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4th September 2012 Archive

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  • A second opinion on sucky second quarter server sales

    Sucks to be non-Xeon, Q4 uptick on the way

    Global server sales remained in the doldrums during the year's second quarter, says new data from Gartner whose bean counters have found revenues off 2.9 per cent to $12.86bn against a slight 1.4 per cent shipment rise to 2.37 million boxes shipped out to customers between April and June. The x86 server continues to dominate …

    Data Center 4 Sep 01:10

  • 'Immortal cancer' found in Australia

    Only attacks Tasmanian Devil but may help target human cancers

    Scientists investigating a cancer that is killing off the world's largest carnivorous marsupial, the Tasmanian Devil, have found that the disease is effectively immortal. Tasmanian Devils are about the size and weight of a very large domestic cat, but possess jaws with unusually strong crushing power and make impressively …

    Science 4 Sep 01:53

  • China and Japan stick it to floods, quakes and tsunamis

    Nations nail pre-and post-disaster tech

    Japan and China will use technology to prevent mass loss of life caused by natural disasters. Authorities in Tokyo are trialling an online portal designed to centralise more than 40 services in the event of a large-scale natural disaster of the type seen in Sendai in the north-east of the country in 2011. The portal, which is …

    Policy 4 Sep 03:41

  • China mutates plants ... IN SPAAAAAACE

    Astro-capsicum on sale now

    Chinese botanical boffins have produced more than 120 new varieties of fruit and veg over the past quarter of a century by mutating regular plant seeds in space. The seeds of nearly 400 plant varieties have been shot into the heavens over the period – 23 times in recoverable satellites and ten times on manned space missions, …

    Science 4 Sep 04:31

  • Acer to launch Windows Phone 8 smartphone in 2013

    Six devices planned, based on Qualcomm and MediaTek chips

    Acer has confirmed to The Reg that it plans to launch six new handsets next year including a Windows Phone 8 device. Company president Jim Wong told Taiwanese tech title Digitimes that the six new models would be aimed to appeal to all segments of the market in Europe, south-east Asia and China. The handsets will be Android- …

    Networks 4 Sep 06:20

  • Nokia Asha 311 budget smartphone review

    Social climber

    Nokia’s smartphone sales may be in the toilet at the moment but it still flogs a fair number of handsets under the Asha brand of feature phones. Newest to the ranks is the Asha 311 which looks and behaves a bit like a smartphone but has a far lower purchase price – around £100 unlocked and SIM-free. Endearing features? Nokia' …

    Phones 4 Sep 07:00

  • Australia won't back away from data retention plan

    Anonymous restive as A-G restates case for government data trove

    Australia’s Attorney-General Nicola Roxon has re-stated the case for a European-style data retention regime, arguing that there’s no point bringing a knife to a gun fight when it comes to protecting Australia’s interests. In a speech delivered to the 2012 Security in Government conference in Canberra today, Roxon quickly …

    Policy 4 Sep 07:02

  • Organic food offers basically no health benefit, boffins find

    Does offer prospect of grub grown in human excrement

    US medical scientists reviewing the state of knowledge on organic food have come to the conclusion that the pricey old-school grub offers no appreciable health benefits. However consumers may still wish to buy it for the purpose of promoting organic farming methods. To be certified organic, food must be produced without the …

    Science 4 Sep 07:18

  • Ofcom begged to protect minicab, other small-biz's radio spectrum

    You did it for the luvvies

    The Federation of Communication Services, trade body to the UK's private radio operators, is calling for Ofcom to step away from the free market when it comes to spectrum regulation. The Federation, representing more than 300 UK companies with interests in private radio, has published a 14-point advisory for Ofcom's …

    Broadband 4 Sep 07:37

  • Ulster Bank waves £100 at punters pummelled by RBS IT fiasco

    Very generous compo, we think you'll find

    Small businesses and personal customers that were affected by IT problems experienced by Ulster Bank can claim up to £100 in expenses incurred as a result of the problems under plans outlined by the bank. In June RBS Group announced that a "large number" of its NatWest and Ulster Bank customers, and some RBS customers, had …

    Financial News 4 Sep 07:58

  • Torvalds bellows: 'The GNOME PEOPLE are in TOTAL DENIAL'

    At last, somebody says something on Google+

    Linux kernel big daddy Linus Torvalds and fellow developer Alan Cox have lashed out at claims that the culture surrounding the operating system's core prevented it from conquering the consumer PC market. The pair also slapped down folks working on the GNOME user interface - a popular package among desktop Linux users - and …

    Operating Systems 4 Sep 08:17

  • New NHS chieftains put docs' software bill on their tab

    We'll pay for it, but you lot can install it

    The NHS Commissioning Board will continue to pump cash into the GP Systems of Choice (GPSoC) scheme, which funds approved clinical software for doctors - adding to the list of erstwhile National Programme for IT projects that it will maintain centrally. The board, which will take responsibility for running the NHS in England …

    Government 4 Sep 08:39

  • Oracle hurls Sparc T5 gladiators into big-iron arena

    Hot Chips At my interrupt signal, unleash hell

    Oracle's Sparc processor server biz may be bleeding revenue, but the company is still working on very innovative chips. Its Sparc T series, and the Sparc T5 systems that will launch later this year (very likely at the OpenWorld trade show at the end of September) suggest the company is growing its multithreaded processors in …

    Servers 4 Sep 09:12

  • Freesat eyes YouView USP for next-gen UI

    VoD and live content combined into one EPG

    Free-to-air satellite broadcasting platform Freesat is to YouView-ise its set-top boxes, based around a new UI that will debut in next-generation kit later this month. Like YouView, Freesat's new UI mixes upcoming programming and catch-up content into a single electronic programme guide (EPG). Alas, recordings - full DVR …

    Hardware 4 Sep 09:28

  • 'Nutjob' serves half-baked Raspberry PI scam

    Budget-priced board too expensive for 'BA applied math student and journo'

    Some people will go to any lengths to get a Raspberry PI, except pay the $35 price tag. The Raspberry Pi Foundation has published an IM conversation it claims took place between 'Foundation founder Eben Upton and a “nutjob” trying to blag a PI for free. The chancer employed a carrot-and-stick technique, dangling the prospect …

    Hardware 4 Sep 09:38

  • Hilton takes first M4 exit, zooms away from cloud provider Rise

    Now head of channels Sue MacDermott will drive sales

    Cloud and hosted IT player Rise - the indirect sales arm of Fasthosts Internet Group (FIG) - has parted company with boss Alex Hilton after a couple of years of service. Channel veteran Hilton made the decision to end the "ridiculous" 60-mile-plus commute from his home near Reading to the Gloucestershire-based offices, said …

    The Channel 4 Sep 09:53

  • GridIron crams fat Hadoop ready-meal boxes into data centres

    Would you fries chips with that compute'n'flash combo?

    Flash array startup GridIron is touting a converged compute'n'flash iNode go-faster box with Zettaset Big Data management software. A reference architecture tells users how to build a 100TB, 1.5 million IOPS Hadoop virtual cluster. GridIron iNode GridIron's iNode is a combined storage enclosure that's 10U high and contains …

    Storage 4 Sep 10:02

  • Tablets keep UK IT's head above water

    Floating on a fondleslab (or two)

    UK IT is currently stumbling along a rather rocky road. But for the tablet, times would be rather tougher, market watcher GfK reckons. Looking back over the six months from January to July, and to the equivalent six-month periods in the previous five years, the contraction in sales of desktop tower PCs is very evident. So is …

    Tablets 4 Sep 10:09

  • Oracle in new bid to wring cash out of SAP in piracy spat

    Cheers for the $426m offer, but we were thinking $1.3bn

    Oracle has started its attempt to wring more than $306m in damages from SAP in the drawn-out TomorrowNow copyright infringement lawsuit. The warring software firms have been at each other's throats for the last five years, and will be bickering on for another year or two as Oracle filed to appeal the last agreed damages in the …

    Developer 4 Sep 10:18

  • Internet Explorer needs fresh dev infusion for a full recovery

    Open ... and Shut Drip bag of unsavvy users won't help IE get healthy

    Despite years of pressure from government antitrust actions and open-source upstarts like Mozilla Firefox and Google Chrome, Microsoft's Internet Explorer (IE) browser still commands more than 50 per cent of the global desktop browser market. While Microsoft remains an obvious choice for many consumers, there's some indication …

    Windows 8 4 Sep 10:38

  • Hackers leak '1 MILLION records' on Apple fanbois from FEDS

    FBI laptop with data on 12m iThings 'pwned via Java hole'

    Hackers have dumped online the unique identification codes for one million Apple iPhones and iPads allegedly lifted from an FBI agent's laptop. The leak, if genuine, proves Feds are walking around with data on at least 12 million iOS devices. The 20-byte ID codes were, we're told, copied from a file extracted from the Dell …

    Security 4 Sep 10:58

  • 'Picture of Dorian Gray' borrowed in 1934 is finally returned

    Intriguing case of immortality work lost for generations

    A rare book telling the story of a young man who sells his soul in a bargain whereby he stops ageing has been returned to a library after having been taken out in 1934. The tome in question is a valuable first edition of The Picture of Dorian Gray, the novel written by noted 19th-century writer, wit and theatrical luvvie Oscar …

    Bootnotes 4 Sep 11:15

  • New deals for Virgin Sim punters

    Unlimited data, apparently

    Virgin has updated its Sim-only offerings, pitching "truly unlimited data and texts" no matter what you pay each month. There are four monthly price bands: £12, £15, £17 and £25, though the latter can be had by Virgin Media subscribers for £20 who also get to call other subscribers free on all four deals. They're all 30-day …

    Mobile 4 Sep 11:18

  • Broadband minister Hunt LOSES portfolio, takes on national health

    Forget about download speed, just try not to kill them

    Jeremy Hunt, who is the minister responsible for the government's ambitious faster broadband roll out, has been shifted out of the department for media, culture and sport into a new cabinet role as Health Secretary. As recently as April this year, the Tory MP and homeopathy fan faced calls from the opposition to stand down …

    Government 4 Sep 11:25

  • Iomega: SOHO punters will pay hard cash for our cheap boxes

    EMC storage biz unit shows off non-enterprise figures

    Networked storage is not just for enterprise buyers. The wee consumer arm of storage-and-networking giant EMC says that small office and home office (SOHO) and small and medium business customers have bought more than a million of its StorCenter networked storage boxes. Iomega is an EMC business unit focused on selling …

    Small Biz 4 Sep 11:43

  • Orange enables Samsung Galaxy SIII bonking

    The future is Mastercard, but we'll take Visa too

    Orange and Barclaycard have revived their QuickTap pay-by-bonk platform with support for the Samsung Galaxy SIII, despite EE's commitment to create a new platform in cooperation with Mastercard. Orange customers who fancy a bit of contractless action can, from tomorrow, get themselves a Samsung Galaxy SIII and score £50 in pay …

    Mobile 4 Sep 12:01

  • BBC dishes out fanboi-only telly downloads ahead of ITV plans

    Fandroids will have to wait for Doctor Who offline

    The BBC's mobile iPlayer app will now let users download content for watching later – provided they have an Apple device of course. Lucky fanbois can nab last night's episode of EastEnders or the latest Doctor Who for perusal at their leisure for up to 30 days, though once they've started watching they only have a week to …

    Media 4 Sep 12:23

  • Eco-nomics: Was Stern 'wrong for the right reasons' ... or just wrong?

    Analysis Perhaps greens just aren't the good guys

    "Why should we sacrifice 10 per cent of our income today to make Bill Gates better off?" asked an MP. "As the world's [second] richest man, he doesn't need our sacrifice." The second richest man in the world, Bill Gates, is a proxy in this rhetorical question. The MP, a former Cabinet minister, is raising a fascinating and …

    Science 4 Sep 12:38

  • Valve reiterates games hardware gambit

    Controller roller

    Valve has once more underlined its desire to enter the hardware market, "jumping in" to deal with a "lack of innovation" in the space. The company's plans were revealed through a job posting for an industrial designer, set to join the team to "create compelling user experiences" currently overlooked. "Valve is traditionally a …

    Games 4 Sep 12:42

  • Cambodia set to boot out Pirate Bay co-founder

    Responds to international warrant

    A co-founder of The Pirate Bay website is to be deported from Cambodia, police have confirmed. Gottfrid Svartholm Warg, who co-founded the infamous BitTorrent site in 2003 with Peter Sunde, Carl Lundstrom and Fredrik Neij, will be sent packing from the southeast Asian country to Sweden where, in April 2009, he was convicted - …

    Law 4 Sep 12:47

  • iPhone 5 wait drives record Samsung smartphone sales

    Nokia knocked back too

    Samsung steamed ahead of Apple during Q2 to end the quarter with more than double its rival's share of the Western European smartphone market, in marked contrast to the situation in the US. Figures out from market watcher IDC put Apple on 19 per cent, Samsung on 43.6 per cent, from respectively 21.1 per cent and 22 per cent in …

    Phones 4 Sep 12:48

  • Samsung puts Police on trail of AWOL OLEDs

    Pricey TVs vanish on road to IFA

    Have you seen two über-expensive Samsung OLED TVs? If so, the South Korean giant would very much like to have them back. The two tellies went walkies somewhere in transit to the IFA consumer electronics show being held this week in Berlin, Samsung admitted today, according to Reuters. The 55in demo units were destined for …

    Hardware 4 Sep 13:05

  • Sony: Our Xperia S tab COPIED Samsung's slab ... on price

    New gear not destined for the bargain bin - yet

    Sony has said it won't compete on price as it prepares another attempt to invade the tablet computer market. The Japanese firm is about to start flogging its latest fondleslab, the Xperia S, in the US for $399 for the 16GB model, competing toe-to-toe with similar tablets from Samsung rather than lower-priced gear from Amazon …

    Hardware 4 Sep 13:21

  • WiReD surgically removes damaged neurotrash 'expert'

    Jonah and the wail

    Glossy lifestyle magazine WiReD will sever its relationship with pop neuroscience journalist and author Jonah Lehrer, the author of Imagine: How Creativity Works. In late July, Lehrer was cut loose by New Yorker after he manufactured Bob Dylan quotes and then fibbed about their provenance to grownups at the posh mag. Lehrer …

    Media 4 Sep 13:53

  • Tech Data taps up ex-Acetebis CEO Michael Urban

    New senior veep for Euro volume biz has his work cut out

    Tech Data has drafted in distie veteran and one-time Actebis CEO Michael Urban to tune its volume sales business. Unveiled today as TD's senior veep for broadline and processes in Europe, Urban - who has also bagged a seat on the exec board - will report to regional president Nestor Cano. Cano said in a canned statement that …

    The Channel 4 Sep 14:05

  • Report: Nokia to join Qi party with wireless-charging Lumia 920

    Watch out, WiPower...

    Nokia's next phones will have wireless charging, claims The Verge, and the Finns are joining the Qi camp in the increasingly polarised battle for over wireless standards. The Verge claims to have leaked specifications for Nokia's flagship Lumia 920 handset, revealing that it will have Qi-compatible wireless charging and a 4.5- …

    Broadband 4 Sep 14:25

  • Nvidia coder primes Optimus for Linux

    Nvidia's Optimus GPU switching technology may be coming to Linux. Nvidia coder Aaron Plattner and a team of software developers has conjured up a working "proof of concept" that ties Nvidia's technology into the X Window RandR extension, allowing the display image to be selectively rendered on a laptop's Nvidia GPU and on a …

    Software 4 Sep 15:09

  • Interactive Ideas puts 10 staffers on redundancy watch, exits retail software

    North London distie to push only enterprise software

    Distributor Interactive Ideas has placed a small batch of staff at risk of redundancy as it jettisons the retail software biz to concentrate wholly on enterprise software and licensing. Seven years ago retail software represented 80 per cent of Interactive's total turnover but has fallen to just 7 per cent this year, said Mike …

    The Channel 4 Sep 15:21

  • Android dev smacked with £50k fine over premium rate SMS scam

    PhonepayPlus: You'll have to refund punters too...

    UK regulator PhonepayPlus has fined a Russian firm £50,000 after it was found guilty of peddling a deceptive Android application that signed unwitting victims up to a premium-rate text service. Connect Ltd, trading as SMSBill, reportedly promised access to Android games. After the app was installed, a text message was also …

    Security 4 Sep 15:34

  • Samsung Galaxy Note 2 hands-on review

    IFA 2012 The pen is mightier than the word?

    Samsung’s big idea, well, big phone actually, has not only spawned the 10in Galaxy Note but, at IFA, the company announced the Galaxy Note II successor to its original 5in stylophone stylus phone. It seems that if you add a pen to a touchscreen device these days, then it acts as insurance that you haven’t copied from Apple. Note …

    Phones 4 Sep 15:42

  • 'Google's crap for business' - CIOs give ad giant dose of reality

    UK tech chiefs snub Choc Factory's paltry package

    UK CIOs don't consider Google a valuable enterprise supplier, according to a new survey. Of the heads of IT of large British firms surveyed by bean counters at the Corporate IT Forum, more than half saw the Chocolate Factory as a company suitable for ordinary punters. Just five per cent think that it's a credible supplier to …

    Management 4 Sep 16:02

  • Fujitsu to embiggen iron bigtime with Sparc64-X

    Hot Chips So is this the Sparc M4 on Oracle's roadmaps?

    While Fujitsu has made some very respectable Sparc64 chips aimed at the supercomputing market, it has been a long time since the Japanese chip and server maker has put out a new Sparc64 processor that went into general purpose servers. That changes in a big way with the forthcoming Sparc64-X processor, which will be used in …

    Servers 4 Sep 17:16

  • Microsoft claims Windows Server 2012 is 'first cloud OS'

    Puts boot into VMware and others

    Microsoft has formally launched its Windows Server 2012 operating system, which Satya Nadella, president of Redmond's Servers and Tools Business, is dubbing the company's first "cloud OS." "This is perhaps the biggest release of our server products in history, bigger than NT," he said at the launch event on Tuesday. "I was …

    Cloud 4 Sep 17:35

  • Apple confirms 'surprise' September 12 event

    iPhone 5 announcement likely, iPad Mini less so

    Confirming what pomaceous-minded cognoscenti have been claiming for months, Apple has sent out press invites to a special event in San Francisco on September 12, which looks in all likelihood to be the announcement for the long-anticipated iPhone 5. The announcement begins with the words "It's almost here," followed by a large …

    Phones 4 Sep 18:35

  • Obama platform: 'Open' internet, strong IP protection

    Democrats duck specific net neutrality pledge

    The Democratic Party has published its platform for the coming election with a nod to net neutrality rules, support for tougher IP protection, and a commitment to get 98 per cent of the population onto wireless broadband. The 40-page document devotes just a single sentence to net neutrality: "President Obama is strongly …

    Government 4 Sep 20:54

  • Supercomputing takes a slight pause in Q2

    Big systems drive HPC sales

    With all of the relatively cheap computing power available today, and with the expanding focus from traditional supercomputers to clusters that can run simulations or big data workloads, you'd think that the HPC market would be growing like gangbusters. Not so. That's the latest news from the box counters at IDC. But there's …

    HPC 4 Sep 21:34

  • Mozilla dumps iOS, pulls Firefox Home from iTunes Store

    Open source browser still shut out by Apple policies

    Two years after launching Firefox Home in the iTunes App Store, the Mozilla Foundation has decided to cease development of the app, in a move that appears to further distance Mozilla from Apple and the iOS platform, which have never welcomed it. Mozilla, which offers the open source Firefox web browser, has struggled to make …

    Applications 4 Sep 21:42

  • FBI says Apple ID heist claim is TOTALLY FALSE

    Popcorn time ‘Not our data’

    Hot on the heels of AntiSec’s claim that the purloined Apple device IDs it dumped to Pastebin came from the FBI, the G-men have flatly denied the story. In a statement e-mailed to the press, the FBI says simply: The FBI is aware of published reports alleging that an FBI laptop was compromised and private data regarding Apple …

    Security 4 Sep 23:03

  • Another trans-Pac fibre mooted

    South Pacific Island Networks redux

    With wannabe pacific Pacific Fibre out of cash out of the game, a new group has re-emerged with a proposal to string a cable from from Australia and New Zealand to Hawaii, taking in a group of Pacific Islands along the way, rather than following the direct-to-US route proposed by the defunct Pacific Fibre. The proposal for the …

    Networks 4 Sep 23:21

  • Google/Oracle judge loses interest in paid bloggers

    Letter of the law more important

    In a surprise move, the judge overseeing the court battle between Google and Oracle over Java patents used in Android has pulled his order that the parties provide a list of bloggers or journalists paid to promote their respective wares. Last April, Florian Mueller, author of the FOSS Patents blog, outed himself as a paid …

    Policy 4 Sep 23:59