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24th January 2011 Archive

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  • Australia’s eBay shopping grows strongly

    Who knows by how much?

    American companies drive Australian journalists to distraction with their refusal to provide any detail about their local operations. If a US company condescends to hold a “latest quarter results” press conference in Australia, there’s no point in turning up. The question “how did your performance in Australia this quarter/ …

    Business 24 Jan 2011, 00:19

  • CA Technologies signs up to Fujitsu cloud

    Cloud within a cloud

    CA has decided to host its cloud-based CA Clarity PPM On Demand suite within Australia, and has selected Fujitsu to provide the hosting infrastructure. Fujitsu will provide the IaaS hosting infrastructure by which CA will be mirroring its US environment. The Fujitsu announcement says the company will provide data and system …

    Financial News 24 Jan 2011, 03:59

  • iPhone, Android app offers 3D ads in Oz Open

    It's like the car is coming right at you!

    Australian tennis fans are about to get the opportunity of a lifetime: they can download an app for iPhone or Android that will add a 3D “augmented reality” overlay to advertisements for KIA Optima cars. Instead of having to endure the normal stream of advertisements that interrupts every Australian sporting event, SMG Red, a …

    Media 24 Jan 2011, 04:41

  • Google accused of copying (more) Oracle Java code

    Android's 'PROPRIETARY' and 'CONFIDENTIAL' open source files

    A well-known open source advocate has accused Google of copying at least seven and up to as many as 43 Android files directly from Oracle's Java source code. It's unclear whether the files were actually included with the shipping version of Android, but they were open-sourced by Google under an Apache license, and that alone …

    Developer 24 Jan 2011, 06:26

  • Wise after the event

    Podcast The secret of the Wise Group's productivity

    You might have watched our recent Regcast about how to make your business more productive, and thought, "That's great in practice, but I'd like to listen to a 10-minute podcast where the CIO of a successful business explains how he put this into practice". Or something like that. So that's why we tracked down Alan Lee-Bourke, …

    Tech Panel 24 Jan 2011, 09:30

  • Taxpayers shafted as Classic FM gets licence back for peanuts

    No need for an auction, says Ofcom

    The richest commercial radio station in the UK has had its licence renewed automatically - avoiding a competitive auction, and depriving the taxpayer of millions of pounds of cash. Classic FM station has even seen fees cut significantly to a "nominal amount". Talksport's licence was also renewed under similar terms. The 1990 …

    Media 24 Jan 2011, 09:45

  • The cost of not deduping

    Think pouring budget down drain

    In our homes and offices duplicated information is such a fact of life we don’t even think about it. In the digital world though we can think about it, and should, because it can stop a lot of wasteful spending. Imagine a department of twenty people. They each have their own filed copies of their employment contract and a …

    Data Center 24 Jan 2011, 09:47

  • Report shows €240bn drop in music retail over 7 years

    Spanish pirates steal musical investment booty, says IFPI

    Even if you're all numbered out, there are some interesting nuggets in the latest annual compendium of figures from IFPI, the sound recording industry's global trade group. The group is keen to draw the connection between piracy and failure to invest in talent. In Spain, where piracy is rampant after mismanaged hikes in …

    Media 24 Jan 2011, 09:56

  • The Last Airbender up for nine Razzies

    Twilight also likely to take a shoeing

    The nominations for the 31st Annual Razzie Awards are now available for the viewing pleasure of the long-suffering moviegoing public, and it seems likely that The Last Airbender and Twilight Saga: Eclipse are poised to take a righteous shoeing. The former is up for nine awards, including Worst Director, Worst Picture, Worst …

    Hardware 24 Jan 2011, 10:03

  • What's Oracle got up its sleeve?

    Comment Looks like it could be tape time

    A disk drive array can't cut it: Oracle says its 31 January game-changing announcement will provide a "dramatic leap in storage technology" for enterprise data centres. A disk drive array alone can't provide that. What can the technology be? Whatever it is, it will offer, Oracle says:- Much lower costs—per terabyte of …

    Storage 24 Jan 2011, 10:07

  • ICO slaps NHSBT for wrong organ donor data

    Ten years, thousands of cockups

    The Information Commissioner's Office has reprimanded NHS Blood and Transplant for wrongly recording organ donation preferences over a decade. The ICO said that in March 2010 NHSBT, which manages the Organ Donation Register (ODR), found irregularities between donation preferences stated on Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency ( …

    Government 24 Jan 2011, 10:17

  • Nokia MeeGo tablet spied on web

    Seven-incher by the look of it

    Nokia's rumoured media tablet based on the MeeGo operating system it created with Intel has allegedly been photographed and the snap posted online. The woefully under-exposed shot shows a tablet running a video player app, and if you yank up the brightness in a photo-editing app, you'll spot a shiny Nokia logo too. Source: …

    Tablets 24 Jan 2011, 10:28

  • Renault denies tech at heart of spy scandal

    Strategy and pricing info, not batteries

    The boss of Renault said spies found within the company's electric car division were after business information not technical secrets. It had been assumed that the spying related to technology - most likely battery technology. Three senior Renault managers have been suspended without pay, and are taking legal action to clear …

    Science 24 Jan 2011, 10:29

  • $50bn-valued Facebook goes public about going public

    IPO-incoming. Just not yet, OK

    Facebook finally confirmed on Friday that it had indeed raised $1.5bn courtesy of brokerage Goldman Sachs and Russian investor Digital Sky Technologies. Reports that the Mark Zuckerberg-run social networking website had been valued at $50bn – that’s almost as much as dominant UK retail monster Tesco ($54bn) – surfaced earlier …

    Financial News 24 Jan 2011, 10:36

  • The beginner's guide to near field communications

    Wave me the money

    Near-field communications (NFC) will take off very quickly - once it's clear who can make money from it. From the look of it, 2011 is the year that it will all become clear. Mobile handset vendors are rushing to incorporate NFC into their roadmaps, with several high profile NFC-enabled handset launches pencilled for mid-2011 …

    Phones 24 Jan 2011, 10:58

  • LG Android tablet spied in boy-band vid

    Product placement

    LG's upcoming widescreen Android tablet has turned up on, of all things, a Korean music video. The piece of pre-release product placement was spied on YouTube, and we've snapped the appropriate bits to save you from sitting through three minutes of Korean pop and hoofing. The video doesn't tell us anything about the tablet's …

    Tablets 24 Jan 2011, 11:02

  • Beeb say sorry for Stephen Fry A-bomb quip

    Japan rattles katana over nuke survivor gag

    The BBC and Talkback Thames have apologised for Stephen Fry's description of double A-bomb survivor Tsutomu Yamaguchi as "the unluckiest man in the world". The QI presenter - himself described by Julie Burchill as "a stupid person's idea of a clever person" - offended delicate Japanese sensiblities during a December outing of …

    Bootnotes 24 Jan 2011, 11:23

  • Sony PSP2 to keep in touch with 3G

    Details leaked

    Sony's upcoming handheld games gadget, the PSP 2 has been exposed in a Japanese newspaper, with several specs revealed. The company is expected to officially divulge details later this week, but thanks to a report by Nikkei, impatient fans no longer need hold their breath. The story suggests the PSP 2 will feature an OLED …

    Games 24 Jan 2011, 11:34

  • Toshiba shows second-gen tablet

    Bit on the bulky side?

    Toshiba has coughed up some of the specs its upcoming Android Honeycomb tablet will sport. According to a teaser site for the product, the tablet will be based around a 10.1in, 1280 x 800 capacitive touchscreen, contain an Nvidia Tegra 2 processor, and combine 0.2Mp and 5MP front- and rear-facing cameras. Pictures show the …

    Tablets 24 Jan 2011, 11:38

  • The cost of beating Apple's shrewd screws? £2

    Quick online search finds easy answer to pentalobes

    Apple has been switching the screws that hold its latest iPhone shut, but cries of conspiracy are somewhat refuted by the realisation that a $2 screwdriver fixes the problem. The new screws are called pentalobe (five-pointed), but if it is really (as iFixit so eloquently put it) "Apple's insidious plan to sabotage our iPhones …

    Hardware 24 Jan 2011, 11:44

  • BSkyB to scoop up The Cloud in bid to rival BT wireless biz

    What's a hotspot not?

    BSkyB is reportedly poised to buy wireless hotspot provider The Cloud later this week. According to The Sunday Times (behind paywall), which is owned by Sky parent News Corporation, the broadcaster will announce the acquisition later this week. The newspaper said that under the deal, Sky would offer its 2.8 million fixed-line …

    Broadband 24 Jan 2011, 12:01

  • Hackers sell access to hacked .mil and .gov sites

    Command and control? Yours for $500, guv

    Cybercrooks are offering hacked domains, including military sites, for sale through underground marketplaces. Government, defence (.mil) and education sites in the US and Europe are on offer to interested parties from anywhere between $55 and $499 each. The hacker is selling admin login credentials to hacked sites as well as …

    Security 24 Jan 2011, 12:03

  • NASA rovers to lose comms this week as Mars moves behind Sun

    Opportunity to blast rock with cobalt rays while it waits

    NASA has announced that its surviving Mars rover will be unable to receive commands from Earth for much of the week, as the red planet is about to pass behind the Sun. The plan is for rover Opportunity to spend the blackout period sitting stationary, (gently) blasting a rock with a cobalt-powered radiation beam. …

    Science 24 Jan 2011, 12:06

  • BBC axes some Online sprawl

    Web empire pared back - still the biggest spend in the UK

    The BBC Trust has approved proposals to cut the Beeb's sprawling online empire, with half of its 400 "top-level domains" to close, and the loss of 360 jobs. It reflects budget cuts for BBC Online of £34m down by 2013/14. Yet with a budget of £103m, the BBC's online spending will remain the largest of any media company in the …

    Media 24 Jan 2011, 12:28

  • Backup: It really should be easy

    But it's not

    Backup's easy; people have been doing it for years. All you need is a tape drive and software. On the other hand: backup is terrible; it takes too long and tapes fail. Really though, how hard can it be to do this simple seemingly thing: protect your data against hardware failures and file deletion/corruption? The ideal backup …

    Data Center 24 Jan 2011, 12:40

  • Smartphone makers to embrace multi-core chips

    Nvidia will have two- and four-core jobs for them

    By the end of the 2011, 15 per cent of us will be using smartphones with multi-core processors. So says market watcher Strategy Analytics, which also reckons 45 per cent of the über-handsets will contain two or more processing cores come 2015. Right now, you can't buy a multi-core smartphone. LG will release what is expected …

    Phones 24 Jan 2011, 12:55

  • HTC Desire Z Android Qwerty smartphone

    Review Touch or type

    HTC may have been making a bit of a splash with its Windows Phone 7 handsets of late, but that doesn’t mean it’s been neglecting its Googlephone products. The Desire Z, features Android 2.2 OS, plus a slide-out Qwerty keyboard and an HD video camera. The best of both worlds? HTC's Desire Z At 119 x 60 x 15mm and weighing a …

    Phones 24 Jan 2011, 12:56

  • Google backslaps Schmidt with $100m award

    Take the money and hum

    Google’s outgoing CEO Eric Schmidt, who will be succeeded by the company’s co-founder Larry Page in April, will reportedly pocket a $100m equity award. According to Bloomberg, which cites a person familiar with the matter, Schmidt’s payout is the first such equity award he will have received since joining Google as board …

    Financial News 24 Jan 2011, 13:13

  • Hot air: Energy industry talks shale gas

    A revolution 50 years in the making?

    With standing room only for Future Energy Strategies' seminar on shale gas last week, there's no doubt what the big excitement in energy is right now. Shale... It's the new thorium! This is all a bit strange for something that relies on a technique that's 50 years old. Shale gas drilling licences were snapped up in 2002, and …

    Science 24 Jan 2011, 13:41

  • BPM beyond automation

    Webcast The lessons you can learn from others' experiences

    Business process management (BPM) has traditionally been associated with hard-core process automation, and has often involved the use of similarly hard-core techniques like Lean Six Sigma. Such approaches may be considered overkill or simply not practical for dealing with the myriad of ad hoc, informal, and constantly changing …

    Tech Panel 24 Jan 2011, 13:42

  • Win an HP Slate 500!

    Site News Reg promo

    The Register has teamed up with HP for a lucky dip promo, which will see the winner get a lovely new HP Slate 500 Tablet PC. HP Slate 500 - it could be yours... Here's the drill - You put in a few details about your self and organisation - this will take - ooh - 30 seconds. In return you will be signed up to the HP Small …

    Site News 24 Jan 2011, 14:00

  • 'Personal Air Vehicle' VTOL jump-copter in key flight test

    Whirly, winged wonder-craft gets automated controls

    A radical autogyro jump-copter "Personal Air Vehicle" able to make vertical takeoff and landings but cruise in winged flight like an aeroplane has achieved a key flight-test milestone. Wings optional The Personal Air Vehicle (or PAV) is a new design from Carter Aviation of Texas, which has been at work on its "slowed rotor/ …

    Science 24 Jan 2011, 14:03

  • The realities of SaaS and security

    Webcast Do they go together?

    Whatever your plans for the desktop, whether you're upgrading to Windows 7, supporting the Mac or iPad, or virtualizing the whole lot, an interesting question is what to do about those office applications. You could take the evolutionary approach and upgrade the old suites, or you could look to move some or all of it into the …

    Hosted Apps 24 Jan 2011, 14:38

  • O2 Germany offers Bada apps paid for on phone bills

    PAYG no-credit-card plebs can join the party

    O2 customers in Germany will soon be able to have Bada applications added to their phone bill, with another platform set to follow later in the year. That other platform will no doubt be Android. In his speech at the Digital-Life-Design conference in Munich, O2 Germany CEO Rene Schuster did not detail the two platforms to be …

    Mobile 24 Jan 2011, 15:11

  • Matrix 4 and 5 in works, threatens Keanu

    Slo-mo fetish chop-socky saga to go 3D. Apparently

    Another two Matrix films may be leaping into cinemas, the Grauniad shrugs. The curiously youthful Keanu Reeves, star of the Matrix trilogy and of an exceptionally lame meme told an audience at the London School of Performing Arts that he may be getting back into Neo's slinky strides once again. Excitable source El Nino told …

    Hardware 24 Jan 2011, 15:18

  • Utilitybidder gets disconnected by developer

    Unplugged after developer allegedly left unpaid

    Utility price comparison site utilitybidder.co.uk has been reduced to an almost blank template over the weekend following an apparent run-in with its web developer. The developer has apparently pulled the plug on the site, leaving only an unflattering message on its home page, in what appears to be revenge for the company's …

    Management 24 Jan 2011, 15:33

  • Apple $10k winner hangs up on 'prank caller'

    Spend it all on us

    An Apple customer nearly missed out on a $10,000 gift card from the company, after she was convinced that her daughter – who had downloaded the 10 billionth app from the iPhone maker's store – had received a "prank call". Cult of Mac reports that Gail Davis of Orpington, Kent, took the call from Apple before promptly ending it …

    Phones 24 Jan 2011, 15:42

  • Intel commits $10bn to buybacks, juices dividend

    Happy days are here again

    Intel got the technology sector rolling this morning by announcing that it would be shelling out big bags of cash to buy back its own shares from Wall Street. The company also did a modest increase of its dividend. Rather than give a big cash payout to shareholders, Intel has taken the financial engineering approach and set …

    Hardware 24 Jan 2011, 15:49

  • Italy sues Microsoft for box-bundling bungling

    Windows tax is unfair

    The Italian consumer watchdog is suing Microsoft over the "Windows Tax" – the near impossibility of an ordinary user getting a refund if they decide to delete Microsoft's software from a new computer or laptop. The class action case says Microsoft makes it too difficult for people who buy a computer with Microsoft software on …

    The Channel 24 Jan 2011, 15:51

  • French president recovers from Facebook hack

    Zut alors

    The Facebook account of Nicolas Sarkozy was hacked over the weekend to post the false rumour that the French president would not seek re-election next year. The badly spelt update claimed that Sarkozy had decided not to seek re-election in response to the "exceptional circumstances facing our country". The post linked to …

    Security 24 Jan 2011, 16:00

  • Freetard monitoring: costs to be shared

    Broadband users won't pay to appeal copyright cases

    A draft order vital to the implementation of anti-piracy measures has been laid before Parliament. The statutory instrument, officially titled the "The Online Infringement of Copyright (Initial Obligations) (Sharing of Costs) Order 2011" ensures that broadband users won't have to pay anything to appeal copyright cases. As …

    Media 24 Jan 2011, 16:23

  • NOVA 2 for iOS

    Review Shoot through padding

    Supersoldier required for highly autonomous role in planetary defence organisation. Duties include relentless futuristic combat, security door hacking and driving through superfluous vehicle sections. Must be highly competent with a variety of human and alien weaponry, and must wear own advanced battle armour. Will be …

    Games 24 Jan 2011, 16:31

  • Mozilla plans 'Do Not Track' bottle-stopper for private surfers

    Oh, behave!

    Mozilla is planning to add a so-called "do-not-track" feature to browsers for Firefox users who want to outfox cookie-bothering behavioural advertisers. The open source browser maker's global privacy and public policy wonk Alex Fowler admitted that convincing website operators to agree to such a proposal remained a big …

    Applications 24 Jan 2011, 16:35

  • EMC wages psych war against NetApp

    We're on your case

    EMC parked three EMC-branded BMW Minis outside NetApp's Sunnyvale HQ on Tuesday (Jan 18) as it escalated the rumble in the storage jungle against its strongest storage competitor, the boys in ONTAP blue. EMC-branded Minis outside NetApp Sunnyvale HQ Why taunt your enemy in this way? This is the second time that EMC has …

    Storage 24 Jan 2011, 19:16

  • Google 'Do Not Track' extension preempts feds, Mozilla

    Behavioral ad self-police

    Google has released a Chrome browser extension that lets you opt-out of tracking cookies from multiple online advertising networks. The move comes less than two months after the US Federal Trade Commission called for a "Do Not Track" mechanism that would let "consumers choose whether to allow the collection of data regarding …

    Security 24 Jan 2011, 19:51

  • Listing disto Dicker Data leaps 5% on day one

    One penny extra per share...

    In practically the only tech float currently slated for 2011 on the Australian Stock Exchange (ASX), Dicker Data is trading at 21 cents per share, after listing at 20 cents. The float of the hardware distributor illustrates, among other things, the way the mining boom is distorting Australia’s economy. Of the 31 upcoming …

    The Channel 24 Jan 2011, 20:50

  • HP euthanizes Neoview data warehouse iron

    Itanium death

    With IBM's Watson question-answer machine getting ready to play the Jeopardy! game show next month and Oracle's Exadata and SuperCluster data warehousing appliances hogging a lot of the headlines last year, HP's Enterprise Business group needs to come up with something flashy to get some attention and do a little business. …

    Data Center 24 Jan 2011, 22:36

  • IT job market to revive in 2011

    We have a pulse!

    Job sites Dice and CareerBuilder have taken the pulse of the IT market, and the good news is that it looks like there actually is going to be a pulse in 2011. Dice polled 19,768 IT professionals from August 31 to November 15 last year to get a sense of what the IT job market looked like as 2010 came to a close, and to gauge …

    Business 24 Jan 2011, 22:47

  • Eric Schmidt 'eyes own TV show'

    Google boss in alleged CNN pilot 'disaster'

    Some say Eric Schmidt is stepping down as Google CEO because he lost "energy" and "focus" after Larry Page and Sergey Brin pulled the company from China against his wishes. But another report indicates his rather large head was turned by the possibility of his very own TV show. The New York Post reports that for more than a …

    Bootnotes 24 Jan 2011, 22:49

  • Microsoft Windows guru turns to cybercrime (fiction)

    Bill Gates endorses "what if" scenario

    One of Microsoft's top Windows gurus and author of books and tools for securely coding Windows has embraced fiction with a debut tackling international cyber crime. Platform and Services Division technical fellow Mark Russinovich has delivered a Die-Hard-4-style novel called Zero Day. It tells the story of Osama-bin-Laiden- …

    Security 24 Jan 2011, 23:37