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13th January 2011 Archive

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  • Microsoft sucks open source into its WebMatrix

    Newbie programmers wanted

    Microsoft is embracing open-source on the web, offering a development kit that targets non-techie programmers. The company has released WebMatrix, a set for tools and templates for use with open-source PHP apps like WordPress, Joomla!, DotNetNuke, and Umbraco in addition to open-sourced .NET code. Nearly 40 open-source …

    Developer 13 Jan 01:07

  • Embotics delays Microsoft Hyper-V support

    'More VMwareness!' customers cry

    The customer is always right. At least until they go off maintenance. That's why Embotics – a maker of a virtual machine provisioning, capacity, and lifecycle management tool called V-Commander – has delayed support for Microsoft's Hyper-V hypervisor until later this year. V-Commander integrates with VMware's vCenter Server …

    Virtualization 13 Jan 01:13

  • Microsoft to hire 4,000 in UK

    Apprenticeships and more

    Microsoft has pledged to create 4,000 new jobs in the UK, with the bulk of them to be reached through apprenticeships. "In 2011, Microsoft expects its Britain Works programme to generate 4,000 new jobs, in addition to the 9,000 new jobs created since launch in 2009," said Microsoft UK's managing director Gordon Frazer in a …

    Channel Register 13 Jan 05:00

  • Adobe (finally) makes it easier to delete Flash cookies

    Privacy menace made manageable

    Adobe has finally fixed a privacy weakness that threatened users of its ubiquitous Flash Player: the software's storing of cookie-like files that many websites used to track visitors' behavior against their wishes. So-called LSOs, or local shared objects, are useful for storing user preferences, such as the preferred sound …

    Security 13 Jan 05:00

  • Altec Lansing Octiv 450 iPad speaker

    Review Does the twist

    After a slow start, quite a few iPad speaker-docks in the shops these days, one of the most recent arrivals being the Octiv 450 from Altec Lansing – well known for its inMotion range of portable iPod speakers. The Octiv isn’t portable, but its compact design is neat and practical, and it produces a surprisingly robust sound. …

    reghardware 13 Jan 07:00

  • PC market limps into 2011

    Tablets, misery and snow

    The worldwide market for PCs grew just 2.7 per cent in the fourth quarter of 2010 despite generous pricing and Christmas promotions. Figures from IDC put total shipments at 92.1m – making it the largest ever quarter. But analysts warned that softening consumer demand, the fading of interest in mini notebooks and competition …

    Channel Register 13 Jan 09:35

  • UK.gov descales public data with new corp launch

    But murky waters remain...

    The UK government may have abolished a shedload of quangos in recent months, but the Cabinet Office has arguably just created a shiny, new one – step forward the Public Data Corporation. Data and government bodies will be squished into one organisation to make yet-to-be-revealed datasets available to the public, Cabinet Office …

    Government 13 Jan 09:37

  • Apple posts dev-only iOS 4.3

    Features leak immediately

    Apple posted a pre-release version of iOS 4.3 last night. Almost immediately, juicy snippets from the developer-only download have leaked out. Firstly, and perhaps least surprisingly, the software contains coded references to the iPad 2 and the iPhone 5. Apple has so far refreshed its smartphone every year in June, and it …

    reghardware 13 Jan 10:40

  • Cable vendor slapped for unproven claims

    Thousand pound kettle cable won't sound better

    The Advertising Standards Authority has slapped hi-kit supplier Russ Andrews for claiming its super-duper mains cables could reduce radio interference on the power line. According to the the company, its PowerKords reduce noise in the mains supply because they are wrapped up in woven conductors, enabling the company to charge …

    Wireless 13 Jan 10:54

  • Android passes iPhone in mobile ad race

    3,130 per cent climb in 2010

    Android is firmly crushing Apple's iOS in the smartphone ad wars, according to a report released Thursday by mobile advertising firm Millennial Media. The report, based on what Millennial Media identifies as "carrier, device and campaign data collected over billions of monthly ad requests," says that Android devices accounted …

    Mobile 13 Jan 11:00

  • Motion Computing outs Windows slate

    'Oak Trail' inside

    Some say Intel's 'Oak Trail' platform - foundation for an upcoming Atom-based system-on-a-chip - isn't proving too popular with tablet makers, but Motion Computing, for one, will be using it. Its Motion CL900 slate will run Windows 7 on the Intel SoC. The chip giant announced Oak Trail in 2010, promising the platform's early …

    reghardware 13 Jan 11:03

  • Dixons warns on crap Christmas

    Shares fall on profit warning

    Dixons warned markets this morning that Christmas trading had been worse than expected with like-for-like sales down 2 per cent and margins down 0.2 per cent. The world's favourite IT retailer said it now expects profit before tax to be at the lower end of predictions – between £100m and £110m. Dixons shares fell almost 10 per …

    Channel Register 13 Jan 11:07

  • Russian ransomware SMS smut-scam raised $30k

    And 'penis' is Russian for what?

    A ransomware-based malware scam allowed Russian cybercrooks to fleece an estimated 2,500 surfers to the tune of almost $30k. Unwary smut-seekers visiting a porno site found their machines disabled by a Trojan. They were told to solve the problem by sending an SMS to a premium-rate number at a cost of $12 (360 roubles), and a …

    Crime 13 Jan 11:22

  • Yank fires up iPhone-controlled beer cannon

    Greatest. Invention. Ever.

    A Virginia Tech university graduate and a couple of chums have come up with what one YouTube commenter rates as the "Greatest. Invention. Ever" – an iPhone-controlled beer-dispensing cannon. Ryan Rusnak, 25, first rigged up a bog-standard refrigerated beer vending machine to dispense refreshment at the touch of his Jesus Phone …

    Bootnotes 13 Jan 11:32

  • BlackBerry bug bugs India

    Corporate communications spared, for now

    RIM has put lawful intercept mechanisms in place for the Indian government. Anyone running their own BES remains secure - at least until the authorities confiscate it. The solution comes ahead of the end-of-month deadline imposed by India and backed with a threatened block on BlackBerry communications. However, various Indian …

    Mobile 13 Jan 11:34

  • MySpace could be someone else's space soon

    News Corp mulls spin-off, takeover or sale plans

    MySpace management confirmed yesterday that it is considering selling the ailing website, following the firm’s decision to lay off half of its 1,000-strong workforce earlier this week. “News Corp is assessing a number of possibilities, including a sale, a merger and a spinout,” a spokeswoman at MySpace’s parent company said, …

    Music and Media 13 Jan 11:37

  • Oxford gets e-car charge-up network

    Milton Keynes too

    Oxford residents can now buy e-cars safe in the knowledge they have access to at least 20 public re-charging points in the city. Folk in Milton Keynes are getting them too. Both installations are being run by Chargemaster and fed by Southern Electric Power Distribution. The Oxford roll-out is being pushed by BMW subsidiary …

    reghardware 13 Jan 11:41

  • Analysts weigh in on Android and iPhone

    Will the Verizon deal change the outcome of the race?

    Will the launch of the Verizon iPhone 4 slow Android's growth? Ask analysts and some will say yes, others no. Charlie Wolf of Needham and Co., and Shaw Wu of Kaufman Bros. both believe Apple's deal with Verizon, one of top two US network operators, will hit Android sales. The notion is that a fair few folk bought Android …

    reghardware 13 Jan 12:12

  • Hope springs eternal for Obama poster plagiarist

    One case settled, but Shepard Fairey still faces Grand Jury probe

    Associated Press has settled one of its copyright infringement lawsuit with artist Shepard Fairey over the once-iconic, now-ironic Obama "HOPE" poster. The two parties came to an out of court agreement this week, but several other AP claims against Fairey's commercial empire are still to be resolved. And these could prove …

    Music and Media 13 Jan 12:45

  • DUP website translated into Irish by mischievous hacktivist

    Aon ghéilleadh (no surrender)

    A mischievous hacktivist broke into three websites run by the Democratic Unionist Party on Wednesday night to replace the website of the staunchly unionist Ulster party with an Irish language version. Party leader Peter Robinson's welcome message to the site was translated into Irish and appended to include support of the " …

    Enterprise Security 13 Jan 12:55

  • Asus NX90Jq 18.4in Core i7 laptop

    Review Notebook audio gets the B&O treatment

    I first encountered Bang & Olufsen in my teens. A friend’s father had a Beocenter music system, which we fledgling audiophiles were, of course, both in awe of and barred from touching. The sleek lines, matt black controls and aluminium panels of that and other early B&O systems instantly sprang to mind when glancing upon the …

    reghardware 13 Jan 13:00

  • O2 becomes a reseller with 2e2 deal

    Converging like its 1999

    Mobile network O2 is teaming up with 2e2 to provide a full fleet of tech services to businesses. O2 Unify will launch on 2 April. The mobile provider says that convergence is pushing customers to seek a single provider for technology and communication needs. 2e2 has been busy buying up UK channel companies, including Morse, …

    Channel Register 13 Jan 13:01

  • Sarko to use G8 presidency to promote net regulation

    'Regulating the internet is a moral imperative!'

    Nicolas Sarkozy plans to use France's presidency of the G8 this year to promote international cooperation on greater regulation of the internet, according to reports. "How do you respond to the problem of terrorism, of paedophilia, to subjects such as the right to be forgotten?" an unnamed source in Sarkozy's entourage was …

    Government 13 Jan 13:13

  • US air force has new scramjet hypersonic plane plans

    Son of Blackswift, grandson of SR-71 Blackbird spy plane

    Who remembers the Blackswift – the planned hypersonic successor to the legendary SR-71 Blackbird spy plane of Cold War fame? The Blackswift was intended to take off and land from a runway like a normal plane and achieve speeds of Mach 6 on scramjet propulsion (comfortably eclipsing its illustrious turbo/ramjet predecessor's Mach …

    Science 13 Jan 13:20

  • SK Telecom to bring LTE 4G mobe data to Seoul

    WiMax? We prefer not to mention it nowadays

    SK Telecom will be rolling out an Long Term Evolution (LTE) network later this year, despite being one of the earliest supporters of the WiMAX standard, which itself is about to hit version two. 802.16m is the technical term for version two of WiMAX, offering speeds up to 100Mb/sec on the move, and 1Gb/sec for fixed links, …

    Mobile 13 Jan 13:48

  • BBC Trust says no to kit-specific iPlayer apps

    Standard platforms only - unless the vendor coughs up

    If you're eagerly waiting for the BBC to pull its finger out and implement iPlayer on your TV, set-top box, games console or smartphone, forget it. The Corporation will almost certainly not help you, its governing body, the BBC Trust, has said. The Trust has been pondering how the BBC should syndicate its content and it today …

    reghardware 13 Jan 14:12

  • HP to unveil WebOS tablets next month

    PCs and TVs too, hints exec

    HP has been sending out invites to an event its hosting on 9 February, and it's widely expected to focus on WebOS handsets and tablets. Don't take our word for it. HP senior Personal Systems staffer Todd Bradley told US TV channel CNBC last night that he'll talk about differentiating HP's offerings from Apple's iPad "on the …

    reghardware 13 Jan 14:13

  • Bletchley Park to rebuild pioneering EDSAC computer

    Will omit deadly 1940s mercury-based memory

    Bletchley Park is to rebuild one of the world's first modern computers. The Electronic Delay Storage Automatic Calculator (EDSAC) was put together at Cambridge University in the late 1940s as a tool for researchers and scientists. The room-sized valve-based system, designed and developed by the late Sir Maurice Wilkes, first …

    Science 13 Jan 14:20

  • Palin's email snooper sent to prison

    So much for judicial promises...

    The man convicted of breaking into Sarah Palin's personal email account has been sent to prison – despite the judge's recommendation that he serve his sentence in a halfway house. David Kernell, a 23-year-old former University of Tennessee student, was sentenced to 366 days in November. He used publicly available information …

    Crime 13 Jan 15:27

  • SAP buys secure login tech

    ERP plans to bake in basic security

    German software giant SAP has moved into the security market with the acquisition of identity and access management technology from Secude. SAP, which is best known for its Enterprise Resource Planning and enterprise application software, plans to roll secure login and enterprise single sign-on technologies acquired via the …

    Enterprise Security 13 Jan 15:30

  • Google dispenses first jackpot award to security bug hunter

    Elite bug-finder handed $3,133.7(0) reward

    Google updated its Chrome browser software on Wednesday to address a variety of security bugs, including the first vulnerability to qualify its finder for the recently introduced top-tier of its Chromium Security Reward scheme. Sergey Glazunov earns an “elite” $3,133.7 award for his bug-finding efforts as well as pocketing the …

    Applications 13 Jan 16:31

  • Thunderstorms found to squirt antimatter into space

    NASA sat pelted with positrons from around planet

    Top NASA boffins analysing data from a gamma-ray telescope satellite in orbit above the Earth say they have discovered that thunderstorms, in addition to the various other things they do, emit "beams of antimatter" out of their tops. "These signals are the first direct evidence that thunderstorms make antimatter particle …

    Physics 13 Jan 16:39

  • Perot Systems top dog exits Dell

    Dell vet Shuckenbrock helms services

    Peter Altabef – the former president and chief executive officer of Perot Systems and the person who has been running the combine Dell Services unit in the wake of the $3.9bn acquisition of Perot by Dell in September 2009 – has left the company. Now that the integration of Perot Systems is complete and Dell has a services …

    Cloud 13 Jan 17:39

  • Google scarfs up ebook tech firm

    'Kindoogle' anyone?

    Google has acquired eBook Technologies, presumably to beef up its eBookstore effort, which hasn't exactly set the world on fire since its launch last December 6. "We are happy to welcome the eBook Technologies' team to Google," the mega-search engine company said in a statement. "Together, we hope to deliver richer reading …

    Business 13 Jan 18:37

  • Cloud juggler eyes Microsoft's floating VMs

    RightScale does Azure

    RightScale – the southern California startup whose eponymous online service lets you juggle so-called infrastructure clouds – is preparing tools for managing Microsoft's Azure cloud as well. Azure isn't an infrastructure cloud. It's what the world calls a platform cloud. Rather than offer on-demand access to raw compute power …

    Cloud 13 Jan 19:30

  • Big Data confab courts Reg readers

    Silicon Valley data fest discount

    O'Reilly Media is offering Reg readers a twenty-five per cent discount on tickets to Strata, its brand new conference dedicated to Big Data – that's digerati-speak for "using the latest web and enterprise data processing tools to reinvent your business". Set for February 1 through February 3 in Santa Clara, California, the …

    Site News 13 Jan 20:12

  • Steve Ballmer at 11: A Microsoft power play too far?

    One man, so many jobs

    Steve Ballmer's anniversary as Microsoft CEO has arrived with a paradox. In the history of Microsoft, no chief executive has wielded so much power. Ballmer is essentially responsible for $40bn in sales, running three of Microsoft's five business units: the Office business applications unit, Entertainment and Devices, and – as …

    Business 13 Jan 21:41

  • Intel's 2010 income up 167% from 2009

    Otellini vows 'even better' 2011

    Intel's financial performance in the fourth quarter of 2010 exceeded analysts' expectations, spiking Chipzilla's stock's value by around 3 per cent in after-hours trading. "2010 was the best year in Intel's history. We believe that 2011 will be even better," said president and CEO Paul Otellini in a statement accompanying the …

    Financial News 13 Jan 22:14

  • Penguin goes hybrid with ClusterWare

    Linux meets Windows HPC

    Penguin Computing, the makers of workstations and clusters aimed at HPC shops, also peddles various cluster management tools under the Scyld brand. Up until now, the Scyld ClusterWare cluster management tools have been wedded to Red Hat Enterprise Linux and its CentOS clones, but with the latest update to ClusterWare, Penguin …

    HPC 13 Jan 22:25

  • Vodafone sacks login leakers

    Insiders less secure than Internet, apparently

    Vodafone has dismissed “a number of staff” following the misuse of login credentials that allowed unauthorized access to a Web portal meant to be accessible only to its employees and those of its resellers. The data breach, misinterpreted as customer details being published on the Internet by a number of Australian media …

    Channel Register 13 Jan 23:15