1st November 2010 Archive

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Google's 'copied Java code' disowned by Apache

Dis-Harmony from Oracle's Android suit

When Oracle sued Google over Android, many assumed the database giant would target code Google lifted from the Apache Foundation's open source Java incarnation, Project Harmony. But Oracle just pinpointed six pages of Google code, claiming they were "directly copied" from copyrighted Oracle material, and according to Apache, …

Developer 1 Nov 2010, 00:01
Crystal ball sees tepid IT growth to 2014

We're not gonna party like it's 1999

If you were expecting the IT market to suddenly start expanding again like it was 1999, you are in for a splash of cold water in the face to wake you from that dream. According to the prognosticators at Gartner, IT spending is on track to hit $2.4 trillion in 2010, up 2.4 per cent compared to last year. This may not sound like …

Servers 1 Nov 2010, 02:18
Scottish police IT sorely lacking, audit finds

Heads shaken over shonky SPSA support

Audit Scotland has said that the Scottish Police Services Authority (SPSA) 'is not yet able to meet all its customers' ICT needs'. In a report published on 28 October, the official auditor says that the SPSA, which was established in 2007 to provide a range of support services to Scotland's police forces, needs to "engage more …

Policing 1 Nov 2010, 06:00
App Store II: Steve Jobs sucks Mac's soul

Comment The Human Interface Commandments

Apple has hacked the Mac's software ecosystem in two. When Jobs & Co. opens its iOS-style Mac App Store early next year, there will be two types of apps available for the company's flagship — but aging — Apple Macintosh platform: simple consumer-level apps that the vast majority of users will purchase through the online store …

Software 1 Nov 2010, 06:00
Top Ten Retro PC Games

Product Round-up A blast from the past

Have you ever considered the qualities a game needs to feature on your own favourites list or any top ten gaming list for that matter? Opinions vary for sure, but for me it really must be like nothing you have ever seen before or at least innovate in such a way as to be stand-alone phenomenon in its genre. Many alcohol-fuelled …

reghardware 1 Nov 2010, 08:00
YouTube founder quits

And Turkey lifts ban

YouTube founder Chad Hurley is ending day-to-day involvement with the video-sharing site. The job of CEO will go to longtime Googler Salar Kamangar, who Hurley said had been effectively running the site for the last few months anyway. Google paid $1.65bn for YouTube back in 2006, and so is presumably hoping Kamangar will …

Financial News 1 Nov 2010, 09:52
iPhone alarm bug: now it's the UK's turn

My phone forgot to wake me up

Reports from UK readers have been flooding in - OK trickling in - that their iPhone alarms woke them up an hour late today. In other words their phones ignored the switchover to GMT on the early hours of Sunday morning. Oh well - that's another hour to shake off the Halloween booze. This alarm quirk lies in the iPhone …

reghardware 1 Nov 2010, 09:56
PayPal hardware failure fingered for worldwide outage

A brace of Friday fubars

Hardware failure hit PayPal on Friday, leaving the payment service unavailable for around two and half hours. A network hardware failure in one of its data centres and the failure of back-up systems to kick in as quickly as planned meant the service was unavailable for around two hours on Friday morning (US Pacific time). A …

CIO 1 Nov 2010, 09:57
Hollywood ruling sends piracy chill through Google

Disney and Warner set mice on the elephant in the room

Hollywood is going after advertising companies who help fund pirate websites, and has now won a landmark victory. Two Hollywood studios, Disney and Warner Brothers won $400,000 damages in a legal settlement case with Triton Media for contributory copyright infringement and inducement to infringe. Triton was placing …

Music and Media 1 Nov 2010, 10:12
Artificial replacement human livers made in lab

Boffins presumably celebrate with round of triples

Topical news - and intrinsically splendid news for many Register readers and almost all Reg hacks - today, as boffins in the States say they have "reached an early, but important, milestone in the quest to grow replacement livers in the lab". In fact scientists in a lab at Wake Forest University Baptist Medical Center in North …

Biology 1 Nov 2010, 10:25
Interoperability: standards or proprietary?

Workshop Between the devil and the deep blue sea

‘Choice’ is one of those words that gets bandied around in all kinds of ways, without anyone really thinking about if it is appropriate. We all want choice, so we are told, whether it’s to do with the schools where we send our kids, or the ever-increasing range of products on supermarket shelves. In IT we talk about ‘best of …

Server Management 1 Nov 2010, 11:00
The terabyte iPad is coming

Blog Sexy slab doesn't need disk backup

It's coming isn't it; the terabyte tablet, and it's easy to see how. Let's double the flash memory in Apple's sexy slab each year and we get a terabyte iPad in 2015. It will probably arrive sooner. Won't it be great to have flash speed access to all your photos, your music, your videos, your calendar, your films, your digital …

Storage 1 Nov 2010, 11:04
Chip trio aims for 10nm class NAND

Manufacturers club together to shrink process geometries

Intel, Samsung and Toshiba have formed an alliance to jointly devise ways to slim semiconductor line width down to the ten nanometre level, leading to higher capacity DRAM and flash memory, such as a 400GB flash chip and faster processors. According to Reuters, Japanese business newspaper Nikkei Daily reported that the three …

PCs & Chips 1 Nov 2010, 11:05
Sacked IT director banged up for revenge hack attack

File deletion leads to new job sewing mailbags

An IT director who took revenge on his former employer following his dismissal by hacking its website and deleting files has been jailed for 27 months. Darnell H Albert-El, 53, of Richmond, Virginia, who admitted the cyber-assault against systems at Transmarx, was also ordered to pay $6,700 in restitution to his former …

Crime 1 Nov 2010, 11:15
E-commerce smackdown as PCI standards revised

Analysis Comply or ~~die~~ pay fines

Revisions of the Payment Card Industry's security standards, due to come into force in January, were published on Thursday following months of negotiations. The PCI DSS 2.0 standard, which specifies the "security rules" under which merchants and banks are supposed to process credit card transactions, contain only minor …

Enterprise Security 1 Nov 2010, 11:35
Cameron gets small biz adviser

Lord Sugar fired, Lord Young hired

David Cameron has appointed Lord Young his enterprise tsar, tasked with ensuring that small and medium-sized businesses get a fair share of government spending and are treated fairly by legislation. Young, who replaces Lord Sugar, has been asked to write a "brutally honest" report on how government and smaller firms interact …

Small Biz 1 Nov 2010, 11:42
Google rejects spy-happy Android app

Eventually

Google has decided that eavesdropping is a step too far for even Android's laissez-faire attitude to application vetting, and rejected such an app despite waving it through first time. Secret SMS Replicator was initially approved by Google and listed in the Android Marketplace, but Switched explains that 18 hours later the …

Mobile 1 Nov 2010, 11:49
Vulcan bomber lives to fly another day

Campaign almost successful

The campaign to keep the last flying Vulcan bomber in the air looks to have been successful. Although the full amount has not been raised, enough donations have been found to keep the group behind the bomber trading for the next two summers - crucial for air displays, and to raise more cash. In a letter to supporters Robert …

Science 1 Nov 2010, 11:59
AdMob main man walks away from Google

It's personal

The founder of Google-owned AdMob has quit the company citing “personal reasons”. Omar Hamoui walked from Mountain View on Friday, nearly a year after Google announced plans to buy AdMob for $750m. It finally took over the outfit in May when the US Federal Trade Commission dropped its probe of the acquisition of the mobile ad …

Music and Media 1 Nov 2010, 12:00
Stay at home and watch telly, trade bodies urge Brits

That's what your peers are doing, sheeple

In a desperate application of herd-mentality tactics, home entertainment trade organisations are once again trying to persuade us to buy more kit and content by telling us that's what almost everyone else is doing. Today, for example, the British Video Association (BVA) highlighted an online survey conducted by pollster YouGov …

reghardware 1 Nov 2010, 12:06
Murder victim-mocking troll jailed

Judge said man 'derived pleasure' from hearing details of his crimes

The penalty for crossing the line online can be pretty severe – as internet troll Colm Coss discovered to his cost last week. Mr Coss, 36, from Ardwick, was sentenced to 18 weeks in prison for persistently leaving vicious and hurtful messages on tribute sites for the deceased. Among his targets were a Facebook page for the …

Law 1 Nov 2010, 12:07
Enormous Paleozoic flesh-eaters created in lab

Updated Luckless undergrads used to feed hyperoxic horrors

Crazed boffins in the USA say they have successfully carried out a Jurassic Park-style project in which enormous flesh-eating creatures from the remote prehistoric past have been successfully bred in the laboratory. Incomprehensibly this laboratory is not located on a remote island. As many readers will doubtless be aware, …

Biology 1 Nov 2010, 12:17
Microsoft squats the living room with XBox LIVE refresh

Family-friendly pricing

Microsoft today rolls out the latest edition of XBox Live today complete with new dashboard and a bunch of media partners. Microsoft's press release is all about the media content, but gamers may be more interested in the better voice chat quality, improved Gamertag creation and the ability to sign-out controllers in the sign- …

reghardware 1 Nov 2010, 12:24
Tech grads least likely to find a job

Graduate unemployment continues to grow

The number of graduates unable to find work in the UK continues to grow, and IT grads are among the worst hit. The figures come from the Higher Education Careers Services Unit which got responses from over 80 per cent of graduates. The total percentage of graduates in work continued to fall - from 63.3 per cent to 61.4 per …

CIO 1 Nov 2010, 12:27
No wonder CompSci grads are unemployed

Opinion No interest in tech, crap teachers, and they can't spell

Recently a director at a huge bank asked me “Do British students learn algorithms?” At first I thought he was joking, but even though he was paying three times what the average new grad gets paid, he felt despair. Because of similar experiences I was surprised to read that only 17 per cent of CompSci grads from last year haven’ …

CIO 1 Nov 2010, 12:30
Microsoft chips away at 3D tech with Canesta buyout plan

Insert appropriate hand gesture here

Microsoft plans to buy privately-held gesture chip maker Canesta Inc. The Silicon Valley startup said in a statement on Friday that it had inked a “definitive agreement” with Redmond, to have its tech, IP, customer contracts and other resources bought by Microsoft. Canesta specialises in 3D sensing technology used in making …

Applications 1 Nov 2010, 12:54
Freecom Mobile Drive CLS storage

Review Portable drive array with archiving ambitions

The turn of the century spelled the death of VHS and cassette tapes, along with the plastic cases they came in. Fast-forward to 2010, and you can once again store your data in a translucent case with a paper label adorned with an indecipherable scrawl. The new tape? Freecom's Mobile Drive CLS Indeed, the appearance of the …

reghardware 1 Nov 2010, 13:00
BBC radio chief: You may experience a little pain (but not much)

Davie acknowledges FM loyalty

Tim Davie, the BBC's director of audio and music, has spelled out the difficulty of the digital switchover in an intriguing interview. "People love radio. They are very happy with their FM radio. Why on earth would you change?" asked Davie. DAB simply doesn't offer a clear enough choice. The answer, he said, was unique …

Music and Media 1 Nov 2010, 13:00
Gentlemen, start your engines – with your phone!

GM puts cars under mobile-phone control

OnStar will soon let users unlock their cars, activate the horn, check the fuel and oil levels and even start the engine, all from the comfort of their smartphone handset. The OnStar service is run by General Motors and puts an embedded mobile phone into every car. The device was initially intended to automatically report …

Mobile 1 Nov 2010, 13:12
Webroot snares UK security firm Prevx

Cloud tech used to turn back malware front

Internet security firm Webroot has acquired UK-based anti-malware firm Prevx. Financial terms of the deal, announced Monday, were undisclosed. Webroot said it will use the deal to integrate Prevx’s technology into its cloud security services portfolio. Prevx was founded in 2001 and initially focused on intrusion prevention …

Channel Register 1 Nov 2010, 13:19
PARIS in 89,000 ft climax

Amazing vid captures Vulture 1 release

The Paper Aircraft Released Into Space team has spent the last three days sipping champagne and analysing data and images following last week's triumphant space plane mission. Here's an quick snap of the launch (.kmz location here), and the same seen from the main payload Kodak Zx1 video camera: Our later recovery of …

PARIS 1 Nov 2010, 13:30
IBM sniffs around Fortinet

But Big Blue is late to the converged infrastructure game

IBM last week polished off its acquisition of privately held Ethernet switch maker Blade Network Technologies for a rumored $400m. And just after finishing that networking meal, Big Blue appears still hungry for networking products as it is apparently sniffing around network security appliance maker Fortinet to do a possible …

Data Networking 1 Nov 2010, 13:55
NASA Mars rover leaves moist skidmarks in boggy struggle

Boffins sniff wetness in churning soil

NASA's famed Mars rover Spirit, snared and immobile since last year - and, it is feared, never to be heard from again following its current deep hibernation through the Martian winter - may in fact be bogged down in an actual, watery (ish) bog. Not an actual olive pit and leaf. We presume. Space boffins analysing pics from …

Space 1 Nov 2010, 14:12
Startup promises money for fanbois

Cash in on being one of the crowd

Field Agent is an iPhone app that presents the user with questions or tasks, then pays the user a minimum of two quid for completing them in the name of market research. The questions and tasks come from companies that want to know what UK consumers are thinking, or what's happening somewhere. Users can ask for pushed alerts, …

Mobile 1 Nov 2010, 14:31
Ballmer pulls on furs for Russia's answer to Silicon Valley MoU

R&D spend splurge outside Moscow

Microsoft boss Steve Ballmer signed a memorandum of understanding in Russia today, to build a research and development centre – à la Silicon Valley – in a location outside of Moscow. Ballmer and oil and mining mogul Viktor Vekselberg, who is the head of the Skolkovo Fund, inked the memorandum this morning. "We are …

Channel Register 1 Nov 2010, 14:38
Dolphin speaks: Ditch the iPad, give me the Toughbook!

I can haz Tuna

Dolphins are being taught to use computers to communicate with humans. A human-cetacean translation tool will be demonstrated in early 2011 - with hardware supplied by Panasonic and its range of Toughbook laptops. Jack Kassewitz, 63, co-founder of SpeakDolphin, a Miami-based group that conducts dolphin research, originally …

reghardware 1 Nov 2010, 15:00
Serco apologises for chiseling suppliers

City and Cabinet Office unamused

Serco, one of the largest IT suppliers to government, has today apologised to its own suppliers for trying to squeeze them for 2.5 per cent cash rebates on existing contracts. The retraction follows a report in a Sunday newspaper, which said the Cabinet Office was angered by the firm's treatement of its partners. "As a …

Channel Register 1 Nov 2010, 15:14
RIAA and Anonymous sites both downed by DDoS assaults

Loading... loading... connection timed out

Hacktivists briefly took out the two main Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) websites on Friday afternoon as revenge for the organisation's long-running legal offensive against Limewire, which led to the closure of the controversial P2P service earlier in the week. Denizens from the loosely-affiliated Anonymous …

Crime 1 Nov 2010, 15:19
Amiga on the block (again)

The Master brand singers

Commodore, the American personal computer company felled by mismanagement many moons ago, lives on, here and there, through trademarks and brands long since parcelled up and sold to other companies. Amiga, the name for its expensive multimedia workstation, is owned by a US start-up called Amiga Inc - tagline: "Amiga provides …

reghardware 1 Nov 2010, 15:32
Samsung Galaxy Tab data contracts compared

What's the best plan for your 7in Android tablet?

Samsung's Galaxy Tab 7in Android tablet officially goes on sale today. Want one? To help you work out which network will offer you the best 3G data deal, we've compared carriers' pre-pay tariffs to see how they match up. We've compiled deals from both ends of the spectrum to show the sort of deals each network has to offer. …

reghardware 1 Nov 2010, 15:42
Music biz vows to end CD scandal

Go digital, save a polar bear~~'s toenail~~

Influential music groups in the UK have urged the record industry to end one of its most shocking scandals. You might think you've heard everything - but this silent disgrace has been unreported until now. Sensitive readers may wish to stop reading at this point. Each year UK record labels send out 25,000 promo CDs. In new …

Environment 1 Nov 2010, 15:58
Microsoft concedes on blank-screen operations

But only if you've got prior permission

Applications running on Windows Phone 7 won't be halted when the lock screen kicks in, if they've got a note from Microsoft promising they won't drain the battery too much. We're not talking about multitasking here, just not being interrupted when the screen times out and goes blank. CNet tells us that in an interview at …

Mobile 1 Nov 2010, 16:22
Shuttle Discovery to bring back PLAGUE RODENTS from SPACE

Virus we all carry to be enhanced by effects of orbit

Worryingly, plans have been announced to expose a horde of rodents to bizarre, poorly understood space plagues and bring them back to Earth for experiments. "The space environment incorporates many factors that we know affect the immune system — microgravity, radiation, even different nutritional standards — all acting in a …

Space 1 Nov 2010, 16:27
Google Wave crash helped push Maps man to Facebook

Mountain View pulled plug too early, says Rasmussen

Google’s latest Facebook mutineer – Lars Rasmussen – recently quit the world’s largest ad broker in part because of the challenges associated with working for such a large company. In an interview with the Sydney Morning Herald, Rasmussen said the demise of his pet project, Google Wave, had been far too speedy. “We were not …

Applications 1 Nov 2010, 16:42
Sharp intros record-to-USB Freeview TV

Bring your own DVR storage

Sharp has added a pair of edge LED-backlit tellies to its Aquos line. The new models are 32in and 37in, incorporate a Freeview tuner and three HDMI ports, support Dolby Digital Plus audio, and can upscale to 1080p. The 37-incher, the LC-37LE320E, has 100Hz image interpolation technology, which the 32in LC-32LE210E lacks, but …

reghardware 1 Nov 2010, 16:53
Intel lets outside chip maker into its fabs

Achronix goes all red, white, and blue

It looks like the makers of field programmable gate arrays (FPGAs) are not quite ready to cede the coprocessor market to GPUs just yet. Achronix Semiconductor, an FPGA maker based in San José, just down the highway from chip giant Intel, has announced that it will use Chipzilla's fabs to cook up a future generation of chips that …

PCs & Chips 1 Nov 2010, 17:44
Android phone sales up 1,309%

Steve Jobs in rear view mirror

It's been a good year for Android-based smartphones: their worldwide sales are up 1,309 per cent, year-on-year, according to research outfit Canalys. "With Samsung, HTC, Motorola, and Sony Ericsson all delivering large numbers of Android devices, and with focused efforts from many other vendors, such as LG, Huawei and Acer, …

Mobile 1 Nov 2010, 18:00
First official HTML5 tests topped by...Microsoft

Memo to Redmond: CSS ain't HTML

The Worldwide Web Consortium has released the results of its first HTML5 conformance tests, and according to this initial rundown, the browser that most closely adheres to the latest set of web standards is...Microsoft Internet Explorer 9. Yes, the HTML5 spec has yet to be finalised. And yes, these tests cover only a portion …

Applications 1 Nov 2010, 18:07
Spamhaus blocks fellow antispam outfit

Updated Some whitehats more equal than others

The owner of a spam-prevention website said it has been taken down following unfounded complaints from fellow anti-junkmail organization Spamhaus. Spamhaus strenuously denied the claim. Spamwise.org owner Ian W. Rudge said the site and an unrelated property for his IT consultancy were taken down after their IP address was added …

Spam 1 Nov 2010, 19:00
Nokia, HTC, Sony attacked by hidden megatroll

Smartphone Patent Follies, Act XVIII

Another day, another mobile phone patent dispute — and this time the plaintiff is again SmartPhone Technologies LLC, the vaporous entity that filed a similar suit against Apple, AT&T, Research in Motion, and six other companies this March. This most recent patent-infringement lawsuit pits SmartPhone Technologies against HTC, …

Mobile 1 Nov 2010, 20:23
Internet Explorer info leak festers for 2 years

Microsoft's 600-day bug bite

For almost two years, Microsoft's Internet Explorer browser has been vulnerable to attacks that steal digital security tokens and other sensitive data, a security researcher said recently. Researcher Chris Evans said he alerted Microsoft to the information disclosure vulnerability in IE in December 2008. As of October 21, it …

Security 1 Nov 2010, 20:30
Google sues US gov for picking Microsoft

Feds dodge Google Apps over security

Google has sued the US government, claiming the Department of the Interior didn't give Google a fair shake when it settled on hosted email and collaboration services from Microsoft. According to Google's suit, first turned up by Santa Clara law professor and tech law blogger Eric Goldman, the Department of the Interior …

Public Sector 1 Nov 2010, 22:21
Google calls bug bounty hunters to YouTube, Blogger

'1337' cash for web flaws

Google has unveiled a pilot program designed to make Blogger, YouTube and other company-run websites more secure by paying significant bounties to researchers who report bugs that threaten users. The initiative expands on a previous bounty program that rewarded researchers only for bug reports in Chromium, the guts of Google's …

Security 1 Nov 2010, 23:00
Fans roast Microsoft for Silverlight demotion

Careers damaged, technology unready

Microsoft is facing a wave of disbelief and anger from Windows programmers after saying that it is demoting the would-be Flash-killer Silverlight for HTML5. Server and tools president Bob Muglia apologized for any "controversy and confusion" caused by comments in an interview last week, when he said that Microsoft has shifted …

Developer 1 Nov 2010, 23:48