19th January 2011 Archive

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Australian companies don’t trust their backups

Who would have thought?

Australian businesses – particularly SMBs – have little confidence in their disaster recovery strategies, according to research detailed to the media yesterday by Acronis. It is not clear if this is because most SMB backup and DR strategies are managed by the owner of the business, usually not a technologist, or because …

Small Biz 19 Jan 00:29
Apple's Jobs stand-in touts iPad's enterprise reach

Blasts 'bizarre' Android tablets

The iPad is now being used or evaluated in "80 per cent of the largest companies", according to recently elevated day-to-day Apple chieftain Tim Cook. "I think the most forward-looking CIOs are coming to the realization that the productivity of the person, the creativity of the employee, is materially more important than …

Music and Media 19 Jan 01:43
Microsoft refreshes secure developer software tools

Attack Surface Analyzer makes its debut

Microsoft has released a new software tool to help developers write secure applications by highlighting the system changes created when their wares are installed on Windows machines. The Attack Surface Analyzer, released on Tuesday, is a free verification tool that analyzes the changes in system state, runtime parameters and …

Security 19 Jan 02:00
W3C tackles HTML5 confusion with, um, more confusion

Web daddy says CSS is HTML

The Worldwide Web Consortium has unveiled its HTML5 logo. And much like Apple, Google, and Microsoft before it, the organization that oversees HTML5 has confused it with all sorts of other web standards. The W3C's new HTML5 logo is a "general-purpose visual identity" that denotes HTML5, CSS, SVG, WOFF, and other technologies …

Music and Media 19 Jan 02:15
HBase: Shops swap MySQL for open source Google mimic

Microsoft doesn't want it. But everyone else does

Facebook isn't the only one swapping MySQL for HBase, the open source distributed database platform based on Google's BigTable. The Hadoopian HBase is now in play at several of the web's most recognizable names – including Adobe, Yahoo!, Mozilla, and StumbleUpon – as well as smaller operations looking to climb their way to such …

Software 19 Jan 02:17
Nokia C7 smartphone

Review Smooth-talking Symbian?

Nokia’s smart phone offering has been not so much off the boil as distinctly lukewarm for the last few years with a series of capable handsets that offer some decent specs, but fall behind the competition for usability and, well, fun. Unfortunately, that looks unlikely to change with the Nokia C7. While it includes brick …

reghardware 19 Jan 07:00
Eyeball camera zooms into focus

Bionic man, eat your heart out

Six Million Dollar Man Steve Austin's bionic eye could become reality thanks to the development of a "curvilinear camera" that mimics the human eye, has added zoom capabilities and is the size of a one pence piece. US scientists from Northwestern University and the University of Illinois have constructed the "eyeball camera", …

reghardware 19 Jan 08:00
ContactPoint may be cannibalised for parts

The data has been zapped, but the system and ETL routines may be useful...

ContactPoint may be dead, but the government could yet find a use for some parts of the old system when its new national signposting service finally surfaces, some time in the next couple of years. That appears to be the general gist of a letter sent by Tim Loughton, Secretary of State for Education to Professor Eileen Munro, …

Government 19 Jan 08:30
Carbon trading registry suspends ops following hack attack

Smokey and the bandits

A carbon emissions trading registry in Austria has suspended operations until at least 21 January following a hacking attack earlier this month. The registry has been disconnected from the EU and UN carbon trading registries in response to the 10 January attack, details on which are unclear. A statement on the trading registry …

Enterprise Security 19 Jan 09:51
YouView launch date questioned

Technical issues, cost concerns hindering roll out, say moles

YouView may have been forced to put back the release of its IPTV platform by six months, it has been claimed. The issues: technical hurdles and concerns over the cost of the endeavour, unnamed sources cited by the Daily Mail say. The upshot: it'll take YouView longer to put its platform in place than originally anticipated. …

reghardware 19 Jan 09:55
Heathrow Express treats iPhones as tickets

Shame too few airlines do

Travellers on the Heathrow Express can now use their iPhones as tickets. Hex's new app, announced today and available here, provides the usual pay-by-card ticket booking, but here your purchase yields an on-screen barcode the ticket inspector can scan when you travel. It's the first app of its kind in the UK, say the press …

reghardware 19 Jan 10:44
Playboy on iPad will be 'uncensored', says Hefner

Less need for the 'really good' articles these days?

Hugh Hefner has promised that not only is Playboy coming to the iPad, but it will be "uncensored". Either way, punters will now be able to read the magazine in public without embarrasment - the tablet's steely, Apple logo'd back being as good a disguise as a copy of Railway World wrapped around the paper edition. But readers …

reghardware 19 Jan 11:07
South Yorks police leads UK in use of ANPR cameras

Norfolk Constabulary hardly uses them though

Figures released by the government show large variations in the use of automatic numberplate recognition cameras by police forces. Home Office minister James Brokenshire released the figures in response to a parliamentary question from Labour MP Brian Donohoe. The numbers show that 4,225 cameras were connected by police forces …

Policing 19 Jan 11:13
BBC iPlayer boss quits for job with Intel

Erik Huggers leaves White City for Silicon Valley

Erik Huggers has quit his new media and technology role at the BBC for a job with chip maker Intel. The one-time Microsoft exec, who joined the Beeb in May 2007, steered Auntie's iPlayer strategy and oversaw the corporation's online estate, which is now undergoing budget cuts and a significant webpage cull. BBC Director- …

IT Director 19 Jan 11:15
Angry Birds to catapult onto TV

Cartoon time

A few years ago, if you turned the telly on to a programme called Angry Birds, you'd probably be watching a Five Shameless rip-off about single mums on a council estate. Soon though, it's going top be a show based on the massively successful mobile game. Game developer Rovio says an animated series is on its way. Production …

reghardware 19 Jan 11:16
Police DNA test plan to put off prostitutes' punters

Another day, another database idea

West Yorkshire Police have sought to clarify a senior officer's remarks after she called for a database of all men who use prostitutes, irrespective of whether or not a crime has been committed. Chief Superintendent Alison Rose from Bradford South said in a report by the BBC that she wanted to set up a DNA database of men who …

Policing 19 Jan 11:31
Overloaded drug-smuggling pigeon nabbed by Colombian cops

Arresting officers bizarrely not named Dastardly or Muttley

Colombian plods got an unexpected break in their struggle to prevent drugs being smuggled into the country's prisons: crims using a specially trained pigeon to carry narcotics to their chums doing porridge overloaded the bird, causing it to come down early and wind up in the hands of the local Old Bill. The airborne narco- …

Bootnotes 19 Jan 11:33
Boeing customers spy distant Dreamliner

Q3 delivery expected after seventh delay

Boeing has announced that the first delivery of its long-awaited 787 Dreamliner will finally take place in "in the third quarter of this year". The seventh delay in getting the aircraft to Japan's All Nippon Airways was provoked by a fire last year aboard one of the flight test aircraft. All Dreamliners were subsequently …

Science 19 Jan 11:46
More privacy for the Queen, less for everyone else

More access to info, except about Prince William

The coalition government has detailed the changes it wishes to make to the Freedom of Information Act - reducing the 30-year rule and increasing the number of bodies which must obey the law. Secretary of State for Justice Kenneth Clarke told the House the Freedom of Information Act would be extended to include the Association …

Government 19 Jan 11:47
ASA goes online to swing stick at new media advertisers

Now interwebs can enjoy same ~~meddling~~ high standards as other media

From 1 March 2011 the Advertising Standards Agency will be taking over responsibility for the regulation of online marketing communications, and this week they launched a cross-media ad campaign (outdoor, radio, press, online) to make sure you know about the change. The campaign, running up until 27 February will inform …

Music and Media 19 Jan 11:55
UK doctor loses unencrypted laptop containing patient data

Sticks and stones may break my bones but data loss really riles me

A UK doctor faces a disciplinary inquiry after an unencrypted laptop containing confidential patient data was stolen from his home. The unnamed junior medic acted against regulations set by the Hull and East Yorkshire Hospitals NHS Trust, his employers. The doctor took unencrypted patient information – including names, dates …

Government 19 Jan 11:56
HP WebOS tablets won't ship until September?

Announced next month, not shipping for ages

No sooner had images of HP's upcoming WebOS-based tablet appeared on line, the computer giant immediately popped up to say it'll have something better to show at its "exciting WebOS announcement" next month. Just don't expect them any time soon: September 2011 appears to be the launch date. When a site like Engadget is sent ( …

reghardware 19 Jan 12:01
UK short 100K tech recruits this year

Quango quacks say IT growth to outpace national average

Demand for technology recruits is set to grow five times faster than the national average over the next 10 years. There are now 1.5m people in the UK working in technology – about one in 20 UK workers, according to e-skills. About 40 per cent of these people work directly for technology companies, the rest in IT departments …

IT Director 19 Jan 12:24
Google plonks downloads on Iran after US lifts sanctions

Freedom, you've gotta give for what you take

Google is bringing software downloads of some of its products to Iran, after the US government relaxed export restrictions in the country. The world's largest ad broker confirmed in a blog post yesterday that its Google Earth, Picasa and Chrome browser products could all now be installed in Iran. But the company said it would …

Applications 19 Jan 12:29
Arqiva seeks Dragon for SeeSaw

Net telly service needs cash

Arqiva, the owner of the UK's terrestrial transmitter infrastructure and YouView consortium member, wants to sell some or all of SeeSaw, the online TV service it launched in February 2010. The company today said SeeSaw "needs further investment to reach its full potential". Arqiva clearly doesn't feel it can provide the money …

reghardware 19 Jan 12:46
Bolle BP-10 iPhone photo printer

Review Photographs from your mobile without AirPrint

Here’s a home photo-print ‘toaster’ with a difference: it can’t be plugged into a computer, nor does it support Wi-Fi. Instead, it comes with a built-in dock for an Apple iPhone. As such, the Bolle BP-10 is promoted as the world’s first dedicated iPhone printer. In other words, it won’t print from anything else. Bolle BP-10: …

reghardware 19 Jan 13:00
German docs develop remote-control stomach submarine

Modded colon-intruder dispenses with tentacle

Boffins in Germany were chuffed indeed yesterday, as they announced successful trials of the latest medi-tech development: swallowable, remote controlled video-cam "capsule" submarines, able to probe a patient's guts without the need for an intrusive umbilical cable running down the throat or up the bottom. Thus far, docs …

Biology 19 Jan 13:08
Italian regulator asks for copyright reform after Google settlement

Competition body cannot stop exploitation of news content

Italy's competition regulator has asked the Italian parliament to reform copyright law after accepting Google's settlement of a dispute with newspapers. It does not have the power to solve the problem of the exploitation of newspaper content, it said. The Italian Federation of Newspaper Editors had complained in 2009 that if …

Music and Media 19 Jan 13:23
How to... restore Twitter for Mac icons

Terminal jiggery-pokery

Don't like the new, 3D-look Twitter for Mac icon? Here's how to get the old one back. This is the third icon the app has had since it launched on the Mac App Store just over week ago. This time round, the developer has included all the previous ones in the application bundle. However, App Store downloads don't come with …

reghardware 19 Jan 13:31
Official: music is a brain stimulating drug

I got chills, they're multiplying

We all know our favourite tunes are pleasurable, but scientists have dug deep and discovered music can actually be a drug that stimulates the release of pleasure chemicals in our brain. A study from scholars at McGill University in Canada suggests the anticipation of our favourite passage can be all the stimulation needed for …

reghardware 19 Jan 13:47
Lame Stuxnet worm 'full of errors', says security consultant

My teenage son could code better

Far from being cyber-spy geniuses with ninja-like black-hat coding skills, the developers of Stuxnet made a number of mistakes that exposed their malware to earlier detection and meant the worm spread more widely than intended. Stuxnet, the infamous worm that infected SCADA-based computer control systems, is sometimes …

Enterprise Security 19 Jan 14:41
Shaun the Sheep shorts to lure kids to Nintendo 3DS

Not just games, short attention span videos too

Eurosport, Sky TV and Wallace and Gromit studio Aardman Animations will be streaming 3D video content to Nintendo's 3DS handheld, the Japanese giant said today, as it attempts to pitch the handheld gadget as something more than a portable games console. And the company said it was talking to more partners to bring such …

reghardware 19 Jan 14:59
Ex-DWP tech boss calls out former colleagues

Put those claws away dear

James Gardner has left his job at chief technology officer at the Department of Work and Pensions to join a start-up, and left the world a rather catty leaving note. Gardner then put up a rather bitchy blog post which appears to attack his former colleagues for blocking his work. The post is styled as a letter to his …

IT Director 19 Jan 15:31
New Taser made to take down angry bears, moose

Triple-barrelled Yogi-zapper offered to Ranger Smith

Electric stungun manufacturer Taser International has brought out yet another new weapon, one which could perhaps eclipse even its existing technologies in terms of controversy and media brouhaha. The new Taser X3W (Wildlife) model is intended to take down, comparatively harmlessly, such adversaries as charging bears or moose …

Science 19 Jan 15:46
Sony TVs, Blu-ray boxes to get web browser

Flash absent?

Sony is to equip its tellies and Blu-ray Disc players with a web browser, Opera Software cheerfully said today. As well it might - its browser is the one Sony has selected. Opera will certainly feature in the the raft of new products Sony unveiled at the recent Consumer Electronics Show (CES), many of which are expected to go …

reghardware 19 Jan 15:52
EU antitrust probe fishes for Google secrets

Details of APIs, fees, shenanigans sought..

The EU Competition Commission has shown it means business in its probe into Google by issuing a hard-hitting and wide-ranging set of confidential questions for customers, rivals and clients of the Californian web giant. The Commission has sent out three sets of questionnaries: to advertisers, to vertical search companies, and …

Music and Media 19 Jan 16:01
WD broadens attack on Seagate

Enter a full-size WD enterprise drive

Western Digital has doubled the capacity of its 2.5-inch enterprise SAS drive and introduced a full size, 3.5-inch version with up to 2TB of capacity. The second generation S25 drive holds up to 600GB of data, while maintaining the 10,000rpm spin speed of the previous model. It is a new design with three platters, meaning …

Storage 19 Jan 16:22
Acer backpedals from 'phasing out netbooks' claim

Staffer talking out of turn

Acer won't be phasing out netbooks after all, the company said today, despite claims from one its staff that its upcoming tablets will put the squeeze on mini laptops. The computer giant said it "finds a new form of expression in the range of tablets on offer" and that it "recognises that the computer market is changing". The …

reghardware 19 Jan 16:29
Nintendo details 3DS roll-out

Launch dates, new features and more

Nintendo says gamers will be able to get its forthcoming handheld console - sorry, "personal entertainment system" - the 3DS, on 25 March. Today it revealed a bunch of features to whet appetites while they wait. The much anticipated device will hit Europe two days before the US and although prices are to be set by retailers, …

reghardware 19 Jan 16:58
Google gins search formula to favor its own services

Gmail, Maps get free ride

A noted Google-watcher has assembled a convincing argument that the site's search results highly favor Google-owned services, despite repeated company claims that they are algorithmically generated and never manipulated. Harvard professor Ben Edelman and colleague Benjamin Lockwood found that Google's algorithm links to Gmail, …

Music and Media 19 Jan 20:25
Amazon plants Microsoft and Salesforce blocking Beanstalk

Java today, Ruby tomorrow?

Amazon is hiding the complexity of deploying web applications to its vast cloud – a complexity that's letting rivals catch up. The book-seller-turned-service-provider has introduced a service called Elastic Beanstalk that it has promised will have your web app up and running within "minutes". Beanstalk handles provisioning …

Developer 19 Jan 20:31
Microsoft and HP Frontline marriage births appliance iron

Anything Oracle or Cisco does, we can do better

Hewlett-Packard and Microsoft have started rolling out server appliances configured for specific jobs while also lifting the veil on future appliances due later this year. Almost precisely a year ago, HP and Microsoft dedicated $250m to create a partnership nicknamed Frontline to come up with stacks that married HP's x64-based …

HPC 19 Jan 21:19
'NBN is like a bathroom' says opposition, BCA agrees

Libs find new reason to dump network

Following the political dictum not to waste a good crisis, Australia’s government-in-exile opposition Liberal Party has chosen the country’s floods as the current opportunity to attack the government’s NBN. Abbott has said “The one thing you don't do is re-do your bathroom when the roof has just been blown off and that's the …

Telecoms 19 Jan 21:21
Dell hooks server tools into VMware vCenter

Stop bouncing around consoles

Dell did a lot of work last year to make its PowerEdge servers, their service processors, and its OpenManage system administration tools integrate with Microsoft's System Center tools for managing Windows and software higher up the stack. Today Dell is hooking its servers and tools into the vCenter console from server …

Servers 19 Jan 21:30
Kiwis Demand: Talk TPPA turkey to us, Prime Minister

NZ unions launch campaign against even more secret “Son of ACTA”

New Zealand unions are demanding that the country’s government tell people what is being proposed under the US-led Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement (TPPA) negotiations. Unions believe the TPPA will give foreign investors excessive rights and protection, including the ability to sue for breaches of their treaty rights. For …

Law 19 Jan 21:50
Bot attacks Linux and Mac but can't lock down its booty

Cross-platform trojan's Achilles Heel

From the department of cosmic justice comes this gem, spotted by researchers from Symantec: a trojan that targets Windows, Mac, and Linux computers contains gaping security vulnerabilities that allow rival criminal gangs to commandeer the infected machines. Known as Trojan.Jnanabot, or alternately as OSX/Koobface.A or trojan. …

Malware 19 Jan 23:12