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18th May 2010 Archive

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  • Google's WiFi snoop - who knew and who didn't?

    The meaning of 'mistake'

    How do you mistakenly spend three years collecting personal data from the world's open WiFi networks? We're not quite sure. We can only hope that when Google asks an outsider to scrutinize the WiFi-snooping habits of its Street View cars, the results are released to the public. Google spent three years collecting personal data …

    ID 18 May 2010, 00:24

  • Microsoft sneak peeks Hotmail makeover

    Size matters only so much

    Microsoft has realized there's more to maintaining its lead over Gmail than shoveling buckets of storage at Hotmail users. Today, the company unveiled changes to its Hotmail web email service, wiring the service to its Bing search engine, its Silverlight media player, and its SkyDrive online store service. Due mid summer, the …

    Music and Media 18 May 2010, 04:28

  • Sir Paul McBeatle: 'Me, I'd love Beatles to be on iTunes'

    EMI: 'Us too'. Jobsians keep schtum

    You can blame him for "Band on the Run" or "Ebony and Ivory," but according to Sir Paul McCartney, it's not his fault that the Fab Four's oeuvre isn't available on iTunes. "It's been business hassles," the world's most famous left-handed bass guitarist told the BBC's Newsbeat. "Not with us, or iTunes. It's the people in the …

    Music and Media 18 May 2010, 04:30

  • Seagate preps three terabyte whopper

    So big XP can't handle it

    Seagate has confirmed it will offer a 3TB drive. As reported by Thinq, the company should announce its 3TB 3.5-inch disk drive by the end of the year, subject to operating system, motherboard BIOS and RAID vendor support. Disk drives are addressed in 512-byte sectors, logical block addresses (LBAs) as set down by DOS back in …

    Storage 18 May 2010, 06:05

  • Packard Bell dot S2

    Review Outperforms the Acer it's based on?

    It’s been a couple of years since Acer gobbled up Packard Bell as part of its quest for world domination, and the Taiwanese giant seems perfectly happy to continue churning out netbooks under both brands. Another dotty netbook from Packard Bell The dot S2 is the latest in a long line of slightly irritatingly-named Packard …

    reghardware 18 May 2010, 07:02

  • Delivering a secure information infrastructure

    Lab Rats nest or house of cards? You choose

    I recently had the task of writing an explanatory paper about Good Practice Guide (GPG) 13, a UK-government sponsored piece of guidance around "protective monitoring" – that is, being able to keep an eye on what's going on in your IT environment in order to spot when security breaches happen. Now, before you get all big …

    Platform Evolution 18 May 2010, 07:02

  • LimeWire knackered by US courts

    Yes it's your fault what your users do

    Peer to peer (P2P) software company LimeWire induced its users to infringe copyright by the unauthorised sharing of music and film files and shares responsibility for that infringement, a US court has ruled. The ruling follows the precedent set by a case involving file-sharing network Grokster, which was found in 2005 to share …

    Applications 18 May 2010, 08:02

  • Garlands folds: 1000 call-centre jobs axed in Northeast

    Change of accent for Voda, TalkTalk, Virgin helpdesks

    Garlands Call Centres has gone into administration with the likely loss of 1,000 jobs in the north east. The firm, which worked with Vodafone, TalkTalk and Virgin Media among others, promised better staff development than many call centres are infamous for. It had centres in Hartlepool Marina, Middlesborough and South Shields …

    Telecoms 18 May 2010, 08:16

  • US airforce shifts 30,000 troops to 'cyberwar front lines'

    Soon more Yanks in digi-trenches than in Afghanistan

    The US Air Force reports that it has assigned no fewer than 30,000 digital troops to "the front lines of cyber warfare". This is close to a third of the number of US troops deployed in Afghanistan. The Air Force Times reports that 27,000 enlisted airmen and women are now classified as cyber scufflers, having previously been …

    Government 18 May 2010, 08:27

  • Spotify waves £5 plan at freeloaders

    Immobilising the masses

    Spotify is adding two new plans, one paying, one decidedly limited. Spotify Unlimited a £4.99 a month all - the music you-can-stream-on-your-PC- and-no-ads- option. That tucks in under Spotify Premium, the £10 a month plan, which adds music on mobile phones and offline music paying to the mix. The second plan is Spotify Open …

    reghardware 18 May 2010, 08:31

  • Reg reader applauds World's Crappiest phish

    'Emergency shortlited varified problem' email alert. FFS

    There is we believe some kind of worldwide minimum standard for phishing expeditions, which demands at least a level of literacy, a false bank log-in page and a plausible alert to hook victims. If you really can't be arsed with all that, though, why not just throw out a quick email and wait for those intimate banking details …

    Bootnotes 18 May 2010, 08:49

  • Pirate Bay resurfaces after German legal depth-charge

    Chortling freetards flaunt buttocks at scurvy law-dogs

    The Pirate Bay file tracking site is currently offline - apparently forced to close by a German court injunction filed last week. We covered the filing last week. A district court in Hamburg heard from the Motion Picture Ass. of America, which targeted German ISP CB3ROB (Cyberbunker). Cyberbunker was ordered to unplug the …

    Law 18 May 2010, 08:56

  • iPad to become inflight fatcat fun-slab

    Strokey delights offered at the front of the plane

    The iPad is bound for ever greater heights (etc) as BlueBox Avionics, suppliers of in-flight entertainment kit to the airline industry, has launched an iPad-based system. "BlueBox Ai" is the name of the system which apparently brings the utility of an iPad together with the company's own security system to manage the devices …

    Hardware 18 May 2010, 09:02

  • Luke Skywalker to helm movie of own comic, Black Pearl

    'Culmination of years of wish fulfillment on my part'

    Mark Hamill will make his first foray into big screen directing by taking the helm for a film adaptation of his own comic book Black Pearl, AP reports. Hamill, 58, was at Cannes to promote the project with Black Pearl co-author Eric Johnson, who helped create Luther Drake - an "ordinary man who saves a woman from abduction …

    Entertainment 18 May 2010, 09:14

  • What’s in the box?

    Workshop Supporting chipsets and virtualisation demands

    Selecting the right choice of components for an industry standard x64 server is much more than the speed of the CPU and the size of the hard disk. Virtualisation puts fresh demands on CPU performance and crucially, stretches memory, networking and IO performance. Consolidation efficiencies and sustainability efforts are reining …

    Server Management 18 May 2010, 09:30

  • Koobface gang counter-poohpooh nemesis sec-pro Danchev

    Touché, my dear sir. However, your mum ...

    The gang behind the infamous Koobface worm has responded to a post by a security researcher on their activities and motives with an answer buried in the latest version of their malware. Noted security researcher Dancho Danchev posted a list of "10 things you didn't know about the Koobface gang" in a blog post back in February …

    Malware 18 May 2010, 09:34

  • The joy of software licensing on the desktop

    Workshop Does anyone understand the options out there?

    One of the joys of working as a manager of desktop and laptop systems is to be found in the weird and sometimes surreal world of software licenses. Not really, of course. In fact, trying to ensure that the organisation is buying only the licenses it requires at the best price, while making sure that no unlicensed applications …

    Desktop Management 18 May 2010, 09:52

  • Microsoft coughs up $200m, licensing in VirnetX patent case

    'We are pleased to work with them.' Riiight

    Microsoft has agreed to pony up $200m in a one-time patent infringement settlement payment to VirnetX Holding Corp. Redmond will also licence the internet security software maker's technology from now on. In March this year Microsoft was ordered by a US federal jury in Texas to pay nearly $106m to VirnetX for infringing two …

    Operating Systems 18 May 2010, 09:53

  • Mobile phone users have fewer brain tumours

    Analysis Epidemiologists appalled, demand more funding

    Mobile users have a lower risk of developing brain cancers than non-mobile users, a ten-year €19m study by the UN has shown. But the epidemiologists are doubtful about the results, which aren't alarmist enough, and have called for more funding additional research. The study by the Interphone International Study Group, which …

    Mobile 18 May 2010, 10:02

  • Brits have no love for bits and bytes

    Books! Yeah, baby!

    Brits have a shaky grasp of bits and bytes, placing "little monetary or emotional value" on the digital value they own. This is the conclusion of HP, which recently surveyed 1,000-plus British consumers. Here are some findings: The average Brit's digital media collection is valued at £482. Twenty-seven per cent value their …

    reghardware 18 May 2010, 10:14

  • Acer denies Chrome OS netbook launch is near

    Worried by rumours?

    Acer has gone on record to state that it will not be launching netbooks based on Google's Chrome OS in the "short term". "Acer believes that Chrome OS is without doubt an exciting product announcement and deserves its full attention as well as an in-depth study of its potential from a consumers perspective," the Taiwanese …

    reghardware 18 May 2010, 10:16

  • Vodafone chortles over blabber bonanza

    Smartphone mobe-data geeks still small potatoes

    Vodafone has been cutting costs and increasing profits, resulting in a top end-of-financial-year filing and confident predictions for the future, as long as voice minutes don't continue to decline. The figures for the year ending March 31st show an annual net profit of £8.65bn for the whole Vodafone group, up from £3.08bn …

    Mobile 18 May 2010, 10:20

  • Google gobbles up confab-over-IP firm GIPS for $68m

    Pauses briefly to pick teeth and look round for more

    Google has bought a Swedish VoIP company called Global IP Solutions - which is traded on the Oslo Stock Exchange. The deal values GIPS at $68.2m. Google is offering $2.12 per share in cash - 24 per cent more than the shares have been selling for on average over the last three months. GIPS provides software for voice and video …

    VoIP 18 May 2010, 10:33

  • Ofcom creates piracy havens at small ISPs

    Fleeing freetards could yet cause tiddler crackdown

    Ofcom has decided that only fixed line ISPs with more than 400,000 subscribers will be forced to comply with the Digital Economy Act's controversial anti-filesharing provisions. The communications regulator has informed the Internet Service Providers' Association of the benchmark, and said it intends to publish rules within …

    Networks 18 May 2010, 10:58

  • FOSS vendors lick chops over ConLib IT plans

    Analysis 'OpenOffice can save UK from doing a Greece'

    In the run-up to the General Election both the Conservative Party and the Liberal Democrats made positive noises about open source software in their respective manifestos. But now that a coalition government has been formed out of those blue and yellow political camps, will both parties actually stick to the Tories’ pledge of …

    Software 18 May 2010, 11:02

  • Apple, Rim surpass Motorola handset sales

    Sony Ericsson next

    We've seen the success Apple and Research in Motion (Rim) have had in the smartphone market, but how have they fared in the broader handset arena? Not too shabbily, figures from market watcher iSuppli suggest. It will surprise no one that Nokia and Samsung are the two leading players with Q1 2010 market shares of, respectively …

    reghardware 18 May 2010, 11:04

  • You paid €20m for UN mobe-fear - and that's just the start

    Comment Tinfoil gravy train thunders onward unstoppably

    The Interphone study has spent 10 years failing to find any evidence that mobile phones cause cancer, but there's no end in sight for the gravy train powered by the public's paranoia. The Interphone study cost €19.5m, €1.75m of which came (with suitable blinding) from the GSMA, which draws revenue from member companies, and …

    Mobile 18 May 2010, 11:10

  • Linux gets jiggy with more filesystems in 2.6.34 kernel release

    'Just how i like it,' notes languid Torvalds

    On Sunday a new version of the Linux kernel rocked up, with two new filesystems loaded into the distro. Laidback Linux founder Linus Torvalds characteristically understated the relevance of the latest 2.6.34 release in a post about the final release candidate. “Nothing very interesting here, which is just how I like it. …

    Operating Systems 18 May 2010, 11:21

  • Freebie Spotify is back, also £5 no-ads option

    Only a few left standing in legit-music deathmatch

    Spotify closed its doors to new free listeners in the UK last August, except by invitation, and the waiting list - according to some readers - is months. Now it's introducing 20 hours of free listening for which no invitation is necessary. You'll hear ads, of course, on this package which is called Spotify Open. Spotify has …

    Music and Media 18 May 2010, 11:30

  • PS3 owners: This cinema is buff!

    Sony breaks open the popcorn with MUBI

    Imagine, if you will, the elevator pitch for MUBI: "Art-house streaming Netflix with forums and user ratings.". Nice. That's what you get when you sign up to this new online cinema service. And that's what PS3 owners can get from the Autumn, by way of free downloadable app, "packed to the rafters with acclaimed independent, …

    reghardware 18 May 2010, 11:39

  • Nato should tool up for cyber war, say globo-bigwigs

    Albright demands 'passive and active' measures

    Nato believes there is not likely to be a conventional military attack on its members in the future but that some form of cyber-attack is one of three most probable dangers facing the alliance. The organisation is the midst of finding itself a new purpose. A group of bigwigs have been appointed to find "a New Strategic Concept …

    Security 18 May 2010, 11:41

  • Apple tweaks MacBook spec

    Better CPU, GPU; price unchanged

    Apple has quietly upped the MacBook's processor to a 2.4GHz Core 2 Duo. The old Nvidia GeForce 9400M graphics chip is out, too, replaced by a new GeForce 320M part. None of this extra graphical and CPU horsepower comes at the cost of reduced battery life. Quite the reverse: Apple claimed the new machine can deliver up to ten …

    reghardware 18 May 2010, 11:43

  • Exploding-battery epidemic caused by 'lithium moss'

    iPod trouser inferno horror a thing of the past?

    Researchers at Cambridge University have proposed using nuclear magnetic resonance to work out why lithium batteries keep exploding. Lithium batteries are great - lots of battery life and relatively fast charge time: so it seems churlish to avoid using them just 'cos they blow up every now and then. But now researchers are …

    Hardware 18 May 2010, 11:47

  • The iPad, news saviour? Murdoch may have something here

    iPad diaries If you buy newspapers, why wouldn't you buy this?

    Rupert Murdoch, in the face of widespread scepticism, thinks he can charge for news on the internet - but what if he's right? And the dead tree publishers, the derided MSM who initially welcomed the iPad as a potential saviour - what if they were right, too? Even if only a little bit? After time spent playing with the iPad I …

    Music and Media 18 May 2010, 12:05

  • World+bitch flocking to expose self on Facebook

    Half a billion 'dumb f*cks' for Zuckerberg

    Facebook is on track to reach 500 million users by June, despite a backlash over a series of recent anti-privacy changes that mean more and more users' information is exposed to all and sundry. The unofficial but generally reliable All Facebook blog reports that the social network is planning a significant celebration once the …

    Software 18 May 2010, 12:14

  • American Heart Association hails the Wii

    But only the active games

    Nintendo has won the backing of the American Heart Association for its active video games on the Wii. The AHA acknowledges that this is second best compared with doing real sport, but compares very will with sitting on the couch. It reckons that 70 per cent of Americans don't exercise enough, and that"screen time" is a …

    reghardware 18 May 2010, 12:19

  • Apple MacBook Pro 15in

    Review Class act

    Remember the Apple PowerBooks? They were pants. Of course, I didn't know this at the time. It's only now, having had the chance to play with Apple's latest MacBook Pro, that I realise that everything that came before it was so dreadfully ordinary. Apple's MacBook Pro 15in: now with Core i5 or i7 CPU options Apple's latest …

    reghardware 18 May 2010, 12:25

  • Mozy backs up cloud backup with hard-drive storage

    Revolutionary local hardware paradigm

    EMC-owned cloud storage outfit Mozy will become significantly less cloudy with plans to include local backup in its next release. Mozy v2.0 for Windows will backup to local hard drives as well as to the cloud, recognising that cloud backup and restore can take a long time. Abandoning a purely cloud-based model is a bit of a …

    Storage 18 May 2010, 12:28

  • PARIS gets her very own private enclave

    No, not that Paris...

    El Reg's Paper Aircraft Released Into Space (PARIS) now has its very own section, nicely nestled in Science, the better for readers to follow the progress of our audacious upper atmosphere plane plan. The new spot should be filling up nicely in the coming weeks, as the project ramps ups considerably towards the final, …

    PARIS 18 May 2010, 12:29

  • Solid state drives set for huge growth

    90 per cent a year?

    Enterprise solid state drive (SSD) sales will grow by almost 90 per cent a year between now and 2015. The prediction covers flash-based solid-state drives (SSDs) in enterprise servers and SANs (storage area networks). The main forecasts are that the market for enterprise SSDs will grow from 150,000 units in 2010 to over 4.1 …

    Storage 18 May 2010, 13:06

  • Chelsea fans hack Man Utd phone systems

    Messed-with message moons Manc fans

    Chelsea fans mocked their rivals at Manchester United last weekend by hacking into the Old Trafford club's phone system and changing its recorded message. Manchester United fans were greeted with a "we are the champions" chant by Chelski supporters instead of a recorded message stating the club was closed for the weekend, the …

    Security 18 May 2010, 13:22

  • Blighty to get mobe-download barcode rail tickets

    Where's my hardcopy for expenses, though?

    Barcode ticketing specialists Masabi have signed a deal with TheTrainLine.com for a national rollout of its mobile ticketing service, reducing tickets to downloaded images. Punters can still pick up physical tickets if they want, though that would rather defeat the object of the service which is to sell tickets though the …

    Mobile 18 May 2010, 13:38

  • Fatso Office files get NXPowerLite diet

    Neuxpower proffers compression for porky PowerPoint, wobble-belly Word

    Office file bloat could be banished with NXPowerLite, skinnying down your flabby PowerPoint decks. Neuxpower, a UK startup, has recoding software that compresses the main Office files to a fraction of their original size without needing rehydration or decompression. NXPowerLite for File Servers optimises the content of Word, …

    Storage 18 May 2010, 13:40

  • Pirate Bay now run from Pirate Party 'mountain bunker'

    We are the Missing Link, Swede freetard tells Reg

    The Pirate Bay returned to the business of providing its BitTorrent technology to freetards earlier today with a new bandwidth supplier in the unlikely form of the Swedish Pirate Party, after the site was offline for the best part of a day. The Pirate Party’s Rick Falkvinge said in a statement this lunchtime that his anti- …

    Music and Media 18 May 2010, 13:55

  • Wobbly drive array problems? This'll stiffen your rack

    But don't shout at your kit - it actually slows it down

    Everyday background vibration in data centre drive arrays can slow drive random read performance by up to 246 per cent. Stiffer drive racks prevent this happening and make I/O-dependent apps go faster. Storage consultant Robin Harris pointed us towards the IEEE paper Effects of Data Center Vibration on Compute System …

    Storage 18 May 2010, 14:17

  • Mucky private chat could be illegal soon

    Risky encounters of the IRC and Twitter kind

    Could 2010 be the year when the authorities finally clamp down on the internet – and in the process abolish some fundamental liberties we have been taking for granted for a very long time? The answer from two cases – one now over, though possibly subject to appeal, the other going forward to a full hearing later this year – …

    Law 18 May 2010, 14:31

  • Quantum crypto boffins in successful backdoor sniff

    Erroneous error-handling undermines bulletproofness

    Computer scientists have pulled off what is claimed to be the first successful attack against a commercial system based on theoretically uncrackable quantum cryptography. Quantum key exchange, which forms the basis of quantum cryptography, relies on a principle of quantum physics that means it is not possible to eavesdrop on …

    Enterprise Security 18 May 2010, 14:46

  • Canadian mobe firm sued over disappearing husband

    Rogers Wireless. Have fun with that

    A disgruntled woman is suing Canadian telco Rogers Wireless for destroying her marriage. The mobile provider bundled her cellphone bill in with bills for internet access and cable TV which it sent to her husband. He opened the bill and found she had made several hour-long calls to one number. Hubby called this number and …

    Mobile 18 May 2010, 15:00

  • Quantum's StorNext snuggles with cloud 

    Comment Cash cow jumps over the moon

    Quantum's disk plus tape storage software, StorNext, is set to have cloud functionality added to it. Apparently StorNext is a bit of a cash cow for Quantum, and there are substantial development plans for it. It's used to provide the file system inside the DXi deduplication systems and so is deeply involved with Quantum's …

    Storage 18 May 2010, 15:32

  • Consumers still want it hard

    Actual copies of things beat the non-physical ones

    Yesterday's HP media survey confirms something many Reg readers passionately believe - hard copies have great value, and they aren't going away any time soon. Two-thirds of people surveyed want their hard copies of photographs and music, and 90 per cent want books to remain in that very handy paper format that you can read in …

    Music and Media 18 May 2010, 16:08

  • Transit site coughs up private info for 168,000 passengers

    'Experience the pwnage'

    Dutch authorities have shuttered a transit website after a hacker demonstrated it gave him access to addresses, birthdates, and other sensitive information belonging to some 168,000 passengers. Ironically, Ervaar het OV, which translates to "Experience the OV," was intended to promote the use of smartcards on the OV system by …

    ID 18 May 2010, 17:50

  • Dev goes 'Wild' with H.264 Firefox

    'The only proper thing to do'

    A Dutch open source developer is building a version of Firefox that uses the HTML5 video tag in tandem with the H.264 codec. Mozilla's official Firefox incarnation handles HTML5 video solely with the free and open Ogg Theora codec, sidestepping H.264 because it's a patented technology that carries license fees in certain …

    Applications 18 May 2010, 18:33

  • Apple said to order 24 million iPhone 4Gs

    Better display, more RAM, bigger battery

    Apple is betting big that its upcoming - and noticeably improved - iPhone 4G will be an instant worldwide hit, according to a report citing Taiwanese parts suppliers. Analyst Ming-Chi Kuo at DigiTimes says that Cupertino has ordered 24 million units for this year alone from its Chinese assembler, Foxconn. Kuo also provided …

    Mobile 18 May 2010, 19:33

  • Microsoft fluffs boffins with supercomputer promise

    It's crunch time

    Microsoft plans on delivering supercomputing power to a broader audience of scientists via its cloud computing and server technologies. On Tuesday, the company announced its new Technical Computing group, saying it will let scientists focus on research without having to build or program complicated applications or server …

    HPC 18 May 2010, 19:42

  • William Shatner to star in Twitter-inspired TV show

    World's first twitcom

    CBS will air a sitcom in which William Shatner plays a cranky old fogie whose rants are captured by a Twitter-obsessed son with a million followers. No, we're not kidding. The program is based on the real-life Twitter feed shitmydadsays, which claims more than 1.3 million followers. It was started last August by Justin Helpern …

    Odds and Sods 18 May 2010, 19:51

  • IBM freshens up System x servers

    More Xeons and now Nvidia GPUs

    IBM continued to tweak its System x lineup Tuesday when it announced more machines supporting the latest Intel Xeons, and allowed Nvidia Tesla GPU coprocessors into the systems. Big Blue also bent some metal in its iDataPlex rackish blade servers - or bladish rack servers, depending on how you want to look at . The moves make …

    Servers 18 May 2010, 20:08

  • Yahoo!: 'Our search talent is here to stay'

    What to do when Bing takes over

    Yahoo! says that even after Microsoft assumes control of its search engine listings, it will retain many of its most talented search engineers. In July of last year, after an epic gestation period, Carol Bartz and company signed a ten-year search pact with Steve Ballmer and Microsoft that will see Bing serve up search listings …

    Music and Media 18 May 2010, 22:45

  • HP profits up 28% on freshened servers

    x64 leads the way

    The IT and investor communities were both a little jumpy this week, worried that IT bellwether Hewlett-Packard wasn't pulling in enough dough. But this was just borrowing trouble. Overall revenues at the HP were up 12.7 per cent to $30.8bn in the second quarter ended in April, and with HP keeping tight reins on costs, net …

    Financial News 18 May 2010, 23:19

  • Security bug bites 64-bit Windows 7

    Beware the gullible display driver

    Microsoft on Tuesday warned users of a vulnerability in 64-bit versions of Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2 that could expose users to malware attacks. Exploitation of the bug in the Canonical Display Driver would most likely only cause vulnerable machines to reboot, Microsoft spokesman Jerry Bryant said in a blog post. But …

    Security 18 May 2010, 23:23