The Mammalian Daily

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Lovely to look at - Book by Noreen

Security breach at LynxedIN leaves hundreds vulnerable

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A security breach at LynxedIN has left The Park’s refugee Lynx population vulnerable.

A security breach at the network run by the LynxLink charity has left hundreds of The Park’s immigrant and refugee Lynx and their families vulnerable to abduction, incarceration, and murder.

A spokesAnimal for the charity, which assists immigrants to The Park through its LynxedIN network, told The Mammalian Daily that the charity discovered the breach late last night.

“We became aware of a problem with our systems and immediately shut down our network.  IT experts from the University of West Terrier arrived within an hour to help us,” she said.

Unfortunately, the IT help came too late for The Park’s Lynx. Experts discovered that the identities of hundreds of Lynx were stolen from the charity’s systems.

“It’s a worry, to be sure,” says LynxLink spokesAnimal Lucia Castilla. “Some very sensitive information has been stolen from our database, including the names and addresses of Lynx who have escaped from zoological parks and so-called ‘nature reserves’. The Humans who run these are very aggressive; they’ve been looking for these Lynx and they will stop at nothing to find them. Unfortunately, this has made it easier for them to do so.”

LynxLink confirmed that it has advised all Park Lynx of the problem and the charity has assured them that it will assist them in all ways possible to maintain their security within The Park.

“The safety of The Park’s Lynx is of paramount importance to everyone,” says a message on LynxLink’s web site this morning.

New device may help distinguish news from entertainment

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Is it news or is it entertainment?

That is the question that many Park Animals are asking, as the boundary between the two, in both broadcast and print media, becomes increasingly blurred.

Enter KartalTechSolutions, S.A. and their revolutionary new device, the Verifyzer™, which company executives claim solves this “modern dilemma” almost instantly.

“This new instrument will tell you, within five seconds, whether what you’re reading or watching is news or entertainment,” said President and CEO, Fikret Kartal, at the product’s launch this past weekend.

On hand at the outdoor launch, which doubled as a pop-up Verifyzer™ retail store, were many representatives of The Park’s media community, as well as some faculty members of the Cuthbert School of Journalism at the University of West Terrier. Many were eager to voice their skepticism of KartalTech’s claims about the new device.

“The company bases the success of this device on a number of assumptions, the most important of which is that there is an objective — and detectable — difference between so-called news and entertainment,” said Journalism Professor and author, Ludwiga Saimiri. “This is something that journalists strive to define every day of their working lives, but it is not something about which, as yet, anyone can make a definitive pronouncement.”

Noburu Akita, Executive Director of the Centre for the Study of Newspaper Activity in The Park (C-SNAP) was even more adamant:

“There is no such thing as anything [being] objective in the newspaper business,” he said. “These definitions are fluid, they change with the seasons…with the generations; unfortunately, one Animal’s news is, sometimes, another Animal’s entertainment. And vice-versa.”

Also present at the launch was Rodolfo van de Gier, President of the Association of Media Outlets of The Park (AMOP). Among other things, he took issue with the company’s guarantee of an accuracy rate of 92 per cent.

“The only thing any device can do, as far as I know,” said van de Gier, “is detect the presence of, for instance, celebrities’ names in a print or voice report. But that isn’t necessarily an indication of the nature of the report. Whether you want to admit it or not, celebrities can be involved in ‘real’ news and, sometimes, ‘real’ news can be enormously entertaining,” he said.

In response to van de Gier’s remarks, a KartalTech spokesAnimal, issued this statement:

“With due respect to the AMOP President’s remarks, technology has come a long way from merely detecting names. I invite Mr. van de Gier to attend a full demonstration of our device and to see, for himself, what our new age has to offer.”

While van de Gier has, thus far, made no reply, the Verifyzer™  is scheduled to hit Park stores at the beginning of May.

GooseBook opens to all species

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In a move that has has caught many in the tech and media sectors by surprise, The Park’s most successful social media site, GooseBook, has unveiled its ambitious plans for expansion.

In a statement released today, the company confirmed its plans to open site membership to all species in The Park.

“The popularity and success of GooseBook has proven that it has great potential for growth across the broad spectrum of species that inhabit The Park,” said GooseBook’s President and C.E.O., Lester C. Gander.

In addition, GooseBook’s executives confirmed that they plan to roll out a pair of related social media sites, most likely in the second quarter of the year. The company has not released any information about the new sites other than their names: “Cackle” and “Peck.”

According to insiders, one of the sites will be a “communication” site and the other may be an internet search engine.

GooseBook was the brainchild of the late Cesar Emilio Gander, who founded the site while a student at the University of West Terrier. After his untimely death, the site experienced a surge in membership. That surge continued until last summer, when rival site Gewper opened its virtual doors. Since then, both sites have competed neck and neck for members, with GooseBook maintaining a slight lead over the more innovative Gewper.

 

New social networking site to offer scent option

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gewpergreenlogoPark Animals who use social networking sites to connect with friends and family will soon be able to avail themselves of a new option. If all goes well with its final tweaking, gewper, set to open its virtual doors on August 1, will offer users the ability to smell those they know and those they might wish to know in the future.

Over a period of more than two years, RhinoTech, Inc., the new site’s developer, has been collaborating with Enterprises Moufettes, S.A., makers of the popular scent-masking product, FeralNoMore™, to create what company executives are calling “the ultimate Animal experience in the virtual world.”

“This new site is nothing short of revolutionary,” said a RhinoTech spokesAnimal at a press conference last week.

“For the first time in history, a [social networking] site will be Animal-centric…able to deliver the kind of information that Animals have been asking for and need,” she said.

gewper (pronounced “Gooper”) will allow members to upload their scent to the site’s servers. Those whom members have designated as having the right to do so will be able to download the scent from the site simply by pressing the “Scent” button.

Membership in the site will be free of charge, the spokesanimal confirmed, as will be the scent download.  The site’s developers believe that gewper will be so successful that it will generate enough advertising revenue in its first year to pay for their next online venture: a site that will allow members to touch each other, literally, across cyberspace.  According to RhinoTech, the desire for that feature tops the list in its most recent consumer survey.

“I know many Animals who would just love to be able to butt heads with their friends across the world,” said the RhinoTech spokesAnimal.

Park braces for panzootic as Small Ball Fever claims new victim

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Anatomy of a Small Ball: The virus resides in the dimpled surface, but it replicates in the internal layers

The recent death of a Squirrel has alerted The Park’s medical community to the necessity of implementing measures to deal with the possible onset of a panzootic, according to a spokesAnimal for The Park’s Department of Well-Being and Safety (DWBS).

Kostas Apollonios Eusebios Squirrel died on 26 March as a result of Small Ball Fever, six days after he had extensive contact with a small ball which he imported to The Park from a local field.

An internal memo from the DWBS, made available to this newspaper, reveals that the likelihood of a small ball fever panzootic is greater this year than in previous years, in large part because of the proliferation of small balls in the communities surrounding The Park.

Every year, the DWBS monitors the influx of small balls. This year, the number has increased tenfold. Experts say this is due, primarily, to the early onset of warm, sunny weather.

“Small balls are the bane of our existence,” said Cornelius Kakapo, Director of Public Relations for the DWBS. “We can contain them inside The Park, but there is nothing we can do to restrict their number outside our borders,” he said.

Small balls were first sighted in The Park more than a decade ago, but their number has grown exponentially over the past five years. The balls, which are better known outside The Park as “golf” balls, harbour the deadly Small Ball Fever virus inside their dimpled surface. The SBF virus is spread when it leaks through cracks in the ball’s surface and makes contact with mucosa in the mouth or nose. Symptoms include extremely high fever, chills, aching muscles, and, eventually, pulmonary dysfunction. All Animals are at risk of developing Small Ball Fever but some groups of Animals, including Squirrels, Donkeys, the elderly, and the infirm, are at particular risk.

The DWBS’s Kakapo was quick to assure Animals that the Department is doing everything in its power to limit the spread of Small Ball Fever and to protect The Park’s population from a panzootic.

For more information, please consult The Park’s Department of Well-Being and Safety pamphlet, “What you should know about Small Ball Fever.” 

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