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5th June 2009 Archive

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  • Microsoft offers Bing filth quick fix

    Invites you to fiddle

    Embarrassed by Bing's taste for porn, Microsoft's come up with a fix - only you better like having to fiddle with your network or browser settings. Microsoft's announced a short-term work around so parents, businesses and schools whose kids, employees or students search using Bing can keep their home PCs and networks filth …

    Music and Media 5 Jun 00:13

  • Swedish boffins spring for IBM System S super

    Space weather nowcasting

    Server maker IBM has been on a kick to commercialize its PowerPC-based massively parallel BlueGene Linux supercomputers and has just sold another of its System S streaming boxes to a bunch of Swedish boffins who want to "nowcast" as well as forecast the electromagnetic weather in the Solar System. Uppsala University in Sweden …

    Servers 5 Jun 04:08

  • Judge backs Halifax in Chip and PIN clone case

    Phantom withdrawal verdict may go to appeal

    Halifax, the UK retail bank, has scored a victory in a closely-watched 'phantom withdrawal' case that put the security of Chip and PIN on trial. Halifax customer Alain Job sued the bank after he was held liable for making eight disputed cash machine withdrawals from his account. Job was left £2,100 out of pocket from the …

    Crime 5 Jun 06:27

  • Pioneer Kuro KRL-37V LCD TV

    Review LCD with with plasma pretensions

    Pioneer makes great plasma TVs featuring the deep blacks and impressively high contrast that this technology offers. For years the company’s mantra was akin to ‘Plasma good, LCD bad’. So it was a surprise last year when Pioneer announced it would be making LCD screens. Like the plasma models, these screens are called Kuro. The …

    Reg Hardware 5 Jun 08:02

  • Carphone Warehouse splits in two

    To demerge TalkTalk

    Carphone Warehouse has hit its financial targets for the year and confirmed it will split into two businesses - the telecoms biz TalkTalk and retail arm Best Buy Europe. CPW chairman Charles Dunstone said the two operate as effectively separate companies so the time is right to split them, and give shareholders a bit of each …

    Channel Register 5 Jun 08:35

  • ECJ: One meeting can count as market-rigging

    Data recipients advised to cover eyes, ears and go 'la-la-la'

    A group of companies can be guilty of breaking competition law even if they only meet once and the action taken does not result in higher prices for consumers, the European Court of Justice (ECJ) has ruled. A competition law expert said that employees who find themselves given sensitive information by competitors must make an …

    Channel Register 5 Jun 09:18

  • Russia stings Microsoft with monopoly case

    It's all about XP

    Russian regulators have started legal action against Microsoft for stopping retail and OEM sales of XP. The Federal Antimonopoly Service of the Russian Federation suspects Microsoft broke the law by ending distribution of XP, both boxed versions and those supplied to original equipment manufacturers (OEMs). The Russians aren' …

    Channel Register 5 Jun 09:20

  • Great Panjandrum menaces North Devon

    Experts to unleash unpredictable Nazi-busting wheel of destruction

    Fireworks experts will this morning perhaps unwisely unleash a replica Great Panjandrum on the beach at Westward Ho! in North Devon - recreating the original tests of the rocket-powered wheel which sadly did not contribute to the 1944 allied landings at Normandy. The Great Panjandrum was intended to thunder up the invasion …

    Bootnotes 5 Jun 09:24

  • LaCie introduces telly-friendly external hard drive kit

    Inspired by 2001?

    LaCie has brought a pair of new releases to its LaCinema range, extending its line of TV-friendly hard drives with a minimalist black model and a separate unit that links external hard drives you already own to your telly. The LaCinema Black Record is an HD-capable HDD - it'll play 1080p content and upscale standard-definition …

    Reg Hardware 5 Jun 09:52

  • Storage revenues slip sliding away

    Dell and Hitachi shares on the up

    IDC has told us what we already suspected - storage spending is down. It's also revealing that some storage market leaders are losing market share to Dell and Hitachi. The report, IDC's Worldwide Quarterly Disk Storage Systems Tracker for the first quarter of 2009, shows an 18.2 per cent decline in total disk storage systems …

    Storage 5 Jun 10:16

  • Home and Away star in 'Lewinsky' moment

    Captured for posterity on mobile phone

    The Oz TV world is reeling today after Home and Away star Lincoln Lewis admitted filming a sex vid on his mobile phone and then showing the amateur grumble flick to fellow cast and crew members. The offending footage was apparently grabbed last year and involved the active participation of a "teenage TV starlet", as the Herald …

    Bootnotes 5 Jun 10:17

  • Japanese games group to ban twisted 'sex torture' sims

    About time

    One of Japan's two software rating organisations will no longer support the sale of sick rape games in the country. The decision follows protests from civil rights campaigners in the US who have been demanding titles like RapePlay be made illegal in Japan. In February, they successfully persuaded Amazon's Japanese operation to …

    Reg Hardware 5 Jun 10:18

  • BenQ backs Android

    Google-based smartphone and netbook en route

    BenQ has become the latest tech firm to join Android’s ever-expanding band of supporters by announcing plans to develop both a smartphone and a netbook based on the Google OS. A company representative confirmed that it’s aiming to bring an Android-based handset to market in 2010, IDG reports. But a launch date for its Android …

    Reg Hardware 5 Jun 10:21

  • Dell bulks up with block-level dedupe

    Remote office data on a diet

    As EMC and NetApp tussle over Data Domain, Dell has added block-level deduplication to its DL2000 product. This is a PowerVault disk-to-disk backup appliance running either CommVault's Simpana 8 or Symantec Backup Exec. When it was introduced in October last year, the Simpana product offered file single instancing. It has …

    Storage 5 Jun 10:26

  • MS warns of bumper patch batch

    Six critical updates locked and loaded

    Microsoft is having an especially bulky Patch Tuesday, with the release of ten updates - six of which will address critical flaws. The June edition of the software giant's Patch Tuesday update cycle will bring critical security fixes for flaws in IE, Windows (two) and Microsoft Office components (three). As usual there's not …

    Enterprise Security 5 Jun 10:30

  • Johnson handed Home Office brief

    Poisoned chalice for alleged leadership contender

    Alan Johnson, the man tipped to take over if Gordon Brown is forced to quit, has today been handed the famously troublesome Home Office brief. Following the resignation of Work and Pensions Secretary James Purnell last night, the Prime Minister brought his Cabinet reshuffle forward from Monday in a bid to regain control of his …

    Government 5 Jun 10:34

  • Steve Jobs could return for iPhone speech next week

    Or not

    Apple's CEO, Steve Jobs, could return from sick leave next week, in order to present the new iPhone at its developer conference in San Francisco. Jobs took medical leave in January saying his health issues were more complex than originally thought. He said a hormonal imbalance was causing him to lose weight and he had already …

    Mobile 5 Jun 10:58

  • Nintendo unveils pulse-sensing peripheral

    The Wii Vitality Sensor

    Nintendo has proven that it’s still got its finger on the pulse of gaming by unveiling the Wii Vitality Sensor (WVS). Nintendo's Wii Vitality Sensor monitors your pulse The gadget looks much like the sensor a doctor or dentist would clip onto your finger before you go under the knife, and connects directly into the Wii’s …

    Reg Hardware 5 Jun 11:08

  • PSP Go will support UMDs, sort of

    Digital delivery system in works

    Sony’s PlayStation Portable Go may dispense with the UMD mini-disc format, but the electronics giant says it won’t leave trading up gamers out in the cold. The firm is currently designing a digital delivery system that’ll allow owners of, say, the PSP-1000 to play their UMD-based games on the new PSP Go. Exactly how the …

    Reg Hardware 5 Jun 11:13

  • Developers take Mac, Linux-friendly Chrome for a spin

    'DON'T DOWNLOAD THEM' warns Google

    Google has released a rough-round-the-edges version of Chrome for the Mac OS X and Linux platforms, nine months after the browser made its debut. However, Mountain View has warned all but the most hardy of developers to steer clear of the test build versions. "In order to get more feedback from developers, we have early …

    Developer 5 Jun 11:21

  • NASA licences rat-wee based astronaut sports drink

    The Right Stuff™: should have been called Rodent Gold™?

    NASA has offered for general sale a high-tech "electrolytic rehydration drink" developed to keep astronauts in top shape under the physiological stresses of orbital flight. For a truly authentic astronaut experience, Earthbound drinkers of "The Right Stuff™" may wish to mix their cutting-edge space beverage with (purified) rat …

    Space 5 Jun 11:46

  • Mitsubishi finalises mass-market e-car production plans

    Leccy Tech i-MiEV spec, speed, range, price announced

    Today is World Environment Day, so what better time for Mitsubishi to announce final production plans for its i-MiEV mass-market e-car. Mitsubishi's i-MiEV: the first true mass-market leccy car? And the announcement’s definitely worth celebrating, because the i-MiEV’s arguably the first mass-market leccy car. Yes, we know …

    Reg Hardware 5 Jun 11:56

  • Brown to Sugar: 'You're hired'

    Amstrad man made a Lord and biz Tsar

    Desperate PM Gordon Brown has apparently promoted Alan Sugar and told him he's hired as "Enterprise Tsar". Lord Sugar, as he will be, is already an adviser to the government and was spotted at 10 Downing Street yesterday. Sugar is the force behind Amstrad's amazing emailing telephone, but better known for his telly role on …

    Channel Register 5 Jun 12:05

  • Sony hooks up with Vevo

    Totally devoted to YouTube, dude

    Sony has plugged itself into the Universal/YouTube-owned music video website Vevo, ahead of its launch later this year. The company confirmed it had joined the online music biz venture yesterday. Financial terms of the deal were kept secret. As a result, the world’s two biggest record firms will hand over video content from …

    Music and Media 5 Jun 12:08

  • MoD to test 'Combat ID Server' from September

    Airstrike inbound! Quick, turn the radios on!

    The UK Ministry of Defence says it will commence trials of its "Combat ID Server" (CIDS) system from September, according to reports. The CIDS is intended to make it easier for people about to unleash heavy firepower to find out if there are any British troops in their gunsights, so helping to reduce so-called "blue on blue" …

    Science 5 Jun 13:02

  • Police deny targeting kids for DNA

    Get 'em while they're young

    Police officers in Camden, north London, are deliberately targeting kids under-18 for arrest just so their DNA samples can be taken. The Met denies any such action has taken place, but an anonymous police officer told The Ham and High: "It is part of a long term crime prevention strategy. We are often told that we have just …

    Policing 5 Jun 13:29

  • Hackers scalp StrongWebmail to claim cash prize

    $10,000 for successful schedule snoop

    Ethical hackers are claiming a $10,000 prize for successfully breaking into the webmail account of the chief exec of StrongWebmail after the firm issued a "hack us if you can" challenge. StrongWebMail runs a callback verification system so that, in theory, even if someone obtains a user's login details they can't read email …

    Enterprise Security 5 Jun 13:33

  • Copyright chief: The Emperor Has No Clothes

    Interview CISAC's Eric Baptiste

    Next week authors and composers meet in Washington DC for their biennial summit. The conference brings together big copyright users - broadcasters, digital companies - under the same roof as the creators and the member's societies. It can get pretty lively. As a preview, we asked Eric Baptiste, head of the International …

    Music and Media 5 Jun 13:42

  • Acer: Android netbook to come with... Windows

    Dual-boot downer for FOSS fans

    Acer, it seems, has accepted Register Hardware's argument that World+Dog doesn't want - or, at least, doesn't know it wants - netbooks based on Google's Android OS. Company chairman J T Wang has said Acer's promised Android mini laptop will actually come with Windows too. Yes, the machine, currently scheduled to ship in Q3, …

    Reg Hardware 5 Jun 13:45

  • Note to employers: Better sex = happier workers

    Swede makes case for workplace shag breaks

    A Swedish researcher has found that a healthy sex life leads to happier, less stressed workers - thereby suggesting that employers might consider providing workplace "comfort rooms" where hard-pressed lackeys can get their ends away in the company's best interests. Actually, that's not true. What psychology doctoral student …

    Biology 5 Jun 15:00

  • US unemployment rate growth slowed in May

    Economic meltdown cooling?

    The unemployment rate in the United States rose to 9.4 per cent in May, after employers cut 345,000 jobs. That's certainly nothing to be happy about, until you realize that this is about half the average job losses per month reported in the US for the past six months. And more good news: the May job cuts were a lot lower than …

    Government 5 Jun 15:03

  • UK Communist website abused by Chinese hackers

    Updated Moaist malware mayhem

    The website of the Communist Party Of Britain has been infected with malicious code. Infection by the iFrame-F script coincided with local and European election in the UK, marking a time when the minority party website would have had far more visitors than normal. The affected file on the website is associated with serving up …

    Enterprise Security 5 Jun 15:46

  • HDD data density to hit 2.4Tb/in² 'by 2014'

    15TB 3.5in drive, anyone?

    World+Dog may have its eye on solid-state storage, but hard disk engineering isn't going to run out of steam any time soon. Disks capable of holding an amazing 2.4 trillion bits in each square inch of their surface are coming within the next five years, an industry executive has forecast. Speaking at Japan's Information …

    Reg Hardware 5 Jun 16:02

  • Obama urged to halt Google government takeover

    Stop the revolving door

    Two consumer watchdogs - including the aptly-named Consumer Watchdog - have urged US President Barack Obama to avoid appointing Google's director of global public policy as the country's deputy chief technology officer. According to various press reports, Obama is set to fill the new deputy CTO post with über-Googler Andrew …

    Government 5 Jun 16:35

  • Colbert salutes El Reg

    And we salute back

    El Reg has made it on to the best US satirical current affairs show: The Colbert Report. Is there a better one anywhere? For one day only, you can catch up with Stephen Colbert's take on Wikipedia and the Scientology - a recent Cade Metz exclusive - here. El Reg on Colbert This is familiar territory for Colbert, who has …

    Odds and Sods 5 Jun 16:46

  • HP Pavillion dv2 AMD Neo notebook

    Review Thin'n'light laptop CPU takes on the netbooks

    The first Asus Eee PC was only released a little over 18 months ago, but given the sheer number of Small, Cheap(ish) Computers on the market you could be forgiven for thinking it had been around for much longer. HP's Pavillion dv2: AMD's Neo - not Intel's Atom - inside With the Eee PC and its clones occupying the entry …

    Reg Hardware 5 Jun 16:51

  • Intel could Atomise handsets in two years

    After 'handset-sized' devices

    Intel's increased focus on Linux and real time operating systems will see it pushing its Atom architecture into handsets within three years and launching "handset-sized" devices much sooner, the chip giant's sales boss said today. But while the vendor is dabbling heavily in the operating system market as part of its foray …

    PCs & Chips 5 Jun 17:12

  • Pirate Party set to board European Parliament ship?

    Polls say yes. Results out Sunday. Avast!

    Two separate polls have today indicated that the Pirate Party could win at least one of Sweden's 18 seats in the European Parliament elections. Results aren't expected until Sunday, but surveys suggest that the anti-copyright, pro-filesharing party may have grabbed between six and eight per cent of the vote in Sweden. …

    Government 5 Jun 17:28

  • Wolfram Alpha to venture beyond boron nucleus

    Looking for a few good data sets

    Stephen Wolfram, the physicist behind the new Wolfram Alpha search engine, says his team is working on cramming more knowledge in the new service across a broader range of topics. For those not following along, Wolfram Alpha is billed as a "computational knowledge engine" designed to process a technical questions such has how …

    Music and Media 5 Jun 17:34

  • Remembering the true* first portable computer

    *The one that melts your face off

    A lot of folks tend to honor the Osborne 1 as the world's first mass-produced portable computer. The machine was admittedly an early pioneer in totable systems in 1981, but another, much-earlier computer perhaps really deserves the credit. Some 20 years before the Osborne's release, the American government was already …

    Odds and Sods 5 Jun 18:42

  • Money mule cops plea in online brokerage hacking scam

    Hee haw

    A New Hampshire man has agreed to pay almost $112,000 and face prison time after admitting he was a mule in a scheme that hacked in to online bank and brokerage accounts and siphoned out large sums of cash. Alexey Mineev, of Hampton, New Hampshire, pleaded guilty to one count of money laundering in federal court in Manhattan …

    Crime 5 Jun 18:48

  • Intel MIDs stare into the great abyss

    Moorestown too big, too late?

    The mobile internet device revolution isn't going as swimmingly as Intel had planned. According to a report Friday from Taiwanese market-watcher DigiTimes, those ever-leaky industry "sources" claim that fewer than 30,000 Intel-based MIDs have been sold worldwide. That's a far cry from what DigiTimes cites as Intel's estimate …

    Mobile 5 Jun 20:09

  • Dell and the dedupe appliance conundrum

    Comment What's going on?

    Dell is announcing a new deduplication appliance on Monday, the DL2000, while simultaneously saying dedupe will move on from a backup and appliance focus to something broader and more pervasive. What's going on? Let's essay an attempt to join up some dots in this release with previous Dell statements - and with EMC's …

    Storage 5 Jun 20:33

  • Microsoft's software vision chief embraces future horror

    New Bill sees Windows everywhere

    Ray Ozzie, Microsoft's chief software architect, is optimistic about Microsoft's future despite the challenge to PC software from cloud services and netbooks. Speaking at the Churchill Club in Palo Alto, California, on Thursday, Ozzie said we'll continue to need an operating system to abstract the hardware in servers, PCs, and …

    Software 5 Jun 20:47

  • Big Ben squeezes into your iPhone

    Sesquicentennial second hand

    Big Ben celebrates its 150th anniversary this year, and you can now equip your iPhone or iPod touch with a free clock app in commemoration of the big fella's sesquicentennial. Unfortunately, Big Ben (iTunes link) the iPhone app is decidedly less impressive than Big Ben, the Great Bell in the Great Clock in the equally great …

    Mobile 5 Jun 20:52

  • Baseball icon sues Twitter over parody account

    La Russa sees red, demands green

    American baseball icon Tony La Russa is suing Twitter over a "demeaning and damaging" parody account created in his name. The St. Louis Cardinals manager claims a bogus account, "TonyLaRussa," was created on Twitter by an unknown assailant bent on posting "derogatory" remarks about him, causing "significant emotional distress …

    Music and Media 5 Jun 20:58

  • Cray sells Opteron-Linux super to Swiss boffins

    Monte Rosa to scale the petaflops peaks

    The Swiss National Supercomputing Center (CSCS) in Lugano has coughed up some serious Swiss francs to buy a Cray 141.6 teraflops XT5 system, dubbed Monte Rosa. The deal comes in part from the fact that Thomas Schulthess, director of CSCS and a professor of physics at ETH Zurich, took over the lab after a stint at Oak Ridge …

    HPC 5 Jun 21:48

  • Pondlife scammers abuse Air France tragedy

    Carradine death also cheap fodder

    Cybercrooks are once again taking advantage of current events to push malware. Prurient interest in the death of Kill Bill star David Carradine is being used to promote Twitter updates containing links to sites punting rogueware. The attack is the latest in a string of assaults over the last week or so that abuse the Trending …

    Spam 5 Jun 22:05

  • Hulu headed for subscription service scheme?

    News Corp says ad model 'doesn't work'

    Hulu's days as a completely free internet TV outfit may be numbered if News Corp.'s new digital chief gets his way. The service is currently only available in America, although a UK version may arrive as early as September. But will it remain an entirely ad-sponsored font of television and movies when it crosses the Atlantic …

    Music and Media 5 Jun 23:14