Google targets online child sexual abuse
Google is said to be targeting 100,000 terms associated with online child sexual abuse in a move praised by David Cameron, who will announce a series of measures to tackle the problem at a cyber-summit in Downing Street.
The prime minister said that Google and Yahoo had "come a long way" after the internet firms announced a series of initiatives to try to block access to child pornography.
Google’s executive chairman, Eric Schmidt, has announced that a 200-strong team has cleaned up Google Search to target 100,000 terms that can be used to locate child pornography. The changes will soon apply to more than 150 languages. The company is also showing warnings at the top of its search results for 13,000 queries.
Furthermore, YouTube has created new technology to identify videos made by paedophiles.
The announcement comes as a Downing Street summit will announce that British and US law enforcement agencies are to jointly target online child abuse by monitoring those who operate on the hidden internet. A taskforce will identify ways of targeting criminals and paedophiles who use secret encrypted networks to distribute images of abuse.
London businesses to get .london domain
Internet addresses ending in .london will be available next year after ICANN, the global internet body, signed a contract this week giving the new system the green light.
New York became the first United States’ city to have its own domain name, after ICANN approved .nyc in June. London & Partners, the Mayor’s official promotional organisation for London, successfully applied to ICANN in 2012 to set up and manage the new .london domain.
The agreement means that London-based businesses, organisations and individuals will be able to apply first for new web addresses ending in .london from spring 2014, allowing them to boost their internet presence and identify themselves online with the UK’s capital city.
"Adopting the .london suffix will enable organisations to more closely associate themselves with our great city’s powerful global brand," said the Mayor of London, Boris Johnson. "This is also an excellent opportunity to expand London’s digital presence, which in turn is set to generate funds to invest back into the city."
Robot cow herder goes down well with farmers
A four-wheeled robotic device, known as Rover, has been tested by a team at Sydney University which moved a herd of cows from a field to the dairy.
Researchers were ‘amazed’ at how easily cows accepted the presence of the robot.
They say that because the robot moved in a steady manner it allowed cows to move at their own speed which was important in reducing lameness among cattle.
Robots are already used in the milking process but the team wanted to see if they could be used in other areas of dairy farming.
The robot was adapted from one that was already being used to monitor fruit and trees on farms. A team at Sydney University’s Centre for Field Robotics modified the robot so that it could be put in a field with cows in order for the researchers to gather data on robot-bovine interaction.
The prototype needs to be operated by a human but it’s hoped that in the future a version can be developed that will be fully automated.
