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20th August 2010 Archive

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  • Researcher: Code-execution bug affects 200 Windows apps

    Ain't no cure for binary-planting blues

    About 200 Windows applications are vulnerable to remote code-execution attacks that exploit a bug in the way the programs load binary files for the Microsoft operating system, a security researcher said Thursday. The critical vulnerability, which has already been patched in Apple's iTunes media player for Windows and VMware …

    Malware 20 Aug 00:31

  • Google opens Chrome Web Store to devs

    Upload your 'installable web apps'

    Google is now allowing developers to upload applications to the as-yet-un-open Chrome Web Store, an online gallery of web applications and web extensions for the company's Chrome browser and its upcoming Chrome OS operating system. "Developers can now start uploading apps and experiment with packaging them, installing them in …

    Developer 20 Aug 00:33

  • Coder cooks up Java-built Flash Player

    OpenGL gurus sought

    A version of Flash is being built using Java, two years after Adobe Systems opened the player's closed formats to external inspection. Programmer Joa Ebert has demonstrated a Java build of Flash executing SWF. The player is apparently called JITB, and it was recently unveiled at an event in San Francisco. While there's still …

    Developer 20 Aug 05:02

  • Hitachi Data Systems buys ParaScale

    Scoops up assets of crashed startup

    Remember ParaScale and direct access to cloud storage? The start-up crash-landed in June and Hitachi Data Systems has just bought the intellectual property assets and engineering team. HDS' chief strategist for file and content services, Miki Sandorfi, announced this on his blog last night, writing: "We have recently acquired …

    Blocks and Files 20 Aug 06:22

  • Panasonic DMC-G2 interchangeable lens camera

    Review Micro Four-Thirds touchscreen tour de force

    The Panasonic Lumix DMC-G2 is another addition to the growing Micro Four Thirds family of cameras. I think we know the drill now; cuter form factor for a traditional interchangeable lens system, similar features to a DSLR but no reflex mirror, and a bit more discreet. Touch and go: Panasonic's Lumix DMC-G2 Yet what sets …

    reghardware 20 Aug 07:02

  • Cops cuff armed white supremacist in banana costume

    Indecent exposure kicks off lively afternoon in Washington

    A Washington state US Marine reservist was earlier this week cuffed following a lively Tuesday afternoon which saw him dress in a child's banana costume, indecently expose himself and wave a shotgun in the street while shouting "something or other about white supremacy". Carlton Jeffery Kohnert, 21, accompanied by Anthony …

    Bootnotes 20 Aug 08:13

  • SanDisk bigs up its flash postage stamp

    Just keep taking the tablets

    SanDisk has announced a postage stamp-sized flash iSSD product for tablet computers at the Flash Memory Summit, with capacity ranging from 4GB to 64GB. IDC has conveniently defined a new flash product category, embedded flash, for what are called "highly portable consumer electronics devices", presumably meaning anything from …

    Storage 20 Aug 08:19

  • Big Blue promises jobs for few

    We few, we happy few

    IBM is starting an apprentice scheme for the first time which might just rescue people who got bad news in the post from yesterday's A-level results. IBM will pluck 20 people to join its IT Specialists. The apprenticeship will involve travelling three or four days a week but you'll be home for the weekends. Applicants need not …

    IT Director 20 Aug 08:20

  • Organ banks on horizon as boffins prep tissue-freeze tech

    Worryingly, experiments include human cells and flies

    Once again disregarding the warnings of science fiction, boffins in America are seeking to develop technology which will allow human parts to be frozen indefinitely in organ banks for use in on-demand transplants. “The goal is to make human cells survive on ice. Twenty-four hours on ice is pushing it and many people die …

    Biology 20 Aug 08:30

  • Intel swallows McAfee: Why?

    The three Ss: security, security, security

    In its biggest acquisition ever, Intel has pledged to spend $7.6bn for security firm McAfee in a bid to add security to its portfolio of mostly chippy stuff. There are lots of stories all over webdom covering this, including the Reg's own from John Leyden. A CRN think piece discusses more background and talks about how Intel and …

    HPC Blog 20 Aug 09:06

  • Nikon intros successor to popular D3000 DSLR

    Now with full HD recording, HDMI

    Nikon has announced the sequel to its D3000 digital SLR- said to be Europe's best-selling DSLR during the first half of this year. The D3100 ups the camera's sensor from 10Mp to 14Mp, and the max ISO from 1600 to 3200. It also gains the ability to shoot full HD - 1080p - video. The update also add the ability to read and …

    reghardware 20 Aug 09:12

  • It's time to presume the web is guilty

    Sysadmin blog Trevor's got a plan to save the internet

    The security defenses available to us are clumsy and inadequate. Anti-malware applications are grand at dealing with well known threats, but pathetic and worthless at dealing with emerging ones. Software vendors are too entrenched in politics, feasibility studies and bad attempts at public relations to bother to properly and …

    Desktop Mgmt Blog 20 Aug 09:29

  • BBC heralds next Doctor Who download game

    Updated Episode three imminent

    The BBC will post the third in its series of free, downloadable Doctor Who games "soon", the Corporation said today. The third episode in the series of Adventure Games, the as-yet-untitled download sees the Doc swept out into space, leaving companion Amy Pond to explore his dimensionally transcendental time-and-space craft to …

    reghardware 20 Aug 09:30

  • Orange gives the green light

    It's all working now - apparently

    Orange UK tells us the network snafu that's been leaving customers with slow or broken data connections is now fixed, so any remaining problems aren't its fault. Apparently the problems, which have plagued users for the last couple of days, were down to "an unusual software issue, which combined with a separate and localised …

    Mobile 20 Aug 09:56

  • HP confirms 'Palm pad' to ship early 2011

    Windows 7 tablet out sooner

    HP will bring its WebOS-based tablet to market early next year, a company executive has stated. During the PC giant's quarterly earnings conference last night, Todd Bradley, head of the company's Personal Systems Group, said: "Tablet sales and slate sales [were] a big part of the reason we acquired Palm. You'll see us with a …

    reghardware 20 Aug 10:00

  • Apple crushes Quattro as RIM hot-wires own ads vehicle

    The fast, the furious and the expensive

    As Apple shuts down Quattro Wireless in favour of its own advertising platform iAds, it seems that RIM is looking to make a similar move into mobile advertising. Quattro Wireless was in the business of embedding adverts into mobile applications and web sites, but was bought by Apple in January to provide intelligence for Apple …

    Mobile 20 Aug 10:07

  • Nokia drops Nokia from Nokia Music

    What's an Ovi?

    The world's biggest mobile company is to remove the obscure and confusing "Nokia" branding from its key strategic music service, Comes With Music, and lavish it with the world-renowned and highly respected "Ovi" brand, instead. The news didn't merit an official announcement, but was leaked to bloggers instead. A spokesperson …

    Mobile 20 Aug 10:13

  • Online sales hit £5bn a month

    Even better if you've got a shop too

    Online retail sales hit £5bn in the month of July thanks mainly to rubbish UK weather pushing people onto the internet to book last-minute holidays. The travel sector was up 18 per cent on July last year - the same as the index as a whole. Booze sales were down nine per cent compared to June, when they were heavily boosted by …

    Small Biz 20 Aug 10:41

  • Met to improve information handling

    Copper bottomed tech plan

    The Metropolitan Police Service has outlined a number of IT plans aimed at improving its information processes. Its directorate of information's strategic plan for 2010-11 says that technology will play a big part in delivering secure and reliable information "where and when it is needed". This includes the development of e. …

    Policing 20 Aug 10:51

  • OCZ's automated flash-HDD tiering for PCs

    Like EMC's FAST but for consumers

    OCZ is extending its RevoDrive PCIe flash card to deliver automated hot data placement on solid state storage from a direct-attached SATA hard disk drive, using adaptive cache storage management software. The idea, presented at the Flash Memory Summit, is to extend the memory hierarchy in desktops by integrating a PCIe flash …

    Blocks and Files 20 Aug 10:58

  • Salesforce.com hoists fiscal year outlook as Q2 income slides

    Parklife up in clouds

    Salesforce.com jacked up its outlook for the year yesterday, after reporting second quarter sales that beat Wall Street expectations on revenues but which saw net income slide. The company, which grabbed more than 5,000 new customers in the period ended 31 July, recorded Q2 revenue of $394m, up 25 per cent from $316m total …

    Channel Register 20 Aug 11:03

  • Nokia gets into analytics

    A declining share measured is still declining

    Nokia is to buy analytics service Motally, providing the technology to measure precisely how few people are using Nokia phones these days. Motally isn't a large company - eight people based in San Francisco - but its technology is designed to be embedded in mobile applications to collect demographic and usage data, which Nokia …

    Mobile 20 Aug 11:05

  • Prudish Google slammed for Aussie censorship

    Can you see what it is yet? Nope!

    Google's Australian tentacle has been slammed for censoring a political party advert which had already aired on TV. Australians go to the polls on Saturday and Google had already approved the advert in question. But on Thursday it abruptly stuck an "adults-only" tag on adverts from the Australian Sex Party, which campaigns …

    Government 20 Aug 11:06

  • Information Commissioner calls in tech experts

    Aims to avoid future pants-down incidents

    The Information Commissioner plans to appoint a panel of experts to advise his office on new technologies, following criticism it has been caught off-guard by emerging privacy threats. The ICO's executive team decided (pdf) to create a Technology Reference Panel in July. Its members - "trusted experts with a range of …

    Law 20 Aug 11:12

  • Intel needs to rethink security to profit from McAfee buy

    Analysis Power, performance and (now) protection

    Intel's surprise $7.76bn acquisition of McAfee is not only the biggest pure-play security deal in history, but the most significant statement of intent by an IT superpower since Microsoft launched its Trustworthy Computing initiative back in 2002. Microsoft launched the initiative to develop products that are more secure by …

    Enterprise Security 20 Aug 11:46

  • Scareware tries to trick marks into dropping defences

    Strip for me, baby

    Virus authors have developed a strain of malware that attempts to con users into uninstalling legitimate security packages. A rogue package called AnVi Antivirus generates a cheeky pop-up message suggesting that legitimate apps are “uncertified" and ought to be removed. Failure to take action would result in drastically …

    Malware 20 Aug 11:48

  • MOON SHRINKING FAST - shock NASA discovery

    LHC-spawned black hole gobbling it from within?*

    Imagery from a NASA spacecraft has revealed that the Moon has shrunk significantly in recent times: indeed, instruments placed by the Apollo astronauts are thought to have recorded the rumbling, crunching sounds of lunar shrinkage carrying on in just the last few decades. A shrinking moon is a wrinkly moon. And a pockmarked …

    Space 20 Aug 11:50

  • WIN a Plantronics .Audio 646 DSP stereo headset

    Giveaway ideal for Skypers and gamers

    Plantronics' .Audio 646 headset is one of the smartest USB-connected stereo headsets out there, and Reg Hardware was one pair to give away to one lucky reader. Designed for music playback and voice communications - whether you're chatting on Skype, or shouting at teammates in a multi-player game - the .Audio 646 uses DSP …

    reghardware 20 Aug 12:02

  • UK mobile networks more popular than ever

    Even if they are making less money...

    The UK's mobile sector has never carried more traffic, but revenue was down last year for the first time ever as users demanded and got more service for less money. Ofcom's Communications Market Report (lengthy pdf) says many things about the industry, not least that it's the first time the UK's mobile operators have seen …

    Mobile 20 Aug 12:48

  • Google co-founders to be immortalised on silver screen

    Adam Sandler and Tom Cruise to play leading roles, perhaps?

    Facebook boydroid Mark Zuckerberg isn’t the only web kingpin to be portrayed on the silver screen, as a film about Google founders Sergey Brin and Larry Page has reportedly been optioned. According to the Deadline blog, producer John Morris has got together with Michael London’s Groundswell Productions to buy movie rights to …

    Bootnotes 20 Aug 13:00

  • PARIS acquires visual tracking capability

    Sets telescopic sights on Vulture 1

    Our Paper Aircraft Released Into Space (PARIS) programme continues to advance on multiple fronts, with the Vulture 1-X structure coming along nicely, a Mark 2 release mechanism ready for testing and our logistics team pondering just how to get the maximum bangs for bucks from launch day - when it finally arrives. As avid …

    PARIS 20 Aug 13:22

  • Google's Wave flop: Spare us the warm fuzzies

    Open...and Shut Behemoth acting alone is suspicious

    Google's Wave has crashed, but the trick for Google is to learn the right lessons from its failure. Some suggest that Google Wave displays Google's willingness to innovate at the risk of failure, which likely gives the search giant warm fuzzies. Instead, I believe it reveals the ways in which Google can improve its third-party …

    Developer 20 Aug 14:02

  • Overland sues BDT for patent infringement

    No win, no fee law firm deal

    Struggling tape and disk array data protection vendor Overland Storage is suing BDT, a Germany-based tape automation supplier for using its patented technology unlawfully. There are two patents involved: one dealing with media elements in an automated media library; and the other with insertion or removal of tape cartridges …

    Blocks and Files 20 Aug 14:23

  • Intel's embedded security strategy faces tech obstacles

    Security vendors react to blockbuster deal

    Security vendors have welcomed Intel's $7.7bn acquisition of McAfee as confirmation of the importance of security in the future of computing but warned plans to embed security in chips will pose difficult technical challenges and may upset existing partners. Intel's blockbuster deal follows Symantec’s recent acquisition of PGP …

    PCs & Chips 20 Aug 14:24

  • Mobile PC buyers buying peppier boxes

    Worldwide PC chip units and sales rise in Q2

    Usually, PC processor shipments fall moving from the first quarter to the second, but in the wake of the economic meltdown, trends continue to wiggle in funny ways as a new level of normality tries to establish itself. Which is why PC chip unit shipments and revenues rose sequentially in the second quarter, according to IDC. …

    PCs & Chips 20 Aug 14:52

  • Trojan-ridden warning system implicated in Spanair crash

    Cascading fail

    Malware may have been a contributory cause of a fatal Spanair crash that killed 154 people two years ago. Spanair flight number JK 5022 crashed with 172 on board moments after taking off from Madrid's Barajas Airport on a scheduled flight to Las Palmas on 20 August 2008. Just 18 survived the crash and subsequent fire aboard …

    Enterprise Security 20 Aug 15:03

  • Google Street View captures miracle Heisenloo

    Cover one eye, stand on one leg

    Of all the miracles captured by Google Street View, the public convenience that disappears when you walk past it could be one of the strangest. To see this spectacle, position yourself here on Liverpool's Lodge Lane in Toxteth. You will see the loo behind the bus stop. No ordinary toilet Now take one step back. As if by …

    Bootnotes 20 Aug 15:10

  • Mobile phones: Where does the money go?

    Android licensees risk the WinMobile Disease - analyst

    One of the oldest mottos at Vulture Central is Show Us The Money. There's one even better, I think, which is Show Us The Profits. Are there any? If there are, where are they going? At a stroke, this cuts through huge amounts of hype and puts entire industries (and, for good measure, almost anything WiReD magazine has ever …

    Mobile 20 Aug 15:14

  • DARPA orders VTOL robots for 'covert payload placement'

    Tailsitter two-stroke 'V-Bats' drop off surprise packages

    DARPA, the US military research bureau occasionally prone to embarrassing tumbles from the teetering kitchen stool of unreasonable risk while groping wildly for the inaccessible biscuit tin of technological dominance secreted atop the unscalable refrigerator of unfeasibility, has done it again. The maverick Pentagon …

    Science 20 Aug 15:54

  • Ethernet storage protocol choices

    You The Expert: AoE, iSCSI or FC?

    We're moving to a world in which all storage network protocols run over Ethernet. That means both file and block. There's no dispute about running file access over Ethernet but the block world is squaring up for a three-way tussle. The three block protocols are iSCSI, Fibre Channel and AoE. iSCSI uses the TCP/IP stack to …

    Storage 20 Aug 16:04

  • Big biz loved Dell servers and storage in Q2

    Bespoke hyperscale server biz softens

    Large corporations are not buying servers, storage and PCs like it is 1999, and neither are their SMB counterparts, but if Dell's numbers for the second quarter of fiscal 2011 are any indication, they are acting a bit like it is early 2008 before the bottom dropped out of the global economy. As El Reg reported yesterday, Dell …

    Servers 20 Aug 16:22

  • Google lands Gmail video chat on Linux

    Ubuntu and other Debians

    Google has introduced a Linux incarnation of the online voice and video chat client that integrates with Gmail and other Google services. In a blog post, the company says that Linux support was its top video chat request. "If you’ve been wanting to use voice and video chat on Linux," the post reads, "then we have good news for …

    Applications 20 Aug 17:13

  • Google Nexus One 'too popular' in dev phone afterlife

    Dead and loving it

    Google's Nexus One phone was a flop as a sold-direct-to-consumer "superphone," but according to the company, it's a huge hit in its new incarnation as a developer platform. With a blog post Friday morning, Google Android man Tim Bray announced that the Nexus One developer phone has already sold out and that the company is …

    Mobile 20 Aug 19:09

  • Ubuntu quietly breaks off Sparc affair

    Neglect is no excuse

    Maverick Meerkat is set to become the last version of Ubuntu that'll run on Oracle's Sparc, ending a four-year relationship. Also getting canned is Ubuntu running on Hewlett-Packard's Itanic 64-bit challenger. Meerkat is currently in feature-freeze ahead of October's official launch, and apparently nobody's stepped up to …

    Operating Systems 20 Aug 19:26

  • LG touts 'surprisingly productive' iPad killer

    Novel feature: usefulness

    LG says that its upcoming tablet, set for worldwide release before the end of this year, will compete against Apple's iPad by being, well, useful. "It's going to be surprisingly productive," LG VP for mobile-device marketing Chang Ma told the Wall Street Journal. "Our tablet will be better than the iPad." Ma told the WSJ that …

    Mobile 20 Aug 20:10

  • Apple eyes kill switch for jailbroken iPhones

    ...for your own good

    Apple has applied for a patent covering an elaborate series of measures to automatically protect iPhone owners from thieves and other unauthorized users. But please withhold the applause. The patent, titled “Systems and Methods for Identifying Unauthorized Users of an Electronic Device,” would also protect Apple against …

    Mobile 20 Aug 22:38