TurkmenPost

 Iran has received a first shipment of missiles from North Korea that are capable of reaching Europe, Israel’s military intelligence chief was quoted on Thursday as saying.

Known in the West as BM-25s, the Russian-designed missiles have a range of around 1,500 miles, giving them a longer reach than the Iranian-made Shihab-4 missiles which are capable of hitting Israel.

The intelligence chief, Major-General Amos Yadlin, was quoted by Israel’s Haaretz newspaper as saying in a lecture on Wednesday that some BM-25s had arrived in Iran.

The BM-25 was originally manufactured in the Soviet Union, where it was known as the SSN6, a missile capable of carrying a nuclear warhead, Haaretz reported.

After the Russians decommissioned the SSN6, the missiles were sold to North Korea, which adapted them to carry a heavier payload, the newspaper’s military affairs correspondent said.

In February, a German diplomat, citing his country’s intelligence data, confirmed a German newspaper report that said Iran had purchased 18 disassembled BM-25s from North Korea.

Israel has been urging the international community to pressure Iran to halt its nuclear programme as well as its efforts to obtain long-range missiles.

Iran, the world’s fourth largest producer of crude oil, says its nuclear programme is a peaceful project to provide electricity.

Israel is widely believed to have more than 200 nuclear warheads. It declines to comment on its atomic program, saying only it will not be the first country to introduce nuclear weapons into the Middle East.

via reuters.

To get Yahoo Mail Beta, just switch your content preference to Germany, France or UK. Then you will be asked if you want to join the beta when you log into your Yahoo Mail. Say yes, and join the beta. Then from the options menu, change your content preference what it was before. Then go to Yahoo Mail again. You should see Yahoo Beta. If you don’t see it, go to options and click "Try Beta" button. That’s all.

How to change your content preference:

* log in to Yahoo Mail
* click Options
* select Account information from the left panel
* go to Member Information, General Preferences, Preferred Content
* select, for example, Yahoo UK
* click Finished
* go to Yahoo Mail
* you’ll see a page that says "It’s the New Yahoo! Mail Beta… and you’re invited."
* click on "Try Beta Now".

via googlesystem.

The latest issue of PSM has revealed new details about the PlayStation 3. While CNN’s Chris Morris claims that Sony won’t announce a price for the PS3 at E3 2006, PSM says the PlayStation 3 is expected to sell for about $399 in the U.S., €322 in Europe and ¥45,965 in Japan.

The magazine also claims that the console will come standard with a 60GB, non-removable hard drive.

For those who care about backward compatibility, PSM also revealed that PSO and PS2 games will run on the PlayStation 3 in 720, 1080i and 1080p.

The magazine also confirms some info we already knew. First, all games will come in Blu-ray Disc media and there won’t be regional lockouts. Second, the launch line-up, as well as the final design for the controller, will be revealed at next month’s E3 expo.

Finally, the console will launch in the first half of November with the PlayStation Network Platform service launching simultaneously with the console and offering free online gameplay.

via teamxbox.

A massive language research database responsible for bringing words such as "podcast" and "celebutante" to the pages of the Oxford dictionaries has officially hit a total of 1 billion words, researchers said Wednesday. 

Drawing on sources such as weblogs, chatrooms, newspapers, magazines and fiction, the Oxford English Corpus spots emerging trends in language usage to help guide lexicographers when composing the most recent editions of dictionaries.

The press publishes the Oxford English Dictionary, considered the most comprehensive dictionary of the language, which in its most recent August 2005 edition added words such as "supersize," "wiki" and "retail politics" to its pages.

Oxford University Press lexicographer Catherine Soanes said the database is not a collection of 1 billion different words, but of sentences and other examples of the usage and spelling.

"The corpus is purely 21st century English," said Judy Pearsall, publishing manager of English dictionaries. "You’re looking at current English and seeing what’s happening right now. That’s language at the cutting edge."

As hybrid words such as "geek-chic," "inner-child" or "gabfest" increase in usage, Pearsall said part of the research project’s goal is to identify words that have lasting power.

"English gets really creative, really fun. What we’re putting in dictionaries is words that will stick around," she said.

Launched in January 2000, the Oxford English Corpus is part of the world’s largest-funded language research project, costing $90,000-$107,000 per year.

It has helped identify how the spellings of common phrases have changed, such as "fazed by" to "phased by" or "free rein" to "free reign."

"Buck naked" increasingly has evolved to "butt naked."

The corpus collects evidence from all the places where English is spoken, whether from North America, Britain, the Caribbean, Australia or India, to reflect the most current and common usage of the English language.

Michelle Rodriguez, star of ABC’s Lost, surrendered to authorities after she chose jail time instead of performing 240 hours of community service for her latest drunk driving conviction. Rodriguez was pulled over on December 1st and recorded a blood-alcohol level of 0.145 percent, nearly twice the legal limit of 0.08. Rodriguez is currently serving a three year probabtion for pleading no contest to three Los Angeles traffic violations, including guess what? Drunk driving. Her attorney says the decision to go to jail was a "personal choice." He explains:

"I would suspect that because she has a hard time even going out for a meal without being intruded upon for an autograph or photograph, it’s really difficult for her to do community service."

via idlyitw.