JetLib News

Stoobalou writes “In a move worthy of China’s communist regime, UK PM David Cameron wants to shut down social networks whenever civil unrest rears its head in Britain’s towns and cities. Speaking in the House of Commons, Cameron said, ‘Everyone watching these horrific actions will be struck by how they were, organised via social media. Free flow of information can be used for good. But it can also be used for ill. So we are working with the police, the intelligence services and industry to look at whether it would be right to stop people communicating via these websites and services when we know they are plotting violence, disorder and criminality.’” So far I haven’t heard anyone blame the Rock ‘n Roll music, but if social networks aren’t a good enough culprit, you could also try blaming video games.

Stoobalou writes “The cat and mouse game between Apple and the jailbreaking community continues unabated as an updated version of PwnageTool hits the web just hours after apple updated its iOS mobile operating system to lock out the JailbreakMe PDF-based exploit.”

Stoobalou writes “Microsoft exec Tami Reller told attendees at the company’s Worldwide Partner Conference 2011 taking place in Los Angeles yesterday that any PC capable of running Windows 7 today would be capable of running Windows 8 when it is released, towards the end of the year.”

Stoobalou writes “Blizzard Entertainment has announced that its enormously popular online role-playing game World of Warcraft will be free to play for characters up to level 20. WoW has always offered free trials of one of the world’s biggest multi-player online games but previous offers have always been limited to a set number of days. The new policy means that first-time visitors to Azeroth will be able to build an unlimited number of characters and classes up to level 20 at their leisure, although there will be some limitations.”

Stoobalou writes “An eight-petaflop Japanese supercomputer has grabbed the title of fastest computer on earth in the new Top 500 Supercomputing List to be officially unveiled at the International Supercomputing Conference in Hamburg today. The K Computer is based at the RIKEN Advanced Institute for Computational Science in Kobe, Japan, and smashes the previous supercomputing records with a processing power of more than 8 petaflop/s (quadrillion calculations per second) — three times that of its nearest rival.”

Stoobalou writes “NATO leaders have been warned that Wikileaks-loving ‘hacktivist’ collective Anonymous could pose a threat to member states’ security, following recent attacks on the US Chamber of Commerce and defence contractor HBGary — and promise to ‘persecute’ its members.” From the article: “In a toughly-worded draft report to the NATO Parliamentary Assembly, General Rapporteur Lord Jopling claims that the loose-knit, leaderless group is ‘becoming more and more sophisticated.’ and ‘could potentially hack into sensitive government, military, and corporate files.’”

Stoobalou writes “VoIP and instant messaging service Skype has disappeared from the Internet, nary a fortnight after Microsoft snaffled up the outfit in an overpriced $8.5 billion deal.”

Stoobalou writes “A pair of mathematicians have created an electronics project that nostalgic computer buffs will likely recognize straight away: a magnetic-core memory shield for the Arduino electronics prototyping platform.” The creators’ web site has more, including schematics, if you’d like to make your own.

Stoobalou writes with this excerpt from thinq.co.uk: “Spotify has made a surprise announcement, and while it’s still not the long-awaited US launch, it will be making a splash over the pond: the streaming music service is morphing into an iTunes competitor. In what is a clear attempt at rattling Apple’s cage, Spotify has unveiled a pair of major new features: the ability to synchronise Spotify playlists with iPods, and the option to buy MP3 files to own — both key features of the iTunes platform. Any playlist created via the Spotify player can be downloaded in a single step, making ‘digital mix-tape’ creation significantly simpler.”

Stoobalou writes “Researchers at the the National University of Cuyo, in Mendoza, Argentina, looked at that strange breed — men who wear mobile phones on their hip. They discovered evidence to suggest that the proximity of the mobile phone caused a reduction in bone mineral content (BMC) and bone mineral density (BMD) in the men who wore the phones over a 12-month period, compared to a control group that didn’t.”