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21st February 2012 Archive

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  • Nasa rocketeers probe aurora borealis solar interference

    Sky shot seeks clues to GPS woes

    A NASA-funded team has shot a sensor package, dubbed the Magnetosphere-Ionosphere Coupling in the Alfvén resonator (MICA), into the heart of a form of aurora borealis to seek clues that could minimize electronic interference from solar storms. The second stage of MICA falls to Alaska (click to enlarge) The team camped out …

    Science 21 Feb 2012, 01:30

  • Motorola Motoluxe Android smartphone

    Review Talked up?

    Don’t be confused by the name: it may be seem classy and good-looking but this is a mid-range handset, not a deluxe one. It’s also quite distinctive, which is good at a time when Android handsets are numerous and often me-too copies or unimaginative derivatives. A comfortable compromise: Motorola's Motoluxe Although this is …

    Phones 21 Feb 2012, 07:00

  • SMS compo firms fined £200k for typosquatting, misleading punters

    Used misspellings of popular sites to lure competition entrants

    PhonepayPlus said R&D Media Europe (R&D) and Unavalley BV (Unavalley) misled consumers into entering the competitions through the practice of typosquatting and that those consumers were then charged for receiving text messages in connection with the competitions being run. PhonepayPlus found the companies had breached its Code …

    Law 21 Feb 2012, 08:03

  • British Medical Association calls for long, slow rollout of NHS 111

    It's not an emergency, man...

    The British Medical Association (BMA) has written to health secretary Andrew Lansley over concerns about the implementation of the NHS 111 24-hour non-emergency phone service. The letter, written by Dr Laurence Buckman, chair of the BMA's GPs committee, expresses "serious misgivings" about the roll out of the NHS 111 service …

    Government 21 Feb 2012, 09:04

  • Virgin boss victorious in .xxx Branson pickle

    Cyber-squatter owns diddly-squat in domain ruling

    Sir Richard Branson has wrestled a .xxx domain off a cybersquatter in a challenge over richardbranson.xxx. The Virgin Group founder discovered last week that his Uniform Domain Name Dispute Resolution Policy complaint with the World Intellectual Property Organisation was successful. The WIPO panelist handling the case found …

    Hosting 21 Feb 2012, 09:35

  • Proview wins new Chinese IPAD ruling as Apple threatens to sue

    Tech titan wants monitor minnow to zip it

    Apple’s ongoing tussle with failed monitor biz Proview took another turn this week when another Chinese court declared that shops in the country should stop selling iPads. An Associated Press report quoted Proview lawyer Xie Xianghui as saying that the Intermediate People's Court in Huizhou, Guangdong Province, had ruled in …

    Small Biz 21 Feb 2012, 10:02

  • CRACK made by quakes FOUND ON MOON

    Paparazzo probe's pic hints at smoking hot insides

    NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) has snapped shots showing that the Moon's crust has been stretched and pulled fairly recently to form tiny valleys on its surfaces. Recent valleys on the Moon's surface. Credit: NASA/Goddard/Arizona State University/Smithsonian Institution The moonquakes occurred some time in the …

    Science 21 Feb 2012, 10:23

  • Zerowait feeds hungry NetApp punters tasty NASAGNA

    'Don't buy new filers - spice up your old ones'

    NetApp support outfit Zerowait says its customers should not bother to buy new NetApp filers, when it can accelerate the old ones with its caching appliance. The firm's NASAGNA – NAS Acceleration and Global Namespace Appliance (our acronym) – is a tasty dish that sticks a box containing a mix of DRAM, solid state drives and …

    Storage 21 Feb 2012, 10:41

  • AppAware

    Android App of the Week The app for apps, apparently

    Developed mobile ecosystems are all well and good but a marketplace with over a third of a million apps raises one significant problem – how to discover new and worthwhile stuff. AppAware – which underwent a complete redesign late last year – aims to make finding essential and interesting apps more of a pleasure by providing …

    Phones 21 Feb 2012, 11:00

  • Smart telly trends make Apple 'iTV' a certainty

    Cupertino would be mad not to

    It's no longer a question of whether Apple will produce a TV - the so-called 'iTV' - but when. That's the clear conclusion to be drawn from an analysis of TV technology trends provided by DisplaySearch, a market watcher, at Panasonic's 2012 Convention today. Starting inside the box and working out, we're at the stage where …

    Hardware 21 Feb 2012, 11:05

  • Blighty's first IT wholesaler swaps Henry for Henry

    Northamber MD retires, accounts back in the red

    Veteran distributor Northamber's long-sufferingserving managing director Henry Matthews has hung up his boots some 30 years after helping to set up the UK's first IT wholesaler. The Reg caught wind of the departure in recent weeks but Northamber had refused to comment until today, confirming to the LSE, along with first half …

    The Channel 21 Feb 2012, 11:12

  • Sony Xperia U slips out ahead of launch

    Smartphone sees a shrink

    Sony is set to launch a shrunken version of its Xperia S handset at MWC 2012, after images of the Xperia U leaked online. While specs are yet to be officially unveiled, the Sony Xperia U will apparently feature a 3.5in, WVGA display powered with a 1GHz processor, Brazilian site Xataka reports. Unlike the handset's larger …

    Phones 21 Feb 2012, 11:17

  • RIM's backdoor sniffed by BBM-snooping Indian spooks

    BlackBerry biz pushes BES access headache to operators

    Research In Motion is finally set to offer the Indian authorities a permanent system for access to its consumer-focused messaging services with the installation of new Mumbai-based servers. The Times of India was given a government briefing on the matter. It claimed that the servers have been inspected by government officials …

    Mobile 21 Feb 2012, 11:29

  • China Telecom ramps up iPhone 4S fanboi fever

    State-run biz to punt shiny mobiles in March

    State-run mobile operator China Telecom has finally won the right to sell one of the most sought-after smartphones in the country, Apple’s iPhone 4S, from 9 March. In a brief statement with the Hong Kong Stock Exchange (PDF), the firm said that pre-sales of the device would begin online on 2 March. “Following the launch of …

    Mobile 21 Feb 2012, 11:43

  • Rovio launches Angry Birds into space

    Pigs might fly

    Angry Birds has covered the Earth several times over, so Rovio has taken the next logical step in its development and sent the franchise into space. The upcoming Angry Birds Space is apparently the "biggest game launch since the original", according to Rovio's blog. Of course, another part of the galaxy brings with it …

    Phones 21 Feb 2012, 11:50

  • Home Sec splits Border Agency after passport checks fiasco

    May: Secure ID suspension lacked 'ministerial consent'

    Blighty's Border Force is to be divorced from the UKBA following a series of embarrassing passport check gaffes last summer, the Home Secretary Theresa May told MPs yesterday. "[F]rom 1 March, the UK Border Force will be split from UKBA and will become a separate operational command, with its own ethos of law enforcement, led …

    Government 21 Feb 2012, 12:01

  • Met Office wants better supercomputer to predict EXTREME weather

    Says its bad rep is down to 'non-expert' reporting

    The UK's Met Office needs bigger and better supercomputers if it is to confidently and accurately predict the weather and give emergency services a longer lead time for extreme weather conditions, a government group said today. The Science and Technology committee of MPs advised in a report on the Met Office that, despite the …

    HPC 21 Feb 2012, 12:24

  • Dell Latitude E6220 12.5in Core i7 notebook

    Review Quietly powerful

    Dell's Latitude E6220 is a typical workhorse, designed to be solid, dependable and ever so slightly boring. However, Dell is aiming this compact model more at small businesses rather than large organisations. And the increasing numbers of people who, like myself, are self-employed. A touch of style and being just 1in thin and …

    Laptops 21 Feb 2012, 12:33

  • Bogus Pokemon evolves into iTunes smash hit

    Got to catch at least some of 'em

    An obviously infringing Pokemon iOS port briefly found its way to number two in the iTunes paid app chart, in the USA, despite having nothing to do with Nintendo and garnering buckets of negative reviews. Despite the fact that the game apparently doesn’t run at all, with the vast majority of the 1,300 reviews stating just that …

    Applications 21 Feb 2012, 12:43

  • Samsung refreshes budget Galaxy blowers

    Ace and Mini head to Blighty

    Samsung cast light on a couple of budget handsets this week and revealed both the Galaxy Ace 2 and the Galaxy Mini 2. The refreshed handsets both run on Android 2.3 Gingerbread with 800MHz processors and 4GB of internal storage. We had previously assumed the Galaxy Ace Plus announced in January was the followup to Samsung's …

    Phones 21 Feb 2012, 12:44

  • Flash DOOMED to drive itself off a cliff - boffins

    NAND to hit endurance, reliability limits

    Microsoft and University of California San Diego researchers have said flash has a bleak future because smaller and more densely packed circuits on the chips' silicon will make it too slow and unreliable. Enterprise flash cost/bit will stagnate and the cutting edge that is flash will become a blunted blade. The boffins …

    Storage 21 Feb 2012, 13:09

  • RIM rolls out PlayBook OS2 update

    BlackBerry Tablet gets tastier

    Research in Motion launched its refreshed tablet operating system today, with the BlackBerry PlayBook OS2 now available for download. The news is a relief for PlayBook owners who are finally privy to standard tablet functionality such as e-mail, calendar and contacts apps. The BlackBerry Bridge app has also been updated for …

    Tablets 21 Feb 2012, 13:15

  • PlayStation Vita price dips below £200

    Commerce combat commences

    With Sony's PlayStation Vita set to touchdown on UK shelves at midnight, supermarket mogul Asda has become the first outlet to offer the console for less than £200. Let the price wars begin. While Asda's Vita figure of £197 still places the Vita at a higher price point than full-blown consoles, such as the PS3 and Xbox 360, a …

    Games 21 Feb 2012, 13:27

  • Computacenter veteran O'Hara exits stage left

    Big hitter's resignation leads to sales organ rejig

    The exit of Computacenter veteran Julie O'Hara has resulted in a rejig of the UK sales leadership team, The Register understands. During a 15-year tenure at the services-based reseller giant, O'Hara held various director roles with the last 24 months spent looking after the financial services and retail customers. Mike Norris …

    The Channel 21 Feb 2012, 13:32

  • Russian search biz grabs Twitter's fire hose, sprays everywhere

    Yandex inks deal to include tweets in results

    Russian search engine Yandex has laid hands on Twitter's firehouse, adding its stream of data to its search results. Tweets in Russian, Ukrainian, Belarusian and Kazakh will pop up in the Yandex Blog Search results, along with top feeds in other languages. "We are currently concentrating on social networking search. This …

    Media 21 Feb 2012, 13:39

  • BlackBerry PlayBook OS gets RIM spit 'n' polish

    Updated Fondleslab's future hangs by a version price cut

    Owners of a BlackBerry PlayBook can now download version 2.0.0.7919, finally providing a native email client and some integrated social networking, but not a lot of either. This is the PlayBook OS which brings support for ported Android apps, and native email, along with better social integration and document management, but …

    Operating Systems 21 Feb 2012, 13:57

  • LOHAN's flying truss: One orb or two?

    Readers shoot down twin-balloon plan

    The roll-out yesterday of our Low Orbit Helium Assisted Navigator (LOHAN) fantastical flying truss prompted a flurry of comments from readers unimpressed with our twin-globe proposal. To recap, our cunning plan for the Vulture 2 spaceplane launch platform involves a triangular truss constructed from carbon fibre tubes and …

    SPB 21 Feb 2012, 14:34

  • SaaS brings software to the masses

    Collaborative tools for SMEs

    Unless you’ve been living in a cave even less well equipped for the modern age than Fred Flintstone’s, you will have noticed the buzz about something called cloud computing. It comes with a menagerie of buzzwords: software as a service (SaaS), platform as a service (PaaS), infrastructure on demand, hosted apps … We could go on …

    Small Biz 21 Feb 2012, 14:47

  • Mellanox: Just jump straight to 40GE networks

    Unless you really want only 10GE

    Network adapter and switch maker Mellanox Technologies is riding the wave of upgrades to 10 Gigabit Ethernet switches and is excited about boosting sales of 10GE adapter cards when Intel launches its "Sandy Bridge-EP" Xeon E5 processors sometime this quarter. But Mellanox CEO and chairman Eyal Waldman has his eye on a bigger …

    HPC 21 Feb 2012, 15:08

  • Mobile telcos bleed $13.9bn as IM apps chomp on SMS

    The cash cow is dying - slowly

    Industry analysts at Ovum reckon mobile network operators lost more than $13bn in 2011 as SMS finally gets replaced - a staggering estimate backed by stats from Allot. Ovum's figures are just experts' guesswork, but Allot's data comes from the traffic generated by around 250 million mobile users - and the news is the same: …

    Mobile 21 Feb 2012, 15:36

  • Google gobbles kaput search robot Cuil's patents

    Cool your boots with quantum porn

    Patents for a crappy, short-lived muffin-, strawberry- and porn-fuelled search engine created by three ex-Googlers have been scooped up by the Chocolate Factory. Cuil, which was pronounced "Cool" and was labelled as a GOOGLE KILLER – but in fact proved to be neither of those things – plonked itself on the interwebs in July …

    Business 21 Feb 2012, 16:03

  • Scroogle unplugged for good this time

    Not-for-profit search engine shuttered by creator

    Scroogle - a not-for-profit search engine that offered users something of a pro-privacy antidote to Google - has been killed off by its creator. Daniel Brandt called it quits after his servers were repeatedly targeted by DDoS attacks on Scroogle. As we reported last week, the website was out of action and displaying a message …

    Hosting 21 Feb 2012, 16:31

  • Ubuntu for Android: Penguins peck at Nokia's core problem

    MWC 2012 Canonical waves Google phones at Windows waverers

    Nokia chief executive Stephen Elop might be remembered as the Thomas Watson of our time, based on his remark you don't need quad-core processors for smartphones. "You don't need a quad-core phone unless you want to keep your hands warm in your pocket,” said the Yankee CEO brought in to re-float the Finnish ship. If we’re …

    Mobile 21 Feb 2012, 17:01

  • Climate scientist admits lying to obtain 'Denialgate' docs

    Gleick cops to social-engineering of rightwing thinktank

    A prominent climate scientist, well known for his outspoken condemnation of climate scepticism, has admitted that he was the individual who recently leaked internal documents from rightwing think tank the Heartland Institute. Peter Gleick said he obtained the documents by using "someone else's name" in "a serious lapse of my own …

    Science 21 Feb 2012, 17:27

  • Experts: RSA weak keys flaw restricted to network devices

    Analysis Primal fear

    Flaws in the way some of EMC's RSA security division encryption keys are generated are down to a weakness in generating random numbers that's restricted to network devices rather than digital certificates on websites, according to both RSA and cryptographic researchers. After analysing 7.1 million keys, cryptography …

    Security 21 Feb 2012, 18:03

  • Sugar-daddy love runs out for hard-up Valley firms

    Open ... and Shut Losing the way from A to B

    For many startups, getting Series A funding isn't the problem. The problem is using that cash to clear the increasingly high hurdles investors are imposing on early stage startups for the Series B round. For as recent funding data shows, venture capitalists remain willing to spread bets at the Seed and Series A rounds of …

    Small Biz 21 Feb 2012, 18:32

  • Apple slaps mega-solar panel field on new ENORMO data centre

    Won't do much to satisfy Greenpeace though ...

    Apple has dropped a few more details about its huge new data centre in Maiden, North Carolina in an update to its environmental policy published yesterday. A big feature of the new billion-dollar data centre – needed to keep Siri chatting back, and to let new OS Mountain Lion sync games in real time between iPhones and Macs – …

    Servers 21 Feb 2012, 19:32

  • Apache releases first upgrade to HTTP Server in six years

    Popular open source platform gets faster

    The Apache Software Foundation has issued the first upgrade to its popular HTTP server platform in six years. "It is with great pleasure that we announce the availability of Apache HTTP Server 2.4", said Eric Covener, vice president of the Apache HTTP Server Project, in a statement. "This release delivers a host of …

    Applications 21 Feb 2012, 19:51

  • ScaleXtreme adds patch management to cloudy utility belt

    Not quite as many tools as Batman

    ScaleXtreme, the upstart cloud-based systems management tool maker that is taking on heavyweights like IBM, CA, HP, and BMC, is adding patch management to its utility belt. The company launched its Xpert cloud-based systems management tool last June, which can build images for physical and virtual servers as well as public …

    Cloud 21 Feb 2012, 20:04

  • Teradata grabs Hortonworks by trunk

    An elephant line from Hadoop to data warehouse

    Teradata doesn't want to be an elephant, it wants to ride them. The data warehousing pioneer has been loath to create its own distribution of the Hadoop data muncher – most likely because of the shortage of deep Hadoop skills out there – and has been partnering to lash the open source MapReduce program and file system to its …

    Cloud 21 Feb 2012, 20:25

  • Kiwi open sourcers invade Aus

    SilverStripe open HQ in Victoria

    New Zealand open source digital media company SilverStripe is ramping up its presence in Australia, selecting Victoria as its Australian headquarters and hiring 50 new staff. Privately held SilverStripe was launched in 2000 providing open source content management systems and a web development services. It says its tools are …

    Business 21 Feb 2012, 21:30

  • An iPad in every pot, says Anna Bligh

    Queensland election campaign jumps the shark

    Queensland’s apparently-outgoing premier Anna Bligh has launched an IT auction to replace the law-and-order auctions more familiar to voters in Australian state elections. Ms Bligh, whose Labor government is trailing the Liberal-National Party in pre-election polling, promised yesterday that if her government is re-elected, it …

    Business 21 Feb 2012, 22:00

  • Megaupload honcho sprung from slammer (for now)

    NZ court hears 'new evidence', bails boss

    Reports are emerging from the Land of the Long White Cloud that Kim Dotcom (formerly Kim Schmitz) has been sprung from prison after being granted bail. Dotcom, arrested in January in an international operation that shut down the Megaupload file locker site, is accused of heading an operation that conducted copyright violation …

    Law 21 Feb 2012, 22:20

  • Aussies learn to love downloading

    Need more legit content sharing options

    ABC’s iView has emerged as the leading site for legal on demand video downloads, followed by iTunes, Foxtel and on demand BigPond TV, according to new research from Ericsson. The Ericsson ConsumerLab Report TV & Video 2011 – Consumer trends Australia, reveals that Australians are shifting their viewing habits rapidly towards …

    Media 21 Feb 2012, 22:30

  • Microsoft denies report of Office coming to iPad

    'Inaccurate rumors and speculation,’ says Redmond

    Microsoft has denied a report which claims to have photographic evidence that Redmond has developed a version of Office to run on the iPad. Rupert Murdoch’s online and iPad-app title The Daily has published a photograph of the software running on an iPad with a ruggedized casing, and saying that a brief hands-on session with …

    Applications 21 Feb 2012, 22:31

  • Researchers propose ‘overclock’ scheme for mobiles

    Processing at a sprint to overcome tech limitations

    It’s getting increasingly difficult to pack enough processing power into mobile phone form factors, so US researchers are proposing a new scheme: seriously over-spec the processors, but only use their power when it’s needed. The research paper, authored by scientists from the Universities of Pennsylvania and Michigan, suggests …

    Mobile 21 Feb 2012, 23:00

  • News of the World hacker named after court block lifted

    Murdoch editor Andy Coulson fingered as key contact

    A man accused of hacking into the computers of a former British Army intelligence officer on behalf of a News of the World editor has been named as Philip Campbell Smith, also a former British Army intelligence officer. Ex-agent Ian Hurst told the Levenson media-ethics inquiry that in July 2006 he received and inadvertently …

    Law 21 Feb 2012, 23:26

  • Australia to make health research open access

    What the public funds, the public gets to use

    While America seriously considers the insane Research Works Act (banning the open publication of publicly-funded research), Australia is moving in the other direction. Its National Health and Medical Research Council has announced that all funded research will be made available to the public starting July. Without detailing …

    Science 21 Feb 2012, 23:30

  • File sharing arrests move to Germany

    Skyload.net gone, operators arrested

    German-language news sites and blogs are reporting that file locker site Skyload.net has been shut down and its operators arrested. According to Germany’s Netzwelt (‘Networld’), the Dresden Attorney General’s office conducted the shutdown in response to a complaint led by that country’s copyright agency, GVU. Skyload.net is …

    Law 21 Feb 2012, 23:34