There's another mining boom you may have missed. It too involves paying young people six-figure salaries in their first jobs, and exploring deeper for resources that may have been previously overlooked. But it's not about driving trucks or digging holes. It's about building algorithms and crunching facts and numbers. It's mining for data.

Big data is the new business black. It's a catch-all phrase for the billions of transactions and other bits of information about their customers, suppliers and operations logged by businesses and governments the world over every day. Yesterday's storage problem has become today's strategic asset. Turns out there's gold in them thar files.

''This is the biggest industry that people are only now starting to talk about,'' says Anthony Goldbloom, a 28-year-old former Reserve Bank of Australia statistician who has moved his start-up data analytics business, Kaggle, to Silicon Valley where NASA is among its clients. ''The whole place is big data mad. Industries like banking, insurance, and increasingly pharmaceuticals are competing on the back of predictive models that get built [by mining data].''

Enterprises are using data analysis not just to improve their everyday business processes, but also to build predictive models of consumer behaviour. Retailers, telcos, airlines, hotels, healthcare and credit card companies are among those with information-rich customer data. In Australia ''only really leading companies have realised this as an opportunity'', Goldbloom says. To his knowledge, Telstra, Myer, the University of Melbourne and the New South Wales Roads and Traffic Authority are among those known to have applied large-scale data analysis to their operations.

Gyani Maiya Sen, a 75-year-old woman from western Nepal, can perhaps be forgiven for feeling that the weight of the world rests on her shoulders.

She is the only person still alive in Nepal who fluently speaks the Kusunda language. The unknown origins and mysterious sentence structures of Kusunda have long baffled linguists.

As such, she has become a star attraction for campaigners eager to preserve her dying tongue.

Madhav Prasad Pokharel, a professor of linguistics at Nepal's Tribhuwan University, has spent a decade researching the vanishing Kusunda tribe.

Professor Pokharel describes Kusunda as a "language isolate", not related to any common language of the world.

"There are about 20 language families in the world," he said, "among them are the Indo-European, Sino-Tibetan and Austro-Asiatic group of languages.

"Kusunda stands out because it is not phonologically, morphologically, syntactically and lexically related to any other languages of the world.

Bass guitarist Donald "Duck" Dunn, who played with Booker T and the MGs, has died in Tokyo aged 70.

The MGs were the house band for Stax Records, and Dunn can be heard on songs such as Otis Redding's Respect and Sam and Dave's Hold On, I'm Comin'.

He was in Japan for a series of concerts, and had played two shows on Saturday night.

His friend and fellow musician Steve Cropper, who was on the same tour, said Dunn had died in his sleep.

"Today I lost my best friend," Cropper wrote on his Facebook page. "The World has lost the best guy and bass player to ever live".

Miho Harasawa, a spokeswoman for Tokyo Blue Note, the last venue Dunn played, confirmed he died alone early Sunday. She had no further details.

A medicine clinic that claims it can cure cancer misled and deceived consumers, the Victorian Court of Appeal has found.

On its website, Operation Smile describes itself as a complementary medicine centre specialising in the treatment of cancer through photo dynamic therapy, oxygen therapies and high-dose intravenous Vitamin C at its Hope Clinic.

Consumer Affairs Victoria took the company to the Supreme Court, alleging its statements falsely represented its treatments as effective in treating cancer and that it claimed to have scientific support.

Apple co-founder Steve 'Woz' Wozniak has sided with Australian consumers on the contentious topic of price discrimination, saying we shouldn't have to pay more for technology goods that cost much less in the United States.

His comments, made on ABC radio this morning ahead of a sponsored speaking tour of Australia, come as the federal government readies for an inquiry that will ask tech giants like Apple to explain why Australians pay more for goods such as music, TV and game downloads from iTunes than overseas customers.

Other companies like Microsoft and Adobe will also be asked to explain.

In deciphering the tablet seen above, John MacGinnis of the University of Cambridge found that many of the names on the list are not from any currently known ancient language. "One or two are actually Assyrian and a few more may belong to other known languages of the period, such as Luwian or Hurrian," he says, "but the great majority belong to a previously unidentified language."

The site, in Guatemala, includes the first known instance of Mayan art
painted on the walls of a dwelling.

 

A report in Science says it dates from the early 9th Century, pre-dating
other Mayan calendars by centuries.

 

Such calendars rose to prominence recently amid claims they predicted the end
of the world in 2012.

Rolex USA is starting to crackdown on counterfeiters blatantly imitating and selling its products for huge profits on the internet. It has won nearly $160,000 in court after taking the owner of two websites selling fake Rolex watches to court in New York.

Gabriel Alvarez had been running deviousdesires.net and deviousdesires.com that sold fake Rolex watches for about $100 as well as other counterfeit goods masquerading as products from brands including Breitling, Armani, Bulgari and Chanel. The site openly advertised that the goods it sold were fakes.

The Sheriff's sale of a repossessed house in Melbourne's west for $1000 — that was worth an estimated $630,000 — has today been overturned by the Victorian Supreme Court.

The five-bedroom, two-storey brick house in Wirraway Avenue, Braybrook, built in 2006 by owner Zhiping Zhou, was repossessed by the Sheriff in late 2009 after Zhou failed to re-pay a $100,000 debt.

He also had an outstanding mortgage of just under $460,000 and was in arrears by almost $8000 to Maribyrnong Council for his municipal rates.
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A warrant of seizure and sale was obtained in November 2009 and the Sheriff auctioned off the property on December 16 the following year — without a reserve price.

Justice Peter Vickery today labelled such a sale in his judgment as a "remarkable event".

Police in South Africa have confiscated nearly $7 million in assets from three suspected rhino poachers, two of whom are veterinarians.

The assets were seized from Dawie Groenewald, owner of a safari business, and veterinary surgeons Karel Toet and Manie Du Plessis. The men were in 2010 charged with 1,872 counts of racketeering in what police described as one of South Africa's biggest wildlife crime cases.

South Africa, which is home to most of the world's 21,000 rhinos, is facing a massive poaching crisis.

The country has seen a dramatic rise in poaching since 2008, with 448 of the endangered animals killed last year. The brutal killing of rhinos is fueled by the soaring demand for their horns in China and particularly Vietnam.

Light bulbs that are said to last for more than two decades while consuming very little energy may go on sale later this year.

US firm General Electric, Dutch company Philips and UK-based Sylvania all showcased their products at the Light Fair industry conference in Las Vegas.

Using light-emitting diodes (LEDs) instead of filaments, the bulbs are meant to produce as much light as a 100-watt incandescent alternative.

However, LEDs are not usually cheap.

If you talk to US-based companies about hosting providers, they’re likely to rabbit on and on about the unholy dominant duo of the US market: Amazon and Rackspace. Amazon. Rackspace. Rackspace. Amazon. It gets to be a bit repetitive at times. If you’re not with one, you’re with the other. Or both. And now both are (reportedly) expanding into Australia. Like Amazon, Rackspace recently opened an Australian office and starting hiring local staff. Like Amazon, Rackspace has already notched up some Australian customers. And also like its eternal rival, Rackspace’s appeal to Australian customers has been somewhat limited by the fact that it doesn’t have any Australian infrastructure. But as iTNews reports today (we recommend you click here for the full article), all that may be about to change, as Rackspace follows Amazon in yet another way: Australian infrastructure

File-sharing was firmly on the agenda when the head of the US Department of Homeland Security touched down in the Australian capital last week. The four new agreements – promptly signed before Secretary Janet Napolitano flew back out of Canberra – were less about sharing season two of Game of Thrones and more about sharing the private, government held information of Australian citizens with US authorities.

Then there’s Andrew Nikolic.  The endorsed Liberal candidate for the northern seat of Bass has wasted no time getting into election mode, despite the fact he’s likely to be waiting another 18 months before voters have their say.  With the Liberals having no policies to speak of, Nikolic has a free rein: writing letters to newspapers, issuing media releases, kissing babies in public.  In short, he’s acting like the next Federal election was scheduled for June 2012 rather than November 2013.

Nikolic has embraced social media.  His Facebook site (authorised by former Liberal candidate Sam McQuestin) boasts 680 followers, although he’s quick to despatch anybody brave enough to offer a viewpoint contrary to his.  (There’s actually a Facebook page dedicated specifically for Facebook users blocked by Andrew Nikolic.)

He’s also aligned himself with some of the more unpleasant social media outlets.  Not only is he the pin-up boy for more extreme elements of the logging industry, but he’s an unashamed supporter of `Code Red’, a one-man vendetta against Greens, homosexuals, the Labor Party and anybody who questions Forestry Tasmania.

Nikolic isn’t a politician.  Yet.  Generally, the New Examiner respects the rights of individuals.  Politicians, however, are fair game, particularly when their antics, statements and actions aren’t effectively reported in mainstream media.  So when Nikolic chose to abuse a handful of elderly protestors in the Launceston mall (TT here) because they didn’t agree with his far-right brand of politics, we added him to the list of targets.

Although he’s retired from the army, Nikolic’s biggest sales pitch to the voters is his military background.  He’s even gone so far as to promote `Andrew’s Army’ on Facebook - a collection of individuals preparing to fight the good fight against the evil Labor/Green Government.

Scientists have figured out how to stop brain cell death in mice with brain disease which could provide a deeper understanding of neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer's and Parkinson's.

British researchers writing in the journal Nature say they have found a major pathway leading to brain cell death in mice with prion disease, the mouse equivalent of Creutzfeld-Jacob Disease (CJD).

They then worked out how to block it, and were able to prevent brain cells from dying, helping the mice live longer.

The finding, described by one expert as "a major breakthrough in understanding what kills neurons", points to a common mechanism by which brain diseases such as Alzheimer's, Parkinson's and CJD damage the nerve cells.

Magnet-making bacteria may be building biological computers of the future, researchers have said.

A team from the UK's University of Leeds and Japan's Tokyo University of Agriculture and Technology have used microbes that eat iron.

As they ingest the iron, the microbes create tiny magnets inside themselves, similar to those in PC hard drives.

The research may lead to the creation of much faster hard drives, the team of scientists say.

As technology progresses and computer components get smaller and smaller, it becomes harder to produce electronics on a nano-scale.

So researchers are now turning to nature - and get microbes involved.

There are frequent fliers, and then there are people like Steven Rothstein and Jacques Vroom.

Both men bought tickets that gave them unlimited first-class travel for life on American Airlines. It was almost like owning a fleet of private jets.

Passes in hand, Rothstein and Vroom flew for business. They flew for pleasure. They flew just because they liked being on planes. They bypassed long lines, booked backup itineraries in case the weather turned, and never worried about cancellation fees. Flight crews memorized their names and favorite meals.

Each had paid American more than $350,000 for an unlimited AAirpass and a companion ticket that allowed them to take someone along on their adventures. Both agree it was the best purchase they ever made, one that completely redefined their lives.

...

But all the miles they and 64 other unlimited AAirpass holders racked up went far beyond what American had expected. As its finances began deteriorating a few years ago, the carrier took a hard look at the AAirpass program.

Heavy users, including Vroom and Rothstein, were costing it millions of dollars in revenue, the airline concluded.

The AAirpass system had rules. A special "revenue integrity unit" was assigned to find out whether any of these rules had been broken, and whether the passes that were now such a drag on profits could be revoked.

Rothstein, Vroom and other AAirpass holders had long been treated like royalty. Now they were targets of an investigation.

Now that The Pirate Bay is being blocked by ISPs in the UK, millions of people have a new interest in accessing the site, even if they didn’t before. The reasons for this are simple. Not only do people hate being told what they can and can’t do, people – especially geeks – love solving problems and puzzles. Unlocking The Pirate Bay with a straightforward proxy is just too boring, so just for fun let’s go the hard way round.

A critically-endangered marsupial has been seen in the Otway Ranges for the first time in a decade.

Scientists have spent the last decade trying to confirm whether or not they are still alive in the wild in south-western Victoria.

Last month, Matthew Morton spotted what he thought was a tiger quoll outside his property in the eastern Otways.

"There was a ginger and white-spotted animal that sort of looked like an oversized possum," he said.

The animal's faeces were collected and DNA testing has confirmed it was a tiger quoll.

A researcher at an infectious disease lab died over the weekend after being exposed to a rare bacteria strain that he was working with, said health officials.

Richard Din, 25, worked at San Francisco Veterans Affairs Medical Center, reported the San Jose Mercury News.

California health authorities said that the victim had worked with the rare Neisseria meningitis bacterial strain for months before his death.

The Contra Costa Times reported that the recent UC-Berkeley biology grad left the lab last Friday and became ill during the evening with fever, chills and a headache.

By Saturday morning his symptoms had grown worse and he developed a body rash.

He called his friends to drive him to the hospital but died shortly after.

A US recording enthusiast unmasked a thief after finding a one-of-a-kind Babe Ruth recording on eBay - that he had donated to the National Archives.

J David Goldin, 69, bought another record from the seller and tracked the return address to a Maryland home.

The thief turned out to be the employee he handed the recording of the baseball legend to 30 years earlier.

Leslie Charles Waffen has admitted stealing thousands of sound recordings from the Archives.

He was sentenced on Thursday to 18 months in prison.

Lists of hashes help the sorting process but their usefulness is limited by the changes regularly made to images.

An image-processing tool that can ignore those tiny changes and work out what other images it resembles has been developed by Microsoft researchers.

Instead of a hash, this creates what its creators call a "signature" for each image. Unlike a hash this signature does not change when an image is altered or manipulated.

"No matter how much it's changed, the underlying properties of the image's signature remain the same," said Stuart Aston, chief security officer at Microsoft UK.

Called PhotoDNA, the tool was developed to keep an eye on images uploaded to other Microsoft services and Facebook and now, with the help of Swedish firm NetClean, is being given to police forces to help them categorise images.

Bionic vision researchers intend to test a functional bionic eye on patients next year.

"Our primary aim is to complete the first prototypes of the bionic eye so they can be tested in human recipients in 2013," said Gregg Suaning, a professor from the University of New South Graduate School of Biomedical Engineering, in a statement.

Suaning is also the leader of Bionic Vision Australia's wide-view device, the first of two prototypes designed to restore vision in people with degenerative retinal conditions.

It consists of 98 electrodes that stimulate nerve cells in the retina, which is a tissue lining the back of the eye that converts light into electrical impulses necessary for sight, and allow users to better differentiate between light and dark.

Three years ago, the Christian Science Monitor began a jump-in-the-deep-end version of digital transformation. The Monitor killed its five-day-a-week print edition, started a weekly magazine version and shifted daily operations entirely to the Web.

A protracted period, most of the first year, followed where everyone “was learning how to swim,” editor John Yemma recalled in a phone interview last week. For news staff particularly, the break from the “old industrial process” of once-a-day deadlines was wrenching.

But over the last two years, a slightly reduced staff has hit its stride with big improvements in traffic and the news organization’s finances.

I like Google Plus. Some of the smartest people I’ve ever read are on Google Plus, and the Hangout is amazing.

But Google is doing everything it can to force Google Plus on everyone, and it’s pissing me off.

Yesterday, I tried to like a video on YouTube. I wasn’t signed in to my Google Plus account, and this is what I saw:

[Thumbnail]

Where the thumbs up and thumbs down used to be, there is now a big G+ Like button. When you go anywhere near it, you get a little popup that tells you to “upgrade to Google Plus” for some reason that I don’t remember, because the instant I saw it, I made a rageface.