The Register® — Biting the hand that feeds IT

Feeds

1st February 2012 Archive

Browse by publication date, or search the site.

  • Saudi oil minister praises renewable energy

    Global warming 'among humanity's most pressing concerns'

    A call to acknowledge concerns over global warming (aka climate change aka climate disruption aka pseudoscientific fraud) has come from a most unlikely source: Saudi Arabia's oil minister. "Greenhouse gas emissions and global warming are among humanity's most pressing concerns," said Ali Al-Naimi in a speech at the Middle East …

    Science 1 Feb 2012, 01:18

  • Mozilla releases Firefox 10, adds developer tools

    Better add-on support, Mac Java crash fixed

    Mozilla has released version 10 of its Firefox browser as part of its accelerated six-week build cycle, and has also included a pack of developer tools aimed at simplifying life for website operators. Firefox 10, available for Windows, Mac, Linux, and Android, includes eight security fixes, but the most noticeable change in …

    Applications 1 Feb 2012, 01:31

  • Nokia Lumia 710

    Review The Finn blue line

    Late last year, I reviewed the Nokia Lumia 800 – and I've just spent a week with the 710, its cheap and cheerful sibling, as my main phone. I actually preferred using this budget model to the much-hyped 800. Road to recovery? Nokia's Lumia 710 The 710 has essentially the same internals, including the same excellent display …

    Phones 1 Feb 2012, 07:00

  • Whitehall hopes to shave 'conservative' £100m off PC bill

    HMRC man eyes NHS and local government

    The government expects to cut at least £100m off its annual personal computing bill under an HMRC led standardisation program. The savings are expected in procurement, services and management, as departments eliminate waste, duplication and overspend, HM Revenue and Customs' Nigel Green told the Government ICT Conference in …

    Government 1 Feb 2012, 08:02

  • Trojan smuggles out nicked blueprints as Windows Update data

    Malware backdoors government-targeted kit 'using Adobe 0-days'

    Security watchers have uncovered a new highly targeted email-borne attack that uses a supposed conference invitation as a lure - and disguises extracted data as Microsoft Update traffic. The spearphishing attempts, which have been levied against several government-related organisations worldwide, try to use alleged unfixed …

    Security 1 Feb 2012, 09:04

  • Gov's 'open data' strategy: It'll cost too much and won't work

    Report: Public sector may struggle to support Cabinet plan

    The Cabinet Office has revealed "concern" over whether the public sector's IT is up to the job of supporting more transparency, from responses to last year's open data consultation. The consultation, which closed in October, drew more than 400 responses from industry, government and other interested parties. The Cabinet Office …

    Government 1 Feb 2012, 09:24

  • System Shock

    Antique Code Show Sci-fi showdown

    We've come along way since Looking Glass Technologies released System Shock in 1994, which earned it the distinction of being first first-person game with an engine able to render sloping walls. Before then, gaming environments were limited to verticals and horizontals. Making waves: System Shock's influence is still in …

    Games 1 Feb 2012, 10:00

  • Bill Gates' ass slams into iPhone

    Donkey.bas remuled

    Bill Gates' best-known attempt at a videogame is now available on the… er… iPhone. Yes, Donkey.bas, the Basic racing game - move your car so it doesn't smash into the eponymous ass - has been reproduced in all its 8-bit, two-colour, text-graphics glory on iOS.   Donkey king: Gates' game remade Gates co-wrote the original …

    Games 1 Feb 2012, 10:07

  • Expert to finger air steward commentards who 'harassed' pilot

    Probe into airline staff forum 'will not breach privacy rights'

    A trade union has been ordered to let an independent expert examine its computer database to try to identify anonymous users of a forum it operated who allegedly defamed and harassed an airline pilot. The High Court said its order was both necessary and proportionate and rejected claims made by the Unite union that the scope …

    Law 1 Feb 2012, 10:18

  • Ofcom needs you... to carve up 37GHz of spectrum

    That's a lot of bandwidth - how do we handle it?

    Ofcom has launched a public consultation on the management of 37GHz of radio spectrum, looking for better ways to manage licensing of fixed wireless links. The 37GHz runs though 19 blocks from 1.4GHz up to 86GHz, and is currently licensed though a mix of Ofcom management, light licensing (where licensees have to sort out …

    Broadband 1 Feb 2012, 10:41

  • Samsung says no to MWC Galaxy S III launch

    No Barcelona debut for next-gen blower

    Samsung is emailing World+Dog to say that it won't be announcing the Galaxy S III at the Mobile World Congress (MWC) industry shindig later this month. Instead, "the successor to the Galaxy S II smartphone will be unveiled at a separate Samsung-hosted event in the first half of the year, closer to commercial availability of …

    Phones 1 Feb 2012, 10:52

  • Reading Reding: Pouring water on DP draft bill

    Just how workable is the Euro commissioner's proposal?

    It's been a busy few days for the future of data protection at a European level. However, the celebrations and commiserations are well and truly over for policy wonks, internet businesses and watchdogs who have all been eagerly poring over the Justice Commissioner's freshly-tabled draft Data Protection (DP) bill. Now the real …

    Law 1 Feb 2012, 11:00

  • RIM restyles next-generation BlackBerry

    London calling

    Research in Motion's upcoming BlackBerry 10 handset, the London, has been been spotted ahead of release, this time with a different look from the last time it was said to have leaked out. When a handset, claimed to be RIM's next-gen smartphone and codenamed 'London', appeared in November 2011, it was seen to sport an angular …

    Phones 1 Feb 2012, 11:04

  • Zuck plots carefully considered Facebook IPO

    Silence, bitch... This $100bn valuation is serious business

    Mark Zuckerberg seems to want Facebook's public debut to be as dull as his bluey-grey t-shirts. The dominant social network is widely expected to file regulatory documents with the US Securities and Exchange Commission later today. But the company's CEO is reportedly hoping to play down the whole affair. Kara Swisher over at …

    Financial News 1 Feb 2012, 11:23

  • LG 3D TV ads misled buyers, judges watchdog

    Passive 3D can't be 1080p 'full HD'

    LG has had is knuckles rapped by the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) following a complaint made about its 3D TVs by consumers arch-rival telly maker Samsung. The bigger of the two South Korean giants said LG was wrong to say the Cinema 3D TV, which uses passive 3D technology, could produce a "full HD 3D picture" or that …

    Hardware 1 Feb 2012, 11:24

  • Serial killer PYTHONS stalk Florida's Everglades

    Rapacious reptiles scoff mammal population

    Pesky pythons are wiping out mammals and birds – some of which are protected species – in Florida's Everglades National Park, according to a new study. What's for dinner? Credit: Mannes Fotos (GNU license) Non-native Burmese pythons are chowing down on the local populace to such an extent that observations of many animals …

    Science 1 Feb 2012, 11:33

  • Sony confirms 'tough-minded' Hirai as new CEO, president

    Ex-PlayStation exec grabs reins as Stringer rises to board chairman

    Sony has announced that a new president and CEO will take over from Howard Stringer on 1 April, while Stringer becomes chairman of the board. Kazuo Hirai was already tipped to take over from Stringer when he was appointed to head of consumer products and services, the Sony Corporation's main business, and last week, Japanese …

    Business 1 Feb 2012, 11:44

  • Kia Rio 1.1 CRDi EcoDynamics

    Review Very clean, very green three-pot diesel

    A Kia? Reviewed by Reg Hardware? No, we’ve not taken leave of our senses, because the new Rio EcoDynamics is being pitched as the most fuel-efficient and least-polluting car - when it comes to CO2, anyway - you can buy without an electric motor poking its nose into the drive train. Not a bad looker It’s also a graphic - not …

    Science 1 Feb 2012, 12:00

  • 40,000 Apple fanbois demand ethical iPhone 5

    But we do care a lot, claims CEO

    Favourite aggregator of anti-corporate campaigns, SumOfUs, has started a petition calling for an "ethical" iPhone 5, and has already garnered more than 40,000 signatures. The emotive petition paints a picture of a young girl in a Chinese factory being steadily poisoned by the use of n-hexane, promising that the neurological …

    Business 1 Feb 2012, 12:11

  • Nikon stretches Coolpix focal-range beyond belief

    Za za zoom

    Nikon clicked into focus today with the launch of the Coolpix P510, a bridge camera that boasts a whopping 42x optical zoom. The Nikon Coolpix P510 takes the zoom crown off its younger P500 sibling, thanks to a wide-angle Nikkor lens with a stalker-friendly 35mm equivalent of 24mm-1000mm. This joins hands with a 16.1Mp …

    Hardware 1 Feb 2012, 12:20

  • Berkeley boffins crack brain wave code

    Electrical signals used to recreate sound heard by test subjects

    Scientists have reconstructed the words people hear by using a computer algorithm to decode electrical signals in the brain. Eggheads at the University of California in Berkeley fastened electrodes onto the bare brains of patients undergoing neurosurgery. The scientists were studying the superior temporal gyrus (ridge on the …

    Science 1 Feb 2012, 12:21

  • Nikon brightens up Coolpix compact collection

    Snappy package

    Nikon snapped into action further today, refreshing its popular P300 range with a 16Mp creative compact, basic in design and bold in functionality. The Nikon Coolpix P310 features a Nikkor 4.2x optical zoom lens with a 24mm wide angle and a bright f/1.8 aperture. The back-illuminated CMOS 1/2.3 type sensor claims additional …

    Hardware 1 Feb 2012, 12:38

  • Airbrushed Rachel Weisz gets watchdog hot under the collar

    ASA snarls at L’Oreal's age-defying Photoshop treatment

    The Advertising Standards Authority has ordered skincare outfit L’Oreal to lay off the Photoshop, after it ran a magazine ad showing Rachel Weisz in improbably good form as a result of slapping on Revitalist Repair 10. The offending advert featured 41-year-old Weisz's radiant mug (pictured), asserting: "New Revitalist Repair …

    Bootnotes 1 Feb 2012, 12:42

  • Cisco Nexus ports stretched to take 40GE and 100GE loads

    Catalyst campus switches bumped up to 40GE

    If you want 10 Gigabit Ethernet to take off on servers, then you need fat backbones on the campuses and in the data centers to absorb the increase in traffic. And so Cisco Systems is ramping up the bandwidth on its Nexus 7000 series of end-of-row converged Ethernet switches as well as on its Catalyst 6500 campus switches. …

    Servers 1 Feb 2012, 13:00

  • Hands off our brand, Wi-Fi body warns 'white space' tech firms

    TV spectrum networking != 802.11

    Don't call wireless networks that operate at frequencies formerly reserved for TV transmissions "Wi-Fi", the owner of the brand has warned. The Wi-Fi Alliance doesn't like the idea that chip makers and other tech companies promoting products that operate in the electromagnetic spectrum's "White Space" zones are pitching their …

    Hardware 1 Feb 2012, 13:08

  • Nokia signals NFC for future Lumia handsets

    Tap makes an app

    Nokia has announced it will include NFC tech in next-gen Windows Phone handsets and hinted at a connector-free future for pairing smartphones with other devices. "Why are there any connectors?" asked Nokia's design chief, Marko Ahtisaari, rhetorically, in an interview with The Guardian. Why are there covers for ports too? …

    Phones 1 Feb 2012, 13:16

  • Groupon's pants 'Weight Loss HOTPANTS' ad banned

    Watchdog sweats over site's track record

    Groupon has got into fresh trouble with the Advertising Standards Agency (ASA), this time over pants. Today's ruling on a Groupon advert for "Weight Loss HOTPANTS" is the latest in a string of recent advertising complaints upheld against the coupon-pushers – they most recently had problems pushing snake oil and boob jobs – …

    Bootnotes 1 Feb 2012, 13:18

  • Romanian cops cuff suspected serial hacker TinKode

    Alleged Royal Navy, Pentagon invader gets keelhauled

    Romanian police have arrested a man suspected of breaking into the websites of NASA and the Pentagon in a series of high-profile hack attacks. Razvan Manole Cernaianu, 20, from Timisoara, is accused of publishing details of the SQL injection vulnerabilities discovered on the targeted websites under the hacker handle TinKode. …

    Security 1 Feb 2012, 13:41

  • Swedish Supreme Court chucks out Pirate Bay appeal bid

    Legal ship sails, slammer time for four MIA founders

    The four founders behind The Pirate Bay saw their final attempt to appeal against an earlier ruling rejected in Sweden's Supreme Court today. That means that nearly three years after Peter Sunde, Carl Lundström, Fredrik Neij and Gottfrid Svartholm Warg were handed prison sentences and hefty fines for their involvement in the …

    Law 1 Feb 2012, 13:52

  • EFF helps MegaUpload users claw legit stuff back from Feds

    Freedom fighters's MegaRetrieval to snatch back family snaps

    The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), a self-proclaimed people's champion in the battlefield of digital rights, has waded into the controversy around the MegaUpload site, hoping to help legit users of the site to recover their 'lawful' content. Julie Samuels of EFF says that her organisation is "troubled that so many …

    Hosting 1 Feb 2012, 13:56

  • Sony PlayStation Vita offered for 80 quid

    Trade'n'save

    Gamestation has revealed a list of trade-in deals which will see the retailer hand over the upcoming Sony PlayStation Vita handheld console for as little as £80. Gamers anticipating this month's Vita launch will be pleased to know the initial outlay of over £200 can be slashed - provided they're willing to hand over an older …

    Games 1 Feb 2012, 13:58

  • Cabinet Office moves step closer to killing Directgov

    Test drive new Gov.uk beta build today

    A beta build of the Cabinet Office's single domain website project has now been opened up for public scrutiny. The previous incarnation of the site - Alpha.gov.uk - has been killed in the process. It has now morphed into the capped-up-cos-we-mean-business GOV.UK. The incumbent Directgov is expected to be sent to the knacker's …

    Government 1 Feb 2012, 14:19

  • Fraud baron forced henchmen into S&M orgies to prove loyalty – cops

    Card cloner's 'bizarre initiation tests' to weed out undercover Feds

    A US card cloner forced would-be gang members to take part in group sex sessions as part of an initiation ceremony designed to weed out undercover cops, according to a detective. Vikas Yadav - an Indian national resident in Athens, Georgia, at the time of his crimes but has since been deported - used chat rooms frequented by …

    Security 1 Feb 2012, 14:43

  • Cosmic rays blamed for Phobos-Grunt fiasco

    Space probe apparently not built to fly in space

    Russian space boffins have come up with a new reason to explain why duff Martian probe Phobos-Grunt fell out of the sky - cosmic rays. The head of space agency Roscosmos said that an investigation into the short-lived spacecraft had discovered that radiation caused a glitch in the onboard computer system, state news agency RIA …

    Science 1 Feb 2012, 15:02

  • OFFICIAL: Smart meters won't be compulsory

    Vid No offence to refuse in Blighty

    So-called 'smart meters' will not be mandatory, the energy minister has confirmed. The pledge was made by Charles Hendry last Thursday, and confirmed to us by the Department of Energy and Climate Change today. The energy minister in the previous Labour government, one Ed Miliband, introduced legislation to make smart meters …

    Government 1 Feb 2012, 15:19

  • TripAdvisor: OK, not all our reviews are trustworthy or real

    ASA raps largest travel site for ... not telling the truth on the interwebs

    Online travel review site TripAdvisor has been forced to admit that not all of the reviews posted on its site are trustworthy or real. The Advertising Standards Agency has asked TripAdvisor to take down the claims that it offers "trusted advice from real travellers" and features "more than 50 million honest travel reviews and …

    Small Biz 1 Feb 2012, 15:42

  • The Register Comments Guidelines, 2012

    New world, nearly new rules

    The Register operates a hybrid moderation policy. Here's how it works. The vast majority of comments will appear on the site automatically. This is because we trust you to follow the house rules. But just in case ... we have a mechanism for readers to report comments. The moderators will continue to deal with any comments and …

    Site News 1 Feb 2012, 15:42

  • MasterCard joins Visa in pushing PINs into America

    13 months and counting

    MasterCard has published its roadmap for getting Americans to use chip-and-PIN cards in stores, following Visa's lead in proposing to replace swipe cards by April 2013. Over the next year, Americans will have to get used to entering a PIN when using a credit card, rather than scrawling a name (any name) as they do today. That' …

    Financial News 1 Feb 2012, 16:02

  • Drink diet pop all the time? Look forward to VASCULAR DEATH

    New study reveals fatal consequences of mock-swill habit

    News today calculated to disgruntle many a Reg reader – and some Reg hacks – as it has been revealed by boffinry that the daily glugging down of "diet" soft drinks increases the risk of "vascular events such as stroke, heart attack, and vascular death". "Our results suggest a potential association between daily diet soft drink …

    Science 1 Feb 2012, 16:31

  • Kinect for Windows ships with SDK 1.0

    PC movement

    Microsoft started shipping Kinect for Windows hardware today alongside version 1.0 of the official Kinect for Windows SDK, expanding the company's motion-control operation from Xbox 360 gaming to desktop computing. Specifically built for developers, the new Kinect for Windows sensor can see objects from as close as 400mm, …

    Hardware 1 Feb 2012, 16:45

  • Court defies Apple demand to ban Samsung tablet

    Prior art to invalidate Apple patent

    The Munich Regional Court has chucked out an Apple request to impose a ban on the sale of Samsung's Galaxy Tab 10.1N tablet and on the South Korean giant's Galaxy Nexus smartphone. The court decided that the Apple-owned patent on which the Mac maker had pegged its allegation that the Samsung kit infringes its intellectual …

    Tablets 1 Feb 2012, 17:01

  • Microsoft ad campaign savages Google over privacy

    Updated 'We are not like them, and hey, why not try IE?'

    Microsoft is launching a three-day advertising campaign in the US, offering itself as the privacy-respecting alternative to Google. Last week Google decided to pool personal user information across 60 of its products with no opt out available to users. The ad campaign's slogan is: "Putting people first" [JPG here]. “Every …

    Software 1 Feb 2012, 17:04

  • Portland Jedi jailed for lightsabre rampage

    Also banned from Toys R Us

    The Portland man who defeated a police Taser with a Jedi lightsabre has been jailed for 45 days. David A. Canterbury, pictured, was cuffed back in December after he went on the rampage at a Toys R Us outlet, assaulting customers with the Star Wars toy weapon before confronting cops outside the store. Officers attempted to …

    Bootnotes 1 Feb 2012, 17:19

  • Ex-Apple engineer emits Zevo ZFS for Mac OS

    Ten's Complement for Mac OS X

    An ex-Apple engineer's startup has produced Zevo: ZFS for Mac OS. The start-up, founded in 2010 and Colorado-based, is Ten's Complement and the founder is Don Brady. Zevo comes in the shipping Silver edition and Gold, Platinum and Developer editions which are due later this year. Zevo Silver, positioned as the test drive …

    Operating Systems 1 Feb 2012, 17:43

  • Seagate slam-dunks flood-hit rivals with triple-profit Q2

    Ships 47 million disk drives as others sink

    Seagate, the world's numero uno disk drive manufacturer, notched up a brilliant second 2012 quarter with revenues and profits soaring up above flood-diminished rival WD. Revenues were $3.2bn and net income of $563m, which compares to $2.7bn revenue and $150m net income in the year-ago quarter. A 19 per cent increase in …

    The Channel 1 Feb 2012, 18:03

  • Oracle reels off one exabyte in tape storage

    Object storage a rival? Not even close. At least, not yet

    Oracle has been boasting about its dominance in tape, saying it has now shipped more than an exabyte's worth of media for StorageTek T10000C tape drives in the nine months after its release – a faster ramp than for any other StorageTek product. Oracle also shipped more enterprise tape drives than any other vendor in the first …

    Storage 1 Feb 2012, 19:04

  • Japan takes second shot at extraterrestrial sampling with Hayabusa 2

    Damp asteroid 1999 JU3 may hold clues to Earth’s life

    The Japanese space agency (JAXA) has confirmed a new mission to collect samples from an asteroid and return them safely to earth, and has set the target as 1999 JU3 - one of the damper asteroids in range. “We’re expecting the asteroid to be rich in hydrated minerals and, we believe, in organic compounds - long carbon chains …

    Science 1 Feb 2012, 21:00

  • Fairfax bunkers down after alleged hack

    Privacy Commissioner wakes up

    Two Fairfax sites remain offline this morning after they were apparently compromised, with the possible loss of credit card information. As reported in Australia’s SC Magazine, the intruders claimed to have obtained 10,000 unencrypted credit cards. The sites impacted are Herald Education and the Young Writer of the Year. …

    Security 1 Feb 2012, 21:41

  • Optus trumps Telstra in war for digital PVR freedom

    Football codes' case crashes, burns

    Optus has vanquished Telstra and its claims on a multi million dollar rights deal for the online broadcasting of National Rugby League (NRL) and Australian Football League (AFL) footage. Telstra, the NRL and AFL have vowed that the matter is far from over and will appeal the landmark decisions. Using hackneyed sporting …

    Business 1 Feb 2012, 22:21

  • Facebook files for IPO, seeks $5bn

    Management rule by 'The Hacker Way'

    As expected, Facebook has announced the terms of its initial public offering and is looking to raise $5bn. In the firm’s SEC S1 filing the company reported revenues of this year of $3.7bn, up from $2bn in 2011, while income has just hit $1bn, from $606m last year. The site reported 845 million monthly active users and 483 …

    Financial News 1 Feb 2012, 22:27

  • Telstra joins global video cabal

    Biz vid services set to boom

    Telstra has teamed with eight other international carriers to form the Global Meeting Alliance, a group that aims to support the commercial interests of business video services. Launch members include Tata Communications, Safaricom in Africa, Etisalat, Qtel and Mobily in the Middle East, Neotel in South Africa and Sprint, …

    Business 1 Feb 2012, 22:30

  • Researchers pitch switch to electronic prescriptions

    Medicos’ handwriting a killer

    Sydney health researchers are calling for the rapid implementation of electronic prescriptions in the country’s hospitals, to try and cut the rate of errors resulting from doctors’ poor handwriting. According to Johanna Westbrook, director of health systems and safety research at the University of New South Wales’ Australian …

    Software 1 Feb 2012, 23:00

  • Ukraine file-sharing site disappears

    Freetards mourn Ex.ua with the usual DDOS attacks

    Microsoft Ukraine has disclaimed responsibility for the shut-down of Ukranian file-sharing site Ex.ua, which that country’s government has shuttered for copyright infringement. The shut-down has triggered the usual round of attacks on government Websites in that country. According to the Kyiv Post, Ukrania’s interior ministry …

    Law 1 Feb 2012, 23:30