12th April 2011 Archive

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Adobe warns of attacks exploiting critical Flash flaw

Patch coming, but you'll have to wait

Adobe has promised to update its Flash media player to patch a critical vulnerability that is being exploited in targeted attacks to install malware on end user machines. The attacks are being launched using emails that attach a Microsoft Word document that contains a booby-trapped Flash file, according to a blog post published …

Security 12 Apr 00:37
IBM juices Power7 chips for midrange workhorse server

Intel counterpunch

Almost precisely a year ago, IBM began the rollout of its Power7-based blade servers in the wake of Intel's Xeon 5600 and 7500 processor launches. And Big Blue is counterpunching Intel on blades and midrange machines again, with an expanded Power Systems blade server lineup and a speed bump for its workhorse Power 750 box. The …

Servers 12 Apr 04:00
Panasonic beefs up 3D video camera

Older brother set for space shot

Panasonic has introduced an upgraded version of last year's breakthrough integrated-lens 3D video camera, and will send that now-superceded model into space. "Less than a year ago, Panasonic simplified and lowered the cost-of-entry to high-quality 3D production with the AG-3DA1, the industry's first fully-integrated, 3D …

Music and Media 12 Apr 04:00
HP opens app fluffing school

Cloud lessons for the enterprise

What applications running in your data center are suitable for moving from physical to cloudy infrastructure? Do you know how to fluff your apps to run on a cloud? Hewlett-Packard is betting that at least some CIOs out there are willing to pay to have this all sorted out. You can tell that Hewlett-Packard has arrived at the …

SaaS 12 Apr 05:00
Nissan Leaf electric car

First Look The e-car for the rest of us?

You'll either love the Nissan Leaf's look or hate it, but as the UK's first mass-market e-car - if you can call 500 or so vehicles, all pre-sold, a readily available product - it doesn't deserve ignoring for its Micra-on-the-rack exterior. New Leaf: the headlamp design reduces wing-mirror airflow noise, apparently Trying to …

reghardware 12 Apr 06:00
Gov won't force publishers to hand paywalled content to libraries

Paid-for online content to be exempt from public archive

The UK Government has scrapped plans to force publishers to place a copy of paid-for online content in legal deposit libraries for the public to access for free. The government had proposed new regulations governing what digital content should be made available to legal deposit libraries (LDLs), the six libraries that have the …

Music and Media 12 Apr 07:00
Can Bing ride IE and WinPho to Google triumph?

Microsoft's mobile hope

Next month marks the two-year anniversary of Microsoft's assault on Fortress Google. Two years ago, after pouring billions of dollars into a new search engine and advertising platform, Microsoft took Bing to market. In two years, Bing has gone from an eight per cent market share - courtesy of predecessor, Microsoft Live …

Music and Media 12 Apr 07:20
Facebook photo-tagging trick used to lure emo kids to survey scam

Clickjack ruse targets melancholy Twihard teens

Facebook survey scammers, the hardest-working crooks in cybercrime, are exploiting Facebook's loosely-controlled photo-tagging technology to develop more attention-grabbing scam lures. The starting point of the scam commonly appears with users finding themselves tagged in their online friends' photo albums. Clicking to …

Crime 12 Apr 08:48
US lawyer's email not creative enough for copyright protection

Judge Dolly Gee says man sought lawsuit in bad faith

A lawyer's email was not creative enough to be protected by copyright laws, a US court has ruled. The critical email had been forwarded outside of an email group without the consent of author Kenneth Stern, who then sued the person who forwarded the message for breach of copyright. Stern's email lacked originality and a …

Law 12 Apr 08:50
Some Windows tools to manage the desktop estate

Desktop Operating framework

Most businesses are pulling their IT team in two directions at the same time. We want instant access to information for improved productivity - and we want regulatory compliance. We want the economies of cloud, virtualisation and managed desktops - and we want business mobility. We want to get online from the coffee shop, the …

Desktop Strategy 12 Apr 08:52
Space flutes salute Yuri Gagarin

Jethro Tull meets the ISS

NASA astronaut Cady Coleman and Jethro Tull founder Ian Anderson hooked up late last week to pay homage to Yuri Gagarin when they whipped out their flutes for "the first space-Earth duet". Coleman is currently aboard the ISS as part of the Expedition 27 crew. Anderson was on tour in Perm, Russia, and took a moment to join the …

Space 12 Apr 08:53
PowerAmp

Android App of the Week Cum on feel the noize...

The one feature of iOS that beats Android like a red-headed stepchild is the music player. Hardly surprising given Apple’s experience with media player UIs, but that still doesn’t excuse just how basic the Android alternative is, or how unimpressive the efforts of the various Android phone makers have been. PowerAmp: iPod …

reghardware 12 Apr 09:00
Second Call of Duty: Black Ops mission pack out next month

PS3 players will have to wait, though

Call of Duty: Black Ops will get its second stash of downloadable content on 3 May, although PlayStation 3 owners will not be allowed to go on the mission. CoD: Black Ops Escalation is to be available on Xbox Live only. The DLC will probably make it to the PS3 soon enough, though neither publisher Activision or developer …

reghardware 12 Apr 09:28
Mind the gap!

Webcast Step by step security

When it comes to security we seem start out with the best intentions and have Fort Knox protecting our applications, data and interactions. But shrinking budgets and juggling priorities often means it's a case of good intentions rather than vault like security. The result is either a security patchwork that has the potential …

Tech Panel 12 Apr 09:38
Facebook twins lose court case

Porn-loving judge says no

The creepy Winklevoss twins have lost an appeal against an earlier settlement with Facebook which gave them $20m in cash and $45m in Facebook shares. The identical twins, granted 15 minutes of fame by the film the Social Network, claim that Mark Zuckerberg stole their idea for a website of Harvard alumni. For the purposes of …

Law 12 Apr 09:40
HPC SAN whiz moves into files

DDN's NAS Scaler

Big file data has attracted another supplier: Data Direct Networks (DDN), which has added a network-attached storage (NAS) product alongside its high-performance computing SAN storage arrays. DDN supplies more storage for the high-performance computing (HPC) market than any other supplier. That market needs highly-scalable and …

Storage 12 Apr 09:43
Cloudera cranks out fresh Hadoop distro

All stuffed elephants in one

Cloudera has released a third version of its open source Hadoop distribution, boasting that the distro tightly integrates several other Apache-licensed projects designed to run in tandem with the distributed number-crunching platform. Announced on Tuesday, the Cloudera Distribution of Apache Hadoop version 3 (CDH3) includes …

Platform 12 Apr 10:00
Ozaki iCoat Bubble iPhone 4 case

Txt Take Fly's eyes style protection

Product reviews in 140 characters... Ozaki iCoat Bubble Pictures Want our Txt Take on your gadget? Just send it in to Reg Hardware. Details here.

reghardware 12 Apr 10:00
Nvidia: 'old' tablet development kit won't get Android 3.0

No Honeycomb for Harmony

Anyone who owns an Nvidia-based media tablet and is hoping to run Android 3.0 Honeycomb on it at some point in the future may yet be disappointed, it seems. Nvidia has revealed it will "only support the Ventana platform for android releases going forward", said Andrew Edelsten of Nvidia's Tegra Developer Relations team. Past …

reghardware 12 Apr 10:06
Amazon splatters ads to cut Kindle price

It's what the Whispernet was built for

Amazon is offering an advertising-subsidised version of its flagship Kindle, putting adverts on the idle screen and main menu in exchange for a $25 discount on the hardware. The company is making much of the fact that the adverts will link to special deals and money-off vouchers, but they're still adverts that will hang around …

Mobile 12 Apr 10:10
Security researcher warns over Dropbox authentication security flaw

Knitted in insecurity

Attackers able to get their hands on a Dropbox configuration file would be able to access and download any files a user synchronises through the service without betraying any signs of compromise, a security researcher has discovered. Derek Newton discovered that a Dropbox authentication token, stored in a config file of the …

SaaS 12 Apr 10:20
NASA hangs bunting for shuttle anniversary

30 years since Columbia first took to the skies

NASA is gearing up to celebrate the 30th anniversary of the first shuttle launch later today at Kennedy Space Center, and administrator Charles Bolden will take centre stage to announce just where the surviving orbiters will finally be put on public display. The festivities kick off at 17:00 GMT (13:00 EDT), and you can catch …

Space 12 Apr 10:22
Upgrade-hungry office drones ponder PC prangs

Shame they never actually start smashing...

Want a new work computer? Wait until the boss isn't looking then take a hammer to the one you have now. That's what rather a lot of UK wage slaves feel they have to do to get an upgrade. Others consider flogging it second-hand and using the money made to buy a new machine. So claims online back-up company Mozy - you can see …

reghardware 12 Apr 10:48
Nokia gets touchy-feely with two new Symbians

A brilliant business QWERTY, and a Gothic nightmare...

Nokia says it wants to sell 150 million Symbian phones before the venerable OS is finally shunted off to the knacker's yard, and it unveiled two new models today that the Finns hope will bring that target nearer. Both feature a new "Anna" revision to Symbian OS. One model, a Blackberry-like business design, is quite outstanding …

Mobile 12 Apr 11:10
Wacom joins the iPad pen party

Turns your fondleslab into a scribble pad thing

Not everyone wants to prod 'Pad with pinky, as various stylii have surface to enable drawing and note taking on Apple’s popular fondleslab. It's an approach that Steve Jobs presumably wanted to avoid given his view of the Newton as "that scribble thing". Yet a new arrival to the iPad's stationery cupboard is graphics tablet …

reghardware 12 Apr 11:18
UK PC sales plunged in Q1

Tablets, yes; netbooks and notebooks, no

Brits aren't buying so many computers these days, but they are taking to tablets. But while tablet sales are well up year on year, it hasn't been enough to compensate for slowing notebook, netbook and desktop demand. UK PC sales during the first quarter of the year were down 7.7 per cent, well below the European average of 2. …

reghardware 12 Apr 11:18
Indonesian anti-smut MP caught ogling filth

Parliamentary sex vid outrage

An Indonesian MP who was instrumental in passing the country's controversial and tough anti-pornography law fell on his sword yesterday after being caught ogling smut in parliament. The mono-monickered Arfinto, of the "staunchly Islamic" Prosperous Justice Party, was captured last Friday by a local photojournalist as he copped …

Bootnotes 12 Apr 11:20
'I own half of Facebook', says New York fuel salesman

It's my book of face too... bitch!

New York firewood salesman Paul Ceglia filed a revised complaint against Facebook yesterday, in which the claimant said he had evidence that showed he was entitled to ownership of half of the social network. Ceglia alleges he has email exchanges with Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, where the two men discussed the terms of a 2003 …

Law 12 Apr 11:30
Ten... 40-42in net connected HD TVs

Product Round-up Next gen tellies you’ll want to own

If you’re looking to get the biggest bang for your thin-screen buck, then the 40-42in TV category is the sweet spot. It’s here that the most competitive price points jostle with bleeding edge features. Almost to a man, our group combines high-performance Freeview HD 1080p screens plus some level of Internet connectivity. These …

reghardware 12 Apr 12:00
App streaming vs installation: what's best when

Desktop Only one way to find out. Fight!

Effective desktop management isn't just about working with operating systems – it's also about managing the applications your users are using. There are many reasons for managing applications, from licence management, to ensuring regulatory compliance, to avoiding the support headaches that come from application proliferation …

Desktop Strategy 12 Apr 12:07
iPhone 5? You might be waiting till 2012

Apple might slide latest fondleslab into anno altero

Apple fans may have to wait till next year before they can junk their iPhone 4s in favour of iPhone the Fifth. Analyst firm Avian Securities said that production of the iPhone 5 won't begin till September, meaning a holiday launch at the earliest, or even a New Year's debut. The note, reported in Business Insider, is based on …

Mobile 12 Apr 12:08
Avast alert finds WHOLE WEB malign

Evil is everywhere!

Major freebie anti-virus scanner Avast has apologised for a cock-up defining the vast majority of the web as malign. Rather than a Howard Beale-style insight into the state of the modern interwebs, the finding of any sites with scripts or frames - including Avast's own support forums - as malign was the result of a rogue virus …

Malware 12 Apr 12:23
Air cooled data centres are hot!

Taking the temperature

Air cooling in the automotive world has practically disappeared, with the last major hold-out - Porsche - having moved to water-cooling its cars' engines more than 10 years ago in order to reduce emissions. Data centres are moving in the opposite direction but for precisely the same reason: they're big carbon emitters, with …

Data Centre 12 Apr 12:37
Red Dwarf to blast off on new adventure

Original cast on board for fresh series

The cast of Red Dwarf are poised to reunite for a new series of the cult TV sci-fi series, twelve years after the spacecraft finally ran out of fuel on the BBC. Co-creator Doug Naylor has, according to Wired, confirmed Chris Barrie, Craig Charles, Danny John-Jules and Robert Llewellyn are on board for a further six episodes. …

Entertainment 12 Apr 12:39
Indie music scores class action victory

Trade the cash for the beef for the body for the hate

Self-styled digital "copyfighters" love to think they're doing good by battling the "evils" of major record companies. But as with most things on the web, it's empty talk. When there's a real battle on, they're nowhere to be found. Indie labels and songwriters find themselves a little bit better off today as the result of a …

Music and Media 12 Apr 13:02
Quantum automates tape media checking

Will use LTFS in future

Quantum has built on its i6000 library tape MeDIA scanning function with an enhanced Extended Data Life Management (EDLM) feature to automatically migrate data from doubtful tapes. This should calm the nerves of archive managers wary of putting their digital assets on archive tapes, which could suffer silent data corruption …

Storage 12 Apr 13:10
Virgin preps step-down Tivo box

Cheaper, 500GB DVR in-bound

Virgin Media will release a lower-capacity version of its Tivo-based cable box next month. The current model, which the company has been teasing its £30.50-a-month XL TV subscribers with, packs in a 1TB hard drive and three separate tuners. The new version has three tuners too, but only 500GB of programme storage capacity, …

reghardware 12 Apr 13:37
Mummy, mummy, there's a nuclear monster!

Go back to BED! No more stories from Auntie Fear for you

The total non-story of the Fukushima nuclear powerplant "disaster" – which has seen and will see no deaths or measurable health consequences for anyone anywhere – has received a shot in the arm today with the news that Japanese authorities have upgraded the incident to a Level 7 on the nuclear accident scale. This was reported …

Science 12 Apr 13:53
Cisco shuts Flip

Popular camcorder line canned

So, farewell then, Flip. Cisco, the networking giant which bought the YouTube-friendly camcorder family in March 2009, today said it is ditching the product line. Cisco paid $900m for Pure Digital, the company which brought the Flip line to market in May 2007, a year after releasing its first, Pure-branded camcorder. The …

reghardware 12 Apr 14:14
Cisco Flips consumer unit out with trash

John Q Public is an adjacency too far

Selling digital gadgets to consumers and breaking into the server racket, all the while alienating some of the server-makers who were pushing Cisco Systems networking gear, has been tough on Cisco's profits in recent quarters. And the restructuring that the networking giant has announced is an admission that things are not going …

Data Networking 12 Apr 14:42
HDS boss submits to Infosmack grilling

Episode 94 Information ubiquity. Oh yes!

Each year in April, the storage industry swarms to an American watering hole, some say to breed. Other say they are hanging at Storage Networking World. Who knows what's right? We asked Infosmack hosts Greg Knieriemen and Marc Farley and their trusty friend Diva of Disruptive Technologies Christina Weil to investigate. Their …

Infosmack 12 Apr 15:15
World pays tribute to Yuri Gagarin

Let's go!

The world is today paying tribute to Yuri Gagarin, who 50 years ago became the first man in space. Gagarin departed Kazakhstan's Tyuratam missile range (later renamed Baikonur Cosmodrome) at 07:08 GMT on 12 April, 1961. The 27-year-old famously shouted "Poyekhali! (Let's go!)" before the launch, although his apparent …

Space 12 Apr 15:23
Microsoft promises not-quite-as-much Street View

Seriously?

Microsoft has started collecting images for its version of Google Street View which will be included on Bing's maps in a service called 'Streetside'. Four cars began prowling the streets of the capital this morning. The Johnny-come-lately snooping service will only cover major towns and cities and will make no attempt to cover …

Applications 12 Apr 15:28
PARIS team raises pint to Yuri Gagarin

Heroic Playmonaut toasts fellow space pioneer

It won't have escaped your notice that today marks the 50th anniversary of Yuri Gagarin's historic first manned space flight. Well, we at the Paper Aircraft Released Into Space (PARIS) bureau couldn't let the moment pass without some form of celebration, and our own heroic Playmonaut was on hand offer a hearty "За здоровье …

SPB 12 Apr 15:31
VMware open sources Microsoft Azure killer

'Development cloud' kit set free

VMware has open sourced a new platform for building application development services along the lines of Microsoft Azure or Google App Engine, hoping to spawn an army of so-called "platform clouds" that aren't run by Microsoft or Google. These sky-high services can be run behind the firewall ("private clouds" in the …

Platform 12 Apr 16:00
Android, Steve Jobs, and Apple's '90%' tablet share

Open...and Shut Xoom and gloom in Android land

Apple CEO Steve Jobs recently took the stage to pound the drum for the company's dominance of the nascent tablet market. "We own 90 per cent of the tablet market!" he crowed during the launch event of the iPad 2. It's not surprising that Jobs chose to focus on the iPad's success. After all, despite a similar keynote with …

Mobile 12 Apr 17:00
Opera embraces Google's open source JPEG killer

GPEG speeds Turbo engine

Opera has released a new incarnation of its desktop browser – Opera 11.10, aka Barracuda – improving the speed of its Turbo traffic-compression service and expanding its SpeedDial interface to provide quick access to an unlimited number of your favorite sites. If you use the latest version of SpeedDial, you're required to …

Applications 12 Apr 17:18
Oracle vs HP+Intel: Wassup?

Dead Parrot or Living CPU?

There’s nothing like a vendor war to keep things interesting, and Oracle has launched a great one with its recent decision to stop development for future Itanium processors. According to Oracle, Itanium is the deadest of dead parrots - not pining for the fjords, not tired from a prolonged squawk, but well and truly dead. Intel …

HPC Blog 12 Apr 17:37
Microsoft cranks out Internet Explorer 10 preview

MIX 2011 IE9 still warm

Microsoft has released an Internet Explorer 10 preview, little more than a month after the debut of IE9. The company posted its IE10 Platform Preview build on Tuesday, calling it "the first step in delivering the next wave of progress in native HTML5 support". It seems likely that an IE10 beta will be delivered in September. …

Applications 12 Apr 17:53
Oracle, Fujitsu goose Sparc M3000 entry box

Sparc64-VII+ on the down-low

Sparc Enterprise M server partners Oracle and Fujitsu have upgraded the entry-level Sparc Enterprise M3000 rack-based server with a faster Sparc64-VII+ processor. The two companies announced the quad-core Sparc64-VII+ processor last December. The chip is designed and fabbed by Fujitsu, which also designs and manufactures the …

Servers 12 Apr 18:15
Office workers: 'The best way to upgrade a PC is to smash it'

One in four desk jockeys prefer upgrade by sledgehammer

More than one in four European office workers believe that the quickest way to get a replacement phone or laptop is to destroy the one provided to them by their employer, according to a new study by online-backup provider, Mozy. "Shockingly, over a quarter of the office workers surveyed feel that the quickest and most …

Business 12 Apr 18:18
HP juices desktop and mobile workstations

1 billion colors, no waiting

HP has rolled out a new spate of workstation-class machines: two desktops and three laptops designed for video and audio pros. At this week's National Association of Broadcasters (NAB) show in Las Vegas, Nevada, the company also seized the opportunity to flog its self-calibrating DreamColor display systems, designed for the …

Channel Register 12 Apr 20:13
Exploit-wielding boffins go on free online shopping binge

World's biggest e-commerce sites wide open

Computer scientists have documented serious flaws in software running some of the world's biggest e-commerce sites and shown how they can be exploited to receive DVDs, digital journals, and other products for free or at sharply reduced prices not authorized by the sellers. The findings, laid out in a paper to be presented at …

Security 12 Apr 20:57
Microsoft floats fresh code for Azure

MIX 2011 .NET and open source faithful called to cloud

Microsoft has delivered updated Azure software, while extending an offer that allows for free use of its so-called development cloud. On Tuesday, Microsoft updated its Windows Azure SDK to simplify the migration, management, and deployment of IIS Web Server applications and servers to the online service. And in the next month …

Platform 12 Apr 21:20
Novell rolls up last service pack for SUSE Linux 10

Extends security, critical patch support to a decade

Novell has grabbed all the latest snippets of code suitable for patching up its SUSE Linux Enterprise 10 operating system and rolled them into Service Pack 4. This is the last Service Pack planned for version 10 of the desktop and server platform. SUSE Linux Enterprise 10, in desktop and server editions, was launched in July …

Servers 12 Apr 21:22
Google admits Android 'both open and closed'

Roll over Gene Amdahl

Google Android boss Andy Rubin sees himself as a latter-day Gene Amdahl, insisting that anyone who questions his commitment to building an "open" mobile platform is merely spreading FUD. "Recently, there’s been a lot of misinformation in the press about Android and Google’s role in supporting the ecosystem. I’m writing in the …

Developer 12 Apr 21:55
Embrace chaos, beat pirates... buy my book, says Mason

Freetards will save the future, claims author

The only way to be beat content pirates is to join them, claims author and digital strategist, Matt Mason. The author of The Pirate’s Dilemma – How Hackers, Punk Capitalists, Graffiti Millionaires and Other Youth Movements are Remixing Our Culture and Changing Our World, told an audience at MipTV that the limitless opportunity …

Music and Media 12 Apr 21:56
Writers sue Huffington Post for back pay

Arianna Huffington, the 'robber baron'

Now that it's got a genuine corporate behemoth as its owner, the Huffington Post is fielding a lawsuit from its unpaid army of bloggers. Blogger Jonathan Tasini has filed a class action on behalf of more than 9,000 bloggers, claiming US$105m for content which the HuffPo used for its financial benefit while not paying the …

Law 12 Apr 22:04
AdBlock Plus man disputes Mozilla add-on tests

Slow Firefox startup list pared

Wladimir Palant – the man behind the most famous of Firefox add-ons, AdBlock Plus – has pushed back against Mozilla's recent efforts to rate the performance of his and other add-ons, claiming the outfit's testing methods were flawed. As a result, Firefox has edited its public list that rates the startup performance of the most …

Developer 12 Apr 22:43
Ex-Microsoft man charged with scamming Ballmer and Co

Redmond Binged for $450,000, feds say

A Microsoft staffer has been charged with stealing $450,000 from the company. According to the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, Robert Curry, formerly a business development director at the company, has been charged with three counts of wire fraud in the US District Court of Seattle. As part of Microsoft's Strategic Partnership …

Crime 12 Apr 23:00
Equinix to host new traders’ exchange

Chi-X bound for ~~Botany~~ Mascot

Chi-X Australia, the exchange granted a licence to compete with the Australian Securities Exchange (ASX), has announced that Equinix will host its primary Australian data centre. Equinix has two data centres in the Sydney suburb of Mascot, and is building a third. The location is popular among data centre operators, with …

Platform 12 Apr 23:11
Updates galore in Microsoft's biggest ever Patch Tuesday

Relief for critical 0day bugs

Microsoft has patched a record 64 vulnerabilities in Windows, Office and five other software packages, many of which allowed attackers to remotely install malware on end user machines. The most important fixes addressed a vulnerability in the Internet Explorer browser that was exploited in last month's Pwn2Own contest. Although …

Enterprise Security 12 Apr 23:27
AMD backs USB 3.0 on desktop and laptop chipsets

First wafer baker on board

AMD has become the first major microprocessor baker to have USB 3.0–capable chipsets certified by the USB Implementers Forum. This announcement was made on Tuesday by the USB-IF, although the impending certification of AMD's A75 and A70M Fusion Controller Hub (FCH) chipsets had been outed by SemiAccurate three weeks ago from …

Channel Register 12 Apr 23:54