16th December 2010 Archive

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UK Man cops to £500,000 iTunes royalty scam

Have songs, will download

A UK man has admitted involvement in crime ring that generated £500,000 in royalties by using stolen credit cards to buy his own songs on iTunes and Amazon, according to published reports. Wolverhampton-based Lamar Johnson, 19, was the youngest member of a group accused of posting the songs and then downloading them using the …

Security 16 Dec 2010, 01:10
Google drops nuke on 'objective' search engine utopia

Mountain View in shock 'opinions drive algorithms' claim

Google's utopian vision of a uniquely democratic and completely objective web search engine is dead. It died about three years ago. While no one was looking, Google killed it. Google now freely admits that its search algorithms are driven by its own "opinion." Earlier this month, when the company rejigged its algorithms in …

Media 16 Dec 2010, 01:25
Sony PlayStation Network vs MS Xbox Live

Head-to-Head Major consoles' online offerings rated

The online functionality of games consoles has come a long way. Unrecognisable from the 14.4Kb/s modem sideshow curios on the SNES and Megadrive, and a quantum leap over Sega's iconoclastic Dreamcast, the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3's online services can alone inform purchasing decisions. So if you're contemplating buying either …

Games 16 Dec 2010, 07:00
Fanboys: updated OS X Lion MacBooks, iMacs in H1 '11

Well, duh

Apple will update its iMac and MacBook Pro lines during the first half of 2011, moles from Taiwan say. Even if the claim is guesswork, it's well educated guesswork, based on the fact that the first half of any given year is usually when Apple updates these model - the current MacBook Pros were introduced in April 2010, for …

Laptops 16 Dec 2010, 09:51
Cisco and NetApp are all loved up

Opinion: Is an OEM deal coming?

The twitterverse is swimming with tweets from NetAppers full of suppressed excitement about a deepening Cisco and NetApp relationship and also about Data ONTAP-v. Could an OEM deal be coming? ONTAP-v is NetApp's array operating system implemented as a virtual machine under ESX. NetApp seems to have a freely available version …

Virtualization 16 Dec 2010, 10:19
A question of performance

Hosted apps In-house does not equal reliable

Software as a service (SaaS) promises a lot but many are still nervous about relying on it for business use. The concerns we hear most centre on security, privacy and operational risk. The first two are the most important and we will be covering these later in our workshop. In the meantime, we will start by considering …

Hosted Apps 16 Dec 2010, 10:31
UK start-up pitches touch-to-sync tech for watches

NFC moves beyond phones?

Hoptroff, a London-based technology developer, today announced a chip for timepieces that, it claimed, "end the era of ‘dumb’ watches". Examples of such functionality include the ability to "store personal time-related data, such as the birthdays of spouses and children, local sunset and sundown times, tidal conditions or …

Hardware 16 Dec 2010, 10:32
Greek police cuff Anonymous spokesman suspect

First 'cyberwar' dismissed as tech hit-and-run vandalism

Greek police have reportedly arrested a web designer whose name appeared in a press release issued by online hacktivists Anonymous last week. The PDF-format press release outlined Anonymous' loose-knit structure and immediate objectives of launching online attacks against organisations that have severed commercial ties with …

Security 16 Dec 2010, 10:38
Hitachi GST delivers storage bounty on a platter

636Gbit/in² record density goodness

Hitachi GST has developed a single-platter 2.5-inch drive holding 500GB, a record density at this form factor in a production disk drive. The Travelstar Z5K500 spins at 5,400rpm, has an 8MB cache and a 7mm z-height. It is designed for use in thin notebooks, notebooks and tablet-type devices, and comes in 250, 320 and 500GB …

Storage 16 Dec 2010, 10:50
LG whips out dual-core Android smartphone

Tegra, Froyo on board

Say hello to LG's latest Android handset: the world's first - the company claims - smartphone with a dual-core CPU. Hence the name, Optimus 2X, which also applies, for now, to the version of Android it'll run: 2.2 Froyo. LG pledged to release a 2.3 Gingerbread update for the device. The handset incorporates Nvidia's 1GHz …

Phones 16 Dec 2010, 11:03
eBay takes the Critical Path

Tat bazaar absorbs contractor

Critical Path Software, the company that developed eBay's iPhone app, has been acquired by the online auction house which has also seen fit to coin the term "moppers" to describe mobile users. eBay has been working with Portland, Oregon-based Critical Path Software for a few years now, on iOS applications designed to make it …

Mobile 16 Dec 2010, 11:10
Boeing wins MoD logistics deal

Ministry wants to keep big bucks bang 'low-key'

The Ministry of Defence has awarded the contract for the Future Logistics Information Services (Flis) project to Boeing Defence UK. Peter Luff, the defence minister, told Parliament on 3 December that the department has signed an 11-year, £800m contract with the company to deliver operationally essential logistics information …

The Channel 16 Dec 2010, 11:12
Patents do not protect small firms, says trade body

High-tech SMEs will find it almost impossible to enforce them, says SMEIA

Patents do not give protection to inventive small businesses because they are impossible to enforce, an organisation claiming to represent small technology companies has said. In an open letter (two-page/486KB PDF) to Government ministers, the group said that small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) are not able to take …

Developer 16 Dec 2010, 11:30
Police probe British Anonymous activists

Scotland Yard on the case

The Metropolitan Police has confirmed it is investigating the activities of Anonymous, the online activism movement recently under the spotlight for its DDoS attacks in support of WikiLeaks. The probe was launched several months ago, apparently following complaints about Anonymous' attacks on the website of ACS:Law, a London …

Law 16 Dec 2010, 11:55
WikiLeaks mirror site rails against malware warning

Redirect site sets up shop in dangerous 'hood

A site that provides a list of Wikileaks mirrors has cried foul over its classification as potentially dangerous to visit. WikiLeaks.info provides links to sites that serve as mirrors for WikiLeaks.org website, a role that has become more important since the original whistleblower website has come under regular denial of …

Security 16 Dec 2010, 12:10
Blighty Yahoo! workers could see jobs go overseas in 2011

But purple palace declines to comment

UK-based Yahoo! workers face a tough 2011, with the company undergoing a consultation process about job cuts in the products wing of the flailing web portal’s business. The Register understands that 77 jobs in the UK are up for the chop as part of the 600 worldwide employee cull Yahoo! announced yesterday. However, Yahoo! has …

Applications 16 Dec 2010, 12:14
Three-quarters of downloads are illegal – BPI

But nearly 75 per cent of online population are law-abiding

Seventy-six per cent of music downloaded this year was downloaded illegally, the BPI reckons in its annual survey of digital trends. The British record industry group estimates there are 8 million people, or 23 per cent of the UK online population, using P2P software. That means around two-thirds to three-quarters of people …

Media 16 Dec 2010, 12:33
MPs shocked at Taser supplier overlap

Committee grills Home Office officials

A parliamentary committee challenged the Home Office's choice of Taser provider to the UK Police, questioning whether the new supplier was a little too closely linked to the previous one. The matter arose during a meeting of the Home Affairs Select Committee, which last week reviewed Home Office policy in respect of Taser …

Law 16 Dec 2010, 12:47
Zeal Optics Transcend GPS goggles

Review The ultimate in cyber ski-wear?

Being more a mountaineer than a skier I tend to the view that snowboarders and their ilk are a pretty self-obsessed bunch. Winter-sports eyewear maker Zeal appears to take a similar view, given its new Transcend goggles have GPS built-in to let snowboarders and skiers show anyone who is interested where they have been and how …

Hardware 16 Dec 2010, 13:00
HipLogic tries to fan mobile spark

Wrapping it up like it's 2005

HipLogic's latest shell replacement, Spark, is trying to bring a consistent experience to Symbian and Android handsets, paid for through sponsored content and harvesting of user's data. Spark is a home screen replacement that provides news feeds, social networking and such like, controlled by HipLogic and sponsored by Sky News …

Mobile 16 Dec 2010, 13:03
New spaceplane proposed for NASA station crew contract

Pocket shuttle offers astronauts backdoor entry

Another candidate to replace NASA's space shuttle in the task of carrying astronauts to and from the International Space Station (ISS) has come forward. Unlike most of the other contenders, it is a winged space plane rather than a capsule. In space, nobody can hear your ship going 'beep beep beep' Orbital Sciences …

Science 16 Dec 2010, 13:07
Hacker warning over internet-connected HDTVs

Something's wrong with one of them, but we won't tell you which or whose

Internet-connected HDTVs could be used by hackers to infiltrate home networks, according to a firm that markets device security software for smartphones, VoIP devices and TVs. Mocana's not-exactly-disinterested warning follows tests by the firm on a range of inter-connected TVs, during which a security flaw was discovered in …

Security 16 Dec 2010, 13:12
Assange to be released

Prosecution appeal fails

A High Court judge has rejected a call to keep Julian Assange in jail while the courts consider Sweden's extradition request. The Wikileaks founder, wanted in Sweden for questioning in relation to alleged sex crimes, was granted bail on Tuesday, but was held in prison pending today's appeal by the Crown Prosecution Service. …

Government 16 Dec 2010, 13:27
AOL buys Pictela's HD content marketing platform

Purchasing things will make everything all right

Ailing internet outfit AOL has flung some cash at advertising technology today, with the acquisition of Pictela. Financial terms of the ad deal, the first of its kind since AOL was divorced from parent company Time Warner, were kept secret. "We’ve taken one important step towards spotlighting quality ad content with Project …

Financial News 16 Dec 2010, 13:30
Social media and security threats

Regcast And how to survive them

It's hard to imagine the time, five years ago, when social media barely existed. But now it has taken over our lives, what are the consequences for how you run a business? Your users are sending more messages on Facebook and fewer on Gmail and Hotmail. The average FarmVille player spends 68 minutes every day in office time …

Tech Panel 16 Dec 2010, 13:32
Ofcom sets out airport fees

No discount for the Scots, but plane owners get reprieve

Airports are going to have to pay more more for their radio frequencies, with some rates jumping by almost 10 times as the cost of a safe landing goes up. The increase in the cost of frequencies was proposed a year ago, and has now been finalised in a proposal that removes the regional differences in price – which were …

Broadband 16 Dec 2010, 13:51
Catfish: A fanfare for Facebook fakery

Film review - contains spoilers This shit just got real. Or did it?

Facebook is brimful of hot girls who are usually neither of those things: scammers, hustlers and freelance scumbags who don lovely online masks to get close to you and take you for all you're worth, or if you're lucky, just make you look really stupid. Not all of the masks hide your standard con-people, however – some of them …

Bootnotes 16 Dec 2010, 13:52
Apple Mac App Store to go live January

Download date detailed

Apple's Mac Store software download shop will go live on 6 January - the first day of the Consumer Electronics Show (CES), no less. Apple has a habit of overshadowing the world's largest consumer electronics show with events of its own. It's not so long since the Las Vegas-hosted event was abuzz with talk of the iPhone, then …

Software 16 Dec 2010, 13:58
MP queries Hargreaves review

How did you choose Boyle and Loosemore?

An MP has tabled a parliamentary question to find out how BIS arrived at its panel of advisors for the Hargreaves Review. Five experts are advising the former FT journalist with his six-month review into "IP and Growth". But two in particular – campaigning professor James Boyle and former web monkey Tom Loosemore – have raised …

Media 16 Dec 2010, 14:01
Rackspace in heavenly marriage with server admin kit

Gives self a Cloudkick

Rackspace has acquired Cloudkick, the San Francisco-based startup that offers a web-based service for monitoring and managing sky-high virtual servers, earthbound physical servers, and – if you're so inclined – turkey smokers. It's a marriage of two cloud obsessives. Rackspace runs a so-called infrastructure cloud similar to …

Cloud 16 Dec 2010, 18:19
Google questions tests that praise IE's bad website blocker

Er, they're testing against Chrome 6

The methodology of tests that found IE is tops for blocking a particular type of malware attack have come under fire from Google. NSS Labs was commissioned by Microsoft to access the ability of browser to block socially engineered malware attack URLs. The exercise focused on the effectiveness of in-built browser technology to …

Security 16 Dec 2010, 18:45
Facebook trains self to recognize your face

Zuckerberg's internet knows what you look like

Facebook is adding face recognition, working to automatically provide tags for the photos you upload to Mark Zuckerberg's own private internet. When you upload pics, Facebook's photo sharing service will seek to identify faces and suggest tags accordingly. It identifies faces using, yes, previously tagged photos. According to …

Media 16 Dec 2010, 19:54
Apple, EMC, and Oracle in Novell patent play

Microsoft's secret frenemies

The holding company that acquired 882 Novell patent last month is a front not only for Microsoft but also Apple, EMC, and Oracle. To get its $2.2bn acquisition of Novell done, Attachmate is selling off $450m in Novell patents to CPTN Holdings. We knew that Microsoft was the company's main backer, and now, the German …

Software 16 Dec 2010, 20:17
Intel and AMD in third quarter stalemate

Un-x64 CPUs gain ground

Intel and AMD maintained pretty much the same market share in the third quarter, according to chip market watcher iSuppli. By iSuppli's reckoning, Intel squeaked out an extra tenth of a point of market share in the third quarter, garnering 80.1 per cent of global microprocessor revenues, while AMD lost seven-tenths of a per …

Hardware 16 Dec 2010, 22:21