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Submission + - Amazon drones are 'fantasy,' says eBay CEO (computerworld.com.au)

Submitted by angry tapir
angry tapir writes: In the race to deliver online shopping purchases faster, drones don't impress eBay's CEO. "We're not focusing on long-term fantasies, we're focusing on things we can do today," John Donahue said in an interview. He was reacting to an interview Jeff Bezos, CEO of e-commerce rival Amazon, gave last weekend in which he said Amazon is investigating the use of drones for package delivery.

Submission + - Encrypted social network vies for disgruntled Facebook users (computerworld.com.au)

Submitted by angry tapir
angry tapir writes: With the look of Google Plus and Facebook-like elements, a new social network named "Syme" feels as cozy as a well-worn shoe. But beneath the familiar veneer, it's quite different. Syme encrypts all content, such as status updates, photos and files, so that only people invited to a group can view it. Syme, which hosts the content on its Canada-based servers, says it can't read it. "The overarching goal of Syme is to make encryption accessible and easy to use for people who aren't geeks or aren't hackers or who aren't cryptography experts," co-founder Jonathan Hershon said in an interview about the service.

Submission + - MenuetOS, an OS written entirely in assembly language, inches towards 1.0 (computerworld.com.au) 2

Submitted by angry tapir
angry tapir writes: MenuetOS is an open source GUI-equipped operating system written entirely in assembly language that can fit on a floppy disk (if you can find one). I originally spoke to its developers in 2009. Recently I had a chance to catch up with them to chat about what's changed and what needs to be done before the OS hits version 1.0 after 13 years of work.

Submission + - Fuel cell-powered data centres could cut costs, carbon (computerworld.com.au)

Submitted by angry tapir
angry tapir writes: A group of Microsoft researchers believe that using fuel cells to power data centres could potentially result in an "over 20% reduction in costs using conservative projections", cutting infrastructure and power input costs. In addition, using fuel cells would likely result in a smaller carbon footprint for data centres. The researchers looked at the potential of using fuel cells at the rack level to power servers in data centres — although they note there is a long way to go before this could become a reality (not least of the small worldwide production level of fuel cells).

Submission + - Project seeks to build inexpensive 9-inch monitor for Raspberry Pi (computerworld.com.au)

Submitted by angry tapir
angry tapir writes: A Kickstarter project is aiming to bring an inexpensive 9-inch portable monitor to the popular US$25 Raspberry Pi PC, which comes without a keyboard, mouse or monitor. The "HDMIPi" will include an LCD panel that will show images at a resolution of 1280 x 800 pixels. Computers can be hooked up to the monitor via an HDMI controller board that can be wired to the LCD. The display is being made by Raspi.TV and Cyntech.

Submission + - Oracle shareholders vote against Ellison's compensation package (again) (techworld.com.au)

Submitted by angry tapir
angry tapir writes: A majority of Oracle shareholders have once again voted against the company's executive pay practices, including for CEO Larry Ellison. The vote at Oracle's annual shareholder meeting is nonbinding, and follows complaints from some large shareholders and their representatives who say Ellison is overpaid compared to his peers. Ellison is paid US$1 in salary, receiving the rest of his pay in stock options. In Oracle's past fiscal year, that totaled $76.9 million. Shareholders voted against Oracle's executive pay practices at last year's meeting as well.

Submission + - Silent Circle, Lavabit unite for 'Dark Mail' encrypted email project (computerworld.com.au) 2

Submitted by angry tapir
angry tapir writes: Two privacy-focused email providers have launched the Dark Mail Alliance, a project to engineer an email system with robust defenses against spying. Silent Circle and Lavabit abruptly halted their encrypted email services in August, saying they could no longer guarantee email would remain private after court actions against Lavabit, reportedly an email provider for NSA leaker Edward Snowden.

Submission + - Dell to show its first 64-bit ARM server this week (computerworld.com.au)

Submitted by angry tapir
angry tapir writes: Dell will give its first public demonstration of a 64-bit ARM server this week, the latest step in an industrywide effort to build servers based on low-power chips like those used in smartphones. Dell will show a server based on a 64-bit ARM processor from AppliedMicro running the Fedora version of Linux and hooked up to a storage system from PMC-Sierra, Dell said.

Submission + - First new top-level domains added to the root zone (computerworld.com.au)

Submitted by angry tapir
angry tapir writes: The Internet – or at least its namespace – just got bigger. Four new top-level domains have been added to the Internet's root zone. The four new gTLDs all use non-Latin scripts: "web " in Arabic, "online" in Cyrillic, "sale" in Cyrillic, and "game" in Chinese. In total, the generic top-level domain process run by ICANN will result in expansion of top-level domains from 22 to up to 1400.

Submission + - US court rules warrant required for GPS tracking of vehicles (computerworld.com.au)

Submitted by angry tapir
angry tapir writes: A U.S. appeals court has ruled that police must obtain a warrant prior to using a GPS device to track a vehicle, deciding on an unaddressed issue in an earlier Supreme Court order. The decision by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit is considered a victory by privacy groups as a number of courts in the country grapple with the legal and privacy implications of using mobile phone location information and GPS in investigations by law enforcement.

Submission + - Microsoft Office still rules in the workplace (computerworld.com.au)

Submitted by angry tapir
angry tapir writes: In the office, people still prefer Microsoft Office. Yes, despite threats from rivals that are open source, cheaper, fully cloud-based or more mobile-friendly, Microsoft Office's desktop suite reigns over the workplace productivity software kingdom. That's the conclusion Forrester Research reached after recently polling enterprise IT professionals with decision-making power over their company's choice of office software suites.

Submission + - European Parliament votes to permit pseudonymous data profiling (cmo.com.au)

Submitted by angry tapir
angry tapir writes: The European Parliament's civil liberties committee voted Monday night to allow profiling of "pseudonymous" data, but digital rights groups say that safeguards to protect data are not sufficient. The committee vote was on the latest amendments to the proposed E.U. Data Protection Regulation, which was put forward by Justice Commissioner Viviane Reding in 2012 and has provoked some of the heaviest lobbying seen in Brussels in years. The text voted on Monday had been through almost 4,000 amendments.

Submission + - Facebook 'stalker' tool uses Graph Search for data mining (computerworld.com.au)

Submitted by angry tapir
angry tapir writes: Mining small details from Facebook has become even easier with Graph Search, the site's new search engine that returns personalized results from natural-language queries. Graph Search granularly mines Facebook's vast user data: where people have visited, what they like and if they share those same preferences with their friends. "FBStalker" is a Python script debuted at the Hack in the Box security conference in Kuala Lumpur. In its current form, FBStalker runs in the Chrome browser on OS X, entering queries into Facebook's Graph Search and pulling data. Even if a person's profile is locked down to strangers, their friends' open profiles can be examined, giving an indication, for example, who the person may be close with. FBStalker uses Graph Search to find photos in which two people are tagged in, comments on profiles and more.

Submission + - Drones to deliver parcels in Australia (computerworld.com.au)

Submitted by angry tapir
angry tapir writes: Australian startup Flirtey from March next year will offer parcel delivery for Australian businesses using automated aerial drones. From March, a partnership with a textook rental company will see drones delivering books to students.It will be the first use of fully automated commercial drones in the world, the companies said. Delivery by drone will be free for the receiver and will send parcels directly to an outdoor location of the user’s choice, with the drone’s GPS coordinates provided to the user through a smartphone app.

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