Microsoft has launched Windows
One Care Live Security beta, an anti-virus and anti-spyware service for consumers only.
The service offers anti-virus, firewall, backup and recovery, as well as personal computer
maintenance.
OECD
Workshop on Broadband Digital Content
Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, December
1
Report from OECD on a number of initiatives, including the OECD Secretariat presentation of
scientific publishing study.
ITV
buys Friends Reunited website
BBC, December 6
Broadcaster ITV has agreed to buy Friends Reunited, the website
which has 15 million users and brings together old school friends, for £120m ($208m). The
website has the UK's eighth-largest online presence - and profits have risen since the
firm expanded to offer genealogy and internet dating services.
Reinforcing
the competitiveness of Europe’s publishing industry
Europa Press Release , 6 December
Viviane Reding, Member of the European Commission responsible for Information Society
and Media delivers a speech at the European Publishers Forum, Brussels.
HMV
Group’s CEO commenting on the statement by the OFT
Ottakar’s web site, December 6
"The OFT’s statement today is very disappointing as we believe our Offer
would have resulted in an enhanced proposition to customers and greater sales of books,
with no substantial lessening in competition."
Microsoft
launches research initiative
Computing, December 7
Microsoft Research and Italy’s University of Trento are setting up
a new research centre to look at how the interaction of software and biological systems
can help improve both fields. Researchers will work on creating new software tools so that
biologists and life sciences experts can better understand complex processes in biological
systems.
Scopus Named Best STM Information
Product
Press Release, December 9
Scopus, the world’s largest abstract and citation database of research literature
and quality Web sources, announced that it has won the International Information Industry
Award for best Scientific, Technical and Medical (STM) Information Product. The award was
presented at the annual award dinner hosted jointly by Online Information 2005 and
Information World Review.
Another decade of Nature
issues has been added to the online archive
PRWEB, December 11
The addition of all content published between January 1960 and December
1969 includes 53,069 articles from 522 issues. Nature is currently digitising the archives
back to 1950. Content is being released in instalments of 10 years until completion in
late 2006. When complete, the Nature archive will contain:
2,399 issues (volumes 283 – 384) - Approximately 154,500 articles
 www.nature.com/nature/archive.
Wellcome boost for
open access
The Guardian, December 11
Three major publishers of scientific research, including Oxford University Press,
announced a deal with The Wellcome Trust, the world's second largest charitable funnier of
medical research after Bill Gates, that will see thousands of research papers available
free to everyone over the internet.
The deal comes as MPs hold a public debate about the future of scientific publishing in
London's Westminster Hall. Last year the House of Commons Science and Technology Committee
called for the results of scientific research funded by the British taxpayer to be made
freely available to all on the web and asked the government to help universities fund
digital archives.
Attacker's feels the pain of discounting
Publishing News, December 12
A trading statement today showing a 6.7% fall in like-for-like
sales over the 19 weeks to 10 December and citing the "unprecedented levels of price
discounting in the last four weeks". The chain said that, in common with much of the
retail sector, it had found trading conditions in the second half of the year
"challenging".
BSkyB secures
88.8% of Easynet
Total Telecom, December 16
British Sky Broadcasting Group PLC said that it has secured 106,907,672 Easynet Shares,
representing 88.8% of the existing issued share capital of Easynet under the media group's
take-over offer.
South
Korean researcher says stem cell findings were a fake
Tribune-Review, December 16
Fertility specialist Roh Sung-il told television broadcasters in Korea that his
colleague -- embattled cloning pioneer and lead author Hwang Woo-Suk -- had agreed to
withdraw the paper, which claimed that stem cells were created by cloning human embryos.
In another Korean news report, a former researcher said Hwang had ordered him to
falsify photographs to make it appear as if there were 11 stem cell colonies from only
three patients.
A Look
at Peer Review and Publishing
National Public Radio, December 16th
Discussion: A landmark cloning paper published last summer seems to be plagued with
problems, including new charges that the paper was based on fabricated data. So how did it
get published in a major scientific journal?
Guests:
Catherine D. DeAngelis, editor-in-chief; Journal of the American
Medical Association
Philip Campbell, editor-in-chief, Nature and Nature
Publications
InfoSociety
- The Publishing Industry
TMCnet, December 17
An overview of the European publishing industry.
Microsoft Windows Vista
Microsoft
Website providing information about the new Windows operating system.
Bird
flu and pandemic influenza: what are the risks?
UK Department of Health, December 19
As of 19 December 2005, 139 people have also caught the infection, as a
result of close and direct contact with infected birds. Seventy-one of these have
subsequently died. There is no firm evidence that H5N1 has acquired the ability to pass
easily from person to person. However, concern remains that the virus might develop this
ability, or that it might mix with human flu viruses to create a new virus.
Elsevier Selects Portico as
Official e-Journal Archive
Portico Press Release, December 20
Elsevier has announced that Portico, a non-profit electronic archiving service, will be
an official e-journal archive for the company. The partnership with Portico will ensure
that the over 2,100 current and formerly published journals on Elsevier's ScienceDirect
service are preserved in a permanent archive for posterity.
Datamonitor
acquires Life Science Analytics Inc
Press Release, December 20
Datamonitor is to acquire Life Science Analytics Inc (“LSA”). LSA is a
primary life science database company managed in the US, which provides corporate
intelligence and product research with excellent online functionality on some 6,000 global
biomedical companies. Completion is scheduled for January 2006.
Amazon
in journals subscription row
Information World Review, December 22
Amazon.com has responded to pressure from journals publishers to change the wording on
its website, after it was accused of inciting institutions to take out personal
subscriptions instead of institutional subscriptions to save money. The website encouraged
institutions to save money by applying for subscriptions as if from a single member of
staff.
Web pirates to be welcomed in France
Telegraph, December 24
Film makers and record companies are outraged by a
parliamentary vote to make France the first country in the world to legalise the online
sharing of movies and music. In a decision that flies in the face of international efforts
to crack down on web piracy, the French parliament passed an amendment to permit
file-sharing by users willing to pay royalties on top of internet subscriptions. For a
monthly payment of a few pounds, people would be able to download as much material as they
wished.
Amazon
celebrates record Christmas
Times Online, December 28
Amazon, the online retailer, claimed to have
delivered up to 480,000 items a day in the UK alone in the run up to the festive season,
breaking all previous records. Amazon.co.uk shipped more than 256 tonnes of goods
on its busiest day - with a Royal Mail truck leaving one of its three distribution centres
every 15 minutes.
Libraries ban
smelly people and public sex
Times Online, December 31
THE city of Dallas has provoked an outcry by banning smelly
people from its public libraries. Advocates for the homeless say that the new hygiene
policy stinks of prejudice.
A new code of conduct for the city’s 23 libraries outlaws bad body odour and other
anti-social behaviour ranging from mobile phone use and fighting to bare feet and public
sex. The rules prohibit visitors from “emitting odours (including bodily odours or
perfumes), which interfere with the use of services by others”.
The Year 2005: Top 20 Country
Rankings in All Fields
InCites
Of the
most-cited 146 countries in ALL FIELDS from ISI Essential Science Indicators Web based product. The top 20 are presented
sorted by citations, papers, and cites per papers.
EContent 100 list
2005 is the fifth year of the eContent awards
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