Chilean ash cloud disrupts New Zealand-Australian flights (Reuters)

WELLINGTON (Reuters) – A cloud of ash from an erupting volcano in Chile has drifted over the Atlantic and Indian oceans to lie over southern parts of New Zealand and Australia, disrupting air travel.

Australian carrier Qantas Airways said it had canceled 22 flights on Sunday while Air New Zealand said it was flying at lower altitudes and different courses to avoid the ash, and did not anticipate any disruption.

The volcano in the Puyehue-Cordon Caulle chain in Chile has been erupting for the past week, throwing air travel in South America into chaos, as it spewed ash high into the atmosphere.

Qantas said it had canceled flights to the island state of Tasmania and destinations in New Zealand's South Island.

"We believe it is just too dangerous," spokeswoman Emma Kearns told Reuters.

Air New Zealand said its aircraft would fly at the lower altitude of 18,000 feet to remain below the ash cloud or else take a different flight path to avoid it.

The fine particles of ash, which pose a danger to aircraft bodies and engines, were carried east by the prevailing winds to sit between 20,000 and 35,000 feet across southern parts of Australia and New Zealand, said Steve Sherburn, a vulcanologist at New Zealand's Institute of Geological and Nuclear Sciences.

The eruption, he said, was particularly strong and able to keep throwing ash particles in to the atmosphere.

"If the eruption keeps going on, it could affect us for some time," Sherburn said.

(Reporting by Adrian Bathgate; Editing by Ron Popeski)

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Intel's 'Hybrid Cloud' Is a Cloud Server Inside Your Office (PC Magazine)

On Tuesday, Intel announced a cloud-based hosted applications service that actually runs on a local, on-premises server to protect data.

Formally, Intel's initiative is known as the AppUp Small Business Service, running on the Intel Hybrid Cloud. It's a fancy name for a small server that a small business can keep in its office, with applications that would otherwise be hosted in the cloud as a service, or else running locally on an individual PC.

The key, however, is that it allows customers to store their data locally, while taking advantage of some of the pricing cloud-based services offer. "Having their data on premise is absolutely the advantage," for SMBs, said Bridget Karlin, general manager of the Intel Hybrid Cloud.

How does it work?

Small businesses can't buy the service directly from Intel. Instead, managed service providers will need to register at IntelHybridCloud and then start offering the solutions to their customers. SMBs wll then sign up for a three-year lease with the MSP.

The hardware will be installed on site. Users will be able to access the apps as they would from a true off-site cloud, with the pay-per-use pricing. But data will be stored locally, providing additional security for healthcare providers and others concerned about their data being exposed in an offsite cloud.

The requests and software transactions will be handled by Intel, via its cloud server manager middleware.

Lenovo and white-box OEMs will be manufacturing the first servers, based on a one-socket Xeon design that Intel developed. This summer, Acer and NEC will take part, with two-socket servers added to the mix. The hardware runs the Intel hybrid cloud server manager, on top of which will sit the AppUp small business service catalog, a collection of apps from Microsoft, Intuit, Symantec, Vembu, and others, optimized and priced for small business on a pay-per-use basis.

"This is something new, with options that we haven't seen in the marketplace yet," said Boyd Davis, general manager of the Intel Server Group.

For a small business, there are two benefits: the security of on-premise data, and the lower cost that pay-per-use software can entail, which will be spread over months of use, rather than a one-time up-front fee. Davis said that Intel encourages customers to buy their own infrastructure and install packaged apps, but that it might not be cheaper over the long haul. He described what Intel is doing - taking packaged apps, and distributing them on a pay-per-use model, "as kind of a unique offering".

Users could pay as little as a "few dollars per month," Karlin said, although the total cost will depend on the number of applications and users.

Software providers will be able to offer solutions like ERP, security, and backup as a service, Intel executives said. The Intel AppUp Small Business Service features a mix of local and cloud software with an Intel Xeon-based server that comes pre-loaded with tools for remote management, firewall, VoIP/PBX and backup, app vendors added.

Applications vendors can apply for approval and appear on the site in about a week's time, Karlin said.

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Senator introduces bill to add privacy protections to cloud data (Appolicious)

Suddenly, everyone’s trying to send your data out into the “cloud,” promising all kinds of great services.

But the cloud (a term used to refer to using Internet-based servers to store and access information, rather than using more traditional data storage devices like hard drives) brings with it a lot of risks. With all that data out there, a lot of issues pop up especially when law enforcement is concerned. Is that data protected the way other information would be if its owners had it physically in their possession?

A move in the U.S. Senate could help bring those kinds of protections to the cloud. An amendment to a 1986 law would update it to require law enforcement officials obtain search warrants in order to access cloud data and use it in criminal investigations, according to a story from SC Magazine. The amendment is authored by Sen. Patrick Leahy, who penned the original law back in 1986.

Leahy’s amendment specifically protects users’ geolocation data as gathered up and stored by mobile phones. If the amendment is approved, it would require a warrant for the access of smartphone data, or other electronic communications in order to acquire location data.

That change follows Senate hearings with smartphone operating system makers Google (GOOG), Apple (AAPL)  and Research In Motion (RIMM) over a recent revelation that Apple’s iPhones were cataloging and storing location data gathered using its GPS technology. While gathering the data is part of the process of using location data by apps and other smartphone services, the trouble was that the information was being stored in a relatively unprotected place on the iPhone (and also on iTunes when users synced their phones with their computers). Essentially, there was a folder on the iPhone 4 that showed everywhere the phone had ever been – data which was being used by law enforcement officials in investigations, without the requirement of any kind of special search warrant or judicial oversight.

Apple has since corrected the cataloging issue, claiming that the data was never supposed to be stored and updating the cache where it was kept to purge itself periodically. Android phones store location data too, and funnel it back to Google in order to improve services – but only if users opt-in to the tracking.

Senators during the hearings called for greater privacy protections for user data on smartphones and being bounced around the Internet, with so many users keeping Internet-connected devices with them pretty much all the time. The amendment to Leahy’s 1986 law would be a step in the right direction, although terrorism and Homeland Security considerations would still allow law enforcement to skip the warrant requirement.

The amendment also would cover police searches of emails. Current law allows law enforcement officials to access email communications that have been stored on a remote server for longer than 180 days. The proposed amendment tosses that rule, requiring law enforcement officials to obtain a search warrant for data like emails regardless of their age.

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Ash cloud causes Europe travel chaos

London (CNN) -- A cloud of ash from Iceland's Grimsvotn volcano spread toward central Europe late Tuesday, spurring German authorities to announce two airports will close and prompting British airlines to cancel hundreds of flights.

Hamburg International Airport will shut down at 6 a.m. Wednesday (midnight Tuesday ET), while Bremen's airport will close at 5 a.m., Germany's Aviation Safety Agency announced. Berlin's airport could be affected by the falling ash by noon Wednesday, the agency said.

A portion of the ash from Saturday's eruption in Iceland had spread over Britain by Tuesday afternoon, with the cloud reaching London's Heathrow airport -- the world's busiest international air travel hub -- around lunchtime, a computer model indicated. The European air traffic control organization Eurocontrol reported about 500 flights in British airspace were canceled Tuesday, roughly double the number expected earlier in the day.

The ash cloud was projected to cover all of British airspace by early Wednesday morning and will be densest over Scotland, Northern Ireland and northern England, according to Britain's weather agency, the Met Office. But British Airways, which sent a test flight into the region Tuesday evening, said it expects service to return to normal by Wednesday.

That may help passengers like Karen Bryan, who was unable to return to the Scottish city of Edinburgh from the Mediterranean island of Malta on Tuesday.

"It's bad not knowing what's happening, being on standby and not knowing when and if you'll get back," Bryan said.

The number of flights affected was a small proportion of the 29,000 or so that had been expected across the continent, Eurocontrol noted. But Germany's meteorological agency projected that the cloud would spread across the country's north and could reach Berlin around midnight Tuesday, raising the possibility of more cancellations. And there was a "strong possibility" it could also affect Denmark and parts of Scandinavia by the end of the day, Eurocontrol reported.

The Grimsvotn eruption came about 13 months after Iceland's Eyjafjallajokull volcano belched smoke and ash into the skies over the continent, forcing the cancellation of thousands of flights per day at the peak of the problem. The ash can be a serious hazard to aircraft, reducing visibility, damaging flight controls and ultimately causing jet engines to fail.

Grimsvotn's eruption was more than 10 times larger and put more ash into the air in 36 hours than last year's burst did in a month, University of Iceland geophysicist Magnus Tumi Gudmundsson told CNN -- but the main eruption is now over, he said.

"We expect it to behave and slowly decline," Gudmundsson told CNN. "It will, however, last for several more days. The ash does continue to cause huge problems on the ground, but no new ash is coming into the high altitudes."

Gillian Foulger, a geophysicist at Britain's Durham University, told CNN that the disruptions from the larger eruption are likely to be smaller than they were in 2010. Most of the ash is blowing northwest, toward sparsely populated Greenland, and the European aviation industry collected valuable safety data during last year's event.

"It's much better able to set the safety thresholds accurately, so I think things are probably going to turn out very well for us," Foulger said.

Airlines have been making the case that it is safe to fly through ash clouds of medium density, Britain's Civil Aviation Authority said Tuesday. Carriers including British Airways, Virgin and EasyJet are now free to fly through clouds of up to 4,000 micrograms per cubic meter if they feel it is safe to do so, Richard Taylor of the CAA told CNN.

The budget airline Ryanair, one of Europe's biggest carriers, announced that it had canceled its remaining flights from Scottish airports Tuesday after arguing against closures. The airline said it had conducted a test flight that found no ash, but Taylor told CNN that Ryanair's claims were "not true" and that the test flight did not go where the airline claimed.

British Airways canceled all flights to and from Edinburgh and Glasgow in Scotland and Newcastle in northern England until at least 7 p.m. Tuesday, though service to Aberdeen, Scotland, continued. Dutch airline KLM also canceled dozens of scheduled Tuesday flights to and from locations in Scotland. And British Midlands International canceled its Tuesday evening flights into Glasgow and Edinburgh but resumed service to Aberdeen, the carrier announced.

U.S. President Barack Obama left Ireland for England on Monday, a day earlier than planned, to make sure the ash cloud would not affect his flight plan. Barcelona's soccer team also announced on Twitter that it would fly early to London for its Saturday match against Manchester United in the Champions League Final.

The ash forced the closure of Icelandic airspace over the weekend, but the island nation's main airports were open Tuesday. Flights to London were canceled, but flights to North America and Scandinavia were still scheduled.

Britain's CAA said new arrangements have been put in place since last year's eruption, and those changes should reduce the number of flights that have to be canceled if the ash cloud spreads.

Grimsvotn lies beneath Iceland's Vatnajokull glacier, a sheet of ice more than three times the size of the U.S. state of Rhode Island -- larger than any on mainland Europe. It is the country's most active volcano and last erupted in 2004, according to the Icelandic Meteorological Office.

In 1783, a 16.7-mile fissure system from the volcano produced the world's largest known historical lava flow over a seven-month period, damaging crops and livestock, according to the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History. A resulting famine resulted in the loss of one-fifth of Iceland's population, according to the museum.

CNN's Ayesha Durgahee, Adam Reiss, Claudia Rebaza, James Partington and Brianna Keilar contributed to this report.

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Europe on alert for Icelandic volcano ash cloud (Reuters)

By Omar Valdimarsson and Ingolfur Juliusson Omar Valdimarsson And Ingolfur Juliusson – 2 hrs 17 mins ago

REYKJAVIK (Reuters) – An eruption by Iceland's most active volcano put Europe on high alert on Monday as a billowing ash cloud drifted toward Scotland and threatened to shut down airports across the northern edge of the continent.

Northern Europe's fringe was affected first, though experts saw little chance of a repeat of last year's six-day travel chaos caused by the eruption of another Icelandic volcano.

People living next to the glacier where the Grimsvotn volcano burst into life on Saturday were most affected, with ash shutting out the daylight and smothering buildings and vehicles.

An Icelandic Met Official said ash from the volcano could touch northwest Scotland as early as Monday evening.

Europe's air traffic control organization has said that if volcanic emissions continued at the same rate then the cloud might reach west French airspace and north Spain on Thursday.

Authorities have backed more relaxed rules on flying through ash after being criticized for being too strict last time.

Then, closing European air space forced the cancellation of 100,000 flights, disrupted 10 million passengers and cost the industry an estimated $1.7 billion in lost revenues.

"I think the regulators are a bit more sensible than they were last year," Michael O'Leary, chief of budget airline Ryanair, told a conference call. "We would be cautiously optimistic that they won't balls it up again this year."

Nevertheless, airline shares fell between 3 to 5 percent.

German Transport Minister Peter Ramsauer said he did not expect the eruption to disrupt air traffic to the same degree as last year, adding however there would be a flight ban for jet planes should particles from the ash cloud reach a higher concentration than 2 milligrammes per cubic meter.

Speaking to Sky News, British Transport Secretary Philip Hammond said authorities could hopefully work with airlines to "enable them to fly around concentrations of ash rather than having to impose a blanket closure."

Grimsvotn erupted on Saturday, with dark plumes of smoke shooting as high as 20 km (12 miles) into the sky.

The outburst is the volcano's most powerful since 1873 and stronger than the volcano which caused trouble last year, but scientists say the type of ash being spat out is less easily dispersed and winds have so far been more favorable.

"The difference in impact on aviation comes down to three factors: the ash being produced by the eruption, the weather patterns blowing the ash around, and new rules about planes flying into ash," University of Edinburgh volcanologist John Stevenson wrote on his blog.

SMOTHERED IN ASH

But some were expecting problems. "It's too early to tell if Europe will be affected. What's certain is that when it is affected, there will be flight cancellations," French Transport Minister Thierry Marianai told Europe 1radio.

Europe's air traffic control organization, which set up a crisis unit after bad coordination was blamed for worsening last year's crisis, said no closures outside Iceland were expected on Monday or Tuesday.

Airlines as far away as Australia were monitoring the cloud. Norway's civil aviation body said the one or two flights a day to the Arctic archipelago of Svalbard would shut tonight. A small part of Greenland's eastern airspace was also closed.

Iceland's aviation authority said however it hoped it might be able to re-open the island's main airport by the evening as the tower of smoke above the volcano appeared to have fallen.

The Icelandic met office said the plume from Grimsvotn, which last exploded in 2004, had fallen to just below 10 km (6 miles), well below its maximum so far of 25 km.

The volcano lies under the Vatnajokull glacier in southeast Iceland, the largest glacier in Europe. People living in districts close by have been smothered in ash.

"Yesterday between 2 and 3 (pm in the afternoon) it brightened up a bit until 8 in the evening, then it became black again," said Sigurlaugur Gislasson, 23, whose family owns a hotel near the town of Kirkjubaejarklaustur.

"It is like being in a sandstorm," he said. All the tourists who were staying at the hotel have also gone, he added.

(Writing by Patrick Lannin; Additional reporting by Tim Hepher, Niklas Pollard, Kate Kelland, Christopher Le Coq, Ingolfur Juliusson, Michael Smith, Harry Suhartono, Alison Leung; Editing by Maria Golovnina)

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Apple patents tech for using locally saved snippets with cloud media (Appolicious)

Amazon (AMZN) and Google (GOOG) are already running their cloud-based media streaming services, flying in the face of convention by not dealing with record labels directly to get their blessing on the technology.

Apple (AAPL), on the other hand, is playing it safe and has reportedly signed a deal with record company BMI, with more on the way, for its upcoming streaming service.

Coming from behind, it’s fair to speculate that Apple is looking for ways to one-up rivals Google and Amazon in creating a better music-streaming Internet service than those two companies have. With both Google and Amazon, users upload their music to an Internet server, and then are able to access that music through apps and web browsers to stream it down to other devices – smartphones, computers and tablets.

A new patent for Apple suggests a different, and potentially better, approach to using the cloud. According to a report from Apple Insider, Apple has patented cloud technology that relies on using a “snippet” of a song in a user’s iTunes library to work with the song file as stored in the cloud. Instead of storing a whole user’s library on a device like an iPhone or an iPod, only a small piece of each song – and therefore a whole lot less data – would be stored on the device, with the rest going out into the cloud to be recovered using Internet streaming.

The idea is that having the beginning portion of a song stored on a device gives Apple’s streaming technology time to do its work without having a delay in playback. Users can click any song in their library that they want to stream and it starts to play immediately, because what’s playing at first is actually stored locally like any other song file. Meanwhile, as the song plays, iTunes is working to stream down the rest of the song.

This also means that users can listen to half a song, get bored and click a different track and have that one start immediately, too – instead of having to wait for the streaming service to catch up with the choice, as is the case with something like Amazon’s Cloud Player. With the whole track stored on the cloud, changing songs quickly means waiting for the data to stream down from the Internet again, and a large amount of data has to be cached on the device before actual playback can start up. Since Apple’s playing you a piece of the song you have on your device’s hard drive, it has a buffer period during which the streaming can happen unbeknownst to the user.

The drawback to Apple’s method is that while it makes playback better, it’s not as significant a reduction in storage necessity as Amazon and Google users might enjoy. Locally storing a snippet of a song is still less data-intensive than storing the entire song, but that’s still music data stored on your hard drive, and it still takes up space. Instead of having a fully cloud-based service and thereby not needing to use hard drive space almost at all, as Google and Amazon do, Apple requires users to save some music space on their hard drives.

Apple’s patent doesn’t nail down exactly where the content is coming from, leaving that open for the company to define later. We’ve heard that Apple might pull its tracks not from a user-controlled data storage locker, the way Amazon does, but might take a Streamedy approach, allowing users to copy their songs to a giant database and then stream anything they own from that one big source.

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