Tech & Science

Australian Minister for Education, Science and Training, Julie Bishop visited the Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organisation in Lucas Heights, New South Wales today. The purpose of her visit was to inspect progress on Australia's newest nuclear research reactor - OPAL. Whilst at the facility, she received a report on the economics and safety of a nuclear power industry in Australia. OPAL, which stands for Open Pool Australian Light water reactor is expected to become fully operational by early 2007 and is in its final stage of deve

Vulnerability allegedly affecting at least two versions of Symantec AntiVirus software has been found. The vulnerability requires no interaction from the end-user, and has the potential to grant complete system level access to an attacker, according to eEye Digital Security, the organization that originally discovered the vulnerability. According to eEye, the Symantec AntiVirus 10.x and Symantec Client Security 3.x product lines are both vulnerable, and other Symantec products may be vulnerable as well. Symantec released a brief statement ear

An internal government committee has been created to look at Australia's nuclear energy role. The Federal Government has admitted it has set up a "secret committee" to examine the economics and science of nuclear power. During a Senate estimates committee, the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet's deputy secretary, Duncan Lewis confirmed that the committee had been formed following statements by US President George W Bush to create a global nuclear energy partnership. He told the Senate estimates that the committee would effectively try to

Mark Rocket, a Christchurch Internet entrepreneur, has purchased a $300,000 flight into space with Virgin Galactic. In 2008 he will take off for space from the Mojave Desert, near Los Angeles in an eight man spacecraft. He will spend about 10 minutes in space. He has said that he always wanted to go into space ever since seeing the first Star Wars movie. He even changed his name because of the movie, but won't say what from. He has already been to California to see the development of the rocket and visited the International Space Developmen

Three days after the Internet release of the free content 3D short Elephants Dream (see Wikinews coverage), we exchanged e-mails with Ton Roosendaal about the reaction to the film, open source filmmaking, and the changes to Blender that resulted from the production. Ton Roosendaal is the lead developer of the Blender 3D rendering and modelling software that was used for the movie. He is also the chairman of the Blender Foundation, a non-profit organization which was formed in support of the software and projects like Elephants Dream. How much

This interview intends to provide some insight into OpenSync, an upcoming free unified data synchronization solution for free software desktops such as KDE, commonly used as part of the GNU/Linux operating system. Basics Hi Cornelius, Armin and Tobias. As you are now getting close to version 1.0 of OpenSync, which is expected to become the new synchronisation framework for KDE and other free desktops, we are quite interested in the merits it can provide for KDE users and for developers, as well as for the Open Source Community as a whole. S

US stocks plunged along with other stock markets overseas as a greater than expected rise in consumer prices fueled investors' fears that the Federal Reserve's campaign of raising interest rates is not over. At the close of trading at 4:00 PM EDT, the Dow Jones Industrial Average had fallen 214.28 points, or 1.88%, to 11,205.61. Technology stocks were not safe from the selling as well, as the NASDAQ fell 33.33 points, or 1.50%, to 2,195.80. The NASDAQ has now turned negative for 2006. Broader stock indices also finished much lower. The S&P

On May 12 Radio Free Asia reported some people outside China will get a "server connection has been reset" error message when they are trying to search some political keywords on Baidupedia. However, the Internet censorship is not just on Baidupedia because it's due to the keyword filtering technology on the Great Firewall of China. One of the first people to find this filtering technology was Shi-Min Fang, a biochemist with a stance against ethical lapses in China. Fang, whose site "新語絲" has been blocked by the PRC government for years, had f

Senator Helen Coonan, Australian minister for communication, information technology and the arts, has announced the federal government will be extending its subsidy on satellite telephone handsets. The scheme allows those living or working in parts of remote Australia without conventional mobile telephone services to claim a subsidy of up to AU$1,200 on the purchase of a satellite telephone. The program was supposed to run for five years from 2002 until 2007. The program will continue until 2009. In addition to the extension, the scheme's el

Indonesian authorities have ordered the compulsory evacuation of thousands of residents living on the slopes of the volcano Mount Merapi in Central Java. The alert level has been raised to the highest level, warning of an imminent eruption of the volcano that has been rumbling for weeks and spewing lava and black ash. "This morning we raised the status of Merapi to the top alert which is the red code" said Subandrio, head of the Merapi section at the Centre for Volcanological Research and Technology Development. "Every resident has been order

Gary McKinnon was today told that he would be extradited to the US pending appeal. McKinnon stands accused of having caused $700,000 worth of damage to US military computer systems. Describing himself as a "bumbling hacker," McKinnon said his intention was to look for UFOs and information regarding technology that he claims the US government is withholding. Karen Todner, McKinnon's solicitor, explained that "there is power under the Computer Misuse Act to charge him here and he could stand trial here. In fact, had that happened he probably wou

Psiphon is being launched the end of this month as a highly anticipated software program that allows Internet users inside China, Iran, Saudi Arabia and Myanmar (formerly Burma), to get around censorship without being detected by the censors. Three University of Toronto students, Ron Deibert, Nart Villeneuve, and Michael Hull combined their political passion and love of free expression to create the software program that is attracting attention globally from people like Sharon Hom, executive director of New York-based "Human Rights in China".