24th July 2009 Archive

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Microsoft doubles quarterly revenue drop

Windows 7 grand plan for growth

Microsoft has recorded its second year-on-year decline in quarterly revenue, more than double the size of the first crash it reported this spring. Revenue for the whole company fell by 17 per cent to $13bn for the three months ending June 30, compared to a six per cent drop of $13.65bn reported in April. Income for the fourth- …

Financial News 24 Jul 00:10
Citrix: A long run to VMware

XenDesktop's big quarter

What a contrast Citrix Systems and VMware make in the server and desktop virtualization arenas. And who would have guessed that Citrix would have been the more profitable company in the most recent quarter? But it's true. Even though VMware is a somewhat larger company, Citrix trumped them thanks in large part to its vast …

Financial News 24 Jul 00:27
Amazon's soaring revenues depress Wall Street

Stock tumbles on 15 per cent sales leap

Amazon continues to prove that a melting economy doesn't necessarily mean you can't continue to expand sales on the world's largest etail site. During the second quarter ending June 30, the company pulled in revenues of $4.65 billion, a fifteen per cent jump from the same quarter last year. But this wasn't enough to satisfy …

Financial News 24 Jul 01:00
A Geeks Guide₂ ...Things Every Software Architect Should Know

40% discount at Reg Books

To be a great software architect you need understand both sides of the IT coin; the business and the technology. You’re fully expected to understand your company’s technology and the software platforms used throughout, as well as the businesses in which they serve. Any software architect will tell you this isn’t a walk in the …

Developer 24 Jul 06:14
O2 unveils small biz landline to mobile link

Yes dear, I'm still stuck at work...

O2 is launching "Fixed Number Anywhere", which allows you to automatically reroute calls made to a landline to a mobile phone. Small businesses often rely on mobile phones to keep in touch with customers. But new customers are often more trusting of businesses which are run from a landline number. A landline number also makes …

Small Biz 24 Jul 07:02
Digital Vision GiGo DV-DTR1 USB PVR

Review Heir apparent: granny's new VHS?

"Today's digital VCR replacement" is how the UK manufacturer Digital Vision describes its new GiGo Freeview set-top box. Designed to sell for less than £70, the device is a granny-friendly PVR with an unusual feature that will appeal to geeks (at least to this one). Unlike the majority of PVRs on the UK market, the GiGo records …

Reg Hardware 24 Jul 08:02
Swine flu site struggles to stay up

Symptom checker sickly

The government's swine flu information website and symptom checker struggled to deal with demand last night as anxious snifflers, hypochondriacs and fraudsters deluged the site. The National Pandemic Flu Service - a phone line and a website - was down for much of yesterday after its afternoon launch with many Reg readers …

Government 24 Jul 08:57
Rockstar opens up about GTA-based film

GTA: The Movie?

Rockstar Games’ Vice President has admitted that a film based on the Grand Theft Auto videogame series isn’t totally out of the question. Fans of the adult title have long argued in favour of GTA: The Movie, but Dan Houser has since said that unspecified internal creative doubts must first be overcome before such a project …

Reg Hardware 24 Jul 09:02
Vodafone UK revenue down in Q1

But sticking to guidance for the year

Vodafone UK saw a 4.7 per cent fall in first quarter revenue despite good growth in data services. The company said price competition, reduced discretionary spending and "higher prepaid inactivity" were to blame. Revenue across Europe fell 4.8 per cent to £7.45bn. In the UK Vodafone turned over £1.186bn compared to £1.234bn in …

Mobile 24 Jul 09:06
Adobe promises fix for critical Flash hole next week

Long hot weekend

Adobe has promised to fix a critical vulnerability in its Flash player software by the end of next week. The flaw - which stems from a bug in a component of its Flash player software but also affects Adobe Reader and Acrobat - has become the focus of targeted hacking attacks over recent days. As a result Adobe Flash player ( …

Enterprise Security 24 Jul 09:32
Canadian uni catches the rebranding sniffles

LogoWatch Revolting students protest 'new marketing-oriented visual identity'

Canada's University of Waterloo has caught a light case of the rebranding sniffles, having decided to flush its old brand frontage (left) down the toilet of history and unveil an exciting "new marketing-oriented visual identity" (right): To give students a taste of the coming revolution, the uni is this week unfurling a few …

Bootnotes 24 Jul 09:34
Google Latitude maps way onto iPhone

Smartphone-based stalking made easier

Would-be spies or stalkers can now use the iPhone to track down cheating partners or roving friends, following Google’s launch of its Latitude location-based service (LBS) for the Apple smartphone. You won’t be able to download Latitude as an application through iTunes, though. Google said that “Apple requested we release …

Reg Hardware 24 Jul 09:56
Oracle takes it to the bridge with GoldenGate buy

Scoops up real-time data outfit

Database giant Oracle is buying Silicon Valley real-time data firm GoldenGate Software, for an undisclosed sum. "With the addition of GoldenGate, Oracle expects to help our customers achieve better performance, through improved business intelligence and business continuity with real-time information," said Oracle's senior veep …

Developer 24 Jul 10:00
UKUUG Summer Conference 2009

Reader offer Savings for Reg readers

If you want to swap knowledge and learn about the latest happenings in the Open Source and Free Software world, there’s a conference for you in Birmingham this summer. The conference is the work of our good friends at UKUUG, the UK’s Unix and Open Systems User Group. It takes place on August 8-9 at the Birmingham City …

Developer 24 Jul 10:02
Hybrid warship in development

Leccy Tech 'Oh, I'm the greenest captain of the US Navy...'

The US Navy has awarded a multi-million dollar contract to a high-tech research firm, in an effort to turn its DDG-51 Arleigh Burke Class destroyers into floating Prius warships. Hybrid drive will let the DDG-51 warship perform slow-speed moves Under the terms of the contract, US-based firm General Atomics will develop a …

Reg Hardware 24 Jul 10:02
Street View snooptrike stalks Siena

Google's pedal-powered privacy-buster caught on camera

A couple of months back, the Vulture Central Street View Monitoring Bureau got word that the Great Satan of Mountain View had neatly circumvented the problem of capturing pedestrianised urban areas with its all-seeing eye by deploying a fleet of sinister snooptrikes. We're obliged then to reader Andrew Porrer, who was able to …

Bootnotes 24 Jul 10:20
Beeb and co offload failed Kangaroo platform

Arqiva to buy forsaken commercial TV web platform

Telly networks BBC Worldwide, ITV and Channel 4 confirmed plans yesterday to ditch an unsuccessful attempt to provide a commercial internet TV service in the UK, by agreeing to sell the platform to Arqiva Ltd. The Competition Commission kiboshed the trio's Kangaroo Project, which was based on the Beeb's iPlayer technology, in …

Music and Media 24 Jul 10:32
BOFH: Hammer time!

Episode 10 All through the tower, not a creature was stirring...

"Ooooh, watch this!" I gasp happily to the Boss as he and I observe the PFY, from the relative safety of the webcam monitor in Mission Control. "What?" the Boss asks. "He's going to take a look at her PC!" "Isn't that part of his job?" "No this isn't a work machine, this is a home machine!" I snigger. "Still, if it's a …

BOFH 24 Jul 11:02
Kind soul donates Claymore mine to charity

Colorado shopping centre evacuated

A kind soul who donated a Claymore mine to charity prompted the evacuation of a Colorado shopping centre earlier this week. The anonymous benefactor left the explosive device at a Goodwill store in Arvada on Tuesday, according to news reports. An employee discovered the "suspicious" object while sorting through other less- …

Bootnotes 24 Jul 11:30
Android to invade in-home gadgets during 2009?

Tech exec claims OS' use not limited to smartphones

Gadget manufacturers will launch a range of Android-based devices for use in and around the home this year, according to a touchscreen gadget company. Touch Revolution's Nimble: an Android-based in-home "desk-phone" prototype Bill Brown, Vice President of Marketing at US-based firm Touch Revolution, claimed that a string of …

Reg Hardware 24 Jul 11:35
Info Tribunal fluffed on FOI, rules High Court

Overlooked public interest in legal privilege case

The Information Tribunal misunderstood part of a Freedom of Information (FOI) Act request and failed to properly adjudicate other parts of it, the High Court has said. The case must be re-considered by the Tribunal. The Information Tribunal hears appeals from decisions of the Information Commissioner, and Tribunal decisions …

Law 24 Jul 11:42
MS adds sandboxing to Office 2010

Harm reduction tactic aims to block bug exploitation

Microsoft has announced plans to introduce sandboxing technology with the next version of its Office suite. Office 2010 will incorporate sandboxing technology so that when users want to simply read Office documents, these files will have no access to other files or information. "Even if the file is malicious, it can’t get out …

Enterprise Security 24 Jul 11:45
Bezos begs forgiveness for Amazon's Big Brother moment

Chat Room 101

Jeff Bezos, boss of Amazon, has apologised for the stupid way his company went about deleting customer copies of George Orwell's 1984. He used a forum post for his firm's digital book device. Bezos said: This is an apology for the way we previously handled illegally sold copies of 1984 and other novels on Kindle. Our " …

Music and Media 24 Jul 11:56
Swedish lesbians suck sperm banks dry

Duff man juice also adding to chronic shortage

Sweden's fertility clinics are racking up a serious backlog of people waiting for artificial insemination, due in part to a "spike" in demand from lesbian couples for vital supplies of man juice. So bad have things got that prospective customers at Sahlgrenska University Hospital in Gothenburg are now forced to wait 18 months …

Biology 24 Jul 11:58
Pentax Optio W80

Review Gritty contender for watersports enthusiasts

There are some things you should never mix with water, such as a fine malt or electricity. Another is your digital camera, unless you happen to be the proud owner of a Pentax Optio W80. Waterproof and grit resistant: Pentax's Optio W80 This novel-looking camera is designed to be used underwater. It has a JIS waterproof …

Reg Hardware 24 Jul 12:02
Shoot-to-kill policy targets Hull's P2P users

One strike and you're out

Bittorrent users are being disconnected in Hull without warning by the local ISP - and must promise not to do it again before service can be restored, the BBC's Look North reports. One subscriber claims to have been disconnected by Karoo, owned by Kingston Communications, after downloading Tomb Raider from Demonoid. Another …

Music and Media 24 Jul 12:19
Storage start-ups fail to set the world on fire

Comment How IT fell for file storage growth myths

Try this point of view on for size: there is no general large scale file storage problem. Companies set up to deal with that problem have failed to set the world on fire and over-invested ones, like ONSTor and Copan, are facing difficulties. Meanwhile, block storage SAN re-invention companies, such as 3PAR and Compellent have …

Storage 24 Jul 12:31
When application security meets the real world

Regcast Expert discussion replay now available

Check out The Register’s take on Application Security, in this on-demand webcast. Moderator Dale Vile is joined by a panel of experts: Jon Collins, analyst at Freeform Dynamics; Caleb Sima, chief technologist at HP; and Vinnie Liu, managing partner at Stach ∧ Liu, an IT security consultancy. The panel kicks off with an …

Tech Panel 24 Jul 13:16
iPhone security cracked, smacked and broken

3GS cheerfully decrypts itself, says researcher

A researcher has delved into the encryption used to protect content on the iPhone 3GS, only to claim it is "entirely useless" and that he had "[never] seen encryption implemented so poorly before". Jonathan Zdziarski spent a couple of minutes demonstrating to Wired that he could copy and decrypt secured information from an …

Mobile 24 Jul 13:33
Sony commits to touchscreen Vaio PCs

Electronics giant to embrace Windows 7 functionality

Sony has unveiled plans to launch a selection of touch-sensitive Vaio PCs, following the impending release of Windows 7. Mike Abary, Senior Vice President of Sony’s information technology products division, told website Laptop that the Japanese electronics giant sees Windows 7 as a compelling OS, boasting features that it …

Reg Hardware 24 Jul 13:55
Electropulse weapon fear spreads to UK politicos

Civilisation threatened by bombs over the Atlantic

A campaign by US right wingers, designed to raise fears of an electromagnetic pulse (EMP) attack they allege could cripple Western nations and lead to chaos, is targeting British politicians, with some success. James Arbuthnot, the Conservative chairman of the Defence Select Committee, recently questioned the government's …

Government 24 Jul 14:01
Pirate Bay gets shirty with Dutch anti-piracy group

Handbags at yawn

The Pirate Bay is counter-suing a member of the Dutch anti-piracy group for defamation. The BitTorrent tracker website confirmed in a blog post yesterday that it plans to file "criminal charges" and bring a defamation lawsuit against Netherlands-based Tim Kuik of Stichting BREIN. TPB alleged that Kuik had made "blatant and …

Music and Media 24 Jul 14:35
IBM touts Power Systems prowess on SAP tests

ITG does some TCO touting, too

Server maker IBM is touting its ability to run ERP software from SAP as a means to promote its Power Systems servers running AIX, and it is using an SAP Sales and Distribution (SD) benchmark test to try to prove the value of its Power-based machinery. For whatever reason - and we all have our guesses on this - IBM has not seen …

Servers 24 Jul 14:44
Security researchers unpick botnet economics

Baron Samedi's nice little earner

The economics of botnets and the sale of stolen information in underground bazaars have been detailed in greater depth then ever before in new research from Kasperky Lab. Infecting PCs with strains of malware that leave them open to remote control by hackers has been the mainstay of various forms of cybercrime - spamming, …

Crime 24 Jul 14:52
Key McKinnon extradition ruling due next week

UFO hacker legal circus lurches towards climax

Appeal judges will deliver a ruling next Friday on whether or not extradition proceedings against Gary McKinnon can proceed following his recent diagnosis with Asperger's Syndrome. Lord Justice Stanley Burnton and Mr Justice Wilkie conducted two separate hearings on the case. One sitting reviewed whether former Home Secretary …

Law 24 Jul 15:00
Palm restores Pré iTunes synchronisation

Also adds long list of tweaks and new features

Pré owners can once more synchronise the phone with iTunes, following the release of a software update for the Palm smartphone. When Apple recently released iTunes version 8.2.1, the company said that the update “disables devices falsely pretending to be iPods, including the Palm Pré”. But Palm’s since gone one-up on Apple …

Reg Hardware 24 Jul 15:02
Google kicks Maestro into touch

Your money's no good here

Google Checkout - the search giant's online payment system - will stop accepting payments from Maestro cards from next week. From Monday Google Checkout users in the UK will have to pay with a Visa, Visa Electron, MasterCard or a Solo card. Maestro is a debit card which claims 540 million card holders around the world. …

Small Biz 24 Jul 15:02
O2 leaves travellers in the lurch

Updated Callers left speechless in numerous languages

A mere day after cutting data access for domestic users, O2 has managed to leave those customers travelling abroad without even a voice service to keep them connected. The problem surfaced last night, and doesn't seem to be affecting all users, though some are reporting they've been cut off from voice and data connectivity …

Mobile 24 Jul 15:10
Shoot to kill: Karoo relents

Upgrades One Strike to Three

Local ISP Karoo changed its disconnection policy this afternoon after a storm of publicity blew through the town of Hull. Karoo had been terminating the accounts of alleged copyright infringers without warning or even notification - and required them to sign a good behaviour pledge before they could be reconnected. Kingston- …

Music and Media 24 Jul 15:56
Microsoft airbrushes anti-Apple ad

Cartwheels out of Jobsian threat

Bowing to pressure from Apple's legal department - and that pesky imperative known as "the truth" - Microsoft has edited one of its Laptop Hunter ads to reflect Apple's new MacBook pricing. As The Reg reported last week, Microsoft COO Kevin Turner was applauded by attendees at the company's Worldwide Partner Conference when he …

Music and Media 24 Jul 17:31
Germanic types in yodeling copyright tussle

Yodel - Ay - EEE - Sue

What's exactly in a yodel that brings a rosy hue to the milkmaid's cheek and spins the goatherd's lederhosen in knots? In the world of Alpine folk music, it's no mere idle question to echo off the walls. The falsetto refrain "Holla-rä-di-ri, di-ri, di-ri" to one of the German language's most famous yodeling songs was at the …

Odds and Sods 24 Jul 19:19
Remote IT support tool hijacks customer webserver

TeamViewer turns outage into ad time

On Thursday morning, IT consultant Paul Nash received an urgent call from a client whose Apache webserver had crashed the previous night and inexplicably wouldn't restart. Equally vexing, people who tried to visit the client's website during the 10-hour outage received a message advertising TeamViewer, a maker of widely used …

Security 24 Jul 19:19
AMD foundry spin-off breaks $4.2bn ground

Fab fab in upstate New York

Global Foundries*, the chipmaker spun-off by AMD earlier this year, announced on Friday that it had broken ground on its $4.2bn manufacturing facility in upstate New York. The huge plant bucks the growing trend for chips to be manufactured in Asia, and it's a significant gamble for Global Foundries and its prime investors: AMD …

Financial News 24 Jul 19:45
Microsoft: GPL violation didn't drive Linux donation

OSCON Questions unanswered

Microsoft is standing by its decision to release thousands of lines of code to the GPL, saying the decision wasn't based on a violation of the popular license. Sam Ramji, senior director of platform strategy, has blogged that Microsoft released the Hyper-V Linux driver code to GPL for the "mutual benefit of our customers, …

Software 24 Jul 20:32