The Register® — Biting the hand that feeds IT

Feeds

20th April 2011 Archive

Browse by publication date, or search the site.

  • Sinclair to leave ATUG

    Ann Hurley to lead in the interim

    The Australian Telecommunications User Group (ATUG) is to lose its popular managing director of ten years, Rosemary Sinclair, reports industry newsletter Communications Day. ATUG chairman David Swift has thanked Sinclair for her long contribution to the organization, telling Comms Day she had led the group through some very …

    Telecoms 20 Apr 00:05

  • ACCC decision cuts regulated transmission service prices

    Wholesale ADSL regulation a non-starter, however

    While backing away from further regulation of wholesale ADSL services, the ACCC has issued a new price determination for regulated transmission services. Its interim prices for backhaul services (the price wholesale customers pay for long-haul transmission) put in public what the industry has known for a long time: inter- …

    Telecoms 20 Apr 00:06

  • Optus signs up NSN for network upgrade

    LTE on its way

    Optus looks poised to launch LTE services after securing a ‘multi-million dollar’ deal with Nokia Siemens Networks as its sole packet core vendor. The carrier has been trialing LTE services since 2010 but has yet to commit to a roll out date. The head of Nokia Siemens Networks Australia and New Zealand Kalevi Kostiainen …

    Mobile 20 Apr 01:20

  • Minotron: 2112 on iOS 4

    iGamer Blast from the past

    A psychedelic 8-bit arena shooter featuring amorous ungulates and minotaurs in rainbow-coloured jumpers. The more you try to explain a Jeff Minter game, the more ridiculous it sounds. No need to dust down your Amiga or Atari thanks to the Minotaur Project For over 20 years, his company Llamasoft has created digital nonsense …

    reghardware 20 Apr 06:00

  • Sanity saver: Fedora 15 answers Ubuntu's Unity

    Review GNOME-3 leader for desktop Linux?

    The Fedora 15 beta from the Red-Hat sponsored Fedora Project has dropped squarely into a moment of uncertainty and upheaval for the Linux desktop. The planned new Unity interface for Ubuntu 11.04, that replaces GNOME, is rough start. And while GNOME 3 - Fedora's new default desktop - is considerably more mature than Unity, it' …

    Operating Systems 20 Apr 06:00

  • Intel CEO: 'We're porting Android 3.0 for tablets this year'

    Smartphones? Not until next year

    Intel's president and chief executive Paul Otellini says his company is hard at work porting Google's tablet-specific Android 3.0, aka Honeycomb, to the x86 architecture. "We've received the Android code – the Honeycomb version of Android source code – from Google, and we're actively doing the port on that," Otellini told …

    Mobile 20 Apr 06:00

  • Endeavour 'ready to go fly'

    Last launch of shuttle on 29 April

    Space shuttle Endeavour is "ready to go fly" on its 25th and final mission, and will bow out with a last trip to the International Space Station. The veteran vehicle will blast off on at 19:47 GMT on 29 April from Kennedy Space Centre's Launch Pad 39A. On board will be commander Mark Kelly (bottom centre) and (clockwise) pilot …

    Space 20 Apr 08:13

  • Pro-active service monitoring

    Live Today Prevention is better than cure

    Delivering a service is dependent on getting networks, storage, servers, operating systems, middleware and applications to work together to agreed levels. But we know how difficult it is to keep these complex chains running reliably; and problems get more acute as we throw virtualisation into the mix. The answer is to keep on …

    Site News 20 Apr 08:18

  • UK.gov torpedoes Computacenter product revs

    Continental subs relieve UK dog's breakfast

    Reseller giant Computacenter has declared a "satisfactory" start to he year, even as the UK government's austerity drive pulled helped drag down group revenues growth to 2 per cent. Overall performance for the year should be in line with management expectations the mega dealer said. Group product revenue was flat on the year …

    Channel Register 20 Apr 08:22

  • Virgin Media Q1 revenue climbs as signups fall

    Plans to test 1.5Gbit/s broadband

    Virgin Media saw total revenues were up 5.7 per cent in the company's first quarter ended 31 March 2011, despite a dip in the rate of increase of its customer base. It pulled in £982.3m in Q1, compared with £929.4m for the same period a year earlier. The company delivered operating income of £110.6m, up on 2010's £69.6m. …

    Telecoms 20 Apr 08:33

  • AutoTrader crashes off the road in DDoS congestion

    Sheer volume of traffic, innit

    AutoTrader has apologised for a hacking attack that saw its website slow to a crawl on Monday. The UK-based car sales portal blamed a "malicious third-party attack" for problems that left its site either "intermittently unavailable or extremely slow" from around mid-day on Monday until early around 2pm on Tuesday. AutoTrader …

    Enterprise Security 20 Apr 08:47

  • Shifty scripts on Santander site prompt security fears

    Updated Alliance & Leicester bothered by unknown Javascript

    Parent firm Santander is reassuring customers that the website of its banking subsidiary Alliance & Leicester is secure despite the presence of JavaScript on its login pages served up from recently created sites of unknown provenance. Reg reader Matt Freeman said he was prompted with a SSL certificate warning from a domain …

    Enterprise Security 20 Apr 08:56

  • Death threats against 'worst song ever' YouTube teen

    Cops probe demand for Rebecca Black oeuvre suppression

    Police in Anaheim, California, are "keeping an extra eye out" for net sensation Rebecca Black, following death threats against the teen singer. Black, 13, was catapulted to instant fame as the YouTube video of her song Friday went global, despite music lovers' description of the ditty as "the worst song ever". Following …

    Entertainment 20 Apr 09:00

  • Virgin Media says sorry over Superhub snafu

    Issues yet another firmware update

    Virgin Media has apologised to customers who have been struggling with its newly issued, but horribly flaky router/modem combo box, which has somewhat unfortunately been dubbed the "Superhub" by the cable company. "We are working closely with our hardware partner Netgear to resolve a reliability issue that has crept into a …

    Telecoms 20 Apr 09:02

  • Fast-fingered oldster relieves shop worker of iPhone cash

    Man coughed for dummy, unmagical device

    Surrey Police are hunting a slick-fingered 60-year-old who allegedly persuaded a shop worker to hand over £150 quid for a dummy iPhone. The Surrey Advertiser reports that the prestidigitateur bowled into a newsagents in Egham and asked if the staffer behind the till fancied paying £150 for a new iPhone. The assistant checked …

    Mobile 20 Apr 09:04

  • Doctor Who's Elisabeth Sladen dies at 63

    RIP Sarah Jane Smith

    Elisabeth Sladen has died at the age of 63, the BBC reports. The Liverpool-born actress had been "battling cancer for some time". A BBC spokesman said: "It is with much sadness that we can announce Elisabeth Sladen, the much-loved actress best known for her role as Sarah Jane Smith in Doctor Who and CBBC's The Sarah Jane …

    Entertainment 20 Apr 09:33

  • Angry Birds hatches a plan for Easter

    Eggcellent

    As you tire of gorging on Cadbury's creme eggs while waiting for the new Doctor Who to come on, why not turn your attention to Angry Birds this Easter - back again with yet another Seasons update. Easter Eggs for Angry Birds features 15 spring-themed levels, where the pigs wear bunny ears and there's plenty of golden eggs to …

    reghardware 20 Apr 09:39

  • T-Mobile turns Facebook telco

    Turning pokes into phone calls

    T-Mobile USA has launched itself onto Facebook, providing free VoIP calls between social networkers though the service is not yet integrated into the operator's mobile network. Bobsled by T-Mobile is a VoIP application integrated with Facebook to provide audio connections between users with a tap of the mouse, along with a …

    VoIP 20 Apr 09:44

  • US Army to issue Droid dev kit in July

    Battle-smartphones go to war in 2013

    The US Army has announced that it will soon throw open an Android dev kit allowing apps to be written for use by soldiers on a variety of combat handsets and devices. The military Droid framework is known as Mobile/Handheld Computing Environment (CE). "Using the Mobile /Handheld CE Product Developers Kit, we're going to allow …

    Mobile 20 Apr 09:46

  • Calling all commentards: Want some new icons?

    El Reg mulls graphic front expansion

    We at the El Reg Central Overseeing Commentard Soviet are considering whether to expand the available spread of comments icons to include some news images - the better for you, our beloved readers, to express yourselves with wit and elegance. If you reckon we need some fresh images to add to the above, post your suggestion/s …

    Site News 20 Apr 09:47

  • Bradley Manning to be moved to new military prison

    Shifted from Marine to Army custody

    US soldier Bradley Manning, held in military custody facing charges of leaking large amounts of classified data, is to be moved to a different jail. At present, Manning is being held in the US Marine Corps brig at Quantico, Virginia. According to an announcement by top Pentagon lawyer Jeh Johnson, he will now be moved to the …

    Government 20 Apr 10:16

  • Scottish news site admits coding mishap caused outage

    Not DDoS at all. Oh. Ahem. Carry on

    Alternative news site Newsnet Scotland has admitted that a coding cock-up rather than a denial of service attack by pro-Unionism political opponents, was behind the outage of its site earlier this week. Initially the outage looked like the result of a flood of traffic that had knocked the site offline. In reality, changes to a …

    Enterprise Security 20 Apr 10:21

  • Google gives Eric Schmidt 124,999,900% salary increase

    Then sets him to work interviewing Tina Fey

    Google has rewarded Eric Schmidt for shifting from the CEO's office to exec chairman by bumping up his salary from $1 to $1.25m. The company's latest filing at the SEC shows that Schmidt will also qualify for a bonus of 400 per cent of that salary. The filing also details the move of Alan Eustace from senior VP of engineering …

    Financial News 20 Apr 10:31

  • High Court squashes Digital Economy Act challenge

    BT and TalkTalk's filesharing gambit fails – for now

    The High Court has tossed out a legal gambit by BT and Talk Talk to derail the copyright infringement portions of the Digital Economy Act. The judges rejected the arguments that the provisions designed to clean up their networks were unfair. The ISPs did get tossed a scrap, though, but it is a technicality relating to costs, and …

    Law 20 Apr 10:44

  • Dynasty Warriors 7

    Review The art of score

    Parkouring across the backs of galloping horses; fighting while cascading down a majestic waterfall; evading a ball-and-chain attack before using the weapon’s momentum to swing to safety. What do these things have in common? Simply that they’re all shown in Dynasty Warrior 7’s rather epic FMV intro and they’re all acts you’ll …

    reghardware 20 Apr 11:00

  • iPhone 5 set for shelves this September

    More of the same?

    The iPhone 5 rumour mill is in full swing this morning after reports that the much-anticipated device will go into production this July, for shipping in September. With the sale of the white iPhone 4 anticipated this week, the focus is now to the next version of the handset, which, according to a Reuters report last night, …

    reghardware 20 Apr 11:13

  • UK Cyber Security Challenge renewal promises better prizes

    Can you hack it?

    The UK's Cyber Security Challenge is promising a renewal of the competition, with more competitions on a broader range of topics and better prizes. The Challenge, successfully run last year as a way of promoting interest in information security as a career and unearthing hidden pools of talent, is once again backed by the UK …

    Enterprise Security 20 Apr 11:14

  • UK.gov brings Whitehall procurement under one roof

    I'll have a 'P' please, Bob

    The government has created a new Chief Procurement Officer role in an effort to drive down costs by bringing the buying of goods and services under one roof in Whitehall. John Collington will head up UK.gov's efforts to centralise procurement spending and oversee the Buying Solutions agency. He previously worked in a very …

    Channel Register 20 Apr 11:17

  • PlayBook won't play nice with BlackBerries on AT&T

    Without syncing, it's just a toy

    RIM's new tablet the PlayBook won't synchronise with BlackBerrys on AT&T's network - a critical failing for a device which lacks an email client or calendar of its own. The PlayBook is supposed to spend most of its life synchronised with a nearby BlackBerry, operating as a stateless device for security reasons, but AT&T …

    Mobile 20 Apr 11:28

  • New double-barrelled Taser unveiled

    Two skeletons flashing on and off with one gun

    Taser International, the firm behind the famous, controversial electric stun weapons, has announced a new model. The double-barrelled Taser X2 can be discharged twice without reloading. Snap and crackle means less popping of caps, hopefully. The company had previously brought out a triple-barrelled X3 model – also available …

    Science 20 Apr 11:46

  • UK retailers reveal plans to push BlackBerry PlayBook

    Keep taking the tablets

    Research in Motion's BlackBerry PlayBook may not have a UK release date as yet, but several retailers have announced they will be selling the device when it does become available. Carphone Warehouse, Phones4U, Currys, PC World and Best Buy have all confirmed their involvement, although failed to divulge any further info with …

    reghardware 20 Apr 12:09

  • Cloud data centres and the billion client conundrum

    Interview Diving deep undercover

    For those of you about to go cloud, or indeed for those of you that remain unconvinced as to its benefits and why it might be for you, we have some help. Last week The Register’s own Tim Phillips met with Richard George from Intel. Richard is something of a cloud specialist and explains how cloud can change your plans for the …

    Enterprise Tech 20 Apr 12:26

  • .uk election called off due to lack of interest

    Nominet kisses goodbye to controversy

    After years of controversial and often fiercely contested leadership elections, .uk domain name overseer Nominet has cancelled its forthcoming directorship poll after only two people applied. Two non-executive seats on the Nominet board of directors were up for re-election this year but, due to the poor turnout, both …

    Telecoms 20 Apr 12:35

  • RIPA to be changed to demand full consent to monitoring

    UK drafts new amendments after accusations from EU of poor Phorm

    It will no longer be enough to have "reasonable grounds" to believe that someone had consented to monitoring of their communications under changes to the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act (RIPA) proposed by the Government. Putting notice of monitoring in terms and conditions will not be enough to count as consent to that …

    Law 20 Apr 12:42

  • SF fire dept lost computer password during massive blaze

    'Not like we'll have internet if Big One hits'

    San Francisco authorities appear to be having network problems again, after the Fire Department lost the password for its backup network in the middle of a major shout. The revelation came into an inquest into a major blaze in the North Beach area of the city on New Year's Eve which left 48 people homeless, the San Francisco …

    Telecoms 20 Apr 12:43

  • Skilling up the cloud: What it means for infosecurity pros

    Remote controls

    In its 2011 Global Information Security Workforce Study, Frost and Sullivan argues that cloud computing “illustrates a serious gap between technology implementation and the skills necessary to provide security”. The analyst firm’s survey of more than 10,000 information security professionals worldwide found widespread use of …

    Cloud 20 Apr 12:44

  • Scientists reveal eight-legged Jurassic beast

    Golden orb weaver 'the largest known fossil spider'

    In delightful news for arachnophobes, scientists have revealed the largest known fossil spider - a 165 million-year-old golden orb weaver whose legs spanned an impressive 15cm. The female Nephila jurassica (pictured - scale bar represents 5mm) was unearthed in Inner Mongolia. She's not only a record-breaker in legspan, but …

    Biology 20 Apr 12:49

  • Death to re-keying (but not yet?)

    Workshop Systems integration writ small

    Re-keying data is responsible for thousands of errors and thousands of wasted hours. It doesn't have to be this way, but many organisations are put off automating their systems by the daunting task of trying to integrate everything. Big integration projects do have a nasty habit of running over budget and missing deadlines: …

    Doing Better Business 20 Apr 12:57

  • Google hits 'fast forward' button on WebM codec love for YouTube

    Can I get a rewind?

    Google is transcoding all freshly uploaded videos into the WebM format on its popular YouTube website, and it wants the world to know about it. The company, which has been slotting the codec into YouTube in recent months, reaffirmed the move in a blog post yesterday. Google's back catalogue of most heavily viewed videos ( …

    Applications 20 Apr 13:02

  • ICO says it doesn't need to use its 'big stick'

    Fewer than one in 500 breaches result in fines

    Despite increased powers to levy fines for breaches of UK data protection rules, the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) is only using these powers in a tiny fraction of cases. A Freedom of Information request from encryption specialist ViaSat, made public on Wednesday, revealed that 2,565 data breaches had been reported …

    Law 20 Apr 13:29

  • VMware surfs virtualization wave in Q1

    SMB expansion balances enterprise discounting

    VMware has been able to more or less hold the line on its pricing for its enterprise server virtualization tools despite intense competition from Microsoft and Citrix Systems. But with the first big wave of enterprise license agreements coming up for renewal, the virtualization juggernaut has had to start discounting a bit. …

    Cloud 20 Apr 13:49

  • Spyeye sperm-blimp in US flight trials

    Owning company changes name for third time

    A company seeking to sell novel, sperm-like robot airships for surveillance missions says that its "Argus One" tadpole spy blimp has "completed initial flight testing". The firm has also renamed itself for the third time. Vorsprung durch samenzellenluftschifftechnik. The airship in question was formerly known as the STS-111 …

    Space 20 Apr 14:47

  • Infosmack tackles VMware's Cloud Foundry

    Episode 95 Rabbits about the Cloud Bunny

    Without further ado, it's time for another Infosmack, the world's best podcast about enterprise tech. Special guest this week is Christian Reilly, principal technology architect at a large multinational and "ex-president of the public cloud", but more recently the self anointed "president of the platform cloud", as well as a …

    Cloud 20 Apr 15:31

  • Intel's Xeon biz bolstered by server refreshes

    Cloudy thinking on cloudy infrastructure

    The PC market may go into a slump this year thanks to booming tablet sales, but as far as Intel can see, the server refresh cycle is accelerating as companies want to get rid of their ancient x64 boxes. As Intel has said many times, the Great Recession put the upgrade of millions of servers on hold, and in a lot of data …

    Cloud 20 Apr 15:37

  • Tesco buys Blinkbox

    Supermoviemarket

    Tesco has bought an 80 per cent stake in the movie streaming service Blinkbox for an undisclosed sum. In other words, Tesco will become a competitor to Amazon's Lovefilm and will offer films to buy and rent, both physically in-store and virtually over the net. "The acquisition of Blinkbox, together with a range of other …

    reghardware 20 Apr 16:40

  • iPhones secretly track 'scary amount' of your movements

    Your location down to the second, researchers say

    Apple's iPhone and iPad constantly track users' physical location and store the data in unencrypted files that can be read by anyone with physical access to the device, computer researchers said. The file, which is stored on both the iOS device and any computers that store backups of its data, can be used to reconstruct a …

    ID 20 Apr 18:10

  • Amazon to lend Kindle books at 11,000 US libraries

    Check it out

    Amazon is preparing a new service called Kindle Lending Library that will allow users of its popular e-reader to check out Amazonian ebooks from 11,000 neighborhood and educational libraries. "We're excited that millions of Kindle customers will be able to borrow Kindle books from their local libraries," said Amazon Kindle …

    Music and Media 20 Apr 18:14

  • Google invites enterprise atop Google Maps, Earth

    Your maps, on the Earth, in the, er, cloud

    Google has unveiled a new service that lets businesses upload, process, and share mapping data via its familiar Google Maps and Google Earth platforms. Announced today and scheduled for general availability in the third quarter, Google Earth Builder is meant to replace old-school GIS (geospatial information system) desktop …

    Cloud 20 Apr 18:15

  • Feds rubberstamp Novell patent deal

    Microsoft group will be watched

    The US government will permit the sale of 882 Novell patents to a Microsoft-led consortium after the group agreed revise its deal. But although the US Department of Justice (DoJ) is letting the deal proceed, it has warned that it will investigate distribution of Novell's patents to the consortium, known as CPTN Holdings. …

    Software 20 Apr 19:57

  • Vic Cops kill A$45M A$60M A$100M IT upgrade

    LEAP to Link falls short by millions

    A failed IT systems project looks like it might stall the career of the Victorian Police Chief Commissioner Simon Overland. According to a report in the Sydney Morning Herald (via AAP), police minister Peter Ryan has expressed only “muted support” for the commissioner following the debacle. The force has estimated that the …

    Business 20 Apr 20:20

  • Facebook, HP, and OpenStack join Linux patent shield

    The same shield that didn't protect Android from Oracle

    Facebook, HP, and the OpenStack project have joined the Open Invention Network (OIN), a consortium of organizations intent on protecting Linux and related open-source software from legal attack. On Wednesday, the OIN announced that in the first quarter, 74 new organizations joined its "community" as licensees, including …

    Software 20 Apr 21:01

  • Apple stuns Wall Street with 95% earnings surge

    'We're firing on all cylinders,' says Jobs

    Apple blew past the Wall Street moneymen's predictions for its financial performance in the second quarter of its fiscal year 2011, posting record Q2 revenue of $24.67bn along with record Q2 net profit of $5.99bn. "We're firing on all cylinders," said CEO Steve Jobs in a prepared statement. "We will continue to innovate on all …

    Financial News 20 Apr 21:05

  • ARM's Intel challenger set for 2012 release

    Tablets, smartphones, PCs, servers...

    ARM Holdings' high-performance, low-power Cortex-A15 processor design will appear in products in late 2012 or early 2013, when it will begin to muscle in on territory long dominated by Intel's x86 architecture. "With our upcoming Cortex-A15 processor, we are definitely moving closer to the day when your smartphone or tablet …

    Channel Register 20 Apr 21:14

  • Engineer who sued Cisco arrested for hacking it

    Collusion between Cisco and prosecutors alleged

    A former Cisco engineer was arrested for allegedly hacking into the company's network 18 months after he waged a civil lawsuit accusing Cisco of monopolizing the business of servicing and maintaining its networking gear, according to a report citing a Canadian arrest warrant issue in the case. According to IDG News, Peter …

    Crime 20 Apr 23:28

  • Mozilla slips SpiderMonkey into Dev Platform of the Future™

    Climbs on servers, aims war cry at Google

    Mozilla is building its own version of Node.js – the increasingly popular open source platform for coding server-side applications with JavaScript – moving Node from Google's V8 JavaScript engine to its own SpiderMonkey engine. "We think V8 is great and the fact that Node has become so widely used is a testament to that. But …

    Developer 20 Apr 23:33