2nd February 2009 Archive

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Passport RFIDs cloned wholesale by $250 eBay auction spree

Video demo shows you how

Using inexpensive off-the-shelf components, an information security expert has built a mobile platform that can clone large numbers of the unique electronic identifiers used in US passport cards and next generation drivers licenses. The $250 proof-of-concept device - which researcher Chris Paget built in his spare time - …

Security 2 Feb 06:02
LG Prada II fashionista phone

Review Something more practical this season

Times have certainly changed since Prada's first touchscreen phone strutted into UK stores back in early 2007, bringing minimalist chic touch control to the fashion conscious, cash-splashing phone buyer months ahead of the iPhone’s arrival. LG's Prada II: It’s taken a while for Prada II to land, but LG’s second venture with …

Reg Hardware 2 Feb 09:02
Judges: Don't know the law? It's understandable

Legal shapeshifting is rampant - would a database help?

The common assumption is that "ignorance of the law is no excuse" – but if a recent case in the Court of Appeal is anything to go by, even highly paid officers of the court are finding it increasingly difficult to know what the law says on any given matter. Late last year, an appeal in R. v. Chambers [2008] EWCA Crim 2467 was …

Law 2 Feb 10:02
Microsoft says it again - no second beta for Windows 7

Schtum on when OS will ship

Microsoft has restated that its next milestone release for Windows 7 will be the Release Candidate test of the OS and not a second beta. The software giant’s Windows development boss Steve Sinofsky said in an official blog post on Saturday that there will only be one beta of Windows 7. Many will see that reaffirmation as a …

Operating Systems 2 Feb 10:08
Germany announces ITER fusion-reactor supercomputer

Teraflops in = terawatts out, hope boffins

German supercomputing chiefs are chuffed to announce today that the Forschungszentrum Jülich supercomputing centre will provide the main computer for the ITER fusion reactor, the international effort intended to solve the human race's energy problems. "We are proud that the European Fusion Development Agreement has chosen to …

Servers 2 Feb 10:18
Japan takes smile detection to new heights

Software for analysing the quality of your grin

Smile detection features on many compact cameras nowadays. But an offshoot of the technology’s now been designed to detect the strength of your subject’s smile. Smile Scan rates the quality of your smile Smile Scan software measures movements on key points of your face, such as the edges of your mouth, your nose and eyes, …

Reg Hardware 2 Feb 10:43
Sony stands by 10m PS3 full-year sales forecast

‘We shall not, we shall not be moved’

Despite experiencing a dip in sales, Sony is adamant that it’ll achieve its goal of selling 10m PlayStation 3s by the end of its current financial year. Sony’s CFO, Nobuyuki Oneda, said in an earnings call late last week that “on a full-year basis, we believe we are on track to sell the 10m units that I said at the beginning …

Reg Hardware 2 Feb 10:46
Gov portal hits Teletext and Freeview

Talking to the populace via the tellybox

Directgov, the UK government's information website, is now available on your telly via Teletext and Freeview. The site offers information from various government departments and has been available on Sky and Virgin Media for some time. Services will be available on Freeview channel 106 or by going to Teletext page 750 behind …

Government 2 Feb 10:55
Exploiting laptop connectivity

Striking the communications balance

Business communications have never been better, so we are told. The combination of pervasive, high speed connectivity and a variety of portable devices untethers the workforce and enables real time communication, higher levels of responsiveness and better collaboration. In theory. With over 80 per cent of organizations having …

Notebooks 2 Feb 11:02
Wrong kind of winter brings England to a halt

Panic buying in Guildford, enormous c**t stalks Notts

England was plunged into a Siberian winter this morning with train company websites frozen right across the South East. A chill wind from Russia dumped a mountain of snow on England, with some gardens experiencing drifts of up to 18 inches deep. Panic buying of milk, prosciutto, Bordeaux and other essentials promptly broke out …

Bootnotes 2 Feb 11:24
Netbooks: A bit popular

Now a fifth of total notebook sales

If you have a desktop or notebook computer and are aged between 25 and 55, there's nearly a one in five chance you have already bought a netbook. According to a PriceGrabber survey, netbook users overwhelmingly own desktop PCs (91 per cent) and a notebook (87 per cent) and PriceGrabber's report writers think this is because …

Channel Register 2 Feb 11:48
Subatomic nanoholograms smash 1-bit-per-atom barrier

What storage limit, says supersmall-me prof

Imperceptibly tiny news from the world of nano-publishing today, as a new record has been set by American scientists for exceedingly small writing. Boffins at Stanford University say they have managed to write "SU" in letters smaller than atoms. "We ended up with the smallest writing in history," says Hari Manoharan, Stanford …

Physics 2 Feb 12:05
Pentax unveils hundred-quid 10Mp compact

Cheap, cheap, cheap

In years gone by, £100 didn't get you many megapixels for your money. But Pentax has expanded the cheap compact camera market with a feature-rich shooter. Pentax's Optio E70L: good value for money The firm’s new Optio E70L is described as an “entry-level compact” that’s ideal for point-and-shoot novices searching for an …

Reg Hardware 2 Feb 12:06
Black hats poison Google video search

Game for a hack

Miscreants have poisoned Google Video search results in a bid to trick the unwary into getting infected with malware. Instead of video clips, researchers at Trend Micro discovered that around 400,000 queries returning malicious results that lead to a single redirection point, which leads onto an array of maliciously …

Crime 2 Feb 12:10
HMRC bigs up success of online tax returns

What do you mean, you had trouble?

Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs (HMRC) has hailed a record response from the number of taxpayers filing their self-assessment tax returns online this year, even though some people have claimed they were unable to access the system. An HMRC spokesman told The Register that the Inland Revenue had seen record numbers of people …

Government 2 Feb 12:19
Arizona Super Bowl fans cop eyeful of todger

Sensational nine-inch gain by female wide receiver

An Arizona TV company has described itself as "dismayed and disappointed" that some cable viewers of its Super Bowl feed were treated to a short excerpt from a grumble flick "just after the last touchdown by the Arizona Cardinals". According to the BBC, the offending clip "showed a woman unzipping a man's trousers, followed by …

Bootnotes 2 Feb 12:47
AMD Phenom II Socket AM2+ CPU

Review Core i7 killer?

AMD has updated its quad-core Phenom processor with a die-shrink from 65nm to 45nm. The first fruits of this labour are the 3.0GHz Phenom II X4 940 and the 2.8GHz Phenom II X4 920, which are both clocked higher than the 2.6GHz Phenom X4 950 so the die shrink has an immediate benefit in terms of raw clock speed. AMD's Phenom …

Reg Hardware 2 Feb 13:02
NetApp kills off StoreVault

People getting angry

It always was a mystery why hotshot channel head Leonard Iventosch suddenly left NetApp last summer. Perhaps this sheds some light, though - NetApp has just announced the end of life for its main SME channel product, the S Family, formerly known as StoreVault. Users are complaining of being shafted. StoreVault, a NetApp …

Storage 2 Feb 13:07
Fresh privacy fears over IE 8 Suggested Sites

Promiscuous URL sharing not a great idea, warns top Cambridge researcher

A top security researcher has called for Microsoft to rethink aspects of its Suggested Sites feature in IE8. The optional feature in the next version of Microsoft's browser allows users to "discover websites you might like based on sites you've visited", as Microsoft explains it. When the feature is activated, the addresses of …

Enterprise Security 2 Feb 13:37
DARPA seeks Transformer helicopters

'On the fly inflight morphing' superchopper wanted

Pentagon crazytech researchers look to be revisiting a long-speculated-upon idea: that of helicopter blades which could extend or shorten in length during flight. This would offer major performance benefits, and such options as whisper mode or easier operations in confined spaces. The latest development in the telescoping …

Science 2 Feb 14:06
Tories choose sub-prime beard for maths post

Countdown conundrum

The Tory party has chosen ex-Countdown presenter and secured loan advertiser Carol Vorderman to provide a public face for the party's "Maths Taskforce". Vorderman spent nine years shilling for FirstPlus - which offered loans to those with poor credit records. Barclays Bank - which owned FirstPlus - was looking for a buyer for …

Government 2 Feb 14:11
Brand sponsors - 'The most worrying trend in music'

Smells like Doritos™

Sponsorship by corporate brands will replace the disappearing record label, Avril Lavigne's manager Terry McBride told us one soggy summer day last year. "We'll have Dorito™-sponsored bands. They'll come to an artist with a $5m ad budget, and they will say will add x money to your business, but we want something for that." …

Music and Media 2 Feb 14:14
Unannounced Motorola spied online

The rumoured ZN300?

Talk of a Motorola handset unofficially dubbed the ZN300 has been heard before. But the first image of what’s claimed to be the device itself has now been leaked online. Could this be Motorola's ZN300? Register Hardware’s somewhat sceptical about the image’s authenticity – given its blurred and generally iffy looking …

Reg Hardware 2 Feb 14:15
Xbox 360 NXE fix inbound?

Potential end to HDMI audio problems in sight

Numerous gamers have reported audio issues since installing the New Xbox Experience (NXE). But a solution could be en route, following rumours of a Microsoft-designed fix. NXE was launched back in November, but after the release many gamers – with HDMI-connected Xbox 360s - began complaining that their HD TVs weren’t …

Reg Hardware 2 Feb 14:37
Rich-interface patterns get Quince treatment

.NET, Java and PHP served

Infragistics is today expected to open an online community for creating and storing patterns to build rich interfaces using Microsoft and other technologies. Called Quince, this is a free patterns catalogue and "community resource" to help those building user interfaces, from the look and feel through to the workflow. You …

Developer 2 Feb 15:02
BBC pumps 60 quid a head into Gaelic

Dead language not responding to flogging

The BBC's Gaelic-language channel, BBC Alba, has seen its audience drop by a third since launch, with further drops expected as Scottish politicians desperately try to be seen doing something about the death of Gaelic. The channel started four months ago, with more than 600,000 viewers, a total that has already dropped to 400, …

Government 2 Feb 15:45
Lloyds sorry for phone problems

Phone banking snowed under

Lloyds has apologised to customers unable to use its telephone banking system yesterday. We received emails from Lloyds customers unable to access phone banking services from 11am yesterday [Sunday]. A spokeswoman for Lloyds TSB said: “Some technical problems we experienced yesterday meant that, for a period of time, we were …

IT Director 2 Feb 15:52
Sony taps veins for better biometrics

Blood vessel layouts scanned

Sony has unveiled the next step in biometric security: a camera-based system that analyses veins in your fingers. Sony's Mofiria tech: analyses vein layouts The user first lays one side of their index finger down on a small pad, after which a series of LEDs shine infrared light onto it. A CMOS sensor sat on the other side …

Reg Hardware 2 Feb 15:57
Woolies to be resurrected as online-only store

Pick 'n' mix merchant rides again

Woolworths has been given the kiss of life as an online-only store after Shop Direct bought the now defunct UK High Street retailer’s brand name. Financial terms of the deal were kept secret by the David and Frederick Barclay-owned company, which is Blighty’s biggest home shopping dealer and operates under well-known brands …

Financial News 2 Feb 16:24
Blind phone phreaker coughs to harassment charges

Swatting menace faces long stretch

A legally blind phone phreaker has admitted prank phonecall and hacking charges. Matthew Weigman, 18, of Massachusetts, pleaded guilty to two felony charges last week at a Dallas hearing. Judge Paul D Stickney was told Weigman (aka Li'l Hacker) was a notorious figure in the telephone "party line" hacking scene prior to his …

Crime 2 Feb 17:09
Ares I manned rocket section explodes in testing

'It was meant to,' insists NASA

NASA has announced a successful test related to its new Ares I astronaut-carrying rocket, the planned successor to the space shuttle. A key part of the structure, critical to safe parachute recovery of the discarded first stage, successfully blew itself up last week during a trial on the ground in Utah. Must be really strong …

Space 2 Feb 17:14
Woman jailed for texting while driving

Predictive text fails driver

If you’ve ever wondered what the point of phone applications blocking you from driving and texting are, just ask 21-year-old Philippa Curtis. Curtis, of Bury St Edmunds, Suffolk, has been jailed for 21 months after smashing into a stationary car at 70mph while texting on her mobile phone, according to a report by the BBC. The …

Reg Hardware 2 Feb 17:28
Mac flirts with 10 per cent web share

Windows on the wane

Web-use statistics prove that the Mac continues to gain market share from Windows-based PCs. According to Web analyst outfit Net Applications, Mac-run browsers accounted for nearly 10 per cent of all web hits in January, coming in at 9.93 per cent. That's an increase of 0.3 per centage points from December. Use of Apple's …

Operating Systems 2 Feb 17:41
Ex-IntelCrayAkamai startup rejiggers virtualization

Servers splash in memory pool

RNA Networks - a startup based in server development hotbed Portland, Oregon - has launched a stack of systems software that provides memory virtualization and pooling for servers that are connected by a network. While most server virtualization tools aim to carve up a single box into multiple virtual machines with their own …

Virtualization 2 Feb 17:58
Three hospital worm infection dubbed 'substantive failure'

Entirely avoidable

A worm attack that forced three London hospitals to shut down their computer networks late last year was entirely avoidable and represented a major failing by the organizations' IT staff, according to an independent review of the incident. In mid-November, the Mytob worm wiggled its way into 4,700 PCs used by St Bartholomew's …

Security 2 Feb 19:50
Gears of War grind to halt

Expired digital cert kills PC play

A digital certificate that expired Wednesday ground Gears of War to a halt last week, leaving many unable to launch the original PC-version of the first person shooter until Epic Games works out a fix. The online cheat detection used in Gears relies on a Windows digital certificate that expired January 28, 2009. Gamers …

Music and Media 2 Feb 19:53
Novell cuts ~~1000~~ 100 workers

Rumor corrected

As layoffs go, the ones that took place last week at commercial operating system maker Novell were pretty small, and a lot less than was originally reported out there on the Web. CNET reported late on Friday that Novell was slashing up to 1,000 of its employees, which would have comprised about 25 per cent of its global …

Financial News 2 Feb 19:57
Windows Vista stuck on single digit enterprise adoption

'New Coke' continues to fizzle

Legacy versions of Windows continue to dominate enterprise computing, with Windows Vista having moved very little in the last half year. Just over two years since Microsoft launched Windows Vista, fewer than 10 per cent of PCs in the enterprise are running the successor to the company's eight-year-old Windows XP. That …

Operating Systems 2 Feb 20:46
Microsoft fortifies IE8 against new XSS exploits

Catching attacks without breaking the web

Engineers in Microsoft's Internet Explorer group continue to refine a new security feature designed to block malicious scripts that can be injected into trusted websites to steal email and account credentials. Judging from the magnitude of the problem, their task may never be completed. Among the multitude of revisions …

Security 2 Feb 21:39
Intel to spill Nehalem secrets

Wither AMD? IBM? Sun?

It's the beginning of a new year, and that means chip makers will soon show off their wares at the annual International Solid State Circuits Conference, which runs next week in San Francisco. This time around, Intel pretty much owns the show as far as microprocessors are concerned, Hosted by the IEEE, the ISSCC is one of two …

PCs & Chips 2 Feb 22:10
Adobe claims Apple 'collaboration' on iPhone Flash

We're working on it (again)

Adobe CEO Shantanu Narayen has spun yet another pirouette in his company's dance with Apple regarding the development of a Flash player for the iPhone. "It’s a hard technical challenge," Narayen told Bloomberg last week at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, "and that’s part of the reason Apple and Adobe are …

Developer 2 Feb 23:14
Transmeta IP sold to not-patent troll

Myhrvold expands collection

Transmeta - the low-power chip supplier that tried to make netbook silicon before there was a market for netbooks - is officially dead and picked apart. The company's $255m acquisition by Novafora closed late last week and a good chunk of the its patent portfolio jumped to the IP licensing firm, Intellectual Ventures. IV said …

Law 2 Feb 23:29
Sun taps ex-Merrill, ex-Fannie Mae exec for board

Meltdown trickle down

If you were an investment management firm with a big stake in Sun Microsystems, and if you had arranged with the IT vendor to get two independent board members added to the board of directors, where would you look for them? Fannie Mae? Merrill Lynch, perhaps? You might think not, but these are the organizations where Sun's …

Financial News 2 Feb 23:45