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5th September 2012 Archive

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  • Intel teaches Xeon Phi x86 coprocessor snappy new tricks

    Hot Chips The interconnect rings a bell

    It took fifteen years for Intel to shrink the computing power of the teraflops-busting ASCI Red massively parallel Pentium II supercomputer down to something that fits inside of a PCI-Express coprocessor card – and the Xeon Phi coprocessor is only the first step in a long journey with coprocessor sidekicks riding posse with CPUs …

    HPC 5 Sep 00:18

  • NASA captures mind-bogglingly gorgeous solar video

    Video Your tax dollars at work – spectacularly

    Last Friday the Sun put on a magnificent display, ejecting a massive solar filament that was captured by NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) in all its glory. According to NASA's announcement, the filament – a form of solar prominence – had been hovering in the Sun's atmosphere, or corona, since early August, and erupted …

    Space 5 Sep 00:24

  • Gunman takes potshots at Dell HQ, chopper search ensues

    Everyone's a critic – but some are armed

    Labor Day ended with a bang at the Dell headquarters in Round Rock, Texas, after an unidentified shooter fired a number of rounds though its windows. At least three shots were fired at Building Seven on the Dell campus at 9:30pm on Monday night, with the first floor windows of a breakout room falling victim to some senseless …

    Security 5 Sep 00:42

  • Qubes OS bakes in virty system-level security

    Blue Pill creator stacks multiple sandboxed VMs

    Invisible Things Lab (ITL), a group of security researchers based in Warsaw, Poland, has announced Qubes 1.0, the first production release of a new desktop operating system designed to provide unprecedented security through the pervasive use of virtualization. "Unfortunately, contrary to common belief, there are no general …

    Security 5 Sep 00:52

  • Greens promise free WiFi for Sydney

    Dutch leaves touted as ad-supported solar solution

    New South Wales' local government elections aren't the forum for massive IT&T debates, but the Greens have at least given technologists something to sway their votes with a promise to introduce free WiFi in the City of Sydney and adjoining Marrickville local government area. The Greens' plan calls for the City of Sydney to …

    Policy 5 Sep 01:16

  • New Zealand's Copyright Tribunal to hear first cases

    Skynet three strikes laws to be enforced

    The New Zealand music industry has taken aim at illegal music downloaders threatening to use the controversial ‘Skynet’ law for the first time before the new Copyright Tribunal. The three strikes, Skynet law, passed in September last year allows copyright owners to send evidence of alleged infringements to carriers and ISPs, …

    Policy 5 Sep 01:47

  • Bitcoin exchange shuts after heist

    Bitfloor says 24,000 BTC pinched through unencrypted backup

    Bitcoin exchange Bitfloor has suspended its operations while it tries to figure out who pinched 24,000 units of the virtual currency by accessing an unencrypted backup and using information it contained to transfer 24,000 BTC to destinations unknown. In a post on the Bitcoin Forum, Bitfloor founder Roman Shtylman said he has …

    Security 5 Sep 02:17

  • China's tech giants gang up on short seller

    Microsoft, SAP and others accuse market analyst Citron of fraudulent practices

    A group of 60 Chinese entrepreneurs, CEOs, investors and regional heads of global tech concerns including Microsoft and SAP has turned their collective fury on short seller Citron Research, arguing the firm is deceiving the market by finding fault in firms where there is none. The group launched an astonishing attack on Citron …

    Business 5 Sep 03:07

  • Old men who use computers less likely to get dementia

    40% lower incidence among men 69+ when they use computers, boffins say

    Men who use computers as they enter their winter years have a better chance of avoiding dementia than those who don't, according to a new Australian study. Older Men Who Use Computers Have Lower Risk of Dementia, compiled by researchers at the University of Western Australia's Centre for Health and Ageing, is one output of the …

    Science 5 Sep 04:13

  • NEC looks to offload Lenovo shares

    Kitchen sink next for ailing Japanese firm

    Ailing Japanese electronics giant NEC looks set to sell all of its shares in Lenovo after the Chinese PC maker confirmed to The Reg that it has waived a previous restriction on the sale. The two firms announced in January 2011 that they would be combining their PC operations in Japan, in a joint venture known as NEC Lenovo …

    Business 5 Sep 05:24

  • Apple hoards LTE patents to deflect Samsung attack

    Possible defensive move to stop Samsung marching iPhone 5 to court

    Apple has been hoarding LTE patents in a bid to head off a possible legal attack from fierce rival Samsung on its forthcoming iPhone 5, according to reports from Korea. Apple has gone from holding zero LTE patents last year to having 318 filed away today. That's around five per cent of the world’s total, today, the Korea …

    Networks 5 Sep 05:44

  • Crucial v4 256GB budget SSD review

    SATA 2 and proud of it

    The latest addition to Crucial’s range of SSD’s, the v4 series isn’t, as you might expect, the follow up to the company’s highly successful m4 series but a different animal entirely. It's so different in fact, it makes you wonder what was Crucial’s thinking behind it. Practical electronics: Crucial's v4 256GB To quote the …

    reghardware 5 Sep 07:52

  • Game devs beg UK taxman: Can we pay 30% less?

    Firms spending to create British cultural product deserve a break – trade body

    Companies involved in making video games in the UK should receive a tax break worth 30 per cent of what they owe, a trade association has said. TIGA, whose members include developers and technology firms involved in the UK video gaming industry, said a new Games Tax Relief (GTR) should be available to firms that incur costs …

    Government 5 Sep 07:53

  • LOHAN poses for sexy wide-angle vid

    El Reg fondles news spaceplane mission kit

    There's always a frisson of excitement when we take delivery of some new kit at the Special Project Bureau's mountaintop headquarters, and last week the bloke with the big white van drew up at the door to drop off the latest piece of Low Orbit Helium Assisted Navigator (LOHAN) kit - a GoPro HD HERO2 camera. The HERO is a tried …

    SPB 5 Sep 08:03

  • You'll be on a list 3 hrs after you start downloading from pirates - study

    Bad news for seeders 'n' feeders...

    File sharers who download torrents from services such as The Pirate Bay can expect to find their IP address logged by copyright enforcers within three hours, according to a new study by computer scientists. Researchers at the UK's University of Birmingham reached the finding at the end of a two-year study into how …

    Security 5 Sep 08:21

  • Auditor: You know what Scotland needs? Proper IT experts

    Central resource could help public sector, says watchdog

    Audit Scotland is calling on the Scottish government to consider providing a central resource of specialised ICT expertise and advice for public bodies. In a report on delays and cost overruns in three public sector ICT projects, the auditor urged the government to conduct a strategic review of current ICT skills within …

    Government 5 Sep 08:37

  • Windows Server 2012: Smarter, stronger, frustrating

    Review Perfect upgrade for punters with a passion for the obscure

    Microsoft has released Windows Server 2012, based on the same core code as Windows 8. Yes, it has the same Start screen in place of the Start menu, but that is of little importance, particularly since Microsoft is pushing the idea of installing the Server Core edition – which has no Graphical User Interface. If you do install a …

    Servers 5 Sep 09:03

  • Sceptic becomes UK Environment - but not Climate - Secretary

    Comment New Minister for Nimbys takes up portfolio

    Green campaigners are aghast at the news that a fairly blunt climate-change sceptic has been appointed to the post of Environment Secretary in the latest ministerial reshuffle - but they are no doubt also somewhat consoled by the fact that in the British government this post has very little to do with matters of climate change …

    Energy 5 Sep 09:16

  • Third of iPad owners want smaller slabs

    But only one in five of all tablet owners do

    Market watcher Strategy Analytics has been asking iPad owners about their desires for the platform and found that a third of them want a tablet with a different size screen. That said, the current size remains the favourite for the majority of users, and that remains the case when owners of other tablets were questioned too: …

    reghardware 5 Sep 09:32

  • Oh no, sysadmins! VMware touts data centre that runs ITSELF

    Storage bods, your time is up

    Now that vCloud Suite 5.1 has arrived, VMware is pushing a new term: the software-defined data centre (SDD). It's easy at first to dismiss this as merely another marketing buzzword, meaningless PR babble like "cloud" or "synergy". If you poke your head behind the curtain, you'll find there's good reason for this newest bit of …

    Data Networking 5 Sep 09:39

  • Speaking in Tech: Lawyers are the enemy of the cloud

    Podcast Plus: VMware still hard at work on the Death Star

    Enterprise tech guru Greg Knieriemen, cloud and storage expert Ed Saipetch and web2.0 ace Sarah Vela have wrapped it up at VMworld and are back to the grindstone, replete with tales of vOdgeball glory, San Fran's dice dives and more. This week they take a look at the life of techie expats in Japan – and what it's like to come …

    Storage 5 Sep 10:02

  • Voyager's 35th birthday gift: One-way INTERSTELLAR ticket

    Veteran space probe bores outward into the deep void

    As NASA's Voyager probes complete their 35th year of operation, Voyager 1 has sensed a second change in the surrounding expanse of obsidian nothingness - just as scientists predicted would happen before the craft enters interstellar space. Voyager 1 and 2 in the heliosheath Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech Since June, Voyager 1 has …

    Space 5 Sep 10:22

  • Zuckerberg WON'T flog his Facebook shares for a year

    But staff can cash out soon if they want... bitch

    Facebook supremo Mark Zuckerberg has confirmed he will not sell any of his shares in his social networking website for one year. His declaration, in a regulatory filing on Tuesday, came as his company's stock bombed once again on Wall Street: it scored a new all-time low price of $17.55 before closing at $17.73 on Nasdaq. …

    Networks 5 Sep 10:42

  • Finger-free Kinect coming to fondlesome Windows 8

    Microsoft game controller support for desktop

    Kinect, Microsoft's hands-free game controller, will run Windows 8 applications from next month. In its latest Kinect roadmap here, Microsoft states the controller will include support for Windows 8 desktop applications in addition to supporting Visual Studio 2012 and .NET 4.5 for development. The features will come as an …

    Windows 8 5 Sep 11:01

  • Ditch disk and bin tape: Harvard boffins have cracked DNA storage

    Gather ye floppies while ye may

    I recently decided to clean out my home office; I’d had enough of the 56K modems lying around, and needed the space. But what I didn’t expect was to find a museum of data storage concentrated in such a small space. I suspected at the time I wouldn’t need the 5.25" 720k floppy disks to upgrade to VMS v5.1 again, but thought, ' …

    Channel Register 5 Sep 11:04

  • Famous SAS man trousers £1m as e-publishing startup sold to Tesco

    Andy McNab, VC

    Famous ex-SAS man "Andy McNab" will pocket almost £1m as Mobcast, an e-book publishing operation he co-founded, is sold to Tesco. Mobcast has 130,000 titles available to read on tablets, phones or computers and is not tied to any specific device. The service was founded in 2007 by McNab and the firm's head, Tony Lynch. "As an …

    Media 5 Sep 11:18

  • RIM begs devs: Build for BlackBerry 10, we'll bung you $10K

    An offer you can't refuse

    Developers who get BlackBerry 10 apps in quick will get their income bumped up to $10,000 if they make more than $1,000, as RIM gets in the drinks at the last chance salon. The "10K Developer Commitment" kicks in this autumn, and applies to applications submitted before BlackBerry World which will be early next year. …

    Developer 5 Sep 11:39

  • The Register flicks switch on Data Centre channel

    All your big and virtual iron in one place

    Our sharper-eyed readers - the sort that care about storage, servers, HPC and the like - will have noticed The Register has launched a Data Centre section. This pulls our enterprise systems coverage together in one place, while our PC, mobile and client news continues under the Hardware banner. You can find links to these …

    Site News 5 Sep 12:00

  • Chick-lit star snubs Menshn.com password flaw alert

    Updated 'Snippy geek' finds fresh holes in MP's web-jabber thing

    A security researcher has warned of new vulnerabilities in Tory MP and former chick-lit queen Louise Mensch's three-month-old chatroom-cum-microblogging service. A "trivial" CSRF attack (‪cross-site request forgery‬) can change a Menshn.com user's password, according to developer Danny Moules. El Reg has seen proof-of-concept …

    Security 5 Sep 12:17

  • 'World's first' dog to sniff out pilfered cabling is Brit black lab

    Metal-searching Jazz has nose for crime

    A dog named Jazz has been trained to sniff out forensic markings on metal to help cops nab crooks who pinch copper cabling from BT's underground telephone network. Come on, show us your Jazz hands The two-year-old black labrador from Blackpool was described as the "first detection dog" of its kind in the world to sniff out …

    Security 5 Sep 12:34

  • IT distribution titan Tech Data to gobble UK's SDG for $350m

    March of channel consolidation continues

    Technology products distributor Tech Data (TD) has swallowed Specialist Distribution Group (SDG) for $350m (£220.3m) in a deal that is subject to regulatory approval from the EU's competition authorities. As revealed by The Channel some months back, UK Midlands-based Specialist Computer Holdings (SCH), SDG's parent, was …

    Channel Register 5 Sep 12:49

  • UK's pay-by-bonk mobile network threesome wins EU approval

    One wallet to rule them all, nearly

    The UK operator consortium to create a single electronic wallet will not impede competition, the EU has decided – though Three, Google and PayPal may beg to differ. The consortium, which notably excludes the UK's smallest network operator, is intended to create a one-stop specification for distributors of electronic currency …

    Mobile 5 Sep 13:04

  • GCHQ spooks give biz chiefs crash course in thwarting hackers

    Try not to lose your blueprints through the firewall, OK?

    GCHQ, the UK's nerve-centre for eavesdropping spooks, will advise the nation's business leaders on how best to thwart attacks by hackers. The educational programme, dubbed Cyber Security for Business, was launched today at an event that brought together chief execs of FTSE 100 companies, government ministers and officials from …

    Security 5 Sep 13:40

  • UK's non-x86 server sales dive off cliff, vendors take a hit

    Everyone out of pocket - except Dell

    Growth in the UK server market evaporated in Q2 as x86 platform sales dipped and the already dwindling base of non-x86 machines collapsed. According to abacus stroker IDC, UK factory revenues declined 14 per cent year-on-year to $481m and shipments fell three per cent to 73,000 units. In terms of market value, x86 sales …

    Channel Register 5 Sep 14:02

  • Guinness World Records pulls beards off online Secret Santas

    Email leak blows cover of gift-giving Reddit record-holders

    Guiness World Records has owned up to leaking 1,070 email addresses of Redditgifts users who won the record for the Largest Online Secret Santa. Redditgifts bagged the record with 30,250 users in 115 countries handing out presents to each other last Christmas. Redditors involved were able to apply for a certificate of …

    Security 5 Sep 14:28

  • SanDisk flogs strap-on to speed up your lazy Windows 7 PC

    Retrofit SSD plus caching software

    SanDisk has brought out a cheapish solution for flash-less Windows 7 PCs. The firm promises a start-up time that is four times faster as well as app-loading that's 12 times faster if you buy its new SanDisk SSD and caching software bundle. The ReadyCache package includes a 32GB SSD, a 3.5-inch mounting bracket, a 6Gbit/s SATA …

    Hardware 5 Sep 15:01

  • Android spat loser Oracle ordered to toss Google some change

    What's $1m amongst multibillion-dollar friends?

    Oracle has been ordered to pay part of Google's legal bill in the database giant's failed Android patent infringement lawsuit. Oracle had tried to prove in court that Google's mobile operating system Android unfairly copied its Java technology. Now Oracle will have to pay $1.13m to settle its opponent's tab, including the cost …

    Business 5 Sep 15:32

  • Nokia tears wraps off new Windows Phone Lumias on steroids

    Ball-breaking design packs new features, PureView cam

    From a distance, Nokia's new Lumia 920 flagship smartphone looks identical to its current flagship handset - but on a diet of performance-enhancing steroids. The Lumia 920, unveiled in New York today, is the first proper Nokia Windows phone, and is powered by Windows Phone 8. Its looks may be misleading: behind the ho-hum …

    Mobile 5 Sep 15:56

  • CSC pockets £68m in truce over NHS patient database fiasco

    Waves goodbye to original £2.9bn contract

    CSC and the UK government have reached a truce over the company's central patient database cock-up: both sides have agreed to a more flexible contract until 2016 and to shelve any potential litigation. The corporation and the Department of Health (DoH) have been at the negotiating table for months now over the bungled delivery …

    Channel Register 5 Sep 17:02

  • Swedes are best at using the internet, says Berners-Lee

    Shock: Rich countries top Sir Tim's Web Index

    Sweden has won the top prize in a new global index of countries getting the best out of the net socially and politically, with the US second and the UK coming third. Sir Tim Berners-Lee's World Wide Web Foundation ranked 61 countries in seven different categories to assess the impact of the internet in each, looking at issues …

    Bootnotes 5 Sep 17:26

  • IBM's z12 mainframe engine makes each clock count

    Hot Chips All 5.5 billion of them – and then some

    When you charge hundreds of thousands of dollars per core for an engine that is designed to run full-out all day doing online transaction processing and all night running single-threaded big batch jobs, you have no choice but to believe in higher clock speeds and doing anything and everything to boost that single-thread …

    Servers 5 Sep 18:02

  • Apple weighs in on AntiSec's alleged FBI hack

    'Don't look at us'

    If, as they claim, the black hats of AntiSec did indeed hack into an FBI agent's laptop and lift unique device identifier (UDID) codes and some users' personal info from 12,367,232 iPhones and iPads, the feds did not get that user and device data from Cupertino. Or so Apple says. "The FBI has not requested this information …

    Science 5 Sep 18:21

  • Consumers getting cagier about mobile app privacy

    Finally, some good news for RIM

    Mobile users are getting a lot smarter about what they are willing to share with application developers, with over half deciding against downloading an app because of the information it sought to harvest. The latest research conducted by the Pew Internet Project surveyed over 2,500 US cell and smartphone users, and found that …

    Mobile 5 Sep 19:17

  • The world's first Windows Phone 8 hands on – what's it like?

    Paws for thought on Nokia's brand-new Lumias

    It was harder than usual, but not impossible, to get my hands on Nokia's two new Windows 8 phones today. Word has already gone around Twitter that press and analysts were forbidden from handling the devices. This is not true – and on a scale of difficulty it hardly rated alongside reporting from outside Baghdad's Green Zone. So …

    Windows 8 5 Sep 19:40

  • WinPhone 8 preview SDK limited to established developers

    Want to join Microsoft's new phone OS dev crew? Cool your jets

    Developers who expect to get cracking on apps for Windows Phone 8 this summer may be in for a disappointment: not only will the final WP8 SDK not arrive until later this year, but the Preview edition due next week will be available to only a select few. At the Windows Phone Summit event in San Francisco this June, Microsoft …

    Windows 8 5 Sep 20:03

  • US energy lab's pump-happy petaflopper goes green

    Shiny new Xeon–Xeon Phi hybrid splashes into water-cooled data center

    The US Department of Energy's National Renewable Energy Laboratory has hooked up with HP, Intel, and partners to design a new hybrid supercomputer and an energy-efficient data center wrapper for it that will – among other green gains – use the exhaust heat from the supercomputer to heat adjacent offices. After all, when you're …

    HPC 5 Sep 21:24

  • French satellite operator gets Aussie carrier licence

    New bird will beam bits to Bondi and beyond by end of 2012

    French owned satellite operator EutelSat is poised to beam into the Australian market after securing a carrier licence and announcing that it will launch a new satellite covering Australia by year's end. In late August, EutelSat’s US arm EutelSat America was granted an Australian telecommunications carrier licence by ACMA. …

    Networks 5 Sep 22:26

  • Insecure SCADA kit has hidden factory account, password

    Dept. of Homeland Security urges instant upgrade

    Cylink’s Justin Clarke has tagged another SCADA maker for default insecurity, discovering a hidden factory account – complete with hard-coded password – in switch management software made by Belden-owned GarrettCom. As the Department of Homeland Security's ICS-CERT advisory (PDF) notes, the company’s Magnum MNS-6K management …

    Security 5 Sep 22:49

  • Huawei denies spying, calls for global security standards

    'We're not the ones throwing malware around'

    Even as execs of the Chinese telecom giant Huawei prepare to testify before Congress over concerns that the company's networking equipment may pose a security threat to US infrastructure, the company issued a public statement claiming that it has never participated in cyber espionage or any other illegal act, and that it would …

    Security 5 Sep 23:32

  • Samsung accused of using child labor in its own factories

    Chinese labor watchdog charges massive overtime and exploited workers

    Samsung is facing fresh allegations of employing illegal child workers – this time in its own Chinese factories – a day after the company said that an independent review had cleared one of its main suppliers of similar charges. China Labor Watch has issued a new report on eight factories completely or partially owned by …

    Business 5 Sep 23:43

  • Toothbrush fixes ISS’ stuck bolt

    Spacewalkers go dental

    The International Space Station has hosted its first “maker fair”, with astronauts Akihiko Hoshide and Sunita Williams spending last weekend fashioning tools to fix the power module’s jammed bolt. Last week, the astronauts found themselves unable to get one of the two bolts needed to mount the power switching unit to tighten …

    Science 5 Sep 23:43