5th May 2010 Archive

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Google tutorial lets developers play malicious hacker

Pwn by numbers

Google has released a free online tutorial that gives developers the chance to play the role of malicious hacker by exploiting real security bugs in a mock web application. The codelab is premised on a "small, cheesy web application" dubbed Jarlsberg that is chock-full of bugs that can be exploited to take down webservers, …

Security 5 May 2010, 00:08
Intel wades into smartphone wars

Moorestown Atom claims ARM-busting chops

Intel has introduced its second-generation ultra-mobile Atom processor, and the chip giant is telling the world that its new offering is targeted directly into the heart of today's hottest mobile market: smartphones. Until this week, the anticipated market for the three-chip lineup known as Moorestown was floating unmoored …

Phones 5 May 2010, 04:02
Microsoft's social lab does 'the impossible'

Web 2.0 Expo The, er, personal Tweetbook index

Microsoft has unveiled an experimental online service that pools "social" content from various and sundry online sources, including Facebook, Twitter, RSS feeds, and Redmond's own Bing search engine. Developed by Microsoft's Future Social Experiences (FUSE) Labs - the research outfit launched by Ray Ozzie last fall - the …

Software 5 May 2010, 04:24
HAMR knocks perpendicular recording down a notch

TDK orders deposition tool

A manufacturer in the hard disk drive industry has ordered a Heat-Assisted Magnetic Recording (HAMR) deposition tool from Veeco - another sign of the end of perpendicular magnetic recording. Perpendicular recording won't run out of steam for some years but disk drive manufacturers are already investigating alternatives to …

Storage 5 May 2010, 06:02
Solar Freeloader Pico solar-charged back-up power supply

Review Energy for free

Running out of battery power can clobber your day and leave you incommunicado when you least want to be. There are various secondary power supplies on the market, but few of them can recharge themselves entirely from daylight. The Freeloader Pico claims to be one that can. Solar's Freeloader Pico: free energy on tap? The …

Hardware 5 May 2010, 07:02
Cray revenues slammed in Q1

Come in Baker/Gemini

Nothing illustrates so clearly why supercomputer maker Cray has been expanding into entry and midrange supercomputer markets as the financial results that the company posted in the first quarter ended in March. With only a high-end product line, Cray had nothing to sell as big HPC shops are waiting for the future Baker systems …

Financial News 5 May 2010, 07:02
Accenture and HP hardest hit by services drop

Market shares slashed

Accenture and HP were the worst hit of the big IT services players, with both losing more than ten per cent of their services revenues. Overall the tech services market declined by 5.3 per cent between 2008 and 2009, but Accenture's market share fell from 2.9 per cent of the total to 2.7 per cent. In revenue terms researchers …

Management 5 May 2010, 08:05
Microsoft kills off newsgroups

Herds users into forums instead

Microsoft is killing off its newsgroups and encouraging users to move to forums instead. The software giant has over 2,000 public groups covering its various products, as well as 2,200 private groups for the likes of Microsoft resellers. But from June 2010 these will be moved to revamped forums on TechNet, MSDN and Microsoft …

Developer 5 May 2010, 08:25
Judge de-ASBOes yoof's low-slung kecks

Hoodie's human right to expose underwear

An 18-year-old Bedford yoof has secured what appears to be a landmark legal victory for those who prefer their trousers at half-mast, the Times reports. Ellis Drummond was facing an Anti-Social Behaviour Order (ASBO) "prohibiting him from using threatening behaviour, begging or entering the grounds of Bedford College", …

Bootnotes 5 May 2010, 08:29
Microsoft releases Symbian Communicator

First fruit of alliance

The alliance between Microsoft and Nokia, announced last August, has delivered its first fruit: Microsoft Communicator Mobile. Microsoft had previously made the software available on Java, and now it's here on Symbian. The software gives access to Microsoft's Communication Server, and offers real-time messaging based on IM and …

Mobile 5 May 2010, 08:55
Seagate intros 'universal' external hard drives

Adaptor accessories add your preferred port

Hard drive maker Seagate has revamped its range of external HDDs, restyling the line as the FreeAgent GoFlex series - drives with a proprietary interface that feeds standard ports through adaptor cables. The notion is simple. You buy your drive, which comes with a USB 2.0 adaptor, but if you want to, say, take advantage of …

Hardware 5 May 2010, 09:21
Iomega announces StorCenter networked storage array

Sub-CLARiiON offering

Iomega has announced the StorCenter ix12-300r 2U rackmount networked storage array for small and medium businesses and small enterprise workgroups, departments and distributed/branch offices. Jonathan Huberman, Iomega's president, said: "The StorCenter ix12-300r [fits] in the market segment between the current Iomega and EMC [ …

Storage 5 May 2010, 09:22
TfL signs £27.6m road CCTV deals

Easynet and Serco contracted in

Transport for London has awarded Easynet and Serco contracts to upgrade its CCTV cameras monitoring roads. As part of a project to upgrade the transport authority's CCTV system, it has signed a £22.6m deal with Easynet to deliver data transmission, network integration and support services. It has also signed a separate £5m …

Government 5 May 2010, 09:26
Logica says things less bad

Revenue falling, but more slowly

Logica's revenue is still falling, but not as fast as in the last three quarters, the company has said in a trading statement. Sales fell two per cent in its first quarter, compared to four per cent which was the average for the last three quarters. Services and consulting revenue was down eight per cent, compared to 11 per …

The Channel 5 May 2010, 09:32
Getting the IT department into shape

Live Now Regcast: The tech management how-to

Today at 10:30am BST we're running a live broadcast that discusss practical steps to help your IT department get into shape to tackle the next wave of IT management priorities. We'll explain how 'process' can be your friend – to help simplify things, set priorities and identify where to focus your attention and effort. Tim …

Platform Evolution 5 May 2010, 09:38
Apple-obsessed geeks launch fanboi dating site

Cupidtino to 'share the love'

Here's some bright news for those of you who are so hooked on the divine manifestations of the Church of Jobs that you can't attract a member of the opposite sex: a dating site exclusively for fanbois and gals which reckons that it's "time to share the love". Yes indeedy, welcome to Cupidtino, breathlessly described by its …

Broadband 5 May 2010, 09:39
Obama may get personal V-22 Osprey tiltrotor

Fireproof astroturf lawn for the White House?

The official helicopter of the US President - known by the callsign "Marine One" when he is aboard, just as his jet is "Air Force One" - may in future be a V-22 "Osprey" tiltrotor rather than a normal whirlybird, according to reports. Sorry about your lawn, Mr President DoD Buzz quotes US Marine Colonel Greg Masiello as …

Government 5 May 2010, 09:46
Asus pitches all-in-one for home entertaining

Whatever happened to cheese fondues?

Asus has set its sights on desktopthe UK home entertainment market with a sleek and rather cheap all-in-one. Slim Jim: Asus Eee Top PC ET2010 It looks like this >>>>>> The Eee Top PC ET2010 series has 20in HD+ wide-screen, a 1in profile - nice for wall mounting - and a VAT inc price of £619.99 SRP. Of course, it's multi- …

Hardware 5 May 2010, 09:50
Northamber hit by industry-wide slowdown in April

Just a blip or a big dark cloud?

Northamber said it was hit by an industry-wide fall off in sales last month, and is anxiously waiting to see if the slide was a blip or a longer term trend. The veteran disty said in a Q3 trading update that its performance in the three months to March 31 "supported the interim report prediction, that the near future did not …

The Channel 5 May 2010, 10:16
Google to be bookseller by summer

Squeezing into bed with Apple and Amazon

Google has confirmed it will enter the retail digital book business, with the launch of an online store called Google Editions by July. Google Editions will also be available as a B2B service, allowing third-party retailers to sell eBooks on their own websites. There's no word yet of any deals, and a company spokesman didn't …

Broadband 5 May 2010, 10:17
Orange restyles mobile broadband deals

Chiswick, fresh contracts

Orange has tweaked its mobile broadband contracts, adjusting its existing deals slightly and introducing its 'animal' branding to the array of tariffs on offer. Contracts continue to run for a month or 18 months, with Huawei's E1752 modem respectively setting punters back £29 or nothing at all. Orange is also offering Option's …

Mobile 5 May 2010, 10:22
Sharing bank PINs leaves consumers at risk

Although not necessarily, says expert

One in ten consumers either write down or share their ATM card PIN codes, according to a new survey by the UK's Consumer Association. If a card is fraudulently misused, banks will only provide a refund if the cardholder had taken care of their card and account details. Writing down PIN numbers or sharing them with others …

Security 5 May 2010, 10:36
Election 2010: The sillier options

Who's for the compulsory serving of asparagus at breakfast?

With the UK general election upon us, the chances are that you have already decided how to vote. But if – like almost 40 per cent of the electorate, according to some current polls – you still haven’t made up your mind, here are a few more tools to help you decide. We have already looked in some detail at the manifestos of the …

Government 5 May 2010, 10:49
Canon punts fast, film-friendly scanner

Retouches pics automatically too

Canon has introduced its latest film scanner, promising the rig will zip through 35mm slides or grab them at very high resolution. The CanoScan 9000F can scan slides at up to 9600 x 9600dpi in 48-bit colour. Canon didn't say how quickly - or not - such a scan will take, but if you're willing to sacrifice resolution, dropping …

Hardware 5 May 2010, 11:01
Sage banks on 'pent-up demand' for salvation

They want to buy our stuff - they just don't have any money

Geordie accountancy software seller Sage believes pent-up demand among its customers means it will be in for a sales bean-feast when the market recovers. In the first half of the year Sage said its cost-cutting measures had led to a strong increase in profitability. Dividends per share went up three per cent to 2.58p. Revenue …

The Channel 5 May 2010, 11:21
Britain and Israel in stand-off over Mossad officer

Passport assassination row rumbles on

The Foreign Office has refused to allow Israel to return a Mossad officer to London following the assassination of a senior member of Hamas in Dubai by agents travelling on British passports, it's reported. Britain is seeking assurances that its identity documents will not be abused in future, but Israel has refused because …

Government 5 May 2010, 11:22
Leaked release shows Visa plotting NFC iPhone case

Oopsie

Visa is planning an iPhone case with integrated NFC, according to an accidentally-posted press release that wasn't pulled fast enough. The release was only online for moments, but long enough for NFC World to spot. The announced case contains a secure element from DeviceFidelity, as well as NFC hardware, enabling users to pay …

Mobile 5 May 2010, 11:26
Feel.me up for grabs in dot-me domain auction

F*ck.me? Not yet

The Montenegro company behind dot-me internet domains, doMEn, has put 42 catchy names up for auction, including feel.me, see.me and mini.me. doMEn has partnered with SnapNames.com to sell the domains. At the time of writing, click.me had attracted the highest bid at $2,600, but the auction does not end until 11 May. But what …

Broadband 5 May 2010, 11:29
Operator gang gunning for iTunes

Won't be as good, but what the hell

The Wholesale Application Community has been laying out its philosophy ahead of a promised business plan next month, and all-out war with Apple next February. The WAC is a coalition of network operators who've been looking at Apple's business model and wondering why they're not making any money out of it, with a view to …

Mobile 5 May 2010, 11:33
Lost mental hospital memory stick had health records

Idiots have taken over the asylum

A USB memory stick containing personal information on patients and staff at a secure hospital near Falkirk has been found in a car park outside an Asda store in nearby Stenhousemuir. Data on the unencrypted device included names, addresses and (worse still) medical records of patients. A member of staff at the Tryst Park unit …

Security 5 May 2010, 11:43
Servers: Getting a grip on power and control

Video Cut costs and do more with less

Power has long been a consideration for server and data centre operations and design. In many cases, power was a constant to design the solution around, and not something that could easily be monitored, manipulated or optimised. But developments such as regulation in the form of the Carbon Reduction Commitment, the increasing …

Server Management 5 May 2010, 11:54
Labour manifesto changes a ~~byte~~ bit

But is that the only bit?

If you thought that what a party puts in its manifesto is a cast-iron guarantee of promises to the electorate, then think again – because the Labour Party appears to have no qualms about amending its online manifesto, post-publication, and hoping no one will notice. The change is a technical one: a mildly embarrassing typo …

Government 5 May 2010, 11:56
Dell Studio 17 touchscreen notebook

Review The pinnacle of portable touch computing?

When it comes to mobile phones, tablet PCs or one of those brightly-coloured public access kiosks you find in airports and shopping centres, touchscreen displays make perfect sense. They do away with the need for a space-consuming keyboard and let the display take up the majority of the device. Dell's Studio 17: now equipped …

Laptops 5 May 2010, 12:02
Compellent moves to 6Gbit/s SAS interfaces

Refreshes controller hard and software

Compellent is going to give its storage array controllers more power, update its software and move to faster SAS drives. The company has been giving partners a glimpse of its roadmap at the annual C-Drive event in Minneapolis. The main events include a move to 6Gbit/s SAS interfaces and a controller hardware and software …

Storage 5 May 2010, 12:41
Vote Lib Dem, doom humanity to extinction

Updated No nukes = 65% UK power imports. And asteroid doomsday

Opinion Tomorrow is election day, and on most issues the politicians aren't offering you any clear choices. Nobody's being open regarding what they'll do about the public finances, for instance: more than one politician has revealed total ignorance combined with terrifying eagerness to make policy. But on one issue there is a …

Government 5 May 2010, 12:54
What's going on with server virtualization

Webinar Solutions for the virtual era

Server virtualization is almost-but-not-quite mainstream affair. Too many enterprises remain in pilot project mode for it to be considered as just part of the furniture In an exclusive on demand Reg webinar, titled Solutions for the virtual era, Freeform Dynamics principal analyst Jon Collins talks to Doug Iler from Dell and …

Virtualization 5 May 2010, 13:17
Viagra spam shop live on Twitter for a month

Repeated complaints lead to no action

Canadian Pharmacy spammers have set up shop on Twitter, staying online for weeks despite complaints from a leading security firm that would normally prompt action. The micro-blogging account @canadianshop features nothing beyond links to unlicensed sites selling Viagra and other prescription medicines - just the sort of thing …

Security 5 May 2010, 14:05
Microsoft's Cambridge boffins to up sticks in 2012

Microsoft Research More typical, less exotic

Microsoft's UK research arm in Cambridge, England is moving home after more than 10 years occupying the Roger Needham Building on J J Thomson Ave. The company is transferring its 150 lab boffins - and up to 90 interns during the busy summer months - to Station Road in 2012 when the firm's current lease will be up. Microsoft …

Applications 5 May 2010, 14:09
HP rolls out dozens of updated notebooks

New Envy, Pavilion machines

HP has introduced a host of new notebooks, punting eight key additions to its Envy and Pavilion lines, each of which will undoubtedly extend to umpteen separately specced models. Highlights include the Envy 14 and Envy 17 - 14.5in and 17.3in stablemates of the metal-clad Envy 13 and 15. The new ones sport "powerful" Intel …

Laptops 5 May 2010, 14:33
Latest Chrome beta fastest ever - again

Beta browser beater

Google claims the latest beta of its Chrome browser is a third faster than the previous release. The claimed improvement is based on V8 and SunSpider benchmarks. Other benefits include the ability to synchronise bookmarks and browser preferences on different machines via your Google account. Developers said they'd bowed to …

Applications 5 May 2010, 14:38
Microsoft drops second IE9 preview

Happiness is a codec consensus

Talk about bad timing. Today, Microsoft released a second developer preview of its next Internet Explorer, just as word arrived that the browser's market share has dipped below 60 per cent and a storm of criticism hit Redmond for handling HTML 5 video with a closed codec it partly owns. When Microsoft announced the first IE 9 …

Applications 5 May 2010, 15:02
Boffins turn Bunsen burners on Frank Skinner

Get back to the sofa, 'comedy' boy

"Science isn’t fun. It’s just maths in fancy dress," wrote TV presenter Frank Skinner in the Times on Friday, and it's earned a gentle rebuke from the Royal Society of Chemistry's chief executive Richard Pike. The RCS caustically calls Skinner a "comedian" only between inverted commas*. But Pike says he may be onto something. …

Science 5 May 2010, 15:07
Kindle cuddles Twitter

Post really weeny book extracts to the net - yay!

Kindle users will be able to post book passages to Twitter or as Facebook updates, as Amazon updates the device's firmware with ever more web-friendly features. Kindle users don't pay for their data usage, so Amazon isn't about to start encouraging web browsing on the e-reader, but the latest firmware does allow users to …

Tablets 5 May 2010, 15:30
3TB Seagate disk drive ahoy

Something SASsy this way comes

Seagate is developing a 3TB disk drive which could hit the market this year. According to people familiar with the company's plans, a 3TB Constellation ES drive with a 6Gbit/s SAS interface will arrive later this year. The Constellation ES is a replacement for the Barracuda ES and is, Seagate says, an enterprise class drive, …

Storage 5 May 2010, 16:17
SGI books big(ger) loss in Q3

UltraViolet future looks bright

Another HPC player has blamed its financial woes on product transitions. In its fiscal 2010 third quarter ended in March, Silicon Graphics grew revenues by a factor of 2.4 to $107.8m after being acquired by Rackable Systems a year ago. Both companies sorely needed each other to fill in the gaps in their lumpy and bumpy …

HPC 5 May 2010, 16:18
Microsoft update secretly fixed two 'severe' bugs

Updated DNS spoofing patch released on the sly

A recent security patch from Microsoft silently fixed two severe bugs that were never disclosed even though they posed a risk to many of its customers, a security researcher said. MS10-024 fixed two flaws that made it possible for adversaries to intercept victims' email messages sent by Exchange and Windows SMTP service, …

Security 5 May 2010, 16:54
Adobe CTO paints Steve Jobs as Big Brother

Web 2.0 Expo It's like 1984. In reverse

Adobe chief technology officer Kevin Lynch believes that Apple barred translated Flash from the iPhone not because Flash runs poorly on the Jobsian handheld but because it runs so well. "We have already done a great job - technically - of getting Flash applications to run on the iPhone," Lynch said today during a question and …

Mobile 5 May 2010, 18:16
Apple demands public apology for iPhone parody

Jobsian wrath hits talk show host

For years, Apple has ruthlessly ridiculed Windows users with its Get a Mac ads - but like many a schoolyard bully, Cupertino can dish it out, but it can't take it. American comedian and talk-show host Ellen DeGeneres apologized to Apple on her eponymous television show for a parody iPhone commercial that ran on Monday in which …

Phones 5 May 2010, 19:25
Super Street Fighter IV

Review A must for the collection

Capcom’s Super Street Fighter IV release is the antithesis of EA’s 2010 Fifa World Cup South Africa, and a rare beast in the ever-increasingly profit-driven videogames world. In stark contrast to EA’s footballing cash-cow, Super Street Fighter IV is both love letter and thank you to the one million-plus gamers who shelled out …

Games 5 May 2010, 19:32
Facebook bug allowed users to eavesdrop on chats

When private conversations aren't

Facebook engineers on Wednesday disabled the site's live chat function after people outside the company discovered a bug that allowed users to eavesdrop on their friends' conversations. The site - whose founder insists "people have really gotten comfortable sharing more information" with world+dog - also had to take emergency …

Security 5 May 2010, 19:36
Canonical explains Ubuntu unfree video choice

License to distribute

Ubuntu's commercial sponsor Canonical has tried to clarify how - if not why - it has licensed a closed-source and patented codec for video on PCs running its Linux. Canonical is the first Linux shop to have agreed to license the codec in question, H.264 from MPEG LA. Even though Red Hat and Novell are also available for use on …

Software 5 May 2010, 19:53
SGI chills new Altix ICE supers

Adding Opterons alongside Xeons

As promised, Silicon Graphics is today shipping the Switzerland version of its Altix ICE blade server clusters, supporting either Intel or Advanced Micro Devices processors - or a mix of the two, if that makes you happy. Being a fairly low-volume server player, once the old Silicon Graphics tossed away its own MIPS chips and …

HPC 5 May 2010, 20:21
Kafkaesque cloud outage traps Microsoft Hotmailers

You are offline and that is why you are lost

Microsoft has apologized for a cloud outage that saw its customer support services evaporate. The Windows Live Solutions Center was offline for several hours on Tuesday thanks to what Microsoft called a "temporary server issue" that "intermittently prevented some consumers from accessing content on the site." Which was a …

Broadband 5 May 2010, 20:32
Microsoft ~~calls for IE9 Canvas tag~~

Web 2.0 Expo 'We want it. But we didn't say that'

A Microsoft "web technical evangelist" has indicated that he wants Internet Explorer 9 to include the HTML5 Canvas tag, a means of rendering 2D graphics inside a browser. But for reasons unknown, the company won't actually commit to the tag. Today, during a panel discussion on the web browser's future at the Web 2.0 Expo in …

Applications 5 May 2010, 20:36
US data-collection bill gets chilly reception

Drawing fire from all sides

A proposed US congressional bill to regulate the collection of personal data is being almost universally panned, with privacy advocates arguing it's inadequate and pro-business groups saying it goes too far. The draft legislation (PDF) would for the first time impose national standards on how companies collect IP addresses, …

Government 5 May 2010, 20:47
HP software lands ex-Microsoft Windows and Office chief

Two steps behind Hurd

So much for that idea of running a business from end-to-end. Bill Veghte, a 20-year Microsoftie who ran development, sales, and marketing operations for Office and Windows, is now doing essentially the same job at the much smaller, much less influential, and much more opaque unit at Hewlett-Packard. Veghte is executive vice …

Hardware 5 May 2010, 21:57
Lindsay Lohan to pull off Linda Lovelace

'Challenging role' for bespeckled thespiatrix

Lindsay Lohan has landed what has been described as "one of the most challenging roles any actor could play" - that of portraying 1970s grumble flick star Linda Lovelace. According to Variety, talented 24-year-old thespiatrix Lohan will interpret the Deep Throat pornstress for an indie production entitled Inferno, …

Hardware 5 May 2010, 23:24