Um, HP? You might want to stop advertising the TouchPad, seeing as your exclusive Australian partner Harvey Norman has now run out of stock following the $98 fire sale and you’re not planning to make any more. I know it’s short notice, but surely something can be done about this series of ads plastered around the country?

Image credit: Martin Aungle, used with permission

Oh dear. Radio shock jock Alan Jones appears to have gotten his wires crossed, in an analysis this week of how a new data speed record set by scientists in Germany might affect the National Broadband Network.

As Jones helpfully tells us (the full audio is available online, sponsored by consumer electronics retailer Bing Lee), the scientists at the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology, using a “laser”, have developed new technology that can send data at speeds of 26 terabits per second — for example up to 400 million telephone calls per second, or the data on 700 DVDs. This, Jones said, has some profound consequences for the NBN:

“The NBN that they’re going to roll out will be up to 100Mbps, down to 12Mbps in some areas … The Germans have done 26 terabits. that’s 26 million megabits per second. We’re going to get a hundred. Not a hundred million — a hundred megabits per second. Their 26 terabits is 2.6 million times faster than what we’re getting. And Canberra want us to believe that the technology we’re spending up to 60 billion on, won’t be updated by the time it’s rolled out. Of course, they’re kidding!”

Leaving aside the fact that the NBN will actually deliver speeds of up to 1Gbps, itself at least ten times faster than anything consumers can currently access in Australia … there is also the fact that the Germans are, of course, using the exact same technology as the NBN — optic fibre — and there is a solid prospect of such innovation eventually boosting speeds on the national network.

As NBN Co chief technology officer Gary McLaren says in a media release this week:

“Tests such as this just go to show why a fibre-enabled National Broadband Network is the best infrastructure for Australia’s future … As fibre optic technology improves, so too will speeds, and the amount of data that can be carried over the network we are building today. This gives us confidence that we’re delivering the right communications infrastructure to sustain our nation for decades to come.”

We can’t help but suspect the good chaps at NBN Co found this one a little bit amusing … judging by their seemingly innocuous re-tweet of a story run by News.com.au regarding Jones’ comments:

Personally I’m with Jones. 100Mbps? 1Gbps? Screw that — it should be every Australian’s right to have at least 10 terabits per second broadband to their house — maybe even 15. Gigabit, shmigabit. What is NBN Co thinking???

Oh dear.

Image credit: Pete Markham, Creative Commons

That was quickly followed up with this:

Not to be outdone, SAP Australia chief Tim Ebbeck replied with the same poor spelling:

Oh dear.

There’s no doubt that we’ve posted a few photos of lovely ladies on Delimiter over the past year … Jennifer Hawkins showed up to launch a Vodafone bus, Pamela Anderson helped out Crazy Domains with their “pouring cream all over herself needs”, and who could forget the Meter Maids who entertained attendees at Microsoft’s Tech.Ed conference on the Gold Coast?

So now it’s time for Delimiter’s female audience to enjoy themselves … courtesy of a promotion of some kind by Virgin Mobile in Martin Place yesterday, involving the telco’s “big cap” plan and chocolate enticements to break up with your current mobile provider. “In less than 24 hours you could be out of an unhappy relationship, and into a brand new phomance with someone who really cares,” says Virgin head of customer marketing Dan Woodall. We bet.

Image credit: Virgin Mobile

We couldn’t help but wonder what precisely David Thodey is doing here at Telstra’s half-yearly financial results conference this morning. It looks like he’s either planning to throttle someone, or is holding some kind of invisible ball. Or is it a new Xbox 360 Kinect move? Let us know in the comments.

Image credit: Telstra

A feeble Delimiter Friday afternoon attempt at humour, based on the Rage Guy and other memes floating around at the moment online.

While researching Simon Hackett for an article on his entry into iiNet’s ‘Top Geek’ competition, we found this amusing video of the Internode managing director entering what appears to be one of the ISP’s datacentres … in style. Hit it, boys!

It looks like Internode network engineer Mark Newton and a number of co-conspirators took some comments from Hackett about an ISP somewhere with a disco ball a little seriously. From what appears to be an email from Newtown on the subject, dredged up from Whirlpool:

Simon pissed off to the US for a fortnight. While he was gone, we hooked a reed-switch to the magnet which the security system uses to lock the door, and wired it into the DCD pin via an RS232 breakout box. We wired the DTR pin to an RS232-controlled 240-volt power switch, which powered the lights and the mirror ball motor.

The breakout box was connected to a serial port on a rackmounted server which we had equipped with a video capture card, which in turn was connected to a video camera. Software was written such that when the door was opened there’d be a five second delay, after which the disco lights turned on, the mirror ball started spinning, an SMS was sent to the culprits, and an MP3 player started playing the Bee Gees singing “Staying Alive.”

During this the video camera would be streaming to hard disk for the duration of the MP3. The resulting MPEG is 18 Mbytes in length, although most of it is just an empty room after Simon had run away wimpering.

“It worked.” :-)

Now what we really want to know is, Simon, is why didn’t you break out and bust a move on the “dancefloor”? I mean, you’ve clearly got the jive going in your bones, if that strut when you entered the room is any indication :)

Oh, dear.

Reports are rolling in that Baywatch star David Hasselhoff, more correctly known as “The Hoff”, hit Sydney this week with beach babes in tow, ostensibly to help promote an ice cream brand.

However, Delimiter can exclusively reveal that the iconic American actor has been in Australia for the past six months, on a secret mission to aid Australia’s technology sector in its quest to finally overtake Silicon Valley and become the premiere global market for technology companies.

Above, the Baywatch star can be seen aiding Communications Minister Stephen Conroy in rolling out the National Broadband Network. However, The Hoff was also present at the launch of the iPhone 4 in July.

Microsoft caused a scandal with the attendance of Meter Maids at its Tech.Ed conference, but the Hoff was there to keep things under control.

He has also been a close acquaintance of Senator Helen Coonan, the former Communications Minister …

… as well as Prime Minister Julia Gillard.

Forget Pamela Anderson; the newest star of Crazy Domains’ new television advertisements is none other than The Hoff.

The former Baywatch star was there in 2010 when CSC launched its new facility in Melbourne’s Docklands’ suburb.

And The Hoff has even been helping VHA with its ongoing Vodafone woes.

Last but not least, The Hoff was a hit at Gartner’s Symposium.

And after a bit of snooping around on Whirlpool (hey, that’s a daily habit for Australia’s technology reporters!), we discovered this posting from an email account ‘hof@delimiter.com.au’. Jeepers. Looks like The Hoff is even hooked into Whirlpool and Delimiter now.

Have you spotted The Hoff around Australia recently? Post links to your photographic evidence in the comments below.

Image credits: Delimiter or released to press

Ever since I switched my iPhone to Telstra’s Next G network a few months ago, I haven’t had a single dropped call and mobile browsing is a dream. But as the complaints posted online during today’s Optus outage demonstrated, not everyone can be so fortunate.

So here at Delimiter, we’ve created this handy motivational poster to help Optus mobile customers through the bad times.

Remember, Telstra’s not that expensive any more.

Image credit: Delimiter

Oh dear. We’re fairly sure this meeting would have been punctuated by long, uncomfortable silences. Maybe a few interjections from Josh along the lines of “… dude. The filter. What?”

(for those of you who don’t recognise Josh, he’s the vague guy representing Generation Y on Channel 10′s popular Talking’ ‘Bout Your Generation TV series. He’s also a comedian)

Image credit: Delimiter screenshot of Twitter