Society & Politics archives

• 29 December 2006
  "Collector Charles Saatchi has launched a Web site for art students and a handful have already sold works online as the Internet begins to change the way the art world works. With prices for contemporary art soaring, collectors say they have less time to travel to galleries and shows to see new works for themselves, while aspiring painters and sculptors find it hard to get noticed amid the pressure to find the next hot young stars. For many, the Internet is the answer, offering low-cost access for thousands of painters, sculptors and buyers and, at the same time, providing a Myspace-style social networking site for artists the world over. Saatchi, one of art's most powerful figures who helped establish such stars as Damien Hirst, has attracted more than 2,000 art students to his new Web site, a follow-up to an earlier venture for artists that boasts 20,000 contributors." Learn more at CNN.com.

• 28 December 2006
  "Polar bears may be listed as a threatened species under the Endangered Species Act because of a loss of habitat that jeopardizes their survival, the Interior secretary said Wednesday. 'Polar bears are one of nature's ultimate survivors, able to live and thrive in one of the world's harshest environments,' said Secretary of the Interior Dirk Kempthorne in a teleconference with reporters. 'But we are concerned the polar bears' habitat may literally be melting,' he said. After a public comment period and additional study, the Department of the Interior will make a final decision on the polar bear's status in 12 months. The announcement by the Bush administration comes in response to a lawsuit filed by three conservation groups, who sued the Department of the Interior in an effort to protect the polar bear from the effects of global warming. '" Learn more at CNN.com.

• 27 December 2006
  "Russia will cooperate with China on space projects, but will not transfer sensitive technologies that could enable Beijing to become a rival in a future space race, the head of the Russia's space agency said Tuesday. Federal Space Agency chief Anatoly Perminov said that Moscow and Beijing would cooperate with China in robotic missions to the moon. He added, however, that Russia would maintain restrictions on sharing technology. 'The Chinese are still some 30 years behind us, but their space program has been developing very fast,' Perminov said at a news conference. 'They are quickly catching up with us.' Russia sold China the technology that formed the basis of its manned space program, which launched its first astronaut in 2003 and two others in 2005. The Chinese Shenzhou spacecraft closely resembles the Russian Soyuz. The next Chinese manned space flight is due next year. China also wants to send up a space station and land a robot probe on the moon by 2010. Perminov said that Russia would cooperate with China in space exploration strictly within the framework of a bilateral agreement that doesn't envisage exporting Russian space technologies. '" Learn more at CNN.com.

• 26 December 2006
  "Humankind, which has reached other planets and decoded the genetic instructions for life, should not presume it can live without God, Pope Benedict said in his Christmas message on Monday. In an age of unbridled consumerism it was shameful many remained deaf to the 'heart-rending cry' of those dying of hunger, thirst, disease, poverty, war and terrorism, he said. 'Does a "Saviour" still have any value and meaning for the men and women of the third millennium?' he asked in his 'Urbi et Orbi' (to the city and the world) message to the faithful in St Peter's Square, broadcast live to millions in 40 countries. 'Is a "Saviour" still needed by a humanity which has reached the moon and Mars and is prepared to conquer the universe; for a humanity which knows no limits in its pursuit of nature's secrets and which has succeeded even in deciphering the marvelous codes of the human genome?' " Learn more at News.com.

• 22 December 2006
  "Blame the Internet's legacy systems if Jay Glatfelter falls asleep Thursday mornings. Co-host of an online audio show about Lost, Glatfelter must wait about 40 minutes to finish posting his program to the Internet in the hours after ABC's Wednesday night broadcast. If he were downloading it as his listeners do, the same file would take only a few minutes over a cable modem. 'At 3 in the morning, that's really brutal,' said Glatfelter, 21, who lives in Raleigh, N.C. 'It's an extra 40 minutes and you want to go to sleep.' The information superhighway isn't truly equal in both directions. Cable and phone companies typically sell asymmetrical Internet services to households, reserving the bulk of the lanes for downloading movies and other files and leaving the shoulders at most for people to share, or upload, files with others. The imbalance makes less sense as the Internet becomes truly interactive. Users are increasingly becoming contributors and not just consumers, sharing photos, video and in Glatfelter's case, podcasts." Learn more at USA Today.com.

• 21 December 2006
  "Larry Richard is one of the millions to have discovered the world of YouTube, the free website that allows people to post, watch, and share video clips. When he receives a link to the site, usually via e-mail, he spends a few moments to click and watch a clip on his computer screen - sometimes a video of a friend's singing recital, other times a snippet of a foreign commercial or a monologue from late-night TV. 'It's entertaining, it's information, it's a community of people sharing things,' says Mr. Richard, a marketing consultant in Santa Monica, Calif. But is it legal, given that at least some of what he's watching is copyrighted material being disseminated by individuals who clearly do not hold the copyright? The law on this matter is murky, and likely to get murkier before it gets clearer, say experts in intellectual property law." Learn more in the Christian Science Monitor.

• 20 December 2006
  "'SNAKE!' Hearing this shout, Skip Snow slammed on the brakes. When the off-roader plowed to a halt, he and his partner, Lori Oberhofer, leaped out and took off running toward two snakes, actually -- a pair of 10-foot Burmese pythons lying on a levee, sunning themselves. After slipping, sliding and tumbling down a rocky embankment, Snow, a wildlife biologist, grabbed one of the creatures by the tail. The python, Oberhofer says, did not care much for that. 'It made a sound like Darth Vader breathing,' she says, 'and then its head swung around and I saw this white mouth flying through the air.' Snow saw the mouth, too -- the jaws open 180 degrees, the gums an obscene white, the needle-sharp teeth bared in an almost devilish grin. He let out a shriek, then blinked, and when his eyes opened the python's head was hanging in mid-air, less than a foot from his own. So goes python control in the Everglades, a painstaking, around-the-clock slog against a voracious, foreign snake species that has established a stronghold in this watery wilderness and put native wildlife at risk." Learn more at CNN.com.

• 19 December 2006
  "Religious organizations in Pakistan are using the Internet to help Muslims in Western countries buy and sacrifice animals for an annual festival. Eid al-Adha marks the end of the Haj pilgrimage each year to Mecca and is known as the feast of sacrifice. Muslims who can afford it buy and slaughter animals and distribute the meat among the poor and relatives. Muslims in Western countries unable to perform the ritual can now buy an animal over the Internet and even watch it being slaughtered, before its meat is given away. 'It is not easy for them to buy animals and carry out the sacrifice according to our religious rites in those countries,' said Sohail Ahmed, an official at the Al-Khidmat trust Islamic welfare organization. 'They are turning to the Internet to complete their religious obligations,' said Ahmed, whose organization offers the service." Learn more at News.com.

• 18 December 2006
  "Still need a flu shot? Matthew Stefanak has so many left over he is giving them away by the carload. 'I sent out a blast fax to 700 physicians in the Youngstown area offering to give it away if they just come pick it up,' said Mr. Stefanak, the health commissioner of Mahoning County, Ohio, which includes Youngstown. So far, he said, there have been few takers. Two years ago, the nation was plagued by a severe shortage of flu shots, with huge lines at clinics and many people going without. This year it looks as if there may be a glut. Yet, somewhat perversely, because of distribution delays earlier in the season, this year’s abundant supply has not meant that everyone who wanted a flu shot has received one. The situation underscores the fragile nature of the nation’s supply system for flu vaccine, a risky and volatile business, in which the federal government has a limited role." Learn more in the New York Times.

• 15 December 2006
  "NASA's planned moon base announced last week could pave the way for deeper space exploration to Mars, but one of the biggest beneficiaries may be the terrestrial energy industry. Nestled among the agency's 200-point mission goals is a proposal to mine the moon for fuel used in fusion reactors -- futuristic power plants that have been demonstrated in proof-of-concept but are likely decades away from commercial deployment. Helium-3 is considered a safe, environmentally friendly fuel candidate for these generators, and while it is scarce on Earth it is plentiful on the moon. As a result, scientists have begun to consider the practicality of mining lunar Helium-3 as a replacement for fossil fuels. 'After four-and-half-billion years, there should be large amounts of helium-3 on the moon,' said Gerald Kulcinski, a professor who leads the Fusion Technology Institute at the University of Wisconsin at Madison." Learn more in Wired News.

• 14 December 2006
  "Monica Gibson says she is not particularly political, but when she heard about conflict diamonds on an episode of 'The Oprah Winfrey Show' last week featuring the cast and director of the new movie 'Blood Diamond,' she looked down at her engagement ring and thought not of love but of wars and violence. Her fiancé gave her the ring last summer, she said, and she may never find out where its 24 diamonds came from. But as the couple now shops for diamond wedding bands, Ms. Gibson said she won’t buy unless the jeweler can vouch not just for the stone’s cut, clarity and color, but also for its origin...The terms 'conflict diamonds' or 'blood diamonds' refer to gems that have been used by rebel groups to pay for wars that have killed and displaced millions of people in Africa, the source of an estimated 65 percent of the world’s diamonds." Learn more in the New York Times.

• 13 December 2006
  "Cows, pigs, sheep and poultry have been awarded the dubious honour of being among the world's greatest environmental threats, according to the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO). The report, entitled Livestock's long shadow, says the livestock industry is degrading land, contributing to the greenhouse effect, polluting water resources, and destroying biodiversity. In summary, the sector is 'one of the top two or three most significant contributors to the most serious environmental problems at every scale'. The authors say the demand for meat is expected to more than double by 2050 and therefore the environmental impact of production must be halved in order to avoid worsening the harmful impacts of the industry. Perhaps the report's most striking finding is that the livestock sector accounts for 18% of global greenhouse gas emissions – more than transport, which emits 13.5%." Learn more in the New Scientist.

• 12 December 2006
  "As startling numbers of Americans go without health insurance, more of them see their only hope in fleeing to far-flung nations like India for life-saving medial treatments. The dearth of affordable health insurance has engendered a new breed of what the New England Journal of Medicine classifies as 'medical refugees' -- patients traveling abroad for heart surgery and other crucial procedures -- that has grown sharply in the past two years. In 2005, 46 million Americans -- or about 15 percent of the total population -- lacked health insurance, according to a Census Bureau study. For families who don't qualify for Medicare but can't afford private coverage, a sudden accident or illness could lead to financial disaster. The situation in the United States and other countries where health care is expensive will contribute to tourists spending $2 billion on medical procedures in India by 2012, according to a study by McKinsey and the Confederation of Indian Industry." Learn more in Wired News.

• 11 December 2006
  "The National Geographic Society's multimillion-dollar research project to collect DNA from indigenous groups around the world in the hopes of reconstructing humanity’s ancient migrations has come to a standstill on its home turf in North America. Billed as the “moon shot of anthropology,” the Genographic Project intends to collect 100,000 indigenous DNA samples. But for four months, the project has been on hold here as it scrambles to address questions raised by a group that oversees research involving Alaska natives. At issue is whether scientists who need DNA from aboriginal populations to fashion a window on the past are underselling the risks to present-day donors. Geographic origin stories told by DNA can clash with long-held beliefs, threatening a world view some indigenous leaders see as vital to preserving their culture. They argue that genetic ancestry information could also jeopardize land rights and other benefits that are based on the notion that their people have lived in a place since the beginning of time." Learn more in the New York Times.

• 8 December 2006
  "Two U.S. senators said on Thursday they would introduce legislation that would potentially protect users of popular social networking sites like News Corp's MySpace from registered sex offenders. New York Democrat Charles E. Schumer and Arizona Republican John McCain, in a press release, said they planned to introduce a bill at the beginning of the 110th Congress in January that would require registered sex offenders to submit their active e-mail addresses to law enforcement. The legislation would enable social networking sites like MySpace to cross-check new members against a database of registered sex offenders and ensure that predators are unable to sign up for the service. Under the proposed legislation, any sex offender who submits a fraudulent e-mail could face prison. Earlier this week, MySpace said it would offer in the next 30 days a technology to identify and block convicted sex offenders from the popular online social network." Learn more at News.com.

• 7 December 2006
  "Officials are looking in the wrong place to stop the spread of bird flu to the U.S., a new study suggests. The report predicts that bird flu will likely spread to the Americas through infected poultry. This poultry may then infect local wild birds, which could carry the disease from Latin America or Canada to the United States. The U.S. is currently testing thousands of wild birds in Alaska, because authorities believe the flu is likely to be carried from Asia to the U.S. by migrating waterfowl. The new report, from the New York-based Consortium for Conservation Medicine, studied migration patterns and the bird trade. The study suggests that birds migrating from Siberia to Alaska are unlikely to carry the virus and that few of those birds ultimately fly farther south. 'We share very few migratory birds with Europe and Siberia. There are ducks and geese that winter in Siberia and molt in Alaska, but they don't come down here,' said research scientist A. Marm Kilpatrick, co-author of the study." Learn more in the National Geographic.

• 6 December 2006
  "Humans must colonize planets in other solar systems traveling there using 'Star Trek'-style propulsion or face extinction, renowned British cosmologist Stephen Hawking said on Thursday. Referring to complex theories and the speed of light, Hawking, the wheel-chair bound Cambridge University physicist, told BBC radio that theoretical advances could revolutionize the velocity of space travel and make such colonies possible. 'Sooner or later disasters such as an asteroid collision or a nuclear war could wipe us all out,' said Professor Hawking, who was crippled by a muscle disease at the age of 21 and who speaks through a computerized voice synthesizer. 'But once we spread out into space and establish independent colonies, our future should be safe,' said Hawking, who was due to receive the world's oldest award for scientific achievement, the Copley medal, from Britain's Royal Society on Thursday." Learn more at CNN.com.

• 5 December 2006
  "Computer scientists all too familiar with code bugginess have long criticized electronic voting machines that rely entirely on successful software performance, but they have failed for now to persuade a federal advisory committee to recommend otherwise. At a periodic public meeting here, the Technical Guidelines Development Committee narrowly rejected on Monday a proposal designed to pave the way for a new requirement that all electronic voting systems be 'software independent' and readily audited. The TGDC was created in 2002 under the umbrella of the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) to advise the U.S. government on electronic voting machine standards. Voting machines are considered "dependent" on software if an undetected bug or modification in their code can lead to an undetectable change in the election's outcome." Learn more in News.com.

• 4 December 2006
  "Computer users who type in the same username and password for multiple sites--such as online banks, travel agencies and booksellers--are at serious risk from identity thieves, a United Nations agency said on Sunday. The International Telecommunication Union, a Geneva-based U.N. branch, said businesses and regulators need to find a solution to the spread of personal information on the Internet, possibly by developing more streamlined identification methods. At the moment, the ITU said the sheer number of identifiers and passwords required from computer users made it nearly inevitable that they repeat codes. 'This may cause security breaches, and leave them vulnerable to the machinations of identity thieves ever increasing in number and inventiveness,' it said in its 2006 Internet report, released ahead of a major meeting of governments and industry officials in Hong Kong." Learn more in News.com.

• 1 December 2006
  "In the English-language version of Wikipedia, the popular online encyclopedia, he was a victorious military and political leader who founded China's modern Communist state. But he was also a man whom many saw as a 'mass murderer, holding his leadership accountable for the deaths of tens of millions of innocent Chinese.' Switch to Wikipedia in Chinese, though, and you read about a very different man. There, Mao's reputation is unsullied by mention of any death toll in the great purges of the 1950s and 1960s, like the Great Leap Forward, a mass collectivization and industrialization campaign begun in 1958 that produced what many historians call the greatest famine in human history." Learn more at News.com.

• 30 November 2006
  "When computer industry executives heard about a plan to build a $100 laptop for the developing world’s children, they generally ridiculed the idea. How could you build such a computer, they asked, when screens alone cost about $100? Mary Lou Jepsen, the chief technologist for the project, likes to refer to the insight that transformed the machine from utopian dream to working prototype as 'a really wacky idea.' Ms. Jepsen, a former Intel chip designer, found a way to modify conventional laptop displays, cutting the screen’s manufacturing cost to $40 while reducing its power consumption by more than 80 percent. As a bonus, the display is clearly visible in sunlight. That advance and others have allowed the nonprofit project, One Laptop Per Child, to win over many skeptics over the last two and a half years." Learn more in the New York Times.

• 29 November 2006
  "A case set to be argued before the U.S. Supreme Court on Wednesday signals a growing movement in the U.S. to curb greenhouse gases with government mandates that put a price on carbon dioxide. The court will hear arguments in a case to determine whether the Environmental Protection Agency should regulate emissions of carbon dioxide as a pollutant. Rulings aren't expected until next summer. Carbon dioxide is a heat-trapping gas that contributes to climate change. As concerns over global climate change build, many experts expect the U.S. federal government to put mechanisms in place to reduce carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. 'The debate has shifted from whether or not there will be federal regulations, to when it will come,' said Fred Wellington, a senior financial analyst at the think tank World Resources Institute. 'The smart money understands that climate policy is coming.'" Learn more at News.com.

• 28 November 2006
  "A tool has been created capable of circumventing government censorship of the web, according to researchers. The free program has been constructed to let citizens of countries with restricted web access retrieve and display web pages from anywhere. The University of Toronto's Citizen Lab software, called psiphon, will be released on 1 December. Net censorship is a growing issue, and several countries have come under fire for blocking online access. Human rights organisation Reporters Without Borders recently released a list of 13 countries it believed were suppressing freedom of expression on the net, including Syria, China and Vietnam. But the Citizen Lab, which is based at the Munk Centre for International Studies at the University of Toronto, believes its program will allow surfers to bypass web censorship. Psiphon works through social networks. A net user in an uncensored country can download the program to their computer, which transforms it into an access point." Learn more at the BBC.com.

• 27 November 2006
  "Software and hardware makers have long complained that a glut of so-called junk patents threatens to disrupt the way they do business. One key gripe about the patent process is expected to take center stage before the U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday morning. In their third major patent case this year, the justices are scheduled to hear arguments about what courts should consider when deciding whether an invention is too 'obvious' to warrant protection. The case has its roots in an obscure patent spat about vehicle gas pedal designs involving two companies without mainstream name recognition: the Canadian company KSR International and Limerick, Penn.-based Teleflex. (Teleflex had sued KSR for infringement of its patent on a gas pedal design that KSR contends is no more than an obvious melding of two existing inventions.)" Learn more at News.com.

• 22 November 2006
  "Repeat after me: We humans have screwed up our planet. Feels better, doesn't it? Now that we've accepted this reality, at least we don't have to argue about it anymore. Atmospheric carbon dioxide levels are at the highest they've been in at least 800,000 years. Greenland's ice sheet is melting fast. Some – probably a lot – of the current warming trend is because of us, and so are the consequent threats to ecosystems, food supplies, coastal cities, and all that other stuff from An Inconvenient Truth. Of course, that means we're responsible for repairing the damage, but stopgaps like carbon sequestration just aren't going to cut it. Luckily, a growing number of scientists are thinking more aggressively, developing incredibly ambitious technical fixes to cool the planet. These efforts to remedy the accidental experiment of climate change with intentional, megascale experimentation are called geoengineering. Thus far, ideas include reflecting sunlight with gazillions of orbiting featherweight mirrors or by saturating the stratosphere with sulfur, or increasing the volume of microbes that eat CO2 by fertilizing the oceans with iron." Learn more in Wired News.

• 21 November 2006
  "The easing of a ban on the popular online encyclopedia in China was short-lived. Barely a week after Wikipedia viewers were able to access the Web site -- after a year-long ban -- they reported Friday that it was blocked again in several parts of China. Chinese Web surfers and free-speech advocates had earlier welcomed the apparent lifting of a ban on the English and Chinese versions of the site that provides free information written and edited by its users, although skeptics had voiced fears the end of the ban would be temporary. 'It was great news for us,' said Yuan Mingli, 33, a software engineer in Shanghai who has contributed articles on computer science and Chinese historical figures to the site. 'China's Internet users are not different from other countries' users. Wikipedia is a very important source of information for us.'" Learn more at CNN.com.

• 17 November 2006
  "Myanmar — In the balmy waters of the Bay of Bengal, just off the coast, an Asian energy rush is on. Huge pockets of natural gas have been found. China and India are jostling to sign deals. Plans are afoot to spend billions on new ports and pipelines. Yet onshore, in towns like this one, not a light is to be seen — not a street lamp, not a glow in a window — as women crouch by the roadside at dawn, sorting by candlelight the vegetables they will sell for two cents a bunch at the morning market. Paraffin and wood are major sources of light and heat. People receive two hours of electricity a day from a military government that is among the world’s most repressive. But attempts at outside pressure to prod the government to address its people’s needs and curb abuses have faltered, in large part because China’s thirst for resources has undermined nearly a decade of American economic sanctions." Learn more in the New York Times.

• 16 November 2006
  "A lack of toilets is severely jeopardizing the health of 2.6 billion people in the developing world who are forced to discard their excrement in bags, buckets, fields, and ditches, according to a new study. 'The lack of a safe, private, and convenient toilet is a daily source of indignity and undermines health, education, and income generation,' according to Beyond Scarcity: Power, Poverty, and the Global Water Crisis, a report commissioned by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP). Much of Europe and North America built sanitation systems in the 1800s to keep humans and their drinking water away from pathogen-bearing fecal matter that can transmit cholera, diarrhea, typhoid, and parasites. But nearly every other person in the developing world today lacks access to improved sanitation, and 1.1 billion people—one-sixth of the world's population—get their water from sources contaminated by human and animal feces, the report says." Learn more in National Geographic News.

• 15 November 2006
  "Switching a large fraction of US energy to renewable sources by 2025 could involve no increase in cost, says an independent US think thank, as long as current price trends hold firm. Renewable sources currently provide about 6% of the energy used in the US. The new RAND report concludes this could be boosted to a total of 18% by 2025, equivalent to 25% of electricity and motoring fuel, at no extra cost. The provisos are that the price of renewable energy continues its downward trend and that predictions of future oil prices are roughly accurate. The report was commissioned by the Energy Future Coalition in Washington DC, US. In July 2006, this bipartisan group of Senators and Representatives introduced a congressional resolution calling for a new national renewable energy goal: 25% of the nation's energy supply from renewable sources by 2025." Learn more in the New Scientist.

• 14 November 2006
  "Last week in Florida's 13th Congressional district, the victory margin was only 386 votes out of 153,000. There'll be a mandatory lawyered-up recount, but it won't include the almost 18,000 votes that seem to have disappeared. The electronic voting machines didn't include them in their final tallies, and there's no backup to use for the recount. The district will pick a winner to send to Washington, but it won't be because they are sure the majority voted for him. Maybe the majority did, and maybe it didn't. There's no way to know. Electronic voting machines represent a grave threat to fair and accurate elections, a threat that every American--Republican, Democrat or independent--should be concerned about. Because they're computer-based, the deliberate or accidental actions of a few can swing an entire election. The solution: Paper ballots, which can be verified by voters and recounted if necessary." Learn more at Forbes.com.

• 13 November 2006
  "Internet censorship is spreading and becoming more sophisticated across the planet, even as users develop savvier ways around it, according to early results in the first-ever comprehensive global survey of internet censorship. The internet watchdog organization OpenNet Initiative is compiling a year's worth of data gathered by nearly 50 cyberlaw, free-speech and network experts across as many countries, whose governments are known internet filterers. The study systematically tested if, when, how and by whom thousands of controversial websites are blocked in each nation. Last week, ONI researchers gathered at the Berkman Center for Internet and Society at Harvard Law School to begin hashing through their as-yet unpublished -- and in many cases, still incomplete -- findings." Learn more in Wired News.

• 10 November 2006
  "Shoppers are likely to abandon a website if it takes longer than four seconds to load, a survey suggests. The research by Akamai revealed users' dwindling patience with websites that take time to show up. It found 75% of the 1,058 people asked would not return to websites that took longer than four seconds to load. The time it took a site to appear on screen came second to high prices and shipping costs in the list of shoppers' pet-hates, the research revealed. Akamai consulted those who shop regularly online to find out what they like and dislike about e-tailing sites. About half of mature net-shoppers - who have been buying online for more than two years or who spend more than $1,500 a year online - ranked page-loading time as a priority. It found that one-third of those questioned abandon sites that take time to load, are hard to navigate or take too long to handle the checkout process." Learn more at the BBC.com.

• 9 November 2006
  "The United Nations and Africa's Nobel laureate, environmentalist Wangari Maathai, launched a project on Wednesday to plant a billion trees worldwide to help fight climate change and poverty. Kenya's Wangari Maathai, who in 2004 became the first African woman and first 'green' activist to win the Nobel Peace Prize, urged people from the United States to Uganda to plant trees to combat global warming and to make a long-term commitment. 'Anybody can dig a hole, anybody can put a tree in that hole and water it. And everybody can make sure that the tree they plant survives,' she said on the sidelines of a U.N. meeting on climate change in the Kenyan capital, Nairobi. 'There are 6 billion of us and counting. So even if only one-sixth of us each plant a tree, we will definitely reach the target (next year),' she told reporters. Maathai, 66, became Africa's best known environmentalist after her Green Belt Movement planted about 30 million trees around Africa in a drive to slow deforestation and erosion." Learn more at CNN.com.

• 8 November 2006
  "A shortage of information technology graduates from Western universities is leading companies to call on developing countries to meet research demand, Microsoft chairman Bill Gates said on Tuesday. After the break-up of the Soviet Union, Russia's internationally renowned education system became a cheap talent pool for the West. Now dozens of Russian language Web sites offer computer programming jobs in the United States, alongside visa support and language training. 'Worldwide, a lot of the developed countries are not graduating as many IT students as they were in the past, which is kind of ironic as it does mean it does increase the opportunities,' Gates said. Russia loses around 700,000 people each year -- about 0.5 percent of its total population -- to emigration, disease and alcoholism. Many Western firms have also outsourced data management, software development and other high tech operations to lower cost operators in Asia, where education standards are high in some countries but wages are still comparatively low." Learn more at CNN.com.

• 7 November 2006
  "The mistakes you make on the internet can live forever -- unless you hire somebody to clean up after you. A new startup, ReputationDefender, will act on your behalf by contacting data hosting services and requesting the removal of any materials that threaten your good social standing. Any web citizen willing to pay ReputationDefender's modest service fees can ask the company to seek and destroy embarrassing office party photos, blog posts detailing casual drug use or saucy comments on social networking profiles. The company produces monthly reports on its clients' online identities for a cost of $10 to $16 per month, depending on the length of the contract. The client can request the removal of any material on the report for a charge of $30 per instance. Michael Fertik and his partners originally conceived of ReputationDefender as a way for parents to protect their children from potentially damaging postings to social networking sites like MySpace or Facebook." Learn more in Wired News.

• 6 November 2006
  "The people of Africa - the continent least responsible for climate change - are the most vulnerable to its effects and the least prepared, international climate negotiators said on Monday. Some 6000 delegates from more than 100 countries are attending an 11-day meeting in Nairobi, Kenya, for their latest debates on the climate change convention and the Kyoto Protocol. Top of the agenda is to finish setting up a fund to help poor countries, especially in Africa, to adapt to the droughts and floods ahead. 'Activating the adaptation agenda is critical,' says Yvo de Boer, head of the convention secretariat. A report from de Boer's team on the vulnerability of Africa states that 30% of the continent's coastal infrastructure, including cities like Dar es Salaam, Lagos, and Cape Town, are at risk of flooding from rising sea waters. The continent's two biggest and most valuable wetlands, the Okavango in Botswana and the Sudd on the Nile in Sudan, may dry up, the report says." Learn more in the New Scientist.

• 3 November 2006
  "The Internet Society of China has recommended to the government that bloggers be required to use their real names when they register blogs, state media said on Monday, in the latest attempt to regulate free-wheeling Web content. The society, which is affiliated with the Ministry of Information Industry, said no decision had been made but that a 'real name system' was inevitable. 'A real name system will be an unavoidable choice if China wants to standardize and develop its blog industry,' the official Xinhua news agency quoted the Internet Society's secretary general, Huang Chengqing, as saying. 'We suggest, in a recent report submitted to the ministry, that a real name system be implemented in China's blog industry,' Huang said. China has already imposed some controls on Internet chatter about politically sensitive subjects, which often goes far beyond what is permissible in the country's traditional state-run media." Learn more at CNN.com.

• 2 November 2006
  "A Cuba government official told a United Nations summit here that the U.S. government was to blame for the poor Internet access that its citizens endure. Juan Fernandez, a government official in the Cuba's Commission of Electronic Commerce, on Wednesday assailed the U.S. government's economic embargo and argued that, as a result, poorer countries are 'financing' the Internet. U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan appointed Fernandez to a high-level working group two years ago. Fernandez's only problem was that a longtime Internet engineer and researcher was present and challenged those claims. Bill Woodcock, research director of the nonprofit Packet Clearing House who has set up Internet exchange points in Latin America and other developing nations, replied by saying that the Cuban government's problems stem from its own telecommunications monopoly and its official censorship policies. A report published last month by the Reporters Without Borders advocacy group says 'it is forbidden to buy any computer equipment without express permission from the authorities.'" Learn more in News.com.

• 1 November 2006
  "US technology firms including Microsoft, Google and Yahoo have come under fire for allegedly helping China monitor suspected dissidents. The companies were accused of colluding with China at the Internet Governance Forum, a United Nations (UN) meeting held in Athens, Greece, this week. Meanwhile, to scattered boos from other participants, a Chinese delegate who identified himself as a member of his country's mission to the UN said there were 'no restrictions at all' on the flow of information in China. However, the BBC said its websites were indeed being suppressed in several countries, including China and Iran. "[We] are blocked because we refuse to compromise on our reporting," said BBC Global News Director Richard Sambrook, drawing a parallel with the Cold War era, when the BBC had its short-wave radio jammed in Russia and Eastern Europe. Yahoo, Microsoft, Google and Cisco Systems were all criticised at the four-day forum...But the companies struck back, arguing that their operations in China benefit millions of internet users by giving them greater access to information." Learn more in the New Scientist.

• 26 October 2006
  "Keys, cards, passports and PINs could soon be a thing of the past as biometric technology makes our bodies the only passwords we need. Biometric systems - which identify a person by their unique physical or behavioural features - are rapidly being designed and applied to many aspects of our everyday lives. The main biometrics are based on features of the face, iris or finger, but other systems use anything from the veins in a hand to the way an individual speaks. The UK is one of 27 countries signed up to the US Visa Waiver Program, which demands that all passports issued after 26 October 2006 must contain a machine readable chip with the passport holder's details and a biometric identifier, such as a digital photograph of the holder. The authorities say this is primarily to beat passport fraud, and a security officer will still compare the digital photo with physical photo and the passport holder. But technology already exists for checks to be automated - a passenger will look into a camera at border control and a computer will check the map of key points on the face with those recorded in the passport chip, confirming their identity." Learn more at the BBC.com.

• 25 October 2006
  "Hey, Web 2.0! Election Day is Nov. 7, and your country needs you. At BarCamp, SuperHappyDevHouse, NetSquared and other hacker get-togethers, scores of entrepreneurs and engineers arrive eager to collaborate, make information easier to share and use, and mobilize groups for effective action. Though it may not be obvious, the road marks in this amorphous thing called Web 2.0 are political: grassroots participation, forging new connections, and empowering from the ground up. The ideal democratic process is participatory and the Web 2.0 phenomenon is about democratizing digital technology. There's never been a better time to tap that technological ethic to re-democratize our democracy. Many Americans believe that our political system is broken, and that money is to blame. Legislators are beholden to donations from special interest groups. Regulators pass through a revolving door to take jobs in the very industries they used to regulate...New data-sharing technology can enable citizens to follow the money in comprehensive and compelling ways, and vote accordingly." Learn more in Wired News.

• 24 October 2006
  "Eight years after Congress tried to criminalize material deemed "harmful to children," free speech advocates and website publishers took their challenge of the law to trial Monday. Salon.com, Nerve.com and other plaintiffs backed by the American Civil Liberties Union are suing over the 1998 Child Online Protection Act. They believe the law could restrict legitimate material they publish online -- exposing them to fines or even jail time. The Justice Department argues that it is easier to stop online pornography at the source than to keep children from viewing it. The law, signed by then-President Clinton, requires adults to use some sort of access code, or perhaps a credit-card number, to view material that may be considered 'harmful to children.' It would impose a $50,000 fine and six-month prison term on commercial Web site operators that publish such content, which is to be defined by 'contemporary community standards.' It has yet to be enforced, however." Learn more in Wired News.

• 23 October 2006
  "It's 10 p.m. Does your laptop know where you are? As location-based technology advances, your computer, cell phone, and other mobile devices may soon be able to pinpoint and transmit your exact location as you travel. And developers hope that an emerging network dubbed the geospatial web will tie these devices together to create a unique new user experience. People tapped into this new web will be able to communicate instantly with nearby users, participate in digital community activities, and get advertising for businesses that are literally around the corner. But even in its infancy, the concept of an electronic network that can track and communicate a person's every move is raising a host of questions about user privacy. Can people feel safe in their own backyards when real-time satellite imagery is being collected from overhead? Will improved global positioning systems (GPS) in cell phones make it easier for a criminal to stalk a victim?" Learn more in the National Geographic.

• 20 October 2006
  "US politicians could soon be rubbing shoulders with orcs and night elves in World of Warcraft. The Joint Economic Committee (JEC) of the US Congress has announced it is investigating the amount of commerce taking place in virtual game worlds. The investigation is unlikely to mean that in-game trading will start to be taxed. Many popular virtual worlds such as Eve Online and Second Life revolve around trade of one sort or another. In a statement announcing the investigation, the Committee said its probe was prompted by the 'dramatic increase in the popularity of online gaming'. It said it was interested solely in the 'universe of transactions' that occur within online worlds such as Second Life. Although an economic value can be put on this trade because in-game currencies do have an equivalent real world value, committee chairman Jim Saxton said its investigation was not being carried out with a view to slapping taxes on this trade." Learn more at the BBC.com.

• 19 October 2006
  "The Indian government is drafting a new foreign direct investment (FDI) policy that will, for the first time, include China on a list of countries not limited to Pakistan and Bangladesh that are considered a sensitive for India's national security. New Delhi has long been wary of allowing Chinese to invest in sensitive sectors, such as ports and telecommunications, but the new edict will extend security reviews to all sectors, including such innocuous sectors as household appliances. For the first time China will be officially labeled a 'security risk'. Once the new FDI norms come into effect, it would mean an end to all automatic clearances for Chinese investments under India's supposedly liberalized FDI laws as each an every investment coming from China will have to undergo scrutiny by the Indian security agencies." Learn more in the Asia Times.

• 18 October 2006
  "The US could be rife with 'internet addicts' who are as clinically ill as alcoholics, according to psychiatrists involved in a nationwide study. The study, carried out by researchers at Stanford University School of Medicine in California, US, indicates that more than one in eight US residents show signs of 'problematic internet use'. The Stanford researchers interviewed 2513 adults in a nationwide survey. Because internet addiction is not a clinically defined medical condition, the questions used were based on analysis of other addiction disorders. Most disturbing, according to the study's lead author Elias Aboujaoude, is the discovery that some people hide their internet surfing, or go online to cure foul moods – behaviour that mirrors the way alcoholics behave." Learn more in the New Scientist.

• 17 October 2006
  "As its technology companies soar to the outsourcing skies, India is bumping up against an improbable challenge. In a country once regarded as a bottomless well of low-cost, ready-to-work, English-speaking engineers, a shortage looms. India still produces plenty of engineers, nearly 400,000 a year at last count. But their competence has become the issue. A study commissioned by a trade group, the National Association of Software and Service Companies, or Nasscom, found only one in four engineering graduates to be employable. The rest were deficient in the required technical skills, fluency in English or ability to work in a team or deliver basic oral presentations. The skills gap reflects the narrow availability of high-quality college education in India and the galloping pace of the country’s service-driven economy, which is growing faster than nearly all but China’s. The software and service companies provide technology services to foreign companies, many of them based in the United States. Software exports alone expanded by 33 percent in the last year." Learn more in the New York Times.

• 16 October 2006
  "There's nothing particularly remarkable about the near-empty offices of Image Metrics in downtown Santa Monica, loft-style cubicles with a dartboard at the end of the hallway. A few polite British executives tiptoe about, quietly demonstrating the company’s new technology. What’s up on-screen in the conference room, however, immediately focuses the mind. In one corner of the monitor, an actress is projecting a series of emotions — ecstasy, confusion, relief, boredom, sadness — while in the center of the screen, a computer-drawn woman is mirroring those same emotions. It’s not just that the virtual woman looks happy when the actress looks happy or relieved when the actress looks relieved. It’s that the virtual woman actually seems to have adopted the actress’s personality, resembling her in ways that go beyond pursed lips or knitted brow." Learn more in the New York Times.

• 13 October 2006
  "While most voters are focusing on Iraq, congressional races in Missouri, Illinois, Wisconsin and other states could turn on the stem cell issue. It's a particularly prominent issue this year since President Bush used the first veto of his presidency on a bill that would have expanded federal funding of embryonic stem cell research. The move essentially left the issue for individual states to sort out. The state campaigns are numerous and difficult to track. So John Hlinko, the veteran internet grass-roots organizer who spearheaded DraftWesleyClark, has launched a website called StemCellCandidates to highlight -- and facilitate donations for -- the races in which the stem cell issue is most likely to tip the scales. 'If people want to make an impact, we don't want them to donate to those who might not have a chance,' Hlinko said. 'This way they won't be throwing away their donation.'" Learn more in Wired News.

• 12 October 2006
  "Electronically tagging passengers at airports could help the fight against terrorism, scientists have said. The prototype technology is to be tested at an airport in Hungary, and could, if successful, become a reality 'in two years'. The work is being carried out at a new research centre, based at University College London, set up to find technological solutions to crime. Other projects include scanners for explosives and dirty bomb radiation. Dr Paul Brennan, an electrical engineer, is leading the tagging project, known as Optag. Dr Paul Brennan, an electrical engineer, is leading the tagging project, known as Optag. He said: 'The basic idea is that airports could be fitted with a network of combined panoramic cameras and RFID (radio frequency ID) tag readers, which would monitor the movements of people around the various terminal buildings.'" Learn more at the BBC.com.

• 11 October 2006
  "In the quest for political office, modern campaigners deal in the currency of the moment, information. Information is power, and campaigns trade fiercely in it, exhaustively researching their opponents' past, scrutinizing the moods of the elusive swing voter and spewing (or leaking) favorable information about their own candidate. Of course, politicians try to harness the power of the internet, but some campaigns look more like they are stumbling than steering through cyberspace. In August, Connecticut Senator Joe Lieberman's campaign accused the office of his opponent, Ned Lamont, of coordinating a human, distributed denial-of-service attack on Lieberman's Joe2006 website. Lamont denied the allegation. Lieberman critics said various error messages suggested the campaign did not buy enough bandwidth to handle normal traffic." Learm more in Wired News.

• 10 October 2006
  "A profitless Web site started by three 20-somethings after a late-night dinner party is sold for more than a billion dollars, instantly turning dozens of its employees into paper millionaires. It sounds like a tale from the late 1990’s dot-com bubble, but it happened yesterday. Google, the online search behemoth, agreed yesterday to pay $1.65 billion in stock for the Web site that came out of that party — YouTube, the video-sharing phenomenon that is the darling of an Internet resurgence known as Web 2.0. YouTube had been coveted by virtually every big media and technology company, as they seek to tap into a generation of consumers who are viewing 100 million short videos on the site every day. Google is expected to try to make money from YouTube by integrating the site with its search technology and search-based advertising program. But the purchase price has also invited comparisons to the mind-boggling valuations that were once given to dozens of Silicon Valley companies a decade ago." Learn more in the New York Times.

• 6 October 2006
  "The European Union and American antiterrorism officials are close to resolving longstanding differences over sharing personal information about airline passengers. An agreement could be reached Friday to clear up a murky situation for European airlines, which risked being in violation of EU laws if they provided passenger data to the United States, and risked being barred from US airports if they refused. 'We have an initial agreement, and we will be negotiating with them today,' Friso Roscam Abbing, a spokesman for the European Commission, said on Thursday. 'We hope that things go well.' The EU, citing privacy concerns, had objected to demands by the US Department of Homeland Security that airlines turn over data that might reveal a passenger's ethnicity or religion. It also balked at the US plan to keep the passenger information indefinitely. The International Air Transport Association says about 105,000 people fly between Europe and the United States each day." Learn more in the Christian Science Monitor.

• 5 October 2006
  "The fall morning is mercifully fog-free, which puts a spring in the step of Mordy Karsch as he rolls into work. In short order, he fires up the computer, turns on his cellphone and orders breakfast. Though he has toiled on these premises for two years, he doesn't know anyone here well except for Angel Pinto, who brings him his hot coffee. That's because Karsch, 34, works out of The Grove, a bohemian eatery in this city's hip Marina district that caters to a growing army of office-less employees. 'Working from a place like this is less stressful than being in an office, and I find I get a lot more done,' says Karsch, general manager of Spanish Sales Force, a Spanish-language marketing consultancy. 'If you can make this work for you, you'll love it.' An estimated 30 million Americans, or roughly one-fifth of the nation's workforce, are part of the so-called Kinko's generation." Learn more in USA Today.

• 4 October 2006
  "Yahoo startled the fast-growing Internet advertising community last month when it warned that a slump in ads from automotive and financial services companies would hurt upcoming earnings. The question, obvious to many, was: If multibillion-dollar Yahoo was worried about ad sales, should every other Internet company be nervous as well? The answer, however, isn't quite so clear cut. Certainly, other companies that bring in big dollars selling ads for products like cars and home mortgages should share Yahoo's fears. The rest of the online ad market, however, is still doing well, say analysts...But there's a big caveat to that reassurance: Sales of cars and houses tend to be the proverbial canary in the coal mine for the rest of the economy." Learn more at News.com.

• 3 October 2006
  "The costs of policing a new U.S. Internet gambling ban for banks and credit card companies will be determined by regulators in the coming months, industry officials said Monday. Government officials are expected to propose a 'coding and blocking' system that will identify and stop payment to gambling sites, experts said. Many banks and credit card companies already voluntarily block Internet gambling transactions using such a system. The Department of the Treasury and Federal Reserve Board have nine months to draft regulations after the new law, included in a package of port security measures passed by Congress on Friday and expected to be signed into law by President George W. Bush. U.S. banks and credit card companies are optimistic that officials will prepare a workable system." Learn more at News.com.

• 2 October 2006
  "Online gambling firms faced their biggest-ever crisis on Monday after U.S. Congress passed legislation to end Internet gaming there, threatening jobs and wiping 3.5 billion pounds ($6.5 billion) off company values. Britain's PartyGaming Plc, operator of leading Internet poker site PartyPoker.com, and rivals Sportingbet and 888 Plc said they would likely pull out of the United States, their biggest source of revenue. 'This development is a significant setback for our company, our shareholders, our players and our industry,' PartyGaming Chief Executive Mitch Garber said. The House of Representatives and Senate unexpectedly approved a bill early on Saturday that would make it illegal for banks and credit-card companies to make payments to online gambling sites." Learn more in USA Today.

• 29 September 2006
  "Google Inc.'s Michael Jones likes to take pictures with a super high-resolution camera like those used on spy planes during the Cold War. His fascination is not to monitor military camps but to shoot photos so detailed he can spot, from miles away, a cosy Japanese noodle shop to have lunch in. Jones' obsession is mirrored in his work. He is the Chief Technology Officer of Google Earth, a product used by 100 million people that combines satellite images, maps and local data to display geographical information of the world. 'Seeing your home is usually the first thing people do,' Jones told Reuters in an interview in Tokyo. 'As we add more local data, like hotels, there's a second wave of interest from those who want to use this in useful ways, like plan trips.'" Learn more at CNN.com.

• 28 September 2006
  "For most businesses, the goal is to attract as many customers as possible. But in the fast-changing telephone industry, companies are increasingly trying to get rid of many of theirs. Bill and Ursula Johnson are among the unwanted. These dairy farmers in bucolic northeastern Vermont wake up before dawn not just to milk their cows, but to log on to the Internet, too. Their dial-up connection is so pokey that the only time they can reliably get onto the Web site of the company that handles their payroll is at 4 in the morning, when it is less busy. Mr. Johnson doubles as state representative for the area, and he doesn’t even bother logging on to deal with that. He communicates with colleagues in Montpelier, the capital, by phone and post instead." Learn more in the New York Times.

• 27 September 2006
  "The Bush administration has blocked the release of a report that suggests global warming is contributing to the frequency and strength of hurricanes, the journal Nature reported Tuesday. The possibility that warming conditions may cause storms to become stronger has generated debate among climate and weather experts, particularly in the wake of the Hurricane Katrina disaster. In the new case, Nature said weather experts at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration -- part of the Commerce Department -- in February set up a seven-member panel to prepare a consensus report on the views of agency scientists about global warming and hurricanes. According to Nature, a draft of the statement said that warming may be having an effect." Learn more at CNN.com.

• 26 September 2006
  "The number of blog sites in China reached 34 million last month, a 30-fold increase from four years ago, state media said on Tuesday, despite a series of curbs on media and dissent. China has more than 17 million people writing blogs and more than 75 million people reading them, Xinhua news agency said. Authors of personal blogs choose their own subject and can instantly forward their writings to friends anywhere in China or the world. 'The rapid growth of blog sites in China also brought potential business opportunities to the advertising industry,' Xinhua said. 'Some blogs written by famous people attract millions of daily readers.' The report said that out of the 34 million blog sites, 70 percent were 'dormant,' having remained unchanged for more than a month." Learn more at News.com.

• 25 September 2006
  "A sprawling array of cases challenging the National Security Agency's warrantless surveillance of American's domestic and international communications may be moved to an obscure secret court in Washington, if a pending bill to alter the nation's surveillance law is voted on before the upcoming recess. Pennsylvania Republican Senator Arlen Specter's National Security Surveillance Act would allow the Attorney General to move surveillance cases involving state secrets to the little-known Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court of Review, which has only heard one case in its 28-year history. National security experts and civil liberties advocates assail the idea, saying it would diminish the chance that the government's controversial snooping would face open judicial scrutiny." Learn more in Wired News.

• 22 September 2006
  "American adult users of the Internet in August 2006 spent some time reading about politics or the coming U.S. election, a big increase from November 2004, according to a survey released on Wednesday by the Pew Internet and American Life Project. The non-partisan think tank said 26 million Americans -- or 19 percent of adult users -- turned to the Internet in August to read political news and information, compared to 21 million in November 2004 when a presidential election was held. The latest figure is noteworthy because August is typically a quiet month in political campaigns due to summer vacations, said John Horrigan, associate director of the Pew project. 'We think that increase is due to more and better content about politics than there was a couple of years ago,' Horrigan said. 'You have more people reading blogs, some of which are political, and there is the "You Tube" phenomenon for viewing political videos, which add up to a more attractive environment,' he added. You Tube is a free Web site that lets users upload and view videos." Learn more at CNN.com.

• 21 September 2006
  "California sued six of the world's largest automakers over global warming on Wednesday, charging that greenhouse gases from their vehicles have caused billions of dollars in damages. The lawsuit is the first of its kind to seek to hold manufacturers liable for the damages caused by their vehicles' emissions, state Attorney General Bill Lockyer said. It comes less than a month after California lawmakers adopted the nation's first global warming law mandating a cut in greenhouse gas emissions. California has also targeted the auto industry with first-in-the-nation rules adopted in 2004 requiring car makers to force cuts in tailpipe emissions from cars and trucks." Learn more at CNN.com.

• 20 September 2006
  "This summer, Matt and Doug Stanbro, two brothers from Chelsea, Ala., traded in their game controllers for M-16 rifles. They're two of hundreds, perhaps thousands, of American teenagers inspired by a 'shoot'em-up' video game to join the Army. On the same day the brothers graduated from basic training last week, the Pentagon released the latest version of 'America's Army,' the combat-style video game. 'I never really thought about the military at all before I started playing this game,' says Pfc. Doug Stanbro in a phone interview from Fort Jackson, S.C. With more than 3,000 US soldier deaths in Iraq and Afghanistan since 9/11, the use of a video game and incentives such as free iPods to recruit replacements is a strategy that critics call misguided, even abhorrent. But for the Pentagon, 'America's Army' is proving a potent way to communicate military values directly to the messy bedrooms where teens hang out." Learn more in the Christian Science Monitor.

• 19 September 2006
  "The White House is distributing government-produced, anti-drug videos on YouTube, the trendy Internet service that already features clips of wacky, drug-induced behavior and step-by-step instructions for growing marijuana plants. The decision to distribute public service announcements and other videos over YouTube represents the first concerted effort by the U.S. government to influence customers of the popular service, which shows more than 100 million videos per day. The administration was expected to announce its decision later Tuesday. It said it was not paying any money to load its previously produced videos onto YouTube's service, so the program is effectively free. Already by Tuesday, thousands of YouTube users had watched some of the government's videos. 'If just one teen sees this and decides illegal drug use is not the path for them, it will be a success,' said Rafael Lemaitre, a spokesman for the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy." Learn more at CNN.com.

• 18 September 2006
  "Chinese law enforcement agencies destroyed nearly 13 million pirated compact discs, DVDs and computer software Saturday in the government's latest campaign to curtail rampant theft of intellectual property, state media reported. The destroyed items were confiscated in the first half of an ongoing 100-day nationwide campaign against piracy, the Xinhua News Agency said. Police seized the items in raids that took in the scope of pirated goods networks, from unlicensed factories to street vendors, Xinhua said. Among the seized goods, according to the report, nearly half came from Guangdong, the economically dynamic southern province that abuts Hong Kong. Over the past two years, China has ratcheted up efforts to stamp out the rampant theft of intellectual property, partly in response to pressure from the United States and European Union and partly to protect new Chinese companies that are starting to produce their own competitive goods." Learn more in Wired News.

• 15 September 2006
  "It's a junkyard out there in space and sometimes astronauts accidentally contribute to the litter. In 1965, the first American spacewalker, Ed White, lost a spare glove when he went outside for the first time. From that time on, astronauts have accidentally added some of the more unusual items to the 100,000 pieces of space trash that circle Earth. Last July, spacewalker Piers Sellers sheepishly reported that he lost a spatula. Nicknamed 'spatsat' by space junk watchers, it returns to Earth in a fireball early next month. This week the Atlantis astronauts made their own contributions to the space debris in low orbit: a couple of bolts that escaped from the addition they were connecting to the international space station. To engineers, this isn't funny. Many of those pieces of space junk can kill astronauts, puncture satellites or at the very least scratch up expensive space shuttle windows." Learn more in Wired News.

• 14 September 2006
  "The ambitious founders of Google, the popular search engine company, have set up a philanthropy, giving it seed money of about $1 billion and a mandate to tackle poverty, disease and global warming. But unlike most charities, this one will be for-profit, allowing it to fund start-up companies, form partnerships with venture capitalists and even lobby Congress. It will also pay taxes. One of its maiden projects reflects the philanthropy’s nontraditional approach. According to people briefed on the program, the organization, called Google.org, plans to develop an ultra-fuel-efficient plug-in hybrid car engine that runs on ethanol, electricity and gasoline. The philanthropy is consulting with hybrid-engine scientists and automakers, and has arranged for the purchase of a small fleet of cars with plans to convert the engines so that their gas mileage exceeds 100 miles per gallon. The goal of the project is to reduce dependence on oil while alleviating the effects of global warming." Learn more in the New York Times.

• 13 September 2006
  "A court in China has used a software program to help decide prison sentences in more than 1,500 criminal cases, a Hong Kong newspaper said on Wednesday. The software, tested for two years in a court in Zibo, a city in the eastern coastal province of Shandong, covered about 100 different crimes, including robbery, rape, murder and state security offenses, the South China Morning Post said, citing the software's developer, Qin Ye. 'The software is aimed at ensuring standardized decisions on prison terms. Our programs set standard terms for any subtle distinctions in different cases of the same crime,' Qin was quoted as saying. A Beijing-based software company had worked with the Zichuan District Court in Zibo since 2003 to develop the program and input mainland criminal law, the paper said. Judges enter details of a case and the system produces a sentence, the paper said." Learn more at News.com.

• 12 September 2006
  "Congressional committee on Monday asked Hewlett-Packard to turn over records related to the company's possibly illegal investigation of media leaks, as the company's board planned to meet again to discuss the fate of embattled Chairwoman Patricia Dunn. The request came as part of the U.S. House Energy and Commerce Committee's ongoing investigation into pretexting -- the practice of impersonating a person in order to access their personal information. HP hired private investigators who used Social Security numbers and other personal information to impersonate HP directors and journalists. The impostors then tricked phone companies into turning over detailed logs of their home and cellular phone calls." Learn more in Wired News.

• 11 September 2006
  "When the world changed on Sept. 11, 2001, the web changed with it. While phone networks and big news sites struggled to cope with heavy traffic, many survivors and spectators turned to online journals to share feelings, get information or detail their whereabouts. It was raw, emotional and new -- and many commentators now remember it as a key moment in the birth of the blog. When four planes were hijacked on a sunny fall morning, easy-to-use blogging services were still few and far between. Yet many who witnessed the horror of the attacks firsthand took to the keyboard to talk with the world. Horrified Americans used e-mail, instant messages, any available communication tool. But weblogs meant large audiences, not just friends and family, could read those stories from the scene. 'I have a scrap of paper that flew onto my roof,' wrote New Yorker Anthony Hecht. 'Typewritten and handwritten numbers in the millions. A symbol of our tragedy. It smells like fire.' Many bloggers strayed from their normal writing beats to produce a rolling news service comprising links to materials and tidbits gathered by friends." Learn more in Wired News.

• 7 September 2006
  "Memo to Pentagon brass from the top United States commander in western Iraq: Renewable energy - solar and wind-power generators - urgently needed to help win the fight. Send soon. Calling for more energy in the middle of oil-rich Iraq might sound odd to some. But not to Marine Corps Maj. Gen. Richard Zilmer, whose deputies on July 25 sent the Pentagon a 'Priority 1' request for 'a self-sustainable energy solution' including 'solar panels and wind turbines.' The memo may be the first time a frontline commander has called for renewable-energy backup in battle. Indeed, it underscores the urgency: Without renewable power, US forces 'will remain unnecessarily exposed' and will 'continue to accrue preventable... serious and grave casualties,' the memo says." Learn more in the Christian Science Monitor.

• 6 September 2006
  "California's state assembly has passed a bill to require makers of Internet access gear to warn consumers of the risks of using unsecured wireless connections, its backers said on Tuesday. Legislators in both houses of the state legislature voted overwhelmingly in favor or the 'Wi-Fi User Protection Bill' to inform users how to secure networks against 'piggybacking,' or unauthorized sharing of wireless access, said a spokesman for Assembly Speaker Fabian Nunez, who proposed the bill. Most Wi-Fi users ignore security options when setting up wireless gear and thus expose their computer networks to public view. Leaving connections open allows nearby residents or occasional passersby to share this wireless access. One survey by the editor of computer products review site TomsHardware.com in 2004 conducted by flying in airplanes low over the city of Los Angeles found less than one-third of the 4,500 Wi-Fi connections detected to be secured. Learn more in News.com.

• 5 September 2006
  "Students in developing countries are to get free textbooks written using "wiki" technology that lets anyone add to or edit an online document. "The usual business model for textbooks just doesn't work for these countries," says Rick Watson, an expert on the development of opensource software at the University of Georgia, US. "Why not get groups of academics and their students to write them?" Publishers typically halve their prices for the developing world, he explains, but a single book can still cost one-fifth of average yearly income in places like Uganda. Watson has recruited about 80 academics from the US and other countries to his Global Textbook project. It will produce free online textbooks using technology similar to that behind online reference work Wikipedia. Anyone can edit or add to the texts that will gradually take shape on the project's website, Watson explains. It currently relies on donations of time and money from the academic and business worlds, but in the long term will seek corporate sponsorship. Learn more in the New Scientist.

• 1 September 2006
  "Patients should beware of so-called stem cell wonder cures as most have not been properly tested, experts say. Medical charities and the parliamentary group governing stem cell research said stem cell therapy offered promise. But in a letter to the Times they said some foreign clinics had made claims about multiple sclerosis and cosmetic surgery without scientific foundation. Reports have emerged of patients going abroad and paying over £10,000 for treatment not available in the UK. Stem cells are the body's 'master cells' and have the ability to produce all manner of tissues, prompting claims they could be used to replace the failed cells responsible for many conditions, such as heart disease and diabetes. But to date only a handful of treatments have been licensed in the UK, principally for treating leukaemia, and eye and skin disorders." Learn more in the BBC.com.

• 31 August 2006
  "The pope is set to host a seminar with his senior clergymen to discuss the Catholic Church's position on evolution. The move follows months of mixed signals from the Church with supporters of Darwin's theory at odds with those giving more credence to Intelligent Design, and other more creationist views. The last pope, John Paul II was pretty clear on the subject. In 1996 he issued a formal statement that evolution was 'more than a hypothesis'. The recently departed head of the Vatican Observatory was also an outspoken supporter of Darwin's theory. Father George Coyne had described creationism as a 'religious movement devoid of all scientific basis'. In an interview with a science magazine, he expressed further support for the theory of evolution when he said: 'God isn't a designer and life is the fruit of billions of attempts'". Learn more in the Register.

• 30 August 2006
  "The growing myth that corn is a cure-all for our energy woes is leading us toward a potentially dangerous global fight for food. While crop-based ethanol -the latest craze in alternative energy - promises a guilt-free way to keep our gas tanks full, the reality is that overuse of our agricultural resources could have consequences even more drastic than, say, being deprived of our SUVs. It could leave much of the world hungry. We are facing an epic competition between the 800 million motorists who want to protect their mobility and the two billion poorest people in the world who simply want to survive. In effect, supermarkets and service stations are now competing for the same resources. This year cars, not people, will claim most of the increase in world grain consumption. The problem is simple: It takes a whole lot of agricultural produce to create a modest amount of automotive fuel." Learn more at CNN.com.

• 29 August 2006
  "You have to press 'Qallariy' to begin. Pronounced 'KAH-lyah-ree,' the word replaces 'Start' on Microsoft Windows' familiar taskbar in a new Quechua translation of the program, which gets its Bolivian debut Friday. President Evo Morales, the South American nation's first Indian leader, has found an ally in the U.S. software giant as he promotes the native tongues of his country's indigenous majority. Some 2.6 million Bolivians -- nearly one third of the country -- speak the Incan language, and Morales sees empowering these people as his primary mission. Among the first users of Quechua software will be Indian members of a constituent assembly meeting in this colonial city to rewrite the nation's constitution. First launched in Peru in June and now freely available for download online, the software is a simple patch that translates the familiar Microsoft menus and commands. Microsoft Corp. teamed up with several universities in Peru's Quechua-speaking south to create the translation program, joining 47 other versions of Windows in such languages as Kazakh, Maori and Zulu." Learn more at CNN.com.

• 28 August 2006
  "It began with a worldwide virus outbreak that had cities under quarantine, emergency workers overwhelmed and government agencies unable to cope. It was compounded by a wave of cyberterror attacks that cut off power, phones and Internet access. Such was the crisis that teams from the Pentagon, nongovernmental agencies and several dozen technology companies set out to resolve in a five-day simulation meant to showcase and test a new set of digital tools in responding to disaster. The limitations of even the latest technology were in evidence when an effort to restore communications by setting up ad hoc wireless networks resulted in a three-day data traffic jam. Yet the problems encountered in the training effort, named Strong Angel III, did little to dampen the enthusiasm of the participants, a diverse group of more than 800 'first responders,' military officers and software and wireless network experts." Learn more at News.com.

• 25 August 2006
  "Spam messages that tout stocks and shares can have real effects on the markets, a study suggests. E-mails typically promote penny shares in the hope of convincing people to buy into a company to raise its price. People who respond to the 'pump and dump' scam can lose 8% of their investment in two days. Conversely, the spammers who buy low-priced stock before sending the e-mails, typically see a return of between 4.9% and 6% when they sell. The study recently published on the Social Science Research Network say their conclusions prove the hypothesis that spammers 'buy low and spam high'. The researchers say that approximately 730 million spam e-mails are sent every week, 15% of which tout stocks. Other estimates of spam volumes are far higher." Learn more at the BBC.com.

• 24 August 2006
  "When AOL researchers released three months’ worth of users’ query logs to a publicly accessible Web site late last month, Jon Kleinberg, a professor of computer science at Cornell, downloaded the data right away. But when a firestorm over privacy breaches erupted, he decided against using it. 'Now it’s sitting there, in cold storage,' said Professor Kleinberg, who works on algorithms for understanding the structure of the Web and searching it. 'The number of things it reveals about individual people seems much too much. In general, you don’t want to do research on tainted data.' After the data was released for academic researchers like Professor Kleinberg to work with, many were torn, loath to conduct research with it as they balanced a chronic thirst for useful data against concerns over individual privacy." Learn more in the New York Times.

• 23 August 2006
  "The world’s largest project to investigate how genes and lifestyle combine to cause common diseases has received the go-ahead to proceed in full. Organisers of the UK’s 'Biobank' project will now begin recruiting the half a million citizens aged between 40 and 69 they need for the project – about 1% of the UK population. Full approval for the project was given on 22 August by the UK Medical Research Council and the Wellcome Trust, which are funding the £61-million project. It follows the success of a three-month pilot project in Manchester involving 3800 participants, which received glowing reviews from an independent international panel. Each volunteer participating will donate small samples of urine and blood, containing their DNA, for indefinite storage in the 'bank', which will be based in Manchester. They will also respond to detailed questionnaires about their lifestyle, health and environment." Learn more in the New Scientist.

• 22 August 2006
  "United States and European authorities, looking for more tools to detect terrorist plots, want to expand the screening of international airline passengers by digging deep into a vast repository of airline itineraries, personal information and payment data. A proposal by Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff would allow the United States government not only to look for known terrorists on watch lists, but also to search broadly through the passenger itinerary data to identify people who may be linked to terrorists, he said in a recent interview. Similarly, European leaders are considering seeking access to this same database, which contains not only names and addresses of travelers, but often their credit card information, e-mail addresses, telephone numbers and related hotel or car reservations." Learn more in the New York Times.

• 21 August 2006
  "Now Hiring: Wannabe Astronauts. Must weigh between 110 and 209 pounds. Feet must be smaller than 11.6 inches. English proficiency required. Those with criminal records need not apply. These are the simple requirements to become South Korea's first astronaut. No experience or prior training required, apart from being fit enough to run a 3.5K race and a willingness to experiment on kimchi in space. Understandably, the prospect of being the first South Korean in space has generated some excitement. More than 36,000 hopefuls have submitted applications to the Korea Aerospace Research Institute, or KARI. The sole goal seems to be the Korean government's desire to join the club of countries that have put one of their own citizens into space." Learn more in Wired News.

• 18 August 2006
  "A national anticrime group on Thursday urged Congress to pass new laws this year targeting the practice of 'cyberbullying,' a growing problem the group says will plague at least 13 million American children during the next school year. Mean, threatening, or embarrassing messages delivered online and via portable devices like cell phones are a 'pernicious threat that awaits our kids when they go back to school," Utah Attorney General Mark Shurtleff said at a press conference here hosted by Fight Crime: Invest In Kids, a nonprofit advocacy organization composed of 3,000 police chiefs, prosecutors, law enforcement leaders and crime victims. According to a recent survey of 1,000 youth commissioned by the organization, one in three teenagers ages 12 to 17 and one in six children ages 6 to 11 have found themselves victims of cyberbullying--translating to about 13 million youth nationwide." Learn more at News.com.

• 17 August 2006
  "Last Jan. 1, almost on a whim, 35-year-old IT manager Rickard Falkvinge got into politics. Concerned about the reach of copyright and patent law, Falkvinge erected a web page with a sign-up form for a radical new pro-piracy party to compete in Sweden's parliamentary system. He didn't know if anyone would care, but the next day the national media picked it up, and two days later international media started calling. The site was flooded with new members -- enough for the nascent movement to sail past the requirements for participation in the national election. Falkvinge now faced a decision: stay with his nice job and let the whole thing quietly sink, or quit and become a campaigning politician. He chose to become the leader of Sweden's newest and fastest-growing political party: Piratpartiet, or the Pirate Party." Learn more in Wired News.

• 16 August 2006
  "In a small apartment above Jerusalem's Machne Yehuda market, a group of bloggers debate two subjects relevant to the violence between Israel and Lebanon: the deaths of Lebanese civilians in Qana - and the tastiness of hummus. The grainy chickpea spread is one of the most important things that Lebanese and Israelis have in common, says David Abitbol, one of the founders of Jewlicious.com, a conglomerate website of more than a dozen writers. Lebanese state law forbids its citizens from having contact with Israelis, and anyone with an Israeli stamp on his or her passport - or actual Israelis - cannot enter Lebanon. But in the past few years, Internet "bridges" have sprung up between the two nations - hundreds of blogs, message boards, and chat rooms. Sadly, these virtual bridges, like their actual counterparts, are becoming casualties of the current conflict." Learn more in the Christian Science Monitor.

• 15 August 2006
  "If you use Yahoo’s Web search engine to learn about hybrid cars, the site will quietly note that you fit into a group of users it calls 'Consciously Cruising.' If you click on ads for moving van companies, you will join the 'Home Hopping' group. Shop for wedding cakes and reception halls and you might be tagged as a future bride or groom. Earlier this year, Yahoo introduced a computer system that uses complex models to analyze records of what each of its 500 million users do on its site: what they search for, what pages they read, what ads they click on. It then tries to show them advertisements that speak directly to their interests and the events in their lives. Yahoo and the many other companies building similar systems say the systems are benign because they typically do not collect personal information like names and addresses. 'We are much more conservative than we need to be' in using information about site visitors, said Usama Fayyad, chief data officer at Yahoo." Learn more in the New York Times.

• 14 August 2006
  "Privacy advocates and search industry watchers have long warned that the vast and valuable stores of data collected by search engine companies could be vulnerable to thieves, rogue employees, mishaps or even government subpoenas. Four major search companies were served with government subpoenas for their search data last year, and now once again, privacy advocates can say, 'We told you so.' AOL’s misstep last week in briefly posting some 19 million Internet search queries made by more than 600,000 of its unwitting customers has reminded many Americans that their private searches — for solutions to debt or bunions or loneliness — are not entirely their own. So, as one privacy group has asserted, is AOL’s blunder likely to be the search industry’s 'Data Valdez,' like the 1989 Exxon oil spill that became the rallying cry for the environmental movement?" Learn more in the New York Times.

• 10 August 2006
  "From the passenger seat of Bill Gutman’s truck, Spaceport America looks more John Ford than Jetsons. No gleaming buildings, no space-age machinery, just a few strips of concrete, two portable office buildings and 27 square miles of scrubby cactus. Locals call the area Jornado del Muerte (Journey of Death) Basin, and its current population consists of one stubborn rancher and his wife. No finished roads run to the site, just 22 miles of bone-jarring rutted dirt track. The closest reference point on the map is Upham, a ghost town. But Gutman’s descriptions of Spaceport America, which is located north of Las Cruces, somehow make its space-faring future seem inescapable. A physicist, part-time pecan farmer and the Spaceport project director, Gutman spells out what's coming, step by step. First, regular cargo launches. Then, expensive space tourism. Next, a cluster of rocket-related cottage industries. Finally, affordable trips to space." Learn more in Wired News.

• 9 August 2006
  "HIV sufferers in sub-Saharan Africa are better at taking their medication than their North American counterparts, researchers report. The findings mean that 'poor adherence' should not be used as an excuse by policymakers for failing to provide essential antiretroviral drugs to people in developing nations, the scientists say. Contrary to popular belief, researchers found that 77% patients in this African region take HIV medicines as directed, compared with an estimated 55% of patients in the US and Canada. The research team reviewed 31 studies from North America, incorporating 18,000 patients, and 27 studies from sub-Saharan Africa, involving 12,000 patients." Learn more in the New Scientist.

• 8 August 2006
  "It sounds like something out of science fiction. Researchers at General Electric Co.'s sprawling research center, are creating new "smart video surveillance" systems that can detect explosives by recognizing the electromagnetic waves given off by objects, even under clothing. Scientist Peter Tu and his team are also developing programs that can recognize faces, pinpoint distress in a crowd by honing in on erratic body movements and synthesize the views of several cameras into one bird's eye view, as part of a growing effort to thwart terrorism. 'We're definitely on the cutting edge,' said Tu, 39. 'If you want to reduce risk, video is the way to do it. The threat is always evolving, so our video is always evolving.'" Learn more at CNN.com.

• 7 August 2006
  "With the nightclub Tao swathed in red and black, music pulsated and go-go dancers gyrated on raised platforms along the wall. Everything from the 'reserved' signs to the billiard table felt to the models' Chinese-style dresses bore the same label: 'bodog.com.' The only thing missing was the online gambling site's flamboyant founder, 45-year-old Canadian Calvin Ayre, who was nowhere to be found. 'He'd have girls all around him and he'd be the life of the party,' said Ronn Torossian, a publicist and acquaintance familiar with Ayre's celebrating ways. The billionaire who graced Forbes magazine's March cover decided to make himself scarce after federal authorities arrested David Carruthers, the head of rival web gambling operator BetOnSports as Carruthers changed planes at Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport on July 16. A federal judge ordered BetOnSports to stop accepting bets placed from the United States, and prosecutors are seeking the forfeiture of $4.5 billion, plus several cars, recreational vehicles and computers from Carruthers and 10 other people associated with the Costa Rica-based gambling operation." Learn more in Wired News.

• 4 August 2006
  "In the 1970s, an adult movie theater in Dallas claimed it had the right to show a pirated copy of "Behind the Green Door" because the movie was so lewd it could not legally be copyrighted. The theater lost when a federal appeals court ruled that the film, which featured Marilyn Chambers in a then-novel scene of interracial sex, nevertheless was fully covered by federal copyright law. In an unusual twist, Google recently echoed that argument when defending its reproductions of professional photographs of scantily-clad women through its popular image-search feature. Google claimed the photographs are not 'creative' enough to enjoy copyright law's full protections because they're intended primarily for 'sexual gratification.' A federal court rejected that claim earlier this year. That lawsuit is not an aberration. As Google becomes more deeply interested in books and video, and expands its search domain beyond Web pages, it has found itself increasingly at odds with established copyright industries including book publishers, journalists, and professional photographers." Learn more at News.com.

• 3 August 2006
  "Conservative Republicans who pushed anti-evolution standards back into Kansas schools last year have lost control of the state Board of Education once again. The most closely watched race was in western Kansas, where incumbent conservative Connie Morris lost her GOP primary Tuesday. The former teacher had described evolution as 'an age-old fairy tale' and 'a nice bedtime story' unsupported by science. As a result of Tuesday's vote, board members and candidates who believe evolution is well supported by evidence will have a 6-to-4 majority. Evolution skeptics had entered the election with a 6-to-4 majority. Critics of Kansas's science standards worried that if conservatives retained the board's majority, it would lead to other states copying the Kansas standards. Control of the school board has slipped into, out of, and back into conservative Republicans' hands since 1998, resulting in anti-evolution standards in 1999, evolution-friendly ones in 2001, and anti- evolution ones again last year." Learn more in the Boston Globe.

• 2 August 2006
  "At a recent conference that attracted 15,000 eBay fanatics to Las Vegas, the main sponsor was a big advocate of online shopping: none other than the United States Postal Service. 'I have one message today for the entire eBay community,' said Postmaster General John E. Potter in a speech to the crowd. 'We, the Postal Service, we love you. We love every buyer, every seller, every power seller. Thank you for shipping with the United States Postal Service.' Thank you indeed. As people send e-mail and e-cards instead of handwritten letters and greetings, as they pay more bills online and file tax returns electronically, the Postal Service has started to seem like a drab and tired reminder of the old way of doing things. Yet the Internet is actually injecting new life — and a sorely needed source of revenue — into the Postal Service. And it is happening with packages — millions of them shipped every day, in a journey that starts with a few mouse clicks and ends a day or two or five later at a customer’s door." Learn more in the New York Times.

• 1 August 2006
  "Using a new method to test potential pandemic flu strains, scientists have created a virus that contains genes from human and bird flus and found it lacks what it takes to cause a pandemic. The researchers combined genes from a human flu strain, H3N2, and the H5N1 bird flu strain that emerged in Hong Kong in 1997, which is an earlier version of the deadly strain that is circulating in parts of Asia, Africa and Europe. They found that in animal experiments, the mixed virus lacks 'the key property that predicts pandemic spread.' But experts say other gene combinations or mutations could turn H5N1 into a pandemic strain. 'We are far from out of the woods in H5N1 on a global scale,' Julie Gerberding, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said in a briefing on the study, which was published Monday in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. 'These data do not mean that H5N1 cannot convert to be transmissible from one person to another person,' she said. 'They mean that it's probably not a simple process and more than simple genetic exchanges are necessary.'" Learn more in USA Today.

• 31 July 2006
  "Coal-burning utilities are passing the hat for one of the few remaining scientists skeptical of the global warming harm caused by industries that burn fossil fuels. Pat Michaels -- Virginia's state climatologist, a University of Virginia professor and senior fellow at the libertarian Cato Institute -- told Western business leaders last year that he was running out of money for his analyses of other scientists' global warming research. So last week, a Colorado utility organized a collection campaign to help him out, raising at least $150,000 in donations and pledges. The Intermountain Rural Electric Association, or IREA, of Sedalia, Colorado, gave Michaels $100,000 and started the fund-raising drive, said Stanley Lewandowski, IREA's general manager. He said one company planned to give $50,000 and a third plans to give Michaels money next year. Michaels and Lewandowski are open about the money and see no problem with it. Some top scientists and environmental advocates call it a clear conflict of interest. Others view it as the type of lobbying that goes along with many divisive issues." Learn more in Wired News.

• 28 July 2006
  "Home DNA kits that claim to warn people of their risk of diseases ranging from cancer to osteoporosis offer little real guidance and are often misleading, according to a Congressional report released Thursday. An investigation into 14 companies that sell the tests showed many gave meaningless information, and some then tried to sell consumers expensive "customized" supplements that were little different from grocery store vitamin pills. The Food and Drug Administration and the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services said they were investigating the companies and checking to see whether more oversight was needed. 'Clearly consumers are being misled and exploited by this modern-day snake oil, and I am shocked to learn how little the federal government is doing to help consumers make informed decisions about the legitimacy of these tests,' said Gordon Smith, a Republican senator from Oregon." Learn more at News.com.

• 27 July 2006
  "The US has indicated that it may give up some control of net domain names. The US government currently oversees the net's domain name system through the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (Icann). But at a hearing on Wednesday a government official said the US was 'committed' to the transition to private domain name control. However, a policy statement issued last year asserted the US would not give up its oversight domain names like .com. These root domain names include .com, .net and .org. Icann, a California-based not-for profit company, was given the task of coordinating and managing the domain name system in 1998. This includes the allocation of internet protocol numbers, the unique number given to every online device, as well as the assignment of domain names and deciding whether root-level names such as .com, .net or .org, can be added to the internet." Learn more at the BBC.com.

• 26 July 2006
  "As the advertising and television industries debate how to measure viewers of shows watched on digital video recorders, the pioneering maker of the recorders, TiVo, is getting into the argument. TiVo is starting a research division to sell data about how its 4.4 million users watch commercials--or, more often, skip them. The service is based on an analysis of the second-by-second viewing patterns of a nightly sample of 20,000 TiVo users, whose recorders report back to TiVo on what was watched and when. On average, TiVo has found that its users spend nearly half of their television time watching programs recorded earlier. And viewers of those recorded shows skip about 70 percent of the commercials, said Todd Juenger, TiVo's vice president for audience research. The new research service, which is intended mainly for advertisers, could help them understand how to get more people to watch recorded commercials." Learn more at News.com.

• 25 July 2006
  "Jealous lovers may soon have an alternative to sniffing for perfume to catch a cheating mate: Just follow their license plate. In recent years, police around the country have started to use powerful infrared cameras to read plates and catch carjackers and ticket scofflaws. But the technology will soon migrate into the private sector, and morph into a tool for tracking individual motorists' movements, says former policeman Andy Bucholz, who's on the board of Virginia-based G2 Tactics, a manufacturer of the technology. Bucholz, who designed some of the first mobile license plate reading, or LPR, equipment, gave a presentation at the 2006 National Institute of Justice conference here last week laying out a vision of the future in which LPR does everything from helping insurance companies find missing cars to letting retail chains chart customer migrations. It could also let a nosy citizen with enough cash find out if the mayor is having an affair, he says." Learn more in Wired News.

• 24 July 2006
  "Just over a decade ago, as another of the world’s great ethnic tinderboxes — the former Yugoslavia — was about to catch fire, 11-year-old Zlata Filipovic of Croatia began keeping a diary. The poignancy of the journal rises in large part from Zlata’s sober acclimation, in latter entries, to life as it was disintegrating around her. From the concerns of a modern middle-class girl in 1991 — school, a new pair of skis, Madonna’s fan club — Zlata’s journal became a diary, too, of bombs and snipers’ bullets zipping through her bedroom, of food shortages and blackouts and death. Her journal was eventually published and she was billed as a latter-day Anne Frank. But as the world’s gaze has turned to another ethnic and religious calamity — this time between Israel and militants in Lebanon — a question that almost immediately arises is just what Zlata Filipovic, or even Anne Frank, might have made of YouTube.com. That’s where Galya Daube, a 15-year-old from Haifa, Israel, uploaded a jittery, first-person video clip last week." Learn more in the New York Times.

• 21 July 2006
  "He dreamed that with the next game, the next jackpot, the next click of his mouse, he would solve all his problems. But as he got sucked deeper into the anonymous world of online gambling, his problems only got worse. 'There was no