Scientists have found a way to boost an organism’s natural anti-virus defences — effectively making its cells immune to flu and other potential killers. The process cannot be carried out in human cells — but it could potentially aid the development of effective new anti-viral therapies. It works by stimulating production of the protein interferon, the cell’s first line of defence against viruses
Firefox 3.0’s memory consumption is dramatically improved
, claimed Mozilla’s chief engineer, because developers have aggressively attacked the open-source browser’s notorious memory leaks
When you’re dealing with a flooding emergency in the middle of the worst drought for many years, the last thing you need is barriers to the sharing of geographical and meteorological information. Yet that’s the situation faced by Australia. The authorities’ response is to consider the widespread adoption of Creative Commons licences for public-sector information
The European Union Commissioner for the Internal Market has today proposed extending the copyright term for musical recordings to 95 years. He also wishes to investigate options for new levies on blank discs, data storage and music and video players to compensate artists and copyright holders for legal copying when listeners burn an extra version of an album to play one at home and one in the car — via Slashdot
The communications regulator, ACMA, has cracked down on ISP Dodo, saying it must comply with industry codes of practice relating to complaints handling and billing, or face penalties. The Ombudsman referred Dodo to ACMA after the small ISP racked up almost double the number of customer complaints made against Telstra BigPond — via lifehacker
What do you get when you combine the innovation of MagLev technology with solar power, hydrogen fuel, and a futuristic aesthetic? The Interstate Traveler Hydrogen Super Highway, a ground-breaking solar powered, hydrogen-fueled, zero emission mass transit system that would carry everything from people to cars in sustainable style and carbon neutral function. The construction is set to begin this year, and would connect Ann Arbor and Detroit
ISPs are calling on the record industry to put its money where its mouth is on illegal file-sharing, by underwriting the cost of lawsuits brought by people who are wrongly accused of downloading or uploading music
SCO Group, which for years has claimed that Linux infringes on its Unix intellectual property, has received new funding and seems set to continue its battle against the open source operating system
Last week a Danish court ordered the ISP Tele2 to block its customers access to The Pirate Bay. The decision heated the debate on ISPs Internet filtering, and it now turns out that filtering traffic to The Pirate Bay is actually illegal according to European law
Channel 7 has finally got it finger out of its arse and signed an agreement for Foxtel to retransmit the Channel 7 signal to its cable subscribers in the major capital cities within a matter of weeks
. Satellite subscriers aren’t as lucky, having to wait until 2009 for the launch of the new Optus D3 satellite before they can receive the free-to-air channel. It also means that Channel 7’s EPG information will be made available to Foxtel, giving the Pay TV operator the most comprehensive EPG on the Australian market
Sun Microsystems has signed a stock purchase agreement to acquire Innotek, a Weinstadt, Germany-based supplier of VirtualBox virtualisation software
Google already made it easy to search for the current time anywhere in the world, or to track incoming flights, and now they’re helping us search for local Australian movie times too. You just need to type the name of the movie and your city
Undeterred by the threat of a hostile takeover, slumping Internet pioneer Yahoo completed an acquisition of its own Tuesday by buying online video service Maven Networks for $160 million. The deal marks Yahoo’s latest attempt to expand its online advertising network and snap out of a two-year financial funk that has culminated in unsolicited takeover offer from Microsoft
Yahoo has announced a new mobile phone service that integrates e-mail, instant messaging and social networks. Called oneConnect, the service is expected to launch this spring at the World Mobile Congress in Barcelona. Its open architecture means users and other companies can eventually add many other applications to it
Online video rental company Netflix said on Monday it would exclusively stock Blu-ray high-definition DVDs after a decision by some the world’s biggest movie studios in favor of the Sony Corp developed format. Netflix has stocked DVDs using both Blu-ray and the competing HD DVD format developed by Toshiba since they first came on the market in early 2006
There’s a new gun in town, and some of the Internet’s most powerful companies — including Yahoo, Google, PayPal and AOL — are brandishing it in the ongoing battle against e-mail fraud. The new weapon is called DKIM, an emerging e-mail authentication standard developed by the Internet Engineering Task Force. DKIM, which stands for DomainKeys Identified Mail, allows an organization to cryptographically sign outgoing e-mail to verify that it sent the message
The DataPortability Workgroup announced this morning that representatives from both Google and Facebook are joining its ranks. The group is working on a variety of projects to foster an era of Data Portability — where users can take their data from the web sites they use to reuse elsewhere and where vendors can leverage safe cross-site data exchange for a whole new level of innovation. Good bye customer lock-in, hello to new privacy challenges. If things go right, today could be a very important day in the history of the internet
eBay bowed to pressure Monday from some of its high-volume sellers, saying it will further cut listing fees for books, music, movies and video games sold through the online auction site. Monday’s move amends a fee structure announced last month and could mean savings for merchants who sell those goods in high volume. Those sellers had expected to lose money from the new plan, slated to take effect 20 February. Some had threatened to stop selling on eBay
The American actor Roy Scheider, best known as the hero in the blockbuster Jaws, has died aged 75. The two-time Oscar nominee died yesterday in hospital in Little Rock Arkansas after being treated for cancer
Yahoo’s board plans to reject Microsoft’s unsolicited $US44.6 billion offer to acquire the web giant. After a series of meetings over the past week, Yahoo’s board determined that the $US31 per share offer massively undervalues
Yahoo. It also doesn’t account for the risks Yahoo would be taking by entering into an agreement that might be overturned by regulators. The board plans to send a letter to Microsoft Monday in the US, spelling out its position
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