Submission + - Largest Ever Colossal Squid Caught
An anonymous reader writes: The largest squid ever caught has been landed in the Ross Sea, estimated to weigh in at 450kg, it's a male colossal squid (Mesonychoteuthis hamiltoni).
Submission + - Rocket Explosion Observed over Australia
volcanopele writes: "On February 19, a failed Russian Briz-M rocket booster exploded several hundred miles over Australia. The explosion and subsequent fragmentation was observed by numerous amateur astronomers in that country. The United States Air Force Space Surveillance System has tracked the booster and has thus far observed over 1100 fragments sharing the booster's eccentric orbit."
Submission + - World's First Extradition for Warez Complete
Glad I'm Not Down Under writes: In a move sure to frighten most of those with piles of old cracked PC games and a hastily copied list of serial numbers, the world's first warez extradition — dating back to a series of raids dubbed "Operation Buccaneer" in 2001 — has finally come to an end. Hew Rayond Griffiths, alleged to also have gone by the screen name Bandido, has been delivered into American custody and faces up to 10 years in prison despite never having profited from his alleged crimes or having set foot on American soil committing them. Victim companies impacted by the group Bandido is said to have run, Drink or Die, are situated globally. Griffiths spent three years prior to extradition in an Australian prison, equal in length to some of the longest warez sentences handed out to date. It is unclear as to how he will be represented as his case proceeds, as he was the recipient of provided counsel while fighting against the extradition in Australia. Justice served, or the export of American intellectual property ideals on a foreign nation?
Submission + - Building the Interplanetary Internet
sighted writes: "Internet pioneer Vint Cerf is leading a NASA effort to create a permanent network link to Mars within the next two years. As Cerf outlined in a recent talk, the "InterPlaNet" protocol is designed to handle the delay caused by interplanetary distances. For example, it can take a signal up to 20 minutes to travel between the Earth and Mars, depending on the distance between the two planets."
Submission + - Fran Allen becomes first woman to win Turing award
shoemortgage writes: "The Association for Computing Machinery, has named Frances E. Allen the recipient of the 2006 A.M. Turing Award for contributions that fundamentally improved the performance of computer programs in solving problems, and accelerated the use of high performance computing. This award marks the first time that a woman has received this honour."
Scientists Make Quantum Encryption Breakthrough 156
Madas writes "Scientists working in Cambridge have managed to make quantum encryption completely secure (registration required) by
putting decoy pulses in the key transmission stream. According to the story this paves the way for safe, encrypted high-speed data links. Could this allow completely private transmission of data away from snooping eyes and ears? Or will it mean film studios can stop movies from being copied when traveling on the internet?"
Submission + - Video Games Improve Surgeons' Skills
Kazade writes: A Reuters article reports that a recent U.S. study shows that video games greatly improve the skills of surgeons.
From the article:
""It was surprising that past commercial video game play was such a strong predictor of advanced surgical skills," said Iowa State University psychology professor Douglas Gentile, one of the study's authors."
Perhaps playing video games should be part of the job description :)
From the article:
""It was surprising that past commercial video game play was such a strong predictor of advanced surgical skills," said Iowa State University psychology professor Douglas Gentile, one of the study's authors."
Perhaps playing video games should be part of the job description
Submission + - Eric S. Raymond switches from Fedora to Ubuntu
kRemit writes: Eric S. Raymond announced that he switched from Fedora Core to Ubuntu Edgy Eft for his workstation on the Fedora dev mailing list (https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list /2007-February/msg01006.html), because of numerous issues ranging from dependency-hell to the "culture of Fedora" — especially the apparent decision to give up the struggle for desktop-marketshare.
Submission + - Bethesda open to making Elder Scrolls MMO
jtorry writes: "Pro-G recently had a chat with Pete Hines, Vice President of Public Relations and Marketing at Bethesda, and we took the opportunity to quiz him on the future of the Elder Scrolls series. Firstly, although the success of Oblivion makes it a cert, don't expect Elder Scrolls V any time soon.
"Well, I can tell you that since Oblivion has been such a smashing success that I'm sure we will do it [Elder Scrolls V], but there are no immediate plans right now," said Hines. "We're finishing up Oblivion then shifting our focus to Fallout 3, which is our next big role-playing game."
Hines also revealed that Bethesda has discussed the idea of making an MMO but notes that it would have to be based on a fresh idea.
"Certainly, there's a chance, it's something we've talked about, but it's not anywhere in our immediate future. I don't think we could do an MMO unless it was with some fresh idea that no one has ever tried before," said Hines.
Turning his attention back to the Xbox 360 and PS3 versions of Oblivion, Hines revealed that the game is really only scratching the surface of what is possible despite being able to offer visuals and AI that simply were not possible on previous generation hardware.
"Next generation allows you to do far better graphics and there's more horse-power so you can do things like AI routines for all the NPCs. That takes a lot of time and effort; it's like herding cats. We're only scratching the surface really," explained Hines.
http://www.pro-g.co.uk/news/21-02-2007-4833.html"
Hines also revealed that Bethesda has discussed the idea of making an MMO but notes that it would have to be based on a fresh idea.
"Certainly, there's a chance, it's something we've talked about, but it's not anywhere in our immediate future. I don't think we could do an MMO unless it was with some fresh idea that no one has ever tried before," said Hines.
Turning his attention back to the Xbox 360 and PS3 versions of Oblivion, Hines revealed that the game is really only scratching the surface of what is possible despite being able to offer visuals and AI that simply were not possible on previous generation hardware.
"Next generation allows you to do far better graphics and there's more horse-power so you can do things like AI routines for all the NPCs. That takes a lot of time and effort; it's like herding cats. We're only scratching the surface really," explained Hines.
http://www.pro-g.co.uk/news/21-02-2007-4833.html"
Submission + - Visual Basic on GNU/Linux!
jeevesbond writes: "The Mono Project on Feb. 20 announced that it has developed a Visual Basic compiler that will enable software developers who use Microsoft Visual Basic to run their applications on any platform that supports Mono, such as Linux, without any code modifications."
Submission + - States Seek Laws to Curb Online Bullying
An anonymous reader writes: Until this is passed, I will remain an anonymous coward
"States from Oregon to Rhode Island are considering crackdowns to curb or outlaw the behavior in which kids taunt or insult peers on social Web sites like MySpace or via instant messages. Still, there is some disagreement over how effective crackdowns will be and how to do it.
The Internet allows students to insult others in relative anonymity, and experts who study cyber'bullying say it can be more damaging to victims than traditional bullying like fist fights and classroom taunts."
http://www.ibtimes.com/articles/20070221/add1-cybe rbullying.htm
Submission + - UK Government Ignores Petition To Ban DRM
taskforce writes: "A petition to ban DRM on the UK Government's new (and seemingly pointless) petition site which was signed by 1,400 people was blown off today by the British Government. In its typical response to the swell of public opinion, the government said Digital Rights Management, 'helped give users unprecedented choice,' and that it would fully support the continued embedding of the software into digital media. The full text of the dismissal can be found here."
Submission + - YouTube permanently bans Gisburne, changes story
mijkal writes: "YouTube has told atheist member Nick Gisburne that he is now permanently banned from the site. This stems from his posting of a video slideshow of quotes from the Quran. Originally YouTube said it was because of 'inappropriate content', but now it has changed its story and is claiming copyright infringement because it has a soundtrack (nevermind that hundreds of lip-synch videos as well as official music videos readily available on YouTube). Had Nick known this was the reason to begin with (YouTube admits it made a mistake), he wouldn't have reposted the video (or encouraged others to do the same). YouTube has decide to evoke the DMCA and its '3 strikes' policy, and is trying to reassure us all that the content has nothing to do with the banning of a certain unnamed account, but rather because of recurring copyright infringement. YouTube is also covering its tracks by changing the reason the videos were removed. All of his videos from all of his accounts have been removed, and anyone who's spent some time on YouTube and seen Nick's videos should clearly see this policy is not routinely executed, so why is Gisburne being unfairly targeted here? Given the context, it seems Gisburne is being treated rather harshly by the YouTube censors. (And just to nip this in the bud, yes, YouTube has the right to censor; and we all have the right to call YouTube on it when we feel its unfair and YouTube can change its policy or we can move on; no one's equating this with government censorship.)"
Submission + - Microsoft blunder: we're sorry for serving malware
Slinky Sausage writes: "One for the "can't imagine Google ever doing this" files... Microsoft has admitted to and apologised for serving malware via its Windows Live Messenger software and MSN website network.
The Windows-only malware slipped under the radar disguised as a banner ad. Microsoft has now pledged to review its processes for accepting advertising to ensure other undesirables don't use Microsoft ad space for malware distribution.
APCMag.com has screenshots of the malware download in action."
The Windows-only malware slipped under the radar disguised as a banner ad. Microsoft has now pledged to review its processes for accepting advertising to ensure other undesirables don't use Microsoft ad space for malware distribution.
APCMag.com has screenshots of the malware download in action."
Submission + - Warez Leader Faces 10 Years in Jail
Lennart writes: From the article:
After spending nearly 3 years in a detention center fighting his extradition from Australia, a leader of notorious warez group 'DrinkorDie' was yesterday arraigned before a U.S. District Court to face charges of conspiracy to commit criminal copyright infringement and one count of actual criminal copyright infringement. If found guilty he faces 10 years in jail & $500,000 fine.
