5th April 2012 Archive

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'Super rogue wave' scuppers Lego pirate

Video (.mov) Australian experiment shows how giant waves emerge

Pity the poor Lego pirate in the video below: there he is, placidly riding over tiny waves, when a rogue wave arrives and upends his vessel. The video looks trivial, but it has a serious implication: the ANU scientists that put it together did so as part of the world’s ongoing effort to understand rogue waves that menace …

Science 5 Apr 00:56
IT urine bandit fired and charged

Did that IT guy just pee on my chair? Yes

An IT worker caught on camera urinating on the chairs of female colleagues has turned himself into local police and been charged with criminal offences. Raymond Charles Foley, 59, was initially dismissed from his IT job at US company Farm Bureau Financial Services after being busted for urinating, in a strange cat like sexual …

Jobs 5 Apr 01:15
SharePoint 2010 now supports Chrome, Firefox

Latest versions of third-party browsers supported, but IE6 cast out

Microsoft has made a small-but-useful change to SharePoint 2010, as the popular collaboration suite now supports Firefox and, for the first time, Chrome. The change was announced in a low-key blog post by Kirk Stark, Senior Writer on the SharePoint Server Platforms Team, which states “For any third-party browser (including …

Software 5 Apr 01:17
Ice age end was accelerated by CO₂

Core study fingers culprit before 'big melt', not after

A new global study of ice core samples and underwater sediment suggests that rising atmospheric CO2 preceded the ending of the last Ice Age – not the other way around. One of the favourite rhetorical devices of the climate change denier is to invert cause-and-effect – in other words, the carbon rise around the end of the last …

Science 5 Apr 01:28
Digital inbox players go postal over names

Australia Post fails in court takedown of new rival

Australia Post has failed to convince the Federal Court that aspirant rival Digital Post Australia has a dodgy name. The monopoly letter provider last week unveiled a plan to provide a digital inbox and cloud storage for bills and personal documents. Digital Post Australia had done so a few days earlier. Australia Post has …

Business 5 Apr 01:42
Scientists plan 3D printable robots for the home

Downloadable droids for every task

A team of academics has won a $10m grant for a five-year project to develop robots that can be designed and manufactured by anyone within 24 hours. “Our goal is to develop technology that enables anyone to manufacture their own customized robot. This is truly a game changer,” said Professor Vijay Kumar, who is leading the team …

Rise of the Machines 5 Apr 01:48
Sedna shrinks after new measurement

Trans-Neptunian object way smaller than Pluto may carry water ice

Dwarf planet wannabe Sedna is considerably smaller than previously assumed, according to a new study of Trans-Neptunian Objects (TNOs). Once the most distant object observed in the solar system, Sedna was thought to have a diameter of around 1700km. But a new paper, dubbed "TNOs are Cool": A survey of the trans-Neptunian …

Science 5 Apr 02:27
Intel goes back to school with StudyBook tablet

Chipzilla getting down with the kids

Intel is set to follow-up on its Classmate PC for school kids with a tablet for the education market, currently dubbed the StudyBook. The Register has learnt that the device will be launched next week. The 10-in tablet will feature dual operating systems and run Intel’s Medfield chips, according to a Digitimes report …

PCs & Chips 5 Apr 05:18
Netgear Powerline Nano 500 Ethernet-over-mains adaptor

Review Mains-line networking

When a vendor puts a colour-coded performance guide LED onto a powerline Ethernet product and admits that "best" throughput - the light is green, natch - is "greater than 80Mbps", you immediately realise how big a gap lies between the technology's reach and its grasp. Netgear's latest adaptor, the XAV5101 500 Nano, is labelled …

reghardware 5 Apr 06:00
Asian recruiters on the prowl for IT managers

Jobs market looking good for ex-pat pros

The technology jobs market in China, Hong Kong and Singapore is picking up in 2012 despite continued uncertainty for firms exporting to the US and Europe, with growing opportunities for ex-pat IT pros, according to recruiters. Michael Page International’s Employment Index report for Q2 shows things are beginning to get back on …

Jobs 5 Apr 06:00
Anonymous turns its fire on China

Over 480 gov and biz sites hit by hacktivist blitz

Hacktivist group Anonymous has finally turned its attention to the People’s Republic of China, claiming to have defaced more than 480 web sites over the past few days including government sites, whilst urging Chinese hackers to join its cause. The group apparently began its campaign in the region with the launch of its …

Security 5 Apr 06:15
TfL tosses another $33m at CSC

Outsourcing extension tacks another 27 months onto contract

Transport for London (TfL) has extended its outsourcing agreement with CSC. The extension, worth $33m, adds 27 months to the length of the original contract. Under the agreement, CSC will continue to provide TfL with IT services such as service desk, desktop support and delivery of real-time customer information at a number …

Government 5 Apr 07:03
Sync 'n' share startups hawk safer BYOD file-sharing

Like Dropbox, but with locks on

Dropbox file synchronisation and sharing is very popular but insecure. That's the cry from start-ups pushing their sync 'n' share products to business users. With the proliferation of smart, internet-connected devices – laptops, tablets, smartphones and desktops – all built by different suppliers, there is a need to share …

Cloud Business 5 Apr 07:35
Apple tells staff to 'capture' iPad 3s with Wi-Fi troubles

No-quibble replacements offered

Apple is investigating the growing number of claims that the New iPad - aka the iPad 3 - suffers from weak Wi-Fi woes. Information provided by Cupertino to support staff and Apple Store employees across the US, snapped by a worker and send to 9to5Mac, shows the company is now replacing iPad 3s brought in by customers who claim …

reghardware 5 Apr 07:50
Lords give automatic smut censorship bill the once-over

Opt-in web filth law will keep you safe ~~from fun~~

Internet service providers (ISPs) would be required to prevent customers accessing pornographic images unless those customers actively notify the ISPs that they want to access the material if draft new UK legislation being proposed receives backing. The Online Safety Bill, if enacted, would place a "duty" on ISPs and mobile …

Law 5 Apr 08:01
LSI's Nytro bombshell blows roof off next-gen PCIe flash

Rebranding exercise gave us an eyeful

LSI has launched its new Nytro rebranding and inadvertently pre-announced upcoming PCIe MLC flash cards. The storage and networking electronics biz is combining its legacy MegaRAID controller cards, WarpDrive SSDs and caching software in a portfolio of Nytro Application Acceleration products, and pushing the idea that PCIe …

Storage 5 Apr 08:28
Zanther Taposé

iOS App of the Week Ill-fated MS tablet tech comes to iPad

Oh the irony. Microsoft cancelled plans for its Courier tablet when Apple launched the iPad, but the Courier’s two-screen design has now found a home on the very device that killed it off, courtesy of Taposé from developer Zanther. Create your journal then add handwritten notes... The basic idea behind Taposé is nothing new …

reghardware 5 Apr 09:00
Samsung rolls out ultra high-speed microSD cards

UHS-1 interface

Samsung has launched a four times faster microSD card for tablets and LTE smartphones. The UHS-1 (ultra high speed) interface card stores up to 16GB and pumps data out at up to 80MB/sec. It is built from 20 nanometer-class, 64 gigabit toggle DDR 2.0 NAND. The UHS-1 interface has been seen on full-size SD cards, as used in …

Storage 5 Apr 09:22
Tesco's Blinkbox gets Disney films

Simultaneous release with future physical media

Tesco's Blinkbox movies-on-demand service has signed Disney. It will offer the Mickey Mouse company's films for rent or purchase. The deal covers old Disney movies but will also bring new releases to Blinkbox on the day they're released on physical media. Disney's roster of content includes Pixar movies and Dreamworks films …

reghardware 5 Apr 09:32
United Nations gifts NORTH KOREA with tech worth $50k

HPC blog A glimpse at Kim Jong-un's IT wish list...

The UN’s World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) is looking to gift the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (the bad Korea) with a little over $50k worth of hardware and peripherals, plus some training, with the goal of modernising North Korea’s patent and trademark applications. Really? That’s what’s highest on …

HPC 5 Apr 09:58
Ofcom calls for end to 0800 charges on mobiles

Freephone should be free, not 21p a minute

Brits calling freephone numbers for government helplines should be able to make those calls for free from their mobiles as well, Ofcom has said. Calls to 0800 numbers are free from landlines, but mobile operators charge up to 21p a minute for the supposedly "freephone" numbers, causing confusion to customers. Other 080 numbers …

Telecoms 5 Apr 10:02
Apple and publisher pals hold up US and EU watchdogs

Firms wriggle over ebook price-fixing probe settlement

Apple and two major publishing houses are holding out on settling the ebook price-fixing investigations from the US and Europe. While Simon & Schuster, HarperCollins and Hachette Book Group are all keen to reach an agreement with regulators in the US and EU, Penguin, Macmillan and Apple are all reluctant to shake hands on the …

Law 5 Apr 10:23
StorSimple in swerve towards biz data

Clouds hang around new boxes' back ends

Cloud storage gateway appliance StorSimple has changed direction, replaced its marketing head, and refreshed its product line. Originally StorSimple targeted specific applications such as SharePoint and Exchange for its iSCSI-accessed 5010 and 7010 appliances. They stored the app's working set in a combined SLC flash and 10K …

Infrastructure 5 Apr 10:28
Panasonic sharpens system cam selection with snappy GF5

World's fastest focuser, apparently

Panasonic sharpened its photography range this week with the launch of the Lumix GF5, a compact interchangeable-lens snapper with the world's fastest autofocus, according to Panasonic. The beginner-friendly GF5 - essentially an upgrade of the Lumix GF3 - snaps into action with a new 12Mp sensor and Venus, Panasonic's imaging …

reghardware 5 Apr 10:45
Aliens Blu-ray disc set

Review They mostly come out at night. Mostly.

James Cameron is often credited with turning science fiction from a cult or B-movie genre into a one that earned not just big money but critical success too. The breakthrough film was Aliens and the year was 1986. Aliens on Blu-ray: Two films for the price of one and a half Sure, George Lucas had already reinvigorated sci- …

reghardware 5 Apr 11:00
Fake cop Trojan 'detects offensive materials' on PCs, demands money

Crooks exploit those embarrassing files we all have

Security firms are warning about a rash of police-themed ransomware attacks. The Reveton Trojan warns victims that illegal content has supposedly been detected on infected machines, displaying a message supposedly from local police agencies demanding payment to unlock machines. To unlock an infected machine, marks are invited …

Malware 5 Apr 11:18
UK top dog for home Wi-Fi usage... almost

Ahead of all... except South Korea

Britain is second only to South Korea when it comes to the proportion of homes that have their own wireless network, we learned today. While 80.3 per cent of South Korean homes have a WLAN in place to provide internet access to a range of stationary and mobile gadgets, so do 73.3 per cent of UK homes, market watcher Strategy …

reghardware 5 Apr 11:27
Google's Page: Dying Jobs called ME, I didn't call him

Plus: Facebook don't bother me none

Larry Page has been back at the helm of Google for a year now, but so far his second tenure as the Chocolate Factory boss has been marred by his blinkered focus on overhauling the company to become much more of a social property online. In a mildly probing interview with Bloomberg Businessweek yesterday, Page defended his biz …

Business 5 Apr 11:38
California judge hauls in Samsung CEO, bigwigs for Apple to grill

Koh Choi blow joy for Cupertino in patent tussle

Apple's lawyers have won the opportunity to give Samsung chief Gee Sung Choi the third degree in the US patent battle between the tech giants. Californian district judge Lucy Koh has granted Apple permission to get a deposition from the CEO, but has limited it to two hours. Courts get a say on so-called "apex" depositions …

Law 5 Apr 11:58
FCO splashes millions on Johnny Foreigner's energy 'awareness'

Comment British Empire reborn – 'outdoor relief' for the climate class

John Stuart Mill described the British Empire as "outdoor relief for the middle classes". The phrase "indoor relief", at the time, referred to the state-sponsored workhouse programme, which invented jobs for the poor to prevent them being idle. Mill was implying that the Empire was a gigantic job creation scheme. But in the …

Energy 5 Apr 12:28
Motorola brings 3G to Xoom tablets

Better mobility

Motorola improved the connectivity of its Xoom 2 range this week, with the launch of 3G compatible versions of its 10.1in and 8.2in tablets. The Xoom 2 packs a dual-core 1.2GHz processor with Android 2.3 Gingerbread Android 3.2 Honeycomb. There's a 1.3Mp front-facing and 5Mp rear-facing camera, 1GB Ram and the choice of 16GB …

reghardware 5 Apr 12:53
PLASMA GERM BLASTER GUN invented for cleaning skin

Set phaser to 'sterilise', Dr McCoy

A handheld plasma blaster that can beam away 17 layers of bacteria could be used in medical emergencies to clean skin and wounds, said a physics boffin presenting the device in the Journal of Physics D: Applied Physics today. The plasma gun or "flashlight" requires just a 5V battery to produce enough cold plasma to kill even …

Biology 5 Apr 12:57
IBM ramps up to catch up with undisclosed Netezza demand

Running out of boxes was 'great'

IBM has taken steps to ensure the growing demand for its Netezza data warehouse appliance doesn’t mean that Big Blue runs out of boxes in 2012. Arvind Krishna, the man in charge of IBM’s entire information management portfolio, told The Reg he has increased manufacturing capacity for Netezza ahead of yet-more crushing levels …

Data Warehousing 5 Apr 13:30
550,000-strong army of Mac zombies spreads across world

Infected machines, not blank-eyed shuffling fanbois

The Mac-specific Flashback Trojan created a zombie army of 550,000 Mac machines by exploiting a Java hole that Apple only patched on Tuesday, six weeks after Microsoft plugged it up on Windows machines. This is according to Russian anti-virus firm Dr Web, which arrived at the figure after it successfully managed to sinkhole …

Malware 5 Apr 13:52
Asda knocks out Kobo e-reader for £49

Cheap reads

Asda has knocked the basic Kobo e-reader to just under 50 quid. Usually £67, it's now £49, though you can add £2.95 to that if you want it delivered, more if you want it delivered quickly. Or you can pick it up from your local Asda supermarket. The Walmart-owned chain didn't say how many of the low-cost e-readers it has in …

reghardware 5 Apr 14:11
HP Labs chief Prith Banerjee departs

'Presided over demise of a once-great facility' - mole

Prith Banerjee, the head of HP Laboratories, has resigned for undisclosed reasons and is joining Zurich-based power and automation tech outfit ABB. Banerjee, SVP of research and the HP Labs director, is officially leaving on 15 April. HP CEO Meg Whitman issued a letter about his departure yesterday, which says: "He will be …

Business 5 Apr 14:24
Apple has 7.85in 'iPad Mini' in its labs

Multiple sources say so, claims blogger

Well-connected Apple blogger John Gruber reckons Cupertino's other tablet company - the iPad guys, not the ones working on Amazon's Kindle - are indeed messing around with 7.85in iPad prototypes. "They have one in the lab," he says, "that runs at 1024 x 768 and its just like the 9.7in iPad shrunk down. It's just the iPad, …

reghardware 5 Apr 14:45
A month to go on Cookie Law: Will Google Analytics get a free pass?

Analysis Slippery ICO can't be pinned in privacy mud-wrestle

Website operators in Blighty have been continuously perplexed by the upcoming enforcement of the EU's cookie law on 26 May. The Information Commissioner's Office granted affected firms a year-long breather to get themselves up to scratch back in 2011, but the clock is now ticking and the law – however watered down it might …

Networks 5 Apr 15:00
Minecraft maker plots ultimate videogame for coders

Star tech

Minecraft designer Markus 'Notch' Persson has revealed Mojang's latest project, 0x10C, a Sci-Fi themed universe set billions of years in the future that allows gamers to code and share their own computer software. Notch plans a similar development path as Minecraft, with heaps of user-created content, although not in an …

reghardware 5 Apr 15:07
Gorging Dell crams Canadian legacy-app rebore outfit into cakehole

Belly-busting goliath on the Make

Michael Dell is on a binge. Not drinking, but buying software companies. Dell has made its second acquisition of the week aimed at legacy applications running on proprietary mainframe and minicomputers from IBM by snapping up Make Technologies. This is Dell's third acquisition this week, and the fifth in the past month. With …

Financial News 5 Apr 15:27
CSC, NHS extend jaw-jaw on disaster deal: 500 jobs go

Fail to reach deal over twitching corpse of Lorenzo

The NHS and IT contractor CSC can't agree on the terms of their amputated contract so have pushed a decision on the deal back two months, leaving a temporary arrangement in place. CSC's deal to digitise patient records – Project Lorenzo – was finally scuppered in December last year and CSC has paid back £1.8bn to the NHS after …

Jobs 5 Apr 15:54
Sky News admits two counts of computer hacking

Brazens it out with public interest defense

Sky News, which is partially owned by Rupert Murdoch's News International, has admitted that it twice authorized journalists to hack the email accounts of people it was researching for stories. The first case took place in 2008 and involved the case of John Darwin, who was dubbed "Canoe Man" by the British press after he …

Security 5 Apr 18:51
Viacom's anti-Google copyright case rises from the dead

Appeals court: DCMA squabble can go forward

The class-action lawsuit filed by Viacom, the English Premier League, and others against Google has risen from the dead, thanks to a reversal of lower court decisions by the 2nd US Circuit Court of Appeals. "It's hard to characterize this as anything other than a loss for Google, and potentially a significant one," Eric …

Media 5 Apr 20:09
Sophos shutters partner portal after hack attack

Suspicious software found on security firm's servers

Sophos has shut down its portal for partners after finding two software packages on its servers designed to allow access to them – and possibly to user data stored there, as well. The security software firm posted a statement on the portal explaining that it had spotted suspicious behavior on some of its servers this Tuesday. …

Security 5 Apr 22:45
Apple's stock price swells above stuttering Google

Somewhere, Steve Jobs is smiling

There used to be a running joke – and perhaps one with more than a little truth to it – that one of the reasons the late Steve Jobs didn't split Apple's fast-rising stock was that he wanted to someday see it pass Google in per-share price. Had Apple's co-founder lived exactly six months longer, he would have seen that day come …

Financial News 5 Apr 23:20