US biz Battelle boasts it has found a way to rid our skies of annoying drones without breaking the flying machines' hardware. And here's the solution: DroneDefender, a shoulder-mounted weapon that sends pulses of radio waves to disrupt communications between the drone and its operator. The electro-magnetic cannon, which has a …

Major internet companies have submitted their comments to the US Federal Communications Commission's consultation on new rules for internet discrimination and pricing – the so-called "net neutrality" consultation. The Internet Association – which lobbies on behalf of Google, Amazon, Facebook and others including Reddit – said …

The US federal spending shutdown has hit EMC's results, causing declines in both revenues and profits compared to the previous quarter. In comparison, rivals VMware saw accelerated double-digit year-over-year revenue growth; no federal shutdown effect visible there. Third quarter revenues of $5.5bn were $100m less than the …

Viviane Reding, VP of the European Commission, has published an open letter calling for a Federal Europe, modelled on the USA, claiming the only way out of the financial crisis is consolidation of all the participating countries into a single administration. The letter, published on the same day that European leaders are …

Software giant Oracle has settled a fraud suit launched by the US government to the tune of $199.5m, the US Department of Justice has announced. The DoJ complaint against Oracle was filed in June 2010 in the wake of a whistleblower lawsuit by former Oracle employee Paul Frascella, who was senior director of contract services …

Intel is getting more focused on the challenges in the supercomputing market and has established a new business unit, called Intel Federal, to pursue the contracts with the US government that fund the majority of cutting-edge supercomputing research and development in the country. In the wake of its acquisition of networking …

SGI is OEM'ing rebranded BlueArc NAS products in its InfiniteStorage line. SGI is the rebranded Rackable, which bought the failing and bankrupt Silicon Graphics Inc in May. It's a good win for BlueArc which also has Hitachi Data Systems OEM'ing the Mercury network-attached storage (NAS) products, which were announced in July …

In a shock revelation, US media have revealed that federal quangocrats at the National Science Foundation (NSF) have been browsing outrageous amounts of porn at work. In an "exclusive" culled largely from publicly-available documents and congressional testimony, the The Washington Times (the paper perhaps most famous for being …

US politicians have proposed legislation that would oblige both ISPs and people running Wi-Fi hotspots to keep access logs for two years. The stringent data retention rules are among provisions to two companion bills submitted to the House of Representatives (H.R.1076) and the Senate (S.436). Both bills are known as Internet …

A travel reservations website used by US government agencies remains offline more than a week after it was infected with malware that tried to install malicious code on the PCs of those who visited the site. Agencies including the Federal Aviation Administration, the Environmental Protection Agency, and the Department of …

The $787bn American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (ARRA), signed Tuesday by US president Barack Obama, contains significant chunks of cash targeted towards IT spending. Some of the line items are relatively straightforward, such as over $1bn for IT upgrades at the Social Security Administration, State Department, …

Supercomputer maker Cray pulled some big bucks from the US government in the fourth quarter, nearly tripling sales. But after writing down a few assets, the company posted a loss for the quarter - and for the year. Cray booked $155.4m in sales in the fourth quarter, including $100m for a portion of the "Jaguar" petaflops …

Famous eccentric American botanist, lawyer and soi-disant physicist Walter L Wagner has failed in his bid to have the US courts close down the Large Hadron Collider (LHC). The Hawaiian federal judges reportedly felt that the enormous 27-km proton deathrace track lay somewhat outside their jurisdiction, located as it is beneath …

The US Congress has voted to end America's ban on offshore oil and gas drilling in the face of rising petrol prices. However the White House is resisting the Democrats' energy package, saying it will stifle the oil industry. Reuters reports that the Democrat-controlled lower house passed the proposed measures by 236 votes to …

US telco Verizon yesterday announced it had won a $678.5m, ten-year deal to tie together the many disparate networks within the vast US Department of Homeland Security (DHS). "The Department of Homeland Security has entrusted Verizon Business to support its critical mission of protecting our country and its citizens," said …