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October 24, 2002
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Astronomer sees black hole eat star
It began like a routine measurement on a quasar, a somewhat boring look at the emissions from a distant, early galaxy -- but it turned out that the graduate student was actually watching a black hole swallow part of a star.
As he looked at the spectrum of light sent out by TEX 1726+344, the student at the University of Texas at Austin, Feng Ma, realized he was seeing something extraordinary.
It looked like the quasar was ejecting a cloud of matter at a speed of 3,700 miles per second (6,000 kms per second), Ma said in a statement. "This leads me to think it's the signature of a star that's been ripped apart by the black hole's gravity."
"Half of the star's matter fell into the black hole, and the other half was ejected in a gravitational sling-shot."
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Greek gaming ban courts legal action
The Greek Government could face legal action before the European Court over a controversial law which bans electronic games.
The BBC understands that the European Commission has sent an official letter to the Greek Foreign Ministry, warning that some of the crucial stipulations of the law may be in breach of European legislation.
This letter is the first official step of a procedure that could lead to Greece being brought before the European Court of Justice.
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U.S. bird species declining
More than one in four U.S. bird species is declining in numbers or at risk of disappearing, according to a new report from the National Audubon Society.
The bird conservation group estimates that 201 species in the continental United States, Hawaii, and Alaska are menaced by habitat destruction, pollution, diseases, and other threats.
Among the most imperiled is the short-eared owl, which has seen a nearly 70 percent population decline since the 1960s because of grassland destruction and the ingestion of poisoned mice and rats, Audubon spokesman John Bianchi said when the report was released. There are perhaps 100,000 short-eared owls left in the United States, he said.
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Answering critics, Microsoft patches XP
Microsoft Corp. has responded to criticism from users and issued a software patch for a major security vulnerability in the Windows XP operating system, reversing an earlier decision to require users to upgrade to Windows XP Service Pack 1 to remove the vulnerability.
The security hole exists in the Windows XP Help and Support Center and affects the Microsoft Windows XP Home Edition, Professional, and 64-Bit Edition operating systems, according to information posted on Microsoft's product support Web site.
By taking advantage of a flaw in code for a feature that sends information on new hardware to Microsoft, an attacker could remotely access a vulnerable machine from a Web page or a link in an e-mail formatted in HTML. Files on the vulnerable machine could be opened or deleted using the vulnerability, according to information posted on Microsoft's Web site.
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Small Extrasolar Planet Revealed
Telltale turbulence in the dust rings surrounding a distant star has revealed the presence of a small planet. This new technique for hunting for extrasolar planets offers the opportunity to track down the small planets, and those with wide orbits, that cannot be detected by current methods.
Most of the 100 extra-solar planets found so far are Jupiter-sized gas giants, close to their stars. This is because the easiest way to detect an extra-solar planet is to monitor a star for the gravitational "wobble" the planet causes as it orbits. But the wobble will only be detectable if the planet is sufficiently massive and close to the star.
Now Alice Quillen, at Rochester University in New York, US, has discovered that a star's dust disc can provide equally strong evidence. Collisions between small rocky solar system objects produce dust around many, though not all, stars.
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FBI Tracing Net Attacks
As investigators continued tracking the source of a bid to topple the heart of the Internet this week, experts said the attack was neither the most efficient nor likely way to inflict pain on the average Web surfer.
"Most people had no idea this was happening," said Hari Balakrishnan, a computer science professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. "If the top five most-visited sites were down, that's when people will tell you their service was disrupted."
It's called a "denial of service" attack. And investigators are hard at work trying to find those responsible, said FBI agent Steven Berry. A White House spokesman was asked whether cyber-terrorism was suspected.
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ATI launches new chips
ATI Technologies Inc. today announced the launch of the RADEON 9500 PRO, the world's first DirectX 9.0 visual processing unit (VPU) for the performance mainstream market. In addition, ATI launched the RADEON 9500 and RADEON 9700 VPUs - all three products are derivatives of ATI's wildly successful and highly acclaimed RADEON 9700 PRO product, launched less than three months ago. These latest products complete ATI's family of VPUs, firmly establishing the company's lead in every market segment from value to enthusiast.
"We have accomplished a tremendous feat - one never seen before in the industry - by driving our high-end product features into the mainstream market while maintaining the lead in the enthusiast market," said David Orton, President and Chief Operating Officer, ATI Technologies Inc. "We are strongly positioned as 'the king of graphics.' Once again, we are leading the industry by being the first to drive DirectX 9.0 support into the mainstream, and offering high-end features to that market."
Microsoft's DirectX 9.0 is the platform for which many game developers are creating their new titles, and ATI's RADEON 9500 PRO is the only product on the market that allows performance mainstream users to access high-end DirectX 9.0 features - giving them a high-end gaming experience at a more affordable price-point. Driving DirectX 9.0 support into the performance mainstream means a larger market will have the ability to enable features programmed specifically for the DirectX 9.0 platform.
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Band Can't Sell Own Music on EBay
George Ziemann didn't have delusions of grandeur when it came to selling his band's CD.
He just wanted to promote the album -- and hopefully sell a few copies -- on a higher-traffic site than his own. So he turned to eBay, the Net's largest marketplace.
But the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), a law meant to limit people from distributing content illegally over the Internet, foiled him.
The reason? He used recordable CDs (CD-Rs) to distribute his albums.
The discs allow people to record data files -- music and movies for instance -- and they are often used to record and sell pirated wares.
As a precaution against enabling thieves to sell stolen merchandise on the site, eBay launched its Verified Rights Owner program, which allows copyright holders to send eBay take-down notices for auctions that violate copyright laws.
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Google excluding controversial sites
Google, the world's most popular search engine, has quietly deleted more than 100 controversial sites from some search result listings.
Absent from Google's French and German listings are Web sites that are anti-Semitic, pro-Nazi or related to white supremacy, according to a new report from Harvard University's Berkman Center. Also banned is Jesus-is-lord.com, a fundamentalist Christian site that is adamantly opposed to abortion.
Google confirmed on Wednesday that the sites had been removed from listings available at Google.fr and Google.de. The removed sites continue to appear in listings on the main Google.com site.
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