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9th August 2010 Archive

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  • iMovie for iPhone 4

    Review Video editing on the Judas phone

    Let's get one thing straight: this is not a port of Apple iMovie from the Mac OS to the iPhone OS. Rather, think of the iMovie iPhone app is a massively cut-down version with a handful of editing functions and even fewer options. Getting started in Apple's iMovie for iPhone 4: Pick a theme from a generous choice of er... five …

    reghardware 9 Aug 07:02

  • HP contractor 'surprised and saddened' by Hurd sacking

    'Never my intention'

    Mark Hurd's nemesis is a former soft porn actress and a reality TV wannabe and she is "surprised and saddened" by his enforced departure from HP. And she has privately settled her sexual harassment claim with him. In a statement released on Sunday by her attorney, the celebrity lawyer Gloria Allred, Fisher said: "I was …

    IT Director 9 Aug 07:07

  • Ton-up speed merchant blames dyslexia

    103mph? Can't read the speedometer, officer

    A 40-year-old speed merchant clocked doing 103mph in a 60mph zone blamed dyslexia for his extravagant speed. A concerned driver called in cops after spotting Matthew Cook "weaving in and out of traffic as he sped along the A27 between Falmer and Hollingbury in East Sussex", Brighton's The Argus reports. Witnesses said …

    Bootnotes 9 Aug 07:45

  • Virgin Media puts Dave and Gold on the block

    BBC in the frame for UKTV

    Isn't it funny how core businesses stop being core when you are making a loss? This is the case for Virgin Media, the cable TV operator, which is loaded down with almost £6bn in debt. Now it wants to sell off its half share in 10 digital TV channels, including Dave and Gold, and aims to raise at least £350m from the disposal, …

    reghardware 9 Aug 08:33

  • Big vendors get deadline to fix holes, or face the music

    Analysis Full, responsible, coordinated or no disclosure - take your pick

    TippingPoint has upped the ante on vulnerability disclosure by giving vendors six months to fix bugs before it goes public with information on flaws. The intrusion prevention specialist, bought by HP earlier this year, has rewarded security researchers for information about vulnerabilities via its long-running Zero Day …

    Malware 9 Aug 08:43

  • Hot babes discriminated against by some employers

    Can't get jobs in prison service, certain other sectors

    Trick-cyclists in the States have found that being a beautiful woman, while in general good news, is a disadvantage when trying to get certain types of jobs. “In two studies, we found that attractiveness is beneficial for men and women applying for most jobs, in terms of ratings of employment suitability,” according to …

    Biology 9 Aug 09:00

  • Rogue San Fran BOFH given 4 years

    2 years served to be deducted

    Terry Childs, the San Francisco sysadmin who locked the city out its own network, is going to prison. He was sentenced on Friday to four years but has already served over two years in custody, which will be deducted from his sentence, IDG reports. Childs refused to hand over passwords for the city's network, claiming his boss …

    Servers 9 Aug 09:01

  • Flash finally finagled onto iPhone

    For those prepared to risk it

    A dedicated iPhone hacker has ported a client for Adobe's Flash onto an iPhone 4, just about, and with a dicey installation process. The hack can only be applied to a Jailbroken iPhone 4, though the developer reckons it will run on an 3GS and an iPad. But if you've got the hardware and the nerve then you're only eight steps …

    Mobile 9 Aug 09:30

  • US starts charging for online visa-waiver

    Huddled masses? Nine quid a head, squire

    The US online visa-waiver scheme ESTA starts charging from early next month. Previously British travellers could, under some circumstances, avoid US visa requirements by filling in an online form. The Electronic System for Travel Authorization was only for citizens of countries included in the Visa Waiver Program and was a …

    Government 9 Aug 09:41

  • Runner and riders for HP's top job

    Comment Who will succeed Mark Hurd at HP?

    Who is next in line to become the new boss at HP, the company that likes its CEOs to shoot themselves in the foot? Puritanical and whiter-than-white HP has forced its miracle-working CEO Mark Hurd out after tawdry accusations of sexual harassment, since settled privately, revealed inappropriate expenses claims by Hurd and meet …

    Servers 9 Aug 09:46

  • DNS Made Easy rallies after punishing DDoS attack

    50Gbps of botnet-powered badness

    DNS Made Easy has restored services following a vicious denial of service that peaked at 50Gbps on Saturday. The identity of the perpetrators and their motives remain unclear. One possible scenario is that hackers with a grudge against the site hired a botnet to swamp DNS Made Easy with useless traffic. A blow-by-blow account …

    Enterprise Security 9 Aug 09:48

  • BBC workers lose £240k of tech gear in two years

    FoI request reveals missing kit

    The BBC lost laptops and mobiles worth a total of £241,019 in the past two years. A Freedom of Information request submitted by computer security outfit Absolute Software revealed the Beeb’s losses this morning, reports the Press Association. Staff at the Corporation, BBC Worldwide and other Auntie subsidiaries reported that …

    PCs & Chips 9 Aug 10:03

  • Google Slides away from Wave FAIL with social network buy

    In your Facebook... bitch

    Google has bought social network tech outfit Slide for an undisclosed sum in its latest effort to tackle Facebook’s Web2.0 dominance. The buy came just 48 hours after Google killed its Wave tool, which made a splash landing in May 2009. But within a year of its birth, the email-IM-and-everything-else-Web-2.0-splatter-gun …

    Applications 9 Aug 10:31

  • Desktop virtualisation: why, how, and how much?

    Workshop None of the above have an easy answer

    As anyone who has started down the path will confirm, desktop virtualisation is not a single thing - rather it offers a number of ways of modernising the management of the desktop environment, either in its entirety, or for specific user types. It’s not just about giving everyone dumb(ish) terminals and stuffing everything …

    IT at the coalface 9 Aug 10:36

  • BlackBerry bows to Saudi Arabia

    Servers moved, ban averted

    RIM is to locate three servers within Saudi Arabia, putting them under the jurisdiction of local security forces and thus removing the necessity of the planned ban. That ban did come into effect briefly, with BlackBerry users in Saudi finding themselves bereft of email for several hours while a deal was put together. Now the …

    Telecoms 9 Aug 10:39

  • Corrupt repair engineer jailed for bank fraud attempt

    Candid camera outs opportunistic hacker

    A corrupt laptop repair engineer has gone to jail for nine months after he was convicted of hacking into the laptop of one of his customers. Grzegorz Zachodni, 30, was caught browsing through pictures in a private folder and attempting to hack into an online banking account during a Sky News investigation into computer repair …

    Crime 9 Aug 10:48

  • O2 offers Pay & Go BlackBerry basket

    Take your pick

    Midsummer BlackBerry picking time and O2 has its finger in the pie, with a range of RIM's smartphones on Pay & Go in the offing. BlackBerry Pearl 3G, available in black or purple exclusively for O2 at £250 BlackBerry Curve 8520, also comes in black or purple at £150 BlackBerry Curve 8900 at £280 BlackBerry Bold 9700 at £350 …

    reghardware 9 Aug 11:01

  • Ryanair plumps for Dell EqualLogic

    Rejects HP and IBM/NetApp

    Ryanair, the low-cost airline renowned for its customer service, has chosen a Dell EqualLogic storage system for its Dublin data centre, rejecting competing offers from HP and an IBM/NetApp combo. The contract is worth €470,000 and is part of a Ryanair data centre upgrade intended to improve its internal IT. Ryanair is aiming …

    Storage 9 Aug 11:41

  • Should your data centre look more like Google’s?

    Reader Study Or is that just a stupid idea?

    With all the talk of cloud, some are predicting the death of the enterprise data centre. The argument is that renting capacity from a service provider reduces costs and therefore owning your own facility in the future will become an extravagant luxury that few will be able to justify. For those not buying this line of thinking …

    Servers 9 Aug 11:45

  • Moon actually dryer than dem dry bones, say boffins

    Kybosh put on lunar ice-mine rocketfuel bonanza plans

    Spoilsport boffins, carrying out a new analysis of lunar rocks brought back by the Apollo missions of yesteryear, have pooh-poohed the notion that there are copious amounts of water to be found on the Moon. The research might be thought to have finally dashed hopes of mining lunar ice for cheap rocket fuel, but in fact President …

    Space 9 Aug 11:57

  • Vodafone won't act on customers' HTC Desires

    Video streamers wait patiently for action

    Customer anger over Vodafone UK's unwanted Desire app update is receiving national coverage and has its own Web 2.0 campaign, while other customers who merely wish to stream video are still being asked to wait patiently. These two issues are of great importance to a small number of customers, but while the Desire update is …

    Mobile 9 Aug 12:38

  • Google experimenting with spy drones, says German maker

    'Sky View' brewing, or just fresher Google Maps?

    Global small-ads colossus Google is trialling a small battery-powered camera drone of a type previously used by the UK police and special forces, according to reports. It's thought that the flying spyeyes might add a new dimension to the company's controversial "Street View" picture database, compiled by fleets of camera cars …

    Applications 9 Aug 13:20

  • Skype gets ready to float

    IPO for VOIP

    Best-known VoIP provider Skype has filed documents with the Securities and Exchange Commission to allow it to make an initial public offering of its shares. The IPO remains a bit of a mystery - the number of shares on offer and the price range have not been revealed. In 2009 eBay said Skpe was worth $2bn - which sounds like a …

    VoIP 9 Aug 14:01

  • Judge rejects Accenture appeal against £182m lawsuit

    Billing system cockup goes all the way to court

    A preliminary appeal brought by Accenture against British Gas was rejected last week, after a judge ruled that a £182m lawsuit connected to the failure of a new billing system shouldn’t be obstructed. As a result of that ruling the case will now be heard in court in October next year. It was first brought by British Gas in May …

    Channel Register 9 Aug 14:11

  • RIM confirms Curve 3G

    BlackBerry bound for Blighty

    The new BlackBerry Curve 3G is official and on its way to the UK. Canadian network giant Rogers began selling the Curve 3G last week, despite RIM claiming the low-end Qwerty handset didn't exist. Well, it certainly does now. The BlackBerry Curve 3G, also known as the 9300, matches its predecessor, the 8520, but features a …

    reghardware 9 Aug 14:55

  • Turkish groom accidentally sprays wedding guests with bullets

    Father, aunts slain in freak nuptial firearms blunder

    A bridegroom in Turkey, seeking to enliven his nuptial celebrations by the traditional local practice of firing an automatic weapon into the air, has accidentally gunned down 11 of his wedding guests in a freak tragedy bloodbath firearms discharge mishap. The BBC reports that the unfortunate groom, intending only to let off a …

    Bootnotes 9 Aug 15:21

  • Wireless monitoring saves lives - study

    In those already suffering from heart disease

    Wireless monitoring of those suffering from a heart condition can save 50 lives per 1,000 patients, assuming all that radio interference doesn't give them cancer, a study has found. The figures come from systematic review of 25 studies looking at the levels of hospital re-admissions and fatalities following chronic heart …

    Wireless 9 Aug 15:24

  • How neutrality locks in the web's 'Hyper Giants'

    Analysis What Google-Verizon means for you

    The creatures outside looked from pig to man, and from man to pig, and from pig to man again; but already it was impossible to say which was which. - Animal Farm By the mid 1990s it had become pointless to compete with Microsoft in operating systems and office software - and investment in potential competitors dried up. The …

    Telecoms 9 Aug 15:36

  • Anti-virus defences even shakier than feared

    Updated Security firms attack 'flawed' tests

    Anti-virus technologies may be even more ineffective than feared, if a controversial new study is to be believed. A study by web intelligence firm Cyveillance found that, on average, vendors detect less than 19 per cent of malware attacks on the first day malware appears in the wild. Even after 30 days, detection rates …

    Malware 9 Aug 15:48

  • Skype: Fear and loathing in Cupertino, Mountain View

    Analysis Ditches MySpace warns on patents and Apple

    Skype’s IPO has revealed some interesting nuggets about the voice network provider’s intentions and fears as it looks to make an initial public offering of its shares. Chief among them are its decision to ditch MySpace and expressions of concern about Google and Apple. “We believe that users that have registered through …

    VoIP 9 Aug 15:57

  • Virgin and Ubisoft team up for tournaments

    It pays to be a Virgin gamer

    Virgin Gaming has teamed up with Ubisoft to host online tournaments featuring some of the publisher's top titles. The collaboration kicks off when Ubisoft's Ghost Recon: Future Soldier is released early next year, with Virgin Gaming set to act as the online tournament provider. Unveiled by Sir Richard Branson at E3 in June …

    reghardware 9 Aug 16:30

  • Microsoft ends Office lovers' employee discount program

    Time to move on

    Microsoft is ending a discount licensing program that has proven to be hugely popular among companies' employees wanting cheap copies of Office. The company said its software Employee Purchase Program (EPP) will wrap up in November after seven years. EPP has been available to customers buying Microsoft's products under its …

    Applications 9 Aug 17:14

  • Details spill on IBM's big iron Power7 servers

    Price favors profits not volume

    With Big Blue getting ready to launch its biggest Power7-based server, the 256-core Power 795 machine, on August 17 and four entry Power7 machines as well, resellers have been briefed and tongues have started wagging. The Power 795 is a 256-core, 1,024-thread behemoth that will, as El Reg suggested, sport 8TB of main memory …

    Servers 9 Aug 17:36

  • Upgraded iPads, iPhone, and Apple TV reported

    Verizon iPhone closes Antennagate

    An avalanche of Apple rumors has hit, starring two upgraded iPads powered by ARM Cortex A9–based processors; an AMD-powered, cloud-centric Apple TV; and a redesigned, metal-backed, CDMA iPhone from Verizon that would break AT&T's subscriber-vexing exclusivity. While none of the rumors are entirely new, a Monday report by the …

    Mobile 9 Aug 19:48

  • Critical jailbreak hole plugged in Foxit Reader

    Adobe Reader unaffected

    The Foxit document reader has been updated to fix the same critical bug that currently leaves iPhones, iPads, and iPod touches wide open to malware attacks. Foxit Reader version 4.1.1.0805 “fixes the crash issue caused by the new iPhone/iPad jailbreak program which can be exploited to inject arbitrary code into a system and …

    Malware 9 Aug 19:57

  • DARPA awards $76.6m supercomputer challenge

    Small scale ExtremeScale

    If you were thinking about entering the US Defense Advanced Research Project Agency's ExtremeScale supercomputing challenge issued in March, you missed your chance. DARPA's awarded grants to four design teams, plus another that'll run benchmarks on the HPC prototypes. The heavy hitters in the HPC community as well as in …

    HPC 9 Aug 20:09

  • Judge halts domain registration scam

    $4.26m in bogus renewal fees collected

    A federal judge has ordered members of a Canadian operation to stop posing as domain-name registrars in scams that collected more than $4.26m in bogus renewal fees from unsuspecting consumers, small businesses, and non-profits. US District Judge Robert M. Dow Jr. of the Northern District of Illinois also issued judgments of $4 …

    Crime 9 Aug 20:59

  • Shipping container fuels Australia's bid to be supercomputing power

    So what's inside the box?

    Sun, we think in 2006, kicked off the notion of putting pre-configured data centres in 20-foot long shipping containers. We used to call them White Trash containers, although none of us can remember why. HP is now applying the same idea to supercomputers and has already bagged some high profile customers for its POD, a plug- …

    HPC 9 Aug 22:30

  • Ellison blasts HP 'idiots' for Hurd's exit

    Tennis buddy serves up

    Larry Ellison has ridden to Mark Hurd's defense and unleashed on HP's board for dropping its CEO following an investigation for sexual harassment. In a rare display of top-earner solidarity, Ellison slammed the board as "idiots" that failed to act in the best interests of HP's employees, shareholders, and partners by forcing …

    Business 9 Aug 23:53

  • Google, Verizon offer net neutrality proposal

    A free internet — except when it isn't

    Google and Verizon have hammered out a joint proposal for the FCC and internet industry in the hopes of ending the roiling network neutrality debate. It won't. "Crafting a compromise proposal has not been an easy process, and we have certainly had our differences along the way," wrote Google director of public policy Alan …

    Music and Media 9 Aug 23:59