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1st August 2011 Archive

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  • DIDO: snake oil or wireless salvation?

    Parsing the Perlman paper

    According to Steve Perlman, his new wireless technology, DIDO, opens up a brave new world of wireless data that promises infinite and endless capacity for everybody. That's got some people excited (so excited that they can do no more than repeat his claims verbatim), while others have suggested that snake oil may be on sale …

    Wireless 1 Aug 00:53

  • PLCs a prison vulnerability: researchers

    Now there’s a jailbreak

    Hard on the heels of warnings that critical systems in America are vulnerable to Stuxnet-style attacks, a group of security researchers says SCADA systems and PLCs make prisons vulnerable to computer-based attacks. In a white paper published here, Teague Newman, Tiffany Rad and John Strauchs say the use of PLCs (programmable …

    Malware 1 Aug 02:28

  • Adobe outs un-Flash web animation tool

    HTML5 on the Edge

    Adobe has released an early incarnation of its new un-Flash web design tool, Adobe Edge. First revealed last October at the annual Adobe Max show in Los Angeles, Edge is a means of building web animations using standard technologies such as HTML5, CSS, and JavaScript. It's not a straight replacement for Flash – web standards …

    Developer 1 Aug 05:30

  • Police charge Scottish teen over Soca attack

    Hearing today

    UK police have charged an 18-year-old with hacking the Serious Organised Crime Agency's (Soca) website as part of an ongoing investigation into the infamous LulzSec and Anonymous hacktivist crews. Jake Davis, who allegedly used the online nickname Topiary and acted as a spokesman for the groups, will face five computer hacking …

    Crime 1 Aug 08:08

  • OCZ unsheathes Talos flash talons

    Another flash drive clawing into HDD business

    OCZ's Talos flash drive is set to claw into the enterprise hard drive business. The Talos C Series is OCZ's 3.5-inch enterprise flash drive, in contrast to the Vertex, which is a consumer drive. Talos is a 3.5-inch, 2-bit multi-level cell solid state drive (SSD), coming in 230GB, 480GB and 960GB capacities. It can run at 50, …

    Storage 1 Aug 08:27

  • iPad maker to replace 1 million staff with robots

    Foxconn to get automated in next 3 years

    The world's biggest computer components vendor plans to replace nearly its entire factory workforce with robots by 2014. Foxconn, which makes kit for Apple, Sony and Nokia, said it would cut loose staff and reduce labour costs by automating spraying, welding and assembling jobs at its factories in China, where harsh working …

    PCs & Chips 1 Aug 08:35

  • Thousands of gb.com sites go dark

    Domain fight claims UK small biz victims

    Thousands of UK small businesses woke up this weekend to find that their websites had become collateral damage in a legal fight between a domain name company and its founder. Sites using .gb.com addresses all went dark on Saturday, after the former boss of the registry, CentralNIC, took control of the whole extension without …

    Small Biz 1 Aug 08:51

  • Dawn creeps closer to Clanger homeworld Vesta

    Another fine snap from asteroid-hunting spacecraft

    NASA's Dawn spacecraft has returned another fine snap of Clanger homeworld Vesta – the substantial asteroid belt object seen here on 23 July from a distance of around 3,200 miles (5,200 kilometres): NASA elaborates: "Dawn took this image over Vesta's northern hemisphere after the spacecraft completed its first passage over …

    Space 1 Aug 09:02

  • Acer turns to trains for imports

    All aboard the Silk Road Express

    PC vendors may be finally bowing to pressure to build more flexibility into the supply chain amid reports that Acer is to start shipping PCs by train. Forty carriers are already en route to Europe. Disties have been calling for alternative transportation techniques following the growing mountain of notebooks in the region …

    PCs & Chips 1 Aug 09:41

  • Schmaltz-powered Chrome overtakes morally superior Firefox

    Google's TV blitz pays off

    Chrome overtook Firefox as Britain's second most popular browser in July, with almost one in four users preferring the Google product. Figures from web metrics outfit Statcounter show Chrome has reached 22.12 per cent market share, overtaking Mozilla Firefox at 21.65 per cent, and doubling its share over 12 months. Good …

    Applications 1 Aug 09:50

  • PlayStation Vita release leaked

    Blockbuster roster reveals all

    Sony's next handheld gaming platform, the PlayStation Vita, could be on shelves as early as October, after release dates were spotted on a Blockbuster flier. As it stands, Sony has officially confirmed the Vita for sometime vaguely in late 2011 through a phased global release. We kind of expected the first Vitas to appear in …

    reghardware 1 Aug 10:05

  • Fanboys find way to NFC an iPhone

    Anything Android can do...

    iPhone 4 users have discovered they can slip a Bank of America NFC card under the covers of an iPhone, sharing the NFC goodness previously restricted to the competition. iPhones don't support Near Field Communications, at least not yet, while the latest handsets running Symbian, Android, and even Bada have the short-range …

    Mobile 1 Aug 10:14

  • Button brushes off 'car accident' website defacement to claim GP win

    #getsomefriends

    F1 Driver Jenson Button brushed off an attack on his website late on Saturday night that falsely claimed he had been seriously injured in a car crash, and went on to win the Hungarian Grand Prix on Sunday. Button, starting at third place on the grid, once again showed his skill in wet conditions and the tactical nous of his …

    Enterprise Security 1 Aug 10:16

  • Cabinet Office ends website test

    We built it...they didn't come

    A Cabinet Office test of a single website for British government information ended on Friday. It is expected that Francis Maude's department will be making more announcements about Alpha.gov.uk later this week. So far the test website has cost the Cabinet Office £261,000. On conclusion of testing the Alpha.gov.uk domain, the …

    Government 1 Aug 11:00

  • Telecity in talks to acquires Data Electronics Group

    One wannabe cloud biz chats up another

    Data centre provider TelecityGroup has confirmed it is chatting up Data Electronics Group (DEG) and that those flirtations could lead to an acquisition, reported to be valued at roughly £100m. The discussions are at an early stage, but Telecity, which claims to be Europe's largest pusher of carrier-neutral data centres, is …

    Infrastructure 1 Aug 11:01

  • Diary of a not-spot: Breaking the BT barrier

    Life with broadband, but without BT

    Friday, 29 July 2011 will forever be the day I stopped paying BT any money at all, with a personal microwave link now supplying all the connections anyone could need without touching the copper in the ground. The link has been running reliably for some months now, supplying iPlayer in HD and streams of Octonauts-based gaming, …

    Telecoms 1 Aug 11:10

  • Mackie Onyx Blackjack USB audio interface

    Geek Treat of the Week Solid sender

    In the early 1990s, the Mackie name became synonymous with project studio recording consoles that, while not the most sophisticated, offered a good deal of routing flexibility and mounting options. The CR1604 was the breakthrough product for the company – a mixer that is still in production in various guises. The idea behind …

    reghardware 1 Aug 11:30

  • Network quality of service: making the switch

    Trevor Pott scales up

    By cloud computing standards, the networks I oversee are small. The largest network under my care has 250 physical servers; my 9-5 has less than 50. Most networks I oversee have fewer than five servers and all of these networks have far fewer switches than systems. Until very recently, local area network bandwidth has simply …

    Network Fabric 1 Aug 12:00

  • Former UK.gov CIO takes top security job at Huawei

    Update John Suffolk in surprise move to company whose alleged ties are feared by US

    Erstwhile government CIO John Suffolk has landed a high-ranking security role at Chinese-giant Huawei. Suffolk, who resigned from the top UK.gov £207,000 Chief Information Officer role late last year, confirmed his new appointment this morning. He will join Huawei as its new global head of cybersecurity on 1 October, having …

    CIO 1 Aug 12:05

  • Nokia N9 joins next month's mobile match

    Meego ahead anyway

    It looks like Nokia's venture into the Meego market will come to fruition next month, after Orange Switzerland let slip the Nokia N9 release date as 15 September. The company is yet to officially announce availability for its high-end Meego machine, but the handset is definitely on the verge of release. However, with WinPho 7. …

    reghardware 1 Aug 12:13

  • Who needs a million NFC tags?

    Someone has bought them, but what for?

    Someone is planning a big slash into the Near Field market, bundling more than a million NFC tags with handsets over the next six months, according to tag supplier Identive. The company has announced the order, placed by a "leading mobile handset manufacturer" which will put them into phone boxes to "enhance consumers' day-to- …

    Mobile 1 Aug 12:31

  • Skype/Facebook integration spawns hijack risk

    Don't talk to strangers...

    A bug involving the method Skype uses to integrate with Facebook creates a possible account-hijack risk, security watchers warn. The latest update to Skype – version 5.5 – released last week, contains closer integration with the social network, allowing surfers to track Facebook status updates and post wall messages from the …

    Malware 1 Aug 12:48

  • T-Mobile rolls out contract-PAYG combo

    Paying for time

    T-Mobile has refreshed its You Fix plan, which combines monthly mobile contracts with Pay as You Go in a service that lets users top up when their agreed minutes and messages are kaput. Those who sign up to You Fix are given an allowance of minutes and texts, as well as a Flexible Booster – a bonus such as unlimited texts or …

    reghardware 1 Aug 13:30

  • HP to axe sales staff found pilfering dealers

    Rules change on 1 November

    HP is taking a hard line on direct sales staff at its Technology Services Group* (TSG) in the US - it will sack anyone caught nicking deals from resellers. The same principle – part of the new rules of engagement policy – will be applied in Europe later this year but the vendor has yet to give local partners advance warning – …

    PCs & Chips 1 Aug 13:32

  • Samsung-Apple Wars: Galaxy blocked Down Under

    Another shot fired in the mobile patent wars

    Apple's copycat tablet war with Samsung has found a new theatre, it is hitting the Australian courts. Apple is seeking an injunction against Samsung which would block the Korean electronics giant from launching the latest version of its Galaxy tablet computer in Australia until the patent lawsuit is resolved. On Monday, a …

    PCs & Chips 1 Aug 14:17

  • Doom dude says violent games lower aggression

    Anger management

    Legendary id Software developer John Carmack reckons videogames have a positive impact on society and reduce aggression. Needless to say, it's a view that flies in the face of typical reports on games with violent themes. As the man behind Doom and the forthcoming shooter Rage, Carmack is constantly hounded by people wanting …

    reghardware 1 Aug 14:49

  • Scotland Yard probes News of the World computer hacking claims

    Considers 'breach of privacy' allegations

    Police are investigating allegations of computer hacking at the now-defunct News of the World tabloid in a separate probe from Scotland's Yard current Operation Weeting into phone-hacking claims. "The MPS has received a number of allegations regarding breach of privacy which fall outside the remit of Operation Weeting, …

    Policing 1 Aug 14:58

  • 'Topiary' suspect bailed

    Stays on the mainland

    The Scottish teenager accused of involvement in LulzSec and Anonymous attacks has been freed on bail. Eighteen-year-old Jake Davis appeared at Horseferry Road Magistrates Court today. He will have to wear an electronic tag to enforce a nighttime curfew and stay at his mother's house in central England, AP reports. He may not …

    Crime 1 Aug 15:00

  • Amazon hunts for a few good startups

    Winner takes $100,000 in currency, cloud capacity

    The Amazon Web Services cloud computing arm of retailing giant Amazon.com has launched its fifth annual Start-Up Challenge contest, with the top prize being $100,000 in AWS credits and cash. Apparently you should not abbreviate this as the AWS SUC contest, because Amazon is not looking for business ideas using cloudy …

    Cloud Business 1 Aug 15:08

  • iPhone 5 now set for October launch

    Rumour discredits rumours

    With such an influx of rumours over the iPhone 5's projected release this September, we've practically accepted it as fact. Apparently, we're all wrong though, as the company actually plans to launch its next-gen iPhone in October. That's according to an insider who spoke with AllthingsD and insisted there would be no …

    reghardware 1 Aug 15:16

  • Sneaky Trojan exploits e-commerce flaws

    Cache-probing, cookie-touching, self-deleting malware

    More details have emerged of an e-commerce software flaw linked to the theft of credit card information from numerous websites. A security flaw in osCommerce, an open source e-commerce package, created a means for criminals to compromise 90,000 web pages with redirection scripts that ultimately directed surfers towards a site …

    Malware 1 Aug 15:55

  • Paying for software

    Reader Study Readers spill the beans on licensing and cloud commercials

    How many times have you heard cloud computing justified on the grounds of flexibility? Well, as it turns out, this is largely garbage, at least in relation to Software as a Service (SaaS) commercials. It seems that when it comes to hosted apps, 12 months contracts and the ‘ratchet’ principle apply. Flexible, sure, but only to …

    Cloud Business 1 Aug 15:56

  • Are you slaving away on the wrong projects?

    Get your priorities straight

    One of the hardest decisions that the IT department faces was highlighted in a very lively Regcast a few months ago. Terry Dewhurst, the streetwise director of transformation at Lastminute.com, talked about how hard it can be to call time on a project that is on track to deliver something that nobody wants any more. This can …

    Service Assurance 1 Aug 15:58

  • Googlenet runs on '900,000 servers'

    Spanner in the works

    Google's worldwide data center network spans about 900,000 servers, according to an estimate based on new information the company has deigned to share about its power use. Previous estimates put Google's server count at over one million. In a new report from Stanford professor Jonathan Koomey on data center energy usage, …

    Servers 1 Aug 19:23

  • Hackers dump secret info for thousands of cops

    String of embarrassing attacks continues

    Hackers said they posted the names, addresses, and other personal information of 7,000 law enforcement officers that were stolen from a training academy website they compromised. Many of the entries also included the officers' social security numbers, email addresses, and the usernames and passwords for their accounts on the …

    ID 1 Aug 19:53

  • World o' data centers burns less juice than expected

    Great Recession power diet

    Thanks to a poor economy, the more aggressive use of virtualization, and the rise of more efficient iron, the world's data centers are consuming less energy than expected, according to a new report from one prominent Stanford University researcher. In early 2007, Jonathan Koomey – a staff scientist at the Lawrence Berkeley …

    Servers 1 Aug 20:30

  • NextDC raises AU$50m for growth

    Investors dig datacentres

    The cloud business is continuing drive investment in Australia, with nascent data centre operator NextDC raising Au$50m to ramp up its planned expansion plans here and in New Zealand. Following the capital raising, the ASX listed company said it had over $AU150 million equity and approximately $AU95 million cash in the bank. …

    Business 1 Aug 22:05

  • Telstra offers separation proposal

    Public prices, Chinese walls and ring fences

    Australia’s incumbent carrier, Telstra, has submitted its proposed structural separation and migration plans to competition regulator, the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC), ahead of the rollout of the country’s National Broadband Network (NBN). The ACCC will now have the job of fielding submissions from …

    Networks 1 Aug 22:30

  • HP sics Spaniards on Larry Ellison

    Itanic rescue mission

    Hewlett-Packard's legal fight with Oracle over Intel's Itanium processor has now landed in Spain. On Friday, La Comisión Nacional de la Competencia (CNC), the Spanish antitrust authority, released a statement saying that it had launched for formal investigation into Oracle's decision to cease development of its database, …

    Applications 1 Aug 22:54

  • Rural white space wireless standard signed off

    After seven years, 802.22 is official

    Nearly seven years after the IEEE’s 802.22 working group was first formed, the 802.22 standard has been published. The standard is designed to take advantage of television “white space” frequencies between channels. As countries roll out digital television and reallocate the spectrum previously occupied by broadcasters, vacant …

    Networks 1 Aug 23:30

  • Google cuts deal for Dealmap

    Can I get a discount for some Groupon envy treatment?

    Google has acquired Dealmap, a California-based startup that will fuel Mountain View's efforts to mimic Groupon. Launched in May 2010, Dealmap aggregates "daily deals" from hundreds of sources, and according to the company, its various services are now used by over 2 million people. "We are impressed with what The Dealmap …

    Financial News 1 Aug 23:52