2nd April 2010 Archive

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God of War III

Review Greece is the word

The God of War trilogy spans two PlayStation generations, and God of War III could not look better - or prove the PS3’s abilities - in a more stunning way. This hotly anticipated HD bloodbath of guts and lost heads - sorry, Helios - is a godsend for Sony. God of War III: revenge is a dish best served cold. With Houmus God …

reghardware 2 Apr 08:02
Electronic Bodyguards bureau sets up shop in Switzerland

Data protection A-team suits up

Burly bodyguards, however well armed and trained, are no longer enough to protect businesspeople on the move. Electronic threats to their privacy and security and the risk of industrial espionage can also cause problems for VIPs and businesspeople. Peter Houppermans, an experienced security consultant who helped build the UK's …

Enterprise Security 2 Apr 08:02
PCC bares teeth at bloggers

Comment Then puts them back in glass next to bed

UK bloggers can this week sleep a little easier in their beds. The Press Complaints Commission (PCC) has just delivered a first historic ruling in respect of a journalist's blog. However, unofficial private bloggers, no matter how scurrilous, remain safely outside the PCC's remit unless they decide freely to subject themselves …

Music and Media 2 Apr 09:02
SGI peddles cut-down Altix UV supers

Nehalem for HPC

SGI is rounding out its line of Altix UV machines with new machines based on Intel's just-announced eight-core Nehalem-EX Xeon 7500 processors. Which makes sense. After all, if you're going to the trouble of creating a massive 256-socket, 2,048-core parallel supercomputer based on your own interconnect, you might also try to …

HPC 2 Apr 10:02
Bush-authored warrantless wiretapping suffers abrupt defeat

No secret, no case

The last of the US warrantless wiretapping cases has come to a rather surprising and abrupt finish. Judge Vaughn Walker hearing the case formerly known as Al-Haramain vs Bush has ruled for the plaintiffs and against the US government on a motion for summary judgment, essentially telling the government it had no case. This …

Government 2 Apr 11:02
Is Novarra Nokia's advertising play?

There's a lot more to it than a browser

Last week Nokia bought Novarra, but it's unlikely the Finns were interested in a new browser when the company's main business points towards a rather more revolutionary offering from Nokia. Novarra does have a browser, but its main business is intercepting web mobile browsing sessions to collect demographic data, as well as …

Mobile 2 Apr 12:02
BOFH: The PFY Chronicles Part The Third

Episode 3 He's in the ~~money~~ merde...

It's a wonderful day today - nothing could spoil my mood, with the prospect of a long Easter weekend with nothing more to do but eat junk food and catch up with hours of TV watching. My good mood swells even further when I stumble upon a wadge of banknotes taped to the underside of a drawer in my former supervisor's desk. …

BOFH 2 Apr 12:02
Software engineer demands source of his speeding collar

Updated Code slip?

A US software engineer hopes to beat a speeding ticket by challenging the accuracy of the computerized radar gun used to snare him. Michael Felch has been granted a request by a Florida court hearing his case for the source code on the LTI 20/20 radar gun that was used in his collar to be turned over for his examination. …

Software 2 Apr 14:02
Engine Yard scripts JRuby brain trust support plan

Java-world bargain

Rudderless on JRuby? The experts will come to your assistance - for a price. Engine Yard, the company that became a magnet for JRuby brains as Sun Microsystems expired, claims it has become the first company to provide JRuby developers with support. The company is offering technical advice on building with JRuby and how to " …

Developer 2 Apr 16:02
Cray nabs $45m nuke lab petaflops super deal

Panasas in the Cielo

The Los Alamos National Laboratory has inked a $45m contract with supercomputer maker Cray to supply the nuke researchers with one of the first Baker series of Opteron-based supers that will ship later this year - and to provide some company for the petaflopping RoadRunner Opteron-Cell massively parallel super, custom-built by …

HPC 2 Apr 17:24
IT losses despite US economic thaw

Pays to be a house builder

The US economy has started thawing but the first green shoots have struggled to make their presence felt in the tech sector. The the US Department of Labor's Bureau of Labor Statistics monthly jobs report has found that in March the unemployment level remained the same as for the past two months, at 9.7 per cent. The Bureau …

Business 2 Apr 19:43
Buzzed Gmail outs Googly ties of Obama's deputy CTO

Ex-Googler hoist by Mountain View's own petard

It would be hard to imagine a better Google story. If the company's own web services somehow outed the most intimate secrets of CEO Eric Schmidt - a man who says net privacy is only for miscreants - that would surely be the Google story to end all Google stories. But a comeuppance of such epic proportions seems too much to ask. …

Music and Media 2 Apr 20:05
Microsoft cuts 'Series' lump from Windows Phone 7

Can't, stop, self, from, fiddling

It's just two months old, but Microsoft has already renamed its next operating system for Windows phones. Microsoft's dropped the "Series" from the Windows Phone 7 Series - now the software will simply be called Windows Phone 7, according to a Microsoft team Tweet, below. The Tweet gave no explanation why Microsoft is …

Mobile 2 Apr 20:47
Computer pioneer and Gates mentor Ed Roberts dies

Top Altair 8800 fans log tributes

Ed Roberts, the pioneering computer engineer and early mentor to Bill Gates and Paul Allen, died Thursday at age 68. Roberts will perhaps be best remembered for the Altair 8800, developed and marketed in both kit and assembled forms by his company, Micro Instrumentation and Telemetry Systems, better known by its acronym, MITS …

Odds and Sods 2 Apr 20:52
Developers turn sour on Apple iPad

Well, as sour as a world of fanbois can get

Just before Steve Jobs unveiled the iPad, a survey of developers by webdesktopmobile kit maker Appcelerator indicated that 90 per cent intended to build an app for the Apple tablet over the coming year. As Apple prepares to unleash the device on Saturday in the US, that number now appears to have dropped to 80 per cent. …

Developer 2 Apr 21:46
El Reg April Fools 2010

All the gags, after the fact

Word that the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) - the most powerful atomsmasher ever assembled by the human race - caused a hyperdimensional portal leading to an inhabited parallel universe to open up deep beneath Switzerland, in what may be the opening move of a cross-continuum invasion campaign, is yesterday's news. Which is to say …

Odds and Sods 2 Apr 21:56
Mozilla: 'no plans' to bundle Flash with Firefox

Google it ain't

Unlike Google, Mozilla says it's not committed to the idea of integrating Adobe Flash with its web browser. "Mozilla has no current plans to bundle Flash with Firefox downloads," the open source outfit said in an email to The Reg. "Mozilla has always made it easy to install Flash and other plugins via the Automatic Plugin …

Applications 2 Apr 23:53