9th April 2009 Archive

Browse by publication date, or search the site.

GPS drives father to murder

Man kills himself and kids after tracing cheating wife

A man in North America shot his five children dead before turning the gun on himself after GPS technology helped him to discover that his wife was cheating on him. With a little help from his daughter, James Harrison, a casino security guard from the Deer Run mobile home park in Tacoma, Washington, exploited GPS technology on …

Reg Hardware 9 Apr 00:02
Trekkies enjoy surprise Star Trek premiere

Live long and prosper

Fans of Star Trek in Texas got an unexpected treat on Monday when they became the first to see the much-anticipated new film. Instead of a premiere on Tuesday in Australia, Trekkers attending a event in Austin Texas, organised by Ain't It Cool News, were the first to see J.J. Abrams reboot of the franchise. Star Trek …

Entertainment 9 Apr 00:02
Novell's openSUSE does ARM Linux

Foundation blessing

Commercial Linux distributor Novell today announced that the openSUSE Project, which drives the development variant of its Linux, will support the creation and packaging of various Linuxes for ARM processors using the openSUSE Build Service version 1.6. According to Novell, the support for building application stacks and Linux …

Operating Systems 9 Apr 00:12
Sonar causes (temporary) deafness in dolphins

One unlucky bottlenose

Exposure to military sonar may cause temporary hearing loss in bottlenose dolphins, scientists at the Hawaii Institute of Marine Biology have found. Tests on a captive dolphin indicate exposure to sonar at high, prolonged levels can cause temporary deafness for as long as 20 to 40 minutes — but only if the dolphin stays close …

Biology 9 Apr 00:16
Hadoop - Why is Google juicing Yahoo! search?

Inside the Mountain View mind

It's the Google equivalent of the everlasting gobstopper. And for some reason, the Mountain View Chocolate Factory has encouraged a knockoff industry among its Slugworthian rivals. Considering the code of secrecy that typically envelops Google's internal operations, you have to wonder why the company helped foster the birth …

Software 9 Apr 01:01
Isilon's EMEA boss leaves

Director of technical services also obtaining coat

Isilon may be sending chief technology officer Paul Rutherford to run its Europe, Middle East and Africa operations, after the departure of Steve Jenkins, VP and general manager for Isilon EMEA, according to industry sources. Jeff Alsford, Isilon's EMEA director of technical services, is also leaving. Isilon recently announced …

Storage 9 Apr 06:02
Ofcom guns for Hollywood with roaming vid

Epic on hazards of foreign food to follow

UK regulator Ofcom has put together a video to remind the public to be careful using a mobile phone abroad, as roaming rates are still unreasonably high and legislation is still being enacted. While we'd like nothing more than to chide Ofcom for wasting huge sums of money on Hollywood aspirations, the film actually seems to …

Mobile 9 Apr 08:02
Apple sued over iPhone, MacBook multi-touch tech

Taiwanese firm takes on Mac maker

Hold onto your iPhones, because a Taiwanese touch-sensitive technology firm is suing Apple over claims that the Mac maker used its multi-touch patents without permission. In a lawsuit filed yesterday with the US District Court in San Francisco, Elan Microelectronics claimed that several Apple products - also including the …

Reg Hardware 9 Apr 08:36
AP orders affiliate to pull embedded YouTube vids

Radio station 'stunned' by 'unlicenced' use attack

The Associated Press is evidently as good as its word when it comes to enforcing a clampdown on unauthorised use of its material - so much so that it recently ordered an affiliate radio station to remove embedded videos taken from its official YouTube channel. According to Cnet, WTNQ-FM in Tennessee got a bit of a surprise …

Music and Media 9 Apr 08:49
Russian schoolgirl invents inertioid-driven Venus rover

'Indigo Child' shows humanity the way forward

A Russian schoolgirl has wowed the crowds at an exhibition of youthful scientific inventions by rolling out a high-tech Venus rover, Pravda reports. Anna Shvetsova, of Noginsk, near Moscow, used “A Step to the Future” to demonstrate her "silvery disk, reminiscent to either a UFO or two bowls glued together" which apparently …

Space 9 Apr 08:54
Apple reportedly coughs to plastic MacBook crack conundrum

Quietly authorising out-of-warranty repairs?

Apple has quietly told its hardware servicing partners to fix MacBooks with hairline cracks in the machines' plastic covering, it has been claimed. The Mac maker has previously refused to accept that this is an inherent problem with older MacBooks' plastic casing, according to an AppleInsider report. However, last month Apple …

Reg Hardware 9 Apr 09:00
Microsoft ordered to pay $388m patent infringement damages

Astonishingly, Microsoft plans appeal

Microsoft was slapped with a $388m patent infringement fine yesterday, following a lengthy legal row with anti-piracy software vendor Uniloc. Redmond said it was disappointed with the verdict and added it planned to appeal. The long-running lawsuit was originally brought by Uniloc USA and its Singapore-based parent company in …

Applications 9 Apr 09:22
NASA astronaut goes a-Twittering

Hubble mission specialist muses on space 'scope and tostadas

NASA astronaut Mike Massimino has been indulging in some light Twittering ahead of his upcoming trip to service the Hubble Space Telescope. Mission specialist Massimino's modest number of updates have to date attracted almost 18,000 followers keen to keep up to speed on what's happening with "Astro_Mike". Insights include: " …

Space 9 Apr 09:27
Traffic info goes mobile

But don't read it while actually driving

The Highways Agency has launched a service to provide traffic information from its website to mobile phones and other portable devices It has highlighted the service in advance of the Easter holiday, claiming it will make it easier for people to plan their journeys. The service presents the information in a simple text based …

Mobile 9 Apr 09:46
Summary care records - you might die, but they never will

Once you can opt in, you can never opt out

Patients can decide whether or not to have their Summary Care Records included on the NHS national database, but if they change their mind afterwards there is no way to delete the record. This emerged after a concerned Hampshire doctor asked several Primary Care Trusts what their policy was using Freedom of Information …

Government 9 Apr 10:02
US outlines secretive international piracy deal

Shadowy ninja agreement allegedly for industrial use only

The world's major economic powers are considering whether to involve internet service providers (ISPs) in fighting copyright infringement and how to stop pirated material crossing borders, according to documents released by the US Government. Thirty-seven countries are negotiating a new worldwide trade deal that aims to reduce …

Channel Register 9 Apr 10:02
Bidders 'plot Nortel break up'

Rivals snap at best bits

Nokia Siemens Networks, Avaya and Siemens Enterprise Communications are bidding to carve up Canadian networking giant Nortel - which is currently in bankruptcy protection - according to a report. Seeking a stronger presence in the US market, Nokia Siemens made an unsolicited approach for large parts of Nortel's carrier …

Data Networking 9 Apr 10:10
MySpace rant was not private, rules US Court of Appeal

Why not just keep your trap shut? That might help

A student who wrote an unflattering diatribe about her hometown on MySpace has lost a claim that its republication by a local paper invaded her privacy. She might yet prove that its wider dissemination was an intentional infliction of emotional distress. University student Cynthia Moreno published a rant on her MySpace page …

Music and Media 9 Apr 10:21
P2P eavesdrop 'guilt by association attack' developed

Free BitTorrent countermeasure released

US engineering researchers say they have identified a new privacy threat to users of peer-to-peer (P2P) networks such as BitTorrent and (perhaps) Skype. Obligingly, however, they have freely released a protective plugin designed to work with a popular torrent client. According to Fabián Bustamante, computer science prof at …

ID 9 Apr 10:31
Ricoh CX1

Review Say hello to the 'careful-cam'

The performance of compact cameras has greatly improved over the years, largely as a result of advances in auto technology. Improved autofocus, white balance and exposure systems mean that most pictures will turn out sharp and correctly exposed, while face- and smile-detection systems mean you're more likely to snap your subject …

Reg Hardware 9 Apr 11:02
Conficker botnet stirs to distribute update payload

It's alive!

The Conficker superworm is stirring, with the spread of a new variant that spreads across P2P and drops a payload. It is thought to update machines infected by earlier strains of the worm. Conficker-E (the latest variant) offers potential clues on the origins of the worm, because of possible links to other malware. Trend Micro …

Malware 9 Apr 11:02
The Quick - and the Dead in the Water

Comment Met Assistant Commissioner resigns following security breach

Quick by name, and for once, quick by nature. The speedy resignation of assistant Commissioner Bob Quick, following his inadvertent public exposure of secret documents detailing a highly sensitive counter-terror operation, has probably saved the Police and Home Office an Easter of recriminations and back-biting. As a result of …

Government 9 Apr 11:02
New e-crime units nabs nine banking Trojan suspects

e-busted

Nine suspects in a banking Trojan case have been arrested by specialist cybercops from the UK's new Police Central E-Crime Unit (PCeU). The suspects - four women and five men - were arrested following police raids in south east London. Investigators reckon the group of UK-based eastern European nationals used malware planted …

Crime 9 Apr 11:26
PETA pitches for ~~Pet Shop~~ Animal Shelter Boys

Pop duo decline name change request

The Pet Shop Boys have said they're "unable to agree" to a request by animal rights organisation PETA to change their name to "Animal Shelter Boys". According to the pop duo's website, they got a nice letter from PETA's Special Projects Manager, Yvonne Taylor, which began: Dear Neil and Chris, You have many loyal fans of …

Bootnotes 9 Apr 11:30
HK movie star porn snap thief faces trial

Allegedly swiped intimate pics from Edison Chen's laptop

The man allegedly responsible for copying and distributing 1,300 compromising photos of Hong Kong film star Edison Chen has pleaded not guilty to "three charges of obtaining access to a computer with a view to making dishonest gain". Sze Ho-chun, 24, appeared in Kowloon City Court accused of copying the snaps from Chen's …

Crime 9 Apr 11:54
How to address the two key challenges with virtualization

Three papers for the data centre

This week we have curated three papers from the Reg Whitepaper Collection that concern themselves with various aspects of server and data centre performance. How to address the two key challenges with virtualisation This paper from Riverbed calls for companies to implement Wide Area Data Services (WDS) technology to help …

Hardware 9 Apr 11:57
Whitehall to train pro-West Islamic groups to game Google

Exclusive Experts say it won't work

Whitehall officials will train pro-West Islamic groups to manipulate their Google search ranking in an attempt to drown out extremist voices online, The Register has learned. The policy is being developed despite recent warnings from a group of international experts on radicalisation that such strategies are likely to be " …

Government 9 Apr 12:02
LG launches first 'Freesat inside' TV

Say goodbye to set-top boxes

Earlier this year LG pledged to start integrating Freesat tuners into some of its TVs. And now the firm’s made good on its promise by launching the LF7700 series. LG's LF7700: Freesat inside Freesat’s selection of free-to-air standard-definition and HD channels can be viewed on a 32in, 37in, 42in or 47in LF7700. An …

Reg Hardware 9 Apr 12:05
Xbox Live downloads for sale on Amazon

Click, pay, print, download, play

If you’re too lazy to walk to the shops to buy your brother a videogame giftcard for his birthday, then the process is now as easy as logging onto Amazon and printing out a code. The online retailer has begun selling codes online that then allow gamers to download content through Xbox Live. Around arcade 100 titles are …

Reg Hardware 9 Apr 12:08
NASA: Clean-air regs, not CO₂, are melting the ice cap

Acid-rain countermeasures could drown London

New research from NASA suggests that the Arctic warming trend seen in recent decades has indeed resulted from human activities: but not, as is widely assumed at present, those leading to carbon dioxide emissions. Rather, Arctic warming has been caused in large part by laws introduced to improve air quality and fight acid rain …

Environment 9 Apr 12:10
Samsung phone named after northern city

Llanfairpwll gwyngyllgogerychwyrnd robwllllantysiliogogogoch in uproar

When naming a handset after a city, phone manufacturers usually pick somewhere glamorous like Vegas or NYC. But Samsung’s executives have clearly spent too long drinking in one university’s infamous student union, because it’s rumoured the firm’s inked plans to call an upcoming phone the Preston. Bloggers over at website Omio …

Reg Hardware 9 Apr 12:14
Brits not sold on eco handsets

Price, battery life more important than greenness

Several handset manufacturers have already started marketing eco-friendly mobile phones, but a new survey’s discovered that only a small minority of Brits are actually sold on so-called eco phones. Opinium Research – on behalf of website Moneysupermarket – quizzed 2088 UK adults earlier this year and discovered that a whopping …

Reg Hardware 9 Apr 12:19
Microsoft wraps Live Search in chicken and breadcrumbs

Redmond prays Kiev contents will be hot

Microsoft has cranked up the PR machine by releasing a little more detail about the forthcoming revamp of its Google-wannabe Live Search brand. The software vendor revealed to the Wall Street Journal yesterday that its search engine re-launch project carried the code name of Kiev. It’s understood that Microsoft has hired …

Applications 9 Apr 12:44
Naming the Palm Prē: Strategy Boutique OD's on joss-sticks

'Fluid alliteration' to the sound of whalesong

We're sure you were all wondering just how Palm came up with the paradigm-busting name for its much-anticipated, iPhone-annihilating Prē smartphone. The answer is it didn't - it asked a Strategy Boutique to do it. Cue the heady fug of joss-sticks and the sound of whalesong - in this at Catchword. Here are a few extracts …

Bootnotes 9 Apr 12:57
Obama science chief: Geo-engineer to save Gaia!

Sulphur, so good

If we can develop the scientific knowledge needed to change the climate for the benefit of humanity, and change it in a controlled manner, shouldn't we be trying to do it? Is it so different from developing antibiotics? Remarks this week by Obama's chief science advisor John Holdren have reopened the debate. Holdren says he's …

Environment 9 Apr 13:23
16 teams to field 24 e-bikes in 'zero-emission' TT race

'Leccy Tech Some big names among them

It turns out that the TTxGP e-bike trial may be worth watching after all. At the official launch of the event, the organiser announced that 24 bikes from 16 teams will be on the start line of the Isle of Man course for the first ever zero-emission TT race on 12 June. TTxGP racers: from the USA, MotoCzysz Alongside teams …

Reg Hardware 9 Apr 13:27
France rejects Three Strikes

Has Hadopi had it?

French legislators have rejected the 'Hadopi' bill which would terminate the internet connections of copyright infringers. Assembly members (not The Sénat, or upper house, as previously stated) rejected the measure by 21-15 in a poorly attended vote, a week after the lower house passed the measure. The Government may yet …

Telecoms 9 Apr 13:30
Denon spins out vinyl-to-MP3 turntable

Bring your music collection into the modern age

However you try and package it, ancient, scratch-prone vinyl just ain’t hip. So digitise those decades-old discs with Denon’s time-travelling turntable. Denon's DP-200USB: turns vinyl into MP3 The ION-style DP-200USB “fully automatic” turntable’s most appealing feature is that it’ll convert your analogue records into MP3 …

Reg Hardware 9 Apr 13:43
In-car Twittering on the rise?

Insurers scan Twitter for evidence of Tweeting drivers

OnStar recently denied it was designing an in-car gadget for voice-activated Twittering from behind the wheel. But such a gadget could well prove handy, because it’s been discovered that Tweeting on the move is an alarmingly common driver activity. Insurance firm Esure recently "monitored" - interesting ramifications for …

Reg Hardware 9 Apr 14:01
UK.gov delays new data breach powers

ICO still waiting for teeth

The government has failed to meet its own deadlines to bring in new powers for the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) to fine companies who lose personal data. The Ministry of Justice won't say when it plans to publish the secondary legislation needed to set the fines or why it did not meet its March target. A spokesman …

Government 9 Apr 14:19
UK police bust lottery scam centre in Somerset

Scammers told: 'Get orf moi laaand!'

Police have busted a bogus lottery winner scam, following a raid on a cheque processing and clearing house in Somerset. The letter-based scam attempted to dupe prospective marks into thinking they had won a non-existent prize. Recipients were asked to send in £20 as an "administrative fee" to get their hands on their supposed …

Crime 9 Apr 14:47
Who snapped first?

The Met experiences panopticon blowback

Last week's damp squib G20 protests have finally thrust an issue into the spotlight - just not the one the organizers or the state might have expected. Videos of the moments preceding the death of 47-year-old Ian Tomlinson on his way home from work emerged in quick succession this week. The Guardian was the first to publish …

Policing 9 Apr 14:54
Firm debuts flashing 'phones

Blinking LEDs visualise the beats

Playing music loudly is the universally accepted way for iPod-clad commuters to annoy other passengers. But there’s another way: a pair of earphones that flash in time to the beat. Can't see the video? Download Flash Player from Adobe.com The aptly named Blinx cans have LEDs on each earpiece – and on a music-controlling in …

Reg Hardware 9 Apr 15:07
Microsoft loses data centre head

Michael Manos takes on 'bigger' job at Digital Realty Trust

Silicon Valley outfit Digital Realty Trust has poached Microsoft’s containerised data centre architect, Michael Manos. Redmond hasn’t made an official announcement about Manos’s decision to quit the software giant, and could not immediately be reached for comment at time of writing. Manos, who will head up global data centre …

Servers 9 Apr 15:19
US mobile carriers want more devices, fewer OSes

And they take their time saying it

Yes, the carriers want new business models and partners as their traditional wireless voice and data markets saturate, but these must work within the cellco assumptions, expanding the operators' total addressable markets while engaging in a clear profit share. In other words, not Skype. A huge range of devices But Verizon and …

Mobile 9 Apr 16:33
Microsoft puts ~~Sun's~~ Tremblay in SiArch

Whatever that is

There are so many things that software giant Microsoft could do with a seasoned chip designer of the caliber of Marc Tremblay, it's a wonder Sun would ever let him get away in the first place. As we pointed out yesterday, not everything that Tremblay helped etch into silicon at Sun turned into gold. But plenty of the chips he …

Servers 9 Apr 16:49
Facebook in Pirate Bay block Fail

Big clumsy brother

Facebook is trying to keelhaul links to Pirate Bay torrents on its website, just one week after the popular file-sharing repository made it easier for users to share them on their Facebook profiles. The attempt, however, is laughably haphazard. A Facebook user almost needs to work to get their link blocked. In late March, The …

Music and Media 9 Apr 19:39
Apple eyes new-age iPhone answering machine

You've got video mail

An Apple patent application published Thursday by the US Patent and Trademark Office describes adding video answering-machine capability to the company's iChat messaging application, including extending remote video messaging to the iPhone. The idea isn't new in the minds of the Cupertinians. As long-time Apple-watchers will …

Mobile 9 Apr 20:01
Google money machine defies common sense

Advertisers shrink, ads expand

As the economy continues to shrink, Google continues to crank the dial on its top-secret money machine. According to the latest stats from AdGooroo - a search marketing consultant that tracks search ads from a network of servers across the globe - Google expanded its ad coverage (yet again) during the first three months of the …

Business 9 Apr 21:02
Cisco shells out $105m for Tidal

Interspersing California

That didn't take long. Networking giant and server wannabee Cisco Systems has forked over $105m in cash and retention incentives to acquire Tidal Software, a privately held maker of job scheduling, application performance management, and IT process automation tools known collectively as Intersperse. Earlier this week, we …

Servers 9 Apr 21:32
Intel committed to mobile Linux, despite core dump

Linux FCS Participation through project packing

Intel remains committed to its mobile Linux project, it has said, despite handing over supervision to the Linux Foundation. The chip giant has pledged it will provide additional engineers and resources to refine Moblin, the project to build a ready-made Linux and hardware stack for a range of consumer devices. Despite pulling …

Operating Systems 9 Apr 22:22
Nehalem aces OLTP test on HP iron

Shames Shanghai, Dunnington

Yes, Nehalem is fast. If you want to see the dramatic effect that Intel's move to the QuickPath Interconnect and integrated memory controllers has had on performance with its "Nehalem EP" Xeon 5500 processors, take a gander at the first results on the TPC-C online transaction processing benchmark test. Hewlett-Packard's two- …

Servers 9 Apr 22:33
Microsoft downsizes Seadragon and Photosynth brains

Hip to be square in a down economy

Hip project names and cool logos have their price it seems, and Microsoft's Live Labs - incubator to Seadragon, Photosynth, Deepfish, and Volta - is too expensive for this economy. The company is reported to have moved people from Live Labs and distributed them among product groups within the company, reducing the facility's …

Applications 9 Apr 23:43
GooTube unfurls Universal video player, website

'Vevo' la revolución

YouTube and Universal Media Group said today they've formed a pact to make their own separate music video website called "Vevo" featuring ad-funded UMG content. Under the deal, the Google-owned YouTube will handle the technology and infrastructure while UMG supplies the Lil Wayne and U2. Both companies will share advertising …

Music and Media 9 Apr 23:50