pparsons writes “Bell Canada Inc. will not have to suspend its practice of “shaping” traffic on the Internet after a group of companies that resell access to Bell’s network complained their customers were also being negatively affected. The Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission today released a decision that denied the Canadian Association of Internet Providers’ request that Bell be ordered to cease its application of the practice to its wholesale customers.”

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Iddo Genuth writes “Researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics recently won a contract from the National Aeronautics and Space Administration to design quieter, more energy efficient, and more environmentally friendly commercial airplanes. The two million dollar contract from NASA is just an initial step in bringing green technologies to the sky.”

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Garabito writes “A spider that had been sent to the International Space Station for a school science program was lost. Two arachnids were sent in order to know if spiders can survive and make webs in space, but now only one spider can be seen in the container. NASA isn’t sure where the other spider could have gone. I, for one, welcome our new arachnid overlords.”

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Da Massive writes “Leading Hollywood film studios Village Roadshow, Universal Pictures, Warner Bros Entertainment, Paramount Pictures, Sony Pictures Entertainment, Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation and Disney Enterprises are suing Australia’s second largest ISP, iiNet, saying it’s complicit in the infringement of their copyrighted material. According to a statement of claim, “the ISP knows that there are a large number of customers who are engaging in continuing infringements of copyright by using BitTorrent file sharing technology”.”

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FornaxChemica writes “In a surprise move, Google announced today, both on-site and in its blog, that it will permanently shut down its 3D virtual world, Lively, by the end of the year. This makes Lively one of Google’s few scrapped products, and one of the most short-lived, too, barely lasting 6 months. No official reason was given, only that Google wants to ‘prioritize [its] resources and focus more on [its] core search, ads and apps business.’ Lively might have taken too much and given back too little, even by Google’s standards.”

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ric482 writes “With the release of the Mozilla Foundation’s 2007 financial report, questions have been raised by the IRS who are due to perform an audit on the non-profit organization behind the massively popular Firefox browser. Last year the Foundation received $66 million of its total $75 million revenue (88 percent) from search engine maestro’s Google, so the IRS are looking for blood over the organizations tax exempt status. Back in 2006, Mozilla got $59.5 million from Google — around 85 percent of the organizations revenue. Google and Mozilla are part of a ‘you scratch my back, I’ll pay your bills’ sort of agreement with the Google search bar firmly placed in the toolbar, and on the default homepage. Things were a bit rocky a couple of months back when Google unveiled the Beta-run of its Chrome browser, but Mozilla and Google hugged it out and sealed a deal that will last for a further three years. That deal will expire in November 2011.”

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geekmansworld writes “From the Washington Post, ‘An international team of scientists has reconstructed more than three-quarters of the genome of the woolly mammoth using DNA extracted from balls of hair, the first time this has been accomplished for an extinct species.’ Who wants a pet mammoth?”

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Today, Microsoft launched the New Xbox Experience for Xbox Live. The list of new features includes the streaming of TV shows and movies through Netflix, the ability to install games to the HDD, an avatar system, and the Community Games platform. The launch itself was shaky at first, but most issues have been smoothed out. Sony-owned Columbia Pictures immediately pulled their movie selection, though it may return when a licensing deal gets worked out. Halo 3 developer Bungie pointed out that not all games will run faster when installed to a HDD because of the way the games already interact with the drive.

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Windows 1.0, the original 16-bit operating system, was released on 20 November 1985 and today marks its 23rd Birthday. 55 programmers developed the system in a year, making the 1st edition a break from the norm in terms of usability. It enabled users to use a mouse to navigate the system and use its various functions and applications that were included. Applications included were a set of desktop applications (MS-DOS File Management Program), a calendar, card file, notepad, calculator, clock and telecommunications programs allowing users to manage their day-to-day activites much like a PDA does today. It also allowed users to switch between programs without needing to quit and restart them.

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A huge, free update for Sins of a Solar Empire was released today, the award-winning title from developer Ironclad Games. Additionally, fans that pre-order the expansion will be included in the upcoming beta for “Entrenchment”. Fans can pre-order the expansion at impulsedriven.com.

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