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6th April 2009 Archive

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  • Data Centers get 'black box' flight data recorder

    Minus the flight

    It's like airplane's "black box" flight data recorder. But it's for data centers. Israeli startup Axxana has developed an black box recorder to store enterprise data in real-time, so that it's recoverable in the event of a data center disaster. When disasters strike data centers, data that has not yet been transmitted to a …

    Storage 6 Apr 2009, 04:24

  • MS teams with Facebook to eradicate Koobface worm

    Redmond clean-up crew

    Microsoft has teamed up with Facebook to purge the persistent Koobface worm from the popular social-networking site. Security researchers from Microsoft added detection for the Koobface worm to Microsoft's Software Removal Tool (MSRT) two weeks ago. In the intervening fortnight, more than 133,000 infected Windows PCs have been …

    Security 6 Apr 2009, 04:26

  • Pink Floyd frontman backs McKinnon musical protest

    Shine on you crazy diamond

    A small group of protesters held a successful musical protest against attempts to extradite UFO enthusiast turned hacker Gary McKinnon to the US on Thursday. Janis Sharp, McKinnon's mum, organised the sing-in protest outside the US embassy on Thursday to coincide with President Barack Obama's visit to London for the G20 …

    Security 6 Apr 2009, 04:30

  • IBM-Sun deal breaking down, report says

    Too little money. Too little commitment

    According to spokespeople for the two companies a report on Sunday evening in the Wall Street Journal, the much-rumored and never-admitted merger talks between IBM and Sun Microsystems appear to have hit an impasse. No kidding. Huh. The report posted on Sunday said that Sun's board of directors had rejected a "formal …

    Financial News 6 Apr 2009, 04:35

  • Workplace dispute laws change today

    Got beef?

    The way workplace disputes are handled will change from Monday. The Government's scrapping of the statutory grievance and disciplinary procedures is just one of the law changes that will come into effect on 6th April. The Government introduced a strict protocol for workplace disputes in 2004, forcing employers to go through …

    Small Biz 6 Apr 2009, 07:02

  • Olympic cock-up knocks East London off Internet

    Diggers virtually level East End

    Businesses and customers in East London were still without internet and phone service this morning after Olympic contractors dug through a fibre optic cable. Contractors working on an Olympic venue near Stratford, east London, dug through the fibre optic cable on Saturday knocking a BT exchange at Old Street offline. One of …

    Broadband 6 Apr 2009, 08:55

  • Irish Blood Transfusion Service endorses Dracula

    Dublin book initiative with added Type O

    We're delighted to report that the Irish Blood Transfusion Service is giving its full support to Dublin's "One City, One Book" - an annual initiative "designed to encourage everyone in the city to read the same book during the month of April each year". Splendidly, this year's recommended read is Bram Stoker's classic Dracula …

    Bootnotes 6 Apr 2009, 08:56

  • Failed Nork rocket bits straddle Japan

    Pyongyang claims of 'singing sat' success dismissed

    North Korea, as expected, launched a large multi-stage rocket at the weekend. Parts of the stack fell on either side of Japan. Pyongyang claims that a satellite was put into orbit: Japanese and US air-defence commanders have stated this is untrue. According to the US Northern Command, the rocket was a "Taepodong-2" long-range …

    Science 6 Apr 2009, 09:01

  • Drunk Swedish pastor woos Christians online

    'You look like a bearded lady'

    A Church of Sweden pastor faces possible expulsion from the ministry after drunkenly hitting a Christian online dating website and wooing women with chat-up lines such as "You look like a bearded lady". According to local paper Smålandsposten, the elderly and pensioned man of God told another woman down at 7EHimlen ("Seventh …

    Bootnotes 6 Apr 2009, 09:02

  • Boffins develop sight-free touchscreen phone dialler

    Make calls without looking at the screen

    Two Google engineers have answered Stevie Wonder’s recent plea for touchscreen phones to become more accessible to the blind and developed a sight-free phone dialling application for the Android platform. Can't see the video? Download Flash Player from Adobe.com Stroke Dialler lets you dial any number between zero and nine …

    Phones 6 Apr 2009, 09:30

  • Pure Flip Mino HD

    Review The YouTuber's favourite goes HD at last

    The pocket-sized Flip camcorder was one of the top tech toys of summer 2008, and it spawned a host of equally diminutive copycat products – not to mention our own compact camcorder round-up. The secret of the Flip’s success lay in its sheer simplicity. Unlike most digital cameras and camcorders, which are festooned with buttons …

    Hardware 6 Apr 2009, 09:33

  • EMC gets social to push storage

    LinkedIn, Facebook manipulated by heartless megacorp

    EMC's marketing department has had an epiphany - the PR efforts for its April 14th virtual event include a heavy dash of social networking. The Overtake The Future event has had both Facebook and LinkedIn groups set up, with teaser notes suggesting people interested in the idea join the groups and participate in the discussion …

    Storage 6 Apr 2009, 09:35

  • Wii's MotionPlus peripheral to launch in July?

    Leaked document shows launch schedule

    Nintendo’s MotionPlus controller add-on could be launched in selected parts of Europe within three months, if a retailer’s leaked product roadmap is to be believed. An Amsterdam retailer's Wii MotionPlus roadmap Image courtesy of GoNintendo A reader of blog GoNintendo recently snapped a picture of what’s claimed to be a …

    Games 6 Apr 2009, 10:03

  • Xiotech Emprise takes PowerNAPs

    Forty winks for 'street fight'

    Xiotech has added spin-down to its Emprise ISE storage arrays to save power. The Emprise arrays, which come with a five-year warranty, are built with Integrated Storage Elements ISE), sealed canisters of disk drives, that function as virtual single drives.The product was launched last year and Xiotech has shipped more than 1, …

    Storage 6 Apr 2009, 10:10

  • Unannounced BlackBerry trio show up online

    Onyx, Magnum and Driftwood

    Specifications for three previously unannounced BlackBerry handsets have emerged online. The trio - codenamed 'Onyx', 'Magnum' and 'Driftwood' - washed up on website BoyGeniusReport. The site hasn’t been able to secure any pictures of the phones. All three will supposedly be GSM/GPRS/Edge and 3G capable. Wi-Fi and GPS will …

    Phones 6 Apr 2009, 10:12

  • MPs battle to save great British pub

    Death by taxation and cheap supermarket booze

    A cross-party alliance of over 200 MPs has joined a British Beer and Pub Association campaign to save the traditional British boozer from oblivion. Pubs are being increasingly priced out of the market by tax hikes and cheap supermarket alcohol. The rescue charge is led by the Liberal Democrat MP for Colchester, Bob Russell, …

    Bootnotes 6 Apr 2009, 10:17

  • SNIA embraces NAS and FCoE

    Ethernet bunk-up

    The SNIA (Storage Networking Industry Association) is bringing NAS (Network-Attached Storage) networking into its mainstream activities by expanding its IP Storage Forum into the Ethernet Storage Forum (ESF). SNIA forums are marketing bodies set up to provide marketing and educational materials explaining the features, …

    Storage 6 Apr 2009, 10:31

  • A Geeks Guide2 ...Hacking

    Reg Bookshop 40% off

    Electronic vandalism, government espionage, ITU hideouts, luminous hairstyles and the coolest body piercings; the Hollywood portrayal of the hacking scene is one we are all familiar with. However this common portrayal often skips the fact that hacking is an art – indeed it is the fine art of creative problem solving. This week …

    Developer 6 Apr 2009, 10:46

  • WAN optimisation: the experts' view

    Regcast Advice and debate to improve business performance

    Clear some space in your diary for 2pm BST (9am EST) on 21 April, as The Register's expert panel tackle WAN optimisation in our next live and interactive Regcast. As more and more business processes become dependent on network connectivity, companies are finding that simply adding more bandwidth resolves few service issues. …

    Data Networking 6 Apr 2009, 10:55

  • Dixons cuts off Norse to right base

    No word on cash rumours

    Dixons shares jumped nearly 12 per cent today on news that it has started cutting its Nordic stores and is considering a rights issue to speed the rest of the restructure. Dixons Store Group International confirmed that it is going ahead with plans to close stores in Sweden and Finland and rebrand its remaining outlets. But …

    The Channel 6 Apr 2009, 11:22

  • UK transport minister's website pwned

    Wrong kind of hats on the line

    The website of junior transport minister Paul Clarke was hacked over the weekend by apparently motiveless mischief-makers. Defacers scrawled digital graffiti on labourisworking.com, which is run by the Under-Secretary of State at the Department of Transport. A message on the site reads "HACKED BY Red Virus. just for fun. I …

    Security 6 Apr 2009, 11:28

  • Profs: Sex with oldies or youngsters will give you the clap

    Stay within 5 yrs of own age to avoid Cupid's measles

    In a finding sure to send ripples of fear through the showbiz world, profs in Florida have disclosed that having sex with people who are much older or younger than you increases your chances of catching a Sexually Transmitted Disease (STD). “Partner selection is an area of STD prevention that could complement what we are …

    Science 6 Apr 2009, 11:29

  • Vatican researcher claims Templars worshipped Turin Shroud

    Pope's newspaper scoops Dan Brown for Easter

    The Vatican has pulled off its customary Holy Week stunt of outdoing The Da Vinci Code by publishing an article which claims the Knights Templar were the custodians of the Shroud of Turin for 100 years, and were accused of heresy for their pains. L'Osservatore Romano, the Vatican's inhouse newspaper, published an article by …

    Bootnotes 6 Apr 2009, 11:39

  • Touchy Google wraps protective arm around Chrome EULA

    Rejects Slashdotter's musings as 'FUD'

    Google has clarified Chrome’s universal licensing terms after a user argued that the firm could limit an individual’s web browsing based on the content he or she viewed. The web giant’s head flack Gabriel Stricker hit back in a corporate blog post yesterday after Slashdot published an anonymous reader’s musings about Chrome’s …

    Applications 6 Apr 2009, 11:41

  • BBC goes live... over Wi-Fi

    Live TV airs for smartphones

    No telly in your office? No problem, because the BBC has launched a live TV service for smartphones. The BBC's Live TV service (left) also supports live radio (right) Although still in beta, the Live TV service is designed to let you watch a selection of TV channels, including One, Two and BBC News, live over a Wi-Fi …

    Phones 6 Apr 2009, 11:54

  • Symbian Foundation: A brand that wants to share and talk

    LogoWatch Holistic ecosystem awareness with crayons

    Holistic brand reconceptualisation has come to Symbian, or more accurately The Symbian Foundation, as the administrative rump of the British mobile software company is now known. Symbian still licenses Symbian OS, but since it has no engineers (1,000-odd development staff have joined new owner Nokia), Symbian was in need of a …

    Mobile 6 Apr 2009, 11:59

  • 3D camera to arrive for Christmas

    In Japan, of course

    A compact camera capable of snapping sterescopic 3D images will be commercially launched later this year, it’s been reported. FujiFilm's 3D camera mimics your eyes by using two lenses Images courtesy of Photography Blog According to various online news sources, FujiFilm has inked plans to launch its first 3D camera in …

    Hardware 6 Apr 2009, 12:07

  • Crucial N125 64GB SSD

    Review Expand your netbook's storage capacity

    The de facto standard for netbook storage might now have become the hard disk, but that still leaves rather a lot of machines out there with solid-state drives, some fast, some slow, all low capacity, at least when compared to HDDs. Crucial's N125: capacious, but no looker Enter the purveyors of after-market add-ons, ready …

    Hardware 6 Apr 2009, 12:08

  • BT does Italian Job on London traffic lights

    Boring contractors thrust 35,000 offline

    BT is still working to restore access to thousands of people and businesses in east London left offline when a tunnel borer cut through fibre cables and copper wire. The problem is also preventing Transport for London from managing its traffic lights. Contractors working on the Olympic site in Stratford sent a large thrust …

    Broadband 6 Apr 2009, 12:13

  • Keeping up with the Zetta Joneses

    Store primary data in Zetta's cloud

    Start-up Zetta is offering cloud storage services for mid-sized enterprise's primary unstructured data. It provides multi-drive, multi-node and multi-component redundancy to counteract perceptions of cloud unreliability. Chris Schin, Zetta's VP for products, says that the Zetta cloud is designed for enterprise IT needs, "not …

    Storage 6 Apr 2009, 12:37

  • Terry Pratchett cuts ribbon on Treacle Mine Road

    Somerset town honours Discworld

    Sir Terry Pratchett yesterday dropped in on a new Somerset housing estate where two roads have been named in honour of his Discworld novels. Some 30 residents of the Kingwell Rise development in Wincanton will in future be able to boast they live on either Peach Pie Street or Treacle Mine Road - an agreeable result of the town …

    Bootnotes 6 Apr 2009, 12:39

  • DARPA: Give us solar cells you can use to build stuff

    Robotic 'Power Skin' would also be Power Bone™

    US military brainiacs have notified the boffinry community that they need a new miracle material called "Power Skin", which would "harvest" energy from its surroundings and also be strong enough to make robots out of. The Power Skin notion comes of course from DARPA, the Pentagon techwar shop where they're not at home to …

    Science 6 Apr 2009, 12:58

  • Old worm learns new Conficker tricks

    Collaborators or copycats?

    Proving imitation in the sincerest form of flattery, even in the world of malware creation, VXers have adapted a four-year old worm to exploit the vulnerability used by the Conficker superworm. The Neeris worm, which dates from as far back as May 2005, making it a bit of geriatric, has been adapted to spread using the infamous …

    Security 6 Apr 2009, 13:25

  • Wagoner: EVillain or EVictor?

    'Leccy Tech Will former General Motors CEO be remembered for Volt or EV1?

    So it's goodbye to Rick Wagoner, General Motor's youngest ever CEO and a man whose legacy will have people arguing long into the evenings. Following what must have been an interesting chat with President Obama – or more likely one of the heavy hitters from the President's Auto Task Force – it was apparently agreed that …

    Science 6 Apr 2009, 14:09

  • Entry-level Archos MP3 revealed by Amazon

    The Archos 2

    A previously unseen Archos MP3 player has shown up for sale online. The Archos 2 MP3 player Called simply “2”, Amazon’s US webpage states that the 81 x 40 x 9mm tunester has 8GB of on-board storage and a memory card slot for Micro SDs. A 16GB model’s also listed, but over at Amazon Germany. Able to cope with WMA and MP3 …

    Hardware 6 Apr 2009, 14:18

  • T-Mobile and Android to renew vows?

    Rumours of T-Mobile Android-based mobile... and tablet PC

    T-Mobile looks to have fallen head-over-heels for Google’s Android platform, with rumours emerging that the network giant has decided to use the OS on devices other than mobile phones. Handset maker Huawei told website Mobile Today that it plans to launch its Google phone on T-mobile “this year”. HTC’s Magic is the second …

    Phones 6 Apr 2009, 14:24

  • Microsoft's Live Search to morph into Bing?

    Joins Kumo on runners and riders list

    Microsoft has trademarked “Bing” and registered .com and .net domain names, in a move that some are surmising could point to the new moniker for the company's Live Search brand. For months many Microsoft observers have suggested that the software giant’s Live Search would be rebranded under the name “Kumo” after MS registered …

    Applications 6 Apr 2009, 14:38

  • Next-gen iPhone to gain FM transmitter tech

    Courtesy of same chip that'll provide 802.11n Wi-Fi

    Will the next iPhone have built-in Griffin iTrip-style FM transmission tech? It certainly appears so - and 802.11n Wi-Fi into the bargain. AppleInsider claims that the latest pre-release version of iPhone OS 3.0 references a Broadcom 802.11n-capable wireless chip, the BCM4329. The iPhone 3G can currently connect by 802.11b/g …

    Phones 6 Apr 2009, 15:02

  • Sun shares sink as IBM deal breaks down

    Board splits into Schwartz and McNealy factions

    One quick way to make a few bucks this morning, if you happened to read the IT press over the weekend, is to short sell shares in Sun Microsystems, now that the rumoured acquisition of Sun by rival IBM seems to be unravelling. Sun's shares were trading at $8.49 a pop on Friday at the market close, when it seemed likely that a …

    Financial News 6 Apr 2009, 15:06

  • Swedes mash Japanese pop pineapple

    Malmö video shoot ends in human piña colada

    We're obliged to all of you who follow El Reg's world-beating improbable Swedish news for pointing us in the direction of the shock case of the Japanese pop pineapple who was over the weekend beaten and relieved of 20,000 kronor (£1,680-ish or ¥252,167) worth of camera kit. No laughing matter, we know, and certainly not for …

    Bootnotes 6 Apr 2009, 15:07

  • No FreeRunner follow-up, says OpenMoko

    Cuts staff, turns focus on secret Plan B

    OpenMoko, the company behind the open source FreeRunner handset, is giving up on creating a new version in favour of fixing the old one and working on a new secret project. In a presentation at OpenExpo in Bern, the OpenMoko CEO, Sean Moss-Pultz, told delegates that development on the new handset - GTA03 - would be postponed …

    Mobile 6 Apr 2009, 15:13

  • 3PAR F-class jumps into Clariion competition

    Quad controller vs high-end dual controller arrays

    Enterprise storage array supplier 3PAR has introduced a downsized T-Class system, the F-Class, to take on high-end dual controller modular storage arrays in enterprise data centres. The T-class can have up to eight clustered controllers and has found a good market in hosting and cloud/web 2.0 suppliers. The entry-level E-Class …

    Storage 6 Apr 2009, 16:02

  • Wolverine leak claims first victim?

    Updated Fox News columnist reportedly up for chop

    A FoxNews.com journalist got himself into serious hot water over the weekend after he published a review of an illegally downloaded copy of X-Men Origins: Wolverine ahead of its 1 May release. As we reported last week, an incomplete version of the superhero movie was leaked early onto various BitTorrent websites, and since …

    Media 6 Apr 2009, 16:17

  • Research spies holes in Fortune 1000 wireless nets

    Frequency hopping. It's not a security protocol

    Overlooked design weaknesses in a widely used type of wireless network are seriously jeopardizing the network security of the retailers and manufacturers that rely on them, a security expert has determined. So-called FHSS, or frequency-hopping spread spectrum, networks are an early form of the 802.11 wireless data standard. …

    Security 6 Apr 2009, 17:02

  • Open-source .NET gets AJAX polish

    Components punch

    The open-source implementation of Microsoft's .NET development framework is getting some AJAX spit and polish from interface specialist Telerik. Telerik, which builds re-usable software components and is a partner of Microsoft and Borland, has announced that its RadControls for ASP.NET AJAX now supports Mono. This brings a …

    Developer 6 Apr 2009, 17:23

  • Cisco takes comfort in misery of others

    Firesale buying spree is on

    Cisco Systems is to go on a shopping spree, accelerating its company-acquisition efforts at a time when the Meltdown has depressed equity values worldwide. Tech companies are a bargain these days. IBM, meanwhile, is unhappy that the Cisco networking giant has turned its attention to server blades - witness IBM's interest in …

    Data Networking 6 Apr 2009, 17:38

  • PS3 back to haunt Wii in Japan

    Zombies and Yakuza deliver March blow

    New titles from Capcom and Sega helped Sony's Playstation 3 outsell the Nintendo Wii in Japan for the first time in 16 months, according Japanese magazine publisher Enterbrain. Enterbrain, which publishes the gaming weekly Famitsu, said today that 146,948 PS3s were sold in March, compared to 99,335 Wiis and 43,172 Xbox 360s. …

    Games 6 Apr 2009, 18:05

  • VMware wheels and deals on server virtualization

    Guaranteed savings or services are free

    The low-hanging fruit for server virtualization - customers who already knew they needed it on their x64 iron whether the economy was in good shape or bad - must be starting to dry up as the competition among virtualization-hypervisor providers heats up. Why? Because VMware is starting to wheel and deal like IBM, Hewlett- …

    Servers 6 Apr 2009, 19:14

  • Next iPhone to make you a film editor?

    Video secrets of the lost .pngs

    Rumors of new iPhone capabilities are coming hot and heavy, and we're still two months away from the device's rumored release window. As we reported, the pre-release iPhone 3.0 software includes a reference to a Broadcom communications chip, the BCM4329, which supports 802.11n WiFi, FM reception and transmission, and the …

    Mobile 6 Apr 2009, 19:41

  • Japanese porn at heart of Home-Office terrorism snooping

    Must be 18 or over to watch, listen, and advise

    Japanese pornographers became embedded deep within a Home Office site advising on the interception of possible terrorist communications. The Home Offices has apparently now removed a link from its Office for Security and Counter Terrorism site, after workers occupying the postal and telecommunications industries got more than …

    Bootnotes 6 Apr 2009, 22:08

  • HP bails on massive Wi-Fi patent claim

    Oz boffins pursue 12 others

    Hewlett-Packard has cashed out of a four-year-old Wi-Fi patent lawsuit from Australia's national science agency that's targeted a who's-who list of big tech vendors with wireless products. Australia's Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization (CSIRO) is seeking billions of dollars in royalties from the tech …

    Broadband 6 Apr 2009, 22:10

  • Microsoft cries netbook victory against Linux

    Bring in the telcos

    Microsoft may be on its way to vanquishing Linux in the war to dominate netbook operating systems, but the ground could be shifting against Windows. An NPD Retail Tracking Service report states the Windows installation rate on netbooks has grown from 10 per cent in the first half of 2008 to 96 per cent in February 2009. With …

    Software 6 Apr 2009, 22:12

  • Obama's DoJ defends Bush-era wiretaps

    Telecom spy program a 'state secret'

    The US Justice Department under President Obama is invoking Bush Administration tactics to dismiss a lawsuit alleging federal agents engaged in illegal phone and email surveillance of ordinary US citizens. A motion submitted to US District Judge Walker on Friday claims disclosing information on the National Security Agency's …

    Security 6 Apr 2009, 23:41