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15th March 2012 Archive

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  • Submarine cables get simpler, faster

    No need for signal regeneration at sea or on land

    Submarine cables and other long distance data connections may now be simpler and cheaper to deploy and operate, thanks to a new set of products from Ciena. Ciena is the heir to Nortel’s Optical Multi Service Edge 6500 products and has wrapped them up, with its own kit, into the new WaveeLogic 3 suite. The headline act for the …

    Networks 15 Mar 02:16

  • Microsoft slashes Office 365 prices

    Big cuts for new, renewing customers. Why? 'Efficiencies'

    Microsoft has taken an axe to Office 365 prices, cutting enterprise charges and giving special discounts to educational users, claiming "economies of scale" in the service. "With these efficiencies, we're able pass on savings to make it even more affordable for customers of all sizes to move to Office 365," claimed Kirk …

    Channel Register 15 Mar 02:37

  • Hong Kong Apple store repels fanbois, scalpers

    Form an orderly queue ...

    Signs have started springing up around Apple’s flagship store in Hong Kong telling people not to bother queuing for the shiny new fondleslab when it launches on Friday, in an apparent attempt to stop ill-informed fanbois and mainland scalpers from crowding the streets around the building. Apple has yet to confirm or deny to …

    Hardware 15 Mar 04:15

  • Thai Police shutter 5,000+ sites insulting royals

    Touchy Thais don't want you dissing their king

    The monarchy-loving Thai authorities have deleted over 5,000 web pages in the past three months in a continued crack down on content deemed insulting to the royal family, although critics argue it’s just an excuse to exercise ever more hardline censorship controls. Thailand national police spokesman Piya Utayo explained that …

    Public Sector 15 Mar 06:46

  • Rising China costs get manufacturers moving

    Big wage rises see costs climb, other nations rise as factory alternatives

    Several key notebook ODMs are apparently reconsidering their plans to locate factories in western China because of rising costs in the region which could hit profits. Digitimes said that, according to industry sources, Quanta Computer, Compal Electronics, Wistron and Inventec among others had already relocated some plants to …

    Channel Register 15 Mar 06:49

  • Viewsonic Viewpad 10e tablet

    Review Android take on iPad aspect

    ‘Budget tablet’ is a phrase that tends to crop up in reviews that only ever reach one conclusion: the product is pretty awful. But the new Viewsonic Viewpad 10e may be the exception that proves the rule, because this £200 Argos-exclusive ain’t half bad. Viewsonic's Viewpad 10e adopts the iPad's 4 x 3 aspect ratio To start …

    reghardware 15 Mar 07:00

  • NHS trusts beg IT suppliers to manage eHospital plan

    It's all they IaaS of you

    Cambridge University Hospitals NHS foundation trust and Papworth Hospital NHS foundation trust are seeking suppliers to provide project management and IT consultancy services for the pair's eHospital programme. The programme, which aims to provide clinicians at the trusts with access to a single source of patient information, …

    Public Sector 15 Mar 08:02

  • Bring your backups out of the closet! It's time for 'Tape Pride'

    Comment Let go of that hardness, honey!

    The tape industry should stop making excuses and instead raise its head with pride. Tape is great for archiving and nothing else comes close. In fact the gap with disk competition is going to widen in tape's favour. This was the gist of senior ESG analyst Mark Peters' message at Tape Summit in San Francisco, during which a …

    Storage 15 Mar 08:29

  • Groupon's 'Botox' voucher push breached ad rules – watchdog

    ASA: Wrinkly punters clearly being offered 'prescription-only' poison injection

    Groupon breached UK advertising rules when it promoted a cosmetics treatment on its site, the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) has ruled. The watchdog said that an advert that featured on the popular consumer voucher operator's website for discounted "facial injection treatments" was in effect promoting Botox treatments …

    Law 15 Mar 09:03

  • Oz anti-gang law hits email, maybe torrents too

    Consorting offence now includes 'electronic communication'

    The Australian State of New South Wales has amended its Crimes Act with a new definition of ‘consorting’ that makes electronic communications evidence of participation in criminal groups. The new law is a second attempt at making it hard for motorcycle gangs to do business. Such gangs are suspected of playing a significant …

    Public Sector 15 Mar 09:11

  • Flintstones was (sort of) true: Mammals did well alongside dinosaurs

    Fred and Barney would have been proto-mice not men, though

    Everyone knows that The Flintstones was wrong: not only did humans and dinosaurs not exist at the same time, even our earliest mammalian ancestors had barely come upon the world stage at the time when the great lizards departed it. Not so, says paleontologist Gregory Wilson. He and his fellow bone-botherers have been probing …

    Biology 15 Mar 09:30

  • Mobile banking security bypassed in fiendish malware blag

    Bloody SIMple when you know how

    Cyber-crooks are blagging SIM cards that allow them to circumvent mobile-based banking security measures and swipe cash from punters' accounts. Security biz Trusteer has uncovered two elaborate techniques that will defeat out-of-band authentication mechanisms such as SMS-delivered one-time passwords (OTP) for online banking …

    Malware 15 Mar 09:31

  • Adobe Photoshop Touch

    iOS App of the Week The Mac’s killer app finally comes to the iPad

    Annoyingly for us iOS fans, Photoshop Touch actually made its debut on Android, late last year. You can download it from Google Play. However, it has now arrived on the iPad 2 and the ‘new iPad’ – but not the first-generation iPad or any other iOS device – just in time to bump pixels with Apple’s own iPhoto. They’re not really …

    reghardware 15 Mar 10:00

  • Virgin Media snags London Underground Wi-Fi monopoly

    Free in tube stations - but only for the summer

    Virgin Media will be fitting 120 London tube stations with Wi-Fi, but once the Olympic summer is over the service will no longer be free and the firm will begin charging by the minute. Around 80 stations will initially be kitted out with wireless access in time for the Olympics, while the remaining 40 or so earmarked by …

    Wireless 15 Mar 10:23

  • Virgin to touch up Tube with wireless

    Free for a month or so

    Transport for London (TfL) has picked the broadband provider who will equip the Underground with wireless networking. The winner is… Virgin Media. Virgin now has to fit hotspots at 120-odd Tube stations. Let's hope it does install 120 of its poorly received SuperHub broadband modem-cum-routers. Whatever kit is fitted, it …

    reghardware 15 Mar 10:33

  • Lawyers of Mordor menace Hobbit boozer

    Gandalf moves to protect Southampton pub

    Brit thesp Sir Ian McKellen has joined the campaign to protect Southampton boozer The Hobbit from the forces of darkness - Californian attack lawyers who claim the pub has infringed their client's trademark. The BBC explains that the Saul Zaentz Company (SZC) has dispatched a missive to the Portswood hostelry pointing out it …

    Law 15 Mar 10:43

  • NASA postpones five-rocket launch spectacular

    Technical hitch scrubs ATREX blast off till Friday

    NASA scrubbed its attempts to paint the sky cloudy last night due to an internal radio frequency interference issue with one of the rockets. The space agency was due to launch five rockets in five minutes as part of a study of the jet stream at the edge of space, a mission dubbed the Anomalous Transport Rocket Experiment ( …

    Space 15 Mar 11:01

  • BBC boss confirms iTunes alternative in store

    Corporation to add downloads to CD, DVD, BD range

    The BBC is working on a digital content store as an alternative to Apple's iTunes. Speaking to the Royal Television Society this week, the Corporation's Director General, Mark Thompson, confirmed that the scheme, codenamed 'Project Barcelona', will let punters "purchase a digital copy of a programme to own and keep". The cost …

    reghardware 15 Mar 11:06

  • Datatec hits $5bn sales milestone, profits rise

    But Blighty market 'very weak', says channel giant

    Preliminary numbers from channel behemoth Datatec – parent of distie Westcon and integrator Logicalis – show it has broken the $5bn sales barrier, but they also reveal that IT spending in the UK remains "very weak". For the year ended 29 February, the group expects revenues of roughly half a billion dollars, up from $4.3bn in …

    Channel Register 15 Mar 11:07

  • Samsung's Apple ban bid tossed out by Dutch court

    Injunction battle lost but the war isn't over

    A Dutch court has rejected Samsung's bid to get bans on iPhones and iPads, saying that the Korean company can't seek an injunction based on standards-essential patents until licensing talks have been exhausted. However, the court also said that technical arguments on the validity of some patents and whether Apple was breaching …

    Law 15 Mar 11:24

  • Nokia design chief ayes tablet plan

    Yet Finnish phone firm counterspins claim

    Nokia has revealed it has started work on a tablet, adding weight to rumours that the firm is set to launch an iPad challenger when Microsoft's Windows 8 software is released later this year. "We are working on it," confirmed Nokia design chief Marko Ahtisaari in an interview with Finnish magazine Kauppalehti Optio. The …

    reghardware 15 Mar 11:29

  • US gov tells Apple chief Tim Cook: Send us a minion to grill

    'Thanks for coming Mr Appler. No, don't sit down'

    The US Congress has asked Apple to send a representative to Washington to face a grilling over iPhone privacy, after Cupertino's initial response to questioning was unsatisfactory and late. In addition, the furore over apps slurping photos from iPhones that broke at the end of February, has prompted a second set of questions …

    Government 15 Mar 11:41

  • Smartphone owners demand bigger screens

    Four inches or more preferred

    If you're one of those folks who favour smartphones with supersize screens, you're not alone. Nearly 90 per cent of your fellow phone owners want handsets to have bigger displays. So reveals market watcher Strategy Analytics after polling punters earlier this year. The favoured screen sizes range from 4.0 to 4.5 inches, it …

    reghardware 15 Mar 11:52

  • Cisco vows to give 4,000 Brit kids a proper IT schooling

    Digital London New message to teens: Computing is cool

    Networking giant Cisco has pledged to leave the UK a technology “investment legacy” after the Olympics that’ll deliver thousands of skilled workers for IT. Cisco is hooking up centres of learning across the UK and plans on opening networking academies in East London and the Olympic boroughs. Neil Crockett, managing director …

    Jobs 15 Mar 12:01

  • TV tax takers reveal Brits telly habits

    3D? Meh. Mobile? Yes please

    Britons now spend more time watching TV programmes after they have been broadcast. And more than a quarter of us watch TV on mobile devices, TV Licensing, the organisation that collects the Licence Fee, a television tax, said this week. Brits together own more flat-panel tellies than any other Western European nation, even …

    reghardware 15 Mar 12:05

  • PhD pimp's mobe lock screen outwits Feds - Google told to help

    Warrant served on Chocolate Factory

    A judge has backed a request from the FBI from Google for assistance in obtaining the secrets held on the Android smartphone of a hustler described as a founding member of the "Pimpin' Hoes Daily" (PhD) gang in San Diego. The FBI is seeking information that includes tips on how to get past a pattern lock. Dante Dears was …

    Policing 15 Mar 12:18

  • Gamers pledge almost a million dollars for Wasteland sequel

    Classic post-apocalyptic RPG to return

    Gamers have rallied behind plans to bring back classic post-apocalyptic RPG Wasteland in one of the most eagerly anticipated sequels to date. Wasteland, released in 1988, was the inspiration for the Fallout series. Both games spearheaded by Interplay founder and famed games developer Brian Fargo. Fargo is also set to front …

    reghardware 15 Mar 12:21

  • CAE profit growth stalls but sales near £50m barrier

    Margins hit by falling hardware ASPs and engineer rates

    Hertfordshire-based reseller CAE Technology Services edged towards a £50m sales milestone in financial year 2011 against a bleak economic backdrop – but no such progress was made on the bottom line. The firm reported operating profits of £2m and net income of £1.38m, both largely unchanged on the previous fiscal year, but …

    Channel Register 15 Mar 12:42

  • HPC battle royale: Exotic models vs Frankenstein monsters

    HPC blog Who will win the exascale supercomputer's heart?

    My article comparing supercomputer performance and price/performance to common computers generated quite a few comments. For those who didn’t see the initial story, the Fujitsu K computer is a 10 petaflop monster that’s currently the fastest computer in the world. It’s roughly 4x faster than the second place Tianhe-1A Chinese …

    HPC Blog 15 Mar 12:43

  • Comet and Walmart battle for Game

    Bidding begins

    Walmart and Comet have emerged as bidders for troubled high street games retailer Game. The US retail giant is rumoured to have offered 12p per share for the company, while Comet owner OpCapita is also believed to have expressed an interest in acquiring Game, MCV reports. Paying 12p a share would value Game at £40m. But no …

    reghardware 15 Mar 12:46

  • Charge of the Metro brigade: Did Microsoft execs plan to take a hit?

    Analysis Touchy-feely annoyance a plot to keep Windows relevant

    "Tiles to the right of them, Tiles to left of them, Tiles in front of them"   - Alfred Tennyson, The Charge of the Metro Brigade (1854) It's fair to say that the typical reaction of pundits and analysts to Windows 8 is quite different to yours or mine. Our misgivings are shared, I have discovered, by many Microsoft employees …

    Windows 8 15 Mar 13:01

  • Roll up to the great Register Private Cloud survey

    Research Buddy, can you spare some time?

    The Register has constructed a lovely survey about Private Cloud, which will form the basis of a number of research-based articles to be published in coming weeks. The survey is a one-pager and will take a few minutes of your time. Please take part! Here's some background to our thinking. Without getting bogged down in …

    Cloud Business 15 Mar 13:01

  • Euro antitrust watchdog sniffs telcos' back-door hot air

    Voda, Telefónica and chums quizzed over cosy confabs

    Antitrust officials in Brussels are gathering evidence from five telcos operating in the European Union to determine whether the companies have been in cahoots. The European Commission told The Register that it asked for information from Deutsche Telekom, France Télécom, Telefónica, Vodafone and Telecom Italia. It also called …

    Mobile 15 Mar 13:19

  • Everything Everywhere's 4G party bus could run Three off a cliff

    MPs, rivals hit the roof over LTE monopoly

    Ofcom's proposal to give Everything Everywhere a year's monopoly on 4G raised the eyebrows of MPs, and the hackles of the competition, who can't see how it could possibly be fair. The plan to let EE deploy LTE in its massive stockpile of 1800MHz spectrum was published on Tuesday, and interested parties have until April 17 to …

    Mobile 15 Mar 13:38

  • 'Seas will rise, flood millions of homes' warns Eric Schmidt ecologist

    You should live so long (until 2100)

    Millions of American homes face the peril of flooding due to sea level rises caused by human-driven global warming, according to an ecologist funded by Google boss Eric Schmidt. "The sea level rise taking place right now is quickly making extreme coastal floods more common, increasing risk for millions of people where they …

    Energy 15 Mar 13:52

  • AOL: No plans to bin instant messager

    Okay, we did AIM fire at a few staffers ... but we won't say where, or how many

    AOL will continue to support and evolve its instant messaging software AIM, its PR team said today, contradicting a rumour that AOL was about to pull the plug on the service. Job cuts at AOL USA seem to have fallen hardest on the AIM division. AOL workers told the NYT that 40 of them had received pink slip, which was later …

    Applications 15 Mar 13:55

  • UPDATE: GAGA team hunts down grass-smoking ROBOT

    Where in the world is our lawnmower?

    Poor weather has played havoc with our blade-testing, so the Genuinely Autonomous Garden Assistant (GAGA) team has been focusing on location-tracking technologies, with near-uniformly disappointing results. Who would have believed that in the first years of the 21st century, a robot going about its business could not be …

    SPB 15 Mar 14:12

  • Flash DRAM wallop! Now Hynix fab cranks out NAND

    China surges ahead in chip production

    Hynix is switching production at a memory plant in China to churn out NAND flash instead of DRAM chips. Digitimes reports that the plant at Wuxi in China will make the flash switch to help Hynix become more profitable – and perhaps to start catching up with NAND flash market leaders Samsung and Toshiba. Hynix is currently …

    PCs & Chips 15 Mar 14:38

  • Readers suggest LOHAN mount single mighty rod

    Vulture 2 launch method prompts lively debate

    We've enjoyed reading your comments over the past day regarding the possible launch system for our Low Orbit Helium Assisted Navigator (LOHAN) Vulture 2 spaceplane. Following a successful test of LOHAN's fantastical flying truss (see vid, below), we concluded that we'd go with the truss suspended under a single balloon, and …

    SPB 15 Mar 15:02

  • Xbox 360 video cable boasts NOISE VIRUS protection

    Ears are ringing ... with alarm bells

    Are noisy computer viruses interfering with your enjoyment of playing games on your Xbox 360? If so then the Xbox 360 Elite HDMI 180o Swivel Cable from 3rd Earth it just what you need. The product's marketing pitch claims that it's a "100% Mylar double shield 1.3c grade cable with anti-virus protection to reduce virus noises …

    Bootnotes 15 Mar 15:22

  • WD releases Thunderbolt drive

    Up to 6TB of storage

    Mac users: WD's Thunderbolt-connectable 6TB hard drive, the My Book Thunderbolt Duo, can be yours for a mere €699/£580. Too much? The 4TB version is just €599/£500. For your money you get a box with two drives installed - hence the 'Duo' - which you can configure as RAID 0 or 1 for, respectively, speed or data security. Or …

    Storage 15 Mar 15:38

  • HP unzips, dangles fat wedge over PC dealers

    Punt desktop gear, earn a slice of $20m

    HP is dangling a sizeable "discretionary funding" carrot in front of resellers to make them come up with business plans to lure small biz, schools and corporations into buying PCs. At the same time the tech titan is cutting the bewildering number of promos run by its personal systems division. It also vowed to improve the way …

    Channel Register 15 Mar 15:43

  • New iPad: The only review roundup you'll ever need

    Introducing our new media boildown™ technique

    So the new iPad is out tomorrow (indeed today if you live near the Date Line) and all the world's media is aflame with non-stop fondleslab coverage. So many reviews and analyses of the world-shaking new information portaportal have been published that many top media outlets are now issuing roundups of the reviews, seeking to …

    Bootnotes 15 Mar 15:51

  • O2 confirms HTC Tegra 3 phone for April

    Five-core smartphone ahoy!

    O2 has revealed it will be offering the HTC One X, the Taiwanese phone maker's polycarbonate-clad handset based on Nvidia's Tegra 3 processor. The cellco will be getting the One X, which also sports a 4.7in, 1280 x 720 display, in on 5 April, it Tweeted today, but it's not yet saying how much it'll charge for the 1.5GHz beast …

    reghardware 15 Mar 15:53

  • Cisco slurps News Corp's telly software biz for $5bn

    Vid encryption outfit NDS approves buy up

    Networking giant Cisco Systems has announced its plans to snap up TV software firm NDS for a cool $5bn. News of the takeover talks leaked out of Israel - where NDS was founded in 1988 and still has a large R&D facility earlier today - but Cisco has now confirmed the deal. NDS, which provides software for the pay television …

    Financial News 15 Mar 16:01

  • Pillow purveyor sews up Steve Jobs doll for fans

    Felt him up

    Fanboys! Now you too can take Steve Jobs to bed. US pillow maker Throwboys has come up with a cuddly felt figure of the former Apple CEO clad in black turtleneck, blue jeans, grey trainers and rimless spectacles (removable). The plaything is here to "celebrate the life of this inspiring person whose raving passion for all …

    reghardware 15 Mar 16:12

  • Dell channel chief gives SonicWALL partners a cuddle

    Don't fear change or our direct sales force

    Dell's global channel chief has moved to soothe any "anxiety" among SonicWALL's 15,000 resellers worldwide about the acquisition. The one-time direct selling purist this week went public with its intent to buy the firewall and threat management software and appliance maker for an undisclosed amount. Greg Davis, Dell veep and …

    Channel Register 15 Mar 16:20

  • x86 chips squeeze out a growth in Q4

    Rising ASPs pump up revenues

    The PC market might have stalled as 2011 came to an end, but chip makers peddling x86 chips for PCs, workstations, and servers still managed to eke out some growth in the fourth quarter and for the full year, according to the latest stats from market-watcher IDC. The chip counters at IDC believe that worldwide microprocessor …

    PCs & Chips 15 Mar 16:27

  • Diablo III out on 15 May, pledges Blizzard

    In dungeons with drag on

    Blizzard will release Diablo III on 15 May. Honest. No, really, it will. No more delays this time. The World of Warcraft developer said the game, which was originally due to go on sale at the end of 2011 and then early this year, will be given away for free to WoW subscribers who've coughed up in advance for a year's access. …

    reghardware 15 Mar 16:35

  • LSI thrusts PCIe flash kit even harder

    Warp drive standing by, captain

    LSI will soon launch third-generation PCIe flash products, which are expected to be faster and hold more data than its existing WarpDrive. The WarpDrive is a second source for EMC's VFCache product; Micron is EMC's primary SSD supplier for that product. The WarpDrive SLP-300 comes in 100GB, 200GB and 300GB capacity points and …

    Storage 15 Mar 17:03

  • Apple iPad 3 packs LAPTOP battery

    12,000mAh power pack, anyone?

    The iPad 3 contains an 11,560mAh battery, the first take-apart of the third-generation Apple tablet has revealed. Indeed, the new gagdet is packed with power storage behind its - Samsung-made, seemingly - 2048 x 1536 "retina display". Source: iFixit.com The autopsy, conducted by iFixit, shows a mere sliver of a motherboard …

    reghardware 15 Mar 17:04

  • Russell Brand 'threw small voice-enabled iPad through window'

    Big Easy filth slap warrant on bad boy shleb

    Comedian Russell Brand is reportedly wanted by police for allegedly grabbing a small iPad-like device from a photographer in New Orleans and hurling it through a window. The cops have issued a misdemeanour warrant for Brand's arrest, reports gossip website TMZ. Although eyewitnesses claim an iPhone was lobbed, it is impossible …

    Crime 15 Mar 17:32

  • UK's Guardian prints 'Assad family' emails leaked by activists

    Files reveal high-heel love, Iran's uprising advice

    Syrian activists have leaked a cache of files that purport to represent the private emails of Bashar al-Assad and his closest associates, sent during the bloody clampdown against opposition activists. Ongoing violence in Syria has claimed the lives of more than 8,000 people as the government seeks to crush an Arab Spring- …

    Government 15 Mar 18:03

  • Vendors smack Thunderbolt punters with massive pricing markup

    Bit rich

    There's expensive and then there's Thunderbolt device pricing... and that will make you gulp. WD has just announced it is shipping its My Book Thunderbolt Duo, a dual hard drive fitted with Intel's Thunderbolt interface. Jody Bradshaw, WD's general manager for consumer storage solutions, said; "Its dual Thunderbolt ports …

    Storage 15 Mar 18:28

  • Newly discovered asteroid will not ANNIHILATE THE EARTH

    Well, not for a while anyway

    A panic-inducing asteroid, catchily named 2012 DA14, will not obliterate all life on Earth when it swings very close by in early 2013 - BUT it might do the next time it pops round. The European Space Agency said today that although the space rock will miss our planet this time, it won't be by much, which goes to show how …

    Space 15 Mar 19:01

  • 'Cheap' Oracle box bashes NetApp benchmark

    Save one MILLION dollars, get 32% more speed

    An Oracle mid-range ZFS storage array has beaten a NetApp filer on a SPEC benchmark, despite costing just one-fifth of the NetApp price. The SPECsfs2008 is designed to evaluate the speed and request-handling capabilities of file servers utilising the NFSv3 and CIFS protocols. We're only concerned with NFS here. The Sun ZFS …

    Storage 15 Mar 20:02

  • Cloud consultancy Appirio scores $60m VC wad

    Wasn't cloud supposed to be a snap?

    If cloud computing and SaaS applications were supposed to be so much easier than managing on-premise applications, how come we need a cloud consultancy like Appirio? The answer is simple: Integration, or the lack thereof. And that is why Appirio has been able to score $60m in its fourth round of venture capital funding. …

    Cloud Business 15 Mar 20:26

  • Moore's Law savior EUV faces uncertain future

    CPTF 2012 'The End of Optical Lithography' has arrived - now what?

    The optical lithography that etches the chips in your digital devices is reaching its limits, but exactly when its oft-touted replacement – extreme ultraviolet lithography, commonly known as EUV – will be ready for prime time remains unclear. "There are still some technical challenges which, of course, lead to a certain degree …

    PCs & Chips 15 Mar 20:41

  • IBM boasts of Power-AIX win at E-Trade Korea

    Ellison loses another Sparc/Solaris shop

    Big Blue is bragging once again about its ability to unseat its Unix-racket competitors from customer accounts after a big win at online stock trading company E-Trade Korea. E-Trade Korea is a big Sparc/Solaris shop, and was established a dozen years ago as a joint venture between the US-based online brokerage of the same name …

    Servers 15 Mar 20:43

  • iPhone/PS3 hacker Hotz arrested in pot bust

    Texas police roadblock SXSW talk

    George Hotz, aka geohot, has been arrested by Texas police on drugs charges while on his way to give a talk to the annual SXSW festival in Austin. Hotz, who shot to fame when he was sued by Sony for cracking his PS3 gaming console, was arrested at a notorious police checkpoint in the West Texas town of Sierra Blanca, and found …

    Crime 15 Mar 20:50

  • Spotify marks Australian launch

    Digerati poised to lead local streaming

    The long anticipated Australian launch details for music streaming service Spotify are poised to be unveiled as soon as next week as high profile digital executives begin to reveal their involvement. As revealed by El Reg in November, Spotify was entering the market imminently as confirmed by DMG CEO Cathy O'Connor . The …

    Music and Media 15 Mar 21:37

  • Australia and Korea link in super satellite hook-up

    Target galaxy 3.5 billion light years away

    Australian and Korean radio telescopes have hooked up for the first time to target a galaxy that is 3.5 billion light years away. The initiative included two CSIRO dishes near Coonabarabran and Narrabri in New South Wales, a telescope of the University of Tasmania near Hobart, and two telescopes operated by the Korean …

    Space 15 Mar 22:00

  • Clock ticking on NASA’s low-cost X-ray stargazer

    NuSTAR launch postponed

    NASA has set March 18 as the soonest revised date for the launch of its NuSTAR X-ray satellite observatory, after delaying the “flight readiness review” it had scheduled for March 13. According to NASA’s mission page, NuSTAR is now on a six-day countdown (at the time of writing). NuSTAR is a belt-tightening novelty for the …

    Space 15 Mar 22:30

  • Mobile phones cause ADHD in rodents

    Keep that handset away from pregnant mice

    Last year mobile phone radiation was elevated by the WHO to a “possible” cause of cancer (in line with other carcinogens like pickled vegetables and coffee), frightening easily panicked punters everywhere... Now there's some more cheery news – it also induces hyperactivity in unborn rodents. The Yale study published in Nature’ …

    Biology 15 Mar 23:00

  • Boffins build cyborg snails to generate electricity

    Species now needs a slow-mo Neo to free them

    A team of scientists have successfully implanted a bioelectronic fuel cell into a living organism and used its blood sugar to charge a battery. The team from Potsdam, New York's Clarkson University (thankfully nothing to do with Top Gear) implanted a fuel cell that runs off glucose that is naturally produced by the snail, and …

    Biology 15 Mar 23:01

  • Cisco, NetApp, cook 100,000-user SharePoint rig

    Design aims to stop users thinking SharePoint “never works right”

    Cisco has published a new Validated Design for SharePoint at rather large scale – up to 100,000 users – thanks to the signature FlexPod and vSphere 5 products from buddies partners NetApp and VMware. The proposed rig looks a little something like this. The design document offers the interesting observation that SharePoint …

    Hardware 15 Mar 23:45