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14th May 2010 Archive

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  • Latvia's 'Robin Hood' hacker unmasked as AI researcher

    Nabbed after baring fat-cat salaries

    Latvian police have identified a computer science researcher as the folk hero who hacked government systems to expose the fat salaries received by state officials despite a draconian austerity drive in effect. The hacker calling himself Neo and conducting his whistleblower campaign on Twitter was unmasked as Ilmars Poikans, an …

    Crime 14 May 00:16

  • Apple patent filing portends Google ad war

    Geo loco app and ad loads

    Apple has filed a patent to enable info and apps to be automagically loaded onto your iPhone/Pod/Pad based on your location - but exactly how it would affect location-based ads remains fuzzy. The patent application, "Location Specific Content", was published by the US Patent and Trademark office this Thursday, after originally …

    Mobile 14 May 00:17

  • NEC kicks out glueless Nehalem EX beast

    Itanium relegated to mainframes

    Like all remaining Itanium vendors aside from HP, NEC is shifting its focus to Intel's new Nehalem-EX Xeon 7500 processors for its big-iron beasts. The times, they are a-changin'. NEC made a big deal about high-end Itanium-based systems in the prior decade, notching up big benchmark wins with its 16-socket "Azuza" and 32- …

    HPC 14 May 00:31

  • HTML5 unfit for web TV, says Hulu

    New player, same Flash

    Web-TV-streaming giant Hulu claims that HTML5 isn't ready for coding and broadcasting video on the web. The service - America's answer to the BBC's iPlayer - released the latest version of its player built using Adobe Systems' ActionScript, saying that HTML5 is not ready for prime time. Product video president Eugene Wei …

    Music and Media 14 May 06:02

  • Samsung NX10

    Review Big sensor hybrid to worry the Micro Four Thirds faithful

    Samsung has upped its game in the camera market with the release of the NX10. It’s the company’s first ever EVIL (Electronic Viewfinder Interchangeable Lens) model – a hybrid DSLR that takes on the optional lenses compact camera market and directly challenges the successful Micro Four Thirds cameras from Olympus and Panasonic …

    reghardware 14 May 07:02

  • IBM opens systems software lab in Manchester

    PowerVM United

    IBM has opened up a software development lab in Manchester, focusing on various systems programs that run on its Power Systems iron. The lab is leveraging the bit-twiddling expertise that Big Blue gained when it bought Transitive back in November 2008. Transitive is the commercial implementation of emulation work done in the …

    Software 14 May 07:02

  • EU privacy watchdogs say Facebook changes 'unacceptable'

    Working party issues rebuke over default settings tweak

    Europe's privacy watchdogs have issued a rebuke to Facebook, telling the social networking site that changes it made to the site's privacy settings late last year were 'unacceptable'. Facebook faced criticism over the changes when they were made last December, and more when it announced recently that it would allow business …

    Law 14 May 07:41

  • Computacenter sales boosted by big deal

    UK hardware sales up a fifth

    Reseller Computacenter made sales of £616m in the first quarter of the year, up eight per cent on the same period last year. The dealer said growth was pushed by product sales in the UK jumping more than 20 per cent. Much of this was due to one large project, which is not ongoing. But even removing this from the figures UK …

    Channel Register 14 May 08:16

  • Garage worker prangs £200k Ferrari

    196 mph motor passes MOT, fails 'quick road test'

    A Surrey garage worker has good reason to believe his bosses will "kill him" after he pranged a client's £200k Ferrari 612 Scaglietti. The unnamed lad, in his early 20s, had taken the 196 mph motor for a "quick road test" following an MOT in New Malden. In the process, he somehow managed to hit a lamppost and jump a two-foot …

    Bootnotes 14 May 08:18

  • Xiotech's management by iPhone and iPad

    We have an app for that

    Xiotech has gone and done it, offering its ISE array monitor iPhone demo as an iPhone app. The company's intelligent Storage Element (ISE), its sealed and long-life canister of disk drives, can now be managed, or rather monitored, through its CorteX API by Apple's uber-successful smart phone and the ISEview app. ISEview …

    Storage 14 May 08:53

  • Will hybrid SSD/HDD products succeed?

    Comment Solid products or flash in the pan?

    Toshiba is mulling over a combined flash drive and spinning disk product. Will such a hybrid SSHD succeed or is it doomed to fail? Zsolt Kerekes of StorageSearch, who follows the SSD market closely, thinks it would fail if brought to market. He said: "I've always thought that 2.5-inch hybrids (SSD + HDD) were a waste of space …

    Storage 14 May 09:01

  • NZ spider objects to Canadian's todger

    Skinny-dip ends badly for North Island tourist

    A Canadian tourist who decided to take a quick nap on a NZ beach following a skinny-dip ended up seriously hospitalised after a venomous spider bit his penis, Oz's The Age reports. The unnamed 22-year-old awoke after his kip in the North Island's northern extremity to find his penis "swollen and painful with a red mark on the …

    Biology 14 May 09:13

  • 3D TV sales to soar, says researcher

    But not straight away

    How's this for synchronicity? According to one market watcher, 3D TVs will account for three per cent of world telly sales this year. Displaybank today forecast that some 6.2m 3D TVs will ship in 2010, 5m of the LCDs, the rest plasma panels. The total number of 3D sets will rise to 33m in 2012 then on to 83m in 2014, it …

    reghardware 14 May 09:23

  • Double-Take takes on Citrix and VMware

    Buyout rumours swirl

    Double-Take is launching its virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI) Flex product in EMEA while buyout rumours strengthen. DT's Flex product provides "a cost-effective and manageable way of delivering virtual desktops to users and can provision hundreds of machines from one master image". It is for small and medium enterprises ( …

    Applications 14 May 09:24

  • iPad talks to external hard drive? Yes it can

    Camera connection hack

    Apple's iPad has internal Flash memory and no easy way to connect an external hard drive. But it can be done. Apple sells a Camera Connection Kit which consists of two plug-in adapters and will cost £25 in the UK from June. They plug in to the iPad's 30-pin dock connector and provide either a USB port or an SD Card reader port …

    reghardware 14 May 09:32

  • Unlicensed software use 'may have peaked'

    IDC perceives pirate plateau

    The growth of illegal software use may have peaked, according to research firm IDC. It said that if current trends continue the percentage of computers running unlicensed software worldwide will be the same in 2010 as it was in 2009. IDC has produced a report on unlicensed software use for anti-piracy lobby group the Business …

    Channel Register 14 May 09:55

  • ConLibs leave open question over net surveillance

    Not saying who's looking at what

    As ministers settle in to their offices this week, the fate of arguably the most significant domestic security policy of the previous government has gone largely undiscussed. The mostly-nebulous £2bn Interception Modernisation Programme (IMP) must be a tempting cut to make, but it would be a brave politician who would take on …

    Government 14 May 10:02

  • Boffins demo one-molecule DNA 'walker' nano-bot

    Tiny four-tentacle machine follows origami breadcrumbs

    American boffins say that they have created tiny robot spiders or "walkers", each one of which is a single complicated molecule fashioned out of DNA. They have managed to get the molecular nanorobospiders to follow a trail of DNA "breadcrumbs". The sticking-up bits are the breadcrumbs, the red thing is the target. The …

    Biology 14 May 10:22

  • The iPad: Unsubsidised, unaffordable, unloved?

    One out of three at least

    Apple has again decided to launch hardware without an operator subsidy - but will the iPad be any more successful in avoiding the operator's shilling than the iPhone was? Earlier this week the UK's operators announced their tariffs for connecting up Apple's 3G iPad, and it seems the cost will be identical or damn close to …

    Mobile 14 May 10:37

  • Facebook ID theft Mr Big just a sprat, says social network

    You ain't all that, son

    Facebook has reportedly identified a hacker who recently offered to sell 1.5 million profiles in underground hacking forums, although he actually had only a fraction of these to flog. The black marketeer, Kirllos, is guilty of exaggerating his haul but had succeeded in breaking into numerous accounts, according to …

    ID 14 May 11:00

  • Pirate Bay ISP hit with German injunction

    Cyberbunker targeted by MPA

    The Hamburg district court has slapped an injunction on German ISP CB3ROB (Cyberbunker) and its operator, demanding that the outfit refrains from plugging The Pirate Bay into the internet. According to a statement (pdf) issued by the Motion Picture Association of America yesterday, if the defendants ignore the court order they …

    Music and Media 14 May 11:12

  • Welsh police come down hard on Octopussy porn

    Man accused of possessing extreme porn

    A man appeared before Swansea magistrates this week accused of possessing extreme porn images, including one which allegedly shows "a person performing an act of intercourse with a dead animal, namely a squid." Or octopus. The reports are not 100 per cent clear. The Sun reported this week that Andrew Dymond, 46, from Mumbles …

    Law 14 May 11:30

  • Facebook founder called trusting users dumb f*cks

    Peace Prize for Mr Zuckerberg?

    Loveable Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg called his first few thousand users "dumb fucks" for trusting him with their data, published IM transcripts show. Facebook hasn't disputed the authenticity of the transcript. Zuckerberg was chatting with an unnamed friend, apparently in early 2004. Business Insider, which has a series …

    Music and Media 14 May 11:33

  • Foreign IT pros in USA get paid more than Americans - study

    H-1Bs 'can't be driving down US pay' insist analysts

    Foreign IT professionals working in the States on H-1B visas don't cause a reduction in pay for Americans, according to a new study - because they actually get paid more than US citizens with similar qualifications, not less. According to a survey of "more than 50,000 IT professionals in the United States" analysed by Sunil …

    Small Biz 14 May 11:37

  • 'Martin Mills you are a LEGEND!'

    Andrew's Mailbag Feel the email love

    My mailbag is one one of the best things about this job. Yes, there are flame-o-grams, but these are quite rare, and the people most likely to send them are too busy reprogramming their computers to show pictures of bunnies when my name comes up to flame me. Another reason I don't seem to get very much hostile email is that …

    Letters 14 May 12:01

  • Viewsonic VMP74 1080p media player

    Review You want codecs? It's got 'em

    For most of this century, I've evangelised home movie set-ups that put a lightweight, probably Linux-based player in the living room, leaving your multimedia libraries on a server at the other end of your network. Viewsonic's VMP74: compact casing - but what a lot of codecs it contains My favorite player has always been the …

    reghardware 14 May 12:27

  • LG punts 'out of the ordinary' wireless Blu-ray player

    DivX HD and MKV playback, anyone?

    LG has taken the wraps off its latest Blu-ray Disc player, a device the company claimed was not "ordinary", thanks to its Wi-Fi connectivity and ability to reach out to the internet for content. The BD750 has DLNA support built in, so it can browse and play content stored on PCs, phones, Nas boxes and suchlike. It also has …

    reghardware 14 May 12:38

  • Service management best practice

    Is your future really in a book?

    Whenever IT best practice for service management gets a mention, we tend to think of Information Technology Infrastructure Library (ITIL). A much longer list of them exists, however. Here’s one I found earlier: ITIL, Application Service Library (ASL), Microsoft Operations Framework (MOF), CoBIT, ISO/IEC 20000, Agile, SSADM, RAD …

    Platform Evolution 14 May 12:57

  • Yahoo! wipes! brow! of! worried! search! advertisers!

    What's Microsoft's position on booze, women and Flash motors?

    Anxious Yahoo! bosses showed an overwhelming desire yesterday to stop its existing search advertisers worrying about the company’s recent pact with Microsoft. Last week the two firms said that its wonks were beavering away at their ad and sales switcheroo planned for later this year, after US and EU regulators gave the search …

    IT Director 14 May 13:01

  • Win XP SP2 support to cease in two months

    The beginning of the end

    Overtime looms for developers and sys admins alike in the run-up to Microsoft's plans to stop supporting Windows XP SP2 and Windows 2000 from 13 July. The many enterprise users still running XP desktops, often tied to proprietary software, have two months to upgrade to windows XP SP3 if they want security patches and support …

    Operating Systems 14 May 13:53

  • National Archives preserves Labour government websites

    Backs up 'historic information'

    The National Archives has published online historical copies of key government websites, including responses to emergencies like swine flu. For the first time since the archives started preserving websites in 2003, online government information published in the weeks before and immediately after the general election has been " …

    Government 14 May 14:10

  • Chinese consortium chases NFC business mode

    If they can't do it, no one can

    Eighteen banks, two national network operators and a handful of handset manufacturers have joined forces in the attempt to find a business model that will make NFC pay. The Mobile Payment Industry Alliance includes manufacturers like Lenovo, operators including China Mobile, banks such as the Bank of Communications and the …

    Mobile 14 May 14:12

  • Quantum struggles to break restraining chains

    Comment It hasn't got its growth taped - yet

    Still making a loss, still facing revenue declines, still making progress; that's Quantum's fiscal 2009 story in a nutshell. Rick Belluzzo's company recorded final fiscal 2010 revenues of $164.45m, down from the year-ago quarter's $168m. There was a loss of $4.37m, an improvement on the year-ago loss of $11.9m. The full year …

    Storage 14 May 15:18

  • Nvidia recovering in fiscal Q1

    Yields improving on Fermi GPUs

    Graphics card and GPU co-processor maker Nvidia has closed out the first quarter of its fiscal 2011 ended on May 2, and showed marked improvement over the pretty terrible results it had this time last year. However, sales were only up a bit sequentially, and Wall Street promptly gave Nvidia's shares a haircut. In Q1, Nvidia …

    PCs & Chips 14 May 15:29

  • Russia launches Cyrillic top-level domain

    Medvedev applauds президент.рф

    Russia yesterday acquired the Cyrillic top-level domain .рф, as reps from the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) handed over the corresponding administration certificate at an internet forum in Moscow. This went down extremely well with Dmitry Medvedev, according to Pravda. The president told the " …

    Telecoms 14 May 16:03

  • Digital Economy Bill minister stabbed

    Stephen Timms attacked in constituency

    Stephen Timms, the Labour MP and former minister who was responsible for guiding the Digital Economy Bill through Parliament, was stabbed today in his East Ham constituency. The 54-year-old is currently in hospital and a 21-year-old woman is in police custody and being assessed by mental health specialists. Timms was attacked …

    Government 14 May 16:10

  • Boffins warn on car computer security risk

    Updated Dashboard pwnage not that difficult - once you're in

    Computer scientists have carried out one of the first detailed security analyses of the security implications of increased use of computer systems in cars, finding systems surprisingly easy to hack or disrupt. A research paper from academics at the University of Washington and the University of California, San Diego, evaluates …

    Enterprise Security 14 May 16:11

  • Chocolate Factory pulls plug on Googlephone webstore

    How much crow can one phone seller eat?

    Google has told the world it will stop selling the Nexus One from the online store it launched in tandem with the so-called "superphone" less than six months ago. With a Friday morning blog post, Android project lead Andy Rubin announced that as it launches the Googlephone in additional countries, it will distribute device …

    Mobile 14 May 18:06

  • This witch-hunt will hurt Adobe more than Apple

    Comment Shall we just ban the Xbox, for fun?

    There's nothing quite so righteous as a Puritan who suddenly discovers wickedness has been lurking at the heart of the community for years, and embarks on rooting it out to save us all. After years of uncritical coverage, the press pack has decided that Apple is after all, quite wicked. Adobe is stoking the discontent with a …

    Developer 14 May 18:11

  • Atlantis blasts off on final mission

    Venerable shuttle's swan song

    Space shuttle Atlantis lifted off today on its STS-132 mission to the International Space Station - the final flight for the venerable vehicle. Atlantis departed Kennedy Space Center's Launch Pad 39A at 18:20 GMT, carrying a Russian Mini Research Module (MRM), and replacement parts and spares for the orbiting outpost. On …

    Space 14 May 18:24

  • 'Bulletproof' ISP for crimeware gangs knocked offline

    Zeus-friendly PROXIEZ goes MIA

    One of the internet's most resilient and crimeware-friendly networks was knocked offline Friday after the plug was pulled on its upstream service provider, security watchers said. Russia-based PROXIEZ-NET lost its connection to the internet at about 3 am California time, according to Zeus Tracker, a website that monitors the …

    Security 14 May 18:43

  • 'Completely useless' Windows 3.1 hits Google's Android

    Operating systems I have known

    First, it was Windows Vista on the iPhone. Now, an even earlier Microsoft creation has been updated for the smartphone set. Windows 3.1 has been ported to Google's Linux-based Android phone platform by developer Shawn McHenry using the DOSBox emulator. DOSBox is usually used to run old MS-DOS games for Intel x86 PCs that can' …

    Mobile 14 May 19:13

  • Adobe tilts at windmills with image apps for iPad

    Indie dev con killed over Jobsian code ban

    Adobe has asked Photoshop product manager John Nack to help build a new breed of Adobe imaging applications for tablet computers. And yes, that includes the Apple iPad. Nack will do so knowing that the Jobsian software police may not allow his applications into its App Store - even though the dead-simple Adobe Ideas "digital …

    Developer 14 May 21:26

  • Google: Street View spycars did slurp your Wi-Fi

    'Quite simply, it was a mistake' snivels ad colossus

    Google has said that its world-roving Street View cars have been collecting information sent over open Wi-Fi networks, contradicting previous assurances by the company. This means that Google may have collected emails and other private information if they traveled over Wi-Fi networks while one of the cars was in range. …

    Security 14 May 22:52

  • 'Lost' iPhone 4G brouhaha: Jobs gets on the job

    Femme fatale unmasked prototype-napper

    Apple CEO Steve Jobs intervened in the Case of the Purloined iPhone, personally contacting Gizmodo editor Brian Lam to ask for the return of the missing iPhone 4G prototype. That tidbit - told by Apple general counsel Bruce Sewell to Detective Matthew Broad of the San Mateo County Sheriff's Office - was revealed today by the …

    Mobile 14 May 23:27

  • CA boost profits, but see modest growth ahead

    Second in command leaves the bridge

    Systems management tool and database provider CA, formerly known as Computer Associates, finished out its fourth quarter of fiscal 2010 on a high note, with sales up 7 per cent to $1.1bn and net income up 55 per cent to $101m. That's probably as good as can be expected given the state of the high-end server base that dominates …

    Financial News 14 May 23:51

  • Ukrainian TJX hacking suspect arrested in India

    Bring on the extradition proceedings

    A Ukrainian national accused of helping to hack into nine US retailers and making off with data for millions of credit cards has been arrested in India, IDG News has reported. Sergey Valeryevich Storchark was arrested earlier this week in New Delhi as he deplaned from a flight from Goa, the news service said, citing a …

    Crime 14 May 23:56