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20th August 2012 Archive

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  • IT helps Australian bank achieve carbon-neutrality

    National Australia Bank has adopted tri-generation, private cloud, modular data centres

    National Australia Bank (NAB), one of Australia's big four banks, has detailed how changes to its data centres helped the organisation to become carbon neutral in a white paper (PDF) issued by the Open Data Center Alliance. The bank says it has been carbon neutral since 2010, thanks in large part to work on its data centres, …

    Data Center 20 Aug 00:09

  • Better onion anonymity possible: researcher

    Boost to reliability as well

    Onion routing – which in spite of its DARPA genealogy are disliked by national security types – could be made more anonymous, according to a an Iranian researcher now working on a PhD at Concordia University in Montreal. In this Arxiv-published paper, Ehsan Saboori and co-author Shahriar Mohammadi propose separating the “ …

    Security 20 Aug 00:34

  • Curiosity's laser turns Mars rocks to 'glowing plasma'

    Watch out Martians, those million-watt jolts were just target practice

    Humanity has unleashed its most awesome high-energy assault on extra-terrestrial geology to date, after the Curiosity rover zapped a martian rock with its Chemistry and Camera instrument (ChemCam) over the weekend. The unprovoked attack was the first time any off-Earth object has been subjected to investigation by laser and …

    Science 20 Aug 03:14

  • Assange calls for help from … Quakers?

    Peers out window, appeals for freedom, lectures world

    Julian Assange has revealed himself to the world from the balcony of London's Ecuadorean embassy and made a statement that lays the blame for his predicament on the hypocrisy of the USA. In the statement Assange calls on the USA to “... return to and reaffirm the values it was founded on” and stop pursuing him lest we find …

    Security 20 Aug 03:58

  • China and Taiwan complete historic undersea cable

    Small cable is hugely significant

    China and Taiwan have edged just a little bit closer with the completion of the first submarine telecoms cables between the two nations. An unnamed official with Taiwan’s Chunghwa Telecom told AFP that the project, which was first announced back in September 2011, will go into operation on Tuesday. Rather than travel all the …

    Networks 20 Aug 04:47

  • Disney sitcom says open source is insecure

    Free software full of viruses, says pre-teen sysadmin

    Shake it Up, a Disney sitcom that screens on The Disney Channel around the world, has slipped in an insult to open source software. The show, which tracks the activities of a group of aspiring dancers on a TV show called "Shake it Up, Chicago", appears to be aimed at tweens. We make that assertion based on the age of comments …

    Security 20 Aug 06:14

  • Indian gov bans bulk texts as workers flee Bangalore

    North-easterners panicked by rumours of violence

    The Indian government has been forced to ban the sending of bulk SMS text messages over concerns migrant workers from the nation's north-east will be targeted by Muslims. Violent clashes in the state of Assam between the indigenous Bodo community and Muslim settlers from Bangladesh have left scores dead and displaced hundreds …

    Policy 20 Aug 06:48

  • Cloud-puffing Iomart goes south - to gobble Manc biz Melbourne

    Data centre tentacles spread across Blighty

    UK biz Iomart is spreading its cloud south and bolstering biz services by buying up Manchester-based Melbourne Server Hosting, in an acquisition announced last week. Glasgow-headquartered Iomart will get two data centres and offices in Manchester's Technopark as part of the deal, and will take over hosting for 600 customers – …

    Financial News 20 Aug 07:04

  • Capita bungs staff £250 if they cheer up, smile for ad snaps

    PFYs asked to wash smelly Metallica T-shirts

    Staff at Capita IT Services are being offered a bit of extra spending money by their employer in the form of a £250 voucher for those snapshots of real colleagues at work. Back in June, the firm told service desk workers based at the office in Ruddington, just south of Nottingham, that it planned to immortalise their faces in …

    Channel Register 20 Aug 07:32

  • Hard-up fondlers rejoice: Tablet PC prices plummet

    Analyst: 'If you aren't an iPad, you'd better be cheap'

    Good news for would-be tablet owners without a pile of cash to spend: prices have dived 13.6 per cent in the past year – if you don't count the iPad. Apple's tablet came down in price too, but only by 3.45 per cent. And that's because being cheap is the best way to get noticed for non-Apple tablets, says IMS market analyst …

    Channel Register 20 Aug 08:01

  • Brocade global sales boss exits, leaves soon-to-depart CEO to flog kit

    It's not every day your boss fills in for you

    Brocade's global sales boss, Ian Whiting, left in June this year "to pursue other personal and professional interests". This move was slipped out under the radar as part of a Brocade 8-K filing on 4 June, with Whiting's departure date effectively 18 June. Brocade CEO Michael Klayko has been running sales since then – and himself …

    Storage 20 Aug 08:17

  • PLT chair: UK Radio Society is 'living in a dream world'

    UK hams face down EU over powerline networking kit standard

    The chair of the EU committee on powerline networking has responded to the Radio Society's call to arms, claiming that every minute of filibustering pollutes the radio spectrum more. The Radio Society of Great Britain reckons the new standard, prEN 50561‐1, will water down existing requirements, opening the way to greater …

    Broadband 20 Aug 08:41

  • Dell pries open shrunken PowerVault, crams whole lotta disk inside

    DR4000 gets Symantec OpenStorage API

    In between the deluge of flash-driven, cloud-driven, and virtualisation-driven storage news, humble drive arrays get new features too. Dell has announced that it has provided low-end PowerVault enclosures with more drives than before and boosted its DR4000 disk-to-disk backup array with better replication and Symantec backup …

    Storage 20 Aug 09:03

  • IBM fuels up zNext mainframe for launch

    A little early – and just in time to boost Q4

    It looks like Big Blue is getting ready to launch its next-generation mainframe, appropriately enough nicknamed the zNext system, and that it will come to market a little bit earlier than expected. IBM is not hosting a big press event to launch the new machine, but it is having an online webcast with System z bigwigs and a few …

    Hardware 20 Aug 09:16

  • Let them eat cache: EMC unleashes ass-kicking flash box

    Taking on Pure Storage, WhipTail and other all-flash array vendors

    Soon EMC will have all the latest in storage tech: server flash cache, server shared-flash cache, and its very own all-flash array. The acquired XtremIO technology will be used to craft a networked all-flash array that is a platform in its own right – not just a cache like VFCache or Project Thunder. EMC, like other storage …

    Storage 20 Aug 09:34

  • Apple accuses Samsung of abusing its 3G power

    Firm says Sammy wanted way too much cash for its patents

    Apple got in one last dig against Samsung in the US on Friday, claiming that the Korean tech giant abused its "monopoly power" gained by its ownership of wireless patents and demanded unreasonable royalties from Apple for its iDevices. The two firms raced to persuade the jury, which is due to start deliberating later this week …

    Law 20 Aug 10:01

  • Reselling in the recession: Make the CIO your best buddy

    Forget IT managers – they can't even sign off a PO for toner ink these days

    We all know times are pretty tough economically at the moment and the channel is no different from anywhere else. This climate has forced new ways of thinking and improved strategies for coping with industry-wide spending constraints. Increasingly, to be successful, channel partners need to have conversations with the Chief …

    Channel Register 20 Aug 10:02

  • All the sauce on Big Blue's hot chip: More on Power7+

    Clock crank, cache bump ... and maybe on-chip memory compression too

    The Hot Chips 24 conference hosted by Stanford University is next week, and IBM, Oracle, Advanced Micro Devices, Fujitsu, and Intel are expected to talk tech relating to just-announced or impending processors. But Big Blue seems unable to contain its enthusiasm for the Power7+ chip that it will talk about alongside its next- …

    Hardware 20 Aug 10:16

  • SMSZombie wraps self in nudie pics, slips into 500,000 Android devices

    Trojan money-slurper aimed at China Mobile payment platform

    A strain of resilient Android Trojan has infected 500,000 devices, mainly in China. SMSZombie is designed to exploit security shortcomings in the mobile payment system used by China Mobile to generate unauthorised payments. The malware also steals bank card numbers and money transfer receipt information, mobile security firm …

    Security 20 Aug 10:29

  • Zabulon Skipper: Butterfly harbinger of climate biodiversity DOOM?

    Haven't you guys heard of evolution, asks boffin

    A volley of studies into the likely effects of climate change on various animal species - and thus on biodiversity worldwide - have come out in the last few days. The headliner, examining butterflies in Massachusetts, seems to indicate that rising temperatures are having powerful ecological effects: but another pair of studies …

    Science 20 Aug 10:36

  • Boffins pump hot, vivid fluid into squidgy robostarfish

    Thermo multicoloured spurts like camo gear for limbo champ octobot

    Roboboffins have come up with a way to disguise their soft-bodied, multi-limbed robostarfish, by using colour to camouflage its silicone body. Last year, Harvard researchers came up with a squishy cephalopod robot that could do the limbo, wriggling through a 2cm gap. Now the same scientists have figured out how to hide the …

    Science 20 Aug 10:51

  • Ivy Bridge for Ultrabooks

    Inside Intel's premium portables

    The one thing missing at the launch of Intel’s Ivy Bridge CPU technology was detail on the dual-core and lower powered chips for the mobile market segment, in particular, for its Ultrabook concept. The recent launch of the ULV (Ultra Low Voltage) and dual-core standard voltage mobile Ivy Bridge parts has revealed all, with the …

    reghardware 20 Aug 11:00

  • Python slithers up Amazon's Beanstalk

    Deeper into you

    Python has become the newest language welcomed into the Amazon’s cloud fold, through the Amazon Web Services' Elastic Beanstalk. The cloud giant today announced that Python applications are now supported on Elastic Beanstalk – along with PHP, Java and Microsoft’s family .NET. The news smooths the way for the DJango and Flask …

    Developer 20 Aug 11:14

  • EA kills Medal of Honour arms deal

    Charitable promo shot down

    EA has ceased the promotion of its charity fundraiser 'Project Honor', after public outcry over its decision to advocate the sale of actual weapons featured in the game Medal of Honour. All for a good cause, you understand, right? The publisher joined forces with a number of weapons manufacturers this year for the launch of …

    reghardware 20 Aug 11:25

  • Revenues dropping or flatlining at hefty distributor giants

    Maybe it's not just the recession, cloud and direct sales...

    Investors and funders may soon need to see a warning on every distributor prospectus or public filing that over revenues are heading in the opposite direction to up. A slew of recent results from some of the heavyweights show sales have indeed gone south, but after years of near unbroken growth – and given the assumption that …

    Channel Register 20 Aug 11:38

  • Vulture Central logo pops up in prehistoric France

    El Reg's vulturine origins traced back 10,000 years

    It's with a certain amount of amazement that we're able to announce today that the origins of Vulture Central have been traced back 10,000 years to the eastern French Pyrenees. The precipitous gorges towering over the river Jonte, in the Department of Lozère, host a reintroduced colony of vultures – the majestic beasts which …

    Bootnotes 20 Aug 11:46

  • Facebook facepalm: US judge tosses out 'sponsored stories' deal

    Suggests $20m settlement offer for faces-in-ads feature was 'plucked from thin air'

    Facebook's attempt to end litigation brought against it in the US over the launch of its unpopular "sponsored stories" feature has backfired with a judge throwing out the company's settlement offer late last week. The social network had been expected to pay out around $20m and make amendments to sponsored stories, which …

    Media 20 Aug 11:59

  • HTC takes another punch to the wallet, loses $40m OnLive investment

    Cloudy gaming biz restructures, junks investments

    Taiwanese phone-maker HTC has just seen the $40m it shovelled into an internet gaming company go up in smoke. HTC [2498 Taiwan] invested in OnLive in February 2011 as part of its push into the gaming space. The American gaming company offered console-free cloud-gaming, and HTC bought the 5.33 million preferred shares in OnLive …

    Financial News 20 Aug 12:18

  • Google loads Moto Mobility cannon, fires patent shells at Apple

    Siri, is this Mountain View's back-up plan?

    Google's Motorola Mobility has filed a fresh patent infringement case against Apple over features on its phones, including the iPhone's voice assistant, Siri. Moto filed with the US International Trade Commission to try to get Apple's iDevices and Macs banned in the country over seven different patents that deal with location …

    Law 20 Aug 12:42

  • White hat warns against iPhone SMS spoofing bug

    Apple: It's not US, it's the technology...

    Security researchers have discovered an iPhone bug that allows for spoofed SMSes with bogus return addresses to be sent to fanbois. The bug creates a means for interested parties to send SMS messages to affected handsets that appear to come from any (arbitrary) number that the sender specifies. The issue specifically affects …

    Mobile 20 Aug 13:03

  • Nimbus jiggles Gemini flash box, hits 1 million IOPS sweet spot

    Ten-year warranty

    Nimbus Data has been in the all-flash array game for a while, so much so that it just pushed out a third-generation iteration of its Gemini flash array. The new Gemini hits that million IOPS performance level and also boasts a waranteed 10-year working life from consumer-grade flash along with the two high-availability …

    Storage 20 Aug 13:32

  • Phone-flingers flock to Finland for World Championships

    Not Nokia staffers... we hope

    No, they weren't Nokia employees – we think – but on Saturday Finns gathered to hurl mobile phones into some concrete. It was for fun: "Mobile Phone Throwing is light and modern Finnish sport," say the organisers of the World Phone Throwing championships in the Finnish town of Savonlinna. It is the twelfth year of the global …

    Mobile 20 Aug 14:02

  • Cosmonauts step out for six-hour space walk around ISS

    Russian 'nauts will prep for Pirs module removal

    Cosmonauts Gennady Padalka and Yuri Malenchenko have stepped outside the International Space Station for a six-and-a-half hour spacewalk. The Russians spent the weekend preparing for the stroll; the pair will spend most of their time outside fixing up their cosmic home. The astronauts climbed into their Orlan spacesuits on …

    Science 20 Aug 14:33

  • Red-faced chip-fryer AMD pulls blog offline after hackers munch 32KB

    Lashings of r00tbeer

    AMD's blog was taken offline after a hacker broke into the chipmaker's site and lifted a small number of user credentials. Black hat hacking crew r00tbeersec subsequently uploaded 189 usernames, a similar number of email addresses and and what seems like PHPass-hashed passwords, which it claims were swiped from AMD's WordPress …

    Security 20 Aug 15:02

  • Sacrebleu! Googleplex insists Bush is still le président américain

    Google in, garbage out

    Google wonks beavering away at translating snippets of French into the English language might wish to take note of the following fact - their system thinks "le président américain" is "Bush". That's George W Bush, we suppose. Reg reader Robert spotted the amusing cockup when he tried to translate an article from daily French …

    Applications 20 Aug 15:33

  • Don't download that app: US presidential candidates will STALK you with it

    Romney mobe application even requests permission to record audio ...

    Security researchers have uncovered privacy shortcomings in the mobile applications offered by both the Barack Obama and Mitt Romney presidential campaigns. The campaign teams of the incumbent US President and his Republican challenger have each released apps for both iOS and Android, in good time for the election on November …

    Applications 20 Aug 16:01

  • Barnes & Noble Nooks bound for Blighty

    UK bookstore too

    US-based literature retailer Barnes & Noble today announced plans to bring its popular Nook range of eReaders to the UK market. The company has revealed intent to crack Blighty this October with the Nook Simple Touch and the Nook Simple Touch with GlowLight. On top of the hardware, Barnes & Noble will launch the Nook store, …

    reghardware 20 Aug 16:12

  • Judge gives Google until Friday to dish on paid media

    Tattletale Oracle gets pat on the head

    Judge William Alsup has said that Google "failed to comply" with his August 7 order to disclose any paid relationships with the media as part of its ongoing patent litigation with Oracle, and has given the search giant five days to resubmit. In his original order, Judge Alsup had asked that both parties in the case reveal any …

    Law 20 Aug 19:09

  • Processor pioneer Victor Poor dies of cancer at 79

    Obituary Modest designer of Intel's first integrated processors

    Victor Poor, whose death was announced this weekend, isn’t one of the first names to come to mind among computing history, but he played a pivotal role in the development of Intel's early architectures that went on to dominate modern computing and is a legend in ham radio circles. Poor, along with fellow radio enthusiast and …

    Hardware 20 Aug 19:19

  • Internode's Hackett to fly new jet around the world

    Agile by name, agile by nature

    iiNet Board member Simon Hackett has sunk some of the millions he scored by selling ISP Internode into a new plane that he intends to pilot around the planet. Hackett founded Agile Communications in 1997 and cashed out last year. he has since written a cheque for a Pilatus PC-12 turboprop jet, which an aircraft comparison …

    Business 20 Aug 20:00

  • Anonymous takes down UK government websites in Assange attack

    He's not the messiah; he's a very naughty boy

    Anonymous is claiming to have begun shutting down UK government websites in protest of the treatment of Julian Assange. At around 8pm UT, the UK Justice Department website went down under a distributed denial of service attack. About 40 minutes later the Department of Work and Pensions website was also taken offline. Both …

    Security 20 Aug 20:15

  • Silicon Valley comes to China to spur tech innovation

    Yeah, that's probably going to take a while...

    China’s attempts to rebrand itself as a technology innovator received a boost last week when US lender Silicon Valley Bank (SVB) announced a joint venture with Shanghai Pudong Development Bank (SPDB) which will provide capital to budding tech entrepreneurs. The 50:50 partnership is the first to win approval by China’s Banking …

    Business 20 Aug 22:00

  • Networking industry to collaborate on TERABIT Ethernet

    Network traffic projected to increase tenfold by 2015

    Sensing mounting frustration that movies Linux ISOs aren't downloading fast enough, the IEEE has announced a new group that aims to bring wired Ethernet speeds up to 1Tbps by 2015 and as fast as 10Tbps by 2020. The announcement comes shortly after the publication of the IEEE 802.3 Ethernet Bandwidth Assessment report, which …

    HPC 20 Aug 22:06

  • SHOCK: Brainwave readers work as advertised

    Put away the tinfoil hat, there's no 'brain hack' here

    A little-reported (at first) bit of research presented at this month’s Usenix conference makes the startling claim that consumer-grade EEG-based interface devices – like Emotiv and NeuroSky headsets – could be used to gain private information from users. The combination of sexy gadget and sci-fi attack was too much for the …

    Hardware 20 Aug 22:16

  • Melb IT tells ICANN to clear up its clearinghouse act

    Brands in GTLD cybersquat peril

    ICANN’s trademark clearinghouse guidelines for the introduction of gTLDs have been slammed by one of Australia’s largest domain registrars, Melbourne IT. Melbourne IT has warned that high profile trademark holders will be vulnerable to attack from cyber squatters and counterfeiters unless policy is swiftly changed. In a new …

    Security 20 Aug 23:08

  • NASA gets funding for Mars InSight mission in 2016

    Funding to delve into the depths of the Red Planet

    Fresh from the ongoing success of the Curiosity rover, NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory has awarded funding for its next Mars mission, InSight, which will drill down under the Martian surface to try and understand its geology. InSight (Interior Exploration using Seismic Investigations, Geodesy and Heat Transport) will be a …

    Science 20 Aug 23:48

  • Apple now most valuable company OF ALL TIME

    Tops Redmond's bubble-era record

    Apple first earned the title of the world's highest-valued company in 2011, but rumors about the impending iPhone 5 sent its stock soaring to new heights on Monday, earning it a new distinction, that of the highest-valued company in stock market history. Shares of the fruity firm swelled more than 2 per cent on Monday, topping …

    Business 20 Aug 23:49