1st June 2009 Archive

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Adobe buffs and brands full Flash suite

Catalyst and Builder go wild

Adobe Systems is today expected to release code for an environment to unify design and development, plus code and a major re-branding for its next Flash and AIR RIA tool. The company will that announce Flash Catalyst, previously codenamed Thermo, is available as a public beta. Accompanying Flash Catalyst is beta code for Flex …

Developer 1 Jun 04:17
Virtualization moves to centre of mobile agenda

No more OS wars?

Six months after VMware announced plans for a mobile version of its virtualization platform – used to manage data center resources and PCs more efficiently – it says the technology will be seen in handsets next year, as it seeks to see off competition from mobile specialists such as VirtualLogix. Virtualization would enable …

Virtualization 1 Jun 07:02
LG 42LF7700 HD TV

Review Good reception? Enter LG's first Freesat telly

Click here to WIN an LG 42in Freesat HD TV worth £900 LG might not be the first name that comes to mind when selecting an HD TV set – the massive marketing campaigns of Sony, Toshiba and Samsung have seen to that. However, its new 42LF7700 set provides impressive image quality and admirable ease of use at a competitive price. …

Reg Hardware 1 Jun 08:02
Asus eyes Ion

You don't say...

Asus has been claimed to be not only evaluating Nvidia's Ion platform for netbooks and nettops, but to have also decided to make a machine based on the Atom add-on. In a story by DigiTimes, industry moles claim in one paragraph that the Eee PC maker is "considering launching" Ion-based netbooks after having received samples of …

Reg Hardware 1 Jun 09:06
Quantum extends deduplication to the sticks

Regional offices get their own super deduper

Quantum claims to have rendered tape obsolete in branch and remote offices with a new smaller deduplication and replication appliance. The DXi2500-D is a branch office implementation of Quantum's DXi technology. It deduplicates backup files at remote and branch offices before replicating them, in encrypted form, to a central …

Storage 1 Jun 09:15
Yahoo! shuts! failed! social! networking! site!!

Never! out! of! beta!

Yahoo! is shutting its unloved social networking site, Yahoo! 360, next month. The closure follows the shuttering of services Y! 360 aimed at college graduates and Mash, two other networking efforts opened in 2007 and then quietly closed. Yahoo! believes its family of services already provides social networking functions, but …

Applications 1 Jun 09:16
Official next-gen PlayStation Portable details leaked

Sony's PSP Go launch ruined?

The PlayStation Portable Go is... er... go, thanks to a leaked video in which a Sony executive provides a step-by-step guide to the PSP-3000’s successor. Sony's new PSP Go: no more UMD First up, the technical specifications. The PSP Go has a smaller screen than the PSP-3000: 3.8in down from 4.3in, helping make the latest …

Reg Hardware 1 Jun 09:58
Blighty’s barmy for e-cars, poll discovers

Leccy Tech 6.7m planning to buy within five years

British folks are plain crazy about leccy cars, according to an RAC poll. The survey – based on 1000 motorists’ answers – summarised that roughly 6.7m of Britain’s drivers are considering buying a vehicle powered solely by batteries at some point during the next five years. And the figure doesn't sound unreasonable, because a …

Reg Hardware 1 Jun 10:14
Emulex says Broadcom unfit to take it over

Alleged cokehound ex-CEO allegedly still influential

Emulex has filed a law suit alleging that Broadcom is unfit to take it over because a still influential former Broadcom CEO faces federal drug charges. Emulex is citing the charges in an application for an injunction to prevent the takeover. Broadcom is trying to take over Emulex with a $9.25/share $764m offer. It wants to …

Storage 1 Jun 10:24
MP 'devastated' over Facebook profile hack

'Outlawed from cyberspace and unable to communicate with my cyber friends'

A backbench Tory MP was left "devastated" after his Facebook account was hacked. Michael Fabricant, 58, spoke of his anguish in a posting on his personal website last week. The Lichfield MP's Facebook profile was suspended after his account was pwned by hackers and used to send malicious spam to his 1,500 contacts. The …

ID 1 Jun 10:38
TechNet goes Virtual with online conference for all

Doors open on June 19

Microsoft’s TechNet is running its first virtual conference for the UK tech community, and it's a biggie. The all-day free event opens for business at 9.30am BST on June 19 and brings together Microsoft experts and the IT community. [And The Register – we are the official media partner for the conference.] TechNet Virtual …

Software 1 Jun 10:50
VIA offshoot aims ARM SoC at Intel's Atom

Computex WonderMedia's Prizm unveiled

Having largely failed to dent Intel's share of the netbook processor market, Taiwan's VIA is having another go, this time pitching a part at the nascent handheld internet tablet arena - and on the back of the ARM architecture. The chip in question is the Prizm 8510, a system-on-a-chip being released by a company called …

Reg Hardware 1 Jun 10:58
Jacqui whacks shock jock crock

Libel letter still in post

The Home Office will robustly defend itself against any legal action brought by US shock jock Michael Savage, real name Michael Weiner. But it has yet to receive any mail from Savage's lawyers. A spokeswoman for the Home Office said: "As the Home Secretary has already said, he was excluded for engaging in unacceptable …

Government 1 Jun 11:01
Phoenix glides serenely over recessionary ashes

Smug services firm predicts woe - for others

Services group Phoenix reckons an early start on preparing for the downturn means that it will be able to weather the storm better than some of its competitors. The firm made the hostage-to-fortune statement as it announced revenues of £253.2m for the year to March 31, up 9.7 per cent on last year. Pre-tax profits were £15.6m …

Channel Register 1 Jun 11:02
Samsung unveils 12Mp cameraphone

Snap it up later this month

Samsung looks set to beat both Sony Ericsson and LG in the 12Mp cameraphone race, following news that its first such handset will be available later this month. Samsung's 12Mp Pixon 12 Twelve megapixels is, currently, the golden peak for cameraphone snapping quality. Samsung’s effort – called Pixon 12 - will be the first to …

Reg Hardware 1 Jun 11:03
Boffins: Ordinary lightbulbs can be made efficient, cheaply

Incandescents nearing extinction: Impeccable timing, everyone

Just as authorities in much of the Western world have moved to phase out the incandescent lightbulb, American boffins believe they have developed a process which can make the oldschool lights more efficient than energy-saving lamps. Optics boffins at the Rochester Uni in New York state say they've developed a process in which …

Physics 1 Jun 11:03
Britain leads world in police state survey

Gold medals for snooping, spying and surveilling

A recent survey from internet security consultancy, Cryptohippie, suggests that the UK is setting the pace in at least one area - though being classified as the West’s most repressive regime when it comes to electronic surveillance might not be a title that this government is entirely happy to wear. This result emerges from …

Policing 1 Jun 11:05
Level 3 wilts in London sunshine (again)

Last.fm downed by mildwave

A major central London data centre owned by Level 3 overheated in Sunday's sunshine, taking down major websites including the popular music service Last.fm. Temperatures at the facility in Braham Street in the City topped 50°C at 7pm, after one of five chillers failed in the afternoon heat. According to data recorded at City …

Telecoms 1 Jun 11:06
~~Bada~~ Bing tickles UK fancies

As if finding Pr0n wasn't easy enough already...

Microsoft's Bing is slowly but surely being rolled out to interweb surfers throughout the world - and those who can already get their sticky hands on the new search engine are finding hardcore porno videos are now just two clicks away. The Blighty version of the site, which has replaced Redmond’s clunky old Live Search, is now …

Applications 1 Jun 11:35
US firm says handheld puke ray is ready to go

Pistol style chunder-gat and torch/vom-sabre models

A US industrial laser company says it has developed a functional puke-ray system, ideal for use by cops or military personnel wishing to take down their opponents without shooting them. The firm proposes to issue the "non lethal light fighting technology" in two form factors - light-sabre/torch and blaster-pistol. The so- …

Biology 1 Jun 11:39
Hindus take divine mace to Sony Playstation

Demand boycott over Hanuman: Boy Warrior

Hindu groups worldwide have called for a boycott of all Sony PlayStation products in response to the company's Hanuman: Boy Warrior, on the grounds that the PS2 game “trivializes the highly revered deity of Hinduism”. The main objection to the game is that "the player controlled the destiny of Lord Hanuman while in reality the …

Bootnotes 1 Jun 11:41
Is there an easy way to root access on a Linux netbook?

I recently bought an Acer Aspire One and have been trying to get my 3 mobile broadband modem to work with it. The dongle (ZTE MF622) is seen as a mass-storage device. I've surfed the web and found a solution: http://hillj.co.uk/2008/01/31/how-to-get-online-with-three-mobile-uk-and-linux-ubuntu/ However, I can't get over a …

Reg Hardware 1 Jun 11:45
Sony X-Series Walkman

Review Does it kick the iPod into touch?

For the last few years, Sony has applied its iconic Walkman brand to Sony Ericsson products and performed sterling work in developing sound quality and user friendliness in media playing mobile phones. The new X-series Walkman has no phone element whatsoever, but it does have an OLED touch screen, built-in Wi-Fi for Internet …

Reg Hardware 1 Jun 12:14
Intel confirms end of Psion 'netbook' legal fight

Updated Psion flees the scene

Intel and Psion Teklogix have settled their legal battle over the ownership of the word 'netbook', the chip giant has confirmed. An Intel spokesman told Register Hardware this morning that the two companies have worked out their differences. That said, details of the out-of-court agreement reached by the pair have not been …

Reg Hardware 1 Jun 12:15
Egyptian cuts off todger to spite his ~~face~~ dad

Refused permission to marry 'lower class' woman

An Egyptian man whose family refused him permission to marry below his station decided the best way to lodge a protest was to chop off his own penis, AP reports. The unnamed 25-year-old hails from a "prominent" family in the southern Egyptian province of Qena - described as "one of Egypt's poorest and most conservative areas …

Bootnotes 1 Jun 12:22
UK chases Obama on cybersecurity

Officials aim to release strategy this summer

Security and intelligence officials plan to publish a UK version of Barack Obama's cybersecurity and defence review before the summer Parliamentary recess, according to sources close to the work. The US announced its new strategy on Friday following an intensive 60-day investigation of vulnerabilities in government and the …

Government 1 Jun 12:42
Storage world asks: Is a copy a backup?

Comment Yes, but only if it meets strict criteria

Is a copy of a file a backup? A group of of storage bloggers from EMC, Nirvanix, Ocarina and other locations in the storage blogosphere have been debating this topic and have generally agreed that it is, so long as it meets certain criteria. The background is that a backup file is traditionally a container file, holding …

Storage 1 Jun 12:50
WIN! LG 42in Freesat HD TV worth £900

Competition LG's very stylish 42LF7700 up for grabs

To mark the launch of its stylish LF7700 Freesat-fitted LCD TV range, LG has joined up with Register Hardware to give one lucky reader a 42in telly of their very own - complete with a full TV installation and set-up package. The 42LF7700 comes ready to pick up and show Freeview terrestrial digital TV broadcasts, but it'll also …

Reg Hardware 1 Jun 13:02
Israeli TV star ordered execs beaten up

How not to pitch for a new show, allegedly

A Israeli variety show presenter was yesterday cuffed for allegedly responding to TV executives' rejection of his show ideas by having them beaten up. Dudu Topaz, 62, is according to the BBC one of the country's top names. But his star has of late been on the wane following the cancellation of his own show five years ago. …

Bootnotes 1 Jun 13:20
STEC goes all the way with EVA

HP picks STEC SSDs

Another tier one storage vendor has publicly pitched its tent in STEC's backyard - HP EVA arrays will use STEC solid state storage. HP has been understood to be a STEC customer for some time. Now it is out in the open and we know that STEC's Zeus IOPS SSD is the product HP will use. It's a case of the now classic array SSD …

Storage 1 Jun 14:02
Better Wii Fit and Balance Board en-route?

Enhanced connectivity and increased sensitivity rumoured

An updated version of Wii Fit could be unveiled by Nintendo at the E3 games conference this week, alongside the launch of an enhanced Balance Board. Thought to be called Wii Fit Plus, the game’s next version will let geographically disparate users compete with one another, industry moles have told Japanese newspaper Nikkei. …

Reg Hardware 1 Jun 14:03
'Cloned' CGI faces mimic people 'better than skilled actors'

Gollum animators, Disney develop impersonation-ware

Government-funded boffins have collaborated with others from famous movie industry labs to produce software which can "clone" a person's facial mannerisms. The cloned data can then be applied to a CGI head, either to let a computer masquerade as a real person or to enhance the realism of animated characters. “Spoken words are …

Applications 1 Jun 14:04
Toshiba demos facial recognition for cars

Alerts drowsy drivers to dangerous driving

Toshiba has demoed an in-car facial recognition system that’ll alert dozy drivers to their dodgy driving, or simply help them change the radio without taking their hands off of the wheel. Toshiba's system looks at drivers from eight different points Image courtesy of Tech On At a recent automotive exhibition in Japan, …

Reg Hardware 1 Jun 14:09
Google pledges to open ebook service by year end

Life gets tough for Amazon

Google's ebook service should be up and running by the end of the year, the firm claimed today. You can already get books on your iPhone and on Sony's Reader Digital Book, which the search giant favours over Amazon's Kindle gadget. As Google's digital book scanning project matures so it wants to start making money from it. …

Music and Media 1 Jun 14:16
Brits suffer 'cinema TV' price hike

Rip-off Britain?

Philips has announced the UK price of its 21:9 cinema-style TV, but buyers would be better off shopping elsewhere in Europe. Philips cinema telly: a big screen with a price to match When the TV was first unveiled back in February, Philips said it would set you back a cool €4000 - just under £3500, based on the latest …

Reg Hardware 1 Jun 14:18
3 lures data dabblers

Here, have a bundle

The internet isn't going to go mobile while prepay users outnumber postpay by three or four to one, and adding data means a long call to an Indian call centre. So in a small but significant move, UK network 3 today said it's essentially opting its prepay users into a data plan, giving them a free data bundle to use. If you don …

Mobile 1 Jun 14:18
Firefox users flip out over sneak MS add-on

Silent, but deadly annoying

Firefox fans are up in arms after a recent Microsoft software update silently installed a Firefox extension that is difficult to remove. Users agreeing to install a service pack for the .NET Framework (NET Framework 3.5 Service Pack 1) through Windows update were also pushed a Firefox add-on that is potentially difficult to …

Enterprise Security 1 Jun 14:19
Display maker spends $215m on E Ink

Or $1.4m per electronic ink patent

E Ink has been bought by the company that makes most of the displays based on its technology. Taiwan-based Prime View will buy E Ink for $215m. E Ink will use the funding to further its R&D efforts. It'll be demo'ing a prototype colour display this week at the Society for Information Display conference in San Antonio, Texas, …

Financial News 1 Jun 14:46
Her Maj honours NZ wizard

Christchurch character conjures up Queen's Service Medal

Her Maj Queen Liz II has seen fit to honour NZ's Ian Brackenbury Channell - who's better known in Christchurch as "The Wizard". The 76-year-old will henceforth be known as The Wizard QSM after securing a Queen’s Service Medal for services to the community, specifically for donning a black cape and hat, hitting Cathedral Square …

Bootnotes 1 Jun 15:03
Irish politicos try to cut off call girls' mobiles

Seven deadly SIMs

The simplest and most effective way to crack down on prostitutes is to take their mobile phones away - so said Denis Naughten (Roscommon-South Leitrim) during Dáil justice questions last week. Naughten claimed that one of the conclusions of Operation Quest - a dedicated Garda operation against brothel-keeping - was that " …

Policing 1 Jun 15:34
Sun rolls out OpenSolaris 2009.06 release

Sparcs finally get it

As odd as it may seem, the OpenSolaris development release of Sun Microsystems' Unix operating system has only been available officially on x64 PCs, workstations, and servers. The OpenSolaris distribution has not been packaged up for Sparc workstations or servers. Starting today, with the OpenSolaris 2009.06 release, both x64 …

Servers 1 Jun 16:07
Asus shows ARM-based, Android-running skinny Eee

Computex Decent competition for Atom at last?

Statement of intent or proof concept? Either way Asus' Eee PC Seashell equipped not with Intel's Atom but Qualcomm's Snapdragon processor will fuel the hopes of many that the ARM architecture is about to muscle in on the netbook market in a big way. Spied at the Computex show being held this week in Taipei, the machine was …

Reg Hardware 1 Jun 16:31
AMD locks and loads 'Istanbul' six-shooter

Gunning for Dunnington, Nehalem

Advanced Micro Devices, after weeks of hinting that its six-core "Istanbul" Opteron processors were right around the corner, is finally firing the kickers to its "Shanghai" quad-core Opterons right at the new and forthcoming Nehalem family of workstation and server chips from archrival Intel. With the Istanbuls, AMD and Intel …

Servers 1 Jun 16:34
Google's doing to Twitterbook what it's doing to copyright

Comment Wave: Stealing your lunch 2.0

"The demonstrations will show Microsoft's embrace of devices beyond personal computers and of nonproprietary technology and may include a new interface that could eventually act as a digital dashboard for computers" - The Wall Street Journal, 'Microsoft's New Webware', 22 June 2000 Google has two prongs to its long-term …

Music and Media 1 Jun 17:08
Chip sales down 25% from last year

But up from last month

Global chip sales in April are down 25 per cent from a year earlier, though at least they've improved over the last two months. The Semiconductor Industry Association said today that chip sales worldwide tallied $15.6bn in April, compared to $20.9bn for the same month in 2008. The upside is that two sequential months of …

PCs & Chips 1 Jun 17:47
Cisco joins Dow, as GM jettisoned

'Information superhighway' and all that

Let the metaphor mixing begin. With American car maker General Motors filing for bankruptcy, the Dow Jones company - which puts together the eponymous industrial average to gauge the strength of the stock market and, in turn, the U.S. economy - had to yank GM from the DJIA index this morning. GM will be permanently removed …

Financial News 1 Jun 18:07
Linksys router ripe for remote takeover

Stealth attack exploits gullible management console

A security researcher has discovered a flaw in a popular Linksys router that could allow attackers to remotely hijack the device using its web management console. The Linksys WAG54G2 fails to properly inspect addresses typed in to browsers accessing the management console, allowing attackers to inject powerful shell commands …

Security 1 Jun 18:09
iPhone 3.0 to nix app redownloading?

Boot your PC or buy again

It appears as if Apple's iPhone 3.0 software may make it impossible for you to use your iPhone to redownload an app that you had previously purchased from the App Store. This restriction was pointed out by a Sunday posting on The iPhone Blog, which reports that when users running the iPhone 3.0 beta try to redownload an app …

Mobile 1 Jun 19:46
Ex-SAP man joins Gore green crusade

Hip hip Hara

Another ex-SAP man has joined the green crusade. As former SAP wunderkind Shai Agassi attempts to drive his Better Place electric cars across the globe, Amit Chatterjee is launching Hara, an online service for businesses intent on tracking both their natural-resource consumption and their environmental emissions. "We provide …

Environment 1 Jun 21:22
Microsoft uncloaks invisible XBox controller

'Project Natal' flails into existence

Microsoft has revealed a motion-sensing gadget for the Xbox 360 that uses the player's full body to control video games. Dubbed "Project Natal," the new accessory is a horizontal bar placed near the console that allows players to control their games and Xbox media without touching hardware. Rather than rely on a wand to …

Music and Media 1 Jun 21:30
Plague of web bugs descend on British sites

HSBC, Barclays, The Telegraph bitten

It's been a busy week for high-profile web vulnerabilities, with discoveries of careless bugs on the sites of three British companies. Online banking sites for HSBC and Barclays Group and the website for The Telegraph were caught with their pants down, as hackers published screenshots and other details that showed all three …

Security 1 Jun 21:34
Apple ChiPhone set for July?

Edge, 3G, and some such other thing

A few tantalizing tidbits surfaced today indicating that the iPhone's long-awaited entry into the Chinese market will occur next month and that the ChiPhone will include three communications methods: "EDGE (enhanced data rates for GSM evolution), 3G and China's related standards." The report comes from the China Economic News …

Mobile 1 Jun 22:00
Red Hat blends JBoss blocker to SpringSource

CommunityOne Open-source goes at it

Red Hat has opened Sun Microsystems' annual week of Java activities with an application server strategy targeting fellow open-sourcer SpringSource. The company, which made its name in the Linux business, has added a third server to its JBoss application server and middleware family targeting what it called "mid-sized" …

Developer 1 Jun 22:06
Gartner: No server growth until 2010

Q1 worse than expected

The box counters at Gartner gave out their stats for server sales for the first quarter of the year, and the numbers were worse even than the already bad expectations the market researcher had. Worldwide server sales fell by 24 per cent by Gartner's reckoning to $10.1bn, and shipments collapsed by a nearly identical 24.2 per …

Servers 1 Jun 22:13
Feds quiz former worker over Texas power plant hack

Danger danger! High voltage!

A former employee at a Texas power utility was arrested late last week over accusations he crippled its energy forecast system after launching a hacking attack. FBI agents made the arrest on Thursday after raiding the home of Dong Chul Shin, a former worker at Energy Future Holdings. EFH owns three Texas electricity generating …

Crime 1 Jun 22:42
EMC trumps NetApp bid for Data Domain

$1.8bn all-cash offer 'substantially superior'

EMC is crashing NetApp's wedding to Data Domain with a trumping bid of $1.8 billion to purchase the company. Two weeks ago, NetApp proposed to acquire the dedupe specialist for $1.5 billion in cash and stock. EMC called its all-cash proposal today "superior" to NetApp's offer and said the deal provides Data Domain …

Storage 1 Jun 23:12
Microsoft to talk Sun-cloud interoperability

CommunityOne Playing to the Oracle gallery

Microsoft is making its debut at Sun Microsystems' annual Java jamboree in what's looking like a mission of mutual support. The company will use its first ever JavaOne keynote speech Thursday to talk about the ability to use open-source infrastructure components built by Sun with Microsoft's nascent Azure cloud. Microsoft's …

Developer 1 Jun 23:58