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Steorn: behind the scenes of free energy dreams

It's hard to say what's happened to Steorn, Irish inventors of Orbo, once claimed to be an over-unity generator that broke the laws of physics but now barely worthy of couple of fuzzy paragraphs on the web site.

You can, however, enjoy their latest device - a water heater called Heptaheat. It heats water up really quickly, and in useful quantities: let nobody claim all those millions of euros were wasted.... Read more

Software defined radio makes for a happy hack

"So, Rupert," said the company. "Twenty years on the job. Ask for anything and it shall be yours."

I thought for a moment. "A pony, a robotic kitten made out of gold and water-lilies, and a Flex-1500 Software Defined Radio, please."

There's apparently some health-and-safety issue with the pony, and the robo-kitten's still in beta after it burned a small village to the ground with tail-mounted lasers, but... Read more

The European internet's oddest places

Many countries consider internet access numbers to be a good measure of how up-to-date their citizens and industry are, with higher penetration rates signalling good things. Dig down into the figures, though, and you can find some peculiar numbers that may or may not say more about their geography than plain old economics .

Thanks to Internet World Stats, here are some figures from 2011 that cast a slightly... Read more

Happy Birthday, Sinclair QL - 28 years today

It was a time before the GUI, when computers were micros, when memory was measured in kilobytes and storage strategy meant choosing whether to buy a second five and a quarter inch floppy drive. It was eleven days before the launch of the Apple Macintosh. It was 12 January, 1984: the day of the Sinclair QL.

For those who weren't born then, the QL was the quintessence of Sinclair Research — home of the ZX... Read more

ZDNet's guide to beating New Year tech torpor

January. Not so much a month as 31 days of post-party comedown, where every pleasure is circumscribed by resolution and, let's be frank, those long, empty, fiscally-fraught acres of calendar between now and payday.

There is one self-indulgence that is neither immoral, illegal or fattening: reading. So here are three excellent ways to economically entertain and inform yourself, taking you away from these leaden... Read more

Rooting Android Part 3: A taste of despair, and of victory

ERR indeed.

The phone had gone to its own Valhalla. I restarted it: a yellow exclamation mark and the message "Firmware upgrade encountered an issue. Please select recovery mode in Kies & try again." was all it would show.

Now, Kies is the phone management software that Samsung suggests you use to keep your phone up to date, synced and with your media in order. I'd installed and run it earlier, to make sure... Read more

Rooting Android Part 2: Breaking the Norse code

Having decided to take control of my Samsung Galaxy S II by installing new system software, I needed to know two things: what and how. Start by asking Google about "rooting Samsung Galaxy S2" — it doesn't really matter what the topic is these days, the basic skill you need in making a good start is framing the right Google query. All those years understanding operating system theory, not so useful.

It was a... Read more

Rooting Android Part 1: Samsung Galaxy S II on the block

The festive break presents the technically inclined with challenge and opportunity. The challenge is that petty annoyances with wayward IT can seem much more significant during those long winter days where normal work is absent. The opportunity is to use that free time to do something about them. The combination can be seductive - and dangerous.

So it was with my new Samsung Galaxy S II phone, my first non-HTC... Read more

Cameron's conference Wi-Fi code calamity

OK, it's not much of a calamity. But when you want to be seen as leading a government intent on making the internet a safer place, heading up global cybersecurity and locking down the nation's digital jewels, it's a bit bad to be the agent of — oh, I don't know — encouraging attacks on VIP laptops.

So it's a bit of a shame that David Cameron has just appeared live on national TV from a conference in... Read more

ZDNet UK hits Exeter University - come along!

Jack Clark, the man who lives on data the way plants live on sunlight, and myself are at Exeter University today. We'll be talking to all sorts of people about all sorts of research during the day and at 5pm, we're chairing a round table with guests from IBM, Rackspace and others on the subject of what it's like to have a career in IT.

If you're around, drop by - there may be a little something for some lucky... Read more

Community highlights

BarryGill

Darth Vader brought his own device...

Blog Post A few weeks ago I wrote a blog piece called "Bring Your Own Delusion (BYOD)"....

16 May, 2012 by BarryGill
Jack Schofield

Mobile phone sales dip while smartphones boom

Blog Post Worldwide sales of mobile phones to end users fell by 2 percent to 419.1...

16 May, 2012 by Jack Schofield
First Take

HTC One V

Blog Post HTC's One range of handsets comprises three models. There's the flagship HTC...

16 May, 2012 by First Take
Simon Bisson and Mary Branscombe

Contribute, contract; endorse? Technology reputations

Blog Post Technology companies need to be careful about who and what they're seen to...

16 May, 2012 by Simon Bisson and Mary Branscombe

ZDNet UK Live

annonymous2

If Piratebay is a crime then so is borrowing a dvd you purchased to a family member or a friend. Why should we not be aloud to share. Most of the...

2 hours ago by annonymous2 on UK ISPs ordered to block Pirate Bay website
NanWag

File Services For Macintosh was causing Excel to prompt for Overwriting changes or Save Another Copy because it was changing the timestamp on the...

2 hours ago by NanWag on Windows Server 2008 drops the ball for Mac compatibility
Regis Machado

creative cloud $48/month in the USA, £48/month in the UK ($79). good for the competitors

4 hours ago by Regis Machado via Facebook on Adobe move promotes piracy
Tom Espiner

Hello KosGirl, Good question. I've asked Belfius for a response. The latest post I can find on Pastebin about it is here:...

4 hours ago by Tom Espiner on Hackers hold bank to ransom over stolen data
KosGirl

Have there been any further updates to this story? I can't find any information on whether the hackers released the data or not.

5 hours ago by KosGirl on Hackers hold bank to ransom over stolen data
SandJ

I have done 7 speed tests this morning on different speed test tools. They tell me my download speed is: 12.3, 12.3, 12.3, 11.1, 12.7, 12.7, 11.7...

6 hours ago by SandJ on Watchdog: TalkTalk's broadband speed test misled users
Jack Schofield

@Mary Microsoft could always send Mozilla a spec sheet and oblige them to meet the same standards as IE. Then Mozilla can spend millions of...

9 hours ago by Jack Schofield on Windows RT browsers and the point of Windows RT
goth1csnake3

Not before time, that people making films,dvd's get whats coming to them. Well done, Virgin Media.

11 hours ago by goth1csnake3 on Virgin Media: Spotify deal will bring down piracy
Simon Bisson and Mary Branscombe

Apex - the question then is what about letting the user choose to have a tablet where they don't have to have that responsibility? why can't the...

21 hours ago by Simon Bisson and Mary Branscombe on Windows RT browsers and the point of Windows RT
Simon Bisson and Mary Branscombe

Moley, Apex, thanks; I think there's an interesting other dimension of choice - the choice to have a platform that is 'locked down' in the sense...

21 hours ago by Simon Bisson and Mary Branscombe on Mozilla accuses Microsoft of shutting Firefox out of WOA
Yellowcave

Not surprised. I once used the methods to let my firewall just notify me of breaches. Not one single logged event was genuine. Once, we all...

1 day ago by Yellowcave on Mobile porn filters catch innocent content, says report
duplex

live realy sucks in facebook becuase people hack your profile

1 day ago by duplex on Irish watchdog: Facebook privacy still falls short
Ed Macnair

If only it was that simple. When you start accessing Cloud applications you are stuck with the security model the vendor provides...........unless...

1 day ago by Ed Macnair via Facebook on IT security? You're doing it wrong!
Phil at Cloud4

Another good updaet, I have enjoyed going on the journey reading this series on SharePoint 2010 and have learned alot. Great writing.

1 day ago by Phil at Cloud4 on Designing a SharePoint farm: Tiers before bedtime
muteen

roumers of an ipad Mini, isnt that just an iTouch!?

1 day ago by muteen on Apple rebrands iPad 4G as 'Wi-Fi + Cellular' for UK
apexwm

Thanks for this article and bringing this issue to light. Unfortunately this type of activity is common not only with Adobe, but many other...

1 day ago by apexwm on Adobe move promotes piracy
Andy Bolstridge

there's a very thin line between tax avoidance and tax efficiency - earning £850 a month and claiming dividends to bring my income up to normal...

1 day ago by Andy Bolstridge via Facebook on The Idle Self-employed
Andy Bolstridge

I see that they are happy to announce these numbers.. but no-one will take any notice until they start announcing sales numbers too.

1 day ago by Andy Bolstridge via Facebook on Microsoft's score card for Smoked by Windows Phone
AndyPagin

I saw a Windows phone about a year ago, haven't seen once since, and quite a few people own phones in the City of London.

1 day ago by AndyPagin on Microsoft's score card for Smoked by Windows Phone
helice041

Well said. You can add the change differences between US $ and Euro for the adobe cloud subscription and the very clouded informations about when...

2 days ago by helice041 on Adobe move promotes piracy