GLENN’S SHOWNOTES

 

Switching on first Wi-Fi hotspots in iconic locations this November

 

Australia’s largest Wi-Fi network is a step closer with the first 1000 hotspots going live before Christmas.

In May, we unveiled a $100 million strategy to create one of the world’s largest Wi-Fi networks over five years.

Today we are letting all of Australia know that from November they will be able to trial free Wi-Fi at some of Australia’s busiest and most iconic locations as part of our plan to roll out more than 2 million Wi-Fi hotspots across the nation.

The first Wi-Fi trials will be located at payphone sites in the heart of local communities and in areas people want to connect. Beyond the trial, our Telstra-built hotspots will be located at a variety of sites that best reach communities including Telstra retail outlets, exchange buildings and payphone sites.

The roll out is part of our vision to provide Australians with access to Wi-Fi in the places they choose to spend their leisure time.

We already have the contracts to bring public Wi-Fi to six stadiums around Australia including the Adelaide Oval, the Sydney Cricket Ground, and Etihad stadium in Melbourne, which will give Australians another way to access Wi-Fi when they are watching the cricket or at a concert over the summer.

Access to Wi-Fi will be free in the trial sites until the network officially launches early next year.

At launch, Australians will be able to access Telstra Wi-Fi in a number of ways:

• Telstra home broadband customers with a compatible gateway who join the Wi-Fi community can use their home broadband allowance via domestic hotspots and connect to more than 13 million Fon-enabled hotspots globally.

• Non Telstra customers and Telstra customers who have not joined the Wi-Fi community will be able to connect to Fon-enabled Telstra Wi-Fi hotspots for a small charge using guest passes.

Some of the 1,000 sites chosen for the trial will provide coverage in:

• Bourke Street Mall, Melbourne

• Bondi Beach, Sydney

• Rundle Mall, Adelaide

• Queen Street Mall, Brisbane

• Elizabeth Street, Hobart

• Civic Centre, Canberra

• Hay Street Mall, Perth CBD

• Smith Street Mall, Darwin

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Join us as we build Windows 10

Join the Windows Insider Program so you can be part of every key moment along the way as we createWindows 10. You’ll get Windows 10 Technical Preview, all the builds as soon as they’re available, and an easy-to-use feedback app.

 

http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/preview

 

Start menu with app icons

resizeable apps windows on desktop

multiple desktops – work and play etc

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Acer launches new convertible notebook

The latest model in the Aspire Switch 10 series, the SW5-012 is a 10.1-inch notebook that converts to a tablet with a detachable keyboard.

The device is powered by an Intel quad-core processor, 2GB RAM and a 1080p full-HD display. It also includes a 2MP full-HD webcam.

The SW5-012 comes with Windows 8.1 and one year of Office 365 Personal.

The convertible will be available with 32GB or 64GB storage including the 500GB keyboard. The 32GB model is available now and starts at $599. The 64GB model will be available at the end of October.

 

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Bash bug could be ‘worse than Heartbleed’

Linux and UNIX system administrators are today rushing to patch a new remotely exploitable vulnerability on command interpreters which security experts are warning could be larger than the severe Heartbleed OpenSSL flaw.

 

The CVE-2014-6271 flaw in the Bash shell – one of the most widely used Linux command-line shells –  puts Apache webservers at risk of being compromised if their common gateway interface (CGI) scripts invoke Bash.

 

The flaw, dubbed ‘Shellshock’, has already been compared to the Heartbleed bug by a number of security researchers in terms of its ability to affect a wide number of users.

Errata Security’s Robert Graham said “Unlike Heartbleed, which only affected a specific version of OpenSSL, this Bash bug has been around for a long, long time. That means there are lots of old devices on the network vulnerable to this bug. The number of systems needing to be patched, but which won’t be, is much larger than Heartbleed,”

 

Shellshock is rated as 10 out of 10 or the highest possible severity rating by the United States National Vulnerability Database. Furthermore, NVD rated Shellshock as a 10 on the scale when it comes to both impact and exploitability.

 

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Apple iOS 8 reset bug deletes iCloud Drive files

 

Apple’s iCloud service dropped out for several hours this morning as the company dealt with claims that its “reset all settings” option in iOS 8 deletes iCloud Drive documents.

 

All iCloud services – which include mail, drive, web apps, contacts, calendar and back-up, among others – went offline for “some users” at around 8am Australian EST, according to the company’s service status page, and appeared to be restored at around 10am.

 

Apple was also this week forced to release an urgent update to iOS 8 and apologise to users after a patch to the mobile operating system killed calls and the TouchID authentication service, while also dealing with negative publicity around the ‘bendability’ of its new iPhone 6 Plus.