Amazon’s EC2 cloud computing service suffered its fourth power outage in a week on Tuesday, with some customers in its US East Region losing service for about an hour. The incident was triggered when a vehicle crashed into a utility pole near one of the company’s data centres, and a transfer switch failed to properly manage the shift from utility power to the facility’s generators
The world will soon run out of internet addresses unless organisations move to a new internet protocol version, according to the head of the body that allocates IP addresses. Rod Beckstrom, chief executive of ICANN, says only 8 or 9 per cent of IPv4 addresses were left and companies need to switch to the new standard of IPv6 as quickly as possible
Microsoft’s announcement this week that it is preparing to end support for machines running Windows XP SP2 not only represents a challenge for the thousands of businesses still running SP2, but also is the end of an era for both Microsoft and its customers. By the time Microsoft drops support for XP SP2 on 13 July, Windows XP will be nearly nine years old. The OS was released in August 2001 as a replacement for Windows 2000 and was the last full release of Windows before Microsoft started its Trustworthy Computing effort. Very soon after the famous memo from Bill Gates appeared, attention both inside and outside the company focused on hardening Windows XP
Authorities in the southern Indian state of Andhra Pradesh are planning to set up an outsourcing unit in a jail. The unit will employ 200 educated convicts who will handle back office operations like data entry, and process and transmit information. The project will begin at Charlapally Central Jail, near the state capital Hyderabad, in the next four months
Two privacy watchdogs are writing to Google asking why the internet company has been collecting information about household wireless networks. Electronic Frontiers Australia (EFA) says the internet giant has been taking down the data as it drives through Australian neighbourhoods taking photos for its Street View service. By clicking on a map Google’s Street View allows internet users to view a photo of the streetscape. EFA and the Australian Privacy Foundation are worried the data gathered during this process could be misused
eBay Australia sellers will no longer be forced to offer PayPal as a payment mechanism following the intervention of the Australian Competition & Consumer Commission (ACCC). Two years ago, eBay made two significant moves — it tried to mandate that sellers offer PayPal and pushed for PayPal to be the only electronic payment platform on ebay.com.au. The second proposition drew the ire of both buyers, sellers, the ACCC and even the Reserve Bank but the first idea went through largely unchallenged. Since then the ACCC has been investigating complaints that eBay may have engaged in conduct that could contravene the Trade Practices Act by forcing sellers to offer PayPal, its subsidiary
Last month it became apparent that several Hollywood movie studios had threatened to take legal action against the owner of ISP CyberBunker, the current bandwidth provider for The Pirate Bay. Now, according to fresh information from a reliable source, the studios have come good on their threats
There have already been plenty of questions over who owns
the ebooks you’ve bought, with stories of remotely deactivated books and remotely deactivated features — neither of which happens when you have a real physical book. But there are also other concerns opened up by newly activated features. Apparently one new feature — sent in by a few concerned readers — is that Amazon will now remotely upload and store the user notes and highlights you take on your Kindle, which it then compiles into popular highlights
Conservative leader David Cameron has become the UK’s new prime minister after the resignation of Gordon Brown. Lib Dem leader Nick Clegg will be his deputy after they agreed to the UK’s first coalition government in 70 years. Mr Cameron, who at 43 is the youngest PM in nearly 200 years, vowed to set aside party differences and govern in the national interest
Metamaterials are man-made substances designed to do some very weird things that natural materials don’t. The path of a beam of light through a natural material like glass is predictable, but scientists from the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) have engineered an optical material that bends light in the wrong direction. This new negative-index metamaterial (NIM) could have several valuable uses including invisibility cloaking, superlensing (imaging nano-scale objects using visible light) and improved light collection in solar cells
The husband-and-wife team of Arlen and Diane Chase tried a new approach to mapping archaeological sites using airborne laser signals that penetrate the jungle cover and are reflected from the ground below. They yielded 3-D images of the site of ancient Caracol, in Belize, one of the great cities of the Maya lowlands. In only four days, a twin-engine aircraft equipped with an advanced version of lidar (light detection and ranging) flew back and forth over the jungle and collected data surpassing the results of two and a half decades of on-the-ground mapping, the archaeologists said. After three weeks of laboratory processing, the almost ten hours of laser measurements showed topographic detail over an area of 80 square miles, notably settlement patterns of grand architecture and modest house mounds, roadways and agricultural terraces
Researchers have developed a way to attack desktops by bypassing a majority of antivirus software running on Windows. Popular products offered by McAfee, Trend Micro, AVG and Sophos have been identified as susceptible to the exploit
Twitter has fixed a major bug that saw many users of the service appear to lose all of their followers and friends. The problem began when a flaw was uncovered that allowed people to force others to follow
them on the site. People who typed accept
followed by a person’s Twitter name forced the user to be added to their list of followers. The hack was quickly passed around the social network with many people using it to force celebrities to follow them. It could have easily allowed spammers to insert messages into thousands of accounts
A prosthetic foot that mimics the muscle actions of real feet has been short-listed for the UK’s top engineering prize. Four projects are on the shortlist for the Royal Academy of Engineering MacRobert Award, worth £50,000. Other projects on the shortlist include a better landmine detector, high-speed satellite broadband and a greener way to make acrylic plastic. The overall winner of the prize will be announced on 7 June
In some tilt against the windmill of fan fiction, George R. R. Martin makes the false claim that [H.P. Lovecraft] let so many others play in his sandbox, he essentially lost control of his own creations…[and] Those copyrights are ultimately all that separates an [Edgar Rice Burroughs] from a HPL.
Martin is wrong about many other facts in that post—copyrights do not need to be defended to be maintained, that’s trademark—but he is gloriously wrong about Lovecraft. Indeed, he is so gloriously wrong that I must once again recycle my favorite publishing joke — via nihilistic kid
This Advanced Google Maps Distance Calculator is the successor to the Google Maps Distance Calculator. By request by many visitors, this version will allow people to save and reload their routes when they revisit
Australians illegally download television shows more than music or movies, according to a survey conducted by News Limited. A survey of more than 7000 people who admitted to downloading the three entertainment formats was conducted in conjunction with market research firm CoreData. 6694 respondents said they had illegally downloaded or streamed a TV show in the past 12 months. Of these, 86.8 per cent said they did so regularly
An attempt to shut down the electronics payload of the out-of-control communications satellite Galaxy 15 has failed, leaving the satellite — which ceased responding to ground commands last month — still in its uncontrolled zombiesat
drift toward orbits occupied by other spacecraft, the satellite’s fleet operator Intelsat said Tuesday
In the past year we’ve seen several new cooling systems that submerge rack-mount servers. Now liquid cooling is coming to blade servers. Hardcore Computer, which specializes in water-cooled PCs, introduced its new Liquid Blade product at the recent Blade Systems Insight Summit 2010, where it was presented the Best Datacenter Innovation Award
We set out to recreate the nylon watch strap worn by Sean Connery on his Rolex Submariner in the classic James Bond films Goldfinger and Thunderball. For years, watch enthusiasts have been buying “Bond NATO” nylon straps that bear very little resemblance to the strap used in the film. Now, with Blue Ray and HD televisions, we finally know the real pattern used in the watch strap worn by Commander Bond. After meticulous research, the Corvus Watch Company can now offer the REAL BOND NATO watchstrap — via Corvus Watch
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