With enough medals on his chest to open up a musume, General Sir Richard Dannatt declared at an enqiury into the Iraq conflict that the deployment of troops between Afganistan and Iraq has stretched the British Army to breaking points.

The general had written to the Defense Minister, Des Browne to object to plans to deploy a task force to Helmand provice over his fears that morale in the Army was at an all time low and that it could lead to a resignation of personnel from the force.

He also points to a lack of helicopters to support operations on a multi-front war. Seems like once again it is a time to withdraw from operations of war and return to a neutral state. When we cannot afford to expand the army and cannot put the resources in place that they need to sufficiently carry out the opperations commited to, it leaves withdraw as the only practical option.

References
The Press Association

Akamai has released its first quarter state of the internet report. The results are not encouraging for the UK. We have once again, came in extremely slow.With the South Koreans comming in at the top, our speeds are quite truely diabolical. Ofcom recently reported the average speed to be around 5Mbps , in the study by Akamai they rate our average speed as 3.8Mbps.

Given that their figures are from a much larger data sample I think it is safe to assume their figures are much more trustworthy than Ofcom.

To ensure that the UK stays in the dark ages, the goverment has dropped its plans to tax phone lines to fund high speed broadband roll out to the rural areas. Whilst dropping the plans for the tax is indeed a good idea, the plan to drop the plan is not such a good idea. The goverment needs to come up with other means of funding to support rolling out high speed internet. The plans by the Coelition to use the BBC License fee to fund the roll out would bring at last a benefit to the exhtortionet tax.

The report also shows that hostile activity on the internet predominately is still targeting Microsoft services: 74% hit the Microsoft -DS (Port 445) service.

References
TechWatch
The Inquirer
The Inquirer
BBC News

I was recently observing that Fiber to the Home trials are under way – its a good step albeit many years late. Today Intel have decided to show off their new toy for the networking sector.

Silicon Optical Fiber its a system that uses the advantages of silicon production: cost and speed of production most notably with the speed and power of fiber.

This prototype network can run at 50Gbps and they have successfully been using it at 40Gbps with theoretical speeds of 1Tbps achievable.

Previously in optical networks, dedicated components were needed for the detection and initiation of the optical signal.

“Because silicon is translucent at infrared wavelengths, portions of a chip can be used to create waveguides, mirrors, prisms and other optical components, with Intel’s design of indium phosphide/silicon laser producing light that can be tuned by setting up different patterns of gratings on-chip.”

Intel Explains

The new technology is integrated at the silicon level which upon reaching mass production should prove to bring extremely fast networking down to very low costs. Likely this technology will become mainstream for wired networks in the near future. Future expansion could see this technology kick start moores law which has been seen to be failing lately, integrating high speed communications far in excess of current silicon is capable of at processor and circuit board levels.

Intel do have other Optical Based research projects on going this may be the first of many significant advancements in optical computer networks.

References
ZDNetUK
Intel

In this day and age one wonders where the major learned to count. In his latest plot, londoners will have the right to rent a bike for slightly more than renting a VW Polo. Prices based on a 24 hour period.

At least the idea behind it is just. The price structure is intended for short term use to encourage people to use the bike rental scheme: 30 minutes free for all journies so with good timing it is possible to ride all day with no charge.

Down side is when the costs do start mounting up, it’ll quickly become cheaper to buy your own bike, or perhaps thats what they are trying todo.

This is not the first time a public bike system has been implemented in the UK, usually however given the culture of crime in the UK, the majority of the bikes were stolen and the trial was abandoned.

References
The Sunday Times
London Evening Standard

BT’s network is a copper one for the most part although they are trialing upgraded areas with Fiber.  However the modern burglar has been watching the prices of metal apparently. According to British Transport Police, theft of cable has dramatically increased.

The damage caused by thiefs going after raw copper cable is in the millions Railway authorities estimate damage costs for the cable is worth £5 Million in 2009. The electrical sector estimate damages in the region of £4 Million.

With BT having their network effected too, they have taken actions to attempt to prevent future losses. They are utilising a marking technology, a liquid that coats the cable and under UV inspection remains visible. It also marks anyone interfering with the equipment. Therefore, can link a thief to the copper stolen which would allow a conviction. Like the railway sector whom have also introduced a tagging system called CabelTag by Tag Gaurd to prevent their losses.

Its called SmartWater, and is invisible to the naked eye. BT Said in April they started taking cable theft seriously, after the theft of 3KM worth of copper, leaving 1,400 customers of BT without service.

References
CisionWire
WebUser