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28th September 2011 Archive

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  • Facebook cookies 'fixed' as Oz privacy bureaucrats investigate

    Updated: Facebook confirms revisions in place

    While Facebook flip-flops over whether or not its track-after-logout cookies were or were not benign, the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner is reportedly taking a look at whether or not the cookies breached privacy laws. The OAIC is the renamed Australian Privacy Commissioner, whose wet-slap punishments inspire …

    Music and Media 28 Sep 00:33

  • On its first birthday, LibreOffice has reason to celebrate

    Happy code day to you…

    The Document Foundation, which produces the LibreOffice open source office-software suite, is celebrating the first anniversary of the code’s release. LibreOffice was born out of disgruntlement at the way Oracle handled the OpenOffice project after it took ownership of Sun. This time last year, key open source developers left …

    Applications 28 Sep 00:50

  • Mobile messaging comes to Oihoo 360

    Kouxin goes live in China

    Chinese ISP Qihoo 360 has launched a mobile messaging service on Android, iOS and Symbian smartphones. The fully-buzzword-compliant Kouxin service, offered to users as a free download, gives customers of the Middle Kingdom realtime multimedia messaging without incurring SMS or MMS charges. The service will also test Chinese …

    Music and Media 28 Sep 01:00

  • iiNet gets cloudy with voice

    Targets SME customers

    Although iiNet has offered various SME services for some time, it’s predominantly seen as a consumer brand. With its latest launch, the country’s second-largest ISP now hopes to give itself a strong position in the business services market as well. Building on the success of consumer VoIP services heavily marketed alongside …

    Business 28 Sep 01:30

  • Microsoft staff savage Ballmer at company confab

    Claims of staff walkouts and tanking morale

    During Microsoft's annual full staff meeting, employees unmistakably expressed their displeasure about how the company is being run. Every year Redmond assembles the rank and file for a huge presentation about plans for the next 12 months, with senior management laying out current progress and future plans. According to …

    Business 28 Sep 06:00

  • Renault Wind Gordini roadster

    Review Feel the air in your hair

    Thumbing its nose at yet another grim British summer, Renault has added a Gordini model to its Wind roadster line-up and so given us all an excuse to put on our best French accent, pretend to be Maurice Trintignant and ponder why Renault didn’t name it Le Vent and dodge the inevitable flatulence jokes. Corners like a Fiat 500 …

    reghardware 28 Sep 07:00

  • Java, Adobe vulns blamed for Windows malware mayhem

    Five products hit in 99.8% of hacks

    Failure to patch third-party applications has become the main reason that Windows machines get infected with malware. Drive-by download attacks from hacker-controlled websites loaded with exploits replaced infected email attachments as the main distribution method for malware somewhere between three to five years ago. At the …

    Security 28 Sep 07:31

  • Woman nabbed for 'senseless' stiletto ATM attack

    Cash rage case caught on CCTV

    A 39-year-old woman was cautioned by police after she unleashed what officers described as a "senseless" attack on an ATM. The woman, who has not been named, was caught on CCTV approaching the device in Market Place, Chippenham, removing one of her stilettos and striking the dumb beast almost 50 times with the pointy shoe. …

    Odds and Sods 28 Sep 08:01

  • LibDems call for gov 'IT skills' office

    Policy paper suggests senior civil servants don't 'get' IT

    The Liberal Democrats have said the government should set up a new office to promote IT skills throughout Whitehall, in an effort to fill the "skills gap" in the sector. The proposal is one of a number in a new paper, Preparing the Ground: Stimulating Growth in the Digital Economy, which outlines the party's position on IT …

    Public Sector 28 Sep 08:31

  • ICO: Uni workers' personal webmail may be pried open

    E-missives may be requested if related to public business

    University workers must release information from personal webmail accounts on request if it is related to public business, the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) has said. Material in personal email accounts such as Gmail or Hotmail accounts must be disclosed under freedom of information (FOI) laws if it is related to the …

    Public Sector 28 Sep 08:52

  • Big data and the cloud

    Broadcast Where scalability and elasticity really matter

    Peter Elleby is the IT Director at natural search specialists Hydra. It’s a company that, in layman's terms, tells its client how well they perform on the web and how to improve that performance. In order to do this it’s got to crunch and parse huge volumes of unstructured data. As a start-up that would have meant a significant …

    Platform 28 Sep 09:21

  • Brits not keen on 3D, reveals poll

    But they'll happily be told they have to watch it, anyway

    Reg Hardware readers last year voted 3DTV the Rusty Dodo in the Reg Hardware Awards, and it seems Brits aren't too keen on the technology when its used in the cinema, either. Pollster YouGov this week revealed that 41 per cent of punters - it interviewed just under 3000 of us - think that 3D is just a gimmick. Some 47 per …

    reghardware 28 Sep 09:29

  • The Secret of Monkey Island

    Antique Code Show I rate pirates

    The Secret of Monkey Island ignites the urge to buckle swashes in everyone and 20 years on from its debut everyone I know still loves this game. She goes sixty miles to the galleon Especially my friend Pippa, who manages to constantly find parallels between our pop punk adventures and Guybrush Threepwood's buccaneering …

    reghardware 28 Sep 10:00

  • Nokia rolls out N9 across Europe, avoids UK

    MeeGo no-go for Brits

    Nokia has reiterated the fact that its new MeeGo-based handset, the N9, will not be heading to the UK anytime soon, despite its European roll-out this week. The Finnish manufacturer told Reg Hardware that when it comes to Blighty, there are still "no plans to offer the Nokia N9 at present." "We have selected to ship the N9 to …

    reghardware 28 Sep 10:03

  • US lawmakers call for FTC probe of supercookies

    Hundreds of sites caught employee secret snoop tech

    Two US lawmakers have called on the Federal Trade Commission to investigate the use of “supercookies” that secretly log web visitors' browsing histories across multiple sites, even when the users delete browser cookies to elude tracking. In a letter sent Tuesday to FTC Chairman Jon Leibowitz, the co-chairs of the Congressional …

    Government 28 Sep 10:16

  • Toshiba outs 7in Android 3.2 tablet

    Quick, before Amazon grabs all the headlines!

    Toshiba has taken the wraps off a 7in version of its Thrive tablet. Due out in the US in December - Toshiba UK has yet to respond to our request for local availability and pricing details - the Thrive 7 sports a 1280 x 800 resolution touchscreen, SRS Labs-powered sound system and an Nvidia Tegra 2 processor running Android 3. …

    reghardware 28 Sep 10:24

  • D-Link unhooks from UK boss

    Chris Davies out as networking vendor gears up for 2012

    D-Link has split with long-serving UK and Ireland general manager Chris Davies amid suggestions that he had no place in the next growth drive. Davies joined the networking firm in January 2007 following a long spell as sales manager at IBM. Prior to that he had a yearly stint as sales director at distributor Wick Hill and GM …

    Channel Register 28 Sep 10:25

  • Poll: Porn-watching, net-savvy kids are a myth

    Cyberbullying grief highlighted instead

    Parents who think their tearaway hacking kiddies are seeing all sorts of things they shouldn't online are buying into some of the top myths about children on the web, according to a new report. EU Kids Online, a research project based at the London School of Economics and Political Science, talked to kids across Europe about …

    Music and Media 28 Sep 10:42

  • iLuv shows desktop-style iPad dock

    Make your tablet look like an old PC

    We've seen tablet cases that make a fondleslab operate as a laptop screen, but you'll soon be able to go for that desktop look too. Accessory maker iLuv is working on the WorkStation series, a set of docks for Apple iPads and Samsung Galaxy Tabs that incorporate a speaker unit and a wired keyboard. OK, so it lacks a hard …

    reghardware 28 Sep 10:50

  • Leave nothing behind when migrating virtual machines

    Ensuring a smooth move

    We migrate virtual machines (VMs) for all sorts of reasons: to load balance our physical hosts, say, or to offload a server so it can be taken offline for maintenance, or because the original host has failed. But in every case we want no interruption to the VM's operation, or at least as little interruption as possible. That …

    Network Fabric 28 Sep 11:00

  • Veggies tricked into dating meat-gobbling escorts

    Watchdog bitchslap for VeggieDates.com

    Vegetarians looking online for lovers who have the same dietary preferences as they do were misled by dating site VeggieDates.com, the Advertising Standards Authority ruled today. The ASA has demanded that the homepage of VeggieDates be changed to reflect the fact that most of its members were neither vegetarian nor vegan. …

    Odds and Sods 28 Sep 11:14

  • Gutsy golf-club granny collars crim in Flying Squad bust

    Tackles robbers who sent SWAT cop to hospital

    A middle-aged heroine was hailed by Scotland Yard today for her part in helping the Flying Squad arrest a gang of violent crooks who were attempting a robbery at her golf club. According to the Yard, the famous Flying Squad had got wind of the gang's plan to snatch cash as it was being removed from the Perivale Golf Club by a …

    Crime 28 Sep 11:29

  • Chocolate weighed in Schwarzeneggers: Official

    World's largest candy bar = 51 Arnies

    Regular readers will be aware that a couple of years back we at El Reg established a set of standards designed to supersede the wholly inadequate imperial and metric measurements which had for so long battled for international supremacy. For example, length, volume and weight are now quantified in linguine, grapefruit and Jubs …

    SPB 28 Sep 11:42

  • Huawei gets tough with Discovery Channel handset

    HELLO? I'M ON SAFARI

    Huawei ventured further into the rugged terrain of mobile phones this week, unveiling a toughened handset stamped with Discovery Channel branding. The Huawei Discovery Expedition is prepped to survive the elements, boasting dustproof, anti-shock and waterproof protections. It also crams in a torch, compass and GPS and G-sensor …

    reghardware 28 Sep 11:48

  • Google plants self on Silicon Roundabout

    Media2.0websluts rejoice!

    Google is set to plonk itself on the doorstep of the Silicon Roundabout next year, after the company signed a lease for a seven-floor building intended to be used as a base for start-ups and coders. The new centre, at 4-5 Bonhill Street, will undergo a full makeover prior to the Chocolate Factory setting up shop in Shoreditch …

    Business 28 Sep 12:03

  • Mozilla forces Firefox 7 on memory diet

    Project MemShrink payback

    Firefox 7 has been released with a promise from Mozilla its browser is less of a memory hog. The new version of Mozilla's browser will consume up to 50 per cent less of your system's memory than past editions with most users clawing back 20 and 30 per cent. Firefox 7 apparently achieves this thanks to a project started in …

    Applications 28 Sep 12:09

  • Carphone Warehouse whipped for cheap Jesus mobe ads

    ASA: The important stuff was in the fine print

    Carphone Warehouse has been smacked down by the Advertising Standards Authority for claiming that it had the lowest price in the country on the iPhone 4. One complaint was made about the ads, which were headlined: "iPhone 4. UK's lowest price". The complainant said the headline was misleading because she'd found lower prices …

    Mobile 28 Sep 12:19

  • Virgin Media goes cloudy for biz punters

    Bring me sunshine, bring me RAIN

    Virgin Media plans to launch a range of cloud-based services for its business customers. The telco characteristically had a dig at its rivals, such as BT, by saying it wanted to directly "challenge" those outfits which, Virgin Media claimed, had "brought unnecessary confusion to the cloud, complicating what can be a simple and …

    Infrastructure 28 Sep 12:27

  • Schoolteachers can't teach our kids to code, say engineers

    Laudable plans doomed by ignorant corduroys

    ICT teachers will need extra training to teach the new IT curriculum that science minister David Willetts announced this month, says the Institution of Engineering and Technology (IET). Under the "Behind the Screen" initiative, students in 20 trial schools will be taught to write software as well as use it. But Dr Martyn …

    Government 28 Sep 12:39

  • UKChatterbox urges password change following hack attack

    All change please

    Popular IRC service UKChatterbox is advising users to change their passwords following a series of hacks which culminated in an attack that may have compromised user details. The password reset follows on from a succession of outages – previously attributed to maintenance upgrades – dating back to the start of the summer. In a …

    ID 28 Sep 12:51

  • WTF is... HbbTV?

    Net connectivity for your telly done properly

    Connected TV is all the rage. Every major brand has its own IPTV platform, such as Panasonic's VieraConnect or Samsung's Smart TV, offering a mix of catch-up services and additional content like movie trailers and YouTube access. As it stands, content providers need to work with TV and set-top box makers to integrate their …

    reghardware 28 Sep 13:00

  • Open-source hardware group puts out vid system-on-a-chip

    Pretty visuals, no copyrighted hardware

    A radical tech coalition has produced an open-sourced music visualiser that modifies input video rather than generating patterns - and interestingly the box includes a system-on-a-chip that could one day compete with ARM. If just 80 units sell, the "Milkymist" will have already paid its way. Backer Qi is the company …

    PCs & Chips 28 Sep 13:22

  • Hackers disguise malware as emailed docs from smart printers

    Clever ruse to catch out office workers

    Hackers have developed a new ruse designed to trick recipients into opening malicious email messages that come loaded with malware. The trick involves sending emails that pose as scanned documents from office printers or scanners, forwarded by a work colleague. The unlikely source of attack is liable to fool many users, net …

    Malware 28 Sep 13:39

  • Larry Page sees 'tragic' future for Google

    Chocolate Factory père et fils fear the biggening

    A story in which any number of Mae West quotations can be applied: "I speak two languages, Body and English Google." Or, "Anything worth doing is worth doing slowly." Or, "Between two evils, I always pick the one I never tried before." Larry Page is on a mission to keep Google in the fast lane when it comes to growing the …

    Bootnotes 28 Sep 14:00

  • Pierre Cardin reckons it can out-bling the iPad

    Because what Apple lacks is style and brand value!

    Fashion label Pierre Cardin has joined world+dog in trying to muscle in on the fondleslab phenomenon. Billed as the "UK's first designer tablet", the Pierre Cardin PC 7006G – based on Android 2.3 – is being flogged for a penny short of £300, or roughly £100 less than it would cost to buy an entry-level iPad. A product's …

    Channel Register 28 Sep 14:21

  • Amazon revamps E Ink Kindle line

    Updated $99 Kindle Touch, $79 Kindle touchless

    It's official: the Amazon Kindle Fire will debut at $199 (£130), sport a 7in colour screen and run a customised version of Android with its own UI. It'll be accompanied by a touch-sensitive Kindle, the Touch, and cheaper alternative with no touchscreen. Both have E Ink displays. The Fire - codenamed 'Otter', by the way - …

    reghardware 28 Sep 14:31

  • PCIe flash performance: Your mileage may vary

    Researchers say TMS tops Fusion-io and Virident

    A Swiss supercomputing centre has found TMS PCIe flash delivers its advertised goods while Fusion-io and Virident do not. Two researchers at the Swiss National Computing Centre (CSCS) looked at the performance of PCIe flash cards from Fusio-io and Virident (pdf) and Texas Memory Systems (PDF). The tests used the open-source …

    Storage 28 Sep 14:46

  • Windows Marketplace goes webby

    For that Mac-using-WP7-owning demographic

    Windows Phone users, happily getting their Mango update, can now buy apps using a website as well as the Windows-only Zune client. The web-based version offers access to the same range of applications, and pushes them directly out to a registered handset, or sends an email with a suitable link if push isn't operable for some …

    Applications 28 Sep 14:57

  • Amazon intros $199 movie Kindle

    And a giant web proxy: is there anything it doesn't now know?

    Amazon has refreshed its entire range of Kindle tablets, adding a seven inch $199 colour Android model, a keyboard-less 4GB Touch model at $99 and a non-touchscreen 2GB $79 version. It also took an aggressive step into TV and movie delivery, bundling free streaming with the new Kindle Fire and a taster for Amazon’s Prime movie …

    Music and Media 28 Sep 15:07

  • French gov trousers hefty wad in 4G spectrum sale

    Liberté, egalité, avidité

    France's 2.6GHz auction has raised a shade under €1bn in an auction apparently designed to wring revenue out of the usual suspects rather than spurring innovation or competition. The auction comfortably exceeded the €700m reserve, but contained no surprises as the existing and announced operators shelled out more than €200m …

    Government 28 Sep 15:26

  • Microsoft to skim Samsung Android takings

    Royalties deal for each Google device sold

    Samsung, one of the industry's biggest Android device makers, will pay Microsoft a royalty for every handset it ships running Google's operating system. The electronics giant will pay Microsoft as part of a licensing agreement announced Wednesday, that will also see Samsung licence Microsoft's patents with Redmond agreeing not …

    Business 28 Sep 15:42

  • Apple to execute touch-less iPods

    Ten years is long enough?

    The iPod will be ten years old next month, but despite that, the much-loved music player is facing extinction. That's according to online speculation that points towards the player's steady decline, both in sales and popularity, and concludes that with no iPod announcements scheduled this year, it could finally be the end of …

    reghardware 28 Sep 15:50

  • HP networking boss leaves after less than a year

    First Brick, now Bonnett ...

    HP UK and Ireland networking boss Barry Bonnett is leaving the role after less than a year in charge, The Register can reveal. Formerly an exec at BT Media and Broadcast, Nortel and Stejac, Bonnett succeeded Daryl Brick – currently area partner director at Juniper Networks – in November 2010. Industry sources familiar with …

    Data Networking 28 Sep 15:54

  • HP parks Airbus supers in containers

    Two PODs in an HPC

    Airbus is one of the first industrial HPC customers in the world to plunk its most recent supercomputers into containerized data centers. Hewlett-Packard inked a supercomputing upgrade deal with the aircraft manufacturer four years ago, and in the final phase of the contract earlier this year, HP put two of its Performance …

    HPC 28 Sep 16:32

  • Electro-plaster points China Unicom mobes at 3G

    Cunning 2G upgrade is a sticky business

    China Unicom has created a roaming agreement to offload 2G customers, achieved using a carefully placed sticker instead of mucking about with contracts and signed deals. The trick is accomplished with an electronic plaster that intercepts communication with the SIM, returning details of Unicom's network when data connections …

    Mobile 28 Sep 16:54

  • Reebok used 'very fit woman' in buttock-related deception

    Sporting gear group agrees $25m settlement over arse-exercising shoe claims

    Reebok has to fork over $25m to the US Federal Trade Commission (FTC) for talking out its arse about its butt-toning footwear. The FTC decided that Reebok had falsely claimed its EasyTone walking shoes and flip-flops and its RunTone running shoes could fight the flab on leg and buttock muscles. “The FTC wants national …

    Bootnotes 28 Sep 17:28

  • OnStar backs down over GPS tracking of ex-customers

    Slams brakes after consumer revolt

    OnStar has backed down from a proposed change in its terms and conditions that would have seen the vehicle info system collecting car monitoring data on former customers. The OnStar system, operated as part of General Motors, embeds a mobile phone and GPS in customer’s cars and relays a constant stream of data back to the …

    ID 28 Sep 19:20

  • Diebold e-voting hack allows remote tampering

    $11 microprocessor-in-middle attack is 'significant'

    Computer scientists have demonstrated a hack that uses off-the-shelf hardware to tamper with electronic voting machines that millions of Americans will use to cast ballots in the 2012 presidential elections. The attack on the Diebold AccuVote TS electronic voting machine, which is now marketed by Election Systems & Software, …

    Enterprise Security 28 Sep 20:22

  • US tops the class in IT competitiveness

    Blowing the curve, apparently

    The United States may be messed up in a lot of ways, but it is still the most competitive country in the IT sector, according to an index put together by the Business Software Alliance and The Economist's Intelligence Unit. The IT Industry Competitive Index ranks countries in a number of different metrics on a scale from 1 to …

    CIO 28 Sep 20:52

  • Fixed broadband rules downloads, mobile rules new services

    Nuggets in new Oz broadband stats

    The Australian Bureau of Statistics’ Internet Activity Survey is one of the country’s easiest sources of regular copy for tech writers: it’s published every six months on a predictable schedule, and merely reciting the data points is good for a couple of hundred words. It is also, however, an important work: a longitudinal …

    Networks 28 Sep 22:30

  • AMD misses Q3 revenue targets

    Lays the blame on GlobalFoundries wafer baker

    Struggling x86 and graphics chip maker Advanced Micro Devices put out its preliminary financial results for the third quarter of fiscal 2011 after Wall Street closed today, and the numbers were not good. AMD ends its third quarter on October 1, which for all intents and purposes is nearly done, and rather than surprise …

    Financial News 28 Sep 22:36

  • Linux Foundation merges MeeGo into Tizen

    Linux OS always the bridesmaid

    The Linux Foundation has officially put MeeGo on the back burner and is working towards a new open source OS called Tizen, which will have a greater emphasis on HTML5 support. MeeGo, itself a merger of Intel’s Moblin and Nokia's Maemo projects, was launched last year as a joint venture between the two companies under the …

    Operating Systems 28 Sep 22:37

  • Global data center building booms

    Three Googleplexes coming to Asia/Pacific

    The Great Recession didn't just throw cold water on server spending, it also slammed the brakes on data center buildouts. While server spending picked up in late 2009 and shipments recovered in 2011 to their pre-recession levels, it takes a bit longer to fund data center projects. But it looks like brick-and-mortar – and …

    Infrastructure 28 Sep 23:58