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8th March 2011 Archive

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  • Feeling heat from Macs, Microsoft sells PCs sans crapware

    Putting Signature on speed

    With Apple Macs in its sights, Microsoft has been quietly reselling PCs that offer customized, slimmed-down installations of Windows designed to run faster and to be easier to set up and maintain. The software company has been selling computers preloaded with the custom Windows image since at least October 2009 under the a …

    Channel Register 8 Mar 00:17

  • Microsoft 'paid Nokia $1bn' for WinPho 7 deal

    It's an ad, ad, ad, ad world

    Nokia's jaw-dropping decision to adopt Windows Phone 7 as its handset operating system was juiced by an equally jaw-dropping payout from Microsoft of over $1bn, according to a report citing people with knowledge of the deal. Bloomberg reports that Redmond will ship that $1bn to Espoo, Finland, in support of Nokia's efforts to …

    Financial News 8 Mar 00:20

  • Feds charge 10 with running Nigerian 419 scam

    $1.5m in losses

    Federal prosecutors have accused 10 people of fleecing $1.5 million out of victims throughout the US with an advanced fee scam that promised lavish inheritances if they paid money up front to facilitate the transfers. The alleged ringleader of the group was Claudio Uche Dibe, 25, of Gardena, California, prosecutors said. He was …

    Crime 8 Mar 04:00

  • MS smartphone share falls despite WinPho 7

    Android takes top spot from RIM

    The arrival of Windows Phone 7 has not reversed Microsoft's declining smartphone market share in the US. Microsoft had eight per cent of the US smartphone market in the three months through January - a drop of 1.7 per centage points, according to comScore. Google's Android took the number-one spot for the first time, growing …

    Mobile 8 Mar 05:24

  • Launcher Pro

    Android App of the Week Sharper eye for UI

    The facility to re-skin the basic Android UI is both a blessing and a curse. It's a godsend because, unlike iOS or Windows Phone 7, you're not stuck with a monolithic one-size-fits-all interface design. But you only have to look at an Orange San Francisco to see what an unholy pig’s ear can result from letting the amateurs …

    reghardware 8 Mar 07:00

  • BBC accused of coming out for porn opt-in?

    Updated Jacqui Smith smut-show sparks censorship row

    The BBC was today accused of ignoring its own charter requirement to offer balance by coming down firmly on the side of opt-in in respect of internet porn regulation. An "alliance of the concerned" drawn from academics and individuals representing the adult film industry added their voices to a chorus of dissent, claiming that …

    Government 8 Mar 09:15

  • Automation: A new approach to data centre management

    Webcast Taking the middle ground

    On 11 March at 11am, we have some special guests to talk us through the finer points of managing a data centre efficiently. Tim Phillips from The Register is the host for the day and he's joined by Tony Lock from Freeform Dynamics, Greg Charman from Microsoft and Graham Rushton from Avanade. For some people, managing the …

    Data Centre 8 Mar 09:35

  • Betfair backs Gibraltar

    Keeping UK HQ though

    Online betting exchange Betfair will work under a Gibraltar licence from tomorrow – but the move won't hit UK jobs. The company will stay incorporated in the UK and continue to pay UK corporation tax, it said, adding that no jobs would be lost. Betfair has offices in Hammersmith, Stevenage and Halifax. The firm said it had …

    Financial News 8 Mar 09:59

  • Google buys UK price comparison site

    BeatThatQuote.com snapped up for £37.7m. Simples

    Google has bought UK price comparison site BeatThatQuote.com for £37.7m. The company's managing director John Paleomylites owns 90 per cent of the online property, which was founded in 2005. "We are confident that by combining BeatThatQuote.com's expertise in UK financial products with Google's technology, we'll accelerate …

    Financial News 8 Mar 10:16

  • Discovery poised for final homecoming

    Distinguished career ends tomorrow

    Space shuttle Discovery is set to bow out tomorrow with its final homecoming at the end of a distinguished career which began on 30 August, 1984. The venerable vehicle has two landing opportunities at Kennedy Space Center, at 16:57 and 18:34 GMT. NASA notes: "If Discovery is unable to land Wednesday, additional opportunities …

    Space 8 Mar 10:23

  • Cure for BALDNESS causes IMPOTENCE, says new study

    Better to be shiny than floppy, warns doc

    Bad news for bothered baldies today, as boffins report that chemicals found in popular hair-loss medications can cause persistent lack of rigour in the trouser department. The new study, carried out by Dr Abdulmaged Traish of the Boston uni medical school and his colleagues, looks into the health effects of the 5α-reductase …

    Biology 8 Mar 10:24

  • Spooks want backdoor into your network

    Mission creep mucho?

    GCHQ, the UK's signal intelligence agency, may get an expanded role in preventing attacks against the networks of key private firms under new government plans. The Communications-Electronics Security Group (CESG) at the UK's Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ) has historically only provided best practice guidance and …

    Enterprise Security 8 Mar 11:12

  • Hackers find Google's music cloud

    Google Music Sync is go

    Android hackers have discovered that Google's cloud-based music service is up and running, for those prepared to muck about with the internals of Honeycomb at least. Google has been widely expected to launch a cloud-based music service – an online store of your existing collection – and that‘s exactly what's been found in the …

    Applications 8 Mar 11:26

  • Adobe releases Wallaby to jump Jobsian Flash ban

    Macropod to leap electric Apple fence

    Adobe execs don't want their customers to fret over the company's recent spat with Apple over its decision to make its iPad and iPhone products a Flash-free zone. The result? Adobe has birthed a prototype piece of software, dubbed Wallaby, that is a Flash-to-HTML5 conversion tool. Initially, Adobe is making the software …

    Applications 8 Mar 11:30

  • Xbox 360, PS3 prices to fall this summer

    Gaming will get cheaper, says analyst

    The price structure of games consoles has been static for a record length of time and will begin to fall this summer in order to keep the gadgets flying off the shelves. Analyst Michael Pachter with US investment house Wedbush said this week that current console prices have remained the same for 18 months. He predicts they …

    reghardware 8 Mar 11:48

  • Dixons Advent Vega

    Review Geek's delight, consumer's fright

    I had not had the Advent Vega out of the box for more than half an hour when I felt a very strong urge to fling the thing across the Reg Hardware office. Dixons' Advent Vega: rather long and thin I took receipt of the 10.1in tablet on the day Apple was due to announce the iPad 2. If the Vega is anything to go by, it needn't …

    reghardware 8 Mar 12:00

  • Security agency calls time on botnet FUD

    Cyber-zombie apocalypse now

    The EU's cyber security Agency, ENISA, wants a re-think of how we measure the size and potency of botnets, networks of malware-infected PCs that are now the mainstay of spam distribution, identity theft and DDoS (distributed denial of service) attacks. Two parallel studies by ENISA, both due to be published at a security …

    Malware 8 Mar 12:29

  • Apple, RIM profit from Euro smartphone shift

    But Sony Ericsson, HTC experience explosive growth

    Sony Ericsson's shift to Android proved spectacularly successful during the last three months of 2010, figures show. According to market watcher IDC, the company's unit shipments into Western Europe during Q4 2010 rocketed 3121 per cent when compared to Q4 2009 - all thanks to the Xperia X10 and X10 Mini. But temper that glee …

    reghardware 8 Mar 12:30

  • Ofcom network census starts next month

    Expect good connectivity until May

    Network reliability will be under the microscope from 23 March to 23 May, with even minor outages forming part of Ofcom's upcoming report on the state of connectivity in the UK. That's one of the conclusions (PDF/124KB) reached following Ofcom's consultation on metrics needed for the first of its three yearly reports on the …

    Telecoms 8 Mar 13:00

  • UK.gov to miss another deadline on privacy

    Incoming cookie rules won't be enforced

    The UK government will not have its regulatory house in order by 25 May when a new EU law on cookies come into force. At the same time, the Information Commissioner's Office is warning businesses to be ready for the changes, even though the government's own guidelines won't be published until after that date. Under the …

    Law 8 Mar 13:03

  • BlackBerry OS 7 makes software roadmap debut

    Leak shows late-2011 Twitterification

    Research in Motion's BlackBerry OS 7 will make an appearance in the Autumn, if an allegedly leaked RIM roadmap is what it purports to be. That doesn't mean we'll see devices based on the operating system at that point, however. The leaked chart - sent to BB fan forum N4BB - places OS 7's "social networking core integration …

    reghardware 8 Mar 13:10

  • Museum readies touch-tastic retro comms gear hands-on

    NSFWish Teletypes to tin cans

    According to my Wiltshire-born partner, Swindon is a grim place to spend your weekend, but this month sees an event that may nonetheless tickle a tech-head's taste-buds. As part of National Science and Engineering week, the Museum of Computing will hold two days of workshops that reminisce about tech, with an emphasis on the …

    reghardware 8 Mar 13:17

  • BBC to take cautious approach to 3D 'hype'

    Tests but no shows before mid-2012

    The BBC seems no more keen on 3D TV than licence payers, at least for the moment. In an update to the BBC's technology strategy, published last night, the Corporation confirmed it will not be rolling out a 3D channel until mid 2012 at the earliest, though it does plan to "investigate the technology challenges 3D produces …

    reghardware 8 Mar 13:48

  • IPv6 intro creates spam-filtering nightmare

    Blacklist extinction looms

    The migration towards IPv6, which has been made necessary by the expansion of the internet, will make it harder to filter spam messages, service providers warn. The current internet protocol, IPv4, has a limited address space which is reaching exhaustion* thanks to the fast uptake of internet technology in populous countries …

    Spam 8 Mar 14:16

  • How languages can live together without killing each other

    Why Castilian didn't smother Galician

    Those of you who are concerned that linguistic globalisation will eventually steamroller local tongues into extinction should take heart from a study by a team from the Universidade de Santiago de Compostela, which has mathematically proved that two languages can live together in peace and harmony. Jorge Mira Pérez and …

    Science 8 Mar 14:19

  • Neighbourhood watchers in Reading get speedguns

    Big society goes Big Brother – with speed-monitoring neighbours

    Police in Reading are today encouraging residents to join the Big Society and zap speeding neighbours with personal issue speed detection kit. The speedster who falls afoul of the personal speedguns gets two written warnings from neighbourhood police. Police may then take action on the third infraction. Be good or we'll zap …

    Policing 8 Mar 14:25

  • Coraid accesses storage with Arista

    Arista accelerating AoE access

    Coraid is allying with Andy Bechtolsheim's Arista to accelerate access to its storage. Customers would use Arista 10GBitE switches, such as the 7500, to get faster access to their Coraid EtherDrive arrays using the lightweight ATA-over-Ethernet (AoE) protocol. This has a lower network overhead than iSCSI and Fibre Channel over …

    Storage 8 Mar 14:26

  • Getting secure external access to AoE disk volumes

    Comment Using MPLS to add routability to Coraid's AoE

    ATA over Ethernet (AoE) protocol in the storage environment makes an interesting alternative to iSCSI and Fibre Channel. Although it is not routable, it can be made routable and thereby also independent of Ethernet itself. AoE is a light, layer 2 protocol integrated with Ethernet frames, which makes it ideal for work inside …

    Storage 8 Mar 14:27

  • Rackspace does the Red Hat thing with 'Linux for the clouds'

    Cloud Connect OpenStack handholding

    Rackspace is offering formal service and support for OpenStack, the eight-month-old open source platform for building Amazon EC2–like "infrastructure clouds". A new Rackspace business unit, known as Rackspace Cloud Builders, will help enterprises and ISPs design and deploy OpenStack clouds, offer ongoing support for these sky- …

    Cloud 8 Mar 15:00

  • Nintendo 3DS bothers Brits about blinkers

    Eye strain fears to hinder sales?

    Research suggests over a third of Brits are concerned about the effect Nintendo's upcoming auto-stereoscopic handheld games console, the 3DS, will have on their eyes. Shopping website VoucherCodes.co.uk says it questioned 3000 UK adults and found 37 per cent of them were worried about the health alert Nintendo issued in …

    reghardware 8 Mar 15:15

  • Here's the crack about Infosmack

    The best podcast about enterprise tech. Ever

    Today we start broadcasting Infosmack, easily the best podcast on enterprise tech. The show is produced and presented by Marc Farley and Greg Knieriemen, who are moonlighting from their day jobs at HP, where Marc is a storage God, and Chi Corporation, a big US integrator, where Greg veeps. They are joined on the show by …

    Infosmack 8 Mar 15:26

  • Sprint eyes T-Mobile acquisition

    American wireless still in upheaval

    Sprint is reportedly in talks with Deutsche Telekom about buying up T-Mobile USA, creating a single network part-owned by Deutsche but able to compete with AT&T and Verizon. The talks, which Bloomberg reckons have been going on over the last few weeks, could result in T-Mobile becoming part of Sprint with Deutsche Telekom …

    Mobile 8 Mar 15:56

  • Dell juices PowerEdge-C servers with OpenStack

    Crafts installer fluffs clouds fast

    OpenStack project contributor Dell says it is ready to help people build OpenStack clouds atop its PowerEdge-C servers. Today, Rackspace Hosting, which along with NASA started the OpenStack cloud management fabric last July, rolled out deployment, support, and training services for the open source cloud platform, and Dell, a …

    Cloud 8 Mar 16:00

  • 'Wrong amount of snow' caused Heathrow chaos

    BAA chief apologises for miscalculation

    BAA chief executive Colin Matthews has apologised for the chaos at Heathrow Airport last December, which saw thousands of passengers stranded by an unforeseen depth of snow. The BBC, which earlier brilliantly summarised that "flights were grounded at Heathrow in December due to the wrong amount of snow", but has now decided to …

    Bootnotes 8 Mar 16:24

  • Sony to sell PSN content over the counter

    No bankcard required

    Sony says it wants to bring PlayStation Network games to high street shoppers, giving them the option to purchase the content over the counter without the need for an online transaction. The scheme is already active Stateside, with US retailer GameStop stocking tons of PSN content. Sony Computer Entertainment Europe's …

    reghardware 8 Mar 16:55

  • Google demotes BeatThatQuote one day after buying it

    Pushed out of top search spot for 30 days

    Google has penalised its own newly acquired UK price comparison site BeatThatQuote.com, after the firm was found to be violating Mountain View's guidelines about linking. Earlier today, Aaron Wall noted on his SEO Book blog that Google had recently penalised Overstock.com for offering discounts in exchange for links. " …

    Applications 8 Mar 17:02

  • Death of the signing bonus: Open source recruitment works

    Open...and Shut The referral's in the code

    Venture capitalist Fred Wilson recently derided marketing as "what you do when your product or service sucks." Great products market themselves. In a similar way, paid recruiting is what you do when your insight into the movers and shakers in your corner of the industry stinks. I'm not referring to the courting of talent. …

    Software 8 Mar 18:19

  • Nimbula instamatic cloud kit set for launch

    Cloud Connect 'Private' Amazon mimic free on 40 cores

    Nimbula – the build-your-own-cloud outfit founded by Amazon's former vice president of engineering – has announced that its flagship product, a "cloud operating system" known as Nimbula Director, will be officially launched within the next 30 days. Nimbula VP of marketing Reza Malekzadeh told The Register that the company will …

    Cloud 8 Mar 18:33

  • Steve Jobs bends iPad price reality

    Ordure on order

    When he unveiled the iPad 2 last Wednesday, Steve Jobs hammered home the point that it was a bargain buy when compared to the competition. He was, at best, stretching the truth. At worst, he was shoveling bullshit. "Some folks are out there saying, well, they're only a little bit more expensive than us at $799," Jobs told his …

    Music and Media 8 Mar 18:56

  • Bad Belgian busted by kinky iTunes openness

    Now whistling a less happy tune

    A Belgian man who pleaded guilty to possessing indecent images of children while on a visit to Manchester in January was last week sentenced to four months in prison. According to a spokeswoman for Manchester Crown Court, where the miscreant appeared for sentencing on 3 March, Tim Verrydt, 23, of Kappellestraat, Mol, Belgium, …

    Crime 8 Mar 18:59

  • French gov infiltrated by data-hungry spear phishers

    Private data monitored by weeks

    At least 150 computers used by the French government were breached after hackers used highly targeted spear-phishing emails to plant malware that monitored the machines for weeks before being discovered, according to published media reports. The attack, which commenced late last year, allowed the hackers to monitor official …

    Malware 8 Mar 19:09

  • VMware unveils vSphere cloud management plan

    vCenter Operations trio named

    VMware is planning products and services it says will help you manage clouds anchored on its virtualization layer. On Tuesday, the company announced vCenter Operations, a set of planned products and – warning: marketing buzzword alert – "solutions". vCenter Operations will help manage the performance, capacity, and …

    Cloud 8 Mar 19:59

  • Adobe unfurls Flash 10.3 beta

    'Declouded' preferences and more

    Adobe has released a beta of Flash Player 10.3 that – among other new niceties – includes a preferences pane for managing your storage, camera, playback, and other settings. Previously, users needed to access an Adobe-hosted settings webpage to control preferences for global and website privacy and storage, security, protected …

    Developer 8 Mar 20:14

  • Microsoft: 'No one cares about Google's dev cloud'

    Cloud Connect Redmond makes like Redmond

    Microsoft developer and platform general manager Matt Thompson has claimed that among startups across the United States, interest in Google's App Engine is "almost nonexistent" and that only a "tiny number" have an eye on Salesforce's Force.com. Citing a recent Microsoft survey, Thompson said that if startups are interested in …

    Cloud 8 Mar 20:39

  • Chrome 10: Google whips out its Crankshaft

    Son of HotSpot boasts '66% faster' JavaScript

    Google has released a new incarnation of its Chrome browser, adding the revamped Crankshaft JavaScript engine the company unveiled late last year. This is Chrome 10, if you're keeping track of version numbers. Google wishes you didn't. When releasing a new browser, Mountain View doesn't mention version numbers, preferring to …

    Applications 8 Mar 21:50

  • New service pitches IP bonding to channels

    Time to share the load

    Fusionbroadband, a new company based in Melbourne, is hoping to attract system integrators as channels for an IP-based bonding technology developed in Canada. Bonded DSL isn't a new idea, according to Fusionbroadband's founder Jason Maude, but the solution he is pitching, from Rocket Networks in Canada, works at Layer 3 rather …

    Telecoms 8 Mar 22:12

  • AMD claims 'fastest graphics card in the world'

    Two Cayman GPUs, no waiting

    AMD has unveiled a dual-GPU, easily overclockable, 3D-capable, DirectX 11–supporting consumer graphics card that it claims is "the fastest graphics card in the world". "Packing more raw performance than any consumer graphics card ever created, the AMD Radeon HD 6990 provides the latest for the ultimate gaming advantage," …

    PCs & Chips 8 Mar 22:23

  • Anonymous probed for hack threat against WikiLeaker captors

    'Operation Bradical' to avenge Manning treatment

    The Pentagon has asked for an investigation into threats made by the Anonymous hacking collective against officials at Quantico, the Marine brig that is holding accused WikiLeaker Pfc. Bradley Manning. The probe was requested following news reports that members of Anonymous were discussing ways to avenge the 23-year-old Manning …

    Security 8 Mar 23:09