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9th May 2011 Archive

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  • Intel's Tri-Gate gamble: It's now or never

    Analysis Deep dive into Chipzilla's last chance at the low end

    There are two reasons why Intel is switching to a new process architecture: it can, and it must. The most striking aspect of Intel's announcement of its new Tri-Gate process isn't the architecture itself, nor is it the eye-popping promises of pumped-up performance and dialed-down power. And it certainly isn't the Chipzillian …

    PCs & Chips 9 May 2011, 03:00

  • Dell sharpens four-socket Opteron blade

    More cores, less bucks

    It has been more than a year since Advanced Micro Devices got its "Magny-Cours" Opteron 6100 processors to market, and server makers are still rolling out new form factors of machines that make use of the twelve-core x64 chips. It's Dell's turn, with a hefty four-socket blade that packs the kind of memory expansion hypervisors …

    Servers 9 May 2011, 04:00

  • Communication aid sends CU team to New York

    ‘Brain Speller’ wins Imagine Cup in Oz

    A combination of hardware and software designed to allow the severely disabled to communicate through computers has taken out the Australian Imagine Cup. The Canberra University group that submitted the entry will be “Team Australia” at Microsoft’s Imagine Cup 2011, which will be contested by 400 students from around the world …

    Science 9 May 2011, 05:00

  • Ten... fantasy gadgets you wish you owned

    Fictional Product Round-up Look to the future

    Tomorrow is always round the corner in the world of tech, and gadgets that started life in the imaginations of mad folk are starting to become a possibility. Tools that give us superpowers may seem impossible, but ultramobile computing is a reality these days, with commonplace kit that seems more capable than devices Gene …

    reghardware 9 May 2011, 07:00

  • Choosing a desktop OS

    Webcast How do you do it correctly?

    There are few topics in the IT industry that are more divisive than the option of putting anything other than Windows on the corporate desktop. Too often opinions are focused on either transforming the entire desktop estate to Linux in a major upheaval or keeping Linux out completely.Yet when we look at how we buy hardware for …

    Tech Panel 9 May 2011, 08:15

  • Shoden Data CEO dies suddenly

    Obituary John Taffinder was veteran of HDS, 3PAR

    Shoden Systems UK has lost its CEO: John Taffinder passed away at home on Monday, 25 April. He was a terrific guy and will be sorely missed. His IT life started with COBOL, writing code for British Steel in Port Talbot after graduating as an accountant. He then headed east across the Severn Bridge and climbed IT's career …

    Channel Register 9 May 2011, 09:09

  • The object of Dell's exercise

    Adds file access to object box

    Dell has added file access to its DX6000 object storage platform. The DX6000 is shipped by Dell with object storage software from Caringo. Dell has said it is going to add Ocarina file optimisation and compression to it and possibly scale-out NAS (network-attached storage) based on the IP from its Exanet acquisition. The …

    Storage 9 May 2011, 09:10

  • Pippa Middleton in $5m grumble flick offer

    Smut fame beckons princess's sis

    Kate Middleton's sis Pippa has been offered a juicy $5m to get her kit off for "just one explicit scene" in a porn movie. The 27-year-old's impressive display at the recent royal nuptials attracted the attention of Vivid Entertainment's Steven Hirsch, who wrote: "As far as I was concerned, you were the star of the recent Royal …

    Bootnotes 9 May 2011, 09:12

  • Apple ousts Google in brand value

    Perception versus reality

    Apple is a more valuable brand than Google, according to rankings from marketeers. Confusingly, Apple's brand is worth less than the stock market reckons and Google is also valued more highly by financial analysts than by the marketing department. The "Brandz 2011" survey valued Apple's brand at $153bn, up 84 per cent on last …

    Financial News 9 May 2011, 09:21

  • Nude gardener's arse hauled into court

    'Distressed' neighbours protest 'indecent' horticulture

    A 62-year-old Gloucestershire naturist with a penchant for pruning in the buff was cuffed for indecent exposure and now faces three charges of outraging public decency. Donald Sprigg was hauled before Cheltenham Magistrates Court accused of causing his Cirencester neighbours 'harassment, alarm or distress', the Daily Mail …

    Bootnotes 9 May 2011, 09:33

  • Huawei celebrates UK win with Everything Everywhere

    Today: a 2G refurb. Tomorrow: the world

    Chinese kit supplier Huawei has scored a win with EE, signing a deal to upgrade the operator's 2G infrastructure and hoping to be in prime position when it comes to 4G too. Over the next four years, Huawei will replace the entire 2G network that Everything Everywhere inherited from the merger of T-Mobile and Orange. The shiny …

    Telecoms 9 May 2011, 10:11

  • Queen to get an iPad (the Queen, not a queen)

    Has a liking for things with shiny tops

    The Queen is to join the nation's fangirl slab-fondlers, according to reports. The fabulous soaraway Sun has the story, quoting "a royal insider" as saying that the monarch was introduced to the joys of the iPad by her grandsons Princes Wills and Harry. "The princes think it is hilarious," the person familiar with the royal …

    Bootnotes 9 May 2011, 10:12

  • HP shows off laptop revamp

    Notebooks and netbook

    HP has rolled out its Spring 2011 Consumer PC collection in the States. The key machines: a revamped Mini 210 netbook and new Pavilion dv4 and Envy 14 notebooks. HP Envy 14 The Envy 14 gets Intel's second-generation Core i processors - the Sandy Bridge platform - plus USB 3.0 and CoolSense, HP's name for a dynamic clocking …

    reghardware 9 May 2011, 10:22

  • Bletchley Park opens U-110 Enigma exhibit

    Today marks 70th anniversary of code-cruncher-carrying U-boat's capture

    An exhibit commemorating the 70th anniversary of the capture of an Enigma machine and codebooks from a German wartime submarine has opened in Bletchley Park. The exhibition contains photographs of the capture of the secret coding device of the U-boat 110 on 9 May 1941, as well as the first-hand account of the 20-year-old sub …

    Bootnotes 9 May 2011, 10:30

  • Microsoft coughs to wobbly Office Live problems

    Week-long account access frustration for some small biz customers

    Microsoft has admitted that its soon-to-be retired Office Live product has been struggling to serve up accounts and websites for its small business customers for the best part of a week. "The issue has been resolved and the service is now functioning normally. We sincerely apologise for any inconvenience," wrote product …

    Small Biz 9 May 2011, 10:45

  • Dell fashions (more of) its own network switches

    With a little help from Brocade and Aruba

    With Cisco Systems having alienated its server partners by coming onto their own turf, the server makers have very little choice but to retaliate and build up their own networking businesses. And consider that it is they, and not Cisco, that control the data center accounts, it is with a certain amount of glee that Hewlett- …

    Data Networking 9 May 2011, 11:00

  • Twitterer 'outs' alleged superinjunction celebs

    OMG!

    Several celebrities have already come forward to deny claims by a user on Twitter over the weekend that they are the individuals behind "super injunctions. The Twitter account-holder, who apparently set up the account on Sunday, posted a number of claims about several big names over the weekend. Jemima Khan used her own …

    Law 9 May 2011, 11:11

  • HTC Facebook branded, buttoned phones appear online

    Amazon spills dancing beans

    HTC will have two Facebook-branded phones out next month, according to Amazon.co.uk, which has now posted pages for the handsets. Both will go on sale on 26 June, the retailer reckons, Sim free and complete with a dedicated Facebook button. HTC ChaCha The £250 ChaCha is a BlackBerry-style boy with a fixed Qwerty keyboard …

    reghardware 9 May 2011, 11:12

  • Big Blue tapes up big data

    IBM's 4TB format

    IBM is announcing a raft of tape-related products, including a new tape format and better robotics for its high-end tape library. It is positioning tape as an integrated archival tier of data storage. The new TS1140 drive and format holds 4TB of native data per cartridge – 20 per cent less than the Oracle T10000c 5TB – but …

    Storage 9 May 2011, 11:16

  • Climate Change 'wise men' recommend more nukes, power cuts

    Some things don't just add up

    When we last met the Climate Change Committee – the statutory advisory body of "wise men" that makes global warming policy recommendations for the UK – they were urging politicians to make red meat an expensive luxury. If beef or lamb were as expensive as truffles are today, they suggested, we could save the planet from runaway …

    Energy 9 May 2011, 11:50

  • Motorola Xoom

    Review A slab of 10in Honeycomb goodness

    You will be aware that 2011 is supposed to be the year that Android tablets hit the big-time. In case you missed it, the explosion of new devices was supposed to happen at Easter. In the event, many launches have since been put back to later in the year, while other products have been launched but are plainly impossible to buy …

    reghardware 9 May 2011, 12:02

  • IBM doubles up Storwize V7000

    Cluster fluster

    Big Blue has added 2-system clustering and 10GbitE to the Storwize V7000, meaning double the space, more scalability and faster host access. The V7000 was introduced in October 2010 and has had one of the fastest product ramps in IBM's history with more than 1,800 systems sold to more than 1,000 worldwide customers since …

    Storage 9 May 2011, 12:14

  • ICO issues half-baked cookies guidance

    Advice for websites - consumers, not yet

    The Information Commissioner's Office has alerted UK public and private sector organisations that from 25 May 2011 they will need the consent of the users of their websites before setting a cookie or similar information-gathering technology on a site. Amendments to the Privacy and Electronic Communications Regulations will …

    Government 9 May 2011, 12:19

  • Computers taught to sing using autotuning talent show

    Avoids need for 'fictionalised family tragedies'

    Japanese boffins say they have developed a process whereby computers can be taught to sing so well that they are indistinguishable from talented human performers. It was already possible to produce artificial singing, by inputting lyrics and musical scores into software packages such as Vocaloid. The results are easily …

    Applications 9 May 2011, 12:51

  • MobileMe drove Steve Jobs to foul-mouthed fury

    If Steve Jobs were an App he'd ban himself from the App Store

    Apple fanbois were shocked to the core today at the news that not only does Steve Jobs swear but that the sainted one actually declared that a Mac product was a pile of steaming crap. Jobs' alleged tendency to rant and rage at his cowering VPs was revealed in a piece by Fortune magazine. The piece itself is subscription only …

    Applications 9 May 2011, 12:54

  • TalkTalk serves up website blocking to users

    First we stalk, then you walk the limited interwebs walk

    TalkTalk just became the first major UK internet service provider to implement network-level anti-malware blockers on its service. The system has arrived later than originally planned, after the company quietly begun following its customers around the web and scanning what they looked at last summer as part of TalkTalk's …

    Telecoms 9 May 2011, 13:21

  • Sony mulls hacker bounty offer

    Cash for Anonymous heads on platters

    Sony execs are mulling the possibility of offering bounties for any information that leads to the arrests of hackers who breached its network. The unspecified reward might be only offered by Sony through the FBI in a bid to tease out information on a security breach that affected as many as 100 million customers, All Things …

    Enterprise Security 9 May 2011, 13:22

  • Las Vegas EMC Confidential

    Comment Off the record, on the QT and very hush-hush

    Midnight in Las Vegas and the slots are humming all along the Strip. The girls' dresses are hitched higher than their voices, and through these mean casinos a grifter must go, on the hunt for all the EMC skinny that he knows is out there, before EMC World begins. Dear readers, we heard things we were not meant to hear, asked …

    Storage 9 May 2011, 13:29

  • LinkedIn sets float price

    Social networks for suits

    Facebook for workers website LinkedIn has set the price for which its shares will initially be sold. The company will sell shares at between $32 and $35 each, which will raise about $271m. This is the first time that LinkedIn is offering shares to the public. It is selling 7.84 million shares, according to MarketWatch. The …

    Financial News 9 May 2011, 13:55

  • Entrants called for 80s-era games coding contest

    Write your own Speccy/C64/Model B hit

    Want to program like it's 1989 - or even earlier? Swindon's Museum of Computing is holding its first 80s-themed games coding contest this saturday. Despite its name, the Bedroom Programming Challenge is no nod to post-coital coding or a showcase for the latest in teledildonics but harks back to a time when "anybody with a …

    reghardware 9 May 2011, 14:18

  • OpenID warns of 'psychic paper' authentication attack

    Baddies can modify cross-site personal data ... though no one has yet

    OpenID has warned of bugs in its authentication technology that create a possible means for hackers to modify data sent between sites. The flaw is noteworthy because many high-profile sites – including Google, Yahoo! and Flickr – use the technology so that once users have logged into one site, they aren't constantly prompted …

    ID 9 May 2011, 16:04

  • CEOP to retain ops control under National Crime Agency

    UK.gov says 'vital work' will continue, despite criticism

    The government, in an effort to allay criticism about its decision to fold the Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre (CEOP) into a new National Crime Agency along with other bodies, confirmed today that the agency would retain operational control. In October last year, the organisation's then-CEO Jim Gamble resigned …

    Policing 9 May 2011, 16:17

  • Shhh! HP's cloud is called, er, Scalene

    Exclusive 'Our cloud is like a wompus triangle'

    Hewlett-Packard's as-yet-unannounced cloud will likely be known as HP Scalene, according to a recent trademark filing and domain registration. Apparently, HP is naming its cloud after a triangle. Or a neck muscle. Or a small ridge on your first rib. But the company spokesperson declined to comment on the moniker. In March, at …

    Platform 9 May 2011, 17:46

  • Feds raid home of teen fingered in DDoS on Gene Simmons

    Attack followed tongue-lashing against file-sharers

    Federal authorities have raided the home of a suburban Washington family after tracing a crippling attack on the website of Kiss frontman and anti-piracy crusader Gene Simmons to an internet connection there. According to an affidavit filed by FBI Special Agent Scott Love, the distributed denial-of-service attacks on www. …

    Crime 9 May 2011, 19:35

  • HP unveils biz laptops with pay-as-you-go 3G

    Wireless DataPass

    It's notebook-rollout day for HP. In addition to a new lineup of consumer-level lap-warmers, the world's biggest PC manufacturer has also released a trio of business-class models and inaugurated a pay-as-you-go 3G mobile broadband service. The new ProBook 5330m Notebook PC dispenses with the multicolored Christmas lights of …

    PCs & Chips 9 May 2011, 19:40

  • Microsoft's iOS and Android love deepens

    While WinPhone fans get abused

    If there’s one group Microsoft can’t shower enough love on right now, it’s those building apps for iPhone and Android. Early Windows Phone 7 adopters are another matter. On Monday, Microsoft gave its second gift in two weeks to iOS coders, releasing a toolkit for “easily” building iOS apps that work with its Azure cloud. The …

    Developer 9 May 2011, 21:00

  • HP flexes fabrics to flatten campus networks

    And maybe Cisco, too

    HP is taking its networking fight with Cisco Systems out of the data center and into corporate campuses and branch offices. Cisco has made a fortune – maybe several fortunes – selling multiple-tiered Layer 2/3 networks that span data centers, campuses, and branch offices, and the company's rivals are trying to flatten and …

    Data Networking 9 May 2011, 21:02

  • Optus, IPstar win A$300m NBN deal

    Gilat to supply the kit

    Optus, Gilat and IPstar will provide interim satellite services to NBN Co, the Australian government-owned company building the National Broadband Network, from July 1 this year in a A$300 million deal. NBN Co’s satellite and fixed-wireless services are intended to serve the seven per cent of the nation’s premises that its …

    Telecoms 9 May 2011, 21:04

  • Optus finally plays Fetch

    Set to launch Krishnan’s IPTV service in Q2

    After over a year of denials, Optus has finally confirmed that it will be working with Malaysian billionaire Ananda Krishnan’s IPTV outfit FetchTV. FetchTV has been in negotiations with Optus for over two years to develop an IPTV service for the carrier’s network. It is understood that Optus was under pressure from parent …

    Telecoms 9 May 2011, 21:18

  • WikiLeaks: East Timor knocked back high-tech Chinese spy base

    Beijing offered free radar to 'monitor shipping'

    Australia’s northern neighbour East Timor recently knocked back Chinese offers to build a free radar to monitor shipping, on the suspicion that Beijing actually wanted to build a spy base in the tiny nation. The allegation is contained in WikiLeaks cables which, for the moment at least, have been handed exclusively to Fairfax …

    Government 9 May 2011, 21:22

  • Aussie synchrotron in doubt after Victoria pulls funding

    Spiked by price tag and politics

    The Victorian state government has put the future of the Australia Synchotron in doubt by saying it will not continue to fund the operation of the facility. The synchrotron, built in Melbourne by the previous ALP state government, cost A$200 million to build. However, it’s the operational cost that the new Liberal state …

    Science 9 May 2011, 21:58

  • Whitehats break out of Google Chrome sandbox

    ASLR and DEP, too

    Researchers say they've developed attack code that pierces key defenses built into Google's Chrome browser, allowing them to reliably execute malware on end user machines. The attack contains two separate exploits so it can bypass the security counter measures, which include address space layout randomization (or ASLR), data …

    Security 9 May 2011, 22:00

  • Defence thin client trial gets OK

    Government also rubber-stamps "networked soldier" project

    Despite being battered by scandal and at loggerheads with its minister, the Australian Defence Force has been permitted to invest in trialling thin client computers and rolling out new telecoms networks. The thin client trial would test the new desktops with 15,000 of the ADF’s 75,000 users. Since thin clients can be more …

    Government 9 May 2011, 22:28

  • HP lands handy half-billion taxman deal

    Corrected: Hosting ATO data centres

    The Australian Tax Office will spend A$738 million migrating its servers into data centres operated by Hewlett-Packard. Announcing the agreement, HP has said it will also be deploying its Network Node Manager, Operations Manager, along with server and network automation software to modernize the ATO’s data centre ops. The …

    Government 9 May 2011, 22:44

  • Man sentenced to 3 years for ATM hack scheme

    Attempted heist worth $200,000

    A North Carolina man has been sentenced to three years in prison after admitting he planned to pocket as much as $200,000 by hacking into automatic teller machines. Thor Alexander Morris, 20, targeted at least 35 ATMs in the Houston area that were vulnerable to attacks that let hackers administer them, according to court …

    Crime 9 May 2011, 23:26

  • SnapLogic demos 'Hadoop for humans'

    It's a SnapReduce. Apparently

    SnapLogic – an outfit that lets businesses connect various back-end applications – has demonstrated a tool that plugs its service into Hadoop, the open source distributed number-crunching platform based on Google's proprietary MapReduce technology. Known as SnapReduce, the tool is designed to take "Big Data" from various …

    Platform 9 May 2011, 23:37

  • Judge approves handover of BitTorrent IP addresses

    Sly Stallone freetard fans to be outed

    A judge has granted a movie producer the right to subpoena ISPs seeking the identity of anybody who downloaded the Sylvester Stallone movie The Expendables. Wired is reporting that the US Copyright Group (which contracts its mass-litigation services to Nu Image) expects to go after 23,000 file sharers whom it believes …

    Music and Media 9 May 2011, 23:40

  • Google says Android 'club' makes phone makers 'do what we want'

    Lawsuit outs email from Android open source man

    Last summer, in a private email message, the open source and compatibility program manager for Google's Android mobile operating system told a colleague that Google uses Android compatibility as a "club" to make phone makers "do what we want". As reported by The New York Times, the email was turned up as part of the lawsuit …

    Developer 9 May 2011, 23:41