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6th June 2012 Archive

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  • HP puffs up virtual private clouds

    Cloud bursts from CloudSystem private iron

    As Amazon Web Services figured out nearly three years ago, companies don't want to buy virtual servers, they want to buy multi-tiered virtual private clouds consisting of a mix of servers, storage, networking, and other services that act like a real data center. Hewlett-Packard is playing catch up, like everyone else in the …

    Cloud 6 Jun 00:47

  • Google to offer cyberwar defence advice to Gmail users

    'State-sponsored attackers are targeting your account'

    Google is to warn Gmail customers if it thinks they’re being targeted by “suspected state-sponsored attacks”. The warning, “We believe state-sponsored attackers may be attempting to compromise your computer”, is intended to spur users to take immediate measures to secure their account, Eric Grosse, Google’s security …

    Security 6 Jun 01:10

  • Weather, bushfire help, budgets in GovHack prize list

    Big week for open data movement

    An API for accessing historical weather data from ACORNSat, and another designed to help citizens monitor bushfires in their area, are among the prize-winners from last weekend’s GovHack event in Canberra and Sydney. While the AUD$2,500 prize-money for major prize winners isn’t going to set anyone up for life, the weekend …

    Public Sector 6 Jun 01:11

  • AWS introduces granular billing tool

    Drops bills in a bucket for drips of usage data

    Amazon Web Services (AWS) has introduced a new billing tool, dubbed “Programmatic Access” that will offer multiple daily insights into how much you’re spending in its cloudy corral. To make the new tool work, you need to have a bucket in the S3 storage service. That bucket needs to be accessible to AWS. Once you get that up …

    Cloud 6 Jun 01:40

  • Microsoft crowd-sources next Win Phone apps using Android

    on{X} outsources dev to punters

    The world just got stranger: not only is Microsoft trying to write cool software again, it’s decided that Android is the ideal beta platform, in spite of its bitter worldwide spat with Google over patents. The app is called on{X}: users can set up custom recipes to get their Android phones responding to events, or if you want …

    Software 6 Jun 01:45

  • Ericsson predicts over nine billion mobile subscriptions by 2017

    Over three billion smartphones in circulation

    Ericsson has published its latest mobile traffic report and is predicting the number of mobile subscriptions in 2017 will top nine billion, with the bulk of the growth coming in Asia and the Far East. The world is going online, the report finds, but most people's first experience of the internet will be on a mobile phone …

    Networks 6 Jun 05:06

  • Intel partners prep 20 Clover Trail Windows 8 tablets

    Mobile showdown with ARM looms...

    Forget Ivy Bridge and Ultrabooks, Intel already has its partners working on 20 new tablet designs based on its Clover Trail Atom chips, as the firm looks to take on rival ARM in its own back yard with a renewed mobile push. Chipzilla SVP Tom Kilroy revealed the plans during a keynote at the Computex trade show in Taipei – an …

    Hardware 6 Jun 05:11

  • AMD and Intel extreme desktop CPU workout

    Extreme PC Week Feel the burn

    Comparing high-end desktop processors that use the latest architecture from AMD and Intel these days, is a bit like comparing apples to walnuts. To pimp up a PC, there is only one company that really offers extreme processing power, and that’s Intel. But it’ll cost ya. In the extreme arena, AMD gave up arm wrestling with Intel …

    reghardware 6 Jun 06:00

  • China and US argue over smog tweets

    Brownout in relations over @BeijingAir feed

    The Chinese government wants the United States to can a popular Twitter feed set up by its Beijing embassy to monitor air pollution in the crowded capital, after launching an indirect attack claiming such readings were illegal. The US embassy’s @BeijingAir account is followed by over 20,000 people on Twitter and provides …

    Public Sector 6 Jun 06:21

  • Lawyer up on your way into the cloud

    Asian IT directors advise getting legal brains to read the fine print before vaporising IT

    IT leaders have stressed the need for firms to carry out rigorous due diligence on cloud providers, warning that dishonest sales tactics, hidden extra costs, latency and governance issues could ruin key projects. Speaking at the 3rd MIG Cloud Computing Executive Roundtable in Hong Kong last week, Wayne Moy, IT director for …

    Cloud 6 Jun 06:39

  • OCZ: We will plug Lightning into your Thunderbolt

    Barefoot hustler in fab grab confab, whispers chip chap

    Hustling flash drive supplier OCZ is putting on a show at Computex in Taipei this week, including a Thunderbolt-connected external SSD called - wait for it - Lightning. Lightning will enjoy very fast transfer speeds from the Intel-designed Thunderbolt interconnect and be a drive for media professionals who can afford …

    Storage 6 Jun 07:02

  • NHS fights record £325k ICO fine after clap records appear on eBay

    Gov fights itself over your money

    An NHS Trust is disputing a record fine the Information Commissioner's Office has levelled on it for leaving tons of data on patients and staff on hard drives that were sold on eBay instead of being destroyed. Brighton and Sussex University Hospitals NHS Trust was served a civil monetary penalty of £325,000, the highest handed …

    Government 6 Jun 08:01

  • MoneySavingExpert.com founder flogs website for £87m

    Evidently to someone who doesn't read the site

    MoneySavingExpert.com - the advice website for people seeking decent insurance, credit cards and other money deals - is being sold for £87m to MoneySupermarket.com. Personal finance journalist Martin Lewis founded the site in 2003. The proposed deal awaits clearance from shareholders and regulators including the Office of …

    Small Biz 6 Jun 08:19

  • Telefonica grabs Jasper cloud to hook up British vending machines

    Machine talking to machine on 2G cell networks

    Telefonica has signed an exclusive deal with Jasper Wireless for use of its machine-to-machine cloud in the UK, hoping Jasper's kit will drive developers to a cellular solution. Machine to machine is already an important market for network operators, but it's going to get much more important as embedded intelligence grows. …

    Mobile 6 Jun 08:38

  • HULK DDoS-from-one-computer is easily thwarted, say security pros

    Only small, unhardened servers need fear

    Security experts are downplaying the significance of a new denial-of-service (DoS) attack tool. The HTTP Unbearable Load King (HULK) program was developed by a white-hat network security researcher, who shared it on his blog as a proof-of-concept demonstration of how to effortlessly knock over web servers. Nonetheless there is …

    Small Biz 6 Jun 08:57

  • Facebook's ONLY failure: Expectations management

    Open ... and Shut Bubble stock shock

    As I type this, Facebook stock is trending toward a $26.84 per share price, valuing the company at $57bn, or roughly half the value Facebook held on its first day of trading two weeks ago. While the market plays a round of "You're to Blame!", Facebook is suffering from inflated expectations. Facebook's net profit margin and …

    CIO 6 Jun 09:21

  • Flying Dutchman creates dead cat quadcopter

    102 uses for a...

    Dutch artist Bart Jansen has taken the aviation world by storm by rolling out the world's first dead cat quadcopter – a remote-controlled flying feline dubbed the "Orvillecopter" in honour of Orville Wright. The pioneering stuffed caticopter was apparently Jansen's own pet, who popped his paws after being run over by a …

    Bootnotes 6 Jun 09:43

  • Microsoft confirms UK.gov to dodge licensing hike... almost

    Cabinet Office to pay 1% more, but biz to feel the squeeze

    Microsoft has confirmed that under the forthcoming Public Sector Agreement (PSA12) government customers will pay just 1 per cent more for volume licences. The development was revealed by El Reg late last week but both the Cabinet Office and Microsoft refused to comment on the financial details at the time of writing. The firm …

    Channel Register 6 Jun 10:02

  • Google Plus plus Meebo equals Google minus $100m

    Gobbled up toolbar biz does the 'super jazzed' hands

    Google is set to acquire website widget maker Meebo for a reported price tag of $100m (£64.8m) in a clear move to drum up interest in Google+, the ad giant's flagging social network. Meebo confirmed the planned takeover in a blog post on Sunday. The cloud-based upstart makes a button bar that, among other things, appears on …

    Cloud Business 6 Jun 10:14

  • Relax hackers! NATO has no cyber-attack plans - top brass

    CyCon 2012 Internet warfare? Just think of the paperwork

    NATO does NOT need cyber-offensive capabilities, according to a senior military commander. Major General Jaap Willemse, who was speaking at the International Conference on Cyber Conflict (CyCon), said launching barrages of computer-based attacks is off the agenda for the Western military alliance, at least for the immediate …

    Enterprise Security 6 Jun 10:34

  • France's biggest Apple reseller sinks: 'Tech titan crushed us'

    eBizcuss goes under as staff picket fruity firm's stores

    Apple's largest authorised reseller in France – eBizcuss – has gone bust, closing all its outlets and firing its staff. The chain had 120 employees across 15 shops in France and Belgium, according to L'Express, and ran several other businesses including services businesses KA Services and ICLG, which are also closing. Staff …

    Channel Register 6 Jun 10:46

  • Marathon

    Antique Code Show Halo's forerunner

    Back in the early- to mid-1990s, the Mac wasn't considered much cop as a games platform. Sure, it had a sexier GUI than Windows boxes, but they could drop out into DOS and dedicate their CPUs' few tens of megahertz to games. Not so the Mac. But that didn't stop coders from trying to make the most out the Mac. Early …

    reghardware 6 Jun 11:00

  • Toshiba widens Ultrabook range

    Cinematic outing

    Toshiba revealed its Ivy Bridge hand this week, with the spotlight on the Satellite U840W, an Ultrabook with a cinema-savvy, 21:9 aspect super widescreen display. The Toshiba Satellite U840W boasts a 14.4in screen with a resolution of 1792 x 768 - specifications the company says are ideal for watching movies as content isn't …

    reghardware 6 Jun 11:15

  • LOHAN seeks failsafe for explosive climax

    Mulls back-up system for Vulture 2 motor ignition

    As true patriots last weekend rolled out the bunting and unfurled a celebratory pint in honour of her Maj Queen Liz II's 60 years atop the throne of Merry Old Blighty™, we here at El Reg's Special Projects Bureau took a few moments from shouting "Gawd bless yer ma'am" to ponder matters of perhaps greater import, viz: just how to …

    SPB 6 Jun 11:27

  • Nokia adds touch to budget blowers

    House of Asha

    Nokia expanded its Asha range of budget S40 smartphones today with the 305, 306 and 311, the first three models in the series to feature touchscreen interfaces. The Nokia Asha 311 features a 1GHz processor with a 3in scratch-resistant capacitive touchscreen. There is also a 3.2Mp camera and various pre-installed apps such as …

    reghardware 6 Jun 11:37

  • Facebook tests parental-guidance tools in plan to pull in under-13s

    Pre-teens a lucrative ad target

    Facebook is testing ways to open its social network to kids under the current cut-off age of 13. Many pre-teens will typically circumvent Facebook's sloppy screening process by simply lying about their age during the sign-up process. Facebook has acknowledged this widespread action by children under the age of 13 and is …

    ID 6 Jun 11:45

  • Missed the Venus solar flyby? It's only 105 years to the next one

    Vid Or you could just watch this hi-def NASA video

    Stargazers and astronomers were out in force last night for the transit of Venus across the face of the Sun, an event that won't happen again for 105 years. It took the planet almost seven hours to pass in front of our solar system's star, and regular folks had to watch with suitable telescopes or through special viewing …

    Space 6 Jun 12:01

  • Reseller kingpin: My rise from school disco boss to FTSE 250 biz

    Part One Computacenter boss Norris on Essex, dyslexia and the Ford Escort

    It's a chilly night in December 1978, and inside Zhivago's nightclub in Southend, a bunch of pubescent disco divas are getting down to the sounds of Earth, Wind and Fire, amid the clink of Tizer bottles and the rustle of terylene slacks. This was the glamorous setting where Mike Norris, head boy at Eastwood High School and …

    Channel Register 6 Jun 12:22

  • Pet Shop Boy finally finds success with actual (virtual) shop

    Vodafone shops around, spunks cash on muso's Vouchercloud

    Vodafone has splurged on a controlling interest in Groupon-tribute-act Vouchercloud, the spawn of the Pet Shop Boys' keyboardist Scott Davidson. Voda is now mulling over spunking a load more cash on Telstra's New Zealand operation. Vodafone already owned 21 per cent of Vouchercloud's owner, Innovation Digital Limited, but has …

    Mobile 6 Jun 12:37

  • Dell ups revenue threshold for top table resellers

    Could be a 'challenge', say smaller partners

    Dell is trying to make its Premier club for resellers more exclusive by upping the enterprise revenue requirement to maintain the accreditation. But the move has caused some concern among the firm's channel fraternity, who are worried that the top tier will become the preserve of the largest resellers. The Texan tech titan …

    Channel Register 6 Jun 12:43

  • Sony awards PlayStation cert to HTC handsets

    Game of phones

    Sony announced at E3 this week that it will bring its PlayStation Mobile suite to HTC phones, including the recently-released HTC One X, One S and One V. With PlayStation Mobile in open beta for developers, the array of content is set to grow and, as that happens, Droids with the PlayStation certification look set to have …

    reghardware 6 Jun 12:49

  • PC-makers hope for Windows 8 hero to sweep up sales

    Gotta be sure, and it's gotta be soon, and it's gotta be larger than life...

    In the current tight economic climate, manufacturers of PCs and laptops are eagerly looking forward to the arrival of Windows 8 to rescue their sales. It's worked before: the launch of Windows 7 in 2009 got off to a galloping start, more than doubling equivalent sales of Vista two years earlier. A few corporates even advanced …

    Channel Register 6 Jun 13:02

  • New £4bn UK.gov IT shopping centre slips launch deadline

    Exclusive We name who will (probably) be pumping tech into Blighty's public sector

    Bosses have been told whether or not their businesses have provisionally made it onto a new list of approved IT suppliers for Blighty's public sector - and resellers feature heavily. The three-year IT Hardware and Services (ITH&S) framework offers £4bn in work and sales, and will - after delays - eventually replace ESPO …

    Channel Register 6 Jun 13:17

  • Revolution Analytics paints R stats Azure blue

    Gooses performance, spans HPC clusters with 6.0 update

    Revolution Analytics, aka "Red Hat for stats" – which commercialized the open source R programming language and statistical analysis tool – has now tweaked its R Enterprise stack and pushed out a 6.0 release. The new R Enterprise 6.0 is based on the R 2.14.2 engine, which is the latest stable release of the open source code, …

    Infrastructure 6 Jun 13:37

  • Sean Parker launches Chatroulette killer: For why?

    NSFW Innovation... We've heard of it

    Celebrity billionaire tech investor Sean Parker thinks video chat is what the world needs most, and is putting his money where his mouth is. Now pinch yourself that it isn't 1995. Video chat is the innovation that nobody has ever wanted, but has never gone away. The Facebook and Spotify investor, who was a driving force …

    CIO 6 Jun 14:03

  • Acer touts Tegra 3 tablet

    Quad-core fondleslab for £130, anyone?

    Acer unveiled the Iconia Tab A110 at Computex in Taipei this week - a quad-core tablet that should be available for £130. Wowzers. The Acer Iconia Tab A110 - set to replace the Iconia Tab A100 - features a 7in display with a resolution of 1024 x 600. A100 to get the Quad-core treatment The slate boasts an Nvidia quad- …

    reghardware 6 Jun 14:14

  • PEER 1 gobbles up UK managed-hosting biz for £25m

    NetBenefit's parent becomes its customer

    Global hosting firm PEER 1 Hosting has snapped up NetBenefit, a Brit-based hosting company, for £25m in cold hard cash. NetBenefit, a division of internet service provider Group NBT, provides managed hosting services for UK and French businesses and had reported revenues of £7m last year. "This deal strengthens our position …

    Channel Register 6 Jun 14:21

  • UK websites: No one bothers with cookie law, why should we?

    Fewer than 1 in 5 sites have complied so far – KPMG

    Many website operators have responded to the Information Commissioner's last-minute watered-down tweak to implementing the European Union's cookie law by doing absolutely nothing to show that they have complied with the legislation. That's the damning verdict from consultancy outfit KPMG, which looked at 55 UK websites to see …

    Law 6 Jun 14:41

  • Samsung Galaxy Tab 'a harmful drug', says Apple in ban bid fail

    Judge tells Microsoft mimic to get real

    A US court has once again denied Apple the chance to ban Samsung's Galaxy Tab 10.1 before the case has fully played out. The fruity firm tried to get a preliminary injunction against the Android-powered tablets, citing patent infringement allegations, but Judge Lucy Koh said her California district court "currently lacks the …

    Hardware 6 Jun 15:03

  • Tape lives: LTO-6 rolls out – with more than TWICE the capacity

    Scale-out, schmale-out

    Licensing specs for the sixth generation of LTO tapes should be ready in August, and make LTO-6 suitable for exabyte-level cloud archive needs. LTO is the Linear Tape Open organisation and there are three technology provider companies: HP, IBM and Quantum, with HP and IBM in the driver's seat. The LTO format has been …

    Storage 6 Jun 15:27

  • Given a beardie nerd the kiss of life? There's a medal for that

    Cattle prod-wielding BOFHs need not apply to first-aid awards

    Have you ever resuscitated a Ruby developer? Heimlich manoeuvred a Hadoop hacker? Applied a tourniquet to a tester in QA? If you, or someone you know in the IT industry, has performed a feat of first aid at work, St John Ambulance would like to hear from you. The charity is seeking first-aid heroes of the tech sector for the …

    Biology 6 Jun 15:57

  • Microsoft expands Xbox extras

    Tuned-up hub with WinPho control

    Microsoft took to E3 this week to bolster its claims that its gaming console performs as a complete entertainment hub with the announcement of two products: Xbox SmartGlass and Xbox Music. The company clearly agrees with Nintendo that a second display interface is the way forward for its games console, although its new mobile …

    reghardware 6 Jun 16:08

  • Hackers expose 6.5 MILLION 'LinkedIn passwords'

    LinkedOut: Hashed details posted on Russian Dropbox-alike site

    LinkedIn has said it is looking into a file that reportedly contains the mildly obscured passwords of around 6.5 million of its users. A list containing the SHA1 hashed but unsalted passwords, purportedly of users of the business social network, has been posted on a Russian Dropbox-alike website. Some LinkedIn users have …

    Enterprise Security 6 Jun 16:26

  • Legendary sci-fi fantasy author Ray Bradbury exits planet Earth

    Obituary Author of influential post-WWII novel Fahrenheit 451 dies at 91

    Ray Bradbury, a master of fantasy fiction and author of the classic dystopian sci-fi novel Fahrenheit 451, has died at the age of 91. The great man – who once labelled himself a "hybrid author" due to his love of movies, libraries and theatre – passed away on Tuesday night, his daughter Alexandra Bradbury confirmed to the …

    Music and Media 6 Jun 16:43

  • Leaked Apple inventory list hints at new non-iOS hardware

    Stay of execution for Mac Pro towers rumoured

    Sweat is pouring down fanbois' foreheads today: a leaked inventory list and a stock shortage have sparked rumours of a new Mac Pro emerging at Apple's World Wide Developers Conference. The Mac Pro desktop tower was last refreshed in August 2010, and the top-specced model is a 12-core £4,083 ($4,999) beast. Such muscle power is …

    PCs & Chips 6 Jun 16:51

  • Oracle tweaks LDom hypervisor homegrown Sparcs

    Gets agnostic about Sparc T generations – and maybe M4s, too

    The Logical Domain hypervisor for Sparc T series processors, known formally as Oracle VM Server for Sparc, is probably one of the best technologies created by the former Sun Microsystems for its homegrown servers. (Solaris and ZFS are two other key technologies.) Oracle has just kicked out a 2.2 release that makes LDoms more …

    Virtualization 6 Jun 17:23

  • Apple seeks resurrection of HTC importation ban

    HTC: 'We fixed it.' Apple: 'No, you didn't'

    Again adhering to the Cupertinian creed that "the best defense is a good offense," Apple has filed its third complaint against Taiwanese smartphone-maker HTC at the US International Trade Commission (ITC), citing patent infringement and requesting a bar on a welter of HTC devices from being imported into the US. The patent …

    Operating Systems 6 Jun 17:46

  • Speaking in Tech: Don't be an IT costing fool

    Podcast The gang on chargebacks, Cisco, crappy Kindle sales and more...

    This week, the gang at our enterprise tech-cast talk about IT costings, Cisco, IBM and HP and more... Join The Dude of enterprise tech, Greg Knieriemen, cloud and storage expert Ed Saipetch and new media ace Sarah Vela for a chat. This week they discuss: Twitter picks out Greg’s next car for him; Speaking in Tech …

    CIO 6 Jun 18:14

  • Egenera stretches control freak from blades to clouds

    Getting physical as well as virtual

    Blade server and virtualization upstart Egenera has been gradually transforming itself from a hardware vendor to a management tool maker, and with its latest round of software is leaping from virtualized blade servers to the clouds while at the same time extending the capacity of blade infrastructure it can manage. The secret …

    Servers 6 Jun 20:00

  • Police called after Romney's email and Dropbox accounts cracked

    Didn't learn lessons from Sarah Palin

    Police are investigating a claimed cracking of presidential hopeful Mitt Romney's Hotmail and Dropbox accounts. An anonymous tipster claims to have accessed Romney's accounts by answering the security question needed to gain access. Using publically available information the attacker claims to have correctly guessed the name …

    Security 6 Jun 20:29

  • Google Maps adds aircraft, tricycles and skiers to cover all bases

    Touts a billion monthly users ahead of WWDC

    Google has been singing the praises of its mapping projects, outlining plans for a fleet of aircraft to provide 3D city modeling, offline storage of detailed maps, using StreetView on skis and snowmobiles and the mapping national museums and monuments with backpack 360 degree cameras. The Chocolate Factory went all out to …

    Applications 6 Jun 21:41

  • Microsoft backsteps Azure from platform to infrastructure cloud

    Embracing Linux VMs 'cause it can't deny them

    Microsoft got so excited about its upcoming enhancements to the Windows Azure cloud, due to be divulged in detail tomorrow, that it jumped the gun on its own announcement, perhaps to try to steal a little thunder from cloudy announcements from Oracle and Red Hat. The upshot is that Azure will no longer be just a platform cloud …

    Cloud 6 Jun 23:10

  • Kiwi telcos hungry for consolidation

    Driven by fear of ultrafast broadband initiative

    A desperate need for consolidation in the New Zealand market is being driven by the government’s national broadband network initiatives and could see accelerated exits and/or acquisitions according to analysts Ovum. Commenting on the speculation over takeover talks between Vodafone New Zealand and TelstraClear, Ovum’s David …

    Business 6 Jun 23:13

  • Plasma drive starts with pee

    ANU gets funding for space drive test facility

    The Australian National University is preparing to build a plasma drive test facility on the back of an $AU4 million funding injection (No, I’m not going to explain the headline yet). The facility, to be built at the Mount Stromolo observatory, will create a “space-ready” test-bed for a plasma drive designed at the ANU’s Space …

    Science 6 Jun 23:35

  • TiVo takes on Cisco in patent knock down

    DVR battles keep lawyers in business

    Cisco's woes in consumer-land have taken a new twist, with TiVo alleging the networking giant's DVR set-top boxes, supplied to telcos, infringe TiVo’s patents. The complaint filed last Monday in a Texas Federal Court claims that the Cisco boxes infringe on patents that make the playback of time-shifted TV possible. TiVo also …

    Business 6 Jun 23:53