The Balkan Chronicle

If you thought mind-reading was impossible, think again. Recent discoveries by the University of Minnesota show that it is within reach.

The Economist reports that Prof. Bin He and his colleagues were able to give test subjects the ability to control a digital helicopter through a virtual, three-dimensional space using the power of thought. The brain control was registered using electrodes attached to the subjects’ scalps. The discovery was originally published in the Public Library of Science.

Like all ga­lax­ies, most as­tro­no­mers be­lieve ours is filled with a strange, in­vis­i­ble sub­stance that be­trays its pres­ence only through its gravita­t­ional pull. The gal­ax­y’s stars would fly apart with­out this so-called dark mat­ter hold­ing them to­geth­er.

But the na­ture of “dark mat­ter” is a riddle—and a new study has only deep­ened the mys­tery. Now, “we know less about dark mat­ter than we did be­fore,” la­ment­ed Matt Walk­er of the Har­vard-Smith­son­ian Cen­ter for As­t­ro­phys­ics in Cam­bridge, Mass., lead au­thor of a re­port on the work to ap­pear in the The As­t­ro­phys­i­cal Jour­nal.

In learning to maximise the power of the mind, Tony Buzan has inspired thousands, sharing his secrets in The Mind Map Book

Mind Mapping is both a creative and effective way of thinking; it’s a tool used by top global organisations such as NASA, Walt Disney, Microsoft, Harper Collins, Vodafone and IBM. Created by Tony Buzan, with the help of his brother Barry Buzan in the 1960s, their work, The Mind Map Book, promises to unleash your brain’s real potential by tapping into that very force field that’s locked in our heads, waiting to be opened, explored and nurtured towards putting thoughts into action. 

If proven, international fallout could occur over insecurity of the HTTP Secure system

It has come to light that the National Intelligence Service has been using a technique known as “packet tapping” to spy on emails sent and received using Gmail, Google’s email service. This is expected to have a significant impact, as it proves that not even Gmail, previously a popular “cyber safe haven” because of its reputation for high levels of security, is safe from tapping.

An Australian technologist has caused a global stir after discovering Facebook tracks the websites its users visit even when they are logged out of the social networking site.

Separately, Facebook's new Timeline feature, launched last week, has been inadvertently accessed by users early, revealing a feature that allows people to see who removed them from their friends lists.

"Yahoo isn't happy that a detailed menu of the spying services it provides to ""law enforcement"" and spy agencies has leaked onto the web.

After earlier reports this week that Yahoo had blocked an FOIA Freedom of Information release of its ""law enforcement and intelligence price list"", someone helpfully provided a copy of the Yahoo company's spying guide to the whistleblower web site Cryptome.org.

Nobody wants to get hacked. But when it comes to choosing a password, there are key steps you can take to reduce your risk of data intrusions from unwanted virtual visitors. This week's edition of Upgrade Your Life will teach you how to make a strong, safe password that's easy to remember — and how to reduce your odds of being an easy target for hackers.

Hackers temporarily blocked the official World Youth Day site Thursday just as Pope Benedict XVI arrived in Madrid to preside over the festivities, a spokeswoman for the event said.

The site (www.madrid11.com) was taken down for about an hour at around midday (1000 GMT) and the event's computer experts were trying to determine the source of the attack, the spokeswoman said.