China censoring Internet access at Olympics

BEIJING, China (AP) -- Olympic organizers are backtracking on another promise about coverage of the Beijing Games, keeping in place blocks on Internet sites in the Main Press Center and venues where reporters will work.

At the Olympic Green in Beijing, a foreign journalist uses Internet services provided in the Main Press Center.

The blocked sites will make it difficult for journalists to retrieve information, particularly on political and human rights stories the government dislikes.

On Tuesday, sites such as Amnesty International or any search for a site with Tibet in the address could not be opened at the Main Press Center, which will house about 5,000 print journalists when the games open Aug. 8.

"This type of censorship would have been unthinkable in Athens, but China seems to have more formalities," said Mihai Mironica, a journalist with ProTV in Romania. "If journalists cannot fully access the Internet here, it will definitely be a problem."

The censored Internet is the latest broken promise on press freedoms. In bidding for the games seven years ago, Chinese officials said the media would have "complete freedom to report." And in April, Hein Verbruggen and Kevan Gosper -- senior IOC members overseeing the games -- said they'd received assurances from Chinese officials that Internet censorship would be lifted for journalists during the games.

Inventor unveils $100,000 jet pack

OSHKOSH, Wisconsin (AP) -- This isn't how a jet pack is supposed to look, is it?

An inventor demonstrated a personal jet pack this week at a Wisconsin air show. But will anyone want to buy one?

Hollywood has envisioned jet packs as upside-down fire extinguishers strapped to people's backs. But Glenn Martin's invention is far more unwieldy -- a 250-pound piano-sized contraption that people settle into rather than strap on.

As thousands looked on Tuesday, the inventor's 16-year-old son donned a helmet, fastened himself to a prototype Martin jet pack and revved the engine, which sounded like a motorcycle. Harrison Martin eased about three feet off the ground, the engine roaring with a whine so loud that some kids covered their ears.

With two spotters preventing the jet pack from drifting in a mild wind, the pilot hovered for 45 seconds and then set the device down as the audience applauded.

The Martin jet pack can -- in theory -- fly an average-sized pilot about 30 miles in 30 minutes on a full 5-gallon tank of gas. The apparatus was unveiled Tuesday at AirVenture Oshkosh 2008, the annual aviation convention of the Experimental Aircraft Association in east-central Wisconsin.

"Wow, that went better than expected," Glenn Martin said afterward, his accent revealing his New Zealand roots. "People will look back on this as a moment in history."

Will pond scum become the new oil?

(CNN) -- Pond scum. The thought typically evokes images that leave most people cringing, but it may one day occupy an important role in the nation's energy supply.

Algae needs only sunlight, carbon dioxide, nutrients and water to grow.

The current fuel crunch, driven fundamentally by a rising global demand for oil, has spurred debate among consumers, political leaders, academics and entrepreneurs about plausible alternatives.

A good bit of the discussion has focused on biofuels, commonly defined as energy derived largely from plants and crops like corn, soybeans, switch grass among other sources.

"It's become obvious that the biofuels sector is much more viable now that the prices of oil are high," said Beth Ahner, an expert in biological and environmental engineering at Cornell University.

Algae, thought of as pond scum by many people, is an intriguing biofuel prospect, some researchers and entrepreneurs say.

CNN.com producer Cody McCloy, who's driving across the United States in a biofueled diesel-powered vehicle, is a fan of algae-based fuel, after running it much of the day on Monday during his travels through California.

Row over video games ratings plan

Planned changes to the way video games are rated have sparked a row about who should be in charge of giving games their official age classification.

Culture Minister Margaret Hodge has announced a consultation on whether the ratings for games should replicate the system for movies.

But games makers oppose plans, backed by MPs, for the British Board of Film Classification to rate games as well.

The games industry wants its own voluntary code to be made official.

Under the current system the British Board of Film Classification (BBFC) only rates those games considered to have significant adult content such as sexual material or extreme violence.

About 3% of all the games sold in the UK fall into this category and can only legally be sold to those aged over 18.

All other games are rated under the Pan European Game Information system - an industry administered scheme.

BY-BBC NEWS

Hidden van Gogh painting unveiled for first time

AMSTERDAM, Netherlands (AP) -- A team of European scientists unveiled on Wednesday a new method for extracting images hidden under old masters' paintings, recreating a color portrait of a woman's face unseen since Vincent van Gogh painted over it in 1887.

In this composite photo from the Delft University of Technology, the hidden portrait is seen.

For years, art historians have been using x-rays to probe artworks hidden underneath other paintings, a technique resulting in a fuzzy, black-and-white image.

But Joris Dik, a materials scientist from Delft University, and Koen Janssens, a chemist from the University of Antwerp in Belgium, combined science and art to engineer a new method of visualizing hidden paintings, using high-intensity x-rays and an intimate knowledge of old pigments.

The pair used the new approach on "Patch of Grass," a small oil study of a field that Van Gogh painted in Paris while living with his brother Theo, who supported him.

While not exact in every detail, the image produced is a woman's head that may be the same model Van Gogh painted in a series of portraits leading up to the 1885 masterpiece "The Potato Eaters."

The new method will allow art historians to obtain higher quality and more detailed images underlying old masterpieces. In Van Gogh's case, it could reveal details of works that were painted over. For other works, it could provide new insights into the studies that the artist built a painting on.

Dik and Janssens used high-intensity x-rays from a particle accelerator in Hamburg, Germany to compile a two-dimensional map of the metallic atoms on the painting beneath "Patch of Grass," which is part of the large Van Gogh collection in the Kroller-Muller Museum in the Netherlands.

UK team take top pro-gaming prize

British pro-gaming team Birmingham Salvo have been crowned winners of the 2008 Championship Gaming Series (CGS).

The ten-strong team share the top prize of $500,000 (£252,000) for coming out top of the eight teams who made it to the grand final.

Birmingham Salvo dominated rival San Francisco Optx in the battle for the title winning four out of five events.

The win marks the first time that the CGS trophy has been awarded to a British team.

"I'm extremely proud of my team right now," said Michael O'Dell, manager of Birmingham Salvo in a statement.

BIRMINGHAM SALVO PLAYERS Michael Barrett (Fifa 08) Sarah Harrison (Dead or Alive) Mingzhi Deng (Dead or Alive) Dean Sutton (Forza Motorsport) David Kelly (Forza Motorsport) James Wilson (Counter Strike) Elliot Welsh (Counter Strike) Sam Gawn (Counter Strike) Pete Wright (Counter Strike) Marc Mangiacapra (Counter Strike) Behind the scenes at the CGS

"We faced a lot of tough competition throughout the season," he said, "but when our backs were against the wall, every player demonstrated the skills and the poise to step up when it mattered the most."

The CGS season started in March when players competed for a slot in a CGS team. Each player winning a place on a team got a contract and a monthly wage to support them as they took part in the various CGS competitions.

The 18 teams that emerged from this first stage then went forward to regional competitions to find the eight that competed in the grand final.

BY-BBC NEWS

Intel and Portugal in school deal

Intel has signed the largest ever deal for its child-proof laptop, the Classmate.

500,000 of the specially designed educational machines are being given to six to 10 year olds in Portugal.

Originally intended for the developing world, Intel has shifted its focus in recent months to more mature markets.

It stressed its commitment to supplying the Classmate PC to the developing world and said it had projects underway to use it in 50 countries.

The deal will change the way education works in Portugal, according to Paulo Campos, the Portuguese government's secretary of state assistant for public works.

"It will change the educational system, change the way that students look upon school and how we communicate with parents," he said.

BY-BBC NEWS

Fighting the agents of organized cybercrime

By Cherise Fong
CNN

HONG KONG, China (CNN) -- Back in the good old days of the Internet, the hacker was a teenager motivated by high-tech pranks and bragging rights. Today, the online thief could be anyone with 'Net access after a quick buck.

The Honeypot baits cyber attackers in order to monitor criminal activity in real time and send out alerts.

"Hacking has escalated from a destructive nature to financial gain through phishing, targeting people for bank account details, and siphoning accounts from there," says Derek Manky, security researcher at Fortinet.

"It's a very sophisticated ecosystem, with organizations and services for hire," he continues.

"There's a lot of money floating around, a lot of people involved. Once the infrastructure and networks are in place, you start building that foundation, which can be further leveraged and taken to next level: denial of services, cyber warfare, espionage."

In the Web 2.0 world of ubiquitous, seamless, horizontal communication, information wants to be free. But just as easily as it can be uploaded, downloaded and shared, it can be accessed and exploited by individuals with a different agenda.

While online communities in particular continue to grow through friendly social networking sites, underground cybercrime syndicates continue to thrive on these on-screen relationships based on sharing and trust.

And with social engineering the hottest commodity on the phishing market, it's a question of knowing what literally what makes people click.

GPS pokes new peepholes into mobile screens

By Cherise Fong
For CNN

(CNN) -- Very soon, the most common phrase transiting through mobile phone networks will no longer be "Where are you?" but "I see you."

Nokia is one of the pioneering mobile-phone manufacturers when it comes to Assisted GPS.

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While satellite navigation via Global Positioning System (GPS) have been helping earthbound humans to visualize and plot everything from U.S. military movements to lost hikers since the 1970s, GPS and other mobile location-based services (LBS) have only recently begun to infiltrate our personal handsets.

"Many phone companies offer a cell-based location system," says Lawrence Cheung, principal consultant of the Hong Kong Productivity Council (HKPC).

"The system works by locating the strongest nearby cell signals that are visible by the device's antenna, which can determine its position with an accuracy of around 200 meters. Hong Kong has about 1,500 cell towers."

Coordinating through the concrete jungle

Location technologies such as Cell-ID and WiFi are especially precious in dense urban areas like Hong Kong's Nathan Road -- where high-rise buildings often block satellites' highly precise "Sky Line of Sight," but where WiFi and cell towers are ubiquitous.

A few mobile-phone makers, including Samsung and Nokia in Asia, as well as Garmin in Europe and Apple's new 3G iPhone, already feature Assisted GPS, which combines several location-based technologies to offer faster, more flexible services such as dynamic maps and photo geo-tagging.

On the entertainment side, the agency Area/code has devised a number of quirky mobile location-based games involving GPS telemetry, Wi-Fi positioning, camera phones, semacodes, multi-players, and even live sharks with GPS units attached to their fins.

Video websites 'must vet content'

YouTube has been criticised by MPs, who say it must do more to vet its content.

In a review of net safety, the Culture, Media and Sport select committee said a new industry body should be set up to protect children from harmful content.

It also said it should be "standard practice" for sites hosting user-generated content to review material proactively.

YouTube's owners said the site had strict rules and a system that allowed users to report inappropriate content.

The committee also wants a rethink on how best to classify video games - but there is disagreement over who should run the new ratings system.

MPs say the same body which gives age ratings to films - the British Board of Film Classification - should be in charge, but the games industry supports its own voluntary code.

BY-BBC NEWS

Hummer owners still love to play dirty

PINE GROVE, Pennsylvania (AP) -- They rumble in on treads called Super Swampers, wearing their hearts on their license plates.

Stephanie Oplinger, left, and Rob Schaeffer work to spot a line to drive her H1 Hummer over a rocky trail.

"PLAYDRTY," declares one behemoth from New York. "HUM THIS," dares another, from Ohio.

The digital board fronting the Shell station at Exit 100 winks back: "Welcome Hummers!"

In the fading light, though, it's impossible to ignore the sign at the Sunoco across the road: Diesel, $4.97 9/10 a gallon.

You've got to be tough to love a Hummer. The soaring cost of feeding a vehicle that swallows a gallon every dozen miles is only part of it. Environmentalists, who've always had it in for you, are winning mainstream converts. General Motors, which presided over Hummer's transition from a badge of military bravado into a symbol of driveway excess, is looking to sell.

But tonight there's no apologizing or self-pity in the ranks of Hummer die-hards. They're here to goad machines that can top five tons over boulders the size of Smart cars, through stewpots of mud obscuring who-knows-what and across obstacle courses of stumps, logs and stones -- it's "like riding a slow-motion rollercoaster," one says.

Maybe mega-SUVs are going the way of dinosaurs. Hummer sales have dropped 40 percent this year. But these beasts and the men and women who love them certainly don't behave like endangered species.

"I told my wife when we bought this, 'Honey, we're investing in steel and rubber,' says William Welch, a Philadelphia surgeon who, cigar clenched between his teeth, offers a guided tour of his lovingly tended jet-black H1.

"If it was $10 a gallon," he says, "we'd still be out there."