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20th January 2011 Archive

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  • AMD takes on Intel in 'the internet of things'

    From refrigerators to one-armed bandits

    AMD took direct aim at Intel's low-power Atom embedded processor and platform on Wednesday with the release of its G-Series Fusion APUs (accelerated processing units), the follow-ons to AMD's recently released C-Series and E-Series APUs for the notebook, netbook, and tablet markets. "AMD's commitment is to ensure the game- …

    PCs & Chips 20 Jan 01:06

  • Job application scam fleeces company of $150,000

    'Dear Sir or Madam: Please click here'

    A scam that targets businesses posting help-wanted ads online has already fleeced one company of $150,000, according to an advisory from the FBI that warns other businesses to be wary. The emails, which are sent in response to ads placed on employment websites, contain attachments that when opened infect the user's PC with …

    Malware 20 Jan 06:00

  • HTC 7 Trophy smartphone

    Review Minimum spec mobile, the WinPho 7 way

    HTC took the lion’s share of the recent Windows Phone 7 launch with three out of seven handsets. Without the big screen of the HD7 or the 8Mp camera of the Mozart, the Trophy looks on paper like the runt of the litter. But its lower price and still impressive spec mean it could end up in more pockets than either of its brothers …

    reghardware 20 Jan 07:00

  • COBOL drinks from cloudy fountain of youth

    .NET and Java 10-year boost

    One of computing's longest survivors is being hauled into the world of cloud computing, object-oriented programming, and virtual machines. Micro Focus today plans to deliver Visual COBOL R3, a development environment it said positions COBOL for the next 10 years by meeting the needs of those maintaining it. Despite the …

    Developer 20 Jan 08:00

  • Computacenter joins cloud club

    Email everywhere

    Britain's biggest reseller Computacenter is jumping on the cloud bandwagon. Computacenter cloud computing, or C3, starts with an email offering. The reseller stressed that many companies want to adopt a step-by-step approach to cloud computing, and that most businesses see email as the most obvious first business process to …

    Channel Register 20 Jan 09:00

  • Extension of flexibility 'may help solve retirement problems'

    Comment Will you still hire me, when I'm 65?

    The Government has restated its plans to extend the right to request flexible working to all employees. Rather than resist the change, though, employers could see it as a chance to help deal with another issue – the removal of the retirement age. Workers approaching 65 might well use flexible working requests to cut down their …

    Small Biz 20 Jan 09:52

  • Burglars snort dead dad's ashes

    Cremains confusion for right bunch of Charlies

    Florida cops have cuffed a burglary gang who broke into a house and stole the ashes of the owner's father, believing they were illicit narcotics. The victim returned to her Silver Springs residence to discover she was short of a few items, including electronics and jewellery. Rather more disturbing was the absence of the ashes …

    Bootnotes 20 Jan 09:55

  • Amazon buys Lovefilm

    DVDs and Blu-rays by post

    Amazon is buying Lovefilm, the European subscription film and game service. The bookseller already owned 42 per cent of the company and is now buying all the remaining shares. Financial terms were not disclosed, but previous reports suggest a value of around £200m for Lovefilm which claims 1.4 million customers. Amazon used …

    Financial News 20 Jan 10:03

  • Oracle limbers up for big storage surprise

    Data centre game changer, apparently

    Oracle says it has a game-changing data centre storage announcement coming on 31 January. There are no details, but there is a claim that new technology is involved. You can register for the webcast here. The background is straightforward: Sun used to resell HDS's USP-V high-end array as its 9990V and 9980V storage products …

    Storage 20 Jan 10:07

  • Taiwan parts firms point to iPad 2 res rise

    Component maker moles say 'retina display' coming to Apple tab

    Confirmation - kind of - for the iPad 2's screen resolution increase has come from Taiwan's component maker community. Sources from within that group have indicated that Apple's next-gen tablet will indeed sport a resolution of 2048 x 1536 - four times as many pixels in the same area as the current iPad's screen delivers. The …

    reghardware 20 Jan 10:48

  • Chinese Trojan blocks cloud-based security defences

    Haha, I mock your forcefield!

    Miscreants have released a Trojan specially designed to disable cloud-based anti-virus security defences. The Bohu blocks connections from infected Windows devices and cloud anti-virus services in place to protect them. Malware writers have long included routines to disable components of desktop anti-virus software packages or …

    Malware 20 Jan 10:49

  • Microsoft loses Windows consumer boss to Juniper Networks

    Just be the ball, Brad Brooks, be the ball

    Microsoft has lost yet another top exec, after Juniper Networks revealed yesterday that it had poached the software giant's Windows consumer marketing boss Brad Brooks. Brooks had been with Redmond since January 2002, when he began work on the company's biz development and marketing for various Windows products. According to …

    Data Networking 20 Jan 10:53

  • BBC rebuilds Civilisation in HD

    Seminal 1960s documentary restored for transmission

    Kenneth Clark's Civilisation was a genuine television event when it was first broadcast in 1969. Thanks to restoration work carried out on the more than 40-year-old film stock it may be about to repeat its success. The BBC has remastered the 13-part series into HD and will broadcast the critically acclaimed documentary on the …

    reghardware 20 Jan 11:14

  • US snubs Nokia again

    Nokia cancels X7

    Nokia's new Canadian CEO Stephen Elop hasn't been able to work his magic just yet. A deal to market a smartphone exclusively via the largest US network AT&T has been scrapped at the 11th hour, according to reports. Reports circulating before Christmas touted the X7 as a Symbian^3 smartphone with quad speakers and an 8MP camera …

    Mobile 20 Jan 11:38

  • HP wants final probe into Hurd's departure

    Let it go and move on, people

    HP wants to run its own independent investigation into the departure of former boss Mark Hurd. Hurd left, apparently for dodgy expenses claims, which were uncovered as a result of an investigation into alleged sexual harassment. Hurd then joined Oracle. But according to court documents HP now wants to carry out another probe …

    Financial News 20 Jan 11:39

  • Raygun dreadnought project reports 'remarkable breakthrough'

    Electron war-beam could mean end of aircraft carriers

    US Navy boffins say they have achieved a major milestone in their quest to build an invincible raygun battleship. The breakthrough comes in the Free Electron Laser (FEL) project, intended to produce an electrically powered, megawatt-range laser able to sweep the skies of pesky aircraft, hypersonic shipkiller missiles etc. …

    Science 20 Jan 11:45

  • Halfords.com crashes off the internet

    Domain doh!

    Halfords.com is mostly unavailable today thanks to "a temporary administrative issue in our domain name renewal process". Visitors to the site this morning - including a vast number of Register readers - were met with a holding page for Network Solutions and an invitation to renew the domain. In the meantime the page contains …

    IT Director 20 Jan 11:46

  • BT eases iPad hotspot hop-ons

    Login with your broadband details

    BT Home Broadband customers who happen to own an iPad can now log onto BT Wi-Fi hotspots with their broadband credentials. BT runs two Wi-Fi hotspot arrays: Openzone and Fon. Together they total more than 2m access points around the globe, the giant telco claimed. Many BT broadband customers can already use these hotspots for …

    reghardware 20 Jan 11:57

  • Microsoft explains Windows 7 Phone phantom data cockup

    Blames third party, doesn't reveal who

    Microsoft has blamed third party software for a Windows Phone 7 glitch that transmitted huge chunks of data over 3G networks, causing some subscribers to exceed their monthly tariff. The software vendor issued the following vague statement to Seattle PI: "We have determined that a third party solution commonly accessed from …

    Mobile 20 Jan 12:12

  • Apple lawyers land London lawsuit on Nokia

    Tit-for-tat spat rattles on

    Apple and Nokia continue to slap each others' cheeks. The iPhone maker has landed the latest blow: a lawsuit filed with the High Court in London this week that seeks to have one of the Finns' patents rendered null and void. The European patent in question covers scrolling on touchscreen handsets, and is one of 37 patents that …

    reghardware 20 Jan 12:13

  • HTC Gratia comes to UK - three months late

    A Qwerty WinPho 7 handset too

    Various mobile phone sites are today touting HTC's introduction of its Gratia handset into the UK. They've all clearly forgotten HTC actually promised to do so in November 2010. It didn't manage it, of course, and so now the Gratia, which runs Android 2.2 on a 600MHz processor and packs in both a 3.2in, 320 x 480 display and a …

    reghardware 20 Jan 12:37

  • NASA 'naut falls off bike, misses shuttle launch

    Steve Bowen replaces Tim Kopra for ISS trip

    Astronaut Tim Kopra will miss the forthcoming launch of Discovery on its STS-133 mission to the International Space Station, after falling off his bike over the weekend. There are reports that Kopra broke his hip in the mishap near his Houston home, but NASA remains tight-lipped. It said: "Tim is doing fine and expects a full …

    Space 20 Jan 12:39

  • Is EMC developing storage super-stack?

    Comment Use your abstraction

    The future of EMC's VNX line, currently a work in progress, is presaged by this week's launch of the VNXe - a more integrated system with a new operating system, VNOX, and very much simpler set up, provisioning, management and support facilities than the CLARiiON and Celerra source technologies. A key background idea here is …

    Storage 20 Jan 12:53

  • WikiLeaky phone scam targets unwary in US

    You peeked! Now pay up

    A new voicemail phishing scam uses the threat of non-existent fines for visiting WikiLeaks to prise money out of panicked marks. Prospective marks are robo-dialled by an automated system that states their computer and IP address "had been noted as having visited the Wikileaks site, and that there were grave consequences for …

    Crime 20 Jan 12:56

  • Buffalo Linkstation Pro Duo 2TB Nas

    Review Putting in a performance

    Apart from the silver-on-red “V” sticker, Buffalo's V-Series Linkstation Pro appears identical to the original LinkStation Duo Nas box. Even on the inside there are many similarities, such as Buffalo’s remote WebAccess, DLNA and iTunes DAAP media streaming along with a BitTorrent client and are standard. Likewise, the V-Series …

    reghardware 20 Jan 13:00

  • Supercomputer performance leaps off the charts

    Webcast Where we are with HPC, where we’re going

    In our first HPC channel webcast of 2011, we talk to Rich Brueckner of InsideHPC to take the measure of current HPC performance and talk about the factors that got us to this point. Some interesting data in the slides, including performance metrics of the #1, #100 and #500 systems on the Top500 list over the past ten years. …

    HPC Blog 20 Jan 13:10

  • NY bomb scare bank worker 'evacuates self'

    Suspect package provokes brown trouser moment

    A New York bank worker has admitted she "evacuated herself" as a precautionary measure during a bomb scare, the Wall Street Journal reports. The alert began when a 6-inch by 3-inch white envelope turned up in the mailroom of Bank Hapoalim, near Rockefeller Center. Suspiciously, it was encased in bubblewrap, addressed to …

    Bootnotes 20 Jan 13:16

  • NASA nano-satellite belatedly ejects from orbiting mothership

    Boffins ask radio hams for help with small sun-jammer

    NASA has announced that a small "nano-satellite" which was supposed to be released from a larger spacecraft in orbit on 6 December has finally separated from its mothership. The space agency is appealing for help from ham radio enthusiasts in picking up signals from the little NanoSail-D. Don't rush me "What a pleasant …

    Space 20 Jan 13:22

  • Brazilian cult condemns USB

    A satanic symbol, apparently

    There's an old adage in news journalism: news isn't necessarily what has just happened, but what readers haven't yet heard has happened. We were pointed in the direction of this story today, only to find it actually broke months ago. What the heck. It tickled us. Maybe it will tickle you. A Brazilian Christian sect has …

    reghardware 20 Jan 13:23

  • Gov will spend £400k to destroy ID card data

    A snip to snip

    Taxpayers will finally see some value for money out of the former goverment's ID card scheme. The cost of destroying the personal data collected under the ill-starred programme will be a mere £400,000, Home Office minister Damian Green revealed yesterday. The figure came in a commons reply to Paul Goggins MP, who'd asked what …

    Government 20 Jan 13:33

  • Publisher takes swipe at StarCraft II game mod

    Fan hit by Blizzard

    Activision has lashed out at a fan-made massive multiplayer online (MMO) game in development called World of StarCraft. YouTube has removed a video of the game mod's work in progress after the StarCraft II publisher claimed the clip infringed its copyright. The MMO was being produced with official Starcraft II editing tools …

    reghardware 20 Jan 13:38

  • Xbox 360 update bans Call of Duty dupes

    Microsoft stuffs cracked copies

    Microsoft's mandatory Xbox 360 update, issued yesterday, was described by the company as a fix for a known bug. It turns out that it also combats gamers who own illicit copies of Call of Duty: Black Ops and other games. Posters on the Xbox-Scene forums discovered their "back-up" copies of CoD and Modern Warfare 2 no longer run …

    reghardware 20 Jan 13:43

  • Mozilla's Skywriter gets Ajax treatment, emerges as Ace

    One-time Bespin walked into a bar...

    Mozilla has merged its gestating "coding in the cloud" Skywriter project with Ajax.org's Cloud9 IDE, a GPL-licensed open source service that is currently in beta. Skywriter is a web-based code editor that started life as Bespin at the end of 2008. It was renamed in October last year, when Mozilla shifted its official …

    Developer 20 Jan 13:51

  • BP's crystal ball sees more coal, gas, biofuels...

    ...but mostly gas

    You know you're watching in a lively business when forecasts look dated as soon as they appear. Yesterday BP revealed its crystal ball-gazing exercise of forecasts for energy supply and demand to 2030. It's as a good as any, but conservatively plays down the latest innovations in nuclear, synthetic hydrocarbons and …

    Environment 20 Jan 14:10

  • First DOS-based malware celebrates silver jubilee

    From Brain to zombie hordes in 25 years

    The first virus capable of infecting DOS-based PCs celebrates its silver jubilee this month. The Brain Virus, written by Pakistani brothers Basit and Amjad Alvi, was relatively harmless. The Alvis claimed the malware was there as a copyright protection measure to protect their medical software from piracy, an article by CIO …

    Malware 20 Jan 14:15

  • NASA craft to woo comet on Valentine's Day

    Romantic final encounter for Stardust-NExT

    NASA's venerable Stardust spacecraft will on Valentine's Day burn its remaining fuel to approch and photograph comet Tempel 1, marking the end of a 12-year, 3.7 billion-mile odyssey. At 16:37 GMT, Stardust will pass within 124 miles of the comet, grabbing 72 "high-resolution images during the encounter", while attempting to " …

    Space 20 Jan 14:17

  • Anne Hathaway slips into catsuit

    Takes feline lead in The Dark Knight Rises

    Anne Hathaway has seen off Jessica Biel and Keira Knightley to take the role of Catwoman in the forthcoming The Dark Knight Rises. The thesp will play the female lead opposite Christian Bale in the next outing of the Batman franchise, directed by Christopher Nolan and slated for release in July 2012. Hathaway's performance …

    Entertainment 20 Jan 14:57

  • Wind turbine bonanza expected in Hull

    New jobs nothing to do with gov, claims Cameron

    Politicians both local and national are overjoyed at an announcement by wind-turbine maker Siemens that it may build an assembly plant in Hull. A jobs bonanza for the region is predicted. Siemens issued a brief statement earlier today in which the firm announced the selection of Associated British Ports, with its Hull …

    Environment 20 Jan 14:59

  • Apple tightens screws on hardware hackers

    Going mental over pentalobe

    Apple has a long history of playing cat and mouse with software coders who seek to make its iOS operating system more accessible to their fellow geeks. Now the game is being played with hardware hackers. The Mac maker isn't terribly keen on letting ordinary folk tinker with the insides of its products, most notably with the …

    reghardware 20 Jan 15:50

  • DC Universe Online

    Review Get cape, wear cape, fight

    The backstory to DC Universe Online reads like that of so many of Metropolis and Gotham City's superheroes and supervillains. Lift the cape and pull back the mask and DCUO reveals itself as a regular-Joe action-brawler that gained special powers after falling into a vat of MMORPG mutagen. Pick on someone your own size! The …

    reghardware 20 Jan 16:03

  • IBM claims its big blue tools penetrate markets

    But has it stuffed a sock down its Power System pants?

    It has become a habit of IBM to brag about how much market share its Power Systems servers are taking away from Hewlett-Packard, Oracle, and Fujitsu as it closes out each quarter, and the fourth quarter was no exception for Big Blue. The Power Systems lineup includes older servers based on dual-core Power6 and Power6+ …

    Servers 20 Jan 17:01

  • US Navy puts stops on server spending

    Full steam ahead on consolidation and clouds

    The US Department of the Navy is slashing server spending as of last week, with Vice Admiral David Dorsett, deputy chief of naval operations for information dominance (how's that for a title?), issuing a directive for all IT operations to get their act together and start virtualizing and consolidating servers and data centers to …

    Servers 20 Jan 17:29

  • Weak October gives F5 a Cisco moment

    New ARX and ADC appliances on the way

    Wall Street has been driving up the stock in networking equipment provider F5 Networks in recent months, but after the company reported its financial results for the first quarter of fiscal 2011 on Wednesday, investors let some of the air out of its stock on Thursday because the company missed Wall Street's – but not its own – …

    Data Networking 20 Jan 19:21

  • WikiLeaks accused of tapping P2P for secret docs

    Gov probes claims of 21st Century scavenger hunt

    As much as half of the secret documents posted by WikiLeaks may have been siphoned from peer-to-peer users who incorrectly configured their file-sharing software, according to evidence gathered by a security firm. Tiversa, a Pennsylvania company that in 2009 uncovered confidential blueprints of the US President's Marine One …

    Government 20 Jan 19:27

  • Apple seeks touchscreen display mouse patent

    Poke, tap, and tickle your colorful rodent

    Apple has filed a patent application for a mouse with a context-aware, configurable display perched on its back. As described in a US Patent and Trademark Office filing entitled Computer Input Device Including a Display Device, the mouse would have an LED, LCD, OLED, or TFT display inside that would project its contents …

    PCs & Chips 20 Jan 20:21

  • Competition regulator OKs Telstra channel union

    Brothers unite!

    Australia’s competition regulator, the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission, has proposed allowing collective bargaining by Telstra stores. Telstra’s licensed stores – creatively named T-Shops – operate under a model in which the licensee is granted the right to use Telstra branding and has to install a fitout that …

    Business 20 Jan 20:53

  • FAA to pilots: Expect 'unreliable or unavailable' GPS signals

    Unspecified Pentagon 'tests' cited

    The US Federal Aviation Administration is warning pilots to expect “unreliable or unavailable” signals from their global positioning gear as a result unspecified tests being carried out by the Department of Defense. The Notice to Airmen, or NOTAM (PDF) said the GPS tests will be carried out beginning Thursday and are expected …

    Government 20 Jan 21:15

  • Yahoo7 buys Spreets, bubble inflates

    We got cheap cupcakes and haircuts, today only

    In a deal reportedly worth $A40 million, the old-new media hybrid Yahoo7 (jointly owned by Yahoo! and the Seven Network) has acquired the Australian group-shopping site Spreets. The price has invited media speculation that group buying sites are forming a bubble. Spreets, after all, is only a year old. However, it claims 500, …

    Channel Register 20 Jan 21:56

  • AMD optimistic on Fusion as earnings flatten

    2011: make-or-break year?

    AMD announced its financial results for the fourth quarter of 2010 on Thursday. The numbers were essentially flat as the Intel competitor navigated through the end of a year during which it positioned itself for what it hopes will be a more successful 2011. "AMD enters 2011 with significant momentum, amplified by the …

    Financial News 20 Jan 22:19

  • Google swaps old CEO Schmidt for older CEO Page

    Management shakeup for 'better decisions'

    Google's chief executive Eric Schmidt is getting bumped aside after 10 years in charge and will hand back power to original CEO, and co-founder, Larry Page. Schmidt is moving from day-to-day running of the web's largest search and ads company to executive chairman, serving what can only be described as an ambassadorial role. …

    Financial News 20 Jan 22:20

  • Google's revenue machine stays unstoppable in Q4

    Money for nothing and your clicks for free

    With all the hubbub about Larry Page taking over as CEO of Google, it was easy to miss the stellar fourth-quarter financial results the company reported on Thursday. Net income for the quarter that ended on December 31 rose nine per cent to $2.54bn, or $7.81 a share, from $1.97bn, or $6.13, during the year-ago quarter. Revenue …

    Financial News 20 Jan 23:24