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6th August 2010 Archive

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  • Avere gets more funding

    $17 million

    Avere, the maker of the multi-tiered filer accelerator FTX products, has picked up another $17m in funding. It aims to "rapidly expand production and distribution of its FXT Series appliances that accelerate the performance and reduce the costs of NAS environments." The tiers include NV-RAM, NAND flash and SAS disk, and Avere …

    Blocks and Files 6 Aug 00:02

  • Customers' big-iron hedge hits Cray's quarter

    Waiting for XE6, XT6 — and profits

    Supercomputermaker Cray narrowly missed its projected revenue targets for the second quarter, but is revving up to bring home the bacon in the second half of the year as it delivers its new XT6 and XE6 massively parallel supers. In the quarter ended in June, product revenues plummeted by 78 per cent to $9.3m as customers …

    HPC 6 Aug 05:02

  • Seagate's flash cache drive rocket

    Ten times faster Photoshop load

    A user of the flash cache-enabled Seagate Momentus XT drive reports a tenfold improvement in PhotoShop application load time and three times faster startup. It is only anecdotal evidence from one user on his amnesiablog but it is compelling. He has a Windows 7, Core2Duo notebook with 2GB of RAM and replaced the had drive with …

    Blocks and Files 6 Aug 05:53

  • Private browsing modes in four biggest browsers often fail

    You've been warned

    Features in the four major browsers designed to cloak users' browser history often don't work as billed, according to a research paper that warns that users may get a false sense of security when using the built-in privacy settings. The private-browsing modes are supposed to allow users to visit a website without leaving any …

    ID 6 Aug 06:02

  • Panasonic DMR-XW380 Freeview HD DVR

    Review HDD and DVD-R combo with DLNA sharing

    Unlike the current wave of Freeview HD recorders coming on stream right now, the Panasonic DMR-XW380 is not just a twin tuner hard drive recorder, but a DVD recorder too. Pay a fair bit extra and you can have opt for DMR-BW880, the Blu-ray version Reg Hardware reviewed recently. Good all-rounder? Panasonic's DMR-XW380 There …

    reghardware 6 Aug 07:02

  • The rocky road to UC

    Workshop Is it worth the hassle?

    While Unified Communications (UC) is not quite mass market, the number of organisations giving it the once-over is growing. Hype aside, UC is something that companies will find themselves adopting quite simply because fragmented communications in the workplace are increasingly common, which causes problems for the general …

    IT at the coalface 6 Aug 08:07

  • NASA bumps ISS spacewalk to Saturday

    Needs more time to prep cooling pump swap-out

    NASA has postponed today's planned spacewalk to replace a failed ammonia pump assembly on the International Space Station, and Tracy Caldwell Dyson and Doug Wheelock will now exit the orbiting outpost tomorrow at 10:55 GMT. The agency explains: "Teams of flight controllers, engineers, and spacewalk experts have made …

    Space 6 Aug 08:08

  • Octopus-gate chief exec resigns over private data sale

    On her bike

    The sale of private data by Hong Kong transport payments firm Octopus Holdings has forced the resignation of chief exec Prudence Chan. Octopus, which sells cards used by Hong Kong residents to pay for subway and bus fares, has agreed to donate to charity the HK$44m ($5.7m) it made from selling the details of an estimated two …

    ID 6 Aug 08:36

  • Ditch the malware magnet

    Sysadmin blog A sysadmin battles his nemesis

    It is no secret that I have little use for endpoint anti-malware protection apps. In my experience they are all, regardless of vendor, virtually worthless. A well written piece of modern endpoint anti-malware will briefly inform you that you have been infected right before it commits seppuku and vanishes, leaving you to deal …

    Desktop Mgmt Blog 6 Aug 09:13

  • Extreme porn law on the ropes

    Police, CPS fail to land conviction

    A stunning reversal for police and prosecution in North Wales may herald the beginning of the end for controversial legislation on possession of extreme porn. The case, scheduled to be heard yesterday in Mold Crown Court, was the culmination of a year-long nightmare for Andrew Robert Holland, of Coedpoeth, Wrexham, Clwyd as …

    Policing 6 Aug 09:14

  • Naked German women evade Swedish chopper

    Naturists fail to see wood for the trees

    Keen Swedish cops deployed a helicopter and sniffer dogs last weekend after three clothes-light German women got lost in the woods. The naturist trio, aged 40, 50 and 56, set off at 4pm Sunday on a butt-naked jaunt from their holiday cottage by Långasjön lake, outside Karlshamn in the south of the country. Pals called for …

    Bootnotes 6 Aug 09:22

  • Three Strikes Bill too wet and woolly, say Kiwi lawyers

    A ban should mean a ban

    New Zealand's Parliament met to discuss the pending Three Strikes legislation this week, with the Law Society chipping in. The amendment is too vague, onerous on the ISPs, and too gentle on serial freetards, the Society's government liaison Clive Elliott says. While lawyers can typically be expected to favour legislative …

    Music and Media 6 Aug 10:00

  • Clinton barrels in to BlackBerry brouhaha

    As Lebanon considers its options

    US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton reckons there is a "right to free use and access" that could be infringed by countries banning BlackBerrys. The US government steps into the argument as concern over the difficulties of intercepting BlackBerry communications continues to spread, with Lebanon being the latest country to …

    Mobile 6 Aug 10:19

  • eBay photocopier data risk ignored

    Analysis Hidden danger of copier/printer hard disks

    The security threat from carelessly ditched computers increasingly applies to a much wider range of office equipment, as sophisticated storage technology finds its way into humble devices such as fax machines and printers. The risk that sensitive documents might make their way into the hands of undesirables was neatly …

    Enterprise Security 6 Aug 10:28

  • The Great Beast's shag pad: Yours for €1.5m

    Aleister Crowley's Sicilian cottage up for sale

    Those with a taste for the occult and a more than a few quid to spare might be interested in viewing the Sicilian cottage where "wickedest man in the world" Aleister Crowley once held court. According to the Telegraph, the "Abbey of Thelema" near the town of Cefalu is on the market for €1.5m, and for your money you get a " …

    Bootnotes 6 Aug 10:31

  • Eagles singer wins case against US politico

    Desperado Don Henley won't Take It Easy

    Eagles frontman Don Henley has won a lawsuit against a Republican politician who was found to have violated the copyrights of two of the singer’s songs. California politico Chuck DeVore and his employee, Justin Hart, issued an apology to Henley and his fellow bandmates. “We apologise for using the musical works of Don Henley …

    Law 6 Aug 10:51

  • Firefox 4 beta crack ruse spreads Trojan to total idiots

    Where did you get your degree? The University of Duhhhhh?

    Scammers are trying to con gullible marks into getting infected via a fake Firefox 4.0 beta download scam. Preview editions of the next version of Firefox are available for download directly from Mozilla at no charge (natch). So it's pretty obvious that offers of Firefox 4 beta cracks or a keygen are entirely bogus and almost …

    Malware 6 Aug 11:12

  • Apple tweaks store to show trial versions

    To Americans at least

    Apple has tweaked its application store to separate out trial versions of applications, so they don't clutter up the freebies section. US customers looking for free software for their iPhones no longer have to trawl through pages of "lite" and "trial" versions of applications, while those who are prepared to shell out for apps …

    Applications 6 Aug 11:31

  • NHS trust axes 600 jobs, IT staff up for chop

    'I’m sorry this extension is unavailable. Goodbye'

    A hospital trust is to slash up to 600 jobs – some of which will be IT and back office staff – as part of a £60m cost saving plan. The Royal Berkshire Hospital Trust, which employs 4,500 people, was unable to provide a breakdown of job cuts in individual departments. It said the axe will fall in human resources, IT, …

    IT Director 6 Aug 11:36

  • 'Poo-powered' Volkswagen astounds world+dog

    Updated Gov-funded Dung Beetle runs on turds of seventy homes

    The UK and green media is alive with reports of a "poo powered" car, dubbed the "Bio-Bug", developed to encourage sustainable motoring. But what's the real story? Plenty of grunt (etc). "On first hearing of the Bio-Bug, some people will smile, and some people will go ‘yuck’!," comments former Friends of the Earth chief and …

    Environment 6 Aug 11:39

  • Channel 4 4OD to hit PS3

    Gamers finally get some 4play

    Sony and Channel 4 are in talks to bring 4OD to the PS3. That's what an unnamed source from Channel 4 told TV trade mag Broadcast. If the move goes ahead, Channel 4 will be the first UK commercial broadcaster to offer content through the PlayStation platform. In October last year, 4OD became the first UK channel to offer …

    reghardware 6 Aug 11:52

  • Bound robbery victim IMs for help with toes

    CALL 911 POLICE. IM HOME TIED TO BEED

    An Atlanta woman who was tied to her bed by an armed robber managed to alert her boyfriend by instant messenger - no mean feat since she was obliged to type with her toes. According to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, 39-year-old Amy Windom (pictured) was in bed around midnight on Tuesday when the intruder burst into her …

    Crime 6 Aug 12:25

  • Solar storms, BlackPads and killer mice

    Comments It's the end times

    The Sun went mad this week, belching an especially huge quantity of superhot plasma straight at the Earth. The plasma cloud struck the Earth's magnetic field last night, causing the Northern Lights to go haywire. You lot were all about beauty and doomsaying. "a huge solar pimple so large as to be visible without the aid of a …

    Letters 6 Aug 13:06

  • Hoax Facebook virus makes more trouble than a real virus

    Don't tell all your friends

    A hoax Facebook virus is spreading rapidly across the social network. Many users have been hoodwinked into forwarding an inaccurate warning about the spread of non-existent malware that claims a girl committed suicide over a post her father wrote on her Facebook wall. No such tragedy has occurred but many are forwarding the …

    Spam 6 Aug 13:09

  • StarCraft II: Wings of Liberty

    Review After 12 years, the Zerg return...

    Starcraft II has been a long time coming and regardless of whether you’re a real-time strategy fanboy or not, Blizzard’s newest release for PC and Mac has generated quite a buzz. It promises to fill a void that has been sorely felt in the console-based wars of recent years. Get started with a quickie The first thing that …

    reghardware 6 Aug 13:12

  • Elon Musk plans new Mars rockets bigger than Saturn Vs

    Claims endorsement from the Dead Sea Scrolls. No, really

    SpaceX, the rocket company founded and bankrolled by famous PayPal nerdwealth icon Elon Musk, has revealed radical plans for a colossal launcher as big as the Saturn Vs which sent men to the Moon - and has also proposed nuclear-powered spaceships to carry astronauts to Mars. The future of heavy lift? The plans were …

    Space 6 Aug 13:48

  • O2 blamed for iPhone's data sucking

    Floods users with requests for money

    O2's Pay & Go customers are up in arms as the iPhone's simplicity and capability sees unwitting users' credit disappear into O2's hands. The users are those on O2's Text & Web tariff, which provides customers with 500MB of data as long as they topped up with at least a tenner the previous month. But some of them didn't, and …

    Mobile 6 Aug 13:50

  • LG Cookie breaks into UK

    Touchphone crumble

    LG Electronics has launched the Cookie Series, a range of brightly coloured phones aimed at the youf generation. Each Cookie comes with a touchscreen QWERTY keyboard, which claims to allow "easy texting without the bulk of a physical keyboard". Hmm, does anyone actually prefer touchscreen typing? As with many phones aimed at …

    reghardware 6 Aug 14:00

  • Inflated billions hide cloud’s cash potential

    Open...and Shut Red Hat, Rackspace, Rightscale strike gold

    Gartner thinks the cloud computing market will top $68bn in 2010. If so, it's probably a good idea that someone, somewhere in the industry starts to make money from the much-hyped cloud trend. After all, the poster child of cloud computing - Amazon - is reportedly only doing $500m or so this year, according to UBS research. …

    Software 6 Aug 14:02

  • Google faces trial on ageism claims

    Jury to consider 'derogatory age-related remarks'

    Google has been ordered by the California Supreme Court to stand trial in a lawsuit brought by a 54-year-old man, who was dubbed a “fuddy-duddy” by his Mountain View colleagues. Brian Reid put forward enough evidence that the court agreed showed possible bias to allow a jury to consider whether he had been dismissed from …

    Law 6 Aug 14:22

  • 700,000 Saudi BlackBerrys go silent noisy

    Updated I'm in Riya...

    Saudi Arabia has carried out its threat to cut off BlackBerry users in the country, with 700,000 addicts reduced to talking on the phone and perhaps even doing some work. The Bangkok Post reports that the email service stopped working around midday after the government had made it abundantly clear that networks which failed to …

    Mobile 6 Aug 14:35

  • Pentagon demands WikiLeaks stuff genie back in bottle

    Formal demand issued

    The US Defense Department has formally asked WikiLeaks to delete all copies of military documents it has received and return any documents not yet published. Julian Assange has already taken to Twitter to reject the offer. The message said: "Obnoxious Pentagon spokesperson issues formal threat against WikiLeaks: Destroy …

    Government 6 Aug 15:01

  • Apple rumoured to be mulling Chinese web gamer buy

    Laying seeds for Handseeing?

    Apple is reportedly looking to buy a Chinese internet game maker, according to an exec at the Handseeing Information Technology company. The firm's deputy general manager Tian Bo told Agence France-Presse (AFP) today that negotiations were underway. "We are indeed in talks," said the Handseeing exec. He told AFP that …

    Applications 6 Aug 15:40

  • US chops 131,000 jobs in July

    Big demand for computer system designers

    The US Census giveth, and the winding down of the census taketh away. If there is one lucky thing for President Obama, it is that the census occurred during an economic meltdown, allowing the US government to pump up jobs and mask some of the downturn in unemployment this year. But now the census and the $787bn Obama economic …

    IT Director 6 Aug 15:45

  • Nokia betas Craigslist for the third world

    Probably not awash with adult services

    Nokia has started testing Nokia Listings in India - a service much like Craigslist, only without the internet. Instead of expecting users to have computers, or even smartphones, Nokia Listings uses GPRS and runs on Series 40 handsets to provide information to the barely-connected. The service can even fall back on SMS …

    Applications 6 Aug 15:46

  • Beatles on iTunes? 'Don't hold your breath' says Yoko

    The long and winding road

    John Lennon's widow has put the kibosh on rumors that Apple Corps' Beatles catalog might arrive on Apple Inc's iTunes online music store anytime soon. "Don't hold your breath ... for anything," Yoko Ono was quoted as saying in an interview with Reuters when asked about the Beatles joining the Jobsian CD-killer. Rumors of the …

    Music and Media 6 Aug 17:25

  • Beefy 2010 chip forecast get steroids blast

    iSuppli of the tiger

    Chip market researcher iSuppli says in its latest forecast for 2010 that semiconductor sales are "already pumped up by bulging demand" but that this year it has "been injected with a powerful dose of growth steroids." And thus, iSuppli is raising its chip revenue forecast for the year. iSuppli was a bit more negative back in …

    PCs & Chips 6 Aug 17:46

  • Defcon speaker calls IPv6 a 'security nightmare'

    Growing pains for next-gen address system

    The internet's next-generation addressing scheme is so radically different from the current one that its adoption is likely to cause severe security headaches for those who adopt it, a researcher said last week. With reserves of older addresses almost exhausted, the roll-out of the new scheme — known as IPv6 or Internet …

    Enterprise Security 6 Aug 18:48

  • Novell to plow new-age Wave minus Google

    Trembling Pulse

    Novell has committed to keep surfing Google's Wave despite the search giant stopping development of its new-age collaboration tool. The Linux vendor has said it'll keep building Novell Pulse, its implementation of Wave built using Google's APIs and protocols, as it can turn Wave into a successful technology. Pulse targets …

    Applications 6 Aug 19:35

  • US appeals court bashes warrantless GPS tracking

    No more illicit snoop-dart blow guns

    A federal appeals court has roundly rejected US government claims that it doesn't need a search warrant to surveil suspects using global positioning system location-tracking devices. In a decision released Friday, a three-judge panel of the US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia unanimously ruled that FBI agents …

    Law 6 Aug 21:25

  • HP's Hurd quits quickly on sexual harassment probe

    'Painful decision, difficult to continue'

    HP boss Mark Hurd has resigned suddenly following allegations of sexual harassment. Hurd quit the $17m-a-year chief executive, chairman, and president post on Friday immediately following an investigation into claims of sexual harassment brought by a former HP contractor. HP said there'd been no violation of its sexual …

    Business 6 Aug 21:39

  • Apple iPhone app patent claim 'doesn't feel right'

    Small dev flags uncanny parallels

    Apple has apparently lifted the look-and-feel of an iPhone app from German developer FutureTap and used it in a software patent application, putting that developer in a sticky situation. "I can't really judge whether the inclusion of a 1:1 copy of our start screen in someone else's patent is legal," wrote FutureTap founder …

    Mobile 6 Aug 21:48

  • Unpatched kernel-level vuln affects all Windows versions

    Code execution possible

    Researchers have identified a kernel-level vulnerability in Windows that allows attackers to gain escalated privileges and may also allow them to remotely execute malicious code. All versions of the Microsoft OS are affected, including the heavily fortified Windows 7. The buffer overflow, which was originally reported here, …

    Malware 6 Aug 22:23

  • Hurd's HP legacy: Dell racer, IBM chaser

    Man executing on another's plan

    Somewhere in California, Carly Fiorina must nearly have choked to death from laughter while stumping for a US Senate seat as news of her successor's sudden departure broke following a sexual-harassment probe. It has not been an easy five years for Mark Hurd, the former president, chief executive officer, and chairman of HP, …

    Business 6 Aug 22:50