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8th November 2011 Archive

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  • A tenth of Chinese farmland polluted by heavy metals

    Your old PC is poisoning China's future. And Africa's. And India's. And...

    A new report on environmental pollution in China has shown that around ten per cent of the country’s farmland is heavily contaminated with lead, zinc, and other heavy metals. China's Southern Metropolitan Daily reports that Wan Bentai, the chief engineer for China's Ministry of Environmental Protection, said that "in total …

    Environment 8 Nov 00:44

  • Rackspace: 'We want to be your OpenStack maniac'

    Living in your own private Idaho cloud

    Rackspace Hosting, one of the cofounders with NASA of the open source OpenStack cloud fabric, is moving one step closer to running the OpenStack private cloud that you may be contemplating building. After reporting its financial results for the third quarter, the company – which is known for its "maniacal technical support" – …

    Infrastructure 8 Nov 00:56

  • Zuckerberg: 'Make partnerships, not war'

    Names Google as most aggressive competitor

    Mark Zuckerberg has said there’s no need for Facebook to fight with other technology companies, but instead it should embrace them all. Zuckerberg and his chief operating officer Sheryl Sandberg sat down with veteran US interviewer Charlie Rose to talk technology in an hour-long interview broadcast on Monday, and claimed there …

    Music and Media 8 Nov 01:07

  • Apple expels serial hacker for publishing iPhone exploit

    Charlie Miller excommunicated for code-signing app

    Charlie Miller, the serial hacker who has exposed more than a dozen critical vulnerabilities in Apple's Mac and mobile platforms, was kicked out of the company's iOS developer program after publishing an application that demonstrated a serious new bug in iPhones and iPads. Miller's InstaStock app, which was accepted into the …

    Security 8 Nov 06:00

  • RIM BlackBerry Torch 9860 smartphone

    Review All touch and no type

    RIM's efforts to create a purely touchscreen device haven't exactly been the most successful departure for the BlackBerry maker. Yes, the Storm handsets had their fans but they were simply not good enough to halt RIM's market share migration to Android and iOS. Touching experience: RIM's BlackBerry Torch 9860 The new Torch …

    reghardware 8 Nov 07:00

  • Olympic Torch to visit Bletchley Park

    May encounter George the Robot

    The Olympic Torch will be making a stop at Bletchley Park on its way to London next year, it was announced yesterday. As part of the route, there will be a photo op at the WWII code-breaking centre, one of the special host locations. The Olympic Flame will start out in Greece and hit the UK on 18 May on its way to the London …

    Science 8 Nov 08:02

  • NetApp accused of short-stroking its new hardness

    Analysis 'Everyone short-strokes', admits industry rival

    NetApp's bombshell NFS benchmark record has generated accusations that it is artificially boosting performance by short-stroking disks behind the scenes and scaling up rather than out. Short-stroking is the technique of accelerating data transfer rates by only accessing a small part of each disk's surface, massively wasting …

    Virtualization 8 Nov 08:31

  • Comp-sci boffin aims to REPROGRAM LIFE ITSELF

    'I'm now moving my research into the wet lab'

    International boffins, led by a computer scientist based in Nottingham, intend to produce what they describe as "a cell’s equivalent to a computer operating system", which would deliver living organisms that could be "reprogrammed" to produce almost anything biological - fresh human organs for transplant, amazing new food …

    Rise of the Machines 8 Nov 09:03

  • Frisky Micron flashes its flash

    Chip baker shakes its server, consumer booty

    Flash fab operator and drive supplier Micron is going to rapidly strengthen its server flash offerings, as well as developing its desktop/notebook SSDs. At the moment it offers a single PCIe flash card product, the single level cell (SLC) P320h using 34nm technology. According to a chart presented at a Needham investor …

    Channel Register 8 Nov 09:16

  • Top cops placed under Freedom of Info law

    Uni admissions body fitted with loose kimono also

    The Financial Ombudsman Service (FOS), along with the Association of Chief Police Officers of England, Wales and Northern Ireland (ACPO) and the Universities and Colleges Admissions Service (UCAS), was added as a public authority under the Freedom of Information (Designation as Public Authorities) Order 2011. FOS has the power …

    Policing 8 Nov 09:31

  • OCZ exposes bulging solid disk for 2012

    Just glad to see you, really

    Happy new year: OCZ expects to ship flash drives with a 50 per cent capacity jump next year, starting shipments in January. It's going to ship 3-bit multi-level cell (MLC or TLC) flash, according to Stifel Nicolaus analyst Aaron Rakers, who was at an OCZ investor presentation last week. TLC flash is inherently slower, less …

    Channel Register 8 Nov 09:46

  • London to get another £60m of CCTV surveillance

    Transport, cops, boroughs all eyeing eyeing kit

    Transport for London (TfL) has invited companies to join a framework agreement worth up to £60m for the supply of CCTV equipment to a range of public sector organisations in the capital and beyond. A notice in the Official Journal of the European Union says that the equipment will be supplied to TfL and the other Greater …

    Channel Register 8 Nov 10:02

  • Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3

    Review Barrels of fun

    Look who’s back. Despite well-documented development team difficulties after the release of Modern Warfare 2, a feeling of increasing apathy for a franchise already over milked and fierce competition from EA in the shape of Battlefield 3, it seems you just can’t keep a good - and immensely profitable - series down. Gun and …

    reghardware 8 Nov 10:10

  • UK forces offer to temporarily share some spectrum

    However we'll be selling it to someone else soon

    The Ministry of Defence is offering shared access to some significant chunks of radio spectrum, though only until 2015 when it expects to sell it off properly. The chunks up for sharing include 80MHz of spectrum starting at 3500MHz, and 70MHz counting from 3410MHz. But not anywhere near the Olympics, and users will be expected …

    Telecoms 8 Nov 10:14

  • Fujitsu Eternus: It's time to settle this thing

    Masked man and Schneider doff coats, get in the Jell-O

    VMAX is modular and Eternus is not really enterprise class, having several limitations, according to an EMC fan. Fujitsu says the person is ill-informed. The fan, a "person familiar with VMAX matters", said they wanted to set the record straight, using an EMC ruler of course, regarding our story about Fujitsu's Eternus DX8700 …

    Channel Register 8 Nov 10:21

  • HP seeks buyer for WebOS

    For sale, one mobile OS. One previous owner. Will swap for tablet business strategy

    HP is seeking a buyer for WebOS, the mobile operating system it acquired by buying PDA pioneer Palm last year. So says Reuters, citing a quartet of unnamed sources close to the consultation process by which HP hopes to figure out how to make back some of the $1.2bn is spent on Palm. HP has at least potential buyers lined up: …

    reghardware 8 Nov 10:28

  • Ubuntu republic riven by damaging civil wars

    Analysis Can the Linux Jedi hold things together?

    There's a popular misconception about open source: that it's democratic, that all users have a vote over its direction and development or even the running of the community around it. The users of Ubuntu, arguably the world's most popular Linux distro these days, are currently discovering that this is not how it works. The …

    Operating Systems 8 Nov 10:30

  • UK Space Agency OKs teeny-tiny satellite

    Liftoff expected late 2012

    The UK Space Agency has approved the design of UKube-1, the UK's first CubeSat mission. Last week, a team of engineers from Clyde Space, a microspacecraft maker, submitted their design for the UKube-1 to be reviewed by a team of experts, who concluded that the design was sound. The chosen design is the first step on the …

    Space 8 Nov 10:42

  • BeWeather

    Android App of the Week For those who live in a kingdom of rains

    BlackBerry Messenger aside, there can’t be many BB apps that Android users have been waiting for. But one such is BeWeather which has just been ported across. I’ll stick my neck out here and say that BeWeather is the most attractive and versatile weather app around. As if that’s not enough, while the full version for …

    reghardware 8 Nov 11:00

  • Google's top lobbyist quits amid antitrust probe

    Davidson leaps from fiery Washington

    Google's top Washington lobbyist, Alan Davidson, has quit the company. Mountain View's director of public policy said he would step down later this month, having worked at Google since 2005. His departure is arguably poorly timed given the level of antitrust regulatory scrutiny circling the firm currently. “After six-and-a- …

    Music and Media 8 Nov 11:11

  • Panasonic preps rubber-clad Android tablet

    Ten incher for men on poles

    Looking for an Android fondleslab that's a bit less fragile? Next Spring, Panasonic will release what it hopes will be just the ticket. The 10.1in Toughpad FZ-A1 will run Android 3.2 Honeycomb - possibly Ice Cream Sandwich instead, though Panasonic is playing safe for the moment - on a 1.2GHz dual-core Marvell processor. Chuck …

    reghardware 8 Nov 11:13

  • Best Buy UK spent £200m on failed megastores

    Consumer meltdown, delays and Dixons forced closure

    Best Buy's efforts to win over UK consumers were an expensive failure, costing some £200m to set up just 11 big box stores. The stakeholders of the joint venture US retailer Best Buy and the UK's Carphone Warehouse (CPW) yesterday pulled the plug on the business, as investing more capital in the roll-out of another 90 stores …

    Channel Register 8 Nov 11:23

  • Prince Harry given free run of Arizona town's womenfolk

    'Thank you,' pants ecstatic waitress

    Prince Harry has been given the green light to deflower the maidens of a small US town, after the town manager explained reports Cap'n Windsor had been warned off "fornicating" as "a total fabrication". The UK tabs were cock-a-hoop yesterday about reports that the mayor of Gila Bend, where Harry is completing a weapons course …

    Bootnotes 8 Nov 11:31

  • Scantily clad spambot vixens make blokes shun security

    Men most likely to friend dodgy Facebook strangers

    Men are more likely to be suckers for Facebook scams than women, according to a new survey by Bitdefender, and it's usually because they're hitting confirm on friend requests accompanied by pictures of hotties in bikinis. Female Facebook users tend to avoid temptation when faced with attractive photos of strangers - either …

    Music and Media 8 Nov 11:43

  • Oregon offers vote by fondleslab-swipe

    Special service for disabled citizens

    The US state of Oregon is pioneering fondleslab-voting for a primary election to replace US Representative David Wu, who resigned after a sex scandal. Disabled voters will be able to use iPads provided by county election workers in parks, nursing homes and community centres to call up the ballot and vote with a swipe of their …

    PCs & Chips 8 Nov 11:52

  • Bright Computing bursts HPC to EC2 clouds

    SC11 A veritable – and virtual – cluster

    If you want to do cloud bursting in an HPC environment, the last thing you want to do is try to manage the movement of running workloads from your own cluster out to a compute cloud like Amazon's EC2 compute cloud. Bright Computing, the maker of the Bright Cluster Manager, would go so far as to say that its HPC cluster control …

    Cloud Business 8 Nov 12:02

  • Building the perfect flexible worker

    Broadcast Half man half iPhone

    Working outside the office isn't a perk. Every day more of us are expected to do it. Problem is, we're not very good at it yet. Remote workers need support and training. The IT department needs to secure their devices and fix them when they go wrong. Consumer devices need to be integrated, and business systems need to be re- …

    CIO 8 Nov 12:12

  • Samsung PS64D8000 64in plasma 3D TV

    Review Widescreen whopper

    With Samsung’s domination of the LED TV market all but complete (bwahahaha!) it’s perhaps easy to forget the brand is a major purveyor of plasma screens too. Its current largest is the 64in D8000, which with stand weighs in at over 38kg and dominates all but the largest of living rooms. Samsung's PS64D8000 is styled to make …

    reghardware 8 Nov 12:14

  • Apple trains store bosses to ignore deal with unions

    Up the workers. Right up 'em

    Apple has begun training its US store managers on how to deal with attempts by retail workers to organise themselves into unions. According to a document seen by Cnet, the course will provide managers with "a practical understanding of how unions affect the workplace, how and why employees organize, and the legal do's and don' …

    Music and Media 8 Nov 12:18

  • Huawei butters up Microsoft to avoid Android patent war

    Shock new approach for UK mobe launch

    Chinese infrastructure giant Huawei is bucking the trend by talking to Microsoft about patent licensing before launching potentially infringing Android devices. While the rest of the mobile industry just builds gadgets then waits to see who sues, Huawei has been telling the BBC that it is taking the innovative approach of …

    Mobile 8 Nov 12:28

  • Honda upgrades humanoid robot to SERVE BEER

    Asimo gets voice, face recognition too

    Honda's stair-climbing robot, Asimo, has resurfaced now that its developer has given the 'droid the ability to recognise faces and voices, and to pour drinks. So it can take orders, spot the regulars and serve beer. Just what's needed down my local. Honda said all this had come about because it had upgraded the intelligence …

    reghardware 8 Nov 12:29

  • Huawei brings Android tablet to Blighty

    Fresh smartphone too

    Huawei has unveiled its latest smartphone, as well as launching its first tablet here in the UK. The Huawei Vision is the company's second own-brand phone to touchdown in Blighty following the Huawei Blaze, which launched last month. It runs Android 2.3 Gingerbread with a 1GHz processor and features 720p video capabilities …

    reghardware 8 Nov 12:35

  • EU advisors: Tighter web privacy will stamp out bullies

    Sensitive info leaking to tormentors and paedos – report

    Improved safeguards and greater resources for law enforcement are needed to tackle the related problems of cyber-bullying and online grooming, according to a report by an EU security agency published on Tuesday. ENISA (the European Network and Information Security Agency) warned that the mishandling of personal information …

    Security 8 Nov 12:41

  • New plastic telescope ammo machine gun is light as a rifle

    Every soldier could get heavy-weapons firepower in future

    The US Army has announced successful tests of a new, lightweight portable machine-gun which fires special plastic ammunition. The gun and ammo are so much lighter than current weapons and their brass-cased cartridges that some soldiers are suggesting that every infantryman could in future pack the sort of firepower reserved …

    Bootnotes 8 Nov 12:52

  • The Evercookie: Like trying to kill Steven Seagal

    Part 2 And running Java is just criminally irresponsible

    In part one of this series, I explored the privacy threats presented by targeted advertising, and asked why we should care. Browser referral, social media buttons and cookies were examined as examples of basic methods used to track our movements across the internet. I also explored why advertisers track us, and examined …

    Cloud 8 Nov 13:03

  • Anonymous blasts El Salvador offline

    Ay, caramba!

    The government of El Salvador's websites were taken out on Saturday in what was a weekend of big hacks by the Anonymous collective. The website of El Salvador's president was taken offline by authorities after it was swamped by 30 million visits in one day. The legislative assembly, the national police force and the ministries …

    Security 8 Nov 13:13

  • Red Hat finds its feet in cloud gold rush

    Open ... And Shut Hang on, lads, I've got a great idea

    Cloud computing may be the future, but it appears to be one fraught with unpredictable downtime and security breaches. In other words, it's very much like the bad ol' days of corporate data centres, except that this time Amazon, Salesforce and other cloud providers get the blame when things go wrong - rather than one's local IT …

    Developer 8 Nov 13:23

  • New pics of giant black sphere hurtling toward Earth

    Vast spaceball 'safely will safely fly past' - NASA

    A vast, inky black sphere approximately the size of a nuclear aircraft carrier is plunging through the void of space towards planet Earth, though NASA rather panickily insists that it will definitely not smash into our planet with devastating force. Still looks a bit like the thing in the Fifth Element to us. "The asteroid …

    Space 8 Nov 13:32

  • Feds warn 'pox party' zealots not to send viruses in post

    Poxy spit safer than 'live' vaccine say refuseniks

    Health officials in Tennessee have warned parents that giving their children chickenpox-infected lollipops ordered over the internet is not a legitimate substitute for the state's mandatory immunisation programme for the scratch-inducing infection. The warning from Jerry Martin, US attorney for the Middle District of Tennessee …

    Bootnotes 8 Nov 13:41

  • Theresa May won't quit job over UK Border Agency fiasco

    Home Secretary still standing despite relaxed checks row

    Home Secretary Theresa May confirmed today that she would not resign from her Cabinet position, despite the UK Border Agency fiasco that led to an unknown number of people entering the country without proper checks. The minister told MPs sitting on the Home Affairs committee this lunchtime that "biometric tests were abandoned …

    Government 8 Nov 13:47

  • HTC prepares quad-core smartphone for 2012

    Beastly blower bad for battery?

    HTC is preparing an onslaught in the mobile marketplace by launching the first quad-core handset in 2012. The Taiwanese manufacturer is reportedly preparing to release the HTC Edge next year, a smartphone with a 1.5GHz quad-core Nvidia Tegra 3 chip, PocketNow reports. According to "reliable sources", the HTC Edge will land …

    reghardware 8 Nov 13:48

  • UK firm slammed for flogging spy software to Iran

    Lord fingers biz with Foreign Secretary links

    A senior lawmaker has called on the UK government to ban the export of British-made surveillance software to repressive regimes. "I'm hoping for an open debate on whether or not the UK should be involved ... [and] what the implications of previous sales are," Lord David Alton of Liverpool told The Register. Lord Alton has …

    Security 8 Nov 13:58

  • Report: World digital music sales to soar £250m

    CD and LP sales flag, but discs beat downloads

    Global sales of digital music rose this year and are predicted to top £3.92bn ($6.3bn) by the end of December, an increase from £3.67bn ($5.9bn) in 2010, according to a report from Gartner. But the bulk of music industry income still comes from sales of physical music (CDs and LPs) and will continue to do so past 2015 if the …

    Music and Media 8 Nov 14:19

  • Boffins: Punters can't get a grip on online privacy tools

    Config and confusion issues make anti-tracking kit useless

    Privacy tools that offer a means to prevent advertisers from tracking the activity of surfers online are largely ineffective, according to a study by computer scientists. Boffins at Carnegie Mellon University’s CyLab ran a series of lab tests involving 45 participants that revealed all nine privacy tools had usability and …

    Security 8 Nov 14:39

  • Elite DARPA cyber heroes will protect interwebs

    'We invented it, we'll save it'

    DARPA is upping its cyber game in order to protect the internet it came up with, increasing its research budget from $120m (£74.6m) to $188m (£117m) for the fiscal year 2012. “DARPA’s role in the creation of the internet means we were party to the intense opportunities it created and share in the intense responsibility of …

    Security 8 Nov 15:01

  • Ultrabooks will rescue PC industry – beancounters

    But only if prices fall below the $1,000 bracket

    Ultrabooks will give stagnating notebook sales and the wider PC components industry a shot in the arm, but only when prices are chopped, beancounter IHS iSuppli has warned. Low-cost laptops no longer whet the appetite of tablet iPad-hungry consumers, but PC makers didn't realise this until it was too late and a mountain of …

    Channel Register 8 Nov 15:21

  • Barclays knocks RIM shares down a peg

    BlackBerry crumbles in the eyes of investors

    The shine has been taken off BlackBerry-maker RIM's shares after the firm's stock was downgraded by Barclays. The reassessment of the Canadian biz comes after a string of problems that more than halved its stock price in the last six months. The bank lowered the level of RIM's attractiveness to investors by one notch to equal …

    Financial News 8 Nov 15:39

  • Upcoming EU data law will make Europe tricky for Facebook

    Must gain explicit consent to use your data

    EU-ro-crats are mulling new data protection laws that could make Europe a hostile place for Facebook and other social networks. The EU Justice Commissioner Viviane Reding and the German Federal Minister for Consumer Protection, Ilse Aigner, met in Brussels for a consultation this week to draw up proposals for the EU's new data …

    Law 8 Nov 15:45

  • Dealer bosses jailed for flogging fake Cisco kit

    Networking's not working for them now

    The bosses of US reseller Direct Deals has been sent down for touting fake Cisco gear imported from the Far East. According to reports stateside, Timothy Weatherly, 29, was sentenced to 27 months in a federal penitentiary for conspiring to import goods through false statements. White label equipment was shipped from China, …

    Channel Register 8 Nov 16:01

  • Secret US 'Jedi' ghost-copters kept out of bin Laden raid

    Downed Stealth Hawk was actually second-rate kit

    The top-secret "Stealth Hawk" helicopters aboard which elite US Navy SEAL operatives travelled into Pakistan to kill Osama bin Laden were by no means the most sophisticated aircraft available, according to a new book on the operation. Apparently, even stealthier "Ghost Hawks" - also known as "Jedi rides" - were kept out of the …

    Government 8 Nov 16:19

  • Ryanair ponders in-air mucky movie service

    Boogie flights

    Ryanair has hinted that it may be planning to offer flyers adult entertainment in flight. The no-frills airline's chief executive, Michael O'Leary, said he'd like to launch in-flight web content, similar to that of hotel room telly offerings, The Sun reports. O'Leary said: "I'm not talking about having it on screens on the …

    reghardware 8 Nov 16:23

  • Boffins give chatty robots a creepy human face

    Face/on

    Boffins from Germany and Japan have teamed up to create a human-like face for robots. It's also a fairly creepy-looking head on a stick. The researchers have dubbed it Mask-bot. Robotics wizards from Technische Universitat Munchen, along with Japanese scientists, used a projector to beam the 3D image of a human face onto the …

    Rise of the Machines 8 Nov 16:39

  • Hackers can spring Death Row crims from cells

    Researchers prove SCADA jailbreak risk

    Computer systems used to control federal prison facilities are riddled with vulnerabilities that might allow criminals to meddle with cell door opening mechanisms or shut down internal communications systems, according to security researchers. The vulnerabilities – which stem from flaws in industrial control systems and …

    Security 8 Nov 17:03

  • Only Samsung will challenge Apple's iPad in 2012

    Single-figure market shares for the rest

    Apple's share of the tablet market may be heading downward, but it's still going to sell a shedload of fondleslabs next year. Most market watchers would express such a description of the table business if asked, but an analyst at Canaccord Genuity, an investment bank, has added some numbers to the picture. According to CG's …

    reghardware 8 Nov 17:11

  • Flood-hit HDD parts supplier resumes production

    Motor maker Nidec re-opens two factories

    Major disk drive motor supplier Nidec has resumed production at several facilities in Thailand, but continues to deal with damage to six sites that are still under water. The component giant, which manufactures around three-quarters of the world's HDD motors, confirmed operations were back online at its Rangsit plant in …

    Channel Register 8 Nov 17:29

  • NASA deep-space ship gets 2014 unmanned test flight

    'We're still going to the Moon, not listening to Obama'

    NASA has announced that it will test-fly its pork-tastic Orion spaceship, conceived under the Bush administration for the purpose of carrying astronauts to the Moon once more and now rebranded as a "deep space" vessel for trips to asteroids and perhaps one day Mars. Apparently this is still on, according to NASA. The agency …

    Space 8 Nov 17:50

  • Intel stretches HPC dev tools across chubby clusters

    SC11 Cluster Studio XE ready for MICs, not for GPUs

    Supercomputing hardware and software vendors are getting impatient for the SC11 supercomputing conference in Seattle, which kicks off next week. More than a few have jumped the gun with product announcements this week, including chipmaker Intel. No, Intel is not going to launch its "Sandy Bridge-EP" Xeon E5 processors, which …

    HPC 8 Nov 18:21

  • Consumer Reports: iPhone 4S antenna doesn't suck

    Antennagate closed

    The product testers at Consumer Reports have given the iPhone 4S a clean bill of health. "Apple's newest smart phone performed very well in our tests," CR's Mike Gikas said in a statement issued on Tuesday, "and while it closely resembles the iPhone 4 in appearance, it doesn't suffer the reception problem we found in its …

    Mobile 8 Nov 19:50

  • Optus latest to reveal fibre service pricing

    Oz number two carrier also testing service aggregation

    Optus has become the latest carrier to reveal its NBN service pricing, with bundled services starting as low as $AU39.99. The carrier has broken with the rest of the industry in terms of plan structure: rather than offering tiered prices by speed, Optus has decided to focus on download allowance as the basis of its offers. If …

    Business 8 Nov 20:00

  • Mozilla updates to Firefox 8, disables add-ons

    New browser adds Twitter search for desktops

    Mozilla has released the new build of its Firefox browser and, as promised, it’s cracking down on third-party add-ons. The new build, which comes six weeks after Firefox 7, will switch off third-party add-ons by default and display a start screen after loading to ask users to enable or disable the features they want. The move …

    Applications 8 Nov 20:15

  • Advertiser settles charges for use of Adobe Flash cookies

    Makes it easier to stop online tracking

    An internet-based advertising network has agreed to settle Federal Trade Commission charges stemming from its use of Adobe Flash cookies to track internet users' browsing history, even when they took steps to evade monitoring. Boston-based ScanScout agreed to make it easier for web users to opt out of tracking, as part of a …

    ID 8 Nov 20:18

  • Telstra targets SMEs in next cloud push

    ‘Small’ means you have a spare hundred a month or more

    While some providers are looking to free trials to get businesses, particularly small ones, to try out the cloud, there’s no such pussyfooting around from Telstra: it’s launched a small business cloud service that ranges upwards from $AU200 per month. The Telstra cloud entry level pricing will get you two CPUs, 4 GB of RAM, …

    Business 8 Nov 21:30

  • Russian Mars mission launches after multi-year delays

    Phobos-Grunt scheduled to head to Mars later today

    After years of delay, Russia has successfully launched its first planetary probe since the Mars 96 failure at the end of the last millenium. The craft – Фобос-Грунт, or Phobos-Grunt ("grunt" means "soil" in Russian) – lifted off right on schedule at 2:16am local time (20:16 UT) from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan, …

    Space 8 Nov 21:44

  • US Supremes liken GPS tracking to 1984's Big Brother

    24/7 surveillance, no warrant needed (maybe)

    If the Obama administration wins a crucial case testing when police may use GPS devices to track American's whereabouts, investigators would be free to attach them to all nine members of the nation's highest court without a warrant. That blunt assessment came not from one of the many critics blasting the controversial practice …

    ID 8 Nov 22:01

  • Dymocks dances with Google

    Adds frequent reader points programme

    Australia’s largest bookstore retailer, Dymocks, has gotten into bed with Google introducing Google eBooks into the local market. The hook-up follows Google’s eBookstore launches in the UK and Canada. Google also announced yesterday that it is also launching its affiliate program in all three countries. Under the association, …

    Business 8 Nov 22:30

  • TPG falls foul of ACCC for false ads

    Not the first time they fibbed

    National broadband carrier TPG has been busted over an "Unlimited ADSL2+" campaign that the Federal Court has decided was misleading. The Federal Court in Melbourne found advertisements for TPG Internet's $AU29.99 "unlimited broadband" service to be false and misleading as the real cost of the service was $AU59.99 because it …

    Business 8 Nov 23:00

  • Production electric motorcycle breaks 100 mile range

    'Leccy tech firm touts revolutionary power pack

    A California electric motorcycle manufacturer will start selling hogs – well, piglets – that are capable of a range of over 100 miles thanks to a new power pack that should outlast the bike itself, plus newly adopted energy capture technology. The new Z-Force power pack has 95 per cent more energy density than previous models …

    Science 8 Nov 23:05