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26th May 2011 Archive

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  • Brightcove launches apps in the cloud

    One app, many platforms

    Cloud based video distribution provider Brightcove is moving into the app market for mobile, web, social media and connected TV. Brightcove globally announced the App Cloud platform for developers, combining an open HTML5-based model with cloud services for cross-platform app creation. The App Cloud product is currently in …

    Software 26 May 02:30

  • Twitter (officially) buys TweetDeck

    Microblog app survives, at least for now

    After days of rumours, Twitter has announced that it is buying the popular feed organizer, TweetDeck, for US$40 million. For now, the 15-person TweetDeck team will continue in its Old Street HQ in London, and will continue to develop the software that has been downloaded by 20 million users. However, the acquisition has …

    Financial News 26 May 03:00

  • Forecast calls for Citrix cloud front

    When it rains in IT land, it pours

    Citrix Systems wants to cover your back door and your front door. The virtualization vendor is holding its Synergy 2011 shindig in San Francisco this week, and the product marketeers at the company are pulling out all of the stops to get future products with some sort of cloud angle into the barrage of announcements coming out …

    Platform 26 May 04:13

  • HTC Wildfire S Android smartphone

    Review For the cost conscious caller

    With HTC churning out a different handset for seemingly every demographic, the original Wildfire was ‘the weeny one’. The recent Wildfire S updates the concept with improved screen and processor, the latest (almost) Android 2.3 Gingerbread, plus GPS, Wi-Fi and 3G, at half the price of a high-end handset. HTC's Wildfire S: …

    reghardware 26 May 06:00

  • FileMaker Bento

    iOS App of the Week 21st Century card index

    When the leeches at NatWest recently decided to increase my home insurance premiums yet again, I decided it was time to take my business elsewhere. It was Bento that helped me to carry out an inventory of my home and belongings for my new insurance policy. Bento isn't your average database The Bento app is a companion for …

    reghardware 26 May 08:00

  • Tablets choke disk drive market growth

    NAND gobblers snatch lunch off spinning platters

    Disk drive market growth is slowing as consumers buy flash tablets instead of notebooks and netbooks with spinning drives inside. According to iSuppli global hard disk drive (HDD) revenues in 2011 will be $28.1bn, 4.1 per cent up on 2010's $27bn, and seven per cent up on 2009. The market watcher forecasts 3.9 per cent growth …

    Channel Register 26 May 08:05

  • Danish embassy issues MARMITE WAFFLE

    'Scrape my spread off my cold dead fingers' - expat

    Following yesterday's news that the Danish authorities had deprived Brit expats of their favourite yeast-based nourishment, the country's London embassy has seen fit to clarify the position vis-à-vis Marmite. According to this official statement, neither Marmite nor its Oz rival Vegemite are banned in Denmark, because they've …

    Bootnotes 26 May 08:31

  • NetApp gloats over storming fourth quarter

    Wall Streeters relish a pleasurable beating

    With a storming fourth quarter and year NetApp's 2011 fiscal year revenues grew 30 per cent as the company revelled in its server virtualisation storage business. It recorded fourth quarter revenues of $1.43bn, up from $1.27bn a year ago and 11 per cent sequentially. Net income was $160.6m, up from $145.1m a year ago. The full …

    Financial News 26 May 08:54

  • Next-gen Atom CPU price halved to push netbooks

    Intel to take fight to tablets?

    Netbooks may become rather cheaper next September, when Intel introduces the next generation of Atom processor for mini laptops at prices well below what it's charging for the current one. Atom N400- and N500-series CPUs cost netbook makers between $64 and $86 a pop, according to Intel. However, Asian netbook maker moles say …

    reghardware 26 May 09:09

  • Yanks officially recognise the word 'boffin'

    Merriam-Webster's fave Brit word list cites El Reg usage

    We're delighted to report that the word "boffin" has achieved the international recognition it so richly deserves, securing a spot on the Merriam-Webster "Top 10 Favorite British Words" list. And where better for Merriam-Webster to find an example of this magnificent term than on the pages of El Reg? The dictionary's website …

    Bootnotes 26 May 09:19

  • IBM unbuttons its DCS3700 NetApp-based box

    Big Blue hard equipment can pump mighty streams

    IBM has put its big data array on the table, the DCS3700, OEMed from NetApp and based on the Engenio E5400 box. The DCS3700 is intended for scalable, data streaming applications in the high performance computing (HPC) – classic big data stuff for advanced engineering and design, oil and gas research, financial market …

    Storage 26 May 09:38

  • NASA 'deep space' ship: Humans beyond orbit by 2020?

    Analysis Just maybe – if Elon Musk can do what he says

    NASA has declared that its pork-tastic Orion moonship – whose primary mission disappeared with President Obama's decision that there will be no manned US return to the Moon – is now to be a "deep space transportation system", suggesting that the agency plans to send it on missions beyond Earth orbit. Well, this isn't …

    Space 26 May 10:00

  • Ofcom awards fastest 3G mobe-data crown to O2

    Says coverage is more important: but doesn't measure it

    Ofcom's report on mobile broadband shows O2 has the UK's fastest 3G network, and Orange the slowest, but highlights that coverage matters a lot more than speed. Taking average download speeds over a three-month period, O2 comes in just under 3Mb/sec, while Orange languishes at half that – nearer the overall average speed of 1. …

    Mobile 26 May 10:15

  • Twitter vs Beeb in superinjunction nark shindy

    Auntie fingers Twits for stating basic legal facts

    A Twitter exec has defended the company's stance on fighting for its users' rights, after a report on the BBC yesterday suggested that the micro-blogging site would turn over the details of people who break privacy injunctions to UK courts. "Our policy is notify users & we have fought to ensure user rights. Sadly, some more …

    Music and Media 26 May 10:25

  • Reindeer can see in ultraviolet, say boffins

    Very useful for not eating the yellow snow, apparently

    Reindeer can see much further into the ultraviolet than humans can, according to new research. This is thought to offer the antler-sporting capreolines several important arctic survival abilities. "We discovered that reindeer can not only see ultraviolet light but they can also make sense of the image to find food and stay …

    Biology 26 May 10:41

  • New Mac scareware variant installs without password

    Welcome to the world, fanbois

    Scammers have developed a strain of Mac scareware that avoids the need to trick a mark into entering an administrative password. Earlier rogue anti-virus strains, such as MacDefender, need permission to run, a hurdle MacGuard neatly sidesteps. MacGuard works on the premise that home users have administrator rights, meaning …

    Malware 26 May 10:56

  • High Performance Computing for the masses? Oh yes!

    Broadcast New applications, new sectors, new opportunities

    It's time to start thinking creatively about HPC: can it be standardised and commoditised? Can it be applied to more of your compute-intensive problems? Can virtualisation and the cloud create a flexible, scalable HPC environment that we can all use? We've got three people in our studio on the 7th of June at 11am who will …

    HPC 26 May 11:00

  • Microsoft shareholder calls for Ballmer's head

    Biz-lord's 'misstatement' on Windows 8 not helpful

    Microsoft, in an extraordinary move earlier this week, described its CEO's comments about Windows 8 as a "misstatement". Despite that, Steve Ballmer's statement remains available on Microsoft's website, and his words are well-and-truly out there and can hardly be put back in a box and forgotten about. Now, according to a …

    CIO 26 May 11:05

  • Online tools to 'end the scandal of empty homes'

    Squatters-dream map only available to councils

    The Communities and Local Government (CLG) department has launched two new online toolkits to help tackle the problem of empty homes in England. It has introduced a geographical information system (GIS) empty homes mapping toolkit, which plots the location of long term empty homes in private ownership across the country. This …

    Public Sector 26 May 11:17

  • Roboprobe spacecraft off to grope asteroid

    Possibly apocalyptic 'Yarkovsky effect' to be sussed

    NASA has announced it will send a roboprobe spacecraft to an asteroid to "pluck samples" from the near-Earth object and return them for perusal by ground-based boffins. The improbably-named "Origins-Spectral Interpretation-Resource Identification-Security-Regolith Explorer", known as OSIRIS-REx to its chums, will launch in …

    Space 26 May 11:30

  • Ballmer: Time up for 'stuck in the past' Microsoft CEO?

    Analysis Skype was not the answer

    A billionaire hedge fund manager is calling for Microsoft's chief executive Steve Ballmer's head. Could it be that the irascible Redmond kingpin's reign is finally drawing to a close? David Einhorn, president of the $5bn Greenlight Capital group, has reportedly told a conference that Ballmer's "stuck in the past" and should …

    Business 26 May 11:39

  • Zuckerberg 'snuggles up to Spotify'

    Comment Bubblicious? Or a SpottiFace iMode goldmine?

    Facebook users can already use Spotify's streaming music service to share playlists and songs, but a new partnership will bring much deeper integration, predicts a report in Forbes. Neither company would comment. "Clicking on the Spotify icon will install the service on their desktop in the background, and also allow users …

    Music and Media 26 May 11:51

  • Virtual desktops mean virtual applications

    Desktop Virtualisation You can’t have one without the other

    Virtualising the client is not just about the desktop. It is also about application virtualisation. “Half of large organisations with more than 5,000 PCs have already adopted application virtualisation,” says Gartner analyst Terry Cosgrove. That compares with perhaps one per cent worldwide that have adopted a virtual hosted …

    Enterprise Tech 26 May 12:00

  • How to... change sleep-screen pics on your Kindle

    E-book reader enhancement

    I recently bought myself a Kindle, which is providing sterling service as an e-book reader for my daily trips in and out of Vulture Central. It's more compact and lighter than a tablet, even a 7in one, like Samsung's Galaxy Tab. Yet its 6in screen means I don't have to squint at a smartphone display. Since it only cost £111, I …

    reghardware 26 May 12:00

  • Humanity frees cattle, buffalo from cloven-hoofed plague

    Rinderpest, the first animal disease to be eradicated

    The Office International des Epizooties (OIE) has announced that rinderpest, aka cattle plague, has been wiped out. Rinderpest is believed to have originated in Asia, and gradually spread through movements of livestock. Over the centuries, the viral infection* provoked major human famines as it devasted cattle. Reuters notes …

    Biology 26 May 12:09

  • Bletchley Park completes epic Tunny machine

    Glorious pipe-smoking boffinry recreated from old telco kit

    A new exhibit opens today at Bletchley Park that illustrates the entire World War II codebreaking process from signal intercept to final decrypt by Tunny machines. The original Tunny, a British project to re-engineer the then-unseen German Lorenz S42 cipher machine, was developed in 1942. After tens of thousands of man-hours …

    Security 26 May 12:31

  • Almost entire EU now violating Brussels cookie privacy law

    Steelie Neelie threatens 'necessary measures'

    The deadline for the implementation of a European privacy law on cookies passed with a whimper at midnight last night, after just two Member States issued a full notification to Brussels. Meanwhile, 19 of the 27-bloc countries that make up the European Union ignored the 25 May deadline on implementing the full, or indeed …

    Law 26 May 12:36

  • Ten... DAB kitchen radios

    Product Round-up For what we are about to receive...

    A kitchen is incomplete without a radio. Like a garden without a blade of grass, a song without emotion, or a footballer without a super-injuction, there are many without, but it just isn't the same. And even though dates for the proposed digital switchover haven't been set in stone, there's no harm in being prepared. Indeed, as …

    reghardware 26 May 12:49

  • Google Wallet phone-pay is coming - but how will it work?

    Analysis Chocolate Factory cloudbank, or e-wallet

    In six hours Google Wallet will be announced, but we don't know if Google wants to get into payments itself, or just plans to make money from someone else's service. We do know that Google Wallet will be announced this afternoon (Thursday mid-day, New York time) and that the service will go live in September - whatever that …

    Networks 26 May 12:54

  • Tablet marketgasm? Don't make us laugh, say Intel chiefs

    'I don't believe in this fondleslab bear,' insists Smith

    Intel execs poured cold water on overheated predictions for tablet sales today, pointing out to investors that notebook shipments still massively outnumber fondleslabs, and there is little prospect of that changing. CFO Stacy Smith and EMEA General Manager Christian Morales hit investors with a mountain of data at at an …

    PCs & Chips 26 May 13:15

  • Fourth Euro star truck christened Albert Einstein

    Space station robot delivery van honours physics legend

    The European Space Agency's next Automated Transfer Vehicle (ATV) to roll off the production line will be called Albert Einstein. Space trucks Jules Verne (ATV-1) and Johannes Kepler (ATV-2, pictured above) have already carried supplies to the International Space Station, and will be followed in February next year by Edoardo …

    Space 26 May 13:32

  • Napster wonderboy: Music labels are a goldmine

    Do not adjust your set - Sean Parker hearts record biz

    Enjoying some new celebrity after being played by Justin Timberlake in the Facebook movie The Social Network, Napster and Facebook luminary Sean Parker says he wants to buy a major record company. Parker's thinking is that while the record industry has hit bottom – those sound recordings are still incredibly valuable. "I …

    Music and Media 26 May 13:44

  • $8.5bn Skype goes titsup again - including website

    Truly, Microsoft has the golden touch

    Skype went titsup on Thursday, days after the announcement of a deal to buy the VoIP outfit by Microsoft. The service fell over around lunchtime on Thursday, crashing the application on many Windows PCs. Early indications suggest that Mac fans were less exposed to the problem but this is unconfirmed. Skype's website was also …

    VoIP 26 May 13:51

  • Intel to extend data centre tyranny into mobile, says CFO

    War on ARM won't be over by Xmas, admits Chipzilla mogul

    Intel's CFO has rubbished ARM's prospects of making a serious dent in the data centre, arguing that whatever the chip IP developer is aiming at, Intel will be well ahead. At the same time, Stacy Smith insists that Intel will soon be eating into ARM's position in the mobile arena, despite the recent flight of its anchor partner …

    CIO 26 May 14:15

  • Drink 8 bottles of wine, you'll be unharmed if hit by Mike Tyson

    True medical fact: Trials with boxers underway

    Top boffins in Texas believe they will soon provide solid proof of an astonishingly useful biological fact: that if you drink eight bottles of red wine you can be punched in the head by a professional heavyweight boxer and it will do you no harm at all. We're paraphrasing slightly, of course. The researchers, based at the UT …

    Biology 26 May 14:55

  • Don't let your networks speak to strangers

    Desktop Devices are invading the workplace

    Run a scan over any company network and you will probably be surprised by what has been connected to it. Staff can be very creative, plugging in everything from printers to tablet devices to departmental servers and network-attached storage devices. They are not circumventing IT policies either, or so they think – just …

    Desktop Strategy 26 May 15:00

  • Modern Warfare 3 prompts hand-wringing, chiming cash tills

    Firing on all fronts

    Activision's next best seller, Modern Warfare 3, has barely been announced, yet already the hype machine is in full throttle. A series of short MW3 teasers released this week, gave fans their first look at what to expect from the game - and immediately caused outrage. The Daily Mail - natch - has been at its usual …

    reghardware 26 May 15:26

  • RIM PlayBook strikes back at Jobsian internet dream

    Review Professional grade? No. Flash? Ah-ah!

    "Amateur hour is over," reads the RIM PlayBook ad inside the Office Max shop around the corner from The Register's San Francisco bureau. As I walk by, looking for a printer cartridge, RIM tells me that its new PlayBook is the world's first "professional-grade" tablet. That's not the most original line in US advertising history …

    PCs & Chips 26 May 16:54

  • Google Wallet teams with Citi, MasterCard

    Android credit card arrives 'this summer'

    Google has announced its NFC-enabled Google Wallet app and introduced its first banking partner: the world's largest financial services company, Citigroup. "Citi's role as the lead bank in Google Wallet is the latest demonstration of how we are committed to becoming the world's digital bank," Citi's Global Enterprise Payments …

    Mobile 26 May 17:44

  • Upstart MapR unveils 'next generation' Hadoop

    Stuffed elephant gets major surgery

    Silicon Valley startup MapR has unveiled what it calls the "next generation" of Hadoop, revealing that this revamp of the open source distributed number-crunching platform drives the Hadoop appliance recently announced by EMC. According to MapR CEO and cofounder John Schroeder, the company has rebuilt Hadoop's storage system, …

    Platform 26 May 18:18

  • Disk vendors should get properly on the SSD pot

    Flash is the future

    What should HDD vendors do, given that disk drive market growth is slowing because customers are buying tablets instead of notebooks and netbooks with disk drives inside? Tablets and flash are pummelling the hard disk drive industry and, so far, it has no response, except to enter the flash market too. What else can it do? Its …

    Blocks and Files 26 May 19:00

  • Google Web Store quietly purged of nosy apps

    Super Mario could see 'every page that you visit'

    Google's Chrome Web Store has quietly been purged of at least two games after a blogger revealed that the Flash-based browser extensions had unfettered access to all website data, browsing history, and bookmarks stored on users' computers. The removal of Super Mario World and Super Mario World 2 came without explanation …

    ID 26 May 20:10

  • Linguists use sounds to bypass Skype crypto

    And you thought grammar was useless…

    Decryption is difficult and computationally expensive. So what if, instead of decrypting the content of a message, you found a correlation between the encrypted data and its meaning – without having to crack the code itself? Such an approach has been demonstrated by a group of University of North Carolina linguists working …

    Security 26 May 21:43

  • Billionaire Zuckerberg kills to eat

    I just knifed a goat...bitch

    Facebook's billionaire boy genius, Mark Zuckerberg, is a confessed killer – and he's proud of it. "The only meat I'm eating is from animals I've killed myself," Zuckerberg told Fortune. "So far, this has been a good experience." Among Zuckerberg's victims have been a lobster, chicken, pig, and goat. The lobster met its maker …

    Music and Media 26 May 21:45

  • BlueStacks lets Android apps frolic on PCs

    iPhone apps? Er, no

    A startup called BlueStacks has come out of stealth mode with shiny new venture funding and an eponymous product that lets Android apps run on PCs. BlueStacks runs the open source Android runtime environment on top of an x64 hypervisor so Android apps – excepting those compiled down to ARM hardware using C and C++ – can be …

    Applications 26 May 22:03

  • Kiwi carrier heads to court over split

    Competition watchdog not happy

    Telecom New Zealand has attracted the wrath of competition watchdog, the Commerce Commission over the carrier’s plans to structurally separate. The Commerce Commission will issue court proceedings against Telecom NZ claiming that the company has failed to meet government regulations on non-discrimination under its current …

    Telecoms 26 May 23:00

  • Insider data theft costs Bank of America $10m

    Bank details for 300 purloined

    A Bank of America insider who stole customers' personally identifiable information and gave it to identity thieves has cost the bank $10 million in losses, according to media reports. The unnamed employee and some 95 others involved in the scam were arrested in February, IDG News reported, citing a special agent with the US …

    Crime 26 May 23:29

  • Take that, content. APIs get own delivery network

    Apigee on the edge

    Apigee – a company dedicated to improving the use of APIs across the interwebs – has unveiled an API delivery network designed to grease API calls in much the same way a CDN smooths the transfer of images and other net content. This API delivery network is now available as part of the existing enterprise API services that …

    Developer 26 May 23:31

  • Server biz bouncing back to boom times

    Oracle, Cisco, others party like it's 2008

    Server makers got good news from IDC earlier this week, and now the box counters at Gartner are providing tidings of good first-quarter cheer. In the quarter ended in March, Gartner reckons that revenues from servers sold both directly by vendors and through their channel partners accounted for $12.7bn – that's an increase of …

    Servers 26 May 23:54