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20th January 2012 Archive

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  • Currency flux incapacitates IBM's Q4 sales

    Earnings better than expected

    The fact that IBM's $29.5bn in sales in the fourth quarter (up 1.6 per cent) was about $200m shy of Wall Street's expectations was not as big a deal to the company's top brass as the fact that net income of $5.5bn was up 4.4 per cent and higher than the Street anticipated. Why? Simple. As it has proved in the past decade as it …

    Financial News 20 Jan 2012, 00:22

  • Google shares tank after disappointing financial report

    'Only' 25 per cent revenue growth for quarter

    Google’s share price fell sharply after the company released results that underperformed market expectations, with after-hours trading seeing the stock price fall by nearly ten per cent. Quarterly revenues broke the $10bn mark for the first time – at $10.58bn they were up 25 per cent on the last quarter of 2011 – but this was …

    Financial News 20 Jan 2012, 00:28

  • Microsoft blames poor Windows sales on PC slump

    Fingers Thai flood whipping boy and netbook decline

    Microsoft has released its quarterly results, and reports that Windows revenues are down 6 per cent when compared with the previous quarter. For the last three months, Microsoft not only saw its Windows division revenues fall 6 per cent, but its business division grew just three per cent despite strong sales of Lync, Exchange …

    Financial News 20 Jan 2012, 01:11

  • Iomega TV with Boxee

    Review If, at first, you don’t succeed...

    I’ve reviewed various models in Iomega’s ScreenPlay range in the past and, to be honest, haven’t been wildly impressed by any of them. Weaknesses such as the inability to list album tracks in the correct order suggested that Iomega’s designers hadn’t exactly thought things through properly. Getting there: Iomega's TV with …

    Hardware 20 Jan 2012, 07:00

  • Online ad body: Let's slather 'opt out' icons everywhere

    Cookie-sniffer info packages for the stalked masses

    An advertising icon that explains to internet users about online behavioural advertising (OBA) should be displayed alongside almost every ad regardless of whether they themselves are targeted ads, an industry body has said. Publishers and advertising networks use cookies to track user behaviour on websites in order to target …

    Media 20 Jan 2012, 08:04

  • NASA shuts off Voyager 1's central heating

    Probe enters energy-saving phase at edge of space

    NASA has switched off a heater on a part of the Voyager 1 probe, plunging the temperature of its one functioning instrument to below minus 110° Fahrenheit (minus 79°C) – well below the minimum temps of minus 31° Fahrenheit (minus 35° C) at which it was designed to operate. Space boffins took the decision in order to conserve …

    Science 20 Jan 2012, 08:29

  • NHS has to pay docs to put life-sign sensors in patients' digs

    Telehealth tech take-up too tardy

    An NHS Trust is having to pay GPs to use its new cost-cutting Telehealth project - which sticks sensors in patients' homes to monitor their life signs. GPs in the North Yorkshire and York area have been slow to take up the new cost-saving technology, so the Primary Care Trust has resorted to paying them to use the gadgets. GPs …

    Policy 20 Jan 2012, 09:04

  • Coraid schmoozes Euro Nexenta distie sextet

    Will open storage band hit the right notes?

    Six European Nexenta disties are setting up EraStor to sell pre-built Nexenta/Super Micro storage servers, and there is a Coraid Ethernet storage array connection. EraStor, the new European Reseller Alliance, is composed of six independent system integrators/Nexenta resellers: zStor (Germany); E4 Computer Engineering (Italy); …

    The Channel 20 Jan 2012, 09:34

  • Hold on a sec - leap seconds granted a last-minute reprieve

    Boffins delay decision on using sunrises or atomic clocks to set the time

    A decision to kill leap seconds and permanently change how time is measured has been deferred until 2015 by the International Telecommunication Union. A meeting of ITU Radiocommunication Assembly reps on Thursday was unable to reach a decision on whether to stop adding leap seconds to Coordinated Universal Time (UTC) to keep …

    Science 20 Jan 2012, 09:56

  • Avnet: Server thieves snatched our privates

    Updated Sensitive staff, customer info on nicked office kit

    Avnet Technology Solutions has admitted that server hard disks stolen during a break-in at one of its offices contained confidential data on staff, reseller customers and vendors. In a statement sent to El Reg, Avnet said the gear was nicked from its premises in Haslingden, Lancashire: "Unfortunately on December 21 unknown …

    The Channel 20 Jan 2012, 10:21

  • Quantum physics to encrypt clouds of the future - boffins

    No chance of sniffing your privates on qubit-crunching computers

    Boffins looking for the perfect alliance between science and technology have married quantum computing to the future of IT - the cloud. The researchers have used quantum mechanics to encrypt heavy-duty number-crunching computing, thereby removing a major obstacle in the adoption of the cloud for many enterprises - how safe is …

    Cloud 20 Jan 2012, 10:47

  • Nike fuels fitness with fresh workout wristband

    Lights the way forward

    Nike continued to put the swish into fitness trackers this week, unveiling its latest wristband to aid the conscious calorie consumer. The Nike+ Fuelband does the usual fitness fandango, focussing on eating habits, step count and time management. However, for added incentive to make use of the strap, the Fuelband boasts a …

    Hardware 20 Jan 2012, 11:03

  • Sony squares up with Walkman refinement

    Bumping the B-sides

    Sony has spruced-up its MP3 player collection with another refresh of its Walkman music clips. The Sony Walkman NWZ-B170 is almost identical to last year's NWZ-B160 - in fact the only noticeable change is the design, with a push towards slightly squarer corners. All previous features remain, including the extra bass button …

    Hardware 20 Jan 2012, 11:04

  • Poll: Linux's big data guzzling worries melt away

    Too bad there's a kernel nerd drought

    Concerns about using Linux on servers to crunch huge data workloads are evaporating, according a survey. Fears that the open-source operating system isn't up to the job of processing big data have fallen by 40 per cent in the last 12 months, according to the Linux Foundation's annual Enterprise Linux report. Last year 20.3 …

    The Channel 20 Jan 2012, 11:06

  • American search team fails to find women's G-spot

    Dig finds no evidence for earth-moving equipment

    US researchers have concluded that there's little evidence to support the existence of the legendary Gräfenberg Spot - a bundle of nerves located in the front wall of the vagina which can supposedly cause the earth to move. The team - led by urologist Dr Amichai Kilchevsky of Yale-New Haven Hospital - trawled "clinical trials …

    Science 20 Jan 2012, 11:22

  • 'Why would I make any more Star Wars movies?'

    Quotw Plus 'I've worked with kids who will urinate in a bottle in their room'

    This was the week in which Google tiptoed into the weird end of the news when it patented tracking your fridge - yes, your fridge. The designs describe registering the change of ownership of an appliance as well as storing info about its usage in a communications card. You might have thought that the patent was just going to …

    Bootnotes 20 Jan 2012, 11:42

  • RM cuts loose Easytrace, flogs AMI biz as top boss legs it

    But it has kept school network toolkit

    Education technology provider RM has cut loose its loss-making access control and cashless catering system wing of its AMI business, known as Easytrace. The company confirmed the disposal in a trading statement to the City this morning. However, it will retain the school network management part of the AMI business - dubbed …

    The Channel 20 Jan 2012, 12:04

  • Apple to take sales space in posh people's shop Harrods

    Toffs to tune in to iTech

    Apple is set to open a shrunken version of its Apple Store in the toffs' shopping establishment, Harrods. Unlike the company's outlets in London's Regent Street and Covent Garden, the Harrods boutique will lack a Genius bar to provide technical assistance to the hordes of posh shoppers. Harrods moles say the Cupertino giant' …

    Laptops 20 Jan 2012, 12:08

  • Twitter gobbles news-foraging mobile app startup

    Read all about it - or not once Summify is fully enveloped

    Twitter has bought news-hungry Canadian startup Summify for an undisclosed sum. The upstart biz, which developed a mobile app that automatically rifles through articles being shared across social networks and gathers them together, will up sticks to Twitter's San Francisco office. "Our long-term vision at Summify has always …

    Small Biz 20 Jan 2012, 12:26

  • Samsung NX200 20.3Mp APS-C compact system camera

    Review A serious take

    Samsung's NX200 compact system camera (CSC) is not a mere upgrade of its predecessor but a game-changer for the company’s place in the mirrorless cameras market. Not only does the NX200 look completely different to the NX100 but Samsung has also upped its game and provided this newcomer with head-turning specs designed to …

    Hardware 20 Jan 2012, 12:34

  • Iranian coder faces execution 'for building smut websites'

    Supreme court backs death penalty for photo upload tool

    A programmer faces imminent execution in Iran after the country's supreme court upheld his conviction for "developing and promoting pornographic websites". Saeed Malekpour, 36, was convicted on the basis of a televised confession he later retracted in a letter sent from prison. His family argue Malekpour made the supposed …

    Developer 20 Jan 2012, 12:44

  • BT biz broadband staggers to its feet after 4-hour titsup

    Major outage knocks out punters' connections

    BT suffered what it described as a "major business broadband problem" today, which kicked off at about 07.25 GMT. The telco's service status page is listing the problem as major, but not giving out too much additional data. "Some business customers may currently be experiencing problems connecting to their broadband service …

    Small Biz 20 Jan 2012, 13:01

  • Ancient tulip-like stomach-onna-stick creatures found in Rockies

    Waving anus-tipped filter flowers covered Cambrian sea bottom

    Fossil-boffins probing into the remains of a soft-bodied tulip animal that lived in the Rockies 500 million years ago have just published a paper revealing the secrets of the weird creature. Essentially stomachs on stalks, the tulip-shaped creatures known as Siphusauctum gregarium lived in great herds and are the most commonly …

    Science 20 Jan 2012, 13:07

  • Windows Phone to overtake iOS in 2015

    MS swallows smartphone share

    Nokia's ever-expanding friendship with Microsoft means that come 2015, the Windows Phone platform will overtake Apple's iOS as the world's second most-favoured operating system after Android. That's according to research firm IHS iSuppli, which this week forecast a positive outlook for the Finnish phone giant. According to …

    Phones 20 Jan 2012, 13:30

  • Mozilla pushes browser-based alternative to passwords

    Give us your keys to look after, we're lovely

    Mozilla is promoting a browser-based alternative to usernames and passwords for website logins. Browser ID offers a decentralized system for user identification and authentication along the same lines as OpenID. To use BrowserID users first have to create an account with Mozilla. After this users would be able to use the …

    Security 20 Jan 2012, 13:33

  • Page won't show his ring to prove Google+ 'engagement'

    Analysis 90 million 'users' ... but are they just there for GMail?

    Mountain View is still struggling to explain exactly how many of the people who have at least signed in once to its social network are actually sticking around and sharing posts with other users. The company saw its shares tank yesterday, after its financial results surprisingly underperformed Wall Street expectations. Google …

    Networks 20 Jan 2012, 14:07

  • Use iBooks Author, only Apple can ever publish the result

    Cupertino grants itself exclusive rights via EULA

    Budding authors attracted to Apple's latest content-creating tool should tread with care lest the small print locks them in tighter than they'd imagined. The End User Licence Agreement, to which users consent by using the software, requires the output of iBooks Author be distributed only through Apple's retail operation - with …

    Software 20 Jan 2012, 14:18

  • Boffins cook up transparent solar car roof

    OLED tech goes opaque at the flick of a switch

    Like the idea of a car that has the all-round clear viewing of a convertible but doesn't let the rain in? Philips and chemicals giant BASF are working on the basis for just such a notion, using OLED technology. The two companies have created an OLED roof panel that's transparent when turned off. Turn it on and the panel …

    Science 20 Jan 2012, 14:18

  • Feds: Apple, Google, Adobe, Intel, Pixar had wage-fixing no-poach pact

    Lucasfilm also named: Says it has no need of techies

    Emails between Apple, Adobe, Intel and others are making them look bad as the US Justice Department mounts a case against them for setting up "anti-poaching" deals in which they allegedly agreed not to hire each other's people away. The emails are part of the Justice Department's evidence in its class action suit that accuses …

    Management 20 Jan 2012, 14:27

  • Sci-tech cheerleader NESTA spared from quango bonfire

    Keep calm and carry on multidisciplinary stakeholder engagement

    The government has secured the future of the science and tech quango NESTA, which was previously uncertain. Like the Design Council, NESTA will be reconstituted as a charity, the Department for Business said today. NESTA was created in 1998 to spend lottery money on science and technology innovation, and became an emblem of …

    Government 20 Jan 2012, 14:55

  • Supremes: Congress can extend copyright terms if it wants to

    Even if this removes works from the public domain

    The US Supreme Court has rejected a case that argued that works whose copyright terms have once expired should remain in the public domain, even if the term of copyright is subsequently extended to cover them again. This has become a familiar sight in recent years. As copyright terms have been extended, works whose copyright …

    Law 20 Jan 2012, 15:26

  • Ingram Micro supremo logs off for good

    Spierkel quits as mega-distie coins it from disk drought

    Ingram Micro chief exec Greg Spierkel is today standing down after nearly six years in charge. The world's largest IT distie confirmed the move late last night, lining up COO Alain Monie to fill the hot seat with immediate effect. Spierkel, who will remain at the company until April to "assist in the management transition", …

    The Channel 20 Jan 2012, 16:03

  • Microsoft admits graphical glitch with Xbox dashboard

    Fix on the way

    Microsoft today confessed there are graphical issues surrounding the latest version of its Xbox 360 UI, Dashboard, but insisted an update to fix the problem is already in the works. Hordes of gamers had already highlighted concerns relating to video colour balance that seemed to appear following the Xbox 360 dashboard update, …

    Hardware 20 Jan 2012, 16:16

  • German court shoots down patent gripe against Apple

    Samsung 0 for 3 in fruitchomp face-off

    A German court in Mannheim has ruled against one of the patents in a suit brought by Samsung against Apple, one of the many battlegrounds in the tech titans' patent wars. Samsung can still appeal against the ruling and also has suits claiming a dozen or so other patents are being infringed by the fruitchomp-branded fondleslab …

    Financial News 20 Jan 2012, 16:27

  • Micron buys PCIe extender Virtensys, backers trouser hefty payout

    Like a SAN without the SAN. And you know what that means

    SSD maker, Flash and DRAM fab operator Micron is buying Virtensys, a startup selling PCIe-sharing appliances Virtensys' VIO 4000 product connects to servers' PCIe busses and enables a group of servers to share PCIe peripherals, such as NICs, HBAs, direct-attached disk drives and PCIe-connected solid state drives (SSDs). Such …

    Storage 20 Jan 2012, 16:57

  • Intel's Xeon E5 to (finally) launch in Q1

    'Not your grandmother's server business'

    Intel's president and CEO Paul Otellini said in a conference call with Wall Street analysts after the market closed yesterday that the "Sandy Bridge-EP" Xeon E5 processors and their related "Romley" server platforms, are now in volume shipment and due to be launched during the first quarter, as was widely speculated. The Xeon …

    Servers 20 Jan 2012, 17:08

  • Iranian gov mouthpiece Press TV finally gets taken off the air in the UK

    'The royal family done it', raves foam-lipped channel

    Iranian government-backed broadcaster Press TV has finally got its fondest wish and lost its UK broadcast licence, but its martyrdom is self-inflicted rather than the result of any government conspiracy. The channel, which had a home on the Sky Satellite platform, has been claiming to have been banned since October, saying it …

    Media 20 Jan 2012, 17:32

  • Alcohol DOUBLES LIFESPAN, helps resist stress

    We're filing this from the pub, naturally

    Pour yourself another one, quickly, as scientists have proven that alcohol can double life-span. Moderate levels of alcohol delivered an increase in longevity among test subjects in a recent study that Steven Clarke, UCLA professor of chemistry and biochemistry and senior author on a study published yesterday in the journal …

    Science 20 Jan 2012, 17:53

  • Congress puts PIPA and SOPA on back burner

    Put down the champagne, protesters, it's not over yet

    Political leaders have cancelled plans to vote on the SOPA and PIPA legislation currently before Congress, saying more time is needed to examine the issue. Nevada senator Harry Reid, who is shepherding PIPA through the Senate, announced that he would postpone a vote on the bill that was scheduled for next week “in light of …

    Government 20 Jan 2012, 18:44

  • Intel stirs up management team

    Shaken – just a bit – to beef up ARM, RISC defense

    Management changes at Intel make it more clear who might end up running the company – after the current execs decide to retire many years hence – and who is going to be leading the fight against ARM processors at the bottom of the Intel line and RISC processors at the top. Back in July, Intel announced that vice chairman Andy …

    Hardware 20 Jan 2012, 18:53

  • Intel chieftain outlines broad tablet, smartphone blitz

    Blames Android for iOS success, touts Win8 slabs 'in the queue'

    Intel CEO Paul Otellini sees his company moving into all levels of the tablet and handset markets, from Android and Windows 8 fondleslabs to smartphones, feature phones, and what he dubbed "value phones". "Our intention is to participate broadly in all three of those markets," said Otellini, referring to handsets, tablets, and …

    Hardware 20 Jan 2012, 20:27

  • Redmond campaigns for gay marriage rights

    RealNetworks and Nike join fight for equality

    Microsoft has thrown its political weight behind a new law in its home state of Washington that would set up equal marriage rights for LGBT couples, an effort joined by local employers RealNetworks and Nike. In a blog post, Microsoft general counsel Brad Smith said that the state needed the law so that local employers could …

    Law 20 Jan 2012, 21:55