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7th March 2011 Archive

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  • Intel: 'All your clouds are us inside'

    Xeon and Atom in the eye of the storm

    Intel is getting used to being the big chip on the data center campus, and it is not about to let upstart vendors peddling other chips (that means you, Advanced Micro Devices) or architectures (that means you, ARM Holdings and friends) move in on its server turf. Not without a serious fight, at least, and certainly not in the …

    Cloud 7 Mar 03:00

  • Mozilla challenges Apple, Google with 'open' app store

    HTML5 on road to recovery with Web Applications

    Firefox daddy Mozllla has released early code in its campaign to create a completely open alternative not only to Apple's app stores but also Google's fledging Chrome web store. Mozilla's Labs has delivered the first developer release of its Web Application project. The goal is to serve up web-based apps for any device and any …

    Software 7 Mar 04:00

  • Salmat to close city and regional call centres

    Blames lost Telstra contract

    Call centre outsourcing company Salmat has announced that Telstra is dispensing with most of the call centre services it supplies to the carrier. With a loss of business estimated at between AU$4 million and AU$5 million in EBITDA terms, the company will be closing call centres in regional centres Geelong, Wagga Wagga and …

    Financial News 7 Mar 04:47

  • Google vanishes 'DroidDream' malware from citizen phones

    Android 'kill switch' flipped

    Google has acknowledged that it removed "a number" of malicious malware applications from the Android Market on March 1, and it has now reached out over the airwaves to remove the apps from end users devices as well. Last week, reports indicated that more than 50 Android apps had been loaded with info-pilfering software known …

    Malware 7 Mar 05:28

  • How to do a Windows 7 roll out

    Webcast Step by step, piece by piece

    We know from research we've done with you that lots of you are either knee deep in a Windows 7 roll out, or you're about to be, so we thought we'd try and help. On the 8th of March at 11am we've got a rack of experts talking through the implications of a Windows 7 project. The Register's own Tim Phillips is your host for the …

    Tech Panel 7 Mar 09:11

  • Asian server sales make like a tiger

    Australia throws whole pallets of servers on the barbie

    The box counters at IDC and Gartner have already given out their report cards for server sales and shipments in the fourth quarter and for the full year on a global basis, which El Reg has dutifully reported and analyzed. Just for fun, and perhaps to show us all what a real server market looks like, Gartner put out a set of …

    Channel Register 7 Mar 09:46

  • NASA scientist spies extraterrestrial life

    Meteorites show signs of bacteria – allegedly

    A NASA scientist claims to have identified signs of extraterrestrial bacteria in meteorites, and if he's right, it means a strong boost to the theory that such entities are common and could be the origin of life on Earth. In his paper Fossils of Cyanobacteria in CI1 Carbonaceous Meteorites, published on Friday in the Journal …

    Space 7 Mar 09:59

  • HP overtakes NetApp in IDC rankings

    Hitachi Data Systems catches up with Dell

    NetApp's long run of growth could be slowing; IDC's quarterly storage tracker shows a resurgent HP overtaking it in worldwide external disk storage systems factory revenue. IDC's numbers for the fourth quarter (Q4) of 2010 list EMC in top position with a 26 per cent share of the revenue at $1,582m, IBM is second with a 16.3 …

    Storage 7 Mar 10:20

  • Second US 'secret space warplane' now in orbit

    Military minishuttle's mystery mission

    The second X-37B "secret space warplane" operated by the US military has successfully reached orbit at the beginning of a classified mission, whose intent and duration remain unknown. At the spaceplane-in-a-tin factory The X-37B is a small unmanned space plane with a cargo bay said to be about the same size as that of a …

    Space 7 Mar 10:28

  • We7 revamps for radio

    Putting on Pandora pants

    Mass market music service We7 is moving closer to Pandora and Last.fm with the latest revision of its mobile app. It's not something that will appeal to music fanatics, who know exactly what they want, but should prove popular to the more traditional radio audience. The app generates and downloads up to ten concurrent "stations …

    Music and Media 7 Mar 10:30

  • Orange first with iPad 2 sales pitch

    Subsidised second-gen fondleslab coming soon

    Orange has confirmed it will offer the iPad 2 3G at some point in the future. No great surprise that, since Orange already offers the 3G iPad. In fact, it would only come as a jolt if the mobile network operator specifically said it wasn't going to offer the iPad 2. When will Orange begin selling the iPad 2? Apple will begin …

    reghardware 7 Mar 10:34

  • YouTube punts filth to shocked Reg readers

    NSFW Hot pr0n TV action

    We're obliged to shocked reader Darrin Maunders and indeed to all of you who emailed to express your disgust at copping an eyeful of filth down at YouTube over the weekend. Despite his distressed state, Darrin was able to keep it together long enough to send us a screen grab of the outrage, which could easily be a still from …

    Bootnotes 7 Mar 10:39

  • WD works on hybrid drives

    Seagate expands hybrid drive offerings

    Western Digital is working on developing a hybrid drive combining spinning disk and solid state storage, along the lines of Seagate's Momentus XT. CEO John Coyne mentioned this in the earnings call for WD's second fiscal 2011 quarter, saying: "We also continue to evaluate the opportunity to combine rotating magnetic storage …

    Storage 7 Mar 11:07

  • Three pushes UNLIMITED data to PAYG punters

    Hungry smartphones, go forth and feed

    Three today extended its unlimited - no, honest - data package to pay-as-you-go customers, who can now gobble up as much content as they like for £15 a month. Last year, the network operator introduced The One Plan, a pay-monthly eat-all-you-can data package that eclipsed the claimed-to-be-unlimited-but-not deals of its …

    reghardware 7 Mar 11:11

  • Amazon outlines Android bill of rights

    Galloping away from Google Marketplace

    Amazon's foray into mobile applications is getting firmer, with the company's approach to copy protection showing how it plans to differentiate itself from Google's Marketplace, or not. Amazon Appstore Digital Rights Management apparently "simplifies life for developers and customers", but only by virtue of operating on …

    Cloud 7 Mar 11:16

  • Charlie Sheen fake filth flick powers Facebook survey scam

    This one has Tiger Blood

    Scammers have exploited actor Charlie Sheen's increasingly bizarre antics as a lure for the latest in a long line of survey scams on Facebook. Would-be voyeurs/victims are typically exposed to the scam via messages promising links to a supposed homemade sex tape featuring Sheen and supposedly released by his ex-wife. Surfers …

    Malware 7 Mar 11:34

  • Captain Kirk hails space shuttle Discovery

    'Space, the final frontier...'

    The crew of space shuttle Discovery were roused from their slumbers this morning by the theme from Star Trek and a special message from actor William Shatner. To the backing of Alexander Courage’s famous tune, Shatner declared: “Space, the final frontier. These have been the voyages of the Space Shuttle Discovery. Her 30-year …

    Space 7 Mar 11:41

  • CBI demands action from Osborne

    Budget hopes ahoy

    Business lobby group the CBI warned Chancellor George Osborne that the Budget must focus on helping UK companies grow by improving access to finance, cutting energy costs and increasing exports. The CBI said the Chancellor should redouble efforts to increase exports. It welcomed recent moves to make export credit insurance …

    Small Biz 7 Mar 11:49

  • BAE Systems faces 'debarment' from exporting US war-tech

    Doesn't care - mainly an American firm these days

    US-centred but UK-headquartered arms globocorp BAE Systems may soon face serious restrictions on its operations imposed by the US government. The Financial Times reports today that the BAE Systems plc, the London-based umbrella corporation for BAE's worldwide operations, is "braced for the imposition of strict curbs" by the US …

    Government 7 Mar 11:57

  • Toshiba NB500 budget netbook

    Review A true Small, Cheap Computer at last?

    Few netbooks have been truly cheap - well, few of the decent ones, anyway - but now we're at the third generation of Intel's Atom processor family, an opportunity has arisen for netbook makers to offer less pricey models based on older chippery. Toshiba's NB500: cheap but not awfully cheerful? Toshiba's netbook range is …

    reghardware 7 Mar 12:00

  • Wordpress traces 2nd DDoS assault to China

    Shock

    Blogging service WordPress suffered a further series of denial of service assaults on Friday, days after recovering from a particularly debilitating attack. WordPress.com, which serves 18 million sites, traced the vast majority of the attack traffic of the latest assault back to China. Analysis pointed to a Chinese language …

    Enterprise Security 7 Mar 12:27

  • Crime UK site gets 400m hits, drives down property values

    Just how antisocial are hoax calls?

    The UK's crime map has received over 400 million hits as worried citizens desperately try to get a grip on the level of hoax calls. Tory MP Richard Graham fired a pile of questions at the Home Office last week, asking among other things whether hoax calls were recorded as antisocial behaviour. Other questions included what …

    Policing 7 Mar 12:40

  • Punters take tech to bed, breakfast

    Studies state the bleedin' obvious

    There are two winners of the Sybil Fawlty "bleedin' obvious" award this week. First, let's give a round of applause to IPTV company SeeSaw which managed to identify a new social trend: 'TV Dinners' have become 'PC Dinners'. The on-demand TV service SeeSaw interviewed 2000 Brits and found that over half of them "confessed" to …

    reghardware 7 Mar 12:59

  • Multimillionaire hires ex-NASA 'naut to work on private spaceship

    Secret cheese capsule readied for manned flight

    Upstart startup rocket company SpaceX, bossed by renowned geek idol and internet nerdwealth kingpin Elon Musk, has recruited a NASA astronaut to help make the company's spacecraft ready to carry people into space. Dr Garrett Reisman was a NASA astronaut from 1998 until this month, having previously worked in industry as an …

    Space 7 Mar 13:12

  • Spaniards bemoan 'joke' speed limit cut

    'They're winding us up'

    Spanish drivers are less than impressed with a "temporary" reduction of the maximum speed limit on motorways from 120 to 110 km/h, which came into force today as a measure to reduce petrol imports by five per cent a year. Speaking to RTVE, a disgruntled motorist summarised: "It's a joke, they're winding us up." An …

    Environment 7 Mar 13:22

  • Chinese Twitter to double staff

    Planning to make money at some point, too

    China's own Twitter, Sina Weibo, is planning to almost double its staff. The microblogging service already has 100 million users, and is adding 10 million every month, but that's not enough for the company which intends to be bigger than Twitter. Not that Twitter is the competition in China; it isn't permitted in a country …

    Mobile 7 Mar 13:37

  • Storage sale SHOCK: WD to buy Hitachi GST

    Coyne's coup

    Western Digital is buying Hitachi Global Storage Technologies for $4.25bn in a friendly takeover – so much for a Hitachi GST IPO. The money comes as $3.5bn cash and 25 million WD shares, worth $750m at a $30.01 share price. It will be funded from WD's cash and about $2.5bn of debt. The combined company will be much bigger than …

    Storage 7 Mar 14:00

  • RIPA changes in Freedoms Bill don't protect privacy enough

    Comment Changes bring neglible improvement in privacy protection

    The “Protection of Freedoms Bill” has a wholly misleading title; the legislation simply does not do what it says on the tin. The CCTV provisions (see here) have more to do with efficient surveillance than privacy protection. We reviewed the Information Commissioner’s concerns about the use of personal data in DNA profiling or in …

    Government 7 Mar 14:11

  • US companies added lots of jobs last month

    IT firms do their share, mostly

    A snowy January put hiring in the United States on ice, but it looks like things thawed out a bit in February. The Bureau of Labor Statistics, the arm of the US Department of Labor that counts the employed, the unemployed, and that little-known third category of people who are neither, said last Friday that the US economy …

    Financial News 7 Mar 14:23

  • Prepping the great Windows 7 migration

    Windows 7 Decisions are easy, jobs are hard

    Deciding to move to Windows 7 is the easy bit. The crunch comes in planning and executing the migration. Should it be a big bang or incremental? How much new hardware and software is needed? What can go wrong? The truth is that a lot can go wrong, but only if you plan carelessly. Microsoft has produced a bewildering array of …

    Enterprise Tech 7 Mar 14:39

  • Sony to serve up Wimbledon in 3D

    Strawberries in cinemas?

    This year's Wimbledon is to be filmed in 3D for the first time, with the finals screened in HD in cinemas around the world. Sony has the gig, but it said it will be working with the BBC to capture the content, the Corporation having nabbed the venue's best camera sites for its own, 2D coverage. "High Definition 3D is... as …

    reghardware 7 Mar 15:07

  • Legally binding e-documents: Germany pushes secure email option

    De-mail

    Germany is putting its legislative and industrial muscle behind a new secure email system, dubbed De-mail, that aims to become an alternative to conventional paper documents for legally binding transactions. The service earned a prominent place at the opening of the CeBIT trade show in Hanover at the same time as legislation …

    Applications 7 Mar 15:14

  • Clear Channel turns digital billboards into 'store fronts'

    Fewer adverts, more interaction

    The CEO of Clear Channel says there will be fewer billboards in the future, but that those which remain will be screens, and able to sell you stuff too, the Financial Times reports. The move away from paper posters shouldn't be any surprise: in city centres screens are already replacing paper posters and Clear Channel reckons …

    Mobile 7 Mar 15:34

  • Football goal-line tracking tech delayed

    Contenders fail to tickle Fifa's fancy

    A programme to test the use of goal-line technology in football has been extended by a year, after none of the ten systems trialled last month met the criteria set by Fifa. The systems were presented to the International Football Association Board last week at its annual meeting to review the sport's laws. But while snoods …

    reghardware 7 Mar 15:50

  • Alan Sugar takes hot seat at YouView

    Peer inherits from Meek

    Lord Sugar is to become the new non-exec chairman of YouView, formerly Project Canvas. His predecessor, Kip Meek, had been in the job less than eight months. Meek was formerly head of the Broadband Stakeholder Group and is best known as (effectively) Ofcom's No 2 from 2003 to 2007. Notable accomplishments, for sure, but it's …

    Music and Media 7 Mar 15:51

  • NEC goes out on a limb with arm-tap gadget control

    Clap trap?

    NEC has taken Nintendo's Wii Remote to its logical conclusion and announced that it is developing device controls you wear on your wrist. Each watch-like gadget comprises an accelerometer for motion sensing, plus sensors that register touches to the arm. The sensors divide the arm into four zones, NEC said: the upper, middle …

    reghardware 7 Mar 16:26

  • Nokia washes hands of Qt

    Flogs off licensing biz

    Nokia is flogging off the Qt commercial licensing and services business it acquired with Trolltech three years ago. Finnish software house Digia will pick up the business – and 19 developers from Nokia – for an undisclosed sum. Nokia bought Trolltech, a Norwegian developer, for £153m in early 2008, and made its C++ frameworks …

    Mobile 7 Mar 17:05

  • Intel's vPro biz chips cross Sandy Bridge

    Updated Desktops and laptops now, workstations soon

    The vPro line of Core chips for business-class desktop PCs launched today, and Intel is working on extending vPro to upcoming laptops and workstations, too. The vPro iterations of Intel's Core family of processors have extra goodies that businesses will pay a premium for, such as enhanced security features. Intel also hopes …

    PCs & Chips 7 Mar 17:09

  • New 'supercritical' generators to boost nuclear output by 50%

    'Not a question of if, but when' – US gov boffins

    US government boffins say they – or perhaps their rivals – will soon roll out a new and much more efficient type of turbine generator which is expected to be a boon to so-called "thermal" powerplant technologies such as coal, gas, oil and nuclear. Most kinds of renewable generation – wind, tidal, hydro, solar-photovoltaic etc …

    Environment 7 Mar 17:11

  • Hacker kills his own Pwn2Own bug for Android phones

    Updated Android Market remote install peril remains

    A vulnerability that a researcher planned to use to compromise an Android cellphone at a hacking contest later this week got squashed after Google fixed the underlying bug in the Android Market. Duo Security CTO Jon Oberheide notified Google of the XSS, or cross-site scripting, bug in the application bazaar because he didn't …

    Security 7 Mar 18:30

  • Obama to overhaul heinous US patent system

    No more crustless peanut butter sandwiches

    The Obama administration is launching an effort to reform the slow-motion train wreck that is the US Patent and Trademark Office. "We've got the greatest inventors in the world, and it's time we give them the help they need to bring this country where it needs to be," said Austan Goolsbee, chairman of the Obama administration' …

    Government 7 Mar 19:18

  • Google ads banned from Facebook apps

    Zuckerberg plants once and future 'AdSeed'?

    Facebook applications are now barred from using Google's AdSense advertising network, and though the story behind the ban is less than clear, we can safely blame it on the increasingly heated rivalry between the two web giants. Last week, Facebook unveiled its first official list of approved advertisers for the Facebook …

    Music and Media 7 Mar 19:24

  • Shuttleworth sees fewer clouds in Ubuntu's future

    'Firm decisions' needed

    There are some tough decisions ahead about which cloud open sourcers should support in the next major version of Ubuntu. Canonical and Ubuntu founder Mark Shuttleworth has said that "firm decisions" are required about the cloud platforms that can be supported. Shuttleworth made the announcement while revealing the animal- …

    Cloud 7 Mar 20:06

  • Skype to test advertising

    From innovation to desperation?

    If you’re one of the millions of people who have learned to love unreliable service and uncertain call quality, Skype has good news: its intention to introduce advertisements to inflate its value ahead of the IPO won't change a thing. Announcing its advertising plans, the "hugely popular free Internet communications service" [ …

    Business 7 Mar 20:38

  • Nine drives away from Carsales.com

    Pimp my ride, for half a billion or so

    Australia’s old media continues to shuffle its new media plays, with TV network owner Nine Entertainment flogging its 49.1 per cent stake in Carsales.com for AU$565.5m. A group of institutional and private investors have taken the vehicle trading site off the hands of Nine Entertainment subsidiary ACP Magazines. The sale comes …

    Business 7 Mar 20:39

  • Mobile app developer heads to the valley

    Oz geek drain continues as VC cash lures MobileNation

    Australian DIY mobile app developer MobileNation has made its international debut at the DEMO start-up conference in the US and is currently dong the VC rounds. MobileNation was the only Australian company of the 53 start-ups selected to launch at the DEMO. Its currently free platform gives non-geeks the tools to create a …

    Business 7 Mar 20:40

  • Casual games trump meds for depression

    Game dev sponsors pro-game study

    "Family friendly" casual games are not merely a mindless way to waste time, but are also an effective treatment against depression, according to a year-long study. "The results of this randomized clinical study clearly demonstrate the intrinsic value of certain casual games in terms of significant, positive effects on …

    Music and Media 7 Mar 23:22

  • Opera opens phone-agnostic mobile app store

    Android. Java. Windows. Palm. Symbian. (And, one day, iPhone)

    Opera has opened an app store that works across disparate mobile platforms. The store can be accessed from virtually any mobile browser on any major phone platform, but it's built straight into the company's Opera Mobile and Opera Mini browsers, currently used by over 100 million phone owners across the globe. The store serves …

    Mobile 7 Mar 23:25

  • Attachmate acquisition stalls Novell's Q1

    Don't blame SUSE Linux

    Novell is in the process of being eaten by Attachmate and having some juicy patents sold off to a holding company controlled by Microsoft, Apple EMC, and Oracle. And the company's top brass took a zero for the day and didn't face Wall Street when Novell announced its financial results for the first quarter of fiscal 2011 ended …

    Financial News 7 Mar 23:26