• Day of smart grid nears

    Major blackouts may be a thing of the past: the world’s first high-voltage Li-ion system can connect to the grid, without a transformer, and immediately turn on if there is a disruption in power

  • Briefly noted

    The principles which should guide Obama’s $700 billion infrastructure plan… Cisco becomes infrastructure player on Obama tech focus… EU piracy mission chief calls for more surveillance equipment

  • U.K. government grants itself even more data sharing power

    A U.K. government proposal debated in Parliament this week would increase the ability of different government arms to share data

  • Here they go again: China demands access to Western computer security

    Another crisis in U.S.-China trade relations looms, as China, again, is about to introduce rules which would allow Chinese companies to steal Western industrial secrets, and would allow the Chinese government more tightly to monitor what the Chinese people say and read

  • Making older buildings safer during earthquakes

    Buildings being built now in earthquake-prone regions are designed better to withstand tremors; trouble is, for a long while yet, most of the buildings in which people live and work were built before new earthquake-related design concepts and new materials were available; UC San Diego researchers look for ways to make these buildings safer

  • DSL routers vulnerable to malware attacks

    New reports says DSL modems are susceptible to attacks more typically associated with Web sites: Hackers can insert malware onto the victim’s computer or recruit the computer as a bot for a botnet

  • FBI: Growing copper theft threatens U.S. critical infrastructure

    The FBI says that, individually, isolated instances of copper theft cause big enough headaches of their own, but taken together, they present a significant problem for the United States — a threat to public safety and to U.S. critical infrastructure

  • Day of 4G technology -- mobile WiMax -- nears

    Clearwire and Sprint Nextel completes transaction to combine their next-generation wireless Internet businesses; companies announce $3.2 billion investment to launch 4G mobile Internet company

  • European states to coordinate anti-cybercrime effort

    The 27 member states of the EU are worried about the effects of cyber crimes on the European economy; new blueprint for fighting cybercrime calls for better cooperation among national law enforcement units

  • Russian hackers attacked U.S. Central Command's networks

    Russian hackers have been the prime suspects in sustained attacks on government networks and Web sites in Estonia and Georgia; now evidence emerges to implicate Russian hackers in sustained attacks on the computer system of the U.S. Central Command, which oversees the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan

  • Making cloud computing safer

    As the cost and other benefits of cloud computing become apparent, more and more companies move parts of their infrastructure out of their data centers; there is a need, though, to think long and hard about disaster-proofing the cloud

  • Briefly noted

    IT to get more attention in approval process for political appointees… More U.S. hospitals turn to palm biometircs for patient identification

  • New CFIUS regulations

    CFIUS issues final regulations governing national security reviews of foreign investment in the United States

  • Queen's University nets £25 million funds for cybersecurity research

    Belfast’s Queen University receives funding to open the new Center for Secure Information Technologies (CSIT) which will do research in areas including data encryption, network security, wireless security, and “intelligent surveillance technology”

  • Panel calls on Obama to appoint a cybersecurity czar

    CSIS panel urges the incoming president to elevate handling of cyber security issues to the White House and not leave them with DHS, which is the current leader on these issues