TechEye |  |
- Researchers create BoffinNet
- German carmakers buy Nokia HERE
- Ernst Young flounders on accountant’s sea
- Women who stole cash from IS arrested
| Posted: 03 Aug 2015 12:53 AM PDT
A series of ultra-high-speed fiber-optic cables will link a cluster of West Coast university laboratories and supercomputer centres into a network called the Pacific Research Platform. The internet is being built as part of a five year $5 million dollar grant from the National Science Foundation. It will move data at speeds of 10 gigabits to 100 gigabits among 10 University of California campuses and 10 other universities and research institutions in several states, tens or hundreds of times faster than is typical now. Thomas A. DeFanti, a specialist in scientific visualisation at the California Institute for Telecommunications and Information Technology, or Calit2, at the University of California, San Diego said that there is a challenge in moving large amounts of scientific data is that the open Internet is designed for transferring small amounts of data. A conventional network connection might be rated at 10 gigabits per second, in practice scientists trying to transfer large amounts of data often find that the real rate is only a fraction of that capacity. Larry Smarr, an astrophysicist who is director of Calit2 and the principal investigator for the new project said that the new network will serve as a model for future computer networks in the same way the original NSFnet, created in 1985 to linked research institutions, eventually became part of the backbone for the internet. In addition to moving data between laboratories, the high-speed network will make new kinds of distributed computing for scientific applications possible. |
| German carmakers buy Nokia HERE Posted: 03 Aug 2015 12:52 AM PDT
Called HERE, the business is apparently worth $2.74 billion to the Germans who are desperate to create Lebensraum in the digital services for connected cars market. Daimler, BMW and Volkswagen's premium division Audi will each hold an equal stake in HERE and none of them seeks to acquire a majority interest, they said in a joint statement. The deal is expected to close in the first quarter of 2016. “For the automotive industry this is the basis for new assistance systems and ultimately fully autonomous driving,” the buyers said in a joint statement. The Finnish company is shedding the maps business to help it focus on integrating its 15.6 billion-euro purchase of Alcatel Lucent in a deal that will create the world’s second largest network equipment maker. Nokia built its mapping and location business on the back of an $8.1 billion acquisition in 2008 of Navteq, a maker of geographic information systems used in the automotive industry. It was Nokia’s largest deal ever, prior to the planned Alcatel-Lucent merger. HERE provides mapping and location intelligence for nearly 200 countries in more than 50 languages and is one of the main providers of mapping and location services. The company will continue to develop its position as a strong and independent provider of maps and location-based services Intelligent mapping systems are the basis on which self-driving cars linked to wireless networks can perform intelligent functions such as recalculating a route if data about a traffic jam or an accident is transmitted to the car. |
| Ernst Young flounders on accountant’s sea Posted: 03 Aug 2015 12:51 AM PDT
Toshiba managed to stuff up its accounts by more than $1.2 billion more or less under the eyes of its auditors Ernst & Young. Ernst & Young ShinNihon has established a team of about 20 executives to investigate whether there were any problems with how it conducted its audits of Toshiba. The news was first reported by the Nikkei newspaper but it does suggest that Ernst & Young are a little concerned that it may have done something a little bit wrong. After all while the executives would technically be justified trying to make their company look its best even when some of its divisions were losing money, it was up to accounts to stop them. An external panel of lawyers and accountants hired to probe Toshiba’s accounts found the company had inflated profits $1.23 billion over seven years by postponing the realisation of losses and other schemes. Ernst & Young ShinNihon's finest minds are also the subject of the Japan Institute of Certified Public Accountants, a self-regulatory body for the accounting industry. The Financial Services Agency, the country’s financial regulator, is expected to follow with its own probe in the coming months so Ernst & Young ShinNihon will have to come up with some pretty good answers. The in-house investigating team at Ernst & Young ShinNihon is made of audit check specialists, and there will be no cross-over with the roughly 150 people working to finish the post-scandal audit of Toshiba’s accounts, the person familiar with the matter said. The auditing firm will aim to finish its investigation by the end of August. |
| Women who stole cash from IS arrested Posted: 03 Aug 2015 12:50 AM PDT
Oddly you think they would be in trouble with the women-hating, decapitation friendly terrorists, but it seems that IS is protected by the same laws that they want to destroy. The three are now under investigation for internet fraud. The trio used a combination of the Nigerian Prince con, in which a mark is fooled into giving the con artist large sums of money and catfishing, in which the mark strikes up an online romance with someone he thinks is an attractive woman. IS is always on the lookout for gullible girls to become rape victims and baby factories to breed child soldiers for Allah. The three enterprising Chechen ladies feigned interest and even sent faked photos of themselves. ISIS duly sent travel money to an account that had been set up for that purpose. At that point the three Chechen closed the account and stole the cash. We would have thought that if you wanted to keep your head this was not the sort of fraud you would want to try at home. Scamming rich Americans is a much safer bet. What we are not sure about is who actually filed a complaint? Terrorists groups are not exactly legal themselves, so did the local chapter of IS pop to the local cop shop to file a complaint? We would have thought an IS terrorist going into a police station would be arrested on sight and his packed lunch exploded by robots. It does show how you can funnel some of that IS money away from the terrorist organisation. Maybe it is something that the US spooks should consider doing themselves. |
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