The Terminators: drone strikes prompt MoD to ponder ethics of killer robots
The growing use of unmanned aircraft in combat situations raises huge moral and legal issues, and threatens to make war more likely as armed robots take over from human beings, according to an internal study by the Ministry of Defence. The report warns of the dangers of an "incremental and involuntary journey towards a Terminator-like reality", referring to James Cameron's 1984 movie, in which humans are hunted by robotic killing machines. It says the pace of technological development is accelerating at such a rate that Britain must quickly establish a policy on what will constitute "acceptable machine behaviour".
Iran accuses Siemens of helping launch Stuxnet cyber-attack
Iran has accused the German engineering firm Siemens of helping Israel and the US launch a computer worm designed to sabotage its nuclear facilities. A senior Iranian military commander said that the company facilitated the Stuxnet worm cyber-attack against Iran by providing Washington and Jerusalem with information about a Siemens-designed control system, SCADA, used in Iran's nuclear sites. "Our executive officials should legally follow up the case of Siemens SCADA software which prepared the ground for the Stuxnet worm," Gholamreza Jalali, Iran's civil defence chief was quoted by the IRNA state news agency as saying. "Siemens should explain why and how it provided the enemies with the information about the codes of the SCADA software and prepared the ground for a cyber attack against us," he added.
Alcatel-Lucent preps Tunisiana’s network for LTE transformation
Tunisiana, a Tunisia-based subsidiary of Qatar Telecom, has chosen Alcatel-Lucent to transform its network entirely to IP, as it looks to roll-out LTE to accommodate richer applications such as video, multimedia, and mobile banking. Under the terms of the agreement, Alcatel-Lucent will deploy its IP/MPLS solution, based on its 7750 Service Router (SR) along with the Alcatel-Lucent 5620 Service Aware Manager (SAM). Alcatel-Lucent will also provide Tunisiana with a set of comprehensive professional services including project management, network design, installation and commissioning, software integration and operations. The France headquartered company said that its technology would enable Tunisiana to benefit from increased reliability, scalability and speed, while reducing cost and complexity.
Kroes calls for coordinated cyber security
Weak cyber security will limit the potential of ICT to deliver social and economic benefits, European Digital Agenda commissioner Neelie Kroes told a telecoms conference in Hungary this morning. Kroes called for a joint security effort from member states and other key “allies around the world,” noting that progress made to date is not enough to achieve the “close cooperation we need.” “If we don’t take action now, we will be keeping a brake on the economy and exposing governments and citizens to avoidable risk,” the commissioner cautioned. She noted that while budgets are tight, “the cost of inaction is greater still.”
Bill Gates thought Gmail was pointless
Former software king Sir William Gates III could not understand why anyone would want so much storage space on Gmail. In his new book about Google, "In The Plex", Steven Levy talks about Bill Gates' reaction to Gmail six months after the service launched. According to the Huffington Post, Levy told Gates how in a few months after he started using Gmail he had already "consumed more than half of Gmail's 2-gigabyte free storage space."
Orange outlines its voice-over-IP future
While Orange is a name traditionally associated with citrus fruits and mobile phones, the company's business services arm aims to provide a one-stop shop for all a company's communications needs: mobile telephone, fixed-line telephony, data networks, and now an interesting spin on voice-over-IP which the company is hoping will take off in a big way. It's known as WebPhone, and Orange has provided an application programming interface - developed in Adobe's Flash, which lies at the heart of the system - to allow companies to integrate the system into their websites, CRM packages, and any other aspect of their systems that would benefit from voice communications.
Bank of China to fund Africa-America submarine cable system
Bank of China is set to fund the construction of an undersea cable system linking South Africa and Angola to Brazil, with onward connectivity to North America. The South Atlantic Express Cable (SAex) is intended to reduce latency and bandwidth costs by connecting Africa to the Americas via its shortest route to date; most of South Africa’s Americas-bound traffic currently routes via Europe. Once complete, the SAex cable will connect to the existing, 22,000km GlobeNet system linking South and North America. At the African end of the system, SAex will connect with Seacom, a cable that connects Africa’s east coast with India and the Asia-Pacific region, including China.
The Royal Mail moves to the cloud
When you're an organisation the size of the Royal Mail, there comes a point when you really have to stop and take stock of the IT operations. Reg reader Adrian Steele, from the Royal Mail, did this in 2008 and noted the state of their infrastructure. More than 30,000 users with multiple email systems, not enough bandwidth or storage, obsolete PCs, thousands of Lotus Notes applications, multiple operating systems, and a giant headache for both Royal Mails IT department and its system integrator CSC. To sort out the problem, Royal Mail devised a plan that would either be brilliant or career-ending: it was going to move all its users to the cloud in a matter of weeks.
The swift rise and fall of the Flip camcorder
Even by the standards of today's fast-paced technological change, the life story of the Flip camcorder happened at breakneck speed. It was launched in 2007 by Pure Digital, a small US outfit which had been experimenting with disposable digital cameras, and quickly became the coolest video recording device on the market, leaving the likes of Sony and Kodak playing catch-up and phone manufacturers cramming similar functionality into their devices. Two years later, the company was bought by US computing giant Cisco for $590m, and those who had doubted Flip at the outset were forced to concede that they had been wrong. But this week, Cisco announced the Flip's demise in a press release full of corporate-speak. "We are making key, targeted moves as we align operations in support of our network-centric platform strategy," it read. What it means is that the Flip, a camcorder which accounts for 35 per cent of the US market and is still the top seller on Amazon, is being mothballed.
iPhone owners waste 468 texts a year because of autocorrect
A study by phone comparison website GoodMobilePhones.co.uk polled 1,023 iPhone owners, and said the average user sends six dodgy messages a week. They send 156 texts a year purely to correct these autocorrect howlers. For iPhone owners on pay-as-you-go, that would cost an average of £56 a year based on a standard text message costing 12p. Now wonder 62 per cent of respondents don't think autocorrect is helpful. Mark Owen, MD of GoodMobilePhones.co.uk, said: “It’s interesting to see the number of messages that have been wasted by the autocorrect function; particularly when you consider that it is really meant as a means of making texting easier.
Sprint brings carrier billing to Android Market
US operator Sprint is the latest to sign up to let its customers pay for Android apps with their phone bills. Google has announced that Sprint is now offering direct carrier billing on Android Market, allowing customers to pay for apps using their phone bills rather than the Google Checkout system. "We've begun a phased roll-out of the service that will reach all users in the next few days," explains Android developer ecosystem boss Eric Chu in a blog post. "When complete, Android users on the Sprint network will be able to charge their Android Market purchases to their Sprint mobile bill with only a few clicks."
It's Android Time, Says Frost & Sullivan
Now is the time for Google to challenge Apple's dominance of the smartphone space, according to Saverio Romeo, senior industry analyst at Frost & Sullivan. Commenting on Google's Q1 results announcement, Romie says that the industry is "slowly reawakening from the Apple shock". "A very well planned incremental innovation strategy based on attractive and easy-to-use user-interfaces, simple business model and powerful branding has transformed Apple into a superpower of the mobile space in just a couple of years," says Romeo. "It is now the time for Google. The Android model is based on a more open approach relying on a multi-device strategy for accessing markets and gaining market shares. This has led to an evolving ecosystem fed by innovations at any level, from devices to software and business models."
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