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6th July 2011 Archive

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  • The Web isn’t dead in Australia

    Nuggets from ACMA’s regular data dump

    A meme from last year that the "Web is dead" doesn't seem to have stopped Australian 'net users, for whom that and e-mail remain the inescapable daily activity, according to a research paper published by the Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA). Its latest analysis of Internet usage also restates the …

    Broadband 6 Jul 2011, 00:30

  • Telstra overhauls structure ... again

    Creates sexy new apps and digital investment arm

    Telstra is unifying its troops in preparation for heightened competition brought by the National Broadband Network. In a series of restructures and appointments, the carrier is galvanizing disparate, sales, service and marketing functions in bid to improve customer service. Telstra’s company wide sales and retail customer …

    Business 6 Jul 2011, 05:54

  • Philips 221TE2L 21.5in monitor and Freeview TV combo

    Review Double vision?

    All modern TVs can function perfectly well as a computer monitor; however the same isn’t true the other way round. To make a TV you’ll of course need a tuner to pick up the transmitted signal, a decent remote control for all that armchair channel hopping and probably a few extra inputs for your Blu-ray player, games console and …

    Hardware 6 Jul 2011, 06:00

  • Major Comet investor backs sale

    But only if the price is right

    Major Kesa Electricals' shareholder Knight Vinke will back the proposed sale of ailing retailer Comet providing it can be signed and sealed quickly with a decent return for investors. According to reports last weekend, the near 20 per cent stakeholder asked Comet parent Kesa to shelve plans to flog the business, which reported …

    Data Center 6 Jul 2011, 07:30

  • Flashy Intel flash specs leak

    Uh oh, Powerpoint all over the floor

    Specs of Intel's super flash SSD710 and 720 solid state drives have been leaked by Computerbase.de – and they look mighty meaty, matey. Intel is well on the way to transitioning its X18 and X25 SSDs to 3XX and 5XX devices with announcements in January and March this year. A leaked PowerPoint chart mentioned Lyndonville and …

    Storage 6 Jul 2011, 07:33

  • Servers: My place or yours?

    Home and Away fixtures

    It’s practically easier to have your DC in your basement, but strategically silly. If you don’t need physical servers, it’s time to decide if it’s better to locate the virtual servers outside your building. From a practical standpoint, locating servers in your own data centres and offices would seem to be a good idea. You know …

    Data Center 6 Jul 2011, 08:00

  • Apple users complain over MobileMe 'censorware'

    EU crisis emails null rooted by Cupertino

    Apple has reportedly begun the filtering of outbound messages sent via its MobileMe service. The fruity one has applied inbound filtering to inbound emails as a precaution against spam since last year. Last month, however, it began filtering messages that users sent using the service – for questionable reasons. The upshot is …

    Security 6 Jul 2011, 08:00

  • Ofcom slaps Channel 5 for loud PlayStation ads

    'I'M WATCHING THE TELLY'

    With talk of a next-gen console, revamps to PSN and a spanking new handheld on the way, Sony has been making a lot of noise lately. Not quite in the same way its advertising campaign for PS3 has, though. UK broadcaster Channel 5 has been slapped on the wrist by watchdog Ofcom after 17 viewers complained that PlayStation 3 …

    Hardware 6 Jul 2011, 08:05

  • Sunspot decline could mean decades of cold UK winters

    Ice-skating on the Thames to make a comeback?

    British scientists have produced a new study suggesting that the Sun is coming to the end of a "grand solar maximum" – a long period of intense activity in the Sun – meaning that we in Blighty could be set for a long period of much colder winters, similar to those seen during the "little ice age" of the 17th and 18th centuries …

    Science 6 Jul 2011, 08:07

  • UK gov chews over Amazon Book Depository engulfment

    Any issues here, does anyone think?

    The Office of Fair Trading (OFT) has invited members of the public to comment on Amazon's proposed acquisition of UK-based The Book Depository. "Anticipated acquisition by Amazon.com Inc. of The Book Depository International Limited – issued 5 July 2011," reads a notice on the OFT website. It then advises interested parties …

    Government 6 Jul 2011, 08:30

  • Security giants join forces to train cops on cybercrime

    Tech-savvy iPlods will be better able to fend off attacks

    Net security firms have lent their support to a new group that is seeking to provide cybercrime training for law enforcement officials as part of a wider fight against cybercrime. McAfee and Trend Micro have both pledged to support the fledgling International Cyber Security Protection Alliance (ICSPA). The international …

    Law 6 Jul 2011, 09:00

  • New company to lead UK police ICT procurement

    Top cops in charge of IT pros - bound to work well

    A police ICT company, led by police chiefs and staffed by technology professionals, will be set up in spring 2012 to manage some of the £1.2bn the service currently spends on ICT each year, home secretary Theresa May has announced. In a speech to the Association of Chief Police Officers (Acpo), May said the police must have a …

    Law 6 Jul 2011, 09:02

  • Ofcom maps state of UK broadband

    Where to move for the best speeds - and where to avoid

    And the award for the UK's fastest average broadband speed goes to... Edinburgh, named today as the nation's best location for broadband performance by Ofcom. That said, its average speed as measured by the comms watchdog, 10.1Mb/s, isn't expecially impressive. Edinburgh is followed by Bristol (9.9Mb/s), Blackpool (9.5Mb/s), …

    Broadband 6 Jul 2011, 09:04

  • Google dumps all 11+ million .co.cc sites from its results

    Bigger than .org or .uk - but mostly spam and phish

    Google has removed over 11 million .co.cc websites from its search engine results pages on the basis that most of them are far too "spammy". The .co.cc space is not an officially authorised second-level domain like .co.uk or .com.au. Rather, it's offered independently by a Korean company (http://co.cc/) that just happens to …

    Hosting 6 Jul 2011, 09:30

  • Panasonic opens TV app developer programme

    Code for the goggle box

    Want to write code for Panasonic's net-connected TVs? Now you can, thanks to the Japanase giant's opening of a developer portal tied to its Viera Connect IPTV front-end. Panasonic said the new portal provides "all the necessary documentation, application guidelines, major components [and] platform features... for delivering …

    Hardware 6 Jul 2011, 09:45

  • New Yorkers battle giant blindness-causing plants

    Botanical SWAT teams confront triffid-esque menace

    Authorities in New York State have warned residents to keep a sharp look-out for the giant hogweed – the alien invader from the Caucasus Mountains which has the power to cause "severe skin and eye irritation, painful blistering, permanent scarring and blindness". The Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) is in its …

    Science 6 Jul 2011, 10:19

  • iPhone 4, iPad mole faces 30 years' federal porridge

    Insider leaked fondleslab secrets in trading scam

    A former Flextronics exec is facing up to 30 years in prison for leaking details of Apple's iPhone 4 development as part of an insider trading scam. Walter Shimoon, 39, of San Diego, California, has pleaded guilty to conspiracy and fraud charges. He was arrested in December. Shimoon is accused of using his position at …

    Law 6 Jul 2011, 10:26

  • Virgin Media to integrate Spotify across multiple platforms

    Tunes up TVs, PCs and mobiles

    Virgin Media has done a deal with digital music supplier Spotify, announcing an agreement that makes Virgin the only provider offering the service across multiple platforms. The deal, which has been on the cards for a while, will see Virgin integrate Spotify into its cable television service and delivered through an app that' …

    Hardware 6 Jul 2011, 10:44

  • Cryptographer Len Sassaman, RIP

    Obituary CodeCon founder remembered

    Len Sassaman, a cryptographer and security researcher of high repute, has died aged 31. Sassaman maintained the Mixmaster remailer and he contributed to various other privacy projects, including OpenPGP. He also co-founded the annual CodeCon conference with Bram Cohen. He was security researcher and doctoral student at the …

    Bootnotes 6 Jul 2011, 10:48

  • Sony says no to YouView

    Telly maker not keen on 'Freeview for IPTV' scheme

    Sony will not support the UK's would-be IPTV standard, YouView, the company's UK chief has revealed. Speaking at the Intellect Consumer Electronics Conference in London yesterday, Gildas Pelliet, MD of Sony UK and Ireland, said the company will not plug YouView into the Bravia Internet Video service built into many of the firm …

    Hardware 6 Jul 2011, 10:49

  • Italian and Swiss cops cuff 15 Anonymous suspects

    Hacktivist suspects vanned – including 5 kids

    Fifteen suspected members of Anonymous have been arrested following a joint Italian-Swiss police investigation, AFP reports. Police reckon the group formed a cell that attacked the websites of the Italian government and prominent Italian companies, energy firms ENEL and ENI, as well as state broadcaster RAI. The group, …

    Security 6 Jul 2011, 11:12

  • Tape and dedupe: So not happening

    Opinion Why not?

    Let's be provocative: the LTO Consortium has innovated in tape format capacity but elsewhere the tape world is moribund, mostly seeing tape as a cheap data tub with ever-increasing capacity. Where is the innovation we've seen in disk drive arrays? Yes, we have tape media checking to ensure tape cartridges are storing data …

    Storage 6 Jul 2011, 11:31

  • Google explains Gaia Theory: A butterfly flaps its wings …

    Sarah Hunter strikes again

    Google’s Sarah Hunter is utterly, completely our favourite policy lobbyist in the UK. She’s a gift who can’t stop giving. Lord Derry Irvine's god-daughter was on Blair's personal staff, and was formerly No.10 policy advisor for culture. She gave top media and telecoms people an education at a Westminster Forum conference today …

    Bootnotes 6 Jul 2011, 11:31

  • NOTW hack-hackage: Inside the personal data press mess

    Comment Publish and be damned. Well, not damned exactly

    In the middle of the Major years (back in the 1990s), David Mellor, then a Cabinet minister (whose fascination for female toes was discussed by the tabloids, in the "public interest" of course) famously said that the press were drinking at "the last chance saloon". Fifteen years of hard drinking later, the recent events into …

    Law 6 Jul 2011, 11:36

  • Mystery of David Attenborough's garden skull cracked

    1879 murder victim's lost head found in star's backyard

    Cops in southwest London have identified a skull found in the Richmond garden of TV star Sir David Attenborough as that of an 1879 murder victim. The skull was discovered last year during excavations at the rear of the former Hole in the Wall pub in Park Road, close to where Julia Martha Thomas was killed by her Irish-born …

    Bootnotes 6 Jul 2011, 11:44

  • VC Moulton refuses to stay stationary, gets into stationery

    Better Capital inks Spicers deal, suddenly owns pen

    Jon Moulton's private equity vehicle Better Capital is getting into the wholesaling of pencils, paper and print consumables by acquiring the UK and Irish operations of stationery and office products distributor Spicers. The colourful entrepreneur re-entered the UK IT channel in September by pulling troubled networking …

    The Channel 6 Jul 2011, 11:57

  • Volvo S60 DRIVe

    Review Sprightly yet economical

    Putting small capacity turbo-diesel engines in large cars seems to be becoming all the rage, so hard on the heels of Peugeot’s 508 e-HDI comes Volvo’s take on the concept, the S60 DRIVe. S60: the best looking Volvo to date? On paper, the similarities are clear: four doors, a 1.6 litre turbo-diesel engine; six-speed gearbox …

    Science 6 Jul 2011, 12:00

  • BSkyB/News Corp merger: Wait for the cops, says Ofcom

    UK.gov watching police NotW hack probe 'closely'

    The UK's communications watchdog cannot intervene on the proposed merger of BSkyB with Rupert Murdoch's News Corp. until a police investigation into phone-tapping allegations at the News of the World has concluded. Ofcom boss Ed Richards told The Register and other reporters this morning that any recommendation to block …

    Government 6 Jul 2011, 12:45

  • Twitter hacker flings poo at PayPal

    Avatar hack payback after account freeze fracas

    An angry user hacked into PayPal UK's Twitter account on Tuesday night and changed the e-commerce company's avatar photo to a heap of steaming crap. The hacker also posted several unflattering tweets ridiculing PayPal. The hacker appears to be an angry PayPal customer motivated by a dispute over a frozen PayPal account. The …

    Security 6 Jul 2011, 13:13

  • Cameron backs public inquiry into NotW hacking claims

    'It is absolutely disgusting, what has taken place'

    Prime Minister David Cameron has today backed calls for public inquiries into the "absolutely disgusting" phone hacking allegations against The News of the World. Speaking in Westminster at his weekly PMQs, Cameron said he wanted inquiries not only into those claims against the News Corp-owned newspaper, but also to look at …

    Government 6 Jul 2011, 13:18

  • Lights go out at Telecity in London data outage

    Hosting? We've prepared the guest suite for Mr Cockup

    Anyone relying on Telecity for hosting, backup or email services will know this already: a power failure at one of its London centres has left dozens of businesses offline. The company's PRs are currently in a meeting so we have no official response. But several Reg readers emailed us to say power had gone for about an hour …

    Hosting 6 Jul 2011, 14:01

  • Virtualised desktops: provisioning done the MS way

    Two paths to IT happiness

    A virtualised desktop offers huge advantages, both to the user and to the IT department. For anyone using a laptop at home or on the move, the experience is the same and everything is exactly as when they left it. What they see is the image of a desktop running in a virtual machine on a server in the data centre. Users log …

    Desktop Strategy 6 Jul 2011, 15:06

  • Dodgy weather threatens Atlantis launch

    30% chance Friday will see last ever shuttle liftoff

    The weather forecast is not looking too bright for the launch of space shuttle Atlantis on Friday, with NASA predicting just a 30 per cent chance the venerable vehicle will get off the ground. The agency reports: "The concern is for showers and thunderstorms, flight through precipitation, and cumulus clouds." The crew of …

    Science 6 Jul 2011, 15:08

  • Next iPhone to sport thinner, lighter casing, says paper

    Year-end sales target: 25m units, apparently

    The Wall Street Journal has joined the Great iPhone 5 Rumour Fest, claiming the yet-to-be-announced gadget will be thinner and lighter than the current model. The new handset will also sport an 8Mp camera, its Asian component manufacturer insiders tell the paper. Past speculation has it that the handset will incorporate Apple …

    Phones 6 Jul 2011, 15:47

  • Coder cracks iPad 2 jailbreak block

    Take your iDevice out of the Walled Garden

    iDevice owners, including folk with an iPad 2, can now jailbreak their phones'n'fondleslabs with a simple visit to a website. The site, www.jailbreakme.com, is once again up and running - coder comex last had it live a year ago - to open up iPads, GSM iPhone 3GS and 4s, and 3G and 4G iPod Touches, all running iOS 4.3, 4.3.3 or …

    Tablets 6 Jul 2011, 16:07

  • Facebook gets awesome with Skype

    Hot from Palo Alto. Yow

    Facebook has unveiled a group chat tool, a new design for its overall chat interface, and, yes, a video calling service based on Skype. "Video calling is the first example of what we think of as a great social app," Facebook chief executive Mark Zuckerberg said during a press event at the company's Palo Alto, California, …

    Media 6 Jul 2011, 18:02

  • Behind Microsoft's $15 Samsung Android royalty claim

    Redmond's win-win patent strategy

    Microsoft is turning the screws on Google's phone and tablet partners, but what kind of win-win is Redmond really going for? Steve Ballmer's software company was Wednesday reported to be seeking $15 for each device Samsung ships loaded with Google's Android smart-phone operating system. Samsung is reported to be trying to …

    Software 6 Jul 2011, 19:28

  • Cray stuffs 46 mobile Intel chips into microserver

    Packed, racked, and ruggedized

    The Custom Engineering unit of supercomputer maker Cray and the bespoke ruggedized, military-grade system maker Extreme Engineering Solutions (X-ES) have joined forces to prototype a super-dense microserver based on Intel's mobile Core i7 processors. Last week, X-ES announced that it had won the contract to develop and …

    Servers 6 Jul 2011, 20:41

  • Oracle VDI now mates with both Solaris and Linux

    Kicks off iPad affair

    Oracle has released an update to its Virtual Desktop Infrastructure, better known to one and all as VDI. Version 3.3 adds support for Oracle Linux, a tricked-out admin portal, and – at least according to Larry & Co. – improved performance. VDI 3.3 is but the latest step on the long and winding "network computer" road. Oracle …

    Virtualization 6 Jul 2011, 21:01

  • Aus group buying technology gets SingTel funding

    Dealised set to go global with digital brains trust board

    The technology platform behind Australian group-buying player Spreets has secured AU$5m in funding led by SingTel Group's corporate venture capital, SingTel Innov8. Dealised, an Australian-developed group-buying backend technology platform, has also attracted Series A funding from Yuuwa Capital, an Australian-based venture …

    Business 6 Jul 2011, 23:00

  • Boffins build nanowire lasers from nappy-rash cream

    Spread here for ultraviolet diodes

    A new breakthrough in zinc oxide–based semiconductor nanowire lasers may support applications that range from killing viruses to stuffing more stuff on a DVD. "People in the zinc oxide research community throughout the world have been trying hard to achieve this for the past decade," the leader of the research team, Jianlin …

    Science 6 Jul 2011, 23:21

  • Spotify trumpets move to US (and little else)

    European invasion

    UK-based music-streaming service Spotify has just announced that it's coming to the US. But that's all we know. The oh-so-popular service has merely thrown up a clickless web page with no information about when they'll be avalable for US listeners, what parts – all? – of its collection will be available in the US, and how much …

    Software 6 Jul 2011, 23:44