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13th April 2011 Archive

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  • Microsoft struck by HTML5 commitment phobia

    Silverlight, I wish I could quit you

    Back during the era of certainty, the time of proprietary source code and software product roadmaps, Microsoft was a company you could bank on. Microsoft would announce a new version of Windows or Office, and partners and customers would wait – often through headline-friendly slippage – to swap out the old for the new. The …

    Developer 13 Apr 2011, 00:34

  • H2O water-powered shower radio

    Review Pump out the volume

    Produced by Vivian Blick, a man who helped launch the wind-up radio, this shower-powered version is due to become the new must-have amongst ‘eco-trendies’ everywhere. The fact that shower-radios probably make you spend more time in the shower – thereby using more clean water and power – is an eco-flaw we’ll just have to ignore …

    Hardware 13 Apr 2011, 06:00

  • Report reveals patchy ICT provision in schools

    Most schools have made their own decisions on tech spending

    The standard of technology provision in schools varies widely, despite spending of £487m on ICT equipment and services last year, according to the findings of independent review commissioned by the education secretary Michael Gove. Sebastian James, group operations director at Dixons Retail, was commissioned to lead the review …

    The Channel 13 Apr 2011, 06:00

  • Vodafone, Three to offer hyped-up HTC handset

    'Multimedia superphone', apparently

    HTC's latest Android phone, the modestly named Sensation, will be coming to Vodafone first, but that didn't stop Three chipping in to say it will be offering the video-centric handset too. The Sensation is described by HTC as a "multimedia superphone" - clearly, the handset maker's self-deprecation knows no bounds. Perhaps …

    Phones 13 Apr 2011, 08:01

  • iPad maker goes Brazilian

    Cost-trimming for Taiwanese giant

    iPad and iPhone maker Foxconn is considering a big investment in Brazil. Foxconn is a huge group with annual turnover of $62bn and about a million employees, many in mainland China; it claims to be China's biggest exporter. It runs the huge Shenzhen campus, which has been the scene of worker protests and suicides. It makes …

    Mobile 13 Apr 2011, 08:52

  • On VDI and storage architectures

    Envisioning provisioning

    One of the most complex aspects of desktop virtualisation is working out what to do with all the users' data. Sizing and planning storage infrastructures to support hundreds or thousands of remotely-hosted desktops is a daunting prospect, especially to those who have relied heavily on local PC hard drives in the past. What is …

    Desktop Virtualisation 13 Apr 2011, 09:00

  • NASA hands out second-hand shuttles

    Orbiters' final homes announced

    NASA administrator Charles Bolden yesterday announced just where the four remaining space shuttles will find a final home, as the agency celebrated the 30th anniversary of the first orbiter launch on 12 April, 1981*. The details are: Atlantis – Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex. Discovery – The Udvar-Hazy Center at the …

    Science 13 Apr 2011, 09:06

  • Paramount to recount The Martian Chronicles

    Eyes film version of Ray Bradbury's Red Planet tales

    Paramount is ambitiously eyeing a film version of Ray Bradbury's The Martian Chronicles, the collection of classic sci-fi short stories describing human efforts to colonise the Red Planet. According to the Hollywood Reporter, the studio has picked up the rights following a stalled attempt by Universal and Steven Spielberg to …

    Hardware 13 Apr 2011, 09:17

  • DARPA aims to make renewable power practical at last

    At Afghanistan combat bases, anyway

    Pentagon boffinry bureau DARPA, which deals with established technology paradigms in much the same way as Patrick Swayze and Demi Moore dealt with clay in their 1990 supernatural romanta-flick outing - that is as material for squidging into improbable shapes so as to satisfy the squidger's raging occult lusts - has done it again …

    Science 13 Apr 2011, 10:09

  • Libyan network hijacked for rebel cause

    Dial 'R' for Rebel

    A Libyan mobile network has been hijacked by the rebels, who had been reduced to communicating by semaphore, but can now get interrupted by an incoming call like the rest of us. The network, dubbed "Free Libyana", consists of infrastructure bussed in from the UAE and jacked into the existing cellular infrastructure. Free …

    Mobile 13 Apr 2011, 10:16

  • Russian Vostok capsule sells for $2.9m

    Big bucks for big piece of space history

    A Vostok capsule identical to the one in which Yuri Gagarin became the first man in space sold at auction yesterday for $2.9m. On 23 March 1961, the Vostok 3KA-2 (pictured) carried the life-sized mannequin Ivan Ivanovich and the dog Zvezdochka ("Little Star") on a 115-minute space flight which ended succesfully with touchdown …

    Science 13 Apr 2011, 10:39

  • The Royal Mail moves to the cloud

    Broadcast And tells us how they did it

    When you're an organisation the size of the Royal Mail, there comes a point when you really have to stop and take stock of the IT operations. Reg reader Adrian Steel, from the Royal Mail, did this in 2008 and noted the state of their infrastructure. More than 30,000 users with multiple email systems, not enough bandwidth or …

    Cloud 13 Apr 2011, 11:00

  • UK still to ratify Euro Cybercrime pact ten years on

    A decade of European cybercrime sort-of cooperation

    The European Commissioner for Home Affairs Cecilia Malmström is celebrating the ten year birthday of the Budapest Convention against cybercrime. Speaking in Hungary, she said much had been achieved, but cyber attacks were still increasing. She noted recent attacks against carbon trading systems, and a wider attack on EC email …

    Security 13 Apr 2011, 11:27

  • Fujitsu promises rural UK 1Gbit/s - if it gets 'fair deal' from BT

    Show us your cash, not public funds, sniffs telco giant

    Fujitsu is planning a joint venture with Virgin Media, TalkTalk and Cisco to roll out 1Gbit/s fibre technology to five million homes in the UK, but the project hinges on BT's Openreach division providing access to its underground ducts and telegraph poles. “The plans rely on the remedy imposed by the regulator Ofcom, on BT …

    Broadband 13 Apr 2011, 11:42

  • Wii price cut coming

    Quarter off, it's claimed

    Nintendo may be about to slash the price of the Wii by as much as 25 per cent. In the US, it's claimed, the console's price will come down from $200 to $150 on 15 May, according to "a trusted source", cited by Engadget. The Wii's share of the console market, while still impressive, slumped last year from 22.5m in 2009 to 17m …

    Games 13 Apr 2011, 11:52

  • M&S whips out carbon-neutral bra

    Hugs your jubs and the planet

    Marks and Spencer has whipped out what it claims is the world's first carbon-neutral bra. The Autograph Leaves Collection Multiway Bra is produced in an eco-friendly Sri Lankan factory powered by hydroelectric and solar energy. M&S stumped up $400,000 towards the cost of the solar panels and design for the $7m MAS Holdings …

    Science 13 Apr 2011, 11:56

  • Open source and the sluggish UK public sector

    Workshop Chicken and egg

    Confronting their rapidly shrinking budgets, public sector bean counters must imagine that someone somewhere has been casting Chinese curses about living in interesting times. Because when money gets tight, things sure do get interesting. You would think that at times like these open-source deployments would be the obvious …

    Open Source 13 Apr 2011, 12:00

  • LG Optimus 2X dual core Android smartphone

    Review Talkin' fast

    There was much talk of dual core handsets at this year’s Mobile World Congress – devices which effectively double the processing power available on smart phones. Samsung Galaxy S II and the Motorola Atrix are coming soon, but the LG Optimus 2X is first out of the traps, and also includes Android 2.2, an 8Mp camera and an HDMI …

    Phones 13 Apr 2011, 12:00

  • UK is 15th best place in the world to do IT

    Still better than France, though. And Australia

    Blighty has been ranked as the 15th best country in the world in which to try to make use of Information and Communications Technology (ICT). Sweden is top, just barely pipping Singapore to the post, and other Nordic and Asian Tiger nations dominated the top 10. The rankings in question are those on the Networked Readiness …

    Management 13 Apr 2011, 12:16

  • BBC engineers see PLT knocking out DAB

    Radios go silent as the data flows

    Recent experiments carried out by the BBC demonstrate how power-line networking can interfere with FM radio and knock out DAB entirely, but only for those who get a decent data rate. The new study was commissioned by the BBC and authored by one current and one former BBC engineer. The study examines transmissions coming off …

    Hardware 13 Apr 2011, 12:25

  • TrustDefender debuts web-page fingerprinting in bank fraud fight

    First dabs

    Australian security firm TrustDefender is expanding into fraud detection with the release of software designed to spot banking Trojans that manipulate web sessions. Variants of the ZeuS Trojan and other strains of malware use tricks such as installing phoney dialogue boxes when users log into online banking sites from malware- …

    Security 13 Apr 2011, 12:33

  • Facebook fixes Hotmail reset bug

    Mystery flaw is repaired

    Facebook has plugged a password reset glitch involving users who linked their social network profiles to Hotmail webmail address. The flaw, discovered by Turkish security researcher Serkan Gencel, also created a possible mechanism for cyber-criminals to lift Facebook passwords linked to Hotmail accounts. Gencel privately …

    Security 13 Apr 2011, 12:35

  • RadioShack gun giveaway: A clarification

    Nothing to do with us, say satellite TV outfit

    Our piece last week on the US RadioShack franchises who are handing out free guns with satellite TV packages prompted an email from the provider in question, Dish Network. The Dish Network's corporate communications operative, Alisa Meyer, wanted be certain readers understood the company is not itself involved in the promotion …

    Bootnotes 13 Apr 2011, 12:47

  • Elgato outs Wi-Fi TV tuner for iDevices

    Freeview on the move

    TV tuner specialist Elgato has released an own-brand version of the Tizi Wi-Fi-linked Freeview receiver for iOS devices. Elgato calls its box the Tivizen, but it seems identical to rival tuner firm Equinux's Tizi - reviewed here. The battery powered tuner picks up digital Freeview channels and relays them to nearby iPads, …

    Hardware 13 Apr 2011, 12:50

  • Video in the workplace: stuff that works

    Webcast No more false dawns

    Video collaboration has seen plenty of false dawns. Companies have all bought videoconferencing systems for the board that didn't get used, struggled to find a use for the video cameras on our laptops and waited for the promise of video phones to be delivered. But do the technologies, the standards and the networks we have …

    Site News 13 Apr 2011, 13:00

  • Cloud on a chip: Sometimes the best hypervisor is none at all  

    Cloud Déjà vu all over again

    We have come a long way, from data processing to systems to servers, and maybe so far we are essentially getting back to where we started. Centralized systems begat distributed servers, and now we are in the middle of begetting a hybrid kind of computing that looks like distributed iron but, thanks to virtualization and …

    Enterprise Tech 13 Apr 2011, 13:40

  • STONERS are DESTROYING the PLANET

    Marijuana causes, uh, climate change

    "Let's find out what everybody is doing – and stop them doing it" – A P Herbert Stoners are helping destroy the planet. Not by excessive snacking, but thanks to the high-energy demands of indoor marijuana cultivation. So says a US Government policy analyst with a Puritanical streak and an EYE for a SHOUTY HEADLINE. Evan Mills …

    Science 13 Apr 2011, 14:16

  • Framework flotilla tackles VDI

    Desktop management by the book

    The desktop has traditionally been an under-managed area of IT. Many businesses, especially smaller ones, may not have the expertise or the resource to manage physical desktops as well as they could. As desktop virtualisation becomes more popular, IT departments face an increased management overhead. Suddenly, hundreds or …

    Desktop Virtualisation 13 Apr 2011, 14:27

  • MYSTERY of huge Canadian chicken-shed EXPLOSION

    NO CHICKENS were present, Mounties rule out fowl play

    The Mounties have confessed themselves baffled after a Canadian chicken shed blew up in a huge, devastating explosion whose shockwaves were "felt across southern Manitoba", according to reports. The Red River Valley Echo has the story, reporting that a "large chicken barn which used to be part of the landscape" exploded in a " …

    Bootnotes 13 Apr 2011, 14:28

  • Motorola and Huawei hug and make up

    Multiple hatchet-burial

    Motorola Solutions and Huawei have dropped unrelated cases between them in a deal lubricated with some Motorola cash. Huawei has been blocking Nokia Siemens Networks (NSN) from acquiring Motorola Solutions on the grounds that such a deal would see its secrets end up with a competitor, while Motorola was suing Huawei for …

    Data Networking 13 Apr 2011, 14:47

  • Web2.0rhea browser axed

    Flock user distraught

    Flock, the browser with built-in Web2.0rhea, is to be discontinued. The project burned through $30m of capital investment, a rather expensive way of acquiring 9 million non-paying users, and became an early emblem of slack-jawed social networking hype. Flock received enormous coverage when it was unveiled in 2005, including …

    Applications 13 Apr 2011, 15:18

  • Help! I'm in an abusive relationship with my supplier

    Workshop Let's talk about it

    In a previous article we highlighted the various ways in which sales and service functions can be broken. If you are on the receiving end, then you have a legitimate right to protest and demand that things be made better. But some customers are troublesome for no good reason. They have been supplied with a good product or …

    Doing Better Business 13 Apr 2011, 16:00

  • Project Ceylon – Red Hat builds Java killer replacement

    Coder says Java crap at user interfaces

    Red Hat is developing a new Java Virtual Machine-based programming language intended to overcome the limitations of Java itself. Unveiled earlier this week by lead developer Gavin King at a conference in China, the effort is known as Project Ceylon. Early reports of King's presentation in Bejing painted Project Ceylon as a " …

    Developer 13 Apr 2011, 16:09

  • Schooner beefs MySQL appliance with active clusters

    Replication timing is everything

    MySQL database clustering needs some help, and Schooner Information Technology thinks it has cooked up the code to help companies that rely on MySQL do a better job scaling out their databases. "There's a widespread concern that MySQL clustering is a little kludgey, doesn't have great performance, and can sometimes lose …

    Servers 13 Apr 2011, 17:36

  • Microsoft breaks own world record for IE nonsense

    'Native HTML' pitch sets new standard for online balderdash

    Microsoft has a wonderfully amusing talent for undoing its own good work. Last month, Redmond unveiled Internet Explorer 9, a Microsoft browser that finally embraced web standards in a very big way. But any goodwill it may have won from the web community has already been undermined by the company's latest efforts to remarket …

    Applications 13 Apr 2011, 17:54

  • WordPress.com hack exposes confidential code

    Multiple servers rooted

    The company that maintains the WordPress.com blogging platform said hackers gained root access to its servers and made off with sensitive code belonging to it and its partners. Wednesday's advisory from Automattic is the latest to detail a breach on a company entrusted to keep customer information private. The company, which …

    Security 13 Apr 2011, 19:12

  • Microsoft Phone man offers guarantee-free glitch pledge

    MIX 2011 Phones are harder than PCs - who'da thunk?

    Microsoft will try to avoid the mistakes that bedeviled the NoDo update to handsets but Windows Phone chief Joe Belfiore has stopped short of issuing a guarantee. Belfiore, the corporate vice president responsible for Windows Phone product management and design, said on Wednesday that Microsoft has learned its lessons from the …

    Phones 13 Apr 2011, 19:53

  • Middle East questions get under RIM boss’s skin

    Interview ends when talk turns from products to security

    Research In Motion co-CEO Mike Lazaridis has terminated an interview with the BBC's Click programme when questioned about Blackberry security in the Middle East. The Blackberry boss was happy enough to talk up the company's new Playbook tablet machine. However, when asked about pressure from regimes to help wiretap Blackberry …

    Security 13 Apr 2011, 21:24

  • Earthquake emergency drives Kiwi copyright bill

    Three strikes and your city gets reconstructed?

    The New Zealand government has outraged internet users by rushing through a new anti-P2P copyright bill under cover of an emergency session of Parliament. Parliament had been called to deal with the country's Christchurch earthquake. During the session, it also pushed through its file-sharing bill under an "urgency" motion. …

    Law 13 Apr 2011, 21:49

  • Microsoft reveals WinPhone 7 'Mango' details

    Faster, more open, less battery suckage

    The next version of Windows Phone is getting faster, opening up and - Microsoft has promised - won't suck your battery dry. Microsoft on Wednesday unveiled changes in the version of Windows Phone codenamed Mango that will crack open the operating system so devs can finally work with smart-phones' camera data, compass and gyro …

    Phones 13 Apr 2011, 22:15

  • Intel on Itanium: 'It's all about the OS'

    'Poulson' in 2012. For sure

    The Big Statement from Intel on Itanium didn't happen at the company's Developer Forum, as many expected, but Intel did make a few more concrete statements about the processor in an effort to put Hewlett-Packard HP-UX, OpenVMS, and NonStop customers at ease after Oracle's announcement that it will cease development its database …

    Servers 13 Apr 2011, 22:21

  • Feds commandeer botnet, issue 'stop' command

    Notorious Coreflood gets dose of own medicine

    For the first time ever, the US government has attempted to take down a botnet by setting up a substitute control channel that temporarily disables the underlying malware running on hundreds of thousands of infected end user computers. The move, announced Wednesday after federal prosecutors seized domain names, IP addresses and …

    Security 13 Apr 2011, 23:55