The Downadup worm, also known as Conficker or Kido, is racing across the Internet and has infected more than 8.9 million PCs since November. Microsoft has issued a patch to block the worm, but many PC users haven’t installed it and portable USB drives are helping the worm spread. The Downadup worm also blocks security sites and changes access rights
The Ministry of Defence confirmed today that it has suffered virus infections which have shut down a small number
of MoD systems, most notably including admin networks aboard Royal Navy warships. The Navy computers infected are the NavyStar (N*) system, based on a server cabinet and cable-networked PCs on each warship and used for purposes such as storekeeping, email and similar support functions. N* ship nets connect to wider networks by shore connection when vessels are in harbour and using satcomms when at sea
The federal Government can expect to cut millions of dollars in grants from its long-running rural broadband subsidy scheme after it classed Optus’ 3G network as equivalent to service available in metropolitan areas
Google and the Prado Museum here are making it possible for Web-surfing art lovers to study 14 of the museum’s greatest works in minute detail without ever setting foot in Spain. The project allows users of Google Earth to zoom in on high-resolution images of the works, scouring the canvas for details that would barely be visible to a museum visitor standing behind a velvet cordon. Other major art museums, like the National Gallery in London, have made their collections available online, but the Prado is the first to produce such high-resolution reproductions on the Internet, Javier Rodr’guez Zapatero
A new light-bending material has brought scientists one step closer to creating a cloaking device that could hide objects from sight. Beyond possible military applications, it also might have a very practical use by making mobile communications clearer
New research reveals there is hope for Mars yet. The first definitive detection of methane in the atmosphere of Mars indicates the planet is still alive, in either a biologic or geologic sense, according to a team of NASA and university scientists
Actor Ricardo Montalban, best known as the debonair and mysterious Mr Roarke on the popular television series Fantasy Island, died yesterday at the age of 88. Mexican-born actor had a long career in Hollywood, but found broad fame as the star of ABC’s Fantasy Island in which he fulfilled the dreams of his guests with the help of his sidekick, Tattoo
I’ve finally got around to putting some of my photos from last year’s trip to Japan onto the intarwebs machine.
You can see them on my Flickr page.
Starting next week, Google plan to stop active development on Google Notebook. This means they’ll no longer be adding features or offer Notebook for new users. However, they’ll continue to maintain service for those who’ve already signed up
Emmy-winning actor Patrick McGoohan, best known for starring in cult 1960s TV show The Prisoner, has died at the age of 80
Apple has confirmed that CEO Steve Jobs will step down from his CEO post while recuperating from a hormone imbalance, with his absence to stretch until the end of June. Tim Cook, Apple’s chief operating officer, will run the company during Jobs’ absence, according an e-mail Jobs sent to Apple employees that was released to the media
The Australian Communications and Media Authority has fined Optus a combined $110,000 for two infringements relating to sending what the authority deemed was SMS spam to mobile phones
The Internet may not be such a dangerous place for children after all. A task force created by 49 state attorneys general to look into the problem of sexual solicitation of children online has concluded that there really is not a significant problem. The panel, the Internet Safety Technical Task Force, was charged with examining the extent of the threats children face on social networks like MySpace and Facebook, amid widespread fears that adults were using these popular Web sites to deceive and prey on children. But the report concluded that the problem of bullying among children, both online and offline, poses a far more serious challenge than the sexual solicitation of minors by adults
Hundreds of thousands of people took to the web this morning to hunt down ancestors and former occupants of their homes — or simply take a peek at other people’s lives almost a century ago — as the 1911 census records of more than 27 million people in England went online, three years earlier than planned. By lunchtime, the 1911census.co.uk website had seen 7.2m page views, with just under 700,000 separate searches made for people or house occupants, a spokeswoman for the National Archives said
Seagate’s flagship desktop Barracuda 7200.11 drives, in particular the 1TB (ST31000340AS) units, are failing at an alarming rate and prompting outrage from their faithful customers. A new self-bricking feature apparently resides in faulty firmware microcode which will rear its ugly head sometime at boot detection. Essentially the drive will be working as normal for a while, then — out of the blue — it’ll brick itself to death. The next time you reboot your computer the drive will simply lock itself up as a failsafe and won’t be detected by the BIOS. In other words, there’s power, spin-up, but no detection to enable booting
A British councillor has come under fire after being caught using an alias to praise his own work on the local newspaper’s website. The Daily Echo in Bournemouth, on the south coast of England, decided to name and shame Ben Grower after he posted comments under several names. He admitted using false names but said it was a legitimate way to put his views across
Palm’s new webOS as used in the Palm Pre smartphone has a feature called Synergy that brings your scattered information into one logical view. Palm’s webOS has applications running on the Web so information is up to date. The webOS in the Palm Pre synchronises updates to contacts, calendars and messages on various accounts
Searching the web may be more beneficial for the brain than reading a book, scientists say. Researchers at the University of California at Los Angeles measured a two-fold increase in brain activity among the websavvy compared with internet novices in a study of the elderly. Team leader Dr Gary Small said the results encouraged the idea that computerised technologies may have benefits for middleaged and older adults
One of life’s greatest mysteries is how it began. Scientists have pinned it down to roughly this: Some chemical reactions occurred about 4 billion years ago — perhaps in a primordial tidal soup or maybe with help of volcanoes or possibly at the bottom of the sea or between the mica sheets — to create biology. Now scientists have created something in the lab that is tantalizingly close to what might have happened. It’s not life, they stress, but it certainly gives the science community a whole new data set to chew on. The researchers, at the Scripps Research Institute, created molecules that self-replicate and even evolve and compete to win or lose. If that sounds exactly like life, read on to learn the controversial and thin distinction
Implants that sit in the body and reprogram a person’s immune cells could be used to treat a range of infectious diseases and even cancer. In a trial on mice with an aggressive melanoma that usually kills within 25 days, the new treatment saved 90% of the group. Because cancer cells originate within the body, the immune system usually leaves them alone. Therapies exist that involve removing immune cells from the body before priming them to attack malignant tissue and injecting them back into a patient
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