Parallel politics: Gerry Harvey, imports and taxes

Parallel politics: Gerry Harvey, imports and taxes


Parallel politics: Gerry Harvey, imports and taxes

Posted: 22 Dec 2011 03:00 PM PST

Oligopoly screwing oligopoly redux ends 2011

There's a curious symmetry about how 2011 is ending: once again, retailer Gerry Harvey is complaining about GST inequities for online shopping, just as he was at the beginning of the year. Once again, Harvey is distracting attention away from vendor price-setting, just as he was at the beginning of the year.…

ACMA sets the bar too low for broadcasters claims APF

Posted: 22 Dec 2011 02:30 PM PST

Australian Privacy Foundation calls for a regulator with a backbone

The Australian Communications and Media Authority has been slammed as a toothless tiger for setting the bar too low in protecting consumer privacy.…

Moscow State taps T-Platforms to build 10 petaflops super

Posted: 22 Dec 2011 02:13 PM PST

A ceepie-geepie once again

In what rings as almost an echo of Cold War-era scientific competition, Moscow State University is putting together a supercomputer it hopes will take it back up the international rankings.…

Press Council slaps Rupert for Oz NBN coverage

Posted: 22 Dec 2011 01:30 PM PST

Daily Telegraph pitching porkies? Surely not

It's taken the best part of half a year, but Australia's lame-duck press self-regulator, the Australian Press Council, has given News Limited outlet the Daily Telegraph a wet slap over aspects of its NBN coverage.…

Gerry turncoat Harvey gives gamers a deal

Posted: 22 Dec 2011 01:00 PM PST

Launches discount, offshore GST-free online gaming site

The CEO of Australian retailer Harvey Norman, Gerry Harvey has unleashed his fickle ways on the gaming industry, launching an offshore discount gaming site just days before Christmas.…

Seagate backup biz deletes name, restores EVault brand

Posted: 22 Dec 2011 09:01 AM PST

i365 goes back to the future

Seagate's cloud backup biz, i365, has renamed itself EVault, the name it was called when Seagate bought it five years ago.…

New chippery on parade at ISSCC

Posted: 22 Dec 2011 08:02 AM PST

CPU and memory makers strut their stuff

The new year in IT always begins around now, when the IEEE puts out the advance program for the International Solid State Circuits Conference, which takes place in San Francisco in February. This time around, it runs from February 19 through 23, and while there are not a large number of server-class processors coming out, there are some very interesting system-on-chip and memory technologies that chip makers will be showing off at the upcoming 2012 event.…

Lumia sales fail to set world alight

Posted: 22 Dec 2011 07:31 AM PST

Outsold almost 100 times by Galaxy S II

Nokia's Lumia handset is barely shifting at all, according to figures from consumer price-comparison site Mobiles Please, though it still manages to be the best selling Windows Phone.…

Apache confirms new OpenOffice build by 2012

Posted: 22 Dec 2011 07:03 AM PST

Warns developers that it's still the daddy

The Apache Software Foundation has confirmed that a new build of the OpenOffice suite will be out next year, and has warned rogue developers that it - and only it - can use the trademark for the software.…

2012 CES will be Microsoft’s last hurrah

Posted: 22 Dec 2011 06:33 AM PST

Did it jump or was it pushed?

Microsoft has said that Steve Ballmer's opening keynote for the Consumer Electronic Show (CES) in January will be the last time a Redmond head takes the stage, and it won't be having an exhibition stand at the show after 2012 either.…

Latest <i>El Reg</i> project: Rise of the Robot Sheep

Posted: 22 Dec 2011 06:02 AM PST

Autonomous, spinning blades, made in a shed - what could go wrong?

After seven years of faithful service, my lawn-clipping droid Mowbot has had to be retired... and a replacement is hard to obtain. Rather than face an ever-growing lawn, I've decided it's time to unlock the inventing shed and seek some reader advice.…

Cops arrest cop in alleged corrupt cop-bung probe

Posted: 22 Dec 2011 05:41 AM PST

First officer cuffed in Op Elveden investigation

A 52-year-old female police officer was the first cop to be arrested yesterday morning in connection with allegations of receiving illegal payments from journalists.…

Pluto's blushing complexion riddle solved by boffins

Posted: 22 Dec 2011 05:24 AM PST

Hubble spectrograph shines light on dwarf planet's colouring

Boffins using the new Cosmic Origins Spectrograph (COS) on the Hubble telescope have figured out what makes Pluto the colour it is.…

Petaflops beater: Nvidia chief talks exascale

Posted: 22 Dec 2011 05:04 AM PST

Programming for parallel processes

"Power is now the limiter of every computing platform, from cellphones to PCs and even data centres," said NVIDIA chief executive Jen-Hsun Huang, speaking at the company's GPU Technology Conference in Beijing last week. There was much talk there about the path to exascale, a form of supercomputing that can execute 1018 flop/s (Floating Point Operations per Second).…

Auld Reekie folk 'spend most on tech prezzies'

Posted: 22 Dec 2011 04:47 AM PST

Greasy poll puts Southamptoners at the bottom

Today's piece of blatant puffery masquerading as market research comes from Geek Squad the embarrassingly named in-store tech support oppos for Carphone Warehouse.…

Clever patching keeps the system serviceable

Posted: 22 Dec 2011 04:24 AM PST

Beware awkward joins

It was the kind of day most systems administrators would like to forget. A customer of Canadian security consultant David Lewis, founder of the Liquidmatrix Security Digest, had decided to roll out a software patch to a Symantec product.…

Console accessories

Posted: 22 Dec 2011 04:01 AM PST

Game liberation

Xmas Gift Guide  With last year's release of Xbox 360 Kinect and PlayStation Move, traditional console add-ons have been pushed out of the limelight. However when searching for the ideal Crimbo presents, the customary line-up of videogame hardware is always a laudable choice. Especially when shopping for yourself.…

Steve Jobs gets posthumous Grammy AND a bronze statue

Posted: 22 Dec 2011 03:42 AM PST

Who knew the iSaint was part of the Staines massive?

Steve Jobs, who died in October this year, has been posthumously handed a Grammy award.…

Yahoo! shares! leap! on! asset! sale! gossip!

Posted: 22 Dec 2011 03:20 AM PST

Plan to flog Alibaba and Yahoo! Japan stakes pleases investors

Shares in Yahoo! got a bump yesterday on rumours that the company is considering getting rid of most of its Alibaba stake and all its stake in Yahoo! Japan.…

Smut baron buy-up of Vatican.xxx rumour exploded

Posted: 22 Dec 2011 02:59 AM PST

Priestly pr0n purveyance blocked by registry, won't be sold

The domain name vatican.xxx was not "registered by a mystery buyer" as has been widely reported this week.…

Tablet LCDs: seven-inchers outsell 9.7in panels

Posted: 22 Dec 2011 02:49 AM PST

Kindle Fire burning iPad? Or iPad 3 in motion?

Shipments of 7in LCD screens surpassed those of 9.7in panels in November, it has been claimed.…

Deep-fried planets discovery offers hope for Earth’s future

Posted: 22 Dec 2011 02:38 AM PST

Our world may actually survive flame-grilling by dying sun

Earth may survive longer than we expect - scientists have stumbled across two deep-fried planets orbiting the glowing embers of a dying star.…

Ofcom's Local TV dream: No smut, an hour of news, endless ads

Posted: 22 Dec 2011 02:22 AM PST

Still, sounds more thrilling than some of the proper channels

Ofcom is consulting on how to award Local TV licences, and has some suggestions about how the national broadcaster, and the channels, might make ends meet.…

Hasbro sues Asus over Transformer Prime moniker

Posted: 22 Dec 2011 02:04 AM PST

Tablet ambitions held at Bay?

Toy maker Hasbro is suing computer manufacturer Asus for daring - allegedly - to name an Android tablet after one of its biggest money spinners.…

Facebook scams now spread by dodgy browser plug-ins

Posted: 22 Dec 2011 02:01 AM PST

Cybercrooks deploy new weapon to pollute profiles

Con men have developed a new approach towards spreading scams on Facebook.…

Android Trojan spams tribute to Arab Spring martyr

Posted: 22 Dec 2011 01:41 AM PST

At least it doesn't completely pwn your phone

Hacktivists have released a manipulated version of a popular Android app to commemorate a Tunisian man whose suicide triggered anti-government protests in his country a year ago.…

EU to push through more roaming caps in 2012

Posted: 22 Dec 2011 01:22 AM PST

Competition ain't being competitive enough

Operators should brace themselves for more caps on European roaming, as the European parliament is planning more pricing restrictions when the current legislation expires.…

Gov unveils plans to make tax-funded research freely accessible

Posted: 22 Dec 2011 01:01 AM PST

Vast vats of info goodness

All publicly-funded research data should be made freely accessible to benefit business and society, the government has said.…

Dole office sticks ID services tender in EU journal, quickly pulls out

Posted: 22 Dec 2011 12:02 AM PST

We'll try again next year ...

The Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) has cancelled its tender for identity assurance services, claiming it had not followed the relevant procedures for the procurement.…

Motorola Pro+ Qwerty Android smartphone

Posted: 21 Dec 2011 11:00 PM PST

The best of both worlds?

Review  Motorola's been keeping its hand in with an interesting variety of Android handsets of late. The Pro+ is clearly designed for business rather than fun, which is fine, but next to the top-end, revitalised Motorola Razr, it's not in the same league.…

Internode falls to iiNet acquisition temptation

Posted: 21 Dec 2011 09:30 PM PST

Another one bites the dust

Popular Adelaide-headquartered national ISP Internode, a pioneer in Australia's ADSL2+ market and vocal critic of National Broadband Network price strategies, is to be acquired by number two broadband provider iiNet.…

AMD claims 'world's fastest GPU' title

Posted: 21 Dec 2011 09:01 PM PST

Radeon HD 7970 sports all-new 'Graphics Core Next' chip

AMD has unveiled its first graphics card based on its Graphics Core Next architecture, which The Reg told you about in excruciating detail this summer. According to AMD, the card – the Radeon HD 7970 – is also the only GPU to be built using a 28-nanometer process.…

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