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20th September 2012 Archive

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  • International Trade Commission heeds Moto, targets Apple

    Trade regulator votes to peruse Cupertino's patent pile

    The IT industry’s ongoing battle to outlaw itself with intricately cross-linked patent-driven bans on device sales continues, with Google-owned Motorola Mobility winning an International Trade Commission investigation into Apple over yet more infringement. Back in August, the Chocolate Moto asked the ITC for the probe. At the …

    Policy 20 Sep 00:16

  • Boffins spin up working Qubit in silicon

    Quantum researcher outlines how to build a quantum logic gate

    The University of New South Wales' School of Electrical Engineering and Telecommunications has created what it says is the world's first working qubit based on a single atom. Detailed in a new Nature paper, A single-atom electron spin qubit in silicon, the qubit relies on the ability to impart “spin” to an electron bound to a …

    Science 20 Sep 02:10

  • China warned on nano-safety

    Academy of Science calls for more research on potential hazards

    China has been urged to carry out extensive safety studies and tighten regulation of its thriving nanotechnology industry to reassure countries importing nano-goods that there are no health risks associated with exposure to such materials. Nanotechnology involves the control of atoms and molecules to create new materials with …

    Science 20 Sep 03:15

  • Microsoft releases VMware-eater

    All your VMDKs are belong to Windows Server thanks to free converter

    One of the more interesting moments at this year's VMworld keynote saw outgoing CEO Paul Maritz proclaim, in an unusual-for-him strident tone, that one cannot beat Microsoft on price. One beats Microsoft on value, he concluded, before implying that VMware will do that blindfolded and with one arm tied behind its back. The …

    Data Center 20 Sep 04:32

  • Salesforce CEO: Social is god and Zuck is its prophet

    Dreamforce 2012 Are we 'Facebook for enterprise' yet?

    "Business is social" is Salesforce.com CEO Marc Benioff's mantra these days, and throughout his sprawling, star-studded keynote at the company's Dreamforce 2012 conference in San Francisco on Wednesday – which ran nearly a full hour over schedule – he seemingly couldn't repeat it often enough. "This social revolution that's …

    Cloud 20 Sep 04:36

  • Taiwan's civil servants caught by sexy email trap

    That's one way to raise info-security awareness

    Some 1,000 sex-obsessed civil servants in Taiwan have been sent on an internet security course after being caught in a kind of online honey trap set up by their local government employer. The government of New Taipei City, next door to the Taiwanese capital, sent an email to its 6,000 employees in order to test their resolve, …

    Security 20 Sep 04:49

  • Apple slip-up slows iOS 6 upgrades

    iDevices tried to find missing web page before activating WiFi or 3G connections

    Fanbois rushing to install iOS 6 on their iThings have been frustrated by the absence of a web page the devices need to visit when reconnecting to networks after the upgrade. The upgrade process itself appears to be smooth, but once an upgraded iDevice attempts to connect to a network it seeks out a web page on Apple.com. That …

    Networks 20 Sep 05:27

  • Asian hackers p0wned by Eastern European rivals

    Former Soviet bloc countries hack hardest, says former presidential security man

    Cyber criminals from Eastern Europe present a more sophisticated information security threat to Western firms than their rivals in East Asia, according to a surprising new assessment of the global threat landscape by a former White House cyber security advisor. Peter the Great vs. Sun Tzu is a new report from Tom Kellerman, …

    Security 20 Sep 06:20

  • How hard is 3D printing?

    Modelling technology takes shape

    If you want to make your own gun or harboured a desire to make a boat perhaps the device you need is a 3D Printer. In principle it sounds easy: just download a 3D model from the net, throw it at the printer, and whatever you desire comes out the other end. MakerBot's The Replicator The truth is, it’s not quite that …

    Hardware 20 Sep 07:00

  • Want a Leica camera from Jony Ive? There CAN BE ONLY ONE

    Holy icon of ultimate hipness to be created, f'charidee

    Apple design saint Jonathan Ive will design a single special edition Leica M camera, in what must surely be the world's most hipster industrial design collaboration to date. The iPhone man will rework the latest model in the classic German camera-maker's M range, Leica owner Andreas Kaufmann said on Monday. Only one, lonely …

    Hardware 20 Sep 07:29

  • 'People will give you their data if you don't do nobbish things with it!'

    Blinding insight from shrewd wonkateers

    Businesses stand to benefit if they grant consumers more control over how their personal data is used, a policy think-tank has said. Demos said that consumers are suffering a "crisis of confidence" in relation to information sharing, and that businesses stand to enjoy a "significant advantage" over others if they have "open, …

    Management 20 Sep 08:01

  • Bonking payment by NFC doubled by Olympics splash

    Slapcash getting some traction ... not with iPhone fans

    As an Olympics sponsor Visa used the London games to highlight pay-by-bonk technology, successfully doubling the number of contactless payments across the UK while taking a fifth of the transactions within the park. In the ten weeks leading up to the games the number of bonked payments doubled, hitting six times last year's …

    Mobile 20 Sep 08:18

  • So many devices, so little policy

    Live today So what are you waiting for?

    Every one of your users has a computer at home, maybe a laptop, definitely a phone, and likes to log in from someone else's computer from time to time. They're carrying your data around, but often not your security policy. You know how hard it is to match policy form device to device, location to location. If only it were …

    Business 20 Sep 08:21

  • New CEO takes reins at Virident with $26m in the saddlebag

    Looking to get founders harnessed up, whipped into shape

    Looking for a flash of magic, PCIe flash start-up Virident has recruited BlueArc's ex-CEO to take the business forward, with the two co-founders looking after technology and strategy. The firm has also been given $26 million for business development in a fourth round of funding. Mike Gustafson ran BlueArc, the hardware- …

    Storage 20 Sep 08:39

  • Sky ruled OK to hold broadcast licence without Murdoch at helm

    What if he was still in charge? 'That's hypothetical'

    Communications regulator Ofcom today ruled that Sky - which is nearly 40 per cent owned by Rupert Murdoch's News Corp - IS fit and proper to hold a TV broadcast licence. However Murdoch's son James - formerly chairman of BSkyB and still involved in running the family empire - was savaged by the watchdog, which questioned his …

    Media 20 Sep 08:57

  • Sophos antivirus classifies its own update kit as malware

    Fix issued swiftly, but naturally difficult to install!

    Sophos users woke up to mayhem on Thursday after the business-focussed antivirus firm released an update that classified itself and any other update utility as a virus. As a result enterprise PCs running the application went haywire, generating false positives reporting SSH/Updater-B malware. Sysadmins were bombarded with …

    Security 20 Sep 09:01

  • Fans rap Apple's 'crap' Map app

    iOS 6 slammed for shonkey geography

    Apple today faced the ire of thousands of irritated iOS 6 users who upgraded to the new version of the iDevice operating system only to discover the Cupertino's new Maps app is, well, pants. As we noted in our review of iOS 6 yesterday, Apple dropped Google's mapping system in favour of one of its own. The result is an …

    Phones 20 Sep 09:23

  • 'Sub-arctic' atmos at RIM UK as jobs apocalypse looms

    Sickly octopus refuses to confirm or deny tentacle's fate

    Workers at RIM European's headquarters in Slough have been warned job cuts are coming, it is understood, after CEO Thorsten Heins threatened in June to axe 5,000 staff globally. Employees were called into a meeting on Tuesday afternoon and told of the redundancies, a Register source said, adding that the cuts are deeper than …

    Business 20 Sep 09:28

  • AmPhones put amplifiers in guitarists' ears

    Jam in a can

    Amplifier maker Vox has joined forces with Audio Technica to launch the amPhones, over-the-ear cans for the living-room guitarist. The AmPhones feature a built-in power source, a 0.25in jack input for your six-string and a standard 3.5mm jack for your PMP. Various volume and tone controls can be found on side as well as …

    Hardware 20 Sep 09:39

  • HTC hawks fresh WinPho smartphones

    Pieces of 8

    HTC today unveiled its first Windows Phone 8 handsets, the 8X and 8S. The HTC Windows Phone 8X packs a 4.3in, 1280 x 800 display protected by the extra-tough Corning Gorilla Glass 2. There's a dual-core 1.5GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon S4 processor under the hood, with 1GB of Ram, 16GB of storage, NFC and Beats Audio. A major …

    Phones 20 Sep 09:42

  • UK.gov lays out what cities will get in broadband cash divvy

    'Digital leaders, digital stage, digital, er ... thingmy'

    Freshly-installed culture Secretary Maria Miller announced this morning just how much cash will be slapped on 10 major cities to improve local broadband, after the Treasury's initial £100m allocation ballooned to £114.1m. The Department for Culture, Media and Sport provided a breakdown of how much will be spent in Belfast, …

    Broadband 20 Sep 09:44

  • Mars rover Curiosity gets ready to blast its first rock

    Taste alpha beams and X rays! In the name of SCIENCE!

    NASA's nuclear Mars truck Curiosity is poised to start zapping its first rock to find out what it's made of, and is on its way to its first major science destination. The rover is just eight feet from a football-sized rock that's about halfway between its landing site and its first destination "Glenelg". Before it ambles by, …

    Science 20 Sep 09:59

  • CEO bloodbath in storage land - four bigshots gone in one week

    Once is happenstance, twice is coincidence ...

    Four storage supplier chief execs have taken a hike in the past week. CEOs at Amplidata, OCZ, STEC and Virident all spun the revolving door. It's slightly scary that three of the companies are in the flash storage business; their top bosses have gone in a flash, so to speak. Here's a round up of what happened. STEC At STEC …

    Storage 20 Sep 10:17

  • UK electric car funding - another subsidy for the RICH, say MPs

    Squeezed middle pay for poshos' plug-in freebie towncars

    The £11m of public money used to promote electric vehicles is mostly just helping rich Brits buy a second car, a group of MPs said. The Transport Select Committee has published a report questioning the value of spending millions trying to get electric cars on the road, claiming the money is only benefitting a "handful of …

    Science 20 Sep 10:29

  • HTC Droids get working bonk-payment NFC setup in China

    Networks, iPhone 5 owners not invited to tapcash party

    HTC and China Merchants Bank have launched a mobile wallet, allowing owners of HTC Android smartphones to pay for stuff wirelessly by tapping their phone on the till or what have you. The technology is stored in a secure chip in the handset and thus is available without approval, or notification, of the network operator. The …

    Mobile 20 Sep 10:44

  • HP unzips slim Windows 8 notebooks

    Envy and Sleekbook likes extended

    More skinny (ish) Windows 8 notebooks from HP. Branded Sleekbook, the new notebooks don't meet Intel's specifications for Ultrabook status, not least the 14in model, which sports an AMD CPU. That said, the 15.6in version comes with a choice of Intel Core i processors. You can also spec the machines up with either 1366 x 768 or …

    Laptops 20 Sep 10:53

  • UK to hold public consultation on social-media troll prosecutions

    KEER STARMER YOU SUCK, YOUR WIG IS TEH STUPIDS

    Mainstream and local press have covered trolling cases on Twitter, Facebook and other social media sites into an inch of their life this year as public outrage about the phenomenon has led to some UK folk being arrested under suspicion of malicious communications offences. As a result, the director of public prosecutions Keir …

    Law 20 Sep 10:58

  • Redmond promises emergency IE bug fix on Friday (zero day + 5)

    Keep calm and carry on, advise security types

    Microsoft is promising to release an emergency patch that tackles a zero-day vulnerability in Internet Explorer on Friday. In the meantime, the software giant is pointing customers towards a temporary fix, issued on Wednesday. The stop gap fix uses Redmond's "application compatibility shim mechanism" as a sort of battlefield …

    Security 20 Sep 11:28

  • OLYMPIC SECRETS to stay locked up for 15 YEARS

    We have top men working on the ticket conspiracy. Top men

    Anyone who wants to investigate just how London 2012 ticket sales were set up and run (or other mysteries of the recent Olympic and Paralympic Games) will have their chance: Blighty's National Archives has agreed to house and publish all the digital records arising from the Games. Unfortunately, in many cases outsiders will have …

    Government 20 Sep 11:54

  • Adobe moving its users into the Cloud: Wants middlemen to help

    Come on you turkeys, it could be Christmas every day!

    Adobe says its direct sales force will be competing with resellers when its Creative Cloud (CC) suite reaches enterprise punters. The software maker has reported sales for Q3 ended 31 August of $1.08bn, down from $1.13bn a year ago with 52 per cent of revenues coming from the US, 27 per cent in Europe and 21 per cent in Asia …

    The Channel 20 Sep 12:23

  • Latest iPhone hacked to blab all your secrets

    Dutchies pop iOS 6 on a Jesus Phone 4S

    Dutch hackers have exploited a WebKit bug in mobile web browser Safari to rinse an iPhone 4S of its photos, address book contacts and its browser history. The flaw exists in Apple's iOS 5.1.1 and the latest developer preview of iOS 6, the first public build of which was released last night to fanbois. It should thus affect …

    Security 20 Sep 12:58

  • Astronomers tell story set a LONG time ago in a galaxy far, FAR away

    13.2 BEELION lightyears, when the universe were but a pup

    The Hubble telescope has detected starlight that comes from a galaxy 13.2 billion light-years away, scientists reported today. The galaxy is believed to be the most distant object that humans have ever seen, says the paper in the journal Nature. Long ago: Far, far away Astronomers including the Carnegie Institute's Daniel …

    Science 20 Sep 13:01

  • Conflict-of-interest scandal could imperil Wikimedia charity status

    'A positive Wikipedia article is invaluable SEO'

    Wikipedia contributors in the UK are concerned that a scandal involving the close-knit group of friends and business associates who run Wikimedia UK may imperil its charitable status. Wikimedia UK is the group involved in promoting the web project, and it finally won the tax concession in 2011 after being rebuffed two years …

    Media 20 Sep 13:54

  • Google's Android celebrates fourth birthday

    Version 1.0 'pushed out' in September 2008

    Android will be four years old on Sunday, September 23. Google launched the first public version of the mobile OS, in the form of the Android 1.0, on 23 September 2008, though its origins go back years before that. Source: Quinn Dombrowski The operating system was created by a company called Android, co-founded by Rich …

    Phones 20 Sep 14:23

  • Google to snatch US web advertising crown from Facebook

    Admit it, you thought they were already number one

    Google will overtake Facebook in the lucrative digital display advertising market in the US by holding 15.4 per cent of the sector by the end of the year, according to new figures. Beancounters at eMarketer said the search giant is expected to make $2.31bn in US display ad revenue in 2012, up 38.5 per cent from its earnings in …

    Media 20 Sep 15:06

  • Hacktivists, blackhats snatch sixguns from whitehats' holsters

    Age-old connection between weapons and tools continues

    Tools designed for testing server and network defences are being snapped up by hacktivists to launch denial-of-service attacks on websites. More and more assaults are concentrating on knackering web apps and the HTTP server software running it, rather than simply flooding the underlying stack with bogus traffic to exhaust …

    Security 20 Sep 16:02

  • HP installs UK cloud overlord to get its cumulus in one sock

    Biggest Cloud IN THE WORLD 'still won't move the needle'

    HP has hoisted Business Critical Server boss Michael Clifford into a newly created role intended to join-up its cloud services portfolio. Businesses are gradually taking the leap to migrate to an off-premises IT delivery model but the cloud remains one of the most over-hyped sectors in an industry known for marketing bluster …

    The Channel 20 Sep 16:10

  • Deep, deep dive inside Intel's next-generation processor

    Join us on a whirlwind Haswell holiday – non-geeks heartily welcomed

    At Intel's developer shindig last week, chippery engineers spent a goodly amount of time conducting tech sessions that detailed the company's upcoming 4th-generation Core microprocessor architecture, code-named "Haswell." We thought that you, inordinately intelligent and tech-savvy Reg reader, might enjoy a deep dive into their …

    Hardware 20 Sep 17:50

  • DAB dad Pure deploys DVR

    Freeview HD set-top launched

    The doyen of DAB radios, Pure, is to return to its roots - it was once called VideoLogic - and release TV-centric product: a Freeview HD DVR. The unit, called the Avalon 300R Connect, will come in 500GB and 1TB versions and deliver the customary dual-tuner recording functionality: play, pause and rewind live TV; switch …

    Hardware 20 Sep 18:06

  • Sun men bump bellies in Cisco v Arista freaky trade battle

    'You call that a low-latency switch, buddy?'

    High frequency trading and certain parallel computing tasks need low-latency switches with as little jitter as possible, and they are willing to pay a hefty premium for those qualities. This was one of the founding premises of switch upstart Arista Networks, and Cisco Systems has revved up its Nexus 3000 series switches to try …

    Data Networking 20 Sep 19:36

  • DARPA demos cyborg binoculars to spot the enemy

    Brain-augmented CCTV for the forces

    The US Defense Advanced Research Project Agency (DARPA) reports that field trials of a new threat detection system, which augments cameras with a human operator's brainwaves, has shown remarkable success in spotting potential threats. DARPAs been working on the snappily titled Cognitive Technology Threat Warning System (CT2WS …

    Hardware 20 Sep 20:34

  • Swiss boffins jump in Lake Lugano for Cray super

    Pumping water uphill to cool a 750 teraflops Cascade

    The boffins at the Swiss National Supercomputing Centre (CSCS) are opened up a new supercomputing center in Lugano this year, and now they are getting a shiny new "Cascade" parallel supercomputer from Cray to hum away inside of it. The Cascade machine at CSCS is not just interesting because of the "Aries" interconnect that …

    HPC 20 Sep 20:45

  • Roxon clarifies data retention proposals with ASIO support

    For you own good, really

    Australia’s Attorney-General, Nicola Roxon, has tried to take some of the heat out of the data retention debate. In a letter to the Joint Parliamentary Committee on Intelligence and Security, which is investigating data retention as part of its examination of national security legislation, Ms Roxon has written: “The government …

    Policy 20 Sep 22:30

  • Heroku puffs out Java cloud with one-click app stack

    Dreamforce 2012 From Ruby hacks to enterprise apps

    Heroku's core fanbase of Ruby on Rails hipsters must be mortified. Since being bought by Salesforce.com in 2010, the platform as a service (PaaS) vendor has steadily added support for more languages – including boring old Java – and as of this week's Dreamforce 2012 conference in San Francisco, it's even started muttering the e- …

    Cloud 20 Sep 22:37

  • iPhone queue ‘superficial and pretentious’ says queuing fangirl

    Vid Reg hack braves world’s first iPhone sales frenzy, films weird Apple rituals

    Apple Stores have started selling the iPhone 5 in Australia, the country where this kind of thing happens first thanks to accidents of geography and the location of the International Date Line. Your correspondent was there and can report that, in the suburban store he visited, the sale was an orderly affair. Our first …

    Mobile 20 Sep 23:12

  • Oracle gears up for infrastructure cloud and 12c database launches

    Hardware drags down sales in fiscal Q1

    Larry Ellison has let the cat out of the bag about some announcements that Oracle is making at OpenWorld in San Francisco. The much-awaited Oracle 12c database is coming in two weeks, as is an infrastructure cloud service for the Oracle Cloud, he announced on Thursday. Oracle 12c will sport features for secure multi-tenancy …

    Financial News 20 Sep 23:17

  • Senate hears Microsoft and HP avoided billions in US taxes

    Civilization costs money, get over it

    Hearings at the US Senate have been examining how some of the richest technology firms use offshore banking and tax loopholes to avoid having to pay billions to support their native country. "US multinational corporations benefit from the security and stability of the US economy, the productivity and expertise of US workers …

    Financial News 20 Sep 23:53