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19th July 2010 Archive

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  • 'External experts' replace Oracle on £13.2m Uni IT project

    Needs best served

    Oracle consultants implementing a £13.2m University of Glasgow student IT project have been asked to leave campus, replaced with a team of unnamed "bespoke" external experts. A university spokesperson told The Reg that the university decided its needs would best be served by continuing its long-running Student Lifecycle …

    Software 19 Jul 03:01

  • NASA and Rackspace open source cloud fluffer

    OpenStack targets one million machine Nebula

    NASA and Rackspace have joined forces to open source a new platform for building so-called infrastructure clouds. Known as OpenStack, the platform is available under an Apache license, and when completed – possibly by the end of the year – NASA and Rackspace will ditch their current infrastructure cloud platforms, which don't …

    HPC 19 Jul 04:02

  • Academics must check contracts' effects on user rights

    Gov body reviews copyright and contract laws

    The use of contracts and technologies to bypass copyright law and users' rights must be investigated by academics, a review of contract and copyright law by a government advisory body has said. The Strategic Advisory Board for Intellectual Property (SABIP) is an independent but publicly funded body overseen by the Intellectual …

    Law 19 Jul 07:56

  • Steve Jobs death-grips iPhone 4 reality

    Comment Those are just the facts. The truth is very different

    A.E. Housman: But it's all true. Oscar Wilde: On the contrary, it's only fact. Truth is quite another thing and is the work of the imagination –Tom Stoppard's The Invention of Love When you hold the iPhone 4, does the signal fade more than it would on other popular smartphones, such as Apple's own iPhone 3GS or Google's Nexus …

    Mobile 19 Jul 08:23

  • Treasury pulls plug on Wiki-cutback site

    Send us an email

    The Treasury has pulled the plug on its website created to crowdsource suggestions for government cutbacks. The site remains available but there are no longer any interactive features - if you have an idea for cutting government spending then you are invited to send them an email. The Treasury blamed malware attacks for the …

    Government 19 Jul 08:28

  • Data Domain gets Nehalem boost

    Doubled mainstream deduplication performance

    We understand Data Domain is introducing a new top-end mainstream product, more than twice as fast as HP's D2D4312 StoreOnce deduplication offering. The DD6xx series of products is Data Domain's mainstream, with the DD880 being its extreme high-end appliance, deduping at up to 8.8TB/hour. The DD690 is the fastest mainstream …

    Storage 19 Jul 08:34

  • MS confirms Windows shortcut zero-day flaw

    Power Plant peril

    Microsoft has confirmed the presence of a zero-day vulnerability in Windows, following reports of sophisticated malware-based hacking attacks on industrial control systems that take advantage of the security flaw. Security shortcomings in the Windows shortcut (.lnk files) are being exploited by the Stuxnet rootlet, an …

    Enterprise Security 19 Jul 09:19

  • NASA's WISE eyes skies

    Wraps first complete heavenly survey

    NASA's Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE) has completed its first survey of the entire sky, having spent six months snapping over one million images of the heavens. Edward Wright, the principal mission investigator at the University of California, enthused: "Like a globe-trotting shutterbug, WISE has completed a world …

    Space 19 Jul 09:33

  • BT hikes call charges

    10% rise hits home phone customers

    BT will lean on its home phone customers as it staggers out of the recession with a 10 per cent rise in daytime call rates. From the beginning of October the cost of connecting a call will rise from 9.9 pence to 10.9 pence, with charges for each subsequent minute rising from 5.9 pence to 6.4 pence. At the same time line …

    Telecoms 19 Jul 09:37

  • LG readies 3D laptop

    Talks up specs not specs

    LG will release its first 3D notebook next month. The R590 3D uses an unspecified Intel Core i7 processor and Nvidia GeFoce GT 335M graphics chip to present stereoscopic 3D images on its passive 15.6in display. Despite admitting there's a "dearth" of 3D content, LG has nonetheless equipped the laptop with a 3D Blu-ray drive …

    reghardware 19 Jul 10:09

  • YouTube, iPlayer on a TV? Simples

    You don't need a mega set top box...

    Simple solutions usually beat over-engineered ones, and a UK software startup I've met might have solved a couple of the biggest headaches of watching web video. I came away from the demo wondering why people hadn't thought of doing this before. Currently, there's a problem getting the vast amounts of web content out there - …

    Applications 19 Jul 10:09

  • The terror beyond the firewall

    Workshop Identity management and remote working

    “The office” is fast becoming, for many organisations, a thing of the past – at least in terms of the expectation that it is the only place people go to work. If Ricky Gervais remade the series now, he’d have characters on trains trying to conduct negotiations over dodgy mobile signals, and web conferencing between people …

    IT at the coalface 19 Jul 10:11

  • Xmas kicks off on 2 August

    Selfridges heads towards year-long Yule

    The Xmas season will this year begin on 2 August - at least in one corner of London's Oxford Street. That's the date on which Selfridges will start its 2010 Yule campaign, having last year started flogging baubles and tinsel on 8 August. This time around, eager customers can stock up on "trees, crackers, fairy lights or even a …

    Bootnotes 19 Jul 10:20

  • Mozilla sextuples bug bounty to $3,000

    Firefox and hounds

    Mozilla has increased the bug bounty it pays security researchers sixfold to $3,000. The move is designed to enlist more interest and support from flaw finders in the task of locating flaws in the code of Firefox and other software applications from Mozilla. Previously payments for eligible flaws in Firefox and Thunderbird …

    Enterprise Security 19 Jul 11:07

  • Steve Jobs morphs into Darth Vader

    Vid Lightsabre resolves Judas Phone antenna issue

    Those of you who are thoroughly hacked off with the Judas Phone saga and could use some light relief are directed towards the following vid by Taiwanese wags NMA News. There's no English version, but it doesn't really matter: Lovely. That Steve Jobs has morphed into Darth Vader will come as a relief to Star Wars …

    Bootnotes 19 Jul 11:08

  • Ten... Premium iPod Speakers

    Product Round-up Superior sounds up to 11

    Audiobores... er.. philes will be the first to tell you that the quest for decent home audio is one best not started with an iPod in one hand and a wad of cash in the other. Apple’s DACs may not be quite the full shilling, and the lack of support for Flac hardly helps the company’s standing among those who have no gods before …

    reghardware 19 Jul 11:34

  • UK retailers want more XBox 360 stock. Now!

    Early doors

    Looks like UK launch day for the Xbox 360 S on Friday was a commercial hit, with retailers selling out shipments within hours of opening. Now they are reporting difficulties in re-stocking the redesigned console, according to the games site Electronic Theatre. So either they got the estimates of demand wrong, or much less …

    reghardware 19 Jul 11:39

  • UK.gov may cut BBC licence fee in 2012

    Culture minister says 'tough discussions' to follow

    Culture minister Jeremy Hunt reiterated over the weekend that the BBC’s licence fee could be cut in recognition of the “very constrained financial situation” the country currently faces. The Tory MP, in an interview with Saturday’s Daily Telegraph, accused the Beeb of being guilty of “extraordinary and outrageous” waste in the …

    Music and Media 19 Jul 12:01

  • Vatican Google-bombed over weekend

    Google points Holysee-kers to pedofilo.com

    The Vatican was Google-bombed over the weekend, with searches for the Holy See directing unwitting punters to a mysterious site called www.pedofilo.com. The site takes its name from the Italian word for paedophile, and appeared to be unavailable from the UK today. However, Italian reports suggest it was based in Mexico, and …

    Spam 19 Jul 12:11

  • German webcam hack perv suspect cuffed

    Purportedly peeped at people in pants

    An alleged pervert has been arrested in Germany over allegations that he used malware to hack into webcams and spy on schoolgirls. The unnamed hacker from the Aachen region allegedly invaded the privacy of 150 youngsters, German news service DPA reports. The scheme was uncovered by Thomas Floß, from the association of data …

    Crime 19 Jul 12:18

  • The Register comment guidelines 2010

    Care and feeding of the forums

    1. Firstly and perhaps most importantly: Moderation is at our discretion. We publish what we feel is fit for publication. We accept the vast majority of all comments posted, and we try to be broad-minded and consistent - but in the end if we don't want it published on our site, it doesn't go up. Correspondence will rarely be …

    Site News 19 Jul 12:38

  • Well-behaved comms industry bad for Ofcom coffers

    Luckily, it's not about revenue

    UK regulator Ofcom isn't making as much money as it used to, thanks to the lack of radio auctions and irritatingly-law-abiding broadcasters. In the 12 months leading to the end of March Ofcom contributed £192.7m to the public purse, according to its reported accounts (pdf). Most of the money comes from radio-spectrum licences …

    Networks 19 Jul 13:00

  • Secret sub tech hints at spooks' TEMPEST-busting bugs

    Farnborough 'Other UK gov parties' wanted details suppressed

    British boffins have devloped a cunning new method of transmitting high bandwidth data - plus power - through tough solid barriers such as submarine hulls or tank armour. The tech is being touted as a way of adding modifications to subs or armoured vehicles cheaply, but it seems that there are also other, highly secret, …

    Wireless 19 Jul 13:04

  • Sky in talks to sell Easynet, claim insiders

    Exclusive Management buyout chatter

    Sky has held talks to spin off its networking business Easynet, according to insiders. Senior management at Easynet, which Sky bought for £211m in 2005, are planning a buyout, sources who spoke on condition of anonymity said. Easynet's CEO David Rowe and chief planning and technology officer Justin Fielder are understood to …

    Telecoms 19 Jul 13:22

  • Seagate intros networked storage for the home

    No crash safeguards

    Seagate has introduced GoFlex Home as a home networked storage system. It is a single drive product with no protection against it crashing. The latest iteration of Seagate's GoFlex product family will provide networked storage and media playing capabilities for home computer users. GoFlex Home is a 1 or 2TB drive mounted in a …

    reghardware 19 Jul 13:37

  • Nokia (Siemens) snaps up Motorola (infrastructure)

    The circle gets a little smaller

    Nokia Siemens, the infrastructure parts of Nokia and Siemens, is spending $1.2bn on Motorola's infrastructure business, further consolidating an already oligopolistic industry. The deal should be completed by the end of the year and will give Nokia Siemens greater presence in Japan and America, not to mention CDMA and WiMAX …

    Telecoms 19 Jul 14:24

  • Nine nations to get Apple iPad on Friday

    Still no sign of a key accessory, though

    Apple's iPad will arrive in nine more countries this coming Friday. Austria, Belgium, Hong Kong, Ireland, Luxembourg, Mexico, Netherlands, New Zealand and Singapore will all be blessed with the "magical" gadget at the end of the week, in both its 'Wi-Fi only' and 'Wi-Fi plus 3G' forms. That's good news for folk over there, …

    reghardware 19 Jul 14:39

  • Government WEEE's advisory board on quango bonfire

    IP policy org also up for chop

    The government is set to scrap four business quangos costing over £8.6m a year to run as part of the coalition’s death march to rein in public sector costs. Business Secretary Vince Cable confirmed this morning that the Strategic Advisory Board for Intellectual Property policy (SABIP), the Waste Electrical and Electronic …

    Channel Register 19 Jul 14:52

  • HP, Red Hat chase Solaris shops

    Dead Oracle OEM contract backlash

    Server maker Hewlett-Packard and commercial Linux juggernaut Red Hat have teamed up to help shops using Oracle's Sparc/Solaris platforms make the jump to Linux-based x64 iron. While the two companies did not say so, the migrations services being offered today through HP Services are no doubt a reaction to Oracle's spiking of …

    Channel Register 19 Jul 15:01

  • Tim Kring and Nokia pose interactive tale of good vs ludicrously evil

    Be good, or go to Hell

    The audience are the actors in writer Tim Kring's latest adventure. In his famous creation, the TV show Heroes, people discover they have superhero powers, and go off and battle Evil. In his latest, people go and battle Evil, and discover they have been given Nokia smartphones. The ambitious, Nokia-sponsored interactive …

    Mobile 19 Jul 15:14

  • Flaw could expose 'millions' of home routers

    Rebind variant plays Jedi mind trick on home comms kit

    Millions of household routers are susceptible to a flaw that creates a handy means for hackers to hijack surfing sessions or hack into home networks. Craig Heffner, a researcher at security consultancy Seismic, is due to detail the flaw and release a proof-of-concept tool at the Black Hat conference in Vegas later this month. …

    Malware 19 Jul 15:50

  • Pirate Bay owners fined by Dutch court

    But I thought Holland was such a tolerant place etc

    The three Swedish owners of The Pirate Bay will have to pay €50,000 a day for failing to shutter the service in the Netherlands, an Amsterdam Court ruled on Friday. The Swedish pirate site was ruled illegal earlier by the Dutch courts, but remained online because its servers are abroad. Lawyers representing The Pirate Bay co- …

    Music and Media 19 Jul 16:08

  • Phonemakers cry foul on Steve Jobs 'We're all alike' attack

    Judas Phone's 'self-made debacle'

    Steve Jobs may have calmed some of the Antennagate ruckus with his spirited defense of the iPhone 4 on Friday, but he also stirred up a hornet's nest of response from other phone manufacturers, including RIM, Samsung, Motorola, Nokia, and HTC. In Jobs' Friday press conference, and on a new section of Apple website entitled " …

    Mobile 19 Jul 18:05

  • Symbian puts another deck chair on the Titanic

    iPhone and Android devs beckoned

    Symbian has taken a step forward in its strategy of trying to siphon off iPhone and Android developers. The open-source organization has reached an agreement to integrate Nitobi's PhoneGap for building HTML, CSS and JavaScript applications with its Symbian^3 platform web extensions package for easier deployment on a range of …

    Mobile 19 Jul 19:16

  • Blog service shut down by order of US law enforcement

    Move shrouded in secrecy

    A blogging service with 70,000 users has been forced to permanently close its doors under orders from unidentified law enforcement officers, in a case that raises questions about free speech and due process on the internet. Blogetery went offline on July 9, leaving some 70,000 subscribers with no way to access their blogs, …

    Security 19 Jul 20:13

  • RNA rejiggers server memory pooling

    Better performance, simpler pricing

    Since early 2009, RNA Networks has been selling memory virtualization and pooling software to help companies get around memory bottlenecks in their standalone systems. Now it's taking another whack at the market with a rejiggered product lineup, more sensible packaging, and simpler pricing. As El Reg told you in February 2009 …

    Servers 19 Jul 20:44

  • IBM zEnterprise 196 mainframe due July 22

    Mainframe-blade interconnect

    The System z11 mainframe announcement date has been set for July 22, as expected, and Rod Adkins, general manager of IBM's Systems and Technology Group, and Steve Mills, general manager of Software Group, will host a shindig in New York debuting Big Blue's so-called "system of systems." As El Reg already reported, the System …

    Servers 19 Jul 21:04

  • HP files webOS tablet trademark

    Steve Jobs ain't gonna like it

    HP has filed an application with the US Patent and Trademark Office to protect what may very well be the name of its upcoming webOS-based tablet: Palmpad ... or PalmPad. Who knows, since the application simply reads all-caps PALMPAD. A slick bit of marketing savvy, we believe, seeing as how Palm's name recognition remains …

    Mobile 19 Jul 22:07

  • IBM wrings more profit from revived IT market

    UK (still) soaring like a BRIC

    Looks like all of those pink slips IBM handed out in the first quarter and the improving global economy is going to yield some big fat bonuses for the bigwigs thanks to a steady second quarter financial performance and the ongoing march to higher profits for Big Blue. In the quarter, IBM's overall revenues were up a meager 2 …

    Financial News 19 Jul 23:16

  • Microsoft's Iron languages embrace 'official' open source

    Python, Ruby and DLR conversions

    Microsoft has cracked open .NET a little further and surrendered some control over its development platform to the open-source community. The latest code for the company's take on Python and Ruby – fine-tuned for .NET, IronPython, and IronRuby – has been quietly released under the Apache Software Foundation (ASF) license. So …

    Developer 19 Jul 23:58