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Scotland’s push for independence from Britain has moved into cyberspace. The push for independence, a goal of the Scottish National Party, has been tempered by the country’s government not having a majority government. But newspapers such as The Sunday Times are reporting Alex Salmond, the first minister, is to lodge a formal request with ICANN for the gTLD .sco. Scotland’s push for independence from Britain has moved into cyberspace. The push for independence, a goal of the Scottish National Party, has been tempered by the country’s government not having a majority government. But newspapers such as The Sunday Times are reporting Alex Salmond, the first minister, is to lodge a formal request with ICANN for the gTLD .sco.

The push is inspired by the awarding of ccTLDs to Guernsey, Jersey and the Isle of Man and the .cat gTLD. The push is being led by Christine Grahame, a Nationalist Member of the Scottish Parliament who has been leading a campaign for Scotland to get its own identity on the worldwide web, said the move was essential.

Ms Grahame says a .sco gTLD would enhance the Scottish brand at an official level and “reinforce the distinctiveness of government in Scotland, and help improve further our external relations and national image.” She also believes it would distance the Scottish parliament from the bad publicity of the UK government of recent years.

Should it be successful, .sco would be used for all official email addresses and websites, with reports there would be an expectation all government agencies to change to the new gTLD immediately.

Nationalists believe Scots would be very supportive of the proposed change as thousands already display the letters “Sco” and the Saltire on their car licence plates.

A spokesman for the internet-based DotSco campaign told The Daily Telegraph the change would benefit the Scottish tourist industry, but added that using the suffix would be entirely voluntary.

The .sco proposal follows the proposal for .cym (Wales) and .ldn (London).

More information is available from The Sunday Times <http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/scotland/article3648301.ece> and The Daily Telegraph <http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2008/03/30/nscot130.xml>, while The Campaign for a .SCO Internet Domain has its website at http://dotsco.org/.
 
 

We’ve seen initiatives all over the globe created in an attempt to beat blindness, but researchers based at MIT are feeling fairly confident that their development is within a few years of being able to “restore partial sight to people who have slowly gone blind because of degenerative diseases of the retina.” The bio-electronic implant, which is about the size of a pencil eraser, would actually sit behind the retina at the back of the eyeball, and images would be transmitted to the brain “via a connector the width of a human hair.” As it stands, an FDA grant application is already in the works, and the scientists are hoping to have it implanted in an animal as early as this summer. Still, the solution only works for folks who “were once able to see and have partially intact optic nerve cells” — those who were blind from birth or suffer from glaucoma are unfortunately ineligible for the procedure.

source:engadget