Snapping up the minnows only keeps the wolf at bay for so long

Mainstream storage vendors seem to be in trouble as Dell, HP and IBM's storage revenues have tanked over the past two years.…

'If this nerve centre didn't exist, neither would I' says Reg man

Geek's Guide to Britain  For staff at the Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ) in Cheltenham, there’s an air of Fight Club about the place. The first rule about GCHQ is you don’t talk about GCHQ.…

judgecorp writes "BT has demonstrated an 800Gbps 'superchannel' on a 410km fiber in its core network, which was not able to carry 10Gbps channels using older technology. The superchannel is an advanced dense wave division multiplexing (DWDM) technique, created by combining multiple coherent optical signals into one channel, which had previously been shown in laboratory tests. BT ran the test on a fiber with optical characteristics (high polarization mode dispersion) that made it unsuitable for 10GBps using current techniques. That's a good result for BT, because it means its existing core fiber network can be upgraded to handle more data. It's also a good customer story for Ciena, which makes the optical switches used in the test."

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In this podcast, Steve Craggs from Lustratus Research and Ben Wen from IBM summarise the importance and benefits of optimising scability, security and cost in SOA.

Read more: http://www.itproportal.com/2013/05/24/podcast-leveraging-soa-appliances-to-optimise-scalability-security-and-cost/

Beijing doesn't like the idea of its citizens visiting RED planet

Chinese state-run media has branded the Mars One mission designed to land successful applicants on the Red Planet in 2023 a “hoax” and probable “scam”, in what appears to be a co-ordinated attempt to undermine the non-profit behind the project.…

Rackspace and industry groups like it, trolls maybe not so much

US Senator John Cornyn, who represents Texas, has introduced the “Patent Abuse Reduction Act of 2013”.…

Want some great software for your Apple tablet, but don’t want to pay a penny? Then check out these must-have free apps.

Read more: http://www.itproportal.com/2013/05/24/10-of-the-best-free-apps-for-your-ipad/

Panic on the streets of Sydney, as US says printed guns 'unstoppable'

The New South Wales Police Force, guardians of Australia's most-populous state, have gotten themselves into a panic over the Liberator, the 3D-printable pistol.…

One in 10 UK Facebookers: I quit this... bitch

Facebook's popularity is slumping in the UK as users become fed up with being bombarded with advertising, a YouGov survey has revealed.…

lukehopewell1 writes "'Untraceable, undetectable, cheap and freely available.' That's how Australian police have described the 3D-printable gun known as The Liberator today as they announce that they will be seeking to make the download, construction and possession of these weapons illegal. In their tests, Police printed the 15 parts required to assemble The Liberator in 27 hours and assembled it within 60 seconds with a firing pin fashioned out of a steel nail. The two guns were test fired into a block of resin designed to simulate human muscle, and the first bullet penetrated the resin block up to 17 centimeters. NSW Police Ballistics division confirm that it would be a fatal wound if pointed at someone."

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The things you do to stop spooks worrying about Huawei

Japanese company SoftBank, currently wrapping a deal to buy 70 per cent of US mobile carrier Sprint, has taken the unusual step of giving the US government veto power over one member to be elected to the board of its acquisition target.…

Windows 8 Start button comes to Redmond's rodents

Microsoft has unveiled two mice that for the first time pack a button that sends users straight to the Windows 8 Start screen, the unloved abode of The interface Formerly Known As Metro (TIFKAM).…

sciencehabit writes "Only a few years after roach motels were introduced in the 1980s, they lost their allure for an increasing number of German cockroaches. Researchers soon realized that some roaches had developed an aversion to glucose—the sugary bait disguising the poison—and that the insects were passing that trait on to their young. Now, scientists have figured out how this behavior evolved."

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Central IT agency didn't deliver, likely to quit storage-as-a-service caper

Opponents of shared IT services in government have a new case study they point to, and NetApp's busy executives have another tricky item to consider after a major Australian shared services organisation failed.…

The security researcher that uncovered a host of X.Org security issues went beyond just evaluating the X.Org libraries and looked at other Linux desktop packages too. There's many security-related bugs outstanding within the Linux desktop ecosystem and Ilja van Sprundel believes "things could be better by several orders of magnitude."..

First time accepted submitter awaissoft writes "There's big, then there's really big, and then there's colossal, which might be a good word to use when describing a near 46,000-pound Lego X-Wing that made a triumphant debut Thursday in New York's Times Square. The full-size replica, about 42 times the size of the Lego Star Wars X-Wing set available on store shelves, celebrates the debut of Cartoon Network's The Yoda Chronicles, which premieres on May 29 at 8 p.m. It took a small army of 32 Lego master builders, housed in a facility in the Czech Republic, to build the 45,980-pound, or 23-ton, Lego ship. It stands 11 feet high and 43 feet long, and contains more than 5 million Lego pieces."

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Microsoft escapes $4bn payout

The International Trade Commission (ITC) has denied an attempt by Google to impose a US-wide sales ban on Microsoft's Xbox by rejecting the claim that might have cost Redmond $US4bn in royalties.…

An anonymous reader writes "A new piece of Android malware has been discovered that can intercept your incoming text messages and forward them on to criminals. Once installed, the trojan can be used to steal sensitive messages for blackmailing purposes or more directly, codes which are used to confirm online banking transactions. The malware in question, detected as "Android.Pincer.2.origin" by Russian security firm Doctor Web, is the second iteration of the Android.Pincer family according to the company. Both threats spread as security certificates, meaning they must be deliberately installed onto an Android device by a careless user."

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HTML5 seen as key to open source smartphone success

TDC2013  You could be forgiven for thinking there's not much going on with Tizen, the Linux Foundation's open source mobile OS. It's been two years since the project was launched and there still are no Tizen devices on the market. But that's about to change – and there has been a lot happening behind the scenes, as well.…

coondoggie writes "When to comes to offering warm yet visually efficient lighting, LEDs have a long way to go. But scientists with the University of Georgia and Oak Ridge and Argonne national laboratories are looking at new family of crystals they say glow different colors and hold the key for letting white LED light shine in homes and offices as well as natural sunlight."

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