2nd October 2009 Archive

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Wales adopts mobile average speed cameras

The ripping sound is Clarkson removing Wales from his road atlas

The Welsh government is planning to introduce ANPR average speed camera technology as part of its work to cut road deaths. Officials told the National Assembly for Wales Enterprise and Learning Committee that the Welsh government is moving towards adopting average speed camera technology, although not everywhere and not as a …

Government 2 Oct 2009, 05:02
NO2ID backs drive to inject voter power into next Election

Power 2010 is looking for your ideas now

As politicians and pressure groups limber up for the next election – now 217 days away and counting – NO2ID this week was encouraging its members to take part in Power 2010, an innovative new initiative designed to give voice to ordinary voters at the next election. Power 2010 is funded by the Joseph Rowntree Trust, and has …

Government 2 Oct 2009, 08:02
Service management strategies

Workshop Are you paralysed by process?

One of the most universal findings we encounter on our research travels is that, contrary to what we may hear from elsewhere (IT vendors, subject evangelists), IT professionals generally want to deal with fewer processes, not more. Or to be precise, they want ‘just enough’ process. This idea is firmly rooted in practicality …

Service Management 2 Oct 2009, 08:08
Tosh preps enterprise SSD push

On back of Fujitsu disk biz buy

Toshiba completed its acquisition of Fujitsu's disk drive business yesterday, and is set to move into enterprise disk drives, and server and enterprise storage solid state disk drives. Toshiba Corporation now has a Digital Media Network company, which has a storage device division looking after business and product planning, …

Storage 2 Oct 2009, 09:02
London Stock Exchange grabs rival

Turquoise talks are go

The London Stock Exchange is in exclusive talks to buy Project Turquoise, the rival trading platform set up by nine banks in order to push down transaction fees. A formal statement was issued yesterday confirming talks. Turquoise launched its electronic share dealing platform in late 2008. It gives access to 15 European …

Applications 2 Oct 2009, 09:04
Gas mask bra secures Ig Nobel prize

Giant panda faeces research also honoured

Luminaries from the world of improbable research last night gathered at Harvard's Sanders Theatre for the 19th Ig Nobel Prize Ceremony, which saw honours awarded to a gas mask bra, research proving cows with names give more milk, and similarly vital work showing that "kitchen refuse can be reduced more than 90 per cent in mass …

Science 2 Oct 2009, 09:05
Nominum on the back foot over open source attacks

DNS name-calling spat simmers on

Commercial DNS software firm Nominum has responded to the backlash against its criticism of open source alternatives. During interviews promoting its recently launched cloud-based DNS (Domain Name System) service, SKYE, Nominum slammed open source and freeware DNS packages as a recipe for security problems. During a question …

Operating Systems 2 Oct 2009, 09:47
Are you a pirate video star?

Broadcasting yourself is popular but does it help your business?

Vendors seem to be champing at the bit in the video conferencing space. Is their persistence paying off? Some recent digging around suggests that the technology is gaining traction both officially and unofficially. We asked around 200 people involved in workforce communication and collaboration about their official and …

Data Networking 2 Oct 2009, 10:02
Web GUI hides number-crunching open source elephant

Hadoop World Cloudera's Hadoop desktop

Cloudera - the startup that commercialized the Google-like number crunching of the open source Hadoop project - has unveiled the first web-based GUI for running applications on the much-hyped distributed computing platform. Announced this morning at the Cloudera-sponsored Hadoop World in midtown Manhattan, the free Cloudera …

Servers 2 Oct 2009, 10:02
Yank slams El Reg 'zio-fruitcake' Playmobil 'crap'

FoTW Tehran-bound mini-WMDs fail to impress

It's with heavy hearts that we report this crisp autumnal Friday that our world-beating Playmobil coverage has not gone down too well in one corner of the good old US of A. Specifically, one Yank has objected somewhat to this shock exposé of what happens if you try to get through security at Heathrow's T5 wearing a …

Bootnotes 2 Oct 2009, 10:05
US spontaneous human combustion raygun video released

Vid Flying frying machine gives car a nasty burn

US-based arms'n'airliners globocorp Boeing has released video of its aircraft-mounted ray cannon, the Advanced Tactical Laser (ATL) in operation. The company doesn't say how far the carrying Hercules transport plane was from the target vehicle in the vid, but there's no audible engine noise on the soundtrack, suggesting …

Science 2 Oct 2009, 10:07
Irate iPhone owner allegedly shows gun to Apple Store worker

'There's a cap in its ass for that'

Register Hardware’s iPhone-owning hacks get annoyed when their devices go down. But one man in North American is claimed to have became so frustrated with his faulty Apple smartphone that he threatened to shoot it. After walking into a local Apple store, Donald Goodrich - aged 38, from Westwood, Cincinnati – allegedly said to …

Phones 2 Oct 2009, 10:11
Small biz told to sort TV licences for PCs

Online or on the box

UK businesses are being warned that they need a TV licence if staff watch live TV broadcasts whether they do so on a TV or via their computers. TV Licensing is reminding firms that they need a licence if machines are plugged in - someone watching live broadcasts via a mobile or laptop is covered by their own home licence as …

Small Biz 2 Oct 2009, 10:20
The North Face trips over The South Butt

LogoWatch Apparel outfit rattles trademark sabre at Missouri teen

A Missouri teenager is defying the might of clothing manufacturer The North Face, which is a bit hacked off at his "The South Butt" range of clobber. The North Face Apparel Corp moved in August to eliminate the threat to its international business posed by 18-year-old Jimmy Winkelmann and his company The South Butt, LLC. …

Bootnotes 2 Oct 2009, 10:46
Chinese whispers hint at early Chrome OS release

Untested code to come loaded on some low-budget netbooks?

Google has remained enigmatically silent on internet rumours that the company’s Chrome OS could imminently arrive on some Chinese netbooks. Instead Mountain View has reaffirmed that it’s on course to shove its new operating system out the door in the second half of next year. “We announced that we'd be releasing the code in …

Operating Systems 2 Oct 2009, 10:47
So what is service management?

Webcast More than a made up phrase?

Service management has been described as "made up tat", by some, and "doing the job properly", by others. Wherever your views lie, our experts want you to help fuel their debate as they cram into the Reg studio to make sense of this huge topic cunningly disguised by a small phrase - in our next live video broadcast, 10am BST, …

Service Management 2 Oct 2009, 11:02
BOFH: Weapon of choice

Episode 12 Some day my prints will come

“...and it turns out that he’d ordered the 157-H43 instead of the 157-H44 unit," one engineer says, walking into Mission Control. "And as we all know...” “...the H43 has the tab on the other side!!!” the other engineer finishes. They both burst out laughing. Good times. The PFY has heard more than his fair share of …

BOFH 2 Oct 2009, 11:02
Banking Trojans double as scareware runs wild

Interwebs clogged up with crimeware

The prevalence of scareware packages has reached epidemic proportions, with 485,000 different samples detected in the first half of 2009 alone. The figure is more than five times the combined figure for the whole of 2008, according to statistics from the Anti-Phishing Working Group (APWG). The huge figures are explained by the …

Security 2 Oct 2009, 11:07
Pluto still a planet, says Ronald McDonald

Burgermeister defies International Astronomical Union

Those of you who prefer to protect your kids from US scientific propaganda would do well to steer clear of McDonalds, which has apparently decided it doesn't approve of the 2006 International Astronomical Union ruling which booted Pluto out of the league of planets. Try this Happy Meal box for fairly damning evidence of Ronald …

Science 2 Oct 2009, 11:21
Nortel flogging GSM biz

Right, what's left then?

Nortel is to auction off its GSM business, following the successful sale of its enterprise division to Avaya for $900m. The GSM business is expected to go for less cash as revenues are declining compared to CDMA - which was sold to Ericsson in July. Nortel said it would seek court approval for an open auction of its GSM …

Mobile 2 Oct 2009, 11:34
Google strips Pirate Bay homepage from search results

Mountain View executes DMCA takedown

The Pirate Bay’s homepage and seven other pages relating to the BitTorrent tracker website have been removed from Google’s search engine, following a DMCA complaint. Anyone attempting to locate thepiratebay.org via Google will be greeted with some results to access the website, but none that point directly at its homepage. We …

Media 2 Oct 2009, 11:36
Latest Armani mobile spied online

Brand's latest attempt to crack the phone market?

Fashion labels Prada, Christian Dior, Emporio Armani and Chanel have each already lent their names to mobile phones. Now Armani looks set to try and make it second time lucky with another designer dialler. Samsung's latest phone should appeal to brand junkies Images of what’s rumoured to be a Samsung-manufactured, Giorgio …

Phones 2 Oct 2009, 12:02
Samsung GT-M8910 Pixon 12 cameraphone

Review The world's first 12Mp phonecam, apparently

As digital camera manufacturers start to concentrate on quality rather than megapixels – reducing the count of the latter while enhancing the former – mobile phone makers still appear caught in the vortex of more-means-better. A case in point is the Samsung GT-M8910 Pixon 12, the first handset with a 12Mp camera – should we be …

Phones 2 Oct 2009, 12:02
Australian Pirate Party sets sail

Borne on a new political wave

The launch of the Pirate Party in Australia adds yet another voice to the fast-growing global network of buccaneer politics: a pirate internationale appears to be taking shape. In Australia, as elsewhere, the newly-formed Pirate Party will be campaigning on a platform of anti-internet censorship and the decriminalisation of …

Media 2 Oct 2009, 12:05
Google Chrome update fills in parsing bug

Browser engine gets security tune-up

Google has published a update to its Chrome browser that addresses a newly discovered high risk security hole. Chrome version 3.0.195.24 sorts an error in processing long floating point numbers that creates a means for hackers to execute malware within the Google Chrome sandbox. The flaw in the dtoa() component of Chrome's …

Operating Systems 2 Oct 2009, 12:14
Ex-GCHQ spy chief lands defence giant gig

Codebreaker-in-chief pitches up at Thales

Just over a year after retiring as Britain's most senior electronic spy, Sir David Pepper has taken a job advising the defence and security giant Thales UK. He will sit on the firm's "advisory board" having retired as director of GCHQ in July 2008. Thales UK's CEO Alex Dorrian said Pepper will help the firm grow its national …

Government 2 Oct 2009, 12:26
MyConservatives website collapses at launch

Web 2.0 not for the faint-hearted

A website launched today by the UK’s Conservative Party is titsup, at time of writing. The MyConservatives.com site, which claims to be “the most ambitious party political campaigning network of its kind outside of the US” is currently redirecting to the Tories’ main website while the party tries to fix the problem. …

Management 2 Oct 2009, 12:40
O2 could impose out-of-contract iPhone lock-in

Whose handset is it, anyway?

iPhone users might, or might not, be able to unlock when their contract expires, as O2 still hasn't decided if deserters should be able to take their toys with them. Apple fans who rushed to O2's contracts to get their hands on an iPhone have been asking if they'll be able to take their precious status symbol with them if they …

Mobile 2 Oct 2009, 12:41
Techies suffer as US unemployment inches up

More job cuts than expected - again

The US Department of Labor this morning said that companies in the States chopped 263,000 employees from the payroll in September, nudging up the unemployment rate to 9.8 per cent. This is larger than the expected 180,000 job cuts that economists had been kicking around, which probably means Wall Street is in for another bad …

Financial News 2 Oct 2009, 13:20
Sony pulls plug on cabled power

Demos wirelessly powered telly

Sony claims to have proven that reaching around the back of your TV to find that elusive power plug could, one day, become a problem of the past. The electronics giant has trialled an in-house “wireless power supply system” in Japan, which the firm claimed enabled a 22in LCD to wirelessly receive around 60W of power sent over …

Hardware 2 Oct 2009, 13:34
Nokia phone combats domestic violence

Dial H for Hope

Used or abused partners now have a new source of help, thanks to Nokia, which has launched a handset for victims of domestic violence. A domestic violence helpline number is pre-programmed into Nokia's 2705 The 2705 Shade has the telephone number of the National Domestic Violence Hotline (NDVH) pre-programmed into the …

Phones 2 Oct 2009, 13:43
Storage-in-a-can vendor ditches CEO

Powell out, Atkinson in at Xiotech

Xiotech has summarily dropped CEO Casey Powell and appointed Alan Atkinson in his place. Xiotech is the Seagate spin-off that sells Emprise arrays with sealed drive canisters, using technology bought from Seagate last year, using a $40m investment obtained from an investor group led by Seagate President and now CEO Stepen …

Storage 2 Oct 2009, 13:47
Jacques Chirac ditches devil dog

Three strikes and you're out, chien diabolique

French former grand fromage Jacques Chirac has been forced to exile his "beloved" mutt Sumo, after it laid into him for the third time. The Maltese terrier was apparently a bit miffed about being shifted from the spacious grounds of the Élysée Palace to a Paris apartment when his owner stepped down from office in May 2007. …

Bootnotes 2 Oct 2009, 14:02
Designer draws up digital camera-cum-punchcard printer

Holes for pixels

Instant camera photo paper is pricey, so a student designer based in San Francisco has sketched plans for two digital cameras which physically impress pictures into sheets of paper. Punch presses images into paper using hole punch theory In essence Punch is a digital camera with a series of hole punch pins inside. Simply …

Hardware 2 Oct 2009, 15:02
AT&T snaps up VeriSign's security consulting biz

13-step divestment programme reaches completion

US carrier AT&T has agreed a deal to acquire VeriSign's security consulting business. Financial terms of the agreement were not disclosed. VeriSign’s global security consulting operations will be matched alongside AT&T's existing suite of network-based cybersecurity services. For VeriSign the deal represents an opportunity to …

The Channel 2 Oct 2009, 15:07
Amazon coughs $150k to student over lost notes

Orwell-Kindle fiasco proves expensive

A student who sued Amazon for deleting George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four from his Kindle ebook, rendering his notes useless, has won $150,000 along with protection for other Kindle users. The agreement (pdf), which was spotted by Seattle's TechFlash, effectively prevents Amazon reaching out and deleting or modifying works …

Mobile 2 Oct 2009, 15:09
NASA enlists schoolkids in Moonbase piss-recycler push

Simulated urine to be brewed from vinegar, baby shampoo

NASA has announced a competition for US schoolchildren, in which nippers across the nation will build urine-recycling systems for use in future Moon colonies. The space agency will helpfully furnish instructions for creating a "simulated waste stream" from common household ingredients. The astronauts couldn't wait for a …

Science 2 Oct 2009, 15:10
Cloudera hangs (more) elephants in sky

Hadoop World Big Data in the Amazon-free cloud

Cloudera - the commercial Hadoop outfit - has launched beta programs for running its stuffed elephant distro on the sky-high compute services run by Rackspace and SoftLayer. Based on research papers describing Google’s proprietary software infrastructure, the open source Hadoop platform is a means of crunching epic amounts of …

Servers 2 Oct 2009, 16:49
Amazon pumps sky-high Big Data cruncher

Hadoop World NetBeans IDE hugs Hadoop

Amazon has juiced its Big-Data-crunching Elastic MapReduce service, announcing support for Hive, the SQL-like query engine for the open-source Hadoop platform that underpins the service. Hadoop mimics the GFS and MapReduce platforms that drive Google's back-end infrastructure, and with Elastic MapReduce, Amazon sits the open …

Servers 2 Oct 2009, 16:55
Acer's Autumn smartphone line-up uncovered

E100, E101 and E200 join the F1 neoTouch

Acer’s upcoming smartphone line-up has been revealed, thanks to one of the firm’s retailers. Acer's E100 and E101 both look identical Details of the Acer F1 were leaked online earlier this month, but – until now – it wasn’t known how many more smartphones Acer had up its sleeve. But in posting a message about new names for …

Phones 2 Oct 2009, 16:58
Dumping exclusivity could double iPhone sales

Don't hold your breath, AT&T sufferers

Apple could double its iPhone sales if it ended its policy of exclusive contract with mobile service providers. That's the considered opinion of Morgan Stanley analyst Kathryn Huberty, voiced in a research missive issued Friday morning. Huberty cites a 136 per cent increase in the iPhone's French market share after the …

Mobile 2 Oct 2009, 19:41
Google (finally) adds protection for common Web 2.0 attack

Better late than never

Google has beefed up the security of Gmail and its other services by adding a feature to login pages that blocks one of the more common forms of web attacks. The upgrade is designed to protect against CSRF, or cross-site request forgery, attacks. The technique subverts basic website defenses by exploiting the often-misplaced …

Security 2 Oct 2009, 20:09
IBM out-cheaps Google with web-based business email

No frills for $36 per worker per year

IBM has launched a bare bones web-based email system for businesses, calculated to undercut Google's own popular offering. Big Blue's new LotusLive iNotes service starts at $36 annually per worker, compared to the $50 annually per worker that Google charges for its more comprehensive package. The service includes 1GB of …

Applications 2 Oct 2009, 20:20
Google lobs coder's Microsoft badge into rubbish bin

You are not an MVP

Google isn't opposed to hiring a Microsoft Most Valued Professional. But that doesn't mean he can keep his Redmond-happy title. In 2003, British developer Jon Skeet was awarded Microsoft MVP status, Redmond's way of recognizing "outstanding members" of its "technical communities." And Microsoft renewed Skeet's MVP status every …

Business 2 Oct 2009, 20:21
Chinese IT shops love the free-ness of open source

Sky is blue, water is wet

If everything is free in the Land with No IP - not TCP/IP, but rather intellectual property - then it stands to reason that IT managers and programmers in China would love open source software. And according to the fourth annual open source survey done by Actuate, a maker of open source business intelligence and reporting …

Software 2 Oct 2009, 21:31
iPhone developer stamps out calculator profanity

5318008, trouble us no longer

The twisted path that led you to becoming the horrible person you are today probably began when your adolescent mind first realized you could spell "BOOBIES" on an upside-down calculator. A seven-segment display can harvest more civilized output like "thesis," "legible," or even "Othello" – yet somehow you couldn't resist the …

Bootnotes 2 Oct 2009, 22:22
US commission urges broadband socialism

Comment And why they're right

A long-awaited US report studying access to online information was released Friday. One of its recommendations is that the government radically step up its efforts to ensure broadband access to all. The report, Informing Communities: Sustaining Democracy in the Digital Age, was developed in a partnership of the John S. and …

Networks 2 Oct 2009, 23:32