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16th October 2009 Archive

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  • Royal Mail website goes on strike

    CWU suspected

    Next week, after a vote from their union, thousands of Royal Mail workers are set to go on strike. This week, the Royal Mail website beat them to the punch: We question whether the Communications Works Union is behind the shutdown, but one Reg reader thinks otherwise. "Looks like the CWU have got their way and convinced the …

    Bootnotes 16 Oct 04:53

  • HP peddles app stress-testing cloud

    Tuning up for the holidays

    With the Web accounting for an increasingly large piece of the retail pie, having Web applications that are fast, intelligently designed, and able to scale is important. After all, the customer is only one mouse click away from abandoning you - and perhaps forever. Freaking retailers out with such thoughts is the purpose of a …

    Servers 16 Oct 06:02

  • Judge rebukes copyright enforcer in ringtone case

    Wireless carrier win

    A federal judge has handed cellular carriers a decisive victory, ruling that they don't have to pay public performance licensing fees for the ringtones they sell to customers. If upheld, the decision by US District Judge Denise Cote of the Southern District of New York means Verizon Wireless won't have to pay millions of …

    Law 16 Oct 06:02

  • Palm Pré arrives in Blighty

    Followed by Reg Hardware's Pré review...

    The Palm Pré has been available Stateside since June, but Blighty-based gadget fans can finally bag themselves the smartphone from today. O2 is selling the Palm Pré from today O2 is the Pré’s exclusive carrier in the UK and the smartphone can be bought either through the network operator’s online sales website or from its …

    Reg Hardware 16 Oct 08:02

  • Universal Remote Control R50

    Review A little screen for your big screen

    The R50, from US brand Universal Remote Control (URC), is a chunky A/V entertainment integrator that delivers a decent amount of functionality whilst being fairly easy to set up. While aimed more at the family market – real tech-heads might want a little more programmability and customisation – the product makes a decent fist of …

    Reg Hardware 16 Oct 08:02

  • Zimbra applies gentle touch to UK resellers

    Needs to sync and swim, with or without Yahoo!

    Yahoo! may be rumoured to be planning to dump Zimbra but that hasn't stopped the open source email and collaboration platform maker from punting its wares at UK resellers. The firm is keen to appeal to the mid-market with version 6.0 of the Zimbra Collaboration Suite. And it hopes that ditching its old direct selling model in …

    Channel Register 16 Oct 09:01

  • IBM: Power7 to rollout throughout 2010

    New System z11 mainframes next year, too

    IBM's chief financial officer, Mark Loughridge, explained in a conference call with Wall Street analysts yesterday that the company thinks its high-end server business is on the mend, and will start growing profits in the fourth quarter. Loughridge also let the cat out of the bag a little about future Power7 RISC/Unix and z11 …

    Servers 16 Oct 09:04

  • UK stuck in tech time-warp, finds report

    Hoarding tonnes of VHS players, cassettes, dial-up modems, etc

    Britain is hoarding 130,000 tonnes of redundant technology, all because we refuse to dump or give-up the gadgets of yesteryear - a forward-focused tech survey has concluded. The survey of over 2000 UK adults by the British Video Association (BVA) found that 40 per cent of us hoard technology we haven’t used in at least 18 …

    Reg Hardware 16 Oct 09:12

  • Fujitsu UK.gov workers cast votes on strike threat

    Autumn of discontent

    Fujitsu staff working on Aspire and other major government IT contacts are being balloted on industrial action. The ballot covers 850 IT support staff who are members of the Public and Commercial Services (PCS) union working at HM Revenue and Customs, the Home Office, the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency, the Office for …

    Channel Register 16 Oct 09:19

  • Computacenter on track and can see future

    Waiting for the upturn

    Mega reseller Computacenter said it thinks it sees light at the end of the economic tunnel, as it reported this morning that its third quarter business was in line with expectations. The IT services firm said that group revenue for the quarter was £552m, down by eight per cent, or 12 per cent on a constant currency basis. For …

    Channel Register 16 Oct 09:47

  • Everything as a service

    Workshop Instrument the world?

    The influence of IT in everyday business operations continues to increase. Until a few years ago business operations could be conveniently split between those that involved computer systems somewhere in the business process and those that had no dependence on them at all. Sure there was overlap in, for example, manufacturing …

    Service Management 16 Oct 09:49

  • Blu-ray dropped from updated iMacs?

    Last minute change, claim moles

    Apple has canned plans to integrate Blu-ray drives into its long-rumoured range of redesigned iMac machines, sources close to the company have claimed. Back in September, moles familiar with Apple’s PC plans claimed that the firm had decided upon a series of technical and aesthetical improvements for its iMac range. One such …

    Reg Hardware 16 Oct 09:52

  • Survey: Call centre data standards 'routinely ignored'

    Poor practice creates 'vast reservoir of sensitive data'

    More than 95% of call centres were found to store customers' credit card details in recordings of phone conversations in breach of industry rules, according to a survey conducted by a call recording technology company. Veritape said that when it talked to 133 call centre managers, only 39% of them knew about industry rules …

    ID 16 Oct 09:53

  • BOFH: Baitin' switch

    Episode 13 The old ones are always the best

    "OK, let's just take a look then," our recent office addition says, clicking on the network management tool. "Ah, there's your problem - your port is only set to 10 megabits per second, half duplex. If I just change that to auto you'll notice a short outage while your machine's network interface readjusts itself to 100 meg …

    BOFH 16 Oct 10:02

  • WD to sink teeth into enterprise drive market

    Comment Velociraptor-based unit likely

    Western Digital's coming enterprise hard drive is likely to be built on a Velociraptor base. WD has said it is going to enter the enterprise hard drive market, building on its existing enterprise-class SATA 3.5-inch drives, as it terms them. These are bulk storage drives and not fast response ones. Seagate currently dominates …

    Storage 16 Oct 10:32

  • Landmark ISP piracy case could kick thousands offline

    Global copyright ripples ahead as Aussies set to fall off net

    A landmark Australian court case could see thousands of Australians losing their internet connection, and has major implications worldwide for the law on copyright. The landmark case started on 6 October in Sydney's Federal Court. A group of 34 film companies, represented by the Australian Federation Against Copyright Theft ( …

    Music and Media 16 Oct 10:33

  • Vodafone '360' H1 hits pre-order

    Flagship phone for operator's new portal

    Vodafone has announced that its LiMo-based H1 flagship touchscreen handset will arrive in Blighty later this month. The Vodafone/Samsung H1 has an OLED screen and 5Mp camera The phone – manufactured by Samsung – is designed to help you take full advantage of Vodafone’s new 360 web portal and will be available to buy from 30 …

    Reg Hardware 16 Oct 10:38

  • UK taxpayers hit by wave of tax refund scam mail

    80,000 in September, 10,000 in a single day in October

    HMRC has warned taxpayers to be on their guard against a new slew of phishing attacks touting fake tax rebates. The UK's tax men said that 83,000 scam emails were brought to its attention last month, while 10,000 reports of the attempted fraud were reported on just one day this month. The scamsters tempt their marks by saying …

    Crime 16 Oct 10:39

  • El Reg launches 'Skinny Fit' fashion range

    Exclusive preview of international poster campaign

    We're delighted to announce today the launch of our "Skinny Fit" range of clothes, seen modelled here by the lovely Filippa for a forthcoming international poster campaign: Please note that this image has not been digitally manipulated in any way. Filippa is a healthy and beautiful young woman who is naturally "small-boned …

    Bootnotes 16 Oct 10:55

  • Motown legend's message for the Pirate Party

    Exclusive interview It's you or me

    Earlier this year in Washington DC I had a chance to talk to Motown legend Lamont Dozier, part of the songwriting and production team that created some of the greatest and most enduring pop songs of all time. Dozier wrote or co-wrote not only most of the Supremes and Four Tops' hits of the Sixties, but also classics such as …

    Music and Media 16 Oct 11:02

  • Couple arrested over $23m Cisco spare parts 'scam'

    'It's mail fraud and money laundering,' says DA

    A married couple from North Carolina have been indicted for allegedly running a spare parts scam that bilked Cisco out of as much as $23m. Mario and Jennifer Easevoli, 33 and 28 respectively, and a third defendant, face sentences of as much as 20 years and fines of up to $500,000 if found guilty of running the scam. The …

    Channel Register 16 Oct 11:22

  • Home Office backs down on net censorship laws

    Small ISPs escape IWF filters

    The government has abandoned its long-standing pledge to force 100 per cent of internet providers to block access to a list of child pornography websites. The decision to drop the policy will be finalised at a meeting on Monday to be attended by internet industry representatives, children's charities and Alun Michael MP. The …

    Government 16 Oct 11:22

  • Apple plans turbocharged Mac Pro speedster

    Intel Gulftown chips to provide the horsepower

    The Mac Pro is the Big Mac, with up to two Nehalem processors and 32GB of RAM producing great graphics processing performance. But it's a pussy compared to what might be coming. Early next year we could see a 12-core Mac with 128GB RAM that just screams: a Mega Mac, if you will. A Mac website reports that Apple will launch a …

    PCs & Chips 16 Oct 11:45

  • Microsoft's Hotmail 'blacklists' NHS email - again

    Update Ever get the feeling you've been here before?

    NHS staff can finally send emails to Hotmail accounts again, seven days after some healthcare workers complained to Microsoft that their messages were being blocked. It’s not the first time the NHS has been shunned by Microsoft’s Hotmail. In May this year all addresses in the nhs.uk namespace were reportedly being blocked …

    IT Director 16 Oct 11:49

  • Motorist in laptop blaze

    Exploding battery to blame?

    A UK motorist recently had a lucky escape after a fire in her car’s boot, which it’s alleged may have been started by an exploding laptop battery. Sarah Williams with her damaged laptop and mangled battery Credit: Hereford Times Sarah Williams — aged 32 and from Hereford — was parked at some traffic lights when she …

    Reg Hardware 16 Oct 12:01

  • Palm Pre smartphone

    Review The next best thing to an iPhone?

    The most hyped phone of the year, the Palm Pre, has arrived and now you can actually buy one. The 3.1in touchscreen combined with a physical keyboard are welcome features, but it’s the software that might change the face of the smartphone market and challenge the Apple iPhone. Palm's Pre smartphone touting its new WebOS The …

    Reg Hardware 16 Oct 12:10

  • Disney kicks 'Ho White' out of bed

    Finds fruity booze ad campaign 'anything but sweet'

    Disney has reportedly, and unsurprisingly, taken exception to an Oz booze campaign which features "Ho White" puffing on what we assume is a post-coital ciggy in a bed full of dwarves. The offending pic, created by ad agency The Foundry to promote Jamieson's Raspberry Ale, carries the caption "Anything but sweet": The Foundry …

    Bootnotes 16 Oct 12:13

  • Nokia Comes With... 32,000 UK users

    Unlimited download service limps along, ignored

    Nokia had fewer than 33,000 active users of its Comes With Music service in the UK nine months after its launch, according to leaked figures. Worldwide, Nokia had just over 107,000 users in nine world markets. The numbers were passed to consultancy MusicAlly, and were published on their blog. CWM bundles a year's unlimited …

    Mobile 16 Oct 12:23

  • DARPA, Microsoft, Lockheed team up to reinvent TCP/IP

    'This time it will actually be for the military, promise'

    Arms globocorp Lockheed Martin announced today that it has won a $31m contract from the famous Pentagon crazy-ideas bureau, DARPA, to reinvent the internet and make it more suitable for military use. Microsoft will also be involved in the effort. The main thrust of the effort will be to develop a new Military Network Protocol …

    Data Networking 16 Oct 12:26

  • Picsel administrators sell assets to former managers

    Hamsard takes on 50 workers

    Former managers of Picsel Technologies Ltd have stepped in to buy up the assets of the defunct software development company, including the patent portfolio and the 50 remaining employees. Glasgow-based Picsel went into administration in July, when PricewaterhouseCoopers was appointed as administrator and set out to find a …

    Mobile 16 Oct 12:50

  • Wolfram Alpha API lands with price tag attached

    A web search lesson in economics

    The springtime hype of Wolfram Alpha may have died down to a quiet squeak from academics still somewhat excited by the search-engine-lite-mathematics-heavy web product, but from today developers can tinker with its API. Code junkies can now slot Wolfram Alpha into their own apps. The company confirmed yesterday that it had …

    Developer 16 Oct 12:51

  • The Briffa Scandal - your letters

    Andrew's Mailbag It's the End of the Peer Review

    While we put together more stories on The Briffa Scandal, here's some mail from the earlier piece. I received 60-odd pieces in the mailbag and with one exception, they were positive. The one that wasn't so nice was so bizarre, it deserves a Snotbag in its own right. I'll spare you the praise - let's get stuck in. I am myself …

    Environment 16 Oct 13:02

  • Today's users don't expect things to fail

    Desktop poll results But we know how many support calls we get!

    This week's mini-poll reveals, as perhaps expected, that the primary source of information used to measure desktop support issues are the number of support calls hitting the help desk and number of calls successfully resolved. For over three quarters of organisations, these two rather primitive measurements form the foundation …

    PC Management 16 Oct 13:02

  • Hitachi GST whacks Seagate in the Savvios

    Updated Ultrastar is new shining light in enterprise SFF market

    Hitachi GST is taking on Seagate by launching a fast and small hard drive that matches the Savvio's capacity and SAS 2 interface but has four times the cache. In the enterprise 2.5-inch drive market Seagate has a 15,000rpm Savvio 15K.2 drive - two meaning second generation - that offers 73 and 146GB capacity points and has a …

    Storage 16 Oct 13:04

  • Oz driver prangs ute during 'amorous activities'

    'I was not ****ing his ****', insists female passenger

    An Oz woman suspected of having caused a 33-year-old man to prang his ute has strenuously denied she was administering him oral pleasure at the time of the crash. According to the Northern Territory News, police believe "amorous activities" were behind the crash last week in Humpty Doo*, in which the driver of a Toyota Hilux …

    Bootnotes 16 Oct 13:24

  • Boffins 'write directly to memory' of living brains

    Implant false memories by 'seizing control of circuits'

    An alliance of boffins from Oxford University and Virginia, America say they have developed a technique for "writing directly to memory" in a living brain, "seizing control of brain circuits" to create a memory of an experience which had never actually happened. Thus far, according to the research, the technique works reliably …

    Biology 16 Oct 13:43

  • Tabloid hack scum face jail

    Oh no!

    Journalists and private investigators who illegally obtain and trade in personal information will face jail sentences under planned changes to the Data Protection Act. Ministers want to replace the current maximum sentence of an unlimited fine next April with a spell of up to two years inside. The Information Commissioner's …

    Crime 16 Oct 14:09

  • UK.gov backs ID scheme with peanuts promo spend

    So good it'll sell itself!

    The government is so sure that the UK public can't wait to get their hands on ID cards that it is spending next to nothing to promote the scheme. Successive Home Secretaries have insisted that the UK populace is thoroughly convinced of the case for ID cards, and is just waiting to rush out and insert themselves on the mega ID …

    Government 16 Oct 14:19

  • ESA proposes ion drive Sun-dodge Mars commsat ploy

    Electric rockets to 'hover' above, below ecliptic

    Experts in interplanetary navigation have hit upon a novel scheme for maintaining communications with Mars, should a need to do so eventuate - as in the case of a manned mission to the red planet, for instance. Forget geosynchronous, powered B-orbits are where it's at for commsats. The problems in communicating with Mars …

    Space 16 Oct 15:38

  • US boffins use Obama dough to study clouds

    The computing kind, not the fluffy kind

    The US Department of Energy, which runs the largest supercomputing centers in the country, is using some of the Obama stimulus money to take a gander on how parallel HPC applications might be deployed on cloud-style, virtualized infrastructure instead of on the less malleable parallel supers that the DOE's labs spend big bucks …

    HPC 16 Oct 15:41

  • Sony confirms 250GB PS3 slim launch

    More storage going Stateside

    The 250GB slimline PlayStation 3 will be launched into North America next month, Sony has announced. Sony's 250GB PS3 slim is already available in the UK Sony’s existing PS3 slim – which has a 120GB capacity – currently costs $300 Stateside, but the more capacious model will retail for around $350 (£214/€234). UK-based …

    Reg Hardware 16 Oct 15:43

  • IBM, Intel execs arrested over alleged insider trading

    Hedge fund and McKinsey men too

    Update: An extensive update to this story can be found here Executives from IBM and Intel have been arrested amid allegations they were involved in an insider trading scam. According to a report from the Associated Press, six people were arrested today as part of an insider trading case, including Bob Moffat, senior vice …

    Financial News 16 Oct 16:25

  • Toshiba welcomes Windows 7

    Unveils Satellite duo with MS OS and Tosh UI

    Toshiba clearly doesn’t think Windows 7 alone is good enough for its customers, so the firm’s installed its own application suite onto its latest Satellite laptop duo. Toshiba's L450: has the smallest screen of the two, yet near-identical innards In addition to Microsoft’s upcoming OS, the 15.6in L450 and 17.3in L555 both …

    Reg Hardware 16 Oct 17:02

  • Is Symantec entering the hardware business?

    Sino-American kit burns up the record books

    Symantec promised to wipe the benchmark floor with NetApp with its FileStore product, and it did, producing a record SPECsfs2008-nfs result, with Huawei Symantec hardware. What's going on? Is Symantec entering the hardware business? Symantec, describing itself as a software and services business, has produced a clustered filer …

    Storage 16 Oct 17:48

  • Sun's online Java shop prepping for business?

    OpenWorld 09 Face-lift first

    Sun Microsystems is expected to take its Apple-like Java Store live next month, following the release of new features in the next few weeks. The company told this week's OpenWorld conference in San Francisco that we should expect a "major announcement" on the JavaStore next month, which will change the online store's status. …

    Developer 16 Oct 19:40

  • Apple decrees free iPhone apps can sell stuff

    Developers get bone

    Apple is now permitting free iPhone apps to peddle their own stuff. Previously, the Cupertino cult only allowed "In App Purchases" if third-party developers put a price tag on their iPhone applications. With In App Purchases, third-party devs can sell content, subscriptions, and digital services directly from their iPhone (and …

    Developer 16 Oct 19:44

  • Google spins Docs preview into Gmail

    TPS reports without leaving your inbox

    Gmail users who share Google Docs with friends and coworkers now have an easy way to preview documents right inside their inbox. The crafty folks at Gmail Labs have added a new way to peek at the content of shared Google Docs documents, spreadsheets, and presentations without opening them in another tab or window. The feature …

    Applications 16 Oct 19:52

  • Security boss calls for end to net anonymity

    Kaspersky's online police state

    The CEO of Russia's No. 1 anti-virus package has said that the internet's biggest security vulnerability is anonymity, calling for mandatory internet passports that would work much like driver licenses do in the offline world. The comments by Eugene Kaspersky, who is also the founder of Kaspersky Lab, came during an interview …

    Security 16 Oct 20:06

  • YouTube to broadcast Channel 4 shows

    Free to see other sites

    YouTube and Channel 4 have inked a landmark content deal that will see most of the UK broadcaster's programming made available for free on the Google-owned video sharing site. Under the pact, Channel 4 will make its entire 4 on Demand catch-up service of new shows available on YouTube shortly after airing, plus around 3,000 …

    Music and Media 16 Oct 22:35

  • Thousands of sites loaded with potent malware cocktail

    'Ugly can of worms'

    Cybercriminals have laced about 2,000 legitimate websites with a potent malware cocktail that surreptitiously attacks people who browse to them, a security researcher warned Friday. Unlike past outbreaks of the mass web attack known as Gumblar, this round actually plants exploit code on the website servers themselves. …

    Security 16 Oct 23:31

  • Feds’ insider trading wiretap snares IBM heir apparent

    Hedge fund chatter fingers Big Blue man

    The heir apparent to IBM CEO Sam Palmisano has been arrested and charged with insider trading, as US authorities cracked down on an alleged $20m scheme involving shares in some of the IT industry’s biggest names. The case — which the FBI calls the largest hedge-fund insider trading case in US history — has also seen the arrest …

    Financial News 16 Oct 23:46