Internet security researchers on Thursday warned that hackers have caught on to a "critical" flaw that lets them control traffic on the Internet. An elite squad of computer industry engineers that labored in secret to solve the problem released a software "patch" two weeks ago and sought to keep details of the vulnerability hidden at least a month to give people time to protect computers from attacks.
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Microsoft is shaking up management of its online division and strengthening its tie to Facebook in the aftermath of a failed bid to buy Yahoo to bolster its lagging Internet business. The US software colossus told analysts Thursday that later this year Facebook will begin using its technology for online searches and paid links, which are essentially Internet ads. 
Google has launched its own version of communally constructed online encyclopedia Wikipedia, which consistently ranks among the most visited websites in the world. The Internet search powerhouse went live late Wednesday with a free service dubbed "Knol," to indicate a unit of knowledge. 
Britain's biggest Internet providers have signed an agreement with the country's recording industry to clamp down on illegal downloading, in a move announced by the government Thursday. Under the deal to get tough on the estimated 6.5 million Britons who have downloaded music and video illegally, letters will be sent to the most prolific offenders warning them that they have been detected. 
Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg painted a vision of an Internet future with the website in its soul to a faithful throng of software developers at the Internet firm's annual "F8" conference.. "Last year everyone here started a movement," Zuckerberg said Wednesday after cheers subsided. 
The number of mobile users in China, the world's biggest cellphone market, now tops 600 million, the government said, as subscribers increasingly abandon fixed lines. Mobile phone users in the country increased to 601 million at the end of June, up by 8.6 million from the end of May, the Ministry of Information Industry said in a statement posted on its website on Wednesday. Science
Australian electricity producers warned Friday that the government's aim of cutting the nation's greenhouse gas emissions by 20 percent by the year 2020 to fight global warming could boost power bills by 28 percent. The Energy Supply Association of Australia commissioned a cost analysis of the government's plan to tax air polluters for the carbon they produce from 2010. A new rechargeable battery pack made by Sanyo Electric Co. will allow Nintendo Wii gamers to keep their controllers juiced without buying new batteries. The wireless Wii controller normally uses two standard AA batteries that are installed under a cover. Nintendo says alkaline batteries can last up to 30 hours, which means that devoted gamers must buy lots of new batteries. Japanese and Mongolian scientists have successfully recovered the complete skeleton of a 70-million-year-old young dinosaur, a nature museum announced Thursday. The scientists uncovered a Tarbosaurus _ related to the giant carnivorous Tyrannosaurus _ from a chunk of sandstone they dug up in August, 2006 in the Gobi Desert in Mongolia, said Takuji Yokoyama, a spokesman for the Hayashibara Museum of Natural Sciences, a co-organizer of the joint research project. Dr. Victor A. McKusick, a key architect of the Human Genome Project and a winner of the National Medal of Science, has died. He was 86. Officials at Johns Hopkins University, where McKusick was a professor of genetics, said he died Tuesday in Towson, Maryland _ after complications from cancer. Dr. Victor A. McKusick, a key architect of the Human Genome Project and a winner of the National Medal of Science, has died. He was 86. Officials at Johns Hopkins University, where McKusick was a professor of genetics, said he died Tuesday in Towson, Maryland _ after complications from cancer. Technology
A new rechargeable battery pack made by Sanyo Electric Co. will allow Nintendo Wii gamers to keep their controllers juiced without buying new batteries. The wireless Wii controller normally uses two standard AA batteries that are installed under a cover. Nintendo says alkaline batteries can last up to 30 hours, which means that devoted gamers must buy lots of new batteries. BANGKOK, Thailand _ Local children born after the closure of a coal-burning plant in China had 60 percent fewer developmental problems, a study released Monday suggests, giving ammunition to those who argue the country should embrace cleaner sources of energy. The study in the peer-reviewed Environmental Health Perspectives journal found that after the coal plant was shut in the midwestern city of Tongliang, pregnant mothers had far less exposure to pollutants and their children showed significantly fewer delays in developing motor skills such as muscle coordination by the age of 2. A 108-year-old Australian woman who was promoted as the world's oldest blogger has died two weeks after making her last post about "singing a happy song," her great-grand son and her online forum said. Olive Riley wrote 74 entries in her blogs, firstly http://www.allaboutolive.com.au and later http://worldsoldestblogger.blogspot.com. A friend introduced Riley to blogging early in 2007, and was hooked. The iPhone went on sale at a Tokyo store Friday, making its debut in Japan, amid swirling smoke after a 30-second countdown chanted by hundreds of people lined up, some for days, snaking around the block. The store in downtown Tokyo of Japanese carrier Softbank Corp.'s store, started selling Apple Inc.'s much awaited cell phone five hours ahead of the other stores in the nationwide chain. Japanese adventurer Kenichi Horie took more than three months to sail from Hawaii to Japan in a boat powered by the energy of ocean waves, but says he was blessed with good weather and tasty fish. "The sea was so calm, and the weather was so great throughout my journey. That's why it took me so long," he said Saturday. Special Reports
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A Qantas Boeing 747 flying to Melbourne made an emergency landing in Manila on Friday after a dramatic mid-air rupture that left a "gaping hole" in its fuselage, officials and passengers said. Stunned passengers reported how the jumbo, which originated in London and made a stop in Hong Kong, plunged 20,000 feet (6,000) metres in an "absolutely terrifying" ordeal.
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US actor Danny Glover, who plans an epic next year on Haitian independence hero Toussaint-Louverture, said he slaved to raise funds for the movie because financiers complained there were no white heroes. "Producers said 'It's a nice project, a great project... where are the white heroes?'" he told AFP during a stay in Paris this month for a seminar on film.
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Cadel Evans has been tipped to overhaul his 1min 34sec deficit to Spanish rival Carlos Sastre ahead of their duel for the Tour de France yellow jersey in the final time trial on Saturday. Sastre, who rides for the CSC team run by former Tour winner Bjarne Riis, stole the limelight on the final day in the Alps Wednesday by taking the lead thanks to a victorious attack at the bottom of the 13.8 km climb to the Alpe d'Huez.
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A Qantas Boeing 747 flying to Melbourne made an emergency landing in Manila on Friday after a dramatic mid-air rupture that left a "gaping hole" in its fuselage, officials and passengers said. Stunned passengers reported how the jumbo, which originated in London and made a stop in Hong Kong, plunged 20,000 feet (6,000) metres in an "absolutely terrifying" ordeal.
Latest Sci-Tech News
Internet security researchers on Thursday warned that hackers have caught on to a "critical" flaw that lets them control traffic on the Internet. An elite squad of computer industry engineers that labored in secret to solve the problem released a software "patch" two weeks ago and sought to keep details of the vulnerability hidden at least a month to give people time to protect computers from attacks.
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