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18th May 2011 Archive

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  • Gates defends Ballmer's Skype gamble

    'A great deal for Microsoft'

    Somebody big has come to the defense of Steve Ballmer's $8.5bn purchase of web telco Skype - the biggest deal in Microsoft's history. Bill Gates – Ballmer's colleague and long-time friend – apparently urged fellow board members to support Microsoft's move for the ex-eBay loss maker. "I was a strong proponent at the board level …

    VoIP 18 May 00:11

  • Aussies stumped reading the phone bill

    Calls? You charge me for calls?

    Australia may enjoy some of the highest teledensity levels in the world, but the more calls made, the less the understanding of pricing and billing information, claims the Australian Communications and Media Authority. New research from ACMA reveals that the vast majority of Australian telephone consumers have a “patchy …

    Telecoms 18 May 00:15

  • Linux kernel runs inside web browser

    JavaScript mimics 486 PC

    An independent programmer has used JavaScript to build a PC emulator capable of running Linux inside a web browser. French hacker Fabrice Bellard says his JavaScript PC Emulator can run the 2.6.20 Linux kernel inside Mozilla's Firefox 4 and Google's Chrome 11, two browsers designed to significantly advance JavaScript speeds. " …

    Software 18 May 00:16

  • Journo was arrested, says Qld cop

    'Our bad', says stupid police media tweet

    Queensland Police have told a press conference in Queensland that they did indeed arrest tech journalist Ben Grubb in their investigation of a Facebook vulnerability demonstrated at Australia’s AusCERT conference on Sunday. The arrest has outraged both the IT community and Australian media. The police media unit had …

    Crime 18 May 00:37

  • Kiwis dump telco 'regulatory holiday'

    Joyce dances on the public-private highwire

    New Zealand’s government has decided to abandon the regulatory holiday it had offered to companies building fibre broadband in that country, under its UFB (ultra-fast broadband) programme. The government had proposed freedom from Commerce Commission price regulation to companies building networks as contractors to the …

    Networks 18 May 00:45

  • Intel: Windows on ARM won't run 'legacy apps'

    Waves flag for 'traditional' Windows 8

    Update: Microsoft has taken issue with Intel's comments on the next version of Windows. An update to this story can be found here. Microsoft may be porting Windows 8 to the ARM architecture, but the general manager of Intel's software and services group insists she's not losing any sleep over a bruising battle in a more- …

    Operating Systems 18 May 03:40

  • iControlPad Bluetooth controller for mobile devices

    iGamer Finger clickin' good

    Ever tried a bout of Quake III on your Android tablet or a few laps of Super Mario Kart on your iPhone? Chances are, you spent the first few seconds smiling with nostalgia and the rest of the time hurling expletives at the poor controls. Even simple platformers, such as Super Mario World, although translating well onto …

    reghardware 18 May 06:00

  • Third mighty WD 'data tub' launched

    3TB AV barrel-o-bytes rumbles down the slipway

    WD has launched a big, fat data tub, a 3TB hard drive for audio-video applications, the AV-GP, giving WD three 3TB drives in its line-up. The 3.5-inch AV-GP, with the GP meaning Green Power, comes with either 2.5TB or 3TB capacity and is for 24X7 use in audio-video environments such as video surveillance as well as video …

    Storage 18 May 07:57

  • Endeavour sneaks up on space station for elevenses

    Live TV coverage of space mating this AM Brit time

    Space shuttle Endeavour is currently sneaking up on the ISS prior to docking at around 10:15 GMT, with NASA providing live coverage of the space mating here. On board the veteran vehicle are commander Mark Kelly; pilot Gregory H Johnson; mission specialists Michael Fincke, Greg Chamitoff and Andrew Feustel; and European Space …

    Space 18 May 08:07

  • NHS IT dino-project NPfIT should be killed off - NAO

    Damning report blasts all concerned

    The National Programme for IT - the multi-billion pound contract to update NHS technology use - continues to show an absence of basic management, and even though the scope of the project is shrinking costs are not. Today's report from the National Audit Office is damning even for the NAO and questions whether there is any …

    Government 18 May 08:27

  • HDS training up partners for enterprise sales

    Four specialisation areas

    HDS wants its top partners to become more specialised to sell its storage gear into enterprises. Enterprise provide around 80 per cent of HDS revenues as they buy the majority of the mid-range HDS storage as well as the high-end VSP. HDS wants its partners to take on more professional services skills in consulting and the …

    Channel Register 18 May 09:03

  • Survey shows slab-fondlers are loving their iPads

    'Post-PC era' globo-slabbening awaits lower prices

    The annual Wiggin UK entertainment survey – see a bit of it here – has a new section this year taking in the public's attitudes to fondleslabs. It brings good news to Apple and a clutch of rivals. The iPad 32GB tops the list of desirable purchases, should the punter be hypothetically given £1,500 to spend. More people would get …

    PCs & Chips 18 May 09:12

  • Sandy Bridge MacBook Air rumour restoked

    Now with added Thunderbolt

    New MacBook Airs based on Intel's Sandy Bridge platform - second-generation Core i CPUs, essentially - will be out in June or July. So say Asian component manufacturer moles cited by DigiTimes. The sources echo an identical claim made back in February. This time round, the source stressed the new machines' support for …

    reghardware 18 May 09:21

  • Nominet fails to pin down its net cop role

    .uk Policy Forum 'Light regulation is good', says ministerial video head

    Nominet, the .uk domain name manager, yesterday held its inaugural .uk Policy Forum, a talking shop designed to give stakeholders a chance to voice their opinions about internet governance. The day-long event in London's West End tackled, in a very roundabout way, Nominet's role in taking down websites believed to be engaged …

    Hosting 18 May 09:27

  • HTC's UK repair centre suffering long delays, confusion

    Smartphones just not a prestige product any more

    HTC has admitted its UK service centre is failing to repair and return handsets on schedule, but tells us the problems will soon disappear thanks to its new service centre. Until then some HTC customers are being asked to wait almost two months for fixes that were promised in 10 days, and they are the lucky ones. Others report …

    Mobile 18 May 09:38

  • Japanese still locked out of PlayStation Network

    Regulators haven't yet OK'd beefed up security

    Sony has restored its PlayStation network in most of the world following a high profile hack last month, but gamers in its native Japan remain locked out of the system. The government is blocking a relaunch until Sony satisfies regulators that it has had applied improved security controls. Gamers enthusiast and security …

    Enterprise Security 18 May 09:54

  • Email in the cloud

    Interview They did it, would you?

    An application like email has the ability to swallow most of your time, just so it works as badly as it ever did. Oil and gas recruitment company Swift Worldwide Resources can't function without email, but spent long hours just keeping its creaking POP3 servers online. It solved the problem by switching to hosted email instead …

    SaaS 18 May 10:00

  • E Ink, Epson to build 'retina' display for e-book readers

    300 pixels in every inch

    E Ink and Epson are to jointly develop a electronic paper panel with a "retina display" pixel density... almost. Apple calls the iPhone 4 screen a "retina display" because its 326 pixels per inch (ppi) density is "so high that the human eye is unable to distinguish individual pixels". Actually, look hard enough and you can …

    reghardware 18 May 10:24

  • LinkedIn thinks it's worth $4bn on eve of IPO

    Facebook-for-suits goldmine, or just Bubble numbers?

    Social-networking-for-suits website LinkedIn has increased the target price for shares it will sell tomorrow in its Initial Public Offering. The site is selling 4,827,804 shares, and its investors are offering another 3,012,196, for between $42 and $45 each, up almost a quarter on previous estimates. The company previously …

    Business 18 May 10:30

  • Pint-sized 3D printer produced

    Fab one

    3D printers are generally so large, that even if you had a daily use for one, it would be an implausible prospect to set up beside your home PC. This could be about to change. A team from the Vienna University of Technology has developed a machine much smaller, lighter and cheaper than a standard 3D printer. The concept draws …

    reghardware 18 May 10:33

  • Endeavour docks with space station for the last time

    Final trip to orbiting outpost on swansong mission

    Space shuttle Endeavour docked with the International Space Station for the 12th and final time earlier today, as its swansong mission continues to run smoothly. Just prior to the 10:14 GMT mating, commander Scott Kelly guided the shuttle through a "backflip rotation" to allow station commander Dmitry Kondratyev and ISS flight …

    Space 18 May 10:45

  • Serial hacker TinKode rifles through NASA satellite files

    Greyhat adds scalp to those of Royal Navy, MySQL, ESA

    A serial hacker has broken into NASA systems before posting "proof" of his exploits online. TinKode – who previously ransacked online system run by the Royal Navy, MySQL.com and the European Space Agency – posted screenshots purporting to come from an FTP server within the NASA's Earth Observation System at Goddard Space …

    Enterprise Security 18 May 10:50

  • Lloyds TSB signs up to Olympic Phone pay-by-wave plan

    Mobe of the Gods just needs operator now

    Samsung and Visa have signed up Lloyds TSB to back NFC payments made at the Olympics, on the special-edition Olympic phone, but still need an operator to complete the set. The two Olympic sponsors announced in April that they would be offering an Olympic-branded handset to athletes attending the games, and for sale to fans. …

    Mobile 18 May 11:01

  • Heavy coffee drinking wards off deadly cancer in men

    Drop that tea and grab some java, man, for pity's sake

    Splendid news today for many Reg readers and journalists: a new study indicates that heavy coffee drinking staves off deadly prostate cancer in men. Some 47,911 US men were surveyed over the period 1986 to 2008 for the research. During this time some 5,035 of them developed prostate cancer with 642 dying of it. According to …

    Biology 18 May 11:29

  • Hargreaves 'Google Review' backs digi-rights swap shop

    No fair use for UK: Trademarks, patents largely ignored

    The "Google Review" – Ian Hargreaves' Independent Review of IP and Growth – has been published. The report's language is more Dave Spart than Geoff Taylor; it reflects legal academia's view that IP is an oppressive hindrance on our way to a cybernetic utopia, rather than the creator and business' view that IP is a temporary …

    Music and Media 18 May 11:38

  • Dixons to flog off old 'brands' Miranda and Saisho

    Found them down the back of the sofa

    Struggling retailer Dixons Store Group has appointed an IP firm to flog off two of its now-defunct brands. Metis Partners is looking for offers for Saisho and Miranda. Saisho is offered with "goodwill in the brand and reputation", we're told. It also holds 16 international trademarks. Metis reckons Saisho has made £27m in …

    Channel Register 18 May 11:43

  • Samsung Galaxy S II dual core Android smartphone

    Review Speed dialler

    Sometimes the Mark II versions of phones feel like they’ve had little more than a light skim with the update brush. Yet with the Samsung Galaxy S II, this is certainly not the case. While, the original Galaxy S was a fine handset, this latest refit includes dual core processor, stunning AMOLED screen, a fine 8Mp camera, over-air …

    reghardware 18 May 12:00

  • The other enterprise desktop?

    Webcast Them's fighting words, Canonical

    This week, The Register’s Tim Phillips was your host for the live Regcast ‘The other enterprise desktop: Because Windows can’t be everything to everyone ’. And very jolly it was too, getting lots of good questions and feedback from viewers on the day. This event is now available for free on demand. So tune in at your own …

    Open Source 18 May 12:00

  • Attachmate's Brauckmann takes control of SUSE Linux

    Nuremberg eyes 'growing Linux market' hungrily

    Legacy software lover Attachmate has put one of its own long-time executives in charge of what was formerly Novell's SUSE Linux operation and will focus that unit on serving Linux customers and growing Linux business. Attachmate has tapped Nils Brauckman, formerly vice president of sales and marketing for the company's EMEA …

    CIO 18 May 12:00

  • UK student hacker sentenced over gaming Trojan

    'Rare' conviction gave cyber cops useful experience

    A UK university student has avoided jail over a malware-based scam that allowed him to break into the personal computers and webmail accounts of an estimated 100 victims. Paul McLouglin, 22, a Salford University student from Liverpool, tricked victims into downloading password-stealing software, called Istealer, which he had …

    Malware 18 May 12:05

  • Welshman attempts to board train with pony

    Equines 'not permitted to travel', confirms Arriva

    A Welshman* has earned himself 15 minutes of CCTV fame by attempting to board a train with a pony. According to the BBC, the hooves fell off the bold equine transportation plan at Wrexham General station on Saturday, when the conductor of the 19:02 to Holyhead decided he wasn't having any of it. Undeterred, the man then …

    Bootnotes 18 May 12:15

  • Apple proposes even tinier SIMs for future iPhones, iPads

    Plans for them to eventually disappear entirely

    Apple has proposed an even tinier SIM format to the European standards body ETSI. The standard will take a year or two to be agreed, so don't expect super-titchy SIMs immediately or even in the next iPhone. But if adopted it will mean the SIM taking up less space in the phone. Smaller SIMs would leave more space for other …

    Mobile 18 May 12:28

  • Boobs on display in Duke Nukem web game

    NSFW Sure to have its knockers

    The Duke is back with a fresh PR stunt, this time an online game which features guns, targets and lots of Bulgarian airbags. The game - aptly titled Duke Nudem - pits a user against one of four models in a shooting gallery, firing different weapons in a variety of modes. The luscious ladies encourage you to shoot your load by …

    reghardware 18 May 12:38

  • Life is simpler with fewer business suppliers

    Say goodbye to promiscuity

    In a previous article we looked at how organisations could consolidate data assets to support the business better. Many organisations have to deal with multiple IT suppliers, each delivering only part of the answer. Reducing the number of suppliers makes for a simpler life, but how beneficial is it to IT delivery? Having a …

    Doing Better Business 18 May 12:41

  • Cisco refuses to deny it will sell off Linksys

    Move may come as soon as next week, sources say

    Cisco is understood to be planning to sell off its consumer router Linksys business. The company has declined to squash the rumour. According to people familiar with the situation, the network giant is mulling over letting go of its WebEx brand, too. The moves could come as soon as next week. A Cisco spokesman told The …

    Business 18 May 12:43

  • End user productivity revisited

    Survey Five minutes of your time, please

    Productivity is a concept that sometimes appears to have been hijacked by IT vendor marketing people. We hear everything from smartphones and slates, through unified comms, to full blown cloud-based collaboration offerings positioned as the key to getting more from the workforce. But which technologies and services have the …

    Tech Panel 18 May 13:00

  • Schmidt: Android will bring DEMOCRACY to the WORLD

    'These heroes are dead, because they lived 500 years ago'

    A combination of Moore's law and Android will bring down corrupt and authoritarian regimes over the coming years, Eric Schmidt declared at a Google conference on Privacy today. The former Google CEO turned exec chairman and company ambassador also appeared to maybe rule out the firm becoming involved in the creation of facial …

    Business 18 May 13:01

  • Downing Street e-petition site to get new Directgov home

    To be ready in time for the silly season ...

    Number 10 Downing Street's defunct e-petition site will soon find a new home in the government's Directgov website, which is currently under review and is likely to be replaced within the next year. Labour MP Diana Johnson asked the Leader of the House of Commons and Tory MP George Young when British citizens would be be able …

    Government 18 May 13:20

  • India gets any-phone mobile Facebook for a penny a day

    GSM text-menu tech takes the fight downstairs to Orkut

    For a rupee a day Indians can now get onto Facebook, assuming all their mates aren't on Google's Orkut network and they don't mind missing all the graphics. The new service comes from Bharti Airtel and uses the USSD service, a little-known part of the GSM standard which provides text-menu interactivity more akin to Gopher than …

    Mobile 18 May 14:00

  • Labour: France's pirate-bashing Hadopi laws work

    Up with this sort of thing

    Shadow culture minister Ivan Lewis has cited new research from France to support anti-piracy enforcement online. Lewis quoted research suggesting that 50 per cent of internet users state Hadopi prompts them to use more legal content and 41 per cent said it persuaded them to change their net habits, while 50 per cent supported …

    Policing 18 May 14:10

  • SAP to sit enterprise offering on Amazon clouds

    Vorsprung durch wolkenstechnik

    SAP has not had a very easy time getting its Business ByDesign on-demand applications to market, and it may not matter all that much now that the German software giant is preparing to allow for its various enterprise applications to run on Amazon's EC2 compute cloud. Amazon and SAP have announced that the suite of server, …

    SaaS 18 May 14:32

  • Civil-service union hit by invisible DDoS is back up

    Update Just in time for strike ballot

    The Public and Commercial and Services union's website was back up and running in time for its annual conference on Wednesday, following a week-long denial of service assault. The attack started on Wednesday 11 May and left the website "struggling to cope with average hourly traffic 1,000 times greater than normal," according …

    Enterprise Security 18 May 14:58

  • David Davis: Jobless should dig trenches for fat UK pipes

    Times paywall effectively suppresses story

    Maverick Tory MP and former Shadow Home Secretary David Davis used this morning's Times to call for BT to raise an army of unwashed, unemployed oiks to build the UK's next generation broadband network. The story lay behind Murdoch's paywall undisturbed and garnered with just seven reader comments and five "Recommends", until …

    Telecoms 18 May 15:08

  • Microsoft replaces Xbox 360s after disc-format switch

    Changing of the guard

    Microsoft has confirmed rumours that Xbox 360 users who find their console to be incompatible with a new Xbox disc format will be offered a replacement machine. With current anti-piracy methods unsuccessful, the company has decided to go back to the drawing board and devise in a new disc format. Currently, 1.15GB of every DVD …

    reghardware 18 May 15:26

  • Supreme Court: DNA database retention regs are unlawful

    Judges lob ball into Parliament's court

    The Supreme Court has ruled that guidance on the running of the national DNA database – which states that all collected DNA signatures should be retained other than in "exceptional" circumstances – is unlawful. However the court, noting that Parliament is considering the matter, has declined to specify any remedy for the …

    Law 18 May 15:43

  • San Francisco BOFH must cough up $1.5m

    Legendary rogue admin cops hefty damages

    San Francisco admin Terry Childs must pay nearly $1.5m for bringing down the city's network for 12 days. On Tuesday, according to the San Francisco Examiner, Superior Court Judge Teri Jackson ordered Childs to pay the City of San Francisco $1,485,791. Childs got four years' prison last year for effectively locking city …

    Government 18 May 16:08

  • Google rejigs new dev cloud prices after coder outcry

    Concurrent Python on way to App Engine

    One week after introducing a new pricing structure for its App Engine development cloud, Google has announced a handful of changes to the setup in response to complaints from many of the developers currently using the service. App Engine is an online service that lets you run applications atop Google's famously distributed …

    Platform 18 May 17:41

  • Otellini: ARM servers 'ain't gonna work'

    Intel boss says ARM chips still in short britches

    Intel CEO Paul Otellini has a low opinion of ARM Holdings' efforts to crack the server market, an arena in which Chipzilla's processors are the dominant force. "It ain't gonna work," Otellini told his audience at Intel's Investor Meeting 2011 in Santa Clara, California, on Tuesday. When asked what ARM would have to do to …

    Servers 18 May 17:44

  • New PlayStation Network hack hijacks user accounts

    Sony removes sign-in pages to contain damage

    Four days after the PlayStation Network reopened, Sony has taken down login and password recovery pages for the service following reports they contained a serious flaw that was actively exploited to hijack user accounts. The vulnerability, which was first reported by UK-based gaming news site Nyleveia.com, required only that an …

    Security 18 May 18:27

  • Appro plunks Opteron super into US fission lab

    Tesla GPUs for GreenBlade, Tetra servers

    Supercomputing upstart Appro International has scored a relatively big win, getting a large cluster of its Xtreme-X parallel machines installed and running at the Idaho National Laboratory, one of the little known labs of the US Department of Energy. The INL is relatively unknown because nuclear fusion research gets all of the …

    HPC 18 May 20:35

  • Sky-high megablog names top 50 'cloud innovators'

    A guide to the heavens above

    GigaOM – the San Francisco-based megablog that so closely chronicled the rise of what the world now calls cloud computing – has released its list of the industry's top 50 "cloud innovators". The list is meant to promote GigaOM's annual Structure conference, which will once again bring together some of the biggest names in sky- …

    Cloud Business 18 May 20:41

  • Intel rewrites 'inadequate' roadmap, 'reinvents' PC

    Meet Airmont, a 14nm Atom SoC

    Intel has rewritten its product roadmap to drastically cut the power targets for its notebook processors and to expand those targets for its mobile-device processors. "We've decided, looking forward, that our roadmap was inadequate, and that we need to change the center point," Intel CEO Paul Otellini said during his keynote …

    PCs & Chips 18 May 20:42

  • Google rolls out fix for Android security threat

    Forecloses 'impersonation attacks' against users

    Google has plugged a security hole that exposed the vast majority of Android phone users' calendars and contacts when they accessed those services over unsecured networks. "Today we're starting to roll out a fix which addresses a potential security flaw that could, under certain circumstances, allow a third party access to data …

    Security 18 May 21:46

  • Apple leases space in new Silicon Valley data center

    Cult sets up shop in someone else's server room

    Apple has leased space in a new Silicon Valley data center, according to a report citing "multiple industry sources". Data Center Knowledge reports that Apple has signed a seven-year lease for space in a new data center being built in by DuPont Fabros Technology (DFT). DFT discussed the lease in reporting its first quarter …

    Infrastructure 18 May 22:36