Is the sky really falling? Who would benefit from these attacks?

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20110530/tc_nm/us_australia_cyber

Australia warns on cyber attacks on resource firms

Australia's government urged companies on Monday to tighten vigilance over cyber attacks launched offshore against some of the world's biggest resource firms and other businesses, warning high-tech threats were intensifying.

Lockheed Martin Corp, the U.S. government's top information technology provider, raised concern about cyber hacking at the weekend, complaining of a pattern of frequent attacks on it from around the world.

Australian Attorney-General Robert McClelland's comments also came after the outgoing head of Australia's biggest oil and gas company, Woodside Petroleum, said cyber hacking attacks were now coming "from everywhere".

“Genome, citizen!” and because you never know when you'll have to prove that you are racially pure...

A future where we carry our genomes on our smartphones

By Dissent, May 30, 2011

Steve Dow reports:

It could be a grief-saving app of the future, the day we carry our gene sequence in our phones.

When two people want to have children, they’ll bump genomes and a database might reply: ”Think again, you both have faulty disease-causing copies of the same gene.”

That’s the hope of the Australian geneticist Richard Cotton, who heads the international Human Variome Project, which aims to collect all variations of all genes that cause all disease from all countries.

Read more on The Age.

“We only have the best interest of the little bastards in mind!”

http://www.pogowasright.org/?p=23138

Ie: CCTV use in schools criticised

May 30, 2011 by Dissent

Elaine Edwards reports:

A secondary school in Co Kildare was ordered to remove monitoring cameras from student toilets after parents made a complaint to the Data Protection Commissioner.

The case is outlined in the commissioner’s annual report for 2010, published today. It notes that use of CCTV continues to give rise to regular complaints. [Imagine that! Bob]

Cameras were installed in the student toilets, and the students “objected to this intrusiveness”, the report says. “When their concerns were dismissed, they walked out of the school in protest.” As the cameras were operating in contravention of the Data Protection Acts, the commissioner ordered their immediate removal.

Read more on Irish Times.

Related: Annual Report 2010 and press release.

I've noticed many of these “widget collection” sites that allow registration via existing Google or Twitter (etc.) accounts. Simplifies signin and lets them learn whatever Google and Twitter will share.

http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/create-impressive-flipbooks-free-flipsnack/

Create Impressive Flipbooks For Free With FlipSnack

FlipSnack is a service brought to you by SnackTools, which makes it incredibly easy to create flipbooks for free. Using the step by step wizard, it couldn’t be simpler to create a flipbook and host it on their website, or embed it on your own.

With a variety of templates to choose from, easy sharing of flipbooks on social networking sites, and viewer statistics, FlipSnack offers an amazing variety of features for free. If you’d prefer to use a desktop app to create a flipbook, check out FlipSuite, a Windows-only app we’ve reviewed in the past, previously known as Flipbook Printer.

To use FlipSnack, you can register for a free account or log in using your Twitter, Facebook, Google, Yahoo or MySpace account.

A “Brag rag” for my niece and nephew?

http://www.makeuseof.com/dir/supershirter-create-shirt-facebook-friends/

SuperShirter: Create & Order A Shirt With Facebook Profile Photos Of Your Friends

What can be a better symbol of your friendship then to wear a t-shirt with all of your friends’ pictures printed on it? SuperShirter is a new web app that allows you to create a t-shirt with Facebook profile photos of all your friends printed on it. To create the shirt simply log into your Facebook account and allow the app access.

Once the shirt is created, you can choose from 5 different sizes and have it shipped anywhere in the world. The shirt itself is not free and costs a little under 15 euros ($21). All the photos are nicely arranged on the t-shirt as a collage and gives a great personal touch to it.

A feature that would make the app even better is the option to choose the friends you want to include.