La Eurocámara, dividida sobre la desconexión de piratas de la red

·El Parlamento de Estrasburgo vota hoy una norma para atajar las descargas ilegales.
·El director de Google en España duda de las sanciones y rechaza el canon.
http://www.elperiodico.com/default.asp?idpublicacio_PK=46&idioma=CAS&idnoticia_PK=609814&idseccio_PK=1012

El Parlamento Europeo vota hoy la nueva legislación comunitaria del mercado de las telecomunicaciones, un paquete normativo amplio y con un aspecto muy polémico, sobre el que los eurodiputados están divididos: la desconexión de internet a los internautas que se descarguen archivos protegidos por los derechos de autor. Varios países --España, entre ellos-- llevan tiempo discutiendo un enfoque para intentar atajar estos intercambios de música y películas, y Francia es quien más avanzado lo tiene. Su presidente, Nicolas Sarkozy, aboga por un sistema por el que, tras tres avisos, se pueda cortar la conexión del usuario, sin que para ello --y aquí está la división-- sea necesaria ninguna resolución judicial previa. La norma comunitaria a votación parece rechazar tal posibilidad, pero varios eurodiputados la calificaron ayer de "ambigua".
El texto, de compromiso y alcanzado tras una difícil negociación por el rechazo del Reino Unido, Alemania y la propia Francia, dice así: "No se impondrá restricción alguna a los derechos y libertades fundamentales de los usuarios finales sin una resolución previa de las autoridades judiciales". Excepto, continúa, "cuando la seguridad pública se vea amenazada, en cuyo caso la resolución puede ser posterior".
Hay interpretaciones divergentes[!!!] sobre esta futura directiva. Mientras la comisaria europea de Sociedad de la Información, Viviane Reding, aseguraba ayer que el documento reconoce que el acceso a la red forma parte de los derechos fundamentales y que los internautas tendrán derecho a un "proceso judicial justo", el eurodiputado Daniel Cohn-Bendit, de Los Verdes, sostuvo que la redacción era "ambigua", lo que provocará que sea el Tribunal de Justicia de la UE quien determine si leyes como la francesa son válidas bajo la nueva normativa comunitaria.

CONVERSACIONES ESPAÑOLAS
En España no hay, por el momento, ningún proyecto legislativo en este sentido, ni nada remotamente similar. Sin embargo, después de que el Gobierno delegara en ellos, los teleoperadores y la industria cultural llevan casi un año negociando un acuerdo para tratar de parar el hasta ahora imparable fenómeno de las descargas. El principal escollo se sitúa, precisamente, en la desconexión a la red, rechazada por los primeros y defendida por la segunda.
El director general de Google en España, Javier Rodríguez Zapatero[?], se situó ayer en Madrid más cerca de los proveedores de internet, al decir que no estaba "convencido al cien por cien" de que el corte de acceso sea la solución más adecuada para quienes intercambian archivos protegidos. Zapatero también se refirió al muy discutido canon digital. "No es lo más democrático que hay en el mundo", opinó.

[Fuente: elperiodico.com]

Investigan a Apple y Google por monopolio

·Ambas empresas comparten algunos miembros de sus consejos de administración.
http://www.lavanguardia.es/internet-y-tecnologia/noticias/20090505/53696693984/investigan-a-apple-y-google-por-monopolio-eric-schmidt-francisco-schmidt.html

San Francisco. (EFE).- La Comisión Federal de Comercio de EE.UU. está investigando a las firmas tecnológicas Apple y Google por posible violación de la legislación antimonopolio debido a que comparten algunos miembros de sus consejos de administración.
Según recoge la prensa estadounidense, la Comisión Federal de Comercio ya ha notificado la apertura de esta investigación a las dos empresas, que compiten en algunos mercados como el de la telefonía móvil o los sistemas operativos.
Eric Schmidt, consejero delegado de Google, y Arthur Levinson, ex consejero delegado del grupo farmacéutico Genentech, tienen un puesto tanto en el consejo de administración del buscador como en el de Apple.
Las leyes estadounidenses de defensa de la competencia prohíben que una persona se siente en los consejos de administración de dos empresas rivales si ello supone una reducción de la libre competencia entre ambas.
En el sector es conocido que Eric Schmidt abandona las reuniones del consejo de administración de Apple cuando se discute sobre el teléfono móvil iPhone. Google compite en este área con Apple ya que ha desarrollado un sistema operativo para móvil -Android- utilizado por competidores del iPhone.
Sin embargo, Google y Apple compiten también en otras áreas de negocio como navegadores de internet -Safari, de Apple, y Chrome, de Google-, servicios para compartir fotos -iPhoto y Picasa- vídeo online -iTunes y YouTube- o servicios de correo electrónico.

[Fuente: EFE a través de LaVanguardia.es]

Is Quantum Mechanics Controlling Your Thoughts?

·Science's weirdest realm may be responsible for photosynthesis, our sense of smell, and even consciousness itself.
http://discovermagazine.com/2009/feb/13-is-quantum-mechanics-controlling-your-thoughts/article_view?b_start:int=0&-C=

Graham Fleming sits down at an L-shaped lab bench, occupying a footprint about the size of two parking spaces. Alongside him, a couple of off-the-shelf lasers spit out pulses of light just millionths of a billionth of a second long. After snaking through a jagged path of mirrors and lenses, these minus­cule flashes disappear into a smoky black box containing proteins from green sulfur bacteria, which ordinarily obtain their energy and nourishment from the sun. Inside the black box, optics manufactured to billionths-of-a-meter precision detect something extraordinary: Within the bacterial proteins, dancing electrons make seemingly impossible leaps and appear to inhabit multiple places at once.
Peering deep into these proteins, Fleming and his colleagues at the University of California at Berkeley and at Washington University in St. Louis have discovered the driving engine of a key step in photosynthesis, the process by which plants and some microorganisms convert water, carbon dioxide, and sunlight into oxygen and carbohydrates. More efficient by far in its ability to convert energy than any operation devised by man, this cascade helps drive almost all life on earth. Remarkably, photosynthesis appears to derive its ferocious efficiency not from the familiar physical laws that govern the visible world but from the seemingly exotic rules of quantum mechanics, the physics of the subatomic world. Somehow, in every green plant or photosynthetic bacterium, the two disparate realms of physics not only meet but mesh harmoniously. Welcome to the strange new world of quantum biology.

Read more...

Vid...

Proof of Aliens On The Moon

I N P h o b e Takes A Break

[For the next few days INPhobe's taking a break. Will be posting again soon!]

[...and remember, be curious! :) ]

[In the mean time, you can watch (or re-watch) Zeitgeist and Zeitgeist Addendum (both with spanish subtitles), or just pass the link to someone who hasn't seen them.]

Safespace Fastwalkers (SpaSubs)

Vid...

Seeing red: The cloned puppy that glows in the dark

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-1173171/Seeing-red-The-cloned-puppy-glows-dark.html

At first glance, this sweet beagle puppy seems nothing out of the ordinary.
But when she is lit with an ultraviolet light, the astonishing dog glows in the dark.
Ruppy - short for Ruby Puppy - was one of five cloned puppies genetically engineered to produce a fluorescent protein by scientists. When placed under an ultraviolet light they all glow a deep red.
They were created by a team led by Byeong-Chun Lee of Seoul National University in South Korea, who created the first cloned dog Snuppy in 2005.
The dogs are transgenic animals, which means their genetic code has been deliberately modified rather than mutating naturally.
Team member CheMyong Ko from the University of Lexington said they could go on to create dogs with human illnesses.
'The next step for us is to generate a true disease model,' he told New Scientist magazine.

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New message from stars & one of the best footage of extraterrestrials vehicle

Crop Circles -2009 Update- Numbers 5 & 6

[Formation Nº 5 @ Liddington Castle Fort - nr Chiseldon, Wiltshire - reported April 25, 2009]

This is not visible anywhere near the road. it must be visible from the top of the hill only. But I[Dene Hine] came upon a small formation that contained 4 circles, 2 outlined and 2 solid, joined by lines. I would say the whole formation would be under 100ft. [No aerial photography available for this one...sorry]


[Formation Nº 6 @ Roundway Hill - nr Devizes, Wiltshire - reported April 25, 2009]

This new circle discovered this morning while Olivier (member of the WCCSG team) was flying. It's above the Roundway Hill white horse near Devizes. In rape about 200ft.

Does DNA Have Telepathic Properties?

http://www.dailygalaxy.com/my_weblog/2009/04/does-dna-have-t.html

DNA has been found to have a bizarre ability to put itself together, even at a distance, when according to known science it shouldn't be able to. Explanation: None, at least not yet.
Scientists are reporting evidence that contrary to our current beliefs about what is possible, intact double-stranded DNA has the “amazing” ability to recognize similarities in other DNA strands from a distance. Somehow they are able to identify one another, and the tiny bits of genetic material tend to congregate with similar DNA. The recognition of similar sequences in DNA’s chemical subunits, occurs in a way unrecognized by science. There is no known reason why the DNA is able to combine the way it does, and from a current theoretical standpoint this feat should be chemically impossible.
Even so, the research published in ACS’ Journal of Physical Chemistry B, shows very clearly that homology recognition between sequences of several hundred nucleotides occurs without physical contact or presence of proteins. Double helixes of DNA can recognize matching molecules from a distance and then gather together, all seemingly without help from any other molecules or chemical signals.

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Spain plugs in largest solar-tower power plant

http://news.cnet.com/8301-11128_3-10228786-54.html?part=rss&subj=news&tag=2547-1_3-0-5

Abengoa Solar of Spain on Monday reported successful tests of its second solar tower in operation, in which the sun's heat is used to make electricity.
The 531-foot solar tower, located near Seville, Spain, features a number of improvements on the first design and has exceeded the anticipated output. Called PS20, the installation is the largest in the world with a capacity of 20 megawatts, enough electricity to supply 10,000 homes, according to the company.
A solar tower configuration uses a field of heliostats, or mirrors, to concentrate sunlight onto a receiver held in the tower. The heat creates steam which turns a turbine to make electricity. The PS20 project has 1,255 of these heliostats, with each heliostat having a surface area of 1,291 square feet.
Concentrating solar thermal technology has been used in desert areas in Spain and the southwest U.S. for decades and is seeing a resurgence as utilities seek out cost-effective solar power.
The traditionalsolar concentrating power uses rows of mirrored troughs that follow the sun over the course of the day.
Solar tower technology is considered the successor technology to mirrored troughs and is being pursued by a number of solar companies, including renewable energy powerhouse Abengoa and California start-ups BrightSource Energy and eSolar.
Abengoa Solar said that this installation improved on the first solar tower in Spain with better control systems and solar thermal energy storage system.

[Source: cnet news]

Prehistoric Gene Reawakens to Battle HIV

http://www.dailygalaxy.com/my_weblog/2009/04/by-annalee-newitz-500-pm-on-mon-apr-27-2009-10350-views-edit-post-set-to-draft-slurpcopy-this-whole-post-to-another-s.html

'The next great war will start inside us. 'In the next stage of evolution, mankind is history'.
About 95% of the human genome has once been designated as "junk" DNA. While much of this sequence may be an evolutionary artifact that serves no present-day purpose, some junk DNA may function in ways that are not currently understood. The conservation of some junk DNA over many millions of years of evolution may imply an essential function that has been "turned off." Now scientists say there's a junk gene that fights HIV. And they've discovered how to turn it back on.
What these scientists have done could give us the first bulletproof HIV vaccine. They have re-awakened the human genome's latent potential to make us all into HIV-resistant creatures, and hey've published their ground-breaking research in PLoS Biology.
What these scientists have done could give us the first bulletproof HIV vaccine. They have re-awakened the human genome's latent potential to make us all into HIV-resistant creatures, and they've published their ground-breaking research in PLoS Biology.

Read more...

¿INTERNET LIBRE EN SU ÚLTIMO ALIENTO?

http://elproyectomatriz.wordpress.com/2009/04/27/%C2%BFinternet-libre-en-su-ultimo-aliento/

''Internet representa el riesgo de ataque nacional número uno en Virginia, América o en cualquier parte del mundo.

Hace plantearse si de verdad hubiera sido mejor que nunca hubiésemos inventado Internet.
Todo el mundo está siendo atacado, cualquiera puede hacerlo.
Pueden derrumbar el país, acabar con la red eléctrica, el sistema bancario.
Es un problema aterradora y espeluznantemente grande, incluso aún más inmenso y me pregunto qué podemos hacer al respecto.''

-Jay Rockefeller

Internet tal y como lo conocemos se encuentra en peligro. Las nuevas reglas de la U.E. (Paquete de Telecomunicaciones) que pretenden aprobar a finales de abril, proponen que los proveedores de banda ancha tengan la capacidad legal de limitar el número de páginas web que puedes ver, y de decirte si se te permite o no usar determinados servicios. Se disfrazará de ‘nuevas opciones para el consumidor según sus necesidades’. Se le ofrecerá a la gente paquetes del estilo de los paquetes de TV - con un número limitado de opciones para acceder. Es decir, tu acceso a internet estará limitado según el “paquete” que hayas contratado, no podrás acceder a todas las páginas, sino sólo a aquellas que constan en tu “paquete”.
Esto significa que Internet se restringirá y tu capacidad de acceder y subir contenidos podría ser seriamente restringida. Se crearán cubículos de accesibilidad a Internet, la accesibilidad a internet será completamente diferente a como la conocemos hoy, a como la hemos conocido siempre. ¿Por qué? Internet está permitiendo ahora el intercambio de archivos, conocimiento, relaciones, información entre personas que no pueden ser controlados o “facilitados” por parte de cualquier intermediario (el estado o una corporación), esto mejora la vida de los ciudadanos, hace el acceso al conocimiento mucho más accesible para todos; pero fuerza a la industria (de las telecomunicaciones, la cultura…) a perder poder y control. Esa es la razón por la que están presionando a los gobiernos a realizar estos cambios.
La excusa es controlar el flujo de la música, las películas y el contenido del entretenimiento contra la presunta piratería de las descargas gratis, usando el compartir archivos P2P. Sin embargo, las víctimas reales de este plan serán todos los usuarios de Internet y el acceso democrático e independiente a la información, la cultura y los bienes.

Por favor, leer más...

Eight things you didn't know about the internet

http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20227061.900-eight-things-you-didnt-know-about-the-internet.html

It was born 40 years ago, in a lab at the University of California, Los Angeles. Today it wraps the entire planet and features in the daily routine of more than 1.5 billion people. Of course, it's easy to take the internet for granted and forget that it's very much a work in progress. So what forces are shaping it, how big has it grown, and will it ever evolve a mind of its own? To find out, New Scientist posed eight simple questions.

Who controls the internet?
Could the net become self-aware?
How big is the internet?
Is there only one internet?
Is the net caught in the credit crunch?
Where are the net's dark corners?
Is the net hurting the environment?
Could we shut the net down?

Swine Flu Expose

·a book by Eleanora I. McBean, Ph.D., N.D.; 1977. (Also known for her 1957 classic, 'The Poisoned needle')
http://www.whale.to/a/mcbean2.html

PREFACE
This booklet on Swine Flu hazards and fakery is part of a larger book on vaccination, titled, VACCINATION CONDEMNED BY COMPETENT DOCTORS. It is about time a large and comprehensive book of the long concealed facts about vaccination is brought forth. This is the largest and most informative book on the subject ever written in America. It contains data collected from medical records, army reports, and startling findings from researchers all over the world.
The book is intended to help combat the disastrous effects of vaccine promoters and their deceptive propaganda.
[...]
CHAPTER 1: SWINE FLU ANOTHER MEDICALLY-MADE EPIDEMIC
At the present writing, October 1976, a group of medical opportunists have taken upon themselves the dictatorial authority to declare the threat of a sweeping epidemic of SWINE FLU which they said was similar to, or related to, the 1918 epidemic of Spanish influenza which wiped out 20,000,000 people world-wide. [Hum...this sounds familiar]. This declaration was supposed to scare all the people into their vaccination centers to be shot full of experimental vaccine poisons, while they, the promoters, raked in the profits. During the big polio vaccine drive, a spokesman for ParkeDavis, one of the five drug houses making the vaccine, stated, ''Our company will clear over $10,000,000 on Salk vaccine in 1955.'' Before they were through they had fleeced the people of over $4 billion dollars on the Salk racket. (See the chapter on POLIO CAUSED BY VACCINATION)

Go here to read all of 'Vaccination Condemned By Competent Doctors'

Rich people feel guilty buying luxury stuff in bad economy

http://www.usatoday.com/money/industries/retail/2009-04-29-luxury-guilt_N.htm

More than half of affluent consumers say they feel "guilty" making luxury purchases in this economy, a survey of the most-moneyed Americans finds. Fewer this year also say they like to be labeled as "wealthy."
The survey of people with an annual discretionary household income of more than $100,000, which is generally those earning $500,000 or more, was released Wednesday by consulting firm Harrison Group and American Express Publishing. Discretionary income is what's left after the mortgage and taxes are paid.
People with such discretionary incomes make up 10% of households yet account for more than half of retail sales and 70% of profit margins.
[...]
Of course, far more than a guilty conscience is at play. More than half of those polled — 53% — said they worry they could actually run out of money.[!!!]

Read more...

Silence covers 'zone of death'

http://www.guardian.co.uk/theguardian/2009/apr/30/from-the-archives-chernobyl

The area around the stricken nuclear plant at Chernobyl was last night enclosed by a wall of official silence and tight security covering a radius of at least 18 miles.
For an unknown number of the inhabitants of several towns and villages closest to the reactor, and now evacuated, it may [be] the silence of the grave; in the words of a Russian scientist yesterday, this is the "zone of death". Inside that zone is the town of Chernobyl, and the vast nuclear complex at Pripyat, containing four completed reactors, and two under construction. The nuclear park is alongside the Pripyat River, which supplies drinking water to the city of Kiev, capital of the Ukarine, about 60 miles downstream.
To the north stretches the danger zone, licked by the escaping radiation since the disaster began on Saturday. There is the farmland of Belorussiya, and 200 miles north, the city of Minsk.
[...]
Last night, as technicians struggled to contain a fire thought to be threatening three other reactors, the achievement was in ruins. Unconfirmed reports spoke of mounting casualties and of a Kiev hospital crammed with victims of radiation sickness. Last night, Chernobyl had become a symbol of all that is frightful and frightening in the modern world of nuclear power.
[...]
Even beyond the "zone of death", the silence continued yesterday.
"We knew nothing about it until we heard the BBC World Service news this morning," Ms Sue Parminter, a 26-year-old teacher from Sevenoaks, Kent, told me from Minsk by phone.
[...]
An American military attache who was in Kiev until yesterday morning was checked over with a geiger counter at the US embassy in Moscow yesterday, and was found to have a modest dose of radioactivity.

Read all of it here...

Descubren un planeta del tamaño de Júpiter próximo a una estrella como el Sol

http://www.lavanguardia.es/ciudadanos/noticias/20090429/53692806954/descubren-un-planeta-del-tamano-de-jupiter-proximo-a-una-estrella-como-el-sol-jupiter-londres-hertfo.html

Londres. (EFE).- Un grupo de astrónomos han descubierto un planeta del tamaño de Júpiter que gira alrededor de una estrella similar al Sol, informó hoy la cadena pública británica BBC.
El nuevo mundo, bautizado como HD80606b, se mueve por una órbita elíptica inusual alrededor de esa estrella, según explicaron los expertos, del University College de Londres, en una conferencia celebrada en Hertfordshire, al norte de Londres.
Cuando en esa órbita el planeta alcanza el punto más lejano a la estrella, esa distancia es como la que separa a la Tierra del Sol (132 millones de kilómetros).Sin embargo, cuando el planeta se coloca en el punto más próximo, la distancia es diez veces menor que la que separa a Mercurio del Sol (cinco millones de kilómetros). Según el estudio de los astrónomos, HD80606b se sitúa en el punto más cercano a la estrella cada 111 días.
Si en ese "doble" de Júpiter, una persona mirase al cielo, vería una estrella treinta veces más grande que el Sol, indicaron los expertos, que observaron el tránsito de ese nuevo mundo al cruzarse frente a la estrella.

Leer más...

Space Junk Forcing More Evasive Maneuvers

http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2009/04/space-junk-forcing-more-evasive-maneuvers/

American spacecraft had to dodge space debris four times in 2008, NASA revealed Tuesday, a fact that highlights both the extent of the space junk problem and the primary mitigation option open to NASA.
By tracking pieces of debris larger than around four inches, space engineers can identify some dangerous space junk and meteoroids. If a satellite or spacecraft is in danger of getting hit, they simply move it out of harm’s way. The International Space Station, for example, had to make an evasive maneuver back in August 2008, to avoid a piece of an old Russian craft.
“On average, Shuttle and ISS have conducted several collision avoidance maneuvers over the past ten years on the order of about one per year,” said Nicholas Johnson, chief scientist at NASA’s Orbital Debris Program Office, in a teleconference with reporters ahead of a House subcommittee on space and aeronautics meeting about space debris.
Space debris is an increasing problem. Johnson noted that from the 1960s until the past year, orbital debris had increased linearly, despite advances in decreasing the amount of debris left behind per trip to space. But recently, a Chinese missile test on a satellite and the collision of two satellites in orbit, sent the amount of space debris up considerably. The satellite collision alone increased the risk to the upcoming May shuttle mission to the Hubble Space Telescope by 8 percent.

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