After banning YouTube, military launches TroopTube

SEATTLE - The U.S. military, with help from Seattle startup Delve Networks, has launched a video-sharing Web site for troops, their families and supporters, a year and a half after restricting access to YouTube and other video sites. Read more

Australia planning to block 10,000 websites

Australia is preparing to block public access to 10,000 websites deemed to carry “unwanted content”.

The websites will be blocked as part of a government-sponsored trial of its filter technology that will start before Christmas and last six weeks.

The government has already identified 1300 websites that it wants to black list as part of the clean feeds scheme. Read more

Tasered man’s death ‘avoidable,’ Quebec coroner’s report finds

MONTREAL - An Italian-born MBA student who died under murky circumstances while in custody in Quebec City last year failed to get prompt and potentially life-saving medical attention despite his obvious distress, according to a Quebec coroner’s report. Read more

Australia to implement mandatory internet censorship

AUSTRALIA will join China in implementing mandatory censoring of the internet under plans put forward by the Federal Government.

The revelations emerge as US tech giants Google, Microsoft and Yahoo, and a coalition of human rights and other groups unveiled a code of conduct aimed at safeguarding online freedom of speech and privacy.

The government has declared it will not let internet users opt out of the proposed national internet filter. Read more

Police Taser Autistic Teen

ORLANDO, FL - An Orlando police officer Tasered an autistic middle school student after the teen refused to leave a bathroom and broke the officer’s hand.

The incident happened Friday at Glenridge Middle School after a teacher called police. The 6-foot-5, 250-pound student was washing his hands when an officer confronted him. The boy then swung around an punched the officer in the face and struck his hand.

Police say the student was not injured but that they would ask prosecutors to charge the student with battery.

AP | Sunday, October 19, 2008

No opt-out of filtered Internet for Australians

Australians will be unable to opt-out of the government’s pending Internet content filtering scheme, and will instead be placed on a watered-down blacklist, experts say. Read more

Army developing ‘synthetic telepathy’

Similar technology marketed as a way to control video games by thought

Vocal cords were overrated anyway. A new Army grant aims to create email or voice mail and send it by thought alone. No need to type an e-mail, dial a phone or even speak a word.

Known as synthetic telepathy, the technology is based on reading electrical activity in the brain using an electroencephalograph, or EEG. Similar technology is being marketed as a way to control video games by thought. Read more

Controversy Grows As Taser Expands Scope

Sitting idle, the Taser Shockwave looks like a waist-high rack of square green teeth. But press a button, and those teeth–six electrified cartridges tethered by 25-foot wires–shoot out in a 20-degree arc. Inch-long probes emitting 50,000 volts of electricity pierce through clothing and skin. If a human being is in their path, his or her muscles immediately flex and lock involuntarily. Read more

Scientists warn US Congress of cancer risk for cell phone use

The potential link between mobile telephones and brain cancer could be similar to the link between lung cancer and smoking — something tobacco companies took 50 years to recognize, according to US scientists’ warning.

Scientists are currently split on the level of danger the biological effects of the magnetic field emitted by cellular telephones poses to humans.

However, society “must not repeat the situation we had with the relationship between smoking and lung cancer where we … waited until every ‘i’ was dotted and ‘t’ was crossed before warnings were issued,” said David Carpenter, director of the Institute of Health and Environment at the University of Albany, in testimony before a subcommittee of the US House of Representatives Committee on Oversight and Reform.

“Precaution is warranted even in the absence of absolutely final evidence concerning the magnitude of the risk” — especially for children, said Carpenter.

Ronald Herberman, director of the University of Pittsburgh Cancer Institute — one of the top US cancer research centers — said that most studies “claiming that there is no link between cell phones and brain tumors are outdated, had methodological concerns and did not include sufficient numbers of long-term cell phone users.”

Many studies denying a link defined regular cell phone use as “once a week,” he said.

“Recalling the 70 years that it took to remove lead from paint and gasoline and the 50 years that it took to convincingly establish the link between smoking and lung cancer, I argue that we must learn from our past to do a better job of interpreting evidence of potential risk,” said Herberman.

A brain tumor can take dozens of years to develop, the scientists said.

Carpenter and Herberman both told the committee the brain cancer risk from cell phone use is far greater for children than for adults.

Herberman held up a model for lawmakers showing how radiation from a cell phone penetrates far deeper into the brain of a five-year-old than that of an adult.

The committee were shown several European studies, particularly surveys from Scandinavia — where the cell phone was first developed — which show that the radiation emitted by cell phones have definite biological consequences.

For example, a 2008 study by Swedish cancer specialist Lennart Hardell found that frequent cell phone users are twice as likely to develop a benign tumor on the auditory nerves of the ear most used with the handset, compared to the other ear.

A separate study in Israel determined that heavy cell phone users had a 50 percent increased likelihood in developing a salivary gland tumor.

In addition, a paper published this month by the Royal Society in London found that adolescents who start using cell phones before the age of 20 were five times more likely to develop brain cancer at the age of 29 than those who didn’t use a cell phone.

“It’s only on the side of the head where you use the cell phone,” Carpenter said.

“Every child is using cell phones all of the time, and there are three billion cell phone users in the world,” said Herberman.

He added that, like the messages that warn of health risks on cigarette packs, cell phones “need a precautionary message.”

Carpenter described the situation as “a critical public health issue,” and called on the US government to support further research and for the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), in charge of monitoring the use of the radio spectrum, “to review their standards.”

Also testifying was Julius Knapp, who heads the FCC office of engineering and technology — responsible for setting limits for human exposure to radio frequency (RF) energy from electronic devices like telephones that they approve, to prevent it from heating up live tissue.

“It is important to understand that we rely on guidance from US health, safety and environmental agencies in setting those limits,” Knapp said.

He added: “The FCC staff is not sufficiently qualified to speak with authority to the science of health effects of RF absorption in the body.”

AFP | Thursday, September 25, 2008

NASA to Discuss Conditions on and Surrounding the Sun

WASHINGTON, Sept. 18 — NASA will hold a media teleconference Tuesday, Sept. 23, at 12:30 p.m. EDT, to discuss data from the joint NASA and European Space Agency Ulysses mission that reveals the sun’s solar wind is at a 50-year low. The sun’s current state could result in changing conditions in the solar system.

Ulysses was the first mission to survey the space environment above and below the poles of the sun. The reams of data Ulysses returned have changed forever the way scientists view our star and its effects. The venerable spacecraft has lasted more than 17 years — almost four times its expected mission lifetime.

The panelists are:

– Ed Smith, NASA Ulysses project scientist and magnetic field instrument investigator, Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.

– Dave McComas, Ulysses solar wind instrument principal investigator, Southwest Research Institute, San Antonio

– Karine Issautier, Ulysses radio wave lead investigator, Observatoire de Paris, Meudon, France

– Nancy Crooker, Research Professor, Boston University, Boston, Mass.

Reporters should call 866-617-1526 and use the pass code “sun” to participate in the teleconference. International media should call 1-210-795-0624.

To access visuals that will the accompany presentations, go to:

http://www.nasa.gov/topics/solarsystem/features/ulysses-20080923.html

Audio of the teleconference will be streamed live at:

http://www.nasa.gov/newsaudio

SOURCE NASA

Sun Herald | Thursday, September 18, 2008

Next Page »