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We keep Highfield, you can have Danker

The cross-pollination of Microsoft and the BBC's iPlayer continued yesterday, with Auntie confirming it had hired Redmond's IPTV platform Mediaroom and Zune wonk.…

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Magic quantum opti-chip can be made in normal fab, too

Optical stuff is great, as everyone knows: optical links mean huge bandwidth right now, and computers running on photons rather than electrons might be truly amazing things - tremendously powerful, very economical of energy, and potentially able to exploit quantum effects to achieve all manner of mindbending feats.…

Cartoon for Today, Sep 07, 2010

Xeon blade and rack boxes for telcos and hosters

It is not a coincidence that Oracle is paying close attention to the Netra server lineup since taking over Sun Microsystems back in January. Telecommunications companies and service providers of various sorts still have lots Sparc/Solaris iron installed, and it is here where Oracle must build a defensive perimeter and hold the line with its Netra products.…

Oh merde

Nikolas Sarkozy has become the latest high profile victim of a Google bomb, after bloggers linked his Facebook page to the phrase "trou du cul".…

Coverage more important than rural idyll, says quango

The Commission For Rural Communities is calling for less restrictive planning laws to encourage comms networks to build out, for the sake of the rural economy.…

pgptag writes "This talk by Dr. Suzanne Gilbert (video) explains why quantum computers are useful, and also dispels some of the myths about what they can and cannot do. It addresses some of the practical ways in which we can build quantum computers and gives realistic timescales for how far away commercially useful systems might be."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Careful with that dope

El Reg's Paper Aircraft Released Into Space (PARIS) team continues to work on the Vulture 1-X aircraft structure, while attempting to refine the skinning process.…

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Copyright coppers go after P2P servers

Swedish police raided several addresses this morning, including an ISP linked to Wikileaks, while assisting a Belgian file-sharing probe.…

'Lambs to the slaughter'

Distracted Oz pedestrians are allegedly dropping like flies to "Death by iPod" - an untimely end provoked by walking out into traffic while in a "zombie trance".…

An anonymous reader writes "Ireland's Computer Emergency Response Team differs from what you can find in most other countries, since it's not government-backed and relies mainly on the good will of several security professionals. In this interview, the founder and head of the CERT, Brian Honan, talks about how the CERT was formed, what equipment they use and what challenges they face in their daily work without having a government to back them up."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Greedy sprats

Fraudsters have wasted no time jumping on news of a tax mix-up in the UK as a hook for scams.…

'Friends are people who tell you if your face is dirty'

Criticism of Wikileaks mouthpiece Julian Assange is growing, with more voices joining the chorus calling for him to step aside while his various Swedish legal problems are sorted out.…

Stoobalou contributes a link to this story at Thinq.co.uk, from which he excerpts: "Torrent-tracking site The Pirate Bay is currently unavailable as reports come in of co-ordinated police raids against file sharers across Europe. Police in up to 14 countries carried out raids against suspected file-sharing servers this morning. According to file-sharing news site TorrentFreak, the bulk of police action seems to have taken place in Sweden. Swedish Internet service provider ISP, which hosts both The Pirate Bay and whistle-blowing site WikiLeaks, earlier denied rumours of a police raid, saying that officers had visited them to ask questions over two suspect IP addresses, and that no computers or other goods had been seized."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Double standards

Analysis "You want computers to discover each other and just share stuff," I recall Steve Jobs saying back in 2002, as he personally demonstrated wireless music streaming at an Apple developer event.…

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To be dubbed Oooh-Arrr-2-D2, no doubt

In a triumph for West Country technical prowess and engineering knowhow, NASA has ordered a robot made in Cornwall. Here's a vid:…

Two antitrust issues eyed, says report

The US Justice Department is examining two particular issues as it investigates Google's recent proposed buyout of ITA Software to see if the acquisition would be anti-competitive, according to a report citing sources familiar with the situation.…

theodp writes "Late on Monday, Oracle announced that ousted HP CEO Mark Hurd has joined the company as a co-president and a director. Hurd resigned from HP a month ago, after an investigation by the board into a personal relationship with a contractor turned up questionable expenses. Oracle CEO Larry Ellison, a personal friend of Hurd, criticized HP's board at the time, saying it was 'the worst personnel decision since the idiots on the Apple board fired Steve Jobs.' 'Mark did a brilliant job at HP and I expect he'll do even better at Oracle,' Ellison said in a statement Monday. 'There is no executive in the IT world with more relevant experience than Mark.' Stepping down to make room for Hurd was Charles E. Phillips Jr., who had some personal relationship issues of his own."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Spammers have taken advantage of a vulnerability in Facebook to spread auto-replicating links, a trick that makes it possible to spread crud without using social engineering.…

Ready for prime time?

Webcast Our pals at the HPC Advisory Council have been busy in the past few months and it seemed time to tap them for an update, in our September HPC Community webcast.…