14th May 2006 Archive

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British mum starts baking 'cancer-free' baby

Take the good. Throw out the bad

The UK's first made-to-order baby has sprouted in London, according to a report in The Times. With the aid of genetics specialists, a woman has been able to make sure that her baby does not inherit a gene that might trigger a form a eye cancer. The lass - who has requested anonymity - and her husband are the first to tap a …

Biology 14 May 2006, 00:00
Can I cause another person to dream?

Oooooh, the possibilities...

Studies show that you can bring about a dream in another person. One way is by holding an open bottle of perfume under the sleeper's nose. Another is by whistling. A third way is by blowing air across the sleeper's face with a fan. Someone else can also affect the content of a sleeper’s dream. For example, turning on a light …

Biology 14 May 2006, 08:02
DB2: the Viper is coming

Comment More of a King Cobra, really

The next release of IBM's DB2 (for both z series and distributed systems), which is code-named ‘Viper’, will be generally available in the not too distant future: “mid-summer” for distributed systems, according to IBM. It is therefore appropriate to consider some of the new features it will introduce, and its impact on the …

Developer 14 May 2006, 09:39
Diebold voting systems critically flawed

'It is like the nuclear bomb for e-voting systems'

Michael Shamos remembers that the call came late at night, during the last week of April. The call - from election watchdog BlackBoxVoting.org - described a critical vulnerability in Diebold Election Systems' touchscreen voting systems that could allow any person with access to a voting terminal the ability to completely …

Public Sector 14 May 2006, 09:57
Adobe gets Spry about AJAX

Lot easier to code than traditional approaches

Sometimes it seems that you’ve waited ages for an AJAX framework to come along, and then suddenly there’s a whole queue of them lined up, ready for testing. The latest to join the line up is Macromedia - sorry, Adobe now - with its Spry AJAX framework, which you can download here. Announced and demonstrated last week at The …

Developer 14 May 2006, 22:15