Michigan spam king Alan Ralsky, his son-in-law and nine others have been indicted in Detroit on charges of violating federal anti-spam laws. The 41-count indictment said Ralsky, his son-in-law, Scott Bradley, 46, of West Bloomfield, and others used unsolicited e-mail to pump up the price of largely worthless stock in Chinese companies and sold the stock reaping huge profits and leaving Internet subscribers who purchased it holding the bag
Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales will launch an open-source search project, dubbed Wikia Search, on 7 January 2008 and eventually hopes to challenge Google and other established players. The project will allow technology enthusiasts to help filter sites and rank search results, using a community model akin to that of Wikipedia. However, the company is a for-profit organisation
In Service Pack 3 for Office 2003, Microsoft disabled support for many older file formats. If you have old Word, Excel, 1-2-3, Quattro, or Corel Draw documents, watch out. They did this because the old formats are less secure
, which actually makes some sense, but only if you got the files from some untrustworthy source. Naturally, they did this by default, and then documented a mind-bogglingly complex workaround (KB 938810) rather than providing a user interface for adjusting it, or even a set of awkward Do you really want to do this?
dialoueg boxes to click through. And of course because these are, after all, old file formats… many users will encounter the problem only months or years after the software change, while groping around in dusty and now-inaccessible archives — via Slashdot
The newest Project of Mozilla labs is Weave. It allows the user to save their browser settings on Mozilla servers (favourites, sessions, passwords… etc) and be able to load it wherever they are
Scientists in Britain have come up with a solution for making electronic gadgets completely waterproof, using a type of coating that repels liquids. The technology has, up until now, been used for military gear, but the makers of Ion-Mask are already in discussion with three mobile phone manufacturers with a view to using the coating on their products — via Gizmodo
PC World has released their year in review statistics and 2007 was not kind to Microsoft. IE 6 users are equally likely to move to Firefox as they are to IE7 and no one wants Vista
Scientists believe they have found the underlying reasons why knots are so common in the universe. This research helps us understand how knotty arrangements in various molecules lead to biological patterns, as in certain proteins — via Slashdot
Randy Steel is no detective, but he may have solved a peculiar holiday mystery. More than 500 bulbs have gone missing this month from the City Park light display in Twin Falls. Officials say they’re not sure who is taking the lights, or why. Steel says he’s a victim, too. The culprits have struck his house, unscrewing light bulbs and dashing away, sometimes in broad daylight. So far, police have done nothing. But that doesn’t surprise Steel. I know who is taking ’em,
he said. It’s squirrels
For months, users of Adobe Creative Suite 3 have been wondering why some of the applications regularly connect to what looks like a private IP address but is actually a public domain address belonging to the web analytics company Omniture. Now allegations of user spying are getting louder, prompting Adobe Photoshop product manager John Nack to respond, though many remain unsatisfied with his explanation — via Slashdot
The Annals of Improbable Research, a scientific publication that hosts the annual Ig Nobel awards, has decided to offer its publication free online. According to the journal Web site, visitors can view HTML articles with low-res images or download low-res PDFs for free. High-resolution PDFs and traditional on-the-toilet-readable paper-and-ink
issues are still available for a subscription fee
The browser that helped kick-start the commercial web is to cease development because of lack of users. Netscape Navigator, now owned by AOL, will no longer be supported after 1 February 2008, the company has said. In the mid-1990s the browser was used by more than 90% of the web population, but numbers have slipped to just 0.6%. In particular, the browser has faced competition from Microsoft’s Internet Explorer (IE), which is now used by nearly 80% of all web users
Complaints about online directory assistance sites that reveal extensive personal data have prompted Governor M Jodi Rell to start developing a legislative package to help. In a news release, Rell said Monday that she’s received complaints about online search engines that list not only names, addresses, and telephone numbers but also people’s ages, places of work, and other personal information. Rell said she plans to propose restrictions that would likely be in the form of an opt-out
registry that’s an electronic version of the state and federal Do Not Call
list, which blocks telemarketing calls to citizens whose phone numbers are on the list
Warner Music Group is making its music available for US downloads from Amazon in MP3 format without copy protection. Warner had been holding out against using the format because MP3 tracks are easier to share between users and may be freely burned onto CDs
A new book claims to have definitive evidence of a long-suspected technological crime — that Alexander Graham Bell stole ideas for the telephone from a rival, Elisha Gray. In The Telephone Gambit: Chasing Alexander Graham Bell’s Secret, journalist Seth Shulman argues that Bell — aided by aggressive lawyers and a corrupt patent examiner — got an improper peek at patent documents Gray had filed, and that Bell was erroneously credited with filing first
The WTO’s recent ruling on Antigua’s complaint against the US over the banning of online gambling resulted in a payment to the island nation much less than they asked for. It appears, though, that this payment was just part of the WTO’s compensation package for Antigua/Barbuda. Via Kotaku, the Hollywood Reporter notes that the Caribbean country can now freely ignore US copyright laws — legally. This dispensation is apparently limited to some $21 million a year — via Slashdot
It appears that Google’s Android, criticised by Microsoft as vaporware, has sprung to life. Prototype devices are circulating, software developers are experimenting with the SDK and PC-based Android emulator, and there are rumours of a show-stopping debut at February’s Mobile World Congress event in Barcelona. Numerous examples of the Android GUI are also starting to leak out — via Slashdot
Russia successfully launched a rocket on Tuesday carrying the last three satellites to complete a navigation system to rival America’s GPS. The military-run GLONASS mapping system works over most of Russia and is expected to cover the globe by the end of 2009, once all its 24 navigational satellites are operating
Google Reader Begins Sharing Private Data
One week ago Google Reader’s team decided to begin showing your private data to all your GMail contacts. No need to opt-in, no way to opt-out. Complaints haven’t been answered. Some users share their problems, including one family who says they won’t be able to enjoy this Christmas because of this feature
. You can check a summary of complaints or browse the whole thread in Google Groups — via Slashdot
Shareaza.com, the home of the hugely popular Shareaza multi-network sharing application, has been hijacked by scammers. Unsuspected visitors to the site will be completely unaware that they will be tricked into downloading something that isn’t Shareaza at all, but subscription-based malware infected software instead
From 20 January 2008 new content laws introduced by the Federal Government will force sites to verify the age of users before accessing content intended for mature audiences. The laws bring internet classification into line with Film and Book classification laws and completely prohibits X18+ and RC content from the internet. ACMA (The Australian Communications and Media Authority) claims that adults will not be affected by the new laws, yet user-generated and even chatrooms are required to be assessed for classification and powers are granted to ACMA to send take down
notices to offending sites — via Slashdot
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