2nd March 2012 Archive

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Threatmetrix founder to fight 'muffin apocalypse'

'Post-search' play cuts out wireless retail marketing noise

Serial entrepreneur David Jones, who has chalked up hits with SurfControl and Threatmetrix, now plans to fight back against what he calls the “muffin apocalypse” - the blizzard of offers for freebies or cheap extra goodies beamed to opted-in smartphone owners when they go shopping. Speaking this week at Geonext, a Sydney …

Broadband 2 Mar 00:47
FBI boss warns online threats will outpace terrorism

RSA 2012 Osama bin Online

The head of the FBI warns that the threat to the US from online attacks will shortly become greater than that posed by terrorists. "In the not too distant future we anticipate that the cyber threat will pose the number one threat to our country," the FBI's director Robert Mueller told delegates at the RSA 2012 conference in …

Law 2 Mar 00:59
Oceans gaining ACID faster than last 300 MILLION YEARS

Atmospheric CO₂ cast as the culprit (again)

The world's oceans may be experiencing a rate of acidification unparalleled in the past 300 million years, according to a paper published on Thursday in the journal Science. "The geological record suggests that the current acidification is potentially unparalleled in at least the last 300 million years of Earth history," co- …

Science 2 Mar 02:47
Internet therapy speeds chronic fatigue recovery

Dutch FITNET program finds online cognitive therapy more effective helper for teens

A Dutch experiment that offered kids aged 12-18 the chance to use online cognitive therapy tools to treat chronic fatigue has proved more effective than real world therapy sessions. The experiment saw researchers devise an online therapy tool that comes close to the kind of treatment delivered in 1:1 cognitive therapy sessions …

Science 2 Mar 03:07
Bromine bomb drops toxic mercury fallout

Another reason to love old Arctic ice

A “bromine explosion” in the Arctic back in 2008 has yielded a disturbing scientific analysis: the replacement of perennial sea-ice with younger seasonal ice could lead to mercury pollution in the Arctic. In a new NASA-led study, American, Canadian, German and UK researchers believe they have identified the mechanism by which …

Science 2 Mar 04:57
Mutant bird flu won't slay ferrets, people

Breathe easy, say boffins, as publish-and-perish controversy rages

A mutated version of the bird flu virus(AKA H5N1) created in a lab cannot be transmitted aerially between ferrets and is unlikely to escape and threaten humans, says the scientist at the centre of an ethics controversy over the threat his research poses to public safety. In late 2011 Dutch researcher Ron Fouchier was reported …

Science 2 Mar 06:15
Lenovo ThinkPad Tablet

Review The formal fondeslab

Lenovo currently fields three Android tablets. The IdeaPad A1 and K1 are aimed at the general consumer while the third model carries the revered ThinkPad moniker and with it expectations of brick outhouse build quality, business-user friendliness and no-nonsense styling. Lenovo's ThinkPad Android tablet Make no mistake, …

Tablets 2 Mar 07:00
Becrypt disk crypto earns first Brit spook kitemark

Trusted ... up to a point

A full disk encryption product has become the first bit of kit to be certified by Brit spooks in their new Commercial Product Assurance scheme. Covent Garden-based Becrypt's DISK Protect demonstrated good commercial security practice, earning it the official stamp of approval to be used by the UK government and public sector …

Government 2 Mar 08:04
UK will share passenger data with US in Euro deal

Home Office: 'Sensitive stuff will be filtered'

The UK has opted in to the EU passenger name record (PNR) agreement with the United States, Home Office minister Damien Green has confirmed. "The UK, in common with many other EU member states and third countries, places considerable value on the collection and analysis of PNR data (that data collected by carriers in the …

Government 2 Mar 08:32
Been smacked by the ICO? Reveal your internal probes

Template FOI: Right, who left the laptop in the pub?

If public authorities are subject to enforcement action by the Information Commissioner (eg, monetary penalty notice, undertaking, audit, enforcement notice etc), they should be prepared for internal reports into why the action was taken to become the target for Freedom of Information (FOI) requests. This is the outcome of a …

Law 2 Mar 09:02
Warner Bros boss moots 'disc-to-digital' scheme

New files for old

Warner Bros wants you to trade in your DVDs for cloud-stored video files, the home entertainment's president has indicated - its latest method to persuade punters to buy rather than rent. Speaking at a Morgan Stanley tech confab in San Francisco this week, Warner Home Entertainment Group President Kevin Tsujihara outlined an …

Hardware 2 Mar 09:29
Ubuntu 12.04 hits beta, brings smooth Unity for marching masses

Review But bugs still need a-snaffling for biz penguins

The beta for Ubuntu 12.04, or Precise Pangolin as Canonical’s Mark Shuttleworth would have it, is upon us. This is the fourth major Long Term Support (LTS) release and the first featuring the Unity desktop: LTS. That means that while the rank-and-file Ubuntu users may have already made the leap to Unity, many of Canonical's …

Operating Systems 2 Mar 09:46
Sony dusts off waterproof Handycam

Zoomtastic

It's the new black: gadgets that are waterproof. The latest: Sony's HDR-GW55VE Handycam. With a sensor dense enough to shoot 20.4Mp stills, the camcorder can shoot 1080p HD video at 50f/s. The GW55VE's lens can zoom to 10x, but the gadget can zoom to 120x digitally. Framing shots is aided by a flip-out-and-swivel 3in, 921, …

Hardware 2 Mar 09:59
Belkin Power Pack 4000

Accessory of the Week Battery back-up

We’ve all been there. You leave the house in the morning, whip your smartphone out of your pocket to send a text and the dreaded red indicator is displaying on its battery level indicator. You won’t be near a computer or power socket for hours. What to do? Belkin’s Power Pack 4000 may be the answer. It’s a portable battery …

Phones 2 Mar 10:00
Windows 8: Sugar coating on Microsoft's hard-to-swallow tablet

Preview review Refreshing, delightful, puzzling, awkward, annoying

How do you bring legacy-encrusted Windows into the mobile era? Microsoft's solution is to take all that baggage and place it into a compartment labeled desktop, while reinventing the Windows user interface in a second compartment called Metro. Metro is primary, and conceptually the old desktop is now an app in the Metro Start …

Software 2 Mar 10:17
Windows 7 squeezed into Android tablets

Google out, MS in - virtually

OnLive may be better known for its cloud gaming service, but the advantage of running a heap of virtual Windows PCs on a server farm somewhere is that you can run Windows desktops on them as well as games. Which means, if you have OnLive's new Android terminal app, you can run Windows 7 - and Windows 8 soon too, presumably - …

Phones 2 Mar 10:37
Intel cashes in its chips with Micron, bets on post-flash riches

Thanks for the memories

Intel is flogging some its flash foundry capacity in its IMTF joint venture to Micron, its partner in their manufacturing love-in. Chipzilla is selling its stake in two IMTF wafer plants to Micron for $300m cash and a $300m amount held by Micron to pay for future NAND supplies from the plants or to be refunded as cash. Intel …

Hardware 2 Mar 10:38
Apple: We never said Siri would actually work in the UK

Ad watchdog says punter's expectations too high

The Advertising Standards Agency (ASA) has quashed a complaint from a fanboi disappointed by Siri's lack of UK knowledge - and said the punter had above-average expectations compared with what it would expect from the "average Brit". Siri, the voice-recognising virtual assistant on the iPhone 4S, is unable to direct users in …

Phones 2 Mar 10:54
Intrinsic Technology boss Mason exits

Updated: Gordon Matthew in the hot seat at unified comms and MSP player

Intrinsic Technology bigwig Mike Mason has left the unified comms and cloud reseller less than eight months after leading a management buy-out. Management handed the princely sum of £30m – with the backing of by venture capitalist RJD Partners – to founder and majority shareholder Allan Gauld in July, with Mason remaining in …

The Channel 2 Mar 10:55
'We don't know if Google is operating outside EU law'

Quotw Plus: 'It's within our lifetime. It's going to happen'

This was the week in which Mobile World Congress landed in Barcelona, producing reams of smartphone and fondleslab news, views and shiny gadgets - including waterproof mobes, which are of particular use to Brits since apparently nearly one in ten punters take their phone into the shower. These featured alongside new Sony phones …

Phones 2 Mar 11:10
Microsoft cleared in web filth court battle, wins $100 compo

Ruled not a social network - in your face Yahoo!

Microsoft has been cleared of wrongdoing in a high-profile court case alleging it and scores of other web companies hosted “objectionable content” - and even managed to get the plaintiff fined by the judge. The case, which was brought by Fatwa-Online founder Mufti Aijas Arshad Quasmi, is being heard in New Delhi, India. …

Law 2 Mar 11:23
Archos touts Android tablets for toddlers

Child Pad out soon

Archos has jumped on the tech for tots bandwagon by announcing a 7in Android tablet called the Child Pad. The lightweight device features a 1GHz processor and 1GB of Ram powering Google's latest OS, Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich. ICS is spruced up with a easy-to-use and highly colourful UI that Archos hopes will appeal to …

Phones 2 Mar 11:28
Anonymous web weapon backfires with hidden banking Trojan

Hacktivists tricked into installing malware

Anonymous supporters queuing up to participate in denial-of-service attacks are being tricked into installing ZeuS botnet clients. Hacktivists grabbed what they thought was the Slowloris tool, which is designed to flood websites with open connections and ultimately knock them offline. However, the download included a strain of …

Security 2 Mar 11:37
Hefty mobile bills should be capped by punters, says Ofcom

Analysis Latest brainwave to stamp out monthly heart attacks

Ofcom will push for greater EU regulation to tackle steep mobile bills, and voluntary application of that regulation outside the EU, but won't force operators to do anything unless they do nothing. In a statement (PDF, long, dull, insufficiently shocking) the regulator reports that data is now the biggest cause of unexpectedly …

Broadband 2 Mar 11:48
Hackers print tiny Linux box to net up your home

Ninja Block does for automation what Raspberry Pi does for coding

The Raspberry Pi is a tiny computer designed to get you writing programs. Here's a tiny computer designed to get things done in your home and out of it without writing a single line of code. Called the Ninja Block, it's an open source hardware gadget running Linux that's designed to accept feeds from external sensors - it has …

Hardware 2 Mar 11:53
Mobile gaming: battle of the gadgets

Feature One thing to rule them all?

Gamers are everywhere nowadays. Often gamers who don't even consider themselves gamers. Take the woman beside me on the Sardine Express to London last week. Late-30s, attractive, suited and well-manicured – far removed from the stereotypical gamer. But there she was, 7:30 in the morning on a packed commuter train, swiping and …

Games 2 Mar 12:00
Asteroid could SMASH INTO EARTH in 2040

UN boffins bang heads to knock rock off-course

Top space boffins are keeping a close eye on an asteroid that could collide with Earth in 2040. Orbiting rock 2011 AG5 is about 140 metres wide and could come close enough to spur on a crack team of drill-wielding heroes to save the world. The Scientific and Technical subcommittee of the United Nations Committee on the …

Science 2 Mar 12:14
£30m gov ID scheme to be steered by dole office

DWP (once again) puts out notice to private sector players

Identity assurance remains a hot topic at the Cabinet Office. And, despite a false start late last year, Whitehall is pushing ahead with its plans to offload ID-handling onto the private sector. The department's digital boss Mike Bracken confirmed yesterday that, as expected, the Department for Work and Pensions had been …

Government 2 Mar 12:28
Online advertising isn't creepy enough

Open ... and Shut Go ahead and terrify me... with a properly targeted ad

Privacy advocates endlessly worry that online advertising companies track your every move in order to serve you creepily well-targeted ads. They needn't bother. After all, when was the last time this hyper-invasive tracking of your online behavior actually resulted in you getting a deal on something you really wanted? And it …

Security 2 Mar 12:44
El Reg appoints Special Projects Burro

Video Hairy mascot for audacious spaceplane missions

It's Friday, so we're sure you'll join us in raising a glass to Iberian beast of burden Aladdin - as of right now our official Special Projects Burro. Veteran followers of El Reg will recall that Aladdin was born back in September 2010... ...and has since grown into a fine, strapping and extremely hairy lad: The idea of …

SPB 2 Mar 13:00
Top Gun 2: It's happening - and the choice of star is stirring controversy

Not Tom Cruise - people are arguing about the plane

The occasionally rumoured Top Gun 2 movie - sequel to the seminal* '80s aerial action flick - is to go ahead. Reports have it that the project, known to have Tom Cruise aboard already, now has a scriptwriter: and more importantly, the real star, the jet fighter to be flown by Cruise, has been selected. Last of the manned …

Bootnotes 2 Mar 13:17
Manchester biz raided in text message spam clampdown

Suspected ambulance-chasers 'sent thousands of txts'

A clampdown on text spam has led to a police raid on offices in Urmston, Manchester, and the seizure of equipment by the Information Commissioner's Office. The UK data privacy watchdog was given enhanced powers last year to tackle the growing problem of junk SMS messages, including the authority to ask mobile operators for …

Security 2 Mar 13:36
BBC iPlayer boss: smart TVs not sufficiently simple

IPTV UIs too complicated for viewers

Telly makers have been told to simplify the smart TV experience if they want more punters to take the internet-connected tech on board. Daniel Danker, who runs the BBC's iPlayer operation, told an audience at the Digital TV Group (DTG) Summit in London today that connect TVs need to become less complicated. Hooking the things …

Hardware 2 Mar 13:55
Weeing Frenchman sues Google over Street View photo

Peeing pic makes him a laughing stock in his village

A Frenchman is suing Google over a Street View photo that shows him peeing in his garden, which has made him the laughing stock of his village. As with most people in Street View pics, the man is slightly blurred, but because he comes from such a small place and he was at his own house, everyone recognised him. "He discovered …

Law 2 Mar 14:01
Canon focuses on 25th birthday EOS DSLR

5D Mark III is foxier for filmmakers

Canon will mark a quarter Century of its EOS single-lens reflex camera system with its latest DSLR, the EOS 5D Mark III. The Mark III takes things up a notch from its highly-rated predecessor, pushing the sensor up a megapixel or so, and featuring the new 61-point AF system found in the recently launched EOS-1D X. According …

Hardware 2 Mar 14:08
Zynga branches out from Facebook to make new 'friends'

Loosens rather than cuts apron strings from Sugar Daddy Zuck

Zynga may not exactly be integral to the survival of Facebook - which recently revealed it derived 12 per cent of its 2011 revenue from the online gaming outfit - but the fact that the company behind Words With Friends has built its own network might make IPO-ready Mark Zuckerberg a bit twitchy. A "platform for play" has been …

Media 2 Mar 14:17
Bikini clad Princess Leia spied shakin' booty in Star Wars game

I see you, baby, shaking that asteroid

With Kinect Star Wars launching in just over a month's time, more of the title's features have started to appear online. Here's a titbit that caught our eye: a video showing a bikini-clad Princess Leia being forced to strut her terpsichorean stuff for Jabba the Hutt in a Dance Central-like mini game. Skip to 4m 40s during the …

Games 2 Mar 14:25
The Modern Data Centre

Tech Panel Fire fighting the symptoms or treating the problem at its root?

Managing the systems running in data centres and computer rooms is hard work, and that’s before the conflicting demands of users, managers, regulators and health and safety inspectors are factored into account. Are you caught in the trap of trying to balance conflicting demands on your time or are you leading the way to …

Tech Panel 2 Mar 14:25
Facebook looks for more credit with the banks

Social network wants cash for bumper tax bill after IPO

Facebook is planning to add a few extra bucks to its $2.5bn credit line to help cover the major tax bill for employee stocks when it goes public. The social network, which already upped its credit just six months ago, is taking more cash while it can get it, sources told Reuters. Facebook has said that it will foot the tax …

Financial News 2 Mar 14:39
Blighty's fast mobe broadband in music wrecking probe

Wireless kit blasted with LTE rays for a month

On Monday Ofcom will run tests in Baldock to find out whether next-gen mobile broadband networks will knacker headphones and microphones, ruining Brits' enjoyment of music. Lots of short-range wireless devices use frequencies just above the bands Ofcom will be flogging off for LTE use next year. Although the regulator is …

Media 2 Mar 14:58
Now Apple opens fire on EPAD trademark in China

Cupertino blasts laptop bag maker ebox

Apple has filed an official complaint over an application for the EPAD trademark by Guangzhou-based computer kit maker ebox. The peripheral biz applied for the EPAD trademark in August 2010 and about a year later passed the first stage of approval by China’s Trademark Office, according to a report on Sina Tech. Apple filed its …

Law 2 Mar 15:28
Commentards, we salute the return of the long post

10,000 characters. Surely that's enough

Recently, we limited the length of posts made by commentards to 2000 characters. We did this for no better reason than that the 2000 characters had always been our publicly announced limit, and we thought that we should do what we said on the tin. So we waited for the dust to settle. Not terribly popular ... and so 10,000 …

Site News 2 Mar 15:32
Apple to launch TV streaming service by Xmas

But will it have anything to stream?

Apple will launch a subscription-based TV streaming service whether it has content or not. Probably the latter, if whispers vaguely wafting this way from the direction of negotiations are to be believed. The service could go live by Christmas, the sources say. New York redtop The Post claims that Apple's iTunes chief, Eddie …

Hardware 2 Mar 15:55
Resellers could lose out in £4bn gov framework – vendors

Little room for medium-tier biz in price-driven agreement

The ultra-aggressive pricing suppliers will need to bid so that they can win a place on the forthcoming public sector hardware and solutions mega framework may make it harder for resellers to get involved, vendors have warned. Government Procurement Services invited bids from suppliers last month to win a place on the …

The Channel 2 Mar 16:01
Samsung worker confirms April launch for Galaxy S III

Quad-core Ice Cream Sarnie phone to debut in UK

A Samsung staffer has confirmed that the Galaxy S III smartphone will be out next month, as past rumours and the handset's officially recognised absence from this week's Mobile World Congress (MWC) have suggested. That said, the source, who whispered in the ear of the chap from ZDNet Korea, spilled the beans under the …

Phones 2 Mar 16:17
French buy over half a million NFC handsets from Orange

MWC But payments won't wait for the technology

Orange has convinced half a million people in France to buy NFC handsets, and Visa has been busy showing off Olympic payments, but O2 Money isn't going to wait that long. Orange is committed to a national rollout of NFC payments in France, and had been busy issuing NFC-capable SIMs to customers – even if they don't have an NFC …

Mobile 2 Mar 16:34
Linode hackers escape with $70K in daring bitcoin heist

Updated Compromised servers ransacked for digital cash

Popular web host Linode has been hacked by cyber-thieves who made off with a stash of bitcoins worth $71,000 (£44,736) in real money. The crooks pulled off the heist after obtaining admin passwords for Linode's network gear. Having infiltrated its systems, the thieves proceeded to target several Bitcoin-related servers, …

Security 2 Mar 17:05
Hadron-colliding, volcano-tracking boffins pocket cloud freebie

CERN, ESA and pals unwrap donated number cruncher

Euro biz bosses have donated a cloud to top scientists at CERN, the European Space Agency (ESA) and the Cambridge-based European Molecular Biology Lab (EMBL) - to accelerate their boffinry breakthrough rate. The infrastructure donated by 18 businesses - including SAP, Telefonica and Interoute - will be used to store, share and …

Science 2 Mar 17:24
Quantum eases file access for big data clients

Gateway appliances allow quick penetration

Quantum is making it easier for clients to access its big data-themed StorNext file system by adding scale-out gateway appliances to the mix. StorNext is a shared SAN filesystem implemented by a high-availability metadata controller (MDC) that sits in front of primary and DXi deduplicated secondary SAN storage and also tape …

Storage 2 Mar 18:04
Secunia bets on open information for security growth

RSA 2012 Opens free PSI 3.0 patch scanner for all

Danish vulnerability specialist developer Secunia has released the latest beta of its Personal Software Inspector (PSI), and says it is betting on an open approach to security information to grow the company. Founder Niels Henrik Rasmussen told The Register that his company will continue to work on open information sharing …

Security 2 Mar 19:40
Wireless breakthrough: one frequency, multiple signals

Italian team doubles-up on Guglielmo Marconi

A team of Italian radio boffins – and one Swede – have one-upped their pioneering countryman Guglielmo Marconi by demonstrating a method of simultaneously transmitting multiple signals on the same frequency. "This novel radio technique allows the implementation of, in principle, an infinite number of channels in a given, fixed …

Science 2 Mar 20:19
Apple claims its 'innovation' creates 514,000 US jobs

Quoth Twain: 'Lies, damned lies, and statistics'

Apple has launched a web page entitled "Creating jobs through innovation" that cites what it claims are statistics that show it's responsible for creating or supporting 514,000 jobs in the US. According to Apple, a study by the Analysis Group determined that Cook & Co. has "directly or indirectly" created 304,000 jobs spread …

Business 2 Mar 22:50