16th February 2010 Archive

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~~Updated~~ Legalized SlingPlayer 3G TV joins App Store ranks

MWC 'No, we didn't' vs. 'Yes, we did'

As expected, a 3G-enabled version of Sling Media's TV player for the iPhone has found its place among the 150,000-or-so apps in Apple's App Store. On Monday at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Sling Media announced the availability of the 3G SlingPlayer Mobile - a mere week and a half after AT&T gave its go-ahead for …

Mobile 16 Feb 01:00
US lab births flexy, stingy solar cells

99 per cent less silicon

A team of US research scientists have made a startling breakthrough in solar-cell development, creating flexible wire-based cell substrates that use just one per cent of the silicon needed for brittle and comparatively heavy conventional cells. Solar cells made from this material would not only be less expensive than current …

Science 16 Feb 06:02
Cisco cuts and runs on Dell blade partnership

'Dell, you broke my heart'

It was only a few months ago that Dell gave Cisco a powerful smack to the face by publicly denouncing the network giants' big Unified Computing System pitch as a vendor lock-in scheme when unveiling a set of servers, storage systems, and third-party network technologies it called an "open" alternative.* Well, Cisco remembers. …

Servers 16 Feb 07:02
HP Pavilion Elite HPE-180 home desktop PC

Review Does it justify the premium?

The Pavilion Elite HPE-180 stands at the pinnacle of the HP's home PC line-up and sports spec to match. It has a 2.80GHz Intel Core i7-860 processor, 8GB of DDR 3 memory, a Blu-ray combo drive and, to make use of all that memory, 64-bit Windows 7 Home Premium. HP's Pavilion Elite HPE-180: merlot trim? More vin de table than …

Reg Hardware 16 Feb 08:02
MPs, Lords ask if Mandybill is human rights friendly

Don't just go chucking people off the internet now

The Government must provide more detail on exactly how alleged copyright infringers will be cut off from the internet before a file-sharing disconnection law is passed, according to a parliamentary committee. The Joint Committee on Human Rights has said that the Government must make the Digital Economy Bill more detailed to …

Government 16 Feb 08:02
Fujitsu grabs billion pound HP contract

As strike action rumbles on

The Department of Work and Pensions has picked Fujitsu to sort out its desktop computers, even though the company faces a ballot of union members to end its long-running dispute with the Unite union. The multi-billion pound procurement deal was run in association with Buying Solutions - the government's central procurement …

PCs & Chips 16 Feb 09:21
Overland Snaps into iSCSI

Hopes SnapServer SAN will be growth engine

Oveland Storage is adding a SnapServer SAN product alongside the SnapServer filer product, and hoping it will be the business growth engine it sorely needs. The SnapServer product is the leading network-attached storage (NAS) product in volume terms and Overland Storage gained it through an acquisition of Snap last year from …

Storage 16 Feb 09:37
LG to bring over-the-air phone sync to all

MWC DropBox-style service coming to feature phones

LG has claimed it is the first phone maker to bring over-the-air synchronisation out of the smartphone handset category and into the mid-range market. It showed off the technology, dubbed LG Air Sync, using the skinny LG Mini phone it launched last week as the world's "smallest and thinnest" touchphone. LG's Air Sync: …

Reg Hardware 16 Feb 09:58
Virtualisation and packaged applications

Lab When is a silo not a silo?

To the outsider, suggesting that such workloads as SAP, Siebel and so on should be candidates for virtualisation feels like a bit of an anathema. Such packaged apps have a reputation for being monolithic and siloed, and perhaps inappropriate for running on a VM. Or indeed, if these are the flagship applications on which an …

Virtualisation Lab 16 Feb 10:13
Sony backs away from OLED TV future

More money in 3D, LED TVs

Sony is to exit the OLED TV market in Japan, almost two years after the launch of its ground-breaking 11in Xel-1 telly. The move, reported by Reuters, will see Sony continue to sell OLED TVs in Japan until stocks run down. However, a spokesman insisted the company will continue to offer the tellies in Europe and the US, …

Reg Hardware 16 Feb 10:19
MoJ and police discipline Twitter sinners

I sentence you to the fail whale

The Ministry of Justice and the Metropolitan Police have acknowledged disciplining staff for misusing online social networks. The MoJ has sacked four employees and issued final warnings to three for misbehaving on sites such as Facebook and Twitter. Overall it has carpeted more than 40 staff for internet and email offences. …

IT Director 16 Feb 10:23
Cyclist Floyd Landis accused of hacking into doping lab

Arrest warrant puts a brake on possible Tour return

French authorities have issued an arrest warrant against US cyclist Floyd Landis over allegations he hacked into an anti-doping lab computer. Landis, 34, was stripped of his 2006 Tour de France title win after he tested positive for abnormal levels of testosterone. Landis appealed, but the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) …

Enterprise Security 16 Feb 10:26
HP puts mid-range storage on steroids

MSA and LeftHand lines get new names, bigger biceps

HP is updating its MSA and LeftHand storage arrays and bringing in a new naming scheme. The MSA (Modular Smart Arrays) provide Fibre Channel (FC), iSCSI and SAS-connected block storage for small and medium businesses using SAS and SATA disk drives. The current top model is the 2000fc G2 MSA which can store a maximum of 60TB …

Channel Register 16 Feb 11:00
Another annoying cloud pitch

Why do vendors think Cloud is new?

I just sat through another cloud consulting services pitch from a major IT vendor. Some of it was under NDA so can’t talk about specifics, but that’s not really relevant to the point that has prompted me to write this. I guess my big problem is that I have spent the last ten years as an analyst looking at different disciplines …

Servers 16 Feb 11:02
Microsoft made a phone, and I hate it already

Opinion Why can't Redmond stick to computers?

Microsoft's next mobile platform will probably make for nice mobile phones, but for those of us hankering after a mobile computer it's just going to be annoying. Windows Phone 7 Series has the right kinds of sliding bits and wobbly buttons that everyone seems to admire so much these days, and that means it will probably sell …

Mobile 16 Feb 11:02
Scorsese and De Niro planning Taxi Driver II?

You still talkin' to me?

The word on the street at the Berlin Film festival is that Robert De Niro and Martin Scorsese may be planning to "revisit" 1976 classic Taxi Driver - either as a sequel or a remake. Taxi Driver writer Paul Schrader dismissed the idea of a sequel in a Guardian interview back in 2006, but subsequently told the New York Post: "I …

Entertainment 16 Feb 11:03
Freeview HD EPG debuts on iPhone

Don't know what to watch? There's an app for that

Freeview has released its 14-day electronic programme guide on the iPhone. While the app - available to download now, at no charge - is called Freeview HD, it actually includes regular Freeview standard definition programme schedules too. The app allows you to select your region, and you can not only sort the list of …

Reg Hardware 16 Feb 11:34
Apple bans iPhone hackers from App Store

And stay out!

Apple has banned at least two prominent iPhone hackers from accessing its App Store. Sherif Hashim, an iPhone developer who developed a hack for the latest iPhone OS 3.1.3, and iH8Sn0w, who developed the XEMN tool designed to unlock iPhone 3.1.3 radio baseband for the 3G and 3GS, found that their Apple IDs were blocked and …

Mobile 16 Feb 11:34
Windows Phone 7 Series website collapses under weight of traffic

Microsoft's iPhone-bashing marketing campaign hits buffers

The Windows Phone 7 Series website is currently titsup less than a day since Microsoft launched its iPhone-competing gadget. We asked the company what had gone wrong, but at time of writing Microsoft hadn't got back to us with comment. The website has one simple message that reads "Service Unavailable". Microsoft baptised …

Mobile 16 Feb 11:37
Apple to stick padlocks on books for iPad

FairPlay DRM will rise again

Apple is dusting off FairPlay - the digital rights management used by iTunes - to protect electronic copies of books sold to iPad users. FairPlay irritated some iTunes users and was dropped for most music content last year. But when the iPad launches next month, along with the iBook store, copyrighted content will have some …

Mobile 16 Feb 11:51
Firm punts USB 3 SSD

Drive whups SuperSpeed HDDs?

OK, so you may not have a USB 3.0 equipped PC just yet, but if you do, or you're planning to buy one, you may be after some external storage capable of making the most of the new bus' available bandwidth. External hard disks have a job getting near SuperSpeed USB's full 5Gb/s of available bandwidth, but if Active Media …

Reg Hardware 16 Feb 11:52
Raygun 747 missile-zapping test video released

Vid Back-burnered energy cannon jumbo fries the skies

The US Missile Defence Agency has released video of last week's test of the Airborne Laser Testbed (ALTB) - the huge, jumbo-jet-mounted laser cannon built to blast hostile ballistic missiles out of the sky as they boost upward from their launch sites. The ALTB was formerly known simply as the Airborne Laser (ABL), but has …

Science 16 Feb 11:53
NFC gains Wi-Fi connection, loses name

MWC Proximity payments standard suffers ID crisis

With Wi-Fi-connected toggles and single-wire-protocol SIMs, everyone seems to be trying to make NFC work, even if it's not going to be called that any more. Advocates of Near Field Communications (NFC) keep holding trials of the technology - there's even one here in Barcelona during the Congress - but users and operators still …

Mobile 16 Feb 12:02
EMI puts Abbey Road under the silver hammer?

Can't carry that financial weight no longer

EMI has reportedly put its iconic Abbey Road recording studio up for sale in an effort to pay off some of its hefty debts. According to this morning's Financial Times, which cites no less than "five people familiar with the situation", the struggling major is seeking bidders to buy the studio. However, the report was unable …

Bootnotes 16 Feb 12:10
Samsung shows off 4G netbook

MWC But we'll still have to wait two years to see it here

Samsung has shown off a set of netbooks equipped with Long Term Evolution (LTE) mobile broadband connectivity - a world first, the South Korean giant claimed. LTE is the successor to today's HSPA 3G cellular networks and is designed to provide download speeds of up to 100Mb/s and uploads of up to 50Mb/s. There's much less …

Reg Hardware 16 Feb 12:19
Miniskirt outrage Brazilian becomes Carnival queen

From uni strumpet to Elizabeth I

The 20-year-old Brazilian lass who was expelled from São Paulo's Bandeirante University for wearing a miniskirt has strutted her stuff as a Rio Carnival queen. Geisy Arruda provoked a near riot at the seat of learning last October by turning up to lectures in what fellow students considered inadequate attire (pictured). To …

Bootnotes 16 Feb 12:30
Orange teases with HTC Desire debut

MWC Android 2.1 handset out in April

Orange will release HTC's upcoming Android-based smartphone, Desire, in April. Desire sports a 3.7in, 800 x 480 capacitive touchscreen and contains a 1GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon processor. There's 512MB of on-board memory and the handset can take Micro SDHC cards of up to 32GB capacity. HTC's Desire: Android 2.1 on board The …

Reg Hardware 16 Feb 12:35
Small firms say UK taxes are strangling growth

But will take on more staff anyway

The Federation of Small Business has found that its members would happily take on more staff if they weren't groaning under the financial burden of keeping the British government ticking over. The organisation also predicted a rise in unemployment, giving its members even more reason to rail against the taxes they will have to …

Small Biz 16 Feb 12:53
Plantronics Voyager Pro UC

Review The business?

Judging from the photos on Plantronics’ website, the system requirements for its Voyager Pro headset include a goatee (recommended) or some carefully cultivated designer stubble (minimum). Fortunately, we were in unshaven mode when the box landed on our desk and it seemed to work just fine with a basic two-day growth. …

Reg Hardware 16 Feb 13:02
Steve Jobs anoints official biographer

Einstein biographer to produce the Book of Steve?

Steve Jobs has put himself on a par with Albert Einstein and Benjamin Franklin in anointing the man he would like to write his official biography. Maybe. The New York Times reports that Jobs is to collaborate with Walter Isaacson, a former editor of Time and ex-chairman and CEO of CNN, on an authorised biography. The Times …

Bootnotes 16 Feb 13:32
Labour MP denies calling Tories 'scum-sucking pigs' on Twitter

'It woz a hacker wot did it'

A Labour minister has claimed his Twitter account was hacked, after a tweet went out under his name that brandished the Tories as "Scum-sucking pigs". David Wright, who is the Labour MP for Telford, insisted that the "scum-sucking" phrase was added by someone else on the micro-blogging website. The minister had been using …

ID 16 Feb 13:49
Echelon computers can't cope with bad lines

'What? Osama bin who? Yes, we sell nukes. Say again?'

Who remembers Echelon, the top-secret telecommunications spy network said to be run by the US and allied Anglophone nations, and to be triggered as soon as certain key words or phrases are spoken on the phone? A lot of you, we'd guess. So it's interesting to note that Pentagon boffins have now stated that perhaps the most …

Telecoms 16 Feb 14:08
Royal hack police worker avoids jail

Not serving at Her Majesty's pleasure

A civilian police worker who hacked into force computers to steal data on a royal visit to Wales has avoided prison for crimes his lawyers claim were motivated by idle curiosity. Martin Lansley, 31, was employed by Dyfed-Powys Police when he obtained unauthorised access to classified material about a then upcoming visit by the …

Crime 16 Feb 15:01
My mother-in-law wants this! (For her birthday, you understand)

Big phone, big buttons

My 79-year-old mother-in-law recently started computer lessons, mostly to help her go Googling and maybe, just maybe to send emails to fellow members of her bowls club. After many years as a computer-denier, she now sees the point – but computer mice will remain ever horrible to her. Don’t get her started on mobile phones - …

Reg Hardware 16 Feb 15:06
EMC adds awesome to Atmos

Bigger drives, faster cores, and better protection

EMC has upgraded the hardware and protection attributes of its cloud storage Atmos product so it can store, process and protect more data faster. Atmos is EMC's storage array product that is designed to combine in massively scalable cloud structures that span the globe and deliver data automatically to where it is needed so …

Storage 16 Feb 15:12
Google and Yahoo! join Oz protests

Mass clog-up of Conroy's web filter

Google and Yahoo! have joined a pressure group which seeks to stop Communications Minister Stephen Conroy's doomed attempt to filter Aussie web traffic. Conroy wants to stop access to all material which would be Refused Classification if it was a film or book. But Google, Yahoo!, the Australian Library and Information …

Telecoms 16 Feb 15:22
HP helps customers go cloudwards

Facilitating your fluff-based infrastructure

HP is offering a Cloud Design Service to get customers using cloud IT faster. HP services already has a Cloud Discovery Workshop and a Cloud Roadmap Service for customers who want to learn about cloud computing and develop a stragey and plan about how to move some or all of their IT into the cloud. It has added a new service …

Channel Register 16 Feb 15:45
Only Apple can get away with App Stores

It's a Flash™ in the Pan

There are certain words I try and avoid when writing, because they confuse more than they enlighten. Terms such as "Business model", "Sustainability" and "Platform" are not just self-serving jargon - the real meaning is the opposite of what is intended. Well, even before this week, I expected the term "Mobile App Store" to be …

Mobile 16 Feb 15:45
Scots unleash world's strongest beer

41% ABV 'Sink the Bismarck' torpedoes German rival

A Scottish brewer appears to have torpedoed a German rival's claim to the world's strongest beer, by bottling a "quadruple IPA" weighing in at a liver-bashing 41 per cent ABV. Just weeks after German outfit Schorschbrau floated its 40 per cent Schorschbock, Aberdeenshire hop-botherer BrewDog has counterattacked with the …

Bootnotes 16 Feb 15:58
Vodafone chief gripes at Google dominance in online ad market

Search and destroy

Vodafone boss Vittorio Colao today bitched to his peers about Google's growing power in the online ad and search market, claiming such dominance could stymie the flow of cash through the mobile telecoms system. Colao, who was speaking at the Mobile World Congress trade show in Barcelona, told mobile phone execs that the …

Mobile 16 Feb 16:02
US sorority girls in booze-fuelled orgy of violence

Male students bitchslapped by grog-swilling coed vixens

Crack boffins in Kansas have exposed a new scourge sweeping US universities: that of male students being routinely handed savage thrashings by their lithe young co-ed girlfriends, and not in a cheery consensual S&M-hijinks sort of way, either. "In our growing-up years, we teach boys not hit their sister, but we don't teach …

Bootnotes 16 Feb 16:03
Life's a BONDI beach for widgets

MWC Or it will be very soon... honestly

Every year, widgets almost happen on mobile phones, and this year widget fans can show handsets and a route to market... nearly. Operator body the OMTP has announced winners of its JavaScript-based widget competition, and is joyously explaining that there are now handsets that support its BONDI standard. There is a development …

Mobile 16 Feb 16:32
Vodafone lets Androiders in on 360

MWC It's all about People

Vodafone has extended its 360 service to Android users, providing a Vodafone People application that even non-Vodafone customers are welcome to use. Vodafone reckons that since November last year it's sold 300,000 dedicated 360 handsets, which have Vodafone People integrated into the experience. But the operator wants everyone …

Mobile 16 Feb 16:56
Nokia patches N900 firmware

Bug crusher

Nokia has updated the Maemo-based - or should that be MeeGo-based - Nokia N900 smartphone/mobile computer* with fresh firmware. It's the third N900 firmware update to be posted since the gadget's November 2009 release. It's version 3.2010.02-8 and it weighs in at a mere 16.2MB. According to Nokia, handset owners can simply …

Reg Hardware 16 Feb 17:05
IBM consumes network kit automation firm

Intelliden rolls into Tivoli

IBM has scooped up network automation software maker Intelliden. Big Blue announced the acquisition on Tuesday, but it did not disclose the terms of the deal. Venture-backed Intelliden specializes in software that allows telecoms to automate the configuration of thousands of routers, switches, and hubs made by a range of …

Data Networking 16 Feb 18:15
RIM unveils free BlackBerry server

MWC Enterprise Express set for March arrival

Research in Motion is offering a tasty incentive for small and medium businesses to standardize on BlackBerries with the introduction of new - and free - server software. BlackBerry Enterprise Server Express will slot in between personal plans provided by telcos and the company's industrial-strength BlackBerry Enterprise …

Mobile 16 Feb 19:10
Contest offers $100,000 for smartphone, browser hacks

Pwn2Own the iPhone

An annual hacking contest that has made mincemeat of security on both Mac and Windows computers will set its sights on smartphones and browsers with as much as $100,000 in awards next month. Now in its fourth year, the Pwn2Own competition will award $60,000 for exploits that successfully penetrate Apple's iPhone 3GS, Research …

Security 16 Feb 19:31
Google Buzz bug exposes user geo location

Updated 'Pretty nasty vulnerability'

Already besieged by complaints of shoddy user privacy, Google Buzz is was susceptible to exploits that allow an attacker to commandeer accounts and even learn where victims are located, a security researcher said Tuesday. The XSS, or cross-site scripting, vulnerability is unusual because it affects google.com, the domain that …

Security 16 Feb 21:13
Yahoo! looks beyond Google's data cruncher

Can you really MapReduce natural language?

Nowadays, when it comes to crunching epic amounts of web data, Google's MapReduce credo is all the rage. The Mountain View method of distributing back-end compute tasks across a sea of commodity machines has given rise to the open source Hadoop platform, which now underpins Yahoo!, Facebook, and even a chunk of Microsoft Bing …

HPC 16 Feb 22:31
Facebook goes lighter than Lite

MWC Yes, it's Facebook Zero

Facebook is introducing a lower-than-low-bandwidth way to get aboard its überpopular social-networking service. None too surprisingly, it's called Facebook Zero. According to a the BBC, the service is essentially a text-only version of the Facebook service designed for areas where mobile bandwitch is near-nonexistent - which …

Mobile 16 Feb 22:59
Skype set for Verizon 3G

Cellular VoiP for BlackBerry, Android

Verizon Wireless has joined forces with Skype to allow select BlackBerry and Android phones to make internet calls across its 3G network starting in March. On Tuesday, the pair announced new smartphone software called Skype Mobile, which will let US Verizon customers with data plans make free Skype-to-Skype calls across the …

VoIP 16 Feb 23:08