The two-stage KSLV-I rocket was supposed to launch into orbit carrying a South Korean-made satellite that was to study the oceans and Earth’s atmosphere.

The country, which has launched 11 satellites in 17 years from overseas launch sites, originally planned to launch on July 30, but the launch was delayed several times related to technical issues.  The launch was delayed last week because of “an unspecified problem,” and it turns out not all technical issues were fixed.

In 2001, South Korea agreed to an international agreement that limits the full range of all ballistic missile launches, but a loophole may provide a method for the country to easily transition to a ballistic missile launch.

South Korea continues to expand its cruise missile program, and wants to renegotiate terms of its 2001 agreement that caps its ballistic missile range.  Space observers note South Korea has matured its space program in a more open, transparent manner than North Korea, China and other space nations.

North Korea, a fierce rival and military adversary, watched the rocket launch closely, as there is a concern it could be a disguised test for possible space-based missile launches.  Even though the satellite launch wasn’t successful, North Korea may still be upset about the launch.

North Korea launched its first rocket in May, a move that caused the country to undergo sanctions from the United Kingdom.  The government faced international pressure from the U.S., South Korea, Japan, and several western nations, who said NK’s rocket launch was a coverup to test future military-based missile launches.  North Korea’s multistage rocket is powerful enough to reportedly reach the west coast of the U.S.

Japan, China and India also have seen recent success with their space programs, with some space experts predicting China to be the next country to launch a manned mission to the moon.  Each nation has plans for both manned and unmanned missions to the moon, as Japan plans to launch a moon probe by 2020.

However, yesterday the legal woes of the world’s largest torrent site forced it to temporarily go offline, signalling a potential end to those happy times.  The site’s legal crisis first began when Swedish courts found the site’s admins guilty of copyright infringement and ordered them jailed and fined over $3.6M USD.

The site was purchased by Sweden’s Global Gaming Factory, which made a bid to make the site legit under a rather nebulous plan.  Now it appears that bid — and the site — may be in jeopardy thanks to the aggressive legal action of copyright protection organizations.

The MPAA, RIAA, and IFPI sued the ISP that provided service to The Pirate Bay’s ISP and won.  That ISP was ordered on Monday by a Swedish court to take down the site or face daily fines of $70,000 USD.  The site was quickly taken down Monday, only to pop back up after a few hours, only to be taken down yet again.

The site owners, who are currently appealing the original judgement, write, “The good people at the MAFIAA decided to sue. Not TPB [The Pirate Bay], not the owners of TPB. Not even TPBs ISP. They decided to sue TPBs ISPs ISP.  And you know what? They won. They made a court believe their #lies and they made them force the ISPs ISP to shut down access to TPB.”

“The MAFIAA has spent millions of dollars and endless amounts of time to get this ban in order.  Our guess is that they also bribed a bit to get it since it violates so many laws not only in Sweden but also in the EU, not to mention violations against human rights. And what do they have to show for it? [Three] hours of partial downtime.”

The Pirate Bay admins refer to the MPAA, RIAA, and IFPI, collectively, as MAFIAA due to the organizations’ reputation for resorting to at times thuggish legal tactics.  Whatever name you know these organizations as, it is clear that they’re on a roll, with massive jury verdicts over U.S. citizens Jammie Rassett-Thomas and Joel Tenenbaum, and securing an order to takedown of the world’s largest torrent site.

However, The Pirate Bay admins remain defiant and determined.  As of this morning the site was back online, with no apparent service interruptions.  The admins are now offering a new T-Shirt for sale on the home page mocking the copyright protection organizations.  The shirt reads, “I spent months of time and millions of dollars to close down The Pirate Bay and all I’ll get is this beautiful t-shirt!”

Further, the true impact of the takedown and other potential future takedowns may be minimized by the spread of a recently released, easily accessible, archive of the entire site, including all its torrents, written in SQLite3.

The latest research breakthrough from IBM was made in conjunction with the California Institute of Technology. The breakthrough uses DNA, the building blocks of the human body, as the starting point for microprocessors built at under 22nm size. The semiconductor industry is facing significant hurdles in developing lithographic construction processes for under 22nm construction. Research is also being done into incorporating carbon nanotubes or silicon nanowires into construction processes.

The smaller a semiconductor can be built, the cheaper the parts are to produce as well because more can be made on a single wafer.

Researchers at IBM have made a breakthrough that involves using DNA molecules as a scaffolding to build semiconductors. The so-called DNA origami structures are compatible with lithographic processes used in construction today. The DNA scaffolding approach allows IBM to place millions of carbon nanotubes that self assemble precisely into patterns by sticking to the DNA molecules.

Spike Narayan, manager, Science & Technology, IBM Research – Almaden, said in a statement, “The cost involved in shrinking features to improve performance is a limiting factor in keeping pace with Moore’s Law and a concern across the semiconductor industry. The combination of this directed self-assembly with today’s fabrication technology eventually could lead to substantial savings in the most expensive and challenging part of the chip-making process.”

The DNA origami structures were developed at Caltech and cause single DNA molecules to assemble in a solution via a reaction between a long single strand of viral DNA and a mixture of different short synthetic oligonucleotide strands. IBM reports that the short strands act as staples to fold the viral DNA into the desired 2D shape through complementary base pair binding.

The sections can provide attachments sites for nanoscale components at resolutions as small at six nanometers. This allows DNA nanostructures like squares, triangles, and stars to be made at dimensions of 100 to 150 microns on edge and about the width of a DNA double helix.

IBM then fashioned lithographic templates using traditional semiconductor techniques that are used to make chips for computers today. IBM reports that either an electron beam or optical lithography were used to create arrays of binding sites of the proper shape and size to attach the DNA origami structures. The origami only binds to the sticky patches created by the lithography process.

Processors using the process are still a decade or more away from reality according to the researchers. The technique needs more testing and experimentation before it can be deployed on a mass scale.

The software was expected to be rolled out this spring, but was delayed for the first time on June 30.  Despite concerns of censorship, the Chinese government stated the program is designed to protect children from online pornography and other content — attacks on the program have been unfair and unjust.

Specifically, the Chinese government will enforce Green Dam’s installation at public schools and Internet cafes.

“Installation is intended to block violent and pornographic content on the Internet to protect children,” said Li Yizhong, Chinese minister of Industry and Information Technology told Xinhua.  “Any move to politicize the issue or to attack China’s Internet management system is irresponsible and not in line with reality.”

The public announcement of Green Dam filtering was met with high levels of criticism from both Chinese Internet users and foreign media, who said the Chinese government was going too far.  After the Green Dam  launch was delayed on June 30, parties were thrown across the country to celebrate the historic event.

The overall legality of the program was questioned immediately after the Chinese government announced the use of the software, which is one of the reasons it is now offering the option of installing the software for home PC users.

Along with individuals who were against the software, many PC makers were not pleased with the censorship software, though most manufacturers reluctantly agreed to use it.  Sony became the first manufacturer to pre-install the software, with Acer, Hewlett-Packard and Dell also expected to follow suit — now it’s likely they’ll all stop launching the software, allowing users to decide whether or not they’ll use it.

Slim floorstanders might be today’s style icons, but the IB2i’s, like those earlier classics, has an attractively chunky purposefulness. It comes with a simple tubular steel frame stand (fixed by beads of Blu-Tack).

This fixes floor-spikes securely and lifts the base of the speaker some 35cm off the floor, helping the bass propagate in a properly spherical manner.

The 250mm bass driver, designed by PMC but actually built by British bass driver specialist Volt Loudspeakers, has a flat 190mm diameter diaphragm and a stiff rubber roll surround.

Besides its massive magnet, PMC’s own soft fabric, 75mm dome midrange driver is mounted on a large frame and inset behind a shallow ‘waveguide’, distinguishing it from the ‘domestic’ version.

The new 27mm soft fabric-dome tweeter was recently developed in collaboration with Norwegian specialist SEAS, which also makes it for PMC.

To maintain phase coherence, PMC uses steep 24dB/octave multi-element crossover networks. These are fed from three pairs of multi-way socket/binder terminals, each individually bolted through an alloy panel, which in turn is fixed to a much larger panel that occupies about half of the back panel, accommodating the complex crossover network proper.

The enclosure comes nicely decorated in a dark American walnut real-wood veneer. All drivers are flush-mounted, with the Detail front vertical edges nicely rounded. A hefty, full-height MDF-frame grille is supplied, but is probably better left unused.

Bass loading is accomplished by PMC’s traditional ‘advanced transmission line’ (ATL). This technique is not that dissimilar to reflex or tuned column loading, but its proponents claim it has its own unique advantages. Certainly the partitions forming the folded line considerable stiffen the sides (though not the top, base or back).

Sound quality

Auditioning was carried out in a heavily furnished and somewhat irregular 4.4×2.6×5.5m (WxHxD) room. The speakers were 2.2m apart with their backs 0.6m from the nearest wall.

Most of the listening was done on a system with a Naim CDS 3/555PS CD player; a modified hybrid Rega/Linn Sondek LP12/Rega RB1000 tonearm/ Soundsmith Strain Gauge cartridge vinyl player; and a Magnum Dynalab MD 106T tuner.

Amplification included Naim NAC552 and XTC PRE-1 preamps, Naim NAP500 and MSB M200 Platinum power amps. Cables were from Chord Company, Vertex AQ, Phonosophie, Synergistic Research and Naim, while equipment supports included Mana, Vertex AQ, Naim and Townshend types.

• Read TechRadar’s MSB M200 Platinum review

Single wiring was used between amplifier and speakers, the speaker terminals joined by Vertex AQ mechanical damping links in place of the supplied brass rods.

Although fundamentally quite neutral, the mild balance anomalies are audible as a slight lack of warmth, leaving cellos and male voices a little short of richness but, in virtually every other respect, this is an exceptional loudspeaker.

The bass excess hardly ever seems intrusive, probably because it’s unusually clean and well-timed: indeed it’s actually rather welcome in adding extra weight and scale to the proceedings. The enclosure top and back feel quite ‘live’ when music is playing and, therefore, probably limit the overall dynamic range and low-level resolution somewhat.

It still remains essentially even-handed, however, with excellent time-coherence and good dynamic expression, especially through the midband. It can also go astonishingly loud with fine control and plenty of headroom.

DRIVEN: The PMC’s rather special drive units are on show here, with the large transmission line exit close to the bass driver

For starters, you may already know that under the hood Mac OS X is BSD Unix-based. This means you can fire up a terminal window and get your fingers into the operating system via the command line in much the same way that you can with Linux.

There’s also an increasing amount of Linux software ported to Mac. We’ve taken a look into some of the similarities and differences between Macs and Linux to help if you’re thinking of becoming a multi-OS household.

Getting started with OS X

Fire up a Mac OS X machine, take a look at the desktop and, aside from the layer of gloss, the first differences you’re likely to notice coming from a Linux environment are the Dock and the menu bar.

Let’s deal with the latter first – you see, instead of the OS having a menu bar for system tasks and each application having its own individual bar within its window, in OS X there’s a single menu bar at the top of the screen that alternates between the two. The right-hand side of the bar contains the date, information on your battery (where applicable), a wireless button, and various other configurable options.

Meanwhile, the left-hand side holds the application menu of whichever program has your focus, or Finder if none has. As you move between programs, this menu bar will change accordingly. The Apple menu, accessed via the little Apple logo on the far left, has a basic list of system operations and information.

For more of these options, you need to open Finder, which enables you to navigate through files and your computer.

Great minds think alike

The Spotlight tool on the far-right – the magnifying glass icon – enables you to search both filenames and the contents of files for anything you want, which makes it roughly equivalent to Beagle on Linux.

Finally, there’s the Dock at the bottom (by default), where you can shove a selection of frequently used apps, files and directories for easy access. You can also set it to hide itself automatically so it’s not in the way, which is particularly useful if you’re on a laptop with more limited screen space.

FINDER: The Mac desktop with a Finder window open, the Dock at the bottom and the all-purpose menu bar at the top of the screen

If you try this out and like it, or like the idea and want to give it a go on Linux, there are a few Dock-a-likes available. Avant Window Navigator is probably the most popular, but there are other options available as well.

• Hack the OS X Dock to make it less ugly

Applications

Applications in OS X are handled pretty differently to Linux

By default, they’re kept in the /Applications directory, but you can place them anywhere you like, because each application is an appname.app directory that masquerades as a single file in Finder. If you want to look inside that directory, you’ll need to go to the Terminal, type cd/Applications/appname.app and take it from there.

WEBKIT: Apple’s Safari browser uses WebKit, a HTML engine based on the KDE project’s own KHTML

The idea is that OS X applications should all be self-contained: all the application data is kept in that one file, rather than being scattered in various places about the system. However, there is some app-related data that’s kept elsewhere: there’s /Library/ for system-wide information and ~/Library for individual data.

In essence, if it’s something that a user might want to change – themes, plugins and so on – then you’ll find it in one of the Library locations. You can also get at the contents of the app folder using the Show Package Contents option in the right-click (or Ctrl+click if you’re using a single-button mouse) context menu.

Starting up daemons is no more complicated than it is in Linux, but the process is slightly different. Some can be started from the appropriate System Preferences tab, or alternatively there’s StartupItems and launchd. Most Unixlike daemons can be run via one of these, but they work differently, so you’ll need to rewrite (or find) appropriate start scripts. In theory, you should use StartupItems in OS X 10.3 or earlier and launchd for 10.4 onwards, but launchd can be fussy, so you might have to mix the two.

If you’re running Fink or MacPorts, your downloaded apps and packages live in either /sw or /opt/local, respectively. The setup process for each should add the appropriate bin directories to your $PATH, and this all works much the same as in Linux. Check your $PATH setup with the command echo $PATH if you have trouble using any Fink or MacPorts apps.

• Unlock Mac OS X apps’ hidden features

According to Apple, the full list of bugfixes/updates reads as follows:

• Upgrades Safari to version 4.0.2.
• Improves the accuracy of full history search in Safari 4.
• Resolves an issue in which certain resolutions might not appear in the Display pane in System Preferences.
• Dragging an Aperture image into Automator now invokes an Aperture action instead of incorrectly invoking an iPhoto action.
• Resolves an issue that could prevent importing of large photo and movie files from digital cameras.
• Improves overall Bluetooth reliability with external devices, USB webcams and printers.
• Addresses an issue that could cause extended startup times.
• Improves iCal reliability with MobileMe Sync and CalDav.
• Addresses data reliability issues with iDisk and MobileMe.
• Improves overall reliability with AFP.
• Improves overall reliability with Managed Client.
• Improves compatibility and reliability for joining AirPort networks.
• Improves Sync Service reliability.
• Includes additional RAW image support for several third-party cameras.
• Improves compatibility with some external USB hard drives.
• Includes latest security fixes. 

The 10.5.8 update can be installed using OS X’s built-in updater or via a standalone update package.

Owners of an Imerge system, which points to those with a lot of money to spend, will now be able to access 7digital through their setup without the need to log on to the web.

They will have the choice of 7digital’s six million MP3 track catalogue and once downloaded the tracks will be able to be transferred to any music device.

The content will be available through Imerge’s XiVA store.

Straight forward

Speaking about the link-up, Ben Drury, CEO 7digital, explained: Instead of using traditional web based downloads via a browser, Imerge has incorporated the XiVA store into its hardware. This makes purchasing media content an instant and straight forward experience. This is the kind of customisation and integration that is achievable with our API."

This service will be initially offered to Imerge customers in the UK and US, with more territories to follow.

This is one of many deals that 7digital has announced in recent months. Others include a deal with Songbird and Spotify, and the service was the first to offer Oasis’ last album Dig Out Your Soul.

One of the most difficult types of cancer to treat is brain cancer. One of the reasons that brain cancer is so hard to treat is that the blood-brain barrier prevents most particles from getting into the brain. A group of researchers has devised a method of using nanoparticles to paint tumors in the brain of infected mice.

Once the nanoparticles cross the blood-brain barrier, they are able to attach to tumor cells and give surgeons a much clearer picture of where the tumor stops and healthy brain tissue starts. The nanoparticles cause the tumor to glow under MRI and optical imaging.

Researcher Miqin Zhand said, “If we can inject these nanoparticles with infrared dye, they will increase the contrast between the tumor tissue and the normal tissue. So during the surgery, the surgeons can see the boundary more precisely. We call it ‘brain tumor illumination or brain tumor painting. The tumor will light up.”

The nanoparticle the team created is devised form a component of scorpion venom called chlorotoxin. The toxin had molecules that were florescent bound to its surface.

Other researchers are using nanotubes to more effectively treat cancer. Researchers have been injecting nanotubes into tumors and then hitting the nanotubes with a laser to cause them to heat up. The process has been used to kill kidney tumors in 80% of mice. The nanotubes are exposed to laser-generated near-infrared radiation after injection, which makes the nanotubes vibrate. The vibration causes heat and kills the nearby cancer cells.

Researcher Suzy Torti form Wake Forest University School of Medicine said, “You can actually watch the tumors shrinking until, one day, they are gone. Not only did the mice survive, but they maintained their weight, didn’t have any noticeable behavioral abnormalities, and experienced no obvious problems with internal tissues. As far as we can tell, other than a transient burn on the skin that didn’t seem to affect the animals and eventually went away, there were no real downsides – that’s very encouraging.”

Goncalves has been charged with felony counts of theft by unlawful taking or deception, computer theft, and identity theft — each count carries a maximum sentence of 10 years in prison.  He allegedly hacked into the P2P.com domain owner’s GoDaddy account, transferred ownership to himself, then sold the domain to Mark Madsen, a professional NBA player signed by the Los Angeles Clippers.

Madsen, who paid $111,000 for the domain, was unaware it was stolen, and still has control of the domain.  Police authorities estimated the domain is worth around $200,000, though Goncalves was willing to sell it for a lower amount on eBay just to get rid of it as soon as possible.

Originally taken in 2006, the New Jersey District Attorney and N.J. State Police Cybercrimes Unit elected to drop the case, but worked together and decided to indict Goncalves on the charges.

Goncalves claimed he purchased the domain for $1,500 from Albert and Lesli Angel, who are owners of the domain.  Another co-owner of the domain, Marc Ostrofsky, said the ownership group invested more than $500,000 attempting to get the P2P domain name back.  Ostrofsky now has filed civil suits against Goncalves and GoDaddy, who now stands accused of having improper security that allowed Goncalves to make the domain transfer.

GoDaddy has a mandatory 60-day wait period before a domain transfer can be completed — along with sending an e-mail to both parties — though Ostrofsky and company reportedly waited 13 months before filing a complaint.

Domain theft has been a common occurrence over the years, but now may become a criminal offense when it occurs.  This case may help lead to specific laws protecting domain name owners from theft and other malicious activity, as this is a problem that may place again in the future.