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Friday, December 5, 2008

On December 4, 2008, a solar car, developed by scientists at Swiss universities, ended its journey of traveling around the world at the United Nations climate talks in Pozna?, Poland. Yvo de Boer, the Executive Secretary of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, rode into Pozna? in the vehicle, along with schoolteacher Louis Palmer.

The two-seat car began its journey 17 months ago in Lucerne, Switzerland. Carrying solar cells on a trailer, the car sent the message that global warming can be stopped and there are better alternatives.

“This is the first time in history that a solar-powered car has travelled all the way around the world without using a single drop of petrol,” said Palmer. “These new technologies are ready. It’s ecological, it’s economical, it is absolutely reliable. We can stop global warming.”

Many people have been carried by the solar car, including New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg and UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon.

The conference in Pozna? seeks to draft a new climate treaty that would replace the Kyoto protocol, which is set to expire in 2012. The delegates hope to finalize the treaty by December 2009, when the UN reconvenes on the climate in Copenhagen, Denmark.

“Here at the conference, we are talking about reducing emissions by 10 or 20 percent,” Palmer said. “I want to show that we can reduce emissions by 100 percent — and that’s what we need for the future.”

Saturday, April 17, 2010

Journalist, counselor, painter, and US 2012 Presidential candidate Joe Schriner of Cleveland, Ohio took some time to discuss his campaign with Wikinews in an interview.

Schriner previously ran for president in 2000, 2004, and 2008, but failed to gain much traction in the races. He announced his candidacy for the 2012 race immediately following the 2008 election. Schriner refers to himself as the “Average Joe” candidate, and advocates a pro-life and pro-environmentalist platform. He has been the subject of numerous newspaper articles, and has published public policy papers exploring solutions to American issues.

Wikinews reporter William Saturn? talks with Schriner and discusses his campaign.

Tuesday, November 1, 2005

Mark Russinovich, of SysInternals.com, has discovered a so-called “rootkit” which is installed by Sony’s new digital rights management-protected music compact disks (CDs). A rootkit is a common name for malicious software that is used by computer criminals to hide their presence on a compromised computer. Rootkits frequently contain hidden files and are designed to be difficult for the user to detect and remove.

Russinovich classifies Sony’s rootkit as malware because it is alleged to introduce several serious security holes, one of which can be exploited to hide files and prevent the user from removing them. In particular, all executable files which begin with ‘$sys$’ are hidden when the software is installed. He points out that these security holes could be exploited by hackers, or other malware producers besides Sony.

Russinovich explains that naively removing the files will result in a crippling of the operating system on the user’s computer. He provides an explanation of the difficult step required to remove Sony’s malware.

Playing the same CDs on computers not running the Windows operating system, or on a non-computer based CD player remains safe. As removing Sony’s malware would violate the Digital Millennium Copyright Act’s anti-circumvention provisions, ripping the CDs on computers running a non-Windows operating system may be the best legal and technically safe option for those who wish to listen to them under Windows.

The software is automatically installed when a Sony CD is played on a computer, and is not mentioned in their EULA. The rootkit has been commercially developed by First 4 Internet and licensed to Sony.

Other rights management techniques used by music publishers recently include breaking the Red Book compact disc standard format. This technique causes many CD players to not be able to play the new CDs, but also protects against casual ripping. Fiona Apple’s recent album release in the United States uses such technology.

Wednesday, January 10, 2007

Apple Inc. today has introduced the much-anticipated iPhone at the Macworld Conference in San Francisco.

The iPhone is claimed to be “a revolutionary mobile phone” as stated on the Apple website. The device appears to be running a mobile version of the Apple operating system Mac OSX. It is approximately the same size as a 5th generation iPod, it has a 3.5-inch LCD touchscreen display that is used to access all features of the phone including number dial, as well as making phone calls. The iPhone plays music, movies, displays pictures and is able to connect to a wireless network.

Apple CEO Steve Jobs unveiled the device by walking onto the stage and taking the iPhone out of his jeans pocket. During his 2 hour speech he stated that “Today Apple is going to reinvent the phone, We are going to make history today”.

Today Apple also released their Media Center device – Apple TV. It will directly compete with Microsoft’s Media Center operating system. Apple has taken a different approach to the media center market; rather than storing content (such as movies, music and photos) on the device, Apple TV connects to a computer (Mac and Windows) over a wirless network connection and plays all content stored on that computer. This makes it substantially easier for users to organize their media content.

Thursday, May 5, 2005

The 2005 UK general election was held on Thursday 5th May. The election resulted in a third term for Tony Blair’s Labour Party.

Below are the latest Wikinews stories on the campaigning parties and candidates.

Friday, January 30, 2009

In what the Food and Drug Administration is characterizing as one of the largest recalls in recent history, numerous types of products containing peanuts are being recalled in the United States. The FDA issued a recall on Wednesday on food items with peanut paste and other peanut products made after January 1, 2007 at a Peanut Corp. of America (PCA) center in Blakely, Georgia. The recall affects over 430 products containing peanut paste or peanut butter from the PCA plant.

U.S. federal inspectors stated salmonella was found in 12 instances at the plant. So far the incident has been linked to eight deaths, with over 500 individuals sickened from the tainted products.

U.S. Congressman Henry Waxman (D-CA) has announced he will hold a Congressional hearing February 11 before the House Energy and Commerce Committee to investigate the matter. According to an FDA report, peanut products from the Georgia plant returned to the United States after being exported were prevented from reentering the country in September due to containing “filthy, putrid or decomposed substance, or is otherwise unfit for food,” but the products were not tested by federal inspectors.

According to the FDA, peanut products were shipped from the PCA facility though the company knew they were contaminated. PCA asserted it was unaware products were contaminated before being shipped, and released a statement saying it had “taken extraordinary measures to identify and recall all products that have been identified as presenting a potential risk”. The PCA plant has since been shut down after state and federal inspectors discovered mold, roaches, a leaky roof, and other issues at the facility.

Multiple members of Congress have made critical statements about the FDA regarding the incident. “The FDA failing to follow up after this incident, does that mean that products that are not good enough for a foreign country are still good enough for the USA?” said Senator Tom Harkin (D-IA), Chairman of the Senate Agriculture Committee.

“If the FDA discovered that there was an issue with this product inspection, why didn’t they follow up on it? Why didn’t they take a closer look at this facility?” asked Representative Rosa DeLauro (D-CT). Representative DeLauro called the actions of PCA “reprehensible and criminal”.

Beth Falwell, daughter of PCA’s founder Hugh Parnell, told WSLS-TV, the NBC affiliate in Roanoke, Virginia, in a statement Thursday that her brother Stewart Parnell who currently runs the company would not knowingly harm his customers. She believes the FDA report documenting poor conditions at the PCA facility contains inaccuracies. Stewart Parnell did not respond to repeated attempts by The News & Advance for a comment.

Consumers can find out more information at the website of the FDA, www.fda.gov, which lists the peanut products affected. The FDA list of items containing recalled peanut products is 35 pages long. Individuals can also find out more information about the incident by calling the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, at 1-800-CDC-INFO.

Sunday, January 10, 2010

Chinese officials have said that their country’s exports surged last December to edge out Germany as the world’s biggest exporter.

The official Xinhua news agency reported today that figures from the General Administration for Customs showed that exports jumped 17.7% in December from a year earlier. Over the whole of 2009 total Chinese exports reached US$1.2 trillion, above Germany’s forecast $1.17 trillion.

Huang Guohua, a statistics official with the customs administration, said the December exports rebound was an important turning point for China’s export sector. He commented that the jump was an indication that exporters have emerged from their downslide.

“We can say that China’s export enterprises have completely emerged from their all-time low in exports,” he said.

However, although China overtook Germany in exports, China’s total foreign trade — both exports and imports — fell 13.9% last year.