Tech & Science

<noinclude> NASA's Spirit Rover on Mars has found "silica-rich soil" in Gusev Crater that scientists say is so rich that it would require that water have been present at some point, in order for the deposits to be there. "You could hear people gasp in astonishment. This is a remarkable discovery. And the fact that we found something this new and different after nearly 1,200 days on Mars makes it even more remarkable. It makes you wonder what else is still out there," said Steve Squyres, principal investigator for the Mars rovers' science ins

<noinclude> A routine upgrade of anti-virus software has disabled tens of thousands of PCs in China, according to local media reports. The faulty upgrade caused Symantec's Norton AntiVirus software to remove critical Windows XP system files, the reports state. The system files moved or deleted by the software include netapi32.dll and lsasrv.dll, according to Sohu News. The software incorrectly identifies the files as being infected with the Backdoor.Haxdoor trojan. With these files removed, Windows XP will no longer start up, and even the sys

<noinclude> Software giant Microsoft's chief lawyer Brad Smith claimed in an interview published in the magazine Fortune on Monday that open-source software products violate 235 of Microsoft's patents. The main transgressors are claimed to be Linux (107 patents) and OpenOffice.org (45), with e-mail programs infringing 15 patents. Microsoft wants royalties to compensate for the patent breaches. According to Microsoft's Vice-President of intellectual property and licensing, Horacio Gutierrez, the company wants to negotiate with the open-source

<noinclude> With 99% of the votes counted, it appears that Iceland's ruling coalition has held on to a majority in parliament by just one seat. Prime Minister Geir Haarde's Independence Party, picked up two additional seats for a total of 24. However, its coalition partner, the Progressive Party, went from 12 seats to 8. This will give the coalition 32 of the 63 seats in Iceland's parliament. Olafur Hardarson, professor of political science at the University of Iceland, told Reuters that there may still be coalition talks ahead, as the Prog

<noinclude> Freelance journalist writing for Wikinews, Gabriel Pollard, with help from Brian Anderton, has interviewed New Zealand-based blogger, David Farrar on blogging, web 2.0, and the Internet in general. David Farrar is most known for his "fairly popular" blog, Kiwiblog, where he posts on various topics, including politics and technology. He is the vice-president of the Internet Society of New Zealand, and has been involved in helping to split Telecom New Zealand up and in anti-spam legislation. David Farrar first started using the "be

<noinclude> Just yesterday the second-last Canadian World War I veteran died, leaving just one remaining alive in Canada. The 106 year old Percy Dwight Wilson died in Toronto's Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre's veterans residence, being there from June 2006. Born, February 26, 1901, one of nine children in Elgin County, Ontario, Wilson enlisted in the Army in 1915 as a Bulgier. After his Basic Training, he was sent to England via a ship across the Atlantic. As he was a minor, he was never sent to the front lines, and helped to dig trenches

Iran's former president Mohammad Khatami met with Massimo D'Alema, the foreign minister of Italy, where he stated that dialogue is a sine qua non to resolving the impasse over Iran's nuclear activities. Khatami said, "The Iranian nation will by no means abandon its nuclear rights." He cited the "consensus among Iranian authorities on the country's right to access nuclear technology" and said that sanctions against Iran would not be effective. Khatami also called for dialogue in two additional areas: On Iraq, Afghanistan, Lebanon and Israel/P

Charles Simonyi, a billionaire software engineer born in Hungary, has returned to Earth after a 25 million dollar trip to the International Space Station with mission Soyuz TMA-10. The original mission, planned to last 13 days, was extended to 14 days when landing was made impossible due to "boggy ground". Mr. Simonyi, Russian cosmonaut Mikhail Tyurin, and American astronaut Michael Lopez-Alegria made a successful landing in the Soyuz TMA-9 spacecraft on the Kazakh steppe in Central Asia on Saturday. Mr. Simonyi was said to be "ecstatic" after

American author Kurt Vonnegut, Jr., best known for works blending satire, black comedy, and science fiction, has died at age 84. After a fall in his Manhattan, New York home, he suffered brain injuries and died on Wednesday from complications related to those injuries. Some of Vonnegut's most famous works include Slaughterhouse-Five (1969), Cat's Cradle (1963), and Breakfast of Champions (1973). He achieved cult-like status among American college students in the 1960s and 70s.

Prime Minister Helen Clark of New Zealand visited Microsoft's corporate headquarters in Seattle last week. She was welcomed by CEO Steve Ballmer, senior vice-president and CFO Chris Liddell, a New Zealander, and Microsoft New Zealand managing director Helen Robinson. During the visit, they looked at ways technology could help the continuing growth of New Zealand's economic development. Ms Clark also examined Microsoft's newest productivity software, mainly including offerings in the areas of video conferencing and online collaboration tools. "

Israeli firm Environmental Energy Resources (EER) has announced that it has developed a new technology, plasma gasification melting technology (PGM), to safely dispose of low- and medium-level nuclear waste. Extremely high temperatures are used to turn the waste into a mildly radioactive glass-like substance, which can be used as a building material. The process also releases an extremely hot mixture of gases that can be used to power steam turbines, generating electricity. The company claims that 70% of this electricity is used to drive the

The European Space Agency's Mars Express spacecraft has discovered ice deposits in the south pole of Mars that are larger than the state of Texas. Scientists say that there is enough water in the deposits to cover the entire planet with up to 36 feet of water if the ice was to melt. Some sections of the ice deposits are up to 2.3 - 2.5 miles deep. The ice is composed of carbon dioxide, a little bit of dust, and water (90 percent of the water is estimated to be frozen). What has caught the attention of the scientists working on the Mars Expr