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1st March 2012 Archive

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  • Neat nanoparticles could bring 10TB disks

    5D DVD researchers spurned by Samsung try again

    One of the Australian researchers behind a 2009 Nature paper outlining how optical media could reach 1.6 terabytes says Samsung has decided not to commercialise the technology, but has also published a new paper outlining how 12cm shinies could hit ten terabytes. Dr James Chon, Senior Lecturer at the Swinburne University of …

    Storage 1 Mar 2012, 01:37

  • US shuts down Canadian gambling site with Verisign's help

    Got a .com URL? US law applies

    The Department of Homeland Security has seized a domain name registered outside of the US, by individuals who are not American citizens, and who registered with a Canadian registrar. What is unique about this case is that the American authorities did not get the domain's registrar - a Canadian company - to pull the domain. …

    Hosting 1 Mar 2012, 01:43

  • Oz Square Kilometre Array bid picks DataDirect for storage

    Boffins pick Big Data specialists for exabyte-a-day array

    Australia's International Centre for Radio Astronomy Research (ICRAR) has signed an agreement with DataDirect Networks to “develop the extraordinary new data storage capability” needed to cope with the Square Kilometre Array’s (SKA’s) expected exabyte-per-day output. ICRAR’s head of computing Professor Andreas Wicenec said …

    Storage 1 Mar 2012, 02:11

  • Firm Dick sales excite buyers

    Woolies stroking queue of purchasers for soft-core business

    “A number of potential purchasers have expressed interest” in acquiring Dick Smith from Woolworths, according to half-year results released today. The report shows why the chain may not be an entirely impotent force in the market – sales were up 2.4% for the half despite generally tough retail trading conditions. New format …

    Financial News 1 Mar 2012, 02:45

  • Data.gov.au loses dedicated staff

    Former staffer says Gov 2.0 losing momentum

    One of the key elements of Australia's Gov 2.0 effort, the data.gov.au website, no longer has dedicated staff and is now a “mature capability” that is part of the Australian Government Information Management Office's IAGIMO's) “business as usual” efforts. Data.gov.au is a repository for datasets Australia's government releases …

    Policy 1 Mar 2012, 04:13

  • Ten... top iOS games

    App of the Week Special Play away

    Love 'em or hate 'em, iDevices - iPad, iPod and iPhone - are now serious players in handheld gaming. We love the new PlayStation Vita, but we can see why some folk would want to game on a gadget they're already carrying with them. And the bigger screen play offered by Apple's tablet can be a real joy for casual and serious …

    Phones 1 Mar 2012, 07:00

  • Risky child-support plans rely too much on new IT system – NAO

    Cost cuts hinge on delayed, overbudget mega-IT overhaul

    Plans by the Child Maintenance and Enforcement Commission to cut spending are risky and rely too much on the introduction of a new IT system, according to a report from the National Audit Office (NAO). The commission has committed to cutting its budget to £428m in 2014-15 – although this is £44m higher than than its original …

    Government 1 Mar 2012, 08:02

  • Dot-brand explosion will shell-shock lazy coders - ICANN

    Devs urged to swot up on parsing new domain extensions

    Millions of internet users face being locked out of popular websites unless software developers pay attention to the forthcoming explosion in new top-level domain names. Domain name overseer ICANN told El Reg this week that developers and webmasters need to track the progress of its new gTLD programme, which is expected to …

    Hosting 1 Mar 2012, 09:01

  • Watchdog hits out at malware racking up premium-rate charges

    Regulator horrified permission isn't being sought

    The premium rate phone regulator says it might disregard evidence of consumer consent from paid-for mobile applications if those apps turn out to contain malicious code. Under PhonepayPlus' Code of Practice, premium-rate service (PRS) providers are prohibited from charging without consumers' consent. Certain PRS providers must …

    Law 1 Mar 2012, 09:33

  • Beat Sneak Bandit

    iGamer Clock rock

    Tap your finger to the beat. On the face of it, Beat Sneak Bandit's mechanic doesn't promise compulsive gaming. But developer Simogo squeezes more innovation from this single-finger iOS puzzler than many console and computer games manage by tying your hands in knots. Drawn in a distinctive, angular 1960s animation style, Beat …

    Games 1 Mar 2012, 10:01

  • Apple 7.85in 'iPad Mini' on course for Q3 intro

    Reduced size, price

    The 8in iPad seems a runner. Component makers have begun sending samples of the 7.85in tablet to Apple for its approval, moles say. If correct, the claim suggests Apple would be in a position to enter full-scale production of the 'iPad Mini' in Q3, DigiTimes reports. Last month, whispers from Asia had Apple touting the 7.85in …

    Phones 1 Mar 2012, 10:13

  • GIANT blood-guzzling Jurassic fleas ambushed dino prey

    Boffins uncover critters armed with piercing straws

    Hollywood producers will be on high alert for the next Jurassic Park blockbuster script after boffins found fossils of giant prehistoric fleas. The monster bloodsuckers were thought to have used ruggedised straw-like mouths to prey on dinosaurs. In a study published on science journal Nature on Wednesday, University of Kansas …

    Science 1 Mar 2012, 10:24

  • Tata flirts with Cable & Wireless Worldwide buyout

    Suitors line up for troubled carrier

    Indian company Tata Communications confirmed this morning that it was considering a cash offer to acquire troubled telco Cable & Wireless Worldwide. In a statement to the City, Tata said it was evaluating such a buyout of CWW - which is also being eyed up by mobile giant Vodafone. Tata has until the end of play on 29 March to …

    Business 1 Mar 2012, 10:38

  • Sony exec: quad-core CPUs bad for today's phones

    Chips are battery hogs, and apps don't need 'em

    Sony has said quad-core processors are not appropriate for smartphones - they're too great a drain on the battery, and apps just don't need them yet. According to Sony Mobile executive Stephen Sneeden, the Japanese giant won't be putting quad-core chips into its handsets until next year. ”You’ll see in 2013, as we’re …

    Phones 1 Mar 2012, 10:50

  • ISP Be admits crippling iPlayer demand burst its pipes

    Capacity overload caused 'weeks of packet loss'

    ISP Be Broadband has admitted demand for iPlayer jammed its punters' net connections - leaving parts of the web unusable and subscribers fuming. For weeks customers of Be - an O2-owned company with up to 600,000 users - were unable to visit some websites, including the BBC's telly streaming service, because the ISP's link to …

    Broadband 1 Mar 2012, 11:01

  • Microsoft's free flight sim hits the clouds

    Wing wing situation?

    Microsoft's latest flight simulator officially took off this week, with aircraft enthusiasts and anyone else who wants to take to the skies able to download and play the game free of charge. The latest version of this venerable MS product, now simply dubbed Flight, touches down with a configurable control system so that …

    Games 1 Mar 2012, 11:08

  • K3 chatted up as admirers open their wallets

    Appoints Deloitte to run sell-off process

    Mid-market ERP specialist K3 Business Technology Group is talking to a number of suitors interested in buying the business, it revealed in a London Stock Exchange filing this morning. The board kickstarted a strategic review of the biz at the start of December after PJ Claesson, the firm's largest shareholder (19.5 per cent), …

    The Channel 1 Mar 2012, 11:16

  • Facebook blamed for getting Thai teens up the duff

    Kids should be kicking balls instead

    Facebook now has another social ill to add to the growing list of reprehensible things it has been blamed for: unwanted teenage pregnancies. Yes, according to Thai government body the National Economic and Social Development Board, the social networking giant has a lot to answer for in the country. It said that Thai mothers …

    Networks 1 Mar 2012, 11:19

  • Tick-like banking Trojan drills into Firefox, sucks out info

    Neloweg spreading across UK, Netherlands

    A new banking Trojan is spreading in the UK and the Netherlands, Symantec warns. Neloweg operates much like its more famous cybercrime toolkit predecessor ZeuS, but with a couple of subtle twists. "Like Zeus, Neloweg can detect which site it is on and add custom JavaScript. But while Zeus uses an included configuration file, …

    Security 1 Mar 2012, 11:44

  • Motorola Defy Mini rugged Android smartphone

    Review Lifeproof caller gets smaller

    The original Motorola Defy from 2010 was aimed at a niche that no-one else knew was there – rugged cool. The thinking was that rugged phones that were hard to damage were a great idea, but that chunky rubber casings and hard-to-press buttons tended to put people off. Downsizing: Motorola Defy Mini The original Defy looked …

    Phones 1 Mar 2012, 12:00

  • Steve Jobs' death clears way for '7.85-inch iPad prototype'

    Apple's Kindle-killer rumoured for Q3 2012

    Sample screens for a seven-inch Apple iPad have been delivered for testing, according to Taiwanese manufacturing bible Digitimes. That means that production lines could start knocking out baby fondleslabs as early as June. Citing unnamed "industry sources", as it usually does, Digitimes states that the 7.85-inch iPad will be …

    Hardware 1 Mar 2012, 12:16

  • Bytes, Nettitude sales bods busted in IT invoice bung scam

    Bent procurement chief 'corrupted them', says lawyer

    Former sales staff at resellers Bytes Software Services and Nettitude have been sentenced for their part in a scam involving an IT procurement director who created bogus invoices and hiked prices in return for cash bungs or "sweeteners" totalling more than £50k. Great Grimsby Court heard on 10 February that Lincolnshire-based …

    The Channel 1 Mar 2012, 12:38

  • Ethics profs fret over cyborg brains, mind-controlled missiles

    Why can't boffins be allowed to BUILD KILLER ROBOTS?

    A British ethics group has started a consultation on the morality of messing about in the human brain in ways that could result in thought-controlled weaponry and super-human capabilities. The Nuffield Council on Bioethics wants to get boffins, policy-makers, regulators and anyone working with or hoping to use futuristic …

    Science 1 Mar 2012, 13:03

  • Stolen NASA laptop had Space Station control codes

    And no encryption for supervillains to crack

    A NASA laptop stolen last year had not been encrypted, despite containing codes used to control and command the International Space Station, the agency's inspector general told a US House committee. NASA IG Paul Martin said in written testimony (PDF) to the House Committee on Science, Space and Technology that a laptop was …

    Security 1 Mar 2012, 13:21

  • Auto-correct cock-up sends schools into lockdown

    'Gunman' on the way

    Auto-correct is known to be the cause of many a hilarious text misunderstanding, but when one student sent a message to say they were "gunna be" at school and the word became "gunman", you can imagine the chaos it would cause. Particularly in America. That is exactly what happened to one student at Lanier Technical College in …

    Phones 1 Mar 2012, 13:30

  • Google rolls out privacy policy, snubs Euro outcry

    Ex-FTC bigwig slams 'arrogant' Choc Factory

    Google has defended its decision to combine around 60 of its privacy policies into one simplified document that makes it clear that users of the company's products and services will be more uniformly tracked by the Chocolate Factory. The search giant debuted its revised terms of service today, after announcing in late January …

    Security 1 Mar 2012, 13:39

  • Feds unlock suspect's encrypted drive, avoid Constitution meltdown

    Digital age plays havoc with 5th Amendment

    Investigators have cracked the encryption key for a laptop drive owned by a Colorado woman accused of real-estate fraud - rendering a judge's controversial order to make her hand over the passphrase or stand in contempt of court irrelevant. The government seized the Toshiba laptop from Ramona Fricosu back in 2010 and …

    Law 1 Mar 2012, 14:01

  • Moles say Sony will kill Cell CPU for PlayStation 4

    AMD Fusion the chosen successor?

    Sony's PlayStation 4 will not use the PS3's Cell processor, it has been claimed, because the current chipset and rumoured next-gen variants are too complex for developers to work with quickly. Industry sources indicated that the Cell, which was spearheaded by the now retired Ken Kutaragi, Sony's one-time PlayStation chief, …

    Games 1 Mar 2012, 14:08

  • Chancer punts cig pack case for Raspberry Pi

    Holey smokes

    With the Linux-based Raspberry Pi now available for purchase, punters have started to push their own home-made chassis for the case-less computer. But one opportunist is touting this customised cigarette box. Yes, you can bid on eBay for this craftily engineered Marlboro Light packet from one 'Hackneywhacko'. Fags a lot …

    Hardware 1 Mar 2012, 14:19

  • China churns out homemade aircraft for global travel DOMINATION

    Look out Boeing and Airbus, there's a new kid in town

    China is ramping up its plans for domination of international civil airspace with recent deals to flog its home-grown aircraft set to cause a few sweaty palms at Boeing and Airbus. Spearheading this push is the Commercial Aircraft Corp of China (Comac) C919, a 168-190 seat narrow-body airline design which will be China’s …

    Business 1 Mar 2012, 14:32

  • App cuts waiting out of call centre queues

    No charge, apparently

    A free app that takes away the frustration of being kept on hold during phone calls to corporations has launched in the UK, saving mobile users a pretty penny in the process, its developer claims. Matt King's WeQ4U promises to do all the waiting for you. The patent pending app allows you to hang up without losing your place in …

    Phones 1 Mar 2012, 14:44

  • ICO slaps Durham Uni for exposing staff, students' privates

    Training manual... on how to stalk that first-year

    Durham University leaked the personal details of 177 staff and students in a training manual that turned out to reveal more than how to take out a library book. The university has just been given a slap on the wrist by the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) and has promised to reform its data protection policies. In …

    Security 1 Mar 2012, 15:02

  • Mobile whizzes tout gadgets that touch you, save your life

    MWC 2012 Innovation hidden in the small stands

    A search around the MWC in Barcelona for something more interesting revealed a phone which can perform an ECG, a headset you operate by shaking it about like a loon, and a touchscreen that touches you back. Mobile phones have morphed into black slabs these days, better distinguished by the logo on the front than any …

    Phones 1 Mar 2012, 15:31

  • Blighty's Post Office computer system goes titsup

    Updated Enough to make you go postal

    The Post Office's computer system has crashed, crippling services at branches nationwide, Royal Mail has admitted. It is understood that all of the UK's 11,800 post offices are affected. The fault, which started just after midday and is ongoing, walloped all post office services that rely on computers. Cash machines and …

    Policy 1 Mar 2012, 15:48

  • Fujitsu array brags of quick thrust, modest cost

    Eternus DX80 S2 tops the benchmark chart

    Fujitsu claims its Eternus DX80 S2 array is the SPC-1 golden child, with the best price-performance ratios in the mid-range dual controller storage arrays sector. There is no formal mid-range definition though. SPC-1 is an independent storage array benchmark responding to typical business-critical applications. The S2 version …

    Storage 1 Mar 2012, 16:02

  • Indiana Jones flicks out on Blu-ray this Fall

    Dum-da-da-dum-dum. Dum-da-da-dum-dum. Dum-de-dada, dum-de-dum, etc, etc.

    With Star Wars' Blu-ray and 3D conversions out of the way, Lucasfilm has turned to George's other creation: the Indiana Jones movies. All four will be coming to Blu-ray in the Autumn, distributor Paramount has said - a first for the first three films in the quartet and, some might say, the only ones worth watching. We …

    Hardware 1 Mar 2012, 16:16

  • G-Cloud bigwig says soz for Cloud Store outage

    Azure crash downed gov e-catalogue for 2 hours

    The G-Cloud governor has apologised to public sector customers for the Cloud Store outage yesterday but pointed out that downtime is not confined to an off-premise delivery model. The apps store is hosted on the Azure platform, which was down for eight hours, although the Cloud Store was only out of action for roughly a …

    The Channel 1 Mar 2012, 16:26

  • Sacks of cash chucked at upstart dressed to the nines

    Object storage biz Amplidata banks $8m investment

    Object storage startup Amplidata has grabbed $8m of funding to help stack up the products that it claims virtually eliminate data loss. Competitor Caringo, meanwhile, agrees that you don't need tape for archive storage, having integrated its CAStor product as back-end storage for Symantec's Enterprise Vault. Amplidata will use …

    Small Biz 1 Mar 2012, 17:03

  • MWC: Inscrutable slogans, Google toys and the invisible Apple

    MWC 2012 'Claw grab' game + humbled, eager Nokia = A real treat

    I go to Mobile World Congress every year and come home bemused. A few observations to explain. I don't get marketing As you walk around the booths of Barcelona you read names, marketing slogans and brief descriptions of services offered. Mainly you leave none the wiser, even after repeating the process over several days. What …

    Mobile 1 Mar 2012, 18:06

  • Azure's storage cloud was never at stake, insists storage cloud biz

    It's the compute side that went titsup

    Microsoft Azure's processing of bits in the cloud fouled up yesterday, but its storage of bits in the cloud was unaffected. Andres Rodriguez, the CEO of cloud storage gateway supplier Nasuni, wants to tell everyone that Azure's cloud storage is first class, platinum-plated and absolutely A-OK. Yesterday Azure's storage …

    The Channel 1 Mar 2012, 19:01

  • Windows Server 8 beta ready for download

    Code rewritten for virtualization

    Microsoft has released the beta build of its forthcoming Windows 8 Server operating system, a day after making its "Consumer Preview" of the Windows 8 client-side code available on Wednesday. Microsoft is touting its Server 8 platform as having been built with virtualization and cloud support in mind. The code has version …

    Servers 1 Mar 2012, 19:32

  • Cray gets graphic with big data

    ThreadStorm appliance cries 'Urika!'

    Supercomputer maker Cray has released an exotic appliance to help deep-pockets organizations find the relationships hidden in the torrent of information now being collected about, well, everything and everyone. Sometimes you want to Map and Reduce that big data to sift it for some golden nuggets of information, and sometimes …

    HPC 1 Mar 2012, 20:17

  • Atlassian seeks geeks in Europe

    'We're hiring, let's meet in the pub'

    Atlassian, Australia's current darling-of-the-VCs, has orchestrated a European recruitment drive it says is designed to snare fifteen developers in fifteen days. The company says it will be investing “millions” in creating new engineering positions in the year ahead and is looking offshore to fulfil the Australian tech brain …

    Business 1 Mar 2012, 21:01

  • Premium mobile services face tougher laws

    Heavy-breathers must declare their costs

    Premium mobile service providers are again under surveillance by the communications regulator over getting away with misleading practices. The Australian Communications and Media Authority has lodged a new Mobile Premium Services Industry Code, which outlines tougher rules for the advertising and provision of premium rate SMS …

    Mobile 1 Mar 2012, 22:00

  • Tubular cells: Georgia Tech demos nano-scale solar fab

    Solyndra dream lives on in miniature

    The idea that got Solyndra into so much trouble – that a tube-shaped solar cell could be more efficient than a traditional flat design – didn’t disappear when its highest-profile manufacturer collapsed. It remains a strong focus of research efforts. There’s a good reason for this: if such designs can be fabricated at a …

    Science 1 Mar 2012, 22:30

  • Sub-orbital rocket searches for first galaxies

    CIBER experiment to shed new light on first light

    The universe’s very first galaxies may feel a little closer by the weekend, thanks to a planned March 2nd (US time) launch of a sub-orbital Black Brant IX rocket bearing the Cosmic Infrared Background ExpeRiment (CIBER)that hopes to figure out which light comes from the earliest stars. CIBER bears three instruments, one of …

    Science 1 Mar 2012, 22:37

  • Motorola unfazed by Apple photo-patent win

    'We expect no impact' from latest German court loss

    Motorola Mobility (MMI) lost another round in its ongoing patent war with Apple when a German court ruled in Cupertino's favor in a photo-management patent case – but they're putting their best face on the setback. "Today's ruling in Munich, Germany on the patent litigation brought by Apple concerns a software feature …

    Software 1 Mar 2012, 22:37

  • EMC cranks Greenplum database to 4.2

    Goosing Hadoop links and warehouse backups

    Big data is not just a problem because it is big, but because it keeps swelling. That goes as much for traditional data warehouses as it does for more modern Hadoop MapReduce data munchers. And with the latest update of its eponymous database, the Greenplum division of IT conglomerate EMC has made some tweaks to its homegrown …

    Applications 1 Mar 2012, 23:01

  • Paper plane world record disputed

    Soar heads say A4 flew six metres past old record

    An “unpure” paper dart has all-but claimed the world record for the longest paper airplane flight. American football quarterback Joe Ayoob’s mighty ball-tossing right arm launched a paper plane 69.1 metres, beating the previous mark by nearly six metres. The plane climbed fast, descended sharply but picked up sufficient speed …

    Bootnotes 1 Mar 2012, 23:03

  • Election hacked, drunken robot elected to school board

    RSA 2012 Experts warn e-voting systems decades away from security

    Security experts have warned that electronic voting systems are decades away from being secure, and to prove it a team from the University of Michigan successfully got the foul-mouthed, drunken Futurama robot Bender elected to head of a school board. In 2010 the Washington DC election board announced it had set up an e-voting …

    Security 1 Mar 2012, 23:11

  • Antibody transistor grabs gold

    Immune system response self-assembles electronic connection

    The immune system response in which antibodies bind to specific molecules they recognize has been exploited to create a self-assembling protein-based transistor. The Taiwanese researchers claiming the breakthrough say it could help overcome a difficult hurdle in the world of organic electronics: providing a repeatable way to “ …

    Science 1 Mar 2012, 23:30