25th June 2009 Archive

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Red Hat jacks takeover price with 11% revenue leap

Worth more than Sun?

Commercial Linux distributor Red Hat is doing its best to be one of the few businesses in IT where sales and profits are both growing. And that's making it a more expensive takeover target. In its first quarter of fiscal 2010, ended on May 31, Red Hat's sales rose by 11.3 per cent to $174.4m, with subscription sales up 13.8 …

Financial News 25 Jun 00:19
EA merges Bioware, Mythic into single RPG gamehaus

Taps Bioware chief as leader

Electronic Arts is combining its top RPG maker, Bioware, with its top MMO maker, Mythic, to make one massive roleplaying studio group. While it's not apparent why EA is squeezing the video game houses together, the publisher is keeping Bioware's reins in the same hands. The newly-formed RPG/MMO group will be helmed by Ray …

Music and Media 25 Jun 00:23
Why Google Wave makes Tim Bray nervous

Radio Reg XML co-author on complexity and the web

Before Google’s founders were ordering pizza in their Stanford University dorm rooms, Tim Bray was working to commercialize search technology. At start-up Open Text Corporation, he was using the massive University-of-Waterloo project to put the Oxford English Dictionary online. And before Amazon Web Services was a glint in the …

Applications 25 Jun 00:34
Is your cameraphone an oxymoron?

Pic Review iPhone 3G v iPhone 3GS v Palm Pre

All cell-phone cameras are not created equal - even the three-megapixel cameras in the recently released iPhone 3GS and Palm Pre. And I've got the photos to prove it. Our recent review of the iPhone 3GS went into some detail about the quality of the camera in Apple's new smartphone. But I also wanted to see how it stacked up …

Mobile 25 Jun 04:23
Adaptec adds NAND cache to RAID cards

Look mum, no battery back-up

Adaptec has done away with the need for battery back-up of its RAID controller cards by changing to a NAND flash cache and capacitor set up. The 5 Series RAID cards have cache memory which stores data before it leaves the card. Any power failure will cause this data to be lost. The general fix for this is battery back-up which …

Storage 25 Jun 07:02
Acer Aspire Revo R3600

Review Nvidia's Ion gives Atom the boost it needs

The Aspire Revo is Acer’s take on Nvidia’s Ion platform so that’s a good place to start with this review. Acer's Aspire Revo: Atom and Ion on board Ion started life as the GeForce 9300, which is a chipset that connects Intel's Core 2 processors to decent integrated graphics. In our comparison of desktop chipsets with …

Reg Hardware 25 Jun 08:02
Sonim S1

First Look The Land Rover of rugged phones

The iPhone 3G S or Palm Pre are fine for city-dwellers, but if you live a more rugged lifestyle then you’ll need a handset capable of keeping up - come rain or shine, literally. And, at a recent launch event near Birmingham, Register Hardware was thrown a handset so tough that its manufacturer – Sonim – decided that only two …

Reg Hardware 25 Jun 08:02
Vodafone builds community, sharing via email oops

Sharing email addresses with 415 other punters, that is

Vodafone's recently issued correction to new customers - crediting them with five pounds it had inadvertently billed for internet access - also bundled the email address of the 416 people to whom it was sent. It's the old "BCC" and "CC" problem, though really a company like Vodafone should know better than to reveal the email …

Mobile 25 Jun 08:02
HP whips out blades for future

Comment Post-modular array plots afoot

HP's next-generation arrays will be based on a scale-out, virtualised storage architecture using bladed storage processors and a separate storage management software layer - oh, and industry-standard drives and components. This is the message being put out by HP's new StorageWorks EMEA VP, Garry Veale, fresh from leaving Copan …

Storage 25 Jun 09:02
UK.gov decides best form of cyber defence is attack

Playing the great game online

UK cyber security spooks will soon have the ability to undertake proactive missions online rather than just playing defense, under the revamped National Security Strategy published today. For the first time, the National Security Strategy includes a public cyber security strategy. Prime Minister Gordon Brown said: "Just as in …

Enterprise Security 25 Jun 09:03
Renta-cloud storage service launches itself at UK SMBs

ThinkGrid offers hand

Can't afford to buy a car? Then hire one as needed. That's the ThinkGrid cloud storage pitch in a nutshell. It's offering it to small and medium businesses (SMBs) that can't afford their own disaster recovery storage. The idea is to ship encrypted files over the network to ThinkGrid's MezeoCloud storage platform and use this …

Channel Register 25 Jun 09:06
Steria wins passport processing deal

Hops on the ID conveyor belt

Steria is to take on a number of business processing services for the Identity and Passport Service (IPS). It has won a contract with CSC to provide business process outsourcing services for passport applications, including the data verification and validation processes. Steria said this will complement the technology …

Government 25 Jun 09:40
DSGi trims losses amidst plunging economy

Strong volume growth at computing biz in second half

DSGi management claimed to have steadied the ship as it unveiled full year figures that showed a reduced pre-tax loss on almost static sales this morning. The electronics giant, which owns the PC World chain, has had a torrid year which has seen it offload unwanted businesses across Europe, undertake a massive overhaul of its …

Channel Register 25 Jun 09:42
Opiate-crazed wallabies create crop circles

Tasmanian marsupial poppyheads

Tasmania's opium poppy farmers have been offered an explanation for mysterious crop circles in their fields which have become part of local lore: They're caused by drugged-up wallabies which get blasted on the plant heads and hop around in circles. That's according to Taz attorney general Lara Giddings, who explained that she' …

Bootnotes 25 Jun 10:00
TechNet Virtual Conference goes on-demand

Show and tell

Microsoft’s TechNet Virtual conference is now available on-demand. You can catch the proceedings at your own leisure here. Held on June 19, TechNet Virtual brought together Microsoft experts and the IT community. The Register was the official media sponsor. The conference ran in two separate “auditoriums” and was designed to …

Software 25 Jun 10:02
Google brings (Ad)Sense to mobiles

Spreading the word into the pocket

Google has announced an open beta of its AdSense for Mobile Applications platform - allowing developers of Android and iPhone applications to embed advertising from Google into their apps and get paid for it. Google isn't the first to push in-application advertising; AdMob does very nicely on the iPhone platform and various …

Mobile 25 Jun 10:03
Panasonic patches cameras to block rivals' batteries

DRM-like tech implemented for 'customer safety'

Panasonic has used a firmware update to prevent punters using batteries bought from other suppliers in its digital cameras. The update, which applies to 16 cameras which between them use three models of Panasonic battery, was posted this week. The company claimed the move had been made to protect its customers, though some …

Reg Hardware 25 Jun 10:07
WD tera-fies home storage buyers

WE II goes large

WD is busily upgrading MyBook editions - hot on the heels of the 4TB Studio Edition II comes the World Edition II with doubled capacity of 4TB, courtesy of two 2TB drives, and sharing the SE II enclosure. The WE II is for shared file storage and networked computer backup in the home. Its small business equivalent being the …

Storage 25 Jun 10:11
Sony Ericsson dictates secretary slider

Take note...

If running your social life, work diary or general day-to-day activities is getting harder by the… well… day, then Sony Ericsson reckons it’s got the perfect solution: the T715 slider. The phone firm claimed that its latest phone boasts a selection of secretary-style features, including a "smart desktop" feature that’ll …

Reg Hardware 25 Jun 10:18
HTC Hero comes with Adobe Flash

Desktop multimedia on mobile phone

Adobe has confirmed that the latest Android handset from HTC, the Hero, will come with a proper Flash client: version 9 with support for ActionScript 2, with version 10 to follow some time next year. Mobile phones have long been considered underpowered for a proper Flash experience, and Adobe tried to push a cut-down version …

Mobile 25 Jun 10:37
ISS crew snaps erupting volcano

Impressive view of Sarychev Peak blast

NASA has published an impressive snap of the recent eruption of the Sarychev Peak volcano, captured by the crew of the International Space Station: The volcano, which lies in the Kuril Island chain northeast of Japan, blew its top on 12 June, an event captured during a "fortuitous orbit" of the ISS. NASA explains that the …

Space 25 Jun 10:37
Pré-style wireless charging comes to the iPhone

WildSkin takes on Touchstone

The iPhone has finally caught up with Palm’s Pré thanks to accessory firm WildCharge and its wire-free charging system for Apple devices. First, slip a WildSkin onto your Apple device... WildCharge skins for the iPhone and iPod Touch are, according to the manufacturer, the first wire-free charging add-ons available for both …

Reg Hardware 25 Jun 10:38
Obama weighs into Raptor stealth superfighter fracas

Royal Navy will be cheering for the president

The White House has signalled that President Obama may veto plans by Washington politicians to maintain production of the F-22 Raptor stealth superfighter. The move has important implications for the British arms industry, and even for the future of the Royal Navy. US Defence Secretary Robert Gates, backed by the president, …

Science 25 Jun 11:00
Getting Started with Avisynth

Turn your PC into a video powerhouse

Conventional wisdom tells us that to be truly useful, computers need to be tamed to work the way we work, not the way they want to do things. Following this philosophy, movie-editing software like Apple's Final Cut Pro and Adobe's Premier emulate reels of celluloid that you can wind through to find your edit points. …

Reg Hardware 25 Jun 11:02
Microsoft strikes back at Outlook 2010 rendering grumbles

Whose line is it anyway?

Microsoft has upset a bunch of Outlook users who loudly complained about the firm's decision to retain the Word rendering engine in its mail client for the 2010 edition. A campaign kicked off on the interwebs after many Outlook users grumbled that Microsoft had once again snubbed HTML rendering as the default option in the …

Developer 25 Jun 11:10
Crypto guru urges incentives for SSL cert recall

Come in MD5, your time is up

An SSL security guru is urging incentives to promote website certificate upgrade in response to problems with a widely-used digital-signature algorithm. Collisions in the MD5 hashing algorithm mean that two different inputs can produce the same output. Last year independent researchers showed how the cryptographic flaw might …

Enterprise Security 25 Jun 11:17
Buzz Aldrin gets down with Snoop Dogg

Rapping Moon geezer in charity Rocket Experience

Buzz Aldrin has rather agreeably, if improbably, teamed up with Snoop Dogg to flash his rapping skills on Rocket Experience - a track to commemorate next month's 40th anniversary of the first Moon landing and in support of the lunar geezer's ShareSpace foundation. The result won't be giving Eminem any sleepless nights, but it' …

Bootnotes 25 Jun 11:18
Fifty Quid Bloke, meet Spotify's 14p man

Exclusive The first real numbers tumble out

Move over Fifty Quid bloke - and make way for 14p man. Statements seen by The Register indicate that's all the hit music service Spotify makes per user from its advertising-supported business. The difference is the middle-aged spender coveted by the movie, games and music businesses plunks down £50 per week - but Spotify earns …

Music and Media 25 Jun 11:18
Ballmer! in! anything! could! happen! shocker! over! Yahoo! deal!

Coulda shoulda woulda

Microsoft boss Steve Ballmer is still holding his arms out to internet giant Yahoo!. Speaking at the Cannes Lion 2009 ad festival yesterday, Big Steve said: “We remain open to a partnership with Yahoo!”, according to Reuters. When asked if an agreement between the rival web firms could be reached, Ballmer added: "Who knows …

Financial News 25 Jun 12:02
iPhone grows boobs at last

Updated Pinch to zoom

iPhone users are finally able to get pictures of naked girls on their phone thanks to the age-rating of applications that came with the last OS update, providing welcome relief to users who would otherwise struggle to find porn on the internet. Hottest Girls is a $1.99 app that has been around for a while, serving pictures of …

Mobile 25 Jun 12:03
WiReD editor 'fesses to churnalism

Information wants to be stolen

WiReD magazine Editor-in-Chief Chris Anderson has copped to lifting chunks of material for his second book Free from Wikipedia and other sources without credit. But it could be about to get a lot worse. In addition to the Wikipedia cut'n'pastes, Anderson appears to have lifted passages from several other texts too. And in a …

Music and Media 25 Jun 12:04
DGA Livespeakr iPod travel sound system

Review Portable speakers for any orientation

Travel speakers come in all shapes and sizes and, to be frank, the majority are pretty horrid, both from an audio and design perspective. However every so often something comes along that piques our interest here at Vulture Central. X-MI's Mini II was one such device and the Livespeakr [sic] from US start-up Digital Group Audio …

Reg Hardware 25 Jun 12:15
UK launches £25m e-car trial

Leccy Tech Electric vehicle rentals used to test popularity

The British government is to launch the "world's largest electric vehicle trial". Kicking off towards the end of 2009, the £25m project will gauge e-car popularity across the UK by leasing around 340 leccy motors to private drivers and organisations over 12 months. Several private car manufacturers have already set up leccy …

Reg Hardware 25 Jun 12:16
Wikipedia kills legendary journalist

Points deletion-gun at sadly departed Swells

Say what you like about Wikipedia, you can't accuse it of lacking tact. Within 48 hours of the untimely death of music journalist Steven Wells, his entry has been summarily marked for deletion on the grounds that he isn't famous enough. Swells, as he was known to readers of the NME, began his career as punk poet Seething Wells …

Music and Media 25 Jun 12:43
MoD halfheartedly blocks Wikileaker 'dissidents'

More likely to be bin-diving crusties, actually

The Ministry of Defence (MoD) has made a not-very-serious attempt to block access by its staff to Wikileaks, apparently in response to uploads of not-very-significant material by "dissidents", possibly within the Ministry itself. The Guardian reports today on the matter, pointing out that large numbers of MoD documents have …

Government 25 Jun 12:44
EU plans giant IT network for 'freedom, security and justice'

Will allow 'full exploitation of ~~citizens~~ synergies'

The European Commission has laid itself open to accusatons of Orwellian doublespeak when describing its plans to run the IT systems behind a trio of security and border initiatives. The Commission has put together a legislative package "to establish a Regulatory Agency responsible for the long-term operational management of …

Government 25 Jun 12:55
Microsoft unveils Windows 7 free upgrades and discounts

Prices that dare you to wait

Microsoft is going into promotional overdrive with Windows 7, four months ahead of the operating system's official launch date. Set to kick in as they are announced today, two offers give you "free" upgrades along with limited-time discounts - if you sign up to get Windows ahead of the October 22 launch. The stick to …

Channel Register 25 Jun 13:02
FCoE: Divergence vs convergence

Comment Splitter!

FCoE seems to be a harbinger of network divergence rather than convergence. After discussion with QLogic and hearing about 16Gbit/s Fibre Channel and InfiniBand as well as FCoE, ideas about an all-Ethernet world seem as unreal as the concept of a flat earth. This train of thought started when talking with Scott Genereux, …

Storage 25 Jun 13:53
Brit firm stops anti-tank warheads with cloth

Out of the box thinking indeed

Cunning new UK technology will see British troops' vehicles in Afghanistan protected from armour-piercing rocket warheads - by cloth. The MoD was pleased yesterday to unveil its new TARIAN "textile based" vehicle protection system, which will see lightweight cloth attached to the sides of military vehicles in Afghan combat. …

Science 25 Jun 14:05
PS3's motion control kit better than Xbox's, claims analyst

A fanboy speaks?

As the motion-controlled gaming war intensifies, one brave market analyst as hinted that Sony’s Motion Control technology is superior to Microsoft’s Project Natal. Both systems were demoed at the recent E3 games show in North America, but now Doug Creutz, an analyst at Cowen & Co, has since told website Gamasutra that “Sony's …

Reg Hardware 25 Jun 14:07
Man hooks home into Twitter

World's first self-Tweeting home?

A computer engineer has connected his home to social networking service Twitter, enabling it to Tweet him with updates about his residence’s electricity and water consumption. Andy Stanford-Clark, 43, has fitted wireless sensors onto household items scattered around his 16th Century thatched cottage on the Isle of Wight, …

Reg Hardware 25 Jun 14:13
US calls for China to revoke censorware plan

Green Dam under attack

The US adminstration is pushing China to review its controversial policy of mandating the installation of specific content filtering software on new PCs. Commerce Secretary Gary Locke and US Trade Representative Ron Kirk argue China may be placing itself in violation of World Trade Organization regulations by insisting on the …

Enterprise Security 25 Jun 14:46
Pirate Bay judge cleared of bias by Swedish appeal court

BrokeP claims 'human rights violations'

The judge in the Pirate Bay trial has been cleared of any accusations of bias, a Swedish court of appeal ruled today. In April it was revealed that Thomas Norström was a member of the same pro-copyright groups as several of the main entertainment industry reps in the case. At the time the judge meted out sentences and fines …

Music and Media 25 Jun 15:31
IDC revises server-sale forecasts down for EMEA

Even longer weekend at grandma's

If the server market in 2000 was a trip to the Elysian Fields, 2008 was like a break at Butlins, and 2009 will be remembered as a trip to grandma's for a painful weekend. That weekend will be longer and more difficult in EMEA, apparently. As El Reg reported last week, IDC put out a forecast of future server sales - or the lack …

Servers 25 Jun 18:22
Defense-contract discs sold in African market for $40

Northrop Grumman and Pentagon data dumped

Dumped hard drives with US defense data have turned up for open sale in a West African market. A team of Canadian journalism students bought a hard drive containing information on multi-million dollar contracts between military contractor Northrop Grumman and the Pentagon for just $40 in a market near Accra, Ghana. The …

InfoSec 25 Jun 18:34
NY Stock Exchange cures jitters with Juniper

When 150 microseconds ain't fast enough

NYSE Euronext, which operates stock and options exchanges from ten data centers worldwide, has picked Juniper Networks as a primary backbone infrastructure supplier for a pair of redundant data centers that'll consolidate operations in New Jersey and outside London next year. Steve Rubinow, NYSE Euronext's chief information …

Data Networking 25 Jun 19:17
Salty Saturn moon plumes suggest stuff of life

Giant geysers project forth

Massive geysers on Saturn's moon Enceladus may be fed by a salty ocean beneath the surface, adding weight to speculation it harbors the essential building blocks needed for life. Enceladian plumes, courtesy of NASA Scientists working on NASA's Cassini mission have detected sodium salts in ice grains of Saturn's outermost …

Space 25 Jun 19:45
Safari 4: Apple's crash-happy shipper

Updated Stable beta - we've heard of that

Apple's shiny new version 4 of its Safari browser is causing headaches among many users - including here at The Reg. Ever since we upgraded to version 4 from the remarkably stable beta version, Safari has crashed repeatedly - and we're not alone. Over on deep-Mac-geek website MacInTouch, numerous - but by no means all - …

Applications 25 Jun 19:56
Louisiana judge holds Dell in contempt

Dell making a 'mockery' of system in New Orleans brouhaha

A Louisiana judge found Dell in contempt of court Thursday after berating the eponymous computer vendor for making a "mockery" of the system though haphazard retrieval of evidence for a lawsuit that alleges corruption in the city of New Orleans' crime-camera program. The Associated Press reports that Judge Rosemary Ledet …

Crime 25 Jun 21:36
HPC cluster maker sets x64 chips a-fighting

Xeons and Opterons duke it out

Impatient to see benchmark results comparing the performance of Intel's quad-core Xeon 5500 processors to Advanced Micro Devices' six-core Opteron 2400s on supercomputing workloads - and perfectly happy to sell either kind of box to its customers - cluster maker Advanced Clustering Technologies has put the High Performance …

Servers 25 Jun 22:16
Microsoft to bridge earth and Windows Azure

Structure 09 The private lives of Redmond's cloud

Microsoft has hinted it will eventually offer tools that let businesses span the gap between their own infrastructure and Redmond's platform in the sky - Windows Azure. The question is whether it will ever provide a full-fledged version of Azure for the private data center. "We get lots of questions [from businesses] about …

Software 25 Jun 22:43
Microsoft's Bing in travel trouble

Unflattering imitation?

Microsoft's Bing has run in to trouble for allegedly looking too much like a smaller rival's search service. Kayak.com, an airline search engine, has complained to Microsoft that the look and feel of Bing's travel service looks too much like its own, and that this will confuse users. "We have contacted them through official …

Music and Media 25 Jun 23:10