22nd December 2011 Archive
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AMD claims 'world's fastest GPU' title
Radeon HD 7970 sports all-new 'Graphics Core Next' chip
AMD has unveiled its first graphics card based on its Graphics Core Next architecture, which The Reg told you about in excruciating detail this summer. According to AMD, the card – the Radeon HD 7970 – is also the only GPU to be built using a 28-nanometer process. "This graphics card represents a revolution in the graphics …
PCs & Chips 22 Dec 05:01
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Internode falls to iiNet acquisition temptation
Another one bites the dust
Popular Adelaide-headquartered national ISP Internode, a pioneer in Australia’s ADSL2+ market and vocal critic of National Broadband Network price strategies, is to be acquired by number two broadband provider iiNet. The $AU105 million buy, announced on December 22 to the Australian Securities Exchange, may not be greeted with …
Business 22 Dec 05:30
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Motorola Pro+ Qwerty Android smartphone
Review The best of both worlds?
Motorola’s been keeping its hand in with an interesting variety of Android handsets of late. The Pro+ is clearly designed for business rather than fun, which is fine, but next to the top-end, revitalised Motorola Razr, it’s not in the same league. Doing the business: Motorola's Pro+ Android smartie Following on from the …
reghardware 22 Dec 07:00
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Dole office sticks ID services tender in EU journal, quickly pulls out
We'll try again next year ...
The Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) has cancelled its tender for identity assurance services, claiming it had not followed the relevant procedures for the procurement. Earlier this month it published a tender notice with the aim of supporting its major programmes, including the provision of universal credit and personal …
Government 22 Dec 08:02
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Gov unveils plans to make tax-funded research freely accessible
Vast vats of info goodness
All publicly-funded research data should be made freely accessible to benefit business and society, the government has said. The Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS) said making the information freely available would help stimulate economic growth, innovation and entrepreneurism, and improve public sector …
Government 22 Dec 09:01
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EU to push through more roaming caps in 2012
Competition ain't being competitive enough
Operators should brace themselves for more caps on European roaming, as the European parliament is planning more pricing restrictions when the current legislation expires. The current caps run out at the end of June 2012, but before then the European parliament plans to have more regulation in place – with stronger caps …
Mobile 22 Dec 09:22
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Android Trojan spams tribute to Arab Spring martyr
At least it doesn't completely pwn your phone
Hacktivists have released a manipulated version of a popular Android app to commemorate a Tunisian man whose suicide triggered anti-government protests in his country a year ago. Street fruit'n'veg vendor Mohamed Bouazizi, 26, set himself on fire after local government officials refused to meet him and discuss his grievances. …
Security 22 Dec 09:41
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Facebook scams now spread by dodgy browser plug-ins
Cybercrooks deploy new weapon to pollute profiles
Con men have developed a new approach towards spreading scams on Facebook. Instead of using status updates as a lure, the latest generation of Facebook scams attempt to trick marks into installing malicious browser extensions. The plug-ins are supposedly needed to view non-existent video clips supposedly posted by an earlier …
Malware 22 Dec 10:01
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Hasbro sues Asus over Transformer Prime moniker
Tablet ambitions held at Bay?
Toy maker Hasbro is suing computer manufacturer Asus for daring - allegedly - to name an Android tablet after one of its biggest money spinners. Yes, Hasbro owns the Transformers line, and is annoyed not only that Asus has released the Eee Pad Transformer but also added the word 'Prime' to the end of the product's moniker. …
reghardware 22 Dec 10:04
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Ofcom's Local TV dream: No smut, an hour of news, endless ads
Still, sounds more thrilling than some of the proper channels
Ofcom is consulting on how to award Local TV licences, and has some suggestions about how the national broadcaster, and the channels, might make ends meet. The Ministry of Fun has decreed that there will be Local TV channels pushed into the UK white spaces, and tasked Ofcom with finding a way to make it happen. The regulator …
Small Biz 22 Dec 10:22
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Deep-fried planets discovery offers hope for Earth’s future
Our world may actually survive flame-grilling by dying sun
Earth may survive longer than we expect - scientists have stumbled across two deep-fried planets orbiting the glowing embers of a dying star. The two flame-grilled planets, dubbed KOI 55.01 and KOI 55.02, are slightly smaller than the Earth and have been spotted in a very tight orbit around a subdwarf B star - one that has …
Space 22 Dec 10:38
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Tablet LCDs: seven-inchers outsell 9.7in panels
Kindle Fire burning iPad? Or iPad 3 in motion?
Shipments of 7in LCD screens surpassed those of 9.7in panels in November, it has been claimed. You can read that one of two ways. Either the combined sales of Amazon's Kindle Fire, Barnes & Noble's Nook, RIM's BlackBerry PlayBook - not a big contribution there, natch - et al, are exceeding those of Apple's iPad - pretty much …
reghardware 22 Dec 10:49
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Smut baron buy-up of Vatican.xxx rumour exploded
Priestly pr0n purveyance blocked by registry, won't be sold
The domain name vatican.xxx was not "registered by a mystery buyer" as has been widely reported this week. The Vatican issued a statement yesterday claiming the prurient web address was in the hands of somebody else, leading to speculation that it could turn into a porn site. "This domain is not available because it has been …
Small Biz 22 Dec 10:59
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Yahoo! shares! leap! on! asset! sale! gossip!
Plan to flog Alibaba and Yahoo! Japan stakes pleases investors
Shares in Yahoo! got a bump yesterday on rumours that the company is considering getting rid of most of its Alibaba stake and all its stake in Yahoo! Japan. Those folks familiar with the matter told Reuters that the ailing web firm could offload the Asian assets in a deal worth around $17bn, a step in the right direction as …
Financial News 22 Dec 11:20
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Steve Jobs gets posthumous Grammy AND a bronze statue
Who knew the iSaint was part of the Staines massive?
Steve Jobs, who died in October this year, has been posthumously handed a Grammy award. Meanwhile, a "life-like" bronze statue of the Apple co-founder has been erected in Budapest, Hungary. Me woz born in da heart of da Staines ghetto The Recording Academy said that Jobs was among its list of 2011's "Trustees Award …
Entertainment 22 Dec 11:42
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Console accessories
Xmas Gift Guide Game liberation
With last year's release of Xbox 360 Kinect and PlayStation Move, traditional console add-ons have been pushed out of the limelight. However when searching for the ideal Crimbo presents, the customary line-up of videogame hardware is always a laudable choice. Especially when shopping for yourself. Here's five options to spice …
reghardware 22 Dec 12:01
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Clever patching keeps the system serviceable
Beware awkward joins
It was the kind of day most systems administrators would like to forget. A customer of Canadian security consultant David Lewis, founder of the Liquidmatrix Security Digest, had decided to roll out a software patch to a Symantec product. Unfortunately, the firm didn’t check the patch as well as it could have and the tweak …
Compliance 22 Dec 12:24
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Auld Reekie folk 'spend most on tech prezzies'
Greasy poll puts Southamptoners at the bottom
Today's piece of blatant puffery masquerading as market research comes from Geek Squad the embarrassingly named in-store tech support oppos for Carphone Warehouse. GS/CW would like us to know that folk in Edinburgh will - on average - spend £126.60 on tech gifts this Christmas, the highest in the land apparently. The firm …
reghardware 22 Dec 12:47
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Petaflops beater: Nvidia chief talks exascale
Programming for parallel processes
"Power is now the limiter of every computing platform, from cellphones to PCs and even data centres," said NVIDIA chief executive Jen-Hsun Huang, speaking at the company's GPU Technology Conference in Beijing last week. There was much talk there about the path to exascale, a form of supercomputing that can execute 1018 flop/s ( …
HPC 22 Dec 13:04
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Pluto's blushing complexion riddle solved by boffins
Hubble spectrograph shines light on dwarf planet's colouring
Boffins using the new Cosmic Origins Spectrograph (COS) on the Hubble telescope have figured out what makes Pluto the colour it is. The South West Research Institute's eggheads discovered a strong ultraviolet-wavelength absorber on the dwarf planet's surface, which suggests that there are complex hydrocarbon and nitrile …
Space 22 Dec 13:24
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Cops arrest cop in alleged corrupt cop-bung probe
First officer cuffed in Op Elveden investigation
A 52-year-old female police officer was the first cop to be arrested yesterday morning in connection with allegations of receiving illegal payments from journalists. The unnamed suspect was questioned at an Essex police station before being bailed until a return date in April next year pending further inquiries, Scotland Yard …
Crime 22 Dec 13:41
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Latest El Reg project: Rise of the Robot Sheep
Autonomous, spinning blades, made in a shed - what could go wrong?
After seven years of faithful service, my lawn-clipping droid Mowbot has had to be retired... and a replacement is hard to obtain. Rather than face an ever-growing lawn, I've decided it's time to unlock the inventing shed and seek some reader advice. Robots were supposed to be doing pretty much all our manual labour by this …
SPB 22 Dec 14:02
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2012 CES will be Microsoft’s last hurrah
Did it jump or was it pushed?
Microsoft has said that Steve Ballmer’s opening keynote for the Consumer Electronic Show (CES) in January will be the last time a Redmond head takes the stage, and it won’t be having an exhibition stand at the show after 2012 either. The move ends nearly 20 years of Microsoft’s involvement with the show, both in giving the …
Developer 22 Dec 14:33
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Apache confirms new OpenOffice build by 2012
Warns developers that it’s still the daddy
The Apache Software Foundation has confirmed that a new build of the OpenOffice suite will be out next year, and has warned rogue developers that it - and only it - can use the trademark for the software. According to the group, version 3.4 of the software will be out in the first quarter of next year, and will be a developer- …
Developer 22 Dec 15:03
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Lumia sales fail to set world alight
Outsold almost 100 times by Galaxy S II
Nokia's Lumia handset is barely shifting at all, according to figures from consumer price-comparison site Mobiles Please, though it still manages to be the best selling Windows Phone. Mobiles Please bases the stats on more than 5,000 sales across its family of sites during November, and finds that the Nokia Lumia 800 made up …
Mobile 22 Dec 15:31
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New chippery on parade at ISSCC
CPU and memory makers strut their stuff
The new year in IT always begins around now, when the IEEE puts out the advance program for the International Solid State Circuits Conference, which takes place in San Francisco in February. This time around, it runs from February 19 through 23, and while there are not a large number of server-class processors coming out, there …
HPC 22 Dec 16:02
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Seagate backup biz deletes name, restores EVault brand
i365 goes back to the future
Seagate's cloud backup biz, i365, has renamed itself EVault, the name it was called when Seagate bought it five years ago. Why bother? The i365 name was applied to EVault, and to Seagate's acquired paperwork search biz MetaLincs and Seagate Recovery Services, in September 2008. The three operations were combined in the wholly …
Small Biz 22 Dec 17:01
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Gerry turncoat Harvey gives gamers a deal
Launches discount, offshore GST-free online gaming site
The CEO of Australian retailer Harvey Norman, Gerry Harvey has unleashed his fickle ways on the gaming industry, launching an offshore discount gaming site just days before Christmas. Harvey has been one of the most vociferous protagonists against the growth of borderless online shopping, campaigning for months on the idea of …
Business 22 Dec 21:00
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Press Council slaps Rupert for Oz NBN coverage
Daily Telegraph pitching porkies? Surely not
It’s taken the best part of half a year, but Australia’s lame-duck press self-regulator, the Australian Press Council, has given News Limited outlet the Daily Telegraph a wet slap over aspects of its NBN coverage. The “Daily Terror” (not to be confused with the UK publication of the same name) had, the Press Council found, …
Telecoms 22 Dec 21:30
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Moscow State taps T-Platforms to build 10 petaflops super
A ceepie-geepie once again
In what rings as almost an echo of Cold War-era scientific competition, Moscow State University is putting together a supercomputer it hopes will take it back up the international rankings. Now, MSU has tapped its favourite contractor, T-Platforms, to build a hybrid CPU-GPU machine that will weigh in at 10 petaflops of peak …
HPC 22 Dec 22:13
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ACMA sets the bar too low for broadcasters claims APF
Australian Privacy Foundation calls for a regulator with a backbone
The Australian Communications and Media Authority has been slammed as a toothless tiger for setting the bar too low in protecting consumer privacy. The Australian Privacy Foundation claims that the regulator has “dropped the ball twice in one week”, firstly in its restrained wrath in dealing with Vodafone and in its revised …
Law 22 Dec 22:30
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Parallel politics: Gerry Harvey, imports and taxes
Oligopoly screwing oligopoly redux ends 2011
There’s a curious symmetry about how 2011 is ending: once again, retailer Gerry Harvey is complaining about GST inequities for online shopping, just as he was at the beginning of the year. Once again, Harvey is distracting attention away from vendor price-setting, just as he was at the beginning of the year. However, as the …
Business 22 Dec 23:00
