14th May 2009 Archive
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Town OKs Jobsian tear-down
Steve's house ripe for demolition
After an eight-year legal wrangle, Steve Jobs can finally tear down the crumbling mansion he purchased 25 years ago. Maybe. The town council of the affluent Silicon Valley outpost of woodsy Woodside voted 6-1 on Tuesday to grant Jobs the permit needed to tear down his sprawling 14-bedroom, 17,250-square-foot Spanish colonial …
Odds and Sods 14 May 00:24
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Adobe plagued by 16-month-old XSS bug
Not to mention banks and ecommerce sites
More than 16 months after researchers warned that critical vulnerabilities in Adobe Flash files leave websites vulnerable to phishing and other serious attacks, a wide array of pages - some hosted on Adobe.com itself - remain vulnerable. The problem stems from buggy SWF files that generate banner ads and other animated content …
Security 14 May 00:40
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Google money machine all cranked out?
Paid click shrinkage
Is reality finally catching up with Google's top-secret money machine? According to those clever net-watchers at Hitwise, paid ad clicks took a significant nose dive during the past month. In the four weeks leading up to May 9, Hitwise says, 7.25 per cent of all search engine traffic came from paid clicks, compared to 9.84 per …
Music and Media 14 May 01:10
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MySQL daddy seeks post-Sun Oracle independence
Preempts the diaspora
MySQL's founder has accelerated his push for the open-source database's independent development, free of its latest, potential corporate owner: Oracle. Monty Widenius on Wednesday announced the formation of a vendor-neutral consortium that will act as a hub to develop and maintain code, binaries, training, and support for …
Applications 14 May 05:12
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MPs: end Police's music clampdown
Scrap Form 696, says culture committee
Parliament's culture committee says the Police's notorious "Form 696" should be scrapped, and called for red tape to be eased for venues wishing to put on live music. 21 London boroughs have introduced a requirement that venues complete the 'Metropolitan Police Promotion and Event Assessment Form 696', for every live …
Music and Media 14 May 07:08
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Vodafone gives up on roaming charges
No never, no more - till September
Vodafone UK is to give up roaming charges to 45 countries, charging travellers only their usual rates for calls and messages home - though they'll still pay through the nose for data. The Passport service has been around for a while. Users sign up for free and then pay a 64p connection charge for each call which then drops to …
Mobile 14 May 07:11
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Motorola waves in gesture-sensitive phone
Shake to activate
In a bullish attempt to shake up the mobile phone market, Motorola has launched a gesture-sensitive handset you must shake, rattle and – possibly – roll to operate. Motorola's W7: shake it to make it work The Moto W7 Active Edition is described as “a motion-enabled 3G mobile” designed for anyone after a "moving” – if you’ll …
Reg Hardware 14 May 07:32
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Massed x86 ranks 'blowing away' supercomputer monoliths
Dell pitches modular parallel processors
Dell has claimed it is simplifying supercomputing by replacing complex monolithic, proprietary architecture Cray-like machines with modular ones, using racks of industry-standard components. In fact, in one way it's helping to complicate supercomputing, because writing parallelised code is so hard. But the massed ranks of x86 …
HPC 14 May 08:02
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EZY Technologies MyXerver MX3600
Review Low cost NAS box that doesn't skimp on features
Most NAS servers essentially do one thing – store data and make it available over a network, usually for the home or small business. It's not a complicated job, but it is an essential one, and suits most users. Computing manufacturer EZY Technologies, has other ideas, seeing the humble NAS server as having more to offer and …
Reg Hardware 14 May 08:02
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Another 15,000 jobs to go at BT
One in ten to be shown door
BT has cut 15,000 jobs this year, and will lay off another 15,000 people in the year ahead. Problems at BT Global Services, which made a loss of £1.5bn on revenues of £2.1bn in the quarter, contributed to an overall loss before tax for the year of £134m for the whole group. BT expects revenue for the group to fall between 4 …
Telecoms 14 May 08:22
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Atlantis grapples Hubble
First chance to stretch space legs today, too
Space shuttle Atlantis yesterday deployed its robotic arm to successfully capture the Hubble Space Telescope, NASA reports. At the controls for the "grapple" (see pic) was mission specialist Megan McArthur, who grabbed the venerable eye in the sky at 17:14 GMT before manoeuvring it onto a "Flight Support System maintenance …
Space 14 May 08:52
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TDK readies netbook-friendly SSD series
Cheap enough to oust the 160GB HDD 'standard'?
TDK has begun pitching SSDs at laptop makers, and said it will ship its new SDGA2 line out to manufacturers at the end of the month. TDK's approach appears to focus more on netbooks than notebooks. Yes, it said its new products are designed as HDD replacements, but the capacity range - 1GB up to just 64GB - puts it well behind …
Reg Hardware 14 May 08:55
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Home Sec: No more funds to e-crime unit
Cybercrumbs from the table
The newly established Police Central e-crime Unit is unlikely to get increased UK government funding, according to a response to questions in the House by the Home Secretary on Tuesday. The reply by Jacqui Smith is a sign that the present home secretary is less inclined to invest in the nascent unit than her predecessor David …
Crime 14 May 09:13
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Astronaut Twitters from orbit
'One small tweet for man', etc etc
Astronaut Mike Massimino has the dubious honour of being the first person to Twitter from space, having taken time from the space shuttle Atlantis STS-125 mission to the Hubble Space Telescope to share this tweet with mankind: From orbit: Launch was awesome!! I am feeling great, working hard, & enjoying the magnificent views …
Space 14 May 09:39
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E-car supplier demos battery swap-shop
Leccy Tech Recharged In 60 Seconds, or thereabouts
Better Place has demonstrated a prototype battery swapping machine for leccy cars, able to exchange the flat battery of a modified Nissan with a fully charged one in just over 60 seconds. Can't see the video? Download Flash Player from Adobe.com Better Place’s CEO, Shai Agassi, claimed its robo-swapper has even managed to …
Reg Hardware 14 May 09:43
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Toshiba first with half-a-terabyte SSD laptop
512 solid-state gigabytes on board and ready to buy now
Toshiba has begun selling what it claims is the first notebook to come with a 512GB solid-state drive as standard. You'll have to live in Japan - or know someone there - to get your mitts on the Dynabook SS RX2 WAJ, but if you manage it you not only get the aforementioned SSD but also a 1.4GHz Intel Core 2 Duo SU9400 processor …
Reg Hardware 14 May 09:48
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eBay wins French luxury counterfeit case
Piracy measures good enough
eBay has won a long-running court case brought by L'Oreal and other luxury brands which accused it of failing to do enough to stop sales of counterfeit goods on its site. For its part the auctioneer has always said it is willing to work with brands to protect their intellectual property but will not accept an active policing …
Law 14 May 10:04
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DARPA working on inertial-nav 'Smart Boot' tech
Truly kick-ass precision strike at last
Elite Pentagon deathnerds have just awarded a contract for development of a highly accurate inertial navigation module which will fit in the heel of a shoe. Massachusetts sensors'n'tracking company Intersense were chuffed to announce the deal this week, in which the firm will work with Case Western university to deliver tiny …
Science 14 May 10:10
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Sony pooh-poohs PS3 redesign claims
It would, though, wouldn't it?
Rumours that a redesigned PlayStation 3 has been created are false, at least according to Sony. Over the past few days rumours began emerging online that the firm’s poised to unveil a new-look PS3 at the E3 games show in Los Angeles next month. This led many gamers to assume that a second-gen PS3 would see some of the console …
Reg Hardware 14 May 10:12
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Street View forced to reshoot Japan
Lowers its sights following complaint tsunami
Google's Street View has agreed to reshoot all the images captured by its Japan-based spymobiles following mass complaints decrying the altitude of its vehicle's cameras. According to the Mainichi Daily News, the search monolith deployed spycams mounted at 2.45 metres, "just over the height of garden walls and so on". A Google …
Bootnotes 14 May 10:22
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Outgoing info chief predicts data collection downturn
Suggests UK.gov use uberdatabases as comfort blankets
The outgoing information commissioner has predicted that government will reverse the trend to collect more personal data. Richard Thomas made the forecast as part of his farewell speech at a conference in London organised by his office. He said it reflects a growing awareness of the need for a balance between security and …
Government 14 May 10:23
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Creating portals with Office Sharepoint
Whitepapers for collaborators
We are dubious about some of the claims made for Enterprise 2.0, the iteration of Web 2.0 social networking technologies that is supposed to turn business into greased lightning. Take dashboards as a small example. The executives cry out for them, the developers build them, and then... entropy. The abandoned wikis, the blogs …
Applications 14 May 10:25
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AMD heralds gigahertz graphics card
Notable engineering feat, company boasts
Sapphire may have sneaked this one in ahead of the official launch, but now AMD's caught up and announced the 1GHz ATI Radeon HD 4890 itself. With a cheery claim that the card delivers "50 per cent more [rendering power] than that of the competition’s best single-GPU solution", AMD went on to state that releasing the first …
Reg Hardware 14 May 10:28
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Telstra bins UK support staff
Support team will phone it in from Bangalore
Telstra, the Australian ISP, has laid off its UK hosting support staff and outsourced their responsibilities to India, without telling customers. According to the firm, four employees have been shown the door. Sources said an outsourced infrastructure management contract has gone to Microland, based in Bangalore. Telstra sent …
Telecoms 14 May 10:29
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Daydreaming? You're actually solving complex problems
At last - a scientific excuse for workplace indolence
Scientists at the University of British Columbia (UBC) have provided vital scientific justification for staring vacantly from behind your desk: What your boss believes is bone idleness is actually your brain indulging in "complex problem solving". Professor Kalina Christoff, of the UBC Department of Psychology and lead author …
Biology 14 May 10:53
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Expenses row MPs warned to change cash card PINs
This Bank of Taxpayer cash machine is now closed
MPs and staff are reportedly being advised to "change bank PIN numbers" in order to guard against incidents of fraud arising from the leak of Commons allowance claims. Andrew Walker, director general of resources, has reportedly warned MPs that the expenses claims, complete with lists of transactions, are still in the hands of …
ID 14 May 11:01
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Yorkshire boozer establishes 'smoking research centre'
Barnsley Council unimpressed by gasper ban dodge
A Yorkshire boozer which last week established a "smoking research centre" has attracted the attention of Barnsley Council, evidently unimpressed with its vital scientific work. Kerry Fenton, landlady of the Cutting Edge in Worsbrough, converted the pub's tap room into a hub of nicotine-based research in which punters could …
Bootnotes 14 May 11:04
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Google makes breaking up with Hotmail, Yahoo! easy to do
Bats lashes with contacts, email tool
Google has added a feature to its popular Gmail service that allows users to easily import email and contacts from their Hotmail, Yahoo! et al accounts. Mountain View’s new tool, which is powered by TrueSwitch, migrates messages and contacts from other webmail providers and is available for all new users who are happy to dump …
Applications 14 May 11:10
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Airline websites forced to clean up
Over 100 airlines fix misleading bits
A European Commission investigation into airline websites has resulted in 115 out of 137 sites making changes so they are less confusing for punters. Tricks like adding extra costs on at the last stages of a transaction, not revealing availability of the best fares and not showing fair contract terms have all been stopped. …
Law 14 May 11:28
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Carter's right-hand man lays out spectrum plan
4Mb/sec: The Meek shall interpret the worth
Kip Meek, right-hand man of communications minister Lord Carter, has taken a few steps back to see the bigger picture of spectrum use in the UK, after his master failed to get much support for the spectrum reallocation proposed in his Digital Britain draft. Kip Meek's proposal (pdf) reckons that we could have 4Mb/sec wireless …
Data Networking 14 May 11:31
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'Made in Britain' PMP takes on California-designed, China-made iPod Nano
Blighty's own media player
When a small firm launches a portable media player to take on Apple’s mighty iPod Nano, it had better ensure there's a unique selling point. One firm doing just that claims its Sonix 7 PMP does have a USP: it’s 100 per cent British. Can't see the video? Download Flash Player from Adobe.com While the ‘born in Blighty’ …
Reg Hardware 14 May 11:50
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McKinnon supporters petition Downing Street
Autistic Society weighs in
British supporters of Gary McKinnon are being urged to sign a petition to the Prime Minister protesting McKinnon's possible extradition to the US on hacking charges. Hundreds have already signed the petition, established on Wednesday on the Number 10 website, which will run until MPs break for their summer recess. The petition …
Government 14 May 11:51
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iPhone users to walk and read at same time
Dogs, kids, manholes protected from captivated users
iPhone users can now walk the streets safe in the knowledge that upcoming letter boxes, errant children or dogshit can be easily avoided, without interrupting the more important act of reading email. Email 'N Walk is a genuine iPhone application, available for free from developers Phase2 Media, which displays the camera's view …
Mobile 14 May 11:52
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Acer Timeline 4810T
Review A Core 2 Duo laptop with an eight-hour battery life? You bet
Acer says its new series of Timeline laptops offer a battery life up to eight hours. That’s a mighty bold claim so we’re putting the Aspire Timeline 4810T under the microscope to see whether it’s a piece of engineering genius or PR puff. Acer's Timeline 4810T: titanic battery life? There are three sizes of chassis in the …
Reg Hardware 14 May 12:02
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Ex-OLPC security man rocks up at Apple
Cupertino knits Krstic into security blanket
One Laptop Per Child's former top security architect started a new job at Apple earlier this week. Ivan Krstic joined the Cupertino-based firm on Monday. In his new role, Krstic will try to prevent hacker attacks against the Mac operating system. "I have - at long last - found my new adventure," he wrote in a blog post. " …
Malware 14 May 12:54
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Herschel and Planck safely away
Euro twin 'scope launch runs on rails
The European Space Agency's Herschel and Planck space telescopes safely blasted off this afternoon at 13:12 GMT from the ESA spaceport in French Guiana. ESA reports: "Herschel, the upper passenger, was the first to separate from the upper stage of the Ariane 5 at 13:37 GMT at an altitude of about 1,140km over the east coast …
Space 14 May 13:18
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UK.gov international net clean-up plan gathers dust
Burnham lacks friends in Washington
Months after announcing his intention to work with the Obama administration to develop new restrictions on "unacceptable" material online, Culture Secretary Andy Burnham is still waiting for anyone in Washington to listen to him. At the end of December, Burnham took to the airwaves and newspaper pages to decry "content that …
Government 14 May 13:19
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SOCA: Cons' consoles causing crime
Banged-up bosses using games machines to run crime empires
The Serious Organised Crime Agency (SOCA) has alleged that prisoners are using games consoles to run their illegal empires. Its claim hasn't pleased Her Majesty's Prison Service. Speaking at the launch of its annual report, SOCA Director General Bill Hughes said the Agency has obtained intelligence that indicates crime lords …
Reg Hardware 14 May 14:15
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Beeb tech boss seeks to expand TV licence online
iPlayer? Cough up
The BBC's technology chief has called for the licence fee to be extended so that people who only watch iPlayer will also have to pay. Erik Huggers made the call as he discussed recent comments by the BBC Trust, the national broadcaster's oversight body, that the internet means TV licensing law will need to be changed. "My …
Music and Media 14 May 14:16
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Wi-Fi finds its way into park bench
Designer sketches solar-powered urban wireless seat
A designer’s inked plans for a hi-tech park bench boasting solar panels, Wi-Fi and broadband. Designer Owen Song's Solar Inside bench, with Wi-Fi Boston-based Owen Song’s Solar Inside concept bench would have a layer of solar panels integrated into its seating surface, which would presumably be used to power the Wi-Fi …
Reg Hardware 14 May 14:21
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Slimline PS3 pictures surface
Factory shots, allegedly
Sony may have denied rumours that it's planning to produce a slimmer PlayStation 3, but images have since cropped up that appear to show the casing and packaging of just such a machine. This is supposedly Sony's slimline PS3 Snapped in China and posted on a local blog, the various images appear to show a case that’s roughly …
Reg Hardware 14 May 14:34
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Index wants to play Nasdaq with spectrum
The value of arbitrary delineations of intangibles can go down, as well as up
A new index tracking the value of US radio spectrum was launched yesterday, and now stands at 253.17 - though without a historical context that's not very useful. The index comes from Spectrum Bridge; the world's first (and still only) trading market for radio spectrum. It is based on its analysis of spectrum valuations …
Wireless 14 May 14:54
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Europeans go ga-ga over virtual servers
Watch out for that Virtualisation Whiplash
Server virtualisation deployments are on the rise in Western Europe, and this comes as no surprise given the enormous pressure that IT managers are under to cut costs and drive up the utilization on the gear that they have in their data centres. The continuing maturity of hypervisors and hardware features to better use them, …
Storage 14 May 15:22
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Intel wants Medfield in smart phones
New handheld device chip to storm ashore in mobiles
Intel has said it wants its chips inside smart phones, with Medfield being the beachhead device. Intel boss Paul Otellini has told Fortune magazine that he believes Medfield and its successors will be the means whereby Intel processors will power multiple forms of consumer and embedded electronic devices, including smart …
PCs & Chips 14 May 15:42
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Intel turns software barrow boy
Launches biz exchange website aimed at SMBs
Intel may be busy shaking its piggybank to stump up cash for the record EU fine it was handed this week, but that hasn't stopped it launching a new online software shop for SMBs. The company's latest software project in Europe has been dubbed the Intel Business Exchange Software Download Store, or Intel BX for short. It …
Storage 14 May 15:59
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Google suffers international outages, slowdowns
Updated Gmail, News, Calendar, AdSense, Search, Analytics...
Earlier today, web users across the globe were reporting outages on myriad Google services, including Gmail, Google News, Google Docs, Google Calendar, Google Analytics, Google Maps, Google AdSense, and Google Search. Google has acknowledged the problem and says it has now been solved, blaming the traffic slowdown on a routing …
Music and Media 14 May 17:22
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Google, Microsoft plug teens into tech
Talk tot talent
Getting young people interested in jumping into the Silicon Valley meat grinder is major work for tech firms like Microsoft and Google. Tot talent is what keeps the business alive (and your job at constant threat), but the kids aren't always going to line up nicely for computer science education without at least some furtive …
Odds and Sods 14 May 17:43
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Microsoft preps for open-source cloud apps
PHP gets Azure tinge
Microsoft has unveiled a toolkit for PHP developers building open-source applications that help fluff its planned Azure cloud. PHPAzure is a software development kit (SDK) for programming to both Windows Azure and the underlying SQL-like Windows Azure Storage service's blobs, tables, and queues. PHPAzure is an open-source …
Developer 14 May 18:09
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Hacker claims whaling expedition harpooned Steve Jobs
Alleged Amazon account access
A hacker has claimed he hijacked the Amazon.com account of Steve Jobs by sending the Apple CEO a phony email that tricked him into logging in to a fake website, according to the Cult of Mac blog. Reporter Leander Kahney was ultimately unable to confirm if screenshots and other information provided by the hacker, who identified …
Security 14 May 18:27
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Viral web infection siphons ad dollars from Google
Only getting bigger
A compromise that is moving virally across websites is making unwitting people who surf to them part of a botnet that redirects Google search results, a security researcher has warned. During the past week, the number of websites identified as infected have almost tripled, according to researcher Mary Landesman with real-time …
Security 14 May 20:49
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Sony loses $1bn in 2008
First annual loss in 14 years
Sony lost over $1bn during its 2008 fiscal year which ended in March. It's the company's first annual loss in 14 years, and it expects to lose even more in the year ahead. The Japanese electronics conglomerate reported today its worldwide sales were down 12.9 per cent for the year. The slump was blamed on a strong Yen combined …
Financial News 14 May 20:54
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Quadrics co-founder jumps to Cray
The old-boy interconnection network
Duncan Roweth, one of the founders of British parallel supercomputer switch interconnect maker Quadrics, is leaving the company to take a job over at HPC rival Cray. According to a statement released by Cray, Roweth will become the principal engineer at the supercomputer maker, reporting to Steve Scott, Cray's chief technology …
HPC 14 May 22:05
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Next Ubuntu alpha reveals video change
Star performer
The next Ubuntu should see improved video performance, along with updates to the underlying Linux and open-source infrastructure. A change in the video architecture has been revealed as the Ubuntu development team released alpha code for the next, planned edition: Ubuntu 9.10, codenamed Karmic Koala. Ubuntu 9.10 will feature …
Operating Systems 14 May 22:09
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Verizon hangs 3G contract on HP netbook
$199.99 and two years of your soul
Verizon will unleash its 3G netbook over the weekend, and - as expected - it's an HP. The HP Mini 1151NR netbook will hit the Verizon website and US Verizon stores on Sunday, May 17, the company announced today. It will be priced at $249.99 - though Verizon prefers to call that $199.99 with a $50 mail-in rebate. Naturally, …
Wireless 14 May 22:15
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NEC abandons Japan's 'next-gen' supercomputer
Can't afford the petaflops
In tough times, you have to make tough decisions, and Japanese server maker NEC this morning announced in Tokyo that it was pulling out of the Next Generation Supercomputer Project sponsored by the Japanese government. The project involved NEC, Fujitsu, and Hitachi building a hybrid scalar/vector massively parallel system. NEC …
HPC 14 May 22:19
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FTC drops Rambus 'patent ambush' claims
Seven year legal battle is over
US regulators have finally thrown in the towel after seven years of battling memory chip designer Rambus in court. The Federal Trade Commission today said it's officially dropped claims Rambus violated antitrust laws by hoodwinking the JEDEC (Joint Electron Device Engineering Council) industry standards group into approving …
Channel Register 14 May 22:33
