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10th May 2012 Archive

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  • Kiwi ISP offers geo-block workaround

    No more “second-grade-third-world-digital-boat-people people”

    A newly-launched New Zealand ISP, FYX, promises to try and avoid geo-blocking regimes that restrict access to certain content to residents of a select group of nations. Geoblocking is particularly annoying in nations beyond Europe and North America, as smaller market sizes and lower profit potential mean content producers make …

    Networks 10 May 00:28

  • VW STUNS WORLD+DOG WITH REAL HOVER-CAR!

    Or: viral vid success, critical thinking fail

    It would be nice if it were true, but El Reg has difficulty believing that this video of a VW concept hover-car in China is genuine: The premise of the video is this: VW decided to crowd-source ideas for concept cars in China – a branding exercise it dubbed the Peoples' Car Project (recalling, the genesis of the marque) – …

    Odds and Sods 10 May 01:19

  • Telstra brings configurable QoS to IP networks

    Automated, elastic, policy-driven network controls coming real soon now™

    Telstra has added user-configurable quality of service to its NextIP network and has even reached out to its Trademark lawyers to give it a flashy name: Application Assured Networking™. The new service, announced today, is in its infancy as promised online policy controls are not yet available. For now, admins can “baseline, …

    Networks 10 May 01:53

  • Amazon Web Services gets into the events business

    We’re going to Vegas, baby!

    Amazon Web Services seems to have reached the point at which it has so many customers it can go down the well-worn road of milking them for more cash by gathering them in one place providing days of valuable hands-on training and engagement-deepening meatspace meet-ups, in the form of a new event called AWSre:invent. The three …

    Platform 10 May 02:10

  • Anonymous takes the Kremlin offline in Putin protest

    Hacktivist group reacts as former president sweeps back to power

    Hacktivist group Anonymous has been up to its old tricks again, this time briefly taking out the web site of the Russian president as a show of support for the growing opposition to newly re-crowned leader Vladimr Putin. Like most of the group's DDoS campaigns, the attack only temporarily disrupted the kremlin.ru site, which …

    Security 10 May 02:58

  • NSW unveils “foundations” for integrated ticketing

    New displays on train ticket gates will become part of “Opal” system

    Transport for NSW has installed new displays on ticket barriers at several Sydney railway stations, and says the new units “will set the right foundations for the introduction of Opal electronic ticketing." The new displays at Sydney railway ticket barriers The Reg spotted the new displays, pictured at right, when coming …

    Public Sector 10 May 03:23

  • Optus to appeal TV Now decision

    Give us cloud PVRs or give us freedom … from innovation and choice, pleads telco

    Optus has decided to take the fight over its personal video recorder as a service to the High Court, after lower courts recently decreed the service breaches copyright. A media statement issued just a few moments ago quotes Optus CEO Paul O’Sullivan as saying “We believe the TV Now case is extremely important in deciding the …

    Public Sector 10 May 03:54

  • Asian mobile web traffic TRIPLED in past two years

    Region leads the world into a mobile future

    The percentage of users accessing the web from their mobile device has almost tripled in Asia since 2010 and in some countries mobile web traffic now accounts for nearly half of all browsing, according to new research from site monitoring firm Pingdom. The firm analysed data from StatCounter to reveal that, from 2010 to May …

    Networks 10 May 04:19

  • Ape Apps help Orangutans talk to people

    Fondleslabs fold under simian swipes

    Orangutans at Miami Zoo are using iPads to communicate with humans. Associated Press reports that half a dozen of the endangered apes are using iPads, after being offered them as part of a mental stimulation exercise that uses Apps developed for autistic humans. The apps display pictures of various objects that trainers name, …

    Biology 10 May 04:57

  • Best and the Rest: ARM Mini PCs

    Product round-up New shoots from an old acorn

    The Best... The Raspberry Pi – if you can get your hands on one – isn't the only small, inexpensive ARM computer around these days. There are quite a few options with varying speeds and price points. So here we take up ARMs with a full review of the ARMini – uniquely British offering that is currently the fastest and the most …

    reghardware 10 May 06:00

  • Nimbus boots EVA out of Mitsubishi

    SAP flies on flash

    Mitsubishi Power Systems' Americas (MPSA) says its SAP applications positively fly using flash arrays from an industry newbie – after being hamstrung on HP storage. The company, based in Orlando, Florida, had a SAP SQL Server database implementation that was dragging its feet, so much so that the end users were resisting the …

    Storage 10 May 07:02

  • HMRC's real-time PAYE pilot trousers 310 more employers

    Taxman still ironing out bugs

    A further 310 employers have joined HMRC's pilot of Real Time Information (RTI) for PAYE (Pay As You Earn). The latest group of employers join 10 volunteer organisations which have been piloting the scheme since its launch last month. The tax authority said that more than 100,000 employee records have been successfully …

    Business 10 May 07:29

  • LOHAN Playmonaut jets off to Blighty

    Joins Southampton Uni Vulture 2 team

    Our heroic Low Orbit Helium Assisted Navigator (LOHAN) Playmonaut has just jetted off to Blighty to join the Southampton University postgrads who are tackling the design of the Vulture 2 spaceplane. The veteran pilot, who soared to international fame with our Paper Aircraft Released Into Space (PARIS) mission, is needed down …

    SPB 10 May 08:00

  • Orange launches TV app to snag wandering eyes

    Don't watch that, watch this

    Orange has launched a TV-enhancing iPhone app that is synchronised to 25 Freeview channels. The operator hopes it will keep the fiddling-generation focused on big screen content while catching their straying eyeballs where necessary. The app is called TV Check and uses the iPhone's camera to work out which channel you're …

    Music and Media 10 May 08:32

  • BT's cost-slashing plumps up earnings but full-year sales drop 4%

    Carrying rivals' traffic hits revenue due to regulatory price cuts

    BT's Openreach division was the only wing of the company's business to up its sales figures compared with the same period a year earlier, but all other areas of the national telco's biz saw revenue decline for the year ended 31 March 2012. However, while total sales for the the full-year were down some 4 per cent to £19bn, the …

    Financial News 10 May 08:51

  • At last! A use for Blighty's phone-boxes: Free Wi-Fi hotspots

    Street-clutter clutters streets with punters

    Spectrum Interactive is opening up its phone-box-based hotspots around London, offering free access to anyone prepared to share their contact details and download a coupon or two. Spectrum reckons it has 1,800 pay-phones equipped with Wi-Fi, including along Oxford Street, Tottenham Court Road and Knightsbridge. Those have …

    Wireless 10 May 09:00

  • Samsung says 55in OLED über TV 'ready'

    Factories on stand-by

    It pays to read the small print, folks. Samsung once again showed off its 55in OLED TV today, but if you think it has gone into mass-production, you'd be wrong - it's merely "ready for mass-production", the South Korean giant admitted. Fancy one of these in your living room? Samsung first showed off the 55-incher at the …

    reghardware 10 May 09:16

  • Horde of customers storms Dixons – too late to save 2012 sales

    5% Q4 surge after months-long struggle to shift product

    A late flurry of consumer spending in the UK boosted Dixons Retail's Q4 sales but came too late to prevent a full-year fiscal 2012 decline, the firm revealed in a trading statement. Same-store revenues fell 3 per cent in the retailer's financial year ended 28 April but were down 1 per cent over the half-year period and …

    Channel Register 10 May 09:18

  • Microsoft digs Doppler to effect gesture detection

    Sound thinking

    Microsoft Research took motion detection to new levels this week when it unveiled a new gesture recognition system for laptops. Called SoundWave, the rig utilises the Doppler effect, picking up subtle changes in sound wave frequencies to calculate how a user's hand is moving in front of a laptop. It's said to work even in …

    reghardware 10 May 09:24

  • VMware whips out whopping rebate in pursuit of virty virgins

    Resellers told to penetrate small biz

    VMware has ratcheted up rebates for certified resellers who sign up virtualisation virgins - prospective clients that most likely reside in the SME market. The hypervisor firm has pulled the covers off the Net New Account scheme that pays ten per cent rebates based on the list price of an order to resellers that unearth …

    Channel Register 10 May 09:43

  • Norwegian teens arrested over SOCA DDoS attack

    Also accused of pwning online newspaper, financial services group

    Norwegian police have charged two teenagers suspected of taking part in denial of service attacks against the UK's Serious Organised Crime Agency and other targets. The unnamed youngsters (aged 18 and 19) are also suspected of attacking the Norwegian financial services group DNB and Germany's Bild newspaper, according to …

    Enterprise Security 10 May 10:01

  • Boffins crack on with ultimate roboass

    Cheeky

    Japanese scientists have cracked one of robotics' untouched areas: they have unveiled a mechanical bum that not only look realistic - apparently - but tense, twitch and respond to touch in the same way a real rear would. Arse technica The Shiri - which means buttocks in Japanese - "represents emotions with visual and …

    reghardware 10 May 10:13

  • Keep out of the Olympics' way, earn a haircut from TfL app

    Coupons to make Londoners ditch the train for trainers

    In the race to get London's road and tube network ready for the Olympics, Transport for London has endorsed a new app called re:route: a map app with reward vouchers. The idea is that Re:Route (on iTunes here) plans your journeys in the capital and then rewards you for taking low-carbon, calorie-burning and overburdened-public …

    Applications 10 May 10:16

  • Facebook launches App Store Center

    It's just a gallery of mobile applications ... for now

    Facebook is launching an App Center to recommend mobile applications based on demographic preferences as well as user ratings, just as long as they're tied into users' Facebook credentials – with a view to monetising the process eventually, of course. The App Center won't just recommend mobile apps, it will also showcase web- …

    Applications 10 May 10:28

  • €165bn in e-commerce every year - and not a plastic card in sight

    Gambling and smut pop the virtual money floodgates

    Alternatives to traditional credit and debit cards are now processing €165bn ($214bn, £133bn) annually – 22 per cent of global e-commerce – and that's just the start as the next generation of consumers grows up without seeing a plastic card. The numbers come from WorldPay, which should know a thing or two about online payments …

    Financial News 10 May 10:43

  • Microsoft SkyDrive

    iOS App of the Week Sync'n'store more

    I looked at SkyDrive back in early 2011 and was impressed by the 25GB of free cloud storage that it offered. Unfortunately, it also suffered from the Microsoft’s traditional ‘designed by committee’ syndrome, and lacked the simplicity of rivals such as Dropbox and, more recently, Apple’s iCloud. SkyDrive now takes full …

    reghardware 10 May 11:00

  • Supersize shifting sand dunes stalk surface of Mars

    Pic New photos are key clue to cracking Red Planet's past

    NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter has found the wind blows much more fiercely across the surface of the Red Planet than previously thought - reshaping sand dunes at around the same rate as those on Earth. Martian sand dunes rippling. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/ Univ. of Arizona/JHU-APL Boffins had theorised that Martian …

    Space 10 May 11:13

  • OLED to take 0.02% of TV sales through 2014

    Liquid Crystal Domination

    Samsung may be keen to tout OLED as the future of television tech, but it'll be a good few years yet before sales of organic LED screens come to match plasma and even CRT, let alone LCD. DisplaySearch, a market watcher, this week forecast effectively zero growth for the TV business this year. Shipments of LCD TVs will be up …

    reghardware 10 May 11:17

  • China admits plot to conquer the world ... with its own 4G

    People's Republic ordered to invade mobiles

    The Chinese government has demanded more trials of its homegrown 4G mobile broadband standard TD-LTE in hope of eventually rolling it out across the globe, according to China Daily. The Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) made the pronouncement and ordered “testing system equipment based on multi-mode …

    Wireless 10 May 11:33

  • Wi-Fi warping wallpaper hardens homes to hackers

    No protection from Thargoid brain-probe beams, mind

    Tinfoil hat wearer? Here's what to slap on your walls: wallpaper that keeps Wi-Fi signals boxed in - and, maybe, alien brain-probe waves out. As you know, setting up a solid Wi-Fi password is never enough: Illuminati aliens can bypass such menial protection techniques. With this Wi-Fi blocking wallpaper, though, hacking into …

    reghardware 10 May 11:38

  • Quantum shrinks, hopes to swell up after Big Data booster shot

    New object technology supplier

    Storage software and hardware provider Quantum Corp is shrinking – not a lot, but it's visible – yet it wants to grow so very much. It has decided to ship Amplidata object storage technology for big data as its latest growth strategy. Will it succeed? Quantum was an important tape technology vendor, with its own format, drives …

    Financial News 10 May 11:46

  • Mozilla and Google blast IE-only Windows on ARM

    Microsoft throws browsers back to 'Dark Ages'

    Mozilla and Google are crying foul over Microsoft restrictions blocking rivals from Windows 8 on ARM, due later this year. Firefox-shop Mozilla has branded Microsoft's restrictions a return to the digital dark ages "where users and developers didn't have browser choices". Harvey Anderson, Mozilla general counsel, accused …

    Developer 10 May 11:59

  • Sony blames record $5.7bn loss on everything but Sony

    Quake, floods, strong yen, Moon's alignment with Jupiter

    Disasters both natural and manmade have led to tech megacorp Sony reporting a record loss for the fiscal year ending in March. Sony blamed its performance on the 2011 earthquake that wrecked east Japan and Thailand's devastating floods, both of which disrupted factories and suppliers, as well as poor consumer appetite for …

    Financial News 10 May 12:19

  • Did dicky power supply silence climate-change probe Envisat?

    Pic Or had the silent craft seen enough of our planet?

    The European Space Agency has all but given up hope of contacting its long-lived Envisat mission, a month after the satellite went silent. Artist's impression of Envisat. Credit: ESA Communication with the environment-watching craft suddenly halted on 8 April. Engineers tried to regain control by continuously firing …

    Space 10 May 12:38

  • EMC chugs down flash freshman XtremIO for $430m

    We're taking you to Vegas, baby....

    Israeli business newspaper Globes is reporting EMC has bought Israeli-headquarted NAND array startup XtremIO for $430m, giving EMC boss Joe Tucci a nice flashy toy to brandish at EMC World in Las Vegas later this month. That's a heck of a payout for investors who have put just $25m into the startup which has not yet shipped a …

    Financial News 10 May 13:02

  • 'Fake Carla Bruni' Twitter account spreads Thatcher death rumour

    Newswire covered in shame after hasty retweet

    A fake celebrity Twitter account posing as that of outgoing French first lady Carla Bruni has been used to spread false rumours that former British prime minister Margaret Thatcher had died. An update from the fake @CBruniOfficial Twitter account was retweeted without scrutiny by French news outlet @LesNews on Wednesday …

    Music and Media 10 May 13:29

  • Ten... crowd-funded games from veteran devs

    Project round-up Kickstart my career revamp?

    The world is awash innovative ideas and clever product blueprints, although the folk who come up with them are often too penniless to take things further. Which is why fundraising site Kickstarter has been such a success of late. But the site isn't limited to new inventors. We've seen a wave of veteran videogame developers …

    reghardware 10 May 13:48

  • Root canal surgery officially more desirable than cloud migration

    Unicorn spotting more likely than app transfer in poll

    Some IT decision makers would prefer to undergo root canal surgery than deal with migrating their business to a private or public cloud. That's according to networking giant Cisco in its 2012 Global Cloud Networking survey, which polled more than 1,300 procurement bods in 13 different countries to measure the uptake of cloudy …

    Channel Register 10 May 14:01

  • Enormous British PC mountain finally shovelled out onto markets

    Stinky old kit no longer cramming distie warehouses

    UK PC sales into the channel grew slightly in Q1, indicating that distributors have finally shifted the ageing inventory lingering from early 2011. More than three million units were shipped in the first three months of 2012, up 2.4 per cent on the same period a year ago, according to final numbers from bean counter Gartner …

    Channel Register 10 May 14:26

  • Cameron's F-35 U-turn: BAE Systems still calls the shots at No 10

    Comment Threat of cheap, powerful kit for UK forces warded off

    So there it is: done. As this is written, defence minister Phillip Hammond is on his feet in the House of Commons, trying to justify the fact that he and his boss, David Cameron, have decided that the Royal Navy's new aircraft carrier (maybe carriers) will not now have any catapults or arrester gear in order to save money. This …

    Government 10 May 14:40

  • Pirate stomping by Google et Cie won't work, says expert

    Search guys not making it easy for rights holders? No!

    Plans developed by search engines that would define how rights-holders engage with them over the removal of links to copyright infringing content seek to introduce new thresholds over notice and takedown standards that EU law does not require, an expert has said. Google, Yahoo! and Microsoft have drawn up a series of " …

    Law 10 May 15:01

  • British 4G mobile data rollout 'will mean NO TELLY for 2m homes'

    Have YOU got a Freeview booster?

    A pressure group campaigning for high-quality broadcasting has warned that 4G phone networks could knock out TV in one in ten UK homes - and by the time anyone notices it will be too late to fix. The Voice of the Listener & Viewer, a membership and donation-funded lobbying body, wants guarantees that once next-gen mobile …

    Wireless 10 May 15:28

  • Carriers, prepare to bleed: EU pops a cap on data roaming

    56 pence a megabyte from July

    The EU has renewed its caps on mobile roaming, this time including a cap on data roaming and a promise to let travellers choose their roaming carrier by 2014, all coming in from 1 July. At the end of next month anyone travelling in Europe will pay no more than 56 pence (€0.70) a megabyte for data, 23 pence (€0.29) per minute …

    Mobile 10 May 16:01

  • Apple OS X update puts elderly Flash out of its misery

    Security fixes include new Safari that executes old plugins

    Apple has pushed out a slew of security updates for Macs running Snow Leopard (OS X 10.6) and Lion (OS X 10.7). The operating system upgrades tackle various bugs that leak sensitive information, elevate a user's privileges and, most seriously, allow malicious code to be injected remotely and executed. The 10.7.4 update …

    Operating Systems 10 May 16:27

  • IBM taps new execs to run Power Systems, mainframes

    Potential future CEO moves on up the corporate ladder

    The executive who has been running IBM's combined Power Systems and System z mainframe units has taken a new high-level position working out Big Blue's overall strategy for the future for new CEO Ginni Rometty, and the company has appointed new leaders for its Power and mainframe units in the wake of that appointment. Tom …

    CIO 10 May 17:01

  • New SGI CEO builds firewall around unprofitable sales

    Inks $27.8m, 1.5 petaflops DoD deal with Uncle Sam

    SGI tapped a new CEO, Jorge Titinger, back at the end of February to get the company back on an even keel, and in the wake of SGI's reporting its financial results for its third quarter of fiscal 2012, Titinger conceded that he has his work cut out for him because SGI, like many other server makers from time to time, has been …

    HPC 10 May 17:51

  • Intel CEO predicts DOOM for fab industry and competitors

    We'll be top dog for years, Otellini tells investors

    The semiconductor industry is at a major inflection point Intel's CEO Paul Otellini predicted today at the company's analyst day, with the increasing cost of manufacturing causing a shake-out among the biggest chip players that, he said, would only leave two or three companies at the leading edge of chip design. Intel veteran …

    PCs & Chips 10 May 18:03

  • HP opens up public cloud to public beta

    Partners line up to peddle wares

    As El Reg told you it would a month ago, Hewlett-Packard today has opened up its HP Cloud Services public cloud – aka HP Cloud because by definition a cloud is a service, right? – for a full-on beta onslaught from John Q Public. The HP Cloud is based on the company's ProLiant rack servers and various HP storage and switches, …

    Infrastructure 10 May 22:13

  • Optus CEO: Our ads pay for TV, so let TV Now live

    Veiled threat or novel argument?

    Broadcasters should support, rather than opposing, Optus’ TV Now service, the carrier’s CEO believes, because Optus is a major TV advertiser. The company has apparently taken AFL boss Andrew Demetriou’s advice to “think very carefully" about challenging the company’s April TV Now loss in in the Federal Court, and decided it’s …

    Business 10 May 22:17

  • Redmond revamp: Bing gets social bling

    All your friends are belong to us

    Microsoft is taking yet-another swipe at Google, unveiling a revamped Bing that Redmond says will do a better job of separating social search from the main body of results. The search challenger says its integration with Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and Quora will let it pull the most relevant links from social networks in …

    Business 10 May 22:37

  • Intel plans massive push around touchy-feely Ultrabooks

    Biggest launch in nearly a decade

    Intel is planning its biggest marketing campaign since the launch of Centrino in 2003 in an attempt to make Ultrabook laptops and tablet-hybrids more attractive to buyers. Speaking at Intel's investor briefing day, Kirk Skaugen, Chipzilla's recent replacement to head its PC Client group, promised 110 reference designs for …

    PCs & Chips 10 May 22:40