The Metropolitan Police will no longer describe black people as black, as part of a new attempt to counter charges of racism in the force. Both black and Asian people will in future be referred to as visible minority ethnics. The term, which replaces the phrase black and Asian minority ethnics
, is expected to be adopted officially in January
A course of injections in childhood might help protect people from heart disease later in life. And for those whose arteries are already clogged up, a dose of antibodies could provide immediate benefits. That is the enticing vision raised by animal studies
An image-scanner built into a light and bendy sheet of plastic that you can keep in your wallet has been developed in Japan. The credit-card-sized device will be powered by plugging it into a mobile phone, which also displays and stores the scanned images. It’s so flexible it can even scan curved surfaces such as wine bottle labels. With no moving parts or lights needed, its developers hope it could be on the market in three years’ time for just $10
Hundreds of thousands of secret Whitehall files are being shredded before the public gains the right to see them under the Freedom of Information Act on 1 January. Figures obtained by The Independent show a dramatic escalation in the destruction of confidential papers before the new rights of access come into force. Whitehall departments, including the Department of Trade and Industry, have almost doubled the number of files they have destroyed since the Freedom of Information Act became law
A European court on Wednesday dealt a blow to Microsoft, ordering the company to start offering a version of Windows without a bundled-in media player. Bo Vesterdorf, president of the European Court of First Instance, said that Microsoft must comply with penalties imposed by the European Commission in March even as the company’s appeal wends its way through the system
Telstra has failed a test on the prices it charges rivals to access its phone lines for their broadband customers. In the first such test on the issue, the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission found that telcos weren’t able to generate sufficient margins to recover costs if they tried to sell broadband — or a combination of broadband and voice — to their customers over Telstra’s phone lines
Sydney wireless ISP Unwired has signed an agreement with AAPT that will see the telco reselling its wireless broadband service from next year. The deal represents Unwired’s first wholesale agreement with a major carrier, although it has previously cemented relationships with a number of smaller resellers, including Exetel, Veritel and People Telecom
Carlos Owens, an Alaska ironworker, is building an 18-foot-tall manned Mecha to fight at the local racetrack — and for the military, if they want it
A US civil liberties group has obtained documents detailing fresh claims of abuse of prisoners at Guantanamo Bay and claims the White House authorised the use of inhumane interrogation techniques
Bank robbers in Northern Ireland have stolen at least £20m in what could be Britain’s biggest ever bank heist
A US federal judge has awarded an ISP more than $1.32 billion in what is believed to be the largest judgement ever against spammers
Optus has been asked to pay up to $17 million in alleged unpaid commissions to its former business partner in the international porn trade
The Bad Science Awards are out. These should put a smile on any science geek’s face. Prize gems include: shrinking water molecules, anesthetic condoms, and a plan to send homeopathic AIDS remedies to Botswana
The retarded monkey boy is drawing up plans to disable sections of the GPS network in the event of a terrorist attack, it seems the retarded monkey boy is of the opinion that terrorists don’t use maps and street directories. The rationale seems to be that it would prevent said terrorists from using the GPS system to direct some sort of attack. The plan would shut down access not only to the GPS satellite network, but projects like the EU’s Galileo. Ironically, this comes alongside the President’s plan to strengthen the GPS network against deliberate jamming
Eindhoven University of Technology in the Netherlands have developed thin, flexible, photovoltaic cells. The thin and bendy solar panels can be stuck to fabrics, sheets or backpacks and promise a cheap, go-anywhere electricity supply
A survey carried out by PC Pro magazine looked at which of 100 home photo printers offered a better deal than handing your snaps to a photo lab. The tests found that images from top PC printers kept their colour longer than professionally produced photographs. In the report at the BBC it claims that the new generation of printers produced images with brighter colours and that were less likely to fade than many High Street developers or even some professional wedding photographers
The Sherlock Holmes Society of London has hundreds of free MP3s of Sherlock Holmes radio plays from the 1930s — via boingboing
Scientists have cultured small pieces of heart tissue which beat in the same way as the whole organ. The Massachusetts Institute of Technology team hope the work will lead to new ways of repairing heart damage — via Die Puny Humans
I am Charlotte Simmons by Tom Wolfe scored the winning entry in this year’s Literary Review Bad Sex Award with the appalling: Slither slither slither slither went the tongue, but the hand that was what she tried to concentrate on, the hand, since it has the entire terrain of her torso to explore and not just the otorhinolaryngological caverns — oh god, it was not just at the border where the flesh of the breast joins the pectoral sheath of the chest — no, the hand was cupping her entire right — Now! She must say “No, Hoyt” and talk to him like a dog…
A beer-thirsty Australian gentleman, inpatient with gravity, employed a mechanical contraption to rapidly deliver beer into his gullet using a pump powered by an electric drill. The device proved so effective that the high-pressure jet of beer shooting down his throat ripped a hole in his stomach. Authorities responded by warning people not to use high-pressure machines to drink beer this Christmas — via BoingBoing
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