12th April 2010 Archive

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Visual Studio 2010 - your chunky new friend dissected

Nice package, shame about the platform

Windows 7 is roaring ahead in acceptance, but look beyond the desktop and Microsoft's platform is not in great shape. Microsoft is losing to Apple, Google and RIM on mobile, in cloud computing Azure is only just getting started, Internet Explorer is down to a mere 61 per cent market share on browsers, and there's been a slow …

Developer 12 Apr 05:27
Oracle freshens its VirtualBox

Still no roadmap

The VirtualBox hypervisor now under the control of Oracle - if any open source software project can be said to be under control of any corporation - has been updated with a 3.1.6 release. The 3.1.6 maintenance release follows a true "major" release that came out of the project last November, when VirtualBox 3.1 was given the …

Virtualization 12 Apr 06:41
IBM debuts new Power7 iron this week

And a new i

It looks like IBM is getting ready to roll out some more Power7-based systems this week, as well as an update to its proprietary midrange operating system, formerly known as OS/400 and now called i for Business, or i for short. The details are a bit thin, but resellers downstream from master distributor Arrow Electronics' …

Servers 12 Apr 06:48
Review Samsung WB1000

With its wacky analogue-style dials on the top for battery charge and memory card monitoring, the Samsung WB1000 doesn't initially inspire as a camera you might consider for ‘serious’ photography. It's the second-cheapest camera on test, and despite that still comes with a proper manual mode, a 5x optical zoom - 24-120mm in …

reghardware 12 Apr 07:02
Premium Compact Cameras

Group Test Six pocket-friendly high-quality snappers

Despite the clear benefits of using a Digital SLR for your photography, it's easy enough to come up with some drawbacks. The price of most DSLRs puts them beyond the reach of many buyers, while a typical DSLR's size, weight and complexity repels others. Fortunately, the high-end compact camera makes for a good alternative. …

reghardware 12 Apr 07:02
Review Canon PowerShot G11

The G11 is an intimidating camera. Hand it to someone inexperienced and it's likely they'll hand it straight back. The top is scattered with dials controlling everything from the shooting mode, exposure compensation and even - unusually - ISO. This is a double-edged sword. On the one hand it makes the G11 - already the …

reghardware 12 Apr 07:02
Review Fujifilm FinePix F200EXR

As the Fujifilm is the cheapest camera here, now coming in at a relatively-paltry £160, it would be fair to expect the F200EXR will offer fewer features than any of our other compacts. No so. Look at the back and you'll find a mode dial bursting with features, including a fully manual mode. The F200EXR offers the widest …

reghardware 12 Apr 07:02
Review Nikon CoolPix S8000

Along with the Ricoh CX3, the Nikon S8000 stands out in this group for not having a proper manual mode. This proved an annoyance during testing, not least because it's combined with the longest lens of any camera here. The S8000 is the slimmest camera on the market with a 10x optical zoom, somehow hiding a 30-300mm wide-angle …

reghardware 12 Apr 07:02
Review Panasonic Lumix LX3

With its all-metal body and rangefinder styling, Panasonic's Lumix DMC-LX3 makes a definite impression. Unlike the other cameras on test, its lens sits about 2cm proud of the body, making this the least pocketable camera here with the hulking exception of the Canon G11. The layout is traditional, with a mode dial - including …

reghardware 12 Apr 07:02
Review Ricoh CX3

The CX3 makes an underwhelming first impression. Where high-end compacts such as the Canon G11 and Panasonic Lumix LX3 go all-out with manual controls scattered across the body, the Ricoh is decidedly bare-looking. Certain settings, such as white balance, exposure compensation and ISO can be accessed by prodding the joystick …

reghardware 12 Apr 07:02
Buyer's Guide: Premium Compact Cameras

Group Test What to shoot for

There's a compact camera for all wallets, whether you're spending under £100 or as much as you could on an entry-level digital SLR. The crowded bit of the market is the mid-range, where compact cameras blend into a mess of near-identical features and specifications. The high end occupies more of a niche, with cameras costing …

reghardware 12 Apr 07:02
Premium Compact Cameras: Best Buys

Group Test How they compare

All the cameras included in this group test performed reasonably well, though they have their inevitable quirks. Here's are the cameras in the test: Canon PowerShot G11 Fujifilm FinePix F200EXR Nikon CoolPix S8000 Panasonic Lumix LX3 Ricoh CX3 Samsung WB1000 Prices range from £210 for the Fujifilm to £599 for the Canon …

reghardware 12 Apr 07:04
Government wastes millions on redundant cycle route planner

Reinventing the wheel

The government has wasted millions of pounds setting up a sub-optimal journey planner for cyclists – when an online system set up by enthusiasts provides wider coverage and more functionality at a fraction of the cost incurred by the Department for Transport (DfT). On the day that Alistair Darling and would-be Chancellor …

Government 12 Apr 07:42
Fusion-io changes its CEO again

Co-founder gets the hot seat

Flash card supplier Fusion-io has changed its CEO for a second time, with the incumbent becoming board chairman just 13 months after gaining the CEO mantle. David Bradford became CEO in February 2009, replacing Don Basile, who had brought Bradford into Fusion-io as its general counsel. Fusion-io was founded by Rick White, …

Storage 12 Apr 08:31
NHS blames computer error for transplant fouls

Computer says kidney

The NHS Blood and Transfusion service has apologised for a computer error which meant that some people had organs removed incorrectly, or presumably not removed, because their preferences were wrongly recorded in the database. The mistake affects 800,000 people who had their transplant wishes wrongly imported from the DVLA. …

Government 12 Apr 08:52
Russian trade body aims to fight cybercrime

Russia no safe haven for spammers and cybercriminals

Russia is not a safe haven for criminals or spammers, according to a Russian trade association campaigning to tighten up the admitted shortcomings of local cybercrime laws and build international cooperation. The Russian Association of Electronic Communications was established in 2006 to speed Russia’s integration into the …

Crime 12 Apr 09:02
Is IT service delivery really changing?

Lab Jugglers, plate spinners and orchestrators ahoy

The new world we’ve been hearing about for years is slowly drifting into focus. Globally distributed businesses demand round the clock access to services, and new technologies (or updates of old ones) provide an expanding number of choices for building and consuming them. Consolidation, convergence and virtualisation - there’s …

Platform Evolution 12 Apr 09:02
McKinnon's mum stands against Straw at general election

Fights against 'Nazi style police state'

Gary McKinnon's mum is standing for Parliament against Jack Straw in the UK's upcoming general election. Straw holds an 8,000 majority in his Blackburn constituency, which Labour has held since the 1950s. Sharp, standing as an independent candidate, is realistic enough to know she can't win but is nonetheless running because " …

Government 12 Apr 09:03
Parliamentary wash-up washes away liberties

'Tough on crime' test passed handily

In the mad rush that is "parliamentary wash-up", it is traditional for civil liberties to be trampled to demonstrate that no party fails the "tough on crime" test – and 2010 is no exception. Thus it was that on 7 April, the House of Commons approved the Misuse of Drugs Act 1971 (Amendment) Order 2010 – which categorises …

Government 12 Apr 09:08
To connect or not to connect?

Workshop More from readers on real-world ERP practicalities

Following our recent discussion of the pros, cons and practicalities of hooking up your ERP system to the outside world, we thought it would be good to tap into the views of Reg readers on the topic. So we put up a poll with an open comment facility and, true to form, almost 50 readers came back with their own experiences at the …

ERP 12 Apr 10:26
iPod implicated in US attack sub prang

Navigator in expensive musical encounter with transport dock

The navigator of a US Navy fast attack submarine, who was listening to his iPod when he really should have been keeping an eye out for amphibious transport docks, helped land his employers with a hefty $86.9m repair bill. According to the Navy Times, the Los Angeles-class sub Hartford collided with with the New Orleans in the …

Bootnotes 12 Apr 10:27
Apple bails out Google

Monopoly, what monopoly?

Google's CEO has been lauding iAd, saying that Apple's foray into mobile advertising demonstrates a competitive market in which Google should be allowed to acquire AdMob. Google has been trying to buy AdMob since November, having snatched the company from Apple, but is facing resistance from the Federal Trade Commission who …

Mobile 12 Apr 10:29
King of the geeks leaves Oracle

Father of Java, son of Canada

Oracle's chief technology officer James Gosling, inherited from the take over of Sun, is leaving the company. In a cryptic blog post Gosling said: "The rumours are true: I resigned from Oracle a week ago (April 2nd)." The blog is mostly down at the time of writing. He said: "As to why I left, it's difficult to answer: Just …

Developer 12 Apr 10:39
Brit science vessel probes hot cleft for weird lifeforms

Glowing blue 'alien mats' found in Caribbean abyss

British boffins aboard the Royal Research Ship James Cook in the Caribbean say they have discovered the world's deepest known "black smoker" - a hot spring deep in the sunless oceanic abyss, home to bizarre organisms which may be brother to alien lifeforms on other worlds. "Seeing the world's deepest black-smoker vents …

Biology 12 Apr 10:42
Brits are HD TV numpties

Low-res thinking

So you are a reghardware reader and you already know that for high definition TV viewing, you need watch your content through a bolt-on hi-def set top box, Blu-ray player or PS3 console. But what about the population at large? More than six million Brits think they are already watching High-definition television - but are not …

reghardware 12 Apr 10:43
Labour MP knocks up crowd-sourced election platform

Watson looks to West Bromwich East for ideas

Labour MP and digital know-it-all Tom Watson has thrown open his digital election platform to the voters of his West Bromwich East constituency. In Watson's own words: "I want to stand on a platform that is avowedly supportive of the generation that seek to use the Internet to make the world a better place. "To do this I have …

Government 12 Apr 10:56
One fifth of humans say aliens walk among us

80 per cent disagree - presumably extraterrestrials

One-fifth of the world's population believes that aliens walk among us, disguised as Homo sapiens for an unknown, but doubtless chilling purpose. That's according to a Reuters Ipsos poll, which probed 23,000 adults in 22 countries, and discovered that India is an epicentre of ET activity, with 45 per cent convinced the …

Space 12 Apr 10:57
A multitasking iPad? Let's bin the netbook

Comment Hey. Maybe this could be useful...

It hasn't taken long for the iPad to be seen as a bit more than a pointless and expensive luxury lifestyle accessory. Just nine weeks - and in that time the hardware spec hasn't changed at all. But last week's iPhone 4.0 preview, which isn't due on the iPad until autumn, already makes it look much more attractive as a netbook …

PCs & Chips 12 Apr 11:02
Adobe plots rebound with latest Creative Suite

Updated Flash. A-ah. He'll save every one of us.

Adobe will launch a major upgrade to its creative tools software on Monday, amidst an increasingly acrimonious spat with Apple. The software maker is banking on the Creative Suite 5 product family to keep it at the cutting edge of web design, video and photo editing. The suite promises improvements in interactivity and …

Channel Register 12 Apr 11:20
The UC survival guide

UC Keep it ‘in-your-face’ easy

Critical to any new implementation is support. But if the implementation is designed to fit in with the way we work already, then the only issue is how it works in the context of the organisation. So for example, a replacement customer relationship management (CRM) system may not change the way a company deals with the whole …

Unified Comms 12 Apr 11:26
IBM job cuts go compulsory

Dark days at Big Blue

The job-cutting process at IBM UK has changed from voluntary to compulsory. Managers at IBM Global Services in the UK were originally looking for volunteers to cut head count by about 500. But even though they got more than this number of volunteers the process is going to become compulsory for some people. A source told the …

Channel Register 12 Apr 11:27
Video comes to iFart: Eproctophiliacs, sign up here

But what about deaf people?

This is hilarious: the world's first fart app with video goes on sale on the iTunes app store for 99c. Featuring "videos of attractive women passing wind", iFart Video 1.1 introduces a user generated element to the world of iphone farting apps. The developer, an otherwise sensible Cincinatti, Ohio computer dealer called …

reghardware 12 Apr 11:43
Guy Kewney: Integrity in socks and sandals

Obituary My years in the Kewney Chaos Field

Guy Kewney was the UK's first technology journalist and remained the doyen of the trade until the end. Born in South Africa in 1946, in the 1960s Guy quit the apartheid regime for the UK. After rattling around in a number of jobs, including programming and writing advertising copy, in the 1970s he eventually found his …

Site News 12 Apr 12:02
Apple opens SMS door for third parties

A chink in the revenue armour

A tiny feature in Apple's new iPhone OS could allow third parties to make money from iPhone users, without handing over 30 per cent to Cupertino. Last week Apple announced version 4 of the iPhone OS, adding a lot of stuff which makes the iPhone harder to insult, but also adding the ability to send SMS messages from within an …

Mobile 12 Apr 12:18
Labour manifesto: More ID cards, less NHS IT

New Labour, mostly old policies

The most remarkable thing about the Labour Party manifesto - A future fair for all (pdf) - is how unconcerned it appears to be with civil liberties or the unintended consequences of its actions when it comes to individual liberty. All is for the best in the best of all possible worlds - trust in the state to provide, and it will …

Government 12 Apr 12:42
Cocaine-hunting robot chopper in 60kg bust seizure

Vid Fleeing narco-scallywags pursued by tin sky-cop

An unmanned kill-chopper operating from a US Navy warship has notched up its first drug bust while still in testing, according to reports. The "Fire Scout" robocopter was engaged in sea trials aboard the US frigate McInerney earlier this month when its mothership detected a possible "go-fast" drug-smuggling speedboat on radar …

Science 12 Apr 12:47
BBC investigates Richard Madeley's PC panic attack

Locked in basement, awaiting Mandygeddon

The BBC tells us it is to investigate how Richard Madeley told the nation that the Government was going to whisk away his computer last week. The segment on Monday's Simon Mayo drive time heard Madeley, who is filling in for Mayo, say: "What a pain! I only got computer literate three years ago, just as I get wised up to it, …

Music and Media 12 Apr 12:49
Seagate preloads FreeAgent Go with 20 Paramount movies

$9.99 and they're yours

Seagate is sexing up its FreeAgent Go external drives with 20 pre-loaded Paramount Pictures movies costing $9.99 to unlock. A weekend report in the US edition of the Financial Times revealed the new way of selling drives by Seagate and quoted Darcy Clarkson, Seagate's VP for sales and marketing. He was responding to the point …

Storage 12 Apr 13:15
Obama's got a Google problem

The Oompa Loompas are everywhere

Obama has created an exquisite problem by hiring so many senior executives from Google - some of the Oompa Loompas don't seem to realise they no longer work for the company. Now a Congressman has called for an enquiry. The issue was made apparent when a trail of correspondence by administration official Andrew McLaughlin was …

Government 12 Apr 13:30
Data Domain doubles up on top dedupe

Meet the twins

Data Domain has doubled the capacity of its top dedupe box and clustered two of them together with a global deduplication ability, offering up to 14.2PB of logical backup capacity. It's not global deduplication as competitors like Sepaton with its multi-node global deduplication would have it, but it's a step towards it, and …

Storage 12 Apr 14:45
Pitchman fights to avoid jail for egging on supporters to spam judge

Virtual contempt case tests law

Controversial alternative medicine advocate Kevin Trudeau is fighting to stay out of jail after encouraging his supporters to spam a judge. Trudeau is embroiled in a long-running legal argument with US consumer watchdog the Federal Trade Commission over disputed claims the drugs and treatments that Trudeau pushes offer relief …

Spam 12 Apr 14:57
Palm makes eyes at possible purchasers

Someone needs to pony up for the Pre posse

Palm's CEO Jon Rubinstein hinted, when the firm announced a poor outlook during its last quarterly results, that he would be open to acquisition offers. Now the Pre maker is courting buyers more actively, hiring Goldman Sachs and Qatalyst Partners to seek offers as early as this week, according to Bloomberg. The news service …

Mobile 12 Apr 15:26
Labour shock pledge: 16.8-meg broadband for ALL by 2012!

The Thick of IT

The Labour party has mounted a strong counterattack against the Tories' determined push to present themselves as the most technologically illiterate of the mainstream UK parties. As part of Labour's election manifesto, unveiled today, the present government was widely expected to renew previous pledges that every household in …

Government 12 Apr 15:29
Man coughs to sex with donkey and horse

That's not how you make a mule, silly

A 66-year-old man today pleaded guilty in Leicester Crown Court to charges of "buggery of a donkey between February 2 and February 5, 1999, and buggery of a horse between March 15 and 18, 2004", the Independent reports. Joseph Squires, formerly of Overpark Avenue, Leicester, also coughed to two charges of damaging property, " …

Bootnotes 12 Apr 15:51
Freetard-targeting Trojan seeks to scam scaredycats

BitTorrenters bitten on bum

A sneaky new Trojan attempts to extort money from BitTorrent users under the guise of a fictitious copyright infringement lawsuit. Malicious pop-up messages generated by the malware, which is being spread via fake files offered up for download through BitTorrent, seeks to bully victims into agreeing to pay out for a "pre-trial …

Malware 12 Apr 15:54
Network Solutions mops up after mass WordPress breach

Plenty of blame to go around

Administrators at web host Network Solutions say they've closed a hole that allowed attackers to commandeer a large number of sites so they tried to infect visitors with malware. The mass hack caused Network Solutions customers running WordPress to silently redirect visitors to networkads.net/grep, a site that attempted to …

Security 12 Apr 18:56
Mellanox ships rounded InfiniBand lineup

More switches, pre-tested cables

InfiniBand and Ethernet hardware maker Mellanox Technologies has rounded out its lineup of quad-data rate InfiniBand switches today as it has ramped up to full production on the devices. The company has also started a more rigorous testing regimen for InfiniBand cables, saving HPC shops a whole lot of headaches down the road …

Data Networking 12 Apr 19:57
Milkman skewers Google Street View over garage break-in

'Online shopping for crooks'

A UK-based milkman and former football manager has questioned whether Google Street View played a role in a series of attempted burglaries on his home - one successful - after Google's virtual window onto the world's very real streets exposed a photo of his wide open garage. Gordon Rayner, 54, suspects that burglars may have …

Music and Media 12 Apr 20:02
Microsoft's unveils 'social' phone for Boho hipsters

Not your dad's Windows work mobile

Is it a Palm Pre, a Sidekick, or an iPhone? No, it's Microsoft's long-awaited mobile phone that borrows from all these, and it's called KIN. On Monday, the company unveiled the KIN One and the KIN Two, its so-called social phones that combine the look of the Pre and the teen-popular Sidekick from Danger and Sharp, with the …

Mobile 12 Apr 20:59
Popular Facebook game caught serving malvertisements

Rogue AV brought to you by Farm Town

A Facebook game with more than 9 million users has been caught serving ads that try to trick viewers into installing malware. Hundreds of users of Farm Town have reported seeing the ads, which falsely claim the user's PC is infected and can only be fixed by buying and running the anti-virus software being advertised, according …

Malware 12 Apr 21:16
Jobsian email axes early-iPhone support

His Steveness is 'sorry'

With the release of iPhone OS 4.0, the iPhone 2G will demoted to unsupported status, according to no less an Apple expert than Steve Jobs himself. As reported Tuesday by MacStories, a tweet from a Twitterer with the handle of ven000m emailed His Steveness with one simple question: Hey Steve! is Apple supporting/updating the …

Mobile 12 Apr 22:09
Google goes to Blighty for Goggles polish

Borgs Plink visual search startup

Google has acquired UK-based visual search outfit Plink, with the intention of rolling the newly public startup into Mountain View's fledgling Google Goggles project. This is the company's first-ever UK acquisition. Plink co-founders Mark Cummins and James Philbin announced the news on Monday with a blog post. "We started …

Business 12 Apr 22:12
Meg Whitman's governor bid yoked to eBay past

'Pile of potential conflicts'

As CEO of eBay, Meg Whitman steered millions of dollars into the coffers of Goldman Sachs. Over the same period, she profited handsomely from the investment firm, receiving an estimated $475,000 and coveted insider access to initial public offerings for a little more than a year's worth of of part-time service. The cushy …

Government 12 Apr 23:23