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17th February 2010 Archive

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  • Experts reboot list of 25 most dangerous coding errors

    Heal thy apps

    Computer experts from some 30 organizations worldwide have once again compiled a list of the 25 most dangerous programming errors along with a novel way to prevent them: by drafting contracts that hold developers responsible when bugs creep into applications. The list for 2010 bears a striking resemblance to last year's list, …

    Enterprise Security 17 Feb 01:02

  • PHPers prefer Windows desktop to Linux

    Servers another matter

    PHP might have put the "P" in LAMP - the all open-source server stack - but on the desktop, it seems that those using PHP generally prefer the "W" to the "L." In a recent study from Zend Technologies, forty two per cent of PHP programmers named Windows as their primary development operating system. Linux came second, with 38.5 …

    Developer 17 Feb 06:02

  • Schmidt denies Google wants 'dumb pipe' carriers

    Bobbles head at wireless attack

    Eric Schmidt has claimed that Google does not want to turn the world's wireless carriers into "dumb data pipes." The Google chief exec made the claim on Tuesday during his keynote speech at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, after a conference attendee accused the company of harboring such dumb pipe desires - of trying to …

    Networks 17 Feb 06:30

  • 77% of domain registrations stuffed with rubbish

    Whois in charge? ICANN't tell

    An incredible 77 per cent of internet domains - nearly 90 million internet addresses - are registered with false, incomplete, or unverifiable information. An extensive review of 1,419 representative domain names conducted by overseeing body ICANN, including direct contact with over 500 individual domain owners, produced some …

    Networks 17 Feb 07:50

  • Compellent could rise into Gartner's leader box

    Comment HP could become a mere visionary

    We got hold of a Gartner magic quadrant diagram for mid-range storage arrays from late last year, showing Compellent poised to cross over into the leader's box and HP not very far inside it. Could the unthinkable happen and Compellent and HP change places? Gartner's MQ is the most famous, or notorious depending upon your point …

    Storage 17 Feb 08:02

  • Apple cops to defective MacBook drives

    Free replacements for the unlucky 'few'

    Apple has extended the warranty on certain MacBooks from 2006 and 2007 whose hard drive failed, while offering free replacements for defective drives. Look out your window and you might observe porcine aerobatics - and that red-tailed gent donning the toasty overcoat might well be Lucifer. Of course, in a support note …

    PCs & Chips 17 Feb 08:02

  • HDD suppliers bound for choppy waters

    Comment WD overtaking Seagate? Toshiba leapfrogging Hitachi GST?

    Graphed IDC numbers from Stifel analysts Aaron Rakers tell us that Western Digital is poised to overtake Seagate as the hard disk drive (HDD) shipment share leader, reversing a decade or more of Seagate dominance. Seagate's share in the last quarter of 2009 was 31.1 per cent while WD recorded 30.8 per cent, a trifling 0.3 per …

    Storage 17 Feb 09:02

  • Microsoft guns for 2-for-1 sales with 'pre-installed' Office 2010 deal

    Buy a (Windows-based) PC, get cheaper apps suite

    Microsoft has finally dished up UK prices for its forthcoming Office 2010 suite. The software vendor revealed US prices in January, and at the same time confirmed that customers who bought Office 2010 pre-installed by OEMs rather than purchasing an off-the-shelf copy stood to save a few bucks to boot. Microsoft will be …

    Applications 17 Feb 09:02

  • Surprise Adobe update grapples with critical flaws

    Reader, I pwned him

    Adobe published an out-of-sequence update for its Reader and Acrobat software packages on Tuesday that tackles a brace of serious flaws. The cross-platform Reader and Acrobat update fixes a vulnerability in the domain sandbox of the PDF technology that opens the door to possible exploits, more specifically unauthorised cross- …

    Malware 17 Feb 09:10

  • Minister deploys 'dodgy' DNA case study

    Evidence? Let's make some up

    Crime and policing minister David Hanson put forward five case studies to a select committee, but due to an "administrative error" one was a copy of one of the other cases with the name altered. Hanson wrote to MPs on the parliamentary committee in relation to the crime and security bill, laying out five cases to support the …

    Government 17 Feb 09:18

  • Mobile industry still bickering over apps

    MWC Comment All agreed that Apple is not the only fruit

    The GSMA would like you to know that its not just Apple who can sell applications. It's just that no-one can agree how to go about it. The unofficial slogan in Barcelona this year is "democratising the smart phone", creating an ecosystem that allows poor people to spend money on applications that make farting noises too. …

    Mobile 17 Feb 10:20

  • Note to Captain Kirk: Warp speed will kill you

    Pesky interstellar hydrogen does for Star Trek

    A US boffin has effectively put the mockers on Star Trek-style warp speed travel to the stars by warning that interstellar hydrogen gas would become deadly to humans as they approached the speed of light. Professor William Edelstein of the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine explained to New Scientist that while …

    Physics 17 Feb 10:26

  • NEC works out how to triple USB 3.0 speed

    16Gb/s data transfers, anyone?

    Think SuperSpeed USB 3.0's 4.8Gb/s data transfer speed is lightning fast? You're wrong, says NEC. Today it said it had successfully demo'd a serial bus that it believes can hit 16Gb/s. Like USB 3.0, NEC's technology sends data as a stream of binary 1s and 0s. NEC actually demonstrated a chip capable of maintain such a data …

    Reg Hardware 17 Feb 10:29

  • Fusing flash cache and analytics

    ParAccel gets together with Fusion-io

    It had to happen; a data warehousing appliance company has got together with a flash memory cache supplier to build an accelerated analytics engine. The rapid pair are ParAccel and Fusion-io. ParAccel provides data warehouse hardware and software. It says its ParAccel Analytic Database (PADB) is a new generation, massively …

    Storage 17 Feb 10:34

  • Panasonic preps Freeview HD Blu-ray DVRs

    Out in time for the World Cup?

    Panasonic is bringing Freeview HD boxes to Britain later this year: two Blu-ray Disc recorders that can also tune into the expanding terrestrial TV service. The Japanese giant showed off the boxes at an event held in Munich this week. The two models are the DMR-BW880 and the DMR-BW870, which incorporate 500GB and 250GB of hard …

    Reg Hardware 17 Feb 11:12

  • Watchdog takes hard line on 'adult film xtras' ad

    No money shot for smut wannabe, ASA rules

    The Advertising Standards Authority has ruled that an advert for "adult movie xtras" was not strictly honest in offering wannabe porn studs a substantial money shot. The ad, in an unnamed men's magazine, read: "Act out your fantasies on film, Earn Big Bucks. Adult movie xtras needed now! Call 08714 XXXXXX or 08714 XXXXXX www. …

    Music and Media 17 Feb 11:12

  • Hippie windfarm kingpin Dale Vince slapped down by ASA

    Ecotricity mailshot violated 'truthfulness' rules

    Self-proclaimed "hippie" windmill kingpin Dale Vince has been slapped down by the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) for violating truthfulness requirements in a direct-mail ad campaign. According to the ASA, Vince's company Ecotricity stated in a mailshot regarding a planned windfarm in the Cotswolds that it had "consulted …

    Environment 17 Feb 11:44

  • BBC clambers onto iPhone bandwagon

    MWC iNews, iSport, iMpayingforallthis

    The BBC has announced it will be launching iPhone applications for News and Sports results, with other platforms to follow. The applications, which were announced today in Barcelona, will be available for the iPhone in April with the other smart phone platforms to follow over the next few months. The News application, which …

    Mobile 17 Feb 11:50

  • $38m 'Fail Bounty' for Moto boss

    Heads or tails, Jha wins

    An odd detail has emerged from Motorola's divorce plan. After trying but failing to find a buyer for either the mobile phone business or the set top box business, the company is now seeking a simpler separation splitting the company into two bits: networks, and everything else. The incentives for co-CEO and mobile phone boss …

    Mobile 17 Feb 11:55

  • Windows Live suffers user details identity crisis

    Microsoft fesses to yet another online data blunder

    Microsoft’s online Windows Live estate was hit by a major server shutdown for about an hour yesterday, after some users of the service complained that they could see other people’s accounts. “As some of you may have noticed (we heard from you on Twitter!) we had an issue with the Windows Live ID service between 9 and 10AM PST …

    Applications 17 Feb 11:59

  • Freecom Network Media Centre Nas box

    Review The acme of one-drive media streamers?

    Sleek aluminium housings are all the rage with hard disk manufacturers, and Freecom’s Network Media Centre is no exception. Available in capacities from 1TB to 2TB, this single-disk Nas box promises to be your ultimate home media server thanks to the inclusion of UPNP/DLNA streaming support, an FTP server, a BitTorrent client …

    Reg Hardware 17 Feb 12:02

  • Google gifts Wiki millions

    Never look a gift horse in the mouth

    Google is giving the Wikimedia Foundation a $2m donation, meaning the online fact dump can continue to serve up instant research to hard-pressed college students and broadcast researchers. There's no official announcement but Jimmy Wales and Mitch Kapor, also on the board, spilt the beans on Twitter. The Foundation funds …

    Financial News 17 Feb 12:06

  • Hacker cuffed for Moscow big screen entertainment

    Projected grumble flick on giant display

    Russian police have arrested the hacker who last month projected some adult entertainment on an enormous video screen in Moscow, giving locals around two minutes unexpurgated coverage of "a white male and a black female having sex". According to Pravda, the grumble flick appeared at 11pm on 14 January on an giant display on …

    Enterprise Security 17 Feb 12:10

  • Oxford snaps high-speed movies with consumer cams

    Video in the blink of an eye

    Your camera may one day be able to take ultra-high speed movies, allowing you to capture amazing footage of fast-moving objects. That's if a new technique in scientific imaging makes it back onto the off-the-shelf, consumer-oriented kit it was developed from. Researchers at the University of Oxford have developed a way to …

    Reg Hardware 17 Feb 12:28

  • How chavvy is your town? Find out with the ASBOrometer

    Why can't it be more like a gay cruising app?

    Just what you never knew you needed, the ASBOrometer, an app for iPhones and Android devices, which lets you know how many people with antisocial behaviour orders there are in your neighbourhood. Here is an application to make you feel lucky and superior or depressed about impending ghettofication, for which we thank Jeff …

    Reg Hardware 17 Feb 12:37

  • 'I'm an IT worker not an Assassin'

    Techie's terror after ID 'hijacked' for Hamas hit

    An Israel-resident British IT worker has reacted with horror to news that a suspected member of an alleged hit squad used a passport with his details to enter Dubai, before allegedly participating in the assassination of a prominent Hamas official. UAE authorities reckon 11 "agents with European passports" participated in the …

    ID 17 Feb 12:40

  • Update: Toshiba's small enterprise disk

    600GB and 10K same as Seagate

    Toshiba has announced its enterprise 2.5-inch disk drive credentials with a trumpet blast; it's sampling a 3-platter, 600GB drive now, with a 6Gbit/s SAS interface, and shipping it in April. Toshiba's new MBF drive comes in 300, 450 and 600GB capacity points. It spins at 10,025rpm and has a 16MB cache. The thing will spin …

    Storage 17 Feb 12:57

  • O2 gets exclusive on HTC's Brew-based Smart phone

    Flash friendly budget touchphone

    O2 has the exclusive on HTC's Smart, a low-cost touchscreen handset that combines Qualcomm's Brew mobile platform with HTC's own Sense user interface. The budget-conscious Smart incorporates a 300MHz processor, 256MB of memory and uses Micro SD cards for storage. The screen is a 2.8in, 240 x 320 job, and there's a 3Mp camera …

    Reg Hardware 17 Feb 13:02

  • France leapfrogs past Australia in Big Brother stakes

    Lock up your kids and lock down your PC's

    France yesterday put in its bid for an unlikely prize, becoming the first western country to make even Australia look liberal when it comes to state powers of internet censorship. In the teeth of fierce opposition both inside and outside parliament, the National Assembly approved, by 312 votes to 214 against, a first reading …

    Government 17 Feb 13:14

  • 'McDonalds' burger-lers making millions

    Classic scam uses Golden Arches for £2m tech sting

    Greater Manchester Police are warning that scammers claiming to be ordering computer kit for burger chain McDonalds have already tricked £2m in hardware from sales departments at "high-profile electronic companies across the UK." GMP say the fraudsters use various 0845 phone numbers and email addresses to persuade gullible …

    Channel Register 17 Feb 13:33

  • Swedish mother-daughter saint skulls are ringers, say boffins

    Nuns' holy-deer-of-God virgin relic fails DNA testing

    The skulls of a mother-and-daughter pair of female Swedish saints, treasured as holy relics for centuries at the abbey of their order, have been exposed as fakes by genetics boffins. The two skulls were supposed to be those of Saint Bridget (Birgitta) of Sweden and her daughter Saint Catherine (Katarina), noted heavyweight …

    Biology 17 Feb 13:41

  • Schmidt defends Google Buzz despite tweaks aplenty

    'No really bad stuff happens', proclaims Mountain View chief

    Google boss Eric Schmidt admitted yesterday that the company misjudged public reaction to its decision to automatically load its Twitter, Facebook-like Buzz service into Gmail. Mountain View has been forced in the past few days to tinker with Buzz several times in an effort to offset an ugly tirade of criticism levelled at the …

    Applications 17 Feb 14:20

  • Sony coughs to PS3 stock shortfall

    Demand too high, spins console giant

    Sony has admitted it is not shipping enough PlayStation 3 consoles into the UK. The company told the trade paper MCV today that it is experiencing PS3 "stock issues". Sony UK Sales Director Mark Howsen said: "We are doing our best to address these issues and hope to catch up in the next few weeks." The shortages - which Sony …

    Reg Hardware 17 Feb 14:54

  • Undead botnets blamed for big rise in email malware

    Grave concern over reanimated cyber-corpses

    Malicious spam volumes increased dramatically in the back half of 2009, reaching three billion messages per day, compared to 600 million messages per day in the first half of 2009. But this is still a tiny fraction of the estimated global spam volume, thought to be about 200 billion messages per day. A new report by net …

    Malware 17 Feb 15:21

  • Microsoft connects Web2.0rhea dots in Outlook... bitch

    Your FacebookMySpaceLinkedIn window

    Microsoft has inked deals with LinkedIn, MySpace and Facebook, allowing the Web 2.0 outfits to embed their tech in the software giant’s Outlook Social Connector, which will feature in the Office 2010 mail client. Redmond first announced OSC in November last year when it released a beta of the Office 2010 suite. Today’s …

    Applications 17 Feb 16:16

  • X2 triplex multicopter prototype suffers gearbox snag

    Updated Still hoping to pop can of Osprey whup-ass this year

    Chopper globocorp Sikorsky has suffered technical hitches in development of its potentially revolutionary (cough) X2 multicopter, which is intended to administer a stinging technical bitchslap to the famous V-22 "Osprey" tiltrotor from rival firm Boeing. Let's get this spin machine off the ground. Flight International …

    Science 17 Feb 17:08

  • MS botches Office 2010 prices, hikes Professional by £30

    When 2 + 2 = 5

    Microsoft got its sums wrong on the price tag for the boxed version of Office Professional 2010, forcing it to hike the product by £30. The company revealed UK prices for its Office 2010 editions yesterday, but mistakenly priced the off-the-shelf Professional version to retail at £399.99. "Following the announcement on UK …

    Channel Register 17 Feb 17:09

  • Intel joins troll-blocking club

    Patent pals with MS, IBM, Cisco

    Intel is diving into a patent pool in hopes of avoiding future troll attacks. The chip maker has signed on with RPX, a patent aggregation startup whose members pay steep annual fees to help shield themselves from royalty demands and litigation costs of patent trolls. Palm and four small software security firms also signed on …

    Music and Media 17 Feb 19:59

  • Google Buzz accused of EPIC FAIL

    Tweetbooked Gmail hit with FTC complaint

    The Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC) - a high-profile public advocacy group - has filed a complaint with the US Federal Trade Commission over Google Buzz, the Tweetbook-esque "social networking" service that Mountain View bolted onto Gmail early last week. In its complaint, EPIC says that the new service violated …

    Music and Media 17 Feb 20:39

  • Ex-Army man cracks popular security chip

    How to open Infineon's Trusted Platform Module

    Hardware hacker Christopher Tarnovsky just wanted to break Microsoft's grip on peripherals for its Xbox 360 game console. In the process, he cracked one of the most heavily fortified chips ever put into a consumer device. The attack by the former US Army computer-security specialist is notable because it goes where no hacker …

    Security 17 Feb 21:08

  • ISS gets bay window onto Earth

    Cupola uncurtained

    In a highly anticipated finale to their mission, NASA astronauts have thrown open the shutters on the International Space Station's new room with a view. During the last of three spacewalks planned for Endeavour's 14-day mission, astronauts Robert Behnken and Nicholas Patrick removed insulation blankets on Tranquility node's …

    Space 17 Feb 22:08

  • HP's PC and printer sales back from the depths

    Shame about the services

    In an unexpected reversal, Hewlett-Packard's core PC business has boosted the company to a 25 per cent increase of profits while its enormous service division went kinda limp. During its first fiscal quarter, which ended January 31, HP pulled in profits of $2.3bn, up from $1.9bn during the same period last year. The is was …

    Financial News 17 Feb 23:53