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20,568 articles from Sci-Tech Today

Black Man Gets a White Man's Head in Microsoft Ad

A Microsoft blunder has resulted in the software giant apologizing to the public. The head of a black man in a Microsoft advertisement was replaced with that of a Caucasian man. Using photo-manipulation tools, Microsoft's marketing employees made the change to reach out to customers in Poland, who are predominantly white, some observers are speculating. The advertisement is of three...

Bad Valve Forces NASA To Call Off Shuttle Launch

NASA called off the launch of space shuttle Discovery for a second time Tuesday after a critical fuel valve failed to work properly. Launch officials halted the countdown midway through the fueling process. The seven astronauts had not yet boarded the shuttle for the scheduled early Wednesday morning flight to the international space station. "Drats!" said astronaut Jose Hernandez in a...

Amazon Offers a VPN Bridge To Secure Cloud Resources

There's a new bridge to Amazon's clouds. Amazon Web Services (AWS) announced Wednesday the availability of its virtual private cloud (VPC), which it said provides "a secure and seamless bridge between a company's existing IT infrastructure and the AWS cloud." Using the VPC, an enterprise can connect its computing infrastructure to isolated computing resources at Amazon via a virtual private...

YouTube Will Offer Revenue Sharing To More Users

YouTube launched a partnership program in 2007 to help some members make money from popular videos they upload on the site. Now the video site is broadening its scope in an effort to spread the wealth -- and generate some of its own. While YouTube has focused on accepting prolific users who regularly produce videos that reach a wide audience -- like Fred and ValsArtDiary -- the company has...

UK Says Illegal Downloaders May Lose Web Access

People who repeatedly download copyrighted films and music could have their Internet connection cut off under proposed laws to tackle illegal file-sharing unveiled by the British government on Tuesday. The proposal to ban repeat offenders from the Internet, which drew criticism from both civil rights groups and Internet service providers, toughens up the measures being considered in Britain to...

Ownership of Unix Copyright Headed to Trial

A federal appeals court on Monday reversed a judge's decision that granted the copyright of the Unix computer operating system to Novell Inc. A three-judge panel of the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that a judge erred in August 2007 by granting the copyright to Novell. The panel ordered a trial to determine ownership. Novell, a software and computer infrastructure company, has...

Study Finds People Who Multitask Often Bad at It

The people who multitask the most are the ones who are worst at it. That's the surprising conclusion of researchers at Stanford University, who found multitaskers are more easily distracted and less able to ignore irrelevant information than people who do less multitasking. "The huge finding is, the more media people use the worse they are at using any media. We were totally shocked," Clifford...

Former Pirate Bay Internet Provider Suspects Sabotage

An Internet service provider that has cut its deliveries to the Pirate Bay file-sharing site on Tuesday reported "major disturbances after sabotage." The disturbances reported by Black Internet AB came the day after the company announced it would immediately stop providing Internet connectivity to Pirate Bay, citing a court order. A message posted Tuesday on the Pirate Bay site said it would...

Accenture To Offer Plug-and-Play Custom Hardware

Creating IT hardware on your own can be real chore. All that time and money spent researching and prototyping, and there's no guarantee it will do the job. But what if getting a custom-built device were as easy as making pizza? Start with a crust of a base module to run an operating system. Add a few toppings -- a GPS unit, an accelerometer, a motion detector, or a 3G connection -- and you've got...

Future Heat Waves Will Be Worse, Report Says

The nation is headed for strong heat waves in coming decades that will hit cities and farmers and threaten wildlife with extinction, a new global warming report warns. The report, "More Extreme Heat Waves: Global Warming's Wake Up Call," sponsored by medical, environmental and civil rights organizations, comes as a legislative fight over a climate change bill gets ready to resume next month in...

Twitter Haters See No Point in Tweeting

Dave Magnusen has never used Twitter, yet it bugs him. "It's a form of communication, but it's not very social," says Magnusen, 55, a database administrator in Durham, N.C. "You can't ignore (Twitter), but it's kind of sad how it's replaced people talking." Tony Fuda feels the same way. The Niles, Ohio, native is particularly irked by tweets that insist on sharing the most mundane details of...

RSouth Korean Satellite Misses Orbit

South Korea launched its first rocket Tuesday, just months after rival North Korea's launch drew international anger, but space officials said the satellite it carried failed to enter its intended orbit. A Science Ministry statement called the launch a "partial success," as the satellite separated from the rocket normally before entering a different orbit. The launch could boost South...

Internet Speeds Vary Across USA

The average Internet download speed in the USA is 5.1 megabits per second, though consumers' online experiences can vary dramatically, depending on where they happen to live, a new report from the Communications Workers of America says. On balance, speeds in the Northeast and Mid-Atlantic were faster. Speeds in the South and in rural areas were markedly slower, according to the CWA's report --...

Updates to Wi-Fi Standards Nearly Complete

More than seven years ago, the group that deals with wireless networking standards met for the first time to plot out the next generation of Wi-Fi. Sometime next month, their work finally will be completed. That's when the version of Wi-Fi dubbed 802.11n will be ratified, ending a long process that will result in faster wireless connectivity over greater distances. "But wait!" you say. "I've...


TUESDAY 25. AUGUST 2009


Wikipedia Will Require Review of Public Changes

Wikipedia is changing its editorial policies -- again. The free online encyclopedia plans to tighten the screws on articles about living people on its English-language sites. Wikipedia is one of the most popular sites on the Web, with more than three million articles. The Wikimedia Foundation, a nonprofit group in San Francisco that oversees the user-generated encyclopedia, has approved a...

Yahoo Still Competing with Microsoft Despite Search Deal

Competition between Yahoo and Microsoft hasn't ended with the 10-year search deal the companies agreed on last month. In fact, Yahoo is making changes to compete better in the search market, even against the software giant powering its search. Yahoo is testing a new search feature focused on making search more personal, according to the company. Yahoo executives say they are still competing...

Cybercriminals Favor Jessica Biel as Malware Bait

Move over, Brad Pitt. Actress Jessica Biel has officially overtaken you as the most dangerous celebrity to search for in cyberspace, according to Internet security company McAfee. McAfee's third annual research report into Hollywood stars and pop culture's favored people offers insights into the riskiest celebrities on the Web. Fans searching for "Jessica Biel" or "Jessica Biel downloads,"...

Wireless Sony Reader Offers Touchscreen Elegance

Sony unveiled a new e-book reader Monday that features 3G connectivity over AT&T's national wireless network. As with Amazon's Kindle, consumers won't have to pay monthly fees or transaction charges for the basic wireless connectivity used by Sony's e-reader. The new Reader Daily Edition is slated to become available for $399 in December, when it will join the new Pocket Edition ($199) and the...

OneApp Brings Applications To Plain Feature Phones

A "feature phone" could become more like an application-friendly smartphone if Microsoft's OneApp is successful. Released Monday, the new software portal allows a wide variety of phones with "limited memory and processing capability" to access such mobile staples as Facebook, Twitter, Windows Live Messenger, various games, and other apps. Microsoft is targeting emerging markets first for...

Space Shuttle Launch Called Off, NASA To Try Again

NASA will try again to launch the shuttle Discovery to the international space station on Wednesday after having to call it off early Tuesday because of thunderstorms. The storms popped up unexpectedly late Monday all around the launch site, and lightning lit up the sky. A strike was reported just five miles from the pad, and then it started to pour. The storms finally eased, but not fast...

Can AT&T Meet iPhone Network Demands?

When AT&T cut the deal that made it the exclusive U.S. distributor of Apple's iPhone, the carrier bet correctly it would attract millions of new subscribers. What it didn't bargain for: the huge demands the device would impose on AT&T's network. Thanks largely to the iPhone's ability to surf the Web, play videos, and run all manner of software-based tools called apps, by some estimates AT&T now...

Netbook Partner: Choosing External Burners

If there's a bright spot on the balance sheet of computer makers right now, it's the netbook. Some 21.6 million of the extra-small units are expected to have been sold by the end of the year, report German industry consultants IDC. The mobility and low cost come at a price, though: no bells and whistles. That usually means that no DVD drive or burner is included. There are two options for...

Official Tells Google To Erase Swiss Street Views

A Swiss government official is demanding that Google Inc. immediately take off the Internet any image of Switzerland in its "Street View Maps," and the company said Monday it would discuss the matter with the privacy rights regulator. Hanspeter Thuer, federal data protection commissioner, said Google's pictures were violating Switzerland's strict privacy laws by failing to obscure people's...

Will Antitrust Probe Keep Microsoft, Yahoo Apart?

Yahoo Inc. and Microsoft Corp. hope that by joining forces, they can tilt the balance of power in Internet search away from Google Inc. First, however, Yahoo and Microsoft have to convince regulators that their plan won't hurt online advertisers and consumers. As the U.S. Justice Department reviews the proposed partnership, approval figures to hinge on this question: Will the online ad market...

Online Radio Service Wins Ruling Over License Fees

Personalized Internet radio stations got a boost Friday when a federal appeals court ruled that Yahoo's LAUNCHcast music service was not interactive enough to be forced to pay hundreds of millions of dollars in licensing fees. The 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Manhattan said LAUNCHcast did not offer its users so much control over selecting songs for personalized Internet radio stations...