A few odds & ends that drew my eye in the news today:

• Mozilla have released the 0.9 version of their mail program Thunderbird, with a number of new features & bug fixes.

  Thunderbird 0.9 is now available for download! New features include Saved Search Folders (aka Virtual Folders) which allow you to display messages based on previously set search criteria across multiple folders. Message Grouping allows you to organize e-mail in a folder by grouping them based on various attributes like Date, Sender, Label, etc. Thunderbird 0.9 also includes numerous bug fixes and other improvements.

• Firefox Release Candidate 2 has also been released

• Crown Prosecutor in a murder case in Sydney claims that Counter Strike was the inspiration for an assult & murder in January.

  Crown Prosecutor James Bennett, SC, told the court Em was fascinated by the combat-simulation game.

  "The peace and tranquility of the family life they had enjoyed up to that time was shattered because of two men, one of which the Crown says was the accused, dressed in an outfit that was inspired by a computer game, Counter-Strike, in which the accused had some interest and from which he derived some enjoyment," he said.

  Not sure what actual evidence there is to show the game had anything to do with it. Sounds like a standard robbery-gone-wrong situation ending very badly. Also in the SMH.

• A financial adviser who lost over $1 million of his clients’ money in a Nigerian scam has been jailed.

  Robert Andrew Street, 58, then a licensed securities dealer, deceived clients into handing over retirement savings after being fooled by the scam.

  The County Court heard Street told victims he would invest their money in risk-free projects, but instead transferred $1,039,910 overseas to the frauds.

  Street had been hoodwinked by a person claiming to be a representative of a Nigerian government committee, who offered him $65 million on payment of certain "upfront fees".

• Tony Abbott has said he will continue to raise the issue of abortion, despite some Coalition colleagues warning him off the topic.

  Coalition MPs received a letter from party whip Kerry Bartlett on Monday urging them to be wary of talking to the media on abortion, but the letter was widely ignored by MPs who have been outspoken on the issue.

  …

  "I think women’s right to choose is a good principle, but is it an unforced choice? Are people being railroaded into this by parents, husbands, boyfriends and the culture of convenience? I think that’s a question we will consider."

  Good on him. Whether you agree or disagree with his position, the current climate of silence on the issue is not healthy. As a nation we should be willing to discuss issues of this importance, even if they are delicate. Abbott’s point about whether people are being railroaded into the decision is a valid concern, and is the same reason I have problems with euthanasia.

  Also, as far as I know Kerry Bartlett is a conservative Christian, who opposes abortion. While I know as party whip he has an obligation to ensure members ‘toe the party line’, I wonder what he thinks should be done about the issue?

• Apparently, the reason everyone though Kerry was going to win the US election was because some blogs released exit poll info

  News organizations promised Wednesday to look into why their Election Day exit polls showed an initial surge for John Kerry, but also blamed bloggers for spreading news that gave a misleading view of the presidential race.

  Sure, it’s all the bloggers’ fault. They reported exit polls as they came in. So what. If people are silly enough to think a 70% swing to Kerry with 1% of the vote counted is important, what can you do? The whole idea of exit polling is simply flawed. You only get a small section of the result, and people can lie. If you’re in the middle of Democrat heartland & you’ve just voted Republican, you’re probably not going to be too comfortable saying so.

Cyberkinetics has begun testing a nural implant that allows people to control electronic devices with their thoughts.

The goal of the BrainGate^tm Neural Interface System development program is to create a product that can potentially allow quadriplegic patients to recover a host of abilities that normally rely on the hands. The system could be used in the individual’s home environment or even be mobile with the patient.

Such a system could someday potentially restore the ability to interface with a computer and other devices at a level of speed, accuracy and precision that is comparable to the use of hands by a non-disabled person.

If this works it will radically change the way we do things, and not just for disabled people I think. Could you imagine playing computer games with this? Or how about the ability to write documents in a word processor by thinking it. I know that’s a fair way off compared to what they’re doing now, but it brings it all one step closer.

[via Forever Geek]

DRUDGE REPORT is reporting that Christopher Reeve is dead.

12:30:02 ET: Veteran Hollywood reporter Nikki Finke has learned that actor Christopher Reeve is dead, according to sources close to the actor. He died suddenly Sunday. News of his death has not been reported publicly yet. His family will make an announcement Monday at the earliest.

Reeve was just mentioned Friday in the second live presidential debate by John Kerry. Noting he was a friend of the paralysed Reeve, Kerry said he was in favor of further stem cell research because Reeve could walk again one day thanks to such science.

No confirmation anywhere else yet. XFM in London announced it, but their source was Drudge. Dead or Alive is also reporting, but no source or info listed there, so one would guess that it’s just from Drudge too.

UPDATE: Major news sources now reporting the story.

CNN reports:

Reeve fell into a coma Saturday after going into cardiac arrest while at his New York home, his publicist, Wesley Combs, told The Associated Press by phone from Washington, D.C., on Sunday night.

Reeve was being treated at Northern Westchester Hospital for a pressure wound that he developed, a common complication for people living with paralysis. In the past week, the wound had become severely infected, resulting in a serious systemic infection.

Story also being reported by the Daily Telegraph & SMH.

(more…)

• Someone has scanned in shots of Quake 4 from PCZone mag & posted them on the 3D Center Forums. It’s based on the Doom 3 engine.
• Mozilla released Firefox 1.0 (Preview Release), Thunderbird 0.8 & Mozilla Suite 1.7.3. All great stuff. Also, Spread Firefox community promotion site was launched, aiming for 1 million Firefox downloads in 10 days, currently up to 312,138 after 1 day! So go .
• GNOME 2.8 Desktop & Developer Platform (aka Gnome Desktop Environment) has been released.

Mozilla has released security updates for the Mozilla Suite, Firefox & Thunderbird, as per this post on Mozillazine. This is not a new feature release, only a security bug fix. These bugs, the oldest of which is only just more than a month old, have all been fixed by this patch. Just over a month in the wild and Mozilla has pluged all the known security holes (actually, only one is more than a month old, the rest are only a few weeks).

There’s a certain other browser/email development team who could learn from this.

I really want one of these: