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27th May 2011 Archive

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  • NBN Co details satellite offering for country folk

    Call for more service providers

    Australian broadband customers in regional areas will have to pass a service qualification test in order to use the NBN Co’s Interim Satellite Service. Earlier in the month NBN Co announced that Optus, Gilat and IPstar had won the tender to supply interim satellite services from July 1 this year in a A$300 million deal. NBN …

    Broadband 27 May 2011, 00:00

  • Amazon opens online Macware store

    'Come, ye Apple refugees, and find refuge herein'

    Amazon has opened a shelter for Mac software developers who either can't or don't want to sell their apps in Apple's Mac OS X Mac App Store: the logically named Mac Download Store. Amazon's offering is a direct competitor to Apple's store, which was announced along with Mac OS X Lion last October and launched in early January …

    Software 27 May 2011, 03:57

  • Mio Spirit 687 satnav

    Review Vocal performance

    The 687 sits at the top of Mio’s new range of Spirit satnavs and is a good illustration of exactly how much navigational kit you can expect to get for £150 these days. For your money you get a 5in, 480 x 272 screen, voice command, Bluetooth, road maps of 44 European countries, free TMC traffic data and some rather handy …

    Science 27 May 2011, 06:00

  • Total Recall rehash – exit Martians, enter Jessica Biel

    Hollywood Can Re-imagine It for You Wholesale

    Those film fans among you who were sitting in darkened rooms, trembling at the prospect of Hollywood's re-imagining of Paul Verhoeven's 1990 sci-fi romp Total Recall, should rest assured that things look promising for the latest interpretation of Philip K Dick's We Can Remember It for You Wholesale. First up, Arnold …

    Hardware 27 May 2011, 06:00

  • Google accused of stealing PayPal's mobile payment secrets

    Exec defected for Google 'while brokering Android pact for PayPal'

    PayPal has sued Google and two Google executives who defected from PayPal to help the search giant's push into mobile payments. The suit was filed in California on Thursday, the same day Google unveiled its mobile payments system in New York. The suit (PDF) alleges that Google and Osama Bedier – the PayPal mobile payments exec …

    Mobile 27 May 2011, 06:01

  • Fujitsu embiggens Eternus

    Mmm, thin provisioning

    In a revamp of its Eternus drive arrays, Fujitsu has come out with the second generation – the S2 versions – of its twin controller DX60, DX80, and DX90 entry-level drive arrays, as well as its DX400 mid-range array. The DX60 and DX90 originated as Fujitsu Siemens Computer SX60 and SX80 arrays, which were rebranded and …

    Storage 27 May 2011, 08:07

  • HTC to stop locking smartphone bootloader code

    OS tweaking to be made easier

    Smartphone maker HTC has pledged to stop locking down its handsets' bootloader code, a move that makes it easier to install complete custom operating system releases. For 'custom operating system releases' read 'not carrier-specific version'. HTC CEO Peter Chou made the promise on the company's Facebook page, stating: "Today …

    Phones 27 May 2011, 08:08

  • Nokia: regular WinPho handset releases through 2012

    New kit every 2-3 months

    Nokia could be punching out Windows Phone handsets at the rate or one every two months, the company has said. That seems excessive, but it's what Jo Harlow, Nokia's executive vice president of smart devices, said this week. Specifically, "we should be launching new devices in a rhythm that might be every couple of months, …

    Phones 27 May 2011, 08:51

  • Naked cyclist streaks through Suffolk village

    'Fun' two-wheeled wheeze ends in conditional discharge

    A Suffolk man has discovered to his cost that the courts do not consider cycling naked through sleepy villages a "fun" activity for a Monday afternoon. Alexander Purser, 23, was driving through Acton, near Sudbury, on 7 June last year when he "spotted a community speed watch group in a lay-by on the side of the road". He went …

    Bootnotes 27 May 2011, 09:01

  • Utilities turn in blacklisted carbon emission credits

    More fallout from high profile cyber-heists that shut registries across Europe

    More prominent power generation outfits have surrendered stolen carbon emission permits after realising that they had inadvertently purchased illicit goods. German utility Eon and Frankfurt-based infrastructure provider Infraserv turned in a collective total of 27,100 blacklisted EUAs (EU Emission Allowances). The certificates …

    Security 27 May 2011, 09:06

  • ARM-based MacBook Air test sample spied

    Tablaptop inbound?

    It's not proof that Apple has plans to produce and sell such a machine, but the Mac maker certainly seems to have been exploring the possibility of offering a MacBook Air laptop based not on an Intel but an ARM processor. An unnamed correspondent of Japanese-language site Macotakara claims to have seen a sample Air based on …

    Laptops 27 May 2011, 09:25

  • German boffins win prize for 'MP3 for phones'

    iPhone, iPad FaceTime tech now obsolete

    Remorseless German boffins are patting themselves on the back after winning a prize for their efforts developing "MP3 for phone calls". The prize in question is one of the three 2011 Joseph von Fraunhofer awards, given annually to the top researchers across Germany's mighty Fraunhofer Institutes. One of the best known of …

    Hardware 27 May 2011, 09:35

  • Bloke drives with knees while manipulating two mobes

    Hefty fine likely for Norfolk prestidigitator

    A Norfolk man is potentially facing "six points on his licence and thousands of pounds in fines" after cops nabbed him allegedly driving with his knees while manipulating two mobile phones. The unnamed 34-year-old driver was clocked earlier this month on a 70mph stretch of the A47 near Norwich during a two-week clampdown on …

    Bootnotes 27 May 2011, 09:37

  • ICO: Knowing your rights is a priority in new strategy

    Consults with public on how to maximise its impact as a regulator

    There should be a high level of awareness in organisations of their obligations to protect customers' personal information, the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) has said. It is the aim of the ICO to ensure that organisations are informed of "their wider obligations under information rights law with those obligations …

    Government 27 May 2011, 09:41

  • A bit about Bitlocker

    Encryption, Windows and you

    Encryption is the staple weapon of the security business. As old as war itself, it scrambles data to conceal it from those not meant to see it. It sounds simple but nothing is simple about encryption, as the mathematical geniuses at Bletchley Park knew. That said, a modern, well-managed encryption system can protect desktop …

    Desktop Strategy 27 May 2011, 10:00

  • Boffins tail bees with tiny radio tags

    How long is a beeline?

    Bees with radio tags glued onto their backs have been busily demonstrating just how long it takes them to get home, and how much easier it is to travel west. The tags are 13.75MHz RFID tags – very small ones – and were glued to individual bees by researchers Mario Pahl and ShaoWu Zhang. Once properly tagged, the bees were …

    Broadband 27 May 2011, 10:14

  • Chicago lawyer deploys distractionary dumplings

    Court opponent objects to busty 'paralegal'

    A couple of Chicago lawyers are engaged in an unseemly scrap over a busty paralegal, which one claims the other is using in court as a jubular distraction. Attorneys Thomas Gooch and Dmitry N Feofanov are facing off in a small claims case over a used car. Gooch has objected to the presence in court of Feofanov's assistant …

    Bootnotes 27 May 2011, 10:15

  • Rural areas win UK.gov broadband upgrade, but some miss out

    Three councils given £50m from £530m BDUK piggy bank

    The government has divvied up £50m of its £530m rural broadband cash to councils in Wiltshire, Norfolk and Devon and Somerset, in its final wave of pilots. The culture secretary Jeremy Hunt confirmed this morning that each area would receive "multi-million pound" funding. He said that those local authorities bagged the money …

    Broadband 27 May 2011, 10:41

  • Nokia will get own Windows shop window

    But still backing Symbian until 2016

    Nokia will be selling Windows Phone applications from its own marketplace, with Symbian applications sharing space on the Nokia store shelves until 2016 at the least. Nokia has been reiterating its commitment to Symbian, with CEO Stephen Elop promising that the company will be supporting applications and issuing software …

    Mobile 27 May 2011, 10:45

  • Rackspace cloud prepared for WAR, but Google AE chokes

    WAR on the Cloud, Part 3 Cloud providers leave Damon frowning over mirrors

    I'm moving mirrors of my busy-ish website from my hand-crafted dedicated colo solution into the cloud to try to get geographically closer to my global user-base, reduce latency and improve perceived performance, save money, and hopefully make administration easier. In part 2 of this series, I managed to get a minimal fairly " …

    Cloud 27 May 2011, 11:00

  • Dirt 3

    Review Rally ho!

    The fact that rally is a niche market, even among petrolheads, perhaps goes someway to explaining why Codemaster’s Dirt franchise strives to rein in the time challenge aspects of the sport – instead favouring racing, albeit in a way which retains the drifting and suicidal cornering of the motorsport. Codemasters: good decision …

    Games 27 May 2011, 11:11

  • Portal 2 rewards magnificent map makers

    Levels of competition

    A Portal 2 mapping contest has launched for avid designers to pit their skills against each other and win prizes. Since Valve released the Portal 2 Authoring Tools earlier this month, enthusiasts have been busy customising their own maps of the game. By entering the Summer Mapping Initiative, designers can win signed gift- …

    Games 27 May 2011, 11:39

  • Google Chrome OS: Too secure to need security?

    Confident anti-virus-less chocolateers may be repeating Apple's mistakes

    A leading security researcher has warned that Google risks repeating Apple's mistakes on security with its new Chrome OS. Google Chrome OS is a Linux-based operating system designed to work exclusively with web applications. Chrome netbooks running the new OS will be available from Google's partners Samsung and Acer from June …

    Cloud 27 May 2011, 11:49

  • SeeSaw video-on-demand service to close

    Arqiva fails to find a buyer, internal email reveals

    Arqiva is closing down its online video-on-demand service, SeeSaw. SeeSaw, which was effectively put up for sale in January, will shut up shop at the end of June. In an email sent to Arqiva staff today - and seen by Reg Hardware - company CEO John Cresswell said: "Despite varying levels of interest being shown [in SeeSaw], we …

    Hardware 27 May 2011, 11:51

  • Submarine seized by pirates turns up in Vegas pawnshop

    Cops baffled: Underwater buccaneers plague California coast?

    A stolen submarine has been returned to its wealthy Californian owner after it was pawned in Las Vegas, according to reports. Investigating plods are baffled and the seagoing freebooters who originally pirated the sub remain at large. The submarine, an unidentified personal model suitable for wealthy supervillains wishing to …

    Bootnotes 27 May 2011, 11:56

  • Waking to check mail? You're not alone

    One in three can't make it through the night

    One in three mobile workers wake regularly during the night to check their email, while 40 per cent will interrupt a meeting to answer a call. They used to say that if you couldn't sleep the night without breaking for a cigarette then you were properly addicted, and by that token over 30 per cent of mobile workers surveyed by …

    Hardware 27 May 2011, 11:58

  • CIX conferencing system is bought out – again

    Veteran online hangout gains a new lease of life

    CIX, probably the oldest surviving online service in the UK, has a new owner, ICUK, which hopes to grow the system and attract new users. CIX - or the Compulink Information Exchange - started off in the pre-web days of the mid-1980s as a shareware distribution house's Fidonet bulletin board service, but the online community …

    Hosting 27 May 2011, 12:03

  • Zuckerberg labels Ceglia lawsuit a 'brazen, outrageous fraud'

    Boydroid's Facebook status remains the same

    Mark Zuckerberg has asked a federal court in New York to throw out a lawsuit filed against him, because – according to the Facebook boss – the case is a "brazen and outrageous fraud on the court". The uber social network boydroid filed a document calling on the US District Court in Buffalo, NY, to dismiss the case after …

    Financial News 27 May 2011, 12:06

  • Skype pushes out Windows update following massive login glitch

    Trying to connect you...

    Skype has published an update that provides an easy way for users to log back into the system following a software glitch that resulted in the VoIP service hanging up on users on Thursday. The resulting flood of traffic from confused users also floored Skype's website. The VoIP firm, acquired by Microsoft for an eye-popping $8 …

    VoIP 27 May 2011, 12:11

  • Vatican crackdown at Rome's Playboy Mansion-style monastery

    Lapdancing nuns, 'lifestyle irregularities' uncovered

    A controversial monastery in Rome – the scene of performances by lap-dancing nuns and "lifestyles that were probably not in keeping with that of a monk" – has been closed down on the orders of the Pope. The Santa Croce in Gerusalemme basilica, home to nuns and monks of the Cistercian order, is one of the oldest and most …

    Bootnotes 27 May 2011, 12:14

  • Endeavour 'nauts wrap last ever shuttle crew spacewalk

    End of an era at the ISS

    Mission specialists Greg Chamitoff and Mike Fincke earlier today wrapped the fourth and final spacewalk of Endeavour's STS-134 mission to the ISS – the last ever EVA by space shuttle crew members. The pair ventured outside the orbiting outpost for seven hours and 24 minutes, during which they stowed Endeavour's 50-ft …

    Science 27 May 2011, 13:17

  • Microsoft gets five bucks for every HTC Android phone

    Analyst spills royalty payment beans

    Buy an HTC smartphone and $5 of what you spent on it goes to Microsoft - even if you've just bought an Android device. So says Citi analyst Walter Pritchard in a note sent out to investors today, according to Business Insider. Microsoft announced the royalty payment deal - the result of a legal settlement - last year, but the …

    Phones 27 May 2011, 14:19

  • Star Wars fanboys to restore Tatooine Homestead

    Preservers of history

    Last year a bunch of Star Wars fanbois went on a pilgrimage to the Lars homestead on Tatooine - or rather the part of Tunisia in which George Lucas shot the movies. Many film buffs will remember the iconic 'igloo' as the moisture farm Luke Skywalker was raised on. The igloo is still there, in Tunisa. Due to harsh winds and …

    Hardware 27 May 2011, 14:24

  • Go Daddy 'negligent' in handing over ownership of accounts

    US judges say domain registrar's conduct 'caused concern'

    Companies that register the names of websites can be held responsible for wrongly transferring their ownership, a US appeals court has ruled. The judges rejected an appeal from Go Daddy, a domain name registrar and web hosting company, after it had argued that a court had been wrong to rule that it was responsible for handing …

    Hosting 27 May 2011, 14:28

  • Lockheed Martin suspends remote access after network 'intrusion'

    InsecureID for hacked defence contractor

    Lockheed Martin has reportedly suspended remote access to email and corporate apps following the discover of a network intrusion that may be linked to the high-profile breach against RSA earlier this year. The manufacturer of F-22 and F-35 fighter planes has reset passwords in response to a "major internal computer network …

    Security 27 May 2011, 14:41

  • SwiftKey plunders social networks for style

    Working out what you were trying to say

    The latest version of mobile-keyboard SwiftKey will sample your Tweets and Facebook updates and work out what kind of writer you are to better guess what you're trying to say. The idea isn't new: KeyPoint's Adaptxt does the same thing, though Swiftkey's latest version adds your Gmail outbox to the sources it uses to pinpoint …

    Mobile 27 May 2011, 14:54

  • BT, TalkTalk seek leave to appeal DEA ruling

    Plan to challenge 4 of the 5 points addressed by High Court

    BT and TalkTalk are seeking leave to appeal a ruling on four points relating to their challenge to the Digital Economy Act, after their legal gambit against it failed last month. In April, an effort by the two telecom companies to derail the copyright infringement portions of the DEA was thrown out by the High Court in London …

    Broadband 27 May 2011, 14:59

  • Feds break up Chinese-US counterfeit Cisco ring

    Female mastermind stripped of Porsches, houses, freedom

    Federal lawmen have announced success in breaking up a "sophisticated scheme to import and sell counterfeit Cisco-branded computer networking equipment" in the USA, masterminded by a Virginia woman who made millions from the scam. Chun-Yu Zhao, of Centreville in Virginia and Donald H Cone, of Frederick in Maryland, were …

    The Channel 27 May 2011, 15:31

  • Bind DNS resolver purged of critical DoS bug

    Query domain, server goes boom

    Makers of the internet's most widely used domain name resolution software have patched a vulnerability that allowed attackers to crash many systems that run the program. By querying a domain with large resource record sets (or RRsets) and trying to negatively cache a response, attackers can cause the Bind server to crash. The …

    Hosting 27 May 2011, 17:24

  • iOS dev nemesis Lodsys pressures Android coders too?

    In-app payment fight spreads

    Lodysys – the patent holder that has pressured iOS app developers to turn over revenue from in-app payments – is taking aim at Android app developers as well, according to a post on Google's Android discussion list. "If you've been following tech news lately, you may have read about a company named Lodsys that is threatening …

    Developer 27 May 2011, 17:27

  • Data, not software, paves the road to riches

    Open...and Shut Open source: A pauper's game

    For those who believe software is a quick road to riches, think again. As RedMonk analyst Stephen O'Grady detailed in his Open Source Business Conference keynote, the top 20 software companies are relatively low on Fortune 500's totem pole of revenue, and not a single one lands in the top 10. And of the top 20 companies on PwC' …

    Software 27 May 2011, 17:44

  • Honda security breach exposes 283,000 customers

    2nd data leak in 6 months

    Honda's Canadian division has suffered a data breach that exposed the personal information of 283,000 customers, according to its website and published media reports. The purloined data includes the names, addresses and vehicle identification numbers of customers who made purchases in 2009. The company is warning customers to …

    Security 27 May 2011, 19:55

  • Intel switches ARM stance from 'No' to 'Maybe'

    New wrinkle in Apple-Samsung spat

    Ten days ago, Intel CEO Paul Otellini told US investors that Chipzilla wouldn't use its new 22nm Tri-Gate process technology to build chips based on an ARM core. At a UK investors confab this Thursday, CFO Stacey Smith hedged on Otellini's emphatic "No". If a customer came to Intel and asked them to fab processors that weren't …

    Hardware 27 May 2011, 20:01

  • Android app sales skimpy, sluggish, slack, scanty...

    Want profits? Build iPhone apps

    Android-based smartphones may have passed the iPhone in terms of market share, but developers of Android apps aren't profiting from that rise. iPhone users buy far more apps. "It is more challenging for developers in the Google Android Market than in the Apple App Store to monetize using a one-off fee monetization model," …

    Phones 27 May 2011, 20:03

  • Google denies 'freeze' on manual search controls

    Mountain View slaps Calacanis tweet

    Google search bigwig Matt Cutts and the web giant's public policy team have confirmed that Google still uses manual controls as well as its famous algorithms to determine search results, denying a blog post that said otherwise. On Thursday evening, a blog post on Launch.is – a website for a new conference founded by mega- …

    Media 27 May 2011, 23:04

  • Google and Amazon cloud music nears judgment day

    Clock ticks on MP3tunes.com case

    A David versus Goliath legal case that could affect new cloud music services from Google and Amazon is on the verge of a decision. In August, a judge is expected to rule on EMI's four-year-old case against tiny music locker MPE3tunes.com and its founder for alleged copyright violation. MP3tunes.com founder Michael Robertson …

    Media 27 May 2011, 23:44