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7th October 2010 Archive

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  • Ubuntu's iTunes jumps to Windows and Android

    Updated iPhone player planned

    Ubuntu's mission to become more Mac-like takes a step forward with Maverick Meerkat, as Canonical further fuses machine and web. Ubuntu 10.10, due Sunday, will for the first time put the Ubuntu One file syncing and sharing service on Apple's iPhone and on Android phones. Further, Ubuntu 10.10 will contain a beta of its hinted- …

    Operating Systems 7 Oct 04:01

  • Google TV mimics Android's closed openness

    The user comes first. If you ignore the $300 price tag

    With Google TV, Eric Schmidt and company hope to give web television the Android treatment. In other words, they plan on expanding their online ad empire by offering hardware manufacturers a free software platform that's kinda open source. Logitech unveiled the first Google TV settop – the Logitech Revue – this afternoon at a …

    Developer 7 Oct 05:31

  • Depts declare dumped IT deals

    MoD confirms £4.8m project cancelled

    The Ministry of Defence is among departments which have revealed the cancellation of multimillion pound contracts. The ministry confirmed the cancellation of its £4.8m Land Information Architecture Office project as part of an ICT project review. In a parliamentary written answer, Peter Luff, the defence minister, also said …

    Government 7 Oct 06:00

  • Panasonic TY-CC10W Skype camera

    Review Video conferencing for couch potatoes

    While purists might prefer a standards-based approach to Internet telephony, there’s no doubt that, for many people, Skype is much simpler to set up. Even so, with a few exceptions, most equipment is still tethered to a computer, especially if you want to use Skype’s video calling. What's on TV? Panasonic's TY-CC10W Skype HD …

    reghardware 7 Oct 07:00

  • No takers on digital Olympic radio station

    Applicants didn't even understand Ofcom's offer

    Despite being given six months to respond, it seems no one is interested in running a digital-only radio station during the London Olympics - so Ofcom has shelved the idea. In April the regulator put out a request that those interested in running a DAB station for the duration of the 2012 games, and not beyond, should drop …

    Mobile 7 Oct 08:00

  • Kingston ships 32GB smartphone memory card

    Stacks more storage

    Memory specialist Kingston has made its 32GB Micro SDHC memory card available to buyers. The £96 card - £98 if you order the pack with a bundled SD card adaptor - is a speed Class 4 device, so it offers a miminum data transfer speed of 4MBps. Smartphone storage ready, the card works in a variety of HTC, Samsung, Motorola and …

    reghardware 7 Oct 08:48

  • Spanish netizens pursue urinating traffic cop

    Viral snap exposes rozzer's truncheon

    Outraged Spaniards are demanding justice after a fetching snap of a traffic cop taking a roadside piss went viral earlier this week, quickly spreading to inboxes across the land. The uncensored photo is unsuitable for publication on a family website such as this, so we've applied the mosaic tool to the most sensitive areas: …

    Bootnotes 7 Oct 09:00

  • Ubuntu Server 10.10 rides distributed file systems

    Maverick Meerkat spied in the clouds

    Canonical's work on the "Maverick Meerkat" Ubuntu 10.10 development effort has been mostly about polishing the desktop, but the commercial Linux distributor has not forgotten about the server business that increasingly pays the bills. And for those bleeding-edge shops who want the latest, greatest Ubuntu features, it could …

    Servers 7 Oct 09:00

  • CommVault proffers ninth Simpana generation

    Avamar-like dedupe added

    CommVault has added source deduplication in its ninth major release of Simpana, its data protection and management software suite. Previously a central Simpana system deduplicated data; now client systems can deduplicate the data they hold before passing it on to the central Simpana server where another round of deduplication …

    Storage 7 Oct 09:00

  • Apple pays off pension fund

    And promises to behave better in future

    Apple has paid $14m to a New York pension scheme to end a lawsuit over its backdating of share options for Steve Jobs and other executives. The company has already paid to end investigations into backdating by the Department of Justice and other shareholders. Apple is paying $14m for shareholders in the New York City Employee …

    Financial News 7 Oct 09:01

  • Reviewed: Apple's 2010 iPod Line-up

    The latest Touch, Nano and Shuffle rated

    Apple iPod Shuffle 4G Review Not-so-slight return Apple iPod Nano 6G Finger tapping good? Apple iPod Touch 4G iPhone lite

    reghardware 7 Oct 09:13

  • Bitstream BOLTs multimedia onto feature phones

    More streaming media than an iPad! Cor blimey! etc

    Bitstream's BOLT browser now supports HTML 5 tags for streaming audio too, allowing for claims that a basic phone can now out-perform Apple's iPad when it comes to multimedia. It's quite a strident claim, and one that only stands up within strict parameters - BOLT does indeed recognise HTML 5 tags for video and (now) audio …

    Mobile 7 Oct 09:47

  • Boffins build acme e-paper screen

    Electrofluidic panel cheap, clean, colour and video capable

    Scientists at the University of Cincinnati have come up with what they claim is the acme of mobile display technology: a screen that's cheap, able to present content clearly even in bright sunlight, able to retain an image even when there's no power and yet, unlike e-ink screens, can refresh quickly enough to play video. And, …

    reghardware 7 Oct 10:01

  • Extreme makeover: HP storage edition

    Opinion Donatelli says 3PAR will help HP kick storage ass

    Watch out EMC, HDS, IBM and NetApp, there's a new storage kid in town. Pale, undernourished HP is on a regimen of 3PAR vitamins and steroids and has spoken about its plans to bulk up and kick ass. HP StorageWorks revealed itself in its new colours this morning in an event at Barcelona to which they flew sundry journalists and …

    Storage 7 Oct 10:26

  • TalkTalk reveals faster broadband plans

    Dunstone checks in

    TalkTalk has broken cover as the first major ISP with plans to use BT's faster broadband infrastructure. Boss Charles Dunstone said it is preparing packages based on wholesale access to new fibre optics, the FT reports. The move is not surprising, but is good news for BT, which is investing £2.5bn in fibre-to-the-cabinet and …

    Telecoms 7 Oct 10:28

  • Betfair names its price

    Shares on offer tagged at over £1bn

    Betfair has set the price for its upcoming share flotation, following a meeting yesterday where the move was approved by existing shareholders. The betting exchange expects its shares to sell for between £11 and £14 - valuing the total shares on offer at between £1.16bn and £1.48bn. The company said shares would only be …

    Financial News 7 Oct 10:56

  • Have hordes of sex workers snubbed the Commonwealth games?

    They never turn up when you're expecting them

    Is it possible that somewhere out there is a lost tribe of sex workers, condemned forever to wander the globe in search of work and pay? We only ask because the latest alarming reports from the Commonwealth Games in Delhi warn of some 40,000 sex workers about to descend on the event. Indian NGO Impulse NGO Network seem to …

    Policing 7 Oct 11:16

  • Spanish entertainment industry feels wrath of Anonymous

    Copyright holder floored by DDoS flood

    Spain's copyright society (SGAE) came under attack by hacktivists from Anonymous on Thursday as part of the latest phase of a high-profile campaign against organisations that hassle file-sharers. A distributed denial of service attack, officially launched at midnight (Central European Time) on 7 October , crashed the …

    Enterprise Security 7 Oct 11:18

  • Brits not buying into Freeview HD

    85% of HD TVs bought this summer can't tune into the service

    Freeview today claimed that Brits have bought more that 60 million receivers, DVRs and TVs capable of picking up the free-to-air terrestrially broadcast transmissions it's responsible for marketing. But the news is rather less impressive when it comes to the organisation's HD offering. Freeview was quick to compare the take- …

    reghardware 7 Oct 11:19

  • Much of recent global warming actually caused by Sun

    The ball of fire in the sky, not the jubblesheet

    New data indicates that changes in the Sun's output of energy were a major factor in the global temperature increases seen in recent years. The research will be unwelcome among hardcore green activists, as it downplays the influence of human-driven carbon emissions. As the Sun has shown decreased levels of activity during the …

    Environment 7 Oct 11:21

  • Many Microsoft workers big on company not Ballmer

    50% of staff surveyed unimpressed with boss

    Only half of Microsoft workers reckon their boss Steve Ballmer is doing a good job as chief of the company. That finding was courtesy of an ongoing survey carried out by Glassdoor.com. Over 1,000 employees responded to the question: “Do you approve of the way this person [Ballmer] is handling the job of leading this company [ …

    Software 7 Oct 11:30

  • Nintendo outs bright red Mario birthday Wii

    25 years of Peach pursuit celebrated

    Japanese Wii fans will be able to buy a bright red version of the console next month, the better to help them mark Super Mario Bros' 25th anniversary. The red box goes on sale on 11 November, though that's just under two months after the game's 25th birthday - it was released on 13 September 1985, though Mario himself dates …

    reghardware 7 Oct 11:37

  • Asus Eee PC 1215N 12in netbook

    Review Dual-core and - oh yes - Nvidia Ion 2

    Asus' Eee PC 1215N is an unusual netbook. It has a 12in, 1366 x 768 screen, not a 10in, 1024 x 600 display. It has an HDMI port. It has a dual-core processor, though one developed for desktops rather than laptops. It has USB 3.0 and Bluetooth 3.0. Asus's Eee PC 1215N: two cores, two GPUs Heck, it doesn't even come pre- …

    reghardware 7 Oct 12:00

  • FCC tests, okays Palm 'Pre 2'

    P102 not an iPhone clone after all?

    HP's next Palm smartphone may not lack a physical keyboard after all. This week, it emerged that a Palm device dubbed the P102UEU had been certified by the US Federal Communications Commission (FCC). Background: P100 was the Pre, and the P101 was the Pre Plus, suggesting P102 is the Pre 2 - or whatever HP chooses to call it. …

    reghardware 7 Oct 12:01

  • Shiny new top-end storage for IBM

    No fat drives for DS8800

    Big Blue will launch a new high-end storage array today, the DS8800, which only uses SFF disk drives, abandoning fat 3.5-inch drives. There will be up to 1056 hard disk drives and they will use a SAS 6Gbit/sec interface. The architecture supports much more than that number of drives. It is like HP's P9500 in not supporting 3.5 …

    Storage 7 Oct 12:04

  • eBay Meg still chasing California's top job

    Will largest ever campaign spending be enough?

    Ex-eBay boss Meg Whitman only has a paltry $9m left in the pot for spending on her campaign to become Governor of California. Whitman raised a record-breaking $140m for her campaign. But $119m of Meg Whitman's campaign fund came from one donor - Meg Whitman. This breaks the previous self-funding record held by Michael …

    Government 7 Oct 12:07

  • Bulgarians bag German pair for pinching panzer

    Taking and driving away - very slowly

    A pair of Germans found guilty of stealing a World War II panzer were given jail sentences in a Bulgarian court yesterday. Thomas Gmeiner, 36, received four years while Matheus Mayer, 67, was given three years suspended for stealing the tank, and attempting to steal another. However, the pair were tried and convicted in …

    Bootnotes 7 Oct 12:08

  • Verizon to get iPhone 4-and-a-bit early 2011

    New design iPhone 5 coming too, say moles

    The long-rumoured Verizon-friendly version of the iPhone will go on sale early next year. So say folk "familiar with the matter" cited by the Wall Street Journal and who peg the CDMA iPhone's release taking place within Q1 2011. Anyone assuming this will be the iPhone 5 may be disappointed. According to the WSJ's sources, the …

    reghardware 7 Oct 12:32

  • Microsoft lovingly open sources .NET package manager

    NuPack lands, courtesy of MS-funded OuterCurve

    Microsoft released an early developer version of an open source package manager, dubbed NuPack, for its .NET platform yesterday. Independent coders on the Nublar (NU) project worked with Microsoft on NuPack, and on Wednesday it was handed over to MS-sponsored Outercurve Foundation. “NuPack is a free, open source developer- …

    Developer 7 Oct 12:33

  • Libya applies secret sharia to block sexy URL shortener

    Domain registry says bare arms and beer bottles are illegal

    Size really does matter. It matters, that is, if you are looking to put up a website in Libya – and the use of a "shortener" results in creation of a domain name that is either too short, or contains the dread string "vb.ly". This item of local censorship came to light late last month, when Ben Metcalfe and Violet Blue (nsfw …

    Telecoms 7 Oct 12:38

  • POD giveth: Is factory-built HPC the future?

    Mini data-centers getting big love

    Hewlett-Packard is looking to steal a step on everyone in the industry with their POD-Works factory approach to building new data centers or adding capacity to old ones. PODs are HP’s term for the now-ubiquitous shipping container-style mini data centers that started catching on (at least with vendors) a few years ago. HP is …

    HPC Blog 7 Oct 12:41

  • Provincial outrage over BT's broadband upgrade race

    Misfired email puts London in pole position

    The early standings in BT's competition to find the five communities where faster broadband is most in demand aren't encouraging for anyone living outside the M25, or indeed Zone 1, if an email to entrants today is to be believed. It claims the current top five in the "Race to Infinity" are Bermondsey, Bishopsgate, Canonbury, …

    Telecoms 7 Oct 12:42

  • QPad 5K gaming mouse

    Txt Take Product reviews in 140 characters

    QPad 5K Pictures Want our Txt Take on your gadget or accessory? Just send it in to Reg Hardware. Details here. ®

    reghardware 7 Oct 13:05

  • Symantec boss puzzles over McAfee Intel deal

    'Our scenarios didn't even put Intel in top 5 possible buyer category'

    Symantec's head honcho has confidently predicted the security firm will not suffer the same acquisition fate as arch-rival McAfee, which Intel agreed to buy in a surprise $7.68bn blockbuster deal back in August. The McAfee deal is only the high-water mark in a wave of acquisitions that have swept the information security …

    Enterprise Security 7 Oct 13:18

  • HTC launches Ovi-ogling cloud service

    Reach out and wipe someone

    HTC has launched its own cloud service, Sense, backing up data and helping to locate lost handsets as it tries to transition from a manufacturer to a service provider. The focus is on handset management. Recent HTC models registered with the service can be made to ring loudly (in case they're in one's other jacket) or post up …

    Mobile 7 Oct 13:30

  • Microsoft clamours over cloudy milk monitor buyout

    Scoops up AVIcode and tells world+dog about it

    Microsoft has been shy about announcing any acquisitions in the past year, and the firm hasn’t revealed anything about recent company buyouts. That all changed yesterday, with Microsoft confirming plans to take over Baltimore-based, privately-held AVIcode Inc. Redmond will fold the .NET application performance monitoring …

    Financial News 7 Oct 14:14

  • T-Bone Burnett: Musos, stay off the net!

    A plea to return to analog recording

    T-Bone Burnett says new artists who decide to keep their recorded music off the interwebs could be making the smartest move they'll ever make as a a musician. In the past, the veteran musician, songwriter and producer has been a scathing critic of the music industry - but this week he turned his fire on new media and digital …

    Music and Media 7 Oct 14:19

  • Distressed cock whipped out of wheelie bin

    Agitated bird rescued just before binmen came

    Animal lovers have lashed out at 'callous criminals' who left a cockerel trapped in a wheelie bin. The Telegraph reports the outrage today, adding that it has raised fears of a wave of copycock cat animal/wheelie bin outrages. Freddie the cockerel was apparently scooped out of a wheelie bin at a block of flats in Gloucester …

    Bootnotes 7 Oct 14:56

  • Yahoo! search! accordion! prods! you! to! squeeze! box!

    Have you ever been experienced?

    Yahoo! refined its search results yesterday, as the company continues to plod along underpinned by Microsoft’s Bing “decision engine” technology. These days, the Carol Bartz-run web portal is focusing on prettifying its site, because it is in the process of transitioning its search results over to Microsoft’s prowess. This …

    Applications 7 Oct 15:22

  • EMC snuggles Samsung NAND into flash drives

    STEC's companion

    EMC is using Samsung NAND in its enterprise flash drives, marking its first second source for flash drives alongside STEC. Traditionally storage array vendors like EMC like to have second sources for technology such as disk drives, hating being dependent on a single vendor. Thus they can use disk drives from Hitachi GST, …

    Storage 7 Oct 15:30

  • Corrupt Akamai worker charged after secrets sting

    The 'spy' who didn't have a clue

    An Akamai accounts worker has been arrested for alleged wire fraud. This follows a sting operation during which the man was led to believe he was handing over confidential information to an agent of a unnamed foreign power. In reality, Elliot Doxer, 42, was dealing with an undercover FBI agent. The agency were tipped off about …

    Financial News 7 Oct 15:32

  • IBM tweaks rack and blade servers

    GPU blade still MIA, HPC clusters revved

    Today is IBM's big storage announcement day, as we report elsewhere, but the company also tweaked a bunch of servers and associated switching options. The System x3250 M3 rack machine that is enhanced today, as well as the iDataPlex dx360 M3 rack-blade hybrid machine, were both announced back in the spring. But today they get …

    Servers 7 Oct 15:37

  • Tesla says 40% of its Roadsters may catch fire

    Only a little unimportant fire, though

    Tesla Motors, the famous battery-car manufacturer backed by internet nerdwealth tycoon and nascent rocketry kingpin Elon Musk, says that approximately 40 per cent of the cars it has made have a technical fault which could cause them to spontaneously catch fire - but only in a minor way. In a statement posted on its website but …

    Science 7 Oct 16:03

  • Apple to sell 45m iPads in 2011?

    After 16m in 2010, says component supplier

    Apple will sell more than twice as many iPads next year as it will in 2010, one market watcher has suggested. Despite the arrival of Android 3.0 and a flood of tablets from rival manufacturers, Apple will ship 45m iPads in 2011, calculates Ticonderoga Securities analyst Brian White. His number for 2010, relayed by Forbes …

    reghardware 7 Oct 16:06

  • IBM's mid-range storage blast

    Storwize. But without compression

    IBM has announced a new mid-range array made from many existing components. It uses the Storwize brand, but there's no compression. The XIV-style GUI brings Mac desktop graphics to storage admin. The Storwize V7000 is a mid-range array that is said to complement the DS5000, but it uses modern software components allied to …

    Storage 7 Oct 17:38

  • Verizon to blanket US with 4G LTE this year

    AT&T: 'Big effing deal'

    Verizon has announced that it will roll out 4G LTE coverage for 110 million Americans later this year. And AT&T is not impressed. "With our initial 4G LTE launch, we will immediately reach more than one-third of all Americans where they live, right from the start," said Verizon president and CEO Lowell McAdam in a prepared …

    Wireless 7 Oct 18:41

  • Google eyes search result preview window

    Check out but never leave

    Google is testing a new tool on its search monopoly that previews entire pages before you actually visit them. As revealed by the Google Operating System blog — an independent site not affiliated with Google — the web giant is experimenting with a kind of preview window that pops up when you click on an icon next to a search …

    Music and Media 7 Oct 18:43

  • MySQL veteran drifts clear of Oracle Borg

    Oracle brain drainage

    Oracle has lost a MySQL veteran who helped the plucky database start-up sink permanent roots in the developer and services communities. Kaj Arnö has left Oracle quietly, having submitted his resignation in June two days before Sun Microsystems' legal entity in Germany ceased to operate. Arnö was based in Munich. Arnö had …

    Developer 7 Oct 19:20

  • Spam blacklist snafu prompts global gnashing of teeth

    Legit IPs blocked in SORBS cockup

    Many email users around the world have been unable to send messages because of ongoing technical problems with a popular service designed to prevent spam from reaching its intended destination. The problems at SORBS — short for the Spam and Open Relay Blocking System — began on Wednesday and continued into much of Thursday, …

    Spam 7 Oct 21:03

  • Microsoft and Adobe talk acquisition and Apple

    Wall St swoons

    Adobe Systems stock soared during Thursday's trading in apparent excitement that its chief executive had held talks with Microsoft chief Steve Ballmer. Shares in Adobe were halted by trading-system circuit breakers after surging 17 per cent, according to Bloomberg. Wall St was excited to learn that Adobe's Shantanu Narayen …

    Software 7 Oct 23:01