Fuji Xerox Australia on cusp of BYO roll-out

Fuji Xerox is taking the last engineering steps towards implementing a bring-your-own-computer model, with the IT team currently running a pilot with 50 employees.

Fuji Xerox Australia CIO Information Services, Craig Gibbons, said that he hopes to have 300 staff using their own computers for work within a couple of months. To do this, he’s using Citrix thin client software and is currently deciding between two mobile device management products: MobileIron and Good for Enterprise.

If we’re going to give our employees preference and choice then they’ll enjoy going to work, he said, also pointing out the environmental benefits of such a scheme.

It’s not very green for them to have their own computer at home, a laptop and the computer I give, he said — via redwolf.newsvine.com

Google Wallet spotted in Sydney

An attendee of Google’s Creative Sandbox event held at Carriageworks in Sydney this week snapped a cheeky picture showing the Wallet’s prepaid card service being used on a Commonwealth Bank-supplied test EFTPOS unit.

Officially, Google has said that the Wallet service is a US-only trial for a limited number of customers, but it’s no secret that discussions around NFC-based payments are being held with the web giant down under.

At the launch of the Commonwealth Bank’s Kaching! mobile payments service, chief marketing officer Andy Lark told ZDNet Australia that he’s pursuing a partnership with Google for its Wallet service — via redwolf.newsvine.com

Looking back at The Adventures Of Buckaroo Banzai Across The 8th Dimension

The real delight of Buckaroo Banzai is its incomprehensibility. Unlike the incomprehensibility of movies like John Boorman’s Zardoz, or even 2001: A Space Odyssey, which tend to alienates audiences, the name of the game in Banzai is fun, particularly if you’re into comics, sci-fi, and rock n’ roll (read: ardent readers of this website). It’s always a step ahead of the audience, with another trick up its sleeve, or some dangling plot thread that promises more. There’s enough backstory here to provide the plot for several lesser films.

— via Den of Geek

Busted! Two New Fed GPS Trackers Found on SUV

As the Supreme Court gets ready to hear oral arguments in a case Tuesday that could determine if authorities can track US citizens with GPS vehicle trackers without a warrant, a young man in California has come forward to Wired to reveal that he found not one but two different devices on his vehicle recently.

The 25-year-old resident of San Jose, California, says he found the first one about three weeks ago on his Volvo SUV while visiting his mother in Modesto, about 80 miles northeast of San Jose. After contacting Wired and allowing a photographer to snap pictures of the device, it was swapped out and replaced with a second tracking device. A witness also reported seeing a strange man looking beneath the vehicle of the young man’s girlfriend while her car was parked at work, suggesting that a tracking device may have been retrieved from her car — via redwolf.newsvine.com

Royal Mail postman failed to deliver 30,000 items of mail

A postman who hoarded 30,000 letters and parcels in his house, car and a garage, has been ordered to do 280 hours of unpaid work.

Paul Willicott claimed that he did not have enough time to deliver all the mail he was expected to handle during his four-hour round. He became so overwhelmed he ended up stashing unopened mail in his car and in his home in Paignton, Devon.

Willicott, 44, told magistrates in Torbay that his intention was to deliver all the mail when his workload was lighter but that he was never able to catch up — via redwolf.newsvine.com

Bookstores without Borders find life not so bad

It was supposed to be doom and gloom in Australia’s bookstores, but Chris Redfern who owns the Avenue bookstore in prosperous Albert Park has been noticing something unexpected — his sales have been increasing. It is only by 5 per cent since July, but it is something.

With yesterday’s report to the federal government on strategies for the book industry, he agrees with the recommendation to either scrap GST on books sold here or impose it on imports — to make it fair — but realises this might be difficult to do in practice.

He also supported the recommendation to reduce from 30 days to 14 the time for a local publisher to make up its mind it will publish an overseas book before it can be imported by booksellers.

Digital books and online sales are posing challenges for independent sellers like him, but since the collapse of Borders and most of the Angus & Robertson chain, book lovers appear to have rallied around their local stores — via redwolf.newsvine.com

Adobe ceases development on mobile browser Flash, refocuses efforts on HTML5

Sources close to Adobe that have been briefed on the company’s future development plans have revealed this forthcoming announcement to ZDNet:

Our future work with Flash on mobile devices will be focused on enabling Flash developers to package native apps with Adobe AIR for all the major app stores. We will no longer adapt Flash Player for mobile devices to new browser, OS version or device configurations. Some of our source code licensees may opt to continue working on and releasing their own implementations. We will continue to support the current Android and PlayBook configurations with critical bug fixes and security updates — via redwolf.newsvine.com

New ‘Albino’ Spider Found in Australia

Along came an albino spider — and it’s shocked scientists in Australia.

I nearly fell over when I saw its white head, Mark Harvey, senior curator at the Western Australian Museum, said via email.

The new-found trapdoor spider isn’t a true albino, since it still has some pigment—its body is brown, like those of other trapdoor spiders.

But the 1.2-inch-wide (3-centimeter-wide) arachnid has been dubbed the albino trapdoor spider until it’s formally described as a new species — via redwolf.newsvine.com

Camels ‘left to rot’ after mass cull

The owner of a Central Australian cattle station is angry that camel carcasses have been left to rot after recent culls.

Ian Conway runs Kings Creek Station near where 5,000 camels have been shot from helicopters in the past fortnight.

Mr Conway has acknowledged that camel numbers need to be cut because of the significant ecological and pastoral damage the animals cause.

But he says previous culls have shown it is cruel to shoot them and leave them to rot — via redwolf.newsvine.com

TPG falls foul of ACCC for false ads

National broadband carrier TPG has been busted over an Unlimited ADSL2+ campaign that the Federal Court has decided was misleading.

The Federal Court in Melbourne found advertisements for TPG Internet’s $AU29.99 unlimited broadband service to be false and misleading as the real cost of the service was $AU59.99 because it would only work with a home line rental attracting an additional cost of $AU30 per month — via redwolf.newsvine.com

Autistic brains are heavier: study

The brains of boys with autism are heavier and contain many more neurons than those without the disorder, US researchers say.

The study, while small, suggests brain overgrowth may be occurring in the womb, according to the findings published in the Journal of the American Medical Association.

Researchers carried out post-mortem examinations on the brains of seven autistic boys, aged between two and 16, most of whom had died by drowning.

The 16-year-old’s cause of death was undetermined and one eight-year-old died of muscle cancer.

When they compared them to a control group of six boys without autism who died in accidents, they found the brains of autistic boys had 67 per cent more neurons in the prefrontal cortex and were nearly 18 per cent heavier than normal brain weight for age — via redwolf.newsvine.com

LJ Hooker franchise ended over lost money

Real estate franchise LJ Hooker has cut ties with the operators of its Surry Hills office after the disappearance of up to $1 million in clients’ money.

A statement from LJ Hooker said the franchise contract had been terminated yesterday due to a fundamental breach of the franchise agreement.

The Department of Fair Trading is now investigating irregularities in the trust accounts operated by CBD Commercial Pty Ltd, which had been trading as LJ Hooker Surry Hills — via redwolf.newsvine.com

Massive DNS poisoning attacks in Brazil

In the past few days several Brazilian ISPs have fallen victim to a series of DNS cache poisoning attacks. These attacks see users being redirected to install malware before connecting to popular sites. Some incidents have also featured attacks on network devices, where routers or modems are compromised remotely.

Brazil has some big ISPs. Official statistics suggest the country has 73 million computers connected to the Internet, and the major ISPs average 3 or 4 million customers each. If a cybercriminal can change the DNS cache in just one server, the number of potential victims is huge.

Last week Brazil’s web forums were alive with desperate cries for help from users who faced malicious redirections when trying to access websites such as YouTube, Gmail and Hotmail, as well as local market leaders including Uol, Terra and Globo. In all cases, users were asked to run a malicious file as soon as the website opened — via redwolf.newsvine.com

NY’s Oldest Bialy Shop Is Saved by Unlikely Owners

The oldest bialys store in the country is still on a roll. The sweet smell of bread will continue to waft down Coney Island Avenue, as a landmark kosher bakery in Brooklyn gets a whole new lease on life.

Coney Island Bialys and Bagels, teetered and fell in September, after Steve Ross, whose grandfather began the company 91 years ago, called it quits. In a twist of history — and, one might say, a twist of bread as well — the store has been saved by two Muslim businessmen who leased the space and started a corporation under almost the identical name. They’ll keep the kosher shop’s offerings the same, preserving its history.

It’s the same bialys… We are using the same recipe, too, said Peerzada Shah, who now co-owns the business with Zafaryab Ali, who worked with Ross at the bialy shop for a decade. We want to keep the place on track, said Shah. And since re-opening in September, customers have regularly told the pair, We appreciate that you’re keeping the store open, according to Shah — via redwolf.newsvine.com

Our Contract With Serco

New Matilda has gained exclusive access to the first publicly available version of the 2009 Department of Immigration and Citizenship (DIAC) contract with British multinational Serco.

The contract was obtained through a Freedom of Information request and reveals the most comprehensive information yet about the running of Australian detention centres — via redwolf.newsvine.com

Shop staff refuse to sell whisky to great-grandmother, 92, because she couldn’t prove she was over 18

A great-grandmother blasted shop staff today after they refused to sell her alcohol at the age of 92, because she had no ID to prove she was over 18.

Diane Taylor was stunned to be asked for proof of age when she asked for a bottle of whisky from her local One Stop Shop in Harlow, Essex.

The great-grandmother-of-three produced her over-60s bus pass, an OAP card and even her pacemaker certificate, but was still turned away because she could not provide a passport or driving licence.

It was the first time that the pensioner, who was born in 1919 turned 18 in 1937, has ever been asked to show ID when buying alcohol — via redwolf.newsvine.com