Antivirus Expert: 'Ransomware' is Back

"Ransomware" is not only a great name for a band, but a rising trend in online crime."Online criminals are turning away from threatening companies with massive cyberattacks in favor of encrypting a victim's data and then demanding money to decrypt it, an antivirus expert has...

Nanny City: New York May Ban iPods while Crossing Street

This proposal raises some strikingly obvious enforcement difficulties.Those difficulties aside, surely people have, at some point in New York's rich history, crossed the street whilst using personal CD players, tape players, and so forth, and yet the city has not been...

US Soldier Charged in Killing of Italian Journalist in Iraq

This case has taken quite some time to make it through Italy's court system, but there  is a massive political element to it as well. Whilst a case could be made that the accused was just doing his job, the US Army's cover-up of the incident casts aspersions on their...

European Car Firms Face Pollution Curbs

At first blush this is a sound proposal for both sides. The environment wins, as, ultimately, do the car manufacturers. After all, petrol shows no signs of getting less expensive, and fuel economy is a big selling point in Europe; particularly in the UK, where automakers...

Wal-Mart Bias Case: Underpaid Workers Mean Low, Low Prices

This case has not yet gone to trial, so no verdict has been reached. "Wal-Mart will face a lawsuit claiming pay discrimination against more than a million female US employees after a court approved the action. A federal appeals court upheld a 2004 ruling giving the lawsuit...

'World of Warcraft' Designated Hitters

For such involved games, such a thing was perhaps inevitable. I am reminded of services that will queue for you to get concert tickets or opening-night cinema tickets. As massively multi-player online role-playing games (MMORGs)grow, the time spent and status aquired online...

Orbiting Junk Threatens Satellites and Spacecraft

We all think of outer space as limitless, but the bit of outer space that lies within Earth's gravitational pull is getting rather crowded. Much like the phenomenon of overflowing landfills, this seems to be an inevitability that nobody in control of policy spent much time...

US Gives Itself Approval for African Base

This is a developing story, and does not mention which African nation the US wants to, well, occupy. One could be forgiven for assuming it would be in an oil-rich nation, but such details are not yet available. Also unmentioned is that nation's opinion of hosting a foreign...

Matrix Cam Spies Flying Bullets

I used to be secure in the knowledge that, if I was driving fast enough, traffic cameras would be unable to capture my license plate. This is a troubling development indeed!"An Air Force contractor has developed the first high-speed camera that can follow speeding bullets...

Bush Budget Neglects Those of Us on Planet Earth

What-planet-does-he-live-on cracks aside, a budget that beefs up a science-based industry while siphoning money from actual science classes is short-sighted at best."President Bush unveiled his $2.9 trillion budget request for next year Monday, beefing up spending for NASA...

Expensive Mooninites: US Firms Pay $2M for Stunt Scare

The Mooninite flap continues. Glossed over in the mainstream accounts of this event is that the Lite-Brite Mooninites were placed in several cities (Boston, New York, Chicago, Seattle, Los Angeles, and Philadelphia, to my knowledge),  of which only Boston worked itself...

Paris Turns 175,000 Kids onto Open-Source Software

This is an idea whose time as come. When kids learn how to "use computers" in school, they are usually taught only one operating system. This teaches them to be consumers and not true users. Also, when a community or city or nation relies solely on one proprietary operating...

Funeral for Italian Cop Killed in Football Riot

"Thousands of Italians have attended a funeral in the Sicilian town of Catania for a policeman killed during a violent riot between football fans on Friday. Mourners clapped as Filippo Raciti's flag-draped coffin was taken into the cathedral square and across the country...