70206879
submission
DW100 writes:
Look out! The UK has government has, in a remarkably forward-looking decision, agreed to let driverless car tests take place on public roads. The trials will take place in Greenwich, Bristol, Milton Keynes and Coventry with vehicles ranging from 2-seater 'pods' to shuttle services involved. A BAE wildcat jeep will also be tested, and it definitely looks the coolest of the three.
69820557
submission
DW100 writes:
Google has avoided a fine from UK data regulators for its privacy policies that were introduced in 2012. While French and Spanish regulators issued fines of €150,000 and €900,000 respectively, the UK's Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) appears happy to simply ask Google to change the wording of its policies and make them clearer to users so that they can understand more clearly how their data is being gathered and used by the search giant.
69523183
submission
DW100 writes:
In a bizarre public blog post the CEO of BlackBerry, John Chen, has claimed that net neutrality laws should include forcing app developers to make their services available on all operating systems. Chen even goes as far as citing Apple's iMessage tool as a service that should be made available for BlackBerry, because at present the lack of an iMessage BlackBerry app is holding the firm back.
69433349
submission
DW100 writes:
The UK government is the most open and transparent when it comes to releasing data on its own citizens, according to the man who invented the World Wide Web, Sir Tim Berners-Lee. A report by his Web Foundation organisation put the UK ahead of the US, Sweden and France, although the report also said the quality of some data being released is poor, and needs addressing. Myanmar ranked bottom for the 86 countries assessed.
68009175
submission
DW100 writes:
The UK mobile market looks set for a radical shake-up after BT confirmed it is now in final stage discussions to buy EE for £12.5bn. The move will see the telecoms giant return to the mobile market for the first time in over a decade and make the company the leader in both fixed and mobile markets. Whether or not the telecoms regulatory Ofcom will agree to such a deal, though, remains to be seen
67837125
submission
DW100 writes:
UK spy post GCHQ has released an Android app that helps youngsters learn about coding techniques, and how to break them. The app, called Cryptoy, is available now for Android tablets, and is expected to arrive on iOS next year. The hope is that youngsters will discover hidden talents for code-setting and breaking, helping the UK ensure it has a steady stream of intelligent, crypto-savvy workers to counter emerging cyber threats. The launch has echoes of a similar government effort in WW2 to find code-breakers for Bletchley Park via a cryptic crossword in the Daily Telegraph, albeit with a modern twist.
67464051
submission
DW100 writes:
The UK has completed a highly challenging rollout of broadband to remote islands in Scotland, covering 250km of seabed. The work has taken many months but will mean some 150,000 residents in the islands will be able to get broadband of up to 80Mbps. A cable laying ship, the Rene Descartes, carried out the work, with the longest cable stretching 50 miles between islands.
67426839
submission
DW100 writes:
The ailing Itanium processor has suffered another body blow after HP switched its SuperDome and NonStop server lines from the processor to the newer Xeon chips from Intel. The move follow the general trend to stop using Itanium and move to newer processors.
67000769
submission
DW100 writes:
MEPs in Europe want to split Google up to curb its apparent abuse of the search market, although they have no real authority to force Google into any such measures. The move seems to really be a case of putting pressure on the new competition chief to find a way to, in turn, put pressure on Google to come up with search concessions that actually meet its concerns.
66487567
submission
DW100 writes:
Millions of website were ad free for over an hour on Wednesday after a system outage on Google's DoubleClick for Publishers platform. The outage meant sections of websites that usually display adverts depending on a users' browsing history instead just displayed white space. The incident affected websites worldwide and could have cost companies — and Google — millions in lost advertising revenue. The issue was blamed on a 'software bug', but the specifics of the incident remain unclear.
66146667
submission
DW100 writes:
Cern has said it expects its experiments with the Large Hadron Collider to generate as much as 400PB of information per year by 2023 as the scope of its work continues to expand. Currently LHC experiments have generated an archive of 100PB and this is growing at 27PB per year. Cern infrastructure manager Tim Bell, speaking at the OpenStack Summit in Paris, said the organisation is using OpenStack to underpin this huge data growth, as it ensure it can handle such vast reams of potentially universe-altering information.
65907091
submission
DW100 writes:
Hackers from Russia have hacked into the White House computers, although no critical data was stolen, according to sources who revealed the information to the Washington Post.
65859911
submission
DW100 writes:
The Russian government has been tacitly backing hacker groups that infiltrate the networks of other nations and groups such as NATO, according to security firm FireEye. The security firm has dubbed the group APT28, and believes its aim is to "collect intelligence that would be most useful to a government".
65817015
submission
DW100 writes:
In an extract from a forthcoming book, WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange has hit out at Google, claiming it has a very cosy relationship with some of the top power brokers in US politics. "Nobody wants to acknowledge that Google has grown big and bad. But it has. Schmidt's tenure as CEO saw Google integrate with the shadiest of US power structures as it expanded into a geographically invasive mega-corporation," he writes.
65264461
submission
DW100 writes:
The former head of the NSA, General Keith Alexander, has issued a sweeping defence of the PRISM surveillance campaign he oversaw, claiming that everything was above-board and legal. He said that only those conversing with terrorists had anything to fear and the concerns around PRISM were distracting people from the real threats they face, such as state-sponsored hackers in China
