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23rd May 2012 Archive

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  • Windows XP update fails in infinite .NET patch loop

    UPDATE: MSFT slow to publicise fix for faulty patch

    Microsoft has issued guidance on how to fix problems created by its last bunch of patches. Redmond's patches for May brought pain to Windows XP users who have installed the .NET framework. The problem seems to involve updates KB2633880, KB2518864 and KB2572073. Each download the updates and installs them, but then insists on …

    Operating Systems 23 May 00:00

  • Canary Islands host long-distance quantum teleportation

    Spooky action between La Palma and Tenerife, with space the next stop

    The Canary Islands of La Palma and Tenerife have been briefly connected by a quantum teleportation system that sets a new distance record for the spooky communications technique. In an angle that will get Trekkie bloggers reaching for the “beam me up” metaphors, the researchers, from Austria, Germany, Canada and Norway, hope …

    Science 23 May 00:20

  • Facebook underwriters accused of hiding forecast

    Revenue numbers revised on the quiet, says Reuters

    Reuters is airing accusations which, if true, would cast the Facebook IPO process in a very poor light indeed. The news service claims that underwriters Morgan Stanley cut its revenue forecasts for The Social NetworkTM but withheld the information from all but a privileged few. The allegations are detailed in this Reuters …

    Business 23 May 04:09

  • Indian SMBs facing advanced attack threats

    Symantec warns of lack of security know-how

    India’s growing urban population is under concerted cyber attack as criminals increasingly focus advanced targeted techniques on small- and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) and look to exploit piecemeal security and low levels of awareness, according to the latest report from Symantec. The security giant’s Internet Security …

    Security 23 May 04:10

  • Huawei enterprise to be 100% channel 'in 3-5 years

    Seeks partners to marry comms, apps

    Huawei's year-old enterprise division wants to put all of its business through the channel in three to five years, according to Jeff Hwong, the company's regional sales director for Southern Pacific Enterprise Business. Huawei created the division to flesh out its business, which also deals direct with telcos and offers …

    Business 23 May 04:28

  • 2011 sets new record for counterfeit electronics

    IHS iSuppli says most counterfeits come from Asia, at a rate of one every 15 seconds

    Asian countries led by China are responsible for the vast majority of reports of counterfeit electronics parts, which have reached 12 million over the past five years in a potentially lethal development for the global supply chain, according to analyst IHS iSuppli. Citing data from supply chain monitoring organisation, ERAI, …

    Business 23 May 05:31

  • Ten... Mi-Fi HSPA 3G wireless mini-routers

    Product Roundup DIY hotspots

    If you want cellular data connectivity when you're out and about you can cough up for a laptop or tablet with a Sim card slot, but they are hardly cheap. Or you can tether your phone if your telco lets you. Another alternative is a portable router. These can be bought with data contracts from the usual suspects, or unlocked …

    reghardware 23 May 06:00

  • EMC's hunt for Joe Tucci replacement continues

    Will they have to drag him back like last time?

    EMC's CEO succession looks to be in trouble with no clear internal successor to Joe Tucci who is just months away from retirement. Could EMC look outside the company for its next CEO? In January the EMC board invited Joe Tucci to stay on for another year instead of retiring. Why did they do that? There were several prospective …

    Channel Register 23 May 07:02

  • Dole Office staff snooped into private data 992 times in 10 months

    And that's just the times they were caught...

    Staff at the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) were disciplined a total of 992 times for unlawfully or inappropriately accessing individuals' social security records between April 2011 and January this year. The figures were obtained following a freedom of information (FOI) request to DWP by Channel 4's Dispatches …

    Government 23 May 07:27

  • Chuck Exchange mailboxes into the cloud... sysadmin style

    Sysadmin blog UC certificates, MX records and how to make a teeny bit of extra dosh

    How do we migrate Exchange mailboxes into the cloud? A customer of mine has recently approached me with a request to move his mail hosting into the cloud, and it had to include BlackBerry support. After some discussion of the options available, a hosted exchange solution was deemed best, with Microsoft's own Office 365 emerging …

    Sysadmin blog 23 May 08:01

  • Alcatel-Lucent tinkers with Telstra's enterprise network

    Vanquishes Juniper to add 'smarts' for cloudy products

    Telstra is revamping the network smarts of its enterprise IP offerings in an Asia Pacific-first roll out of the Alcatel –Lucent supplied Application Assured Networking (AAN) service. The AAN solution aims to amplify the performance of cloud based services and virtual private networks (VPNs) for enterprise customers. Telstra …

    Networks 23 May 08:23

  • TfL delays wave-and-pay tickets until 2013

    Wants more time to make kit 'more robust'

    Transport for London's (TfL's) plan to introduce contactless ticketing across the whole of its network is likely to happen in 2013, and will not be completed by the end of 2012 as previously announced by the authority. In October 2010, TfL said it wanted to introduce contactless technology across its transport network by the …

    Wireless 23 May 08:36

  • Wyse ties with Rise in cloudy client clinch

    Dell and FastHosts by another name

    Wyse Technology has struck a deal to push cloud services through the UK channel along with hosted services provider Rise. The firms said Wyse partners will be able to tout cloud-based applications as managed services based on Rise's DataCenter on Demand offering – which naturally would be accessed via Wyse's client hardware or …

    Channel Register 23 May 09:01

  • Greedy LOHAN draining away mankind's vital fluid ... allegedly

    Irresponsible globe embulgement - is it really an issue?

    We at El Reg's Special Projects Bureau have, over the last few months, been challenged by various readers as to why we're using helium to lift our audacious LOHAN spaceplane towards its stratospheric date with destiny. Why not use hydrogen, they cry. It's easy to manufacture, cheap as chips, and – critically – not a finite …

    SPB 23 May 09:17

  • Apple tops tablet, mobile computer markets in Q1

    Lagging in laptops, mind

    The usual caveat applies: these numbers only work if you factor in tablet sales. Do, says market watcher DisplaySearch, and Apple is once more the world's top-selling maker of mobile computers. The Cupertino company took 22.5 per cent of the market in Q1, almost double the market share of its nearest rival, HP, which notched …

    reghardware 23 May 09:27

  • UK.gov energy policy: You can't please all the people much of the time

    Comment 'Lights kept on' - but at a price

    Try and please everyone, and you can end up pleasing no one. The government's new draft Energy Bill risks just this. The Government says it needs £110bn of investment in new energy production plant to keep the lights on. That's slightly down from the £120bn figure the Department had cited earlier, but it needs to be qualified …

    Energy 23 May 09:43

  • Why on Earth is Microsoft moving to Euro pricing now?

    Analysis Time to take a sniff at the coffee, perhaps

    I find it quite amusing that a company would decide to have uniform pricing right across a continent in a currency that looks like it might not survive the phasing in period of the new pricing regime. But that's what Microsoft seems to be doing. As El Reg has pointed out, pricing is now to be standardised on the euro price …

    Channel Register 23 May 10:02

  • Serco close to flogging UK defence nuke tech biz

    Amec admires Technical Consulting Services wing

    IT outsourcing monster Serco is locked in talks with engineering consultancy and project management services outfit Amec to sell its Technical Consulting Services biz. The unit provides consulting and project services including IT to the UK civil and defence nuclear markets, turning over in the region of £70m last year. Cost- …

    Channel Register 23 May 10:18

  • Lenovo's on fire - and this time in a good way

    Closing in on HP yet making loss in emerging markets

    Lenovo set its sights on emerging and "PC+" markets as it seeks to build on what it describes as a record year. However, it also needs how to make those markets pay as neither contributed to the firm's bottom line in its most recent set of results. The Chinese PC giant turned in consolidated sales of $7.5bn for the fourth …

    Channel Register 23 May 10:41

  • Dev justifies Dead Island 'Game of the Year' claim with 3m+ sales

    Even zombies are baffled

    Every year a handful of critically-acclaimed videogames are re-released as a "GOTY Edition", which signifies they've been awarded a Game of the Year gong by a respected publication. Which is why, when Deep Silver announced this week that Dead Island - a game panned by critics - would be getting the GOTY Edition treatment, …

    reghardware 23 May 10:43

  • Return to Castle Wolfenstein

    Antique Code Show Ex the Axis

    As a nipper during the 1970s and early 80s, there can't be a war movie I haven't seen, either at the cinema or on telly on a rain Sunday afternoon. You can surely say the same of Grey Matter Interactive, because its Return to Castle Wolfenstein lets you play pretty much every famous war film scene. Not that this is a dull …

    reghardware 23 May 11:00

  • Google warns against ISPs hard on web filth

    Big Tent Meanwhile, Mail columnist visits p0rn site. Gasp

    Google may not be willing to comment on how much money it makes from pornography online, but the search giant's UK public policy head Sarah Hunter has unsurprisingly urged caution when it comes to ISPs filtering content over their networks. Speaking at Google's annual Big Tent event in Watford this morning, Hunter gently …

    Business 23 May 11:07

  • Everything Everywhere activates top-secret erections

    Orange and T-Mobile finally complete network love-in

    Customers of Orange and T-Mobile are now using one network, with handsets switching seamlessly to the nearest cell tower, though the company still refuses to say exactly where those cell towers are. Orange and T-Mobile customers have been roaming between the two networks since 2010, but only when a signal from the home network …

    Business 23 May 11:18

  • Jailed Facebook hack Brit targeted Justin Bieber's girlfriend

    Selena Gomez 'told' fans her boyfriend 'sucks' in attack

    A British man jailed for a year after hacking into a private Facebook account targeted Justin Bieber's actress-turned-singer girlfriend, it has emerged. Gareth Crosskey, 21, of Lancing in West Sussex, was sentenced to 12 months behind bars by London's Southwark Crown Court last week. Crosskey had pleaded guilty to two …

    Crime 23 May 11:39

  • Sky Movies monopoly probe scrapped as rivals turn up

    Competition Commission U-turns at sight of LoveFilm, Netflix

    The Competition Commission has called off the attack dogs against Sky's movie business, for now. The regulator has revised its views following the entry of Amazon's LoveFilm and Netflix into the pay-movie market. A provisional decision made last August decreed that Sky had a monopoly on running movies first in the UK, which it …

    Business 23 May 12:01

  • Apple design chief Jony Ive knighted - but not by the Queen

    Steve Jobs' 'spiritual partner' honoured

    Apple's VP of Industrial Design Jonathan Ive was knighted today by the Princess Royal at Buckingham Palace. Ive was dubbed a knight for his services to design and enterprise. Ive – born in Chingford, Essex – was plucked out of a comparatively lowly job at Apple by Steve Jobs himself, who spotted Ives' potential when he …

    Business 23 May 12:12

  • Volvo claims V40 is first car with an airbag for pedestrians

    Protection for head-in-clouds texters

    Volvo has devised an automobile airbag for pedestrians. The car company is building the new tech into its V40. Sensors detect the impact, and a control unit works out whether the signals they're sending indicate that the car has collided with a person. If it thinks that's the case, it deploys the windscreen and A-frame …

    reghardware 23 May 12:27

  • MASSIVE Chinese web cannons blast 123-reg offline

    UK's largest hosting biz titsup in DDoS outrage

    A "massive" distributed-denial-of-service attack emanating from China has taken down 123-reg, the UK net biz that hosts 1.4 million websites. In a statement on the its service status page just after midday today, 123-reg blamed attackers in China: From 11:30 to 22:50 our network was undergoing a massive distributed denial of …

    Hosting 23 May 12:36

  • Facebook IPO plunge sparks tidal wave of lawsuits

    Shares plummet, investors sue everyone, regulators pull out their probes

    Investors in Facebook's IPO are not taking the stock's drubbing lying down and have launched lawsuits against the social network, its underwriters and NASDAQ, while regulators probe the way the debut was handled. Investor Darryl Lazar has filed a class action suit against Facebook, Mark Zuckerberg, the network's early backers …

    Business 23 May 12:44

  • Boffins cram binary data into living cells' DNA

    Pic Biological non-volatile storage survives reproduction

    In a move that could have appeared in a Michael Crichton novel, Stanford University brainiacs have written and read a binary digit encoded in a DNA cell sequence which survives cell reproduction - a non-volatile genetic bit. DNA, Deoxyribonucleic acid, contains the genetic instructions used in the development and functioning …

    Storage 23 May 13:01

  • MPs wrestle slippery bureaucrats in intellectual property Jell-O

    Analysis 'Evidence base weak' for IP, says UK's IP top cop

    The all-party group of MPs looking into the UK's looming obliteration of copyright rounded on their quarry yesterday - and it turned out to be an enthralling battle of wits. John Alty and Edmund Quilty of the Intellectual Property Office (IPO) were quizzed on their controversial role in maintaining - or failing to maintain - …

    Business 23 May 13:19

  • Nvidia Kai to enable cut-price Android tablets for all

    Quad-core and a whole lot more?

    Nvidia has let slip 'Kai', the quad-core ARM-architecture system-on-a-chip it hopes will get powerful tablets into World+Dog's hands for $199 (£127) a pop. Speaking to the chip designer's shareholders, investor relations chief Rob Csonger said: "Our strategy on Android is simply to enable quad-core tablets running Android Ice …

    reghardware 23 May 13:25

  • Open Data Institute pours golden £10m shower on upstarts

    Taxpayer-funded teams to tackle public info dumps

    The Open Data Institute has launched with a taxpayer-funded £10m pot to turn the government’s public information dumps into something tangible. Or that's the promise. Based at Silicon Roundabout in London’s Shoreditch, the group is headed by web daddy Tim Berners-Lee and artificial intelligence professor Nigel Shadbolt. The …

    Small Biz 23 May 13:27

  • Wireless remote control inventor zaps out at 96

    Eugene Polley took the knobs off technology

    The man who took the knobs off the TV set and made a significant innovation in wireless technology, Eugene Polley, died yesterday in Illinois, aged 96. Polley invented the first wireless TV remote control in 1955. Called the Flash-Matic, the remote was produced by US firm Zenith Electronics. The wireless remote has been hailed …

    Hardware 23 May 13:46

  • Shoreditch a hub of 'exciting innovation', says science minister

    Big Tent David Willetts lays out economic recovery with data apps

    Science minister David Willetts told a gathering at Google's Big Tent event this morning that future scientific research will rely heavily on the mining, slicing and dicing of data from the public sector. His comments come as the government's Open Data Institute was launched, having been plonked on the London's Silicon …

    Small Biz 23 May 14:07

  • 'We've done nothing wrong' - Schmidt on Euro antitrust probe

    Big Tent Defiant Google supremo buttonholed by El Reg

    Google chairman Eric Schmidt has declined to be drawn on possible incoming antitrust law infringement charges in Europe. The Register repeatedly asked Schmidt to explain if his company would indeed offer up "remedies" to Brussels officials currently probing Google's business practices, which some rivals have claimed favours …

    CIO 23 May 14:17

  • SAP hopes to embiggen its cloud with Ariba slurp

    Still seeking a secure foothold in fast-growing market

    Software giant SAP is hoping to beef up its cloud with an offer to slurp business commerce company Ariba for $4.3bn. The acquisition should give SAP a boost as it tries to claw its way into the cloud, currently dominated by arch-rival Oracle and Salesforce.com. SAP has been chomping businesses left, right and centre as it …

    Cloud Business 23 May 14:39

  • Intel and McAfee team on cloud single sign-on

    Busy year as security merger bears fruit

    Intel and MacAfee have been talking about the fruits of their merger and their plans for a cloud to computer security network that will be built into new systems. Jason Waxman, general manager of Intel's Cloud Infrastructure Group, said that over the last year or so he'd been inundated with questions about what Intel was going …

    Platform 23 May 15:00

  • Oracle gobbles upstart Facebook, Instagram biz tout

    Social networking marketer Vitrue joins Larry's cloud

    Oracle has snapped up social media marketing company Vitrue for an undisclosed sum. Vitrue helps companies to market themselves online on Facebook, YouTube and Instagram and will add to Oracle's suite of cloud services. "The proliferation of social media and an increased demand by consumers to engage with brands across …

    Cloud Business 23 May 15:19

  • Red Hat lures in JRuby power pair

    Linux shop polishes cloud languages

    Red Hat has lured two of the brains behind JRuby, Charles Nutter and Thomas Enebo, who once worked at Sun Microsystems. The duo are joining the Linux distro shop to expand their work on JRuby, Java Virtual Machine (JVM) languages and OpenJDK, Nutter tweeted. Nutter called out the opportunity to actively contribute in OpenJDK …

    Developer 23 May 15:42

  • The most dangerous job in America: Keeping iPhones connected

    AT&T blamed for deaths of cell-tower climbers

    An investigation into the deaths of workers putting up cell towers has shown how US network operators distance themselves from those taking the risks, with AT&T's dash to provide iPhone connectivity allegedly killing more than most. The investigation was carried out by ProPublica and (US TV show) Frontline, which have spent …

    Jobs 23 May 16:01

  • CompSci eggheads to map Android malware genome

    Aim for taxonomy of droid ills

    Mobile security researchers are teaming up to share samples and data on malware targeting the Android platform. The Android Malware Genome Project, spearheaded by Xuxian Jiang, a computer science researcher at North Carolina State University, aims to boost collaboration in defending against the growing menace of mobile malware …

    CIO 23 May 16:18

  • Seagate poised to swallow LaCie, haul fattened bod into channel

    Cali firm dives into deeper international waters

    Spinning disk supremo Seagate has nailed down an agreement from Paris-based external drive products manufacturer LaCie to snap it up, and LaCie is up for it – though the trade union and regulatory stuff is still being worked out. If the transaction completes, Seagate will be able to round out its mainstream consumer storage …

    Financial News 23 May 16:23

  • Speaking in Tech: Leo Apotheker vs Meg Whitman

    Podcast Money man Chris Lynch talks to Greg and the gang about who did it better

    It's a bulging bag of treats today at our enterprise tech cast, hosted by Greg Knieriemen, Ed Saipetch and Sarah Vela. Our special guest this week is Christopher Lynch, a tech venture capitalist. Chris is a partner at Atlas Venture and former CEO and President of Vertica (which was sold to HP last year) and Acopia (which was …

    CIO 23 May 17:04

  • VMware sees Mirage, buys up company

    Virty giant eats Wanova for VDI flavouring

    Virtualization juggernaut VMware gobbled up four year old VDI vendor Wanova today, giving the virtualization juggernaut another weapon to fire at Citrix. VMware pretty much still owns the x86 virtualization racket among enterprise IT shops, despite heroic efforts to dislodge it by Microsoft, Citrix Systems, and Red Hat, but the …

    Virtualization 23 May 17:21

  • Red Hat could cash in with open-source cloud juggling act

    Open ... and Shut From Linux to big-data shifter

    The good open source lord giveth, and it taketh away, and no one knows this better than Red Hat. As Red Hat chief executive Jim Whitehurst declared at this week's Open Source Business Conference in San Francisco, California, open source and its children – including cloud computing – are laying waste to the economics of how …

    CIO 23 May 17:29

  • HP started then spiked HP-UX on x86 project

    Juicy Itanium trial document firehose opened

    As part of the ongoing lawsuit about whether or not Oracle had committed itself to supporting its software on Hewlett-Packard's Itanium-based servers, the software giant did a core dump of very interesting documents that show what many of us suspected: that HP did indeed mull acquiring the Sparc/Solaris business and that HP did …

    Servers 23 May 18:01

  • Armenia jails Bredolab botmaster for 4 years

    First computer crime conviction in the former Soviet republic

    A cybercrook who established a 30 million computer strong botnet has been jailed for four years in Armenia. Georgy Avanesov, 27, a Russian citizen of Armenian descent, had apparently been making a cool $125,000 a month renting out access to zombie drones in the infamous Bredolab botnet. Other crooks used access to these …

    Crime 23 May 19:03

  • MSN China shoots for e-retail push to grow business

    Bing and Windows Phone Marketplace tie-up on the cards

    Microsoft is reportedly set to expand its MSN China business, with a push into the e-commerce space and increased integration with Windows Phone, whilst looking to grow the presence of its Bing search engine in the People’s Republic. Bejing-based consultancy Marbridge Consulting brought the news to the masses courtesy of its …

    Networks 23 May 20:00

  • HP cuts 27,000 workers

    Autonomy's Mike Lynch among thousands departing

    As rumored last week, IT giant Hewlett-Packard is slashing its employee count worldwide to squeeze more profits from its revenue stream. The job cuts are not as deep as some had been expecting, but are still going to be tough on the company. In a statement put out ahead of its conference call with Wall Street analysts, HP said …

    Channel Register 23 May 22:51

  • Google in the clear on Oracle patents

    API copyright decision still to come

    Google has successfully defended Android against Oracle’s patent infringement claim, leaving whether its API breaches copyright as the only question still in play between the two companies. The 10-person San Francisco jury has found that neither of the two patents that were the grounds for Oracle’s suit were infringed. As a …

    Business 23 May 22:57

  • BigPond GameArena hacked, 35,000 passwords reset

    Quick disclosure from Telstra

    Telstra has taken the unusual – in Australia – step of proactively announcing that a service has been compromised. The carrier has announced that it’s reset the passwords of 35,000 users of its GameArena and Games Shop services, stating that “the sites, operated by a third party company, were victims of a hacking attack.” The …

    Security 23 May 23:02

  • Insect vision a template for computer ‘sight’

    Can you see what bees see?

    Computers aren’t yet good at making complex, ad-hoc decisions from visual inputs. However, the discovery at Melbourne’s RMIT that bees' brains are big enough to do so could set the direction for future computer vision research. According to RMIT Associate Professor Adrian Dyer, of RMIT’s school of media and communication, the …

    Science 23 May 23:05