Conroy resolute: No opt-out for filter

Communications Minister Stephen Conroy has rejected suggestions from ALP colleague Senator Kate Lundy that the Government offer an ''opt-out' for its plan for a mandatory ISP-level filter.

On the eve of the introduction of filtering legislation to parliament, Senator Conroy appeared on the 'Australia Talks' program on Radio National last night to battle an almost universal condemnation of the filtering scheme.

Click here to read more

Victorinox Secur Pro USB Drive Integrates With Swiss Army Knife For Ultimate Security

Victorinox is a brand you may have heard your dad or grandfather speak of, and if you're someone who associates closely with the outdoors, you may actually own one of their products. If we said "Swiss Army knife," you'd know immediately what we were talking about, and sure enough Victorinox is the parent company that makes those knives.

In an effort to bring their latest knife into the current century in terms of relevance, they held an event in their European flagship store on London’s New Bond Street. The reason was to unveil something with a bit of old school flair and a bit of new school utility

Click here to read more

Gmail Warns of Suspicious Account Activity

Google rolled out a new security feature for Gmail that can alert you when it thinks someone else may be using your account. By using the IP tracking feature that Google launched in July 2008, the new security feature will display a warning if it detects that your account has been accessed from two different geographic regions within a short timeframe.

Although the new feature isn't remarkably accurate (in the US it only displays which state you are in), it can prove useful if an attack comes from across the country or from overseas.

Click here to read more

Google advises China users to use VPNs and proxies

Search giant worried Apps will be blocked

Google has urged customers of its online applications in China to consider "networking configuration and associated technologies" to ensure ongoing access in the region.

The announcement follows the company's decision earlier this week to stop its censorship of search services on its Chinese domain and reroute all Chinese-simplified language searches from Google.cn to its Google.com.hk Hong Kong site.

Click here to read more

US says Google was a Business Decision

The United States on Tuesday said Google's action to shut its mainland Chinese-language portal was a business decision by the company that did not involve the U.S. government.


Google yesterday began rerouting searches to its Hong Kong site, drawing angry criticism from China.

"This was a business decision by Google," State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley told reporters.

"As to the issue of Internet freedom and the flow of information around the world, including the flow of information within China, that will be something that we continue our discussion with China on," he said.

Click here to read more

Google moves China search to Hong Kong

Google has announced that it will be moving its Chinese language search operations to Hong Kong.

The company said that all Chinese-simplified language searches will be rerouted from Google.cn to the Google.com.hk domain.

The transition comes following months of failed negotiations between the company and the Chinese government over the issue of censorship.

Click here to read more

Hockey praised for filtering stance

Shadow Treasurer Joe Hockey has earned a rare feat for a Liberal Party politician - a glowing report from Electronic Frontiers Australia (EFA) for his stance against the Federal Government's proposed mandatory ISP-level internet filtering scheme.

Unlike shadow communications minister Tony Smith, who has struggled to form a policy on just about anything, Hockey came out as a clear opponent of the internet filtering bill in a speech delivered to the Grattan Institute last night.

Describing Senator Conroy's plan as "unworkable", Hockey said....

Click here to read more

Warpia Easy Dock Provides A Universal Docking Station For Existing Notebooks

Docking stations are great; they allow notebooks to become entirely more functional at one's main work desk, and they allow them to become connected with an array of already-place peripherals (printers, mice, monitors, etc.)

The only problem that is few notebooks are designed with docking stations that match perfectly, and those that are are generally just normal business notebooks with lacklustre specifications and boring designs. If you've been wishing that a docking station were made for your notebook, the Easy Dock may be it.

Source R&D has just introduced the Warpia Easy Dock, which essentially is a wireless docking station for any notebook...

Click here to read more

Not all welcome at Perth anti-filter rally

Opponents of the Federal Government's internet filter plan faced unexpected controversy in Perth on Saturday, when an anti-immigration group joined the 'National Day of Action'.

Events were organised in Perth, Melbourne and Brisbane by the Stop the Filter group, which hoped to raise public awareness of ISP-level internet censorship.

An estimated 300 people attended the protest in Forrest Place, Perth, organisers said. The event kicked off at noon and wound down at around 2pm...

Click here to read more

Beijing working with Google to resolve dispute

China is in consultations with technology giant Google to resolve its dispute with the company, which has threatened to abandon the Chinese market over hacking and censorship concerns, said a Chinese official on Friday.

The comment came from Li Yizhong, minister of China's Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT), speaking on the sidelines of China's annual parliament.

A Google spokesman was not immediately available for comment...

Click here to read more

ISP offers all-you-can-eat Google traffic

ISP Cinenet, has begun offering its business customers all-you-can-eat Google traffic for a flat fee after signing a peering agreement with Pipe Networks.

Traffic from Google services accounts for up to 25 percent of the internet traffic of Cinenet's screen industry customers, according to Cinenet managing director Tony Clark, particularly because their interest in video leads them to consume a lot of YouTube content.

Rather than have this traffic levied on a consumption basis, Cinenet is offering a deal whereby customers get all-you-can-eat access for a flat fee.

Click here to read more

Cities Go Crazy In Order To Get Google's Attention For 1Gbps Internet

Last month, Google shook up the ISP landscape in a big way, and all with the stroke of the (digital) pen. The company announced that they would soon begin testing a 1Gbps home fibre network, which could provide home Internet speeds that could only be realised in one's imagination before.

First, we heard that the city of Seattle was pushing hard to be Google's first test market. Their reasoning was sound: Seattle is a "techy" city, it's close to Google's Northern California headquarters and there are tons and tons of potential customers. But that wasn't enough. We later heard that Topeka, Kansas was renaming itself "Google, Kansas" for the month of March...

Click here to read more

IBM Engineers Use Light To Speed Up Chip Communications

Every so often, an idea comes along that really strikes us as amazing. This is definitely one of those. IBM has a team of scientists with IQs that we can't even fathom, and those very people have created an ultra-fast device that can use light for communication between chips.

The goal here? It's to find a way to replace electrical signals that communicate via copper wires between computer chips with tiny silicon circuits that communicate using pulses of light. Even more importantly, this creation could advance the way computer chips talk to each other, and if new efficiencies are discovered, we can obviously expect even faster PCs in our future.

Click here to read more

Microsoft Warns Windows XP Users To Avoid F1 Key In Internet Explorer

2010 has not been kind to Microsoft's security team. In under a month's time, we've seen Microsoft address a bug that was supposed to fix an ancient exploit but instead caused more headaches, all while having to encourage consumers not to be duped by a fake security site parading around as something useful. As if those software savvy folks up in Washington didn't have enough on their plates, the company has today issued yet another startling advisory, and this is easily one of the more bizarre ones that we've seen.

Click here to read more