17th November 2011 Archive

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• Swearing doesn’t help pain if you do it too much

  That’s a nice theory f**ked, then

  Potty-mouths the world over were celebrating a couple of years ago, when a bunch of boffins demonstrated that swearing relieved pain. Now, the same boffins have turned party-poopers with a new paper. It appears, on further research, that yelling "s**t!" when your hammer lands on a thumb instead of a nail works best for shy and …

  Science 17 Nov 2011, 00:01

• Rambus tumbles in antitrust reversal

  Micron and Hynix win Calif. court case

  Rambus, the litigious memory tech firm, has taken a beating in the stock markets after losing a key case against Micron over price fixing and conspiracy charges. Rambus had accused Micron and Hynix Semiconductor of fixing the memory market to keep Rambus technology priced out, and it was demanding nearly $4bn in direct damages …

  The Channel 17 Nov 2011, 01:06

• Google opens Android music store in iTunes' face

  Artists can sell direct just like developers

  Google has opened up its beta Music service to all US computer users, and has plumped for free as the best model for music streaming. “The Google Music service will continue to be free,” Jamie Rosenberg, Google’s head of digital content for Android, said. “Other cloud music services think you have to pay to stream music you …

  Media 17 Nov 2011, 01:18

• China outsourcer creates Melbourne jobs

  VanceInfo taps into Vic IT funding

  The Victorian government is claiming a payoff for its $AU85m ICT strategy, with US-listed, Chinese-headquartered VanceInfo announcing plans to add 100 new jobs in its Melbourne office. The company, with a workforce 12,000-strong in China, cited Victoria’s talent pool, infrastructure, and government support as driving its …

  Business 17 Nov 2011, 01:30

• New openSUSE heads for cloud, virtual markets

  Google’s Go gets a groupie

  The openSUSE Project has shipped its 12.1 build, with enhanced cloud and virtualization integration tools. It's also the first distro to ship with support for Google’s Go language. From the look of the new build, Attachmate has kept its promise to carry on supporting openSUSE after its $2.2bn deal to buy Novell. The new code, …

  Operating Systems 17 Nov 2011, 02:22

• HTC wrestles with smutty outfit rival over new handset

  Vivid tries to heave Asian opponent into legal Jell-O

  A porn company has filed a cease-and-desist letter to phone-makers HTC, demanding that they change the name of their new smartphone, the HTC Vivid, by Monday. Vivid Entertainment, the LA based video-porn house famous for its celebrity sex tapes mostly recently staring Kim Kardashian, claimed in the letter that the Vivid …

  Phones 17 Nov 2011, 09:10

• Over 250 suppliers dash to snatch up G Cloud tender

  'We really want to do this but we're still learning'

  The Government Procurement Service has received more than 250 responses to the tender notice for G Cloud services, according to the official overseeing the programme. Andy Nelson, chief information officer at the Ministry of Justice, said there had been 250 to 300 responses to the notice in the Official Journal of the European …

  Small Biz 17 Nov 2011, 09:11

• Sony Bravia KDL-55HX923 55in LED 3D TV

  Review Viewing it large

  The KDL-55HX923 is a remarkable Freeview HD TV for many reasons. It’s humungous for one, measuring 148cm diagonally. It’s also overflowing with image technology and network niceties, as befits a flagship product. Even from a design standpoint, this set knocks the ball out of the park. A 55in member of the Monolith family: …

  Hardware 17 Nov 2011, 09:15

• Make it easy for biz to report cyber robberies, say MPs

  Backdoor broken into? Why not call ... the police!

  Ten British MPS are calling on the UK.gov to make it easier for companies to report cybercrime to the relevant authorities. Members from a whole bunch of parties – two MPs from the Labour, Conservative and Lib Dem parties and one each from the DUP, SDLP, Plaid Cymru and one Independent – are backing the early day motion that …

  Law 17 Nov 2011, 09:23

• Fedora 16: A GNOME lover's paradise

  Review Verne triumphs over rough edges

  After several delays, Fedora 16 has been delivered. While hold-ups are a characteristic of the distro's release cycle, these latest ditherings have put the latest version of Fedora a few weeks behind its main competitor, Ubuntu. Fortunately for Fedora fans this release is well worth the extended waiting time, offering an …

  Developer 17 Nov 2011, 09:40

• Implementing, serving, and using cloud storage

  Deep dive The SNIA's great introduction to cloud storage

  Introduction Organizations of all types are trying to control costs and satisfy increasing demands at the same time—demands created by explosive data growth and ever-changing requirements. To address these challenges, storage industry professionals are turning to cloud computing and cloud storage solutions. It’s important to …

  Storage 17 Nov 2011, 10:00

• Survey: UK biz is using more encryption

  But users still shove unprotected USB sticks in holes...

  Despite a run of high-profile security breaches, almost half of UK corporate laptops remain unprotected against theft and data loss, according to a survey of British businesses published on Thursday. Only 52 per cent of 320 UK public and private sector IT managers polled in the survey use data encryption on their corporate …

  Small Biz 17 Nov 2011, 10:09

• EU puts Hitachi GST on the menu for hungry WD

  Takeover will create world's biggest disk drive maker

  The European Union is set to give Western Digital its blessing to buy Hitachi GST and become the world's biggest hard disk drive manufacturer by far, or so says Reuters. But Western Digital has to become smaller to get bigger; the EU requires it to sell off some operations, including sizeable ones, according to Reuters. …

  The Channel 17 Nov 2011, 10:22

• Galaxy Tab case tweaked to evade Germany ban

  Will injunction-busting bezel work?

  Samsung has tweaked the Galaxy Tab's casing and added an 'N' to the name to slip it past a sales ban in Germany, though it remains to be seen if the courts approve. Samsung isn't allowed to sell the Tab 10.1 as a German court decided it infringes Apple's Community Design patent, and thus the products could be confused. So now …

  The Channel 17 Nov 2011, 10:31

• Telcos snub UK.gov broadband cash pot

  Duct, pole sharing plan 'hampered' by BT

  Telcos are walking away from the government's £530m Broadband Delivery UK (BDUK) project with one ISP citing, among other things, "uncertainties" around incumbent BT's restrictive physical infrastructure access (PIA) pricing plans as the reason for withdrawal. Geo Networks boss Chris Smedley said in a cutting blog post on the …

  Networks 17 Nov 2011, 10:45

• Caringo predicts stiffer penetration of big data boxes

  Pokes stuffed filers with hockey stick growth

  Marketing veeps love hockey sticks and the idea that sales growth could accelerate in a way resembling the curve of such a stick on a chart really turns them on. Hockey sticks are hard to find if you are in object storage but glimmers can be seen, especially through marketeer's telescopes, and storage biz Caringo thinks, and …

  The Channel 17 Nov 2011, 10:52

• Think your CV is crap? Your interview skills are worse

  Really, why do you even bother...

  The applicant stared like a rabbit caught in headlights at the interviewer. Image via Shutterstock He did not have a clue how to answer the question, so he decided to mumble something unintelligible because it would help him sound more clever as he racked his brain. Was it a fearsome query about lambda functions or …

  Jobs 17 Nov 2011, 11:00

• Coach's Eye

  iOS App of the Week Play like the pros

  My never-ending quest for a decent forehand recently turned up this handy little sporting app for the iPhone. As the name implies, Coach’s Eye is primarily aimed at sports trainers who want to analyse their athlete’s performance. It allows the coach to record clips of the athlete and to play them back using its slow-mo option …

  Phones 17 Nov 2011, 11:05

• Release the brakes on your virtual servers

  Step up the pace

  One of the dirty little secrets of virtualisation is the performance cost: operating systems running inside a virtual machine are slower than those running natively on the same hardware, sometimes by quite some margin. This is termed virtualisation overhead, and with current whole-system virtualisation, it's a given. It always …

  Enterprise Tech 17 Nov 2011, 11:11

• New human-brain chip can be adjusted for cannabis effect

  Hey, chip for brains!

  Researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology have come up with a better way to simulate the processing that goes on in the human brain, and you hardware enthusiasts out there will appreciate this one. Rather than simulate the firing and spiking of a bunch of neurons in software on massive clusters of computer chips …

  Science 17 Nov 2011, 11:23

• Punters lose backups in cloud storage biz spat

  Data evaporates in credit card payments row

  Users relying on an online backup service have lost all their uploaded data after a major falling out between a cloud provider and one of its resellers. UK-based Livedrive, which provides a cloud storage backend, ended its contract with US reseller Backify because, it claimed, the firm was "a fly-by-night operation" that didn' …

  Small Biz 17 Nov 2011, 11:31

• Obama says his birthplace is 'in Asia'

  Presidential whoopsie liable to fuel 'birther' tomfoolishness

  In a recent speech President Obama has described his birthplace as being "in Asia": but even the maddest "birther" – the term for people convinced that Mr Obama was not born in the USA and thus is not eligible to be President – probably can't draw much comfort from the error. In a recent press conference given in Hawaii (the …

  Government 17 Nov 2011, 11:42

• Taiwan source forecasts mass exit from tablet biz

  Amazon, Apple only players by 2013. Apparently

  PC companies will begin to exit the tablet market in 2012, it has been claimed. The notion, put forward by "sources from [the] upstream supply chain" cited by DigiTimes, is that Acer, Asus, Dell, HP and others will "gradually phase out from the market", leaving it to the likes of Apple and Amazon, who not only sell hardware …

  Tablets 17 Nov 2011, 11:44

• Orange revisits San Francisco with another budget blower

  California beaming

  Orange has gone all Golden Gate Bridge again, announcing the successor to its own-brand Android blower, the San Francisco. The Orange San Francisco II, which features a 3.5in capacitive touchscreen display, runs on a faster, 800MHz processor with Android 2.3 Gingerbread. Memory is also up, to 512MB, which can be expanded to …

  Phones 17 Nov 2011, 11:44

• Ubuntu loses HP cloud crown status

  'Others' might be offended

  Ubuntu has lost its "top dog" status on Hewlett-Packard's cloud. The computer giant has told The Reg that, contrary to initial claims by Canonical, Ubuntu won't be the "lead host and guest operating system". An HP spokesperson contacted us to say: "While it is true that they are the first host and guest operating system …

  The Channel 17 Nov 2011, 11:51

• Ten... remastered videogame classics

  Product Round-up Old favorites get a facelift

  As the interest in this week's release of Halo: Combat Evolved Anniversary Edition shows, remakes of classic videogames are all the rage. Developers are dusting off canvasses and applying a fresh layer of high definition paint to the hits of yesteryear. Halo is not the end of it. There are plenty more remasters on the way to …

  Games 17 Nov 2011, 12:00

• UK Treasury flogs Northern Rock to flirty Virgin

  Nationalised bank offloaded in £747m cash deal

  Northern Rock was a major victim of 2008's credit crunch - but it survived with help from the then Labour government, which nationalised the Newcastle-based money outfit. Now the Tory-LibDem coalition is shoving it back into the corporate world. Step forward bearded biz baron Sir Richard Branson, whose Virgin Money company has …

  Government 17 Nov 2011, 12:12

• £1m 'Nobel prize of engineering' named after the Queen

  Blighty plc looks to inject some glory into technology

  Britain will play host to a biennial £1m engineering prize which it's hoped will come to confer the same status as a Nobel award. The cash is being coughed up by British industry and the trophy will be known as "the Queen Elizabeth Prize for Engineering", but recipients can be of any nationality. The prize will be run by the …

  Small Biz 17 Nov 2011, 12:21

• McKinnon might get UK hacking trial after all

  Extradition review not binding, says attorney general

  Accused Pentagon hacker Gary McKinnon could be tried in UK and not extradited, according to Blighty's top legal adviser. A recent judicial review concluded that the much criticised and absurdly lengthy extradition proceedings against McKinnon were conducted fairly. But Dominic Grieve, the UK's Attorney General, said the review …

  Government 17 Nov 2011, 12:32

• Boffin bothers frogs until they spill super power secrets

  What makes them leap so far?

  A springy catapult tendon is what sends frogs flying far beyond what their muscles alone could achieve, a boffin researching frog jumps has discovered. By attaching metal beads to the shin bones, ankles and leg muscles of frogs and filming them jumping with a 3D X-ray video camera, Henry Astley a biomechanics grad student at …

  Science 17 Nov 2011, 12:42

• Jilted man swaps engagement ring for Halo suit

  Aisle be the Master Chief

  There's nothing worse than splashing out on a hugely expensive engagement ring only to be dumped before you can drop to one knee. When such tribulation was bestowed upon Halo fan Eric Smith, though, the traumatised chap wasted no time toughening up. Smith flogged the lucrative piece of jewellery and bought himself a full body …

  Games 17 Nov 2011, 12:43

• US general: 'We're cleared to cyber-bomb enemy hackers'

  Curiously, his command website went down after he said it

  The US military is now legally in the clear to launch offensive operations in cyberspace, the commander of the US Strategic Command has said. "I do not believe that we need new explicit authorities to conduct offensive operations of any kind," Air Force General Robert Kehler told Reuters. But he added that the military was …

  Security 17 Nov 2011, 12:51

• Java's 'Steve Jobs' moment in 2012?

  Open-source Java: Part Two OpenJDK: Right ideas, wrong timing

  Five years after Sun Microsystems finally released Java under the GPL, Oracle has been pushing hard on the OpenJDK. The OpenJDK project followed shortly after Sun’s open-sourcing of Java in November 2005; it’s both a free-and-open-source implementation of Java Standard Edition (Java SE). The project has seen a fresh lease of …

  Developer 17 Nov 2011, 13:00

• IPO: Should stand for Intellectual Property Obliteration

  Comment Sir Humphrey's onslaught on creators' rights

  Thanks to Yes, Minister, the idea of bureaucrats running the country is embedded in the nation's imagination. Governments change and ministers come and go with barely enough time to master the jargon. Public policy is quietly made in private, and while the media focuses on the elected government, the real one, our bureaucracy, …

  Developer 17 Nov 2011, 13:11

• Samsung confirms Android 4.0 update for Galaxy S II

  Ice Cream Sarnie taster

  Samsung UK has confirmed that the Galaxy S II smartphone will get Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich. But it can't say when. "Hi, good news - the Galaxy S II will be receiving ICS, but there are no dates confirmed as yet," the company Tweeted. Samsung Italy said last month that ICS will be coming to a range of devices, including …

  Phones 17 Nov 2011, 13:15

• No charge after woman gave fellow prisoner a cop-car BJ

  No need to be down in the mouth after Texas drugs arrest

  A Texas woman arrested on drug charges has escaped additional sanctions for allegedly giving her fellow prisoner a blowjob in the back of a squad car en route to the county lockup. Cops were called to the Whataburger in Porter, Texas on Monday, the Montgomery County Police Reporter reports, after police were told that an " …

  Bootnotes 17 Nov 2011, 13:24

• Oops: Public backs web blocking in Google-funded poll

  Analysis Can we elect a new population?

  Talk about an inconvenient fact. A survey into US attitudes to internet piracy shows strong public support for blocking access to websites guilty of serial copyright infringement. No fewer than 58 per cent support the idea of ISPs blocking the pirate sites, and 36 per cent disagree with this. Of the respondents, 61 per cent want …

  Media 17 Nov 2011, 13:31

• PETA claims anti-Mario campaign was a joke

  You think we're over-reacting?

  PETA, the People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, has responded to fan backlash over this week's anti-Mario campaign, insisting it wasn't an attack on the Ninty mascot, but a humorous attempt to raise awareness of a serious issue. "Mario fans: Relax! PETA's game was meant to be tongue-in-cheek, a fun way to call attention …

  Games 17 Nov 2011, 13:34

• Romanian authorities cuff NASA hack suspect

  The Iceman cometh

  Romanian authorities have arrested a 26-year-old suspected of breaking into NASA's systems, causing damages estimated at $500,000 in the process. Robert Butyka, 26, was arrested on Tuesday in Cluj by officers from the Romanian Directorate for Investigating Organised Crime and Terrorism (DIICOT), who were investigating a string …

  Security 17 Nov 2011, 13:42

• Swedish college girls now twice as slutty as in 2001

  ... but use fewer condoms: 'worrying research'

  Sweden's female university students are enjoying twice as many partners but using fewer condoms than their counterparts of 10 years ago, worrying research has found. At the same time, the number of female students copping to having an STD had doubled, according to the research from Uppsala University, the local.se reports. The …

  Bootnotes 17 Nov 2011, 13:54

• Muvizu animation suite

  Review Unreal 3D modelling without the boring bits

  Digimania's Muvizu is free 3D animation software running on the Unreal engine. It allows you to create movies and even upload them directly to YouTube or Facebook from the application. Considering how much Autodesk Maya or 3DS Max will set you back and how many man hours it will take you to do the simplest of animations (and …

  Software 17 Nov 2011, 14:00

• Apple plugs iTunes Ghost Click hole

  Another 120MB security update... fantastic

  Apple has updated its iTunes software to correct a security shortcoming that offered the potential for miscreants to mount man-in-the-middle attacks and appears to have played a central role in the infamous Ghost Click botnet scam. iTunes 10.5.1, released on Monday, is a cross-platform update that addresses a flaw that's most …

  Security 17 Nov 2011, 14:12

• Boring BOFHs want cash prize more than space flight

  DBAs would prefer to boldly go to their bank

  IT professionals would rather win a wad of cash than a trip to space, the company behind a space flight competition said. Red Gate, which is running a competition to send one lucky database administrator on a suborbital space flight, asked its 4,000 Twitter followers if they would rather take see the wonders and glory of space …

  Science 17 Nov 2011, 14:22

• China decrees in-flight cellphone calls are safe

  你好，我是在飞机上*

  Following two years of study, China has decided that in-flight calls are safe, but anyone hoping to make a call, or access the internet, on a Chinese flight will still be disappointed. The Chinese Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT, not to be confused with MIT) has spent two years studying the affects of in- …

  Mobile 17 Nov 2011, 14:33

• Ice Cream Sandwich phone a no-show on Vodafone

  Carrier still 'testing' Android 4.0 Samsung Galaxy Nexus

  Vodafone has been disappointing punters today by failing to release the Samsung Galaxy Nexus as hoped Officially on sale for the first time today, and released by O2, Phones4u - with a Vodafone Sim even - and the Carphone Warehouse, the 4.7in, dual-core Galaxy Nexus has, however, been a no-show over at Vodafone. The cellco …

  Mobile 17 Nov 2011, 14:42

• Earning cash not a priority for new Foursquare rival

  Upstart startup touts trendy nights-out app

  Emerging from Silicon Roundabout's Old Street, complete with Instagram'ed staff photos and an iPhone app, comes Flypost, which promises to promote events and venues to those with iPhones who aren't already using Foursquare. The idea is that Flypost will gather venue information and provide map-based searching for what's …

  Small Biz 17 Nov 2011, 14:47

• Boffins build bionic battery

  Ten times' Li-ion capacity, charges in a tenth of the time

  Researchers have devised an electrode material that allows lithium-ion batteries to hold ten times the charge they do today - and recharge ten times as quickly. The trick, uncovered by scientists at Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois led by Professor Harold Kung, is to build the battery's positive electrode, the …

  Hardware 17 Nov 2011, 14:54

• One in six Americans used social web to get their job

  Going on Facebook to find work, not avoid it

  A study of workers in America showed that one in six (17 per cent) of them found their current job through a social networking site. Referral from a contact was the most successful tactic for finding a new job, with 36 per cent gaining employment that way. Newspapers and internet job boards came next and many people used …

  Small Biz 17 Nov 2011, 15:02

• Oi! BBX is ours, software biz tells RIM

  BlackBerry maker sued over OS name

  A US software company is taking BlackBerry-maker Research in Motion to court over its use of the name BBX for its new operating system. BASIS International filed a motion for a preliminary injunction against RIM to stop it from using BBX, which it claims is an "incontestable federally registered trademark" of the company. “ …

  Operating Systems 17 Nov 2011, 15:16

• Banks bung hard-up Acer £315m loan

  Five-year deal to get back on its feet

  Troubled Acer has penned a new financing deal to cover working capital requirements and pay off a previous loan it took out to acquire Gateway. The firm has gone through a major reshuffle of management following a loss-making year in which sluggish consumer demand caught it by surprise and resulted in an inventory pile-up. …

  The Channel 17 Nov 2011, 15:32

• Supercomputer Watson too thick to use Siri

  We're still smarter than computers, phew

  Looks like the human race has some breathing space in our intelligence arms race with computers. Though supercomputer Watson beats the best human brains at quiz games, it can't use the iPhone app Siri. Take that, Watson. You'll never know where to find the best Thai restaurants in town. The question came up last night at an …

  HPC 17 Nov 2011, 15:43

• First private-sector space station docking delayed

  Elon Musk's Dragon not yet ready for mating

  The first private-sector mission to carry supplies to the International Space Station (ISS) has been delayed, according to reports. Meanwhile NASA funding for such contracted-out missions is to be cut back. Not happening again until next year, it seems. The Wall Street Journal reports on the problems facing the nascent US …

  Science 17 Nov 2011, 16:00

• Nvidia's Maximus: Hard-core 3D graphics on speed

  Blog Quadro-Tesla mashup for animation acceleration

  Part of Nvidia founder/CEO Jen-Hsun Huang's SC11 keynote session was a demo of something called Maximus that elicited oohs and ahhs from some of the folks around me. An animator of something called Shrek - I think it's a music video or TV show - built an animated scene in real time as we watched. It was a combination of …

  HPC 17 Nov 2011, 16:01

• US nuclear aircraft carrier George Bush crippled by toilet outages

  Sailors drenched as bottles of piss emptied into wind

  The US Navy's newest and mightiest nuclear aircraft carrier, the USS George H W Bush*, has been plagued by continual failures in its lavatories, according to reports. Sailors have been forced into increasingly desperate measures to relieve themselves. Well goddammit you guys, you shoulda gone before we set off The Navy …

  Bootnotes 17 Nov 2011, 16:22

• Team Taiwan Finishes Strong

  SCC11 Looks for repeat at Cluster Challenge

  We had a chance to talk to Team Taiwan as the Student Cluster Competition came down to the wire. Although they were their typical friendly selves, there was an air of tension and anticipation in their booth. They have a lot riding on this. They could become the first team to repeat as champions. It's a pretty tall order to fill …

  SC 2011 17 Nov 2011, 16:34

• Russians Bear Down at SCC11

  SCC11 Will LINPACK win fuel overall triumph?

  We dropped by the Team Russia booth to congratulate them on their record-setting LINPACK victory and to get their thoughts on SCC11. Is their LINPACK win a sign of things to come? Can they take the whole ball of wax? (Note: there isn't any ball of wax.) Watch Video var MediaPlayerVars = { '_': { 'http://www.youtube.com/ …

  SC 2011 17 Nov 2011, 16:34

• Purdue Rolls the Dice

  SCC11 Strategy and final SCC11 thoughts

  As can be seen by their LINPACK results on Monday (only .233 TFlop), Purdue either completely melted down or had something up their collective sleeves. It turns out that they had a plan, a cunning plan. One that might give them a leg up on the other competitors on the all-important scientific applications. What was the plan? Why …

  SC 2011 17 Nov 2011, 16:35

• Costa Rica Cluster Finale

  SCC11 Rainforest Eagles compete to finish

  The Costa Rica team gave it their all at their first Student Cluster Competition. We caught up with them just a few minutes before they turned their final results files into the judges.... Watch Video var MediaPlayerVars = { '_': { 'http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XjOoS-boZ7s': { screencolor: '000000', …

  SC 2011 17 Nov 2011, 16:35

• Buffalo's in the Hunt?

  SCC11 Final SCC11 Colorado ramblings

  We grabbed Team Colorado for a few final thoughts before the end of the Student Cluster Competition. Spirits were good, despite a few problems with their hardware and memory usage. Watch Video var MediaPlayerVars = { '_': { 'http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JX1z9Q4VU54': { screencolor: '000000', width: 580 …

  SC 2011 17 Nov 2011, 16:36

• SCC11: Home Stretch

  SCC11 Team China preps for finish

  We spent a few minutes talking to Team China before they submitted their final results for the 2011 Student Cluster Competition. They're happy and had a good time, but it's hard to figure out how they gauge their chances. We'll find out soon.... Watch Video var MediaPlayerVars = { '_': { 'http://www.youtube.com/watch?v= …

  SC 2011 17 Nov 2011, 16:36

• Team Boston Crunch Time

  SCC11 Final hours...

  We caught up with Team Boston (aka Team Chowder) a few hours before they turned in their results for SC11. They share their thoughts about the competition and their results thus far, along with whatever else their sleep-deprived minds came up with. Watch Video var MediaPlayerVars = { '_': { 'http://www.youtube.com/watch?v …

  SC 2011 17 Nov 2011, 16:36

• AOL AIM boss legs it from yet another web biz

  Peanut! butter! man! joined! from! Yahoo!

  Brad Garlinghouse - who oversees AOL Mail, AIM and Mobile - is reportedly leaving the company after joining just two years ago. According to GigaOM, the AOL applications and commerce president has quit the firm. It's unclear at this stage what his reasons are, but the outfit is going through a painful identity crisis as it …

  Business 17 Nov 2011, 16:42

• LinkedIn dumped by biggest sugar daddy

  Shares flogged to raise $90m

  Professional networking firm LinkedIn has upped its follow-on share sale from 8 million shares to 8.75 million in a bid to raise around $92.3m for the company coffers. At the start of the month, the web firm said it was selling more shares to increase its capital and its public float. Yesterday, LinkedIn said it had priced …

  Financial News 17 Nov 2011, 16:51

• Couple rewarded for naming newborn after Elder Scrolls Skyrim hero

  Games for life, baby

  Earlier this year, Bethesda made a tongue-in-cheek proposal to pregnant mothers: if your child is born on Nigel Tufnel Day, the same date that Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim was released, then name your nipper 'Dovakhiin' after the RPG's protagonist and you'll win free games for life. American couple Megan and Eric Kellermeyer did …

  Games 17 Nov 2011, 16:57

• Visa's amazing answer to e-wallet domination: A new logo

  Take that, PayPal

  Visa USA has launched its new logo, with service to follow next year, securing online payments by hosting your wallet in the Visa cloud. The idea is that you upload details of your payment cards to Visa, even if they're not Visa-branded, and Visa will process the payment without ever revealing your card details to the merchant …

  Small Biz 17 Nov 2011, 17:08

• China spacecraft masters the art of docking

  Shenzhou-8 lands safely in Mongolia after coupling with space lab twice

  The unmanned Chinese spacecraft Shenzhou-8 has returned safely to Earth after giving the country its first successful docking mission. Shenzhou-8 parachuted safely to the ground in Inner Mongolia after rendezvousing with the Tiangong-1 space lab module and docking twice, the commander-in-chief of China's manned space programme …

  Science 17 Nov 2011, 17:26

• NetApp, Wall St is very disappointed in you

  Two uninspiring quarters

  NetApp's progress seems to be slowing, as it disappointed Wall Street with lower-than-expected quarterly revenues, although profits were up. The company blamed unexpected weaknesses in some large accounts as it unveiled second quarter revenues of $1.507bn in its fiscal 2012 year. This was 20.5 per cent higher than a year ago …

  The Channel 17 Nov 2011, 18:02

• Big guns turn sights on cancer-causing genes

  Backup is a lifesaver

  In the heart of London, researchers are splitting apart the building blocks of life and working towards a cure for cancer. The Biomedical Research Centre, run by King’s College Hospital and Guy's and St Thomas’ NHS Foundation Trust, has a genomic sequencing unit that genotypes tissue from patients with cancer and other diseases …

  Network Futures 17 Nov 2011, 18:18

• Crooks make it rain by seeding cloud with zombies

  Your compute resources rented out

  Malware operators are once again trying to generate profits from the cloud, this time by stealing the resources of infected computers and selling them to a new distributed-computing network, researchers from Kaspersky said. After infecting a computer, the malware downloads and installs the MetaTrader 5 Tester Agent, software …

  Security 17 Nov 2011, 18:20

• Tech firms jostle for position in LTE market

  Ericsson and Alcatel Lucent lead, Huawei sneaking up behind

  Ericsson and Alcatel-Lucent are staking big early claims in the LTE market, particularly in the US, according to networking and telco research firm Dell'Oro. The bits and bobs that are actually needed to roll out the LTE networks that carriers such as Verizon Wireless and AT&T are crowing about are in large part being supplied …

  Mobile 17 Nov 2011, 18:24

• Team Texas On the Brink

  SC11 Longhorns hope for first SCC win

  The Texas team captured a lot of attention at the Student Cluster Competition this year. Their mineral oil deep-fried cluster was certainly a hit with the crowd, but did it pay dividends when it came to computing? They put in the best non-GPU fueled LINPACK and, assumedly, should perform well on the scientific apps, but will it …

  SC 2011 17 Nov 2011, 19:20

• SCC11: The Marathon Begins

  46 hour grind starts grinding

  This short video captures the start of the application portion of the 2011 Student Cluster Competition. The students had spent all day Monday driving their systems to produce the best LINPACK and HPCC result possible. Now, Monday evening at 7:30 pm on the dot, they finally get access to the data sets that they'll use in the four …

  SC 2011 17 Nov 2011, 19:22

• Open source team creates apocalypse survival kit

  DIY handbook for 50 top civilization-saving tools

  A team of open source enthusiasts is putting together instructions for how to build 50 tools essential to establishing – or reestablishing – a civilization. The Global Village Construction Set (GVCS) is being developed by the Open Source Ecology (OSE) group, and includes such basic tools as a well drill, steam engine, and …

  Science 17 Nov 2011, 20:03

• New Asia Pac cable launched for bandwidth express

  Links Philippines to Japan, HK, Singapore

  Construction has commenced on a new 7,200 km fibre optic cable linking Japan, the Philippines, Hong Kong, and Singapore. The $US300 million, Asia Submarine-cable Express (ASE) is expected to be built by Q3 2012 giving the project’s lead carrier Philippine Long Distance and Telephone Co (PLDT) access to double its international …

  Networks 17 Nov 2011, 21:44

• Phishers net Norwegian secrets

  E-mail trojans sweep hard drives

  Oil, gas and defense data has been boosted from computers in Norway, in what the country fears is its largest-ever data espionage case. Details are still slim, but according to AP, phishing e-mails were sent with viruses designed to “sweep entire hard drives for data”. Norway’s National Security Authority, NSM, which …

  Security 17 Nov 2011, 22:00

• Water utility hackers destroy pump, expert says

  Updated SCADA breach 'a really big deal'

  Hackers destroyed a pump used by a US water utility after gaining unauthorized access to the industrial control system it used to operate its machinery, a computer security expert said. Joe Weiss, a managing partner for Applied Control Solutions, said the breach was most likely performed after the attackers hacked into the …

  Security 17 Nov 2011, 22:03

• Amazon prepping cheap-as-dirt smartphone?

  Kindle Fire, meet Kindle Fone

  Amazon may be prepping a low-cost smartphone for release next year, and their partner in its development is said to be Apple's iPhone assembler, Foxconn. "Based on our supply chain channel checks in Asia led by Kevin Chang, Citi's Taipei-based hardware research analyst, we believe an Amazon Smartphone will be launched in 4Q12 …

  Phones 17 Nov 2011, 22:17

• 'Grow up': Assange's mother to Obama-struck Oz

  Parliament House protest during 'Au-bama' frenzy

  Julian Assange’s mother has dubbed the Australian ruling elite as a bunch of “star-struck teenagers” in the thrall of US president Barack Obama. Christine Assange was among a group of protestors outside Parliament House yesterday while the US President addressed a special sitting of MPs and Senators. She is currently lobbying …

  Bootnotes 17 Nov 2011, 22:30

• Have everything. Own nothing. Learn the difference

  Opinion: ReDigi and the RIAA

  The nutshell of the story is this: ReDigi has a bright idea about creating a resale market for iTunes-licensed songs; the RIAA objects and has sent the cease-and-desist; and world+dog is supposed to rise up Occupy-style against another outrage by big content. Spare me. To follow the logic of sympathy for ReDigi, I’m asked to …

  Media 17 Nov 2011, 23:00

• IBM reveals secrets of Watson’s Jeopardy triumph

  Too many rules can spoil the bouillon bisque broth

  IBM has explained the principles behind how its Watson machine bested the world’s finest Jeopardy players, even if it can’t handle Siri. In a lecture at the University of California at Berkeley, IBM research scientist Eric Brown outlined the history of the project, and provided some details about how Watson was able to sort …

  Servers 17 Nov 2011, 23:23

• AGIMO outlines Oz government cloud rules

  Wraps a net around the fluff

  Australia’s CTO office, the Australian Government Information Management Agency, is seeking comment on three documents outlining its attitude to cloud computing. Its three guides, available here, cover the legal, financial and privacy aspects of government use of the cloud. Agencies – and cloud providers – will find …

  Cloud 17 Nov 2011, 23:30

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