The Tammar Wallaby’s digestive system is getting agricultural researchers excited, after researchers from Australia’s science agency CSIRO found its gut generates far lower methane emissions than cattle.

Product Round-upWhen it comes to quick pics, the expedience of a phonecam can't be overestimated, yet the image quality expectations frequently are. With this in mind Reg Hardware has rounded up the smallest and cheapest compacts produced by all the usual suspects from the photography world.

Apollo 14 astronaut Edgar Mitchell is locked in a legal battle with the US government over just who owns a movie camera which flew with him to the Moon in 1971.

The Federal Trade Commission is investigating how Twitter deals with companies which make clients for people to access the service on smartphones and other devices.

Broadcast 11:00When Reg reader Ian Cawson, technical architect for the Co-operative, was given some new projects to tackle - including CRC targets, reducing IT complexity to minimise M&A impact and a move of headquarters - he grasped the challenge with both hands and charged down to Vulture Towers to tell us all about it.

It appears that the NHS will move security for its million-plus users to in-cloud services from Zscaler.

Apple, Microsoft, RIM, EMC, Ericsson and Sony all chipped in to buy the patents, which cover critical 4G and wireless broadband technologies, leaving Google empty handed.

Apple will next year out-ship HP - if only when it comes to mobile computers - it has been forecast.

NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) has captured a magnificent view (big version here) of sunrise over mountains in the centre of the Moon's Tycho crater:

Yes, it's expensive, but Amazon's top-of-the-line Kindle 3 leather-covered folio-style case isn't just an overpriced luxury item. It also has practical value, thanks to a built-in, slide-out LED lamp.

Virtualisation has expanded its remit since back in the 1960s, when only the white-coated acolytes tending the IBM mainframe in an air-conditioned hall needed to know anything about it.

ReviewThe first major update to Apple's Mac operating system in some five years is nearly ready, and what has been removed is as significant as its improvements. Mac OS X 10.7, known informally as Lion, continues the trend of removing "legacy" components and technologies from OS X with a zeal that would leave Microsoft quivering in terror.

Nokia has new firmware on speed-dial and is set to offer many of its current client base a free Symbian Anna update.

A request by Google to throw out a lawsuit that alleges the company violated US federal wiretap law has been rejected by a judge in San Francisco.

The Information Commissioner's Office is working with Connecting for Health to try to get the NHS to take data security seriously.

Episode 9

We're delighted to inform our beloved readers that as of today, El Reg has a dedicated Special Projects Bureau, which will henceforth be Vulture Central's nerve centre of black ops and garden-shed boffinry.

Facebook could be launching long-awaited iPad and iPhone apps next week.

A slender Samsung smartphone has been unveiled by Three in Sweden. The network operator touts it as the Galaxy S II's little brother.

Two hundred former Orange staffers employed by Everything Everywhere today start working for T-Systems instead, as the UK's biggest operator commences a seven-year outsourcing deal for its IT systems.

Resellers need to re-engineer their business model for the cloud services era rather than trying to turn back time, Microsoft has warned.

Remember when Ethernet networks were invented? Probably not: it was over 30 years ago, after all, and you are probably too young.

ReviewIt’s been hailed as the greatest anime ever. While I think you have to go some before you can top Pokémon 4Ever, (no seriously, I prefer My Neighbour Totoro) there’s no denying Katsuhiro Otomo’s Akira is a milestone of a movie.

Dimension Data, the South African services giant, has bought a US-based enterprise cloud hosting and storage company called OpSource.

The properly paranoid can now relax, BeenVerified is available for Android and iPhone platforms: so you can check out the history of anyone you meet instantly - if they're American, anyway.

Andrew's Review NotesI have a lot of sympathy for people who steal their technology from the hearse, just as its driving through the gates of the great technology knackers' yard.

CommentJust last week I had the rare opportunity to catch up with Bill Gates. He's a busy man, of course, with the Foundation's medical research and investments consuming most of his time. Being so engaged with development issues, I wondered, did Gates have time to look at the spread of technology into developing countries? Gates said he did. There were concerns about the pace of technology transfer, I pointed out. Was the latest mobile innovation reaching the new markets fast enough?

Microsoft is retiring its free web-based household energy usage service, which means it won't leave its beta status and instead will be killed on 31 May 2012.

NetApp has Hybrid Aggregate drives coming, with data moved automatically in real time between flash located next to the spinning disks. The company now says that this is a better technology than PCIe flash approaches.

Cybercrims are switching tactics from traditional email-based mass security threats to lower volume targeted attacks, according to a report by Cisco Security Intelligence Operations.

The project to create nine regional control centres for fire and rescue linked by a new IT system has been a comprehensive failure, according to the National Audit Office (NAO).

Wireless broadband firm LightSquared has admitted that its original plan would have knocked out most GPS sat-nav kit, but argues that its new plan will only leave 200,000 users lost.

DesktopVirtualisation can ease desktop application deployment in a variety of ways.

New anti-corruption laws come into force today, giving companies more certainty over what constitutes bribery but placing greater obligations on companies to tackle corruption.

The UK's first gold-dispensing ATM machine has been installed at Westfield shopping centre in London.

In early June, Googler Robert Hundt published a paper comparing the performance of four programming languages: C++, Java, Scala, and a rather new addition to the world of systems programming, Google's own Go. Go is designed to provide the performance of a compiled language like C++ and the "feel" of a dynamic language like Python, but under Hundt's tests, its performance lagged well behind that of Java and Scala as well as C++.

Zynga – the online gaming outfit behind the wildly popular Farmville – has filed for an IPO, seeking to raise as much as $1bn.

Open...and ShutBusinesses everywhere have embraced open source as a way to increase innovation and drive down software acquisition costs. Unfortunately, open source doesn't solve an even bigger problem companies have: making their software/systems talk to each other. Whether you're Chevron or Sam's Truck Stop, at some point you're going to want two disparate systems to talk to each other.

The iPad now accounts for over one per cent of worldwide web browsing – and in the US, that figure jumps to 2.1 per cent.

CommentPrivate equity firms are circling HP, looking for a way to carve up the IT behemoth and make a few quick and easy bucks – just as they do every time a new CEO has trouble running the company.