Apple to Build Solar Farm to Power Huge New Data Center

Environmentalists aren't complaining about Apple's policy of using solar energy to power its data centers, but it would be an oversimplification to attribute it to responsiveness to the likes of Greenpeace. "Data centers pull a ton of power," said tech analyst Rob Enderle. "Building a solar farm makes a lot of financial sense on top of its being green.

 

Apple, which has a mixed history on environmental issues, will build a solar farm to power its data center in Washoe County, Nev.

"SunPower is working with Apple to design and build this project," Ingrid Ekstrom, spokesperson for SunPower, told TechNewsWorld. "We will be building a SunPower C7 Tracker system at the site." 

The farm will reportedly generate 20 MW of electricity, some of which will be sold to Sierra Pacific Power Co., a utility operating in Nevada doing business as NV Energy. 

What's Happening in Washoe County

Apple is building a large data center in the Reno Technology Park, about 15 minutes east of the city of Reno. An initial building occupying about 20,000 square feet was reportedly completed in March.

That building is on an Apple-owned lot of about 345 acres. When completed, the Reno facility will reportedly be Apple's fourth-largest data center in the United States.

Apple approached Sierra, aka NV Energy, in 2012 and leased from it 137 acres of land for 20 years for the purpose of building the data center, according to Bobby Hollis, NV Energy's executive of renewable energy.

The two companies have entered various agreements, including ground and a solar-array leases and a renewable energy agreement, Hollis said. Apple will pay for the installation and construction of the solar array. 

About the C7 Tracker

SunPower's C7 Tracker solar concentrators, which will be used in the solar farm, consist of a horizontal single-axis tracker with rows of parabolic mirrors reflecting light onto solar cells.

The C7 Tracker concentrates the sun's energy 7 times, Ekstrom said.

The C7 Tracker technology was first commercially deployed at Arizona State University's Polytechnic campus in Mesa, Ariz., in April.

Why Apple's Playing Nice 

Apple isn't the only company to look toward clean power; eBay is expanding its flagship data center in Utah and will use renewable energy to power that addition. This will be the company's fifth and largest renewable energy installation. Google also supports renewable energy sources, through Google Green.

These moves followed reports in 2008 that data centers would face a power shortage by 2011, leading companies to redesign their data centers, vendors to unveil more power-efficient servers, and power utilities to offer rebates for reduced power consumption or better-designed data centers.

"Data centers pull a ton of power," Rob Enderle, principal analyst at the Enderle Group, told TechNewsWorld. "Building a solar farm makes a lot of financial sense on top of its being green. You'll see a lot of companies doing this."

 

 

IT Spending To Hit $3.7 Trillion

The IT services industry is on track to spend globally $3.7 trillion in 2013.  Gartner, the analyst house publishing these numbers, projects spend for 2014 to rise to $3.9 trillion, up 4.1%.
From devices through to data center investments and the services that run on them are the sources of this revenue.  But that represents shrinking growth of only 2% on last year, as more expensive items like on-premise software and PCs continue to get forced out by less expensive, newer technology like lower-cost tablets and cloud service computing. It is important to note that these figures do not include the vast amounts of money that we as consumers spend online, via e-commerce and in apps etc; nor does it include services like advertising, which is often used to “pay” for content indirectly. “This may change in the future but at the moment it’s excluded,” Richard Gordon, managing vice president at Gartner has said.

Be that as it may, these figures, which do include global numbers on IT devices, provide a gauge for how and where the wider Information Technology world is growing.  The $3.7 trillion in IT spend in 2013 represents a downward revision from where Gartner thought we would be today: compare to last quarter, when Gartner noted growth of 4.1% for this year; that is now more than halved and one of the main reasons for this is because of currency fluctuations. In constant currency, growth would still be down compared to 2012, but less so, to 3.5%.  One of the bigger categories contributing to the lower forecasts comes from declines in IT devices, which Gartner has revised down to growing only 2.8% this year, or $695 billion, this is in comparison to a previous projection of 7.9%.  This is directly linked to trends in what people are buying today for their computing needs: the  time is up for bigger and more expensive PCs; and it’s the smaller, and often less expensive, tablet and smartphone time to shine.
Gartner noted that although PCs are still the second-largest category of IT devices, the shipments of these are decreasing rapidly, while shipments for mobile phones and tablets continue to climb. In all, there will be 2.4 billion devices shipped in 2013 , an increase of 6% on last year, Gartner said.  Analysts spell that out in revenue numbers that tablet revenue will grow by a mammoth 38.9% and mobile devices by 9.3%; but in PCs, “while new devices are set to hit the market in the second half of 2013, they will fail to compensate for the underlying weakness of the traditional PC market,” Gartner notes.  The biggest category of all has been and continues to be telecoms services, which includes things like broadband, telephone services and your mobile bills. These will rise to $1.7 trillion in 2013 — growth of only 0.9%, but at least reversing the declines of -0.7%in 2012.  Enterprise software remains one of the smaller categories but growing the strongest: $304 billion will be spent on enterprise this year, a rise of 6.4%. IT services and data centers will each grow only around 2%.
 

PayPal Set To Enter Space

It would seem that the world is just not big enough for PayPal as they aim towards handling financial transactions for astronauts, space travelers and tourists.

 Commercial space travel is getting closer to becoming an everyday reality and PayPal want to prove that they are ready for such progress. On Thursday they announced the launch of PayPal Galactic, which is  designed to address the upcoming need for universal payments from space.

Along with experts from the scientific community, including SETI Institute and Space Tourism Society, PayPal worked on the new initiative that will be able to handle financial transactions for those travelling in space.
Buzz Aldrin, an astronaut and author who took part in the announcement said “Trips to Mars, the moon, even orbit will require we provide astronauts and astro-tourists with as many comforts from home as possible, including how to pay each other. Whether it’s paying a bill, even helping a family member on Earth, we’ll need access to money.”

“I think humans will reach Mars, and I would like to see it happen in my lifetime,” Aldrin added. “When that happens, I won’t be surprised if people use PayPal Galactic for the little things and the big ones.”
Although a brilliant and forward-thinking plan, there are some things to consider about the PayPal Galactic initiative. For example, how will our current banking system have to adapt? Risk and fraud management is an on-going discussion on earth, so how will it fare in space?
Of course space travel is still a way off, so there is still time to address any issues and develop protocols for the necessary currency and transactions.

Good Timing

The first commercial trip to space is set to take tourists in December and according to PayPal president David Marcus, there are plans for constructing a space hotel in three years. So they obviously feel getting ahead of the game will be worthwhile.

However Jeff Foust a senior analyst at Futron commented by saying “It’s at least a little bit ahead of its time, and maybe a lot ahead of its time. At some point down the road, and maybe in terms of decades, we have to start thinking about payment and currency infrastructure.”
“If you’re going to be on a suborbital flight, you’re only going to be in flight for a few minutes,” Foust said. “You’re not going to buy something on eBay. At some point far down the road, we need to take action on these things.”
Still with private projects planned to take volunteers into space, many of them will no doubt be in need of PayPal Galactic and PayPal will be glad they were ahead of time.

Sony Release The Xperia Z Ultra

 Sony has announced the release of the Xperia Z Ultra, a waterproof Android smartphone with a 6.4-inch screen. They claim it is the slimmest large-screen handset on the market.
 
The company say they intend for this device to challenge Samsung’s dominance in the jumbo-sized handset sector.

The Ultra follows the previous Sony Xperia Z, which was unveiled in January. It will go on sale in China, Indonesia and Singapore in July and reach Europe in September.

Calum MacDougall, Xperia’s director has said that “Southeast Asia is the key market for the product because the trend towards large-screened smartphone devices is stronger there, but we also see the trend in Europe as well.”

“In the large-screen segment at the moment most consumers are looking at the Galaxy Note. Now we can offer something that is really distinct: a stronger screen, greater portability, waterproofing and something different around the stylus and the pen.”
 
The Xperia Z Ultra can accept sketches or notes written not just from the optional stylus, but also from a standard pencil or metal-tipped pen.

It is only 6.5mm thick, making it it only slightly deeper than the Huawei’s Ascend P6, the thinnest device on the market.
Sony have done away with the flap over the headphone socket, which featured on the original Xperia Z, after there were complaints that it was fiddly to use.


The handset can be submerged in freshwater for up to half an hour at a depth of 1.5m, that’s deeper than its predecesor.
Some other features that the Xperia Z Ultra offer are:

•     A 1080p resolution screen with in-built software to upgrade lower definition videos and photos
•     16 gigabytes of internal storage with support for 64GB microSD card
•     An 8 megapixel rear camera
•     A battery offering up to 11 hours talk time or 120 hours of audio playback – a figure which Sony claims is a record
  

Sony is not the only company trying to undermine Samsung’s lead in this market; Huawei, ZTE, Acer, Asus and Lenovo have all released devices, trying to compete for popularity. But with Samsung releasing their own Galaxy S4 and Galaxy Mega, have they already missed the boat?

World’s First 5GHz CPU From AMD

AMD has announced the release of the first 5GHz CPU; they’ve called it the FX-9590.
In a statement accompanying the announcement at E3 2013 in Los Angeles, Bernd Lienhard (corporate vice president and general manager, Client Products Division at AMD) said “The new FX 5GHz processor is an emphatic performance statement to the most demanding gamers seeking ultra-high resolution experiences including AMD Eyefinity technology”.

As well as the 5GHz FX-9590, AMD also announced the release of the FX-9370, although this is clocked at a slower speed of 4.7GHz. Both of these new CPUs are part of the FX-Series.
The FX-950 and the FX-9370 have eight processors cores based on the “Piledriver” architecture and because they are from the “Black edition, they are unlocked and therefore overclockable. They also feature AMD’s Turbo Core 3.0 technology, so performance is optimized to cope with the most intensive of workloads.

When it comes to processors, AMD has been consistently at the forefront of cutting edge technology. The fact that their products have made their way into big name devices like PlayStation and Xbox One is testament to this. AMD has also announced plans to support Android and Chrome OS as well as Windows, and Apple too have revealed that AMD will be supplying FirePro for the new Mac Pro.

Although there has been no word on pricing yet, expect the FX-9590 and FX-9370 this summer.

China Unveils World’s Fastest Supercomputer

China has scored a win in the race to achieve mega computing power, by unveiling a new system that is twice as faster than anything else available right now.

Tianhe-2  was unveiled at the end of last month by the Chinese National University of Defense Technology. At an operating speed of 30.7 petaflops or quadrillion operations per second, it is definitely the world’s fastest supercomputer right now.

Also known as Milkyway-2, the supercomputer is more than likely to top the biannual Top 500 supercomputer list out this month. The first place in the ranking is currently held by U.S. system Titan, at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory. For comparison, Titan, owned by the U.S. Department of Energy, operates at just 17.6 petaflops per second.

 China already topped the supercomputer ranking in 2010, but was beaten by Germany in 2011 and then the United States last year. A senior Oak Ridge National Laboratory researcher and Tennessee University professor, Jack Dongarra, was able to see Tianhe-2 in operation and confirmed the statistics revealed.

What’s interesting is that the Chinese system operated at 30.7 petaflops per second in a Linpak test of only 90 percent of its capacity, so it is likely to score more when it runs 100%. Dongarra said in a report that the system’s theoretical performance is estimated at 54.9 petaflops.

Technical specs 

The world’s fastest supercomputer is equipped with 2 different kinds of Intel computer chips and locally-developed circuitry. It reportedly has 12.4 petabytes (1 petabyte equals 1,000 terabytes) of storage and 1.4 petabyte memory.

Its operating system, Kylin Linux, was especially developed by the National University for Defense Technology. The machine is housed in a large room and is equipped with 48,000 Xeon Phi boards and 32,000 Intel Ivy Bridge Xeon sockets, Dongarra said.

Tianhe-2 will be moved to the China’s National Supercomputer Center to provide a high-performance, open computing services for the southwest of the country. Among possible uses for the system is running simulations for airplane testing, aiding government security and processing what was described as “big data.”

Sony PS4 Undercuts Xbox One on Price, Fully Supports Used Games

 Not only is Sony's new PlayStation 4 considerably cheaper than Microsoft's Xbox One, but it also sports some more gamer-friendly features. Case in point: "When a gamer buys a PS4 game, they have the right to trade in that game, sell it to another person, lend it to a friend or keep it forever," said Jack Tretton, president and CEO of Sony Computer Entertainment of America.

Sony took its best shot at stealing Microsoft's thunder on Monday evening at E3 by announcing that its upcoming PlayStation 4 will arrive this holiday season for US$399.
That's $100 less than the price Microsoft announced earlier in the day for its competing Xbox One, and the reaction was meet by thunderous applause that shook the Los Angeles Sports Arena serving as the backdrop for Sony's Electronic Entertainment Expo press conference.

"Momentum and excitement across the industry has grown exponentially," proclaimed Jack Tretton, president and CEO of Sony Computer Entertainment of America.

'We Won't Impose Any New Restriction'

Perhaps even more exciting for some users than the lower price, however, was another gamer-friendly announcement Sony made at the event.

"The PS4 supports used games," said Tretton. "We won't impose any new restriction on gamers."

More thunderous applause greeted that announcement, which came in stark contrast to Microsoft's news that its Xbox One would require an always-on connection and thus limit users' ability to sell the games.
"When a gamer buys a PS4 game, they have the right to trade in that game, sell it to another person, lend it to a friend or keep it forever," Tretton noted. "We won't require you to check in online to play a game."

 

Beyond Gaming

Sony did also offer a few key points on how the PS4 will fit into the greater Sony umbrella.
Specifically, in addition to streaming services that will include Netflix and Vudu, the new system will feature Music Unlimited and Video Unlimited services, giving users access to more than 150,000 movies and TV shows as well as 20 million songs that can be streamed across Sony' PlayStation platforms.
"Sony is clearly going after the living room as much as Microsoft," said Pidgeon. "While this is as much about games, there is a bigger target for both companies." 

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Nuclear Power, Part 1: A Smaller, Safer Future

If ever there were a compelling lesson in the ongoing and diverse dangers of nuclear power, it would be the 2011 Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant disaster in northern Japan. Many of the 103 nuclear reactors currently operational in the United States rely on similar systems, but an upcoming new wave of smaller and safer nuclear technologies promises a brighter future.

Keeping the lights on in the global industrial world -- never an easy task -- never seems to get any easier.

Nuclear energy, which provides nearly 20 percent of our nation's electricity, is at a crossroads. Can nuclear reactors -- the torrid, pulsating, heat-generating hearts of nuclear power plants -- ever be safe enough?

Particularly following the May 2011 Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant disaster in northern Japan, in which the cores of three of the plant's six reactors melted down and still remain critically dangerous, there's no doubt that everyone on this planet needs to know the answer to that question.

In this March 24, 2011, aerial photo taken by a small unmanned drone and released by Air Photo Service, damaged Unit 3 of the crippled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant is seen in Okumamachi, Fukushima prefecture, northern Japan. (Air Photo Service Co. Ltd., Japan)

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It's a Smart Smart Smart Smartphone World

It's no longer just those with a white-collar job; today, more than half of the adults in the U.S. own a smartphone, according to a new Pew report. In fact, the cost of not having a smartphone is becoming higher than the cost of owning one, said analyst John du Pre Gauntt. Social norms are being revised accordingly -- and smartphone services are about to take off.

 

More than half of the adults in the United States now own a smartphone, constituting a new milestone in the history of the device, according to the Pew Internet & American Life Project.

Specifically, smartphone adoption has grown to 56 percent of American adults, according to Pew's Smartphone Ownership 2013 report released this week.

That's the largest percentage since Pew began tracking smartphone adoption two years ago and represents a significant jump from the 46 percent that owned one in February of last year and the 35 percent from two years ago. 

  

 A New Era 

Pew's data confirms the statistics that many tech industry watchers have marveled at for the past few years. Namely, smartphone adoption has been remarkably swift, said John du Pre Gauntt, an analyst at GigaOM Pro.
"What we call a smartphone is basically a handheld computer that makes phone calls," du Pre Gauntt told TechNewsWorld. "The idea of spending US$99 on one was unthinkable even in 2006 or 2007, but now it's very ordinary."
It's so ordinary, in fact, that the cost of not having a smartphone is becoming higher than the cost of owning one, he said.
It's not just professionals in tech-savvy fields that need a smartphone anymore; several jobs in service industries now require workers to be connected via an app, to facilitate mobile payment services or to be able to access navigational services via their device.

"We're getting a cost of nonparticipation with smartphones," du Pre Gauntt said. "If you want a job with a professional organization and you walk in with a cheap phone, they're going to look at you differently."
That's not just true in white collar fields, either: "Several positions such as roofers or other blue collar jobs are responding to e-mails in the field or using location services to get to job sites," he noted.

Staying Safe and Social 

Of course, the new abilities come with a new set of risks, Anna Bager, vice president and general manager at IAB, pointed out.
Specifically, the more a person uses a smartphone, the more personal data it contains -- especially if consumers are taking advantage of mobile banking or commerce applications -- making the consequences of a cyberattack potentially more threatening.
"Clearly, mobile users are leaning into their devices for personal finance assistance wherever and whenever they happen to have a need," Bager told TechNewsWorld.
"Most financial apps already contain rock-solid security, but consumers seem not to be as plugged into the fact, and that knowledge gap can make all the difference in driving further usage and adoption."
In addition to security concerns, the rise of smartphones also means that people are changing the way they interact with other humans, suggested Chetan Sharma, president at Chetan Sharma Consulting.
"As with most things, there are downsides," Sharma told TechNewsWorld. "We as a society are so glued to these devices that we are changing some social norms -- for example, people checking their e-mails while having dinner with a friend or significant other.
"Instead of talking to their kids, parents routinely just hand them their smartphone to quiet them down," he added.

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Bose Gets Tiny and Tinier With Earbuds and Mini-Speaker

 At an event this week in New York City, Bose rolled out its first in-ear noise-canceling headphones as well as a Bluetooth speaker that's small enough to fit in the palm of your hand. With the featherweight QuietComfort 20 headphones and the new SoundLink Mini Speaker, the world can be a quieter -- or louder -- place, depending on your preference.

 

The world can be a very loud place, and New York City's Grand Central Terminal -- with its trains, subways and thousands of people -- served as a perfect backdrop for Bose to demonstrate how it can address and even combat that noise.

This week the company introduced two new audio products in Vanderbilt Hall within the famous New York City train station.
Bose has long been known for its over-the-ear noise-canceling headphones, of course, and this week the company demonstrated its upcoming QuietComfort 20, which it noted are its first in-ear noise-canceling headphones.

1.5 Ounces  

The new earbud-style headphones deliver superior audio performance and are comfortable to wear even for extended periods, the company said.
Due this summer, the US$299.95 QuietComfort 20 headphones are small enough to fit in one's pocket, and they weigh just 1.5 ounces.
The earbuds are able to block virtually all outside noise, including the ambient -- and not entirely subtle -- noise of Grand Central Terminal.
That's accomplished through a digital electronic chip -- which the company claims is exclusive to Bose and moreover the first of its kind -- that can calculate an equal and opposite noise cancellation signal within a fraction of a millisecond.
The result is that the background is almost completely blocked out. This is further enhanced as two tiny microphones in each earbud can sense the approaching sound while measuring the sound inside.
The result for the listener is top-notch audio quality. In addition, the company's StayHear+ ear tips allow the QuietComfort 20 headphones to sit at the entrance of the ear canal, creating a seal that provides for the passive blocking of outside noise while also ensuring a comfortable fit for prolonged use. 

Cutting the Cord

 While the SoundLink Mini speaker offers auxiliary inputs for wired devices, the key in this unit is its ability to pair wirelessly.
"Bluetooth hasn't been the issue," John Roselli, director of  product marketing at Bose, told TechNewsWorld, "but getting it into a device such as the SoundLink Mini really does open up new possibilities for those who want to listen to music." 


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Your iPhone Could Be Poisoned by Its Charger

 Ever loan or borrow an iOS charger? You might want to think twice before doing so in the future, as a group of researchers have figured out how to modify chargers to load malware onto iOS devices in less than a minute. The researchers will describe how USB capabilities can be leveraged to bypass Apple's security mechanisms at Black Hat USA 2013 this summer.

 

 Researchers at the Georgia Institute of Technology have developed a way to hack into iOS devices through a modified charger.

Billy Lau, a research scientist at the institute, together with two Ph.D. students, will present a paper on this at Black Hat USA 2013, to be held in Las Vegas July 27 through Aug. 1.
It took only 1 minute for an iOS device to be compromised after being plugged into a malicious charger. All users potentially could be affected because the team's approach doesn't require jailbreaking the device and does not involve any user interaction.
"Many people with iOS devices don't put antivirus on their devices because they believe they're less likely to be infected," Julien Blin, a directing analyst at Infonetics, told MacNewsWorld. "That's a misconception in my opinion, and that's an opportunity for hackers."
Apple did not respond to our request to comment for this story.

 

The Evil That Chargers May Do

The researchers built a proof-of-concept malicious charger they call "Mactans." For this, they used a Beagleboard, which is basically a Linux PC a tad larger than a credit card.

The researchers will describe how USB capabilities can be leveraged to bypass Apple's security mechanisms, and will show how attackers can hide their software in the same way Apple hides its own built-in applications to avoid detection.

Apple devs use Xcode to build OS X and iOS applications.

Mactans was built with constraints on time and budget, and the researchers will discuss briefly what hackers with better funding and more time might be able to do with the concept of poisoning chargers.

They will also recommend ways users might protect themselves, and suggest security features Apple could implement to help make such attacks more difficult.

The Georgia Institute of Technology's Billy Lau was not immediately available to provide further details. 

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Win 8.1 Puts a Stop to the No-Start Blues

 Though Microsoft is quick to point out all the gnashing of teeth over the missing Start button in Windows 8 was unwarranted, it has nevertheless given users a way to get it back in Windows 8.1, or Windows Blue, as it's also known. It also gives users more ways to customize their experience. The changes are drawing some cheers, but Microsoft's critics are already dissing the update.

 

Seven months and countless complaints after Microsoft launched Windows 8, it has announced that Windows 8.1, aka "Blue," will restore the much-missed Start button.

 Microsoft also will deliver a host of new features and functionality in Blue, and make it easier for people to navigate the operating system using a mouse and a keyboard.

 What's New in Windows Blue

Windows Blue will offer improvements and enhancements in key areas such as personalization, search, built-in apps, the Windows Store experience, and cloud connectivity, Microsoft said.

It will offer more colors and backgrounds for the Start screen, including backgrounds with motion -- or users can set their desktop background as their Start screen background.

Win 8.1 will offer a variety of tile sizes and make it easier to name groups and rearrange tiles. Users will be able to filter apps by name, date installed, most used or category. New apps will appear under the Apps View and be marked as new. Users can choose whether to pin them to the Start screen.

The Search charm in Windows 8.1 will provide global search results from Bing, aggregated from multiple sources.

 Built-in apps will be improved, and Windows Blue will make it easier to use multiple apps simultaneously. Users will be able to select, resize, uninstall or rearrange multiple apps at once. Multitasking will be easier, and users can have multiple windows of the same app snapped together.
Users will be able to save files directly to SkyDrive, and the new SkyDrive app will give users access to files whether they are on the device or in the cloud.
The PC Settings feature will be directly accessible, so users won't have to go to the control panel.
Microsoft will include Internet Explorer 11 with Windows Blue. Its features include better touch performance, faster page load times and the ability to access open tabs in sync across multiple Win 8.1 devices.

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Chinese Hackers May Have Pinched US Military Designs

Perhaps the Chinese government turned loose its hacker squad to poach sensitive U.S. military documents, giving President Obama a new set of grievances to lodge in his upcoming meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping. However, that simplistic explanation may be just plain wrong. "For almost anything that happens, we point at China as the culprit," noted security expert Ken Silva.

Chinese hackers were accused of stealing the designs for more than two dozen U.S. military weapons systems in a report appearing Monday in The Washington Post.

The system designs pinched by the hackers were for systems critical to the country's missile defenses and its combat aircraft and war ships, the paper said.

The revelations were based on confidential sections of a report prepared by the Defense Science Board, a Pentagon advisory group for military brass and Defense Department higher-ups.

China was not linked to the design thefts by the authors of the board's report, the Post acknowledged, but it cited senior military and industry officials with knowledge of the breaches as confirming that a majority of the break-ins were part of a widening Chinese campaign of spying on U.S. defense contractors and government agencies.

 As news of the U.S. weapon systems hacks was emerging, reports surfaced from Australia accusing Chinese hackers of filching the plans for the headquarters of its top spy agency, the Australian Security Intelligence Organization.

 

Aussie Attack 

While news broke of the cyberintrusions in the United States, Australia discovered that it, too, had been targeted by Chinese hackers.

The blueprints for Australia's top intelligence agency reportedly were stolen by Chinese hackers years ago from a contractor working on the US$630 million building, which is in its completion phase.

Until the reported attack this week, some analysts had suggested that Australia was an unlikely target for cyberespionage activities.

"That's ridiculous," Richard Stiennon, chief research analyst at IT-Harvest, told TechNewsWorld.

"Australia's economy is tied very closely to China's," he pointed out, "and there have been oil, gas and mining breaches since 2009."

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