Category: Stories
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A Puny Wind
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Andrew Orlowski
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Domestic “microwind” turbines, recently championed as “power from the people” by opposition leader David Cameron, are about as useful as a chocolate teapot. A study of domestic turbines was published by renewable energy consultants Encraft in December. According to the study, only one of the 15 household wind turbines generated enough to power a 75W…
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Kevin Kelly: the first human/Martian hybrid?
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Andrew Orlowski
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Interbreeding between humans and aliens is a recurrent theme of science fiction – and late night talk radio. But could an example we’ve unearthed from near San Francisco, California, prove to be the first living example? Scientists have been able to identify human DNA for over 40 years. And here at The Register, we have…
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EU plans to regulate online niceness (and ISPs)
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Andrew Orlowski
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Europe’s most powerful quango, the European Commission, says it wants to accelerate a “single market” for online music, film, and games – and is threatening legislation to bring it about. Although the EU’s Telecoms commissioner Viviane Reding sees the market for digital entertainment quadrupling (to €8.3bn by 2010), she feels the bureaucrats need to get…
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DRM: Paranoia and panic is the default setting
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Andrew Orlowski
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Seven years ago, it was an effort to get people interested in DRM issues. Today, as the internet pulsates with rumour, paranoia and conspiracy, there’s a different kind of problem. This constant background noise – and people’s willingness to jump in fear at their own shadows. Instead of information scarcity, there’s information overload. So to…
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Radiohead backs WW2-style austerity program
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Andrew Orlowski
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Misery will be compulsory, if top rockers Radiohead have their way. The band have thrown their weight behind a “World War 2”-style programme of austerity measures: including restrictions on behaviour, and higher taxes. Last week, two newspaper columnists called for a return to the kind of social coercion only ever seen before in wartime. It’s…
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Teachers: Feel my Truthiness – Jimbo
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Andrew Orlowski
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Yes, it’s that time of year when children eagerly gather round a kindly old man with a beard. He makes great promises to them, if only they just work hard enough. But they just get a load of obscenities back. Only it’s not Santa. Wikipedia’s Maximum Leader and peripatetic salesman Jimmy Wales breezed into London…