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29th July 2011 Archive

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  • Gun-toting meth addict gets 12 years for ID theft

    Phisher of 38,500 men

    A California man has been sentenced to more than 12 years in prison for his role in an international phishing ring that stole the identities of more than 38,000 people. Tien Truong Nguyen, 34, of Long Beach, received the 151-month sentence from US District Judge Morrison C. England, who called the phisher of men “a one-man …

    ID 29 Jul 00:11

  • World needs needs Tequila power: report

    Agave a better biofuel than sugar cane

    Agave produces a highly-efficient intoxicant, as anyone who’s woken up “Wasting Away in Margaritaville” can attest. According to a joint Sydney University / Oxford University study, the plant could also be a highly-efficient feedstock for biofuels. It makes sense, really: the fermentation of sugars is what gives us the ability …

    Environment 29 Jul 01:30

  • From Dust

    Review Playing God

    Microsoft’s Summer of Arcade has become something of an institution these last few years, ushering in the release of some of the best seen download-only games yet seen; the likes of Limbo, Braid, Shadow Complex and last week’s Bastion to name but a few. Up next is From Dust, a release with a pedigree all of its own in the gaming …

    reghardware 29 Jul 06:00

  • IBM chips in with Golfball anniversary

    Revolutionary typewriter tech is 50 years old this Sunday

    IBM's Selectric typewriter - the text processing tool that replaced traditional font with the 'Golfball' - will be 50 years old on Sunday. First releasted in 1961, the spherical device was designed as a fast-moving type-head, able to punch a character through an ink ribbon and onto paper far more quickly than characters on the …

    reghardware 29 Jul 07:00

  • NotW 'targeted' phone of Sarah Payne's mum

    Bent PI had number of Brooks-given blower, says report

    The mother of murdered eight-year-old girl Sarah Payne reportedly had her mobile phone targeted by the News of the World's private investigator Glen Mulcaire. Ex-News International boss Rebekah Brooks, who edited the Sunday tabloid between 2000 and 2003, has repeatedly championed Sarah's Law, a scheme that allows parents to …

    Music and Media 29 Jul 07:30

  • Hitachi GST plugs its areal hole with shingles

    Listens to Google, Facebook as much as HP or Dell

    Hitachi GST, in the process of being acquired by Western Digital, says Shingle Magnetic Recording is a necessary gap-filler before advanced disk recording technologies come on stream. It is currently talking to Facebook and Google about this. CEO Stephen Milligan said Hitachi GST aims to cover all the storage bases from fast …

    Storage 29 Jul 08:00

  • Scottish TV news pumps goatse link

    Och aye the NOOO

    Viewers of Scottish TV news were treated to a close-up of a link to internet super-meme goatse in yesterday's lunchtime bulletin. An eagle-eyed Reg reader spotted the gaffe and alerted Vulture Towers. Telly reporters routinely struggle for images to witter over while covering tech stories: a situation made worse when covering …

    Bootnotes 29 Jul 08:19

  • Sci/tech MPs want peer review, not pal review

    UK science publishing not exactly scientific

    The House of Commons Science and Technology Select Committee has called for greater integrity and data disclosure in peer-reviewed literature. It recommends that all UK research institutions should have "a specific member of staff leading on research integrity". MPs are also concerned that research quangos should be wary of …

    Science 29 Jul 08:37

  • Alcatel Lucent goes black

    Once you go red you sometimes go back, baby

    Alcatel Lucent returned to profit in the second quarter on the back of cost-cutting and some market share gains in IP and optics. Sales climbed a little more than 2 per cent to €3.9bn and operating profits were €108m compared to losses of €184m a year earlier. CEO Ben Verwaayen, installed three years ago to revive the …

    Financial News 29 Jul 09:01

  • Retail meltdown bitchslaps Ingram Micro profits

    Q2 revenue skirt lifted by currency updraft

    Weakening consumer demand and a botched ERP system migration dampened Q2 profits at broadline giant Ingram Micro but a currency updraft lifted sales. The largest IT distie on the planet last night reported a near 12 per cent boost in income to $59.7m (£36.6m) and a 7 per cent slide in operating profits to $97.1m (£59.6m) …

    Channel Register 29 Jul 09:21

  • BT on site-blocking: Every case will need a court order

    Pick on our freetards over our cold dead corpse

    BT's head of retail Simon Milner came out swinging after the legal setback over web-blocking. While admitting the company is "not deliriously happy", it welcomes a clarification. And BT won't be appealing the decision. "We believe in an open internet – we won't do any other blocking," he told us. "We will never stop our …

    Networks 29 Jul 09:23

  • APP OF DEATH plots local fatalities on demand

    Want to find the dead centre of town?

    A new smartphone application helpfully plots murders, and traffic fatalities, on an interactive map of the local area, showing you at a glance how many people died nearby in the last 18 months, and what killed them. The application is actually a demonstration of instant-app-factory MobileNationHQ, which reckons it took only …

    Applications 29 Jul 09:39

  • BSkyB hands out £1bn, board backs James Murdoch

    Not even walking round the table with a baseball bat, either

    BSkyB, which is 39 per cent-owned by Rupert Murdoch's media empire News Corp, coughed up £1bn to investors today and threw its full support behind its embattled chairman James Murdoch. The company reported a 16 per cent rise in full-year revenue this morning at £6.45bn, compared with £5.7bn at the end of June 2010. Operating …

    Networks 29 Jul 09:52

  • Exogear Exomount universal gadget mount

    Accessory of the Week Grips, sticks and stays stuck

    I’ve been after an affordable and reliable way to stick an HTC Desire HD to a windscreen or desk for some time. Yes, there are plenty of options out there, but they have all been too expensive - HTC’s own car mount will set you back £50 - too fragile, too wobbly or just too cheap and nasty. The Exomount clasps your gadget …

    reghardware 29 Jul 10:00

  • LightSquared and Sprint, sitting in a tree, K-I-S-S-I-N-G

    Record pre-pay card with $4.5bn on it issued

    Sprint has agreed to run LightSquared's US Long Term Evolution (LTE) fourth-gen mobile network operation, in exchange for $9bn cash and roaming rights, while LightSquared customers will be able to use Sprint's 3G network in a deal benefiting everyone except Clearwire. The deal runs for 15 years, and sees LightSquared paying …

    Mobile 29 Jul 10:18

  • Murdoch muscles BBC out of Formula One driving seat

    'We're absolutely delighted,' insists Beeb

    BSkyB has snatched the full Formula 1 broadcasting rights from the BBC, which had been the exclusive channel showing the live races since 2009. It's a deal sure to upset fans of the Beeb's recent slick coverage of F1, which has won bumper TV ratings. BSkyB will – from the start of the 2012 motor-racing season – broadcast …

    Music and Media 29 Jul 10:30

  • Aussie ALDI withdraws infected greybox offering

    Multifunction hard drives hotching with Conficker

    The Australian branch of supermarket chain ALDI has withdrawn a range of hard drives from its stores following the discovery that the hardware was infected with malware. The affected device – a grey-label external 4-in-1 hard drive, DVD, USB and card reader device – has reportedly been pulled from shelves, though it is still …

    Malware 29 Jul 10:40

  • LOHAN spaceplane project starting to shape up nicely

    Initial thoughts on our audacious ballocket

    We at the Special Projects Bureau have been mulling just how our Low Orbit Helium Assisted Navigator (LOHAN) project is going to work and, having looked at your suggestions and ideas, have put together our initial thoughts. To recap, we're going to launch a rocket-powered Vulture 2 spaceplane from under a helium balloon and …

    SPB 29 Jul 11:00

  • WinPho 7.5 captured in action

    Mango movie shakedown

    The world's first Windows Phone 7.5 has been outed in a fresh video showing a Toshiba-Fujitsu IS12T handset. The OS, better known as Mango, gets a show off its new tricks in this three minute movie. A couple of days ago, we reported how the IS12T phone would hit Japan this September, with this demo signalling that Mango is on …

    reghardware 29 Jul 11:06

  • Google TV box flop costs Logitech $34m

    Analysis Ouch: More Revues returned than sold

    Poor sales of Logitech's Google TV box Revue have hit the company in the wallet. More Revues were returned by dealers than sold, and Logitech is slashing the price from the original $299 to $99 and taking a $34m one-time charge in Q1. Chairman Guerrino De Luca returns as interim CEO, with Gerald Quindlen stepping down. Google …

    Hardware 29 Jul 11:13

  • Nokia's cheapies strategy bombs

    Shanghai surprise

    For a decade after 1998, when it first grabbed the top spot, Nokia was a bellwether of the mobile handset business. So much so, that small modulations in Nokia market share caused earthquake scale upheavals across the industry. That's because Nokia was credited with understanding (and blanketing) the world with phones so …

    Mobile 29 Jul 11:30

  • Scumbags get sneaky with new self-robbery trojan

    Can't be bothered to steal your cash themselves

    Malware-peddling scumbags have developed a particularly sneaky banking Trojan that attempts to trick victims into transferring funds into bank accounts controlled by cybercrooks or their partners. The Trojan generates a fake message at the point victims log into their bank account warning them of a mistaken credit to their …

    Malware 29 Jul 11:38

  • Canon EOS 600D 18Mp DSLR

    Review Choices, choices...

    Those looking for a new DSLR haven’t had a decision this tricky in years. In one corner, Nikon’s D5100 and in the other, Canon’s EOS 600D. Both offer similar specifications, and neither is exactly lacking when it comes to both image quality and platform support. Entry-level in the mid-range market? Canon's EOS 600D At the …

    reghardware 29 Jul 12:00

  • Chinese giant Alibaba offers 'Cloudphone'

    Apps? Get with it, grandad, time for cloudy pockets

    Chinese internet behemoth Alibaba is getting into software with the launch of a mobile operating system and handset. The company said the K-Touch Cloud-Smart Phone W700 would be the first of a family of devices including tablet computers and large screen phones. The phone is designed to run cloud services including email, web …

    Cloud 29 Jul 12:01

  • Oracle warns hybrid sales model could force down revenue

    Redirecting to direct upsets indirect sector directors

    Oracle is prepared to risk a reseller revolt over a planned hike in direct sales and expects relationships with some to "deteriorate" as a result, despite acknowledging the go-to-market strategy may not be a hit with some customers. The frank admission – made in an annual report 10k form recently filed with the SEC – is in …

    Channel Register 29 Jul 12:10

  • Facebook honeytrap used in Belgian hypermart blag

    Fake lady lure saw boss snatched, safe pillaged

    Belgian crooks used a Facebook relationship lure to trick a hypermarket manager into a trap, kidnapping him and obtaining keys to the store's safe before making good their escape. Local police have put out an appeal for information about the apparently well-planned blag on Thursday, five months after an audacious scam that …

    Crime 29 Jul 12:26

  • Lumbering STEC struggles to turn corner

    Difficult for a supertanker to win in a Flash dogfight

    STEC shares sank like a stone after it predicted a depressed outlook in its quarterly report. It never really recovered from last year's EMC over-purchase fiasco, and has suffered from over-priced product and missing PCIe flash. The Wall Street Journal had STEC stock down 36 per cent in after-hours trading, touching $10.68. …

    Storage 29 Jul 13:02

  • Samsung gets it white with Galaxy S II

    Smart blanch

    Samsung has announced a white version of its Galaxy S II Android smartphone. Lucky that Jobs & Co. don't have a patent on this particular colour or the move could be lengthen the love lost litigation list with Apple. Surely the Cupertino bigboys will do nothing but chuckle at this, as presumably Samsung hasn't spent months …

    reghardware 29 Jul 13:13

  • Ubisoft insists DRM 'a success'

    Sales against pirates

    Ubisoft has responded to backlash over the company's determination to use an Internet-at-all-times DRM policy, insisting it is a success and does protect its products from piracy. A Ubisoft rep, who spoke to PC Gamer, said the developer has seen "a clear reduction in piracy of our titles which required a persistent on-line …

    reghardware 29 Jul 13:15

  • 'LONDON IS THE CENTRE OF THE technology WORLD'

    Tired of the Silicon Roundabout? You're tired of life

    Demand for IT jobs in London grew by 18 per cent in the last quarter compared with the same period in 2010. Meanwhile, code monkey jobs dominated the recruitment market, according to employment outfit CWJobs. It said London positions now make up 33 per cent of all UK-based IT jobs advertised on its site. More than 37,000 job …

    Developer 29 Jul 13:20

  • Jesus Phone saved from being man-in-the-middled

    Slab of Jobs to get backdoor stoppered also

    Apple has released another security update for iPhones and fondleslabs less than a fortnight after a security fix intended to prevent the tightly controlled devices being jailbroken. The latest update to iOS 4.3.5 tackles a digital certificate validation flaw that created a possible mechanism for man in the middle attacks on …

    Security 29 Jul 13:46

  • Ingram Micro considers job cuts on EMEA slowdown

    Buy some tech, save a man's livelihood

    Ingram Micro will likely initiate a redundancy and cost-cutting programme in EMEA if the consumer market remains stuck in a rut. The IT wholesaler said that retail, which accounts for 25 to 30 per cent of its sales in the region, was "down substantially" in Q2 following three quarters of a "weak consumer story". CEO Greg …

    Channel Register 29 Jul 13:50

  • HTC delays Evo 3D release

    Vodafone says no

    HTC has confirmed reports that the HTC Evo 3D has been pushed back to September, two months from when initially proposed. The news comes after Vodafone removed the Evo 3D from its 'coming soon' page and released a statement to say: "Owing to the delayed launch of the device, we took the decision not to include the EVO 3D in …

    reghardware 29 Jul 14:00

  • 'Missing heat': Is global warmth vanishing into space?

    It's gone away somewhere, that's for sure

    New research from satellite man Dr Roy Spencer, principal research scientist at the University of Alabama in Huntsville and maintainer of the UAH temperature record, sheds some light on climate science's "missing heat" mystery. Climate models have predicted more warming than the instruments have measured – leading to various …

    Environment 29 Jul 14:28

  • Shetland 'Topiary' suspect extended in custody for 3 days

    Man cuffed by airborne plods 'not local', say locals

    The Metropolitan Police has been granted another three days to question the suspected hacker arrested on the Shetland Islands yesterday. A spokeswoman for the Met said: "We've successfully applied to Horseferry Road Magistrates Court for a warrant to keep him for another three days. He is British and we are not looking for …

    Crime 29 Jul 15:03

  • Yahoo! ends! row! with! Alibaba! for! $6bn!

    Yahoo! shareholders: No you are not dreaming

    Yahoo!, Alibaba and Softbank have signed a framework agreement to settle their long-running row over payment service Alipay. Yahoo!, which owns a stake in Alibaba, had complained it was not consulted over the sale of the payment service. It complained the decision was taken without the knowledge or approval of the board. The …

    Financial News 29 Jul 15:20

  • Spotify smacked with patent suits in US and Netherlands

    Wait for my brother, he's much bigger

    US company PacketVideo has filed patent infringement lawsuits against Spotify with courts in the Netherlands and the US. In the Dutch courts, PacketVideo will claim the Swedish music streaming service violated European patents belonging to PacketVideo dating back to the mid-1990s. It will argue the same in respect of a US …

    Law 29 Jul 15:28

  • Call of Duty heats up for $1m showdown

    Mercenary business

    Are you one of those saddoes who sits around all day with mates playing first-person shooters, bragging on-line about endless kill streaks and how you 'PWN' every soldier in sight? If so, then maybe it's time to put your money where your mouth is. The top Call of Duty teams in the country will go toe-to-toe next month in …

    reghardware 29 Jul 15:54

  • SpaceX set to send supply ship to ISS in November

    Era of Soyuz set to be shortlived as Dragon roars ahead

    Space Exploration Technologies – SpaceX – is one small step closer to producing the world's first commercial taxi cab to drop off astronauts and cargo at the International Space Station (ISS). The rocket biz launched by PayPal founder Elon Musk – with $500m from investors and $300m from the US government – is firing a second …

    Space 29 Jul 15:58

  • Google gobbles Big Blue IP stash

    Patents: Both sword and shield in corporate combat

    Having been rebuffed earlier this month in its effort to buy the patent portfolio from defunct telecom gear maker Nortel, search engine giant Google went trolling to fill its patent war chest and made a call to IBM, which has boatloads of IP. According to a story broken yesterday by SEO by the Sea, two weeks after losing its $ …

    Business 29 Jul 16:24

  • CA catches WatchMouse for SaaSy monitoring tools

    Cloud-on-cloud action

    Ever-acquisitive CA Technologies has bought WatchMouse for its monitoring tools for cloud, Web, and mobile applications. The move, like several prior deals that CA Technologies has done in recent years, aims to keep the software company, which dates from the mainframe era, relevant in the cloud era. Like many other system …

    Cloud Business 29 Jul 16:45

  • Isilon's iSCSI here to stay, insiders insist...quietly

    Rumours of its death exaggerated wrong

    Rumours of EMC Isilon abandoning iSCSI support in its scale-out filers have been denied by an EMC source Isilon's OneFS operating system for its clustered, scale-out filers, had iSCSI block access added in August 2010, before EMC bought the company. The EMC Isilon website has iSCSI material available on it, including a …

    Storage 29 Jul 17:00

  • Firefox maker moves towards a browser-free world

    Open...and Shut Mobiles need 'a strong infusion of Mozilla values'

    Something interesting is brewing at Mozilla, and it appears to have very little to do with browsers. For years, Mozilla's brand has been closely aligned with its open source browser, Firefox, despite the non-profit's efforts to branch out into mail suites (Thunderbird), social networking (Raindrop), and more. Now, Mozilla is …

    Software 29 Jul 17:11

  • Truck nuts swing onto US freedom of speech agenda

    NSFW Forget the debt crisis, my truck's got balls

    The lower portions of the US are distracting themselves from the Washington debt-ceiling car crash by asking whether the use of "truck nuts" constitutes obscenity or is a question of free expression. The constitutional freedom issue has swung into the national consciousness after a South Carolina woman was ticketed for hanging …

    Bootnotes 29 Jul 18:29

  • Fujitsu fluffs COBOL, Java on Azure clouds

    IT cannot code by C# and VB.NET alone

    Fujitsu customers who use its COBOL and Java application development and middleware software can finally run that code on the Fujitsu Azure clouds, significantly enhancing their appeal in Japan. Fujitsu launched its own private-label platform cloud based on Microsoft's Azure software stack back in June, after a delay of more …

    SaaS 29 Jul 18:38

  • Facebook dangles cash rewards for bug reports

    Microsoft, Oracle, you listening?

    Facebook has joined Google and Mozilla in paying cash rewards to researchers who privately report vulnerabilities that could jeopardize the privacy or security of their users. The social network said Friday it would pay $500 for the disclosure of most website flaws, such as XSS, or cross-site scripting errors. The company may …

    Enterprise Security 29 Jul 19:16

  • It's official: IE users are dumb as a bag of hammers

    100,000 test subjects can't be wrong

    Update: This survey discussed in this story was apparently a hoax. You can read more here. A comprehensive study of web users has determined that the dumber you are, the more likely you are to use Microsoft Internet Explorer. After measuring the IQs of exactly 101,326 users and correlating their scores with the browser they …

    Applications 29 Jul 20:00

  • Amazon cloud hosts nasty banking trojan

    SpyEye taps S3, adopts 'agile' programming

    Amazon's cloud storage service has been caught hosting services used to control the notorious SpyEye banking trojan, researchers said. Data compiled by antivirus provider Kaspersky Lab over a 11-day period in July showed Amazon's Simple Storage Service being used regularly to host SpyEye command and control channels. The botnet …

    Infrastructure 29 Jul 21:05

  • Obama drops Twitter bombs on debt-ceiling foes

    'Call. Email. Tweet. —BO'

    The US debt-ceiling legislative dogfight ratcheted up a notch on Friday morning when President Obama's campaign staff launched a Twitter-bombing run on US legislators. Shortly after Obama made a short statement in which he urged Americans to "make a phone call, send an email, tweet; keep the pressure on Washington," @ …

    Government 29 Jul 21:15

  • Ellison's NetSuite still not making money

    But SaaS apps sales are growing nicely

    Sales for the Larry Ellison–backed online-application software peddler NetSuite shot up over 20 per cent in its most recent quarter, but despite that increase it still managed to lose nearly $10m. Despite those numbers, however, perhaps the firm in which Ellison has his day job – Oracle – should look into snapping NetSuite up …

    Cloud 29 Jul 22:33

  • AT&T: 'Eat too much data and we'll strangle you'

    Top 5% of heavy downloaders will be throttled

    If you're a heavy downloader with an unlimited AT&T wireless data plan, you have two more months of full-speed all-you-can-eat before your service may be throttled. "Starting October 1," the company explained in a press release on Friday, "smartphone customers with unlimited data plans may experience reduced speeds once their …

    Mobile 29 Jul 23:49