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23rd March 2011 Archive

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  • Media luvvin' tech analysts contract patent fever

    Nielsen and ComScore unleash lawyers

    Number crunchers Nielsen and ComSore have gotten too close to the tech sector. They've hit each other with patent-infringement claims. Nielsen has lodged suit against ComScore, claiming the latter infringed on of its five patents. Nielsen wouldn't comment on the case but directed us to a site here that lists what appears to be …

    Music and Media 23 Mar 00:03

  • Intel's Atom chip chief goes mobile

    'Pursuing other interests'

    Anand Chandrasekher, senior vice president and general manager of Intel's Ultra Mobility Group, has left the company. In a one paragraph statement issued on Intel's Chip Shot PR blog, the company said that Chandrasekher is leaving Intel to "pursue other interests." The statement said that Mike Bell and Dave Whalen, who are …

    Business 23 Mar 03:00

  • Facebook traffic mysteriously passes through Chinese ISP

    Routing cockup most likely explanation

    For a short time on Tuesday, internet traffic sent between Facebook and subscribers to AT&T's internet service passed through hardware belonging to the state-owned China Telecom before reaching its final destination, a security researcher said. An innocent routing error is the most likely explanation for the highly circuitous …

    Security 23 Mar 03:44

  • iStunt 2 on the iPhone 4

    iGamer Cunning stunts

    That's it, hands, you deserve a break. You've worked tirelessly these past few weeks and proved your mettle. Dead Space and Rainbow Six: Shadow Vanguard were enjoyable iOS games, but playing them back-to-back was far too much like hard work. These fingers are done playing digit-Twister for a while. Time for a holiday. Time to …

    reghardware 23 Mar 07:00

  • 4G: What does the auction mean for the incumbents?

    Comment New generation, same four faces

    The UK's 4G auctions won't shake up the country's mobile industry, but there's enough there to annoy the incumbents equally - and perhaps make space for a local player or two. Ofcom's consultation is clear that the ideal number of network operators, which it now calls "national wholesalers", is four. The regulator admits it …

    Telecoms 23 Mar 08:30

  • South West Trains puts squeeze on commuters

    'Evidence shows people prefer to travel with their elbows'

    South West Trains stands accused of attempting to provide more seating on its service between London and Portsmouth by simply reducing the width of seats to such a degree that they're suitable only for commuters without elbows. That's according to Penny Mordaunt, the Conservative MP for Portsmouth North, who told Parliament …

    Bootnotes 23 Mar 09:03

  • PaaS potential and practicality

    Broadcast This is a hype-free zone

    If you were to draw a systems-stack view of cloud services, ‘Platform as a Service’ (PaaS) is the layer between ‘Infrastructure as a Service’ (IaaS) and ‘Software as a Service’ (SaaS). Of all the ‘C word’ offerings, it is arguably the least well understood. Sure, most people can get the gist of PaaS - a hosted service that …

    Cloud 23 Mar 09:10

  • Osborne promises 'Budget for growth'

    Tax break: 25m can now fill up their cars. Once. Halfway

    Chancellor George Osborne is promising this afternoon's Budget will be a strategy for growth when set against big cuts in public spending, which seem likely to push the UK in the opposite direction. An increase in personal tax allowance, the amount you can earn without paying tax, is widely expected. The Beeb reckons this will …

    Financial News 23 Mar 09:45

  • Brian May stands up for Welsh badgers

    Cull plan 'inhuman vandalism', declares Queen strummer

    Queen guitarist Brian May has mobilised against a proposed cull of badgers in Wales, something he describes as an "inhuman act of vandalism". The Welsh assembly will today debate a "legislative order that would allow a cull in north Pembrokeshire, and parts of Ceredigion and Carmarthenshire", the BBC explains. Rural affairs …

    Entertainment 23 Mar 10:17

  • LG backs wireless charging for smartphones

    What about phone support, LG?

    LG has given its thumbs-up to wireless charging. This week, it took the wraps off the prosaically named LG Wireless Charging Pad - model number WCP-700, information completists - and since it's useless with handsets that lack the induction coils and circuitry this kit uses to charge their batteries, we assume LG will be …

    reghardware 23 Mar 10:36

  • BT, TalkTalk in court seeking axe for Digital Economy Act

    Don't care to rat out lucrative customers

    Two of the UK's largest internet service providers are appearing in the High Court later today to try to overturn the government's Digital Economy Act. BT and TalkTalk say the Act is in breach of European privacy and human rights legislation. The law was passed during the fag-end days of the last government and saw little …

    Music and Media 23 Mar 10:38

  • Samsung dismisses too few tablets sold claim

    New models more important than the seven-incher

    How well is Samsung's Android tablet line actually selling? Not so good, it has been claimed. Samsung quickly denied the allegation, calling it "groundless", according to Reuters. The company says it has sold more than 3m 7in Galaxy Tabs. We're sure it has, but how many of the tablets it has sold to retail partners - ie. the …

    reghardware 23 Mar 10:53

  • Facebook tells privacy advocates not to 'shoot the messenger'

    You have no right to be forgotten, argues big IT

    Facebook insisted yesterday that it is heavily focused on tightening privacy controls for its users, even if information posted on its platform is re-published elsewhere by people accessing the site. The company's EU director of policy, Richard Allan, told attendees at a Westminster Media Forum seminar on Tuesday that the vast …

    Law 23 Mar 11:01

  • Fake Japan blackout alerts cloak Flash malware

    Scumbags continue to batten on human misery

    Scumbags are taking advantage of the desperate situation in Japan by distributing malware that poses as information about a rolling electricity blackout programme. Malicious emails contain infected Excel attachments hosting a Flash exploit ultimately designed to drop a malicious executable on compromised Windows PCs. The …

    Malware 23 Mar 11:17

  • Wi-Fi body wants hotspots to override 3G

    Data auto re-route tech in development

    The Wi-Fi Alliance has proposed to develop a standard that would allow mobile gadgets to automatically log on to public wireless hotspots. Most modern smartphones already support Wi-Fi and automatically route data over such connections if they can, to reduce data flow over pricey - and often slower - 3G HSPA links. The WFA's …

    reghardware 23 Mar 11:33

  • New movie gives Yuri Gagarin's view of historic 1961 mission

    50 yrs of human spaceflight celebrated with ISS footage

    A documentary filmmaker will celebrate the forthcoming 50th anniversary of Yuri Gagarin's historic first space flight by giving viewers the chance to experience what the cosmonaut saw from his Vostok 1 capsule. Christopher Riley's First Orbit promises a blend of Gagarin's voice, recorded during the 108-minute flight on 12 …

    Space 23 Mar 11:39

  • What it takes to get your desktop back up and running

    Desktop Recovery and provisioning

    Machines fail. Hardware has a lifespan, and hard disks have a shorter life than most. Heads crash, bearings wear out, and motors fail – and data gets lost. The resulting downtime is lost productivity, information workers away from their data and their applications. There may not be as much of an effect on your business as …

    Desktop Strategy 23 Mar 12:00

  • Tribunal rules Digifone paid bung for Irish GSM licence

    'Pretending that Ireland is a functional state'

    An investigation into payments made to two Irish politicians has, for the last four years, focused on the GSM licence awarded in 1996, resulting in a decision that improper payments were made. The Moriarty Tribunal, part II (volumes 1 and 2 available now), explicitly states that Denis O'Brien's Esat Digifone made payments to …

    Mobile 23 Mar 12:02

  • LSE media studies lecturers call for end to copyright enforcement

    Power to the Freetards!

    The music business should provide "user-friendly, hassle-free solutions to enable users to download music legally at a reasonable price" says a new report from a media studies department at London's LSE. The authors call for an end to copyright enforcement measures, and of a market system for sound recordings in music. Instead …

    Music and Media 23 Mar 12:15

  • Viewsonic 3DV5 HD 3D camera

    Review Stereoscopic stills and video on the cheap

    If Christmas or even the World Cup had you taking the plunge an investing in a 3D TV, then you’re probably a bit weary of watching Avatar now and if you haven’t got any kids, Alice in Wonderland may have been entertaining once, but… Viewsonic's 3DV5 offers the low cost perspective So how about creating your own 3D content? …

    reghardware 23 Mar 12:15

  • Nanotech nerds assemble überfast-charge battery

    Two minutes and you're good to go

    Three researchers have come up with a technique they claim will allow laptop and smartphone batteries to be recharged in two minutes. Huigang Zhang, Xindi Yu and Paul Braun of the University of Illinois created a new battery cathode - the negatively charged one - formed "from a self-assembled three-dimensional bicontinuous …

    reghardware 23 Mar 12:25

  • Samsung unwraps first DVR

    Ready to record Freesat HD

    Samsung has introduced its first DVR, a set-top box capable of grabbing and recording Freesat HD programmes. The SMT-S7800 contains a 500GB hard drive - good to hold 120 hours of HD content, or 250 hours of standard-definition material, Samsung said - and two tuners for watching one show while recording another. The DVR has …

    reghardware 23 Mar 12:37

  • Out of shape? Not had sex for years? Watch out

    When you finally do get lucky you might DIE

    Bad news today for idle crisp-scoffing lardos who seldom get much attention from the opposite/desired sex: when you finally do achieve some boudoir action, there is a measurable chance that the excitement will kill you. The news comes in a new study-of-studies conducted by docs in America, investigating the causes of heart …

    Biology 23 Mar 12:57

  • Nokia C7 'Astound' in US debut - all ready for touchless payment

    OK, keys, wallet, phone - I'm outta here

    The Nokia C7 has got its American launch, exclusive to T-Mobile and branded the "Astound", but it also got functioning NFC software – unlike its European incarnation. The C7 was launched in Europe last October, with Near Field Communications hardware but without the software needed to make use of it. The Astound is the US …

    Mobile 23 Mar 13:04

  • Budget Day: First dump from Osborne

    Budget '11 Says will support R&D in small firms

    Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne told the House of Commons that today's Budget was about reforming the UK economy and helping families deal with rising living costs. He said it marked a move from rescue to recovery. He claimed the changes had already brought stability to the British economy. Osborne said the …

    Small Biz 23 Mar 13:27

  • RUSTOCK TAKEDOWN: How the world's worst botnet was KO'd

    Analysis Redmond posse sends bot-herd cowboys a-runnin'

    The unidentified criminals behind the infamous Rustock botnet were paying at least $10,000 a month for US-based command and control servers prior to a successful takedown operation last week. Instead of using bulletproof hosting outfits (rogue ISPs normally based in eastern Europe) that ignore takedown notices, the botherders …

    Spam 23 Mar 13:48

  • Channel Islands VAT loophole shut, petrol prices cut

    Budget '11 Dump 2 from Osborne

    Osborne said he was accepting Lord Hutton's pension recommendations as the basis for future discussion to reform complex rules and taxation. Personal tax and duties: Gift Aid will be made easier – charities will be able to file online. People will be able to hand over works of art in exchange for tax rebates. There will be …

    Financial News 23 Mar 13:52

  • The human factor: Get the users on board first

    Workshop Provisioning – more about people than machines

    The ability to provision financial systems quickly, securely and effectively to users in different offices with different needs drives the perception of the IT department. As Jon Collins recently wrote: “We may obsess about technical gubbins, but from the business user's perspective, IT is little more than a screen, keyboard …

    Doing Better Business 23 Mar 14:13

  • Capitalism killed the Martians, suggests Hugo Chavez

    Red Planet was insufficiently red, evidently

    Venezuelan supremo Hugo Chavez has provocatively suggested that Martian civilisation may have been wiped out by the arrival of capitalism. Speaking yesterday to mark World Water Day, el prez offered: "I have always said, heard, that it would not be strange that there had been civilisation on Mars, but maybe capitalism arrived …

    Bootnotes 23 Mar 14:15

  • Let’s get commercial

    Workshop Making the business case for open software

    IT people already know the benefits of open source software. A fair number of them run Linux at home (not least, according to one chief technical officer, so they can deny all knowledge of recent editions of Windows to friends and family wanting off-duty technical support), and persuading them to use it at work is not a hard …

    Open Source 23 Mar 14:15

  • Windows Phone 7 gets cut'n'paste, other tweaks in update

    Vid Back to the WinMo 6 future for Redmond

    Windows Phone 7 users can finally cut and paste text, thanks to the "NoDo" update which is gradually being rolled out now. The long-awaited update improves searching in the Windows Marketplace, provides various performance tweeks (most notably the faster suspend/resume) and finally allows the user to cut text from one place …

    Operating Systems 23 Mar 14:27

  • Nvidia rushes to ARMs

    Seismic Shifts

    Nvidia’s Analyst Day at its Santa Clara, CA headquarters on March 8 gave me new insight into the company and how it see the markets. Jen-Hsun Huang, co-founder, president and CEO, kicked off the conference by baldly stating: “Creativity matters. Productivity matters,” This shouldn’t provoke much argument these days. Huang …

    HPC Blog 23 Mar 14:39

  • Synology DS411slim Nas box

    Review The little big store

    As technology progresses further into the twenty-first century, the most obvious trend is the miniaturisation of just about everything. While these changes have taken most aspects of new technology by storm, conventional storage however, has been left wanting. Synology's DS411slim four bay Nas relies on 2.5in drives Sure, …

    reghardware 23 Mar 14:44

  • Paramount buries Dune remake

    Worm-riding, sweat-drinking spice war epic on hold

    The planned Paramount Pictures movie adaptation of Frank Herbert's Dune has been cancelled. The attempt to get the 1965 sci-fi classic once again adapted for the silver screen came to nothing after more than a year of development. Paramount had recruited Taken helmsman Pierre Morel to direct. Richard Rubinstein, who controls …

    Entertainment 23 Mar 14:45

  • Digesting the Budget: First-belch reactions

    Budget '11 Clarke snoozes, Miliband in ribtickling iPod insult

    Responding to George Osborne's Budget, Labour leader Ed Miliband said growth is down, employment is down and living standards are falling. He accused Osborne's second Budget of building on the failure of his first. He said the coalition strategy of cuts was undermining the economic recovery. Stock markets were mostly unmoved …

    Financial News 23 Mar 14:52

  • Ellison drops iceberg in front of HP's unsinkable Itanic

    HP vs Oracle Oracle users rush for the lifeboats

    Oracle has announced that it has stopped development for all its software on Intel's high-end Itanium server processor. Oracle works on its own cycle and does what it wants - which is why it waited until a week after Leo Apotheker's coming out party as president and CEO of Hewlett-Packard, and until 8pm Pacific time when …

    Servers 23 Mar 14:59

  • Project managers do it with diagrams

    Workshop When a picture says a thousand words

    Project managers usually opt for Microsoft Project, OmniGroup’s OmniPlan or one of many other specialist software products, but some also make use of the ready-made templates included in diagramming software. Many diagramming tools make it possible to create Gantt charts, Pert charts and flowcharts, and some also offer …

    Data Visualisation 23 Mar 15:09

  • Channel VAT loophole shrunk, not shut

    Budget '11 'Big boys' junk will still slip through' - SMEs

    George Osborne is cutting the value of goods which can be sold without VAT, but he is not ending the system which allows retailers with warehouses in the Channel Islands to ship goods VAT-free to the UK. The tax hole has seen the likes of Amazon, Tesco and Play.com shift warehouses to the islands in order to sell mail-order …

    Small Biz 23 Mar 15:21

  • Mac OS X daddy quits Apple

    So long and thanks for all the cats

    Bertrand Serlet, Apple’s senior vice president of Mac software engineering and the man who played a lead role in the development of Mac OS X, is leaving the company. Serlet worked with Steve Jobs at NeXT Computer, and he spent four years at the famed Xerox PARC research laboratory in Silicon Valley. “I’ve worked with Steve for …

    Operating Systems 23 Mar 16:24

  • ZeuS cybercrime cookbook on sale in underground forums

    Lets non-coders produce trojans, other burglar tools

    Cybercrooks are offering what purports to be source code for the infamous ZeuS cybercrime toolkit through underground forums. The would-be seller, nicknamed IOO, has lent credibility to the offer by including screenshots of what appears to be portions of the source code for ZeuS to his sales pitch. IOO offers to discuss the …

    Malware 23 Mar 16:32

  • Grid storage - crafted for SMBs

    Diddly griddly box slices as it stripes

    Small and medium businesses generally want reliable, cheap and simple to use storage; not pushing-the-envelope stuff like grid storage. Gridstore hopes to turn that situation around with its $499 1TB filer box which can grow by adding more boxes. Gridstore's NASg is a 1U 1TB or 2TB box that's powered by an Atom processor …

    Storage 23 Mar 16:41

  • LightSquared inks deal with Best Buy

    Leap and Open Range too: just like a real customer list

    Audacious wannabe network wholesaler LightSquared has inked a deal with Best Buy to provide connectivity for the retailer's MVNO offering, with testing to start early next year. Best Buy joins Leap Wireless and Open Range in signing up to use LightSquared's yet-to-be-built LTE network. That network relies on radio spectrum …

    Mobile 23 Mar 16:45

  • Radioactive Tokyo tapwater HARMS BABIES ... if drunk for a year

    Iodine isotope will all be gone in weeks, though

    The Japanese government has announced that radioactive iodine from the damaged Fukushima Daiichi nuclear powerplant has been found in tapwater, and that infants should not drink it. However there is little reason for concern once the facts are understood. Japan's Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare says that tests have …

    Science 23 Mar 16:49

  • The Brangelina of Big Data: Cassandra mates with Hadoop

    Open source celebrity supercouple

    Think of it as the Brangelina of Big Data. DataStax, an open-source startup based in Northern California, has combined Cassandra, the distributed database developed at Facebook, with Hadoop, the epic-number-crunching platform based on Google's backend infrastructure. Known as "Brisk", this Big Data mashup was unveiled on …

    Cloud 23 Mar 17:00

  • Rackspace accused of 'controlling' open source cloud project

    Top OpenStacker: 'If you love something, set it free'

    Rackspace's chief OpenStacker has quit the company, saying the 'Linux-of-the-cloud' initiative is not functioning properly as a community project and that it deserves full independence from Rackspace. After just 18 months with Rackspace, OpenStack chief architect Rick Clark has left the company for Cisco, accusing his ex- …

    Cloud 23 Mar 19:34

  • 'Iranian' attackers forge Google's Gmail credentials

    Skype, Microsoft, Yahoo, Mozilla also targeted

    Extremely sophisticated hackers, possibly from the Iranian government or another state-sponsored actor, broke into the servers of a web authentication authority and counterfeited certificates for Google mail and six other sensitive addresses, the CEO of Comodo said. The March 15 intrusion came from IP addresses belonging to an …

    Security 23 Mar 20:12

  • Kiwi ultra-fast net gets retail suitors

    But big guns play hard-to-get

    New Zealand's NZ$1.5bn Ultra-Fast Broadband (UFB) network-in-waiting has attracted the interest of 13 telecommunications service providers according to Crown Fibre Holdings (CFH), the government agency managing the project. The UFB is set to deliver fibre-optic broadband to over 75 per cent of the New Zealander population …

    Telecoms 23 Mar 22:24

  • IBM wants to relieve Aussie traffic pain

    Big Blue to bust bottlenecks

    IBM is attempting to fix Australia's transport infrastructure woes investing in a Smart Transport Research Centre (STRC) based at Queensland University of Technology (QUT). A recent survey conducted by IBM, the Commuter Pain Index, revealed that 81 per cent of drivers experience travel stress. IBM will tip in software and …

    Developer 23 Mar 22:26

  • Auditor to Oz PM&C: Don’t use Webmail for leaks

    Security spooks slap sloppy civil servants

    Australian cloud computing chauvinists are prepping the “#GovDoesn’tGetIt” hashtag after the Australian National Audit Office (ANAO), with a bit of help from the spooks in the Defence Signals Directorate, identified services like Hotmail and Gmail as key vulnerabilities in government information security. As noted many years …

    Security 23 Mar 22:26

  • Yahoo! answers Google Instant with streaming web search

    'Google Instant was our idea. And we do it better. Really'

    Yahoo! has unveiled its answer to Google Instant, rolling out a "streaming" search service that it claims is significantly faster than the technology Google debuted last fall. Like Google Instant, it serves up search results as you type. But unlike Mountain View's service, it does not provide results from a relatively complete …

    Music and Media 23 Mar 23:14

  • Ex-Sun man hails Java renaissance under Ellison

    EclipseCon Oracle+IBM 'end Sun's dark ages'

    Java is entering a renaissance following a period of darkness under Sun Microsystems, according to Oracle and computing giant IBM. Mark Reinhold, chief architect of Oracle's Java platform group and one of Sun's former principal engineers, reckons that with Oracle's acquisition of the slowly fading Sun, things are looking …

    Developer 23 Mar 23:17