News

• IBM and EU establish cloud-computing consortium

  IBM on Wednesday said it was establishing a consortium with the European Union and universities to research new cloud-computing models to reduce the cost of hosting and maintaining Internet-based services.

• Euro operators push cheap Android-based smartphones

  Mobile operator Orange is joining a growing list of European mobile operators offering cheap Android-based smartphones, in a bid to get more prepaid subscribers on data plans.

• Bull bills Tera 100 as Europe's first petaflop computer

  French server and services company Bull has just turned on a new supercomputer for the French Atomic Energy Authority (CEA) that it hopes will reach a peak performance of 1.25 petaflops later this year.

• WCIT: Kroes positions Digital Agenda as crucial to recovery

  With Europe's debt crisis top-of-mind for many delegates to the World Congress on Information Technology opening in Amsterdam Tuesday, European Commission Vice President Neelie Kroes painted the EC's Digital Agenda five-year plan as key to an economic recovery and the region's long-term fiscal health.

• Appeals body ducks question of software patentability

  No change: That's the result of an 18-monthlong appeals process that the president of the European Patent Office hoped would clarify the rules on whether software may be patented.

• Amazon's virtual private cloud service comes to Europe

  Amazon Web Services has launched VPC (Virtual Private Cloud) in Europe, the company said on Tuesday. The service lets companies connect their existing data centers to isolated computing resources in Amazon's European cloud using an encrypted VPN (virtual private network) connection.

• Australia to join European Cybercrime Convention

  The Federal Government has announced its intention to sign the Council of Europe Convention on Cybercrime.

• Server virtualization bounces back in Europe, says IDC

  Sales of server hardware and software for virtualization in the fourth quarter of 2009 increased for the first time in a year in Europe, the Middle East and Africa, according to an IDC report issued Monday.

• Council of Europe pushes for only one cybercrime treaty

  A European intergovernmental body that oversees the only international cybercrime treaty is advocating that the U.N. supports its efforts to get wider ratification of the treaty.

• TechnologyOne enters Scottish market

  TechnologyOne (ASX: TNE) has flexed its muscles in the European market, switching on its financial and procurement software in Scotland.

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  MOKO.mobi signs second major EU carrier deal

  ASX-listed mobile device communications platform provider, MOKO.mobi (ASX: MKB) has continued its push into Europe, sealing a deal with Spanish telecommunications carrier, Yoigo.

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  European ISPs lash out at secret ACTA negotiations

  Secretive international trade negotiations intended to clamp down on counterfeiting risk undermining the openness and innovation-friendly nature of the Internet, said EuroISPA, a trade group representing Europe's Internet service providers (ISPs), on Monday.

• Europe extends antiterrorist data-sharing deal with US

  Europe's Council of Ministers extended a controversial program on Monday that hands over information on international financial transactions to the U.S. for antiterrorism purposes.

• Europe moving slow on IPv6 deployment

  Few organizations across Europe have upgraded to IPv6, the new version of the Internet's addressing protocol, according to a survey commissioned by the European Commission.

• EU says Europe must scan books as does Google

  The European Commission issued a call to arms to European lawmakers and those involved in the process of digitizing books Monday, urging the European Union to create a "pro-competitive European" answer to the legal arrangement Google and others seek to implement in the US