The Register® — Biting the hand that feeds IT

Feeds

9th March 2010 Archive

Browse by publication date, or search the site.

  • Microsoft rejiggers EU browser ballot after complaints

    Random choices now random

    Microsoft has updated the algorithm used to generate the browser ballot screen it's pushing out to certain Windows users in the European Union, after some complained that the ostensibly random ballot was far from random. As part of a deal with the European Commission, which was investigating antitrust complaints against the …

    Applications 9 Mar 00:31

  • US spreads Web2.0rhea to Iran, Sudan, Cuba

    This Tweet kills fascists

    US citizens are now free to invite Iranian, Sudanese, and Cuban citizens into the Web2.0rhea revolution. The US Treasury Department's trade sanction management body, the Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC), announced on Monday that it was amending regulations that had prevented US citizens from exporting internet-based …

    Government 9 Mar 00:58

  • Android native code kit apes iPhone game 3D

    Graphics beyond Java

    Google has opened the door to iPhone-like 3D games on certain Android handsets, offering support for the OpenGL ES 2.0 graphics standard with its latest Android Native Development Kit (NDK). Mountain View announced the third release of its Android NDK in a Monday blog post. The chief addition is Open GL for Embedded Systems 2. …

    Developer 9 Mar 05:55

  • Nazi-doodlebug-powered father of all paintball guns patented

    Invention made in 'exploding turnip' town. Coincidence?

    Intriguing and/or terrifying news from the world of paintballing today, as it has emerged that an inventor in America has been granted a patent on a fearsomely powerful new paintball gun, powered by the same "bunker buster" principle as secret World War II Nazi superweapons. At my signal, unleash... paint. US Patent number …

    Policing 9 Mar 06:02

  • Yellow Dog Linux licks CUDA

    Nvidia GPUs sit up and bark

    Remember Terra Soft and its Yellow Dog Linux for Power processors? Well, Yellow Dog is no longer the darling Linux for Apple machines since the latter company switched to Intel Core and Xeon processors for its PCs and servers a few years back. And Terra Soft doesn't exist any more, after it was acquired by a Japanese company …

    Operating Systems 9 Mar 07:02

  • Tilera wins VC from Broadcom, Quanta, NTT

    Cash for homegrown multicores

    Last November, El Reg told you about how multicore chip maker Tilera was lining up its third round of venture capital funding, a $25m pile of cash that would include $10m from Taiwanese PC maker and server wannabe Quanta Computer. On Monday, when the funding finally closed, it turned out that chip maker Broadcom and the …

    HPC 9 Mar 08:02

  • Mobile-phone wallet stymied by lack of understanding

    Either that or people just don't care

    The financial industry's lack of understanding is what's preventing us from using our phones to pay for things, so the Mobey Forum is going to educate it. In a new white paper from the 'Forum (pdf), the industry body explains the various technologies available as well as the business relationships which are necessary to make …

    Mobile 9 Mar 09:02

  • Daily Mail commentard out-tw*ts the Tw*t-O-Tron

    Indignation logic short-circuit threatens democracy

    Fans of the Twat-O-Tron will be delighted and disturbed in equal measure to learn that one Daily Mail commentard has managed to surpass the hideous turdspurts which emanate from Middle England's automated indignation generator. It's inevitable that any story regarding the murderers of James Bulger will arouse strong feelings, …

    Bootnotes 9 Mar 09:53

  • Vodafone cuts more staff

    More shop assistants, fewer management

    Vodafone will be 375 heads smaller by the end of March, though in the next few months company will apparently be recruiting an additional 170 "customer facing" individuals. The cuts are part of the ongoing programme designed to cut £1bn from operating costs by next year, but also continue the commitment to put more faces in …

    Mobile 9 Mar 10:21

  • Intel Euro boss pledges Brussels-friendly marketing funds

    Still got a whole lot of love for white box sellers

    Intel will offer EU-compliant coop marketing funds and discounts to the channel in Europe whatever the outcome of its appeal against a Brussels ruling that it had abused its monopoly. Intel was hit with a $1.5bn fine last year by the European Competition Commission, which decided the company had stifled competition by paying …

    Channel Register 9 Mar 10:22

  • Virtualisation and the private cloud

    Lab At last, the C word

    IT, like every industry, is from time to time compelled by those with PR budgets to suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous marketing. Over the course of the last two years we have witnessed one of the most over-hyped marketing terms being pushed with such vigour that it is today almost impossible to speak with any vendor …

    Virtualisation Lab 9 Mar 10:40

  • Florida woman prangs car while shaving her privates

    Muff driving incident astounds Highway Patrol

    A Florida Highway Patrol officer has admitted his incredulity at a woman who pranged her car while shaving her privates. Megan Mariah Barnes, 37, was driving her Thunderbird in Key West last week when she piled into the back of a Chevrolet pickup carrying four people. Or rather, although she was in the driver's seat, it was …

    Bootnotes 9 Mar 10:45

  • Tories promise medals not money for science and R&D

    Hooverpreneur promises cultural change

    James Dyson's policy review for the Tory party calls for cultural changes to put science and engineering at the centre of British society. The vacuum cleaner maestro's review said: "We can't PR our way out of the financial black hole." But without money the review runs the danger of doing just that. It calls for "developing …

    Science 9 Mar 10:49

  • Vodafone ships Mariposa-infected HTC Magic

    Updated Android phone comes riddled with bots

    Vodafone has been blamed for shipping Mariposa botnet malware and other nasties on a HTC Magic Android smartphones it supplied. The mobile phone giant's Spanish arm supplied an HTC Magic smartphone preloaded with malware that attempted to establish a backdoor for stealing information on connected PCs during the synchronisation …

    Malware 9 Mar 10:56

  • Toshiba Satellite U500 Ducati Edition

    Review Superbike performance?

    When you think of Italian superbike marques, you think of the colour red - a vigorous, powerful, thrusting hue. Yet Toshiba has chosen to deck its Ducati-themed Satellite U500 out in - dare we say it, slightly feminine - white. Toshiba and Ducati: marque 'book pro? You can understand why. When Acer ponied up for the Ferrari …

    Reg Hardware 9 Mar 11:27

  • What's so bad about Samsung's Bada?

    Samsung's iPhone pitch comes to life

    Samsung has been showing its first Bada phone, able to download applications from Samsung's version of iTunes and nowhere else. But will Bada really challenge Apple and the iPhone? That's clearly what Samsung has in mind - Bada is a closed platform owned and controlled by Samsung, and Bada applications have to be approved by …

    Mobile 9 Mar 11:42

  • Windows 7 speculation claims SP1 will land in Q4 2010

    Pretty much slotting into Microsoft's typical roadmap, then...

    Microsoft has pulled the release of Windows 7 Service Pack 1 forward to the final quarter of this year, according to a speculative report. The company hasn't officially announced when it plans to squirt out SP1 for its current operating system, but that hasn't stopped the rumours from swirling around the interwebs. The latest …

    Operating Systems 9 Mar 12:13

  • Employers call for end to Mickey Mouse degrees

    Send fewer to uni, charge 'em more

    A recruiters group is calling for an end to government targets to get 50 per cent of school leavers involved in higher education. It claims the views represent its 750 members who between them hire 30,000 graduates a year. The recruiters said that aiming to get half of under-30s into higher education has driven down standards …

    IT Director 9 Mar 12:14

  • Kentucky woman breastfeeds sheriff's deputy

    Third degree assault rap for 'biohazard' mam squirt

    A Kentucky woman cuffed for public intoxication added a third degree assault charge to her rap sheet after allegedly squirting breast milk into a sheriff's deputy's face. Toni Tramel, 31, of Owensboro, was changing into a prison uniform when she took her chance to let the female officer have it with one barrel. The deputy was …

    Bootnotes 9 Mar 12:15

  • Cisco promises to 'forever change the internet'

    Stock jumps as rumors fly

    Today will see Cisco making an announcement that it claims will "forever change the internet". The stock market certainly believed it, sending the IP giant's shares to their highest level in more than a year ($26.34) yesterday. Given Cisco's heritage and product strategy it has more likelihood than most of delivering on its …

    Data Networking 9 Mar 13:09

  • UK still lousy on electronic nosiness

    Report shows state of international surveillance heavyweights

    A new report highlights a depressingly consistent drift towards ever greater control of the population using new technologies. There are few surprises in the 2010 report (pdf), entitled The Electronic Police State, issued yesterday. It shows Russia and the United States within a couple of points of each other when it comes to …

    Government 9 Mar 13:11

  • Critical bug does a Custer on Apache for Windows

    Old warrior clobbered

    Older versions of the Windows flavour of Apache's web server software are vulnerable to a critical code injection flaw as well as a pair of lesser security bugs. The most dire of three security bugs in a core component of version 2.2.14 of Apache, and possibly earlier releases of the software, creates a mechanism for hackers …

    Operating Systems 9 Mar 13:13

  • Android - the winning formula for tablets and netbooks?

    It's the only game in town, says the maker of the other iPad

    What might the iPad have been? Apple announced it as a Magical and Revolutionary Device, defining "an entirely new category". But it actually only addresses a small part of the yawning gap between mobile handsets and notebook computers, where there's still a lot of defining to be done. There's space there for dramatically …

    PCs & Chips 9 Mar 13:35

  • Northerners give up ID cards for Lent figures suggest

    Comment Has gov gotten cold feet on ID scanning centres?

    The initial rush to join the government's ID card scheme appears to have eased, with applications from people in the Northwest running at an average of as little as 14.5 per working day. In a Commons answer yesterday, ID minister Meg Hillier said that as of March 3 there have been 4,307 applications for identity cards from …

    Government 9 Mar 13:37

  • Tories ask: Why BBC3, BBC4?

    Is this the wrong question?

    Conservative culture front bencher Jeremy Hunt is asking what’s the point of BBC3 and BBC4? It’s a good time to ask the question. In an interview with the Independent, Hunt queried why £100m was being spent, merely to attract "very, very small" audiences. This is some way short of calling for the channels to be scrapped, as …

    Music and Media 9 Mar 14:24

  • Open source boss quits Sun Oracle

    Simon Phipps rides out of Ellison town

    Sun Microsystems' veteran Simon Phipps quit his chief open source officer post at the Oracle-owned company yesterday. Phipps, who had worked at Sun for nearly a decade, confirmed his decision to walk in a blog post on Monday. His resignation marks the latest in a long line of big guns at Sun who have left the firm following …

    Software 9 Mar 14:30

  • Doctors tell government to stop the health records roll-out

    SCR ain't ready for primetime

    The British Medical Association is calling on the Department of Health to suspend the roll-out of summary care records. The BMA said the project was being accelerated and it had serious concerns that patients are not getting the information they needed to decide whether or not they want their medical records put onto a …

    Government 9 Mar 14:36

  • Nokia killed free navigation, alleges EU complaint

    The fall of Nav4All

    A customer of the late Nav4All has filed a complaint with the EU, alleging that Nokia abused its market position to drive the competition out of business. The complaint (pdf) points out that Nokia's acquisition of map-supplier Navtaq was approved on the basis that ongoing relationships would continue to exist. But according to …

    Mobile 9 Mar 14:48

  • Smartphone app botnet experiment blows up a storm

    WeatherFist shows phone vulnerability, devs claim

    Security researchers fooled nearly 8,000 iPhone and Android users into joining a mobile smartphone "botnet" under the guise of installing an apparently innocuous weather app. Derek Brown and Daniel Tijerina of TippingPoint's Digital Vaccine Group carried out the exercise in the run-up to a presentation at last week's RSA …

    Crime 9 Mar 15:37

  • PS3 will outsell Wii by 2013

    Cumulative sales win for Sony, says analyst

    Sony's PlayStation 3 will become the world's most popular gaming platform - but it'll take three more years to get there. So says Strategy Analytics analyst David Mercer, who recently blogged that, by 2013, consumers will by buying more PS3s than Xbox 360s and Wiis. By the end of 2010, Mercer forecasts, Nintendo will have …

    Reg Hardware 9 Mar 15:41

  • Terracotta's Ehcache back-ends Hibernate

    Web Sessions gets some tweaks, too

    If you want to make money, and perhaps especially in the open source software racket, you have to keep improving your software to help it get more widely adopted among enterprise customers who get nervous if they don't hand over big wads of cash to someone to babysit the code. That's why Terracotta, a maker of systems programs …

    Servers 9 Mar 16:13

  • FA launches security probe after England team bugged

    Lancaster Gate-gate

    Reported attempts to sell recordings of conversations between England squad players and coaches have sparked a security breach investigation at the FA. Media outlets have been offered tapes reportedly made in the Grove Hotel in Hertfordshire where England's squad stayed in the run-up to last week's international friendly …

    Crime 9 Mar 16:20

  • Dell intros restyled biz laptops

    Vostro 3000 line debuts

    Dell has introduced a set of new Vostro notebooks, pitching the products as "a range of new thin, lightweight and durable laptop computers". The line-up comprises the 3300, 3400, 3500 and 3700, each with a 13.3in, 14in, 15.6in and 17.3in - as you might guess from the second digit in each model number - screen. Dell's Vostro …

    Reg Hardware 9 Mar 17:29

  • New Internet Explorer code-execution attacks go wild

    IE 6 and 7 users targeted

    Online thugs are exploiting a security bug in earlier versions of Internet Explorer that allows them to remotely execute malicious code, Microsoft warned on Tuesday. The vulnerability in IE versions 6 and 7 allows remote attackers to gain the same access to the affected PC as the local user. The bug, which stems from an invalid …

    Security 9 Mar 19:08

  • Google tests TV set-top search, says report

    Satellite TV meets YouTube meets online ad machine

    Google is privately testing a television set-top box that lets users search satellite TV programming as well as video websites like its very own YouTube, according to a new report. Citing "people familiar with the matter," The Wall Street Journal reports that Mountain View is testing this Google software-powered set-top box in …

    Music and Media 9 Mar 19:24

  • Cisco 'forever changes internet' with... a router

    322 Tbps of bandwidth (not quite) here

    How will Cisco "forever change the internet"? With a new router. Which raises the question: What the hell is wrong with technology companies? When networking giant and server wannabe Cisco Systems sent word that today it would "make a significant announcement that will forever change the Internet and its impact on consumers, …

    Data Networking 9 Mar 19:45

  • It's official: Adobe Reader is world's most-exploited app

    The new Microsoft

    Adobe's ubiquitous Reader application has replaced Microsoft Word as the program that's most often targeted in malware campaigns, according to figures compiled by F-Secure. Files based on Reader were exploited in almost 49 per cent of the targeted attacks of 2009, compared with about 39 per cent that took aim at Microsoft Word …

    Malware 9 Mar 20:33

  • Apple's draconian developer docs revealed

    The first rule of iPhone Club is...

    In the 1999 movie Fight Club, Brad Pitt famously tells a huddle of pugilistic aspirants: "The first rule of Fight Club is: you do not talk about Fight Club." Apple's iPhone Developer Program License Agreement phrases that sentiment differently, but its directive to iPhone developers is essentially the same: You may not issue …

    Mobile 9 Mar 20:54

  • Pillar juices flash drive box

    Reliability boost roadmap

    Pillar Data Axiom storage arrays can go a whole lot faster, use less energy and be more reliable, thanks to a range of new features from flash drive enclosures to pre-emptive copies. A Pillar Axiom array is composed of storage enclosures or Bricks, I/O controllers called Slammers, and a Pilot management component. The company …

    Storage 9 Mar 21:18

  • Fraud-prevention service ponies up $12m for 'false' ads

    Agrees to safeguard customer data

    An Arizona company that sells services designed to prevent identity theft has agreed to pay $12m to settle charges it oversold their effectiveness and didn't adequately protect sensitive customer data. LifeLock, which since 2006 has run TV and print ads displaying the social security number of its CEO, agreed to stop …

    Crime 9 Mar 23:17