16th September 2009 Archive

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Facebook acquires 300 millionth user

And stanches fiscal hemorrhage

As of today, Facebook has 300 million participants and is "cash flow positive," according to founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg. In a blog post Tuesday afternoon, the 25-year-old Zuckerberg said that although 300 million is "a large number," the company is "just getting started on our goal of connecting everyone." Those 300 …

Music and Media 16 Sep 00:30
Trial set for 'botnet for hire' duo

Zombies R' Us

A federal judge has cleared the way for the trial of two men accused of waging a cyber attack on a webhosting company so they could demonstrate the effectiveness of their botnet to potential customers. The trial of Thomas James Frederick Smith, 21, most recently of Parris Island, South Carolina, and David Anthony Edwards, 20, …

Crime 16 Sep 00:43
Opera Mini gets facelift, sprouts tabs

Small app, big ambitions

Opera is bringing multipage browsing to its popular Mini browser, with a beta rolling out today. Mini 5.0 also gets a slick visual makeover, and touch support on devices that accept touch input. Underneath it's the familiar Opera 4 Mini engine with a few tweaks, and existing users will be relieved that key shortcuts have been …

Mobile 16 Sep 06:02
Rights commission slams police DNA database advice

Still adding innocents? Well, don't

The Equality and Human Rights Commission has criticised the Association of Chief Police Officers' advice to chief constables to continue adding profiles of innocent people to the DNA database. The advice recommends continuing to apply existing retention policy until the Home Office issues new guidance in 2010. According to the …

Policing 16 Sep 07:02
Dedupe start-up GreenBytes gets green light

Only iSCSI de-duper in the world

Start-up GreenBytes has announced its GB-X products that deduplicate primary data, both NAS and iSCSI SAN, and which are based on an enhanced ZFS file system. GreenBytes was founded in 2007 by a Robert Petrocelli. He previously founded Heartlab, a Rhode Island-based health-care IT business. This was sold for $132.5m in 2005 to …

Channel Register 16 Sep 08:02
James Martin apologises for cyclist outrage

Comments 'misjudged', TV chef admits

TV chef James Martin has apologised for unkind comments he made regarding cyclists in a Mail on Sunday review of the Tesla Roadster. Martin (pictured) ill-advisedly spouted: "God, I hate those cyclists. Every last herbal tea-drinking, Harriet Harman-voting one of them. That's one of the reasons I live in the countryside, where …

Bootnotes 16 Sep 08:50
Motorola's latest enterprise handset screams as it falls

And will tell on you afterwards

Motorola's latest enterprise-ready mobile computer is really a mobile phone, but don't tell the handset division, as they're Android mad over there. The MC9500 is a Windows Mobile-based device, but one with interchangeable keypads, a user-replaceable radio module and a battery monitor embedded into the battery. It also comes …

Mobile 16 Sep 09:05
Crackdown on dodgy mobile deals

Retailers and resellers warned

Ofcom is cracking down on dodgy mobile deals and is making mobile operators responsible for the dubious practises some retailers and resellers engage in on their behalf. Companies which break the rules face fines of up to ten per cent of turnover. The industry has been plagued with complaints about the issue of cashback deals …

Channel Register 16 Sep 09:18
A Geeks Guide₂ ...SCWCD 5

40% discount at Reg Books

Geeks Guide2 In the current circumstances in which we all live and work, certifying your skills is not exactly the worst idea in the world. This week on GG2 we're offering a 40% discount on the SCWCD Study Companion - Second Edition, the book which has generated a buzz in the Sun community. As you'll have probably guessed, the …

Site News 16 Sep 10:02
Bus driver becomes Julius Andreas Gimli Arn MacGyver Chewbacka ~~Highlander~~ Elessar-Jankov

No room for Ibsen either, then?

Norwegian bus driver Andreas Jankov has officially become "Julius Andreas Gimli Arn MacGyver Chewbacka Highlander Elessar-Jankov", thereby apparently claiming the country's longest name crown. We're certain that Reg readers will be able to spot where film lover Elessar-Jankov got most of the inspiration for his makeover, but …

Bootnotes 16 Sep 10:03
Archos adds Android 'andheld to PMP collection

Archos 5 revamped

Archos has launched a super-sexy internet tablet based on the OS of the moment – Android. The redesigned Archos 5 boasts enough features to keep you entertained for up to 22 hours – the maximum length of time its internal battery will play music for. Buyers also get seven hours of video playback life, Archos said. Central to …

Reg Hardware 16 Sep 10:11
Archos Android 'tablet phone' confirmed

Due next year

Media player specialist Archos will launch an Android-based mobile phone next year, the company has revealed. Although the firm’s keeping many of the unnamed device’s specifications close to its chest for the time being, it has said the handset will feature a 4.3in display. The company also confirmed that the device will …

Reg Hardware 16 Sep 10:25
Firms fail to focus on most dangerous security threats

Web and client side bugs top peril index

Enterprises are focusing their information security efforts in the wrong areas, leaving themselves more open to hacking attacks and malware infections as a result. The 2009 Top Cyber Risks Report from the SANS Institute concludes that most organisations are focusing their security maintenance and vulnerability scanning efforts …

Enterprise Security 16 Sep 10:30
Muse eye Bond theme

We'll have some of that, say Brit rock outfit

British rock band Muse have told the BBC they'd like the chance to have a go at the next James Bond theme. Drummer Dom Howard told Auntie: "It's something we'd probably say yes to, or at least give it a good go. Certainly some of our music fits with the James Bond vibe - and I think it could work." He added: "The last few …

Entertainment 16 Sep 10:31
Belkin preps Wi-Fi gadget-sharer

Nas-style adaptor for a variety of kit

We've been waiting for one of these. Plenty of wireless routers will let you hook a printer up to them in order to share it on the network. That's fine - provided your printer is proximate to your router. If it's not, you're out of luck. Belkin's Home Base: push-button security Enter, now, Belkin with Home Base, essentially …

Reg Hardware 16 Sep 10:35
YouTube Lad from Lagos stranded in London

Take pity on poor Prince Obi

Pity if you will poor Prince Obi - our fave Lad from Lagos who last month made a YouTube appeal for assistance - because the poor bloke's apparently stranded in London having flown in to do business with one James Alexander Smith. Sadly, it's evident that Smith has led Prince Obi a merry dance. For shame... Lovely. You …

Bootnotes 16 Sep 10:57
Dell pays $4m to settle NY 'deceptive practices' claim

PC co forced New Yorkers to check cables, use screwdrivers

Dell will cough up $4m to the New York Attorney General's Office to resolve charges of "fraudulent and deceptive business practices" related to its finance and service promotions. The deal follows the New York Supreme Court's backing of the NY Attorney General's claims that "Dell had engaged in fraud, false advertising, …

Channel Register 16 Sep 11:00
O2 gets into fixed line with BT

Back to the future

O2 will start offering business customers fixed line telecoms services from October. Ben Dowd, business sales director at O2, said both small businesses and larger corporates were moving towards integrated services and joined up systems. He said many firms do not want the hassle of dealing with lots of different suppliers. He …

Networks 16 Sep 11:08
Renault unveils e-car foursome

Leccy Tech Something for everyone, apparently

Renault has announced four e-cars at the ongoing Frankfurt Motor Show. Renault's Fluence (far left), Twizy (left), Kangoo (right) and Zoe The line-up includes the Twizy Z.E. city runabout and the slightly more practical Zoe Z.E. small hatchback, both of which Renault described as “close to production concepts”. Despite the …

Reg Hardware 16 Sep 11:08
Google bolts 'stable' Chrome 3 onto interwebs

Demands bigger stake in market

Google has released a “stable” Windows-only version of Chrome 3, and admitted it’ll be “exceptionally disappointed” if it hasn’t grabbed at least five per cent of the browser market by this time next year. Chrome debuted a little over a year ago, but take-up hasn’t been as swift as Google might’ve expected. The browser …

Applications 16 Sep 11:26
Cracks show in music industry over P2P enforcement

Retreat on suspension of net access

Divisions inside the music business have prompted its umbrella trade organisation to issue a statement today denying any serious rift, while dodging the issue of whether it will urge the government to cut off persistent pirates from the net. The ructions were provoked by last week's statement from the Featured Artists …

Music and Media 16 Sep 11:40
Sears told to destroy data gathered by online tracking software

Catalogue of snooping does not impress FTC

US retailer Sears has been ordered to destroy all the customer data it collected from a piece of online tracking software that consumer regulator the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) said was unfairly used. The FTC said that while customers had been warned that, once downloaded, software would track their browsing, it had in …

Government 16 Sep 11:42
NO2ID beats off ad complaint

ASA rules in its favour

The Advertising Standards Authority has rejected a complaint about a NO2ID advertisement which warned of the likelihood of personal information leaking from the proposed National Identity Register. The ad showed a man's face with an apparent boast of how he can access what he wants on the register and sell information on it to …

Government 16 Sep 12:01
Dell 2145cn colour laser

Review A versatile multifunctional printer – surely not?

Dell’s 2145cn is a mid-range multifunction device, designed for small office and modest workgroup use, but includes several, big-machine functions. Unusually, it’s also built around a colour laser engine. Dell’s 2145cn: multifunctional with duplex printing and scanning There’s only one thing you can be pretty certain of …

Reg Hardware 16 Sep 12:02
HP chases Cisco with ProCurve blade switches

Networking convergence. Almost

Hewlett-Packard is getting its converged networking act together. Today, the company announced two new ProCurve switches for its BladeSystem c-Class chassis, and one of them sports 10 Gigabit Ethernet connectivity, with the promise of supporting converged enhanced Ethernet, the soon-to-be-standardized protocol that rips off …

Channel Register 16 Sep 12:02
US Spec Ops operates psywar websites targeted at UK

As far as we can tell we aren't one of them

The secretive US Special Operations Command (SOCOM) has awarded arms globocorp General Dynamics a $10m contract to set up a network of psychological-warfare "influence websites" supporting the Global War On Terror. France and Britain are specifically included as "targeted regions". SOCOM is principally famous for its large …

Government 16 Sep 12:09
No third service pack for Windows Server 2003

Support to be downgraded next summer

Microsoft has outlined some support changes coming in July 2010 for wrinkly versions of its Windows Server platform. The software giant's Windows Server ops manager Chrissy House declared yesterday that extended support for Windows Server 2000 will end on 13 July 2010. She was also at pains to "clarify some misperceptions" …

Channel Register 16 Sep 12:11
Retailer says 'No' to PSP Go!

Slams Sony and its latest console

Sony would probably have you believe that retailers are climbing over one another to stock the PSP Go! But one Dutch retailer has refused to stock the firm’s latest handheld console. Nedgame, a nine-store videogame chain in the Netherlands, has posted a message to customers on its website that it has decided not to stock the …

Reg Hardware 16 Sep 12:23
US researchers demand cell phone safety tax

Pimp my funding

A US senate subcommittee was told this week by cellphone safety researchers that more money is needed to research cellphone safety, ideally through a $1 tax on every mobile-phone bill. The usual suspects turned up to present evidence to the Subcommittee on Labour, Health, and Human Services, which was sitting to consider the …

Mobile 16 Sep 12:27
Managing the Windows desktop estate: Your view

Reg Reader Studies Tell us what you really think

Some things in life, it is often considered, should ‘just work’ - and so it is for the desktop and laptop PCs (the majority running Windows) that are in general use across organisations of all sizes. Pity the poor person who has to keep these facilities running, often in the face of complete disinterest from the users themselves …

Tech Panel 16 Sep 12:46
Cisco pumps up small business line

Adds hardware, incentives for little guys

The nearest thing to Cisco's heart is clearly a nice, solid conglom to sell oodles of networking kit. But about a year ago, the company glued together products and people from across LinkSys and its US reseller channel to create a new unified SMB program. Since then, the company has been punting small business technology with …

Channel Register 16 Sep 13:02
Power grid takedown: A new how-to

Domino effect could short-circuit US West Coast

A well targeted attack against a small power grid subnetwork might result in a cascading failure across the entire US West Coast electricity grid, according to a Chinese academic. A team led by Jian-Wei Wang, a network analyst at China's Dalian University of Technology, discovered the potential weakness after using publicly …

Enterprise Security 16 Sep 13:22
Fon community embraces GSM

Hotspot network just waiting for an operator to call

Hotspot sharing community Fon has signed a deal with Ubiquisys to put GSM cells into Fon hotspots, just as soon as they can get a network operator to let them. Fon users are already able to get internet connectivity via each other's hotspots, but the new agreement between Fon and Ubiquisys is intended to allow members of the …

Mobile 16 Sep 13:27
Exanet and 3PAR buddy up

Block and file storage in marriage of convenience

Unified block and file storage has received another fillip, as 3PAR and Exanet have got together to layer Exanet's clustered NAS head onto 3PAR's InServ block array. Exanet provides its ExaStor Clustered NAS (Network-attached Storage) Servers to serve files to servers in a scaleable way, presenting a single virtual file system …

Storage 16 Sep 13:56
Tory surveillance backlash: Worthy, but is it workable?

Big stick needed to poke out Big Brother's eye

Conservative proposals to roll back the surveillance state may score an A for effort – but maybe only a B for practicality. Speaking today on the launch of Reversing the rise of the surveillance state, Shadow Justice Secretary Dominic Grieve MP condemned Labour's approach to databases and surveillance as "intrusive, …

Government 16 Sep 14:04
Japanese chip giants merge

Could get government help

Two big players in Japanese chip making, NEC and Renesas are to merge their operations in a deal which could pave the way for government help. NEC Electronics and Renesas will integrate their operations from early next year, as long as shareholders, and regulators, approve. As part of the deal Renesas will issue shares to …

Channel Register 16 Sep 14:20
Seagate links HDDs to web

Nas dock launched

We’ve all arrived somewhere only to discover that we left that all-important presentation or document on our home PC. So Seagate has launched its latest in access-anywhere storage: the FreeAgent DockStar. Seagate's DockStar: makes your data wireless DockStar is compatible with Seagate’s FreeAgenct Go external HDD range, but …

Reg Hardware 16 Sep 15:25
Database containing 1.8m UK postcode locations leaks online

Knock, knock. Who's there?

An alleged copy of the UK postcode list has tipped up on WikiLeaks. The whistleblower site claims to currently be hosting a database containing 1,841,177 Blighty postcodes “together with latitude and longitude, grid references, country, district, ward, NHS codes and regions, Ordnance Survey reference, and date of introduction …

Enterprise Security 16 Sep 15:41
Citrix gooses XenApp with virtualization

A third way for PC apps to stream

As if keeping track of the many similarly named products coming from Citrix Systems in the wake of its acquisition of virtualization upstart XenSource was not difficult enough, now Citrix is mixing and matching formerly separate technologies to give customers new ways to get centrally controlled applications out to corporate …

Virtualization 16 Sep 16:16
Looking at the threat landscape

Regcast It’s getting scary out there...

Be it Botnets or targeted attacks, increasingly sophisticated threats to your organisation are lurking just around the corner. Stay bang up to date on the latest techniques and how to best combat them by tuning into The Register’s Understanding The Threat Webcast. This 35 minute audio webcast with accompanying slide deck …

Security 16 Sep 16:19
Microsoft security tools give devs the warm fuzzies

Testing times

Microsoft has released a general-purpose software tool for assessing the security of applications, part of a growing suite of free offerings designed to help third-party developers design safer programs. Microsoft Minifuzz is a lightweight file fuzzer, a type of tool that detects software bugs by throwing random data at an …

Developer 16 Sep 17:42
Black hole swallows EMEA server revenues

Decline and Fall

The box counters at IDC gave their prognosis for the global server racket a few weeks ago, pointing to the worst sales quarter in terms of year-on-year declines, in the firm's history of tracking such numbers. If you were expecting some good news concerning server sales out of Europe, forget it. By IDC's reckoning, server …

Channel Register 16 Sep 18:33
White hats release exploit for critical Windows vuln

Microsoft not immune to Immunity

White-hat hackers have released reliable code that remotely exploits a critical vulnerability in the Vista and Server 2008 versions of Microsoft's Windows operating system. The exploit code, released Wednesday by security firm Immunity, came as separate researchers with the Metasploit penetration testing project said they were …

Security 16 Sep 20:10
Microsoft targets Google's mobile dream with Bing

Internalize the vision

Microsoft is building Bing with a view towards beating Google in an area its internet rival has highlighted as ripe for massive growth: mobile search. One of the chief architects behind Microsoft's deal to take over Yahoo!'s search has said Bing is being built to present results suited to mobile phones. Charles Songhurst, …

Music and Media 16 Sep 20:15
Googlebooks crusade captures CAPTCHA king

Fights spam. Pumps OCR

Google has acquired reCAPTCHA, a free CAPTCHA service that also serves as a means of digitizing printed books and newspapers. Among other things, the Mountain View web giant is looking to juice its ever-controversial library-scanning Book Search project. Google announced the acquisition this morning with a post to the Official …

Music and Media 16 Sep 20:40
Second Life slapped with counterfeit sex toy suit

Sadville v Stroker Serpentine

A pair of Second Life entrepreneurs are suing the game's creator, Linden Lab, for allowing other players to sell "knockoffs" of their virtual sex organs, erotic poses, designer clothing, and other trademarked items. Kevin Alderman (known in Second Life as "Stroker Serpentine") alleges that Linden facilitates and profits from …

Music and Media 16 Sep 21:47
Skype founders sue eBay in license brawl

Your software is my software

The founders of Skype sued eBay for copyright infringement almost two weeks after it agreed to sell a majority stake in the voice over IP business for $2bn. Joltid, which is owned by Janus Friis and Niklas Zennstrom, filed suit in Northern California US District Court over peer-to-peer technology included in Skype software, …

Music and Media 16 Sep 21:54
Lucky iPhone developer gets very own App Store hotline

The non-silent treatment

As a worldwide chorus of mobile developers howls over Apple's unwillingness to discuss the ins and outs of the iPhone App Store, Steve Jobs and his minions are providing at least one app seller with its very own support rep. According to Mike Simon - CEO of LogMeIn, the newly-public remote control outfit whose $30 iPhone app …

Mobile 16 Sep 22:39
Oracle Q1 sales down, profit up

Keeping Sun at arm's length

Oracle, the software giant and hardware wannabe, put its first quarter of fiscal 2010 ended August 31 to bed today, and like other software makers, sales of new software licenses continue to be crunched by the economic meltdown and the strengthening US dollar. But rising software license and product support revenues helped …

Financial News 16 Sep 23:05
Inmate 'fesses to prison computer hack

Jailbreaking the HR system

A former US inmate has pleaded guilty to hacking into the prison's computer system to obtain the personal data of more than 1,100 prison service workers. Francis G Janosko, 43, of Halifax and Plymouth, Massachussets, confessed to computer hacking offences on Tuesday. In return, charges of aggravated identity theft were dropped …

Crime 16 Sep 23:31
ARM wrestles Intel for netbook crown

Let battle commence

UK chip-design house ARM has announced the development of a pair of dual-core processors intended to go head-to-head with Intel's Atom line in the battle for the hearts and minds of netboook manufacturers. According to Wednesday's announcement, the two Cortex-A9 MPCore implementations are designed for silicon pumped up to …

PCs & Chips 16 Sep 23:39