Technology

Australia's CSIRO is holding up a new super fast home wireless system, claiming it holds key patents. It has refused to give guarantees it will not sue companies breaching its patents. This has caused the standard setting agency (IEEE) to delay confirming the new super fast Wi-Fi "N" standard. CSIRO successfully sued other Wi-Fi developers last year claiming they were in breach for earlier versions of Wi-Fi. Litigation is continuing with other developers.

AT&T is paying millions to be the exclusive United States provider of Apple’s much-hyped and glowingly reviewed gadget, the iPhone. It took 17-year-old George Hotz two months of work to undermine AT&T’s investment. Mr. Hotz, a resident of Glen Rock, N.J., published detailed instructions online this week that he says will let iPhone owners abandon AT&T’s service and use their phones on some competing cellular networks.

Google's new web-based office software suite, which the company announced Thursday, is a swift kick to the teeth delivered squarely in the direction of Microsofts cash cow, its Office suite. Or is it?

Views are divided, but if anyone has the ability to tackle Microsofts dominance of the desktop application market it is Google. Listen to Google App's Rajen Sheth thoughts here .

For most people, the journey from the Shelbourne Hotel at 200 Sussex Street to Google's Sydney headquarters across the road at 201 Sussex Street would be a 30-step, 30-second trip.

But according to the Sydney Morning Herald, Google's new mapping service, the recommended route would see you take a 10.4-kilometre scenic detour that involves crossing the Harbour Bridge twice.

Google calculates that this route would entail an off-peak travel time of 18 minutes. It doesn't tell you that you'd also be up for a $3 bridge toll.

Apple and Cisco Systems are suspending their
court battle over the iPhone to return to the negotiations table.

Although Cisco's lawsuit against Apple remains pending, the two companies have agreed to extend the time Apple has to respond so that the parties can discuss trademark rights and interoperability, the companies said late onWednesday.

 The aim, they said, is to reach an agreement over the matter.

Cisco, which makes routers and switches to link networks and power the internet, has owned the trademark on the name "iPhone" since 2000 and began shipping its own line of iPhone-branded internet-enabled phones in late 2006.

he Internet is set to revolutionize television within five years, due to an explosion of online video content and the merging of PCs and TV sets, Microsoft chairman
Bill Gates said.

"I'm stunned how people aren't seeing that with TV, in five years from now, people will laugh at what we've had," he told business leaders and politicians at the
World Economic Forum.

The rise of high-speed Internet and the popularity of video sites like Google Inc.'s YouTube has already led to a worldwide decline in the number hours spent by young people in front of a TV set.

In the years ahead, more and more viewers will hanker after the flexibility offered by online video and abandon conventional broadcast television, with its fixed program slots and advertisements that interrupt shows, Gates said.

Bart is very angry at You Tube

It had to happen! Fox - owned by News Limited, the operator of another social media site My Space - has sent a subpoena to YouTube requesting that the site provide identification info on the user who uploaded the first episodes of 24's sixth season, as well as 12 episodes of ‘The Simpsons.’

The subpoena comes as My Space is also facing a raft of copyright breach cases confirming the growing threat the new social media sites face from aggrieved copyright holders.

Look, no buttons

LG said on Thursday it will start selling next month a new mobile phone that incorporates a buttonless touch-screen resembling the much-hyped iPhone from Apple.

LG's Prada Phone is being produced in partnership with the Italian fashion brand. It is set to go on sale in late February for $US780 at mobile phone dealers and Prada stores in Britain, France, Germany and Italy, and comes to Asia in March.

The no-button interface with the entire phone face covered by a touch-sensitive screen resembles the Apple iPhone, announced by the U.S.

The co-founders of the Internet telephone service Skype unveiled the brand name and details of a new Internet-based television service called Joost.

Entrepreneurs Niklas Zennstrom and Janus Friis, who sold Skype for $2.6 billion to eBay Inc. in 2005, said the new project combines aspects of file-sharing software and regular broadcast television.

Joost -- pronounced "juiced" -- may eventually try to move onto television sets, but it will initially focus on making it easier and more fun to watch TV on a computer.

Joost, like Skype, requires users to download free software. In this case, the program will help them browse the Internet for channels and clips they're interested in, rather than make phone calls.

"We're currently in a test phase with a limited 'beta' release, so we have content matching our base," Chief Executive Fredrik de Wahl said in a telephone interview. "Comedy, sports, music, documentaries."

Sealand: a country without copyright laws?

Swedish film sharing website The Pirate Bay is planning to buy its own island in an attempt to circumvent international copyright laws.

The "island" of Sealand, seven miles off the coast of southern England, was settled in 1967 by an English major, Paddy Roy Bates.

Pirate bay- the worlds largest bit torrent group - has set up a campaign to raise money to buy Sealand, a former British naval platform in the North Sea that has been designated a 'micronation', and claims to be outside the jurisdiction of the UK or any other country.

iPhone or podphone?

The launch by Apple of a combined iPod and mobile phone device was confused today over whether the company has the right to use the iPhone name it has adopted.

The use of the name was brought into question after Steve Jobs, Apple's chief executive, launched the long-anticipated handset at the company's MacWorld event in San Francisco on Tuesday.

However, Cisco, the IT giant, owns the rights to "iPhone" and launched an internet telephone product under the brand three weeks ago through its Linksys division. Some commentators speculated that Apple would opt for the PodPhone name to avoid a conflict with Cisco however it seems Apple may simply buy the trade mark from Cisco.

The fake website

 

A fake MySpace site about High Court Justice Michael Kirby is still open to the public more than 48 hours after it was brought to the attention of the popular social media site.

The identity thieves posed as the Australian judge to put sordid and sexually charged material on a fake Justice Kirby profile page. Kirby is an activist judge, openly gay and well known for his liberal views. He has been previously been attacked by conservative Senator, Bill Heffernan who was forced to apologise over unsubstantiated claims of using his Government car to trawl for male prostitutes.