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24th April 2012 Archive

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  • Microsoft unveils paid SkyDrive options

    7GB of storage should be enough for nearly everyone

    Microsoft has revealed the price for paid services on its SkyDrive cloud storage, which kick in at US$10/year, US$25/year and US$50/year for 20GB, 50GB or 100GB respectively. Paid services also gain the name “SkyDrive updates”. The company has also upped the free storage available to newbies to 7Gb, citing the graph of current …

    Cloud 24 Apr 2012, 00:08

  • Google wanted Java 'partnership' with Sun

    Oracle shows Google emails suggesting partnership or licence

    The head of Google's Android development team, Andy Rubin, sent internal emails advising Google that the company would need to either partner with Sun or buy a licence to gain access to the parts of Java needed to make Android a success. The emails came to light in today's court proceedings, as Oracle's counsel David Boies …

    Business 24 Apr 2012, 01:16

  • China's rare earth policy backs Apple into a corner

    Report says fondleslabs factories are located near source

    Apple’s shiny fondleslabs are made in China not only because of the low cost of labour in the People’s Republic but also due to the surging prices and tightening export restrictions on rare earth minerals which the nation has a near monopoly on, according to a report. Although Apple has been notoriously secretive about the …

    Business 24 Apr 2012, 03:24

  • Four CEOs better than one as Huawei profits slump

    Rotating CEO plan not to be criticised as "Leniency will help them succeed"

    Chinese telecoms equipment maker Huawei has taken the unusual step of appointing a panel of three CEOs and a plan to rotate them every six months, after its latest financials (PDF) saw profits plummet 53 per cent despite revenue rising 11.7 per cent to around 204 billion yuan (£20bn) last year. The firm said its net profit …

    Business 24 Apr 2012, 03:33

  • NBNCo loses lynchpin exec

    Telstra deal architect Tim Smeallie departs

    NBN Co’s third foundation employee Tim Smeallie, the architect of the cornerstone Telstra network deal, is leaving the carrier. Smeallie, the carrier's head of commercial strategy, will leave NBN Co in mid-May. The high profile departure comes as the national network moves from planning to execution and operation. Last month …

    Policy 24 Apr 2012, 05:02

  • Look back in Ascii: Computing in the 1980s

    Retro Week When computing was truly personal

    When I landed the job of Doctor Who Script Editor in 1981, I knew I needed a computer. Actually it was something I'd known since the age of 12, but back then you couldn't get started for less than half a million dollars. Now you could pick up a Sinclair ZX81 for a shade under fifty quid in kit form. But if you wanted a serious …

    Vintage 24 Apr 2012, 06:00

  • NHS trusts offer £5m wad for pics and comms gear

    Will include voice recog and image archives

    Three health trusts in south-west England are seeking a new picture archive and communications system (Pacs). The five-year agreement, valued at a potential £5m, is being handled by Bristol and Weston NHS Purchasing Consortium on behalf of the North Bristol trust, University Hospitals Bristol foundation trust and Weston Area …

    The Channel 24 Apr 2012, 07:01

  • Euro Central Bank to tighten grip on web cash security

    Seeks new standards to protect accounts

    The European Central Bank (ECB) is consulting on new standards to increase the security of internet payments in the European Union. The draft recommendations (26-page/991KB PDF) incorporate the work of the European Forum on the Security of Retail Payments (SecuRe Pay), which was set up in 2011 to encourage cooperation between …

    Management 24 Apr 2012, 07:31

  • Reg Hardware Retro Week Complete Coverage

    Retro Week Step back to the 8-bit world

    Thirty years ago today, a pre-knighthood Sir Clive Sinclair launched his first colour computer, the ZX Spectrum, and the early 1980s home computing revolution got a good a shove forward like no other before it. Many a Reg reader can trace his or her engagement with information technology back to that point, but whether your …

    Hardware 24 Apr 2012, 08:00

  • Brit upstart flogs cloudy SaaS to clipboard-waving bods

    Infosec 2012 Hit compliance standards for less

    UK-based startup SureCloud is flogging a cloud-based auditing and compliance platform at mid-market businesses with high info-security standards. SureCloud’s Unified Compliance Platform pulls together component elements such as vulnerability scanning, SIEM (security information & event management), wireless intrusion detection …

    Cloud 24 Apr 2012, 08:03

  • Educating Rory: Are BBC reporters unteachable?

    Mailbag Some says it's a lost cause. Others disagree

    Rory Cellan-Jones yesterday returned to the scene of the crime after his piece last week detailing the day he spent in Silicon Roundabout "learning computer programming". Rory had spent a day learning HTML – "a programming language", we were told – and returned humbled, as truly humbled as Uriah Heep, at the awesomeness of it …

    Media 24 Apr 2012, 08:32

  • Bit9 wants to bin 'broken' antivirus, install whitelisting tech

    Infosec 2012 A question of trust

    Bit9 is using the Infosec show as a launchpad for its move into Europe as part of its wider ambitions to displace traditional antivirus technologies from corporate desktops and data centres. The firm is marketing its brand of trust-based application control and whitelisting as a better way of tackling the growing malware …

    The Channel 24 Apr 2012, 09:02

  • Masabi takes phone ticketing across the Pond

    American trains get barcoded

    Passengers riding Boston's trains will, by the autumn, be able to pay for and download tickets with their mobile phone – even if it's not particularly smart. The system will be trialled over the summer, before network-wide deployment by the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority in the autumn. That deployment will allow …

    Mobile 24 Apr 2012, 09:22

  • Sony denies Netflix app to older Bravia smart TVs

    VoD service limited to 2012 models

    Sony today heralded the arrival of Netflix on its Sony Entertainment Network, the content it provides through its smart TVs, Blu-ray Disc players, media streams and, of course, the PlayStation 3. That's good for Netflix subscribers with a PS3, but other fans of the video-on-demand service are stuffed unless they happen to own …

    Hardware 24 Apr 2012, 09:22

  • XtremIO buy to spark flash array startup-gobbling frenzy

    EMC's portfolio gap-filler

    We're being told by people close to the action that EMC is buying XtremIO for its peer-to-peer, shared, scale-out flash array technology. Research analyst Andrew Nowinski from Piper Jaffray has positioned XtremIO diagrammatically in the EMC product space, showing how it fills a gap in EMC's storage product portfolio at the top …

    Storage 24 Apr 2012, 09:42

  • Microsoft unveils Windows 8 'release preview' for June

    Is this an RTM I see before me?

    Windows 8 will be signed off and released to PC manufacturers in June, paving the way for a September or October launch. Microsoft will deliver what it's calling a "release preview" of Windows 8 in the first week of June, Windows chief Steven Sinofsky has revealed. Sinofsky announced the news at Windows 8 Dev Days in Japan, …

    Software 24 Apr 2012, 09:57

  • US trade commission: Xbox 360 violates Motorola patents

    Microsoft stung

    The US International Trade Commission (ITC) has ruled that Microsoft's Xbox 360 does indeed infringe Motorola's intellectual property rights. The ITC issued its preliminary findings yesterday, backing four out of the five claims made by Motorola against Microsoft. These include patents covering the efficient transfer of video …

    Games 24 Apr 2012, 10:05

  • Toshiba decides not to pick over Elpida's corpse

    Firm fails to get a partner to bid for bankrupt firm

    Toshiba is reportedly no longer in the running to pick over the bones of bankrupt chipmaker Elpida Memory after it couldn't put together a joint bid with other firms. Sources close to the talks let Reuters know that Toshiba wouldn't be taking part in the second round of bidding on Friday this week after talks stalled with …

    Financial News 24 Apr 2012, 10:14

  • HDS swaps out AMS for HUS file-block-and-object stuffed box

    Hitachi Command and control...

    Hitachi Data Systems (HDS) has replaced its mid-range AMS storage array with the Hitachi Unified Storage (HUS) array that stores block, file and object data in one box. It is managed by the Hitachi Command Suite which is now a single software management facility for all HDS products. HDS claims "HUS stores multiple data types …

    The Channel 24 Apr 2012, 10:34

  • Suspected freetards to face piracy letters in 2014

    Digital Economy Act: remember that?

    Letters will be sent to suspected copyright infringers under the Digital Economy Act in 2014, a ministry of fun top wonk outlined yesterday. The Act was passed in 2010 after voluntary agreements with ISPs failed, and set out procedures to tackle unlicensed downloads. The legislation outlined a 12-month monitoring period in …

    Law 24 Apr 2012, 10:46

  • Apple set to drop 17in MacBook Pro, says watcher

    Plans up in Air

    Apple's 17in MacBook Pro will be phased out in 2012, one analyst has predicted, in favour of an Air-style refresh of the line that excludes the company's largest notebook. While discussing Apple's computing strategy for the year, KGI analyst Ming-Chi Kuo claimed the laptop no longer has a role in the Air-themed line-up. Sales …

    Laptops 24 Apr 2012, 10:53

  • Google Currents

    Android App of the Week Go with the flow

    When Google’s Currents news and magazine reader was released late last year, I thought it one of the most visually attractive apps ever to come out of Mountain View. Looks aside, though, there was a lot wrong with it, not least the time it took to sync. A recent update claims to have fixed that and added a host of new features …

    Phones 24 Apr 2012, 11:00

  • A history of HUS: HDS's file-development hustle

    NAS replacement issues ...

    Hitachi Data Storage's new unified storage – HUS – has had an involved file storage background, according to channel sources. In the post-millennium years, HDS had its AMS2000 (Hitachi model name: DF600F) mid-range block array and Essential NAS (eNAS) filer. Back in 2010/2011, our source says, Hitachi in Japan was going to …

    Storage 24 Apr 2012, 11:14

  • Yahoo! couldn't! even! strike! deal! with! Yahoo! Japan!

    US biz wanted to flog stake in Japanese joint venture

    Yahoo! Japan confirmed today that it held talks on buying the stake Yahoo! Inc owns in the Asian joint venture, but the pair couldn't reach any agreement. The Japanese web portal's chief financial officer Toshiki Ohya said the door was still open for further negotiations, Reuters reported. Yahoo! Japan was formed in a pact …

    Financial News 24 Apr 2012, 11:33

  • Murdoch junior admits to a culture of 'cavalier risk' at NotW

    Did 'swashbuckling attitude' damage reputation of former Sunday redtop?

    James Murdoch – unlike his father Rupert – told the Leveson inquiry into press ethics this morning that he only read News International's now-defunct Sunday paper, News of the World, "from time to time". Ex-News International chairman Murdoch junior, who appeared to give his testimony at the Royal Courts of Justice in London …

    Media 24 Apr 2012, 11:44

  • Up to 390 TalkTalk jobs face axe as Northampton site shuttered

    Workers hit by office reshuffle

    ISP TalkTalk is shuttering its Northampton office, "simplifying" its UK operations and "creating jobs nationally" while threatening to axe others. It said in a statement that "collective consultations" would take place with 390 staff across its sites at Northampton, Preston and Warrington. TalkTalk added: There will be …

    Management 24 Apr 2012, 12:07

  • Six of the best ways to mess up IT change management

    How many do you recognise?

    We at Freeform Dynamics have been running surveys and interactive workshops with The Register’s readership since 2006 on a wide variety of topics. Looking back, we see the same themes coming up time and time again. One of these is the perpetual problem of IT staff feeling they are not able to respond quickly enough to change …

    Service Assurance 24 Apr 2012, 12:20

  • Gaia scientist Lovelock: 'I was WRONG and alarmist on climate'

    'I swore Earth should be frying by now'

    Environmental luminary Dr James Lovelock says he now regrets being "alarmist" about climate predictions. Speaking to MSNBC, Lovelock admitted spicing up his books with headline-catching doomsday predictions. In 2006 Dr Lovelock predicted the Earth “would catch a morbid fever” that would destroy six billion people - "the few …

    Science 24 Apr 2012, 12:25

  • 'Asteroid mining company' makes classic hypegasm debut today

    James Cameron now OK with resource exploitation in space

    A group of wealthy advertising and software kingpins have allied themselves with celebrity auteur James Cameron and prominent "new space" business figures to launch a business focused on mining asteroids for precious resources. As is common with Silicon Valley new-tech business launches, hypegasm media management techniques …

    Science 24 Apr 2012, 12:48

  • UK biz pays heavy price for skimping on security - PwC

    Infosec 2012 One in seven big firms penetrated by cybercrims

    Hacking attacks against Blighty's top firms hit a record high according to figures for 2011. On average, each large organisation suffered 54 significant digital assaults in that 12-month period, twice the level in 2010, while 15 per cent – one in seven – had their networks successfully penetrated by unauthorised parties. The …

    Security 24 Apr 2012, 13:01

  • Floppy disk drives jam James Bond theme

    Q the music

    Most techies would struggle to find a use for old floppy drives, instead either throwing them out or leaving them to gather dust in the attack. If you had enough time on your hands, though, you could always piece several together and program them to play... music. Built for display at Purdue University for the Association of …

    Hardware 24 Apr 2012, 13:07

  • Capita to hoover up small pile of SMEs in 2012

    Will flog 40 million shares to fund acquisitions

    Capita is flogging 40 million new ordinary shares in an institutional pacing to fund a "pipeline" of small and medium sized bolt-on biz acquisitions. The group, whose IT Services arm has told 1,000 workers they are at risk of redundancy, is estimated to raise £280m through the rights issue following an "encouraging start to …

    The Channel 24 Apr 2012, 13:18

  • BT invites telcos to sign up to FTTP trials

    Ultrafast broadband among product scrutiny tests ahead of full launch

    BT has kicked off a trial and pilot scheme to which rival ISPs can sign up. It will run until mid-June this year. The national telco invited members of the next generation access (NGA) group to test out its "ultrafast" 330Mbit/s, 30Mbps upstream speed fibre-to-the-premises (FTTP) download product and the company's up to 80Mbps …

    Broadband 24 Apr 2012, 13:39

  • Theresa May: No emails sniffed in web super-snoop law

    'No real-time monitoring' Home Sec retorts

    Home Secretary Theresa May denied today that spooks will monitor emails in real-time under her proposed web-snoop law, which is due to be announced in the Queen's Speech next month. "There are a lot of myths out there," the cabinet minister told MPs at a select committee hearing at lunchtime on Tuesday. May also expressed …

    Government 24 Apr 2012, 13:57

  • Tin can communication set to return

    No strings attached

    It isn't just Reg Hardware celebrating all things old school this week. A group of retro enthusiasts want to bring back the days of tin can communication, punting a modern USB version on fundraising site Kickstarter. Monkey Wrench Design knocked up prototypes of their "tin-over-IP" technology, The Can, which takes talking back …

    Hardware 24 Apr 2012, 14:23

  • SpaceX launch put off for a week

    Let's just check everything one more time...

    The history-making launch of SpaceX's Dragon capsule to the International Space Station has been delayed by up to a week so that the space firm's engineers can do some more testing. The Dragon was all set to soar atop a Falcon 9 rocket, also made by Elon Musk's SpaceX, on 30 April, but the blast-off has now been moved to 3 May …

    Science 24 Apr 2012, 14:27

  • Waiting for Godin: Lenovo's UK, Irish ops finally get a boss

    UK grows out of Mature Group

    High-flying PC firm Lenovo has made company veteran Marc Godin the head of its UK and Irish operations, a role that has been vacant for nearly three years. This is the first appointment made by EMEA supremo Gianfranco Lanci – Godin's immediate superior – since he pitched up at the vendor, initially as a consultant before …

    The Channel 24 Apr 2012, 14:46

  • China backs Proview in Apple iPad trademark war

    Copyright wonk says monitor minnow is rightful owner

    A top Chinese official has said his government regards the IPAD trademark as the property of Shenzhen Proview Technology, piling extra pressure on Apple to settle over the alleged unauthorised use of the word. Yan Xiaohong, the deputy director of China's National Copyright Administration, told reporters in Beijing that the …

    Management 24 Apr 2012, 14:59

  • Skype dials onto PlayStation Vita

    Call of the gamer

    Skype for the PlayStation Vita went live today, with owners of the Sony-made handheld games console now able to make video calls using the Microsoft-owned chat platform. Unlike the recently launched Windows Phone version of Skype, the application is able to run in the background while the Vita multitasks between other apps and …

    Hardware 24 Apr 2012, 15:03

  • That global freetard crackdown: Three emails ... and carry on

    How infringement penalties look in Spain, France and US

    Rome wasn’t built in a day, Hadopi won’t be built in two years: those were the exact words of Marie-Francois Marais, the head of the French anti-piracy programme, speaking in London yesterday. At the Creative Coalition’s conference on growth, the audience were able to compare the approaches taken by four nations to tackle …

    Media 24 Apr 2012, 15:18

  • LOHAN gasps at stiff and slippery tube

    Hot PTFE action for spaceplane's mighty rod

    We do like a bit of unboxing down here at the Special Projects Bureau, so there was a decided frisson this afternoon when we took delivery of a stiff and deliciously slippery tube. Low Orbit Helium Assisted Navigator (LOHAN) regulars will be aware of the ongoing debate about the Vulture 2 spaceplane launch system, which – on …

    SPB 24 Apr 2012, 15:41

  • Hackers now pick tools from script kiddies' toybox – report

    Infosec 2012 Automated attack weapons help blackhats spread the pain

    Hackers are increasingly turning to automated software tools to launch attacks. According to research from Imperva, more than 60 per cent of SQL injection attacks and as many as 70 per cent of Remote File Inclusion attacks (the two most common attack types) are automated. Remote File Inclusion attacks allows hackers to plant …

    Security 24 Apr 2012, 16:02

  • David Willetts: UK firms need to 'fess up to security boobs

    Cloak-and-dagger approach leads to embarrassment later – minister

    UK Science and Universities Minister David Willetts told assembled IT bods in London that companies should 'fess up to their security boobs. Speaking at the Info Sec conference this morning, Willetts, whose remit includes cyber security, urged companies to be very honest in reporting their cyber security problems and system …

    Security 24 Apr 2012, 16:21

  • IBM hikes dividend, boosts share buybacks by $7bn

    Still not the Big Blue cash machine of the mainframe era

    At this rate, in about 25 years IBM will be a privately held company. IBM's board of directors, which is always ready to let Big Blue's upper management go down to the New York Stock Exchange with dump trucks full of cash to buy up shares to retire them, has done it again. The board has authorized another $7bn in share …

    Financial News 24 Apr 2012, 16:44

  • Tech sector X Factor: The customer isn't always right

    Open ... and Shut Splunking from Twitter to Flickr

    Curing cancer is probably worth a few billion dollars to whoever figures it out. But so is helping enterprises search machine data to find patterns and problems, as Splunk has learned in its 1999-style IPO last week. Splunk, which now bills itself as "Google search for the data centre," originally intended to cure cancer. It's …

    Management 24 Apr 2012, 17:02

  • Google motors into cloud storage with Drive

    Grey day for DropBox et al

    Google has thrown its hat into the cloud storage ring with the long-expected launch of Google Drive, an online vault integrated with Google Docs that allows sharing and collaboration online. "Whether you’re working with a friend on a joint research project, planning a wedding with your fiancé or tracking a budget with …

    Cloud 24 Apr 2012, 17:28

  • Number-munching clouds are godsend for cybercrooks - experts

    Perfect platform for password forcing, DDoS attacks

    Cloud computing providers came under fire today from security experts who blamed them for giving cyber-criminals the tools to launch attacks more easily, efficiently and anonymously than ever before. Speaking at the fourth InfoSecurity Summit in Hong Kong on Tuesday, SC Leung - a senior consultant at the city-state's Computer …

    Security 24 Apr 2012, 17:34

  • Supernovae blasts shape climate, life on Earth, reckons boffin

    'Our world's biology is reflection of the sky'

    A new paper by cosmic ray researcher Henrik Svensmark suggests that the abundance of diversity of biological life on Earth is closely correlated to our planet's proximity to supernovae. Svensmark, a professor of physics at the Center for Sun-Climate Research at the Danish Space Research Institute, revealed his work in a paper …

    Science 24 Apr 2012, 18:03

  • Dell flashes 40GE blade switch, fabric manager

    Force 10 works for the new boss

    The engineers who used to work at the formerly independent Force 10 have forged the first 40 Gigabit Ethernet switch for new owner Dell's PowerEdge M1000e blade server chassis. If you sell servers, storage, and networking, you are arguably a system maker these days, and that is one of the reasons why Dell bought Force 10 …

    Virtualization 24 Apr 2012, 18:10

  • Facebook IPO 'delay' as Zuckerberg keeps Wall St 'waiting'

    Just too busy to meet masters of the universe?

    Facebook's much-awaited IPO may be pushed back into June reports claim, as its glamourous and youthful CEO Mark Zuckerberg is just too busy to meet Wall St. CNBC reports that "a string of acquisitions and other business distractions are threatening to delay the sale". The suggestions comes from "people familiar with the matter …

    Financial News 24 Apr 2012, 20:03

  • Apple profits almost double on iOS product sales leap

    A money making machine with just one button

    Apple sold buckets more iPhones and iPads in its second quarter, helping it almost double net income year on year to $11.6bn and driving up gross margins. The purveyor of magical and revolutionary shiny things turned in sales of $39.2bn for the quarter ending March 31, a 59 per cent rise on the year. However, net income leapt …

    Tablets 24 Apr 2012, 20:53

  • Skytap control freaks dev/test cloud

    Bean-counter friendly

    Skytap, the application development and testing cloud that is funded in part by Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, is tweaking its service once again, adding a new management interface and other features to make it easier for IT departments that use Skytap to give coders a better experience and rein in the budget. It is commonly …

    Cloud 24 Apr 2012, 21:05

  • Google ups bug bounty to $20,000 per flaw

    Researchers offered major payday

    Google is increasing the amount it is willing to pay to security researchers for bugs, with the most serious flaws now priced at up to $20,000. Google's security team has changed its payments plan and will now pay up to $20,000 for flaws that would allow code execution on its production systems. There's a $10,000 bounty for …

    Security 24 Apr 2012, 22:15

  • Fabulous execution prompts Apple to rein back Q3 outlook

    Jacks up enterprise, channel focus

    Apple's third quarter figures will come in below Wall St forecasts the vendor revealed today, but that's just fine because it's just because it did so well in the second quarter. The Mac and iOS vendor said it was expecting revenues of $34bn in June, with earnings per share of $8.68. This compares to analyst expectations of $9 …

    Financial News 24 Apr 2012, 22:16

  • Intel reels in Cray's supercomputer interconnect biz

    Trumping AMD's SeaMicro buy?

    Intel really is taking networking and system interconnects very seriously, and is buying the interconnect hardware business from massively parallel supercomputer maker Cray for $140m. The move is something of a surprise to us outside of Cray, Intel, and the government supercomputer labs that pay the bills at the supercomputer …

    Servers 24 Apr 2012, 22:41