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1st May 2012 Archive

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  • Astronomers provide new estimate for neutrino mass

    WiggleZ in the space-time continuum

    The WiggleZ sky survey, which last year announced that its map of 240,000 galaxies provided strong evidence for “dark energy”, has now formed the basis for a new estimate of neutrino mass. Neutrino mass has proved elusive: it’s easier to measure the difference between the masses of different neutrino species than it is to gain …

    Science 1 May 00:19

  • Jury mulls verdict in Oracle-v-Google Java spat

    Phase one of trial nears completion

    The jury in the copyright trial between Oracle and Google over the use of Java in Android has retired to consider its verdict after closing arguments from both sides. Judge William Alsup gave the jurors a 21-page document with guidelines of how to review the case, telling them that they should ignore the arguments of lawyers …

    Law 1 May 00:37

  • Internode pollinates on iiNet DSLAM gear

    Rolls out services wide with parental support

    iiNet-owned ISP Internode is leveraging its parent’s infrastructure investment and offering ADSL2+ services across an additional 240 exchanges through Australia. The residential service, Easy Broadband, will now be carried across the iiNet network which more than doubles the number of exchanges that can deliver Internode Easy …

    Networks 1 May 03:18

  • Dell's rapier-thin PowerEdge M420 to render Hobbits?

    Launch in three weeks at same time as low power eight-core Xeon E5

    Dell has disclosed a few more details of the rapier-thin PowerEdge M420 server we spotted back in February. One of those details is that the server isn't literally rapier-thin. Baseball-bat thin is a better description, as we hope is conveyed in the photo at the bottom of this story. We took that snap at the new Dell …

    Hardware 1 May 03:55

  • Terrorists 'build secure VoIP over GPRS network'

    Secret comms channel eludes Indian spooks

    Terror group Lashkar-e-Taiba has developed its own VoIP network that connects its members over GPRS networks, according to the Times of India. UK and US authorities have both declared Lashkar-e-Taiba a proscribed terror organisation. The group's aims include India ceding sovereignty over Kashmir. Members of the organisation …

    Security 1 May 05:52

  • Dell XPS 13 Ultrabook

    Review Airs and graces

    Having been in the hardware reviewing game for more years than I care to mention - cue the violins - I have looked at a huge number of notebooks claiming to be both thin and light. From the days when thin meant something less than half an inch in thickness and light meant something around the 2kg mark if you were lucky, I've …

    reghardware 1 May 06:00

  • Blighty's IP framework one of world's worst for consumers

    Report: 'Anti-consumer bias continues to pervade IP legislation'

    A "panel of IP experts" devised a list of 49 criteria that consumer groups in 30 countries used to assess how best the IP frameworks in those nations serve consumers. Consumers International (CI), which is a global campaign group for consumers with members including Which? and Consumer Focus in the UK, published (8-page / 1.36MB …

    Law 1 May 07:02

  • Met seeks new £200m command-and-control system

    9-year deal for kit, services... and wave goodbye to the old gear

    The Metropolitan police is seeking a deal to implement a new command-and-control system. The nine-year deal, worth up to £200m, will include software integration, testing, transition and technical support relating to command and control. The Met will be undertaking two procurement exercises, according to a notice in the …

    Channel Register 1 May 07:28

  • EMC's Project Thunder stuffs Lightning in a box

    Collected flash

    EMC's Project Thunder is boxing up VFCache PCIe flash cards and networking it to servers. VFCache is EMC's PCIe-connected flash memory card, known before launch as Lightning, and functioning as an application-accelerating cache. Brian Sorby at the Solid State Storage Symposium EMC's Brian Sorby, the western divisional …

    Storage 1 May 08:01

  • iTunes fanbois outraged by Apple's sex-life quiz probe

    Haven't they suffered enough?

    Apple iTunes users are peeved at being made to answer a three-part questionnaire about their cars and where they had their first kiss as part of a compulsory security regime. The new measures sparked outcry on the support forums with punters deriding the interrogation as easy to guess and inappropriate. Fanbois are required to …

    Music and Media 1 May 08:33

  • Ultimate simulator to streak into living rooms next month

    IMAX for gamers

    Avid fans of simulators may want to save their wages - and then some - for the TL1 Racing Flight and FPS Simulator, which shoots into (large) living rooms this June. Manufactured in co-operation with fast-car maker Ariel, the TL1 is said to house the world's first 180° spherical projector screen and variable driving position …

    reghardware 1 May 08:53

  • Dell fending off EMC's maintenance push

    Will wheel ex-partner's kit into new solutions centres if asked

    Customers who bought EMC kit from Dell before the pair dissolved their relationship are not flooding back to the storage specialist for their support needs, according to Steve Schuckenbrock, President of Dell's services operation. Speaking at the launch of a new solutions centre in Sydney, Australia, Schuckenbrock said Dell is …

    Hardware 1 May 09:01

  • Nympho hauled to loon-cooler after serial bonkathon brutality

    'I can't walk. Please help me', sobbed second victim

    A Munich nymphomaniac is languishing in hospital under psychiatric observation after two men suffered extended sexual ordeals at the hands of the rampant temptress. According to local cops, the unnamed woman met her first victim, a 43-year-old man, in a bar. He willingly accompanied her to her place, where they had sex " …

    Bootnotes 1 May 09:18

  • VCs pour $80m into Violin, hope for shower of gold later

    Flashy upstart poised for float

    Venture capitalists have been fighting to get a slice of hot flash startup Violin Memory, which announced a $50m D-round of funding in March. That turned into an $80m injection because GE Asset Management Fund and other VCs wanted a piece of the action. Why this VC frenzy? At the time of the D-round we were told that Violin …

    Small Biz 1 May 09:41

  • America, China go ape for tablets

    Impecunious Europeans less so, says researcher

    Count tablets as personal computers and already fondleslabs account for almost a fifth of the world PC market. North Americans have embraced tablet technology to their collective bosom, notes market watcher Canalys. In the US and Canada, tablets accounted for 36 per cent of PC shipments during the first three months of 2012. …

    reghardware 1 May 09:44

  • UK ad watchdog probes Apple iPad '4G' boasts

    Furious fanbois further flummoxed by fondleslab's 4G foible

    The UK's advertising watchdog is taking another look at Apple's "4G" claims for its new iPad after receiving fresh complaints. The Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) had informally leafed through about 40 complaints regarding the 4G mobile internet boasts made on Apple's website. The new iPad was not in fact truly 4G …

    Mobile 1 May 10:02

  • Samsung unwraps 17in Ivy Bridge beast

    Chuck out your desktop

    Apple may be considering an end to the production of 17in desktop-replacement laptops, but Samsung isn't. It just announced the 17.3in Series 7 Chronos 17. Specs include a third-generation 'Ivy Bridge' quad-core Intel Core i7 processor, the 2.3GHz i7-3615QM, to be precise; 8GB of 1600MHz DDR 3 memory; an 8GB Flash cache ahead …

    reghardware 1 May 10:12

  • Microsoft hikes volume prices by more than a third

    Redmond's Euro vision sends UK channel scrambling

    Microsoft will ramp up the cost of volume licensing by as much as a third from the start of July when it aligns list prices across Europe to the Euro currency. The move, which affects the prices of products bought in bulk by organisations, was initiated following complaints from Microsoft bosses on the continent that were …

    Channel Register 1 May 10:22

  • Intel bakes palm-sized Core i5 NUC to rival Raspberry Pi

    A $35 ARM board has Chipzilla rattled or amused?

    Pictures and details of a stripped-back ultra-compact desktop computer from Intel have hit the web. Packing a Core i3 or Core i5 processor socket on a 10cm-by-10cm board, the hand-sized Intel Next Unit of Computing (NUC) doesn't feature a touchscreen nor a keyboard, although it is one of the smallest complete x86-compatible …

    PCs & Chips 1 May 10:42

  • Textgram

    Android App of the Week The Post-it note de nos jours?

    Textgram is another app designed to differentiate your digital self from the masses, in this case by letting you send graphically enhanced missives as MMS messages, or as pictures to your social network. Maybe it’s the use of 'gram' in the name, but Textgram has already racked up between 100,000 and 500,000 downloads since its …

    reghardware 1 May 11:00

  • Micro Anvika shutters stores, axes staff in fight for life

    Troubled retail biz gets green light for rescue bid

    Troubled Tottenham Court Road retailer Micro Anvika's short-term future is looking more secure after suppliers gave its proposed rescue package the thumbs up. The move came at a cost, however: the firm has shuttered more than half its stores and laid off more than 60 per cent of staff in a bid to convince creditors, owed £2.7m …

    Channel Register 1 May 11:13

  • Gov IT supermarket G-Cloud will cost £4.93m, says Maude

    £340m to be saved - but won't say how or where

    The British government has published numbers on the cost of G-Cloud and Cloudstore and the savings the public sector ICT procurement framework is expected to make. The government reckons G-Cloud and Cloudstore will cost the taxpayer £4.93m to set up and run, but eventually save £340m. The costs will come out of the budget of …

    Channel Register 1 May 11:23

  • Want to be a better marksman? Play shooting games

    Resident Evil 4 really is good training for the apocalypse

    Gamers who play shooting games have improved accuracy when firing a weapon in real life, a new study has found. They're also more likely to aim for the head, apparently. Researchers from Ohio State University asked 151 college students a series of personality assessment questions related to guns and gaming habits, before …

    reghardware 1 May 11:32

  • Now on Freeview HD: Olympic arts channel that's tough to watch

    And tough to argue why anyone would want to watch

    Freeview HD got a new channel this morning, which will be filled with events from the Cultural Olympiad as well as the occasional Hitchcock film and the usual arts nonsense. The Space sits on channel 117, which puts it into the IP-streamed channels only available to kit conforming to the letter and spirit of the Freeview HD …

    Music and Media 1 May 11:42

  • Boffins bone up on rover skills as Curiosity speeds to Mars

    100-day countdown to touchdown

    There are now fewer than a hundred days until the Mars rover Curiosity tries to touch down on the surface of the Red Planet - and boffins at the Jet Propulsion Lab are polishing up their remote driving skills. At the moment the mission has less than 191 million kilometres (119 million miles*) to go before its scheduled landing …

    Space 1 May 12:01

  • Fujitsu inks £50m deal to lay 'gigabit' cable for telco CityFibre

    Privately-funded FTTP for Blighty's cities

    Fujitsu has inked an engineering deal worth £50m with CityFibre Holdings to roll out cabling on behalf of the telco. The Japanese tech giant previously worked with CityFibre to help it build a 103km (64-mile) fibre optic network around the City of York. CityFibre said in November last year that it was splashing up to £500m on …

    Telecoms 1 May 12:18

  • Phone-hack saga: Murdoch 'not fit' to run News Corp, blast MPs

    Media baron roasted for 'wilful blindness'

    Rupert Murdoch is "not fit" to run a multinational corporation after demonstrating "wilful blindness" in his handling of the phone-hacking affair, which killed off his company's 168-year-old Sunday tabloid News of the World, MPs concluded today. The News Corp boss "turned a blind eye" to what was going on at his companies and …

    Music and Media 1 May 12:27

  • Groupon appoints ace financial duo to its board

    Daily deals site needs folks who can do sums

    Groupon has added two financial experts to its board in a bid to do its accounting right, although investors don't seem too cheered yet. The daily deals site has had a string of embarrassing accounting issues, the latest of which was a restating of its fourth quarter results after what looked like someone not being able to do …

    Business 1 May 12:43

  • Google Street View Wi-Fi data slurper named

    Unmasked 'rogue engineer' worked on wardriving app

    The 'Engineer Doe', who designed Google's Street View Wi-Fi software to collect personal data, has been named by an American newspaper. The engineer is reportedly Marius Milner, developer of the popular NetStumbler wardriving programme for Windows. Milner describes his occupation as a "hacker" on his LinkedIn page. Google …

    Wireless 1 May 13:02

  • Advanced Computer Software gobbles Fabric Technologies

    Bolts on managed service provider for £4.6m cash

    Advanced Computer Software Group has acquired London-based services reseller Fabric Technologies for £4.6m in cash. The firm will be incorporated into ACS' 365 Managed Services division, also based in the capital, adding some 160 mid-market clients in bank and other professional services. Vin Murria, chief exec at ACS - a …

    Channel Register 1 May 13:16

  • Ten-year .co.uk domain names now available

    Gives you a really long time to forget your logins

    From today it is possible to register or renew .co.uk domain names in annual blocks of up to 10 years at a time, following policy changes at .uk registry manager Nominet. Punters will also be able to register domains for just one year. Previously, UK businesses could only register their names for an initial period of two years …

    Hosting 1 May 13:28

  • Google, PayPal protest against Brits' pay-by-bonk threesome

    Why should UK telcos have a monopoly when we could?

    Google and PayPal have reportedly been whispering to the EU that allowing the UK operators to band together and promote NFC payments would be anticompetitive and shouldn't be allowed. The news comes from the Financial Times, which reports that the EU's ongoing investigation into Project Oscar has been taking informal …

    Mobile 1 May 14:02

  • Zuckerberg: Now share your organs with Facebook friends

    Like this to get my kidney

    Facebook is about "connecting and sharing" - especially now it can help you donate your internal organs, Mark Zuckerberg announced today. Describing it as "a life-saving initiative", the tousle-haired CEO officially announced a special button for people wanting to tell their friends that they are organ donors. "Became a organ …

    Networks 1 May 14:29

  • Arrow profits quiver as Q1 sales misfire

    Biz reshuffle and components blamed for income dip

    Arrow Electronics' Q1 profits have been derailed by restructuring charges and weaker than expected sales of components in Europe and Asia. The enterprise distie giant reported a bottom line of just $113.6m (£70.1m), down 16.6 per cent compared to the same quarter a year ago, on the back of sales of $4.9bn (£3.02bn), a drop of …

    Channel Register 1 May 14:50

  • Hard-up Europe snubs slabs as US, Asia snap up gear

    Amazon loosens Apple's grip on tablet sales

    Almost one in five personal computers shipped globally in the opening three months of 2012 were tablets, market stats from bean counter Canalys reveals. But the real surprises were that Apple's grip on sales loosened, and shoppers in the EMEA region contributed least to the volumes. The abacus stroker said fondleslab makers …

    Channel Register 1 May 15:02

  • Sega squirts urinal game console onto shop shelves

    One for Pee-C gamers?

    Sega's videogame business hit a 'new flow' this week when the firm pushed its urinal games terminal, the Toylet, out into retail in Japan. That means that those who took a shine to Sega's Toylets after using them in various bathrooms across the country, now have the opportunity to put them in their own homes, the company …

    reghardware 1 May 15:21

  • Biennial boner blights Beemer biker

    Bloke sues over priapism-inducing BMW saddle

    A California man is suing BMW and custom motorbike saddle maker Corbin-Pacific for an epic stiffie which he insists was caused by a "ridge-like" seat fitted to his wheels. Henry Wolf filed suit California Superior Court in San Francisco last week. He claims that on 1 May 2010, he "was riding his 1993 BMW motorcycle equipped …

    Bootnotes 1 May 15:31

  • HTC peeves punters with One X woes

    Buyers blast bugs

    HTC's new flagship smartphone, the One X, is apparently dogged by issues, with annoyed customers venting their frustration over faults from burning smells to flickering screens. A fair few peeved punters have posted their bad experiences with the five-core powerhouse over on the XDA Developers forums. Who did the screening …

    reghardware 1 May 15:56

  • Microsoft storage boffins serve up smoking 2012 NFS server

    Sysadmin blog Lustrous clusters, bakeathons and the bleeding-edge

    Developed by Sun, NFS version 2 was published as an IETF standard. Sun guarded NFS development for nearly two decades before handing protocol guardianship over the ITEF for version 4. This openness fueled adoption by the major UNIX vendors, even though most had their own competing protocols. Deployment on Big Iron fueled …

    Sysadmin blog 1 May 16:03

  • LG: We're not walking away from Windows Phone

    More of a mosey, or perhaps a stroll

    LG is denying it has lost interest in Windows Phone following reports in the Korea Herald which claimed an "insignificant" number of Microsoft-bearing handsets had been sold. The original report in the Korea Herald didn't even state that LG was giving up Windows Phone, only that it hadn't sold a lot of the kit, and that the …

    Operating Systems 1 May 16:32

  • RIM takes BlackBerry 10 out for a spin, forgets to bring phone

    Video Mobile biz has one last throw of the dice

    RIM's latest CEO has been showing off what its next OS, BlackBerry 10, will do, although without any hardware it's hard to be impressed by a touchscreen keyboard. The trinkets came out during the Thorsten Heins' first BlackBerry World keynote, where attendees were given glances of a multitasking interface that involves swiping …

    Operating Systems 1 May 17:38

  • BlackBerry 10 developer kit aims to unleash application tsunami

    Last chance saloon for Canucks to counteract Apple, Android

    RIM has marked the start of its BlackBerry World conference by announcing the release of the developer kit for the much-delayed BlackBerry 10 operating system and handing out crippled prototype handsets that should go on sale by the end of the year. "We’re extremely excited to release the BlackBerry 10 developer beta tools for …

    Mobile 1 May 18:09

  • Are Valley VCs playing hide-the-money?

    Open... and Shut How dot-com bubbles burst in hard times

    Nick Bilton has written a hard-hitting expose of an alleged trend in venture capital, accusing venture capitalists of encouraging portfolio companies to forgo sales to allow them to fabricate inflated valuations based on hype and a prayer. The only problem with the article is that it doesn't appear to be true. While it is true …

    CIO 1 May 18:29

  • Permabit flashes enterprise SDK at mystery partner

    Deduping a flash array. Could it be Violin's?

    Funky array startup Violin Memory is apparently adding deduplication to its memory array, and it could be licensing Permabit's Albireo technology to do it. Deduplication software technology supplier Permabit has developed its Albireo software to work on flash arrays: enterprise flash arrays to be precise. The "Albireo Software …

    Storage 1 May 19:28

  • New standard test of Big Data bang per system buck rolls out

    A sim so good you could use it instead of Oracle or SAP?

    There's a new big data benchmark in town: TPC-DS. The Transaction Processing Performance Council still doesn't know how to do its own abbreviation after 24 years of existence, but it does know a thing or two about getting IT hardware and software vendors together and hammering out benchmark tests and pricing metrics to help …

    Data Warehousing 1 May 21:31

  • Skype slurping software threatens IP exposure

    It's a P2P problem says Redmond subsidiary

    Code posted online that can skim the last known IP address of users is being checked out by Skype as a possible security flaw. The software, posted on Pastebin, works on a patched version of Skype 5.5 and involves adding a few registry keys that allow the attacker to check the IP address of users currently online without …

    Security 1 May 22:02

  • Uni preps facility to build bionic eye chips

    A fab vision for smartphones to help implants

    The University of NSW (UNSW) is trumpeting an advance in its contribution to Australia’s “bionic eye” project, opening a fabrication facility to underpin the development effort. Back in late 2009, the Australian government kicked off the project with $AU42 million in funding to support the research by UNSW, the University of …

    Science 1 May 23:06

  • Aus lags in cloud wave

    ICT spend slows, clouds lining looks silver

    Cloud computing could be the life line for dwindling ICT expenditure at the top end of town, according to a new report from KPMG. The study, titled Modelling the Economic Impact of Cloud Computing, found that ICT capital and operating expenditure is expected to significantly reduce over the next ten years, based on studies …

    Cloud 1 May 23:12

  • Intergalactic speed demon stars bid Milky Way farewell

    Down and out after black hole close encounter

    It takes a lot to kick a star out of a galaxy, but a group of Vanderbilt University astronomers say they’ve found a group of more than 675 stars that look like they’re headed for the exit door. The escape velocity of the Milky Way is a very, very big number: more than two million miles per hour (skipping the stuff on the right …

    Science 1 May 23:59