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7th September 2010 Archive

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  • Ellison taps ex-HP CEO Hurd as Oracle co-prez

    Phillips replaced by Larry tennis buddy

    Ex-HP CEO Mark Hurd has been named co-president at Oracle. Maybe Charles Phillips, one of the two former co-presidents of software giant and hardware wannabe Oracle, should have spent more time on the tennis courts with founder and CEO Larry Ellison and less time in the office. The strategy seems to have worked well for Hurd …

    Financial News 7 Sep 01:27

  • Intel and USB 3.0

    The cougar gets it

    DigiTimes thinks Intel could add a USB 3.0 host controller to its Cougar motherboard reference design. This is based on a report in a Chinese media outlet, Commercial Times. The announcement is expected at the Intel Developer Forum 2010 in San Francisco next week and It should help USB 3.0 standardisation. Intel has been …

    Blocks and Files 7 Sep 02:26

  • Bowers and Wilkins P5 headphones

    Review Aural excitement

    Renowned for it high-end hi-fi, Bowers and Wilkins’ decision to make headphones is a bit of a departure for the company. At first glance, its debut set of cans, the P5s, certainly appear an impressive addition to its respected range of audio porn. Sonic sender: Bowers and Wilkins' P5 While rather heavy, the weight of the …

    reghardware 7 Sep 07:00

  • UK patent attorneys: ECJ should reject advisors' opinion

    Pan-EU patent court a good thing

    The European Court of Justice should reject the opinion of its advisors and put pragmatic economics ahead of legal technicalities and approve a pan-EU patent court, the UK patent attorneys' trade body has said. Advocates General of the European Court of Justice (ECJ) said in an opinion that the current proposal for a pan- …

    Law 7 Sep 07:44

  • Happiness: Yours for £50k a year

    Optimum income for joie de vivre

    US researchers have found that happiness can be yours for an income of $75k a year (or £48,814.44 as of this morning), although trousering more than that won't necessarily increase your joie de vivre. Professor Angus Deaton, an economist at the Center for Health and Wellbeing at Princeton University, and Nobel Prize winning …

    Bootnotes 7 Sep 07:45

  • Symantec stumbles, drops further behind EMC

    Shaky second quarter

    The gap between EMC and Symantec storage software revenues is widening, according to IDC's worldwide quarterly Storage Software Tracker. For the second quarter of this year, Symantec's revenues of $488m were 67.6 per cent of EMC's $722m. A year ago, at $524m they were 82.1 per cent of EMC's $638m. IDC says EMC and Symantec …

    Storage 7 Sep 08:11

  • Custodial offence for deliberate invasion of data protection? Forget it!

    You had your chance, Labour

    I must confess that I find it rich that New Labour Ministers, who were in government for more than a decade, are now huffing and puffing about their “phone inboxes being hacked”. The sad truth is that, in government, they could have done a great deal to protect individual privacy by making such hacking a custodial offence. In …

    Law 7 Sep 08:45

  • Retailers price up Samsung 7in Android tablet

    Ouch

    Samsung's upcoming 7in Android tablet, the Galaxy Tab, is beginning to be priced up by retailers ahead of its anticipated arrival next month. Alas, it looks like it'll be a pricey offering. UK online retailer eXpansys, for example, is taking orders for the 16GB version - if you're willing to pay £680. That seems a lot to us, …

    reghardware 7 Sep 08:56

  • Think tank calls for gov IT commoditisation

    Big savings from little projects

    The Network for the Post Bureaucratic Age has published a paper urging the government to break down its IT projects into smaller chunks. Titled Better for Less, it says that many processes in government could be commoditised. Combined with breaking IT projects into smaller chunks and the adoption of open standards, this could …

    Channel Register 7 Sep 09:10

  • Druva delivers deduping laptop backup

    Outlook and Office-aware

    Three-year-old start-up Druva is opening an office in the UK and delivering global deduplicating backup software for laptops. It's Outlook and Office-aware to reduce network transmission loads, and it provides user self-service restores, which Druva says Avamar cannot. The product is called inSync v4.0 and it resides on …

    Storage 7 Sep 09:18

  • Would you pay for a cooler, less creepy Facebook?

    Big Chill founder launches a members' social network

    Sick of creepy, unaccountable social networks that are little more than hoarders and traders of personal information? Pete Lawrence, founder of the Big Chill Festival is too, and will today unveil his plans a member-supported service. Now you might expect a new "crowdfunding" initiative to get the usual short and brutal Reg …

    Music and Media 7 Sep 09:29

  • LG smartphones to get Tegra 2

    Optimus line primed

    LG is to power a series of smartphones with Nvidia's tablet-oriented dual-core Tegra 2 system-on-a-chip. The handsets will join LG's Optimus family, the company said. The first of them will launch in Q4, it added, though it gave no further details of the phones' pricing or specs. Tegra 2 contains two 1GHz ARM A9 CPUs cores, …

    reghardware 7 Sep 09:30

  • Dell Streak causes user fury

    Android fluffs it again

    Dell's Streak might now be running Android 2.1, but those who've upgraded are finding the newer OS takes away more than it adds to the tablet/phone crossbreed. PC synchronisation, Windows Media Video playback and the Facebook widget are among the reported casualties of the upgrade process, and some who did manage a smooth …

    Mobile 7 Sep 09:42

  • TechCrunch purges Zeus malware attack

    Oh, God

    TechCrunch Europe has cleaned up its website following the discovery of malicious code that left visiting surfers exposed to infection by a variant of the infamous Zeus banking Trojan. Malign script on eu.techcrunch.com attempted to serve up a malicious PDF file to readers of the news blog. The problem stemmed from a malicious …

    Malware 7 Sep 09:45

  • Google rejigs privacy policy after ice-cream van man slam

    Gotta wait until 3 Oct, though

    Google announced that it tweaked its privacy policy last Friday, just hours after a satirical video ad appeared on a huge screen in New York's Times Square that poked fun at the firm's boss. "We're simplifying and updating Google's privacy policies," said Mountain View Associate General Counsel Mike Yang in a blog post. "To …

    Law 7 Sep 09:51

  • Greenland ice loss rates 'one-third' of what was thought

    New results 'deviate sharply' from established wisdom

    The rate at which ice is disappearing from Greenland and Western Antarctica has been seriously overestimated, according to new research. 'Deviates rather sharply from general assumptions' - Yes. Measuring a disappearing ice cap is actually quite difficult to do, as the areas in question are remote, hostile environments and …

    Environment 7 Sep 09:52

  • Sony updates PS3 system software

    Blocks homebrew hack?

    Sony UK has posted PlayStation 3 firmware version 3.42. The update incorporates a "patch... added to address security vulnerability in the system software". PSJailbreak, PSGroove et al now disabled, do you think? Any console owner worried that the new system software will indeed prevent the USB dongle - and the code that …

    reghardware 7 Sep 10:02

  • UK jobs growth grinds to a halt

    Public sector down, private sector not really up

    The UK jobs market is unlikely to get any better this year - public sector jobs are falling and private sector posts are barely growing. The figures come from employment agency Manpower which found a one per cent balance between employers likely to hire and those not likely to hire more staff this year. The public sector …

    Financial News 7 Sep 10:06

  • Panasonic adds iPlayer, Twitter to tellies

    Software upgrade available... if you know where to look

    Panasonic has quietly rolled out a software update for its 2009 series of internet-connectable HD TVs. The patch usefully adds BBC iPlayer and - perhaps less so - a Twitter client. Reg Hardware reader Andy Whittaker alerted us to the presence of the update, which we learn was covered by regular Reg Hardware scribe Nigel …

    reghardware 7 Sep 10:26

  • Northamber musters 'cautious optimism'

    Is that a light at the end of...

    Veteran distributor Northamber allowed itself a glimmer of optimism today as it unveiled its preliminary full year results. Chairman David Phillips said in his statement: "I am pleased to announce improved profitability for the year as a whole and importantly the return to profit at the operating level." He added that "whilst …

    Channel Register 7 Sep 10:37

  • Godly Aussie MP accused of being online 'smut' junkie

    NSFW in NSW

    Another day, another God-fearing Australian politician is accused of surfing hardcore adult websites. Last week, it was New South Wales Minister Paul McLeay. Just one day later, it was the turn of fellow NSW MP and leader of the Christian Democratic Party (CDP), the Rev Fred Nile to take the title of "one of the biggest …

    Government 7 Sep 10:41

  • 'Larry and Sergey's HTML5 balls drained my resources'

    Users left moaning by bouncy Google experience

    Google's latest animated logo on its search homepage has caused a kerfuffle among many surfers whose CPU has been besieged by the ballsy doodle. The Mountain View Chocolate Factory released its fancy HTML5-based BuckyBall animation on Saturday, and immediately users began complaining that it was sucking up too much CPU. Reg …

    Applications 7 Sep 10:55

  • DWP spent £1m on search engine 'biasing' in single year

    Civil servants throw cash at Google and friends

    The Department for Work and Pensions has spent more than £1.1m on search engine biasing over the last four years. In a parliamentary written answer, work and pensions minister Chris Grayling revealed that the highest recorded costs were for 2009-10, when his department spent £956,000 on search engine biasing. The figure for …

    Government 7 Sep 10:59

  • European CIOs get consolidation

    Supplier diversity could suffer

    More than three-quarters of businesses in Europe, the Middle East and Africa (EMEA) are looking to consolidate their existing IT infrastructure in the next 12 months, according to Brocade-commissioned research. The research found that 76 per cent of enterprises consider IT consolidation to be one of the top three IT issues …

    Blocks and Files 7 Sep 11:31

  • DVLA says council snoopers are free to take the WEE

    Gov officials just doing their job, ma'am

    Government officials hit back at accusations last week that they were encouraging councils to break the law and snoop on local residents, claiming instead that not only are they entitled to do so, but that they are required to by law. A report in last week’s Sunday Express pillories local councils for acting unlawfully and …

    Government 7 Sep 11:35

  • A series of disorderly events

    Sysadmin Blog Doomsday Weekend 2: Trevor Pott and the Domain of Fire

    On Doomsday Weekend we completely replaced our Windows domain. It was a miserable experience. It’s hard to describe how much work is involved in replacing a mature domain; certainly more than I had anticipated. It's even harder to explain the hell to non-sysadmins. On the surface, the transition from the old network to the new …

    Desktop Mgmt Blog 7 Sep 11:47

  • Mafia II

    Review Fuggedaboutit?

    A few hours into Mafia II and it finally happens. It's the summer of 1951 and you've just been released from an eight-year stretch in Sing Sing. You're cruising around the wide, pristine streets of Empire Bay - the game's fictional amalgam of New York, Chicago and San Fransico – when all of a sudden you hear the unmistakable pow …

    reghardware 7 Sep 12:01

  • HPC Advisory Council unveils Cloud HPC initiative

    Webcast Ready for prime time?

    Our pals at the HPC Advisory Council have been busy in the past few months and it seemed time to tap them for an update, in our September HPC Community webcast. For the uninitiated, the council consists of 150 HPC hardware vendors, ISVs and users who have banded together to provide a guiding hand. Their main goal is to ‘bridge …

    HPC 7 Sep 12:06

  • Spammers exploit another Facebook flaw

    Share this

    Spammers have taken advantage of a vulnerability in Facebook to spread auto-replicating links, a trick that makes it possible to spread crud without using social engineering. Simply clicking on any application spam links was enough to "share" the application to the user's wall, net security firm F-Secure explains, adding that …

    Malware 7 Sep 12:07

  • DoJ focuses probe of Google flight data land grab

    Two antitrust issues eyed, says report

    The US Justice Department is examining two particular issues as it investigates Google's recent proposed buyout of ITA Software to see if the acquisition would be anti-competitive, according to a report citing sources familiar with the situation. According to yesterday's Wall Street Journal, antitrust officials are mulling …

    Financial News 7 Sep 12:26

  • NASA buys cutting-edge Cornish robot

    To be dubbed Oooh-Arrr-2-D2, no doubt

    In a triumph for West Country technical prowess and engineering knowhow, NASA has ordered a robot made in Cornwall. Here's a vid: Admittedly the Cornish droid - a humanoid contraption powered by compressed air and known as RoboThespian - is not intended for use in space like the mighty, 12-foot-tall Canadian "Dextre" unit …

    Space 7 Sep 12:35

  • Apple's AirPlay: Bring the walled garden home

    Analysis Double standards

    "You want computers to discover each other and just share stuff," I recall Steve Jobs saying back in 2002, as he personally demonstrated wireless music streaming at an Apple developer event. Quite right. But does Apple's AirPlay make this more or less likely? A few years ago, Apple did the consumer electronics industry a huge …

    Music and Media 7 Sep 12:50

  • Assange under fire from Wikileakers

    'Friends are people who tell you if your face is dirty'

    Criticism of Wikileaks mouthpiece Julian Assange is growing, with more voices joining the chorus calling for him to step aside while his various Swedish legal problems are sorted out. Prosecutors in Sweden last week reopened a rape investigation centred on allegations by two women. Assange has claimed this is part of a …

    Law 7 Sep 13:37

  • Scammers seize on tax rebates as phishing lure

    Greedy sprats

    Fraudsters have wasted no time jumping on news of a tax mix-up in the UK as a hook for scams. Up to six million people in the UK had paid the wrong amount of tax as a result of HMRC mistakes with employee PAYE codes. Around 4.3 million are due for a refund while 1.4 million face demands* to hand over an average £1,428 each. …

    Spam 7 Sep 13:38

  • Oz pedestrians fall to 'Death by iPod'

    'Lambs to the slaughter'

    Distracted Oz pedestrians are allegedly dropping like flies to "Death by iPod" - an untimely end provoked by walking out into traffic while in a "zombie trance". While New South Wales road fatalities have dropped overall this year, "pedestrian deaths have climbed by 25 per cent to 53, compared to 44 for the same period last …

    Bootnotes 7 Sep 13:54

  • Wikileaks caught up in Swedish police raids

    Copyright coppers go after P2P servers

    Swedish police raided several addresses this morning, including an ISP linked to Wikileaks, while assisting a Belgian file-sharing probe. Four Swedish nationals were arrested following raids on residential addresses, Umea University and two ISPs. Computers and servers were seized but police stressed the investigation was …

    Music and Media 7 Sep 14:03

  • PARIS threatened by the bends

    Careful with that dope

    El Reg's Paper Aircraft Released Into Space (PARIS) team continues to work on the Vulture 1-X aircraft structure, while attempting to refine the skinning process. It's all been a bit of a palaver, as followers of our audacious space programme know. We've tried various lines of attack, and recently thought we'd cracked the …

    PARIS 7 Sep 14:10

  • Sod hedgerows and fields, build more base stations

    Coverage more important than rural idyll, says quango

    The Commission For Rural Communities is calling for less restrictive planning laws to encourage comms networks to build out, for the sake of the rural economy. Having spent a few years talking to rural businesses the Commission has published recommendations, entitled Action for Change, concluding that rural development is …

    Mobile 7 Sep 14:37

  • Sarko hit by 'asshole' Googlebomb

    Oh merde

    Nikolas Sarkozy has become the latest high profile victim of a Google bomb, after bloggers linked his Facebook page to the phrase "trou du cul". Schoolboys searching for foreign insults will discover the French for 'asshole' is now synonymous with the diminutive President, according to Google at least. Sarkozy's leadership …

    Bootnotes 7 Sep 14:40

  • Oracle rings up new Netra servers

    Xeon blade and rack boxes for telcos and hosters

    It is not a coincidence that Oracle is paying close attention to the Netra server lineup since taking over Sun Microsystems back in January. Telecommunications companies and service providers of various sorts still have lots Sparc/Solaris iron installed, and it is here where Oracle must build a defensive perimeter and hold the …

    Servers 7 Sep 14:53

  • New 'iPhoD' can 'adjust the speed of light by turning a knob'

    Magic quantum opti-chip can be made in normal fab, too

    Optical stuff is great, as everyone knows: optical links mean huge bandwidth right now, and computers running on photons rather than electrons might be truly amazing things - tremendously powerful, very economical of energy, and potentially able to exploit quantum effects to achieve all manner of mindbending feats. But …

    PCs & Chips 7 Sep 15:35

  • Microsoft bod scoots over to BBC iPlayer job

    We keep Highfield, you can have Danker

    The cross-pollination of Microsoft and the BBC's iPlayer continued yesterday, with Auntie confirming it had hired Redmond's IPTV platform Mediaroom and Zune wonk. Daniel Danker has taken on the role of general manager for programmes and on-demand telly at the Beeb, which means he will have responsibility for the iPlayer. He …

    Applications 7 Sep 16:16

  • Twitter bug creates account hijacking peril

    One-click vuln 'ridiculously easy to attack'

    Twitter has been bitten by a hard-to-kill web-application bug that's being actively exploited to steal users' authentication credentials, a security expert said Tuesday. A link that exploits the XSS, or cross-site scripting, vulnerability was included in tweets that sent users' session cookies to two servers under the control …

    Security 7 Sep 17:55

  • Amazon poaches Microsoft games chief

    Kindle online game player?

    Amazon has poached one of the brains behind Microsoft's fabulously successful Xbox and Xbox Live, hinting at a rival cloud-based gaming strategy. Director of games platform strategy Andre Vrignaud has left Microsoft for Amazon after eight years, having helped turn Microsoft into a top-ranking games brand. Vrignaud blogged in …

    Financial News 7 Sep 18:53

  • Google's antitrust probe spin answered

    Foundem claims 'diversionary straw man tactics'

    Foundem — the UK-based vertical search outfit involved in antitrust investigations of Google in both Texas and the European Union — has responded to Google's account of the Texas probe, accusing the Mountain View search giant of "diversionary 'straw man' tactics." On Friday, a story from Search Engine Land revealed that the …

    Music and Media 7 Sep 19:55

  • Privacy watchdogs challenge laptop seizures at US borders

    6,671 travelers searched (so far)

    Privacy advocates have sued the Obama administration over its practice of seizing laptops, cell phones, and other devices at US borders and copying their contents even when the owner isn't suspected of wrongdoing. In a complaint filed in US District Court in New York City on Tuesday, the American Civil Liberties Union and the …

    ID 7 Sep 20:21

  • HP sues Hurd to keep secrets from Ellison

    Updated HP 'idiots' threaten Oracle relationship, says Larry

    Hewlett-Packard has sued disgraced former chief executive Mark Hurd in an effort to stop him joining Oracle. The world's largest PC marker claims that in joining Oracle, Hurd would breach confidentially agreements signed at HP and may reveal trade secrets and confidential customer information. HP – which went to court on …

    Financial News 7 Sep 20:57

  • Leaked Google docs out top search ad spenders

    BP spilled $3.6m in Gulf spin campaign

    Following its oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, BP went from spending about $57,000 a month on Google search ads to an enormous $3.6m outlay for the month of June alone, according to a report citing internal Google documents. Documents obtained by Ad Age list BP as Google's sixth largest advertiser in June. Early that month, BP …

    Business 7 Sep 21:41