@ The revolutionary FS8-Flightship, the world’s first commercial flying boat, has been introduced by its Australia-based developer. The company claims the FS8 is half the cost of a comparable airplane, cheaper to run and four or five times faster than a boat of similar size, reaching about 170 kilometres per hour at two metres above sea level. 

@ A new airport security device unveiled at a Singapore air show propels a jet of compressed air upon the passenger’s body, dislodging tiny particles, and then vacuums the particles up for analysis by a trace detection unit.

@ According to the UN, over 400 million people use the Internet, compared with less than 20 million five years ago. At the same time, more than half the world's population have never used a telephone...

@ eBay will soon require sellers of airline tickets, lodging and vacation packages to undergo a rigorous review process.

@ New York state attorney general Elliot Spitzer, fresh from doing battle with Wall Street giant Merrill Lynch, has sued MonsterHut, a marketing firm which allegedly sent millions of unsolicited e-mail advertisements.

@MIT student claims it took him just 50 USD and three weeks to break Microsoft's Xbox protection systems. It probably took him a few seconds more to be hired.

@ There were rumours that Yahoo attempted to buy Google, unsuccessfully.

THE GEORGE ORWELL COLLECTION:

May 31, 2002, The Guardian:

"European law enforcement agencies were given sweeping powers yesterday to monitor telephone, internet and email traffic.... From mobile phone records, police will also be able to map people's movements because the phones communicate with the nearest base station every few seconds. In urban areas, the information is accurate to within a few hundred metres, but when the next generation of mobiles comes on stream it will pinpoint users' locations to within a few metres."