The Pirate Bay have embarked on a project to encrypt all internet traffic, probably by means of an OS-level wrapper around all network connections, which would fall back to an unencrypted connection when the other end is not similarly equipped. The move has been prompted by a recent change in Swedish law, allowing the authorities to snoop on network traffic. This will be a boon to filesharers and anyone else concerned about authorities and trade groups’ recent moves towards ‘policing’ network traffic at the ISP level — via Slashdot
It may be time to rethink the stereotype of grunting, wordless Neandertals. The prehistoric humans may have been quite chatty — at least if the ear canals of their ancestors are any indication. The findings suggest human speech may have originated earlier than some researchers contend
A group of Bangladeshi expatriates have developed a plan to bring affordable Internet access to their homeland through a blend of high-end wireless technology and what the company calls social entrepreneurship
An appeals court in Germany has ruled that the owners of a network are not responsible for the copyright infringement of their users. The decision overturns a previous judgment that held an open WiFi network owner liable for damages, even if the infringer is a stranger making use of the network. Although the latest ruling may affect others across Europe, it’s not likely to carry much weight in the US
Lively, an online tool, allows people to embody a cartoonish online avatar and have text-based conversations with friends and other Internet users in virtual chat rooms
A new way of capturing the energy from the Sun could increase the power generated by solar panels tenfold, a team of American scientists has shown. The new technique involves coating glass with a specific mixture of transparent dyes which redirect light to photovoltaic cells in the frame. The technology could be used to convert glass buildings into vast energy plants. The technology could be in production within three years
Yahoo has introduced a new open Web services platform. Yahoo Search BOSS (Build Your Own Search Service) gives outside developers unprecedented access to Yahoo’s search technology
A statue symbolising the mythical origins and power of Rome, long thought to have been made around 500BC, has been found to date from the 1200s. The statue depicts a she-wolf suckling Remus and his twin brother Romulus — who is said to have founded Rome. The statue of the wolf was carbon-dated last year, but the test results have only now been made public. The figures of Romulus and Remus have already been shown to be 15th Century additions to the statue
US scientists have found evidence that water was held in the Moon’s interior, challenging some elements of the theory of how Earth’s satellite formed. The Moon is thought to have been created in a violent collision between Earth and another planet-sized object. Scientists thought the heat from this impact had vaporised all the water
The new iPhone OS 2.0 software has been unlocked and jailbroken. It was released just hours ago and it has already been cracked by the iPhone Dev Team. The first one took a couple of months, but this one was actually unlocked before Apple released it to the public
Computer experts have released software to tackle a security glitch in the internet’s addressing system. The flaw, discovered by accident, would allow criminals to redirect users to fake web pages, even if they typed the correct address into a browser. Internet giants such as Microsoft are now distributing the security patch
A group of Australian scientists has found a way to make the world’s internet pipes run more than six times faster than today’s best technology. The breakthrough breaks through technical ceilings holding back the hundreds of thousands of fibre-optic cables that ring the earth. The breakthrough was jointly discovered by photonics whizzes at Australian National University and Sydney University who found they could etch circuit-like patterns in glass to switch fibre-optic signals much faster than conventional electronics
After announcing that Browser Sync was being discontinued, a lot of people asked for Google to open source the code so development could continue. Well, they’ve done just that. The code for browser sync is now available on code.google.com, and a blog post about the release can be found on the Google open source blog — via Slashdot
Flickr, a popular online photo-sharing site owned by Yahoo, is teaming up with Getty Images to offer shutterbugs a chance to turn their hobby into a moneymaking endeavor. Under a partnership announced this week, Getty’s editors will peruse Flickr to find pictures that may appeal to newspapers, magazines, book publishers, advertising agencies and other businesses
Google has open-sourced its protocol buffers, the company’s lingua franca for encoding various types of data, in order to set the stage for a wave of new releases. Practically everyone inside Google
uses protocol buffers, states a FAQ page. We have many other projects we would like to release as open source that use protocol buffers, so to do this, we needed to release protocol buffers first
Mozilla’s Asa Dotzler has said It’s really hard for me to believe that either [Microsoft or Adobe] have the free and open Web at heart when they’re actively subverting it with closed technologies like Flash and Silverlight.
But are they really subverting it? Where is the line between serving the consumer and subverting the Web? This blog post makes the case that the W3C’s glacial process should share in the blame for the growth of proprietary technologies — via Slashdot
Pioneer has developed a 16-layer read-only optical disc which it claims can store 400GB of data. The per-layer capacity is 25GB, the same as that of a Blu-ray Disc, and the multilayer technology will also be applicable to multilayer recordable discs. Multi-layered discs have been difficult to develop because crosstalk
from adjacent layers and transmission loss mean that getting a stable signal from the disc is often nearly impossible
An Australian living in East Africa has brought new meaning to the phrase keeping the bastards honest
. In the past year-and-a-half, Julian Assange and his band of online dissidents have helped swing the Kenyan presidential election, embarrassed the US Government and sparked international scandal. His site, Wikileaks, provides a safe haven for whistleblowers to anonymously upload confidential documents and, after 18 months of operation, Assange says no source has ever been exposed and no document — now more than 1.2 million and counting — has ever been censored or removed. Now the site is expanding its focus on despotic regimes and shady corporate dealings to include religion and even the cult of celebrity
A US company, Sierra Nevada Corporation, claims it is ready to build a microwave ray gun able to beam sounds directly into people’s heads. The device — dubbed MEDUSA (Mob Excess Deterrent Using Silent Audio) — exploits the microwave audio effect, in which short microwave pulses rapidly heat tissue, causing a shockwave inside the skull that can be detected by the ears. A series of pulses can be transmitted to produce recognisable sounds. The device is aimed for military or crowd-control applications, but may have other uses
Rant all you want in a public park. A police officer generally won’t eject you for your remarks alone, however unpopular or provocative. Say it on the Internet, and you’ll find that free speech and other constitutional rights are anything but guaranteed. Companies in charge of seemingly public spaces online wipe out content that’s controversial but otherwise legal. Service providers write their own rules for users worldwide and set foreign policy when they cooperate with regimes like China. They serve as prosecutor, judge and jury in handling disputes behind closed doors
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