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7th February 2012 Archive

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  • Oracle wins round in Java patent lawsuit against Google

    Appeals court allows incriminating Mountain View email

    A three-judge US Court of Appeals panel has denied Google's request to toss out another judge's decision to allow an incriminating email from being used as evidence in Oracle's Java-patent lawsuit against Mountain View. The email in question was sent by Google engineer and ex–Sun man Tim Lindholm shortly before Oracle …

    Law 7 Feb 00:57

  • Google limits Android support for CDMA phones

    Android power users may face hobbled handsets

    Google is dropping full support for CDMA handsets running Android, leaving millions of customers wondering if their phones and tablets will be able to cope. Last Friday, Google posted a message on Google Groups to say that in the future, the Chocolate Factory wouldn’t provide full support for CDMA devices, such as those …

    Mobile 7 Feb 00:59

  • Adobe adds Flash sandboxing to Firefox

    Hackers bypass it in 3, 2…

    Adobe has released beta code for sandboxing its heavily hacked Flash code within Firefox, in a similar fashion to the Chrome security protections added to its Reader software and Google’s Chrome browser. “Sandboxing technology has proven very effective in protecting users by increasing the cost and complexity of authoring …

    Security 7 Feb 01:29

  • Czechs, Slovaks stall on ACTA

    Romania doesn’t know why it didn’t

    The fragile European consensus over the ACTA treaty is fraying at the fringes: the Czech Republic and Slovakia have decided to suspend the ratification process, while Romania’s support for the treaty could stall on a change of government. Newsagency Ceske Noviny reports that the Czech government has decided further analysis of …

    Government 7 Feb 02:42

  • Colorfly Pocket Hi-Fi C4

    Review The audiophiles' PMP

    The true audiophile is likely to have many questions concerning the Colorfly Pocket Hi-Fi, but chief among them is likely to be ‘How f*%&ing much??!?’ At £549 this Chinese-made high fidelity portable music player is nobody’s idea of a bargain, but if you’re one of those brave souls who still cares about sound quality, who …

    reghardware 7 Feb 07:00

  • Suppliers get a shot at £4bn worth of gov hardware deals

    From tablets to servers and storage

    The Government Procurement Service has advertised for suppliers to join a wide-ranging £4bn ICT framework. The framework will be open to public sector organisations for two years, according to a notice in the Official Journal of the European Union, and covers the following lots: Desktop client devices: which will include …

    Government 7 Feb 08:05

  • Inside the mind of EMC: Is storage just a launchpad?

    Blocks and Files: I wanna be a data centre contender ...

    It's a vision thing: EMC was a storage company and is an information company, but in the next decade it looks like it will be a data centre infrastructure company. This thought comes from a parsing of two Pat Gelsinger replies to an interview with EMC's Mark Twomey, otherwise known as the blogger Storagezilla. Reply number …

    Storage 7 Feb 08:31

  • Prehistoric cricket love songs recreated for your listening pleasure

    Throbbing Jurassic passion returns in boffin-mungous feat

    An international team of top boffins has quite literally left no stone unturned in its efforts to answer a highly unusual question: Just what did the love songs of the Jurassic era really sound like? This is actually the mating music of a "primitive bush cricket", whose modern descendants are also known as katydids, which …

    Science 7 Feb 08:54

  • Google-hosted blogs to be censored on country-by-country basis

    But you can work around it with a 'No Country Redirect'

    Google will remove content posted on its blogging platform on a country-by-country basis after altering the way the service organises blog posts. The internet giant said the move was designed to help it take down material deemed to be unlawful in one country but to enable readers in other countries to see it. Google said it …

    Hosting 7 Feb 09:18

  • N Korea mobile phone subscribers top 1 million

    No need to be lonely in hardline communist state

    Axis of evil North Korea now has a whopping one million mobile phone users some four years after the technology was first introduced in the repressive state. Egyptian telco Orascom Telecom, which helped to launch a 3G service in the Democratic People’s Republic in 2008, reportedly revealed the figures in a regulatory filing. …

    Media 7 Feb 09:37

  • Mac demand helps Apple business bloom in Blighty

    Rival PC players slump

    Apple was the only major computer maker to increase its shipments into the UK PC market during the final three months of 2011. Figures posted today by Gartner, a market watcher, noted shipment declines for the four remaining players in the UK top five. Apple's shipments rose 17.2 per cent from 228,000 units in Q4 2010 to 267, …

    reghardware 7 Feb 09:39

  • Avast! Mobile Security

    Android App of the Week Prepare to repel boarders

    The security or lack thereof of the Android platform - real or imagined - is a common topic of conversation at the moment so it seems like a good time to take a look for a comprehensive security app. My preferred choice is Avast!. Avast! for Android is free and carries no advertising, making it perfect for anyone who is just a …

    reghardware 7 Feb 10:00

  • Chilli crab scoffing boffins build anti-cancer claw robot

    New stomach tumour busting gadget inspired by top Asian nosh

    The fight against cancer reached a weird new level after Singapore’s centuries-old chilli crab dish inspired boffins to build a tumour-removing robot. Widespread reports explain that the gear, which is mounted on an endoscope, has a small pair of pincers to grab the affected area, an even smaller hook to slice off the …

    Science 7 Feb 10:22

  • Beware Freedom of Info law 'privacy folktale' - ICO chief

    Chicken Lickens in a flap as FOIA scrutinised

    Is Blighty's Freedom of Information (FOI) law working? The civil servant leading the agency charged with enforcing it thinks so, and says a review by politicians shouldn't succumb to myths about the supposed dangers of more openness by the State. UK Information Commissioner Christopher Graham has called for "careful analysis …

    Law 7 Feb 10:42

  • HTC wants a hug after glum Q1 estimates

    Under-pressure biz seeks 'emotional connection' with punters

    HTC could be in for a spot of bother in 2012 after its Q1 outlook missed analysts’ estimates. Commentators suggest the firm may struggle to compete with Apple, Samsung and the wealth of handset manufacturers crowding this increasingly competitive space. The Taiwanese hardware manufacturer forecast revenue of about NT$65bn to …

    The Channel 7 Feb 11:03

  • TalkTalk loses 43,000 customers, chunk o' revenue in Q3

    Better HomeSafe than sorry, telco insists

    TalkTalk lost 43,000 broadband customers during the company's third quarter and reported that revenue in that area of the business had fallen year-on-year. The telco told the City this morning that it was continuing to unbundle exchanges during the quarter and attributed the decline in subscribers to the fact that it was …

    Broadband 7 Feb 11:19

  • Google unleashes 'Solve for X' confabs to save the world

    Boffins gathered for new TED-like talks

    Internet giant Google is once more trying to save the world, this time with its TED-rip-off "Solve for X" project. The Chocolate Factory has launched the project after the first invite-only gathering of minds, which pulled techies and boffins together to talk about "moonshots", ie, wildly ambitious projects to solve world …

    Bootnotes 7 Feb 11:31

  • Parliament ponders £400,000 iPads-for-MPs plan

    Representatives to get slated

    Members of Parliament may soon be issued with an iPad each in a scheme that could cost the tax payer over £400,000. House members have been testing the Apple tablet throughout the past 12 months in a bid to modernise the Mother of Parliaments and save print costs. Now the cross-party Administration Committee has recommended a …

    reghardware 7 Feb 11:35

  • Has Microsoft finally killed off Windows 8 Start button?

    Era of Windows 95 finally over

    Microsoft is reportedly killing the Start button in Windows, a staple of Redmond's PC operating system since the landmark Windows 95. Purported screen shots of Windows 8 Consumer Preview are reported to show a Super Bar that extends across the full bottom of the screen minus the Start button orb. In place of the orb is a "hot …

    Windows 8 7 Feb 11:44

  • Toshiba releases 'world's thinnest' Android tablet

    Sales limited to a single retailer

    Toshiba's 'world's thinnest, lightest' tablet, the AT200 - aka the Excite in the US - goes on sale over here next week. The 7.7mm-thick, 10.1in 1280 x 800 tablet, announced in September 2011, runs Android 3.2 Honeycomb, on a 1.2GHz Texas Instruments OMAP 4430 processor. It has 1GB of DDR 2 memory and either 16GB or 32GB of …

    reghardware 7 Feb 11:50

  • High Street chains vow to play fair on warranties

    Dixons, Comet and Argos pulled over by OFT

    UK retailers have offered a number of concessions after the Office of Fair Trading had a word about their extended warranties on electrical goods. Dixons, Comet and Argos have all told the OFT, which was worried about unfair competition, that they will set up a warranty comparison website and provide punters with more …

    The Channel 7 Feb 12:02

  • ViewSonic V350 dual Sim Android smartphone

    Review For business and pleasure

    Every now and again, a brand new product comes along that seems to hark back to days of yore, to a time when things were different. One of those things would be the steam-powered PC, another is the ViewSonic V350 – a smartphone that can work on two networks simultaneously. Dual of the dial: ViewSonic's V350 There was a time …

    reghardware 7 Feb 12:08

  • Nikon unveils mammoth megapixel DSLR

    D800 does 36Mp

    Nikon unveiled its much-anticipated FX-format D800 digital SLR camera this morning. The Nikon D800 - successor to the company's D700 - has been upgraded to sport a 36.3Mp CMOS sensor feeding the Nikon's latest image processor, the Expeed 3. The D800 features 1080p video recording with options for 24, 25 and 30fps frame rates …

    reghardware 7 Feb 12:12

  • Mac OS X ARM port by Apple work experience kid revealed

    Project sparks non-Intel-powered MacBook rumour fever

    A Dutch computer science student's homework has stirred the old rumour that Apple may ditch the Intel platform and power its Macbooks with ARM processors. Tristan Schaap's bachelor thesis at the Delft University of Technology described work he did at Apple as an intern: getting the core of Mac OS X to run on an MV88F6281 …

    Operating Systems 7 Feb 12:21

  • Nokia posts 'major' Sym... er... smartphone OS update

    Belle, end of Symbian?

    Nokia may be obsessed with Microsoft's Windows Phone OS, but that hasn't stopped it rolling out the latest version of its other OS, Belle, to a seven handsets. Step forward owners of Nokia N8, E7, E6, X7, C6-01, C7 and Oro phones, you can now download Symbian - no, don't mention the 'S' word... - Nokia Belle for your gadget. …

    reghardware 7 Feb 12:33

  • Brazil sues Twitter over police checkpoint tweets

    Threatens $290k fine... daily

    Twitter should be more proactive in blocking tweets about police checkpoints, according to the Brazilian Attorney, who reckons a daily fine of R$500,000 ($290,000) will get the company moving. If the injunction, lodged with the Federal Court of Goiás, is successful, then Twitter will be obliged to suspend accounts which warn …

    Law 7 Feb 12:40

  • YouView will launch this Spring, says TalkTalk

    Consumer trials coming

    ISP TalkTalk has reiterated its expectation that YouView, the would-be UK standard IPTV platform, will launch this coming Spring. The company's CEO, Dido Harding, told investors today that initial work getting customers to understand what YouView is all about has begun, laying the groundwork for consumer trials of the service …

    reghardware 7 Feb 13:01

  • Hackers spunk 'pcAnywhere source' after negotiation breakdown

    'Fed posing as Symantec worker' offered $50k to activists

    Hacktivists affiliated with Anonymous uploaded what they claim is the source code of Symantec's pcAnywhere software early on Tuesday, following the breakdown of negotiations between the hacking group and "a federal agent posing as a Symantec employee". Symantec has confirmed that a dialogue had taken place between the …

    Security 7 Feb 13:01

  • Conclusive PROOF of human activity causing glacier to VANISH

    Captain Prat blagger cuffed with hot ice slung in cooler

    Even the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has had to walk back on the idea that the world's glaciers will all be gone within decades due to human-caused carbon powered global warming: but news has now emerged showing that in at least one case human action has absolutely indisputably led to the disappearance of large …

    Science 7 Feb 13:17

  • UK.gov's mega-cloud VIP biz list kept under wraps

    Suppliers find out if they're in the G-Cloud club

    Scores of IT suppliers and consultancy firms have made it onto the G-Cloud framework, but government officials are keeping schtum about the names and numbers until a two-week cooling off period passes. A Cabinet Office spokesman told El Reg that 600 firms applied to be involved in Blighty's public sector mega-cloud system, and …

    The Channel 7 Feb 13:41

  • Google goggles with Terminator HUD 'coming soon'

    8GB of flash, front-facing cam, voice recog and head-tilting nav

    Google is actually working on twitch-responsive sci-fi-style head-up display glasses, according to a report by 9TO5Google. And the new tech apparently includes a cursor that responds to head movements. The article includes great eye-candy, including a clip from CES 2012 on Motorola's headset computer and a Terminator clip. …

    Bootnotes 7 Feb 14:01

  • Raspberry Pi ship date slips

    Crystal trips

    Raspberry Pi won't make it into buyers' hands before 20 February and perhaps not until the end of the month, the organisation behind the $25 microcomputer has admitted. The compact yet fully laden motherboard went into mass production early in January. The hope was the gadget would be available to buyers by now. Alas not. …

    reghardware 7 Feb 14:21

  • Canon focuses on low-end with PowerShot snappers

    Compact definition

    Canon snapped into focus today with the launch of six 16Mp A-series PowerShots to slot into its lower-end range of compact cameras. First up is the PowerShot A810 and A1300, classic models that still run on AA batteries. The A1300 rocks up with an optical viewfinder too, an unusual rarity in this day and age. Both feature 28mm …

    reghardware 7 Feb 14:28

  • UK's digital policy seized by fanatical bureaucrats, say MPs

    Analysis 'Hey... That's OUR job!'

    The UK government's digital policy has been captured by ideological fanatics at the IPO, Parliament heard today. The debate was tabled by Pete Wishart MP (Scot Nat, Perth) who devoted much of his speech to the agenda of the Intellectual Property Office (IPO), which is what the old Patent Office is now called. It can't have …

    Law 7 Feb 14:29

  • Blighty's PC market fell to its knees in Q4

    Consumer and biz sales slide, Apple posts growth

    The UK PC market shrank by nearly one fifth in the Christmas quarter, suffering the worst decline in half a decade. PC shipments in Q4 slumped by 19.6 per cent to 2.95 million units, with every major vendor apart from Apple posting negative growth. "PC vendors vendors face a long, uphill struggle to regain the interest of …

    The Channel 7 Feb 14:43

  • O2 quietly cans gratis Cloud Wi-Fi connectivity

    Own-brand hotspots offered instead

    O2 has quietly dropped The Cloud from the list of Wi-Fi hotspot aggregators it grants its mobile customers free access to. Until the start of the month, O2 customers could access the internet through The Cloud's many WLANs. Now, however, only BT Openzone and O2's own O2 WiFi hotspots are included for free. Punters tell us …

    reghardware 7 Feb 14:54

  • Oracle demands retrial in SAP slurp spat

    Snubs paltry $272m payout, wants full $1.3bn in damages

    Oracle has filed for a retrial in its SAP spat over illegal file downloading, moaning that the reduced damages awarded just aren't enough. Oracle originally won a whopping $1.3bn in damages in its suit against SAP over the German enterprise software biz's subsidiary TomorrowNow illegally slurping Oracle software and support …

    The Channel 7 Feb 15:02

  • Acer sues ex-boss Lanci for shacking up with Lenovo

    Update Contract's non-compete clause in question

    Acer has sued former president and CEO Gianfranco Lanci amid claims that he breached a non-compete clause by joining rival Lenovo. The lawsuit was lodged in a Milanese court today, according to a notification Acer made to the Taiwan Stock Exchange. The PC giant will seek to ascertain whether Lanci violated the "non-compete …

    The Channel 7 Feb 15:16

  • 2020: A Press Odyssey – reporter licensing explained

    Sketch Daddy, who's Hugh Grant? Oh, you mean Lord Grant

    It's 2020, and a schoolgirl is doing her homework. "Daddy, what's a press licence?" "Oh, that. Well a press licence allows you to call yourself a journalist and get into official events, for official journalists." "What for?" "Well you get into events held by the government or a company, or for example a football club, and …

    Media 7 Feb 15:39

  • Channel body count hits dotcom implosion high

    Reseller bloodbath in 2011

    The channel body count in 2011 reached a high not seen since the dotcom bubble burst, stats from credit reference agency Graydon UK reveal. In Q4 88 firms collapsed, up nearly 30 per cent year-on-year, which took the tally for the whole of 2011 to 356, up by almost one third on reseller fatalities in the previous twelve months …

    The Channel 7 Feb 16:01

  • USER-TRACKING Firefox sparks Mozilla civil war

    Updated Devs spar over unique identifiers in MetricsDataPing code

    Mozilla coders are arguing among themselves about the open-source outfit's Metrics Data Ping project, which was designed to monitor Firefox usage metrics. Several coders in the Mozilla camp have expressed concern about how some developers are proposing the project should collect data from users of the browser. "It seems as if …

    Developer 7 Feb 16:19

  • Apple eyes ISPs to sell 'iTV'

    Analysis Canny marketing as World+Dog goes IPTV

    What are we to make of the claims from moles within Canada's two key telcos that both companies have Apple HD TVs in their labs? That Apple is indeed working on an own-brand television now seems certain. Equally sure seems the notion that the so-called 'iTV' won't be remotely revolutionary, though it will be spun that way by …

    reghardware 7 Feb 16:40

  • Google's whack-a-mole Marketplace cleans house again

    Rovio Mobile, not Rovio MobiIe

    Google's reactive policy over content on the Android Marketplace saw dozens of applications popping up overnight with names close enough to the real thing to reel in a mark or two. The worst offender has to be "Rovio MobiIe", which simply replaced the "L" with a capital "I" to make its products indistinguishable from those …

    Developer 7 Feb 16:44

  • TRENDnet home security cam flaw exposes thousands

    Just when you thought you were alone in the bath

    TRENDnet has acknowledged a flaw that meant that live feeds from its home security cameras were accessible online without needing a password. The US-based manufacturer admitted the problem - which affects its SecurView Cameras bought after April 2010 - and began releasing firmware updates designed to plug the hole on Monday. …

    Security 7 Feb 17:01

  • Cloud proves that OldSQL is still cool

    Open... and Shut Relational lives to fight on

    As the IT world scrambles pell mell into the cloud, veteran vendors like Oracle are having to figure out how to make money in an IT market that is increasingly turning its back on traditional software licensing. While Oracle has faced down challenges to its core database business before from open source, the cloud presents an …

    The Channel 7 Feb 17:31

  • Canonical kicks Kubuntu to the kerb

    Axed KDE-based Linux distro was biz non-starter

    Ubuntu shop Canonical has withdrawn support from development of the KDE-based Kubuntu Linux desktop after seven years for commercial reasons. Canonical employee Jonathan Riddell has said his employer will stop funding his Kubuntu work following April's expected release of the next Ubuntu LTS, version 12.04. The decision means …

    Operating Systems 7 Feb 18:03

  • Chinese company demands $38m, 'apology' from Apple

    Convoluted iPad trademark battle grinds on

    A Chinese trademark-infringement case against Apple's right to use the name "iPad" that has been rumbling along since October 2010 has taken another turn: the Shenzhen company involved in the imbroglio now wants Cupertino to be levied a $38m fine – and it wants an apology. "We are asking the court to order Apple to stop …

    Law 7 Feb 18:29

  • 6,300 wannabe astronauts flood NASA inbox

    Second-highest number of applications since 1978

    NASA has received the second-highest number of astronaut applications ever for the 21st astronaut class when more than 6,300 people signed up to be space invaders. NASA astronaut Mike Fossum in spacewalk training. Credit: NASA The US space agency usually receives around 2,500 to 3,500 applications when it announces …

    Science 7 Feb 18:30

  • Xeround's cloudy MySQL database goes freemium

    Rejiggers pricing, puffs up on other clouds

    Xeround, a startup with experience in making scalable database management systems for telcos and service providers, vaulted itself into the cloudy database business last June with the launch of its eponymous database service running atop Amazon's EC2 service. Now it is tweaking the product's packaging and pricing to make it more …

    Cloud 7 Feb 18:42

  • Rambus drops $35m for Unity Semiconductor

    Cash for CMOX

    Rambus is spending $35m (£22.13m) in cash to buy Unity Semiconductor and get into the post-NAND memory business. Unity is involved with CMOX resistive RAM technology, said to combine DRAM speed and NAND non-volatility. It hopes to produce a 1 terabit chip by 2014. Unity's people will be joining Rambus, putting an end to any …

    The Channel 7 Feb 19:01

  • NetApp slaps down Lightning with multi-card flash flush

    Supports vMotion and DRS

    NetApp is developing a server flash storage offering that will include beefy NetApp steak and not just EMC Lightning sizzle, according to insiders in the company. Our understanding, from people close to the action, is that NetApp server flash software will work with any server PCIe-connected flash memory card, and with …

    Storage 7 Feb 19:29

  • Google adds Chrome finish to Android

    Ice Cream Sandwich users only, sadly

    Google has announced a beta version of its increasingly popular Chrome browser for Android users, but only if you’re on the most current build, version 4.0, dubbed Ice Cream Sandwich. The Chocolate Factory’s latest creation has been designed to allow easy synchronization with the desktop version of the browser. Bookmarks can …

    Applications 7 Feb 19:33

  • HP readies next-gen servers for launch

    Looks like Xeon E5 boxes

    Server juggernaut Hewlett-Packard is hosting a shindig in Las Vegas next week with the bigwigs in its server unit, and the speculation is that the company will preview its forthcoming ProLiant G8 servers sporting Intel's "Sandy Bridge-EP" Xeon E5 processors. The invite to the event, which is being hosted at The Cosmopolitan on …

    The Channel 7 Feb 20:03

  • Stratus ruggedizes VMware clouds

    Fault tolerant appliance for vCenter control freak

    Clouds have a single point of failure, and Stratus Technologies thinks it can make it some dough fixing it. Stratus and its peers NEC and Hewlett-Packard, which sell fault-tolerant servers, would love for you to be so freaked out by the mission-critical nature of your applications that you would get out a big ole check and buy …

    The Channel 7 Feb 21:09

  • Spacemen urge NASA to build nuke ship for Mars trip

    Nuclear rocket engines rise from the dead

    Mars has given nuclear spacecraft engines a new lease on life, with nuke ships being named as a top priority – along with electrical propulsion – in a new report that recommends what NASA should focus on in coming years. The two propulsion systems prioritized in the 468-page report by the National Research Council (NRC) – …

    Science 7 Feb 21:19

  • VMware crafts mega-controller for public clouds

    Easier provisioning for service providers, resellers

    If VMware wants service providers to dump Xen and KVM hypervisors, it has to make the job of using the VMware stack easier than the hodgepodge of usually hand-crafted tools that service providers employ and that, to a certain extent, give them their competitive advantage. Or, perhaps in some cases, a competitive disadvantage. So …

    Cloud 7 Feb 21:54

  • Will Apple set up shop in Walmart warehouses?

    Sets sights on middle America

    The contrast between Apple's prestige city-centre stores and the Sam's Club warehouse chain – where budget goods are sold straight from the pallet – is sharp. But that's where Apple wants to set up mini stores to sell its gadgets. There are about 600 Sam's Club retail warehouses across America selling everything from exercise …

    Business 7 Feb 22:02

  • Global digirati head to Sydney

    LBI and ZINFI Tech set up shop

    New South Wales has attracted two more international digital developers to its burgeoning “Silicon Valley” styled digital economy. London-based Lost Boys International (LBi) and Silicon Valley-based ZINFI Technologies have both set up shop in Sydney with the help of the NSW state government and expect to create up to 25 new …

    Business 7 Feb 22:45

  • Koala food may power US Defence force

    US Navy bigwig boosting biofuel in Queensland visit

    Koalas might soon face a food shortage if the US Department of Defence pursues its interest in Australian research for the creation of biofuels from local flora. Visiting US Navy Director for Operational Energy, Chris Tindal, has been in discussion with the University of Queensland on UQ's biofuels research, including the …

    Science 7 Feb 23:15

  • New Fedora boss pushes for the clouds

    Robyn Bergeron takes the reins

    Red Hat has appointed former Fedora program manager Robyn Bergeron to that distro's next project leader – and she has plans to make the operating system more focused on cloud services. Bergeron takes over from Jared Smith at an interesting time in the market, with the industry increasingly looking beyond the basic client/ …

    Operating Systems 7 Feb 23:24