John Lister

The British government has admitted losing a compact disc containing the personal details of 25 million people. The scandal has led to concerns that criminals could use the information for identity fraud or to access online bank accounts. The disc, ... which contains details of every family receiving child benefit (a form of social security paid for all children), was produced by a junior official at Her Majesty's Revenue and Customs (HMRC), the British tax department. The official put two passwords on the disc, but did not encrypt the information. They then sent the disc to another government ... (view more)

The group behind the regulation of website addresses is planning the first step to a multi-lingual Internet. The International Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) is working to allow top level domains to be registered in languages ... which do not use the Latin alphabet. This is the set of 26 letters, also known as the Roman alphabet, used in languages such as English, French of German. The top level domain is the part of the website address which identifies the type of site (such as .COM or .NET) or the country of origin (such as .CA for Canada). ICANN have launched the project by ... (view more)

Sony's PlayStation 3 has become the first game console with Internet security software. The software was included in the system upgrade received by owners last week, but has only just been announced. It's the work of Trend Micro, a security company ... working in partnership with Sony. The service is currently free of charge, but will be a subscription service from next April. Sony and Trend Micro have yet to reveal the prices which will then apply. Aside from anti-virus features the software also includes web filters. This blocks sites in two different ways; it checks history and ownership to ... (view more)

Microsoft has announced a Word plug-in to make it easier for visually impaired users to use its program. The plug-in will read Word 2003 and 2007 files out loud, and will also convert files from Open XML (the standard format used to save Word 2007 ... files) into DAISY, a format which is easier to use for producing digital audio files. DAISY (Digital Accessible Information Service) is a not-for-profit group based in Zurich, Switzerland. Formed by "talking books libraries," DAISY promotes open standards to make it easier to produce digital files. (Source: Guardian.co.uk ) Reed Shaffner, ... (view more)

An Indian computer has been ranked the fourth-fastest in the world. It's the first time India has even cracked the top 100 in speed rankings. Computers from Sweden and Germany are among five new entries in the top ten, which was previously dominated ... by US-built machines. The list was announced at the SuperComputing 07 conference in Reno, Nevada. It's the 30th edition of the list, which comes out every six months and is compiled by experts from universities in Tennessee and Germany and the National Energy Research Scientific Computing Center in California. (Source: Top500.org ) The Indian ... (view more)

A leaked list reveals some of the most commonly requested features for the successor to Windows Vista (code-named Windows 7). The 61 suggestions include some based on rival products, such as Session Restore from Mozilla's Firefox browser. After a ... crash, a Firefox user is able to go straight back to the page or pages that they were browsing at the time. Other users suggested a Firefox-style download manager to make it easier to keep track of multiple simultaneous downloads. Another common theme is improvements to visual displays of information, such as the Recycle Bin icon gradually 'filling ... (view more)

Hackers are now hiding viruses in the last place you'd expect to find them: anti-spyware software. The elaborate scam allows hackers to get access to users computers. And for added measure, they even take credit card details on the way. The scam ... works by posting adverts on big-name websites. A random selection of these ads produce a pop-up window with a fake warning that the user's computer is infected, and offers a download of an anti-spyware program, paid for by credit card. The download, which comes under more than 40 different names such as Spyshredder, is actually a Trojan virus. The ... (view more)

Computers can now recognise the work of different artists and even tell the differences between genuine paintings and fakes. Scientists at Israel's University of Haifa have developed a mathematical program that analyses paintings geometrically. The ... computer breaks down the picture into its component sections, then calculates the sines and cosines. (If you've forgotten your high school trigonometry, that means the relative size and shapes of triangles.) Once the computer learns the pattern of a particular artist, it can identify whether another painting is legitimately that person's work. ... (view more)

An ambitious scheme could see Russian spy planes provide broadband Internet services. The scheme would use Myasishchev M-55 planes to plug gaps in Russia's patchy satellite coverage. They would also be used in areas where the telecoms system has ... been damaged or destroyed. Because the planes are designed to fly at high altitude, they can provide coverage to a much wider ground area. The planes, which are equivalent to the American U-2s, were originally designed to intercept US spy balloons. They've since been transferred to scientific uses such as studying the arctic stratosphere. An existing ... (view more)

Google has confirmed it's entering the mobile market, but not with the much-rumored Gphone. Rather than launching a branded handset, Google is developing an open source software platform for all mobile devices. They'll be providing their 'Android' ... software free of charge to handset manufacturers, which could pave the way for cheaper phones. As part of the launch, Google has formed the Open Handset Alliance, bringing together 34 partners. This includes handset producers Motorola, HTC, Samsung and LG, plus carriers such as T-Mobile and Sprint. (Source: BBC ) The software should be with ... (view more)