17th November 2008 Archive

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Adobe rallies Flash and AIR mobile partners

Adobe MAX End of the single Player?

Adobe is expected to showcase tools and runtimes today with ARM and Qualcomm for Flash-powered rich internet applications (RIAs) on phones and devices. ARM plans to demonstrate a prototype of Flash Player 10 and AIR running on the ARMv6 and ARMv7 architectures, used in the ARM11 and Cortex A processors, at Adobe's MAX …

Developer 17 Nov 2008, 05:02
HP fine-tunes Opteron rack box for nonexistent servers

SC08 Boosts virtualized blade bandwidth

Who can tell why server makers do what they do sometimes? Instead of announcing its new Opteron-based DL385 G5p virtualization-tuned rack-mounted server last week, when Advanced Micro Devices debuted its "Shanghai" quad-core Opteron processors, Hewlett-Packard decided to wait and launch the box concurrent with the Supercomputing …

Servers 17 Nov 2008, 05:02
Top 500 supers: Big Blue Roadrunner outpaces Jaguar

SC08 Petaflops abound

The Supercomputing 2008 trade show kicked off this past weekend, and the centerpiece of the annual event, which is being hosted in Austin, Texas, is the Top 500 ranking of supercomputers that comes out twice a year. This time around, Cray's Jaguar has tried to catch IBM's Roadrunner and has come up with feathers in its mouth. …

Servers 17 Nov 2008, 05:02
Hidden recipes for OS X charts and graphs

Mac Secrets Get behind Activity Monitor

One of the many secrets hidden away inside OS X is a private undocumented library called GraphKit.framework. Despite being private, the name is familiar to many Mac developers - and for all the wrong reasons. Some while back, Apple accidentally introduced a bug into the Xcode 2.1 uninstaller software: If you chose to uninstall …

Developer 17 Nov 2008, 06:02
Dell Studio Hybrid mini desktop PC

Review Curvy, slim and sexy

For years, laptops have relied on desktop computer technology hand-me-downs, so it's only fair that Dell's Studio Hybrid is a desktop that makes use of laptop parts. It's done so in the name of miniaturisation. Using Intel's mobile technology, with its greater power efficiency, means Dell can shrink the Studio Hybrid down to a …

Reg Hardware 17 Nov 2008, 09:53
'Meh' makes Collins English Dictionary

Whatever

The interjection "meh" has beaten "frenemy", "huggles" and "jargonaut" for inclusion in the 30th anniversary edition of the Collins English Dictionary following an invitation to the unwashed masses to submit neologisms reflecting the current state of play with our beloved mother lingo. According to the Times, meh was chosen by …

Bootnotes 17 Nov 2008, 09:54
Atos Origin suffers boardroom coup

Chief exec shown the door

French services firm Atos Origin suffered a boardroom coup yesterday - chief executive Phillippe Germond was ousted as chief executive and replaced by ex-finance minister Thierry Breton. The Supervisory Board did not explain why it took the action and merely thanked Germond for his contribution. Thierry Breton becomes chairman …

Channel Register 17 Nov 2008, 10:04
EMC's preferred cloud architecture is Art Decho

We have a vision - but no CEO

EMC is creating a new cloud services business called Decho by joining Mozy (cloud backup) and Pi (personal information) together. It will use EMC data centres around the planet to store consumer and business files using Mozy's software front end to provide data ingest and access services and Pi's metadata software to manage …

Virtualization 17 Nov 2008, 10:17
BT threatens to pull plug on better broadband

Piling pressure on Ofcom

Cash-strapped BT has identified a vogueish fillip in its lobbying campaign for a looser regime to regulate access to forthcoming next-generation fibre deployments: the recession. For several months BT has been pushing the line that Ofcom will have to give it more control over wholesale access and pricing to make investments in …

Telecoms 17 Nov 2008, 10:18
Google voice still not on iPhone

Why won't anyone listen to me?

Google's mobile application for the iPhone, which allows punters to talk to the search giant, didn’t appear on the Application Store on Friday as even the world's most successful internet company has to wait on the whim of Apple. The Google Mobile App is an iPhone application which allows users to speak queries to …

Mobile 17 Nov 2008, 10:29
Hands on with the INQ1 Facebook phone

First Look Phone + Facebook = INQ1

You’re a virtual nobody these days if you aren’t on Facebook, it seems. So the INQ1 phone’s been launched to give you 24x7 access to the site’s sprawling wall messages, random groups and news that 'Jessica is hammered'. Say hello to the Facebook Phone. 3's INQ1: the ultimate Facebook phone? At its official launch in London …

Reg Hardware 17 Nov 2008, 10:36
Unhappy people watch more telly

Financial crisis? Stick the idiot's lantern on

The University of Maryland has concluded that "unhappy people watch more TV", while those who reckon they're "very happy" tend to pass the time reading or socializing. That's the conclusion of a study of "time use studies" and a "continuing series of social attitude surveys" spanning 30 years and encompassing the habits of 30, …

Bootnotes 17 Nov 2008, 10:54
Leicester nursery loses memory stick with children's details

Details of 80 children potentially AWOL

Parents concerned that new government databases might lead to their children’s data being lost or stolen were this week able to pilot the experience courtesy of a Leicester-based nursery, which appears to have "misplaced" a data stick containing details of children in their care. At time of writing, Leicester City Council, …

Government 17 Nov 2008, 11:03
Agile fraudsters prey on clueless UK surfers

Get Safe Online week aims to curtail easy pickings

British attitudes to online safety remain patchy at best, leaving surfers vulnerable to scammers who typically empty funds from compromised accounts before moving onto the next victim. That's according to a survey published in conjunction with the launch the UK's fourth annual Get Safe Online Week, which kicks off today. …

ID 17 Nov 2008, 11:14
Gov to Manchester: No new trams without road pricing

One-way congestion charge favours night shift

Geoff Hoon, the Transport Secretary, has made it clear that Greater Manchester will lose £1.5bn in central government funding for public transport if local people don't agree to the use of road pricing for motorists. “There is no Plan B. I would not want people to be under any illusion about that,” said Mr Hoon, referring to …

Government 17 Nov 2008, 11:17
China clamps down on miming musos

Ministry of culture pulls plug on lip-synch

China's ministry of culture has announced a clampdown on miming professional musos, marking an end to lip-synching and fake guitar strumming, the Guardian reports. The ministry's Sun Qiuxia said it would first "consult with the public over the next few weeks, before agreeing final details of new rules on commercial …

Entertainment 17 Nov 2008, 11:21
Nissan: buy our electric cars... rent our batteries

'Leccy Tech Cheaper in the long run?

In the future, we will still be buying our own cars but we'll be leasing the batteries. At least that's the vision of Nissan's Executive VP for Product Planning, Carlos Tavares. Presumably the battery packs will be leased from Nissan, though as Renault-Nissan is the car maker most closely connected to Shai Agassi's Better …

Reg Hardware 17 Nov 2008, 11:23
Nokia rings warning bell

20 million handsets down in Q4

Nokia has updated its predictions on end-of-year sales, knocking 20 million handsets off its fourth quarter forecast for the industry and promising to get rid of all those expensive external contractors. The note comes ahead of more detailed plans which will be announced at a meeting on the December 4, but clearly the Finnish …

Mobile 17 Nov 2008, 11:25
Xbox 360 nears 25m global sales mark

Wii still streets ahead, though

The Xbox 360’s global installed base will have overtaken that of its predecessor by the end of the month, a Microsoft executive has forecast. Mindy Mount, Corporate Vice President of Microsoft’s Entertainment and Devices Division, said in New York last week that the total number of Xbox 360s in use globally will reach 25m …

Reg Hardware 17 Nov 2008, 11:44
Carphone Warehouse considers TalkTalk amputation

ByeBye?

Carphone Warehouse will suggest to investors it might spin off its TalkTalk ISP and home phone business, according to multiple reports today. The firm is due to post interim results today, and has apparently whispered to the Sunday Times and others that a demerger will be raised as a possibility, although not an imminent one …

Mobile 17 Nov 2008, 11:49
Sun gives StarOffice ninth life

$34.95 for 3 support calls, update button

Little more than a month after the release of OpenOffice 3.0, Sun Microsystems has officially unveiled a major update to StarOffice, the OpenOffice twin that comes with a price tag. Like OpenOffice 3, released to great fanfare in mid-October, StarOffice 9 can run on Mac OS X, a computer operating system used by a well-known …

Applications 17 Nov 2008, 12:02
Linux weaktops poised for death by smartphone

Fail and You Powerless against Jobsian divinity

Smartphones have been around for a long time, but only recently did the laptop industry figure out that it could cut into the market funded solely by tech nerds' f*ck-you money with a compound word of its own: netbook. A computer that carries light on the hardware and is designed to run programs provided as network resources is …

PCs & Chips 17 Nov 2008, 12:02
Asus launches 'world's fastest' smartphone

An 800MHz CPU on board

Asus has unveiled its latest smartphone, which, it claimed, is the “fastest business PDA phone in the world”. Under the Asus P565’s shell is an 800MHz Marvell processor that Asus said will help the phone deliver “system performance beyond anything else on the market”. The talker’s also supposedly great at handling “resource- …

Reg Hardware 17 Nov 2008, 12:02
Safari 3.2 update leaves Mac fanboys' balls in a spin

Apple fails to shoot from hip with latest browser

Mac fans have given the latest version of Apple’s Safari browser a frosty reception after complaining that the update is causing frequent crashes. Apple quietly released Safari 3.2 last week. It comes loaded with improved anti-phishing protection and the latest security updates. It’s available for download both for Mac OS X …

Applications 17 Nov 2008, 12:20
Magazine faces legal action for bowing to legal action

Wiki-madness

The New Statesman faces a possible lawsuit for removing links from its website after it was threatened with legal action. The magazine removed links to Wikileaks after it was approached by lawyers acting for Iraqi-born billionaire Nadhmi Auchi. This led Wikileaks editor Julian Assange to accuse New Statesman of effectively …

Law 17 Nov 2008, 12:31
UK health records should not be flogged off

Health watchdog barks

Harry Cayton was only appointed head of the health service data watchdog on 6 November, but he has wasted no time in putting the boot into how the NHS wants to treat patient data. Cayton, the man who won UK citizens the right to opt out of having a centrally stored medical record, is unhappy with proposals which would allow …

Government 17 Nov 2008, 12:57
Adobe pinballs 64-bit Flash Player 10 alpha into Linux orbit

Astro climbs on board openista ship

Adobe Systems has spun out an alpha version of its Flash Player 10 technology for 64-bit Linux software users today, to satisfy the needs of freetards everywhere. The multinational said it has done so to underscore its “commitment to the Linux community” which is ahead of Windows and Apple Mac OS X in the 64-bit processor …

Applications 17 Nov 2008, 13:01
Fujitsu boffins build 'god-view' cam rig for drivers

Third-person perspective motoring

Fujitsu has come up with a system that will give motorists a full 360° view around their car, from an almost god-like perspective. The Fujitsu rig is based on four vehicle-mounted cameras and clever software that stitches the images together into a third-person perspective-like view that allows the driver, it's claimed, "view …

Reg Hardware 17 Nov 2008, 13:33
Slo-mo MoD budget traincrash rolls on

Analysis But the wireless cam-grenade will save us all

A grim picture of the financial crisis in the UK Ministry of Defence was painted today, as it was revealed that an almost total freeze has been put in place on new equipment projects. In a related development, the MoD announced that it has funded a Scottish company to develop wireless camera projectiles which troops could shoot …

Government 17 Nov 2008, 13:43
UK govt cuts web shoppers a break

Customs Duty threshold raised

The banks may be unwilling to pass on their tax breaks, but at least the Government has one for internet shoppers importing goodies from outside the EU. From next month, Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs (HMRC) will only demand import duty on goods valued at £105 ($156/€123) or more. Currently you must – or should – pay the …

Small Biz 17 Nov 2008, 13:48
Chinese TV suspends footie coverage

Lads not giving 110% in the 'professional ethics' department

China Central TV (CCTV) has suspended coverage of a football league whose players appear to have learned their skills from their petulant European counterparts, the BBC reports. CCTV sports channel supremo Jiang Heping firmly pointed the finger at ball-worriers whose weekly antics have provided the press with plenty of juicy …

Bootnotes 17 Nov 2008, 13:49
Nintendo 'bans' second-hand WiiSpeak sales

Wii Speak Channel download code only works once

Once you’re bored with WiiSpeak, you'll no longer be able to make a quick buck flogging it on eBay. Nintendo has designed a way of eliminating second-hand sales. WiiSpeak: second-hand sales are a no-no In order to use the WiiSpeak, gamers must first use their “Wii Download Number” to download the Wii Speak Channel. But …

Reg Hardware 17 Nov 2008, 13:50
Platform fires discount cluster tools into schools

SC08 A little kindness goes a long way - to future sales

It is a given in the computer industry that the things that compsci students learn at college or university has a dramatic effect on the products they use in their future careers as computer scientists, programmers, or managers. New technologies are created in academia, often funded by governments and corporations looking for …

Servers 17 Nov 2008, 13:56
Supercomputing past masters resurface with coder-friendly cluster

SC08 ~~Convex~~ Convey boasts unified programming

The Supercomputing 2008 show in Austin is going to be the occasion for a lot of flashbacks, and not just because there are countless nerds on hand who came out of the University of California at Berkeley. The event is hosting the debut of a new supercomputer maker, Convey Computer, and the company's brain trust includes Steven …

Servers 17 Nov 2008, 14:02
El Reg seeks top net neologism

Pod slurping? Meh

It's come to our notice that you, our beloved readers, do take a close interest in the destruction evolution of the English language, as exemplified by the inclusion of "meh" in the Collins English Dictionary and the elevation of "wiki" to the OED. Like it or not, when it comes to neologisms the interwebs are a fertile …

Bootnotes 17 Nov 2008, 14:38
US Justice Department free to track mobile phone users

If you have nothing to hide...

The American Civil Liberties Union has revealed that the FBI no longer feels the need for judicial or operator oversight when deploying base station-faking technology to detect mobile phones. This capability is nothing new, but previously it was assumed that a warrant was needed before the FBI started tracking phones and that …

Mobile 17 Nov 2008, 14:46
MS explains 7-year patch delay

Legacy networking problem cure as bad as disease

Microsoft has explained why it took seven years to patch a known vulnerability. Fixing the bug earlier would have taken out network applications and potential exploits alike, it explained. Security bulletin MS08-068 fixed a flaw in the SMB (Server Message Block) component of Windows, first demonstrated by Sir Dystic of Cult of …

Enterprise Security 17 Nov 2008, 15:02
One-eyed woman wants techno-vision

Glass eye-cum-camcorder, please

A one-eyed woman has appealed for some gadget guidance to help her turn her artificial eye into a camcorder. Tanya Vlach already wears a prosthetic eyeball, but she wants to know how best to turn it into a hi-tech peeper able to store video files, transmit wirelessly and snap still photos. How can this gain camcorder …

Reg Hardware 17 Nov 2008, 15:15
Citibank, RBS and JP Morgan wield gilt edged axe

City workers under siege

Citibank is cutting another 53,000 from its payroll, on top of the 22,000 job cuts it has already announced. JP Morgan is also expected to announce job cuts today - the bank has already told contractors to accept lower day rates or find work elsewhere. Royal Bank of Scotland also said today that it is cutting 3,000 posts from …

IT Director 17 Nov 2008, 15:28
Three SiPort Inc bosses slain in gun rampage

Ex-employee Jing Hua Wu arrested on suspicion of triple murder

A 47-year-old product test engineer was arrested yesterday on suspicion of fatally shooting three of his colleagues after being laid off from his post at Santa Clara-based SiPort Inc. Jing Hua Wu, a married father of six-year-old twin sons and another boy under three, faces three counts of murder, police told the Associated …

Law 17 Nov 2008, 15:34
Beeb gets its rocks off in Second Life

E-shag guide: First, buy enormous e-todger...

The BBC last week more than fulfilled its public service remit by exploring just how saddos can get their ends away on Second Life. It turns out the truth of virtual rumpy-pumpy is pretty straightforward: Equip your avatar with some shag kit and get down to some serious rogering. Tech hack Adrian Mars explained: "First you …

Bootnotes 17 Nov 2008, 16:12
Cybercrooks launch DDoS assault on anti-fraud site

Updated Backhanded compliment

Unidentified miscreants have launched a denial of service attack on a UK-based anti-fraud website. Bobbear.co.uk, which fights money laundering by warning about groups attempting to recruit mules, was left unreachable on Monday after coming under a distributed denial of service attack. Net security firm Sophos reports that the …

Crime 17 Nov 2008, 16:37
Microsoft and HP gun for Hyper-Victory with SMEs

Deep, down and dirty with the little guy

Microsoft has sealed a virtualisation deal with Hewlett-Packard that will see the computer maker deploy systems loaded with Hyper-V. Under the agreement, Microsoft has buddied up with HP to sell and market storage, server, networking tech and desktop virtualisation products to the all-important target market: SMEs. Small and …

Virtualization 17 Nov 2008, 17:13
Geek Wheels touted as the ultimate tech scooter

Mo' 'ped

Take one Yamaha Vino scooter and enough gadgets to make Amazon’s shipping warehouse look bleak, and what do you get? The Geek Wheels techno-scooter. Thought Lab's Geek Wheels techno-scooter Geek Wheels boasts just about everything you’d need for a long- or short-haul journey. Underneath the seat rests the scooter’s …

Reg Hardware 17 Nov 2008, 17:53
Obama's BlackBerry to be banned?

Law could see President-Elect ditch email

A US law could force President-Elect Barack Obama give up his BlackBerry, it has been reported. The Presidential Records Act states that the soon-to-be-President’s correspondence must be available for view by US citizens, although there are restrictions. This would mean that everything included in emails written by Obama would …

Reg Hardware 17 Nov 2008, 18:33
Fujitsu follows Seagate with svelte 6Gbps SAS drive

Sealed cannister love

Solidifying the appeal of enterprise small form factor (SFF) SAS hard disk drives, Fujitsu is launching 10K and 15K rpm products, both with the 6Gbit/s SAS-II interface, twice as fast as 3Gbit/s SAS-I. Seagate was first into the fast higher capacity SFF drive space with its 10K.3 and 15K.2 Savvio drives, and the Fujitsu drives …

Storage 17 Nov 2008, 19:09
Apple sued over Jesus Phone 'hairline cracks'

Divine handset exhibits flaws of the flesh

A New Yorker has sued Apple over hairline cracks known to appear in the Jesus Phone. In a 23-page complaint that seeks class-action status, Long Island resident Avi Koschitzki howls about poor reception on the 3G iPhone, joining a chorus of existing legal complaints over Apple's use of AT&T's third gen wireless network. But he …

Mobile 17 Nov 2008, 19:11
Mark Cuban charged with insider trading

SEC: Mamma.com stock was so ugly...

Mark Cuban, technology entrepreneur, billionaire, Dallas Mavericks owner, and ardent attention-seeker is getting a new title by the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) today: "defendant." The SEC has charged Cuban with insider trading, accusing him of dumping his entire stock in a start-up Internet search engine …

Financial News 17 Nov 2008, 20:13
Symantec's John Thompson to retire as CEO

Will remain chairman of the board

Symantec has announced that CEO John Thompson will retire in early April, at the end of the company's fiscal year. Enrique Salem, the current chief operating officer, will take over as president and chief executive officer of the security, storage, and systems management software maker, and Thompson will remain chairman of the …

Security 17 Nov 2008, 21:49
Microsoft crashes Adobe RIA party

Adobe MAX Adobe throws sand in Microsoft's face

Microsoft has tried to cast a shadow over RIA and cloud news at Adobe Systems' annual MAX conference by talking up Silverlight's roadmap. Barely a month after shipping Silverlight 2 Microsoft has offered a "peek" of the next version of its browser-based media plug-in rival to Adobe's Flash Player on the opening day of MAX. …

Developer 17 Nov 2008, 22:13