1st July 2009 Archive

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Kace pledges end to Mac discrimination

Breaks management ceiling

Desktop management specialist Kace is getting serious about Mac management, as Apple's platform makes headway in the business world. On Tuesday, Kace released the latest version of its Kbox appliances that it said ends discrimination against Macs in businesses dominated by PCs running Microsoft's Windows. Traditionally, Macs …

Software 1 Jul 01:06
Sun's VirtualBox 3.0 exits betaland

xVM Server left behind

Update: This story originally said that Sun had not open-sourced VirtualBox. Sun does offer an open source version Only two weeks ago, Sun Microsystems quietly kicked out two quick betas of its VirtualBox 3.0 desktop and sometimes server-virtualization hypervisor, and today, the product is ready for prime time. That was a …

Hardware 1 Jul 01:20
iPhone v Pre - the celebrity smartphone deathmatch

Review Every feature unearthed, every quirk revealed

Two top-of-the-line smartphones were released in June: the Palm Pre and the iPhone 3GS. If you're eyeing them, you'll have to choose one or the other - no one in their right mind owns more than one smartphone. So which one is worthy of your pocket or purse? To answer this question - and since it can be easily argued that I'm …

Reg Hardware 1 Jul 02:08
Europe won't pay more for Windows 7. Really!

Anti-trust case doesn't mean higher prices

A senior Microsoft executive has denied the company will increase prices for Windows 7 upgrades in Europe because of the ongoing investigation into Internet Explorer. Microsoft will not offer an upgrade version of Windows 7 to users in Europe. Instead they will be offered the full version for the price of an upgrade. This is …

Operating Systems 1 Jul 08:37
EMC preps FCoE I/O module

Hot-swap UltraFlex

EMC has confirmed industry suspicious that is developing a hot-swap Ultraflex FCoE module for its storage arrays. Yesterday Chad Sakac, EMC's VMware Technology Alliance veep, revealed: "We’re now, of course, developing an ultraflex IO module for FCoE, which (is) hot-swappable." FCoE (Fibre Channel Over Ethernet) sends Fibre …

Storage 1 Jul 09:02
Rogue Atlantis knob removed by hand

Oh, just pull the thing out

NASA technicians have successfully removed the rogue knob which had wedged itself between a window and the dashboard of space shuttle Atlantis. A slight pressurisation of Atlantis and repeated applications of dry ice failed to dislodge the "quick shoe mount knob from a crew work lamp". In the end, NASA gave the go-ahead to " …

Space 1 Jul 09:16
Acer Tempo F900 Windows Mobile smartphone

Review Screen gem let down by supporting cast?

The roll out of Acer's Tempo series of Windows smartphones continues apace with the dual-SIM DX900 and rather unremarkable X960 now being quickly followed by something altogether more shiny and new, the F900 with its eye-catching 3.8in touchscreen. Acer's Tempo F900 Windows Mobile smartphone The F900's external dimensions …

Reg Hardware 1 Jul 09:31
In-car gadget mount sprouts arms

Simultaneously holds three gadgets

What do you get the portable gadget nerd who’s got an iPhone 3GS, satnav and portable media player? Why a Universal Device Mount (UDM), of course. The Universal Device Mount holds three gadgets Thanks to its trident design, the UDM allows its lucky owner to simultaneously attach their three favourite portable gadgets to …

Reg Hardware 1 Jul 09:36
China spam crisis provokes researcher's ire

Name and shame campaign aims to change attitudes

A security researcher is calling for action against Chinese internet firms which are failing to protect their services from abuse by cybercrooks. Gary Warner, director of research in computer forensics at the University of Alabama, singles out domain name registrars eName and Xin Net Technology for particular criticism for …

Spam 1 Jul 09:48
SuperSpeed USB PCs to ship by year-end

2010 to be USB 3.0 year

Getting tired of waiting for backups to an external drive to complete? The first PCs using SuperSpeed USB could appear by the end of the year, with 2010 seeing the start of a mass rollout. According to a Techon Nikkei report, Taiwanese PC manufacturers will be first off the mark. SuperSpeed USB, or USB 3.0, increases the …

Channel Register 1 Jul 09:54
No Dr No rights for Bond owners

EU court does not find trade mark sufficiently suave

The company behind the James Bond film franchise cannot stop another company from registering 'Dr No' as a trade mark because the film title is an indication of artistic, and not commercial, origin, an EU court has said. The Court of First Instance (CFI) in Brussels ruled on a trade mark dispute between Danjaq, the owner of …

Law 1 Jul 10:14
Summer slimline PS3 rumours hotting up

Production contracts said to show July delivery

Sony has entered into commercial arrangements for the production of a slimline PlayStation 3, it has emerged. The electronics giant has signed up motherboard maker Foxconn and product design firm Pegatron to jointly manufacture the slimmer model, according to a report by Taiwanese website UDN. Nothing concrete is known about …

Reg Hardware 1 Jul 10:41
Chickens could 'power hydrogen cars'

Leccy Tech Clucking brilliant!

A team of university scientists have claimed that the future of automotive hydrogen storage lies in birds, or, to be precise – chickens. The secret lies in chicken feathers, according to Dr Richard Wool, Professor of chemical engineering at the University of Delaware, and their ability to absorb high amounts of hydrogen when …

Reg Hardware 1 Jul 10:41
Conficker left Manchester unable to issue traffic tickets

Infection cost £1.5m in total

Manchester City Council was prevented from issuing hundreds of motoring penalty notices in time after the infamous Conficker worm knocked out parts of its IT systems. Drivers caught on camera driving in bus lanes escaped punishment after the town hall fine processing system was taken offline in February, following infection by …

Malware 1 Jul 10:53
Spanish boffins develop bat-like sonar-vision superpower

Iberian Daredevils 'see' through smoke, bodies, walls

A team of Spanish boffins say they have developed a method of giving humans the power of echolocation or "biosonar" - used by bats for flying at night, and of course by the superhero Daredevil. "In certain circumstances, we humans could rival bats in our echolocation or biosonar capacity", says Juan Antonio Martínez of the …

Biology 1 Jul 10:57
iPhone 3GS turns yellower shade of white

Sepia screen for that old-timey look

Apple fans unwrapping their new iPhone 3GS are being disappointed by an eerie yellow on-screen tint that pushes some handsets beyond usability, though not every complainant has managed to get their handset replaced. The problem is reminiscent of one that plagued the iPhone 3G, and is described by some users as a "warmer" tone …

Mobile 1 Jul 11:17
Man jailed for snooping on police database

Watching the watchers

A Northern Irish man has been jailed for nine months for using the police database to get information for terrorists. Aaron Hill, 24, from Randalstown, County Antrim, was a data inputter for the Northern Irish police force. He was found guilty of collecting information likely to be useful to terrorists and misconduct in public …

Law 1 Jul 11:31
RIAA claims victory in Usenet.com copyright case

'Direct, contributory, vicarious infringement'

A US district judge has ruled in favour of the Recording Industry Ass. of America (RIAA) in the copyright case brought against Usenet.com that kicked off in autumn 2007. “We’re pleased that the court recognised not just that Usenet.com directly infringed the record companies’ copyrights but also took action against the …

Music and Media 1 Jul 11:48
Kingdom of Sweden dragged into Reg smut-basket

FoTW 'Ignorant and rude'

Our suggestion that the newly-legit Pirate Bay could follow Vuze by offering adult content has triggered great national sensitivities. Take it away, pseudonymous reader: From: techie dude Date: Wed, Jul 1, 2009 at 9:18 AM Subject: You people have no common sense, ethics and moral standing whatsoever, in my personal opinion …

Bootnotes 1 Jul 11:55
The best memory config for a Core i7 CPU

All the options tested

When Intel launched Core i7, the integration of the memory controller in the CPU core marked a major change from the Core 2 architecture. Intel was relatively slow off the mark in this regard: AMD moved the memory controller from the chipset to the CPU die in 2003 when it launched the Opteron. Intel's Core i7: the first Core …

Reg Hardware 1 Jul 12:02
Ricoh eyes up visual file search

Disclosure-style sniff-around to make backup fun again

Printer company Ricoh reckons you should be able to search visually for photos and files much like flipping through a photo album. It has started up a beta test in the USA for its snazzy quanp online storage service with 3D views of uploaded files. Ricoh offers client software for both Windows and Mac users with a "quanp drop …

Storage 1 Jul 12:14
Nokia pulls memory-gobbling Java overhaul

Updated caffeine fix for S60 5th Edition

Nokia has completely rewritten its Java implementation for S60 devices, linking the new Java environment with Ovi as well as improving performance at an apparent cost of greater memory consumption. The new Java implementation is currently a beta release, though no problems have been reported except the additional memory …

Mobile 1 Jul 12:17
Glasgow unbans Life of Brian

So, what has the council ever done for us?

Glasgow councillors yesterday took the bold decision to allow the burghers of that fine city to enjoy Monty Python's Life Of Brian on the big screen for the first time in 29 years. According to the Daily Record, Glaswegian licensing chiefs ruled back in 1980 that the movie could only be shown with an adult X cert. The …

Entertainment 1 Jul 12:19
Demand for IT staff jumps, claims employment agency

Summer arrival for green shoots?

Recruitment agency CV Screen is seeing a big improvement in job prospects for IT staff. It reckons there's been a 25 per cent increase in demand in a month for staff and a 27 per cent drop in the number of applicants for each post. CV Screen interprets this as evidence that IT professionals are getting new jobs more quickly. …

Small Biz 1 Jul 12:30
Kaspersky beats Zango in malware classification case

Right to call spade a digging implement won

Kaspersky Lab has secured a legal victory against notorious adware firm Zango, with a ruling that goes a long way towards protecting security software developers from nuisance lawsuits from the developers of internet pests in future. The judgment might also protects security researchers from legal threats when disclosing …

Malware 1 Jul 13:48
Mobile operators question net snoop plan

Spooks want moon on a stick

Mobile networks are incapable of carrying out the massively increased internet surveillance being demanded by intelligence and law enforcement agencies, MPs and peers heard today, raising further doubts over the technical feasibility of the plans. Major technical upgrades would be required for mobile broadband providers to …

Government 1 Jul 14:31
Canonical offers tech support for clouds

Ubuntu + Eucalyptus = homegrown EC2

Canonical and its partner in clouds, Eucalyptus, have been working to create a stack of software that runs atop the Ubuntu Linux distribution and allows companies to build their own internal compute clouds that are compatible with Amazon's EC2 cloud. This is all well and good, but what commercial data centers want in addition …

Channel Register 1 Jul 14:39
Siemens axes 300 UK staff at tech services arm

A global group for global people

Siemens is slashing 300 jobs at its IT services operation in the UK. The company told staff in an internal memo, seen by The Register, that it planned to cut loose 100 ops division roles, 160 project management and consultancy jobs, and 40 finance and head office staff. “It is anticipated that the majority of the reductions …

Channel Register 1 Jul 14:46
3D TV ~~will~~ won't go primetime in 2011

Analyst vs analyst

One analyst’s recent claim that sales of 3D TVs will truly take off during 2011 is far-fetched, a rival market watcher has claimed. Claudio Aspesi, an researcher at US investment firm Sanford Bernstein, this week forecast: "The beginnings of broad 3D TV adoption in Europe could take place as early as 2011," according to a …

Reg Hardware 1 Jul 15:19
MacBook Air firmware update points to revamped batteries

MacBook Air owners who haven't checked Software Update for a couple of days will now find a firmware update awaiting them there. The download adds support for the "latest service replacement batteries". All Air lithioum-polymer batteries are so described because they can only be - officially - swapped out by Apple itself, the …

Reg Hardware 1 Jul 15:41
Torrentreactor breach serves potent exploit cocktail

iframe redirection redux

Torrentreactor has long been regarded as one of the top bit torrent search engines, and with the demise of The Pirate Bay, it's likely bigger than ever. Now, it's been breached and is serving a potent cocktail of exploits to people browsing the site, Websense Security Labs says. Attackers have managed to inject an iframe into …

Malware 1 Jul 16:19
Pirate Bay users go overboard as new owners dangle cash

I'm a freetard, get me outta 'ere!

The Pirate Bay has been urging users not to abandon ship following yesterday's announcement that a Swedish internet cafe software firm planned to buy the BitTorrent site for $7.8m. The site has been flooded with account deletion requests from angry users griping that TPB had sold out to Global Gaming Factory X (GGF). "In a …

Telecoms 1 Jul 16:30
Jackson mass mailer adds to attack onslaught

More zombies than the Thriller video

Miscreants have created a Michael Jackson mass-mailing worm. The malware, which follows a growing list of other hacking attacks in the wake of the superstar's death last week, claims to offer secret songs and photos of Jackson in an attached zip file. In reality, the emails (which claim to come from sarah@michaeljackson.com) …

Spam 1 Jul 16:55
Oracle slips notes to Wall Street

'I have a gub....'

In the classic movie, Take the Money and Run, Woody Allen's character, Virgil Starkwell, tries to rob a bank with a note that says "Please put $50,000 into this bag and act natural. I am pointing a gun at you." The bank teller can't read his handwriting and insists that it says "gub," not gun. After consulting with a colleague …

Financial News 1 Jul 17:08
Sony to bring PS2 compatibility back to PS3?

Sony patent hints at Emotion Engine's (virtual) return

Sony has applied for a series of patents that have sparked speculation that the electronics giant is about to bring back backward compatibility to the PlayStation 3. The proto-patents all centre on processor emulation, and refer to techniques that could be used to allow the Cell-based PS3 to run software developed for the PS2' …

Reg Hardware 1 Jul 17:16
Dell accidentally sells 140,000 monitors for $15 a pop

And Taiwan demands they stay sold

Taiwan consumer regulators have ordered Dell to honor an online pricing error that offered 19-inch LCD monitors for only NT$500 (US$15, £9). News of the supposed bargain spread quickly over the internet when it was posted June 25 at 11pm. Within the eight hours before it was removed, more than 26,000 customers placed orders …

Hardware 1 Jul 17:43
ChiPhone snagged by trademark snafu

1.3 billion must wait

Apple's ongoing efforts to offer its über-popular iPhone to 1.3 billion Chinese has hit yet another snag - and this time the snagger is a Beijing-based graphics tablet manufacturer who happens to own the trademark on the term "i-phone." Computerworld reported on Wednesday that Hanwang Technology, which sells its products under …

Mobile 1 Jul 19:09
Mystery rival forces Borland bidding war

Thrice the offer

A bidding war over tools pioneer Borland Software has broken out between MicroFocus and a mystery rival. MicroFocus has been forced to bump up its proposed purchase price for Borland for the second time, going 50 per cent over its initial offer of $1.00 per share, or $75m. MicroFocus will now offer $1.50 a share, or $113m. …

Developer 1 Jul 19:22
iPhone 3.1 code goes beta

Video boost, pointless buzzing

iPhone Software 3.0 shipped a mere two weeks ago today, but version 3.1 is already in the hands of developers in beta form. According to reports from PC World and AppleInsider, as well as on forums and blogs, version 3.1 was distributed to developers on Tuesday. Included in the beta are not only the bug fixes that dot-X …

Mobile 1 Jul 20:31
Amazon affiliates nixed in two more states

Rhode Island removed, Hawaii punched

Amazon.com is tearing out two more stars on the American flag to avoid collecting taxes. The online retailer has dumped marketing affiliates in Hawaii and Rhode Island in protest of the states passing laws that would force Amazon to collect sales taxes from locals. Amazon's affiliate program pays commissions to website owners …

Financial News 1 Jul 20:38
Unisys to build its own stealthy cloud

And it wants to build yours, too

Unisys may have not taken over the world as either a system maker or an outsourcer, but it's a player in both markets and it doesn't want the move to cloud computing to leave it behind. That's why Unisys is dedicating an 800-person consulting team - about three percent of its 27,700-person global workforce - to a cloud- …

Servers 1 Jul 20:53
Feds: Hospital hacker's 'massive' DDoS averted

Arrest foils 'Devil's Day' scheme

The leader of a malicious hacker collective who used his job as a security guard to breach sensitive Texas hospital computers has been arrested just days before his group planned a "massive DDoS" attack for the July 4 Independence Day holiday. Jesse William McGraw, 25, of Arlington, Texas, was taken into custody late Friday …

Crime 1 Jul 21:32
O2 wins UK exclusive on Palm Pre, says report

Orange crushed again?

Word surfaced Wednesday that O2 has been tapped to be the exclusive carrier for the Palm Pre in the UK. According to a report from The Guardian, Palm will announce the deal next week. If true, O2 - which already has an exclusive deal with Apple for UK distribution of the iPhone - will further lengthen its lead over Orange as …

Mobile 1 Jul 22:34
Stealthy click fraud tool exploits 9ball attack

Meet the Keyser Soze of malware

Miscreants have developed one of most sophisticated click fraud malware applications to date. The Trojan code - dubbed FFsearcher by security firm SecureWorks - plugs into a Google API that allows webmasters to add a Google-powered search widget (called "Google Custom Search") to their website. In normal use, search results …

Security 1 Jul 23:02
Bing finds meaning in Powerset

Well, at least a little

Powerset's semantic obsession is already working its way into Bing's primary search engine, helping to suss out the meaning behind end-user queries, generate captions for query results, and suggest related queries. Microsoft acquired the San Francisco-based Powerset last summer in a deal worth a reported $100m, nearly a year …

Music and Media 1 Jul 23:10
Oracle plans cloud strategy

Exclusive Larry smells money in madness

Oracle is cooking up a strategy around the cloud, something chief executive Larry Ellison once referred as "idiocy" - albeit the sort of fashionable idiocy he's willing to buy in to. Sources close to Oracle have told The Register there's a growing pace of activity inside the database maker - at all levels - on the subject of …

Applications 1 Jul 23:50
NASA patches Endeavour's leaky plumbing

Good to go for July lift-off

A successful fueling test conducted today on space shuttle Endeavour's troublesome plumbing has cleared the way for another launch attempt July 11. Endeavour's mission to the ISS was scrubbed twice last month due to safety concerns over a leak found in the shuttle's hydrogen vent line that connects to the shuttle's massive …

Space 1 Jul 23:52