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17th June 2010 Archive

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  • Big Blue shrinks 'Westmere' Xeon towers

    More oomph for SMBs

    IBM continues to round out its System x and BladeCenter x64-based server lineup, and today, it kicked out two more machines: a pair of System x tower boxes aimed primarily at small and medium businesses or the remote offices of larger firms. The System x3400 M3 is a tower box that uses the four-core variants of Intel's " …

    Small Biz 17 Jun 2010, 06:02

  • Oracle sued for alleged fraud against US gov

    'Ten of millions of dollars in overcharges'

    The US Justice Department has sued Oracle, claiming the software giant overcharged the federal government by "tens of millions of dollars". The complaint against Oracle was originally filed by an Oracle employee, who alleged that large discounts offered to other customers were hidden from government agencies. Paul Frascella — …

    Applications 17 Jun 2010, 06:02

  • Nokia C5

    Review Compact candybar for avid texters

    Nokia’s lower end and mid range handsets might not offer the bells and whistles of the leading edge phones, but they can be solid workhorses. The C5 is a case in point. Just be aware when eyeing up the specs that its small screen means it can’t do some things nearly as well as bigger screened alternatives. Slimline satnav: …

    Phones 17 Jun 2010, 07:02

  • Retailers lobby for lower charges for contactless payments

    We're not made of money

    New payment technologies should be cheaper to use than existing card systems, not more expensive, retailers have said. Shop operators have claimed that card fees are already too high, running into hundreds of millions of pounds in the UK. The British Retail Consortium (BRC) has published the results of a survey of 2009 …

    Mobile 17 Jun 2010, 07:02

  • Javascripters promise Jobs-free HTML5 for iPad

    Spanning the Android

    Javascripters who slammed Apple and Google for hyping HTML5 are offering a claimed frustration-free answer to coding for iPads, iPhones and Androids. Ext JS is today expected to unveil the beta of a programming framework for building rich, web and touch-based applications and that draws on the HTML5 family of specs. Ext JS, …

    Developer 17 Jun 2010, 08:02

  • Intel stuffs speedy security into silicon

    Otellini's 'job one'

    Intel Labs has announced two new chunks of test silicon that expand the company's definition of what it considers "job one" in terms of product development. "I've given our company a charter to make [security] job one," Justin Rattner, director of Intel labs quoted CEO Paul Otellini as saying in an interview earlier this year …

    Hardware 17 Jun 2010, 08:02

  • Report damns health records scheme

    'Benefits yet to be realised, hard to articulate and difficult to isolate'

    A detailed review of the Summary Care Record programme and HealthSpace - its related "portal" - by University College London has found only "modest benefits" from the scheme. Researchers found records are not widely available, and where they are available they're not always accessed by doctors. Where doctors do access them …

    Government 17 Jun 2010, 08:20

  • Terror data handover seriously flawed

    Comment EU gives up bank data, for nothing in return

    The European Union has redrafted its agreement with the US Treasury which requires Europe’s financial institutions to transfer details of global financial transactions to the US. The revised Draft Agreement is to be put to the European Parliament in July for approval, despite a text containing significant privacy defects and …

    Law 17 Jun 2010, 08:25

  • New Xbox 360 said to 'still scratch discs'

    So don't move your console, OK

    Anyone hoping the new-design Xbox 360 will treat game discs more gently than its predecessors have been claimed to is set to be disappointed. Following the new machine's unveiling at the E3 event this week, website Destructoid had a play with one on the show flow. Alan Wake was playing - you can read Reg Hardware's review here …

    Games 17 Jun 2010, 08:58

  • DHS slams US gov network security

    Better info sharing to plug info holes?

    The US government is bad at protecting its networks and has neither the authority or manpower to respond to threats in real time. The US Computer Emergency Readiness Team, which is responsible for securing the government's systems, got a roasting yesterday in a report (pdf) published by the Department of Homeland Security's …

    Security 17 Jun 2010, 09:09

  • Sony sets UK PlayStation Move prices

    Anticipating VAT rise?

    Sony UK will release the PlayStation Move in a bundle pack comprising the motion controller, the PlayStation Eye camera and a trio of games. The whole lot will cost £50, which is cheaper than the motion controller and Eye bought separately. They will be priced at £35 and £25, respectively. That's slightly higher than the Euro …

    Games 17 Jun 2010, 09:28

  • The desktop management advisory guide

    Guide Strategic management advice, at the press of a button

    Desktop management isn’t easy. There’s a raft of expertise needed to help you juggle the various increasingly pressing demands of systems, users and budgets. And it’s rare that there’s one piece of advice that will help you tackle it all. Sure, people can say "upgrade, downgrade, virtualise, go open source..." but it doesn’t …

    Desktop Management 17 Jun 2010, 09:30

  • Qualcomm back in the EU's sights

    UK company calls foul

    A UK chip maker has asked the EU to look again at Qualcomm's business practices, despite the chip giant having cleared itself last time by settling with the complainants. The accusations are the same – that Qualcomm gave a discount to customers who became exclusive; buying all their chips from Qualcomm. But while last time …

    Mobile 17 Jun 2010, 09:53

  • Birmingham jihad-cam network suspended

    Covert CCTV controversy cooled

    A crime prevention quango has postponed activation of a new CCTV network trained on Muslim areas of Birmingham, and funded from the central police counter-terrorism budget, after a local outcry. The 218 cameras are concentrated on the Washwood Heath and Sparkbrook districts. They will now be covered by plastic sacks until a …

    Law 17 Jun 2010, 09:54

  • Virtual management - a lesson from history

    Blog Wetware still required

    I have worked with many different virtualisation platforms, from Microsoft’s early attempts with Virtual Server 2005 to the latest VMWare, Hyper-V, KVM and Xen offerings. I have taken the time to play with the management software offered by these vendors, and even a few of the third-party stuff. Depending on your specific needs …

    Servers 17 Jun 2010, 10:02

  • Killer piranha stalk Folkestone pond

    Angler has narrow escape from razor teeth of death

    Experts fear Britain could be facing a deadly invasion of killer piranha after a Kent angler hooked one of the Amazonian fang-fish in a Folkestone pond - thousands of miles from its natural habitat where gangs of them regularly strip the flesh from their victims in a terrifying frenzy of teeth and foaming water. That's …

    Bootnotes 17 Jun 2010, 10:05

  • Is running a datacentre just like running a kitchen?

    Analysis Bladeroom hosts chill-out session

    Cooling a datacentre the wrong way is like cooling a hot kitchen by opening the fridge door: it makes more sense to open a window and pump fresh air in. That's the view of Bladeroom boss Paul Rogers, whose CV includes designing industrial kitchens. He and engineering partner Red Engineering Design ended up building what's …

    Servers 17 Jun 2010, 10:33

  • Ingram grabs Spanish distie

    Say hola to Albora

    Ingram Micro - the broadline distributor - has bought a Spanish distie called Albora Soluciones based in Barcelona. Albora also has offices in Madrid and Lisbon in Portugual. Ingram said the deal improved its skills in internet infrastructure, virtualisation, security and middleware. Alain Maquet, Ingram's Emea president, …

    The Channel 17 Jun 2010, 10:43

  • World Cup: Holland to win, Spain to slump

    World Cup Stats We know the score. Yes

    Spain is chewing on the chorizo of defeat thanks to Switzerland's 1-0 victory yesterday, and history shows this result is a major setback. In the last 40 years only one top 10 team has won a World Cup group after an opening game defeat. Only four have finished in the top two. The tournament favourites Spain now face a serious …

    Science 17 Jun 2010, 10:51

  • Samsung gears up to make half-terabyte flash drives

    State of the art toggle

    Samsung is close to volume production of half-terabyte PC/notebook solid state drives (SSD) with impressively fast read and write speeds. The product, which doubles the 256GB capacity of the previous Samsung client SSD and will ship a year after it, should be mass-produced next month. Samsung says it uses "state of the art" …

    Storage 17 Jun 2010, 11:27

  • Did ID card applications surge after scheme was scrapped?

    Number of cards jumped in dying weeks

    A series of questions in the Commons yesterday suggest that the ID card scheme had a surge of applicants even after it became clear that the Tories would be scrapping the scheme. The figures also shed some light on exactly how much insight the ID card scheme and its associated ID register gave to the government. The answer …

    Government 17 Jun 2010, 11:30

  • Firefox comes over all cloudy

    Weave becomes Sync, and almost works

    Firefox Weave has become Firefox Sync, and will be part of Firefox 4 in a cloud-based future. Firefox Sync is basically a server-based store which holds your bookmarks, passwords, preferences and history, providing a consistency of experience that will eventually extend even to the iPhone. Sync is available now as an add-on …

    Applications 17 Jun 2010, 11:54

  • WD SiliconEdge Blue 256GB SSD

    Review Hard drive maker's solid state offering

    Hard drive manufacturer Western Digital has taken not one but two steps into the Solid State Drive market. Up in the Enterprise stratosphere we have three WD N1x drives that use SLC memory and are hellishly expensive at £310 for 32GB, £649 for 64GB and £1099 for 128GB. Solid offering? Western Digital's SiliconEdge Blue Back …

    Hardware 17 Jun 2010, 12:02

  • Software freetards demand axing of ACTA

    Anti-anti-counterfeiting clamour

    Richard Stallman and the Free Software Foundation are calling for the rejection of the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) unless key changes to “protect the public's freedom” are made. The self-described software freedom activist and FSF president has made a lengthy posting on the FSF site alongside a petition for …

    Applications 17 Jun 2010, 12:11

  • AOL offloads Bebo - for 'exceptionally uninspiring number'?

    Updated Total value destruction

    AOL is set to reap an "exceptionally uninspiring" sum for Bebo, the moribund social networking site for which it paid $850m just two years ago. The Wall Street Journal says a sale could be announced today, with the likely buyer Criterion Capital Partners LLC of Studio City California. This is an interesting location - a suburb …

    Financial News 17 Jun 2010, 12:25

  • Googlegate: Mapping a scandal of global proportions

    Opinion Google is not above the law

    While the rest of us have generally been enjoying the sunshine and warm weather for the past few weeks, there has been a permanent cloud over Mountain View, as the storm over Google's capturing of Wi-Fi content with its Street View cars has developed. That storm now threatens significant reputational damage to Google, not least …

    Law 17 Jun 2010, 12:37

  • Autopsy on wacky Jacqui's ID astroturfing

    Toe-curlingly awful Web2.0 site - spending your money so you don't have to

    Lobby group No2ID have got their hands on the final report into MyLifeMyID.org - the supposedly independent collector of "young people's" views on ID cards. The documents reveal the site bought 50 million adverts on Facebook and other social network sites. These 50 million ads resulted in an awesome 537 people completing the …

    Government 17 Jun 2010, 12:51

  • Tape business shows steep decline

    Heading for irrelevance?

    The tape drive and media business shrank by a quarter in 2009. At this rate it could enter irrelevance in a few years time. Tape market tracking organisation the Santa Clara Consulting Group said (pdf) tape drive and media sales represented a $1.58bn market in 2009, down 25 per cent from $2.1bn in 2008, which was lower than …

    Storage 17 Jun 2010, 13:08

  • Hybrid CD vinyl unites warring tribes

    The feud is finally over

    Here's something you don't see very often. Veteran Detroit techno producer Jeff Mills has solved the vinyl or CD conundrum with a new "hybrid" disc that plays in both. It's a five-inch single with a CD stuck on the back. For younger readers baffled by such arcane technical jargon, allow us to explain. Music was once sold on …

    Media 17 Jun 2010, 13:09

  • NFC will be in all Nokia smartphones from 2011

    Who says NFC is dead? Well... we did

    Nokia has announced that from next year every Nokia smartphone will have NFC, regardless of fact that the technology lacks a business model or any market demand. The commitment was made during a speech by Nokia's VP for markets, Anssi Vanjoki to the Moby Forum, as reported by NFC World. Vanjoki wouldn't be drawn on the company …

    Mobile 17 Jun 2010, 13:48

  • Hidden in plain view: Google Music's stealth infrastructure

    Catalog and payments? Check...

    Along with world+dog, I overlooked very something important this week. I was wondering why, to launch its new music service, Google would want to get into the messy and thankless business of administering rights. Best to leave the region-by-region haggles to someone else, I reckoned. But Google is already in the business of …

    Media 17 Jun 2010, 13:51

  • Virginia cops liberate bound goat from car trunk

    DUI checkpoint in half-baked caprine drama

    Virginia cops last week did their bit for caprine wellbeing by liberating a half-baked goat from a car trunk, the Lynchburg News Advance reports. Bedford Sheriff’s Deputy Allison Key was alerted to a possible goat in distress scenario when Fiona Ann Enderdy, 32, of Washington, DC, pulled up at a DUI checkpoint on US 460 at the …

    Bootnotes 17 Jun 2010, 14:15

  • Nobel Prize winner on dodgy World Cup ball

    It was much better when it was pig bladders and severed heads

    Goalkeepers like to get their excuses in first, and this new World Cup is no exception. A new design of a ball is introduced, and even before the first kick, goalies are complaining that it dips, swerves, performs incredible yo-yo tricks… and worst of all, it's round. How is anybody supposed to get hold of that? It really …

    Science 17 Jun 2010, 14:20

  • Apple not yet dominant enough for anti-trust action

    Opinion Safe to act like a spoiled child for now?

    Apple is rapidly becoming an anti-trust target and right now it is behaving like a badly spoiled child with respect to what it will allow and not allow on any of its platforms. This is reflected in decisions to keep Adobe and any other development environment off its devices, and more recently in its proposed new developer terms …

    Financial News 17 Jun 2010, 14:37

  • Canadians form adulterers' privacy campaign

    'Phone bills outed us too!'

    The Canadian woman suing her mobile operator because her husband discovered her affair through her bill says she has gathered evidence from two fellow adulterers who were caught out the same way. Gabriela Nagy, wearing a black wig and dark glasses, told journalists she had affidavits blaming Rogers for ruining marriages by the …

    Mobile 17 Jun 2010, 14:40

  • When desktop security is a remote possibility

    Workshop Are security tools a double-edged sword?

    You, the readers of The Register, have told us that supporting users is fraught with problems. And when it comes to looking after remote users things get even more difficult. It is clear that running all remote users in thin client mode is a prospect that, while attractive, still does not fit well with a broad set of business …

    Desktop Management 17 Jun 2010, 14:47

  • Sunny Spain suspends solar subsidy scam

    €18bn flushed down the baño

    Dead broke Spain can't afford to prop up renewables anymore. The Spanish government is cutting the numbers of hours in a day it's prepared to pay for "clean" energy. Estimates put the investment in solar energy in Spain at €18bn - but the investment was predicated, as it is with all flakey renewables, on taxpayer subsidies. …

    Science 17 Jun 2010, 15:03

  • iPad gouges netbook sales

    Punters keep taking the tablets

    Tablets look set to displace the netbook, if figures from market watcher DisplaySearch are to be believed. DisplaySearch tracks all mobile computer sales, from netbooks through ultra-portables right the way up to desktop replacement behemoths. The telling figures are netbooks' share of the overall mobile computer market. …

    Tablets 17 Jun 2010, 15:16

  • Vodafone customers collaborate to chart coverage

    Are you giving me signals?

    If you think network coverage maps are untrustworthy and always favour the supplier, here's a way to to put them straight. Vodafone has introducted a real-time UK coverage map, displaying the individual signals strengths of their customers. Where's the best bars at? It requires punters to send in this information. Twitter …

    Mobile 17 Jun 2010, 15:30

  • LibCons bin £2bn of late Labour projects

    Leaves axe dangling above another £8.5bn worth

    The coalition government has scrapped 12 projects worth £2bn pounds that were agreed during the final months of Labour's rule. Twelve further projects, worth £8.5bn, have been suspended. Stonehenge Visitor Centre got the axe, as did a number of projects with a likely IT component including Sheffield steelmaker Forgemasters ( …

    Government 17 Jun 2010, 15:41

  • Indonesia flips over internet rock star smut clips

    Naughty vid precipitates deletion/restriction frenzy

    An online celebrity sex video is giving Indonesia's authorities an opportunity to try and restrict internet use. Two explicit web clips showing Jakarta rock star Ariel in action with two models/television presenters has upset yet proved strangely enticing to the population, which is mainly Muslim. Several schools have been …

    Government 17 Jun 2010, 15:54

  • Microsoft unveils one-stop service for reporting stolen accounts

    Matching banks with pilfered creds

    Microsoft on Thursday unveiled a program to alert banks and online services when accounts they oversee are compromised. The Internet Fraud Alert will serve as a centralized repository for stolen account credentials and personal information, Microsoft said in a press release announcing the system. It creates a single place for …

    Security 17 Jun 2010, 17:34

  • Apple's fresh Mac mini stripped naked

    Jobs' baby bared

    Apple's new Mac mini, announced on Tuesday, is simple to open, easy to upgrade, and requires an exceptionally small amount of power — a mere 10 watts at idle. Such were some of the discoveries made by the intrepid kit-disassemblers, parts-suppliers, and crackerjack troubleshooters at iFixIt in their tear-down of Apple's long- …

    Hardware 17 Jun 2010, 18:41

  • Firefoxers howl as privacy add-on auto updates with 'bloatware'

    Updated Overstuffed TACO

    Firefox users are howling that a widely-used browser add-on designed to protect them from unwanted cookie tracking has been automatically updated with what they see as overly intrusive "bloatware". On June 14, after it was acquired by a software outfit known as Abine, a new version of the TACO behavioral-ad–blocking add-on was …

    Applications 17 Jun 2010, 19:00

  • Researcher shows how to strike back at web assailants

    Exploiting the exploiters

    A security researcher has disclosed details on more than a dozen previously unknown vulnerabilities that people responding to web-based attacks can exploit to strike back at online assailants. The bugs reside in off-the-shelf crimeware kits that go by names such as Eleonore, Liberty, Neon, and Yes. Attackers install them on …

    Security 17 Jun 2010, 21:24

  • Pakistani lawyer petitions for death of Mark Zuckerberg

    Police probe Facebook chief over 'Draw Muhammad' contest

    Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg is being investigated by Pakistani police under a section of the penal code that makes blasphemy against Muhammad punishable by death. BBC Urdu reports — according to a Google Translation — that Pakistan's Deputy Attorney General has launched a criminal investigation against Zuckerberg and …

    Law 17 Jun 2010, 22:28

  • HP and Yahoo! team up to print ads in your home

    '@!%&*?!' screams the intertubes

    There's been some knicker-twisting hubbub coursing the intertubes about ads being served up by HP's email-enabled ePrint printers, announced last week at Internet World New York. Each HP ePrint-enabled printer will have its own email address that will enable users to print by sending an email message to it. The idea is to …

    Media 17 Jun 2010, 22:31

  • Cisco to reveal next 'Data Center 3.0' push

    Seeding the inter-clouds

    Server wannabe Cisco Systems is on a five step program to take over the data center with its Data Center 3.0 initiative, and on June 30, the company is getting set to divulge what the next step will be – and perhaps announce a product or two. The Data Center 3.0 roadmap is something Cisco's top brass have been talking up for …

    Servers 17 Jun 2010, 23:08

  • FalconStor wins HDS as VTL reseller

    Dedupe software merged with AMS 2000 arrays

    Hitachi Data Systems is going to resell FalconStor Virtual Tape Library (VTL) software, with deduplication, integrated with its AMS 2000 mid-range storage arrays. HDS will also resell FalconStor's File-interface Deduplication System (FDS), integrated with the AMS boxes. FalconStor claims its VTL technology achieves single- …

    Storage 17 Jun 2010, 23:12

  • IBM preps AIX 7.1 for autumn Power7 harvest

    Little boxes and big bad iron

    In the computer racket, it has always been much easier to get new hardware out the door than the software to take advantage of it fully. And so it is with IBM's Power7-based Power Systems machines and its AIX variant of Unix, which is slated for a 7.1 update in the autumn. AIX 7.1 is expected more or less concurrently with the …

    Servers 17 Jun 2010, 23:38