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31st March 2011 Archive

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  • Pre-release Windows 8 code hits PC makers

    Microsoft prepping IE 10, already?

    Microsoft's webOS luvvin' partner HP is among the PC manufacturers getting copies of early Windows 8 code, according to reports. HP and other Windows PC OEMs are reported to be getting builds of Microsoft's next desktop operating system known as milestone 3 – seriously pre-beta stuff. They're sucking down the code through …

    Channel Register 31 Mar 00:06

  • Google open source guru: 'Why we ban the AGPL'

    Mountain View crawlers spot 31 million open source projects

    Google open source guru Chris DiBona says that the web giant continues to ban the lightning-rod AGPL open source license within the company because doing so "saves engineering time" and because most AGPL projects are of no use to the company. The Affero GPL is designed to close the so-called "application service provider …

    Developer 31 Mar 04:00

  • Facebook HipHop serves 70% more traffic on same hardware

    PHP to C++ Diddy

    When Facebook moved its servers to HipHop for PHP – the code transformer it built to convert PHP into optimized C++ – the company's average CPU usage dropped by 50 per cent. And after six months of additional engineering, the tool was about 1.8 times faster. Now, after another six months, the company says, it has improved …

    Developer 31 Mar 05:16

  • Adobe Photoshop Express 2.0

    iOS App of the Week Picture this

    Having taken the plunge into iPhone photography with the Slow Shutter Cam app, I decided my next step should be Adobe's Photoshop Express, which has just been updated to version 2.0. Adobe Photoshop Express: the UI's as straightforward is it could be Photoshop Express is by no means the most sophisticated photo-editing app …

    reghardware 31 Mar 06:00

  • Microsoft files monopoly complaint against Google

    Pot meet kettle

    Microsoft has made a formal complaint against Google to the European Commission accusing the search and advertising giant of using various illegal methods to dominate the European search market. Brad Smith, Microsoft's general counsel, is likely best known to Reg readers for his role in protecting the software giant against …

    Applications 31 Mar 08:18

  • RM revenue declines in face of UK.gov slash fest

    US customer demand remains crappy as well

    School tech provider RM is still struggling with a "subdued" market, following the UK government's recent allocation of education funds. The company said in a pre-close update this morning that revenue in the first half of its fiscal year, which ends on 31 March 2011, would be down on 2010's H1 figures. Terry Sweeney, RM's …

    PCs & Chips 31 Mar 08:28

  • Quantum unleashes more robots on tape libraries

    Key manager interoperability coming

    Quantum is doubling up the robotics in its i6000 Scalar tape library to increase reliability. The i6000 is Quantum's high-end library, supporting up to 5,332 tape cartridges. Like other libraries it uses a robotic system to move tape cartridges from slots in the library to drives. If the robot fails then the library fails and …

    Storage 31 Mar 09:00

  • Acer boss quits after board disses his future strategy

    Gianfranco Lanci walks

    Acer CEO and president Gianfranco Lanci has quit the computer maker, after boardroom wrangles over the company's future left him high and dry. His resignation is with immediate effect, said Acer in a statement to The Register this morning. The company's chairman, JT Wang, will take the CEO chair in the interim, while Acer …

    Channel Register 31 Mar 09:31

  • James Cameron to amp up Avatar frame rate

    Promises 'really stunning' sequels at 48 or 60 fps

    James Cameron has said he's decided to up the frame rate on Avatar 2 and 3 to give the movies an "added sense of reality". Speaking at CinemaCon in Las Vegas, the director suggested that he'd crank up the movies from 24 fps to 48 or 60 fps. He explained: "When you author and project a movie at 48 or 60, it becomes a different …

    Entertainment 31 Mar 09:59

  • Vodafone and DoCoMo bundle into India

    Big bucks into a big market

    Vodafone is to spend $5bn buying out local partner Essar for control of India's second-largest operator, while DoCoMo is spending $175m to improve 3G coverage in the country. Vodafone already owns a significant stake in Essar, having paid Hutchinson Telecommunications more than $10bn for a controlling interest back in 2007. …

    Mobile 31 Mar 10:02

  • Ofcom calls on BT Openreach price cuts for ISPs

    Wholesome wholesale

    Ofcom is pushing for a price fall in broadband and landline services, after the telecoms watchdog said today that BT would have to slash charges it currently dishes out to providers that use its network. The regulator has proposed lower prices for BT's wholesale wing of its business that gives other ISPs access to install …

    Telecoms 31 Mar 10:15

  • Xiotech adds continuous ISE action

    Storage blade failover

    Xiotech has added continuous availability to its ISE storage blades across datacentre, campus and metro areas. If one ISE (Integrated Storage Element) – a sealed canister of disk drives and intensive firmware – fails, then connected physical or virtual server applications are automatically switched to a second ISE, with no …

    Cloud 31 Mar 10:16

  • LizaMoon mass-injection attack reaches epidemic proportions

    iTune URLs and 380,000 other pages poisoned

    Malware writers are using website vulnerabilities to inject malicious scripts into thousands of websites as part of an ambitious attack ultimately designed to redirect surfers to a site pimping rogue anti-virus packages. The so-called LizaMoon mass-injection attack uses SQL injection trickery to inject a line of malicious code …

    Malware 31 Mar 10:35

  • ECJ asked to rule on crucial internet publishing jurisdiction issue

    Sports data churner says foreign companies are stealing its stats

    The Court of Appeal has asked the European Court of Justice (ECJ) to decide whether online publishing takes place where information is hosted or where it is read. The High Court had previously said that a company is responsible for "making available" material where a server is based rather than where the reader accesses it, …

    Cloud 31 Mar 10:37

  • WTF is... 3D printing

    Roll your own

    Head along to London's Design Museum and you'll find a remarkable shoe on display until August. Called the Melonia Shoe, it’s perhaps not what most Reg Hardware readers would wear, but it is remarkable, not so much for the design, but because it was printed by Belgian product prototyping company Materialise and Sweden-based …

    reghardware 31 Mar 10:40

  • Three pitches 'premium' 3G data dongle

    Huawei-hey-hey

    Three will next month offer what it today claimed its best mobile broadband dongle yet. The kit in question is the Huawei E367 and Three reckons this "premium" gadget stands out in two key ways, one literally so. First, it offers the "latest HSPA+ technology" for speeds up to "40 per cent" faster than "some" of Three's other …

    reghardware 31 Mar 10:55

  • Middle England chokes on Nice Baps

    Comedy bakery name rocks Bedfordshire village

    A Bedfordshire baker has provoked the wrath of Middle England by dubbing his breadery "Nice Baps". Angry locals in Henlow wasted no time in objecting to the name after John O'Toole cut the ribbon on his establishment last Wednesday. The 42-year-old said his missus thought up the comedy moniker, and his other bakery of the same …

    Bootnotes 31 Mar 11:12

  • TV election debate 'worm' graph found to undermine democracy

    Could easily be used to manipulate voting

    The use of so-called "worm" approval graphs in televised election debates can strongly affect the way in which viewers will vote, opening up the possibility of the worm being used unscrupulously to undermine democracy. The warning on the possible subversive uses of the worm comes from psychology profs in the UK following a …

    Government 31 Mar 11:14

  • Samsung rolls out 22in see-through screens

    Blade Runner-esque shop windows ahoy?

    Samsung has started to churn out 22in LCD panels. Nothing remarkable about that, you might think, but no - these ones are transparent. The South Korean giant is making monochrome and colour versions, both of which have a modest 1680 x 1050 resolution and a 500:1 contrast ratio. Both panels rely on a bright light source …

    reghardware 31 Mar 11:25

  • Fukushima fearmongers are stealing our Jetsons future

    Hysteria now completely disconnected from reality

    As the situation at Japan's Fukushima Daiichi nuclear powerplant slowly winds down, the salient facts remain the same as they have been throughout: nobody has suffered or will suffer any radiological health consequences. Economic damage and inconvenience resulting from the quake's effects on nuclear power have been significant, …

    Physics 31 Mar 11:35

  • Testing confirms Samsung keylogger rumour just a false alarm

    Updated Keep calm and carry on

    Antivirus testers have backed up Samsung's protestations that the detection of keylogging software on brand-new Samsung laptops was just a false alarm. Mohamed Hassan, founder of security consultancy NetSec, raised the alarm after a scan revealed that two newly purchased Samsung laptops were infected with StarLogger, a …

    Malware 31 Mar 11:42

  • Vanilla Ice to tackle panto Captain Hook

    In Chatham, wherever that is...

    In highly-improbable celebrity news, Chatham's Central Theatre has announced that its Xmas panto this year will feature Vanilla Ice as Captain Hook. In what promises to be a real theatrical treat for residents of the City Of Medway Medway Towns, on the north coast of Kent, the 43-year-old Texan rapper is set to strut his stuff …

    Bootnotes 31 Mar 11:48

  • Go Daddy CEO under fire for 'elephant snuff film'

    PETA gives Parsons 'scummiest CEO' gong and boycott

    Bob Parsons, chief executive of the market-leading domain name registrar Go Daddy, has come to blows with animal-rights organisation PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals), after he shot an African elephant and posted the video online. Problem CEO Parsons on the prowl... PETA yesterday said it had awarded …

    Telecoms 31 Mar 12:06

  • Ofcom forced to publish tests on dodgy radio kit

    FOI request prompts action

    Ofcom has been forced to disclose its own tests showing that powerline networking kit does breach the European EMC Directive, but still won't do anything to enforce compliance. Despite claiming there was no evidence that PLT kit built by Comtrend and supplied by BT was breaching EU rules on electromagnetic emissions, the …

    Wireless 31 Mar 12:07

  • Men at Work lose Down Under plagiarism appeal

    Must cough royalties for Kookaburra rip-off

    Australia's Federal Court has rejected an appeal by EMI Music and Men at Work against a ruling that part of the 1983 hit Down Under was lifted from Kookaburra Sits in the Old Gum Tree. In February last year, a Sydney court decided that a flute riff from Down Under was indeed swiped from the 1934 song written by Marion Sinclair …

    Music and Media 31 Mar 12:28

  • Microsoft's Google complaint not an April Fool

    Smith stands tall after 'decade wearing the shoe on the other foot'...

    Microsoft's decision to take Google to the European Commission might sound like an early April Fool's prank, even Brad Smith, after 10 years defending Microsoft against the Commission, could see it. Smith said: "There of course will be some who will point out the irony in today's filing.  Having spent more than a decade …

    Law 31 Mar 12:40

  • O2 loses lock stock in Palm Pre precedent

    Small claims case frees exclusive swankphone

    O2 won't unlock 'exclusive' phones, such as the Palm Pre, ever - unless you resort to the small claims court, in which case they'll unlock the handset and pay you off to boot. Following an 18-month contract O2 customer Rob Jonson wanted his Palm Pre unlocked to work with another operator, but O2 has a policy of never, ever, …

    Mobile 31 Mar 13:03

  • Playstation phone postponed for some punters

    Late freight means a wait, mate

    Tomorrow's launch date of the Sony Ericsson Xperia Play is in doubt after Vodafone joined O2 to postpone the so-called Playstation phone's release. Last night, Vodafone told customers who had pre-ordered the handset to confirm the phones couldn't be sent out on 1 April due to a supply hitch. This will come as a blow to punters …

    reghardware 31 Mar 13:36

  • 3DS bothers buyers with black screen of death

    Fixed with firmware update?

    Nintendo has told 3DS owners worried by reports that the new handheld console suffers freezes, black screens of death and 'restart system' messages to install a system update. Since the console's release, 3DS buyers have been posting complaints of glitches on online forums. The problem's cause is unclear. It is triggered …

    reghardware 31 Mar 13:44

  • Digital player maker 'incited consumers to break the law', says ASA

    Ads for hard-drive CD player must not encourage copying, rules regulator

    A company must change the way it advertises its digital music player because the ads encourage people to copy music in a way that breached copyright law, the advertising industry regulator has said. The Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) has told 3GA Ltd to find a new way to advertise the Brennan JB7 machine, which is a CD …

    Storage 31 Mar 13:54

  • Introduction to Ethernet storage

    NAS, NFS, pNFS, CIFS, iSCSI and FCoE

    Deep dive El Reg has teamed up with the Storage Networking Industry Association (SNIA) for a series of deep dive articles. Each month, the SNIA will deliver a comprehensive introduction to basic storage networking concepts. This article looks at mainstream Ethernet-based storage. Ethernet-based Storage – Standards, Deployment …

    Storage 31 Mar 14:06

  • Scientists eye curvaceous Earth gravity map

    ESA unveils new geoid

    The European Space Agency today unveiled a new gravity map of Earth put together using data from its Gravity Field and Steady-State Ocean Circulation Explorer (GOCE) satellite. The "geoid" represents "the surface of an ideal global ocean in the absence of tides and currents, shaped only by gravity", ESA explains, adding: "It …

    Space 31 Mar 14:15

  • Google Places puts QR Codes on the shelf

    NFC is the way of the future

    Google has become a Principal Member of the NFC Forum, just as Google Places drops support for the lower-tech, but cheaper to implement, QR Codes that do much the same thing. QR Codes are 2D bar codes designed to be scanned with a phone's camera and take the user to a specific URL, but despite mailing them out to 100,000 US …

    Mobile 31 Mar 14:26

  • Deleting 'innocent' DNA will cost £5m

    Batches blamed for multi-million pound bill

    Removing innocent people's records from the DNA database will cost almost £5m, the House of Commons was told yesterday. MP Diana Johnson asked crime prevention minister James Brokenshire how the batch loading system for getting records onto the national database worked. He explained that DNA samples are first converted into a …

    Government 31 Mar 14:35

  • Tunisian government seizes Orange sub

    Nationalised for the nation

    The Tunisian government has seized 51 per cent of local mobile network Orange from its previous owner - the son-in-law of the country's ousted president. Mobile operating licenses have long been a favoured gift of dubious dictators to their equally dubious relatives - Zimbabwe is just one example. The seizure is a result of …

    Mobile 31 Mar 14:39

  • The mainframe comes of age ... again?

    Approaching the platform

    Economic pressure has led to more finance directors and CFOs scrutinising expenditure to a painstaking level of detail. The aim is to ensure that IT can deliver what the business needs at the lowest cost while still meeting the never-diminishing expectations of the board and shareholders. As a result, in-depth examinations …

    HPC 31 Mar 14:44

  • BBC-led RadioPlayer arrives at last

    Industry gets its act together

    The RadioPlayer console went live this morning, uniting British radio stations under a simple, open easy-to-use web interface. It's quite a political achievement, given the nature of the squabbling radio business – and all the more so since the entire project required just one full-time employee – and had a budget lower than the …

    Music and Media 31 Mar 14:49

  • EU parliament suspends webmail after cyber-attack

    More than kids playing around

    The European Parliament network has fallen under cyber-attack, leading to a suspension of webmail and other security restrictions. The assault, which has led to the suspension of webmail access in Strasbourg, comes after attacks against the European Commission and the External Action Service networks. The Parliament and the …

    Enterprise Security 31 Mar 14:51

  • Sega Mega Drive gets micro makeover

    Simple and effective

    Check this out: you can still buy new Sega Mega Drive consoles. These ones are a fraction of the size of the original and come with more than one built-in game. Relive those 16-bit days and dig out old Genesis cartridges from the storage box in the loft. They may need a good blow first, but it will be worth it. The Sega …

    reghardware 31 Mar 14:59

  • BT wholesale kit crash silences thousands of customers

    In Slough, no one can hear you scream

    A hardware failure downed thousands of punters connected to BT's network via some of its smaller Openreach providers on Wednesday evening. Reports via Plusnet, AAISP.net and others suggested that the outage affected many of their customers for around half a day. Initially a major fibre cut near Slough was blamed, but it was …

    Telecoms 31 Mar 15:25

  • Google preps identity spotter app

    Personal details in a snap

    Ever been sat in a bar and recognised someone, but don't have the balls to ask where you know them from? Soon you can rudely snap a pic to figure it out. Google is readying a mobile application that allows access to a person's personal details simply by snagging a photograph of them, CNN reports. Of course, users would have …

    reghardware 31 Mar 15:50

  • UK nuke lab, Korean Air Force buy SGI supers

    Japanese companies get freebie cloudy HPC

    Supercomputer maker Silicon Graphics Inc (SGI) has sold two of its shared memory Altix UV systems to the UK's Atomic Weapons Establishment (AWE) nuke lab and an Altix ICE 8400 cluster to the Korean Air Force. The company is also making processing capacity on its Cyclone HPC cloud service available to customers in Japan who have …

    Cloud 31 Mar 15:53

  • Google app cloud juices Java and Python

    Your very own Google Alerts

    Google has released a new version of Google App Engine – the service that lets you build applications atop the company's famously distributed infrastructure – providing additional tools for both Python and Java developers. When originally released in the spring of 2008, App Engine allowed development only in Python, a favorite …

    Cloud 31 Mar 17:06

  • Google 'clamps down' on world of Android partners

    When open means all changes must be approved by Google

    Google has not only decided to keep the Android Honeycomb source code closed for the foreseeable future, preventing all but a few select partners from using the latest version of its mobile OS, it has also clamped down even harder on those select partners, telling them they can't make changes to the platform or form partnerships …

    Developer 31 Mar 19:52

  • APN hits regional Oz with group buying

    Cheap waxing in the back of Bourke

    Media group APN is the latest old-media player to embrace the group buying phenomenon, increasing its stake in New Zealand based group buying site, GrabOne, from 50 percent to 75 percent. APN has already started expanding the site through Australia. GrabOne has recently launched in Brisbane, the Gold Coast, Wollongong, …

    Business 31 Mar 21:19

  • Apple patent eyes Mac OS X tablet

    Or multiple workspace iOS. Take your pick

    A patent application published on Thursday reveals how far Apple has progressed on melding iOS's multi-touch interface with Mac OS X, and hints that the Mac operating system's multiple-workspace feature, Spaces, may find its way onto the iPad. The application, entitled "Device, Method, and Graphical User Interface for …

    Music and Media 31 Mar 21:21

  • Mobiles really do fry your brains: JAMA

    Don’t yet know by how much

    In the latest mobile health scare to hit the Interwebs, the Journal of the American Medical Association is reporting measurements of mobile use on brain chemistry. Although the research is currently of “unknown clinical significance”, it’s bound to feed a frenzy of new stories threatening death and horror on anyone using a …

    Mobile 31 Mar 21:44

  • Oz network hits serious speed bump

    Supplier prices too high, negotiations halted

    While the political battles have occupied centre-stage, Australia’s National Broadband Network has hit its first real-world speed-bump, with reports in Australia that it has halted negotiations over key civil works tenders. The Sydney Morning Herald on Friday reported that negotiations for construction tenders were halted …

    Business 31 Mar 21:45

  • Windows Home Server 2011 signed off

    Will hit shops later this year

    Microsoft has announced that Windows Home Server 2011 has been signed off for release. With system builders now working on specific form factors, WHS 2011 solutions are expected to hit the stores in May. An evaluation version will be offered this month to MSDN and TechNet members. Aimed at home users with large pirated …

    Operating Systems 31 Mar 22:10

  • FSF to Google: Free Gmail's JavaScript now!

    Enslaved browser code sullies world's machines

    The Free Software Foundation has called on Google to release Gmail's JavaScript code under a free software license, continuing its crusade to ensure that all "nonfree" software is eradicated from the world's computers. "We believe that computer users should be able to use their computer in freedom, and in order to do so, you …

    Developer 31 Mar 22:37