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3rd December 2010 Archive

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  • Xbox modder prosecution dropped like white-hot potato

    Judge does his nut in Crippen box-meddle case

    Federal authorities on Thursday dropped their prosecution of a southern California man charged with two felonies for modifying Xbox 360 consoles, following a severe berating by a judge and an admission they made procedural errors, Wired.com reported. The criminal trial against 28-year-old Matthew Crippen was the first to test …

    Music and Media 3 Dec 00:28

  • Fujitsu shoots low with BX400 baby blade box

    And even lower with Micro Server

    Hewlett-Packard and IBM have been selling baby blade boxes suitable for office environments for the past couple of years, and now Fujitsu is chasing SMB shops with its own BX400 blade server chassis. The company is also chasing what it calls "very small businesses," hopefully not to be immortalized with the VSB abbreviation any …

    Servers 3 Dec 00:37

  • Oracle asserts non-existent open source trademark

    Hudson not Ellison's after all

    Oracle's trademark on the popular Hudson open-source project doesn't exist. At least for now. Oracle claimed that it acquired the Hudson trademark with its purchase of Sun Microsystems. But a well-placed former Sun Microsystems employee has contacted The Reg to say that Sun took an "explicit decision" not to apply for a …

    Developer 3 Dec 01:09

  • Google in 'better' copyright protection vow

    Music and TV giant kiss-up

    As it seeks to make nice with the big name record labels, TV networks, and movie studios, Google has announced that it's working to provide better protection against online copyright infringement. At least in four small ways. "As the web has grown, we have seen a growing number of issues relating to infringing content. We …

    Music and Media 3 Dec 01:16

  • Oracle stuffs Mongolian clusters with Sparc T3s

    From McNealy's sunset to Ellison's Sunrise

    It's Sunrise at Oracle. But apparently, someone hit Larry Ellison's snooze alarm. The Oracle chief exec was 18 minutes late for the launch of two preconfigured Sparc/Solaris clusters that are part of a "Sunrise" reanimation of the Sparc platform. Late or not, Ellison was eager about the prospects of the Sparc versions of the …

    HPC 3 Dec 01:18

  • Intel reveals 'the billion dollar lost laptop problem'

    Chipzilla's plan to rescue $bns spent on McAfee

    Intel is trumpeting a recent study that shows businesses and other organizations risking billions of dollars annually due to lost or stolen laptops. But worry not: it has a "third pillar" to prop up those losses. "Looking at these results, you can barely fathom the significant financial impact of missing laptops," the general …

    Channel Register 3 Dec 05:16

  • Novell muddles through fiscal Q4

    Revenues down, profits impenetrable

    Software maker Novell – which is in the process of selling itself to Attachmate and Microsoft for $2.2bn – reported its financial results for its fourth quarter of fiscal 2010 ended October 31. Rather than face a lot of pesky questions from Wall Street analysts, the top brass at the company ducked out and just pumped out a press …

    Financial News 3 Dec 05:20

  • Ten... dirt-cheap voice phones

    Product Round-up Mobiles for the money-less

    World+Dog may be falling in love with smartphones faster than a large lass on a date with George Clooney, but there is still a place for the cheap and cheerful voice-centric handset. To start with, basic phones shorn of the extravagances of 3G, GPS, Wi-Fi, football pitch-sized hi-res screens and always-on connectivity can …

    reghardware 3 Dec 07:00

  • Wikileaks' DNS pulls plug, citing collateral DDoS damage

    Plods polish bracelets for Assange on Swedish sex charges

    Domain name provider EveryDNS has pulled the plug on Wikileaks after giving the site 24 hours' notice that it could not put up with the denial of service attacks the site was attracting. The DNS provider said that it had sent messages by email and via Twitter and through the chat function of its website to warn Wikileaks that …

    Networks 3 Dec 09:43

  • NFC mobe-touchpay trial does end run round handset makers

    You won't build a paycard in? We'll slip one in anyway

    A bank, a network operator and a transport company will be deploying a payment infrastructure based on Near Field Communications (NFC) technology in mobile phones, but without inviting handset manufacturers to the party. StarHub will be running the invitation-only trial of NFC payments in Singapore with DBS Bank, featuring …

    Mobile 3 Dec 09:59

  • Robotic High Noon in Colorado

    Cops, policebot 'explosively neutralise' sinister toydroid

    Denver police earlier this week demonstrated the efficiency of their killbot emergency protocol by terminating a robotic potential threat to national security. According to TheDenverChannel, a concerned motorist raised the alarm at 3.30pm on Wednesday when he spotted a toy robot which had been "crudely" cemented to the base of …

    Rise of the Machines 3 Dec 10:20

  • How to improve your organisation's decision making

    Webcast The time is now

    On the 8th of December at 11am we’ve got a room of experts to help you work through the modern challenges of getting the right information to the right people – because we know it’s not getting any easier. The Register’s own Tim Phillips is joined in the studio by independent analyst Andrew Buss and Peter King from Microsoft …

    Tech Panel 3 Dec 10:29

  • This year's comedy Xmas No. 1 contender: Silent song 4'33"

    Bookies bet on another pop-culture bitchslap for Cowell

    A motley crew of musicians backed by a Facebook campaign are plotting to hijack the poor beleaguered Christmas number one with a four-minute recording of silence. Following last year's triumphant, internet-bolstered, telly-talent-compo-orthodoxy-upending ascendance of the gleefully inappropriate and profanity-sprinkled Killing …

    Music and Media 3 Dec 10:38

  • Herts cops 'ate the evidence' at scene of crime, court told

    Hungry plods scoffed critical pizzas in major case

    Police may occasionally be accused of losing, abusing or even tampering with evidence – but eating it is almost certainly a first for any police force anywhere in the UK. Such was the allegation made by prosecutors at the Old Bailey, in respect of a case of torture and intimidation alleged to have taken place earlier this year …

    Policing 3 Dec 11:03

  • Hold the champagne

    Project management You're not finished until after the review

    On completion of a project it's tempting to head straight for the nearest hostelry to sample some fine beverages; and then some. Maybe a good idea, but as any student of Prince2 will tell you, the job ain't finished until some form of closure report and benefits assessment has been done. Such reports allow lessons to be learnt …

    Project Management 3 Dec 11:09

  • Three tots up iPad subsidy

    Undercuts Orange

    Three has matched Orange's iPad discount, offering today the 16GB 3G-enabled tablet for £199 if you pick it up with a two-year, £25-a-month data contract. That's a better deal than Orange touted last week. You'll cough up £848 in total to Orange, but only £800 to Three, which gives you a monthly data transfer allowance of 15GB …

    reghardware 3 Dec 11:27

  • UK.gov: One address-location database to rule them all

    Mighty GeoPlace to emblobbenate private & public data

    The Coalition has created a long-awaited joint undertaking between local government and the Ordnance Survey agency to amalgamate addresses into a single register for use by public sector workers and private businesses. However, such a database will first be subject to scrutiny by the Office of Fair Trading. Tory MP Eric …

    Channel Register 3 Dec 11:28

  • Unreleased Lady Gaga songs nabbed in audacious hack

    Scoundrels allegedly had NUDE PICS of popstress Ke$ha too

    A pair of Germans allegedly used malware to break into computers used by managers and agents of more than 50 music stars including Lady Gaga and Justin Timberlake. The two as yet unnamed hackers - a 17-year-old from Duisburg and a 23-year-old from Wessel, both in the Ruhr Area of Western Germany - used unspecified malware to …

    Crime 3 Dec 11:40

  • Times bullish: no longer throwing money down web toilet

    Pay up, Freetards

    It's too early to say whether the Times paywall is a success or not. But it's done wonders for conferences about newspapers. In place of the usual hand-wringing and Kumbaya pipedreams, we're getting quite a bit of decent discussion. The Telegraph is next to ask for your dosh - probably with a "metered" model used by the FT, …

    Music and Media 3 Dec 11:51

  • Unfeasibly vast amphibian found croaked on video card

    Ventblockers Dead frog locked-roomPC mystery stumps traumatised ITers

    As a postscript to last week's Ventblockers II shocker, we felt we had to share a final image with you, giving a pretty good idea as to why this particular video card croaked it: A shaken Richard Boyle explains that he and his colleagues down at Sneakers Computers in Courtenay, British Columbia, "built this system, so it …

    Bootnotes 3 Dec 12:01

  • Sony sells Playstation-packing TV

    Button bash a Bravia

    All sorts of tech has been integrated into TVs from iPod docks to Blu-ray players, but now Sony has put a Playstation into one and it's available in the UK for under £200. The Sony Bravia KDL-22PX300 is a 22in LCD TV with a built-in PS2, which allows users to play classic games and watch DVDs. Old Playstation titles still play …

    reghardware 3 Dec 12:06

  • Outsourcing kingpin hands $2bn to Indian education charity

    Wipro chief Premji showers gold on his pet foundation

    The boss of Indian offshorer Wipro Ltd, Azim Premji, is handing about $2bn to his own charitable foundation. The exact amount depends on share prices; Premji is transferring 213 million equity shares in Wipro Ltd to the Azim Premji Foundation over the next few days. The move will be completed by 7 December. The charity, which …

    Channel Register 3 Dec 12:10

  • Brits now spend more on debit cards than rustle or jingle money

    Ballistic plastic shrinks nation's bulging wallets

    British shoppers are for the first time spending more on their debit cards than in cash, according to banks. The 1.7 billion debit card transactions in the first eight months of this year were worth £272bn, compared to £269bn for cash, the Payments Council said today. Spending on plastic during the August bank holiday …

    Small Biz 3 Dec 12:19

  • Half of phish marks respond to scams within one 'golden hour'

    Evilsite smackdown 'irrelevant' after 5+ hrs

    Half the victims of phishing emails respond to fraudulent emails within an hour of the receipt of scam messages, according to to a study by transaction security firm Trusteer. Within five hours, more than 80 per cent of the total pool of potential victims have responded, a figure that rises to 90 per cent after the first 10 …

    Crime 3 Dec 12:28

  • Bombshell in platterland: WD tried to buy Seagate

    Unwise rebuff leaves tidy ship going glug glug glug?

    Bloomberg let off a mini-bombshell yesterday: Western Digital apparently offered to buy Seagate in October. At the time, world number one (by revenue) hard disk drive manufacturer Seagate was in the midst of resumed discussions with private equity buyers – led by TPG Capital – to go private. This is after initial discussions …

    Channel Register 3 Dec 12:42

  • Txt Take Mophie Juice Pack Air for iPhone 4

    Txt Take: product reviews in 140 characters... Mophie Juice Pack Air for iPhone 4 Pictures Some of the iPhone controls can be tricky to reach Physically cut the battery feed to preserve its power for emergencies Button-activated indicator lights show the remaining charge It'll bulk-out your handset a bit Want our …

    reghardware 3 Dec 12:56

  • Gran Turismo 5

    Review Gears of awe?

    After spending six years on the waiting list for Gran Turismo 5, new owners might be surprised to find that the pristine Bugatti Veyron 16.4 they thought they had ordered has rolled off the forecourt more like a cut 'n' shut. Straight into the lead For those unfamiliar with the term, a cut 'n' shut is the police and DVLA …

    reghardware 3 Dec 13:00

  • Nyah! Google is the Kevin the Teenager of th'interwebs

    Comment Tidy our bedroom? Not us

    For years, Google has been the Stroppy Teenager Kevin when it comes to copyright - full of attitude, and refusing to tidy up the bedroom. But do yesterday's concessions make any difference? No. "Nyah" The way Google has handled this won't inspire confidence that it's sincere in finding a long-term solution. The commitments …

    Music and Media 3 Dec 13:01

  • Hefty porridge for £300m VAT ring

    Revenue-nobbler bandits lived like kings on gov plunder

    Five members of a missing trader fraud gang have received sentences of up to four and a half years for a £17m scam based around mobile phones, HMRC revealed yesterday. The gang nobbled the revenue in a "complicated" fraud centred on mobile phones, SIM cards, memory and other mobile phone accessories. HMRC said paperwork …

    Channel Register 3 Dec 13:20

  • Gov pays Greens to lobby it, says report

    How you pay for hippies to see you off

    Government is handing over far too much of our hard-earned dosh to environmental campaigners, who then use the money to further distort government policy in favour of the interests and ideological preoccupations of narrow political elites. That is the conclusion of a report – Taxpayer Funded Environmentalism (pdf) - published …

    Government 3 Dec 13:39

  • PM survival guide: The Director's Cut

    Project management Our Regcast left some unanswered questions

    There were so many viewer questions for our project management Regcast on 24 November that we couldn't possibly answer them all in 60 minutes. Some of the best questions we could answer, but not in enough depth to do them justice. So we recalled panellists Dave Vile and Bob Walker afterwards and forced them to give us the …

    Project Management 3 Dec 13:41

  • BT tests 1Gbit/s broadband

    Greedily eyes subsidies

    BT hopes to show off the potential of its fibre-to-the-premises technology in the new year, with a trial in Suffolk that will push downstream speeds up to 1Gbit/s. The purely technical exercise in Kesgrave, involving engineers from BT's nearby Martlesham Heath labs, will aim for a downstream speed ten times the 100Mbit/s …

    Telecoms 3 Dec 13:56

  • Anti-virus skulduggery - upgrade licence clock shock slammed

    AV bigs: 'No we never' 'It's a fit-up' etc

    Anti-virus vendors AVG and Symantec have been criticised for sharp practices in selling consumer antivirus upgrades. Every year security vendors bring out new versions of their products with improved engines and better technologies (behaviour blocking, improved speed performance and cloud-based-detection, for example). …

    Security 3 Dec 14:26

  • Diary of a Not-spot: One man's heroic struggle for broadband

    Hostile neighbours and a vast collection of ladders

    Bringing connectivity to rural areas can involve lobbying MPs and signing petitions, but it can also involve knocking on doors, digging up sheep fields and climbing around on the roof in search of bandwidth. Over the last seven years I've tried all the alternatives, from satellite broadband to community networks, not to …

    Networks 3 Dec 14:41

  • American IT hires (some) new workers in November

    Just +39k jobs across US, though: Not enough

    The US economy is still not strong enough to give 15.1 million unemployed workers the jobs they need. This morning, the Department of Labor said that non-farm payrolls rose by only 39,000 workers in November, not even close to the 200,000 jobs per month that are necessary to keep up with population growth and the millions of …

    CIO 3 Dec 14:56

  • Firefox: freedom's just another word for 'kerching!'

    Open...And Shut Mozilla's mission to enrich the web

    Apparently, one can have too much freedom. That's one takeaway from The Wall Street Journal's revelation that Mozilla killed a new Firefox tool, which would have limited advertisers' ability to track users across the web, allegedly under pressure from the advertising industry. Sure, Mozilla is a nonprofit and arguably not …

    Software 3 Dec 15:00

  • Supermarket techie in mega loyalty-point blag

    Siphoned off Nectar into private honeypots

    A London IT worker has been found guilty of fraud offences related to scamming supermarket Sainsbury's out of loyalty points worth £70,000. James Stevenson, 45, of Muswell Hill, was a lead analyst programmer for Sainsbury's and used his position to set up several different accounts to collect the Nectar reward points. …

    Crime 3 Dec 15:14

  • The Reg is not just untrustworthy, but mainstream! Ouch

    Andrew's mailbag Think of the kids I hope you have none of

    A mostly positive reaction to our recent round-up of prospects for the nuclear industry - particularly our what's next in energy science? feature. And that was before the recent cold snap. Here in Australia we have plenty of uranium but no nuclear power. I was a bit puzzled by the unchallenged remark made by your subject on …

    Environment 3 Dec 15:20

  • Brave new Boris-bikers banjaxed by broken boxes

    Casual users denied chance at icy skid suicide

    Admittedly it is -2 degrees with flurries of snow in London today so hiring a Boris Bike is probably the farthest thing from anyone's mind, but the launch of the hire bike scheme for non-registered users today has been hit by another Serco system failure. Teething problems at launch delayed the opening of the system to all but …

    Data Networking 3 Dec 15:39

  • Siberian crooks dev'd custom malware in ATM slurp heist scheme

    Bent bank insiders braceleted in Arctic busts

    Russian cybercrooks contracted a virus writer to develop custom-made malware before launching a plot to loot compromised ATM machines. Although the gang – mostly from Yakutsk, a mid-sized city close to the Artic Circle in Siberia – were ultimately caught, the sophistication, planning and investment that went into their plot …

    Malware 3 Dec 16:01

  • Ellison: Sparc T4 due next year

    Sparc64-VII+ clock and cache bumps now

    As part of the Sparc SuperCluster rollout yesterday, Oracle chief exec officer Larry Ellison let slip that the future Sparc T4 chip was coming out next year. Oracle and Fujitsu also announced a revved up Sparc64-VII+ processor for the Sparc Enterprise M series of midrange and high-end SMP machines, but did not provide any …

    Channel Register 3 Dec 17:18

  • WikiLeaks dubs Amazon 'The Cowardly Liar'

    Assange claims 'free speech deficit' scalp

    WikiLeaks has dubbed Amazon both cowardly and a liar, after the American net giant booted the whistle-blowing website from its hosting service and then said its decision had nothing to do with complaints from the US government. "Amazon's press release does not accord with the facts on public record. It is one thing to be …

    Cloud 3 Dec 19:23

  • Popular sites caught sniffing user browser history

    YouPorn nabbed in real-world privacy sting

    Boffins from Southern California have caught YouPorn.com and 45 other sites pilfering visitors' surfing habits in what is believed to be the first study to measure in-the-wild exploits of a decade-old browser vulnerability. YouPorn, which fancies itself the YouTube of smut, uses JavaScript to detect whether visitors have …

    Security 3 Dec 20:59

  • Researchers bypass Internet Explorer Protected Mode

    Just add exploit

    Researchers say they have devised a way to carry out stealthy drive-by exploits even when victims are using recent versions of Internet Explorer with a feature known as Protected Mode. The attack, described in a paper released by Verizon Business, requires the attacker to have an exploit for a vulnerability that's not …

    Security 3 Dec 21:52

  • Mass mind control artist condemns El Reg to obscurity

    Brainwashed from US by 'big fat idiot'

    Mass mind control artist Rush Limbaugh has convinced millions of brainwashed Americans that The Register is an "obscure UK tech site." In the US, Limbaugh is famous for using the country's highest-rated radio program to control millions of small American minds over more than two decades. He's also famous for being "a big fat …

    Odds and Sods 3 Dec 23:13