New link to Singapore to drive speeds to Asia and Europe
ASSC-1 Communications Group Pty Ltd (ASSC-1), a private Australian submarine cable developer, on Friday announced the development of a new Perth to Singapore submarine cable system. ASSC-1 will deliver a four-fibre pair cable system which will span a distance of 4,600 kilometres with an initial design capacity of 6.4 terabits per second (TBps), to be delivered through 40 gigabits per second (GBps) technology, with the capability to be upgraded to 100 GBps. James Chen, Chief Executive Officer for ASSC-1 said that ASSC-1 is a low latency system which will provide the fastest transfer speeds between Australia, Asia and Europe. “ASSC-1 will dramatically increase the capacity for internet and data traffic between Australia, particularly the west coast, Asia and Europe, and we expect it to take up excess demand from the only existing cable on this route, which is the ageing SEAMEWE3 system. In addition we expect to provide increased diversity for traffic from Asia to the US via Australia,” he said. Telstra, the first international carrier to commit to the new cable, has agreed to purchase one of the 4 fibre pairs from ASSC-1’s fibre optic submarine cable and will also provide landing party services in Perth. Huawei Marine Networks, a joint venture combining the telecommunications systems expertise of Huawei Technologies and the marine segment experience of Global Marine Systems, will supply and install the ASSC-1 system.
Cost of patents set to drop
The costs of protecting Australian inventions and innovations may decrease dramatically following an agreement between US patent services market leader, inovia, and Australian technology specialists, Interface Innovation. The filing of patents overseas is one of the most expensive parts of the patenting process. inovia.com, the largest filer of PCT patents in the United States and the world’s third largest, says it aims to improve the pathway and reduce costs for patent filing for Australian companies. inovia’s on-line patent filing technology will allow Australian innovators, inventors and entrepreneurs to file patents overseas at around half the cost that is currently charged by Australian patent attorney firms. “Many Australian patent attorneys charge between $25,000 and $150,000 to file patents overseas – depending on the number of countries chosen,” said Dr Kiki Tanousis, a director of Interface Innovation. “Australian innovators are paying between 40 and 60 per cent more for their patents than their American and European competitors. This places Australia in a very anti-competitive position globally,” he said.
Google to overtake Yahoo in display advertising in 2012
London: specialist search and social marketing agency, Greenlight, expects search giant Google to overtake Yahoo and become king of display advertising by the end of the year. Greenlight also predicts 2012 will be will be the year of social link building and that social media sites will take on a multi-faceted identity. 2011 was a busy year for the Search Industry with Google acquiring Invite Media and Teracent. In early December, Google officially launched its DoubleClick Search V3 platform – DS3 – a bid management programme which combines Yahoo and MSN into an AdWords type interface. Google is making significant investment in the DoubleClick platform, specifically DoubleClick for Advertisers (DFA) and the Exchange. “Google’s noteworthy acquisitions and investments in 2011 combined with the AdWords suggest that by the end of 2012, not only will 90 per cent of advertisers’ Search budgets be in AdWords, but also that this trend is set for display,” says Hannah Kimuyu, Paid Media Director, Greenlight.
Vic government says NBN may fall short in the bush
The Victorian Coalition Government’s submission to the Commonwealth Government’s regional telecommunications review has called for a national strategy to fix what is says are significant gaps in access to broadband and mobile telecommunications in Victoria’s regional and rural areas. Vic Minister for Technology Gordon Rich-Phillips said: “The Victorian Government has concerns the NBN alone does not address all telecommunications services that are critical for regional and rural Victoria, and our submission emphasises the importance of fixing mobile network coverage and quality – something that the NBN policy does not cover. The Victorian Government has concerns the NBN alone does not address all telecommunications services that are critical for regional and rural Victoria, and our submission emphasises the importance of fixing mobile network coverage and quality – something that the NBN policy does not cover.” The Vic government has also called on the Federal government to:
- develop a high quality broadband rollout strategy;
- improve mobile phone coverage; and
- supports development of the digital economy in rural and regional areas to drive productivity and social improvements.
Financial malware threat rising
Increasingly sophisticated financial malware such as the Carberp Trojan is becoming more and more difficult to detect and eliminate, warns researchers at Context Information Security. Designed to steal log-in and account information and harvest credentials for email and social-networking sites, Carberp, like its more well know predecessors Zeus and Spyeye, infects machines through malicious files such as PDFs and Excel documents or drive-by downloads. Michael Jordon, research and development manager at Context, said, “The advanced infection capabilities of Trojans such as Carberp require detailed knowledge of how they operate to detect and analysis attacks. While there is a large body of knowledge around Zeus and Spyeye, the information security industry is still building up detailed picture of newer Trojans such as Carberp. Context say their researchers are at the forefront of this work and have published a series of blogs to detail the workings of new generation financial malware and provide advice how it is possible to detect infection and mitigate the threats. For more information visit: http://www.contextis.com/research/blog/malware2/
