19th October 2010 Archive

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Jobs savages 7-inch tablet competition

That iPad mini? Fuggedaboutit

If you've been putting off buying an iPad because you're waiting for a more-affordable seven-inch version, or if you've been considering getting an upcoming seven-incher from a non-Cupertinian source, Apple CEO Steve Jobs would like to set you straight. "We think the current crop of seven-inch tablets are going to be DOA — …

Music and Media 19 Oct 01:17
VMware revenues up 46%

But biz will cool in 2011

No market can grow like crazy forever, and that applies to VMware as much as anyone else. In the third quarter, the server virtualization juggernaut had $714.2m in overall revenues, up 45.8 per cent, and net income more than doubled to $84.6m. But there may be rockier times ahead. Mark Peek, VMware's chief financial officer, …

Financial News 19 Oct 01:21
Jobs dubs Google's 'open' Android speak 'disingenuous'

'Smokescreen' for 'fragmented' OS

Apple cult leader Steve Jobs has hit back at Eric Schmidt over the Google boss' repeated claims that Google is "open" and Apple is "closed." During a surprise appearance on Apple's quarterly earnings call on Monday afternoon — "I couldn't help dropping by for our first $20bn quarter" — Jobs called Schmidt's characterization " …

Developer 19 Oct 01:24
Dane-Elec myDitto Nas device

Review LAN - and WAN - storage done right

Perhaps I'm getting cynical, but it's a rare event these days when a product crossing my desk positively fires me with enthusiasm. And when it comes to yet another disk device - we old journos call the subject of storage "snorage" - what could be duller? The myDitto from Dane-Elec is an exception on both counts. Dane-Elec's …

reghardware 19 Oct 07:00
Employers get Equality Act info from mega-thick codes

Three Codes of Practice published to guide businesses on the Act

The Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) has published the statutory guidance that will help employers, lawyers and courts to interpret the Equality Act. Three Codes of Practice were laid before Parliament last week. The Codes address employment; services, public functions and associations; and equal pay. They cover …

Small Biz 19 Oct 07:00
Seagate thinks about going private (again)

Once is not enough

Seagate is talking with private equity firms about going private for the second time. Why? The company is the leader by revenue in the hard disk drive (HDD) market - although Western Digital overtook it in unit shipments earlier this year. One suggestion is that Seagate must rationalise its supply chain as it responds to …

Blocks and Files 19 Oct 07:29
ZeRTO, a storage start-up

Developing a zero RTO product

A buzz is developing around ZeRTO, an Israeli stealth startup. It was founded in 2009 by two brothers, Ziv and Oded Kedem, who previously founded Kashya to develop replication technology for disaster recovery. EMC bought Kashya in 2006 for $153m, and the technology is in the RecoverPoint product. ZeRTO gained a $200,000 …

Blocks and Files 19 Oct 07:41
Q: Why pay for DNS?

Sysadmin blog A: It's cheaper than having your data nicked

How many people would pay for DNS? If you had asked this question during the late nineties, the answer would have been a very small number indeed. DNS is free; anyone can download a copy of BIND and set up a DNS server. Today, however, millions of companies pay good money for DNS hosting. When I spoke to Rodney Joffe at …

Server Mgmt Blog 19 Oct 08:00
Lone Android dev 'almost brought down T-Mobile'

See? Do you see how dangerous net neutrality is?

T-Mobile USA told the FCC that having an open network caused it severe overloading and network degradation, thanks to one incompetent Android developer. The developer in question created an Instant Messaging application that drove traffic up by 1,200 per cent in one instance. As it became more popular, T-Mobile was obliged to …

Mobile 19 Oct 08:20
IBM Java defection leaves Apache sourcers shellshocked

Staunch supporter no more

On October 11, IBM announced its decision to junk Apache Harmony, an open source Java implementation of Java, and throw in its lot with Oracle's Open JDK. To say that the Apache Software Foundation was shocked is an understatement. IBM says it still loves Apache despite suddenly dumping Project Harmony after five years - but …

Developer 19 Oct 08:40
WD thrusts forth its mighty 3TB internal hardness

New monster too big for Windows XP to take

Western Digital has unveiled the world's first 3TB internal drive, a Caviar Green model with four platters. This is a vast, astounding capacity, considering many desktop computer systems are operating with less than a terabyte of drive capacity. Seagate introduced its FreeAgent GoFlex 3TB drive in the summer and that was a …

Storage 19 Oct 08:58
EMC plays the name game

Technology company trademarks VNX to match Symmetrix lines

EMC has registered a new trademark: VNX. The company quite likes product or technology names headed up with the letter V - for virtualisation. VMAX is the latest high-end Symmetrix array and VPLEX is the federation technology for these arrays. There are Celerra NX4 and NX3e products, unified file and block access arrays, and …

Storage 19 Oct 09:16
Seagate's shrinks GoFlex drive

Slips 5th generation PMR drive inside the casing

Seagate has struck another blow in the areal density wars. The company has revved up its 1TB FreeAgent portable drive, shrinking it internally from three platters to two, making it cheaper to manufacture. The original 1TB FreeAgent GoFlex - the SSTAA1000100 - had a 3-platter, 2.5-inch hard drive inside with a 334GB/platter …

Storage 19 Oct 09:23
UK cybercops cuff big phish

Man suspected of credit card scam and stashing online crime cash

UK police arrested a suspected counterfeit credit card manufacturer in east London on Monday. Investigators reckon the 34-year-old man organised money "mules" to open drop accounts that received the proceeds of online crime, such as phishing. Police from the Scotland Yard-based Police Central e-crime Unit (PCeU) also found …

ID 19 Oct 09:41
Oracle array users skid off 7410 road map

EOL procedure leaves array users boxed in

A European Oracle 7410 array user has been told no more upgrades are possible after the end of the month - despite the fact that he only bought the 7410 this year. Oracle upgraded its 7000 open unified storage line last month. The products use ZFS. The existing 7110, 7310 and 7410 products were replaced by 7120, 7320 and 7420 …

Channel Register 19 Oct 10:06
Street View spies a €2.4m fine

Spanish Data Protection Agency thinks Google would look nice in a lawsuit

The Spanish Agencia de Protección de Datos (Data Protection Agency) is demanding Street View be brought to book over its clandestine Wi-Fi slurping activities. The agency has requested a Madrid judge consider whether Google is guilty of two counts of "collecting and storing data without the owner's consent", and two counts of …

Law 19 Oct 10:32
Ofcom will not probe YouView... for now

Too early to judge unlaunched platform's impact, says watchdog

UK communications watchdog Ofcom has decided it doesn't need to investigate Project Canvas, despite cable broadcaster Virgin Media's claim that the putative online telly standard is anti-competitive. However, Canvas - which will go live next year as YouView - was tacitly warned that Ofcom will act if it blocks rival platforms …

reghardware 19 Oct 10:35
Ofcom blesses YouView

It's still an empty Canvas, though

Regulator Ofcom has rejected calls to investigate YouView, the venture formerly known as Project Canvas, under the Competition Act. YouView was formed to create a next-generation set top box jointly owned by the terrestrial UK broadcasters, ISPs BT and TalkTalk, and Arqiva, and bundles TV content with a TiVo-like box. YouView …

Music and Media 19 Oct 10:45
Rooney exits Man U with a few choice words

'Later, w*nkers', according to Fox Sports

It's a tip of the hat this morning to Fox Sports, which yesterday managed to summarise the Wayne Rooney/Manchester United spat with a choice quote from the strumpet-friendly footballing Weeble: Of course, we don't really think young Wayne said that to Alex Ferguson and the Man U management - he probably got his agent to do …

Bootnotes 19 Oct 10:47
Alternative iPhone 4 nears end of test phase, claims insider

iPhone 5 some way behind CMDA-compatible model

A new iPhone 4 variant has entered its final testing stage before release, it has been claimed. The handset is coded by Apple as the "iPhone3,2", a "solid" mole has told website BGR. The current iPhone 4 is "3,1". It's being widely assumed that the 3,2 is the rumoured CDMA-compatible handset being developed for US network …

reghardware 19 Oct 10:58
Sat-phone operator TerreStar's tits swinging skyward?

Good thing LightSquared only has a toe on the rug

Satellite-phone operator TerreStar is heading for Chapter 11 the Wall Street Journal reports, putting America's personal satellite phone network at risk. TerreStar has more than $1bn in debt, most of which got spent on its first bird, the imaginatively-named TerreStar-1, which went up in July 2009. Since then the company has …

Mobile 19 Oct 11:04
Google slaps down China resellers in 'very important market'

When piece of action comes at a price

Google has reportedly cut ties with seven ad resellers in China and, at the same time, renewed its vows to search users in that region – despite their undying love for the firm's rival Baidu. Mountain View came under fire from Beijing officials earlier this year, after it provided China-based surfers with a search redirect via …

Music and Media 19 Oct 11:21
Keep your PC clean - or we'll shut you down

Analysis UK and US users reject Oz supernanny model

When it comes to protecting our personal and financial data online, the Australian solution – of cutting off users who fail to maintain their PC security - may have a lot of appeal. But in the week when UK consumers are asked to turn their minds to questions of online safety, the real focus may need to be not so much on …

ID 19 Oct 11:35
Top cyber crime cop lied under oath, says judge

Exclusive Scotland Yard skulduggery

The head of the national police unit set up to tackle internet crime told lies under oath about her involvement in a plot to damage the career of a junior detective, a judge has said. Detective Superintendent Charlie McMurdie, of the Met's high-profile Police Central e-Crime Unit (PCeU), falsely claimed that conversations she …

Policing 19 Oct 11:45
Adobe preps sandboxing tech to fight exploits

Play safe

Adobe has fleshed out its plans to offer sandboxing as a mechanism to limit the impact of attacks against its ubiquitous Adobe Reader PDF reader application. Available from November, Adobe Reader X will incorporate virtual sandboxing technology that will place controls on the application's ability to modify the registry or …

Malware 19 Oct 11:51
Apple wipes smile off FaceTime in the Middle East

iOS upgrade disables vid calls

Apple's FaceTime enables any iPhone 4 to make video calls to any other iPhone 4, assuming neither of them were bought in Saudi Arabia, UAE, Qatar, Egypt or Jordan. FaceTime was hyped by Steve Jobs as the application that would turn the world on to video calling, and Apple web sites proudly listed it as a key feature of the …

Mobile 19 Oct 11:59
7Digital takes on iTunes

App'y talk

Digital music company 7Digital is to go head-to-head with Apple's iTunes on iPhones and iPads. Or so it hopes. Ben Drury, announcing the apps today, said that Apple hadn't actually approved them yet, but said he was optimistic. The company already has native Android and Blackberry apps for its store The British company was …

Music and Media 19 Oct 12:13
YouTube clasps naked dancer to bosom

Nude video clips are okay - as long as they're 'art'

It's official: smut is now allowed on YouTube – so long as it's artistic smut. And with this recognition that not everything that is naked is evil, YouTube appears to have scored one up on the slightly more straitlaced types over at Facebook. More seriously, by instituting a formal appeals process, it may have set the ball …

Music and Media 19 Oct 12:35
Medal of Honour

Review Worth a shot?

For all the pre-release controversy surrounding Medal of Honour, EA's contemporary world shooter is surprisingly understated. The controversy that players would be able to "recreate the acts of the Taliban" was, like most other videogame controversies, founded on rumour and speculation. Served up by credulous politicians and …

reghardware 19 Oct 12:55
Unisys lights up Xeon-based mainframes

Secure partitions and integrated specialty engines

Mainframe maker Unisys has made no secret of the fact that its long-term goal is to stop making its own mainframe engines and run both of its MCP and OS 2200 operating system platforms atop machines using Intel's Xeon processors. That day has not yet arrived, but with the delivery of the Xeon 7500 processors this year and a …

Servers 19 Oct 12:55
Azul starts peddling Zing virty Java stack

Superlasticjavaplastic runtime

Azul Systems, which makes hardware appliances to speed up the performance of Java applications, today starts selling its Zing virtual appliances for JVMs as an alternative to the Vega hardware appliances it has been selling since the company launched six years ago. The expectation is that going virtual on x64 iron will make it …

Virtualization 19 Oct 13:03
Was Ozzie's head in the clouds as rivals stole his role?

Ray ~~out~~ redeployed - MS execs go pale

Ray Ozzie's unexpected departure from his role as chief software architect does not look good for Microsoft, not least because it follows a series of other high-level departures. It follows Microsoft Business Division president Stephen Elop's move to become CEO of Nokia last month, and the retirement of entertainment and …

Operating Systems 19 Oct 13:31
HP unwraps Palm Pre 2

New WebOS, 1GHz CPU, not much else

HP has formally taken the wraps off WebOS 2.0 - due to ship in the Palm Pre 2 at the end of this week. Unsurprisngly, perhaps, the smartphone will debut in France on the SFR network - from which details leaked a week or so back. HP promised a North American release "in the coming months", but there was no word of releases …

reghardware 19 Oct 13:39
Iran: 'Nuke spies nabbed, but not for Stuxnet'

Not infected USB-wielding infidels, then?

Iranian leaders have backtracked on earlier claims that they had arrested unnamed nuclear spies over the spread of the infamous Stuxnet worm in the country. Intelligence minister Heidar Moslehi repeated the standard line that infections by the Stuxnet worm had been contained. Then he said that the arrest of so-called "nuclear …

Malware 19 Oct 14:02
ScaleMP: Still making big ones out of small ones

Disaggregation - reducing aggravation?

ScaleMP’s vSMP Foundation for SMP software is now certified to run on IBM’s newest x86 boxes, according to TPM’s story here. Like Tim, I’ve been a bit surprised that ScaleMP is still running free and hasn’t been bought by one of the big guys. It’s good news for both parties that ScaleMP’s stuff is now officially blessed by IBM …

HPC Blog 19 Oct 14:21
Small firms split on social media

No one knows what LinkedIn is for, do they?

Around half of small businesses are using social media, but many do not find it useful, according to research by a small firms trade body. Non-profit trade body the Forum of Private Business (FPB) surveyed 5,800 small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs) to find out what digital media they used. It said that 52 per cent of …

Small Biz 19 Oct 14:40
EMC boosts revenues 20% in Q3

Storage slugger reports kick-ass results

EMC is experiencing storming business results with 20 per cent revenue growth and a 58 per cent rise in profits in its third 2010 quarter. Total revenues came in at $4.21bn, while net income was $472.5m. On a non-GAAP basis, net income was $649.4m, up 35 per cent on the year. There was 23 per cent year-on-year growth in …

Storage 19 Oct 14:49
Cameron: Carriers tomorrow, bombers today

Huge victory for slug-balancers

Prime Minister David Cameron has at last announced the Coalition government's plan for sorting out the Ministry of Defence's finances. The RAF's deep-penetration bomber force will be preserved, and much of the Royal Navy's frigate and destroyer fleet: the cost of this is that there will be no jets able to fly from Royal Navy …

Government 19 Oct 15:30
Vatican confirms Simpsons as Catholics

The Father, Son, and Crusty Clown

The Vatican has declared that the Simpsons are a fine example of the Catholic ideal, and given parents the green light to let their kids watch the animated show. The declaration, in Vatican in-house mag Osservatore Romano, confirms both an earlier paean to the show, and the Simpsons' own onscreen conversion a few years ago. …

Bootnotes 19 Oct 15:36
Microsoft gets in a spin, announces Office 365

Like a washing machine, but in the cloud - or something

Microsoft has shoved its productivity suite of apps into a cloud-based service it has dubbed "Office 365" that is aimed at business customers. The company said that Office 365 would replace its clunkily-named Business Productivity Online Suite (BPOS). Office Live Small Business and Live@edu will also be ditched in a brand …

Channel Register 19 Oct 15:41
Why songwriters couldn't join the Choruss

Legal P2P failed because it was too vague - and risky

Jim Griffin's bold plan to take P2P file sharing out of the black economy, and into the one that deals with green folding stuff, flopped because it couldn't explain to songwriters how they'd get paid. That's president of the Songwriters Guild of America Rick Carnes's view of Choruss' demise and he says it's why the songwriters …

Music and Media 19 Oct 15:51
Google's Street View broke Canadian privacy laws

Password-slurping operation was work of one (creative) engineer's code

The Canadian privacy watchdog today said Google's Street View fleet broke the law when it collected payload data from unsecured Wi-Fi networks. An investigation by the Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada, one of dozens launched around the world earlier this year, also found the practice was the result of a single …

Law 19 Oct 15:53
Apple hit by iPad sales guessing game

Comment Obsession with totals misses broader picture, the point

So who exactly forecast Apple's fourth quarter - equivalent to calendar Q3 - iPad sales would be so much higher than the 4.19m the company last night announced that it had shipped during the period? Someone must have done, to prompt all the stories appearing across the internet suggesting that Apple's iPad sales were "lower …

reghardware 19 Oct 16:04
Call of Duty: Black Ops may leak online after disk theft

Xbox copies swiped, apparently

Xbox copies of Call of Duty: Black Ops were supposedly stolen yesterday, sparking fears that the closely-guarded title may be leaked online ahead of its release. After several copies were allegedly snagged from the pressing plant in Alabama, attempts were made to flog them to interested parties through Xbox mod websites. An …

reghardware 19 Oct 16:21
Compromise turns Kaspersky site into malware hub

Hackers exploit buggy app

The US website for anti-virus provider Kaspersky was caught pushing malware to its users for three and a half hours on Sunday after it was compromised by criminal hackers. The attack first came to light on three separate user forums frequented by Kaspersky users. According to some of the posts, Kaspersky officials initially …

Malware 19 Oct 17:44
Symbian chief withdraws from iPhone and Android fight

'Personal reasons' cited

The leader of the consortium fighting off Android and the iPhone has stepped down after just two years. Symbian executive director Lee Williams has left, effective immediately, the Foundation said Tuesday, and been replaced by the group's chief financial officer Tim Holbrow. In a statement, Symbian cited "personal reasons" …

Mobile 19 Oct 18:15
Java surpasses Adobe kit as most attacked software

Researcher sees 'unprecedented wave of Java exploitation'

Oracle's Java framework has surpassed Adobe applications as the most attacked software package, according to a Microsoft researcher who warned she was seeing “an unprecedented wave of Java exploitation.” The spike began in the third-quarter of last year and has climbed steadily since, according to data reported on Monday by …

Security 19 Oct 18:58
Intel waves Old Glory with wafer baker plans

Ponying up $8bn for 'unimagined innovation'

Chip giant Intel will shell out some $8bn and create thousands of jobs to build out chip development and fabrication facilities in the US for its future 22 nanometer PC and server chips. The company said it will upgrade four exiting US wafer-bakers with 22nm equipment, specifically the D1C and D1D fabs in Oregon and the Fab 12 …

Business 19 Oct 19:29
Oldsters beat twentysomethings at social networking

Twelve-month surge

We now know where Microsoft went wrong with its KIN "social phone": it mistakenly made twentysomething hipsters its target market. Twentysomethings are the least likely age group to share information via text messages, and they use social networks such as Twitter and Facebook less frequently than baby-boomers in their fifties …

Music and Media 19 Oct 20:22
Two Russians convicted as money mules

Face 20 years in the clink

Two Russian men have been convicted for their roles as money mules who tried to siphon funds out of US bank accounts and send it to ringleaders in Ukraine. Dmitry Vladislavovich Krivosheev, 25, and Maxim Valeryevich Illarionov, 24, who were living in Miami, last week were convicted of one count each of wire fraud and …

Crime 19 Oct 21:08
Google Android chief smacks Steve Jobs with Linux speak

mkdir meaningless argument

Google Android chief Andy Rubin has responded to Steve Jobs's extended rant against Google's mobile OS, unloading a cagey tweet meant to defend claims of Android "openness." On Monday afternoon, during a surprise appearance on Apple's quarterly earnings call, Jobs took aim at Mountain View's repeated claims that Google is " …

Developer 19 Oct 21:31
196 nations open three week (!) telecoms congress

ITU Quadrennial quagmire or efficient conclave?

The International Telecommunication Union is a walking contradiction, where tedious 19th century ceremony exists side-by-side with snappy 21st century efficiency. I'm here in Guadalajara, Mexico at the ITU's Plenipotentiary — a meeting that this United Nations' agency for information and communication technology holds every …

Telecoms 19 Oct 23:18
Yahoo! boss blames revenue dip on better Bing

'Microsoft is so good, it ate our money'

Yahoo!'s revenues took a slight dip during the third quarter — but the much-criticized company posted profits that just beat the expectations of the Wall Street guessmen, thanks in large part to the sale of jobs site HotJobs. During the company's quarterly conference call with analysts and reporters, CEO Carol Bartz added a …

Financial News 19 Oct 23:21
RIM boss joins queue to kick Jobs

Ballsy Balsille blasts Apple 'distortion field'

Research in Motion co-CEO Jim Balsille ripped into Apple CEO Steve Jobs after the Cupertinian worthy took aim at RIM's BlackBerry smartphones and upcoming PlayBook tablet on Monday. "As usual, whether the subject is antennas, Flash or shipments, there is more to the story," blogged Balsille steamily, "and sooner or later, even …

Mobile 19 Oct 23:45