London Mayor Boris Johnson adds his voice to suggestions the Communications Data Bill could be revived after the murder of a soldier in a London street.

The rainbow flag will fly from the Cabinet Office during gay Pride week to show the government's commitment to same sex marriage.

Research into deaths on motorway hard shoulders suggests more than 800 people a year have been killed or injured in such incidents since 2000.

Bloomberg  reports that none of the bidders are close to clinching a deal, and the start-up might remain independent.

Founded 4 years ago, Waze makes a navigation application for iPhone and Android used by roughly 45 million people. Its mapping service is powered by the people who use it. The app also connects to Facebook and provides social-networking functions so drivers can see their friends' whereabouts, share their location, and send private messages.

Google’s possible purchase of Waze could add social features to Google Maps, making the service even more robust and popular product. Should Facebook buy Waze, the navigation app would give the social network a way to insert itself into the lucrative mobile search business owned by Google.

The search giant netted 93.3 percent of all US mobile search ad dollars last year, according to estimates from eMarketer. The firm anticipates that US mobile internet search ad revenue will total $7.85 billion in 2015; it pegs Google's share at around $7.1 billion, or 90 percent of the market.

Waze, a free service, generates revenue via location-based advertising. Its tools are also available over the Web.

Toronto Mayor Rob Ford sacks his chief of staff Mark Towhey as he fights claims he has been caught smoking crack cocaine on camera.

Security services have been put to questioning after it was found that the two suspected Woolwich murderers had been flagged by MI5 for eight years. In response to the discovery, a House of Commons inquiry will be launched into the British security services’ handling of the murder.

However, security officials maintain that despite having a record of the two suspects, the attack would have been near impossible to prevent. Intelligence expert Glenn Montravor  said that the suspects – Mr. Adebolajo, 28, and Mr Adebowale, 22 – likely had no intention to commit such a crime, and that their time and target was chosen at random.

“Even though our security services were aware of these perpetrators, it is almost impossible to predict when people suddenly, almost by happenstance, choose the time and place, and this poor unfortunate soldier was the target,” Montravor told RT.

The two suspects were shot by police after hacking to death Army Drummer Lee Rigby, 25, in broad daylight on Wednesday in the Woolwich area of East London. They are currently in separate hospitals under police surveillance and awaiting questioning.

“These sort of individualistic, lone-wolf style attacks, that don’t require great planning, don’t require some sort of specialist equipment, will become one of the main ways that people make a protest,” said Annie Machon, a former MI5 intelligence officer.

It was found that one of the aggressors in the attack was a Muslim convert. Michael Adebolajo came to Islam later in life upon leaving university when he joined a now-banned Islamist organization al-Muhajiroun. He also took the new name Mujaahid – meaning the one who engages in Jihad. Adebolajo was an active member of the group and attended regular meetings and demonstrations.

Speculation has been rampant as to what drove the suspects to commit the murder – what the two men called an “eye-for-an-eye” act to avenge Muslims killed abroad by UK troops. Many have suggested that the attack was blowback against British participation in the Afghanistan and Iraq conflicts.

“If you listen to the words of the attackers themselves, it’s clear they wished to bring the war they saw on the streets of Baghdad and Kabul onto the streets of London,” Jamie Bartlett, a security expert from UK think tank Demos told RT.

London Mayor Boris Johnson was quick to quash claims that the attacks were driven by extreme Islam or UK foreign policy. However, former Mayor Ken Livingstone accused Johnson of barefaced lying: “They are lying. They are completely complicit with the US policy just like Tony Blair was with George Bush. They aren’t prepared to stand up and say, well we think this strategy has been a disaster,” he told RT.

‘We’re inspiring them’

The UK’s military presence abroad is inspiring extremist attacks in Great Britain, an anonymous British solider told RT’s Sara Firth.

“But also the argument’s to be made because we’re out there, we’re inspiring them or motivating them,” he told RT. “Our presence out there is sort of motivating the cells that are back in the UK to operate more and carry out more attacks.”

UK Muslim groups have decried the attack as an abomination, and condemned extremism. Thousands of Ahmadiyya Muslims are expected to gather in London on Friday to offer prayers to Drummer Rigby.

The African Union is turning 50. It was established as an organization to fight for African unity and initially fought against colonialism. Today it seeks African solutions for African problems.

Damian Lewis and Sienna Miller are among the British stars nominated for the annual US Critics' Choice Awards.

jfruh writes "Social networks like Twitter and Facebook have long hoped that the information they've gathered about you will help them create better targeted and more lucrative advertising, even though advertisers never see your personal data directly. But now Twitter is upping the ante, creating a new kind of card that encourages you to give your contact information directly to people who want to sell you things. For instance, Priceline has a new card with a 'sign up and save' button that saves you 10% on a hotel — and, though it isn't made explicit, adds your Twitter handle and contact information to a Priceline mailing list. There's nothing to stop Twitter from handing this info — including your phone number, if you've registered it with the service — to salesmen."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Two South Korean women forced into sexual slavery in WWII cancel a meeting with Osaka Mayor Toru Hashimoto, citing fears of "political exploitation".

Even though there are many top-quality open source games available for Linux, the operating system is still vastly underrated as a gaming platform. Encouragingly, we have seen developers of some of the most popular commercial gaming titles embrace Linux. The welcoming hand that Valve has extended, developing a Linux native version of their Steam client and porting their back catalogue, should accelerate takeup of Linux as a real gaming platform. But it is important that Linux developers do not neglect what has made it a success; high quality open source software.

A mutant strain of cockroach that can outsmart the sugar traps used to kill them has evolved, scientists in the US have found.

Eyewitness Steve Fryer told the BBC, "I saw the right engine was on fire, flames were coming outside of it".

Germany's economy barely grew in the first quarter of the year, figures show, as private consumption helped offset shrinking exports and investment.

The Boy Scouts of America organisation has voted to welcome openly gay scouts from January 2014, but a ban on openly gay adult scout leaders will remain in place.

Most of you agreed with Ms. Hall, if the results of the “Firefox Configuration Poll” we conducted alongside her article is any indication. The poll asked the question, “Do you think the Firefox browser offers too many configuration choices for most users?”

[img]http://lxer.com/content/Hans_Kwint.jpg[/img] [b]LXer Feature: 24-May-2013[/b]Recently I've been trying to 'minimize' some big 'legacy' MS Word files. When using MS Office to export to HTML (unfiltered), I've found out they're so big because they have EMZ (gzipped EMF) and WMZ (gzipped WMF) files in them, accompanied by large "msoledata-thingies". These WMZ's / EMZ's are (zipped) "container" formats, and some of them contain vector graphics, a bit like SVG - but sadly Microsoft doesn't seem to support SVG in MS Office. These EMF / WMG-graphics may contain vector images: That's text, fonts and lines - which has to remain readable of course. I found out replacing this EMZ / WMZ files by PNG files in the Word-documents dramatically reduces size.

MTorrice writes "Medical researchers think specially tailored RNA sequences could kill tumor cells or encourage wound healing by turning off genes in patients' cells. Now researchers have developed a nanocoating for bandages or other medical materials that could deliver these fragile gene-silencing RNAs right where they're needed. The team hopes to produce a bandage that shuts down genes standing in the way of healing in chronic wounds."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Negative Flash PMI data from China along with uncertainty about the US Federal Reserve’s bond-buying program saw Russian stocks slump on Thursday: The MICEX closed 3.56 percent lower at 1396.90 and the RTS fell 4.18 percent to close at 1400.84.

Markets worldwide reacted sharply to negative news in China and the US. Weak manufacturing data from China indicated that its manufacturing sector may be contracting, meaning the world’s second-largest economy may not be growing at as fast a pace as predicted.

Japanese stocks suffered major losses on Tuesday: The Nikkei 225 saw its biggest one-day drop – 7.3 percent – since Japan was hit by a devastating tsunami more than two years ago. Other major indices in Asia fell as well, with Hong Kong's Hang Seng shedding 2.5 percent and South Korea's Kospi dropping 1.2 percent. Markets in Australia, Thailand, Taiwan and Singapore also fell.

European markets also posted sharp losses on Thursday. The Stoxx Europe 600 index slumped 2.1 percent to 303.99, the FTSE 100 dropped 2.1 percent, Germany’s benchmark DAX 30 – which has been posting all-time highs recently – lost 2.5 percent, and the French CAC-40 slid 2.7 percent.

On Friday, the Ifo Institute will publish a report on the business climate in Germany. Revised data will also be released on Germany’s first-quarter economic growth and the Gfk consumer climate index. Also, the UK will release industry data on mortgage approvals, an important indicator of demand in the housing market.

Major US indices rebounded during the day Thursday, but still closed slightly lower. The Dow Jones Industrial Average lost 0.08 percent to close at 15294.50, the S&P 500 slipped 0.29 percent to close at 1650.52, and the Nasdaq Composite was down 0.11 percent to close at 3459.42.

Concerns are mounting about whether the US Fed intends to pull out of its $85-billion-a-month bond-buying program, which has been largely responsible for the multi-year highs witnessed in global markets in recent weeks.

Data released Thursday showed that the number of American who filed for jobless claims last week dropped by 23,000 to 340,000, slightly beating expectations. The US flash PMI index fell to 51.9 in May from 52.1 in April, its lowest reading since last October. On Friday, the US will wrap up the week with an update on durable goods orders, a key production indicator.

Asian stocks are seeing further losses on Friday after being struck by unexpectedly weak Chinese manufacturing data and news from the US Fed. Japan's Nikkei is still vulnerable: After a massive gain in the wake of yesterday’s session, it reversed later in the day, falling 0.7 percent to 14,391.74. South Korea's Kospi rose 0.1 percent to 1,971.23, Hong Kong's Hang Seng fell 0.5 percent to 22,553.60 and Australia's S&P/ASX 200 lost 1.7 percent to 4,976. Benchmarks in the Philippines, Taiwan and New Zealand also fell.

Oil is currently trading lower, with Brent down 0.09 percent to $102.30 and WTI down 0.3 percent t0 $93.90.

The Debian Project today is mourning the loss of legendary Linux developer Ray Dassen. Ray Dassen served the Linux community and Debian at large for nearly all of Debian’s life, having joined the project in the very beginning working hand-in-hand while the project’s founder, Ian Murdock.