The Register® — Biting the hand that feeds IT

Feeds

3rd June 2009 Archive

Browse by publication date, or search the site.

  • US issues revised e-voting standards

    Stringent recommendations for testing

    The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) delivered an update on Monday to the United States' electronic voting standards, adding more requirements to test systems for accuracy and reliability and additional rules to make paper audit trails easier to review. The draft revision, known as the Voluntary Voting …

    Security 3 Jun 00:03

  • Sun rallies mobile faithful to simplified Java tests

    JavaOne Once more, with feeling

    Sun Microsystems and mobile partners are taking another stab at portability of Java applications as Apple, Google, and Research in Motion threaten to set de-facto standards. Together with France Telecom and Orange, Motorola, Nokia, Sony Ericsson and Vodafone, Sun announced the Java Application Terminal Alignment Framework ( …

    Developer 3 Jun 00:56

  • Xandros - the Linux company that isn't

    'Users don't care about Linux'

    Xandros has spent the better part of a decade trying to take Linux to the masses and build itself up as a serious contender in the commercial Linux racket. And now, after the advent of Linux-based netbooks and an evolving new class of devices that are being dubbed smartbooks, Xandros is getting another chance at going mainstream …

    Operating Systems 3 Jun 01:07

  • Google eyeballs planted on 92% of top websites

    'The most dominant player in the tracking market'

    A new privacy study says that Google-controlled web bugs are tracking users on 92 of the net's top 100 sites and about 88 per cent of almost 400,000 other domains. Using a Firefox browser plug-in called Ghostery, three graduate students in the School of Information at the University of California, Berkeley recently examined …

    Music and Media 3 Jun 01:39

  • BakBone's SMB continuous data protection

    A cure for slipped disks

    BakBone has introduced a new continuous data protection product called NetVault FASTRecover, saying it will eliminate backup windows and recovers Exchange, SQL Server, and Windows File server data in as little as 30 seconds. This is a similar system to NetVault: Real-Time Data Protector (NVRDP), which provided 30-second, …

    Storage 3 Jun 03:13

  • Brocade gets HP HBA support

    But can't see any for CNA

    HP has added another brick to Brocade's wall by qualifying its host bus adapters with ProLiant servers, along with MSA and EVA drive arrays. HP will also ship Brocade's Fibre Channel over Ethernet switch. This HP support combines with an earlier IBM qualification to substantially strengthen Brocade's HBA offer. The HBA market …

    Storage 3 Jun 07:02

  • Shuttle X 5000TA all-in-one PC

    Review The touchscreen system your kitchen's been waiting for?

    Although the Shuttle All-in-One PC X5000TA looks like a TFT display with a chunky bezel for the speakers, it's actually a proper PC that is controlled through its 15.6in touchscreen. It's housed in a relatively sleek chassis that measures 391mm wide by 327mm high and is only 36mm thick. The fold-out stand at the rear swings up …

    Reg Hardware 3 Jun 08:02

  • Opera 10 debuts with 'Turbo' boost

    Shorter waits on slow networks

    Opera Software on Wednesday is expected to release the first edition of Opera 10, a browser the company said offered a variety of new features, including compression technology that can cut by a third the time it takes pages to load on slow networks. Dubbed Opera Turbo, the server-side technology reduces the amount of data …

    Applications 3 Jun 08:02

  • Sarin took half a mill in 'sod off' expenses

    Career in British politics surely beckons

    The ex-boss of Vodafone Arun Sarin took relocation payments of £500,000 to get himself and his luggage back to the US after leaving the mobile giant. Admittedly unlike most of the MPs caught up in the expenses row, Sarin did deliver profits of over £10bn at the firm he ran for five years. He also worked hard to win over a …

    Mobile 3 Jun 08:24

  • Murky world of recruitment gets DoJ probe

    Anti-compete clauses anti-competitive

    The US Justice Department is investigating Google, Yahoo!, Apple and Genentech to see if their employment practices break US competition laws. The investigation is believed to be industry-wide. Tech firms are infamous for tying senior staff to contracts that preclude them from working for competitors for set periods of time. …

    Financial News 3 Jun 09:20

  • Sony PSP Go to hit UK in October

    'Worst kept secret' official

    In an announcement branded by Sony as “the worst kept secret of E3”, the electronics giant has officially unveiled the PlayStation Portable Go. Sony's PSP Go: will land here in October Despite the UMD-less handheld console’s existence slipping out earlier this week in an allegedly leaked promotional video, Sony Computer …

    Reg Hardware 3 Jun 09:33

  • Yahoo! snaps up top NetApp PR bod

    The Brown Exclamation

    NetApp's senior director for corporate relations, Eric Brown, is off to sprinkle some special PR magic at Yahoo!. That's according to the WSJ which reports Brown will run Yahoo's corporate PR, reporting to Elisa Steele, chief marketing officer at Yahoo. Steele worked at NetApp from May 2005 to March this year as an SVP for …

    Storage 3 Jun 09:53

  • Who's afraid of the SOA police?

    Comment Just do it

    We heard a lot of talk a few months ago about about the death of service oriented architecture (SOA). This was mainly by the kind of pundits who had over-hyped it in the first place. Since then, we have seen various rebuttals to the claims that were made, but a degree of uncertainty about the status and role of SOA persists. So …

    Applications 3 Jun 10:02

  • Code for handling personal data is muddled, says lawyer

    Further confusion in an already bewildering area

    A code of conduct for handling personal data was launched in London yesterday. But the document is inconsistent on the need for consent when collecting personal data, according to a data protection expert. Sometimes consent is not necessary, he said. The Personal Data Guardianship Code was published jointly by the British …

    IT Director 3 Jun 10:03

  • EMC prevails over HP in job switch trial

    Donatelli locked out of storage for a year

    A California court has ruled that David Donatelli can't look after the storage part of his intended tripartite job for one year. Servers and networking are okay though. David Donatelli suddenly left EMC, where he ran its storage array business, in April to join HP and become its EVP for Enterprise Servers, Storage and …

    Storage 3 Jun 10:14

  • Wiltshire welcomes clutch of Great Bustards

    Male parentage of first UK chicks since 1832 in question

    Conservation groups have greeted with "euphoria" the hatching of the first Great Bustard chicks in the UK since the last hatchling was spotted in Suffolk way back in 1832. Two females among a group of Great Bustards reintroduced to Salisbury Plain were photographed over the weekend with their young - a milestone in the long- …

    Biology 3 Jun 10:15

  • Dell intros KITT-style gaming laptop

    Fastest in the universe, it says here, without irony

    Dell yesterday took the wraps off its newest Alienware 17-incher - let's not kid ourselves, it's a penis extension - the "most powerful... gaming notebook in the universe", the "pulse pounding" m17x. Dell's Alienware m17x: 'Hello, Michael' The KITT colour scheme only serves to reinforce the m17x's grand phallic ambitions, …

    Reg Hardware 3 Jun 10:31

  • eMusic doubles prices, snares Sony

    And faces a mighty backlash

    Pioneer music service eMusic has finally snagged a major label in Sony - but was it worth it? On the back of the announcement there's a hard kick in the nuts for loyal subscribers: bundles have been cut and prices raised, leaving customers with half or a third of the download power they previously enjoyed. eMusic offers DRM- …

    Music and Media 3 Jun 10:44

  • Nokia's N97 flagship to sail in this month

    Retailers taking orders

    Nokia’s flagship handset, the N97, will finally be available to buy in Blighty later this month. Nokia's N97: will it live up to the hype? The phone, which features a 3.5in display, 5Mp camera and 3.6Mb/s HSDPA 3G, cropped up for pre-order on the websites of various online retailers following Nokia’s recent announcement …

    Reg Hardware 3 Jun 10:45

  • Boffins create super flies that need almost no sleep

    Still no progress on monkeys able to mix cocktails

    In a scientific triumph whose significance would be difficult to exaggerate, American boffins have managed to create a breed of special flies which require hardly any sleep. The wakeful insects are the brainchild of Paul Shaw, PhD, of the Washington University in St Louis (WUSTL). According to WUSTL, "Shaw's lab was the first …

    Biology 3 Jun 10:46

  • Sony's PS3 Motion Control demoed

    Video Add-on's features revealed

    Motion-controlled videogames are the order of the day at E3 this year, at least according to Microsoft and Sony. Can't see the video? Download Flash Player from Adobe.com Microsoft talked openly about its Xbox 360 handsfree offering – Project Natal – yesterday, and released a juicy video that highlighted all of the gizmo’s …

    Reg Hardware 3 Jun 11:00

  • Blears is latest to scurry away from Brown's Cabinet

    Whitehall to replace government with Facebook group?

    The UK edged closer to having to set up a rota to run the country this morning as another Cabinet minister bolted from Gordon Brown's beleaguered government. Hazel Blears's resignation as Communities Secretary this morning came hard on the heels of Jacqui Smith's resignation as Home Secretary and, tragically, the revelation …

    Government 3 Jun 11:06

  • Fake Outlook config scam aims to harvest logins

    New spin on social engineering also punts scareware

    Cybercrooks have come up with a new way to trick prospective marks into handing over login credentials or installing fake security (scareware) packages. The first of two similar batches of scam emails doing the rounds claim that users have a new message in Microsoft Outlook - which can supposedly only be seen after users …

    Enterprise Security 3 Jun 11:19

  • How will sir pay? Facebook credits, that'll do nicely

    Internal only, for now

    Facebook has launched an internal payment system using virtual currency to get its members to pay for various virtual things on the site. Facebook Credits are 10 for a dollar and can be exchanged for various virtual gifts which you can send to your virtual mates. Credit can be topped up using American Express, Mastercard and …

    Applications 3 Jun 11:23

  • Asus aims at Apple TV with LAN-linked set-top box

    The Story of O!Play

    There's not word on when - or if - this little black box will arrive in the UK, but here's Asus' attempt to take on the Apple TV and other gadgets that display digital content on an HD TV. Asus' O!Play HDP-R1: connect your telly to your NAS The O!Play may sound like a marital aid, but it's actually a compact set-top box …

    Reg Hardware 3 Jun 11:24

  • Microsoft UK NTO leaves to spend more time with IT policy

    Lobby now while there's still a government, Jerry

    Is it something in the air? Microsoft UK national technology officer Jerry Fishenden is jumping ship to spend more time with his family, his doctoral research and UK technology policy. Fishenden has worked for Microsoft since 1997, and has held the NTO post since 2004, along with being a Senior Visiting Fellow at the London …

    Software 3 Jun 11:27

  • Second iteration of Windows Server 2008 due in October

    Maintenance droid counterpart to Windows 7

    Microsoft confirmed yesterday it was on track to spin out Windows Server 2008 R2 this autumn. The software giant buried the announcement among the Windows 7 release hoopla on Tuesday, when it said Microsoft’s upcoming operating system would be generally available on 22 October. Additionally, the company said it was aiming to …

    Servers 3 Jun 12:11

  • Phorm woos browsers with personalised web

    It's 'something cool'!

    Phorm is aiming to strengthen ties with publishers by allowing them to track and target their visitors' interests as they browse the web. The web monitoring firm today unveiled "Webwise Discover" in London with the tagline "don't search, just browse". It made the announcement ahead of releasing its annual financial report. …

    Telecoms 3 Jun 12:12

  • Robosub prowls Pacific's hadal depths

    Nereus plunges to 10,902 metres

    US scientists are hailing a "new era" of deep-sea exploration after successfully dispatching a robotic vehicle to the bottom of the Mariana Trench - 10,902 metres or 6.8 miles beneath the Pacific's surface. The Nereus (pictured below during tests off Hawaii in 2007) hit the bottom of the Challenger Deep on Sunday, making it …

    Science 3 Jun 12:24

  • 12 of the best... mice

    Round-up Rodent wars

    Mice are probably the most common peripheral in the computing world and any old one should perform the basic function required of it with a reasonable degree of competency. But which is the best? Which takes the concept of the mouse just that little bit further and pushes the proverbial envelope? Which indulges in a spot blue …

    Reg Hardware 3 Jun 12:30

  • NetApp ups bid for Data Domain

    Equals EMC's $30/share

    NetApp has revised its bid for Data Domain, lifting its offer to $30/share in cash and stock. Yesterday EMC trumped NetApp's original $1.5bn cash and stock bid with its own, unsolicited, $30/share, $1.8bn all-cash bid. NetApp values its bid at $1.9bn, net of Data Domain's cash. The new bid is comprised of $16.45/share in cash …

    Storage 3 Jun 12:53

  • Pentagon funds 'Wireless Network After Next'

    Next one thought likely to be crap, presumably

    Famed tech-pioneer company BBN - which among other things gave the world the "@" symbol in email addresses - has been awarded Pentagon funding to develop the "Wireless Network after Next" (WNaN) for use by the digital grunt of tomorrow. The firm says that the $11.3m in defence cash comes from the Air Force Research Laboratory …

    Mobile 3 Jun 12:55

  • Scientists seek noctilucent cloud enlightenment

    More night-shining expected in 2009, but why?

    Scientists are suggesting 2009 may prove a bumper year for northern hemisphere noctilucent clouds - high-altitude pre-dawn and post-sunset features illuminated by the Sun from below the horizon. According to New Scientist, skywatchers last week snapped the first examples of the clouds, although NASA's Aeronomy of Ice in the …

    Science 3 Jun 13:05

  • Spectral Spector Twitterer admits hoax

    River Deep, Mountain Ha!

    The highly entertaining Twitter account purporting to be from Phil Spector has been revealed by its unidentified owner to be one of those naughty internet hoaxes. The anonymous - and really rather amusing - author revealed the jape with a tweet at 1pm GMT, confessing "I am NOT Phil SPector. I made this account as a joke. …

    Bootnotes 3 Jun 13:07

  • Larry Ellison relives reveals network computer netbook dream

    Tonight I'm going to party like it's 1995...

    Larry Ellison has once again demonstrated how he always gets what he wants in the end, by floating the possibility that Oracle could get into the stripped down client PC business. OK, it looks like he's latching onto the latest greatest thing - telling the JavaOne conference that now Oracle is swallowing Sun, he could well …

    PCs & Chips 3 Jun 13:15

  • Cambridge hospital cleans up after mystery malware infection

    Patients unaffected after PCs get the pox

    An unnamed computer virus infection forced a UK hospital to temporarily shut down part of its network earlier this week. An unspecified number of computers at Addenbrooke's Hospital, Cambridge were hit by the malware. A spokesman explained that the hospital continued to operate normally while IT staff grappled with the …

    Enterprise Security 3 Jun 13:41

  • Hitler kicked off iPhone

    Apple does irony - it's like steely

    Apple has pulled the plug on an iPhone application which offered an RSS feed of Electronic Frontier Foundation updates. The developer asked the EFF for permission to use their logo, which was granted as long as it was made clear this was not an official EFF product. But earlier this week Apple rejected the application because …

    Bootnotes 3 Jun 14:14

  • Microsoft takes hard line on Win 7 hardware

    Flexes Windows 7 muscles in your face!

    Just one day on from confirming that Windows 7 will arrive on 22 October, Microsoft has begun punting “exclusive” hardware features for its operating system. In order to entice customers to buy computer peripherals produced down at the Redmond ranch, Microsoft is promising its hardware devices will be compatible with the …

    PCs & Chips 3 Jun 15:02

  • Insurance giant coughs to malware-related data breach

    This is not business as usual

    The US arm of insurance giant Aviva has blamed a computer virus infection for the potential disclosure of sensitive personal information. Aviva (Norwich Union, before a recent rebranding) admitted the breach in a letter to the Attorney General of New Hampshire, one of several states that maintain strict information security …

    Enterprise Security 3 Jun 15:05

  • Data Domain bid war: Could NetApp go higher?

    Comment Hanging onto the balloon

    Could NetApp go higher than its $1.9bn Data Domain bid if EMC raises its offer? Stifel Nicolaus analyst Aaron Rakers writes in an investor briefing today: "Our conversations with Dan Warmenhoven, NetApp's CEO, last week would not discount that other potential bidders could surface – though we admittedly did not expect EMC to …

    Storage 3 Jun 15:35

  • Scientists design picture projection specs

    Glasses embed HUD and eye-movement detector controls

    Boffins have designed a pair of specs with an embedded head-up display and tracking technology to let the wearer to manipulate content with their eyes. Content's projected onto the retina from a chip The prototype hi-tech specs - designed at Germany's Fraunhofer Institute for Photonic Microsystems (IMPS) - feature a 19 x …

    Reg Hardware 3 Jun 15:39

  • BT bumps up broadband speeds

    Punters reap 21CN benefits

    BT customers will begin to enjoy the result of its much delayed 21CN network upgrade as it today begins to convert its retail broadband offering nationwide to ADSL2+, which will offer speeds of "up to" 20Mbit/s. In reality, most homes and businesses are likely to see a small improvement on whatever their current "up to" 8Mbit/ …

    Telecoms 3 Jun 15:46

  • Royal Navy warship almost fires on UFOs

    'Kryten gun' trained on possible alien invaders

    A Royal Navy warship may have come within seconds of opening fire on Unidentified Flying Objects above Merseyside, possibly narrowly avoiding the precipitation of an interstellar war and the extirpation of humanity by testy aliens. Reports have it that the UFOs - speculated to have been visiting spacecraft from beyond the solar …

    Science 3 Jun 15:58

  • Tukwila Itanium delay situation still as clear as mud

    Poulson and Kittson allegedly still on track

    Two weeks ago, when Intel once again delayed its quad-core "Tukwila" Itanium processors until early 2010, the company did not give much insight into what the delay was about. It also said nothing about how the continuing delays with Tukwila would affect future Itanium processor rollouts. Like many of you, I have been trying to …

    Servers 3 Jun 16:02

  • Tesla and Daimler plan joint 'affordable' e-car

    Leccy Tech £18k EV for the rest of us in the works?

    Daimler AG’s recent “double-digit million Euro sum” tie-up with Tesla will result in an “affordable” electric vehicle, Tesla’s CEO has announced. Elon Musk was keen to keep further details under wraps, but promised website Green Car Advisor that further details will be released later this year. It’s reasonable to assume that …

    Reg Hardware 3 Jun 16:10

  • Microsoft sues John Does for bilking search bribery machine

    Sop money pilfered

    Microsoft has sued ten John Does for allegedly pilfering money from its search bribery machine. Last May, in a desperate attempt to catch the uncatchable Google, Redmond began bribing people to use its third-rate search engine, Live Search. If you used search ads to find and buy certain stuff, Redmond would return a portion of …

    Music and Media 3 Jun 17:41

  • Hacker disrupts economy of annoying Twitter-based game

    Spymaster gets Twoted

    An annoying Twitter-based game has been exploited through a Robin Hood-style attack involving the transfer of imaginary funds. Spymaster is the micro-blogging equivalent of the Zombies application popular on Facebook a year or so ago. Would-be Jason Bournes who sign onto the programme get points for recruiting users to their " …

    Security 3 Jun 17:50

  • Judge orders Echostar to disable set-top DVR

    Awards Tivo $103m in patent suit

    Satellite TV provider EchoStar has been ordered to disable DVR functionality in their set-top boxes and pay Tivo $103 million for allegedly infringing on the company's digital video recorder patent. US District Court in Texas on Wednesday ruled Echostar, a spin-off of Dish Network, is in contempt of an injunction on DVR tech …

    Music and Media 3 Jun 18:59

  • Data-sniffing trojans burrow into Eastern European ATMs

    Professionally written, rapidly developed

    Security experts have discovered a family of data-stealing trojans that have burrowed into automatic teller machines in Eastern Europe over the past 18 months. The malware logs the magnetic-stripe data and personal identification number of cards used at an infected machine and provides an intuitive interface for retrieving the …

    Crime 3 Jun 19:29

  • Moblin Linux boosters go global

    Computex The world versus Google

    Intel continues to push the adoption of the open-source Moblin Version 2 mobile operating system, today using the Computex show in Taipei, Taiwan as its bully pulpit. At the mammoth trade show, Intel hosted a Moblin Executive Summit to trumpet "the growing ecosystem momentum behind Moblin and demonstrate the richness of the …

    Operating Systems 3 Jun 20:08

  • Cisco punts not-so-unified rack servers

    California boxes ship end of June

    So much for that whole argument that networking giant and server wannabe Cisco Systems is only interested in selling a closed, proprietary stack of hardware and system software known as "California" and branded the Unified Computing System. Today, with the launch of free-standing rack servers, Cisco moved to annex (in spirit) …

    Servers 3 Jun 21:18

  • Google to slip SVG into Internet Explorer

    JavaOne Forced standards love

    Microsoft might be hesitating on Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG) in Internet Explorer 8, but Google's pressing on. The search giant's engineers are building a JavaScript library to render static and dynamic SVG in Microsoft's browser. Google promised that the library, a Javascript shim, will simply drop into IE. API evangelist …

    Developer 3 Jun 21:34

  • Microsoft Bing rehosts Wikifiddling as 'Reference' material

    Wikihegemony extended

    Update: This story has been updated with comments from Microsoft. We all know that Google's search engine likes to push Wikipedia links to the top of its results pages. But Microsoft has gone a step further. With its new Bing decision engine search engine, Redmond is reproducing Wikipedia entries in their entirety, pulling …

    Music and Media 3 Jun 22:08

  • Data Domain shareholders to judge beauty contest

    EMC cash or NetApp stock?

    EMC has not raised its bid for Data Domain after NetApp's revised $1.9bn offer, saying the EMC all-cash proposal of $30/share is superior to NetApp's part-stock offer. Joe Tucci, EMC's Chairman, President and CEO, said: "EMC's all-cash tender offer remains superior to NetApp's proposed part-stock merger transaction. We are …

    Storage 3 Jun 22:10

  • Verizon sends compute cloud over US, Europe

    Mamma CaaS

    Verizon Business, the application hosting and outsourcing arm of the U.S. telecom giant bearing the same first name, today announced its foray into cloud computing, giving us yet another ugly acronym, CaaS, short for computing as a service. The CaaS offering from Verizon takes x64 server from Hewlett-Packard and slaps VMware's …

    Servers 3 Jun 22:23

  • Microsoft renames netbooks 'low cost small notebook PCs'

    Rolls off the tongue, donnit?

    Just when we thought the whole "netbook" terminology mess was sorted out properly, the PC industry gives its wheel of marketing whale song another spin. Fresh out of the Computex show in Taipei are two - count 'em, two - fresh new names for small, cheap computers. Folks, toss out your netbooks, ultrathins, subnotebooks, mini- …

    PCs & Chips 3 Jun 22:29

  • Google Wave - a developer's eye view

    Better than pistol ammunition taste-testing

    Last week, Google announced Wave, a new communication tool presumptuously described as "e-mail, if it were invented today." Now, it's a coming of age for technology companies to write a collaboration tool, put a good spit-shine demo on it, and call it a revolution. The idea is nothing new. In the 80s, we called it Lotus Notes. …

    Developer 3 Jun 23:31