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14th December 2011 Archive

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  • Feds propose 50-state ban on mobile use while driving

    Handheld, hands-free, texting, browsing – it's all deadly

    The US National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) has called for a nationwide ban on driving while using what it calls "personal electronic devices" – PEDs – by which they mean mobile phones and, to a lesser extent, fondleslabs. And when the NTSB says mobile phones, they mean handheld or hands-free, unless the hands-free …

    Mobile 14 Dec 00:48

  • CERN: 'New physics starts now'

    Analysis Next, get busy in the TeV range

    If people still wore as many hats as formerly, CERN would have seen plenty of caps in the air when the latest Higgs boson results were announced. The LHC data is still shy of certainty: as spokesperson Fabriola Gianotti says in this video, a lot more measurements will be needed, but those measurements are going to concentrate …

    Physics 14 Dec 01:04

  • SCADA vuln imperils critical infrastructure, feds warn

    Secret accounts open control systems to attack

    An electronic device used to control machinery in water plants and other industrial facilities contains serious weaknesses that allow attackers to take it over remotely, the US agency that safeguards the nation's critical infrastructure has warned. Some models of the Modicon Quantum PLC used in industrial control systems …

    Hardware 14 Dec 01:06

  • Paul Allen proposes new space launcher

    Stratolaunch building BLOODY BIG 747-powered lifter

    Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen is indulging his enthusiasm for space travel with a new project: a giant aircraft designed for mid-flight rocket launchers. And he doesn’t think small: under a new company, Stratolaunch Systems, Allen plans to put together the “biggest airliner ever built” using six 747 engines to haul SpaceX …

    Rise of the Machines 14 Dec 01:44

  • Dead trees not dying out

    Oz printing industry experiences tiny contraction over three years

    Fondleslabs, Facebook and smartphones may be marketers’ toys de jour, but the first wave of digital toys and associated marketing didn’t make a dent in the amount of business for Australia’s printing industry, according to new data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS). Way back in 2006-2007 more than 50,000 people …

    Bootnotes 14 Dec 02:02

  • NBN Co awards transit tender to Visionstream

    While Primus is set to offer calls

    Network service provider, Visionstream, has secured a $AU19 million contract to supply NBN Co’s first stage transit network. The transit network comprises rings of backbone fibre-optic cables that will connect NBN Co's central hub to the modern equivalent of telephone exchanges. Initial first stage sites are currently being …

    Business 14 Dec 03:59

  • Acer TravelMate Timeline X TM8481T 14in Core i5 notebook

    Review Endurance over performance?

    As the name might suggest, Acer’s TravelMate family of notebooks are aimed at the mobile users, with an eye on business bods after something a little more stylish than the standard issue grey slab. A new addition to the range is the Timeline X TM8481T with just a couple of variants at present. Road runner: Acer's TravelMate …

    reghardware 14 Dec 07:00

  • Enterprise flash: The good, the bad and the cloudy

    Which tech will win the NAND shoot-out?

    As flash tech firms face up to each other like gunslingers in a Wild West shoot-out, El Reg presents these suppliers or supplier groups developing NAND products for, hopefully, appreciative customers. We've found higher capacity and faster flash, faster-connecting flash and, you knew it was coming, cloud flash. NVMe This …

    Virtualization 14 Dec 08:31

  • Hitachi GST enters itty-bitty server disk fray against Seagate

    New 2.5in Ultrastar level pegs with Savvio

    Hitachi GST has announced a 900GB small form-factor drive, thus catching up with Seagate's Savvio. The Ultrastar C10K900 is a 3-platter, 2.5-inch enterprise-grade 6Gbit/s SAS drive that spins at 10,000rpm and holds 0.9TB of data - 300GB more than the C10K600. Hitachi says average seek times are as low as 3.8ms, and has a " …

    Channel Register 14 Dec 09:03

  • 'NHS bosses must master Twitter, Facebook to halt staff antics'

    Top adviser hits out at 'social media refuseniks'

    The author of recent guidance on using social media for nurses and midwives says NHS managers should be able to actively respond to issues around how their staff use social media. Andy Jaeger, assistant director of public and professional communications at the Nursing and Midwifery Council (NMC) and author of recent guidance …

    Public Sector 14 Dec 09:22

  • UK is biggest nation of web shopaholics - Euro poll

    Ofcom survey also prods flagging fibre uptake

    UK shoppers order more stuff online than their European neighbours - and worry the least about how their personal data is used on social networking sites even though seven out of ten Brits admit having concerns about privacy. That's according to Ofcom's latest International Communications Market study, which also determined …

    Small Biz 14 Dec 09:38

  • Laptop display pixel counts to quadruple in 2012

    2880 x 1800 panel on your MacBook, anyone?

    Buy one of Apple's next MacBook Pro notebooks and you'll get yourself a - glossy, no doubt - 2880 x 1800 resolution display. So say the inevitably anonymous Asia moles, who add that next year's fresh crop of Ultrabooks - likely to be demo'd at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in January but not go on sale until Q2 when …

    reghardware 14 Dec 09:50

  • The Dark Meadow

    iGamer Pan's people

    I've just been to see the Guillermo del Toro produced cinematic update of Don’t be Afraid of the Dark and it was all shades of Pan's Labyrinth, dark basements and flesh-eating homunculi. The Dark Meadow steals this striking vision and mélanges together mechanisms of FPS combat, role-playing and exploration. General Hospital …

    reghardware 14 Dec 10:00

  • I have you now! Top 10 Star Wars Xmas presents

    From Millennium Falcon manual to USB sticks

    With the shops jammed and checkout lines up the wazoo, it would be forgivable to buy Star Wars: The Complete Saga on Blu-ray from Amazon for The Wars fan in your life, and think "job done". The Reg, however, has channeled The Force to show there is another way, with 10 of the best Star Wars gifts. From the Millennium Falcon, …

    Entertainment 14 Dec 10:21

  • OCZ wheels out lower octane SSD for Sunday drives

    The only petrol that's cheap as chips

    OCZ has a new SSD product and brand, Petrol, which uses cheaper asynchronous NAND than last month's Octane with its synchronous NAND. Both Petrol and Octane are 2.5in form-factor SSDs with a 6Gbit/s SATA interface, and use OCZ's own Indilinx Everest controller. Octane flash is 25nm IMTF 2-bit synchronous NAND, whereas Petrol …

    Channel Register 14 Dec 10:42

  • Brits turned off by Smart TVs

    More than half of UK punters don't want one

    Brits may not be as keen on internet-connected tellies as previously thought. A new survey conducted by pollster YouGov shows we own fewer Smart TVs than folk in other major European economies do. We're more attracted to new telly tech than the Americans are, though. According to YouGov, more than half of Brits (52 per cent) …

    reghardware 14 Dec 10:45

  • HuffPo .XXX squatter turfed out in crackdown

    Dozens of domains seized from smut site opportunists

    ICM Registry has suspended scores of .xxx domain names it says were registered by cyber-squatters in a large-scale trademark infringement scam. Domains such as washingtonpost.xxx, verizonwireless.xxx and businessweek.xxx were among more than 70 seized under the unprecedented crackdown yesterday. ICM CEO Stuart Lawley told The …

    Music and Media 14 Dec 11:03

  • Hot Xmas treat for WinPho punters - Office doc sharing

    Just what you've always wanted - a mobile Lync client

    Microsoft's communications platform Lync has gone mobile with a Windows Phone client, but we're still waiting for the promised iPhone and Android clients billed as "coming soon". Lync is the platform formally known as "Microsoft Office Communicator", and provides shared access to Office documents as well as shared working …

    Applications 14 Dec 11:22

  • Apple TV tops connected set-top box chart

    More owners than its rivals. They buy more content too

    And the most popular net-connected set-top box is… the Apple TV. So says market watcher Strategy Analytics, which calculates the small black gadget is to be found in no fewer than eight per cent of US households. The £99/$99/€119 Apple TV is in seven per cent of European homes too. That, SA said, gives Apple 32 per cent of …

    reghardware 14 Dec 11:49

  • 2011's Best... HD TVs

    Xmas Gift Guide New telly for Chrimble? Here are our faves

    If there’s one thing we’re not short of for this annual review, it’s good TVs. Large and small, thin and thinner, the things are legion. To streamline the list, all our 2011's Best… TVs finalists embrace one key feature: net connectivity. Whether they connect to the net over integrated Wi-Fi or a wired Ethernet line, these …

    reghardware 14 Dec 12:00

  • Apple's founding contracts sold for $1.59 MILLION

    Paperwork signed by Jobs and Woz auctioned off

    Apple's founding documents have sold for ten times their estimated price at a Sotheby's auction, fetching $1.59 million. The contract establishing the corporation, along with further paperwork removing one of the three original founders, were expected to go for around $150,000, but were snapped up by Eduardo Cisneros, CEO of …

    Bootnotes 14 Dec 12:23

  • Amateur balloonists conquer Atlantic

    Mighty globe flies from Silicon Valley to the Mediterranean

    A group of US balloonists have achieved the first amateur transatlantic meteorological balloon crossing, with an epic three-day flight from California to the Mediterranean. The California Near Space Project (CNSP) unleashed four balloons from Silicon Valley on Sunday night. Two were standard high-altitude attempts, which burst …

    Hardware 14 Dec 12:42

  • HDS unwraps 'data ingestor'

    Cloud info gobbler functions like data bee swarm

    Hitachi Data Systems has revved its cloud object storage on-ramp, the file data-gulping HDI, to share data, restore old versions of files, and continuously migrate new files into a Hitachi-based cloud. Hitachi Data Ingestor (HDI) is a physical or virtual caching appliance that presents a NAS interface through which file data …

    Storage 14 Dec 12:47

  • Fans lose grace with Star Wars MMO

    Access code worrier

    Star Wars: The Old Republic fans are getting hot under the collar after it emerged that they may not be able to continue playing the game with pre-release "Early Access" code once the title hits shop shelves. That might not matter so much if developer Bioware hadn't said such a so-called "grace period" would be in force. …

    reghardware 14 Dec 12:53

  • Microsoft adds iPhones to SkyDrive party guest list

    Come on in, we're all friends in the cloud

    Microsoft's cloud has partially descended on the iPhone with SkyDrive now available for Apple's super-soaraway mobile. Microsoft has unveiled a version of its SkyDrive online document storage and sharing service tailored for iOS, along with SkyDrive for Windows Phone. iPhone customers can now access all of their files in …

    Applications 14 Dec 13:02

  • Paul Allen latest plan: Space rockets on MEGA PLANE

    This one's definitely not made of spruce, though

    Billionaire Microsoft co-founder Paul G Allen has set foot down a path trailblazed generations ago by another eccentric business kingpin: he intends to build the biggest aircraft ever flown. However unlike Howard Hughes' monster "Spruce Goose" 1940s flying boat, Allen's plan appears at least feasible and he has some big names on …

    Software 14 Dec 13:28

  • Woz's key to success: Burn the tie, wear T-shirts to work

    Megastar geek mauls Singapore in pro-hippy polemic

    Singapore is far too strait-laced, says Apple co-founder and engineering hero Steve Wozniak, and employers should let their workers wear T-shirts. Speaking this morning, Woz told BBC Radio 4's Today programme that a counterculture ethos was vital for creativity and it had a continuing influence on Apple. And a counterculture …

    Developer 14 Dec 14:01

  • No BEAST fix from Microsoft in December patch batch

    Google, Adobe join Redmond in festive fix barrage

    Microsoft released 13 security bulletins addressing 19 vulnerabilities overnight, as part of a bumper final Patch Tuesday of the year. Highlight of the baker's dozen is a patch for the the zero-day vulnerability exploited by Duqu (sibling of Stuxnet) worm back in October. Fixing the underlying flaw exploited by Duqu involves …

    Operating Systems 14 Dec 14:26

  • iPhone users get iJustHadAShag bedpost-notch boast app

    'I'm just in the middle of someone'

    iOS users who fondle more than a slab now have an app to help them report the fact instantly, without having to compose the previously-requisite 140-character double entendre. I Just Made Love lets the user select the kind of relationship, and positions explored, then geotags the entry with a Google Maps mashup so everyone can …

    Applications 14 Dec 14:57

  • York CompSci student pleads guilty to Facebook hack

    Social network wet pants in fear of industrial espionage

    A computer enthusiast from York has admitted hacking into Facebook. Glenn Mangham, 26, pleaded guilty to hacking into the social networking site between April and May this year at a hearing in London's Southwark Crown Court on Tuesday. The court heard that the incident sparked a major security alert amid fears that some form …

    Software 14 Dec 15:28

  • UN, IMF join opposition to ICANN top-level domain plans

    Sod the economy, cybersquatting is the true threat

    Intergovernmental organisations (IGOs) like the United Nations and the International Monetary Fund have joined the ranks of the opposition to ICANN's proposed expansion of domain names. The web address overlord is planning to allow companies and organisations to establish generic top level domain names (gTLDs) from January …

    Developer 14 Dec 15:53

  • Apple's request for HTC ban delayed again

    Are these fake Jesus mobes, or some other saviour device?

    The US International Trade Commission's decision on stopping HTC products from entering the country has been delayed for a second time. Apple is suing handset-maker HTC with the ITC in a bid to get the Taiwanese firm's goods banned from the US. The ITC was supposed to be announcing its decision on the patent infringement case …

    PCs & Chips 14 Dec 16:26

  • Google promises 0.001 of revenue to free the slaves

    'More slaves today than at any time in history'

    Google is on course to smash the £30bn annual revenue barrier by the end of this year, so - in time-honoured fashion with it be Christmas 'n' all - the company has plonked just over 0.1 per cent of this cash on the philanthropic pile. The world's largest ad broker isn't just fretting about educating girls, empowering people …

    Software 14 Dec 16:51

  • Forecasting logon storms with desktop virtualisation

    You the Expert Planning for bad weather

    For an IT manager, desktop virtualization is no bad thing, if only because it limits how badly a user can mess up his or her own settings. So if you are thinking that you could slim down your desktop hardware requirements and maybe keep track of everyone’s software upgrades more simply are there any downsides consequences it …

    Enterprise Tech 14 Dec 17:12

  • Nekkid Tech: Where are the new enterprise bibles?

    Podcast Listen online for offline knowledge

    The previous Nekkid Tech outing quizzed HP storage bigwig David Scott and discussed changes at the tech titan. Now, back with episode 11, Nekkid Tech host Greg Knieriemen chats to guests Greg Schulz of StorageIO (@storageio) and Gina Minks, storage evangelist at Dell (@gminks). Here's what to expect in today's podcast… Nekkid …

    Hardware 14 Dec 17:24

  • Facebook 'HipHop VM' juices PHP speed pill

    Aim to bust engineers out of edit-reload-debug dungeon

    Facebook hopes to shave seconds off of its PHP web pages loads and juice its servers' performance with an execution engine for the C++ code transformer it cooked up last year. The web giant's engineers have unveiled something called HipHop Virtual Machine (hhvm) for the HipHop for PHP product already being used in software …

    Developer 14 Dec 17:43

  • Microsoft gives up on proprietary 2D barcode, accepts NFC

    MS Tag maintained as a 'curiosity'

    Microsoft is embracing wireless web bookmarking by allowing its Tag app to pick up URLs using NFC - as well reading industry-standard QR codes and Redmond's own barcode standard, also called Tag. Microsoft's answer to the QR Code came out of beta in May 2010, and since then has resolutely failed to set the world on fire. With …

    PCs & Chips 14 Dec 18:21

  • Wikipedia simplifies article editing for world+dog

    New visual editor invites unwashed masses into the Wikifold

    Wikipedia is developing an easy-to-use visual editor to make it easier to muck up emend, revise, and polish pages of "the encyclopedia that anyone can edit". The new editor is currently available only in a decidedly beta and somewhat buggy sandbox version – which you're free to toy with to your heart's content – but it's clear …

    Music and Media 14 Dec 18:52

  • Newfangled graphics engine for browsers fosters data theft

    The shady truth behind CSS shaders

    Software developers at Google, Apple, Adobe, and elsewhere are grappling with the security risks posed by an emerging graphics technology, which in its current form could expose millions of web users' sensitive data to attackers. The technology, known as CSS shaders is designed to render a variety of distortion effects, such as …

    Security 14 Dec 21:28

  • Ericsson's Erikkson heading Down Under

    Hakan Eriksson takes the big chair in Oz

    Ericsson Australia has been an international executive coup, with global Chief Technology Officer, Hakan Eriksson, taking the role of Head of Ericsson in Australia, New Zealand and Fiji, effective February 1, 2012. The 25-year Ericsson veteran has most recently been based in Silicon Valley operating as Senior VP, CTO, Head of …

    Business 14 Dec 21:30

  • Comm Bank in four hour network wipeout

    Late night shoppers forced to tweet anger

    Commonwealth Bank customers suffered a four hour outage during pre-Christmas shopping on Wednesday evening, reporting incorrect balances and sparking customer meltdowns on Facebook. The entire network was down from an as-yet-to-be identified fault affected the bank's national ATM network online banking and EFTPOS systems. The …

    Business 14 Dec 22:00

  • Aussie group buying platform goes shopping in HK

    Spreets tech smarts go global

    Dealised, the Australian developed technology platform behind group buyer Spreets, has made its first international acquisition with the purchase of Hong Kong start-up, Lokaly Network Limited. Like Dealised, Lokaly is a platform vendor, operating the consumer group buying site ValuUp, which was included in the transaction. The …

    Music and Media 14 Dec 22:30

  • Yahoo!, newspaper in Singapore spat

    Content claim and counter-claim

    Yahoo! has slammed allegations made by Asian publisher Singapore Press Holdings (SPH) that it reproduced SPH content without permission and profited from advertising. The web giant has issued a statement rebuking the claims and “denies all allegations of wrongful copyright infringement by SPH." Yahoo! has also issued a counter …

    Music and Media 14 Dec 23:00