PhysOrg.com reports that a Revolutionary Spam Firewall has been developed at the University of Queensland. It uses a support vector machine to categorize messages as a whole instead of using statistical probabilities based on individual keywords and other message properties. The developers claim the firewall is more accurate than they are at filtering out spam messages, and can detect the difference between a press release about Viagra and an add selling Viagra.

A startup firm has been created by UniQuest, the University’s commercialization company, to develop the firewall into a commercial product. I’ll be keeping an eye out for this one. I’ve seen claims of incredible accuracy before, but still have hopes it can be attained.

SP2torrent.com has taken down their SP2 torrents after Microsoft sent DMCA takedown notices to their webhosts. The site proved their point that torrents were an effective way to distribute large files, and did have legitimate uses.

SP2 can still be downloaded directly from Microsoft.

Immunity Inc has published a report that clearly shows the TC0 of Windows is less than half that of Linux.

From Augmented Reality.

Smart projectors are able to display correct images onto arbitrary existing screen surfaces, like wallpapered walls or window curtains. Thus it can function without an artificial canvas and consequently leaves a bit more freedom to us in the decision on how to arrange our living space. Our smart projectors combine camera feedback with structured light projection to gain information about the screen surface and the environment. The calibration of such a device is fast, fully automatic and robust, and the correction of video signals can be achieved in real-time. Neither geometry information nor projector or camera parameters need to be known. Instead, the entire calibration and correction (geometry and color) is done on a per-pixel level – supported by modern pixel shader hardware.

The site has pictures and video of the technology in action.

sp2torrent.com has Windows XP Service Pack 2 up on a torrent.

This website has been setup by Downhill Battle - Music Activism as a demonstration of how peer-to-peer filesharing technology can help distribute files that are too large for centralized distribution to handle. Even Microsoft, which has incredible server resources at their disposal, is limiting downloads of their SP2 release, but filesharing technology can let everyone download it right away (see below). Congress is literally preparing to outlaw filesharing– it is crucial that we rally to defend and promote the technology.

This week’s I, Cringely column talks about new technology from Rolltronics that can produce large display backplanes inexpensively, and on plastic.

Flexible displays have been a promised technology for a while. Perhaps their time has come.

The publisher of katie.com has announced they’re renaming the book. Perhaps katie.com, the domain, can be used as intended by the owner again. As Katie Jones points out, the online community’s response to this issue probably tipped the scales.

As an interesting side note, Amazon.com has deleted most of the “reviews” posted on the page for the book that spoke to the domain name dispute.

More on the katie.com saga on Slashdot this morning.

In 2000, Penguin released a book entitled Katie.com authored by Katherine Tarbox, a woman who at 13 years old had been the victim of an online predator. The book title is also a domain name, but katie.com doesn’t belong to, nor is it affiliated in any way with, either Penquin Books or the book’s author. The domain’s owner, Katie Jones, has used the domain as a personal website since 1996, but since the book’s release has been innundated with messages about sexual abuse, etc., none of which are intended for her.

Penguin has thus far refused to apologise for its choice of names for the book. Recently Tarbox has also started making the rounds as a speaker on US television, increasing the profile of the book, and indirectly Jone’s site.

It will likely end up in court at some point, and will make for an interesting case, since clearly Penguin and the author have continued to develop and promote the name with the knowledge that they don’t own it. No offer to buy the name has been made, but Tarbox’s laywer has tried to convince her to “donate the name”, and has advised Jones that she cannot sell the name because it’s associated with the book.

The backlash this story is creating can be seen in the reviews on Amazon.

The Register has things summed up well in Penguin and the great katie.com hijack.