The Register® — Biting the hand that feeds IT

Feeds

12th October 2010 Archive

Browse by publication date, or search the site.

  • Xsigo gooses I/O virtualizer

    40 Gb/sec of InfiniBandwidth

    Hot on the heels of its introduction of two Ethernet-based I/O virtualization director switches Xsigo Systems will roll out a line of I/O director switches based on 40 Gb/sec, quad-data rate InfiniBand silicon. The original VP780 I/O Director was based on dual-data rate (20Gb/sec) InfiniBand networking. The I/O director …

    Servers 12 Oct 05:01

  • Scosche Solbat2 solar charger

    Review Sunny disposition

    Even though the phrase ‘There’s no such thing as a free lunch’ remains a truism, however cynical, it doesn’t seem to stop Scosche from using the promise of ‘something for nothing’ to tempt you to buy its Solbat2 solar-powered backup battery. Scosche's Solbat2: Simple, idiot-proof design for charging and discharging Like the …

    reghardware 12 Oct 07:00

  • Can Windows Phone 7 help Microsoft come from behind?

    Failure an option not preferred

    This week is Windows Phone 7 week. Microsoft is announcing details of the launch devices and operators, and I shall be watching and reporting with interest on the joint press conference with CEO Steve Ballmer and AT&T's Ralph de la Vega. But how significant is this launch? I think it is of considerable significance. Mobile …

    Software 12 Oct 07:01

  • Their smartphones are on your network

    Regcast So deal with them: we show you how

    Trying to keep smartphones off your network? Forget it. They're here. Trying to avoid having to manage consumer mobile devices? You're wasting your time. Better to accept the inevitable - you're going to have to do it. At 3pm on 18 October 2010 latest Regcast deals head-on with a problem that every sysadmin is going to have …

    Tech Panel 12 Oct 08:00

  • HP accuses Hurd of repeated lying

    Ray Lane puts the boot in

    HP's chairman Ray Lane has accused Mark Hurd of repeatedly lying to the board of directors in an angry letter to the New York Times. Lane was writing in response to an opinion piece in the paper which suggested HP's new boss, Léo Apotheker, formerly boss of SAP, was guilty of worse misbehaviour than Hurd. The article said …

    Applications 12 Oct 08:29

  • Windows Phone 7 leaves operators on the hook

    Locked-out operators want to know what's in it for them

    Microsoft is keen to talk about how operators can add value to its latest platform with pre-installed applications and tiles, but it's far from clear why they would bother, or wish any success on Redmond at all. All the UK operators will be selling handsets with Windows Phone 7, and Microsoft has waxed lyrical about how they' …

    Mobile 12 Oct 09:34

  • Acer gets netbook Happy

    Pastel colours to 'fill your life with excitement and joy'. Oh dear

    Christmas approaches, and Acer is ready with a set of kid-friendly pastel-hued netbooks ready for parents to lay down 250 notes on. The machine is the Aspire One Happy, and it's a standard Windows 7-based netbook - with one exception: it also comes with Android 2.1 as a fast-boot, quick-acccess-to-the-web operating system. …

    reghardware 12 Oct 09:35

  • Bruce Willis relaxes as asteroid skims Singapore

    'Zero probability' of impact during fly-by

    Bruce Willis's services will not be required today as a diminutive asteroid passes close to Earth, skimming over Singapore at an altitude of 45,000 kilometers (27,960 miles). Our planet's closest encounter with Asteroid 2010 TD54 takes place at 10:50 GMT (5:50 EST), but there's 'zero probability' of the 5 to 10 metre wide …

    Space 12 Oct 09:35

  • Virgin refreshes £8.50-a-month plan's phone line-up

    Newish Nokias, old Samsungs

    Punters on a tight budget now have a choice of five new free phones on Virgin Media's £8.50-a-month tariff. They'll have to sign up for two years, but if they do they will be able to select either the Nokia 5230 Chrome, the Nokia X2 or the Samsung Monte. Come November, they'll be able to choose the Nokia 6700 Slide too, …

    reghardware 12 Oct 09:45

  • Yahoo! goes head-to-head with FaceTime!

    Android invited to the party too

    Yahoo! has added video calling to its iPhone application, as promised, though we're still waiting for the Android equivalent so fanbois can make rude gestures at each other. Video calling was promised for both platforms last week, with interoperability between the iPhone, Android, and desktop clients promised as well as …

    Mobile 12 Oct 10:03

  • Rogue engineer supplied dodgy power to 1,500 homes

    Hacking the grid

    A former electricity engineer is believed to have illegally supplied power to more than 1,500 addresses in a scam lasting years. Derek Brown, 45, from Tottenham, London, was yesterday handed an eight-month suspended sentence and 150 hours community service for criminal damage offences at Wood Green Crown Court. Police also …

    Policing 12 Oct 10:15

  • French network talks up Palm Pre 2

    Plus puissant que son prédécesseur

    Sacre bleu! The Palm Pre 2 will look like its predecessor, French operator SFR has let slip. So much, then, for the claim that the physical keyboard is out. A now-redacted entry posted on the carrier's blog reveals that the new phone sports the same design as the Pre and Pre Plus, but features souped up internals: a 1GHz …

    reghardware 12 Oct 10:27

  • Lovefilm to stream to PS3

    More choice if you rent discs

    UK video rental service Lovefilm will soon be streaming some of its selection of content to PlayStation 3 owners. Neither Sony nor Lovefilm have said as much, but a video posted on the PS3 YouTube channel - but now removed - clearly showed that the service will be coming to the console sometime this autumn. Top marks to …

    reghardware 12 Oct 10:43

  • Philip Green discovers ugly truth of government incompetence

    Gravy train contains actual gravy

    Sir Philip Green's review of government procurement has uncovered the type of incompetence, waste and over-charging that will be familiar to anyone who has ever read an account of any government IT project. To begin with, he struggled to get any decent information out of central government - which in itself reduces its ability …

    Government 12 Oct 10:45

  • VMware boost vCloud Director cloud creator

    VMworld Europe Adds self-service portal, beefs capacity management

    At its VMworld Europe conference in Copenhagen this week, the server virtualization powerhouse and wannabe cloud seeder VMware rounds out its vCloud Director tool that it announced at the end of August, developed as Project Redwood. Two different but related add-ons to vCloud Director come out of Copenhagen Tuesday. The first …

    Virtualization 12 Oct 11:00

  • KeyCase iPad Folio Deluxe

    Review The tablet case with a built-in keyboard

    I was all set to praise this clever iPad case with a built in Bluetooth keyboard... and then I saw what the battery life is. KeyCase's iPad Folio Deluxe: easier typing on your tablet Not the length of time the keyboard will run on single charge of its battery, but how long the battery will go on being charged and discharged …

    reghardware 12 Oct 11:00

  • Microsoft to stake Office 2010 beta on Halloween

    Hopes downloads won't go bump in night

    A spooked Microsoft is doing its level best to morph into a cloud-dwelling company, but it still has shrink-wrapped software to flog. That’s why the vendor put out a reminder yesterday that the beta version of Office 2010 will be killed (probably by a vampire) on 31 October. In other words, the test build of the software will …

    Applications 12 Oct 11:03

  • Windows Phone 7's best feature? It's not made by Google

    Analysis 'Tiles and hubs' aside, it's really fast and easy

    Punters who walk up to a Windows Phone in a fortnight are going to get a nice surprise. It's quite a pleasure to use - and certainly easier to use than describe. Microsoft has loaded Windows Phone 7 with jargon that's more obfuscatory than explanatory, such as tiles and hubs. The "tiles" are really just widgets, and the "hubs …

    Mobile 12 Oct 11:03

  • DIY cloud box Pogoplug gets integrated wireless

    Shares disks over Wi-Fi, internet

    Build-your-own-cloud company, Cloud Engines, has introduced an updated version of its disk sharing box, the Pogoplug. Dubbed the Pogoplug Pro, the new - now black rather than fluoro pink - box adds 802.11n Wi-Fi to the package. The standard version only supports Gigabit Ethernet or lesser-speed wired links to a router. Both …

    reghardware 12 Oct 11:04

  • Gov rolls out 'dedicated area of the internet' for digi-ware tests

    Do say: Innovationation! Don't say: Double-dip recession

    The government quango in charge of techbiz development, the Technology Strategy Board, has unveiled new schemes today aimed at greasing the progress of Blighty's general knowledge-wealthiness. In particular, the TSB has brought out a sort of digital playground in which companies can try out new netty stuff with government- …

    Government 12 Oct 11:10

  • Hypervisors: grinding through to bare metal

    Workshop Getting control of the desktop

    We are generally pretty familiar by now with the concept of virtualisation on the desktop, where a virtualisation application allows a secondary guest operating system (OS) to run within the host OS. Software and hardware have improved dramatically, to the extent that Microsoft even includes a complete virtual installation of …

    Desktop Management 12 Oct 11:35

  • Apple trade marks 'There's an app for that'

    Reg subs break out in cold sweat

    Apple has managed to get a US trade mark on "There's an app for that", at least with reference to retailing of applications for use on electronic devices. The phrase does feature prominently in Apple's advertising, and already has a life of its own as a joke punchline and editor's easy headline option, but now anyone using it …

    Mobile 12 Oct 11:48

  • Viking Modular to double SSD speed

    SandForce technology helps ramp up performance

    We wrote about Viking Modular at the end of September, with its neat set of Elements SAS SSDs (solid state drives). The company plans to double their speed early next year. The intention is to use SandForce's new SF-2000 controllers. Viking anticipates the small block read and write IOPS number jumping from 28,000 IOPS to 60, …

    Blocks and Files 12 Oct 11:50

  • Sex offender tagging system crashes

    Database screw-up takes 16,000 off the grid

    Some 16,000 assorted sex offenders, parolees and other convicts across the US were left unmonitored for 12 hours last week, because the monitoring firm's database exceeded a 2.1 billion record threshold. The tagging system was run by BI Incorporated of Boulder, Colorado, and is called the BI Total Access Server. What should …

    Applications 12 Oct 11:58

  • TPB 4 face prosecutor's wrath

    The Pirate Bay plaintiff 'stands firm' on original verdict as appeal continues

    The prosecutor in The Pirate Bay case stands by the original verdict meted out to the defendants last year and claimed today that the four co-founders of the BitTorrent tracker site had “engaged in contempt of court”. TPB’s appeal trial ends late this week and ahead of that the prosecution spent much of this morning summing up …

    Law 12 Oct 13:30

  • CEOP chief accuses UK.gov of putting kids at risk

    Microsoft 'extremely unlikely' to maintain support, claims Gamble

    Britain's most senior anti-paedophile policeman, who resigned last week in a row with the Home Secretary over the future of his organisation, has told MPs he quit because a proposed new structure will put children at risk. Jim Gamble, chief executive of the Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre (CEOP), today appeared …

    Policing 12 Oct 13:35

  • Guardian super-blogger flames Reg boffinry desk

    'You totally contradicted the Grauniad's coverage!!'

    Globally popular Guardian science correspondent Martin Robbins has initiated a public flame war with the Reg. This is our response. Earlier today, under the page title "The Register misrepresents climate science", the Guardian ran this piece by Robbins, who blogs for the Graun under the title "The Lay Scientist" and who …

    Environment 12 Oct 14:07

  • Enslaved: Odyssey to the West

    Review Monkey Tragic

    The central story of Enslaved: Odyssey to the West is one accustomed to poetic licence and dilution. The original 16th Century Chinese novel Journey to the West was itself an amalgamation of supernatural fables based loosely on a 7th Century Buddhist monk's pilgrimage to India. Centuries later, in 1942, a heavily abridged …

    reghardware 12 Oct 14:18

  • Coalition promises to kill three-quarters of its websites

    Not actually sure how many we've got though

    The coalition government has promised to get rid of 75 per cent of its websites - although it admits that it is not actually sure how many websites it is running. Francis Maude, Cabinet Office minister, told Parliament there was no centrally held data on how many government and "non-departmental public bodies" websites there …

    Government 12 Oct 14:30

  • Fujitsu's NAS box for beginners

    Celvin Q800 is the (small) business

    Fujitsu has updated its beginner's NAS (network-attached storage) box, making it run faster and store more data. The Q800 is an update on the previous Q600 and Q700 models, which used a slow Marvell 6281 processor and had just one or two SATA disk drives. The product name, Celvin, refers to the Kelvin temperature scale. …

    Storage 12 Oct 14:43

  • Windows Phone 7: handsets, operators compared

    What to buy - and from whom

    Following yesterday's launch of Windows Phone 7 and Microsoft's various operator and hardware partnership announcements, here's Reg Hardware's guide to the devices and suppliers that will be debuting the new smartphone OS when it debuts here on 21 October. Handsets available in UK How the specs compare Network availability …

    reghardware 12 Oct 14:52

  • Facebook is 'killing privacy for commercial gain'

    Crypto guru slates social networking

    Social network chief execs are deliberately killing privacy for commercial gain, according to security guru Bruce Schneier. Schneier said: "Less privacy makes a better market for social networks. Facebook is the worst offender - not because it's evil but because its market is selling user data to its commercial partners." …

    ID 12 Oct 15:26

  • Pittsburgh boffinryplex fires up Altix UV 1000 combo-box

    'Blacklight' to be joined by sister in Fusionopolis

    As El Reg told you back in June when the first "UltraViolet" Altix UV 1000 shared memory supercomputers began shipping out of Silicon Graphics' factories, the Pittsburgh Supercomputing Center will be one of the first customers to get one of these boxes. As it happens they are getting two, joined up into a single machine. The …

    HPC 12 Oct 15:54

  • Amazon shrinks books with Kindle Singles

    Perfect for short attention spans 'killer ideas'

    As the world's attention span continues to shrink, Amazon plans to introduce a breed of Kindle e-texts that are no longer than "a few chapters" of those hefty analog books that a few people still bother to read. These "Kindle Singles" will have their own category in the Kindle ebook store, and they will be priced "much less" …

    Music and Media 12 Oct 16:44

  • Google and friends scheme offshore windmill army

    $5bn underwater power backbone

    Google says it's investing in an underwater power backbone that will connect 6,000 megawatts of wind turbines along the Atlantic coast of the United States. On Monday evening Pacific time, with a blog post, Google announced it had agreed to invest in the Atlantic Wind Connection (AWC) backbone, which will connect off-shore …

    Environment 12 Oct 17:00

  • Windows to Linux defections to outpace Unix shifts in 2011

    Recession or no recession, the penguin paddles

    Linux server deployments are expected to take slightly more business from Microsoft than Unix in the next year, according to latest data. A Linux Foundation poll of major public and private sector organizations using Linux has found that 76.4 per cent plan to add more Linux servers during the next year, with just 41.2 per cent …

    Operating Systems 12 Oct 18:26

  • Ruskie gang hijacks Microsoft network to push penis pills

    Redmond abused as scammers' IP bitch

    For the past three weeks, internet addresses belonging to Microsoft have been used to route traffic to more than 1,000 fraudulent websites maintained by a notorious group of Russian criminals, publicly accessible internet data indicates. The 1,025 unique websites — which include seizemed.com, yourrulers.com, and …

    Malware 12 Oct 18:36

  • Capgemini pushes efficiency limits in Swindon data centre

    Merlin wields thermodynamic magic wand

    The Merlin data centre just opened in Swindon might look like an indoor hockey rink, but it is in fact a bespoke modular data centre created by Capgemini to save some bucks pounds euros on power and cooling as it modernises its computing facilities worldwide. The facility, which is located at an undisclosed brownfield location …

    Servers 12 Oct 18:56

  • Foxconn fires back at abuse allegations

    'Caged' workers find powerful protector?

    Foxconn, the Taiwan-headquartered manufacturer of products for Apple, Sony, HP and a host of others, "strongly and categorically rejects" recent — and not-so-recent — accusations of worker mistreatment. The company's arguments, however, may be motivated by more than a pure desire to set the record straight. "Foxconn is …

    Business 12 Oct 20:33

  • Intel reports first $11bn-plus quarter

    Exuberant but not 'irrationally exuberant'

    Less than two months after Intel lowered Wall Street expectations for its third-quarter, it released said financial info — and the news ain't too shabby: Chipzilla exceeded $11bn in revenues for the first time in its history. "Intel's third-quarter results set all-time records for revenue and operating income," Intel president …

    Financial News 12 Oct 21:26

  • Microsoft releases fixes for record number of vulns

    49 bugs squished

    Microsoft on Tuesday issued updates that plug a total of 49 security holes in Windows, Internet Explorer, and other software, the largest number of bugs ever to be fixed in a single Redmond Patch Tuesday release. Microsoft classified six of the 49 vulnerabilities as critical, a severity rating that's generally reserved for bugs …

    Malware 12 Oct 23:21

  • Cloudera and Membase unveil NoSQL togetherness

    Hyper-scale analytics

    Cloudera is deepening its relationship with NoSQL partner Membase to jointly attack customers running the open-source implementation of Google's MapReduce. Membase, until recently called NorthScale, has announced software and services to help customers running the MapReducesque Hadoop with its key-value database, called …

    Applications 12 Oct 23:26

  • Intel: 2010 is not your grandfather's refresh cycle

    Servers, enterprise PCs keep plugging along

    Although Intel was caught a bit short due to a reduction in consumer PC spending, enterprises that clamped down hard on spending in late 2008 and the first half of 2009 have been slowly, methodically, and steadily been ditching their old servers and PCs, and replacing them with shiny new ones. In the third quarter ended in …

    Servers 12 Oct 23:35