Europe's broadband speeds accelerate

Broadband speeds in Europe have risen sharply in only a year, suggest official European Commission figures, according to the BBC.

In July 2010, 29% of broadband lines in Europe ran at speeds of at least 10Mbps, revealed commission research.

By contrast, in July 2009, only 15% of broadband lines were capable of hitting that speed. Despite the higher rates, the commission warned that a lot of work needs to be done to meet Europe-wide targets on access and speed.

Top boffins working at a Nasa spin-off company are thrilled to reveal their plasma drive technology - potentially capable of revolutionising space travel beyond the Earth's atmosphere - has checked out A-OK in ground tests, reports The Register.

According to the Ad Astra Rocket Company, which is building the Variable Specific Impulse Magnetoplasma Rocket, the firm's VX-200 prototype engine has just completed its latest round of trials with flying colours.

“Many of the flight applications at the heart of our business model - orbital debris removal, satellite servicing, cargo flights to the Moon and Mars, and ejecting fast probes to the outer solar system - have required that the propulsion system achieve 60% system efficiency," explains Ad Astra's Dr Tim Glover.

Google is working to issue a fix for a zero-day flaw, which could allow hackers to steal data from an Android user's SD card, states Computing.

Security researcher Thomas Cannon discovered the Android data-stealing vulnerability and reported it to Google last week, before posting details on his blog.

The flaw works only if a user visits a specially crafted malicious site, and the hacker will need to know the name and path of the file they want to steal. However, many apps store data with consistent names on the SD card, Cannon explained.

The high profiles of industry CEOs such as Apple's Steve Jobs and Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg have made IT a more desirable career path, according to new research, says Computing.

A survey conducted among 5 500 IT professionals by IT recruitment Web site CWJobs found almost half (46%) feel IT is a more sought-after industry to work in today than it was five years ago.

According to the research, the key factors that have changed the perception of IT are technologies such as the iPad and Facebook, and the widespread media coverage of industry characters such as Jobs and Zuckerberg.