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22nd November 2010 Archive

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  • IBM uncloaks 20 petaflops BlueGene/Q super

    SC10 Lilliputian cores give Brobdingnagian oomph

    Although everybody seems to be excited about GPU-goosed supercomputing these days, Big Blue is sticking to its Power-based, many-cored BlueGene and Blue Waters massively parallel supers, and revving them up to bust into the 20-petaflops zone. The Blue Waters massively parallel Power7-based supercomputer and its funky switching …

    HPC 22 Nov 2010, 04:00

  • Meltdown ahoy!: Net king returns to save the interwebs

    Cometh the hour. Cometh the Van. Again

    When you need to save the internet, who ya gonna call? Van Jacobson. Long before Facebook snared five million users, before Gmail revolutionized web email by stuffing inboxes with free storage, and just before Jim Clark and Marc Andreessen developed Netscape as the first commercial browser, the web couldn't cope. It was 1986 …

    Networks 22 Nov 2010, 05:00

  • Ten... sub-£50 budget MP3 players

    Product Round-up Sound choices

    Some might argue that, with music playback now integrated into most mobile devices, low-cost MP3 players are fast becoming surplus to requirements. Yet, despite a decline in sales, budget audio kit is still very much in demand this time of year, and manufacturers continue to bring new models out in a bid to compete with Apple’s …

    Top Ten 22 Nov 2010, 07:00

  • Tech firms warn Ireland on bailout

    Thanks for your support, lads

    Four technology giants have warned the Irish government not to touch Ireland's low corporation tax levels as the country struggles to finalise a bailout package with the International Monetary Fund and the European Union. Ireland will borrow around £85bn - the exact amount will be agreed in coming days – to underwrite its …

    The Channel 22 Nov 2010, 09:23

  • EMC raised Isilon bid four times

    And dropped it once before acquisition

    EMC started talking to Isilon in April, seven months ago, and raised its bid four times before Isilon agreed the $2.25bn bid earlier this month. According to an SEC Filing, Isilon's board had set up a Strategic Transactions Committee in late 2008 to assess strategic opportunities such as bids for the company. At that time …

    Storage 22 Nov 2010, 09:56

  • RM says schools still buying its boxes

    Cuts won't affect growth, says IT supplier

    RM, which sells to schools, said sales for the year ended 30 September were up 10 per cent on last year, and profits grew 12 per cent. Revenue was up from £346.9m in 2009 to £380.1m in 2010 and profit was up from £17.7m in 2009 to £19.9m this year. RM shares were up over five per cent in response to the third successive year …

    The Channel 22 Nov 2010, 10:00

  • Killing the storage array controller

    Comment You don't need low-stack intelligence

    Stealthy startup ZeRTO's CEO Ziv Kedem could have opened his technology kimono in a comment on a storage controller location story. The lengthy comment cited Cisco's Nexus 1000V virtual switch. It said: "When you are hypervisor resident, you can support things like VM vMotion and storage vMotion, without requiring any …

    Storage 22 Nov 2010, 10:02

  • Tablet vendors 'quake in fear' over iPad 2

    No specs, please, we're Taiwanese

    There are, alas, no direct comments from vendors to back up the claim, but computer manufacturers quiver in trepidation over what Apple may announce early next year. The cause of all their collective spinal shivers and hair-whitening? The iPad 2. According to Taiwanese newswire DigiTimes, the launch of the next iPad is " …

    Tablets 22 Nov 2010, 10:12

  • Bieber boner scam prongs Facebook

    Good grief

    Spam messages purporting to show tiresome teen warbler Justin Bieber with a woody are actually a lure for a new survey scam on Facebook. The malicious status updates pose as links showing the Canadian singer sprouting an erection during an interview. Prospective marks are invited to click on a link, supposedly in order to …

    Security 22 Nov 2010, 10:15

  • Spotify bled red ink in 2009

    Heading in the right direction, though

    Financial documents filed with Companies House show that Spotify Ltd lost £16.6m in its first year of trading, on revenue of £11.3m. Accounts for the UK operation show it ended 2009 with seven million subscribers, of whom 250,000 had converted to a paid account. Of the revenues, £4.5m came from ads and £6.8 from subs. The …

    Media 22 Nov 2010, 10:33

  • Erotica 2010: One big Teese, and a bit of a flop

    NSFW Not so much hard as a little bit wet

    Whether it was the cold or the recession, Erotica 2010 – the 15th year of the international sex exposition – appears to have ever so slightly wilted. It is not exactly shrivelled, but is a little smaller; not the proud, thrusting standard-bearer of the UK’s adult erotic industry it once was. A quick totting up through the …

    Media 22 Nov 2010, 11:13

  • Start-up offers frozen-pea-finding app

    Now grocery shoppers don't have to ask surly shelf-stacking yoof

    Aisle 411 plans to take mobile navigation down to the floor plan level, guiding shoppers around American supermarkets even if the supermarket doesn’t want to play. The application should be in the iTunes store today, Apple’s approval process permitting, and will respond to a spoken search with a map of the store in which one …

    Mobile 22 Nov 2010, 11:25

  • Nokia outs budget Facebook phone

    Keyboard-equipped X2-01 for texters too

    Nokia has taken the wraps off its latest cut-price messaging phone, the Qwerty keyboard-equipped X2-01. The pre-subsidy, pre-tax €80 (£69) handset is aimed at keen texters, emailers and social networkers - the latter through a new app, Communities, which integrates Facebook to put updates right on the homescreen. The display …

    Phones 22 Nov 2010, 11:29

  • Nokia unwraps its cheapest 3G candybar

    WAP-tastic

    Nokia second cheap phone of the day is the C2-01 - the Finnish phone giant's "most inexpensive new 3G phone", apparently. The price is €70 (£60) but that's before taxes get added and network operator subsidies are taken away. Whatever the final price, the C2-01 candybar runs Series 40, sports a 3.2Mp camera, and includes an …

    Phones 22 Nov 2010, 11:42

  • NASA dusts off X15-successor rocket hyperplanes

    Mach 8 X34s, mothballed in 2001, to fly at last?

    NASA has dusted off a pair of prototype hypersonic rocket-planes it has had lying around since the 1990s with a view to getting them flying. The X-34 project was cancelled in 2001 "for both technical and budgetary reasons", but now the mothballed rocket ships are being checked out to see if they are "potentially viable as flight …

    Science 22 Nov 2010, 11:44

  • Murdoch plots dedicated iPad newspaper

    Will need to grab a lot of fondleslab subs to break even

    News Corporation is launching a dedicated newspaper for Apple's iPad, according to reports. Called The Daily, the operation will be based in Manhattan, employe around 100 staff, and launch early next year according to a predictably sniffy report from rival New York Times. It's the first new product for the iPad from a major …

    Tablets 22 Nov 2010, 11:49

  • Desktop virtualization: One size really doesn’t fit all

    Live Broadcast Different ways to solve different problems

    Desktop virtualization isn’t quite as simple as it once sounded. Today there’s a raft of fundamental implementation decisions that need to be made based on varying levels of pay-back - save cash, reduce maintenance, maintain compatability, whatever. But which one to choose for your target environment? On Friday 26th November …

    Tech Panel 22 Nov 2010, 11:59

  • SCC after dark: Clustering all night long

    SC10 Students join the Teraflop club

    Last week the fourth annual Student Cluster Competition was held at SC10 in New Orleans. Teams from eight universities brought their own self-designed and built clusters to the show, re-assembled them, and raced to complete a set of benchmarks and workloads in the quickest time. The Register's resident HPC analyst Dan Olds was …

    SC 2011 22 Nov 2010, 12:00

  • Indonesian smut vid star's arse hauled into court

    Entire body facing 12 years' jail on porn rap

    The trial of Indonesian pop star Nazril "Ariel" Irham has got off to a lively start in Bandung as 500 fans gathered outside the courtroom to support their idol. Irham faces charges of breaching the country's anti-pornography laws. The pop star, who has been in custody since June, faces a possible 12 years in jail if convicted …

    Bootnotes 22 Nov 2010, 12:05

  • Cloud OS netbook turns up in Blighty

    Jolicloud Jolibook not jolicheap, alas

    The Jolicloud Jolibook has gone on sale in the UK, kind of. The £280 netbook pre-loaded with the cloud-centric, Ubuntu-based operating system is now being listed by Amazon, but with a 1-3 month shipping window. That's not what you'd expect to see with an 'available now' product. The product is also listed by a vendor …

    Laptops 22 Nov 2010, 12:07

  • Google could drop Groupon into shopping basket

    Multi-billion dollar buyout mulled, say reports

    E-commerce coupon website Groupon Inc is reportedly mulling a takeover from Google. The Chicago-based company has been in talks about a possible acquisition, according to a Bloomberg report that cited two anonymous sources with “knowledge of the matter.” All Things Digital also reported on Friday that Google might snap up …

    Financial News 22 Nov 2010, 12:10

  • VAT fraudster gets 9 years for refusing £40m bill

    Frenchman told: Pay it all back or stay inside

    Emmanuel Hening, already serving the longest sentence ever secured against a VAT-fraudster, has seen another nine years added onto his sentence. A court last week added to his 15-year sentence because he has failed to repay £40m demanded by Her Majesty's Revenue and Customs. Hening, who has dual French-Belgian nationality, …

    The Channel 22 Nov 2010, 12:15

  • Dell netbook-cum-tablet priced up

    Convertible computer comes in around £400

    Dell isn't saying how much it's Inspiron Duo - the netbook with the spin-round screen - but Microsoft is. The software giant's US-centric online shop has started taking orders for the Duo, which is there priced at $549 (£342) a pop. That suggests a UK price of £400. Whatever Dell charges over here, the Duo will contain a 1. …

    Tablets 22 Nov 2010, 12:24

  • Apple scraps 'never-formed plans' for iPhone SIM in 2011

    Telegraph sets blogosphere alight with leak

    Apple has apparently scrapped plans to build a SIM into the next-generation iPhone, despite never having had any such plan, at least not until it would be legal to do so. The Telegraph reported the story over the weekend, claiming that outraged network operators stood together and forced Cupertino to back down over the plans …

    Mobile 22 Nov 2010, 12:32

  • Stoke Council avoids fine over lost childcare data on USB stick farce

    Potty security snafu in the Potteries

    Stoke On Trent Council has received a "rebuke" for losing an unencrypted USB memory stick containing the personal details of children in care. Court reports and details of care proceedings against 40 kids were mislaid as a result of the blunder, which might have easily been avoided by the use of memory sticks that support …

    Government 22 Nov 2010, 12:43

  • Orange teases with cut-price iPad offer

    Yours for £200 on contract, apparently

    Orange and T-Mobile are to discount the iPad to just 200 quid, it has been claimed. The quid pro quo, says London business freesheet City AM, which made the claim, is signing up for an 18-month or two-year contract. Orange has just posted the following promo: The network told Reg Hardware: "Orange... will offer new purchase …

    Tablets 22 Nov 2010, 13:12

  • How much bandwidth will next gen airports need?

    Help airports offload data - opt for an enhanced patdown

    Our US readers contemplating flying cross country travel this week might be putting worries about the data and power impact of air travel to the back of their minds. But if they do opt for that enhanced pat-down they might comfort themselves with the knowledge they are helping offload some of the bandwidth and power a modern …

    Data Networking 22 Nov 2010, 13:17

  • Foreign cyber spies target British defence official

    Spear phishing foiled

    Foreign spies targeted a senior British defence official in a sophisticated spear phishing operation that aimed to steal military secrets. The plan was foiled last year when the official became suspicious of an email she received from a contact she had met at a conference. The official showed the highly personalised message …

    Security 22 Nov 2010, 13:18

  • Get out the bar, your plane's leaving

    Airport meets RFID the 13th

    The selfish sods who hold planes up by lingering in the bar or duty free can now be pinpointed, within 4m, by cheap RFID tags on airline boarding passes. Enough is enough! I'm gonna tag every motherfucking snake on this motherfucking plane! What the airline does with the information can then depend on passenger status – you …

    Broadband 22 Nov 2010, 13:40

  • Life beyond server consolidation

    Workshop Hurdles to the virtual world

    Virtualisation software vendors have in their marketing kit bags a very simple chart, which comprises three circles. The first, on the bottom left shows ‘simple’ server virtualisation, that is, use of virtual machines to consolidate multiple workloads onto a smaller set of servers. In the centre is ‘managed’ virtualisation, …

    Service Assurance 22 Nov 2010, 13:47

  • Viewsonic ViewPad 7 Android tablet

    Review Tablet sceptics, prepare to be converted

    Viewsonic came up through monitors and projectors, but has recently been branching out, sometimes tentatively, into other devices like the VMP74 network media player and slimline laptops. Now it's set its sights on the rapidly emerging Android tablet market with its new 7in touchscreen, the ViewPad 7. Viewsonic's ViewPad 7: ' …

    Tablets 22 Nov 2010, 13:48

  • Supercomputers take efficiency up another notch

    SC10 RISC cores and hybrids deliver most flops per watt

    More than the hand-wringing over parallel computing, the mounting electricity bill is the limiting factor holding back the growth of petascale systems. The recurring joke at the SC10 supercomputing conference last week was that we cannot build exascale systems that require their own nuclear power plant to juice them up. And that …

    HPC 22 Nov 2010, 14:37

  • Online publishers and hosts launch libel reform campaign

    Protect our bloggers... and ISPs

    Internet publishers and ISPs have joined forces to ask the Government to reform libel laws to protect the free speech rights of bloggers and commenters and to strip host companies of liability for libellous statements. The companies have asked the Government to change the law so that hosts and publishers do not have to take …

    Law 22 Nov 2010, 14:39

  • Apple to give away iPhone tracking tech

    Find My iPhone goes free as iOS 4.2 released

    Apple is to open its Find My iPhone tracking tech to certain iDevice owners who aren't Mobile Me subscribers. The news was made public as the company gears up to release iOS 4.2.1, which it said will go live later today. The Find My... facility has to date been part of the Mobile Me, Apple's £59-a-year email and device data …

    Phones 22 Nov 2010, 14:44

  • US crewless, automated ghost-frigate project takes shape

    Roboship gets Mars Rover AI, Blondie acoustics expertise

    A US military plan to build a crewless, automated robo-frigate which could trail hostile submarines across the oceans for months on end without supervision - the ACTUV project - is moving forward, with several contracts recently announced. Distinctly limited in cocktail-party capability, but good for hunting submarines. We …

    Science 22 Nov 2010, 14:46

  • Lindsay Lohan dumped from Lovelace movie

    Won't now be pulling off 1970s porn star

    Fans of El Reg's fave bespeckled thespiatrix Lindsay Lohan will be gutted to learn she will not be interpreting Linda Lovelace. Lohan was to have tackled the 1970s pornstress in a flick entitled Inferno. Back in May, producer Wali Razaqi told the LA Times he considered the role "one of the most challenging roles any actor …

    Bootnotes 22 Nov 2010, 14:53

  • Attachmate gobbles up Novell for $2.2bn

    Regurgitates unspecified IP to Microsoft for $450m

    Novell has accepted a takeover bid by legacy connectivity and security software provider Attachmate for $2.2bn. "After a thorough review of a broad range of alternatives to enhance stockholder value, our board of directors concluded that the best available alternative was the combination of a merger with Attachmate Corporation …

    Applications 22 Nov 2010, 15:16

  • Distie acquisition helps Tech Data beat the street

    Sales and profits up

    Tech Data increased sales for the three months ended 31 October 2010 by 9.2 per cent to $6.16bn. The distie giant's profits for the period were up to $81m, compared to $65.1m for the same period last year. This gives earnings per share of $1.07, compared to 84 cents in 2009. Operating margin was 1.31 per cent, compared to 1. …

    The Channel 22 Nov 2010, 15:28

  • Tea Party activists accused of rigging Dancing vote to favour Palin

    The man in the back said everyone attack and it turned into a ballroom blitz

    Flaws in the email voting system deployed by ABC for the talent show Dancing With the Stars are being credited with allowing Tea Party supporters to stuff the ballot in favour of Bristol Palin. Palin junior and partner Mark Ballas qualified for Monday's final of the show despite consistently mediocre marks from expert judges …

    Security 22 Nov 2010, 15:29

  • iOS 4.2 multi-tasking comes to the iPad

    Sort of... nearly... finally

    iOS version 4.2 is to be launched today, bringing Apple's idea of multi-tasking to the iPad and a load of other good stuff to iOS devices. The update was announced at the beginning of September, and beta releases have been knocking around for the more adventuresome Apple fan, but later today will see a general release of the …

    Mobile 22 Nov 2010, 15:40

  • Bish says sorry for right royal Facebook rant

    Lays into Wills and Kate, Big Ears and Lady Di

    The Bishop of Willesden has issued a grovelling apology for "deeply offensive" Facebook comments about the forthcoming nuptials of Wills and Kate. The Rt Rev Pete Broadbent, Bishop of Willesden, went right into one last Wednesday, apparently suffering from an overdose of royal wedding press euphoria which brought out a dark, …

    Bootnotes 22 Nov 2010, 15:47

  • SCC results: Taiwan wins overall crown

    SC10 Texas, LSU, Taiwan top Teraflop

    The Student Cluster Competition high performance computing (HPC) marathon of 2010 is over. The final results were turned in Wednesday evening, the data examined by expert judges, and winners were announced at the SC10 awards luncheon on Thursday afternoon. Unfortunately, I had to travel to another meeting and couldn’t attend ( …

    SC 2011 22 Nov 2010, 16:00

  • Samsung net tellies get new movie marketplace

    Acetrax added to on-line options

    Samsung has joined the Acetrax party, adding the on-demand video supplier to its Internet@TV platform. The Acetrax Movies app will be available on Samsung connected televisions throughout Europe from today. Acetrax not only offers movie rentals, but purchasing too. There’s no subscription either, just set up an account, and …

    Media 22 Nov 2010, 16:45

  • Twitter 'martyr' takes airport joke case to High Court

    Free-tweeting hero takes it to the top, squawks 'purple firebananas'

    A man who was convicted of posting a tasteless joke on Twitter about blowing up a UK airport plans to take his case to Blighty's High Court. Human rights lawyer Ben Emmerson will head up the legal fight for Paul Chambers, according to the Associated Press. Chambers, 27, of was arrested in January for posting a message on his …

    Law 22 Nov 2010, 16:59

  • Compellent storage grid is on its way

    About this Live Volume thingamyjiggery

    Compellent is taking its arrays into grid-based storage for cloud computing. Its fourth generation storage controller and Live Volume "storage hypervisor" deliver the foundation for grid storage arrays deployed within and between data centres for cloud-based computing storage access. Storage Center 5.4 aggressively increases …

    Storage 22 Nov 2010, 17:23

  • Microsoft reins in Windows server prices

    Leaves 'cash-ectomies' to Oracle

    Microsoft is slashing the price of some server operating systems and it has stopped short of a full price increase on others to avoid giving customers a so-called "cash-ectomy". Service providers running Windows Server 2008 R2 Web, Standard, and Enterprise editions will see their license agreements cut by 21 per cent from …

    The Channel 22 Nov 2010, 18:13

  • Google 'Instant Previews' hit Google Analytics with fake traffic

    Updated Real-time page fetch

    Update: This story has been updated with comment from Google, and it has been clarfied to show that Google did tell webmasters when "Instant Previews" launched that it would be doing real-time fetches in some cases. We've also added stats concerning the fetches from The Register's site logs. Google's new "Instant Previews" …

    Media 22 Nov 2010, 19:21

  • Dell kept buyers in dark over hardware problems, say docs

    Ranked customers by importance

    Recently released court documents show that Dell resisted informing customers of widespread hardware problems that render many of the computers it sold from 2003 to 2005 inoperable. The hundreds of pages of documents were unsealed by the federal judge hearing a lawsuit filed by former Dell customer Advanced Internet …

    The Channel 22 Nov 2010, 19:27

  • Google lures Microsoft Officers with Docs plug-in

    Sync, share, work. On Google

    Google has launched a service designed to pilfer Microsoft Office users. On Monday, the search giant released Google Cloud Connect for Microsoft Office, a service that lets Microsoft customers upload Office docs to Google's servers, so they can be edited and exchanged via Mountain View's existing Google Docs online word …

    Applications 22 Nov 2010, 21:16

  • iOS 4.2: An 'ace' for iPad, a 'meh' for iPhone

    First look Printing still strangled

    Monday was iOS update day for the iPhone, iPad, and iPod. "iOS 4.2 makes the iPad a completely new product," crowed Apple CEO Steve Jobs in a prepared statement announcing the upgrade — which wasn't actually released until 10am, Pacific Standard Time, despite the early-morning reports of the release. We installed it on both …

    Tablets 22 Nov 2010, 21:17

  • Man denies charges he hacked Fed Reserve network

    400,000 credit cards allegedly swiped

    A Malaysian man accused of hacking into a Federal Reserve computer network and possessing stolen account data for 400,000 bank cards has pleaded not guilty to the charges. Lin Mun Poo, 32, pleaded not guilty on Monday, four days after he was indicted on four counts that included claims he hacked in to a data processor by the …

    Security 22 Nov 2010, 23:02

  • HP doesn't miss a beat in fiscal Q4

    Industry standard CEOs

    All eyes were on IT industry bellwether Hewlett-Packard today as it reported its fourth quarter of fiscal 2010 financial results in the wake of bringing onboard its new chief executive officer, Leo Apotheker, and the winding down of arguments last week in the lawsuit between Oracle and SAP, Apotheker's former employer. At least …

    Financial News 22 Nov 2010, 23:50