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8th September 2011 Archive

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  • Early Earth’s ‘golden shower’

    Shiny yellow stuff arrived on meteors

    Rocks from Isua in south-west Greenland have been hailed as providing evidence for what geologists believe is the source of complex and heavy elements on Earth: an asteroid shower that endowed our young planet with gold (as well as platinum, iridium, nickel and tungsten). The research to be published in Nature suggests that …

    Science 8 Sep 2011, 00:01

  • Solar lays hands on Holy Grail

    Industry claims Australian PV electricity now at ‘grid parity’

    While the solar industry continues its campaign against the new NSW state government, which in its first budget cut back further on subsidies to solar installations, another landmark event has passed with much less notice: various experts and analysts now put PV power cost at parity with the cost of buying electricity from the …

    Science 8 Sep 2011, 01:00

  • StreetView gets the willies in Victoria

    Look what popped up in the middle of nowhere…

    In the great tradition of pranking Google’s photographers, someone has penned a phallus on a Google StreetView camera-van in Australia. It pops up in the appropriately-named town of Long Gully, near Bendigo in Victoria, and continues through Maiden Gully (no, really). The graffito was apparently first noticed by BuzzFeed. …

    Bootnotes 8 Sep 2011, 01:39

  • Hitachi Data Systems gobbles BlueArc

    The end of stand-alone NAS supply

    At last. Hitachi Data Systems is buying hardware-accelerated filer supplier BlueArc for an undisclosed cash sum, leaving NetApp as the last significant man standing from the filer side of the industry and giving HDS a powerful file storage capability. An OEM relationship has been in place between HDS and BlueArc since 2006, …

    Storage 8 Sep 2011, 03:55

  • Google feeds patents to HTC for assault on Apple

    After Motorola gave them to Google

    Android phone manufacturer HTC has sued Apple using nine patents it bought from Google. And Google acquired four of the nine from Motorola. As reported by Bloomberg, Google transferred the nine patents to HTC on August 29, and HTC filed suit against the Jobsian cult on Wednesday. The suit marks a turning point for Google, …

    Mobile 8 Sep 2011, 04:48

  • Kingston Wi-Drive wireless flash storage

    Review Fondleslab file fattener

    The lack of any direct storage expansion in Apple's iOS products has been one of the more enduring causes of complaint for those using or pondering on owning one of these devices. Kingston Technology demonstrated its idea of a workaround when it previewed the MobiSX at CES at the beginning of the year. Now in production, with a …

    Hardware 8 Sep 2011, 06:00

  • Three in ten Americans urge feds to read their email

    9/11 anniversary survey finds in favor of torture

    A survey into attitudes ten years after the 9/11 attacks has found that three out of ten Americans are happy to let the government read their emails without a warrant. And this rose to 47 per cent for emails addressed to foreigners. Over a thousand Americans were polled by NORC at the University of Chicago into their attitudes …

    Security 8 Sep 2011, 06:49

  • Lost memory stick had 87 NHS patients' info unencrypted

    Medical student fingered in thumb drive fiasco

    A medical student who copied the private data of 87 patients onto a memory stick – and then lost it – has landed the University Hospital of South Manchester in trouble with the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO). The ICO ruled today (7 September) that the South Manchester hospital breached the Data Protection Act by …

    Security 8 Sep 2011, 07:54

  • London public transport tap-cash plans will be 'entirely safe'

    Only bankers can take money from your card, not crooks

    Fraudsters will not be able to extract confidential information from a person's contactless bank card or other compatible technology as the type of data held on such cards will be restricted, Will Judge, head of future ticketing at Transport for London (TfL) has said. Giving evidence to the London assembly transport committee …

    Government 8 Sep 2011, 08:28

  • McAfee: Cyber thugs will turn your car into Christine

    Maybe. One day

    Poorly secured embedded systems in next-generation cars create a way in for hackers, according to a new study by McAfee. Hackers may be able to gain access everything from the locks to car engines and more, according to a report titled Caution: Malware Ahead that looks at the emerging risks in car system security. McAfee, …

    Security 8 Sep 2011, 08:57

  • Is using your own kit at work a good thing?

    The Big Reg Consumerisation Survey

    One of the latest buzzwords to contaminate this great language of ours is ‘consumerisation’. According to many marketeers, it defines the future of end user computing. As with all good marketing terms, various definitions exist because ambiguity leaves more room for creative product positioning. Fundamentally, however, …

    Tech Panel 8 Sep 2011, 09:02

  • The Reg dips toe into social media ocean

    Majority pursuits

    Today, The Register's official Twitter account http://twitter.com/#!/regvulture reached 5,000 followers. OK, so no biggie and never let anyone say that we are pioneers in such things. But in mitigation we are quite a big website with thousands of active commentards, albeit mostly of the anti-social media kind. Any ways, in …

    Site News 8 Sep 2011, 09:06

  • Patent wars: Apple attacks Samsung in Japan

    Fly into the rising sun... Apple, suing everyone

    Another day, another tech giant starts a patent lawsuit. Still deep in a fight with Samsung in Germany and Australia over whether its Galaxy phone and tablet range infringes iPad patents – a lawsuit which has delayed the release of the tablet in Australia and saw the Galaxy Tab dramatically pulled from shelves at German Trade …

    Law 8 Sep 2011, 09:36

  • Disk sales up 4%: No sign of Flash or Cloud impact yet

    Possible hoarding driven by Japanese quake worries

    Despite the impact of the global downturn on global markets, disk sales in the second quarter were 4 per cent higher than in the first. Research numbers from IHS iSuppli showed 167.1 million drives were shipped in the quarter ending in June, compared to 160.5 million in the first quarter. The impact of the Japanese earthquake …

    Storage 8 Sep 2011, 09:37

  • HP readies AMD, Intel sub-notebook

    Steers clear of Ultrabook brand

    HP has updated its 11.6in notebook-not-netbook machine, the dm1. The new version is specced with a choice of new AMD E-series dual-core 'Zacate' CPUs with on-board GPUs - and discrete Radeon HD graphics chips - or Intel 'Sandy Bridge' second-gen Core i processors, also with on-chip graphics but no discrete GPU too. HP …

    Laptops 8 Sep 2011, 09:48

  • Adobe CreatePDF

    iOS App of the Week PDF conversion from the creator of PDF

    There are plenty of PDF viewer apps available for iOS devices, so it’s a little surprising that it’s taken this long for Adobe - deviser of the Portable Document Format - to release this CreatePDF app. Its job is to convert documents in any of a variety of formats - Word, Excel, PowerPoint, OpenOffice, Photoshop, Illustrator, …

    Phones 8 Sep 2011, 10:00

  • Ultrabook makers turn to fibreglass to cut costs

    Cheaper to make, cheaper to sell

    Take this as you will, but it's claimed that many upcoming Ultrabook laptops will use a fibreglass chassis to bring production costs down to the point where their vendors can sell the machines for under $1000 (£627). According to the inevitable 'unnanmed industry sources', cited by DigiTimes, fibreglass may be used instead of …

    Laptops 8 Sep 2011, 10:13

  • UK.gov works on YET ANOTHER open-source push

    TransferSummit Home Office battles internal 'communism' beliefs

    Yet another government definition for the term "open standards" is incoming because the Home Office isn't satisfied with the current wording of its so-called Action Plan. The department's IT wonk Tariq Rashid confirmed at an open source forum in Oxford yesterday that the government had been "lobbying against" the current …

    Policy 8 Sep 2011, 10:19

  • AMD Steam-game offer suspended after keys pilfered

    DiRTy snatch leaves gamers worried

    Data security problems have led to the suspension of a free-videogame-with-every-Radeon-graphics-card offer from AMD and Codemasters. Three million activation codes that allowed gamers to play a free copy of DiRT 3 on Steam have leaked. AMD's redemption site, AMD4u, was left vulnerable to a .htaccess exploit. This website …

    Security 8 Sep 2011, 10:29

  • SCC swallows French services firm LNA

    British firms wrestle for Gallic dominance

    SCC has expanded its French operation after acquiring Boulogne-based IT services outfit LNA for an undisclosed sum. The deal for the €66m turnover business widens the sales gap with SCC's archrival Computacenter, which forked out €21m for Top Info SAS earlier this year to cement its position as the third-largest dealer in …

    The Channel 8 Sep 2011, 10:41

  • Poster presents evolution of game controllers

    From 'Tennis for Two' to the 'PS Move Sharp Shooter'

    Fancy a wallchart detailing the evolution of videogame console controllers? Yours for just $30 (£19): a 60 x 90cm poster that creator Pop Chart Lab claims is "the most extensive charting of video game controllers ever". A new version of an existing offering, the revamped chart details "119 species and 11 genera over seven …

    Games 8 Sep 2011, 11:00

  • JP Morgan has a Playmobil moment

    Euro debt crisis explained in miniature

    They say imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, so we're well and truly flattered that JP Morgan has taken a leaf out of the El Reg Bootnotes book and decided that figurines are the best way to illustrate important news. In this case, it's the European debt crisis rendered in Lego miniatures: For a full description of …

    Bootnotes 8 Sep 2011, 11:01

  • UK.gov coder defines open standards: 'A lot like porn'

    TransferSummit If you can think of it, there's an open standard of it?

    As the government works on drawing up yet another definition for open standards, the man in charge of the Cabinet Office's team of IT coders is keen to talk about a future where all government tech is based on, well, open standards. On the current definition of open standards, Mark O'Neill – who was speaking at the open source …

    Policy 8 Sep 2011, 11:15

  • Gartner predicts UK PC market nosedive for 2011

    Exclusive Rest of world to go on grow-slow, Blighty stuffed

    The UK PC channel is stuffed for 2011: both in terms of unsold kit and weakened demand across all market segments, according to Gartner. The beancounter today slashed worldwide PC sales projections for this year and next, cutting 2011 forecasts to 3.8 per cent growth from previous estimates of 9.3 per cent and down a couple of …

    The Channel 8 Sep 2011, 11:27

  • Designer styles bendy Samsung smartphone

    Wrap star

    Samsung has demo'd flexible, foldable OLED displays, and here's a concept one designer has posted to show how such a screen might change the phones we choose. Heyon You's Samsung Galaxy Skin is an ultra-slim handset with a fold over screen that lets it be folded for ease of portability and opened out for maximum display space …

    Phones 8 Sep 2011, 11:36

  • Amazon solves wait-at-home-for-deliveries problem

    Tiny snag: You have to go to the shopping centre

    Amazon is planning to roll out digital lockers in the UK, so people with busy schedules can go to pick up their online purchases instead of taking the day off work to wait for the postman. The first of these 'click-and-collect' points will be at the One New Change shopping centre in London, Retail Week reported. Apparently …

    Bootnotes 8 Sep 2011, 11:44

  • Satellite gives better picture of solar flares' effects on Earth

    Deliver more energy than was thought: Big implications

    Top boffins reviewing data from a NASA satellite dedicated to probing the secrets of the Sun say that some solar flares directed towards Earth deliver much more energy than had previously been thought. Solar flares are massive releases of radiation associated with sunspots. If they hit Earth, they can deliver large amounts of …

    Science 8 Sep 2011, 11:58

  • Orange Monte Carlo budget Android smartphone

    Review That Riviera touch

    If during the last 12 months you wanted a cheap but decent prepaid smartphone there was really only one choice, the Orange San Francisco. But now its big brother is in town – the Orange Monte Carlo. Orange's Monte Carlo: a good bet? This is another handset from Chinese manufacturer ZTE that in its homeland is known as the …

    Phones 8 Sep 2011, 12:01

  • End of UK local dialling in sight as numbers run out

    Bournemouth locals first for tiring fingering ordeal

    Dialling your neighbour is going to take longer as Ofcom abolishes local calls in some areas of Britain, warning that numbers are running out. Starting in Bournemouth, people will have to dial the area code along with their 01 local number to stop the network confusing your Auntie Lynne's landline with a stranger's mobile …

    Broadband 8 Sep 2011, 12:20

  • Erwan Menard joins fellow HP vets at DataDirect

    Contender bulks up to take on the big boys

    HPC and big data storage supplier DataDirect Networks (DDN) is gearing up for expansion, growing its operations and adding information extraction software onto its data storage platform roots. The company, the largest privately owned storage company, according to IDC, with a $200m annual revenue run rate, has just recruited …

    Storage 8 Sep 2011, 12:38

  • Three complains to Brussels over NFC exclusion

    We want in to the bonk-n-bleep alliance

    The UK's smallest operator, Three, has launched a preemptive strike against the NFC gang of three which was announced in June, claiming its exclusion is competitively motivated. The alleged cartel, which still lacks a name, is jointly owned by Everything Everywhere, Telefonica UK and Vodafone, and is intended to create a …

    Mobile 8 Sep 2011, 12:55

  • Ice Cream Sandwich Android out 'by November'

    That's what the IFA-demo'd tablets will have then

    Google's next major Android release, Ice Cream Sandwich, will be out in the October-November timeframe, Eric Schmidt has revealed. Speaking at Salesforce.com's Dreamforce conference earlier this month, Schmidt said: "We have a new operating system - which is known internally as Ice Cream Sandwich for some reason - which is …

    Phones 8 Sep 2011, 12:56

  • Swedish cops free boozy moose from tree

    Sozzled scrumper refused to call it a day

    Swedish police were called to the aid of a pissed-up elk after it chomped on fermenting apples and became trapped in a tree that had been doubling up as its free bar. Coppers were alerted to the alcine alkie by residents living south of Gothenburg who heard his cries and initially attempted to free him. "I thought at first …

    Bootnotes 8 Sep 2011, 13:05

  • China sprouts another Android fork

    Like 10,000 spoons when all you need is a knife

    QQ, the world's biggest social networking service, is to launch its own handset and yet another fork of Google's Android, bringing the count up to four Android variants in China. Not that Tencent (owners of QQ) have varied hugely from the stock Android code. The new platform provides ties into a range of QQ services, but bears …

    Mobile 8 Sep 2011, 13:08

  • Oracle rejects Google's man for mediation

    Come on judge, we want the Two Larrys!

    We didn't really expect Larry Page to take two full days out of the Googleplex to sit down and talk about patent infringements with the software company Oracle – he's got maths to do, nerds to manage and Google+ updates to write. But Google could have come up with someone a bit senior to meet the mediation team from the enraged …

    Business 8 Sep 2011, 13:18

  • Amazon to give up the fight in California

    Offers to pay up later if it doesn't have to fork out now

    Amazon has cut a deal to lay down its arms in its battle with Californian legislators over the introduction of a sales tax for online retailers in the state. The deal would postpone the imposition of a sales tax on Amazon until September 2012 and in return, the retailer would agree to stop spending its millions fighting the …

    Financial News 8 Sep 2011, 13:22

  • Hitachi GST sandwiches Seagate with 4TB big boy

    Desks groan under contest of mighty grunters

    The day after Seagate launched its 4TB external drive, Hitachi GST did exactly the same with its launch of its 4TB desktop whopper. It gets curiouser in a PR/marketing sense as Hitachi GST announced it had a terabyte-per-platter product the day before Seagate revealed its 4TB product. Oddly Hitachi only announced a single- …

    Storage 8 Sep 2011, 13:38

  • Double-barrel net infrastructure hack threatens ecommerce

    Analysis DNS redirection hack + forged digital certs = chaos

    Security watchers warn that hackers might be able to develop potent attacks that would be extremely hard to foil by combining DNS hacks of the kind that affected The Register and other high-profile websites over the weekend with DigiNotar-style forged digital certificates. An attack on Domain Name System (DNS) service provider …

    Security 8 Sep 2011, 13:53

  • Cybercrooks prey on 9/11 anniversary

    Malware, 'commemorative coin' auctions and fake charity donation

    Cybercrooks are gearing up for the 10th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks with a range of malware traps and hacking attempts both on social networks and the wider internet, net security firm BitDefender warns. The first wave of these attacks comes in the form of the newly established websites offering supposed content such as " …

    Security 8 Sep 2011, 14:38

  • TVonics seeks Brits to beta test BBC iPlayer over Wi-Fi

    Must own a DTR-HV250

    UK DVR maker TVonics is looking for "a small amount" of folk who own its DTR-HV250 set-top box to test its implementation of BBC iPlayer. The DVR lacks an Ethernet port, so TVonics is looking for owners with a Wi-Fi network at home. Presumably, it'll supply a USB Wi-Fi dongle to clip into the DTR-HV250's rear-facing USB port …

    Hardware 8 Sep 2011, 14:48

  • LG may axe up to 30% of overseas mobile staff

    You remember, LG. Chaebol

    LG Electronics may cut 20 to 30 per cent of its overseas mobile staff in a bid to reform the loss-making unit. The Korea Economic Times cited sources as saying that the staff cuts would mostly affect marketing and purchasing personnel in the company's mobile business. An LG spokesman told The Reg that the company doesn't …

    Mobile 8 Sep 2011, 15:07

  • Google greedily goobles foodie guide Zagat

    Information gourmands, rather than gourmets

    Google has acquired Zagat, the US restaurant guide, to tag onto its search engine and mapping application. The purchase price is undisclosed. Google confirmed the deal in a blog entry, penned by Marissa Mayer, who currentlu heads up Local, Maps and Location Services "Zagat will be a cornerstone of our local offering - …

    Financial News 8 Sep 2011, 16:20

  • MS, Samsung to show Windows 8 tablet at Build

    New device gets dev conference demo

    Samsung and Microsoft will show off a Windows 8 tablet next week. So says the Korea Economic Daily - by way of Agence France-Presse - which reported today that an industry mole said Samsung and Microsoft will demo the Windows 8 tablet at next week's Build developers' conference. While Samsung's current tablets run Android, it …

    Tablets 8 Sep 2011, 16:44

  • Google: SSL alternative won't be added to Chrome

    Path converges into security quagmire

    Still smarting from a counterfeit secure sockets layer certificate that threatened at least 300,000 of its users in Iran, Google has no plans to fortify its Chrome browser with an experimental technology that bypasses the current system for validating websites. In a blog post published Wednesday, Google security researcher Adam …

    Security 8 Sep 2011, 17:14

  • Microsoft inks new patent pacts over Android...and Chrome

    'Helps address IP issues' at Acer, Viewsonic

    Microsoft has inked patent-licensing deals with Acer and Viewsonic that cover devices running both Google's Android operating and its browser-based Chrome OS. The Acer deal covers smartphones and tablets running Android, while the Viewsonic pact applies to tablets and phones running Android as well as Chrome OS. Officially, …

    Operating Systems 8 Sep 2011, 17:18

  • Foxconn churns out '150,000' iPhone 5s a day

    22 million by year's end

    The word out of Taiwan is that the iPhone 5 is now being churned out of Foxconn Electronics sweatshops factories at a rate of 150,000 per day, and that five to six million of the li'l fellows will be shipped by the end of September. Not a bad run-rate for a product that has yet even to be announced by Apple – although the …

    Phones 8 Sep 2011, 18:46

  • Burned by DigiNotar, Mozilla tells cert cops to audit security

    Do it or else

    Mozilla has directed all web authentication authorities trusted by its software to conduct security audits to ensure they aren't being abused to issue counterfeit secure sockets layer certificates. Thursday's note from Kathleen Wilson, who oversees the certificate authorities included in the Firefox browser and Thunderbird …

    Security 8 Sep 2011, 19:41

  • Enterprise computing imperiled by cloudy mobes

    Every app an enterprise app

    Enterprise computing practices are under attack by a rapidly advancing army of cloud-hungry mobile devices. "Applications don't live in one place anymore," is how SAP's head of product architecture and technology strategy Sethu Meenakshisundaram summed up this conflict at a software-centric Intel pow-wow on Thursday morning. …

    Cloud 8 Sep 2011, 21:50

  • IBM loans SMBs $1bn to buy stuff

    The Big Blue Bank

    Big Blue wants to make more sales in the small and medium business space, and it is shelling out $1bn over the next 18 months to make it happen. IBM is as much a bank as it is a maker of hardware and software and a peddler of services. Big Blue can borrow money at rates that few companies and no consumers can thanks to its …

    The Channel 8 Sep 2011, 21:53

  • Optus censored but still selling

    Thou shalt not sledge NBN Co

    Optus will continue to sell, market and invest in wireless services despite a stringent condition regarding wireless marketing contained in its $AU800 million agreement with NBN Co. The agreement, which will see Optus decommission its HFC network and transfer customers to NBN Co, includes a provision that prevents Optus from …

    Networks 8 Sep 2011, 22:33

  • Germany nixes EMI suit against HanseNet

    Cologne case stank, it seems

    A Cologne court has dealt yet-another setback to the music industry’s international strategy to force ISPs to police its copyrights. The case was brought by EMI against German ISP HanseNet, whose customer had been using eDonkey to download unauthorised copies of music from a Russian-hosted file-sharing site. The customer …

    Media 8 Sep 2011, 23:00

  • ACMA gives telcos five months to clean up act

    You will or we will: choice

    The Australian Communications and Media Authority has given telecommunications providers a five deadline to improve customer services as a result of the 12 month investigation into the industry’s consumer code of practice. ACMA chairman Chris Chapman said that improvements are “both urgent and necessary.” The report revealed …

    Government 8 Sep 2011, 23:30