Throw the book at them

       Today is the day that the US Commerce Department's contract with the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (Icann) expires; therefore, it is also the day that much of the world, primarily the European Union, demands that President Barack Obama be replaced by a diverse world committee to oversee the Internet; the issue is likely to become a major sticking point between America and Europe, but most Internet users will be blissfully unaware that anything needs to be fixed in the first place; the Europeans' plan for a "G12 for Internet governance" would not seem to affect content at first, because the US only oversees the technical machines that keep the Internet going, without any attention to content; it's unbelievable that a new system bringing in other governments could similarly avoid that temptation.
       Several European scientists, who believe that genetic modification should be labelled Frankenfood and that cellphones cause brain damage, said that nanoparticles "might" pose a health danger; Susanne Stark, a chemist employed by the Consumer Information Association, said that clothing which contains little teensy particles should be labelled as potentially dangerous,and so should cosmetics and food products; a doctor who specialises in en-vironmental hygiene, claimed that nanoparticles in food could enter the body through the mouth.
       Engineers in Germany, which recently began dismantling many of its nuclear power plants, now are rethinking the safety of planned geothermal replacements; some believe that a geothermal project set off an earthquake, and scientists in the US and Switzerland are equally concerned.
       Adobe Systems bought the web analytics and website building firm Omniture for $1.8 billion; the deal was made faster than you can say "Flash website".
       China began building its fourth space launch base, the Wenchang Space Satellite Launch Centre on Hainan island;it is a major departure for the Chinese,who until now have kept their space launch sites well hidden even from their own people; the Hainan launch pad will fire the new Long March 5 rocket,due for flight in 2014 and likely to become the country's workhorse rocket for the country's manned space flights.
       Communications Minister Stephen Conroy announced the government plans to break up Telstra , the biggest telecoms group in Australia, with strict regulation; partly government owned Telstra has two choices - split its retail and network arms voluntarily or invol-untarily; the company will be barred from acquiring further wireless spectrum until it restructures.
       The luggable iron Post Database Quote of the Week Trophy goes to US media mogul Rupert Murdoch, who predicts newspapers will be printed on "flexible devices instead of crushed trees.It won't be soon; it could take 20 years.But there will be no paper, no printing plants, no unions. It will be a great future." Speaking of quotations:"I don't think the world will be a better or safer place without me"; those are the last words of executed prisoner Jeffery Doughtie, as recorded on a web page of the Texas Department of Criminal Justice at www.tdcj.state.tx.us/stat/executedoffenders.htm.
       If you want your book sold and advertised at Amazon.com , you (or your publisher of course) will provide the volume in PDF format, no exceptions;Amazon says it's more eco-friendly, and also just by coincidence it makes it much easier to index every word of your book and let browsers look inside it - even though Amazon has opposed Google 's plan to do the same; as part of its justification for the onerous formatting instructions, Amazon.com notes that books that are searchable for free outsell unsearchable books.
       The US Justice Department notified a New York federal judge that it expects to oppose the plan by Google to scan,copy and perhaps get copyright to millions of out of print books; a 28-page decision said the Obama administration had "significant legal concerns with the breadth of a proposed settlement"under which Google would set up a $150 million fund in case of copyright breaches; even the government was bright enough to realise that a properly structured deal "[could] breathe life into millions of works that are now effectively off limits to the public"no matter what Amazon.com says. Google announced it will re-issue 2 million out-of-print books in its library as paperbacks; the firm's Espresso Book Machine can turn out a paperbackbound,300-page book in less than five minutes from scanned PDF copies; it is by far the biggest boost since the Jurassic Age for On Demand Books , makers of the Espresso Machines.
       Google released Chrome 3.0, another minor update to their fast but unfeatured browser, with customisable themes but still virtually no add-ons or support for webapps; this raised the question of how Google could possibly justify calling the tweaks a full-version upgrade.
       Avaya of America won the auction to buy bankrupt networking vendor Nortel of Canada for $900 million; Avaya promised to fire no more than 25 percent of Nortel workers.