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3rd August 2010 Archive

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  • Virgin sets Ofcom on Project Canvas

    'Controlling every aspect of how people watch TV'

    Virgin Media has formally requested that Ofcom investigate the BBC-led Project Canvas set-top-box venture, arguing it is anti-competitive, reduces consumer choice, and stifles future development of next-generation telly. "The Canvas partners have significantly exceeded their original claims to be creating a common set of open …

    Media 3 Aug 2010, 05:30

  • Ten Essential... Symbian Apps

    Product Round-up Software for your Nokia

    Nokia may have come a little late to the app store party, but it's Ovi Store now has plenty of software to choose from, whether you're looking for games or utilities, productivity, comms or entertainment apps. Not sure where to start? Well, you can start by downloading the following ten apps that will help you get the most …

    Top Ten 3 Aug 2010, 07:02

  • Apple as a religion: How the iPhone became divine

    'Imbued with sacred significance'

    Apple lovers vs. Apple haters is a common theme on the tech forums. Some think that there is a consumer psychology dynamic at play, that turns us into Brand Evangelists or Brand Talibans. Two American academics, admittedly new media academics, Heidi Campbell and Antonio La Pastina, take a different tack in comparing Apple to …

    Hardware 3 Aug 2010, 07:36

  • Xbox Live billing site snubs Firefox

    Credentials invalid. Game over

    Customers visiting an Xbox Live billing site with Firefox are liable to get a false warning that Microsoft's digital certificate is "invalid". The certificate is fine and IE users are unaffected by the glitch, which represents the reappearance of an intermittent bug limited to gamers who use Mozilla's open source browser. Reg …

    Games 3 Aug 2010, 08:21

  • HP pays to end kickback probe

    This doesn't mean we're guilty

    HP is taking a two cents per share charge to end a Department of Justice investigation into bribery allegations. The company stressed that it was not admitting any wrongdoing, of course. The DOJ investigation began in 2007 and included Accenture and Sun. It centred on allegations that the three companies improperly charged …

    Servers 3 Aug 2010, 08:26

  • Show geo-data some respect, don't rely on Web2.0 data

    Survey kicks hive brain into touch

    Public sector and private organisations in the UK have thumbed their noses at data derived from Web2.0 pushers and information sourced from the, er, wisdom of crowds. A joint survey, conducted by the Association for Geographic Information (AGI) and PriceWaterhouseCoopers LLP, of around 100 UK private and public sector outfits …

    Developer 3 Aug 2010, 08:37

  • Women, gorillas likelier to have sex with men wearing red

    Beefeaters, guardsmen overjoyed by shock findings

    Good news today for men finding themselves unfortunately circumstanced in terms of feminine companionship: and also for heterosexual members of the Brigade of Guards. Trick-cyclists have discovered that women - indeed, all "female primates" - are more strongly attracted to men wearing the colour red. “Red is typically thought …

    Science 3 Aug 2010, 09:20

  • Dell does factory fresh virus infections?

    Something new to be frightened about!

    How the hell does a virus-infected set of motherboards find their way into the supply chain of a major system vendor? The vendor delivering the bad boards was Dell, and they’re blaming a slipshod supplier and ‘human error’. Yeah – human error. You can read all about it here and here. The virus in question was a variant of an …

    HPC 3 Aug 2010, 09:41

  • India bags BlackBerry interception rights

    Kuwait can block porn - but UAE gets nothing

    RIM has added India to the list of countries with which it's prepared to share data, and will help Kuwait block porn sites, but still hasn't opened its services up to the UAE. Indian security forces will be able to intercept emails sent and received by BlackBerry users, within 15 days, as Reuters reports the country has been …

    Mobile 3 Aug 2010, 09:46

  • Google warns Chrome Canary is only for the brave

    Who wants a highly unstable browser which will often break entirely?

    Google is calling on extremely brave individuals to test drive the so-called Canary build of its Chrome browser. Not content with pushing out dev channel builds on an almost weekly basis, Mountain View is now slinging very rough-round-the-edges code onto the interwebs for lone rangers who are happy to tinker with a “highly …

    Applications 3 Aug 2010, 10:07

  • Samsung unveils 2TB tri-platter drive

    New EcoGreen model spins up

    Samsung has replaced its four-platter 2TB disk driven with a three-platter one offering lower power consumption. The desktop 3.5-inch EcoGreen F4EG drive comes in 1.5TB and 2TB flavours, with a 32MB cache, 3Gbit/s SATA interface, native command queuing and a 5400rpm spin speed. Each platter has a capacity of 667GB, which is …

    Storage 3 Aug 2010, 10:09

  • ISS set for Friday chill-out

    First spacewalk to replace failed ammonia pump

    The first spacewalk to replace the International Space Station's failed ammonia pump module will take place on Friday, NASA has announced. The ISS is in a "stable configuration" following Saturday's breakdown of the "Pump Module for loop A that feeds ammonia to maintain the proper cooling for systems and avionics". Attempts …

    Science 3 Aug 2010, 10:48

  • Sophos downplays Android malware threat

    Updated Doesn't blend. Won't spread

    Android users have little reason to fear an immediate onslaught of malware despite the demonstration of a rootkit-based attack at last week's Defcon conference, according to a leading anti-virus supplier. Researchers at Spider Labs demonstrated proof-of-concept malware that could access messages and emails on an Android …

    Security 3 Aug 2010, 10:51

  • UK.gov smiles and nods at commentards

    Web public's ideas change nothing

    The government's first attempt at crowd-sourcing policy has ended with every Whitehall department rejecting the public's ideas, or claiming them as endorsement of existing plans. More than 9,500 comments were published on the Programme for Government website, which was launched on 20 May, days after the formation of the …

    Government 3 Aug 2010, 10:52

  • Court slaps down coppers in photography case

    Plods and cameras just do not mix

    The Met Police were making a spectacle of themselves again last week both in front of the camera and behind it. That, at least, appears to be the conclusion to be drawn from one unfortunate incident and one court ruling. According to a news report by the NUJ London Photographers' Branch, Carmen Valino, a journalist on …

    Law 3 Aug 2010, 11:24

  • PARIS pumps up a Mk 2 release mechanism

    Second shot at unleashing Vulture 1

    Followers of our Paper Aircraft Released Into Space (PARIS) project will be aware that our first attempt to put together a pressure-operated Vulture 1 release mechanism didn't exactly go according to plan. For those of you who're not up to speed on this vital mission component, we should explain that it's the device which will …

    SPB 3 Aug 2010, 11:27

  • Leicester City councillors eye up iPad to save £90k a year

    Council says a 'techy-type' person did the maths

    A quartet of Leicester City councillors are currently trialling Apple’s iPad, and if successful the fondle slab could be issued to 50 other council members. But a council spokeswoman told The Register this morning that a report in today’s Daily Mail, which made the claims, was inaccurate. She then went on to explain that only …

    Hardware 3 Aug 2010, 11:37

  • ET voted fave family film fodder

    Pips Wizard of Oz to winning post

    ET is the "greatest ever family film", according to a poll published in today's issue of Radio Times. More than 2,500 people chipped in their faves for the online search to find the ultimate popcorn experience for mum, dad and the nippers. Spielberg's classic pipped The Wizard of Oz and Mary Poppins, which had to make do with …

    Media 3 Aug 2010, 11:38

  • Solar plasma aurora storm to hit Earth tomorrow today!

    Burst sunspot could see Northern Lights over UK, US

    Astroboffins are warning that a mighty "eruption" of superhot plasma has been blasted out of the Sun directly at the Earth. The plasma cloud is expected to reach Earth beginning tomorrow today, possibly causing strange phenomena - including a mighty geomagnetic storm which could see the Northern Lights aurorae extend as far …

    Science 3 Aug 2010, 11:40

  • Pentagon Wikileaks probe reaches MIT

    Top boffins implicated in Afghan log dump

    The investigation into Bradley Manning - the US Army intelligence private suspected of sending tens of thousands of classified documents to Wikileaks - has led to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), it's claimed. Adrian Lamo, the hacker who reported Manning to authorities in May, said that two men at the …

    Security 3 Aug 2010, 12:45

  • BCS Linux-baiting sparks flame war

    Dad's Army hit by sweary Marys

    An article on open source security has sparked off a furious backlash in the normally polite and businesslike world of a British Computer Society journal. Commentards have reacted furiously to a piece by Steve Smith, managing director of IT security consultancy Pentura, in the July Edition of ITNow. A lengthy first response by …

    Operating Systems 3 Aug 2010, 12:53

  • ITV to tinker with micropayments

    Jumps onto Sky HD

    Only half of ITV's income will come from advertising within five years, the company announced today. As expected, it's also going to develop paywalls around some of its premium shows, and will "test micropayments", according to chief exec Adam Crozier. Carolyn Fairbairn, the former BBC director of strategy and now ITV's …

    Media 3 Aug 2010, 12:56

  • Revolution lets R do stats on big data

    Scalability boost, too

    If you've got big data, then R will soon be able to chew on it and spit out some answers. Revolution Analytics was formed in May to become the 'Red Hat for stats', funding development for the open source R statistical programming language and offering a commercially supported, open core variant for enterprise customers with …

    Applications 3 Aug 2010, 14:16

  • Intel eyes up Infineon for purchase

    Sating wireless cravings

    It seems that Intel is looking to acquire the wireless arm of chip maker Infineon, with a view to getting its processors wirelessly enabled and taking on ARM in the mobile phone space. Rumours about a deal between the companies have been circulating for a while, along with suggestions that Infineon would make a nice buy for …

    Hardware 3 Aug 2010, 14:29

  • Start-up promises to slash virtual backup times

    Silver bullet for VMware users

    A startup called Pancetera has announced a virtual appliance that can reduce virtual machine backup I/O load by up to 80 per cent, and lets sysadmins move virtual machine files as easily as browsing a Windows network drive. The idea is that this Unite appliance treats virtual machines (VMs) as files in a single virtual …

    Virtualization 3 Aug 2010, 15:20

  • iOS jailbreak howdunnit partially solved

    Updated PDF exploit framed for jailbreak

    The iOS 4 drive-by jailbreak released over the weekend uses a PDF exploit to weave its magic, according to an analysis by security researchers. The hack, developed by the iPhone Dev Team and available via jailbreakme.com, can be run directly on a device running iOS 4. Earlier tools required a software download that was run via …

    Operating Systems 3 Aug 2010, 15:23

  • Wiki crew launch attack on FBI official seal bluster

    Permission denied, but what the hell!

    A silly row between US feds and Wikimedia has kicked off over the fiddlers' use of the Feds' official seal. The New York Times reports that the Federal Bureau of Investigation penned a letter to the Wikimedia Foundation in July demanding that it remove an image of the FBI seal from a Wikipedia "article" about the feds. “ …

    Law 3 Aug 2010, 15:26

  • HDS extends BlueArc OEM agreement

    Two years more

    We hear that Hitachi Data Systems may have extended its OEM agreement with BlueArc for an additional two years, meaning a nice vote of support. The OEM deal was originally signed in December 2006 with a five year life, meaning it would end in December 2011. HDS took BlueArc's high-end Titan network-attached storage (NAS) …

    Storage 3 Aug 2010, 15:37

  • RIM lights a candle for the BlackBerry Torch

    OS rev, touch screen, full QWERTY

    RIM's BlackBerry Torch 9800 smartphone makes its debut today, initially as an AT&T exclusive, and it takes the company squarely into iPhone territory. This makes the 9800 very big deal for RIM, the Canadian master of smartphones for the enterprise which somehow, picked up a big consumer following for not particularly consumer- …

    Phones 3 Aug 2010, 15:46

  • Visual Studio suits up for business apps

    Office and SharePoint choreography

    Microsoft is hiding some of Visual Studio's advanced coding capabilities to help suits build Office and SharePoint applications. The company is due to announce Visual Studio Lightswitch on Tuesday to not just simplify development of business applications but also to make it easier for IT teams to maintain such apps. Due to be …

    Developer 3 Aug 2010, 16:02

  • Illumos sporks OpenSolaris

    Spooning Oracle for now, but ready to fork

    If you were hoping that someone would fork the OpenSolaris operating system, you are going to have to settle for a spork. You know, half spoon and half fork. That, in essence, is what the Illumos, an alternative open source project to continue development on the core bits of OpenSolaris, is all about. The disgruntled …

    Operating Systems 3 Aug 2010, 17:02

  • Hack uses Google Street View data to stalk its victims

    'Geo location gone terrible'

    A security researcher has devised an attack suitable for stalking and similarly creepy endeavors that uses JavaScript and geo location data from Google to pinpoint a victim's precise location. In a talk titled “How I Met Your Girlfriend,” at the Black Hat conference last week, hacker Samy Kamkar demoed the technique, which he …

    Security 3 Aug 2010, 17:54

  • The DCB world is not enough

    TRILL needed too

    As Fibre Channel (FC) SAN storage gets emulated on Ethernet as FCoE, it's becoming clear that enhanced Ethernet is not enough; we need TRILL as well before full FCoE becomes a reality. To make FCoE (Fibre Channel over Ethernet) practicable we need FC-using applications on servers and FC-accessed storage arrays to believe they …

    Storage 3 Aug 2010, 17:54

  • Liberal Google, Yahoo!, Apple hurting America claims Reagan

    Updated Pimps 'first' all-conservative email host

    The son of US conservative demigod Ronald Reagan is using his dad's name and statistical bullpuckerey to pimp his "very first all-conservative email service provider" offering to unsuspecting right-wing Americans. "Are you aware that if you have AOL, Gmail, or any one of the famous internet service providers, that when they …

    Media 3 Aug 2010, 19:27

  • OOXML and open clouds: Microsoft's lessons learned

    From conflation to inflation

    Microsoft may submit its OData web data protocol for standards ratification, but seems eager to avoid the bruising it received on OOXML. Jean Paoli, Microsoft's interoperability strategy general manager and one of the co-inventors of the original XML whose work ultimately went into OOXML, told The Reg that Microsoft might …

    Software 3 Aug 2010, 19:54

  • Location-based quantum crypto now possible, boffins say

    Position-based security 'great stuff'

    Researchers say they have devised a foolproof way to encrypt messages that can be unlocked only by a recipient physically located in a specific place, solving a problem that has vexed cryptographers for years. The technique for position-based quantum cryptography is scheduled to be presented at the 2010 IEEE Symposium on …

    Security 3 Aug 2010, 20:15

  • Google enables (some) multiple account sign-ins

    Gmail and more, but mobile devices need not apply

    Google is rolling out the much hoped-for capability of being able to sign into multiple accounts in the same browser. According to a post on the unofficial Google Operating System blog, a Multiple Sign-In option is beginning to appear in the Personal Settings area of your Google Accounts page — and if it's not there yet (ours …

    Media 3 Aug 2010, 20:58