10th June 2010 Archive

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Bug gives attackers complete control of Windows PCs

Hijacking Microsoft's Help and Support

A security researcher has warned of a vulnerability in older versions of the Windows operating system that allows attackers to take full control of a PC by luring its user to a booby-trapped website. The flaw resides in the Windows Help and Support Center, a feature that provides users with online technical support. Malicious …

Security 10 Jun 02:00
Google mobile ad chief fires back at Apple lockout

Jobs plays hardball in walled garden

Google's mobile-advertising chieftan is none too happy about a recent tweak to Apple's developer agreement that locks his service's ads out of Cupertino's iPhone OS iOS devices — "magical and revolutionary" or not. "Let's be clear. This change is not in the best interests of users or developers," writes AdMob's founder and CEO …

Mobile 10 Jun 04:38
Review LG 42LE5900

LG’s 42in 5900 is a very slim set, that produces a great photo. As the largest of the sets tested here, however, it does perhaps show up the failings of some standard-definition channels a little more. The TV's menus are simple and easy to use and, as with other LG sets I’ve seen, there’s a picture wizard that makes it easy …

reghardware 10 Jun 07:02
Review Panasonic Viera TX-L32D28

If you’re looking for a set that will cover all the bases, then with support for both Freeview and Freesat, the Panasonic TX-L32D28 could be for you. With some channels only available on one of these two platforms, having both tuners gives you the best choice of viewing options. Design wise, the stand tilts the TV back at a …

reghardware 10 Jun 07:02
Review Samsung LE40C650

Samsung’s set is a sleek, good looking design, and out of the box the HD picture quality was stunning. Setup even ends with a handy reminder for the less technically savvy to connect set-tops and suchlike using HDMI for HD pictures. However, the SD picture quality wasn’t as good, until the settings were tweaked, and though …

reghardware 10 Jun 07:02
Review Sony Bravia KDL-32EX703

Reg Hardware has already done an in-depth review of the KDL-EX703 here - it’s a compact and good-looking set with LED edge lighting. Setup is straightforward, and the remote is fairly easy to use – though the power button on the bottom is a curious quirk, and I found the Home button in particular far too easy to hit by …

reghardware 10 Jun 07:02
Review Toshiba Regza 40RV753

Toshiba’s 40RV753 is one of the less full-featured sets in this group test, really only offering DLNA media playback on top of the basic Freeview HD specs – there’s no online TV offering, for example. It feels chunkier than the other sets, too, with a solid plastic casing. Setup is straightforward, though I initially found …

reghardware 10 Jun 07:02
Freeview HD integrated TVs

Group Test Six tellies for your World Cup viewing pleasure

With the launch of Freeview’s HD service, there’s a slow but steady trickle of products arriving in the shops. Reg Hardware has already looked at a selection of Freeview HD set-top boxes - now it's the turn of TVs with built-in Freeview HD tuners. If you’ve recently bought a new television set, then you’ll probably be best off …

reghardware 10 Jun 07:02
Buyer's Guide: Freeview HD TVs

Group Test How to make your choice

If you’re replacing an old television set, connectivity is a potential issue that it’s worth considering carefully. Having a decent number of HDMI ports is certainly a good idea, for connecting up Blu-ray and DVD players, and games consoles, and most sets cater for such devices well. If, however, you have older equipment you …

reghardware 10 Jun 07:02
Review Sharp Aquos LC-46LE821E

Sharp’s main selling point for its Quattron-branded range of Aquos TVs is the inclusion of extra, yellow pixels, giving an increased range of colours. The set’s also a very modern looking design, and to my taste much more so than the others I’ve tested. The picture quality from the LED edge-lit display is good, but the …

reghardware 10 Jun 07:02
Freeview HD TVs: Best Buys

Group Test Our top tellies

With Freeview HD appearing on more and more sets, this group test is necessarily a snapshot, with a fairly wide range of screen sizes and so forth: LG 42LE5900 Panasonic Viera TXL32D28 Samsung LE40C650 Sharp Aquos LC-46LE821E Sony Bravia KDL-32EX703 Toshiba Regza 40RV753 It’s good to see the technology appearing even …

reghardware 10 Jun 07:02
Links to blog in email made sender liable, says US court

Defamatory content 'published'

A US bankruptcy court has said that a man committed defamation just by forwarding an email with links in it to online material that was defamatory. The court said that the man 'published' the blog to his email recipients. The US Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of Texas was dealing with the bankruptcy of William …

Law 10 Jun 07:44
CBI calls for other people to suffer cuts

Bosses blame public sector

Lobby group the Confederation of British Industry (CBI) is urging Chancellor George Osborne to make cuts to the public sector rather than increasing the tax burden on its members. In a letter to the Chancellor ahead of the emergency Budget the business group calls for major reform of the public sector to create savings to help …

Small Biz 10 Jun 07:45
On Demand and over here

Live Now The IT revolution in your back yard

Today at 11am we have a studio packed with a raft of experts to talk about how virtualization and the promise of cloud services are challenging the conventional economics, management and delivery of IT. The Register's own Tim Phillips will be hosting the proceedings and joining him are Martin Atherton from Freeform Dynamics …

Platform Evolution 10 Jun 07:59
Slack backup leaves Brits exposed to data loss

The virus ate my holiday snaps

UK consumers often store valuable data only on their computers without backing it up, inviting disaster if hardware failure or malware infection strikes. Around a third (31 per cent) of 3,000 people surveyed in a new poll have lost important or irreplaceable information that they trusted to their PC. The survey, commissioned …

Malware 10 Jun 08:00
Ireland publishes proposed data breach notification rules

More than 100 spills and you've got to mop up

Irish organisations which lose the personal data of more than 100 people will have to report the data security breach to the authorities, according to new rules proposed by that country's privacy regulator. The proposal will force the declaration of data losses to Ireland's Data Protection Commissioner in all cases in which …

Law 10 Jun 08:02
Campaign for Brian Blessed to do a voice over for my satnav

Turn by Turn beardie shouting

Brian Blessed fan Richard Gardner sent us the following report: we are delighted to republish it. From time to time we all wish our driving experience was either shoutier or more beardy, or preferably both. This was certainly the opinion of Richard Gardner, when he tried to buy a Brian Blessed voiceover for his TomTom, only …

reghardware 10 Jun 08:56
Holistic, end-to-end, consolidated service management-itis

Lab Whatever you call it, does it actually matter?

Many IT professionals see ‘service management’ (or ‘managing services’ if you prefer) as a simple phrase which describes what they do. Some see it as ‘doing the job properly’. Others do not like the term because it overstates what they do, or they do not consider IT to be a custodian of ‘services’. However, most IT professionals …

Platform Evolution 10 Jun 09:02
Sarah Palin 'boob job' debate dominates US right - and left

Fill, baby, fill

US political bloggers were working overtime last night on the most crucial issue since the healthcare debate - has Sarah Palin had a boob job? Since her abortive bid for the White House number two slot Palin has given herself over to campaigning while ducking the actual governing bit. She resigned as governor of Alaska without …

Bootnotes 10 Jun 09:26
BCS civil war heats up ahead of crunch general meeting

Cavaliers vs Roundheads

A row over the future of the British Computer Society (BCS) is heating up ahead of a crunch emergency general meeting that will debate a no-confidence motion against the chief exec and current board of trustees. Disaffected members are angry about the governance and spending plans of the venerable society's current leadership …

IT Director 10 Jun 09:42
Tories declare students a burden on us all

Nasty party back to being nasty

Universities minister David Willetts did little to win over his new constituency by describing students as an unacceptable burden on UK taxpayers. Joining in the coalition government's frenzy of cutback soundbites ahead of next week's the Budget on 22 June Willetts said the costs of university education were a "burden on the …

Government 10 Jun 09:44
Brocade One to optimise data centres

Comment Brocade moves to cloud big leagues

Brocade's all-singing, all-dancing Brocade One architecture aims to make virtualised data centres easier to manage and optimise. Two technologies, a toolset and templates are needed for this. Brocade One is an all-Ethernet design: InfiniBand has no role and no part to play. The first technology is Virtual Cluster Switching ( …

Servers 10 Jun 09:53
Robobeachcop demands licence from Poole snapper

Personal use does not compute

If you go down to the beach in Poole, make sure that in addition to the sun cream you're also carrying a licence for that dangerous piece of photographic kit. The latest news from the costa geriatrica - aka Branksome Chine in Poole – is that snappers should expect to be stopped and quizzed on their photographic activity, all …

Law 10 Jun 09:56
Google spymobile snaps self jumping to light speed

Orwellian Opel goes interdimensional

Those of you who've been waiting since the 1960s for that bloody flying car you were promised will be a bit hacked off to learn that Google is already way ahead of we mere mortals when it comes to advanced vehicular technology. Consider if you will the strange case of the London Orwellian black Opel, seen here making the jump …

Bootnotes 10 Jun 10:02
Amazing 'pulse of darkness' ray tech birthed in US gov labs

IT use: Turns itself off then on again very quickly

US government boffins say they have invented a fiendishly cunning new kind of laser running on quantum dots which, rather than producing pulses of light, actually emits pulses of intense darkness. Unsurprisingly but mildly sinisterly, the new invention has been dubbed the "dark pulse laser". It works using extremely clever …

Physics 10 Jun 10:17
Cloud computing, eBooks - no thanks (or not just yet)

Canny UK consumers are wary

We promised one final instalment for you from law firm Wiggin's epic annual consumer media survey - and here it is. Look away now if you're anticipating quick riches from your investments in eBooks, 3DTV or cloud computing. In all three areas, a wary public is going to keep its cash safe. At least for now. On the other hand, …

Servers 10 Jun 10:21
Microsoft's Bing grabs hold of Zuckerberg's firehose

Brings Facebook to party... bitch

Microsoft has announced yet more tweaks to Bing, this time adding a new "social" site to its search engine. The company already turned on the "firehose" for Twitter back in October last year. Bing.com/social extends on that by offering what Redmond described as "the first search experience integrating the full Facebook …

Applications 10 Jun 10:27
UK.gov unplugs Lane Fox digiquango

'I've been asked to do a more roving role'

A new technology quango due to be headed by karaoke investor Martha Lane Fox has been shut down by the new government less than three months after it was unveiled. Gordon Brown trumpeted the Digital Public Service Unit in March as part of a final spasm of webtastic announcements. It was to be located within the Cabinet Office …

Government 10 Jun 10:31
Sony 3D TV kit, PS3 games released tomorrow

But bundles less than generous

Sony will release its first four stereoscopic 3D games for the PlayStation 3 tomorrow. The titles - Wipeout HD, Super Stardust HD, Pain and a one-vehicle, one-track demo of MotorStorm Pacific Rift - will be delivered to PS3s through the PlayStation Network, but only to gamers who buy a 3D-enabled Sony Bravia TV. Right now, …

reghardware 10 Jun 10:33
Lambeth Labour party in email tapping row

Suspends councillor in leak probe

The Labour party in Lambeth has been split after it began disciplinary proceedings against one of its councillors on the basis of intercepted emails sent from his council email address. Kingsley Abrams, a Labour councillor in the South London borough, was suspected of leaking papers to the local press, a charge the veteran …

Government 10 Jun 11:02
Spotify available on TV

In Sweden, anyways

Spotify's universal jukebox is now embedded in TVs - in Sweden to begin with. TeliaSonera has made it available to 120,000 customers - who will need to buy a Spotify Premium subscription. The UI is optimised for sofa browsing, and it should look a lot like this: Spotify on TV A year ago Spotify founder Daniel Ek said he'd …

Music and Media 10 Jun 11:08
Mozilla dons grass skirt with near-ready Thunderbird 3.1 release

Lanikai prepares to hula into town

The next version of Mozilla's open source email client hit a second release candidate milestone yesterday. Thunderbird 3.1's latest RC is now available for Windows, Mac and Linux machines. Mozilla said the next version of its mail client, codenamed Lanikai, comes loaded with faster search results and a quick filter toolbar, a …

Applications 10 Jun 11:16
ToryDems stoke ID card 'bonfire'

Terminate ID commssioner and temps

Home Secretary Theresa May outlined the mechanics of scrapping the ID register yesterday as the bill to scrap the programme moved through the Commons. Speaking at the second reading of the Bill to scrap the scheme, May said the scheme "represents the worst of government. It is intrusive and bullying, ineffective and expensive …

Government 10 Jun 11:31
Tequila botnet auto-destructs

Cover blown, ends it all

A botnet targeting Mexican surfers has been dismantled just weeks after it first appeared, apparently by the cybercrook who established it rather than by any action by the federales or ISPs. Trend Micro reckons cybercrooks pressed the auto-destruct on the Tequila botnet, perhaps because an earlier post by the security firm …

Crime 10 Jun 11:35
BP targets Twitter to clean up oil spill

More PR brilliance

BP has complained to Twitter about one of the very many parody feeds mocking its efforts to clean up the Gulf of Mexico oil spill. As a result BPGlobalPR has changed its bio to read: "We are not associated with Beyond Petroleum, the company that has been destroying the Gulf of Mexico for 51 days." The feed has just short of …

Small Biz 10 Jun 11:39
Key Star Trek tri-corder boffinry breakthrough

Casanova magnet could also mean quantoputers

A breakthrough in small, high-powered magnets could lead to handheld magnetic resonance scanners with similar capabilities to those of today's room-sized medical and scientific instruments. According to a report in MIT Technology Review, Doctor Federico Casanova and colleagues at the Rheinisch-Westfälische Technische …

Physics 10 Jun 12:17
Small biz quakes as Budget shadow looms

Nightstalker Osborne is not your friend

Business expenses are already going up - even before expected tax rises in the emergency Budget come into effect. The Forum of Private Business has joined the chorus of advice for George Osborne - but then he did ask the public to help him choose what to cut. The group asked why, although there has been a suggestion of cuts …

Small Biz 10 Jun 12:18
Home Office launches urgent review of illegal police stop'n'search

29 Days Slater

The government has launched an urgent internal review of police stop and search powers after acknowledging officers had used the powers illegally. Security minister Baroness Neville-Jones said an internal review of stops under section 44 of the Terrorism Act had uncovered 40 cases where police forces had misapplied the powers …

Policing 10 Jun 12:28
Virtualizing the hard stuff

Live Now Critical apps and databases

At 10am Pacific / 1pm Eastern, we have a live one-hour webcast that will be looking at just how you virtualize the critical apps in your business. As ever, the event is fronted by Reg supremo Tim Phillips. He’ll be joined by Dan Olds from Gabriel Consulting and some system design/tech gurus from VMware and Baker Hull, and IBM' …

Virtualization 10 Jun 12:40
BT union negotiations sour

Strike gets closer

BT workers will be sent strike ballot papers next Friday after five hours of talks with union leaders broke down yesterday. The Communication Workers Union (CWU), which represents about 55,000 staff, accused the firm of "complete contempt" for staff after it refused to improve on a two per cent pay rise for this year. "Things …

Telecoms 10 Jun 12:41
Penguin chief: Linux must 'out fabulous' Apple's iPhone

Steve Jobs stands alone

Apple, not Windows, is Linux's prime competitor on smart phones, according to a top Linux representative. Jim Zemlin has told suits reading BusinessWeek that with its declining market share Windows is an also-ran in mobile computing and Linux has emerged as the main competitor to Apple. The Linux Foundation's executive …

Operating Systems 10 Jun 13:01
O2 to step back from unlimited mobile data deals

Tighter data plans to debut alongside iPhone 4

O2 is to stop bundling 'unlimited' data access with the smartphones it sells. Buy a smartphone on an O2 contract today and you'll get 'unlimited' data - well, unlimited up to the cut-off point mandated by O2' 'fair use' policy. However, from 24 June - the day O2 begins selling the iPhone 4, we note - data will be capped at …

reghardware 10 Jun 13:30
US weighs up probes for Apple ad biz checkup - report

'Bout time someone stuck up for MS and Google

US regulators are preparing to probe Apple to see whether it is unfairly restricting competition for adverts on its mobile devices, the FT reported today. The putative investigation apparently centres on whether Apple's spawning of its own network to post flog ads on apps for the much-stroked devices is a threat to media …

Mobile 10 Jun 13:43
Phoenix's virtualization tech flies to HP

BIOS company gets back to basics

BIOS specialist Phoenix Technologies has sold its virtualization division to HP for $12m. HP gets assets related to HyperSpace, HyperCore and Phoenix Flip client virtualization products. Phoenix was founded in 1979 and said it January it wanted to sell off non-core assets and return its attention to BIOS. In April it sold off …

Virtualization 10 Jun 14:43
Aus gov shakes up cyberdefence strategy

AusCERT: Dead

The Australian government has decided to stop supporting AusCERT in favour of a new computer emergency response team more focused on providing an early warning system for utilities, banks and other critical infrastructure firms. CERT Australia will take over from AusCERT in running frontline cyber-defence protection following …

Enterprise Security 10 Jun 14:45
Red Hat notches up another KVM cloud win

Going Dutch

Commercial Linux distributor Red Hat has invested big bucks and years of development time to position its KVM hypervisor as a practical alternative to VMware's ESX Server and related tools for building clouds. But it has also strived to present it as an open source product better than the Xen alternatives from Citrix Systems …

Virtualization 10 Jun 15:09
WD ships storage to the Macs

Apple fans brought to MyBook

Specially designed to look at home in a family of Apple products, the new My Book Studio LX external hard drive from industry pioneer WD hit the market this week. Using WD SmartWare software, the device offers automatic continuous backup and comes with 256-bit hardware-based encryption. Drive me crazy Featuring Firewire …

reghardware 10 Jun 15:22
Microhoo set for holiday debut

All I want for Christmas is my Yabing

Microsoft hopes to have Bing up and running on Yahoo! before the end of the Christmas holiday season. Speaking today at a conference in Seattle, according to The Microsoft Blog, Redmond senior vice president Yusuf Mehdi said that Microsoft wants Bing on Yahoo! by the holidays so it can slurp up the extra search traffic that …

Music and Media 10 Jun 17:24
Google polishes its Microsoft browser

Chrome Frame – now with more unrequited IE love

Google has released an official beta version of Chrome Frame, the Internet Explorer plug-in that turns Microsoft's browser into a Google browser. According to Google, the beta includes more than 200 bug fixes meant to improve security, stability, and performance, and to ensure that – whether Microsoft likes it or not – Chrome …

Applications 10 Jun 19:08
Judge limits DHS warrantless laptop searches

'Extended border search' - Not!

A federal judge has thrown out key evidence in a child pornography trial because the laptop alleged to contain more than 1,000 illegal images wasn't searched until about five months after US customs officials seized it at a US border crossing. The ruling by US District Judge Jeffrey S. White of the Northern District of …

Security 10 Jun 19:09
Fanbois howl over 'hang a lot' Safari 5

Install Firefox and other fixes

Complaints about Apple's recently released Safari 5 continue to mount, but we've got a few suggested fixes — which, depending upon your situation, may be godsends or may be totally useless. Some of the reported problems, such as those involving misbehaving add-ons (aka plug-ins) are relatively simple to fix. Others – such as …

Applications 10 Jun 20:07
Drupal clarifies security rules after White-House gaper

Incomplete code - you have been warned

Webmasters running unfinished modules for Drupal do so at their own risk after the open-source CMS updated its guidelines on fixing security vulnerabilities. The project has updated the wording on its security site on how it handles security fixes to clarify it will only work on vulnerabilities in completed code of modules …

Enterprise Security 10 Jun 20:08
Mozilla girds Firefox with 'hang detector'

They're down with OOPP. And then some

The next version of Firefox will include a "hang detector" that automatically terminates plug-ins that quit talking to the outside world. Set to arrive next week - after a bit of a delay – Firefox 3.6.4 is designed to minimize crashes by running Flash, Silverlight, Java, and other plug-ins as processes separate from the core …

Applications 10 Jun 20:50
iPhone manufacturer to shutter China factories

Foxconn idles up to 800,000

Foxconn – the massive Taiwan-based contract manufacturer whose clients include Apple, Dell, HP, Intel, Sony, and others – will shutter its mainland China operations in a restructuring that could move as many as 800,000 workers into the ranks of the unemployed. This news comes by way of the Chinese-language news site ON.CC — a …

Business 10 Jun 22:45
Adobe plugs critical Flash Player hole

More than 30 others patched too

Adobe Systems on Thursday made good on a promise to rid its ubiquitous Flash media player of a critical vulnerability that criminals are exploiting to install malware on end user machines. The security update is available for versions 10.0.45.2 and earlier of Flash for Windows, Mac OS X, and Linux. Last week, Adobe warned that …

Security 10 Jun 22:47
Microsoft says XP netbooks die on October 22

There's always China

Microsoft has reminded OEMs that as of October 22, it will forbid them from loading Windows XP on netbooks. But if you still want one, there's always China. In a Thursday blog post, Redmond underlined this October deadline, which was first laid down back April 2008. According to research outfit NPD, Microsoft says, 81 percent …

Operating Systems 10 Jun 22:53
HP preps (more) Opteron 6100 racks and blades

Whither 4100 baby boxes?

June will see the debut of HP's ProLiant rack and tower servers using Advanced Micro Devices' twelve-core "Magny-Cours" Opteron 6100 processors. It looks like HP's server geeks are going to be busy at the Tech Forum 2010 customer and partner event in Las Vegas later this month — in addition to the Opteron 6100 boxes, El Reg …

Servers 10 Jun 23:25
Adobe debuts What Jobs Hates™ v10.1

New Flash for non-iPhones

Adobe has officially released Flash Player 10.1, a piece of software reviled by worldwide cult leader Steve Jobs. The application player is available for Windows, Linux, and Mac. But not the iPhone or the iPad. Steve Jobs has ensured that even if you translate Flash into iPhone machine code, you can't run it on the iPhone. …

Software 10 Jun 23:44