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17th December 2010 Archive

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  • Oracle defies HP and IBM with 47% revenue leap

    Hardware pulls own weight

    If you were thinking that that acquisition of Sun Microsystems was going to drag Oracle down financially, you were wrong. That means you, Hewlett-Packard. And especially you, IBM . In the quarter ended November 30, Oracle's overall revenues were up 47 per cent, to $8.58bn, and not just because of the addition of Sun's hardware …

    Servers 17 Dec 2010, 00:25

  • 2010: The year open source went invisible

    Open...and Shut The price of progress

    The big open source news in 2010 is that open source became essentially invisible. It's not that the media stopped reporting on open source. Far from it. Up until 2010, coverage of open source had remained roughly static, as evidenced by Google News result for "open source" in 2007, 2008, and 2009. In 2010 that number roughly …

    Software 17 Dec 2010, 00:57

  • The year's best... TV media players

    2010: it's a wrap What's top for set-tops?

    Networkable media players aren’t new, but in 2010 the addition of BBC iPlayer and similar services to set-top boxes and TVs made more consumers aware of the possibilities of online entertainment pumped straight into the living room, while Windows 7 made it simpler to stream content from your PC’s hard drive. For those who …

    Hardware 17 Dec 2010, 07:00

  • Google Maps for Droid phones becomes a LOT better

    iPhone, Ovi bitchslapped by 3D joy-joy

    The Android version of Google Maps for Mobile has added some new features in a major revision – with 3D panning, a proper compass and off-line caching, to name just three. The new version of Maps uses vector-based files, which Google reckons requires about a third of the data, and that data doesn't load in tiles any more …

    Applications 17 Dec 2010, 10:03

  • Analyst squares up against Gartner's magic quadrant

    'Whistleblowers' sought amidst defamation suit

    Ferris Research, an analyst firm focused on messaging, compliance and collaboration, is asking IT vendors to let the firm know if Gartner has ever improved any of their magic quadrant positions in return for cash. Gartner is currently battling a defamation and trade libel claim from an IT company which has not been ranked as …

    Business 17 Dec 2010, 10:25

  • BOFH: Who's been naughty and who's been nice?

    Episode 19 Bastard and PFY's bulging sack of treats

    'Twas the night before Christmas, when all through the workplace, Not a creature was stirring, not even a cobbled-together robot, fashioned from the remaining pieces of several other cobbled-together robots. Dressed in an elf suit. Two stockings are hung by the Boss' door with care, In the hopes that a bonus cheque soon …

    BOFH 17 Dec 2010, 10:45

  • Compellent straps on chastity belt for Dell

    Other bidders to stub appendages on iron knickers

    Compellent and Dell have cooked up a poison pill shareholder rights deal to discourage any other bidders from coming forward and paying more than Dell. Dell really does not want to get burned again after the 3PAR bid battle it lost to HP. This is how the poison will take effect: All Compellent stockholders of record as of 27 …

    Financial News 17 Dec 2010, 10:55

  • Delicious, Yahoo! Buzz, MyBlogLog, AltaVista all face axe

    Leaky! Yahoo! lightens! ship!

    Yahoo! is reportedly in the process of retiring eight products, following the company's announcement earlier this week that it planned to axe 600 jobs worldwide. Products on the hit list include Delicious, Yahoo! Buzz, MyBlogLog and AltaVista. However, so far the struggling web portal has only officially confirmed that Yahoo …

    Media 17 Dec 2010, 11:18

  • Is cloud data secure?

    Hosted apps Because your datacentre probably isn't

    Would your data be more secure in the hands of Google or left where it is? Your answer to that depends on where you store business information at the moment and, of course, whether you feel Google can be trusted. We’re picking on Google here because it is the “cloud” player that, rightly or wrongly, receives the most criticism …

    Hosted Apps 17 Dec 2010, 11:22

  • Prosecutors kick Phorm case upstairs

    More delays in ISP wiretapping probe

    Prosecutors have further delayed a decision on whether anyone will be prosecuted over BT's secret trials of Phorm's web monitoring system. The case is now under consideration "at a senior level", the Crown Prosecution Service said in a letter to Alex Hanff, the privacy campaigner who complained after police refused to …

    Broadband 17 Dec 2010, 11:23

  • Romanian police cuff 40+ over €millions telecom blag

    Hacked corporate blowers in premium rate phreak caper

    Romanian police are claiming success in breaking up a cybercrime ring blamed for losses of more than €11m ($14.6 million) through telecoms call charge fraud. Raids on Tuesday led to the arrest of 42 suspected members of the gang, reckoned to be led by two Romanians, according to Romanian prosecutors. The group specialised in …

    Security 17 Dec 2010, 11:24

  • New Year please, this one's broken

    Regcast: 14:00 Watch our bonus best of the Reg

    It's time to say goodbye to 2010, because - let's face it - it was rubbish. It's also time to look ahead to 2011. Will you keep your job? Will you even keep hold of your data? These questions and many more will be answered at 2pm on 17 December by David King, CTO at Logica, David Roberts, executive director of the Corporate IT …

    Site News 17 Dec 2010, 11:26

  • iPad media apps: Stealthed hobbits thwart Google's flaming Eye

    Opinion Sauronplex pillage to finally end?

    Tablet media applications have a Google invisibility cloak around their stories. As this spreads a deadly revenue-denying dart could penetrate Google's media business model. 'There is no hope in the void' The worldwide web is wide open, and Google takes full advantage of that, indexing everything it can find and providing …

    Applications 17 Dec 2010, 11:55

  • NetApp to take DataFort out back and give it mercy bullet

    The future is wrapped in Brocade

    NetApp is end-of-life-ing its DataFort security appliance product line, with a planned migration path to Brocade products. Word has come to El Reg that some DataFort customers are receiving end-of-life statements with February 2011 as the termination month. NetApp CTO Jay Kidd said back in September 2008 that: "NetApp will …

    Storage 17 Dec 2010, 12:27

  • Struggling MySpace inks new Google deal

    Chocolate Factory loving for Rupert

    MySpace has finally inked a multi-year search and advertising deal with Google. Financial terms of the agreement between the Mountain View Chocolate Factory and Rupert Murdoch's News Corp, which owns MySpace, were not revealed. MySpace secured a handsome $900m search and keyword services deal with Google in 2006, but it …

    Financial News 17 Dec 2010, 12:37

  • Scientologist overlord declares victory over Anonymous

    Fruitcake cultist dubs hacktivistas 'cartoon characters'

    Scientology head David Miscavige has declared victory over Anonymous in an internal church magazine. Miscavige described Anonymous as a group of "mask-wearing subversive and anarchistic internet denizens". He continues: "Having run into the Church of Scientology, they are no longer laughing out loud or otherwise. Nor are they …

    Security 17 Dec 2010, 12:54

  • Brussels pushes harder in Google probe

    Eurocrats snap on rubber gloves

    Google's regulatory worries are deepening today, with the news that the European Commission has agreed to broaden its inquiries into the dominant search engine's alleged anti-competitive practices. Officials announced they will investigate more claims that Google has rigged its algorithms against rivals. The new complaints …

    Government 17 Dec 2010, 13:19

  • Amazon randomly censoring incest books

    Erratic policy on specialist smut

    Confusion over the censorship policy at Amazon continues to mount, with news this week that the company now appears to be removing incest-themed material from its Kindle. Evidence that not all was well in the world of Amazon first surfaced in a discussion thread on Amazon’s own Kindle Community forum. Author Jess C Scott asked …

    Media 17 Dec 2010, 14:00

  • MPs set out on quest to find UK.gov's IT strategy

    Also plan to go unicorn spotting

    The government's technology strategy is being scrutinised by the Common's Public Administration Select Committee (PASC). The committee said it would look at how the government develops and implements its IT policy. "The inquiry will examine the government’s overall strategy for information technology, including how it …

    Government 17 Dec 2010, 14:41

  • Euro cops mull crowd-sourced cybercrime data

    Brussels fuzz say hacks slip through cracks at present

    Crowd-sourcing cybercrime reports could help the fight against online crime, according to a senior European Union official. Rob Wainwright, director of Europol, told a House of Lords sub-committee that plans for a European centre to fight cybercrime would include a facility for members of the public to report security attacks …

    Law 17 Dec 2010, 15:19

  • Ofcom proposes UK phone numbers prefix re-org

    We have simplificated it, says gov

    Ofcom has proposed simplifying non-geographic codes, making calls to 0800 numbers free from mobiles and finally bringing an end to the insanity of 0845 number usage. The proposals are complicated and present several options over their 482 pages, but the idea is to have all numbers that begin with 01, 02 or 03 to be defined by …

    Broadband 17 Dec 2010, 15:42

  • IBM in dash for multi-level flash

    STEC cops lolly in season t'be jolly

    STEC's 2-bit ZeusIOPS MLC (multi-level cell) flash will be supplied for the high-end DS8800, DS8700 Turbo, and Storwize V7000 storage, but not for IBM's DS5000 arrays. Maybe this s a "not yet" rather than a "not ever", as the DS5000 range does support SSD (solid state drive) use. STEC says that IBM chose it partly because of …

    Storage 17 Dec 2010, 16:23

  • Nokia sues Apple in European courts

    13-patent broadside opens new front

    Nokia has filed for patent infringement against Apple in the UK, Germany and the Netherlands, claiming ownership of more smartphone fundamentals. The UK filing, for example, covers four patents, including ways of using touch interfaces and on-device application stores. In Germany Nokia is filing twice, in Dusseldorf and …

    Mobile 17 Dec 2010, 16:39

  • Lara Croft and the Guardian of Light

    Review The Tomb Raider comes to the iPad

    Lara Croft and the Guardian of Light was released on Xbox Live and the PS3 back in the summer, and now it's been faithfully recreated for the iPad. Lara Croft and The Guardian of Light: fire in the hall Reg Hardware reviewed the console version back in August, and since this is the same game, I won't go into too much detail …

    Games 17 Dec 2010, 16:43

  • Sharp gets $1.2bn from Apple for iPhone display plant

    Paper says it's joining Toshiba in iWindfall

    First Toshiba, now Sharp is a Japanese display maker said by local reports to be partnering with Apple on a enormo-factory to punch out iPhone screens. Once again, Japan's Nikkei makes the claim, stating that Apple will be coughing up ¥100bn (£768m/$1.2bn) to support Sharp in its construction endeavours. Apple will also buy …

    Phones 17 Dec 2010, 16:54

  • Orange to ship 0.5m touch-pay phones next year

    Rub the lump in my pocket and get rich, baby

    Orange reckons that half the smartphones it sells in 2011 will have NFC built in, planning to ship half a million NFC-equipped handsets in the next 12 months. Not in the UK of course, Everything Everywhere has its own NFC plans, but in France Orange still start selling an NFC-equipped dumb phone in January and promises to …

    Mobile 17 Dec 2010, 17:01

  • Assange: Text messages show rape allegations were 'set up'

    Spirited defense of WikiLeaks

    WikiLeaks boss Julian Assange said on Friday that text messages in the possession of the Swedish government prove that rape allegations against him are a set up. “There are intercepted SMS messages between the women and each other and their friends that I'm told represents a set up,” Assange, who spoke from Suffolk, UK, said on …

    Government 17 Dec 2010, 20:23

  • Facebook: Why our 'next-gen' comms ditched MySQL

    Cassandra founder plays Ace of HBase

    About a year ago, when Facebook set out to build its email-meets-chat-meets-everything-else messaging system, the company knew its infrastructure couldn't run the thing. "[The Facebook infrastructure] wasn't really ready to handle a bunch of different forms of messaging and have it happen in real time," says Joel Seligstein, a …

    Software 17 Dec 2010, 21:13

  • Google beefs up search result malware warning

    'This site may be compromised'

    Google has expanded a program designed to prevent search engine users from visiting websites that could scam them or install malware on their computers. The feature includes the words “This site may be compromised” to search results that contain sites that Google's automated tools indicate may be under the influence of third- …

    Security 17 Dec 2010, 21:45

  • SGI forges overclocked servers for Wall Street

    Money and CPUs to burn

    Silicon Graphics has a need for speed. Or, more precisely, some of its customers do, and those customers also have money to burn. Supercomputer maker Appro International launched its HF1 overclocked server for hedge funds and other financial firms back in October, and now SGI is jumping into the game with a special Rackable …

    Servers 17 Dec 2010, 21:49

  • Killer shark slain by flying Serbian drunk

    Beer fueled freak fish murder wins free holiday

    Update: Though this report appeared on the MINA site, it now appears to be a fake. A Serbian man has rescued the Egyptian tourist season by getting himself so drunk he jumped off a high dive and inadvertently killed a shark. Before it was murdered by the flying Serbian drunk, the shark had injured four tourists and killed …

    Bootnotes 17 Dec 2010, 23:33