Personal identity has taken on a new meaning in the digital age, where basic facts like your name, address or age are far less important to some people than the collected records of what you were looking at online. United States marketers will nearly double their spending on such advertising to -billion next year from -million in 2007.
Morocco and Western Sahara’s independence movement kept negotiations alive on the future of the resource-rich territory, agreeing on Tuesday to meet again in August. But statements by the two sides suggested neither had made concessions on the key question of whether Western Sahara would become independent.
Faced with concerns by European online privacy advocates, Google is promising to obscure information about people’s internet searches after only 18 months. Google’s global privacy counsel revealed late on Monday the Mountain View, California, firm’s policy change in a letter to the Article 29 Data Protection Working Party in Belgium.
A senator is proposing a modest step to improve the efficiency of food aid donations from the United States, but the plan falls short of the Bush administration’s vision for reform. The US would spend -million over four years on pilot projects to vet aid donations that use crops purchased in developing countries.
Astronauts on the International Space Station and visiting space shuttle Atlantis said goodbye on Monday as they closed the hatch between their two ships in preparation for the shuttle’s departure on Tuesday. The space travellers spoke warm words of friendship and shook hands before the seven Atlantis crewmembers floated into their spacecraft.
Microsoft launched a redesigned MSN portal optimised for cellphones on Sunday, stepping up its offering at a time when more powerful devices increase the demand for richer content on handsets. There’s a new battle, a new frontline developing on the mobile phone,” said Phil Holden, Microsoft’s director of mobile web services.
Sudan and seven other sub-Saharan African countries are among the 10 nations in the world most vulnerable to violent internal conflict and deteriorating conditions, according to a private survey. In the third annual ”failed state” index, Sudan was judged most at risk of failure.
From the steamy to the bizarre and the downright embarrassing, the marathon grind of the 2008 White House campaign is rich with missteps, mirth and melodies. When a racy brunette in a steamy video declares a crush on Democratic hopeful Barack Obama, it’s clear that the hoopla surrounding this election is like nothing that came before.
They range from surgeons and scholars to illiterate refugees from some of the world’s worst hellholes — a dizzyingly varied stream of African immigrants to the United States. More than one million strong and growing, they are enlivening American cities and altering how the nation confronts its racial identity.
A convicted double murderer in Texas is holding a joke contest on the internet so he can use the winning entry as his last words when he is sentenced to die by lethal injection on June 26. Convicted of murdering two neighbours in 1991, Patrick Knight has spent the past 16 years on death row in Texas.
Everyone looks forward to summertime — but computers hate it. That’s because along with summertime comes a computer’s worst enemy: heat. Too much heat can cause hard drives to fail prematurely and entire systems to become slower and less stable.
Nasa reported major progress on glitches in a critical computer system on the International Space Station on Friday as astronauts repaired insulation damage to the space shuttle Atlantis during a spacewalk. Four of the six boxes or ”lanes” that comprise the computer were up and running.
The Wall Street Journal, whose parent Dow Jones is the target of a -billion takeover offer by News Corporaiton, is set to shake up its newsroom by reassigning and replacing several top editors, the New York Times reported on its website.
Countries that take the lead in directing domestic efforts against HIV and Aids seem to have the greatest success. ”We get the best results in countries where the host government assumes the leadership for the response,” said Dr Tom Kenyon, chief deputy coordinator of the United States President’s Emergency Plan for Aids Relief.
Apple launched a version of its Safari web browser for Windows-based PCs on Monday, pitting it against Microsoft’s Internet Explorer and Mozilla’s Firefox. The free program is the latest move by Apple to expand its reach beyond its Macintosh computer while attracting converts to its products.
Russian revolutionaries and rebellious teenagers were the big hits at the Tony Awards on Sunday when Tom Stoppard’s The Coast of the Utopia and the rock musical Spring Awakening took home the top honours. Stoppard’s epic trilogy won seven of the awards given for Broadway productions and performances, including best play and director.
Astronauts on space shuttle Atlantis prepared for a walk in space on Monday to add a giant new piece to the International Space Station, and Nasa engineers pondered whether a bump in the ship’s heat protection system needs repair.
The top antitrust official at the United States Justice Department last month backed Microsoft by urging state prosecutors to reject a confidential complaint filed by Google, the New York Times reported on Sunday. Google accused Microsoft of designing its Vista operating system to discourage use of Google’s desktop search program.
The space shuttle Atlantis winged toward a rendezvous with the International Space Station on Sunday, lugging a heavy payload for the orbital outpost and troubled only by a small tear in a heat-protecting thermal blanket. Nasa plans to fly 12 more missions to complete the station.
Libya, citing cost and liability concerns, has informed the United States of plans to back out of a contract to destroy its mustard gas stocks as promised under a landmark 2003 agreement, United States officials said. The State Department played down the development and insisted Tripoli remains committed to getting rid of its chemical weapons agents.
A sobbing Paris Hilton was ordered back to jail on Friday as a judge overruled a sheriff’s decision to place the hotel heiress under house arrest for psychological problems after she spent three days behind bars. The slender 26-year-old celebrity trembled and cried quietly throughout the hearing, then broke into loud sobs when the judge ordered her back into custody.
The United States space shuttle Atlantis blasted off on a construction mission to the International Space Station on Friday, ending a three-month grounding to repair the ship’s hail-battered fuel tank. The launch bolstered Nasa’s hopes of finishing work on the -billion orbital research outpost.
Swede Fredrik Jacobson defied gusting winds to hold a share of the lead with Australia’s Adam Scott in the opening round of the St Jude Championship in Memphis, Tennessee on Thursday. Twice US Open champion Retief Goosen and American Brian Gay carded 68s to share third place
Apple has not yet sold a single iPhone, but investors are driving up the company’s shares to record highs as they bank that the combined telephone and media player will be a major hit. A slew of brokerages are raising their targets on Apple’s stock to as much as — equivalent to about 40 times its expected fiscal 2008 profit.
A White House-backed Bill to revamp United States immigration laws stalled in the US Senate on Thursday, handing President George Bush a major legislative setback. The sharply divided Senate refused to limit debate on the fragile compromise hammered out by a bipartisan group of senators and the White House.
His pompadoured henchman, Silvio Dante, is barely breathing and full of holes; his brother-in-law Bobby is dead and Tony Soprano himself is left in a darkened bedroom, clutching a machine-gun. Even his therapist has dropped him as a patient after being convinced that ”the talking cure” doesn’t work on sociopaths.
The chief prosecutor of the International Criminal court asked the United Nations Security Council on Thursday to put pressure on Sudan because of its refusal to hand over two suspects charged with war crimes. The ICC issued arrest warrants in February for Ahmad Harun, a former state minister of interior, and Ali Kushayb, a militia leader.
Hotel heiress Paris Hilton was released from prison on Thursday for medical reasons after serving just over three days of a 23-day sentence but she will be confined to her home for 40 days, officials said. Steve Whitmore of the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s office said Hilton had been ”reassigned” though he declined to give specific information on her medical condition.
The United Nations and the African Union were close to a deal on Wednesday on fielding 23Â 000 peacekeepers in Sudan’s violent Darfur region, but full deployment is not expected until next year at the earliest. Sudan has still to agree to the large force, after it refused to have an operation controlled solely by the United Nations.
David Bowie spent less than a minute on stage, the Beastie Boys asked if anyone could fix one of their computers and Manchester United boasted they had given the world David Beckham. The somewhat surreal occasion was a gala ceremony in New York on Tuesday for the 11th annual Webby Awards, the ”Oscars of the internet”.
Former White House aide Lewis ”Scooter” Libby was sentenced on Tuesday to 30 months in prison for perjury and obstruction in a case which also put a glaring spotlight on the flawed United States case for waging war against Iraq. Libby, formerly one of the most trusted aides to US Vice-President Dick Cheney, was convicted in March for lying to federal investigators.
United States Democratic Representative William Jefferson, accused of hiding 000 of intended bribes in his freezer, was charged on Monday with soliciting bribes and paying off a Nigerian official. Jefferson (63) a member of Congress since 199, faces a maximum of 235 years in prison if convicted.