10th February 2011 Archive

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Cisco beats diminished sales targets in Q2

But profits get a big ol' haircut

Cisco Systems CEO John Chambers insisted that the networking giant's second quarter of fiscal 2011 played out as expected when he announced that quarter's financial numbers on Wednesday. Revenues were a little better than anticipated, rising 6 per cent to $10.4bn, but net income was slammed 17.9 per cent compared to the year-ago …

Financial News 10 Feb 2011, 00:26
No new strings for Guitar Hero

It was just a game that made it very, very big, that’s all

Continued declined in the music games genre has led Activision Blizzard to do the unthinkable: development of its Guitar Hero games has been discontinued and the business unit disbanded. Announcing results that fell short of expectations, the company still made a net loss for the fourth quarter but reported strong performance …

Media 10 Feb 2011, 01:59
Hack of Irish job site exposes user names, addresses

Barn door promptly closed

Employment search site RecruitIreland.com has reopened its doors following a security breach that exposed users' names and email addresses. The site, which claims to add 350 new users each day and email a newsletter to 170,000 registered job candidates, warned that some clients were already receiving spam that tried to recruit …

Security 10 Feb 2011, 04:19
HP rocks Redmond with webOS PC play

Wintel giant makes like Apple

When the world's largest computer maker announced that it plans to equip laptops and desktops with its own operating system, you can be sure that the squeals emanating from Redmond's corner offices were not squeals of delight. And we're guessing the denizens of Cupertino's executive suites pricked up their ears as well. On …

Tablets 10 Feb 2011, 05:27
Rackspace borgs OpenStack ~~project~~ cloud brains

NASA Nebula team beamed up

OpenStack co-founder Rackspace is buying the brains behind the other half of the open-source cloud project, in a deal that radically alters who runs the initiative. The Reg has learned that Rackspace is buying Anso Labs, the tiny software and services specialist who designed and built the Nova compute fabric that underpins …

Cloud 10 Feb 2011, 05:46
Google and Facebook named as Twitter suitors

#wsj #reports #takeover #talks

Google and Facebook have emerged as possible buyers of Twitter, according to the Wall Street Journal. The newspaper says insiders had told the journal that as well as the ad giant and the user-data sales house, “other companies” have discussed a Twitter takeover. The WSJ reports that Twitter is seeking as much as $10bn in the …

Financial News 10 Feb 2011, 06:29
Nokia Digital Radio Headset DAB

Review Well received?

It’s not uncommon to find an FM radio on a smart phone these days. And while the iPhone has seen fit to do without such a thing, it’s a great way to get your music and news on the move, without the need for Wi-Fi connection or any drain on your data tariff. Tell-tale signals: Nokia's DAB headset Every once in a while a …

Hardware 10 Feb 2011, 07:00
Three jailed for phone box thievery

Armenians – keeping it old school

Three people were jailed for three years each yesterday for their part in stealing thousands of pounds from BT phone boxes. Grigor and Karine Gevorgyan and Tigran Aglintsyan, aged 48, 46 and 42 respectively, pleaded guilty to conspiracy to steal at Leicester Crown Court earlier this month. The three had stolen coins from more …

Broadband 10 Feb 2011, 09:06
Discovery survives feeler gauge disintegration

Flying metal fails to impact 24 Feb launch

NASA has proved just how seriously it takes space shuttle safety after technicians "performed a walk down" of Kennedy Space Center’s Launch Pad 39A to assess the impact on Discovery of a disintegrating feeler gauge. On Tuesday, Kennedy operatives began to "replace the 7-inch quick disconnect seal at space shuttle Discovery’s …

Science 10 Feb 2011, 10:02
Subdued RM says government cuts challenge its business

School funding shake-up hard to swallow

IT schools supplier RM has blamed the government's allocation of education funds for what it described as "subdued" market conditions. The company issued an interim management statement this morning in which it said it expected to see a decline in UK Learning Technologies sales in the 12-month period to September 2011. " …

The Channel 10 Feb 2011, 10:07
Mumsnet backtracks support for net filter

Who's been a naughty girl, then?

Cuddly, child-loving web forum, mumsnet was last night licking its wounds after a page providing fairly uncritical support for government proposals to censor the web was first mauled by geek attack – and then taken down. However, in a swift repositioning, mumsnet have now come out as part of the search for a solution, rather …

Broadband 10 Feb 2011, 10:22
First reports on XM-25 Judge Dredd smartgun in A'Stan

US troops dub futuristic computer weapon 'the Punisher'

First reports are emerging on the performance of the futuristic, Judge Dredd style XM-25 computer smartgun, which went into combat with frontline US troops in Afghanistan in December. The hi-tech rifle - almost a portable artillery piece - is said to have been dubbed "the Punisher" by soldiers who have used it. What 'the kids …

Science 10 Feb 2011, 10:28
Wii Countdown conundrum brands family 'SH*THEADS'

Outraged mum recalls Nintendo wordplay filth trauma

An "outraged" mum has recounted how a Wii game based on Channel 4's Countdown blasted SHITHEADS into the innocent face of her wide-eyed sprog. The Sun explains that Victoria Smith and son Oliver were enjoying some Nintendo wordplay in their Hampstead home when the "conundrum" SHAHSITED clicked over to give them an eyeful of …

Games 10 Feb 2011, 10:29
Amazon buys bloody big shed for Dublin data centre

Every little helps

Amazon has bought a 240,000 sq ft warehouse in Dublin and will build a data centre there. According to trade reports, Amazon will use the site to house the European leg of its EC2 cloud computing services. Amazon likes Ireland and Ireland must love Amazon: the company's cloud hosting business now accounts for more than a …

Cloud 10 Feb 2011, 10:55
100s to be contacted in re-opened NotW hacking case

Just leave them a voice message... oh

Hundreds of people whose voicemails might have been intercepted in an illegal trawl for celebrity gossip by the News of the World are likely to be contacted by police as part of a re-opened investigation into the long-running scandal. An initial investigation back in 2005 blamed a rogue reporter at the Sunday tabloid and the …

Law 10 Feb 2011, 10:56
HP cans WebOS 2 updates for older Palms

'I am altering the deal. Pray I don't alter it any further'

WebOS fans are up in arms after HP admitted that older Palm-branded products will not gain the access to the updated operating system that will ship with the upcoming Veer and Pre 3 smartphones. It won't be the first time a manufacturer has frozen out older hardware - Apple's original iPhone can't be officially upgraded to iOS …

Phones 10 Feb 2011, 11:15
Nikon refreshes Coolpix range with serious zoom

several snazzy snappers

Nikon has refreshed its Coolpix range of cameras, with focus on improvements in zoom and low-light shooting capabilities. The highlights include the Nikon Coolpix P500, which is a 12.1Mp camera with a tilty 3in LCD display. It's huge 36x optical zoom can be used while in 1080p video capture mode too. When in VGA mode, it can …

Hardware 10 Feb 2011, 11:16
Everything Everywhere dips toe in retail waters

Less shop, more yoof hangout

Everything Everywhere, the amalgamated Orange and T-Mobile networks, is opening five instances of a "new creative concept in communications retailing" – or shops as we used to call them. The stores ... sorry ... creative concepts in communications retailing ... will still sell contracts and phones, on both the Orange and T- …

The Channel 10 Feb 2011, 11:22
No 'tipping point' for Arctic sea ice - latest science

Polar cap would be back 2 yrs after an ice-free summer

OK, so the floating Arctic ice cap appears to be shrinking. Catastrophe if it goes on, right? As white ice reflects heat into space, past a certain point more and more heat will not be reflected, more and more ice will melt. Past such a "tipping point", the ice cap would never recover - it would vanish completely, taking with it …

Science 10 Feb 2011, 11:24
Sony to use social network dweebery to sell 3D TVs

From Foursquare to three-dee

Sony is turning to trendy online service Foursquare in a desperate bid to interest yoof in 3D TVs. Foursquare - a service which wetly promises to "unlock your world" and help you "find happiness just around the corner" - tells you where all your social network chums are hanging out. Visit the same places frequently to win game …

Hardware 10 Feb 2011, 11:38
Skinning the DV cat

Desktop virtualisation Not all approaches are created equal

The IT sector is at once innovative and cyclical, throwing up new technologies that are updated variations on hoary old ones. Virtualisation is a good example. Server virtualisation has taken the industry by storm in recent years but IBM was already doing this with its mainframe platform in the 1960s. Similarly, in the early …

Desktop Virtualisation 10 Feb 2011, 11:45
Brocade says if FCoE doesn't happen, it will be ready

Financial analysts get to hear interesting snippets

Hold the front page: Brocade told financial analysts that the Fibre Channel over Ethernet (FCOE) transition may not happen. Oh, and it said it had messed up an IBM relationship. The things financial analysts get told. These revelations came from Brocade's chief marking officer John McHugh who was telling it how it is at a …

Storage 10 Feb 2011, 11:56
Five essential BlackBerry apps for leisure

Software for the sofa

There’s no doubt that much of the iPhone’s success is down to Apple’s online App Store, which now offers thousands of games and entertainment offerings for the ever-growing range of iOS devices. But it's not the only one. The BlackBerry may have started as rather strait-laced business tool, but RIM has upped the mobile web …

Phones 10 Feb 2011, 12:00
BSA nabs Chester MS software pirate

Firm coughs up £24,000 for dodgy software copies

A label company near Chester has handed over £24,800 after it was caught by the Business Software Alliance using unlicensed copies of Microsoft Office. The BSA was contacted by a whistleblower who asked them to investigate the company. Disgruntled ex-employees are a common source of BSA tip-offs. System Labelling Limited was …

The Channel 10 Feb 2011, 12:09
Android inches nearer NFC nirvana

Reading, writing, but no reckoning just yet*

An incremental Android update adds APIs for writing tags as well as reading them. The update also adds a notification system for interested applications, but no access to the secure elements just yet. Android version 2.3, Gingerbread, brought the ability to read NFC tags and some hidden APIs to write them. With version 2.3.3 …

Mobile 10 Feb 2011, 12:15
Improving productivity through BPM

Video Past experience proves it's worth

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 10 Feb 2011, 12:35
Italian white van man nudges sound barrier

€165 fine for hitting 1,230 km/h

An Italian driver faces a €165 fine and three points off his licence for impressively nudging the speed of sound in a Fiat Doblo. The white van speed merchant was clocked gunning it in the small town of Orio, west of Brindisi, in the heel of Italy's boot. Cops were somewhat surprised to record his speed as 1,230 km/h, meaning …

Bootnotes 10 Feb 2011, 12:36
UK.gov plugs £10m into North Wales 'superfast' broadband rollout

Hi-de-hi, campers!

The government is ponying up £10m to help deploy "superfast" broadband fibre in North Wales. Chancellor George Osborne announced the cash splurge today and said the funding would be used to roll out the early phases of the project in Pwllheli and surrounding areas of North Wales. It said the funds were allocated as part of …

Broadband 10 Feb 2011, 12:58
Roberts Stream 63i

Review The only all-in-one music combo you'll ever need?

British radio stalwart Roberts has been releasing a steady stream of DAB and FM models and is increasingly combining its options into various categories of music system. The Stream 63i is the latest do-it-all model offering CD player, iPod dock, FM and DAB radio, Internet radio and audio streaming using your home network too …

Hardware 10 Feb 2011, 13:00
'Chinese cyberspies' target energy giants

Night Dragon, cyber tiger

Five global energy and oil firms have been the target of "coordinated covert and targeted cyberattacks" by hackers based in China, according to net security firm McAfee. The five unnamed petrochemical giants are confirmed victims of the so-called Night Dragon attacks, which began before November 2009 and remain ongoing. …

Security 10 Feb 2011, 13:00
WinPho 7 '1.1' set for March release

Microsoft or device makers behind the delay?

Still waiting for your first Windows Phone 7 firmware update? You'll have to wait a little longer, it seems. Microsoft hinted in October 2010 - before the platform was even launched - that the first big WinPho 7 update would be coming early in 2011. Round about that point, CEO Steve Ballmer said it would actually be arriving " …

Phones 10 Feb 2011, 13:07
Holland slashes carbon targets, shuns wind for nuclear

We can't afford to be Groene

In a radical change of policy, the Netherlands is reducing its targets for renewable energy and slashing the subsidies for wind and solar power. It's also given the green light for the country's first new nuclear power plants for almost 40 years. Why the change? Wind and solar subsidies are too expensive, the Financial Times …

Science 10 Feb 2011, 13:31
'Race against time' to find LOST TREES from the MOON

NASA says 'naut smuggled in vegetable invaders

NASA has appealed for help from the public in tracking down a plague of 'Moon trees' grown from seeds brought back from a 1971 lunar mission in an astronaut's personal kit. Space boffins say that the seeds survived in conditions of total vacuum and are thought to have been planted out at various locations on Earth, growing into …

Science 10 Feb 2011, 13:33
Apple's casual Xbox: Apple TV seeded for online gaming

iPhone as touchpad controller, anyone?

How about this for an online gaming set-up: an 1080p HD TV for display duties, an Apple TV as your console, and an iPad, iPhone or iPod Touch as your controller? Text strings spotted within Apple's iOS 4.3 beta release, all prefixed "ATVGames", suggest the company is planning to make this possible, according to a report by …

Games 10 Feb 2011, 13:36
MPs' IT support costs £1.122m

Those expense claims don't type themselves up you know

If you've ever wondering how much it costs to show MPs and their staff how to use their computers, the answer is in - £1.22m. The figure came in a Commons answer yesterday. Geoffrey Clifton-Brown had asked what the cost of IT support for members was. John Thurso, speaking for the House of Commons Commission, replied that the …

Government 10 Feb 2011, 14:27
Iranian web developer faces death over porn site charges

He wrote the software porn-makers used to upload the filth...

An Iranian web developer faces the threat of execution over allegations he helped develop and promote pornographic websites in the strict Muslim country. Saeed Malekpour, 35, only confessed to the "trumped up" offences after he was tortured The Guardian reports. Malekpour, a resident of Toronto, was arrested in October 2008 on …

Government 10 Feb 2011, 14:29
Net censors use UK's kid-safety frenzy to justify clampdown

It's time to talk Turkey...

An obsession with child protection in the UK and throughout the EU is encouraging a cavalier approach to law-making, which less democratic regimes are using to justify much broader repression on any speech seen as extreme or dangerous. That was the accusation made by academic and online legal expert, Dr Yaman Akdeniz, at last …

Government 10 Feb 2011, 14:38
Russian volunteer army to fight 'dangerous content' online

The League of Internet Safety is deadly serious

The call is going out in Russia for a new volunteer army to combat the menace of "negative" content on the internet. First in its sights is the usual enemy of all right-thinking people - child abuse material - but critics fear that once up and running the newly launched League of Internet Safety will cast its net much more …

Government 10 Feb 2011, 15:31
British e-reader readers still not stealing books

Handing over cash for electronic words

Eight per cent of UK adults have paid money for an electronic book since Christmas, with the average reader getting through 5.75 titles by the end of January. The figures come from the Publishers Association, who got book industry researchers BML to ask more than 2,000 people about their electronic reading habits and found …

Mobile 10 Feb 2011, 15:33
US gov says it can't build an interstellar starship

Plans to spawn an organisation which can

Space enthusiasts will no doubt rejoice at the news that the wealthiest and most powerful organisation yet assembled by the human race – to wit, the US government – reports early progress in its plan to build an interstellar starship capable of carrying people to other star systems than our own. Enthusiasts may be less pleased …

Science 10 Feb 2011, 15:55
UK.gov shreds last ID scheme hard drives

Damien Green waves 'freedoms' flag

The government destroyed the final 500 hard drives that contained the national identity register today. Immigration minister Damian Green turned up for the photo opportunity to demonstrate the government's commitment to trashing the unpopular ID card scheme. He fed some of the drives into a huge crushing machine at RDC in …

Government 10 Feb 2011, 15:57
Anonymous hack showed password re-use becoming endemic

Overlaps leave users open to attack

Computer scientists have discovered that password re-use is far more prevalent than previously thought after comparing a sample of matched passwords that spilled out at a result of the revenge attack by Anonymous against security researchers HBGary with the earlier Gawker password breach sample set. Hackers affiliated with …

Security 10 Feb 2011, 16:08
Nominet asks what you think of police domain grab

Should police be allowed to 'shut websites'?

Nominet is asking for feedback on proposals from the police which would allow them to "switch off" websites used by criminals. The UK domain registrar is setting up an issues group to look at the change which would bolster police powers quite dramatically – assuming the pesky crims stick to .uk websites of course. The …

Law 10 Feb 2011, 16:22
Ford Focus 2011

First Look We take Ford's new C-class for a quick spin

Ford describes the new Focus, being launched to its dealer network today, as being its most technology packed car yet. It's not fibbing, but not every model gets the lot. Active Park Assist, for example, which does reverse parallel parking for you only comes as standard on the Titanium X, one of the four option packs the new …

Science 10 Feb 2011, 16:43
Opera uncloaks browser for Apple fondleslabs

The old no-interpreted-code trick

Opera has developed a version of its Opera Mini browser for the Apple iPad, and it intends to show the thing off next week at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona. The company alluded to the browser with a press release on Thursday morning, saying it will also demonstrate new versions of Opera Mini for Android, iPhone, J2ME …

Phones 10 Feb 2011, 17:53
Hack reveals passwords from locked iPhones and iPads

No passcode required

Researchers have devised a method for stealing passwords stored on locked iPhones and iPads that doesn't require cracking of the device's passcode. The technique, disclosed on Thursday by members of the Fraunhofer Institute for Secure Information Technology, requires physical access to the targeted iPhone or iPad, so remote …

Security 10 Feb 2011, 18:44
Gaming sales wilt after Australian retail orgy

Nerds take hands off joysticks ...

Australian gaming nerds have emerged blinking into the sunlight, and it’s not good news for the country’s formerly- buoyant retail gaming sector. Sales slumped by 16 per cent in 2010 with revenues of AUS$1.7 billion. The market contraction comes after five steady years of growth for the industry covering the hardware, gaming …

The Channel 10 Feb 2011, 20:27
Screen Australia and YouTube to put Oz summer in the can

Australia in a day, Mad Max style

Australian film makers are aiming to replicate the user-generated feature film "Life in a Day" experimental project pioneered by YouTube and producer Ridley Scott. The film that resulted from that project was recently screened at the Sundance Film Festival. Screen Australia and filmmaker George Miller are coordinating the ‘Map …

Media 10 Feb 2011, 20:29
Teradata says Ellison can't keep it down

Record data warehouse growth

Oracle co-founder and CEO Larry Ellison likes to make a lot of noise about his Oracle's Exadata data warehousing and online transaction processing appliances, among many other things. Mike Koehler, president and chief executive officer at Teradata, is not as brash as Ellison - who is? - but he also said in a call with Wall …

Financial News 10 Feb 2011, 20:48
Google brings 2-factor authentication to Gmail

1-time password zapped to mobile

Google will allow users of Gmail and its other free online services to employ a second form of verification when logging in that uses one-time passwords transmitted over mobile or land-line phones. The ability to use two-factor authentication, which will be rolled out over the next few days, is designed to make it considerably …

Security 10 Feb 2011, 21:03
Microsoft 'personalizes' Bing search results

Google wannabe mines your location and history

Microsoft is now "personalizing" searches on Bing, tailoring results to the user's particular location and search history. Previously, according to a blog post from Microsoft, the company has run limited tests involving personalized Bing results, but this is the first time it has rolled out personalized results to everyone on …

Media 10 Feb 2011, 23:34
Free Android encryption comes to Egypt

The revolution will be encrypted

Free cellphone encryption is coming to Android users in Egypt courtesy of San Francisco software maker Whisper Systems. Until now, Redphone and TextSecure, voice- and text-encryption apps respectively, have generally been available in the US only. Whisper Systems has been working on making the packages available internationally …

Security 10 Feb 2011, 23:48