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21st March 2011 Archive

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  • Microsoft+IE9: Holier than Apple open web convert?

    About HTML time

    It is a remarkable turnaround. Microsoft, the company that more than any other was responsible for freezing web standards by first killing the browser competition and then failing to update its browser for five years, has come out with a browser that is - at the very least - decent. Internet Explorer 9 combines hardware- …

    Software 21 Mar 2011, 03:00

  • How to slay a cellphone with a single text

    SMS of Death explained

    Attacks that crash most older cellphones are frequently compounded by carrier networks that send booby-trapped text messages to the target handset over and over. In other cases, they're aided by a “watchdog” feature embedded in the phone, which takes it offline after receiving just three of the malformed messages. The so-called …

    Security 21 Mar 2011, 04:00

  • Sapphire Edge HD

    Review The world’s smallest mini PC? Maybe

    Looking more like a router than a PC, Sapphire’s Edge-HD makes the recently-reviewed Zino HD 410 from Dell look positively huge. Sapphire rather hesitantly states that it “believes” the Edge-HD to be the smallest PC in the world. Whether or not it’s a world-beater is therefore up for debate, but with dimensions of 193 x 148 x …

    Hardware 21 Mar 2011, 07:00

  • Can telephony and IT work together?

    Webcast Reg reader says 'yes'

    Today at 11am Darren Stone from West Yorkshire Fire Service explains how his burning ambition to use communication technology rescued his organisation. Management problems for multiple devices meant he was constantly putting out fires in IT, answering emergency calls from his staff and sliding down the slippery pole towards …

    Tech Panel 21 Mar 2011, 09:46

  • Intel eyes up HP chief for top job

    Looking for Otellini heirs

    Intel is looking to build up its executive ranks and is apparently willing to look outside of the chip company's own walls to find some new top brass to compete for the top jobs that president and chief executive officer, Paul Otellini, will vacate in five years or so. A report in the Wall Street Journal cites unnamed sources …

    Hardware 21 Mar 2011, 09:48

  • Google blames China for Gmail problems

    No technical issues

    Problems with Gmail in recent weeks are the result of increased snooping by the Chinese government terrified that recent revolutions in north Africa will somehow spread east. Users say they can access their Gmail accounts, but then find that they can't send or load mails. Others have been unable to access the site or get into …

    Security 21 Mar 2011, 09:50

  • Fans face freezing Apple MacBook Pros

    Quad-core overheating woes for some

    A fair few buyers of Apple latest generation of 15in and 17in MacBook Pros have begun complaining that their new machines are locking up when asked to perform a task that sets the second-gen Intel Core i CPU racing. Apple's support forum contains a lengthy thread full stories of fans' freezing MacBook Pros. Many of the users …

    Laptops 21 Mar 2011, 10:31

  • Microsoft Kinect hacked to control the PS3

    Cross-console code released

    Microsoft's Kinect motion control tech continues its never-ending mod journey - into the realm of PlayStation 3. Mod magician Shantanu Goel claims to have developed a code which allows a Kinect to be used to control a PS3. With it, he can control the XBM menu, start games and even play them with the motion-detecting Microsoft …

    Games 21 Mar 2011, 10:41

  • System failure blamed for increasing data breach costs

    Negligence drops to number 2...

    System failure has replaced negligence as the single biggest source of data breaches involving UK firms, the cost of which rose for the third successive year. The average data breach cost UK organisations £1.9 million or £71 per record, an increase of 13 per cent from the year before, according to a Symantec-sponsored survey. …

    Security 21 Mar 2011, 10:58

  • After the mad rush to virtualise, what then?

    Cloud Tools for building the hybrid cloud

    Those of us who have set up local clouds had to go through a transition period; some systems dedicated, some systems virtualised. For many, running a mix of dedicated and virtual systems proved advantageous. The mad rush to virtualise everything slowed. Low hanging fruit was virtualised yielding beneficial returns. Difficult …

    Enterprise Tech 21 Mar 2011, 11:00

  • SpectraLogic adds tape 'validation' to fight silent decay peril

    Backup checkup fronts up

    Silent decay: it's the nightmare hinted at by drive array vendors when they talk about tape libraries. How do you know the restore is going to work, they ask? Some don't. Tape is generally being relegated from acting as a backup medium – a role now taken over by disk-drive-based backup data – to acting as archival storage. It …

    Storage 21 Mar 2011, 11:38

  • Busted Romanian TV star fingers Bulgarian airbags

    Broken bosoms blamed for chesty celeb's naughtiness

    Romanian television personality Simona Suhoi, aka Simona Sensual, has firmly fingered her Bulgarian airbags as the cause of a serious affront to local traffic laws. Ms Suhoi was pulled by traffic cops in Bucharest last week, and asked to explain why she was driving while her licence was suspended following a recent accident. …

    Bootnotes 21 Mar 2011, 11:47

  • Fukushima: Situation improving all the time

    Food, water samples OK, Hyper Rescue Super Pump in action

    Events at the quake- and tsunami-stricken Fukushima Daiichi nuclear powerplant in Japan went well at the weekend, with two reactors there successfully brought into cold shutdown under off-site power, power lines hooked up to other cores being cooled using seawater and some progress in refilling spent-fuel storage pools. Initial …

    Science 21 Mar 2011, 12:03

  • Firefox 4 gets yet another final test build release

    Deadline day looms, but don't call me Shirley

    Mozilla squeezed out a second Release Candidate version of Firefox 4 over the weekend, just days before the open source outfit's planned final browser code splurge on 22 March. Originally, Mozilla expected to go directly from just one Release Candidate version of Firefox 4 before finalising the build for everyone to download …

    Applications 21 Mar 2011, 12:10

  • Extended Lord of the Rings Blu-rays to hit Blighty

    Blu Mordor?

    Fans of the Lord of the Rings saga will be eager to know the Blu-ray version of the Extended Edition of the trilogy will be released in the UK on 28 June. Warner Home Entertainment announced the 15-disc box-set, which will include the special features from previous releases - six discs from the Extended Edition DVDs and three …

    Hardware 21 Mar 2011, 12:17

  • Nokia's Mobile Money roll-out bankrolled by Indian bank

    Bankening the bankless billions

    Nokia's mobile banking project Mobile Money is now being backed by the Union Bank of India, and plans to roll out across the country in the next few months. Mobile Money provides peer-to-peer money transfers via Nokia retailers, authenticated over the mobile network via SMS. The transfer autentication process uses technology …

    Mobile 21 Mar 2011, 12:29

  • BAA outhouses 200 IT workers over to Capgemini

    Ink hits £100m five-year deal

    BAA has inked a five-year £100m deal with outsourcing outfit Capgemini. Under the agreement, 200 staff at BAA – which oversees the management of Heathrow, Stansted and four other UK airports – will be offered a transfer to Capgemini under TUPE conditions. The deal gives Capgemini overarching responsibility to run BAA's core …

    Management 21 Mar 2011, 12:47

  • Osborne urged to end islands VAT-holiday by small-biz group

    Big boys cram their stuff through florists' loophole

    Chancellor George Osborne should end the right of companies to import low-value items VAT-free from the Channel Islands and do something to reduce petrol and diesel prices, says a small-biz body. Ahead of Wednesday's Budget various runners and riders are jostling for attention. The Forum of Private Business said it was time to …

    Small Biz 21 Mar 2011, 12:58

  • Hamburg vice girls to be serviced by cable car

    Aerial trams proposed for horny gardeners, theatregoers

    Hamburg city officials are mulling a proposal to build a cable car between the city's Wilhelmsburg district and the St Pauli "entertainment district", thereby handily linking the site of the International Garden Show (IGS) with the Reeperbahn's brothels. The high-flying 100m transport system will whisk green-fingered punters …

    Bootnotes 21 Mar 2011, 13:33

  • Dutch courts: Wi-Fi 'hacking' is not a crime

    No storage, no foul

    A Dutch court has ruled that hacking into Wi-Fi connections is not a crime providing any connected computers remain untouched. However Wi-Fi freeloaders would still lay themselves open to civil proceedings. The unusual ruling came in the case of a student who threatened a shooting rampage against staff at students at Maerlant …

    Broadband 21 Mar 2011, 13:53

  • Porsche punts e-car pre-orders

    Get your name on the Spyder hybrid list now

    Porsche is now taking orders for its plug-in hybrid 918 Spyder sportscar, if you have €645,000 (£562,000) lying around. That's before the extra 20 per cent George Osborne now makes you cough up, though he may, of course, give you five grand toward the cost of the vehicle, thanks to the government's e-car subsidy. Both VAT …

    Science 21 Mar 2011, 13:55

  • Interwebs stunned by musical atrocity

    iTunes cash rains down on 'fun, loving' auto-tuned teen

    I'd really like to thank the Beeb this afternoon for flagging up Rebecca Black's Friday, which has become a bit of a hit down at iTunes despite provoking the desire to tear your ears off with pliers. "Fun, loving, 13 year old" Rebecca has proved that you can sell just about anything if you get a net buzz going, even if that …

    Media 21 Mar 2011, 14:36

  • Apple finalises first iOS 4.3 update

    Firmware revision imminent?

    Apple will update iOS 4.3 to 4.3.1 within a week or two, it has been claimed. No prizes for spotting that it'll be a relatively minor release - a fact highlighted by the bug-fix list posted by BGR. The new firmware contains only two notable tweaks: new baseband code for the iPad and iPhone 3GS, and "fixed iPad 2 jailbreak …

    Phones 21 Mar 2011, 14:37

  • Will world universities step to cluster challenge?

    Tautology or just plain taunting

    The April 15th team- application deadline for the SC11 Student Cluster Competition (SCC) is fast approaching. The SCC pits eight university teams from around the globe against one another in Seattle (site of Supercomputing 2011 - or SC11) to compete for clustering glory. Sponsors supply the equipment and advice, but it’s the …

    HPC 21 Mar 2011, 14:38

  • Cray to build huge, grunting 20-petaflop 'Titan' for US gov labs

    Still mightier computer colossi to follow

    Oak Ridge National Laboratory, one of the big supercomputer centers funded by the US Department of Energy, has tapped Cray to build a monster cluster that will weigh in at 20 petaflops when it is completed next year. According to a presentation (pdf) by Buddy Bland, project leader for the Oak Ridge Leadership Computing …

    HPC 21 Mar 2011, 14:55

  • Big union loving for AT&T's T-Mobile plan

    Patriotism card also played - US cells for US jabber

    AT&T's acquisition of T-Mobile USA will attract huge scrutiny, and the battle for public opinion is already underway, but if the deal is rejected, it won't be T-Mobile which suffers. AT&T is pulling out all the stops in its effort to secure regulatory approval for its acquisition of T-Mobile, pointing out that it is securing a …

    Mobile 21 Mar 2011, 15:10

  • Tumblr blames human error for 'minor' security breach

    Ahem, your config files are showing

    Blogging platform tumblr has downplayed the significance of a security breach over the weekend. Tumblr admitted human error led to the exposure of "sensitive server configuration information", but not the rumoured disclosure of users' login details. Tumblr, which fixed the problem a few hours after its discovery, is reviewing …

    Security 21 Mar 2011, 15:32

  • Google cops €100k French spank in Street View slurp outrage

    'Sought dominant position' as it violated

    French privacy watchdogs have hit Google with its very first fine for allowing its Street View cars to snoop on citizens' Wi-Fi data. The search giant must pay a €100,000 (£87,114) fine for improperly gathering and storing data for its Street View application. The privacy regulator CNIL (Commission nationale de l'informatique …

    Security 21 Mar 2011, 15:39

  • MoD rejects Gaddafi low-flying aircraft complaint

    Serious online blow to Libyan tyrant

    In a serious blow to Libya's Muammar Gaddafi, the Ministry of Defence has moved to prevent the tyrant whining about low-flying RAF aircraft. We understand that over the weekend the dictator attempted to complain that Brit flyboys were putting a real downer on his day, but this is what happened when he tried to input the …

    Bootnotes 21 Mar 2011, 16:16

  • When dinosaurs mate: AT&T and Deutsche Telekom

    FCC weighs up a Big One

    Soon there may be only once place to go for Americans who want to use their phone abroad: the monopoly GSM supplier will be AT&T Wireless. This is not just any old monopoly, though. It has a special place in American infamy. People who think they understand the United States, but only visit and have never lived there, are …

    Broadband 21 Mar 2011, 17:11

  • Google plugs new-age telephony into US carrier phones

    Gives Voice to Sprint

    Google has teamed with US wireless carrier Sprint to integrate the carrier's cell phones with Google Voice – the new-age telephony web service that lets you attach a single number to multiple phones, turn your voicemail messages into emails, send free texts, make free domestic calls, and dial international numbers on the cheap …

    Phones 21 Mar 2011, 18:00

  • PHP.net breach: Concern over safety of source code

    Poisoned well pondered

    Maintainers of the PHP programming language spent the past few days scouring their source code for malicious modifications after discovering the security of one of their servers had been breached. The compromise of wiki.php.net allowed the intruders to steal account credentials that could be used to access the PHP repository, …

    Security 21 Mar 2011, 18:34

  • Oracle puts out Solaris 11 compatibility tester

    Will your Solaris 10 app make the jump?

    The Oracle Technology Network Garage – the blog where system administrators and developers hang out in the World According to Larry – has announced that the software giant has put out a tool to help customers figure out if their Solaris applications will be compatible with the upcoming Solaris 11. "Most applications currently …

    Operating Systems 21 Mar 2011, 18:44

  • Dell erects data centers in '10 countries'

    Private clouds only! (except those Dell public clouds)

    Dell is building data centers in as many as ten countries across the globe, including a facility in Australia. Speaking The Australian, Michael Dell said the company would provide further details in the coming months. This data center expansion, he said, is part of an effort to build so-called "private clouds" on behalf of …

    Cloud 21 Mar 2011, 18:46

  • Chinese man jailed for provoking nuke panic

    Shared fake Fukushima net warning 'without a second thought'

    A Chinese man has copped 10 days in jail and a 500 yuan ($76) fine for redistributing a fake radiation warning he picked up on the internet. The 31-year-old Hangzhou computer company worker, identified by his surname "Chen", read news from a "reliable source" on 15 March that the sea off China's eastern Shandong province was …

    Media 21 Mar 2011, 19:00

  • Fukushima explained in crap cartoon

    Nuclear Boy creates a stink

    Those of you've who've struggled over the past week or so to understand just what's happening down at Japan's Fukushima nuke plant should seek enlightenment from this video, evidently aimed at kids but just as handy for fact-starved, fearful parents: You can find the original animation here. It's already clocked up 900k+ …

    Bootnotes 21 Mar 2011, 20:00

  • Proposed NBN 'retail restraint' law is bad for everyone

    Comment The tortuous and ignorant debate over 'retail creep'

    On the face of it, the Liberal Party is showing a laudable determination to ensure that NBN Co – the government-owned corporation set up to build, own and operate Australia's National Broadband Network – doesn't cut out the existing retail market by selling directly to customers. Hence its proposed legislative agenda that …

    Networks 21 Mar 2011, 20:52

  • Aus gamers set to get adult rating?

    Mortal Kombat still too hot

    The Tasmanian Government is backing a federal government plan to introduce an R18+ classification scheme for computer games. While an R18+ category currently applies to other forms of entertainment, such as films and magazines, Australia is unique in not having introduced it to the gaming sector. An R18+ classification exists …

    Law 21 Mar 2011, 20:53

  • Eclipse sings open-web tune: No framework, no problem

    Heavyweight backs JavaScript, HTML, and CSS

    Eclipse Foundation executive director Mike Milinkovich wants to make one thing perfectly clear: Project Orion is not Eclipse. Project Orion is a browser-based development effort run by the Eclipse Foundation, but it has nothing to do with the Eclipse Framework, a workbench favored by enterprise Java developers for connecting …

    Developer 21 Mar 2011, 21:17

  • Microsoft sues trio over Androidian book reader

    Redmond patent suit hits Barnes & Noble

    Microsoft is suing Barnes & Noble, Invetec, and Foxconn International over alleged patent infringements by the Android-based Nook e-reader sold by Barnes & Noble. On monday, the software giant said that Android infringes on a number of its patents and that the trio must respect Microsoft's intellectual property rights. The …

    Tablets 21 Mar 2011, 23:04