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12th July 2010 Archive

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  • Major Microsoft re-org to avert Windows' cloud cannibalization

    Exclusive Talisker money maker for on-premises Azure

    Microsoft's $14bn server and tools unit has undergone a major shake up in order to squeeze money from the Windows Azure cloud without cannibalizing Windows Server and tools. The unit has ramped up product and business development executives whose goal is to quickly build sellable products and services and sign up ISV and …

    Software 12 Jul 2010, 05:02

  • Ten Essential... Budget Compact Cameras

    Product Round-up Summer snappers for less than 150 quid

    The credit crunch has made many of us cost-conscious consumers, and so it’s no surprise that more people are taking a closer look at sub-£150 cameras. And with summer holidays coming up, now's the time to take a peek. Naturally, at this price point, you're looking at a compact model, but you might be surprised by some of the …

    Top Ten 12 Jul 2010, 07:02

  • Bidding for rivals' AdWords can be infringement, sometimes

    Ads origin must be clear

    A company can stop other companies using its trademarks to trigger search engine adverts if those adverts do not allow a web user to tell which company is behind the ads, the European Court of Justice (ECJ) has said. Europe's top court has confirmed a previous ruling and has said that the use of someone else's trade marks as ' …

    Small Biz 12 Jul 2010, 08:07

  • Hillier appeals to transgender community to save ID cards

    Two-for-one deal

    New Labour never give up. Even out of government, they are still looking for groups of individuals who, they believe, are just salivating at the prospect of the chance to carry a shiny new ID card. The latest group lucky enough to enter their sights just happens to be the transgendered. The Identity Documents Bill, which is …

    Government 12 Jul 2010, 09:23

  • Famous 'Invisible Gorilla' trick vid gets sequel

    Unexpected results of expecting unexpectedness

    The trick-cyclist who created a famous video in which viewers routinely fail to notice the appearance of a man in a gorilla suit among a group of people passing basketballs has produced a sequel. In the new basketball-tossing vid, a gorilla also makes a brief appearance, but some other mildly noteworthy events also occur. Many …

    Science 12 Jul 2010, 09:27

  • One experience fits all

    Sysadmin blog In which Trevor's little things delight users

    In user experience management little things can make a big difference to what they think of their desktop. I provision several types of desktop. The first, and most numerous, are shiny new Wyse thin clients. For experience management, they're neat, because they unify the user experience. I have just finished imaging and …

    Servers 12 Jul 2010, 09:56

  • Sniper: Ghost Warrior

    Review Quick fire insight

    The closest I've come to experiencing the realities of war has been pad or mouse in hand, crouched behind a virtual crumbled wall, as I strain to line up a head shot on the digital Nazi a few hundred metres away. Pop one in your temple I'm no Sun Tzu or Napoleon, but I have gleaned enough understanding of the subject matter …

    Games 12 Jul 2010, 10:02

  • Apple ranks first in surging security bug count

    3rd party, fire and theft

    The number of vulnerabilities in the first half of 2010 was close to the number recorded in the whole of 2009, security notification firm Secunia reports. Apple ranks first, ahead of runner-up Oracle, and Microsoft in the number of security bugs found in all their products in 1H 2010. During the first six months of 2010, …

    Security 12 Jul 2010, 10:02

  • Child protection campaigners claim hollow victory over Facebook

    Optional 'panic button' agreed

    Child safety campaigners are claiming victory over Facebook in their battle to publish a "panic button" on the dominant social network, but the agreed system falls short of their original demands in one crucial aspect. Today's announcement ends a rancorous campaign spearheaded by Jim Gamble, the chief executive of the Child …

    Law 12 Jul 2010, 10:19

  • Bendy bike inventor scores design prize win

    The cycle that can be wrapped round a lamppost - intentionally

    Now this is a great idea: a bike with a bendy frame that allows it to be literally wrapped around a lamppost and locked up. The flexible frame was developed by DeMontfort University, Leicester final-year BSc Product Design student Kevin Scott and won him a runner's up prize in the recent Business Design Centre (BDC) New …

    Hardware 12 Jul 2010, 10:22

  • Five quits Project Cartel

    Canvas too pricey for skint channel

    Bertelsmann-owned Channel Five has withdrawn from Project Canvas, the BBC-led project to define future TV standards, citing cost reasons. The channel is up for sale, losing £37m last year, and could be sold for just £1. Five was obliged to find £16m, its share of the £112m estimated cost of the Canvas project, and declined. …

    Media 12 Jul 2010, 10:44

  • Cotswold police stage panty ID parade

    Anything you say will be taken down...

    Gloucestershire Police have appealed to Cotswold residents to come forward and finger their bras and knickers after they arrested a man on suspicion of burglary and theft and uncovered a cache of mystery smalls. The unidentified man was arrested on June 27 and is on bail pending further enquiries. However, during their …

    Bootnotes 12 Jul 2010, 10:48

  • Gateway readies mass notebook release

    Big screens and small screens

    Gateway, the once famous PC retailer and now Acer sub-brand, will have four new notebooks out later this month. Gateway's NS41: business box The NS range includes 11.6, 13.3, 14 and 15.6in machines, all with Intel Core i3, i5 or i7 processors. Every screen has a resolution of 1366 x 768. The 11.6in NS10's screen is driven …

    Laptops 12 Jul 2010, 10:59

  • Microsoft holds hands with Fujitsu in data centre deal, says report

    All about plumping up fluffy clouds

    Microsoft and Fujitsu reportedly plan to share data centres around the world to play catch up with other cloud computing vendors such as Google and Salesforce.com. Redmond is expected to mix its software with Fujitsu’s customer service offerings, according to Nikkei business daily (via Reuters). Fujitsu, which has around 90 …

    Servers 12 Jul 2010, 11:14

  • Ireland to block EU-Israel data hoover

    Fears over passport shenanigans

    Ireland is moving to block a planned agreement on data sharing due to be signed between Israel and the European Union. Ireland's minister of justice Dermott Ahern said he was profoundly concerned about the proposed data transfer. He said Israel needed to prove its data protection principles, especially in the light of the …

    Government 12 Jul 2010, 11:31

  • 'Holland wins World Cup' declares CBSNews

    OWWWNGOOOAAALLLL...

    It seems that some US media outlets are still getting to grips with the finer points of football, declaring that it was the Orange-clad, yellow-carded Dutch who won last night. CBSNews/AP declared, in the early hours, that "The Netherlands Wins First World Cup and Ends 22-Year Streak Without a Title of Any Kind". Click …

    Bootnotes 12 Jul 2010, 11:34

  • Life on Earth gets wiped out every 27 million years, say boffins

    'Nemesis' dark star theory poohpooh'd, though

    Much of life on Earth gets regularly wiped out every 27 million years, according to boffins. It had been thought that this was caused by a dark star named "Nemesis", but apparently that was wrong. The next globo-extinction event is due in about 16 million years' time. Call that a mass extinction? Rubbish. In the old days we …

    Science 12 Jul 2010, 12:04

  • Five pulls out of Project Canvas

    Hasn't the cash to contribute?

    Channel Five has pulled out of Project Canvas, a bid to define a standard framework through which hardware manufacturers can implement internet TV services. Five isn't making money, and when asked to cough up £16m toward the £112m that Project Canvas is expected to cost to finalise, it apparently said no. Five chiefs said: " …

    Hardware 12 Jul 2010, 12:11

  • Identity management is a pain in the backside

    Workshop Do you work here? And other important questions

    Identity management in the corporate environment is complex - not to mention, at the coalface, a pain in the backside. In the real world in which you work, password resets are one of the most commonly cited causes of help desk stress – and that’s an identity management problem. People leaving the company and still having …

    IT at the coalface 12 Jul 2010, 12:14

  • Martha Lane Fox to clone 10m copies of self

    Well, not really

    Martha Lane Fox has launched a campaign to make sure everybody in Britain of working age has heard of Martha Lane Fox by 2015. It's an ambitious goal, especially since she doesn't actually have her quango any more - her Digital Services Unit was created in March but abolished last month. This hasn't stopped her soaking up …

    Government 12 Jul 2010, 12:36

  • It's not the end for stop and search

    Comment Section 44 is dead, long live section...

    Fears were growing today that the latest attempts by Home Secretary Teresa May to put policing back on a more sensitive, acceptable footing may yet backfire. In the Commons last Thursday she announced that she is ready to bring the UK back into line with Europe by revising the government's guidelines on terror stops and …

    Law 12 Jul 2010, 12:48

  • Abu Hamza ruling clarifies McKinnon case

    UFO hacker extradition bid even less to do with terrorism

    The Abu Hamza ruling may affect the Gary McKinnon case by removing one of the arguments against trying the self-admitted hacker in the UK, according to McKinnon's mum. Last week the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) ruled to halt the extradition of Abu Hamza and Babar Ahmad and other Islamic militants to the US on human …

    Law 12 Jul 2010, 12:49

  • Intel boffins usher era of 'I know who you are' TV

    AI team forecasts remotes that control your viewing

    Now this is scary: a TV remote control that knows who you are and can present what your prefer - or limit what you can watch - accordingly. It might also tell the telly to tailor ads to whoever's handling the remote. The gadget is the brainchild of a band of boffins at Intel Labs. While the group hasn't actually made one of …

    Hardware 12 Jul 2010, 12:52

  • Iomega eGo Desktop USB 3.0 external HDD

    Review Faster, master

    As USB 3.0 emerges from its infancy and begins to take strides towards industry standardisation in 2011, more and more manufacturers are keen to launch products which demonstrate their ability to utilise the benefits of the newly revised interface. Iomega's eGo Desktop USB 3.0: nippy Today’s contender is Iomega’s 2TB eGo …

    Hardware 12 Jul 2010, 13:02

  • Huawei could reorganize to win Sprint deal

    Must compromise to appease US and Indian security

    Huawei is looking increasingly ready to make compromises to allay the security concerns of various governments. The Chinese supplier denies all allegations that it is closely connected to its country's intelligence services, but is nevertheless running into clearance obstacles in several key markets. The Indian government has …

    Broadband 12 Jul 2010, 13:18

  • Aurora - a Microsoft cloud server for the small guy?

    The party line's a hard thing to break

    Microsoft has announced details of the next version of Small Business Server (SBS) - actually, make that two versions. SBS 7.0 is an update of what we have seen before, a bundle of core applications including Exchange 2010, SharePoint, and System Update Services, tuned to run on a single Server 2008 R2 box. SBS codename …

    Applications 12 Jul 2010, 13:38

  • China gives Google nod of approval, renews licence

    Beijing satisfied with Mountain View's concessions

    Google.cn’s website operator had its licence renewed late last week, a Beijing official confirmed yesterday. Last Friday Google put out a terse statement confirming that the company’s Internet Content Provider (ICP) licence had been renewed for another year. But that only happened after Mountain View management agreed to stop …

    Media 12 Jul 2010, 13:58

  • Distie thief gets 14 months despite CPS 'incompetence'

    4-year delay 'a disgrace'

    A former Ingram Micro worker received a 14-month sentence for theft offences today, despite the actual offences happening four years ago. Nicholas Greenhood, 32, stole iPods and satnavs worth £160,000 from Ingram Micro while he was working at its Daventry centre. Greenhood pleaded guilty to the thefts between October 2005 and …

    The Channel 12 Jul 2010, 14:21

  • Drive suppliers hit capacity increase difficulties

    PMR or HAMR for your platter?

    Hard disk drive suppliers are looking to add platters to increase capacity because of the expensive and difficult transition to next-generation recording technology. There are two candidates to replace the current Perpendicular Magnetic Recording (PMR) technology. The first is Heat-Assisted Magnetic Recording (HAMR) and the …

    Storage 12 Jul 2010, 14:30

  • Ballmer: Windows Mobile lost a 'whole generation'

    Rolling lucky sevens for phones and tablets

    Steve Ballmer has delivered a mea culpa to Microsoft's partners for its slip-ups against Apple and Google on tablets and smart phones. Ballmer told Microsoft's annual Worldwide Partner Conference that Windows Mobile missed a "whole generation of users" and promised Windows Phone 7 will set things right. On tablets, Ballmer …

    Operating Systems 12 Jul 2010, 14:41

  • Apple quietly extends first-gen Time Capsule warranty

    About time...

    Apple has tacitly extended the warranty period on Time Capsule hard drive-equipped wireless routers released between February and June 2008. The Time Capsule was launched in January of that year, but didn't ship until the following month. Punters were pleased with the machine's merger of 500GB or 1TB "server grade" - according …

    Hardware 12 Jul 2010, 15:05

  • Crackdown 2

    Review A short sequel to satisfy shooters?

    The original Crackdown was something of a surprise hit. It didn't come as a surprise that people bought the game in droves – the inclusion of the Halo 3 Beta key ensured Crackdown was always going to fly from the shelves. What surprised many people is that a solid, enjoyable action game was bundled with the Beta key– and one …

    Games 12 Jul 2010, 16:33

  • MP3tunes offers tuneful truce to Apple and Google

    'Buy anywhere, listen everywhere'

    Online music-service provider MP3tunes has launched a new service that allows Apple and Google devices to play well together — well, play music, at least. "It is no secret that Apple and Google are engaging in a battle royale," writes MP3tunes CEO and founder Michael Robertson in a Monday blog post. "MP3tunes is engaging in …

    Media 12 Jul 2010, 19:24

  • Consumer Reports: 'We were wrong about the iPhone 4'

    Yes, the antenna sucks

    One of — if not the — most respected product-testing labs has reversed its original positive opinion of the iPhone 4, citing results of its comprehensive testing of the Jobsian handheld's pesky antenna. "Consumer Reports has confirmed that the iPhone 4 has an antenna problem," says spokesman Mike Gikas. "We tested multiple …

    Mobile 12 Jul 2010, 19:43

  • Google fashions Android dev kit for dummies (from Scratch)

    Man warns 'priesthood of programming'

    Google has unveiled an experimental tool that lets non-developers develop applications for Android phones. This Google Labs project is known as App Inventor for Android, and it's based on platforms built at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, including Scratch, the well-known visual web app builder designed for non- …

    Developer 12 Jul 2010, 19:46

  • Microsoft's earthbound server chums fluff Redmond cloud

    Dell, HP, and Fujitsu package Windows Azure

    Windows allies Dell, Hewlett-Packard, and Fujitsu will be the first to implement and sell hosted clouds running Microsoft's Azure outside of Redmond data centers. The trio will implement the Windows Azure Platform Appliance, announced by Microsoft Monday, in their own data centers and for sale with services to customers. The …

    Servers 12 Jul 2010, 20:12

  • Gulf spill to annihilate all earthlings, says seer

    Mass extinction all Blighty's fault

    Within the next six months, according to at least one man, the world may come to an end. And he blames the Brits. "Ominous reports are leaking past the BP Gulf salvage operation news blackout that the disaster unfolding in the Gulf of Mexico may be about to reach biblical proportions," writes prolific poster Terrence Aym for …

    Bootnotes 12 Jul 2010, 23:44

  • Why Microsoft took its cloud private

    Analysis 'Mi Azure es su Azure'

    Tongues were wagging that Microsoft was set to announce a cloudy infrastructure and data center partnership with Japanese server maker Fujitsu sometime this week. And it turns out that what Microsoft actually did at its Worldwide Partner Conference in Washington, DC on Monday was tap Dell, HP, and Fujitsu to deliver private or …

    Servers 12 Jul 2010, 23:53