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4th April 2011 Archive

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  • Australians can’t read or count

    Opinion: The stupid, it burns

    “Education fails” stories are an irresistible hot-button for even moderate media, let alone those on the right wing. So it is that when the Industry Skills Councils – an umbrella group of skills research and lobby organisations – announced that half Australia’s working-age adults have inadequate literacy or numeracy skills, the …

    Odds and Sods 4 Apr 01:42

  • AMD gases up Bulldozers for Intel push back

    Can Intel match 16 cores at 3.5GHz?

    Advanced Micro Devices is in a number of tight spots at the moment, but the company is hopefully optimistic that its future "Bulldozer" Opteron processors due later this year will let it dig in and grab some desperately needed - and profitable - server market share from archrival Intel. The first Bulldozer Opteron chips, the …

    Servers 4 Apr 03:00

  • Australia, give up your fixed broadband!

    Comment You have nothing to lose but your twisted pairs!

    Look, Australia, you’ve got it all wrong. Wireless broadband is the future. It’s not just a future, it’s the genuine, authentic, sci-fi “wonders of the universe” future, complete with unicorns and no need for a National Broadband Network. And what do you do? You keep buying fixed broadband. I realise that some of you are …

    Networks 4 Apr 03:29

  • AMD rejigs fab pact with GlobalFoundries

    Updated 32nm conjuring act

    Advanced Micro Devices has tweaked its wafer baking deal with GlobalFoundries, the spinout of its own foundry operations that owned by Advanced Technology Investment Company, the investing arm of the government of Abu Dhabi. In a statement released on Sunday afternoon, AMD said that it was making changes to the wafer supply …

    Financial News 4 Apr 04:25

  • The Osborne 1: 30 years old this month

    We remember the first commercial portable PC

    The Osborne 1, the world's first commercially produced computer designed to be portable, is 30 years old this month. Adam Osborne, founder of the Osborne Computer Corporation, introduced the 11kg machine in April 1981, though it didn't go into mass production until June 1981. The Osborne 1 Source: Wikipedia It was not the …

    reghardware 4 Apr 07:00

  • John Barnes and Ian Rush: technology scores

    Star Tech Footie giants on the gadgets that top the league

    Legendary Liverpool soccer stars John Barnes, 48, and Ian Rush, 50, were recently reunited at the launch of car maker Hyundai's Boot Shoot app. Sure, they can still chip balls into hatchbacks 'til the ref cries 'foul' - but does tech win like the beautiful game? 3D TV: World Cup or wooden spoon? Ian Rush I don't have a 3D TV …

    reghardware 4 Apr 08:00

  • Small business denounces extra red tape

    Paternity and retirement changes not helping

    The British Chambers of Commerce has warned that changes to paternity leave and retirement rights introduced this week will damage the start of the UK recovery. From yesterday British men will get up to six months paternity leave, if their partners return to work early. And from Wednesday the default retirement age is retired …

    Small Biz 4 Apr 08:10

  • Pacific island in royal wedding philatelic outrage

    The island of Niue perforates Wills and Kate

    The Pacific island of Niue is set to ruffle a few royalist feathers with its Prince William and Kate Middleton commemorative stamps, featuring a strategic perforation between the happy couple. This philatelic allusion to the probable fate of the marriage, issued on behalf of Niue by New Zealand Post, didn't much impress Hugh …

    Bootnotes 4 Apr 09:04

  • Online car-buying firm agrees to more transparent pricing

    OFT found webuyanycar.com staff got bonuses for undervaluing cars

    An online car-buying company has agreed to change the way it operates after consumer regulator the Office of Fair Trading (OFT) said that was not transparent with customers about its pricing. A year-long OFT study revealed that nearly 96 per cent of people who sold their cars to webuyanycar.com received less for their vehicle …

    Law 4 Apr 09:25

  • French mayor busts overly busty bust

    Embodiment of Republic boasted too much body

    The good burghers of the French town Neuville-en-Ferrain will no longer be able to enjoy the ample charms of a "patriotic female statue" after the mayor ordered its removal from the town hall on the grounds of excessive chesticles. Gerard Cordon took exception to the bust of Marianne, the "traditional female embodiment of the …

    Bootnotes 4 Apr 09:26

  • Telefonica creates NFC District in Madrid

    Employees to enjoy taste of own dog food

    Telefonica is issuing thousands of its own staff with NFC handsets, creating an NFC District around the company's Madrid headquarters, and showing a distinctly pro-bank policy. The operator intends to eventually put 12,500 NFC phones into the pockets of employees at its "District C" campus, though it will start with "several …

    Mobile 4 Apr 09:47

  • Acer Android tablets priced

    Pre-orders taken too

    Acer's 7in Android 3.0 Honeycomb tablet, the Iconia A100, will be out later this month for 300 quid. So says Amazon.co.uk, which says that those 300 notes will buy you 8GB of storage, a 1024 x 600 display, Bluetooth and 2.4GHz 802.11n. The online retailer also lists an A100 at £400, but the listed specification is identical …

    reghardware 4 Apr 10:10

  • Sony CEO signals summer of tablets

    Android Honeycomb on the menu

    Sony will enter the Android tablet arena before the summer is out, the Japanese giant's CEO, Howard Stringer, has revealed. It will run Android 3.0 Honeycomb, he said, and ship in the US first, according to a Nikkei report mentioned by Bloomberg but not linked to. Company executive Kaz Hirai said in January at the Consumer …

    reghardware 4 Apr 10:27

  • Be smart with your smartphones

    Workshop Data on the hoof

    Mobile devices are often described as “enabling productivity”. It sounds simple – get business information onto smartphones and they will become able to deliver what the organisation needs. The temptation might be to rush out and buy a trailer load of Android devices to see if they help; but with a bit more thought it is …

    Doing Better Business 4 Apr 10:29

  • UK's oldest working telly up for sale

    Picture perfect

    One of Britain's oldest tellies - set to go under the hammer later this month - is 75 years old and surprisingly still in working order. When the Marconi Type 702 was made, in 1936, the BBC had only been broadcasting television shows for three weeks, offering just two hours of programming a day on one channel. The set has a …

    reghardware 4 Apr 10:41

  • Vodafone grabs £7bn, leaves France

    Sells off French assets to Vivendi

    Vodafone is selling its minority shareholding in French operator SFR, netting €7.95bn by flogging 44 per cent of SFR and giving Vivendi complete ownership. Vivendi already owns 56 per cent of mobile, fixed-line, broadband and TV supplier SFR, which boasts 20 million customers, but once the deal is completed, Vivendi will own …

    Mobile 4 Apr 10:42

  • RSA explains how attackers breached its systems

    Howdunnit explained but depth of hack or what was taken remain a mystery

    RSA has provided more information on the high-profile attack against systems behind the EMC division's flagship SecurID two factor authentication product. The security firm, criticised for its refusal to discuss the hack – aside from warning that the security of SecurID might be reduced – broke its silence to provide a fair …

    Enterprise Security 4 Apr 10:50

  • BT expands reach of ≤20Mbps broadband

    But real-world speeds still low

    BT today said it will increase the number of telephone exchanges capable of supporting ADSL 2+ to allow 80 per cent of the population to gain "up to 20Mbps" broadband by the end of the year. That means around 20m homes and offices will potentially be able to have access to the service. The links will be offered to ISPs by BT …

    reghardware 4 Apr 10:55

  • Making desktop virt an easier pill to swallow

    Building the business case

    How can IT managers sell the benefits of desktop virtualisation to the rest of the company, especially if it may not deliver savings in the short term? Part of the trick in selling desktop virtualisation to the broader organisation is to remember the word “business” in “business case”. Talking the business’s language and …

    Desktop Virtualisation 4 Apr 11:09

  • Supply ships used to push ISS clear of sat-smash debris

    2009 Russian wipeout of Iridium bird still causing snags

    The International Space Station was given a shove by supply ships docked to it over the weekend in order to evade a cloud of high-velocity orbital shrapnel created when a Russian military satellite crashed into an Iridium comsat in 2009. Aviation Week reports that astronauts and cosmonauts aboard the station fired three …

    Space 4 Apr 11:15

  • Photoshopped image scam used in rogue Facebook app trap

    Spreading across social network at 90,000 clicks an hour

    Facebook users were put under fire on Monday by a brace of new threats, one of which spreads through a link disseminated through the Facebook Chat application. An estimated 600,000 people have already clicked onto the link, which falsely promises to show them a funny Photoshopped image of themselves. In reality users install a …

    Malware 4 Apr 11:16

  • Judge hits police with massive bill over false Operation Ore charges

    Cop had 'no honest belief' in charges

    A man wrongly accused in Britain's largest ever child pornography investigation has won damages in the High Court after an eight-year legal battle. Jeremy Clifford, 51, from Watford, was arrested and falsely charged in 2003 as part of Operation Ore. His credit card details had been found among those of thousands of British …

    Policing 4 Apr 11:37

  • Blighty's official Space Agency starts up on 1 April

    Glorious, insignificant future begins today

    The UK finally acquired an official government space agency last week, with the formal announcement of its operational status issued on April Fools Day. The new and excitingly named UK Space Agency is an executive agency of the Department for Business, Industry and Skills. "The UK space industry is worth an estimated £7.5bn [ …

    Space 4 Apr 11:57

  • Eminent iTrio EM7100 HDMI wireless video sender

    Review Room with a view

    The video senders of yesterday didn’t enjoy the best of reputations. Typically used to route the analogue feed of one VCR to a second TV at the other end of the house, they suffered all manner of RF interference. Even when you managed to align their directional antennas, ghostly gremlins would make for a second rate viewing …

    reghardware 4 Apr 12:00

  • CTIA cites First Amendment protection of radiation levels

    Demand the right not to speak freely

    The CTIA is arguing that a San Francisco ordinance demanding radiation levels be displayed on phone packaging breaches the First Amendment of the US constitution, and is thus illegal. Speaking to CNET, the wireless telecommunications organisation claimed that forcing shops to reveal the specific absorption rate (SAR) of phone …

    Mobile 4 Apr 12:16

  • Nintendo notches up record sales for 3DS

    But fails to meet own expectations

    Nintendo sold 113,000 3DS consoles in the UK during the first two days after the handheld's release. The UK tally accounted for more than a third of total sales in Europe. The Nintendo 3DS has thus become Nintendo's fastest-selling handheld console, beating the DSi by over 20,000 units during the equivalent period. Retailers …

    reghardware 4 Apr 12:17

  • Baby Googles: The answer to the Chocolate Factory dominance?

    There are alternatives. We discuss a few...

    Lawyer Jeremy Phillips of the useful and fun IPKat blog floats an interesting idea. Google won't reform or be chastened, he writes. We should consider breaking up Google into a number of "Baby Googles" – just as AT&T was once broken up into a number of "Baby Bells". He writes: "It is effectively impossible for any other …

    Applications 4 Apr 12:21

  • Operation Ore was based on flawed evidence from the start

    Exclusive Cops raised concerns ahead of national meeting in 2003

    Britain’s biggest ever computer crime investigation, Operation Ore, was flawed by a catalogue of “discrepancies, errors and uncertainties”, disclosed reports of two national police conferences seen by The Register reveal. The police memoranda show that within months of the operation launching in April 2002, detectives who …

    Policing 4 Apr 12:36

  • Wanted: Nude female web coders

    NSFW Bucks firm offers 'warm and private' naturist environment

    A Buckinghamshire company is looking to recruit "a number of female web coders" who are prepared to work as nature intended in a "warm and private" naturist office environment. Nude House provides software which creates "hot-spots" on website photos, as explained here. As well as naked sales people tempting customers to buy, …

    Bootnotes 4 Apr 12:58

  • SGI Virident catches up with Fusion-io

    Two cards instead of eight

    SGI is pairing up with Virident flash cards to offer a 1U, one million IOPS server with just two flash cards instead of the eight needed by Fusion-io. Virident supplies tachIOn PCIe-connected flash cards and two of them are used in a 1U SGI Rackable C1103 server to deliver 1 million IOPS at a cost of less than $0.05/IOPS. …

    Infrastructure 4 Apr 13:18

  • Hydrogen powered hybrid stratocraft prangs during test flight

    Special-ops comms bird built for a week 12 miles up

    A radical new prototype hydrogen-powered high altitude robot aircraft, intended to remain airborne for a week at a time, has crashed during a test flight in California. The Global Observer drone, which had taken off 18 hours previously from Edwards airforce base, was lost at 2:30pm local time on Friday. It was the aircraft's …

    Science 4 Apr 13:23

  • Attacker grabs gaming tag of Xbox Live policy director

    NSFW link 'Predator' reveals own IM list, Facebook account, on YouTube boastvid

    Microsoft's director of policy and enforcement for Xbox LIVE has had his Xbox account hijacked by a disgruntled gamer using a social engineering attack on his domain name registrar, Network Solutions. Stephen Toulouse, who goes by the screen name “Stepto” and owns the domain stepto.com, also lost his email and web hosting …

    ID 4 Apr 13:47

  • Season of TV shows blown out of cloud... for good

    Someone forget to tick the back-up box

    A US cloud storage provider is being sued because it did not provide a recoverable backup of TV show files deleted by an aggrieved ex-employee. F-A-I-L spells... fail! CyberLynk, headquartered in Wisconsin, was used by a Hawaiiian TV show production and distribution company, WeR1 World Network, to store episodes of its …

    Infrastructure 4 Apr 13:57

  • UK tax system takes a little break from the interwebs

    Planned outage, don't panic

    Anyone wishing to commune electronically with the taxman will have to wait until Wednesday – HMRC systems are down for planned maintenance. A spokesman for the Rev said the downtime was planned because it is one of HMRC's quietest periods. From 7am on Monday until 6am on Wednesday most HMRC systems – including PAYE, Self …

    Government 4 Apr 15:22

  • Google honks Segway horn back at Viacom

    Copyright law is terribly complicated – can't we just ignore it?

    Copyright scofflaw Google and the creative industries are locking horns once again, in a billion dollar legal case with implications for what internet companies can and can't do – or at least, American internet companies. Essentially, the case boils down to how much a service provider is allowed to "know" about infringement …

    Music and Media 4 Apr 15:35

  • Net boffins plot password alternatives

    CAPTCHAS, split slogans and authenticated tokens

    Computer scientists are looking to develop a more secure alternative to passwords for website sign-ons and other functions. Most users have scores of online accounts and, human nature being human nature, often choose easy-to-remember passwords. Using the same password on multiple sites is also a common problem. Most sites are …

    ID 4 Apr 15:59

  • Marvell builds gateway to the clouds

    DragonFly caching HBA

    Marvell has a new take on serve I/O caching with a 2-tier NV-RAM and SSD DragonFly caching adapter claimed to increase server storage I/O tenfold. The idea is to have a PCIe card with 1-8GB of level 1 NV-RAM cache, Marvell embedded processors and software which turns the NV-RAM and level-2 solid state drive (SSD) cache, also …

    Infrastructure 4 Apr 16:04

  • Back to the Future game is now free

    Only the first part, though

    Telltale has made the first episode of its five-part Back to the Future game a free download. Sign up for a Telltale account and give it a go. Episode 1 is called "It's about time" and follows Marty McFly as he does a spot of Delorean-powered time travel to rescue Doc Brown from a spot of bother. Episode 3 of the five part …

    reghardware 4 Apr 16:16

  • Commodore 64 revivalist posts prototype PC pics

    Closer to production, seemingly

    Commodore USA's way-behind-schedule re-incarnation of the original Commodore 64 - it was supposed to ship in June 2010 - is moving ever closer to reality. The company has posted piccies of its attempt to fit a modern PC's internals into a 64 casing, described as a prototype. "This is not the plastic, color or finish that the …

    reghardware 4 Apr 16:42

  • Apps chomp for Student Cluster Comp

    SC11 Sisyphus had it easy

    In this Register HPC channel webcast, we talk to Doug Fuller, a computational scientist at Oak Ridge National Lab, who's chairing the SC11 Student Cluster Competition. This takes place in Seattle in November. We talk about how this competition is really a test of the real-world skills that HPC managers use daily. The students …

    SC 2011 4 Apr 17:06

  • Penguin Computing overclocks Opterons for Wall Street

    Shifts Linux into extra gear

    Linux server specialist Penguin Computing has jumped into the overclocked server fray with a new Altus server aimed at clock-hungry high frequency stock trading applications. At the HPC on Wall Street Conference in New York City this week, Penguin Computing is showing off its Altus 1750 server, which is built using Advanced …

    HPC 4 Apr 17:56

  • Microsoft wraps Windows 8 in Ribbon UI?

    Web sync and sharing sneak in

    Microsoft could be taking a chance by making Windows 8 look more like Office 2007, if some leaked screenshots are the real deal. The alleged screenshots of Microsoft's successor to Windows 7 reveal an unfinished Ribbon UI - based on a concept Microsoft first introduced with Office 2007 in November 2006. The UI could replace …

    Channel Register 4 Apr 19:19

  • Endeavour's swansong delayed ten days

    NASA knocks back shuttle launch

    NASA has knocked back the last launch of space shuttle Endeavour from 19 April to 29 April to avoid a "scheduling conflict" with the Russian Progress supply vehicle - slated to dock with the International Space Station on the 29th of this month. Endeavour's swansong STS-134 mission will deliver the Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer …

    Space 4 Apr 19:22

  • Google bids $900m for Android and Chrome patent shield

    The Nortel stalking horse

    Google has bid $900m for Nortel's patent portfolio, saying it hopes to use the portfolio to deter lawsuits against not only Google but also partners and open-source developers working on projects such as Android and Chrome. On Monday, Nortel announced that it has entered a "stalking horse asset sale agreement" with Google, …

    Software 4 Apr 19:24

  • Attack hijacks sensitive data using newer Windows features

    Mac OS X probably vulnerable too

    Security researchers have outlined a way to hijack huge amounts of confidential network traffic by exploiting default behavior in Microsoft's Windows operating system. The MITM, or man-in-the-middle, attacks described on Monday take advantage of features added to recent versions of Windows that make it easy for computers to …

    Security 4 Apr 20:02

  • TI acquires National Semiconductor for $6.5bn

    Analog chips ahoy!

    Texas Instruments has agreed to purchase rival National Semiconductor for $6.5 billion, a deal would combine two of the world's largest chip makers. TI said the pact would expand its portfolio of analog chips, processors that create a bridge between the worlds of analog and digital. Whereas digital chips can only handle 1s and …

    PCs & Chips 4 Apr 21:55

  • Pandora subpoenaed over privacy of iPhone, Android apps

    Part of industry-wide dragnet

    A federal grand jury has subpoenaed online radio service Pandora for documents related to the privacy of smartphone apps it offers for Apple's iPhone and Google's Android operating system. The document demand, which was made earlier this year, was part of a larger set of subpoenas issued on an industry-wide basis to publishers …

    ID 4 Apr 23:56