New Zealand Geek - news page 60

SAN FRANCISCO - Mobile phones under development by Google and its partners face slipping delivery schedules, with the first phones not likely to arrive until late 2008, the Wall Street Journal reported.

Google had said eight months ago that the first phones to be built under the Android partnership umbrella would come out in the second half of 2008 and commitments from various handset makers and carriers appear to support this initial commitment.
June 25, 2008

A teenage hacker has been suspended from school until the end of the year, after he was found to have broken school rules by accessing other people's emails.

The Westlake Boys High School Year 13 student will be out of class for more than two terms but will remain on the roll and be "supported" with school materials.
June 25, 2008

NEW YORK/SAN FRANCISCO - Shares of Yahoo rose as much as 11 per cent yesterday, reversing earlier declines, after contradictory reports on whether buyout talks with Microsoft were heating up again.

"People are attributing huge outcomes to very small pieces of information," said Sanford C. Bernstein analyst Jeffrey Lindsay, referring to a flurry of thinly detailed stories citing unnamed sources that caused Yahoo's stock to spike.
June 25, 2008

HELSINKI - Nokia will buy all remaining shares it doesn't already own in British software firm Symbian Ltd. and establish a joint, open Symbian platform for mobile phones together with other handset makers.

The initiative will compete with Google's mobile operating system Android and similar systems from Apple and Microsoft.
June 25, 2008

The number of personal computers in use around the world has surpassed one billion, with strong growth in emerging markets set to double the number of PCs by early 2014, research firm Gartner said.

Mature markets accounted for 58 per cent of the first billion installed PCs, but would account for only about 30 per cent of the next billion, Gartner said.
June 25, 2008

New Zealand's broadband network performance is lagging behind benchmark western European countries, but moves over the past 2 1/2 years - including the forced regulation of Telecom - means it is in a good position to catch up, a telecommunications conference has heard.

Michael Cranna, managing director of Epitiro Technologies, told the Tel.Con 9 conference in Auckland yesterday the country has come a long way but broadband policy should shift from a focus on penetration to speed.
June 25, 2008

Car systems that tell drivers of speed limits and reduce speed if they do not slow down are to be trialled in three Australian states.

The NSW Centre for Road Safety will install 100 cars with GPS devices that will notify drivers of the speed limit and warn them when they are going to fast.
June 25, 2008

Wellington, June 24 NZPA - The fibre optic policies of both National and Labour will offset this country's isolation problem, a Telecommunications Summit in Auckland was told today.

Telecommunications Users Association (TUANZ) chief executive Ernie Newman said the two policies were quite different in detail.
June 24, 2008

Telecom chief executive Paul Reynolds pleaded for a period of stability in the telecommunications industry at a conference in Auckland yesterday.

At the same event, Labour and National politicians gave one another a "slap-around", blaming each other for the mess that led to recent upheavals.
June 24, 2008

The instant I read about the EEE PC I though it sounded like the perfect travel companion.

It's small and light, making it easy to carry. Because it has no hard drive, only a solid state flash drive, it can survive the assaults of airline baggage handlers.
June 23, 2008

Plans by National and Labour for New Zealand's fibre optic broadband future will go head to head today in what is expected to be a pivotal conference for the telecommunications industry, Tel.con9.

Labour will be promoting the idea of holding on to government and its broadband plans that continue the focus on rural and business customers for better broadband.
June 23, 2008

High fuel prices are inspiring motorists to come up with all sorts of hare-brained ways to drive more economically. That has prompted a warning from the AA that safety matters more than cutting your fuel bill.

In the US, growing interest in squeezing the last drop out of the petrol tank can be seen on the web, with numerous sites popping up where people trade tips and boast about how many miles per gallon they're getting. In a country not famous for energy conservation, driving economically has become like a new extreme sport with a fervour and burgeoning language all of its own.
June 22, 2008

Four of Japan's leading robot startups joined forces this week, brought together by a common concern that neighbouring South Korea could pull ahead in the race to transform robots from science fiction fantasy to commercial success.

Japan, which has long led the world in robo-technology, has created machines that can clean, dance, greet, feed, monitor, relax and befriend.
June 21, 2008

Yahoo is considering a reorganisation to centralise its mail, search and homepage divisions into a global product organisation, the Wall Street Journal reports.

The newspaper reported that president Sue Decker was behind the move, which was an attempt to improve co-ordination between product and global sales groups.
June 21, 2008

Congressional negotiators has announced a bill to revamp US spy powers and protect phone companies from potentially billion of dollars in lawsuits.

Here are some of the major points of the measure, which is expected to be approved on Friday by the House of Representatives.
June 20, 2008