'Chinese' attack sucks secrets from US defence contractor
Comment Crew blamed for three-year attack on QinetiQ
Just when it looked like US-China relations couldn’t get any more frosty, news has emerged that defence contractor QinetiQ suffered a massive breach of classified data over three years which may have leaked advanced military secrets to the infamous PLA-linked hacking gang Comment Crew.
Bloomberg spoke to Verizon’s Terremark …
Red faces as Pentagon leases Chinese satellite
It's ok, we've added 'additional transmission security'
US lawmakers are up in arms after it emerged that the Pentagon has leased a Chinese commercial satellite to support non-classified communications with its African bases.
The details of the one-year, $10m contract were revealed at a House Armed Services Committee on Capitol Hill last week. The Apstar-7 satellite is owned and …
Japan's naughty nurses scam free meals with mobile games
Hungry women trick unsuspecting otaku into paying for grub
Japan’s male mobile gaming geeks are being taken for a ride in ever-greater numbers by hungry, cash-poor women who befriend them online before tricking them into paying for an expensive dinner for two.
This particularly devious scam is on the rise in the Land of the Rising Sun as single Japanese women struggle to pay the bills …
China became world's BIGGEST PC market in 2012
PRC yokels have a penchant for desktops and 14-in notebooks
China has surpassed the US as the world’s largest PC market, in terms of annual sales, with the nation's huge untapped rural market offering manufacturers a rare growth opportunity, according to industry watcher IHS iSuppli.
PC shipments in China during 2012 reached 69 million units, three million more than the States could …
Japan forgot data wipe on ship sold to Pyongyang
Former coast guard ship's navigation records reach NORKS
The Japanese government's data protection policies have been called into question after it emerged that a decommissioned coast guard vessel was sold to a pro-North Korea organisation without any checks as to whether key data on board was first deleted.
The 106-ton Japan Coast Guard patrol boat Takachiho was taken out of service …
Crims take to Facebook to flog ZeuS kits
Dark networks meet social networks
Not content with hawking their wares in underground forums and other insalubrious parts of the darknet, criminals are now advertising their wares on Facebook, says RSA.
The Facebook page in question is now unavailable, but appears to have been packed full of handy info for the budding cyber criminal, according to Limor Kessem, …
Chinese cops shutter PRC's biggest pirate movie site
Symbolic move but country remains an IP Wild West
The Chinese authorities’ ongoing efforts to crack down on piracy have claimed another big scalp after police shuttered the nation's largest online source of not-entirely-properly-sourced movies last Friday, cuffing eight execs along the way.
Siluhd.com is said to have over 140 million members, who each pay 50 yuan (£5) every …
Samsung to block mobile app store in Iran as sanctions bite
Tells users 'legal barriers' are reason for canning Farsi service
Samsung is blocking access to its mobile app store in Iran from next month, an action believed to be part of international sanctions over the Islamic republic’s nuclear program.
Customers of the Korean tech giant in Iran received notification on Wednesday night by email that the online marketplace would be out of action as of …
Apple loses again in Chinese App Store copyright case
Beijing judge throws the book at Cupertino as writers triumph
Apple has lost another copyright case in China after it was held responsible for content third parties uploaded to the bookish corner of its App Store.
The company was ordered to pay three Chinese writers more than 730,000 yuan (£76,600) in compensation after allowing their content to be uploaded and sold on the App Store …
Vietnamese madam cuffed after advertising girls on Facebook
Art museum nudies NO! But prostitutes, sure
Police in Vietnam have swooped on a prostitution ring after spotting one enterprising lady-of-the-night using Facebook to advertise her girls’ wares to potential punters.
Cops in the capital Hanoi cuffed 20-year-old Do Thi Huyen, of Truong Dinh ward in the city's Hai Ba Trung district as she and a colleague were escorting two …
Alibaba and the thwarted thieves: Cops, bazaar to tackle China's piracy
Magic carpet of tat pulled from under counterfeiters
The biggest e-shopping site in China - a nation considered the counterfeit capital of the world - has promised to help decapitate the "snake" of knockoff goods.
Online bazaar Alibaba will, we're told, work closely with five government and law enforcement agencies including the Ministry of Public Security and the State …
Hidden dragon Huawei: 'We’re making increased efforts at transparency'
Can the telecoms kit maker make it big in biz IT?
Huawei sent out a clear signal to its competitors in the global enterprise IT market on Tuesday with predictions of stellar growth for the vendor’s smallest business group over the next five years to reach revenues of $10bn by 2017. But analysts are sceptical about its chances of becoming a genuinely disruptive alternative to …
Huawei preps new mobes to overhaul Apple
60 million sales the target with innovation to trump sinister reputation
Huawei says it’s on track to almost double its smartphone sales this year with a target of 60 million units shifted, as it looks to peg back “superheroes” Samsung and Apple, but admitted its brand image is still holding it back from world domination.
Speaking to media at the firm’s annual global analyst event in Shenzhen on …
Japanese Feds urge ISPs to support Tor ban plan
Updated Anonymous on the internet? You must be up to no good
Japan’s technology-illiterate police have put themselves in the firing line once again after recommending what amounts to a blanket ban on the use of the Tor anonymiser network in the country.
The FBI-like National Police Agency is set to ask ISPs to "help site administrators" to block communications if the customer is found to …
ZTE ejects from Iran as Feds probe spy-tech export claims
Chinese telecoms dragon wants to keep US sweet
Chinese telecoms kit maker ZTE says it has finally wound up its business dealings in Iran, bar existing customers, as the firm tries to move on following allegations it broke US sanctions by flogging spy technology to the Islamic republic.
Chairman Hou Weigui told Reuters the Shenzhen firm had “basically stopped”.
“We have to …
Touchscreen killer? Cam boffinry cut'n'pastes from real things
Vid Bit like tech from Minority Report flick
Japanese boffins at Fujitsu have been showing off new user-interface technology which uses advanced image processing to effectively digitise physical content, allowing users to manipulate it like they would with a touchscreen interface.
The system consists of a camera and projector so that a user can select a piece of physical …
South Korean gov splashes $22m on memory R&D project
Samsung et al gaze at HUGE MOUNDS of cash
Samsung and five other South Korean tech firms are set to team up on a $22 million government-backed project to research new memory chip technology.
The Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy announced the initiative, which will feature Korean tech behemoth Samsung as well as memory chip maker SK Hynix, according to Korean news …
Chinese iOS pirate Kuaiyong launches web app store
Bad news for Apple developers targeting PRC
A Chinese group which has made it its mission to take a bite out of Apple’s iTunes revenue share is at it again, launching a full web version of its iOS app store jam-packed with pirated content.
Chinese language app Kuayiong was originally launched at the tail end of last year to fill the gap left by the equally dodgy jailbreak …
Yahoo! thanks! Asian! equity! for! 36! PERCENT! income! boost!
Irony police circle as Jerry Yang's far-sighted deal buys Mayer more time
Yahoo! has beaten Wall Street expectations by reporting a 36 per cent year-on-year increase in net income last quarter, but CEO Marissa Mayer has investments in Yahoo! Japan and Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba to thank for the respite.
The ailing firm has been undergoing a minor renaissance since the former Googler took over at …
Anonymous squirts all over NORKS in birthday surprise outrage
Happy Birthday, Mr Zombie President
Anonymous hackers have sent North Korean despot Kim Jong-un a little present on the anniversary of his grandfather’s birthday: they vandalised key Nork websites and posted their handiwork on a hijacked Twitter account.
The @uriminzokkiri account was taken over earlier this month in the first round of attacks against North Korean …
Apple alert as half China's fanbois consider switch to Galaxy S4
Big trouble in little China for Cook & Co?
It could be sweaty palm time at Cupertino after new research revealed that more than half of China’s loyal fanbois are thinking of switching their iPhones to a Samsung Galaxy S4, according to new data from market watcher TrendForce.
The Taiwanese firm’s research arm Avanti interviewed a representative sample of 3,000 smartphone …
Alibaba comes again with Android-unfriendly mobile OS
Chinese e-commerce giant in major domestic mobile push
Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba Group has unveiled a new plan to reinvigorate its home-grown mobile operating system (AMOS) after a high profile fall-out with Google last year effectively prevented the world’s major handset makers from partnering on the OS.
The cloud-based AMOS, formerly known as Aliyun OS, hit the ropes last …
Baidu muscles in on Google’s turf with Silicon Valley deep learning lab
Chinese search giant beds down next to Apple in Cupertino
Chinese search giant Baidu has opened the doors to a new research facility in Google’s back yard where it’s hoping to tap the local talent to consolidate early mover advantage in the burgeoning field of “deep learning”.
The Cupertino-based Institute of Deep Learning (IDL) is the Silicon Valley counterpart of another facility …
Apple the victim after Chinese scammers exploit returns policy
Fakers exchanged phony parts for real to build 'new' iPhones
The on-going saga over Apple’s “unfair” after-sales service in China has taken another twist after it was revealed that scammers exploited its returns policy to exchange fake parts for real ones, enabling them to build and sell new devices.
Five employees at an electronics store selling Apple goods were arrested in the Chinese …
'North Korea Has Launched a Missile' tweet sent by mistake
Red faces at Yokahama city government after slip of the mouse
City officials in Yokohama were left feeling rather embarrassed earlier this week after jumping the gun on possible nuclear armageddon by mistakenly tweeting that North Korea had launched a missile.
The over-enthusiastic managers of the @yokohama_saigai Twitter account were to blame for the incident, which happened just before …
Chinese boffins predict iPad-sized supercomputers
Quantum physics discovery could spur even lower power consumption
Chinese boffins are predicting iPad-shaped supercomputers could become a reality after observing for the first time a phenomenon known as the quantum anomalous Hall (QAH) effect, which could pave the way for a new generation of low energy-consumption electronics.
The QAH effect has never been observed in a laboratory environment …
Seoul plans anti-GPS jamming system to thwart NORKS
Naughty North Korea has been disrupting signals since 2010
South Korea is finalising plans to track down and block GPS jamming signals emitted by its increasingly belligerent northern neighbour.
Unnamed official government sources told Yonyap news agency that the GPS surveillance system would be co-ordinated by the Ministry of Science, ICT & Future Planning.
However, relevant …
Microsoft follows Apple into the dock over warranty terms in China
Surface Pro under the spotlight after state-run radio report
Hot on the heels of Apple’s well publicised run-in with the Chinese authorities over alleged deficiencies in its customer service, Microsoft is now being targeted by state-run media which claims its Surface Pro warranty terms do not comply with local laws.
A China National Radio report on Monday claimed that Redmond is only …
Take a deep breath: No NORKS panic for ICT supply chain … yet
Regional tech titans are keeping a close eye on situation
It’s business as usual for the ICT supply chain in Asia despite heightened tensions on the Korean peninsula which have now seen the de facto closure of the symbolic Kaesŏng industrial zone, according to market watchers.
The Reg has had its ear to the ground across the region to see if the recent escalation in threatening …
Fujitsu looks to blast cloud silos with RunMyProcess buy
Silicon Valley to be site of new cloudy hub
Japanese ICT giant Fujitsu has announced plans to build out its cloud business with the acquisition of little-known French PaaS vendor RunMyProcess (RMP) and the development of a new Global Software Center in Silicon Valley.
RunMyProcess, a member of the Cloud Alliance for Google Apps, essentially allows customers to build and …
Japanese boffins READ YOUR DREAMS with MRI
Kyoto researchers claim 60 per cent success with dream mapping algorithm
Japanese boffins say they can tell what you are dreaming about by analysing magnetic resonance imager (MRI) scans.
Researchers at Kyoto’s ATR Computational Neuroscience Laboratories published their breakthrough findings in Science magazine in a paper titled Neural Decoding of Visual Imagery During Sleep.
The boffins used …
Anonymous blitzes Israel in new attack
OpIsrael rocked, says Anon. Nothing to see here, says Israel
Anonymous claims to have disrupted more than 100,000 Israeli web sites and caused over $US3bn in damages with a new campaign, called OpIsrael, launched over the weekend. Israeli officials say the effort was largely unsuccessful in breaching the nation's online defences.
In a typically understated piece of pre-op PR last Thursday …
Panasonic develops DNA-scanning 'lab-on-a-chip'
Could speed detection of disease and more effective drug prescriptions
Boffins at Japanese IT giant Panasonic have been showing off a “lab-on-a-chip” capable of rapidly analysing patient DNA so that doctors can quickly and easily identify disease and prescribe effective medication.
The testing chip, developed with Belgium-based research firm IMEC, is less than half the size of a business card and …
Nokia shutters Shanghai store as Chinese stay away in their billions
Smell of death putting them off, perhaps
Nokia has closed its flagship Shanghai retail store in an attempt to trim costs and concentrate on other sales channels as it looks to arrest an alarming decline in smartphone sales in the world’s biggest market.
State-run news agency Xinhua posted some snaps of the shuttered store – which was opened in 2007 to much fanfare as …
Apple pulls banned content from Chinese App Store
Playing nice or rolling over?
Apple is under fire again in China after removing an application from its local App Store featuring illegal content, in what could be the start of more rigorous approach to self-censorship following Cupertino’s recent run-in with the authorities.
Hao Peiqiang, developer of bookstore app jingdian shucheng told the FT his …
Hi-tech horses racing: how to stay Happy down in the Valley
Reg hack takes a punt on tech at Hong Kong’s iconic racecourse
Hong Kongers love to gamble. It’s a serious business over here, and one that can generate at least HK$100m (£8.5m) in turnover from every race.
That money goes to the Hong Kong Jockey Club, a venerable institution formed by the British in 1884 to promote horse racing, which has a monopoly on betting in the city-state.
Every …
US bill prohibits state use of tech linked to Chinese government
Has anyone on Capitol Hill heard of the global supply chain?
In one of the first clear signs of a tougher stance on China, a new US spending bill has banned government agencies from buying any technology from companies thought to be “owned, operated or subsidised” by the People’s Republic.
The Consolidated and Further Continuing Appropriations Act of 2013, signed by president Obama on …
Indonesia: e-commerce firms must have local domain
Show me some .ID, says Ministry
Indonesia will effectively ban cross-border e-commerce and make it harder for foreign firms looking to invest in the country, by mandating that anyone wanting to sell goods online must register a local .ID domain.
The Communication and Information Ministry made the announcement as part of new rules for “electronic system …
NEC could ditch telecoms services unit
Japanese giant slimming down
Ailing Japanese IT giant NEC could be set to jettison yet more of its business and move further from the mobile space after reports suggested its ready to sell subsidiary NEC Mobiling for up to $850 million.
NEC Mobiling designs and builds telecoms infrastructure equipment, operates a repair and maintenance service for mobile …
India’s outsourcers battle for customers in a cloudy universe
Analysis Still on top but heeeere comes China ...
The rumblings started in the late 1990s. Indian services companies were getting into outsourcing. Almost before the news broke, deals followed. Before long, India was a destination for all manner of serious jobs and a byword for getting things done well and at a price western nations struggled to match.
Fast forward a decade or …
NORKS switch off 3G data for tourists
Kim Jong-un giveth and then he taketh away...
Portly peoples' hero dictator Kim Jong-un has put the brakes on North Korea’s efforts to haul itself into the 21st century after appearing to ban mobile internet services for tourists less than a month after a historic decision was taken to relax 3G data restrictions.
The news came in the form of a brief update posted by Beijing …
US democracy activists lose case against Baidu and China
Manhattan court is not the place to sue a country, says judge
Chinese search giant Baidu has seen off a $US16m legal challenge from a group of pro-democracy supporters in New York
The unusual lawsuit was filed in the US District Court in Manhattan back in 2011, with the plaintiffs alleging that Baidu effectively acted as an agent of the Chinese state to deliberately suppress their pro- …
Chinese graves use quick response codes to recall the dead
Scan for more info on your loved ones
Japan’s reputation as a global technology trend setter has received some rather unlikely validation: after graves in the country started sporting QR codes, the little squares of encoded data have now appeared in cemeteries in China. The codes are placed to provide links to information about the deceased.
In Japan, adding QR …
Japan's rare earth discovery bad news for China's monopoly plans
Pacific sea sludge find could keep prices low
Japan is celebrating the find of an “astronomically” high level of rare earth deposits at the bottom of the Pacific Ocean, a discovery which will further undermine China’s failing attempts to control the global supply of the substances.
The deposits, a vital component in the production of a range of high technology equipment …
India may can low cost Aakash tablet project
Brit biz Datawind under fire for lagging on delivery
The Indian government may pull the plug on its ambitious but misfiring plan to put a low-cost Aakash tablet in the hands of 50 million students across the country.
The project has been hit by repeated delays since its 2011 launch, when British manufacturer Datawind was contracted to build 100,000 of the Android tablets.
Now the …
Myanmar gets a taste of Chocolate Factory as Google search lands
Play app store is also partially unblocked ahead of Eric Schmidt's visit
Myanmar’s gradual re-integration with the rest of the world has taken another step forward after Google partially unblocked its Play app store and switched on a .mm search engine for the region, ahead of a visit by Chairperson Eric Schmidt.
The executive chairman is set to round off a whistlestop tour of India with a visit to …
Hong Kong plans cavernous underground data centres
Going underground
The Hong Kong government is looking at a novel way of creating new space in which to build data centres in the tiny Special Administrative Region (SAR): digging purpose-built caves.
Speaking at the Datacentre Space Asia conference in the SARon Thursday, Hilary Cordell of local real estate law firm Cordells revealed that plans …
Vietnamese high school kids can pass Google interview
Google engineer makes shock discovery on fact-finder
Google engineer Neil Fraser got a bit of a surprise when he visited Vietnam recently to see how schools teach ICT: kids in 11th grade are capable of passing the Chocolate Factory’s notoriously difficult interview process.
Fraser blogged about his trip (via TNW), which ostensibly seems to have been a fact-finding mission …
Feds cuff ex-NASA boffin at airport amid state-secret leak scare
Bloke allegedly had one-way ticket to China with a bag full of disks
An ex-NASA scientist was arrested as he tried to board a plane to Beijing amid claims of a security breach at the space agency.
Chinese national Bo Jiang, 31, who had been working for the National Institute of Aeronautics at NASA's Langley Research Centre, was cuffed by the FBI at Dulles airport in Washington. The Feds pounced …
Google turns Street View into Mountain View
Takes camera up Everest way...
Google has taken its Street View service to new heights after deciding to ditch the infamous car in favour of a simple tripod and camera as it unveiled new shots of some of the world’s tallest mountains.
The Chocolate Factory’s obsessive bid to map every corner of the planet has now taken it up Mount Everest – or at least base …
