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4th February 2011 Archive

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  • Verizon: 'We're not throttling bandwidth except when we are'

    'Extraordinary' data hogs beware

    Verizon Wireless slipped out a policy on Thursday that kills unlimited data access for customers, just as the Canadian government was squashing a big-telco friendly policy that would sink its country's net neutrality. Verizon – which recently slipped to number two among US wireless carriers – updated the terms and conditions …

    Telecoms 4 Feb 01:39

  • Pentax 645D medium format digital camera

    Review The 40Mp field worker

    Back in 2003 Pentax hinted at the development of a digital version of its classic 645 medium format film model. Given how much time has passed, I was beginning to wonder if it would ever see the light of day. Late developer: here at last, Pentax's 645D The Pentax 645D uses a 40Mp Kodak KAF-40000 full-frame CCD sensor [PDF …

    reghardware 4 Feb 07:00

  • BBC apologises for Top Gear outrage

    'No vindictiveness' behind cheap Mexican jibes

    The BBC has apologised for its trio of laddish Top Gear presenters who managed to offend the whole of Mexico with some hilarious racial stereotyping. As we previously reported, during a studio discussion of the comparative merits of sports cars from Germany, Italy and Mexico, jet car pilot par excellence Richard Hammond …

    Bootnotes 4 Feb 09:53

  • Microsoft discovers disposable email

    Next up, dancing hamsters

    Microsoft is introducing throwaway email addresses for Hotmail users. You might have thought that Hotmail was already for chuckaway email addresses, but the software giant will now make it easier to redirect mail to your existing primary address. Hotmail subscribers can already use a +sign and add a word to the first part of …

    Applications 4 Feb 09:54

  • PlayStation phone promo'd in creepy commercial

    Droid gets sordid surgery

    An eerie ad for Sony Ericsson's Xperia Play - aka the PlayStation phone - has sprung up on the internet and sees the Android mascot surgically enhanced with opposable thumbs. The team at DroidNYTT somehow managed to get their mitts on a copy of the unreleased commercial, which follows in the tradition of disturbing PlayStation …

    reghardware 4 Feb 09:58

  • PSP playing boy plunges onto railway

    Cop stops kid becoming a Darwin

    If you didn't think platform games could be hazardous to health, just ask the boy who plunged onto a railway line while engrossed in his PSP. The youngster was captured on video walking off the edge at Lorento station in Milan while distracted by his console, a video on Italian site YouReporter shows. The blasé bambino was …

    reghardware 4 Feb 10:13

  • Xiotech execs are betting the company on ISE

    Bigger ISE coming

    Xiotech has abandoned the Emprise brand, and is focusing on ISE, its intelligent super disk enclosure product line, with a high capacity product coming. In a briefing at Cloud Expo in the UK, CEO Alan Atkinson reckoned that the recently launched Hybrid ISE – the one with solid state drives (SSDs) as well as hard disk drives …

    Storage 4 Feb 10:33

  • ISPs and Vaizey set to bump heads over default porn filter

    Meeting to choose whether it's off or on

    A meeting on Monday between Minister for Culture Ed Vaizey and representatives of UK ISPs could be a game-changing moment for the way in which we are all allowed to use the internet. At stake is the seemingly academic question of whether PCs should arrive with adult filters turned off - the current default - or on. Presently …

    Government 4 Feb 10:40

  • Stephen Fry cans Japan trip over nuke survivor quip

    QI presenter likely to bomb, decides BBC

    The BBC has decided it would probably be wiser if Stephen Fry didn't visit Japan in the near future, following the QI presenter's description of double A-bomb survivor Tsutomu Yamaguchi as "the unluckiest man in the world". Fry had been due to jet out to the country to film for a new Beeb documentary series, Planet Word, but …

    Bootnotes 4 Feb 10:42

  • Zero-day update duo to star in upcoming Patch Tuesday update

    But MHTML fix remains MIA

    Microsoft plans to release a dozen bulletins on Tuesday – three of which address critical flaws. The February Patch Tuesday batch includes a fix for a critical Windows thumbnail preview flaw as well as patching an equally serious flaw in how Internet Explorer handles Cascading Style Sheets (CSS). Each of these zero-day …

    Enterprise Security 4 Feb 10:44

  • ICO Deputy exposes Data Protection law wish list

    Comment Harmonisation of EU data protection law may be a pipe-dream

    Last Friday, data protection day, was commemorated with a meeting organised by the Ministry of Justice in Whitehall. At that meeting, David Smith, the Deputy Information Commissioner (DIC), reviewed the Information Commissioner’s wish list of changes to data protection law. This blog reports on the content of that list. …

    Law 4 Feb 10:54

  • Britain takes delivery of first Nissan e-cars

    Leaf wafts in

    The first batch of Nissan's Leaf battery powered e-car have arrived in Blighty. Not that our allocation is a large one - just 67 of the zero-emission motors, Nissan admitted. It said some 270,000 27,000 of the cars have been reserved by punters around the world The company describes the Leaf as "the world’s first affordable …

    reghardware 4 Feb 10:58

  • Flickr flap illuminates cloud concerns

    Caveat emptor

    Briefly, a photographer used Flickr to store his pictures online – amassing more than 4,000 photos over five years. Being the helpful sort, he alerted Flickr to another user who was stealing content. Flickr deleted his account, by mistake and those pictures looked to be gone forever. Following a media firestorm, Flickr had a …

    Cloud 4 Feb 11:50

  • Boss leaves Buying Solutions, writing on the wall?

    We're not buying anything so we don't need an expensive procurement quango

    Alison Littley, chief executive of Buying Solutions, is leaving the quango which was meant to sort out central government IT procurement and other services. A spokesman for the Cabinet Office said: "We can confirm that Alison Littley has announced her decision to move on from Buying Solutions, following five years as its Chief …

    Channel Register 4 Feb 11:56

  • BOFH: There's no 'I' in team, but there's a 'u' in suck

    Episode 1 My name is Inigo Montoya. You killed my father. Prepare to die ...

    “Team Conference!” the Boss chips quickly in the door of Mission Control before moving on to other offices. “Welcome ... to ... THE MACHINE!” I murmur to the PFY. “Say what now?” the PFY asks. “The Machine. Like in Princess Bride. You’ll notice how management’s been conspicuously quiet over the past couple of weeks?” “I …

    BOFH 4 Feb 12:00

  • Mindjack

    Review The future is mental

    'Do you wish to continue?' It's a question games have always asked after death – a challenge to players to overcome defeat and try, try, and try again. But when that same question is posed upon completion of every stage, as in MindJack, what initially comes across as over-politeness quickly begins to feel just plain apologetic. …

    reghardware 4 Feb 12:00

  • Dutch get wound up over invisible SMS

    Smoking a little too much?

    Dutch tabloid De Telegraaf reports that 12 Somalis picked up in Amsterdam over Christmas were located using secret SMS messages, apparently bouncing back their GPS coordinates for the authorities. The 12 suspects were arrested on Christmas eve following a tip-off that they were planning some sort of terrorist attack, but now …

    Mobile 4 Feb 12:01

  • Big stink over Malawi farting ban

    Solicitor general challenges trouser cough clampdown

    Officials in Malawi have locked horns over the controversial ban on farting in public. The prohibition forms part of the Local Courts Bill, due for introduction next week. The legislation has the backing of justice minister George Chaponda, who said the clampdown on unruly bowels would promote "public decency". According to …

    Bootnotes 4 Feb 12:05

  • World leaders meet to discuss cyberwar rules of engagement

    Hague convention for state-backed hacking?

    Rules of engagement for the deployment of cyber-weapons need to be developed, an international security conference is due to be told later today. The influential EastWest Institute is due to present proposals for the cyberspace equivalent of the Geneva convention at the Munich Security Conference, which has included a debate …

    Government 4 Feb 12:08

  • Apple pressed to show succession plan

    Board asked to give shareholders a peek at the future

    Apple has come under further pressure to tell shareholders how it plans to manage the eventual succession to Steve Jobs, after the CEO announced his latest and open-ended stint of medical leave. Institutional Investor Services, a particularly influential shareholder advisory firm, has thrown its weight behind the Central …

    Financial News 4 Feb 12:10

  • Russia has 'secret space warplane' to match US X-37B

    Cold War 'Hurricane' shuttle-interceptor reborn?

    Russia has claimed that it too is working on an unmanned pocket spaceplane similar to the US military's mysterious X-37B roboshuttle, dubbed a "secret space warplane" by the Iranian government. What has the robot spaceplane collected up there? Flightglobal reports that Oleg Ostapenko, a senior official of the Russian Space …

    Science 4 Feb 12:24

  • Osborne bids nation fill his Budget portal

    Have your say on spending, everyone!

    Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne wants to crowdsource ideas for the Budget. A breathless announcement tells us that ideas sent via the "online Budget portal" will go "direct to the desks of the Treasury officials working on the Budget". Whether firing a spam-cannon at presumably already busy civil servants is really …

    Government 4 Feb 12:37

  • HMRC warns (again) over tax refund phishing scams

    Marks still sending their account info to email fraudsters

    UK taxpayers were officially warned on Friday to have nothing to do with supposed tax refund emails that have begun circulating since the deadline for self-assessment tax returns expired on Monday. The scam emails claim the recipients (prospective marks) are entitled to a tax refund, which can supposedly be claimed after …

    Crime 4 Feb 12:47

  • Humax adds BBC iPlayer to Freeview HD DVR

    IPTV installation

    Set-top box specialist Humax will this weekend begin adding its TV Portal IPTV interface to its HDR-Fox T2 Freeview HD DVR. The Humax TV Portal will initial provide access to BBC iPlayer, Flickr and Wiki@TV, but Humax said it will be adding Sky Player for BSkyB customers in "a matter of weeks". Despite its name, the Portal …

    reghardware 4 Feb 13:10

  • UK police crime map website: Who's the victim here?

    Analysis Do a man dirt, yourself you hurt

    Earlier this week the Home Office unveiled its crime-mapping website, which was developed by Leicester-based ad agency Rock Kitchen Harris for £300,000. Immediately following the site’s launch, Police.uk suffered a serious bout of stage nerves as it wobbled under the demand from UK residents seizing the chance to find out what …

    Policing 4 Feb 13:13

  • Catalans to hunt wild boar with bows and arrows

    Population control à la Robin Hood

    The Catalan authorities have raised a few eyebrows with a plan to hunt wild boar with bows and arrows. The powers that insist that the boars in the Parque Natural de Collserola have become a serious headache, with a burgeoning population increasingly making forays into neighbouring Barcelona.* The problem is that the park is …

    Biology 4 Feb 13:14

  • Apple '6x more efficient' than Nokia at smartphone R&D

    We're really uncompetitive. Let's have a meeting

    Even Nokia's new CEO recognises that the company's Soviet-style bureaucracy – it employs over 120,000 staff – prevents it from competing quickly and effectively. (See When Dilbert Came To Nokia). But quantifying the cost of this bloat is difficult. Now analyst company Bernstein Research has attempted to break down the R&D …

    Mobile 4 Feb 13:50

  • Open source to bust up Cisco Borg collective?

    Open...and Shut Can't beat that Sun Microsystems' feelin'

    Microsoft gets all the press for being a reformed monopolist, but in the hoary world of networking, no one has dominated longer or more tenaciously than Cisco Systems. And while Cisco has seen upstart competitors come and mostly go, perhaps none has the chance to up-end the networking giant's comfortable position more than …

    Software 4 Feb 14:00

  • Fifa to give goal-line tech a shot

    Good call?

    Fifa is to kick off tests of ten systems for goal-line technology next week, avid footie fans will be relieved to hear. The results of the tech tests will be presented to the International Football Association Board (IFAB) when it meets in March for its annual review of the sport's laws. Systems to sense whether a goal has …

    reghardware 4 Feb 14:24

  • Apple's app store policies: What will they provoke?

    Comment Bracing for consumer backlash, beef with Sony

    There hasn’t actually been a new policy statement, but Apple has clearly made a change in the eReader side of its business - one that immediately affects Sony, which has brought the issue to light. It is likely that the change will also affect Amazon (it can’t really affect one and not the other) and Barnes and Noble with its …

    Mobile 4 Feb 14:44

  • Punters 'pooh-pooh video on demand'

    TiVo gets Virgin rebirth, though

    Viewers can't cope with the enormous responsibility of choice that personal video provides, according to US researchers at Hill Holliday. Five Bostonian families had their access to broadcast video cut entirely over Christmas and replaced with the latest video-on-demand technology. Deciding what to demand proved more than most …

    Music and Media 4 Feb 15:09

  • Wintery January hurts US jobs growth

    IT loses jobs this time around

    The succession of winter storms in the United States in January put the freeze on hiring, and according to a report from the Department of Labor this morning, the economy added only 36,000 net new jobs. That is a lot less than the 200,000-plus jobs that the American economy needs to just keep up with population growth – and a …

    Financial News 4 Feb 15:20

  • Toshiba trounces Seagate on mobile drives

    Shuffling behind on shipment share

    Seagate lost considerable share to Toshiba on mobile hard disk drive shipment, numbers show. Numbers put together by Aaron Rakers of Stifel Nicolaus show that in the fourth 2010 quarter Seagate shipped 11.8 million 2.5-inch mobile drives (excluding product for consumer electronics applications). This number was 14 per cent …

    Channel Register 4 Feb 16:08

  • ROBOT COP scatters LIVE GRENADES in San Francisco STREET

    Then runs them over when they fail to explode

    In an apparent instance of mindless mechanical nihilism, a police robot in San Francisco scattered live grenades across a street using its mechanical arm. When the deadly frag-bombs failed to explode, the enraged tin cop apparently attempted to detonate them by running them over. We'll let this vid from local news channel KTVU …

    Bootnotes 4 Feb 16:14

  • Videogame developer defies hacker threat

    Runes dude moons forum warning on data leak

    The publisher of the Runes of Magic videogame is defying a hacker who has threatened to release personal details and payment information on users. The threats were made in posts to the Runes of Magic forum, promising dire consequences unless staff at games publisher Frogster were treated more fairly and the security of the …

    Crime 4 Feb 16:47

  • Google v Facebook salary inflation riles Big Data startup

    Cloudera. It's not the Evil Empire

    As Google and Facebook fight over Silicon Valley's top talent, it's a good time to be an engineer. According to one report, when Facebook tried to lure one engineer away from Google, Mountain View counter-offered with a 15 per cent pay raise and $500,000 in restricted stock. And he left for Facebook anyway. Then, according to …

    Business 4 Feb 20:46

  • Oracle and IBM carve up open-source Java leadership

    Finally, Java without the 'Sun' bit

    IBM and Oracle have divvied up the leadership of OpenJDK – the leading open-source Java project – finally giving IBM the sort of Java control it spent ten years fighting Sun Microsystems for. The new bylaws for the OpenJDK community outline a governing board that consists of a chairman, vice chairman, OpenJDK lead, and two …

    Developer 4 Feb 22:25

  • Chrome 9 debuts with WebGL, app store, instant annoyance

    Google browser rolls in more Google

    Google has released a ninth version of its Chrome browser, rolling in the WebGL standard for 3D hardware acceleration, the new Chrome Web Store, and Chrome Instant, a tool that loads web pages as soon as you start typing into the browser's address bar. But Google doesn't really refer to Chrome 9 as Chrome 9. Now that it's …

    Applications 4 Feb 23:21