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28th October 2010 Archive

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  • Hong Kong monitor maker sues Apple over iPad moniker

    Proview to a kill

    A struggling Hong Kong monitor manufacturer has come up with a not-so-novel way to dig itself out of financial trouble: sue Apple. Proview International, according to a report by The People's Daily, registered the iPad trademark outside of China in 2000. One division of the company, Proview Taipei, failed in its attempt to …

    Music and Media 28 Oct 02:00

  • ITU congress: where Kabbadi meets telecoms

    ITU Very silly. Oddly fascinating

    At the International Telecommunication Union's quadrennial Plenipotentiary congress in Guadalajara, Mexico, bureaucratic posturing is as endemic as one might expect for such a creaky, hide-bound United Nations agency. Take, for example, the style of debate — if, indeed, the word "debate" can be properly applied to the florid …

    Telecoms 28 Oct 02:48

  • Intel lobs pork buns at world gone Google

    Cloud alliance got no clouds? Chuck the dim sum

    As Intel unveiled the Open Data Center Alliance on Wednesday morning, crowing that this consortium of "global IT leaders" shared its vision for an "open cloud" future and proclaiming the arrival of "Cloud Independence Day," it seemed odd that the alliance didn't actually include a cloud company. The best you can say is that …

    Virtualization 28 Oct 04:53

  • Sex.com sellers roll eyes at $13m price tag

    'A home run. Not a grand slam'

    Sex.com may have been sold for $13 million but that isn’t enough for its owners. The deal between Escom and soon-to-be new owner Clover Holdings – an opaque company based in offshore tax haven St Vincent – will go ahead after being given formal approval by Judge Geraldine Mund in Los Angeles on Wednesday. However, the …

    Music and Media 28 Oct 05:19

  • Duracell MyGrid cable-free gadget charger

    Review Wireless electricity

    Cable-free charging is nothing new, the notion having been pioneered by Powermat, but the big names in consumer power have now taken note of the technology and have introduced their big-brand alternatives. Duracell's MyGrid Charge Pad: handy if you've several devices you need to charge at once Take Duracell. It's offering, …

    reghardware 28 Oct 07:00

  • DfT to install new motorway tech

    More cameras, but not that sort

    The Department for Transport (DfT) is to start work on 24 road and public transport schemes, several including managed motorway and hard shoulder running projects. Under its plans, the department is to improve access to Sheffield by using managed motorways technology on the M1 in Derbyshire between junctions 28 and 31. Active …

    Government 28 Oct 07:00

  • Gov consults on UK's corporate governance

    Does 'boardroom hubris' put long-term economic growth at risk?

    The Government will investigate whether Britain's companies are being properly run or whether failures in the checks and balances at the top of firms is undermining the market for investment. Secretary of State for Business Vince Cable has launched a consultation into corporate governance and whether failures in that process …

    Small Biz 28 Oct 08:59

  • Vulture One spaceplane NOW AIRBORNE!

    Updated PARIS soars to glory with plastonaut inside her

    Good morning and welcome to the live coverage the Paper Aircraft Released Into Space launch and pursuit. First up, you can follow us on Twitter, with regular updates from our man John Oates in the main payload pursuit vehicle. He'll be in continual contact with myself and radio man Steve Daniels in the Vulture 1 chase car, so …

    PARIS 28 Oct 09:25

  • Intel forms flash gang of five

    Dell, EMC, Fujitsu, IBM posse pushes for SSD standard

    Intel, Dell, EMC, Fujitsu and IBM are forming a working group to standardise PCIe-based solid state drives (SSD), and have a webcast coming out today to discuss it. By connecting to a server's PCIe bus, SSDs can pour out their contents faster to the server than by using Fibre Channel or SAS connectivity. The flash is used as a …

    Storage 28 Oct 09:30

  • Compellent basks in Wall Street's love

    Enterprise here we come, as share price soars

    Shunned by Wall Street since making less profit than the street gods had been led to believe it would, Compellent roared back into favour yesterday after announcing it had made a boatload of money in its latest quarter. Compellent makes Storage Center disk and solid state drive arrays for small and medium enterprises. The …

    Storage 28 Oct 09:32

  • Mozilla quickly patches Firefox flaw

    My Gran can code better exploits than that

    Mozilla has reacted quickly to patch a zero-day vulnerability in its Firefox browser software. The security flaw was used to run a drive-by-download attack so that Firefox fans visiting the website for the Nobel Peace prize were exposed to malware on Tuesday. Code planted on the site redirected surfers to a hacker-controlled …

    Enterprise Security 28 Oct 09:39

  • MP slams ICO for 'lily-livered' Google probe

    Withering words on Wi-Fi wimpishness

    The Information Commissioner faces sharp criticism in Parliament over his handling of an investigation into Google's Street View Wi-Fi data harvesting operation. Tory MP Robert Halfon admonished Christopher Graham ahead of a backbench debate on Google and internet privacy today. "The UK Information Commissioner has been lily- …

    Law 28 Oct 09:47

  • UK net economy report crosses silly line

    Google-commissioned bumf is mentally interesting

    A new report commissioned by Google, and timed to coincide with the first ever Parliamentary debate on the company today, puts itself and the internet at the heart of the British economy. But it does so by using some creative and interesting definitions. According to Boston Consulting Group, the internet sector in the UK is …

    Financial News 28 Oct 09:53

  • Vulture One PARIS spaceplane telemetry LIVE ONLINE

    +++ Modelmodule PLUNGING TOWARD THICK WOOD +++

    Here's the current position of the Vulture 1 main payload balloon module (G6UIM-11) and pursuit vehicle (G6UIM-9), according to our feed from via the APRS system. The position of the actual spaceplane (G6UIM-12) is difficult to interpret at the moment. The signal may not be continuous, depending on whether or not radio man Steve …

    PARIS 28 Oct 09:54

  • Bond car bought at auction

    Sells for a 007 figure sum

    One wealthy James Bond enthusiast drove away with the spy's most famous car yesterday, after it was auctioned for £2.6 million. Driven by Sean Connery in Goldfinger and Thunderball, the Aston Martin DB5 was expected to fetch in excess of £3m. A spokesman from the auction said, "It's still a lot of money and I don't think …

    reghardware 28 Oct 09:55

  • 'HULC™' robot exoskeleton war-walker suit 'at gen 2.0'

    Luxury padded interior offers 'comfort and support'

    American developers say they have produced a "next-generation" version of the well-known Human Universal Load Carrier (HULC™) robotic exoskeleton suit for the US Army. The machine is now to be tested in laboratories for resistance to "sand, wind, rain, temperature and humidity". Half a league, half a league, half a league …

    Science 28 Oct 10:08

  • Privacy researchers plot RIM's route

    BlackBerry users asked to play 'hunt the servers'

    The Citizen Lab, a Canadian privacy group run from the University of Toronto, is asking BlackBerry users to drop by and let them know how you got there. It‘s as easy as it sounds, and is explained here by IT Business Canada. Just drop by the website on your Blackberry device and fill in some information about where you are …

    Mobile 28 Oct 10:21

  • PARIS HAS LANDED!!! Epic supra-atmos flight ends

    Model-module eases down atop thick wood

    The Register's epic project to launch a cutting-edge spaceplane fashioned entirely from paper and piloted by an intrepid plastic playmonaut - dubbed PARIS* in honour of our favourite socialite and inadvertent porn star - has come to an end. The main balloon payload launch module is now stationary on a hillside above thick …

    PARIS 28 Oct 10:55

  • Three is voted the best UK network

    Roaming reliability squeezes Orange

    Mobile operator Three has been rated as the UK's best mobile broadband network for the second year in a row. Three, who recently proclaimed itself to be the biggest network, came out top in 8 out of 15 categories following the 2010 YouGov DongleTracker survey in which over 4,000 mobile broadband customers were questioned. UK …

    reghardware 28 Oct 10:56

  • Hells Angels slap London dressmakers with trademark suit

    You ain't going nowhere dressed like that

    The Hells Angels are apparently going to war with British fashion house Alexander McQueen after accusing the couturiers of infringing on their trademarks. The California-based motorcycle club, whose fearsome reputation includes the sudden and brutal application of trademark lawyers, believes the dressmakers, and its retailers …

    Bootnotes 28 Oct 11:24

  • Did ZeuS's daddy give hard Trojan love to rival cybercrook?

    Über-powerful malware baby may be on its way

    The author of the infamous ZeuS crimeware toolkit may have handed over its development to a former rival in the banking Trojan development business. "Slavik" has handed over the ZeuS source code to SpyEye developer "Harderman", according to an investigation by security blogger and former Washington Post reporter Brian Krebs - …

    Enterprise Security 28 Oct 11:28

  • Intel's gang of 5 grows to mob of 17

    Twelve newbie 'contributors' join the solid state party

    Twelve contributing members have joined in with the Intel gang of five to standardise PCIe solid state drive (SSD) standards. The original quintet - Dell, EMC, Fujitsu, IBM and Intel - are now called Promotor Members, with the incomers called Contributor Members. The dozen newbies are Amphenol, Emulex, Fusion-io, IDT, Marvel …

    Storage 28 Oct 11:47

  • Fable III

    Myths the point?

    Fable III is every bit the logical conclusion to the series, and the culmination of creative director Peter Molyneux's quest to bring simplicity to the RPG genre. A light shower Successive Fable games have pared back the genre's defining traits to the point where Fable III's RPG credentials are tenuous at best. Where Fable …

    reghardware 28 Oct 12:00

  • Most smartphone users breach employers’ security, says survey

    Employees' mobile devices a major safety risk for companies

    More than half of mobile device users access their employer's networks every day without permission, a survey has found. More than 80 per cent of users of mobile devices, whose security is not controlled by a company, say they have accessed work information. Network systems company Juniper Networks surveyed 6,000 mobile device …

    reghardware 28 Oct 12:10

  • 419ers threaten terrorism charges

    Lads from Lagos call in the FBI

    Advance-fee fraudsters have joined the fight against international terrorism, worried Reg reader Guy reports. The Lads from Lagos have turned their hands to money-laundering investigations, and have come up with some very grave charges against our man, which speak for themselves: ANTI-TERRORIST AND MONETARY CRIMES DIVISION …

    Bootnotes 28 Oct 12:13

  • Oracle goes in hard on Google Java suit

    Claims Java was pillaged to make Android

    Oracle has updated its patent infringement suit against Google. Now the enterprise software corporation has point-blank accused the ad broker of directly copying its Java code, according to reports. According to InfoWorld, the originally vague suit now includes specific examples of code that Oracle claims Google had filched to …

    Developer 28 Oct 13:17

  • Boffins mount campaign against France's official kilogramme

    'Eet cannot be changing. Eet weighs exactly 1 kg - sacré vache'

    International boffins are mounting a determined diplomatic push to end the practice of measuring mass by reference to a 130-year-old metal cylinder kept in France, saying that the French ingot is no longer up to the job. The Consultative Committee for Units, whose chairman is Blighty's Professor I M Mills FRS, and which counts …

    Science 28 Oct 13:44

  • MYSTERY of vanished PARIS spaceplane, playmonaut

    Ground team embark on epic Fossett-style search

    The Register's Paper Aircraft Released Into Space (PARIS) team have been left baffled following reports from our Spanish ground pursuit unit, which has now reached the site at which the main PARIS supra-atmospheric balloon launch podule plunged to Earth earlier today. It appears that the balloon module performed precisely as …

    PARIS 28 Oct 13:53

  • Radio amnesty fails to lift DAB

    Scrappage scheme flatlines

    The radio audience ratings service RAJAR has published the first full quarter of figures since the launch of a DAB trade-in scheme called 'Radio Amnesty', fronted by ubiquitous luvvie Stephen Fry. The aim was to induce households to exchange their FM radios for a DAB radio. The result? DAB's share of digital listening has fallen …

    Music and Media 28 Oct 14:01

  • Russia files charges against alleged penis pill pusher

    Supposed spam-javelin spammer slapped

    Russian authorities have launched a rare criminal prosecution against an alleged spammer. Igor Gusev, 31, was charged in absentia with running a prolific penis pill (Canadian Pharmacy) spam operation following a police raid on his Moscow home on Tuesday. Gusev is the general director of Despmedia, an alleged partner of Glavmed …

    Spam 28 Oct 14:03

  • China takes HPC heavyweight title

    GPUs, Arch interconnect knocks out Jaguar and Roadrunner

    If it wasn't immediately obvious that China is a superpower, today's announcement that the Tianhe-1A CPU-GPU hybrid is the most powerful supercomputer in the world - and by a comfortable margin - will make it abundantly clear. China wants to move from being a manufacturing powerhouse to being a full player in the 21st century …

    HPC 28 Oct 14:07

  • Oracle adds tiered storage to mainframe VTL

    3.5PB of the good stuff

    Oracle has boosted its mainframe virtual tape library capacity by adding in a second tier of disk storage. Sun, as it then was, announced its Virtual Storage Manager (VSM) version 5 in May last year. This is a virtual tape library (VTL) sitting between a mainframe, or open system servers, and a tape library and storing up to …

    Storage 28 Oct 14:41

  • M&S cooks up goods for gadget recycling

    All mouth and trousers?

    Have tech, but nothing to eat? Don't worry, you can now swap unwanted electrical items for M&S vouchers and feast upon the store's food and fashions. Recycling firm ShP Limited has teamed up with Marks & Spencer to launch a website designed to help reduce the one million tonnes of electronic waste that the UK, apparently, …

    reghardware 28 Oct 14:52

  • Over 100,000 stops-and-searches: zero terrorists

    Home Office stop stats show police wasting own time

    When it comes to wasting police time, the biggest offenders appear to be...the police. That, at least, appears to be the conclusion of the Home Office. Its official statistics, published today, show that while police stopped over 100,000 individuals last year to "prevent acts of terrorism", there was not a single arrest for a …

    Policing 28 Oct 15:14

  • Tribal rights charity weathers DDoS assault

    Updated Torture footage provokes deluge

    The publication of footage of Indonesian soldiers torturing native Papuans appears to provoked a denial of service attack on the websites of development charities who hosted it. The websites of Survival International and at least five other organisations who work in West Papua were all floored by the attack, which started at …

    Crime 28 Oct 15:17

  • LOST Vulture One PARIS spaceplane FOUND!!!

    Updated with pics Dramatic scenes as pursuit team recovers heroic playmonaut

    The Register's epic Paper Aircraft Released Into Space (PARIS) project ended in glorious triumph this afternoon as our Spanish ground pursuit team finally discovered the landing site of Vulture One, the cutting edge stationery spacecraft piloted by our intrepid playmonaut. Following a nail-biting few hours in which Vulture One …

    PARIS 28 Oct 15:34

  • Adobe Reader browse-and-get-pwned 0day under attack

    Yes, another one

    Adobe has confirmed reports that yet another unpatched vulnerability in the latest versions of its ubiquitous software is being actively exploited to infect end users with data-stealing malware. The vulnerability exists in Adobe's Reader document viewer and Flash Media Player for Windows, OS X and Unix operating systems, Adobe …

    Malware 28 Oct 15:36

  • Server virtualization beyond consolidation

    Reg readers and their data centers

    Server virtualization beyond consolidation We asked Register readers in North America about their data center priorities for the next year. We commissioned Jon Collins of the analyst firmFreeform Dynamics to write an independent report based on the findings, which is sponsored by Intel and Dell. Virtualization is big, getting …

    Virtualization 28 Oct 16:29

  • Apple doesn't need Spotify - and Spotify doesn't need Apple

    Acquisition Impossible

    Apple buying Spotify makes as much sense as Apple buying Nokia. And that makes no sense at all. The rumour that the two were in discussions about an acquisition emanated from TechCrunch's maximum leader, Michael Arrington. Spotify was not impressed. "We wouldn't normally comment on this kind of speculation, but we want to …

    Music and Media 28 Oct 16:46

  • Oracle takes stake in networking pal Mellanox

    Time for HP to pounce

    When Oracle co-founder and chief executive officer, Larry Ellison, hinted a month ago that he was interesting in making investments in chip companies, he wasn't kidding. Today, InfiniBand chip and switch maker Mellanox, which also makes InfiniBand and Ethernet host adapter cards, announced that Oracle has snarfed up a 10.2 per …

    Servers 28 Oct 16:49

  • Google Apps get Android admin tools

    Froyo eyes only

    Google will soon roll out tools that let Google Apps shops lord over employees' Android handsets that tap into the web-based business app suite. The tools will work with any Android 2.2 ("Froyo") device. "Now any employee with an Android device running version 2.2 — personal or company-issued — can access their corporate …

    Applications 28 Oct 16:50

  • Opera Mini 5.1 goes native on Nokia S60

    Beta browser taps cut-and-paste, email

    Opera has beta-ed a native Symbian incarnation of its low-bandwidth Opera Mini browser. Previously, Opera Mini for Symbian was a Java app. The Norwegian browser maker says its native Opera Mini 5.1 beta offers better start-up times and better page-load and scrolling performance, "especially on older devices." It also taps …

    Mobile 28 Oct 17:34

  • Ballmer pitches PC as smartest device on planet

    PDC 2010 Reveals boy crush for HTML5

    Steve Ballmer pitched for cloud, phones, tablets, and HTML 5 at PDC on Thursday, but he made one thing clear: Windows and the PC remain central to Microsoft. The Microsoft CEO prowled the PDC stage, spitting out stats: 350 million new PCs sold in the last year and 240 million licenses of the year-old Windows 7. HTML5 is the …

    Software 28 Oct 17:51

  • Microsoft's IE9 'nearly finished'

    PDC 2010 Faster, HTML5ier, Chromier

    Microsoft opened its Professional Developers' Conference by announcing IE9 Platform Preview 6, saying the IE9 Release Candidate - the final cut - is almost finished. Platform Preview 6 incorporates improved performance, quality, and support for HTML5 and CSS3 2D and it comes six weeks after Microsoft released the IE9 beta. …

    Applications 28 Oct 18:00

  • Microsoft earnings up over 50%

    But there's a catch

    Microsoft cheered its investors Thursday when it announced better-than-expected revenues and earnings for the first quarter of its fiscal 2011. The always-important consensus of the Wall Street moneymen was that Redmond would report revenue of $15.8bn and earnings of $0.55 per share. Microsoft beat those numbers with revenue …

    Financial News 28 Oct 21:31

  • First tube station to get Wi-Fi next week

    HELLO?! I'M AT CHARING CROSS!

    Charing Cross will become the first London Underground station to offer wireless internet access from next week. BT Openzone will run a six-month trial in the ticket hall area and on Northern and Bakerloo line platforms. There won't be any access on trains. The service will be offered on the same basis as other BT Openzone …

    Wireless 28 Oct 23:00