26483954
submission
aesoteric writes:
The Australian Transport Safety Bureau has been called in to investigate an incident that allegedly involved an Apple iPhone self-combusting on a regional flight. Commercial operator Regional Express (REX) said that after one of its planes landed in Sydney late last week, a passenger's handset "started emitting a significant amount of dense smoke, accompanied by a red glow".
26480000
submission
Dedokta writes:
the Australian federal Court has overturned the injunction placed on the Samsung Galaxy 10.1 and ordered Apple to pay court costs. Apple has applied for an appeal with the Supreme Court, but Samsung is now free to sell the Galaxy Tab within Australia.
Samsung is not off the hook yet, however, the full case to see if they have indeed infringed upon Apple patents is still to be heard early nest year.
25672444
submission
aesoteric writes:
Robot fans have descended on Tokyo once again for the biennial International Robot Exhibition (IREX). This year, the big crowds were there for the humanoids and home helpers like Yaskawa's SmartPal VII, one of two robots to take advantage of Kinect for control (the other being an updated robotic guide dog that can climb stairs). The show finishes on Saturday.
25663538
submission
littlekorea writes:
The growth in peer-to-peer file sharing surged in response to efforts by the content industry to litigate over the past decade, according to a new study by a researcher at Melbourne's Monash University. Dr Rebecca Giblin explains why 'physical world' assumptions don't apply to the online world.
25485378
submission
aesoteric writes:
A start-up has laid out ambitious plans to build up to 50 facilities in regional and rural Australia that can be powered by biogas and other renewable energy sources. Negotiations are underway to base the first rural facility adjacent to an abattoir. A digester would be built to process waste from the abattoir. Methane produced in that process will be funneled to the datacenter and used to generate power to run the center's load and cooling systems.
23212100
submission
23036160
submission
aesoteric writes:
An anonymous activist claimed to be downloading copyright material through a 'Government ISP' less than an hour after an anti filesharing law came into effect in New Zealand. The law, passed in April, held internet account holders liable for infringement instead of the filesharers themselves. The activist was apparently testing whether they could get the New Zealand Government fined by their own law.
22875030
submission
aesoteric writes:
Internet Explorer users may not be so stupid after all. Whois records and web content comparisons have raised questions over the company behind a survey that garnered global headlines this week for claiming that Internet Explorer users were dummies. It was unclear how the company, AptiQuant, stood to benefit from the publicity it had generated, and the person who answered their phone declined to volunteer his identity. In addition, a French psychometric testing company has denied any link to AptiQuant.
22725636
submission
aesoteric writes:
A mine rescue training facility in Australia has updated virtual reality mine software to allow miners to experience real-time changes in life-threatening scenarios with the assistance of iPods. The facility housed a 3D theatre, ten metres in diameter, with a 120-square-metres screen in a 360-degree configuration. Miners entering the virtual mine now held iPod touch devices that replicated multi-gas detectors or ventilation instruments. The iPods also sent GPS signals to the teacher who could see where trainees were in the virtual mine.
21535052
submission
mask.of.sanity writes:
The details of up to 66,000 Australian businesses were stolen in a brazen theft of a laptop last weekend. The theft occurred during a scheduled power outage at a major data centre when CCTV and swipe cards were offline. Somehow the robber slipped past extra security guards who were on duty.
20236244
submission
aesoteric writes:
Australia's largest telco Telstra has fingered prolific numbers of birds as the potential culprits behind damage to a temporary fibre cable put in place after floods in the rugged far north-west of the country last month. The temporary cable, which runs above ground, was found by field technicians with "marks along the sheath length", some that penetrated all protective layers and exposed the fibres. It was initially suspected freshwater crocodiles could also have attacked the cable, but the bite marks were inconsistent.
