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Australia

Submission + - Australian Elections Result In Hung Parliament (abc.net.au) 1

Submitted by ajdlinux
ajdlinux writes: For the first time since World War II, Australia has a hung parliament. The future of the Government now lies in the hands of the five independent and Green MPs, who will decide over the next few days which party they will back to form the next government. The Labor Party's National Broadband Network is now in doubt, but it at least seems the internet filter won't go ahead now that the Greens have the balance of power in the Senate.

Submission + - Organophosphate Pesticide Exposure Linked to ADHD (nih.gov)

Submitted by jfjfjdk
jfjfjdk writes: Organophosphate pesticides are the tool of choice in the United States to control insects on food crops, but it's looking increasingly likely that their use has contributed to ADHD. A new UC Berkeley study finds a 500% increase in ADHD rates at age 5 for children in Salinas Valley farming communities from mothers with high levels of pesticide metabolites during pregnancy. This follows a recent Harvard study with similar results.
On an unrelated note, Russian state scientists often published their organophosphate weapons as novel pesticides to avoid treaty obligations under the Chemical Weapons Convention.

Submission + - Photographing Buildings Excluded From Street View (blogoscoped.com)

Submitted by crf00
crf00 writes: Spiegel reports that German photographer and IT consultant Jens Best wants to personally take snapshots of all those (German) buildings which people asked Google Street View to remove. He then wants to add those photos to Picasa, including GPS coordinates, and in turn re-connect them with Google Maps. Jens believes that for the internet “we must apply the same rules as we do in the real world. Our right to take panoramic snapshots, for instance, or to take photographs in public spaces, both base laws which determine that one may photograph those things that are visible from public streets and places.”

Jens says that for his believe in the right of photographing in public places, as last resort he’s even willing to go to jail. Spiegel says Jens already found over 200 people who want to help out in this project and look for removed locations in Google Street View, as there’s no official list of such places published by Google.

Submission + - Rat's Nest of Music Licensing Horror in one Chart 1

Submitted by Hodejo1
Hodejo1 writes: The flow of rights and and royalties in music is such a convoluted mess it's no wonder licensing the stuff has become such a minefield. Here's a US-centric chart, shared with Digital Music News by royalty administration specialist Music Reports that distills it all in a single frame. Needless to say it has devolved to a point where everyone just puts their hand out demanding payment, whether they actually hold legitimate rights or not. So why pay a fortune in royalties when there is no guarantee you actually licensed all the rights? The UK-centric chart is no better.

Submission + - Lack of copyright law propelled German economy (spiegel.de)

Submitted by jeffreytran
jeffreytran writes: The Der Speigel has a fascinating story about how lack of enforceable copyright law led to a flourishing of literacy and knowledge. Contrary to popular wisdom, increased protection such as those found in Great Britain at time gave scholars less of an incentive to share their knowledge.

Submission + - CVS to sell $100 Sylvania netbook and $179 ereader

Submitted by JohnRoss1968
JohnRoss1968 writes: From Engadget.

Watch out Kmart, CVS is getting its very own $100 smartbook and $180 e-reader and there's nothing you can do about it! We've gotten a hold of some marketing materials which confirm that this fall your neighborhood drugstore will be stocking a Sylvania netbook running Windows CE and a color e-reader. There aren't too many details on the little laptop itself, although we can only guess that the thing will be very similar to many of the other cheap smartbooks we've seen lately. Oh, it does claim to be able to stream video / YouTube, but we'll believe it when we see it play Bieber's Segway escape without freezing up. There are a few more details on the 7-inch LookBook e-reader after the break, but it will pack 512MB of storage space, a full keyboard and will have access to Kobo's e-book store. Seems like some good old cheap tech to us, but we're willing to bet that more than a few CVS shoppers will be tempted to throw one of these into the basket along with the deodorant and shampoo.

How cheap do you think things like net-books and tablet computers will get, and can you think of odd uses for ultra-cheap tablets and net-books.

For the full Story go here...
http://www.engadget.com/2010/08/19/cvs-to-sell-100-sylvania-netbook-and-179-e-reader-this-fall-t/
Wireless Networking

Submission + - Bringing Mobile Phones To Those Who Can't Hear (ibtimes.com)

Submitted by RedEaredSlider
RedEaredSlider writes: Experts in Germany and the U.S. are developing technologies to make mobile devices more accessible to people with problems hearing, getting beyond simple hearing aids and amplifiers.

At the Fraunhofer Institute, researcher Stefan Goetze came up with a piece of software that automatically adjusts different frequencies to help people who are hard of hearing make out sounds more clearly. ...
Goetze has already tried out his software on an iPod Touch. He said one obstacle to wider use on iPhones, for example, is that when iPhones connect as phones the other functions that control the sound quality are turned off.
Science

Submission + - Universe will fall apart eventually (bbc.co.uk)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: BBC is reporting the latest confirmation that the end of the universe will be a whole lot of nothing. A team leam lead by Eric Jullo of JPL has published a paper in Science reporting the results of their detailed survey of galaxy cluster Abell 1689.

Posting as AC due to creeping nihilism.

Submission + - Carlson Sues IBM for Outsourcing Fraud (informationweek.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Cutting off a deal at the halfway point, Carlson is suing Big Blue for not living up to the outsourcing hype. IBM is denying any wrongdoing. It would be a huge black eye for IBM if Carlson wins the suit. It could also start a wave of lawsuits for disgruntled companies paying more for outsourcing than they bargained for.
Science

Submission + - What happens to a football player's neurons? (discovermagazine.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: It seems like every week there's a new story about the consequences of all those concussions experienced by football players and other athletes — just a few days ago, the NY Times reported that some athletes diagnosed with Lou Gehrig's Disease may actually have a neural disease brought on by head trauma. But missing in these stories is an explanation of what head trauma actually does to the brain cells. Now Carl Zimmer has filled in the gap with a column that takes a look at how neurons respond to stress, and explains how stretching a neuron's axon turns its internal structure into "mush."

Submission + - iPad TV (skunkpost.com) 1

Submitted by crimeandpunishment
crimeandpunishment writes: Channel surfing and web surfing? Verizon is showing off a new application that would turn the iPad into a screen for its FIOS service. FIOS subscribers could channel surf right on the touch screen, and take live TV with them from room to room. They hope to have the app available next year.

Submission + - RIAA Wants Net Neutrality to Include Filtering (arstechnica.com) 1

Submitted by
I Don't Believe in Imaginary Property
I Don't Believe in Imaginary Property writes: "The RIAA is now worried about the FCC's rulemaking concerning Net Neutrality. Specifically, they're worried that the rules might make it difficult for ISPs to filter out copyright infringement and child pornography, so they want to make sure that spying on and filtering internet traffic is okay, so long as it's being done for a good reason, even if it doesn't work correctly and blocks non-infringing content. Incidentally, the RIAA has some justification to lump child pornography and copyright infringement: after all, people might infringe upon the original cover art for the album 'Virgin Killer' which featured a naked under-aged girl in a way that some consider pornographic. The copyright on it belongs to RCA Records."

Submission + - Secrets of 'Magic' Antidepressant by Yale Team

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Yale researchers have discovered how a novel anti-depressant can take effect in hours, rather than the weeks or months usually required for most drugs currently on the market. The findings, described in the August 20 issue of the journal Science, should speed development of a safe and easy-to-administer form of the anti-depressant ketamine, which has already proven remarkably effective in treating severely depressed patients. The Yale scientists found that, in rats, ketamine not only quickly improves depression-like behaviors but actually restores connections between brain cells damaged by chronic stress.

Submission + - BREIN Tracks Down Peter Sunde of The Pirate Bay 1

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Slyck news is reporting that Tim Kuik, chairman of the IFPI, has tracked down and physically handed Peter Sunde of The Pirate Bay a June order from a Dutch court that demands they stop providing copyrighted torrents or face a 50,000 Euro a day fine. Now what?
Science

Submission + - UN urges probes behind weather disasters (montrealgazette.com)

Submitted by Meshach
Meshach writes: The United Nations is urging more investigation into the weather disasters taking place in Russia and Pakistan and whether they are caused by human-induced climate change. Although scientists are reluctant to overtly blame a single weather event on climate change, which measures longer term shifts over periods of years or decades the recent rash of disasters in such a short period of time has raised many questions.

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