Cisco stumps up $100m for the 'Internet of Things'

A nice light read at 17 pages.

http://internetofeverything.cisco.com/sites/default/files/docs/en/ioe_public_sector_vas_white%20paper_121913final.pdf

Sky dismisses network strain ahead of O2 and Be migration

The key bit in the CNET article is Sky don't traffic manage like most of the others with unlimited download usage.

Also I'm sure they've seen from other large buyouts such as the Tiscali / Talk Talk one that public opinion is a fragile thing, so they won't be wanting any large mistakes... They wouldn't chose to migrate them if they couldn't...

http://crave.cnet.co.uk/gadgets/sky-dismisses-network-strain-ahead-of-o2-and-be-migration-50010583/

More good news on the world not ending...

Looks like an asteroid is going to miss us in 2040...Its a good week for news on the world not ending..Time to re-instate that pension plan...

http://edition.cnn.com/2012/12/21/us/space-asteroid-threat/index.html?hpt=hp_c1

Windows 8 and Avast won't play nice.

So so I really like Window 8. I started by trying an upgrade of my windows 7 install but was marred by blue screens of death. Not fun.... So I though it would be best to do a clean install (I wanted to anyway, I was just being lazy) but the BSODs continued....

ndis.sys and aswnet.sys were the culprits... This problem proved to be my Avast security suite... One uninstall and hey presto the system was fully functional again.

Avast say that program version 7.0.1473
 (announcement: http://forum.avast.com/index.php?topic=107531.0 ) is fully compatible but it looks like a fair few people are seeing the same issue:
http://forum.avast.com/index.php?topic=107811.0

I think I'll wait for a few more updates before installing it again. Overall I'm really liking the UI of windows 8. It takes a bit of getting used to but once you realise you can just start typing from the start screen to search for what you want its dead quick to navigate!