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11th June 2012 Archive

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  • CERN confirms neutrinos don't break light speed

    Faulty fibres flamed for fatuous FTL finding

    Neutrinos are most definitely not faster than light after all, says CERN. The laws of physics got the good news last Friday at the 25th International Conference on Neutrino Physics and Astrophysics in Kyoto, in a talk titled “The neutrino velocity measurement by OPERA experiment”. Slides (PDF) accompanying the talk say the …

    Science 11 Jun 03:26

  • Japan still in love with the fax

    Hi-tech nation of contradictions

    Despite being hailed for its techno-innovation, Japan is a little more traditional than many people think – over half of homes apparently still contain fax machines. The country’s businesses and government organisations continue to rely on the legacy technology to transmit important documents, while 59 per cent of households …

    Business 11 Jun 03:39

  • India to greenlight state-sponsored cyber attacks

    Gov agencies will get the nod

    The Indian government is stepping up its cyber security capabilities with plans to protect critical national infrastructure from a Stuxnet-like attack and to authorise two agencies to carry out state-sponsored attacks if necessary. Sources told the Times of India that the government’s National Security Council, headed by prime …

    Policy 11 Jun 05:56

  • Telefonica steps back from China as debts mount

    Reduces stake in China Unicom by half

    Spanish network giant Telefonica revealed just how much financial trouble it may be in after it was forced to sell half of its shares in China Unicom back to China’s number two telco. Telefonica will remain a major shareholder in the Chinese company with a 5.01 per cent stake, but is set to cash in on 4.56 per cent to the tune …

    Business 11 Jun 06:48

  • All-flash IBM V7000 smashes Oracle/Sun ZFS box

    SPC-1 benchmark

    Flash strikes again. IBM's newest storage array, the Storwize V7000, has trounced an Oracle/Sun ZFS array, delivering almost the same performance for less than half the price and 4 per cent of the capacity. The SPC-1 benchmark tests the performance of a storage array doing mainly random I/O in a business environment. IBM's …

    Storage 11 Jun 07:02

  • Europe crams ultra-fast 4G into tight spectrum crack

    Outta the way 3G, the new kid is here

    Euro telecoms regulator CEPT has released 120MHz of shiny new radio spectrum for "ultra-fast mobile broadband", which would be more impressive if the bands weren't full of reasonably fast data already. The frequencies concerned are around 2.1GHz and are already full of 3G networking everywhere - but a handful of operators are …

    Broadband 11 Jun 08:02

  • Students face off in Hamburg home-cooked cluster clash

    HPC blog Hell on the Elbe: You pick the winners at ISC’12

    We’re a little less than two weeks away from the tip-off of the first ISC/HPCAC 2012 Student Cluster Competition. University teams representing the US, China, and host nation Germany will meet in an epic benchmark battle to prove which team can design and build the fastest homemade cluster. The only constraint is electricity – …

    HPC 11 Jun 08:28

  • Habeas data: How to build an internet that forgets

    Comment Hoarders and hypesters don't want expiry dates on YOUR data

    All it takes one tiny pinprick to burst a bubble. I think I've seen one pin that might pop two huge bubbles - and it may well be the most subversive idea you'll hear all year. Over at The Atlantic blog comes a report on a problem with the internet. You have to be a forgiving reader to wade through Megan Marber's meandering …

    Media 11 Jun 09:02

  • 'That's a FUBAR train wreck waiting to happen'

    Quotw Plus: 'It is fairly simple to stop HULK attacks'

    This was the week that was all about security - or the lack thereof. LinkedIn, eHarmony and Last.fm all got hacked and had user passwords stolen. Millions of members from the business network and the dating site had their passwords published online, while users were also getting spammed, indicating emails may have been taken …

    Bootnotes 11 Jun 09:13

  • Why MongoDB? It's the developers, stupid

    Open ... and Shut Second-hottest skill after HTML5

    Increasingly the third standard within enterprises for databases, MongoDB, has been claiming a lot of victories lately. In relative terms, it has become the second-hottest skill to have on one's resume, right after HTML5, according to Indeed.com job trend data. And despite plenty of hating on its technology, with one person …

    Developer 11 Jun 09:18

  • Microsoft 'mulled Nokia buyout, ran away screaming'

    Analysis Why Windows 8 giant will wait for Finns to bleed some more

    Rumours of a Microsoft buyout of fallen phone champ Nokia have re-emerged, prompted by nothing more, it seems, than Nokia's sickly share price. Nokia shares recently hit a 15-year low, dropping 40 per cent in the past three months alone*. But well-placed sources tell us that Microsoft was given access to Nokia's books late last …

    Business 11 Jun 09:42

  • Silicon Valley Bank lures Brit startups with sacks of cash

    Sci-tech fund pump opens Blighty branch

    US tech-loving bank Silicon Valley has opened its first branch in the UK to offer cash and services to Britain’s IT startups. Silicon Valley Bank has $20bn in assets and will be targeting the tech, life science, private equity and venture capital industries in the UK. Chancellor George Osborne reckoned the bank’s move was “ …

    Cloud 11 Jun 10:02

  • LG's quad-core Optimus tabphone powers into Europe

    Pace and display

    The big-screen LG Optimus 4X HD has joined the growing list of quad-core party members, with the company's Nvidia Tegra 3 powerhouse shipping across Europe this week. As with most of its sexy quad-core rivals, the 4X HD tries to seduce with a saucy screen. Here it's a 4.7in IPS LCD display with a resolution of 1280 x 720, an …

    reghardware 11 Jun 10:03

  • Intel rivals crash Hot Chips party with full-fat server silicon

    Hey baby, wanna come upstairs and see my pipeline?

    After hogging most of the oxygen in the server market with its new Xeon E3 and E5 processors this spring, Intel is going to get a little competition this summer as its rivals in the server racket trot out their upcoming server processors at the Hot Chips 24 symposium at Stanford University. The Hot Chips event, which is hosted …

    Hardware 11 Jun 10:18

  • Smart meters are 'massive surveillance' tech - privacy supremo

    Euro watchdog demands data law to protect punters

    The European Data Protection Supervisor has warned that smart meters are a significant privacy threat and wants limits on the retention and use of customer data before it's too late. The EDPS is an independent authority figure tasked with identifying where EU policies might represent a risk to privacy. He reckons next- …

    Science 11 Jun 10:41

  • LG 47LM670T 47in passive 3D smart TV

    Review Fashionably thin

    If design is the most potent weapon in a TV manufacturer’s armoury right now, LG is wielding a pretty big shooter with its new Cinema Screen line. Offering corner to corner glass, a 10.5mm bezel and what the brand calls a ‘floating metal ribbon stand,’ these 2012 flatties are genuine head-turners. Looking Smart: LG's 47LM670T …

    reghardware 11 Jun 11:00

  • Asus-made Google pad set for June debut

    All eyes on Google I/O

    An Asus staffer has let slip that the Taiwanese tablet maker is indeed working on a seven-incher for Google and that the gadget will be announced at the end of the month. The Android 4.1 standard bearer seems set, then, to be unveiled at Google I/O, the online advertising giant's annual technology conference, says Android …

    reghardware 11 Jun 11:14

  • Brit judge orders Facebook to rip masks from anonymous cowards

    Hey, real names are part of our culture ... bitch

    A 45-year-old woman from Brighton who was subjected to a litany of abusive messages on Facebook has won a landmark High Court order forcing the social network to reveal the identities of anonymous internet trolls who labelled her a paedophile and a drug dealer. The Guardian reported on Friday that Nicola Brookes had received " …

    Law 11 Jun 11:17

  • Male, female Chinese 'nauts prep for trip to Heaven and back

    'Genuine manned tool' readied for orbital coupling

    China is gearing up for its first manned space docking mission, which will attempt to latch onto the Tiangong-1 space laboratory in mid-June. The Shenzhou-9 manned spacecraft will blast off sometime this month to try to berth with the Heavenly Palace – the first module of China’s own space station. "The Shenzhou-9 will …

    Science 11 Jun 11:26

  • Now TalkTalk cuts Brits' access to The Pirate Bay

    Downloaders WalkWalk the plank

    TalkTalk became the final major telecoms company in the UK to comply with a High Court judge's order to block access to The Pirate Bay via its network. According to TalkTalk subscribers, the blockade began overnight, however the ISP hadn't responded to The Register's request for comment at time of publication. Usefully, Reg …

    Networks 11 Jun 11:41

  • Facebook changes data-use policy despite 87% poll opposition

    Our secret vote only drew 'unrepresentative' users

    Facebook has ignored a vote "cast" by 297,883 of its members who agreed that the social network shouldn't update its data use policy. Despite that, the company is amending its rules on the way it slurps data from its users for the purposes of advertising - a move that comes in the wake of the Irish data protection commissioner …

    Networks 11 Jun 12:03

  • Passwords pillaged from League of Legends wand-strokers

    Euro gamers' very private jewels sniffed by hackers

    Passwords, email addresses, dates of birth and other sensitive data have been plundered from the player databases of fantasy strategy game League of Legends. Publisher Riot Games sent emails to its online role-players in West, Nordic and East Europe, and posted on its website, to warn that hackers had raided their account …

    Security 11 Jun 12:18

  • Serco gulps more gov contracts with VDS gobble

    Job Centre, child maintenance deals in £55.5m buyout

    Services and systems colossus Serco has taken charge of more government contracts by buying out Vertex Public Sector's data division: Vertex Data Science (VDS). Serco splashed £55.5m in cash on the division - bringing in 3,000 employees and scooping its meaty government contracts, including administering child maintenance …

    Channel Register 11 Jun 12:39

  • Insider cuts into Apple, peels off Intel Mac OS X port secrets

    Project Marklar was a one-man skunkworks

    The wife of a former senior Apple engineer has spilled the beans on Apple's transition, and it's a sweet and surprising story. The first years of the last decade posed a problem for Apple hardware: it had a new, futuristic operating system but was being left behind in the performance race. CEO Steve Jobs had fallen out with …

    Operating Systems 11 Jun 13:04

  • Belfast promises free city-wide Wi-Fi in cash grab hope

    Given its website glitches, that public money couldn't come soon enough

    Having scored £6m of central government cash to improve its broadband coverage, Belfast Council hopes to get another £7.7m to rollout free Wi-Fi across the city. The money comes from the Ministry of Fun, which has given ten UK cities cash to improve their connectivity. But even more money is promised if the cities can …

    Broadband 11 Jun 13:29

  • Android activations near a million a day

    Rubin rouses ahead of WWDC

    Almost a million Android devices are activated every 24 hours, according to Google's Andy Rubin. The company's senior VP of mobile stuff revealed the statistics through Twitter where, after insisting he had no plans to leave Google, claimed "there are over 900,000 Android devices activated each day". Android on the grind …

    reghardware 11 Jun 13:42

  • Lamborghini drives Androids towards wealthy pockets

    Richer gear

    Lamborghini has upped the gears with its own range of mobile products, including a tablet and a gold-plated Android handset, both set to drive into the hands of oligarchs this summer. The Lamborghini TL700 boasts a metal and crocodile skin body, protected with a display built from sapphire glass, Russian site Hi-Tech Mail …

    reghardware 11 Jun 13:54

  • Google to axe Meebo apps on 11 July

    Bites, chews, spits toolbar biz out

    Google acquired Meebo for $100m last month and has already started to shut down the advertising service's products. Ten years ago Meebo would clearly have been labelled as a nefarious data-slurping and spyware operation and would have probably spawned a web-wide boycott. How times have changed. Meebo's clients are mega- …

    Small Biz 11 Jun 14:01

  • Microsoft assembles a private cloud so you don't have to

    Trevor's infrastructure drill-down

    The backbone of a cloud is infrastructure. At its core, it is an attempt to deliver compute power, networking and storage as efficiently and responsively as possible. Every serious public cloud player has its own industry-leading approach. From cookie sheet computing to custom networking gear to open-sourced infrastructure, …

    Cloud 11 Jun 14:20

  • 'Zombie bullets' fly off US shelves after wave of undead attacks

    Well, how else will you tackle a shuffling corpse horde?

    Special ammunition optimised for fighting zombies is selling like hot cakes in the USA, according to reports, following sensational media coverage of incidents involving flesh-eating and similar undead-esque behaviour. In particular, fears of an imminent zombie plague were stoked by the recent case of Rudy Eugene. The 31-year- …

    Bootnotes 11 Jun 14:43

  • Google co-founders face FTC antitrust grilling

    Page and Brin have lawyered-up, claim sources

    Google co-founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin will be quizzed by antitrust investigators at the US Federal Trade Commission, according to well-placed moles. The web giant's CEO Page and special projects honcho Brin will be questioned in relation to the FTC's inquiry of the company's business practices, anonymous sources told …

    Business 11 Jun 15:02

  • An early iPad adopter? You smut-ogling filth-gobbling perv!

    Well, you like to fondle, don't you?

    Seems that people who fell for the fondleslab early like to fondle more in general. Early adopters of tablets are more likely to watch porn than those currently without a tablet, suggests new research. A 156-page report into the subject of the mobile porn industry by Juniper Research, published today, has suggested that …

    reghardware 11 Jun 15:34

  • French writers say OUI! to Google's book-slurp deal

    Beret-wearers will sell wafflings via web giant

    Google has come to an arrangement with French authors and publishers, who sued for copyright infringement after the web giant began scanning and indexing their books. The deal clears the way for the search goliath to resume digitising tomes for the first time since 2006. The French Publishers' Association (Syndicat national de …

    Media 11 Jun 16:01

  • Apple's online store goes offline

    Major hardware announcements slated for Monday's WWDC keynote

    If you had any doubt that Apple would be announcing new hardware on Monday, doubt no more. Here's what Apple's online store is displaying in the hours before the 10am Pacific Time keynote presentation at its 2012 Worldwide Developer Conference (WWDC): Backstage web admins are busy behind the scenes on Monday morning It's …

    Hardware 11 Jun 16:17

  • AMD tiptoes past sparring rivals in embedded CPU foray

    There's more to life than PCs and servers

    The new management team at Advanced Micro Devices is looking everywhere, including under the couch cushions, to find some money so it can afford to explore the embedded systems market again. The chip biz hopes rivals Intel and the ARM collective are too distracted to notice the foray as they fight over each others' territories …

    Hardware 11 Jun 17:05

  • Apple introduces 'next generation' MacBook Pro with retina display

    What other company could sell a base model $2,199 laptop?

    In addition to updating its existing MacBook Air and MacBook Pro lines, Apple has introduced what it's calling the "next generation" MacBook Pro, complete with a 15.4-inch, 2880-by-1800 pixel, 220ppi "retina display". "It's the most beautiful computer we have ever made," said Apple marketing honcho Phil Schiller during the …

    reghardware 11 Jun 18:06

  • Windows is the OS of the cloud, says Microsoft

    TechEd Aims performance broadside at VMware

    Redmond has opened its 20th annual TechEd jamboree with a keynote from Microsoft Server and Tools Business president Satya Nadella that pitched Windows to IT managers as the best OS for building clouds. "The cloud operating system is the core capability," he said. "We wanted to make sure that we can do a great job of building …

    Cloud 11 Jun 18:29

  • Linux Mint joins mini-PC hardware business

    Smooth and ribbed minty boxes for your pleasure

    Linux Mint, flush with its recent popularity in the distro stakes, is looking to take the pain out of installation with its first hardware line, called mintBox, that comes in smooth and ribbed versions. "We're passionate about what we do and for our very first Mint device, we wanted something unique, something special and …

    Hardware 11 Jun 19:54

  • Dell cranks vStart virty server stacks to 1000

    Updated Converged blade data center for raw iron

    With new servers, switches, and storage arrays in the field, the next thing that a modern IT supplier needs to do is create converged system stacks based on that new iron, focusing on the hardware and pitching the benefits of having everything pre-integrated. Dell is hosting its Storage Forum in Boston, Massachusetts, …

    Cloud 11 Jun 20:31

  • Password flaw leaves MySQL, MariaDB open to brute force attack

    Ubuntu, Fedora, and openSUSE versions vulnerable

    A basic flaw in the password software used by MySQL and MariaDB allows a brute-force attack to bag the password and gain full root access in a few seconds, according to details published by security researchers. MariaDB security coordinator Sergei Golubchik explained the flaw, which involves a casting error when passwords are …

    Security 11 Jun 23:03

  • Study fingers humans for ocean heat rise

    ‘No matter how you look at it, we did it’

    A study published last weekend on Nature Climate Change claims to give the lie to the notion that if the world is warming, it’s not our fault. With the kind of certainty that will send the Heartland Institute reaching for Plan C (“the world should focus on mitigation”), the study, The study, Human-induced global ocean warming …

    Science 11 Jun 23:16

  • iPhones, iPads to be FULL OF FACEBOOK and NOT GOOGLE

    Mountain View 'dairy product' feels Cupertino lash

    If you're harboring any doubts about bad blood bubbling between Apple and Google, Cupertino's iOS headman Scott Forstall dispelled them on Monday when introducing the next version of Apple's mobile operating system, iOS 6. "They released a dairy product, 4.0, about the same time that we released iOS 5," Macworld quotes* …

    Mobile 11 Jun 23:18

  • Money men want bombproof data centre on satellite site

    Apollo radio site Jameson Earth Station slated for redevelopment by Oz company

    Australian telecommunications company PlusComms is poised to acquire a piece of global telecommunications and space history as it seeks to raise capital for the purchase of the Jamesburg Earth Station. Located in California's Carmel Valley, Jamesburg was built to assist the Apollo moon landings and until 2002 was a fully …

    Business 11 Jun 23:53