Month: May 2010

Los Angeles, May 01: Apple Inc is shutting down its newly bought Lala online music service amid speculation it is creating a way for iTunes customers to listen to songs stored on distant computers.

The move comes just weeks before an annual conference for developers in San Francisco on June 7 at which the secretive company tends to announce big news. Last year, it used the conference to unveil the latest version of its popular iPhone, the 3GS.

Beijing, May 01: The number of internet users in China, already the largest in the world, has surpassed 400 million and accounts for almost a third of the country’s population, state media reported on Saturday.

The online population in the world’s most populous nation has reached 404 million, the official Xinhua news agency said, citing the State Council Information Office.

That compares with 384 million users at the end of 2009.

Stirling, May 01: Researchers in Scotland say rare video of a chimpanzee dying has offered a unique glimpse of how one of man’s closest relatives deals with death and grieving.

The pictures show the final hours and moment of death of an older female chimp living in a small group at a British safari park as captured on video.

Knoxville, May 01: Before deliberating a fourth day at the trial of a man charged with hacking Sarah Palin’s e-mail, a federal jury in Knoxville will get some encouragement from the judge.

Jurors told US District Judge Thomas Phillips they have reached unanimous verdicts on three other charges but were still deadlocked on a count of identity theft on Thursday.

Defendant David Kernell is charged with breaking into Palin’s email while she was the Republican vice presidential candidate in 2008.

Washington, May 01: Aids, smoking and obesity are reversing progress made in helping people live longer around the world, with mortality rates worsening over the past 20 years in 37 countries, researchers reported on Thursday.

They found Icelandic men have the lowest risk of premature death, while Cypriot women do. Some rich countries such as the US and Britain scored relatively poorly, the survey found.

Cape Town, May 01: Parents who are concerned about their children being exposed to cyber bullying or sexting can use cellphones to check up on them.

Verb Innovations has launched My Mobile Watchdog in SA. According to the company, the software is aimed at parents of young children who may be exposed to cyber bullying or sex predators online.

High Island, May 01: Flies buzz everywhere and the stench is overwhelming as biologist Lyndsey Howell stops to analyse the remains of yet another endangered sea turtle washed up from the Gulf of Mexico.

“It’s been on the beach for a while,” Howell said, flipping over the decomposing, dried-out shell.

More than 30 dead turtles have been found stranded on Galveston and the Bolivar Peninsula south of Houston this month – an unusually high number that has puzzled researchers, in part because most are so decomposed that there are few clues left about why they died.

San Francisco, May 01: Amazon.com Inc’s Kindle e-reader is getting access to Facebook and Twitter, along with several other enhancements, as part of a software update being sent wirelessly to the devices.

In a posting on Amazon’s site, the company says the new software will let users share book passages on their Twitter and Facebook accounts.

The update will also let people sort books and documents into collections and lock their Kindle with a password. There also will be larger font options and the ability to zoom in on PDF documents.