Fake Ebay and Paypal e-mails which are used to con users out of money are being targeted by a secure mail system. The online auction site and web pay service are working with Yahoo to use the firm’s anti-phishing technology. The firms are supporting the emerging standard known as domain keys, which block fake e-mails by validating the sender with a digital signature. The technology, called the DomainKeys Identified Mail (DKIM), will be available to millions of Yahoo Mail users worldwide in the coming weeks
More than 100,000 old books previously unavailable to the public will go online thanks to a mass digitisation programme at the British Library. The programme focuses on 19th Century books, many of which are unknown as few were reprinted after first editions. The library believes online access to the titles will help teachers. At full production approximately 50,000 pages per working day will be scanned
New laws going into effect in the United Kingdom make it a crime to refuse to decrypt almost any encrypted data requested by authorities as part of a criminal or terror investigation. Individuals who are believed to have the cryptographic keys necessary for such decryption will face up to 5 years in prison for failing to comply with police or military orders to hand over either the cryptographic keys, or the data in a decrypted form
eBay admitted that it had overpaid hugely for Skype. eBay bought Skype in 2005 for $2.6 billion. Yesterday it warned shareholders that it would have to take an impairment charge of $900 million because it had valued the group too highly two years ago. At the time of the deal, eBay said it would pay a maximum earn-out bonus of $1.7 billion based on various performance targets. It said yesterday that it would pay only $530 million in cash to the Skype founders in the only and last payment of its kind
Wallace and Gromit are to return in a half-hour television adventure — the first since 1995’s A Close Shave. Aardman Animations has announced that the cheese-loving inventor and his loyal dog will star in Trouble At Mill
— to screen on BBC One in late 2008
The world’s first true invisibility cloak — a device able to hide an object in the visible spectrum — has been created by physicists in the US. But don’t expect it to compete with stage magic tricks. So far it only works in two dimensions and on a tiny scale. The new cloak, which is just 10 micrometres in diameter, guides rays of light around an object inside and releases them on the other side. The light waves appear to have moved in a straight line, so the cloak — and any object inside — appear invisible
The mysterious donor of 57 carved stone heads found scattered around Yorkshire over the last two weeks is a reclusive artist currently on holiday somewhere in a tent
. The shadowy figure caught on CCTV at one of the 19 places where the primitive-looking sculptures have so far been found is Billy Johnson, a 43-year-old who describes his work as hypnogogic, or sleep-inducing
Insulin, it turns out, may be as important for the mind as it is for the body. Research in the last few years has raised the possibility that Alzheimer’s memory loss could be due to a novel third form of diabetes. Scientists at Northwestern University have discovered why brain insulin signaling — crucial for memory formation — would stop working in Alzheimer’s disease — via Slashdot
Radiohead has apparently chosen the path less travelled when it comes to the release of their new album. They are offering two very unique methods of purchase for their new music, the ability to name your own price for a digital download or the ability to purchase a special discbox
which will contain the album on CD and vinyl in addition to a horde of goodies. Will be interesting to see how this new model works out for them and what it might do to more traditional methods — via Slashdot
A variety of migrating birds, as well as bats and even hamsters successfully use a magnetic sense
to navigate on long journeys. Now, a new type of sensor developed by scientists in the US could make it possible for humans do the same trick. Magnetic global positioning works by matching precise measurements of the Earth’s magnetic field with a database of measurements from across the globe
A weapon used to fight spammers is now helping university researchers preserve old books and manuscripts. Carnegie Mellon is using a test to help decipher words in books that machines cannot read by letting sites use them to authenticate log-ins. The test, known as a CAPTCHA (Completely Automated Turing Test To Tell Computers and Humans Apart), was originally designed at Carnegie Mellon to help to keep out automated programs known as bots
Travel guide publisher Lonely Planet has been sold to BBC Worldwide for a reported $250 million. The privately owned business was founded in 1972 by Tony and Maureen Wheeler and has operations in Australia, the US and UK. The commercial arm of the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) says the deal is part of a plan to increase its operations in Australia and America and build the Lonely Planet franchise around the world
Adobe has acquired the online word processor Buzzword, which allows users to create and share text documents on the web. Similar programs are already offered as elements of other free office software suites from Google, ajax13 and Zoho. Microsoft has also announced a new web feature for its Office suite which lets people access documents online
It may seem like an unlikely source of inspiration for a new computer memory technology, but Detective Conan
(otherwise known as Case Closed
) — a popular anime and manga series about a young detective who uses high-tech gadgets to help him solve cases — could have provided the creative spark that led to the development of a protein-based ultrathin memory. Using ferritin, a protein commonly found in both eukaryotes and prokaryotes that facilitates iron storage, scientists from Japan’s Nara Institute of Science and Technology came up with a way to build memory on thinner substrates, thus avoiding the need for energy-intensive, high-temperature processing (often in excess of 1,000°C)
Google is considering a Canadian launch of its Street View map feature, which offers street-level close-ups of city centers. But the company said it would probably blur people’s faces and vehicle license plates to respect tougher Canadian privacy laws
An unlikely Internet frontier is Paris, Texas, population 26,490, where a defamation lawsuit filed by the local hospital against a critical anonymous blogger is testing the bounds of Internet privacy, First Amendment freedom of speech and whistle-blower rights
Large PC manufacturers were slated to have to stop selling XP after 31 January. However, they have successfully lobbied Microsoft to allow them to continue selling PCs with all flavours of Windows XP preloaded until 30 June, a further five months. Microsoft also plans to keep XP on retail shelves longer and will allow computer makers in emerging markets to build machines with Windows XP Starter Edition until June 2010
Algae are a promising source of biofuels: besides being easy to grow and handle, some varieties are rich in oil similar to that produced by soybeans. Algae also produce another fuel: hydrogen. They make a small amount of hydrogen naturally during photosynthesis, but Anastasios Melis, a plant- and microbial-biology professor at the University of California, Berkeley, believes that genetically engineered versions of the tiny green organisms have a good shot at being a viable source for hydrogen
A cross-site scripting vulnerability may mean bad news for Gmail users. The ethical hacking group GNUCitizen has developed a proof-of-concept program that deftly steals contact information and emails from the popular web-based mail service. At the moment there are no wild
exploits for this vulnerability — via Slashdot
New Zealand Prime Minister Helen Clarke announced New Zealand’s intention to commit to 90% renewable electricity by 2025. The country already uses 70% renewable electricity, primarily hydro and geothermal power and will continue to increase its use of renewables over the next 20 years
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