An advanced electricity network, which uses distributed energy resources — local, low emission and renewable power — is the vision of a national, collaborative research cluster for Australia’s future energy supply. The Intelligent Grid Cluster — officially launched in Sydney today by Senator Kim Carr, Minister for Innovation, Industry, Science and Research — is a major collaborative research venture between the CSIRO and the university sector under the CSIRO Energy Transformed Flagship
US computer maker Dell is planning to sell its factories around the world to contract manufacturers within 18 months in a bid to save more than $US3 billion ($A3.7 billion) in costs. Most of the factories would be sold to manufacturers in low-cost Asian countries, who would then produce computers for the Texas-based company
Samsung is eyeing a possible acquisition of memory chip-maker SanDisk. The company, which is the world’s largest computer memory maker in the world, said it was considering various opportunities
with regard to SanDisk but nothing has been decided yet
eBay has rolled out WorldofGood.com, a new online Green marketplace offering products that are made from recycled or natural materials. The site also allows shoppers to buy products built in developing nations. Thus, eBay said, the site has a positive impact on people and the planet
Smartyhost, an Australian web hosting firm, has been adding Trojans to their clients websites for the past 6 months, potentially driving them off the web and out of business
It’s the success story to beat all internet success stories. Ten years ago, on 7 September 1998, two young graduate students at Stanford University incorporated a company with the (then) odd-sounding name Google
. Today, Larry Page and Sergey Brin are billionaires. Their company is hugely profitable; between April and June this year alone, it reported a turnover of $5.7bn (£3.2bn) and generated a net profit of $1.25bn (the first quarter was even more profitable). Not bad for a company that makes its money being a broker for and publisher of online advertising
Scientists have found that bumblebees learn from their near-death
encounters with crab spiders and adapt their future foraging strategies. They watched real bees in an artificial meadow — containing yellow flowers
and robotic crab spiders. Bees that had been captured
spent longer inspecting flowers during subsequent foraging trips. They may outwit the spiders — but at the expense of valuable foraging time
The summer saw a surge in the number of hijacked home PCs or zombies
, say security experts. The Shadowserver Foundation, which tracks zombie numbers worldwide, said it had seen at least a threefold increase in the last three months. More than 450,000 computers are now part of zombie networks, or botnets, run by hi-tech criminals, it said. The rise is believed to be linked to attacks that booby-trap web sites to try to infect the machines of visitors
Criminals can remotely destroy incriminating evidence by exploiting security features on the Apple iPhone, a leading digital forensics expert has warned. The head of the Serious Fraud Office digital forensics unit Keith Foggon cautioned that the ability to remotely wipe the iPhone and other smart phones used by enterprises could be exploited by lawbreakers
California claims copyright to its laws, and warns people not to share them. And that’s not sitting right with Internet gadfly, and open-access hero, Carl Malamud. He has spent the last couple months scanning tens of thousands of pages containing city, county and state laws — think building codes, banking laws, etc. Malamud wants California to sue him, which is almost a given if the state wants to continue claiming copyright. He thinks a federal court will rule in his favor: It is illegal to copyright the law since people are required to know it. Malamud helped force the SEC to put corporate filings online in 1994, and did the same with the patent office. He got the Smithsonian to loosen its claim of copyright, CSPAN to stop forbidding people from sharing its videos, and most recently Oregon to quit claiming copyright on state laws — via Slashdot
Spammers are abusing free Web services to make their spam links look more legitimate, according to e-mail security vendor MessageLabs
BBC Worldwide, Auntie’s commercial arm, is developing a music download service, offering streamed for free and paid download works from its archive of music that bands have recorded for TV and radio in BBC studios. The Beeb’s radio and television music shows frequently feature live sessions recorded at BBC HQ, often of current singles, acoustic versions of popular tracks, or cover versions of other artists’ work. Radio 1’s Live Lounge is a popular destination for pop artists, not to mention the John Peel Sessions. And don’t forget the BBC has exclusive rights to broadcast Glastonbury
Perth-based internet service provider Westnet has started trialling ADSL2+ services using its new parent iiNet’s broadband network, with a formal launch date likely to come before the end of the year
Mozilla has extended its search deal with Google for another three years. In return for setting Google as the default search engine on Firefox, Google pays Mozilla a substantial sum — in 2006 the total amounted to around $57 million, or 85% of the company’s total revenue. The deal was originally going to expire in 2006, but was later extended to 2008 and will now run through 2011
A well-known web site owner in one of Russia’s most restive regions was shot to death after he was arrested by authorities on Sunday, according to Russian news reports. Magomed Yevloyev was whisked away by Russian Interior Ministry officials in Nazran, Ingushetia, shortly after he returned from a trip to Moscow. He was shot in the temple. Yevloyev ran a web site, focused on news from Ingushetia, an area sandwiched between Georgia’s North Ossetia region to the west and Chechnya to the east. A court banned his Web site in August, calling it extremist
Oregon Health & Science University scientists have successfully produced functional auditory hair cells in the cochlea of the mouse inner ear. The breakthrough suggests that a new therapy may be developed in the future to successfully treat hearing loss
Employees are failing to properly archive e-mails, according to research, because they are often too busy or too unsure of their IT skills. Over 75% of employees said they received no guidance on the requirements and methods for e-mail storage, and more than a third said their company has no e-mail policy
Google is developing a new web browser built from the ground up and based on WebKit, the same rendering engine that Safari uses. The browser, called Chrome, is open-source software built with security, compatibility and speed in mind. Each tab in the browser will be its own separate running process. For example, if JavaScript hangs in one tab, the other tabs will remain unaffected. The approach is similar to the way Mac OS X isolates applications in their own private areas to prevent one crash from taking down the whole system
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