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28th September 2009 Archive

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  • Microsoft munches super startup carcass

    Can you say Visual Studio for HPC?

    Microsoft has eaten the carcass of Interactive Supercomputing, a creator of HPC development tools for parallelizing applications. That's yet another promising supercomputing startup that has succumbed to the economic Meltdown and the difficulty of finding capital to fund its expansion. Redmond has acquired the company's the …

    HPC 28 Sep 04:15

  • HP-UX gets biannual face-lift

    Serviceguard for Linux gets the boot

    Hewlett-Packard is rolling out Update 5 for the HP-UX Unix operating system that runs its Itanium and PA-RISC lines of Integrity and HP 9000 servers, keeping to its pattern of two updates per year for its flagship operating system. As has been the case with the prior HP-UX updates, the changes are important to existing HP-UX …

    Servers 28 Sep 05:36

  • Steady as she goes at Phoenix

    Sailing serenely on

    Phoenix IT Group said trading for the six months ending 30 September 2009 has seen some improvement in the second quarter. The board of directors confirmed that trading and cash generation were in line with expectations. The firm said trading had improved from the first quarter, and annualised contract values stopped falling …

    Channel Register 28 Sep 08:20

  • Orange gets UK iPhone deal

    Mon dieu, c'est le JesusPhone!

    France Telecom's Orange is to start selling the iPhone to UK subscribers later this year. The company has yet to tell us the date, or pricing plans. But it did issue a short statement which confirmed an agreement with Apple to, "bring iPhone 3G and 3GS to Orange UK customers later this year. Orange globally now offers iPhone …

    Mobile 28 Sep 08:43

  • Home Office makes nice cartoon ID card ad

    Look kids! Cartoons!

    The Home Office is to spend over £500,000 this year on a marketing campaign for the identity card which features cartoon fingerprints. A departmental spokesperson told GC News that it is planning a public information campaign to alert businesses on the need to prepare for the introduction of the card, which will initially be …

    Government 28 Sep 09:07

  • VelociRaptor users bitten by false error bug

    WD response distinctly un-raptorlike in its sluggishness

    Western Digital has taken ten months to issue a firmware fix to a VelociRaptor bug, and even then has not made it generally available. VelociRaptor drives are the very popular 2.5-inch SATA drives spinning at 10,000rpm and available with mounts to fit in 3.5-inch drive bays. A Register reader says the drive: "at least in …

    Storage 28 Sep 09:41

  • Vegemite unscrews lid on iSnack2.0

    LogoWatch Cream cheese, whalesong and a soupçon of Web 0.2

    Kraft Foods has announced the result of a three-month competition to name its new cream-cheese-adulterated Vegemite, and has decided it's a really bright idea to brand the spread "Vegemite iSnack2.0". The man responsible for the outrage is West Australian web designer Dean Robbins. The 27-year-old saw off over 48,000 rival …

    Bootnotes 28 Sep 09:43

  • MAID: Where's the love?

    Spin-down not a front-line requirement, for now

    Why don't UK enterprises use MAID? This is puzzling. We live in an increasingly green era and spinning disk platters around while no one is using them is like having empty lorries drive up and down a motorway. Chris Evans, a UK storage consultant, positions MAID this way: "(It) refers to Massive Array of Idle Disks, which …

    Storage 28 Sep 10:02

  • First USB 3.0 hard drives fall short of SuperSpeed speed

    Where did all the bandwidth go?

    External hard drive makers Buffalo and Freecom are jostling to become the first firms of their kidney to kit out product with a USB 3.0 - aka SuperSpeed - interface. Buffalo's DriveStation HD-HXU3 is a desktop unit that will come in 1, 1.5 and 2TB capacities. Freecom, on the other hand, will offer the XS 3.0, which will be …

    Reg Hardware 28 Sep 10:16

  • Sony to rename Motion Control

    Send your suggestions here...

    Sony isn’t content with the PlayStation 3’s upcoming Motion Control peripheral and wants to improve its functionality, lower the price, build a broader compatible games catalogue change the device’s name. World+Dog may have grown accustomed to calling the Microsoft Project Natal rival "Motion Control", but Sony executive …

    Reg Hardware 28 Sep 10:25

  • Keeping track of stuff: the secret of service management

    Workshop Ship-shape inventories or a pain in the asset?

    IT gets asked to look after a lot of stuff which it may not have had a hand in procuring or specifying. Most organisations have IT procurement policies in place but it doesn’t mean they are followed by everyone. Compound by lots of years and add a bit of M&A here and there, and we can see how easy it might be to arrive at a …

    Service Management 28 Sep 10:26

  • Oz woman demands chihuahua at gunpoint

    Pulls piece on cop as puppy deal goes bad

    A Sydney woman has been charged with attempted robbery after she demanded at gunpoint that a police officer hand over a chihuahua, ABC News reports. The 26-year-old dog lover had apparently arranged to buy the puppy and duly turned up at the cop's Kellyville home to collect the mutt. For reasons which are not clear, she then …

    Bootnotes 28 Sep 10:32

  • Phishing fraud hits two year high

    Rumours of the death of email scams wildly exaggerated

    Phishing attacks reached a record high during the second quarter of 2009, with 151,000 unique attacks, according to a study by brand reputation firm MarkMonitor. Brands in the financial and payment services sectors continue to be the favourite targets for fraudulent emails that attempt to trick users into handing over their …

    ID 28 Sep 10:33

  • Project Natal backwards compatibility unlikely, says Microsoft

    New games for new peripheral?

    Gamers hoping to use the Xbox 360’s upcoming Project Natal motion control peripheral with existing games could be in for some disappointment, Microsoft has hinted. During the recent Tokyo Game Show, Microsoft Game’s Kudo Tsunoda said that it’s unlikely gamers will be able to “patch” existing titles for use with Natal, …

    Reg Hardware 28 Sep 10:37

  • Attack of the Killer Tits

    Hungarian cave-dwellers massacred in their sleep

    Reports are coming in of a previously unknown, deadly threat to sleepy Hungarian bats: that of being killed by tits. The shock news comes courtesy of Germany's Max Planck Institute for Ornithology, where boffins have been working with "colleagues in a cave in Hungary". Needless to say, we speak here not of any scenario …

    Bootnotes 28 Sep 11:06

  • Google deepens search pockets

    Slings anchors into numerous results

    Google has slotted anchor links into some search engine results to help users more quickly find what they’re looking for when looking up a complex query. "We've enhanced the search snippet with two new features that make it easier to find information buried deep within a page," said Google’s Chris Kern in a blog post on Friday …

    Applications 28 Sep 11:13

  • DVLA pledges investigation over Castrol spy posters

    Marketing cash greases wheels

    The DVLA's sideline in selling data to marketing companies is under renewed scrutiny after Castrol used it to target drivers with personalised billboard advertising. The poster campaign - at five high profile locations in London - was scheduled to run for two weeks but was pulled last week after just four days, following …

    Government 28 Sep 11:14

  • Nation's parents prepare to be vetted

    Ofsted/Home Office uncoordination prevents joined up thinking

    Ofsted has blown a hole in Home Office claims that deciding who needs to be vetted is a simple matter, after the education quango tarred parents who share childcare arrangements as "illegal childminders" and potential criminals. The issue came to light at the weekend, when the Daily Mail reported that Ofsted had made a …

    Government 28 Sep 11:38

  • Electro/photonic 'Excitonic' cryo-computing breakthrough

    You thought your data centre was chilly

    Boffins in California say they may be on their way to developing new, superfast "excitonic" computers. The latest experiments have seen hybrid electronic/photonic integrated circuits functioning at "around 100" degrees Kelvin, which - while extremely cold - is much more practical to achieve than the previously necessary 1.5°K …

    Hardware 28 Sep 11:40

  • Yahoo's! Maggie! Wilderotter! jumps! overboard!

    It's late September and I really should be back at school

    A former Microsoft VP - who at one point was considered for the top job at Yahoo! - is stepping down from the web giant’s board of directors at the end of the year. According to a Securities and Exchange Commission filing, Maggie Agnes Wilderotter has handed in her resignation and will serve out her final day on 31 December …

    Financial News 28 Sep 11:50

  • Panasonic parades 50in 3D plasma TV

    Into homes by 2010

    Panasonic is on the road towards development of its “full HD 3D system”, following creation of a 50in 3D-capable plasma display. The screen is still just a prototype, but Panasonic claimed that 50in 3D displays will “become the most popular size for home theatres”. At IFA in Berlin earlier this month, Panasonic unveiled plans …

    Reg Hardware 28 Sep 12:04

  • Dataram makes SAN flash cache sandwich

    Behind the Fibre Channel switches

    Memory supplier Dataram has found another place to stuff flash cache, parking a pile of it between drive arrays and fabric switches in a SAN. Dataram has been around for ever (well, since 1967) and builds and ships memory products to speed server apps. In 2008 it bought Cenatek, an SSD supplier, and Jason Caulkins, that …

    Storage 28 Sep 12:17

  • Samsung R720 17.3in notebook

    Review Keenly priced Pentium powered desktop replacement, anyone?

    If you caught our review of the Samsung R522, the R720 will look more than a little similar. As the name implies, though, it has a larger 17.3in display, with a glossy coating and native resolution of 1600 x 900. Naturally, this makes the chassis a fair bit bigger at 441mm wide, 273mm deep and, at its thickest point, 40mm tall. …

    Reg Hardware 28 Sep 12:32

  • Reddit swiftly squishes XSS worm

    WTF comment spam script

    Popular social news website Reddit has stopped the spread of a cross-site scripting (XSS) worm that hit the site on Monday. The XSS worm spread via comments on the site, originally from the account of a user called xssfinder. Reddit failed to filter out JavaScript in some cases, specifically when a user hovered his or her …

    Malware 28 Sep 12:39

  • Union predicts retirement surge over IBM pension changes

    Management gains for workers' pain

    Union Unite is predicting staff at IBM will walk out, opting for early retirement, rather than accept reduced pensions from the firm. IBM, along with dozens of other firms, is stopping its final salary pension scheme in order to cut costs. But Unite said today it expects between 700 and 1,000 people will opt for early …

    Financial News 28 Sep 12:48

  • Xerox barges into services with $6.4bn ACS buy

    A copy cat acquisition

    Copier giant Xerox plans to buy US outsourcing and data centre management giant Affiliated Computer Services Inc (ACS) for $6.4bn in a cash and stock deal. The company announced its "game-changing" acquisition proposal today. Xerox said it would cough up 4.935 of its shares and $18.60 in cash for each share of Dallas-based …

    Channel Register 28 Sep 13:09

  • STEC notches up LSI win

    How Engenious

    LSI is to use STEC ZeusIOPS enterprise flash drives in its products, following the example of EMC's Symmetrix and Clariion arrays and arrays from many other storage vendors. Vic Mahadevan, the LSI Engenio product marketing and management VP, stated the obvious: "We selected STEC as our SSD provider based on their experience, …

    Storage 28 Sep 13:31

  • Eurocrat demands MP3 player volume limit mandate

    Commissioner wants to extend French 'not too loud' law

    MP3 players sold in Europe could one day come with pre-set audio volume limits if plans proposed by a European Commissioner become official. Most MP3 players already allow users to set a maximum volume. However, an EC mandate would force manufacturers to automatically limit each player's volume before it could be sold in …

    Reg Hardware 28 Sep 13:48

  • US Navy boffins put an end to drought

    Somewhat exacerbate energy crisis, however

    Backroom lab boys in the US Navy say they have developed hugely more efficient desalination machinery, ideal for making seawater drinkable. The new tech, as well as saving space and energy aboard US warships, could also bring relief to water-poor areas around the world. "They say that water is the next petroleum," comments J …

    Environment 28 Sep 13:54

  • iPhone voted UK's 'coolest brand'

    Drives Aston Martin from top spot

    The iPhone has been elected as Britain's "coolest brand", knocking Aston Martin off the top of the CoolBrands list of desirables that it has dominated for three years. CoolBrands chairman Stephen Cheliotis said: "The iPhone is something everyone's been talking about. There has been such a buzz around it - and people that haven …

    Mobile 28 Sep 14:05

  • 3 flings bribey fivers for new subscribers

    Folding money for friends and family bringer-inners

    3 has started paying customers who sign up friends and family a whole pukka fiver for every subscriber recruited. Said subscribers will have to put their (free) SIM into a 3G phone, and top up with some credit too. Once they've done so they get another couple of quid in credit, and the person who supplied them with the SIM …

    Mobile 28 Sep 14:22

  • Cameron escapes Twitter twat rap

    We can let you do that, Dave

    Ofcom has ruled that David Cameron did not break broadcasting rules when he told breakfast radio listeners that politicians who use Twitter risk making a "twat" of themselves. The Tory leader also used the words "pissed off" during his July appearance on banal guitar pop station Absolute Radio, before adding "sorry, I can't …

    Music and Media 28 Sep 14:25

  • German cops impound motorised beer crate

    'Looked like a lot of fun', Polizei admit

    A German biker who rather brilliantly converted a beer crate into a diminutive quad bike has been relieved of his wheels, following a police pursuit, Ananova reports. Matthias Krankl apparently attracted the attention of law enforcement operatives by speeding on his lovingly-crafted machine. He attempted to make good his …

    Bootnotes 28 Sep 14:38

  • Sunbelt buckles up for anti-bloatware drive

    Slow, fat rivals taken to task

    The anti-virus bloatware problem is getting worse despite what some vendors may claim, according to figures from Sunbelt Software. The Florida based vendor's marketing claims tap into a deep well of discontent about anti-virus products but are not supported by the latest results from independent testing labs, such as AV-Test. …

    Enterprise Security 28 Sep 15:57

  • Is Apple behind Intel's speedy optical link?

    Jobs-Otellini interconnect

    The high-speed Light Peak optical interconnect that Intel unveiled at last week's developer confab was developed as a result of a CEO-to-CEO interconnect between Apple's Steve Jobs and Intel's Paul Otellini. That is, if Engadget's "extremely reliable source" is correct. According to that website's report, the idea for Light …

    Hardware 28 Sep 17:38

  • Google shuts down bank snafu Gmail account

    Court order snuffs innocent bystander

    Google has resolved a lawsuit from a US bank that accidentally sent 1,300 confidential tax IDs to an innocent Gmail account, but not before the web giant complied with a court order to shutdown the account and disclose certain account info. It's unclear what information was disclosed. In mid-August, according to court …

    ID 28 Sep 18:32

  • Opera lobby dubs IE ballot screen 'threatening and confusing'

    Microsoft's 'cunning' compromise

    The chief European critic of Microsoft's Windows-IE bundling says the company's proposed web browser ballot screen compromise is a sham, accusing Redmond of packing the screen with "threatening and confusing" questions. The European Commission is well into its anti-trust investigation aimed at curtailing IE integration with …

    Applications 28 Sep 18:57

  • Apple's move to kill Hackintosher suit denied

    Must defend 'monopoly rents'

    Apple's motion to toss out a lawsuit filed by pesky Hackintosher Psystar was itself tossed out by a US District Court judge. Make that one exasperated US District Court judge. Apple's motion was straightforward. It asked the judge who will hear Apple's suit against Psystar in January of 2010 - William Alsup of the US District …

    PCs & Chips 28 Sep 19:34

  • Yahoo! reinvents! yodel!

    $100m to woo 'Y!ou'

    Yahoo! has released the first volley in its $100m ad campaign: a TV ad that explores new frontiers in oversaturated colors and multi-culti jollity. But calling the company's "Y!ou" brand-refresh effort a mere ad campaign doesn't do it justice, says Elisa Steele, Yahoo! EVP and marketing chieftain. "This is much more than an …

    Odds and Sods 28 Sep 20:45

  • New accounting rules to juice IT numbers

    Hardware revenue bump?

    The US Financial Standards Accounting Board, which makes the rules that bean counters use to juggle the books, last week approved a new rule about revenue recognition for systems that could cause a brief bump in hardware sales for some IT suppliers based in the United States or using US accounting rules. FASB ruled on a number …

    Financial News 28 Sep 20:55

  • Open sourcers strike back at Google cease-and-desist

    Android without the Google

    Three days after Google told an independent developer to stop bundling proprietary applications with his alternative Android operating system, fans of the popular package have shot back with plans to work around the move. The developer, who goes by the name Cyanogen, said here that he plans to overhaul his CyanogenMod platform …

    Developer 28 Sep 21:09

  • Microsoft, nVidia tag team on HPC

    Making GPUs sit up and sort

    Employing graphics chips as co-processors to do tough computing tasks is not as simple as plugging in some electronics, adding a few libraries of code, and letting it rip. But it ought to be something like that, which is why graphics chip maker nVidia and desktop and server operating system maker Microsoft are working together …

    HPC 28 Sep 21:26

  • iPhone App Store tops 2,000,000,000 downloads

    9.5 million farts

    Apple's iTunes App Store has hit yet another milestone: two billion apps downloaded since the Store hung out its digital shingle on July 11, 2008. The news came in an Apple announcement which also noted that the store's customers now include over 50 million iPhone and iPod touch owners worldwide - in 77 countries, to be exact …

    Mobile 28 Sep 22:57