22nd September 2009 Archive

Browse by publication date, or search the site.

Linus calls Linux 'bloated and huge'

LinuxCon 2009 No diet plan in sight

Linux creator Linus Torvalds says the open source kernel has become "bloated and huge," with no midriff-slimming diet plan in sight. During a roundtable discussion at LinuxCon in Portland, Oregon this afternoon, moderator and Novell distinguished engineer James Bottomley asked Tovalds whether Linux kernel features were being …

Operating Systems 22 Sep 00:41
SGI births smaller baby super

Resurrecting the ghost of Octane

Silicon Graphics, like Sun Microsystems, got its start as a supplier of technical workstations for nerds, and the new SGI - a combination of the old, bankrupt SGI and the niche server maker Rackable Systems - wants to do what Sun hasn't: get back into the workstation game in a serious way. Today, such a machine is not called a …

HPC 22 Sep 03:02
Microsoft accused of 'ulterior motive' in Linux patent sale

LinuxCon 2009 Redmond spreads 'fear, uncertainty, doubt'

Does the troll-blocking organization that recently secured a set of supposedly Linux-related patents from Microsoft need sizing for a penguin-shaped tinfoil hat? Or was the IP sale really Redmond's secret scheme to "create fear, uncertainty, and doubt" in the open-source community? On Monday, at LinuxCon in Portland, Oregon, …

Channel Register 22 Sep 03:42
Highways Agency plans new speed cameras

Plus over £100m to go on traffic database

England's road agency will spend around £58m over four years on digital cameras, primarily to monitor variable speed limits. The cameras ordered may also be used to measure average speeds, as well as monitor hard shoulder running, closed lanes and temporary speed enforcement. Equipment will have to undergo "extensive …

Government 22 Sep 07:02
Ellison: Sunacle is an IBM killer

'We are keeping everything'

Oracle CEO Larry Ellison plans to combine Sun Microsystems hardware - all of it - with Oracle software to take over the enterprise-computing world. "I would like us to be the successor to IBM," he told a business and technology forum Monday night in San José, California. But not today's IBM, he emphasized. "We want to be T.J …

Channel Register 22 Sep 07:15
Home Office stonewalls ID findings

How's never? Is never good for you?

The Home Office is refusing to release 'research' it carried out which was meant to prove just how very keen young people in the UK are to get hold of a delicious ID card. The department blew almost £80,000 setting up a site to find out what people aged between 16 and 25 thought of ID cards. The site operated from July to mid- …

Government 22 Sep 08:02
Acer's F1 smartphone launching 'within weeks'

Pit stop over for 1GHz handset

Acer has confirmed that its F1 smartphone will be launched next month. Little has been heard about the device since Acer first spoke about its development back in March. However, the firm has since told Register Hardware that the F1 will be available in time for the launch of Windows Mobile 6.5 – otherwise known as 6 October …

Reg Hardware 22 Sep 08:02
The Register primer on MPLS IP VPN

Connecting the multisite organisation

Multi-protocol Label Switching (MPLS) based virtual private networks (VPNs) have emerged as an affordable option for connecting medium-sized multi-site organisations. Very briefly, MPLS allows for much larger packets to be transferred with far less overhead than older standards such as Asynchronous Transfer Mode (ATM) and …

Data Networking 22 Sep 09:02
Battle erupts in Adaptec boardroom

Analysis Hostile investor wants it sold

Struggling Adaptec faces a boardroom battle, as an activist investor attempts to force a company sale. The story starts with Warren Lichenstein and his Steel Partners' hedge fund. They bought shares in troubled Adaptec in 2007, and waged a campaign to have the company sell itself and so release asset-value to shareholders. …

Storage 22 Sep 09:04
Orange issues Heroic update

But T-Mobile still out of Touch

Orange has been in touch to let us know its variant update to the HTC Hero is now available, leaving just T-Mobile customers struggling with last year's software. Both operators sell the handset, with T-Mobile branding it the G2 Touch, but customers have been frustrated at the speed with which the two networks have struggled …

Mobile 22 Sep 09:06
Elon Musk, Eberhard 'resolve' Tesla Motors wrangle

Pledge eternal chumship through gritted teeth

Famous electrocar firm Tesla Motors - known as maker of the Roadster battery supercar and as one of PayPal hecamillionaire Elon Musk's pet projects - has announced that the dispute between it and co-founder Martin Eberhard "is resolved". Eberhard had mounted a Californian lawsuit against the firm and against Musk personally in …

Science 22 Sep 09:09
Hyatt signs up to EU binding corporate rules for data transfers

Hotel firm can now send personal data worldwide

Hyatt Hotels has become just the fifth company operating in the UK to use a complex process that allows it to send personal data around the world without breaking EU rules. It has signed up to use Binding Corporate Rules (BCRs). The European Union's Data Protection Directive prevents companies sending personal data outside of …

IT Director 22 Sep 09:40
RM sees sunny forecast thanks to busiest ever summer

No fake tan here

The educational software and services supplier RM has seen trading in line with expectations so far this year. It reiterated the comments first made in May, which said that the company expects revenue to grow in FY-2009, thanks in large part to its participation in a number of Building Schools for the Futre (BSF) programmes. …

Channel Register 22 Sep 09:42
Goldman Sachs predicts IT spending rise

But small biz still struggling

Research from Goldman Sachs expects IT spending to start moving upwards in 2010, but a survey of British small firms finds many still worried about the impact of recession on their businesses. The survey from Amplify Research found a quarter of firms expect to be hit harder during the later stages of the downturn. A quarter …

Small Biz 22 Sep 09:46
SpectraLogic first off LTO-5 block

Two new dedupers, too

Data protection vendor SpectraLogic is announcing the first LTO5 drive pre-purchase programme, and is also introducing two new deduplicating disk backup and archive products for small and medium businesses. SpectraLogic is that rarity, a profitable tape automation supplier. It is privately-owned and was founded in 1979 by …

Storage 22 Sep 09:53
Twitter-based mafia game irritates world+dog

An offer you can refuse

An annoying Twitter-based Mafia game is getting under the skin of users of the micro-blogging service, many of who would sooner it slept with the fishes. Mobster World is the Twitter equivalent of the Zombies application that used to be popular on Facebook. Most users come across the service via unsolicited direct messages …

Spam 22 Sep 09:56
Futuristic head-mounted PC launching in 2010

Golden-i James Bond-esque gadget

A head-mounted device for remote smartphone and PC control using a virtual display and voice or gesture recognition will be launched next year, microdisplay firm Kopin has announced. Kopin's Golden-i wearable PC should be out next year Kopin first unveiled its concept Golden-i unit earlier this year, but has since confirmed …

Reg Hardware 22 Sep 10:25
Baroness Scotland fined for failing to follow own law

Fined but not sacked yet

Baroness Scotland, the Attorney General, has been fined £5,000 for breaking the law on employment checks which she pushed through Parliament. The country's top legal officer satisfied investigators that she did not employ the illegal immigrant knowingly but simply failed to make and keep copies of relevant documents as …

Government 22 Sep 10:27
EMC puts future on FAST forward

Towards Fibre Channel elimination and two-tier arrays

EMC is heading towards a FAST future, with transparent and automated data movement between NAND flash and spinning disk in its drive arrays. In a Tech Talk yesterday - reported by Stifel Nicolaus analyst Aaron Rakers - Barry Burke, Symmetrix chief strategy officer, said that FAST (Fully-Automated Storage Tiering) will be …

Storage 22 Sep 10:31
Online ID theft, an employee IT security guide

Site offer How to avoid it, silly

Tired of telling the net numpties at work to smarten their act on email security? Is the company's message about the dangers of online id theft falling on deaf ears? We have the just the right material for you to distribute to your workforce. The Register has teamed up with Messagelabs to offer the Employee IT Security Guide, …

Enterprise Security 22 Sep 10:36
EC probe costing Sun $100m a month

Get on with it, says Ellison

Larry Ellison claims the European Commission investigation into his proposed takeover of Sun Microsystems is costing $100m a month. Coincidentally that is exactly how much Ellison spends on scented candles to keep his fleet of fighter aircraft smelling fragrant. The Oracle boss accepted that European regulators have a job to …

Software 22 Sep 10:52
802.11n Xbox 360 adapter inbound

Microsoft confirms rumours

Following weeks of leaked images and publication of an FCC product review document, Microsoft has confirmed that a better connected Xbox 360 wireless adapter is in development. The Xbox 360 802.11n adapter Microsoft’s existing official Xbox 360 wireless adapter supports 802.11 a, b and g Wi-Fi. The upcoming model, Microsoft …

Reg Hardware 22 Sep 10:57
Pull the plug on Pandas, declares BBC man

Then torch the civil servants, human race

A BBC wildlife presenter has come off with a novel approach to saving the Giant Panda - don't bother. Chris Packham, who is all set to present the BBC's flagship Autumnwatch program, said the cuddly but rather useless Asian bears, whose diet of bamboo shoots means they never store enough fat to hibernate properly, were soaking …

Biology 22 Sep 11:24
DVD data backs Long, Poor Tail theory

More starvation tips for dippy e-tailers

Last year WiReD magazine editor Chris Anderson's Long Tail theory collided with reality and came out with a black eye. Digital music sales showed the popular hits becoming more proportionately popular, while focussing on the 'tail' promised the e-tailer starvation with 10m of 13m songs were never even downloaded once. …

Music and Media 22 Sep 11:32
US to deploy 'optionally manned' hover-dirigible in 2011

'Walrus' P-791 re-roled as aerial Afghan spyship

The US military will deploy an "optionally manned" 250-foot surveillance airship to Afghanistan by the middle of 2011, according to reports. The dirigible spy-ship will be able to lurk high above Afghan battlefields for up to three weeks at a time, relaying information to ground commanders. Aviation Week reports that the …

Science 22 Sep 11:38
Chinese hackers target media in anniversary run-up

News organisations, NGOs hit by trojan attacks

Chinese workers in foreign media outlets within China are in the firing line of a new wave of malware-laden emails. The timing of the emails, in the run-up to the 60th anniversary of the Communist Party's rise to power in mainland China on 1 October, has sparked dark accusations (supported by circumstantial evidence) that the …

Malware 22 Sep 11:40
Google tramples on 'keywords' meta tag charge

Don't sue us, we didn't do nuffink

Google has reiterated that it doesn’t use the “keywords” meta tag in its search engine web ranking results. The company’s search wonk Matt Cutts was at pains to distance Google from any suggestion that the world’s largest ad broker did use the keywords meta tag in its web search system. “Google does sell a Google Search …

Applications 22 Sep 11:53
LG GD910 Watch Phone

Review Worth the wrist?

Smartphones we are familiar with. Watches too. But combining the two is quite rare. Sure, there are sports watches that can collect information about training sessions and share it with a computer. Those with longer memories will recall things like Casio’s data bank watches with their weeny keyboards, and there was the Palm OS …

Reg Hardware 22 Sep 12:02
eBay boss bids for governorship

See what we did there? Bids... eBay... clever eh?

Meg Whitman, the ex-boss of eBay, has confirmed her bid to replace Arnold Schwarzenegger as governor of California. Arnie the Terminator must stand down in 2010 after completing four terms - he won't be back. The bid is no great surprise - Republican Whitman, who was co-chair of John McCain's failed presidential bid, left her …

Financial News 22 Sep 12:18
Microsoft stalks, poaches Apple retail staff

Readies ex-Jobsian troops to punt ~~iPhone~~ Surface, ~~Mac OSX~~ Windows 7

Microsoft is clearly not content with simply apeing Apple’s razzle-dazzle retail stores - it’s reportedly now trying to poach some of the iPod maker’s staff, too. According to the Loop, Redmond has got in touch with several of Apple’s retail bosses in an effort to woo them over to Microsoft’s forthcoming retail stores, which …

Channel Register 22 Sep 12:20
Met steps up stop and search with mobile phone scanner

Is this your phone, sir?

People stopped by the police in parts of London are having their phones scanned and instantly checked against a national database to determine whether they are stolen. The on-the-spot checks, reminiscent of Police National Computer (PNC) checks for stopped vehicles, are being trialled by officers in Ealing and Bromley. A …

Mobile 22 Sep 12:33
World's first button-less, gesture-based remote launched

Harry Potter haptics

Chuck out your clunky, button-clad remote control. Because the world’s first button-less, gesture-based remote has arrived. The Wand allows for gesture-based gadget control Despite looking like something out of the Harry Potter films, The Wand apparently allows you to control a variety of gadgets using just swishing, …

Reg Hardware 22 Sep 13:14
MaxiScale pops out of stealth

Used time to develop a massively FLEXible approach

Start-up MaxiScale has stepped from stealth mode out into the sunshine and unveiled a storage system that can serve billions of files from low-cost, commodity hardware. The FLEX software platform is based on a so-called Peer Set architecture, which uses vanilla x86 servers and SATA disk drives. A peer Set is a node in a …

Storage 22 Sep 13:23
US deputies taze traffic dodging rogue emu

Big bird leads officers on 3 day wild goose chase

Sherriff's deputies in Mississippi were forced to taze an emu on Sunday at the culmination of three days of Dromaiusine mayhem on the highways of Scott County. Scott County law officers were first alerted to a pair of rogue emus bothering traffic last Friday, but could not track down the huge flightless birds for two days. On …

Bootnotes 22 Sep 13:24
Harrods web Grotto snowed under

Fuggin' Christmas

Famed toff tat outlet Harrods has been forced to put Christmas on hold after its website buckled under the weight of families rushing for some lap time with Santa. Despite the global recession, the Knightsbridge store said it had experienced "unprecedented demand" for access to the Grotto. "We have temporarily removed the …

IT Director 22 Sep 13:37
Govt report card logs UK hacking conviction success rate

56% - Could do better

Sixty-one of the 108 people prosecuted under UK hacking laws between 2003 and 2007 were convicted. The number of successful prosecutions under the Computer Misuse Act came in a written parliamentary answer by Claire Ward, junior minister at the Ministry of Justice, in response to a question from Cardiff Lib Dem MP Jennifer …

Enterprise Security 22 Sep 13:50
Vodafone goes music mad

Pop picking, DRM-free and Warner inclusive

Vodafone has been having a busy week. It launched its very own top 40, signed up Warner Music to its download service and, this Friday, it will give away ten tracks per subscriber. The noise is all about Vodafone relaunching its music service, with a rebranded interface promoted with some freebies and exclusive deals. But …

Music and Media 22 Sep 14:14
Samsung chips promise smartphone, netbook improvements

Better 3D UIs and higher calibre gaming

Samsung has designed two 1GHz application processors, which it claimed will deliver PC grade performance and low power consumption to smartphones and netbooks. Although both ARM-based Cortex-A8 processors have the same clock speed, the S5PC110 processor is targeted at “small form-factor connected devices” - such as multimedia …

Reg Hardware 22 Sep 14:37
'Buy puke-rays and we'll donate to police widows & orphans'

Make a move and the kid gets it

A US firm which sells handheld puke-ray weapons for the police and military markets has adopted a novel marketing ploy. For every chunder-gat purchased, the company will donate a small sum to help the families of cops and troops who have been killed in the line of duty. Laser Energetics of New Jersey announced that its Dazer …

Policing 22 Sep 15:15
AMD chipsets: the feeds and speeds

And RAID compliments of Dot Hill

X64 chip seller Advanced Micro Devices launched its "Fiorano" family of homegrown server chipsets yesterday, but many of the technical details of the three different chipsets were not available at press time. El Reg has finally got its hands on the specs. AMD was originally expected to come out with one chipset, which is based …

Servers 22 Sep 16:03
Facebook 'fesses to bad hair day

Mullets all round

Any users who had trouble logging into Facebook on Monday were far from alone. The social networking website has confirmed that widespread log-in failures, application access and status message update snags were a problem on Monday - without identifying the source of the snafu - via a statement (below) published late on Monday …

IT Director 22 Sep 16:08
SSDs get special skinny Sata interconnect

IDF mSata introduced

There's a burning need for a standard interconnect for netbook-oriented solid-state drives, apparently. Well, according to the Serial ATA International Organisation, the body behind the bus, there is. To fill the gap, it has introduced mini-Sata - aka mSata. Regular Sata ports aren't exactly large, but they're clearly still …

Reg Hardware 22 Sep 16:09
Zend ushers PHP onto cloud of clouds

Microsoft and IBM inflate floating API

Backed by Microsoft, IBM, and three other outfits beckoning developers into the sky, Zend Technologies has unleashed an open source API for fashioning PHP apps that float on multiple clouds. Zend calls it the Simple API for Cloud Application Services. The idea is to provide a single programming interface for file storage, …

Developer 22 Sep 17:43
Intel CEO waves around 22nm wafer

IDF Still an 'immature' process, though

Intel CEO Paul Otellini today showed off a 300mm wafer of memory arrays fabbed at 22nm and reiterated the chip giant's plan to release microprocessors produced at that node in 2011. As yet, Intel hasn't named its first 22nm CPU, but if the company follows its "tick-tock" regular release programme, the chip will go into …

Reg Hardware 22 Sep 17:58
Boffins build Flash-like chip from graphite

Pencilling in a new design

Scientists as Texas' Rice University have created a Flash-like non-volatile storage chip technology out of the same material used to put lead in your pencil. Dubbed "graphitic memory", the technique involves placing sheets of graphite between electrodes. Put a specific voltage across the sheet and it cracks. You can use the …

Reg Hardware 22 Sep 19:10
Intel to juice Atom software development

IDF New program includes app stores

Intel has instituted a new program to accelerate application development for Atom-based netbooks. Part of the program will be a new framework that will allow developers to create online app stores to sell their wares, a framework that will eventually be extended to platforms other than netbooks. CEO Paul Otellini announced …

Developer 22 Sep 19:39
Authors ask court to delay Googlebooks hearing

Updated 'The settlement, as we know it, is dead'

US authors and publishers have asked a federal court to postpone an upcoming hearing set to examine its $125m book-scanning settlement with Google, requesting additional time to address Justice Department concerns over the pact. On Friday, the Department of Justice urged the court to reject the pact as written, citing concerns …

Music and Media 22 Sep 20:02
Intel six-core Core Extreme CPU spied

IDF 'Gulftown' demo'd

Intel has demo'd its upcoming 'Gulftown' desktop processor - a future 32nm "Extreme Edition" part aimed at gamers and enthusiasts. Gulftown contains six cores, though HyperThreading doubles that tally to twelve as far as the operating system is concerned. The chip is expected to contain 12MB of L3 cache. It'll sit on an LGA …

Reg Hardware 22 Sep 20:04
Windows Embedded CE gives star turn to, um, Silverlight 2.0

Every dog has his day

Microsoft may still be struggling to bed down its Adobe Flash rival - Silverlight - with many of its products, but it's making a big play of the app in the firm's latest Windows Embedded CE operating system release. Windows Embedded CE 6.0 R3 and builds of Windows 7 and Windows 2008 R2 for embedded apps were announced by MS …

Software 22 Sep 20:07
Does the Linux desktop need to be popular?

LinuxCon 2009 How to win users and influence developers

Does Linux desktop even need to be popular? There are, shall we say, differing options among the open source cognoscenti gathered in Portland, Oregon this week for the annual LinuxCon. For the last eight years, we've been told it's the year of the Linux desktop. Yet penetration figures have remained somewhere in the region of …

Operating Systems 22 Sep 21:11
IBM slots 'Lynnfield' Xeons into System x

Aiming low at SMBs

If you want to play in the x64 server racket, you need high-end boxes that offer lots of enterprise-class features. You need entry machines that offer the best bang for the buck and a low price. And you need midrange machines that split the difference without breaking the bank account. IBM has always been good at the high-end …

Channel Register 22 Sep 21:50
Intel to announce quad-core mobile Core i7 chips tomorrow

IDF Welcome, Calpella and Clarksfield

Intel will formally announce its 'Clarksfield' mobile Core i7 processor tomorrow ahead of the appearance of notebooks based on the chip family in October. The Nehalem-derived Clarksfield forms the basis of 'Calpella', Intel's next major laptop platform, which will also debut early next month. Calpella's other key component is …

Reg Hardware 22 Sep 22:04