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8th August 2012 Archive

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  • ‘Cash for comment’ journos, bloggers under spotlight in Oracle-v-Google

    Alsup demands disclosure

    An unknown number of bloggers and hacks are feeling a little sweaty around the collar today, with a US judge ordering the disclosure of financial relationships that might have affected published articles and comment in the Oracle-versus-Google lawsuit. The order follows FOSS Patents’ blogger Florian Mueller’s voluntary …

    Business 8 Aug 00:03

  • Android app DRM quietly disabled due to bug

    Copy protection crashed apps

    Google has temporarily deactivated a security feature designed to make it harder to make illicit copies of apps for the latest version of its Android mobile OS, owing to a bug that rendered the secured versions of some apps inoperable. The feature, which was introduced with Android 4.1 "Jelly Bean," encrypts all paid apps …

    Developer 8 Aug 00:50

  • Mobile phone health rules need update, warns US watchdog

    Radio emission standards may go up or down

    The US Government Accountability Office (GAO) is urging legislators to update the health protection requirements required of mobile phone manufacturers, but indicated some emissions limits might be increased rather than reduced. In a report, the agency recommended a rethink after finding that the current rules for phone radio …

    Mobile 8 Aug 00:58

  • Google ordered to destroy Oz Street View data

    Privacy Commissioner demands seek, destroy, audit

    The Australian Privacy Commission has followed the lead of its global counterparts demanding that Google Australia immediately destroys payload data which was siphoned by the SteetView wi-fi data sucking car squads. In a letter sent to Google’s Head of Public Policy and Government Affairs Iarla Flynn, Privacy Commissioner …

    Policy 8 Aug 03:43

  • Indian 2G auction turmoil as telcos revolt

    Foreign investors blame government

    Allegations of discrimination against foreign mobile operators, unfairly high start prices for spectrum bidders and yet more government delays have thrown India’s 2G auctions into chaos once again over the past few days. The original 122 licenses, doled out in 2008, were cancelled in February after the Supreme Court ruled …

    Policy 8 Aug 05:13

  • Foldable NFC keyboard could tempt Android users

    Japanese firm touts time-saving silicone peripheral

    Japanese electronics firm Elecom is claiming a world first with the launch of an NFC-enabled portable keyboard designed to work with Android smartphones – a gadget which could appeal to time-starved, fat fingered mobile workers. The keyboard, designed in collaboration with Norwegian firm One2Touch, is similar in layout to a …

    Data Centre 8 Aug 05:19

  • NBN price tag rises in new NBNCo new corporate plan

    Conroy lashes “flat earther” critics of broadband plan

    NBNCo has released its Corporate Plan (PDF)for 2012-2015, updating the projected costs and build speed for the project. Costs have risen: the organisation now says it will require an extra $1.4 billion of capital expenditure to construct the NBN. Total capital expenditure is now projected to be AUD$37.4 billion, up from AUD$35 …

    Policy 8 Aug 05:57

  • PSMA defends data quality after NBNCo criticism

    Spatial data company says NBNCo ignored useful products

    PSMA Australia Limited, a company that produces spatial information using government sources, has defended the quality of its products in the face of criticism from NBNCo CEO Mike Quigley. Quigley yesterday singled out the poor quality of spatial data as one of the things that has slowed NBNCo’s efforts. During the launch of …

    Policy 8 Aug 06:14

  • Chinese tech players take aim at Apple's talking tech

    Can the Speech Industry Alliance of China hurt Apple, Siri?

    Siri beware - a handful of major Chinese telecoms operators, handset manufacturers and other tech firms have joined up to form the Speech Industry Alliance of China (SIAC), a new group which will look at exploiting the growing domestic appetite for speech-based applications. The not-for-profit includes founder members such as …

    Mobile 8 Aug 06:49

  • Intel 330 120GB SSD review

    Mainstream makeover must-have?

    When Intel launched the SSD 520 series of drives it caused quite a kerfuffle. The company had abandoned using one of its own controllers or even a Marvell controller, as found in the 510 series. Instead, the ubiquitous LSI Sandforce SF-2281 controller was utilised but with Intel’s own hand firmly in charge of the firmware. …

    reghardware 8 Aug 07:00

  • French minister: 3 strikes anti-piracy rule a 'waste of money'

    Culture boss says controversial copyright protection regime isn't working

    The future of France's controversial "three strikes" copyright anti-infringement rule appears to have been called into question after the country's new culture minister branded the regime "expensive" and said that it had "not fulfilled its mission". In an interview with French magazine Le Nouvel Observateur, Aurélie Filippetti …

    Law 8 Aug 07:32

  • Virgin Media punters stung in mobile data bill cock-up

    Telco yet to 'fess up 'small error' to Ofcom

    A number of Virgin Media customers were wrongly billed for mobile data usage last month due to a system error, The Register has learned. However, the telco was unable to tell us exactly what had gone wrong. A Virgin Media spokesman assured El Reg that customers who had been incorrectly billed needn't worry as the ISP is …

    Mobile 8 Aug 08:03

  • London NHS trusts: Let's BORG up our patient data

    Academic merger vastness will be good for research – King's College and pals

    Three NHS foundation trusts have published proposals (PDF) to merge into a single organisation, with intentions including making better use of IT and creating shared platforms, such as a shared electronic patient record. In their strategic outline case, the three trusts - Guy's and St Thomas', King's College hospital, and …

    Government 8 Aug 08:18

  • Rivals routed by Apple, Google smartphone onslaught

    Farewell, Symbian, RIM?

    It's a two-horse race, no question. Apple and Google's grip on the world smartphone market tightened even further during Q2, with everyone else's combined share falling to 15 per cent from 34.3 per cent in the year-ago quarter. The numbers come from IDC, a market watcher, and they chart RIM's decline - from an 11.5 per cent …

    reghardware 8 Aug 08:31

  • Speaking in Tech: Virtualisation, storage and flying balls

    Podcast V is for, er, vOdgeball...

    The crew at our enterprise tech-cast have brought you another storage and virtualisation scoop with the second part of their interview with Chad Sakac, senior vice president at EMC. Your hosts Greg Knieriemen, cloud and storage expert Ed Saipetch and new media ace Sarah Vela chatted to Sakac about VMWorld, vBlogger and, er, …

    Virtualization 8 Aug 08:42

  • NASA's $2.5bn Curiosity rover: An Apple PowerBook on wheels

    Pic Science lab shares same brain as 1990s lap cooker

    It's a bit sturdier than the average Apple product, but the Curiosity rover that touched down on Mars on Monday is powered by the same processor family used in Apple's 1997 PowerBook G3 laptop. For its nuclear-powered life-hunting tank, NASA chose a 200MHz PowerPC 750 CPU specifically hardened to withstand radiation and space …

    Space 8 Aug 09:09

  • Software disaster zone Knight Capital bags $400m lifeline

    What really happened when computers at trading firm went nuts

    I recently wrote about how a bad round of software testing lost Wall Street trading firm Knight Capital an estimated $440m – enough to almost put the company out of business. I speculated that Knight could be bailed out if it's allowed to unwind its computer system's unexpected burst of loss-making trades on the stock market - …

    Business 8 Aug 09:19

  • Microsoft retracts staffer's 'new Xbox' comment

    New features, old console, apparently

    Microsoft has dismissed comment made by one of its executives this week, insisting references to a "new Xbox" were taken out of context. The Redmond firm has a strict 'tight lips sink no ships' policy covering its future gaming system, so it was a surprise when Windows general manager Brian Hall flagged it up during an …

    reghardware 8 Aug 10:19

  • Beer mats to tout tat to mobiles over wireless NFC

    Careful where you're spilling that pint

    A phone on a pub table may be threatened by more than puddles of ale as RapidNFC has signed a deal with Rutland Print to craft beer mats that beam web addresses to mobes over the air. Quite why one would want wireless Near Field Communications (NFC) embedded in something designed to mop up booze isn't clear. An NFC tag can …

    Mobile 8 Aug 10:21

  • Apple pounces on Samsung doc as proof of 'slavish copy' claims

    Galaxy would be better if it was more like the iPhone

    Apple presented a massive 132-page internal Samsung document that showed the South Korean firm comparing every inch of the iPhone with its early Galaxy S phone in its patent ruckus yesterday. The internal Samsung report, translated from Korean, goes over every aspect of the iPhone and looks at how the equivalent feature of the …

    Business 8 Aug 10:32

  • Thrillpower! Tharg releases 2000AD iDevice app

    Digital Progs on day-and-date release

    There's a new 2000AD iPad app out right in time for the latest Programme's Wednesday publication date. The app, which also runs on the iPhone and iPod Touch, is free and comes with a gratis 69-page sampler. Like what you see and you can continue buying Progs on a one-off basis for £1.99 a go, or save a bit by taking out a one …

    reghardware 8 Aug 10:54

  • Jimbo Wales: Wikipedia servers in UK? No way, not with YOUR libel law

    Britain's silly rules cause too much friction, he tells London

    Jimmy Wales has claimed that he couldn't have founded Wikipedia in the UK because the nation's libel law adds unpredictability and "friction" to hosting the world's largest unreliable collection of factoids. It's an echo of the notorious claim made by Prime Minister David Cameron that Google could not have started out in the …

    Hosting 8 Aug 11:19

  • Fallen flash drive star STEC's revenues circle drain

    Flash boom bang: solid-state not so solid after all

    One-time solid-state drive star STEC saw losses greater than its revenues in its second 2012 quarter. It's in a meat-grinder, facing class action lawsuits, an SEC insider trading case, and no uptick in demand as new products crawl oh-so-slowly through OEM qualification processes. Take a wrong turn or two in the flash business …

    Storage 8 Aug 11:41

  • HP must throw its PC biz overboard to survive, says analyst

    Try selling these cloud things instead, they seem popular

    A UBS analyst has said Hewlett Packard should shed its PC and printer biz in a report that reopens old and sticky wounds. Rumours of a PC biz spin-out first surfaced last year, during former CEO Leo Apotheker's reign. By contrast, current big boss Meg Whitman has famously likened any spinoff of the units to breaking up a …

    Channel Register 8 Aug 12:01

  • Apple patents shopping lists

    Yet another fantastic use for the cloud

    Apple has been granted a patent on organising shopping lists, but not on shopping itself despite appearances. At a glance the design does look like it covers lists of desired products, gathered by either scanning barcodes with a phone camera, waving a mobe over wireless NFC tags or typing in product descriptions. However, even …

    Mobile 8 Aug 12:21

  • Now Curiosity rover beams back 3D snaps of Mars

    Pics Slap on the specs and feel like you're really there

    The Mars-trekking Curiosity rover has beamed back the first 3D image of the dusty terrain it's trundling across. With 3D specs... The intrepid rover is currently familiarising itself with the Gale Crater after its successful landing three days ago and has sent back a 2D and 3D shot of Mount Sharp. The 3D shot above was …

    Space 8 Aug 12:42

  • Sharp cuts exFAT deal with Microsoft for Android mobes

    Licensed to swap files with your PC

    Sharp has succumbed to the charms of a Microsoft licensing deal for the filing system exFAT. Microsoft will license its Extended File Allocation Table technology to Sharp in a deal covering the consumer electronic giant’s Android-based smartphones. Sharp joins Panasonic, SANYO, Sony and Canon in coughing up for exFAT from …

    Business 8 Aug 13:01

  • Court orders Twitter to unmask Dark Knight copycat killer wannabe

    Cops slap on subpoena after Tyson show threat tweets

    Twitter has given cops details of a tweeter who threatened to go on a shooting rampage at a performance of ex-boxer Mike Tyson's one-man show. A US court compelled the social network to hand over records it holds on the user a full three days after an initial request from New York police was ignored by the website's team. The …

    Networks 8 Aug 13:31

  • Computacenter networking boss Gooding walks... to TalkTalk

    Heading to mobile operator for sales director job

    Computacenter (CC) director of networking Duncan Gooding has left the reseller giant to join TalkTalk as sales director, The Channel can reveal. Gooding pitched up at services-based reseller CC from Logicalis in January 2011 to oversee sales of kit from Cisco and other network giants. The networking unit is one of CC's three …

    Channel Register 8 Aug 13:42

  • Hacker-smasher: White hats join forces to build bot-beating weapon

    Open ... and Shut Collaboration is the name of the game

    In Hollywood, the good guys nearly always win. In information security, the bad guys ("black hats") often win, in large part because the bad guys know how to collaborate much better than the good guys ("white hats"). Until now. From Lulzsec to Chaos Computer Club, hackers increasingly band together to spring sophisticated …

    Developer 8 Aug 14:02

  • US Army's cloud-friendly iPad-ready intel kit DOESN'T even work

    Hey, at least it's buzzword-compliant

    The US Army has deemed its key $2.3bn intelligence gathering system "not suitable, and not survivable". The DCGS-A (Distributed Common Ground System - Army) is intended to be an ambitious master database of intelligence. It is fully buzzword-compliant, of course – everything from cloud-friendly to iPad-capable, and drawn from …

    Policy 8 Aug 14:28

  • LinkedIn tweaks API terms of use for itchy developers

    Hopes to ease coder anxiety by raising privacy eyebrows

    Social-networking-for-suits outfit LinkedIn has revamped its application programming interface (API) terms of use to allow developers to better exploit the website. The company said yesterday in a blog post that it wanted to "enable our members to use their LinkedIn identity wherever they may be online" in a move that mirrors …

    Developer 8 Aug 15:08

  • Brocade claims $112m win over rival A10 in tech blueprints spat

    Lee Chen comes out swinging after patents, copyright trial

    Storage networking biz Brocade claims to have won $112m in damages after taking rival A10 Networks to court alleging patent and copyright infringement. A10 has said it will appeal against the jury's verdict that it infringed some of Brocade's intellectual property. Specifically, A10 was accused of plonking technology from …

    Storage 8 Aug 15:34

  • Avnet Q4 sales, profit hit as resellers keep wallets shut

    Currency headwind didn't help either

    Avnet sales and profit in Q4 slumped across both its components and tech solutions businesses on the back of a summer slowdown in reseller spending and a blistering currency headwind. Turnover for the period ended 30 June fell 8.8 per cent to $6.3bn, operating profit dropped by just over a fifth to $213.4m and net profits sunk …

    Channel Register 8 Aug 15:36

  • T-Mobile puts 'Full Monty' tariff on diet

    End of tether

    T-Mobile's Full Monty package has come under scrutiny again this week, after the Everything Everywhere subsidiary silently dropped tethering from the tariff's list of 'unlimited' features. The operator today confirmed to Reg Hardware that it has removed tethering from the Full Monty package without announcement, withholding …

    reghardware 8 Aug 16:01

  • Facebook pokes devs' wallets: Mobile app ad beta launches

    You will download Angry Birds... bitch

    Desperate to squeeze money from its mobile users, Facebook is trialling mobile-app advertising, auctioning news-feed slots to the mobile developer who bids highest. The adverts for the devs' creations will appear in news feeds of mobile users and link directly to the relative app stores, iTunes or Google Play. Facebook reckons …

    Networks 8 Aug 16:02

  • HP writes down a whopping $8bn from EDS gobble

    Enterprise Services head rolls, Q3 profits boosted a few pennies

    Hewlett-Packard has taken a fine-toothed comb to its Enterprise Services business and said it needs to write down $8bn in goodwill assets - presumably most of which come from its $13.9bn acquisition of services giant Electronic Data Systems back in May 2008. HP, which is restructuring, also announced that John Visentin, who …

    Channel Register 8 Aug 16:33

  • Video shows armed assault on Kim Dotcom family home

    Two helicopters, armed police and dogs used in arrest

    A New Zealand court has been shown footage of the 20 January dawn assault by police and the FBI on the home of Kim Dotcom, owner of the Megaupload file storage site. Dotcom and his co-accused – Mathias Ortmann, Fin Batato and Bram Van der Kolk – face charges of international copyright infringement related to content hosted on …

    Law 8 Aug 17:03

  • Hiccups in Apple's iCloud after yesterday's hack of hapless hack

    Apple users report app download freeze

    Users of Apple's iTunes and other cloud services reported a number of hiccups in normal service this morning, a day after an iCloud account hack on hapless WiReD journo Matt Honan made headlines. Honan's account was accessed by hacker Phobia – who pried it open by going from call centre operator to call centre operator, …

    Applications 8 Aug 18:33

  • Super Micro to Sandy Bridge buyers: Go forth and multiply our profit

    Xeon E5 servers touted, disk burden shouldered

    After nearly a year of foot-tapping by whitebox system and component maker Super Micro, it looks like its "Sandy Bridge" Xeon E5 server rollout is finally under way. All of the Xeon E5 processors have been launched by Intel, and therefore customers have begun buying either components or whole systems. In the final quarter of …

    Servers 8 Aug 19:02

  • Internet Archive serves up 1.4 million BitTorrent downloads

    Nearly a petabyte of public domain data

    The Internet Archive, a non-profit online library dedicated to the permanent preservation of information in digital form, has made nearly a petabyte of materials available via the controversial BitTorrent peer-to-peer file sharing protocol. For the project's launch on Tuesday, founder Brewster Kahle announced that the Internet …

    Media 8 Aug 19:34

  • eBay fires up OpenStack cloud with Nicira network virt

    Sitting next to a nervous VMware vCloud

    If VMware needed another reason to justify its $1.26bn acquisition of network virtualization upstart Nicira, it need look no further than online auctioneer eBay. Nicira created Open vSwitch, a virtual switch that plugs into server virtualization hypervisors and provides a networking abstraction layer that's akin to a …

    Infrastructure 8 Aug 21:42

  • Opscode adds services for Chef control freak

    Maîtres des nuages

    Opscode, the commercial entity behind the open source Chef configuration management tool for servers and their software, is getting into the services racket. Not just because it wants another revenue stream, but because customers need help getting up to speed on using Chef quickly. The company, which is based in Seattle, …

    Servers 8 Aug 22:00

  • Google widens search net and takes on Siri with iOS app

    iOS speech search and adding Gmail results

    Google is moving closer to a planned search singularity with the extension of the Knowledge Graph system, a trial to allow personal Gmail search results to be included in generic web searches, and an iOS app that takes voice requests and tries to answer. Knowledge Graph, launched in May for English-speaking users of Google, …

    Applications 8 Aug 22:01

  • Valve opens Steam store to non-gaming software

    Challenges Apple, Microsoft with desktop app store bid

    Games maker Valve has announced that it will begin offering non-game software through its popular Steam online content delivery platform, expanding the role of the service from a gaming destination to a general-purpose app store for desktop computers. "The 40 million gamers frequenting Steam are interested in more than playing …

    Applications 8 Aug 22:31

  • Kaspersky spots Zeus for BlackBerry

    Malware authors express confidence in RIM’s future

    While most of the world is treating the once-mighty BlackBerry as an also-ran in the smartphone market, malware authors still think it’s worth a crack – and have crafted a package designed to drop a Zeus malware variant on the device. This post to Securelist by Kaspersky’s Denis Maslennikov details five new Zeus-in-the-mobile …

    Security 8 Aug 22:48

  • Murdoch pitches battery for renewables

    Portable power with a pinch of salt

    Many proposals for storing energy from renewable installations like wind farms or large-scale solar energy involve high-temperature technologies like molten salt. Now, researchers from Murdoch University are talking up a more mundane wet-cell battery based on sodium ions. If it could be commercialized, the water-based sodium- …

    Science 8 Aug 23:15

  • High Schools putting kids off IT careers, deepening skills shortage

    ACS Foundation queries whether IT as a career should even be taught

    High School teaching of IT as a career actually puts kids off pursuing careers in the field, according to John Ridge, Executive Director of the Australian Computer Society Foundation Trust Fund (ACSF). Ridge says general computer literacy courses in early high school are important and welcome, as employers expect some level of …

    Jobs 8 Aug 23:54