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14th November 2011 Archive

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  • Grabble heads for Silicon Valley

    A long way from Wollongong for shopping startup

    A startup from Wollongong which just handily happens to fit the “founded in a garage” narrative beloved of the tech sector has been acquired by WallMart and is off to Silicon Valley. Grabble, established by Stuart Argue and Anthony Marcar, produces a point-of-service app for smartphones, was mentored by startup incubators …

    Business 14 Nov 00:30

  • Slapped: Oz TV show spikes Dutch freetard site

    ‘Don’t spoil our international rollout plans’

    Netherlands-based BitTorrent site Diwana.org is no more, reportedly following action from Australian copyright attack dog AFACT. According to TV Tonight, the freetard host was smacked down after Australian production company Matchbox Pictures (acquired earlier this year by NBC) found it to be the parent of another unauthorised …

    Music and Media 14 Nov 01:12

  • AMD rides Bulldozers into the x86 server chip war

    SC11 Opteron 6200s AND 4200s enter field against Xeon E5s

    Advanced Micro Devices was expected to launch its "Interlagos" Opteron 6200 server processors about now in conjunction with the SC11 supercomputing conference in Seattle. But what wasn't known was that AMD was going to kick out the entry eight-core "Valencia" Opteron 4200 processors now, too, rather than do a two-step launch …

    Servers 14 Nov 05:01

  • Sony Walkman NWZ-A866

    Review Touchscreen tunesmith

    Rumours that Apple would kill the iPod may have been far from the mark, but it doesn't stop rival companies wrestling for their own portion of the portable music player pie, despite smartphones eroding this market. Indeed, Sony still knocks out respectable PMPs and its latest A-series Walkmans are slick, lightweight models with …

    reghardware 14 Nov 07:00

  • Nexsan adds NAS range topper

    Petabyte E5510 box

    Mid-tier storage array supplier Nexsan continues rebuilding its product line with the E5510 array, topping 1PB in capacity. Nexsan aims to grow by bringing enterprise array features to mid-range products. It has to chart a course between low-cost suppliers undercutting it and enterprise array suppliers producing cost-reduced …

    Channel Register 14 Nov 08:03

  • Cray lands $188m Blue Waters NCSA contract

    SC11 Breaking 10 petaflops with Opteron-GPU tag team

    If there was a reason that Cray CEO Peter Ungaro, who formerly ran IBM's high performance computing biz, was a little extra perky when the company announced its third quarter financials two weeks ago, it was not just because the SC11 supercomputing trade show was coming to Cray's hometown of Seattle this week. Or that Advanced …

    HPC 14 Nov 08:05

  • Beyond the relational database

    Tech Panel Help us make sense of 'Big Data'

    As many marketeers switch their attention from the word 'cloud' to the term 'big data', you can almost hear the groans as another bandwagon starts to roll. It's now getting to the point where, yet again, we are being bombarded with terms and messages that are ambiguous at best, meaningless at worst. So in true Freeform …

    CIO 14 Nov 08:08

  • Chinese hacks face life ban for nicking rumours from web

    Two sources minimum for each story ... or else

    The Chinese government has issued new regulations for journalists that require them to provide two sources for everything they print. The new rules, issued by the General Administration of Press and Publication (GAPP), are widely being interpreted as a move from the government to stop Chinese journalists publishing stories …

    Government 14 Nov 08:21

  • Overland still shovelling cash into tape

    Storage company revs Neo

    New mid-range tape libraries from Overland Storage indicate older models may be heading for the chip, and show there's life in the supposedly moribund tape dog yet. NEO 600s and 800s products, with four and six drives respectively, put the older 2-drive 2000e and 4-drive 4000e at risk. The new libraries slot in above the NEO …

    Channel Register 14 Nov 08:39

  • PSP owners must pay to port games to PS Vita

    Pay for UMD passport

    Sony has released details how PlayStation Portable users can continue to play their UMD titles on the upcoming PS Vita. Of course, the Vita lacks a UMD drive, so to play the old titles, Sony has come up with a device called UMD Passport, set to launch in Japan on 6 December and presumably over here in February 2012 when the PS …

    reghardware 14 Nov 09:01

  • BSA name-and-shame tactic may have backfired

    Audit policy of software law enforcement cops questioned

    The processes – or lack of them – applied by the Business Software Alliance (BSA) to determine if crimes against software were committed have been placed under the spotlight. Call management software developer Tiger Communications was rapped on the knuckles late last month for using software illegally and BSA boasted it had …

    Channel Register 14 Nov 09:02

  • Netflix signs Reservoir Dogs film firm for UK streaming

    Lionsgate joins MGM

    Netflix has won the agreement of Lionsgate Films to stream the movie distributor's offerings to its UK subscribers when it launches over here in 2012. Earlier this month Netflix announced a UK streaming deal with MGM, and it is believed to be talking to ITV too. Heck, it's talking to everyone. You don't set up in opposition …

    reghardware 14 Nov 09:15

  • Israeli air raid vs Iran nukes boardgame out in time for Xmas

    'Persian Incursion', fun for all the family!

    Speculation regarding a possible Israeli air campaign against Iran's nuclear facilities has been rife for years – a pair of MIT students wrote an analysis on the subject back in 2007, and countless articles have appeared before then and since. Now, however, it's possible to do more than simply talk about such a battle: should …

    Entertainment 14 Nov 09:21

  • Don't get privates trapped in Facebook's silos, warn experts

    'Social media' is so 2010, now it's 'life logging'

    The EU information security agency (ENISA) has warned that people can get too easily "trapped" into "personalised information silos" when using social networks. In a new report, the security experts said that there was a risk associated with the growing use of what it described as "life-logging" technology. ENISA said that a …

    Networks 14 Nov 09:41

  • E-car crash leads to battery blaze

    Impact test prompts safety probe

    A GM Volt e-car has burst into flames following a crash. To be fair, the crash was intentional. It was a side-impact test performed by the US National Highway Traffic Safety Administration in May, but has now prompted a probe into e-car battery safety, Reuters reports. And the fire broke out more than three weeks after the …

    reghardware 14 Nov 09:52

  • Ion Audio Piano Apprentice

    Geek Treat of the Week Learn to tickle the ivories

    It might look a bit silly, but the Piano Apprentice from Ion Audio, the company famous for its USB LP decks, is good fun – and could actually help you learn to play the piano. It consists of a two-octave keyboard with a small set of internal speakers. It has a small stand to support your iPad, iPod or iPhone, and a cable that …

    reghardware 14 Nov 10:00

  • Top cop calls for tougher sentencing of cybercrooks

    Claims old-school bloggers too thick to use tech

    Cybercrims should get tough sentences, according to the head of Scotland Yard's e-crime unit, who criticised judges for going easy on e-banking fraudsters while throwing the book at the their old-school cohorts in crime. Det Supt Charlie McMurdie expressed frustration that cyber-fraudsters, such as those convicted as the …

    Crime 14 Nov 10:12

  • Apple recalls first iPod Nanos over battery flaw

    Music player a 'rare safety risk'

    Apple is asking for its six-year-old first-generation iPod Nano back. Having uncovered a "very rare" instance in which the music player may overheat "and pose a safety risk", Apple is replacing them. "This issue has been traced to a single battery supplier that produced batteries with a manufacturing defect," Apple said. " …

    reghardware 14 Nov 10:21

  • Mystery radioisotopes in Czech air are not from Fukushima

    Who has a secret nuclear plant?

    The International Atomic Energy Agency has said that traces of radioactive isotopes have been detected in the atmosphere over the Czech Republic. The State Office for Nuclear Safety in the country reported to the UN watchdog that very low levels of iodine-131 had been measured in the last few days. "It was detected by our …

    Environment 14 Nov 10:32

  • Ex-councillor jailed for grooming blackmailer posing as teen

    Bloke chatted up '15-year-old girl' on web

    A 52-year-old Londoner has been jailed for 15 months after he was caught attempting to sexually groom a child online. Scotland Yard said that John Friary, of Camberwell Road, SE5, was sentenced last Friday at Isleworth Crown Court. Friary, a former Labour councillor, was snared by a blackmailer posing as a 15-year-old girl on …

    Crime 14 Nov 10:41

  • New claim: iPhone 5 was a goer until Jobs bottled it

    Bad battery life and new display blamed

    Apple was planning to launch the iPhone 5 this year, but it bottled it because Steve Jobs wasn't happy, Business Insider reports, quoting a source who claims to have played with a prototype months before the 4S was announced. Claiming that the 4S is a stop-gap, the industry mole revealed that the iPhone he saw had a 4in screen …

    Mobile 14 Nov 10:52

  • BT Tower falls over, crushes X Factor hopefuls

    Simon Cowell's monster downed in giant pussy* attack?

    BT's iconic central London tower flipped out on Saturday evening, delaying transmission of an episode of The X Factor for 15 minutes. The delay to the start of Saturday night talent-show-cum-hard-luck-story-cringefest sparked a cascade of conspiracy theories, as concerned fans stayed on their arses to bombard Twitter and …

    Bootnotes 14 Nov 11:01

  • What happens when users are left to their own devices?

    Broadcast The changing shape of practices

    It's clear that there are fundamental changes happening in the way people, and businesses, want to work. The relentless pace of technology developments has given us ever better and more connected notebooks, and now smartphones and tablets. This means we can work wherever and whenever it suits. That's all well and good, but …

    CIO 14 Nov 11:11

  • Space station resupply 'nauts avoid fiery death

    Soyuz rocket didn't crash this time

    The delayed Soyuz launch of two cosmonauts and an astronaut to the International Space Station lifted off successfully in the early hours of Monday morning. The Russian Soyuz TMA-22 launched on schedule at 4.14am GMT from the Baikonur cosmodrome in Kazakhstan, carrying NASA astronaut Dan Burbank and Russian cosmonauts Anton …

    Space 14 Nov 11:21

  • The new touchy-feely Doctor Who trend: Worrying

    Timey-wimey cuddling has replaced the Stiff Upper Lip

    For a certain type of alphabetised-DVD-collection Doctor Who fan, there’s a crafty mental reset button that can be pressed when encountering deeply uncomfortable concepts. Concepts such as when the Eighth Doctor, Paul McGann, casually let it slip that he was actually half-human, or upon hearing the Doctor In Distress charity …

    Music and Media 14 Nov 11:33

  • Iran wrestles Duqu malware infestation

    Son of Stuxnet cyberweapon makes landfall in Tehran

    Iran admitted on Sunday that unspecified computer systems in the country had been infected with the Duqu worm, a strain of malware similar to the infamous Stuxnet worm that sabotaged key nuclear plant systems in the country last year. The head of Iran's civil defence organization told the official IRNA news agency that the …

    Malware 14 Nov 11:41

  • Intel out to add NFC payment tech to Ultrabooks

    Tap your card on your laptop to pay

    Intel wants to build contactless payment tech into Ultrabooks. The chip giant today announced a partnership with MasterCard to work on bringing the credit card company's tap-to-pay PayPass system to PCs. The idea is clear: order something on the web then pay for it by tapping your PayPass-enabled credit card or NFC-equipped …

    reghardware 14 Nov 11:42

  • Vacuum cleaner set Swedish nuke plant on fire

    £170m blunder put reactor out of action for months

    A nuclear powerplant in Sweden was put out of action for seven months at a cost of 1.8 billion kronor (£170m) after a vacuum cleaner was mistakenly left inside its containment vessel during tests, according to reports. Swedish English-language journal The Local reports on the revelations which have followed the fire which …

    Environment 14 Nov 11:51

  • Robo-bear helps snorers snooze more smoothly

    Tickle for a quiet night

    If you're sick of applying Sinex before sleep, fearful that snores will prompt your spouse to groan, prod and eventually stick an old sock in your mouth, then perhaps this robotic polar bear is the way forward. Jukusui-kun is a tool to help those with sleep apnea syndrome kip better. It comes in the guise of a cuddly bear, …

    reghardware 14 Nov 11:59

  • Dud Mars probe's explosion will spare Earth's cities

    Clock ticking on orbiting 7,500kg tank of fuel

    The chief of the Russian space agency has assured the public that the stalled and uncommunicative Mars probe Phobos-Grunt will not smash into a populated area of Earth. Vladimir Popovkin, head of Roscosmos, told reporters that if the wayward spacecraft re-enters the Earth's atmosphere, which he believes is still the worst-case …

    Space 14 Nov 12:09

  • Oracle coughs up $35m owed in unpaid overtime pay

    Settlement after bosses sued by own staff

    Oracle will cough up $35m to resolve a class-action dispute with 1,725 of its workers in the US over unpaid overtime and meal allowances. The superior court in Alameda County, California last week gave preliminary backing to the settlement, according to Goldstein, Demchak, Baller, Borgen and Dardarian – the legal eagles …

    Channel Register 14 Nov 12:21

  • Pros thrash amateurs in Hong Kong iPhone 4S race

    No black, no white... just grey

    Apple's iPhone 4S launch in Hong Kong was marred by scuffles, scalpers and the turning away of over 2,000 wannabe customers, according to local reports. The launch of the not-quite-the-iPhone 5 had generated pandemonium in the territory, as Apple had just opened its first store there, giving the Hong Kongers their first …

    Mobile 14 Nov 12:31

  • O2 smears 4G trial over capital

    Growing from Slough like a 100Mb/s fungus

    O2 is spreading its LTE trial across The Big Smoke, connecting up a thousand people at 4G speeds for the next seven months* to see what Londoners' can do with 100Mb/s. The trial extension includes 25 base stations across the capital, including the O2 arena, Canary Wharf and the like. But the 1,000 trialists will only get to …

    Wireless 14 Nov 12:42

  • Diaspora co-founder dies at 22

    Open-source Facebook alternative loses 'key voice'

    Open-source social network Diaspora has launched a redesigned alpha version of its software, with invites going out to users of the site hours before it was confirmed that co-founder Ilya Zhitomirskiy, 22, had died. Diaspora is considered by some to be an alternative to Facebook's silo effect, with users supposedly being given …

    Music and Media 14 Nov 12:51

  • Samsung RV720 17in Core i3 notebook

    Review Big screen bargain?

    Desktop replacement laptops are a genre of portable computer apparently intent on chuntering on forever without ever truly succeeding or dying. By nature, they tend not to be petite, and Samsung's RV720 is no exception. Desktop replacement on the cheap: Samsung's RV720 Weighing around 2.7kg and measuring up at 420mm wide by …

    reghardware 14 Nov 12:57

  • Kindle Fire ignites blazing developer interest

    May 'resurrect the entire Android tablet category'

    Amazon's Kindle Fire has built up quite a head of steam among gadget fans in anticipation of its Tuesday release – and now a new survey shows that that developers are feeling the warmth, as well. "What we asked in our survey was, 'Okay, Mr. Developer, you've been looking at tablets for the last year, what do you make of the …

    Channel Register 14 Nov 13:01

  • Conflict mineral laws haven't helped Congolese

    20,000 miners families starve while NGOs twiddle their thumbs

    So the tantalum for the capacitors in our electronics comes from columbo-tantalite, which is coltan, which comes from militias in the Congo, so we should have a law making sure that no tantalum for our electronics comes from militias in the Congo. Fine, we do have that now, it's part of Dodd Frank*, and how's it working out? …

    Law 14 Nov 13:14

  • Freebie Android anti-malware scanners flunk tests

    Worse than useless

    Many free-of-charge antivirus products fail to protect Android smartphone against malware effectively, leaving users with a false sense of security as a result. Tests by antivirus testing lab AV-Test.org revealed that the best freebie Android anti-virus scanner, Zoner Antivirus, caught 32 per cent of 160 recent Android threats …

    Malware 14 Nov 13:29

  • Never lose that .uk again: Decade-long renewals OK'd

    Or renew for just a year

    UK businesses will be able to register their .co.uk internet addresses for up to a decade at a time under a new and more flexible policy agreed by registry Nominet. Starting 1 May 2012, official registrars will be able to sell domain names for periods of between one and 10 years. This brings .uk into line with other top-level …

    Hosting 14 Nov 13:44

  • Top 500 Supers: Détente in East, West petaflops race

    SC11 An arsenal of big iron deploying soon

    For the first time since the Top 500 rankings of supercomputers was started back in 1993, the top 10 machines on the list are ranked in exactly the same order as they were in the list six months ago. But the HPC racket is set to explode, with multi-petaflops machines in the works using new processors and GPU coprocessors. You …

    HPC 14 Nov 14:02

  • Google flings Bing into search engine bin

    Not! even! Yahoo! can! help! us! now! master!

    A worrying trend for Microsoft's search engine was revealed last Friday: Bing's market share remained flat over the last two months while Google clawed back web surfers. According to ComScore, Bing is struggling to add users – despite Microsoft's expensive efforts to make the search engine a serious contender against the …

    Music and Media 14 Nov 14:10

  • Server virtualisation: How to pick the right model

    Which is the fairest of them all?

    Virtualisation has become an over-used buzzword. On mainframes, it has been around for ages. Its introduction to x86 took a concept formerly reserved for Big Tech and let it loose among the masses. Once a straightforward technology with a limited number of implementation models, virtualisation has been bootstrapped and …

    Network Futures 14 Nov 14:14

  • Lego movie greenlighted by Warner Bros

    May be mangled by live action/animation hybrid platform

    Film studio Warner Bros has given the green light to its animated Lego movie, which is now expected to be released in 2014. Harry Potter Lego game poster (click to enlarge) Credit: Warner/TT Games The studio has struck up a deal with the Aussie special effects cartoon house Animal Logic, which put together movies like Happy …

    Music and Media 14 Nov 14:19

  • The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim

    Review Bludgeons and dragons

    Skyrim is set in the land of the Nords, a craggy treacherous landscape that reminds me of George R R Martin's series A Song of Ice and Fire and has the same epic scale. After the King of Skyrim is assassinated the land is plunged into civil war and the region has become severed from the rest of the empire. The game starts by …

    reghardware 14 Nov 14:21

  • SGI to put Intel's Xeon E5s in ICE X systems

    SC11 Opteron 6200s put on ice

    Supercomputer maker Silicon Graphics has been chomping at the bit for Intel to get its "Sandy Bridge-EP" Xeon E5 servers to market. And rather than wait until early next year to launch its new ICE X parallel machines to market, and give rival Cray and its Opteron 6200-based XE6 and XK6 supers all the headlines at the SC11 …

    HPC 14 Nov 14:29

  • Dixons rolls out cut-price 3D, smart TVs

    Passive 3D for cheap specs

    Dixons has launched its own brand of 3D TV, Logik, with the hope of encouraging consumers lacking confidence back into the shops with low prices. Logik sets run to 32in, 42in and 47in in size, each available with fluorescent or LED backlighting, all with 1080p screens. LED ups price by £50 to £150, depending on the model. …

    reghardware 14 Nov 14:42

  • Web keeps bent politicians honest, says Google boss

    Bigs up Russia as next Silicon Valley

    Google supremo Eric Schmidt reckons that the internet is making politics work better, telling business leaders at the sidelines of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation APEC conference in Honolulu that the web keeps governments of the world honest. Speaking on Saturday, Schmidt said that the ability of whistleblowers to report …

    Networks 14 Nov 14:44

  • Facebook ad helps Scot cops seize fake goods, drugs

    Tip-offs rocket: Clicks easier than phonecalls

    Cash, drugs and illegal goods have been seized in Scotland after coppers logged into Facebook to snare the crooks. The plod bagged over £68,000 in cash, drugs valued at £21,000 and £13,000 of counterfeit goods during Operation Opulent, which followed a campaign that let people report via the web anyone thought to be making …

    Music and Media 14 Nov 15:01

  • Sega honours Sonic's 20th birthday with documentary

    Mr. Hedgehog, this is your life

    Sega is celebrating Sonic the Hedgehog's 20th anniversary this year and has pieced together a documentary detailing how the blue speedster came to be. From Sonic's initial creation to rival battles with Nintendo's Mario and achievements since, the doco is an engrossing insight into the cutthroat gaming world of the 1990s. If …

    reghardware 14 Nov 15:07

  • Sage sued for pulling out too soon

    Former MYOB owners upset after Brit biz dumped them

    British accounting software firm Sage is being sued for pulling out of a deal to buy Australia's MYOB in August. The former owner of Mind Your Own Business (MYOB), Archer Capital, is now taking Sage to court after the talks between the two companies fell apart, Sage admitted in an LSE filing today. Sage was all fired up and …

    Small Biz 14 Nov 15:11

  • iPhone baby clothes shop mauled by Apple

    Cupertino misses opportunity to condition kids

    Not content with firing patent suits at tech rivals, Apple's lawyers have forced a baby clothes retailer to halt sales of items styled on the iPod and iPhone user interfaces and icons. The US giant is fiercely protective of its brand image, having spent millions of dollars on marketing its kit to shiny loving IT professionals …

    Small Biz 14 Nov 15:21

  • Pass the wine, dear. Yes, that papier-mache thing

    Greenies hide booze in cheap art material

    Papier-mache is no longer just for primary school art projects: eco-nuts in Suffolk have decided to start packaging wine in the stuff. You could soon be supping a fine Rioja poured from an oblong paper shell lined with a plastic bag, thanks to British start-up GreenBottle. El Reg doubts this sort of thing will be appearing on …

    Bootnotes 14 Nov 15:31

  • Intel implants cash register to help flog Ultrabooks

    NFC tech backed by MasterCard

    MasterCard and Intel have announced they'll be working together to put NFC readers into Ultrabooks that will secure online shopping as well as user identity. The agreement between Intel and MasterCard involves putting PayPass-compatible terminals into Ultrabooks, so any thus-equipped Ultrabook will be able to operate as an …

    PCs & Chips 14 Nov 15:45

  • Meanwhile in Japan: Your new best pal is a vending machine

    Vid Chirpy mobile rewards game or grim future?

    Almost a million vending machines in Japan will be ready to start a personal relationship with shoppers, rewarding regulars with weather checks and even remembering their birthdays. Punters can check into the machines using a camera-equipped phone to snap a QR code and assign an avatar to that machine. Check in often enough …

    Wireless 14 Nov 16:02

  • What's that sound? It's PC sales plummeting into abyss

    Apple, Samsung soar away from doom

    The UK PC market could be bottoming out after most of the major vendors posted sequential quarterly growth, abacus stroker Gartner has claimed. However HP, Acer and Dell PC sales are still in a nosedive compared to last year's shipments. The final market stats for Q3 2011 were baked and served today by the beancounter, with UK …

    Channel Register 14 Nov 16:11

  • Intel takes the heat off power management

    Stay cool in the data centre

    Intel has a new piece of software called Data Center Manager (DCM), which provides power management ranging from the individual server level up to the bird's-eye-view of your entire data centre. There are still few supported devices for this fledgling product. Given Intel's heavy push for cloud computing, I expect that to …

    Enterprise Tech 14 Nov 16:16

  • Proprietary interconnects blaze the networking trail

    Ethernet and InfiniBand left behind

    Given the great strides that Ethernet and InfiniBand networking have made in the past decade, you would think that there wasn't much room for proprietary interconnects linking together nodes in parallel supercomputers. Oddly enough, despite the overwhelming popularity of these two increasingly similar networking technologies, …

    Network Futures 14 Nov 16:17

  • NetApp's £1m challenge won by precisely no one

    Crap entries flood contest

    Nobody won a million pounds of kit from NetApp because data centre nerds thought the offer was unbelievable or couldn't be bothered with the paperwork. NetApp UK offered an award of up to £1m in NetApp hardware, software, and services to a lucky customer that managed to reduce its storage usage by 50 per cent through using …

    Storage 14 Nov 16:29

  • Now Barracuda bitten by Thai disk drought disaster

    Killer floods push up prices

    The deadly floods that wrecked electronic component factories in Thailand are sending Barracuda disk drive prices rocketing. We're told a 3TB Seagate Barracuda XT priced £171.95 ($274) on 22 September from eBuyer now costs £289.99 ($462), £118.04 ($188) more. Ouch! That's a 68 per cent price rise. A Reg reader says the rate …

    Storage 14 Nov 16:46

  • Yates of the Yard cleared of misconduct

    OK'ed to pass on CV of NotW's hack's kid for job at Met

    Former Scotland Yard assistant commissioner, John Yates, has been cleared of misconduct, after it was claimed that he had helped the daughter of a News of the World journalist get a job at the Met. The Independent Police Complaints Commission said in a brief statement that, following a probe into Yates' affairs, no evidence …

    Music and Media 14 Nov 16:49

  • Pogoplug launches cloud sync'n'store service

    5GB of free online storage, etc, etc

    Cloud Engines, the company behind the Pogoplug DIY cloud gadgets, today launched an online storage service that doesn't require hardware at home. Pogoplug Cloud is a Dropbox-style service: you get 5GB of online storage space for free, but you can expand that to 50GB or 100GB for $10 (£6) and $20 (£13) a month, respectively. …

    reghardware 14 Nov 17:03

  • Micro Anvika forced into cash-only trading

    Fears for Tottenham Court Road veteran

    Fears are mounting over the future of veteran Tottenham Court Road retailer Micro Anvika after credit insurers removed cover for suppliers and it was forced to trade on a cash-only basis. The firm continues to pay bills on time but channel sources have questioned whether the pressure on working capital is sustainable following …

    Channel Register 14 Nov 17:07

  • Legendary investor scoffs IBM stake, nibble by nibble

    Buffett makes first real bet on the tech sector

    Super-investor Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway biz has revealed that he has spent most of this year buying up a 5.5 per cent share in IBM. The "Oracle of Omaha" said Berkshire had bought $10.7bn of IBM's stock to take a stake that makes it, along with State Street Global Advisors, one of the largest investors in the …

    CIO 14 Nov 17:16

  • Intel ships six-core desktop 'Extremes'

    Long-awaited 'Sandy Bridge E' uncloaked

    Intel has released two new top-of-the-line, six-core "Sandy Bridge E" processors, the first to bring four-channel memory to the desktop. Before this Monday, the high end of Intel's desktop line was capped by the four-core 3.5GHz i7-2700K. Now that spot has been taken over by the six-core 3.3GHz i7-3960X Extreme Edition, which …

    PCs & Chips 14 Nov 18:03

  • AMD shoots lower with Opteron 3000 server chips

    SC11 Bringing single-socket boxes in from the embedded cold?

    Chip maker Advanced Micro Devices said during a restructuring announced two weeks ago that it was going to take low-power servers seriously again. And as part of the Opteron 6200 and 4200 processor launches this morning at an event in Beijing, and at the SC11 supercomputing conference in Seattle, Washington, AMD has tweaked its …

    Servers 14 Nov 18:07

  • Google adds 24/7 support for business Apps buyers

    Google Atmosphere Adds 10,000 chav tailors to customer list

    Google is adding round-the-clock telephone support for business subscribers of its Google Apps service, and is making a strong pitch for Microsoft’s cloud customers. Speaking at the Google Atmosphere conference, Google Enterprise Vice President Amit Singh said that the company was already outperforming its 99.9 per cent uptime …

    Cloud Business 14 Nov 18:20

  • TCP/IP daddy Cerf: 'Don't rewrite the internet for security'

    Google Atmosphere Sage advice: 'Shoot the patent lawyer'

    There is no need to rewrite the basic internet protocols to beef up security, Vint Cerf has said. He also warned that governments are making increasingly heavy-handed attempts to take control of the interwebs. Cerf, co-creator of TCP/IP and currently chief internet evangelist at Google, told delegates at the Atmosphere …

    Security 14 Nov 19:08

  • ARM+GPU = dream super?

    SC11 NVIDIA: 'Yup, we're on it'

    We've seen a lot of ARM server activity in recent weeks, with ARM chip upstart Calxeda announcing its 5-watt EnergyCore ARM chip (breakdown here) and a partnership with x86 giant HP (outlined here). Also the ARM architecture is getting a necessary but painfully slow 64-bit makeover, slated to roll out in 2014. ARM processors …

    HPC Blog 14 Nov 19:10

  • Certificate stolen from Malaysian gov used to sign malware

    Security warnings bypassed

    Researchers have discovered malware circulating in the wild that uses a private signing certificate belonging to the Malaysian government to bypass warnings many operating systems and security software display when end users attempt to run untrusted applications. The stolen certificate belongs to the Malaysian Agricultural …

    Malware 14 Nov 19:39

  • Spaniards prototype ARM-GPU hybrid supercomputer

    SC11 Ubuntu Linux spans Tegra3-Fermi mashup

    The Barcelona Supercomputing Center in Spain has been an enthusiastic supporter of using IBM's Power970MP blade servers as a foundation for its "MareNostrum" massively parallel Linux cluster, which fills 44 server racks and delivers 94.1 teraflops of number-crunching punch. A few years back, this was a pretty big box, but these …

    HPC 14 Nov 21:22

  • Nokia Siemens vs Vodafone Oz: the legal games begin

    Missing millions and contractual woes

    Nokia Siemens Networks is taking legal action against customer Vodafone Australia following a tussle over compensation issues regarding network performance. The "Vodafail" network woes that have dogged Vodafone Australia and its disgruntled customers appear to have been passed on to network supplier Nokia Siemens Networks in a …

    Business 14 Nov 21:47

  • World's stealthiest rootkit pushes DNS hijacking trojan

    DNS Changer dropped by TDSS

    One of the world's most advanced pieces of malware is being used to spread DNS Changer, a trojan at the heart of a massive click fraud scheme that has already hijacked 4 million PCs, security researchers said. Just a few days after federal prosecutors in the US shuttered the international conspiracy, researchers from Dell …

    Malware 14 Nov 21:49

  • Google opens BigQuery for cloud analytics

    Google Atmosphere Dangles free trial to lure doubters

    Google is taking its BigQuery cloud data analytics engine to market, after a limited beta over the past year. The BigQuery service lets users upload and crunch huge amounts of data without investing in their own data center resources. Delegates at the Google Atmosphere conference in Mountain View, California, on Monday were …

    Cloud 14 Nov 22:18

  • Cloud on horizon in CSIRO tender

    On-demand and long-term IaaS under consideration

    Along with desktops, laptops and servers for its 80-plus sites, a new tender from CSIRO indicates that the Australian science agency is looking at IaaS-style cloud services. CSIRO, which recently issued a tender to upgrade the iron in a Canberra data centre, has asked for information on cloud services from bidders on the …

    Business 14 Nov 22:30

  • Mineral oil, GPUs and thousands of cores

    SC11 Student Cluster Competition hardware revealed

    The hardware configurations for the 2011 SC Student Cluster Competition in Seattle have been released, and there are quite a few surprises. First, the most surprising surprise: the University of Texas Longhorn team has brought the first liquid cooled system to the big dance. They’ve teamed up with Green Revolution to put …

    SC 2011 14 Nov 22:54

  • Spotify looks for local spin guru

    They really must be launching downunder

    Globally-ambitious digital music subscription player Spotify is continuing to ramp up its head count for its impending launch in Australia. Spotify began advertising extensively for local staff at the beginning of November but has yet to announce a launch date for its Sydney presence. The latest recruitment drive is for the …

    Music and Media 14 Nov 23:00

  • Huawei buys Symantec JV stake for $530m

    You can go your own way

    Huawei is buying Symantec's 49 per cent share in their joint venture for $530m. The two companies teamed up in 2008 to sell security and storage technologies but it has become common knowledge in recent months that their Hong-Kong headquarted JV was to be dissolved or bought by one or the other partner. Symantec wanted to …

    Business 14 Nov 23:38

  • NEWSFLASH: Chips cheaper than disks

    Platter prices spinning up and away

    You better start believing in miracles; Thai flood-caused disk drive shortages are driving up disk prices beyond flash. Stifel Nicolaus analyst Aaron Rakers brings us the good news after talking to OCZ CEO Ryan Petersen on an investor call. Rakers says: "Recent HDD/SSD distribution indicates an average 20-25 per cent increase …

    Channel Register 14 Nov 23:47