29th August 2012 Archive

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Leaked Genius Bar manual shows Apple's smooth seductions

It's all about empathy, and making the sale

A copy of the training manual used to prepare Apple employees for work at its in-store Genius Bars shows the smooth patter and sales mindset Cupertino seeks to indoctrinate into staff. Before donning the sacred blue t-shirt and becoming a Genius Bar operative, staff must first pass through a 14 day training course teaching not …

Business 29 Aug 00:23
Windows Azure adds code-free data services for mobile apps

Cloudy database backends in less than five minutes

Microsoft on Tuesday launched a preview of Windows Azure Mobile Services, a new capability for Redmond's cloud platform that allows software developers to deploy backend services for mobile applications without any server-side coding. "The reason we are introducing Windows Azure Mobile Services is because a lot of developers …

Windows 8 29 Aug 00:24
Mission Impossible for animation house Fuel VFX

Oz company titsup despite work on Avengers, Prometheus and Iron Man 2

The trailblazing Australian visual effects outfit behind CG animation for Ridley Scott’s Prometheus, The Avengers, Mission Impossible and Iron Man 2 has plunged into voluntary administration. The high end production house was launched in 2000 by a small group of VFX producers, using locally developed technology smarts to power …

Business 29 Aug 03:51
AMD CTO spills 'Steamroller' core specs

Hot Chips Shows off impending Opteron SeaMicro microserver

Mark Papermaster, CTO at Advanced Micro Devices, gave the keynote address at the Hot Chips 24 conference in Cupertino today. Papermaster's mission was ostensibly to talk about heterogeneous computing, a drum that the chip peddler has been banging on since last fall. But the real news was that Papermaster divulged some of the …

Servers 29 Aug 04:23
More of Kim Dotcom's booty released by court

Lord of uploads outlines even more mega upload service

The New Zealand High Court has unleashed some of Megaupload founder Kim Dotcom's considerable assets in order to help the contentious entrepreneur cover his legal fees in New Zealand. The @KimDotcom Twitter account modestly told the world: “BREAKING NEWS: The High Court just ruled the release of restrained assets to cover our …

Policy 29 Aug 06:00
Ghostbusters

Antique Code Show Plasma TV?

In 1984 Activision released their adaptation of the classic movie Ghostbusters. I was 12 and remember after seeing the movie wanting the game more than George Michael's Careless Whisper which, in hindsight, was quite a sensible choice. The ghost of pixels past As Ray Parker Junior says "I ain't 'fraid of no ghost" so …

Games 29 Aug 07:00
Number-plate spycams riddled with flaws, top cop admits

Crims know location of some ANPR cameras, helps them evade capture on the road

UK Police have been granted the right to continue to keep secret the locations of controversial automatic number plate recognition (ANPR) cameras, after winning a freedom of information tribunal - even as they admit that criminals know the whereabouts of some of the spycams. However, as reported by the Guardian, which has been …

Law 29 Aug 07:32
Low sunspot activity linked to rivers freezing: Mini Ice Age on way?

'CO₂ is certainly a climate factor, but so is the Sun'

A team of boffins in Germany say they have found a statistical link between periods of low solar activity and very cold winters in Europe. Some physicists believe that a long period of low solar activity - like the "Maunder Minimum" of the 17th and 18th centuries - could be on the cards in coming decades, so the new research …

Science 29 Aug 07:56
Heartbroken app-maker Qt sneaks into Android's bed

The library that's too cute to kill

The effort towards a Qt library for Android is progressing, with a fourth and final alpha release being sent out the door – despite confidence in the platform having steadily eroded since Nokia dumped it. Qt is a library of cross-platform APIs which enables even complicated apps, such as VLC's VideoLAN, to run across operating …

Developer 29 Aug 08:21
RIP Brian Wynne Oakley: Saviour of Bletchley Park

Obituary When Big Government was a good thing

Brian Wynne Oakley has died aged 85. According to the Real Time Club, of which Oakley was a chairman, he "enjoyed a very distinguished career playing a major role in the development of computing both in the UK and in Europe". Oakley was rarity: a civil servant who grasped the significance of information technology for the …

Bootnotes 29 Aug 08:41
Apple: I love to hate, and hate to love thee

Open ... and Shut Rebel, patent wrangler, aggressive litigator

I want to hate Apple. The company takes the most egregious of Microsoft's monopolistic practices and raises them to an art form. It's aggressive litigiousness threatens to impede innovation in the mobile industry for years to come: innovation that isn't Apple's, that is. And Apple's lust for control makes it a very poor centre …

Hardware 29 Aug 09:03
Hack on Saudi Aramco hit 30,000 workstations, oil firm admits

Analysis First hacktivist-style assault to use malware?

Saudi Aramco said that it had put its network back online on Saturday, 10 days after a malware attack floored 30,000 workstations at the oil giant. In a statement, Saudi Arabia's national oil firm said that it had "restored all its main internal network services" hit by a malware outbreak that struck on 15 August. The firm …

Security 29 Aug 09:18
Intel tries to wangle China crypto-standards deal

TCM + TPM = TXT

Intel has revealed it’s working behind the scenes to strike a deal with Chinese regulators that will effectively make the country’s closed crypto standard Trusted Cryptography Module (TCM) interoperable with the rest of the world. TCM was invented in the People’s Republic as a home-grown rival to the Trusted Computing Group’s …

Security 29 Aug 09:37
Mars rover will.i.am 'cast: A depressing day for space and technology

Comment Interplanetary voyages: Boring compared to pop, obviously

Picture this. Deep in the incalculable vastness of space, sparse clouds of gas and dust coalesce over uncounted millions of years. At the centre of the resulting disc, gravity rams matter together with such force that a fusion flame is kindled: a small yellow star - a tiny pinprick of light against the black and infinite void - …

Science 29 Aug 09:51
New rule on blood-soaked metals in mobes is POINTLESS

Analysis Tech biz already cracked down on Congo's capacitors

There's been much trumpeting of new rules that require companies to 'fess up if they use minerals extracted from war-torn African nations. If this is news to you, try this handy guide El Reg made earlier. Having actually gone and read the directive [PDF], freshly issued by US watchdog SEC, I cannot see that it achieves …

Hardware 29 Aug 10:12
Cops cuff journo over anonymous plod blogger unmasking

Computer Misuse Act cited

Scotland Yard officers arrested a 28-year-old man this morning on suspicion of computer hacking relating to the identification of a previously anonymous blogger in 2009. The Met said the suspect is a journalist and that he was cuffed as part of the force's Operation Tuleta investigation into alleged computer hacking by …

Law 29 Aug 10:26
Microsoft gives Android punters some official SkyDrive love

Come and Google Play

Android now has an official SkyDrive client, bringing Microsoft's cloud storage to Google's handsets and dragging a little of Redmond's new GUI along with it. The new application is free, and works well. It not only provides remote access to SkyDrive content but also appends itself to the Android Sharing list so content can …

Applications 29 Aug 10:43
DOCTOR WHO world, or Magrathea, SPOTTED* orbiting twin suns

NASA star scope confirms sci-fi planets realistic

Astroboffins have spotted a real-universe analogue of Doctor Who's Time Lord home world Gallifrey - or alternatively the luxury-planet-builders' planet Magrathea of Hitchhikers' Guide to the Galaxy fame - spinning in space around twin suns. And one of them is in a sweet spot distance from its stars to allow life to inhabit it …

Science 29 Aug 10:52
Ten movies inspired by video games

Film Round-up Playing in the cinema

Capcom's Street Fighter series celebrates its 25th birthday this week and while the world is awash with various mementos – including boxsets and a dedicated Street Fighter site for fans to reminisce on their favourite moments – we decided it was the perfect opportunity to look back at the film adaptations of video game …

Hardware 29 Aug 11:00
Worldwide server sales head south as shipments put on ice

Unix, mainframe transitions stall Q2

The server market took a bit of a breather again in the second quarter ended in June, say the box counters at IDC. It's not a surprise, with a number of Unix vendors getting ready to launch new boxes, IBM not yet shipping its new System zEC12 mainframes announced this week, and Hewlett-Packard's Integrity Itanium servers still …

Servers 29 Aug 11:14
BT wins ad watchdog ruling against BSkyB's 'instant movie' claim

All a question of broadband speed, dear boy

BT successfully argued to the UK's advertising regulator that BSkyB had misled its customers in a press ad that claimed the company's new rental movie service could be accessed "instantly". The ASA agreed with the national telco, which challenged BSkyB's assertions about the speed at which punters could rent the films via the …

Media 29 Aug 11:28
IDC: Trying to flog PCs? It's not going to happen

Box counter slashes sales forecasts... Windows 8 not following the script

Market analyst IDC now expects fewer PCs will be sold in 2012 than it had earlier predicted. The box-counter has also revised down its estimate for PC sales over the next four years. The world-wide PC market for desktops and portables will grow just 0.9 per cent during 2012, 367 million units, as mid-year shipments slow down, …

Hardware 29 Aug 11:44
Apple: You'd want hi-fi streamage from us, not poor-people Wi-Fi audio

Admit it, you want everything to be shiny and swanky

Apple is reportedly working with hi-fi manufacturers to stream music over-the-air directly to audio equipment - without the need for Wi-Fi. The Mac maker already licenses its AirPlay protocol, which streams music and video over a network, to the consumer electronics industry. Apple's proprietary stack is a counterpart to the …

Broadband 29 Aug 12:03
Second LulzSec suspect charged over Sony Pictures hack

Arizona man hands himself in

US police have arrested a second suspect in the June 2011 hacktivist attacks on Sony Pictures Entertainment, an assault that resulted in a breach of passwords and personal data involving 38,000 accounts. Raynaldo Rivera, 20, of Tempe, Arizona, surrendered to authorities on Tuesday after he was named in a federal grand jury …

Security 29 Aug 12:18
Serco throws US in the clink for wrecking cash targets

Outsourcer's H1 2012 propped up by rest of the world

Outsourcing behemoth Serco missed its targets for the first half of this year as "challenging" US conditions weighed down revenue. The IT company, which runs prison services in Britain and air traffic centres around the world, was still hoping in May to achieve six per cent growth in sales year-on-year for the first half of …

The Channel 29 Aug 12:41
Samsung to offer Apple Dock style Start Button in Windows? Really?

Making Apple-ish stuff has gone well for them - oh wait

We bring good news and bad news for Windows users. Microsoft's latest version of its operating system would have been its best yet - but it has one fatal flaw. The introduction of the Metro Notro widget layer is brutal, obtuse and plays havoc with your routine workflow. In Windows 8, the user is constantly thrown between two …

Developer 29 Aug 12:56
Ho ho ho! Apple's Samsung ban bid pushed back to Christmas

South Koreans gasp for breath after patent smackdown

US Judge Lucy Koh has postponed any decision to permanently ban sales of Samsung's mobiles until 6 December - just in time for the Christmas rush. The request to remove Sammy's gear from shop shelves came from Apple, which had just trounced its tech rival in their ongoing epic patent lawsuit. The judge said that since both …

Law 29 Aug 13:25
'FIRST ever' Linux, Mac OS X-only password sniffing Trojan spotted

Windows? Who the hell uses that?

Security researchers have discovered a potential dangerous Linux and Mac OS X cross-platform trojan. Once installed on a compromised machine, Wirenet-1 opens a backdoor to a remote command server, and logs key presses to capture passwords and sensitive information typed by victims. The program also grabs passwords submitted …

Security 29 Aug 14:03
Young alcoholic star 'covered in fluids needed for birth of alien life'

THEY CAME quite literally FROM OUTER SPACE

Top astro-boffins are chuffed today to announce that they have detected large amounts of chemicals necessary to birth alien life - not to mention some alcohol - drifting in space around a young star just 400 light-years away. “In the protoplanetary disc of gas and dust surrounding the young, newly formed star, we found …

Science 29 Aug 14:15
Targeted firm smacks back, chucks patent sueball at Overland

What do you mean we're the ones infringing YOUR intellectual property?

Storage firm Quantum has bared its teeth at the T Rex of tape – aka Overland Storage – and counter-sued for patent infringement. What's happening is that Overland Storage, on the hunt for royalty payments and/or licence fees and damages, had sued BDT, a Germany-based maker of tape automation devices used by many OEMs, for …

Storage 29 Aug 14:27
Privacy warriors win right to fight Google's itty-bitty FTC payout

Is that $22m for stalking punters missing a zero or two?

Opposition to Google's $22.5m privacy blunder settlement with the US Federal Trade Commission is heating up: lobby group Consumer Watchdog confirmed today it has won the right to file a brief against the deal. The search-and-ads giant had agreed to pay out after it was caught tracking users of Apple's web browser Safari by …

Law 29 Aug 15:01
Samsung chucks 'free' Galaxy S III at dragon sketcher

It's paid for itself in publicity

A Canadian who adorned his request for a free phone with a sketch of a dragon, and received a kangaroo in response, has now been rewarded with a custom S III as Samsung spots some good PR. The posting on Samsung Canada's Facebook Wall asked for a free handset and offered the sketch as payment. Samsung Canada wittily responded …

Mobile 29 Aug 15:27
Red Hat's JBoss gets BPM facelift

Acquisition expands middleware reach

Red Hat is continuing to spread out in middleware, and has just snapped up business process management (BPM) tech developed by Spanish start-up Polymita Technologies. The Linux biz is buying the Spanish firm's BPM platform, which it said would be added to Red Hat’s JBoss Enterprise Middleware, specifically BRMS and jBPM. A …

Developer 29 Aug 15:58
Speaking in Tech: VMware vNerds drop it like it's hot – LIVE

Podcast The usual suspects at our enterprise tech-cast broadcast from the centre of the action

Today we bring you a special live episode of our enterprise and consumer tech-cast, hosted by The Dude of enterprise tech, Greg Knieriemen, and cloud and storage master Ed Saipetch. Live from VMworld, they crash HP's customer appreciation reception. Today's special guests include: Brady Wilson, CTO of Opus Interactive; Shahin …

Virtualization 29 Aug 16:34
VMware adds EMC daddy's deduping backup to vSphere

Prepares for backlash of the backup vendors...

VMware is embedding EMC's Avamar deduplicating backup software into ESXi with the vSphere Data Protection product, making VMware seem more like EMC's baby than an open child. What VMware wanted to do was provide virtual machine (VM) data protection for small and medium businesses (SMB) and enterprise departments that was an …

Virtualization 29 Aug 17:06
AMD to double up cores with Jaguars

Hot Chips And maybe finally a Cat server variant

For those of us hoping that Advanced Micro Devices would get into the low-powered server racket with some earnestness, it looks like the forthcoming processors based on the "Jaguar" cores will fit the bill quite nicely. The Jaguars are the kickers to the current "Bobcat" family of x86 processors used in ceepie-geepie hybrids …

Hardware 29 Aug 17:25
Look out, world! SUSE Linux's OpenStack control-freak is loose

CloudOpen 2012 And it's chasing a cloudy bandwagon

Commercial Linux distributor SUSE Linux is moving up into the clouds with a commercially supported release of its OpenStack cloud control-freak. SUSE Cloud, as the OpenStack distro is called, has been in preview since last October, and that particular preview build was based on the "Diablo" OpenStack 2011.3 running atop SUSE …

Servers 29 Aug 18:03
Fired Toyota coder trashes systems, steals data

Insider info leak could cause 'irreparable damage'

A fired former IT contractor for Toyota's US manufacturing wing has been ordered not to leave the country after allegedly accessing the company's servers, downloading proprietary information, and sabotaging its systems. The automaker accuses Ibrahimshah Shahulhameed, who was dismissed from his contract programming job on …

Security 29 Aug 19:33
Gelsinger wants VMware to be the Apple of the data centre

VMworld 2012 Innovation without arrogance the goal ... just like Cupertino?

Incoming VMware CEO Pat Gelsinger has not decided on personal goals for his time in the virty company's big chair, but does know what he hopes is the end result: a reputation for innovation to match that acquired by Apple. Speaking to a throng of media from Asia-Pacific nations, Gelsinger said he feels he's got a tough gig …

Virtualization 29 Aug 19:44
Intel adding wireless power sharing for smartphones and laptops

Dump the cords in 2014

Intel has said it'll start shipping laptops and smartphones that can share power wirelessly towards the end of next year. The system will see laptops and smartphones sharing power with an integrated transmitter and receiver chipset from semiconductor designers Integrated Device Technology (IDT). Intel says it'll begin building …

Mobile 29 Aug 20:35
Customs contradicts vendors over IT pricing

Joins Treasury in endorsing 'grey market'

The Australian Information Industry Association’s claim that customs duty contributes to high IT prices in this country has been flatly contradicted by the Australian Customs Service. Customs, whose submission to the IT price inquiry being conducted by the Australian parliament at the urging of MP Ed Husic has been published …

Government 29 Aug 21:48
Republican manifesto calls for internet freedom but no net neutrality

Trust the corporate sector to do you right

The Republican Party has decided on its official platform for the coming presidential election, and where tech is concerned, it's running on a ticket of reforming the FCC, dumping net neutrality, and selling off wireless spectrum as fast as it can find it. "The internet has unleashed innovation, enabled growth, and inspired …

Government 29 Aug 22:37
New Zealand softens software patent ban

Amendment welcomed by vendors, laywers

New Zealand has passed legislation which partially forbids the granting of software patents – but has come under trenchant criticism by the NZ Open Source Society for abandoning local developers. Originally, the country’s new Patent Bill (which passed parliament on August 29) had been expected to ban software patents outright …

Business 29 Aug 22:45