This Anzac Day descendants of Turkish soldiers will for the first time be officially allowed to join in the march of veterans. Turkish-Australians whose fathers and grandfathers fought at Gallipoli have been defying RSL policy by marching in the Melbourne parade since 1996. But now they’ve been given official sanction from Victoria’s RSL
Microsoft has developed Oklahoma’s Computer Spyware protection Act. The law will supposedly protect people from unwarranted hackers or virus attacks and can fine individuals up to $1M who are found guilty of breaking into a computer without the owners knowledge. At the same time, it also allows some of the better known capable companies to look
into your computer for possible virus/spyware and fix the problem without informing you. And, while these friends are doing their job, they can also take the moment to do other things — via Slashdot
An ultralight autonomous aircraft that mimics the navigational abilities of a fly could one day become a real fly on the wall. The 10gm microflyer, being developed by a team of researchers lead by Dario Floreano at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne, has a 36cm wingspan. But it could one day be shrunk to insect size and used for search and rescue
Google has snapped up the rights to an advanced text search algorithm invented by a University of NSW student. The algorithm, or search engine tool, is called Orion and was developed by UNSW PhD student Ori Allon at the university’s School of Computer Science
ABC will make a number of its most popular programmes available online at no cost. Beginning 30 April, a redesigned ABC.com web site will allow web surfers to watch full episodes of programs such as Lost, Desperate Housewives and others starting the morning after they air on ABC. In addition, programming from other Disney-owned networks will be made available online over the next couple of months. All programs will be shown in their entirety, including commercials which cannot be avoided. Aside from being unable to avoid commercials, watching the programs will be similar to watching timeshifted content in that viewers will be able to pause, fast forward, and rewind
Popular social-networking site MySpace is responding to concerns about teen safety by bringing a security officer on board and hiring more employees to handle inappropriate content
Neurosurgeon Kenneth Smith has performed a revolutionary operation on St Louis resident Cheri Robertson, connecting a camera directly to her optic nerve. The rig is in principle similar to Geordi La Forge’s visor, albeit in very rudimentary form. At present, the image
consists of a number of white dots, as on an LED display. There are also governmental restrictions on this research, forcing Kenneth and his team to fly to Portugal to carry out the operation. If this technology takes off, the future will be bright for the sight-impaired — via Slashdot
An RAF doctor who refused to serve in Iraq because he believed the war to be illegal was jailed for eight months. The conviction and imprisonment of Flight Lieutenant Malcolm Kendall-Smith, the first member of the armed forces to be charged with disobeying orders to deploy in Iraq, has provoked widespread condemnation. Anti-war groups declared that a man who had shown great moral courage and acted according to his conscience was being pilloried for his beliefs
What happens when your satellite navigation system in your car gives you bad advice on which road you should take? In Britain, these systems have been directing drivers down a road near the (aptly named) town of Crackpot that is strewn with boulders and has an unprotected 100ft dropoff on one side. The locals are worried someone’s going to go off the edge
China’s environment ministry has ordered cleanups at 20 chemical and petrochemical enterprises, including CNPC and units of Sinopec, after they were found to pose serious safety threats
A brightly plumaged parrot and a long-tailed forest mouse unique to the Philippines have been discovered in the vanishing rainforest of a tiny tropical island
The construction of 402 homes might finally signal the end of the 28-year red wolf breeding programme at the Graham site. Local zoo officials want to move the wolves to protected land at Northwest Trek near Eatonville, but that hinges on a $550,000 federal appropriation at a time when money is tight
The competition watchdog has rejected Telstra’s proposed charges for connecting and disconnecting broadband ISPs’ access to its basic copper wire
Open Source Development Labs is previewing work that attempts to make life easier for software companies by bridging GNOME and KDE, the two competing graphical interfaces most widely used with Linux
New Greenpeace research shows that McDonald’s are partners in forest crime that is creating a trail of destruction right into the heart of the Amazon rainforest — via Warren Ellis
Scientists have made one of the most important fossil finds in history: a missing link between fish and land animals, showing how creatures first walked out of the water and on to dry land more than 375m years ago. Palaeontologists have said that the find, a crocodile-like animal called the Tiktaalik roseae and described today in the journal Nature, could become an icon of evolution in action — like Archaeopteryx, the famous fossil that bridged the gap between reptiles and birds
Police in China are investigating whether the discovery of more than 120 human skulls may be part of a growing trade in macabre handicrafts — via Warren Ellis
A Republican controlled committee has defeated a bill that would have guaranteed fair access and stopped companies like AT&T and Verizon from charging high-bandwidth sites for allowing their customers to have priority access to them
Anti-terrorism detectives escorted a man from a plane after a taxi driver had earlier become suspicious when he started singing along to a track by punk band The Clash. Detectives halted the London-bound flight at Durham Tees Valley Airport and Harraj Mann, 24, was taken off. The taxi driver had become worried on the way to the airport because Mann had been singing along to The Clash’s 1979 anthem London Calling
, which features the lyrics Now war is declared — and battle come down
while other lines warn of a meltdown expected
— via Boing Boing
The Australian Consumers Association has savaged the federal Government’s plans for the full roll-out of digital television services as part of its media reforms
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