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2nd July 2012 Archive

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  • Qantas gets rocked by Amadeus

    Time leaping blamed for airline mayhem

    Airlines Qantas and Virgin Australia went into temporary meltdown on Sunday morning (EST) when the Amadeus ALTEA platform which they both use was affected by unspecified technical issues. The global glitch left passengers unable to check in across domestic and international flights with staff having to resort to manual …

    Business 2 Jul 00:57

  • Australia's Copyright Act gets digital upgrade

    ALRC hands down terms of ref

    The Australian Law Reform Commission has released the final terms of reference of its review of copyright. The Attorney-General’s Department received in excess of 60 submissions in response to the draft terms of reference, which were released for public consultation in March this year. The revised terms for "Copyright and the …

    Law 2 Jul 02:38

  • Sussex bobbies get undisclosed tablets in networked-copper trials

    Fondleplods eager to get mitts on slabs

    Sussex Police is to issue neighbourhood officers with tablet devices on a trial basis from 2 July, as part of a mobile policing project. A spokesman for the force, which has to cut its budget by £50m and officers by 400 by 2015, told Guardian Government Computing that 10 devices would be issued to officers in its Lewes …

    Law 2 Jul 05:29

  • Gah! EU data protection will STIFLE business, moans gov.UK

    Yargh, I'm wrapped up in actual red tape here

    The European Commission has not calculated the full costs to businesses of changes to the EU data protection regime, the Government has said. The Ministry of Justice (MoJ) said that the Commission's assessment on the impact its draft General Data Protection Regulation would have on businesses does "not properly quantify the …

    Business 2 Jul 05:44

  • Google.eggfaced: Chocolate Factory spaffs cash in dot-word bungle

    Subsidiary Oompa-Loompas failed to RTFM

    Google may have applied to ICANN for 101 new generic top-level domains, but at least three of the applications are doomed to fail because somebody forgot to read the manual. The advertising juggernaut was the second-largest applicant out of the hundreds that applied for new right-of-the-dot addresses, according to the list …

    Hosting 2 Jul 06:59

  • Overland Storage looses off fusillade of patent suits into tape crowds

    Cartridge cases everywhere - it's spray-and-pray day

    On-the-ropes tape, disk protection and NAS vendor Overland Storage is suing seven tape product vendors for patent busting, including SpectraLogic. Overland Storage used to sell tape autoloaders and libraries to OEMs like HP a long time ago. But it lost that business, with autoloader-maker BDT capturing some of its clients. …

    Storage 2 Jul 07:18

  • Microsoft: Don't overclock Windows 8 unless you like our new BSOD

    Redmond boffins burn up CPUs so you don't have to

    Microsoft's Blue Screen of Death is the curse of Windows. Not just its appearance, mid way through some serious game play or spreadsheeting, but the messages themselves - digital monologues on the existence of a problem, its possible causes and how you can fix it. Yeah, right. Just shut down and re-start like everybody else. …

    Windows 8 2 Jul 07:39

  • The Grundy NewBrain is 30

    Feature The revolutionary product that came too late

    The NewBrain was launched 30 years ago this month, but its arrival, in July 1982, was a long time coming. The genesis of the computer that might have been the BBC Micro - that might, even, have been Sinclair's first home computer - goes back more than four years to 1978. The company that became known as Sinclair Radionics was …

    reghardware 2 Jul 08:00

  • Google Drives its pot-o-cloud onto the iPhone, tangles with Dropbox

    Never mind the quality, sort out the width

    Google's iPhone/iPad G Drive app tries to take on Dropbox. It does its basic job reaosnably well, despite a crappy captcha. And here it is: The idea is you can access your files in Google Drive that have been uploaded from a Mac or PC. You download the app on your iPhone easily enough from the App Store and it installs and …

    SaaS 2 Jul 08:15

  • One day soon, maybe: Mobile health apps that are actually useful

    Future of Wireless 'You are medically dead. Inform contact?'

    You don't have to stick sensors inside people to see what's killing them - but just how much can you find out with nothing more than a breath of air and a teardrop or two? Quite far, according to Professor Chris Lowe, of Cambridge University, who has been using glucose-detecting contact lenses to demonstrate how our tears show …

    Mobile 2 Jul 08:29

  • Naked Scarlett Johansson pic snatch 'is worth 6 years' porridge'

    Prosecutors want crackdown on saucy sleb webmail plunder

    Prosecutors have called for tough penalties and mid-level fines against the self-confessed Scarlett Johansson nude photo hacker. Christopher Chaney, of Jacksonville, Florida, 35, pleaded guilty in March to hacking into the webmail account of numerous celebs including Mila Kunis and Scarlett Johansson and changing settings to …

    Security 2 Jul 08:44

  • Ingram Micro crams BrightPoint down gullet for $840m

    Broadline bigboy wolfs wireless widgetry wares

    Broadline behemoth Ingram Micro has coughed $840m (£535.7m) for specialist wireless device and services distie BrightPoint, the companies confirmed this morning. Industry chatter in recent weeks pointed toward Ingram being in talks to snap up Specialist Distribution Group, a mid-market infrastructure distributor. The deal …

    Channel Register 2 Jul 09:03

  • Bluetooth gizmo lets you take card payments via smartphone

    Square-a-like swipe or type offering for cashless Blighty

    Retailers who've been waiting for Square to jump the pond can now sign up with startup mPowa, and start using a Bluetooth reader capable of processing Chip 'n PIN cards. mPowa does have a reader almost identical to the headline-grabbing Square, one which balances on top of an iPhone to read the magnetic stripe, but they'll …

    Financial News 2 Jul 09:14

  • Apple makes Cocoa with Porridge

    Mac OS X dev data pays homage to infamous jailbird

    Never let it be said: Apple employees have no sense of humour. If not, why else would HM Prison Slade's most famous inmate make an appearance in the Mac maker's Cocoa API reference library? As you can see, Apple's NSString object reference includes a method entitled componentsSeparatedByString: and the write-up mentions one …

    reghardware 2 Jul 09:20

  • Squabbling EU heads force Council to split patent court in 3

    Pouting politicians dig their heels in on unified system

    The UK, France and Germany have removed the last obstacle to the formation of a unified European patent system by divvying up the court between them. The three European powerhouses have been holding up the end of a process that's been going on for decades to try to bring all of Europe's patent laws and disputes under one …

    Law 2 Jul 09:29

  • Trio of 'nauts plonk down after six-month space station stint

    Vid That's enough recycled urine for anyone

    Three International Space Station crew members have returned to Earth after more than six months aboard the orbiting platform. A Soyuz TMA-03M carrying Expedition 31 commander Oleg Kononenko, NASA's Don Pettit and the European Space Agency's Andre Kuipers touched down in the steppes of Kazakhstan at 0814 GMT on Sunday. The …

    Space 2 Jul 09:41

  • Microsoft silently kills silent, automatic Skype install via Updates

    Skype me! What? I think you'll find you do have it

    Microsoft has pulled the plug on a Windows update that snuck Skype onto business PCs. Corporate admins got a nasty surprise on Wednesday when Skype 5.9 was automatically and silently installed on work machines via Windows Server Update Service (WSUS) - including PCs that did not have the voice chat software previously …

    Operating Systems 2 Jul 09:58

  • Apple lobs pocket change to Proview, ending Chinese IPAD name row

    $60m? Hardly worth opening our wallet to get it out

    Apple has forked out $60m to settle the row over the name IPAD with Chinese firm Proview Technology. The fruity firm agreed to the sum to buy the name from Proview in mediation talks, the Higher People's Court of Guangdong said in a statement (translated by Google Translate). "All parties involved have agreed on the …

    Law 2 Jul 10:16

  • Sony grabs cloud-gaming group Gaikai

    New stream of PlayStation business?

    Sony has acquired cloud-gaming company Gaikai for $380m (£240m) with a view to using the streaming service set to strengthen its online offering. The deal sees Sony take control of Gaikai's tech and infrastructure, including all of the cloud-gaming firm's data centres. Gaikai runs games on its servers, with picture and sound …

    reghardware 2 Jul 10:29

  • Sozzled Americans nagged by talking urinal cake

    'Don't drink and drive, and please wash your hands'

    Michigan males intent on celebrating the Fourth of July holiday with a few liveners are advised that when the time comes to send the booze back to the brewers, it'll be the urinal, rather than the beer, that's doing the talking. The Office of Highway Safety Planning (OHSP) is asking bar and restaurant owners in Bay, Delta, …

    Bootnotes 2 Jul 10:30

  • Microsoft gets its hypervisor war face on, squares up to VMware

    File tanks rumble out of Redmond, headed for NFS lawn

    Microsoft has enlisted X-IO and others as its proxies alongside Hyper-V and SMB in a war against VMware and NFS. SMB v3, formerly known as CIFS, is Microsoft's preferred way of getting file-based networked storage data into servers running its Hyper-V hypervisor. The opposing camp is seen as VMware and NFS. X-IO's UK …

    Storage 2 Jul 10:44

  • Plans for special police-run ICT firm to firm up this month

    Plods to use pork truncheon to beat savings out of market

    Home Office Minister Theresa May is set to finally add some colour to the plans she sketched out last year over the creation of a police ICT company, the department has confirmed. The way IT is procured and managed by the boys in blue was criticised by May last summer for being "confused, fragmented and expensive" and a firm, …

    Channel Register 2 Jul 11:00

  • Samsung asks for US Galaxy Nexus ban to be lifted pending appeal

    Korean blower 'will damage us IRREPARABLY' snivels Apple

    Samsung has filed an appeal against the US ban on the Galaxy Nexus phone that will take the Google mobe off the market for nearly two years. US judge Lucy Koh awarded the preliminary injunction on the phone to Apple on Friday, blocking imports of the Nexus until the trial starts, currently scheduled for March 31, 2014. Apple …

    Law 2 Jul 11:42

  • Avnet gobbles Magirus, aiming to deliver swollen offerings

    Frenzied engorgement among the disties today

    Avnet Inc is consuming pan-European distributor Magirus Group for an undisclosed sum. The agreement was made public today - just hours after it emerged that Ingram Micro is splashing $850m to acquire BrightPoint ($650m in cash and assuming $190m worth of debts). Stuttgart-based Magirus offloaded its $500m enterprise hardware …

    Channel Register 2 Jul 11:44

  • Overland patent broadside: Targeted firms vow to fight

    Let's get ready to grumble

    Quantum and other vendors being sued by Overland Storage for allegedly infringing its patents are in more of a mood to fight than settle. On Friday Overland - the supplier of REO and NEO tape and disk protection systems, and Snap-branded filers - said it was suing Quantum, Venture Corp, Spectra Logic, PivotStor, Qualstar, …

    Storage 2 Jul 11:58

  • LinkedIn inked out: Twitter cuts off jabberhose to suits

    Yoink! #SoLongSuckers

    Twitter has tightened the screws on its application programming interface (API), cutting dead syndication with LinkedIn and promising a more "consistent" network for its users. The micro-blogging outfit is slowly starting to lock out third-party developers now that it has banked 100 million users. It is no longer interested in …

    Networks 2 Jul 12:32

  • Micron's Elpida buy is GO for $2.5bn - and then there were three

    Any DRAM you like. Provided you like Samsung, Hynix or Micron

    Confirming previous reports, Micron is spending $2.5 billion to buy bankrupt and debt-ridden Japanese DRAM manufacturer Elpida and so double its DRAM market share to 24 per cent, second only to Samsung. This was reported by the Nikkei media outlet DRAMeXchange in Japan late last week. The report says that although some 70 per …

    Storage 2 Jul 13:02

  • Users enraged by Cisco's cloudy 'upgrade' to Linksys routers

    Demand right to furtle own boxes in privacy

    Cisco was forced into reverse ferret mode late last week, after it automatically updated some of its Linksys routers in such a way as to make use of its Cloud-based management console obligatory. But - following howls of protest from its customers - Cisco began offering punters the option of rolling back the firmware update to …

    Platform 2 Jul 13:12

  • YouView recommends radio hams' pet peeve

    IPTV outfit's set-top box to prompt powerline usage surge?

    Radio hams with a downer on powerline Ethernet are set to be even more upset by the debut of YouView. The IPTV platform is recommending the networking-over-the-mains technology. YouView is currently running a closed trial of service. Trial support documents seen by The Register recommend punters whose broadband box is more …

    reghardware 2 Jul 13:24

  • Leap second bug cripples Linux servers at airlines, Reddit, LinkedIn

    Not a good time to be Australian

    The leap second inserted at the weekend crippled Linux-powered servers running one of the world’s largest airline reservation systems - delaying and cancelling flights. Machines running the mighty Amadeus Altea system were brought down soon after an extra second was added to Coordinated Universal Time (UTC) at midnight on …

    Operating Systems 2 Jul 13:34

  • Fujitsu phones to guide the blind through homes

    Golden receivers

    Fujitsu has helped develop an indoor support system that utilises impulse radio ultrawideband (UWB) tech to guide blind and partially sighted people around their homes. The system - co-created with Japan's National Institute of Information and Communications Technology - gives audio instructions on distances and directions to …

    reghardware 2 Jul 13:42

  • Dell finally nabs Quest for $2.4bn

    Updated Swallows Toad in the whole

    After a minor bidding war with Insight Venture Partners, Michael Dell has prevailed with a bag of cash stuffed with $2.4bn (£1.5bn) to take over Quest Software - a peddler of a hodge-podge of systems, database, performance and access management tools as well as data archiving software. Dell has not historically broken out its …

    Financial News 2 Jul 14:34

  • Buy Smarter: what you need to know about... optical disc drives

    Buyer's Guide Laser sharp storage

    Optical drive is the collective term for CD, DVD and Blu-ray readers, recorders and rewriters, the mainstay of swap-in-swap-out storage in notebook and desktop computers. At its simplest, an optical disc can load applications or play music or films, and at its most complex, in the form of a dual-layer, Blu-ray BD-RE disc, it …

    reghardware 2 Jul 14:41

  • Misery ending? UK reseller insolvencies may have bottomed out

    Dead firms were soft and weak, only the hard survive

    Insolvency rates in the UK channel were back to pre-recession levels in Q2, according to official stats from credit reference agency Graydon UK. The picture is remarkably different to a year ago when reseller failures reached a nine-year high with 99 firms hitting the wall, a pattern that continued until the end of Q1 2012 …

    Channel Register 2 Jul 14:49

  • UK.gov proposes massive copyright land snatch

    Analysis Your lunch? I sold it for 2p. Hey, here's your ½p

    Photographers, illustrators and authors will be amongst those to lose their digital rights under radical new proposals published by the Government today. New legislation is proposed that would effectively introduce a compulsory purchase order, but without compensation, across an unlimited range of creative works, for commercial …

    Media 2 Jul 15:05

  • Baltic cyber bank burglars cop hefty porridge spell

    London bust means hard time for plunderers

    A trio of cybercrooks that used malware to carry out electronic banking fraud have been jailed. Pavel Cyganok and Ilja Zakrevski, from Lithuania and Estonia respectively, were arrested by detectives from the Met's Police Central eCrime Unit after a tip-off from their counterparts in Estonia. Cyganok was convicted and sentenced …

    Security 2 Jul 15:53

  • Microsoft runs price-hike Lite promo for Open Value licenses

    Here, rub this cream in, it'll hurt less

    Microsoft distributor Westcoast is trying to "ease the pain" for customers facing a price hike on Open Value Volume (OVV) licenses by pushing out a three-month promo. Starting 1 July, Redmond realigned prices across the EU to the single currency and as such UK firms will cough between 1.7 per cent and 25.9 per cent more for …

    Channel Register 2 Jul 15:56

  • Google nixes extra wireless attachments to its new Kansas fibres

    That pipe isn't fat enough to interest us

    Google has rejected overtures from a Kansas non-profit to integrate their wireless solution for the digitally challenged, saying that it didn't fit into their licensing model. Connecting for Good is a non-profit organisation aiming to get people in Kansas connected, and had hoped to work with the Chocolate Factory which is in …

    Broadband 2 Jul 17:00

  • Facebook phone app attempts to seize ALL YOUR MAIL

    Gonna slurp you good... bitch

    Facebook has found an innovative way to encourage use of its email service: reach into users' mobile phone address books and change the email addresses stored against each contact to their Facebook email account. It has emerged that Facebook's war on competing services now extends beyond the manipulated Timeline and into …

    Security 2 Jul 17:32

  • Google makes 'proposal' to Europe on antitrust concerns

    Brussels examining missive from Eric Schmidt

    Google has submitted what it described as a "proposal" to antitrust officials in Brussels that the search giant said addresses the "abuse of dominance" claims outlined by competition commissioner Joaquin Almunia in May this year. The company, which has been investigated by the EC since November 2010 over allegations that it …

    Government 2 Jul 18:23

  • More revelers amp up hybrid memory cube party

    ARM, HP (and more) join Micron, Samsung, Microsoft (and more)

    A bunch more IT vendors have picked up shiny new Hybrid Memory Cube sledgehammers and are working with Micron Technology and Samsung Electronics to smash the memory barrier. Memory performance, density, and lower power consumption are all key to future servers and other exotic high performance computing clusters as well as for …

    Hardware 2 Jul 18:38

  • Apple faces Italian shutdown over warranty skulduggery

    No dolce vita for Cupertino

    Apple is facing a shutdown of its Italian operations by competition authorities over repeated flouting of that country's consumer-protection laws. Italian law states that consumer electronics devices must be sold with a two-year free warranty, and that the seller has an obligation to inform buyers of this fact. Apple is …

    Business 2 Jul 20:19

  • Web stat WTF: iOS beats Android 3 to 1, iOS and Android tied

    Welcome to Schrödinger's web analytics

    Apple's iOS devices account for 65 per cent of mobile web traffic versus Android's 20 per cent, or the two operating systems are neck-and-neck at about a quarter of all mobile web traffic apiece. Yes, you read that correctly. There is, indeed, that much disparity in two recent mobile web-usage reports, one from Net …

    Mobile 2 Jul 20:28

  • BAE proposes GPS-less location

    Beat the jammers and spoofs

    Whether or not Iran used GPS spoofing to down a US drone last year, there’s no doubt that GPS spoofing is both real and easier than the military would like. Now, BAE Systems is proposing a positioning technology that works without GPS. The defence company says its NAVSOP system – Navigation via Signals of Oppurtunity – allows …

    Science 2 Jul 21:59

  • Fermilab scientists give their data one last squeeze

    Tevatron tantalizes ahead of CERN’s big day

    Just ahead of this week’s scheduled press conference by CERN, at which LHC researchers are due to announce the result of their latest data analysis, Fermilab scientists have put a narrower value on the possible Higgs Boson mass. In what they say is “squeezing the last bit” out of their long data collection (500 trillion …

    Physics 2 Jul 23:00

  • Mozilla's 'Boot to Gecko' morphs into Firefox OS

    Debut of new mobile OS: Brazil 2013

    Mozilla has announced details of its forthcoming mobile OS built on web technologies, henceforth to be known as Firefox OS and aimed at the "billions of users" who will soon flood the shallow end of the feature pool. The new OS will be based on Mozilla's "Boot to Gecko" project, named after the Firefox browser's HTML rendering …

    Mobile 2 Jul 23:07