29th March 2011 Archive

Browse by publication date, or search the site.

Surprise! Sprint denounces AT&T-Mobile deal

Still no word from Verizon

In a move that will surprise absolutely no one, Sprint Nextel has officially announced its opposition to AT&T's proposed purchase of T-Mobile. "Sprint urges the United States government to block this anti-competitive acquisition," the company's senior vice president for Governmental Affairs Vonya McCann said in a canned …

Financial News 29 Mar 00:42
South Brisbane residents to get FTTP ahead of NBN

Telstra exchange upgrade

Telstra customers – and ISPs – in a Southern Brisbane exchange will get a taste of the NBN world not from NBN Co, but from Telstra. The incumbent has revealed the details of an FTTP rollout triggered by the impending demolition of its existing South Brisbane exchange. The site will become a new children’s hospital, and covers …

Networks 29 Mar 01:00
IBM in A$200M broadband network win

BSS / OSS for NBN Co

Australia's NBN Co chief Mike Quigley has announced that IBM will be the prime systems integrator for its business support systems / operational support systems (BSS / OSS) project. Since most of the A$43 billion project is civil engineering such as trench-digging and cable-laying, the BSS / OSS decision has been keenly …

Telecoms 29 Mar 01:00
Google's 'clean' Linux headers: Are they really that dirty?

When lawyers and Linus collide

The trouble with open source is that most coders aren't lawyers and most lawyers aren't coders. And even if everyone did wear both hats, there would still be ample room for disagreement. The law, you must remember, is subjective. Two intellectual-property lawyers have told the world that Android is at risk of legal attack …

Developer 29 Mar 01:07
My Taptu

Android App of the Week Man is only 70 per cent water, but this app is 100 per cent news

A good news aggregator should to be able to pull information from a broad range of sources, present it in a clear and easily navigable format, and make it as easy as pie to find, add, remove and edit feeds. For me the app that best ticks all those boxes on Android is My Taptu. Graphically, Taptu is a joy. Story headlines …

reghardware 29 Mar 07:00
Amazon jumps the gun on free clouds

5GB free music storage that plays on anything

Amazon has got in first with an online music storage service, or "Cloud Drive" as the bookseller puts it. Amazon's service gives you 5GB of free music storage which can then be played back on any Android phone, Mac, PC or even a tablet. If 5GB is not enough then buy any MP3 album through Amazon and you get upgraded to 20GB. …

Cloud 29 Mar 08:23
Antarctic ice breakup makes ocean absorb more CO₂

'Global implications for climate research', says US gov

Some cheerful news on the climate change front today, as US government boffins report that ice breaking off the Antarctic shelves and melting in the sea causes carbon dioxide to be removed from the environment. This powerful, previously unknown "negative feedback" would seem likely to revise forecasts of future global warming …

Environment 29 Mar 08:39
Apple iPad 2

Tablet two-point-oh

The second incarnation of Apple's market-defining media tablet has arrived in the UK. Read what Reg Hardware thinks about it, and check out the best network operator deals. Apple iPad 2 Tablet two-point-oh iPad 2 3G price-plans compared Updated Three are the best

reghardware 29 Mar 08:54
Pay-by-mobile plan taps up UK consumers

Turning every high street store into a showroom

Britan got a new pay as you go mobile provider this morning, which will put paying for things other than mobile service at the centre of its business model. Simply Tap is backed by Carphone Warehouse and Best Buy Europe, but is part of an explosion in ways of paying for stuff that's coming our way. The service will be run by …

Mobile 29 Mar 09:22
Three strikes ID fraudster jailed for 16 years

Record sentence for recidivist crook

A recidivist ID theft fraudster who used a people search website to verify the authenticity of stolen social security credentials has been jailed for more than 16 years. Todd Yurgin, 41, of Newark, Delaware, earned the severe sentence because he had twice previously been convicted of federal fraud offences. In sentencing, …

Crime 29 Mar 09:28
Sony Ericsson sanctions smartphone boot loader unlocking

Pledges to provide the tools

Sony Ericsson is to allow "advanced" Android coders to unlock the boot loader built into its latest smartphones. Gaining access to a handset's boot loader is a key stage in installing alternative firmware on a phone, a process a fair few Android fans like to undertake in order to rid themselves of network operator-installed …

reghardware 29 Mar 09:35
Microsoft man riles update-hungry Windows Phone 7 users

Boo-hoos over NoDo

Microsoft VP Joe Belfiore has been forced to apologise after making light of the plight suffered by Windows Phone 7 users who've had to wait several days for the latest OS update. During a 10-minute interview on Microsoft's inhouse TV network the good Mr Belfiore clearly misjudges the mood of the planet and expresses pleasure …

Mobile 29 Mar 09:51
ViewSonic tempts with buy-to-try tablet deal

Free lunch? No such thing

ViewSonic is to let punters try out its 7in Android tablet for free. Well, sort of. There's a catch: you have to buy a ViewPad 7 first, and you only have 30 days to make up your mind. You can't apply for a refund for the first 20 days after purchase. ViewSonic has form, having tried this sort of offer before. If, during …

reghardware 29 Mar 09:57
Junk mail down 1/3 since Rustock botnet takedown

But Bagle does brisk business

Global spam volumes dropped by a third following the takedown of the infamous Rustock botnet earlier this month, according to MessageLabs. Prior to the dismantling of its command and control servers on a takedown operation led by Microsoft, Rustock accounted for 13.82 billion spam emails daily, the majority of which advertised …

Spam 29 Mar 09:59
McAfee site crawling with scripting bugs say researchers

XSS marks the spot

Flaws on McAfee's website leave it vulnerable to cross-site scripting and other attacks, security researchers warn. YGN Ethical Hacker Group also discovered various lesser information disclosure bugs on the security firm's website, according to an advisory published on a full disclosure mailing list on Monday. YGN said it …

Enterprise Security 29 Mar 10:09
O2 tariff rejig bundles tethering with data

Re-introduces 12-month contract too

O2 has revamped its pay monthly mobile phone package structure, adding a one-year contract option for existing customers. O2 already offers a 12-month contract, but it only applies to Sim-only deals - what you'd choose if you decide to keep your current phone when your existing contract ends. The new one-year contract allows …

reghardware 29 Mar 10:22
Judge hands BlueBeat.com $1m bill for Beatles downloads

Hits 'psycho-acoustic simulation' tech with silver hammer

A California website that claimed its "psycho-acoustic simulation" technology meant it could sell Beatles downloads has been ordered to cough up $950,000 to EMI. Bluebeat.com started offering the downloads in 2009 at 25 cents a pop. The too good to be true deal came well ahead of Apple's own tie-up with the fab four and, more …

Music and Media 29 Mar 10:47
Council loses £2.5m claim against Big Blue

Good money after bad

Southwark Council's claim for £2.5m in damages from IBM for supposedly faulty software has been dismissed. The court found that IBM had delivered the system as requested in 2007. It was bought through a framework agreement between the Treasury and IBM. The judge found that Southwark had chosen the software without even …

Channel Register 29 Mar 10:49
Take-Two talent call betrays Grand Theft Auto V

Sequel server

The scene is set and the inevitable is upon us. Yes, Grand Theft Auto V is in production and ready for an announcement soon, we think. Rockstar's parent company, Take-Two, is to hold auditions for actors to voice five very GTA-style characters in an as yet unannounced title. The five characters Take-Two has in mind are: "A …

reghardware 29 Mar 11:02
Handy radiation checker comes to iPhone

THANK GOD WE'RE SAVED

iPhone users can now download a free iPhone app to tell them what local radiation levels are, in case they've not got enough to worry about. The new application is available worldwide, though you'd have to take paranoia to a new level to worry about spreading radiation from Japan if you weren't actually nearby: even then you …

Mobile 29 Mar 11:12
HTC Incredible S Android smartphone

Review Talked up?

The Incredible S is latest in HTC’s extensive line of Android handsets. It runs version 2.2 of the OS, includes a 1GHz processor, 8Mp camera and lots of clever tricks, but despite its distinctive rubbery look, it isn’t hugely different from its siblings. Not that that’s necessarily a bad thing, since it’s still got plenty going …

reghardware 29 Mar 11:17
Back to the nano-mechanical future

Nano-cantilever memory solving flash conundrum

Edinburgh researchers and others have devised a way to use nano-cantilevers to charge carbon nanotube transistors with binary values faster and more power-efficiently than NAND cells get charged. Once again the scientists raise the possibility of their invention replacing flash, as many have done before. As reported in Nature …

Storage 29 Mar 11:33
US Navy to field full-on robot war-jets as soon as 2018

Would be the first droids to match manned fighters

The US Navy has indicated that it would like to have unmanned, robotic spyplane/bombers operating from its aircraft carriers "in the 2018 timeframe", which suggests that flying kill-robots will soon be in the same league as the most powerful manned combat aircraft. No more feeble non-stealthy turboprops: Pick on something …

Science 29 Mar 11:35
Exploiting the mainframe for new workload requirements

Fully exploiting that valuable asset

IT architects and CIOs have a number of factors to take into consideration when it comes to selecting where to run workloads and how to design systems for efficient operations over extended periods of time. Chief amongst these are the nature of the workloads themselves, the operating systems on which they are supported and the …

HPC 29 Mar 11:46
Europe rules against general passenger data slurp

Why do we hand over data on every passenger?

The European Data Protection Supervisor has taken a view against Passenger Name Record transfers, which obliges airlines to hand over the personal data they hold on every passenger entering or leaving the European Union. This includes names, addresses, emails and other contact details which are handed over in the name of ( …

Government 29 Mar 11:54
Platform wants to out-map, out-reduce Hadoop

Teaching financial grids to dance like stuffed elephants

Chewing on big data using the MapReduce protocol, and the open source Hadoop stack that implements it, is all the rage these days. But there is more than one way to stuff an elephant. The Hadoop tool created by Yahoo! (and named after a stuffed elephant) is now managed by the Apache Software Foundation, and it is the tool of …

HPC 29 Mar 12:06
Praying for meltdown: The media and the nukes

Comment Science and the public lose out with TV's Hollywood disaster film obsession

Sensationalism has always been part of the popular media - but Fukushima is a telling and troubling sign of how much the media has changed in fifty years: from an era of scientific optimism to one where it inhabits a world of fantasy - creating a real-time Hollywood disaster movie with a moralising, chivvying message. Not so …

Environment 29 Mar 12:22
Yes, there is life after storage virtualisation

Podcast Infosmack gets down and dirty with HDS

Did we tell you that Infosmack is the world's best podcast about enterprise technology? And did we tell you that we are syndicating episodes for our beloved readers? No? Then check this out, Episode 92, with Greg Knieriemen on solo hosting duties. This week's show is recorded on location at HDS's European headquarters in …

Infosmack 29 Mar 13:14
Chilean clock-cooking could cause computer chaos

Millennium Bug 2: Daylight saving time apocalypse

In what promises to provoke an entertaining IT apocalypse, the Chilean government has decided to postpone the end of daylight saving time by five weeks. The clocks were due to go back an hour this weekend, but the powers that be have reset the date to 7 May. According to interior minister Rodrigo Hinzpeter, the extra 60 …

Developer 29 Mar 13:22
Nokia lobs more patent claims at Apple

Fightfightfight!

Nokia has responded to Friday's ITC determination by filing another complaint against Apple, this time citing seven new patents and again calling for an import ban on Cupertino's products. The International Trade Commission has the power to prevent patent-infringing products being imported into the USA, which is what Nokia …

Mobile 29 Mar 13:50
Making the decision on hosted apps

Webcast Reg reader tell you how he did it

We have Reg reader Chet Loveland – who’s also the CISO from MeadWestvaco Corporation (MWV), a 20,000 strong global business – giving us a practical run through how and why he moved a large chunk of his users into the cloud. He's live, online at 4PM BST, 11AM EST, 8AM PST, right here. Chet is joined by The Register’s own …

Hosted Apps 29 Mar 14:06
Controlling the desktop through user scenarios

Desktop Give 'em enough slack?

An optimised desktop doesn't mean one for which all users have control over every function. So what should they control and how do you decide? Once you've started down the road of optimising desktops there's a lot to consider. Although it may simplify the role of the IT professional, with easier to manage images and reduced …

Desktop Strategy 29 Mar 14:07
Europe to get space radiation-storm warning service

Solar particle-gasms expected from 2013

International boffins are meeting in Blighty today with the aim of setting up a European solar radiation-storm warning service. With the Sun expected to belch forth increasing amounts of bad "space weather" in coming years, the scientists warn that billions of pounds' worth of damage could be done to satellites in orbit. The …

Space 29 Mar 14:34
Citrix sprinkles apps magic on SQL, NoSQL data

Native data performance boost

Native support for SQL and NoSQL has been added to Citrix Systems' NetScaler, which until now had specialized in high-availability only for applications. The company is today expected to announce its NetScaler appliance will now work with SQL and NoSQL, bringing secure, face and reliable access to the data layer of an app. …

Cloud 29 Mar 15:00
Artificial leaf produces electricity through photosynthesis

Growth industry?

A synthetic leaf has been created that mimics the photosynthesis process, converting sunlight and water into a source of electrical energy. Developed by a research team at MIT led by Dr Daniel Nocera, the leaf could be a significant step towards green energy becoming a sustainable reality. The device is shaped more like a …

reghardware 29 Mar 15:27
Google suffers further Chinese setback

Loses largest portal

Chinese super-portal Sina has dropped Google's search box from its website and is using its own search service instead. Google continues to lose market share in China to Baidu. This fall seems to happening faster since the ad gaint moved its servers to Hong Kong after a row with the Chinese government. More recently Google …

Applications 29 Mar 15:31
Mystery hack pwns Australian government

Email cache apparently flashed

Parliamentary computers of the Australian prime minister, Julia Gillard, and other ministers may have been hacked, according to Australian media reports. Details of the reported hack are more than a little vague. Sydney's Daily Telegraph reported that US intelligence tipped local authorities off over a suspected breach, which …

Enterprise Security 29 Mar 15:35
Apple plays whack-a-dev after WWDC sellout

Tickets surface on eBay, Craigslist

Apple has kicked off a game of worldwide whack-a-dev after tickets for its WorldWide Developer Conference started popping up on eBay and other classified sites. Tickets for the June Macfest went on sale yesterday and sold out almost immediately, as devs clamoured to find out exactly what Apple will allow them to create and …

Developer 29 Mar 15:37
Cisco eats newScale for cloud control

Chambers to help those who help themselves

Cisco Systems wants to run your cloud, but you will end up doing most of the work thanks to its acquisition today of newScale. newScale is not a startup, unless you count companies that were started back at the tail end of the dot-com boom in 1999, but in some ways it still behaves like one because the service catalog …

Cloud 29 Mar 15:58
Google goes Instant with Commerce Search

Retailer search-as-you-type

Google has released a new version of Google Commerce Search – a hosted service that drives site search for online retailers – adding the sort of "realtime" search suggestions you'll find on Google's primary web search engine. Google Commerce Search debuted in late 2009, and on Tuesday, the web giant introduced version 3.0 of …

Music and Media 29 Mar 16:00
Nintendo 3DS contains £60 in bits

Cheap as chips

Nintendo's 3DS may set customers back £200 in many places, but it only contains 60 quid's worth of parts, apparently. UBM TechInsights has been taking apart hardware again, this time estimating the cost of the components used to make the 3DS is $101 (£62), roughly £10 more than the cost of the bits in the DSi, which launched …

reghardware 29 Mar 16:42
Mozilla debuts Firefox 4 for Android

And Maemo too. If you care

Mozilla has officially released its Android incarnation of Firefox 4. And for those of you who still care about such things, the open source outfit has also released a version for Maemo. The Androidian browser is available from Google's Android Market, while the Maemo version can be downloaded from Mozilla. Firefox 4 for …

Mobile 29 Mar 17:33
Amazon offers dedicated servers on EC2

A cloud on the ground is fog

Maybe we should call this one fog computing? Over the weekend, Amazon Web Services, the cloud computing subsidiary of the online retailer by the same name, announced something called Dedicated Instances for its Virtual Private Cloud services. In short, it takes what is supposed to be a multitenant cloud and not only locks …

Cloud 29 Mar 17:59
Beyond $1bn: Why Red Hat is a one off

Open...and Shut Open source as a business. Not a business model

Some of the industry's smartest prognosticators, like Redmonk's Stephen O'Grady and inveterate free software advocate Glyn Moody, have questioned the likelihood of a billion-dollar open-source software vendor. But in its most recent earnings call, Red Hat, the industry's leading open-source company, promised to surpass this …

Software 29 Mar 18:10
Oracle to munch ERP competitor?

Today's menu: Lawson small potatoes

Larry Ellison may be about to gobble up one of his competitors, Lawson, an Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) software vendor headquartered in Saint Paul, Minnesota. If Oracle does make a move, which Bloomberg suggests they will, Ellison would make a fellow billionaire even wealthier. Mega-dealmaker Carl Icahn holds 13.58 …

Channel Register 29 Mar 19:12
New York vows review of AT&T deal

'They last thing we need is higher wireless prices'

New York attorney general Eric Schneiderman has announced that his office will carry out a thorough review of AT&T's proposed acquisition of T-Mobile USA. "Cell phones are no longer a luxury for a few among us, but a basic necessity. The last thing New Yorkers need during these difficult economic times is to see cell phone …

Mobile 29 Mar 20:04
Firefox 4 for Android shuns ARMv6 phones

And Adobe Flash too

Mozilla's Android incarnation of Firefox 4 does not run on devices using the older ARMv6 processor, and it does not support Adobe Flash. Firefox 4 for Android – officially released on Tuesday – runs only on devices that use ARMv7 processors, including phones such as the Google Nexus One, the HTC Evo, and the Motorola Droid X, …

Mobile 29 Mar 20:48
Foxtel calls on wisdom of the clouds

New box to win back eyeballs

Foxtel is fighting back after a self confessed “dreary” 18 month subscriber slump with a fresh IP centric set top box attack. Australia’s biggest PayTV provider conceded that the free to air channel’s Freeview offering and new IPTV providers had taken their toll on the Foxtel model. “Freeview has temporarily taken our ‘choice …

Music and Media 29 Mar 22:50
Sensis plans digital come back

Telstra's zombie is awake and hungry

Telstra’s advertising and directories arm Sensis is back on the acquisition trail as it plots a digitally focused resurgence. "Reports of our death are exaggerated," declared Sensis CEO Bruce Akhurst at an analyst briefing. But he revealed it would take three years for the Yellow Pages unit to return to organic revenue growth …

Business 29 Mar 22:51
Carriers vs cops: Australia's spectrum conundrum

New services or emergency services?

Australia, like other countries subsidising the broadcast and consumer electronics industries rolling out digital TV, is now preparing to auction the old analogue TV spectrum for the best price possible. The obvious answer is a spectrum auction, the obvious customer the telco industry. That has the tech press wildly imagining …

Mobile 29 Mar 23:09
Apple's 'App Store trademark': A farce of Jobsian proportions

Only Microsoft can save us

Microsoft has once again stood up to Apple's epically ridiculous attempt to trademark the term "app store", filing another request that the US Patent and Trademark Office deny Apple's trademark application in full. "Apple cannot escape the hard truth: when people talk about competitors’ stores, they call them 'app stores.' You …

Music and Media 29 Mar 23:18