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6th December 2011 Archive

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  • Globe slowly warming, insists 'Hansen's Bulldog'

    Torturing the time series until they confess?

    Two of the most vigorous advocates of the manmade global warming theory claim that the Earth's temperature has definitely risen even once Pacific ocean fluctuations and volcanoes are discounted, in a paper published by the Institute of Physics journal Environmental Research Letters. It just hasn't risen by very much. The two …

    Energy 6 Dec 00:03

  • Greens abandon science to tie down mobile towers

    Try to find a hospital without a mobile tower

    Why do the Australian Greens want to cut hospitals out of the country’s mobile phone networks? Their seemingly-benign notion that there should be no mobile phone towers within 200 meters of any hospital suggests that (a) Senator Bob Brown doesn’t understand how radio waves work, (b) he also doesn’t understand how people …

    Telecoms 6 Dec 00:03

  • AMD helping Android fans port to x86

    Intel and Google, not so keen

    A team of developers working privately to port the next version of Android to the x86 platform has been receiving a lot of support from AMD, but less from other key players. The project is seeking to port the Ice Cream Sandwich (ICS) android-4.0.1_r1 release build to the x86 platform, and Chih-Wei Huang, one of the enthusiasts …

    Mobile 6 Dec 01:01

  • Navy training mine washes ashore on Miami Beach

    File under 'WTF!'

    A portion of Miami Beach was evacuated on Monday following the discovery of a red and white cylinder that turned out to be a training mine belonging to the US Navy. Police cordoned off the area surrounding the 6-foot by 2-foot mine, which a Miami Fire Rescue spokesman said appeared to be live but not as explosive as a regular …

    Government 6 Dec 01:10

  • IBM unveils high-capacity, high-speed storage chippery

    'Racetrack memory' off to the races

    IBM has scored a blow in the high-stakes prizefight for the title of next-generation non-volatile memory technology, revealing a prototype "racetrack memory" chip baked using the same silicon fab technologies as run-of-the-mill chippery. Racetrack memory, for those of you who haven't been scoring at home, is competing with …

    Storage 6 Dec 01:15

  • Motorola Xoom 2 10in Android tablet

    Review Creaky tweaky?

    Motorola’s Xoom was the first Android 3.0 Honeycomb tablet to hit the shelves, and now little more than six months after its April 2011 debut, a second-generation machine called - you guessed it - the Xoom 2 is upon us. The new Xoom is available in two forms: one with a 10.1in screen, like its predecessor, and one with a 8.2in …

    reghardware 6 Dec 07:00

  • Defra gives IBM 21% MORE dosh this year

    Main IT partner received £99.1m - top 100 suppliers list for 2010-11

    IBM has increased its dominance of the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs' (Defra) budget, after a 21 per cent increase in its income from the department. The firm now receives nearly a quarter of Defra's £398.7m spending with external suppliers. Defra paid the firm £99.1m in 2010-11, according to figures …

    Government 6 Dec 08:02

  • British shoppers are doing it on the interwebs

    Web and mobiles now a large part of retail therapy

    The British are taking to online shopping faster than most other countries, according to a new study. Over 75 per cent of UK shoppers preferred to buy stuff like CDs, DVDs, books and video games online, compared with 65 per cent globally, a study by KPMG found. Six in 10 British respondents did some of their grocery shopping …

    Small Biz 6 Dec 08:31

  • Voyager probe reaches edge of Solar System's 'bubble'

    'Soon we find out what interstellar space is really like'

    NASA's famous Voyager 1 space probe, sailing outwards into the interstellar void far beyond the orbit of Pluto, has entered a new and never-before-seen region of space thought to be the very edge of the "bubble" maintained around the solar system by the power of the Sun. "We shouldn't have long to wait to find out what the …

    Space 6 Dec 08:46

  • Facebook 'acq-hires' Gowalla brains, shuts service down

    'We know you loved Gowalla, but they offered cash money'

    Facebook has confirmed that it is bringing the team behind Gowalla into the social network’s fold. Gowalla co-founders Josh Williams and Scott Raymond and some of the members of the Gowalla team will move from Austin, Texas HQ to Facebook’s Valley digs to join its design and engineering teams. Williams said that Facebook …

    Small Biz 6 Dec 08:57

  • Tax dept staff are HM's biggest e-learners

    Friggin tax-collecting boffins know too much!

    HMRC staff took more than 615,000 e-learning courses last year... HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) is making more use of e-learning than other departments, according to a report by the National Audit Office. The document says the NAO estimates that HMRC spent £96m in 2010-11 developing the skills of its staff. Most training …

    Government 6 Dec 09:23

  • Roberts reveals radio with raunchy recording features

    Noise "Я" us

    Roberts has launched a fresh DAB radio that lets users record their favourite broadcasts to an SD card. The Roberts RecordЯ rocks up with a bunch of nifty features for DAB users, but the headliner is the ability to record up to 24 hours of radio broadcasts. After slotting said memory card into the radio, all users have to do …

    reghardware 6 Dec 09:34

  • Opera spruces up email client in 11.60 browser cut

    Ragnarök: An ending, or a beginning?

    Opera has given one of its best-kept secrets - its email client - a facelift in the latest general release of its browser, available this morning. While work continues on version 12, currently in Alpha condition, the new desktop version reaches 11.60. Included is a new HTML parser Ragnarök, the first update for fifteen years, …

    Applications 6 Dec 09:39

  • Cocktail Flow

    Android App of the Week Bottoms up!

    My knowledge of cocktails is limited to seeing how many I can drink at press launches, so for those occasions when I have guests who aren’t impressed by my endless supply of bottled real ale, this app is a lifesaver. You can search for cocktails by name, type, colour or basic alcoholic content. Once you’ve come across …

    reghardware 6 Dec 10:00

  • LG chisels wedge-shaped Ultrabook

    Air-spirational?

    LG has revealed its first Ultrabook offering: the Xnote Z330, a 13.3in, 1366 × 768 machine with a MacBook Air-esque wedge design. There's a 1.6GHz Core i5-2467M processor on board the 1.2kg laptop - you can pick one with a 1.7GHz Core i7-2637M instead - and 120GB or 256GB of 6Gb/s Sata solid-state storage. There's 4GB of Ram …

    reghardware 6 Dec 10:04

  • Boffins: Japan was hit by 'double-wave' tsunami

    Two became one

    Boffins from NASA and Ohio State University have discovered that the tsunami that hit Japan in March 2011 was a so-called ‘merging tsunami’. Merging tsunami data from two satellites. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Ohio State University (click to enlarge) The idea of a merging tsunami, where two or more wave fronts join to form a …

    Energy 6 Dec 10:22

  • UK.gov to require YOU to opt out of data-sharing plan with drug firms

    Confidential NHS records to be 'opened up'

    Plans to share confidential NHS records with private medical researchers have been revealed by Prime Minister David Cameron. The government said in a statement yesterday that it was announcing a consultation "to change the NHS Constitution so that patient data is automatically included in clinical research, but giving patients …

    Government 6 Dec 10:44

  • Samsung seeks new chip factory in China

    Applies for NAND production facilities for mobes and tabs

    Samsung has applied to build a new flash memory chip plant in China, likely to cost around $4bn. The Korean firm informed the country’s exchange today that it was seeking approval for a NAND plant. NAND is a type of flash memory mostly used for smartphones and tablets. Samsung is hoping the new plant will be operational by …

    Storage 6 Dec 10:58

  • Microsoft researchers build spam filter for HIV

    Turns out spammers behave a lot like deadly virus...

    Researchers at Microsoft have discovered that tools first developed to fight email spam can be applied in helping to understand how the process by which HIV mutates to avoid attack by the immune system. Microsoft Researchers David Heckerman and Jonathan Carlson were asked to help AIDS researchers in Africa to make sense of …

    Biology 6 Dec 11:14

  • Asda knocks 20 quid off Kobo WiFi

    Basic e-book reader even cheaper for Chrimbo

    Asda will be selling Kobo's most basic e-book reader for just 67 quid this Christmas, the retail giant wanted us to tell you. The Kobo includes Wi-Fi but lacks the touchscreen sported by its slightly pricier, better big bro, the Kobo Touch, one of Reg Hardware's favourite e-book readers this year. Asda is selling the Touch …

    reghardware 6 Dec 11:17

  • IPO: Patent laws must change to attract Big Pharma to UK

    Stringent testing rules strangle drug development, say companies

    The government is likely to change patent laws because some pharmaceutical companies are at risk of breaking patent law when carrying out clinical testing, the Intellectual Property Office (IPO) has said. The IPO said that three-quarters of respondents to its recent consultation on patent infringement in pharmaceutical …

    Law 6 Dec 11:29

  • Samsung imagines see-through bendy tablet of the future

    Dream OLED

    Yes, it'll be many a year before we're all running around the globe, unfolding our transparent OLED mobile internet devices - which will seemingly operate without batteries and circuitry - and gaining useful local knowledge through a mix of mobile broadband, augmented reality and 3D. But, hey, who's to say Samsung, which …

    reghardware 6 Dec 11:40

  • Navy pays 2x purchase price to keep warship docked for 5 years

    You'll never guess the name of the contractor

    A contract has been awarded to keep a Royal Navy warship stored and unready for sea in dock for five years. The amount to be paid is approximately double what the ship cost to purchase in the first place. 'Steal in measure,' quo' Brygandyne. 'There's measure in all things made!' The vessel in question is HMS Victory, Nelson …

    Government 6 Dec 11:46

  • 2011's Best... DVRs and Media Streamers

    Xmas Gift Guide Telly content, off your Lan, off the net

    The days of piling shelves high with videotape recordings of shows once broadcast then forgotten are long gone. The current generation of DVRs and media streamers ensures that no TV programme remains unwatched for long, whether you snare it with a series link or stream it via a catch-up service. These days it's hard to miss a …

    reghardware 6 Dec 12:00

  • Another flash array upstart attacks SAN goliaths

    XtremIO gets fresh flash funding

    XtremIO is another flash array upstart aiming to wrest server networked storage away from the six SAN giants: Dell, EMC, HDS, HP, IBM and NetApp. The company was founded in 2009 by Yaron Segev, an ex software development VP at Voltaire, and Shahr Frank, its chief scientist. It has a head office in San Jose, Ca, and …

    Public Sector 6 Dec 12:14

  • China gets 64 quid Android 4.0 tablet

    Ainol outs seven-incher

    It's not politically correct to snigger at foreign folks' names, but we're not sure how well the Ainol tablet will play with Westerners - even if it does cost as little as $100 (£64) and come with Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich. Ainol's 7in offering is being touted by chip maker MIPS, which built the 1GHz processor the cut- …

    reghardware 6 Dec 12:17

  • Codebreakers find evidence for hidden puzzle in GCHQ challenge

    'Tell me I'm on the right track, GCHQ, so I can get some sleep'

    Codebreakers are split over whether there might be a hidden challenge in the GCHQ-set code-breaking puzzle set last week. The signals intelligence agency set a puzzle at canyoucrackit.co.uk in its attempt to drum up potential interest in a career at the spy centre from outside its traditional graduate programme. The three-part …

    Government 6 Dec 12:32

  • Bumblebee boffins rediscover long-vanished species

    Rare US insect had not been seen since 1956

    Scientists have rediscovered an extremely rare species of bumblebee in the US, which hasn't been seen since 1956. Cockerell's Bumblebee. Credit: G Ballmer, UC Riverside The find has prompted a lot of excitement due to the concern about bee species disappearing around the world. The bumblebee boffins, from University of …

    Biology 6 Dec 12:39

  • Windows 8 fondleslabs: Microsoft tip-toes through PC-makers' disaster

    Winning consumers and influencing content-makers

    2012 should be a landmark year for Microsoft. It will be the year 2011 should have been. The reason is simple: the company’s play to take on tablet computing should finally hit the road. Windows 8 will be delivered with an interface that liberates Microsoft’s operating system from the desktop prison of mouse and keyboard and …

    Developer 6 Dec 13:03

  • US military pays SETI to check Kepler-22b for aliens

    'Space situational awareness' cash for Allen Array

    The Search for Extra Terrestrial Intelligence (SETI) has announced that it is back in business checking out the new habitable exoplanets recently discovered by NASA's Kepler space telescope to see if they might be home to alien civilisations. The cash needed to restart SETI's efforts has come in part from the US Air Force Space …

    Government 6 Dec 13:14

  • Kindle Fire to consume half of Android tablet biz

    Three vendors in 2012: Apple, Amazon and 'others', says analyst

    Amazon's Kindle Fire will account for half of the Android tablets bought in 2012. So says Robert Cihra, an analyst at US financial services company Evercore Partners. He didn't indicate whether that's a global or US only figure - the Fire is, for now, only available in the States - but presumably the latter. Cihra attributes …

    reghardware 6 Dec 13:18

  • El Reg's life of Steve Jobs - now available on Kindle

    For you, for a friend, and for less than an eggnog latte

    The Register has launched its first Kindle book, “The Life and Times of Steven Paul Jobs”, by Rik Myslewski. So, if you can’t think what to get that special person - especially if that special person is you - we can help with a discreet few Kb of computer industry history. As it says right here Rik has followed Apple since …

    Site News 6 Dec 13:23

  • Infographic: The road to desktop virtualisation

    We're on a road to somewhere

    So much been said over the years about desktop virtualisation, so many claims, so much noise, so much clutter. Let us to bring some clarity to the proceeding with a cunning diagram that demonstrates the familiar options, the uptake, some of the challenges - and we've even sprinkled it with some top drawer advice from our …

    Enterprise Tech 6 Dec 13:30

  • US trade commission delays decision on HTC

    Wants another week to decide if it's violating Apple's patents

    The US International Trade Commission seems to be having a tough time making up its mind whether HTC has violated Apple patents, postponing a decision due today until 14 December. The ITC was supposed to give their ruling on the case today, but instead issued a statement (PDF) saying that it had decided to extend the target …

    Law 6 Dec 13:46

  • Cash-bloated startup takes on data protection giants

    What the heck is going on at Actifio?

    Ash Ashutosh's Actifio startup has been flooded with cash by VCs - $59.5m since its founding in 2008 - to create a virtualised data protection and availability device. Is it on fire? Actifio's PAS (Protection and Availability System) is a server running a distributed object filesystem, described as a Virtual Data Pipeline (VDP …

    Storage 6 Dec 13:58

  • More BT heads roll amid biz transformation

    Updated 'Disgusting the way staff are being treated' say reseller workers

    BT Engage IT company insiders claim staff morale has hit rock bottom as further details of the redundancies come to light. The reseller arm of BT is integrating the three operations - BT Engage IT, Business Direct and dabs.com - and are trimming the workforce, with COO Chris Leigh among those leaving the business. It has …

    Channel Register 6 Dec 14:21

  • Apple probed by EC antitrust arm over ebooks market

    Did publishers and Cupertino stifle competition in EU?

    Brussels opened a formal investigation into the sales of ebooks in Europe this morning to determine whether five publishers, with the help of Apple, had breached competition rules within the EU. In a statement, the European Commission listed News Corp-owned, US-based Harper Collins; France-based Hachette Livre, which is owned …

    Law 6 Dec 14:42

  • .xxx opens for business as smut site slings lawsuit

    Policies proposed on child pr0n, piracy and censorship

    The .xxx top-level domain will open for registrations from the public this afternoon, over a decade after the controversial adults-only internet address was first proposed. ICM Registry, which was awarded the .xxx contract by ICANN this March, will start selling .xxx domain names through a network of over 70 accredited …

    Hosting 6 Dec 15:02

  • Google set to begin appeal against Italian guilty verdicts

    Google Video 3 to fight privacy-breach convictions

    Google is shortly expected to appeal against suspended sentences handed out to three of its executives accused of breaching Italian privacy laws. Mountain View global privacy counsel Peter Fleischer, who is one of the men convicted by a Milan court in February 2010, told the San Francisco Chronicle that appeal proceedings …

    Law 6 Dec 15:22

  • Cnet slammed for wrapping Nmap downloads with cruddy toolbar

    Babylon's Burning ...

    Cnet has come under fire for wrapping downloads of the popular Nmap network analysis tool and other open-source software packages with a toolbar of dubious utility. Nmap is a popular open-source network auditing and penetration-testing tool that allows sysadmins to run network troubleshooting and penetration tests. Over the …

    Security 6 Dec 15:42

  • Shift to cloud computing puts squeeze on resellers' finance

    Invoice discounting 'overdraft' cash cow dries up

    The channel's long-term shift to cloud computing and managed services will force resellers to totally rethink historic forms of finance. Financial mechanisms including invoice discounting (ID) have long been used as an overdraft facility by some smaller and mid-market dealers to support cash flow but this avenue looks likely …

    Channel Register 6 Dec 16:01

  • Code-probing, not Angry Birds, will define cloud's success

    Open ... and Shut No sex please we're testing

    The cloud promises a new era of cost reduction and agility for IT, and enterprises are diving in (warning: PDF) to secure these benefits. But the process for moving applications to the cloud can be messy, particularly for those companies that haven't battle-tested their applications to ensure they can run in the cloud at scale …

    Developer 6 Dec 16:22

  • Sony networks boss on PlayStation, Sky and Google

    Interview Tim Schaaff: 'We don't have to be 100 per cent efficient to be successful'

    Tim Schaaff has one of the most interesting jobs in technology and media, as president of Sony's Network Entertainment. Under his guidance, Sony has built out the PlayStation Network and launched Music Unlimited. It's also one of the most challenging jobs, as Schaaf's vertical division spans several competing fiefdoms at the …

    Networks 6 Dec 16:42

  • Last of the space shuttle commanders retires from NASA

    Atlantis skipper hangs up his pressure suit

    The last astronaut to command a space shuttle mission is retiring from NASA at the age of 50, after 13 years at the agency. Chris Ferguson, who likes to play drums for rock and roll astronaut band Max Q* in his spare time, was in at the end of the space shuttle era when he captained the final voyage of Atlantis, the 135th …

    Space 6 Dec 16:49

  • India asks Facebook and friends to screen content

    Google and other net giants in meetings with gov over 'offensive content'

    Indian officials have joined the many governments that are beginning to get edgy about social media and the web, asking internet firms to get rid of content it considers offensive. Reports late on Monday claimed that the government had had meetings with executives from Google, Facebook, Yahoo and Microsoft about moderating …

    Government 6 Dec 17:11

  • Facebook security hole exposes Zuckerberg's privates

    And possibly yours, too

    A security hole on Facebook has been exposing private pictures of countless users, including the Social Network's founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg. A photo pilfering exploit posted to a bodybuilding.com forum on Monday included step-by-step instructions for viewing pictures designated as private by the Facebook users who posted …

    Security 6 Dec 18:31

  • Cisco wants to build your cloud

    Might as well face it, you're addicted to video

    Networking giant and server wannabe Cisco Systems put the word out on the street that it was making a big cloud announcement today, but if you were expecting the company to launch a big wonking public cloud and take a run at the Amazon compute cloud juggernaut, you can forget it. What Cisco did do was introduce its CloudVerse …

    Cloud Business 6 Dec 19:52

  • Boffing boffins create 3D map of orgasmic female brain

    Women are complicated. Who knew?

    A team at Rutgers University claims that women use up to 80 different points in their brain when orgasming, a discovery achieved by mapping the moment in 3D using a MRI scanner. The team, which presented their research at the recent Society for Neuroscience conference in Washington DC, persuaded female volunteers to achieve …

    Biology 6 Dec 20:34

  • Motorola rolls out Australia’s biggest digital radio network

    Network first unites emergency services

    Motorola Solutions will deploy Australia’s largest integrated digital radio network as part of a state-wide emergency services network for Western Australian government. The five-year, $AU40 million contract is part of a three part project tender that was issued by the Western Australian Government earlier this year. …

    Business 6 Dec 21:30

  • ‘Blogger not a journalist’ says Oregon court

    The $2.5 million defamation distinction

    An Oregon court has denied a blogger protection under that state’s “shield laws” because she isn’t employed by a media organization – a distinction which has cost her $2.5 million in a lost defamation suit. Blogger Crystal Cox was accused of defaming Obsidian Finance Group in blog posts critical of the company’s founder Kevin …

    Law 6 Dec 21:56

  • ‘Evil’ pleads guilty in Platform Networks case

    Upside: no more ‘NBN hacker’ headlines?

    David Noel Cecil, who earlier this year was arrested on accusations that he had hacked into computers operated by Platform Networks, has pleaded guilty to two counts of causing unauthorized modification of data. Cecil, who launched the attack under the moniker “Evil”, entered the plea via his solicitor Peter Ringbauer, …

    Crime 6 Dec 22:00

  • Artists craft the ultimate iPhone fanboi holiday gift

    Meet the $800, gold-plated shofar

    Apparently inspired by the alpenhorn and shofar, an Italian design firm has created the ultimate in glitzy, ritzy sound support for the iPhone: the Megaphone. Just in time for holiday shopping, en&is, founded by Enrico Bosa and Isabella Lovero of Milan, has married the simplicity of passive audio amplification with the shiny- …

    Mobile 6 Dec 22:05

  • Verizon denies blocking competitive Google Wallet

    Not blocking – just don’t expect it to work

    Verizon Wireless has denied blocking its users from Google’s Wallet system, but has admitted that that its customers won’t be able to use the payment application anytime soon. In a statement to The Register, Verizon stated categorically that the company does not block applications. However, in a line of thinking that seems …

    Mobile 6 Dec 22:08

  • Military contractor warns of new Adobe Reader exploit

    Attacks already under way

    Attackers are exploiting a vulnerability in the latest versions of Adobe Reader and Acrobat applications to hijack computers running Microsoft Windows, Adobe warned on Tuesday. The vulnerability, which corrupts memory involved with the U3D, or Universal 3D, file format, was reported by members of Lockheed Martin's computer …

    Enterprise Security 6 Dec 22:15

  • MapR cranks out updated Hadoop data muncher

    Lays foundation for MapReduce 2.0

    There are a slew of companies that want to be the Red Hat for open source Hadoop data chewing, making money by beefing it up and selling support for the collection of programs. MapR Technologies, which came out of stealth mode in May, has some proprietary extensions to Hadoop, but all of the goodies being added with MapR …

    Cloud 6 Dec 22:20

  • Ericsson scores slice of Kiwi fast network

    Set to deploy GPON for Northpower

    Ericsson will be rolling out one of the first commercially available GPON networks developed under the New Zealand government’s Ultra-Fast Broadband initiative. Northpower Fibre selected Ericsson New Zealand for the layer 2 or GPON supply contract for a portion of New Zealand’s UFB which will be deployed in Whangarei. “We …

    Business 6 Dec 22:30

  • Solar installations skyrocket in Oz

    PV now on half a million roofs

    In spite of cutbacks in various government programs that subsidized home solar installations, installations in Australia passed the half-million mark during 2011, according to the Clean Energy Council. In a report released during the climate change talks at Durban, the council said its research found that there are now 35 …

    Energy 6 Dec 23:00

  • Intel, Micron double single-chip flash capacity

    How does a speedy 128Gb grab you?

    Intel and Micron, through their IM Flash Technologies (IMFT) joint venture, have announced the development of what they call the world's first 20-nanometer, 128-gigabit, multilevel-cell flash-memory chip, and that they have begun "mass production" of their 20nm 64Gb chip. "Through the utilization of planar cell structure and …

    PCs & Chips 6 Dec 23:13