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29th February 2012 Archive

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  • Government, business, military are internet security threats

    RSA 2012 Security guru tells industry to suit up for battle

    Usually the bête noire of the annual RSA conference is the criminal hacking community, but security guru Bruce Schneier asserts that government, business, and the military may well pose a bigger threat to security professionals. "The current risks to internet freedom, openness, and innovation don't come from the bad guys – …

    Security 29 Feb 01:19

  • Interpol attacks hacks

    Operation Unmask in Anonymous faceoff

    A haul of suspected hackers allegedly linked to the Anonymous cabal has been hauled in by a wide ranging Interpol operation named ‘Operation Unmask’. Interpol announced that it has collared 25 suspected hackers across four countries in Latin America and Europe. The agency boasted that 250 items of IT equipment and mobile …

    Law 29 Feb 01:23

  • Marriot International trashes telepresence rooms

    Cisco kit goes out the window

    Cisco’s dream of public telepresence facilities that Joe Public uses for a high-fidelity chat with loved ones or business associates has taken a hit in Asia after hotel chain Marriot booted its kit from hotels across Asia. Marriot and Cisco announced a tie-up in 2009 and together with AT&T rolled out what they called “Virtual …

    Networks 29 Feb 01:31

  • Moore's Law leaves mobile networks ripe for attack

    RSA 2012 Corrupt telcos also to blame

    The GSM mobile standard is wide open for attack, experts have warned, thanks in part to the increasing amount of computing power available to hackers. "Voice interception capability really depends on how much processing power you have," said Aaron Turner, cofounder of security specialists N4struct, speaking at the RSA 2012 …

    Security 29 Feb 02:00

  • Apple snags blockbuster multi-touch patent

    Line up for licensing, world+dog?

    Apple was granted two dozen patents in the US Patent and Trademark Office's weekly patent-palooza, held each Tuesday, providing Cupertino's legal team with a new cache of ammunition to be fired up in future patent wars. Snuggled in amongst Tuesday's hoard is a patent entitled "Multipoint touchscreen" that could potentially be …

    Mobile 29 Feb 05:30

  • Raspberry Pi signs big-name sellers

    RS Components, Element 14 to offer programming computer

    Educationally inclined microcomputer maker Raspberry Pi today revealed that its ARM-based credit card-sized machine is to be taken to coders worldwide by two big-name suppliers. Lining up to offer the tiny machine come RS Components, part of London Stock Exchange-listed Electrocomponents Plc, and Premier Farnell's Element 14, …

    Hardware 29 Feb 06:02

  • Faster mobile data: the road to 4G

    Feature Better LTE than never

    The great thing about standards, as some wit once said, is that there are so many to choose from. Mobile phones are afflicted worse than most technology – a multiplicity of standards, nested within one another like a messy set of Russian dolls filled with alphabet soup. The 'generations' of mobile networks are fairly loose, …

    Phones 29 Feb 07:00

  • Dell has rapier-thin blade server in the works

    En garde!

    Dell is pushing the lower limits of blade servers up against microservers. As El Reg has already told you in detail, Dell this week is previewing its PowerEdge 12G family of servers. The company divulged six different machines – one blade, one tower, three racks, and a cloudy box – but as it turns out, there is at least one …

    HPC 29 Feb 07:10

  • New tool turns any marketing wonk into a mobile app whiz

    MWC 2012 FrontPage-like drag-n-drop software development

    Calling a company Antenna when what you make is an abstraction platform, rather than antennas, might not be sensible – especially at a congress stuffed with mobile techies – but what the firm actually does works well for the trend of this age. Technology follows fashion more than we’d like to admit, and apps are where it is at …

    Mobile 29 Feb 08:01

  • Nepal asks for a leg-up to nail Everest's height

    Appeal for foreign help probably not directed at China

    The Nepalese government has been forced to ask for international assistance in nailing the exact height of Everest, less than a year after it declared it was more than capable of settling the matter once and for all. Nepal – in common with much of the world – uses a 1955 Indian survey figure of 8,848m (29,029ft) as the height …

    Bootnotes 29 Feb 08:29

  • Microsoft tripped up by Blighty's techie skills gap

    Unis not working hard enough to please us, says UK chief

    One of the UK's top Microsofties told MPs on Tuesday that even the mighty Windows maker was feeling the impact of Blighty's skills gap. Although Microsoft was able to reel in top-flight graduates, said Head of Skills and Economic Affairs Stephen Uden, its partners and suppliers were affected by the lack of science talent going …

    Developer 29 Feb 09:03

  • From server to end user: What's coming up for NFS?

    Deep Dive Big changes: Hole-punching and application data blocks

    NFS (Network File System) is one of two of the most successful file protocols in the history of computing. From the 1980s with NFSv2 through the widely deployed NFSv3 in the 1990s, and now with today’s NFS4.1 standard – and if you don’t know about NFSv4.1 and pNFS (parallel NFS), you should – the protocol has been developed to …

    Virtualization 29 Feb 09:28

  • Apple assesses 14in Air for Asia

    Mid-size MacBook mooted

    Amid all the iPad 3 hoopla comes some Mac news: Apple is said to be "considering" the introduction of a 14in MacBook Air. Asians in particular favour 14in machines, local site DigiTimes notes, in contrast to Western buyers, who favour 15-inchers. The Air is currently available with a choice off 11in and 13in display, but …

    Laptops 29 Feb 09:52

  • France: All your books are belong to us

    Pirate Party, Free Software bods, authors in IP land-grab fight

    If the phrase "digital pirate" conjures up a lone socially challenged male with a large collection of Manga comics and Cory Doctorow ravings, think again. Some of the biggest "pirates" in the world are nation states. Last week France passed a law that permits the state to seize authors' rights on out-of-print books published …

    Media 29 Feb 10:01

  • Trusted computing: It's BACK, and already in a pocket near you

    MWC That bulge could be SOMEONE ELSE's tool

    Trusted Computing, the widely-derided idea of computing secured for, and against, its users, is back and the necessary hardware is already in the majority of pockets. When Intel and Microsoft tried to introduce Trusted Computing, under the Palladium brand, they were pilloried as betraying the freedoms which had made desktop …

    Mobile 29 Feb 10:12

  • Brazilian shave costs Tech Data as profits cut by third

    Latin America exit, lay offs dent flat Q4 sales

    Tech Data (TD) exited fiscal 2012 on a low with profits from operations significantly dented by one-off expenses incurred by the closure of its Columbian and Brazilian outposts and restructuring costs in Europe. Sales for Q4 ended 31 January were flat year-on-year at $7.1bn but operating profits fell 28 per cent to $83.8m as …

    The Channel 29 Feb 10:13

  • Sony shifts more than a million PS Vitas

    Can it maintain the pace?

    Sony has sold more than 1.2m PS Vita handheld games consoles around the globe, the Japanese giant has claimed. That figure represents the tally as of 26 February, boosted by the Vita's launch in Europe and PAL TV territories, and North America, four days earlier. The console first went on sale on 17 December 2011, in Japan …

    Phones 29 Feb 10:23

  • Microsoft's Azure cloud down and out for 8 hours

    Updated 'Cert issue' crashes Windows cloudy platform's service management

    Microsoft's cloudy platform, Windows Azure, is experiencing a major outage: at the time of writing, its service management system had been down for about seven hours worldwide. A customer described the problem to The Register as an "admin nightmare" and said they couldn't understand how such an important system could go down …

    Cloud 29 Feb 10:26

  • Court wonk tweets Apple's IPAD appeal showdown with Proview

    See Apple's hearing in blow-by-blow detail

    In an unprecedented display of openness, a Guangdong court will embrace the social networking craze by allowing one of its officials to "live blog" today's appeal hearing during which Apple hopes to secure the right to use the iPad trademark in China. Liu Lingnan began posting regular updates on homegrown firm Tencent’s …

    Law 29 Feb 10:47

  • How big telcos can repel the Valley's OTT insurgents

    Part two And why they probably shouldn't try

    After years of bouncing around PowerPoint slides, the battle between telcos and "Over The Top" insurgents is now very real. It's a scrap that's characterised as Silicon Valley upstarts storming the gates of the closed network world, and that's not a bad nutshell introduction. Long-time OTT champ Dean Bubley of Disruptive …

    Mobile 29 Feb 11:00

  • RIM PlayBook price cut specials become standard

    New low price... for now?

    The massive reductions RIM has made to the price of its BlackBerry PlayBook tablet are no longer one-offs but appear to have become the norm. RIM's own online shop now lists the 16GB PlayBook at the "new low price" of $199 (£125) and, as Lilliputing notes, the site no longer refers to the reduction as a special promotional …

    Phones 29 Feb 11:06

  • Ancient Iceman murder victim was lactose-intolerant, sickly

    5,000-year-old corpse shows Oetzi might have pegged soon anyway

    Scientists sequencing the genome of the 5,000-year-old "Iceman" corpse found 20 years ago in the Tyrolean Alps, have discovered that he had brown eyes, was lactose-intolerant, prone to heart disease and had Lyme disease. The boffins also found that he may be related to some modern-day Northern Mediterraneans. The results of …

    Science 29 Feb 11:16

  • HP culls nearly half remaining webOS team

    275 engineers not required in move to open source

    Hewlett-Packard continues to dismantle its webOS engineering team by handing nearly half of the remaining 600 techies their pink slips. The cuts began in September when HP's axe fell on 525 webOS employees following the decision to shutter the hardware unit that designed the now defunct TouchPad and Pre3 devices. Another 275 …

    Mobile 29 Feb 11:31

  • Toshiba swaps flood-soaked Thai plant for WD disk biz

    Will that make the European Commission happy?

    It's as if we were tipped off: Toshiba is buying the 3.5-inch disk drive operations that WD has to sell to gain EU approval for its Hitachi GST acquisition. At the same time, Toshiba is transferring to WD its flood-ravaged HDD manufacturing subsidiary in Thailand, Toshiba Storage Device (Thailand). Western Digital said: "TSDT …

    Storage 29 Feb 11:48

  • Tomorrow's smartphone tech today

    Feature Look what's coming to mobiles in 2012

    Technology, like time, moves on, and it doesn’t half go at a hell of a rate. Tooth and nail competition means that mobile tech moves even faster than most, and it’s extremely tricky to predict what’s just around the corner. Fortunately, the annual phone industry shindig, Mobile World Congress (MWC), is here to point us in the …

    Phones 29 Feb 12:00

  • Better Capital's m-hance coughs £6.8m for Maxima units

    Troubled MSP losses widen as restructure starts

    Managed services provider Maxima has started to carve up non-core operations by offloading the Document Management, Intellect and Microsoft-reselling sub divisions to Better Capital-backed m-hance for £6.8m. Troubled UK-based Maxima's flirtations with admirers came to nothing, so bosses hired buy-and-build specialist Ian Smith …

    The Channel 29 Feb 12:03

  • UK Broadband flicks switch on Blighty's first 4G network

    MWC 2012 But this is not the 4G you were hoping for

    UK Broadband, wireless internet service provider to Swindon Council and beyond, has switched on its LTE network to claim the UK first, but don't expect to be making 4G phone calls any time soon. UK Broadband's network is LTE, which qualifies as "4G" under the ITU's most-recent interpretation, and UK Broadband does have a …

    Mobile 29 Feb 12:14

  • Microsoft demos 3D desktop with transparent OLED

    Reach 'round and move me

    Microsoft's Applied Sciences Group has combined a transparent OLED display with an Xbox Kinect sensor and a smidgeon of software sorcery to create a space where users can manipulate on-screen objects at different depths within the screen. The team dubbed the process "view-dependant depth-correction gaze", and demoed it at …

    Hardware 29 Feb 12:26

  • Hands on with the Sony Xperia S, P and U

    First look Sexy: the NXT generation

    Sony's Xperia S flagship smartphone was on show at the company's MWC 2012 event in London yesterday and, having had a play with it this NFC-equipped Android, I'm impressed. Prototype models of others in the new Xperia NXT range, the U and P, were also on show. The build itself is lightweight but sturdy, its curved, soft …

    Phones 29 Feb 12:39

  • IBM layoffs now top 1,200

    Most of the cuts in the US and Canada

    IBM has laid off over 1,200 employees in the last few days, according to a union organising group for the company's staff. Alliance@IBM's homepage reports job cuts of 1,202 staff members, a collated figure gathered from the organisation's members sending in their severance letters, so-called "resource action" documents. Lee …

    Management 29 Feb 12:48

  • Tory minister: Let's exploit our rich resource of mud, er, wind

    Energy MP's hot air is no good for economy nor environment

    Britain would be "mad" not to make strategic use of its rich natural resource of mud, a government minister has said. "We can't afford not to exploit this," said Charles Hendry (Con, High Peak) who proposed that public infrastructure should exploit the naturally abundant material, and rediscover techniques that use it, such as …

    Government 29 Feb 13:01

  • GPS glitch leads perp-pursuing cops to wrong house

    Stolen iPhone elsewhere

    A man has been left with a £500 bill for a new front door after "tracking software" used to trace a stolen iPhone led Police to the wrong house. The missing iPhone was located using iOS' Find My iPhone feature, which can be used to find a device using its GPS fix. The handset is queried by a server and reports back its co- …

    Phones 29 Feb 13:07

  • Keeping Score in the Public Sector

    Live event Managing data effectively in the modern world

    Stuck between a rock and a hard place? That’s what public sector organisations feel like when it comes to managing data according to our latest Register Reader research. It’s not getting any easier - our latest Reg Reader research looks at why? The findings of this study will lead the live discussion on March 13th 11:00 GMT; …

    Policy 29 Feb 13:10

  • Google tramples over Euro data protection law – French watchdog

    37 US attorneys general also 'troubled' by personal info being 'held hostage'

    Google is hours away from changing its terms of service for its users, just as French data protection authority CNIL once again urged Larry Page's company to postpone its planned cut-and-shut tweak to its privacy policies. It said in a letter (PDF) to Page that CNIL's "preliminary analysis shows that Google's new policy does …

    Law 29 Feb 13:27

  • Game turns back on Mass Effect 3

    EA herds Shepherd elsewhere

    High street retailer Game has revealed it will not be stocking EA's upcoming mega-release, Mass Effect 3. "We currently have a supply issue with regards to Mass Effect 3, which means that Game and Gamestation will not be able to fulfill orders for Mass Effect 3 at this time. We want to give customers as much notice about this …

    Games 29 Feb 13:32

  • US gov IT services vendor swallows HBGary

    ManTech wants to penetrate deeper into cyber-security market

    US government IT services firm ManTech International has bought HBGary, the network forensics and malware analysis firm best known for last year's hack by Anonymous against its now-defunct sister firm, HBGary Federal. Financial terms of the deal, announced Monday, were not disclosed other than to say it was an "asset purchase …

    Financial News 29 Feb 13:48

  • Systemax suffers sales shrinkage in Q4

    B2B sunshine fails to thaw consumer spending freeze

    Systemax's sales growth engine ran out of steam in calendar Q4 with a resurgent B2B division unable to offset double digit declines in consumer operations. The US parent of the WStore and Misco reseller brands filed numbers late last night with revenues dipping 3 per cent to $978m (£613.6m), but operating profit edged up 3.7 …

    The Channel 29 Feb 13:56

  • CBOSS puts out operator bait: Dinner date with 'booth babe'

    MWC 2012 Fancy a bit of deep packet inspection, guv?

    The quest for attention has ratcheted up a notch at this year's MWC, with CBOSS putting "booth babes" – the attractive staff at its MWC stall – on the table as dinner companions in the hope that someone will ask just what the company does. One of Mobile World Congress's most famous exhibitors has decided it's going to have to …

    Mobile 29 Feb 14:03

  • Yahoo! scared! of! dot! brand! squatters!

    But nobody else is

    Yahoo is worried about unscrupulous domain name registrars trying to cybersquat on its brands. In an exasperated letter to ICANN this week, the web firm said it is still not convinced that the organisation's new generic top-level domains (gTLDs) programme provides enough safeguards against squatters holding so-called "dot- …

    Hosting 29 Feb 14:17

  • iPad 3 launch news pushes Apple shares to $500bn high

    Cook likely to shake out $7bn to the shareholders

    Apple's share value hit an unprecedented $500bn in pre-market trading this morning, making the company worth more than Poland and many other things. The spike followed just hours after the firm sent out an emailed invite to the iPad 3 launch. Anticipation over the new fondleslab, due to be unveiled on 7 March, sent speculators …

    Financial News 29 Feb 14:43

  • Qualcomm poised to zap wireless charging rival into dust

    MWC 2012 WiPower and Qi in battle for the batteries

    Qualcomm is on the verge of licensing its wireless charging tech WiPower to a big-name brand, which could be enough to unplug rival standard Qi. Despite general agreement that topping up batteries wire-free desperately needs a single standard, and the fact that companies such as Energiser and Philips are already making Qi- …

    Hardware 29 Feb 15:02

  • Stop snubbing top scientists' advice, Lords tell MPs

    Dossier of gov's dodgy decisions reveals sidelined advisers

    The government must tap up its top boffins sooner and heed their advice before putting policies into action, a House of Lords committee report concludes. The Science and Technology Committee, which has been looking into the role and function of Blighty's chief scientific advisers (CSAs), said that the government's experts were …

    Government 29 Feb 15:21

  • Hacking scandal: James Murdoch quits UK newspaper biz

    NYC-based son of Rupert flees News International

    James Murdoch has quit as executive chairman at News International. The publishing giant, owned by Rupert Murdoch's News Corp, has been under intense scrutiny after allegations of widespread phone-hacking and illegal payments to police emerged last year. By July 2011, the company's 168-year-old Sunday redtop NotW was …

    Media 29 Feb 15:28

  • Wireless operators to become less, er, wireless

    MWC 2012 You just can't beat copper

    Everyone is making small base stations this year, some will even drop into the palm of a hand, but that's good as operators are desperate to get their wireless services safely ensconced in copper as quickly as possible. Radio is very expensive, both in terms of power consumption and the cost of spectrum, so the less radio an …

    Mobile 29 Feb 15:39

  • iPhone photo-slurping loophole sparks app privacy fears

    Contact lists, pics, vids ... what else can devs grab?

    Exactly how much data can be extracted from iPhones by apps without explicit user consent has been called into question after it emerged that software granted access to location-finding services can siphon off punters' photos. The extraction of address book information without permission from the user has already raised …

    Security 29 Feb 15:58

  • Ellison's Oracle cloud lives as hype winds down

    Oracle Cloud Conference A slow conversion better than no conversion

    For better or worse, Oracle has taken a conservative stance on “the cloud”. Flamboyant chief executive Larry Ellison set the tone in 2008, when he railed against the rampant application of the word “cloud” to describe everything from Google’s browser-based email to CRM software as a service from Salesforce, and much in between …

    Cloud 29 Feb 16:21

  • Irish ISPs urged to fit child porn filters

    Net biz accused of caring about copyright more than kids

    Irish senators have put forward a motion in the Seanad (Senate) urging the justice minister to force ISPs to block child abuse material online. Ireland's ISPs already delete reported offensive content off servers in the country, but the motion seeks legislation to force them to block material hosted overseas. "The legislation …

    Government 29 Feb 16:44

  • G-Cloud guru slaps down Cloud Store critics

    You gotta have (NSIT) standards...

    G-Cloud governor Chris Chant has defended the standards adopted to construct the Cloud Store framework and the length of contracts on offer. As revealed by The Register last week, storage integrator Proact wrote a letter to Chant criticising the recently launched online cloud services marketplace and explaining its reasons for …

    The Channel 29 Feb 16:46

  • Riot police encircle Mobile World Congress

    MWC 2012 The natives are getting restless

    Student protesters are gathering outside the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, chanting and shouting, which would be more concerning if they weren't more or less outnumbered by the riot police. A helicopter is circling overhead and a large group of students is gathered on the roundabout outside the congress site, but the …

    Government 29 Feb 16:57

  • Powerful, wallet-sized Raspberry Pi computer sells out in SECONDS

    Tiny Brit wonder hardly even touched the shelves

    The first batch of 10,000 ARM-powered Raspberry Pi computers went on sale at 6am GMT on Wednesday - and sold out within minutes. According to distributor Premier Farnell, there were at least 600 orders, visits or pre-orders every SECOND, producing a 300 per cent hike in web traffic. The electronic component sales site was …

    Hardware 29 Feb 17:28

  • Kinect gets white makeover for latest Xbox bundle

    Pallid package

    Microsoft revisited the notion of Wii-colour consoles this week after it announced a white Xbox Kinect bundle is coming to the UK this spring. The limited edition kit comes with a glossy white 4GB console, glossy white Kinect sensor, a white (glossy) Xbox 360 control pad and copies of both Kinect Sports and Kinect Adventures. …

    Games 29 Feb 17:40

  • Microsoft drops 'risky' Windows 8 preview on World

    Metro-lovers to rub themselves into 'fast, fluid' frenzy?

    Microsoft has released to the World near-final code for Windows 8 - its riskiest bet yet. Officially called a Consumer Preview, but actually a beta, the next Windows 8 milestone will be the release candidate followed by release to manufacturing, Windows Division president Steven Sinofsky said Wednesday. Microsoft chose the …

    Windows 8 29 Feb 17:44

  • VMware mashes up Hadoop with Spring

    Corralling that big data elephant inside a framework

    VMware has taken its Spring Java application framework and integrated it with the open source Apache Hadoop distribution to create a mashup that it's calling – somewhat unimaginatively – Spring Hadoop. VMware might be the juggernaut of server virtualization and a serious contender for building public and private clouds, but …

    Cloud 29 Feb 17:55

  • Inside Eric Schmidt's brain: Holodecks, robo-cars and jail bandwidth

    MWC 2012 Censorship, regulation also on Google kingpin's mind

    Telephony standards supremos at the GSMA love the phrase "connecting the unconnected" – the notion of getting data and voice links out to the masses. Google skipper Eric Schmidt has similar sentiments, but he's got only one thing on his mind: data. The executive chairman isn't fussy about who will bear this information, …

    Mobile 29 Feb 18:06

  • India splurges £100m on new mega internet snooping HQ

    Updated All tweets, emails, and status updates are belong to them

    India's clampdown on its netizens is set to continue after its government revealed it is setting up a National Cyber Co-ordination Centre to monitor all web traffic flowing through the country – in the name of national security. The Times of India had access to the minutes of a National Security Council Secretariat meeting …

    Government 29 Feb 18:29

  • Thai floods float Seagate to top of hard drive biz

    Western Digital submerged, gurgling

    Last year's severe flooding in Thailand may have been human and economic disaster, but if every cloud has a silver lining, that silver has slipped into the pockets of Seagate as it retook the top sales spot among hard drive businesses, unseating Western Digital. "Seagate owes its return to market leadership to a fortuitous …

    Storage 29 Feb 18:54

  • Millions of China's tweeters 'silenced by real names decree'

    State's new web rule will hit popular Sina Weibo

    Chinese micro-blogging phenomenon Sina Weibo has warned that new government rules mandating the use of real names on social networks could silence at least 40 per cent of the site’s punters. The firm announced decent financials on Monday in line with analyst expectations, but dampened the mood by forecasting a poor start to …

    Government 29 Feb 19:04

  • 'Kill yourself now' - Torvalds throws openSUSE security tantrum

    Root password protocol 'mentally diseased'

    Linux creator Linus Torvalds has issued a rare public spanking for openSUSE after falling foul of its security procedures. Torvalds has posted a rant on Google+ about his experience installing openSUSE on a MacBook Air. The installation requires the root password for many functions and he went to the Bugzilla thread to argue …

    Software 29 Feb 19:30

  • IBM peddles used servers, PCs in China

    A market economy matures

    As the Ferengi rules of acquisition point out, anything worth selling once is worth selling at least twice and maybe three times. And thus, Big Blue is opening up a server and PC refurbishing center in Shenzhen, the first such facility in China and one aimed at the burgeoning second-hand equipment market in that country. With …

    Servers 29 Feb 21:20

  • Aussie soldiers let rip on Facebook

    Women, Muslims the fave targets

    Australia's armed forces still appear addicted to offensive social media activities, a new investigation has found. Over 1000 serving and former soldiers from the Royal Australian Regiment have been busted for partaking in an offensive closed Facebook site which features consistent comments and images denigrating women, …

    Law 29 Feb 21:45

  • Dotcom bail survives appeal, extradition hearing in August

    Megaupload kingpin seeks $NZ220k per month expenses

    Accused Megaupload copyright conspiracy leader Kim Dotcom (formerly Schmitz) has been released on bail following hearings yesterday in which the FBI tried to keep him behind bars. Leg-roped to an electronic monitor, Dotcom will be subject to strict bail conditions, with the court considering him a continuing “flight risk”. The …

    Law 29 Feb 22:08

  • Antimatter asymmetry: new results bring solution closer

    Fermilab physicists’ fingers crossed

    Physicists are inching closer to explaining why we – and anything else made of matter – exist, with new results inching closer to an explanation of the universe’s matter-antimatter asymmetry. If matter and antimatter were created in equal quantities in the Big Bang, some kind of asymmetry is needed to explain how enough matter …

    Science 29 Feb 23:00

  • Oz deal site admits e-book piracy snafu

    Cudo loses kudos

    Dominant Australian group buying player Cudo has issued a mea culpa for its ill-fated decision to promote a Chinese e-book reader pre-loaded with 4000 pirated books. Cudo, which is backed by two companies that live and die from the proceeds of licenced content - Microsoft and the Nine Network - claims the offering was a …

    Media 29 Feb 23:15

  • Intel VC funds ultimate mobile device

    Jump in my car

    Intel Capital has emerged as the first VC in the Valley to create a fund dedicated to accelerating technology in the automotive industry. The US$100 million investment fund, Intel Capital Connected Car Fund, aims to back innovation and the adoption of new technology and services in the automotive industry. The fund will be …

    Business 29 Feb 23:45

  • AMD snaps up server upstart SeaMicro

    Jumpstarting a cloudy server biz with an interconnect

    AMD's new CEO Rory Read was fired up about executing better in the server racket at the company's analyst day earlier this month and has wasted little time in stirring things up with the acquisition of low-power server start-up SeaMicro for $334m. SeaMicro is the server upstart founded four and a half years ago that came out …

    Servers 29 Feb 23:52

  • NASA snaps show Arctic melt

    Oldest ice disappears faster

    NASA’s latest study into Arctic sea ice concludes that the oldest, thickest ice is disappearing faster than the thinner ice at the edges of the Arctic Ocean. The Goddard Space Flight Center researchers say the multi-year ice is disappearing in a way that will make Arctic sea ice even more vulnerable to summer declines. The …

    Science 29 Feb 23:59