#Breaking News: Australia's 4th largest bank #NAB unleashes new cashless society experiment,customers unimpressed, appears ppl prefer money

NAB glitch sparks concern over payment systems

By Emily Bourke

A crippling computer glitch at NAB has raised questions about the vulnerability of the payment systems used by Australian banks.

The bank's customers have been affected by technical problems, which have locked them out of their bank accounts.

Wages and Centrelink benefits had been delayed, settlements and property deals frozen and ATM and eftpos transactions shut off.

Last night the NAB issued a statement saying it had begun to clear the huge backlog of outstanding transactions from Wednesday and Thursday.

The bank is also opening up extra branches today.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2010/11/27/3078267.htm?section=justin

Tron’s Triumphant Return to Cyberspace

• By Adam Rogers

You will like Tron: Legacy. That’s not a prediction—it’s a command. Don’t even try to fight it. Come December 17, when the movie comes out, your butt will be in a seat and your head will be plugged into migraine-inducing Urkel goggles like everybody else. The people from Walt Disney have made sure of it.

The studio has put an estimated $170 million into this choo-choo train, and it is chugging down the track. The producers started leaking images and designs three years ago. They showed a trailer at Comic-Con before they even had a green light to make the movie. The number of dollars invested in the franchise will likely enter the mathematical regime created by reclusive Russian geniuses for defense budgets and bank bailouts. Los Angeles visual f/x house Digital Domain deployed the latest 3-D cameras and motion-capture technology to render a younger Jeff Bridges as the villain. 

http://www.wired.com/magazine/2010/11/ff_tron/

Literacy may have stolen brain power from other functions

By John Timmer 

The human brain contains many regions that are specialized for processing specific decisions and sensory inputs. Many of these are shared with our fellow mammals (and, in some cases, all vertebrates), suggesting that they are evolutionarily ancient specializations. But innovations like writing have only been around for a few thousand years, a time span that's too short relative to human generations to allow for this sort of large evolutionary change. In the absence of specialized capabilities, how has it become possible for such large portions of the population to become literate?

http://arstechnica.com/science/news/2010/11/literacy-takes-over-the-brain.ars

Star Trek's Enterprise now has an owner's manual

by Chris Matyszczyk

As we enter the season of buying people things they don't like, it is fortunate that one company has stopped to think what the world might truly be missing.

Haynes, a company that has made its name and fortune out of creating perfectly bound owners' manuals for every conceivable car, has taken its talents to celestial heights.

According to the Daily Mail, the company is releasing an owner's manual for the USS Enterprise

 http://news.cnet.com/8301-17852_3-20021291-71.html?tag=cnetRiver#ixzz140hkmEDT

We

Halloween

Internet reaches Everest summit

Climbers at the top of Mount Everest, the world’s highest peak, will now be able to make video calls and surf the internet on their mobile phones, a Nepalese telecom group claims.

Ncell, a subsidiary of Swedish phone giant TeliaSonera, said on Thursday it had set up a high-speed third-generation (3G) phone base station at an altitude of 5200 metres near Gorakshep village in the Everest region.

http://www.theage.com.au/technology/technology-news/internet-reaches-everest-summit-20101029-177bf.html

Virtual Vegas 

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Fat employee sues McDonald's, wins

A Brazilian court has ordered McDonald's to pay a former franchise manager $US17,500 ($18,000) because he gained 29kg while working there for 12 years.

 http://www.theage.com.au/lifestyle/wellbeing/fat-employee-sues-mcdonalds-wins-20101029-176kx.html

Its about time people took responsibility for their own actions, McDonald's are not to blame for this guys inability not to say no to food. 

Sony retires the Walkman

From The Melbourne Age

After retiring the floppy disk in March, Sony has halted the manufacturing and distribution of another now-obsolete technology: the cassette Walkman, the first low-cost, portable music player.

The final batch was shipped to Japanese retailers in April, according to IT Media. Once these units are sold, new cassette Walkmans will no longer be available through the manufacturer.

http://www.theage.com.au/digital-life/digital-life-news/sony-retires-the-walkman-20101025-16zwn.html

Movie Industry Says It’s Dying – Way Back in 1959  

Written by Jared Moya

  Mary Pickford, co-founder of United Artists, said that she thinks she has seen the “death of motion pictures” thanks to the advent of TV, which she believes will be the “real death knell of motion pictures” since people could watch programs from the comfort of their own living room instead.

Michael Masnick over at Techdirt has been doing a spectacular job of late digging up old interviews with entertainment industry executives lamenting the impending death of their respective industries. Trouble is, however, the interviews were done decades ago, providing a bit of context for their more recent predictions of doom and gloom.

A few days ago it was the music industry. Back in 1980 the TV show 20/20 did a report on the state of the music industry in which Joe Smith, then President of Elektra-Asylum records, said that “you don’t have to buy” music anymore thanks to things like “sensational” home-taping equipment and FM radio (ha ha).

http://www.zeropaid.com/news/91110/movie-industry-says-its-dying-way-back-in-1959/

UK STUDY: Nearly Half of Wi-Fi Networks Unsecure

Written by Jared Moya

  Illustrates the problems the govt will have in properly enforcing the country’s Digital Economy Act, and the challenges it faces in ensuring those accused of illegal file-sharing are actually guilty of the crime.

One of the biggest concerns critics of the UK’s Digital Economy Act have had is the fact that peoples’ Wi-Fi connections are susceptible to hijacking by third parties, and therefore potentially liable for any copyright infringement activities they conduct on the network.

So it’s important to once again point out the results of a recent study that confirms many of the country’s Wi-Fi connections are improperly secured.

http://www.zeropaid.com/news/91015/uk-study-nearly-half-of-wi-fi-networks-unsecure/

Govt relies on Facebook "narcissism" to spot fake marriages, fraud

By Jacqui Cheng

Can the government get a full picture of who you are by friending you on Facebook and monitoring your friends and family? The Department of Homeland Security thinks so, and is apparently willing to pose as that hot girl next door in order to become your friend.

The Electronic Frontier Foundation recently got its hands on a DHS document titled "Social Networking Sites and Their Importance to FDNS" (PDF) as part of its work on social network surveillance. The document generally details how social networks function and provides a list of popular sites that people around the world like to use, including Facebook, Badoo, Imeem, MySpace, Windows Live Spaces, and others.

However, the document also highlights to agents the importance of amassing a lengthy friend list to many social network users, and how they can take advantage of it. "Narcissistic tendencies in many people fuels a need to have a large group of 'friends' link to their pages and many of these people accept cyber-friends that they don’t even know," reads the document. "This provides an excellent vantage point for FDNS to observe the daily life of beneficiaries and petitioners who are suspected of fraudulent activities."

http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2010/10/govt-takes-advantage-of-facebook-narcissism-to-check-on-users.ars

Digg bringing back the bury, changing its look

by Josh Lowensohn

In a note introducing himself to users, Digg's latest CEO Matt Williams, who came on at the end of August, today penned an apology to the Digg community, saying that changes are on the way that should remedy some of the biggest complaints that have cropped up since the company completely retooled the site in late August.

"As many of you know, the launch of Digg v4 didn't go smoothly, and we're deeply sorry that we disappointed our Digg community in the process," Williams said. "Thank you for your patience and your extremely candid feedback--we hear you loud and clear."

http://news.cnet.com/8301-27076_3-20019384-248.html?tag=topTechContentWrap;editorPicks

New Apple music subscription rumor pegs price at $10/month

By Jacqui Cheng 

Just because Apple didn't announce a music streaming service at its September media event, it doesn't mean the rumors are dead yet. The New York Post—which has a checkered history with rumors—claims that Apple is still in talks with music labels to roll out a monthly subscription service, citing unnamed music industry sources.

The number being tossed around is $10 to $15 per month for the streaming subscription, though a number of details are still left in the air, such as how much music users would be able to access in a month, and for how long. If Apple followed the same model as other subscription services out there, the answers to those questions would be "unlimited" and "until the subscription is canceled." There's no guarantee it will play out that way, though, as Apple likes to do its own thing.

http://arstechnica.com/apple/news/2010/10/new-apple-music-subscription-rumor-pegs-price-at-10month.ars

US Chamber of Commerce: “Censoring Foreign P2P Sites Not Censorship”

by Jared Moya

  Steve Tepp, Senior Director of Internet Counterfeiting and Piracy for the U.S. Chamber’s Global Intellectual Property Center, argues that recently proposed Combating Online Infringement and Counterfeits Act does not amount to ” foreign political censorship” even though the bill would force ISPs to “prevent the importation into the United States of goods and services offered by an Internet site dedicated to infringing activities,” and it’s unlikely accused website operators from around the globe would be able to appear in a US courtroom to dispute the charges.

The US Chamber of Commerce is trying to counter critics claims that recently proposed legislation would not be tantamount to “foreign political censorship.”

http://www.zeropaid.com/news/90904/us-chamber-of-commerce-censorin-foreign-p2p-sites-not-censorship/

FBI drive for encryption backdoors is déjà vu for security experts

By Ryan Singel, wired.com 

The FBI now wants to require all encrypted communications systems to have backdoors for surveillance, according to a New York Times report, and to the nation's top crypto experts it sounds like a battle they've fought before.

Back in the 1990s, in what's remembered as the crypto wars, the FBI and NSA argued that national security would be endangered if they did not have a way to spy on encrypted e-mails, IMs and phone calls. After a long protracted battle, the security community prevailed after mustering detailed technical studies and research that concluded that national security was actually strengthened by wide use of encryption to secure computers and sensitive business and government communications.

http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2010/09/fbi-drive-for-encryption-backdoors-is-deja-vu-for-security-experts.ars

Twitter worms spread quickly thanks to blatant security flaw

By Peter Bright | Last updated about 9 hours ago

Anyone checking twitter.com this morning was probably greeted with a mess of JavaScript, mouseover effects, and spam retweets, after a flaw in the site's handling of hyperlinks allowed attackers to inject scripts into Twitter's pages. The mere act of visiting the site with scripting enabled was sufficient to cause exploitation. Payloads ranged from the harmless—tweets with a black background—to the more malicious—redirection to porn sites.

http://arstechnica.com/security/news/2010/09/twitter-worms-spread-quickly-thanks-to-blatant-security-flaw.ars

P2P defendants demand legal fees from Far Cry filmmaker

By Nate Anderson | Last updated 21 minutes ago

Lawyers for the US Copyright Group have sued more than 14,000 people in 2010, all of them in the federal courts of Washington, DC. Individuals have moved to quash the subpoenas that would expose their names, but these have been almost wholly rejected, in large part because they were written (sometimes by hand) by individual defendants making inappropriate arguments. But now, some defendants are fighting back in a much savvier way, with actual lawyers. And they want their pound of flesh from rightsholders.

The Far Cry case targets more than 4,000 "Doe" defendants alleged to have shared that particular Uwe Boll film using BitTorrent, and it's in that case that a major "Omnibus Motion" has now been filed. A group of defendants have hired several DC lawyers to file a joint motion demanding that the subpoenas in the case be quashed, that the defendants be dismissed from the litigation, and that Boll's production company cover their legal expenses (something probably not anticipated by Boll's firm, Achte/Neunte Boll Kino Beteilingungs GmbH, when it signed on with US Copyright Group to score some cash).

http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2010/09/turnabout-p2p-defendants-demand-legal-fees-from-film-company.ars

Saddle up: world's smallest airline seat unveiled

Would you fly shoe horned in too a seat so small that your cat would struggle to fit, well some of the worlds airlines consider their customers to be no more than mere cattle as they prepare to increase plane seating to the detriment of passenger comfort and safety. Greed pure and simple as this article from the Melbourne Age details.

By Craig Platt

If you find economy class seats too cramped for comfort, we have bad news: they may be about to get even smaller.

Italian airline seat and interiors manufacturer Aviointeriors has designed a saddle-like seat with just 23 inches of seat pitch (the space between seats) – significantly smaller than the average 32 inches in economy class. Even the highest-density airline seating normally offers 28 inches of seat pitch

http://www.theage.com.au/travel/travel-news/saddle-up-worlds-smallest-airline-seat-unveiled-20100914-15ad6.html?rand=1284447337070

UK teen banned from US after sending threatening Obama email

The USA may talk about free speech and as long as you don’t call the president a prick and you are located in the US it probably still does, However if your any where else in the world watch out as this article demonstrates and oh don’t send offensive emails it can cost you your right to travel.

Not allowed into US for life

By Marc Chacksfield

Dear Mr Obama *hic*

A 17-year-old teenager from Bedfordshire has found himself with a lifetime ban from the US, after it was found that he sent a threatening email to President Barack Obama.

Luke Angel from Silsoe, sent the email while drunk and called the president abusive names after watching a documentary on the 9/11 attacks.

After the email was sent, the FBI intercepted the message and contacted police in the UK about the incident.

Read more: http://www.techradar.com/news/internet/uk-teen-banned-from-us-after-sending-threatening-obama-email-716306#ixzz0zXf73HF6

Claimed HDCP master key leak could be fatal to DRM scheme

By Peter Bright

High-bandwidth Digital Content Protection (HDCP), the copy protection system used to prevent the making of perfect digital copies of audio and video data sent over DisplayPort, HDMI, and DVI interfaces, may have been blown out of the water if a post made to pastebin.com yesterday is what it claims to be. The post purports to contain the HDCP "master key," a 40×40 matrix of 56-bit numbers, which is used by the HDCP licensing company, Digital Content Protection (DCP), to generate the private keys used in all HDCP devices.

http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2010/09/claimed-hdcp-master-key-leak-could-be-fatal-to-drm-scheme.ars

Brisbane atheist burns Koran and Bible

Courtney Trenwith

A Brisbane atheist is bracing himself for a criminal investigation after posting an online video showing him burning the Koran and Bible.

Lawyer Alex Stewart appears to smoke marijuana using pages from the religious texts, before rating which "burns better".

The homemade video was posted on video sharing website YouTube on Friday.

http://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/queensland/brisbane-atheist-burns-koran-and-bible-20100913-157ao.html

The Never Ending Pencil

Designers: U Jung Heo & Sa Yoeng Kim

To cut a long story short, what we have here is a simple writing tool called the Continuous Pencil, which can be used till the very end. We usually end up discarding pencil stubs…I know my children waste too many saying that short pencils are uncomfortable to hold. So basically you keep increasing the length of your stubs with a handy interim-headless-long stick that fits snugly into its rear. Quite simple and straight, but is it a refinement of the 1 + 1 Pencil?

http://www.yankodesign.com/2010/09/10/never-ending-pencil/

when life gets a little much, sleep on it 

I found this on the web @ http://semisorted.wordpress.com/, and I love it , this is the most brilliant photo ever . kudos to the person who took it and the cat

Panasonic adds Netflix streaming to 2010 TVs

Viera Cast-equipped tech gets streamed movies

By Matthew Bolton

Panasonic extends its Viera Cast service

US owners of this year's range of Panasonic's Viera Cast TVs and Blu-ray players will find that they can now stream video from Netflix, thanks to a software update.

The new service sits alongside what was already on offer, including Amazon video on demand, Skype, Pandora and YouTube.

While UK users won't be able to take advantage of the latest feature, Panasonic says it's "constantly looking to provide the best possible entertainment experience for our customers", so maybe we can hope to see it match Samsung and integrate LoveFilm streaming in the future.

Read more: http://www.techradar.com/news/television/hdtv/panasonic-adds-netflix-streaming-to-2010-tvs-715673#ixzz0zArTdI9x

park your pirate ship in Switzerland, it won't get spied on there 

By Nate Anderson | Last updated about 5 hours ago

Switzerland, a longtime haven for all kinds of financial shenanigans, has just expanded its reputation for "discretion" to cover file-sharing as well. That's the conclusion of Logistep AG, anyway, as a Swiss court has just gutted its P2P surveillance business with a ruling that says gathering even publicly available information is illegal.

Logistep has operated in Switzerland since 2004, doing what all of these firms do: trolling BitTorrent sites for movies, music, or software, then connecting to swarms and logging the information of everyone offering the file. Bits of the file are downloaded as proof that these aren't simply "mistitled" files, and information like IP address, file hash value, and time of day are recorded in a giant spreadsheet. Content providers who rely on Logistep can take this information and submit it to local courts, seeking to identify and then sue individual file-swappers.

http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2010/09/switzerland-gathering-ip-addresses-from-bittorrent-sites-illegal.ars

Windows Phone aims to bury its past (and iPhone)

by Ina Fried

Microsoft's Windows Phone team staged a mock funeral for the iPhone and BlackBerry on Friday, a sign of both Redmond's ambition and the immensity of the challenge facing the new phone operating system, which is slated to hit the market next month.

Microsoft jokingly buried the competition with a mock funeral on Friday, but the question is whether Windows Phone 7 will really be able to take on Android, the iPhone and others when it hits the market next month.

Two hearses were among a dozen floats that were part of a parade that took place on campus on Friday to celebrate the completion of a total overhaul of Microsoft's cell phone strategy.

Photos of the event turned up on Flickr, but Microsoft was less than eager to talk about the goings-on.

"The Microsoft event on campus was an internal event to celebrate the finalization of Windows Phone 7 software," a company representative said in a statement.

Read more: http://news.cnet.com/8301-13860_3-20016134-56.html?tag=cnetRiver#ixzz0zASaBiVe

No, you don't own it: Court upholds EULAs, threatens digital resale

By Nate Anderson 

The US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit todayruled (PDF) on a long-standing case involving used software on eBay, and it came to an important decision: if a company says you don't have the right to resell a program, you don't have that right. Could this mean the end of the resale market for all digital content? Yup. But the court says it had no choice.

The case is Vernor v. Autodesk, in which Timothy Vernor made his living from selling items (including software) on eBay. Vernor had picked up some old copies of AutoCAD from an architect's office sale, complete with their serial numbers, and he put them up on eBay noting that they were not currently installed on any computer. Sounds legal, right?

http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2010/09/the-end-of-used-major-ruling-upholds-tough-software-licenses.ars

Google Instant 'invented by Yahoo! in 2005'

Ex-Yahooligan rues death of LiveSearch

By Cade Metz in San Francisco 

A former Yahoo! product manager has claimed that Google Instant was invented by Yahoo! in 2005.
In a blog post, former Yahoo! search product manager Steven Hood points out that in 2005, the company rolled out to tool known as Live Search, an AJAX-based online application remarkably similar to Google Instant.
"[Google Instant] is a fundamental change to a user interaction model that’s been largely unchallenged for years," Hood writes. "By all accounts this is a bold and brave innovation. Which is why it may surprise you to learn that Google Instant is actually five years old. Yahoo built it back in 2005."
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/09/10/google_instant_v_yahoo_live_search/