For years, futurists have dreamed of machines that can read minds, then act on instructions as they are thought. Now, human trials are set to begin on a brain-computer interface involving implants. Cyberkinetics of Foxboro, Massachusetts, has received approval to begin a clinical trial in which four-square-millimetre chips will be placed beneath the skulls of paralysed patients.
Microsoft is to pay -million to Silicon Valley company Intertrust to settle a lawsuit that the software giant illegally used technology for protecting music, movies and other digital content against piracy, the firms announced on Monday.
Just one month after taking office in 2001, United States President George Bush bluntly told Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf to bring terror kingpin Osama bin Laden to justice, the official September 11 inquiry was told on Thursday. Musharraf was also told to abandon support for the Taliban rulers of Afghanistan.
The popular online search engines run by Google and Yahoo! are banning ads from online casinos, reacting to a federal crackdown on internet gambling. Google and Yahoo! are imposing the ban as federal authorities increase pressure on the media to stop ”aiding and abetting” offshore internet casinos that have been illegally accepting bets in the United States.
The United States government has warned local law enforcement authorities that al-Qaeda and other terrorist groups could soon launch a series of attacks on US passenger trains and buses. The US action follows the discovery in Spain of a new bomb planted on a high-speed railway line linking Madrid and Seville.
Microsoft and Sun Microsystems reached a ,6-billion antitrust and patent settlement on Friday, resolving longstanding legal issues between the two bitter tech rivals. Under the settlement, Microsoft will pay -million to resolve pending antitrust issues and -million to resolve patent issues.
The US has approved the use of oral fluid samples with a rapid HIV test kit that provides screening results with more than 99% accuracy.
United States Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry says he believes people are born gay but are not guaranteed the right to marry within their own gender. ”I think it’s entirely who you are from birth, personally,” Kerry said in an interview to be broadcast on MTV.
It’s time to stop taking television addicts for granted, Microsoft chairperson Bill Gates told advertising executives. Gates said on Friday advertising executives need to prepare for a world in which people will watch TV how and when they want to — and advertisers will need to figure out how to get commercials to them anyway.
Hewlett-Packard says it is yielding to large clients’s demands and expanding Linux distribution — a decision that could force Microsoft to reconsider some of its corporate pricing for Windows. HP announced a partnership with Novell this week and plans to package its SuSE version of Linux with computers bound for corporate clients.
Microsoft’s rivals lauded Wednesday’s European Union antitrust decision imposing a record fine on the software giant and ordering changes to the Windows operating system used in Europe. The EU ordered Bill Gates’s firm to offer a European version of its all-conquering Windows operating system without the Media Player program within 90 days.
Shopping for a new computer, whether a desktop or notebook, is always an unsettling experience. Since your last computer purchase, a lot has happened in the world of technology. New acronyms and new options await you. So how do you sort through the jumble of paraphernalia that makes up a PC today?
A New York state judge banned a mayor from presiding over same-sex marriages on Friday, while San Francisco officials argued that refusal to accept gay marriages would be unconstitutional — all part of battle over gay rights that is moving to the courtroom and state houses across the United States.
United States Secretary of State Colin Powell on Friday discussed Haiti’s political situation with South African Minister of Foreign Affairs Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma, one day after she called for an inquiry into former Haitian president Jean-Bertrand Aristide’s departure from his country.
Powell asked SA to take Aristide
Looting continues in Haiti
Michael Eisner probably won’t lose his job at the annual Walt Disney Company shareholders meeting this week in Philadelphia but his foes intend to make sure he at least feels nervous about the possibility.
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/ 20 February 2004
In what critics call a delay tactic, San Francisco is taking California to court on grounds that its ban on same-sex marriages is unconstitutional. The city, which filed the lawsuit late on Thursday, has sanctioned more than 2 900 gay unions since it began defying state law last week.
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/ 19 February 2004
Advertising writers in Florida were planning to pitch haemorrhoid-relief products with a commercial featuring Johnny Cash’s classic song <i>Ring of Fire</i>, but his family says there’s no way they’ll let it happen. "We would never allow the song to be demeaned like that," said Cash’s daughter, singer Rosanne Cash.
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/ 17 February 2004
Haitian President Jean Bertrand Aristide vowed to remain in office until his term runs out in 2006, and charged that the rebels trying to depose him fear elections, in an interview published by The New York Times on Tuesday. He is facing a rebellion in several cities that since February 5 has cost the lives of more than 55 people.
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/ 17 February 2004
The board of directors for Walt Disney rejected a takeover bid by cable television giant Comcast, officials said. The board noted that the current offer to acquire Disney by swapping shares of both companies would undervalue Disney’s holdings.
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/ 16 February 2004
About 1 100 marine scientists worldwide called on the United Nations to ban the use of deep-sea trawling nets, according to reports on Monday. They are destroying irreplaceably coral fields and sponges — ”like bulldozers”, according to the appeal.
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/ 15 February 2004
Gay and lesbian couples from across the United States answered the city of San Francisco’s Valentine’s Day invitation to wed in an unprecedented spree of same-sex marriages that has challenged California law and sent conservative groups scrambling for court intervention.
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/ 9 February 2004
John Kerry’s three-state United States weekend rout, capped by his coast to victory in Maine, pushed him closer to the Democratic nomination and left his rivals scrambling to find a way to stop the front-runner. Kerry’s winning streak is beginning to demoralise his opponents.
<li><a class=’standardtextsmall’ href="http://www.mg.co.za/Content/l3.asp?ao=30861">Anxious Bush on charm offensive</a>
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/ 5 February 2004
The investigation into the appearance of the deadly poison ricin on Capitol Hill this week and earlier in two ominous letters is focusing on a mysterious ”Fallen Angel” who threatens to use ricin as a weapon unless new United States trucking regulations are rolled back.
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/ 5 February 2004
As Americans turn to the internet more often for election news, some websites that offer such news are providing less useful information than they did four years ago, a new study has found. The sites contained less original reporting and fewer links to external sites, and fewer opportunities for web surfers to interact with the sites.
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/ 3 February 2004
The Senate majority leader’s office apparently has suffered its second bioterror attack in three years, with another suspicious white powder delivered through the mail system — this time laced with poisonous ricin, officials said. "This is a criminal action," said Senator Bill Frist, a Republican from Tennessee.
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/ 30 December 2003
The deposed Iraqi leader could harken back to the trials of Nazi leaders and Japanese commanders after World War II to fight expected charges of genocide and war crimes, claiming he never personally killed anyone or that he had no control over atrocities committed in his name, defence lawyers and scholars say.
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/ 29 December 2003
Michael Jackson says he was manhandled by authorities when arrested last month on child molestation charges — and suffered a dislocated shoulder from the way he was handcuffed. ”It’s hurting me very badly,” Jackson told CBS’s 60 Minutes in an interview broadcast on Sunday.
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/ 28 December 2003
Investigators tentatively traced the first United States cow with mad cow disease to Canada, which could help determine the scope of the outbreak and might even limit the economic damage to the American beef industry. Some calves in a quarantined herd of 400 that included a male offspring of the sick cow likely will be killed.
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/ 27 December 2003
Michael Jackson said in an interview with the CBS television network that he still believes it’s acceptable to sleep with children and that he would ”slit my wrists” before he would hurt a child. Jackson, arrested on November 20 on suspicion of child molestation, denied the charges against him during the interview.
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/ 26 December 2003
A British lab has provided initial independent confirmation that the United States has its first case of mad cow disease, US agriculture officials said. Federal investigators have been labouring to trace the path the infected animal took from birth to slaughter.
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/ 25 December 2003
United States fast-food giants will have to act quickly to head off public fears over mad cow disease and convince consumers to keep eating hamburgers. World fast-food leader McDonald’s and its rivals such as Wendy’s and Burger King risk being among the main losers.
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/ 25 December 2003
Federal officials scrambled to trace the life of the first United States cow believed infected with mad cow disease while trying to contain the growing economic damage from a now-suspect food supply. On Wednesday country after country slapped import bans on American beef.