US votes to ban social networking sites

The US House of Representative has voted almost unanimously to ban social networking sites from schools and public libraries. The Deleting Online Predators bill was passed by 410 votes to 15 and forces taxpayer-funded bodies to block children's access to sites such as MySpace. Opponents of the bill claim that its definition of social networking sites is so vague that the law could be used willy-nilly by the administering body, the Federal Communications Commission, to restrict access to sites that were never meant to come under its remit. ...more

Encarta 2002 - preview

Microsoft has given us a sneaky peak at Encarta 2002, so we thought we'd give you one too. The Reference comes on a single DVD or 4 CDs and unsurprisingly is the complete one stop knowledge shop it was in 2001. More than 650 people work on the product across eight teams producing localised editions, with a dedicated team for the UK. ...more

MEPs reject CMBA copyright requests

The European Parliament appears to have rejected calls to include copyright infringement among the activities that may be investigated under the forthcoming EU data retention laws. MEPs decided to dismiss a request by the Creative Media and Business Alliance (CMBA), a collection of record and movie companies and trade bodies. The organisation was asking them to modify the proposed laws so that stored data could be used to investigate any offence, not just the 32 crimes that the EU classifies as 'serious': terrorism, murder, drug trafficking and human trafficking. ...more

Japan leaks nuclear data, again

It seems there are no secrets in Japan. Nuclear secrets, sensitive documents and personal information are publicly, and freely, available. According to reports, the latest instance of the country's information largesse involves sensitive security information about a thermoelectric power plant run by the Chubu Electric Power Company, including the plant's security arrangements, the names and addresses of its security personnel, and other confidential information. ...more

Iomega Cliks on MP3

Iomega is attempting to revive its Clik disk format with a combined digital music player and Clik drive. The HipZip takes 40MB Clik disks, or PocketZip as the format's now called, and connects to a PC much like the Clik drives of old. The player comes with synchronisation software for transferring files, plus ripping software for creating MP3s or Windows Media Audio (WMA) files. ...more