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11th November 2010 Archive

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  • Cisco to 'power through' tough fiscal 2011

    Governments, service providers, and Europe pull back

    Networking giant and server wannabe Cisco Systems gave Wall Street another shock when it said its orders fell short by more than $500m in the first quarter of fiscal 2011, holding revenues down to $10.75bn. When announcing its financial results on Wednesday for the quarter that ended on October 30, Cisco also warned that its …

    Financial News 11 Nov 00:43

  • Nasty IE 0day exploit hosted on Amnesty International site

    'Protecting human rights worldwide'

    Visitors to Amnesty International's Hong Kong website are being bombarded with a host of lethal exploits, including one that attacks an unpatched vulnerability in Microsoft's Internet Explorer browser, researchers at security firm Websense said. The injected IE attack code resides directly on the pages of amnesty.org.hk, an …

    Malware 11 Nov 01:39

  • Java cloud fluffer lands Hudson build brain

    CloudBees grabs 'amazing talent'

    Start-up CloudBees has bought the brains behind the Hudson open-source continuous build system, as part of its effort to fluff Java development in the clouds. CloudBees has bought InfraDNA - a start-up providing software support and services for Hudson - along with InfraDNA's founder and Hudson creator Kohsuke Kawaguchi. …

    Developer 11 Nov 04:00

  • Motorola lands 16-patent countersuit on Microsoft

    Updated 'You want litigation? You got it'

    Motorola has countersued Microsoft, alleging infringement of sixteen patents by Microsoft's PC and server software, Windows mobile software, and Xbox products. On Wednesday, with a press release, Motorola said that its subsidiary, Motorola Mobility, filed suit against Microsoft in the US District Courts for the Southern …

    Software 11 Nov 06:02

  • Content producers should chip in for mobile internet costs

    O2 chief says consumer fees alone are not enough

    Consumer fees alone are not enough to pay for the infrastructure needed to deliver content to mobile phones, according to O2 chief executive Ronan Dunne, hinting at an erosion of the principle known as network neutrality. Dunne told a conference last week that content producers should be prepared to pay network operators for …

    Music and Media 11 Nov 07:00

  • Pure One Mi portable DAB/FM radio

    Review Move with the music

    The traditional battery powered transistor FM radio still takes some beating when it comes to listening in places like the bathroom or garden shed, if that’s where you choose to spend any length of time. Indeed, Pure had a big success with its £45 palm-sized One Mini so it has sliced a few millimetres from that model, shrunk the …

    reghardware 11 Nov 08:00

  • Productivity in your business

    Live Right Now! How to make more of it

    If you've got productivity bottlenecks in your business join us today to find out how to unblock them. At 11:30am GMT today we're beaming live from our St Pauls (London) studio with an hour of red-hot productivity chatter. We'll be kicking the program off with a serious attempt at defining what productivity actually means - …

    Tech Panel 11 Nov 08:46

  • HP pays off investigators

    Graft and gift charges ended

    The Department of Justice has accepted a $16.25m payment from HP to end an investigation into alleged corruption by the ink giant. The DoJ and the Federal Communications Commission investigated the E-rate programme, which provides internet connections to schools and libraries in the US and the US territories. The department …

    Channel Register 11 Nov 09:44

  • EMC buys into mainframe VTL market

    Bye bye Bus-Tech

    EMC is the Dyson of storage companies, hoovering up other storage companies with no loss of appetite however many it buys. It has just sucked up mainframe virtual tape library (VTL) supplier Bus-Tech. Mainframes can use tape for backup data and also during normal operations with a tape library connected by FICON or ESCON …

    Storage 11 Nov 10:28

  • IPTV platform seeks partner(s) for technical intercourse

    YouView open to engagement

    Would-be UK IPTV standard setter YouView has called on content providers to register their interest in supporting the platform it is developing. YouView said it was seeking to spot "a small number of audio and video on-demand content providers that can closely work with the YouView technical team to develop and test the …

    reghardware 11 Nov 10:33

  • Commission urged to force transparency on network traffic shaping

    'Be open about it if you're paid to prioritise content'

    The European Commission has been told that it should force companies to define themselves either as neutral internet service providers or as "managed services" that give priority to content providers that they are in a business relationship with. The Commission has published the findings of a consultation (6-page / 140KB PDF) …

    Telecoms 11 Nov 10:38

  • BT sees revenues slip in first half, but jacks up profits outlook

    Global services not totally to blame for a change

    BT reported a slip in revenues in its interim results this morning, but for once, its Global Services arm was not the main culprit. The telecoms giant turned in overall revenues of £4.98bn for the six months ending 30 September, down 3 per cent on the year on an adjusted basis. "Adjusted" EBITDA was £1.4bn, up 3 per cent. …

    Telecoms 11 Nov 10:44

  • Our PARIS becomes GLOBAL MEDIA SENSATION

    Deserved fame for paper spaceplane, plucky Playmonaut

    The Paper Aircraft Released Into Space (PARIS) balloon mothership spaceplane project - named in homage to the socialite and inadvertent internet sensation of all our hearts - has finally won the recognition she always deserved. The plane, and our heroic Playmonaut, have made it onto the front page of the Telegraph, inside the …

    PARIS 11 Nov 10:46

  • Facebook account-protection push opts for scare tactics

    Give us your number... bitch

    Facebook has quietly begun testing new account-protection features but the scary wording of prompts to try out the technology might easily be mistaken for a sophisticated phishing attack. Users of the social network might be offered the protection via an ad in the side panel which reads: "Your account protection is very low - …

    ID 11 Nov 10:55

  • Mophie Juice Pack Reserve

    Txt Take On-the-go power for your iDevice

    Product reviews in 140 characters... Mophie Juice Pack Reserve Pictures Want our Txt Take on your gadget or accessory? Just send it in to Reg Hardware. Details here.

    reghardware 11 Nov 11:10

  • First day WinPho 7 sales top 40k, claims market watcher

    Not a promising start?

    Microsoft and its WinPho 7 partners sold only 40,000 smartphones running the new OS on the days of its launch, it has been claimed. The figure only covers the US market and comes from an unnamed researcher who tracks mobile phone sales, according to website The Street. Microsoft hasn't said whether the total is right or wrong …

    reghardware 11 Nov 11:11

  • Microsoft Xbox 360 Kinect

    All the reviews and more

    Review Kinect: the hardware Review Kinect: the games Video Gallery See it in action FAQ Your questions answered Release Schedule Upcoming games for you to Kinect with

    reghardware

  • Northamber sees sliver of light in Q1

    Good times just around the corner etc

    Veteran disty Northamber reported "positive progress" today as it unveiled its interim management statement. In a comparatively numbers-free statement this morning, chairman David Phillips said: "After the challenging trading conditions of very recent years, it is pleasant to be able to report positive progress and support my …

    Channel Register 11 Nov 11:47

  • So did Windows Phone 7 'bomb in US'?

    Comment America says 'meh', apparently

    The Windows 7 phone seems to have met with a lukewarm reception in the United States. Despite the huge amount of promotional activity and media seeding, Microsoft only shifted 40,000 handsets in the first day of sales in the US, according to unnamed sources supplying unverified data. Thestreet.com is quoting that figure from …

    Mobile 11 Nov 12:08

  • US comms watchdog probes Google Street View Wi-Fi slurp

    'Public disclosure' opened door for investigation

    Google’s Street View service is being probed by the US Federal Communication Commission to determine whether the company’s “worrisome” Wi-Fi data slurp broke any laws. The ad broker said in October that it was “mortified” that Google’s Street View cars had inadvertently collected payload data including emails and passwords …

    Government 11 Nov 12:10

  • Seagate and Western Digital sued by patent ambulance-chaser

    Rembrandt IP sues over read/write head IP

    Specialist patent enforcement firm Rembrandt IP is suing both Seagate and Western Digital for patent infringement. As reported by Ars Technica, the two are identified in a lawsuit filed in a Wisconsin court and accused of infringing US patent numbers 5,995,342 and 6,195,232 which refer to toroidal thin film heads with low …

    Storage 11 Nov 12:14

  • Israeli robot trouser snake 'too big' to penetrate backdoors

    New smaller, flexible version can delay its explosion

    The Israeli military is working on a smaller version of its famous trouser(ed) snake robot, intended for penetration missions into such locations as the smuggler tunnel complexes of the Egyptian border - in effect, the backdoor to Gaza. Reportedly the original robo-snake, seen in the vid below, was considered too large and …

    Science 11 Nov 12:17

  • Being an SMB - virtually

    Live: 10am PST Virtualization options and consideration from experts

    If you're an SMB, you should join us on November 11 at 10am PST / 1pm EST / 6pm GMT where we’ll have a studio full of experts running through the opportunities and challenges facing the small business when they embark down the road to virtualization. Joining us live on the day for our one hour broadcast will be our analyst …

    Tech Panel 11 Nov 12:30

  • Totes SmarTouch touchscreen compatible gloves

    Txt Take The ideal iPhone accessory for winter?

    Reviews in 140 characters or less... Totes SmarTouch Pictures and Video Want our Txt Take on your gadget or accessory? Just send it in to Reg Hardware. Details here.

    reghardware 11 Nov 12:38

  • Microsoft and IBM web-control war finally silenced

    Google and Facebook join a fresh fight

    One era in web politics has passed with the closure of the Web Services Interoperability (WS-I) organization just as another era has opened. The WS-I said Wednesday after nearly 10 years it's winding down operations and merging its assets and maintenance of its specs to OASIS. The group said the release of WS-I member …

    Developer 11 Nov 12:58

  • Cloud Engines Pogoplug Pro DIY cloud box

    Review Your data, available globally

    Since Reg Hardware reviewed the earlier version of this device in February, the vendor, Cloud Engines, has made some significant firmware and hardware improvements that justify a second visit. Cloud Engines' Pogoplug Pro: manly colours, this time round The obvious change to this new "Pro" version is the colour: the white …

    reghardware 11 Nov 13:00

  • MAD Students Union bars 'racist' ZOMBIE PHYSICISTS

    Hurtful stereotypical portrayal of undead brain-gobbler community

    Indicating just how deeply the modern zeitgeist has been corrupted by tidal waves of zombie-themed fictional claptrap, it has now been revealed that students' union leaders have decided that zombies are an ethnic minority in need of protection from racism. The fabulous barrelscraping Daily Mail has the scoop, reporting today …

    Bootnotes 11 Nov 13:10

  • Botnet takedowns curb spam volumes

    Spam almost cut in half between August and October

    Spam volumes almost halved in the three months between August and the end of October, according to Symantec. Symantec’s hosted services unit (formerly MessageLabs) credits a 47 per cent sharp decrease in global spam volumes to action by the authorities against botnets and organised cybercrooks. In October, authorities in the …

    Spam 11 Nov 13:16

  • How I built a zero energy cost, zero carbon home server

    Running an internet biz on sunshine and *nix

    How do you make the electricity bill for your home computing disappear? I decided to try to find out. Historically computer kit had been responsible for about 90 per cent of our electricity bill at my home office for my ISP and consultancy business. I ran one of the UK’s first ISPs, and even in my new, smaller home, I was …

    Servers 11 Nov 13:19

  • Nokia slips out Designed By Community handset

    The Community just loves the N8

    Nokia's has published drawings and specifications for the perfect handset, designed by the user community and bearing a striking resemblance to the existing N8 handset. The project started back in March, and was intended as an information-gathering exercise rather than laying down the specs for a real handset. But with …

    Mobile 11 Nov 13:39

  • Google releases open source web data sifting tool

    Stop freebasing and Refine, Refine, Refine

    Google has slapped some Mountain View Chocolate Factory lipstick onto the Freebase Gridworks software the company scooped up when it bought Metaweb Technologies in July. The result is a project Google has dubbed Refine 2.0 that builds on Metaweb’s open source tech to clean up unwieldy data sets. “Version 2.0 introduces a new …

    Applications 11 Nov 14:01

  • Why Zadie Smith is wrong about Facebook and autism

    Andrew's Mailbag Stick to the library

    Isn't it time for a War on Stupid Generalisations? These usually need a Czar, and I'd gladly volunteer. Novelist Zadie Smith has written about the movie The Social Network and wonders if Mark Zuckerberg's apparent extreme autism doesn't manifest itself in both the reductive view of humanity that Facebook (and Web 2.0) software …

    Developer 11 Nov 14:07

  • Retailers threaten Steam game ban

    Yank download service links from your games - or else, publishers to be told

    Major retailers may stop selling games that connect to Valve Software's Steam download system. That's the threat at least two big, but unnamed players are going to hit publishers with, according to trade paper MCV. Their argument is that it's bad enough that so many punters acquire games through Steam rather than high-street …

    reghardware 11 Nov 14:40

  • Nirvanix bags new CEO and $10m in race to the cloud

    Cloud storage vendor wafts to high ground

    Now we know - QLogic's worldwide sales and marketing SVP Scott Genereux jumped ship to run Nirvanix which, as well as announcing its new CEO, said it had gained $10m in a B-round funding exercise. Cloud startups like Nirvanix have a mountain to climb, staring up as they are at clumps of mega-datacentres operated by the likes …

    Storage 11 Nov 14:47

  • Spin-out OS33 uncloaks in puff of cloud, lets tools hang out

    Hot cumulus-on-cumulus money shot

    A startup called OS33 has just come out of stealth mode and wants to run your cloudy infrastructure from its cloud-based tools. This is what you might call cloud-on-cloud action. The company, which is based in the unlikely IT hot-spot of Brooklyn, New York, is a spin-out of a managed service provider called, appropriately …

    Servers 11 Nov 14:48

  • Netezza pays to shut down CIA killer drone lawsuit

    Faulty targeting row hushed

    Netezza has settled a lawsuit in which it was accused of supplying inaccurate, illegally hacked software to the CIA's drone assassination programme. The potentially explosive case was brought by Intelligent Integration Systems (IISi), a Boston-based software firm. It was seeking an injunction which could have forced the CIA to …

    Storage 11 Nov 14:52

  • Pan-Euro cyber security exercise 'too focused' on DDoS

    Successful stress test though

    Organisers are hailing the first pan-European cyber security exercise as a successful ’cyber stress test’ of key internet infrastructure systems. Cyber Europe 2010 brought together 150 information experts from 70 public bodies in 22 countries around Europe on 4 November to run an exercise in involving 320 simulated cyber- …

    Enterprise Security 11 Nov 15:35

  • Comet bomber flyby pics show spaceball belching ancient dry ice

    Professor Sunshine bitchslaps wet squirty tail theory

    Excellent snaps sent back by a NASA probe craft during a rendezvous with the comet Hartley 2 have revealed that the spectacular "jets" of glowing gas which make it so spectacular result from dry ice subliming in its interior. A little bit of dry ice fabulousness NASA's EPOXI* mission has seen the former Deep Impact …

    Space 11 Nov 15:38

  • Tory councillor arrested over 'stoning to death' tweet

    Lovely sentiment, sensitively expressed to world

    A Tory councillor has been arrested and questioned following a comment on Twitter "calling" for the stoning of newspaper columnist Yasmin Alibhai-Brown. Gareth Compton, 38, a conservative councillor from Erdington, Birmingham, was questioned by police for "sending an offensive or indecent message" contrary to the …

    Law 11 Nov 15:57

  • Cloud OS crowd readies own-brand netbook

    Jolicloud to offer... Jolibook

    Jolicloud, the company that offers a cloud-centric Linux distro for netbooks, is getting into the hardware business. It will begin selling the Jolibook later this month. Jolibook appears to be a standard netbook with a dual-core Intel Atom N550 processor, according to the little Jolicloud has said about the spec. Which …

    reghardware 11 Nov 16:04

  • Riverbed speeds app and backup cloud access

    Cloud Steelhead and Whitewater give faster penetration

    Network optimisation supplier Riverbed has introduced products to speed client access to applications in the cloud and to speed cloud backup and restore operations. Riverbed's Steelhead appliances sit either side of a wide area network (WAN) link and speed remote office client access to applications and data in a central data …

    Data Networking 11 Nov 16:21

  • Twitter joke martyr loses appeal

    Updated Chambers still stuffed by off-cuff non-threat

    Paul Chambers, the Twitter joker turned misdemeanour conviction martyr, has lost his appeal against conviction for posting a tongue-in-cheek message "threatening" to blow Doncaster airport "sky high". Chambers, 27, posted the bad taste Twitter update on 6 January, shortly before he was due to fly from the Yorkshire airport to …

    Law 11 Nov 16:27

  • Agreement paves way for PSN services

    Gov organisations will be able to share information with each other

    A Cabinet Office official has said there has been an agreement for some of the first services on the Public Sector Network (PSN). John Stubley, the PSN programme director, released a short statement on Twitter that IP services company Global Crossing has signed a deed of undertaking (DoU) to provide the first Government …

    Channel Register 11 Nov 16:28

  • AMD chip chief: 'one day, microprocessor skyscrapers'

    Seductive stacked hotness

    Although today's processors are all residents of Flatland, AMD's head chippery honcho says that multi-level, multi-core processors may be the wave of the future. "I'm not saying it's an easy dimension, the third dimension," AMD's senior vice president and headman of the company's Technology Group Chekib Akrout cautioned The …

    PCs & Chips 11 Nov 19:06

  • Great and Good honour the designer of world's first laptop

    Forgotten Tech The GRiD Compass. A snip at $8150

    The British designer of the world's first laptop has pipped Vivienne Westwood to win the 2010 Prince Philip Designer prize. Bill Moggridge was commissioned by John Ellenby, the founder of a Silicon Valley start-up called GRiD, to design a powerful computer with an electronic display. Moggridge came up with a physical …

    reghardware 11 Nov 21:39

  • Google leaves sites in dark over October demotions

    Is that a bug or an algorithm?

    Google reserves the right to update its search algorithms whenever it likes. As it should. The trouble is that outsiders have little to no insight into why Google makes a change — or even if a change was made at all. To an outsider, a change looks no different than a bug, On October 22, some sort of flaw in Google's search …

    Music and Media 11 Nov 21:53

  • Fedora bars SQLNinja hack tool

    'Path of madness'

    Fedora Project leaders have banned a popular penetration-testing tool from their repository out of concern it could saddle the organization with legal burdens. The move came on Monday in a unanimous vote by the Fedora Project's board of directors rejecting a request that SQLNinja be added to the archive of open-source …

    Security 11 Nov 23:27

  • Nexus One resuscitated as 'Pure Google Nexus S'

    S stands for 'I'm not dead. Really'

    Rumors of a Google Nexus One resurrection refuse to die. On Thursday, as noticed by Phandroid, US electronics retailer Best Buy published a page to its website indicating it will soon offer a "Pure Google" phone known as the "Nexus S." The thought of Pure Googleness gives us the willies. But some people find it very comforting …

    Mobile 11 Nov 23:36

  • Nvidia poised to challenge Jobs on tablets

    Hopes pinned on Fermi, Tegra

    Nvidia claims it has turned the corner, saying it's looking ahead to a recovery in its Fermi product line for servers, workstations, and high-end PCs and a very fast ramp for its Tegra chips for handhelds and tablets. That means it's buddying up to Steve Jobs while also antagonizing the man - not exactly a comfortable position …

    Financial News 11 Nov 23:51