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28th August 2009 Archive

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  • Dell sees 'stability,' not growth

    Profits drop 23% on weak corporate sales

    Dell sees stability returning to the PC market during its fiscal second quarter, but not a lot of growth. Weak technology spending sank Dell's revenue across all major business units compared to the same period ended July 31 last year. Dell's revenues totaled $12.76bn in its fiscal second quarter, down 22 per cent from the …

    Financial News 28 Aug 00:10

  • Yahoo! loses spot at Britain's biggest ISP

    Search function goes to Google

    In a bizarre development Yahoo! has lost its search place on the BT Yahoo! home page to Google. BT is the UK's largest ISP and the deal will presumably not do much for Yahoo!'s page impressions, which it puts at 720m a month for the UK and Ireland (that's from 2001). Google already provided the technology behind the search but …

    Telecoms 28 Aug 08:02

  • Computacenter eats recession for breakfast

    Downturn? We don't see no steenking downturn

    Computacenter's half yearly results show a slight fall in turnover but a big jump in profits, as the firm's cost cutting programme starts to bear fruit. Even perpetual bugbears - their businesses in France - are showing signs of turnaround. France cut its losses by 25 per cent and grew revenue by 2.2 per cent, mostly due to …

    Channel Register 28 Aug 08:40

  • Pillar first past 2TB post

    Doubles SATA drive capacity

    Pillar Data is the first manufacturer to incorporate 2TB SATA drives in its arrays, doubling the Axiom product's capacity. CEO Mike Workman says the firm is using Western Digital's 5400rpm 2TB drive. Pillar was also the first array manufacturer to use 1TB drives, which came from Hitachi GST. Array subsystem manufacturer …

    Storage 28 Aug 08:41

  • Reg bean counter in charity cycling towerathon

    From Paris to Blackpool, the hard way

    It's come to our attention that El Reg's chief bean counter Charlie Caton is about to arrive in Blackpool having decided to tackle his mid-life crisis head-on by cycling there from Paris. The gruelling trek from La Ville-Lumière's famous Eiffel erection to Blackpool's rather more modest tower will benefit Rock FM's Cash for …

    Bootnotes 28 Aug 08:56

  • Copan cops more funding

    Becalmed MAID vendor swallows another $3m

    Struggling power-down array systems vendor Copan has raised another $3m; it wanted another $6.2m according to a techrockies report of a company filing in Colorado. To recap: Copan is a start-up which sells Massive Array of Idle Disks (MAID) technology storage arrays, in which three-quarters of the drives are powered down, thus …

    Storage 28 Aug 09:25

  • WPA keys gone in 60 seconds

    Time to move to WPA 2

    Networking nerds claim to have devised a way of breaking Wi-Fi Protected Access (WPA) encryption within 60 seconds. The technique, developed by Toshihiro Ohigashi of Hiroshima University and Masakatu Morii of Kobe University, is based on the established Becks-Tews method, which involves making minor changes to packets …

    Wireless 28 Aug 10:11

  • Loch Ness Monster surfaces on Google Earth

    Scottish leviathan spied from space

    Scotland's Loch Ness is doubtless braced for a stampede of Nessie-spotters after a reader of UK tabloid The Sun provided Google Earth evidence of the existence of the Scottish lake's elusive leviathan: A closer look (.kmz here) reveals the astounding truth: Eagle-eyed security guard Jason Cooke, 25, from Nottingham, …

    Bootnotes 28 Aug 10:25

  • Home Office coughs to larger data loss

    Another 250,000 records lunched

    The Home Office has admitted to losing a quarter of a million more records than it originally thought. The figure is revealed in its Resource Accounts for 2008-2009. PA Consulting lost a memory stick last September, which was originally reported to contain details on 127,000 people. In fact the stick, which remains lost, …

    Government 28 Aug 10:28

  • Belgian boy's iPhone 'explodes'

    'The screen went completely black'

    After a spate of incidents in France, a 15-year-old Belgium boy today claimed he too has suffered at the hands of an allegedly exploding iPhone. So far there have been 11 reported cases of European iPhone screens which have spontaneously done crazy paving impersonations or - in a few extreme cases - suddenly shattered. All 11 …

    Reg Hardware 28 Aug 10:44

  • Manufacturer demos two-screen 15in laptop

    Planning 13in, 16in and 17in models, too

    A PC maker has unveiled a prototype laptop with two sliding display screens. GScreen's Spacebook: has two 15.4in side-by-side screens Designed by GScreen and called Spacebook, the machine will have two 15.4in displays for buyers to gaze at. The left-hand screen slides in behind the right-hand panel, but both can be used …

    Reg Hardware 28 Aug 10:47

  • EA exec predicts PlayStation 3.5, Xbox 560

    Hints at staggered future for console upgrades

    An executive at game publisher Electronic Arts has hinted that both Sony and Microsoft will roll out new consoles in stages. Speculation about an Xbox 720 and PlayStation 4 have been around since, well, two days after the Xbox 360 and PS3 were launched. But Rich Hilleman, Chief Creative Officer at EA, said: “I expect we’ll …

    Reg Hardware 28 Aug 10:54

  • C2000 hits out at loveless Novell

    You don't mean that much to me

    Computer 2000 has slammed Novell by labelling the software maker as “not channel-friendly”. Novell recently dropped the IT distie and has warned other UK distributors to pull their act together or face being axed by the firm. However, C2000’s UK software boss James Reed told The Register that he wasn’t bothered about losing …

    Channel Register 28 Aug 10:58

  • Lad from Lagos makes YouTube pitch

    Prince Obi and his Web 2.0 dollars

    Fans of the Lads from Lagos will enjoy this Friday piece of silliness: a classic 419 pitch from one Prince Obi Matumbe Akumbe, who's ditched the traditional email and decided to lay out his stall on YouTube: Good stuff. Anyone interested in taking up Prince Obi's tempting offer should get in touch via, of course, his …

    Bootnotes 28 Aug 11:14

  • NASA suffers rocket fail 20 seconds from firing

    Discovery delayed too and the moon probe navigation fails...

    Troubled US space agency NASA yesterday scrubbed a test-firing of the Ares I rocket - which will carry American astronauts into space after the space shuttle fleet retires - with just 20 seconds left on the countdown. Meanwhile other problems have seen this week's launch of the shuttle Discovery delayed, and a moon-impact probe …

    Space 28 Aug 11:19

  • Hackers serve up pre-release malware to Mac fanboys

    Snow Leopard scuppered, f*cks it for Foxit

    Virus slingers are taking advantage of the release of Apple's Snow Leopard operating system by offering malware from sites touting operating system upgrades. Dodgy sites supposedly offering Snow Leopard were rigged to push an Apple-specific DNS changer Trojan, detected by Trend Micro as JAHLAV-K. The malware is a MAC OS X …

    Malware 28 Aug 11:22

  • Unanimis turns Orange

    Mobile ads you've been waiting for are nearly here

    Orange has snapped up on-line advertising company Unanimis for an undisclosed sum, putting an awful lot of eyeballs in front of France Telecom's content. Neither company is saying how much Orange is paying for UK-based Unanimis, but the company turned over £21.7m last year so should be worth a bob or two. Unanimis is nicely …

    Mobile 28 Aug 11:25

  • Sky's the limit

    Hacks nick Twit pics then nix fixing it

    When Sky News needed pictures of a shooting at Waterloo Station, it grabbed them from the nearest internet source – with neither acknowledgement nor payment. This episode has now ended happily, with Sky News agreeing to pay tweeter Joe Neale a fee for using his pictures – but the episode does provide a stark warning for all …

    Music and Media 28 Aug 11:33

  • UK Femtocell manufacturer goes it alone

    What happens if you bring the water to the horse?

    A UK manufacturer is planning to sell Femtocells direct to the public, just as soon as it can get enough punters signed up to force interoperation on the network operators. The femtocell comes from HSL - Hay Systems Ltd. - who have eschewed the usual path of making deals with network operators in favour of a straight-to- …

    Mobile 28 Aug 11:36

  • Breakfast cereal freebie CD dishes up hard-core smut

    Swedish woman in porn flakes shocker

    A Swedish woman has described herself as "shaken" and somewhat "disappointed" that a freebie fitness CD from a packet of Nestlé Fitness cereal dished up hard-core porn in addition to the healthy benefits of a dance-based workout. Ida Riedel Palmer, 23, popped the "Body Jam" disc into her computer and was immediately directed …

    Bootnotes 28 Aug 11:39

  • Guardian recruits citizen journalists to cover Climate Camp

    Hi-tech democracy - or old-fashioned wages cut?

    Relationships between the Guardian newspaper and professional photojournalists look set to worsen next week, as the Guardian uses Flickr to recruit Climate Camp protesters as unpaid freelance photographers. Critics have claimed that this raises issues of partiality – questioning whether the Guardian would meekly accept a photo …

    Music and Media 28 Aug 12:00

  • Virgin Media 'overwhelmed' by broadband customers fleeing BT

    Exclusive Result? Delays aplenty

    Hundreds of people who have recently signed up to Virgin Media UK’s ADSL broadband service face lengthy delays getting their accounts activated. The company has blamed a sudden spike in demand for its relaunched ADSL package, which is intended for would-be customers who live outside of the operator’s cable coverage and want to …

    Telecoms 28 Aug 12:03

  • Venezuela to ban violent videogames?

    Bill gaining political support

    An end to the sale of violent videogames in Venezuela has moved one step closer to becoming a reality. Venezuela’s National Assembly recently considered the Prohibition of Video Games and Toy Weapons bill, which it subsequently approved after just one debate. The bill’s exact details aren’t widely known, but the title …

    Reg Hardware 28 Aug 12:03

  • Panasonic DMR-BS850

    Review Freesat+ Blu-ray recorder with nearly all the trimmings

    At first glance, Panasonic’s DMR-BS850 Freesat+ Blu-ray recorder is essentially identical in appearance to the DMR-XS350, it’s DVD version we reviewed recently. Actually, Panasonic offer two Blu-ray models with the £1000 DMR-BS850 featuring a 500GB hard drive, while the DMR-BS750 has 250GB drive and an £800 price tag. Shop …

    Reg Hardware 28 Aug 12:15

  • Home Office publishes bold do-nothing initiative

    As you were, lads

    The Home Office's approach to mobile payment security parrots exactly what the industry is already doing: publishing guidelines for a technology that nobody wants or ever intends to use. Never let it be said that the UK Home Office doesn't move quickly: contactless payments from mobile phones have been dead in the water for …

    Government 28 Aug 13:50

  • The Prisoner of Blogger

    There is no escape from the spinning wheel of death

    I am not a free man, I am a number - number 27950736 to be precise - on Blogger, the village cloud application I've been trying to escape from for the past year. Oh, it started out great in 2006. Seemed like a nice thing. But a year and a bit in, the Blogger machine's FTP service began stumbling. FTP publishing isn't …

    Applications 28 Aug 14:08

  • Apple working on Mac tablet in addition to 10in iPod?

    Mole says he spied 13in and 15in models

    Here's a twist to the Apple iTablet story: in addition to the 10in scaled up iPod Touch model, the Mac maker is also working on 13in and 15in models, both running Mac OS X. So says a mole who, according to Gizmodo, has "always been 100 per cent reliable". The Throat said he saw the two tablets in a factory in Shenzuen, China. …

    Reg Hardware 28 Aug 14:20

  • UK media: 'Met Office computer will destroy the world'

    Analysis Oh for f*ck's sake

    The UK media has plunged into an unusually cretinous feeding frenzy following the "news" that the Met Office headquarters complex in Devon - owing to the presence of a lot of supercomputing hardware there - is considered to lie at 103rd place in a table ranking nearly 30,000 large UK buildings by carbon-emissions footprint. …

    Environment 28 Aug 14:26

  • Hackers scalp Apache

    SSH hits the fan

    The website of Apache was taken offline for several hours on Friday after the SSH remote administration key on one of its servers was compromised. SSH is a widely used technology for remote administration, so in the worst scenario the compromise created a means for hackers to upload Trojanised code onto the download section of …

    Enterprise Security 28 Aug 14:32

  • UK Music secret data: 'Young people will pay for downloads'

    Response to government may have legal undertones

    A music trade body has kept secret the results of asking 1,800 young people how much they would pay for a limitless download service. UK Music chief executive Feargal Sharkey told OUT-LAW Radio the information was commercially sensitive. UK Music carried out a survey of 1,800 British people between the ages of 14 and 24 and …

    Music and Media 28 Aug 14:50

  • Apple signs iPhone deal with China

    Shipments to arrive in Q4 '09

    The iPhone will expand its global footprint into China now that a deal has been struck between Apple and state-owned network operator Unicom. Apple and Unicom said they have signed a multi-year deal - it's thought to run for three years - that will see the iPhone go on sale in China during Q4. It isn’t yet known how much the …

    Mobile 28 Aug 14:56

  • Whistleblower releases Skype snooping code

    VoIPwn

    The source code for a Windows Trojan capable of recording Skype calls as MP3 files has been released in a move that spells bad news for VoIP confidentiality. Swiss software developer Ruben Unteregger published the source code for a package capable of eavesdropping on encrypted Skype VoIP conversations on his website Megapanzer …

    VoIP 28 Aug 15:00

  • HTML 5 is no Flash or Silverlight killer — yet

    Death of 1,000 years cuts

    Much has been made of how HTML5 will kill proprietary media tools and players from Adobe Systems and Microsoft. Web advocates claim that with the much more sophisticated audio, video and animation tools in HTML 5, the web will no longer need proprietary plug-ins from outside vendors. While you'd be hard pressed to find anyone …

    Developer 28 Aug 15:02

  • x86 Server virtualization still work in progress

    Workshop Poll Results Good start, but it's not all plain sailing

    While x86 server virtualization is now widely accepted as an important part of IT activity looking forward, the results of our recent workshop poll of Reg readers suggests that it is still early days when it comes to implementation. As with all online polls, the respondents (301 for this one) were ‘self-selecting’, which means …

    Software 28 Aug 15:04

  • Hacks hoodwinked by hoax Baltimore mayor's website

    When The Wire and Midsomer Murders collide

    A fake website linking cult US television show The Wire to not-so-cult Blighty TV drama Midsomer Murders has hoodwinked several newspapers into reporting what they believed were the reactionary views of Baltimore mayor Sheila Dixon. The Guardian and Independent were both caught out by the hoax planted by political blogger and …

    Bootnotes 28 Aug 15:18

  • Intel boosts Q3 guidance

    Wall Street cheers silver lining in big, black cloud

    Wall Street and the IT market got some good news this morning, after the market opened as chip maker Intel said that its third quarter ending in September is shaping up to be better than expected. In a short, but sweet, statement put out by the company, Intel raised its revenue expectations for Q3 and also tightened its range …

    PCs & Chips 28 Aug 15:23

  • 'External force' fractured French iPhones, says Apple

    Batteries not to blame

    Apple has claimed that all of the iPhones it has examined which allegedly underwent sudden screen shatter did so because of pressure applied to the outside of the handset. "The iPhones with broken glass that we have analysed to date show that in all cases the glass cracked due to an external force that was applied to the …

    Reg Hardware 28 Aug 15:41

  • US regulators probe wireless competition

    Devices and infrastructure focus

    US regulators are probing the level of competition in the wireless sector in a move that could lead to broader investigation of the communications industry. The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has said it's seeking input on new issues and topics since its last report was released in this annual process in May. The …

    Telecoms 28 Aug 17:08

  • Mobile operators pooh-pooh universal phone-snooping plan

    'What, us worry?'

    Mobile operators have struck back at organizers of an open-source project that plans to crack the encryption used to protect cell phone calls, saying they are a long way from devising a practical attack. "The theoretical compromise presented at the Black Hat conference requires the construction of a large look-up table of …

    Enterprise Security 28 Aug 18:01

  • Web-based Office misses August appointment

    Tests promised "soon"

    Microsoft has promised the planned web version of its Office applications will be available for testing "soon," after missing its August deadline. A company spokesperson told The Reg Friday: "At WPC, we said the Office Web applications technical preview would tentatively be available in the August timeframe. While they will …

    Applications 28 Aug 18:21

  • Internet Archive stares down Google book mine

    Google Books Settlement Con Beware the cookie before dinner

    As part of his ongoing campaign against Google's $125m book-scanning pact, the Internet Archive's Peter Brantley has warned that even if authors opt-out of Google's Book Search service, the web giant will still have the power to mine their book data for use in other services. "There is value in the comprehensiveness [of Google …

    Music and Media 28 Aug 18:32

  • Sony explains PS3 Slim's loss of Linux option

    Old Stations to stay Penguin friendly

    After Sony's PS3 slim announcement last week, many fans were dismayed the new model would no longer include backwards compatibility and the option to run Linux as an alternative operating system. Sony stated the console's ability to run PS2 games wasn't a major "purchase intent driver" and therefore not worth the cost of …

    Operating Systems 28 Aug 19:12

  • Fed chairman hit by ID thieves

    22 charges after hundreds are hit by pickpocket-allied fraudsters

    The US Federal Reserve Board chairman has become the latest high-profile public figure to fall victim to identity theft. Ben Bernanke, whose day job leaves him in charge of the US money supply, became the victim of fraud after a pick pocket stole his wife's handbag from a Starbucks shop in Washington's Eastern Market. Credit …

    Crime 28 Aug 19:40

  • US Dems fill inboxes with 419 scams

    democrats.org co-opted

    Scammers pumping out emails that try to trick recipients into parting with large sums of cash are getting a helping hand from the Democratic National Committee. According to a researcher with anti-spam company Cloudmark, 419 fraudsters have been relaying a "significant" amount of messages through the democrats.org domain name …

    Security 28 Aug 19:41

  • OpSource floats VMware cloud

    Like Amazon EC2, only better

    OpSource is hot on the heels of Amazon Web Services in announcing its own virtual private cloud with the debut of a beta program for what it's calling OpSource Cloud. A virtual private cloud like the ones that AWS and OpSource are rolling out take public cloud computing one half-step back to the corporate data center, allowing …

    Virtualization 28 Aug 22:52

  • Snow Leopard arrives with meow, not a roar

    Photo special Fanbois ain't what they used to be

    Snow Leopard went on sale this morning, and in San Francisco the turnout was modest, with merely a hundred-plus fanbois in line. Most of those queuing up with whom we spoke remarked about the lack of crowds, many comparing today's relaxed atmosphere to the wrapping-around-the-block lines for Leopard's release and the veritable …

    Operating Systems 28 Aug 23:07

  • Accused TJX hacker faces 15 to 20

    The largest (known) identity theft caper in US history

    The hacker accused of orchestrating the largest-known identity theft in US history will serve between 15 to 25 years in prison under a plea deal filed Friday. Albert "Segvec" Gonzalez is accused of leading a hacking circle that stole 130 million credit and debit card numbers from major retail chains like Barnes and Noble, T.J …

    Crime 28 Aug 23:59