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Boffins claim Voyager has already left the Solar System
There's a boffin battle brewing at the fringe of the Solar System.
At issue is whether the venerable Voyager 1 spacecraft has left the region where Sol's electromagnetic winds blow, or is still in the tiny pocket of space we call home.
The “we're outta here” camp has penned a letter in The Astrophysics Journal titled “A porous …
Oz High Court says streaming music is not a 'broadcast'
Commercial Radio Australia (CRA) has been denied permission to appeal to the High Court in an attempt to overrule decisions in lower courts that will force it to pay twice for music it broadcasts – once for over the air and another for simultaneous internet broadcast.
The case over just how radio broadcasters should pay for …
Microsoft DMCA takedown requests targeting OpenOffice
The vigilant folk at TorrentFreak think they've found something odd: among the hundreds of thousands of sites Microsoft has recently asked Google not to index are requests to remove references to sites that in no way infringe Microsoft's rights but instead mention the the free OpenOffice suite.
TorrentFreak's report on the …
Oz bank closes Bitcoin business' bank accounts
The Commonwealth Bank, Australia's largest bank, has closed accounts belonging to Australian Bitcoin payment processor CoinJar.
CoinJar, which offers tools to buy or sell Bitcoins, and accept them as payment, has blogged about its experiences. The post says it has experienced some dodgy transactions, but no more than most …
Microsoft to fund Blake's 7 return as Xbox Live exclusive
Microsoft is reportedly backing a reboot of Blake's 7, the seminal British science fiction show.
The Finanacial Times' reports Microsoft feels Blake's 7 is just the kind of content it needs to encourage Xbox owners to deploy the device as an entertainment hub that deposits rivers of subscription revenue into Redmond's coffers, …
YouTube app returns to Windows Phone
Microsoft has released another YouTube app into the Windows Phone store.
The release of an app may not seem noteworthy, save for the fact that back in May Google prepared a flaming sueball and threatened to heft it in Redmond's direction because its previous app allowed users to download videos and didn't play nicely with …
Think tank wants dedicated infosec minister, 'modern' data retention
The Australian Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI) has issued an “Agenda for Change” (PDF) that suggests data retention is a necessary centrepiece of Australia's future homeland security needs.
The document's introduction, penned by ASPI Chair Stephen Loosley, says “Cyber espionage is the newest and most serious challenge to …
NORKS prepping glorious People's Smartmobe
North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has visited a mobile phone factory in the reclusive nation and revealed some details of a handset dubbed the “Arirang”.
The Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) isn't the kind of source to go heavy on tech specs and its English isn't the best, so we don't know just what the phone runs but is widely …
WoW gold farmer throws sueball over real world gold theft
A World of Warcraft (WoW) gold farmer has landed in an Australian court in an attempt to win compensation for the loss of real world gold.
Kristina Fincham's tale is an odd one. The 45 year old Adelaide woman hit on gold farming, the practice of accumulating virtual goods and currency in the game, and then selling it to other …
Google's Street View cars venture inside TARDIS
Dr Who fans the world over know that one of the few surviving Police Boxes on which the TARDIS is modelled can be found outside the entrance to Earl's Court tube station.
Google seems to know this too and has created a lovely Easter Egg for Doctor Who fans on its Street View mapping service.
The fun starts if you visit this …
EMC CTO: I called flash a 'performance tier' but don't like the phrase
EMC CTO John Roese has decided he's not keen on the phrase “performance tier” that he used yesterday at EMC Forum Australia.
Vulture South has been told Roese did his own slideware for the event and that the definitions it offered of pure solid-state storage as “performance tier” storage and disk-based-but-flash-capable products …
EMC demotes VMAX into 'capacity tier'
EMC Chief Technology Officer John Roese has all-but-demoted the company's Symmetrix VMAX arrays from their position atop the company's prow, today declaring the arrays are the biggest and baddest offering in a “capacity tier” of products that possess lesser grunt than a “performance tier” of products.
Speaking at the EMC Forum …
Violent Hamlet 'bard' by British Library Wi-Fi filters
British author HM Forsyth was working on a book in the British Library last week when he needed to read Shakespeare's Hamlet, so he did what anyone would do these days: he Googled it, safe in the knowledge that MIT has put the Bard's entire output online.
And that's when something nasty happened: The Library's WiFi denied him …
Torvalds frustrated at missing simultaneous release
Linus Torvalds has issued release candidate five for Linux 3.11, but is a little upset with the fact the final release missed a serendipitous anniversary.
The date in question is August 11th, 1993, as it was on that day that Windows 3.11 emerged blinking and howling into the world.
Torvalds liked the idea that Linux 3.11 would …
Rejoice, Australia: A dream tech workforce is coming ... in 2030!
The good news first: there's light at the end of the tunnel for Australia's "we can never find the skilled staff we need" technology sector. And now for the bad news: the end of the tunnel is the year 2030.
Vulture South offers that date as we continue to explore the new Digital Technologies curriculum being developed by the …
China has another go at rare earth dominance
China's having another go at controlling the world's market for rare earths, the substances essential to the manufacture of many high technology goods.
China claims it has more rare earths in the ground than any other nation, and has been reluctant to export them in large quantities. Many have interpreted that behaviour as an …
NSA to world+dog: We're only watching 1.6% of internet, honest
The US's National Security Agency (NSA) has issued a document titled The National Security Agency: Missions, Authorities, Oversight and Partnerships (PDF) that explains some of its operations - and includes a claim it “... touches about 1.6 per cent... “ of daily internet traffic and “...only 0.025 per cent is actually selected …
Open source 'Cubesat' set to soar
Open source software and hardware are about to take a giant, if futile, leap into space, thanks to two “CubeSats” that ascended into the heavens in the HTV-4 “transfer vehicle” that also carried a humaniform robot to the International Space Station (ISS).
The two CubeSats, named because they are cubes ten centimetres on each …
Oracle automates master data management workflow
Oracle has released a new product aimed at automating some master data management (MDM) chores.
MDM is often spoken of when software companies discuss “a single version of the truth”, shorthand term for the tricky problem that arises when a company deals with related-but-differentiated entities.
A single version of the truth is …
Silent Circle shutters email service
Silent Circle, the company founded by former PGP wonks and Navy Seals and which offers very, very, secure communications, has decided to shutter its Silent Mail email service.
The decision, announced in a blog post, comes on the same day that Lavabit, another secure email service, decided to close because it cannot guarantee …
Facebook to get IN YOUR FACE with video ads
Facebook has signalled it will become more annoying, by letting The Wall Street Journal know video ads are coming to the social network quite soon now.
The Journal's report says Facebook has been on the cusp of introducing video ads for months now, but has been held back by valiant champion-of-the-users Mark Zuckerberg's …
NASA boffins release Europa mission wish list
NASA boffins have revealed their wish list for a landing on Europa, the icy moon of Jupiter that looks a very promising candidate to host life and which was last April made a priority for future exploration by NASA.
Available here, the document says any visit to Europa should figure out if the moon's ocean is habitable, by …
Give up your privacy so Big Data can FIX GOVERNMENT
Edward Snowden's revelations about government snooping mean it is very hard to make a case for governments collecting and using information about their citizens.
But in New Zealand, giving one agency the right to use more information has quickly paid off, saving millions in the short term, billions in the future and reducing the …
Infosec analysts back away from 'Feds attacked Tor' theory
When Tor admitted early this week that some nodes on the network had suddenly and inexplicably gone dark, thanks in part to a malware attack, theories abounded as to just what was going on and why.
That the FBI arrested a man suspected of using Tor to host child pornography distribution services further fuelled speculation that …
Queensland bans IBM from future work
The Australian State of Queensland has barred IBM from future government work, “until it improves its governance and contracting practices.”
Queensland is grumpy with IBM because of its role in a billion-dollar blowout of a payroll system for its health department.
An inquiry into IBM's role in the project yesterday concluded …
End of an era as Firefox bins 'blink' tag
The "blink"* element, a feature of early web browsers that made text blink on and off, has been banished in the latest version of Firefox.
The element had already been removed from Internet Explorer, was never implemented in Chrome and was ignored by most browser-makers because it never made it into a W3C HTML spec. The W3C even …
Actifio plans wider data management portfolio
Upstart storage startup Actifio has quickly made a splash with its “copy data” products, but the company has already set its sights on a more comprehensive suite of data management tools including business intelligence wares.
Speaking to The Reg in Sydney today, Actifio founder and CEO Ash Ashutosh said the company's eyeing off …
Smashing your phone? There's an app stupid game for that
Smashing your phone ? There's an app stupid game for that Just when you though the “there's an app for that” jokes didn't have much life left in them, along comes Send Me to Heaven, aka S.M.T.H., a game that encourages you to despatch you phone to the next life by tossing it into the air.
The game's concept is simple: using a …
NBN builder Syntheo gives up in two States
Syntheo, the joint venture between Lend Lease and Service Stream Limited that won contracts to build Australia's National Broadband Network (NBN) in the States of West Australia and South Australia, will down tools forever in those States early in 2014.
NBN Co's canned utterance on the matter says it and Syntheo “ have mutually …
Happy first anniversary, Curiosity!
Where were you on August 6th, 2012, during the “seven minutes of terror” during which the Curiosity Rover descended onto the Martian surface?
Wherever you were, the minutes were aptly-named, because Curiosity landed courtesy of a “sky crane” that saw a rocket hover just long enough for the rover the be lowered onto the red …
IBM committed 'ethical transgressions' to win botched project
IBM has found to have acted unethically during a bid to win work developing a new payroll application for the Australian state of Queensland's Department of Health, but has not been held directly or solely responsible for the $AUD1bn blowout in costs on the project.
IBM's been under the microscope for its role in this project …
Tor fingers Firefox flaw for FAIL but FBI's also in the frame
Tor has confirmed the existence of malware that has taken down some of its hidden nodes - and says flaws in Firefox are at the heart of the problem.
The network anonymising service yesterday noted the disappearance of some nodes on its network. The outfit hasn't offered any more insight into what's down, or exactly what brought …
iiNet to buy Adam Internet
iiNet has announced it will acquire Adam Internet for $AUD60m.
The announcement comes just weeks after Telstra abandoned its quest to acquire the ISP. Telstra's ambitions were roundly criticised as anti-competitive when it announced its intentions in October 2012, with Vodafone Hutchinson Australia, iiNet and Macquarie Telecom …
They don't recognise us as HUMAN: Disability groups want CAPTCHAs killed
The Australian Communications Consumer Action Network (ACCAN), Blind Citizens Australia, Media Access Australia, Able Australia and the Australian Deafblind Council have banded together to campaign for the demise of the CAPTCHA.
CAPTCHAs, or Completely Automated Public Turing test to tell Computers and Humans Apart, ask users to …
Upgraded 3D printed rifle shoots 14 times before breaking
Get ready for another wave of debate on weaponised 3D printers, because the Canadian behind a one-shot-and-it's-dead 3D printed rifle has come back with a weapon that doesn't break when used.
The Canadian in question is known only as Matthew and posts videos of his creation on a YouTube channel previously dedicated to the …
The Old Reader drops Google refugee eviction plan
The Old Reader, the RSS reader that drowned in new users after Google switched off its own RSS reader and then decided to boot out those refugees, has reversed its position and will continue to operate as a public service.
In a blog post someone called “Ben Wolf” wrote “The application now has a bigger team, significantly more …
Microsoft cuts Surface Pro price by $100
Hot on the heels of last week's revelation that Surface sales are utterly terrible, Microsoft has again cut the price of its Surface tablets.
This time it's the Pro version that gets the discount, with $100 (US) removed from its price as of 4 August.
One small ray of sunshine is that the price cut may not be permanent. The page …
Tor servers vanish as FBI swoops on kiddie-smut suspect
Network anonymisation outfit TOR has posted a fascinating piece of commentary on reports that some of the anonymous servers it routes to have disappeared from its network.
“Around midnight on August 4th we were notified by a few people that a large number of hidden service addresses have disappeared from the Tor Network,” the …
Peter Capaldi named as 12th Doctor Who
The next Doctor Who has been named.
He's Peter Capaldi, a 55-year-old Brit who has good form for the role, having already been on Dr Who and its spinoff Torchwood. The new Who – played John Frobiser in Torchwood's 2009 arc "Children of the Earth" – and popped up as Roman Lucius Caecilius in the 2008 episode "The Fires of Pompeii …
USA reverses iPhone, iPad sales ban
US Trade Representative Michael Froman has recommended Samsung's bid to prevent Apple from selling its iPhone and iPad due to patent violations not be approved.
In a letter (PDF) dated August 3rd, Froman wrote to the Chair of the International Trade Commission (USITC) and laid out his reasons for deciding not to impose a sales …
Samsung brings back clamshell phones with added Android
Samsung is reportedly bringing back the flip phone, adding Android and a pair of 3.7-inch touch screens to a form factor popular in the first GSM phones of the mid-1990s.
Japanese blog Ringer's Blue Men spotted a manual (PDF) for the new handset. Dated July 2013 and labelled version 1.0, the manual leaves no doubt it's an …
Weekend project: Mulch your old PC to save the world
Willitblend.com, the quaint site that subjects all manner of kit to the tender embrace of a high-powered blender, might be on to something other than the amusement that comes from wanton destruction.
We make that assertion on the basis of this paper, Toxic Heavy Metal Capture Using a Novel Electronic Waste-Based Material— …
Apple snaffles low-power wireless firm Passif Semiconductor
Apple has acquired a privately-held low-power Bluetooth specialist called Passif Semiconductor.
Not a lot is known about the company, which Business Week describes as a manufacturer of “switch-based wireless transceivers with low power consumption and a small footprint” that was incorporated in 2007.
It's also known that the …
Terror cops swoop on couple who Googled 'backpacks' and 'pressure cooker'
Freelance writer Michele Catalano thought she might get herself a pressure cooker to prepare Quinoa, the south American wonder-grain. Her husband wanted a new backpack.
Both did what you do these days: go online and search for them. Catalano's husband did so from his work computer, and later left his job.
Nothing to see here, …
HDS scores 6PB slice of Oz research cloud
Australia’s ambitious Research Data Storage Infrastructure (RDSI), a project aimed at creating a federated cloud of high-class storage rigs that will allow wider sharing of research data, will use kit from Hitachi Data Systems (HDS) in one of its nodes.
RDSI plans to establish nodes around the nation, housed at universities and …
Boffins: We have FOOLED APPLE with malware app
Researchers from Georgia Tech's Information Security Center (GTISC) claim to have found a way to sneak a malware-ridden app through Apple's inspection regime, and have also raised concerns about “malicious chargers” for iPhones.
The GTISC team explains its research here and claim to have created an app “which rearranges its own …
USB accelerates to 10 Gbps
Universal Serial Bus, the connectivity standard so ubiquitous the world has long stopped caring about the derivation of the USB acronym, has just been upgraded to 10 Gbps.
The upgrade comes in the form of a .1 release, USB 3.1, that is backwards compatible with USB 3.0 and 2.0 kit. The new speed will only be achievable with kit …
CommVault gives Simpana the share 'n' sync treatment
Just in case you needed proof that the share 'n' sync model for data storage and sharing has legs, CommVault just baked it into its flagship Simpana suite.
CommVault's effort is called “Edge” and offers a very familiar mode of operations: download an agent to your Windows or Mac OS client, nominate a folder that will always be …
Panasonic claims world's first ReRAM-equipped product
Panasonic has claimed it will next month ship the world's first computer product that use ReRAM.
ReRAM has folks excited because it is as fast as RAM, but like flash memory retains information when powered down. Also known as Memristor RAM, a nod to the fact it combines the properties of a resistor and memory, the technology is …
Microsoft adds Visual-Studio-like text editor to SkyDrive
Microsoft has tweaked the Word web app it offers with its SkyDrive cloud storage service, adding developer-friendly tools and the ability to work with JavaScript, CSS and HTML and other code files.
The Word web app is an in-browser version of Microsoft's famous word processor and has been a feature of the service since early …
