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3rd August 2011 Archive

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  • Aussie nano tech project gets AU$15m in global VC funding

    Needle-free drug patches set to go commercial

    A Queensland-based nanotech start-up has secured AU$15m in funding from a group of international biotechnology investors. Venture capital firm One Venture is backing the creation of start-up vehicle Vaxxas, which will allow the University of Queensland’s Australian Institute for Bioengineering and Nanotechnology (AIBN) …

    Biology 3 Aug 00:01

  • Internet use ‘rampant’: ASIO boss

    And ideas are ‘unfettered’; whatever next?

    Australia’s national security is at risk, according to the Director-General of ASIO – the Australian National Intelligence Organisation – partly because of “rampant use of the Internet”. Honestly, I’m not making it up. It’s in a speech delivered by D-G David Irvine to the Security in Government Conference at the end of July. …

    Security 3 Aug 01:00

  • Net economy bigger than Ben Hur

    Internet worth $AU50 billion to GDP, says Access Economics

    The Internet isn’t just a curiousity or a medium for transmitting videos of cats and naughty bits: according to a Deloitte Access Economics report, its aggregate impact on the economy rivals that of Australia’s retail sector. According to The Connected Continent, billed as the first attempt to quantify the scale of the …

    Business 3 Aug 01:30

  • Apple job post hints at office web apps

    Jobsian browser love shocker

    An Apple job listing may indicate that the company is building new web-based versions of its iWork office applications. "The iWork team is seeking an energetic and highly motivated software engineer to build the front and/or back end of scalable web applications," reads the listing, spotted by Appleinsider. "The person will be …

    Cloud 3 Aug 02:02

  • Game graphics could be 100,000 times better

    Polygon count becomes atomic number

    An Australian company claims to have developed technology to make computer game graphics "100,000 times better" than current-gen systems. Euclideon says its "Unlimited Detail" engine offers infinite geometry "makes everything out of tiny little atoms instead of flat panels". 'Atoms', it would seem is Euclideon-speak for these …

    reghardware 3 Aug 05:00

  • Pure Sirocco 550 music combo

    Review Hi-fi with Wi-Fi

    Pure has pumped out tabletop digital radios and pocket portables for yonks, but largely avoided micro hi-fi. The notable execptions being its DMX and Legato products a few years ago, the inexpensive DAB-equipped Sirocco 150 in 2009, and this new 550 model. Beat combo: Pure's Sirocco 550 Compared to its forerunner, the 550 …

    reghardware 3 Aug 06:00

  • UK software and services market wedged in U-bend

    Two years of misery ahead

    The UK software and IT services (SITS) industry will limp along for at least the rest of this year and the next before staging a very gradual recovery. This is according to bean-counters at TechMarketView, whose stats show the sector has been in annual decline since the recession that started in 2008 – and shows no signs of …

    Cloud Business 3 Aug 08:00

  • HMRC online tax systems slammed by Private Forum for Biz

    SME trade body brands tax system 'complex and unwieldy'

    HM Revenues and Customs' sprawling online tax systems are not up to the job and small biz folk are paying the price, says the Forum of Private Business (FPB). Talking in the wake of Treasury's sub-committee critical report into the administration and effectiveness of HMRC, the FPB reckons red tape is strangling small business …

    Small Biz 3 Aug 08:12

  • Reg readers ponder LOHAN's substantial globes

    One balloon or three for ballocket spaceplane mission?

    Our Low Orbit Helium Assisted Navigator (LOHAN) project is beginning to work up a good head of steam, as we begin to consider the practicalities of launching a rocket-powered spaceplane from under a whopping helium balloon at a not inconsiderable altitude. Thanks to all of you who've chipped in ideas, and since our last update …

    SPB 3 Aug 08:36

  • EMC gets acceleration injection from Asankya

    Mystery app delivery speed-up buy

    EMC is buying part of Asankya, an application acceleration start-up whose technology is good news for cloud storage suppliers. The buy price has not been revealed, but could be in the $5m to 10m area. Asankya was founded in 2003 in Atlanta, GA, by CEO Scott Ryan, who has Nortel time in his CV, and chief technology officer Dr …

    Platform 3 Aug 08:41

  • Dragon Bannatyne threatens to break arms of 'Russian' bloke

    Twitter squeals at pub-like outburst

    Dragon's Den star Duncan Bannatyne upset the gentle sensibility of the twitterati yesterday, after he forgot he wasn't talking to one bloke down the pub when making empty threats to break the arms of a "Russian". He offered a £25,000 reward to anyone who could track down the person behind the Twitter handle YuriVasilyev_, who …

    Crime 3 Aug 09:22

  • Samsung dives into spin-transfer torque

    Next generation tech: Korean company buys DARPA-funded Grandis

    Samsung is going to walk the spin-transfer torque by buying Grandis, and will use its capabilities to develop next-generation memory. Spin-transfer torque RAM (STT-RAM) is characterised as having "a spin-polarised current in a tunnel magneto resistance element. Normally an electric current is not polarised as half its …

    Storage 3 Aug 09:26

  • Acoustic trauma: How wind farms make you sick

    It's an ill wind ...

    Industrial wind installations are creating a serious health issue, and comprehensive research is urgently needed, says a former Professor of Public Health. "There has been no policy analysis that justifies imposing these effects on local residents. The attempts to deny the evidence cannot be seen as honest scientific …

    Environment 3 Aug 09:31

  • Belt and braces stop the network falling down

    Count everything, then double it

    Lately, everyone seems to have lined up to join the network failure party. In some cases, lax network security has been to blame. In others, upgrade issues coupled with fundamental design flaws have done the damage. An inability to cope with denial-of-service attacks by angry internet mobs has even resulted in disruptions to …

    Network Fabric 3 Aug 09:34

  • Ofcom says no to web-blocking

    Freetards must cough up a refundable-£20 for each appeal, though

    Several decisions made today have far-reaching implications for every UK internet user. Telco quango Ofcom has effectively killed web-blocking reserve powers that were passed into law a year ago, by arguing that they probably won't work. The government also announced today that it is endorsing all the proposals made in Ian …

    Law 3 Aug 10:06

  • Columbia debris emerges from Texas lake

    Drought reveals doomed shuttle's reactant tank

    A drought in Texas has revealed a piece of space shuttle Columbia, destroyed on re-entry over the state on 1 February, 2003. The 40-inch spherical reactant tank emerged from the waters of Lake Nacogdoches, close to Nacogdoches in eastern Texas, where a substantial amount of Columbia debris fell following the disaster. …

    Space 3 Aug 10:08

  • Microsoft man saves drowning woman

    iPodestrians miss cries for help

    The cries of a drowning woman were missed by headphone-sporting joggers, leaving her to be rescued by a Microsoft worker. Matt Drury, a security guard at Microsoft's Kings Meadow HQ was cycling home along the towpath when heard a woman's gasp followed by a splash. But the Microsoft man was beaten to the dive by a man called …

    Bootnotes 3 Aug 10:35

  • Bullfrog Syndicate

    Antique Code Show Persuadertron = win

    Bullfrog’s innovative titles gave me some of my best 1990s gaming memories. Who could forget Populous and Dungeon Keeper? The pre-cyberpunk aesthetic of Syndicate mesmerised me and gave us Agent Smith before anyone had even heard of The Matrix. This game isn’t complex but as long as I have a Persuadertron, I am going to do well …

    reghardware 3 Aug 10:51

  • State-sponsored 5-year global cyberattack uncovered

    Spy agency probably the real (cyber) slim shady

    A five-year operation targeting more than 70 global companies, governments and non-profit organisations was probably the work of an intelligence agency, according to McAfee. The malware-powered cyber-snooping campaign – dubbed Operation Shady RAT – began in mid-2006 with a series of attacks that affected some organisations for …

    Malware 3 Aug 11:03

  • MPs slam 'unworkable' one-size-fits-all NHS care records' system

    Concludes £7bn project failed, calls for 'urgent' review

    The Department of Health has failed in its attempt to properly integrate electronic care records across the NHS system, MPs concluded in a scathing Public Accounts Committee report published this morning. Politicos said that Andrew Lansley's department should seriously consider ditching the £7bn implementation of the care …

    Government 3 Aug 11:06

  • Sony Vita to control PlayStation 3

    Wii U, me too

    Sony is touting a new feature for PlayStation 3 that uses the forthcoming PS Vita as a controller, in a way that sounds suspiciously similar to Nintendo's next-gen console, the Wii U Sony Europe's Phil Rogers talked-up the Vita's Wii U-like capabilities at the Develop Conference 2011 this week, Eurogamer reports. "Here's a …

    reghardware 3 Aug 11:14

  • Two solicitors fined and suspended for file-sharer letters

    Tribunal calls them out for greed, poor judgment

    The Solicitors Regulation Authority has suspended two lawyers and fined them £20,000 each for sending out thousands of letters accusing people of illegally sharing files. Davenport Lyons partner David Gore and Brian Miller, a former partner at the firm, faced six allegations of breaching the Solicitors' Code of Conduct and …

    Law 3 Aug 11:59

  • First smut site erected on .xxx address

    Finally, somewhere safe to w*nk

    The first porn site to use a .xxx web address has gone live, and domain manager ICM Registry has announced another way to make internet perving a "safer" experience. Casting.xxx (NSFW, incredibly) started doing its bit to feed the world's appetite for "adult entertainment" last night. While ICM has had a corporate site online …

    Platform 3 Aug 12:03

  • RIM launches five BlackBerry smarties

    BB 7 OS on-board

    Research in Motion launched five smartphones today that run on the BlackBerry 7 Operating System. This latest refresh represents RIM's largest ever global launch. The handsets include two BlackBerry Bold models and three from the BlackBerry Torch range. The BlackBerry Bold 9900 and 9930 are RIM's thinnest smartphones yet at …

    reghardware 3 Aug 12:16

  • Patriot Wildfire 120GB Sata 3 SSD

    Review Upgrades all round

    Patriot Memory’s latest Wildfire Sata 3 SSDs come with the promise of read and write speeds in excess of 500MB/s along with read and write IOPS in the 60K region. All of this blazing speed is available in 120GB (£240), 240GB (£420) and 480GB capacities – a 60GB version is in production, but not currently available in the UK. …

    reghardware 3 Aug 13:07

  • Union talks up offshoring dangers to UK economy

    HP PCS members vote for industrial action over job cuts

    The Public and Commercial Services Union is warning that a wave of private sector jobs will inevitably move offshore as the government forces IT suppliers to cut costs. At the start of this week, PCS members working at HP voted in favour of industrial action over plans to axe 200 staff in the north-east working on the Adams 2 …

    Government 3 Aug 13:49

  • UK police warns off hacktivists

    Oi, you lot ... behave!

    UK police have taken the unusual step of warning prospective hacktivists that they risk arrest and prosecution if they get involved in denial of service or other forms of cyberattack. An update on the Met Police's official Twitter account points surfers towards a notice stating that defacing websites, running denial of service …

    Policing 3 Aug 13:51

  • Apple resellers squeezed out of volume licensing model

    Vendor 'turns its back' on software channel

    Channel bully boy Apple has got its Premium Resellers second-guessing whether they will again feature in its plans for volume licensing after they were told no margin will be paid on the recently unveiled Final Cut Pro X. The latest slap in the face for channel minions of the Jobsian empire follows the July release of OS X …

    Channel Register 3 Aug 13:54

  • Ofcom clears 4G for maritime navigation

    3,000+-tonne ships clear for transmission...

    Ofcom's investigation into the potential for 4G telephony to knock out maritime radar has concluded that it just won't happen, at least not in any significant way. A technical examination (PDF, dull) carried out by the regulator concludes that even taking worst-case assumptions – that operators build 4G masts pointing directly …

    Mobile 3 Aug 13:57

  • Oops! Ofcom's DCMS's own blocking easily visible to world+dog

    Redact... redact... er... undo... ah... oops!

    Technical klutz Ofcom* says web-blocking laws will be ineffective, and so should not be implemented. It did so today in a heavily readacted report – where the redactions were easily readable by the entire world. Ofcom has now removed the ineptly censored study and replaced it with a password-protected version. One blacked-out …

    Government 3 Aug 14:20

  • Facebook buys ebook startup

    Takes a design leaf out of Apple's book book

    Facebook has acquired Push Pop Press – a digital book publisher – for an undisclosed sum. The startup was co-founded by a former Apple employee, Mike Matas, who designed UIs and artwork for the company's Mac OS X, iPhone and iPad products. "Now we're taking our publishing technology and everything we've learned and are …

    Applications 3 Aug 14:34

  • Twitter-control botnet mines Bitcoins

    Digital cash from chaos

    Cybercrooks have begun using botnets of compromised machines to mine units of the Bitcoin virtual currency. New units of the electronic currency, which can be exchanged for real cash, can be created by completing complex mathematical tasks. Ideas in distributed computing pioneered by the SETI project and other such schemes …

    Malware 3 Aug 14:37

  • Amazon Free Apps start to rile developers

    Free, as in no revenue kicked back

    Amazon app store isn't following its promise to kick back at least a fifth of the asking price, unilaterally deciding that free promotion is worth more than cash in developers' pockets. Amazon has been asking developers to forsake revenue for a day in exchange for home-page promotion, and demanding they don't discuss that …

    Small Biz 3 Aug 14:46

  • Yahoo! Mail! users! complain! of! server! flatline!

    Purple Palace remains silent, apart from the odd strangulated tweet

    Many Yahoo! Mail users have been shunted off the service in the past few hours. Complaints are piling up on Twitter and The Register has also heard from several disgruntled users of Yahoo! Mail. A call into the company's London office proved fruitless this afternoon. We've left a message and will update this story if anyone …

    SaaS 3 Aug 15:31

  • Exam results texted out early in Scotland

    Early access to pub Ucas for those using txt spk

    Almost 30,000 Scottish students got their Higher results this afternoon, instead of tomorrow morning as it should have been, potentially giving them early access to the university clearing system. The results were sent out – by accident – to anyone who had selected text-only notification, but have been confirmed as accurate by …

    Mobile 3 Aug 15:41

  • Mainframers drop EU antitrust complaints against IBM

    Fuhgeddaboudit

    IBM's iron grip on its big iron business just got a little tighter. Three small companies that have been trying for years to carve out little niches in the System z mainframe market have all withdrawn their complaints with the European Union's antitrust authorities. The most interesting of the dropped complaints against Big …

    Servers 3 Aug 16:12

  • Pure revamps portable DAB

    Fresh tuner

    With the proposed digital switchover stalling, digital audio broadcasting has yet to dominate the airwaves. Pure's dedication to the format appears undaunted though with its new portable DAB and FM radio player announced this week. The Pure Move 2500 is essentially a refresh on the company's previous model, the PocketDAB 1500 …

    reghardware 3 Aug 17:13

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

    100,000 fake browser IQ tests can't be wrong

    A recent online research study indicating that Internet Explorer users have lower IQs than other browser users was likely bollox. In other words, it's no different than any other online research study. Last week, myriad news outlets – including the BBC, CNN, Forbes, The Telegraph, and, yes, The Register – reported on a survey …

    Applications 3 Aug 17:21

  • OCZ jumps harder on enterprise PCIe bandwagon

    Z-Drive R4 beefs VeloDrive, RevoDrive

    OCZ has announced its third Z-drive refresh in two years, with the Z-Drive R4 going more than four times faster than the first version product. The company has three PCIe flash drives: the RevoDrive is for workstations and NAS servers; the VeloDrive is for small and medium business and system integrators; while the Z_Drive is …

    Storage 3 Aug 18:41

  • Researchers poke gaping holes in Google Chrome OS

    Black Hat Chromebook only as safe as its weakest apps

    Google has billed its Chrome operating system as a security breakthrough that's largely immune to the threats that have plagued traditional computers for decades. With almost nothing stored on its hard drive and no native applications, there's no sensitive data that can pilfered and it can't be commandeered when attackers …

    Enterprise Security 3 Aug 18:45

  • Google waggles free* Android phones at Americans

    * 2-year wireless and small piece of your soul required

    Google is offering Americans a free Nexus S Android phone from its rather popular homepage. The offer lasts through the end of today (August 3). And you must agree to a two year wireless contract with an American wireless carrier. And you must agree to share yourself with Google. The Nexus S is an Android phone whose software …

    Mobile 3 Aug 19:50

  • Aussie court denies bail to accused hacker 'Evil' Cecil

    Wistful magistrate wishes he'd used his skills for good

    Australian hacking cause célèbre, David Noel Cecil, who goes by the nickname of "Evil", remains behind bars after being formally refused bail yesterday at Cowra Local Court. Cecil, an unemployed truck driver, was arrested by police last week and charged with 49 counts of accessing restricted data while unlawfully gaining …

    Crime 3 Aug 22:15

  • Turnbull lays out alternative architecture

    Keep the cable nets, seek local build bids

    Australia’s opposition communications spokesperson Malcolm Turnbull has outlined further details of his proposed model for the Australian broadband market. In a speech to the National Press Club on Wednesday, Turnbull proposed a model which would leave high-density, economically-viable locations served by market competition, …

    Government 3 Aug 22:33

  • Google claims 'bogus patent' conspiracy against Android

    Apple, Microsoft, and Oracle in 'hostile, organized campaign'

    Google chief legal officer David Drummond has claimed that Apple, Microsoft, Oracle, and other companies have waged a "hostile, organized campaign" against Google's Android operating system using "bogus patents". "I have worked in the tech sector for over two decades. Microsoft and Apple have always been at each other’s …

    Mobile 3 Aug 22:41

  • Hobbyist killed by home-made hovercraft

    Don’t try this. Anywhere.

    A 40-year-old New Zealand man has been killed by a blade from a home-made hovercraft. Police have said the blade came loose and struck Alastair Senior in the back of the head (the accident was originally reported to have decapitated the victim). Senior had “spent years” building the device in his garage, according to the New …

    Odds and Sods 3 Aug 23:00