10th September 2010 Archive

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Email worm wants to party like it's 1999 (almost)

'Here you go'

A fast-moving email worm that began spreading on Thursday has been able to affect hundreds of thousands of computers worldwide, anti-virus provider Symantec warned. The email arrives with the subject “Here you have.” An executable screensaver that's disguised as a PDF document then tries to send the same message to everyone …

Malware 10 Sep 00:24
Review Nikon D3000

It's all very well having a decent printed manual along with your camera, but the 10.2Mp D3000 is the only DSLR to offer a user guide built in to the camera. Flick the mode dial on the top to the Guide position, press the Menu button, and the 3in LCD gives you the options of Shoot, View, Delete, or Set up. Select Shoot, and …

reghardware 10 Sep 07:00
Review Canon EOS 1000D

Canon has left no corner of the saturated DSLR market untouched, which certainly has a knock-on effect for potential buyers of the 10.1Mp EOS 1000D. While its 2.5in LCD screen feels cramped by modern standards, and its all-plastic construction does make it feel cheap compared to the Nikon D3000, it is, however, compatible with …

reghardware 10 Sep 07:00
Review Olympus E-450

Olympus isn't the first brand that comes to mind when you're looking for a new DSLR, but that doesn't mean the 10Mp E-450 is a disappointment. Its styling has a retro charm, with its chunky leather-effect grip, and there's no complaining about its size, either. 130mm wide and just under 100mm tall, it's easily small enough to …

reghardware 10 Sep 07:00
Review Pentax K-x

One truly exceptional feature of the K-x is its kit lens. Anyone who’s used a few kit lenses will know that they tend not to be the best – worrying build quality and adequate optical performance mean they’re typically the first thing you’ll upgrade. However, the Pentax 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6 lens that comes with the K-x kit is …

reghardware 10 Sep 07:00
Review Sony Alpha A290

The topmost plastic of the 14.2Mp Sony A290 might be slightly mottled to make it look like it's a distant relation to magnesium alloy, but pick it up and it's easy enough to guess where the camera lies in Sony's range – the all-plastic finish is a tad uninspiring. Yet everything falls neatly to hand, and although more …

reghardware 10 Sep 07:00
Best Buys: Budget DSLR Cameras

Group Test Mirror, mirror...

If you shop around you won’t have to try too hard to find deals around £100 cheaper than the manufacturer prices quoted here. Moreover, even at the budget end of the market, there really does appear to be something for everyone. The Olympus E-450 is a fast shooter and very pocketable too. However, the storage card options and …

reghardware 10 Sep 07:00
Budget DSLR Cameras

Group Test Five sharp shooters for budding Baileys

If we at Reg Hardware made DSLRs, we’d be looking nervously over our shoulders, as compact cameras have never been so good. The rise of APS-C EVIL (Electronic Viewfinder, Interchangeable Lens) cameras, such as the Sony NEX models, promises DSLR-quality without the bulk to carry around. Size matters and Canon now appears to be …

reghardware 10 Sep 07:00
Buyer's Guide: Budget DSLR Cameras

Group Test Optic verve

With DSLRs costing anything from £300 to over ten times that much, it's interesting to note that there's not always a huge difference in image quality between cheap and expensive models. While expensive models such as the Nikon D3s offer superlative performance in low light and at high ISOs, lower down the scale telling the …

reghardware 10 Sep 07:00
~~Multi-touch~~ iPod nano stripped bare

Photos Get your heat gun and come inside

Apple new sixth-generation iPod nano "is more like a Shuffle with a screen than a Nano with true multi-touch" says Kyle Wiens, CEO of iFixit, the parts-and-repairs website that glories in dissecting electronic devices to discover what makes them tick. iFixit's teardown of the purportedly multi-touch iPod nano led Wiens to the …

Music and Media 10 Sep 07:00
MS preps 9 bulletins for September Patch Tuesday

Four critical

Microsoft is planning another busy Patch Tuesday this month - with nine bulletins that tackle a total of 13 vulnerabilities ready for delivery next Tuesday (14 September). Four of the bulletins cover critical flaws in Windows XP, Windows 2003 and Vista. Extra security protection means that Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2 …

Enterprise Security 10 Sep 07:47
Nokia's new boss is Microsoft man

Big changes promised

Nokia has brought in Microsoft's Stephen Elop to replace its CEO, Olli-Pekka Kallasvuo, who leaves the company with little more than €4.6m in severance pay and 100,000 Nokia shares. Nokia desperately needs a new head, and with annual love-in Nokia World happening next week the timing is good. Stephen Elop has been president of …

Mobile 10 Sep 08:28
$9m RBS WorldPay hack mastermind avoids jail

Extradition unlikely

The Russian hacker at the centre of a massive $9.4m fraud against RBS WorldPay has avoided jail after he agreed to turn informant on his fellow cybercriminals and pay compensation to the bank. Viktor Pleshchuk, 29, of St. Petersburg, Russia, received a six year suspended sentence after agreeing to pay back 275m roubles ($8.9m …

Crime 10 Sep 08:30
Dell resells Bridgehead software with DX6000

Integrates Enterprise Vault

Dell is reselling Bridgehead software with its DX6000 object storage array - the one using OEM'd Caringo software that competes with EMC's Centera. It's also integrating Enterprise Vault. UK software developer Bridgehead has snagged a worldwide reseller deal with Dell for its software, which helps hospitals manage their …

Storage 10 Sep 08:53
Google Earth gets its very own website

'Lots of great content'

Google Earth boasts, as of right now, its very own website, featuring "lots of great content including images, videos, tours, maps and tutorials". The one-stop Earth shop does indeed contain a raft of tutorials, info on the mobile version (for Nexus One, Droid, etc, iPhone, iPod Touch or iPad), and showcases some of the best …

Music and Media 10 Sep 08:55
All CO₂-spewing kit now in existence is OK for the planet

That V8 Jag? Run it 'til it wears out, you're OK

All the carbon-spewing machinery the human race now possesses - powerplants, transportation, boilers, the lot - can be kept running for its entire designed life without any significant ill effects on the planetary ecosystem, according to new analysis. It is the new machinery to replace what we now have which will either push …

Environment 10 Sep 09:01
TVonics debuts Freeview HD DVR

Sports a built-in HDMI switch

UK set-top box maker TVonics has announced its first Freeview HD DVR. The twin-tuner, 500GB capacity DTR-HD500 not only sports HDMI output, but it also packs in a pair of HDMI inputs, allowing users to feed the DVR and two other players to their telly through a single cable. That's handy if you want as little spaghetti as …

reghardware 10 Sep 09:19
Microsoft hosts bring-a-bottle cloud trust code of practice party

Analysis Show me the trade body

Blighty’s cloud computing industry now has a trade body that wants to champion trust in data stored at a tech firm’s outhouse, by getting vendors to commit to certification that, by mid-2011, will be independently scrutinised. We just don't know by whom - yet. Step forward the Cloud Industry Forum (CIF), which this week was a …

Servers 10 Sep 09:27
Cinema chain bans laptops, tablets

Maybe mobile phones too, soon

Cinema chain Vue is deciding whether to ban mobile phones from its venues, having already decided that laptop computers are a no-no. The Ts&Cs Vue imposes on anyone entering its cinemas - nothing odd there; all entertainment venues have these - forbids punters from taking "sound and video recording equipment" into the …

reghardware 10 Sep 09:51
ACPO defuses impending photo row with police forces

Clarification clarified. Clear?

Just two weeks since they clarified their position on the law regarding photography, the Association of Chief Police Officers last night issued a short note further clarifying its clarification. This follows the recent exposure by The Register of a widening gulf between ACPO and local police forces over the question of when it …

Policing 10 Sep 10:01
US government recruits Paris Hilton

Voice of America - now with added celebutardiness

In what is evidently an attempt to mitigate the damage caused by Koran-burning pastors, the US government will attempt to dissuade outraged citizens of the Middle East from joining al-Qaeda by beaming Paris Hilton, Kim Kardashian and Britney Spears across the Voice of America's airwaves. According to Press Gazette, Splash News …

Bootnotes 10 Sep 10:04
Apple iPad Camera Connection Kit

Txt Take New! Product evaluations in 140 characters

Apple iPad Camera Connection Kit Pics Want our Txt Take on your gadget? Just send it in to Reg Hardware. Details here. ®

reghardware 10 Sep 10:09
Robots capable of 'deceiving humans' built by crazed boffins

'We do understand there's a downside to this'

Worrying news from Georgia, America, where boffins report that they have developed robots which are able to "deceive a human". "We have been concerned from the very beginning with the ethical implications related to the creation of robots capable of deception and we understand that there are beneficial and deleterious aspects …

Science 10 Sep 10:09
iPhone finds its Google Voice

AT&T won't be amused

Apple has told a third-party developer that his Google Voice client will be approved when resubmitted, though fans may have to buy it for a third time. GV Mobile connects an iPhone user to Google Voice for cheap calls and text messaging, and sold well for the months it was listed in the iTunes store. But when an official …

Mobile 10 Sep 10:37
Microsoft hangs head, makes apology for US cloud bust

My BPOS bleeding heart

Microsoft admitted yesterday what has been pretty clear to many of its US customers for the past few weeks – it has recently failed to match its promise of reliably providing some of its business services via the cloud. “We aspire to deliver quality services, and in the last couple of weeks, we have fallen short of this …

Servers 10 Sep 11:01
Adobe reignites Flash on iOS

But still not in Safari

Adobe is steaming ahead with Packager for iPhone,a recompiler of Flash applications as iOS apps - now that Apple has cleared the technology for distribution though iTunes. Adobe dropped support for the Packager tool in Flash Professional CS5, when Apple said that Objective C was the only permitted development language. Apple …

Developer 10 Sep 11:12
eBay wins partial victory over Craigslist

This was never going to end well

eBay has won a partial victory in its long-running court case against Craigslist - a Delaware court ruled in its favour over the dilution of its shares in the free ads firm but said it did not have a right to a seat on the board. The case centred on eBay's right to elect a board member and the effective dilution of eBay's …

Financial News 10 Sep 11:15
Smartbook done to death by Apple iPad

Tablet frenzy claims victim

Wondering what happened to all those ARM-based netbooks we were promised last year would be the Next Big Thing? According to the boss of chip maker Qualcomm, the iPad killed 'em. Not in so many words, of course, but CEO Paul Jacobs, speaking at the company's IQ conference in London this week, did say that tablets, as …

reghardware 10 Sep 11:22
NHS IT juggernaut rumbles on

Analysis Coalition's conservative cuts

The major casualty of an overhaul of NHS IT has been revealed. The National Programme for IT (NPfIT) is no more - up to a point. The death of an unwieldy acronym is hard to mourn, but otherwise the coalition's changes to the scheme are marginal. Indeed, if anyone is to suffer as a result of the decision to trim £700m from the …

Government 10 Sep 11:23
Grand Theft Auto to launch on the Mac

iPads first...

Rockstar Games is to release the Grand Theft Auto Trilogy on the Mac "most likely later this year", the publisher said in a Q&A posted on its website. The three games are Grand Theft Auto III, Grand Theft Auto: Vice City and Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas and Rockstar is promising much "more info and a proper announcement soon …

reghardware 10 Sep 11:35
MEPs try again to force ACTA transparency

Show us yer negotiation documents

The European Parliament has repeated its call for greater transparency in negotiations over an international intellectual property agreement. A majority of MEPs has signed a declaration demanding the publication of negotiation documents. The European Commission began negotiating the Anti-Counterfeit Trade Agreement (ACTA) on …

Government 10 Sep 11:53
BT's onshoring call centres scheme continues

Bringing jobs back from India

BT's aim of bringing call centres back to the UK continues to make progress. A Reg reader was told by a business broadband support line that all support for that part of BT's business should be back in the UK by next May. The telco never promised to bring back all its support functions but said last July it aimed to onshore …

Telecoms 10 Sep 11:55
Second SMS Android Trojan targets smut-seeking Russians

Someone's gonna be screwed alright

A second SMS-sending Trojan targeting smartphones running on the Android operating system has appeared, being distributed via Russian-language sites offering pornographic video clips. Android users visiting these sites are offered the Trojan while users of other mobile platforms receive the desired smut clip, reports Russian …

Malware 10 Sep 12:10
'Is this science, or literature?'

MPs mull 'climate enquiries' that failed to enquire

Might the University of East Anglia now rue its handling of the Climategate affair? An MP tells us that the University has ignored instructions given to it by the House of Commons Science Committee earlier this year, and MPs were given misleading impressions. "Everybody on the Committee last time asked that there be no gaps …

Environment 10 Sep 12:11
Microsoft boss waves goodbye to biz division wonder kid

Stephen Elop elopes to Nokia

Stephen Elop’s tenure at Microsoft proved to be short and sweet. He arrived in time for the Windows Vista death march, followed by the happy-clappy launch of Windows 7, and then – as a last hurrah – the retail release of Office 2010 in June. As we reported earlier, Elop has now taken on the role of CEO at Finnish mobile phone …

Applications 10 Sep 12:22
Shock treatment! Nokia's radical break with the past

Analysis Tackling the corporate bureaucracy

So Nokia's board has decided the company needs shock treatment: it's brought in a non-Finn for the first time in its history, and someone who carries very little baggage to boot. This should be interesting. In fact, Stephen Elop has just six months' experience as the CEO of an independent company, gained in a brief stint …

Mobile 10 Sep 12:26
Beeb creates new global iPlayer post

DIY meat

The Worldwide wing of the BBC has hired Mark Smith as its global iPlayer launch director, in its latest attempt to get its video-on-demand service off the ground outside the UK. That plan is scheduled for next year, but it needs approval first. So Smith’s job is presumably to push for approval of the overseas extension. The …

Music and Media 10 Sep 12:43
US military builds laser backpack for 3D indoor mapping

Only a matter of time until Google gets involved

Military-funded researchers in the US have developed a backpack system containing cameras, lasers and inertial sensors which can be carried around indoors and generate a detailed, accurate 3D map of the spaces it moves through. Now we just need to get the damn mole cruiser finished. "We have also developed novel sensor …

Science 10 Sep 12:43
Every tech market loves a monopoly

Open...and Shut Facebook. Google. Apple. Hurrah!

It may not be that "Every woman adores a Fascist," as the poet Sylvia Plath once caustically penned, but it certainly seems that every market appreciates a monopolist. However much we may wring our hands over Facebook's dominance of social networking, Google's heavy hand on search, and Apple's grip on mobile market, the …

Software 10 Sep 14:00
Osborne plucks strange fruit from the loon tree

UK.gov to use Spending Challenge website ideas

HM Treasury has said it will implement three ideas submitted by the public to its Spending Challenge website which include a government e-auction site. The selling of surplus and second hand government equipment will be increased by expanding use of the Ministry of Defence's (MoD) online eDisposals service to other departments …

Government 10 Sep 14:04
BT preps nationwide TV network

Signs Content Delivery System deal with Cisco

BT is upgrading its national network to reliably deliver TV on-demand, partly in preparation for the launch of Project Canvas alongside the BBC and other broadcasters. The firm's wholesale division today announced it has signed a deal to implement Cisco's Content Delivery System by early next year. BT was one of three …

Telecoms 10 Sep 14:15
Bollywood 'recruits DDoS hired guns to fight movie pirates'

There's totally a movie in that

An Indian firm claims it was hired to carry out denial of service attacks against film download and torrent tracker websites at the behest of Bollywood movie distributors in India. Girish Kumar, managing director of Aiplex Software, said it was paid to search for sites offering download of newly released films, before issuing …

Crime 10 Sep 14:37
Come clean, NetApp

Put up or shut up

Despite Oracle and NetApp dismissing their ZFS-based or related lawsuits against one another, NetApp is refusing to withdraw its threatening letter to Coraid and stop threatening "all appropriate remedies for any infringement" of NetApp's patents. Aked about the status of the Coraid letter following the Oracle-NetApp law suits …

Blocks and Files 10 Sep 14:46
Ranting Ohio Republican scares interwebs

Vid Shouty bloke SEEKS OFFICE

Ohio councilman Phil Davison made an unsuccessful pitch to become his local Republican Party's nominee to run for Stark County treasurer on Wednesday, in the process scaring the living daylights out of the interwebs. Davison has, since appearing before the party's executive committee, become a bit of a net celeb for his " …

Bootnotes 10 Sep 14:46
Now SEC piles into HP bribery probe

DoJ, SEC, OMG

HP is facing a widened bribery investigation by the Department of Justice and US financial regulators, a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) reveals. In its quarterly filing HP said that the US Department of Justice and the SEC were both investigating allegations of dubious dealing by the ink giant in …

Financial News 10 Sep 15:05
IBM wheels and deals on servers

It's good to be your own bank

The engineers and marketeers have got the servers out and polished up their sales pitches, and now it is time for Big Blue to bring in the bankers to close the deals. By virtue of its strong balance sheet and squeaky clean credit rating, IBM can borrow money and therefore lend it at rates much lower than most other companies, …

Servers 10 Sep 15:21
'Hyperbolic map' of the internet will save it from COLLAPSE

Ark boffins say 'black hole' net events already common

International computer boffins are warning that the internet may "collapse" at some point within the next decade. They propose the use of a new routing method based on hyperbolic geometry, and have devised what they call a "hyperbolic atlas" of the entire net to aid in this plan. There. Simple "Routing in the Internet today …

Telecoms 10 Sep 15:46
Google Instant 'invented by Yahoo! in 2005'

Ex-Yahooligan rues death of LiveSearch

A former Yahoo! product manager has claimed that Google Instant was invented by Yahoo! in 2005. In a blog post, former Yahoo! search product manager Steven Hood points out that in 2005, the company rolled out to tool known as Live Search, an AJAX-based online application remarkably similar to Google Instant. "[Google Instant …

Music and Media 10 Sep 19:24
What Adobe could learn from The Flying Wallendas

Analysis Do security safety nets make Reader less safe?

The Flying Wallendas were a legendary circus troupe that performed death-defying acts from a high wire without the use of nets or safety devices of any kind. Even when they performed their world-famous four-person, three-level pyramid act 50 feet in the air, patriarch Karl Wallenda steadfastly eschewed nets out of a belief they …

Security 10 Sep 19:25
Nokia's Canuck boss claims Arctic bond with Finland

'We play ice hockey too'

Nokia held a press conference today to introduce its first ever non-Finnish CEO, Stephen Elop. We learned that the outgoing predecessor's cards were marked ages ago, and that Nokia looks set to give the newcomer the chance to shake things up at the bureaucracy-bound tech giant. Stephen Elop was impressive, but he didn't give …

Mobile 10 Sep 20:16
Wikileaks will soon post biggest military leak ever

Focus turns to Iraq

Wikileaks is just weeks away from posting a huge cache of classified documents related to the US war in Iraq in what one journalist says will be history's biggest military leak. Iain Overton, editor of the Bureau of Investigative Journalism, told Newsweek his non-profit organization is working with Wikileaks and several TV and …

Security 10 Sep 22:03
Google Instant sinks raft of search controls

Suggest forever on, results locked at 10

In rolling out Google Instant – a new incarnation of its search engine that serves up results in "real-time" as you type – Mountain View has also made several peripheral changes to the way its engine traditionally operates. Following the arrival of Google Instant, the Google Operating System blog – a third-party blog not …

Music and Media 10 Sep 22:07
OpenSolaris spork ready for Oracle challenge

'An exciting new distribution'

A spork of the open-source edition of Solaris, OpenSolaris, is ready to start taking on Oracle's official Unix operating system. Project OpenIndiana is due to be announced on Tuesday in London, along with a first development release of the desktop and server operating system. OpenIndiana comes the week ahead of Oracle's mega …

Operating Systems 10 Sep 22:27
Earth's first all Klingon opera debuts

Klingon invitations running late

Earth has witnessed its first Klingon opera. On Friday in The Hague, Netherlands, the Terran Research Ensemble raised the curtain on "U," the first Earth opera performed entirely in Klingon. "U" is the Klingon word for "universe" or "universal," and the opera tells the story of Kahless the Unforgettable, said to be the first …

Bootnotes 10 Sep 23:52