing on Telstra mobiles that are signed up for the service — via redwolf.newsvine.com

Amur Leopard Cub / Denver Zoo

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27 June 2012
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The Denver Zoo is celebrating the birth of a critically endangered Amur (ah-Moor) Leopard cub born on 25 April. The young male, named Makar (Mah-car), is the first birth of his species at Denver Zoo since 1996. Until now, Makar has been behind-the-scenes with his mother. He just received a clean bill of health from zoo veterinarians and guests can see him now inside the zoo’s Feline Building — via ZooBorns

Winamp’s woes: how the greatest MP3 player undid itself

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26 June 2012
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In Entertainment, Technology
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MP3s are so natural to the Internet now that it’s almost hard to imagine a time before high-quality compressed music. But there was such a time — and even after MP3entered the mainstream, organising, ripping, and playing back one’s music collection remained a clunky and frustrating experience.

Enter Winamp, the skin-able, customizable MP3 player that really whips the llama’s ass” In the late 1990s, every music geek had a copy; llama-whipping had gone global, and the big-money acquisition offers quickly followed. AOL famously acquired the company in June 1999 for $80-$100 million — and Winamp almost immediately lost its innovative edge.

Winamp’s 15-year anniversary is now upon us, with little fanfare. It’s almost as if the Internet has forgotten about the upstart with the odd slogan that looked at one time like it would be the company to revolutionise digital music. It certainly had the opportunity.

There’s no reason that Winamp couldn’t be in the position that iTunes is in today if not for a few layers of mismanagement by AOL that started immediately upon acquisition, Rob Lord, the first general manager of Winamp, and its first-ever hire, told Ars — via redwolf.newsvine.com

Carat: Collaborative Energy Debugging

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26 June 2012
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Carat is a research project that aims to detect energy bugs — app behaviour that is consuming energy unnecessarily — using data collected from a community of mobile devices. After running Carat for about a week, you will start to receive personalized recommendations for improving your battery life. We are based out of the AMP Lab in the EECS Department at UC Berkeley, collaborating with the University of Helsinki

Error 451: This Page Has Been Burned

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26 June 2012
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Earlier this month Google developer advocate Tim Bray proposed a new HTTP Error status code aimed at shining a light on web censorship.

Bray’s new Error 451 would work somewhat like the Error 404 pages you’ve probably seen. But instead of telling you that the page could not be found, an Error 451 response would let you know that the page you were looking for had been censored.

The number is a tribute to author Ray Bradbury (commenters on a Slashdot thread independently suggested 451 as well).

As it stands, most web-blocking tools return a 403 error (which means access is forbidden) when denying access to censored pages. For instance, UK ISPs, which are now required to block The Pirate Bay, typically return a 403 error code when doing so — via redwolf.newsvine.com

Microsoft buys Yammer in $1.2bn cash deal

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26 June 2012
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The rumours were true: Microsoft has acquired business social networking firm Yammer in a 1.2bn cash deal announced on Monday.

The acquisition of Yammer adds best-in-class enterprise social networking to Microsoft’s growing portfolio of complementary cloud services; world-class talent that knows how to deliver rapid innovation in the cloud; and a unique adoption model that appeals directly to end users, said Redmond in a statement.

Yammer, a messaging and microblog network with a lot of customers in the top end of enterprise, has a market Microsoft needs. Redmond has traditionally been shy of social networking, but Yammer could be a useful tool in to integrate into Windows 8 and other platforms — via redwolf.newsvine.com

Suha House / Arhitetektura doo

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26 June 2012
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Near the medieval Slovenian town of Škofja Loka, a farm property was transformed by the replacement of an ancient farm building with this crisp, modern three-story home.

The home, built by Arhitetektura doo, sits in exactly the same location as the farm building it replaced, sharing the very same dimensions, with the same slope used as a prominent influence in the home’s shape — via Dornob

‘Twisted light’ carries 2.5 terabits of data per second

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25 June 2012
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Researchers have clocked light beams made of twisted waves carrying 2.5 terabits of data — the capacity of more than 66 DVDs — per second.

The technique relies on manipulating what is known as the orbital angular momentum of the waves.

Recent work suggests that the trick could vastly boost the data-carrying capacity in wi-fi and optical fibres.

The striking demonstration of the approach, reported in Nature Photonics, is likely to lead to even higher rates — via redwolf.newsvine.com

Lego Turing Machine / Jeroen van den Bos + Davy Landman

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25 June 2012
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This is a short documentary about the Lego Turing Machine built by Jeroen van den Bos and Davy Landman at Centrum Wiskunde & Informatica (CWI), Amsterdam (Netherlands). They built it for CWI’s exposition Turings Erfenis in honour of the centenary of Alan Turing’s birth on 23 June 1912.

Alan Turing was a brilliant mathematician who helped define the theoretical model of the computer as we know it today. He was a visionary, one of the few people of his time who recognised the role the computer would play for humanity.

The Turing Machine (1936) is an adequate model of a computer. It can do anything the computers of today or tomorrow can do.

Colosimo Watch Safe Double Wing Edition / Döttling

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25 June 2012
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Colosimo Watch Safe Double Wing Edition / Döttling

Custom German safe-maker Döttling are currently led by master locksmith and namesake Markus Döttling (it was his great grandfather who founded the company in 1919) & Managing Partner Andreas K Schlittenhardt. The safes Döttling makes are nothing short of spectacular — the kind of stuff you will only see in the homes of the most elite and deep-pocketed watch collectors in the world — via Perpetuelle

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