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3rd October 2011 Archive

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  • Ellison brandishes 'speed of thought' Exalytics appliance

    OpenWorld Eat my digital dust, HP Autonomy and IBM Smarties

    Larry Ellison is serious about hardware because he is serious about software. Mostly, however, he's serious about making money – which is why Ellison's OpenWorld keynote surprise in San Francisco on Sunday was a whole new machine: the Exalytics in-memory appliance. Exalytics is based on Oracle's Sun Fire X4470 M2 server, which …

    Servers 3 Oct 2011, 03:59

  • Adobe: crashing 100 million machines not an option

    Zero-day vulns get 6,000 man-hours of testing

    The vast majority of time Adobe spends patching zero-day vulnerabilities in its ubiquitous Reader and Flash Player applications is devoted to making sure the fixes won't cause catastrophic crashes on end-user machines, the company's security chief said. “The last thing we want to do is ship a release that blue screens hundreds …

    Security 3 Oct 2011, 05:00

  • Citrix stretches XenServer 6.0 to cover bigger iron

    Chubbier VMs for heftier apps

    Citrix Systems doesn't make a lot of noise about server virtualization these days, now that the two founders of the Xen project have left to start Bromium. But the company, and the open source Xen project that it sponsors, continues to hammer out code to make Xen a credible alternative to VMware's ESXi, Microsoft's Hyper-V, and …

    Virtualization 3 Oct 2011, 05:25

  • Doing big stuff in the cloud

    Live webcast Data crunching in scalable environments

    At 11am today we're broadcasting live with a show that takes a different angle on cloud. Over the last few months our broadcasts have focussed on the use of cloud for delivering internally facing services such as email and collaboration. We've also looked at how cloud can be used to achieve reach. Now we're switching our …

    Cloud 3 Oct 2011, 07:21

  • Dozens of firms vie for £1bn crim tagging contracts

    Keeping tabs on 20,000+ offenders

    Ministers are preparing for a massive expansion in electronic tagging of offenders, with private security companies being invited to bid for more than £1bn worth of contracts in October, reports the Guardian. The use of electronic tagging has grown rapidly since it was first used in 1999 by courts in England and Wales to …

    Security 3 Oct 2011, 07:44

  • Anonymous Twitter alternative developed for rioters

    Favoured by anti-Wall Street protesters, apparently

    After discovering that BBM and their Twittery playthings fed straight into the hands of the cops, smartphone-toting revolutionaries have taken up a new type of instant messaging – Vibe. Like Twitter in that it is open and lets you mass-message, Vibe is unlike Twitter in that all messages or "vibes" are anonymous. You can set …

    Security 3 Oct 2011, 08:03

  • UK punters happy to pay £3 to top up e-wallets

    We never knew you were so keen

    A survey of UK attitudes to mobile payments reckons that £3 a time is the sweet spot for topping up wallets, with 65 per cent of you looking forward to pay-by-tap. Paying for the privilege of adding credit to a purse was the option selected by 34 per cent of respondents to the survey, which was carried out by marketing …

    Mobile 3 Oct 2011, 08:33

  • Fibre up, broadband up, IPTV up in Europe

    Broadband World Forum Fibre-to-home numbers up 43 per cent

    Numbers announced at the Broadband World Forum point to a continued rise in fibre deployments, with the dual conclusions that Lithuania and Norway are the most fibred up countries and that both Hungary and the Ukraine are joining the world's leading 'fibre to the home' (FTTH) economies, with a sudden burst of pace. The report …

    Networks 3 Oct 2011, 09:02

  • Violent videogames reduce crime

    Anti-gaming tests are flawed, says report

    While there's no end of detractors claiming that violent videogames cause aggressive, often criminal behaviour, some refreshing research has now insisted that the opposite is true. The report, entitled Understanding the Effects of Violent Video Games on Violent Crime, says while "there is evidence that violent videogames cause …

    Hardware 3 Oct 2011, 09:19

  • HTC Android handsets spew private data to ANY app

    Mystery data logger opens backdoor for slurping

    A data logger pushed out by HTC to Android handsets has opened up a vulnerability allowing any app with internet permissions to access private customer information. The vulnerability was spotted by Trevor Eckhart, who informed HTC about it and waited five days for a response. Following that he decided to go public and gave …

    Security 3 Oct 2011, 09:23

  • Microsoft's Roslyn invites VB to Windows 8 party

    C# in disguise?

    At Microsoft's recent BUILD conference, technical fellow and C# creator Anders Hejlsberg presented a session on the future of C# and Visual Basic. Visual Basic? There were few VB developers evident at BUILD and it seems to be in decline among professionals. Nevertheless, Microsoft is keeping the two in parity: read on for why …

    Operating Systems 3 Oct 2011, 09:44

  • iTunes beta, Vodafone flag up iPhone 4S

    8GB iPhone 4 makes a pre-release appearance too

    Evidence is building that Apple will indeed announce the iPhone 4S tomorrow. References to the 4S have been spied within the pre-release version of iTunes 10.5 being provided to iOS 5 developers, 9to5Mac reports. String data suggests that the 4S is the 'N94' handset that has been much mentioned in rumours through 2011, and …

    Phones 3 Oct 2011, 09:46

  • ThumbsUp Black Diamond glow-globe iPhone dock

    Geek Treat of the Week Psychodelic geodesic

    Yes, it’s expensive and totally pointless, but the Black Diamond "ambience dock" is strangely compelling. It's fascinating to watch – a bit like those Mathmos lava lamps that now seem to have acquired a rather ironic retro chic. Designed specifically for the iPhone – I'm looking forward to the iPad version, due any day now – …

    Hardware 3 Oct 2011, 10:00

  • Osborne proffers £150m for mobile not spots

    Of your money, of course, not his

    Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne has promised £150m to provide better mobile coverage in the UK, 'cos that's just what we need to stimulate the economy. Talking on The Today show this morning the Chancellor promised a freeze on council tax while vowing to invest in developing applications for the miracle material …

    Mobile 3 Oct 2011, 10:08

  • Super Mario jumps on domain squatter

    Lackadaisical Nintendo finally says 'it's-a me!'

    Nintendo has take control of the domain name SuperMario.com – fifteen years after it was first registered by a third party. The games company recently filed a cybersquatting complaint with the US National Arbitration Forum over the address, but the case was resolved before a formal hearing could be held as the previous owner …

    Hosting 3 Oct 2011, 10:14

  • Vodafone dishes out free unlimited data

    Three-month see-what-you-need period

    Folk after a fresh handset might like to consider Vodafone, which is offering new and upgrading mobile customers truly unlimited data for a three-month period. The company's Data Test Drive incentive is available for anyone who enrolls or upgrades to a pay-monthly contract with one of Vodafone's range of smartphones. After a …

    Mobile 3 Oct 2011, 10:23

  • Ease data traffic jams with some network improvements

    Keeping up with bigger drives

    Autoroutes, inter-states, autostrada, motorways and autobahns: they all arose out of the same realisation. Roads had become bottlenecks and traffic was coming to a standstill. The fix was to divide roads into two, limit access and add more lanes. Trucks, vans, cars and motorcycles had more road space and could get there faster …

    Enterprise Tech 3 Oct 2011, 10:30

  • ICO consultation: What should public bodies disclose?

    Graham's office to push out code of practice by the end of the year

    The UK's data protection and Freedom of Information watchdog has launched a new consultation with a view to changing its guidance on what information public sector organisations should be forced to disclose and how. Under Freedom of Information (FOI) laws public authorities must "adopt and maintain" a scheme of publishing …

    Government 3 Oct 2011, 10:44

  • AMD Llano vs Intel Sandy Bridge

    Review Which is the best notebook buy?

    At first glance, AMD's 'Llano' CPU and Intel's 'Sandy Bridge' second-generation Core i platform look like blood brothers. They combine the CPU, a GPU and a memory controller all on a single 32nm die. So how do these laptop chips stand up against each other? To find out, we asked HP to send us two 15.6in Pavilion dv6 laptops, …

    Laptops 3 Oct 2011, 11:00

  • iPhones 'excellent for doing experiments on their owners'

    Trick-cyclists plan mass fanboi brain probes

    Fears among Reg readers that iPhones will be used to conduct psychological experiments on Apple worshipping owners will surely intensify this morning thanks to a pronouncement by brain boffins. Fortunately we're not talking about Cupertino agents sending subliminal messages to punters - we mean actual scientists conducting …

    Mobile 3 Oct 2011, 11:18

  • Open Document Format updated to fix spreadsheets

    Check out the cross-product formula syntax on this baby

    A major change to the Open Document Foundation (ODF) spec to improve spreadsheet functionality has been ratified by standards chiefs. OASIS has voted to approve ODF 1.2, which the group claims now offers "a 100 per cent bug free and reliable, cross-product spreadsheet formula syntax". Change tracking has also been improved. …

    Applications 3 Oct 2011, 11:39

  • Toshiba touts 55in 3DTV with beefy resolution

    Biggest glasses-free set yet?

    Toshiba promised Europeans will be able to buy a 55in, 3840 x 2160 LCD 3D TV by the end of the year, though Japanese consumers may be able to get it first. Toshiba today debuted the Regza 55X3, 55in LCD display that not only packs a resolution four times greater than our current 'full HD', but also throws in glasses-free 3D, …

    Hardware 3 Oct 2011, 11:46

  • Best skiing in space is on Saturnian ice moon Enceladus

    Perfect powder, shame about the low gravity

    Anyone who'd like to ski in space should head for Saturn's icy moon Enceladus, according to boffins who've discovered that the superfine ice crystals coating the moon's surface would be perfect powder for skiing. "Bulky space suits and extremely low gravity aside (the surface gravity there is only roughly 1 per cent that of …

    Science 3 Oct 2011, 11:58

  • Digital TV body adds HbbTV to UK standard

    Boost for Connected TV makers

    The UK's digital TV specifications guardian, the Digital TV Group, has formally incorporated HbbTV into its 'D-Book' digital telly standard. As is the way with such organisations, the latest version of the D-Book - the seventh edition - has not yet been published, merely "approved for publication" by the dusty bureaucrats. …

    Media 3 Oct 2011, 12:01

  • Belgian buccaneers invade Rockall

    Radio hamburglars reprise epic Vulturine feat

    A group of Belgian radio hams landed on the sacred islet of Rockall over the weekend, following an evidently rough crossing to the world's remotest outcrop. Two operators - Patrick (ON4HIL) and Rudi (ON7YT) - transmitted over Saturday night from atop the granite peak, dubbed EU189 in the Islands On The Air (IOTA) register. A …

    SPB 3 Oct 2011, 12:05

  • Ecclesiastical judge tells church: Let there be Wi-Fi

    Tinfoilers hamper case against by failure to show

    Messages to Norfolk's churches won't just be heaven sent in future, they'll also be wireless broadband signals after a judge ruled against objectors' Wi-Fi health fears. The Wispire project, a plan to attach Wi-Fi kit to churches to provide wireless broadband, sent radiation-fearing objectors running to a consistory court to …

    Broadband 3 Oct 2011, 12:13

  • Apple TV owners lost legal movie playback this weekend

    DRM server snafu deprives fanboys of films

    Unconcerned about the insidious impact of Digital Rights Management? You may want to think again when you hear about the many Apple TV owners who found they couldn't play legitimately acquired movies this weekend. There you are, you've paid for a film through iTunes. You own it. But you can't play it. Many Apple TV owners are …

    Hardware 3 Oct 2011, 12:28

  • Cisco veep slags off HP's PC biz wobble

    Predicts doom for rival in not-so-secret document

    Cisco quietly sat on the sidelines during the summer as a series of gaffes by a hapless senior executive team forced down HP's share price by a fifth. But the networking kingpin has found its voice again to predict that hitting the Personal Systems Group eject button will damage HP and its partners' bottom line and lead to …

    Data Networking 3 Oct 2011, 12:36

  • Alibaba! wants! to! be! Yahoo! purple! prince!

    Would acquire a third of itself as part of the package

    The boss of Alibaba, which is part owned by Yahoo!, wants to be handed the keys to the Purple Palace. Jack Ma told a gathering of people at Stanford University that his Chinese e-commerce company would be "very interested in Yahoo!", Reuters reported. Alibaba runs domestic Chinese and Japanese services and also operates a bit …

    Financial News 3 Oct 2011, 12:58

  • EC to vet Euro broadband performance

    Volunteer testers required

    The European Commission is set to launch an investigation into broadband performance in a bid to bring greater transparency to the true speed and reliability of interweb services. The EC is looking for 10,000 volunteers, each of whom will all be sent a special router that will monitor the performance of their broadband when …

    Broadband 3 Oct 2011, 13:15

  • Crazy square barcodes can point your phone to MALWARE

    Help, help, I'm under attag

    Russian VXers have begun using obnoxious barcode-on-steroids QR codes as a launchpad for mobile malware. A recently identified malicious Quick Response code on a Russian website links through a series of redirections to a site punting a Trojan version of the Jimm mobile ICQ client. Android users who follow the links and …

    Security 3 Oct 2011, 13:26

  • Steelie Neelie calls for copper price cuts to drive fibre

    Dutch berated for doing net neut rules without asking

    The EU's top digital eurocrat has called on large telcos to stop using copper pricing as a barrier to deploying fibre networks. "Telecom operators are divided on the question of how copper access prices affect the incentives for fibre investment," said Neelie Kroes during a speech in Brussels today. "Alternative operators …

    Broadband 3 Oct 2011, 13:31

  • HPC and its growing reach

    The Register talks HPC with Intel

    El Reg's Tim Phillips talks High Performance Computing with Gordon Graylish who is the VP and GM for enterprise solutions sales. They run through the definitions of HPC, where HPC is being used as a default, and also the potential for HPC in broader markets – particularly with HPC becoming much more accessible and affordable …

    Enterprise Tech 3 Oct 2011, 13:42

  • Major BT exchange titsup in power outage

    Customers advised to turn it off then on again

    BT was hit by a big power failure this morning at one of its major exchanges in the Midlands. Business broadband and Infinity customers as well as Easynet and other telcos have been downed by the outage over the past few hours. "We can confirm that, as a result of a power failure at one of our major exchanges, some customers …

    Broadband 3 Oct 2011, 13:53

  • London gets first new Google Chromebookshop

    We offer only one thing: Total Googly dominance

    Brit geeks have snapped up Samsung-made Chromebooks from Google's new 'store' on London's Tottenham Court Road in a sign that the Chocolate Factory's attempt to clone Apple Stores' razzle-dazzle is paying dividends. Staff at the branch told the Reg that they had shifted "quite a few" of the £349/£399 mini-laptops since the …

    Cloud 3 Oct 2011, 13:56

  • Google OUTBID on g.co.uk at auction

    Speculator mows Chocolate Factory's grass

    Google may have spent an estimated $1.5m on the Colombian domain name g.co earlier this year, but it was outbid on g.co.uk in a recent auction by a domain investor. The desirable address sold for £76,000 at a Nominet auction, according to a list of sales compiled by domain names guru Ty Hancocks and reported by the FT today. …

    Hosting 3 Oct 2011, 14:27

  • O2 best placed to scoop new iPhone sales dosh

    Still has fruit-stroker legion from old exclusive deal

    O2 will be quids in when the next iPhone is beamed down to mere mortals, a spectacle that's strongly rumoured to be happening tomorrow. According to figures from Kantar Worldpanel ComTech, O2 handles 45 per cent of the Apple fanbois in the UK, and those guys are known to be quite loyal. O2 used to have the exclusive deal on …

    Mobile 3 Oct 2011, 15:03

  • Brother poaches HP vet to manage channels

    New saga for Forsyth

    HP veteran Andy Forsyth has jumped ship to rival Brother to beef up the firm's reseller channel. Forsyth has held various senior positions in HP during his 17-year tenure at the vendor including UK and Ireland channel boss and several directorships in the Imaging and Printing Group. Phil Jones, UK sales director at Brother, …

    The Channel 3 Oct 2011, 15:10

  • Yahoo! and! ABC! ink! news! pact!

    Online-first blobbening to create vast eyeball mountain

    Yahoo! and ABC have announced a news partnership that they hope will bag them 100 million US users a month. ABC is looking to harness Yahoo!'s big audiences for its content on GoodMorningAmerica.com and three other new online-first video series, hosted by its own anchors. At the moment, Yahoo! News and ABC News get a combined …

    Media 3 Oct 2011, 15:26

  • Ellison: 'There'll be nothing left of IBM once I'm done'

    Promises a terrific licking for 'Mister Blue'

    Oracle has pulled the rug out from under Hewlett-Packard's Intel's Itanium processor by yanking support of its database, middleware, and application software on future "Poulson" and "Kittson" Itaniums. It looks as though Larry Ellison wants to take on IBM in microprocessors for data center systems, man-to-man, head-to-head. "I …

    Servers 3 Oct 2011, 15:40

  • Samsung reveals release for 5in tablet

    Time to take Note

    Samsung today announced its 5in tablet-phone thingamajig, the Galaxy Note, is heading to the UK in November. Unveiled at IFA 2011, the Samsung Galaxy Note runs on a 1.4GHz dual-core CPU with Android 2.3 Gingerbread. It packs a 5.3in display with a 1280 x 800 resolution and an 8Mp camera, and comes in the choice of 16GB or 32GB …

    Tablets 3 Oct 2011, 15:42

  • Would you sue to keep your guilty ABBA habit a secret?

    Pandora let world see our bathroom singalongs, say users

    Music services that divulge your guiltiest music pleasures to the world may be breaking US state law. Michigan’s Video Rental Privacy Act has been cited in a new class action lawsuit against Pandora, claiming $5,000 damages per person. The lawsuit says that by making playlists and histories public and searchable by Google, …

    Security 3 Oct 2011, 16:03

  • Amazon fans order three Fires for every E Ink Kindle

    First-day tablet orders estimated at 95k

    Kindle buyers want the Fire, Amazon's new colour tablet, more than they want the online retailers revamped E Ink reader, buyer data suggests. Online number cruncher eDataSource said late last week that 95,000 punters signed up for the Fire on the first day Amazon began noting expressions of interest. The company tracks 800, …

    Tablets 3 Oct 2011, 16:09

  • Verizon in court to block net neutrality ruling

    'The feds aren't the boss of us'

    Verizon Communications has filed an appeal in a US court to block the Federal Communications Commission's new net neutrality rules. The edict, which dictates how internet service providers can manage their networks, is due to come into force on 20 November, despite much criticism from both neutral net nuts and big business. …

    Broadband 3 Oct 2011, 17:02

  • Better Business Bureau offers rogue script browser peril

    Updated Oops! Scam warning service left eggfaced

    Rogue scripts on the scam advice website Better Business Bureau have sparked security concerns. The issue was brought to our attention by Kevin, a server security consultant who said he informed BBB of the apparent problem on Saturday. "I noticed a javascript redirect on the BBB Blogs site that seems to attempt to spawn an …

    Security 3 Oct 2011, 17:58

  • October 14 declared 'Steve Jobs Day'

    Rumors buzz over Jobsian bow at Tuesday's iPhone roll-out

    As rumors spread that Apple's cofounder and former CEO might show up at Tuesday's "Let's talk iPhone" event, a group of clever fanbois has proclaimed next Friday, October 14, as "Steve Jobs Day", and has asked the world to celebrate "a day to honor the man himself and say thank you." The rumors fluttering around the interwebs …

    Data Center 3 Oct 2011, 18:01

  • Bank of America website disrupted for 4th day in a row

    Hacking and DoS ruled out as causes

    Bank of America's website continued to suffer sporadic outages on Monday, marking the fourth day that some customers have been unable to use its online services to check balances and pay bills. "We're sorry, but some of our pages are temporarily unavailable," a note posted to the homepage for the biggest US bank read. "Thanks …

    Security 3 Oct 2011, 18:03

  • Oracle: Java 8 will be revolution, not evolution

    JavaOne JavaFX 2.0 released, Java 9 detailed

    Mark Reinhold, chief architect for Java at Oracle, gave details on developments in Java 8 and beyond, and announced the release of JavaFX 2.0 during his turn on the keynote stage at the JavaOne conference in San Francisco. Oracle cut back on its plans for Java 7 in order to get the new build released in July, adding three of …

    Developer 3 Oct 2011, 18:20

  • BridgeSTOR in rash NAS cash splash

    35 per cent dedupe storage saving or your money back

    BridgeSTOR has a dedupe card for Windows NAS boxes that will provide a 35 per cent storage saving – or your money cheerfully refunded. The PCIe (x4) card has an Exar 8200 processor and accompanying software that adds deduplication, compression, thin provisioning, and encryption to Windows Server 2008 R2 Network-Attached …

    Storage 3 Oct 2011, 19:00

  • 'iPhone 4 to be free' when new iPhones ship

    iPhone 4S and 5 to be dual-mode. Other changes leaked

    Upon Tuesday's rollout of the iPhone 4S and iPhone 5, the existing iPhone 4 will be offered for the low, low price of nothing at all when purchased with a presumably two-year contract. That is, if a pricing roundup leaked to MacDailyNews from "a sole source [who] has provided reliable information of Apple’s moves in the past" …

    Phones 3 Oct 2011, 19:18

  • Adobe announces Creative Cloud, acquires PhoneGap

    MAX 2011 HTML 5, but little Flash at Adobe's creative confab

    Adobe is aquiring Nitobi, creators and sponsors of the open source PhoneGap project that lets you build cross-platform mobile apps using HTML technologies, and has announced a suite of cloud services named, unsurprisingly, Creative Cloud. The announcements were made during a Monday keynote presentation at the company's Adobe …

    Software 3 Oct 2011, 19:56

  • Oracle rolls its own NoSQL and Hadoop

    OpenWorld A supremely confident Ellison mounts the Big Data elephant

    There's no shortage of ego at Oracle, as evidenced by the effusion of confidence behind the company's OpenWorld announcement of the not-so-humbly named Big Data Appliance. And then there were the o'erweening keynote presentations by some of the software giant and systems player's top brass on Monday, which included a montage …

    Cloud 3 Oct 2011, 20:22

  • 22,000 'freetards' escape Hurt Locker piracy suit

    Voltage still hopes to zap hundreds more downloaders

    The world's largest P2P legal imbroglio has been downgraded, with 90 per cent of the alleged file sharers caught up in the Hurt Locker downloading case dismissed. The Oscar-winning war film’s producers Voltage Pictures instigated legal action last year against 14,583 netizens for allegedly illegally downloading the movie. The …

    Media 3 Oct 2011, 21:30

  • Telstra hands copper contract to new company

    And kicks off copper upgrade

    A company that’s only existed since 2010 has won a deal worth as much as $100 million over nine years to provide subcontracting services on Telstra’s copper network. The contract covers customer installations and fault maintenance on the copper network, including telephony, broadband, ULL, and jumpering between Telstra …

    Business 3 Oct 2011, 22:30

  • 'Boss from hell' knuckle-rapped for 'firing contests'

    Crossing the line between motivation and harassment

    Not all thankless jobs are in IT. In the American heartland, a court has sided with the ex-employees of one businessman who held "firing contests", in which he offered cash prizes to staffers asked to predict which unfortunate worker was next to face his wrath. "This guy was the boss from hell. He treated pretty much all of us …

    Small Biz 3 Oct 2011, 22:44

  • Facebook games teach teens bad habits

    More reasons not to like

    A Welsh online safety campaigner is warning that popular Facebook social games encourage bad habits among young users. Charles Conway, an associate member of the UK Council for Child Internet Safety, says games like Pet Society use virtual cash to reward players interacting with strangers. He says out that in a game designed …

    Security 3 Oct 2011, 22:45

  • The plane story of galactic clusters

    Dark matter ‘filaments’ mapped

    Why are galaxies where they are? Astronomers have turned up a hint at the way dark matter affects the large-scale structure of the universe, with observations discovering that the Milky Way and nearby galactic clusters are arranged along a plane. The researchers, from the Australian National University, believe the arrangement …

    Science 3 Oct 2011, 23:30