28th October 2009 Archive

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Turkish filters block Reg commentards

Updated Hotelier's censorship

The following story was based upon a mistaken assumption that the censorship as described was due to a Turkish governmental directive. That assumption was incorrect. The blockage of the pages discussed was instead merely instituted at a local level - in our reporter's case, through hotel-hosted web access. The Reg page as …

Odds and Sods 28 Oct 06:02
Pig plague could crash interwebs, say US feds

DHS bandwidth rationing?

A severe outbreak of the H1N1 pandemic could overwhelm internet providers' capacity, according to a report submitted Monday, which called on Department of Homeland Security officials to develop contingency plans to avert such a crisis. "Concerns exist that a more severe pandemic outbreak than 2009's could cause large numbers …

Data Networking 28 Oct 06:02
Forum king vBulletin muzzles paid-up protesters

No support for you

Big-name forumware outfit vBulletin has banned multiple paying customers from its own support forums after they complained about a recent overhaul of the company's pricing scheme. Some customers also say the company is preventing them from downloading product updates. Now owned by the California-based Internet Brands - a self …

Applications 28 Oct 06:17
Data-losing companies may be forced to spill to public

European Commission mulls beef-up of law

The European Commission will consider passing new laws forcing organisations that lose personal data to go public with that loss. The Commission has until now been opposed to the creation of wide-ranging data breach notification requirements. The Commission and European Council insisted that a data breach notification in a …

Law 28 Oct 08:02
PNY Attaché Original

Review High capacity, low price

The PNY's new Attaché Original USB Flash drive arrived just too late for our recent Fast Flash Drive round-up, but we decided to try it out nonetheless. The Attaché Original: faster than PNY's previous top-speed stick Like previous Attachés, the new model uses a slide-and-swivel mechanism to withdraw the USB connector from …

Reg Hardware 28 Oct 09:02
Intel pulls SSD update

Users claim it hoses Windows 7

Intel has pulled the solid-state drive firmware update it released this week after an unspecified number of users claimed the software wasn't entirely compatible with Windows 7. In a statement, the chip giant said: "We take all sightings and issues seriously and are working toward resolution. We have temporarily taken down the …

Reg Hardware 28 Oct 09:21
Ex-boss of AMD linked to Galleon fraud probe

Hector Ruiz fingered

The ex-boss of AMD Hector Ruiz could face charges relating to the Galleon insider trading case. Ruiz - former chief executive of AMD and now chairman of Globalfoundries - is accused of passing information on to hedge fund manager Danielle Chiesi, not of profiting personally. Court documents reveal that an executive at AMD …

PCs & Chips 28 Oct 09:46
Virginia corrections officers on 'dog fondling' rap

K-9 chicken-choke caught on camera

Five Virginia Department of Corrections officers are facing misdemeanour animal cruelty charges, after one of them allegedly masturbated a "K-9" police dog while the others caught the action on video. According to the Richmond Times-Dispatch, Melvin Boone, 40, Cheri Campbell, 35, Anthony Eldridge, 33, Kelvin Thompson, 25, and …

Bootnotes 28 Oct 09:54
Setting the record straight on Emulex CNA's long game

Comment Lack of development potential could slow QLogic hare down

Is the darn Emulex CNA chip ready or not? Competitors are saying "How come we're getting CNA design wins and Emulex is not?" What's the real Emulex CNA story here? A CNA, a Converged Network Adaptor, runs Fibre Channel over Ethernet (FCoE) as well as Ethernet, and so converges a Fibre Channel HBA card and an Ethernet NIC onto …

Storage 28 Oct 10:21
Hands on with Acer's 3D laptop

First Look Polarising specs at the ready...

Acer will enter the record books today by releasing the world’s first 3D-capable laptop. So Register Hardware caught-up with the firm behind the technology – Dynamic Digital Depth – to discover how 3D content will look on Acer’s machine. The 15.6in Acer Aspire 5738DZG 3D laptop has a screen that is coated with a thin 3D film. …

Reg Hardware 28 Oct 10:23
Government ads fail truthfulness exam

A-level replacement publicity slapped

Government publicity claims that new Diplomas, designed to replace A-levels, are "accepted by all universities" were today branded misleading by regulators. Two people complained to the Advertising Standards Authority that some top universities do not accept all of the new qualifications. Cambridge, for example, only …

Government 28 Oct 10:42
Microsoft creates Vista, Windows 7 compatibility tool for twitchy coders

Happy, happy, API talk

Microsoft has spun out the final release of its so-called “Platform Update” for Windows Vista to help developers create apps in Windows 7 as well as its unloved predecessor. The tool, which features a set of runtime libraries, was designed by Microsoft to get better compatibility between Vista and Windows 7. The software …

Developer 28 Oct 10:57
Apple iPhone closing in on BlackBerry market share

Pre reversing Palm's fortunes?

Apple is rapidly narrowing the gap between sales of the iPhone and BlackBerry handsets, a US market watcher has claimed. Research company ChangeWave yesterday posted figures showing the number of US consumers who own smartphones and which brands they favour. The stats, taken mid way through September 2009, put Research in …

Reg Hardware 28 Oct 11:02
Spotify loses its brain

And cuts prices

The former is a bit of a shocker. You'd expect a CTO for one of the most-talked-about startups to want to stick around, but Spotify has lost its tech supremo. But Anderas Ehn, described as the "brains" of Spotify, doesn't seem to think so. He's got a better offer, he wrote yesterday on his Twitter feed. Spotify's valuation of …

Music and Media 28 Oct 11:04
Plods' 'extremist' sheet included BAE mole

Grauniad protester-outing campaign takes new twist

The increasingly grumpy argument regarding who is allowed to photograph and keep files on whom in this sceptred isle - and who is then allowed to see such files - took a new twist today. It emerged that a person featured on a police headshot gallery of "extremist" arms protesters is actually believed by many activists to have …

Policing 28 Oct 11:07
More than 5 million people now on DNA database

Still growing despite court ruling

The estimated number of people whose DNA profile is stored by the government has broken the five million mark for the first time. Some 5,094,568 individuals are now thought to be represented on the National DNA Database, according to updated figures. The total accounts for an estimated replication rate of 13.8 per cent. The …

Policing 28 Oct 11:31
Android 2.0 delivered to developers

Coming to consumers next month?

The creation of apps based on version 2.0 of the Android OS should be underway within days, because Google has finally released Éclair to developers. Éclair supersedes Donut – aka version 1.6 – and, to illustrate version 2.0’s new features, Google has published a demo video which takes both developers and future users of the …

Reg Hardware 28 Oct 11:49
SAP shares dive on warning

Small in Japan

SAP saw its shares take a dive today, when it warned that poor sales in Japan meant that it was likely to miss targets for the year. Shares were down over seven per cent in early trading. The company said revenues for the third quarter ended 30 September 2009 were €2.51bn, down nine per cent on the same three months of last …

Financial News 28 Oct 12:11
DOJ widens anti-trust optical drive probe

We're through the looking glass here, people

On Monday, Sony's US optical drive subsidiary said it was being investigated by the US Department of Justice (DOJ) in connection with anti-trust activities in the optical drive market. The net has now widened to include Toshiba and Hitachi. Japan's Nikkei English News has reported that both Hitachi and Toshiba's US-based …

Storage 28 Oct 12:17
Toshiba touts 15Mp image sensor

Coming to cameraphones next year

While most people are still getting to grips with 12Mp cameraphones, Toshiba has announced it will produce a 15Mp CMOS sensor for cameras and handsets next year. The sensor – which technically delivers 14.6Mp – measures 1/2.3in and is based on “backside illumination technology” (BSI). Titter ye not. Backside illumination: …

Reg Hardware 28 Oct 12:19
Android version 2 gets an SDK

Is this the droid you are looking for?

The software developer's kit for version two of Google's Android platform is now available, with handsets coming soon, but upgrades for existing users less certain. Verizon are expected to launch an Android 2.0 handset imminently, and Samsung took the opportunity of the Symbian show to flash new Android handsets at selected …

Developer 28 Oct 12:21
Student boffins take on iTunes' not-so-smart Genius

'You like the Shadows? You'll love Herman's Hermits'

Boffins in California say they have produced music-recommendation software which produces playlists "as good as" those from Apple's iTunes Genius - and which has the advantages of collecting no user data and having in its repertoire a lot of music that "Genius knows nothing about". An eccentric Genius. Details on two …

Music and Media 28 Oct 12:41
Quantum has reasons to be cheerful

Rick Belluzzo upbeat after profit growth

Quantum sold $175m of products and services in its second fiscal 2010 quarter, 19 per cent less than a year ago. But CEO Rick Belluzzo is cheerful: his firm made $11m profit, its best performance in five years. The Q2 revenue figure represented a sequential increase of $14.6 million, Quantum's first such increase in seven …

Storage 28 Oct 12:54
AMD ATI Radeon HD 5770 and 5750 DirectX 11 GPUs

Review DX11 gaming on the cheap?

AMD's Radeon HD 5770 and 5750 are the mid-range members of the new HD 5000 DirectX 11 graphics chip family. They're fabbed using a 40nm process, just like their bigger brothers. Sapphire's HD 5770: reference Radeon HD 5770 design But the number of transistors in these mid-range chips - codenamed 'Juniper' - has been reduced …

Reg Hardware 28 Oct 13:02
PC Refresh Equals PC Disposal

Workshop The pitfalls of desktop refresh projects

Earlier this week we asked what drives you to refresh or replace your PC and laptop estates and whether your projects involve simply the replacement of existing machines with new hardware and software or if you might be looking at implementing some form of desktop virtualisation. Now in all such refresh projects it is quite …

PC Management 28 Oct 13:07
Mandy declares 'three strikes' war on illegal file sharers

Hopes 'legislate, enforce' mantra will beat piracy

Lord Mandelson has reiterated the government’s plans to clamp down on illegal P2P file sharers by declaring a “three-pronged approach” to tackle online piracy in the UK. The biz secretary confirmed today that proposals on unlawful file sharing, outlined in the government’s Digital Britain consultation paper in June, would form …

Government 28 Oct 13:12
Ofcom swoops on kiddie's bedroom

Avast yea, no pirates here

A dodgy TV aerial managed to generate enough signal to interfere with passing aircraft, until shut down by Ofcom investigators. The UK regulator was investigating complaints of interference with radio communications from aircraft approaching Luton airport, and suspected pirate radio operators might be responsible. But earlier …

Government 28 Oct 13:14
HP faces first ever UK strike action

Big name customers could suffer if staff walk out

HP faces possible strike action from some of its employees in the UK, after trade union Unite announced a vote among its 150 customer engineers, whose jobs are being shifted to a subsidiary firm. If the strike gets the go-ahead, it will be the first of its kind at HP, which in the past two years has undergone dramatic job …

Servers 28 Oct 14:31
Unisys squeezes profits from revenue decline in Q3

Big iron saves the day

Server and services vendor Unisys has turned in a relatively decent quarter in Q3, thanks to a mainframe upgrade cycle coming at a particularly weak time for the server racket and the ongoing cost cutting manoeuvers from chairman and chief executive officer, Ed Coleman, who was hired last year to turn the company around. In …

Servers 28 Oct 14:48
Google rolls out UK smart-meter cloud service

Updated Insists content ≠ money: this one is 'philanthropic'

Everyone's favourite advertising company, Google, has today announced the UK roll out of its "PowerMeter" home-electricity-consumption cloud service. The idea is that users of certain home 'leccy meters will for some reason read them via Google's servers, rather than using the online services that come with the meters. Google' …

Environment 28 Oct 14:51
Tesla Roadster travels 313 miles on single charge

Leccy Tech From Alice Springs to Southern Australia

A Tesla Roadster has set a new unofficial record for the longest distance travelled by a production e-car on a single charge. Hackett's Roadster was taking part in the annual Australian Global Green Challenge Driven by owner Simon Hackett, the unmodified red 2008 Tesla Roadster managed to cover a 313 mile distance between …

Reg Hardware 28 Oct 15:09
Governator in acrostic 'f**k you' outrage

Arnie's hidden message in letter to Democrat

Governator Arnold Schwarzenegger has told Democrat San Francisco assembly member Tom Ammiano just what he thinks of him and his "infrastructure financing districts" bill in a letter which explicity slams the latter, while firing a delicious acrostic broadside at its author: Arnie's spokesman, Aaron McLear, gasped: "My …

Bootnotes 28 Oct 15:38
Ares I-X blasts off at second attempt

Weather finally shows some clemency

NASA's Ares I-X finally got off launchpad 39B at Kennedy Space Centre at 15:30 GMT today. Following a scrubbed launch yesterday, and overnight thunderstorms, the Constellation programme trailblazer lifted off en route to an Atlantic splashdown at the end of a flight intended to "test and prove the new rocket's flight …

Space 28 Oct 15:43
Data Domain is working on global deduplication

Today Nehelem-based boxes, tomorrow the world!

Data Domain has been working on global deduplication across its DDX arrays for a couple of years, but the technology is not yet ready. The DDX arrays are collections of 4, 8 or 16-controller Data Domain deduplication systems which dedupe independently of each other. If they were to use a global deduplication map or index …

Storage 28 Oct 15:45
Firefox 3.5.4 fixes critical memory flaws

Vulns found all alone in moonlight

Mozilla trotted out Firefox 3.5.4 yesterday, which patches 16 vulns - 11 of which were critical bugs. The browser maker said the 11 critical vulnerabilities were found in a number of components such as the JavaScript and browser engines, the GIF color map parser, the strings-to-number converter, three third party media …

Applications 28 Oct 15:48
Transparent OLEDs demoed

See-through screens, anyone?

When the whole world’s going OLED TV crazy, how can a telly manufacturer differentiate itself? By creating a transparent model, of course. LG's transparent OLED screen apparently connected into a PC Credit: Tech-On Unfortunately for LG and Samsung, both firms have the same idea and recently demo'd their respective efforts …

Reg Hardware 28 Oct 15:55
Ofcom's 116 discussions confirm El Reg advice

It's not rocket science

Ofcom has decided to whom the EU-standardised 116 vexation numbers will connect, and it's just about what El Reg predicted this time last year. Numbers starting 116 are to be standard across Europe, for services that don't constitute emergencies but are still socially important. So, following a year's consideration and …

Government 28 Oct 16:00
Fibreless fibre optics developed by US Air Force

Mobile bandwidth bonanza to enable unplugged quantum crypto?

US Air Force boffins say they have created wireless links of similar capacity and quality to optical fibre, allowing extremely high mobile bandwidth and - perhaps - the use of quantum encryption methods without a physical connection. How to take fibre to a plane in flight According to an announcement issued earlier this …

Physics 28 Oct 16:48
Google navigates Android to turn-by-turn directions

Free mobile sat nav

Google has slipped turn-by-turn navigation into the latest version of Android, giving away one of the few mobile services for which punters were still prepared to pay. The application, which will only be available on the yet-to-be-launched devices using Android version 2, provides all the functionality that one might expect …

Mobile 28 Oct 17:12
Intel touts NAND-killer breakthrough

Big changes for phase changes

Intel and chip-tech house Numonyx unveiled a new technology on Wednesday that the companies claim will enable non-volatile memory to break through NAND's 20nm barrier and scale down to process sizes as tiny as 5nm - and do so cost-effectively. What's more, the resulting stacked memory arrays could potentially usurp current …

PCs & Chips 28 Oct 17:26
Mozilla's SeaMonkey 2.0 exits cryptobiosis

Monkey SeaMonkey 2

Mozilla will let you browse the web like it's 1995 with the latest release of its "all-in-one internet application suite," SeaMonkey 2.0. In the world of modern browsers, SeaMonkey is no shrimp*. It's the spiritual successor to the Netscape Communicator of yore, when things like newsgroup support, email, an IRC client, and …

Applications 28 Oct 18:24
Novell aims SCO tussle at the Supremes

High court UNIX

Novell wants the US Supreme Court to review its seemingly-never-ending legal tete-a-tete with SCO over the famous UNIX and UNIXware copyrights. As noticed by Groklaw, Novell has filed a motion with a federal appeals court asking for a 90-day stay in the SCO case so it can file a writ of certiorari petition with the Supremes. …

Operating Systems 28 Oct 18:31
Super Micro serves up not-bad quarter

Going Dutch for system growth

Server and motherboard maker Super Micro is feeling pretty good about its place in the struggling server market, and it continues to see sales rebound as 2009 rolls on. However, profits are a problem still, but the trends are encouraging, according to the company's top brass. In the first quarter of fiscal 2010 ended in …

Financial News 28 Oct 19:18
Microsoft hugs Eclipse for Windows 7 and Azure love

Woos open sourcers

Microsoft is reaching out to open-source and Java developers through Eclipse with delivery of Windows 7, Windows Server 2008 R2, and the pending arrival of its Azure cloud. Microsoft said that it's working with Eclipse developer Tasktop Technologies to update existing Eclipse desktop and interface projects so that they work …

Developer 28 Oct 19:22
TwitterPeek - the handset that spews Web2.0rhea...

...and nothing else

Are you into Twitter? Are you insanely, over-the-top, Tweeting-at-your-mother's-funeral into Twitter? Well, now there's a device made just for your crippling character flaw, you lucky duck. Peek, the folks who make always-on handsets just for email, bring you TwitterPeek: a $200 mobile that does nothing but send, receive, and …

Mobile 28 Oct 20:54
Apple to 'vigorously' fight Nokia patent pout

You expected capitulation?

Apple will "vigorously" defend itself against Nokia's patent infringement suit, according to Cupertino's SEC 10-K annual-report filing (PDF) issued Tuesday. Last Thursday, Nokia filed suit against Apple in the Delaware US District Court, alleging infringement of 10 US patents. In its SEC filing, Apple - aka "The Company" - …

Mobile 28 Oct 21:59
Google sued for super-skinny Chrome polishing

I have a patent on your Courgette

Mobilephoneware maker Red Bend Software has sued Google for patent infringement, claiming that the web giant's Chrome browser steps on an algorithmic patent it secured in 2003. In tandem with its Israeli parent company - Red Bend Ltd. - the Massachusetts-based Red Bend Software filed its suit in federal court on Monday, …

Applications 28 Oct 22:19
US plan would reclaim TV airwaves for iPhone

Shutting the spectrum gap

The US Federal Communications Commission is considering a plan that would reclaim some precious airwaves from the country's television broadcasters and reinvent them as wireless broadband. According to the Wall Street Journal, the FCC intends to release the plan in February as part of an effort to ensure that there's enough …

Wireless 28 Oct 23:50