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2nd November 2009 Archive

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  • Cisco and EMC in joint venture blitz

    vBlock and tackle

    The long rumored partnership between networking giant and server wannabe Cisco Systems, server virtualization juggernaut VMware, and storage powerhouse (and VMware owner) EMC will be announced this week, according to various reports. The three companies have been rumored to be working on some sort of formal joint venture to …

    Storage 2 Nov 05:17

  • TalkTalk to fight net disconnection plan

    Speak to you in court

    A major ISP has promised a court challenge to Government plans to allow the cutting off of internet connections used by people accused of unlawful file sharing. TalkTalk said it will challenge the plans in the courts. The Government commissioned a report on digital policy, Digital Britain, which did not recommend the cutting …

    Malware 2 Nov 06:02

  • UK gov squeezes copyright law into cheat sheets

    Contracts for dummies

    The UK Government will produce 'model contracts' to be used in copyright dealings in an attempt to make copyright law more useful and understandable. It will also standardise the way copyright exceptions to copyright law are dealt with in contracts. The Government has published a paper outlining new policies on copyright. It …

    Government 2 Nov 07:02

  • Belkin Powerline HD Gigabit mains Ethernet adaptor

    Review High-speed networking through a three-pin plug?

    Belkin's Gigabit Powerline HD mains-wiring network adaptor is the first we've seen to claim to be able to delivery data transfer rates of up to 1000Mb/s. We stress the word 'claim' and the phrase 'up to'. Makers of powerline kit also market adaptors that, they say, deliver bandwidth of up to 200Mb/s. But no one who uses one …

    Reg Hardware 2 Nov 08:02

  • Europe plots black boxes for cars

    Project Veronica not a privacy problem

    The European Commission's study into feasibility of fitting black box recorders to cars to record 20 types of data in case of accidents looks set to recommend the devices are fitted to all European cars. Project Veronica, which began in 2003 and cost £2.4m, has dismissed privacy concerns because the boxes only record data in …

    Government 2 Nov 10:00

  • Olympic ticket scams already starting, says top e-cop

    Beijing Games was proof of concept

    Organised criminal gangs are snapping up domain names, ready to launch rip-off ticket sites for the 2012 Olympic Games. Deputy Assistant Commissioner Janet Williams, the national lead on e-crime for the Association of Chief Police Officers (ACPO), said specialist officers are seeing precursor activity they believe is from …

    Policing 2 Nov 10:02

  • IBM facelifts i/OS for midrange gear

    Power system nip and tuck

    It might have come out with a slightly different name and a little later than expected, but Big Blue has tweaked its proprietary midrange operating system for Power-based systems with the i 6.1.1 release. The word on the street a little more than a year ago was that Big Blue would be packaging up some feature enhancements and …

    Operating Systems 2 Nov 10:02

  • 'Internet Age' means egalitarian 'hunter-gatherer' society

    Inherited cattle = unfairness, apparently

    Federal brainboxes in New Mexico, analysing the many types of human society in terms of inequality between rich and poor, have suggested that the modern "internet age" of knowledge and technology-based economies may lead to substantially fairer wealth distribution - perhaps as fair as that seen in primitive hunter-gatherer …

    Biology 2 Nov 10:11

  • The state of the x86 server estate?

    Proper Webcast Your peers are telling you

    If you’re running a data center, or just a moderate server room, chances are you’ve got an awful lot on your plate. It only gets worse too. Day to day; new demands, new apps, new kit, new pressures and more than likely, you only have partial visibility on these matters. Well, no more. The mighty readers of The Register are …

    Server Management 2 Nov 10:25

  • HTC to launch WinMo phone with Android-oriented UI

    HD2 official debut this week

    HTC will formally launch its Windows Mobile - not Android, alas - HD2 smartphone in Taipei on Wednesday, the company said today. Why WM not Android? HTC needs to "take care" of the Microsoft OS, HTC CEO Peter Chou said last week. Maybe, but that hasn't stopped the company burying the WM 6.5 user interface - which hasn't …

    Reg Hardware 2 Nov 10:36

  • Unigen plans enterprise flash by the bucket

    May the SandForce be with you

    Another vendor is chancing its arm in the enterprise flash drive stakes, and betting on SandForce's controller to turn flash chips into solid state drive gold. Unigen, headquartered in Fremont, Califormia, is the new entrant. It designs and builds OEM memory, DC-DC power converters, wired and wireless communication, and flash …

    Channel Register 2 Nov 10:45

  • Scientists flee Home Office after adviser sacking

    Nutt up or shut up

    The Home Office faces mass resignations by its consulting scientists after its clumsy gagging attempt on top drug adviser David Nutt. Home Secretary Alan Johnson sacked Nutt on Friday apparently for disagreeing with government policy, which has effectively ignored the advice of the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs, …

    Government 2 Nov 10:47

  • A short poll about server architectures

    Tech Panel Readers, we need you

    Reg readers, we're interested in finding out what your server architecture looks like, and how this might map onto what we have uncovered as some of the core challenges. Is it hub-and-spoke, all in one place or highly distributed? Let us know. READER POLL 1. If you add up everything in the boxes, racks and blade chassis, …

    Server Management 2 Nov 10:57

  • Quanta opens servers to 100-core Tilera

    Snipping out the Linux middlemen

    Upstart multicore, Linux-compatible chip maker Tilera don't need no stinking tier one server makers. That means no IBM, Dell, Hewlett-Packard, or Sun Microsystems. At least not yet. The company has just lined up $25m in its C round of funding, which includes $10m from Quanta Computer, the Taiwanese PC maker that is the volume …

    HPC 2 Nov 11:00

  • Motorola Android 2.0 phone Europe-bound

    With new name and multi-touch screen missing from US version?

    Motorola's Android 2.0-based Droid handset will be called the Milestone over here, the phone maker has revealed. In addition to a new, name the European incarnation will get HSDPA 3G and multi-touch technology, it has emerged. Milestone will have quad-band GSM/GPRS and dual-band - 900MHz and 2100MHz - WCDMA support. It has Wi- …

    Reg Hardware 2 Nov 11:24

  • Female fruitbat fellatio frenzy: 70% give head

    As do 100% of males - to themselves, naturally

    The scientific world is electrified today by one of the most significant discoveries of our times: the great majority of female short-nosed fruit bats love to give head. Possibly even more significantly, the nimble lust-crazed chiropterines are able to perform fellatio on a male bat who is taking them from behind at the time. …

    Biology 2 Nov 11:31

  • Firefox 3.6 beta promises speed injection

    Fox on the run

    Mozilla pushed out a first beta version of Firefox 3.6 on Friday, ahead of a planned release by the end of the year. The delayed release promises improved JavaScript performance and faster load-up, addressing a sluggish start problem that has become an issue with recent builds of the open source browser. Firefox 3.6 will also …

    Applications 2 Nov 11:33

  • LG OLED TV roadmap forecasts 40-inchers for 2012

    But they won't become as cheap as LCDs until 2016

    LG has reaffirmed its OLED TV roadmap, but warned that the price of tellies based on the technology won’t match those of LCDs for at least seven more years. The company first outlined its OLED TV roadmap back in April 2008, when it promised to have 32in models in volume production by 2011. LG still seems keen to keeping to …

    Reg Hardware 2 Nov 11:37

  • Creative whips out e-reader at AGM

    More than a reader. Or a tablet

    Creative Labs is hoping to grab a piece of the expanding e-reader pie with a net-enabled device it will also pitch as a social networking and general media tablet. According to the Epizenter blog, Creative Labs unveiled the Mediabook at the Singapore firm's annual general meeting last week. The device will feature a …

    PCs & Chips 2 Nov 12:14

  • BT Tower restaurant reborn for Olympics

    Top chef for top of the tower

    BT is considering reopening the revolving restaurant at the top of its eponymous Tower in central London. The London landmark has a ten foot ring around the edge which slowly rotates giving amazing views of the city below. It used to have a restaurant, bizarrely run by Butlins, but it was closed down. Reports today suggest BT …

    Telecoms 2 Nov 12:19

  • TalkTalk steps up attack on government

    Dunstone claims broadband tax will disconnect 100,000

    Charles Dunstone, the boss of TalkTalk and a Conservative Party donor, has launched an attack on the government's plan for a 50 pence per month tax on every landline to fund rural fibre rollout. He claimed today the £6 per year levy will mean 100,000 low income households will be forced to disconnect their broadband. "This is …

    Government 2 Nov 12:20

  • Nokia to shut down N-Gage

    A brief history of fail

    First it was a phone, then an online service. Now, Nokia's N-Gage will soon be nothing at all. The Finnish phone giant is going to shut it down. The N-Gage site will continue through 2010, but it will feature no new games. Instead, they'll be sold through Nokia's Ovi online store. It's hard to see the move is coincidental to …

    Reg Hardware 2 Nov 12:22

  • Chronically ill people 'happier if they abandon hope', say docs

    Promises to 'reconnect bowels' make people sad

    Health researchers in America have suggested that it is better for people suffering from severe illness to give up any hope that their condition might improve. “Hope is an important part of happiness,” said Dr Peter A Ubel, one of the authors of the "happily hopeless" study, “but there’s a dark side of hope". Essentially, …

    Biology 2 Nov 12:26

  • Agincourt: The sensational truth

    El Reg calculates the true strength of Henry's forces

    The news last week that a group of historians had calculated that Henry V's forces at Agincourt weren't actually outnumbered four to one by the French caused a certain amount of dismay here at Vulture Central. Well, we weren't going to take this highly suspect piece of revisionism lying down, and immediately set about re- …

    Bootnotes 2 Nov 12:40

  • Apple MacBook Late 2009

    Review Plastic phoenix rises

    Just a year ago, in October 2008, it looked like the white plastic-cased MacBook was headed for the scrap heap. Apple had just introduced a new and more expensive model sculpted out of aluminium, and although the plastic version was kept on sale to provide a less-expensive option for the budget-conscious education market, it was …

    Reg Hardware 2 Nov 13:02

  • Southwark council sues IBM

    Pays public cash to lawyers to get it back from Big Blue

    A London local authority is taking legal action against IBM over a software solution it claims is not fit for purpose. The London Borough of Southwark has issued a writ against the company over the performance of a master data management system, developed by another company, for the cleaning up of information on several …

    Government 2 Nov 13:08

  • Aspiring model pleasures Taoist master

    Actually administers ritual BJ to truck driver, HK court hears

    A Hong Kong model, whose career was evidently not going too well, was told by her agent that he happened to know a Taoist Mao Shan master with the power to grant her success - providing she had ritual sex with him. Unfortunately, the guru in question was actually 55-year-old truck driver Au Yeung Kwok-fu, and the unnamed 19- …

    Bootnotes 2 Nov 13:10

  • Pirate Bay clampdown prompted file sharing site spike

    A true 'cloud computing' effort, reports McAfee

    Attempts to shut down notorious torrent tracker site The Pirate Bay have spurred a four-fold increase in the number of file sharing websites during the third quarter of 2009. At least some of these sites are primarily designed to distribute scareware and other types of malware rather than pirated content. Net security firm …

    Malware 2 Nov 13:23

  • Windows 7 busts the 3 per cent share barrier

    And that's not counting copies not installed yet...

    Microsoft's kind of make or break Windows 7 launch pushed the OS to a stonking 3.48 per cent market share by the end of last month, figures from tracker firm Net Applications show. The firm's figures showed Windows 7 popping up on 3.67 per cent of PCs it encountered on the 31st. While the figure might appear minuscule, it …

    Channel Register 2 Nov 13:32

  • Storage firm Drobo gets mysterious cash injection

    Ten million greenbacks for what exactly?

    Drobo, the supplier of stylish 4- or 8-bay add your own drives external storage boxes, has raised $10m in an E-round funding exercise. Quite why is not obvious, since the company is shipping product like a tropical storm. It had 100 per cent worldwide sales growth in the second quarter of 2008, and has had double-digit growth …

    Storage 2 Nov 13:48

  • Microsoft security report shows worms are returning

    UK holding its own in cyber security

    Microsoft's latest security intelligence report shows a resurgence in worms, although rogue security software also remains a big issue. Rogue security software was found and removed from 13.4m machines, compared to 16.8m last time. It is still an issue but numbers are falling. Worm figures doubled in the first six months of …

    Malware 2 Nov 14:02

  • Virgin America dumps servers, flies for the clouds

    Open-source payload

    For a start-up, Virgin America is acting pretty big these days. In the spring of 2007, the low-price airline wasn't even flying. It was still struggling for US regulatory clearance. But suddenly, Washington DC gave it the green light, and on August 8 that year, Virgin's first commercial flight took off from its base at San …

    Servers 2 Nov 14:02

  • UTIT IT touts titillation

    LogoWatch Logo walks tit like it talks tit

    We're much obliged to the reader (who's wisely chosen to remain anonymous because he really doesn't want to to end up dangling by his 'nads in a Saudi jail) for a fine example of branding wrongness from Riyadh-based UTIT. Let's face it, the name's a cracker, and no messing, but check out the logo for extra jubtastic merriment …

    Bootnotes 2 Nov 14:13

  • Fujitsu UK workers vote to strike

    Government IT services could be hit

    Union members at Fujitsu Services have voted for strike action over pensions, pay and job cuts. The action is not yet decided. Senior Unite union reps are meeting today to decide the next move after 74 per cent of members who voted called for a walk out. Some 92 per cent agreed to industrial action short of a strike. A …

    Government 2 Nov 14:33

  • US military tracker-droids to 'consider humans as fluid'

    Traffic algorithm upgrade for airborne spyeyes

    Pentagon propellerhead chiefs have hatched another sinister surveillance scheme. The plan is to add "flow based" theories of urban traffic movement - which assume that humans en masse behave like fluid moving through a network of pipes or channels - to conventional radar/camera based tracking of vehicles. One need hardly say …

    Science 2 Nov 14:56

  • Tandberg bigs up removable media capacity

    Frankfurt gets first peek at DAT 320

    Tandberg Data showed off a 320GB DAT drive at SNW in Frankfurt and has upped its RDX removable drive capacity to 640GB. This is the first public sighting of a DAT 320 drive, the 7th DAT generation, and drives should write 43GB of raw data an hour to a DAT320 cartridge, that's 11.9MB/sec. Storage Newsletter reports that it's a …

    Storage 2 Nov 15:02

  • Orange saves callers pennies with iPhone tariffs

    The future's bright, the future's 11p cheaper

    Orange will launch its iPhone offering on 10 November, at a price almost indistinguishable from O2's existing one. Anyone expecting that the end of O2's monopoly would lead to some sort of price war will be disappointed to hear that Orange will be offering the top-end iPhone at exactly the same (two-year) tariff as O2, though …

    Mobile 2 Nov 15:27

  • More than half of touchphone users will go back to buttons

    Survey reveals disappointment with technology, experience

    World+Dog wants a touchscreen phone, survey results from market watcher Canalys suggest, but vendors still have work to do to prevent users going back to buttons. According to Canalys' figures, 38 per cent of some 3000 mobile phone users questioned in the UK, France and Germany said their next phone will have a finger-oriented …

    Reg Hardware 2 Nov 15:41

  • Notorious Kiwi pill spammers slapped with fine

    Herbal King dethroned

    A gang of notorious spammers from Christchurch, New Zealand have been hit with fines in the first prosecution under the country's anti-spam laws. Shane Atkinson was fined $71,870 (NZ$100,000) while his partner-in-spam Roland Smits was ordered to hand over $35,915 (NZ$50,000) after the duo were convicted of sending out millions …

    Spam 2 Nov 15:43

  • Ruiz out as Global Foundries chairman

    Another casualty of Galleon-New Castle insider trading?

    GlobalFoundries, the wafer baking spinout of Advanced Micro Devices, announced this morning that chairman Hector Ruiz has taken a voluntary leave of absence from the company, effective immediately. Ruiz is rumored to be one of the executives who spoke out of turn about that spinout, with the information subsequently finding …

    Financial News 2 Nov 16:01

  • Scots slam Germans for 'tight-arsed' slur

    Schotten Preise a cheap jibe, says SNP

    The Scottish National Party has decided to take the Germans to task for commonly insinuating that our Caledonian cousins are a bit tight, The Telegraph reports. Those from the land of Lederhosen, Bratwurst and Sauerkraut apparently associate the Scots with thrift - something reflected in the term Schotten Preise, which they …

    Bootnotes 2 Nov 16:26

  • Esther '1st lady of internet' Dyson appointed NASA advisor

    'I'm dying to get into space but can't afford it'

    Famed techbiz journo and investor Esther Dyson has been named as chairperson of a new "Technology and Innovation Committee" formed to help advise the senior management of NASA. The space agency has announced a "restructuring" of its Advisory Council, featuring four new committees looking into "key areas of importance to the …

    Space 2 Nov 16:36

  • Vonage drops off the net

    From VoIP to NoIP

    VoIP service Vonage has reportedly dropped off the net, with UK customers complaining that their voice service has disappeared since lunchtime today. Vonage customers have been complaining that the service disappeared around lunchtime today, and that once they manage to get through to technical support they are told that there …

    VoIP 2 Nov 17:01

  • Apple said to have axed Atom support from OS X 10.6.2

    Hackintosh netbook builders worried by lone blogger's claim

    Apple has axed support for Intel's Atom processor from the as-yet-unreleased Mac OS X 10.6.2, it has been claimed. If true, the move will hinder anyone keen to create a micro Mac laptop from any of the many netbooks on sale today. The claim comes from a blogger called Stell who posts on matters pertinent to the hackintosh …

    Reg Hardware 2 Nov 18:11

  • Marvel Comics open on iPhone

    Stateside Jobsian X-Men

    US comics fans can now use their iPhones' in-app purchase capability to download Marvel comics onto Apple's überpopular smartphones. iPhone users in the UK and elsewhere? Not so lucky. Three popular free iPhone apps support in-app Marvel downloads: Comixology, iVerse, and Panelfly Comics (App Store links). Comixology has …

    Mobile 2 Nov 18:28

  • US gov warns banks on money mules

    More dough in the laundry

    The government agency that insures US banks has warned its members to be on the lookout for an increase in money mules used to launder money that's been electronically stolen from deposit accounts. In a memo issued last week, the federal deposit insurance corporation told member banks the mules can often be spotted by common …

    Crime 2 Nov 18:32

  • ZFS gets inline dedupe

    Switch it on and off at the dataset level

    Sun's Zettabyte File System (ZFS) now has built-in deduplication, making it probably the most space-efficient file system there is. There's a discussion of ZFS deduplication in a Sun blog, which says that chunks of data, such as a byte range or blocks or files, are checksummed with a hash function and any duplicate chunks will …

    Storage 2 Nov 18:37

  • Google retrieves coder's Microsoft badge from rubbish bin

    Gifts still on the heap

    Jon Skeet - the Microsoft-happy Google developer whose Mountain View overlords "advised" him to give up his Microsoft MVP badge - has now regained this Ballmerian status symbol after a compromise with Google's "Code of Conduct" police. "I'm delighted to be able to announce that I'm now an MVP again," Skeet announced Friday on …

    Developer 2 Nov 19:10

  • Chip sales upgrade from terrible to bad

    Still down from 2008

    Global semiconductor sales have improved from terrible to bad in the third quarter, as the industry continues to recover from its massive slide a year ago. Chip sales in Q3 jumped 19.7 per cent to $61.9bn compared to the second quarter when sales were $51.7bn, according to the Semiconductor Industry Association. But Q3 sales …

    PCs & Chips 2 Nov 19:13

  • Novell tongue-lashes LA for Google cloud switch

    What savings? What security?

    Los Angeles has broken a lot of hearts in its history. You're on top of the world one day, then tossed into the heap the next when the new big thing arrives. That Sunset Boulevard moment came for Novell last week after the LA City Council unanimously voted to replace its existing Novell communications systems with the …

    Applications 2 Nov 20:58

  • Unisys takes Secure Cloud private

    A chip off the virtual x64 block

    Server and services company Unisys launched its homegrown cloud computing service in the summer, and now it wants to sell companies a chip off the Secure Cloud block and let them install local versions of the Unisys cloud inside their own data centers. The Secure Cloud that debuted in late June can be thought of as a test bed …

    Servers 2 Nov 22:30

  • The Meta Cloud gets more meta

    RightScale and the floating UNIX analogy

    RightScale has renewed its quest for The Meta Cloud. On Monday the Santa Barbara, California startup unveiled a new version of its Cloud Management Platform, an online service meant to grease the use of Amazon's Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2) and other so-called infrastructure clouds, including GoGrid and Rackspace's Cloud …

    Servers 2 Nov 22:57

  • Amazon's EC2 brings new might to password cracking

    Cloudonomics and the art of black-hat hacking

    Forget what you've learned about password security. A simple pass code with nothing more than lower-case letters may be all you need - provided you use 12 characters. That's the conclusion of security consultant David Campbell, who calculated the cost of waging a brute-force attack on various types of passwords using cloud …

    ID 2 Nov 23:03

  • Skype for Linux set for open source

    'In the nearest future'

    Skype for Linux will be open sourced at some point in "the nearest future." Word of the open sourcing first arrived from French blogger Olivier Faurax, and it's now been confirmed by Skype itself. In a back-and-forth to Skype Customer Support about the possibility of a Skype-supporting RPM package manager for the Mandriva …

    Applications 2 Nov 23:23