27th October 2010 Archive

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Amazon customer purchases protected by US Constitution

Tax collector's land grab struck down

Lists that identify the titles of books, music, and movies purchased by Amazon.com customers are protected by Free Speech rights guaranteed by the US Constitution, a federal judge has ruled. The landmark ruling by US District Judge Marsha J. Pechman of Seattle, was a sharp rebuke of North Carolina's DOR, or Department of …

ID 27 Oct 00:34
Yahoo! unfurls revamped Yahoo! mail beta

More! than! two! times! faster! says! Yahoo!

Yahoo! has released a beta of its latest Yahoo! Mail update, claiming that the web-based email service is at least two times faster than previous versions. Rebuilt "from the ground up," the Yahoo! Mail beta offers a new interface, integration with Facebook, Twitter, and Yahoo! Updates, a revamped search tool, and an automatic …

Music and Media 27 Oct 05:20
iPhones, MacBooks sicken Chinese women

Apple: 'What Chinese factories?'

Chinese workers assembling Apple laptops and iPhones are being sickened by a particularly nasty industrial chemical, n-hexane, according to a report. "I think they knew it was poisonous to human bodies, but if they had used another chemical our output would not have increased," one woman told a reporter from the Australian …

Business 27 Oct 06:00
Ten... bedside iPod docks

Product Round-up Wakey, wakey!

When Reg Hardware last looked at iPod docks, we focused on premium offerings intended to take pride of place in your living room. This time we turn our attentions to some of the best speaker docks for more intimate surroundings. All the docks included can sit on your bedside table and many have an alarm clock to wake you from …

reghardware 27 Oct 07:00
North Lincs pilots victimisation index

System will pinpoint those most likely to be targets of antisocial attacks

An electronic system to help people who are vulnerable to antisocial behaviour is being trialled in North Lincolnshire. The Victims and Vulnerable Persons Index (VVPI) was launched on 26 October as an early warning system about people at risk of systematic attack or abuse by neighbourhood gangs. The VVPI has been developed in …

Government 27 Oct 07:00
New pocket-sized smartbomb - just for killer robots

Thermos-sized weapon ideal for CIA assassin droids

US weaponry megacorp Raytheon says it has successfully tested a new, pocket-sized smartbomb specifically designed for use by killer robots. The weapon has been rather prosaically dubbed Small Tactical Munition (STM). STM is a 13-pound guided bomb that is approximately 2 feet long, according to Raytheon. Two of the little …

Physics 27 Oct 07:41
BA slams stupid security checks

Enough already with the security theatre

The chairman of British Airways has said it is time to stop kowtowing to US demands on airport security. Speaking to the UK Airport Operators Association Martin Broughton said it was time to stop making people take their shoes off and remove laptops from bags for security checks. He also criticised US authorities for …

Government 27 Oct 07:48
Ellison accuses HP boss of espionage

Promises to reveal all in Monday's court case

Larry Ellison is raising the temperature of his fight with HP by accusing its new CEO Leo Apotheker of running a spying scheme against Oracle when he was boss of SAP. Oracle and SAP will meet in court on Monday. Ellison said Oracle would subpoena Apotheker, ex-boss of SAP, to appear, if he had the guts to go to HP's …

Financial News 27 Oct 08:56
US Army trials robot 'leccy-n-bandwidth war-mules

Big Red One needs batteries and bits, not beans and bullets

The US army remains determined to kit out all its ground troops with portable, wearable networking gear which will provide them with comms as well as an accurate idea of where everyone is. Unfortunately, when you have to generate your own wireless coverage as you go from the same kit, this means a lot of power - and this in turn …

Science 27 Oct 09:16
Bredolab botnet suspect cuffed in Armenia

Maybe zombie master

A man suspected of running the infamous Bredolab botnet has been arrested in Armenia. The collar of the unnamed 27-year-old suspect at Yerevan Airport on Tuesday follows hours after an operation led by Dutch police resulted in the takedown of 143 command and control servers associated with the information-stealing zombie …

Crime 27 Oct 09:50
Virgin Media begins 100Mb upgrades

Getting faster very slowly

Virgin Media today said it will begin increasing the maximum downstream broadband speed available via its network to 100Mbit/s, and maximum upload speed to 10Mbit/s. The gradual programme will take more than 18 months to cover the country, it said, and is due for completion in mid-2012. The first areas scheduled for upgrade, …

Telecoms 27 Oct 09:52
Satyam boss ordered back to jail

Billion pound fraud heads to court

Ramalinga Raju, disgraced boss of Satyam, has had his bail cancelled by the Indian Supreme Court ahead of hearings on charges of massive accounting fraud at the reseller. Raju, his brother and and four other ex-Satyam staff implicated in the scandal, must return to prison by 8 November. The court found that because most of …

Channel Register 27 Oct 10:11
Virgin America heads to the cloud with Google

Online apps are us

Virgin America has signed a deal with Google to provide cloud-based apps to all its 1,700 staff across the US. Virgin employees will shift to GMail and start using other Google apps like Docs, Google Talk and Google Calendar. The search and ad giant reckons the move will save Virgin half of its previous email costs and cut the …

Channel Register 27 Oct 10:18
Everything Everywhere rushes into third quarter

Seems like only yesterday it was only Q2

Less than a month after posting its Q2 results Everything Everywhere has put out Q3 results, this time showing marginal growth in revenue and customer numbers. Everything Everywhere hasn't been around for long, and last month's figures were the first the joint company has published. These Q3 results put it back on schedule and …

Mobile 27 Oct 10:23
Bus spotter admits £11k database fees fraud

The wheels of justice go round and round...

A Suffolk man has admitted to defrauding his employer of £11,000 to indulge his pastime of bus-spotting. Steven Curl, 45, ran up a bill of £10,983 in credit check fees over two years while working at insurance giant AXA, Ipswich Crown Court was told. The East Anglian Daily Times reports that the charabanc fanatic exploited …

Crime 27 Oct 10:24
Symbian angst downgrades Nokia

Ratings agency gives Finnish mobile maker thumbs down on 'outlook'

The new management of Nokia is already ringing the changes - identifying several areas widely criticised by outsiders. But the short-term outlook continues to look uncertain. This week rating agency Moody changed its outlook from "stable" to "negative", citing concern about Symbian^3 devices. Nokia's smartphones may "turn out …

Mobile 27 Oct 11:05
Sage Pay upgrade woes hit merchants

Computer says no

Thousands of e-commerce merchants are still struggling to process transactions following problems with a weekend upgrade by payment processor Sage Pay. The upgrade was designed to make transaction processing faster and more resilient for the 32,000 merchants in the UK and Ireland who rely on the firm's service to handle e- …

Channel Register 27 Oct 11:21
Privacy watchdog needs someone to explain technology

Help give this puppy some teeth

The Information Commissioner's Office needs you to help it deal with the privacy implications of new technology. The ICO admitted in August that it needed to "develop our understanding of the impact of technology on privacy and ensure that this informs our policy making". The watchdog is appointing a Technology Reference …

Government 27 Oct 11:26
Wyse words mate

Sysadmin blog Not having to think is grand

Next year is Wyse’s 30th anniversary. The company rose to fame during the 1980s with terminal emulation thin clients, and although it had a brief flirtation with own-brand PCs it is its focus on thin clients that has made this company famous. Today, Wyse specialises in the client side of remote computing and desktop …

Sysadmin blog 27 Oct 11:37
Privacy watchdog lowers White House's grades

Gives Obama a D on report card and tells Europe to sort out US data sharing

The Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC) last week issued a report card on privacy, civil liberties and cyber security that found the White House faring even worse than it had last year. Obama's administration got grade C for consumer privacy, a B for medical privacy, a D for civil liberties and a B for cybersecurity …

Government 27 Oct 11:41
White iPhone 4 delayed again

Elusive albino hibernates 'til spring

Those desperate to get their hands on a white iPhone 4 will have to wait until 2011, as Apple has again delayed its release, this time until next spring. This is the third time the date has been pushed back, but this time Apple is not saying why - unlike previous occasion. Days after the first iPhone 4 was launched, Apple …

reghardware 27 Oct 11:42
Bling brings Facebook likes into meatspace

FourSquare gets sticky interactivity too

Bling Nation, which makes the mobile commerce stickers so beloved by Facebook, has integrated itself with Facebook preferences, which are now now available by tapping a phone on the counter. This is assuming that phone is equipped with a Bling Nation sticker, naturally. Such stickers are normally used for the company's pre- …

Mobile 27 Oct 11:58
Prosecutors prep decision on BT-Phorm case

Day of reckoning approaches for criminal probe

The Crown Prosecution Service is close to settling on whether to prosecute anyone over BT and Phorm's secret interception and profiling of internet traffic. Prosecutors have disclosed they plan to announce their decision at the end of November, following an investigation lasting more than two years. They are deciding whether …

Law 27 Oct 12:21
Virtualization: Solving the problems of success

A Reg guide

The Register has written a guide for you, a five-pager called Virtualization: solving the problems of success. Inspired by a survey of 300 Reg-reading IT Pros, we produced this editorially independent study sponsored by Dell and Intel. Headline findings are that some 92 per cent have already implemented virtualization to some …

Virtualization 27 Oct 12:46
PARIS launch tomorrow come hell or high water

Both likely, knowing our luck

The Paper Aircraft Released Into Space team would like to apologise to those Reg readers who were hanging round their monitors on Tuesday expecting some form of PARIS launch activity. In the event, a series of technical problems forced a last-minute scrub. Most of these were minor glitches, but rather more seriously, the team' …

PARIS 27 Oct 12:55
Sony UK fuels Christmas cheer with VAT back promo

Beat the VAT rise

Sony UK is running a VAT back promo with most of the UK's consumer electronics retailers in the Christmas run-up. In other words you claim a 17.5 per cent discount on a bunch of gadgets bought between 28 October and 24 December. You have until 31 January to claim the cash back from Sony. The scheme includes "all 3D …

reghardware 27 Oct 13:15
Credit cards get colour screens

Red screen of debt

Toppan Printing has demonstrated a credit card with a colour screen and keypad, claiming that you don't need a mobile phone to manage mobile commerce. The card, which at 3.9mm thick squeezes into the definition of such, has a 2.2-inch colour screen with a 320x240 resolution, but most importantly Toppan Printing reckons it will …

Wireless 27 Oct 13:30
Pillar refresh alert as R5 hits the streets

Pillar talk: 'Think VMotion' says head tech officer

Pillar has a near-term refresh of its Axiom array coming by the end of the year, in the form of a release 5 (R5) system, to be followed by more updates in 2011. R5 is focused on a management update which will lay the groundwork for the management of multiple Axioms through one pane of glass. Mike Brewer, Pillar's VP for …

Storage 27 Oct 14:07
Online badness: The kids are not alright

Parents are ignorants

One in eight kids are upset about content they've seen online - such as porn, sexual or bullying messages or harmful user-generated content. Less than half of parents are aware of their concern. These finding are contained in the report Risks and safety on the internet: the perspective of European children, based on interviews …

reghardware 27 Oct 14:10
NetApp, Fujitsu and Quantum in product-swapping orgy

Opinion EMC aftershocks tip storage players into each others' beds

The aftershocks of EMC's earth-shaking Data Domain acquisition are causing the storage industry suppliers' tectonic plates to grind and shift into new positions. The snatching of Data Domain from NetApp's grasp left the Sunnyvale company with a deep hole in its strategy. It was willing to pay a substantial amount for a …

Storage 27 Oct 14:33
A Sparc of hope for Symbian

Fujitsu has been here before

The Symbian Foundation is being wound down - but it may yet survive, at least in name. In fact, there's an unlikely template for the Foundation. One of life's odd little ironies is that one of the architects of this template is Symbian's biggest supporter outside Nokia today. It's Fujitsu - and it's been here before. Overall …

Mobile 27 Oct 14:37
Hacker almost derailed Mandela election in South Africa

Right-wing key-puncher tried to hang on to apartheid, says new book

An unidentified voting system hacker almost derailed South Africa's first democratic elections. Only a backup paper ballot system saved the historic 1994 election from sabotage, according to a new book from Peter Harris, the former head of the official election monitoring division. The hacking attempt involved trying to boost …

Crime 27 Oct 14:43
Sage Pay says sorry for upgrade shambles

Sorry for 'teething problems'

Sage Pay has apologised for an upgrade of its systems that left many of its 32,000 customers in the UK and Ireland unable to process transactions on Monday. The problems, which rendered the payment processor's core system intermittently unavailable on Monday and continued to produce complaints on Tuesday, have been resolved, …

Channel Register 27 Oct 14:58
Nearly half of top UK firms do not use software escrow

Source code could evaporate if vendors go up in smoke

Almost half of the 350 most valuable listed companies in the UK do not have software escrow agreements in place to give them access to technology if a supplier goes bust, according to an escrow services company. NCC Group has said that just 189 of the FTSE-350 group of listed firms have escrow agreements in place, meaning that …

Developer 27 Oct 15:52
Intel announces globo-dominance 'Cloud 2015' plan

$50bn of CIOs, major vendors already signed up

Chip colossus Intel has unveiled its vision for the future of corporate IT. In a global announcement today the company took the wraps off the Open Data Centre Alliance, to which $50bn-pa-worth of CIOs are already signed up and to which Intel has been appointed "non-voting technical advisor". Intel architecture bigwig Boyd …

Servers 27 Oct 16:00
Pizza Express gets iPod makeover

Noise testing booth

Pizza Express is experimenting with a restaurant format featuring booths that reduce noise and include personal iPod docks. Margherita munchers in the Richmond branch can now plug in their iOS devices to control the lights and press their own button to signal service or ask for a bill. Say cheese Designer Ab Rogers worked …

reghardware 27 Oct 16:24
Oracle ~~back~~ in the Unix game with Sparc T3 servers

More than twice the bang for the buck

Oracle was vague about when its new Sparc T series servers using the 16-core "Rainbow Falls" Sparc T3 processors were coming to market when they were launched a month ago, but two of the four machines are now shipping. And Oracle has slashed prices and boosted performance to show IBM and HP that it is indeed back in the Unix …

Servers 27 Oct 16:35
Lender objects to $13m sex.com sale

Creditor accuses owner of grabbing cash for insiders

The $13m sale of the domain name sex.com has been thrown into doubt after one of its bankrupt owner's creditors made an official objection. Nuthin' But Net (NBN) LLC filed a motion in a California bankruptcy court yesterday, claiming the funds from the sale will be unfairly distributed to "insiders" at the expense of money it …

Financial News 27 Oct 16:41
RIM goes Bold with the 9780

BlackBerry 6 juices refresh

Research in Motion (RIM) has launched the latest rev of the popular Bold series - the BlackBerry Bold 9780. The biggest news is that 9780 is the first Bold to feature the new BlackBerry 6 OS. The handset has a 624MHz processor and 512MB on-board memory that can be boosted by a MicroSD card up to 32GB. The addition of a 5Mp …

reghardware 27 Oct 17:25
Wikileaks Iraq War Logs vanish from Amazon US

Whistle-blower still on American registrar, DNS

WikiLeaks' "Iraq War Logs" site is no longer hosted on US-based servers operated by Amazon.com, according to internet records. Warlogs.wikileaks.org is now mirrored only on Ireland-based Amazon servers and France-based servers from French service provider Octopuce, records collected by UK-based internet research outfit …

Networks 27 Oct 17:39
Credit card 'flash attack' steals up to $500,000 a month

Exploits major fraud-detection weakness

Credit card fraudsters may have pocketed as much as $500,000 over the past month by pursuing a new type of attack that exploits a major blind spot in payment processors' defenses, an analyst said. The "flash attacks" recruit hundreds of money mules who go to ATMs throughout the US and almost simultaneously withdraw relatively …

Crime 27 Oct 18:34
HTML5 web video flashes past Flash

In your pocket, not on your desk

HTML5 now commands a majority of web-based video support, but its rise is being fueled by mobile devices. Adobe Flash still holds the lead in desktop content. This news comes from a new survey of HTML5-video penetration conducted by MeFeedia, the self-described "largest independent video site on the web with partnerships so …

Music and Media 27 Oct 19:05
Mozilla delays Firefox 4 until 'early 2011'

'Feature complete' beta 7 on ice

Mozilla has pushed back the planned release of Firefox to sometime in "early 2011." Previously, the open source outfit had said its latest desktop browser would be officially released next month. "As discussed in today’s Firefox delivery meeting, release candidate builds are now scheduled to ship in early 2011, with the final …

Applications 27 Oct 19:36
Notorious Koobface worm ported to Mac OS X

Lame, but still worth watching

Security researchers say they've been monitoring a Mac OS X version of the notorious Koobface worm, which uses advanced rootkit techniques to stealthily hijack infected machines. Although the Mac version isn't yet ready for prime time, it is nonetheless a sophisticated piece of software that developers put a fair amount of …

Malware 27 Oct 20:10
Microsoft vision chief sees world without ~~Microsoft~~ PCs

Comment Ozzie's change-or-die message

Is Microsoft a dying consumer brand? That's the question CNN's Money has posed. Well, it's one thing for journalists, bloggers, and Silicon Valley–watchers to write off the company, as they frequently and easily do in this dawning era of tablets, Androids, and cloud services — but what about when Cassandra is your star …

Software 27 Oct 20:41
Intel plays Switzerland in the cloud wars

Comment Who will bear the ARM 'standard'?

Whenever someone starts waving "standards," it is always a prelude to war. With the launch of the Open Data Center Alliance today by 70 IT organizations (some of whom are IT suppliers), Intel is trying to position itself as the neutral player in the coming cloud wars. Switzerland benefited by being the bankers for warring …

Servers 27 Oct 20:55
Ellison roasts HP chairman for 'absurd lie'

Drop 'invent' for 'steal,' Larry tells partner

Larry Ellison has broadened his attack on Hewlett-Packard's management by accusing chairman Ray Lane of lying. On Wednesday afternoon, Oracle's CEO issued a statement calling it an "absurd lie" to say that HP's CEO pick, Leo Apotheker, knew nothing of SAP's alleged theft of Oracle trade secrets. Apotheker was CEO of SAP for …

Software 27 Oct 22:58
Palin email hacker asks judge for leniency

'Youth and emotional condition' cited

The man convicted of breaching then vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin's Yahoo Mail account has asked a federal judge to spare him a prison sentence and instead put him on probation. David C. Kernell's request for a downward departure comes six months after a federal jury found him guilty of felony obstruction of justice …

Security 27 Oct 23:25