The Register® — Biting the hand that feeds IT

Feeds

23rd September 2011 Archive

Browse by publication date, or search the site.

  • Spanish boffins unwrap anti-magnetic cloak

    How to hide a magnet

    No, I don’t mean “non-magnetic”: if you wrap a magnet in cotton, you can still detect the magnet outside. “Anti-magnetic” means you can put a magnet inside and not detect it from the outside, and similarly, from the inside, you can’t detect outside magnetic fields. That is what a group of scientists working in Spain claim they …

    Physics 23 Sep 00:03

  • Sydney Uni hosts virgin hackathon

    Hacking for good..well at least for dosh

    The University of Sydney and technical publisher Elsevier are holding the first official competitive hackathon for students and professional software developers. The Sydney Hackathon gives teams of up to five, a 24 hour time frame to develop an application to improve content delivery for scientific, technical and medical …

    Developer 23 Sep 00:30

  • Put your hard drives into the cloud

    Literally

    “Never underestimate the bandwidth of a station wagon full of tapes hurtling down the highway,” Andrew Tanenbaum wrote in 1996, when most people used dial-up networks and Australians couldn’t yet get ADSL. And if you have a USB key and a pigeon that knows where it’s going, you can still achieve a respectable data-transfer rate …

    Infrastructure 23 Sep 01:00

  • Apple sued for iPhone, iPad chip 'patent rip-off'

    Efficient loading of data? That's ours, says VIA

    Apple has been sued by the Taiwanese fabless semiconductor-design firm VIA Technologies for – what else? – patent infringement. The patents involved, Via's complaint charges, are for technology used in microprocessors in Apple's iOS products that "generally provides efficient loading of data in the microprocessors and …

    Mobile 23 Sep 03:52

  • HP: Still choosing the wrong women

    Ann Livermore and the road untraveled

    The news that Meg Whitman has taken over the top job at HP has left some in the industry scratching their heads. Sure, she was a reasonably safe pair of hands at eBay (besides splashing out billions on Skype for reasons best known to herself), but as a replacement for Leo Apotheker, she’s unlikely to be a success. That’s because …

    Business 23 Sep 03:58

  • Acer Iconia A100 7in Android tablet

    Review Pocket-sized and throbbing with power

    Hey, tablet geeks out there, do you remember what you hated most about Samsung’s original 7in Galaxy Tab? The grainy display, the glitchy software, the lack of memory, the poorly located buttons that you kept pressing by mistake? Designed for portrait usage I suspect Acer drew up the same list because its Iconia Tab A100 is …

    reghardware 23 Sep 07:00

  • Boffins play ping-pong with single electron

    Sounds more like pinball to us, but they're the boffins

    Researchers at Cambridge University have managed to bat an electron back and forth along a wire in a high-tech game of ping-pong that could help out with quantum computing. The findings, published in Nature, showed the boffins were able to exercise a high level of control over the path of an electron in an electronic circuit …

    Physics 23 Sep 07:58

  • Ofcom asks Arqiva to stick price on 600MHz spectrum

    Six new HD Freeview channels up for grabs

    Arqiva, holders of a virtual monopoly on UK broadcast infrastructure, has been asked to provide indicative pricing in case anyone fancies launching some TV channels at 600MHz. In an updated statement (pdf, short and to the point) Ofcom postpones any auction until the end of 2012, but the regulator has asked Arqiva to work out …

    Wireless 23 Sep 08:26

  • Play.com swallowed by Rakuten

    Zero resistance as Japan invades Channel Islands

    Online DVD and CD seller Play.com has been flogged to Japanese web conglomerate Rakuten for £25m in cash. The transaction comes months ahead of a government clampdown on the tax loophole that the Channel Islands-based etailer had exploited over the 13 years since it was founded. This is the third acquisition that internet …

    Channel Register 23 Sep 08:38

  • Brits registering .uk domains mostly get first choice

    Don't fancy yours much

    Most Brits think it's easy to find a .uk address for their websites, but almost half admit to having settled on a domain that was not their first choice, according to a new survey. The report, commissioned by .uk manager Nominet, may add fuel to the debate over whether the plan from global internet policy overseer ICANN to …

    Hosting 23 Sep 09:01

  • Oracle looking for $1.16bn, not $2.2bn, in Java patent case

    Stop whining Google, we're not looking for that much money

    Oracle is looking for around $1.16bn in damages from Google over the Java patent throwdown, and not the $2.2bn the Chocolate Factory has been whinging about. Google had said that an estimation of damages submitted to the court by Oracle's damages expert Iain Cockburn, a Boston University business professor, showed that Oracle …

    Law 23 Sep 09:25

  • Samsung-Apple patent lawsuit tally hits 21, and counting

    Analysis WHOLE WORLD to end up locked in the walled orchard?

    The legal activity around Android continues to mount, with the chief antagonists - Samsung and Apple - increasing their lawsuit tally to 21. And another may follow soon, as Samsung threatens to sue to block sales of the iPhone 5 as soon as it launches, at least in its home country of Korea. Let's face it, this is relevant to …

    Operating Systems 23 Sep 09:38

  • Designer pitches game arcade laundry

    Suds'n'frags

    One bright student has decided to merge his love of videogames with the task of laundry, creating a hybrid machine that puts a new spin on household chores. Kingston University design student Lee Wei Chen realises playing videogames is far from productive. So in order to get kids helping around the house, he came up with this …

    reghardware 23 Sep 09:41

  • Lingo iMini DAB/FM iOS pocket tuner

    Accessory of the Week Digital switchover

    DAB radio: always a contentious topic given its cost and varying fidelity. But a DAB radio accessory for iOS devices and for £55 too? You might as well skip the rest of this waffle and head for the comments now. Go on, you know you want to. Lingo's iMini: puts DAB on your pad Ah, didn’t get rid of you that easily then, …

    reghardware 23 Sep 10:00

  • OCZ flashes its cache at hard drives

    SSD has got the write stuff

    Hard disk drives are getting a caching flash wrapper if OCZ has its way. Watch out for this SSD supplier's Synapse caching flasher. Not content with the RevoDrive Hybrid, a PCIe card containing a flash memory store and DataPlex software to manage the on-card hard drive, OCZ has revved its cocktail of components and crafted a …

    Storage 23 Sep 10:14

  • BOFH: No, the Fabinocci sequence

    Episode 14 Joo Janta Peril Sensitive Windows™

    "I'm just here to do the audit," a weedy bloke says, poking his head nervously into Mission Control. "What audit?" the PFY says, reading my mind. "The safety audit – surely they told you about it?" "No, nothing," the PFY responds. "Ah," the Weed says. "Well, I've got a checklist of all the accidents that have occurred in …

    BOFH 23 Sep 10:28

  • LaCie releases Thunderbolt HDD, SSD boxes

    While WD revamps Mac drive line

    Good news for Mac users: LaCie has at long last made its Thunderbolt-connected Little Big Disk external hard drive available to buy. The LBD's metal box contains a pair of RAID-able 2.5in drives. You can have up to a terabyte or 2TB of storage, the latter setting you back a cool £400. The 1TB model is £300. The US Apple …

    reghardware 23 Sep 10:41

  • Lady Gaga loses squatting complaint

    Object of adoration will stay up

    Lady Gaga has lost her fight over the domain name LadyGaga.org after an arbitration panel ruled that a punter was well within her rights to use it for a fan site. The pop star's cybersquatting complaint was filed with the US National Arbitration Forum under Gaga's real name of Stefani Germanotta. The domain registrant is …

    Hosting 23 Sep 10:43

  • Microsoft moots mobiles with interchangeable accessories

    One for all

    Microsoft's R&D department has drawn up plans for a slider phone with swappable accessories, a concept previously attempted elsewhere that failed to become a success commercially. The handset in question looks like a regular slider phone, but features detachable parts such as a gaming keypads, second displays and extra …

    reghardware 23 Sep 10:43

  • Tech City UK quango rearranges Shoreditch

    Couldn't find a*se with both hands and their map

    Something odd is happening in East London. Last November David Cameron launched "Tech City UK", a bid to extend the nontrepreneurial hub of Silicon Roundabout into the éléphant blanc of the Olympic zone at Stratford. (See Nathan Barleys to fill Olympic chasm). But newcomers to the area might find themselves disoriented. The …

    Bootnotes 23 Sep 11:01

  • Avast buys Android thiefbuster developer

    Reset-proof tech combats smartphone thieves

    Antivirus scanner firm Avast has acquired mobile phone theft protection and recovery company ITAgents. Financial terms of the deal, announced on Thursday, were not disclosed. ITAgents specialises in technology for Android-powered smartphones. The Austrian firm's Theft Aware technology is particularly in demand because "normal …

    Crime 23 Sep 11:21

  • Intel rejects Atom rename claim

    No plan to change the brand, says chip giant

    Intel has denied a claim that it will change the name of its low-power Atom processor when the next version of the chip, codenamed 'Cedar Trail', ships later this year. The unnamed industry mole(s) who say otherwise were't apparently able to say what new name Intel has picked. But they did claim that the rebranding excercise …

    reghardware 23 Sep 11:27

  • Oracle's UK server bellyache continues

    Gobbled up something that didn't agree with it

    Oracle's UK server sales continued to slide downwards in the second quarter despite a recovery across the market that was exploited by most of its rivals. This is the fifth full quarter out of six that Larry's hardware division has seen its revenues sink in the UK since Oracle concluded the acquisition of Sun Microsystems at …

    Channel Register 23 Sep 11:42

  • MS denies secure boot will exclude Linux

    Lock-out security tech can be disabled, if OEMs want

    Microsoft has hit back at concerns that secure boot technology in UEFI firmware could lock out Linux from Windows 8 PCs, saying that consumers will be free to run whatever they want on their PCs. Unified Extensible Firmware Interface (UEFI) specifications, designed to reduce start-up times and improve security, allow computers …

    Operating Systems 23 Sep 11:53

  • F1 2011

    Review Lap it up

    It’s a funny old sport, F1: an ever changing maelstrom of rule adjustments and technology upgrades, ensuring any given season is entirely disparate from the next. Imagine if FIFA suddenly deemed that football’s throw-ins were to become kick-ins, before adjusting the rule once more the next. That’s precisely the issue facing F1 …

    reghardware 23 Sep 12:00

  • Rogue toilet takes out Norfolk server

    Crazy crapper's crippling crash

    The IT support chaps and chapesses among you doubtless have a few entertaining war stories regarding preposterous causes of system outages, and we'd like to offer you this fine Friday the tale of the cantankerous crapper and the company server. Reader Stuart Drabble wrote to explain that in his almost 15 years of IT support, …

    Servers 23 Sep 12:18

  • Red Hat signs giants to anti-VMware open-source project

    CoVirt operations

    Red Hat is taking on VMware with five enterprise heavyweights through a vendor-neutral virtualisation community project based on its RHEV-M stack. Red Hat has been joined by Cisco, IBM, Intel, NetApp and SuSE to lead oVirt Project, planning on building a pluggable hypervisor management framework along with an ecosystem of plug …

    Developer 23 Sep 12:39

  • I saw Facebook's music service 3 years ago. Done properly

    Why have engineering values gone AWOL?

    Three years ago I caught a glimpse of a new social network built around music. You could follow people, chat with them, and enjoy the same music stream in real time. There were many other clever things about it, such as a very slick integration of music news. But the killer feature, one that made it unique, was that you could …

    Music and Media 23 Sep 12:57

  • 45% of Android users to upgrade to rival phone OSes

    Apple fans very keen to stick with their favoured brand

    Call it the fanboy effect, call it the superior user experience the device offers, but research shows that iPhone owners are much more likely to stick with Apple than are folk who've bought handsets from other companies. The data comes from UBS and takes in conversations had with more than 500 smartphone owners globally. Some …

    reghardware 23 Sep 13:25

  • Who owns 4G mobile technology?

    Patent pie-slice analysis gives LG a gutbuster portion

    Analyst Peter Misek has been crawling through piles of patents to guess who owns LTE, with the surprise result that most of it belongs to LG Electronics. The details of who pays whom for the rights to create LTE handsets aren't public, but Peter Misek, of Jefferies & Co., has checked out 1,400 patents related to the next- …

    Mobile 23 Sep 13:26

  • PC games to outsell console software in 2014

    But not if Sony, MS, Nintendo have any say in the matter...

    Graphics card manufacturer Nvidia claims that, come 2014, more money will be spent on PC games than on games for consoles. The assertion was made during a conference call with analysts yesterday, Techgage reports. Nvidia quoted data from market watcher DFC Intelligence. Source: Nvidia But the figures - which only cover the …

    reghardware 23 Sep 13:43

  • Bot spanking for social network ranking

    Blabber tracker exposed as load of old Klout

    Social media types who enjoy measuring their "popularity" in the social media arena are in for a shock. Their Klout score could be wrong. Instead of a gold standard measure of how much influence they have on their peers, it could just be a measure of how noisy and attention-seeking they are... A Twitter test by an SEO expert …

    Music and Media 23 Sep 14:02

  • Laptops en route to Europe by rail for first time

    Silk Road back in bid to avoid seaborne computer glut

    The first batch of Acer notebooks sent by rail is set to arrive in Europe in the next two weeks, and the rail-freighting trend may soon be adopted across the PC industry. The Taiwanese giant is starting to build more flexibility into its supply chain in the wake of the inventory pile-up earlier this year that dented profits …

    Channel Register 23 Sep 14:28

  • Tokyo trains get lightsabre handrails

    Star Wars weapons charm commuters

    20th Century Fox Home Entertainment Japan is celebrating the latest Star Wars release - the compete saga on Blu-ray Disc - with a funky campaign on Tokyo's train network, turning the handrails on trains into lightsabres. Source: Japan Trends Over here, the BT Tower was transformed into a giant lightsabre and hordes of …

    reghardware 23 Sep 14:47

  • Wyse does a cloud on the desk for iPad, iPhone

    $1/month to fondleslab all your stuff - ahead of iCloud

    Wily Wyse is offering software and a service that turns your desktop computer into a networked storage system for Apple's hand-held gadgets. Using PocketCloud v2.2, iPad, iPod Touch and iPhones "see" the PC as a storage vault of files, which they can read from and write to. The store can be a Windows PC, a virtual machine or a …

    SaaS 23 Sep 14:58

  • Samsung plots 3G iPhone, iPad bans in the Netherlands

    How d'you like them Apples

    Samsung is seeking a sales ban on all 3G iPhones and some iPads in the Netherlands as the South Korean giant's bitter war with Apple rumbles on. According to Dutch IT website Webwereld, Samsung will ask for a recall of all 3G iPhones and 3G iPads from Dutch retail stores, including large outlets such as Media Markt. It will …

    Financial News 23 Sep 15:14

  • Missing moon rock found among Clinton's knickknacks

    Rare lunar souvenir spent decades gathering dust

    A missing moon rock has been found gathering dust in a box of Bill Clinton's papers from his time as the governor of Arkansas. The space stone, which was brought back from the Apollo 17 mission and presented to the state in the 1970s, is worth millions of dollars. It's one of the so-called Goodwill Moon Rocks, which came from …

    Government 23 Sep 15:25

  • Second Ubuntu Ocelot beta slips in some Xen

    KVM is not the only fruit

    A second, and final, Ubuntu Oneiric Ocelot beta has been served up, favoring portable computing and slipping an old virtualization face back into the pack. The beta adds OneConf to the Ubuntu Software Center to synchronize applications between different devices. The idea is you could so something like change between working on …

    Developer 23 Sep 15:47

  • Apple staff in UK told to cancel holiday in early October

    Could be The Fifth Coming of the Jesus Phone

    Apple staff have been told to cancel all leave for the first two weeks in October – which would appear to confirm industry talk that the arrival of the iPhone 5 is imminent. Al Gore, Apple board member and self appointed eco-warrior, poured fuel on market speculation that the next generation phone is about to launch earlier …

    Channel Register 23 Sep 16:02

  • Mac malware uses Windows-style PDF camouflage ruse

    Pops open fanboi backdoors as they look at Chinese island

    Mac malware creators are adopting Windows malware camouflage trickery in a bid to trick users into running their malicious creations. Boobytrapped PDF files have long been a problem for Windows users. The OSX/Revir-B Trojan reapplies this approach towards Mac fans, who may be less familiar with the ruse. The malware payload …

    Malware 23 Sep 16:03

  • Display defect may crimp iPhone 5 shipments

    EVE Online addicts, take note

    The iPhone 5 rumor mill continues to churn, with today's tidbit being a report that a flaw in Wintek-produced touchscreen displays will put a crimp in shipments of the not-yet-acknowledged Cupertinian superphone. According to the sometimes spot-on, sometimes "Say what?" market-watchers at DigiTimes, one of the manufacturer's …

    Mobile 23 Sep 16:21

  • Xbox Live patrols hit by ugly SWAT attacks

    Spoofed emergency texts draw armed cops

    Hackers trying to cheat the Xbox Live game network have stooped to a new low: sending hoax emergency distress calls to police with the goal of drawing an armed response to the homes of Microsoft employees. According to The Sammamish Patch news service, Eric Neustadter, operations manager for Xbox Live, was the latest Xbox …

    Crime 23 Sep 18:28

  • Ingres rebrands as Actian, tackles low-end BI apps

    Big BI goes boutique

    With the current brouhaha over Oracle’s commercial extensions to MySQL, you might expect the competition to be making a play for disgruntled users. Instead, Ingres – which previously pursued this strategy – has decided to re-brand itself and focus on lightweight applications. Ingres is now officially known as Actian, and it …

    Software 23 Sep 19:13

  • Neil Armstrong: US space program 'embarrassing'

    Aging moonmen denounce NASA, Obama

    The first and last men to walk upon the moon have testified at a Congressional hearing that NASA is a national disgrace. The US space program is "embarrassing and unacceptable," said Neil Armstrong, who on July 21, 1969, first set foot on the surface of the earthly companion that, in his testimony, he referred to as Luna. " …

    Space 23 Sep 19:25

  • How the Yahoo! homepage predicts your clicks

    We! Know! You! Want! To! Click! Here!

    In the summer of 2008, at an artificial intelligence confab deep in Silicon Valley, Yahoo! senior research scientist Deepak Agarwal revealed that the web giant was using automated algorithms to select news stories on its famous front page. These algorithms, he said, had boosted click-through-rates by 25 to 30 per cent, driving …

    Music and Media 23 Sep 21:00

  • Experts suggest SSL changes to keep BEAST at bay

    Google protected. PayPal? Not so much

    With just a few hours until researchers unveiled an attack they say decrypts sensitive web traffic protected by the ubiquitous secure sockets layer protocol, cryptographers described a simple way website operators can insulate themselves against the exploit. The recommendations published Friday by two-factor authentication …

    Security 23 Sep 21:15

  • Amazon settles sales tax spat with Governor Moonbeam

    etailer drops ballots to get one year tax break

    California governor Jerry Brown and Amazon have settled their long-running dispute over the state’s urge to charge the etailer sales tax. In June Governor Brown, who is seeking to tackle California’s staggering debt problem, passed AB X1 28 - a bill to collect sales tax from online etailers like Amazon. The company vowed to …

    Financial News 23 Sep 21:43

  • FCC's net-neut rules now official

    Let the lawsuits begin

    The US Federal Communications Commission's open-internet rules have been published by the Federal Register, and they're set to go into effect on November 20 of this year. The publication of the densely worded, profusely footnoted 42-page document makes it official: the FCC has come out strongly for what it deems to be " …

    Networks 23 Sep 22:13