NASA gave up on the reusable space vehicle X-37 project, so the Air Force is all up on that, with DARPA getting involved. Flight tests begin in 2008.

I’m of two minds about the news that UK police are using psychological profiling to pre-emptively target potential rapists and murderers before they actually commit any such crimes. On the one hand, I’d rather live in a world where rape and murder were distant memories. On the other hand, this seems like one more in a sequence of exceptionally totalitarian moves by the British government. Is freedom the necessary price of safety?

Okay folks, I’ve been tinkering with the innards of the new install of MT we have here at Futurismic, and I’ve activated the comment authentication option. This means if you comment using a TypeKey identity (which will only take you a few minutes to set up once, and then you’re good to go for the foreseeable future), you pass directly through our ever-hungry spam traps and straight to the page!
You don’t have to use a TypeKey identity, of course, but in that case you’ll have to accept your comments waiting to be moderated. Ideally we’d like to be able to miss out the third party authentication, but it seems this is our best option for progress. I’d appreciate it greatly if some of the regulars would give it a go so we can see if it’s working as advertised …

Odds are good that television advertising slots will start getting cheaper over the next few years – the BBC reports on a recent survey that shows services like YouTube are drawing increasing numbers of viewers away from the TV, in favour of viewing content over the internet on computers or mobile devices. Of course, the vapid programming of many television channels could be playing a part in this trend …