Technology
Free EA software release spawns ’sporn’
It’s a double-edged sword, this user-generated content thing
It’s a simple equation that marketers can’t seem to grasp: The Internet plus free modeling tools equals giant dancing penises.
So it goes for Creature Creator, the free trial tool Electronic Arts released on Tuesday to herald the marketing blitz for the September shipment of its long-awaited “Spore” game. […]
Firefox claims download success
Mozilla is claiming a download record for the release of Firefox 3.0.
In the first 24 hours the web browser was available the software was downloaded more than eight million times, says its creator Mozilla.
Statistics from the download servers are being scrutinised to produce an official figure that will be passed to the Guinness World Record […]
MySpace can collect $6 million from spammer
BOSTON - MySpace can collect $6 million from a notorious Internet marketer accused by the popular online hangout of spamming its users.
An arbitrator has ruled that Scott Richter and his Web marketing company, Media Breakaway LLC of Westminster, Colorado, must pay MySpace $4.8 million in damages and $1.2 million in attorney’s fees for barraging MySpace […]
Spam Reaches 30 Year Anniversary
Spam - the scourge of every e-mail inbox - celebrates its 30th anniversary this weekend.
The first recognisable e-mail marketing message was sent on 3 May, 1978 to 400 people on behalf of DEC - a now-defunct computer-maker.
The message was sent via Arpanet - the internet’s forerunner - and won its sender much criticism from recipients.
Thirty […]
Ben Stein’s Blunder
Ben Stein’s Blunder
In a new documentary film — Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed — the actor, game show host and financial columnist Ben Stein falls for the pseudoscience of Intelligent Design
by Michael Shermer
In 1974 I matriculated at Pepperdine University as a born-again Christian who rejected Darwinism and evolutionary theory, not because I knew anything about […]
Scientists discover black holes on the Internet
Messages throughout the world are constantly lost to cyber black holes
You’re pounding the keyboard, double-clicking away, sighing and grumbling, but to no avail: That devilish little hourglass icon refuses to give way to the Web site you’re trying to reach. Most Internet users have encountered trouble reaching online destinations, but they often attribute the problem […]
Number of Computer Viruses Exceeds 1 Million
The number of viruses, worms and trojans in circulation has topped the one million mark.
The new high for malicious programs was revealed by security firm Symantec in the latest edition of its bi-annual Internet Security Threat Report.
The vast majority of these programs have been created in the last twelve months, said Symantec.
Cyber criminals […]
Robot aliens? Space opera gets it right
Scientists say first E.T. contact is likely to be with (not-so-sexy) machines
The aliens on the TV show “Battlestar Galactica,” which starts its final season Friday night on the SciFi Channel, aren’t your usual extraterrestrial baddies: They’re highly evolved robots, originally created by the humans they’re now fighting against. How highly evolved? The robots are way […]
4Apr2008 | Admin | 0 comments | Continued
Computers to Merge With Humans
By 2020 the terms ‘interface’ and ‘user’ will be obsolete as computers merge ever closer with humans.
It is one of the predictions in a Microsoft-backed report drawn from the discussions of 45 academics from the fields of computing, science, sociology and psychology.
It predicts fundamental changes in the field of so-called Human-Computer Interaction (HCI).
By […]
Spam blights e-mail 15 years on
Spam continues to blight e-mail exactly 15 years after the term was first coined and almost 30 years since the first spam message was sent.
The term is thought to have been coined by Joel Furr, an administrator on the net discussion system Usenet, to refer to unsolicited bulk messages.
More than 90% of all […]
Stretchable Silicon Chips
Normally fragile and brittle silicon chips have been made to bend and fold, paving the way for a new generation of flexible electronic devices.
The stretchy circuits could be used to build advanced brain implants, health monitors or smart clothing.
The complex devices consist of concertina-like folds of ultra-thin silicon bonded to sheets of […]
Creationists at it again in Florida
By NICOLA M. WHITE
The Tampa Tribune Published: March 27, 2008
TALLAHASSEE - It’s not about letting religion creep into science classrooms, Sen. Ronda Storms insisted.
It’s about protecting the rights of students and teachers who don’t agree with the science behind Darwinian evolution, the Republican from Valrico argued before the Senate’s pre-k through 12 education committee […]
Doomsday Fears Spark Lawsuits
The builders of the world’s biggest particle collider are being sued in federal court over fears that the experiment might create globe-gobbling black holes or never-before-seen strains of matter that would destroy the planet. Representatives at Fermilab in Illinois and at Europe’s CERN laboratory, two of the defendants in the case, say there’s no […]
27Mar2008 | Admin | 0 comments | Continued
Google to Help in the Detection of Earth-Like Planets
MIT scientists started a project with the help of Google to find other planets with similar characteristics as Earth. For that, they are designing a satellite-based observatory that will be able to scan the entire sky. The current technology discovered around 200 extrasolar planets so far, but all of them have a much bigger size […]
27Mar2008 | Admin | 0 comments | Continued
In Search of the God Particle
The biggest experiment in particle physics, the Large Hadron Collider, starts this summer in Switzerland. The goal is to find signs of an elusive particle called the Higgs boson—also known as the “God particle” because it might ultimately lead to a grand theory of the universe. What impact will the experiments have on our ideas […]
25Mar2008 | Admin | 0 comments | Continued
American Taliban Undermine Science
From what I can tell, Matt Nisbet has no idea who or what he is dealing with, nor any clue as to who his real friends are. Nisbet youtubes a clip from a new creationist propaganda film, interviews with Richard Dawkins and PZ Myers. He summarizes the scene as follows:
…the message is spelled out […]
Do Humans Deserve to Find Life on Other Planets?
An explosion in our ability to detect planets in other solar systems has made astronomers increasingly confident that it’s only a matter of time until we discover life on other planets. Astronomers just discovered methane on a planet 63 light years from Earth — a sign that life just may exist. Here’s what Carl B. […]
24Mar2008 | Admin | 0 comments | Continued
Lose cell phone, get cast away from society
In wireless world, living without a mobile like living on a desert island
Last Fourth of July at the beach, Leah Wilson lost her “lifeline.” Wilson, a 22-year-old graduate student, had clipped her blue flip phone around her bikini bottom — for safekeeping. Then, she left her towel, her other belongings, to let her hair […]
Writer Arthur C Clarke dies at 90
British science fiction writer Sir Arthur C Clarke has died in his adopted home of Sri Lanka at the age of 90. The Somerset-born author achieved his greatest fame in 1968 when his short story The Sentinel was turned into the film 2001: A Space Odyssey.
His visions of space travel and computing sparked the imagination […]
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