25th November 2010 Archive

Browse by publication date, or search the site.

Novell keeps Unix copyrights from Microsoft

Leaps to catch dropping Linux ball

Novell has moved to quell growing concerns that it has sold Linux out to Microsoft as part of its Attachmate deal. On Wednesday, Novell chief marketing officer John Dragoon issued a short statement saying that Novell – not Microsoft – owns the copyrights on Unix. Sentence two of Dragoon's terse, three-sentence statement said …

Operating Systems 25 Nov 2010, 00:00
Masochists add Jimbo Wales to every webpage

Wikileader vanity banners invade real world

A sadistic add-on developer is offering a Google Chrome extension that slaps those solipsistic Jimbo Wales Wikipedia banner ads on every other website across the net. And masochists are rapidly installing the thing. Since the extension debuted over the weekend, installs have topped 3,000. "I love it!!!" said one masochist. " …

Media 25 Nov 2010, 00:44
IBM gloats over HP, Oracle takeouts

Time for Blue Away reprise

Every quarter, a few weeks after IBM puts out its financial figures, it makes the rounds with the trade press to gloat over how many takeout deals it did, removing gear from its rivals and usually replacing it with System x or Power Systems iron but sometimes with a mainframe. When Mark Loughridge, IBM's chief financial …

Servers 25 Nov 2010, 04:00
Shuttleworth's Ubuntu makes like Space Shuttle

I'm a Rocketman. Again

It looks like astronaut and tech magnate Mark Shuttleworth's investment in the Ubuntu commercial Linux distribution is about to pay off. Ubuntu is taking off like a rocket, and the sale of Novell to Attachmate plus the higher prices Red Hat is charging for its Enterprise Linux 6 are probably going to fuel Ubuntu's adoption even …

Operating Systems 25 Nov 2010, 05:00
AV Receivers

Group Test Surround sound amps for your sitting room cinema

Soundbars, 2.1 systems, whatever – if you want proper surround sound for your home cinema set-up, you’ve still got to invest in a multichannel amp or receiver with connections for at least 5.1 channels. And with the advance of technology, it doesn’t have to cost the earth to construct a system that will handle all the latest …

Hardware 25 Nov 2010, 07:00
Buyer's Guide: AV Receivers

Group Test Speakers' corner

The first thing to decide is whether you want an AV receiver or if you’ll be happy with just an AV amp. Each will include a multichannel amp (5.1 minimum) and preamp for processing sound and video, but a receiver will include a radio tuner and a connection for a quality aerial. It may also, but not necessarily, include access to …

Hardware 25 Nov 2010, 07:00
Best Buys: AV Receivers

Group Test Volume sales

The midrange of the AV receiver market has jumped up a step or two in the last year or so, with new features creeping in at this price point, including iPod connectivity and future-proofing for soon-come 3D technology. All these receivers do a fine job of delivering the goods, there are no donkeys here, but there are a few …

Hardware 25 Nov 2010, 07:00
Denon AVR-2311

Review Sound offering

Denon’s replacement for the AVR-2310 has nothing to be ashamed of, turning in a decent spec for its really rather reasonable price. For a start there are six 3D compatible HDMI inputs, all of them capable of handling 3D-friendly 1.4 (I know, I know, it’s explained in the intro). There's also an ARC (Audio Return Channel)- …

Hardware 25 Nov 2010, 07:00
Onkyo TX-NR708

Review Hits the spot, for a price

Market leader Onkyo doesn’t tend to go light on the features, and this midrange unit is no exception. The upgrade from the TX-NR707 now includes network capability (the cheapest Onkyo that does) as well as an amplifier that carries the THX Select 2 Plus certification, though you’ll need some hefty speakers to take full advantage …

Hardware 25 Nov 2010, 07:00
Marantz SR5005

Review Punchy performer

The baby of the SR range is a brutal looking slab with distinctive Marantz curves which keeps most of its front-facing controls and connections hidden behind a large flap panel. These include iPod/iPhone connectivity with USB but no HDMI input up front, unlike all the other devices here. It has just four HDMI inputs round the …

Hardware 25 Nov 2010, 07:00
Pioneer VSX-1020

Review Precision instrument

AV receivers by their nature tend to be lumpy boxes, but Pioneer’s glossy black livery means the VSX-1020 is a bit better looking than most. It has six HDMI inputs, including one on the front intended for video cameras, but strangely, despite the presence of HDMI 1.4 capability, there’s no audio return channel or standby pass …

Hardware 25 Nov 2010, 07:00
Yamaha RX-V767

Review Cost-conscious, but feature rich

With a glossy upper and matt finish lower halves there's a two tone look to this receiver, the cheapest on test, but certainly not lacking in HDMI connectivity. There six inputs in total (five on the back, one on the front), and unusually it also has two HDMI outputs, so you can have both video and audio in a second zone – an …

Hardware 25 Nov 2010, 07:00
The right approach for desktop virtualisation

Webcast Looking for a way to go

Tomorrow, Friday 26th November at 11:00 GMT, our studio will bristle with virtualisation chatter as we challenge two alleged experts to thrash out which way to go with desktop virtualisation. Tony Lock from our chums Freeform Dynamics will join Ian Moulster from Microsoft and El Reg’s effervescent Tim Phillips to explore the …

Tech Panel 25 Nov 2010, 09:37
Poor IT contributes to DWP errors

Out-of-date IT makes it harder to tackle benefit fraud and error

The Department for Work and Pensions is hampered by out of date IT in tackling benefit fraud and error, says the National Audit Office. The spending watchdog's report on minimising the cost of administrative error in the benefit system, published on 25 November, says the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) has 140 core …

Government 25 Nov 2010, 09:45
Brits blow millions on over-priced ink

Branded printer cartridges, the new old enemy

British consumers are wasting £440m a year on branded printer cartridges rather than cheaper white label replacements. How to avoid that freshly ripped-off feeling... A survey from YouGov found half of all households always buy brand name cartridges, which are typically a third more expensive than equivalents from the likes …

Hardware 25 Nov 2010, 09:51
Official: Playboy back cat stashed on hard drive

NSFW Better than a tatty cardbox box in the attic?

We've heard of guys stashing away their pr0n collections on a covert external storage device, safe from prying eyes, but if you get your mitts on this one, your passion for the pudendic will be immediately obvious to all. US publishing outfit Bondi Digital has released a 250GB drive containing - we pull your plonker not - a …

Hardware 25 Nov 2010, 10:06
DNS hijack used to deface Secunia

Not the first time online vandal has struck

Visitors to the website of security notification firm Secunia were confronted by a defacement on Thursday morning. The site was sprayed by digital graffiti by a hacker using the handle TurkGuvenligi in what early indications suggest was the result of a DNS hijack rather than an exploit on Secunia's website itself. A diary …

Security 25 Nov 2010, 10:11
Meet the Oz teen behind Operation Titstorm

Steve Slayo on trial for DoS attacks against Aussie baby-kissers

An Australian teenager has gone on trial for organising denial of service attacks on websites run by comms minister Stephen Conroy and the then prime minister Kevin Rudd. The brilliantly-monikered Steve Slayo, presumably known as Steve-o, pleaded guilty to four charges including one of inciting others to impair electronic …

Security 25 Nov 2010, 10:37
Sarah Palin calls for US to stand by North Korea

Seoul and YouTube wobble over mama grizzly's defection

Sarah Palin has redefined US foreign policy and put YouTube under a little bit of strain by telling right wing radio host Glenn Beck that America must stand by its North Korean allies. Palin, sometime Alaska governor and current reality TV star, was responding to a question from Beck about how she would respond to a developing …

Bootnotes 25 Nov 2010, 10:41
Dixons warns of tough Christmas

Be careful out there

Dixons Retail Group - better known as PC World - has warned of a tough and competitive Christmas season. Tech retailers, along with the rest of the High Street, are heavily reliant on the big boost given by Christmas to bring in the profits. Dixons said sales in the first half of the year had been flat, or up one per cent, at …

The Channel 25 Nov 2010, 10:48
Samsung, Dixons herald huge tablet sales

Apple still in the lead, mind

Samsung has sold 600,000 Galaxy Tab Android tablets, the South Korean giant claimed yesterday. The 7in Tab has been on sale for three-and-a-half weeks, but the bulk of the sales seem to have taken place early on. Samsung's Tab: handed out in their thousands Tacit confirmation of that sales curve is given by Samsung's …

Tablets 25 Nov 2010, 10:49
US ARMY prepares force of GIGANTIC BOMB RATS

Massive war rodents 'like to lick your finger' - major

More news this week from the perhaps surprisingly active field of US military combat rodent operations, as reports have it that Pentagon boffins are considering deployment of crack units composed of highly trained, enormous bomb rats into the Wars on Stuff. These bomb rats, we should hasten to add, would not be explosive-laden …

Science 25 Nov 2010, 11:08
Indian village bans single girls from mobile use

Women should be seen and not heard, right?

Women in the Indian region of Lank will need to find a husband before a mobile phone, as single women have been banned from using mobiles for fear they'll elope. The ruling, by the village council, isn't backed by Indian law, but in rural India that's less important as the panchayats (elected elders) of the village have …

Mobile 25 Nov 2010, 11:16
Acer: Alive, and thirsty for Apple juice

Analysis Lanci levels lance at iTunes

Bought an Acer lately? Chances are you were looking for a modern, well-designed notebook/netbook/desktop/whatever and found that Acer does a good job at a decent price. What you were not doing was buying into the "Acer Lifestyle". Acer Plc is not Apple Inc. But now Acer has pretentions to that end. Number two behind HP in the …

Hardware 25 Nov 2010, 11:38
Money for nothing – and your (gambling) kicks for free

How to take free cash from bookies: Part 1

We're all so sure that there's no such thing as a free lunch, that the offer of anything for free has us looking for the catch. So, depending on your attitude to gambling, the offer of a free bet from a bookmaker might have you looking for the devil himself angling for your soul. But bookmakers do offer genuine free bets all …

Media 25 Nov 2010, 12:00
HP's new relationship makes Oracle 'very furious'

IT company poised to dump Oracle for Salesforce

HP is about to ditch its Oracle customer relationship management system and sign a massive deal with Salesforce. Oracle and HP have been rowing since the departure of HP boss Mark Hurd and his immediate reappearance at Oracle. Now, according to Global Equities Research analyst Trip Chowdhry, HP is set to ditch its Siebel …

Applications 25 Nov 2010, 12:22
Nokia spits out network diagnostics

Everything you wanted to know about Wi-Fi...

Nokia's Beta Labs has created a Connectivity Analyzer for those whose Wi-Fi isn't performing as it should. The tool provides comprehensive analysis from a mobile phone. You'll be needing a S60 mobile phone, of course, but anything from the 8GB N95 to the N8 should be able to run the free application that offers detailed …

Broadband 25 Nov 2010, 12:24
Santa fail: No Chrome OS netbook this year

Acer veep says 'consumer launch' pushed back to 2011

Computer manufacturers won’t release Chrome OS-based netbooks until 2011, according to a senior veep at Acer. The company’s Jim Wong told reporters earlier this week that the consumer release of Google’s oxymoronic browser-based operating system won’t land until next year. Engadget reported that Google has its own plans to …

Operating Systems 25 Nov 2010, 12:41
Police to get greater web censorship powers

Nominet prepares to yank more domains

Police will effectively get more powers to censor websites under proposals being developed by Nominet, the company that controls the .uk domain registry. Following lobbying by the Serious and Organised Crime Agency (SOCA), Nominet wants to change the terms and conditions under which domain names are owned so that it can revoke …

Law 25 Nov 2010, 12:47
Indian piracy arrests bother Bollywood BitTorrenters

Drama unlikely to end with dance number

Indian police arrested four suspected movie uploaders last weekend in what is reportedly the first operation of its kind in the country. The quartet are accused of running a business involving ripping pirated movie DVDs and music CDs and uploading them to a site called Torrentrockerz, which made its money from advertising. …

Security 25 Nov 2010, 12:57
Plasma space-drive aces efficiency numbers: Set for ISS in 2014

Electro-rocket to open up Mars, the Belt, Jovian moons

Top boffins working at a NASA spinoff company are thrilled to announce that their plasma drive technology – potentially capable of revolutionising space travel beyond the Earth's atmosphere – has checked out A-OK in ground tests. What interplanetary spaceship exhaust plumes really look like According to the Ad Astra Rocket …

Science 25 Nov 2010, 13:04
Salesforce.com hits 'appliance of science' button with new hire

Ex-BT boffin lands on Benioff's cloud

Salesforce.com has created a new chief scientist role at the software company and hired erstwhile BT boffin JP Rangaswami to take on the job. He will report directly to Salesforce boss Marc Benioff to help European punters “think about innovative ways to use the real-time, mobile and social capabilities provided by Salesforce …

Developer 25 Nov 2010, 13:05
Philips Fidelio DS8550 wireless iPad speaker

Review The new dock star gets the AirPlay treatment

Reg Hardware pronounced Philips' Fidelio DS9000 to be pick of the current crop of premium iPod docks, beating even the much-loved and well-reviewed B&W Zeppelin. Clearly, Philips is onto something here, because its Fidelio DS8550 is pretty bloody good too. Now, I didn't review the DS9000 - m'colleague Alun Taylor had that …

Hardware 25 Nov 2010, 13:06
Apple throws a wobbly over Steve Jobs dolly

M'learned friends descend upon action-figure maker

It's not just radio app developers, websites that dish the dirt on upcoming Apple products, and journalists who take the mikey out of Steve Jobs' diction that fall foul of the "magical and revolutionary" CEO. So do memento makers. Take online retailer MIC Gadget, which had the temerity to tout an iPhone 4-sized Steve Jobs …

Hardware 25 Nov 2010, 13:36
MS drops drive pooling from Windows Home Server

When Vail became Fail

Microsoft is killing off a popular feature in the next version of its Windows Home Server product, which is codenamed ‘Vail’. The software vendor said that it would get rid of its Drive Extender technology from Vail, much to the chagrin of its customers. Microsoft announced it would axe Drive Extender – which supports …

Hardware 25 Nov 2010, 13:48
Axl Rose sues Activision

Welcome to the courtroom

Guns N' Roses frontman W Axl Rose is attempting to sue Activision over the inclusion of Welcome to the Jungle in Guitar Hero III. Rose has filed a $20 million lawsuit against the games publisher, according to Reuters, It turns out, the singer did give permission for Activision to use the song, but only under condition that …

Games 25 Nov 2010, 14:04
Fake student hacker avoids jail over ID theft scam

Faux uni man installed password-cracking hack attack

A computer hacker who posed as a student and used key-logging software to break into the email accounts of genuine students has been ordered to pay £21,000 in compensation and ordered to complete a 200-hour community service order. Daniel Woo, 23, a Bulgarian resident in London, avoided going to jail but received an eight- …

Security 25 Nov 2010, 14:09
Tube to get phone coverage by the Olympics

But are you happy to ~~listen to annoying jibber-jabber~~ pay for it?

London's tube network will become mobile-friendly by next year, according to Mobile Magazine, which reckons a contract is only weeks away. London taxes will be subsidising this contract. That contract is said to be worth £150m, which will be spent by the network operators to provide both 2G and 3G coverage to the entire …

Phones 25 Nov 2010, 14:26
SMART supercomputer smacks flash in its stash

IBM's new super-cooled monster will use NAND flash for storage

IBM is going to use NAND flash storage in its planned monster BlueGene/Q supercomputer. This is the water-cooled supercomputer that IBM showed in component form at the recent SC10 conference in New Orleans. The flash is the XceedIOPS multi-level cell NAND product from SMART. It uses 34nm process technology and comes in a 2.5- …

Storage 25 Nov 2010, 14:36
Saudi cops cuff four for mad bank card scam

Easy money

Four teenage Saudis have been arrested over a technically implausible ATM scam said to have netted US$533,000 (two million Saudi Riyals) over two years. The unnamed youngsters from the Taif area of Western Saudi Arabia apparently discovered game cards from the local mall allowed them to withdraw the same amount of money as the …

Security 25 Nov 2010, 15:38
Three pledges cut-price iPads for Crimble

Subsidised fondleslabs

Three is to follow T-Mobile and Orange , and make available cut-price iPads subsidised by airtime contracts. Neither Orange nor T-Mobile have said what the subsidised price of their iPads will be, though it has been claimed 3G-enabled iPads will be sold for as little as £200 - £329 off the list price. Likewise, Three did not …

Mobile 25 Nov 2010, 16:02
Ofcom mulls popular number charge

New plans to cut line wastage

Ofcom is considering charging companies which want numbers in popular area codes, and getting rid of local phone dialling to eke out the existing number ranges. The two measures are open to consultation until February next year. They are designed to provide more local phone numbers - which are running critically short - by …

Broadband 25 Nov 2010, 16:30
NetApp whips out a blade

Virtual Storage Appliance does a LeftHand

Know what a Virtual Storage Appliance (VSA) is? Sure, it's the HP LeftHand VSA that turns direct-attached server storage into a SAN. Did you know NetApp has one? Thought not. Well, it does. Big green storage machine Fujitsu Technology Solutions has a PRIMERGY BX400 blade server, a so-called green data centre in a 6U box, …

Storage 25 Nov 2010, 16:31
Motel guest trashes room to free imaginary 'midget'

Prank call prompts dwarf hunt

A man trashed his South Carolina motel room on orders from a prank caller, who told him there was a "midget" imprisoned next door. Joseph Jones, 73, damaged a television, mirrors, and the wall between the rooms in an effort to free the captive homunculus, local TV station WYFF reports. The prankster rang the Motel 6 room at …

Bootnotes 25 Nov 2010, 17:03
ZeuS variant only infects super-fast PCs

Too tricky for its own bad

Miscreants behind one variant of the ZeuS Trojan have outfoxed themselves in their attempts to outwit anti-virus analysts by releasing a variant of the malware that only infects high-performance PCs. Security firms use automation and virtualisation technologies to cope with the growing volume of malware spewed out by …

Security 25 Nov 2010, 17:09
Blu-ray barely better than DVD

Some are, many aren't, claims Which?

Blu-ray discs are supposed to represent "the maximum high-definition experience" yet there is little difference in quality to that of a DVD, apparently. A study by consumer advocate Which? found less than a third of Blu-ray films demonstrate an exceptional difference compared to the equivalent DVD, and with a large gulf …

Hardware 25 Nov 2010, 17:51