10th February 2012 Archive

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Sinofsky shows off Windows 8 on ARM and Office15

Microsoft aims for separate but equal

Windows boss Stephen Sinofsky has ended months of speculation with the first (fairly) detailed drilldown into Windows 8 on ARM (WOA) platform, and says it should be ready for a simultaneous launch with its x86/64 counterpart. Devices running WOA will come with both a Metro touch-based interface and the more traditional desktop …

Windows 8 10 Feb 01:46
Oracle tucks R stats language into database

R-acle 11g, Quant Edition

Relational database juggernaut Oracle has embedded the R programming language used by more than 2 million statisticians and quants the world over into its 11g relational database. Call it R-acle 11g, Quant Edition. R, of course, is the open source statistical analysis programming language and is also the name of the runtime …

Software 10 Feb 01:59
LG DM2350D 23in passive 3D monitor and TV combo

Review Gaming desktop telly, anyone?

The DM2350D is the first 3D combination monitor/TV released by LG. Sharing the same passive FPR 3D panel technology as its Cinema 3D TV siblings, it’s presumably aimed at wannabe 3D PC gamers and those looking for a jack of all trades screen that’s easy to accommodate in student digs or wherever. Best of both worlds? LG's …

reghardware 10 Feb 07:00
Red Hat fires Gluster thruster from Amazon's cluster

Storage done virtually

Red Hat is providing a Virtual Storage Appliance using Amazon cloud storage and claiming enterprise, scale-out NAS capability. The Red Hat VSA is built on Red Hat's acquired Gluster technology dealing with a clustered filesystem, and is based on back-end Amazon Web Services (AWS). It is POSIX-compliant and, Red Hat claims, …

Channel Register 10 Feb 08:02
UK.gov: We really are going to start buying open-source from SMEs

Intellect 2012 Groundhog Day again already?

Open source and open standards are the direction for UK government IT, the civil servant leading the government's technology change agenda has said. Liam Maxwell, Cabinet Office director of ICT futures, said Tuesday in London that open source has grown up and it's time to dispel lingering misconceptions about this technology …

Small Biz 10 Feb 08:32
Met thumbed through Oyster card data up to 22,000 times in 4 years

Requests for info on passengers' movements up 15%

The Metropolitan police has requested Oyster card data relating to citizens and other personal information from Transport for London (TfL) more than 22,000 times since 2008, according to figures published by the capital's transport authority. The force requested personal data TfL holds relating to citizens 5,295 times in 2008 …

Policing 10 Feb 09:01
Tech! Tech! Teeeeech! Women want gadgets for Valentine's

Girls more gizmo hungry than ever

Forget roses and Roses: buy your other half - if female - some tech for Valentine's Day, now just four days away. According to the US Consumer Electronics Association, woman want gadgets, with 80 per cent of them, based on a survey conducted by the CEA, expressing an interest in electronic kit. And just over half of that …

reghardware 10 Feb 09:15
Secondhand MP3 shop can keep trading during EMI trial

Redigi sued by music giant over copyright violations

Redigi has escaped a court injunction that would have prevented it trading throughout the duration of a court battle over alleged copyright infringement. EMI, one of the world's biggest record companies, has sued Redigi, alleging that the business is infringing its copyrights. Redigi sells legally-downloaded digital music …

Law 10 Feb 09:22
Malware devs embrace open-source

Blackhatters desperate for props from pals, says security firm

Cybercrooks have embraced the open-source model in the development of banking Trojans following the release of source code for the infamous ZeuS cybercrime toolkit last year. Multiple variants of a Zeus Trojan called Citadel have emerged over recent weeks as VXers have embraced a new development lifecycle - dubbed open-source …

Malware 10 Feb 09:42
HTC Ice Cream Sandwich updates slip to late March

And an even longer wait for some handsets

HTC smartphone owners: you should be getting Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich updates at the end of next month - if you have an unlocked Sensation or Sensation XE. That's a little later than anticipated. Back in November 2011, HTC eagerly promised ICS updates would appear "early 2012". Now, the aforementioned smartphones will …

reghardware 10 Feb 09:43
Nevex stuffs software into TMS flash for 'world's fastest cache'

CacheWorks twinned with RamSan server flash storage

Nevex, the Canadian supplier of flash and DRAM caching software for Windows, is working with Texas Memory Systems to super-charge its RamSan PCIe flash acceleration of app I/O. CacheWorks is the Nevex Virtual Technologies software, and it puts app data and file data into flash and into the Windows cache in faster DRAM – a 2- …

Channel Register 10 Feb 10:02
Roku rocks media streamers into UK

BBC iPlayer on board

Roku has released its compact media streaming set-top boxes in the UK. With it comes BBC iPlayer support. The Roku LT and Roku 2 XS players - priced at £50 and £100, respectively - also come with Netflix support and all the usual free picture and video content sites, from Flikr to YouTube. Both boxes can connect across a 2. …

reghardware 10 Feb 10:07
Blushing HTC too coy to admit sales figures

You'll just have to guess from now on

Just days after releasing disappointing Q1 estimates that could point to a difficult year ahead, Taiwanese Android handset make HTC has decided not to reveal future sales figures for its smartphones. Digitimes reported that the ailing firm will keep it buttoned in future quarterly financial statements as of this month. The …

Channel Register 10 Feb 10:22
Indian ministers quit in parliament smut flick scandal

'It wasn't porn, it was a real-life rape' claims one

Three former ministers in the Indian state of Karnataka have until Monday to explain themselves to the Speaker of the local assembly after they were allegedly caught watching porn on a mobile phone during a debate in the House. The trio, accused of ogling the grumble flick in the state assembly building in tech town Bangalore …

Government 10 Feb 10:44
BOFH: The Cloud Committee Calamity

Episode 1 'You'd need 8 people, all with photos of their targets. And their routes home...'

"Slipped in front of a bus. Fell FROM a bus. Fell in front a Circle line train. Jumped or fell off the Hungerford Bridge. Fell in front of a black cab. Jumped in front of a minicab; stepped into an open manhole; fell down some stairs; and crossed against the lights at Oxford Circus and was hit by a cab," the Personnel bloke …

BOFH 10 Feb 11:02
IT crowd sorts out the Mars Science Lab

Boffins manage to fix spacecraft's computer problems

US space boffins have managed to sort out the computer problems on the Mars Science Laboratory, currently tootling through space with the spanking-new rover Curiosity on its way to the Red Planet. The MSL's celestial navigation system was has been out of action since 29 November last year, three days after its launch, because …

Space 10 Feb 11:07
Phones 4U intros Jump plan to speed smartphone upgrades

Separates phone cost from airtime package

Phones 4U has come up with a new phone package it claims makes it easier to change handsets. Called Jump, the plan separates airtime from handset. So, a £37.99-a-month, two-year Jump contract actually comprises £15, which goes off to your network operator, and Phones 4U's phone-specific fee, the Jump Service Charge (JSC). A …

reghardware 10 Feb 11:10
Google Wallet falls open after casual hack

Crack the PIN? No, just hit reset

Turns out it's not necessary to decrypt the PIN, or even hack into Google's Wallet, just ask the phone nicely and it will let anyone root though its innards. The flaw was spotted by The Smartphone Champ, and unlike yesterday's efforts which required root access and a modicum of brute force, this hack barely qualifies for the …

Security 10 Feb 11:21
Tesla X e-SUV to sport monster touchscreen on the dash

Gull-wing doors? 85kWh battery? Pah!

Car writers are focusing on the Tesla X's gull-wing doors, but it's the electric SUV's touchscreen-tastic dashboard that does it for us. Like the Model S that the e-car company showed off at the Detroit Motor Show in January, the X will sport a 17in touchscreen as the basis of its control system. Satnav, in-car entertaiment, …

reghardware 10 Feb 11:35
LOHAN lifts skirt on 3D printed parts

Video Our Vulture 2 spaceplane to get the laser sintering treatment

There are champagne corks popping today at Special Project Bureau headquarters as we announce we've cut a deal to have our Vulture 2 aircraft hewn from living nylon. Followers of our audacious Low Orbit Helium Assisted Navigator (LOHAN) mission will know that we've already hooked up with an elite bunch of undergraduates from …

SPB 10 Feb 11:39
'These working conditions are appalling, especially for Apple'

Quotw Plus: Your new project sounds exactly like TED

This was the week when it was claimed that whatever else Apple, Google, Facebook and the rest of them might be up to, they were also giving Americans jobs. A report from TechNet that used want-ads to guesstimate said that jobs in the so-called App Economy had rocketed from none in 2007 to 466,000 today. This included jobs in …

Bootnotes 10 Feb 11:56
Pentax Q compact system camera

Review The cutest camera in the world?

When it come to compact system cameras, Pentax has form, if your memory goes back far enough. Like the Auto110 SLR film camera of old, the Pentax Q is laughably small, but in a good way. It’s a happy laugh – like a friendly chuckle at the burblings of a new-born. Its design is achingly cute – especially the white version I …

reghardware 10 Feb 12:00
IT guy answers daughter's Facebook rant by shooting her laptop

Vid 'You can have a new one when you buy one'

An angry American IT pro has responded to a rude Facebook post from his daughter by riddling her laptop with a fusillade of bullets and posting video of the shooting on YouTube. Here it is, with the incensed dad leading in by reading out the offending Facebook post and offering a few points in response before emptying his . …

Bootnotes 10 Feb 12:13
Sumlock Electronics NE calls creditors' meeting

Newcastle-based dealer feels the cold wind of recession

Long-established Newcastle-based infrastructure reseller Sumlock Electronics NE has called a creditors' meeting to appoint a liquidator. The family-run VMware, Sophos and NEC dealer was incorporated in 1976, but sources claimed that in recent times it ran into cash flow difficulties. Walsh Taylor was appointed as a business …

Channel Register 10 Feb 12:17
Google pushes your buttons in its top strip bar - AGAIN

Back+ in+ black+

Google has once again rejigged its user account navigation bar, making it ever more slavish to the company's strange devotion to all things social within its silo. The world's largest ad broker said in a blog post yesterday that it had made yet more changes to the strip of buttons along the top of its pages, which was painted …

Applications 10 Feb 12:27
Virtual Nazi-code-cracking Colossus in fundraising appeal

Sponsor pixels for new £150k exhibition at Bletchley Park

The National Museum of Computing (TNMOC) has turned to a tried-and-tested fundraising method to establish a home for the rebuilt Colossus computer at Bletchley Park. Individuals and firms are invited to buy up pixels of an online picture of the wartime code-breaking machine - at 10 pence per dot with a minimum spend of £10 - …

Security 10 Feb 12:43
US federal court fast-forwards case on Google privacy policy

Imminent Chocolate Factory tweak speeds up lawsuit review

A lawsuit brought against the US Federal Trade Commission (FTC) over its inaction regarding Google's imminent changes to its terms of service was expedited yesterday. The US federal court of the District of Columbia agreed to a request put forward by the Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC) - the plaintiffs in the case …

Law 10 Feb 13:02
Apple crushes rivals under its heel in Euro fondleslab sales

iPad domination grew in Q4

Apple saw off attempts by rivals to eat into its fondleslab market share and actually tightened its iron grip on the market across Western Europe in over the Christmas quarter. The trendy tech titan, which owned 76 per cent of sales across the region in Q3, captured 88 per cent in the final three months of last year, despite …

Channel Register 10 Feb 13:19
Google guns for Apple TV

Real-world device testing begins

Google is working on an in-home entertainment gadget able to stream content from the internet - or, at least, it's testing such a device in employees' homes. The online advertising company asked the US Federal Commmunications Commission in December 2011 if it could test "an entertainment device" with Wi-Fi and Bluetooth on …

reghardware 10 Feb 13:26
EU competition chief threatens patent war smackdown

Tough-talking Almunia will take mobile giants to task

European anti-competition chief Joaquin Almunia has warned that the EU won't stand for any messing about with technology standards-related patents. Almunia, giving a speech today at the Concurrences conference in Paris, said that he was prepared to use the EU's enforcement measures, such as fines of up to 10 per cent of a biz' …

Law 10 Feb 13:43
March release for Samsung Galaxy S II Android 4.0 update

Ice Cream Sarnie inbound

Samsung said in November 2011 that Android 4.0 - aka Ice Cream Sandwich - will be coming to its Galaxy S II smartphone some time in 2012. It has yet to narrow that window, but industry leak merchant Eldar Murtazin has now said ICS will hit the S II in March. Unsurprisingly, operator-tied handsets may have to wait a little …

reghardware 10 Feb 13:52
Intel pays peanuts to settle NY antitrust suit

Mere millions seal the deal after judge kneecaps state's case

Intel has agreed to fork over a mere $6.5m to settle an antitrust lawsuit by New York's attorney general. Although $6.5m is no mean sum to the average joe, it's a pittance to Intel, whose net income last year was a cool $12.94bn. The case, first brought by Andrew Cuomo back in 2009, alleged that Intel had threatened PC makers …

Law 10 Feb 14:01
Pseudo masochism is fuelling ACTA witch-hunt

Analysis Hated anti-counterfeiting treaty's myths exploded

A mob that's filled with self-righteous fury isn't very discriminating. In 2000 an angry crowd attacked a paediatrician after he was mistakenly named as a paedophile. Last year the Olympic cyclist Chris Hoy was abused by football fans who mistook him for match referee Chris Foy. And last month, a small Scottish farm …

Law 10 Feb 14:34
Penang fraud gang 'ringleader' snared by Taiwan police

Gang man Huang banged up

The suspected ringleader of an internet and telephone fraud gang based in Penang, Malaysia, has been nabbed by police after being lured to Taiwan by his former gang-mates, it has emerged. A Taiwanese man known as Huang was reportedly arrested at Taoyuan International Airport near Taipei as he re-entered the country at the end …

Crime 10 Feb 15:02
Acer limps into 2012 with declining January sales

Planned 2012 revival falters

Acer has not made the positive start to the year that it was banking on after confirming a double-digit decline year-on-year in sales for January. After a disastrous 2011 in which Acer posted losses, parted with its CEO and a stack of senior management, and was knocked further down the pecking order in the global PC market, …

Channel Register 10 Feb 15:18
Overclockers UK swallowed by private equity firm Afinum

VC owner of component distributor Caseking gets acquisitive

German private equity firm Afinum - owners of distributor Caseking - has swallowed specialist components etailer Overclockers UK for an undisclosed sum. Vahid Gharaei, biz development manager at Caseking told The Reg it had been seeking to break into the UK market for some time. "The economy being the way it is today we were …

Channel Register 10 Feb 15:45
Microsoft to send users 4 critical patches on Valentine's Day

Sealed with an XSS

Microsoft plans to publish nine updates next Tuesday – four of which are critical – as part of a Valentine's Day edition of its Patch Tuesday update cycle. Highlights of the batch, which collectively address 21 vulnerabilities, include a critical update for Internet Explorer. There are also two critical fixes for Windows …

Security 10 Feb 16:06
Music fans not welcome in RIAA-backed .music

Piracy prohibited in proposed industry-only domain

The Recording Industry Association of America and other music industry groups are backing a proposal for a highly regulated ".music" top-level domain. If its .music is approved by ICANN, the domains will be limited to members of accredited music industry associations and will be regularly patrolled for copyright infringement …

Hosting 10 Feb 16:18
Why Amazon, eBay and Google are building bricks-and-mortar stores

Open ... and Shut Offline profits hell beckons net denizens

Even as offline retailers and other traditional "brick-and-mortar" businesses struggle to build their businesses online, some of technology's biggest online denizens are looking for ways to go offline. Google is the latest, reportedly opening a store in Dublin, Ireland, to sell branded merchandise, but it's just the latest in a …

Small Biz 10 Feb 16:31
Analyst: no 7in tablet at iPad 3 launch

Coming later in the year

Apple is going to release a 7in iPad - but not next month when it unwraps the iPad 3. So says analyst Ezra Gottheil of Technology Business Research, a market watcher. Speaking to Computerworld, he said he believes that Apple has always had the 7in tablet form-factor in mind, despite what Steve Jobs once said. Jobs, when asked …

reghardware 10 Feb 16:32
Space: 1999 returning to TV?

Eagles and staple guns reloaded

They've been rebooted, re-imagined and uncut, but now Space 1999 is getting its own on-screen revival next to sci-fi classics Battlestar Galactica, Star Trek and Star Wars. ITV Studios America and HDFilms are reported to be developing Space: 2099, a "contemporary re-imagination" of the Saturday morning staple from the Gerry …

Music and Media 10 Feb 16:58
RIM's apps revolution swings on Blackberry 10

BlackBerry Devcon Europe Software choice alone won't beat Android and iOS

"I'm a Java developer. What can I do to bring my apps over to BlackBerry 10?" asks an attendee at BlackBerry Devcon Europe in Amsterdam this week. The answer comes back: "Rewrite your code." The exchange illustrates how deeply RIM is changing its mobile platform: from the Java-based BlackBerry OS used in current smartphones to …

Developer 10 Feb 17:29
HP shares database smarts with EnterpriseDB

Postgres Plus goes cloudy

EnterpriseDB is trying to pump up the PostgreSQL database to do battle with Oracle 11g and, to a lesser extent, IBM's DB2 and Microsoft's SQL. So the database upstart is upgrading its Postgres Plus Advanced Server 9.1 - and kicking it onto Amazon's EC2 compute cloud to peddle it alongside Amazon's own Relational Database Service …

Software 10 Feb 17:55
New patent will give iPhone screen interactive 3D

Apple's three-dimensional UI will make ~~cash~~ objects sink into the abyss

iPhones of the future could have virtual 3D interfaces that will detect and respond to the movements of your eyes, revealed an Apple patent granted today. The newly patented technology would also allow for a world-behind-the-screen experience with the user's fingers appearing to reach into a space behind the glass. Mashing up …

Law 10 Feb 17:58
Barack Obama: Bland, predictable and cheesy ... on Spotify

U2, Wilco and ELO on Prez playlist

It turns out Barack Obama likes his music streamed from a certain Sweden-based music service. Not The Pirate Bay - Spotify. As a cunning pre-election ploy, the Obama campaign has tweeted his Spotify playlist. Don't say you're not interested in the mundane mixture of mainstream rock, country and some recent pop. This is the …

Music and Media 10 Feb 18:20
IBM: We do server flash already...

We just didn't tell many people about it

With all this EMC Lightning kerfuffle and Dell, HDS and NetApp joining in – with HP pointedly saying "No comment" like we really believe it's not playing too – there's a Big Blue elephant we're not hearing or seeing. Don't worry, IBM definitely has skin in this game – and it's called eXFlash. This is solid state storage local …

Servers 10 Feb 18:42
Comet sheds 450 jobs in biz survival struggle

In-house repairs going out

Laid-up retailer Comet plans to axe 450 engineering and support workers, slashing costs and safeguarding "the long-term viability of the business", it said. The firm was finally sold a week ago to private equity house Op Capita for £2 with former parent Kesa Electricals also coughing £63m for a dowry, some £13m more than was …

Channel Register 10 Feb 19:05
Iran draws veil over secure internet access

Tor needs help to beat censorship

The Tor Project is reporting Iran has blocked access to nearly all SSL/TLS traffic within its borders and is calling for help to break the embargo. In a site posting Jacob Appelbaum said that the problems had begun around 48 hours ago, with secure traffic slowing before being completely blocked on Iranian ISPs. Tor has …

Government 10 Feb 19:45
US and EU regulators will give Googorola the nod soon

Google gobbling Motorola reportedly good to go

Google’s planned purchase of Motorola Mobility looks likely to get clearance from US and EU authorities, possibly as early as next week, according to sources within the investigation. The EU has been taking its time to review the competition aspects of Google 's merger with the ailing handset manufacturer – there’s been a lot …

Government 10 Feb 23:41