Slashdot Mirror

chrb writes "Several British news sources have recently reported on the growing campaign that calls for an apology to Alan Turing for his persecution by the British government. The petition to the Prime Minister was started by John Graham-Cumming, who has also written to the Queen requesting a Knighthood for Turing, but admits that a pardon is 'unlikely,' saying, 'The most important thing to me is that people hear about Alan Turing and realize his incredible impact on the modern world, and how terrible the impact of prejudice was on him.'"

theodp writes "If you're brilliant, work really hard, and earn a world-class doctorate from a US university, IBM has a job for you at one of its US research sites — as a 'complementary worker' (as this 1996 piece defined the then-emerging term). But be prepared to ship out to India or China after you've soaked up knowledge for 13 months as a 'long-term supplemental worker.' Newsweek sketches some of the bigger picture, reporting that IBM, HP, Accenture, and others are finding it profitable to detach from the United States (even patenting the process). 'IBM is one of the multinationals that propelled America to the apex of its power, and it is now emblematic of the process of creative destruction pushing America to a new, less dominant, and less comfortable position.'"

krou writes "It looks like the launch of the UK Pirate Party came not a moment too soon. The Independent reports that Business Secretary Lord Mandelson is going to take a hard-line stance to preserve copyright after intense lobbying by the music and film industry. 'Under the proposed laws, Ofcom, the industry regulator, would be given powers to require Internet service providers to collect information on those who downloaded pirate material. The data would be anonymous, but serious repeat infringers would be tracked down through their computer ID numbers.' Prospective punishments included restricting internet access, either slowing down an offender's broadband or disconnecting them altogether, and fines up to £50,000. The Pirate Party came out against the scheme, calling it a gross invasion of civil liberties, while Tom Watson, the former minister for digital engagement, spoke out against the move, saying that the government should stop trying criminalize downloaders just so as to 'restore 20th-century incumbents to their position of power,' but should instead be 'coming up with interventions that will nurture 21st-century creative talent.'"

krou writes "It looks like the launch of the UK Pirate Party came not a moment too soon. The Independent reports that Business Secretary Lord Mandelson is going to take a hard-line stance to preserve copyright after intense lobbying by the music and film industry. 'Under the proposed laws, Ofcom, the industry regulator, would be given powers to require Internet service providers to collect information on those who downloaded pirate material. The data would be anonymous, but serious repeat infringers would be tracked down through their computer ID numbers.' Prospective punishments included restricting internet access, either slowing down an offender's broadband or disconnecting them altogether, and fines up to £50,000. The Pirate Party came out against the scheme, calling it a gross invasion of civil liberties, while Tom Watson, the former minister for digital engagement, spoke out against the move, saying that the government should stop trying criminalize downloaders just so as to 'restore 20th-century incumbents to their position of power,' but should instead be 'coming up with interventions that will nurture 21st-century creative talent.'"

Oracle Goddess writes "According to the US National Institute for Mental Health in Bethesda, Maryland, scientists have discovered a remarkable similarity between the genetic faults behind both schizophrenia and manic depression in a breakthrough that is expected to open the way to new treatments for two of the most common mental illnesses, affecting millions of people. Previously schizophrenia and depression were assumed to be two separate conditions, but the new research shows for the first time that both have a common genetic basis that leads people to develop one or the other of the two illnesses."

Oracle Goddess writes "As part of a project to issue ID cards for all 1.1 billion of its citizens, India has announced plans to place information on every single citizen in what will be the world's second largest citizens' database. The government believes the scheme will aid the delivery of vital social services to the poorest people who often lack sufficient identification papers. It also sees the scheme as a way to tackle increasing amounts of identity fraud and theft, and, at a time of increased concern over the threat of militant violence, to boost national security and help police and law officials. 'This could be used as a security measure by the government which leaves migrant workers, refugees and other stateless people in India in limbo, without access to public services, employment and basic welfare,' said Charu Lata Hogg, an associate fellow of the Asia program at Chatham House."

mdwh2 writes "Graphic artists, publishers and MPs have condemned the UK's Coroners and Justice Bill, which will criminalize possession of sexual depictions that appear to show someone under 18 (the age of consent is 16 in the UK), as well as adults where the 'predominant impression conveyed' is of someone under 18, and even if they are merely drawn as being present whilst sexual activity took place between adults. The definitions could include Lost Girls, Watchmen, and South Park. The Comic Book Alliance has launched a petition against the law."

Richard Rothwell writes with news that Jack Straw, Britain's Justice Secretary, has made public plans to drop provisions from the Coroners and Justice Bill which would have allowed the government to take information gathered for one purpose and use it for any other purpose. "A spokesman for Mr Straw said the 'strength of feeling' against the plans had persuaded him to rethink. The proposals will be dropped entirely from the Coroners and Justice Bill, and a new attempt will be made to reach a consensus on introducing a scaled-back version at an unspecified stage in the future." After defending the government's intentions, Straw bowed to pressure from a variety of groups and individuals who presented objections to the bill.

Hugh Pickens writes "Satellites have shown how the Arctic sea-ice has been shrinking in recent years, but a three-man scientific team making an expedition to the North Pole should give scientists a better idea of how thin the ice is becoming. 'We're making the surface journey because that's the only way we have of gathering these direct observations of how thick the snow and the ice is,' said team leader Pen Hadow, who in 2003 became the first person to trek solo and without support from Canada to the North Pole. 'That's what the scientists really need to know.' There is more at stake for the British team than achieving some invented personal goal: 'The journey's going to be about 700 miles in distance, taking about three months,' said Hadow. 'In the earlier phases, the temperatures are about minus 50 degrees ... And we're towing sledges with our camping equipment and our survey equipment — almost twice our body weights — for most of the distance.'" "Arctic ice modeler Wieslaw Maslowski, a science adviser to the survey, hopes the data gathered during the journey will enable him to refine his forecast of when the first ice-free summer might arrive. 'According to our studies, it's very likely that if this current trend of ice decline based on the last decade or so continues, or accelerates, the ice might be almost gone in summer sometime between 2010 and 2016.'"

An anonymous reader writes "A British graduate student was left 'reeling' after his university threw out a bag of lizard excrement he had spent years collecting in the rain forests of the Philippines." So he has to spend another seven years in the rain collecting lizard crap, it could be much worse. The university could have lost his records and forced him to take all of his freshman and sophomore level humanities classes again.

Hugh Pickens writes "BBC has an interesting article on the long-standing issue of how to power the 'climber' that would ascend a space elevator into space. Previous ideas have included delivering microwave or laser power to the climber beamed from the Earth's surface, but now European Space Agency ground station engineer Age-Raymond Riise has demonstrated a device that could provide a "lift into space" for cheaper space missions along a 100,000-km long tether anchored to the Earth. Riise demonstrated sending power mechanically by providing carefully timed jerks of the cable at its base with a broomstick to represent the cable held in tension, an electric sander to provide a rhythmic vibration to the bottom of the stick, and three brushes representing the climber with their bristles pointing downwards allowing the climber assembly to slide upward along the broomstick as it moved slightly downward, but grip it as it moved slightly upward. 'It would be possible to make a suspension system that completely decouples the cabin where the passengers are,' says Riise. 'For them it would be a linear movement with very little disturbance.' Riise says that he has been approached by commercial elevator companies, who are researching new ideas for elevators in superscrapers where the simplicity of the approach makes it attractive when compared to other ideas for powering lifts, such as compressed air."

ofcourseyouare writes "The Independent is a UK newspaper which has been pushing hard for cuts in CO2 emissions for years. It recently polled a group of 'the world's leading climate scientists,' revealing a 'growing support for geoengineering' in addition to cutting CO2 — not as a substitute. For example, Jim Lovelock, author of The Gaia Theory, comments: 'I disagree that geoengineering the climate is a dangerous distraction and I disagree that on no account should it ever be considered. I strongly agree that we now need a "plan B" where a geoengineering strategy is drawn up in parallel with other measures to curb CO2 emissions.' Professor Kerry Emanuel of MIT said, 'While a geoengineering solution is bound to be less than desirable, the probability of getting global agreement on emissions reductions before it is too late is very small.'"

ofcourseyouare writes "The Independent is a UK newspaper which has been pushing hard for cuts in CO2 emissions for years. It recently polled a group of 'the world's leading climate scientists,' revealing a 'growing support for geoengineering' in addition to cutting CO2 — not as a substitute. For example, Jim Lovelock, author of The Gaia Theory, comments: 'I disagree that geoengineering the climate is a dangerous distraction and I disagree that on no account should it ever be considered. I strongly agree that we now need a "plan B" where a geoengineering strategy is drawn up in parallel with other measures to curb CO2 emissions.' Professor Kerry Emanuel of MIT said, 'While a geoengineering solution is bound to be less than desirable, the probability of getting global agreement on emissions reductions before it is too late is very small.'"

myrdos2 writes "A host of common chemicals is feminizing males of every class of vertebrate animals, from fish to mammals, including people. Many have been identified as 'endocrine disruptors' or gender-benders because they interfere with hormones. Communities heavily polluted with gender-benders in Canada, Russia, and Italy have given birth to twice as many girls as boys, which may offer a clue to the mysterious shift in sex ratios worldwide. And a study at Rotterdam's Erasmus University showed that boys whose mothers had been exposed to PCBs grew up wanting to play with dolls and tea sets rather than with traditionally male toys. It also follows hard on the heels of new American research which shows that baby boys born to women exposed to widespread chemicals in pregnancy are born with smaller penises and feminized genitals. It is calculated that 250,000 babies who would have been boys have been born as girls instead in the US and Japan alone. And sperm counts are dropping precipitously. Studies in more than 20 countries have shown that they have dropped from 150 million per milliliter of sperm fluid to 60 million over 50 years."

Master of Transhuman writes "Seems like nobody can keep their data under wraps these days. On the heels of the World Bank piece about massive penetrations of their servers, the British Ministry of Defense has lost a hard drive with the personal details of 100,000 serving personnel in the British armed forces, and perhaps another 600,000 applicants. This comes on the heels of the MoD losing 658 of its laptops over the past four years and 26 flash drives holding confidential information. Apparently the MoD outsources this stuff to EDS, which is under fire for not being able to confirm that the data was or was not encrypted."

rrohbeck writes "The Independent reports brand-new results of high concentrations of methane — 100x normal — above the sea surface over the Siberian continental shelf. A large number of methane plumes have been discovered bubbling up from the sea floor. This is probably due to methane clathrate, buried under the sea floor before the last ice age, breaking up as higher water temperatures melt the permafrost that had contained it."

rrohbeck writes "The Independent reports brand-new results of high concentrations of methane — 100x normal — above the sea surface over the Siberian continental shelf. A large number of methane plumes have been discovered bubbling up from the sea floor. This is probably due to methane clathrate, buried under the sea floor before the last ice age, breaking up as higher water temperatures melt the permafrost that had contained it."

ThinkComp writes "In what could possibly be a major blow to a scientific consensus that has held for decades, recent research suggests that the traditional conception of Neanderthals being "stupider" than Homo sapiens may in fact be misleading. As articles about the research findings state, 'early stone tool technologies developed by our species, Homo sapiens, were no more efficient than those used by Neanderthals.' The data used in the study is available on-line along with a visual description of the process used."

slick_shoes notes a story out of England: a woman named Amanda Hudson is suing six national newspapers for defamation and breach of privacy after they ran stories based on her 15-year-old daughter's exaggerated claims about her party, published on her Bebo site. The party was held at the family's £4m villa in Spain, and the daughter's account claimed that jewelery had been stolen and furniture and a television set thrown into the swimming pool; in addition there were claims of sex and drug use. The mother says that this was all falsehood and exaggeration. A number of newspapers picked up claims and photos from Bebo and ran them nationally. From the article: "The case is expected to have far-reaching consequences for third parties who use or publish information from social networking sites. Lawyers say it could place a duty on all second-hand users to establish the truth of everything they want to republish from such sites."

phobos13013 writes "Recently released evidence is showing the North Pole ice is melting at the highest rate ever recorded. As a result, the Pole may be completely ice-free at the surface and composed of nothing but open water by September. As reported in September of last year, the Northwest Passage was ice-free for the first time known to man. The implications of this, as well as the causes, are still being debated. Are global warming experts just short-sighted alarmists? Are we heading for a global ice age? Or is the increase in global mean temperature having an effect on our planet?"

slyjackhammer writes "France is purporting to take a hard line on copyrighted media (movies and music). According to timesonline.co.uk, a new measure approved yesterday by the French Cabinet would kill the Internet connection to those caught downloading illegally. 'There is no reason that the internet should be a lawless zone," President Sarkozy told his Cabinet yesterday as it endorsed the "three-strikes-and-you're-out" scheme that from next January will hit illegal downloaders where it hurts. Under a cross-industry agreement, internet service providers (ISPs) must cut off access for up to a year for third-time offenders.' Google and video site Dailymotion have refused to sign up as consenting participants, and the state data protection agency, consumer and civil liberties groups and the European Parliament are all kicking against the goad as well. France may be pioneer in this kind of legislation, but they sure have their work cut out for them."

Mike writes "Virgin Media, the UK's largest cable-modem provider, has decided that it will spy on its users to protect record industry profits. Starting next week Virgin Media will send letters to thousands of households where they suspect music is either being downloaded or illegally shared. The campaign is a joint venture between Virgin Media and the British Phonographic Industry (BPI), which represents the major record labels. The BPI ultimately wants Internet companies to implement a 'three strikes and out' rule to warn and ultimately disconnect the estimated 6.5 million customers whose accounts are (supposedly) used for regular criminal activity. In other words, you download a few songs and they'll come along and cut off the one wire that delivers freedom of speech, freedom of the press and freedom of assembly."

Lantrix writes "An anonymous user added information to Wikipedia's entry on Sacha Baron Cohen three days before the now-referenced external article was written. The Independent wrote the referenced article apparently using Wikipedia as the source establishing his 'Goldman Sachs' career. Now Wikipedia uses as a references the article that came after the initial modification to Wikipedia itself."

Ravalox writes "In an interview with The Independent, current curator of the Doctor Who legacy Russell T. Davis announced that distinguished evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins would be making an appearance in the new season of Doctor Who. To quote Davies: 'People were falling at his feet ... We've had Kylie Minogue on that set, but it was Dawkins people were worshipping.' Dawkins is the author of many best-selling non-fiction books, from The Selfish Gene and The Blind Watchmaker to The God Delusion, and a renowned advocate of both Darwin's evolutionary theory and the merits of atheism."

mrogers writes "A journalism student in Afghanistan has been sentenced to death by a Sharia court for downloading and sharing a report criticizing the treatment of women in some Islamic countries. The student was accused of blasphemy and tried without representation. According to Reporters Without Borders, sixty people are currently in jail worldwide for criticizing governments online, fifty of them in China, but this may be the first time someone has been sentenced to death for using the internet. Internet censorship is on the rise worldwide, according to The OpenNet Initiative."

Raisey-raison writes "There is a proposal in the UK to implant "machine-readable" microchips under the skin of thousands of offenders in an effort to free up more space in British jails. The article states that uses are being considered both for home detention, as a means to enforce punishment, as well as for sex offenders after their release. Many view this as a slippery slope leading to much wider use; starting as a purely voluntary act and gradually becoming more compulsory, it would endanger human rights and privacy. There are also health questions involved, given that long-term studies have linked similar implants to cancer in lab mice and rats. Ironically, the same technology has been proposed for medical purposes as well. In the USA, some state agencies have already made decisions about this issue.

mernil writes "The Independent reports: "A technical breakthrough has enabled scientists to create for the first time dozens of cloned embryos from adult monkeys, raising the prospect of the same procedure being used to make cloned human embryos."

Many readers informed us about the opinion of Lord Justice Sedley, a senior UK Appeal Court judge, who said that everyone in the UK should have their DNA recorded in the national database — including visitors. Reader ChiefGeneralManager writes, "Sedley calls the current database 'indefensible' because it contains a hodge-podge mix of people, including children and those who have been in contact with the police. His view is that we should make it compulsory for all DNA to be recorded to remove this anomaly. The UK Information Commissioner has expressed some concerns, but not dismissed the idea outright." And reader john.wingfield adds, "Just under two weeks ago, the Independent reported that the Government has admitted that an eighth of all records on the DNA database are false, misspelled, or incorrect — over half a million records. This raises the possibility of a breach of the 4th data protection principle of the Data Protection Act 1998: 'Personal data shall be accurate and, where necessary, kept up to date.'"

smallfries writes "The network neutrality debate has raged on in the States for some time now. Now broadband providers in the UK have banded together to threaten the BBC, who plans to provide programming over 'their' networks. The BBC is being asked to cough up to pay for bandwidth charges, otherwise traffic shaping will be used to limit access to the iPlayer. 'As more consumers access and post video content on the internet - using sites such as YouTube - the ability of ISPs to cope with the amount of data being sent across their networks is coming under increasing strain, even without TV broadcasters moving on to the web. Analysts believe that ISPs will be forced to place stringent caps on consumers' internet use and raise prices to curb usage. Attempts have been made by players in the industry to form a united front against the BBC by asking the Internet Service Providers' Association to lead the campaign on the iPlayer issue. However, to date, no single voice for the industry has emerged. I thought that the monthly fee we pay already was to cover access ... but maybe it only covers the final mile and they need to be paid twice to cover the rest of the journey."

japerr writes to mention The Independant is reporting that a new breakthrough may bring scientists one step closer to a Star Trek style transporter. " A team of physicists has teleported data over a distance of 89 miles from the Canary Island of La Palma to the neighbouring island of Tenerife, which is 10 times further than the previous attempt at teleportation through free space. The scientists did it by exploiting the "spooky" and virtually unfathomable field of quantum entanglement - when the state of matter rather than matter itself is sent from one place to another. Tiny packets or particles of light, photons, were used to teleport information between telescopes on the two islands. The photons did it by quantum entanglement and scientists hope it will form the basis of a way of sending encrypted data."

Parallax Blue writes "The Independent is reporting new findings that indicate a common additive called sodium benzoate, found in soft drinks such as Fanta and Pepsi Max among others, has the ability to switch off vital parts of DNA in a cell's mitochondria. From the article: 'The mitochondria consumes the oxygen to give you energy and if you damage it — as happens in a number of diseased states — then the cell starts to malfunction very seriously. And there is a whole array of diseases that are now being tied to damage to this DNA — Parkinson's and quite a lot of neuro-degenerative diseases, but above all the whole process of aging.' European Union MPs are now calling for an urgent investigation in the wake of these alarming new findings."

Mz6 wrote with a link to an article on The Independent site about a most unusual scientific theory. "Some scientists suggest that our love of the mobile phone could cause massive food shortages, as the world's harvests fail. They are putting forward the theory that radiation given off by mobile phones and other hi-tech gadgets is a possible answer to one of the more bizarre mysteries ever to happen in the natural world — the abrupt disappearance of the bees that pollinate crops."

Zoolander writes "Christopher Tolkien has completed the last book of J.R.R. Tolkien from notes left from his father." The ultimate question is how much of a quality difference will there be; for instance the difference between Dune and Dune: House Atriedes is a pretty big gap. But in my experience, Christopher Tolkien has always taken a good, cautious approach when it comes to his father's work so here's to hoping.

UpnAtom writes "People who refuse to give up their bank records, tax records & details of any benefits they've claimed, and the records of their car movements for the last year, or refuse to submit to an interrogation on whether they are the same person that this mountain of data belongs to — will be denied passports from March 26th. The Blair government has already admitted that this and other data will be cross-linked so that the Home Office and other officials can spy on the everyday lives of innocent Britons. Britons were already the most spied upon nation in Western Europe — more so even than Sweden. Data-mining through this unprecedented level of mass-surveillance allows any future British government to leapfrog even countries like China and North Korea."

sas-dot writes "UK's newspaper Independent outlines the brewing consumer revolt being fomented on the web. 'Consumer militancy' is becoming ever more common, as individuals join forces on the internet to fight back against the state and big business. Businesses from banks to soccer clubs have been the target of these groups, in each case facing the fury of consumers who feel they have been wronged. For example, 'A mass revolt has left the high street banks facing thousands of claims from customers seeking to claw back some of the £4.75bn levied annually on charges for overdrafts and bounced cheques. More than one million forms demanding refunds have been downloaded from a number of consumer websites. The banks are settling out of court, often paying £1,000 a time.' Are these kinds of organized 'advocate mobs' going to be the future of internet activism?"

Doc Ruby writes "After an 8-year-long court battle, Welsh activists have finally been allowed to released a Russian study showing an increased cancer risk linked to eating genetically modified potatoes. While the victory of the Welsh Greenpeace members in the courtroom would seem to vindicate the work of the Russian scientists that did the original research, there are still serious questions to be answered. The trials involved rats being fed several types of potatoes as feed. The rats who were fed GM potatoes suffered much more extensive damage to their organs than with any other type; just the same, serious questions remain about the validity of the findings. The Welsh group wants to use this information to stop the testing of GM crops in the UK, tests currently slated for the spring of this year."

PhreakOfTime writes "For the first time the rising ocean levels have washed away an inhabited island. Lohachara island was at one point home to some 10,000 people. It, along with several other spits of land near the Indian mainland, is now permanently underwater. From the article: ' As the seas continue to swell, they will swallow whole island nations, from the Maldives to the Marshall Islands, inundate vast areas of countries from Bangladesh to Egypt, and submerge parts of scores of coastal cities. Eight years ago ... the first uninhabited islands - in the Pacific atoll nation of Kiribati - vanished beneath the waves. The people of low-lying islands in Vanuatu, also in the Pacific, have been evacuated as a precaution, but the land still juts above the sea. The disappearance of Lohachara, once home to 10,000 people, is unprecedented.'"

Xemu writes "Researchers at University College of London's Institute of Neurology have discovered that taxi drivers grow more brain cells in the area associated with memory. Dr Eleanor Maguire says, 'We believe the brain increased in gray matter volume because of the huge amount of data memorized.' She warns against the use of GPS and says it will possibly affect the brain changes seen in this study. This research is the first to show that the brains of adults can grow in response to specialist use." London cabbies, unlike their American counterparts, have to learn the layout of streets and the locations of thousands of places of interest in order to get a license.

Blahbooboo3 writes "Men concerned about contraception may soon be able to use the male equivalent of the Pill, without the potential side-effects of a drug based on altering the balance of sex hormones. The drug, called Adjudin, works by disrupting the interaction that takes place in the testicles between immature sperm cells and the nurse cells responsible for nurturing sperm to maturity. The germ cells need to adhere to the nurse cells for sperm to properly develop, and the drug prevents this bond from forming. It looks like it will be a gel patch type of applicator."

rm69990 writes "Google, becoming more and more concerned about the growing use of the word google as a verb, has fired off warning letters to numerous media organizations warning them against using its name as a verb. This follows google (with a lowercase g) being added to the Merriam-Webster Dictionary in June. According to a Google spokesperson: "We think it's important to make the distinction between using the word Google to describe using Google to search the internet, and using the word Google to describe searching the internet. It has some serious trademark issues.""

Random Utinni writes "The director of the U.S. Cyber Consequences Unit (part of Homeland Security) claims that terrorist hackers are poised to create total chaos. He predicts all sorts of scenarios, from changing the formulae for medications to causing cars to explode after a few weeks of driving. Is this guy fearmongering for an increased budget, or is he on to something here?"

pev writes "There's a new traveling exhibition in the UK entitled 1001 inventions. It contains some of the most interesting inventions from the past few thousand years. The common theme, however, is that they all came from the Islamic world and not the west. In some cases [the list is] quite surprising. For the lazy, the Independent newspaper in the UK printed their top 20 from the exhibition."

An anonymous reader writes "A team of scientists exploring an isolated jungle in one of Indonesia's most remote provinces said they discovered dozens of new species of frogs, butterflies and plants as well as large mammals hunted to near extinction elsewhere. The team also found wildlife that were remarkably unafraid of humans during their rapid assessment survey of the Foja Mountains, which has more than two million acres of old growth tropical forest."

aCoward writes "Today's full page headline on the UK Independent: £13,000,000,000 in Googlised colours, with the subheading Google shares plummet in one day amid growing fury over censorship and plagiarism. While the company says it isn't worried about the stock price correction, there are other issues at hand." From the article: "Google is under mounting pressure from many traditional industries: telecommunications companies do not like its plan for free internet phone calls, book publishers and newspapers have filed a lawsuit to try to prevent it from digitising library materials, governments are worried about its satellite-imaging service Google Earth and privacy advocates have a growing list of concerns about everything from its e-mail service to its desktop search function, both of which may make it easier for hackers or government agencies to gather information about individuals without their consent."

Snap E Tom writes "The Independent Online is reporting that Toy Story 3 has been scrapped. This is a strong clue that the Pixar guys are firmly in control at Disney. The ground-breaking films were being milked into almost as many movies as The Sims has expansion packs. John Lasseter, Pixar's creative head, was strongly against the idea of third and forth movies, while the old Disney regime pushed forward with it. Now with Pixar and Steve Jobs on the board, Lasseter has taken the necessary steps to prevent the franchise from being diluted."

Boccaccio writes "James Lovelock, the planetary scientist famous for his Gaia Theory, writes in today's Independent of his belief that it is already too late to divert an environmental catastrophe which will see much of human civilisation destroyed. Fearing it too late to be green, he instead suggests communities plan for survival in a Mad Max type world with limited resources ruled by violent warlords. "We have to keep in mind the awesome pace of change and realise how little time is left to act, and then each community and nation must find the best use of the resources they have to sustain civilisation for as long as they can." He suggests we should be writing a practical guidebook printed on long lasting paper containing "the basic accumulated scientific knowledge of humanity.""

arclightfire writes "Looks like Murdoch's News International have stired up a revolt within users of the MySpace file-sharing site they purchased for $629m (£355m) last July, reports the Independent; "Angry members of MySpace, the personal file-sharing website for young adults, are accusing Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation of censoring their postings and blocking their access to rival sites. The 38 million subscribers to MySpace...discovered that when they wrote to each other about rival video-swapping site YouTube, the words were automatically deleted, and attempts to download video images from YouTube led to blank screens. The intervention by News Corp in the traditionally open-access world of the web - in particular the alteration of personal user profiles - provoked a storm of angry posts...The protests gathered pace, and when 600 MySpace customers complained and a campaign began to boycott the site and relocate to rival sites such as Friendster, Linkedin, revver.com and Facebook.com, News Corp relented and restored the links.""

arclightfire writes "We recently wrote an article for The Independent listing the top ten open source projects. It was hard getting the list down to ten, but we did; here's the top ten - Wikipedia, Firefox, Open Office, Bittorrent, MediaWiki, Xvid, pbb, Outfoxed, dyne:bolic, GIMP, Apache and SourceForge." What would you call your favorite projects? Obviously, this list isn't strictly software projects, so be creative.

dubbayu_d_40 writes "Using a network of cameras that can record license plates, Britain plans to build a database of vehicle movement for police and security services: rollout begins in March. Can't someone just swap/steal/disable the tracking device? Seems to me just another way to track the average citizen and not those wishing to avoid authorities."

brainburger asks: "In the UK, Tony Blair has recently lost a parliametary vote to allow the police to hold terrorist suspects for 90 days without trial. One of the justifications the police gave for the extension from 14 days to 90 days was that they need the extra 76 days to decrypt the computer hard-drives of suspects. This has been seen by some as the only compelling reason to allow 90 days. The time-limit has been extended to 28 days instead, but Tony Blair insists 90 days is required. Are there really any encryption systems that cannot be cracked in 28 days, but which can be cracked in 90? Aside from the not-much-discussed issue that the police can no longer interrogate a suspect after they are charged, I suspect the police meant unencrypted machines. What do you think?"