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4th November 2011 Archive

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  • Teradata embiggens on big data

    Enough disks to get through the year

    Data warehousing pioneer Teradata is riding the big-data wave to higher sales and profits. In their third fiscal quarter, which ended in September, the company brought in 18 per cent more money peddling data warehousing and big-data appliances than it did a year ago, hitting $287m, and services sales went up a sharp 28 per …

    Servers 4 Nov 00:04

  • US, Europe throw their very first joint cyber-war party

    More to come, probably

    The European Union and the US on Thursday conducted their first ever cyber security exercises designed to coordinate responses to attacks on critical infrastructure. Security experts from the US and 27 EU member states were involved in the drill, which simulated crises affecting national security. In the first scenario, a …

    Security 4 Nov 00:14

  • Teradata in Analytics' crosshairs

    Blog Market growth brings new competition

    There’s a lot of activity surrounding enterprise analytics and ‘big data’ these days. The major IT vendors like IBM, HP, and Oracle have all bulked up their software, system, and service offerings with an eye toward being a one-stop enterprise analytics shop. Cisco and Dell (and others) will probably start making some more noise …

    Data Warehousing 4 Nov 00:30

  • Microsoft releases temporary fix for critical Windows bug

    Duqu vulnerability patched – for now

    Microsoft has issued a temporary fix for a critical Windows vulnerability that has already been exploited to install highly sophisticated malware that targeted manufacturers of industrial systems. In an advisory issued late Thursday, Microsoft said the previously unknown flaw in the Win32k TrueType font-parsing engine affected …

    Security 4 Nov 00:55

  • Kiwi national broadband network rolls with Huawei

    Worst kept secret confirmed

    Work on New Zealand’s national fibre network is poised to start following the confirmation of Huawei as the key technology provider for the Ultrafast Fibre network. In what has become one of the industry’s worst kept secrets, the government announced that tender winner on Friday November 4, despite many sectors if the industry …

    Business 4 Nov 06:33

  • Sonic Generations

    Review Speeding through time

    Sonic the Hedgehog celebrates his 25th anniversary this year and consequently, Sega is touting yet another title where the blue-speedster takes centre stage. According to the company, Sonic Generations broke Sega's pre-order records as the most anticipated Sonic title in 20 years. Hmm, and there I was thinking the heroic …

    reghardware 4 Nov 07:00

  • Maude: Open data is UK.gov's 'new way of operating'

    This kimono isn't just untied, it's transparent

    Transparency is a new way of operating and the public sector is now more accountable to the public, aided by the release of more than 7,500 datasets, including 800-plus geographical linked datasets via data.gov.uk, Cabinet Office minister Francis Maude has said. In a parliamentary written answer he said that the government's …

    Government 4 Nov 08:02

  • Storage industry Hulks up with green efficiency ratings

    SNIA Europe A standardised power efficiency metric for storage products

    The Storage Networking Industry Association (SNIA) has unveiled standardised storage product power efficiency ratings at its SNIA Europe event. The Emerald Power Efficiency Measurement Specification was developed under the Green Storage Initiative (GSI) by more than 25 SNIA member companies to provide a vendor-neutral power …

    Channel Register 4 Nov 08:34

  • Square pushes pay-by-facial recognition

    For when NFC is just too secure

    Web 2.0 darling Square is promising to make everyone a regular by promoting pay-by-face: just smile and ask to have your purchase put onto your bill with no authentication required. The system, which is opt in, knows which store you are in from the location of your phone, so presents the iPad-equipped shopkeeper with …

    Small Biz 4 Nov 09:04

  • Peat bogs will not cause runaway global warming

    Trials debunk positive feedback fears

    OK, so the world has warmed up a bit since 1950. This is terrible, because it means that the huge amounts of carbon stored in peat bogs will now start to be emitted into the atmosphere, which will cause more warming, which will release more peaty carbon and so on until all the Earth is a baking lifeless hell. It must be true …

    Energy 4 Nov 09:12

  • Ofcom proposes new rules on advertising deals

    Only due discrimination will be kosher. Take heed!

    Ofcom said it was laying out the proposed new rules as required of it under the UK's Communications Act. Under the Act, Ofcom must set out a code of practice that sets standards on "the content of programmes to be included in television and radio services" that ensure that "there is no undue discrimination between advertisers …

    Media 4 Nov 09:32

  • Cyberspace conference: All talk and no action

    LCC comment Let's talk about the possibility of talking about what to do

    On the first day of the London Conference on Cyberspace (LCC), an optimistic delegate stood up and prefaced his question to the panel with congratulations on the first steps in what he was sure would become known as "The London Cyber Process". It was an optimism the Foreign Office, which was hosting the summit, seemed to share …

    Security 4 Nov 09:50

  • Belkin Chef Stand and Stylus for tablets

    Accessory of the Week Keep your screen clean when you cook

    I’ve been experimenting with Jamie Oliver’s Recipes app recently, and it occurred to me that an iPad stand would come in handy when I’m fondling his dumplings in the kitchen - they go very well with his beef and Guinness stew. So imagine how positively "pukka" I felt when Belkin’s Chef Stand and Stylus turned up in the post …

    reghardware 4 Nov 10:00

  • Amazon rethinks Kindle Fire 2 screen size

    Bigger? Smaller? Who knows - do them all

    Amazon has yet to release the Kindle Fire, its 7in Android-based tablet e-book reader, but it's already being claimed that the firm has chnaged its mind about the Fire 2. Originally said to be a 10.1in job, the next Amazon tablet will actually have an 8.9in screen. So say moles from within "Amazon's supply chain" - LG and/or …

    reghardware 4 Nov 10:02

  • Kids! You get back in front of that Xbox right now

    Playing videogames makes kids more creative

    Positive news for gamers, and their parents. Hours in front of the glowing box hammering zombies as a youngster can make you more creative. A test of 491 12-year-olds found that the more they played video games, they more creative they were. The research by Linda A Jackson, a Professor of Psychology at Michigan State …

    Biology 4 Nov 10:16

  • Facebook denies malware risk from message bug

    Fixes security bypass flaw anyway

    Facebook has fixed a flaw that may have allowed users to attach executables to messages sent to other punters on the social network. Security blogger Nathan Power notified Facebook after finding the bug, which involved fiddling with messages sent between users who were not necessarily contacts. Facebook normally blocks the …

    Security 4 Nov 10:32

  • 'OH WOW. OH WOW. OH WOW'

    QuotW Plus: Nude woman in a dead horse

    Given that the week started with Halloween, it was perhaps appropriate that the weird and wonderful was prevalent. In honour of All Hallow's Eve, a tech geek transformed his fruity fondleslabs into an, erm, interesting costume. A Berkeley boffin argued that because of Einstein's most famous equation E=MC², ebook readers get …

    Odds and Sods 4 Nov 10:42

  • Nokia CEO talks up Windows 8 tablet 'opportunity'

    Fresh fondleslab in the works?

    Is Nokia reconsidering the release of a tablet? Comments from CEO Stephen Elop suggest the Finnish phone giant might well be. “There’s a new tablet opportunity coming,” Elop told BusinessWeek. “We see the opportunity. Unquestionably, that will change the dynamics” of the tablet market. The opportunity? Windows 8, apparently …

    reghardware 4 Nov 10:58

  • El Reg premieres PARIS: The Motion Picture

    Hot commemorative vid marks spaceplane anniversary

    Last week marked the anniversary of our Paper Aircraft Released Into Space (PARIS) triumph, and we decided to mark the occasion by offering our beloved readers a short commemorative video of the audacious spaceplane project. Yes, we can already hear you muttering "Why has it taken so long to get a bleedin' vid together?", and …

    SPB 4 Nov 11:03

  • Duke Nukem Forever dev slams unfair reviews

    Panned game up there with Half-Life, apparently

    Developer Gearbox this week said Duke Nukem Forever was reviewed unfairly, with co-founder Brian Martel comparing the Duke's return to the classic Half-Life. In an interview with Eurogamer at Gamescom in August - by which was published yesterday - Martel expressed confusion over the game's bad reception and insisted "everybody …

    reghardware 4 Nov 11:13

  • BOFH: We don't need no stinkin' upgrade

    Episode 17 Bloated, slow and leaky - what version numbers really mean

    "But I just want to go back to the way it was..." my user whines. "What, when computers crashed every 10 minutes?" "No, I..." "Where the Print function acted more like the combination of the Hang and Discard Changes functions?" "NO, I JUST WANT MY MENU BACK!" "You mean you don't like the ribbon? It's new!" "I don't care …

    BOFH 4 Nov 11:16

  • Jawbone instructs with fitness wristband

    Eat, sleep and exercise

    Bluetooth gadget specialist Jawbone has launched a self-help wristband to monitor your fitness, and track your eating and sleeping habits. The Jawbone Up keeps tabs on how much distance a user covers, how many calories they burn and the sleeping patterns they experience. With the latter, it'll identify what stage of sleep a …

    reghardware 4 Nov 11:22

  • Groupon snatches a great deal ... on itself

    Coupon site shares jump $2, valued at $13bn in IPO

    Groupon's IPO has gone better than expected, with shares selling $2 above the expected top price, valuing the company at almost $13bn. We feared all the pizzazz had gone out of the daily deal site's public outing, after various delays spurred by a rocky market, irregular accounting metrics and an out-of-turn rant by CEO Andrew …

    Financial News 4 Nov 11:29

  • China outraged by US cyberspying fingering

    'Well, I never!' – indignant Chinese official

    China is none too impressed with being fingered by the US as a major source of cyber espionage. The Office of the National Counterintelligence Executive (ONCIX) reported to Congress yesterday that both China and Russia were home to spies who hacked into US government and business networks to get access to its economic super- …

    Government 4 Nov 11:46

  • Samsung Galaxy Note and Nexus rooted

    Gain more control of your Android kit

    Samsung's 5.3in smartphone-cum-tablet, the Galaxy Note, has been rooted. So has its Android 4.0-based Galaxy Nexus handset. Of course, the Galaxy Nexus isn't out yet, but that hasn't stopped one enterprising early adopter with pre-release hardware from posting a utility, Superboot, that'll root the smartphone with "no need to …

    Mobile 4 Nov 11:59

  • Pass the remote control: vPro eases systems management

    Power at your fingertips

    Desktop management is big money. It’s a critical topic for any size business seeking to optimise its IT. The right combination of software and hardware results in very impressive desktop management capabilities. The heavy hitter on the hardware side is without question Intel. The vendor’s vPro provides unprecedented hardware- …

    Enterprise Tech 4 Nov 12:03

  • PlayStation Network downloads limited to two devices

    Activation restraints

    Sony announced today that future games purchased on the PlayStation Network will only be granted activation on two devices at any one time - down from the current number of five. While that applies to all PS3 owners and anyone with a PSP of some kind, have no fear, there is an easy workaround. The company is introducing an …

    reghardware 4 Nov 12:03

  • Pay-by-mobe app spells doom for impulse buyers

    So many ways to instantly pay, so little money

    Simply Tap, the Dunstone-backed mobile payments system, is now live in the UK, allowing shoppers to buy a phone using their, er, phone in Carphone Warehouse stores. Simply Tap was announced back in March and is now available for iOS and Android platforms. The service takes your credit card details and then uses them to pay for …

    Applications 4 Nov 12:14

  • Martian simnauts emerge from spaceship outside Moscow

    520-day red planet odyssey complete at last

    Six men who have spent the last 520 days sealed up inside a mock spacecraft outside Moscow simulating a mission to Mars have finally completed their task and emerged once more. “Thank you very much for your outstanding effort,” said Jean-Jacques Dordain, director general of the European Space Agency (ESA) after the crew …

    Space 4 Nov 12:33

  • Phone-hack scandal: Bloke cuffed in cop bung probe

    48-year-old held by Operation Elveden squad

    A 48-year-old man was arrested at an address outside London this morning by Scotland Yard officers in connection with allegations of "inappropriate payments to police". The Met said in a short statement that the unnamed man was detained on suspicion of corruption as part of Operation Elveden. That probe, supervised by the …

    Law 4 Nov 12:43

  • The Great Smartphone OS Shoot-out

    Review Android vs iOS vs Windows Phone vs BlackBerry

    If you want a smartphone - and, let’s face it, most people do these days - you have four choices, all of which have recently been updated. Apple’s rightly admired iOS has now hit the big 5-point-oh, Google’s rather more blue-collar Android is about to turn 4, while Microsoft’s Windows Phone is now a precocious seven-and-a-half …

    reghardware 4 Nov 12:48

  • Are we in the middle of a PATENT BUBBLE?

    Analysis Fallout from the IP wars could mutate your smartphone

    For some time, the only reason the word 'patent' meant anything to the average Joe was if they happened to know that Albert Einstein was a patent clerk before he became a rock star physicist. Nowadays, everyone is well up on the Great Patent Wars of technology firms, in particular the face-off between Apple and Android OS …

    Hardware 4 Nov 12:58

  • Alien city lights could be detected across interstellar space

    ET hiveplexes easier to pick up than their TV signals

    Top boffins in the US say that it should be possible to detect alien civilisations on planets orbiting other stars by looking for the light of their cities standing out at night. Hiveplexes Three to Five sadly gave away the peaceful Goldurnians to the Earthling invasion fleet. The proposal comes from Avi Loeb of the Harvard …

    Space 4 Nov 13:08

  • EU to quiz Apple and Samsung on Frand deals

    Some discrimination is more reasonable than other kinds

    The EU is chasing up Samsung, and Apple, for details of the Frand licensing dispute, so make sure everyone is playing in a fair, reasonable and non-discriminatory (FRAND) fashion. The EU investigation came to light in court documents filed by Apple in the ongoing dispute between the two companies. In the filing Apple claims …

    Government 4 Nov 13:14

  • Whinging Brits reflect on epic Oz road trip

    El Reg hacks versus the mighty Outback

    El Reg's Special Projects Bureau has just about recovered from its epic Oz roadtrip in pursuit of the World Solar Challenge competitors, and we though we'd share a few thoughts on our Outback odyssey. Since we're dyed-in-the-wool Poms, you can expect a few whinges along the way, but we've thoughtfully flagged these so those …

    SPB 4 Nov 13:29

  • LinkedIn whips out begging cap, asks for $500m

    Please, sir, can I have some more?

    LinkedIn is looking for a few million dollars more from the market so it can increase its capital and its public float. The social business network wants to raise the funds with a secondary offering of around $100m worth of its own shares, with another $400m or so coming in from stocks sold by existing holders. "The proceeds …

    Financial News 4 Nov 13:43

  • The Beeb is broken

    'Technical difficulties' for outage-hit Auntie

    The BBC homepage is on an outage at the moment, with visitors greeted with a stripped down version of the normal site. Whoops A little info icon directs you to the following explanation: Due to technical problems, we are displaying a simplified version of the BBC homepage. Ye-es, very informative. Anyway, clicking on …

    Media 4 Nov 13:51

  • Vatican mulls God particle, calls for appointment of antichrist

    US bloggers spot apocalyptical ruse

    The Vatican hosted a conference of physicists and other boffins this week amid claims that its recent musings on the financial crisis constitute a call for the appointment of the long-awaited antichrist. Participants at the International Symposium on Subnuclear Physics: Past, Present and Future included luminaries from …

    Bootnotes 4 Nov 13:58

  • Massive PC shortages to hit this Xmas

    Flooded disk drive fabs flush Santa's sack

    PC shortages will likely dampen retail sales this Christmas as a result of the shortfall in hard drive production caused by killer flooding in Thailand. Analysts claimed this week that 48 million fewer disks will be shipped this quarter, but had reckoned the PC supply chain has sufficient stocks to see it through to next year …

    Channel Register 4 Nov 14:13

  • Scale-out virgin Fujitsu pushes out high-performing tool

    SNW Europe Terabyte per second throughput: Out-scales SONAS

    The scale-out file computing world has a new player: Fujitsu. The company has just pushed out its FEFS product in Japan. Fujitsu FEFS is a terabyte per second scale-out file system for high-performance computing. It could come westwards and provide competition for SONAS, EMC Isilon, and other big data file systems. FEFS …

    Storage 4 Nov 14:29

  • UK.gov digital boss defends ID assurance scheme

    'Days of different logins for every site are numbered'

    The Cabinet Office's newly installed digital captain has robustly defended the department's plans to beef up an identity assurance scheme with the help of banks and internet companies. Mike Bracken, skirting over the fact that a new law will almost certainly be needed to be pushed through Parliament to make such a proposal a …

    Government 4 Nov 14:45

  • Gov reduces e-petitions to public spleen-venting exercise

    Just a way of gauging public's mood

    MPs don't have time to debate the public's e-petitions, a senior minister said yesterday in Parliament, adding nonetheless that it was a nice way for people to express what they was interested in. The e-petitions website hasn't quite delivered the utopian future of internet-democracy some might have hoped – out of the five …

    Government 4 Nov 15:03

  • EU: Check out our huge JavaScript appendage

    Views sought on version 1 of €10m extension

    The EU's effort to extend JavaScript has hit version 1, and is asking for community comments on the effort to create (another) set of extensions to take JavaScript into the mainstream. Webinos is backed by the EU to the tune of €10m, and the work is largely being done by Fraunhofer Fokus. The idea is to create standard …

    Developer 4 Nov 15:19

  • Groupon shares soar, adds $2.7bn in two hours

    Price shoots up faster than bosses' champers cork

    Groupon's share price shot up almost 40 per cent in its first two hours of trading today. The daily deals site stock went up to $27.85 by 11am EDT – up from the initial public offering share price of $20 – after nearly hitting $30 earlier in the morning. If the stock stayed there, it would mean the company had gone from being …

    Financial News 4 Nov 15:26

  • Music biz presses BT to block The Pirate Bay

    Chuck it in the Newzbin2, er, please

    BT has been asked by music industry outfit BPI to voluntarily block BitTorrent tracker website The Pirate Bay. "For too long The Pirate Bay has been allowed to attack the livelihoods of individual artists and session musicians. We hope that BT will voluntarily block this prolific, illegal site,” wrote the BPI in a missive …

    Media 4 Nov 15:42

  • Linux Foundation: Will it be your friend or foe?

    Open ... And Shut Stepping on toes in pursuit of glory

    The more the Linux Foundation broadens its mandate beyond its core mission of "fostering the growth of Linux", the more it risks stepping on the toes of its most ardent supporters. This tension was on full display earlier this week when The Register reported an apparent conflict between the Linux Foundation's support for …

    Developer 4 Nov 16:02

  • Modern Warfare 3 flogged on eBay for a grand

    Get rich and try dying

    Copies of Activision's forthcoming FPS Modern Warfare 3 have been selling on eBay for staggering prices, with one auction ending yesterday at $1725. Earlier this week, Xbox versions of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 were available to buy from Kmart after the US retailer accidentally put them on shelves early. Many of those …

    reghardware 4 Nov 16:06

  • Acer to murder Gateway brand

    Kit re-badged as Acer Business in new year

    Acer is to kill off the Gateway branding on all its server and storage kit from Q1 2012, partially purging its multi-brand strategy. The Taiwanese giant blew $710m (£443m) on Gateway in 2007. But following a disastrous run for Gateway, which was positioned by its parent as a channel-only mid-market infrastructure player, the …

    Channel Register 4 Nov 16:14

  • HSBC UK systems major outage

    Customers can't use cards, online banking or ATMs

    An outage in HSBC systems took down their online banking services and affected the functioning of their cards at both ATMs and points-of-sale on Friday, November 4. An HSBC UK spokesman told The Register that the bank had experienced problems since 2.45pm GMT, and that the problems were now hitting "definitely online banking …

    Business 4 Nov 16:22

  • Disk-over-Ethernet startup trousers another $50m

    VCs pump more dosh into Coraid

    A year after snagging $25m in venture capital funding Coraid has gone back to the cash well and scooped up another $50m. The VCs think Coraid is going places. Quick recap: Coraid is the networked storage startup using the ATA-over-Ethernet (AoE) protocol, a system simpler than iSCSI but with no cross-industry support and hence …

    Storage 4 Nov 16:31

  • Hackers mistake French rugby site for German stock exchange

    Fans tackled by 'young, spotty Teuton' gang

    Hacktivists mistakenly attacked a French rugby fansite instead of their intended target, the German stock exchange. The misdirected assault meant the allezdax.com website, a fan site for French second division side rugby club Dax, was unavailable for two weeks. Meanwhile the hackers' intended target, the German stock exchange …

    Security 4 Nov 16:44

  • Watchdog urged to probe Microsoft's cloud claims... again

    Why don't you have another crack at it, ASA?

    The Advertising Standards Authority has been asked to reopen an investigation into Microsoft's boasts of 99.9 per cent uptime for its cloud services. The plea follows complaints that the ad watchdog did not properly tackle Redmond the first time round. As revealed a while back, the ASA was asked by a Microsoft customer to …

    Cloud Business 4 Nov 17:01

  • Boffinry summit names 3 new elements

    Ununnilium, unununium and ununbium get official monikers

    Boffinry chiefs meeting in London are chuffed to announce the official naming of three new elements on the periodic table. Atoms with 110, 111 and 112 protons in their nuclei will henceforth be known as darmstadtium (Ds), roentgenium (Rg) and copernicium (Cn) respectively. The names were suggested by the Joint Working Party …

    Science 4 Nov 17:31

  • Profiteers cash in on Steve Jobs' signature glasses

    Saintly relics fly off store shelves

    In the latest example of the tsunami of adulation that has followed Steve Jobs' untimely death – and the latest reminder that there's a dollar to be made from every tragedy – the eyeglasses worn by the Apple cofounder on the cover of Walter Isaacson's biography are flying off store shelves. As reported by The Wall Street …

    Odds and Sods 4 Nov 17:59

  • Siri gets over her huff, returns useful as ever

    OK, I will open the pod-bay doors

    Apple's vocal mistress Siri had a brief time-out yesterday when the cloud-based service dispersed, leaving iPhone users to prod their screens like everyone else. It's not clear what went wrong. Apple is being as fulsome as ever, but for a good few hours Americans were greeted with a connection error when asking Siri a question …

    Cloud 4 Nov 18:02

  • Manufacturers testing wider cars for swingbellies

    Broad in the beam? Get a Beemer

    Luxury car makers BMW and Porsche are trialling extra wide cars in order to cater for the growing backsides of their customers. As their clientele's contact zones increase the manufacturers aren't just making the seats wider, they're making the whole car wider. BMW were revealed to be running tests on making cars more …

    Bootnotes 4 Nov 18:27

  • German website offers custom cow killing

    Abattoir or field killed, sir?

    A German web site is offering beef buyers a variety of options on how they would like their ruminant reduced to ribs. The company (www.mycow.de) operates out of the northeastern German state of Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania and offers a variety of cattle breeds, including Galloway and Aberdeen Angus, which are raised …

    Odds and Sods 4 Nov 18:28

  • CIA 'Open Source Center' monitors Facebook, Twitter

    And anything else that anyone can contribute to openly

    The CIA has opened the kimono on its Virginia-based Open Source Center, where a team known as the "vengeful librarians" pore over Facebook, Twitter, internet chat rooms, and any other overseas forum that anyone can access and contribute to openly, the Associated Press reports. With hundreds of analysts, the team is charged with …

    Media 4 Nov 19:29

  • Feds back down from legalizing government lies

    Freedom of information act rescued by powerful Republican

    The US Department of Justice has dropped a controversial proposed ruling that would have allowed them to say that records don't exist when, in fact, they do – a response that in the vernacular might simply be called lying. "The Justice Department decided that misleading the American people would be wrong, and made the right …

    Government 4 Nov 20:28

  • Google mum on AdSense payments failure fix

    Web publishers facing tough time ahead

    Some web publishers are facing financial stress as Google’s AdSense platform has been withholding payments for advertising, in some cases since the September fees were due. AdSense users contacted Google last month regarding a zeroing out of their accounts in September. With many accounts, the amount due was stuck at $0, …

    Media 4 Nov 22:19

  • Groupon's IPO: don't get too excited about 30% rise

    Tech stock history: excitement followed by yawns

    When The Reg reported on Friday morning that the stock price of daily-deals coupon-monger Groupon was hovering at $27.85 two hours after going on sale at $20, we noted that if it stayed at that level, the company would be worth $15.7bn when NASDAQ shut down for the day. We were close – well, if you can call one billion …

    Financial News 4 Nov 23:21

  • SSL authority stops issuing certificates following breach

    Here we go again

    Yet another web authentication authority has stopped issuing secure sockets layer certificates after discovering a security breach that allowed hackers to store attack tools on one of its servers. Netherlands-based KPN Corporate Market said it was taking the action while it investigated the compromise, which may have taken …

    Security 4 Nov 23:54