The Register® — Biting the hand that feeds IT

Feeds

21st May 2010 Archive

Browse by publication date, or search the site.

  • Teac R-4iDNT Wi-Fi/DAB/FM radio and iPod dock

    Review Log on, tune in, dock out

    Despite the UK’s proposed analogue radio switch-off at some yet-to-be-decided date, it’s fair to say that DAB has hardly been a roaring success. Most digital radio manufacturers hedge their bets and include an FM tuner, while there’s a growing trend of adding an Internet connection for accessing thousands of online stations in a …

    reghardware 21 May 07:02

  • HP reflogging DataDirect storage

    Into Linux HPC clusters

    HP has added a third and surprising scale-out file system product to its high-performance cluster (HPC) portfolio, DataDirect Networks S2A9900, the storage that's sold by IBM in its SONAS product. HP already has its Ibrix and PolyServe-powered X9000 scale-out network-attached storage (NAS) in its cluster portfolio, along with …

    Channel Register 21 May 07:02

  • On-demand TV subject to broadcast ad rules

    Providers must respect watershed

    Advertisers and broadcasters must make sure that viewing of their adverts is as controlled on video-on-demand (VOD) services as it is when traditionally broadcast, advertising regulator the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) has said. The ASA has ruled that "adequate steps [were] not taken" to ensure that children did not …

    Law 21 May 07:49

  • User data: Where the profiles roam

    Blog Keeping track ain't so easy

    Trying to write an article concerning actual real world implementation of technologies like roaming profiles and folder redirection has proven surprisingly difficult. At first blush it would appear to be a straightforward project: distil the research I have done on the subject over the past few weeks, combine it with several …

    Desktop Mgmt Blog 21 May 07:57

  • Young Boozer seeks Alabama offie office

    We'll drink to that

    It's come to our attention that a Young Boozer is standing for Alabama State Treasurer - a position of immense responsibility which the "active Eagle Scout" Birmingham native will doubtless handle with all the fiscal sobriety the post requires. Boozer's pedigree is impressive: he comes from a long line of Young Boozers, …

    Bootnotes 21 May 08:02

  • EC plans stronger data protection and copyright laws

    Updated Digital Agenda pushes standards

    The European Commission will strengthen legal protections for personal data, reform copyright law and ensure that device and software makers embrace standards, it said when outlining its new digital policies. The Commission will also consider forcing companies to tell users and customers when their systems have been breached …

    Crime 21 May 08:03

  • Can you give to charity and cost Microsoft money?

    Updated Headlines to which the answer is yes!

    Microsoft Europe's spinmeister-general Peter Devery is swapping the flatlands of Reading for a 1,000 mile bike trip along the length of the UK. Starting in John O'Groats in Scotland, Pete will pedal till he runs out of road at Land's End. The arse-testing 1,010 mile jaunt should take eight nine days and Peter hopes to spend no …

    Site News 21 May 08:04

  • German boffins develop sharkskin paint for ships, planes

    Vorsprung durch fertigungstechnik

    Remorseless German boffins have developed a new type of paint which effectively coats ships, planes and wind turbines in sharkskin, reducing drag and saving energy. According to the scientists and engineers of the Fraunhofer-Institut für Fertigungstechnik und Angewandte Materialforschung (Fraunhofer Institute for Manufacturing …

    Physics 21 May 08:31

  • Seagate to announce SSD-threatening hybrid drive

    By your powers combined...

    Trying for glory a second time, Seagate is very soon to announce a hybrid solid state and spinning disk drive, the Momentus XT, with no operating system dependencies. It marries a 2.5-inch, 7200 rpm 250, 320 or 500GB, 3Gbit/s SATA hard disk drive (HDD) with a 4GB solid state drive (SSD), presumably a Seagate Pulsar drive, with …

    Storage 21 May 09:24

  • IBM hands out malware-stuffed USB at security conference

    Red faces at Big Blue

    IBM has apologised after supplying a malware-infected USB stick to delegates of this week's IBM AusCERT security conference. The unlovely gift was supplied to an unknown number of delegates to the Gold Coast, Queensland conference who visited IBM's booth. Big Blue does not identify the strain of malware involved in the attack …

    Malware 21 May 09:26

  • Oz customs search lappies and mobes for smut

    More protections for thin-skinned Antipodeans

    A row has broken out in Australia after it emerged that Customs officers are searching laptops and mobile phones for smutty snaps. The change actually came in late last year. Inbound passengers must fill in an incoming passenger card which now includes a pornography question. Fiona Patten, president of the Australian Sex …

    Mobile 21 May 09:37

  • Facebook gives users' names to advertisers

    Violates own privacy policy

    Facebook has been giving advertisers data that they can use to discover users' names and locations, contrary to its privacy policy. The dominant social network tells users it won't share their details without consent, but according to the Wall Street Journal, it has handed over information that advertisers can use to look up …

    ID 21 May 10:05

  • German 4G auction winds up

    €4.4bn in the coffers, incumbents on the airwaves

    The month-long German radio spectrum mega-auction has finally wound up, with the existing operators snapping up all the available bandwidth and contributing €4.4bn to the German economy. The auction has been running for 27 working days, with 224 rounds of bidding as the four bidders vied for different combinations of …

    Mobile 21 May 10:33

  • Atlantis 'nauts kick off final spacewalk

    Battery bolting duties continue

    Atlantis mission specialists Michael Good and Garrett Reisman exited the International Space Station at 12:27 GMT to kick off the third and final STS-132 mission spacewalk. First up, the pair will "install an ammonia jumper on the Port 4/Port 5 truss". NASA explains: "The cable is a backup for the existing system. It would …

    Space 21 May 10:35

  • PARIS flashes some radio goodies

    Beacon and GPS kit unveiled

    It's with great pleasure that the Paper Aircraft Released Into Space (PARIS) team today officially welcome aboard radio man Steve Daniels (callsign G6UIM), who's put together some tasty kit for the project and will be our in-the-field radio operator when launch day arrives. Steve's been building computers since 1979, when he …

    PARIS 21 May 11:02

  • BOFH: The poncy director's cut

    Episode 6 I smell a BAFTA... no, wait, that's just burning

    EXT: COUNTRYSIDE A lush pasture with snow-capped mountains in the distance. A fluffy white rabbit hops into shot, stops and nibbles on some grass. [Dissolve to...] INT: BOSS'S OFFICE The BASTARD, PFY and BOSS are clustered around the screen of the Boss's desktop machine. PFY See, he just pushes his machine off the desk …

    BOFH 21 May 11:03

  • Prince of Persia: The Forgotten Sands

    Review Time it's in your hands?

    Fun fact: the Prince of Persia franchise celebrated its 20th birthday last year, making it one of the most venerable names in videogaming. It transitioned smoothly enough from side-scrolling platformer into the spectacular, button-hammering Tomb Raider-style modern classics of today. Take this, bonehead! The Forgotten Sands …

    reghardware 21 May 11:20

  • 'Dossiers on enemies' found in Italian Scientology raid

    'Suppressive persons'

    Italian police reportedly unearthed hidden dossiers on 'enemies' during a raid on Church of Scientology offices in Turin. The files, apparently discovered behind locked doors in a basement office, allegedly contained personal information on judges, police officers and journalists identified as hostile to the Church. Details …

    Law 21 May 11:30

  • Dell begs ToryDems to keep NHS IT project

    Please sir, don't take my pork barrel away

    Dell is urging the coalition government not to cut the world's most expensive civilian IT project - the NHS's National Programme for IT. Parts of the £12.7bn scheme are in the firing line for cuts, not just because of the absurd cost but also because of its unpopularity with doctors and patients. Harry Greenspun, Dell's " …

    Government 21 May 11:37

  • Mozilla muses over open apps store but needs sharper focus

    Bloom and bust

    Mozilla has begun circling its shaky, new age wagons around a web app store model that won't short change developers. The open source browser maker said in a blog post yesterday that "core" to its hippy vision of the web was to support coders who develop apps and websites across the intertubes. "Web developers are expressing …

    Developer 21 May 11:56

  • Olympus Tough 8010 rugged camera

    Review Takes the knocks and the shots

    Hardy products, such as Panasonic's range of Toughbooks, Dell's XFR laptop range, or Olympus's venerable range of Tough cameras, are a tricky sell. Not only do weather proofed, shock-resistant products command inflated prices, it's also difficult to convince the average electronics buyer that they really need the extra strength …

    reghardware 21 May 12:02

  • iPad users put tablet to netbook tasks

    Asus, Acer and co. need to worry more than Amazon does

    iPad owners are very happy with their purchase, it seems. Only two per cent of the are in any way unsatisfied with their purchase. So reveals the results of a survey of just over 150 iPad owners carried out by US researcher ChangeWave. It found 74 per cent of respondents were "very satisfied" with the iPad and 17 per cent were …

    reghardware 21 May 12:10

  • DARPA trying to beat block lists, deep packet inspection

    Strange bedfellows for extreme-porn fanciers, freetards

    Pentagon bizarro-boffinry bureau DARPA is seeking to develop a set of tools for internet users which are nominally intended for some military purpose - but which would seem at least as useful to those determined to get around measures designed to thwart copyright violators and extreme-porn aficionados. The latest DARPA scheme …

    Enterprise Security 21 May 12:49

  • Swindon prepares for pill-popping, ghost-fleeing tournament

    Pac-Mac anniversary celebrated in style

    Human Pac-Man descends on Swindon tomorrow. Here's a picture of the dress rehearsal. Swindon gamers take pill consumption to new levels Members of the public can control a real-life Pac-Man. How? You have to be there to find out. And Why? It's part of the Museum of Computing celebrations for Pac-Man's 30th anniversary. …

    reghardware 21 May 12:58

  • US wireless not competitive enough - FCC

    Too much power in too few hands?

    The FCC has published its annual report on the competitiveness of the US wireless industry, and says there's not enough of it - despite industry howls to the contrary. The report covers part of 2008 and most of 2009, and leaves industry body the CTIA "disappointed and confused as to why [the FCC has] chosen not to make a …

    Mobile 21 May 13:37

  • 'Beatles downloader' skanks over to iPhone

    BlueBeat shrugs off injunction to stream playlists

    The Californian website injuncted for selling Beatles catalogue downloads at 25 cents a pop last year has refused to let a little legal difficulty hamper its progress and has expanded its reach to the iPhone. Last November EMI secured an injunction against BlueBeat.com and its owner Hank Risan, after a judge rejected claims …

    Music and Media 21 May 13:42

  • Fake joke worm wriggles through Facebook

    No laughing matter

    Shifty sorts have created a new worm which spread rapidly on Facebook on Friday. The malware, for now at least, does nothing more malicious than posting a message on an infected user's Facebook wall that point to a site called fbhole.com. Nonetheless, the speed of its spread on the social networking site has net security …

    Malware 21 May 14:01

  • Photographers slam British Library's mission creep

    Big bureaucrats scoff at the law

    The Stop Clause 43 campaigners have sounded a warning over the British Library's newspaper digitisation initiative. The project certainly isn't Freetard friendly. In fact, it demands money for access to material that's free to view today in Colindale. The big institution appears to have taken a Google-like approach: shoot …

    Music and Media 21 May 14:11

  • Fetch TV boxes get Sky Player update

    Freeview VoD box gets extra service

    Fetch TV, the online telly-on-demand service, will today send out a firmware update to its SmartBox set-tops to allow viewers to activate Sky's Sky Player software. Fetch TV offers internet-connected Freeview DVRs which can access Fetch's own movie and TV streaming channels, along with catch-up services like BBC iPlayer, 4oD …

    reghardware 21 May 14:45

  • Jodrell Bank gets swanky visitor centre, infuriating maze

    Iconic telescope sees some funding loving

    Jodrell Bank, home to the Lovell radio telescope, is getting £3.1m in funding to build a new visitor centre, cafe and maze. The centre has also just been granted planning permission so building could start as early as next month. There will be a new Planet Pavilion entrance building, a glass-walled cafe (pictured), a Space …

    Space 21 May 14:54

  • X-51 ordinary-fuel scramjet to fly on Tuesday

    'This will be as big as going from props to jets'

    The X-51A "Waverider" scramjet will fly at last next Tuesday, it has been announced. It had been expected that the radical engine - capable of Mach 6 velocities while running on fairly ordinary jet fuel - would fly last December, but budgetary and scheduling difficulties have delayed the project. The X-51A is being run by the …

    Space 21 May 15:04

  • ConLib government shakes up BIS tree

    Pulls on big briefs

    The secretary of state for business, innovation and skills (BIS) outlined his department's responsibilities in the UK's newly-formed coalition government today. LibDem MP Vince Cable said that David Willetts, who is now the minister of state for universities and science, has taken on a broad portfolio that includes overseeing …

    Government 21 May 15:37

  • Oracle shows off M9000s for data warehousing

    Not an Exadata

    Oracle may not be as chatty as the formerly independent Sun Microsystems, but it sure is more keen on using benchmark tests to help make the case for the products it sells. And so Oracle has whipped out yet another benchmark, in this case using the TPC-H data warehousing test, to show that the top-end Sparc Enterprise M9000 …

    Servers 21 May 15:42

  • 6Music in numbers

    Most diverse playlists in the UK: Official

    It's not exactly WFMU, the world's greatest radio station, but a new study shows how valuable BBC 6Music is to curious listeners and the music industry. By some distance, it offers the most diverse selection of pop music on UK radio. Economist Will Page at the PRS (or as we must call it, PRS For Music) has found that 6Music …

    Music and Media 21 May 15:44

  • Google hails Pac-Man with retro gaming homepage

    A logo you can actually play

    Google, which famously changes the logo on its homepage to suit special occasions, has gone a step further to celebrate the 30th anniversary of Pac-Man. Out goes the standard Google logo - in comes a playable version of the game. Google dot dot dot dot dot dot com This 'Googlised' Pac-Man features a whopping 255 levels …

    reghardware 21 May 16:01

  • US drops Google mobile ad probe

    Eric thanks Steve

    The US Federal Trade Commission has dropped its probe into Google's acquisition of mobile advertising network AdMob. And despite the bad blood boiling between Mountain View and Cupertino these days, proper etiquette suggests that Google CEO Eric Schmidt should pen a kind thank-you note to Apple CEO Steve Jobs. "The Commission …

    Mobile 21 May 17:56

  • Twitter fights subpoena to out critical Tweeters

    #ThinSkinnedAG

    Twitter is resisting a legal demand that it unmask two users who posted comments critical of Pennsylvania's top law enforcement official. The grand jury subpoena issued early this month by Pennsylvania Attorney General Tom Corbett ordered the microblogging site to reveal the identities of @casablancapa and @bfbarbie, according …

    ID 21 May 17:59

  • Google open video codec may face patent clash

    Apple's org mulls WebM license

    The group that controls the patented H.264 video codec backed by Apple and Microsoft is "looking into" the creation of a patent pool license for VP8, the codec Google open sourced to much fanfare this week. Google opened sourced VP8 in an effort to provide a royalty-free alternative to H.264 for HTML5 web video, but in an …

    Music and Media 21 May 19:29

  • Apple kills 'Get a Mac' ad campaign

    'I'm no longer a Mac.' 'I'm no longer a PC'

    Apple's long-running "Get a Mac" ad campaign has finally been put to sleep, after languishing in limbo since its final ads appeared in October of last year. Today if you enter "get a mac" in the search box on Apple's website, the list of results is headed up by a link beginning with what appears to be Apple new advertising …

    Music and Media 21 May 19:58

  • Google turns on SSL encryption for search

    Https option for google.com

    Google has added SSL encryption to its primary search engine. Today, with a blog post, the company announced that netizens now have the option of establishing a secure https connection when searching google.com. To use the service, you must explicitly visit https://www.google.com (Notice the extra "s"). At time of writing, the …

    Security 21 May 20:11

  • Flaw lets hackers delete Facebook friends

    Bug haunts site from beyond grave

    The Facebook security gaffes keep coming, with the latest being a bug that allows hackers to delete all of a users' site friends without permission, according to IDG News. The flaw was reported Wednesday by college student Steven Abbagnaro, but some 48 hours later it could still be exploited to delete an IDG reporter's …

    Security 21 May 21:15

  • Techies slap Go Daddy with class action lawsuit

    Update 'Whistleblower' claims company 'steals' bonuses

    Disgruntled former employees of domain-name registrar Go Daddy have filed a class action lawsuit against the company, claiming potentially millions of dollar in "stolen" bonuses and overtime. The suit claims that the domain-name market leader broke the law by using a "subjective and arbitrary" process to withhold commissions …

    Law 21 May 21:42

  • Google halts deletion of Street View Wi-Fi data

    'Uncertainty' as govs mull probes

    Google has stopped deleting the personal data its Street View cars collected from open Wi-Fi networks, following what the company called "some uncertainty" over the deletion process. For three years, Street View cars collected Wi-Fi payload data across 30 different countries. Some countries have asked Google to delete the data …

    ID 21 May 22:26

  • Atlantis spacewalkers complete ISS battery swap

    Next trick: iPhone battery swap

    Mission specialists Michael Good and Garrett Reisman are back aboard the shuttle Atlantis, safe and sound, after a spacewalk of six hours and 46 minutes. On this third and final spacewalk of STS-132, Good and Reisman replaced the final two of the six new 375-pound batteries that Atlantis brought to the International Space …

    Space 21 May 23:12

  • 'Draw Mohammed' page removed from Facebook

    106,000 'friends' left by the easel

    The Facebook page that encouraged users to post images of Islam's Prophet Mohammed was taken down globally on Friday, following an order by a Pakistani court for ISPs in that country to block the social networking site. Facebook officials tell the Associated Press they played no role in the removal of the "Everybody Draw …

    Music and Media 21 May 23:22