So what we have here is some sort of remote robot-control rig designed for guiding the movements of a remote android - which will soon grow tired of being tethered to its’ wi-fi leash and turn on its’ creators in a fit of Turing-esque rage.

To quote the grand old Smiths: “Is it really so strange?”

Canadian researchers uncovered software residing on Chinese internet servers that is purportedly being used to “seek out and hold online text-based chats deemed to contain politically sensitive communications.”

Described as little more than a “flaw” in the TOM Online system by Skype spokeswoman Jennifer Caukin, who went on to say Skype was “very concerned to hear about the apparent security issue,” TOM Online was apparently quick to address the glitch after Skype alerted the China-based company, reports the Wall Street Journal.

While the report did not venture a connection between the security hole and the Chinese government, it revealed the discovery of an encryption key that could well have been used to easily decrypt and access personal user records, which included data on mobile phone accounts, mobile phone text messages, and Skype-TOM Online user information.

China’s latest space shot was so successful, that they’ve managed to breach the 4th dimension - travelling into the future and sending back reports which were published before the craft even took off. The Associated Press besmirches China’s claims of a successful launch, going so far as to claim that the reports were not in fact sent from THE FUTURE, but were fabricated in advance of the launch.

For shame, AP…this is shoddy journalism at its’ worst.

A news story describing a successful launch of China’s long-awaited space mission and including detailed dialogue between astronauts launched on the Internet Thursday, hours before the rocket had even left the ground.

The country’s official news agency Xinhua posted the article on its Web site Thursday, and remained there for much of the day before it was taken down.

A staffer from the Xinhuanet.com Web site who answered the phone Thursday said the posting of the article was a “technical error” by a technician. The staffer refused to give his name as is common among Chinese officials.

Are the Chinese close to cracking a new form of space-propulsion that will put them at the forefront of the new Space Race, or is it just a bunch of scientific propaganda?

Chinese researchers claim they’ve confirmed the theory behind an “impossible” space drive, and are proceeding to build a demonstration version. If they’re right, this might transform the economics of satellites, open up new possibilities for space exploration –- and give the Chinese a decisive military advantage in space.

To say that the “Emdrive” (short for “electromagnetic drive”) concept is controversial would be an understatement. According to Roger Shawyer, the British scientist who developed the concept, the drive converts electrical energy into thrust via microwaves, without violating any laws of physics. Many researchers believe otherwise. An article about the Emdrive in New Scientist magazine drew a massive volley of criticism. Scientists not only argued that Shawyer’s work was blatantly impossible, and hat his reasoning was flawed. They also said the article should never have been published.

“It is well known that Roger Shawyer’s ‘electromagnetic relativity drive’ violates the law of conservation of momentum, making it simply the latest in a long line of ‘perpetuum mobiles’ that have been proposed and disproved for centuries,” wrote John Costella, an Australian physicist. “His analysis is rubbish and his ‘drive’ impossible.”

If you haven’t checked out video-on-demand website Hulu, you really owe it to yourself to do so - like right now. Well, not right right now. Finish reading this, then go check it out. And when you get there, dig it - they’ve got a new anime-specific channel serving up a number of great series. In addition to Speed Racer and Astro Boy (which have been there a while), Hulu now features some more recent fare like Death Note and Naruto. This is the kind of thing that gives me the warm fuzzies.

I dearly want Hulu to succeed in a big way. It’s a fairly brilliant enterprise, and yet it’s operating on the same business model that’s kept broadcast television going for years - paid advertising. And to their credit, the ads are fairly unobtrusive - most amount to 15-second spots every 20 minutes or so. A small price to pay for being able to watch a wide array of film and television at a moment’s notice.

Okay, you’re free to go.

UPDATE: Just came across this nice Wired piece on Jason Kilar, the ex-Amazon exec who helped Hulu get off the ground…and it turns out Speed Racer’s existence on Hulu is not an accident…gotta love it.

Fortean blog Mysterytopia takes note of an 80-year-old Japanese robot built for the Japanese emperor Hirohito in 1928. According to Mysterytopia, the animatronic oddity was misplaced in Germany before eventually being returned to Japan where it was retrofitted with modern innards and brought back to life.

Watching the video (embedded below, courtesy once again of Mysterytopia) I’m reminded of the parade scene in Mamoru Oshii’s Ghost in the Shell 2: Innocence, also included so you don’t have to scour YouTube yourself.

Those of you worried about the cute-as-a-button iPhone girl (a 21st century Rosie the Riveter if I ever saw one) will be heartened to know that she hasn’t been fired, nor has she been summarily executed by the Taiwanese government for divulging trade secrets.

No, according to China Daily, iPhone girl is still employed by Taiwan Foxconn Technology Group and is not buried in some lime-coated mass grave reserved for cute factory employees who dare to show their face to Westerners hungry for internet memes to keep them occupied at work.

You may now resume not-working.

New ’smart’ vending machines, which require ID before dispensing devil-weed, have driven the Japan’s smoking populace to convenience stores - leading to double-digit returns. Wonder if the convenience store lobby in Japan helped push that legislation through…

Vending machines began to require the special smart ID card, called Taspo, in certain areas of the country from March and the requirement now covers all areas of Japan.

“To be frank, the Taspo factor is the top reason for the growth,” said a source at one of the companies, who declined to be identified.

Convenience store chains, wary of anti-smoking sentiment, have been reluctant to refer publicly to the windfall nature of their sales boost.

Man, maybe all those images of Homer Simpson sitting around eating donuts at work aren’t really off-the-mark. If what Toshiba alleges is true, ‘Nuclear Plant Inspector’ could soon replace ‘burger flipper’ as the summer job of choice for High School Students around the world. I’m sure it pays better…

Toshiba Corp said Wednesday that eight people aged below 18 were illegally hired by a subcontractor for regularly conducted inspections of three nuclear power plants and six of them worked in restricted areas with risk of exposure to radiation. Toshiba said it suspects those who were engaged in hiring the eight may have forged documents to obtain permits to work in the restricted areas of the plants belonging to Tokyo Electric Power Co and Tohoku Electric Power Co.

Two of the effects guys behind Speed Racer discuss the approach taken to bring Tatsunoko’s anime to life, a process they call ‘Photo Anime‘. It’s pretty technical (and therefore boring if you’re not jazzed by that sort of thing), but I found it fairly interesting. I’m always astounded by just how much thought goes into a film, particularly an effects-heavy production like Speed Racer. (And before you ask, no - I haven’t seen it yet. My son wanted to go to the zoo instead…)

The goal of Speed Racer was to re-imagine the stylistic language of anime in HD with spherical 2.5D photo elements known as “bubbles” and super saturated colors to achieve a new kind of digital cinema experience called “Photo Anime.” This obviously required a lot of artistic decision making and technical ingenuity.

Two key members that were instrumental in helping to create the Photo Anime look were Darren Poe and Jake Morrison. Poe, the head of Digital Domain’s compositing team (We Own the Night, Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory), assisted John Gaeta, one of the lead visual effects supervisors, during early HD proof of concept testing, “which pushed ideas of mashing HD performance and 360° spherical background layers into techno pop, multi planar scenes and then later on in post he helped us craft a color and light strategy for CG cars, which was really brought to fruition by his 3D composite finesse techniques. He is perhaps the best applier of 3D composite technologies found in Nuke,” Gaeta commends. “He was masterful at experimental and designer focus, motion blur, textural ‘look’ (grain free, noise free, beautiful and scrubbed, super clean) and ‘Techno Color’ enhancements, allowing us to get close to the idea of a Photo Anime feel.”