The Register® — Biting the hand that feeds IT

Feeds

10th May 2010 Archive

Browse by publication date, or search the site.

  • IT failure downs Stansted systems

    Online check-in goes offline

    Stansted Airport is getting back to normal this morning after an IT failure caused the closure of internet and automatic check-in systems earlier today. Register reader Paul - our spies are everywhere - said systems at Stansted had been down since his arrival at 4am. He said he was at the back of a very long queue as staff …

    CIO 10 May 07:55

  • Oracle soothes Sun StorageTek tape users

    Don't worry baby

    Oracle is giving a huggy-huggy message to StorageTek tape users, telling them not to worry because Oracle believes in tape. Oracle also knows that if it pisses off StorageTek tape users, mostly larger enterprises and mainframe shops, they will not be well disposed towards Larry's company and its products. Keep their tape …

    Storage 10 May 08:02

  • Aussie MP slapped with $10k phone bill

    Son downloads games on his iPhone

    An Australian politician was slapped with a $10,500 phone bill after his 12-year-old son downloaded soccer and AFL games on his iPhone. Russell Wortley, a member of South Australia's Upper House, doesn't see his mobile bill, usually $200 a month - the tab is picked up by tax payers. He was told the news on Friday by …

    reghardware 10 May 08:39

  • Secret forum reveals Oz firewall backroom dealing

    Circumvention legal, but you can't tell anyone how

    Australia’s plans for a firewall to protect its population from smut on the internet are rapidly evolving from farce to total chaos. Weekly revelations on bulletin boards suggest that Stephen Conroy, the man behind the big idea, does not know what forthcoming legislation on the topic will say, when it will be introduced or how …

    Telecoms 10 May 08:58

  • US prosecution of McKinnon 'spiteful', says ex-top cop

    No reason why Pentagon hacker can't be tried in UK

    The senior former policeman in charge of the National Hi-Tech Crime Unit squad which first arrested Gary McKinnon has described the ongoing US prosecution of the Pentagon hacker as "spiteful". Marc Kirby, retired former detective inspector at the NHTCU, was in charge of the team which first arrested McKinnon for cybercrime …

    Policing 10 May 09:04

  • Facebook hires big antitrust lawyer

    Gamekeeper turned poacher

    With antitrust and privacy investigations already underway, Facebook has hired a big legal gun to fight back against regulators' increasing interest in its business. Facebook has so far seen off antitrust complaints by rivals but still faces investigation by the FTC on privacy grounds. So who better to hire than the ex-boss …

    Government 10 May 09:12

  • ParaScale brings direct access to the cloud

    Apps run on cloud storage nodes

    Cloud storage software provider ParaScale supports applications running directly on storage nodes - not accessing their data across the cloud. Isn't this contradictory? The idea is that a scale-out cloud file storage architecture is great for storing data, but not good if the applications that need the data are remote, which …

    Storage 10 May 09:28

  • No 15K 2.5-inch drives from Western Digital

    Velociraptors don't fly that fast

    Western Digital does not intend to bring out an enterprise 15,000rpm 2.5-inch disk drive despite arch rival Seagate having plans to do so. Seagate announced the introduction of a faster-than-10K small form factor (2.5-inch or SFF) drive last week. Stifel Niklaus analyst Aaron Rakers was told by Western Digital's CFO Tim Leyden …

    Storage 10 May 09:32

  • Thomas Cook offers World Cup Sim card deal

    Pre-paid roamimg

    Thomas Cook is running a World Cup promo for South Africa-bound football fans on pre-paid Sim cards, courtesy of a partnership with GO-SIM. Buy a £20 Sim card and get £10 worth of airtime. Calls after that are 38p a minute and texts are 10p. Incoming calls from most places are free. This works out at 80 per cent cheaper than …

    reghardware 10 May 09:43

  • O2, Vodafone list simple iPad data deals

    Updated Carriers set out their stalls

    O2 has followed Orange and announced its 3G data plans for the iPad. So has Vodafone. Pay £2 to O2 and you get a day's access, which amounts to no more than 500MB of data. Want more? 1GB and 3GB allowances are available for £10 and £15, respectively. These are monthly limits, but they're on 30-day contract. The following …

    reghardware 10 May 09:43

  • Mafia Wars dons deprived of pit bulls

    Zynga cans canines following PETA complaint

    Aficionados of Facebook punch-up Mafia Wars will no longer be able to deploy pit bulls as part of their arsenal, following intervention by whale-hugging animal rights outfit PETA. PETA expressed "concerns" to Zynga Game Network regarding "the portrayal of a chained, snarling pit bull as a 'weapon'" in the popular online game …

    Bootnotes 10 May 09:55

  • Sony revamps pricey Vaio P netbook

    Adds GPS, SSD

    Sony has updated its Vaio P netbook, despite the original's notebook-level pricing and the availability of cheaper netbooks from the same supplier. The new Vaio P again contains an Intel Atom Z-series processor - the kind developed for handheld tablets. Sony's Vaio P: now with a SSD not an HDD It has an 8in, 1600 x 768 …

    reghardware 10 May 10:13

  • QinetiQ lends PARIS a helping hand

    A hypobaric chamber? Yes, we’ve got one of those…

    We’re delighted to announce today that QinetiQ has splendidly agreed to allow the Paper Aircraft Released Into Space (PARIS) team access to its hypobaric chamber, allowing us to test a highly-classified Vulture 1 release mechanism. Those of you who’ve been following PARIS will know that we’ve been scratching our heads quite a …

    PARIS 10 May 10:18

  • Xsigo scales down server I/O virtualizer

    Attack of the pod people

    The rack is becoming the new chassis for IT infrastructure, despite the best efforts of the major blade server providers to have their own blade enclosures (incompatible with others' tools and form factors) become the unit of control for a bunch of servers and their switches. Which is why upstart server I/O virtualizer Xsigo …

    Servers 10 May 10:23

  • Microsoft ad R&D veep beams self to AOL

    Alex Gounares walks, says report

    A Microsoft veteran has reportedly left the software giant and taken on the role of chief technology officer at AOL. Alex Gounares, whose most recent job at Microsoft involved overseeing its advertising research and development unit, joined the company in 1993. Redmond hasn’t confirmed the move, but according to All Things …

    Music and Media 10 May 10:59

  • WiGig gets spec and Alliance endorsement

    Wi-Fi Alliance, not Rebel Alliance

    WiGig is open for business, with a published specification and promotional agreement to push home and office networking up to 60GHz. WiGig offers connections of up to 7Gb/sec, but operating at the top end of the dial, 60GHz, makes for very short range. WiGig will carry over about 10 meters in ideal conditions, limiting the …

    Wireless 10 May 11:01

  • Apple iPad

    Review It's in our hands - should it be in yours?

    Curse those Icelanders and their volcanoes. I wasn’t surprised when Apple delayed the iPad's UK launch, as friends in the US had told me that the initial shipments in their local Apple Stores had sold out very quickly. iPad: touchy-feely like only Apple can make 'em Unfortunately, my cunning plan to get one shipped over …

    reghardware 10 May 11:02

  • Wireless Gigabit set to become next-gen Wi-Fi?

    Alliances team up on tech testing

    The Wireless Gigabit Alliance, developer of a wireless data technology that operates in the 60GHz band, has signed up the Wi-Fi Alliance to manage its hardware interoperability programme. The move positions WiGig as a key candidate for the next version of Wi-Fi. Wireless Gigabit - aka WiGig - delivers data transfer speeds of …

    reghardware 10 May 11:08

  • iPad, iPhone driving 'renaissance' in nuclear reactors

    Want to build a nuke? There's an app for that

    The world-renowned Jesus mobe and its new, selectively crippled large version the iPad are well known to be generally the choice of your arty, creative, polo-necked right-on type. Touchscreen reactor core magic at work. Cruel capitalistic business executives have BlackBerries; phone nerds have Android handsets; some …

    Mobile 10 May 11:10

  • The evolving role of the IT security manager

    Workshop Poll Results No longer a voice in the wilderness?

    Security has long been the poor cousin of IT. As any security professional knows, the way we have traditionally implemented security is tantamount to a technological afterthought. Through the years we have attempted to block holes, protect the periphery and lock down access rights for running systems, in the knowledge that IT …

    Security that Fits 10 May 11:34

  • Asus pitches 9in netbook

    Hang on, doesn't it prefer 10in ones?

    After years spent telling us 10in netbooks are what we want, Eee PC maker Asus has relaunched its old 8.9in machine, the Eee PC 900. Now called the 900AX, the netbook matches its predecessors' spec almost exactly. The original Eee PC 900 had a Celeron processor, but later revisions gained the 1.6GHz Intel Atom N270. And that's …

    reghardware 10 May 11:36

  • Physicist unmasks 99-year-old mistake in English dictionaries

    Schoolboy error 'never queried before', insists OED

    An Australian physics prof has discovered a 99-year-old error in the Oxford English Dictionary - repeated in most dictionaries worldwide - and is having it corrected. The error is in the definition of the noun "siphon", a tube used to draw fluid from a higher location to a lower one - as when emptying a vehicle fuel tank, an …

    Physics 10 May 12:09

  • Ofcom hands out free radio spectrum

    Wireless camera bonanza

    15MHz of abandoned radio spectrum will be given away by Ofcom, despite being right beside the 3G frequencies. The same slice of spectrum pulled in more more than £3m in a recent auction in Germany, but in the UK looks set to be handed over to wireless camera operators - for the time being at least. The band concerned …

    Mobile 10 May 12:18

  • EMC tempts storage buyers into its federation

    Gelsinger's ginormous gamble

    EMC is going to federate globally distributed storage arrays into a single system using VPLEX front-end virtualising boxes, and is presenting this as a big step towards private cloud computing. Pat Gelsinger, EMC's chief operating officer and recent high-level and high-profile recruit from Intel, said: "VPLEX is ground- …

    Storage 10 May 12:33

  • Dodgy Facebook pages used to power 'spam a friend' joke scam

    No laughing matter

    Dubious Facebook pages host rogue Javascript code that creates a means for miscreants to spam people on a user’s friends list, security researchers warn. Chris Boyd (aka Paperghost), a security researcher at Sunbelt software, explains that the ruse relies on duping prospective marks into completing surveys. Users who complete …

    ID 10 May 12:37

  • Oz filmmaker to flog virgins for TV doco

    Cherry auction plan prompts rumpus

    An Australian filmmaker is taking a bit of stick over his plan to make a documentary in which participants auction their virginity, Oz's Daily Telegraph reports. Justin Sisely has recruited a veritable venal* of male and female virgins for the "new low" in reality TV, which will see initial bids taken online, before a face-to- …

    Bootnotes 10 May 12:40

  • Doctors aim to have Chief Medical Officer struck off

    Donaldson's database debacle

    Doctors will this week mount a court battle for the chance to have Sir Liam Donaldson, the Chief Medical Officer, struck off for his role in a disastrous computer system. Remedy UK, a campaign group representing 1,600 doctors, will use a judicial review starting tomorrow to try to force the General Medical Council (GMC) to …

    Law 10 May 12:56

  • Obama planning a Dept of Truthiness?

    Save us from conspiracy theories, frets Prez

    Is the Obama Administration preparing the ground for a Ministry of Truthiness? The President's latest wide-ranging speech at Hampton University made a halt at a very strange outpost, before moving on to education. Obama, it seems, is vexed by the idea of conspiracy theories. Apparently people aren't thinking the right thoughts …

    Music and Media 10 May 13:24

  • Managing storage: drivers and solutions

    Regcast Boom or bust?

    Our new webinar Managing storage: drivers and solutions is available on demand (reg req'd). We polled Reg readers to find out what is keeping you occupied in this area. Your top concern is the sheer volume of data you have to support. Tony Lock of Freeform Dynamics and Victoria Koepnick of BlueArc explore Reg reader concerns …

    Storage 10 May 13:26

  • Airport plods seize man with electric vibro-pleasure shoes

    'Will be let go if innocent [?]', insist Karachi heat

    Bumbling Pakistani security operatives have detained a man at Karachi airport for attempting to board a plane with a pair of electrical vibro-massage shoes. Multiple reports indicate that the passenger, Faiz Mohammad, 30, was about to board a Thai Airways flight to Oman when he was seized following a check of his effects. X- …

    Bootnotes 10 May 13:30

  • Standards and interoperability: Are you backing the right horse?

    Lab Good and bad, costs and risks

    IT can sometimes seem like a long, drawn-out process of making things work with each other. Whether it’s getting back-end systems to exchange information, or trying to open a file that has been sent in an unexpected format, most who work with technology will be familiar with the challenge. But surely standards are supposed to …

    Platform Evolution 10 May 13:45

  • Twitter bomb joker found guilty

    Updated Uh-oh

    A man who jokingly threatened to blow Doncaster airport "sky high" back in January has been found guilty of sending a threatening message. Paul Chambers, 26, posted the misconceived microblogging update on 6 January, after bad weather forced the Yorkshire airport to shut up shop a week before he was due to fly to Ireland. The …

    Policing 10 May 14:46

  • NFC will help you find your car - if you're next to it

    Ooh! Is there nothing it can't do? (Yes.)

    The search for a problem that only Near Field Communications can solve now sees an NFC-equipped key fob which can interact with a mobile phone to report a car's mileage, fuel level, tyre pressure and location... or what it was last time the fob looked. The technology comes from car-component specialist Delphi, which reckons a …

    Wireless 10 May 15:30

  • Belkin intros Kindle-illuminating e-book light

    Makes bedside lamps obsolete

    Belkin has created a clip-on reading light for Amazon's Kindle e-book reader. Most e-book readers' E Ink screens are not backlit, so the Belkin offering, called the eBook Light, seems the perfect acquisition for bedside reading or nocturnal journeys while others sleep around you. The eBook Light has two brightness settings …

    reghardware 10 May 16:34

  • Alleged Jobsian email promises iPad printing

    Biblical terseness: 'It will come'

    According to Steve Jobs, one of the iPad's more-glaring deficiencies - its inability to easily print - will be remedied. Someday. That is, if a thoroughly undocumented report from a MacRumors reader is to be believed. According to that unnamed source, an email sent to Jobs last Friday asking "Why no printing on the iPad? What …

    Mobile 10 May 17:29

  • Evaporating Adaptec sells RAID business

    PMC-Sierra gets it

    Adaptec is selling its RAID channel storage business to PMC-Sierra for $34m, but will keep its Aristos ASIC technology business as it looks for ways to invest its $400m cash pile. Activist investor Steel Partners gained control of Adaptec a few months ago and is now asset-stripping the business. Adaptec as a RAID adapter …

    Storage 10 May 17:44

  • BI benchmark outs HP Superdome 2 details

    Not shipping til October 20

    More details of HP's forthcoming Tukwila Itanium 9300 servers have come to light thanks to TPC-H data warehousing benchmark test results that HP has just published. When HP announced the first of its Itanium 9300 servers three weeks ago, the company's techies gave out some of the salient characteristics of the new blade- …

    Servers 10 May 18:31

  • HP's webOS tablet 'due in Q3'

    This is the story of the Hurricane

    HP will release a tablet based on Palm's webOS in the third quarter, according to a report citing an "HP insider." According to Examiner.com, the device will be known as the HP Hurricane. On April 28, HP announced it had agreed to purchase Palm, and during a conference call with reporters and analysts, the company said it …

    Mobile 10 May 18:35

  • White House devs overlooked gaping Drupal vuln

    Is there an auditor in the house?

    A researcher has uncovered a potentially serious vulnerability in the open-source content management system used by the White House website and thousands of other sites. The XSS, or cross-site scripting, bug resides in the Drupal Context module, a plug-in that Whitehouse.gov and about 10,000 other sites use to manage how …

    Security 10 May 20:14

  • Followers vanish as Twitter tw*ts tweet bug

    Loneliness 2.0

    Twitter has squashed a bug that allowed users to force any other Twittering netizen into "following" them on its popular micro-blogging service, and in doing so, its engineers temporarily removed follower lists, leaving countless people feeling extremely unpopular. It seems the bug was originally noticed by a Turkish blog …

    Music and Media 10 May 20:15

  • Ubuntu Unity interface flashed for speed freaks

    Windows infiltration inside

    Canonical has unveiled a streamlined Ubuntu-Linux interface for those wanting almost instant web gratification. The Unity desktop targets netbooks and touch-screen devices, re-orientating the Linux distro's interface so that the dock runs down the left-hand-side of the screen, while offering a finger-friendly launch menu for …

    Operating Systems 10 May 20:25

  • Cloud to drive a quarter of server sales

    Private parts, public hardware

    The cloudy infrastructure bandwagon is so crammed full of server makers and cloud hosting providers that no one can see where it is heading. And so the box counters at IDC grabbed the reins this morning and gave them a good firm yank. The market researchers have just put together a server cloud computing forecast, called the …

    Servers 10 May 22:01

  • Brocade notches up EMC Ethernet win

    FCoE here we come

    EMC aims to supply a converged network product set, featuring Ethernet products from Brocade and Cisco. As announced at EMC World, over the next several months EMC will introduce a full range of Brocade 10Gbit Ethernet switches and selected Cisco Nexus 10Gbit Ethernet switches through the EMC Select program. It will also offer …

    Storage 10 May 22:22

  • Code-execution bug found in Apple Safari

    Beware of pop-up Windows

    The latest version of Apple's Safari browser contains a critical bug that allows attackers to install malware on end user machines, security researchers have warned. The flaw in the way Safari handles parent windows can be exploited "to execute arbitrary code when a user visits a specially-crafted webpage and closes opened pop- …

    Security 10 May 23:37

  • Mozilla spills plan for, yes, Firefox 4

    Jetpack, Jaeger shot, 'Quake' console

    Mozilla has confirmed that the next major upgrade to its open source browser will be known as Firefox 4.0. The organization's current roadmap has version 4.0 arriving in November 2010, with the first beta hitting in June. Previously, developers had planned to follow Firefox 3.6, the last major release, with Firefox 3.7 around …

    Applications 10 May 23:48