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30th March 2012 Archive

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  • Quickflix hits New Zealand

    Slingshot drops metering in support

    Australia movie streaming aspirant Quickflix has launched across the Tasman in New Zealand delivering on demand content to a range of connected devices. In its first international launch, the service has been made available on internet-connected PCs and Apple Mac, Sony Bravia TVs, Blu-ray players and PlayStation 3 game …

    Business 30 Mar 2012, 02:19

  • E-tailing beats the high street: eBay

    Mobile the next wave

    Australian internet retailers are making hay while the sun casts shadows on their high street cousins, according to eBay Australia. In its annual survey, eBay's Online Business Index (OBI), research revealed that ebay’s top 2000 sellers experienced 45 per cent revenue growth in the last year with around 160 Australian …

    The Channel 30 Mar 2012, 02:20

  • FLA, Apple and Foxconn shake on new deal for Chinese workers

    Critics argue some abuses are still being ignored

    The Fair Labor Association is claiming to have secure assurances from Apple and its supplier Foxconn that they will make sweeping changes to workers’ pay and conditions at the latter’s Chinese plants in line with the FLA’s latest report, but critics have argued they don’t go far enough. As Apple CEO Tim Cook wraps up his …

    Business 30 Mar 2012, 05:52

  • China's budget handset makers facing mass cull

    Lenovo, ZTE and Huawei have the low end in their sights

    China’s mobile phone market is set for a massive shake-up as hundreds of so-called 'white box' handset makers based in the country go bankrupt as a result of increasing competition at the low end of the market from established, big name domestic players such as Huawei, ZTE and Lenovo. Digitimes reported that the three big …

    Networks 30 Mar 2012, 05:53

  • Philips 42PFL7666 42in 3D LED Smart TV

    Review Passive aggressive

    Philips spent much of 2011 on the periphery of the televisual market, bereft of Freeview HD tuners and dogged by confusion over its long-term ambitions, having off-loaded its TV business into a joint venture. But things are off to a better start in 2012. Collaborative effort: Philips' 7000 series TV This 42-incher is one of …

    Hardware 30 Mar 2012, 06:00

  • Security guards brawl over world's biggest Apple Store

    Caught on camera: shopping mall wars

    Security guards from rival shopping malls in the eastern Chinese city of Dalian have been caught on camera brawling after one group took offence to a wall of giant Apple billboards hastily erected to promote the arrival of a new fruity store in the city. The new shop is reportedly set to be the largest Apple Store in the world …

    Bootnotes 30 Mar 2012, 06:50

  • EMC eyeing XtremIO ... just a rumble on the jungle drums?

    Or it might be the sound of back-end Thunder

    Is EMC eyeing up flash array startup XtremIO, the one that's making extreme I/O claims about the all-flash array its developing? El Reg heard a rumble from the storage jungle drums that this was so, but our source went deep into the bamboo as soon as we asked for more. So we asked ourselves why EMC should bother. Let's start …

    Storage 30 Mar 2012, 07:02

  • RIM to exit the consumer phone market

    Push to be pulled from the High Street

    Having persuaded many a teenager to adopt the BlackBerry, RIM last night gave them the finger - metaphorically - and announced it was focusing on big businesses instead, an action spurred by its lousy quarterly results. Some say RIM did poorly in the consumer market, but it certainly built up a strong customer base among …

    Phones 30 Mar 2012, 07:28

  • Exploding dinosaur theory EXPLODED

    Bone botherers blast belly-burst boffinry

    Bone-bothering boffins have long theorised that sea-dwelling ichthyosaurs were prone to exploding because their skeletons are often found in a scattered pattern. Not that a time-traveller from the future was there and lobbed a hand grenade at them - but that the creatures' decomposition process produced enough putrefaction …

    Science 30 Mar 2012, 07:31

  • Drobo inks chumship with Acronis in virty cloud combo package

    Also sells a petabyte in a single lunchtime

    Drobo has made a hefty petabyte sale to an undisclosed single customer, and has announced a formal partnership with backup supplier Acronis. Drobo makes snazzy, curvesome desktop storage boxes that you populate yourself with varying capacity disk drives and SSDs. It also has 8-bay and 1-bay rackmount products for small …

    Virtualization 30 Mar 2012, 07:57

  • Climate-change scepticism must be 'treated', says enviro-sociologist

    Dubious on warmo peril? You're the kind who'd own slaves

    Scepticism regarding the need for immediate and massive action against carbon emissions is a sickness of societies and individuals which needs to be "treated", according to an Oregon-based professor of "sociology and environmental studies". Professor Kari Norgaard compares the struggle against climate scepticism to that against …

    Science 30 Mar 2012, 08:18

  • Don't be alarmed - but 545,000 NHS patient files are going online

    Not to worry, probably been lost on a USB stick already

    NHS Oxfordshire is to put the medical records of around 545,000 people online in an effort to give healthcare professionals faster access to patients' information. The Oxfordshire care records programme will be made up of two parts: the national summary care record (SCR) and the local Oxfordshire care summary. The cost of the …

    Security 30 Mar 2012, 08:38

  • Linux 'internet of things' gizmo ships

    Automate your (open source) world

    Ninja Blocks has begun shipping its eponymous Linux gadget designed to interact with sensors and automate your world. The team behind the device began taking advance orders this week, and the first Ninja Blocks and sensor packs started shipping from home nation Australia this morning to folk who backed the endeavour on …

    Hardware 30 Mar 2012, 08:45

  • 'People expect privacy on Facebook and Twitter'

    QuotW 'Too posh to push? You haven't got the Right Stuff'

    This was the week when the competition over the new nano-SIM standard was heating up as Apple reportedly said it would waive its patent fees as long as its design was chosen. But Nokia, who has a competing design for the teeny SIMs, is arguing that its proposals are far better. It will be up to ETSI, the European …

    Bootnotes 30 Mar 2012, 08:58

  • Avnet: Our buy of tech provider to BBC and Boots is quite routine

    'Nothing to worry about', burps firm after end-user feast

    Avnet Technology Solutions boss Phil Gallagher has defended its acquisition of IBM middleware reseller and consultancy Ascendant Technology (Atech) - claiming the deal poses no threat to resellers. Earlier this week the enterprise distributor gobbled $90m sales outfit Atech for an undisclosed sum, which has operations in North …

    The Channel 30 Mar 2012, 09:27

  • Disappearing bees mystery: Boffins finger regicide pesticides

    Buzz-buggers say neo-Nick O'Teen makes drones get lost

    Boffins investigating the ongoing mystery of disappearing bees have linked commonly used pesticides to their decline. A moss carder bumblebee. Credit: David Goulson Two studies, one by UK researchers and one in France, have suggested that neonicotinoid insecticides, which have been in use since the early 1990s, could be …

    Science 30 Mar 2012, 10:02

  • O2 launches On & On mobile tariff

    Telecoms ci comms ça?

    O2 announced On & On this morning, a new tariff that offers mobile users unlimited minutes, texts and a gig of data for £26 a month. That price is only available to customers willing to keep their current phone, though, with the cost of contracts with new handsets starting from £36 per month. On & On brings unlimited calls to …

    Mobile 30 Mar 2012, 10:08

  • £575m school IT bonanza showers Capita, RM, 16 others

    Blighty's kids are truly in safe hands

    A Department for Education (DfE) framework agreement worth £575m has been awarded to 18 suppliers. Schools, colleges and other education services will be able to use the framework to obtain information management services, according to the Official Journal of the European Union. Learning services, including ICT service- …

    The Channel 30 Mar 2012, 10:13

  • Euro data roaming price cut too shallow

    Comment Mobile net will remain closed by costs

    From 1 July 2012, accessing the internet using your phone or tablet while you're travelling around Europe will get less expensive. But don't expect to by downloading media files on the cheap. Even come 2014, it's still going to cost a packet. Following the agreement reached between European bureaucrats from the EU, EC and EP …

    Mobile 30 Mar 2012, 10:24

  • LOHAN demonstrates impressive sucking skills

    REHAB joins the Eight Mile High club - but is it enough?

    This week really sucked down at the Low Orbit Helium Assisted Navigator (LOHAN) headquarters as we put the vacuum pump for our Rocketry Experimental High Altitude Barosimulator (REHAB) experiment through its paces. Those of you unacquainted with REHAB should have a shufti here for background info on our garden shed hypobaric …

    SPB 30 Mar 2012, 10:30

  • Apple products now found in half of all American dwellings

    A few years ago it was just another snake cult

    Once the nerdy niche player, Apple is now officially mainstream: the majority of American households own at least one device from Cupertino, according to a CNBC survey of gadget ownership. The survey found that the typical Apple owner still tends to be male, college-educated, younger and lives on the West Coast. (CNBC …

    Hardware 30 Mar 2012, 10:46

  • Griffin Reserve Battery Case

    Accessory of the Week Keep your iPhone topped up

    If you’re anything like me and use your smartphone for everything from arguing on Twitter to watching the latest episode of Homeland on the train to work, you’ll find yourself re-charging its battery daily. Forget to do it, and you’ll run out of steam, just when you need to make that important call or fire off that hilarious …

    Phones 30 Mar 2012, 11:00

  • Google planning to brand and sell Android tablets

    Aims to park tanks on Cupertino lawn where allies failed

    Google is bypassing the channel to sell co-branded Android tablets directly via web shops. The internet advertising giant's Android operating system has struggled to take a serious bite out of Apple's fondleslab market share and now the web goliath is fixin' to take the matter in hand rather than relying on hardware partners …

    The Channel 30 Mar 2012, 11:13

  • DMOL proposes Freeview EPG shuffle to pull in IPTV

    Channels ferried

    The organisation that manages the UK's digital terrestrial TV platform has revealed how it hopes to rejig the Freeview EPG Logical Channel Number (LCN) list to create space for more channels. And, for the first time, to incorporate IPTV services. DMOL (DTT Multiplex Operators Ltd) wants to make the EPG listing more easy to …

    Hardware 30 Mar 2012, 11:20

  • Vote now for the WORST movie EVER

    Poll Cinematic roster of shame for your viewing displeasure

    It's taken us more than a week, but we're finally ready to raise the curtain on the contenders for the worst movie ever title. We're still a bit groggy after days of wading through the most malodorous cinematic effluent as nominated by you, our beloved readers, so while you get on with the voting you'll excuse us if we go for …

    Bootnotes 30 Mar 2012, 11:30

  • Nvidia wants sub-£130 Tegra 3 tablets out this summer

    Working to make fondleslabs cheaper

    Chip maker Nvidia this week promised it will bring the price of its Tegra 3 hardware down sufficiently to see Android tablets packing the chip hit price points as low as $199 (£125). The company's CEO, Jen-Hsun Huang, insisted such budget Tegra 3 slates will be available this summer, the New York Times reports. This perhaps …

    Tablets 30 Mar 2012, 11:34

  • RIM to try to pull in punters with low-cost BlackBerrys

    Consumer exit denied

    RIM has denied it is pulling away from the consumer market. Despite comments made yesterday by the BlackBerry firm's new CEO, Thorsten Heins, that RIM will be tightening its focus on its core corporate offerings and customer base - widely seen as a plan to move away from the consumer sphere - the company told us it will pursue …

    Phones 30 Mar 2012, 11:38

  • Report: Facebook working to improve its 'search' technology

    People say 'search' when they mean advertising ... bitch

    Facebook is reportedly working on an overhaul to its clumsy search option. According to Bloomberg Businessweek, which cites two people familiar with the project, the company is attempting to improve the feature. Lars Rasmussen - who built the original Google Maps alongside his brother Jens before taking charge of the unloved …

    Networks 30 Mar 2012, 11:44

  • Is it time to take the fight into the Clouds?

    The years to come seem waste of breath, to server minders

    Rackspace Hosting has a vested interest in convincing IT shops that they don't need to own and operate their own servers and that they should leave it to the professionals with "fanatical support." And it looks like many companies are getting grumpy enough to give clouds a whirl. Two and a half years ago, Rackspace started a …

    Cloud 30 Mar 2012, 11:58

  • Sales show tablets and Ultrabooks not rivals

    Key battle is brand vs brand, not Ultrabook vs tablet

    Intel's hope that it can take on and beat the tablet with skinny laptops - Ultrabooks - may prove unfounded, in the UK at least. That's the conclusion to be drawn from sales value data released by GfK, a market watcher, which shows that while tablets took a greater share of over-the-counter sales in February compared to …

    Laptops 30 Mar 2012, 12:11

  • Capita poises axe over 1,000 staff - jobs headed to India

    Exclusive As it lands huge UK.gov deal

    Capita IT Services (CITS) has told 1,000 staff they are at risk of redundancy and plans to offshore roles to India. The cuts were announced to employees this morning on the same day that the Department for Education confirmed that CITS was among 18 companies selected for an £575m IT framework. Company insiders told The Reg …

    The Channel 30 Mar 2012, 12:14

  • RIM insists it is not exiting consumer market - just 'refocusing'

    Rioting hoodies can rely on us

    RIM has reassured shop-wrecking hoodies everywhere that it is not in fact planning to exit the consumer market - after a comment during the BlackBerry-maker's earnings call was misconstrued. Pundits were widely anticipating the sharp exit of the Canadian firm from consumer smartphones, withdrawing from its fight against …

    Mobile 30 Mar 2012, 12:18

  • Sony sends Xperia Play Android 4 beta dev-wards

    Gentlemen, test your games

    Sony has handed "advanced" developers a pre-release version of Android 4 Ice Cream Sandwich for its Xperia Play games phone. The phonemaker formerly known as Sony Ericsson said it was releasing the code ahead of final testing and bugfixing to allow games developers to test their apps with the new Google OS. Coders were told …

    Phones 30 Mar 2012, 12:32

  • Yes, Prime Minister to return after 24 years

    The modern Sir Humphrey will be rather different

    The great satire of British bureaucracy, Yes, Prime Minister, is to return after 24 years away from our TV screens. The original scriptwriting duo of Antony Jay and Jonathan Lynn has already turned in their first plot, says UKTV, which has has commissioned the show to be broadcast on UK Gold. The BBC originals, Yes, Minister and …

    Bootnotes 30 Mar 2012, 12:38

  • Money mules are REAL victims of phishing, says Microsoft iconoclast

    WHEN will someone think of the stolen cash handlers?

    Microsoft has somewhat controversially claimed that money mules are the ultimate victims of phishing emails, rather than the consumers or banks that cyber-crooks target in online banking scams. Mules act as middlemen who receive funds from compromised bank accounts before sending the bulk of the cash overseas to the organisers …

    Security 30 Mar 2012, 13:02

  • Yahoo! finally! adds! Do! Not! Track! tool!

    Don't slurp me, bro

    Yahoo! is to begin slotting in support for a Do Not Track header across its entire online estate just a few months after its erstwhile privacy wonk quit the firm in favour of a job at Google. Anne Toth, who is now working on the Chocolate Factory's Google+, had opposed DNT. Yahoo! said the tool, which will also be implemented …

    Media 30 Mar 2012, 13:26

  • TONIGHT, Let's ALL MAKE LOVE in SHOREDITCH

    ¡Bong! Waxing philosophical ... with morphine and Thai hired help

    [It takes more than severe first-degree burns from a drug-related snowboard accident to keep our Tech Venture Capitalist down. This week finds him recuperating, and in a reflective mood - Ed] Where's the Bong? I've been away - but only to hell and back. Let me explain. It was all going so well in the sunshine at Tignes. The …

    Bootnotes 30 Mar 2012, 13:57

  • Micron settles with Oracle in chip price-fixing case

    Takes a hefty DRAM from can of legal whup-ass

    Chipmaker Micron Technology has reached a settlement with Oracle in a lawsuit the company brought over the price of memory. Oracle alleged that Micron had conspired with four unnamed companies to inflate DRAM chip prices paid by Oracle's Sun Microsystems business from 1998 until at least 2002 and claimed damages. Micron said …

    Servers 30 Mar 2012, 14:29

  • Apple pushes patents for 3D avatar authoring

    iLike Mii

    Apple is preparing to launch a 3D avatar app which could be a sign the Cupertino giant is ready to push its own gaming service. The company applied to patent the technology behind the app back in 2010, but the software is now in the final stages of development, according to Patently Apple, which dug up some images of the Apple …

    Software 30 Mar 2012, 14:40

  • Top Italian OPERA boffin steps down after faster-than-light mistake

    Gran Sasso lab promises more neutrino experiments, though

    The Italian boffin who led the OPERA experiment that reported neutrinos travelling faster than the speed of light has resigned today after the results were refuted by other scientists. Italy's national institute of nuclear physics (INFN) said that physicist Antonio Ereditato had stepped down from his position with OPERA. " …

    Science 30 Mar 2012, 15:00

  • Best Buy shuttering 50 stores, laying off staff in $800m cost slash

    Bloodied by retreat from Europe

    Months after beating a retreat from the UK struggling retailer Best Buy is to shutter 50 stores in the US as part of a multi-year $800m (£500m) cost reduction programme. The experiment in Blighty which cost Best Buy and its joint venture partner Carphone Warehouse (CPW) £200m ended in January but the after effects were felt in …

    The Channel 30 Mar 2012, 15:02

  • Sugar content now to be measured in Cadbury Creme Eggs

    1 Coke = 2 choc-nugs packed with, well, whatever it is

    It's evident that our beloved readers share our penchant for improbable and unorthodox units of measurement, because we've had a load of emails pointing us in the direction of XKCD, where the Cadbury Creme Egg has officially become the measure of how much sugar there is in a fizzy drink. Good stuff, although the idea of …

    Bootnotes 30 Mar 2012, 15:30

  • Use the holy word of God to stay secure online, says bishop

    What he opens no one can shut, what he shuts no one can open

    A bishop in Blighty has suggested that passages from the Bible can be used to create memorable but hard to crack passwords. The Right Reverend James Langstaff urged his congregation to stop using pets' name or stock phrases for login credentials in favour of passwords derived from passages in the New Testament. "The Bible …

    Security 30 Mar 2012, 15:59

  • Ravello Systems gets the KVM band back together

    Stealthy startup plots course to clouds

    It looks like the people behind Qumranet, who brought us the KVM hypervisor, are getting back together to cook up some new cloudy wares. Navin Thadani, formerly senior director of the virtualization business at commercial Linux distributor and cloud fabric wannabe Red Hat, has taken the SVP of product management and marketing …

    Cloud 30 Mar 2012, 16:27

  • Avere moves from accelerating filers to building them

    Diversifies across the standing-reproach-to-NetApp sector

    Avere is moving from accelerating filers to building them, introducing its own Edge Filer plus filer migration and replication software too. It's starting to compete directly with EMC and NetApp NAS boxes. At a press briefing in Sunnyvale CEO Ron Bianchini said; "AOS 3.0 is what we really wanted to build." He says it builds on …

    Storage 30 Mar 2012, 17:01

  • Visa and MasterCard warn of credit card data breach

    Updated Rumors swirl over size of snafu

    Visa and MasterCard have been quietly informing banking partners that a third-party supplier has suffered a major breach of security that could let the attacker clone users' cards. According to Krebs on Security, the credit card companies are warning that between January 21 and February 25, a successful attack appears to have …

    Security 30 Mar 2012, 17:16

  • Storage upstart boasts of not losing a single customer...

    But hasn't sold a single box either

    At a press briefing in startup Pure Storage's Mountain View HQ, CEO Scott Dietzen said: "We have yet to lose a customer engagement against any other flash vendor, including Violin Memory." The company is not actually selling product yet but is engaged in an extended beta trial. Pure Storage is developing a sharable all-flash …

    Storage 30 Mar 2012, 17:26

  • Workers worry about pay cuts from Apple, Foxconn pact

    'We are here to work and not to play'

    Labor-conditions activists and feel-good petitioners may be pleased with Apple's agreement with contract-manufacturing giant Foxconn to cut back on workers' overtime, but there's another affected class that's not as pleased with the outcome: the workers themselves. "We are worried we will have less money to spend," Foxconn …

    Business 30 Mar 2012, 17:44

  • Verizon plans bandwidth-gobbling mobile video service

    'Now, about that $3.6bn spectrum deal...'

    Verizon plans to launch a mobile-video service by the end of this year, a move that would put even more traffic onto its already overburdened network. "We could have something out that would be the beginnings of an integrated offering in time for the holidays," Verizon CEO Lowell McAdam told The Wall Street Journal on Friday ( …

    Broadband 30 Mar 2012, 19:55

  • Ape sanctuary seeks funds for armed Robo Bonobo

    And you can talk to the animals…

    An ape sanctuary in the US has posted an unusual request on KickStarter, seeking funds to build a robot ape under its residents' control and to allow members of the public to talk to the primates. The appeal was launched by Ken Schweller, head programmer for the Great Ape Trust in Des Moines, Iowa. The center is home to two …

    Science 30 Mar 2012, 21:04

  • EMC registers mysterious new trademark

    So what is VSPEX?

    EMC has trademarked a new product name: VSPeX. So what the heck is it? Searches on EMC websites reveal that VSPeX is a way to enable "faster virtual infrastructure deployment, greater flexibility of choice, efficiency, and lower risk." The trademark info can be seen here, and is dated 12 February 2012. It is described as: The …

    Storage 30 Mar 2012, 23:07