In the new war of the Internet based applications, Yahoo is testing creating an email folder as the hub for RSS instead of using a web page for the feeds
Apple has issued highly critical
security updates to address more than a dozen vulnerabilities in its Mac OSX operating system
Raytheon has developed a technology for safely detonating all the landmines in disused landmine fields — they drop a shell containing many hundreds of steel arrows into the field, which sets off all the old mines — via Boing Boing
The latest iteration of the open-source browser Firefox is now available for download, featuring upgrades designed to speed page loads, improve navigation, and boost security
iiNet has ended its protest over Telstra’s wholesale ADSL prices and has started signing up customers in regional areas again
He works at a Wendy’s, and his name is Ronald MacDonald — but now he may be known as the Hamburglar. Two workers at a Wendy’s in Manchester, New Hampshire, have been charged with taking money from the safe. One of the suspects is Ronald MacDonald. Police say the restaurant’s manager called them early Monday morning and said he saw MacDonald and the other man taking cash out of the restaurant’s safe — via Laridian
Holographic Versatile Discs (HVDs) have been in the works for some time now by various companies, including InPhase Technologies (formerly part of Lucent) and Japan’s Optware. InPhase’s HVDs, scheduled for release in 2006, are said to hold 300GB of data, 60 times that of a conventional DVD with only a slight increase in size. That translates to more than a day’s worth of HD-quality video. Not to mention the drives themselves can read and write at ten times the speed a normal DVD drive. One of InPhase’s partners in HVD research, Maxell, is working towards even more storage on a 1.6TB disc
A highly dexterous, bio-inspired artificial hand and sensory system that could provide patients with active feeling, is being developed by a European project called cyberhand. The final prototype includes sensors for tension, force, joint angle, end stroke and contact
Delays in securing local council approvals have pushed back the planned launch of a trial of a new fibre to the home service in Tasmania by almost four months
Google is testing a service to get advertisers and consumers talking on the phone. The system works by putting a phone icon next to some search results. Clicking on the graphic lets you enter your phone number — Google will then connect you, for free, to the advertiser. Your phone will ring and when you pick it up you will hear it ringing at the advertiser’s office. The advertiser won’t get your phone number — Google keeps that encrypted
Google doesn’t like to do things traditionally. Right from their IPO, when they dumped Goldman Sachs for secretly trying to deal with their big investor, Kleiner Perkins. Business Week covers the Google Caste System: in which business types are second-class citizens to Google’s valued code jockeys… They deem the corporate development team as underpowered in the company, with engineers and product managers tending to carry more clout than salesmen and dealmakers.
At last a company is shouting at the top of it’s voice, engineers make the world — via Slashdot
Stanford is going to be republishing several of the Sherlock Holmes stories in serial installments as they originally appeared printed and illustrated in The Strand magazine. You can subscribe to get them either as paper copies or electronically, and either way is completely free. It starts in January, but you signups are open now — voa boingboing
Junk-food vending machines would be banned in Victorian schools under State Government plans to tackle childhood obesity. This comes as health groups continue to pressure the Government into banning fatty foods at school canteens
Google commissioned a research on the amount of dead time spent by passengers at airports. An average airline passenger spends over 9 hours a year waiting for flights. On the basis of the survey, Google launched Google Space at London’s Heathrow Terminal One, it is scheduled to run until 17 December. Google Space
is a laboratory with Google pods, which travelers can access free-of-cost, log onto the Internet, check their mail, and find out more about their destination using Google tools
The federal government wants to peer into your computer communications, forcing companies to design, or redesign, their networks to accommodate surveillance. The FCC gave broadband Internet service and voice-over-Internet Protocol services 18 months to ensure that their networks are wiretap-ready — via digg
Found an amusing answer to a friend’s problem today.
My friend has been having trouble sending messages through to a relative in Russia from her Optusnet webmail account. Once I waded through her panic that the computer was breaking I discovered something more interesting.
Her relative’s Russian ISP, Telebit, has blacklisted Optus. Whether this is because Optus is spamming them or Optus’ dodgy webmail system sends out poorly formed e-mail that Telebit reject as forged, I don’t know. But I found it hilarious that Optus have been blacklisted by the Russians.
Microsoft asked for references to free software to be removed from a document presented at last week’s UN World Summit on the Information Society conference, the software giant admitted on Friday. The Free Software Foundation Europe is unhappy that the document was changed and claims that even though it was on the panel discussing the document, it was not made aware of Microsoft’s changes. The document [PDF], known as the Vienna Conclusions, discusses issues around IT and creativity. The original draft of the document discussed how the free software model is changing the way people do business
The recording industry is trying to hijack the EU’s data retention directive, which is being brought in to fight terrorism, to try and get their copyright battles fought for them. The EU may be making copyright infringement a criminal offence, and the Creative Media Business Alliance is lobbying hard to stop the European laws on data retention being restricted to cover terrorism and organised crime. In essence, they want to be able to get police to search through newly extended records from ISPs to look for evidence of illegal filesharing. In the words of the executive director of the Open Rights Group, the music industry’s attempt to hijack this legislation is a travesty and a gross affront to civil liberties and human rights
The former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia is to host the world’s largest WLAN. The wireless mesh network will cover the entire country. Within a year more than 90 per cent of the population will be able to go online and make telephone calls via the WLAN from their home
Telstra’s recently-announced plans to extend fibre-optic cables to street-side cabinets in order to provide faster ADSL services could be the kickstart broadband over powerline technology needs in Australia
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