30th April 2010 Archive

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Jobsian Vendetta - Flash stabbed by Mac the Knife

'Developers are mine'

Amidst all the wonderfully amusing half-truths and haughty hypocrisies dripping from his open letter on Adobe Flash, Steve Jobs has at least made one thing quite clear: his biggest beef with Flash is that it lets you create applications that run on all sorts of devices that weren't built by him. And his biggest beef is also …

Developer 30 Apr 2010, 00:14
Lost iPhone 4G ~~vendor~~ loaner outed

A month later, Wired gets back to him...

The man who found Apple's lost iPhone 4G and gave it to Gizmodo for $5,000 has been outed by Wired, the Dick Rowe of hot hardware. Wired identified Brian J Hogan of Redwood City, California via clues on social networking sites, having apparently failed to respond when they were emailed about the phone at the end of March. …

Mobile 30 Apr 2010, 00:16
Ubuntu's Lucid Lynx: A (free) Mactastic experience

Review Command-line interfaces are for nerds

Ubuntu 10.04, officially available as of Thursday, is an important update for this popular Linux distro. It's a Long-Term Support (LTS) release - the first since 8.04 two years ago - and it wraps social network with media capabilities and a brace of online services in a brand new look. As an LTS edition, Lucid Lynx will be …

Operating Systems 30 Apr 2010, 00:34
Microsoft's Courier tablet dies before it lives

But the melody lingers on

Don't bother asking Microsoft whether its rumored Courier tablet will run Adobe Flash. Microsoft just killed it. Apparently. After hearing rumors that the oft-discussed-but-never-acknowledged two-display folding tablet had been axed, Gizmodo asked Microsoft for confirmation and received this reply from Redmond's communications …

Mobile 30 Apr 2010, 00:38
Data Locker 1TB AES-encrypted external hard drive

Review Lock up your datas...

How much pr0n can a fellow accumulate during a lifetime? Data Locker's Data Locker hard drive provides a whole terabyte of encrypted, password-protected storage for the files you want to keep from prying eyes. Data Locker's Data Locker: touchscreen tech to the fore It certainly won't draw any glances for its looks. The Data …

reghardware 30 Apr 2010, 07:02
Gene Hunt tops 'TV stars for PM' poll

Or would your prefer The Stig?

Life on Mars and Ashes to Ashes anti-hero cop Detective Chief Inspector Gene Hunt - played with suitable gusto by Philip Glenister - has been voted by telly fans as the fictional character they would most like to see become Blighty's Prime Minister. The self-styled Gene Genie - known for his no-BS manner around the manor - …

reghardware 30 Apr 2010, 08:02
Samsung ships phase-change memory for mobes

Throws NOR out for PRAM

Samsung is shipping phase-change memory in a multi-chip package (MCP) as a NOR replacement for mobile phones. Phase-change memory involves storing binary digits as different levels of resistance caused by phase changes in an alloy of germanium, antimony and titanium. The phase changes from amorphous to crystalline and back …

Storage 30 Apr 2010, 08:13
Mobile users and personal devices

Workshop Who's responsible for ensuring security?

Business today is a very different beast to that of just five years ago, and a world away compared to ten years back. While some of us are undoubtedly still office based, there has been an equally clear trend towards more flexible working which is less dependent on a fixed location. The spread of Wi-Fi in the home and workplace …

Security that Fits 30 Apr 2010, 08:52
Labour candidate tweets postal votes

Twitter gaffe breaks electoral law

The Labour Party's New Media Campaigns Spokesperson and candidate for Bristol East is in hot water this morning after Tweeting postal vote results last night. Kerry McCarthy's post was immediately re-tweeted by a Tory blogger with the suggestion that 'someone call the police'. Revealing postal votes could have an impact on …

Government 30 Apr 2010, 09:06
Cheshire lass, 8, wins Playmobil vid challenge

Brit answer to Burton's Alice in Wonderland

An eight-year-old Cheshire girl has won Playmobil's "The Next Episode" video challenge, with a rather good interpretation of Alice in Wonderland. With a bit of help from mum and dad, Mia Jones put together this low-budget Brit answer to Tim Burton's recent CGI-heavy adapatation of the Lewis Carroll classic: Mia's mum Sara …

Bootnotes 30 Apr 2010, 09:34
Managing the distributed workforce

Video Practicalities, tips and techniques

Over the past few weeks we’ve been asking you about working practices and how they are evolving based on an increasingly distributed workforce. Well, enough writing - this time we've brought film into the equation. This 30-minute video roundup looks at management and support and how it is impacted by the needs and challenges …

Desktop Management 30 Apr 2010, 09:42
Currys pitches World Cup cash back pact

A tenner for (almost) every England goal

Currys has become the latest supplier to tie in a money back offer on the success of the England football team on this summer's World Cup contest. But unlike other such deals, which will refund purchase prices if England bring home the victor's trophy, Currys will simply give customers a tenner for every goal Rooney and co. …

reghardware 30 Apr 2010, 09:51
Google victorious in US trademark & German copyright cases

Supreme Court backs Chocolate Factory

Google scored a brace of legal wins in courts in Germany and the US yesterday, over two separate lawsuits brought against it. The search giant won a trademark court case yesterday in the US against foreign language education firm Rosetta Stone, which brought a lawsuit against Google’s business practice of letting third parties …

Law 30 Apr 2010, 09:58
'Snowmageddon' on Saturn snapped by amateur stargazers

Gigantic ammonia blizzard storms of the ringed giant

A tip-off from an amateur astronomer has enabled top planet-gazing boffins to probe a fearful ammonia snowstorm deep in the roiling atmosphere of Saturn, ringed giant world of the outer solar system. Cassini happened to be looking in the right place to catch this one. The terrifically intense storm, according to NASA …

Space 30 Apr 2010, 10:13
Mozilla lights up Jetpack 0.3 release with API goodness

Putting 'self' in 'context'

Mozilla released version 0.3 of its Jetpack software development kit (SDK) yesterday. Importantly the latest release, currently being readied for the big time with a planned slot into the open source outfit’s popular browser Firefox, now comes with two high-level APIs. Previous releases came minus any APIs for building rich …

Developer 30 Apr 2010, 10:14
US boffin builds ultra-dense nanodot memory

With frikkin' lasers

A US scientist has developed a way to store binary data on dots 6nm in size - possibly leading to a one-square-inch chip holding 2TB of data. Jay Narayan is a materials science and engineering professor at North Carolina State University (NCSU) and works with nanodots, which are single crystals free of any defect. In a NCSU …

Storage 30 Apr 2010, 10:22
NFC/Bluetooth sticker goes into production

Point of this is a sticky issue

A sticker packed with Bluetooth and NFC (Near Field Communications) is an impressive thing, but regular charging and manual operation could make NFC more difficult to use than cash. That's not going to stop Twinlinx, which has been telling NFC Times that its MyMAX sticker will be shipping next month for those who don't mind …

Mobile 30 Apr 2010, 10:32
Blokes spend 11 months in shed

Gimme shelter (from the wife and kids)

A survey of 3,000 blokes has confirmed what most of us already knew - that during our lifetimes we'll spend an impressive 11 months holed up in the shed, and not necessarily doing anything constructive. According to the Sun, the average geezer will retreat to his wooden bolt-hole for for three hours, 20 minutes a week. The …

Bootnotes 30 Apr 2010, 10:57
BOFH: On the couch

Episode 5 Sometimes a chili bhaji is just a chili bhaji. But this time...

Don’t get me wrong. I’m as likely to get workplace trauma counselling as the next guy – especially when the company’s tame shrink is an ancient old boiler who was probably there when time was invented. Still, as luck would have it she fell to her death from her slippers a couple of weeks back and the company was forced to …

BOFH 30 Apr 2010, 11:02
Opera targets mobile with email acquisition

Fastmail.fm takes the money

Opera has bought Australian email provider Fastmail.fm, the two firms announced today. The acquisition is designed to strengthen Opera's mobile email offering. Fastmail.fm has been around for 10 years. It said it decided to sell up in light of "an increasingly competitive market", which means it needs Opera's resources to …

Applications 30 Apr 2010, 11:15
New drug spray 'makes men as soppy as girls'

German test subjects blub at pics of kids cuddling cats

German boffins say they have developed a miracle nasal spray which can make men into big girls' blouses. Dr René Hurlemann of Bonn Uni's Klinik für Psychiatrie, working with colleagues in Germany, Arizona and Blighty, has just announced successful tests of the new girlification spray - whose active ingredient is the hormone …

Biology 30 Apr 2010, 11:58
Fujifilm Finepix S200EXR bridge camera

Review Taking a long shot

Until recently, the Fujifilm Finepix S200EXR was the company’s flagship bridge camera with its clever extended dynamic range (EXR) noise handling, 12Mp CCD sensor and a 14.3x zoom lens that in 35mm terms translates to an all-purpose 30.5-436mm range. Worth a shot? Fujifilm's Finepix S200EXR While the company’s latest …

reghardware 30 Apr 2010, 12:02
World smartphone sales: Apple closes on RIM...

...and becomes US' leading phone maker

Apple has narrowed the gap between the iPhone and Research in Motion's BlackBerry, heating up the battle to be the world's second biggest seller of smartphones. According to market watcher Strategy Analytics, Apple accounted for 16.4 per cent of world smartphone shipments in Q1 2010 - just 3.3 percentage points behind RIM. …

reghardware 30 Apr 2010, 12:02
Pirate Bay co-founder hopes it will die

Interview BrokeP on neo-Nazi links, Hans Pandeya and the 'big, bad' record industry

Peter Sunde Kolmisoppi is the most outspoken of the four men who founded BitTorrent tracker site The Pirate Bay in Sweden in 2003. In April last year Sunde, AKA BrokeP, saw a verdict go against him, Carl Lundström, Frederik Neij and Gottfrid Svartholm Warg. They were all found guilty by a Swedish court of being accessories to …

Law 30 Apr 2010, 12:49
O2 muscles in with Iron Man-themed phone

Full Monte

O2 will tomorrow roll out an Iron Man 2-themed Samsung Monte phone to tie in with today's cinema release of the Marvel movie. The Monte will come packaged with the full-length original Iron Man film as well as a selection of exclusive content from Iron Man 2 on an SD card. The Samsung is a 3G HSDPA handset with a 3.2Mp …

reghardware 30 Apr 2010, 13:23
Compellent plans to invest its way out of tailspin

Comment Competition buckles storage high-flier

Previously impressive Compellent unveiled its results for the first quarter with lower sequential revenues and a loss. The firm intends to grow its way out of trouble with a better-managed sales process and new technology. Earlier this month Compellent surprisingly warned of lower revenues this quarter. In the last quarter of …

Channel Register 30 Apr 2010, 13:25
Yarr! Election pits pirate vs pirate

Freetards in the rigging

A Pirate Party UK candidate standing for election to Parliament in London is facing a deadly duel - against a fancy dress Pirate calling himself Mad Cap'n Tom. The Pirate-on-Pirate action is taking place in the Cities of London and Westminster constituency, which covers the seat of government. The anti-copyright candidate is …

Bootnotes 30 Apr 2010, 13:34
What does HP want with Palm?

Web-based OS, or a nice stack of patents?

Palm, which defined mobile computing, has been bought by HP, which pissed away its stake in the same industry. So can HP do any better this time around? Palm didn't invent mobile computing; it arguably took the industry several steps backwards in creating a device entirely reliant on its desktop companion. But in doing so the …

PCs & Chips 30 Apr 2010, 14:08
Dotcom socialite says: Vote Tory

Business leaders, and Julie Meyer, issue warning

A group of over 50 British entrepreneurs has signed a letter urging voters not to support the "anti-business policies" of Clegg or Brown. Reprinted in The Times, it expresses concern about plans for capital gains tax increases (LibDem), the NI hike (Lab) and also the Tories' decision to cut the premium bottled water supplier …

Bootnotes 30 Apr 2010, 14:11
Apple rejects crazy canuck's seal bludgeon game

Seal of disapproval

Apple has rejected an animated seal-clubbing game, in a move that many may consider to be a smidgen inconsistent. iSealClub allows the happy bloodthirsty user to batter the bejesus out of blubbery aquatic mammals. The clubbing of seal cubs is illegal even in Canada, so the game knocks off points for any attempt at that while …

Mobile 30 Apr 2010, 14:30
US airmen hornswoggled by Transformers email trick

Foxy Fox foolishness foxes foolish fools

A US Air Force security training exercise which created a false buzz about the filming of Transformers 3 succeeded in creating awareness of phishing issues, but went a little further than was expected. Bogus emails sent to airmen at the Anderson Airforce Base suggested Transformers 3 was about to shoot on Guam and made …

Enterprise Security 30 Apr 2010, 14:36
Dead to Rights: Retribution

Review Dog's dinner?

To witness your father murdered once is unfortunate, but to witness him murdered twice is downright careless. This glaring paradox might not be lost on you, but it appears to have escaped the developers of Dead to Rights: Retribution. You see, the trigger for the vengeful bloodbath you exact in Retribution is, well, identical …

reghardware 30 Apr 2010, 15:35
Call of Duty: Black Ops out on November 9

Tease

Activision today confirmed the next instalment in the Call of Duty series is released on November 9. And it has an official name: Call of Duty: Black Ops (previously it was called CoD 7). The scuttlebutt is that it's set in Vietnam, But Activision is not saying anything just yet. At time of writing the BlackOps website just …

reghardware 30 Apr 2010, 16:21
Lights out at Lala - Apple shutters music service

Is iTunes' future cloudy?

Apple has shut down Lala, the cloudy online music service it acquired less than five months ago, reanimating the long-running rumor that an iTunes subscription service is right around the corner. Lala's demise is no surprise. As soon as Lala began listing its address as 1 Infinite Loop, Cupertino, it was only a matter of time …

Music and Media 30 Apr 2010, 18:12
IT consultant gets 5 years for plundering $2m

... from banks he administered

A contractor who provided IT administration services to banks was sentenced to more than five years in prison this week after admitting he used his insider knowledge to plunder some $2m from four financial institutions. Zeldon Thomas Morris, 43, was ordered to serve 63 months in federal prison and pay restitution of a little …

Crime 30 Apr 2010, 18:33
Steve Jobs: mystery patent pool to attack Ogg Theora

Email roasts 'open source' codecs

Steve Jobs has apparently claimed that a patent pool is being assembled to "go after" Ogg Theora, the open source video codec used by the latest browsers from Google, Mozilla, and Opera. The claim was made in an email the Apple CEO appears to have sent in response to an open source software advocate who questioned Apple's …

Software 30 Apr 2010, 20:11
India Parliament adjourns after mobile phone tapping claims

Spy on the wire

Concerns that an Indian security agency was tapping the mobile phones of politicians have forced the adjournment of the country's parliament, the BBC reports. Reports by Outlook that phone calls made by politicians, including federal agriculture minister Sharad Pawar, were being intercepted sparked angry scene in both the …

Mobile 30 Apr 2010, 20:15
Researchers spy on BitTorrent users in real-time

User uploads and downloads revealed

Researchers have devised a way to monitor BitTorrent users over long stretches of time, a feat that allows them to map the internet addresses of individuals and track the content they are sending and receiving. In a paper presented earlier this week at the Usenix Workshop on Large-Scale Exploits and Emergent Threats, the …

Security 30 Apr 2010, 20:50
Student found guilty of obstruction in Sarah Palin email trial

Faces 20 years

The college student who used publicly available information to break in to the Yahoo! Mail account of then-vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin has been found guilty on two of the four charges filed against him. David C. Kernell was convicted of felony obstruction of justice and a misdemeanor count of unauthorized access to …

Crime 30 Apr 2010, 22:32
Google promises what Jobs hates in next Android

Flash in your frozen yogurt

In his epic attack on Adobe Flash, Steve Jobs asks - in typically haughty fashion - when Flash will actually ship on a smartphone. Well, an older version of Flash has shipped on smartphones, and just before Jobs unloaded his open letter, Adobe's new BFF committed to putting the latest Flash on the world's second most important …

Mobile 30 Apr 2010, 22:46
Microsoft's Internet Explorer 9 shuns open video

Empire strikes back with H.264

Microsoft has voted to keep internet video a closed art form. In a Friday blog post, Internet Explorer general manager Dean Hachamovitch said that the forthcoming Internet Explorer 9 will only play HTML5 video using the H.264 codec. That means Microsoft has ruled against using the open-source Ogg Theora codec from Xiph.og, …

Applications 30 Apr 2010, 23:37