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OCAU News |
Australia's largest telephone company, Telstra, could be heading for the chopping block should it refuse to willingly provide access to its network to the company who will be given the rights to build the multibillion dollar national broadband network. Analysts say uncertainty over the ability of Telstra's rivals to build a network spanning Australia's vast distances and inhospitable terrain and reaching the government target of 98 percent of the population means units of Telstra must be involved. "This requires parts of Telstra's network, and if they're not prepared to provide it willingly, then it will have to be legislated," said Luke Sinclair, an investment manager at Karara Capital.
Despite Microsoft saying nothing about the release, it seems that Windows 7 beta 1 has popped up on torrent trackers as an ISO file. ZDNet's Adrian Kingsley-Hughes also reports that Windows 7, calling it "solid and fast." He said that the new revamped taskbar is visually interesting and a lot easier to use at higher screen resolutions that the Vista or XP taskbar.
VR-Zone has compiled a table of Nvidia's GPU lineup for 2009. According to some documents VR-Zone has seen, Nvidia is preparing move to 40nm process technology for their top to bottom GPU line-up by Q2 next year. This transition to 40nm will first take place with their high end GT212 GPU in Q2 follows by the mainstream GT214 and GT216 as well as value GT218 in Q3. GT212 will be replacing the 55nm GT200 so you can expect pretty short lifespan for the upcoming GTX295 and GTX285 cards.
Linux kernel 2.6.28 has been officially released and Ars Technica takes a look at what this new release has to offer. Lead kernel developer Linus Torvalds announced the official release of Linux 2.6.28 on Wednesday. The new version introduces some noteworthy changes that will put the kernel in a strong position for growth and advancement in the coming year.
RIAA has won a default judgment against a 19-year-old girl who suffers from pancreatitis and severe depression. Ciara Sauro who was unable to make it in to court to defend herself will have to pay $8000 for allegedly sharing 10 songs over the internet. Unlike most Americans, Sauro actually adamantly denies that she was the perpetrator of the file-sharing crime, and is (obviously) outraged that she may have to pay such a hefty fine for something she didn’t do. We agree, of course, but we also wonder why the RIAA hasn’t managed to track down the perfectly healthy, financially well-off, 20-something hackers who download and share tens of thousands of files every week and asked them to pay up.
Sony's new virtual world for the PlayStation 3 is apparently a very quiet and boring place according to some of the users. This hasn't been a good year for virtual worlds, which have been in the same amount of turmoil as the real world. Google, for example, is pulling the plug on Lively, a virtual environment it launched earlier this year. And news service Reuters is shuttering a virtual bureau it had opened in the once-buzzworthy Second Life. In a farewell note posted last month, reporter Eric Krangel confessed that he found using the service "about as fun as watching paint dry."
While everyone is still getting their heads around the massive financial crisis that has destroyed economies around the world, the same can't be said about the underground economy which apparently is flourishing. Statistics gathered by firms combating the rising tide of computer crime reveal just how busy professional cyber thieves have been over the last twelve months. Sophos said it was now seeing more than 20,000 new malicious programs every day. 2008 was also the year in which Symantec revealed that its anti-virus software now protected against more than one million viruses.
Despite having some major issues with the well known fatal hardware faults plaguing some Xbox360 units, 2008 in general has been a pretty good year for the Xbox360 and in particular the Xbox Live Arcade service. And 2009 is set to be just as good as this year was. 2009 is already shaping up to be another successful year on Xbox Live Arcade with the news that new titles are in the pipeline to be released this year, including: Lode Runner, The Dishwasher: Dead Samurai, South Park, Puzzle Quest: Galactrix, and R-Type Dimensions. These titles will be some of the first out of the gate in 2009, but no specific release information is available yet.
Looks like Apple have a big problem on their hands with iPhone clones apparently hitting several retail shops in Southeast Asia. Don’t look for these iPhone clones to make their way out of Asia, as we suspect that Apple is already in the process of clamping down on these clones and looking to put the cloners out of business; but with the relative lack of recognition and enforcement of patents and copyrights in some parts of the world, Apple could have its work cut out for it to stem the tide of the cloned iPhones
As is common practice come the end of the year, many websites around the net post their top 10 lists, be it movies, video games, gadgets or whatever......Today Ars Technica takes a look at Science magazine's top 10 breakthroughs of 2008. As always, as the year comes to a close, there is an inevitable rush to produce top 10 lists. Top 10 movies, top 10 books, top 10 music albums. Not content to let Hollywood and the entertainment industry have all the fun, the news staff at Science magazine have compiled their year-end top 10 list of the scientific breakthroughs that broke through with the potential for lasting impact. These range in scale from protons to planets and include nearly everything in between.
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All original content copyright James Rolfe.
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