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29th March 2013 Archive

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  • Google Street View releases devastated Fukushima town tour

    Pix A trifecta of troubles: earthquake, tsunami, and nuclear cockup

    Google has released Street View images of the unfortunate town of Namie-machi, Japan, which was devastated by the March 2011 Tōhoku earthquake and the tsunami it caused, then rendered uninhabitable by the Fukushima Daichi nuclear cockup. "Two years have passed since the disaster," the town's mayor Tamotsu Baba writes on the …

    Science 29 Mar 00:26

  • Sprint, Softbank to swear off Huawei kit as condition of merger

    Will bow to US government spying concerns

    A US Congressman has said that Sprint and its Japanese suitor Softbank have both pledged not to use equipment manufactured by China's Huawei in Sprint's wireless network, a move that could help the companies clear a hurdle in their planned merger. Representative Mike Rogers, chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, told …

    Networks 29 Mar 00:27

  • FBI on trial for warrantless Stingray mobile spying

    Cellphone spying made easy – and sloppy – by electronic signal slurper

    In an Arizona court case, the FBI has been forced to defend its use of a phony cellphone tower dubbed Stingray that it's using to analyse mobile phone traffic and identify suspects. The Stingray system came to light in the case of Daniel David Rigmaiden, who stands accused of reaping millions of dollars from filing phony tax …

    Security 29 Mar 00:38

  • A lightbulb that does IPv6: You know you want it

    ZigBee gets ready for the Internet of Stuff

    Mesh-networking standard ZigBee now has support for IP, allowing embedded devices (from 'leccy meters to lightbulbs) to be directly addressed as long as the addresser is using IPv6. The new extension to the standard, ZigBee IP, has been created at the behest of utilities and will be integrated into the next version of the …

    Hosting 29 Mar 08:03

  • WTF is... the Quantified Self?

    Feature Human hacking by the numbers

    The woman sitting opposite me on the Tube is reading a book. She turns the page and I watch her hand come up to her face. She strokes her lips, and then the fingertips disappear into her mouth: she’s nibbling the nail of her ring finger. The hand returns to the book to turn the page, but before she’s read halfway down it, the …

    Hardware 29 Mar 10:03

  • 'I've read all the Harry Potters - and I'm proud to have done so for adverts'

    QuotW 'After they gave me $millions, I discovered Yahoo! has an inspirational goal'

    This was the week when Stephen Fry didn't get upset with The Register, he just called everyone at Vulture Central "cruel and vicious". Fry was not upset about Reg hack Andrew Orlowski's calling him out on a wee slip of the tongue when talking about Alan Turing, when he said that he was responsible for the first programmable …

    Bootnotes 29 Mar 10:10

  • I am NOT a PC repair man. I will NOT get your iPad working

    Something for the Weekend, Sir? Everybody needs good technology loving neighbours

    “My nephew bought me one of those iPad things for my birthday.” My heart sinks – I can already tell where this is going. I’m at a neighbour’s house party, the time is last summer, and one of the older partygoers is about to tell me that some new-fangled technology is too much for him to cope with now that he has reached the …

    Laptops 29 Mar 12:04

  • Gartner forecasts pro 3D printer prices below $2,000 by 2016

    Roving printing vans predicted for every shopping mall

    Analyst house Gartner has caught the 3D printing bug with its latest forecast on the future of the industry, and predicts enterprise-quality printers being cheap and plentiful by 2016. "3D printing is a technology accelerating to mainstream adoption," said Pete Basiliere, research director at Gartner. "The hype leads many …

    Hardware 29 Mar 18:29

  • Relaxed Windows 8 rules hint at smaller slabs to come

    Redmond playing catch-up with Android, iPad mini

    Microsoft has quietly changed its OEM certification guidelines for Windows 8 to allow devices with lower screen resolutions, a move that could mean smaller Windows tablets are on the way. ZDNet's Ed Bott was first to spot the rule change made earlier this month, which lowers the minimum screen size for a device bearing the …

    Tablets 29 Mar 18:54

  • Public cloud will grow when experienced IT folks DIE

    Analysis Clouds get real when the Facebook kids sit in the big chair

    Major adoption of public cloud computing services by large companies won't happen until the current crop of IT workers are replaced by kiddies who grew up with Facebook, Instagram, and other cloud-centric services – so says Rackspace CTO John Engates. Should we be worried? "10 to 15 years ago no one would put their credit card …

    Datacenter 29 Mar 20:06

  • Boffins birth man-sized military ROBOT JELLYFISH

    Video Your tax dollars at work at Virginia Tech

    A team of robotics researchers at Virginia Tech (VT) are using a university swimming pool to show off their latest creation, an autonomous robotic jellyfish developed for the US Navy that's capable of swimming a payload of technology into position off enemy shores. Dubbed Cryo, the jumbo jellyfish weighs 170lb (77 kg) and …

    Science 29 Mar 20:27

  • Smartphone running 'Facebook OS' said to debut this week

    Android to be forked by two companies at the same time?

    Facebook has sent out invitations to an event at its Menlo Park headquarters this week that many believe will see the launch of a new, Facebook-branded smartphone – and an Amazon phone may not be far behind. Facebook's invites themselves were fairly cryptic. "Come See Our New Home on Android" was all they said, along with the …

    Phones 29 Mar 21:15

  • Giant solar-powered aircraft to begin cross-country flight

    Flyweight jumbo to soar from Silicon Valley to New York City at 70km/h, tops

    The photovoltaics-powered Solar Impulse HB-SIA aircraft has arrived at the NASA Ames Research Center in Silicon Valley's Moffett Field to prepare for a flight across the US. After it has been offloaded in pieces from its Boeing 747-100 transporter, the Swiss-made HB-SIA will be reassembled in a Moffett Field hanger, then …

    Hardware 29 Mar 22:39