Astronomers involved in SETI have found an unexplained radio signal. This signal, now seen on three separate occasions, is an enigma. It could be generated by a previously unknown astronomical phenomenon. Or it could be something much more mundane, maybe an artefact of the telescope itself. But it also happens to be the best candidate yet for a contact by intelligent aliens. Astronomers, surprised that a blip generated so much hype, have moved swiftly to quell speculation they may have received a deep-space radio signal from ET
If you ask anyone who cares about the look of their HDTV or graphics workstation display, they’ll tell you the same thing: LCDs don’t reproduce colour very well. But over the next few years, that situation may change, thanks to improved backlighting using LED technology
Philadelphia has unveiled an ambitious plan to coat the city with Wi-Fi, using a mix of public and private funds to provide the service. Dianah Neff, the city’s CIO, has presented a proposal to mayor John Street that would see all of Philadelphia’s 1.6m residents receive the wireless web by late 2005 or early 2006. The city hopes to complement existing wireless services at hotels, coffee shops, businesses and homes while also opening up wireless access to some residents who might be unable to afford typical high-speed Internet costs. The city expects the initial rollout to cost $10m with annual maintenance costs coming in around $1.5m
Scientists have developed an invisible coating that will waterproof almost anything including mobile phones.
The revolutionary nanometre-thick coating was first researched to protect soldiers’ suits against chemical and biological warfare agents by Defence Science and Technology Laboratory at Porton Down and the University of Durham.
The new invention, which is three times more water repellent than Teflon, could radically change sportswear, clothing, mobile phones and medical devices. Apart from its military uses DSTL is now trying to capture the civilian market as it launches a joint venture with industry.
A firewall designed to eliminate spam has been developed at Queensland University. The researchers say it is the only true spam firewall in existence, and are chasing investors to help take the breakthrough system to market. Co-developer Matthew Sullivan, a specialist systems programmer, said the spam firewall relied on a statistical learning method, or Support Vector Machine, to categorise e-mails. It is the only anti-spam software that analyses emails as a whole picture rather than based on components, such as keywords or phrases
The ACT police are warning Internet users to be wary of a new e-mail scam that deceptively alerts the recipient that their identity has been stolen. ACT Detective-Sergeant Fiona Sagripanti said the latest scam has the subject Your ID was stolen
and attempts to persuade the user to visit a web site
On 1 January 2005, Elvis Presley’s That’s All Right
— a 50-year-old tune currently enjoying the #3 chart spot in Great Britain — will enter the public domain. Anyone will be able to release it without paying royalties to the owners of the master or the performer’s heirs. BMG will start losing a significant piece of its catalogue income in Europe. As That’s All Right
is being hailed by some as the beginning of rock ‘n’ roll, the implications are that every year after 2005, more recordings that defined the genre will fall into public domain
But where’s the cpu? Dude it’s in the screen.
Wow.
Not too keen on the slot loading optical drive, but wow, that’s one hell of a design. Don’t know how effective the cooling will be, some Apple rumour sites have been speculating about cooling probs being a reason for it’s delayed release. But that’s probably me being too picky or paranoid.
Love that crisp turquoisey-ceraulean-blue Apple are using in their graphics these days. Apple’s visual identity evolves as their products evolve, but that’s another soapboxy design entry for later.
What do you call a man with too much time, a jet engine and his mother-in-law’s wheelchair? An embarrassing headline waiting to happen
Australia is two years behind comparable developed countries in broadband services despite an accelerated uptake that doubled subscribers in the past year. The advent of less expensive entry-level products drove demand. However, the uptake of broadband services still lags countries such as the US, Canada and Sweden by a wide margin
A circular concept printer, that uses rotational, instead of linear, movement to reduce its size, was one of 130 winners of the 2004 Industrial Design Excellence Awards — via boingboing
A new federal law could allow authorities easy access to private, stored e-mails without a warrant, according to civil libertarians
An online photo gallery from the wedding of Robolympics founder David Calkins with Simone Davalos of the Long Now Foundation includes delightfully bizarre photographs of Stormtroopers loose in an amusement park — via boingboing
When construction workers in Oslo dug a drainage ditch around a church in the Old City
district, they uncovered a slew of skeletons little more than a foot below the surface. According to an Aftenposten Norway article, the skeletons likely belong to the former tenants of a Dominican monastery located in the area from 1240 until 1537 — via BoingBoing
Before the Reformation the most blessed resting spots were awarded hierarchically and could be bought. The best plots lay under the holy water that drained off the church roof and dripped onto the ground below… The skeletons also bear witness to medieval times as an age of violence. Many of the bones reveal notches that must have resulted from brutal force
The American Library Association recently published the new 100 most frequently banned books list of 2003. Of the banned books, Harry Potter was in the number 7th place in the most frequently banned. Also included were Where’s Waldo
and The Giver
along with Goosebumps
and How to Eat Fried Worms
. These books were banned from various public institutions. This means that they were banned from various public libraries and public schools around the United States
The Royal College of General Practitioners has accused pharmaceutical companies of disease-mongering in order to boost sales, bringing the NHS to the brink of collapse
A jawbone, grown on his shoulder, using a titanium mold, bone marrow, and recombinant bone morphogenic protein, enabled a man to chew for the first time since he lost his lower jaw in radical surgery for cancer. Since then he was able to eat only soup and soft foods. But just four weeks after a pioneering jaw-creation and transplantation procedure, he tucked into a meal of sausages and bread
Photos supposedly taken in a Paris airport elevator hit the Web on Thursday, fuelling rumours that the new machine will be similar to Apple’s new line of flat-panel displays, with the guts of the computer behind the LCD screen. The photos — which have not been verified as authentic — show a slim all-in-one computer inside the familiar Apple packaging, down to the signature black-and-white box
Though Skippy the Hamster powers this night light by running on his exercise wheel, the same concepts and low-rpm alternator design could be applied to a school science project using different energy sources. A small wind or hydro turbine could easily power this alternator. He’s a Syrian Hamster, and we chose that breed since they are nocturnal and like to run on the exercise wheel
A Church of England bishop has adopted a non-traditional approach to tempt his disappearing flock to return to the fold: chocolate. Some consider it a sin to indulge but the Church of England is holding up chocolate as a potential savior for its diocese in Manchester, which has been threatened by falling attendances — via Pagan Prattle
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