Hold our tiny silicon spheres, say gravity wave detection scientists

Nano-sensors in optical trap for more sensitive instrumentA group of scientists from the University of Nevada at Reno says tiny sensors – small enough to be suspended in an optical trap – could pave the way for a new kind of ultra-sensitive gravity wave sensor.…

EMC vuln gives mere sysadmins the power of storage admins

Time to patch VNX and Celerra software before non-experts do something sillyEMC has warned a flaw in the Control Station software for its VNX and Celerra arrays could allow just about anyone logged into them to do just about anything.…

Four Anons cuffed in Italy

Postal Police go postalFour individuals accused of being members of Anonymous and participating in “Operation Tango Down” have been arrested in Italy.…

IBM gives a cloudy outlook for COBOL

Zombie language gets XML, Java supportIBM is giving its COBOL environment a cloudy flavour with an update to the ancient venerable and unkillable language.…

Bureau of Stats releases educational SimClone game

Hey kids! Why bother with Minecraft when you could play an evidence-based policy sim?Australia's Bureau of Statistics (ABS) has released a game, Run That Town, that borrows heavily form SimCity to give players the chance to learn about the way statistics are used to shape policy.…

I know who 'Satoshi Nakamoto' is, says Ted Nelson

Coiner of 'hypertext' claims to identify the linksSociologist, philosopher, computer industry pioneer and inventor of the term “hypertext” Ted Nelson is claiming that he knows the identity of Bitcoin inventor “Satoshi Nakamoto”.…

Google builds crowdsourcing into new Maps code stack

Wants a unique map for every userGoogle I/O Google has been giving more details about how it has redesigned its Maps software by adding in crowd-sourced photographic and driving directions to its coding scheme.…

Google's Native Code browser tech goes cross-platform

Write web modules in C/C++ that run on both Intel and ARMGoogle I/O At its annual I/O conference in San Francisco this week, Google unveiled a new version of its Native Client technology that allows developers to deploy binary code for web applications in an architecture-independent way.…

Yahoo! to 'share something special' in New York on Monday

Is hastily called event related to Tumblr rumblings?Yahoo! will hold a "product-related news event" this upcoming Monday with CEO Marissa Mayer in attendance to "share something special."…

Adobe's Creative Cloud fails at being a cloud

Sync feature suspended by Adobe FOR TWO WEEKSThe file-syncing part of Adobe's new Creative Cloud family of technologies has been intermittently broken for a week, taking the "cloud" part out of Adobe's "Creative Cloud" redesign of its products. Now Adobe is suspending it "for the next couple of weeks" to make updates.…

NASA signs off on sampling mission to Earth-threatening asteroid

2016 launch date set for OSIRIS-REx missionNASA has given final approval for a billion-dollar mission that will visit one of the most potentially dangerous asteroids to Earth, collect samples, and then bring it back home for analysis.…

US military welcomes Apple iOS 6 kit onto its networks

The battle with BlackBerry, Samsung marches into the cloudThe US Department of Defense has welcomed Apple's iDevices into its secure networks, and has announced that that it is "taking bold steps to provide sound information and proper analysis as it fortifies its cloud computing, acquisition and data processes."…

Jailed Romanian hacker repents, invents ATM security scheme

Add-on device blocks card skimmersA Romanian man serving a five-year jail sentence for bank-machine fraud says he's come up with a device that can be attached to any ATM to make the machine invulnerable to card skimmers.…

Climate scientists agree: Humans cause global warming

Of those who have an opinion, over 97% say we're to blameA major study of nearly 12,000 peer-reviewed papers in the climate-science literature has – again – proven that among climate scientists, an overwhelming percentage agree with the consensus view that human activity causes global warming.…

MIT takes battery-powered robot cheetah for a gallop

Biomimetic big cat needs no power cord, just a walkerVideo Fast, agile robots for reconnaissance and rescue have been under development for half a decade or more, but they all have needed to be tethered to a power cable. Now MIT thinks it has cut the leash with a battery powered "cheetah" capable of outrunning a human.…

Google research chief: 'Emergent artificial intelligence? Hogwash!'

'We have to make it happen'Google I/O If there's any company in the world that can bring true artificial intelligence into being, it's Google, but the company thinks SkyNet is unlikley to appear in the Googlenet without help from the Chocolate Factory.…

Nvidia opens pre-orders for handheld Shield console three days early

Let the feeding frenzy commenceNvidia is now taking orders for its Shield handheld gaming console, three days early, though the Android-running Tegra-powered gadget won’t make its way into punters’ hands before the end of next month at the earliest.…

Yahoo! triumphs! in! $2.75bn! Mexican! standoff!

Mighty award against it abruptly slashed to $172,500Yahoo! has said that a Mexican appeals court threw out a $2.75bn ruling against it and Yahoo! Mexico over contracts in the country.…

Tablet? Laptop? HP does the splits with Tegra-based SlateBook x2

Netbook with removable screen, anyone?HP is to follow its Windows 8-based tablet keyboard combo, the Envy x2, with an Android Jelly Bean version - the computer giant’s take on Asus’ popular Transformer series.…

Lonely-heart Maltese techie vs Bonnie Tyler for Eurovision crown

32 years since that Bucks Fizz feelin'Eurovision 2013 A hopelessly sweet song about a ruthlessly organised techie who gets the girl will fight with the ballad from rock vixen Bonnie Tyler and 24 other acts to lift the Eurovision Song Contest crown Saturday night.…

Breaking news, LITERALLY: Financial Times vandalized by hackers

Stiff Pink 'Un left swinging in the windThe _Financial Times_ website and its Twitter accounts were this afternoon hijacked by pro-government hackers from the "Syrian Electronic Army".…

Hey, Teflon Ballmer. Look, isn't it time? You know, time to quit?

Microsoft chief defies pundits by hanging on - we reveal howAnalysis Those who upgraded to Windows 8 aren't the only ones unhappy with the new touch-driven operating system - Wall Street is too. Just don't expect any of the criticism hurled at Steve "Teflon" Ballmer, Microsoft's shy and retiring boss, to stick.…

Who is the mystery sixth member of LulzSec?

And, hang on, what happened to all the loot...Analysis Thursday's sentencing of three core members of hacktivist crew LulzSec and an accomplice hacker who gave them access to a botnet closes an important chapter in the history of activism. But it also leaves a number of questions unanswered.…

Murdoch Facebook gloat: You're like my $580m, 'CRAPPY' MySpace

Billionaire media tyrant has a Ratner momentRupert Murdoch had a Gerald Ratner moment on Twitter earlier today when, in a warning to Facebook, he labelled MySpace - a website he once owned - as "crappy".…

That $1,000 the lad in Lagos needed? Just email it with Google Wallet

Be afraid, PayPal - be very afraidGoogle has integrated its payment Wallet with Gmail, enabling PayPal-style transactions from within the Gmail interface, and to any over-18 American with an email address and a Google Wallet account.…

El Reg drills in Office 365: See the evidence

Trevor goes visualVid This week, Trevor Pott kicked off his exploration of Office 365 with this overview.…

I said ‘no’ to a million-pound Tech City empire

Handed on a plate, thrown back in your faceSomething for the Weekend, Sir? I have been propositioned in a toilet by a 72-year-old man. He wants me to move in with him and do the business.…

Apple chief Cook: You - senators. Get in here and redo this tax law

Listen up, Popeye, fix it if you don't like itApple supremo Tim Cook will dare US senators to rewrite tax laws seeing as the politicians are so upset about tech giants' tiny contributions to America's public coffers.…

Congress: It's not the Glass that's scary - It's the GOOGLE

On-head TV, fine - but you can't skip the ads on this oneComment Google Glass is wrapped around the faces of only a few thousand people right now. The company says the device is in very early beta mode. And yet lawmakers in the US have already pounced on the company demanding answers about how the privacy of netizens using the gizmo will be protected.…

Hunt: I'll barcode sick Brits and rip up NHS's paper prescriptions

'Fell asleep in the hospital and woke up as a one-armed woman!'UK Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt wants to tear up the NHS's clumsy system of printed prescriptions - and instead use "unique barcodes" to dish out medication straight to the poorly.…