5th July 2010 Archive

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Beware of cold call scammers pushing rogue antivirus

Again

Malware-pushing scammers appear to be stepping up their use of telephone-based pitches, resulting in an increase in reports from the UK of high-pressure cold calls designed to trick people into installing rogue antivirus products and other nasties. Over the past few weeks, at least two people close to The Reg — including …

Malware 5 Jul 06:02
Buffalo MicroStation SSD

Review Time to chuck out your laptop's hard drive?

Buffalo has come up with a novel way of easing the hard drive upgrade process. Instead of bundling a 2.5in enclosure with its MicroStation SSD - or not even bothering with one at all - this 3Gb/s Sata laptop drive has its own on-board USB 2.0 port. Buffalo's MicroStation SSD: speedier than your average laptop HDD It's …

reghardware 5 Jul 07:02
Superpowered energy-storing wonder stuff created in lab

Future exploding laptop battery = nuclear bomb going off

US-based boffins say they have created a never-seen-before type of ultra-bizarre stuff in the lab by using incredible pressures similar to those found deep inside planets. The scientists believe that their creation is capable of storing an unfeasible amount of energy. "It is the most condensed form of energy storage outside of …

Physics 5 Jul 07:47
Transformers: War for Cybertron

Review Big, dumb and full of gun!

At its heart, Transformers: War for Cyberton is a five-minute experience stretched out over 10 hours. That's hardly surprising when you consider the source material – an animated TV series and range of comic books cynically cobbled together to sell a faceless range of Japanese toys. The motherboard of all axes But, just as …

reghardware 5 Jul 08:02
NPIA outlines £200m IT savings plan

Plods tighten belts

The chief executive of the National Policing Improvement Agency has outlined plans to save £200m by 2015 through 'better use of technology and procurement'. Peter Neyroud said the agency will make IT savings of £25m during 2010-11, out of total savings of £1bn across all areas of the agency by 2015. In May, the NPIA was told …

IT Director 5 Jul 08:03
DWP puts central apps procurement on hold

Partial suspension

The Department for Work and Pensions has suspended part of its procurement exercise for a central government application deployment service. A spokesperson for the department told GC News that the competition for two of the five lots has been suspended, but insisted that the process as a whole has not been cancelled. The …

Government 5 Jul 08:07
ISS crew capture robotic spacecraft

Progress 38 docks at second attempt

The International Space Station crew successfully captured the Progress 38 spacecraft yesterday, after the unmanned Russian supply vessel sailed past the orbiting outpost on Friday. A telemetry failure 25 minutes before docking prompted last week's unscheduled flyby. The cause was a glitch in the TORU teleoperated rendezvous …

Space 5 Jul 08:18
Beeb dubs Facebook users 'saddos'

Olympic site tells it like it is

The launch of a BBC "World Olympic Dreams" site over the weekend went slighty awry when outraged netizens spotted a rather unflattering description of Facebook users in the "half-baked" effort: Spot on, although the site has sadly now been purged of all such "unfortunate" holding text and pretty much everything else, as you …

Music and Media 5 Jul 09:01
YouTube vuln pwns Justin Bieber fans

Shock site redirect in XSS chaos

Hackers and pranksters began exploiting a newly discovered scripting flaw on YouTube on Sunday, provoking rumours that a virus was spreading on the site. The cross-site scripting flaw (XSS) on the video-sharing website created a means for hackers to post JavaScript code in the comments sections of videos. The flaw meant that …

Malware 5 Jul 09:09
XBox Live: Why should Microsoft get all the money?

Activision looks to PC-TV

Activision has"heard" that its Call of Duty mega-franchise is the main reason for 60 per cent of subscribers to pay for Xbox Live - so why should Microsoft get all the money? In an interview today with the FT Bobby Kotick, CEO of Activision Blizzard, said: “We don’t really participate financially in that income stream. We …

reghardware 5 Jul 09:39
Colombian cops seize cocaine World Cup

11 kilos of Bolivian footballing powder

Colombian cops thwarted a cunning cocaine smuggling plan when they seized a replica of the World Cup fashioned from Bolivian marching powder. The trophy was detected by security checks at a mail warehouse at Bogota airport, packed in a box destined for an address in Madrid. The statuette is 35cm high and packing no less than …

Bootnotes 5 Jul 09:51
Exciting company seeks Linux engineer

Bonus less than thrilling, however

We thought the Linux bods among you might be interested in the following position in an "exciting and rapidly growing company". The salary's not bad but the bonus situation may leave a bit to be desired... Lovely. We're obliged to Graham Bosworth for drawing our attention to this refreshing piece of honesty. ®

Bootnotes 5 Jul 10:02
Policing personal calls on business mobiles

Workshop Responsible employer or miserly git?

Communications technology makes it easy to mix up personal and business calls. If you want to keep track of what you pay for, and minimise your mobile bills, then you should be able to monitor personal use at some level - either independently, or with the help of your service provider. Giving employees a mobile phone or …

Mobile Workshop 5 Jul 10:09
Monty appeals Oracle's Sun merger

Still crying a river over MySQL

The co-founder of MySQL has submitted an appeal against the European competition watchdog’s decision to clear Oracle’s takeover of Sun Microsystems earlier this year. Michael ‘Monty’ Widenius, who sold his chunk of the MySQL database to Sun Microsystems in 2008 for $1bn, told various news outlets including The Register on …

Applications 5 Jul 10:24
6music wins possible reprieve from BBC Trust

Governing body not 'convinced by case' for closure

6Music looks set to be saved from closure, after the BBC Trust confirmed this morning it had “not been convinced by the case” for shutting the digital music station. The BBC’s governing body published a 48-page interim statement today containing its “initial conclusions” on the Beeb director-general’s ‘Strategy Review’, which …

Music and Media 5 Jul 10:29
Online tax scam gang get 40 years

Robbing the Rev, taxing the taxman

A gang of Ukrainian scammers were sentenced to a total of 40 years in prison on Friday for a a multi-million pound tax scam. The gang created thousands of fake identities and then used them to claim tax rebates from the Inland Revenue. In total they submitted 1,600 online self-assessment tax returns and claimed £8m in rebates …

Crime 5 Jul 10:31
Apple TV revamp rumours resurface

An Apps platform too far?

Apple is gearing up to release its fourth overhaul of the Apple TV user interface in as many years, part of a plan to revitalise the telly-connected device. So claim moles cited by the New York Times, though they don't know whether the UI revamp will sit on top of the Apple TV's existing, Mac OS X-based software or involve a …

reghardware 5 Jul 10:53
Brocade wipes floor with CNA competition

Exchange and Oracle results

Brocade's network adapters cream competing products from Emulex and QLogic when used for Exchange and Oracle data sent over over Ethernet links. The Brocade results (pdf) validated by IT Brand Pulse, show that servers using Brocade's converged network adapters (CNAs) will be able to carry out more Exchange email and Oracle …

Storage 5 Jul 11:01
Home Office promises spycam review

Police number plate system needs regs

Home Secretary Theresa May is calling for the police network of automatic number plate recognition cameras to be put under some form of regulation. ANPR is used by all local police forces as well as Customs and Excise, SOCA and the MoD. Some 4,045 fixed and mobile cameras contribute 10 million reports of motorist movements …

Government 5 Jul 11:27
iTunes hack used to fiddle App Store ratings

103 stars for me! I'm awesome!

Compromised Apple App Store accounts have been abused by rogue developers to boost their ranking and increase their sales. Hijacked accounts were reportedly used to buy multiple copies of previously obscure Vietnamese-language eBooks, in an apparent bid to game the iTunes ranking system. The eBooks concerned have been pulled …

Malware 5 Jul 11:29
IBM sends sodden supercomputer to Zurich uni

Water-cooled beast heats neighbouring buildings

IBM has delivered a water-cooled supercomputer to the Zurich ETH* university, saying it uses up to 40 per cent less energy than an air-cooled machine, and has a reduced carbon footprint because its waste heat is used to warm adjacent buildings. The 6Tflop experimental system is called Aquasar and has been designed and built by …

HPC 5 Jul 11:34
Unused 'free' minutes cost Brits £800m a year

Aren't we a lazy lot...

My wife never uses up her mobile minutes. I know we can save £5 a month if she swaps to a cheaper contract - but have we done it? Of course not. In common with 55 per cent of mobile phone users on monthly contracts who never use up their free minutes, we are paying too much. The average too much is £62 a year. Add all those …

reghardware 5 Jul 11:43
BBC Online to be scaled back, budget cut by a quarter

Beeb Trust welcomes director-general's website culling

The BBC’s online presence will shrink, after its governing body agreed with director-general Mark Thompson’s plans to cut the public service broadcaster’s online spending. In response to Thompson’s ‘Strategy Review’, published in March this year, the BBC Trust today announced its “initial conclusions” on the future of the Beeb …

Music and Media 5 Jul 11:55
Sony Ericsson Xperia X10 Mini

Review World's smallest Android 'andset

Presumably reasoning that the Xperia X10 - reviewed here - is a little on the large side, Sony Ericsson has cooked up two diminutive variations on the theme: the Xperia X10 Mini and the Qwerty keyboard equipped X10 Mini Pro. Sony Ericsson's Xperia X10: diminutive Maybe calling them the X6 and X7 was just too darned obvious …

reghardware 5 Jul 12:02
Web 2.0 to bring about world peace

Says survey of Web 2.0 people

By 2020, personal social relations will be have been transformed for the better, thanks to the magic of Web 2.0. So says a survey of American 'thought leaders' conducted by private liberal arts college Elon and pollster Pew. 85 per cent of people surveyed for The Future of Social Relations by Janna Quitney Anderson and Lee …

IT Director 5 Jul 12:04
3D TV: Avatar or Ishtar?

Heads or Fails Do punters really want it?

We've seen plenty of forecasts predicting how many 3D TVs will be sold in the coming years - the latest, from UK-based IMS Research, puts the total at 218m shipped by the end of 2015 - but none that show that punters want or will use the technoology. As we reported recently, there have been small spending surges in the US and …

reghardware 5 Jul 12:11
IT recruiters warn over migration caps

Skilled foreigners needed

The government's plan to cap the number of non-EU economic migrants allowed into the UK has attracted criticism from IT recruiters, who claim some skills cannot be sourced here. The Home Office is to hold a consultation on the plans. In the meantime an interim limit of 24,100 work visas has been announced. IT recruitment firm …

Small Biz 5 Jul 12:55
eBay shill bidder gets £5,000 fine

A+++ SENTENCE. WOULD USE LAW AGAIN

The first UK seller to be prosecuted for artificially inflating prices by bidding on his own eBay auctions has been told to pay £5,000 in fines and costs, and ordered to do 250 hours community service. Judge Peter Benson at Bradford Crown court said he would have jailed minibus firm owner Paul Barrett, 39, if his record were …

Crime 5 Jul 12:56
Microsoft's .NET at ten: big hits, strange misses

Silverlight, C# and, er, JScript.NET

We take it for granted now, but it was ten years ago this week — July 7, 2000 — that Microsoft announced its brand-new application development initiative, the .NET Framework, at TechEd Amsterdam. The company then provided more detail at its Professional Developers Conference in Orlando, Florida, the following week. It was Paul …

Developer 5 Jul 13:02
'The internet's completely over', declares petulant Prince

Star has a pop at iTunes, MTV and computers

Purple rock geezer Prince has declared that the internetosphere has had its day, as he prepares to release his latest album exclusively on CD through UK newspaper the Daily Mirror. In a punctuation-light interview ahead of the unleashing of 20TEN in physical form, the Jehovah's Witness declared: "The internets completely over …

Music and Media 5 Jul 13:11
LG confirms Android tablet

Q4 debut

LG is preparing a tablet that'll run Google's Android OS. Details are sparse, but we can say - because LG's South Korean website says so - that the "tablet PC" will debut in Q4. Reading between the lines of the site's quirky Google Korean-to-English translation, the consumer electronics giant is still in the process of …

reghardware 5 Jul 13:25
Vital PARIS supplies jet in from US

Paper? In tubular form? That sounds like...

It was with a certain amount of relief that the Paper Aircraft Released Into Space (PARIS) team this morning signed for a cardboard box packed with vital components for the Vulture 1 aircraft. As you know, the principal challenge of our audacious high-altitude vehicle launch project is to construct all the Vulture 1 structure …

PARIS 5 Jul 14:30
Sony intros 3D-ready home cinema sets

Sony has rolled out a pair of home cinema kits, plus a third rig that bundles a 3D Blu-ray Disc player with one of first two sets of speakerage. The base offering is the HT-AS5, which combines four compact speakers with a big sub-woofer that also contains the set's 1000W digital amplifier, audio processor and an RDS FM radio …

reghardware 5 Jul 14:49
RAC prof: Road charges can end the ripoff of motorists

Only if they aren't run by the government, though

The head of the RAC Foundation - the RAC's independent roads research charity - says that the English highway system can no longer be run the way it now is, as a colossal money-spinner for the Treasury. He advocates a move to "pay as you go" road use. Stephen Glaister, a retired professor of transport and infrastructure, lays …

Government 5 Jul 15:07
Microsoft's KIN goes to hell: Site offers comfort

Weird social phone given inglorious send off

A tribute website has been created to mourn the passing of Microsoft’s short-lived, horribly unpopular KIN mobile handset that was aimed at the yoof market. KIN - which came in two different models - hit retail shelves in May this year, only to be yanked by Microsoft last week following poor sales. It’s understood that the …

Mobile 5 Jul 15:10
Nine Inch Nails guy scores Facebook movie... bitch!

David Fincher's The Social Network is, like, totally dark, man

Nine Inch Nails frontman Trent Reznor confirmed that he is writing the soundtrack for David Fincher’s upcoming film about Facebook - The Social Network. He has been working with collaborator Atticus Ross on the score. Reznor announced his involvement in the movie in a blog post on his website late last week. “I've always …

Music and Media 5 Jul 16:01