14th September 2010 Archive

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Novell punts cloud control tool

Don't call it CloudWare

Will the clouds save Novell in a way that Linux has not yet done? The company certainly hopes so. Today, the company is kicking out its Cloud Manager tool, which has been under development for more than a year. Novell built itself a tidy little $2bn business from networking x86-based servers in the 1980s and 1990s, but for a …

Servers 14 Sep 2010, 00:09
Intel's Sandy Bridge welcomes discrete graphics

IDF Room for both Formula One and Toyota Prius

The on-chip graphics of Intel's Sandy Bridge processor may be measurably ahead of Chipzilla's previous integrated graphics, but it's not intended to replace discrete graphics for high-end users and dedicated gamers. "I don't see high-end discrete graphics cards going away," said Tom Piazza, Intel Fellow and graphics- …

Hardware 14 Sep 2010, 04:25
Veteran spam suit ~~troll~~ plaintiff calls it quits

Cites threat of bankruptcy or dissolution

The end may be near from an internet service provider that has brought more than 20 lawsuits seeking millions of dollars for alleged spam abuses. Asis Internet Services abruptly abandoned its case against Subscriberbase citing a “negative judgment in an unrelated case that threatens to place Asis in either bankruptcy or …

Security 14 Sep 2010, 05:00
Veebeam intros laptop-to-telly video streamer

£99 Wireless USB gadget

Yes, it looks like a priest's hat, but the Veebeam - from the company of the same name - is a £99 Wireless USB gadget developed to stream video from your laptop to your TV. Veebeam has two modes. One replicates the laptop's screen on the telly, the other beams specific video files over. The first is good for viewing web-based …

Hardware 14 Sep 2010, 06:00
Dell's Viking servers raid hyperscale data centers

3U chassis packs a dozen longboats

The Data Center Solutions unit of server maker Dell – which does bespoke server design and manufacturing on behalf of a couple of dozen hyperscale customers – has kicked out a new server that packs a dozen single-socket Xeon servers into a single 3U chassis. This server chassis, named Viking, is based on a set of compact …

Servers 14 Sep 2010, 06:00
RIM BlackBerry Curve 3G 9300

Review Straight talking?

RIM has been busy refreshing its range of smartphones lately. The BlackBerry Pearl received a 3G update and new keyboard and the series, Curve has had a makeover too. The Curve 3G 9300 offers HSDPA 3G, Wi-Fi, GPS, a 2Mp camera, a Qwerty keyboard and all RIM’s messaging know-how, at a budget price. Keyboard skills: RIM's …

Phones 14 Sep 2010, 07:00
Ofcom outlines accessibility benefits of superfast networks

Next-gen net could help elderly and disabled

Superfast broadband networks could improve access to technologies and information for elderly people and people with disabilities, a study carried out for telecoms and media regulator Ofcom has found. High capacity broadband internet access created by so-called next generation networks could make it easier to access enabling …

Broadband 14 Sep 2010, 07:57
Over The Air: Losing drones and forging bus tickets

There's nothing the iPhone can't do

Mobile applications might have gone professional, but London's Over The Air event this weekend proved that nothing is more innovative than an over-caffeinated developer working for glory not money. Over the Air is an annual gathering where developers are invited to spend 36 hours creating the best mobile application they can, …

Developer 14 Sep 2010, 08:15
Business bureaucracy vs dynamic IT

Workshop Choosing the right path

According to many pundits, here’s the plan for the next generation data centre: we can go to a dynamic infrastructure, with on-demand applications running in our private cloud, and an elastic cloud out there waiting for our applications if we run out of capacity. Sounds too good to be true? It is easy to get caught up in the …

Server Management 14 Sep 2010, 08:23
Craigslist to tell Congress why it cut adult ads

Section censored

Craigslist is to explain to a Congressional committee why it removed ads for escorts and other adult services and replaced the section with the word "censored". The site has been under attack for supposedly supporting the trafficking of minors, despite employing lawyers to pre-screen every advert before it appeared in the …

Government 14 Sep 2010, 08:24
Whitehall signs MoU with Atos

First IT supplier on board

Atos Origin has said it is the first IT company to sign a memorandum of understanding with the government following negotiations with Francis Maude. In a statement issued on 10 September 2010, the company said: "The agreement marks the start of a new single client approach to engagement with central UK government." In July …

The Channel 14 Sep 2010, 09:19
Crypto weakness leaves online banking apps open to attack

Padding Oracle 'affects every ASP.NET web application'

Flaws in the way web applications handle encrypted session cookies might leave online banking accounts open to attack. The security risk stems from a cryptographic weakness in web applications developed using Microsoft's ASP.Net framework. ASP.Net uses the US government-approved AES encryption algorithm to secure the cookies …

Security 14 Sep 2010, 09:36
Action gamers make better drivers, soldiers, surgeons

Presumably not while actually playing, though

Stateside brain experts say that their latest research indicates that playing action video games makes people more able to make correct decisions quickly under time pressure - potentially turning them into superior drivers, soldiers or surgeons. "It's not the case that the action game players are trigger-happy and less …

Science 14 Sep 2010, 09:39
Consumer group slams Britain's digital radio switchover

Exclusive Biased and unrealistic, Department told

A report out later today prepared for the government blasts the radio industry and government for "scaring" consumers into an unrealistic timetable for digital switchover, and recommends both an urgent and impartial examination of DAB costs and benefits, and new criteria for a digital switchover. It's quite damning stuff. …

Media 14 Sep 2010, 09:53
Coalition pledges free appeals for filesharers

Digital Economy Act incoming

People accused of unlawful filesharing by the music and film industries will have access to a free appeals system, the coalition government said today. Tory broadband minister Ed Vaizey said there will be no cost for the public to appeal against Digital Economy Act (DEA) copyright infringement notices, at least initially. …

Law 14 Sep 2010, 09:55
Former Civil Service chief calls for climate shakeup

Interview What do our mandarins really think of global warming?

The former head of the civil service has called for a new approach from scientists and policy makers to restore waning trust in climate scientists. Speaking to The Register, Lord Andrew Turnbull, former cabinet secretary and head of the Home Civil Service between 2002 and 2005, says the University of East Anglia's internal …

Science 14 Sep 2010, 10:15
School worker jailed for abuse images

32 months

A secondary school IT support worker has been jailed for 32 months for possessing and making thousands of child sex abuse images and videos. Oliver Corbett, 25, from Dishforth, North Yorkshire, was sentenced at York Crown Court yesterday. Corbett was arrested in September 2009 and had 62,000 images and 1,585 videos of children …

Law 14 Sep 2010, 10:42
Do the Webminimum

Sysadmin blog Newbie Linux management shortcut joy

Asking a Windows administrator to give Linux a chance as a server operating system is doubly difficult. To a Windows admin, the Linux world is a hostile place, a collection of dozens of different operating systems sharing the same basic kernel. So then a junior sysadmin will often turn to the internet for help. Posting on …

Servers 14 Sep 2010, 10:53
Pay-to-play apps hit Ovi

Nokia World You're in their talons

Free signing for Java apps, a new Java touch API, a Web SDK for smartphones and a new Ovi store - but best of all you get to squash pigs with eagles. All this and more at Nokia World, which is this year combined with the Nokia Developers' Summit - reflecting just how important mobile applications are these days. Nokia is …

Mobile 14 Sep 2010, 11:13
Chinese cybercrooks offer DDoS-for-hire

Where do you want our zombies to go today?

Security researchers have unpicked the business plan behind a botnet that serves as the backend for a DDoS-for-hire business. The IM DDoS service, hosted in China, offers the lease of a botnet for anyone keen to flood a targeted website via a handy-to-use web-based interface. Following the registration of domains in March 2010 …

Security 14 Sep 2010, 11:25
Voice of America chap ejaculates over Paris Hilton

Protests El Reg coverage of celebutard recruitment

Our revelation last week that the US of A will attempt to win Middle Eastern hearts and minds by pumping out a weekly celebtastic show featuring the antics of Paris Hilton, Kim Kardashian and Britney Spears didn't go down too well at the Voice Of America. It appears we were too quick to condemn Splash News and Pictures' …

Bootnotes 14 Sep 2010, 11:33
UK plans increased spending on cyber-security

We shall fight them at the firewall

Britain will have no option but to invest in better cyber-security, the Defence Secretary told MPs this week. An awkwardly-worded reply by Defence Secretary Liam Fox to questions in the House of Commons suggests that cuts in information security spending are not on the agenda for the Strategic Defence and Security Review (SDSR …

Security 14 Sep 2010, 11:54
Tom Clancy's Hawx 2

Review Flight to the death

Just like its predecessor, Hawx 2 falls fouls of one of gaming's most frequently exasperating ironies: dogfighting. Of all the approximations of real-world thrills, aerial combat must rank as one of the most exciting imaginable. Time and time again, however, those thrills fail to translate through the medium of videogames. …

Games 14 Sep 2010, 12:00
Shoot-em-ups make you think faster

Amazing facts of our time (No. 92)

Playing video games trains people to make faster decisions and gives them a heightened sense of their surroundings - just like vampires. But not any old computer games - no, you need games like Call of Duty 2 and the Unreal Tournament to augment your ears and eyes. These are some of the findings of three American cognitive …

Games 14 Sep 2010, 12:21
Transport Dept's answer to embarrassing, cancelled IT projects?

Don't cancel them, forget them if you do

The Department of Transport has maintained a clean sheet on wasteful and abortive IT projects, by opting not to record any such SNAFUs. Opposition MPs have been making a sport of asking the ToryDem government for details of messed up IT projects - often disingenuously given it was the previous Labour government that initiated …

Government 14 Sep 2010, 12:29
Nokia trumpets socially-savvy smartphones

Stepping up with Symbian^3

Nokia launched a "powerful family" of three high-end Symbian^3 Smartphones in London today. Here's a run-through: Crafted with business in mind, the Nokia E7 comes with Microsoft Exchange ActiveSync, a 4in touchscreen and ClearBlack technology for improved outdoor visibility. A full keyboard should appeal to business users for …

Phones 14 Sep 2010, 12:32
Harry Potter theme park magically swallows big visitors

Flagship ride adjusted for larger cargoes

The operators at the Harry Potter Theme Park are busily enlarging the attraction's key ride after finding that it is a little too snug for many visitors. Universal Orlando announced on Monday it was "adjusting" the harnesses on its Harry Potter and the Forbidden Journey ride, in which robotic arms whirl carloads of punters …

Bootnotes 14 Sep 2010, 12:55
Zuck buffs image ahead of Facebook movie

I'm in the New Yorker... bitch

Mark Zuckerberg has submitted to the New Yorker treatment, ahead of a major movie about the founding of Facebook that's expected to drag his reputation through the mud. A typically lengthy profile contains no new revelations. In fact, in agreeing to spend time with the writer, Zuckerberg has reaffirmed many of the aspects of …

Media 14 Sep 2010, 13:05
Czechs tell Google to stop StreetView

Another dissident against Schmidt's glorious privacy-free future

Data protection officials in the Czech Republic have told Google to put the brakes on its StreetView cars, ahead of a full statement next week. The Czech privacy watchdog began investigating Google for slurping up citizens' unsecured Wi-Fi data back in May - the same time that German prosecutors confirmed they were …

Law 14 Sep 2010, 13:39
Hands-on with the new Nokias

Nokia World Two Cs and an E. Is that a pass grade?

Nokia added three new models alongside the imminent N8 today. All are Symbian^3 based; two are in the C-range*, but one was billed as the Son of Communicator – a quite extravagant claim that might quicken the pulse of a few Reg readers. Would any of these live up to their billing? I had a quick hands-on with all three, let's …

Mobile 14 Sep 2010, 13:44
Robot footballers 'will beat Human Race first eleven by 2050'

Will presumably thrash England in about 3 or 4 years

A top Australian computing boffin, analysing the state of play in today's RoboCup droid football leagues, says that robotic footballers will be able to beat the best human players in the world by 2050. Rumours of unsavoury off-pitch antics with pleasure units are completely unfounded. Claude Sammut is professor of computer …

Science 14 Sep 2010, 13:55
LG takes Optimus into Android prime time

Two Froyo handsets for Europe

LG Electronics today launched two new member for the Optimus smartphone series - but only one is coming to the UK. Marketed for first-time smartphone users, the LG Optimus One and Optimus Chic use Froyo, the latest Android 2.2 platform, to enable faster browsing and smoother multitasking. Both phones feature the ability to …

Phones 14 Sep 2010, 14:15
Sony punts external BD burner at home cinemas

It's portable too

Sony is well known as a maker of consumer-oriented Blu-ray Disc players, but now the Japanese giant's optical drive division wants to get into the nation's living rooms too. Later this month, Sony Optiarc will release the BDX-S500U, an external BD writer with 3D support that's designed to be hooked up to your home …

Hardware 14 Sep 2010, 14:26
Steve Jobs carried 'ninja throwing stars' in hand luggage

Updated Ellison faces challenge for silicon samurai mantle?

Steve Jobs has vowed never to visit Japan again after being prevented from leaving the country with a set of ninja throwing stars, according to a local magazine. The Apple CEO apparently had a set of shuriken in his carry-on luggage when he was returning from a family vacation by private jet in July, according to SPA magazine …

Bootnotes 14 Sep 2010, 14:38
OFT waves through Sky's Virgin TV slurp

Final final clearance

BSkyB has received final clearance from the OFT for the acquisition of Living TV Group, which once upon a time was called Virgin Media Television. Sky now owns LIVING, LIVINGit, Challenge, Challenge Jackpot, Bravo, Bravo 2 and Virgin1, which will be renamed in due course. Sky is to stump up £55 million to Virgin Media to …

Hardware 14 Sep 2010, 14:41
Buffalo charges in with USB 3.0 3D BD drive

SuperSpeed burning

Hot on the heels of Sony Optiarc's new external 3D BD drive comes another, this time from Buffalo and featuring USB 3.0. Buffalo's BR3D-12U3 uses SuperSpeed to up the disc burning speed from 6x - over USB 2.0 - to 12x for both single- and dual-layer BD-R media. BD-RE discs are written at a slower, more standard 2x, but DVD …

Hardware 14 Sep 2010, 15:00
Vodafone promises more tiers for data hungry customers

Nokia World Because some contracts are more equal than others

Vodafone boss Vittorio Colao has been telling attendees at Nokia‘s annual shindig that they‘re going to have to get used to tiered pricing, and quickly. Not that this should come as any great surprise. Flat-rate internet access is not sustainable once customers start making use of it, so this is part of a softening-up process …

Mobile 14 Sep 2010, 15:02
ID fraudsters sell stolen Aus house

There goes the neighbourhood

Australian authorities have launched an investigation after Nigerian fraudsters sold a house using email and fax, leaving the legitimate property owner A$500,000 out of pocket in the process. Roger Mildenhall, a resident in South Africa who owned a set of investment properties in Western Australia as an absentee landlord, only …

Security 14 Sep 2010, 15:21
Airphonic wireless 'Pod-to-speaker streamer arrives in UK

Make your iDevice music source and remote control

Your iPad won't fit into your iPod speaker system, so how are you going to get your music from one to t'other? And what if you want to use your iPhone or iPod Touch as both the source and a remote control for your dock? Enter the Airphonic wireless streaming kit. It comprises a pair of adaptors - one for your iDevice's dock …

Hardware 14 Sep 2010, 15:30
The end of the beginning of virtualization

White paper You consolidated your servers. Now what?

Virtualization doesn't end with consolidation. It begins with it. But what's next? New research of our North American readers by analysts Freeform Dynamics, published in the Register white paper "Server Virtualization beyond Consolidation", shows that organizations that are virtualizing successfully still find that the impact …

Virtualization 14 Sep 2010, 16:00
Kingston SuperSpeeds USB Flash drive line

USB 3.0 on a stick

Memory specialist Kingston has brought USB 3.0 to its USB Flash drive family. The DataTraveler Ultimate 3.0 doesn't quite deliver the full SuperSpeed 5Gb/s experience, but its claimed 80MB/s (640Mb/s) read speed and 60MB/s (480Mb/s) write speeds put it ahead of what a USB 2.0-based equivalent can deliver. At those speeds, a …

Hardware 14 Sep 2010, 16:02
Cisco adds slim blade with fat memory to UCS

Virts up security and WAN optimization appliances

Server wannabe and networking juggernaut Cisco Systems turns the crank on its Unified Fabric converged networking and Unified Computing blade and rack servers today with a new half-width blade that sports lots of memory capacity, the first in a revved lineup of Nexus switches, and virtualized server appliances to run on the …

Servers 14 Sep 2010, 16:14
Intel touts low-power, high-quality Sandy Bridge video

IDF Enhance your skin tone

Intel's Sandy Bridge microarchitecture includes circuitry dedicated to making you look your best. "Another new feature we're adding to Sandy Bridge processor graphics is a color-processing capability we're calling 'consumer electronics–quality color processing'," Intel's chief media architect Hong Jiang told attendees at the …

Hardware 14 Sep 2010, 17:14
Pirate Bay beset by tainted ads

Here be malware!

A hack on ad servers used by the Pirate Bay is exposing visiting surfers to malware. Site vulnerabilities in the ad delivery systems used by the torrent tracking site were exploited to plant malicious scripts, causing sections of the site to be blacklisted and blocked by Google (see here) and various security utilities. …

Security 14 Sep 2010, 17:43
Dell readies flip-screen tablet-cum-netbook

IDF Inspiron Duo demo'd

Dell has demo'd a novel convertible tablet that does away with the usual tilt'n'pivot mount. Instead, it's based around a 10in screen that's mounted within a netbook clamshell chassis but which can rotate about a central horizontal axis, within the bezel, to face in or out. The catch is it makes for a chunky tablet, but it …

Tablets 14 Sep 2010, 17:57
Halo: Reach

Review Start the Fight

Of all life's truisms perhaps the most specious is that nothing is perfect. Whether a safety valve to prevent a blowout of hubris, or merely an envious reflection of our flawed and capricious nature, it is dogma inherent to all. But nowhere is it more apparent – or afforded greater prominence - than when wielded as a chisel by …

Games 14 Sep 2010, 18:01
Dixons to do app stores

IDF There's a retail download opprtunity for that

Dixons is launching an app store for netbooks, tablets and laptops early in November. The store is a rebranded version of Intel's AppUp offering, launched last year and going live today. Dixons' version will be branded PC World and Currys - one for each chain, presumably - with a shortcut to the web-based store pre-loaded on …

Phones 14 Sep 2010, 18:07
Intel: next-gen Atom SoC will debut in 2011

IDF Greater integration for lower power draw

Intel today reiterated its plan to bring the next generation of Atom processors to market early next year. The chip, codenamed 'Oak Trail', is aimed at tablets and more thin'n'light netbooks than we've seen to date. Not simply a CPU, Oak Trail will be a full system-on-a-chip with comprehensive power management to cut power …

Laptops 14 Sep 2010, 19:15
Microsoft closes hole used to attack industrial plants

Two other Stuxnet bugs remain

Microsoft has credited security partners at Kaspersky Lab and Symantec for helping to close a critical Windows vulnerability that was being exploited by a sophisticated worm that has attacked industrial plants around the world. The bug in the Windows Print Spooler, which was one of at least 11 vulnerabilities Microsoft patched …

Security 14 Sep 2010, 19:30
Big Blue Sam disses HP, lauds Ellison

IBM's biggest rival? Oracle

Who's Big Blue's biggest problem going forward? Oracle. Who's the one IT company that IBM is not too worried about? Hewlett-Packard. So said Sam Palmisano, IBM's president, chief executive officer, and chairman, in an interview with the Wall Street Journal. Palmisano rattled on for an hour, giving his normal speech about how …

Software 14 Sep 2010, 19:45
Ubuntu man responds to GNOME 'coattail' claims

Shuttleworth defines Canonical's mission

Ubuntu creator Mark Shuttleworth has defended Canonical's lack of participation in GNOME against accusations of riding on the coattails of the project's number-one maintainer, Red Hat. After giving it some thought, Shuttleworth concluded that open-source is bigger than any single project and that Canonical's mission is adding …

Operating Systems 14 Sep 2010, 19:49
Update kills code-execution threat in Samba

Five years of code vulnerable

Samba developers have warned of a software flaw that allows attackers to remotely execute malicious code on systems running the widely used file-sharing package. Version 3.5.5, which was released on Tuesday, fixes the underlying buffer overrun in functions used to generate a credential known as a Windows Security ID. It can be …

Security 14 Sep 2010, 21:18
OpenSolaris spork ready for download

Second open OS from Blighty

It is not quite ready for primetime, but with the announcement of OpenIndiana, a so-called spork of Oracle's OpenSolaris Unix distribution, the server world is getting a familiar, re-opened, and community-developed operating system aimed specifically at data center workloads. Alasdair Lumsden owns a hosting company in London …

Operating Systems 14 Sep 2010, 21:24
Google acquires 'video Street View' startup

Have a Quicksee

Google has acquired Israeli video startup Quicksee, in what appears to be an effort to enhance its Street View and Google Maps projects. Quicksee's beta service encouraged users to upload videos of locations across the globe, and these can be browsed from an interface based on Google Maps. You might think of it as a kind of …

Media 14 Sep 2010, 22:12
Yahoo! economist rebuilds ad empire with 'Magic Formula'

Why Carol Bartz wears math when it's chilly

Yahoo! CEO Carol Bartz owns a sweatshirt emblazoned with Preston McAfee's math. McAfee is an economist, but he's the sort of economist who's actually useful. In the early-90s, he helped build the simultaneous ascending auction, a mathematical contraption that governments across the globe have since used to license over $100 …

Media 14 Sep 2010, 22:43
Linus Torvalds outs himself as US citizen

Stranger in a strange land

Linux creator Linus Torvalds is now a US citizen. On Monday, the Finland-born Torvalds revealed the news in passing with a post to the Linux kernel mailing list. "I'll test that myself (but in a bit - I need to go do voter registration and socsec update first, though - I became a US citizen last week)," he wrote. And this …

Operating Systems 14 Sep 2010, 23:31
Privacy tool for Iranians withdrawn amid security concerns

'Haystack' could out dissident needles

A heavily hyped software tool created to help Iranian citizens evade government surveillance online was abruptly pulled from the web following findings it was riddled with vulnerabilities that could expose users' identities. Members of the Censorship Research Center said they were withdrawing the Haystack tool and asked that …

Security 14 Sep 2010, 23:42