Microsoft was not able to slow the market share loss of its Internet Explorer (IE) web browser in December. IE surrendered more than 1.5 points in December, according to Net Applications, while Firefox, Chrome and Safari posted substantial gains. Over the past 12 months, IE has lost almost 8 points, leaving the browser with the least amount of market share since 1999.
Net Applications released updated global browser market share numbers today, indicating that IE is losing users at an accelerated pace. The browser's share dropped from 69.77% in November to 68.15% in December. Most rivals were able to pick up a portion of what IE surrendered. Firefox gained more than half a point and ended up at 21.34%, Safari approaches the next big hurdle with 7.93% and Chrome came in at 1.04%, the first time Google was able to cross the 1% mark. Opera remained stable 0.71%, but it is clear that the Norwegian browser cannot attract any users IE loses.
Science & Technology
© Milde Science Communication, STScI, CFHT, J.-C. Cuillandre, Coelum
The spectrum -- a radio "fingerprint" that revealed radio emission from water masers in the distant quasar MG J0414+0534.
The spectrum -- a radio "fingerprint" that revealed radio emission from water masers in the distant quasar MG J0414+0534.
Using the giant, 100-meter-diameter radio telescope in Effelsberg, Germany, and the National Science Foundation's Very Large Array (VLA) in New Mexico, the scientists detected a telltale radio "fingerprint" of water molecules in the distant galaxy.
The soggy galaxy, dubbed MG J0414+0534, harbors a quasar -- a supermassive black hole powering bright emission -- at its core. In the region near the core, the water molecules are acting as masers, the radio equivalent of lasers, to amplify radio waves at a specific frequency.
Independent security researchers in California and researchers at the Centrum Wiskunde & Informatica (CWI) in the Netherlands, EPFL in Switzerland, and Eindhoven University of Technology (TU/e) in the Netherlands have found a weakness in the Internet digital certificate infrastructure that allows attackers to forge certificates that are fully trusted by all commonly used web browsers.
As a result of this weakness it is possible to impersonate secure websites and email servers and to perform virtually undetectable phishing attacks, implying that visiting secure websites is not as safe as it should be and is believed to be. By presenting their results at the 25C3 security congress in Berlin on the 30th of December, the experts hope to increase the adoption of more secure cryptographic standards on the Internet and therewith increase the safety of the internet.
When you visit a website whose URL starts with "https", a small padlock symbol appears in the browser window. This indicates that the website is secured using a digital certificate issued by one of a few trusted Certification Authorities (CAs). To ensure that the digital certificate is legitimate, the browser verifies its signature using standard cryptographic algorithms. The team of researchers has discovered that one of these algorithms, known as MD5, can be misused.
As a result of this weakness it is possible to impersonate secure websites and email servers and to perform virtually undetectable phishing attacks, implying that visiting secure websites is not as safe as it should be and is believed to be. By presenting their results at the 25C3 security congress in Berlin on the 30th of December, the experts hope to increase the adoption of more secure cryptographic standards on the Internet and therewith increase the safety of the internet.
When you visit a website whose URL starts with "https", a small padlock symbol appears in the browser window. This indicates that the website is secured using a digital certificate issued by one of a few trusted Certification Authorities (CAs). To ensure that the digital certificate is legitimate, the browser verifies its signature using standard cryptographic algorithms. The team of researchers has discovered that one of these algorithms, known as MD5, can be misused.
© NASA/JPL-Caltech
This mosaic of frames from the navigation camera on NASA's Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity gives a view to the northeast from the rover's position on its 1,687th Martian day.
This mosaic of frames from the navigation camera on NASA's Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity gives a view to the northeast from the rover's position on its 1,687th Martian day.
Of the hundreds of engineers and scientists who cheered at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., on Jan. 3, 2004, when Spirit landed safely, and 21 days later when Opportunity followed suit, none predicted the team would still be operating both rovers in 2009.
"The American taxpayer was told three months for each rover was the prime mission plan," said Ed Weiler, associate administrator for NASA's Science Mission Directorate at NASA Headquarters in Washington. "The twins have worked almost 20 times that long. That's an extraordinary return of investment in these challenging budgetary times."
© National Oceanography Centre/ University of Southampton
New evidence uncovered by oceanographers challenges one of the most long-standing theories about how species evolve in the oceans.
New evidence uncovered by oceanographers challenges one of the most long-standing theories about how species evolve in the oceans.
Most scientists believe that allopatric speciation, where different species arise from an ancestral species only after breeding populations have become physically isolated from each other, is the dominant mode of speciation both on land and in the sea. The key to this theory is the existence of some kind of physical barrier that operates to restrict interbreeding (gene flow) between populations so that, given enough time, such populations diverge until they're considered separate species.
For example, finches that were blown by storms from South America to the Galapagos Islands (and were studied by Charles Darwin) were consequently isolated from their host populations and these isolated breeding colonies evolved separately from each other until they became separate species.
© The Trustees of the British Museum
Dr Granville's mummy.
Dr Granville's mummy.
When Egyptologist John Taylor joined the British Museum in the late 1980s, he found storerooms piled high with boxes. During the second world war, the museum's collections had been moved out for safety. Although returned soon afterwards, some had not been touched since. Exploring one such storeroom, Taylor came across a large wooden chest. "I had no idea what was in it and no one seemed to know anything about it." He opened the chest. Inside were two trays, each divided into compartments, and each compartment contained a piece of an Egyptian mummy. Taylor had rediscovered what was left of Augustus Granville's once-famous mummy.
© Unknown
So, get out your 2009 calendar and put a big circle around Saturday morning, Jan. 3.
That's the expected peak date for the Quadrantids, a notoriously unpredictable meteor display. In 2009, peak activity is due to occur in the pre-dawn hours of Jan. 3 and will strongly favor western North America. If the "Quads" reach their full potential, observers blessed with clear, dark skies could be averaging one or two meteor sightings per minute in the hour or two prior to the break of dawn.
The Quadrantid (pronounced KWA-dran-tid) meteors provides one of the most intense annual meteor displays, with a brief, sharp maximum lasting but a few hours. Adolphe Quetelet of Brussels Observatory discovered the shower in the 1830's, and shortly afterward it was noted by several other astronomers in Europe and America.
© Unknown
Venus, brighter than all other planets and stars, will dangle just below the thin crescent moon in the southwestern sky. It'll be visible -- impossible to miss, in fact -- just as the sun goes down, assuming skies are cloud-free.
Soon thereafter, Mercury and Jupiter will show up hugging the south-southwestern horizon (just above where the sun went down) and extremely close to each other. Jupiter is very bright and easy to spot; Mercury is faint and harder to see, but it'll be apparent by its location just to the left of Jupiter.
Jupiter and Mercury will set less than an hour after the sun, so timing your viewing just after sunset is crucial. You'll also need a location with a clear view of the western horizon, unobstructed by buildings, trees or mountains.
A new model of the early Earth suggests that until around 2.5 billion years ago oceans covered almost the whole of the planet. Just 2% to 3% of the Earth's surface would have been dry land, compared with 28% today.
The Earth at that time may have resembled the way it looked in Waterworld, the 1995 post-apocalyptic sci-fi movie starring Kevin Costner. In the film, humanity struggles to survive after the ice caps melt and inundate the planet with water.
However, unlike in the movie, the oceans 2.5 billion years ago would have been devoid of fish, which had not yet evolved. Back then life consisted of nothing more complex than algae and bacteria.
The Earth at that time may have resembled the way it looked in Waterworld, the 1995 post-apocalyptic sci-fi movie starring Kevin Costner. In the film, humanity struggles to survive after the ice caps melt and inundate the planet with water.
However, unlike in the movie, the oceans 2.5 billion years ago would have been devoid of fish, which had not yet evolved. Back then life consisted of nothing more complex than algae and bacteria.
© Ben Curtis/PA Archive/PA
A soldier fires a laser-based version of a light anti-armour weapon during an exercise in Canada.
A soldier fires a laser-based version of a light anti-armour weapon during an exercise in Canada.
The developers of these technologies say that they will help to ensure that modern warfare is as efficient and humane as possible. Their critics say the weapons are just the latest in a long line of lethal inventions that have increased man's brutality to man - successors to the Maxim automatic machine gun, the flame thrower, and mustard gas. Whichever view you take, they introduce new ethical and practical questions.
In this review, we have gathered the 10 most important stories that New Scientist published on this subject this year, so you can make up your own mind.
Airborne Laser lets rip on first target
Laser dogfights in the sky may not be such a long way off, after a megawatt laser weapon was fired from an aircraft for the first time. The plan is to target "rogue" missiles - but it could also be used against other planes or targets on the ground.
US boasts of laser weapon's 'plausible deniability'
