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Who would have thought that 'space faking' could ever be a problem? THE growing trend of online "space faking", where users masquerade as other people, has reignited concerns about the safety and security of social networking sites. While space faking is not a crime, federal Home Affairs Minister Bob Debus said such activity could be a precursor to identity theft. "This sort of activity can be innocent but you only have to take it a few steps forward to commit an identity crime," he said. "Clever people may be able to use fake identities to gather clues about your identity and then go on to commit a crime.
Psystar is claiming that Apple never copyrighted Mac OS X. So, what is this nonsense about Apple failing to copyright OS X? That’s what Psystar – the fly-by-night illegal Mac clone maker that Apple has sued for copyright infringement for rebundling OS X software with its computers – is claiming in the latest gambit to avoid getting shot out of the water in U.S. District Court. Psystar also made additional antitrust allegations, claiming that Apple inserts secret code to disable non-Apple hardware running OS X.
Apple continues to gain ground in the OS market. Microsoft's share of the operating system market is dropping, while Apple computers and handhelds have topped 10 percent for the first time, according to a new report on Internet-connected computers. Apple's share is just over 10 percent, if one combines the market share for both Macs and iPhones. Macs account for 9.63 percent of computers online. (Windows Mobile devices are included in the 88.7 percent figure.)
2008 was a really bad year for the music industry. Music fans have gone digital in a big way. It used to be that a music collection spanned numerous CD cases. Today, even the largest music collections can be stored on a single MP3 player. With the massive growth in digital music sales, the music industry is seeing profits drop significantly. Reuters reports that statistics released this week by Nielsen SoundScan show that 2008 was the worst year for music sales since 1991 when the firm began monitoring the category. The numbers show that total album sales fell 14% over the year with 428.4 million units sold during the 52 weeks ending on December 28.
But the music industry is fighting back. The music industry has taken some extreme measures to counter piracy, but it hasn’t found the silver bullet yet. The key is to come up with a service that will fulfill the needs of music lovers, and one that would even be embraced by the most hardcore pirate. With Spotify, this might just become possible. Spotify is a music service that gives users access to a huge library of music, through a lightweight application that looks like a mashup of the best parts of iTunes and Last.fm. Music is streamed, partly supported by P2P technology, but it plays instantly, like we’ve never seen before.
With another new year just past us, lets look back and laugh at Y2K. Another New Year has come and gone. This is the last year of the first decade of the 21st Century. It also means that we’ve had 9 years of computing since the Y2K bug was supposed reduce all technology to a smoldering puddle and leave the entire planet living like the Amish. I found a video that recaps some of the Panic In The Streets mentality that lead up to New Years Day 2000. Although nothing came of it, there was legitimate fear - most of it based on ignorance, technological fear, and religious fervor.
Virgin Galactic has found itself a spaceport. Virgin Galactic has signed with the state of New Mexico to build the nation's first rocketplane spaceport for flinging wealthy customers out of Earth's atmosphere. The suborbital-tourism firm owned by British billionaire Richard Branson inked the 20-year lease agreement this week to establish its HQ at the planned state-funded facility, dubbed Spaceport America. Construction of the $198m spaceport is expected to begin as early as April, thanks to the Federal Aviation Administration granting a launch license to the New Mexico Spaceport Authority just days before the pact with Virgin Galactic.
The Mars Rovers are 5 years old. The US space agency's (Nasa) Mars rovers are celebrating a remarkable five years on the Red Planet. The first robot, named Spirit, landed on 3 January, 2004, followed by its twin, Opportunity, 21 days later. It was hoped the robots would work for at least three months; but their longevity in the freezing Martian conditions has surprised everyone. The rovers' data has revealed much about the history of water at Mars' equator billions of years ago.
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All original content copyright James Rolfe.
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