9th February 2011 Archive

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Google Translate for iPhone: hits and misses

First look 'Egg freckles' redux

Google has released an iOS version of its free Translate app, and my first couple of hours of using it has shown it to be worth every penny. Well, maybe a wee bit more than that, but I certainly wouldn't advise using it as the basis for any attempt at meaningful communication with someone with whom you share no linguistic …

Mobile 9 Feb 03:40
Employer settles with Facebooker who called boss 'dick'

Social network = public forum

An ambulance company in Connecticut has agreed to settle a case that challenged its decision to fire an employee for posting comments on Facebook that referred to her boss as a “dick” and a “scumbag.” American Medical Response said it would revise its rules to make clear they don't prevent employees from discussing wages, …

Music and Media 9 Feb 04:00
Mac Tel subsidiary launches cloud service

Plan B: put the cloud at arm’s length

It turns out that Macquarie Telecom wasn’t just supporting its IntelliCenter services when it released research last year citing jurisdictional risk as a problem for cloud computing customers. Ninefold, a developer-targeted cloud service launched at arm’s-length as an independent subsidiary of Mac Tel, also happily cites …

Cloud 9 Feb 04:42
Samsung and IBM in patent pact

IP cross ~~dressing~~ licensing

The two companies that give the US Patent and Trademark Office the most headaches and paperwork - that would be IT giant IBM and consumer electronics and chip maker Samsung Electronics - have inked a patent cross-licensing deal. The financial terms of the licensing deal were not divulged. A spokesperson for IBM said that this …

Hardware 9 Feb 05:00
Novell and HP wave SUSE x64 cluster deal

Nice of you to tell everyone

Systems software maker Novell has announced today a special deal for customers building clusters with its SUSE Linux Enterprise Server. If you cluster servers with the company's High Availability Extensions, you get those extensions for free. There's all sorts of other gimmes too, and the deal runs through June this year. …

HPC 9 Feb 06:00
Creative Ziio 7in Android tablet

Review Let me entertain you

The Android tablets that have appeared lately seem to suffer an identity crisis, often unable to decide whether they’re simply big smartphones or genuine tablet-computing devices. Creative Labs has taken a different approach with its new Ziio, producing an ‘entertainment tablet’ that is essentially a larger version of its …

reghardware 9 Feb 07:00
Credit crunch pushes US ID fraud to 8 year low

Hi, low silver lining...

US identity fraud losses fell sharply last year, bucking a long-running trend. The number of fraud victims decreased 28 per cent in 2010 from 11 million to 8.1 million. The total value of fraudulent losses also fell from $56bn in 2009 to $37bn in 2010, according to an annual study by Javelin Strategy & Research. Javelin …

Crime 9 Feb 09:45
Delete all you like, but it won't free up space

Comment: You've been (de)duped ...

Networker blog author Preston de Guise has pointed out a simple and inescapable fact: deleting files on a deduplicated storage volume may not free up any space. De Guise points out that, in un-deduplicated storage: "There is a 1:1 mapping between amount of data deleted and amount of space reclaimed." Also, space reclamation is …

Storage 9 Feb 09:49
Microsoft re-org: more code, less death by PowerPoint?

End of the veteran managers

Before we get too excited about reports of a major shuffle among Microsoft's top ranks, let's remember one thing. Re-structurings are almost an annual sport for Microsoft. But if Bloomberg is right, and a re-org is planned, then - based on what's been happening within the last year - what's coming promises to be a unique …

Operating Systems 9 Feb 09:58
CSC faces lockout over Indian 'slave' row

Union not happy with company transfers

CSC Denmark is facing angry union action over the company's use of temporary Indian workers paid a fraction of normal Danish wages. CSC has had to warn customers of a possible lockout of union workers - about a third of its staff are Prosa members. Some 120 CSC staff have returned building passes and laptops to the company …

Channel Register 9 Feb 10:03
iPad TWO: What, already?

Son of Fondleslab production pre-happening, says someone

The Wall Street Journal reckons production of the iPad 2 is already ramping up, concurring with the majority of rumours surrounding the device. The iPad 2 will, according to those stalwart "people familiar with the matter", be thinner, faster and equipped for video calling. It will also apparently run across Verizon and AT&T …

PCs & Chips 9 Feb 10:04
EMC races to catch up with NetApp

Block-level dedupe on way

In a webcast for financial analysts yesterday, EMC admitted it was racing to catch up with NetApp in storage for virtualised servers by adding primary block-level deduplication. The good news came from Pat Gelsinger, an EMC president and its chief operating officer via Stifel Nicolaus analyst Aaron Rakers. Apparently Gelsinger …

Storage 9 Feb 10:49
Teleca sucks up SurfKitchen

Swedes buy UK mobile shell developer

Swedish conglomerate Teleca has bought UK mobile shell developer SurfKitchen, promising to keep it as an independent unit. The idea is to keep research and development and operator sales in the UK, but let the larger organisation take care of deployments and servicing: Teleca boasts around 2000 employees to SurfKitchen's 55. …

Mobile 9 Feb 10:59
Converged stacks will retard storage innovation

Soup or nuts?

It's open season in storage right now, but the door is starting to close. If you have something that works with filer or block access protocols then develop away. Servers can use it. The product can work with storage area networks (SANs) or filers and you are free to sell it to customers with servers that use SANS or filers. …

Blocks and Files 9 Feb 11:00
Council dives into crematorium-heated pool

Redditch approves energy-saving scheme

Redditch Borough Council has agreed to proceed with its plan to use waste energy from a crematorium to heat a municipal swimming pool. The provocative scheme gained cross-party support, and a final vote on the proposal saw 25 of 27 councillors in favour, with the remaining two abstaining. The project involves sucking heat …

Bootnotes 9 Feb 11:00
EC parades common phone charger

Universal power to the people

Been a long time coming, but yesterday the European Commission got its mitts on the first sample of a universal phone charger for member countries. Commissioners were so excited that they ran a press conference, with TV cameras and all, in Brussels to show off the beast. The brouhaha was a bit overdone - we are after all …

reghardware 9 Feb 11:09
Labour forum leaks email addresses

'Unbelievably poor and sloppy coding'

Basic design flaws on a Labour party members forum exposed the email addresses of users to harvesting. Surfers who register through the site http://members.labour.org.uk were invited to confirm their membership, and activate their account, by clicking on the link in an email sent to a specified account. The email follows the …

Enterprise Security 9 Feb 11:21
Dell junks Adamo ultra-skinny

Bye then

Last month, the PC press reported big price cuts for the Dell Adamo, an ultra-thin Macbook Air lookalike. With online prices slashed to as low as $799, some publications wondered if Dell was gearing up for a head-to-head fight with Apple. The answer has come soon enough. Nope. Dell had embarked on a fire sale, not a price …

reghardware 9 Feb 11:44
The Meeks shall inherit the Office ...

FOSDEM 2011 F/OSS fundi gives LibreOffice the hard sell and Oracle the finger

Oracle. Hmm. Maybe not the favourite word in F/OSS right now ... Unlike Java/OpenJDK/etc – where Oracle has not (yet) dropped the ball – in the LibreOffice camp the cats have left the bags, coops have been vacated, and the code has forked right off ... Key Libre Office developer Michael Meeks' talk at Fosdem 2011 about prying …

Applications 9 Feb 12:00
Patent judge hits out at legal tactics used against file-sharers

ACS:Law ceases trading

A senior patent court judge has heavily criticised a law firm that pursued online file-sharers with threatening letters and then ditched its cases against 26 defendants. ACS:Law and its client Media CAT had fired off thousands of threatening legal missives to alleged illegal file-sharers, offering them the chance to pay a £495 …

Law 9 Feb 12:05
RealNetworks unhooks 130 employees in jobs cull

But we're still hiring!

RealNetworks confirmed yesterday that it is to reduce its workforce by 10 per cent by axeing 130 jobs at the internet media company. Despite the lay-offs, the firm's CEO Bob Kimball said it would continue to hire people in what he described as "growth areas" for RealNetworks. Job cuts will hit engineering, sales, marketing …

Financial News 9 Feb 12:12
YouView ship date slips to 2012: official

If you've been holding your breath, you can exhale now ...

YouView has confirmed that its set-top box won't now ship until early 2012. A roadmap agreed upon last year, after the start-up had received approval from the BBC Trust, envisaged boxes appearing on the market this spring. A second iteration was scheduled for 2012 ready for the Olympics - the traditional consumer upgrade season …

Music and Media 9 Feb 12:15
Man, 54, accused of sex with girl he wed in RuneScape

Alleged victim 'traumatised'

A 54 year-old man is accused of underage sex with a young teenager, who he had "married" in the online fantasy game RuneScape. John W. Philips (right), from Massachusetts faces 11 charges including sexual assault, using a computer with intention of committing a crime and accosting a child for immoral purposes. If found …

reghardware 9 Feb 12:47
ZDI spills beans on 22 zero-day bugs

Vulnerability broker had given software vendors 6 months to fix them ...

The Zero Day Initiative (ZDI) has discussed the existence of unpatched flaws in 22 software applications from vendors including Microsoft, CA, EMC, HP and IBM. Advisories from the vulnerability broker giving a broad outline of the flaws and suggesting possible workarounds were published on Monday – at least a full six months …

Enterprise Security 9 Feb 12:48
Japan wants in on NFC

Felica father DoCoMo to hook up with South Korea's KT

Japan's DoCoMo is going to work with South Korea's KT to create a cross-border payment infrastructure, coming in from the cold to embrace and extend the NFC standard. The service is expected to launch around the end of next year, and support existing payment applications including BitWallet's Edy in Japan and KT's ticketing …

Mobile 9 Feb 12:50
Lexmark Genesis multifunction printer

Review Space-saving and super swift

The Genesis S815 is the latest all-in-one (AIO) printer-scanner-copier-fax from Lexmark that brings a radically different form-factor to the product class. Evolving technology: Lexmark's Genesis It stands a shade over 40cm high on your desk, with a 40cm x 40cm footprint, allowing for the sheet-collector extension in the …

reghardware 9 Feb 13:00
Fort Wayne officials refuse to slap Harry Baals on public building

Killjoys scratch handle off erection

Officials in Fort Wayne Indianna have balked at naming the city's latest civic building after its most successful mayor – Harry Baals. The city had thrown open the choice of moniker for its latest erection to the people. A campaign to name the building after Harry Baals soon gathered steam, with citizens eager to commemorate …

Bootnotes 9 Feb 13:07
London Underground hands £10m to Capgemini

Some jobs move too

Capgemini has won a £10.5m contract with Tube Lines – the engineering company behind London Underground. The three-year contract extension runs until December 2013 and lengthens a deal first completed in 2005. Capgemini gets responsibility for application support for the first time and continues to provide desktop support ( …

Channel Register 9 Feb 13:08
Why is virtualisation important?

Datacentre Show this to your family next time you need to work all weekend

Lower costs are the basic attraction of all enterprise technologies, and virtualisation promises that in spades. In particular, it reduces hardware maintenance costs via what is now a fairly simple process of packaging physical servers up and hosting several of them on one large server. The technology can also lower energy …

Data Centre 9 Feb 13:25
Don’t Look Now hailed top Brit movie

No look-in for The Italian Job in experts' top 100

A Time Out poll of 150 film movie industry experts has declared Nicolas Roeg's Don't Look Now the best British film ever. The heavyweight panel of judges which came to this conclusion included "directors Sam Mendes, Mike Leigh, Ken Loach and Wes Anderson; actors David Morrissey, Sally Hawkins and Thandie Newton; newspaper and …

Entertainment 9 Feb 13:45
Walmart joins Verizon iPhone 4 stampede

Any color, so long as it's black

Walmart, America's biggest retailer, is to sell Verizon flavor iPhone 4s in 600 US stores from tomorrow. The company is trailing one price for public consumption - $199 for the 16GB model. It already stocks AT&T iPhones, so there should be plenty of accessories to play with. Verizon's iPhone Day kicks off on Thursday, …

reghardware 9 Feb 13:47
Kid spanks a grand on Xbox using Mum's bank card

Angry woman seeks solicitor

An 11-year-old boy has landed his mother in debt , after splashing more than £1000 on Xbox Live, without her knowledge. Mum-of-two Dawn Matthews entered her debit card details into the console to buy her son, Brendan, an Xbox Live membership to play against buddies online. The 37-year-old went about her business, blissfully …

reghardware 9 Feb 13:55
TERRORISTS IN SUBMARINES menace the Free World!

Pale, smelly peril of underwater cocaine 'Love Boat'

US security officials are reportedly worried that a new generation of drug-smuggling submarines - able, unlike their predecessor semi-submersibles, to travel completely submerged beneath the waves - might be used to carry out terrorist operations. The "terrorists" quote comes from a new report by the Houston Chronicle on the …

Science 9 Feb 14:37
Devs gather for beer and burgers in Belgium

FOSDEM 2011 Lang, tech, systems, clouds ... and Office politics

This was my first FOSDEM, in Brussels, and it was a goodie. The Free and Open source Software Developers' European Meeting (FOSDEM) was also free as in beer (OK, it was €3 for a beer token), easy to get to and neither outrageously expensive nor twee. Somewhere north of 6,000 attendees, 200+ hours of talks, and other " …

Developer 9 Feb 14:43
Linux vulnerable to Windows-style autorun exploits

Caveats abound

A security researcher has demonstrated how it might be possible to perform autorun-style attacks against weakly secured Linux PCs. Windows worms including Conficker and Stuxnet have often spread onto networks after infected USB sticks were plugged into PCs. This has happened automatically in cases where autorun was enabled, as …

Malware 9 Feb 14:44
First WACy handset goes widget mad

WAC expands ahead of Monday's launch

The Wireless Application Community won't be properly launched until Monday lunchtime, but Filipino operator SMART couldn't wait and has jumped the gun with the first WAC-compatible handset. The Netphone looks suspiciously similar to ZTE's Android-based Blade handset, sold as the San Francisco by Orange in the UK, but SMART has …

Mobile 9 Feb 14:54
GAME sells Xbox DLC content over the counter

Don't pay online

GAME, the British retailer, is selling downloadable Xbox content over the counter in a six-month trial at 40 stores. XBLA code is given to customers on a card and content includes Xbox Live arcade titles as well as additional downloadable material for games, MCV reports. Prices range from £3.40-£10.20 and are priced …

reghardware 9 Feb 14:57
iControlPad: The answer to mobile gaming control 'mares?

Does the Bluetooth pad push your buttons?

In response to our iOS game reviews, many readers highlight how on-screen controls for such titles are considerably impractical. Behold the iControlPad, which went on sale today and could be the solution we've all been waiting for. The iControlPad was originally designed for iPhones, but the company feared Apple wouldn't …

reghardware 9 Feb 15:30
Alabama sex shop owner swaps 'Guns for Toys'

Valentine's Day peace and luuurv initiative

An Alabama sex shop owner has decided to do her bit for peace and luuurv this Valentine's Day, and is offering customers the chance to trade "Guns for Toys". Sherri Williams, owneratrix of Pleasures, in Huntsville, hopes to take 300 firearms off the street before the offer wraps on 15 February. Customers are invited to roll up …

Bootnotes 9 Feb 15:33
Unions and small biz doubt Osborne's bank promises

Show us the money, Gideon

The Trades Union Congress and small business groups are doubtful that George Osborne has tamed the British banks or extracted a meaningful promise on business lending. Osborne made clear that his Project Merlin, the deal done today – a £2.5bn tax on bank profits, a pledge to increase small business lending and reduce bankers' …

Small Biz 9 Feb 15:40
Superphone system-CRACKING cable of DOOM ... is quite handy

MiniUSBs and common connectors are a sysadmin's best friend

It used to be that a large part of owning a cellphone, using it a lot, and being on the road involved hauling around a massive charging unit. When your plan expired, you got a new phone – and along with that came a new car charger, a new brick to plug in at home and a second one to be wrapped up in a ball and shoved in your …

Sysadmin blog 9 Feb 16:00
Windows 7 service pack to land this month

Updated Start your engines

Microsoft's first service pack for Windows 7 will, according to speculative reports, reach the company's MSDN and TechNet subscribers this time next week. WinRumors cites sources close to the matter, who have pinned down 16 February as the date when Windows 7 SP1 will ship to Microsoft subscribers. The service pack apparently …

Operating Systems 9 Feb 16:05
More heads roll at AMD

Bonuses for the head honchos

Two more executives are being shown the door at chip maker Advanced Micro Devices – but two others will be getting juicy bonuses. This morning after Wall Street opened, AMD filed an 8K form with the Securities and Exchange Commission that said Robert Rivet left AMD on February 8. Rivet joined AMD as chief financial officer in …

Financial News 9 Feb 16:17
Starbucks' iPhone barcode app easily scammed by screengrab

Brown milk bonanza for any passing trickster

Someone has noticed that the Starbucks' iPhone application can be copied with a screen grab from a neglected handset, enabling the thief to gorge themselves on free coffee*. The payment system relies on reading a bar code from the iPhone's screen, identifying the customer and debiting their account. But the barcode doesn't …

Applications 9 Feb 16:29
Microsoft names Satya Nadella to replace Bob Muglia

New server tools & cloud overlord promoted from within

Microsoft has found a replacement for Bob Muglia – the company's server and tools biz president who was pushed out by MS boss Steve Ballmer last month. The software vendor said today that it has promoted its senior veep Satya Nadella to the position left vacant by Muglia. "Satya has deep experience in both our server business …

Channel Register 9 Feb 16:59
Oracle and Fujitsu hook up on Sparc servers

Friends with benefits

Software giant and server newbie Oracle and IT conglomerate and long-time Sparc partner Fujitsu said late Tuesday that they have extended their collaboration on Sparc platforms. The announcement was short on details, particularly any relating to the chips that would be used in the future Sparc Enterprise M machines. It also …

Servers 9 Feb 19:26
HP reveals inaugural Palm webOS tablet

Today, the TouchPad. Tomorrow, webOS desktops...

HP has unveiled a trio of new webOS devices, including a pint-sized smartphone known as the Veer, a beefier business phone dubbed the Pre3, and, yes, the first Palm tablet: the HP TouchPad. The devices are designed to work in concert, and to dovetail with myriad "cloud-based" services, consolidating your calendar appointments …

Mobile 9 Feb 20:06
Oracle patches decade-old 'Mark-of-the-Beast' bug in Java

Order restored to universe

Oracle has squashed a decade-old bug in its Java programming framework that allows attackers to bring down sensitive servers by feeding them numerical values with large numbers of decimal places. The vulnerability in the latest version of Java was disclosed last month and reported by The Reg on Monday. The bug, which stems from …

Enterprise Security 9 Feb 20:29
Ballmer's Bing man to 'define' Microsoft's server future

Comment Float more CPUs and storage!

Microsoft's promotion of Satya Nadella puts an engineer who's been championing – and coding – Bing against Google in charge of the company's earth-bound server and tools business. It's an expression of confidence by CEO Steve Ballmer in Nadella's talents, and a move that likely closes an extremely unstable chapter in the …

Software 9 Feb 20:51
Sony tweets 'secret' key at heart of PS3 jailbreak case

'You sank my battleship' indeed

An official Sony Twitter account has leaked the PlayStation 3 master signing key at the heart of the company's legal offensive against a group of hackers being sued for showing how to jailbreak the popular game console. Kevin Butler, a fictional PS3 vice president, retweeted the metldr key in what can only be assumed was a …

Law 9 Feb 22:13
Australia’s NBN too expensive: EIU

Compared to what?

The headlines say all you need to know, surely? As reported all over the place, Australia’s NBN (National Broadband Network) has been rated as too expensive and relying too much on government support, according to the Economist Intelligence Unit. Australia cherishes a characteristic called “cultural cringe”. A full explanation …

Networks 9 Feb 22:19
Google, antitrust, and the 'Copygate' hypocrisy

Comment 'We can copy. But you can't'

Google built a multi-billion-dollar advertising empire atop a service that does little more than copy information from other sources. And yet it chastises others when they do the copying. It's an irony that could land the company in some very hot water. Google made (countless) headlines last week when, after an intricate " …

Music and Media 9 Feb 23:30
Smartphones drive Telstra mobile growth, Optus follows with 700k adds

We kiss Steve Jobs' photo every night...

Australia’s mobile market remains the key battleground for the country’s largest carriers, with both Telstra and Optus announcing growth in mobile subscriber numbers today. Announcing its results to the Australian Stock Exchange today, Telstra said it had added more than 900,000 new mobile customers in the first half of the …

Financial News 9 Feb 23:43