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24th March 2010 Archive

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  • Oracle slots Berkeley DB into Google's Android

    Application lover

    Oracle has announced an updated version of its embedded open-source database for Google's Android, during a three-way wrestling match for the affections of Eclipse developers. On Tuesday, the database giant used the annual EclipseCon in Santa Clara, California to unveil Berkeley DB 11g Release 2, which introduces support for …

    Developer 24 Mar 00:02

  • Big Phone to US: 'Give us spectrum. Then shut up'

    But first, some 4G action

    The US may be number one in wireless broadband, but to stay on top it needs more spectrum and less regulation. That's the opinion of a pair of AT&T execs speaking Tuesday at the CTIA Wireless 2010 conference in Las Vegas, Nevada. Ralph de la Vega, CEO of AT&T Wireless, was unabashed in his assertion that the US is the top …

    Wireless 24 Mar 00:07

  • Oracle duo pitch for Java's lifeblood

    Old-guard/new-guard moment

    Execs from "the combined Sun and Oracle" tag-teamed at this year's EclipseCon to talk about the future of Java in a turn that was full of team spirit, but few details on Oracle's plans. Longtime Oracle face Steve Harris, senior vice president of the giant's application server group, was joined by the ex-vice president of Sun …

    Developer 24 Mar 05:19

  • Yes, Internet Explorer is on the wane in Europe

    Post ballot screen slippage

    Internet Explorer's European market share has decreased noticeably since Microsoft rolled out its browser ballot screen to EU Windows users, according to new data from net research firm Quantcast. Redmond introduced its ballot screen on March 1, after settling an antitrust complaint with the European Commission, and in a blog …

    Applications 24 Mar 06:02

  • Bill Gates goes (mini) nuclear

    Backs 'small reactor' startup

    A startup firm funded in part by Bill Gates is in talks with Toshiba about creating small, efficient nuclear energy reactors that are fueled not by treacherous uranium-235 or plutonium-239, but by relatively benign uranium-238. According to a report (paid subscription) in the Wall Street Journal, a Toshiba spokesman says that …

    Environment 24 Mar 06:02

  • Ubuntu shops prefer the bleeding edge

    Sunshine on a cloudy day

    In preparation for the rollout of Ubuntu Server 10.04 Long Term Support next month, Canonical, the commercial sponsor of the Linux variant, and the Ubuntu community polled Ubuntu users to see how they use the operating system. Canonical is also keen on finding out what Ubuntu shops think of the focus on cloud computing and how …

    Operating Systems 24 Mar 07:02

  • BlueArc extending its circle

    Comment Now for the entry entry-level

    Having started out at the high-end NAS level with Titan and secured its mid-range offering with Mercury, BlueArc is now set on introducing a low-end product. The company produces FPGA (Field Programmable Gate Array) hardware-accelerated, network-attached storage (NAS) products with the ability to cluster up to eight Titans …

    Channel Register 24 Mar 08:02

  • LaCie LaCinema MiniHD

    Review Small box, big picture

    We weren’t wildly enthusiastic about LaCie's Black Max set-top box. Thankfully, its new LaCinema MiniHD is a more modest affair that just concentrates on being a media player. As a result, it’s more successful than the Black MAX, although it does still have some rough edges. Honey, I shrunk the vids: LaCie's diminutive …

    reghardware 24 Mar 08:02

  • Police reject Tory plans for elected chiefs

    US-style votes not popular with plod

    The relationship between police and central government may be about to become a whole lot less harmonious, as senior police officers call for a fundamental review of policing in the UK and politicians look for a quick fix. Polite language was the order of the day as party spokesmen Chris Huhne (Lib Dem), Chris Grayling ( …

    Policing 24 Mar 08:38

  • Customise the app or modify your business?

    Mini Poll ERP selection philosophy and practicality?

    When implementing ERP, should you expect to tailor the product to your business or change your processes to match the product? It’s a key philosophical question that anyone who has implemented this kind of system will probably have an opinion on. This week’s poll looks at how this and other factors have an impact on supplier …

    ERP 24 Mar 09:01

  • You think unified comms is just about productivity?

    Workshop Time to think again

    When we talk about Unified Communications (UC), a lot of us are guilty of dwelling on generalities and how attractive the notion of smoother communications would be to us as individuals. After all, who wouldn’t want to get shot of having to wrestle with multiple phone numbers, worry about multiple inboxes, and having to suffer …

    Unified Comms 24 Mar 09:02

  • Sure Signal not so sure

    Vodafone leaves the disconnected disconnected

    Vodafone's Sure Signal is supposed to provide connectivity to the disconnected, but for the last few days the service has been far from sure despite relying on customers paying twice. Punters who shelled out 50 quid on the promise of getting a connection over their own ADSL line, where no wireless service was available, have …

    Mobile 24 Mar 09:02

  • Oops: Chief Climategate investigator failed to declare eco directorship

    Exclusive 'Dracula's in charge of the blood bank'

    The peer leading the second Climategate enquiry at the University of East Anglia serves as a director of one of the most powerful environmental networks in the world, according to Companies House documents - and has failed to declare it. Lord Oxburgh, a geologist by training and the former scientific advisor to the Ministry of …

    Environment 24 Mar 09:28

  • Samsung founder's kid back at the wheel

    Two-year tax-evasion penance served

    Lee Kun-hee will return to head up Samsung Electronics, having resigned from the company in 2008 with a conviction for tax evasion - for which he's since been pardoned. Lee Kun-hee won't be taking on all his previous responsibilities, just the Electronics part of the Samsung group and alongside a board of which he won't be …

    Mobile 24 Mar 10:29

  • Eye-Fi launches X2 wireless SD cards in UK

    Network connections for your camera

    Wireless SD Card maker Eye-Fi has updated its line-up and queued the cards up to arrive on shop shelves at the end of April. The new, "X2" range comprises the Connect, Explore and Pro cards, offering 4GB, 8GB and 8GB of on-board storage, respectively. They are Class 6 SD cards and incorporate 802.11n Wi-Fi. Designed for your …

    reghardware 24 Mar 10:40

  • BCS turns down e-signature petition

    EGM demand must be handwritten, insist musty by-laws

    A petition to hold an emergency general meeting of the British Computing Society (BCS) has been turned down because the signatures were electronic. BCS, known by some wags as the Dad's Army of IT or, thanks to a recent rebrand, as the chartered institute of IT, declined to consider a motion from 50 members demanding a debate …

    IT Director 24 Mar 11:04

  • Samsung unveils Android 2.1 smartphone

    Bluetooth 3.0 and 802.11n Wi-Fi on board

    Samsung has taken the wraps off its latest Android smartphone - the Galaxy S, based on version 2.1 of the Google mobile OS. The S sports a 4in, 800 x 480 OLED touchscreen and a 5Mp camera with 720p HD video recording. Assisted GPS provides location data, while Samsung's own Layar UI handles augmented reality tasks. Samsung's …

    reghardware 24 Mar 11:04

  • Train rebrand costs us dear

    Control F?

    When National Express lost the east coast rail franchise someone had to pay to rebrand the trains and website. The total process cost £634,842 and taxpayers contributed £339,190 of this, £295,652 was picked up by National Express. The cost of repainting rolling stock was £250,000, while changing logos on the website and …

    Channel Register 24 Mar 11:14

  • Nintendo confirms 3D handheld console coming

    No special glasses needed, firm pledges

    Nintendo is working on a version of its DS handheld console with the ability to display 3D content, the videogames pioneer has said. And it won't need special glasses, the company promised. Nintendo didn't say much more, beyond indicating a launch date before April 2011, the end of Nintendo's next financial year. A release …

    reghardware 24 Mar 11:20

  • MIT boffins on track of portable 60-watt seawater desalinator

    Water, water everywhere - and every drop to drink

    MIT boffins say they're on the track of a nifty, portable machine which could turn dirty seawater into enough clean drinking water for several people - using no more power than a lightbulb. Seawater desalination is already widely used, but conventional technologies such as reverse osmosis don't scale down well past a certain …

    Environment 24 Mar 11:25

  • Palm OS on an iPhone - there's an app for that

    But not in the iTunes App Store

    Palm OS obsessives StyleTap have created an iPhone emulator, but you'll have to give Cydia $50 and jailbreak your handset to run it. The legions of iPhone users desperate to run their Palm OS apps can finally relax, because StyleTap can now deliver all that Palm OS goodness to an iPhone. Users might even be able to run that NS …

    Operating Systems 24 Mar 11:41

  • Reg readers feel the squeeze in 2010 IT budgets

    Calling all belt-tighteners - how is it for you?

    Preliminary results from our 2009/10 x86 Vendor Preference Survey show that the economy has had a considerable impact on IT spending among our survey respondents. While this is perhaps a self-evident finding, it gives us some data to hang our hats on. We stress that these results are tentative, as the survey is still out in the …

    Servers 24 Mar 12:02

  • Facebook gives you the clap: Official

    Status: discharging

    The sharp rise in syphilis cases in Teesside has been partially attributed to social networking sites which incautious locals are trawling in search of casual sex. According to the local Evening Gazette, the number of reported cases jumped to 30 last year, up from less than 10 in 2008. Professor Peter Kelly, executive director …

    Bootnotes 24 Mar 12:06

  • Zurich Insurance promises changes after data loss

    Promises to pull socks up, won't do it again

    Zurich Insurance has promised to improve its information security after losing personal financial information on 46,000 British clients through careless handling of unencrypted backup tapes. The back-up tape, which also contained personal details of 1,800 third party insurance claimants from the UK, was lost by Zurich's South …

    IT Director 24 Mar 12:28

  • Philips preps Freeview HD set-top pair

    Updated First box out next month

    Consumer electronics company Philips is preparing to release a pair of Pace-made Freeview HD set-top boxes, due to go on sale in the coming months. April will see the arrival of the DTR5520 HD, a receiver which will followed a month or so later by the HDT8520 HD, a 500GB hard drive-equipped DVR. Both units will pick up …

    reghardware 24 Mar 12:31

  • Revealed: the unstoppable rise of the LCD TV

    Explosive growth unhindered by plasma, OLED

    LCD technology dominates the TV market, and its grip will only tighten during the next three or four years, market watcher DisplaySearch has said. That the technology is squeezing out old-style CRT screens won't surprise anyone, but it may come as a disappointment for plasma fans and those of you keen on emerging technology …

    reghardware 24 Mar 12:32

  • US Navy plans self-building floating fortresses

    Swimming, stacking ISO containers: Just add SEALs

    Iconoclastic Pentagon paradigm-mangler boffins at DARPA have done it again, unveiling plans for cunning floating modules which could be tipped off cargo ships out at sea and then drive about and snap themselves together to form floating offshore bases. The new DARPA plan is called Tactically Expandable Maritime Platform (TEMP …

    Physics 24 Mar 12:39

  • May the SandForce be with LSI and Seagate

    LSI/Seagate PCIe flash uses SandForce controller

    The LSI/Seagate SSS6200 PCIe-connected flash card apparently has a SandForce controller on it. The card was unveiled on 16 March and uses Seagate Pulsar SSDs (solid state drives) with PCIe and SAS connectivity provided by LSI. A flash controller provides read and write I/O, reliability, endurance with wear-levelling and other …

    Storage 24 Mar 12:58

  • EMC new storage federation box named V-Plex?

    The tea leaves say so

    EMC's new storage federation box is likely to be called V-Plex, if information we've received is accurate. The product is needed to federate local and global storage resources and enable Data at a Distance (DaaD), as described in a visionary presentation to US analysts by EMC's Pat Gelsinger, the head of the company's …

    Storage 24 Mar 13:24

  • Pre-election budget targets politics, not policy

    Budget But bad news for trampagne drinkers, Darling?

    In a budget lacking the traditional pre-election giveaway, the chancellor dedicated much of his speech to congratulating himself on measures taken in the last two years to mitigate the impact of recession and bail out the financial sector. The most significant tax change is to stamp duty, which will rise to five per cent for …

    Government 24 Mar 14:07

  • Foreign Office changes tourist advice after Israeli inquiry

    Updated Careful with your passports

    The Foreign Office has revised travel advice for Brits visiting Israel after the UK government blamed the Jewish State for cloning UK passports for use in an operation to kill a Hamas commander in Dubai. British citizens - especially those with passports issued before 2006 without biometric chips containing digitally-signed …

    Government 24 Mar 14:09

  • Dell mainstreams cloud servers

    Not sold over the Big Gray Cloud

    For the past several years, server and PC maker Dell has built a sizeable and mostly hidden business selling custom-made servers to elite data center customers facing power, cooling, and compute capacity issues that its regular SMB and enterprise customers don't have to cope with. But as hyperscale computing - database …

    Servers 24 Mar 16:19

  • Free anti-virus scanner hits the cloud

    Ooh! Wafty!

    Avira has added cloud technology to the latest version of its popular freebie anti-virus scanner. Version 10 of Avira AntiVir, released on Tuesday, adds cloud-based detection to a free-of-charge security scanner that competes with similar products offered by (Czech-firm ALWIL's) Avast and AVG. All three firms aim to move …

    Malware 24 Mar 16:29

  • Getting drunk the night before has no effect on exam results

    Tipsy students unaffected by 7-pint sessions

    Heartwarming news for students or others taking courses today, as scientists have now carried out research revealing that heavyish drinking the night before exams will not affect your performance. Boston medi-profs Damaris Rohsenow and Johnathan Howland carried out the research, which they say is the first study to examine the …

    Biology 24 Mar 16:56

  • Microsoft sneak peeks freshened comms server

    New unification due end of year

    Microsoft has announced that the next incarnation of its unified communications software - code-named Communication Server 14 - will be available in the second half of the year. Earlier company roadmaps indicated this would be the case. Gurdeep Singh Pall, corporate vice president of Microsoft’s unified communications group, …

    Software 24 Mar 17:43

  • Google auto-alerts Gmailers to suspicious log-ins

    Compromised account warning

    Google has updated Gmail with new code designed to alert you when it suspects your account has been compromised. This alert may be triggered, for instance, when a login appears to come from one country just a few hours after a login from another country. In July of last year, Google began posting information about account log- …

    Applications 24 Mar 20:36

  • FBI cyber cop says 'very existence' of US under threat

    As DHS and NSA ratchet 'Einstein' intrusion detector

    Cyber attacks threaten the "very existence" of the US, according to a top FBI official charged with worrying about such things. "The cyber threat can be an existential threat - meaning it can challenge our country's very existence, or significantly alter our nation's potential," Steven Chabinsky was quoted by Computerworld as …

    Security 24 Mar 20:42

  • HP juices gamestations with Intel 'Westmeres'

    Mo' better cores

    Hewlett-Packard has freshened its desktop and mobile workstations with new Intel six-core "Westmere-EP" Xeon 5600 . The move follows an early March update to the company's business notebook lineup that saw the addition of Intel's latest Core i3, i5, and i7 processors. By Intel's reckoning, the Westmere-EPs offer about 45 per …

    PCs & Chips 24 Mar 21:09

  • Oracle endorses faster Java changes

    EclipseCon 2010 Catch Goopache if you can

    Oracle is committed to whipping the Java Community Process into shape, but it looks like a limited workout's on the agenda. Steven Harris, the senior vice president of Oracle's massive application server product development, told EclipseCon Wednesday that the Java Community Process (JCP) - the body officially responsible for …

    Developer 24 Mar 21:41

  • Red Hat all black in Q4

    Novell turns envy green

    Commercial Linux distributor Red Hat is reaching towards its goal of hitting $1bn in sales. In the fourth quarter of fiscal 2010, the company had double digit revenue growth and posted record billings for the services backing its Enterprise Linux and related products, and it finished off the year with overall sales up 14.7 per …

    Operating Systems 24 Mar 22:28