“Microsoft software will sell for just $3 (£1.50) in some parts of the world in an attempt to double the number of global PC users … The firm wants to bring computing to a further one billion people by 2015 … Governments in developing countries can purchase the cut-price software, if they provide free PCs [...]

“Iraq is now the world’s fourth highest user of the death penalty, human rights group Amnesty International has said … At least 270 people have been sentenced to death since mid-2004, often after unfair trials the report says, and more than 100 people have been hanged … Only China, Iran and Pakistan used the death [...]

I’m in the middle of revising but, during the course of a minor detour from my e-mail, I came across this and just had to post it From Slideshare, here.

About 17 minutes ago, Finals Fear kicked in big-time. My finals are in about 5 weeks, and I still have tonnes of work to do for them so this is just a quick note to say that my blog’s going on holiday for a wee while. I might post intermittently but don’t expect regular [...]

“On April 24th, the European Parliament will vote on IPRED2, the Second Intellectual Property Enforcement Directive. With one stroke, they risk turning thousands of innocent EU citizens and businesses into copycriminals … If IPRED2 passes in its current form, ‘aiding, abetting, or inciting’ copyright infringement ‘on a commercial scale’ in the EU will become a [...]

“The UK must not shy away from trying to resolve international crises despite the ‘terrible misadventure’ in Iraq, a report from charity Oxfam argues … It warns that it would be disastrous if the country was put off sending troops to future humanitarian crises like those seen in Sierra Leone and Kosovo … But Oxfam [...]

Painting the Mona Lisa using only Microsoft Paint. From YouTube, here.

“Ukrainian president Viktor Yushchenko may have overcome Russian political interference and dioxin poisoning to triumph during the 2004 orange revolution, but he’s now at risk of losing his hold on power … even the most Solomonic judgment may not be enough to repair the bitter rift between the two democratically elected branches of Ukraine’s fractured [...]

“It’s the flip side of what many of us point to as one of the internet’s great strengths — we discover we are not alone in our desires, finding community and connection … Infidelity and pornography are not new … [But] Now, our sexual behavior is documented and searchable and potentially duplicated for all the [...]

As if Big Brother weren’t bad enough, website Justin.tv follows a guy in San Francisco who wears a head-mounted camera everywhere he goes. Literally, everywhere. It’s interesting for about 5 minutes then it just gets very inane, but I’m interested because I want to know how long he can go before he gets sick of [...]

The RIAA and MPAA are lobbying legislators in California for an exemption to a new bill. The new law aims to make pretexting - the use of deception to find out personal information - illegal. However, the music and movie bodies want to be given special permission to carry on misleading people and using false [...]

The Guardian reports on an MoD report on the “future strategic context” facing the military. It includes an electromagnetic pulse weapon by 2035, able to wipe out entire communication networks; the middle class fulfilling the proletariat role that Marx spoke of; unmanned weapons platforms which could kill without human intervention; massive population growth and resulting [...]

Thanks to Paul for permission to reproduce this. I think it sums up the media over-reaction pretty well… See the full size strip on Devil Duck’s Pond, here.

“The government last night capitulated to an overwhelming public outcry over the sale of interviews by the sailors and marines detained by Iran, as it rushed through a ban on any further media deals by armed forces personnel.”
It’s appalling that it takes a public outcry before the government realises that it’s wrong to reward people [...]

“A woman left infertile after cancer therapy is due to learn a court’s final judgement on her plea to use frozen embryos fertilised by an ex-partner.”
I understand that this is the woman’s last chance to have a child, but when she and her ex-partner decided to freeze the embryos, they both knew that either one [...]

“It seems that some students in Virginia are not happy with the anti-plagiarism service Turnitin. The company checks prose submitted by its customers for signs that it has been copied in whole or part by comparing it to a large database of works that it maintains. Trouble is, it also adds the submitted prose to [...]

From the Man and Sperm webcomic, here.

“Eritrea is fuelling the insurgency in Somalia in order to wage a proxy war against its arch-foe Ethiopia, according to the top US official for Africa … Both countries [Ethiopia and Eritrea] remain in a state of war-readiness because Ethiopia refuses to accept the judgment [sic] of an independent boundary commission as to the location [...]

“Five Turkish punk rockers and their agent face up to 18 months in jail for insult after a bureaucrat took offence at their song criticising the country’s unpopular university entrance exam.”
The Guardian notes that this isn’t the first time Turkey’s interpretation of freedom of expression has come to the fore. Full article here.

“I recently wrote a post about British versus American slang and terminology as a reference to help people understand the differences.”
This is important for bloggers as results returned from searches, both external and internal, are affected by this. It’s an issue with different spellings (e.g. American: “favorite”, British: “favourite”), different preferences (e.g. “oriented” is acceptable [...]