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Domain: computerworld.com.au
Stories and comments across the archive that link to computerworld.com.au.
Stories · 468
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Largest DNA-Based Computational Circuit Created
angry tapir writes "Researchers from the California Institute of Technology have built [abstract] what they claim is the world's largest computational circuit based on DNA (deoxyribonucleic acid), using a technology that they said could easily scale to even greater complexity." Adds reader cwmike: "The researchers formed 130 different synthetic DNA strands that can be used to compose logic circuits. From this source material, they created one 74-molecule, four-bit circuit that can compute the square root of any number up to 15 and round down the resulting answer to the nearest integer. In their setup, the multi-layered strands of DNA are fashioned (see video) into biochemical logic gates that can perform the basic Boolean AND, OR and NOR operations executed by today's transistor-based computer processors." -
Largest DNA-Based Computational Circuit Created
angry tapir writes "Researchers from the California Institute of Technology have built [abstract] what they claim is the world's largest computational circuit based on DNA (deoxyribonucleic acid), using a technology that they said could easily scale to even greater complexity." Adds reader cwmike: "The researchers formed 130 different synthetic DNA strands that can be used to compose logic circuits. From this source material, they created one 74-molecule, four-bit circuit that can compute the square root of any number up to 15 and round down the resulting answer to the nearest integer. In their setup, the multi-layered strands of DNA are fashioned (see video) into biochemical logic gates that can perform the basic Boolean AND, OR and NOR operations executed by today's transistor-based computer processors." -
Motorola CEO Blames Open Android Store For Phone Performance Ills
angry tapir writes "Motorola's CEO blamed the open Android app store for performance issues on some phones. Of all the Motorola Android devices that are returned, 70 percent come back because applications affect performance, Sanjay Jha, CEO of Motorola Mobility, said during a webcast presentation at the Bank of America Merrill Lynch Global Technology conference." -
Motorola CEO Blames Open Android Store For Phone Performance Ills
angry tapir writes "Motorola's CEO blamed the open Android app store for performance issues on some phones. Of all the Motorola Android devices that are returned, 70 percent come back because applications affect performance, Sanjay Jha, CEO of Motorola Mobility, said during a webcast presentation at the Bank of America Merrill Lynch Global Technology conference." -
China Censors Web To Curb Inner Mongolia Protests
angry tapir writes "China is blocking mention of Inner Mongolia on Chinese microblogs and social networking sites, as part of an effort to clamp down on protests that broke out last week in the region. Two of the most popular microblog services operating in China no longer allow users to search for the term 'Inner Mongolia.' Sina's and Tencent's microblogs have 140 million and 160 million users, respectively." -
China Censors Web To Curb Inner Mongolia Protests
angry tapir writes "China is blocking mention of Inner Mongolia on Chinese microblogs and social networking sites, as part of an effort to clamp down on protests that broke out last week in the region. Two of the most popular microblog services operating in China no longer allow users to search for the term 'Inner Mongolia.' Sina's and Tencent's microblogs have 140 million and 160 million users, respectively." -
US Senate Committee Passes PROTECT IP Act
angry tapir writes "A US Senate committee has unanimously approved a controversial bill that would allow the US Department of Justice to seek court orders requiring search engines and Internet service providers to stop sending traffic to websites accused of infringing copyright." -
US Senate Committee Passes PROTECT IP Act
angry tapir writes "A US Senate committee has unanimously approved a controversial bill that would allow the US Department of Justice to seek court orders requiring search engines and Internet service providers to stop sending traffic to websites accused of infringing copyright." -
Australians Look To SkyNet For SKA Telescope
angry tapir writes "Key players behind the Australian-New Zealand joint bid to host the $2.1 billion Square Kilometre Array radio telescope will launch a grid Cloud computing initiative by September with the aim of harvesting the computing and storage power of desktops worldwide." -
Australians Look To SkyNet For SKA Telescope
angry tapir writes "Key players behind the Australian-New Zealand joint bid to host the $2.1 billion Square Kilometre Array radio telescope will launch a grid Cloud computing initiative by September with the aim of harvesting the computing and storage power of desktops worldwide." -
Australians Look To SkyNet For SKA Telescope
angry tapir writes "Key players behind the Australian-New Zealand joint bid to host the $2.1 billion Square Kilometre Array radio telescope will launch a grid Cloud computing initiative by September with the aim of harvesting the computing and storage power of desktops worldwide." -
North Korean 3G Mobile Subscriptions Hit Half a Million
angry tapir writes "The number of 3G cellular subscriptions in North Korea passed half a million during the first quarter, according to the country's only 3G cellular operator. The Koryolink network had 535,133 subscriptions at the end of March, an increase of just over 100,000 on the end of December 2010." -
North Korean 3G Mobile Subscriptions Hit Half a Million
angry tapir writes "The number of 3G cellular subscriptions in North Korea passed half a million during the first quarter, according to the country's only 3G cellular operator. The Koryolink network had 535,133 subscriptions at the end of March, an increase of just over 100,000 on the end of December 2010." -
Kaspersky Calls For 'Internet Interpol'
angry tapir writes "With cybercrime now the second largest criminal activity in the world, measures such as the creation of an 'Internet Interpol' and better cooperation between international law enforcement agencies are needed if criminals are to be curtailed in the future, Kaspersky Labs founder and security expert Eugene Kaspersky has argued. He said, 'We were talking about that 10 years ago and almost nothing has happened. Sooner or later we will have one. I am also talking about Internet passports and having an online ID. Some countries are introducing this idea, so maybe in 15 years we will all have it.'" -
HP Advances Next-Gen Memory Technology
angry tapir writes "HP scientists have made a small breakthrough in the development of a next-generation memory technology called memristors, which some see as a potential replacement for today's widely used flash and DRAM technologies. In a paper to be published today in the journal Nanotechnology, scientists report that they have mapped out the basic chemistry and structure of what happens inside a memristor during its electrical operation." -
HP Advances Next-Gen Memory Technology
angry tapir writes "HP scientists have made a small breakthrough in the development of a next-generation memory technology called memristors, which some see as a potential replacement for today's widely used flash and DRAM technologies. In a paper to be published today in the journal Nanotechnology, scientists report that they have mapped out the basic chemistry and structure of what happens inside a memristor during its electrical operation." -
Ubuntu Switches To OpenStack For Cloud
angry tapir writes "Canonical has switched its cloud software stack to the open-source OpenStack. The current version of its Ubuntu Server, version 11.04, uses the Eucalyptus platform. Ubuntu Server 11.10 will include the OpenStack stack as the core of the company's Ubuntu Enterprise Cloud (UEC) package. The server release will also include a set of tools to help users move their cloud deployments from Eucalyptus to OpenStack." -
Appeals Court Throws Out Rambus Patent Ruling
angry tapir writes "A US appeals court has ruled on two patent lawsuits that pit Rambus against two competing DRAM makers, sending both cases back to district courts for reconsideration. The US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit vacated a lower court ruling requiring Hynix Semiconductor to pay Rambus damages and fees totaling US$397 million for the use of its patents in DRAM chips." Here's the issued opinion (PDF) in Hynix v. Rambus. The opinion in the other case (PDF), pitting Rambus against Micron, contains this juicy snippet: "On August 26, 1999, Rambus held the 'shredding party' it had planned as part of its third-quarter intellectual property litigation readiness goals. Rambus destroyed between 9,000 and 18,000 pounds of documents in 300 boxes." -
Appeals Court Throws Out Rambus Patent Ruling
angry tapir writes "A US appeals court has ruled on two patent lawsuits that pit Rambus against two competing DRAM makers, sending both cases back to district courts for reconsideration. The US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit vacated a lower court ruling requiring Hynix Semiconductor to pay Rambus damages and fees totaling US$397 million for the use of its patents in DRAM chips." Here's the issued opinion (PDF) in Hynix v. Rambus. The opinion in the other case (PDF), pitting Rambus against Micron, contains this juicy snippet: "On August 26, 1999, Rambus held the 'shredding party' it had planned as part of its third-quarter intellectual property litigation readiness goals. Rambus destroyed between 9,000 and 18,000 pounds of documents in 300 boxes." -
Facebook Adds Two-Factor Authentication
angry tapir writes "To help its hundreds of millions of users prevent unauthorized access to their accounts, Facebook has added an optional verification step to its log-in process. The new security feature, called Login Approvals, is a form of two-factor authentication." -
Facebook Adds Two-Factor Authentication
angry tapir writes "To help its hundreds of millions of users prevent unauthorized access to their accounts, Facebook has added an optional verification step to its log-in process. The new security feature, called Login Approvals, is a form of two-factor authentication." -
Creating a "Force Field" Invisible Touch Interface
angry tapir writes "Using infrared sensors like the ones on television remote controls, Texas A&M University students presented an inexpensive multitouch system at the Computer Human Interaction (CHI) conference in Vancouver. 'I like to consider it an optical force field; it's like a picture frame where we shoot thousands of light beams across and we can detect anything that intersects that frame,' said Jonathan Moeller, a research assistant in the Interface Ecology Lab at Texas A&M University. The frame is lined with 256 IR sensors, which are connected to a computer. When ZeroTouch is mounted over a traditional computer screen it turns the display into a multitouch surface. Taken one step further, if the screen is suspended then a user could paint a virtual canvas." -
Creating a "Force Field" Invisible Touch Interface
angry tapir writes "Using infrared sensors like the ones on television remote controls, Texas A&M University students presented an inexpensive multitouch system at the Computer Human Interaction (CHI) conference in Vancouver. 'I like to consider it an optical force field; it's like a picture frame where we shoot thousands of light beams across and we can detect anything that intersects that frame,' said Jonathan Moeller, a research assistant in the Interface Ecology Lab at Texas A&M University. The frame is lined with 256 IR sensors, which are connected to a computer. When ZeroTouch is mounted over a traditional computer screen it turns the display into a multitouch surface. Taken one step further, if the screen is suspended then a user could paint a virtual canvas." -
In Indonesia, a Winner For Now In the Browser Wars
angry tapir writes "Mozilla is building an army of volunteers in Indonesia to help customize Firefox and recommend add-ons. Mozilla wants that input so it can retain the high market share that Firefox already has in the country. Web statistics company StatCounter puts the share at 75 to 80 percent, the browser's highest in Asia. The worldwide share of Firefox, which competes with Internet Explorer and Google Chrome, is just over 30 percent." -
In Indonesia, a Winner For Now In the Browser Wars
angry tapir writes "Mozilla is building an army of volunteers in Indonesia to help customize Firefox and recommend add-ons. Mozilla wants that input so it can retain the high market share that Firefox already has in the country. Web statistics company StatCounter puts the share at 75 to 80 percent, the browser's highest in Asia. The worldwide share of Firefox, which competes with Internet Explorer and Google Chrome, is just over 30 percent." -
Oracle Subpoenas Apache Foundation In Google Suit
angry tapir writes "Oracle has subpoenaed the Apache Software Foundation in connection with its ongoing intellectual property suit against Google. Oracle filed suit against Google in August, alleging that its Android mobile operating system infringes on seven of Oracle's Java patents. Google has denied any wrongdoing. The subpoena, which was received by ASF on Monday, seeks 'the production of documents related to the use of Apache Harmony code in the Android software platform, and the unsuccessful attempt by Apache to secure an acceptable license to the Java SE Technology Compatibility Kit.'" -
Startup Wants To Put 64-Cores In Your Smartphone
angry tapir writes "Startup chip design company Adapteva has announced the multicore Epiphany processor, which is designed to accelerate applications in servers and low-power devices such as smartphones and tablets. The RISC-based processor is scalable to thousands of cores on a single chip, and can sit alongside CPUs to provide real-time execution of diverse applications. Epiphany chips are currently scalable up to 64 cores in smartphones and up to 4,000 cores in servers. The processor can accelerate tasks like hand gesture recognition, face matching or face tracking, but is not designed to be a full-fledged CPU." -
Startup Wants To Put 64-Cores In Your Smartphone
angry tapir writes "Startup chip design company Adapteva has announced the multicore Epiphany processor, which is designed to accelerate applications in servers and low-power devices such as smartphones and tablets. The RISC-based processor is scalable to thousands of cores on a single chip, and can sit alongside CPUs to provide real-time execution of diverse applications. Epiphany chips are currently scalable up to 64 cores in smartphones and up to 4,000 cores in servers. The processor can accelerate tasks like hand gesture recognition, face matching or face tracking, but is not designed to be a full-fledged CPU." -
More Windows Phone Update Problems
angry tapir writes "Yet another problem has cropped up preventing some Windows Phone 7 users from getting two software updates, adding a new chapter to the update saga that started in February." -
More Windows Phone Update Problems
angry tapir writes "Yet another problem has cropped up preventing some Windows Phone 7 users from getting two software updates, adding a new chapter to the update saga that started in February." -
Using AI To Identify Innuendo
angry tapir writes "Turning seemingly normal comments into sexual innuendo by adding the words 'That's what she said' is a cultural phenomenon. This has led some to wonder whether it is possible to determine when it is appropriate to add those magic four words to a sentence. As it turns out, identifying humor through software is hard. Two researchers at the University of Washington, however, were willing to give it their best shot. In a recently released paper entitled 'That's What She Said: Double Entendre Identification,' the researchers describe what they've found and introduce their new approach to the problem: 'Double Entendre via Noun Transfer' or DEviaNT for short." It's good to know that someone is trying to make sure the human race gets a sufficiently lewd AI one day. -
Using AI To Identify Innuendo
angry tapir writes "Turning seemingly normal comments into sexual innuendo by adding the words 'That's what she said' is a cultural phenomenon. This has led some to wonder whether it is possible to determine when it is appropriate to add those magic four words to a sentence. As it turns out, identifying humor through software is hard. Two researchers at the University of Washington, however, were willing to give it their best shot. In a recently released paper entitled 'That's What She Said: Double Entendre Identification,' the researchers describe what they've found and introduce their new approach to the problem: 'Double Entendre via Noun Transfer' or DEviaNT for short." It's good to know that someone is trying to make sure the human race gets a sufficiently lewd AI one day. -
Nokia Outsources Symbian OS Work
angry tapir writes "Nokia will outsource its Symbian software activities to Accenture, transferring 3,000 employees to the company in the process, as it moves its focus to making phones running on Microsoft's Windows Phone operating system. The Finnish phone manufacturer will also close some of its research and development sites and eliminate a further 4,000 jobs by the end of next year. Last week Nokia announced the signing of a definitive agreement regarding their global mobile ecosystem partnership." -
Nokia Outsources Symbian OS Work
angry tapir writes "Nokia will outsource its Symbian software activities to Accenture, transferring 3,000 employees to the company in the process, as it moves its focus to making phones running on Microsoft's Windows Phone operating system. The Finnish phone manufacturer will also close some of its research and development sites and eliminate a further 4,000 jobs by the end of next year. Last week Nokia announced the signing of a definitive agreement regarding their global mobile ecosystem partnership." -
Another Windows 8 Pre-Beta Surfaces
angry tapir writes "While Microsoft has not announced the release date of its follow-up to Windows 7, an early pre-beta version of Windows 8 (although its official name has not been confirmed) has surfaced on the Internet, the second version to appear within a month. It is the second milestone release that has showed up on the Internet this month. Users of this Windows 8 software have said it features a Ribbon-based user-interface, similar to the one used in recent editions of Microsoft Office. This specific milestone build also has software for a Webcam, a new task manager, a PDF reader and an immersive browser." "Surfacings" like this tell me that Microsoft sees the value in crowdsourced opinion gathering far more than they're sometimes given credit for. -
Another Windows 8 Pre-Beta Surfaces
angry tapir writes "While Microsoft has not announced the release date of its follow-up to Windows 7, an early pre-beta version of Windows 8 (although its official name has not been confirmed) has surfaced on the Internet, the second version to appear within a month. It is the second milestone release that has showed up on the Internet this month. Users of this Windows 8 software have said it features a Ribbon-based user-interface, similar to the one used in recent editions of Microsoft Office. This specific milestone build also has software for a Webcam, a new task manager, a PDF reader and an immersive browser." "Surfacings" like this tell me that Microsoft sees the value in crowdsourced opinion gathering far more than they're sometimes given credit for. -
DHS Chief: What We Learned From Stuxnet
angry tapir writes "If there's a lesson to be learned from last year's Stuxnet worm, it's that the private sector needs to be able to respond quickly to cyber-emergencies (CT: Warning, site contains obnoxious interstitial ads. Blocker advised), according to the head of the US Department of Homeland Security. When Stuxnet hit, the US Department of Homeland security was sent scrambling to analyze the threat. Systems had to be flown in from Germany to the federal government's Idaho National Laboratory. In short order the worm was decoded, but for some time, many companies that owned Siemens equipment were left wondering what, if any measures, they should take to protect themselves from the new worm." -
DHS Chief: What We Learned From Stuxnet
angry tapir writes "If there's a lesson to be learned from last year's Stuxnet worm, it's that the private sector needs to be able to respond quickly to cyber-emergencies (CT: Warning, site contains obnoxious interstitial ads. Blocker advised), according to the head of the US Department of Homeland Security. When Stuxnet hit, the US Department of Homeland security was sent scrambling to analyze the threat. Systems had to be flown in from Germany to the federal government's Idaho National Laboratory. In short order the worm was decoded, but for some time, many companies that owned Siemens equipment were left wondering what, if any measures, they should take to protect themselves from the new worm." -
Wardrivers Target Seattle Businesses
angry tapir writes "Seattle police are investigating a group of criminals who they say have been cruising around town in a black Mercedes stealing credit card data by tapping into wireless networks belonging to area businesses. The group has been at it for about five years, according to an affidavit signed by Detective Chris Hansen, a fraud investigator with the Seattle Police Department." -
Wardrivers Target Seattle Businesses
angry tapir writes "Seattle police are investigating a group of criminals who they say have been cruising around town in a black Mercedes stealing credit card data by tapping into wireless networks belonging to area businesses. The group has been at it for about five years, according to an affidavit signed by Detective Chris Hansen, a fraud investigator with the Seattle Police Department." -
Australia Ranked Fourth In Internet Freedom
mjwx writes "A report published by Freedom House has placed Australia in fourth in Internet Freedom, below Estonia, the United States and Germany. Freedom House highlights the lack of actual censorship in Australia pointing out that the highly unpopular proposed ISP level censorship has been shelved since the 2010 Australian election. The Freedom House report is available here." -
Justices Question Microsoft's Vision of Patent Law
angry tapir writes "US Supreme Court justices on Monday questioned whether they should side with Microsoft and weaken the legal standard needed to invalidate a patent, with some justices suggesting there are alternatives to changing established law. The issue arose as part of the case involving Redmond and i4i." -
Justices Question Microsoft's Vision of Patent Law
angry tapir writes "US Supreme Court justices on Monday questioned whether they should side with Microsoft and weaken the legal standard needed to invalidate a patent, with some justices suggesting there are alternatives to changing established law. The issue arose as part of the case involving Redmond and i4i." -
White House Releases Trusted Internet ID Plan
angry tapir writes "From the Computerworld article: 'the U.S. government will coordinate private-sector efforts to create trusted identification systems for the Internet, with the goal of giving consumers and businesses multiple options for authenticating identity online, according to a plan released by President Barack Obama's administration.'" -
White House Releases Trusted Internet ID Plan
angry tapir writes "From the Computerworld article: 'the U.S. government will coordinate private-sector efforts to create trusted identification systems for the Internet, with the goal of giving consumers and businesses multiple options for authenticating identity online, according to a plan released by President Barack Obama's administration.'" -
Hypertext Creator: Structure of the Web 'Completely Wrong'
angry tapir writes "The creator of hypertext has criticized the design of the World Wide Web, saying that Tim Berners-Lee's creation is 'completely wrong,' and that Windows, Macintosh and Linux have 'exactly the same' approach to computing. Ted Nelson, founder of first hypertext project, Project Xanadu, went on to say, 'It is a strange, distorted, peculiar and difficult limited system... the browser is built around invisible links — you can see something to click on but you’ve got nowhere else to go.'" -
Facebook To Be 'Biggest Bank' By 2015
angry tapir writes "The explosion of social networking commerce will lead to the unlikely candidate of Facebook becoming the world's biggest bank by the middle of the decade, according to a technology observer and entrepreneur. People who don't have a Facebook account should get one or risk having a financial profile created for them says founder and president of Metal International, Ken Rutkowski." -
US Police Increasingly Peeping At Email, IMs
angry tapir writes "US law enforcement organizations are making tens of thousands of requests for private electronic information from companies such as Sprint, Facebook and AOL, but few detailed statistics are available, according to a privacy researcher. Police and other agencies have 'enthusiastically embraced' asking for e-mail, instant messages and mobile-phone location data, but there's no US federal law that requires the reporting of requests for stored communications data, according to Christopher Soghoian, a doctoral candidate at the School of Informatics and Computing at Indiana University." -
Court Rejects Winklevoss Twins' Facebook Appeal
angry tapir writes "A US federal appeals court has denied a request by the Winklevoss twins to release them from their settlement with Facebook over their allegations that Mark Zuckerberg improperly appropriated their idea for the social networking site. Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss, along with another Harvard classmate, agreed to the settlement in 2008 but the twins later asked a district court to let them back out, saying they were misled by Facebook about the value of the company's shares they received as part of the deal. On Monday, a three-judge appeals court panel sided with the lower court, noting that the Winklevoss twins have actually fared quite well since the settlement was hammered out because the value of Facebook, pegged recently at around $50 billion, means that their shares have more than tripled in value." -
Court Rejects Winklevoss Twins' Facebook Appeal
angry tapir writes "A US federal appeals court has denied a request by the Winklevoss twins to release them from their settlement with Facebook over their allegations that Mark Zuckerberg improperly appropriated their idea for the social networking site. Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss, along with another Harvard classmate, agreed to the settlement in 2008 but the twins later asked a district court to let them back out, saying they were misled by Facebook about the value of the company's shares they received as part of the deal. On Monday, a three-judge appeals court panel sided with the lower court, noting that the Winklevoss twins have actually fared quite well since the settlement was hammered out because the value of Facebook, pegged recently at around $50 billion, means that their shares have more than tripled in value."