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18th March 2011 Archive

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  • RSA breach leaks data for hacking SecurID tokens

    'Extremely sophisicated' attack targets 2-factor auth

    Attackers breached the servers of RSA and stole information that could be used to compromise the security of two-factor authentication tokens used by 40 million employees to access sensitive corporate and government networks, the company said late Thursday. “Our investigation has led us to believe that the attack is in the …

    Enterprise Security 18 Mar 00:39

  • Google (finally) releases antidote to Google ad webpage drag

    Relief from browser hang

    Google has rolled out a new AdSense script that will load the company's ubiquitous contextual ads significantly faster than in the past. Last year, at a conference in Silicon Valley, the company acknowledged that AdSense text ads can account for as much as 12 per cent of a webpage's load time. And we thought to ourselves: " …

    Music and Media 18 Mar 00:49

  • Supercomputer charts killer tsunami's course

    NOAA simulates destructive waves

    The US National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) has run simulations that show how the tsunami triggered by last Friday's 9.0 Miyagi earthquake in northeastern Japan propagated across the Pacific Ocean. It took a huge amount of energy to create what is now known as the Honshu tsunami, named for Japan's …

    HPC 18 Mar 03:00

  • RIM PlayBook to sync with Microsoft Exchange cloud

    Office 365 in your lap

    The PlayBook – the iPad challenger from BlackBerry maker RIM – is following Apple's device into the workplace with the assistance of Microsoft. People getting Exchange emails will be able to synchronize with the version of Exchange Server behind Microsoft's forthcoming Office 365 cloud suite, RIM said on Thursday. Sync with …

    SaaS 18 Mar 04:00

  • Groupon worth 'as much as $25 billion'

    Er, can we get a coupon for the IPO?

    Online daily-discount provider Groupon is rumored to be talking with banks about a public offering that would value it at as much as $25bn. According to "two people with knowledge of the discussions", Bloomberg reports, the IPO would be "unlikely to assign Groupon a valuation of less than $15 billion", with $25bn being the …

    Financial News 18 Mar 05:00

  • HP's 'vision' should embrace Apple, not copy it

    Open...and Shut Owning the future. Without buying the past

    Hewlett-Packard needs to grow, but its chief executive Leo Apotheker has made it very clear that he intends to boost HP's fortunes in a very non-Oracle sort of way. That is, rather than buying the past - snapping up legacy software companies and essentially buying their customer relationships and maintenance revenue streams - …

    Software 18 Mar 06:00

  • Nikon D7000 DSLR camera

    Review The return of the fiddle factor

    In the months following the launch of its new mid-range DSLR at Photokina, Nikon struggled to keep up with demand, so successful and fabled the D7000 had quickly become. But does it really live up to the hype? Clicking into place: Nikon's D7000 Well, to start with there are quite a few headline-grabbing introductions. The …

    reghardware 18 Mar 07:00

  • Vince Cable to cut training and flexible work rules

    Red tape bonfire for small, and tiny, biz

    The Department for Business Innovation and Skills is promising to cut regulations on flexible working and training for smaller companies. The speech was originally to be given by Vince Cable but will now be read by Mark Prisk because of an emergency Cabinet meeting on Libya. Employees' right to training will be restricted at …

    Small Biz 18 Mar 09:47

  • Nokia Software Updater for Mac Beta

    Review Beta late than never?

    There was a time when having to use anything but a Nokia phone would evoke fears of disorientation and a general unease about straying from my comfort zone. Sony Ericsson? Where is everything? Motorola? Does it do iSync? Samsung? Er... Even though Nokia never actually overwhelmed Mac users with its support for the platform, if …

    reghardware 18 Mar 09:59

  • Choosing a client for desktop virtualisation

    Which one suits where?

    Many organisations will assume that a virtualised desktop is best delivered on a thin client device. However there’s a good case for reusing existing PCs, and not all thin clients are created equal. How should you determine the best client device for your desktop virtualisation solution? There are three main styles of client …

    Desktop Virtualisation 18 Mar 10:30

  • US e-book sales double as dead tree demand dips

    Fiction Kindled

    The US is experience a boom in demand for e-books. Sales were up almost 116 per cent during January when compared to the same month in 2010, hitting $69.9m. This despite a 1.9 per cent drop in overall book sales, the Association of American Publishers reported yesterday. Sales of hardbacks and paperbacks for grown-ups were …

    reghardware 18 Mar 10:34

  • How Google taped up its email outage wounds

    Comment Is there still a role for the reels ...

    Does tape have a role in cloud computing? Ask cloud evangelists that question and they sit back, purse their lips, and say, "No, of course not ... but ..." The thing is they tend to come from disk storage-biased suppliers or consultancies and are in love with virtualisation, the placing of abstraction layers between server …

    SaaS 18 Mar 10:35

  • Moving to Windows 7: Is it worth it?

    Windows 7 Well ...

    Windows 7 may be prettier than XP; but does it really pay to ditch a working Windows XP network and replace it with Microsoft’s shiny new version? Every organisation is different, so there is no definitive answer, and migration is costly. That said, sticking with XP has costs as well. It is coming up to ten years old, and …

    Enterprise Tech 18 Mar 11:00

  • Virtualization: Solving the problems of success

    A Reg Guide

    The Register has written a guide for you, a five-pager called Virtualization: solving the problems of success. Inspired by a survey of 300 Reg-reading IT Pros, we produced this editorially independent study sponsored by Dell and Intel. Headline findings are that some 92 per cent have already implemented virtualization to some …

    Virtualization 18 Mar 11:00

  • Sweden postpones EU data retention directive, faces court, fines

    But Austria finally swallows it after court battles

    Sweden is to delay the implementation of the controversial EU data retention directive for a year, risking a heavy fine of up to €68m, whereas Austria has decided to implement the directive after a European Court of Justice ruling in 2010. The Swedish government this week decided to postpone the implementation of the law for …

    Government 18 Mar 11:30

  • Cloud music boom: everyone wins, except the creators

    Let them eat vinyl

    Hurrah! Research company ABI has predicted a boom in paid-for streaming music services benefitting a long list of winners. There's just a few groups in the loser column... including the artists who make the music. ABI predicts a compound annual growth rate of 95 per cent, leading to 161 million subscribers by 2016. Services …

    Music and Media 18 Mar 11:31

  • O2 ups 3G speeds by 30%

    Capacity boost follows 900MHz switch-on

    O2 has begun sending HSPA 3G through the 900MHz band, using it to up the capacity of its 3G service The 900MHz band was originally earmarked for GSM usage, but in January comms watchdog Ofcom gave O2 the go-ahead to route UMTS/WCDMA traffic through the band. That, O2 said today, could give it 50 per cent more data transfer …

    reghardware 18 Mar 11:40

  • MS claims credit for Rustock botnet takedown

    All salute the zombie slayer

    Action taken by Microsoft and law enforcement agencies was responsible for the takedown of the infamous spam-spewing Rustock botnet, the software giant said today. Anti-spam firms were taken by surprise by the abrupt cessation of junk mail from zombie clients in the Rustock botnet network on Wednesday afternoon. The reason for …

    Spam 18 Mar 11:57

  • BOFH: In distributed denial

    Episode 3 That's not where you're supposed to spread the peanut butter

    "Is there... something wrong with the internet?" our user asks quietly. "No, no, pretty sure it's working fine," I say, looking over to the PFY's Bittorrent machine which is sucking up so much bandwidth it’s in danger of affecting the QoS of the phone system... "It's just that I can't seem to connect to my home email," the …

    BOFH 18 Mar 12:00

  • Government to scrap COI, axe up to 1,000 communication jobs

    Create new centre, then cut staff loose

    UK.gov plans to replace the Central Office of Information with a new executive agency that deals with the government's marketing and advertising activity. The scrapping of the COI, which began life in 1946 and operates as a Trading Fund, will lead to further job cuts. More than 1,000 comms staff will be cut loose in an …

    Government 18 Mar 12:21

  • A glimpse at Amazon's app store

    Price divergence and exclusive deals

    Bored bloggers at a German website tried typing the expected address of Amazon's forthcoming app store, and were rewarded with a glimpse of the initial stock and pricing. The site has disappeared now, and Amazon's service isn't expected to launch until later this month, but Android News managed to grab screenshots of the store …

    Mobile 18 Mar 12:22

  • I floated a site into the cloud, and it didn't rain down in chunks...

    WAR on the Cloud, part 1: My baby steps migration

    The "cloud" is still somewhat in its novelty phase as with virtualisation and (say) XML of yesteryear, when simply waving them at an application would magically make all your troubles drop away, like sessions on a crashing web server. All of these technologies do have their value, just not as panacea. For example, in the …

    Platform 18 Mar 12:31

  • Half of 2011's PCs to use CPU GPUs

    CPU-integrated graphics kicking out IGPs

    Around half of the personal computers shipping this year will drive displays using CPU-integrated graphics engines. So says market watcher IHS iSuppli, and we'd not argue with its claim. Intel's second-generation Core i processors and AMD's Fusion chips, all have on-board GPUs, as does last year's line of Core i parts. Even …

    reghardware 18 Mar 12:35

  • Fukushima one week on: Situation 'stable', says IAEA

    Shameful media panic very slowly begins to subside

    The situation at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear powerplant in Japan, badly damaged during the extremely severe earthquake and tsunami there a week ago, continues to stabilise. It is becoming more probable by the day that public health consequences will be zero and radiation health effects among workers at the site will be so …

    Physics 18 Mar 12:56

  • Google's copyright review: Google lays down the Google law

    Dear Professor Hargreaves. This is what you will do...

    Google's contribution to the review of the intellectual property created to please Google was always going to be an important document. And here it is, typos and all; what a shame Google didn't review it on the way out of the door - some parts are unreadable. In its essay to the "Independent Review of Intellectual Property and …

    Music and Media 18 Mar 13:26

  • Yahoo! to! offload! Delicious! as! early! as! next! week!

    Report suggests StumbleUpon could be new suitor

    Yahoo! is reportedly close to bagging a new suitor for its bookmarking web property Delicious. A buyout deal of between $1m and $2m has been suggested by a source familiar with the talks, according to Business Insider. The report said it was unclear which "strategic partner" was planning to acquire Delicious, but some have …

    Applications 18 Mar 13:29

  • Woman fingers ex in 15-foot strip pole theft mystery

    'Smooth pole' disappears into thin air

    A Florida woman has turned on her ex-boyfriend after the sudden disappearance of her 15-foot "expert dancing pole" following the couple's breakup. NBC Miami reports that the 19-year-old woman discovered the $400 pole had vanished into thin air when she returned to her ex-boyfriend's apartment to retrieve her stuff in the wake …

    Bootnotes 18 Mar 13:31

  • Homefront

    Review Dog eat dog

    THQ has made it abundantly clear that it intends to step it up as a publisher, marquee titles – the likes of De Blob 2, Red Faction: Armageddon and indeed Homefront are all part of that plan – as the publishing house looks to take on Activision and EA, specialists in the art of the cross-platform blockbuster. Cop a load of …

    reghardware 18 Mar 13:46

  • Apple 'gay-cure' app severely slapped

    Jobs forced to choose between Christian chums and gay BFF

    Apple is today accused of anti-gay discrimination, following the release of an iPhone app that aims to help people find “freedom from homosexuality”. A petition has been launched by Truth Wins Out, which describes itself as a non-profit organisation that fights anti-gay religious extremism on the change.org website, asking …

    Mobile 18 Mar 14:08

  • RIM ruffles operator features with NFC play

    Whose customers are they anyway?

    RIM is the latest manufacturer to pitch NFC as something that bypasses network operators to the advantage of manufacturers, rather to the annoyance of said operators. The Wall Street Journal has been talking to network operators in Canada and America who are unhappy with RIM's plan to embed an NFC secure element into …

    Mobile 18 Mar 14:20

  • Actress meets feds investigating nude photo Gmail hack

    Leery hacking ring targets Hollywood celebs

    Actress Vanessa Hudgens has met with federal investigators who are probing a reported hack of her personal Gmail account. The hack led to the online distribution of nude photos and videos of the High School Musical star. The 22-year-old is among 50 celebrities that have fallen victim to a gang of hackers targeting titillating …

    ID 18 Mar 14:21

  • Game steals thunder from Eurogamer show

    Oi, that's a bit mean!

    Retailer Game has announced its own consumer-focused videogame show, to be held one week before the big Eurogamer Expo this September. Coincidence? Announced during Wednesday night's videogame Baftas, the event will take place 16-18 September at the NEC in Birmingham. The Eurogamer Expo - a popular show, with more than 30,000 …

    reghardware 18 Mar 14:24

  • Cisco shells out first dividend

    Calming screaming shareholders with shiny pennies

    Cisco Systems has finally grown up and is starting to pay a quarterly dividend to shareholders. The networking giant has been a bigtime IT player for the past decade and a half, since the Internet buildout, of course, but its expansion into new enterprise products such as servers and consumer products like Flip digital cameras …

    Data Networking 18 Mar 14:31

  • Phones4U sold on again

    BC Partners makes the call

    Mobe retailer Phones4U has been bought by BC Partners from its previous private equity owners. The 500-strong chain was sold by founder John Caudwell, along with his B2B business, to Providence Equity for £1.46bn in 2006. Phones4U claims £900m in sales for last year, up 20 per cent on 2009. Iy has 6,000 staff and claims one …

    Mobile 18 Mar 15:06

  • Three to drop mobile smut shield

    Pay monthly punters pr0n filters to be pulled down

    Network operator Three is to stop filtering out smut that monthly subscribers are attempting to view on their mobile phones. "We know this has frustrated many of you," it said. Punters on PAYG packages will continue to face blocks when they attempt to view certain web sites - and not just rude ones. Three said its filter also …

    reghardware 18 Mar 15:12

  • Microsoft Kinect powers DIY Eye of Sauron

    Mordor-ball

    Microsoft's Kinect has been wielded for numerous applications, but now it has been used to create a giant eyeball that follows you round the room. The team at The Technology Studio put this homemade Eye of Sauron together using a Kinect, a PC and a Puffersphere. The Puffersphere, a spherical display system from the …

    reghardware 18 Mar 15:25

  • TV sitcom opens up the world of penetration testing

    Can they hack it?

    The world of penetration testing has become the unlikely topic of a new sitcom from Fox. Breaking In, which is due to start a seven-episode run on 6 April, stars Christian Slater as a the leader of a team of security experts led to break into the networks of corporate clients. The marketing blurb for the show describes it as " …

    Enterprise Security 18 Mar 15:39

  • X-51 hypersonic scramjet test bird ready for second flight

    Mach 6 success could indicate spaceplane potential

    The X-51A hypersonic scramjet project is back on track, according to its chiefs, with problems that occurred on the inaugural test flight now ironed out and a second flight pencilled in for 22 March. All right, very nice, but where's our spaceplane already? "We are proud of the first flight results, and at the same time we …

    Science 18 Mar 16:09

  • Duke Nuke teases with sapphic siblings

    NSFW Trailer trash?

    Here's a trailer for the highly anticipated Duke Nukem Forever. The title says it all really. NSFW? Perhaps… but it is Friday. The game contains strong violence, sex, nudity, bad language and drug references. No surprise then that the BBFC gave it an 18 rating earlier this week. Sounds like the recipe for a thrilling …

    reghardware 18 Mar 16:46

  • Google to enforce SSL encryption on developer APIs

    September 15: HTTPS or nothing

    Google will soon require the use of SSL encryption with three of its developer-facing APIs. Beginning September 15, Google will require all developers to use SSL connections for all requests through its Google Documents List, Google Spreadsheet, and Google Sites APIs. In other words, these APIs will only accept requests via …

    Developer 18 Mar 17:35

  • AT&T ends illicit freetard handset tethering

    Don't try to hide - they know who you are

    AT&T is clamping down on subscribers who have jailbroken their iOS devices or rooted their Android handsets in order to tether their computers or tablets to the intertubes without paying for that service. "We've noticed your service plan may need updating," AT&T less-than-subtly tells unauthorized tetherers in an email …

    Mobile 18 Mar 18:16

  • IBM accused of bribery in China, South Korea

    SEC says thanks for $10m fine

    The US Securities and Exchange Commission has filed a lawsuit against IBM, alleging that the company paid bribes to government officials in China and South Korea to secure deals for the sale of mainframe and PCs among different government agencies. The lawsuit, which was filed in the US District Court for the District of …

    Channel Register 18 Mar 20:41

  • Dell: 'Yes, we will offer multiple Amazonian public clouds'

    Round-Rock-as-a-service is a go

    Dell director of storage strategy Carter George has confirmed that the company will offer at least two "public clouds" – one based on Microsoft's Azure platform and another based on, well, something else. Speaking with The Register on Friday, George declined to provide specifics on the second service, saying he did not want to …

    Platform 18 Mar 20:45

  • Anonymous DoS attacks thwarted with Aikido hip throw

    War stories from 'Operation Avenge Assange'

    In early December, researchers from security firm Radware were dispatched to repel attacks against a company being targeted by the Anonymous hacking collective and could only be described as fierce and potentially devastating. With junk traffic hitting peaks of 14 Gbps and coming from botnets, Unix machines with massive amounts …

    Security 18 Mar 20:46

  • IBM: Our appliance servers smoke Ellison's 'phony baloney'

    Blue versus Red. Watson versus Exadata

    IBM is spoiling for a fight with Oracle, as was abundantly in evidence at Big Blue's recent Investor Day at the company's TJ Watson Research Center north of New York City. Thank heavens – otherwise server junkies might die of boredom. IBM doesn't talk as much smack as Oracle does – or Sun Microsystems did - but that doesn't …

    Hardware 18 Mar 21:45

  • Microsoft: IE9's web privacy hole? A feature, not a bug

    When do-not-track lists clash

    A hole has been spotted in Internet Explorer 9's do-not-track technology, and Microsoft says it's a feature not a bug. In response to a US government call for greater protection of consumers' privacy online, Microsoft added a Tracking Protection Lists (TPLs) feature to IE9. Netizens can use one or more lists to prevent certain …

    Applications 18 Mar 21:59

  • Programmer gets 8 years for theft of stock trading software

    Wall Street-ware generated $500m in profits

    A former Goldman Sachs software developer has been sentenced to eight years in prison for stealing proprietary code used in the firm's high-speed trading platform. Sergey Aleynikov worked at Goldman from 2007 to 2009 and was a programmer responsible for the firm's high-frequency trading software, which has generated more than …

    Crime 18 Mar 22:03

  • Google patches Flash bug before Adobe

    Rest of world must wait

    Google has already released an update for its Chrome browser that fixes a critical vulnerability in Adobe's Flash Player that's under attack. Users of the animation software on other browsers and operating systems will have to wait until next week for the same patch. Chrome was able to beat the rest of the pack thanks to …

    Enterprise Security 18 Mar 23:33