willdavid writes "Paul McDougall reports in InformationWeek on Microsoft's new online comic. The Heroes Happen Here comic strips are being created by Jordan Gorfinkel, a former DC Comics editor who helped revitalize the Batman series. 'Tech workers who in the middle of the night fix a downed server or take on a computer virus don't really have extraordinary powers. It just seems that way. But a new comic book has debuted in which IT pros literally are superheroes. The daily Web comic, called Heroes Happen Here, features tech savvy crime fighters like Lord Firewall, who "stands between chaos and order" and says things like "begone vermin!"'" And because it's never easy, in order to read the archives of the comic you're going to need to install Microsoft's Silverlight.

The use of Tasers "causes acute pain, constituting a form of torture," the UN's Committee Against Torture said. "In certain cases, they can even cause death, as has been shown by reliable studies and recent real-life events." Three men — all in their early 20s — died from after tasering in the United States this week, days after a Polish man died at Vancouver airport after being tasered by Canadian police. There have been 17 deaths in Canada following the use of Tasers since they were approved for use, and 275 deaths in the US. "According to Amnesty International, coroners have listed the Taser jolt as a contributing factor in more than 30 of those deaths."

Dr. Eggman points us to Ars Technica for an article on the ACLU's view of the latest loosening and deadline extensions for REAL ID act compliance by the Department of Homeland Security. The rights organization believes that REAL ID is doomed. "The ACLU, which opposes the plan on civil liberties grounds, says that the many changes made since the Act was passed [in 2005] nearly 'negate the original intent of the program.' 'DHS is essentially whittling Real ID down to nothing... all in the name of denying Real ID is a failure,' said ACLU senior legislative counsel Tim Sparapani. 'Real ID is in its death throes, and any signs of life are just last gasps.'"

An anonymous reader writes "A solar-powered, unmanned craft has flown for 54 hours — a record for both unmanned aerial vehicles and solar craft. None before has managed to store enough solar energy to fly through more than one night. There is also a video showing the 18m carbon fiber wing craft being launched."

StonyandCher writes with a ComputerWorld story about new efforts by Nissan to reduce the danger of intoxicated drinkers through technology. A trio of new features installed in a prototype vehicle demonstrated this past week are designed to minimize the damage a drunk behind the wheel can cause. "The first [system] attempts to directly detect alcohol in the driver's sweat and gear shift lever. A second system in the car uses a camera mounted in front of the driver to monitor eye movement. If the driver is drowsy it triggers the seat belt to tighten and this movement will hopefully snap the driver out of their drowsiness or prompt them to take a rest. A third system monitors the path of the vehicle to ensure it's traveling in a straight line and not weaving about the road, as is common with a drunken driver."

exigentsky writes "Having looked at BeOS technology, it is clear that, like NeXTSTEP, it was ahead of its time. Most remarkable to me is the incredible responsiveness of the whole OS. On relatively slow hardware, BeOS could run eight movies simultaneously while still being responsive in all of its GUI controls, and launching programs almost instantaneously. Today, more than ten years after BeOS's introduction, its legendary responsiveness is still unmatched. There is simply no other major OS that has pervasive multithreading from the lowest level up (requiring no programmer tricks). Is it likely, or at least possible, that future versions of Windows or OS X could become pervasively multithreaded without creating an entirely new OS?"

duguk writes in with another reason to keep happy over Christmas. A new scientific study suggests that people who frequently experience positive emotions are less likely to catch colds. Psychologist Sheldon Cohen and his colleagues at Carnegie Mellon University interviewed 193 healthy adults daily for two weeks and recorded the positive and negative emotions they had experienced each day. The researchers then exposed the volunteers to a cold or a flu virus. Those with "generally positive outlooks" reported fewer cold symptoms. From the article: "'We need to take more seriously the possibility that a positive emotional style is a major player in disease risk,' Cohen says... Although a positive emotional style bore no relation to whether participants became infected, it protected against the emergence of cold symptoms. For instance, among people infected by the influenza virus... 28 percent who often reported positive emotions developed coughs, congestion, and other cold symptoms, as compared with... 41 percent who rarely reported positive emotions."

afa writes "According to Xinhuanet.com, Xinhua News Agency on Sunday promulgated a set of measures to regulate the release of news and information in China by foreign news agencies. From the article: 'Where a foreign news agency violates the Measures in one of the following manners, Xinhua News Agency shall give it a warning, demand rectification within a prescribed time limit, suspend its release of specified content, suspend or cancel its qualifications of a foreign news agency for releasing news and information in China, on the merits of each case.'"

An anonymous reader writes "The BBC is reporting that possession of violent pornography is now punishable by three years in prison. This decision was handed down in response to a campaign waged by a grieving mother who lost her daughter to someone obsessed with violent pornography." From the article: "Shaun Gabb, director of the anti-censorship organization the Libertarian Alliance, said: 'If you are criminalizing possession then you are giving police inquisitorial powers to come into your house and see what you've got, now we didn't have this in the past.'"

bcaulfield writes to tell us Zhou Hongyi has filed a 3.6 million yuan ($450,000) defamation suit against Yahoo China. Hongyi, the former president of Yahoo China, filed his suit in response to comments made in a recent Yahoo press conference accusing him of unethical business practices. From the article: "A rift between Mr. Zhou and Yahoo China has been developing since before his departure from Yahoo last year, just prior to Alibaba's takeover of Yahoo's China operations. Mr. Zhou doled out generous bonuses to Yahoo employees in a ploy his detractors derided as a naked purchase of loyalties. Mr. Zhou defended the disbursements. 'Many of these people were longtime Yahoo employees, and they were under no obligation to follow me,' he said. 'It was my money to do with as I wanted.'" Update 08/20/2006 15:01 GMT by SM: Corrected the currency for the suit.

theodp writes "U.S. digital entertainment company Gracenote has obtained licenses to distribute the lyrics of more than 1 million songs. Music publishers are still mulling legal action against Web sites that provide lyrics without authorization." From the article: "Ralph Peer II, Firth's counterpart at peermusic, said licensing lyrics should boost worldwide music publishing revenues, estimated at about $4 billion annually. Peer said he hopes the unauthorized sites will seek licenses. 'I think we'll see a reasonable increase, as much as a 5 percent increase, in industry music publishing revenues five years out from where we are right now,' Peer said."

Sometime in 2000, Sony patented a process that would 'verify a disc as legitimate, register the disc to that particular game console, then wipe out verification data so the disc would be rendered unreadable in other PlayStations'. Despite unrest in the gaming community over this technology, the company has repeatedly stated they have no plans to use it in the PS3. The LA Times explores this persistent debate, examining why Sony developed the tech and why gamers are nervous. From the article: "Whatever Sony's plans, the tempest [over the patent] illustrates the changing nature of ownership as millions of people accumulate vast collections of digital entertainment. Few people realize that when they buy software or music or movies, they are actually buying a license to use, watch or listen. That's why it violates copyright laws for people to sell copies of their music collection." Thanks to 1up.com for the link.