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15th September 2011 Archive

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  • Microsoft previews new Visual Studio, .NET

    BUILD Floats fresh Azure SDK

    Microsoft has given MSDN subscribers access to a preview version of Visual Studio 11 and a new version of .NET as well as developer version of its upcoming Windows 8 operating system. The company announced the new developerware on Wednesday at its BUILD conference in Anaheim, California. The Visual Studio preview provides …

    Developer 15 Sep 00:16

  • Deep inside Intel's 'Ivy Bridge' chip

    IDF 2011 A really small Sandy Bridge. And more

    Intel's next-generation "Ivy Bridge" chips will include a host of improvements, including integrated graphics that the company claims will narrow the lead now held by AMD's Fusion APUs. "I expect that that gap, from everything that I've seen, is closing fast," Intel's director of graphics architecture Tom Piazza told an Ivy …

    PCs & Chips 15 Sep 00:24

  • Professors slam Oz HFC wholesale shutdown

    National Broadband Network should avoid creating new monopoly

    Two regular contributors to Australia’s industry regulation debates have penned a paper slamming the proposed “Telstra-NBN” deal. Under the deal, which is under consideration by the ACCC, Telstra is to withdraw from fixed line services as the National Broadband Network fibre is rolled out. In addition, both Telstra and Optus …

    Telecoms 15 Sep 00:30

  • Facebook's Open Compute friends ODCA IT union

    IDF 2011 What do you need a tier one server maker for?

    What do you get when you cross a consortium of big data center customers and IT suppliers (the Open Data Center Alliance started by Intel last October) with an open source server and data center design project started by a hyperscale Web company (the Open Compute Project founded by Facebook)? We don't know, but it looks like …

    Servers 15 Sep 00:52

  • VMware links Workstation 8 hypervisor to ESXi

    Fusion 4 for Macs Lionized

    VMware has spruced up its two virtualization hypervisors for client computers: Workstation 8 for x64 PCs and Fusion 4 for x64 machines with an Apple brand on them. Both Workstation and Fusion are what are called type 2 or hosted hypervisors, which means they run atop an operating system running on a PC, allowing for the OS to …

    Virtualization 15 Sep 05:07

  • Microsoft demos creepy car stalking system

    BUILD Family micromanagement

    Windows Phone 7.5 and Azure are letting one Microsoft director stalk his kids while they’re on the road. His Windows smartphone app allows a third party to track a car fitted with a Viper SmartStart GPS system and monitor its speed, location, engine revs and battery – or lock and shut down a vehicle if it’s stolen. Jeff …

    Mobile 15 Sep 05:34

  • Star Wars: The Complete Saga Blu-ray disc set

    Review Buy it, you will

    Cards on the table: I’m not a Star Wars obsessive. I have precious little interest in the prequel trilogy. Indeed, I prefer the high velocity chutzpah of the Clone Wars animated series. And I don’t own any Hayden Christensen action figures either, although there may be a Slave Leia in my sock drawer. Six movies, nine discs …

    reghardware 15 Sep 06:00

  • Joyent arms cloud for death match with Amazon

    Son of Solaris hypervisor locked and loaded

    A month after open-sourcing what it calls "the first major hypervisor" to arrive in half a decade, cloud computing pioneer Joyent has added this hypervisor to its flagship service, allowing Linux and Windows applications onto the Joyent Cloud for the first time. The Joyent Cloud – an "infrastructure cloud" along the lines of …

    Infrastructure 15 Sep 07:00

  • Storage array update breaks up data and app conflicts

    'He's not worth it' cries Oracle-blessed software

    Oracle has released new Pillar Axiom software with better management, replication and physically separated domains of data. Pillar Data was the Larry Ellison-funded high-availability storage array startup, run by Mike Workman, which developed and introduced the Axiom arrays. These majored on storage quality of service, and the …

    Storage 15 Sep 07:32

  • Coraid mates with Caringo, producing cheap objects

    Quite simply the simplest in the world

    Caringo is mating its technology with that of Coraid. The object is to pair its object storage system with Coraid arrays, accessible by AoE, said to be the simplest storage network in the world. Caringo's CAStor software presents object storage facilities running on commodity X86 servers with their direct-attached storage …

    Storage 15 Sep 08:10

  • Google offers opt-out from Wi-Fi router location database

    Never offered an opt-in, though

    Google has given the owners of Wi-Fi routers around the world the right to opt out of a registry that the search giant uses to locate mobile phone users. Currently Google uses location data tied to the unique codes of residential Wi-Fi routers to help triangulate the location of mobile devices. Google made the change …

    ID 15 Sep 08:27

  • Science, engineering PhDs to drop by a third

    Sadly other things were inside the ring-fence with them

    The number of government-funded science and engineering PhDs will be reduced by a third by 2013 as cuts eat into scientific research. The Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) stumps up the cash for 10,900 PhD places, but will cut this figure to 7,000, a reduction of 36 per cent, the Head of the EPSRC told …

    Science 15 Sep 09:01

  • Security firms: Android malware set to skyrocket

    Droid isn't the new Windows yet, but ...

    Android malware threats could increase by a factor of 60 over the next six months, according to Romanian security pros. The rise, if realised, could see the number of Android mobile malware samples increasing from 200 now to 12,000 by March 2012. Many examples of Android malware involve the insertion of malicious code into …

    Malware 15 Sep 09:19

  • The data centre on your terms

    Live Today Four practical management tasks to help you take control

    In the real world, you need to manage hundreds of apps, multiple operating systems, many classes of service. And now they're asking for cloud, too. What do you do with the rest of your day? Watch our latest Regcast, that's what. Today's live broadcast is at 11:00 BST and we've teamed up with datacentre expert Gordon McKenna …

    Data Centre 15 Sep 09:31

  • Did Bahraini activists closet anti-gay bus baron?

    Controversial knight pays the price of freedom

    A theory has emerged as to just how the personal website of controversial bus millionaire Brian Souter came to be stuffed deep into Google's closet of invisibility. It appears that the (probably inadvertent) culprits may have been a group of Bahraini freedom fighters. It's possible that the activists torpedoed the Stagecoach …

    Bootnotes 15 Sep 09:38

  • Newsnight presenter pwned by snarky hack

    Three Royal Television Society nominations - ouch

    Nothing like hacking the official profile of a BBC presenter and filling it with snide comments about how he's crap at maths, for a quick laugh. Well, we assume it's a laugh that has motivated the bitter rewrite of the Newsnight Scotland presenter Gordon Brewer's BBC profile. See the screen grab below. The presenter bios …

    ID 15 Sep 09:59

  • Bike Hub

    iOS App of the Week Bespoke cycle route planner

    Following my inaugural experience with one of London’s ‘Boris bikes’ I considered reviewing the slick Barclays Bikes app – the bank is the main sponsor of the cycle scheme in the capital. Yet apart from being too London-centric I didn’t want to find myself saying anything complimentary about the banking industry. So I checked …

    reghardware 15 Sep 10:00

  • QLogic warms to flash

    Cash from cache?

    QLogic, one of the two main suppliers of storage networking adapters, is thinking of applying its expertise to building PCIe flash cards, according to Stifel Nicolaus analyst Aaron Rakers. He has talked to QLogic CEO Simon Biddiscombe, and reports that the company is warming to PCIe flash products, such as the ioDrives from …

    Blocks and Files 15 Sep 10:11

  • Kick! Bostock! out! too! demands! Yahoo! shareholder!

    'Value destroyer' put the phone down on me, goddammit!

    Outspoken hedge fund manager Daniel Loeb has discharged another strongly-worded letter to Yahoo! co-founder Jerry Yang and the board, urging changes at the top to bring the company back from the brink. Loeb, who heads up the Third Point fund, which holds a 5 per cent stake in Yahoo!, is not content with Yahoo!'s sacking of CEO …

    Business 15 Sep 10:12

  • Network interface cards are coming up trumps

    How to pick out the aces

    Network interface cards (NICs) are often overlooked in server design. Their sheer ubiquity, combined with the ability to deal with most networking problems in software, can make them a component whose exact specifications are ignored. Some motherboard integrated NICs offer features such as jumbo frames and TCP offloading. …

    Network Fabric 15 Sep 10:13

  • Hunt blasts progress on BT infrastructure-share plans

    'You'll let anyone use your pole or answer to me'

    Jeremy Hunt is fed up with BT's slow response to pressure from communications watchdog Ofcom and ISP rivals over the telco giant's pole and duct pricing plans that are expected to be revealed later this month. In a speech at the Royal Television Society in Cambridge last night, the culture secretary said he was concerned about …

    Telecoms 15 Sep 10:26

  • Powermat crafts wireless Duracell Bunny boiler

    Saves interminable plugging and unplugging like a SLAVE

    Procter & Gamble, owner of the Duracell brand, has announced a joint venture with induction-charging effort Powermat, with P&G having the controlling interest in the new Duracell Powermat. Powermat gets an undisclosed lump of cash and a 45 per cent interest in the operation, which will develop Duracell-branded products …

    Business 15 Sep 10:27

  • Groupon IPO back on the cards

    Have we got a deal for you! Coupons for Groupon

    Groupon's IPO is back on track for late October or early November after a short-lived delay earlier this month. The daily deals site had cancelled its roadshow – the part of the process where it goes around trying to get people interested in buying its shares – which was due to take place this week. The cancellation prompted …

    Business 15 Sep 10:44

  • Dyson spouts hot air

    Trading blows

    Dyson unveiled another household appliance with a space-age twist this week, tweaking its range of Air Multipliers to include a heating element. The Dyson Hot has a similar look and feel to the company's other blowers, but warms rooms instead, with a target temperature you can set from the display on its base. It includes the …

    reghardware 15 Sep 10:58

  • Place your data centre in a handy container

    The future is modular

    Data centres are a big capital expense. A 10,000 sq ft data centre designed to last 15 or 20 years costs about $33m, so you have to think about it a lot more carefully than you do about buying a server or a piece of software. The churn is faster with IT gear and the power density is also increasing as companies try to cram …

    Network Futures 15 Sep 11:00

  • Android Tablet Firefox betas ready for trial fondling

    Grab a slab, stroke a Fennec - at your own risk

    Android tablets can now play with a beta version of mobile Firefox, complete with desktop synchronisation, proper tabbed browsing and all the other UI goodies promised. The usual cautionary notes apply – these are nightly builds made available for bug tracking and reporting, so downloaders should expect a reasonable amount of …

    Developer 15 Sep 11:12

  • LOHAN checks into REHAB

    Hypobaric chamber celebutard backronym sorted

    Following an emergency all-night sitting of the Special Projects Bureau Celebrity Backronym Perusal Soviet (the agreeably palindromic SPBCBPS, as it's known at Vulture Central), we can announce that our Low Orbit Helium Assisted Navigator (LOHAN) hypobaric rocket motor test chamber will henceforth be known as the Rocketry …

    SPB 15 Sep 11:25

  • Feds probe naked Scarlett Johansson outrage

    Celebs break elementary rules of nude self-portraiture

    The FBI is probing hack attacks on celebs after nude photos of Scarlett Johansson were leaked onto the web last night. "The FBI is investigating the person or groups responsible for a series of computer intrusions involving high-profile figures," Laura Eimiller at the Federal Bureau of Investigation office in Los Angeles told …

    ID 15 Sep 11:26

  • Kensington secures fondleslabs and phones

    Cause for alarm?

    Kensington extended its range of security devices to tablets and smartphones this week, with a collection of protective kit for iPhones and iPads. First up is the BungeeAir Power, essentially a plastic iPhone 4 case that connects wirelessly to a key fob. Leave the room without your handset and the fob will vibrate, signal an …

    reghardware 15 Sep 11:41

  • Hunt: Online file-sharing is a 'direct assault on freedoms'

    'It's privatisation of justice' howls Killock

    Search engines and internet service providers (ISPs) could be forced to make it harder for users to access copyright infringing content online under new UK communications laws, the Culture Secretary has said. Jeremy Hunt said that the UK needed to "explore all options" that would make it more difficult for websites that " …

    Law 15 Sep 11:42

  • Ballmer: Windows Phone can win third place in mobile!

    Going all-out for gold bronze

    Sales of Microsoft's smartphone operating system are lagging and Redmond needs to step things up to win third place, Steve Ballmer has said. Yes, that's right: not first, or even second... Ballmer is aiming for third. Microsoft's chief executive broke the news of disappointing sales and his strike for the bronze medal during …

    Developer 15 Sep 11:58

  • Boundaries Commission slammed over mega map dump

    FIVE HUNDRED PDFs 'optimise clarity', say bureaucrats

    The Boundary Commission for England (BCE) has defended its decision to release more than 500 PDF maps of proposed Parliamentary constituencies, stating that they believe they provided "an appropriate level of detail". On 13 September the BCE launched a 12-week consultation on the layout of new constituency boundaries and …

    Government 15 Sep 12:12

  • Acer restructure continues as another honcho heads out

    Semmy Levit 'will pursue personal goals' - leaked memo

    Restructuring at Acer continues with another high level director exiting the business in the wake of its inventory woes and declining sales. The firm parted with CEO Gianfranco Lanci in March and then began initiating an operational re-jig during the summer, creating three divisions: consumer, professional and Touch. Among …

    Channel Register 15 Sep 12:24

  • Comet can't sell anything, including itself

    Fate of troubled retailer to be decided by Xmas

    Kesa Electricals has vowed to determine the future ownership of UK subsidiary Comet before Christmas, having failed so far to flog the business to interested parties. The European retailer today filed numbers for its fiscal first quarter – from the start of May to the end of July – with group sales down 10 per cent. However …

    Channel Register 15 Sep 12:46

  • PayPal to move into the shop - without cards or NFC

    Skip the queues, scan barcodes with your phone

    PayPal is consigning the shop till to the dustbin in a way that could completely wipe Visa and MasterCard out of the shopping equation. The website is gearing up to allow punters to pay for products in-store by scanning barcodes with a mobile, and allow payments to be authorised with a phone number - among other new features …

    Financial News 15 Sep 12:56

  • Facebook IPO slated for September 2012

    Staff won't get to cash out till then ... bitch

    Facebook is planning its much-publicised IPO for late 2012, so employees can concentrate on product developments for now. All the talk of an expected massive IPO has the employees clamouring for their slice of the pie, people close to the company told the Financial Times, and chief exec Mark Zuckerberg wants them beavering …

    Financial News 15 Sep 13:27

  • MPs probe social networks' position following riots

    Shut down Twitter, how would the cops find the riots?

    Policy wonks from Twitter, Facebook and BlackBerry faced MPs on the Home Affairs committee today who were carrying out a postmortem of the disorder across England last month. Each company reiterated earlier statements that they operated within UK law when providing their communication services to their customers. BlackBerry's …

    Networks 15 Sep 13:40

  • Google crams arsenal with 1,000 IBM patents

    Readies ream team against, er, Microsoft-Apple axis

    Google has added to its ammo dump in the patent hostilities, buying over a thousand more of IBM's patents. The search engine behemoth bought 1,023 patents from IBM in August, according to records filed at the US Patent and Trademark Office's website, and originally reported on the SEO by the Sea blog. IBM declined to comment …

    Financial News 15 Sep 14:04

  • Calyx gives up reselling, axes jobs

    Channel biz evaporates to form cloud

    Calyx has disbanded its reselling team with the loss of some jobs as it pins future growth ambitions on managed services and cloud computing. The Better Capital-owned outfit, which is also parting with CTO Joe Mayhew, said it is on the lookout for potential acquisitions in the space to boost its standing. Martin Mackay, CEO …

    Channel Register 15 Sep 14:29

  • BT Tower becomes giant lightsabre tonight

    Star Wars hype in full force

    Fox Home Entertainment has celebrated the release of Star Wars: The Complete Saga Blu-ray disc set, by holding events all week, climaxing with a party tonight in London that'll see the BT Tower become a giant lightsabre. The UK was the first to release the box set on Monday, and events this week saw cast sign autographs and an …

    reghardware 15 Sep 15:00

  • PC World throws in free Bravia telly with Sony fondleslabs

    Currys favour?

    Early-bird customers who purchase the Sony Tablet S when it is launched this Friday will be given a free Sony Bravia TV. Retailers Currys and PC World are to start selling the Sony Tablet from 7am on Friday at the Tottenham Court Road flagship store, where the first 100 customers will walk away with a 32in Sony Bravia TV worth …

    reghardware 15 Sep 15:55

  • NASA unveils its chosen Shuttle successor

    Basically a big shuttle which you throw away each time

    NASA has announced plans for a massive rocket based on recycled space shuttle technology, intended to launch manned missions beyond Earth orbit in decades to come. The Space Launch System (SLS) will make use of a central first stage equipped with no less than five shuttle main engines (the now-retired orbiter spaceplanes …

    Space 15 Sep 16:47

  • Microsoft bans all plugins from touchable IE10

    Joins Jobsian jihad against Flash

    Windows 8 will include a version of Internet Explorer 10 that uses Microsoft's "Metro" touch interface, and this new-age browser will not allow plugins – at all. The move is yet another blow to Adobe Flash, which is famously banned from Apple's iPhone and iPad. With Internet Explorer 9 and its successor IE10 – which is …

    Applications 15 Sep 17:27

  • Gartner karate chops 2011 chip forecast

    $299bn sales at best, say crystal ball

    With demand for PCs cooling and chip inventories piling high, the prognosticators at Gartner now predict that chip sales will fall slightly this year. In Gartner's earlier projection, extracted from a crystal ball in April, the company said that it hoped chip sales would rise by 5.1 per cent to $314bn. That was after realizing …

    PCs & Chips 15 Sep 17:56

  • Scientists discover Tatooine-style world 200 lightyears off

    Two suns, yes. Captive princesses in gold bikinis, unlikely

    Scientists have discovered a planet that orbits two suns, like Luke Skywalker's home planet Tatooine in Star Wars. Two hundred light-years away from Earth, gaseous Kepler-16b is similar to Saturn in both size and mass and – like the desert planet that nurtured the young Skywalker – enjoys a double sunset. We refer you to the …

    Space 15 Sep 18:00

  • Canonical woos developers with Ubuntu app prep portal

    How to get your software sold

    Canonical has set up a site to help developers package and sell the code they produce. The site is designed to help to popularize the operating system, encourage new popular apps, and create more commission revenue for the open source organization. The Ubuntu Developer Portal hosts a variety of tools and applications aimed at …

    Developer 15 Sep 19:20

  • PCI recast for supercomputing future

    Double speed or more by 2015

    The next generation of the PCI interconnect standard will be aimed squarely at high-performance computing, and it will be developed using a different scheme than were previous generations. "The solution space that we're targeting for 'gen-four', if you will, is going to be directly focused to service the needs of HPC …

    HPC 15 Sep 20:05

  • Intel shows linear scaling with MIC coprocessor

    IDF 2011 Army of Pentiums march in lockstep

    The chip world is moving from multicore to many-core, says Intel chief technology office Justin Rattner. In certain circles, such talk makes sense – a many-core chip includes many more cores than a multicore chip – and according to Rattner, the transition to a many-core world won't be as difficult as expected. At the Intel …

    HPC 15 Sep 21:00

  • Microsoft: No Windows 8 ARM support for x86 apps

    Linguistic jujitsu over ARM’s second class status

    Despite prior hints – and a Redmond developer conference that was all about app compatibility – Microsoft’s Steven Sinofsky has said that software for x86 Windows 8 systems will not run on ARM architecture. For months, Redmond has promised that any code that ran on Windows 7 would run on Windows 8, with the expectation for …

    Operating Systems 15 Sep 21:01

  • Australia to issue passports for males, females and... X

    X marks the spot in anti-discrimination effort

    Australians will be allowed to mark X as their gender on passports in a move to help curb discrimination against transgendered and intersex people. Although gay marriage remains outlawed in Down Under, its government has taken uncharacteristically liberal steps so that individuals can declare their preferred gender when …

    Odds and Sods 15 Sep 22:05

  • Aussie rules on cloud PVR test laws

    Optus defends as Telstra goes on the offensive

    A service launched by Optus in July is going to be the first high-profile test for the legality of cloud-style PVR services in Australia. While Optus’s TV Now service isn’t Australia’s first – for example, beem.tv went live much earlier this year – the carrier has stretched the definition of time-shifting by shrinking the lag …

    Law 15 Sep 22:30

  • Optus gets first licence to penetrate 700MHz band

    Hooks up with Huawei for LTE trial

    Optus has became the first Australian carrier to be awarded a licence to trial LTE services in the 700MHz spectrum band, a former analogue TV frequency. The carrier has selected vendor Huawei to run an Australia-first trial of LTE technology in the band. The 700MHz band is suited to LTE services, particularly for enhanced in- …

    Mobile 15 Sep 23:00

  • Oz-US ANZUS treaty adds infowar co-operation

    Physical warfare is so last year

    As their long-standing ANZUS treaty reaches its sixtieth birthday, Australia and America have decided to extend their co-operation into the virtual space. According to Reuters, the decision was made in discussions between the two countries this week. The extension of the treaty would mean that a cyber-attack on either country …

    Security 15 Sep 23:30