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15th July 2011 Archive

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  • Mozilla outs un-Google site sign-in prototype

    Token-free BrowserID

    Mozilla has proposed a new method for signing into websites that avoids both site-specific passwords and existing cross-site sign-in services from corporate behemoths such as Google and Facebook. Known as BrowserID, Mozilla's prototype is built atop a new "Verified Email Protocol", which uses public-key cryptography to prove …

    Developer 15 Jul 2011, 00:26

  • 'Tax' relief for Apple’s Oz customers

    Token price cuts on iTunes a start

    Back in January, when Australian retailers were complaining about Australian shoppers (and the government), and Australian shoppers were fleeing retailers for theiInternet, El Reg looked at the way some products are marked up specifically for this territory, making it cheaper for the shopper to buy from international outlets and …

    Business 15 Jul 2011, 00:30

  • Dotcom millionaire causes trouble at mill

    Wotif saves the trees via acquisition

    One of Australia’s wealthiest dotcom entrepreneurs Graeme Wood has put some of his hard-earned into preserving native Tasmanian forest. In a bold environmental move, Wood has joined with Jan Cameron (founder of retail clothing outlet Kathmandu) to buy the struggling Gunns Triabunna native forest woodchip export mill in …

    Science 15 Jul 2011, 01:30

  • As China rises on the net, website numbers shrink

    Government crackdown blacks out 1.4 million sites

    Even as reports put Chinese as the number two language of the Internet, behind only English, strict government control is reducing the number of Websites within China. With 457 million Internet users behind the Great Firewall, China’s online boom has matched its long economic boom; the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (CASS …

    Government 15 Jul 2011, 02:00

  • New tumor trial rules mobiles 'not guilty'

    You say 'acoustic neuroma'. I say 'vestibular schwannoma'

    The verdict from latest "Do mobile phones fry your brain?" study is in, and the answer is a resounding "Nope". This new study was a monster: based on data from 2.8 million Danes, it studied the comparative likelihood of long-term users, newer users, and non-users of mobiles coming down with a non-cancerous form of brain tumor …

    Mobile 15 Jul 2011, 04:36

  • Leica X1 APS-C compact camera

    Review Latest firmware tweaks on test

    The X1 is Leica’s first expert digital compact that, along with some top quality optics, lives up to its billing by offering easy access to manual controls akin to its bigger and pricier brother, the M9. It has no rangefinder focusing to match the M9 either, instead the X1 relies on an LCD screen and an optional clip on optical …

    reghardware 15 Jul 2011, 06:00

  • Next MacBook Air to get Ram, SSD, CPU boost

    Release rumours rescheduled

    Apple's next 11.6in MacBook Airs will incorporate 128GB SSDs across the range and arrive with 4GB of memory as standard. They'll debut late next week. The 13.3in model, which already comes with a 128GB SSD, will get the Ram boost too. The spec suggestion comes from Concord Securities analyst Ming-Chi Kuo, who told the stock …

    reghardware 15 Jul 2011, 07:48

  • Many sites cookie-track users regardless of opt-outs

    Google's clean, though, say researchers

    More than 10 per cent of companies that promise not to track internet users' online activity for behavioural advertising purposes still do so, according to new research. Publishers and advertising networks use cookies to track user behaviour on websites in order to target adverts to individuals based on that behaviour. A …

    Security 15 Jul 2011, 08:00

  • TSMC begins making Apple A6 iDevice chips

    Samples for now - volume output to follow?

    Taiwanese chip foundry TSMC has started punching out Apple's ARM-based A6 processor. The manufacturer, which specialises in producing silicon on behalf of so-called 'fabless' chip makers - such as Apple and Nvidia - and is the world's biggest such foundry, is initially producing test chips to verify the Apple's designs and its …

    reghardware 15 Jul 2011, 08:14

  • Google gears up to give tablet makers Android 3.2

    Motorola already has it, apparently

    Android tablet makers will get their mitts on Honeycomb 3.2 at the end of the month, possibly maybe early August instead, it has been claimed. To be fair, it's not Google that's saying so, rather the inevitable moles within Taiwan's contract manufacturing community, who say that's what the tablet makers themselves are …

    reghardware 15 Jul 2011, 08:45

  • The cloud and the incredible shrinking office

    Home is where the heart is

    Those in the know say that cloud computing will fundamentally change the way we office creatures work. “I am slightly too young to remember the workplace before the arrival of the PC,” says Jacqui Thomas, director of Comms at the UK and Ireland chapter of the Cloud Security Alliance. “But cloud is the same kind of game changer …

    Cloud 15 Jul 2011, 08:50

  • Hundreds of dot-brand domains predicted

    '.com' and '.co.uk' could go the way of 'www.'

    Domain name registry operators have predicted that "hundreds" of well-known companies will apply to ICANN to create new "dot-brand" top-level internet domains. But it is still far from clear how many of these potential new domains will turn into thriving, active spaces and how many will be expensive digital wastelands with …

    Hosting 15 Jul 2011, 09:00

  • Paul McCartney joins Atlantis love-in

    'Good morning guys!'

    Sir Paul McCartney joined the impressive roster of celebs greeting the crew of space shuttle Atlantis today, following Elton John and Michael Stipe's musical messages to space earlier this week. Following a blast of Good Day Sunshine, McCartney chirped: "Good morning guys! Wake up! And good luck on this, your last mission. …

    Science 15 Jul 2011, 09:12

  • OFT probes dodgy sites that charge for free gov services

    You've paid your taxes, Euro healthcare cards are free

    The Office of Fair Trading is investigating dodgy websites that charge punters for government services which are available for free. Given the crapness of government websites, it often takes some amount of digging before you find what you want. Enterprising conpersons are getting their sites further up the Google rankings and …

    Government 15 Jul 2011, 09:19

  • Online map suppressing crime reporting, says survey

    Don't tell the plods, we'll never sell the house!

    More than 5.2 million people have not reported crimes for fear of deterring home-buyers or renters since the Home Office's online crime map was launched in February 2011, according to research from insurers Direct Line. An online poll of 2,685 adults conducted on behalf of the insurance company found that of the people not …

    Law 15 Jul 2011, 09:28

  • Rebekah Brooks quits - Murdoch accepts this time

    'Stayed on bridge' of News Int'l ship, ran it onto rocks

    News International boss Rebekah Brooks, who has been at the centre of the phone-hacking scandal, has resigned from her post and apologised for the "hurt" her company had caused to crime victims and others. She confirmed in an internal memo to staff this morning that she was leaving the sister company of Rupert Murdoch's News …

    Media 15 Jul 2011, 09:38

  • Amazon discounts current MacBook Air line

    Responding to rumours, or in the know?

    Evidence for Apple's imminent MacBook Air revamp - well, circumstantial evidence - comes from Amazon.com which has begun emailing customers with the offer of discounts on the current models. To be fair, the discounts are small - between five and six per cent off the standard price - and Amazon may simply be exploiting the …

    reghardware 15 Jul 2011, 09:53

  • Jabra Stone 2 Bluetooth headset

    Accessory of the Week Handsfree that... ahem... rocks?

    I've never been a fan of Bluetooth headsets, but Jabra's Stone 2 is one of the first I've tried that I'd consider using regularly. Jabra's Stone 2: the design is 'boomless'... For one thing, it's more discreet than many of its ilk. There's no big black block poking out of your ear, blue light flashing for all to see. The …

    reghardware 15 Jul 2011, 10:00

  • Romanian NASA hacker fights 'inflated' damage assessment

    SirVic reluctant to stump $240k for digi-vandalism

    A Romanian accused of hacking NASA is fighting against an order to pay damages to the space agency. Victor Faur, 27, from Arad, Romania, was ordered to pay $240,000 in damages by a court after he was found responsible for breaking into multiple systems at NASA, along with computers at the Department of Energy and Navy systems …

    Security 15 Jul 2011, 10:00

  • Extreme Networks to slash 16% of workforce

    Niche networking firm tries to reverse the losses

    Extreme Networks is chopping staff and real estate to get its books back in the black. The gigabit and Ethernet solutions provider is firing 16 per cent of its workforce across all departments – aside from R&D – in a bid to break into double digit operating profits. On top of the 110 job cuts, Extreme will centralise software …

    Channel Register 15 Jul 2011, 10:01

  • Acer flings forth SSD-booting, HDD-data-storing laptop

    Two-drive TravelMate inbound

    Acer has built both an SSD and a hard drive into its latest laptop, the 13in TravelMate 8481. Pick one up and you get 320GB of magnetic storage for data and such, but the 8481 also has a 64GB mSata form-factor SSD to quick-load the OS and your apps. The 8481's battery life runs to nine hours, Acer claimed, and it said that …

    reghardware 15 Jul 2011, 10:13

  • BOFH vs PFY: There can be only one (on the exes chit)

    Episode 10 'Do you get the headaches? I get such bad headaches'

    So the Boss has a bit of funding that he doesn't know what to do with. Okay, the Boss always has funding he doesn't know/understand what to do with, but this time it's different. The company has decided to allocate out "Professional Development" funds to key areas of the business to permit a staff member to receive advanced …

    BOFH 15 Jul 2011, 10:30

  • One-armed Belarus man monocuffed for clapping

    Mute person also fined - for shouting anti-gov slogans

    It appears that Belarus president Alexander Lukashenko – faced with growing public demands that he naff off after 17 years at the helm of the former Soviet republic – is determined to go out in comedy gold style. According to this report, cops loyal to "Europe's last dictator" (pictured) have been clamping down heavily on …

    Bootnotes 15 Jul 2011, 10:38

  • HP to ease 3PAR lead-time woes by adding local fab

    Deliveries taking double the ETA for EVA

    Lead times on HP 3PAR storage kit that dogged distributors and resellers since the acquisition may not ease until the autumn, when local production in Europe comes online. Channel partners are waiting up to eight weeks for deliveries, double the norm for HP EVAs, hindering efforts to hit quarterly rebate targets. The 3PAR …

    Channel Register 15 Jul 2011, 10:41

  • Mole says Apple A5 chip runs too hot for iPhone

    We say: no, it's just too darn big to fit

    Will September's iPhone refresh be a true iPhone 5, a souped-up iPhone 4 branded as iPhone 5, or said revamp released as the iPhone 4S? The debate rages still, but Chinese-language site Sohu reckons it'll be the latter - because Apple hasn't yet figured out how to get the iPad 2's A5 processor into the iPhone case and keep it …

    reghardware 15 Jul 2011, 10:44

  • The Queen visits Bletchley Park

    Unveils erection honouring wartime boffins

    The Queen will unveil a memorial to wartime codebreakers during a historic visit to Bletchley Park on Friday. The memorial was sculpted by the artist Charles Gurrey. Although the work of Alan Turing and other wartime codebreakers is now much celebrated, their work in cracking the Enigma and other German and Japanese codes …

    Security 15 Jul 2011, 11:14

  • Vote now for the juiciest LOHAN backronym

    Reader poll You have the final say on our spaceplane project name

    The El Reg Special Projects Bureau has wasted quite enough time faffing about with the name of our audacious high altitude, helium-assisted ballocket adventure, so it's time to nail this one once and for all. To recap, our plan is to launch a rocket-powered composite aircraft from beneath a helium balloon at a not …

    SPB 15 Jul 2011, 11:19

  • Atlantis computer goes down: Fixed by 'nauts

    Space pilots turn hands to a bit of zero-G sysadmin work

    Commander Chris Ferguson and pilot Doug Hurley have fixed space shuttle Atlantis' General Purpose Computer (GPC) 4, which clapped out last night requiring transfer of its duties to another of the shuttle's quintet of GPCs. The pair have reloaded software into the unit and it has "been added to the common set of GPCs and is …

    Science 15 Jul 2011, 11:29

  • Captain America: Super Soldier

    Review A tonic for the troops?

    Games based around movies have a reputation (most would say justly deserved) of seldom living up to their silver screen counterparts, while those timed to debut simultaneously with their movie counterparts have an even worse success to failure ratio. It might not come as a massive shock to anyone out there then, that Captain …

    reghardware 15 Jul 2011, 12:08

  • US forced to redesign secret weapon after cyber breach

    'Cyber Pilot' called in following backdoor penetration

    The United States may be forced to redesign an unnamed new weapon system now under development – because tech specs and plans were stolen from a defence contractor's databases. Reuters and Aviation Week report on the revelation by US Deputy Defense Secretary William Lynn, made in the course of announcing beefed-up cyber …

    Government 15 Jul 2011, 12:24

  • Google turning us into forgetful morons, warn boffins

    Surely I've seen this before - hold on I'll just ...

    Search engine abuse use is re-wiring the way our brains store information, boffins have claimed. Columbia University psychologist Betsy Sparrow led research into the impact of the internet on the old grey matter with the findings published in a paper, Google Effects on Memory: Cognitive Consequences of Having Information at …

    Science 15 Jul 2011, 12:36

  • EMC replaces ControlCenter with ProSphere

    Scale-out block storage resource manager

    EMC is replacing its VMAX ControlCenter management software, likened in the past to "a royal PITA", with ProSphere, positioned as scale-out block storage resource management. EMC says it doesn't think a single storage resource management product covering all its arrays is a good idea. Chuck Hollis, EMC's VP for technical …

    Storage 15 Jul 2011, 13:19

  • Win! Your chance to bag a free 'PlayStation phone'

    Competition Don't miss the deadline to nab a Sony Ericsson Xperia Play

    Want to own a Sony Ericsson Xperia Play smartphone? We have three boxes each containing one of the Android handset that is are being called the 'PlayStation phone' to give away - and the deadline for entries is getting close. To try and win, all you have to do is head over to our competition page, correctly answer three …

    reghardware 15 Jul 2011, 13:31

  • Domain name claim teases Sony-MS partnership

    Console rivals set to collaborate? Surely not!

    Microsoft has allegedly registered "Microsoft-Sony.com" as well as "Sony-Microsoft.com" in a move that could mean the two giants are about to go into business together. Then again, it could all be a practical joke. Either way, the domains were registered this week and assigned to "Microsoft Corporation" sparking speculation …

    reghardware 15 Jul 2011, 13:43

  • Segway death blamed on good manners

    Typical act of courtesy

    Jim Heselden, the Segway owner who died late last year after toppling from one of the scooters, likely fell from the cliff because he was getting out of the way of a man walking his dog. He fell more than 40 feet from a footpath above a river near Boston Spa, close to his home. Sean Christie was out walking his dog. He told …

    CIO 15 Jul 2011, 14:34

  • 0day vulnerabilities fall but critical bugs grow

    Enterprises advised to apply security triage

    Almost half the security bugs chronicled by Secunia in the last year were not covered by a patch at the time of their publication. That figure, actually 45 per cent, may seem dangerously high but the firm reports that it has actually improved from 47 per cent to 55 per cent a year ago. This indicates that more researchers are …

    Security 15 Jul 2011, 15:04

  • Parmo v poutine: Your cut-out-and-keep pdf guide

    Laminate this, you drunken post-pub scoffers

    So popular did our recent parmo versus poutine post-pub nosh deathmatch prove that we received a veritable banquet of emails demanding we make the recipe guides genuinely cut-out-and-keep. No problemo, and you can help yourselves to servings of parmo and poutine in a handy pdf format here and here (Both 8.76451 petagig PDFs. …

    SPB 15 Jul 2011, 15:09

  • Vesta flashes charms to approaching Dawn

    Impressive snap from NASA's asteroid voyeur

    NASA's Dawn spacecraft has returned an impressive snap of Vesta, as it prepares to enter orbit around the asteroid belt object. Snapped at an intimate 26,000 miles (41,000 kilometres), the image offers a tantalising glimpse of the second-largest object orbiting between Mars and Jupiter. Only Ceres surpasses Vesta's 530 …

    Science 15 Jul 2011, 17:28

  • Hacking Baseball

    Sport still boring but making money via analytics is cool

    Baseball is perhaps the most boring thing in the world to watch. The leisurely rate of play, the lack of constant action, and the pauses players take for impromptu meetings, spitting, and crotch-grabbing are torture for my ADD-riddled brain. Reading about baseball is every bit as bad, and reading about baseball-stats geeks …

    HPC 15 Jul 2011, 17:30

  • Octocore AMD Bulldozers exposed by Turks

    Updated Site reveals 4.2GHz saat hızları

    A Turkish website claims to have inside information about specifications and benchmark results for AMD's upcoming multi-core Bulldozer processors. Unfortunately, it's impossible to verify the specs (Google Translate version) published by the news 'n' rumor site, DonanımHaber. AMD spokeswoman Miriam Cox declined to "comment on …

    Hardware 15 Jul 2011, 18:12

  • IBM 'Blue Waters' super node washes ashore in August

    Big, big (blue) flops for big, big (green) bucks

    Big Blue has been talking about the Power7-based "Blue Waters" supercomputer nodes for so long that you might think they're already available. But although IBM gave us a glimpse of the Power 775 machines way back in November 2009, they actually won't start shipping commercially until next month – August 26, to be exact. The …

    HPC 15 Jul 2011, 18:42