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15th December 2011 Archive

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  • Fairfax 'hacking' allegations blow up

    Police raid The Age

    Australia’s own “hacking scandal”, in which Fairfax’s Melbourne masthead The Age is accused of illegally accessing an ALP member database, has blown up spectacularly with an Australian Federal Victoria Police raid on the newspaper’s offices. The Vic Police E-Crime squad is “investigating the allegation that personal details of …

    Law 15 Dec 2011, 00:07

  • Feds charge eight former Siemens officials with bribery

    $100m allegedly paid to secure Argentine identity cards

    US officials have charged more than a dozen former executives and contractors of Siemens of conspiring to spend $100 million in bribes to secure a $1 billion contract to produce national identity cards for Argentine citizens. A criminal indictment filed on Tuesday against eight former officials of the German industrial giant …

    Law 15 Dec 2011, 01:00

  • Asus Zenbook UX31E

    Review The finest Ultrabook on the market?

    I honestly thought it would take the industry a lot longer to start producing Windows Ultrabooks for under a grand that are this good. The Asus Zenbook is as flat and skinny and as light as a MacBook Air without trying to look like one, and is a darn sight better connected. Smart notebook in size zero clothing: Asus Zenbook …

    Laptops 15 Dec 2011, 07:00

  • 'Flash Gordon' supercomputer powers up in January

    Solid-state 'science ship' casts anchor in San Diego

    Say hello to Flash Gordon; the world's first flash-powered supercomputer will come online in the San Diego Supercomputer Centre in January. It's being built by Appro International using Intel 710 flash drives and cost a bargain basement (this is supercomputing budget land) $20 million for 280+ teraflops, 36 million IOPS, and …

    HPC 15 Dec 2011, 08:02

  • WD slashes warranty periods on Blue and Green drives

    But you'll be able to buy it back, maybe!

    Western Digital is cutting the distribution warranty period for Caviar Blue, Caviar Green and Scorpio Blue drives from three to two years. Channel partners have been sent a letter from SelectWD explaining this, which says Caviar Black and Scorpio Black drives will continue to enjoy a five-year warranty. We understand WD's AV …

    Storage 15 Dec 2011, 08:33

  • Google gives £550k to Bletchley Park

    'Profoundly historically significant huts' get makeover

    Google has donated over half a million pounds for restorations at Bletchley Park, the site which commemorates the birth of modern computing and the code-breakers who helped bring the Second World War to an end. Bletchley Park chiefs intend to use the cash to turn a crumbling hangar into a "world-class visitor centre and …

    Hardware 15 Dec 2011, 08:58

  • Whitehall Post-Its, Ministers' GMail to come under FOIA?

    Comment Mandarins 'sh*tting bricks' at possible disclosures

    If you see puffs of black smoke drifting over Whitehall this week - don't be alarmed. The Information Commission is expected to rule that "backchannels" such as private email accounts, and other information recorded by Ministers and public servants must be revealed to the public. The ruling to expand the media available for …

    Government 15 Dec 2011, 09:18

  • ICO warns: Just six months to comply with EC cookie rules

    No 'wave of knee-jerk enforcement' come 26 May, tho

    The Information Commissioner's Office won't begin enforcing the new cookies law for another six months yet - in the meantime, the regulator has issued a reminder to web outfits warning them to prepare to comply with the legislation. On 25 May 2011, the implementation of the revised e-Privacy Directive passed with a whimper …

    Developer 15 Dec 2011, 09:37

  • Sony: PS3 sales ahead of target

    Will meet FY2012 sales goal

    Sony will sell 15m PlayStation 3 consoles by the end of March 2012, the consumer electronics giant has insisted. That was the target the company set itself for its current financial year, which ends next spring, and it'll be met, said Sony Computer Entertainment chief Andrew House this week. House claimed that PS3 sales were …

    Games 15 Dec 2011, 09:53

  • Dermandar Panorama

    iOS App of the Week 360-degree photography made easy

    There are quite a few apps that can be used to stitch together a series of overlapping photos in order to create a single, wide-angle panoramic picture. These apps all use clever algorithms to try to line up elements within the photos in order to create a seamless overlap, but even the smartest software can’t do much to help if …

    Phones 15 Dec 2011, 10:00

  • LG to tune in TVs to Intel's WiDi

    First tellies with laptop streaming tech on board

    Intel has won LG's backing for its Wireless Display (WiDi) video-over-Wi-Fi initiative. The South Korean giant will add the tech to next year's Cinema 3D TVs, it said today. They'll be the first tellies to have WiDi built in. WiDi, which streams video content from an Intel-based laptop, on a point-to-point basis if there's no …

    Laptops 15 Dec 2011, 10:08

  • The moment a computer crash nearly caused my car crash

    Sysadmin blog Engineering mustn't succumb to 'blame the user' culture

    I very nearly had a terrible car accident: my car almost left me stranded on the tracks of my city's light rail transit. The short version of the story is that my car started acting up, of all times, as I was on the way to the mechanic for an oil change. “Acting up” in this case meant refusing to go above 20kph (12.4mph) for …

    Servers 15 Dec 2011, 10:19

  • Super black hole about to scoff speeding space dinner

    Gas cloud barrels toward event horizon ... and oblivion

    Star-gazing boffins using the European Southern Observatory's aptly-named Very Large Telescope have discovered that supermassive black hole Sagittarius A is about to chow down on a huge gas cloud. Simulation of gas cloud after close approach to the black hole. Credit: ESO/MPE/Marc Schartmann The cloud, which is several …

    Science 15 Dec 2011, 10:35

  • Southampton Uni climbs aboard LOHAN spaceplane project

    Heavyweight postgrads to tackle Vulture 2 design

    The Low Orbit Helium Assisted Navigator (LOHAN) team is delighted to announce today that a heavyweight team of postgraduate students from the University of Southampton will be tackling the design of our Vulture 2 spaceplane. Regular readers will recall that we recently popped down to have a look at the Southampton University …

    SPB 15 Dec 2011, 10:51

  • Google Wallet fails to encrypt punters' personal data

    Your mobile knows what you spent last summer

    Security researchers have discovered that Google Wallet stores sensitive information unencrypted on devices, including the cardholder's name, transaction dates, the last four digits of credit card numbers, email address, and account balances. The mobile payment app fails to protect anything beyond the credit card number itself …

    Applications 15 Dec 2011, 11:02

  • How to get a top 10 iOS app: a Wednesday launch in Italy

    The numbers you need for the iTunes store hit parade

    Getting into the top ten apps on iTunes is something developers aspire to, but figures from Distimo show the huge disparity between iTunes markets around the world and across the week. Distimo styles itself as an app store consultancy, and so it set out to establish how many applications one needs to sell through iTunes in …

    Software 15 Dec 2011, 11:24

  • Grand Theft Auto 3 fires towards fondleslabs

    Liberty to roam the city

    This time ten years ago, Rockstar's first 3D rendition of the GTA series was keeping PlayStation 2 owners up all night. Grand Theft Auto 3 now seeks to inflict similar insomnia on fondleslab fanatics, after it was released today for iOS and Android. While controls have been optimised for mobile devices, the game is otherwise …

    Games 15 Dec 2011, 11:29

  • Prada and LG peg up third fashion phone

    Smart move?

    The tech meets trendsetter partnership between the fashion tour de force Prada and Korean electronics giant LG continues where others have failed. Indeed, that was the message both companies were pleased to convey as the third Prada phone by LG was unveiled with some seriousness at Claridges in London yesterday. At first …

    Phones 15 Dec 2011, 11:35

  • Feds cuff KISS rock star's DDoS suspect

    Bloke accused of flooding Gene Simmons' website

    The FBI has arrested a man suspected of taking part in a DDoS attack that smashed KISS bassist and reality telly star Gene Simmons’ web site off the internet. Kevin Poe, 24, of Manchester, Connecticut, was cuffed and appeared in court on Tuesday to answer charges of conspiracy and unauthorised impairment of a protected …

    Applications 15 Dec 2011, 11:42

  • 2011's Best... Hi-Fi and AV Kit

    Xmas Gift Guide Sonic boon

    With hi-fi and home cinema now two sides of the same coin, it’s inevitable that these 2011's Best... heroes come in every shape and size. But while price points and technologies differ, all can be considered solid gold entertainers. So if you’re looking for the UK’s best value Blu-ray player, the highest-performing dock, or …

    Hardware 15 Dec 2011, 12:00

  • Regulator reckons telly advert caps are just peachy

    Nine minutes per hour - and staying that way

    Ofcom has taken a long, hard, look at the quantity of advertising on television, and concluded that the existing caps are just fine and nothing needs to be done. The main UK channels are limited to nine minutes per the hour, with other commercial stations being restricted to seven. But Europe caps advertising at 12 minutes, so …

    Media 15 Dec 2011, 12:21

  • Mario decorations drive gamers up the wall

    Stick 1up

    Here's a cute one for all you retro game fanatics: fully licensed Super Mario wallpaper... that moves. Sort of. If you move it. Blik's Original Super Mario Wall Decals are essentially 36 giant stickers which can be used, and used again, to decorate walls in the style of Nintendo's most-loved videogame. The prints are made …

    Games 15 Dec 2011, 12:29

  • Apple mulls new chip boffinry HQ in Israel

    R&D centre threat to Samsung

    Apple is planning to set up a research and development centre in Israel, the first ever outside of its Cupertino HQ. Loose-lipped sources told Israeli business daily Globes that the fruity firm had lined up Aharon Aharon, a 30-year veteran of the technology sector who has worked for companies like IBM and Siemens, to head up …

    Hardware 15 Dec 2011, 12:43

  • Phone-hack saga: Cop bung probe nets seventh suspect

    Woman cuffed by Yard this morning

    A 37-year-old woman was arrested this morning by Scotland Yard officers working on Operation Elveden, which is an investigation into allegations of "inappropriate payments to police". The unnamed suspect was cuffed at a home in Surrey, the Met said. She is currently being held in custody at a south London police station. …

    Media 15 Dec 2011, 13:02

  • EC resolves antitrust probe into IBM mainframe biz

    Big Blue to play nicely on big iron in binding agreement

    IBM rivals now have a better chance of competing with the tech giant in the mainframe market, after the European Commission got Big Blue to loosen its grip on the business. In a legally binding agreement, IBM will make spare parts and technical information "swiftly available". It will do this, the EC added, under commercially …

    Servers 15 Dec 2011, 13:21

  • Nokia lightens Dark Knight with Batman blower

    The cased crusader

    Nokia has created a run of limited edition Lumia 800 handsets to tie in with Christopher Nolan's next Batman blockbuster, The Dark Knight Rises. Journalists were shown six minutes of the forthcoming Batman epic at a media event in London yesterday, where they were also given the chance to see Nokia's batphone in the flesh, Jon …

    Phones 15 Dec 2011, 13:23

  • Logica axes 1,300 jobs as profits set to be just £240m

    225 to go in Blighty

    Logica is cutting jobs across Europe as it tries to sell its wares in the increasingly gloomy IT services market. The company warned that it expected profit to now be in the range of £240m to £250m for the year, while Logica's revenue growth prediction for 2011 has also shrunk. It now expects a climb in sales to be around the …

    Developer 15 Dec 2011, 13:38

  • Facebook rolls out Timeline to world+dog

    Brace yourself for 'frictionless sharing' ... bitch

    Facebook is finally rolling out its Timeline feature worldwide, after the company first announced the latest tweak to its social network in September. As we reported last week, beyond select partners and developers, New Zealanders using Facebook were the only section of Zuck's vast global stalkerbase to get their hands on …

    Applications 15 Dec 2011, 13:54

  • Lloyds TSB online banking, ATMs titsup in server crash

    Festive rage from frustrated shoppers

    Lloyds TSB's online banking and cash machines went down this morning due to network server cutting out, the Register has been told. "The whole network server stopped running between 9 and 10.30am" a branch worker told us. Reports from readers and a test in the office showed that though the Lloyds website has been up and …

    Servers 15 Dec 2011, 14:23

  • Cheap energy revives US manufacturing, skint Brits shiver

    Energy policy here and there

    The battle of crystal ball gazers over how much we'll be paying for energy in the future rages on. The government's advisory panel on global warming has weighed in, with a report on household energy bills. The Climate Change Committee uses slightly different assumptions to the Energy Department, and only looks at a slice of the …

    Science 15 Dec 2011, 14:54

  • Cops target climate-sceptic bloggers in three countries

    Hardware seized in UK, feds request evidence in America

    Police have targeted at least four climate bloggers in three countries, with constabulary taking computers and networking equipment from a science blogger in the UK. Roger Tattersall, aka "Tallbloke", a Digital Content Manager at the University of Leeds, posted that six police officers identifying themselves as being from …

    Law 15 Dec 2011, 15:19

  • Nearest supernova since 1986 blasts boffin off her chair

    'We're all made out of bits of exploding star, you know'

    Boffins across the world have united to study a young supernova just 21 million light years away, to help figure out more about the way that various chemical elements - including those making up our own bodies - are formed. The Palomar Transient Factory caught SN 2011fe in the Pinwheel Galaxy in the vicinity of the Big Dipper …

    Science 15 Dec 2011, 15:31

  • London 'Tech City' quango burns through £1m on admin

    The Silicon roundabout - it's a nonstop social whirl!

    The taxpayer-funded quango given the job of rebranding and promoting the nontrepreneurs of Shoreditch has blown through £1m on admin costs alone in a year. 'Tech City' is the brainchild of No.10 special advisor Rohan Silva. It's also the name of the eponymous unit within UKTI, a taxpayer-funded quango, that's been set up to …

    Applications 15 Dec 2011, 15:38

  • Carrier IQ meets feds 'to educate them'

    Smartphone-probing app firm seeks to avoid being probed

    The makers of the controversial smartphone app Carrier IQ have reportedly been quizzed by federal regulators over concerns that its technology tracked user activity and uploaded data to mobile operators behind the back of consumers. The Washington Post reports that senior Carrier IQ execs have met with representatives from US …

    Applications 15 Dec 2011, 15:52

  • Journos can tweet from UK courts: But who's a journo?

    If you aren't a hack, you have to ask

    Journalists will be able to tweet freely from courts says new guidance from the UK Judiciary, but members of the public will still have to ask the judge's permission to be able to use Twitter in a court-room. Before yesterday, journalists had to be licensed before tweeting the proceedings of a trial. Now they can "Twitter as …

    Law 15 Dec 2011, 16:29

  • Comet Lovejoy spotted plunging toward fiery doom

    Space ice-lump to melt away above the far side of the Sun

    The comet Lovejoy has been snapped by ESA and NASA's SOHO spacecraft merrily continuing on its path to obliteration in the Earth's sun. Comet Lovejoy plunging towards the Sun. Credit: SOHO/LASCO (ESA/NASA) Lovejoy, first spotted on December 2, is on a course to plunge destructively towards, but not quite into, the Sun later …

    Science 15 Dec 2011, 16:36

  • Apple's Galaxy Tab ban was best advertising ever - Samsung

    Thanks a lot, Cupertino!

    Ah, sweet revenge! After winning its court battle to lift the ban on the Galaxy Tab 10.1 in Australia, Samsung is making the most of the fondleslab injunction saga. Samsung Australia's vice-president of telecommunications, Tyler McGee, told the Sydney Morning Herald that the case has turned the tablet into a household name in …

    Hardware 15 Dec 2011, 16:59

  • Microsoft copies Google with silent browser updates

    No more clinging to old IE versions

    Internet Explorer is about to do more than just look like Chrome - it'll silently update on your PC just like Google's browser, too. Microsoft in January will start rolling out auto updates moving you to the latest edition of IE available for your machine's operating system. Platforms covered are Windows XP, Windows Vista and …

    Applications 15 Dec 2011, 17:23

  • Amazon goes south with São Paulo data center

    Brazilian wax to speed Latin latency problems

    Amazon's expanded its server footprint for a second time just over a month, this time opening a data center serving customers in South America. The cloud pioneer that everybody's now racing to catch has opened its first South American Region facility with a server farm running in São Paulo. Amazon arranges the provision of its …

    Servers 15 Dec 2011, 17:31

  • Stolen, remote-wiped iPhones still get owner's iMessages

    Crafty internet SMS app proves impervious to scrubbing

    Victims of iPhone theft have discovered that remotely wiping the nicked kit won't stop iMessage content being delivered to the thief, who can continue to respond under the owner's name. The flaw was spotted by one David Hovis, whose wife had her iPhone lifted and promptly deactivated the mobile number, remotely wiped the data …

    Applications 15 Dec 2011, 18:06

  • Facebook won't deny it is sitting on huge mountain of cash

    Mole says Zuck still owns a quarter of it

    Facebook has declined to comment on a report that suggested the dominant social network had already tucked away sales of $2.5bn for the first nine months of 2011. Gawker, citing a "well-placed" source, claimed to have its hands on juicy financial details about the privately-held company that is expected to go public next year …

    Applications 15 Dec 2011, 18:29

  • Visa probes reported security breach of card processor

    17,000 cards already blocked

    Credit card issuer company Visa is investigating the possible breach of a payment processor in Europe that may have compromised more than 10,000 cards in Eastern Europe. In a statement issued on Thursday, according to IDG News, the issuer said: “Visa Europe has been informed of a potential data security breach at a European …

    Security 15 Dec 2011, 19:25

  • Ballmer can exhale: Bill Gates rules out Microsoft return

    Microsoft cofounder also feels no pain from Jobs jibes

    Bill Gates won't be coming back to Microsoft to retake the reins from embattled CEO Steve Ballmer – so says none other than Bill Gates himself. "I've made the transistion to work full-time on the [Bill & Melinda Gates] Foundation," Gates told an interviewer from The Sydney Morning Herald, "and that'll be what I do for the rest …

    Software 15 Dec 2011, 19:33

  • Foo Fighters gig goes seismic

    Bass lines like volcanoes shake the Kiwis

    In a scene that could have been written by Douglas Adams, a Foo Fighters gig in Auckland in quake-prone New Zealand has shown up on seismic monitoring stations. New Zealand’s geological hazard monitoring system GeoNet described the signal from the band (and its 50,000-strong audience) as similar to volcanic rumblings. GeoNet …

    Bootnotes 15 Dec 2011, 19:40

  • BigPond customers targeted by phishers

    One week after major security breach

    Telstra’s beleaguered BigPond customers, who suffered a major security breach last week when customer details were leaked to the web, are now subject to a targeted phishing campaign. Sophos reports that an email is doing the rounds urging BigPond users to confirm their billing information or risk the suspension of their …

    Security 15 Dec 2011, 21:30

  • Oz gov launches $AU200m green energy fund

    Softbank, Southern Cross score eco-fee bonanza

    Southern Cross Venture Partners has been appointed the lead fund manager of a $AU200 million renewable energy venture capital fund, Australia’s largest to date. The fund is expected to commence on 1 January 2012 and will be based in Sydney with additional offices in Palo Alto and Shanghai and a network of contacts and …

    Science 15 Dec 2011, 22:30

  • US spy drone hijacked with GPS spoof hack, report says

    Electronic warfare comes of age – in Iran

    The US stealth drone broadcast last week on Iranian state television was captured by spoofing its GPS coordinates, a hack that tricked the bird into landing in Iranian territory instead of where it was programmed to touch down, The Christian Science Monitor reported. The 1700-word article cited an unnamed Iranian engineer who …

    Security 15 Dec 2011, 23:27