November 12, 2015

Top News Stories –

Tycoon buys $48m blue diamond at auction for daughter –
A 12.03-carat blue diamond has been auctioned in Geneva for a record $48.4m (£31.7m) to a Hong Kong tycoon. Joseph Lau confirmed he bought the ring-mounted, cushion-shaped stone for his seven-year-old daughter, renaming it “Blue Moon of Josephine” after her. Auction house Sotheby’s said the sale had set “a new world auction record for any diamond of any colour”. It is not the first time Lau, a property billionaire, has bought precious stones for his daughter. The businessman – who was convicted of bribery and money laundering in 2014 – is also confirmed as the buyer of a 16.08-carat pink diamond, which Christie’s sold for $28.5m on Tuesday. It has been renamed “Sweet Josephine”, a spokeswoman for Mr Lau told BBC News. [BBC]

FBI accused of paying US university for dark net attack –
Anonymity network Tor, notorious for illegal activity, has claimed that researchers at US Carnegie Mellon university were paid by the FBI to launch an attack on them. Tor claimed that the FBI was “outsourcing police work” and paid the university “at least $1m (£675,000)”. Tor is a so-called dark net – a hidden part of the internet that cannot be reached via traditional search engines. It gained notoriety in late 2014 when a big operation carried out by the FBI took down dozens of Tor sites, including the Silk Road 2, which was one of the world’s largest online drug-selling sites. It was this attack that the Tor Project is claiming was undertaken by researchers at Carnegie Mellon, which is based in Pittsburgh. [BBC]

British Museum opens to whole world after 262 years as it invites Street View indoors –
It was founded in 1753 on the founding principles of the Enlightenment: showing off its extensive collections, free, to the whole world. It has taken a not-inconsiderable 262 years, but the British Museum has finally realised that aim after becoming the first major UK institution to open up its entire galleries and collection to Google Street View. From today, fans of the British Museum will be able to avoid the crowds to snoop through more than 4,500 objects online, peering inside glass cabinets to inspect their finest artefacts. It will be the largest indoor Street View project in the world, allowing virtual entrance into the entire London institution as well as specially-curated digital collections. [Daily Telegraph]

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HyperZooming through Hallstatt from geoff tompkinson on Vimeo.

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April 8, 2016

Top News Stories –

Springsteen cancels North Carolina concert over bathroom bill –
Rock star Bruce Springsteen on Friday canceled a concert scheduled for this weekend in North Carolina to protest a new state law restricting bathroom use by transgender individuals, as country music stars decried similar legislation proposed in Tennessee. Springsteen said in an online statement that the North Carolina law was “an attempt by people who cannot stand the progress our country has made in recognizing the human rights of all of our citizens to overturn that progress.” Tickets for the concert that was to be presented on Sunday in Greensboro, North Carolina, would be refunded, according to Springsteen’s website. PayPal Holdings Inc (PYPL.O) cited the discriminatory nature of the law when it canceled on Tuesday a new operations center that was to employ 400 workers in Charlotte. [Reuters] In March Springsteen signed a late note for a schoolboy who came to one of his concerts
Bruce_SpringsteenBruce Springsteen

SpaceX reusable rocket lands on ocean platform –
The US aerospace company SpaceX has successfully landed a resusable rocket on an ocean platform, after four previous attempts failed. Mission controllers cheered as the Falcon 9 rocket remained upright on the platform off Florida. It was returning from delivering an inflatable habitat into space for Nasa. The inflatable room will attach to the International Space Station (ISS) for a two-year test and become the first such habitat to for humans in orbit. It is due to reach the ISS around 09:00 GMT on Sunday along with other freight aboard the Dragon capsule. Built by Nevada company Bigelow Aerospace, the habitat is intended to pave the way towards the use of such rooms for long space trips, including to Mars. [BBC] See Video of the Day

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SpaceX lands rocket at sea, makes history –

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