] The US Air Force is examining the feasibility of a
] nuclear-powered version of an unmanned aircraft. The USAF
] hopes that such a vehicle will be able to "loiter" in the
] air for months without refuelling, striking at will when
] a target comes into its sights.
]
]
] With a nuclear drive a Global Hawk could fly for months
] without landing (Image: GETTY NEWSERVICE)]
] But the idea is bound to raise serious concerns about the
] wisdom of flying radioactive material in a combat
] aircraft. If shot down, for instance, would an
] anti-aircraft gunner in effect be detonating a dirty bomb

New Scientist

quoted:

---

Joseph E. Sullivan, Director of Compliance and Law Enforcement Relations, Senior Counsel, Trust and Safety for online auction powerhouse eBay, recently addressed a group of law enforcement officials regarding eBay's policies for cooperating with government investigations. Below are verbatim quotations from his briefing at the recent CyberCrime 2003 conference:
We [eBay] try to make rules to make it difficult for people to commit fraud and easy for you [law enforcement agencies] to investigate. One is our Privacy policy. I know from investigating eBay fraud cases that eBay has probably the most generous policy of any internet company when it comes to sharing information.
---

LAWMEME - eBay to Law Enforcement - We're Here to Help

Denver - The world's most sophisticated cyborg, which can grin with self-satisfaction or sneer in disdain, has at last been unveiled.

Packed with 24 small motors to manipulate the artificial skin of its face, the cyborg - called K-bot - has a pair of cameras in its eyes designed to analyse the facial expressions of the people it sees.

IOL : K-bot the sociable cyborg is wired to smile

] Make way for the ultimate high-rise project: the space
] elevator. Long viewed as science fiction "imagineering",
] researchers are gathering momentum in their pursuit to
] propel this uplifting concept into actuality.

Cyan blogged a recent article about this. I thought it was interested and dug this up. Its a little more detailed.

The Space Elevator Comes Closer to Reality

Embrace file- sharing, or die

A record executive and his son make a formal case for freely downloading music. The gist: 50 million Americans can't be wrong.

Editor's note: John Snyder is president of Artist House Records, a board member of the National Association of Recording Arts and Sciences (NARAS), and a 32-time Grammy nominee. On Thursday night, he submitted the following paper to NARAS.

Salon.com Technology | Embrace file-sharing, or die

] Hi, I'm Kelly, and this is my scream-body. Do you ever
] find yourself in a situation where you really have to
] scream, but you can't? Because you're at work, or you're
] in a classroom, or you're watching your children, or you
] are in any number of situations where it's just not
] permitted? Well, scream-body is a portable space for
] screaming. When the user screams into the scream-body
] their scream is silenced...but is also recorded, for
] later release where, when and how the user chooses."
] (screaming noises)]

] Now you laugh, which is great, but
] think about it: she designed a circuit board, she
] designed in a micro-controller, she programmed the
] micro-controller, she made the board herself, she
] developed PA-resistive squeeze sensors to control it,
] advanced engineering phones. You know, in a normal
] company there would be a team of engineers (a normal
] company wouldn't even do this anyway), and for her it's
] not product development, it's really kind of post-digital
] literacy, it's just mastering the means of expression.
] Design increasingly really can, and does, mean designers
] are crossing all these levels of description.

A really interesting article that goes from what to do with net connected microcontrollers to the idea of programming as basic literacy. Also happens to have the most annoying web page background I have ever seen in my life.

About Flow: Doors of Perception 7 on Flow

Radio Deregulation: Has It Served Citizens and Musicians?

On November 18, 2002 the Future of Music Coalition publicly released its report documenting the effects of radio station ownership consolidation on musicians and the public. This comprehensive analysis was conducted in partnership with Media Access Project and funded by a grant from the Rockefeller Foundation.

FMC | Radio Study

] Google has bought Blogger. Forget those peace protests
] around the world on Saturday: there is nothing more
] interesting to the weblog community than the weblog
] community, and this was the news of the weekend.
] What, you might ask, has happened? Put simply, the
] world's favourite search engine has bought one of the
] companies that pioneered the online diary, or weblog.
] Google now owns a service that makes it easy to publish a
] weblog, as well as an archive that holds the text from
] more than one million weblogs, 200,000 of which are
] active today.
] Naturally, the story was broken via breathless weblog
] postings. Dan Gillmor of the San Jose Mercury News had
] learnt of the story and produced a special edition of his
] column to break it. Evan Williams, the chief executive of
] Pyra (the company that gave birth to Blogger) read
] Gillmor's story, which was published unexpectedly early,
] and announced the takeover at a US blogging event on
] Saturday afternoon.

Guardian Unlimited | Online | Google gets Blogger and better

] Australian scientists have made a bra with a brain - it
] tightens its own straps if an energetic wearer needs
] extra support.
] The "smart bra" is made of a fabric with a special
] coating that makes it contract when the strain on it
] passes a pre-set level.

Just think of the applications for a fabric like this. Very cool.

New Zealand News - NZ - Brainy bra gives lift when you need it

] Mitnick said Monday that the hackers apparently exploited
] separate flaws in Internet server software from
] Microsoft. The person responsible for the company's
] website failed to apply the repairing patches available
] from Microsoft, Mitnick said.

Mitnick's site is on a shared hosting provider who runs IIS. Where has this guy been?! Oh... Yeah... Nevermind...

Wired News: Mitnick Amused By Website Hacks