29th December 2009 Archive

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High-speed Chinese train kicks French, Japanese butt

UK, US not worth mentioning

China's new high-speed passenger-train service broke world speed records on its maiden run over the weekend. According to a report in Monday's Financial Times, the Harmony express train travelled from Guangzhou in Guangdong province to the central-China city of Wuhan - a distance of 1,100km (684mi) - in under three hours. The …

Science 29 Dec 01:46
Japanese chap sets paper plane flight record

Origami aircraft aloft for 26.1 seconds

A Japanese aeronautical origami engineer has set the world record for the longest flight by a paper-only plane - 26.1 seconds. Takuo Toda, president of the Japan Origami Airplane Association, made his attempt on Saturday in a Japan Airlines hangar near Tokyo's Haneda airport, the Guardian explains. Toda already held the …

Physics 29 Dec 10:36
Firefox 3.6 hits ice - won't show up till Spring

New decade, newish browser

Mozilla has delayed the release of Firefox 3.6 until the first quarter of 2010. The outfit had been promising to deliver the next iteration of its celebrated browser before the decade was out. However, despite spinning out no less than five betas of Firefox 3.6, the final version of the browser won't ship until next year. …

Developer 29 Dec 10:59
Telefonica gobbles up Jajah

A realised VoIP business plan

VoIP outfit Jajah got its Christmas wish, €145 million in cash from mobile operator Telefonica. Telefonica, which operates as O2 in the UK, has bought Jajah lock, stock and barrel, gaining a presence in social networking sites as well as the opportunity to up sell services to the millions of users who signed up for the cheap …

VoIP 29 Dec 11:11
Wikileaks suspends ops to launch pledge drive

Send money, techies, lawyers to keep whistles blowing

Wikileaks has temporarily suspended operations while it launches a pledge drive. The whistle blowing site is taking time out until 6 January to ask for support in many forms, not just donations. Wikileaks is appealing for help from volunteer coders, offers of free legal assistance and hosting support as well as cash donations …

Public Sector 29 Dec 11:12
It's the end of TV as we know it

Comment How far can you stretch a new Canvas?

Carphone Warehouse has signed up to Project Canvas and the BBC is to promote it. This probably heralds the beginning of the end for broadcast TV. The addition of Carphone Warehouse just before Christmas, brings in the recently-acquired Tiscali TV operation, with its experience of using video on demand to deliver services that …

Music and Media 29 Dec 12:06
Fancy a lottery win? Smoke dried vulture brains

South African remedy for financial woes

Those of you feeling a bit cash-strapped following Xmas might find a solution in South Africa's traditional medicine, or muti, markets, where a particle of dried vulture brain could help you secure a vital cash injection. According to AFP, the brains are "rolled into a cigarette or inhaled as vapors", with remarkable results. …

Biology 29 Dec 12:11
Escaped con regularly updates Facebook fan page

Prisoner on the lam pokes police via social networking site

An escaped convict has provided an insight into his thinking, and irked pursuing authorities, by continually updating his Facebook status since going on the run back in September. Craig "Lazie" Lynch, 28, was serving the back-end of a seven year sentence for aggravated burglary when he failed to return to HM Prison Hollesley …

Policing 29 Dec 12:33
Christmas stockings attract a Touch or two

An Apple under every tree

Apple's iPod Touch was the Christmas gift of choice this year, if an apparent 1000 per cent jump in application sales in anything to judge by. On December 25 sales of applications to iPod-touting customers jumped by one thousand per cent, and the total figures for December are already 51 per cent up on November when the iPhone …

PCs & Chips 29 Dec 12:44
Monty launches frantic 'save MySQL' web campaign

Tens of supporters sign 'anti-Oracle' petition so far

In a desperate last gasp bid to stop Oracle buying Sun Microsystems and its precious MySQL kit and kaboodle, the database's co-creator - Michael ‘Monty’ Widenius - has launched a campaign to "help keep the internet free." As we reported earlier this month, the European Commission welcomed a series of promises made by Oracle …

Developer 29 Dec 13:01
ISPs slam Digital Economy Bill's multi-million pound price tag

Why should broadband users bail out the music industry?

Internet service providers have grumbled that the anti-piracy measures proposed in the Digital Economy Bill (DEB) could cost consumers up to £500m. According to the Times, ISPs have claimed that their subscribers would be saddled with charges of around £25 each to help pay for warning letters, slowed down web connections, and …

Telecoms 29 Dec 14:44
O2 grovels for London network failure

We just...can't...cope

O2 has apologised for the repeated network failures in the capital before Christmas, claiming it was caught unawares by excessive data use. The apology was delivered to the Financial Times so aimed at shareholders rather than customers. It admits that O2 coverage in London has been lamentable since the summer, and promises …

Mobile 29 Dec 15:00
Yorkshire lass eBays cheating boyf's Xmas prezzies

'We will definatly not be getting back together'

A West Yorkshire lass who discovered on 22 December that her boyfriend had cheated on her has dumped his unopened Xmas gifts on eBay as she will "definatly not be getting back together" with her former squeeze. Leanne Joseph, 24, of Huddersfield, was apparently "gobsmacked" when a workmate told told her she'd been sleeping …

Bootnotes 29 Dec 15:19
TJX sniffer author jailed for two years

First of the gang

The malware coder who wrote the sniffer program used in the infamous TJX credit card heist has been jailed for two years. Stephen Watt, 25, from New York, was also order to spend a further three years on probation following his release. He was also ordered to pay $171.5m in restitution. Watts was part of a gang led by Alberto …

Malware 29 Dec 15:24
How the cloud could conquer the world in 2010

Comment Escape from the belly of the Fail Whale

The cloud was one of the big topics of 2009, with a broad swath of technologies and offerings coming to market from vendors of all shapes and sizes. There was much excitement, but there was an equal amount of consternation about security, reliability, and adoption trends. And while we're still not exactly sure what the cloud …

Servers 29 Dec 17:03
Nokia jacks up Apple patent complaint

New filing covers 'virtually all' Cupertino output

Nokia has upped the ante in its patent-infringement battle against Apple by extending its accusations to cover "virtually all of [Apple's] mobile phones, portable music players, and computers," according to a statement by the fiesty Finns. For today, at least, Apple's Cinema Display and iPod Socks remain beyond Espoo's wrath …

Mobile 29 Dec 18:00
California cops don defensive headcams

Robocops on the prowl in Silicon Valley

A California police department is testing a high-tech defense against one of the most pernicious weapons used against them in recent years: the video camera. Ever since Rodney King was famously videotaped receiving what many saw as an over-the-top thrashing by Los Angeles lawmen back in 1991, video footage of alleged police …

Policing 29 Dec 20:47
Adobe predicted as top 2010 hacker target

McAfee's crystal ball also reveals Google Chrome dangers

Adobe will overtake Microsoft as the primary target for hackers and virus writers in 2010, net-security firm McAfee predicts. Attacks targeting vulnerabilities in Acrobat Reader and Flash are already commonplace, driven in part by that software's widespread use. The often-tricky update process and lack of user awareness that …

Security 29 Dec 21:31