9th December 2008 Archive

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Logitech launches padded Lapdesk

Work in a cold climate

As the winter temperature plummets and heating costs rise, Register Hardware’s hacks have grown fond of the leg warmth generated by laptops. But if you’re not a fan, check out Logitech’s latest. Logitech's Lapdesk: keeps your legs cool Lapdesk has a padded underside and is designed to sit on your lap as you work, preventing …

Reg Hardware 9 Dec 2008, 00:02
Big Blue donates cloud to unborn solar cells

Free cycles for plastic sun capture

The World Community Grid, a network of donated processing capacity established by IBM for do-gooder supercomputing projects, said today that it would be donating time to a bunch of Harvard University researchers who are looking for organic materials from which to make flexible and cheaper solar cells. Plastic solar cells, to be …

Science 9 Dec 2008, 00:07
Micro Focus snags Relativity for $9.7m

Mainframe marriage

Consolidation in the legacy application rehosting and modernization software space continues apace, with compiler and rehosting expert Micro Focus announcing yet another acquisition. This time, it's shelling out $9.7m in cash to pick up Relativity Technologies, one of its competitors in the IBM mainframe and midrange server …

Financial News 9 Dec 2008, 00:32
21 million German bank accounts - yours for only €12m

It's a steal

Identity thieves who claim they stole details of 21 million German bank accounts are offering to sell the data on the black market for €12 million (US$15.3 million), a German magazine reported over the weekend. To prove they weren't bluffing, the crooks produced the compact disc containing the names, addresses, phone numbers, …

Crime 9 Dec 2008, 00:58
Microsoft phone coming Zune?

Rumors finally have a freshness date

Second only to Barack Obama's lack of US citizenship, the Rumor That Refuses to Die award rightfully belongs to the Microsoft Zune Phone - and today a date was finally ascribed to that elusive hardware's release. According to Trip Chowdhry of Global Equities Research, as quoted by Barron's, the release of the iPhone competitor …

Mobile 9 Dec 2008, 01:38
Adobe and SpringSource meet on RIA

Rich enterprise play

Adobe Systems is collaborating with SpringSource on rich-internet applications combining Flash, AIR and PDF with open-source Java for the enterprise. The companies Monday announced planned integration between Flash, AIR and PDF served up via the Spring Java framework and SpringSource platforms. Adobe is working with …

Developer 9 Dec 2008, 01:39
Dell to flog EMC Celerra NAS

Buddy system to go on five more years

Dell is going to resell best buddy EMC's Celerra NX4 NAS product, giving suppliers such as NetApp stronger competition. EMC and Dell are also extending their partnership for another five years to 2013. Currently Dell supplies EMC Clariion AX and CX modular drive arrays with the CX positioned as Fibre Channel-access arrays …

Storage 9 Dec 2008, 05:02
LIVE 2:30pm GMT: What the hell is an optimum working environment?

Regcast Delivering the information on information delivery

Tune in today at 2.30pm GMT for our last webcast of 2008. Our expert panel returns to the Reg studios once again to explore the factors needed to create an optimum working environment. The panel will tackle: What exactly is meant by an "optimum working environment" for business users The true value of business intelligence …

Productivity 9 Dec 2008, 08:15
Archos 7 internet-enabled PMP

Review Two inches can go a long way

So, how much difference does two inches make? This is what you must ask yourself when deciding if the Archos 7 is worth the extra cash over and above its 5in-screened sibling, the Archos 5. While the 7 is a big chunk-of-a-device, it doesn't feel the unholy monster that the Archos 705 does. Size-wise it measures 190 x 110 x …

Reg Hardware 9 Dec 2008, 09:07
Onyx buys Dundas IT

Scottish expansion

Onyx Group bought the Edinburgh reseller Dundas IT last month for a "six figure sum". The company will bolt on Dundas's managed services business and 100-plus customers to its Scottish operations in Falkirk and Glasgow. No job losses are planned. This is Onyx's third acquisition this year - it bought Campbell Lee in Scotland …

Channel Register 9 Dec 2008, 09:12
A380 too quiet, moan Emirates pilots

Pesky passengers disturbing our kip

Airbus A380 operator Emirates has encountered an unexpected problem with the aircraft - it's "too quiet" for pilots to enjoy a quick kip in the crew rest area. According to Flight International, the company's flyboys complain the lack of background engine noise means they can hear every wailing infant and flush of the vaccuum …

Science 9 Dec 2008, 09:35
Brussels ploughs ahead with biofuel plans

Sugarbeet is the EU's Iowa corn

In a move which has surprised analysts and environmentalists, the European Union will leave plans for strong takeup of biofuels sourced from food crops unchanged. A plan has been agreed in Brussels which will see biofuels dominating Europe's "renewable" transport quotas in coming years. EU Observer reports that the member …

Environment 9 Dec 2008, 09:50
Reg readers in the dark over extreme porn

Local police clueless too

A Register reader has been left baffled by the reaction of her local police force when they were asked what exactly is likely to constitute an actionable image when the extreme porn laws come into force in January. Although the Ministry of Justice has issued its own guidelines the message has yet to filter down to local forces …

Law 9 Dec 2008, 09:55
Fighter jet crashes in suburban San Diego

Three dead on the ground, pilot ejects safely

An F/A-18D on a training mission yesterday crashed into a suburb of San Diego, killing three people on the ground, Reuters reports. One person is still missing, although the pilot ejected safely. The aircraft was flying from a carrier in the Pacific to Marine Corps Air Station Miramar when it apparently suffered a failure of …

Science 9 Dec 2008, 10:11
HP's bendy plastic e-paper display on the way

Ribbony prototype tested

Bendy plastic displays might actually arrive in a year or two - HP has developed a prototype of a flexible display screen with Arizona State University's Flexible Display Center. Flexible displays could be pulled out from a PDA-like device to provide a viewing area larger than the device itself. They could also be used as a …

PCs & Chips 9 Dec 2008, 10:25
Phones to be powered by speech?

It's good to talk

Mobile phones could one day be powered by your banter, if research being carried out by two US universities proves fruitful. Tahir Cagin, a professor from the A&M University in Texas, together with a team from the University of Houston, discovered that the energy-harvesting capabilities of piezoelectric materials improve by …

Reg Hardware 9 Dec 2008, 10:32
Better Place deploys re-charging posts

'Leccy Tech Pillar of the EV community?

Better Place has shown off its first electric car re-charging points in Israel. Better Place's Charging Post and EV: members only Similar, if not identical, charging posts will soon be popping up in Denmark, Australia, California, Hawaii and any other place where Better Place strikes a deal to deploy its 'leccy car charging …

Reg Hardware 9 Dec 2008, 10:44
Fujitsu looking to sell hard drive unit

Sale is on again

It's on again. After rumours of Fujitsu wanting to sell its hard disk drive business to Western Digital surfaced and sank a few weeks ago, the mooted sale is on again. The Wall Street Journal is reporting that Fujitsu is talking to several interested parties about buying its HDD unit. Western Digital is reckoned to be the …

Storage 9 Dec 2008, 10:59
Why the IWF was right to ban a Wikipedia page

Guest opinion Wikimedia's hypocrisy

There has been a storm of controversy over a decision by the Internet Watch Foundation (IWF) to blacklist a page of Wikipedia. But the criticism of Britain's online watchdog is unfair and hypocritical. Last Thursday, the IWF received a complaint from a member of the public about an image that appeared on a Wikipedia entry for …

Law 9 Dec 2008, 11:22
Clangers creator dies at 83

RIP Oliver Postgate

Oliver Postgate - the man behind Bagpuss and the Clangers - has died aged 83, the BBC reports. His partner, Naomi Linnell, said he passed away yesterday at a nursing home near his home in Broadstairs, Kent, at the end of a distinguished career which also brought Ivor the Engine and Noggin the Nog to generations of kids. …

Entertainment 9 Dec 2008, 11:27
MS: We'll slash search data retention if big boys play ball

Anonymise after six months...

Microsoft will only agree to European demands to slash the time it keeps online search query data if Google and Yahoo! adopt the same methods. The software giant said yesterday it supports the Article 29 Working Party’s guidelines for anonymisation on the web, before adding that such rules can only be adopted if they are …

Law 9 Dec 2008, 11:35
SkyFire beta goes public

Mobile browser war opens new front

Skyfire, the mobile browser for Nokia S60 and Windows Mobile devices, has broadened its beta testing to include the UK and no longer requires users to register with the service. Skyfire works by using a proxy server, including a UK-based one, to do all the heavy processing and just renders content on the mobile device. Opera …

Mobile 9 Dec 2008, 11:38
Ofcom rules on Clarkson strumpet gag

No breach of broadcasting code

Ofcom has ruled that Top Gear presenter Jeremy Clarkson was not in breach of the broadcasting code for a quip he made on the show alluding to lorry drivers murdering prostitutes. Clarkson, 48, was "taking part in a lorry-driving task" during the 2 November pre-watershed show when he said: "Change gear, change gear, check …

Bootnotes 9 Dec 2008, 11:44
Rockstar pledges GTA:IV PC patch

Gameplay problem fix

Rockstar has promised to do everything it can to fix the problems that gamers are experiencing while playing the recently launched PC edition of Grand Theft Auto: IV. The game’s developer said in an official online blog that a new driver has been released to improve performance and fix major issues with Nvidia's 7900 series …

Reg Hardware 9 Dec 2008, 12:16
Scorpions tale leaves IWF exposed

Opinion 'Look, that regulator isn't wearing any clothes'

As the dust settles over the Internet Watch Foundation's (IWF) little local difficulty with Wikipedia, the question that needs to be answered is whether this was all just storm in a teacup - or the beginning of the end of a conveniently complacent relationship between government and the internet industry. Can the IWF now …

Telecoms 9 Dec 2008, 12:17
RIM officially unveils Javelin

Bold beater?

Research In Motion has officially announced its latest BlackBerry handset, the unveiling no doubt timed to stir up demand before the phone’s impending UK release. RIM's BlackBerry 'Javelin' Curve 8900: up yours, Bold As previously reported, the Curve 8900 - codenamed 'Javelin' - looks very similar to RIM’s Bold 9000. …

Reg Hardware 9 Dec 2008, 12:26
Hackers ahead of the game despite McColo shutdown

One step forward, two steps back

The recent takedown of a notorious botnet-friendly web-host was a major victory for the good guys but the cybercrime outlook remains grim, according to a flurry of annual reports from security vendors published on Tuesday. The reports collectively show that the internet remains a cesspool of malware and that crooks continue to …

Crime 9 Dec 2008, 12:39
Exam board to hear appeal over format cockup

Left on school servers, as well as sent as Word documents

An IT class at a school in Lincolnshire will be allowed to appeal after failing their diploma because they submitted their work in the wrong formats, including Microsoft Word. Exam board Edexcel said today that it had agreed with Cotelands School that the 29 students affected by would be allowed to appeal. They will resubmit …

Applications 9 Dec 2008, 12:49
Sony shutting factories and laying off staff

Temps and perms go

Sony is closing a factory in France as part of a billion-dollar cost-cutting plan which will see it lose at least five production sites by March 2010. It will lay off 8,000 staff and shut two factories, and take short-term measures like reducing inventory and production and delaying investments. It will get rid of about 10 per …

Financial News 9 Dec 2008, 13:04
RIM Blackberry Pearl Flip 8220

Review The message machine to be seen with?

It might seem slightly perverse for RIM to produce a clamshell Blackberry when almost every other phone maker's attitude seems to be ‘been there, done that’ while they focus on sliders and candybars. But there is method in the madness. RIM’s intention with the Pearl range has been to broaden the appeal of the Blackberry beyond …

Reg Hardware 9 Dec 2008, 13:19
iPhone lights a fire

Burn, baby, burn

A video of a burning fire is now available as a premium application for the iPhone, but it remains to be seen if even iPhone users are stupid enough to pay $2 to listen to advertisements for Christmas albums. Televised fires are surprisingly popular, with offerings on DVD and even broadcast in some areas, but putting the same …

Mobile 9 Dec 2008, 13:25
Helmet makes you 'feel' in-game head shots

Just like being shot in the head, apparently

Videogames will give you a headache if you play for too long, but TN Games’ latest peripheral promises to make it feel like you really have been shot in the head. TN Games' HTX Helmet: making virtual headshots feel real The company is famous for its 3rd Space force feedback jackets, which feature in-built sensors that turn …

Reg Hardware 9 Dec 2008, 13:28
Mozilla boudoir shoots out second Firefox 3.1 beta

Let there be pr0n

The second beta of Firefox 3.1 landed yesterday for Windows lovers and Mac fanboys keen to fiddle with Mozilla’s new private browsing porn mode feature. It also comes loaded with the speedier JavaScript engine TraceMonkey, which is now switched on as the default setting. There’s support for video and audio built into web …

Applications 9 Dec 2008, 13:40
UK.gov resilience website feedback page falls over

404: FAIL

The UK government's resilience website is itself far from resilient. Attempts to fill out the feedback form consistently return an ironic runtime error page (screenshot here). The error message reades in part: "An application error occurred on the server. The current custom error settings for this application prevent the …

Servers 9 Dec 2008, 13:55
What we really think of IT architects

Workshop Slippery enough to crawl under a snake's belly wearing a top hat?

The feedback from last week’s article, What the heck is an IT Architect anyway?, has been a genuine pleasure to sift through (even the remark that suggested I should work in IT for a dozen years or so - thanks, Jake, I’ll keep that in mind). Zooming in on the software guys (but thanks, network guys, for your feedback), the …

Systems 9 Dec 2008, 14:03
CPW man quits Olympic committee

Boris loses yet another adviser

David Ross has resigned from his position as adviser to London Mayor Boris Johnson, after coming under fire for using his stake in Carphone Warehouse as collateral for a loan, without informing the company. Board directors may not deal in the company's shares without telling the chairman and getting his permission first - …

Mobile 9 Dec 2008, 14:15
LG tests 100Mb/s download phone chip

A viable 4G technology?

LG has begun testing a mobile phone chip that could pave the way for download and upload speeds of, it claimed, up to 100Mb/s and 50Mb/s, respectively. LG's 3GPP LTE chip and friends The 13mm x 13mm chip was recently tested on a Windows Mobile device at an LG research lab in Korea. Although the part only managed a top …

Reg Hardware 9 Dec 2008, 14:50
Leeds Council loses kids details

Memory stick, car park fail

Leeds Council has apologised for losing a memory stick containing unencrypted details of 5,000 nursery-age children. The council originally believed the stick, which was found by a member of the public, contained no sensitive data. It was not encrypted or protected by a password. It contained names, addresses, dates of birth …

Public Sector 9 Dec 2008, 15:05
MS Ireland blocks redirection 'hack' - eventually

Red ~~hair~~ faces all round

Surfers attempting to visit Microsoft's Irish website via Microsoft.ie on Tuesday morning were greeted with a defaced page instead. Hackers sprayed digital graffiti bragging that Microsoft Ireland had been hacked by the previously unknown "Terrorist crew". The message, which contains greetings to other hackers, as is the …

Enterprise Security 9 Dec 2008, 15:31
Saw: The Videogame hit by setback

Bloody...great

Fans on the puke-inducing Saw horror films could be in for some disappointing news, because it’s rumoured that production of a game based on the film series has stalled. Saw: The Videogame is thought to be almost complete, but a report by website IGN alleged that the title’s developer and publisher – Brash Entertainment – has …

Reg Hardware 9 Dec 2008, 16:01
Microsoft squeezes out Oxite 'open source' blogger platform

Spot the difference

Microsoft has released alpha code for an "open source" blogging platform dubbed Oxite. Redmond will be hoping the platform – which sounds like a spotty teen's best friend to us – will compete with the likes of market big boys Wordpress and Google’s Blogger. But many will argue that now is an odd time for the firm to be …

Developer 9 Dec 2008, 16:07
Sun puts Shanghai Opterons in Galaxy boxes

Gets ready for Intel's Nehalem Xeons

While it isn't always the case, Sun Microsystems usually likes to wait until it can actually ship products before it sends out a press release. So while Advanced Micro Devices announced the "Shanghai" quad-core Opterons for servers nearly a month ago, Sun is only making its "Galaxy" x64 launch today because it has enough of the …

Servers 9 Dec 2008, 16:40
Firm touts anti-radiation chip for phones

'Quantum physical information wave' technology employed

If you believe that mobile phone use puts your brain at risk from electromagnetic radiation, then a Belgian firm’s latest offering may put your mind at ease. It's a gadget that's said to neutralise a phone’s potentially harmful rays. The E-Waves Phone Chip (it's the green dot) The E-Waves Phone Chip is essentially a bulky …

Reg Hardware 9 Dec 2008, 17:23
Pilots survive night on Hudson Strait ice sheet

18 hours at -20°C

Two pilots spent 18 hours floating on an ice sheet after their aircraft suffered twin engine failure on a flight from the US to Sweden, the Sydney Morning Herald reports. Australian Oliver Edwards-Neil, 25, and Sweded Troels Hansen, 45, ditched their Cessna Skymaster in the Hudson Strait, just south of the Arctic circle at …

Odds and Sods 9 Dec 2008, 18:08
In-the-wild attacks find hole in (fully-patched) IE 7

Updated Hardened browser pwned

Security researchers are reporting in-the-wild attacks targeting a previously unknown vulnerability in fully patched versions of Microsoft's Internet Explorer browser. They surfaced on the same day that Microsoft released its biggest batch of security patches in five years. Internet users located in China report infections …

Security 9 Dec 2008, 18:17
Google Oompa Loompas cloaking user agents?

Goobuntu rumor resurfaces

Over 10 per cent of Google's internal machines are hiding their software makeup from the outside world, according to data collected by Net Applications, a web analytics outfit that captures user traffic on more than 40,000 sites across the net. When visiting webpages, the firm says, 11 to 13 per cent of internal Google …

Software 9 Dec 2008, 19:07
Apple's Snow Leopard set to exploit GPU power

OpenCL 1.0 spec debuts

Apple's Snow Leopard bounded closer to reality today - and there's a strong possibility it leapt well past Windows 7 in the process. Today, at SIGGRAPH Asia in Singapore, the Khronos Group, a self-described "member-funded industry consortium focused on the creation of open standard, royalty-free APIs to enable the authoring …

Operating Systems 9 Dec 2008, 19:20
Google Native Client challenges Microsoft and Adobe RIAs

If only they can get the security to work

Google is entering the rich-client game with a project allowing online applications to tap your desktop through the browser. The search giant has revealed its Native Client project, intended to run native code from web-based applications on x86 Windows, Mac, and Linux. Native Client will use JavaScript in the browser. Google …

Software 9 Dec 2008, 20:33
2008 goes into one-second overtime

Boffins insert another 'leap second'

As if the leap day in February wasn't enough stalling for time, scientists intend to delay the arrival of 2009 by one additional second. Timekeepers will tack on a "leap second" to the world's clocks December 31, 2008 at 23 hours, 59 minutes and 59 seconds Coordinated Universal Time (UTC). The occasional chrono-adjustment is …

Physics 9 Dec 2008, 20:39
Four-year-old Diebold glitch silently drops votes

Botches California county's results

A four-year-old software glitch wiped out almost 200 votes from a small California county's November elections tally, causing officials to certify results that are now known to be incorrect. The bug, which resides in specific versions of tabulation software sold by Premier Election Solutions, caused 197 paper ballots to …

Government 9 Dec 2008, 21:12
GPLv3 to reinforce FSF open-source license position?

Beats older competition

Adoption of GPLv3 has surpassed many older licenses in a short time, according to license watcher Black Duck Software. GPLv3 is now the fifth most chosen license in the open-source community, used in 6,300 projects, and is expected to snatch the number four-slot from BSD in "a year or two" Black Duck said The move past BSD …

Software 9 Dec 2008, 21:35
Intel plans tiny energy suckers to watch environs

Litter the planet

Intel's research labs have worked on some truly sci-fi concepts in their time - shape-shifting micro-robots and online-gaming "anti-cheat" technology, to name just a pair. Now the chip giant’s laying plans for tiny sensors that are capable of transmitting data on their surrounding environment while powered by ambient energy. …

Environment 9 Dec 2008, 22:22
Yahoo! planning massive layoffs for Wednesday

10% workforce cut looms

The massive layoffs that Yahoo!'s departing CEO Jerry Yang warned about in October will reportedly hit the search firm's employees Wednesday morning. A report on Dow Jones' All Things Digital claims the planned Yahoo! worker-decimation scheme will arrive tomorrow with further cuts on the way. Yang said during the company's …

Business 9 Dec 2008, 22:52