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25th October 2011 Archive

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  • Oz bank takes near-field plunge

    CBA also takes payments ‘social’

    Peer-to-peer payments, transfers via Facebook, and support for contactless near-field communications: the Commonwealth Bank has reached for the buzzword book to create a new payment system it hopes will help it ride on the back of huge growth in mobile payments systems. It also targets the huge growth of the iPhone in …

    Mobile 25 Oct 00:30

  • Appcelerator juices HTML5 support with Particle Cloud buy

    'Rocket fuel' boosts rollout into 2012

    Mobile platform developer Appcelerator has added crucial HTML5 talent to its portfolio, with the purchase of developer Particle Cloud. The purchase gives the company access to engineers at Particle Cloud who have experience in HTML5 and mobile games development. Appcelerator has already moved the new staff into its Silicon …

    Developer 25 Oct 00:32

  • Mainframes pump up profits at Unisys

    Bucking Uncle Scrooge Sam

    Mainframe maker and services provider Unisys continues to improve its financial situation despite the loss of a major contract with the US Transportation Security Agency last fall. The currency exchange rate of the US dollar against other currencies in countries where Unisys does business didn't hurt matters, either. In the …

    Financial News 25 Oct 00:42

  • Android upgraded to be more resistant to hack attacks

    ASLR added to 'Ice Cream Sandwich'

    The newest version of Google's Android mobile operating system has been upgraded to make it harder for hackers to hijack handsets by exploiting code errors in the underlying code. Android 4.0, aka Ice Cream Sandwich, has added a mitigation known as ASLR, or address space layout randomization. It works by routinely changing the …

    Security 25 Oct 06:00

  • TomTom Go Live TopGear Edition

    Review The best satnav... in the world?

    The monumental cock-up that saw the BBC grant then withdraw permission for TomTom to use Jeremy Clarkson’s voice in a satnav must have the Dutch navigation wallahs jumping for joy. TomTom Go Live TopGear Edition: put it on Stig to mute Not only has the ban generated the sort of media coverage that it could only have dreamed …

    reghardware 25 Oct 06:00

  • EMC supremo succession photo clue

    Blocks & Files Photo Picture tells a thousand words when only two needed

    If you are still wondering who is going to be filling EMC CEO Joe Tucci's boots, there is a clue on the storage company's website. In a rolling front-page window showing EMC people talking about the cloud at Oracle World, we see Joe T and what could be his favoured guy. Who can that be? Don't stand so close to me: Joe Tucci …

    Channel Register 25 Oct 07:24

  • Ofcom to finally yank sat broadband biz off the air

    ITU asked to revoke ICO's frequency rights

    Ofcom has written to the International Telecommunications Union asking it to rescind the spectrum allocation to ICO Satellite after the company's 32-month campaign failed. ICO had appealed against the courts' refusal to grant a judicial review of Ofcom's original decision to write the letter, which the regulator wanted to send …

    Telecoms 25 Oct 08:04

  • Cryptoboffin: Secure boot a boon for spooks' spyware

    State-sponsored trojans will be harder to get rid of

    A leading computer scientist has warned that the latest so-called Trusted Computing proposals may restrict the market for anti-virus and security software. Cambridge University Professor Ross Anderson warns that the secure boot features in the UEFI firmware specification - understood to be required on certified Windows 8 …

    Malware 25 Oct 08:33

  • K-9

    Android App of the Week Power user email

    With its focus on the Gmail app, the Android stock e-mail client is a bit of a red-headed stepchild. It works well enough but it clearly doesn’t feel the love of its creators. That leaves a gap in the Market for a good e-mail client and luckily Android has one: K-9. Being a true open source community project - you can download …

    reghardware 25 Oct 09:00

  • Dell intros '14in screen, 13in body' notebook

    World's thinnest 'full function' laptop, apparently

    Dell took the wraps of its compact, "14in display in a 13in body" Inspiron 14z notebook at the IFA consumer electronics show in September, but now it has formally launched the XPS 14z, a skinnier version. Specs for the 23mm-thick, 2kg Dell XPS 14z are what you'd expect: second-gen Intel Core i5 and i7 - aka Sandy Bridge - …

    reghardware 25 Oct 09:09

  • Could a snapshot plug your backup window?

    VMworld Europe Sounds satisfying, doesn't it

    Talking with Dmitri Joukovski, product management VP at backup firm Acronis, we were discussing backup and snapshots and I asked whether backup was still the best choice. He turned the conversation around and asked me what is backup? I said it was the collecting of the current set of files on a system, putting them into a …

    Servers 25 Oct 09:19

  • Scot.gov plots its own superintranet

    Anything London can do...

    It has been a while since Scotland had something resembling a national strategy for public sector ICT. In the early 2000s it had the 21st Century Government Unit, and the Modernising Government Fund provided money for workstreams such as data standards, smartcards, a national land and property database, e-procurement and various …

    Public Sector 25 Oct 09:31

  • Updating to Windows Phone 7.5

    Review The stone in the Mango

    Just like Apple iPhone users needn’t own a Mac to sync data and apply updates, Windows Phone 7 users needn’t be reliant on a PC either. To broaden the appeal of Microsoft’s latest handset OS, the company offers a Mac software alternative. Nice to know there's an update, but what version is it? Unlike Apple’s dual platform …

    reghardware 25 Oct 09:33

  • Huawei stuffs LTE into TV bands

    4G without the expensive spectrum

    While the world's network operators pay billions for 4G radio frequencies, Huawei is calmly testing LTE in the licence-free white space spectrum, though squeezing it into the required mask will be tough. Huawei will be testing the technique, which uses time division duplex (TDD) LTE in the television-broadcast bands not being …

    Wireless 25 Oct 10:01

  • US carrier smartphone sales slip

    Android in decline?

    Interesting stats have been published by US finance house Morgan Keegan and with then comes a warning for makers of Android handsets: be prepared for a tough Q4. The figures in question tally smartphone sales made by US network operators AT&T and Verizon. Android sales, while higher than those of the Apple iPhone have been …

    reghardware 25 Oct 10:16

  • Acer UK boss Watkins quits

    Updated: Industry old-timer Marshall set to take the hot seat

    Acer UK boss Bobby Watkins has quit after a string of disastrous quarters in which the firm's sales collapsed, The Register can reveal. It is understood that Acer veteran Neil Marshall, currently director of global sales and marketing transformation, will be picking up the reins. Channel sources reckon that Watkins resigned …

    Business 25 Oct 10:20

  • ARM elbows through chip market with bumper profits

    Hand over the dosh

    Business is brisk at British chip designer ARM where pre-tax profit and revenue ballooned during the company's third quarter, which ended on 30 September. The Cambridge-based outfit reported that pre-tax profit was £55.8m, up 44 per cent compared with the same period a year earlier. Sales grew 20 per cent to £120.2m. Earnings …

    PCs & Chips 25 Oct 10:31

  • Hack reveals Android tablet within Sony e-reader

    £129 E Ink fondleslab, anyone?

    Sony's latest e-book reader, the Wi-Fi enabled, touchscreen-equipped PRS-T1, is now on sale in the UK for £129, making it one of cheapest big-name Android gadgets out there. That's right, Android. Sony has used the Google OS as a foundation for its own e-reader UI. And owners have already rooted the gadget to bring the …

    reghardware 25 Oct 10:32

  • Union enraged by secret driverless Tube plan

    Leaked masterplan would axe 1,500 jobs

    Unionists are up in arms today after a report showed Transport for London (TfL) investigated new technologies that would have led to job cuts. The report, leaked by the Rail and Maritime Transport Union (RMT), is a strategy discussion of driverless Tube trains and a 'wave and pay' ticketing system that would let commuters use …

    Wireless 25 Oct 10:44

  • Sony Ericsson Xperia Ray Android smartphone

    Review Light touch

    Smartphones seem to be getting bigger and bigger, but among the recent models from Sony Ericsson is the Xperia Ray, a slim and stylish Android 2.3 device with a sharp 3.3in widescreen. It also sports a well-featured 8Mp camera with 720p HD video recording and a host of other handy functions at a mid-range price. Sony Ericsson …

    reghardware 25 Oct 11:00

  • London Comic Con kicks off Saturday

    Games'n'mags'n'sci-fi

    SF, comics and videogames fans, don't forget that London Comic Con takes place this weekend at the Capital's Excel centre. On offer are all the usual convention opportunities to spend your hard earned on books, comics, DVDs, BDs and tat. Warner Bros is sponsoring the two-day event, so you'll have an opportunity to try out …

    reghardware 25 Oct 11:07

  • BT cable ballsup hooks up punters to wrong numbers

    Are you a fax machine, or just happy to hear from me?

    Several BT phone customers in Surrey ended up fielding calls from strangers after engineers screwed up while rewiring their cables. Pauline and Thomas Rodgers started to receive phone calls for a bloke called Charlie after BT relaid cables in their local area. The repair work in Wanborough Hill, Surrey, took place after …

    Telecoms 25 Oct 11:16

  • Father-of-three attacked teen after Call of Duty jibes

    Pwned and irate

    An angry gamer has avoided jail for attacking a teenager who mocked his online gaming skills after he was gunned down in Activision's Call of Duty: Black Ops. Unemployed Plymouth resident Mark Bradford, 46, admitted one count of assault by beating and was given a suspended prison sentence over the attack, The Daily Mail …

    reghardware 25 Oct 11:17

  • RM chief exec Sweeney steps down

    Company restructures, plans to axe one in five jobs

    RM chief Terry Sweeney is stepping down amid a company-wide restructure after 13 years of service at the education supplier. The LSE-listed firm is flogging parts of the operation, with the trade and assets of US arm Computrac – a classroom products biz – to be offloaded to Troxell Communications for £3m. The remaining …

    Business 25 Oct 11:29

  • Apple shouldn't bother with TV...

    Analysis Press manipulation FROM BEYOND THE GRAVE

    Can nobody rid of us the barefoot CEO? He may be gone, but Steve Jobs continues to manipulate the press from the beyond – this time through his biographer, Walter Isaacson. The Steve Jobs biography launches the hype for Apple's next great product, a TV. "It would be seamlessly synced with all of your devices and with iCloud... …

    PCs & Chips 25 Oct 11:35

  • Top general warns of cyberspy menace to UK biz

    Stealing secrets is costing Brits billions

    A senior general has said that cyberattacks represent the biggest threat to national security, warning that British firms routinely lose commercially sensitive information to overseas rivals as the result of hacking. Major General Jonathan Shaw, head of the Ministry of Defence’s cybersecurity programme, claims that hacking …

    Security 25 Oct 11:42

  • Groupon sues ex-sales heads for defection to Google

    E-coupon outfit frets over trade secrets

    Soon-to-go-public online voucher site Groupon has thrown sueballs at two former workers of the company, over claims that the ex-sales managers had taken trade secrets to their new employer Google. In a lawsuit filed with Cook Country, Illinois, Circuit Court, Chancery Division (Chicago), Groupon is seeking an injunction …

    Business 25 Oct 11:52

  • SAN-banner scores $25m from ex-Sunner

    Nutanix promises cheap, speedy storage for cloudy servers

    Khosla Ventures, the private equity fund set up by Sun Microsystems cofounder Vinod Khosla, is kicking in a hefty chunk of dough in the second round of funding for cloud appliance maker Nutanix. Nutanix was founded in 2009 by file system experts from Aster Data and Google as well as system clustering experts from Oracle, and …

    Cloud 25 Oct 12:00

  • Web czar: 'Drag your nan online'

    Would you give up an hour to get mates and family online?

    The UK's digital champion Martha Lane Fox has launched a campaign to get the 30 million people in the country who use the internet to help the 8.7 million who still haven't gone online onto the web in the free hour when the clocks change. The 'Give an hour' campaign aims to narrow the digital divide by getting web-surfers to …

    Government 25 Oct 12:14

  • Fusion-io hires ex-TMS president

    Woody Hutsell leaves Texas for California

    StorageSearch has revealed that Fusion-io has hired a 10-year TMS veteran as its senior director for product management. Woody Hutsell spent almost a decade at TMS, supplier of networked RamSan solid state storage arrays, rising to the position of president from EVP for sales and marketing. He left in March last year and …

    Storage 25 Oct 12:31

  • Survey: Future IT guys will 'crowd-source' to fix stuff

    'So most of you don't think we need a firewall, eh?'

    Dell and Intel expect that crowd-sourcing will be a challenge that IT managers and chief information officers will have to meet in the next 10 to 15 years. Businesses will want to do it, and IT managers will have to work out how deliver it, they predict in a survey about IT in the workplace commissioned from research group TMS …

    Data Networking 25 Oct 12:46

  • What flash needs is a little TLC

    Comment Two bits good, three bits better

    The breakthrough when flash becomes affordable is thought by many people to be TLC (triple-level cell) – 3-bit multi-level cell NAND – which adds a third more capacity to flash cells. But how far are we with TLC implementation, and when will we see it in mainstream IT? According to Jim Handy of Objective Analysis, SanDisk is …

    Storage 25 Oct 13:00

  • Jaguar recalls over 17,600 X-types in the UK

    Cars' cruise control hit by code bug

    Luxury car manufacturer Jaguar was left with egg on its face this week after a glitch in its cruise control code forced it to recall 17,678 vehicles in the UK. In a letter to customers, the company warned that X-Type models produced between 2006 and 2010 with diesel engines could be affected by a glitch in the cruise control …

    reghardware 25 Oct 13:30

  • Israeli gov nabs 6 for leaking population register

    Personal details of 9 million citizens, including kids, online

    An employee of the Israeli Social Affairs Ministry has been arrested on suspicion of copying the personal details of nine million citizens listed in the population registry, according to the Justice Ministry. The Justice Ministry's Law, Information and Technology Authority (LITA) announced on Monday that they had arrested six …

    Public Sector 25 Oct 13:31

  • No licence required: Ofcom sets bandwidth bundle free

    Not all radio is gold

    Ofcom has proposed removing licence requirements from a handful of frequency bands, releasing microwave links and short-range radios, not to mention personal locator beacons, from the licensing burden. The proposals (45-page PDF/253KB, very dull indeed) follow a consultation published back in April to remove licence …

    Wireless 25 Oct 14:01

  • Still got too much Information

    Part 2 Get over it

    Welcome back to Reg Ltd, where Graham finally has his trousers on. But there's crisis in the air: ahead of the annual meeting, Ronald's slashing budgets and threatening to take the company bowling. How can Microsoft cloud technologies smooth the process of planning the budgets? How can Emily hang on to her share? We can't do …

    Cloud 25 Oct 14:16

  • 5 SECONDS to bypass an iPad 2 password

    Video Foreground fudge-up

    The password protection of an iPad 2 running iOS 5 can be circumvented in less than five seconds with just three simple steps. Bypassing the unlock screen on iPad 2 can be accomplished by first pressing the power button until the power-off screen is displayed. Users then need only to close and reopen the fondleslab's 'smart …

    Security 25 Oct 14:31

  • Rockstar officially announces Grand Theft Auto V

    Cop a load of this

    Developer Rockstar has officially announced work has begun on Grand Theft Auto V. A debut trailer is expected next week. Speculation that development was already underway has been doing the rounds for a while, with Rockstar executives talking up the project a couple of years back. Now, though, the game is official with …

    reghardware 25 Oct 14:31

  • Cisco chief's package shrinks 65 per cent

    Forced to make do with $6.6 million pay packet

    Cisco chief John Chambers' total direct remuneration package slumped 65 per cent in fiscal 2011 to a mere $6.625m (£4.14m), according to an SEC filing. Clearly the time has come for the Chambers' household to switch to the value range in supermarkets, holiday at home and downgrade the family fleet of cars. The long-serving …

    Business 25 Oct 14:48

  • Larry Ellison takes a bath on San Fran mansion

    A four million-dollar bath

    Oracle boss Larry Ellison is set to lose $4m on a Bay Area property in Woodside, south of San Francisco. The Real Estalker reports that Ellison spent $23m in November 2005 to buy two properties a mile away from his main Japanese-style country estate and quite near to Redwood Shores and the Oracle HQ. 1 Turkey Farm Lane, …

    Business 25 Oct 15:00

  • 3M combines camcorder, projector

    Snap out of it

    Tech company 3M has unveiled a mini mobile projector and digital camera combo, ideal for holiday-makers to share their naff collection of moments with friends and family without the need for a separate device. The Camcorder Projector CP45 blends 3M's mobile projection tech with a 5Mp digital camera that also records HD video …

    reghardware 25 Oct 15:06

  • Riverbed lets loose Stingray virty appliances

    Traffic manager, content optimizer, and firewall swim together

    In the wake of its acquisitions of Zeus Technology and Aptimize back in July, WAN optimization appliance maker Riverbed Technology has tweaked three software appliances for speeding up and securing cloudy applications to complement its Steelhead appliances. The new Stingray products are being synchronized to the 8.0 release …

    Virtualization 25 Oct 15:16

  • Tweens would miss web and mobes more than TV

    Take a wild guess how they watch telly, though

    For the first time ever, 12- to 15-year-olds in the UK would miss their mobile and the internet more than they would miss watching the telly. More than a quarter of the tween bracket would miss their mobile most (28 per cent), while 25 per cent would miss the web and 18 per cent listed TV, according to an Ofcom survey. The …

    Networks 25 Oct 15:29

  • 3D tape backup biz taps Mr StorageTek

    Jon Benson joins Spectra

    The guy who guided StorageTek when it developed and shipped its StreamLine tape library, who persevered through Sun's ownership of StorageTek, and then wound up in Oracle, which depends on StreamLine to this day for tape credibility, has finally taken a hike. He's joined SpectraLogic. Privately owned Spectra, with its T-Finity …

    Storage 25 Oct 16:17

  • Big Blue gives Big Sam big bags of cash

    Not for himself, but for stock buybacks

    IBM's board of directors wants to give the company's top brass plenty of maneuvering room to engineer the earnings per share growth that they have promised Wall Street, and therefore has authorized the company to spend an additional $7bn on stock buybacks. When combined with $5.2bn in monies left over from IBM's previous stock …

    Financial News 25 Oct 17:03

  • Arrays take on servers in storage smackdown

    Comment Location, location, location: Where's a storage box's soul?

    There is a battle going on behind the scenes over the location of storage's soul: the controller hardware and software. Oracle, Dell, EMC and VMware want it to be in the server, while NetApp and HDS want it to be in the array, an array operating with servers but distinct from them. The picture is not as clear-cut as this on …

    Storage 25 Oct 18:00

  • Japan's Parliament, defense contractor, pierced by hackers

    Emails, fighter jet plans, exposed

    Sensitive data belonging to 480 lawmakers and their staff may have been exposed for more than a month, after computers in Japan's Parliament were infected by malware, it was widely reported on Tuesday. The data-stealing trojan compromised computers used by three members of the Lower House, and possibly a server, The New York …

    Security 25 Oct 18:23

  • VI and Brocade in SAN-monitoring DEATH MATCH!

    CEO opens email war front

    Virtual Instruments' former partner Brocade is "trying to put VI out of business" VI's marketing VP Len Rosenthal says, as a private disagreement becomes a messy and public dispute. Brocade's CEO Michael Klayko received an emailed rebuke from VI CEO John Thompson, who said Brocade should not be "working to stall or cripple …

    Storage 25 Oct 18:28

  • RIM links with Microsoft for cloud services

    When its network is up, that is

    RIM has begun a beta of BlackBerry Business Cloud Services, a system designed to manage its users' devices remotely and allow access to Microsoft Office 365 applications online. The open beta, available in 30 countries, will see RIM hosting the service that lets users synchronize data with Microsoft Exchange Online’s email, …

    Applications 25 Oct 19:07

  • US decommissions massive Cold War nuke

    Bunker buster busted

    The US has begun decommissioning its last B53 bomb, one of the largest thermonuclear devices ever built for its Cold War arsenal. The 12-foot device entered active service in 1962, and over 300 were built in all, with two variants: the B53-Y1, designed to create lasting fallout, and the relatively clean B52-Y2. The nine- …

    Government 25 Oct 20:28

  • Uncrackable quantum crypto undermined by new attack

    Bell test blinded by lasers

    Hopes of building an uncrackable cryptographic system using quantum mechanics have been called into question, after scientists devised a way to cheat a test used to detect secret keys that have been intercepted. By blinding detectors with laser beams, the scientists were able to defeat what's known as the Bell test. In theory, …

    Security 25 Oct 20:36

  • Schooner adds asynch replication to MySQL appliance

    Remote disaster recovery

    Schooner Information Technology, which makes a line of virtual machine appliances that goose the performance of MySQL databases and Memcached web cache programs by using CPU threads, cores and solid state disks in modern x86-based servers, has tweaked its MySQL appliance to give it better disaster recovery. Schooner came out …

    Servers 25 Oct 20:51

  • ACCC to NBN Co: 'get cracking'

    What is taking the special access undertaking so long?

    The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) has threatened to step in with price regulation if it thinks that NBN Co, the company building the country's National Broadband Network, is moving too slowly. The regulator told the NBN parliamentary committee that NBN Co has not yet lodged its "Special Access …

    Business 25 Oct 21:35

  • IBM names Ginni Rometty prez and CEO

    Palmisano to step down, remain chairman

    The suspense over who is going to run Big Blue after Sam Palmisano retires has ended. In fact, even before he retires, Ginni Rometty – a systems engineer who has worked her way up through the ranks since joining IBM three decades ago – has been named president and CEO, effective January 1, 2012. Rometty, 54, currently runs …

    Business 25 Oct 21:58

  • Oz consumer watchdog makes beeline for Smurf game

    ‘Shonky Award’ for in-game price sting

    It’s hard for the games business to get a look-in when the competition includes cosmetic-only car roof rails, an insurance industry that redefines “flood” to dodge claims, and snake-oil slimming products. However, Beeline Interactive has managed a placing in Choice’s annual Shonky Awards. Its now-notorious Smurfs’ Village game …

    Business 25 Oct 22:00

  • Google exec: 'Corporations ignore human rights'

    Not his own, of course

    Google's director of public policy doesn't think that companies are doing enough to promote human rights around the globe, and that cozying up to repressive governments is bad business. "You've got to be ready to lose some money in order to protect human rights," Bob Boorstin said to applause from the assembled activists and …

    Music and Media 25 Oct 22:46

  • Krebs nabs ‘RSA attack’ list

    Hundreds of networks hit

    When RSA’s network security was breached earlier this year, the result wasn’t only the replacement of its SecurID tokens all over the world. At the time, specialists believed that similar techniques could have been deployed against other victims who mostly didn’t go public. Only a handful of stories confirmed the use of …

    Security 25 Oct 23:00

  • Monash Uni gets neuromancer lab for marketing boffins

    Eye-trackers and thought readers, cyberpunk paradise

    Eye tracking and brain tracking simulation technologies feature in a new behavioural laboratory launched by Monash University to promote cross platform research. The laboratory features video monitoring equipment with eye-tracking capabilities, a suite of online survey software packages, a secure network operating system, …

    Music and Media 25 Oct 23:30

  • Apple gets patent for ‘unlock gesture’

    Jobs slides back the granite slab for one more whack at Android

    A US Patent granted today (October 25) will send Google and Android phone makers around the world reaching for their lawyers. Patent 8,046,721 is quite dull, but all-embracing in that special way that patents have become in America: “A device with a touch-sensitive display may be unlocked via gestures performed on the touch- …

    Business 25 Oct 23:38