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20th December 2011 Archive

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  • Apple wins skirmish in HTC-Google patent war

    One part of one patent bans import of Android phones (maybe)

    The US International Trade Commission has handed Apple a victory in its patent dispute with Android-phonemaker HTC, banning the Taiwanese company's infringing phones from importation into the US. The full impact of the victory's implications, however, remains to be seen. "Notice is hereby given that the U.S. International …

    Operating Systems 20 Dec 01:09

  • Nissan Leaf battery powered electric car

    Review Yes, you can live with an e-car. We have

    Spending a couple of hours at the wheel of a new car at a press event is all well and good, but to really get under a vehicle's skin you need to live with the thing on a day-to-day basis. This is especially true of one with an alternative drive train. So it was with some interest that I watched a shiny new white Nissan Leaf …

    reghardware 20 Dec 07:00

  • CA handles La Perla's substantial assets

    ARCserve backing up bra servers

    Luxury Italian undies biz La Perla is protecting its data assets from a tits-up by using CA's ARCserve backup software. The bra-and-panties business has 3TB of data on 50 servers around the globe and is using ARCserve Backup to safeguard it. The data ranges from email to critical data and business intelligence based on sales …

    Storage 20 Dec 08:01

  • Atari and Square Enix cough to exposing users' privates

    Gaming security still sux

    Atari has apologised to gamers following a security breach that exposed their names and email addresses, leaving users at heightened risk of spam as a result. The gaming outfit blamed the fairly minor breach (no credit cards or mobile phone numbers were exposed) on problems introduced during a migration to a new cloud-based …

    ID 20 Dec 08:59

  • Public bodies told: Swapping data feels good, but you must be careful

    Eurim gives cautious welcome to EU plans

    Sharing data on public services could have serious consequences unless the material has been valued, maintained and protected and the original reasons for its collection have been taken into account, the Information Society Alliance (Eurim), has warned. In a report (PDF) on the quality of public sector information, the group …

    Government 20 Dec 09:22

  • Sky follows BT in blocking Newzbin2

    ISP blocked access last week after UK court order

    The internet service provider Sky cut off access to Newzbin2 last week following a court order. It is the second UK ISP to block Newzbin2 after a High Court ruling earlier this year forced BT to deploy filtering technology to prevent its customers accessing the site. Newzbin2 is a members-only site which collates links to a …

    Software 20 Dec 09:42

  • Five... friendly, free Android apps

    Android App of the Week Simple utilities you shouldn't be without

    Each too simple to warrant a full App of the Week write-up, these five dinky free programs caught my eye over during the past 12 months and have since taken up permanent residence on my Desire HD. App Cache Cleaner Does exactly what the title suggests and takes a broom to all the guff stored by your apps in their caches. …

    reghardware 20 Dec 10:00

  • Sony PS Vita sales fall shy of 3DS launch volume

    But a better seller in the long run?

    Mobile-mad Japanese gamers bought 321,400 PS Vita handheld consoles this past weekend, local market watcher Enterbrain has revealed. A lot of units, to be sure, but behind Nintendo's 3DS launch, which saw 371,000 units snapped up in a similar two-day period. The original PSP clocked up two-day launch sales of 166,000 units …

    reghardware 20 Dec 10:23

  • Shareholders rage over Imation's incredible 88% plunge

    How the leading disc and flash maker came a cropper

    How do you build a $226m company? Start with a $2bn one. This joke could apply to Imation, which could go the way of Kodak and turn shareholder value into dross, because its management, facing declining sales of old technology, is late to respond and now buying bum companies with crappy prospects. That's the view implied by …

    Storage 20 Dec 10:25

  • Netflix UK to stream BBC shows

    Doctor Who, Top Gear, Fawlty Towers and more

    Netflix's UK content roster continues to grow. Today it said it had licensed a stack of BBC shows including Doctor Who and Top Gear. The deal, struck with the Corporation's commercial arm, BBC Worldwide, will see Netflix UK make many already shown series available to its subscribers. Netflix said it had its hands on Torchwood …

    reghardware 20 Dec 10:44

  • LOHAN fires up sizzling thruster

    Video First test of Vulture 2 powerplant

    Things are moving apace at the Low Orbit Helium Assisted Navigator (LOHAN) headquarters, and last weekend we did a first test firing of the proposed powerplanet for the Vulture 2 spaceplane. The thruster in question is an AeroTech RC 32/60-100NS, specifically designed for gliders and without the ejection charge used to deploy …

    SPB 20 Dec 11:01

  • Five firms to create HD-centric DRM for SD cards

    Format shifting without resort to the torrents?

    Panasonic, Samsung, SanDisk, Sony and Toshiba are to develop a better DRM for memory cards. Just what the world needs: more DRM... The quintet's notion is that the technology will allow HD content to be transferred to SD cards and such and not copied elsewhere. A typical scenario: your DVR records, say, a future Doctor Who …

    reghardware 20 Dec 11:07

  • EMC hikes drive prices, blames Thai flood tragedy

    Others big storage array and server suppliers may follow

    El Reg has been sent a copy of a letter from EMC to its Velocity channel partners saying disk drive prices will rise 5 to 15 per cent from 1 January, 2012. It is apparent the price rise is due to drive shortages caused by the Thailand flooding. This has caused retail drive prices to rise and impacted many disk drive OEM deals …

    Storage 20 Dec 11:22

  • Three more 'nauts prepare for space station housewarming

    Crew blasts off tomorrow in time for weightless Xmas

    The second half of the International Space Station's Expedition 30 crew is getting ready to blast off tomorrow to dock with the station in time for Christmas. Soyuz TMA-03M at the launch pat at Baikonur Cosmodrome. Credit: NASA/Carla Cioffi Russian cosmonaut Oleg Kononenko, the European Space Agency's Andre Kuipers and US …

    Space 20 Dec 11:42

  • 2011's Best... compact cameras

    Xmas Gift Guide Hot shots

    2011 was the year when compact system cameras (CSC) really began to hit their stride. Late to this year’s party were the Nikon 1 J1 and V1 models, but we’re still waiting to on Canon to show its hand in this arena. More to the point, Canon has yet to deliver a successor to its revered PowerShot G12 which is showing its age now. …

    reghardware 20 Dec 12:00

  • BT, Scotland Yard form copper theft crackdown supersquad

    A lot of fibre is mangled by metal pilferers, you know

    BT is working with Scotland Yard in an effort to crack down on metal theft, which the Met said costs taxpayers £700m per year - not to mention the misery when power and telecoms cabling is nicked. A group – dubbed the Waste and Metal Task Force – has been formed, made up of the Metropolitan Police Service; representatives from …

    Crime 20 Dec 12:18

  • Christmas headaches? We prescribe a year long course of BOFH

    A year of adventure - on Kindle

    Still looking for that last minute stocking filler? Perhaps for a loved one? Like yourself? Well, have you considered spending Christmas and New Year's with the Bastard Operator from Hell? It costs less than the price of a pint to get your eyes round El Reg's collected BOFH 2011. Every one of the Simon and the PFY's …

    BOFH 20 Dec 12:48

  • Mobiles forced to send premium-rate texts in new attack

    Hacker hijacks SMS error message flaw

    Cybercrooks may be able to force mobiles to send premium-rate SMS messages or prevent them from receiving messages due to security weaknesses in mobile telecoms standards. The weakness involves the handling of messages directed towards SIM Application Toolkits, applications preloaded onto SIM cards by mobile operators. The …

    Security 20 Dec 13:02

  • TalkTalk, 3UK scratched off Ofcom's Xmas card list

    Telcos are most complained about ever

    It's official: TalkTalk and 3UK had more complaints than any other Blighty-based telcos since communications' regulator Ofcom started publishing its league table displaying the good, the bad and the downright ugly. TalkTalk is, for the fourth consecutive quarter, the most whinged about ISP. The company also languished at the …

    Business 20 Dec 13:21

  • Deutsche Telekom: 'FCC, DoJ didn't give AT&T deal a chance'

    Tried to flog T-Mobile USA and all it got was this lousy $3bn cheque

    Deutsche Telekom, parent of T-Mobile USA, has hit out at US regulators over the collapse of its merger deal with AT&T in the US. AT&T and T-Mobile USA abandoned their planned marriage yesterday, a move that was no surprise after huge resistance from the Federal Communications Commission and the Department of Justice. Both …

    Business 20 Dec 13:38

  • Seagate sucks hard disk biz from Samsung

    Loved-up pair's pillow talk turns to enterprise storage

    It's done: Seagate has completed the transaction to acquire Samsung's hard disk drive business. Now it has to do the grunt work of integrating the two product lines. Seagate has gained Samsung’s Spinpoint MP4 and M8 line of 2.5in HDDs and a boffinry centre in South Korea. Samsung employees joining Seagate include a number of …

    Business 20 Dec 14:01

  • HP also jacks up disk prices in Thai flood wake

    It beat EMC to the hike

    We thought EMC was the first major enterprise supplier to raise disk drive prices after the Thailand floods. Not so. HP sent out a letter - pictured here - last month saying it was being forced to increase prices as a result of the hard drive shortage caused by the deadly floods in Thailand. Many of the country's disk assembling …

    Business 20 Dec 14:34

  • Google needs a very thorough frisking, say antitrust senators

    FTC told search biz's dominance raises questions

    The Federal Trade Commission has been urged by two concerned US lawmakers to investigate Google's search business practices more thoroughly. Senator Mike Lee and Senator Herb Kohl, who both sit on the upper house's judiciary antitrust subcommittee, wrote (PDF) to the FTC's chairman Jonathan Leibowitz on Monday. "Google is …

    Business 20 Dec 15:01

  • Anti-piracy laws will smash internet, US constitution - legal eagles

    Three wise profs warn of looming DNS disaster

    Legal experts are warning that the proposed PROTECT IP and the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) legislation, currently working their way through Congress, will damage the world's DNS system, cripple attempts to get better online security and violate free speech rights in the US constitution. In an essay published in the Stanford …

    Security 20 Dec 15:32

  • Apple gobbles iPhone, iPad flash chip baker

    Jesus phone maker gets Anobit's Holy Land base

    Reports are saying Apple has actually done it - Cupertino's gone and acquired flash controller and SSD startup Anobit for $500m as expected. So Apple, the maker of the Jesus phone, will have a base in the Holy Land. Anobit's Herzliya headquarters will likely become Apple's Research and Development centre in Israel. Anobit's …

    Small Biz 20 Dec 16:02

  • Archos tweaks 7in tablet to hit £180 price point

    Honeycomb upgrade

    Archos has updated its Archos 70 7in Android tablet, upping the CPU speed, the touchscreen and the OS. The 70b gets Android 3.2 Honeycomb - the current 70 has 2.2 Froyo - and a 1.2GHz processor, up from its predecessor's 1GHz chip. Archos said it had doubled the Ram to 512MB. The screen is still 7in, but now its 1024 x 600 …

    reghardware 20 Dec 16:21

  • Tempt tech talent without Googlesque mega perks

    Open ... and Shut Think global, hire local

    Forget Silicon Valley's talent shortage. The real tech talent wars are being waged beyond the spiritual home of high-tech - and everyone is losing. In fact, the greatest threat to the adoption of industry-changing technologies like Hadoop and Node.js may well be the dearth of talent capable of deploying them effectively. It's …

    Developer 20 Dec 16:32

  • HP woos IT shops with leasing deals

    Looking to boost fiscal Q1 sales

    Hewlett-Packard has a new CEO in Meg Whitman, but it has the same fiscal year that ends in October and the same mis-match between its own quarters and those of the bulk of the companies in the world who buy its IT wares. Its major buyers all end their fiscal years in December. What's an IT vendor to do to bump up revenues? …

    Business 20 Dec 17:11

  • Software bug fingered as cause of Aussie A330 plunge

    The problem was fixed by turning the unit off and then on again

    The final report into the 2008 Qantas flight QF72, which unexpectedly dived twice during a routine flight, has blamed a combination of software and hardware errors for the incident. On 7 October 2008, the Australian-owned A330-303 aircraft was cruising at 37,000 feet when the autopilot disengaged and the aircraft rose, before …

    Developer 20 Dec 18:02

  • Chip sales flat in 2011, will grow (a wee bit) in 2012

    Weighed down by disk shortages, economic jitters

    The prognosticators at Gartner have ranked the chip makers of the world by 2011 revenue and are calling the market for 2012, with a reasonably upbeat forecast for next year's chip sales, but – paradoxically – a dreadful forecast for companies that make the gear to bake the chips. Gartner says that when 2011 wraps at the end of …

    Business 20 Dec 19:29

  • IBM: 'Your PC will read your mind by 2016'

    Predicts the passing of passwords, junking of junk mail, more...

    IBM has released its annual predictions for the future of technology, and this year’s batch includes biometric security, replacing mice with brain sensors, and an end to the “digital divide” between those online and off. Big Blue’s “5 in 5" predictions look at what technologies will be commonplace in five years time, based on …

    PCs & Chips 20 Dec 19:57

  • AMD speed-bumps, unlocks chips for desktop, notebook

    'APUs' also get home-video stabilization tech

    AMD has speed-bumped its A-Series APUs for desktops and notebooks, added an update to its AMD Steady Video tech, and for the first time made a pair of its CPU-GPU mashups overclockable. The speed bumps are nothing major, but the overclockable APUs (accelerated processing units) should be welcome to those desktoppers who have a …

    PCs & Chips 20 Dec 20:55

  • Alcatel-Lucent's Malaysian slap over

    Carriers lift suspension on vendor activities

    Malaysian operators Axiata Group and Telekom Malaysia have lifted a year-long operating suspension on Alcatel-Lucent. The two carriers had imposed the ban on Alcatel-Lucent in March following the scandal that ensued when the US Securities and Exchange Commission and US Justice Department made documents public alleging that the …

    Business 20 Dec 21:54

  • X-Men Origins: Wolverine pirate caged

    How much for a movie that isn’t a howler?

    A Bronx man found guilty of uploading a copy of X-Men Origins: Wolverine to a file-sharing service has been sentenced to a year in federal prison and another year of supervised release. Reuters is reporting that 49-year-old Gilberto Sanchez copped the sentence from US district court judge Margaret Morrow, who described the act …

    Law 20 Dec 22:30

  • NewSat seeks $AU36m to get into orbit

    Suppliers turn in the pressure

    Australian satellite communications company NewSat is raising $AU36 million to help accelerate its pending satellite launch, pay suppliers and strengthen its balance sheet. NewSat's Jabiru-1 geostationary communications satellite will provide high capacity to military, defence and government markets as well as other enterprise …

    Business 20 Dec 23:00

  • AT&T's megablunder payout revealed

    Cash? Here's $3bn. Spectrum? Bunches. Roaming? Sure!

    Details of AT&T's "we screwed the pooch" payout to Deutsche Telekom over the failed T-Mobile USA acquisition have emerged, and right ... about ... now ... AT&T chairman and CEO Randall Stephenson should be barricading himself in his corner office as pitchfork-brandishing shareholders demand his head on a platter. First off, …

    Telecoms 20 Dec 23:02

  • eBay scam nets suckers on both sides of the road

    Buyers and merchants fall for empty box ripoff

    Greedy eBay customers and merchants have both been caught by scammers punting empty boxes as containing high-priced kit at a 50 percent discount. According to the Victoria Police e-crime squad, the scam works like this: the perpetrators target merchants with a good reputation on eBay (usually via recruitment ads) and signs …

    Law 20 Dec 23:30