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26th July 2012 Archive

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  • Kaminsky takes on censorship with info-mapping tools

    Black Hat 2012 Wants to transparency to provoke debate

    When he's not working on DNSSEC, Dan Kaminsky is taking on censors, both in government and in private industry, with plans for a series of user-friendly tools that will map out where information is being deleted or blocked online. Last year Kaminsky released his n00ter tool, which mapped internet traffic speeds to spot any …

    Security 26 Jul 00:58

  • 'Spintronics' brings IBM's Racetrack Memory closer to reality

    'New physics' of electrons that only move in one direction

    The Manager of IBM's Magnetoelectronics Almaden Research Center says ideas discussed at a Sydney conference on “Spintronics” will help to advance Big Blue's vision for “Racetrack Memory”, a technology that we've previously explained “involves sending magnetic "stripes" through nanowires, written by imparting spin to the …

    Science 26 Jul 01:07

  • Amazon crimps free Kindle 3G surfing

    Exercises option to restrict browsing after 50MB of web access

    The free ride is over: owners of early Amazon Kindles that included free global access to 3G networks will now have their ability to surf the net crimped. Kindle owners could access the Internet thanks to the experimental browser included in some early models of the e-reader. The browser used the same connection 3G-equipped …

    Networks 26 Jul 02:44

  • Cyber gang made £30 MILLION from fake gov certs

    Hacked official sites to make phony qualifications

    Chinese police are celebrating the arrest of a nationwide cyber crime gang suspected of making over £30 million by selling fake professional qualifications, which they helped to produce by hacking into government web sites. Police have arrested 165 people so far, scattered across 12 provinces. A whopping 185 government sites …

    Security 26 Jul 05:54

  • APAC firms to up their dose of tablets by 22 PER CENT

    Budget cuts? What budget cuts?

    Tablet fever has hit businesses in the Asia-Pacific region, with nearly a quarter of IT leaders in the region planning on buying the devices for employees despite looming budget cuts over the next 12 months, according to IDC research. The analyst’s annual Continuum end user survey questioned over 1,600 CIOs, IT directors and …

    Datacenter 26 Jul 06:20

  • Cops shutter net cafes to save Beijing's youth

    Litte Emperors need protection from big bad internet

    Beijing police have announced yet another ‘clean-up’ of the web, this time closing hundreds of internet cafes and arresting thousands in the name of protecting the Chinese capital’s vulnerable youth. Fu Zhenghua, who heads up the city’s Public Security Bureau, said that just over 5,000 people had been arrested and the owners …

    Policy 26 Jul 06:36

  • Choose Smarter: Ten…portable optical drives

    Product Round-up The art of spin

    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. For many reasons, optical discs remain a useful storage option and having a portable unit allows you to get the best of the latest laser tech without having …

    reghardware 26 Jul 07:00

  • AAPT confirms attack, through Melbourne IT

    Uses SHOUTY CAPS to say purloined data is a year old, has not been online for ages

    AAPT has issued a statement in which it confirms one of its servers has been attacked, and data downloaded. Anonymous claims it is the perpetrator of the attack and has been promising imminent release of documents that it has hill embarrass the federal government. AAPT CEO David Yuile has issued a statement that says, in …

    Security 26 Jul 07:25

  • Capita and pals get £500m for ZOMBIE APOCALYPSE call centre

    UK-wide deal covers 'any health-related emergency'

    The Department of Health (DH) has awarded a framework agreement to four suppliers for health-related managed contact centre services, worth up to £500m. Capita Customer Management, 118, Vangent and MM Teleperformance have been named as the chosen suppliers. According to a notice in the Official Journal of the European Union, …

    Policy 26 Jul 07:28

  • Captain Cyborg accepts another degree from puny humans

    10 INPUT honorary_award$ 20 GOTO 10

    The nation's favourite would-be cyborg overlord and media strumpet, Professor Kevin Warwick, has been rewarded with another academic bauble. The post-human Brummie was given a Doctorate from the University of Portsmouth last week for his work as Professor of Cybernetics at the University of Reading. It adds to a growing …

    Bootnotes 26 Jul 08:01

  • UK ISPs promise punters 'full' and 'open' internet 'access'

    Except when pirates choke our pipes

    A number of UK internet service providers (ISPs) have signed up to a voluntary code of practice that generally requires them to ensure that they are offering "full and open internet access" to their customers. BT, BSkyB, O2 and TalkTalk are among 10 ISPs to commit to the Open Internet Code of Practice (9-page / 52KB PDF). …

    Networks 26 Jul 08:19

  • Apple takes $2.2bn hit as Chinese resellers snub iPhone 4S

    CEO Cook swept out by flooded channel

    iPhone supreme leader Tim Cook said Apple's $2.2bn revenue fall in China this quarter was caused by Cupertino flooding the distribution channel with unwanted stock. Sales in the authoritarian regime tumbled from $7.9bn in Q2 to $5.7bn in Q3, a 27 per cent drop although they were up 48 per cent year-on-year. While defending …

    The Channel 26 Jul 08:41

  • RIP Andre Hedrick: The engineer who kept the PC open

    Obituary Kernel expert stood up to mandatory hard disk DRM

    Andre Hedrick, a principal engineer and operating system architect at Cisco Systems and a Linux kernel contributor, has died. He leaves behind a wife, four young children and many friends. Andre made a significant contribution to personal computing history in a way few people fully realise. In 2000, Andre was working for SuSE …

    Storage 26 Jul 09:03

  • Dimension Data puffs up cloud partners

    Chasing telcos, SPs, and governments through the channel

    South Africa systems integrator Dimension Data launched a wide array of cloudy infrastructure services back in February, and now it is enlisting a service providers to help push the products. Dimension Data, which sports around $5.8bn a year in annual revenues, was acquired for $3.2bn by Nippon Telephone & Telegraph in July …

    Cloud 26 Jul 09:17

  • Oracle hurls MySQL at Microsoft database wobblers

    Migration with a touch of Excel

    Migration tools come and go in the turf wars between the enterprise vendors. Over the years we’ve had Lotus Notes and Microsoft Exchange migration tools and tools to swap one company’s database for another. Under the latter category, Oracle is now throwing open source at Microsoft in the form of a migration tool to shift …

    Applications 26 Jul 09:34

  • Skydiving daredevil Baumgartner leaps from 96,000ft

    Video Austrian in 365mph free-fall jaunt

    Austrian daredevil Felix Baumgartner is closing on the world's highest free-fall record after jumping yesterday from 96,640ft (29,455m). Baumgartner plummeted at a rate of 364.69 miles per hour (586.92km/h) during his second jump over Roswell, New Mexico, which lasted 3 minutes and 40 seconds. Back in March, he made his first …

    Bootnotes 26 Jul 09:47

  • Schneider moves into Cisco's Olympics crib, dims lights

    Drags in suitcase full of 'leccy-saving bits for SmartCity showcase

    Schneider Electric has packed up its bits and moved into Cisco House, the mega-marketing mansion looming over London's Olympic Park, where it is partnering with the networking giant on a demonstration of its SmartCity technology. Schneider's SmartCity provides systems that help urban infrastructure components – everything from …

    Science 26 Jul 10:03

  • Jury will hear Samsung wrongly trashed emails in patent trial

    US judge says auto-delete should have been turned off

    A US court magistrate has ordered that the jury in Apple's patent case against Samsung be told that the Korean firm went on deleting emails after it was clear the lawsuit was going to happen, potentially destroying evidence. In US law, firms are required to hold onto documents that might be relevant to litigation from the …

    Law 26 Jul 10:20

  • Win a monster laptop

    Competition Samsung RF711 17.3in Core i7 up for grabs

    We've got a beast of a laptop to give away for free as part of our Reg Hardware competition. If you're looking for something that packs a punch and half, this should be just the fillip. It's the afore mentioned Samsung RF711 17.3in Core i7 which should be more than enough wallop for most of your needs. It'll take …

    reghardware 26 Jul 10:32

  • Sysadmins! There's no shame in using a mouse to delete files

    Sysadmin blog Only losers back just one side in the GUIs v CLIs holy war

    I am curious about the thought process of some systems administrators. When Linux is mentioned in an El Reg article, the discussion in the comments section can collapse into a tired debate of GUIs versus CLIs: a bitterly fought war over point-and-click visual interfaces in software versus typing out lines of commands and …

    Servers 26 Jul 10:34

  • TalkTalk Q1 sales fall as number of broadband punters declines

    Launches YouView wrapped in stinky new 24-month-contract

    TalkTalk saw 146,000 broadband customers quit the service in the company's first quarter even as its overall subscriber base for all of the telco's products returned to growth. The past few months of heavy rain in Britain hampered TalkTalk's rate of connections for new customers, the firm added. It saw growth in fully …

    Financial News 26 Jul 10:48

  • OCZ Vertex 4 256GB SSD review

    Homegrown hot shot

    Time was, when OCZ was typically first out of the gate with a range of SSDs based on any new incarnation of SandForce controllers. Yet, the first generation of the company’s popular Vertex drives were powered by Indilinx’s Barefoot controller. Now, with the fourth generation of Vertex drives, OCZ has completed the circle and …

    reghardware 26 Jul 11:08

  • Logitech clings onto cost-cutting axe as sales, profit sail away

    Such a lovely time to be in retail

    Losses widened at PC peripherals kingpin Logitech as OEM sales sank and restructuring charges kicked in. The company posted an operating loss of $59m (£38m) for fiscal Q1 2013, ended 30 June. This included a one-off charge of $34m in part to pay for redundancies. The same quarter a year ago recorded a $45m operating loss. …

    Financial News 26 Jul 11:17

  • Windows worm slips into iOS App Store, climbs into hipsters' pockets

    Further proof that Instagram fanbois are diseased

    An item of Windows malware has managed to make its way onto Apple's iOS App Store. It's likely to have been an accidental screw-up, but it nonetheless raises concerns about Apple's app-screening process. The malicious Windows executable was found by a user who downloaded an app called "Instaquotes-Quotes Cards For Instagram" …

    Security 26 Jul 11:33

  • Alcatel Lucent axes 5,000 staff, takes right shoeing from rivals

    'Competitive pricing' leads to nine-figure loss in Q2

    Troubled Alcatel Lucent will axe 5,000 jobs after bleeding €254m (£199m) in its latest quarter. The telecoms kit maker said it will save €750m (£587m) in overheads by shaving more than six per cent off the 78,000 strong global workforce. Sales for Q2 2012, ended 30 June, fell 7.1 per cent year-on-year to €3.54bn (£2.77bn). …

    Financial News 26 Jul 11:46

  • Girls tricked by STEAMY message: Webcam spyware student jailed

    'It's the only way to, er, clean the sensor'

    A cyberstalking computer science student who tricked women into taking computers with hacked webcams into steamy shower rooms has been jailed for 12 months. Trevor Timothy Harwell, 21, of Fullerton in California, will be forced to spend five years on probation following his release and ordered to complete a sex offender …

    Security 26 Jul 12:07

  • BSkyB delights City with record profits: Broadband subs pass 4 million

    Pumps cash into Apple TV rival Roku

    BskyB went in the opposite direction to TalkTalk this morning as it passed the 4 million broadband subscriber barrier for the first time. During the company's final quarter, ended 30 June, BSkyB added 138,000 new home broadband customers to its service, pushing its total user base on that network to 4,001,000. BSkyB has added …

    Financial News 26 Jul 12:22

  • Nationwide DOUBLES card payments in fresh banking gaffe

    That'll be £20, please. That'll be £20, please

    Nationwide customers are furious after debit card payments were taken from their accounts twice this week. Britain's biggest building society has admitted a technical cock-up led to current account holders being charged double for purchases made by card. A spokesperson told The Register some debit card charges that were …

    CIO 26 Jul 12:42

  • Axe hovers over John Lewis IT jobs

    Retailers promise to 'increase efficiency'

    The Reg understands that an "increase in efficiency" at John Lewis's Computer Services team could involve job cuts. Computer Services at John Lewis handles the back-end IT for John Lewis, Waitrose, johnlewis.com and waitrose.com. It would appear that over 100 jobs in the department are facing the axe. A reader has told us …

    Jobs 26 Jul 12:49

  • PlayStation burnout probe: It's not the Vita, it's YOU, says Sony

    Japanese watchdog launches investigation

    A Japanese safety firm is investigating various complaints of overheating in Sony's PlayStation Vita console, a known issue that Sony maintains stems from user error. Independent Japanese body - the National Institute of Technology and Evaluation - has launched an investigation into the Vita's safety after dozens of gamers …

    reghardware 26 Jul 13:02

  • Chunnel 3G launched for channel hoppers

    Je suis dans le train...

    2G and 3G connectivity is now available in the Channel Tunnel, so that those travelling from the continent can continue to use their blowers despite being 100m below the surface of the sea. Apparently, this is the first time such a special regulatory framework has been agreed, after 10 months of Channel connectivity …

    reghardware 26 Jul 13:15

  • Top disk drive dog WD shakes off flood water, doubles its earnings

    Record results despite 2 natural disasters, $4.8bn Hitachi acquisition

    WD produced record results for its 2012 fiscal year despite two natural disasters and buying Hitachi GST for $4.8bn, the largest-ever acquisition in the disk drive industry. It is overtaking Seagate in revenue and disk drive unit production terms and is the undisputed top disk drive industry dog. Where next? WD beat the …

    The Channel 26 Jul 13:28

  • Web giants bag former US gov advisor to head up lobbying group

    The web will be WHATEVER WE WANT IT TO BE

    Tech heavyweights have clubbed together to fight Washington policies they don't like with the launch of a new lobbying group called the Internet Association, which is calling itself the "unified voice of the internet economy". The group's website is sparse and the only announcement it's made so far is that Michael Beckerman, a …

    Media 26 Jul 14:03

  • ITV scoffs at ad slump as production arm hauls in cash

    What TV crisis?

    ITV has reported a revenues 11 per cent higher, and profits 15 per cent higher than a year ago, before accounting for exceptional items and tax. Revenues topped £1.28bn and pre-tax profits were £235m. The commercial broadcaster's primary revenue source – advertising – is weaker than a year ago, with spending flat this year. …

    Financial News 26 Jul 14:19

  • Microsoft Azure goes titsup across Western Europe

    Clouds blown away

    Microsoft Azure is having an up-and-down kind of day as the cloud platform struggles to get any work done. The services' dashboard reported that hosted services in Western Europe were hit, and said that Microsoft was "actively investigating the issue" at 12.09 BST. Two hours later, the status page said the firm was still …

    Cloud 26 Jul 14:31

  • Oops: Nokia reinstates 'terminated' star app developer

    Keep your friends close, kick your good friends out the door

    You may think Nokia needs to keep all the app developers it can muster loyal to the company - but last week it terminated VIP privileges for a star Symbian programmer. Nokia has since changed its mind. The brains behind the highly regarded Gravity application, Jan Ole Suhr, was one of a number of Symbian coders who discovered …

    Developer 26 Jul 14:42

  • Gabe Newell: Windows 8 is a 'catastrophe' for PC biz

    Analysis Why Microsoft MUST listen to the Half-Life billionaire

    First it was Gartner, now Gabe Newell, the former Microsoft executive and billionaire computer games baron behind Half-Life, has laid into Windows 8. Newell, who oversaw the first three versions of Windows under Bill Gates among other roles during his 13 years at the software giant, has reportedly called the touchscreen- …

    Developer 26 Jul 15:00

  • Zynga plays BLAME GAME with Facebook as stock tanks 40%

    Zuck to face Wall Street with first earnings report

    Online gaming outfit Zynga has partly blamed competition being opened up on Facebook's platform for the maker of Farmville having to revise down its outlook for the year. The company, which claims some 300 million monthly users, is also struggling to quickly release new games onto the market. We are lowering our outlook to …

    Financial News 26 Jul 15:13

  • Google Talk goes dumb in massive global outage

    Updated Users left speechless

    The Google Talk IM and video chat service suffered a massive global outage beginning early on Thursday, leaving users mum for more than four hours. The Chocolate Factory's application status page first noted the problem at 3:40am PST, describing it as a "service disruption." Google updated that status to a "service outage" ten …

    Networks 26 Jul 15:22

  • Daily Mail group boss spoof tweeter fights to protect anonymity

    @UnSteveDorkland lawyers up after publisher sues Twitter

    An anonymous wag who lampooned a Daily Mail group boss using a spoof Twitter account has six days to prevent his unmasking. The publishing giant launched legal action in California to compel the social network to reveal the identity of whoever's behind the @UnSteveDorkland handle. The account sends up Steve Auckland, the …

    Media 26 Jul 15:27

  • Valve tried tongue-tied interface controller

    No taste for gobby gaming?

    Valve boss Gabe Newell revealed the company has experimented with "tongue controllers" in a bid to discover the next fad in computer interfacing. The Valve topdog reckons the tongue is a "pretty good way of connecting a mechanical system to your brain" and as such, flirted with the concept as a way of speeding up communication …

    reghardware 26 Jul 15:45

  • Gov Cloud Store up and running again

    Scheduled update caused unscheduled downtime

    UK.gov's online IT services catalogue Cloud Store was downed by an error during a scheduled update by platform provider Procserve, The Channel understands. An outage occurred yesterday morning that prevented suppliers from logging into the portal and public sector IT heads from searching for the requisite services. The web …

    Hosting 26 Jul 16:01

  • Court blocks 12 websites for 'misleading' Olympic ticket sales

    20,000 tickets shifted

    Twelve websites are being blocked by British authorities under for the unauthorised sale of tens of thousands of tickets to the Olympics. The Office of Fair Trading (OFT) said it had secured an interim enforcement order from the High Court blocking the sites’ further sale of tickets and giving British authorities the ability …

    Law 26 Jul 16:23

  • Never mind Azure: They BROKE Twitter!

    Hordes turn to Google+ ... only joking

    Twitter has been experiencing service wobbles for approximately half an hour, booting millions of users off the hyperactive short-form social network. The outage appears to be ongoing. An update to the Twitter Status page at 4.45pm UK time, 11:45am New York time read: Users may be experiencing issues accessing Twitter. Our …

    Media 26 Jul 16:24

  • W3C names four new editors of HTML5 spec

    They just keep plugging away on that standard

    The Worldwide Web Consortium (W3C) has named four people as the new editors of its HTML5 specification, following a recent split that divided the HTML standardization process into two parallel efforts. The new editors were announced on Wednesday by HTML Working Group co-chair Paul Cotton in a message posted to the W3C's public …

    Developer 26 Jul 18:58

  • Neal Stephenson on swordplay, space and depressing SF

    Black Hat 2012 Teases computer game, Snow Crash film at Black Hat keynote

    Renowned science fiction author Neal Stephenson has given his first keynote address at the Black Hat conference in Las Vegas in which he outlined his ideas for realistic swordplay in gaming, the future of the space program, and how to make science fiction slightly more optimistic. Stephenson said he'd been a cryptography geek …

    Media 26 Jul 19:59

  • Facebook posts loss despite strong revenue growth

    Zuck's first earnings report fails to impress

    On Thursday Facebook gave its first-ever earnings report since becoming a public company, and although it posted a loss, it generally met analysts' expectations and showed strong revenue growth, aside from some nagging weaknesses in the mobile market. Wall Street was largely unimpressed, however, and Facebook shares began …

    Media 26 Jul 23:24

  • Stuxnet: 'Moral crime' or proportionate response?

    Security experts split on cyberwar

    Delegates at the Black Hat conference in Las Vegas are sharply split on the merits (or otherwise) of malware like Stuxnet that can be used offensively to take down infrastructure. Stuxnet was the first malware that was publicly acknowledged to have been designed to take down physical equipment – in this case, Siemens …

    Security 26 Jul 23:28

  • Texan scientists create tiny, tiny laser

    Boon for on-chip optics

    The University of Texas at Austin has unveiled a laser built from a 28 nanometer rod and a 5 nm silicon dioxide layer. Despite the diminutive dimensions, the laser offers a lengthy stride It is, however, offering a good step forward in using optical communications between and within electronics. One of the challenges for a …

    Science 26 Jul 23:30

  • NVIDIA joins Miracast club

    Is WiFi's 'AirPlay-killer' getting legs?

    The Miracast certification being touted by the WiFi Alliance has a new adherent, with NVIDIA announcing that its Tegra 3 display proceesor will support the technology. Miracast is a display mirroring technology pitched against Apple’s AirPlay and Intel’s WiDi, both of which are criticized as single-vendor closed environments. …

    Datacenter 26 Jul 23:45