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21st February 2011 Archive

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  • How to build your own Watson Jeopardy! supermachine

    To rule humanity, download the following open source code...

    If you don't want your own Watson question-and-answer machine after watching the supercomputer whup the human race on Jeopardy! last week, you must be a lawyer. Only lawyers think they already have all the answers. But if you grew up watching Robbie the Robot in Lost in Space, HAL in 2001: A Space Odyssey, the unnamed but …

    HPC 21 Feb 2011, 03:00

  • Debian 6: Have your Debian and eat your Ubuntu too

    Review GNOME, KDE, and beyond

    A new version of Debian was once cause for celebration in Linux circles - no doubt it still is in some quarters. Debian's offspring Ubuntu, though, has managed to steal much of the thunder lately. Of course without Debian, Ubuntu would cease to exist. Part of the reason Ubuntu has been able to focus on polishing the Linux …

    Operating Systems 21 Feb 2011, 04:00

  • Better trading practices

    Workshop Time to challenge the notion of business-as-usual

    It’s 2011, the age of high-speed electronic communications, and we still see companies faxing orders to suppliers and insisting on paper invoices. Banks are still struggling to recognise the real person among the tangle of account records they maintain, and calling a telco customer services line with even the simplest of …

    Doing Better Business 21 Feb 2011, 09:35

  • EchoStar goes 2-way with Hughes acquisition

    Dish Network to offer internet connectivity

    EchoStar is spending around $2bn to buy up Hughes Communications, adding fixed communications to the mobile acquisitions made by its subsidiary Dish Networks earlier this month. Dish Networks announced its plan to buy DBSD North America, the company formerly known as ICO, earlier this month; DBSD was bankrupt, but still worth …

    Telecoms 21 Feb 2011, 10:30

  • Twitter cuts off two fat client apps

    Thou shalt not take the Twitter name in vain

    Twitter cut off two of its biggest client apps on Friday, only reconnecting them on Sunday after they had implemented unspecified changes to their code. UberTwitter and Twidroyd, both published by UberMedia, got cut off on Friday for violating Twitter policies with regard to respecting the privacy of users' messages, using the …

    Applications 21 Feb 2011, 10:33

  • Chip maker cocks snook at Apple with IPAD family

    Capitalising the brand?

    You have to admire chip maker STMicroelectronics' cojones - or boggle at the company's seeming stupidity. It is promoting the word 'iPad' as both an acronym and a trademark. You'll note that, in the sentence above, we use Apple's capitalisation, and that's the way World+Dog writes it too. Not STMicro, which capitalises the lot …

    reghardware 21 Feb 2011, 10:35

  • Say it with pictures

    Workshop We're bigging up diagramming and visualisation tools

    “Believe it or not, I can actually draw,” Michelangelo is supposed to have said. What would he have made of today’s diagramming software? Go to the pub and wax lyrical about your new iPad and you might be the object of keen interest. Move onto the subject of the latest diagramming software and you may start wondering who your …

    Data Visualisation 21 Feb 2011, 10:50

  • Nissan readies ultra-low CO2 petrol engine for Micra

    Fuel injection, supercharger make for zero road tax

    Nissan's presence at next month's Geneva Motor Show may be dominated by its Leaf e-car and ESFlow concept e-sportster, but it will also be unwrapping a petrol engine it claims will deliver the world's lowest carbon output. Dubbed the 'DIG-S', the engine, which is being designed for the Micra, pumps out 95g of CO2 for every …

    reghardware 21 Feb 2011, 11:12

  • Westboro Baptist Church taunts Anonymous over supposed attack plan

    God hates fags and 'crybaby' hackers

    Westboro Baptist Church, the controversial church of God Hates Fags infamy, claims that the legions of Anonymous are planning to attack its website. However, according to at least one faction of Anonymous, the supposedly threatening open letter is the work of WBC itself, which is inviting an attack in order to garner sympathy …

    Enterprise Security 21 Feb 2011, 11:30

  • Mozilla ices Firefox 4 beta 12 release to nail final bugs

    Temporary breather could push release to March

    Mozilla looks set to miss its February deadline for the release of its forthcoming browser Firefox 4. The open-source outfit delayed building beta 12 of Firefox 4 late last week, because Mozilla wanted to stamp out the few remaining hardblocker bugs found in the browser, before releasing the latest test build. Earlier this …

    Applications 21 Feb 2011, 11:35

  • Who needs 600 friends when you're a bride of Christ?

    Nun joins Facebook, gets kicked out of convent

    A Spanish nun has been kicked out of her closed religious order after clocking up 600 friends on Facebook. After 35 years closeted at the 700-year-old Santa Domingo el Real convent in Toledo, Maria Jesus Galan is back living with her mum, and has declared she rather fancies visiting New York and London. The convent reportedly …

    Bootnotes 21 Feb 2011, 11:37

  • UK biz prejudiced against public sector staff

    Not equipped to work for us

    The Coalition government's hope that the private sector will soak up staff laid off from the public sector took a blow today from a survey showing more than half of UK businesses would not employ people from the public sector. A survey of 500 firms by the FT and Barclays Corporate found 57 per cent said they were not …

    Government 21 Feb 2011, 11:42

  • Passport office loses applications

    ICO not impressed

    The Identity and Passport Office (IPS) has been reprimanded by the Information Commissioners Office (ICO) for losing 21 passport renewal forms. The forms were lost in May 2010 and the ICO informed. The lost data included personal information on both the applicants and the counter-signatories. All affected individuals were …

    Government 21 Feb 2011, 11:49

  • Huawei drops 3Leaf buy

    Capitol Hill says no

    Chinese telecoms equipment manufacturer Huawei has withdrawn from its controversial takeover deal for US server firm 3Leaf Systems following objections from US politicians and regulators. The modest $2m (£3.1m) deal was agreed in May 2010 but not immediately disclosed at the time. Overseas ownership concerns prompted an …

    Data Networking 21 Feb 2011, 12:04

  • Motorola 'flagship' Honeycomb tablet to ship sans Flash

    Its Android not yet Adobe-fied

    Will Brits who choose to splash out on Motorola's 10in Android tablet, Xoom, be able to view Adobe Flash-encoded content? Americans won't. According to US network operator Verizon, the Xoom's Flash support is "expected Spring 2011", and not when the tablet goes on sale on this coming Thursday, 24 February. The omission would …

    reghardware 21 Feb 2011, 12:23

  • Microsoft flash research inspires EMC

    Data Domain flash-based dedupe coming

    EMC is using Microsoft research into flash use as a memory tier between DRAM and disk drives to speed up Data Domain deduplication. FlashStore is a Microsoft research project that batches up flash writes in a server's main memory and then writes them as a page or block, in effect turning random flash writes into sequential …

    Storage 21 Feb 2011, 12:24

  • Huawei to gift underground coverage to London

    From one Olympic nation to another

    Huawei is apparently planning to give away the kit necessary to connect up the London tube, with O2 and Vodafone paying for installation the underground could be covered by the Olympics. The Chinese kit supplier will make money maintaining the systems, and will get a decent foothold in the UK market by supplying the hardware …

    Mobile 21 Feb 2011, 12:27

  • Bahrain Grand Prix may be postponed

    Updated Teams may be told to F1 off

    The Bahrain Grand Prix is likely to be postponed until the end of the season following continuing protests against the government in the state. Testing was due to start there in early next month ahead of the race 13 March. But with a backdrop of dead protesters and threats of disruption to the race, a delay looks inevitable. …

    Government 21 Feb 2011, 12:49

  • Cowon D3 Plenue Android media player

    Review Entertaining view

    Like it or loathe it the Apple iPod Touch continues to maintain its position as the default choice for punters after a touchscreen media player. The recent arrival of the Archos 43 came close to tipping it off its perch but the cost-saving resistive screen let it down and the least said about Samsung's Galaxy 50 Player the …

    reghardware 21 Feb 2011, 13:00

  • Apple iOS dominates Euro smartphone usage

    Europeans far less keen on Android than Americans are

    How have the great mobile operating systems been faring in the UK and Europe over the past year? Mobile internet access gives us a picture. The snapshot isn't an unbiased one, mind. The data comes from StatCounter, which tracks what browsers, operating systems and so forth are used to access the 3m-odd webpages which it claims …

    reghardware 21 Feb 2011, 13:09

  • Top execs fly from Alibaba after supplier frauds

    Close sesame on your way out, will you?

    Two top execs at e-commerce giant Alibaba have taken the fall for alleged fraud by some of the suppliers on its platforms. The Hong Kong-listed firm announced today that chief exec David Wei and COO Elvis Lee had resigned to take responsibility for the fraudulent actions of some of its B2B sellers, though they were not …

    Channel Register 21 Feb 2011, 13:25

  • Exhibition to applaud videogames as art

    Vote now on the titles to be showcased

    There is an art to computer games which stretches beyond the act of skilful button bashers being gods at Ghosts & Goblins. A major exhibition will next year explore the evolution of videogames as an artistic medium. The exhibition, titled The Art of Video Games will focus on the industry's 40-year history of presenting …

    reghardware 21 Feb 2011, 13:30

  • CSR slots Zoran into connected future

    Video processing and Bluetooth, the perfect partnership?

    Cambridge-based CSR is merging with the Californian Zoran Corporation, creating a top 10 fabless electronics company with chip designs for wireless connectivity and video processing. The deal will see Zoran valued around $679m, and Zoran shareholders ending up with 35 per cent of the combined company. That's thanks to a CSR- …

    PCs & Chips 21 Feb 2011, 13:38

  • Stay-at-home PayPal crook used stolen funds to buy gold bullion

    Nottingham outlaw robbed the rich to feed ... himself

    A computer crook who swindled eBay customers out of more than £185,000 has been jailed for three-and-a-half years. Richard Kirk, 22, and from the Sherwood area of Nottingham, raided the PayPal accounts of 303 eBay users, transferring the money to accounts under his control. He used the stolen funds to buy a variety of goods, …

    Crime 21 Feb 2011, 13:47

  • Facebook reviews smut policy after slave site uprising

    Deletion of kinky page provokes sort-of soul-search

    Facebook has announced it is actively reviewing its policy of a total ban on all content relating to sexual activities. The review follows the deletion on 4 February of Collared Events page following a complaint from a site user. This deletion angered and mystified many members and supporters of Collared, which operates Slaves …

    Law 21 Feb 2011, 14:10

  • Government defends need for census

    Privacy groups say survey is 'intrusive'

    The census director at the Office of National Statistics has said that the UK's national census remains incredibly important amid criticism from privacy groups about its effectiveness. Glen Watson said that the survey collects data that will provide "a bedrock of information for the next 10 years". He was responding to …

    Government 21 Feb 2011, 14:43

  • Software suppliers not ready for HMRC online tax filing system

    Updated Sage and chums yet to fully implement iXBRL

    The filing of corporate tax online is set to become mandatory in the UK in April this year, despite questions being raised about the implementation of the software underpinning the government's shift to the web. The Inline Extensible Business Reporting Language (iXBRL) has been coded into products by over 30 commercial …

    Applications 21 Feb 2011, 14:45

  • Latvian film fan pops cap in loud popcorn eater

    Updated Black Swan enlivened by mastication-provoked slaying

    Latvian cops cuffed a 27-year-old man on Saturday for allegedly popping a cap in a fellow cinemagoer for eating popcorn too loudly during a screening of Black Swan. According to a report by local news agency Leta, regurgitated in the Guardian, the 42-year-old victim died of wounds sustained during a screening of the …

    Bootnotes 21 Feb 2011, 14:47

  • God-game creator granted Bafta gong

    Lifetime achievement award for Molyneux

    Lauded game designer Peter Molyneux is to become a Bafta Fellow at this year's British Academy Video Games Awards. Molyneux began his career in 1982 distributing Atari and Commodore 64 titles on floppies. Soon after, he created a text-based simulation game, The Entrepreneur, which failed to take off, pushing him away from …

    reghardware 21 Feb 2011, 15:27

  • Facebook telly app wins £60k from Samsung

    Despite losing the public vote

    Samsung's Smart TV Challenge has been won by a telly-recommending Facebook-friendly app - although the public preferred the runner-up. The company put the money up to encourage apps that would run on its TVs. Which is a reasonably specific brief. Astra Recommends, the winning app, has scooped £60,000 of Samsung's money, …

    Applications 21 Feb 2011, 16:56

  • Sheep as smart as humans: Official

    El Reg lamb cutlet chef begs to differ

    A Cambridge Uni prof has provocatively suggested that sheep aren't actually as thick as a Fair Isle woollen sweater, and can match humans in the tricky task of identifying food amid a confusion of buckets. Neuroboffin Jenny Morton herded a flock of Welsh mountain sheep and presented them with variously-coloured buckets, only …

    Biology 21 Feb 2011, 17:02

  • Nintendo celebrates Legend of Zelda silver anniversary

    Happy Birthday, Link

    Twenty-five years ago today, The Legend of Zelda hit shelves in Japan and one of the most popular game franchises of all time was born. Long before a link was popularised as a clickable internet shortcut, it was also the name of a loveable character on the NES. A quarter of a century and 15 titles later, Link continues to …

    reghardware 21 Feb 2011, 17:11

  • Google threatens Chrome address bar with death

    'Major' UI experiment vanishes urls

    Google is exploring several "major" changes to the Chrome user interface, including a particularly compact user interface that actually hides the URL address bar when pages aren't loading. In a recent post to the Chromium developer mailing list entitled "Major UI efforts", Google man Jeff Chang pointed to a public page …

    Applications 21 Feb 2011, 19:30

  • Oracle debuts carrier-grade Sparc T3 servers

    Rugged racks get 'Rainbow Falls'

    Oracle needs to protect and preserve the server business that Sun Microsystems built up with telecommunications firms and service providers. And that's why the company is moving its homegrown Sparc T3 processor into a new line of ruggedized, DC-powered Netra machines. The Sparc T3 chip was launched in September 2010 and is the …

    Servers 21 Feb 2011, 19:44

  • Software is the secret sauce in storage sales

    Storage is a pain in the ass

    NetApp has reported another  great quarter. It's obvious that this is a great moment for the company , especially now that it is now pointed out as the leader in midrange storage market, and direct competitors are all striving to match NetApp and win customers' affection. This blog is not meant to show how better or worse …

    Blocks and Files 21 Feb 2011, 21:38

  • Flash drives dangerously hard to purge of sensitive data

    When secure wiping isn't

    In research that has important findings for banks, businesses and security buffs everywhere, scientists have found that computer files stored on solid state drives are sometimes impossible to delete using traditional disk-erasure techniques. Even when the next-generation storage devices show that files have been deleted, as …

    Security 21 Feb 2011, 22:27

  • Apple 'greed' tax spreads beyond music, movies, magazines

    Jobs bites hand that feeds Safari

    Apple's recently enacted "give us 30 per cent of your subscription revenue" dictum is metastasizing beyond online magazines, newspapers, music services, and video apps, ensnaring at least one software-as-a-service app as well. Steve Jobs' App Store police have rejected the iOS version of Readability – an online service that …

    Applications 21 Feb 2011, 22:33

  • iiNet fattens up after eating Netspace and AAPT consumer arm

    Swallowing competition is good for you

    iiNet’s acquisition frenzy has delivered strong results for the Perth-based ISP, which produced revenue growth of 45 per cent to A$330m in its half-year results. The carrier’s first half 2011 EBITDA was up 25 per cent to A$46.8m, with total broadband customers up 20 per cent to 650,000, from around 443,000 a year earlier. …

    Financial News 21 Feb 2011, 22:45

  • D-Link: Vendors can do more to support channels

    Maurice Famularo sings the distie blues

    Local gadget channels arguably suffer just as badly as bookstores from internet parallel importation. Showing off the company’s 2011 product range (first seen at CE) to customers and channel partners yesterday, D-Link’s Australian marketing director Maurice Famularo told El Reg the question of channel support is becoming very …

    Data Networking 21 Feb 2011, 22:47

  • Ethernet, Fibre Channel sales boom in Q4

    We don't need no stinkin' FCoE

    Networking and telecom market watcher Dell'Oro Group says that shipments of 10 Gigabit Ethernet and 8 Gb/sec Fibre Channel adapters are booming. And, somewhat surprisingly, they're not eating into each other, despite the convergence of server and storage fabrics with Fibre Channel over Ethernet (FCoE) support on mny 10 Gigabit …

    Data Networking 21 Feb 2011, 22:48

  • Acer in alleged Chrome OS monitor plot

    Updated Er, does Google know about this?

    Update: Heise has updated its story on the Acer DX241H to say that the PC will not run Chrome Os. It will merely be loaded with Google's Chrome browser. Acer has announced the first Google Chrome OS device, according to a somewhat sketchy report out of Germany citing Acer itself. Oddly enough, the device is not a notebook. It's …

    Operating Systems 21 Feb 2011, 22:49

  • Windows Phone 7 gets 'goodie' update

    Don't get excited. Microsoft isn't

    Windows Phone 7 users – both of them? – are about to be treated to their first software update. But even Microsoft admits that it's no big deal. "Starting today, some of you might see something new on your Windows Phone: A message announcing that a software update is available. Woo hoo!", effuses Michael Stroh on the Windows …

    Mobile 21 Feb 2011, 23:50