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/ 21 April 2008

Ernst van Dyk shines in Boston

South African Ernst van Dyk and Japan’s Wakako Tsuchida led all the way in winning the Boston Marathon wheelchair divisions on Monday. Van Dyk finished in one hour, 26 minutes and 49 seconds to win in Boston for the seventh time. Though it was the second slowest time of his seven victories, no one was near him when he crossed the finish line on Boylston Street.

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/ 26 March 2008

Scientists to test plan for ‘remote-control fish’

Call them Pavlov’s fish: scientists are testing a plan to train fish to catch themselves by swimming into a net when they hear a tone that signals feeding time. If it works, the system could eventually allow black sea bass to be released into the open ocean, where they would grow to market size, then swim into an underwater cage to be harvested.

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/ 28 November 2007

SA disappoints in global literacy study

Ten-year-olds in Russia, China’s Hong Kong and Singapore show the greatest reading ability among their peers, according to a global literacy study released on Wednesday. The worst performances came from South Africa, Morocco, Kuwait, Qatar, Indonesia, Iran, Trinidad and Tobago, Macedonia, Georgia and Romania.

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/ 27 November 2007

Using technology to stop software piracy

If the experience of the world’s largest software vendor is any guide, the industry’s best hope for reducing piracy rests with anti-copying technologies rather than in policing the legalistic user agreements that restrict how software can be used. Microsoft is locking software down through a programme it calls its Genuine Software Initiative.

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/ 9 November 2007

Why the idea of paid entries annoys Wikipedia

When a blogger revealed earlier this year that Microsoft wanted to pay him to fix purported inaccuracies in technical articles on Wikipedia, the software company endured online slams and a rebuke from the web encyclopedia’s founder for behaving unethically. But why is it so bad to pay someone to write something on Wikipedia?

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/ 26 September 2007

Tutu ‘devastated’ by Mugabe’s rule

South African Nobel Peace Prize laureate Desmond Tutu said on Tuesday he was ”devastated” by the human rights abuses of President Robert Mugabe’s government in Zimbabwe. Tutu said he struggles to understand how Mugabe changed so drastically after steering the country to independence in 1980.

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/ 16 August 2007

Who’s editing what on Wikipedia?

What edits on Wikipedia have been made by people in congressional offices, the CIA and the Church of Scientology? A new online tool called WikiScanner reveals answers to such questions. Many of the edits are predictably self-interested, but others hint at procrastinating office workers.

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/ 27 July 2007

Republican fund-raiser to feature machine guns

A planned Republican fund-raiser in New Hampshire aims to promote gun ownership in the United States by letting supporters fire powerful military-style weapons. The Manchester Republican Committee is inviting party members and their families to a ”Machine Gun Shoot” where, for , supporters can spend a day trying out automatic weapons.

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/ 25 July 2007

Facebook fights fraud lawsuit from Harvard rivals

Facebook, a popular social networking website, is headed to a United States court on Wednesday to try to quash allegations that its founder stole ideas for the company from a group of former Harvard University students. The long-running legal battle revolves around accusations, strongly denied by Facebook, that Mark Zuckerberg stole ideas for Facebook.

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/ 1 April 2007

Plan for big US offshore wind farm passes hurdle

A controversial plan to build the first large United States offshore wind-power farm won approval from Massachusetts authorities on Friday but still must clear federal regulatory hurdles. Cape Wind Associates has proposed constructing 130 wind turbines over 62 square kilometres in Nantucket Sound, within view of the wealthy Cape Cod resort region of Massachusetts.