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7th August 2009 Archive

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  • Researcher: Twitter attack targeted anti-Russian blogger

    Joejobbing Cyxymu

    As Twitter struggled to return to normal Wednesday evening, a trickle of details suggested that the outage that left 30 million users unable to use the micro-blogging service for several hours - at least in part - may have been the result of a spam campaign that targeted a single user who vocally supports the Republic of Georgia …

    Security 7 Aug 2009, 00:49

  • Apple blueprints warranty Big Brother

    Don't open that iPhone

    Apple has filed a patent application for a technology that could detect, time-stamp, and remember "whether consumer abuse has occurred in an electronic device." Apple's many patent filings usually focus on technologies that could benefit consumers. This one is aimed directly at benefitting Apple itself. The filing, "Consumer …

    Music and Media 7 Aug 2009, 03:45

  • MPs urge more action on green IT

    No plans to utilise hot air yet, though

    The House of Commons Environmental Audit Committee has said the government should be more ambitious in its strategy for greening the use of information technology. Part of its Greening Government report (pdf) highlights the Greening Government ICT Strategy, launched in July 2009, with a claim that it is time to raise the …

    Government 7 Aug 2009, 08:02

  • Head shop rolls out disk size roadmap

    TDK sees the future

    By January 2010 we should be seeing 620GB 2.5-inch and 2.5TB 3.5-inch hard disk drives, according to head manufacturer TDK Corporation. A presentation to financial analysts, including Stifel Nicolaus' Aaron Rakers, contained a roadmap for hard disk drive (HDD) read/write heads which TDK manufactures for some HDD suppliers. The …

    Storage 7 Aug 2009, 08:02

  • Motion-sensing skateboard game landing by Christmas

    Tony Hawk: Ride

    When images of a skateboard videogame peripheral emerged earlier this year, gamers were left puzzled over what Tony Hawk had up his sleeve. But online retailer Game has since revealed that the pro skateboarders’ latest title will be out within months. Tony Hawk: Ride - skateboarding without wheels Tony Hawk: Ride will ship …

    reghardware 7 Aug 2009, 08:02

  • Microsoft assaults our senses with 'viral' Bing video

    So bad it's good bad

    Microsoft's quest to for cool has seen it endorse a video for Bing that channels the spirit of that other high-tide mark in Web 2.0 entertainment, Star Wars Kid. The company's named the winner in a competition for a Bing Jingle that it clearly hopes will achieve the same so-bad-it's-gotta-be-watched vital status and raise Bing …

    Bootnotes 7 Aug 2009, 09:16

  • Half of UK firms have lay-off plans

    Not much cheer here

    Half of British businesses are either certain they will have to lay off staff in the next six months or are considering such action. Ten per cent of firms questioned by the British Chamber of Commerce are certain to cut jobs and 40 per cent are considering lay offs. One in five firms believe the British economy will return to …

    Small Biz 7 Aug 2009, 09:21

  • Panasonic preps retro Micro Four-Thirds camera

    Olympus E-P1 rival?

    Panasonic’s Micro Four-Thirds (MFT) expertise is already well established, but a leaked image has revealed the manufacturer’s plans for a 12Mp retro-style MFT camera to take on Olympus’ EP1. Panasonic's GF1 uses Micro Four-Thirds technology and has 12.1Mp While Panasonic’s first two MFT efforts – the G1 and GH1 – looked …

    reghardware 7 Aug 2009, 09:39

  • Where does WAN acceleration by virtual machine actually get us?

    Opinion A tour of the estate

    NetEx is claiming its virtual machine-based WAN acceleration product, HyperIP, supports more software applications than any other similar product. Software like this is taking us towards a virtual mainframe environment. NetEx's VM-based WAN acceleration converges WAN optimisation and servers. It also complicates the server …

    Virtualization 7 Aug 2009, 09:42

  • MoD Minister: This is the last generation of manned fighters

    Repeat of 1957 vision a bit more credible this time

    In a bizarre repeat of history, a British defence minister has given it as his opinion that we are currently witnessing development of the final generation of manned combat aircraft. The comments made last week by Quentin Davies MP echo those made in a 1957 government white paper by the then Defence minister, Duncan Sandys. Mr …

    Science 7 Aug 2009, 10:02

  • Exotic star's 'violent ejections' during companion's visits

    Pic Blue performer left pale, grubby by energetic episodes

    Astronomers have released imagery of an "exotic" star which spurts out "regular ejections of matter" every few decades. The scientists theorise that this is caused by occasional interactions between the star and a longtime companion. A cloudless sky lets you see the clouds in the sky. Bigger (20MB) TIFF version here. The …

    Space 7 Aug 2009, 10:19

  • MS preps five critical fixes for busy Patch Tuesday

    ATL clean-up

    Microsoft is lining up nine updates - five critical - for the August edition of its regular Patch Tuesday update cycle. Eight of the nine patches plug vulnerabilities in Windows while the final update fixes a critical flaw in Microsoft Office (as well as Visual Studio, Microsoft ISA Server and Microsoft BizTalk Server). …

    Enterprise Security 7 Aug 2009, 10:24

  • Microsoft grabs Office.com domain in Google Apps assault

    Knock knock, who's there?

    Microsoft has registered a new domain in an effort to retain Office customers who might be considering a shift online to Google Apps. The company grabbed the office.com domain earlier this week. It had previously been farmed out to the Belgium-based ContactOffice Group that licensed the site name from a third-party under a …

    Applications 7 Aug 2009, 10:29

  • Government rubbishes ID card hack report

    Home Office not running about in a panic at all

    The Home Office has dismissed an apparently successful attempt to clone and edit the data on a British identity card's microchip. Adam Laurie, who has previously found similar weaknesses in the microchips on passports, rewrote data taken from a UK Border Agency identity card issued to a foreign student, according to a report …

    Government 7 Aug 2009, 10:37

  • Second-gen Sharp Aquos sets unveiled

    Sharper screens and integrated Blu-ray

    Sharp has updated its Aquos DX TV series with the introduction of 13 sets offering high-tech displays, easier-to-use features and, of course, integrated Blu-Ray Disc recorders. Sharp's second-generation of Aquos DX TVs: top-end The range has been around since November last year, but the “second-edition” 26in, 32in, 40in, …

    reghardware 7 Aug 2009, 10:38

  • Kodak Easyshare M420

    Review Can a cheap camera ever deliver killer shots?

    Kodak’s Easyshare M420 is aimed at the person looking for a reasonably cheap and convenient, compact camera that will basically take care of business, allowing you to simply point and shoot. As Kodak’s founder George Eastman once said: “You press the button, we do the rest.” So, the Easyshare M420 is cheap, but is it cheerful …

    reghardware 7 Aug 2009, 11:14

  • LG's watchphone priced

    Less than expected

    UK-based Dick Tracy types now finally have an idea of how much they may have to fork out for LG’s upcoming watchphone, thanks to Orange’s French arm. LG's GD910 watchphone: available on Orange UK this month The network operator has the exclusive rights to the GD910 for both the UK and France, and has just priced the phone …

    reghardware 7 Aug 2009, 11:17

  • Microsoft whips out Office 2008 patch for Mac lovers

    Now Apple fans can Open XML files too

    Microsoft has hastily applied a fix to the Mac version of Office 2008, after the software giant introduced a glitch in the Open XML format when it released Service Pack 2 for the suite. The company noted yesterday that the 12.2.1 patch would get rid of error messages that some Mac users were faced with when trying to open …

    Applications 7 Aug 2009, 11:21

  • BT's giant new faster broadband boxes blocked

    Too ugly for Muswell Hill

    BT has been forced to put the brakes on an ongoing pilot of faster broadband technology in north London because of protests from local residents, who say its new roadside cabinets are too big and ugly. Haringey Council has blocked BT from installing any further equipment on the leafy streets of Muswell Hill until it rethinks …

    Telecoms 7 Aug 2009, 11:27

  • LHC rushed back into service at 50% max power

    Redline still triple that of US god-particle rival

    International boffinry alliance CERN has announced plans to rush its damaged but still unprecedentedly puissant particle-punisher, the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), into service at half its planned maximum power. It's hoped that this will avoid the mighty machine being beaten by a rival US atomsmasher in the race to find the so- …

    Physics 7 Aug 2009, 11:55

  • Gamers gun down Half-Life

    Literally...

    If you hold the view that violent videogames encourage real-life violence, then stop reading now. Because Register Hardware’s discovered news of some US gaming geeks playing Half-Life with real guns. Can't see the video? Download Flash Player from Adobe.com Waterloo Labs - a group of engineers and “other nerds” from Texas …

    reghardware 7 Aug 2009, 12:15

  • YouTube clarifies ban on privacy, harassment and threats

    Basically, don't be an ass

    YouTube has clarified the conditions under which it would remove videos that invade people's privacy or harass, impersonate or threaten them. YouTube maintains 'community guidelines' and removes videos that are flagged by users as violating them. According to the site: "YouTube staff review flagged videos 24 hours a day, seven …

    Music and Media 7 Aug 2009, 12:26

  • Brazilian TV ad: Save water, piss in the shower

    Vid Cartoon Gandhi shown turning grey water golden green

    Brazilian treehuggers have released a TV ad encouraging people to urinate in the shower so as to avoid unnecessary use of water when flushing the lavatory. The short vid shows various authoritative leaders of opinion including Mahatma Gandhi and King Kong - in cartoon form - engoldening their showertime experience in righteous …

    Bootnotes 7 Aug 2009, 12:29

  • Twitter meltdown raises questions about site stability

    Micro-blogging site knocked over by stiff burst of wind

    The paralysing effect of an internet attack against Twitter has raised questions about the site's apparent fragility. Attacks against accounts maintained by pro-Georgian blogger Cyxymu at a number of social networking sites including Facebook, Blogger and LiveJournal as well as Twitter, and apparently aimed at silencing him, …

    Spam 7 Aug 2009, 12:33

  • Big label stakes highlight Spotify's truthiness trouble

    This is my truth, tell me yours

    Major labels have the largest equity stakes in Spotify, a Swedish computer title reports. The company has previously denied this. But how much will artists see from the deals? The four major labels - Universal, Warners, Sony, and EMI paid for an 18 per cent share of Spotify's stock. Merlin, the licensing agency backed by the …

    Music and Media 7 Aug 2009, 13:08

  • GM hybrid SUV planned for 2011

    Leccy Tech A Buick, but not as you know it

    General Motors (GM) has claimed that, come 2011, it will become the first car manufacturer to launch a plug-in hybrid SUV in North America. GM's Saturn Vue hybrid (above) could influce the 2011 hybrid Buick's design and drive Since crawling its way out of bankruptcy, GM has begun outlining its e-car future in areas other …

    reghardware 7 Aug 2009, 14:02

  • Coppers make fake football sites pay penalty

    Fans fouled by bogus vendors

    The Metropolitan Police's e-crime unit has taken out about 100 websites which claimed to be selling tickets for Premier League football matches. In fact, fans got either fake tickets or nothing at all. Operation Phyllite was the result of co-operation between the Police Central e-crime Unit (PCeU), the Premier League, FIFA and …

    Policing 7 Aug 2009, 14:16

  • Booming scareware biz raking in $34m a month

    Panda dissects rogue security software market

    Fraudsters are making approximately $34m per month through scareware attacks, designed to trick surfers into purchasing rogue security packages supposedly needed to deal with non-existent threats. A new study, The Business of Rogueware, by Panda Security researchers Luis Corrons and Sean-Paul Correll, found that scareware …

    Crime 7 Aug 2009, 14:39

  • U.S. unemployment rate slips slightly

    IT loses [on] balance

    Economists were bracing for deep jobs cuts in the U.S. economy during the month of July, but could relax this morning as the numbers coming out of the Bureau of Labor Statistics were not as bad as expected, and not an unhappy surprise like Americans got in June. The situation is still bad, with 247,000 people losing their jobs …

    Financial News 7 Aug 2009, 14:49

  • iTablet to rake in $1bn, claims analyst

    $600 x 2m units = $$$

    Apple hasn’t coughed up to the existence of the iTablet yet, but that hasn’t stopped one analyst from predicting that the gadget will generate Apple an extra $1bn (£597m/€696m) over 12 months. Gene Munster, Senior Analyst at US-based investment bank Piper Jaffray, told CNN that Apple stands to sell 2m iTablets during the …

    reghardware 7 Aug 2009, 14:57

  • Martha Lane-Fox: No broadband, no citizenship

    Aloof, useless, and in need of coercion

    "I don't think you can be a proper citizen in our society in the future if you're not online," says self-confessed web-zealot Martha Lane Fox. She was appearing on a surprisingly good BBC Radio 4 investigation into internet refuseniks. But why stop there, Martha? Why not remove the vote from anyone who's gone more than four …

    Music and Media 7 Aug 2009, 15:18

  • Samsung Windows Mobile competition winners

    And the first names out of the tinfoil hat are...

    Our congratulations to the following Reg readers who entered and our recent Samsung Windows Mobile competition. Richard Bogle of Edinburgh and Maria Reilly from Glasgow both win spanky new smartphones. Well done to the pair of you - your new handsets are winging their way over. Better luck next time to the rest of you. Keep …

    Site News 7 Aug 2009, 15:24

  • Does *free* virtualization = certain chaos?

    Reader workshop Round-up of discussion from week two

    This week we broached the subject of 'stuff that can go wrong with virtualization'. One of the comments we received on last week’s round-up article serves as a good lead in. The Reg reader was asking for: 'free, good virtualization software [to] come with server OS'es as standard...once virtualization software costs drop to " …

    Software 7 Aug 2009, 16:03

  • Telco offers 911 by txt

    hlp, dey nicked my ph

    Americans in Iowa can now summon the emergency services by text message, as long as they're with T-Mobile, happen to be within Black Hawk County and have time to respond to a message or two. The service isn't perfect just yet - tracking location from a text is tricky - so anyone using the 911-text service will receive a …

    Mobile 7 Aug 2009, 16:03

  • Malaysia mulls Chinese Green Dam twin

    Net sedition porn filter

    Malaysia - the Southeast Asian country that has imprisoned at least two bloggers under sedition laws - is mulling a net filter along the lines of China's Green Dam. But Information Minister Rais Yatim says it would not be used to censor blogs and websites. During a press conference in Kuala Lumpur, Reuters reports, Rais said …

    Government 7 Aug 2009, 17:30

  • IT admin charged in Xmas Eve rampage on charity

    Disunited Way

    The former sysadmin for a Florida-based charity stands accused of ransacking the organization's servers and phone systems last Christmas eve, more than a year after his employment there ended. Luis Robert Altamarino, who had been given administrator access to the computer network of United Way Miami-Dade, breached the systems …

    Crime 7 Aug 2009, 17:45

  • Circular Awards 2009 - now with added Astroturf

    Where Freetard honours Freetard

    We're in our fifth year of watching the circular awards business - where like-minded campaign groups indulge in an annual orgy of backscratching. And this is shaping up to be the most exciting yet! It first caught our attention in 2005, when the Electronic Frontier Foundation decided to give its prestigious 'Pioneer Award' - …

    Odds and Sods 7 Aug 2009, 18:16

  • Man blames cat for child porn downloads

    One kitty. One thousand pics

    A Florida man accused of downloading more than 1,000 images of child pornography is blaming the offense on his cat, according to published reports. Keith Griffin of Jensen Beach is charged with 10 counts of child porn possession after detectives found the images on his home computer, the Associated Press reports. …

    Odds and Sods 7 Aug 2009, 19:30

  • Rogue iPhone app stores raking mazuma

    Jailbreaking for fun and profit

    Apple's heavy-handed App Store mismanagement may anger and frustrate many iPhone developers and users, but it's making one group quite happy: jailbreakers. There's a growing subculture of iPhone developers who are opting out of the App Store altogether, instead punting their wares on Cydia, an iPhone App Store "For the Rest of …

    Mobile 7 Aug 2009, 19:36

  • Microsoft secures web Office XML patent

    No prosecution. Promise

    Microsoft might be offering up its XML-based Office specs and formats with a promise not to prosecute, but that hasn't stopped it from locking down another patent on the suite. The company has been awarded a US patent apparently intended to protect the formatting and editing of Word documents that use XML. Microsoft's patent …

    Applications 7 Aug 2009, 20:13

  • Robo soup chefs wrangle ramen

    And now for my next trick...

    The ongoing Meltdown has required many unemployed workers to take jobs below their station, but perhaps none have fallen further than two industrial robots who are now employed as noodle chefs in Nagoya, Japan. In full view of the gathered pastaficianados, the robots - forced to work naked - boil ramen noodles, pour soup into …

    Odds and Sods 7 Aug 2009, 20:38

  • Tesla speeds to $1m profit

    Roadster surge

    While the rest of the US auto industry is dissolving during the ongoing Meltdown, Tesla Motors - the manufacturer of high-end all-electric speedsters - is making money. The San Carlos, California company announced on Friday that it had squeezed $1m of profit out of $20m in sales during during July. The company sold a record …

    Financial News 7 Aug 2009, 21:48

  • Ubuntu man extends olive branch to irate Debian devs

    Shuttleworth: We must work together

    Mark Shuttleworth has offered to put more Canonical employees on to Debian at the expense of Ubuntu, in a potential compromise with angry Debian developers. The offer is designed to help Debian hit a proposed code freeze date for the next version of the Linux distro in December. Shuttleworth said the diversion would mean "we' …

    Developer 7 Aug 2009, 23:00