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23rd March 2010 Archive

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  • Netlist's HyperCloud memory gets Wall Street's blessing

    Raises $14.1m in stock sale

    Right about now, server memory module maker Netlist is probably wishing that it hadn't already gone public. But if the enthusiasm in a new public offering by investors on Wall Street last Friday is any indication, Netlist may be onto something with its new HyperCloud DDR3 super-dense main memory for servers. As The Register …

    Financial News 23 Mar 2010, 06:02

  • Google open sources web app security scanner

    Skipfish released from captivity

    Google has released an open source security scanner designed to seek out holes in, yes, web applications. Dubbed Skipfish, this web app "security reconnaissance tool" generates an interactive map of an application based on checks for certain security flaws, involving everything from self-signed SSL certificates to server-side …

    Security 23 Mar 2010, 07:02

  • Register.com argues it can't be sued for negligence

    We were negligent. But it wasn't gross

    US domain registrar Register.com has told a federal judge it can't be sued for a DNS records switch that wreaked havoc on Baidu because the ham-fisted blunder didn't amount to "gross negligence". The January 12 attack caused people who typed valid Baidu addresses into their browsers to visit a site controlled by the Iranian …

    Security 23 Mar 2010, 07:02

  • Home Office takes non-action against phone pinchers

    Does nothing new to stop green thieves maybe making a mint

    The Home Office is demanding that mobile phone recyclers continue what they're already doing, in the name of cracking down on mobile phone theft. The office is busy creating a new Code of Practice which will require the industry to check handsets sent for recycling against the register of stolen phones, preventing thieves …

    Mobile 23 Mar 2010, 08:02

  • HTC Legend

    Review Hit or myth?

    HTC’s Legend is to all intents and purposes the follow up to the very popular Hero. Like its predecessor it is an Android handset, and GPS, Wi-Fi and 3G are here as Android staples but, as you would expect, the Legend has a lot that is new, updated, enhanced and tweaked too. Nice touch? HTC's Legend For a start, the Legend’ …

    Phones 23 Mar 2010, 08:02

  • Google accused over China censorship

    Broke written promise

    The Chinese government has reacted angrily to Google's decision to stop censoring search engine results in the country. From last night visitors to Google.cn found themselves redirected to Google.com.hk, based in Hong Kong, and a less-censored selection of search results - more details on the move here. The company has been …

    Law 23 Mar 2010, 08:56

  • OFT to examine BBC's Canvas

    World domination placed on pause

    The Office Fair of Trading is to examine Project Canvas, the BBC's strategic Sky-f*cker next generation set-top box. The BBC Trust looked at Canvas and decided that its strategic goals of screwing over Murdoch and Branson furthering BBC content were not incompatible with the Trust's charter. The Beeb argues that complete …

    Media 23 Mar 2010, 09:02

  • Gelsinger paid more than the boss at EMC

    Hey Joe, say it ain't so

    SEC filings by EMC show that newcomer Pat Gelsinger was paid more than chairman and CEO Joe Tucci in 2009. Pat Gelsinger is EMC's Chief Operating Officer and runs its Information Infrastructure Products division. He joined EMC from Intel in September 2009. There was a 10 per cent pay cut across EMC in January 2009, as part of …

    Storage 23 Mar 2010, 09:24

  • 'Perpetual' software licence doesn't last forever, rules court

    Either party can terminate

    A software licence that was modified to become 'perpetual' did not necessarily last forever and could be terminated, the High Court has ruled. The term 'perpetual' referred not to the fact that it was incapable of being brought to an end, but to the fact that it had an unlimited term so long as neither party chose to terminate …

    Management 23 Mar 2010, 10:12

  • iSoft finance boss barred

    Banned and charged costs

    iSoft's former finance boss Ian Storey has been barred from practising as an accountant, and therefore as a finance director, for eight years after admitting charges of false accounting. Storey admitted that he gave false and misleading information to iSoft’s former auditors in relation to a supposed iSoft contract several …

    Financial News 23 Mar 2010, 10:24

  • Polaroid enthusiasts unveil new instant film

    Time to dust off your SX-70

    Owners of Polaroid's classic SX-70 camera will this week be able to buy the first of a new batch of instant films for the model, courtesy of The Impossible Project. Since Polaroid stopped production of instant film back in 2008, the tech has until now been available only from existing stocks and through Fujifilm, which offers …

    Hardware 23 Mar 2010, 10:25

  • Toshiba to build new flash fab

    NAND then there was more

    Toshiba is to build a new NAND fabrication plant in Japan, increasing its flash production capability, and showing faith in an environment of increasing flash demand. The new Fab 5 will be next to its existing four Yokkaichi Operations flash production facilities in Mie Prefecture, and construction will start in July, …

    Storage 23 Mar 2010, 10:26

  • MP welcomes Southwest One-IBM review

    'Local authorities should take extra care'

    A panel of councillors at Somerset CC is conducting a review of the council's joint venture with IBM. The review, which is being conducted by the controlling Conservative group and the opposition Liberal Democrats, will take several months to report. It has been welcomed by Somerset Conservative MP Ian Liddell-Grainger, who …

    Government 23 Mar 2010, 10:29

  • Penalty for silent calling goes sky high

    Two million reasons not to call

    Companies caught repeatedly making silent calls could get fined up to £2m in future, compared to the £50,000 maximum that taciturn sales staff currently pay. After a consultation period, the Department for Business, Innovation & Skills has decided upping the potential fine is the best way to stop companies giving people the …

    Broadband 23 Mar 2010, 10:55

  • Unfashionable DDoS attacks still menace websites

    New research aims to demystify attacks

    Internet security research firm Team Cymru has begun publishing a four part series explaining the hows and whys of denial of service attacks. The series plugs a long standing knowledge gap. ISPs, for example, can learn about DDoS attack trends from the likes of Arbor Networks, but if you're running a small online business then …

    Security 23 Mar 2010, 11:02

  • Sky blames network problems for site blocking

    THEY'RE CENSORING THE INTERN... oh, they're not

    Sky broadband has blamed network problems, not censorship, for customers's inability to get onto RapidShare and other sites, mostly related to file sharing. The problems last week led to hysterical emails and forum posts accusing Sky of "censoring the internet". Image files from Wordpress also fell foul of Sky's apparent fault …

    Broadband 23 Mar 2010, 11:04

  • Mozilla swats Firefox zero-day bug a week early

    Have that, German government

    Mozilla has plugged a critical unpatched cross-platform vulnerability in Firefox a week ahead of its previously announced schedule. Firefox 3.6.2 fixes a flaw first discovered by security researcher Evgeny Legerov last month, and confirmed by Mozilla last week. The zero-day vulnerability - now identified as an integer …

    Security 23 Mar 2010, 11:48

  • SanDisk flips out 32GB mobile phone card

    World's highest capacity

    SanDisk has announced a 32GB Micro SDHC Flash memory card for mobile phones. The company claims it's the highest capacity available in the format and says it's built using a 3-bit multi-layer cell flash technology based on a 32nm process. The Micro SDHC format measures 15 x 11 x 1mm, making a dud card a possible nail extension …

    Mobile 23 Mar 2010, 11:56

  • 'Go veggie to save the planet' UN, EU plans debunked

    Boffin rubbishes Paul McCartney lentil-noshing plan

    Yet more United Nations analysis of the measures necessary to combat climate change has come under fire from scientists. This time, rather than the (in)famous 2007 assessment report from the UN's International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the criticism is levelled at a 2006 report called Livestock's Long Shadow issued by …

    Science 23 Mar 2010, 12:00

  • YouTube scraps real-time search prototype

    'I am eating baked beans while tying my shoelaces'

    YouTube has killed an experimental feature, dubbed RealTime, that had been present in the video sharing site. The firm confirmed on its help forum website yesterday that the service was no longer available via YouTube. "We've seen some of you wondering what occurred to the Realtime Toolbar. The Realtime Toolbar was recently …

    Applications 23 Mar 2010, 12:08

  • Council deforests beauty spot to combat dogging

    No more kicks on the A666

    More than 6,000 conifers which occupied a "stunning beauty spot" alongside the A666 in Lancashire have been felled to combat rampant dogging on the 12-hectare site. According to the Daily Mail, the council used a health and safety smokescreen to justify clearing the site on the outskirts of Darwen, claiming that the 60-year- …

    Bootnotes 23 Mar 2010, 12:10

  • Government faces four more days of HP strikes

    Still a sauce spot, etc

    The Public and Commercial Services union has said that 1,000 of its members working for HP will take another four days of industrial action. The strikes will mainly hit the Department of Work and Pensions, the Ministry of Defence and General Motors work in the north-east and north-west. Staff at centres in Newcastle, …

    Mobile 23 Mar 2010, 12:14

  • IPS turns to asylum for help with ID scheme database

    Coming over here, stealing our Big Brother databases...

    Plans to use the Department of Work & Pensions' giant Customer Information Systems database for the UK's identity scheme have been officially abandoned, in favour of an enhancement of the UK Border Agency's biometric database for asylum seekers. First they came for the foreigners, as they say... According to the Identity & …

    Government 23 Mar 2010, 12:18

  • Hardware biggest cause of HDD failure, says Freecom

    Launches low-cost data recovery service

    External hard drive maker Freecom has revealed that almost half of all hard drive crashes are caused by hardware failure. While launching a new, low-cost data recovery service, Freecom said its internal estimates suggest manufacturing flaws and age together account for 49 per cent of all hard drive failures. By contrast, …

    Hardware 23 Mar 2010, 12:23

  • IBM faces mainframe biz European antitrust probe

    Blues joué par des musiciens blancs

    IBM faces yet another antitrust headache today, after French mainframe open source outfit TurboHercules filed a complaint with European competition watchdogs. TurboHercules has accused Big Blue of denying customers the right to run IBM's mainframe operating system on anything other than IBM iron. The Paris-based company filed …

    Servers 23 Mar 2010, 12:39

  • SA news outlet deploys sh*t London Olympics logo

    LogoWatch Forget the Lisa Simpson BJ, this really sucks

    It's a hearty round of applause today for News24.com, self-trumpeted as "Southern Africa and Africa's premier online news resource", which has decided it doesn't much like the London Olympic logo: When the original logo (right) was unveiled to much whalesong back in 2007, notables described it as "an invitation and an …

    Bootnotes 23 Mar 2010, 12:41

  • BT ordered to share telegraph poles for fast broadband

    Your fibre optics are not your own

    BT has been ordered to share access to ducts and telegraph poles with competitors who want to build their own faster broadband infrastructure. The Ofcom ruling means Sky, TalkTalk and other big rivals could cheaply deploy their own fibre optics between local exchanges and premises, providing more intense competition. It …

    Broadband 23 Mar 2010, 12:59

  • Virgin Media downed by thick Leeds 'copper' crooks

    Er, that's glass, lads

    Virgin Media customers in Leeds are suffering their second major outage in a few days as a result of witless thieves ripping cables out in the belief they are made of valuable copper. Instead, the raiders have made off with lengths of comparatively worthless glass fibre. Engineers are currently working to repair the damage, …

    Broadband 23 Mar 2010, 13:25

  • Telcos to deliver VaaS

    Funny or sad?

    This is hilarious or sad, whichever way you look at it. Eyeing the Twitter feed last night, I saw someone had tweeted a question about whether carriers were going to be moving to VaaS – ‘Voice as a Service’. When I asked if this was a joke, the reply was that a couple of telcos in the US were already starting to use this …

    Management 23 Mar 2010, 13:25

  • Britain expels diplomat over faked passports in Hamas hit row

    Spy games

    Britain plans to expel an Israeli diplomat over the use of counterfeit UK passports in the Dubai murder of a Hamas military commander, the BBC reports. Mahmoud al-Mabhouh, founder of Hamas's military wing, was murdered in a Dubai hotel room on 19 January by members of a 27-strong hit squad who entered the Arab state using fake …

    Government 23 Mar 2010, 13:50

  • The Register Guide to improving systems agility

    Ten tips on steering the right course

    Late last year, The Register ran a well received online conference, the Agile Date Center Conference (which you can listen to, here). A strong theme that emerged was the disconnect between the grand notions of the agile enterprise, as portrayed by IT vendors, and the real world, as experienced by their customers. Grand visions …

    Management 23 Mar 2010, 14:02

  • Chinese gamer survives knife through skull

    At the sharp end of net cafe Counter Strike row

    A Chinese gamer's net cafe Counter Strike session ended under the surgeon's knife when youths stabbed him in the skull with a 14-cm blade. Xiao Wei, 17, of Mishazi, Jilin province, was apparently accused of using a “wallhack”, allowing him to see the opposition through walls. He and chum Huang were bodily hauled from the cafe …

    Games 23 Mar 2010, 14:10

  • Branson's SpaceShipTwo rocketplane gets off ground

    Remains firmly mated with mother, though

    Beardy biz kingpin Richard Branson was overjoyed yesterday to announce that his passenger-carrying suborbital "SpaceShipTwo" rocket thrillride craft has left the ground for the first time. However it remained attached to its jet-powered "mothership" for the entire flight: independent operations aren't expected for some time. …

    Science 23 Mar 2010, 14:15

  • Sagem readies Freeview HD DVRs

    Recording HD programming next month

    The company formerly known as Sagem will release its first Freeview HD DVR at the end of next month. Set to ship under the new Sagemcom brand, the RT190 will come in two flavours: 320GB and 500GB, capacious enough for, respectively, 160 and 250 hours of programmes, Sagemcom said. We suspect it's not totting up HD bitrates. …

    Media 23 Mar 2010, 14:24

  • Verizon to launch less than brill billing service

    Paying with your phone online? Meh

    US operator Verizon will allow online retailers to add to the customer's mobile phone bill, providing just the kind of out-of-channel security that's proved so unpopular this side of the pond. The service, which will be launched this spring, is based on BilltoMobile and allows a Verizon customer buying something on a website …

    Mobile 23 Mar 2010, 14:51

  • Teen's mobe loaded with X-rated smut

    CpW repair job ends in couples on the job

    An 18-year-old Coventry lass has been left "angry", "horrified", "shocked" and "deeply traumatised" after Carphone Warehouse returned her repaired mobile loaded with hardcore porn. Lauren Kennedy, 18, packed off her Nokia for remedial treatment earlier this month when "it kept cutting out during phone calls", the Sun explains …

    Bootnotes 23 Mar 2010, 14:54

  • Opera Mini hits iTunes, awaits Apple verdict

    Mobile browsing's never been so interesting

    Opera has finally submitted its browser to the iTunes store, daring Apple to reject it, while Firefox has called it a day for the Windows Mobile version of Fennec. Opera has been publicly taunting Apple for a while now, showing off Opera Mini on an iPhone while it ironed out the bugs in an application that few believe Apple …

    Applications 23 Mar 2010, 15:16

  • Google takes China-buffed halo to Oz

    Oh yeah, who's bad?

    Not content with taking on China, Google were today squaring up for another fight over internet censorship, this time with the Australian government. Google, in a submission to the Australian government, said it was worried that: "the scope of content to be filtered is too wide". The Australian proposals went "well beyond" …

    Law 23 Mar 2010, 15:53

  • US couple jailed for TV shoplifting brag

    You fenced Lego on eBay? Do tell Dr Phil...

    A California couple who ill-advisedly appeared on TV's Dr Phil show to explain that they'd make a cool $100,000 flogging shoplifted toys on eBay were yesterday dispatched to federal prison. According to the San Francisco Chronicle, Matthew Eaton, 34, and missus Laura Eaton, 27, were already under police scrutiny for …

    Bootnotes 23 Mar 2010, 16:02

  • Cray's midrange line big on Xeons, GPUs

    Packing some Nehalem-EX punch

    In launching the CX1000 midrange supercomputer lineup, it looks like Cray is finally getting tired of trying to peddle Lexuses and BMWs to people who can only afford Fords and Chevys. As Cray's top brass were hinting it would when it talked about its fourth quarter financial results back in late February, the company has put …

    HPC 23 Mar 2010, 16:47

  • UK.gov blames Israel for cloning passports in Dubai hit

    It's not my mess!

    The UK Foreign Secretary has directly blamed Israel for forging 12 passports used in the Dubai assassination of a Hamas military boss in January. Mahmoud al-Mabhouh, founder of Hamas's military wing, was killed in a Dubai hotel on 19 January by a 27-strong hit squad who entered the UAE using counterfeit passports from Western …

    Government 23 Mar 2010, 16:58

  • China hits back at Google's uncensored Hong Kong servers

    Searches disabled or links blocked

    The Chinese government has attempted to restrict access to the Hong Kong–based servers where Google is offering uncensored search results to mainland China users. On Tuesday, according to The New York Times, mainland China users could not see uncensored Hong Kong–based content after the government either disabled certain …

    Government 23 Mar 2010, 17:57

  • US city holds outdoor Google worship service

    Appeals to web god with eco-friendly glow sticks

    Hundreds of Google worshippers gathered in the streets of Greenville, South Carolina over the weekend, paying homage to the all-powerful web god with eco-friendly glow sticks in the hopes it will one day bless their homes with 1Gbps broadband. On Saturday night, a massive congregation of Greenville residents formed "the world’ …

    Bootnotes 23 Mar 2010, 19:34

  • Your health, tax, and search data siphoned

    Software-as-a-service springs SSL leak

    Google, Yahoo, Microsoft's Bing, and other leading websites are leaking medical histories, family income, search queries, and massive amounts of other sensitive data that can be intercepted even when encrypted, computer scientists revealed in a new research paper. Researchers from Indiana University and Microsoft itself were …

    Security 23 Mar 2010, 19:41

  • Apple, Google, world+dog named in mobile patent suit

    Shocker: may not be baseless

    Apple, Google, Motorola, HTC, and 18 other top mobile-tech firms have been hit with yet another wide-ranging patent infringement lawsuit. Unlike a similarly broad-brush suit filed earlier this month by the obscure Texas firm of SmartPhone Technologies LLC against Apple, Motolora, RIM, and others, the plaintiff in this case is …

    Mobile 23 Mar 2010, 20:05

  • IBM kills off second-gen Cell blade server

    Power chips will do the math

    IBM has killed off its QS21 two-socket Cell blade server, the second generation of Cell blades sold by IBM, which were announced in August 2007. The move comes several weeks after IBM murdered a future Cell-based blade server, the QSZ2, that would have given Nvidia's Tesla and Fermi as well as Advanced Micro Devices' FireStream …

    HPC 23 Mar 2010, 20:15

  • Senate bill seeks crack down on cybercrime havens

    Economic penalties for 'countries of concern'

    Foreign countries that turn a blind eye to cybercrime would lose US financial assistance and resources under a bill introduced Tuesday in the Senate. The International Cybercrime Reporting and Cooperation Act would require the President to identify "countries of cyber concern" and to plot a course to help each one get tougher …

    Security 23 Mar 2010, 22:49

  • Amazon uncloaks sky-high Java kit

    Total Eclipse of the cloud

    Amazon has unveiled a Java SDK for building sky-high applications on its so-called infrastructure cloud. Announced with a blog post, the new SDK includes a set of APIs designed to hide some of the "low-level plumbing" developers typically encounter when building applications on the company's Amazon Web Services (AWS), …

    Developer 23 Mar 2010, 23:53