6th January 2010 Archive

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Year 2010 bug wreaks havoc on German payment cards

Son of Y2K also hits SpamAssasin, Symantec

A delayed Y2K bug has bitten hard at some 30 million holders of German debit and credit cards, making it impossible for them to use automatic teller machines and point-of-sale terminals since New Year's Day. Multiple news agencies said the outage stemmed from card chips that couldn't recognize the year 2010. The DSGV, an …

Security 6 Jan 2010, 01:28
Microsoft's 'almost ready' Azure set for April delivery?

We ain't done 'til we're done

Microsoft plans to start fully charging customers for use of its planned Azure cloud until the spring, it seems. The Windows Azure platform team has said it will be April when Microsoft starts charging for the components that comprise Azure’s AppFabric - the Service Bus that connects applications and services, and the Access …

Developer 6 Jan 2010, 04:16
MIPS squeezes Android into set-top box

Commercially available. Someday

MIPS Technologies is hoping Google's Android OS can find fame and fortune outside the mobile world where Google hasn't set its sights on making a device of its own (yet). The California-based chip designer plans to trot out what it reckons will be the first commercially available set-top boxes based on the Android OS, along …

Hardware 6 Jan 2010, 06:02
NetEx tosses Hyper-V VMs around WANs

Dropping HyperIP into Hyper-V

WAN optimization appliance maker NetEx said today that it is getting ready to support Microsoft's Hyper-V server hypervisor as a deployment vehicle for its own HyperIP virtual appliance. The forthcoming release of the HyperIP WAN optimization tool will not only run inside of Hyper-V, but it will be able to allow virtual …

Virtualization 6 Jan 2010, 07:02
MSI's Pine Trail netbook: 'Do you think I'm sexy?'

CES 2010 WiMax certification too

As expected, MSI rolled out its Intel Pine Trail netbooks at a press event at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas - but there were a couple of surprises at Tuesday's roll-out. First, in addition to the MSI Wind U135 we reported last month, there's another 10-inch netbook in MSI's stable: the slim and arguably sexy - if …

Hardware 6 Jan 2010, 07:47
Me, me, me: Iomega clones PCs virtually

VMware technology does the trick

Iomega will offer a Windows PC cloning facility to store a PC clone on an Iomega hard drive and run it in a connected secondary PC, notebook or netbook. The v.Clone software will copy a complete image of a primary PC to a USB-connected Iomega hard drive. When that hard drive is connected to a secondary PC, be it a desktop, …

Virtualization 6 Jan 2010, 08:02
Sony BDP-S760 Blu-ray disc player

Review Best in class?

Sony recently updated its range of Blu-ray players with the entry-level BDP-S560, which is listed at around £300 on Sony’s UK web site, and the BDP-S760 for £400. Shop around online though and both models can be picked up for £80 less. Top gear: Sony's BDP-S760 Yet, despite the mid-range price-tag, Sony describes the S760 …

Hardware 6 Jan 2010, 08:02
The Googlephone - there's more where that came from

Nexus indeed

The Googlephone exists. The Mountain View Chocolate Factory is already selling the endlessly-rumored Nexus One from its very own online store, pulling in sales dollars and, yes, competing with existing partners. Namely Motorola and Verizon. Mountain View is now a retailer, and though the company says it didn't design the Nexus …

Phones 6 Jan 2010, 08:29
Recession forces software escrow releases to jump by 150%

Save the code, save your world

A software escrow provider has reported a 150% increase in source code releases in 2009, compared with 2008. NCC Group said businesses’ relationships with software suppliers have been strained by recessionary pressures. Software escrow is the holding by a third party of the crucial, and secret, source code that underpins a …

Developer 6 Jan 2010, 09:38
Speculation takes flight over 5th generation Velociraptor

USB 3.0 My Book announced

Western Digital is reported to be working on a fifth generation of its 2.5-inch Velociraptor drive, with capacity doubled up to 600GB. The Velociraptor is a fast, at 10,000rpm, small form factor drive using the 3Gbit/s SATA interface which has gained a lot of popularity due to its combination of speed and performance. It is …

Storage 6 Jan 2010, 09:58
Westfield opens kimono on EV Cup racer

Leccy Tech Lean, mean and green

The launch of the EV Cup electric car race series has taken a leap forward, following firm Westfield's announcement of its leccy challenger - the iRacer. Westfield's iRacer will feature in the EV Cup Driven by two 60kW (80bhp) electric motors each developing 369lb/ft of torque, iRacer will be powered by 170kg worth of …

Science 6 Jan 2010, 10:02
Kindle DX goes global

Amazon to sell e-book reader outside US

Amazon will extended the Kindle DX’s reach beyond North America later this month by selling the e-book reader to a wider global audience. Set for global release on 19 January, it currently looks as though Blighty-based buyers will be forced to purchase the Kindle DX through Amazon’s North American website where the gadget is …

Hardware 6 Jan 2010, 10:17
Cybersitter firm sues China, Lenovo for Green Dam code lift

Solid Oak swings legal baton

A US firm is taking legal action against seven PC makers and the Chinese government alleging much of the code for China's Green Dam scheme was stolen from their products. Solid Oak software, which makes Cybersitter, wants $2.2bn in damages from Sony, Lenovo, Toshiba, Acer, Asus, BenQ and the Chinese government. Greg Fayer, …

Law 6 Jan 2010, 10:31
Boffin calculates pi to 2.7 trillion digits

On a humble desktop PC

Computer scientist Fabrice Bellard says he's calculated pi to a whopping 2.7 trillion digits - a Herculean task which took a humble desktop PC 131 days. According to the BBC, the previous record of 2.6 trillion digits was held by Daisuke Takahashi of Japan's University of Tsukuba. That number-crunching exercise took just 29 …

Science 6 Jan 2010, 11:14
Ballmer readies slate PC for CES

Monkey boy to hurl spoiler at Apple?

Microsoft boss Steve Ballmer is due to unveil a slate or tablet type computer at the Consumer Electronics Show later today. Ballmer is giving a keynote speech at 6.30pm in the Las Vegas Hilton. He will be hoping to attract some of the hyperbole being lavished on Google's Nexus One phone and Apple's mythical entry into the …

Hardware 6 Jan 2010, 11:16
'Peeping Tom' caught on own camera

Police issue self-portrait of changing room spy cam man

Police have issued a fetching self-portrait of a man who was caught on the miniature camera he put in the ladies changing room of a Cheshire supermarket. A police statement explains: "Police in Warrington are keen to trace a man who placed a small camera in a fitting room at Asda in the Westbrook centre in Warrington on …

Security 6 Jan 2010, 11:21
Asus goes wide with Bang & Olufsen laptop

Sounds good to us

Asus has kicked off 2010 with a Bang, or should that be an Olufsen? The Taiwanese PC maker has unveiled a super-stylish laptop sporting speakers and design features supplied by the legendary audio firm. Asus NX90 features Bang & Olufsen speakers and styling The NX90 Bang & Olufsen edition laptop looks like a PC from the …

Hardware 6 Jan 2010, 11:22
BT names 63 more exchanges for fibre upgrades

Rollout focuses on the south east

BT has revealed its next wave of exchange upgrades, as it accelerates the rollout of faster broadband. As with the two previous lists, there's a strong emphasis on densely populated areas, where return on the investment is likely to be highest. This time, 31 out of the 63 exchanges are classified by BT as located in the south …

Broadband 6 Jan 2010, 11:42
NASA's nuclear Mars tank gets improved cooker mod

Hungry robot to make soup of tenacious alien lifeforms

NASA's nuclear-powered robot laser tank, which the agency plans to land on Mars in 2012, will now be enhanced with a new automated lab experiment intended to discover evidence of life on the red planet. It's inventor seems confident that life - or anyway evidence of life in the past - is there to be found. "Mars was a lot …

Science 6 Jan 2010, 11:46
Seagate boards USB 3 train

BlackArmor external drive gets new interface gear

Seagate has upped its BlackArmor external drive interface from USB 2.0 to the faster USB 3.0. A steady USB interface changeover is underway as the 5Gbit/s SuperSpeed USB 3 interface colonises the external drive interface landscape. LaCie and and others have already announced product and both Western Digital and Seagate have …

Hardware 6 Jan 2010, 11:58
Kodak parades photo-sharing compact

Slice of social networking life

Kodak has designed a touchscreen compact camera for posting pictures directly onto social networking websites and digital photo frames. Kodak's Slice hopes to take the hassle out of FaceBook uploads Called Slice, the camera has a rear-mounted 3.5in touchscreen that displays images according to various user-definable …

Hardware 6 Jan 2010, 12:19
Microsoft to herd third parties with licensing patent

Patent app hopes to funnel ISVs

Microsoft has applied for a US patent that the company hopes will close a loophole when it comes to licensing software to third parties. Redmond put forward its request to patent what it has dubbed the “extensible agent-based license structure” on 25 June 2008. The USPTO published the firm’s application, which is credited to …

Developer 6 Jan 2010, 12:33
Hadopi three strikes law hits another hurdle

Data protection agency says 'Non'

The controversial French 'three strikes' law has hit yet another delay - it has failed to win approval from the French data protection agency. The Commission nationale de l’informatique et des libertés (CNIL), which works to protect French citizens from technology which may breach their rights to privacy and personal and …

Media 6 Jan 2010, 12:44
Copia sets sights on Kindle's collaboration dream

eReader platform could allow mass reading festival

Copia is a new platform designed to facilitate collaborative reading, creating the kind of experience the Kindle promised but still hasn't delivered. Copia comes from DMC Worldwide, an investment body that owns several consumer brands, and was announced today at the Consumer Electronics Show taking place in Las Vegas, though …

Mobile 6 Jan 2010, 12:49
Samsung N140

Review Ticks all the right boxes, almost

The new N130 and N140 netbooks will probably be the last such machines we see from Samsung running the Silverthorne Atom processors as come January it is promising to announce a raft of new machines using the next generation Atom Pine Trail chips. Samsung's Windows 7 netbook entrant, the N140 Of course we don't know when …

Laptops 6 Jan 2010, 13:31
Slovakian flies to Dublin with 90 grams of explosive

'Unconventional security operation' goes seriously awry

A Slovakian electrician flew from Bratislava to Dublin with 90 grams of RDX plastic explosive in his luggage after an "unconventional security operation" went seriously awry, the Times reports. The unnamed sparks was returning to Ireland, where's he's lived for four years, unaware that his baggage contained enough RDX "to blow …

Bootnotes 6 Jan 2010, 13:34
Imperial calls on SGI super for answers to big questions

Academic thinking

Imperial College London, one of the UK's few world-class universities, has beefed up its HPC capabilities with an SGI supercomputer, the Altix ICE 8200 EX. Neither party has disclosed the price or size of the set up, so over to SGI to explain what the installation will do. The supercomputer is to become Imperial's high-end …

HPC 6 Jan 2010, 13:41
FSA charges four ex-directors of NHS software supplier

Former iSoft bosses face conspiracy charges

The Financial Services Authority has confirmed that it is starting criminal proceedings against four former directors of iSoft Group plc - the major provider of patient records software for the NHS's National Programme for IT. Patrick Cryne, Stephen Graham, Timothy Whiston and John Whelan have been summoned to appear at the …

Financial News 6 Jan 2010, 13:49
Nexus One web address used to punt smoky jazz

Google forgets to Google name of new phone

More problems with the branding of Google's "Nexus One" handset were claimed today, as it was highlighted that Mountain View has not secured the relevant web addresses. The firm's first foray into physical retailing was announced at the Googleplex on Tuesday. Today it emerged that Nexusone.com has been owned by Peter …

Mobile 6 Jan 2010, 13:53
Firefox 3.7 to feel need for speed with multicore boost

Mozilla revs up browser

Mozilla's Firefox 3.7 looks set to take a step closer to competing with Google's Chrome and Microsoft's Internet Explorer 8 in the speed stakes, according to results of a pre-release version tested by a browser enthusiast. A blogger at My Outsourced Brain put a very rough-round-the-edges version of Firefox 3.7 through its …

Applications 6 Jan 2010, 13:55
Airbus: We'll cancel crap A400M unless we get more £££

Comment OK, you do that. It's rubbish

Pan-European aerospace megacorp Airbus has hinted that it may close down its A400M military airlifter project, despite the fact that the first aircraft has finally flown. The manufacturer cannot make a profit on the plane if it is delivered at the agreed price, and is trying to get concessions from the customer nations. One of …

Science 6 Jan 2010, 14:30
Sony confirms 3D TV channel plans

Specs at the ready

Sony has confirmed plans to launch a 3D TV channel in North America, as expected, in partnership with Imax and Discovery Communications - the firm behind The Discovery Channel. The channel opens for business in 2011 and will broadcast 24/7 a diet of science and technology, natural history, space, adventure and kid’s shows. …

Hardware 6 Jan 2010, 14:50
Bosses warned over Scrooge-like approach to snow problems

Home working and common sense suggested

Employers may be legally entitled to dock workers' pay if they stay at home because of snow and extreme weather, but such a course of action can be risky and cause resentment, according to guidance from Pinsent Masons, the law firm behind OUT-LAW.COM. It says that employees are under a legal obligation to get to work and that …

Small Biz 6 Jan 2010, 15:21
Skype offers living room TV action

Just disconnect while watching specialist films

VoIP specialist Skype has signed deals with LG and Panasonic to embed its client into next-generation TVs, finally putting video calling into the living room. The deal promises that TVs featuring Skype functionality will be available from Panasonic and LG by the middle of 2010. Both companies will also sell branded web-cams to …

VoIP 6 Jan 2010, 15:24
UK prosecutors drop 'tiger' sex video case

North Wales Police missed Frosties connection

The CPS dropped a prosecution under the extreme porn law last week when it apparently accepted that the soundtrack on a clip of a tiger apparently having sex with a woman rendered the video comical rather than pornographic. Andrew Robert Holland of Coedpoeth near Wrexham appeared at Mold Crown Court on New Year's Eve to answer …

Law 6 Jan 2010, 15:34
No more dirty phone calls

Wash your phone out with soap, potty mouth

Most people would shudder at the thought of putting their mobile phones in the dishwasher. This is precisely what Seal Shield invites you to do with its new SEAL CELL handset. Or put it in the sink for a regular clean up. Seal Shield's phone: stick it in the dishwasher The phone is water resistant (and not waterproof as we …

Phones 6 Jan 2010, 15:48
You and what Android? The Google iPhone killer that isn't

Comment The Mountain View hippies just ain't hard enough

So is it the Google phone or not? In the Nexus One, Google has produced something rather like an iPhone, something that in some senses may seem better than an iPhone, but something that in hardware terms is an iteration rather than a game-changer. But does Google, the company that wasn't going to do hardware, now do hardware? …

Mobile 6 Jan 2010, 15:49
Dot Hill buys into storage virtualisation

Picks unlucky Cloverleaf Communications

Dot Hill, which supplies drive array subsystems, is moving into storage virtualisation by buying Cloverleaf for its software technology. Dot Hill competes with LSI and Xyratex in the supply of disk drive array subsystems to OEMs such as HP, NetApp and Sun. It has recently moved into software RAID supply and is now extending …

Storage 6 Jan 2010, 16:09
Cisco scarfed up the most venture-backed firms over 10 years

Having munchies in the Noughties

VentureSource, the venture capital service owned by Dow Jones and part of the Fox empire, has put out its rankings of the most acquisitive companies in the past decade, and wouldn't you know it, all of the top ten are in the IT racket. The VentureSource deal rankings, which you can see here, look at the number of deals that …

Financial News 6 Jan 2010, 16:30
Slingbox touts one TV remote to rule them all

CES 2010 Touchscreen with five buttons

It may look like a smartphone, but in real life this is SlingMedia’s vision for the future of entertainment control. The Sling Touch Control accesses DVR content over Wi-Fi and displays in on the touchscreen The Sling Touch Control 100 is a set-top box remote in essence, but SlingMedia would rather you saw it as a “next- …

Hardware 6 Jan 2010, 17:39
Cisco trials consumer video call gear

CES 2010 Skype, Polycom join in Jetson phone market

Cisco plans to begin field trials for a consumer version of its video calling products this spring, joining Skype and Polycom in an emerging battle to turn living room TV sets into Jetsons phones. The networking equipment giant said Wednesday at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas that the home videoconferencing system …

Broadband 6 Jan 2010, 17:52
Hacker pierces hardware firewalls with web page

No interaction required

On Tuesday, hacker Samy Kamkar demonstrated a way to identify a browser's geographical location by exploiting weaknesses in many WiFi routers. Now, he's back with a simple method to penetrate hardware firewalls using little more than some javascript embedded in a webpage. By luring victims to a malicious link, the attacker can …

Security 6 Jan 2010, 19:25
Toshiba unwraps Cell TV

CES 2010 On the fly, 2D to 3D conversion anyone?

Toshiba today heralded its Cell TV - the first telly to be powered by a processor cut from the same cloth as the chip in the PlayStation 3 - as "the future of TV". Alas, that future's too far off for the company to provide practical details like pricing. The company did indicate, however, that when Cell TV does arrive, it'll be …

Hardware 6 Jan 2010, 19:36
CES 2010 Toshiba preps 3D BD player for Q3 release

Toshiba's first 3D-capable Blu-ray Disc player will go in sale no earlier than the third quarter of the year, the company said today. Q3 is the US launch window, which probably means we won't see the BDX300 over hear until Q4 at the earliest. We can say it will support 24f/s 1080p playback of 2D material, upscale standard …

Hardware 6 Jan 2010, 19:58
US feds kick in funny money for green data centers

Helping IT vendors help themselves

The US Department of Energy, which probably has the highest electric bill on the planet thanks to its many supercomputing laboratories, has ponied up $47m to help make data centers and telecommunications facilities more energy efficient. Rather than doing research directly, Steven Chu, Secretary of Energy in the Obama …

HPC 6 Jan 2010, 19:59
FCC raises eyebrow at Google 'white-space' play

Don't you back neutrality?

US Federal Communications Commission commissioner Robert McDowell has raised an eyebrow at Google's request to serve as an administrator of a national database detailing the use of "white-space" spectrum, Mountain View's latest effort to accelerate the deployment of unlicensed broadband devices in the unused TV airwaves. …

Broadband 6 Jan 2010, 20:37
LaCie launches compact telly-ready hard drive

CES 2010 Disc sized

LaCie has introduced a wireless hard drive for your telly and it'll take up no more room than a small stack of CDs. LaCie's LaCinema Mini HD: compact as a disc The LaCinema Mini HD has a 120 x 120mm footprint but manages to house a 500GB hard drive, 802.11n Wi-Fi pick-up, DLNA media server and player. There's an HDMI port …

Hardware 6 Jan 2010, 20:37
Logitech aids laptop movie lovers with audio upgrade

CES 2010 Lap rest with speakers

Tired of putting up with weeny speakers when you're watching movies on your laptop? You know you can plug in a set of desktop speakers, but what do you do if you're actually using the machine on your lap? Enter a Logitech representative, carrying the accessory maker's latest offering: a notebook lap rest with built-in stereo …

Hardware 6 Jan 2010, 21:02
Fed watchdog barks at cloud security

Consumers might get bitten

The US federal consumer protection watchdog is barking at security and privacy risks posed by cloud computing. With ever-more products and services asking users to upload personal and sensitive information to centralized online servers in the nebulous (but trendy) notion of "the cloud," the US Federal Trade Commission is …

Government 6 Jan 2010, 21:14
Microsoft joins IE SVG standards party

Don't pop the poppers

The prospect of standards-based vector graphics support being added to Internet Explorer is in the air. Microsoft has applied to join a World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) Scalable Vector Graphics working group, IE senior program manager Patrick Dengler has blogged. Dengler wrote in a brief statement Microsoft recognizes vector …

Applications 6 Jan 2010, 22:42
Baidu launches (legal) online video company

Shades of Hulu

A Hulu-esque online television channel is being created for internet users behind China's Great Firewall. The country's top o' the heap search engine Baidu said Wednesday it plans to form a new online venture that will serve free (and legal) copyrighted video content to Chinese internet users. Baidu will spin-out a new, yet- …

Media 6 Jan 2010, 22:47