Google announced it would set aside at least $4.6 billion to purchase a slice of the public airwaves in an upcoming government auction of radio spectrum. The company is imposing one condition on its money: It will only participate, it says, if the Federal Communications Commission requires that all bidders for the radio waves be forced to adhere to principles of Internet openness
Google has announced the acquisition of ImageAmerica, a company that builds high-resolution cameras for the collection of aerial imagery
Researchers at New Jersey Institute of Technology have developed an inexpensive solar cell that can be painted or printed on flexible plastic sheets. The team combined carbon nanotubes with tiny carbon buckyballs (fullerenes) to form snake-like structures. Add sunlight to excite the polymers, and the buckyballs will grab the electrons
The FBI has used PC spyware for the first time to reveal the identity of an offender who sent bomb threats to a high school in Washington state. According to heise Security, a declaration from the FBI official who applied for the search warrant describes the mode of operation of the spyware which the FBI is using under the abbreviation CIPAV (Computer and Internet Protocol Address Verifier)
The launch of Australian Screen was met with an unfortunate fate: by 10.00am the site had crashed. The new site, which serves excerpts of Australian film and television archives crashed once users — primarily teachers and students — began accessing the new service
It has long been suspected that there is a silent policy that makes Hotmail automatically delete the majority of attachments to save on bandwidth and internal disk space. Therefore it really doesn’t matter if every client has access to 2GB of storage since they don’t deliver the attachments to fill that space up anyway. If that truly is the case, then Microsoft may be liable for several hundred million cases of conspiracy and mail fraud — via Slashdot
Tuesday, there wasn’t even a fuss. Wednesday, the world was a little different. By executive order, the Secretary of the Treasury may now seize the property of any person who undermines efforts to promote economic reconstruction and political reform in Iraq. The Secretary may make his determination in secret and after the fact. The UK’s Guardian has an article explaining how the new authority will only be used to go after terrorists — via Slashdot
The remarkable adhesive abilities of geckos and mussels have been combined to create a super-sticky material. Unlike other adhesives inspired by the nimble reptiles, geckel
can attach to both wet and dry surfaces. Its staying power comes from coating fibrous silicone, similar in structure to a gecko’s foot, with a polymer that mimics the glue
used by mussels
A recent appeals court case dealt with Drug Enforcement Administration agents using a key logger to investigate a suspect using PGP and Hushmail. That invites the obvious question: Will security companies ever intentionally overlook police spyware? There were somewhat-muddled reports in 2001 that Symantec and McAfee would do just that, so over at News.com we figured we’d do a survey of the top 13 security firms. We asked them if it is their policy to detect policeware. Notably, Check Point said it would afford law enforcement
the courtesy of whitelisting if requested. We’ve also posted the full results, with the companies’ complete answers. Another question we asked is if they have ever received a court order requiring them to overlook police key loggers or spyware. Symantec, IBM, Kaspersky, and others said no. Only Microsoft and McAfee refused to answer — via Slashdot
The New South Wales Transport Minister, John Watkins, is calling on the Federal Government to offer tax exemptions to public transport users. Speaking at the Australian Rail Summit in Sydney, Mr Watkins has drawn attention to what he calls a bias in the current tax system towards private car users. The Minister has told the forum that people who salary package their cars and drive them to work attract tax exemptions which are not available to public transport users. Mr Watkins says the tax exemption should be extended to people who buy public transport tickets
Sci Fi announced that Farscape would be resurrected online in ten short webisodes to be produced by the Jim Henson Company. There are hints that Ben Browder and Claudia Black will both be both available
American Media has decided to suspend publication of Weekly World News, both the print publication and the web site. No reason was given at press time, although reliable sources do tell us that management turned down at least one offer to buy the publication. The weekly supermarket tabloid–known as the home of Bat Boy
and other less-than-probable stories–has long had staffing connections with the science fiction, fantasy, and horror fields
A 1935 analogue computer, built at Cambridge University and used to help plan the Dam Busters attacks on the Ruhr hydro dams in World War II, has been restored and put on display at Auckland’s Museum of Transport and Technology. The computer came to New Zealand around 1950 and was used, ironically, to build hydro dams there — and to calculate rabbit population numbers — via Slashdot
A liquid that changes colour when exposed to a magnetic field could cheaply replace the colour components in conventional LCD monitors. The liquid contains tiny iron oxide particles coated with plastic. It is cheap and easy to make, and could also be used in flexible, rewritable, electronic paper
Aaron Swartz today announced the launch of the new Open Library project. The goal of the project is to produce the world’s greatest library on the Internet free for anyone to use. Starting with the Internet Archive’s book scanning project and organising the insertion of new content via a wiki-type model the project seems to be off to a great start. The demo, source code, and mailing lists were all opened up today in hopes of drawing interest from the public at large — via Slashdot
Everyone should be seen as a potential organ donor on their death unless they expressly request not to be, England’s chief medical officer says. Sir Liam Donaldson wants a system of presumed consent
to be introduced in England to tackle organ shortages. His Scottish counterpart rejected the move
Scientists have discovered that carbon nanotubes have remarkable springy properties, which could make them ideal for use in artificial muscles. Currently, electroactive polymers are most commonly used to make artificial muscles, but these lack mechanical robustness. Researchers at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute tested the nanotubes by repeatedly squashing them between metal plates — via Slashdot
In March, the Justice Department’s Inspector General revealed that FBI agents had sent a flurry of fake emergency letters to phone companies, asking them to turn over phone records immediately by promising that the proper papers had been filed with US attorneys, though in many cases this was a complete lie. More than 60 of these letters were made public as part of a FBI document dump in response to a government sunshine lawsuit centered on the FBI’s abuse of a key Patriot Act power
A new film reviving the cult 1990s TV series The X-Files is moving closer to being made, according to reports. David Duchovny, one of the show’s stars, has told reporters he will receive a script next week. Duchovny and co-star Gillian Anderson are both on board
to reprise their roles as alien-hunting special agents Mulder and Scully, he said. The script has been written by creator Chris Carter and writer Frank Spotnitz
An Australian researcher has challenged the traditional assumption that the metric system of measurement was invented in 18th-century France. Pat Naughtin says he unearthed a description of such a system in a book written by John Wilkins, a century earlier in England In the book, Mr Wilkins describes a measuring system defined in units of ten for length, volume and money. He did not use the term metre, preferring Rhineland inches instead
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