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1st April 2010 Archive

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  • Microsoft clutches open source to its corporate heart

    New GM vows end to religious war

    Open source has moved into Microsoft's beating corporate heart. Redmond's new open source group reports to the company number two, chief operating officer and aggressive compete-to-win-type Kevin Turner. James Utzschneider has been named Microsoft's general manager of open source, a role that will see him and a team of 80 …

    Software 1 Apr 2010, 00:38

  • AMD tempts gamers with multi-monitor Eye candy

    One card, six displays, one billion pixels

    AMD has announced a new graphics card that can fill six displays with over one billion pixels per second to provide what the company unblushingly claims to be "the ultimate in entertainment and productivity". The Wednesday announcement of the expansively named ATI Radeon HD 5870 Eyefinity 6 Edition notes that users of the card …

    Hardware 1 Apr 2010, 06:02

  • Review RIM BlackBerry Bold 9700

    Research in Motion's reputation for easy-to-use, no-hassle email - built on its BlackBerry brand - has been well-earned, and not just because it was the first to get on-the-go messaging right. Now that other manufacturers have caught up on the email side, RIM has kept itself at the forefront by beguiling consumers with all …

    Phones 1 Apr 2010, 07:02

  • Review Palm Pre

    Smartphone pioneer Palm was once down and all but out until it came back with this genre-busting gem of a handset. It's a compact, ergonomically designed handful which if not particularly slim, at least has the distinction of a genuinely different look and of plotting its own stylish course away from the established operating …

    Phones 1 Apr 2010, 07:02

  • Review Motorola Milestone

    Motorola's recent stock of smartphones has been an impressive return to form after a few years of style phone stasis. The Milestone runs on the latest, 2.0 version of Android, delivering an easy-to-use icon-based UI which allows you to scatter widgets across three different home pages. It's quite a hefty handful though its …

    Phones 1 Apr 2010, 07:02

  • Review HTC Touch Pro 2

    There's no denying that HTC's slightly long in the tooth - it first appeared back in June 2009 - is something of a brute and it's easily the biggest and heaviest device in our test, though it does its best to hide this with its nicely curved edges. But there are times when size matters, and an easy-to-use Qwerty keyboard is …

    Phones 1 Apr 2010, 07:02

  • Review LG InTouch Max GW620

    Joining Samsung's Genio at the lower end of the full flavour keyboard scale - though it's still around twice the price - LG's evocatively named inTouch Max puts its focus firmly on social networking. The SNS icon on the home page allows you to set up your Facebook, Twitter and Bebo accounts, notifying you of updates and …

    Phones 1 Apr 2010, 07:02

  • Review Nokia E72

    Nokia's E series has been a quiet hero of the business sector for a few years now. It may not have the profile of RIM's BlackBerry, but it owes more than a little to it in style, and also brings Nokia's traditional skills of solid workhorse dependability and multi-tasking applications. The E72 is a shade longer and heavier …

    Phones 1 Apr 2010, 07:02

  • Review Nokia N97 Mini

    Despite it's name, this cut-down version of Nokia's chunky N97 actually only knocks a few milliemtres off the original, though it is a good 12g lighter. It's a wee bit thicker, though, because it's packing a sliding Qwerty keyboard. That keyboard's an odd one, though, cramming its 38 keys into just three lines. The keys, of …

    Phones 1 Apr 2010, 07:02

  • Review Samsung Omnia Pro

    Everything about the Omnia Pro shouts professional quality, from its OLED screen to its solid build and imperious weight. The Pro's four-line, 39-key keyboard is expansively laid out within its sizeable frame - a good deal chunkier than the standard Omnia flagship, incidentally - and though the keys looks disconcertingly flat …

    Phones 1 Apr 2010, 07:02

  • Review Sony Ericsson Aspen

    Sony Ericsson's latest Qwerty-packing business-centric handset has a similar look to Nokia's E72 and RIM's Blackberry 9700 but, alas, none of their flair. Despite its metal casing - with plastic edging to increase the range of its network aerial - it's a staid, blocky looking device with ugly, aggressive edges on the front. …

    Phones 1 Apr 2010, 07:02

  • Qwerty Smartphones: Best Buys

    Group Test Reg Hardware recommends...

    Among the nine smartphones reviewed on the previous pages, there are no duds, and in fact the standard is generally very high. Whether you favour the BlackBerry, candybar style or like you have a keyboard that can be pulled out for occasional use and tucked away the rest of the time is a matter of personal preference, so neither …

    Phones 1 Apr 2010, 07:02

  • Irish civil rights group takes aim at iPad launch

    April Fools Gaelic speakers want to give Apple a good boxing

    Apple's iPad launch could be thrown off course by a last minute objection to the device's name by a small Irish American civil rights group. Boston-based Féach ar na Féilire claims it registered the name 11 years ago for a now-defunct online advice service for Irish Gaelic speaking immigrants in the US. Pádraig O'Súil, …

    Hardware 1 Apr 2010, 07:02

  • If internet had existed before we were born would we be here now?

    April Fools Web is like a pizza box, for sure

    Today is tomorrow and yesterday is today in this online world where we all bump together along the way. The web is where everything is possible. If the newspaper is today's fish and chip wrapper then the internet is tomorrow's pizza box. But looking for scraps of news in the pepperoni can be hazardous even for those …

    Media 1 Apr 2010, 07:02

  • Buyer's Guide: Qwerty Smartphones

    Group Test The Pros and Cons

    Qwerty keyboards come in all shapes and sizes. Well, come to think of it they're generally much the same shape, but the number of keys and their layout can vary dramatically from handset to handset. HTC's Touch Pro 2, for example, is a pocket-straining brick with five lines of keys, while the relatively diminutive Nokia N79 Mini …

    Phones 1 Apr 2010, 07:19

  • Qwerty Keyboard Smartphones

    Group Test Nine phones for typing on

    Despite the increased screen sensitivity of large-display smartphones such as the iPhone, many of us still prefer to have a good, solid keyboard with real, tactile keys for texting, firing out emails or composing our memoirs. While predictive text systems like SureType or T9 can be fast, they can also be a pain, so there's …

    Phones 1 Apr 2010, 07:25

  • Google to digitize world+dog with People View

    April Fools Physical ad targeting

    As part of its ongoing mission to "organize the world's information and make it universally accessible," Google has launched a new effort to scan every person on earth and put them on the interwebs. Dubbed Google People View, the project is underway in multiple American cities, including San Francisco, New York, Las Vegas, …

    Media 1 Apr 2010, 08:02

  • Associated Newspapers, GMG to pool newsrooms

    April Fools Mail and Guardian trial Write once, Read everywhere

    In a sign of newspaper industry consolidation, rival publishing groups Associated and the Guardian Media Group are to join forces, sharing a common editorial production facility. Using the latest technology, a single team will produce stories for both groups flagship titles, the Daily Mail and the Guardian, in a process that …

    Media 1 Apr 2010, 08:02

  • Watchdog proposes network-to-network call cost cut

    Termination rates must be slashed, says Ofcom

    Ofcom has told telcos they should charge each other less money for running calls from one network to another. These so-called 'termination rates' will fall from 4.3p per minute today to 0.5p per minute in 2015, if Ofcom gets its way. That's a significant reduction, though there's nothing but market forces to make telcos pass …

    Mobile 1 Apr 2010, 08:05

  • Mobile calls to get much cheaper - probably

    Knock down terminations, but no direct routing

    UK regulator Ofcom has published proposals to cut the mobile termination rate significantly and make changing networks quicker, but stopped short of routing calls directly. A lower termination rate should see cheaper calls to mobiles - £800m cheaper according to Ofcom. Under the proposals customers will be able to get a PAC …

    Mobile 1 Apr 2010, 08:09

  • DIMENSIONAL PORTAL INCURSION AT THE LHC!

    April Fools Elite troops confront 'response' to 7 TeV collisions

    In shock news, it has emerged that recent record-breaking increases in particle ring energy achieved at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) - the most powerful atomsmasher ever assembled by the human race - have caused a hyperdimensional portal leading to an inhabited parallel universe to open up deep beneath Switzerland, in what …

    Science 1 Apr 2010, 08:47

  • iPad includes hyberbole generator, first reviews show

    Mac fans like Apple products shock

    The first iPads reviews are up, pushing reviewers to their very limits in the search for superlatives worthy of the sublime magnificence bestowed upon them. How fortunate we are to live in an age when we can have a device that's "instantly compelling and elegant" and "better than expected", not to mention "designed and built …

    Mobile 1 Apr 2010, 09:01

  • BBC, big business leer creepily at orphan works

    Mandybill Hang on. Are you a library?

    Big publishers and the BBC have come out to lobby for the controversial Clause 43, that part of the Mandybill that strips photographers of their historical rights. Is that surprising? It should be, because Clause 43 is the section that deals with 'orphan works' - and according to the Business department BIS, the only people …

    Media 1 Apr 2010, 09:02

  • NHS IT misses another deadline

    Time to call Dignitas

    The National Programme for IT, the £12.7bn scheme to wire up the country's health system, has missed another major deadline - getting iSoft's Lorenzo patient management software running in Morecambe Bay. The contract is being run by CSC and the NHS stressed it would not be paying the consultants or signing fresh contracts …

    Government 1 Apr 2010, 09:16

  • Western Digital pips Toshiba to platter post

    Sings like canary on souped-up Scorpio Black

    Western Digital is shipping its 750GB, 2.5-inch, 2-platter drive ahead of Toshiba, although Toshiba announced first. The Scorpio Blue 750 drive has 375GB capacity per platter and spins at 5400rpm. With 8MB of cache and a 3GBit/s SATA II interface it is broadly identical to Toshiba's MK7559GSXP. This was announced last week …

    Storage 1 Apr 2010, 09:18

  • New Reg comments system ready to launch

    April Fools Forums a la mod - or not, as you prefer

    Exciting news from Vulture Towers - we're overhauling your comments system to make it more accessible and satisfying for you to use. After an extensive consultation with our valued board of 'tame' commentards - those of you who responded eagerly to our call for comment consultants last year - and weekly all-staff comments …

    Bootnotes 1 Apr 2010, 09:19

  • Conficker zombies celebrate 'activation' anniversary

    Anti-climactic Downadup gets one bump

    Thursday marks the first anniversary of the much hyped Conficker trigger date. Little of note happened on 1 April 2009 and machines infected by Conficker (aka Downadup) remain largely dormant, but an estimated 6.5 million Windows PCs remain infected with the threat. These machines are "wide open to further attacks", net …

    Security 1 Apr 2010, 09:46

  • Mole: international iPad out on 24 April

    Reviewers: we like it

    Apple's UK website still lists the iPad - out in the US on Saturday - as due to debut over here in the "late April" timeframe. But when exactly? According to one source, the 24 April. According to an mole in Canada'a Apple Store, cited by website iPad in Canada, employees have been told that data is 'no time off' day. While …

    Tablets 1 Apr 2010, 09:52

  • BT mops up after flood and fire

    Deploys elite special ops Land Rover

    BT is restoring power to a central London network node that disastrously flooded and caught fire yesterday, but remains unable to say when services will return. The incident at Burne House in north Paddington crippled landlines, broadband and mobile services across the west of the capital. More than 430 local exchanges are …

    Broadband 1 Apr 2010, 09:56

  • UK.gov folds over Ordnance Survey map data

    Lets developers mashup tumulus

    The government has released some Ordnance Survey mapping data for free re-use to British citizens today, in response to public consultation that got underway in December last year. It said it would make a handful of OS datasets freely available for use by the likes of developers wanting to mash up data for UK websites. The …

    Developer 1 Apr 2010, 10:00

  • UK competition authority probes Amazon

    Move to John Lewis pricing pisses off sellers

    The Office of Fair Trading is investigating complaints received about Amazon's introduction of a new pricing scheme for people using its UK site to sell second-hand books and other items. Amazon.co.uk is pushing sellers to make sure the prices they offer on Amazon are the same as or lower than they offer anywhere else online …

    Government 1 Apr 2010, 10:02

  • Toshiba takes Violin Memory stake

    New flash string to its bow

    Toshiba has taken a strategic stake in flash memory product supplier Violin Memory and agreed a flash chip supply deal. The move echoes that of Samsung, which also invested higher up the supply chain for its NAND chips by buying into Fusion-io. That firm makes PCIe-connected flash memory products resident inside a server's …

    Storage 1 Apr 2010, 10:08

  • Sky posts 3D TV pub finder

    Where will you be watching the big game?

    Sky's 3D TV service goes live on Saturday 3 April, broadcasting live the Premier League game between Man U and Chelsea. But in which pubs can you watch the match? Sky today put its promised pub search site on line, allowing footie fans to key in their post codes and get a list of - hopefully - nearby pubs they can visit this …

    Media 1 Apr 2010, 10:31

  • Stats Agency savages Brown over immigration claims

    Gives Tories a nasty nip too

    The UK Statistics Agency has teeth and it is prepared to use them. The latest high-profile victim of the Agency is none other than Gordon Brown, who was taken to task yesterday for misleading voters with his selective use of statistics on immigration. Last month, the UK Statistics Agency (UKSA) warned politicians that it would …

    Government 1 Apr 2010, 10:33

  • Cash-strapped trolley dollies in nude calendar protest

    NSFW Give us our wages, demand disrobed Spanish fillies

    A group of Spanish trolley dollies who were grounded when their employer Air Comet went titsup last December have pressed their claim for outstanding wages by getting their kit off for a calendar, Spanish media report. The nine former air hostesses are among those cabin crew owed up to eight months' wages by the defunct …

    Bootnotes 1 Apr 2010, 10:34

  • Reg reader tips for ERP success

    Workshop Some great pearls of wisdom

    When we asked Reg readers to tell us about the factors that impacted the success or failure of the last ERP implementation they were involved with, 50 of you came back with your insights. Of these, about a third had experience of actually managing an implementation, with most of the remainder having worked as part of an ERP …

    ERP 1 Apr 2010, 11:09

  • Ukrainian cybercrime-friendly ISP hit by fire after clean-up

    How curious

    A Ukrainian ISP hit by fire over the weekend was in the process of cleaning up its act after earlier being labelled as a leading haven for cybercrime, PC World reports. Odessa-based Hosting.ua was hit by a fire on March 27 that resulted in severe damage to its infrastructure and took it offline. HostExploit.com, which tracks …

    Security 1 Apr 2010, 11:24

  • The IT management impact of home working

    Workshop Got it all sussed?

    We’re pretty familiar with the kinds of issues that cause hassle for help, support and service desks the world over. Indeed, few requests for Reg reader feedback have engendered such a response as desktop support. User support is never easy, but at least in the old days when most IT equipment was contained in the same set of …

    Desktop Management 1 Apr 2010, 11:32

  • Ofcom asks for dibs on Olympic DAB stations

    I see you have 6Music on your CV here

    Ofcom is asking anyone interested in running a local DAB station during the Olympics to let it know, so it can judge the level of interest before allocating frequencies. The request for "preliminary expressions of interest" is aimed at anyone interested in running a digital station for the duration of the 2012 event, with …

    Mobile 1 Apr 2010, 12:07

  • Pink Floyd remastered for Nintendo Entertainment System

    Dark Side of the 8-bit Moon

    A video games programmer has rather boldly taken Pink Floyd's The Dark Side of the Moon and remastered it as a Nintendo Entertainment System extravanganza, with surprisingly plausible results. The entire 8-bit playlist - created by Brad Smith using Famitracker and rendered with NSFplug - can be found down at YouTube. One …

    Games 1 Apr 2010, 12:28

  • Apple QuickTime update blocks media player bugs

    Bad timing?

    Apple pushed out an update for QuickTime on Wednesday that fixes 16 vulnerabilities, many critical. Users of both Windows and Apple systems are advised to upgrade to guard against flaws that mean playing malformed media files using older versions of QuickTime can drop malware onto vulnerable systems. Malicious image files …

    Operating Systems 1 Apr 2010, 12:30

  • Open Rights Group raises Flash Mob… of 7

    Take that, pigopolists

    Music House — HQ for a number of the UK music industry’s trade groups — was in a lock-down situation this lunchtime as an Open Rights Group Flash Mob descended, protesting against the Digital Economy Bill. As many as seven protesters could be seen outside the Berners Street offices, according to staff who phoned us from …

    Media 1 Apr 2010, 13:16

  • Unified comms means a unified technical approach

    UC Let’s all play together nicely now

    The very nature of unified communications (UC) with its many component parts – voice, video conferencing, audio conferencing, presence and so on - means that when it comes to scoping implementations from a technical perspective, requirements will necessarily cut across different disciplines. Precisely for this reason, it …

    Unified Comms 1 Apr 2010, 13:38

  • OS free data splurge lacks public sector licensing deal

    Wander round in circles till UK.gov finds a direction

    Today’s release of some Ordnance Survey mapping data, which has been made available for free re-use by the government, shies away from one major factor that could yet stymie the entire process - a public sector licensing agreement won’t be drawn up until April 2011. As outlined in the government’s ‘impact assessment’ paper on …

    Government 1 Apr 2010, 13:57

  • Verizon and IBM join forces for private cloud backup

    Managed Data Vault is go

    Verizon and IBM are partnering to offer a private networked (cloud) backup service to enterprise customers. The duo's offering is called Managed Data Vault. Customers backup data from an active site and send it across Verizon network links to a remote IBM data centre equipped with "backup infrastructure and management …

    Storage 1 Apr 2010, 14:31

  • Police IT quango chief to quit

    Beat it

    Chief constable Peter Neyroud, the man in charge of the quango running the National DNA Database and other police computer systems, has announced his departure ahead of the election. His retirement comes after criticism of lavish perks enjoyed by senior staff at the National Policing Improvement Agency (NPIA). The agency …

    Law 1 Apr 2010, 15:14

  • IBM goes elephant with Nehalem-EX iron

    Massive memory for racks and blades

    With so much of its money and profits coming from big Power and mainframe servers, you can bet that IBM is not exactly enthusiastic about the advent of the eight-core "Nehalem-EX" Xeon 7500 processors from Intel and their ability to link up to eight sockets together in a single system image. But IBM can't let other server makers …

    Servers 1 Apr 2010, 16:53

  • Apple drops HTML from iPhone and iPad

    April Fools Jobs conjures iHTML

    Apple will drop support for HTML in the upcoming version of its iPhone OS, slated for release this summer. According to people familiar with the matter, the removal of HTML support from Cupertino's mobile Safari browser is outlined in the Developer Program License Agreement for the upcoming iPhone OS 4.0, to be used not only …

    Media 1 Apr 2010, 18:05

  • PCs, servers push Micron to profits

    Recovery from meltdown

    Micron bagged $365m in profits during its latest fiscal quarter, completely rebounding from a $763m loss this time last year. In the quarter ended March 4, Micron's sales nearly doubled to $1.96bn, but costs were only up a smidgen. For the six months ended in March - which more or less encompasses the period of stabilization …

    Financial News 1 Apr 2010, 21:01

  • Microsoft slings mud at Google Chrome

    Accuses browser rival of 'stealing privacy'

    Microsoft has publicly attacked Google Chrome, accusing its arch web rival of compromising user privacy with the browser's data-gathering address bar. In a video posted to Microsoft's TechNet site and tagged with the title Google Chrome Steals Your Privacy, Internet Explorer product manager Pete LePage uses a web traffic …

    Applications 1 Apr 2010, 21:32

  • Apple files 'in your face' iPhone patent

    USPTO humorfest?

    Apple has applied for a patent that describes a pair of goggles into which you can slip your iPhone or iPod touch to view images or video, optionally in 3D. That is, if we're not being punk'd by such a distinguished agency as the US Patent and Trademark Office on April Fools' Day. We're not saying that the USPTO is staffed by …

    Hardware 1 Apr 2010, 23:25

  • iPad apps flood Apple's App Store

    Updated Après samedi le déluge

    The iPad apps have landed. In preparation for the US release of its "magical and revolutionary" iPad this Saturday, Apple on Thursday began loading up the iTunes App store with scores of apps designed for Cupertino's long-awaited tablet/slate/e-reader/whatever. As of 4:00pm Pacific Daylight Time (23:00GMT), about 2,600 apps …

    Tablets 1 Apr 2010, 23:52