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10th May 2011 Archive

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  • Cray to upgrade UK's Hector super, buff bottom line

    Government budgets an Achilles' heel in Q1

    Supercomputer maker Cray's business softened in the first quarter of 2011 because of international government-budget issues, but it did have a bit of good news to lessen the disappointment of investors thanks to a Scottish super named for a Trojan warrior. In the quarter that ended this March 31, Cray had a ridiculously easy …

    Financial News 10 May 2011, 00:40

  • Australia cuts solar subsidies, and not before time

    It's becoming competitive, and doesn't need support

    Before anybody denounces me as being “anti-solar” I want to put this on the record: I own 16 solar panels, a largish inverter, and because the system was built in the days before grid-connect arrived in Australia, a decent-sized bank of batteries. Australia is now host to a lively – in fact, heated – debate over the way …

    Science 10 May 2011, 01:00

  • Nvidia snags fast-rising mobile chip maker

    Icera's software-happy modems too tasty to resist

    Nvidia has made yet another move that proves it's dead serious about the mobile market, announcing plans to fork over $367m to acquire baseband-processor developer Icera of Bristol in the UK. "This is a key step in Nvidia's plans to be a major player in the mobile computing revolution," said company president and CEO Jen-Hsun …

    Financial News 10 May 2011, 03:00

  • Do-Not-Track bill introduced in US Senate

    Data collection opt out mulled

    A US senator has introduced a privacy bill that would prevent websites from following the online behavior of users who want to opt out of such tracking. Dubbed the Do-Not-Track Online Act of 2011 (PDF here), the measure would give the Federal Trade Commission authority to draft specific rules about how and when consumers could …

    Security 10 May 2011, 04:00

  • Microsoft resuscitates 'I'm a PC' ads to fight Apple

    PCs have come a long way since the PC

    In desperate need for something – anything – to stop the advance of the iPad and Android, Microsoft is trying to convince consumers that the PC is as modern a computing device as any tablet. On Monday, Microsoft will hit US TV audiences with a new ad campaign that updates its "I'm a PC" spot from a few years back, which was …

    The Channel 10 May 2011, 04:39

  • Mellanox cranks 1U switches to 40GE

    Flips the SwitchX

    Two weeks after unveiling its switch-hitting, two-timing SwitchX ASIC for InfiniBand and Ethernet switches and routers, Mellanox has rolled out the first switches that make use of the chip. In this case, the SwitchX chip is being used to make a line of 40 Gigabit Ethernet switches aimed at bandwidth and low-latency freaks like …

    Data Networking 10 May 2011, 05:00

  • How to make Azure more appealing to Java and Open Source developers

    Comment Putting on the glitz

    Microsoft has been reaching out to developers who use third-party languages and applications with a raft of initiatives and announcements. Many developers are surprised when by the comprehensiveness of the company’s Interoperability Bridges and Labs Center. But it has to do more to win Java and Open Source developers over to …

    Cloud Developer 10 May 2011, 06:00

  • Tilera preps 100-core chips for network gear

    Massively multicore server chips loom

    Upstart multicore chip maker Tilera is using the Interop networking trade show as the coming out party for its long-awaited Tile-Gx series of processors, which top out at 100 cores on a single die. The company is rolling out the Tile-Gx processors, which it first revealed back in October 2009, at Interop in Las Vegas this week …

    HPC 10 May 2011, 06:00

  • Google Docs

    Android App of the Week Documents on the go

    Three years after Android first stuck its head over the parapet, Google has at long last graced its smartphone OS with an official app for Documents, the third leg of the Google Trinity after Gmail and Maps.    The UI (left) is twit-proof, but you can only create documents online (right) The front end consists of a simple …

    reghardware 10 May 2011, 07:00

  • Microsoft poised to make biggest ever buy – Skype

    P2P blabbernet seduces another sugar daddy

    Microsoft is close to buying VoIP service Skype for about $8.5bn. An announcement could come as soon as today according to sources collared by the Wall Street Journal. But the paper cautioned that the deal was not final and may still fall through. The deal would be Microsoft's biggest ever, costing in the region of $8.5bn …

    Broadband 10 May 2011, 07:49

  • EMC redefines its flash future

    EMC World Flash fast forward

    EMC is starting to bet its primary data farm on flash, announcing multi-level cell flash SSDs for its arrays, all-flash arrays and, in a surprise move, server-side flash integrated with array side flash, code-named Project Lightning. The company has already shipped all-flash arrays to customers who requested such customised …

    Storage 10 May 2011, 09:46

  • Steady as she goes at Capita

    Signs of life in outsourcing

    Capita reckons the outsourcing market is picking up after a quiet 2009 and 2010. Even public sector contracts are coming back to life especially in local government and defence. In an interim management statement, Capita said it saw a solid performance in the first four months of 2011. It expects to hit targets for revenue …

    The Channel 10 May 2011, 09:51

  • Garmin intros roadcam-fed satnavs

    See what the hold-up is

    Garmin has pushed its latest satnav out of the garage, adding a novel feature to the list of satnav regulars: live traffic cam pictures. Yes, the NüLink 2300 line of GPS gadgets - different models provide different maps - will feed you video from roadside cameras to convince Doubting Thomas motorists that the gadget is right …

    reghardware 10 May 2011, 09:51

  • DWP's poor IT systems threaten back-to-work scheme

    Multiple closed systems could hobble welfare-to-work programme – supplier

    IT issues threaten the effectiveness of the government's single welfare-to-work scheme, according to the Department for Work and Pensions' (DWP) IT training and software provider. Written evidence to Parliament's Work and Pensions Committee includes a submission by Seetec, warning that the Work Programme could be could be …

    The Channel 10 May 2011, 09:55

  • Space shuttle Endeavour finally off next Monday

    Last mission begins on 16 May

    NASA has announced that space shuttle Endeavour will finally blast off on its 25th and final mission at 12:56 GMT on 16 May. The launch to the International Space Station was aborted on 29 April due to a heater failure in the spacecraft's Auxiliary Power Unit, later traced to a blown circuit in a switchbox inside the engine …

    Science 10 May 2011, 09:57

  • Isilon bigs up up data capacity

    EMC World 3TB disk drives

    Isilon has increased the capacity of its NL nearline archival system to 108TB by using 3TB drives. Isilon has a three-product lineup: the S-Series, which is focused on high-performance; the mid-range X-Series line; and the NL-Series, a system for archiving or nearline data. Isilon NL systems come with a maximum of 72TB of …

    Storage 10 May 2011, 10:11

  • Archos Windows tablet gets CPU upgrade

    SSD too

    Archos has updated its Archos 9 Windows 7 tablet with a faster Intel Atom CPU - 1.2GHz this time, up from 1.1GHz - and a 32GB SSD in place of the previous model's HDD. The gadget runs Windows 7 Starter - the netbook-centric version of the OS. The display is netbook-like too: it's 8.9in with a 1024 x 600 resolution. Wireless …

    reghardware 10 May 2011, 10:32

  • IPCC report: Renewables can never meet energy demand

    Unless most people die or remain miserably poor

    The UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has issued teasers ahead of an upcoming report into renewable energy. The IPCC says that "close to 80 per cent of the world’s energy supply could be met by renewables by mid-century". However this is derived from the most optimistic possible scenario for renewables, and …

    Science 10 May 2011, 10:43

  • WTF is... IPv6?

    Address to impress

    On the 8 June, it’ll be World IPv6 Day – a coordinated effort by major services on the internet, including Google and Facebook, to provide their services using the new version of the Internet Protocol. It’s part of the plans to cope with internet addresses ‘running out'. But just what is IPv6 - and what does it mean for most …

    reghardware 10 May 2011, 11:00

  • Would Microsoft's Skype buy strengthen Lync or push it off a cliff?

    Analysis Talk is cheap, and $8bn is a lot

    Is Microsoft preparing to school Skype in technology that it recently described as the "next generation of unified comms", or has the company spotted a hole in its VoIP strategy that can only be filled by an expensive acquisition? Worse than that, might Redmond simply be circling Skype with a potential multi-billion dollar …

    Broadband 10 May 2011, 11:14

  • Spotify's music manager makeover - does it work?

    Join their download club, use your iPod, scratch your head...

    Last week, Spotify announced perhaps the biggest overhaul to its service since its launch. It has taken several days to roll out and is very interesting. Most of the attention in early reports was on one technical feature: the ability to sync music with Apple's iPods and iPhones. But it is as interesting for the new commercial …

    Media 10 May 2011, 11:15

  • Israeli hover-jeep returns to flight testing

    Would you trust a robot to fly out your injured buddy?

    The "AirMule" robot hover-jeep being developed in Israel is back in flight tests following modifications: but the radical ducted-fan VTOL craft still has yet to fly untethered. Easier to push about on the ground, too. According to makers Urban Aeronautics: Our AirMule prototype has recently resumed its flight testing after …

    Science 10 May 2011, 11:15

  • Google will throw open lid on music locker service today

    No licence? No problem. Just look at YouTube

    Google is expected to barge into the music industry this afternoon with the launch of its own music locker service, without prior approval from record labels. The search and ads giant is expected to open up on its locker service at its I/O developer conference, the Wall Street Journal said, citing those omniscient people …

    Media 10 May 2011, 11:16

  • Cable thieves cost UK rail £15m a year

    Six attacks a day

    Copper thieves are costing Network Rail £15m a year and causing 6,000 hours of delays. In the last three years the thefts have cost £43m, and last year attacks went up 52 per cent to an average of six a day. In 2010/2011 there were almost 1,000 cable thefts at a cost of £16.5m. But British Transport Police, which now has a …

    Law 10 May 2011, 11:18

  • Toshiba delays Android 3.0 tablet

    Awaiting quad-core chippage?

    Toshiba's second Android tablet, the follow-up to last year's Froyo-based Folio 100, has been pushed back. Announced in the US at the start of the year, the 10in Android 3.0 Honeycomb tablet was originally set to arrive in the UK during Q2. But Ken Chan, Toshiba UK's business laptops boss, today told Reg Hardware the tablet …

    reghardware 10 May 2011, 11:26

  • Honey, I shrunk the micro server

    Cloud Virtualisation comes down from the cloud

    Virtualisation is all the rage in data centres, but sometimes, you need to" realise" a server. Some companies with modest computing requirements will pay a premium for dedicated server hosting, rather than virtual server slices. Hosting companies can't rent a standard two-socket Xeon or Opteron server to a customer for €15 per …

    Enterprise Tech 10 May 2011, 11:30

  • EMC's second-generation Atmos goes five times faster

    EMC World Amazon S3 interoperability coming

    EMC has announced its second generation Atmos cloud storage platform that can take in objects five times faster and will have API access to Amazon's S3 service. Atmos is EMC's storage array for cloud service providers, and was introduced in November, 2008. EMC claims that Atmos 2 can handle up to 500 million objects a day. …

    Cloud 10 May 2011, 11:32

  • YouTube comes clean: Content rental is king

    VOD and IPTV players quiver

    The Chocolate Factory's worst-kept secret is out: YouTube today confirmed that it is launching an online movie rental service with a 3,000-strong catalogue streaming to PCs and mobile devices. As foreshadowed by El Reg in April, the YouTubers have haunted Hollywood, inking deals with studio heavyweights in a move designed to …

    Media 10 May 2011, 12:05

  • Super-injunction Twitter user in contempt of court if tweets were true

    Up for libel if they weren't ... that's if they can ever find the twit

    A Twitter user who claims to have posted information that is banned from publication by the UK courts on the social network site could be found in contempt of court, a media law expert has said. The anonymous user posted six 'tweets' claiming to reveal the identity of celebrities who have obtained super-injunctions banning the …

    Law 10 May 2011, 12:30

  • Official: Microsoft buys Skype for $8.5bn

    Second marriage for VoIP provider

    Microsoft confirmed today that it has indeed bought Skype from an investor group led by Silver Lake for $8.5bn. The software giant said the buyout of Luxembourg-based Skype's technology would "enhance" Microsoft's current portfolio of real-time communications products and services. In a statement Microsoft emphasised that its …

    Broadband 10 May 2011, 12:34

  • Managing on a tight margin

    On demand DRL tells us how they do it

    We visited the white-goods distributor DRL at its head office in Bolton to find out how the company has grown so fast, how it managed websites for some of the biggest brands in the UK - and the systems that supported it. DRL Head of Projects, Steve Richards, told us that the company is continually updating systems using agile …

    Doing Better Business 10 May 2011, 12:39

  • Finnish police close case on phishing Trojan gang

    Updated Baltic sprats

    Finnish police closed on investigation on Tuesday after arresting 17 people suspected of involvement in a banking Trojan scam used to siphon off hundreds of thousands of euros held in accounts with Nordea Bank. The alleged perpetrators, from Estonia and Finland, attempted to steal €1.2m through a series of over 100 false …

    Security 10 May 2011, 12:46

  • Scrabble friends Facebook, innit

    Spawn of Zuckerberg makes official word list

    Aficionados of Scrabble can as of right now deploy "Facebook", "blook", "wiki", "webzine" and "inbox" without fear of their opponent calling foul, following the incorporation of the terms into the list of Collins Official Scrabble Words. The first update to the Scrabblers' bible since 2007 includes 3,000 newly approved words …

    Bootnotes 10 May 2011, 12:51

  • Important breakthrough in mole-cruiser technology

    Thick metal tentacle-craft clad in latex sock

    Good news for mole-cruiser fanciers today, as boffins reveal important new developments in the technology of burrowing subterranean machines. Traditional mole cruiser in action. The new underground locomotion tech comes from Professor Daniel Goldman of Georgia Tech and his colleagues, funded in their mechanical mole …

    Science 10 May 2011, 13:02

  • ACS:Law fined for data breach

    Couldn't happen to a nic...

    ACS:Law has been fined by the Information Commissioner's Office for failing to follow data protection law. The one-man law firm, which has since ceased trading, won infamy for using IP numbers to accuse people of illegal file-sharing. Victims received a letter offering to settle the claims rather than go to court. But ACS:Law …

    Law 10 May 2011, 13:18

  • Infosmack has VDI cake and eats it

    Top of the desk to you

    And hello to you from Infosmack, here with a brimful of VDI. As per, hosts Greg Knieriemen and Marc Farley with the Diva of Disruptive Technologies, Christina Weil, get to do the talking, with special guest Don Bulens, former CEO of Equallogic and current CEO of Unidesk. Episode 98 show notes Don and Marc have a flashback …

    Infosmack 10 May 2011, 13:53

  • Cisco taps ex-Sun chip guru for servers

    Yanks Yen from rival Juniper

    In the wake of its corporate restructuring last week, assaulted networking juggernaut and server wannabe Cisco Systems has tapped ex-Sun Microsystems executive David Yen to take over its Server Access and Virtualization Technology Group, which is responsible for its Unified Computing System blade and rack servers and its Nexus …

    Servers 10 May 2011, 14:06

  • DIY kit computer goes Forth against Braben's RaspberryPi

    Are the 80s format wars back?

    Elite developer David Braben's RaspberryPi may have generated headlines aplenty, but it's not the first 1980s-style teach-yourself-programming gadget, one Reg reader insists. Step forward Julian Skidmore, developer and seller of FIGnition, a 20 quid DIY "retro computer built with modern parts... designed to be built by its …

    reghardware 10 May 2011, 14:08

  • EMC cloud weds big data in temporary temple in Vegas

    EMC World Who invited the contortionists?

    EMC is seeing the cloud IT trend meet big data and be a marriage made in heaven for a storage supplier with a server virtualisation business. Let the good times roll. The cloud is, from a storage array supplier point of view, just an extension of business as usual. It's networked storage with multi-tenancy and WAN optimisation …

    Cloud 10 May 2011, 14:36

  • White van men swipe British black bees

    Dundee Uni hit by hive heist: Buzzkillers 'knew how to handle bees'

    Tayside police are asking the public to keep an eye out for four hives containing thousands of British black bees which were lifted from the Centre for Neurosciences at Dundee Uni's medical school. Black bee Photo by Commons Wikimedia The missing bees were part of a £2m research project investigating "the potential effect …

    Science 10 May 2011, 14:51

  • Supposed Anonymous hack 'unmasks members'

    LOL ANONOPS

    IP addresses, chat logs and plain text passwords purporting to belong to members of Anonymous have been posted online. The data, posted to paste2.org, appeared around the same time on Tuesday that a semi-official news outlet used by Anonymous (Anonops.net) was "hacked" to point at a site mocking the hacktivist collective ( …

    Security 10 May 2011, 15:02

  • Clouds puff up Rackspace in Q1

    Last pure-play clouder standing

    The shift from traditional hosting to cloud computing is puffing up Rackspace Hosting, boosting both its top and bottom lines in the first quarter and making it likely that the company will soon pass through $1bn in annual sales. In the quarter ended in March, Rackspace had total sales of $230m, up 28.6 per cent and thanks to …

    Cloud 10 May 2011, 15:55

  • TMS flash array blows Big Blue away

    Creams SPC-1 result

    Texas Memory Systems has absolutely creamed the SPC-1 storage benchmark with a system that comfortably exceeds the current record-holding IBM system at a cost per transaction of 95 per cent less. TMS submitted a RamSan-630, a 3U box holding 10TB of single level cell flash that delivers – according to TMS – one million IOPS ( …

    Storage 10 May 2011, 17:00

  • Tomorrow's tech demoed with free pizza and beer

    Augmented reality, cloudy toothbrushes, new friends to sleep with...

    It's not often that you can experience that magic moment when the future opens up in front of you – but when it happens, chances are it will be in Silicon Valley. One of those moments came about five minutes into a demo by Layar.com at SVNewTech's monthly meeting in Palo Alto, California. Layar's "Augmented Reality Strategist …

    Media 10 May 2011, 17:00

  • Ubuntu eats OpenStack for clouds

    Eucalyptus leaves

    Ubuntu Linux and cloud fabric enthusiasts, say goodbye to Eucalyptus and say hello to OpenStack. The Ubuntu Developer Summit is underway in Budapest, Hungary, this week, and the top brass of Canonical – a number of whom are departing the company – and the top techies in the Ubuntu community have finally come to a decision …

    Cloud 10 May 2011, 17:00

  • Google unveils Android 'Honeycomb' update for fondleslabs

    Google I/O 'Open accessory' API

    Google has announced an upgrade to the tablet-centric Honeycomb version of Android. Version 3.1 will soon be pushed out to Motorola Xoom tablets running on Verizon's network. With the new version, application widgets can now be resized vertically as well as horizontally. The OS can serve as a USB host. And it can accept input …

    Mobile 10 May 2011, 17:19

  • Google hoists Python-C++ crossbreed onto dev cloud

    Google I/O App Engine goes with Go

    Google has announced a new version of Google App Engine – the "developer cloud" that lets you build applications atop the company's famously distributed infrastructure – offering an "experimental" runtime for its Go programming language. The brainchild of three big-name Google engineers –  Unix founding father Ken Thompson, …

    Cloud 10 May 2011, 17:20

  • Google officially unveils 'cloud' music beta

    Google I/O Offline listening on Android

    Google has officially launched its online service for storing your digital music on its servers, following closely in Amazon's footsteps. The company unveiled the service Tuesday morning at its annual developer conference in downtown San Francisco. The service can be used across PCs and notebooks as well as Android smartphones …

    Media 10 May 2011, 17:48

  • Google won't open source fondleslab Android before 'year end'

    Google I/O Honeycomb stays closed until Ice Cream Sandwich

    Google has said that the next version of Android, dubbed "Ice Cream Sandwich", will be open sourced "by the end of the year," and that it will not open source the current Android incarnation, the tablet-centric Honeycomb, before that time. Earlier this year, Honeycomb debuted on the Motorola Xoom tablet. It was soon revealed, …

    Developer 10 May 2011, 19:18

  • Facebook caught exposing millions of user credentials

    App bug overrides user privacy settings

    Facebook has leaked access to millions of users' photographs, profiles and other personal information because of a years-old bug that overrides individual privacy settings, researchers from Symantec said. The flaw, which the researchers estimate has affected hundreds of thousands of applications, exposed user access tokens to …

    Security 10 May 2011, 19:23

  • Win an HP TouchPad!

    Promo One Reg reader just bagged fine HP kit – now it's your turn

    This February, The Register ran an exclusive competition in which our readers had the opportunity to win an HP Slate. From over one thousand entries, we randomly selected Donald Kaplan as the lucky winner. Kaplan, a New York City–based PR exec, has been a loyal Reg reader throughout the current millennium – since the year 2000 …

    Site News 10 May 2011, 20:16

  • Akamai, Riverbed join forces to juice clouds

    App acceleration marries WAN optimization

    There's gold in them thar clouds – which is why Akamai Technologies and its global content-delivery network, and Riverbed Technology, the top dog in the WAN-optimization appliance racket, are teaming up to converge their respective products into a cloud optimizer, hoping to snag some of that cloudy gelt by accelerating …

    Cloud 10 May 2011, 20:48

  • Leighton to build 100G bps cable to Asia

    Links NextGen to the world

    Infrastructure heavyweight Leighton Contractors has inked a deal with Alcatel-Lucent to build and deploy a 4,800-kilometre multi-terabit submarine cable system linking Perth to Singapore. Initially to be lit with 100 Gbps, the submarine cable system will be owned by new Leighton subsidiary Australia-Singapore Cable Ltd and …

    Broadband 10 May 2011, 20:55

  • Microsoft Skype: How the VCs won and Ballmer overpaid

    Analysis Is Skype his next aQuantive?

    A trio of Silicon Valley venture capitalists have made out handsomely from Microsoft's $8.5bn purchase of Web 2.0 carrier Skype. The money men have earned themselves $6.6bn in cash selling the unwanted web-telco company that they bought a $1.9bn stake in from eBay, while dodging the pain, paperwork, and inevitable disappointment …

    VoIP 10 May 2011, 22:26

  • Source code leaked for pricey ZeuS crimeware kit

    Advanced trojan development comes to the unwashed masses

    Source code for the latest version of the ZeuS crimeware kit has been leaked on the internet, giving anyone who knows where to look free access to a potent set of malware-generation tools that normally sell for as much as $10,000. Complete source code is available in at least three different locations, ensuring that it is now …

    Security 10 May 2011, 23:03

  • Unisys revs up big ClearPath mainframes

    Looking for a sales bump like Big Blue

    If you want to make money in the mainframe racket, you have to keep building ever more capacious machines. And if you really want to make money, then you port your code from CMOS mainframe engines to Intel-based machinery and stop making homegrown processors and system boards. Unisys is not quite there yet – it's about halfway …

    Servers 10 May 2011, 23:23