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7th June 2011 Archive

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  • Twitter cock-up confession deflates Weiner

    Member of Congress

    US congressman Anthony Weiner has admitted to tweeting his weiner. On Monday, Weiner – a member of the House of Representatives from the 9th District spanning portions of the New York City boroughs of Brooklyn and Queens – admitted that his Twitter account had not been hacked and that he had indeed exchanged inappropriate …

    Odds and Sods 7 Jun 00:11

  • Huawei gets true blue with Oz board

    One Liberal, one Labor and a sailor all get a seat

    Chinese vendor Huawei has made an unprecedented move to ‘Australianise’ its business, with the creation of a local board decked with high profile political influencers. The move is part of a bold localization strategy for the ambitious vendor to try and get a chunk of the NBN Co contract action. Huawei has mined both sides of …

    Financial News 7 Jun 02:30

  • No space @ MySpace

    Horne departs the unsocial network

    The fate of Rupert Murdoch’s distressed, (un)social network MySpace should be known within a fortnight according to global executives. The Australian office of MySpace has been wound down, with the bulk of staff shed late last year. News Digital Media is mooted to be in discussions to take on the online ad sales role for the …

    Music and Media 7 Jun 03:00

  • Australian spectrum plan a win for carriers

    Emergency services elbowed up to 800 MHz band

    Australia’s attorney-general has re-ignited the carriers-versus-emergency-services, creating a steering committee to develop a mobile broadband plan for public safety agencies. As spectrum is vacated in the digital TV rollout, Australian carriers have been drawing their wagons into a circle around the newly-available radio …

    Mobile 7 Jun 03:30

  • App Engine: Google's deepest secrets as a service

    The software scales. But will the Google rulebook?

    Google will never open source its back end. You'll never run the Google File System or Google MapReduce or Google BigTable on your own servers. Except on the rarest of occasions, the company won't even discuss the famously distributed software that underpins its sweeping collection of web services. But if you like, you can …

    SaaS 7 Jun 03:50

  • Dear Ubuntu: The netbook is toast

    Open...and Shut Keep your head in the clouds

    In the tech industry today, and particularly in mobile, you can make lots of money as a premium innovator (Apple's iOS) or as a mass-market commoditizer (Google Android). But it turns out that there's little room for more than one company in either category, That's why Microsoft, Hewlett-Packard, and RIM are struggling to …

    Business 7 Jun 04:00

  • Embotics shoots low with V-Commander Cloud Edition

    vCloud on the cheap for SMBs

    If you are an SMB thinking of building a private cloud based on VMware's ESXi hypervisor and vCenter console, then Embotics wants you to think about using its V-Commander control freak instead of shelling out big bucks for VMware's vSphere tools or its full-on vCloud Director cloud fabric. With VMware rolling the functionality …

    Infrastructure 7 Jun 05:00

  • Men pocket $1.5m in alleged ATM skimming spree

    Feds charge men with aggravated ID theft

    Four men have been charged with stealing $1.5 million from banks by using electronic devices to secretly record personal identification numbers as customers entered them into automatic teller machines and other gear. Most of the skimming devices used in the 14-month spree involved the use of fraudulent pads that customers use …

    Crime 7 Jun 06:00

  • Aliph Jawbone Era motion sensing Bluetooth headset

    Review Do the shake 'n' chat

    Hands-free connections for mobile phones have come a long way from wired earpiece-and-microphone combos. Mind you, it’s still a comic pleasure to see people using these as they hold the microphone near their mouths just to be sure. The arrival of Bluetooth nixed the cables but created problems of connectivity, complicated set-up …

    reghardware 7 Jun 07:00

  • Can virtualisation and cloud create flexible, scalable HPC environments?

    Live Now! Reg reader says yes

    Today at 11:00 BST we’ve got Reg reader Dr Rob Johnson, HPC God at Mitsubishi UFJ Securities International, Tony Lock from Freeform Dynamics and Nick Hall at from Microsoft in our studio arguing that HPC is ready for prime time. You can hear them explain to The Register's Tim Phillips how their experience shows that HPC isn't …

    HPC 7 Jun 07:33

  • New Bluetooth profiles for heart rate, body temp kit

    Sticker can message you your kid's temperature

    Two Bluetooth profiles, covering heart rate and temperature monitoring, have been published today as the Bluetooth SIG continues trying to get the world excited by its Low Energy variant. Bluetooth is already used for both heart and fever monitoring, but a formal profile should enable devices from different manufacturers to …

    Wireless 7 Jun 08:40

  • Spot-the-fake site launched

    ***GENUINE*** bargain

    The Trading Standards Institute has launched a site to help consumers spot fake branded goods. The site, Brand-i, lets you search by brand and shows a list of official retailers for that brand. But even a quick check suggests this runs the risk of branding perfectly legitimate small firms as rogue retailers. Search results do …

    Small Biz 7 Jun 08:55

  • NHS Direct

    Android App of the Week Nurse, the screen...

    Welcome to the Age of the Weak. Got a sniffle? It’s Bird Flu not a cold. Don’t want to get out of bed in the morning? You're not workshy, you've got SAD. To combat this pathetic malingering - or at least to stop it jamming up GPs' switchboards - NHS Direct is now available on an Android - iOS too - smartphone near you. Now …

    reghardware 7 Jun 09:00

  • New 'liquid smart metal' can go hard or floppy

    Self-healing too. Insert mimetic polyalloy reference here

    Top boffins in Germany and China say they have developed a remarkable new type of material which can switch from being strong and hard to soft and squashy at the touch of a button. Jörg Weißmüller, materials scientist at both the Technical University of Hamburg and the Helmholtz Geesthacht Zentrum für Material- und …

    Science 7 Jun 09:24

  • Apple iOS 5 and iCloud examined

    Hail or Fail We rate the key announcements

    The keynote speech at Apple's Worldwide Developers Conference may have kicked off with a demo of Mac OS X 10.7 Lion that we've seen before - the only real news was its launch date, July, and low price, $30 (£18) - but the iOS 5 and iCloud announcements were packed with juicy details. It's crucial to look ahead. Many of …

    reghardware 7 Jun 09:33

  • Rockstar publishes LA Noire e-book giveaway

    A novel gesture

    Rockstar is rather good at stories. Those of you who have played through LA Noire, will probably agree. Now the celebrated games publisher has moved into the realm of e-books, with a free LA Noire-themed short story anthology up for grabs. LA Noire: The Collected Stories - a gathering of eight tales from various well-known …

    reghardware 7 Jun 09:35

  • Microsoft reveals revamped Xbox dashboard

    Remote control out; gesture, voice recognition in

    Microsoft announced the next update to its Xbox dashboard yesterday, bringing a host of new features into play, including the introduction of voice search using Bing on the console which will be integrated with the firm's motion sensor tech, Kinect. While Apple was busily trying to outplay Microsoft with its iCloud …

    reghardware 7 Jun 09:46

  • Somerset council review criticises Southwest One

    Report says joint venture with IBM 'could do better'

    Somerset county council has gone public with criticisms of its Southwest One joint venture with IBM, following a review that led to the conclusion that it "could do better". Among the criticisms in a report (6-page PDF/52.2KB) on the shared service is that some savings targets were not met; there had been problems with the …

    Channel Register 7 Jun 09:58

  • RSA makes token offer to worried customers

    Terribly sorry

    RSA has offered to replace its customers' security tokens following confirmation that an important customer had come under attack, in an incident made possible by an earlier high-profile hack against RSA's systems. SecurID, RSA's two-factor authentication system, uses a token which generates a pseudo-random six-digit passcode …

    Enterprise Security 7 Jun 10:08

  • Phoenix IT sales up but op profit down

    The highs and low of moving to the cloud

    Rising demand for outsourced services boosted Phoenix IT Group's top line growth in fiscal 2011 but the cost of funding the firm's continued shift to the cloud saw operating profits dip. According to prelims, revenues climbed 10.5 per cent to £271.6m, operating profit fell by £500,000 or 1.6 per cent to £29.6m and pre-tax …

    Channel Register 7 Jun 10:22

  • Dynamic ninjas kill off free DNS service

    Go premium or GTFO, website owners

    Hundreds of thousands of EveryDNS users have been told that their free domain name system service will be cut off by the end of August. Dynamic Network Services, which acquired EveryDNS in January 2010, is now urging the owners of some 440,000 websites to migrate to its DynDNS-branded premium services. The migration also …

    Hosting 7 Jun 10:23

  • Calyx Software seals two reseller acquisitions for £6m

    VC Jon Moulton splashes the cash

    Private equity veteran Jon Moulton's buy-and-build vehicle Better Capital has forked out £6m for Cheshire-based developer Trinity Computer Services and the software reselling arm of Touchstone Group to bolt onto Calyx Software. These represent the first two acquisitions that Moulton has made since he rescued Calyx from …

    Channel Register 7 Jun 10:24

  • Sony unveils PlayStation telly

    PS Vita - 2G PSP - too

    Amid the inevitable PSN outage apologies, Sony has officially unveiled the PS Vita, as well as a PlayStation-branded TV which allows users to view two different outputs at the same time. Sony's US chief, Jack Tretton, kicked off the company's E3 speech with apologies for the PlayStation Network security breach. All was soon …

    reghardware 7 Jun 10:32

  • FT sticks it to Apple

    We don't need no steenking iTunes

    The Financial Times is bypassing iTunes with the launch of its new iPad and iPhone application. The pink paper said readers should switch immediately to the browser application. There is also a version for Samsung's Galaxy. Other devices will get support shortly and can already use the paper's mobile web page. Although …

    Mobile 7 Jun 10:52

  • Texas cinema texter becomes foul-mouthed movie star

    Gobby customer feels full force of mobe rule

    A Texas cinema with a strict no-mobe policy has demonstrated that it really means business by throwing out a persistent texter, then turning her mini-rant against ejection into a big screen trailer. Austin's Alamo Drafthouse explains: "Recently, we had a situation where a customer persisted in texting in the theatre despite …

    Bootnotes 7 Jun 10:58

  • Virgin Media gets VAT refund from HMRC

    Now owes taxman £23.6m

    Virgin Media has received a refund of £81.5m from HM Revenues and Customs (HMRC) covering VAT payments. The telco said in a short statement that its current contingent liability had been reduced to £23.6m. Virgin Media didn't reveal any further details about the arrangement. In the company's last quarter ended 31 March this …

    Telecoms 7 Jun 11:00

  • Belching cattle apocalypse menace sniffed in cowpats

    Bullshit science - but in a good way

    Cattle experts in Blighty and Ireland say they have discovered a much better way of finding out just how much methane is emitted by the world's cows - and thus, how much of a greenhouse-gas problem cattle actually are - by carrying out a detailed analysis of cowpats. Methane, though emitted from agriculture, industries, people …

    Environment 7 Jun 11:04

  • The Impact of Cloud on IT

    Tech Panel 'All change' or 'Steady as she goes'?

    if you've got a few minutes to spare, take a crack at our Cloud impact survey. "Cloud" has been the marketing buzz word of much of the last two years. Many IT vendors now fear to talk about any product or solution without squeezing the term into usage at least three times a minute, even if they have nothing to do with any type …

    Cloud Business 7 Jun 11:14

  • Transition leaves frustrated corporates locked out of Google Groups

    Catch 22.0

    Users are becoming increasingly frustrated that Google has been locking out users from Google Groups as the result of changes it made when it separated Google Apps accounts from Gmail and other consumer accounts around six months ago. Revising account structures to separate Google Apps accounts and Gmail accounts by itself …

    CIO 7 Jun 11:25

  • Chinese 'Twitter' breaks out of China

    Sina Weibo to take on global customers (who want to toe the Party line)

    Popular Twitter clone Sina Weibo is planning to bust out of China before the end of the year, bringing additional features but maintaining state-mandated censorship. Sina Weibo is currently limited to China, and the Chinese language, but as Reuters reports, the company is promising to provide an English-language service, …

    Mobile 7 Jun 11:41

  • Germans completely humourless: Official

    Survey confirms stone-faced national stereotype

    A survey of 30,000 people across 15 countries has confirmed what the world knew all along: Germans are completely humourless. The poll for social networking site Badoo.com found that the national stereotype of Germans as ruthlessly efficient in matters of manufacturing and football, but entirely inadequate in the wit …

    Bootnotes 7 Jun 11:43

  • 'Great Reversal' as world's forests stage a comeback

    Great news for treehuggers as burgeoning woods suck CO2

    Boffins report that forests worldwide are becoming bigger carbon sinks in a so-called "Great Reversal" after centuries of deforestation and decline. "With so much bad news available on World Environment Day [5 June] we are pleased to report that, of 68 nations studied, forest area is expanding in 45 and density is also …

    Environment 7 Jun 11:52

  • HP talks storage, convergence, integration

    Blogger overload

    Here at HP Discover 2011 in Las Vegas and I could already write a small book with all the announcements and information pumped out on the first day. Starting from the early morning with the press conference up to now with the meetings in the blogging lounge, I collected a large amount of information on HP's strategy and vision …

    Blocks and Files 7 Jun 11:59

  • Smart Fortwo Electric Drive e-car

    Review Pop to the shops

    If the key to making a good e-car is keeping the size and weight down then the Smart Fortwo - a fine example of what can be achieved with a clean sheet of paper, an open mind and no regard for such bourgeois eccentricities as rear seats or a boot - should make an ideal candidate for electrification. Smart's Fortwo ED: the …

    reghardware 7 Jun 12:00

  • Attorney General threatens Twitter injunction-busters

    'Not something I particularly want to do'

    The government's chief legal adviser has warned that people who breach privacy injunctions by publishing details on micro-blogging site Twitter and other websites could be prosecuted for contempt of court. Attorney General Dominic Grieve told the BBC's Radio 4 programme, Law in Action, that he would consider taking direct …

    Law 7 Jun 12:01

  • Skype hangs up on users yet again

    Updated More problems, less chat

    Users around the world once again experienced problems using Skype on Tuesday morning. As with seemingly identical problems last month, punters initially experienced frustration signing into the service before later reporting that the VoIP software had crashed on their machine. Skype played down the scope of the problem, …

    VoIP 7 Jun 12:04

  • Play.com pummelled over purported piracy permissiveness

    UPDATED Etailer spanked for 'dodgy' software sales

    Play.com has come under fire for failing to quickly clamp down on an alleged seller of pirated Microsoft software. An IT consultant advised SME clients to order copies of Office 2003 Professional but says that on arrival it was apparent they were not legit: there was no holographic strip on the COA sticker, it had a fake VBA …

    Small Biz 7 Jun 12:26

  • Paramount sets Star Trek phasers to Move

    I vote we blast 'em

    To celebrate the release of next year's Move enabled Star Trek game, Paramount will offer phaser-like PS Move controllers. Amid the humding of Vita and PlayStation TV during Sony's E3 presentation, CEO Jack Tretton excited the Trekkie community with news of the Move controller, modelled on the classic phaser. In addition, PS3 …

    reghardware 7 Jun 12:27

  • Brit censor stamps on The Human Centipede

    'Unacceptable' horror sequel DVD refused certificate

    The British Board of Film Classification (BBFC) has stamped firmly on the DVD sequel to low-budget movie The Human Centipede, refusing to certify the second installment of director Tom Six's horror series. The BBFC explains that 2010's The Human Centipede saw "a mad scientist stitch together three victims face-to-bottom" to …

    Entertainment 7 Jun 12:56

  • Cisco UK partner boss gets new role in the cloud

    Permanent replacement more than a month away

    Cisco's UK and Ireland partner boss Bernadette Wightman is set to head up the networking Goliath's Cloud Centre of Excellence, after passing the channel baton to David Critchley, director of the commercial SME sector. Wightman succeeded John Donovan as managing director for the channel in July 2008 but is now transitioning to …

    Channel Register 7 Jun 13:36

  • BBC Freesat tech switch zaps HD channels from 'old' boxes

    Shift to DVB-S2 sets punters a-grumbing

    The BBC has annoyed some early Freesat supporters by switching the technology used to broadcast its HD channels over the free-to-air satellite service. Today, the Corporation shifted BBC One HD and BBC HD from DVB-S to DVB-S2. If your Freesat box supports the latter - and many recent ones do - the worst you'll experience is an …

    reghardware 7 Jun 13:48

  • Apple embraces 'n' extends messaging

    iWalledGarden or iSilo? That'll do nicely

    Once upon a time there was POP3, and it was all so simple... This week's news that Apple is introducing its own proprietary messaging protocol was buried in yesterday's iCloud announcements. Maybe it's too geeky for the Twitter-besotted press corps, and too mundane for many analysts. But it's very, very significant. If RIM's …

    Applications 7 Jun 13:55

  • Facebook quietly switches on facial recognition tech by default

    Tag, you're it. Zuckerberg amps up data-farming mission creep

    Facebook has rolled out its facial recognition technology to countries outside of the US, but has switched the feature on by default without telling its users first. UK-based security expert Graham Cluely noted earlier today that Facebook had slotted the tech into the social network. The Mark Zuckerberg-run company started …

    Applications 7 Jun 13:56

  • Tory terror changes promise moon on stick

    Doctors to predict future-bombers, blacklist for UK internet

    The Home Secretary's revamped anti-terrorism strategy, Prevent, may include moves to blacklist some internet pages and websites. The policy is due for release this afternoon but copies of the Prevent strategy have already been seen by the Times, which said more will be spent on countering extremism online. AOL is already …

    Government 7 Jun 14:07

  • Microsoft fingered for Nokia's bleak future

    Shares fall on ratings downgrade

    Nokia shares are down slightly today on news that ratings agency Fitch has downgraded the company's lending rating from BBB+ to BBB-. Fitch reckons the situation is bad and getting worse for the once-mighty Finnish firm. The rating agency also set the outlook for Nokia to negative. The rating impacts Nokia's long-term bonds …

    Mobile 7 Jun 14:46

  • Griffin Cabinet Mount for iPad

    Txt Take Kitchen tablet

    Daily product reviews in 140 characters... Griffin Cabinet Mount Pictures Want our Txt Take on your gadget? Just send it in to Reg Hardware - details here.

    reghardware 7 Jun 15:00

  • Feds turn one in four black-hat hackers into snitches

    Cracktivists beware...

    One in four criminal hackers turn snitches under pressure from US authorities. The FBI and US Secret Service – the two lead agencies in the fight against cybercrime in the US – have used the threat of prison to create an army of informers, according to an investigation by The Guardian. A climate of mistrust has been sown among …

    Crime 7 Jun 15:01

  • 3D-printed bikini goes on sale

    Bristol fashion

    We've seen 3D printers produce custom guitars, house keys and even the occasional gourmet meal. Now the technology is being used to build commercially viable fashion products too. The Shapeways bikini - made in partnership with Continuum Fashion - is crafted from selective laser sintered nylon (SLS). While 3D printing has …

    reghardware 7 Jun 15:50

  • IBM tunes Xeon E7 appliances for VMware hypervisor

    And HANA loves SAP

    The mantra at IBM these days is workload-optimized systems, and the company is trying to make the sales pitch easier for itself and its reseller partners by tuning up server configurations to support specific workloads right out of the cardboard box. IBM has taken the new "Westmere-EX" Xeon E7 processors announced by Intel …

    Servers 7 Jun 16:33

  • Infosmack delivers burgers and bullets

    Got it taped

    A big hello from the Infosmack, the world's best podcast about enterprise tech. Your hosts for episode 102 are Greg Knieriemen and Marc Farley with the Diva of Disruptive Technologies, Christina Weil and special guests this week are W. Curtis Preston ("Mr. Backup") of Backup Central Live and David Chapa of ESG. Let's have some …

    Infosmack 7 Jun 16:44

  • Fujitsu's Windows Azure cloud debuts this August

    Whither HP and Dell?

    Using a platform cloud is supposed to be easy, but apparently building the hardware and software infrastructure is not so trivial. After unexplained delays, Fujitsu and Microsoft are finally getting ready to launch the first private label platform clouds based on Microsoft's Azure software stack. Microsoft server partners …

    Platform 7 Jun 17:15

  • Apple releases iTunes 10.3 with beta iCloud

    Jobsian purchases shared across multiple devices

    Apple has released a new version of iTunes that ties into a beta incarnation of the company's just announced iCloud web services. iCloud doesn't officially launch until the fall and many of its services won't be available until then, but the new iTunes – version 10.3 – provides access some of the tools announced yesterday under …

    SaaS 7 Jun 18:04

  • Intel enlists universities in security wars

    All research to be shared and open sourced

    Intel has launched a security-research collaboration with major US universities, saying that all research results will be made public, and all software developed in the program will be open sourced. The collaboration between Intel and university faculty and graduate students will be the second in the Intel Science and …

    Security 7 Jun 18:56

  • Microsoft goes bot herder hunting in streets of Russia

    Rustock operators on notice

    Microsoft is taking its campaign against digital crime to the streets of Russia, placing ads in newspapers in Moscow and St. Petersburg in an attempt to track down the operators of the notorious Rustock spam botnet. The software giant in March delivered a devastating blow to Rustock that employed novel legal and technical …

    Enterprise Security 7 Jun 19:26

  • Nintendo takes control with next-gen games console

    Warm welcome for Wii U

    Nintendo took to the stage at E3 today and revealed the highly-anticipated Wii successor that seeks to once again redefine the way we play games. The console previously known as Project Café has been officially unveiled as Wii U. It features HD graphics that appear to blow the PS3 out the water. The main talking point, however …

    reghardware 7 Jun 22:05

  • Canadian Conservative Party website defaced

    Reports of PM choking on hashbrowns greatly exaggerated

    The office of Canada's Prime Minister has rushed to set the record straight after hackers defaced that country's Conservative Party website and planted a press release falsely claiming PM Stephen Harper had been flown to a hospital emergency room after choking on breakfast. “According to staff at the hospital, Harper was …

    Security 7 Jun 22:18

  • HP plugs CloudSystem into Amazon and other heavens

    Where blades go to die

    Hewlett-Packard is expanding its CloudSystem private cloud platform beyond the corporate firewall to service providers itching to make some dough on this cloud computing razzmatazz. If you were expecting Hewlett-Packard to make big announcements at its Discover 2011 event in Las Vegas concerning its rumored Scalene public …

    Platform 7 Jun 22:45

  • Apple iCloud: Steve Jobs' own private internet

    It's like Google. Minus the web

    Just before the launch of its long-rumored GDrive – a service for storing all your desktop files on the web – Google killed the thing. "Files are so 1990. ... I don’t think we need files anymore," Google's Sundar Pichai told colleague Bradley Horowitz, according to the new book In the Plex. "You just want to get information into …

    SaaS 7 Jun 22:51

  • Microsoft iCOMP extends anti-Google push to Australia

    Calls for regulator inquiry into search

    An online retailer lobby launched by Microsoft and Burson-Marsteller in Europe in 2007 to oppose the Google-DoubleClick merger has planted its flag in the Australian retail market. In a submission to the Australian Productivity Commission inquiry into the retail industry, the astroturf lobby group highlights Google’s admitted …

    Financial News 7 Jun 22:52

  • Hackers jailbreak iOS 5 in under 24 hours

    Like clockwork

    Like clockwork, hackers said they've removed the digital locks in the latest version of Apple's iOS so it will run applications not officially sanctioned by the company. iOS 5 was unveiled on Monday, and a beta version was made available to a limited number of developers. Within hours, members of the iPhone Dev Team posted …

    Security 7 Jun 23:01

  • Computers locking up kids in NSW

    COPS can’t get anything right

    A class action to be launched today in the NSW Supreme Court will accuse NSW Police of arresting and locking up teenagers due to a computer glitch. The action, foreshadowed late in 2010, will be led by prominent compensation lawyers Maurice Blackburn in conjunction with the Public Interest Advocacy Centre. The problem seems …

    Government 7 Jun 23:50