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5th August 2009 Archive

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  • Palm slams Apple, hoodwinks iTunes

    How the Pre apes an iPod

    Palm has filed a complaint with an industry group that monitors USB standards, claiming that Apple is "hampering competition" by locking the Palm Pre out of iTunes. The same complaint also reveals details of how the Pre tricks iTunes into thinking it's an iPod. At issue is the tussle between Apple and Palm over the Palm Pre's …

    Phones 5 Aug 2009, 01:28

  • Faster broadband for free?

    BT says yes

    BT has started handing out Broadband Accelerators to customers prepared to stump up £1.20 in postage, and promises an average speed increase of half a megabit. BT customers interested in a free boost to their broadband can apply on-line for a free Broadband Accelerator, assuming they're prepared to pay for postage, have the …

    Broadband 5 Aug 2009, 07:06

  • 3PAR picks up share from EMC, HDS and IBM

    Gaining in a small way

    As expected, 3PAR's results were not great in a bare numbers sense, but a comparison with EMC and other enterprise storage array competition implies that 3PAR is gaining market share. The company's virtualised InServ arrays compete for enterprise storage business with EMC Symmetrix, HDS USP, HP EVA and XP, and IBM's DS8000 and …

    Storage 5 Aug 2009, 08:50

  • Google's 'neutral' ad tool escapes fraud liability, says US court

    Keyword suggestions not a form of evil

    Google was not liable for the content of adverts that appeared on its search pages even though it made suggestions about what terms an advertiser should associate with, a US court has said. Those suggestions were not enough to erode its immunity as simply a publisher of content created by third parties, the Court said. The US …

    Media 5 Aug 2009, 09:17

  • Cisco thanks customers after website outage

    Mistake leads to two hour outage

    Cisco is keeping schtum on how exactly it contrived to down its own website worldwide for over two hours yesterday. Customers and other web browsers notice something was amiss yesterday morning UK time as the network giant's web presence completely evaporated, without any warning. A Cisco statement said: "Cisco can confirm …

    Data Networking 5 Aug 2009, 09:29

  • Microhoo deal has a Google escape clause

    Yahoo! clears! emergency! escape! routes!

    It is no secret that Yahoo! and Microsoft's search deal aims to steal market share from Google, but it is still surprising to see Google named in a Yahoo! SEC filing. The SEC update reveals that Yahoo! can get out of the deal if the average revenue per search in the US falls below a specified percentage of Google's estimated …

    Financial News 5 Aug 2009, 09:34

  • Acer boards e-books bandwagon

    'We should participate before market settles down'

    Acer is eying up e-books and TV to keep sales growing. The ambition, heralded yesterday by Acer chairman Stan Shih, shows the Taiwanese PC powerhouse is more comfortable building out a consumer electronics business, than striking out for the enterprise. Noting that the PC "actually is a mature industry", Shih thinks e-books …

    Hardware 5 Aug 2009, 09:36

  • Chinese more willing to trust hookers than pols

    Raise the red flag lantern

    Chinese citizens consider prostitutes more trustworthy than politicians, according to a survey which suggests the Chinese are not that different to Westerners after all. Hookers came top in the survey by Xiaokang Magazine, China Daily reports, with farmers, religious workers, soldiers and students rounding out the top five. …

    Bootnotes 5 Aug 2009, 09:49

  • Government ready to round up opinions on DNA database

    Consultation to close on Friday

    If you’d like to express a view about what the government should do with its guidelines on the keeping of DNA samples, you have just three days left to do so. That is if you wish to respond to a consultation – "Keeping the right people on the DNA database" - currently being run by the Home Office and intended "to promote …

    Government 5 Aug 2009, 10:02

  • iTablet to be called iProd?

    iPhone code uncovers mystery codename

    Reports that Apple may be developing a tablet PC are nothing new, with many convinced that the device will be called the iTablet. However, uncovered Apple software code has since revealed that the rumoured gadget may have a slightly weirder name. Could the iTablet really be called the iProd? Credit: ars technica A …

    Hardware 5 Aug 2009, 10:10

  • What's Welsh for Orange?

    Welsh first for Samsung phone

    Half a million or so Welsh speakers will get the first mobile phone designed with them in mind. Samsung's S5600: soon available with a Welsh dictionary Orange has won an exclusive to sell the Welsh language version of the Samsung S5600. It goes on sale on September 1 and is available on 24-month contract at £19.57 per month …

    Phones 5 Aug 2009, 10:33

  • Sony widens its e-bookshelf

    Two more electronic books, with wireless to follow

    Sony has launched two more e-ink-based electronic books. The cheapest sports a 5 inch screen and is priced at $200, while an inch-larger touch screen brings the price up to $300. But neither features wireless - at least not yet. Hitting the $200 mark has obviously been a challenge, and has been achieved by cutting the screen …

    Hardware 5 Aug 2009, 10:42

  • Nortel gets the nod for enterprise networking sale

    Could be wrapped up by September

    The Canadian and US bankruptcy courts have approved the auction process to sell off Nortel's enterprise networking division. The green light offers some hope for Nortel staff and customers. It means stalking horse Avaya will pay $475m if no other bids appear. Interested parties have until 4 September to get their bids in. …

    Data Networking 5 Aug 2009, 10:45

  • Powered robot suits make debut on Tokyo streets

    Vid No appearance by giant dinos, moths as yet

    Japanese scientists developing a powered exoskeletal suit intended for "heavy labour", "rescue support at disaster sites" and use by the disabled or elderly - not to mention applications in "the entertainment field" - have taken their equipment out for a test drive on the streets of Tokyo. Here's a vid of the trial: As can …

    Bootnotes 5 Aug 2009, 10:46

  • Tosh: Fuel cell charger in two months

    DMFC power for phones and MP3 players

    Toshiba is to make good on its pledge to launch external fuel cell chargers for portable gadgets on a commercial scale, if somewhat later than expected. The company made the promise late last year, stating that its first fuel cell-based chargers would appear by the end of March 2009. Five months on from March, Tosh has …

    Hardware 5 Aug 2009, 10:49

  • LG GD900 Crystal camphone

    Review See-through styling – a clear winner?

    The LG GD900 Crystal wouldn't be the first mobile to sell itself on a gimmick. But in today's increasingly competitive market, a gimmick just isn't enough. The new Crystal's schtick is that it has a see-through keypad – as in, transparent. LG's GD900 Crystal It's not completely transparent of course, the numbers are …

    Phones 5 Aug 2009, 11:07

  • O2 data fails, again

    Updated Third time in three weeks

    O2 UK customers are again being left disconnected, disenfranchised and disillusioned as they struggle to get a data connection for the third time in as many weeks. O2 tells us that network problems are affecting "some users", but reports from far and wide indicate that the nationwide network is rejecting connections over 3G …

    Broadband 5 Aug 2009, 11:17

  • High Court shields database state from blame

    No comeback on stigma of invented £254,000 bad debt

    An entrepreneur whose fledgling business was ruined by a false entry in a court database has had his claim for compensation rejected by a High Court judge. The decision could set a broad and troubling precedent, because Mr Justice Bill Blair QC - brother of the former PM Tony Blair - ruled that the civil service cannot be …

    Law 5 Aug 2009, 11:38

  • Microsoft under threat from Linux - it's official

    Redmond nerves jangle in prized client market

    Microsoft has warned investors about new threats to its precious client-side tech ecosystem, by listing Linux vendors Canonical and Red Hat as rivals in its annual Form 10-K filing. The software giant also acknowledged Apple’s impressive market share grab in the US, where it now commands fourth place for total shipments. “[ …

    Operating Systems 5 Aug 2009, 11:44

  • Adobe tries to rub out LibDem airbrush claims

    Digital touch ups kiling female self-esteem says MP

    Adobe has hit back at demands from Lib Dem MP Jo Swinson for a ban on airbrushing models to make them appear more "beautiful" in advertisements aimed at children. The sort of thing that Miss Swinson is having a pop at is illustrated by this well-known YouTube clip, in which a handsome young woman is first "beautified" using …

    Applications 5 Aug 2009, 11:54

  • Home Office mum over mad March at the CRB

    A secret criminal record of errors

    The work of the Criminal Records Bureau (CRB) is undoubtedly important and often contentious. So when on Monday this week it emerged that the error rate at the CRB had multiplied by a factor of 2.3 from a total of 680 in 2007/8 to 1,570 in 2008/9, it warranted further investigation. Those error totals include false positives …

    Government 5 Aug 2009, 12:16

  • Image spam: the threat returns

    Did it ever go away?

    Off we trot to the Reg Library to select some popular whitepapers for review. This week we mainline on email security, or to be more precise, email insecurity. Image spam: the threat returns We were unaware that using pictures to evade spam detectors had peaked in 2007 and then fell away as security software vendors upped …

    Security 5 Aug 2009, 12:28

  • Moab maker Cluster Resources welcomes cloud fluffers

    HPC lessons for the masses

    High-performance computing specialist Cluster Resources is following the money with software and a re-branding that targets cloud fluffers. The company is today expected to announce it's extended its Moab intelligence engine for managing HPC systems to packaged software and systems such as web servers and virtual machines, and …

    HPC 5 Aug 2009, 12:31

  • NetApp turns onto ONTAP cloud storage

    Comment Three's company

    NetApp's cloud czar, Val Bercovici, has blogged about NetApp's "upcoming NetApp Cloud Launch later this year" which will involve NetApp working with Cisco and VMWare to deliver a virtualised cloud network, server and storage infrastructure. Data ONTAP is NetApp's storage array operating system for its FAS arrays and V-Series …

    Storage 5 Aug 2009, 12:43

  • One in three Europeans never been online

    Would rather be eating, drinking, whatever..

    Research from the European Commission has found that one in three Europeans have never used the internet. This is considered an improvement from 2007 when 40 per cent had never been online. 38 per cent of households said they didn't need to be online, 25 per cent blamed cost of equipment and 21 per cent blamed the cost of …

    Broadband 5 Aug 2009, 12:54

  • 3 boots up portable Wi-Fi modem

    Wi-Fi where you want it

    UK network operator 3 is to launch a multi-user mobile Wi-Fi dongle by Christmas. 3's portable Wi-Fi dongle will be out by Christmas The 86 x 45 x 10mm device will allow you to create a personal Wi-Fi connection while on the move – provided you’re within range of 3’s network, of course. You won’t have to install any …

    Broadband 5 Aug 2009, 13:02

  • Virtualization security – oxymoron or perfect partnership?

    Workshop New environments, new security risks

    So far in this series we've looked at where virtualization is at, and where it's going in terms of both benefits and operational challenges. Like many newly adopted technologies, the law of unintended consequences comes into play – virtualization will undoubtedly be used for a raft of previously unimagined things. Similarly, …

    Software 5 Aug 2009, 13:16

  • Blade Runner tops sci-fi movie poll

    Yes, but which cut?

    Blade Runner has clinched the top spot in a poll on the greatest sci-fi film of all time. The 1982 cult classic, directed by Ridley Scott and based on a novel by Philip K Dick, won the top plaudit in a poll run by Totalscifionline.com. Blade Runner flopped commercially on its initial release and received only lukewarm reviews …

    Bootnotes 5 Aug 2009, 13:26

  • Google to buy video compression technology outfit On2

    Mountain View presses 'play' on all-stock deal

    Google confirmed today that it plans to buy digital video compression outfit On2 Technologies in an all-stock agreement, valued at $106.5m. Mountain View said On2 shareholders will be handed 60 cents worth of Google class A common shares for each outstanding share they hold in the company. Clifton Park, New Jersey-based On2 …

    Applications 5 Aug 2009, 13:30

  • Orange declares mobile broadband price war

    Dongles at dawn

    Orange has set the cat among the dongles with the UK’s lowest mobile broadband pay-monthly tariff. For £4.89 ($8.29/€5.75), Orange’s Internet Everywhere serve provides the firm’s existing pay monthly, pay-as-you-go and home broadband customers with a 500Mb per month download cap and connection speeds of up to 3.6Mb/s. …

    Mobile 5 Aug 2009, 13:42

  • German finance firm buys Actebis

    Pay distie for me

    Droege Capital GmBH has bought the IT and telecoms distie Actebis. Actebis employs 1,900 people and turns over €3.7bn a year. It operates in Austria, Denmark, France, Germany, the Netherlands, Norway and Sweden. In the first six months of 2009 it made EBITDA of €23.1m, up five per cent on last year. As well as selling some …

    The Channel 5 Aug 2009, 14:16

  • TMS wins flash bragging crown with 100TB monster

    You're gonna need a bigger rack

    The biggest, baddest flash clustered drive on the market has been launched by Texas Memory Systems, the 100TB RamSan-6200. This monster offers more than 5 million sustained I/Os per second and 60GB/sec of sustained bandwith. Individual read and write I/O performance isn't revealed. These are huge numbers, achieved by a scale- …

    Storage 5 Aug 2009, 14:45

  • SpinVox: Veni, vidi, descripsi

    A report from the technology demo

    Yesterday's technology demonstration by SpinVox at its Marlow HQ reminded everyone just how hard it is to do voice to text machine translation, and how far away anyone is from automating the bulk of the voicemail translation in the real world. All of the messages supplied by our small group of visitors tripped through to a …

    Broadband 5 Aug 2009, 15:13

  • Copyright cops raid Filesoup admin

    Police and movie industry join forces

    The British administrator of a former BitTorrent tracker site is out on police bail after his home was raided by police working with film industry investigators. The 50-year-old man, who can't be named, was arrested on suspicion of offences under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act last Monday by Avon and Somerset Police, …

    Media 5 Aug 2009, 15:20

  • Alleged games console modder faces DMCA charges

    All mods gone

    Federal agents have arrested a Californian student over allegations he specialised in modifying games consoles to allow the machines to play pirated video games. Matthew Lloyd Crippen, 27, of Anaheim, California, was arrested by US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents on Monday, following his indictment over two …

    Law 5 Aug 2009, 15:24

  • KDE 4.3 promises polish, polish, polish

    Gets buffed with Caizen

    The Linux K Desktop Environment project spun out KDE 4.3 yesterday. It's the outfit's latest version of the much-loved desktop suite for Linux and Unix platforms. KDE 4.3, codenamed "Caizen", was built by a global community of 700 contributors who have slaved over 63,000 code tweaks, and 10,000 bug fixes since the start of …

    Applications 5 Aug 2009, 15:45

  • X-51 ordinary-fuel scramjet to fly in December

    Could offer scope for combo turbo/scram runway jets

    Flight tests of a powerful US military scramjet prototype able to exceed Mach 4 while burning ordinary jet fuel have been scheduled for December, according to reports. Aviation Week reports today that the X-51 "WaveRider" scramjet will now fly in December. The X-51 will be released from a B-52 bomber mothership operated by …

    Science 5 Aug 2009, 15:53

  • iPhone solo loss stares O2 in the face

    The 3G goose scrambles O2's golden egg

    O2 is to lose the UK exclusive to the iPhone in October, according to documentation seen by a British mobile trade publication. Mobile Entertainment says the mobile operator solo status ends officially on 9 October. The magazine also quotes unnamed sources, who say that O2 may retain sole UK rights to the 3GS after this date …

    Phones 5 Aug 2009, 16:02

  • Google turns up nose at ebook monopoly claims

    How much is an orphan worth?

    Stop! I think I see where we are getting confused. When you said "orphan," did you mean "orphan" - a person who has lost his parents - or "often," frequently? - The Pirates of Penzance When the voices howl that Google is weeks away from securing a digital monopoly around orphaned books, Google doesn't quite hear what they're …

    Media 5 Aug 2009, 17:25

  • AMD beta seeks CPU-GPU harmony

    Hails 'game-changing' OpenCL

    AMD has released a free update to its ATI Stream SDK that offers OpenCL support for CPUs, taking the power of that parallel-processing technology one step closer to true usability. And if you're worried that the company is stepping off the open-standards reservation by doing so, fear not: AMD has submitted the appropriate …

    Hardware 5 Aug 2009, 18:44

  • Mozilla Store shuttered after vendor security breach

    No schwag for you

    The Mozilla Foundation closed its online stores on Tuesday after a third-party company it uses to run one of the sites' back-end operations suffered a security breach. The security lapse hit GatewayCDI, a 100-employee outfit with offices in San Francisco, Chicago and Portland, Oregon, which runs the Mozilla Store, the …

    Security 5 Aug 2009, 18:51

  • Plug pulled Latvian cybercrime hub

    Bullet proof host taken down

    Upstream providers have pulled the plug on Latvian ISP Real Host over allegations it maintained cybercrime servers linked to the Zeus botnet. Real Host was disconnected by its upstream provider, Junik, on Monday, after TeliaSonera told Junik to either cut the juice or face sanctions itself, according to reports by the FT and …

    Security 5 Aug 2009, 18:53

  • Google jettisons radio broadcasting biz

    WideOrbit takes payload

    Google has offloaded its radio automation business, six months after telling the world that its radio efforts "haven't had the impact we hoped for." On Wednesday, San Francisco-based startup WideOrbit announced it had acquired the assets to Google's radio automation biz, including three software products for driving radio …

    Media 5 Aug 2009, 21:02

  • Ballmer's Yahoo! bullishness hides Bing brand play

    Hopes for Windows Vista Mojave moment

    Steve Ballmer has been telling partners and investors to man up on search and advertising, saying people "didn't get" Microsoft's online deal with Yahoo!. Now, it's become clear why Microsoft's chief executive is so bullish. Ballmer is selling a deal that ties Microsoft to some tough deliverables, which will see Microsoft …

    Media 5 Aug 2009, 21:10

  • IT grad sues school over failed job hunt

    Unemployment rage

    A US college graduate is suing her alma mater because she has been unable to find a job. Trina Thompson, 27, graduated in April from Monroe College in the Bronx, New York with a bachelor's degree in IT. That lofty educational achievement hasn't yet helped her land a job, and so she's suing the college for reimbursement of her …

    Bootnotes 5 Aug 2009, 21:19

  • Ethernet switch sales pounded by falling economy

    Dot.com déjà vu

    Every part of the IT ecosystem has been slammed by the economic downturn, and the Ethernet switch market is no exception. In fact, makers of Ethernet switches are probably feeling a little bit of déjà vu after the downtown that followed the dot.com bust in 2001. According to a report put out by network box and adapter counter …

    Data Networking 5 Aug 2009, 22:38

  • Cisco profits (nearly) cut in half

    'The toughest economic challenge of our lifetime'

    Cisco's fiscal year has ended on a low note. Net income for its fourth quarter totaled $1.1bn, a dive of over 46 per cent from the same quarter last year. But CFO Frank Calderoni prefers to look at the year in total. As he pointed out, the quarter-to-quarter match-up is "a tough comparison, given that Q4 '08 was the highest …

    Data Networking 5 Aug 2009, 22:52

  • Microsoft gets personal on Windows 7 "show stopper" bug

    Memory leak smack down

    Microsoft has gotten personal in responding to reports of a "show stopper" bug in Windows 7 capable of delaying the planned roll-out, which starts Thursday. The company has blamed a chip-set controller issue rather than a critical bug in the Windows 7 chkdsk /r tool that could cause a memory leak capable of causing your PC to …

    Operating Systems 5 Aug 2009, 23:21

  • BMC ekes out quarterly growth

    Overcomes bookings decline

    Systems management software provider BMC Software said it did alright in its most recent quarter and is raising its expectations for the remainder of fiscal 2010. BMC, which sells tools for managing just about every kind of system known to man and the applications that ride on top of them, was able to squeeze out $450m in …

    Financial News 5 Aug 2009, 23:34

  • Can Liquid Computing ride Cisco's California coattails?

    Or will it get et?

    Taking on a megacorp with over 65,000 employees and $8.5bn in annual sales may seem a daunting challenge, but the focused folks at unified-computing shop Liquid Computing have Cisco in their sights. Virtualized servers with unified server and storage management, plus scalable and reconfigurable infrastructure, all controlled …

    Servers 5 Aug 2009, 23:35