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Social-networking giant looking at the company's solar-powered high-altitude drones to deliver Internet access, according to TechCrunch.

The Solara 50, one of the solar-powered drones unveiled last August by Titan Aerospace.

Facebook is in talks to acquire Titan Aerospace, the maker of a solar-powered high-altitude drone that can stay aloft for five years, according to a TechCrunch report.

The acquisition would reportedly further the efforts of Internet.org, a coalition of mobile technology companies spearheaded by Facebook that is working to bring Internet access to the 5 billion or so people around the world without it. The acquisition is valued at $60 million, a source "with access to information about the deal" told TechCrunch.

CNET has contacted Facebook and Titan Aerospace for comment and will update this report when we learn more.

Facebook is interested in dispatching some 11,000 unmanned aerial vehicles over parts of the globe that lack Internet access, beginning in Africa, according to the report. The company is said to be especially interested in the Solara 60, a featherweight aircraft built of composite materials that the New Mexico-based company claims can maintain an altitude of 65,000 feet for years without refueling, thanks to thousands of solar cells blanketing the aircraft.

The plane, which was unveiled at the Association for Unmanned Vehicle Systems International conference last August, can carry up to 250 pounds of gear, such as wireless communications equipment that could help fulfill the goal of Internet.org -- providing a set of basic services such as messaging, weather, food prices, Wikipedia, and Facebook, of course, to anyone regardless of whether they pay for a data connection.

While the use of drones has captured the imagination of many in the tech community for merchandise delivery, the unmanned aircraft could deliver Internet access to a wide swath of people lacking reliable service without the expense of building localized infrastructure. Other companies have floated the idea of taking to the skies to provide Internet access to developing regions, perhaps most notably Google, which plans to use souped-up weather balloons to provide Wi-Fi to remote parts of the world.

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Facebook reportedly in talks for drone maker Titan Aerospace

Published: Monday, 3 Mar 2014 | 2:43 PM ET

Source: Meetup.com

Social networking website Meetup.com is fighting a sustained battle against cyber attackers who are demanding only $300 to call off a campaign that has kept the site offline for much of the past four days.

The site, which enables strangers to meet for activities of shared interest such as sports and other hobbies, could not be accessed early Monday afternoon.

A Meetup blog said that the company was a victim of a distributed denial of service (DDOS) campaign, a type of attack that knocks websites offline by overwhelming them with incoming traffic. It said that no personal data, including credit card information, had been accessed.

(Read more: Record-breaking DDoS attack strikes CloudFlare's network)

Meetup's co-founder and CEO, Scott Heiferman, said on the company's blog that it was the first such attack in the site's 12-year history. He defended themove not to pay the paltry ransom.

"We made a decision not to negotiate with criminals,'' he said. "Payment could make us (and all well-meaning organizations like us) a target for further extortion demands as word spread in the criminal world.''

Matthew Prince, CloudFlare co-founder & CEO, discusses cloud security and explains what companies can do to protect themselves and consumers from cyberattacks. Prince says there has been a 500 percent increase in the number of cybercrimes over the past year.

He said the small amount was likely a trick and that the perpetrators of the sophisticated attacks would likely demand more, a point internet security analyst Kevin Johnson agreed with.

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Website refused to pay, gets attacked

Image Caption: Transmission electron microscopy color image of a Pithovirus sibericum cross-section. This virion, dating back more than 30,000 years, is 1.5 m long and 0.5 m wide, which makes it the largest virus ever discovered. Credit: Julia Bartoli & Chantal Abergel, IGS, CNRS/AMU

Lawrence LeBlond for redOrbit.com Your Universe Online

Giant viruses may seem like the latest creation in a Hollywood B movie production, but the recent discovery of a larger-than-life virus buried in ice is definitely no science-fiction tale. A husband-and-wife team from Aix-Marseille University in France have discovered a monster virus that has been buried in Siberias permafrost for the past 30,000 years.

Jean-Michel Claverie and Chantal Abergel, who led the discovery, have named this new creature Pithovirus sibericum, inspired by the Greek word pithos for the large container used by ancient Greeks for food and wine. Were French, so we had to put wine in the story, joked Claverie.

While the discovery is significant for science, it is more so for health, as the virus has been found to still be infectious. However, this predator only preys on amoebae.

Still, the researchers warn that as Earths ice caps and glaciers melt around the world, more and more viruses, perhaps buried for thousands or millions of years, could reemerge and potentially become global human health risks.

The newly discovered P. sibericum is not only a giant virus it is the largest one ever found. At 1.5 micrometers long, it is about 50 percent larger than the previous record holder (Pandoraviruses), which were also discovered by Claverie and Abergel. The husband-and-wife team discovered their first giant virus in 2003, named Mimivirus.

While these viruses are by no means giant in the normal sense of the word, which may conjure up images of mammoths, dinosaurs and whales, they are loosely defined as giants because of the fact that they can be seen using a standard microscope, according to the team.

Once again, this group has opened our eyes to the enormous diversity that exists in giant viruses, Curtis Suttle, a virologist at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, Canada, who was not involved in the work, told Natures Ed Yong.

Claveria and Abergels latest work, published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, is based partly on a study from a few years earlier.

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Siberian Permafrost Reveals Ancient Giant Virus, Remains Infectious

Known only by a number - CAP256 - one South Africa woman may hold the key to an HIV vaccine.

The mysterious HIV-positive woman has been able to prevent the virus from growing in her body by producing antibodies to fight it over a number of years.

Only one-in-five people living with HIV produce "broadly neutralising antibodies," that kill multiple types of the virus in laboratory settings, according to Dr Lynn Morris, head of AIDS research at the National Institute for Communicable Diseases (NICD).

Morris and other scientists think they could be the key to an effective HIV vaccine or even cure in the distant future.

The evolution of a killer

Known only by her clinical trial identification code, CAP256 provided multiple blood samples over the years that allowed researchers from the Centre for AIDS Programme Research in South Africa (CAPRISA) to see how her special antibodies quickly evolved to outwit HIV's protective shell and kill the virus in lab settings.

Until now, no one has understood when or how broadly neutralising antibodies arise in HIV patients. But in an article published this week in the scientific journal, Nature, South African researchers from the NICD, CAPRISA and several universities unlocked the answers in one woman's blood.

Globally, three clinical trials are already experimenting with the use of these special antibodies to kill HIV in monkeys. CAP256's antibodies will likely move into monkey trials as part of an experimental vaccine, which if successful, would precede about seven years of clinical trials in humans.

Only one HIV vaccine clinical trial, conducted in Thailand and published in 2009, ever shown even modest ability to prevent HIV infection

"Current experimental HIV vaccines do not induce those broadly neutralising antibodies and we think that's why they are only moderately effective," said Morris, who cautioned that it was but a one small step on the road to a vaccine.

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South Africa: Scientists, Mystery Woman Unlock Path to New HIV Vaccine

Known only by a number CAP256 one South Africa woman may hold the key to an HIV vaccine.

In 2009, a Thai vaccine trial demonstrated an experimental vaccine was about 30 percent effective in preventing HIV infection.

The mysterious HIV-positive woman has been able to prevent the virus from growing in her body by producing antibodies to fight it over a number of years.

Only one-in-five people living with HIV produce broadly neutralising antibodies, that kill multiple types of the virus in laboratory settings, according to Dr Lynn Morris, head of AIDS research at the National Institute for Communicable Diseases (NICD).

Morris and other scientists think they could be the key to an effective HIV vaccine or even cure in the distant future.

The evolution of a killer

Known only by her clinical trial identification code, CAP256 provided multiple blood samples over the years that allowed researchers from the Centre for AIDS Programme Research in South Africa (CAPRISA) to see how her special antibodies quickly evolved to outwit HIVs protective shell and kill the virus in lab settings.

Until now, no one has understood when or how broadly neutralising antibodies arise in HIV patients. But in an article published this week in the scientific journal, Nature, South African researchers from the NICD, CAPRISA and several universities unlocked the answers in one womans blood.

Globally, three clinical trials are already experimenting with the use of these special antibodies to kill HIV in monkeys. CAP256s antibodies will likely move into monkey trials as part of an experimental vaccine, which if successful, would precede about seven years of clinical trials in humans.

Only one HIV vaccine clinical trial, conducted in Thailand and published in 2009, ever shown even modest ability to prevent HIV infection

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Scientists, mystery woman unlock path to new HIV vaccine