• Ethics and Virus Testing
  Opinion: How come discovering vulnerabilities and writing exploits is “research,” but viruses for testing is a crime against humanity?
  (tags: tech security antivirus)
• IT-Analysis.com – Computer Generated Profits From Financial Mark
  interesting article – somewhat goes with post the other day ()
  (tags: financial market)

• Sympatico / MSN Technology : News and Trends : Alberta team studies artificial intelligence with poker-playing computer
  But in the real world, knowing everything is just so rare. Everything we do all day long is all about partial information. So poker’s much more representative of what the real world’s like, and in that sense it becomes a much harder problem
  (tags: tech fun poker)

• August 2006 Survey: CIOs Put Out Help-Wanted Sign for Business-Savvy IT Professionals
  (tags: tech)

while reading various bits for the the previous post, I came across the news of chinespod.com
this business venture is run by a Dubliner, Ken Carroll, who moved to China 12 years to teach english. the idea behind it, is rather clever.

as China continues to grow in strength economically, other nations around the world are beginning to see the benefit of knowing the language of a potentially huge market force.

Thanks to China’s growing economic might and perceived future global influence, countries from South Korea to Kenya to the US have been pushing to make Putonghua an integral part of their language curricula

the problem that the chinese goverment is having, is that they are very low on resources to manage this properly.

here the comes the idea – that with the low cost of roling out of podcasting service, significantly less than training too many teachers and providing the facilities for teaching to be carried out, you are able to reach a greater number of people, as Ken Carroll said,

“Instead of thousands of teachers, you only need one good teacher to reach an audience of potentially millions,”

another great use of the podcast!
R

The news of the successful trials in China of an AIDS vaccine , via slashdot, brings interesting news on a medicine that has been long waited for.

AIDS – it is hard to argue, is a killer disease – claiming 2.8 millions of lives around the world, this year.

With the other news that Kenya is forging relations with China. Kenya’s foreign minister,Raphael Tuju, was outraged at western attitudes

“I find it outrageous that this question of China keeps coming up, especially in the international domain, when it is in the interests of Kenya to work on strengthening relations with China,”

If indeed such relations are forged, plenty of scenarios spring to the mind (more in the above article), but one that is also potentially true, is that the vaccines developed by the Chinese – should it come to full production – might make it into the Kenyan, and hence African – market place,  a good deal faster than through the channel of Western organisations.

If the news hold true for the next round of trials, lets hope that it makes it into the final.

R

• The Trout
  amazing colour in the paintings
  (tags: art paintings)
• Hubble Heritage Gallery of Images
  amazing pictures from the Hubble telescope – the name of the site is also very apt!
  (tags: space photo hubble Science images)

• Lenovo Debuts SUSE Linux Portables :: OSDir.com :: Open Source, Linux News & Software
  (tags: tech linux ibm)
• 18 Ways to Stay Focused at Work
  some useful tips for getting more out of your day
  (tags: work concentration)

• Wired News: MIT’s Energy ‘Manhattan Project’
  Solar cells made from spinach. Algae-based biofuel fattened on greenhouse gas. Plasma-powered turbo engines.
  (tags: green alternative energy)
• Slashdot | Fun Things To Do With Your Honeypot System
  Whitedust is running an interesting article on honeypots and their uses
  (tags: tech security)