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23rd November 2011 Archive

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  • Microsoft to offer dual upgrade path for Windows 8

    One for the technical, another for the not so

    Microsoft will change its upgrade procedures when it introduces Windows 8, offering a simple system for home users and a more technical option for IT staff. Redmond said it wants to make the upgrade path easier, since the Windows 7 introduction saw some users complaining that the process was too complicated. To ease the …

    Operating Systems 23 Nov 2011, 00:59

  • FBI: No evidence of water system hack destroying pump

    Probe into SCADA breach continues

    Federal officials said there's no evidence to support a report that hackers destroyed a pump used by an Illinois-based water utility after gaining unauthorized access to the computer system it used to operate its machinery. In an email sent on Tuesday afternoon to members of the Industrial Control Systems Joint Working Group, …

    Security 23 Nov 2011, 01:09

  • Inside the BBC's R&D Labs

    From the Lab to the living room

    Whatever your views on its programming, it is hard to deny that the BBC’s research labs have produced some pretty clever things over the years. Teletext, RDS and Nicam stereo are just some of the more well known ones, but the R&D Lab is also responsible for much of the work on the DVB-T2 standard that makes Freeview HD possible …

    Hardware 23 Nov 2011, 07:00

  • Storage minnow Infortrend is growing up... fast

    Adds tiering after adding SSD

    What is it with Infortrend? We can't carry on placing it as a minor league player when it adds auto-tiering just weeks after adding SSD support. Infortrend is a Taiwan-based disk array supplier to small and medium businesses, and one of its main products is the ESVA, Enterprise Scalable Virtual Array, a Fibre Channel or iSSI- …

    Storage 23 Nov 2011, 08:31

  • Plans for wave-pay Tube tickets don't convince pols

    '100% safe' claim shows Transport chiefs have no idea

    Many passengers are concerned about the data security and safety aspect of Transport for London's (TfL's) plans to introduce contactless ticketing, and the project may not deliver the financial savings expected, the London assembly's transport committee has concluded. In a report titled, The Future of Ticketing, the committee …

    Broadband 23 Nov 2011, 09:01

  • UK has no idea if it's selling spyware to evil regimes

    And that's how we like it, thanks, says gov

    The UK government says it isn't exercising any control over the sale of surveillance software nor stopping it from finding its way into the hands of repressive regimes. At the start of the month, Lord David Alton of Liverpool called on the Coalition to ban the export of espionage software and equipment, and questioned previous …

    Developer 23 Nov 2011, 09:14

  • Elon Musk's SpaceX seeks 'private sector Cape Canaveral'

    So many rockets and ships, not enough launch pads

    Private rocket company SpaceX is looking around for new launch sites to take care of all the commercial customer demand it's getting. Space Exploration Technologies already has a launch pad at Cape Canaveral in Florida and is currently developing one at Vandenberg Air Force Base in California, but it says it needs more. "Our …

    Science 23 Nov 2011, 09:31

  • Hero dev writes the CODE that COULD SAVE THE WORLD

    Best summer coding job ever for US student?

    An asteroid collision with Earth could now be less likely thanks to a software developer who created a computer program capable of tracking NEOs (Near Earth Objects). Mark Trueblood of the National Optical Astronomy Observatory spotted that such a coding opportunity would be perfect for a student's summer project. He enlisted …

    Developer 23 Nov 2011, 09:44

  • id Software Doom

    Antique Code Show Scary monsters and super creeps

    id Software’s latest FPS Rage left a niggling feeling of déjà vu at the back of my brain for about a week after I started playing it, until I realised I was getting some subliminal Doom flashbacks. House of Doom In 1992, game developer id Software needed something special to follow up the hit that was Wolfenstein 3D. What …

    Games 23 Nov 2011, 10:00

  • Chromebooks: the flop of 2011?

    Puny sales figures

    Google's Chromebook initiative appears to be a damp squib. Launched in May 2011, Chromebook sales are unlikely to exceed 30,000 units, despite backing from Acer and Samsung. So says DigiTimes, in a story about phone maker HTC wondering whether it should adopt Google's Chrome OS for internet gadgets of its own. Compare that …

    Laptops 23 Nov 2011, 10:05

  • Yes! Perhaps! It's the Lady Gaga Thanksgiving Special!

    Glitter-covered children, an old man and an oily bird

    Lady Gaga plans to spend her Thanksgiving blowing glitter over children, dipping a bird in oil and performing a duet with a very old man. These are just some of the highlights of ABC's A Very Gaga Thanksgiving, revealed yesterday by The Hollywood Reporter. Gaga herself conceived and directed the special, the Reporter reports …

    Bootnotes 23 Nov 2011, 10:16

  • 'Hands off our books, content miners! Those aren't cheap'

    Automated research slurping is bad, claim publishers

    Allowing people to use computers to 'mine' vast banks of copyrighted material would damage the economy, the UK Publishers Association has said. It wants to block an exception to copyright law for the practice. A government-commissioned review of intellectual property (IP) laws earlier this year recommended that researchers …

    Law 23 Nov 2011, 10:21

  • It's ALIVE! Broken Russian Mars probe finally answers calls

    Aussie station gets signal from rogue Phobos-Grunt

    The Martian probe Phobos-Grunt, lost in space for the last 14 days, has finally responded to Earth's signals. The European Space Agency said on its website today that its tracking station in Perth, Australia, had received a signal from the craft at 2025 GMT on Tuesday. "ESA teams are working closely with engineers in Russia …

    Science 23 Nov 2011, 10:31

  • IBM pumps up the volumes for data pool party

    Plays a tune on Violin too

    IBM has a new release of its SVC software coming out to widen the distance between cluster nodes, improve HA and provide better Tivoli integration. This strengthens the V7000 too, as it shares the same SVC binary code. SVC is IBM's SAN Volume Controller, it is a block-accessed, network storage product that sits inline in a SAN …

    The Channel 23 Nov 2011, 10:42

  • Is it a bird? Is it a plane? No, it's Apple's 3D recognition patent

    New tech identifies tanks, faces, tumours and more

    Apple secured a patent yesterday on software to create and identify 3D models of faces, animals, aircraft, military vehicles and tumours in one of the more unusual tech patents to be awarded in recent months. This came to light after the US Patent and Trademark Office published a series of newly awarded patents. Several other …

    Developer 23 Nov 2011, 10:53

  • Fear and slow loading: Eclipse celebrates 10 unsettling years

    IBM's open-source project that could

    In November 2001, IBM made its Java tools IDE and platform, developed for WebSphere Application Studio, available under an open source licence. It was the beginning of Eclipse, which now claims 65 per cent of the Java IDE market. But why was Eclipse founded and what has been its impact over a decade? The Reg spoke to Mike …

    Developer 23 Nov 2011, 11:00

  • HP firesale wafts TouchPad to top of tablet chart

    Ignoring Apple, of course...

    HP was the top selling tablet vendor in the US - ignoring Apple, of course - through to the end of October, and it's all thanks to the TouchPad firesale. Market watcher NPD yesterday revealed that in the ten months from January to October inclusive, HP accounted for 17 per cent of non-iPad tablet retail sales, a percentage …

    Tablets 23 Nov 2011, 11:08

  • Genetically modified mutants 'safe for release' into the wild

    'Underdominance' experiment on remote island

    Remorseless German boffins say that the time may now be ripe for scientists to begin release of "transgenic individuals into populations". Concerns that this might result in those populations being completely replaced by the superior lab-developed individuals can be addressed, they say, by the use of cunningly selected mutants …

    Science 23 Nov 2011, 11:13

  • Chinese £200 iPhone killer unwraps for Xmas

    We've been waiting for Steve to die, says biz boss

    Next month will see the launch of a handset which outperforms the iPhone, at £200, from a man who admits he's been waiting for Steve Jobs to die. That man is Lie Jun, and the phone is the much-anticipated Xiaomi handset. The release date is 18 December. Xiaomi is an Android-based handset with a dual-core processor, and sold …

    Mobile 23 Nov 2011, 11:22

  • Microsoft renovates Xbox Live dashboard

    Tiles R us

    Microsoft has officially announced a significant overhaul of the Xbox Live dashboard, introducing a host of new content as well as voice control and gesture features for the Kinect peripheral. The update, which adopts the tile-like design of Windows 8, tables cloud-storage functions for save games and profiles, Facebook …

    Games 23 Nov 2011, 11:23

  • McKinnon's mum wins human rights gong

    Janis Sharp praised for extradition law reform battle

    Gary McKinnon's mum has secured a human rights award for her campaign to reform extradition laws. Janis Sharp secured recognition by human rights group Liberty for her tireless campaigning on behalf of her son, who is accused of hacking into the Pentagon. McKinnon has Asperger's Syndrome and has been fighting against …

    Security 23 Nov 2011, 11:32

  • Secret HP dossier on ex-CEO Hurd's antics to stay sealed

    Supreme Court says shareholder can't see red-hot file

    HP doesn't have to hand over a secret investigation's report on former chief executive Mark Hurd's sexual activities, or lack thereof, a US Supreme Court ruled. Hurd left HP amid allegations of sexual harassment and breach of conduct codes, but still got a lovely golden handshake on the way out the door. HP shareholder …

    The Channel 23 Nov 2011, 11:41

  • 'Apple's iPhone 4S ate our SIM cards'

    Furious fanbois thwarted by phone failure

    The "phone" bit of the new iPhone 4S has stopped working properly for some users who are experiencing repeated SIM card failures, according to customer help forums on the Apple website. The SIM stutter appears to be affecting customers running the new iOS 5.01 on the iPhone 4S: those affected report frequent error messages …

    Mobile 23 Nov 2011, 11:52

  • Asus Eee Pad Slider SL101

    Review Android tab with pop-out keyboard? WTF?!?

    I first laid hands on the Asus Eee Pad Slider back in March and now, after eight long months, it has finally made it onto the shelves of Blighty’s gadget wallahs. Has it been worth the wait though? Tucked away: Asus' Eee Pad Slider SL101 Let’s start with the reason the Slider is so called. Slip a finger into the crack …

    Tablets 23 Nov 2011, 12:00

  • Councils 'fessed up to just 55 of 1,035 data loss shockers

    Watchdog kept in the dark by town halls, wants new powers

    The scale of data-handling gaffes at local authorities has been revealed by a new report that uncovered 1,035 incidents where confidential information about British citizens was lost. Privacy campaign group Big Brother Watch (BBW) submitted 433 Freedom of Information Act requests to councils across the UK that covered a three- …

    Government 23 Nov 2011, 12:12

  • Streamline Computing goes titsup

    Warwick-based HPC reseller latest to hit the wall

    Small resellers continue to drop like flies, with Warwick-based Streamline Computing the latest to cease trading and enter liquidation proceedings. The high-performance computing specialist, which flogs Dell and HP systems, confirmed on its company voicemail that it has "gone into liquidation". Acting on behalf of Streamline …

    The Channel 23 Nov 2011, 12:16

  • Man nearly faints with relief as cops drop chopper charge

    Scary fake tool had panicked woman

    Ohio police have dropped charges against a man they claimed had induced panic amongst the citizenry of Akron by brandishing a large red chopper in a bar. Bill Morrison had been charged after a woman called 911 to say that he walked into a bar sporting the enormous blood-spattered chopper last month. Despite police determining …

    Bootnotes 23 Nov 2011, 12:24

  • Dragonriders of Pern author Anne McCaffrey dies

    Obituary Pioneering fantasy writer was 85

    Author of the Dragonrider series of books, Anne McCaffrey, died on Monday aged 85, having authored a huge number of books that straddled the border between science fiction and fantasy. The author suffered a stroke at her home in Ireland on Monday, and passed away shortly afterwards. Her publisher, Del Rey, posted a …

    Bootnotes 23 Nov 2011, 12:32

  • Hubble snaps mystery green death nebula in NGC 1846

    Curious case of dwarf galaxy's possible member loss

    NASA's Hubble Space Telescope has captured an image of the death of a star in a nearby dwarf galaxy. Hubble snapped the shot of the cumbersomely named Globular Cluster NGC 1846, a collection of hundreds of thousands of stars in the outer halo of the Large Magellanic Cloud, in January 2006. The shot captured the faint green …

    Science 23 Nov 2011, 12:35

  • Apple stalks execs in the cloud

    Sign up to iCloud, write you own job description

    Apple is said to be shopping for senior industry execs with cloud experience as it faces up to the possibility that consumers might not want their content tied solely to its hardware platforms. The Wall Street Journal reports that Apple has been stalking top execs with Web-based software backgrounds, targeting one entrepreneur …

    The Channel 23 Nov 2011, 12:41

  • Steve Jobs had 'personal moral failures', was no role model

    Prof lambasts bearded fondle-slab biz titan

    After Britain's Chief Rabbi criticised the consumerism of the late Great High Priest of Apple, a professor of applied ethics at Hofstra University has joined the crew of Jobs-knockers, saying that we shouldn't venerate the Apple CEO because of his well-documented bad behaviour. Blogging on Psychology Today, Arthur Dobrin told …

    Bootnotes 23 Nov 2011, 12:53

  • Erotica 2011 stands firm against rise of the sex machines

    NSFW Old-school tools hit of leather and vibes bash

    It may not have been overtaken by machines just yet, but reports of the demise of Erotica may be just a bit premature. An official spokesman for what is widely billed as the UK's premier adult event confirmed this weekend that London's Olympia had already been re-booked for next year and, despite detractors, Erotica was looking …

    Bootnotes 23 Nov 2011, 13:00

  • Radiation TERROR on Scottish beach! Except it's quite safe

    Gordon Brown wants MoD to clear up minuscule hazard

    A Scottish beach has been cordoned off as a "contaminated land" by environmental-protection authorities following discovery of "radioactive particles" there, thought to result from Ministry of Defence activities in the past. Former UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown has seen fit to write to the Defence secretary, urging the MoD to …

    Science 23 Nov 2011, 13:12

  • Stripper name game exposes sensitive privates on Tumblr

    Bragging about Smartie Longbone is no laughing matter

    An online game that invites surfers to disclose potentially sensitive information has returned in a slightly different guise, two years after its first appearance. A viral game that surfaced on Twitter back in May 2009 encouraged users of the service to come up with their "porn star name" – which was made up of the name of …

    Security 23 Nov 2011, 13:27

  • Calling all resellers, distributors and integrators

    Tech Panel Are IT vendors helping out in this difficult economic climate?

    It's been tough these last few years. The economy has been stagnant, inflation's been going up and access to credit has been going down, hitting cash flow and the ability to invest. On top of that, inventory issues have hit hard while customers have been deferring spending. This has cut margins to the bone (and beyond) in many …

    The Channel 23 Nov 2011, 13:29

  • Google gives up on saving world from cheap coal energy

    'Others can do it better'. No sh*t, text-ads Sherlock

    Google has announced that it's abandoning its plans to save the planet by making renewable energy cheaper than coal. The Chocolate Factory's RE<C plan is getting ditched because "at this point, other institutions are better positioned than Google to take this research to the next level", the official Google blog said. The …

    Financial News 23 Nov 2011, 13:32

  • Murdoch junior QUITS board of Sun publisher

    Quietly resigned from News International's sister biz

    James Murdoch has sensationally resigned from News Group Newspapers' board of directors, thereby seemingly turning his back on News International's remaining British publications: The Sun, The Times and the Sunday Times. A filing at Companies House, first spotted by the Evening Standard, revealed that Murdoch quietly resigned …

    Media 23 Nov 2011, 13:39

  • Red Hat serves up red-hot Ceylon sauce

    Java heir exposes its inner git

    Red Hat has broadened access to Ceylon, its JVM-based programming language intended to overcome the limitations of Java. The Red Hat team behind Ceylon has unveiled a website, ceylon-lang.org, opened up access to the Ceylon git repositories and delivered a pre-release build of an Eclipse-based IDE. Red Hat’s Gavin King has …

    Developer 23 Nov 2011, 13:49

  • Adventures in mineral oil cooling

    Longhorns oiled and battered

    Let’s say that you and your pals need to build a high performance cluster to run a number of HPC apps. It has to be fast. Damned fast. Fast enough to beat the very best student-built systems from seven other universities. Your only limit is power: you’ll get 26 amps, no more. Your adversaries are going to pull out all the …

    SC 2011 23 Nov 2011, 14:00

  • Saints Row: The Third

    Review Extreme - and then some

    You shouldn't laugh at Saints Row: The Third. I mean, what's funny about bludgeoning an old lady to death with a three-foot-long purple dildo? Or kidnapping a gimp-wearing BDSM fetishist and forcing him to to pull your chariot in gladiatorial Pony Play? Hand over the Carats That's the crux of the Saints Row series. By …

    Hardware 23 Nov 2011, 14:06

  • Nekkid Tech: Kindle on Fire

    Podcast Bezos backlash

    Last weekend Greg Knieremen took to The Reg to express his dismay at Amazon's lack of Google loving with the Kindle Fire. He was torched by the readers (see the comments on the story). Undeterred, Greg returns to the fray on Nekkid Tech, co-hosted on The Reg Shownotes! Guests this week are Chris Fricke, senior IT admin - …

    Data Center 23 Nov 2011, 14:15

  • Sony delays 3D PlayStation telly in Europe

    Brit gamers must wait longer for dual-view telly

    Sony's 3D PlayStation telly has been delayed in Europe, with a release date now expected some time in 2012. The PlayStation TV was originally set to roll out this month in both the US and Europe. However, the European launch date has been pushed back, Eurogamer reports. Perhaps it's a question of ownership. Ask Sony's TV …

    Hardware 23 Nov 2011, 14:18

  • Gov IT boss is latest senior Cabinet Office bigwig to quit

    Second in a month - who will implement IT strategy now?

    The Cabinet Office is a second senior man down just one month after the department published an ambitious action plan detailing deadlines for when it hopes to implement the IT strategy it announced in March this year. UK.gov's chief information officer, Joe Harley, announced yesterday that he would retire from his post in …

    Government 23 Nov 2011, 14:24

  • Sony demos Augmented Reality on PS Vita

    Full launch line-up confirmed

    Sony showed off the PlayStation Vita's Augmented Reality features last night, and announced the full line-up of launch titles. The company put the spotlight on AR, revealing the device will handle six Augmented Reality markers at launch, with three games available to download free from the PlayStation Store. You can see the …

    Games 23 Nov 2011, 14:25

  • Ethernet reaches for the hyper-scale cloud

    To infinity and beyond

    What if the largest Ethernet networks we see today are just precursors, initial steps on the path to what's been called hyper-scale cloud networking? The term "hyper" is used generally to describe something almost unfathomably large. We might, for example, say that a regional group of airports is a small air transport network …

    Data Networking 23 Nov 2011, 14:30

  • Climategate 2.0: Fresh trove of embarrassing emails

    Analysis 'All our models are wrong', writes Jones

    There was always an element of tragedy in the first “Climategate” emails, as scientists were under pressure to tell a story that the physical evidence couldn’t support – and that the scientists were reluctant to acknowledge in public. The new email archive, already dubbed “Climategate 2.0”, is much larger than the first, and …

    Science 23 Nov 2011, 14:36

  • RIP mice and keyboards: Kinect for PCs incoming

    And gaming gear gets up close and personal

    Microsoft’s XBox Kinect is getting in your face in 2012 with a "near mode" for close-up interaction – and is getting hardware-ready for Windows PCs. The Kinect's near mode will come into play following a firmware update next year that will allow the depth camera to see objects at a distance of 50cm accurately and with what …

    Hardware 23 Nov 2011, 14:46

  • WD cleared to gobble Hitachi GST

    Complicated Brussels nod isn't a simple go for it

    The EU has said Western Digital can buy the Hitachi GST disk drive business but only if it sells off some 3.5-inch drive production capacity to an EU-approved buyer. The $4.3bn purchase of Hitachi GST, recently renamed Viviti Technologies, is conditional "upon the divestment of essential production assets for 3.5-inch hard …

    Storage 23 Nov 2011, 14:53

  • Titan = supersized science

    SC11 The computer ( not the Saturn moon)

    We spent some time at the Oak Ridge booth at SC11 in Seattle talking with Jack Wells. He’s looking forward to the newest addition to the Oak Ridge supercomputer family, the Titan. This new system isn’t entirely new; it’s actually an upgrade of the existing AMD Istanbul-based petaflop-scale Jaguar supercomputer. Very soon, …

    HPC 23 Nov 2011, 15:00

  • Pro-game MP rewrites Modern Warfare censure motion

    Call of Duty gets Parliamentary praise

    The House of Commons has changed its opinion that Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 mimics the London bombings, amending an Early Day Motion that proposed the BBFC take further precautions when allowing a game to be sold. The revamped EDM now goes as far as to actually praise Activision's big-seller. Labour MP Tom Watson (West …

    Games 23 Nov 2011, 15:06

  • Samsung pledges Galaxy Nexus audio glitch fix

    Bug plaguing Android 4 phone to be squashed soon

    Samsung has developed a fix for the spontaneous volume reduction bug that has hit early buyers of its Galaxy Nexus Android 4.0 smartphone. The South Korean giant did not, however, say when the patch will be posted. "Regarding the Galaxy Nexus, we are aware of the volume issue and have developed a fix. We will update devices …

    Phones 23 Nov 2011, 15:10

  • Boffin's wall of BEES shields farms from stampeding elephants

    Biologist earns gong after beasts buzz off

    A British researcher who studied elephants' fear of being stung by bees has been given a gong for developing a fence of beehives to reduce clashes between humans and the mighty mammals. Dr Lucy King's invention stops the giant animals from wandering onto farm land and causing havoc because they are so terrified of swarms of …

    Science 23 Nov 2011, 15:15

  • ISS 'nauts need not fear head-on space junk smashup

    NASA rules that debris is no threat to the space station

    Crew on the International Space Station will no longer have to hide from a possible collision with some space debris, after NASA flight controllers decided it posed no threat to the station. The ISS 'nauts had been told to take shelter in their Soyuz spacecraft in case the debris from the Fengyun 1C, a Chinese satellite, hit …

    Science 23 Nov 2011, 15:22

  • OpenStack is overstretched

    Opinion Too many targets

    I'm back again at my daily job after a week travelling between San Francisco and Silicon Valley. It's clear that the hot topics there are cloud and flash storage; in fact the first meeting I had last week in Silicon Valley was with OpenStack. OpenStack is an open source project launched a couple of years ago by Rackspace, one …

    Storage 23 Nov 2011, 15:30

  • Huge PDP-11 in a lorry: How I drove computers into schools

    This Old Box Mobile technology, the mainframe way

    Computers in classrooms are so common today, we may forget this was once inconceivably difficult. Computers were very expensive and so large they needed a huge truck to transport them. Nearly 35 years ago, I worked on an ambitious but ill-fated project to bring a minicomputer to rural Iowa schools, a classroom on wheels. In …

    Vintage 23 Nov 2011, 15:42

  • Groupon stock dives below IPO value as Black Friday nears

    Traders offering bargains on bargain-offer paper

    Groupon's shares are now trading at around $17.50, $3 less than its IPO price of $20, after tumbling 28 per cent in the last day and a bit. At the time of publication, the shares had dropped 13.05 per cent in the first two hours of trading on the Nasdaq today. The stocks had already slid all the way back to where they started …

    Financial News 23 Nov 2011, 15:56

  • GiffGaff blames O2 gaffe for mobile outage

    People's network loses its people

    GiffGaff is failing in its mission to be "the people's network" after denying connectivity to a significant number of people over the last couple of days – but apparently it's all O2's fault. The outage started yesterday morning, with certain GiffGaff customers losing all voice and data services for reasons which remain …

    Small Biz 23 Nov 2011, 16:04

  • BT Engage IT's big cheese shown the door

    COO 'will exit amid planned redundancies'

    The chief operating officer at BT Engage IT has been handed his pink slip as part of the planned redundancies at the reseller giant, The Reg understands. The telco giant is integrating its three reseller businesses including BT Engage – comprising the Basilica and Lynx Technology acquisitions – the Business Direct brand (dabs. …

    The Channel 23 Nov 2011, 16:11

  • US quakes before MENACING TURKEYS, snow globes

    Border control operatives hunt down anomalous pies

    Americans have been advised to head for the bunkers as Department of Homeland Security quakes before the latest threat existential threat to the union: Thanksgiving. The department, founded in the wake of the September 11 attacks, tweeted a series of warnings to worried citizens yesterday, as the danger level escalated. The …

    Government 23 Nov 2011, 16:21

  • Google machine-guns unpopular social products

    Sad, lonely web efforts not 'beautiful' enough to live

    Identity-hoarder Google has killed various social products that failed to capture the interweb's hive brain in the way it clearly thinks Google+ has done. As part of Larry Page's drive to make the Chocolate Factory's products appear more uniform across the vast Google estate, the company confirmed it was culling a host of …

    Developer 23 Nov 2011, 16:31

  • First bite as Apple fishes for iPad games subscriptions

    Big Fish swallows small monthly subs

    The first subscription game service for the iPad has been approved by Apple, allowing iPad owners to pay $7 a month for access to games from Big Fish. Seattle-based Big Fish is the first company to take the Cupertino shilling and agree to hand over 30 per cent of its subscription revenue every month, Bloomberg reports, but for …

    Small Biz 23 Nov 2011, 16:41

  • Apple telly may sport Sharp screen tech

    Who cares? It's more fun watching the CE biz squirm

    Does it really matter if Sharp is, as one analyst claims, re-equipping one of its LCD production lines to punch out Apple-branded tellies? For punters, it doesn't matter at all. If Apple doesn't buy panels from Sharp, it'll get them from someone else, most likely Samsung and/or LG, as these companies are the largest producers …

    Hardware 23 Nov 2011, 16:42

  • Netflix shares fall on profit warning

    Movie rental firm will make a loss if it can't recover from Qwikster debacle

    Netflix shares dropped 5.4 per cent in New York trading yesterday after the movie rental firm announced it had raised $400m from existing investors, but warned that it might not do too well next year. "If we do not reverse the negative consumer sentiment toward our brand, and if we continue to experience significant customer …

    Financial News 23 Nov 2011, 17:02

  • ScaleMP takes self in hand, pumps its offering even bigger

    Fixes together cluster ark-ships with network glue

    With server nodes getting more cores and fatter main memories, you might be thinking that the need for larger symmetric multiprocessing (SMP) servers, whether they are physical, like the ones sold by the major system makers, or virtual, like those created using the vSMP hypervisor and interconnect from ScaleMP, would be …

    Cloud 23 Nov 2011, 17:28

  • Nokia Siemens Networks chucks 17,000 people overboard

    Lightening ship ahead of IPO

    Ailing telco kit manufacturer Nokia Siemens Networks (NSN) is to slash 17,000 jobs worldwide by the end of 2013 as it eyes up an IPO. This equates to a 23 per cent drop in the workforce which along with rationalisation of real estate, targeted budget cuts in IT, product and service procurement and admin costs are expected to …

    Business 23 Nov 2011, 18:02

  • iPhone 4S is for failures who work in coffee shops - Samsung

    Barista barb could hit home in new ad campaign

    Not content with the trans-continental patent lawsuits, Samsung have struck another blow at Apple. This time somewhere it might hurt - its branding. A new TV ad for the Samsung Galaxy SII showing from today in the States sticks it directly to the iPhone, by suggesting that the Jesus mobe is an over-hyped pricey status toy for …

    Mobile 23 Nov 2011, 18:27

  • Apple one-day-only sale plans for Macs, iPads leaked to web

    iPhone discounts a no show

    Apple plans to offer modest discounts on Macs, iPads, and iPods for one day only on Friday, according to the 9to5Mac website, which said a trusted tipster leaked the details of its day-after-Thanksgiving sales. iMacs, MacBook Airs and MacBook Pros will be marked down by $101, while iPads will be discounted by $41 to $61 …

    Business 23 Nov 2011, 18:34

  • Yahoo! Microsoft! merger! back! on! after! NDA! signed!

    Yang’s final humiliation as Redmond offers peanuts

    A merger between Microsoft and Yahoo! could be back on the cards, after Redmond reportedly signed a non-disclosure agreement as a prelude to serious talks about their future together. A source close to the deal told the New York Times that Microsoft had signed the pledge, including provisions not to discuss terms with third …

    Financial News 23 Nov 2011, 19:43

  • China overtakes US as world’s biggest smartphone market

    Nokia faces do or die in Middle Kingdom

    The number of smartphones sold in China has outpaced that in the US for the first time, according to analyst house Strategy Analytics. In the third quarter of 2011 Chinese smartphone sales rose 58 per cent, with 23.9 million units shipped. By comparison, US smartphone sales slid down seven per cent to 23.3 million units. The …

    Mobile 23 Nov 2011, 21:14

  • Rooting Kindle Fire bricks videos

    Sting in the tail for fondleslab tinkerers

    Kindle Fire users may have to damp their enthusiasm for rooting their devices: unless they’re prepared to chase up some other fixes and put up with some inconvenience, rooting the device kills video access. The mini-fondleslab was rooted pretty much simultaneously with its launch, with a combination of the Amazon SDK, a …

    Tablets 23 Nov 2011, 21:38

  • Vocus buys capacity on Asian cable

    Takes direct data route on SeaMeWe-3

    Deep pocketed, dark fibre, data centre operator Vocus Communications is investing in international cable capacity and establishing a Point of Presence (PoP) in Singapore. Vocus has secured capacity on the SeaMeWe-3 Perth to Singapore cable system, which will provide customers with the only direct path between Australia and …

    Business 23 Nov 2011, 22:00

  • Amcom buys L7 for $AU15m

    More cloud services in the mix

    Amcom Telecommunications has taken over Perth based IT integrator L7 Solutions for $AU15 million. The acquisition will boost Amcom’s move into cloud-based product offerings and allow it to offer new services to existing customers. “The L7 business has an extensive skills capability that will enable us to accelerate our …

    The Channel 23 Nov 2011, 22:30

  • Gordon the supercomputer is intense about data

    SC11 300TB of flash = Big Data, fast

    According to San Diego Supercomputing Center chief Mike Norman, his brainchild 'Gordon' is the world’s first data intensive supercomputer. In the works for two years, Gordon was being shipped from system house Appro to its new home in San Diego last week during SC11 in Seattle. In the video, I catch up with Mike and discuss …

    HPC 23 Nov 2011, 23:00

  • Browser plugin brings strong crypto to Google webmail

    (Some restrictions apply)

    Software developers have released a JavaScript implementation of the OpenPGP encryption message format that allows users to encrypt and decrypt communications within web-based mail services. GPG4Browsers is currently available only as an extension for the Google Chrome browser for integration with Gmail. It works with all …

    Security 23 Nov 2011, 23:16

  • Blistering chip pumps 1.5 Gbps down wireless channel

    Mass production in three years says Rohm

    Japanese semiconductor group Rohm, working with Osaka University researchers, has showed off a prototype chip it says can pump an impressive 1.5 Gbps down a wireless channel using carrier frequencies in the Terahertz range. The difficult very difficult Terahertz band – frequencies between 100 GHz and 10 THz – has been the …

    Data Center 23 Nov 2011, 23:30