5th March 2010 Archive

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Google says desktop PC is three years from 'irrelevance'

'We succeed because we celebrate failure'

Google's European sales chief says that desktop PCs will be "irrelevant" in three years. This week, as reported by Silicon Republic, Google Europe boss John Herlihy told a "baffled" conference audience that very soon the smartphone will completely eclipse the desktop. "In three years time, desktops will be irrelevant," he said …

Media 5 Mar 2010, 01:28
Israeli raid scrubbed after errant Facebook post

Loose tweets sink fleets

Israeli military officials said they called off a planned raid on a West Bank village after a combat soldier posted its details on Facebook, according to news reports. The unnamed soldier included the time and location of the raid on his Facebook page and said troops planned to start "cleaning up" the village. After fellow …

Security 5 Mar 2010, 06:02
YouTube: Auto-captions for everyone

All toe they donuts work prefect Lee

Google is now letting anyone use its new auto-captioning feature for YouTube videos. Back in November, YouTube released a robo-transcription option for just a limited number of educational channels, saying it would expand the tool to more videos in the future. Well, the future is now and has begun rolling out across the entire …

Media 5 Mar 2010, 07:02
Canon EOS 7D

Review Slick shooter with HD video done right

Your possible reason for buying this camera may have changed fairly recently. The EOS 7D would have been the only way to get 'standard' and 'film' frame rates from a Canon DSLR product in HD, but no more. There is a new model which offers very much the same video functionality and output for a fraction of the cost, the Canon EOS …

Hardware 5 Mar 2010, 08:02
Photographers rue Mandy's copyright landgrab

'Orphan factory' benefits big business

A little-reported corner of the sprawling Digital Economy Bill reduces photographers to serf status - and concerns are rippling into the wider community. Photographers say bad wording and technical ignorance are to blame for Clause 42, calling it a "luncheon voucher" for greedy publishers. "The Bill contains no deterrent to …

Media 5 Mar 2010, 09:13
Brain scanners to be used to 'design' political candidates

MRI 'Neuromarketing' - ads which read your mind

Sinister news today, as psychologists in the US unveil plans for so-called "neuromarketing" - the use of magnetic-resonance brainscans to maximise the appeal of products while they are being designed. Dan Ariely and his colleague Gregory S Burns - professors in the fields of psychology, behavioral economics, psychiatry and " …

Science 5 Mar 2010, 09:59
Mars Express skims past Phobos

ESA has close encounter with Red Planet 'rubble pile'

The European Space Agency's Mars Express yesterday skimmed past Martian moon Phobos at a distance of just 67km - the closest any manmade object has ever approached the "enigmatic" body. The flyby was designed to capture the "most exquisite data yet about the gravitational field of Phobos" by detecting the "subtle variations" …

Science 5 Mar 2010, 10:20
HDMI tunes into 3D TV broadcasts

Standard updated

The organisation behind HDMI has updated the digital TV connector standard to ready it for the 3D era. HDMI Licensing said the new version, 1.4a, mandates the support of 'top-and-bottom' and 'side-by-side' modes for broadcasting the picture data that will be present to each eye, thus creating the illusion of 3D. Until now, …

Media 5 Mar 2010, 10:30
Patch Tuesday will leave F1 hole unpatched

Light spring sprinkle follows deluge

Microsoft is planning just two bulletins next week, covering vulnerabilities rated only as "important", as part of this month's Patch Tuesday. The scheduled updates address a total of eight security flaws in Microsoft Office and desktop versions of Microsoft Windows (XP, Vista and Windows 7). March's modest patch batch …

Security 5 Mar 2010, 10:40
Microsoft to launch incompatible telephone

Inconceivable!

Microsoft will be launching a feature phone with Verizon Wireless in the US, based on Windows CE but not compatible with the forthcoming Windows Phone 7 Series. Rumours of a Microsoft feature phone have been knocking around for a while. It was codenamed "pink" and supposedly built to replace the venerable Sidekick using the …

Mobile 5 Mar 2010, 10:47
Sony serves up Mothers' Day e-book reader deal

By your ma a viewer, get free books

Looking for a Mothers' Day gift for your literature-loving mum? Sony has a suggestion: a special edition e-book reader ready to be loaded with a female friendly digital library. Available until 14 March, the offer is open to anyone who buys a Sony Reader PRS-300 Pocket Edition - reviewed here. Send in the receipt and a claim …

Hardware 5 Mar 2010, 10:52
iPad to feast on Flash...

...starving SSDs of storage

Doomsayers are predicting that Apple's iPad will hinder the adoption of SSDs in PCs. The argument, made by unnamed sources cited by DigiTimes, goes something like this: the iPad will suck up supplies of Nand Flash chips through 2010, that will encourage suppliers to up the price of whatever is left over, limiting the storage …

Hardware 5 Mar 2010, 11:21
US weather-watching sat blasts off

GOES-P is go

NASA last night launched the Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite-P (GOES-P) weather-watching satellite from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station. The sat blasted off at 11:57 GMT atop a Delta IV rocket on its mission to "monitor and predict weather, measure ocean temperatures" and generally "perform climate studies …

Science 5 Mar 2010, 11:40
Argos buries unencrypted credit card data in email receipts

Laminated catalogue of errors

Catalogue firm Argos has been criticised for an email security breach that exposed customers’ credit card details and CCV security numbers. The exposure came to light after an Argos customer who checked his order confirmation email found that his credit card number and security code was buried in the HTML source of the message …

Security 5 Mar 2010, 11:49
HP pushes converged IT for all

Flat-pack kit with packaged services bolted on

The normal sales pitch is that converged IT stacks like HP's Matrix and Cisco's gig with VMware and EMC are for enterprises - the big boys that will buy them in their thousands. But HP says its channel, which it's pushing towards converged IT, is finding that medium enterprises like the idea too. Kevin Matthews, HP's UK …

The Channel 5 Mar 2010, 12:01
Dibble gets mobile dabs checker

US firm wins multi-million contract

All English and Welsh police forces are getting mobile fingerprint scanners following controversial trials of the tech by several police forces. The gadgets, from Cogent Systems, have been trialled by 28 forces using 330 devices - this ends in the summer when the new devices will be sent out. "It's OK, it's not one of those …

Law 5 Mar 2010, 12:09
STEC becalmed as Fusion-io streaks ahead

Comment EMC over-ordering breaks STEC's run

Conditions are variable in the solid state drive (SSD) world, with STEC lagging while Fusion-io has the wind in its sails. STEC makes SSDs that replace fast hard disk drives (HDD), fitting in HDD slots in storage arrays, and boosting the I/O rates much better than having lots of short-stroked, fast-spinning Fibre Channel …

Storage 5 Mar 2010, 12:18
Sony takes aim at Apple iPhone, iPad

PSP phone rumours restoked

Sony is working on a series of devices designed to take the fight to Apple's iPhone and iPad, it has been claimed. So say "people familiar with the matter" cited by the Wall Street Journal who point to what seem to be extensions of the PlayStation Portable into smartphone and media tablet territory. Rumours have been cropping …

Phones 5 Mar 2010, 12:25
Google pumps out Chrome build which knows where you are

Dev-only browser, now with added tracking

Google yesterday released a dev-only build of Chrome for Mac OS, Linux and Windows which comes loaded with rough-round-the-edges versions of the Geolocation API. The latest update comes a few days after Google pushed out a Windows-only beta of its open source Chrome browser to its users. Google Chrome wonk Karen Grunberg …

Applications 5 Mar 2010, 12:28
Beeb deletes iPlayer app from iPhone

Lawyers go for developers

Two iPhone developers have been slapped with a 10-page cease and desist order from the BBC for trying to create an app that would cache iPlayer content. The application, Rewat.ch, has been in development for the last few months, and the two-man Manchester-based team Camiloo dropped the BBC a line when development started. But …

Phones 5 Mar 2010, 12:32
FT shock discovery: EU Google probe has MS link

Google 'Borg persecuting us' campaign gathers pace

Top sleuths from the Financial Times have uncovered the shock information that Foundem, the minnow that filed a complaint against Google with the European Commission two weeks ago, is in league with Microsoft-funded Brussels lobbying outfit ICOMP, and known Microsoft lobbyist Burson-Marsteller. Heavens! They must have had to …

Media 5 Mar 2010, 12:44
'Snowball Earth': Glaciers, ice packs once met at Equator

Recent piddling glaciations were luxury

American boffins say they have discovered evidence that almost the entire world was covered in sea ice and glaciers at certain points in the remote past, during so-called "snowball Earth" periods where the polar ice sheets met at the Equator. It were grim in the old days. Geologists probing conditions seen in the ancient …

Science 5 Mar 2010, 12:47
Anti-binge drinking ads add to binge drinking

Yes, I feel guilty, now pour me three large doubles

A US study has shown that anti-binge drinking ads may actually provoke exactly the kind of liver-bashing behaviour they're trying to prevent. Researchers at the Northwestern University's Kellogg School of Management showed 1,200 undergraduates anti-booze ads based on those used in Canadian campaigns, such as the Saskatchewan …

Science 5 Mar 2010, 12:50
Compliance bods treat Cebit to watersports

'I could hit it from that distance also' German brags

Exhibitors at Cebit often face a battle to get visitors to pay attention. So hats off to TUViT for its effort. here We're not sure quite why so many people were clustered around the stand of this world renowned standards compliance and certification organisation's IT arm. Childhood dreams of being a fireman? An unrequited …

Bootnotes 5 Mar 2010, 12:51
9TB in 20 minutes? Sign me up!

IBM hails 'breakthrough' algorithm

In an experiment IBM researchers used the fourth most powerful supercomputer in the world - a Blue Gene/P system at the Forschungszentrum Julich in Germany - to validate nine terabytes of data in less than 20 minutes, without compromising accuracy. Ordinarily, using the same system, this would take more than a day. Additionally …

HPC 5 Mar 2010, 12:57
NASA flying car engineer shoots down Reg coverage

FoTW 'Spouting nonsense' 'making crap up' 'I am not obsessive'

Here at the Reg we're no strangers to a bit of robust reader input. We get flamed by all sorts: dog lovers, vegans, Nigerian helicopter pioneers, members of the Parachute Regiment, Welshmen. Today, however, we have a first. An actual NASA engineer has joined this illustrious lineup to pour vitriol on our output. The trouble …

Letters 5 Mar 2010, 13:01
David Atherton on football, why mags beat Google, and what he's doing next

Interview Part 2 'One of Britain's richest vs Dabs? No contest'

This is part two of a two-part interview with Dabs founder David Atherton. Part one is here. David Atherton, the multimillionaire founder of Dabs.com, is heading back into the technology industry and sees electronic security and Facebook games as strong bets for his money. Last week he made his first industry appearance since …

The Channel 5 Mar 2010, 13:02
Apple revises iPad ship date

For Americans only - Brits will have to wait

Apple has missed its deadline. The iPad will go on sale in the US not in "late March" but early April, the company has admitted. To be fair, the release day is Saturday, 3 April, so only three days past its deadline. The good news is that the company will begin taking orders on Friday, 12 March. On that day, you'll be able to …

Tablets 5 Mar 2010, 14:14
Mystery of alleged MI6 traitor's data theft

Analysis Have you superglued the USB ports, Bond?

Next week, a 25-year-old man will appear at the drab Magistrates' court in Westminster's Horseferry Road to answer allegations he tried to sell Top Secret MI6 files to a foreign intelligence agency for £900,000. Daniel Houghton, who has joint British and Dutch citizenship, is accused of walking out of a meeting at a central …

Government 5 Mar 2010, 14:38
Could Vodafone nab 3 UK after T-Orange merger?

Hutchison 'looking for options'

With the merger of Orange UK and T-Mobile UK approved by the European Union, the current UK leaders, O2 and Vodafone, will be mulling their competitive responses. So far, Vodafone has mainly focused on revamping its software brands and its higher-value services, but it could also move to acquire the country's smallest cellco, 3 …

Mobile 5 Mar 2010, 14:41
Mystic Met Office abandons long range forecasts

They're rubbish, and they've run out of tea leaves

The Met Office has confirmed it is to abandon long range weather forecasts, finally acknowledging criticism. The most recent forecasts were so inaccurate, that even the BBC is reconsidering whether to appoint an alternative supplier, such as Accuweather, after 88 years of continuous service from the 1,700-strong MoD unit. The …

Science 5 Mar 2010, 15:01
Aussie hoaxer strikes again

Updated Are Australian police really like this?

Update: This story has been rewritten to indicate that the blogger-cop exchange is likely a hoax. Our original story assumed it was genuine. An amusing exchange between an irreverent blogger and a humourless cop looks like the latest in a long line in ingenious hoaxes to set the blogosphere buzzing, courtesy of australian …

Bootnotes 5 Mar 2010, 15:07
BBC claims angry iPlayer plugin mob 'conflated' open source term

'Unfortunate' XBMC community caught in crossfire

The BBC has tried to draw a line under its decision to bar open source implementations of RTMP (real-time messaging protocol) streaming in the iPlayer, after The Register revealed the Corporation's quiet switcheroo last week. BBC online managing editor Ian Hunter claimed in a blog post today that the term "open source" had …

Operating Systems 5 Mar 2010, 15:30
'Negatively strange' antihypermatter made out of gold

Atomsmash boffins' reverse alchemy bizarro-stuff triumph

Topflight international reverse-alchemy boffins say they have managed to transmute gold into an entirely new form of "negatively strange" antihypernucleic antimatter, ultra-bizarre stuff which cannot possibly occur naturally - except perhaps inside the cores of collapsed stars. The transmutation was carried out at the …

Science 5 Mar 2010, 15:36
Another 36,000 US jobs lost in February

Mixed bag for the IT sub-sectors

The magic of numbers continued in the United States today, as the Department of Labor said the workforce in America shrank by 36,000 jobs in February, and yet the unemployment rate held steady at 9.7 per cent. In January, thanks to the denominator used in the unemployment rate calculation getting smaller as more Americans gave …

Financial News 5 Mar 2010, 15:50
Man of God backs Beverley porncoder

As local MP lays into Hull Daily Mail

A church official has come out in support of Paul Smith - the owner of Beverley news website HU17.net who was sensationally revealed by the Hull Daily Mail to have coded "thousands" of porn websites. Smith's previous form, exposed by the Mail, includes sites such as Teen Sex and Hot Nude Teens, some of which treat visitors to …

Bootnotes 5 Mar 2010, 15:52
Scareware sellers fool Google with file switch

Replacing pdfs with dodgy Flash files

Cybercrooks have developed a new technique for manipulating search engine results in order to promote the crud they sell, such as scareware packages. Hackers first place benign pdf files on web pages they are seeking to promote, before replacing these documents with booby-trapped Flash files once a new site has been indexed. …

Security 5 Mar 2010, 16:25
E-book buyers favour iPad over Kindle and co.

Owners wished they'd waited for the Apple offering

Punters out to buy an e-book reader seem set on Apple's iPad, a survey of 3171 US consumers has revealed. According to market watcher ChangeWave Research, 40 per cent of folk planning to buy an e-book reader in the next three months said they'll go for the iPad. Amazon's Kindle was the second most popular device, selected by …

Hardware 5 Mar 2010, 16:37
US judge puts freeze on Apple-Nokia patent kerfuffle

Let the feds sort it

A US federal judge has sent Apple and Nokia lawyers to their respective corners until the feds get their chance to sort through the competing patent infringement claims. US District Court in Delaware signed an order staying litigation, pending decisions by the US International Trade Commission on the matter. Nokia sued Apple …

Phones 5 Mar 2010, 18:15
Think software patching is a hassle? You're not alone

Help on the way

Underscoring a barrier to remaining secure online, the average Windows PC user has to install a software update every five days from 22 different providers, according to vulnerability tracking service Secunia. The figure is based on the results of more than 2 million users of Secunia's PSI, or Personal Software Inspector, a …

Security 5 Mar 2010, 18:48
Gartner says world will buy 10.5m tablets in 2010

Dons rose colored glasses for PC forecast

The global PC business is apparently bouncier than the analysts at Gartner had been projecting only a few months ago, and now, they're predicting that PC shipments will rise by 19.7 per cent in 2010 to 366.1 million machines. With price competition and a trend toward cheaper machines, however, it is going to get harder for PC …

Hardware 5 Mar 2010, 19:06
Microsoft sends flowers to IE6 funeral

'Thanks for the good times...'

Microsoft sent flowers to last night's IE6 funeral, thanking the browser for "all the good times." The nine-year-old IE6 was laid to rest yesterday in Denver, Colorado, after suffering a "workplace injury" at the offices of a certain search giant in Mountain View, California. Mourners unable to attend were asked to send …

Applications 5 Mar 2010, 19:13
Opera says bug probably can't commandeer machines

Get your DEP here just in case

A security vulnerability identified in Opera can be exploited to crash users' browsers, but probably can't lead to the remote execution of malware, a company spokesman said. The buffer overflow bug was disclosed by Vupen Security on Thursday, and the report has since been picked up by others, including Secunia and Sans. The …

Security 5 Mar 2010, 21:14
Microsoft unplugs middling Windows server

Windows EBS on the way out

Microsoft will halt development of its mid-market oriented Windows Essential Business Server software bundle, as the company bets on "cloud computing" rather than lump licensing to woo penny-pinching IT markets. The EBS package, which combines Windows Server 2008, Exchange 2007 and server management tools, will be discontinued …

Operating Systems 5 Mar 2010, 21:18
Firefox alpha dons Flash flak jacket

Ditto 'elite' Jobsian beta testers

Mozilla has pushed out a Firefox developer preview that runs Adobe Flash and other plug-ins as a separate process, hoping to prevent crashing plug-ins from crashing the browser proper. The move comes as Apple Insider reports that Steve Jobs and cult have asked a group of "elite" testers to kick the proverbial tires on a new …

Applications 5 Mar 2010, 23:20
Google to plug self into Microsoft Office

Mountain View remakes Redmond in own image

Google has acquired a company founded by a pair of Microsoft veterans intent on creating "a bridge between Microsoft Office and Google Apps". With a blog post this morning, the Mountain View Chocolate Factory announced the acquisition of DocVerse, a three-year-old San Francisco startup that provides online document sharing and …

Applications 5 Mar 2010, 23:25