The Register® — Biting the hand that feeds IT

Feeds

6th April 2010 Archive

Browse by publication date, or search the site.

  • Wikileaks video shows US gunfire on Reuters staff

    The pics the Pentagon didn't want you to see

    Whistleblower website Wikileaks continued its explosion into mainstream journalism Monday with the release of a classified US military video showing forces firing repeatedly on unarmed people on a Baghdad street. The video showed an incident from July 12, 2007, the same day that Reuters photographer Namir Noor-Eldeen and his …

    Music and Media 6 Apr 04:22

  • Can Oracle Swing it on SWT in Java?

    Preying for pragmatism

    IDC has offered to charge $500 to tell you what's commonly felt in the Valley: Java faces a potentially better future under Oracle than under Sun Microsystems. You can pay for the report here or read extracted highlights from entrepreneur and Cnet blogger Dave Rosenberg here. In short: Oracle's software business is so …

    Developer 6 Apr 04:28

  • Normal Human Being™ reviews the iPad

    Outside the reality-distortion field

    The iPad has inspired yet another high-powered business type to make a mobile-device purchase. Of a netbook. As you may have heard, Apple's iPad went on sale last Saturday in the US. Since - and even before - that momentous event, boundless bloviatory bytes dissecting Cupertino's "magical and revolutionary" device have …

    Music and Media 6 Apr 04:32

  • Shuttleworth goes Maverick with Ubuntu's 'Perfect 10'

    10.10 is an insect eater

    Mark Shuttleworth has named Ubuntu 10.10 after a very fast, highly social, and primarily insectivorous African mammal. With a Friday blog post, Ubuntu's "benevolent dictator" announced that version 10.10 of the Linux distro will be known as "Maverick Meerkat". According to Shuttleworth, this means that Ubuntu's "Perfect 10", …

    Operating Systems 6 Apr 05:58

  • Shoden resells Avere

    Adds NAS accelerator to its product roster

    UK system integrator Shoden Data Systems is reselling Avere's FTX filer accelerator. This hot box is a four-tiered caching and virtualising appliance sitting in front of network-attached storage (NAS) arrays which stores data in DRAM, NV-RAM, flash or SAS disk to speed both file reads and writes according to I/O and data types …

    Storage 6 Apr 07:02

  • Whither the HP Nehalem-EX beastie boxes?

    High end moves at low speed

    Although HP had some machinery at Intel's eight-core Nehalem-EX Xeon 7500 launch event last week, it didn't make a peep about its plans for the iron, leaving just about every other major server vendor in the world to do the talking. The company's reticence is odd. HP is the largest server shipper in the world and the second …

    Servers 6 Apr 07:02

  • Buffalo MicroStation 32GB external SSD

    Review The USB Flash drive evolves into an HDD killer

    You can picture Team Buffalo's thinking. Solid-state drives are increasingly being used in notebooks, so why don't we put one in an external storage device? That's what it did, and the result is the MicroStation SSD. Buffalo's MicroStation SSD: glorified - but fast - USB Flash drive But did no one point out during the …

    reghardware 6 Apr 08:02

  • Don’t muck about with piecemeal unified comms

    UC The ‘U’ word is actually very important

    When it comes to putting together an outline of what unified communications (UC) should look like in a business, a partial, step-by-step approach will probably seem more appealing. After all, a staged implementation suggests a lower risk and a lower capital outlay, and can be built up and out over time. For example, a company …

    Unified Comms 6 Apr 08:02

  • Apple's iPad - 'Will It Blend?'

    Too big? We'll fix that

    Apple's iPad, released Saturday, has been scrutinized by hundreds of reviewers, disassembled by iFixIt and others, and fiscally analyzed by Wall Street, but it wasn't until Monday that the most pressing question about the "magical and revolutionary" device was answered. That question, of course, is: Will it blend? Too big …

    Odds and Sods 6 Apr 08:02

  • Faster VelociRaptor to race out

    Leaked spec details fifth-gen drive

    A leaked Western Digital technical spec describes a larger capacity and faster VelociRaptor drive. VelociRaptor is WD's 2.5-inch enterprise SATA drive that spins at 10,000rpm, holds up to 300GB and comes with a 3Gbit/s SATA interface. It can be bought with a 3.5-inch bay mounting frame. The faster VelociRaptor is expected to …

    Storage 6 Apr 08:19

  • Toshiba readies flash process shrink

    Following Micron below 30nm

    Toshiba is readying itself to produce flash with a sub-30nm process, trying to catch up with Intel and Micron's 25nm process. Reuters reports from a Nikkei story that Toshiba will intro 29-25nm process flash product in the second half of this year and a 24-20nm product perhaps as early as 2012. Toshiba currently produces …

    Storage 6 Apr 08:37

  • Cartoon Law goes live

    Time to burn your Japanese comics

    If you happen to possess any cartoon images on your hard drive – or on your bookshelf – that just might depict children involved in or present at a sexual act, then you should probably have deleted them already. Today – April 6 2010 – is the day on which various sections of the Coroners and Justice Act 2009 come into effect, …

    Law 6 Apr 08:52

  • Chinese hunters capture 'yeti'

    DNA tests to reveal truth behind hairless beast

    Beijing scientists are poised to carry out DNA testing on a mystery beast captured by hunters and dubbed the "oriental yeti", the Telegraph reports. The creature was snared in Sichuan province "after locals reported spotting what they thought was a bear". Hunter Lu Chin said: "It looks a bit like a bear but it doesn't have …

    Biology 6 Apr 09:13

  • Blu-ray Disc brains think up high-capacity disc spec

    But not for mere mortals

    The Blu-ray Disc Association has taken a couple of new disc formats out of their wrappers, one aimed at the broadcasting business, the other at consumers. Not, we have to say, that there's a compelling reason for ordinary folk to buy into IH-BD - it stands for Intra-Hybrid Blu-ray Disc. It combines a single-layer pre-recorded …

    reghardware 6 Apr 09:28

  • iPad security broken in less than 24 hours

    Strangely familiar process

    Apple's iPad has already been jailbroken, using a variation of the iPhone method and demonstrating just how much the two devices have in common. The hack was completed in less than 24 hours. In theory it enables the owner to install everything from Wi-Fi scanners to pornography - applications Apple disapproves of - though for …

    PCs & Chips 6 Apr 09:33

  • Child abuse frame-up backfires on stalker

    Every family's nightmare

    A stalker's plan to land a love rival in jail has backfired, resulting in a prison term for the stalker, although his rival was initially arrested for child porn offences. A Basildon court heard that Ilkka Karttunen, 48, successfully broke into the Essex home of the object of his affection and downloaded child porn before …

    Crime 6 Apr 09:49

  • Google exposes Buzz private parts

    It's all about giving users 'transparency and control'

    Google is trying its best to ward off privacy watchdogs by asking Buzz users to hit rewind on the creepy real-time service. The company, keen to be seen to be doing the right thing, is asking users to reconfirm their privacy settings - to make sure that they’re not spooked by the level of information they're giving away. …

    Applications 6 Apr 10:22

  • iPad CPU yields up (some) secrets to x-ray scan

    Inside the A4

    And the best way of seeing what's inside the A4 processor that powers Apple's iPad is? Take the chip out and x-ray it, of course, and that's what gadget repair house iFixit and semiconductor specialist Chipworks have done. Having pulled apart an iPad, iFixit passed the processor on to Chipworks, which then went to town on the …

    reghardware 6 Apr 10:23

  • ERP sans frontières

    Workshop Access for all

    There was a time when the terms ‘ERP’ and ‘back office systems’ were almost synonymous, reflecting that the original incarnations of ERP offerings were very much concerned with processes running within the physical walls of the organisation. Over the years, though, functionality has expanded and integration capability evolved …

    ERP 6 Apr 10:44

  • Samsung cosies up to PC World for UK desktop debut

    All-in-one magic for all the family

    Samsung enters the UK home desktop PC market next month with two All-in-ones, sold exclusively through PC World and PCWorld.co.uk. All-in-one PCs represent the computer industry's latest attempt to combat price erosion with fat-feature PCs that all the family can use as a home entertainment hub. Typically, All-in-one PCs …

    reghardware 6 Apr 10:45

  • Carriers to control cut-price tablet market

    Subsidies will bring down prices

    How will the media tablet market pan out over the next few years? According to the market watcher IMS Research, Google's Android OS and mobile network operators will be key driving forces. By 2012, mobile and fixed-line broadband providers will account for more than half of all tablets sales. They will reduce devices' up-front …

    reghardware 6 Apr 10:48

  • Nicole Richie turns Twitter hacker on celeb chums

    Kim Kardashian 'fraped'

    Airhead socialite Nicole Richie broke into the Twitter account of her chums last week as part of a prank that proves just about anyone can become a password hacker. Richie, best known for co-starring with Paris Hilton on The Simple Life, panned the updates of reality TV star Kim Kardashian and her boyfriend Joel Madden. …

    ID 6 Apr 10:53

  • Elgato adds 3G streaming to TV-on-iPhone app

    Apple relaxes the rules

    Elgato has updated its EyeTV iPhone app to allow users to stream digital TV over 3G connections. EyeTV previously could only relay programmes sent over a Wi-Fi network by a Mac running Elgato's TV tuner software, also called EyeTV. But Apple has relaxed the rules about pumping data out over the mobile phone networks, and EyeTV …

    reghardware 6 Apr 11:07

  • Mandybill enters pre-election wash-up

    ORG warns of dire consequences

    Both sides of the Digital Economy Bill debate made what could be their final pitch to MPs in newspaper adverts today, as the legislation enters the Parliamentary "wash-up" ahead of the election. The Bill is due to receive its second reading in the Commons at 3.30pm. During the wash-up, set to take place over the next few days …

    Government 6 Apr 11:10

  • Microsoft phones coming next week?

    Not competing, complementing

    Microsoft will launch two feature phones next week, leaving the smartphone market to its licensees in favour of a broader attack on the cellular market. The news has been rumoured for a while, and an invitation to a press conference on Monday bears out the timing. Also, CNET, claiming inside information, says Microsoft will …

    Mobile 6 Apr 11:33

  • HTC Desire Android smartphone

    Review Living up to its name?

    Much has been made of the fact that the HTC Desire is really Google's much-touted Nexus One under the hood. But, truth be told, despite HTC's considerably lower profile among the general public, the Desire has several features that mark it out as superior not just to Google's smart phone debut, but also to the vast majority of …

    reghardware 6 Apr 11:44

  • How a Tory gov will be the most tech-savvy in history

    Comment Election 2010: A brave new twittocracy

    When the Dragon's Den star Duncan Bannatyne realised his wife had left her dress on the train on the way to a charity dinner last Saturday he called lost property. Unfortunately, being a Saturday afternoon, lost property was closed and his wife was distraught. Fortunately Duncan's 50,000 Twitter followers came to the rescue. …

    Government 6 Apr 11:53

  • IBM tears up open source patent pledge, claims FOSS

    Turbo-charged accusations fly

    IBM snubbed a request from the British founder of TurboHercules SAS to let it offer a disaster recovery product for IBM mainframe users and instead accused the French open source startup of violating its intellectual property. According to a letter published today by NosoftwarePatents founder Florian Mueller, Big Blue has …

    Operating Systems 6 Apr 13:11

  • PDF security hole opens can of worms

    Proof of concept out

    The security perils of PDF files have been further highlighted by new research illustrating how a manipulated file might be used to infect other PDF files on a system. Jeremy Conway, an application security researcher at NitroSecurity, said the attack scenario he has discovered shows PDFs are "wormable". Computer viruses are …

    Malware 6 Apr 13:37

  • CA to axe 1,000 jobs

    Expects $50m in restructuring costs

    CA is laying off 1,000 workers and expects to take a $50m hit in pre-tax charges relating to the jobs cull. The business software maker said in a US Securities and Exchange Commission filing today that its board had approved the painful company rejig last week. The jobs will go by 2011. The news sent CA shares down six per …

    Financial News 6 Apr 14:29

  • Drobo 'storage robot' gets integrated file sharing

    Drobo FS debuts

    Data Robotics has released a networkable version of its Drobo expandable storage system. Dubbed Drobo FS - 'FS' for 'file sharing' - the unit essentially combines the standard five-drive Drobo S desktop unit with the old DroboShare network add-on. That means a Gigabit Ethernet port, and support for Apple Filing Protocol (AFP …

    reghardware 6 Apr 14:52

  • Microsoft rolls out Xbox 360 USB update

    Bring your own content storage

    Microsoft has begun pushing the latest Xbox 360 firmware update, allowing upgraded consoles to use any connected USB Mass Storage devices. Up to 16GB of any connected drive can be assigned for the Xbox to use and allocating the storage to the console won't zap data already on the drive provided there's sufficient free space …

    reghardware 6 Apr 15:34

  • BDT jumps on removable disk bandwagon

    Tape automation OEM adds RDX disk

    BDT, one of the world's main tape automation OEMs, is going to make automated devices using removable RDX hard drives alongside its existing tape autoloaders and libraries. BDT, which has been supplying tape automation products since 1988, will now build multi-TB data protection products using ProStor's removable RDX drives, …

    Storage 6 Apr 17:02

  • T-Mobile bribes fanbois to trade iPhone for...Windows Mobile 6.5

    Updated $100 to $350 for Apple abandonment

    T-Mobile has instituted a tried-and-true incentive to induce iPhone users to switch to their HTC HD2: bribery. The wireless carrier, based in Bellevue, Washington - a stone's throw from Microsoft's Redmond digs - will slip apostate iPhone owners $100 to $350 if they trade in their working Cupertinian smartphones for HTC's hot- …

    Mobile 6 Apr 18:33

  • RSA says it fathered orphan credential in Firefox, Mac OS

    Updated Ultra-sensitive root cert no longer homeless

    Digital certificate authority RSA Security on Tuesday acknowledged it issued a root authentication credential shipped in in the Mac operating system and Mozilla web browsers and email programs, ending four days of confusion about who controlled the ultra-sensitive document. The "RSA Security 1024 V3" certificate is a master …

    Security 6 Apr 19:18

  • Cisco fattens up UCS with Nehalem EX

    Four-socket blade and rack boxes

    With its Tuesday introduction of two new servers based on Intel's eight-core Nehalem-EX Xeon 7500 processors, server wannabe Cisco Systems can now run with the big boys - well, the midrange boys anyway. Cisco's new machines appear to be the ones that El Reg has been saying the company needs to get into the field to compete …

    Servers 6 Apr 19:54

  • US energy czars plunk Netezza into super lab

    Smart grids need business intelligence

    Netezza will supply a hefty data warehousing and analytics appliance to the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) as part of a $178m smart-grid project being funded by the US Department of Energy. Netezza's TwinFin will help PNNL manage and analyze data culled from 60,000 customers in five states as they burn 112 …

    HPC 6 Apr 20:53

  • US court rules FCC can't ban BitTorrent busting

    Comcast order vacated

    A US federal appeals court has ruled that the Federal Communications Commission does not have the legal power to "regulate an Internet service provider's network management practices." On Wednesday, a three-judge panel with the US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit unanimously vacated the 2008 FCC order that …

    Networks 6 Apr 21:13

  • Microsoft roasted for Office 2010 standards FAIL

    Transitional OOXML is 'bad faith'

    It will be at least another three years before Office conforms to an international standard for sharing documents with Open Office, a standard that Microsoft pushed hard and that riled Open-Document-Format fans. Microsoft said on Tuesday it will support the "strict" implementation of the Office Open XML spec - officially …

    Applications 6 Apr 21:44