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21st May 2009 Archive

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  • Missing: 1TB of Clinton White House data

    Hard drive vanishes from National Archives

    A hard drive containing more than 1 terabyte of sensitive data from the Clinton administration, including the personal information of White House staff and visitors, is missing from the US National Archives. One of the social security numbers lost in the breach belonged to a daughter of former Vice President Al Gore, according …

    Security 21 May 2009, 00:08

  • Yahoo! puts webpages in their place

    Lingua geographica

    Yahoo! is offering developers a free online service that gives webpages a certain sense of place. Today, the company unveiled a beta service it calls Placemaker. You give it blog posts, news articles, and other collections of web words, and it gives you metadata identifying specific geographical locations mentioned in these …

    Developer 21 May 2009, 00:29

  • Microsoft rolls Netflix into Windows Media Center

    No extenders. No HD

    Microsoft snuggled a little closer to its US movies-on-demand buddy Netflix on Wednesday by rolling the firm's streaming content into Windows Media Center. Netflix subscribers can now access the company's library of streaming movies and TV shows right on the media dashboard built into Vista Home Premium and Ultimate. Microsoft …

    Media 21 May 2009, 00:31

  • Worldwide GPS may die in 2010, say US gov

    Can the fanbois live without it?

    The global positioning system (GPS) operated by the US government could fail as early as next year. According to a report (PDF) by the US Government Accountability Office (GAO), the independent and nonpartisan agency charged with keeping track of government efficiency (or lack thereof), "It is uncertain whether the Air Force …

    Science 21 May 2009, 00:48

  • VMware's vSphere enters real world, early!

    41 days. Is this a record?

    VMware has shipped its next-generation virtualization hypervisor and management tools collection, vSphere 4, ahead of schedule. When vSphere 4 was announced at a gala event at VWware's headquarters on April 21st, word was that the suite would be released by the end of this quarter. VMware made that deadline with 41 days to …

    Virtualization 21 May 2009, 04:02

  • Smartphones sales on the up in Q1

    Lesser-handset sales on the slide

    Global smartphone sales grew by 12.7 per cent during the first quarter this year, but at the expense of a 9.4 per cent dip in sales of less advanced handsets, market watcher Gartner has concluded. Over 36.4m smartphones were sold during Q1, although traditional talkers still outperformed more the advanced models with total …

    Phones 21 May 2009, 06:02

  • China lowers national security IT ‘trade barrier’

    No more knocking at your back door

    A certification scheme that threatened to ban many software and hardware products from China has been curtailed. The scheme, which holds IT vendors to controversial national standards, will be limited to public procurement only, a government agency has said. The requirement, which applies to 13 product types, was due to come …

    The Channel 21 May 2009, 07:30

  • IntelliTouch Eos wireless iPod speaker system

    Review Compact, punchy, multi-zone music setup

    Fancy an affordable wireless iPod system that can grow to suit your needs or just looking for a way to avoid hardwiring speakers in the your home? Certainly, wireless sound systems take some beating in terms of convenience but, typically, at a cost. Addressing both portability and price, the new IntelliTouch Eos offers multizone …

    Hardware 21 May 2009, 08:02

  • Google derides 'dinosaur' system integrators

    Holier than thou finger points cloudwards

    Google has hit out at old school system integrators and described them as “dinosaurs” who are out of touch with growing customer demands for more cloud-based products. Mountain View’s head of EMEA partners at Google Enterprise, Peter Lorant, was speaking at Channel Expo in Birmingham yesterday, where he attempted to woo more …

    The Channel 21 May 2009, 08:08

  • RealNetworks claims CSS license lets it copy DVDs. Sues studios

    Woolly Bully

    RealNetworks is filing an anti-trust action against the major US studios. It says it has a license to use CSS decryption which it obtained legally, and therefore its RealDVD copying software is not only legal, but attempts by the studios to block it amount to anti-trust. It will be interesting to see if a court agrees. Subtly …

    Hardware 21 May 2009, 08:10

  • Microsoft loses $200m in Texas Hold 'em up patent suit

    XML's the Word

    Microsoft has been ordered to pay at least $200m to i4i, a Canadian software firm for infringing patents in the way that Microsoft Word handles documents. The case was heard in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Texas, a jurisdiction famous - or infamous- for its patent-friendly decisions. The jury found …

    Applications 21 May 2009, 08:31

  • NZ couple do bunk with £3.9m bank error

    Take the money and run

    New Zealand police have asked Interpol to help them apprehend a couple who did a bunk with an unspecified percentage of a NZ$10m (£3.9m) bank error. The unnamed couple, believed to have run a Rotorua service station before taking the money and running, applied for a NZ$10,000 loan with Oz bank Westpac, which generously decided …

    Security 21 May 2009, 08:33

  • Toddler snaps up mechanical digger online

    £7,700 auction punt while parents sleep

    A New Zealand three-year-old was temporarily the proud owner of a mechanical digger after successfully bidding online for the earth-moving kit. Pipi Quinlan, of Stanmore Bay north of Auckland, got up while her family were still akip and managed to find her way to the TradeMe homepage where her mother was already logged in. …

    Bootnotes 21 May 2009, 08:35

  • Storage vendors unroll better VTL options

    I love the smell of mainframe tape in the morning

    It's been a good day for mainframe tape users. They can store data on cheaper open systems virtual tape libraries (VTLs) thanks to Bus-Tech's MDL-100V product, and Sun has simultaneously enhanced its mainframe VTL and tape products. Bus-Tech's Mainframe Data Library-100V connects by FICON or ESCON links to mainframe hosts and …

    Storage 21 May 2009, 08:56

  • Germans resist Street View invasion of privacy

    Delete suspect images, Google told

    Google's all-seeing Street View is attempting to convince German authorities that it should be allowed to retain "partially censored images" which Hamburg and 15 other states want purged from the search monolith's databases. Google has been negotiating over Germany's privacy laws which "generally restrict photographs of people …

    Bootnotes 21 May 2009, 09:07

  • Boffins build basis for 9TB DVDs

    All down to the longitudinal surface plasmon resonance of gold nanorods, don't you know

    Aussie scientists have devised a digital disc design capable of holding the content from 2000 DVDs - more than nine terabytes of data - in a unit physically no bigger than a DVD or Blu-ray Disc. In a paper entitled Five-dimensional optical recording mediated by surface plasmons in gold nanorods and published today in the …

    Hardware 21 May 2009, 09:14

  • Acer outlines 2009 handset plans

    Nine WinMo phones, one Android coming

    An Acer executive has sketched out the firm’s handset plans for 2009, announcing that all but one of its planned devices will be based on Windows Mobile. Speaking at the Reuters Global Technology Summit in Paris yesterday, Aymar de Lencquesaing, the head of Acer’s phone division, said it plans to launch around ten handsets …

    Phones 21 May 2009, 09:25

  • Nokia gets trippy with 'light messaging'

    Make SMS recipients' phones light up to signal your mood

    It can be hard to guess the sender's mood from their text messages, so Nokia has applied to patent a communications technology that uses light to express emotion. The document – filed earlier this month – describes a technology called “light messaging” which essentially allows you text an emoticon to your friend that, when …

    Phones 21 May 2009, 09:38

  • Dell demos Android-equipped netbook

    Just for fun, claims company blogger

    Dell has shown off a netbook running Google’s Android OS. Well, sort of. Can't see the video? Download Flash Player from Adobe.com Doug Anson, a Technology Strategist at Dell, has released a video blog in which he runs through three versions of the Mini 10v netbook: one running Ubuntu Linux, another running Ubuntu Netbook …

    Hardware 21 May 2009, 09:43

  • Cisco settles open source case

    Show us yer source code

    Networking behemoth Cisco has settled a patent infringement case brought by the Free Software Foundation. The FSF accused Cisco of distributing products under its Linksys brand which breached FSF General Public Licenses. A key part of GPL is that if you distribute products based on it then you must also make the source code …

    Data Networking 21 May 2009, 09:47

  • ISS re-wee tech triumph heralds golden showers in orbit

    Astronauts to live on processed space rat piss

    Astronauts and cosmonauts on the International Space Station (ISS) celebrated a significant technology milestone yesterday, as the station's buggy quarter-billion-dollar urine recycler was finally declared fully operational. Jubilant, thirsty space explorers quaffed refreshing draughts of "yesterday's coffee" and cracked …

    Science 21 May 2009, 10:20

  • Undead deleted photos linger on social networking websites

    We're coming to embarrass you, Barbara!

    That embarrassing party shot of you and that hot dog may still come back to haunt you - photos posted on social networking websites can often be easily viewed even after users attempt to delete them, according to a study by security researchers at the University of Cambridge. Researchers posted photos on 16 social networking …

    Security 21 May 2009, 10:21

  • CSC freezes UK pay

    Again

    CSC will freeze pay for all UK staff this year in a bid to survive the recession, managers have been told. It's the latest in a series of cost-cutting measures for the outsourcing firm, which have included compulsory unpaid leave, Christmas bonuses being replaced with a mince pie and extensive job cuts. Pay was also frozen in …

    The Channel 21 May 2009, 10:22

  • Skype pulls about-face, calls for interoperability

    Humble pie by the international water cooler

    Two months after Skype announced a beta of its SIP gateway, the company's general manager has called on PBX manufacturers to get compatible, despite half a decade of refusing to play nicely with anyone. Skype resolutely refused to consider adopting the industry-standard Session Initiation Protocol, claiming that it could do …

    VoIP 21 May 2009, 10:34

  • Designer dreams up handheld 3D Blu-ray camcorder

    Just a concept, sadly

    The Blu-ray Disc Association has only just inked plans for a 3D Blu-ray Disc standard taskforce, but one designer’s already sketched out a concept 3D-capable consumer camcorder with Blu-ray support. A camcorder for capturing 3D films and pictures onto Blu-ray Nikola Knezevic’s camcorder would sport two “high precision …

    Hardware 21 May 2009, 10:48

  • OCZ ups peak SSD speeds with Summit line

    OCZ has rolled out its third 2.5in SSD family this year: the Summit series. The range comprises 60GB, 120GB and 250GB post-format capacities. They all have 128MB of cache memory. They have peak read and write speeds of 220MB/s and 200MB/s, respectively - though the 60GB model has a write speed of 125MB/s. The three models …

    Hardware 21 May 2009, 10:48

  • Spielberg: Games consoles doomed

    PlayStation etc out, virtual reality in

    Steven Spielberg has suggested that games consoles will, one day, be replaced by in-home virtual reality entertainment. Spielberg told The Guardian that while he’s keen for 3D games to be developed in the short term, he’s confident that after the glamour of such titles has worn off the future “will certainly be virtual reality …

    Games 21 May 2009, 10:54

  • European 'standard' e-car power connector details emerge

    Leccy Tech Won't let drivers head off with the cable still in place

    Further details have emerged about the design of the would-be European e-car plug standard currently being championed by Germany-based energy company RWE. RWE's e-car plug design The plug will support both 230V single-phase and 400V three-phase power supplies for, respectively, in-home and direct-from-grid charging. The …

    Science 21 May 2009, 11:25

  • Stumbling Lenovo turns in record loss

    Fourth quarter was pants

    Stumbling PC giant Lenovo saw sales and profits fall further than expected in the fourth quarter. The firm, which owns the ThinkPad brand, said sales fell 26 per cent to $2.8bn in the fourth fiscal quarter of 2009. Gross profit was down 49 per cent to $285m. Factoring in restructuring charges and other costs Lenovo made a pre …

    Hardware 21 May 2009, 11:38

  • Hack suspect challenges privacy of Palin emails

    Kernell lawyers mount maverick left field legal defence

    Defence lawyers in the Sarah Palin webmail account hack case intend to claim the Alaskan governor's emails were a matter of public record and therefore enjoyed no expectation of privacy. The novel legal tactic is designed to reduce the seriousness of the charges against their client, David Kernell. Citing an Alaskan court's …

    Law 21 May 2009, 11:42

  • Dedupe this: NetApp buying Data Domain

    Comment Surprise deal obscures good results

    Announcing its intent to be king of the dedupe hill, NetApp is buying Data Domain for $1.5bn. The announcement overshadowed NetApp's fiscal 2009 earnings which beat Wall Street estimates. The IT world has been agog with rumours of a big takeover, Cisco and EMC being often mentioned, but Data Domain and NetApp was an unexpected …

    Storage 21 May 2009, 11:48

  • MSI Wind U115 Hybrid

    Review The first netbook with an SSD... and an HDD

    From the outside, the Wind U115 looks like your average 10in Small, Cheap Computer - which makes the fact that MSI has managed to squeeze in not one but two storage systems all the more impressive. MSI's Wind U115: old styling, new approach to storage With most netbooks, you face the choice between either a shock-proof but …

    Laptops 21 May 2009, 12:02

  • Cisco stakes out 30 markets for IP world domination

    Analysis Zettabytes of cash to play with

    In 2003, Cisco selected six key emerging markets on which to focus to drive growth and new revenue streams. Recently, it has increased that number to a huge 30, all unified by the common theme that they are driven by the explosion of data traffic over wired and wireless IP networks. Cisco’s new markets Last week Cisco CEO …

    Data Networking 21 May 2009, 12:02

  • BitDefender launches 'suck it and see' free anti-virus scanner

    Cut-down software in consumer marketing push

    Romanian anti-virus firm BitDefender has begun offering a free version of its anti-virus scanner software to consumers. Similarly cut-down versions of BitDefender's anti-phishing and chat encryption software are also being offered at no charge to home users. The launch of free editions of its security suites is designed to …

    Security 21 May 2009, 12:18

  • Yahoo! to! buy! social! networking!

    Realises Google has more friends

    Yahoo! is likely to buy its way into social networking, and it accepts that Google has won the search game. Ari Balogh, Yahoo's chief technology officer, told Reuters Global Technology Summit: "I can guarantee you there will be some acquisitions, and we will do some stuff in-house." He said now was a good time to buy because …

    Applications 21 May 2009, 12:20

  • Geeks make least selfish lovers: Official

    Don't get it up as much as office workers, though

    It's offical: Geeks make the most considerate lovers, with four in five declaring that sex should be more about their partner than satisfying their own filthy needs. That's according to a survey of 2,084 Brits (56 per cent male, 44 per cent female) carried out by www.PS3PriceCompare.co.uk, which also discovered just 41 per …

    Bootnotes 21 May 2009, 12:31

  • Nokias, BlackBerrys pay ultimate price for Brown gov

    Airborne handsets remembered in Commons

    Pondering what mobile phone will survive the toughest environments? Look no further than the House of Commons, where Tom Watson of the Cabinet Office yesterday gave a list of exactly which mobile phones have paid the ultimate price in Gordon Brown's battle against the world, the recession and everything. Back in February, Tory …

    Mobile 21 May 2009, 12:53

  • 6.5m vehicles to be tracked by 2012

    Rubber Duck, we know where you are

    A new study of satellite tracking technology estimates that US companies are tracking 3.6 million vehicles, a number that's due to rise to 6.5 million by 2012. The study of tracking system use was carried out by CJ Driscoll and involved interviews with over a hundred industry executives about how they are using tracking now, …

    Mobile 21 May 2009, 12:59

  • Little guy trampled in meaty WEEE overhaul

    Small computer outlets down in the dumps

    An independent IT retailer group has slammed the Department of Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform and accused it of “ignorance” over what the outfit sees as discrimination against small shop owners within the WEEE legislation. ITACS chairman Matthew Woolley told The Register that small UK shops that sell and repair …

    The Channel 21 May 2009, 13:04

  • Safe signals in Perl

    The new gotcha

    Once upon a time, handling signals in Perl code had a pretty big gotcha — one that you couldn’t work around. Perl 5.8 changed signal handling in a way that eliminated that gotcha, but replaced it with a different one, harder to trigger, but no less surprising. The original gotcha Signals are delivered asynchronously — by …

    Developer 21 May 2009, 13:13

  • Panasonic pitches high-speed SDHC cards

    Class 10 rating

    Panasonic will release its Class 10 SDHC memory cards in the UK next month. The cards - available in 4, 8, 16 and 32GB capacities - have a minimum read and write speed of 10MB/s - hence the Class 10 status. However, Panasonic said the cards have a maximum speed of 22MB/s, which is lower than many high-speed cards on the …

    Hardware 21 May 2009, 13:17

  • Queen given golden console

    Wii are not amused?

    The Queen may need somewhere else to store the crown jewels, because she’s reportedly been given a golden Wii. THQ sent the Queen a gold-plated Wii to promote its latest game Videogame publisher THQ has, according to several reports, sent the Monarch a gold-plated Wii to publicise its latest title: Big Family Games. …

    Games 21 May 2009, 14:18

  • Brit hover barges, airships offered to Canadian oilfields

    Can Blighty beat the (partly) Canadian blimpcopter?

    British firms are pitching retro-futuristic transport ideas for future energy projects intended to exploit the "oil sands" of Canada's Alberta province. Two ideas being touted are riverine "hover barges" and monster heavy-lift "hybrid" airships. Tomorrow's wilderness heavy lift - brought to you yesterday Fort McMurray Today …

    Science 21 May 2009, 14:23

  • Now Google tracking follows you out of cyberspace

    Making your life easier by knowing what you're doing

    Not content with knowing what you're doing online, Google has patented a process using the accelerometer in your phone to work out what you're doing offline too, all in the interest of improving your experience. Android devices might start working out what we're doing based on how we're moving, and make decisions as to what we …

    Mobile 21 May 2009, 14:27

  • Job losses hit C&W profits

    £8m bonuses all round

    The cost of sacking hundreds of staff during the integration of Thus meant Cable and Wireless reported full year pre-tax profits down 13 per cent today. In the year to the end of March, the firm earned £233m on revenues of £3.6bn, up from £3.2bn the previous year. Restructuring losses from last year's £329m Thus acquisition, …

    Broadband 21 May 2009, 14:49

  • Conficker: Hold the funeral, it's not dead yet

    50,000 new Windows systems hit every day

    Media coverage of the Conficker superworm has died down over recent weeks but variants of the worm are still infecting 50,000 new PCs a day. The US, Brazil and India are the main cultivation grounds for the worm, according to reports from the Symantec threat intelligence team. Symantec has knocked up a colour-coded map …

    Security 21 May 2009, 14:54

  • Intel drags feet on Itanium quad-core (again)

    No Tukwila this Tuesday. Or even this year

    Are you one of the IT shops with Itanium-based servers at the heart of your data center expecting a substantial speed boost this year from Intel with the quad-core "Tukwila" Itaniums? You'd better forget about it, because the processor won't be making an appearance until the first quarter of 2010. As we reported earlier this …

    Servers 21 May 2009, 15:47

  • Apple seeks specialist for iPhone ARM upgrade

    Neon job posting

    An upgraded ARM processor may power future iPhones, if the requirements in an Apple job posting for experienced chip-level programming talent are any indication. Spotted by sharp eyes at MacRumors, the posting for a "High Perform/Low Level Programmer" on Apple's Job Opportunities site list among its requirements "excellent …

    Mobile 21 May 2009, 18:07

  • Twitter typosquatting site preys on gullible

    Well, duh

    Miscreants have launched an aggressive phishing attack that aims to dupe the unwary into handing over their login credentials for the microblogging service. Dubious accounts are being used to seed the tvviter.com phishing campaign, which starts when followers of a targeted subscriber post a message in the form "check this guy …

    Security 21 May 2009, 18:08

  • US lawmakers put Canada, Spain on piracy 'watch list'

    Axis of P2P-vil

    A group of US lawmakers plan to "closely monitor" five countries where they claim copyright piracy has reached "alarming levels." The Congressional International Anti-Piracy Caucus, made up of over 70 members of US Congress, singled out China, Russia, Canada, Spain, and Mexico on Wednesday for its "2009 International Piracy …

    Media 21 May 2009, 18:58

  • Scrubbed geo-location data not so anonymous after all

    Your commute = your fingerprint

    Anonymized data collected from GPS-enabled devices may not be as anonymous as you think, according to researchers who show that knowing someone's general home and work locations can be enough to identify an individual uniquely. The findings, by Philippe Golle and Kurt Partridge of PARC, or the Palo Alto Research Center, are …

    Security 21 May 2009, 19:17

  • Microsoft IIS vuln played no role in server breach, uni says

    No in-the-wild attacks reported

    Network administrators at Ball State University have retracted their claims that a campus website was brought down by a zero-day vulnerability in Microsoft's Internet Information Services webserver. "Microsoft and Ball State now have identified the cause of the breach [as] a Ball State iWeb user [who] either misused or allowed …

    Security 21 May 2009, 21:58

  • Jobsian cult indoctrinates American children

    The Fanboi Youth

    In the time-honored "hook 'em while they're young" marketing tradition, Apple is offering a summer series of free Apple Camp workshops at its US retail stores for youngsters aged 8 through 12. As part of its ongoing Youth Programs effort, Apple will offer four sets of three-hour workshops, focusing on music, movie-making, …

    Bootnotes 21 May 2009, 22:03

  • Governator revives anti-violent video game crusade

    Fears fate of young frontal lobes

    California governor Arnold Schwarzenegger is asking America's top court to restart his campaign of criminalizing the sale of violent video games to children. Legislation banning sale or rental of mature-themed video games to Californians under 18 was first penned by Democrat senator Leland Yee and signed into law by the …

    Media 21 May 2009, 22:21

  • DDoS attack chokes Chinese net surfing

    Five-province traffic jam

    Millions of internet users in China had trouble accessing websites earlier this week after an attack on a domain registrar in that country touched off a network traffic jam. Internet service in at least five provinces was halted or severely slowed by a chain reaction that was touched off by a distributed denial-of-service …

    Security 21 May 2009, 22:28

  • Google brands ebook monopoly critics 'shortsighted'

    Brin and his spin

    Poised to create a court-approved monopoly in the digital book market, Google's $125m library-scanning settlement is under investigation by the US Department of Justice and possibly state attorneys general. But Google co-founder Sergey Brin has defended the company's pact with American authors and publishers, calling criticism …

    Media 21 May 2009, 22:46

  • IBM euthanizes aging Power gear

    Time to get younger

    With Power6+ systems in the market and Power7 machinery slated for next year - and with IBM's supply chain expert (Bob Moffatt) in charge of its Systems and Technology Group - you can't expect older gear to stay in the product line for very long. And so it comes as little surprise that IBM is already starting to wind down some …

    Servers 21 May 2009, 22:58

  • NetApp says no one wants to buy NetApp

    Warmenhoven on who could, but won't

    No-one really wants to buy NetApp. There are five possibles but none of them has a problem that buying NetApp would solve better than any alternative. Really. That's NetApp CEO Dan Warmenhoven's view. He listed the five possible suitors in a question and answer session at NetApp's Sunnyvale HQ this morning. In reverse order, …

    Storage 21 May 2009, 23:04

  • Hitachi GST buying WD plant

    Malaysian media substrate swap

    Number three disk drive manufacturer Hitachi GST is helping out number two supplier Western Digital by buying a media substrate plant it no longer needs. The plant makes the aluminum disk platters used in hard drives, and it's located in Sarawak, Malaysia. The WD employees there will transfer to a Hitachi GST subsidiary. The …

    Storage 21 May 2009, 23:09

  • Can Western Digital drives vary their spin speeds?

    That would be a no

    There has been some confusion about whether Western Digital's IntelliPower technology varies a drive's rotation speed or not. Well, it doesn't. A WD spokesperson said that IntelliPower does not vary a drive's spin speed while it is in use. The drives have fixed spin speeds and these may vary with individual drive capacity …

    Storage 21 May 2009, 23:50

  • Hulu's web TV coming to the UK

    You happy now?

    Hulu, the commercial-fed internet television service backed by three of the four American TV giants, is rumored to be arriving in the UK as early as this September. According to The Telegraph, which cites "senior sources" close to negotiations, Hulu is planning an autumn UK roll-out that will include 3,000 hours of American …

    Media 21 May 2009, 23:53