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27th June 2011 Archive

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  • Four National Broadband Network myths

    Fetching out the four-by-clue

    I believe in public debate, but I also believe in facts. In the ongoing row about Australia’s National Broadband Network (NBN), facts are an early casualty. Some of the non-facts bandied about are to do with the NBN’s technology, but instead, I’d like to deal with aspects of the political and business dealing that are widely …

    Broadband 27 Jun 2011, 00:07

  • Travelodge still doesn't know who hacked it

    I knew that Mr and Mrs Smith were up to something

    Travelodge is still trying to find out who got into their customer database and snaffled names and email addresses. The budget chain told the Reg it has asked outside contractors to go through its systems to try and find the culprits. A spokeswoman said: In the last 24 hours, we have been conducting a comprehensive …

    Security 27 Jun 2011, 08:51

  • Court orders trader to repay customers after failure to deliver goods

    Other users get refunds after shipments were months late

    A court has ordered an online trader to refund consumers to whom he failed to deliver goods or pay refunds, the UK's consumer protection regulator the Office of Fair Trading (OFT) has said. Pavan Arora must payback customers who bought technology products via websites he operated, the Cardiff County Court ordered, according to …

    The Channel 27 Jun 2011, 09:05

  • Acer Android 3.1 update leaks out early

    Honeycomb goodness for all

    Acer's Android 3.1 Honeycomb update for its 10in Iconia Tab A500 tablet has leaked out ahead of schedule. Originally expected to debut in a week or so, the update file was this weekend spotted on an Acer server in China, downloaded, uploaded elsewhere, and tinkered with to create custom ROMs. The cat is well and truly out of …

    Tablets 27 Jun 2011, 09:11

  • Does Office 365 keep its promises?

    Broadcast The verdict from people who know

    The end of June marks the launch of Microsoft's biggest cloud initiative so far: Office 365. Some of you will have been playing with the beta, some of you will have it scheduled for the future, and some of you will see it implemented over your dead bodies. Whatever you think about Office 365 - or if you're looking for an …

    Cloud 27 Jun 2011, 09:22

  • SLAs keep demands for business applications under control

    Measure out the portions

    It is not uncommon for the IT department to find itself some way down the food chain. You know how it is: the business guys decide to implement their shiny new applications and the IT department somehow has to find the platforms to run it on. The first step is to define the requirements for the application – both those that …

    Data Center 27 Jun 2011, 09:30

  • Google kills sickly health, energy projects

    Doctor Evil won't see you now

    Google is killing its Health and PowerMeter products due to a lack of interest from would-be customers. The Mountain View Chocolate Factory said that the two projects "didn't catch on the way we would have hoped". As a result, Google Health's life support will be switched off on 1 January 2012, with the data being available …

    Developer 27 Jun 2011, 09:37

  • Cambridge gets a white (space) wash

    Industry gangs up to prove licence-free radio

    A consortium of Cambridge-based companies is to start testing white space radios in the UK, to see if they can coexist with each other, and everyone else. The trials are permitted under a multi-site test licence issued by Ofcom, and will allow the likes of Microsoft, BT, Nokia, Samsung, Spectrum Bridge and BSkyB to set up …

    Broadband 27 Jun 2011, 10:00

  • Asus $199 MeeGo netbook out next month

    Eee PC 701 successor at last?

    Asus announced its MeeGo-based netbook, the 10in Eee PC X101, earlier this month, but said little else about the specs. Now a few tech details have emerged. The X101 - due out next month, apparently - will be based on Intel's Atom N435, the chip giant's new, single-core CPU running at 1.33GHz. It'll have an 8GB SSD, …

    Laptops 27 Jun 2011, 10:37

  • US Spec-Ops offered camouflage for a specific site

    Take a snap, print out uniform you need for the job

    Everybody knows how obsessive the world's elite special-ops forces are about preparing for a task. Prior to the recent, headline-making raid in which Osama bin Laden was killed, US Navy SEALs built a complete mockup of the compound where he lived and spent weeks practicing attacks on it, for instance. In future, as well as …

    Science 27 Jun 2011, 10:43

  • PS3 hacker Hotz accepts job at Facebook

    Status: Landed a surprise job

    Facebook has reportedly hired George Hotz, the hacker best known for defeating the security measures of iPhones and PS3 consoles. Hotz, 21, was the first to develop software that unlocked the iPhone before jailbreaking the PlayStation 3 console. Sony infamously sued Hotz over the hack, a decision that provoked the wrath of …

    Mobile 27 Jun 2011, 10:44

  • Lego Star Wars to be celebrated in TV special

    'New and fun direction' for sci-fi series

    George Lucas has picked up the building blocks again by readying a Lego Star Wars TV special, to broadcast sometime this autumn. The news was revealed when Comingsoon snapped a banner promoting the show at the Licensing International Expo 2011. The television special will apparently be created to compliment the ongoing series …

    Hardware 27 Jun 2011, 10:45

  • Facebook elbows past Microsoft in UK

    More visitors than everyone except Google

    Facebook crept past Microsoft in the UK for the first time last month, when it became more popular than every other site surfed in the country with the exception of web kingpin Google. It claimed the second spot in May by notching up 26.8 million visitors, according to online measurement outfit UKOM/Nielsen. That compares …

    Applications 27 Jun 2011, 10:51

  • Samsung NC110 matte-screen netbook

    Review Innovation, we've heard of it

    Tight spots don’t come much trickier than the one netbook makers find themselves in. Squeezed from above by prettier, more interesting tablets, netbooks such as Samsung’s £350 N350 are barely appealing alternatives to Apple’s glossy view of the future. Samsung's NC110: more of the same, but with a gloss-less screen And take …

    Laptops 27 Jun 2011, 11:00

  • Denmark gets its own NFC consortium

    We can't let Google into our customers' pockets

    The four Danish network operators have banded together to create a standard NFC platform, and admitted that it is the threat from Google that has driven them to do so. The four networks – TDC, Telenor, TeliaSonera and Three – have banded together to create a standard, SIM-hosted, platform for NFC applications, much like the …

    Mobile 27 Jun 2011, 11:04

  • Opera boss walks off stage, citing musical differences

    Gives up job, keeps shares

    Jon S von Tetzchner is leaving Opera, the browser company he co-founded back in 1995 and headed until last year. The company and its former CEO put a bland spin on his departure at the close of last week, but this was rapidly overtaken by the leak of his valedictory email to staff and subsequent comments to the media. "It is …

    Applications 27 Jun 2011, 11:06

  • You have to have standards – or do you?

    Part one 1 livre of pate, half a pound of cheese and 200g salty biscuits please

    Given that so much of the time and effort expended by you technical and computing types revolves around standards, just how important are they in the larger sense? And if they are important, who ought to be devising them, and should they be voluntary or imposed? This might sound a tad odd in this modern age, for the default …

    Servers 27 Jun 2011, 11:18

  • 'Robots can save America', says Obama

    'As C-in-C I can assure you the machines seem peaceful'

    President Obama has announced an ambitious plan to revitalise the economic health of the USA by deploying a mighty nationwide task force of robots. In a speech delivered on Friday launching the National Robotics Initiative – part of the wider Advanced Manufacturing Initiative – the President sought to boost US efforts in …

    Government 27 Jun 2011, 11:33

  • HTC to follow LG with 3D smartphone

    All about Evo

    HTC has followed LG's lead by fitting its latest smartphone with a glasses-free 3D display. The HTC Evo 3D runs Android 2.3 Gingerbread with the latest HTC Sense UI sitting on top, all on a 1.2GHz dual-core Qualcomm Snapdragon processor. It features a dimension-boosting 4.3in, 540 x 960 - aka "qHD" - display, as well as twin …

    Phones 27 Jun 2011, 11:35

  • Councils and police to publish speed camera data

    DfT to set up central hub for guides to finding information

    Local authorities and police forces are to publish figures on the results of installing speed cameras. Road safety minister Mike Penning said that councils will publish statistics on the numbers of accidents and casualties at camera sites dating back to 1990. Police forces are to provide details of the number of speeding …

    Government 27 Jun 2011, 12:14

  • Automation begins with keeping track of your assets

    Knowledge is power

    Automating effectively requires you to know what is connected to your network and what patches it needs, and to be able to push patches on to the right device at the right time. Before you can manage anything, you need to know what hardware and software you have and where it is. Then you need to take control of it, remotely …

    Data Center 27 Jun 2011, 12:29

  • Groupon faces multitude of legal headaches in US

    Mo' money off, mo' problems

    Groupon may have rather more legal woes than people generally think. The problem isn't particularly that it's doing anything wrong - it's that the major limitation on most innovation is the old way of doing things. In this case, that's the laws about the old ways of distributing and using coupons. Research from Harvard seems …

    Financial News 27 Jun 2011, 12:30

  • Russian payment processing boss held over DDoS-for-hire plot

    Purported pill-pusher pinched

    The co-founder of Russian payment processing firm ChronoPay was arrested last Thursday over allegations that he hired a hacker to run a denial of service attack against a business rival. Pavel Vrublevsky, 32, an alleged co-owner of the Rx-Promotion rogue online pharmacy program as well as the acting head of ChronoPay, was …

    Security 27 Jun 2011, 12:32

  • Vatican launches second website in just 2000 years

    Cunning choice of launch date to avoid server outages

    The Vatican is to update its notoriously creaky comms operation this week, with a new easy to use and doctrinally sound news portal. News.va will, apparently, be launched with a papal click of the mouse by Pope Benedict himself, doubtless leading to questions as to whether this will make the site the world's only infallible …

    Media 27 Jun 2011, 12:36

  • MobileMe web app features shapeshift into Apple's iCloud

    iWeb and others fail to make the cut

    Apple confirmed late last week that various web apps currently locked into MobileMe will live on in the company's recently announced iCloud service. However, Cupertino is canning its iWeb publishing, Gallery and iDisk tools on 30 June 2012. The apps that will survive the death of Apple's unpopular MobileMe service include …

    Cloud 27 Jun 2011, 12:41

  • Go Daddy on the block for $2.5bn

    Going once, going twice ...

    Domain names and web hosting provider Go Daddy is reportedly on the verge of being acquired by private investors for up to $2.5bn. The New York Post reported that a group led by Silver Lake Partners and KKR & Co plans to buy the closely held company for $1bn. The Associated Press later put the price tag at between $2bn and $2. …

    Hosting 27 Jun 2011, 12:45

  • Boffins take REMOTE CONTROL of HUMAN HAND

    Science out on a limb

    Now that pacemakers are to be loaded with firewalls and bionic-man body parts are appearing on production lines, the concept of body hacking has become a spooky possibility. Researchers in Japan have begun to try to teach people how to play instruments by remotely controlling their hands. Developed by the University of Tokyo …

    Hardware 27 Jun 2011, 13:14

  • Side-lined suppliers beat on Police procurement deal

    Sprint ii: To buy or not to buy

    The Home Office's ruling that police buy commodity hardware and software from a single supplier framework instead of a multi-reseller agreement continues to attract biting criticism from side-lined suppliers. Following the imposition of benchmarks to determine best value for money, forces in England and Wales were mandated in …

    The Channel 27 Jun 2011, 13:25

  • ALK tells CoPilot owners no free upgrade to new release

    Limited-time big discount instead

    ALK has formally announced CoPilot Live Premium HD, the latest version of its Android and iOS satnav app. The new release adds a stack of new features, but there'll be no free upgrade for owners of the previous release. While ALK awaits Apple's approval, it has pushed the new release onto the Android Market. CoPilot Live 8 …

    Science 27 Jun 2011, 13:37

  • Liverpool cops compulsively snooped footballer's record

    200+ police peeks at Gerrard's file

    Merseyside Police officers were caught illegally accessing the Police National Computer over 200 times in the last three years. But almost half of these were to do with one footballer: 130 members of staff at Merseyside Police were caught looking at Steven Gerrard's file. The numbers come from a Freedom of Information request …

    Law 27 Jun 2011, 14:02

  • Case study Wiltshire Council on its Windows 7 roll-out

    Amalgamation of four separate authorities, 270 offices that needed to be reduced into four hubs and 70 outlying offices, and many constraints including a host of governmental regulations, were among the challenges facing Wiltshire Council as it planned to roll out Microsoft Windows 7, which was at the core of its workplace …

    Data Center 27 Jun 2011, 14:27

  • German chemical giant depending on biscuit-based security

    But El Reg testing recommends savoury over sweet

    Managers at Germ chem firm Evonik are putting their mobile phones into biscuit tins during important meetings, but testing by El Reg has revealed critical flaws in the Faraday-cage qualities of popular brands. Concerns about industrial espionage have driven the German chemical company Evonik to equip every meeting room with a …

    Mobile 27 Jun 2011, 14:36

  • Oracle cranks Sun Fire servers with Xeon E7s

    Dense, in a good way

    Oracle is struggling a bit with its hardware business right now as it pares down the Sun server and storage business to be a less complex line with more profits. But don't get confused. The software giant and server maker is very much committed to have x64 gear in its lineup to prop up both Linux and Solaris workloads. …

    Servers 27 Jun 2011, 15:07

  • Filer maker BlueArc refiles for IPO

    One hundred meeellion dollars wanted

    Filer maker BlueArc has refiled for an IPO and wants to raise a hundred million bucks. It first filed for an IPO in 2007, looking for just over $100m, but the recession struck and market conditions stopped it. BlueArc was founded in 1998, and is on the cusp of becoming somewhat long in the tooth for a start-up. It sells …

    Storage 27 Jun 2011, 15:26

  • 600 tonne asteroid in low pass above Falkland Islands - TONIGHT

    Will be nearer Islanders, Brit garrison than Japan is

    An asteroid the size of a bus and massing 600 tonnes is barrelling through space toward planet Earth at terrific speed as this report is written. Astronomers say there is no chance that the object, dubbed 2011 MD, will strike our planet but it will corner sharply through our gravitational field and descend to just 7,600 miles …

    Science 27 Jun 2011, 15:39

  • Carphone Warehouse makes Euro bill shock boob

    'Experts' in error

    You'd expect a major mobile phone seller to have a good understanding of the cost of using a smartphone when you travel abroad. Carphone Warhouse doesn't, if a press mailing designed to persuade hacks to encourage their readers to have a word with CW before travelling is anything to go by. Says the intro from CW's flacks: " …

    Mobile 27 Jun 2011, 15:55

  • Avast still focused on Windows, despite new Mac security app

    Czech firm aims to checkmate VXers

    Free security software outfit Avast reckons unprotected Windows desktops still offer its greatest potential area for growth, despite its huge existing Windows user-base of 130 million active users. In addition to pushing out its technology to small businesses, the Czech Republic-based firm plans to offer an Android-based …

    Security 27 Jun 2011, 15:56

  • Wildfire shuts down Los Alamos nuke lab

    Wind shifts on supercomputer behemoth

    Los Alamos National Laboratory – one of the big nuke labs run by the US Department of Energy and a big supercomputing center – has been shut down by the Las Conchas fire that is burning on the outskirts of Santa Fe, New Mexico. The lab – which is 35 miles northwest of Santa Fe and which is home to the "Roadrunner" hybrid …

    HPC 27 Jun 2011, 16:49

  • Microsoft nails second Android device maker

    Patent dealing

    Microsoft has nailed a second Android device maker to a patent licensing agreement. The Redmond software giant announced on Monday that General Dynamics Itronix has signed a patent agreement that will provide "broad coverage under Microsoft's patent portfolio". In other words, General Dynamics Itronix has agreed to licensing …

    Operating Systems 27 Jun 2011, 16:53

  • US Supremes dump violent video game ban

    Urinating on virtual burning cops deemed free speech

    The US Supreme Court has upheld a lower-court decision that blocked a California law which made the sale or rental of violent video games to minors an offense punishable by fines of up to $1,000. "California has singled out the purveyors of video games for disfavored treatment – at least when compared to booksellers, …

    Software 27 Jun 2011, 17:29

  • Hackers pierce network with jerry-rigged mouse

    Mission Impossible meets Logitech

    When hackers from penetration testing firm Netragard were hired to pierce the firewall of a customer, they knew they had their work cut out. The client specifically ruled out the use of social networks, telephones, and other social-engineering vectors, and gaining unauthorized physical access to computers was also off limits. …

    Security 27 Jun 2011, 18:06

  • Fusion motherboards beat AMD chips to market

    Asus, MSI, Gigabyte leap on APU bandwagon

    AMD's desktop-bound A-Series Fusion APUs (accelerated processing units) haven't yet officially hit the streets, but that hasn't stopped manufacturers from punting motherboards intended for them. Asus, MSI, and Gigabyte have each announced mobos based on AMD's A75 chipset (née Hudson D3), with FM1 sockets ready to accept AMD's …

    Hardware 27 Jun 2011, 19:27

  • All aboard the flash array train?

    Comment Tickets please, storage vendors

    A flash train is thundering down the track, coming right at the storage array vendors. Will they step aside, get run over, or leap aboard? About 18 months ago the competitors were Nimbus, a start-up, and Texas Memory Systems (TMS) and Whiptail, all offering all-flash memory arrays. Now these have been joined by Solid Access, …

    Storage 27 Jun 2011, 22:21

  • Google turns over user data in 94% of US demands

    Facebook, Yahoo!, Microsoft? Who knows?

    The US government filed more than twice as many demands for data about Google users than any other other country in the past six months, according to figures the search behemoth supplied Monday. What's more, according to the Google Transparency Report, Google fully or partially complied with the US demands in 94 percent of the …

    Security 27 Jun 2011, 22:27

  • China Tel gets busy Down Under

    Sets up shop in Sydney ... very quietly

    The world's largest fixed carrier, China Telecom, has quietly opened shop in Australia. The Australian branch of China Telecom formally launched operations in Sydney in mid-June. The strategic regional expansion to Australia follows an aggressive extension of reach via new points of presence in Thailand, Indonesia, Singapore, …

    Business 27 Jun 2011, 22:45

  • Commercial math attracts NBN Co’s attention

    No, we don’t mean “creative accounting”

    Australian software company Biarri has won a contract to supply software and co-development work to NBN Co, the government-owned company building the country’s National Broadband Network (NBN). The contract itself was announced in more-or-less boilerplate fashion, but Biarri’s description of itself as a “commercial mathematics …

    Business 27 Jun 2011, 22:46