Slashdot Mirror

Retired engineer, William Lyttle is like any other 77 year old except for one thing. He likes to dig tunnels. For the past 40 years he has dug a network of tunnels beneath his 20-room Victorian property in Hackney, East London. The city council made him stop after inspectors discovered that parts of the house were supported by nothing more than household appliances and that he had chipped away parts of the foundation of the neighboring property. The borough of Hackney had Mr Lyttle evicted in 2006 and has presented him with a bill for around $600,000 to repair the damage he caused, Sloth removal and other One Eyed Willy related charges.

Anonymous Astronomer writes "MERLIN, the UK's only radio astronomy facility, is facing closure following the results of a Programmatic Review carried out by the Science and Technology Facilities Council, the results of which were announced on Monday. The review placed MERLIN and the upgraded telescope e-MERLIN, due to go online later this year following an investment of £8M, in the low-priority category under serious threat of funding cuts. The upgraded array of telescopes, situated across the UK, will be 30 times more sensitive than the current array and will be a unique facility for observing distant objects and helping us understand the universe. If these cuts go ahead however, not only MERLIN but the entire Observatory including the iconic Lovell telescope, based at Jodrell Bank in Cheshire, will be under threat of closure."

Reservoir Hill writes "Four hundred years after it put Galileo on trial for heresy the Vatican is to complete its rehabilitation of the scientist by erecting a statue of him inside Vatican walls. The planned statue is to stand in the Vatican gardens near the apartment in which Galileo was incarcerated. He was held there while awaiting trial in 1633 for advocating heliocentrism, the Copernican doctrine that the Earth revolves around the Sun. The move coincides with a series of celebrations in the run-up to next year's 400th anniversary of Galileo's development of the telescope. In January Pope Benedict XVI called off a visit to Sapienza University, Rome, after staff and students accused him of defending the Inquisition's condemnation of Galileo. The Vatican said that the Pope had been misquoted and since the episode, several of the professors have retracted their protest."

mikesd81 points out a Times Online article that discusses the legality of the Mosquito sound device, which is used to annoy and drive off younger people with sounds that are too high-pitched for most adults to hear. We discussed how annoying this device can be a couple years ago. From Times Online: "Sir Albert Aynsley-Green, the Children's Commissioner for England appointed to represent the views of the country's 11 million children, has set up a campaign — called Buzz Off — that is calling for the Mosquito to be banned on grounds that it infringes the rights of young people. 'These devices are indiscriminate and target all children and young people, including babies, regardless of whether they are behaving or misbehaving,' Sir Al told the BBC. 'The use of measures such as these are simply demonizing children and young people, creating a dangerous and widening divide between the young and the old.'"

An anonymous reader writes "New plans published by the UK Govt show that they hope to terminate internet access for people suspected of breaching copyright by file sharing. Under the proposed new laws ISPs who fail to enforce the policy will face prosecution in the courts. Users falling foul of the new law will be subject to a three strike policy: First suspected instance of illegal file sharing they would receive a warning, at the second — a suspension, and at the third they will have their Internet connection terminated. It isn't clear whether users will be prevented from ever using the internet again, or whether simply subscribing to a new ISP will reset the process."

Muhammar writes "As you may have heard by now, both engines of the Boeing 777 aircraft flight BA038 suddenly cut off without warning at very low altitude and low speed during autopilot-assisted landing at Heathrow. A prompt reaction of the pilots prevented the stall and saved all lives aboard. The crash landing short of the runway tore off the landing gear on impact, and the fuselage plowed a long, deep gouge in the grass. With the investigation ongoing, the available information points to an electronic control problem as the most likely cause of the sudden engine power loss."

4T writes "Forget about monitoring your computers with spyware, now they're going to monitor the users as well! 'Microsoft is developing Big Brother-style software capable of remotely monitoring a worker's productivity, physical wellbeing and competence. The Times has seen a patent application filed by the company for a computer system that links workers to their computers via wireless sensors that measure their metabolism. The system would allow managers to monitor employees' performance by measuring their heart rate, body temperature, movement, facial expression and blood pressure. Unions said they fear that employees could be dismissed on the basis of a computer's assessment of their physiological state.'"

Due to the lack of product on store shelves and overwhelming demand, Nintendo is considering plans to pull marketing campaigns for the Wii during the holiday season. "The company recently dismissed suggestions that it intentionally engineered shortages to build up hype for the Wii. It claims to be producing 1.8 million of the consoles each month at full capacity. 'The issue of supply management has to be questioned, not least because 2008 is going to be the crunch year for the Wii. It's then that we'll discover whether it's a fad or something with legs,' Screen Digest analyst Piers Harding-Rolls told The Times."

bharatm writes "It's now been a decade since Microsoft bought Hotmail, the web-based e-mail service, for about $400 million. Now Sabeer Bhatia (the site's co-founder) is challenging the software giant's core $20 billion office desktop business. Yesterday Sabeer Bhatia released a free online rival to the bestselling Office suite of applications that will allow users to view, share and edit documents from any computer. 'Designed to help consumers avoid expensive upgrades and to foster collaboration on a secure internet platform, Live Documents matches features found in Office 2007, the most recent version. It will be given away to individuals with 100MB of free data storage space per user. Companies will pay for the system, either hosted remotely or on an internal server, at a discount to Microsoft's licensed technology.'"

aalobode writes "The Times of London has a current story based on the review of a book by Alex Boase, Elephants on Acid and Other Bizarre Experiments. There they list the top science experiments — including the one from which the book gets its name — that were conducted by otherwise sane humans who tragically or otherwise ignored the effect of their research on the subjects themselves. Nowadays, most institutions have a review board for research on human subjects which would flag most proposals that could lead to harm for the subjects, but not so in the past. 'Another 1960s experiment, in which ten soldiers on a training flight were told by the pilot that the aircraft was disabled, and about to ditch in the ocean. They were then required to fill in insurance forms before the crash -- ostensibly so the Army was not financially liable for any deaths or injuries. They were actually unwitting participants in an experiment: the plane was not crippled at all. It revealed that fear of imminent death indeed causes soldiers to make more mistakes than usual when filling in forms.'"

mijio writes "It's not the first time that Italy discusses Internet censorship. The last year, after some guys appeared in a video punching and blaming a kid with Down syndrome, Minister of Education Fioroni brought in to trial two of Google Italy's managers and then proposed and strongly sustained his idea of censoring the Internet to protect the young. Now Ricardo Levi, the prime minister's right hand, is finally successful in promulgating his law on internet censorship. With the goal of "promoting and enriching the pluralism of information," the law rules that everyone involved in "editorial activity" must be subscribed to the "Registry of Operators of Communication" to be prosecutable in case of defamation, where "editorial product" is defined as "any product with purpose of information, education, divulgation, entertainment, aimed at publication, no matter the form it is realized in and the mean it is distributed with." When inquired about the effects of this rule for bloggers, Levi responded, "We have no interest in touching amatorial or personal sites, it would be not feasible". The Times speaks about this paradox as well."

happy monday writes "Douglas Adams' 'Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency' is being serialised by BBC Radio, starring Harry Enfield. The first episode can be listened to on Radio 4's website now." The Times has a fairly glowing review of the program, and (for US folks like myself) some incomprehensible British-isms to boot.

MaineCoasts writes "The Times online reports that two years after buying Skype for 2.6 billion, Ebay yesterday warned shareholders that they may have made a mistake. In essence, they vastly overpaid for the company. ZDNet offers analysis of the announcement: 'Clearly, the current business model is not enough to satisfy eBay in light of how much the company spent on Skype. And the reason is simple. Even though Skype has done a very good job of getting users to download its software client, most people who use the service do so to make free Skype-to-Skype phone calls. The only way that Skype makes money from its subscribers is when people use its Skype-In or Skype-Out services. Skype-In allows users to pay to rent a phone number, which people on regular phones can call. Skype-Out allows users to call traditional phones or cell phones for a fee.'"

An anonymous reader sends us to the UK's TimesOnline for a story about dissident Burmese bloggers, who, with the Internet shut down in the country, are no longer posting live stories. Some of them are on the run and fearing for their lives. "Internet geeks share a common style, and Ko Latt and his four friends would not be out of place in cyber cafes across the world. They have the skinny arms and the long hair, the dark T-shirts and the jokey nicknames. But few such figures have ever taken the risks that they have in the past few weeks, or achieved so much in a noble and dangerous cause. Since last month Ko Latt, 28, his friends Arca, Eye, Sun and Superman, and scores of others like them have been the third pillar of Burma's Saffron Revolution."

iFrated informs us of a successful penetration of US Defense Department computers by the Chinese military last June. From the article: "The Pentagon acknowledged shutting down part of a computer system serving the office of Robert Gates, defense secretary, but declined to say who it believed was behind the attack. Current and former officials have told the Financial Times an internal investigation has revealed that the incursion came from the [Chinese] People's Liberation Army. One senior US official said the Pentagon had pinpointed the exact origins of the attack. Another person familiar with the event said there was a 'very high level of confidence... trending towards total certainty' that the PLA was responsible." The PLA is also accused of breaking into German government computers, including a network in the office of the Chancellor.

UnHolier than ever writes "Apple may be planning to announce a 'revamp' of the iPod on Wednesday. Reporters from across Europe have been asked to view a broadcast presentation by Steve Jobs at the BBC headquarters. Theorized features for this new iPod include a full or wide-screen with touch controls, ala the ever-popular iPhone. '[An analyst with Goldman Sachs] believes that a new line of iPods will boost demand for the gadget from Goldman's present forecast of about 19.8 million units for Apple's key first quarter - the reporting period that covers Christmas. However, that still suggests that demand for iPods will be flat, at best, compared with the same period last year, when Apple sold about 21 million devices.'"

An anonymous reader writes "Examiners in the UK have been told to make science 'easier'. From next year 70% of the paper must consist of 'low demand' questions in the form of multiple choice or similar answers. Currently this type of question makes up some 55% of the test. When the recent A level results were announced, with even more students in the UK getting A grades than ever before, educators were congratulating themselves on improved teaching. 'Jim Sinclair, the Joint Council for Qualifications director, emphatically denied that the changes would lead to a rise in the number achieving grade C - the top grade in the foundation tier. Future results would depend on how the marks were allocated. Dr Sinclair added that the changes would help to stop children being turned off by science.' Even still, it's hard to see the benefit from future science students passing by guessing."

Oxygen99 writes "The Times is reporting on a paper by researchers in the US who argue that the spread of 'corrupted blood' in World of Warcraft might provide clues to the way a real world population would cope with the prospect of a global pandemic. In the study, to be published in The Lancet next month, Professor Lofgren of Rutgers University and Professor Fefferman of Tufts University, suggest that: 'If, God forbid, a disease broke out in London, you could see what would happen if people were told immediately of the risk. Would there be panic and chaos, or would it allow them to psychologically accept the danger and act accordingly? What would happen if we made people feel too reassured? These are all things that have a great impact on the number of people who would be affected. They are also things we just don't know, so [virtual games] could be of great value in helping us understand what their true emotional responses would be.'"

WaltonNews writes "British researchers have found that pressures from handling emails throughout the work day cause stress and frustration with workers. Researchers from a pair of collaborating universities have found that heavy email communication causes anxiety, with some workers thinking they checked their email as often as once every fifteen minutes. The reality was much worse. From the article: 'When researchers fitted monitors to their computers, workers were found to be viewing e-mails up to 40 times an hour. About 33 per cent said they felt stressed by the volume of e-mails and the need to reply quickly. A further 28 per cent said they felt "driven" when they checked messages because of the pressure to respond. Just 38 per cent of workers were relaxed enough to wait a day or longer before replying.'"

Blahbooboo3 writes "Reported by several news organizations, pirated software worth more than $500 million has been seized by authorities in China as part of a joint operation run by Chinese police and the FBI. Microsoft estimates that the software piracy of an international counterfeiting syndicate, over the past six years, cost the company at least $2 billion in lost software revenue. Microsoft said that key information in the investigation came from its Windows Genuine Advantage program, an anti-piracy system that can check whether an OS is legit. It's generally accepted that Microsoft has done well out of software piracy: it helps products become widely used, and as the market matures, people start to pay for their software. And this has been a major factor in Windows beating Linux in China, as Bill Gates has admitted."

Knuckles writes "The Times reports that Japanese consumers have been 'abandoning television' in order to play with Nintendo's Wii. Recent figures from Japan's audience-tracking firms show that 'last week was the first in nearly two decades where no single show on any commercial station attracted more than a 9 per cent audience share ... According to one senior executive of the country's largest commercial television channel, Fuji TV, families who used to tune in to its colourful diet of soap operas, panel games and comedy variety shows may, instead, be drifting away and choosing to spend the same, economically-critical golden hour time playing on their Wii.'"

Awel writes "The UK opposition leader, David Cameron, says in a speech to the British Phonographic Industry that his party would work to extend the copyright term to 70 years and crack down on piracy. But in return, labels would have to agree to bear more 'social responsibility', which appears to translate into avoiding lyrics that glorify 'an anti-learning culture, truancy, knifes, violence, guns, misogyny'. He doesn't spell out how this would be achieved in practice. This follows the publication in December of a UK government report recommending that the standard copyright term in Europe remain at 50 years (and not be raised to 70 or 95 years)."

Teksty Piosenek writes "Artists and record bosses believe that the best album is the loudest one. Sound levels are being artificially enhanced so that the music punches through when it competes against background noise in pubs or cars. 'Geoff Emerick, engineer on the Beatles' Sgt. Pepper album, said: "A lot of what is released today is basically a scrunched-up mess. Whole layers of sound are missing. It is because record companies don't trust the listener to decide themselves if they want to turn the volume up." Downloading has exacerbated the effect. Songs are compressed once again into digital files before being sold on iTunes and similar sites. The reduction in quality is so marked that EMI has introduced higher-quality digital tracks, albeit at a premium price, in response to consumer demand.'"

Mendy writes "Tim Ankers, a British archaeologist, claims to have found the wreck of the HMAS Sydney, lost with all hands in the Indian Ocean during World War II. He says that he's done this from the comfort of his home using software he wrote called Merlindown, which can analyze satellite photographs at different wavelengths to 'peer 75 meters into the earth and 16,000 meters beneath the seas.'"

circletimessquare writes "As noted, Bill Gates and Steve Jobs met at the D conference yesterday. AllThingsD has video of the entire convivial and historic meeting — check the highlights clip. When a reporter asked if their rivalry was overblown, Jobs offered up this joke: 'We've kept our marriage secret for over a decade' — to an apparently flummoxed Gates. Other tidbits: 'His mother loves him!' said Gates about PC Guy in the famous series of commercials. 'And we love them because they're all customers!' said Jobs about Microsoft employees working on Zune who use the iPod. Read more about the event, which also covered a lot of serious ground, such as Apple's iPhone, at CNN and the Times Online."

cyberianpan writes "According to a Times Online article, MySpace is going into the news business. They'll soon be premiering a service that will scour the internet for news stories and let users vote on which ones receive the most exposure. This approach blends elements of Google News and sites such as Digg and Netscape, which rely on readers to submit stories and determine their prominence. One could see where this might be the 'holy grail' of internet news. Not only will you be able to tap into the wisdom of the crowds, but ultimately your recommended stories could be influenced by the likes and dislikes of your friends/heroes."

javipas writes "The Large Hadron Collider at the CERN has suffered a big explosion deep inside that has caused a leak of hellium gas and the quick evacuation of everyone working there. The reason: a mathematical mistake that affected the design of the giant superconductive magnets made by Fermilab. Now the company will have to repair and upgrade the 24 magnets that are installed on the 27 km. circunference of one of the most important research centers on Earth." This story might seem strangely familiar to you.

linumax writes "Microsoft has stated that it may be close to reaching a deal with EMI to sell songs without anti-piracy protection via the Zune platform. This, from comments made by head of marketing for Zune Jason Reindorp. They come hard on the heels of EMI's announcement that a deal with Apple to sell songs without DRM protection through the iTunes Music Store has been struck. Mr Reindorp said: 'We've been saying for a while that we are aware that consumers want to have unprotected content. This does open things up a little bit. It potentially makes the competition more of a device-to-device or service-to-service basis, and will force the various services to really innovate.'"

zyl0x writes "The Times has an interesting article online on the discovery of a 100-million-year-old micro-organism which has survived its entire lifespan without sex." From the article "A tiny creature that has not had sex for 100 million years has overturned the theory that animals need to mate to create variety. Analysis of the jaw shapes of bdelloid rotifers, combined with genetic data, revealed that the animals have diversified under pressure of natural selection. Researchers say that their study "refutes the idea that sex is necessary for diversification into evolutionary species".

An anonymous reader writes "The Times Online points out a post that Robert Scoble, former Microsoft blogger, put up on his site recently. In essence, Scoble has moved 180 degrees from his former blogging tone, saying that 'Microsoft Sucks'. More specifically, he is highly critical of Microsoft's online policy. In Scoble's words: 'Microsoft's Internet execution sucks (on whole). Its search sucks. Its advertising sucks (look at that last post again). If that's in it to win then I don't get it. ... Microsoft isn't going away. Don't get me wrong. They have record profits, record sales, all that. But on the Internet? Come on. This isn't winning. Microsoft: stop the talk. Ship a better search, a better advertising system than Google, a better hosting service than Amazon, a better cross-platform Web development ecosystem than Adobe, and get some services out there that are innovative (where's the video RSS reader? Blog search? Something like Yahoo's Pipes? A real blog service? A way to look up people?) That's how you win.'"

MattSparkes writes "Many images you see in a magazine are Photoshopped, and it's getting less and less likely that what you see at the cinema is any more genuine. In the film 'Blood Diamond', tears were added to Jennifer Connolly's face after a scene was shot. According to The Times, digital effects artists can even change actors' expressions. 'Opening or closing eyes; making a limp more convincing; removing breathing signs; eradicating blinking eyelids from a lingering gaze; or splicing together different takes of an unsuccessful love scene to produce one in which both parties look like they are enjoying themselves.' The article mentions the moral qualms digital effects people have over performing these manipulations, and the steps actors are taking to protect their digital assets."

JPMH writes "With the largest density of CCTV cameras in the world, and an increasing network of automatic number-plate recognition cameras on main roads, Britain has long been a pioneer for the surveillance society. Now new official figures reveal that UK agencies monitored 439,000 telephones and email addresses in a 15 month period between 2005 and 2006. The Interception of Communications Commissioner is seeking the right for agencies to be allowed to monitor the communications of Members of Parliament as well, something which has been forbidden since the 1960s. It must be that it is bringing their numbers down: on the law of averages they should be monitoring at least 5 of the MPs."

Overly Critical Guy writes "The former editor of New Scientist has written an article in the TimesOnline suggesting that cosmic rays may affect global climate. The author criticizes the UN's recent global warming report, noting several underreported trends it doesn't account for, such as increasing sea-ice in the Southern Ocean. He describes an experiment by Henrik Svensmark showing a relation between atmospheric cloudiness and atomic particles coming in from exploded stars. In the basement of the Danish National Space Center in 2005, Svensmark's team showed that electrons from cosmic rays caused cloud condensation. Svensmark's scenario apparently predicts several unexplained temperature trends from the warmer trend of the 20th century to the temporary drop in the 1970s, attributed to changes in the sun's magnetic field affecting the amount of cosmic rays entering the atmosphere."

PhilipMarlowe9000 writes in with news of a new EU directive that will take effect in the UK at the end of this year to ban "sock-puppet" reviews or websites, part of an EU-wide overhaul of consumer laws. From the article: "Businesses that write fake blog entries or create whole wesbites purporting to be created by customers will fall foul of a European directive banning them from 'falsely representing oneself as a consumer.' From December 31, when the change becomes law in the UK, they can be named and shamed by trading standards or taken to court. The Times has learnt that the new regulations also will apply to authors who praise their own books under a fake identity on websites such as Amazon."

Boj writes "The Times online is carrying stories on fraud carried out on eBay using shill bidding. Citing eBay's changes to security as aiding the shill bidders and this fraud: "Last November eBay changed its rules to conceal bidders' identity — making it even more difficult for customers to see whether sellers are bidding on their own lots.""

Boj writes "The Times online is carrying stories on fraud carried out on eBay using shill bidding. Citing eBay's changes to security as aiding the shill bidders and this fraud: "Last November eBay changed its rules to conceal bidders' identity — making it even more difficult for customers to see whether sellers are bidding on their own lots.""

Boj writes "The Times online is carrying stories on fraud carried out on eBay using shill bidding. Citing eBay's changes to security as aiding the shill bidders and this fraud: "Last November eBay changed its rules to conceal bidders' identity — making it even more difficult for customers to see whether sellers are bidding on their own lots.""

nettamere writes to mention an initiative by Google to take the library online. The end result of the Google Book Search, the company hopes to see a future where they are not merely referring customers to Amazon, but instead offering them the ability to download books directly. According to the Times Online, Google hopes to 'do for books what the iPod did for music.' From the article: "One of Google's partners, Evan Schnittman of Oxford University Press, said he foresaw a number of categories becoming popular downloads: 'Do you really want to go on holiday carrying four novels and a guide book?' The book initiative would be part of Google's Book Search service and its partnership with publishers, which will make books searchable online with publishers' approval. At present, only a sample of each book is available online."

nettamere writes to mention an initiative by Google to take the library online. The end result of the Google Book Search, the company hopes to see a future where they are not merely referring customers to Amazon, but instead offering them the ability to download books directly. According to the Times Online, Google hopes to 'do for books what the iPod did for music.' From the article: "One of Google's partners, Evan Schnittman of Oxford University Press, said he foresaw a number of categories becoming popular downloads: 'Do you really want to go on holiday carrying four novels and a guide book?' The book initiative would be part of Google's Book Search service and its partnership with publishers, which will make books searchable online with publishers' approval. At present, only a sample of each book is available online."

gbjbaanb writes to point out an article in the Sunday Times describing two separate programs where robots are being developed to build houses. The Los Angeles project is farther along than the one in the UK, but the article provides more details on the techniques employed in the latter. Liquid concrete and gypsum will be sprayed from nozzles in a manner analogous to an inkjet printer. From the article: "The first prototype — a watertight shell of a two-story house built in 24 hours without a single builder on site — will be erected in California before April. The robots are rigged to a metal frame, enabling them to shuttle in three dimensions and assemble the structure of the house layer by layer. The sole foreman on site operates a computer programmed with the designer's plans... Inspired by the inkjet printer, the technology goes far beyond the techniques already used for prefabricated homes. 'This will remove all the limitations of traditional building,' said [an architect involved with the UK project]. 'Anything you can dream you can build.'"

schnikies79 wrote to mention an article on the Times Online site, where they report that a 'substantial number' of Vista PCs will be unable to play HD-DVDs or Blu-ray discs, as a result of DRM requirements made by the operating system. From the article: "Dave Marsh, the lead program manager for video at Microsoft, said that if the PC used a digital connection to link with the monitor or television, then it would require the highest level of content protection, known as HDCP, to play the discs. If it did not have such protection, Vista would shut down the signal, he said."

An anonymous reader writes "Jimmy Wales, founder of the Wikia corporation, has revealed plans to offer a user-driven search engine. Ars Technica reports that the plan is to leverage user preferences to pick the 'best' site for any given search term, while at the same time utilizing advertising for commercial gain. The article admits this may not be the ideal solution: 'Users may be reluctant to contribute to the betterment of a commercial site that may end up being bought by a bigger company. Consider, for example, the tragic death of TV Tome, a comprehensive community-driven television content guide that was eventually bought by CNET and transformed into a garish, excessively commercialized Web 2.0 monstrosity of significantly less value to users.' Just the same, Wales seems very enthusiastic in the Times Online article highlighting this venture."

An anonymous reader writes "The Times of London has an article on how Garry Kasparov, former world chess champion, is using his fame and intellect in an attempt to defeat President Putin at the presidential elections in March 2008. Kasparov believes that Putin is virtually a dictator who is dismantling democracy and returning Russia to an authoritarian regime. Some high-profile Putin critics, such as Alexander Litvinenko, have been the victims of unsolved murders, and Kasparov is aware of the dangers: 'I can calculate the possibilities as a chess player and I have to be honest and say that our chances are not high. But I take this as a moral duty, and when you do something out of moral duty, then who cares?'" From the article: "[Kasparov] will not be a contender for the presidency but [his political umbrella group] The Other Russia aims to create the conditions under which an anti-Putin candidate can win. It appears, however, to be an uneven contest against a man who enjoys 80 per cent approval ratings. Most Russians want Mr. Putin to overturn a constitutional bar on a third term in office. Many will back whomever Mr. Putin endorses to succeed him."

mikesd81 writes "The Times Online has an article about the uncertain future of Windows. Even Microsoft, it seems is admitting that Vista will be the last OS of its kind. With the push towards a constant presence on the internet, and the churn that entails, the company has admitted that even with a two year delay 'it is not really ready'." From the article: "Security experts are acknowledging that Vista is the most secure of Windows to date. However, 'The bad guys will always target the most popular systems,' Mikko Hypponen, of F-Secure, the security group, said. 'Vista's vulnerability to phishing attacks, hackers, viruses and other malicious software will increase quickly.' But the current fear is that the Internet will kill Windows, with Google being Public Enemy No. 1: 'Microsoft is way behind Google when it comes to the internet,' Rupert Godwins, the technology editor at ZDNet, the industry website, said. 'Building Vista, Microsoft is still doing things the old way at the same time as it undergoes a big shift to catch up.'"

orbitalia writes "The UK is heavily involved in the JSF (Joint Strike Fighter program) but has recently considered abandoning the project because the US refuses to share the source code. The UK had intended to purchase $120 billion dollars worth of aircraft to operate on two new aircraft carriers, but is now seriously considering Plan 'B'. This is likely to be further investments in the Eurofighter Typhoon project." From the article: "It appeared that Tony Blair and George Bush had solved the impasse in May, when they announced an agreement in principle that the UK would be given access to the classified details on conditions of strict secrecy. The news was widely seen as evidence that the Prime Minister's close alliance with the American President did have benefits for Britain ... 'If the UK does not obtain the assurances it needs from the US then it should not sign the Memorandum of Understanding covering production, sustainment and follow-on development,' the MPs insisted."

brian0918 writes "Times Online is reporting that French and American researchers have discovered that the stones on the higher levels of the great pyramids of Egypt were built with concrete. From the article: 'Until recently it was hard for geologists to distinguish between natural limestone and the kind that would have been made by reconstituting liquefied lime.' They found 'traces of a rapid chemical reaction which did not allow natural crystallization. The reaction would be inexplicable if the stones were quarried, but perfectly comprehensible if one accepts that they were cast like concrete.'"

Knutsi writes "InformationWeek is reporting that Polonium 210, the radioactive material used to poison former KGB spy Alexander Litvinenko is not as hard to get your hands on as some have previously stated. American family business United Nuclear is actually selling the stuff, and other equally exotic materials, on their company website. Could come in handy for the xmas shopping season."

Mantrid42 writes "Schools in the UK are getting rid of their WiFi network, citing health concerns from parents and teachers. The wireless emanations, parents fear, may be the root cause of a host of problems from simple fatigue to the possibility of cancer. A few scientists think younger humans may be more vulnerable to the transmissions, because of thinner skulls. From the article: "Vivienne Baron, who is bringing up Sebastian, her ten-year-old grandson, said: 'I did not want Sebastian exposed to a wireless computer network at school. No real evidence has been produced to prove that this new technology is safe in the long term. Until it is, I think we should take a precautionary approach and use cabled systems.'"

CaroKann writes "The TimesOnline is reporting that six Middle Eastern nations have announced interest in developing nuclear technology. The nations involved are Algeria, Egypt, Morocco, Tunisia, the UAE and Saudi Arabia, according to the International Atomic Energy Agency. The Middle East Economic Digest states that most of these nations are interested in developing nuclear technology for the purpose of powering desalination plants. However, the International Institute for Strategic Studies, suggests that the sudden interest in nuclear technology is driven by the desire of the six nations to create a 'security hedge' in response to Iran's recent nuclear development program."

Aglassis writes to tell us that recent proposed EU legislation could require anyone running a website featuring video content to acquire a broadcast license. From the article: "Personal websites would have to be licensed as a "television-like service". Once again the reasoning behind such legislation is said to be in order to set minimum standards on areas such as hate speech and the protection of children. In reality this directive would do nothing to protect children or prevent hate speech - unless you judge protecting children to be denying them access to anything that is not government regulated or you assume hate speech to be the criticism of government actions and policy."