6th July 2010 Archive

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Belkin Play Max dual-band wireless router

Review Router booster?

The Belkin Play Max has ideas far above its station as a plain old wireless internet router. Its extra song’n’dance talents include a Nas service for USB-attached drives, a media server and a BitTorrent download assistant. But all this depends on your setting it up as your main connection to the internet. And I stumbled on some …

reghardware 6 Jul 2010, 07:02
Brighton NIMBYs complain over BT broadband upgrades

'Monster' cupboards attacked

BT's broadband boxes have run into planning opposition again, this time from a group of conservation societies on the south coast. Five societies have launched a campaign against the new "monster" street side cabinets the firm's Openreach division is installing in Brighton and Hove. Their concerns echo a chorus of complaints …

Telecoms 6 Jul 2010, 07:02
Zappa's widow loses trademark case over own name

Website not use in commerce, court rules

A German music festival dedicated to the work of unconventional rock musician Frank Zappa can continue to use a version of his name without infringing on the trademark rights of his estate, a court has ruled. Zappa's widow cannot enforce her rights to the Zappa trademark in Germany because she has not used it in commerce there …

Law 6 Jul 2010, 07:53
Xyratex plans big array

Xyratex is one of the main suppliers of drive array subsystems, with IBM XIV, Dell EqualLogic, EMC DataDomain, and NetApp among its customers. It's developing a new product and the likelihood is that the design has been checked out with its OEM customers (above) some of whom will be shipping it. The product is a big array. …

Blocks and Files 6 Jul 2010, 08:04
Revealed: Government blows thousands on iPhone apps

Unemployed sir? There's an expensive app for that

The government spent thousands of pounds on iPhone applications - including one for jobseekers and another to show people how to change a flat tyre. Despite the recent announcement of a bonfire of vanity websites there are currently six iPhone apps available or in development. There's one to help people who can't count to …

Mobile 6 Jul 2010, 08:33
Scotland allows collection of children's DNA

3 years plus possible extensions

Police in Scotland will be able to collect and store the DNA of children as young as eight for the first time under a law just passed by the Scottish Parliament. Children who commit sexual or violent offences can have their DNA and other forensic data collected and stored for three years. That can be extended by successive two …

Policing 6 Jul 2010, 09:13
BT strike ballot halted over possible 'technical breaches'

Union gutted after industrial action cancelled

A planned strike ballot by BT staff has been scrapped due to "legal technicalities", the Communications Workers Union confirmed yesterday. BT workers received ballot papers late last month, to support or oppose what would have been their first strike since 1987. Talks over pay broke down in early June and 55,000 members of …

Telecoms 6 Jul 2010, 09:20
Sony Ericsson updates Xperia X10

Firmware patch posted

Sony Ericsson has begun releasing a firmware update for the Android-based Xperia X10 handset - reviewed here. The new software is being pushed out over the air on a territory by territory, operator by operator basis, the company indicated. It is available in the UK to download, here. According to SE, the update "focuses on …

reghardware 6 Jul 2010, 09:21
NAO slams 'redundant' MoJ finance systems

Confusing mishmash

A new National Audit Office report says that financial management at the Ministry of Justice is being hampered by unnecessary data systems. The department has a legacy of multiple data systems that make it less able to monitor its financial position and produce accurate and up-to-date reports, according to the document. …

Government 6 Jul 2010, 09:41
Apple iPad run rate hits 2m units a month

Bad news for netbook makers

A small snippet of information this, but Apple has ordered enough components to assemble as many as 2.4m iPads this month - and is expected to order the same quantity on a monthly basis through the summer. The figure comes from Taiwanese newssite DigiTimes' research wing, and is a strong sign that the iPad is proving to be a …

reghardware 6 Jul 2010, 09:55
Using group policy: GPOs good, scripts much better

Sysadmin blog Get on your training wheels

We're nearing the end of GPOs part two, so I want to take the time to review the state of GPOs on Windows in general, and the lessons I have learned. I have worked with policy-based systems management for more than a decade. I have worked with implementations from Novell, Likewise and Microsoft. Running a network with Windows …

Sysadmin blog 6 Jul 2010, 10:18
Mega new climate science: 'Runaway' effect exaggerated

Global warming models set for shake-up by new data

Top international boffins, having crunched vast amounts of climate data, say that the effect of "carbon feedback" - thought likely in some quarters to cause imminent runaway global warming followed by the end of human civilisation - has been exaggerated. "Our key finding is that the short-term temperature sensitivity of …

Environment 6 Jul 2010, 10:21
London takes lion's share of new IT jobs

Bailed out banks still hiring

Since the start of the recession London and the South East of England have created close to two thirds (64 per cent) of all new IT jobs in Blighty, up from 58 per cent before the economy dipped. According to research carried out by ReThink Recruitment, the region shows that it is "bouncing back strongly from the recession" …

CIO 6 Jul 2010, 10:32
PS3 Slim to get HDD boost

'I think we'll need a bigger disk...'

Sony is to upgrade the capacity of the PlayStation 3's hard drive in Japan at the end of the month, paving the way for a similar boost over here. The PS3 currently comes with a choice of 120GB or 250GB hard drive, but two new models out on 29 July in the Land of the Rising Sun see that capacity rise to 160GB and 320GB, …

reghardware 6 Jul 2010, 10:43
Hack forces Flash onto iPad

Comex moons Cupertino

Software hobbyists have defied Steve Jobs by creating a hack that allows Flash to run on iPads, albeit with limitations. Comex - the hacker responsible for the iPad "Spirit" jailbreak - has circumvented Apple's iPad Flash ban by coding an iPad port of Adobe's Flash runtime for Android, TGDaily reports. The so-called Frash is …

Developer 6 Jul 2010, 10:44
UK.gov considers tougher powers for ICO (again)

Still dithering

The government has announced yet another round of deliberations on whether the Information Commissioner should get tougher powers, as part of a wider consideration of data protection legislation. The Ministry of Justice today called for views on custodial sentences for data protection offences, a measure which the previous …

Law 6 Jul 2010, 11:10
BBC chief acknowledges DAB flop & internet radio

21st Century beckons

BBC Trust Chairman Michael Lyons has called for a review of its radio strategy - acknowledging the failure of DAB and the Corporation's neglect of internet radio. It's a call for a new direction that comes from the top - but some of his executives might need to be dragged kicking and screaming into the 21st Century. Lyons didn …

Music and Media 6 Jul 2010, 11:22
Tube data feed shut for being popular

Planned engineering work?

Transport for London has been forced to temporarily close its much-hyped London Underground departure times data feed due to overwhelming interest in the service. Application coders flooded the system after TfL tweaked its terms and conditions for using its datasets, allowing developers to access London's tube, bus and river …

Developer 6 Jul 2010, 11:27
London hospital hosted grumble flick shoot

Kensington and Chelsea spread 'em for 'big budget' movie

A Conservative MP has revealed that a Kensington and Chelsea hospital hired out one of its wards for the shooting of a "big budget" porno, the BBC reports. Penny Mordaunt, member for Portsmouth North, informed fellow parliamentarians of the incident during a Commons debate yesterday on "improving transparency in government …

Bootnotes 6 Jul 2010, 11:29
First true submarine captured from American drug smugglers

Proper diesel-electric boat found at jungle 'shipyard'

Authorities in Ecuador say they have captured the first true submarine designed and built to smuggle drugs. "Semi-submersible" vessels have long been built for the narcotics trade, but it appears that the drug runners have now upped their game to make vessels able to travel completely underwater. "It is the first fully …

Policing 6 Jul 2010, 11:38
Standards claim to make green IT more than just marketing

Less waste, more speed

Building greener data centres to gain environmental creds and avoid vilification as an enviro-criminal is a step closer with availability of the BREEAM data centre assessment method. BREEAM (Building Research Establishment Environmental Assessment Method) is the UK's foremost provider of environmental building assessments and …

Servers 6 Jul 2010, 11:50
Take our home entertainment survey

Share the joy and pain of consumer electronics

We love our home entertainment kit, but it's frustrating. Which is why we want to know what you think about it. Maybe you spend your cash on the latest device, and next week it's out of date. Maybe you can't keep up with the industry. Maybe the industry can't keep up with you. You might be excited by the future or afraid of …

reghardware 6 Jul 2010, 11:51
iRobot Roomba 581 robot cleaner

Review Dust devil?

As readers of my Samsung Navibot review will know, I’m not much of a person for housework, and tend to leave it for special occasions. So, it was with something of a sense of relief that I received iRobot’s Roomba 581 to test. iRobot's Roomba 581: dust-loving droid The 581 is currently the most top-of-the-range Roomba you …

reghardware 6 Jul 2010, 12:02
PARIS in hot glue gun action

Paper straw structure begins to take shape

We're obliged to all of you who offered suggestions yesterday as to how to adequately join the recently-arrived paper straws which will form the structure of the Paper Aircraft Released Into Space (PARIS) Vulture 1 vehicle. We got straight down to testing a few alternatives, including PVA and superglue, but there was one …

PARIS 6 Jul 2010, 12:02
£99 iPhone stunt backfires

How to lose friends, the Groupola way

A publicity stunt that offered a new iPhone 4 for £99 has backfired spectacularly on a new UK shopping site, and risks increasing cynicism over a controversial corner of internet marketing. Groupola is a UK clone of the US group-buying site Groupon, founded by MyVoucherCodes founder Mark Pearson. The idea is to drum up demand …

Financial News 6 Jul 2010, 13:09
Data.gov.uk troupe gets shirty about standards

For the people, just not all of the time :(

The data.gov.uk team has defended the release of datasets that are proving to be standards-unfriendly to developers. William Perrin and Chris Taggart penned a joint missive on the data.gov.uk site in which they rejected the idea of immediately creating an agreed set of data standards for publishing information online for …

Government 6 Jul 2010, 13:45
Spurned security researchers form anti-MS collective

Updated There's power in a union

Security researchers irked by how Microsoft responded to Google engineer Tavis Ormany's public disclosure of a zero-day Windows XP Help Center security bug have banded together to form a group called the Microsoft Spurned Researcher Collective*. The group is forming a "union" in the belief that together they will be better …

Malware 6 Jul 2010, 13:48
iPad, Kindle as readable as print... almost

Only a page width between them

We've all done it: printed out material because it's easier to read on paper than on a computer screen. But are tablets and e-book readers changing this behaviour pattern? Early research suggests they might well be. A study of 24 highly literate individuals' reading experience with books, the iPad, Amazon's Kindle and a PC …

reghardware 6 Jul 2010, 14:14
Most new 2009 EU powerplant was ~~wind~~ oops, gas

Smell of coffee not yet widespread in Brussels

Brussels bureaucrats have issued a statement trumpeting the "fact" that renewable energy sources - particularly wind - accounted for the majority of new power station capacity installed in the EU during 2009. However, the truth is that European dependence on fossil gas worsened seriously last year. Under the headline " …

Environment 6 Jul 2010, 14:31
Wikileaks US Army mole Manning charged

Will face military justice overseas

Fresh news today in the case of Bradley Manning, the US soldier suspected of leaking classified military material - including video of a controversial attack-helicopter strike in which Iraqi civilians including children were hit - to Wikileaks. According to a statement issued by the 1st Armored Division public-affairs staff in …

Government 6 Jul 2010, 15:56
ATM hack presentation ditched after legal threats

Out of order

A planned presentation about ATM security at the Hack in the Box conference in Amsterdam last week was cancelled following legal pressure from vendors. Italian ethical hacker Raoul Chiesa intended to explain how vulnerabilities and security shortcomings that that cyber criminals were using to break into ATMs as part of his …

Enterprise Security 6 Jul 2010, 16:00
Microsoft patches Freetard-by-design bug

And nobody notices

Microsoft has cast itself as one of the Good Guys in the battle over intellectual property, unlike those scofflaws over at Google. Which makes one recent Windows bugfix more than a little ironic: it patches a bug that makes Windows 7 the file-sharing gift that never stops giving. Support advisory number 981,112 confirms that …

Operating Systems 6 Jul 2010, 16:04
NetApp shakes fist at sprat supplier over ZFS

It's our IP and you can't use it

NetApp has threatened Ethernet and ZFS storage supplier Coraid with implied legal action unless it stops selling its EtherDrive Z-series NAS. Coraid has buckled under the threat and temporarily withdrawn the product. The back story here is that NetApp sued Sun in 2007 for infringing its patents with the ZFS file system product …

Storage 6 Jul 2010, 16:08
Update NetApp's ZFS lawyer's letter and Nexenta

NetApp has sent an almost cease-and-desist letter to Coraid saying withdraw your EtherDrive Z-series NAS product, which uses ZFS, or we will take appropriate action. Coraid did, But NetApp appears not to have written to Coraoid's ZFS supplier Nexenta, which also supplies Compellent with ZFS technology for its NAS product. …

Blocks and Files 6 Jul 2010, 17:34
Microsoft's Flash challenger Silverlight hits Symbian

Windows phones still waiting

Microsoft's Flash challenger Silverlight has landed on Symbian handsets from Nokia ahead of full Silverlight on Windows phones. The company's browser-based media player is now available from Nokia's Ovi store for fifth-edition Nokia S60 devices such as Nokia 5800 XpressMusic and N97. Nokia claims there are more than 20 million …

Mobile 6 Jul 2010, 18:53
Apple ads to target your iTunes history

Jobs knows what you want

Apple is using the immense amount of data that it has collected from its 150 million iTunes accounts to help its iAd advertisers target their pitches to users of iOS 4 devices. "Apple knows what you've downloaded, how much time you spend interacting with applications and knows even what you've downloaded, don't like and …

Mobile 6 Jul 2010, 19:14
Windows 8 and life after KIN - Ballmer's hot summer

Radio Reg Mr Cock-up drops into Redmond

July’s a high-pressure month for Steve Ballmer, so he’s not at home to Mr Cock-up. First, he has to stand before thousands of Microsoft partners at his company’s annual partner conference - next week - and convince them to believe in the roadmap and evangelize them into selling more of Microsoft’s products and services. Then …

Microbite 6 Jul 2010, 19:30
Fusion reactor eats Euro science budgets

Small catastrophe predicted

More than a billion euros will be channeled to the astronomically over-budget ITER fusion reactor rather than to a broad range of needy European research projects. "This will not make us friends," one senior fusion boffin, who declined to be identified, confessed to Nature, which reported the research-funding switcheroo. The …

Rise of the Machines 6 Jul 2010, 20:56
OpenSUSE 11.3 delivers spit, polish and niggles

Tabs, windows and hiccups

The latest version of openSUSE hit final code last week and is not due for official release until July 15, but The Reg is here to give you a tour of its pros and cons. The free operating system has been somewhat maligned for its association with Novell, the Linux company that partnered with Microsoft and is now touting itself …

Software 6 Jul 2010, 23:15