16th December 2009 Archive

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Google says ad blockers will save online ads

Add-on-Con Translation: People are lazy

Google - the world's largest online ad broker - sees no reason to worry about the addition of ad-blocking extensions to its Chrome browser. Online advertisers will ensure their ads aren't too annoying, the company says, and netizens will ultimately realize that online advertising is a good thing. "We think about this a lot at …

Applications 16 Dec 00:07
Mystery co. sues Apple, IBM, Microsoft, Adobe, Oracle...

'Software installation? We own it!'

An east-Texas company, BetaNet LLC, has filed a patent-infringement suit against Apple, Microsoft, Adobe, Oracle, IBM, SAP, and a dozen other companies. The patent in question, "Secure system for activating personal computer software at remote locations," describes in sweeping terms a remote software installation and …

Software 16 Dec 00:18
'Steve Jobs' dupes blogosphere with AT&T ~~protest~~ hoax

Operation Chokehold (not) set for Friday

A web-borne - and, for that matter, web-born - movement to spank AT&T this Friday which started as a hoax has taken on a life of its own. On Monday, the ever-risible lampoon site The Secret Diary of Steve Jobs published a parody proposal ostensibly from Apple engineers called Operation Chokehold that calls upon iPhone users to …

Odds and Sods 16 Dec 00:59
Philip K. Dick's kid howls over Googlephone handle

Do Androids dream of electric sci-fi allusions?

Philip K. Dick's daughter is "shocked and dismayed" that Google has apparently named its fabled cellphone after one of her father's creations without consulting his estate. Isa Dick Hackett has even gone so far as to discuss the matter with her legal counsel, The New York Times reports. On Saturday, Google confirmed that it …

Mobile 16 Dec 04:41
Attacks spread malware with help from AppleInsider

And lawyers.com. And many more

Malware purveyors are exploiting web vulnerabilities in appleinsider.com, lawyer.com, news.com.au and a dozen other sites to foist rogue anti-virus on unsuspecting netizens. The ongoing attacks are notable because they use exploits based on XSS, or cross-site scripting, to hide malware links inside the URLs of trusted sites. …

Malware 16 Dec 06:02
Stratus puts $50K where its fault tolerant mouth is

Cash for crashes

Server virtualization and the live migration of virtual machines across a network of servers and storage has allowed companies like VMware and Citrix Systems to bully their way into the high availability server market. And Stratus Technologies, which makes mirrored, fault-tolerant x64 boxes, is fighting back against what it sees …

Servers 16 Dec 07:02
Intel heaps 'connected-TV' hype on partners

Facebook will follow you to the couch

The future of television is fiddling around with extra gadgets, closing pop-up advertisements, chatting with friends, and maybe a bit of shows on the side. The familiar gang of social apps and picture-menu navigation will chase us into the living room and into our TV sets in the coming year, according to Intel. Chipzilla's …

Music and Media 16 Dec 07:02
Acer A1 Liquid Android smartphone

Review Niftiest touchscreen around?

Over the last 12 months Acer has been spitting out smartphones like there is no tomorrow. Some of them, like the Tempo F900, have been quite good while others, like the beTouch E101, have been, ahem, less impressive. Yet none have really scored as a hit in our book, but that may be about to change with the release of the A1 …

Reg Hardware 16 Dec 08:02
Citrix adds failover to Hyper-V partitions

Virtual high availability real cheap

Citrix has delivered a key feature of the Essentials stack of management tools for Microsoft's Hyper-V hypervisor for Windows platforms and pledged to bring the high availability tool, called StorageLink Site Recovery, to its own XenServer hypervisor next year. You heard that right. Citrix is getting its virtual machine …

Virtualization 16 Dec 08:02
Unhappy Fujitsu staff vote for pre-Xmas strike

More walkouts planned in New Year, too

Fujitsu Services staff voted overwhelmingly in favour of strike action, with 1,500 UK workers set to down tools on Friday, 18 December. Unite, Blighty's largest union, said that further action was planned for the New Year with two-day walkouts expected on 7-8 and 14-15 January. It added that there would also be a 24-hour …

Financial News 16 Dec 09:44
Is production scale virtualisation ready for the big time?

On Demand Time to rewind

Most IT Professionals nowadays have tried virtualisation of some kind or another – whether it’s dabbling on the desktop, super-charging servers or apportioning activity to application delivery. Rolling these developments out into production scale systems hasn’t hit the mainstream just yet. It’s no surprise either. Defining a …

Virtualisation Lab 16 Dec 10:02
Digital Dividend could cost cable TV dear

EU to evaluate interference claims

The EU is to investigate claims that 4G mobile networks could knock out cable TV, if allowed to deploy in the "Digital Dividend" spectrum. The European Union is to carry out laboratory tests to establish if a handset, or nearby base station, transmitting on the old analogue-TV frequencies now known as the Digital Dividend, can …

Telecoms 16 Dec 10:03
Googlephone videos uncovered

Nexus One branding revealed

Evidence is mounting that Google’s smartphone will be called the Nexus One, following the appearance of a video showing the phone’s packaging and OS. Can't see the video? Download Flash Player from Adobe.com The video was posted onto a blog called The Nexus One – which doesn’t seem to hold any official links with Google – …

Reg Hardware 16 Dec 10:37
El Reg's PARIS programme attracts high-flying sponsor

Peer 1 hops aboard Vulture 1

We're delighted to announce today that our Paper Aircraft Released Into Space (PARIS) programme has attracted sponsorship from Peer 1 - the international hosting firm which has demonstrated it has the Right Stuff by backing our audacious upper-atmosphere plane plan. For those of you not up to speed on PARIS, we'll be carrying …

Science 16 Dec 10:43
US warships to get plane-snatching robot arms?

Droidplane catcher grabs barrel of pork

The US military has decided to spend $1.4m developing a robotic arm which will be mounted on the deck of a warship in order to pluck robot aeroplanes out of the sky, so permitting them to land safely on vessels without large flight decks. The "SeaCatcher" system is under development by Advanced Technology & Research Corp of …

Government 16 Dec 10:44
First seamless 4G mobile data devices in sight

ST Ericsson goes a-roaming with alphabet soup

Chip firm ST Ericsson says it has developed devices which will allow users to use the latest 4G mobile networks in Scandinavia seamlessly, without the need to switch dongles. TeliaSonera launched its 4G network in Sweden and Norway earlier this week, but early adopters are being issued with a pair of USB dongles for manual …

Mobile 16 Dec 10:57
ID card minister forgets ID card

Slapstick Meg

Already shouldering the unfortunate burden of cheerleading for the ID cards scheme, one might expect the universe might cut Home Office minister Meg Hillier some slack. Alas, at an event in Liverpool to promote said white elephant yesterday, she forgot her ID card. Hillier blamed her forgetfulness on the demands of looking …

Government 16 Dec 11:00
Cops need warrant to search phones, say Ohio Supremes

First top-level US ruling on celly seizures

Police officers must obtain a search warrant before snooping through the contents of a suspect's cell phone, Ohio's supreme court ruled on Tuesday. The issue of whether mobile phones fall under US Fourth Amendment rights against unreasonable searches and seizures appears never to have been weighed by any other US state supreme …

Law 16 Dec 11:13
Home Secretary unmoved by last-ditch McKinnon protests

Gary's mum protests to the Queen

Self-confessed Pentagon hacker Gary McKinnon ought to answer serious criminal charges in the US, the Home Secretary told MPs on Tuesday Alan Johnson defended his recent decision to allow extradition proceedings against McKinnon - despite medical opinion that the autism sufferer was a suicide risk - in an appearance before the …

Government 16 Dec 11:19
Wireless e-car recharge tech within range?

Leccy Tech Powermat for cars

If losing your leccy car's power cable or the risk of an almighty electric shock keeps you from buying an e-car, then US company Evatran may have the answer. Evatran's Plugless Power system would do away with charging cables The firm’s Plugless Power concept would supposedly let you recharge your e-car in the same way that …

Reg Hardware 16 Dec 11:28
LaCie intros small, stylish external drive

A resilient aesthetic?

LaCie has introduced a small external hard drive called Rikiki which has a 2.5in disk drive inside. Rikiki means tiny or small in French and this little product in its brushed aluminium case measures 109.7 x 75 x 13.4mm. It's a plain rectangular box with a USB 2.0 port and an activity light. The capacity points are 250GB, …

Reg Hardware 16 Dec 11:43
Adobe profit, sales fall in Q4

Blames buy-shy customers, Omniture acquisition

Adobe Systems saw profit and sales drop in its fourth quarter, but despite that, the firm proclaimed that customer demand was set to blossom in 2010. The company reported (PDF) a decline in sales yesterday, after customers shied away from upgrading their copies of Acrobat, Flash and Photoshop apps. In Q4 it reeled in revenue …

Channel Register 16 Dec 11:48
NZ gal's Bulgarian airbags halt traffic

Flashes jubs, gets run over

A New Zealand teenager whose mates dared her to flash her chesticles at passing motorists brought traffic to a standstill when an appreciative driver ran her over, the Southland Times reports. Cherelle May Dudfield, 18, stood in the middle of an Invercargill road with her assets exposed on 27 September. This turned out to be …

Bootnotes 16 Dec 11:49
The iPhone gets a Bing in its step

Microsoft embraces the enemy of its enemy

Microsoft has launched an iPhone version of its mobile Bing application, bringing endless images and voice navigation to Apple's baby in its continuing fight with Google. Mobile Bing is already available for Windows Phones and Blackberrys, as well as having a version well suited for mobile browsers, but the latest release …

Mobile 16 Dec 11:56
Asus coyly announces 32nm 'Gulftown' processor

Intel spared blushes

Asus has near as darnit confirmed the upcoming release of 'Gulftown', Intel's six-core Extreme Edition Core i7-980X desktop processor. The motherboard maker today said its boards based on Intel's X58 chipset will "support the upcoming 32nm processor based on the LGA1366 socket". Not 'processors', you note, but "the processor …

Reg Hardware 16 Dec 11:57
Nvidia hints at Tegra 2 intro at CES

Breakthrough ARM product?

Nvidia looks set to announce its next-generation Tegra system-on-a-chip at the upcoming Consumer Electronics Show early next year. The chip maker hasn't formally said as much, but its head of investor relations, Michael Mara, last week signposted CES as the venue for a major Tegra-related announcement. This week, the company …

Reg Hardware 16 Dec 12:02
Bendy flash memory raises prospect of flexible displays

Altered images

Flexible plastic computer displays have come closer as a result of a successful organic flash memory project led by University of Tokyo researchers. Flexible flash memory could be used in other relatively large area applications, such as pressure sensors, actuators and electric ink book readers. This contrasts with NAND or NOR …

Storage 16 Dec 12:05
Teardown team open-sources gadget repair guides

Virgin launches similar chargeable system

The gadget teardown experts at iFixit have decided to make the firm’s entire catalogue of gadget repair guides available to all - and for free. With immediate effect, iFixit has licensed all of its repair manuals under the Creative Commons BY-NC-SA licence – meaning anyone can read the guides for free and make alterations to …

Reg Hardware 16 Dec 12:06
Online-only news to be overseen by press watchdog

Introducing the novel concept of online self-regulation

Internet-only publications are to face the same regulations as newspapers for the first time under an extension to the powers of newspaper industry self-regulator body the Press Complaints Commission (PCC). After a consultation with industry, the Press Standards Board of Finance (PressBoF), which controls the remit of the PCC …

Music and Media 16 Dec 12:38
RockYou password snafu exposes webmail accounts

Clueless developer airs 32m user login IDs

Millions of user passwords to social networking sites have been exposed, after a serious SQL injection flaw on the Rockyou.com website left login details - stored in plain text - up for grabs. RockYou - which develops apps for social networking sites including Facebook, Bebo and MySpace - stored usernames, passwords and email …

ID 16 Dec 12:41
Facebookers made into fans of Berlsuconi in post-attack row

Souvenir-chuck reaction prompts censorship fears

Italian left-wingers claim a Facebook propaganda campaign has co-opted hundreds of thousands of users into groups supporting Silvio Berlusconi as he recuperates. Yesterday, the Italian privacy commissioner was asked to investigate when Facebook users noticed they had mysteriously joined groups such as "We Support Berlusconi" …

Government 16 Dec 12:42
EC drops Microsoft browser probe

Redmond agrees to offer more choice to customers

Brussels has ditched some of its antitrust action against Microsoft, after the software giant agreed to offer Windows customers a choice of web browsers via its operating system. Microsoft will avoid further fines from regulators at the competition arm of the European Commission, if it gives Windows users a pop-up screen that …

Applications 16 Dec 12:51
Geeks Guide₂ Christmas 2009 — Part IV

Last in the trilogy of sales

It’s time to wrap up with the fourth and final part of our trilogy in true geek style. In addition to the books featured below, we also have a further 12,000+ items available at the bookstore, all with special Chrimbo discounts and same working day dispatch where available. There is also free delivery on orders over £25! The …

Site News 16 Dec 13:08
Watchdog mauls Disney woman's breasts

Mam-flash Adventureland ad banned

The Advertising Standards Authority has kicked into touch an online ad for Disney flick Adventureland, which encouraged Yahoo! users to whip off a woman's shirt with a click of the mouse. The ASA explains: An internet ad for the cinema release of the film Adventureland showed the torso of a woman wearing a white T-shirt with …

Entertainment 16 Dec 13:10
Firms fuse high-tech sensors into concept phone

The future of smartphones?

Consumers could soon interact with mobile phones in more advanced ways than mere button presses or finger swipes, if the concept Fuse phone is anything to go by. Can't see the video? Download Flash Player from Adobe.com Fuse employs multiple interface technologies – including multi-touch capacitive sensing, haptic feedback …

Reg Hardware 16 Dec 13:15
Apple silences Psystar's rebel yell with injunction

No more, more, more litigation?

Apple has finally secured a permanent injunction against Hackintosh thorn-in-the-side Psystar, apparently bringing over a year and a half of litigation to an end. The injunction, granted by the US District Court for the Northern District of California, prohibits Psystar Corp from selling copies of the Mac OS or selling …

PCs & Chips 16 Dec 13:29
Firefox update plugs three critical flaws

Version 3.5.6 will patch your quilt

Mozilla has pushed out a cross-platform update for Firefox that fixes multiple security flaws. Firefox 3.5.6 lances three critical vulns in the open source browser software. They include memory problems involving the liboggplay media library, an integer overflow crash bug in the libtheora video library, and a separate memory …

Developer 16 Dec 13:46
EMC DPA adds replication monitoring

By servers and its arrays

EMC has extended the data protection coverage of its DPA product by giving it the ability to monitor replication operations by servers and some EMC storage arrays. DPA, Data Protection Advisor, is the name for the technology obtained by EMC when it bought WySDM in April last year. The idea is to monitor and advise on as many …

Storage 16 Dec 13:56
Google weighs in to Aussie firewall row

Not so vocal on China, lads?

Google has criticised the Australian government's forthcoming mandatory ISP censorship system for targeting a "too wide" a range of content. While supporting blocking of child abuse material, Iarla Flynn, Google Australia's head of policy today wrote that "moving to a mandatory ISP filtering regime with a scope that goes well …

Government 16 Dec 14:14
MoD does everything right for once in Xmas shocker

Comment Freak ceasefire interrupts endless cannonade of cockups

It doesn't happen often, but just for once there's good news out of the Ministry of Defence - good news for British troops in combat overseas, and good news for British taxpayers too. But it's bad news for the UK arms biz, and bad news for certain regional communities who rely on the MoD to bring them government money they …

Government 16 Dec 14:55
UK judges reject Lucas' appeal in Star Wars helmet case

This is not the judgment he was looking for

A trio of senior UK judges have rejected George Lucas' claims that a propmaker for the original Star Wars film had breached his copyright by selling Imperial stormtrooper outfits. Shepperton-based Andrew Ainsworth made the helmets for the original Star Wars movie - which was largely filmed in the UK. Over 30 years on, he now …

Law 16 Dec 15:04
Amazon adds media streaming to S3 storage cloud

Back-ending Flash media

Amazon Web Services, the cloud computing subsidiary of online retailer Amazon, today has put a media serving and caching front end on its Simple Storage Service (S3) storage cloud that lets it act as a distributed (as in globally) media server to feed streaming content on the cheap. The streaming media service is called …

Servers 16 Dec 15:11
Broadcom chip promises 20Mp, 1080p mobile devices

But not until 2011

Broadcom has hinted that 20Mp cameraphones able to record 1080p video could be available by 2011, following the release of its latest multimedia processor. The BCM2763 VideoCore IV multimedia processor for mobile devices was developed using 40 nanometer CMOS process technology, Broadcom said. This means it boasts a smaller …

Reg Hardware 16 Dec 15:18
Google Doodle poisoned by scareware slingers

How do you say ne'er do wells in Esperanto?

Scareware slingers have begun hiding links to rogue anti-virus sites behind Google Doodle. The development leaves surfers who click on Google's picture of the day at risk of being exposed to sites that run fake security scans, before strong-arming users into buying worthless software in order to clean-up non-existent security …

Malware 16 Dec 15:29
Borders signs deal for new eBook store

More free tomes, but Adobe still in the background

Borders has bought a stake in on-line book seller Kobo, which will take over the bookselling giant's eBook store and extend the service onto PDA phones too. Borders UK might be clearing the shelves, but the US company is expanding its electronic presence in the face of competition from Amazon and Barnes & Nobel amongst others …

Mobile 16 Dec 15:42
FTC whacks Intel with anticompetition complaint

Updated Claims Intel coerced vendors, rigged compilers

The US Federal Trade Commission ruined Intel's Christmas by hitting the firm with wide ranging charges of anticompetitive business practices. The Feds also charge that Intel rigged its compilers to put AMD at a disadvantage and that it is trying to smother its rivals in the graphics chip business. Intel has rejected the …

Hardware 16 Dec 16:12
Virgin coughs up digital tech support for clueless users

Bedwetters of the world unite

Virgin Group has launched a tech help service that will compete with the likes of DSGi's Tech Guys in the UK. Virgin Digital Help is the company's first new UK consumer biz in three years. It was created in partnership with outsourcing outfit Sutherland Global Services, said Virgin. The service is pitched at clueless Blighty …

PCs & Chips 16 Dec 16:14
LHC Xmas shutdown today - massive boffin roister planned

'Dr Dark Energy' still thought to be plotting mischief

Sad news for fans of the exciting new sport of ultra-violent hadron billiards today, as international science alliance CERN shuts down the Large Hadron Collider - most powerful particle-punisher ever built - for the Christmas break this evening. Not everyone will be unhappy, though. Tinfoil-bonced apocalypse prophets, and more …

Physics 16 Dec 16:19
Intel staff 'fired' in ring piece stunt

End of bells - or bell ends?

In a bid to distract hacks from Intel's upcoming battle with the Federal Trade Commission, the chip giant's spin team have come up with a "funny" video of five Finnish employees firing themselves from cannons in a bid to play the Intel five-note jingle. Said staff were shot at a giant set if chimes, the impact of crania on …

Reg Hardware 16 Dec 16:53
IBM munches BPM maven Lombardi

Borging for IT

IBM has acquired privately held business process management software niche player Lombardi, an outfit based in Austin, Texas. IBM says that its middleware stack needed some BPM tools that allowed for people and the departments they work in to be wrapped in the loving embrace of workflow software like ERP and content management …

Software 16 Dec 17:23
Google accused of scrubbing bloody Berlusconi pics

El Reg sides with the Chocolate Factory

Move over, Facebook. Now Google is caught in the middle of Italy's epic row over Sunday's violent assault on Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi. Bloggers, netizens, and at least one news organization are claiming that the web giant has removed images of a bloodied Berlusconi from the Italian incarnation of Google Image search. …

Music and Media 16 Dec 20:15
IBM Rational adds new ties for devs

System-on-a-chip sim

IBM has introduced a fresh batch of updates and software to their portfolio made to help software developers and systems engineers integrate different business processes into its Rational platform. The rollout includes updates to IBM Rational System Architect, DOORS Web Access and Rhapsody, as well as making Rational Software …

Applications 16 Dec 20:23
TJX hacker mulls Asperger's defense

Move over, McKinnon

The international hacker who has admitted to stealing more than 130 million payment card numbers has mounted a new defense claim that he might suffer from Asperger's syndrome, a court filing indicates. On Tuesday, attorneys for Albert Gonzalez filed a report from a forensic psychologist that questioned the criminal hacker's " …

Crime 16 Dec 21:11
Dell crunches numbers on Perot deal

What to buy next?

In an effort to get Wall Street excited about the company again, Dell has committed to extract $4bn in costs from its operations between 2009 and 2011. That gets a bit tricky if Dell keeps acquiring companies, and it had to keep acquiring if it's gonna dig itself out of it commodity hardware corner, a place where a slick and …

IT Director 16 Dec 22:52
'Steve Jobs' repeals AT&T iPhone prank

But it's too late

Fake Steve Jobs has retracted the online AT&T joke that somehow morphed into a legitimate protest against the telco's wireless network. But it may be too late. In a Wednesday post to his blog, The Secret Diary of Steve Jobs, Dan Lyons (aka Fake Steve) acknowledged that Operation Chokehold is "just a joke that has spun out of …

Odds and Sods 16 Dec 23:30
How Google became Microsoft: A decade of hits, misses and gaffes

The Noughties weren't always nice

For the tech industry, The Noughties were very nice indeed. Except when they weren't. During the first decade of the millennium, it goes without saying that computing has changed in a big way, becoming cheaper, easier to use, more mobile, and - in the words of the Mountain View Chocolate Factory - more "webby." But it should …

Software 16 Dec 23:34
Uni warns patients after doctor gets phished

Cautionary tale ad infinitum

Officials at the University of California at San Francisco have warned 600 patients that their medical information may have been leaked by a doctor who fell for a phishing scam. An email the unnamed physician received in September purported to come from UCSF IT workers performing an upgrade to internal servers. It asked for a …

ID 16 Dec 23:50