5th January 2011 Archive

Browse by publication date, or search the site.

Cell phone search needs no warrant, say Cal Supremes

Plods can slurp your mobe like they rifle your cigs

California's high court said police don't need a warrant to read text messages stored on the cell phones of people taken into custody. Monday's 5-2 decision (PDF) relied on separate decisions from the 1970s by the US Supreme Court that upheld warrantless searches of cigarette packs and clothing taken from suspects after they …

Law 5 Jan 2011, 00:04
Apache server thumps Microsoft and Google

Growing with the web

Apache's HTTP server gained a fresh lease of life in 2010, widening the gap on rivals and consolidating its position as the web's most popular web server. Crunching data from Netcraft, web monitoring service Royal Pingdom says that the number of websites using Apache surged 37 per cent between December 2009 and December 2010, …

The Channel 5 Jan 2011, 01:31
Beastly Android will batter Apple's iOS beauty

Open...and Shut Complexity: the price of freedom

Apple can still claim top spot in terms of US market share, according to recent data from Nielsen, but its lead is rapidly vanishing in Android's wake. This means that developers increasingly are going to need to choose the platform they should develop for first, and the answer seems increasingly to be Google's open web. If …

Developer 5 Jan 2011, 05:00
Samsung SH-B123 internal 12x BD-Rom drive

Review Speed reader?

Some feel that optical media is dying in favour of digital distribution, however, in this world of high definition content there are still those who'd rather not abandon shiny plastic discs and hence, we have Blu-ray. This is not to say that Blu-Ray is not an important development in digital optical media technology, a 50GB dual …

Hardware 5 Jan 2011, 07:00
Wot? No glasses! Tosh goes 3D crazy

CES 2011 Spectacles-free spectacles

Toshiba talked up glasses-free 3D viewing for its first day splash at CES. The Japanese company will start selling big 3D TVs - 40in and above- which don't require glasses in in April, it said in a Bloomberg briefing. Tosh already sells 12in and 20in glasses-free 3D TVs in its home country. The company is also prepping …

Hardware 5 Jan 2011, 09:11
Pay rises that are really pay cuts for 2011

Cost of living rising faster than salaries

Pay rises in 2011 are likely to be better than last year – assuming the recovery continues – but your pay is likely to increase less than the cost of living. Helped by yesterday's 2.5 per cent increase in VAT, the rise in the cost of living is likely to outpace salary growth for the second year running. Figures from Incomes …

Small Biz 5 Jan 2011, 09:13
Called 999 recently? They've got your number

Reporters of crimes have info retained

Millions of people who reported crimes have had their details stored on police databases. The revelation has emerged from information provided in response to a freedom of information request from the Press Association. It shows that police forces in England and Wales have kept data about people who call 999 or non-emergency …

Government 5 Jan 2011, 09:33
Snowstorms knacker Acer sales

Storms in the Channel hammer the channel

Acer shares fell sharply overnight after the Taiwanese giant warned markets that snowstorms in Europe meant it would miss sales targets for the final quarter. The hardware maker was predicting revenue growth of between five and 10 per cent, but said poor weather across much of Europe had hit sales. The company did detail how …

The Channel 5 Jan 2011, 10:02
MOSSAD SPY VULTURE seized in Saudi Arabia

Online outcry against carrion-gobbling 'Zionist plot'

A cunning Israeli plan to use Mossad-operated spy vultures to glean valuable intelligence on Arab nations went seriously awry when one of the feathered spooks was arrested in rural Saudi Arabia. According to Israel's Ha'aretz, government operatives' attempts to disguise the bird as a participant in a vulture migratory study - …

Bootnotes 5 Jan 2011, 10:11
Storage pros: Big or small, you still have to hit the sweet spot

You the expert How does size matter in a hard drive?

We talked to four Reg-reading storage gurus on where and when to use 3.5-inch hard disk drives and when to use 2.5-inch ones. They each admit a role for the smaller form factor drives – with one view being that they could take over completely as their capacities increase. But not one of our quartet thinks that 2.5-inch drive use …

Storage 5 Jan 2011, 10:26
Google readies 2011 pay-by-wave for Nexus S wallet chip

Just brandish your blower to buy, for realz this time

Google is planning to launch an NFC-based pay-by-wave system, quite possibly this year, according to anonymous sources who talked to Bloomberg about the chocolate-factory's plans. Not that the sources revealed much in the way of detail, only that Google is developing support for payments to be made in physical stores with a …

Mobile 5 Jan 2011, 11:02
Courtney Love in court over 'Boudoir Queen' Twitter bitchfight

Bony singer v modiste in tweet slap dress-bill smackdown

Courtney Love's Twitter broadsides against a fashion designer have earned her a date in a Los Angeles court, Reuters reports. The target of the Hole singer's wrath was Dawn Simorangkir, aka the "Boudoir Queen", who had the temerity to "demand payment for a few thousand dollars worth of clothes". Love was evidently unimpressed …

Bootnotes 5 Jan 2011, 11:43
US gov funds censorship-busting tech alternatives to Wikileaks

How about some Chinese or Iranian secrets for a change?

The US State Department, still reeling from its own battle with the online activists of Wikileaks, is nevertheless offering cash grants for technology to circumvent internet censorship by the Chinese and Iranian governments. The call for applications follows a high-profile speech by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton a year …

Government 5 Jan 2011, 11:58
HTC Desire HD

Review Big-screen Android smartphone

Few would argue that the HTC Desire - aka Google Nexus One - is a very fine smartphone but that hasn't stopped HTC cooking up a new version which looks like it's been at the steroids. HTC's Desire HD: beefy Actually it's not the pills that HTC has raided but the parts bin, the HD being essentially an updated and improved …

Phones 5 Jan 2011, 12:00
'Operation eMule' feds bust duo with 500+ eBay, PayPal accounts

Handled $1m+ in tat-bazaar loot churn cyber-cash blag

Federal investigators on the trail of a multi-million dollar identity theft ring have raided the homes of two Vietnamese exchange students in Minnesota. The duo are suspected of selling discounted goods such as video games and Apple gift cards, which were purchased using counterfeit credit cards, through online marketplaces …

Security 5 Jan 2011, 12:14
Amazon Kindles love for Windows and Android

We love your tablets

Amazon has announced its 'Buy Once, Read Anywhere' Kindle app will soon be available on Android and Windows based tablets. The app, which allows customers to read Kindle books on alternate devices, has already become one of the top ten free apps for iPad. This year will see Amazon increase compatibility and the 'Buy Once, …

Tablets 5 Jan 2011, 12:16
Kodak intros waterproof camera

And something rather small

Three Kodak cameras made their debut at CES, and they include the company's first waterproof model and something rather small. They all include the company's exclusive 'share button'. This which makes it easier for users to post pics to Facecrack, FlickR, Youtube and a bunch of other social network sites. Twitter, Yandex and …

Hardware 5 Jan 2011, 12:17
Microsoft's 2009 Uniloc patent victory overturned on appeal

Original $388m award 'tainted', new trial called for

Microsoft did infringe a Uniloc patent designed to stop software piracy, a US appeals court ruled yesterday. However, the US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit found that Redmond's infringement was not wilful. It called for a new trial on damages and said the the original award of $388m dished out by a Providence, Rhode …

Business 5 Jan 2011, 12:29
Doctor Who to marry Doctor Who's daughter

Child of two Doctors to marry one, be given away by the other

Doctor Who the 10th, David Tennant, is planning to get hitched to his fictional daughter Georgia Moffett, who also happens to be the real daughter of his fictional fifth incarnation. Moffet is the real-life fruit of former Time Lord Peter Davison's loins, and played Who offspring Jenny in 2008's The Doctor's Daughter. Davison …

Bootnotes 5 Jan 2011, 12:51
Wireless HD video sticks demoed

CES 2011 Room-to-room uncompressed HDMI - do you want it?

Amimon has been showing off its HDMI stick, which converts any HDMI source into a WHDI transmitter – and now has kit to connect to – but even that isn't generating much public interested in wireless video. The stick will be demonstrated talking to an HD projector, sending uncompressed HD video up to 100m – 3D video is also a …

Hardware 5 Jan 2011, 13:13
Brick house Xiotech grows new NAS head

Jerks wheel, swerves wildly off previous road

Storage brick supplier Xiotech has quietly changed strategy and built its own file and block access controller for its ISE storage blades. The company introduced its ISE (Integrated Storage Element) sealed canister of 2.5-inch drives a couple of years ago, and promoted a message that traditional storage array controllers put …

Storage 5 Jan 2011, 13:16
B&W refloats Zeppelin premium speaker

CES 2011 Revamped with AirPlay

Bowers and Wilkins is to add Apple's AirPlay media streaming tech to its iconic Zeppelin iPod speaker. Revamped as the Zeppelin Air, the new dock is due to go on sale in March and then you'll not only be able to attach your iPod or iPhone directly to it, but also stream music wirelessly from any of these iDevices, and from …

Hardware 5 Jan 2011, 13:44
Asus slips out keyboard equipped Android tablet

CES 2011 Bridge to laptop land?

Asus has outed its Android tablets at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES), including one that cannily solves the problem of typing quickly on a touchscreen: it has a drop-down physical Qwerty deck. That's the Eee Pad Slider, and it's joined by the Eee Pad Transformer and MeMO. Transformer and Slider both sport 10.1in, …

Tablets 5 Jan 2011, 14:11
Video games go off quicker than tomatoes

Apples cheaper than oranges

We are grateful to Which? for working out that video games lose value faster than cars. The organisation bought a copy of COD: Black Ops from a retail outlet for £44.99 - and then tried to sell it three days after its release to seven high street retailers. The buyback offers ranged from £16.70 to £33, with the worst …

Games 5 Jan 2011, 14:15
Dubai assassins used email trojan to track Hamas victim

Mossad kill squad tried poison before hotel lock-hack

The successful operation to kill a Hamas commander in Dubai in January 2010 followed a botched attempt by the same Israeli hit squad to kill the same target two months previously, according to reports. Assassins tried to poison Mahmud al-Mabhouh in Dubai in November 2009, but even though the unknown poison was administered it …

Security 5 Jan 2011, 14:28
Qualcomm gobbles Atheros, arms self for coming tablet wars

Wireless boom set to keep on booming

Wireless telecommunications chip giant Qualcomm is spending $3.1bn to buy partner Atheros Communications, betting big on the future of Wi-Fi wireless communications. Qualcomm is one of the darlings of the dot-com boom that kept right on booming as people all over the world cut their phone lines and moved to wireless phones. …

Hardware 5 Jan 2011, 15:19
Lenovo slims down for All-in-One PC

CES 2011 Frameless option

All-in-one PCs are supposedly what every consumer wants - most manufacturers say so, including Lenovo, which has revealed four new IdeaCentre and all-in-one desktops at CES this week. The IdeaCentre A320 is apparently the industry's slimmest all-in-one design and measures just 18.5mm deep at its thinnest point. The A320 has a …

Hardware 5 Jan 2011, 15:30
Amazon preps upmarket US Android app emporium

Cream-off shop intended to suck in passers by

Amazon is inviting Android developers to upload their applications for listing in a better class of app store, at a price set by Amazon and only available within the USA. The application store will launch later this year, but developers who sign up now get a free year before they have to start stumping up the $99 annual fee. …

Applications 5 Jan 2011, 16:25
WD embiggens Scorpio Black notebook drive

Take that, Seagate, you big brute

Western Digital has increased its fast notebook drive's capacity by half to reach 750GB, the same as Seagate's fast notebook drive. WD's Scorpio Black 2.5-inch drive spins at 7,200rpm and has a 16MB cache and 3Gbit/s SATA interface. It is now also an Advanced Format Drive. Seagate's equivalent Momentus 7200 had its 750 gig …

Storage 5 Jan 2011, 16:45
Why did my server just die?

The importance of update testing

A recent update to the Point-Of-Sales (POS) software my organization uses also had the potential for some very serious disruption. The software in question is fairly decent stuff as far as POS software goes. It does the job and the features cover most of what we might want it to do. This software however has traditionally had …

Servers 5 Jan 2011, 17:00
Fujitsu aims Sparc64 supers beyond Japan

Special K, meet Monsieur Fusion

Japanese supercomputer maker Fujitsu is looking to export massively parallel RISC supers based on the 10 petaflops Project K machine it's building for the Japanese government. According to a report in the Yomiuri Shimbun, Fujitsu is gearing up to export supercomputers based on the K machine this year. The obvious place for …

HPC 5 Jan 2011, 17:22
Black day for LG's Android range

CES 2011 World's thinnest 4in touchscreen phone, apparently

At the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas today, LG announced the Optimus Black, its latest Android smartphone. At only 9.2mm thick tapering to 6mm and sporting a 4in touchscreen, the company claims it’s the world’s thinnest smartphone with a display of this size. LG's Optimus Black Rated at 700nits, the Optimus …

Phones 5 Jan 2011, 18:46
Microsoft 'maintenance' blocks Hotmail

Some paying customers affected

A growing number of Hotmail users are unable to access their email accounts. Complaints from Hotmailers have been piling up in Microsoft's Windows Live support portal since at least January 3. It's not just the cheapo, freebie version used by millions of Hotmail fans that's in trouble. Those forking out $19.95 a year for …

Applications 5 Jan 2011, 19:39
Google money chief vows, uh, return to China

World ~~information~~ advertising mission

Google says it wants to re-renter China, less than a year after famously told the world it would leave the country over an attack on the company's infrastructure by Chinese hackers. Patrick Pichette, the company's chief financial officer, tells The Times that the decision to depart China is a mere "road block" on its mission …

Media 5 Jan 2011, 19:42
LG makes a dash for TV apps

CES 2011 Smart TV makes its debut

At the Consumer Electronics Show (CES), LG announced a range of features for its Smart TV platform, enabling more content and introducing apps to its Internet TV functionality. LG's Smart TV Home Dashboard At the heart of Smart TV is the Home Dashboard user interface. Deliberately fuss-free, the Home Dashboard provides an …

Hardware 5 Jan 2011, 19:52
Intel touts 'Sandy Bridge' video chops

CES 2011 'Eye candy' men

Intel unveiled its new line of processors this morning at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. The focus of the presentation wasn't raw performance or "power per watt", as was true in other processor intros. The focus was "eye candy". "The built-in visual capabilities enabled by these new processors are stunning," said …

Laptops 5 Jan 2011, 20:23
LG white goods get net savvy

CES 2011 Mobile home?

While many have yet to even get their TVs hooked to the Internet, at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES), LG was making encouraging noises about connected appliances that know more about your domestic needs than you do. Home Choice The company unveiled a range of home appliances – fridges, cookers, washing machines and …

Hardware 5 Jan 2011, 21:02
Body of murdered cyberwar expert found in landfill

Military man dumped into three-ring whodunit

The body of a decorated US Army officer was found dumped in a Delaware landfill on New Years Eve day, a few days after he expressed concern that the nation wasn't adequately prepared for cyber warfare, according to news reports following the bizarre whodunit. Events surrounding the murder of John P. Wheeler III, who most …

Security 5 Jan 2011, 21:09
Apple patents 'net-booted' OS contraption

Mac in the sky dream

Apple has patented a network computing setup that involves a "net-booted" operating system. First filed in 2006, the patent describes a means of "supplying a reliable and maintainable operating system in a net-booted environment". Apple is building a $1 billion – yes, $1 billion – data center in rural North Carolina, and no …

Hardware 5 Jan 2011, 21:29
Netgear integrates HomePlug and Wi-Fi

CES 2011 Pitches 500Mb/s powerline too

Netgear is to merge wireless and wired powerline networking, pitching at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) a "hybrid" 802.11n Wi-Fi router with an AC adaptor that doubles up as a HomePlug AV adaptor. It also launched what it claims is the first ever 500Mb/s powerline adaptor. First, the hybrid box, the N3200 - model number …

Hardware 5 Jan 2011, 21:49
Samsung launches 'world's first' Android MP3 player

CES 2011 iPod Touch-alike from another Galaxy

Samsung has announced the launch of its latest PMP - apparently the world's first Android powered MP3 player, according to the company, which appears to have missed Archos' Google OS offerings. The Samsung Galaxy Player 50 has a 3.2in touchscreen, 2Mp camera and comes with either 8GB or 16GB of storage, expandable using Micro …

Hardware 5 Jan 2011, 21:53
Microsoft embraces ARM with Windows 8

CES 2011 Breaks Wintel fidelity

Microsoft's next version of Windows will run on ARM systems using system-on-a-chip (SoC) architectures from NVIDIA, Qualcomm, and Texas Instruments. Microsoft announced its platform diversification for Windows 8 during the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas, Nevada on Wednesday. Windows 8 is expected sometime in 2012 …

The Channel 5 Jan 2011, 22:29
Samsung shows off tablet-cum-netbook convertible

CES 2011 Can't choose which form-factor you fancy? Have both

Can't decide whether you want a small notebook or a tablet? Samsung's latest lets you have both. The rather sexy TX100, unveiled at the Consumer Electronics Shows (CES) today is a 10.1in, 1366 x 768 LCD tablet with a built in physical keyboard too. The 80-key deck slides down and forward, turning touchscreen tablet into a …

Laptops 5 Jan 2011, 22:33
Samsung to bring wireless printing to Android, iOS

CES 2011 Scanning too, if you have the hardware

Samsung is readying Android and iOS apps that allow smartphone and tablet owners to print directly to the company's wireless printers. It's a two-way process: wireless multi-function machines can scan documents and pics back to phones and tablets over the same connection. The apps, both called MobilePrint, give you control …

Phones 5 Jan 2011, 22:45
Google suit halts Microsoft fed contract

Court order bars Redmond 'lock-in'

Google has successfully prevented the US Department of the Interior from awarding a $49.3 million email contract to Microsoft. At least temporarily. Late last year, Google sued the Department of the Interior (DOI), claiming it didn't give Google a fair chance to win a contract to provide email and collaboration services for …

The Channel 5 Jan 2011, 22:53
Nvidia forges ARM chip for PCs and servers

CES 2011 Rumors true – except for the x64 bit

The ARM race for the data center just got a whole lot more interesting. At the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, Nvidia announced that it is indeed working on a CPU and that the chip is based on the ARM RISC architecture that's wickedly popular in smartphones and tablets. In other words, it's not a low-powered x64 chip. …

The Channel 5 Jan 2011, 23:02
Kingston readies 'fastest' USB 3.0 Flash drive yet

CES 2011 HyperX now for more than memory

Memory and storage specialist Kingston is it extend its HyperX high-end memry brand into SSDs, USB drives and memory cards, part of a plan to expand its portfolio of USB 3.0 products. Kingston's SuperSpeed roadmap, announced at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES), today, will see the company introduce a line of entry level USB …

Hardware 5 Jan 2011, 23:11
Nvidia to take on Intel with PC-centric ARM chip

CES 2011 AMD all over again?

Move over, Intel, here comes Nvidia. Not with an x86 CPU - though rumours to that effect have been rippling through the chip biz for years - but an ARM-based offering aimed at PCs, workstations and even servers. Yes, the as-yet-unnamed processor - it's codenamed 'Project Denver' - will not be pitched at mobile devices, the …

Hardware 5 Jan 2011, 23:17
Iomega intros auto-backup dock for iGadgets

CES 2011 But what about the data it doesn't protect?

Iomega's notion of an iPhone dock that automatically backs up your data when you charge up your iDevice is sound - plenty of folk don't actually sync their phones very often, if at all - but the company's newly announced SuperHero seems a tad half-arsed. SuperHero is a dock that contains an SD slot and comes with a 4GB card …

Phones 5 Jan 2011, 23:40