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30th May 2012 Archive

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  • Samsung refreshes ChromeOS hardware with first desktop system

    Google's niche OS seeks new support

    Google and Samsung have launched fresh hardware aimed at reviving interest in its ChromeOS platform, with a laptop for end users and a desktop box system. Sales for ChromeOS have been less than stellar but the Chocolate factory has insisted that the platform has enough advantages to make it in the operating system market. …

    Hardware 30 May 2012, 01:18

  • Australian ICT research spending surges

    Supercomputer projects boost spending, but ICT languishes behind medical research

    Sharp climb in Australian ICT research spending Supercomputer builds boost numbers Australian higher education organisations collectively spent AUD$358.5m researching what the Australian Bureau of Statistics calls “Information and computing sciences” in 2010, according to the Bureau's newly-released Research and Experimental …

    Business 30 May 2012, 02:34

  • 100-petabyte storage cloud names vendor panel

    Who's who of storage on the list to build Australia's Research Data Storage Infrastructure

    The Research Data Storage Infrastructure (RDSI) has named the vendors that will be permitted to construct nodes of the AUD$50m project. RDSI aims to create better access to data for researchers, by spreading it nodes to be hosted at different universities. The project is expected to pile up around 100 petabytes of storage and …

    Cloud 30 May 2012, 04:32

  • Chinese micro-blogs a hit with police

    But Sina users urged to snitch on each other...

    China’s micro-blogging platforms are a hit with the country’s web-savvy police forces, despite being forced to implement yet more prohibitive regulations this week. Provincial and local public security bureaus across the land are so keen on the Twitter-like weibos that the People’s Daily Online Public Opinion Monitoring Center …

    Policy 30 May 2012, 04:40

  • Symantec Australia MD Craig Scroggie to depart

    symantec.cloud APAC boss Brenton Smith takes the reins

    Symantec Australia's Managing Director Craig Scroggie has announced he will leave the company. He will be replaced by Brenton Smith. Smith was previously Vice President for the Symantec.cloud business across Asia Pacific and Japan, and worked from Singapore. Scroggie spent eight and half years at Symantec. He has also served …

    Business 30 May 2012, 04:53

  • China relaxes .cn registration rules

    Individuals allowed domains again, but registration will be no 'pi.cn.ic'

    China’s .cn top level domain (TLD) is set to reclaim its position as the world’s most popular ccTLD after the government decided to relax registration rules, effectively allowing individuals to once again own a .cn suffix. The TLD was the largest country code top level domain on the planet but was overtaken when the government …

    Hosting 30 May 2012, 05:48

  • Ghost Recon: Future Soldier

    Review Gun lickers

    As with any dominant genre, the question keeps arising: is the military-shooter nearing the end of its hegemony? Well, on the evidence of Ghost Recon: Future Soldier this question appears to have an answer. Wading for war It has everything you'd expect from a modern Triple-A shooter. There's the globe-spanning killing-spree …

    Games 30 May 2012, 06:00

  • Cisco predicts 1.3 zettabytes of annual data movements

    WiFi to account for >50% of fixed data downloads by 2016

    Cisco has emitted its latest Visual Networking Index, a global study of how much data passes through the world's wires. Your correspondent feels it is best to take these big global studies with a pinch of salt: it's hardly in Cisco's interests to tell us all that global network traffic is slowing and there's no need to …

    Data Networking 30 May 2012, 06:05

  • Publishing barons: Free speech a 'cloak for tawdry theft'

    Chief hits out at those who 'seek to erode copyright'

    Search engines, internet service providers and the British Library are among a number of bodies trying to scale back the scope of copyright, the head of a UK trade body has said. Richard Mollet, chief executive of the Publishers Association, criticised the organisations, which, together with research councils, consumer …

    Government 30 May 2012, 07:02

  • 450-year-old football was hard to kick

    Journal releases pile of sports research, possibly answers every pub argument forever

    The Journal Procedia Engineering has published the proceeds of the 2012 Engineering of Sport Conference and may therefore have answered so many questions about sport that there is no longer any point in going to the pub. There are over 150 papers on offer in the trove and all appear to be serious science, including this one ( …

    Science 30 May 2012, 07:14

  • Friends fooled by Facebook Timeline 'removal tool' scams

    Miscreants exploit users' keenness to get rid of crapness

    Two separate "Timeline-removing" spam scams are doing the rounds on Facebook, security watchers warn. Both ruses feature dodgy messages targeting users of the social network who happen to dislike the recently introduced feature, and are looking for a way to go back to the "old look". In the first case, users who take the bait …

    Security 30 May 2012, 07:34

  • NHS helpline 'won't be cost-effective' to taxpayers - Capita

    IT outsourcer won't confirm or deny withdrawal of bid

    Capita has expressed concerns over the tender process to provide a replacement service for NHS Direct – following a report that it had withdrawn from the bidding. Another private sector government service provider, Serco, has already confirmed that it took an internal decision not to bid in the multi-million pound replacement …

    The Channel 30 May 2012, 08:03

  • Fedora 17: Mm.. this stew of beefy source tastes just right

    Review No miracles, just more seasoning

    Fedora 17 arrived on Tuesday following a three-week delay. Nicknamed Beefy Miracle, the Fedora Project promised "over and under-the-bun improvements that show off the power and flexibility of the advancing state of free software". That's a bold claim for a package with such a ridiculous name. While this is a solid update with …

    Operating Systems 30 May 2012, 08:32

  • Assange loses appeal against extradition to Sweden

    Judge gives WikiLeaks founder two weeks to mull decision

    WikiLeaker-in-chief Julian Assange has lost his appeal against extradition to Sweden to face accusations of sexual harassment and rape, the UK Supreme Court ruled in the last hour. Lord Phillips of Worth Matravers said that Assange's "request for extradition has been lawfully made and his appeal against extradition is lawfully …

    Law 30 May 2012, 08:56

  • Score! Classic Goals

    iGamer Score draw something

    Saturday, 6 October 2001 at Old Trafford. It's the nintey-third minute and England are staring into the abyss. Following a typically nervy performance, we're 2-1 down to Greece, facing the ignominy of gifting automatic qualification to Germany and the prospect of a tricky two-leg play-off against Ukraine to reach the 2002 World …

    Games 30 May 2012, 09:00

  • Draft law lets council bods snoop your tax records

    Opinion Powers extend well beyond justification for data-sharing

    The Local Government Finance Bill, now before Parliament, is drafted in such a way that it could permit the routine disclosure of tax records and other personal data held by HMRC to council officers for several council tax-related purposes. The powers also allow HMRC to disclose such details directly to contractors of the …

    Law 30 May 2012, 09:18

  • Amazon's Lovefilm to stream Universal films

    Content cornucopia

    Lovefilm has reached an agreement with NBC Universal to stream the studio's movies to its subscribers. The Amazon-owned video streaming service will be able to offer folk signed up for its IPTV packages the likes of Kick-Ass, Senna, Green Zone and Paul. Unfortunately, they'll also be able to stream the likes of Battleship and …

    Media 30 May 2012, 09:21

  • Sony to bring bog-friendly blowers to Blighty

    Lav-loving Androids safe from spills

    Is Sony taking the piss? Enter two loo-friendly Xperia smartphones, launched over here today but already on sale in Japan, which won't be spoiled by unanticipated drops into the bog. When you need to Go... an appropriately yellow-coloured Xperia The lav-loving pair are the Go and the Acro S - 'A' for Armitage, 'S' for …

    Phones 30 May 2012, 09:22

  • Americans invade Euro cluster compo

    ISC 2012 Buffalo, Bear-O-Dactyl vie for cluster glory

    Two American universities vie for cluster fame and glory in the inaugural ISC'12 Student Cluster Competition (iSCC) in Hamburg next month. This competition, sponsored by Airbus, the HPC Advisory Council and ISC, gives university teams the chance to design, build, and benchmark their clusters against four teams of peers. They’re …

    HPC 30 May 2012, 09:41

  • Nokia lights up Bat Signal for Lumia 900

    Alfred not included

    Nokia has once again been inspired Gotham City, bringing its limited edition Batman casing to the Lumia 900 in time for this summer's blockbuster, The Dark Knight Rises. The Lumia 900 follows its smaller sibling, the 800, in being recast as a Batman model, which comes in a matte black design with the famous caped crusader logo …

    Phones 30 May 2012, 09:51

  • Galaxy S III pay-monthly tariffs compared

    Priced for humans

    The Samsung Galaxy S III went on sale in the UK today, although punters might not get their hands on it just yet. Delays with the 32GB version mean customers who want the extra memory will have to wait a few weeks, while production issues with the Pebble Blue model of either capacity has led to a similar wait for those averse to …

    Mobile 30 May 2012, 10:01

  • RIM seeks bailout buddies as banks count Heins' beans

    CEO predicts more half-baked finances

    RIM has hired bankers to give it a health check and possibly pair up the BlackBerry maker with other businesses. The mobe manufacturer added that it is likely to make an operating loss this quarter and struggle financially for several more. The beleaguered Canadian biz also confirmed it will dramatically cut costs including " …

    The Channel 30 May 2012, 10:16

  • Intel inks deal to let Ultrabooks leech off Wi-Fi net

    Lid-closed connectivity powered by Devicescape

    Intel has signed a deal with Devicescape to integrate the company's freeloading Wi-Fi network into Ultrabooks as part of Intel's Smart Connect Technology, which lets devices link up even when they're not switched on. Devicescape's technology lets devices automatically connect to the numerous free Wi-Fi points that we're told …

    Laptops 30 May 2012, 10:27

  • MPs brand BlackBerrys for bobbies scheme a failure

    Millions of pounds spent while only thousands saved

    Splurging £71m on BlackBerrys for bobbies on the beat was an almost total waste of money, according to a report from MPs. The Public Accounts Committee said today that the scheme was supposed to reduce paperwork, so coppers could be out and about more and save the force £125m. Instead, the programme only saved a paltry £600, …

    Law 30 May 2012, 10:46

  • Measure up your applications for their move to the cloud

    Preparing for a new life

    Are you ready to get your applications into the private cloud? If you understand the difference between virtualising something and making it part of a broader environment, then you are on your way. If you have explored the business value of each application to see if it makes sense, you are further still. But now comes the …

    Cloud 30 May 2012, 11:00

  • Samsung Galaxy S III

    Review The ultimate Android?

    Samsung's Galaxy S III is one of the most feature-stuffed smartphones yet. Well, at least there’s room, as it's equipped a 4.8in screen. Samsung's Galaxy Note 5.3in tablet-phone aside, this handset touts the largest display you'll find on a mainstream mobile and it packs a quad-core CPU too. Talk of the town: Samsung's Galaxy …

    Phones 30 May 2012, 11:05

  • Phoenix burns engineering and Northampton call centre jobs

    Staff told of redundancy risk as bosses slash costs

    Phoenix IT Group has told HQ-based call centre staff and a bunch of field engineers that their jobs are at risk of redundancy, insiders have told The Channel. The headcount reduction is part of a phased plan to chop 300 workers, and is understood to have led to some rationalisation in sales and marketing including the exit of …

    The Channel 30 May 2012, 11:17

  • Dot-word bidders in last-minute dash after ICANN reveals timetable

    Just hours to go...

    Domain name policy overseer ICANN has put an end to weeks of speculation by revealing a new timetable for the roll-out of its controversial new top-level domains programme. As many as 2,300 applications for dot-whatever gTLDs are expected to flood in before the organisation closes its TLD Application System (TAS) at a minute …

    Hosting 30 May 2012, 11:33

  • Olympic Wenlock plod cops condemnation from Amazon wags

    'Worse than masturbating to a pic of Lord Coe: I've tried'

    The Amazon armchair critics are out in force to administer a righteous shoeing to the policeman figurine of Olympic mascot Wenlock, which is tasked with "the important job of protecting you on your journey to the London 2012 Games". The blurb for this rather sinister-looking piece of merchandising suggests: "Take this figurine …

    Media 30 May 2012, 11:44

  • UPS death in Pulsant data centre knocks out websites

    Four-minute outage sparks domino effect

    IT infrastructure company Pulsant suffered a power outage at its Maidenhead data centre last night that cut websites off from the internet. Although electricity was restored soon after by routing around a dead uninterruptible power supply, the blip knocked out web hosting firms' servers and firewalls, and issues were still …

    Servers 30 May 2012, 12:02

  • John Lewis appears to punt Chromebook with Windows 7

    Recognition Google's other OS isn't popular?

    Careful, web designers: always check a gadget's specs before you tinker with images of the product. A salutary example of when they don't is provided by John Lewis. The Middle Classes' favourite retailer is offering Samsung's £379 Chromebook - key feature: it runs Google's cloud-centric Chrome OS - seemingly with Windows 7, if …

    Laptops 30 May 2012, 12:07

  • Julian Assange extradition: What's next for WikiLeaker-in-chief?

    Supreme Court could be challenged on Vienna Treaty point

    Julian Assange failed to arrive in time this morning to hear the Supreme Court's judgment on his appeal against extradition to Sweden to face allegations of sexual harassment and rape because he was reportedly stuck in traffic. But he isn't about to board a plane to the Nordic country any time soon as his QC Dinah Rose …

    Law 30 May 2012, 12:18

  • Apple's Ping has fatal pong, says CEO

    Social networking fail

    Apple's attempt to build social networking features into iTunes has failed, CEO Tim Cook has admitted. Speaking at the All Things D conference - D is for 'digital', apparently, and not 'deceased' - Cook said Apple had yet to decide the fate of the feature-cum-service. “We tried Ping and I think the customer voted and said this …

    Media 30 May 2012, 12:42

  • HTC slips One X, Evo 4G past Apple US patent ban

    Fruity tech titan powerless to stop Android shipments

    HTC's latest smartphones have passed inspection by US customs while en route to American pockets, rendering an import ban won by Apple useless. The fruity firm got a blocking order from the International Trade Commission (ITC) after successfully arguing in December that one of its user-interface patents was partly infringed by …

    Mobile 30 May 2012, 13:01

  • Trojan poses as privacy tool, spies on Iranian surfers

    Looks like a popular free encrypted proxy tool

    Backdoored versions of a widely used privacy tool have surfaced in Iran, raising fears that its government is using the Trojanised software to spy on its citizens. A free encrypted proxy tool called Simurgh – official website https://simurghesabz.net – is used by many Iranians to circumvent locally applied net censorship …

    Security 30 May 2012, 13:24

  • Leaked snaps said to confirm iPhone 5 speculation

    Case in point

    Much of the speculation surrounding Apple's next iPhone appears to have been confirmed through allegedly leaked product shots which show the iPhone 5 to have a smaller dock connector, redesigned speaker grilles and a repositioned microphone on the rear. Various images of the supposed next-gen iPhone were snagged by 9to5Mac, …

    Phones 30 May 2012, 13:48

  • BBC uses lifted Iraq war photo to depict Syrian slaughter

    Analysis You, media giants, and your digital rights

    They're at it again. Who? Take a guess: if it's not the Daily Mail, then it's probably the BBC. The corporation has once again been caught pinching photos, wrongly attributing them, and pretending nothing ever happened - in a triumph of crowd-sourced "citizen journalism". But this incident of photo-lifting is slightly more …

    Media 30 May 2012, 14:02

  • WD investigating origins of fake drives in UK channel

    Year on from issue and HDD players no nearer to culprit

    WD is no nearer to finding the origins of a batch of counterfeit internal hard drives a year after they found their way into the UK channel, despite the intervention of US authorities. The 130 fake Velociraptor drives emerged last Summer when distie KMS Components bought the drives from Aria and sold them to a customer who …

    The Channel 30 May 2012, 14:26

  • EE splurges £50m on OS-specific experts

    'Cos existing staff are just idiots

    Everything Everywhere is to launch OS-specific training for its staff, awarding accreditations in iOS, Android, BlackBerry and Windows Phones, or in the ability to sell them at least. The money will be spent on the new Development Academy with 7,000 staff benefiting from the initial round of training which will be focused on …

    Mobile 30 May 2012, 15:03

  • SpaceX signs deal to put its giant rocket to good use

    First commercial contract for Falcon Heavy from Intelsat

    SpaceX has signed a contract to blast off Intelsat's satellites on the back of their monster rocket the Falcon Heavy. Falcon Heavy is Falcon 9's big brother, a tenuous link for this pretty pic of the Dragon on the Canadarm. Credit: NASA The deal with Intelsat is the first commercial contract for the Falcon Heavy, which is …

    Science 30 May 2012, 15:21

  • Steve Jobs was top of the flops, says Apple's Tim Cook

    And Siri, is it true you're getting smarter?

    Amid warm fuzzy words about how popular and loved Apple is, how popular and loved Siri is, and the wonders of the iPad, Apple CEO Tim Cook, speaking at the D10 tech conference, dropped a few hints about the future of his Foxconn-rebranding company. He told Walt Mossberg and Kara Swisher that he was "amazed" by what Apple's …

    Hardware 30 May 2012, 15:39

  • Scandal-hit Olympus plans to axe staff, flog off stake – reports

    Japanese newspapers say firm could lay off 2,500 staff

    Japan's Olympus is planning to cut 2,500 staff and sell an equity stake to either Sony or Panasonic, in a bid to get out from under its $1.7bn fraud scandal, local media reported. Olympus is still reeling from the discovery of accounting fraud, outed by then-CEO Michael Woodford. Brit Woodford claimed he was sacked when he …

    Financial News 30 May 2012, 16:01

  • Google+ deposits Places in toilet after hungry Zagat buy

    Still stitching EVERYTHING into that other social network

    Google+ users still aren't sharing anywhere near as much as Google might like them to, so, perhaps to help the reluctant Web2.0 networkers along, the company has added a new local tool that has effectively killed off the Places product. Mountain View has replaced all of those pages with new Google+ Local pages. The search …

    Business 30 May 2012, 16:09

  • EU vows to make asylum-seeker database 'more efficient'

    Gives police get powers to use it in 'serious crime' investigations

    The European Commission has pledged to improve the efficiency of the fingerprint database EURODAC, which stores prints from the hundreds of thousands of people seeking asylum in the EU every year. The centralised fingerprint hoard is one of the EU's flagship biometric IT projects - used by national asylum systems to identify …

    Law 30 May 2012, 16:32

  • New compute-'n'-storage cluster-box like 'iPhone for the data centre'

    Nutanix promises SAN-free storage

    Nutanix's Complete Cluster product collapses separate compute and storage into a single hybrid flash-and-disk box that can scale out to a cluster of a 1,000 plus nodes. Nutanix says it is SAN storage without the SAN and NFS without the "N". We say it's a compute+storage cluster-box aimed squarely at the heart of every converged …

    Storage 30 May 2012, 16:59

  • 1 in 6 Windows PCs naked as a jaybird online

    Millions snub antivirus, firewalls in web poll

    One in six Windows PCs worldwide are hooked up to the internet with no basic security software, according to a study by McAfee. The computer security firm's study, conducted across 24 countries using data from an average of 27 to 28 million personal computers each month, found 17 per cent of machines were running with either …

    Security 30 May 2012, 17:35

  • HP boffins create net-zero energy data center

    Crunch while the sun shines

    Farmers make hay when the sun shines, and maybe data centers should crunch data and do the bulk of their work then, too. That's what the techies at HP Labs, who have been marrying renewable energy and data centers together in a testbed, are beginning to think. The HP boffins have managed to talk at least one of the recent CEOs …

    Servers 30 May 2012, 18:11

  • Mary Meeker's top technology trends

    Mobile not paying its way yet and Facebook failures

    In a speech on internet trends for the next year Mary Meeker, partner at blue chip technology venture capital firm Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, predicted strong growth in mobile use but a cash shortfall for companies relying on ad revenue. She also took time to critique Facebook's recent IPO. According to her report, …

    Business 30 May 2012, 19:58

  • Unix, mainframes drag down servers in Q1

    x86 machines can't fill the gaps

    The server market is starting to run out of steam, and there's plenty of blame to go around as to why. According to the box counters over at Gartner, the Unix market is in a slump, IBM is at the tail end of its System zEnterprise mainframe line and customers are awaiting new machines for later this year. The later-than- …

    Servers 30 May 2012, 20:46

  • China wants to be techno SUPERPOWER

    Er, aren't you already?

    The Chinese government appears to be having a crisis of confidence over the ability of its IT industry to innovate over the next decade and propel the nation to become a major technology superpower. The Communist Party’s Central Committee Politburo, almost as close to the apex of decision making as you can get in China, wants …

    Policy 30 May 2012, 22:15

  • HP taps VC to run software unit

    Whitman asks ex-Microsoftie to assume the COO position

    Ex-Microsoftie Bill Veghte was just getting comfortable in his dual roles as chief strategy officer and general manager of Hewlett-Packard's software business, and was just given the job of running HP's Autonomy big data business after last week's restructuring and the departure of Autonomy founder Mike Lynch. And today, …

    Business 30 May 2012, 22:29

  • Final countdown for NASA's NuSTAR X-ray black hole telescope

    NASA hopes for local supernovas to study soon

    NASA has confirmed that it is good to go with the delayed launch of the Nuclear Spectroscopic Telescope Array (NuSTAR) on June 13, and expects to begin spying out the supermassive black holes at the heart of galaxies within a month. The $170m telescope will create the first accurate census of the "local" black hole population …

    Science 30 May 2012, 22:32

  • Privacy Commissioner unhooks Google again

    Won’t re-investigate StreetView slurp

    Google is once again to be spared the nightmare horror of being savaged by Australia’s privacy watchdog its StreetView data slurp. News had speculated at News that a new probe “loomed” following the US FCC’s report into the sorry saga, which found that the Chocolate Factory knew what was going on for three years. The story …

    Policy 30 May 2012, 23:22

  • Boffins build all-silicon CNOT gate

    Only this time, ‘it’s quantum innit’

    One of the challenges of putting quantum computing theory into practice is replacing large laboratory setups with integrated devices. A group of Cambridge researchers says it has demonstrated that a quantum controlled NOT gate can be implemented all in silicon devices. The researchers, from Toshiba’s Cambridge Research …

    Hardware 30 May 2012, 23:23