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21st September 2012 Archive

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  • SingTel gets app happy with Pixable

    Snaps up social pic streamer for US$26.5m

    The acquisitive hand of SingTel has reached out to the US to buy smartphone happy snap app Pixable for US$26.5 million. The social app was founded in 2009 by a group of MIT grads and boasts over four million users over the web, iOS devices and Android devices. The data smarts behind the app allows for the analysis of …

    Business 21 Sep 00:16

  • Critical flaw exposes Oracle database passwords

    Vuln leaves barn door open to brute-force attacks

    A security researcher says some versions of the Oracle database contain a vulnerability so serious that anyone with access to the server over a network can crack database passwords using a basic brute-force attack, given nothing more than the name of the database and a valid username. "This is a critical issue because it's …

    Security 21 Sep 00:33

  • Defective PCB cleaner cans could inflict eye injury

    Step away from that soldering iron and check the recall details

    Reg readers should postpone plans to clean printed circuit boards, after cans of Electrolube were found to have a defect that could see the containers rupture “causing the contents to be ejected at high pressure”. If that happens, the recall notice issued in Australia warns of “serious eye injury” as a possible consequence. …

    Hardware 21 Sep 00:41

  • Swiss railways ticked off at iOS clock knock-off

    Trademarked and copyrighted clock design reproduced in iOS 6 app

    As hipsters and tragics queue for new iPhones, Switzerland's railway operator, SBB, has complained that Cupertino copied its design for the clock display used in iOS6. Your rounded corners might not save you: SBB's railway clock (left) and Apple's iOS6 clock icon (right) While expressing "joy" that iOS6 uses what it …

    Law 21 Sep 01:30

  • Tiny trackers untangle bee secrets

    Navigating for efficiency

    UK researchers have used radar tracking - very small radar tracking - to help shed light on bumblebee navigation. Since there's long been an obsession about the bumblebee's supposed inability to fly, getting them airborne with a backpack seems something of a feat. The results of the research, described in this PLOS article, …

    Science 21 Sep 02:15

  • China plots 2017 mission to plan MOON COLONY

    Can't say when it will land, can say what needs to be done

    China will fire a lucky bunch of taikonauts at the Moon after 2017 as a precursor to establishing a base there, although it admitted that there is no timetable as yet for a manned lunar landing. Ouyang Ziyuan, chief scientist for China’s lunar orbiter project, told a conference of the Academy of Sciences for the Developing …

    Science 21 Sep 06:23

  • Australian PM opens SYSADMIN-KILLER data centre

    Bit barn pitched as alternative to in-house server rooms

    Australia's Prime Minister, Julia Gillard, has opened a data centre in Sydney and proclaimed it is the perfect embodiment of the kind of thing Australia needs to do to create high-value jobs. But the owner of the centre, business telco and managed services outfit Macquarie Telecom, seems to have other plans for Australian jobs …

    Data Center 21 Sep 06:27

  • Chinese hacktivists launch cyber attack on Japan

    Government sites sink in dispute over islands

    Chinese hackers have taken up cyber arms and followed up widespread anti-Japan protests in the People’s Republic over a set of disputed islands by attacking at least 19 Japanese government and other web sites. Japan’s National Police Agency (NPA) revealed that 11 of the 19 sites, including those of the Defence Ministry and …

    Security 21 Sep 06:37

  • Most Hong Kong iPhone 5s to be smuggled into China

    Analyst reveals massive grey market racket

    A whopping 70 per cent of shiny new iPhones and iPads bought in Hong Kong this year will be smuggled into China and sold on the grey market to feed the insatiable demand for all things Apple, according to analyst firm Forrester. Beijing-based analyst Bryan Wang told The Reg that the illegal trade in the fruity tech is down to …

    Networks 21 Sep 06:42

  • The Jupiter Ace is 30

    Feature Two Spectrum stars go Forth

    The Basic programming language, although present in many different dialects, was the lingua franca of early 1980s home computers. One machine dared to be different: Jupiter Cantab's Jupiter Ace, a small unit that spoke Forth. It first went on sale 30 years tomorrow. Forth was conceived by Charles Moore, a computer scientist …

    Hardware 21 Sep 07:00

  • OpenWave fires ten-gun patent broadsides at Apple AND Google

    The enemy of my enemy is ... also my enemy

    Apple and Google will find themselves on the same side of the patent court defending against Unwired Planet, which has accused the pair of infringing 20 patents filed while it was known as OpenWave. The 20 patents are split between the defendants, ten for Apple and ten for Google, but it's hard to find any which equally apply …

    Mobile 21 Sep 07:38

  • Reg readers serve up bacon sarnie amuse-bouche

    Pinnacle of pork perfection preview

    The deadline for submissions to El Reg's ultimate bacon sarnie photo challenge has now passed, and we're preparing a pinnacle of pork perfection potlatch of participants for the pabulous public poll. However, I'm on holiday this week, and probably up to my 'nads in some improbable excavation project, so you'll have to hang …

    SPB 21 Sep 08:01

  • Single NFC bonk subjugated Samsung Galaxy SIII and slurped it out

    Attackers groped about until they had total dominance

    A Galaxy SIII running Android 4.0.4 was infected with malware over an NFC connection at a hacking contest in Amsterdam using nothing more than a bump in the dark. Full details of the vulnerabilities exploited haven't been revealed by the team, who came from MWR InfoSecurity and were showing off at Mobile Pwn2Own this week, as …

    Security 21 Sep 08:19

  • 'Apple's iOS 6 maps app is SHOCKING, rushed and half-baked'

    Quotw Plus: 'We're trying to re-imagine the world with Windows 8'

    This was the week when Microsoft chieftain Steve Ballmer tried to convince everyone that 2012 will be "the most epic year in Microsoft history". And how did the chair-tossing potty-mouthed bossman attempt to prove this glorious epoch will be achieved? Well, it wasn't by suggesting its Surface fondleslabs should be sold at an …

    Windows 8 21 Sep 08:43

  • Climate sceptic? You're probably a 'Birther', don't vaccinate your kids

    Think cigs don't cause cancer, Saddam had WMDs etc etc

    A trick-cyclist in Australia - already well known for suggesting that climate "deniers" believe that the Apollo moon landings were faked and that Princess Diana was assassinated - has come out with new peer-reviewed research suggesting that such people also believe that President Obama was not born in the United States, that the …

    Science 21 Sep 09:00

  • Polar sea ice could set ANOTHER record this year

    Exceptionally large amounts of it down south right now

    The world's media is extremely excited at the thirty-year record low extent of sea ice at the North Pole which occurred just days ago: but almost nobody is reporting on the fact that something almost equally unusual is going on down around the coasts of Antarctica. Whoa, that's a lot of ice Even as the Arctic sea ice starts …

    Science 21 Sep 09:14

  • Google bins its free music service in China

    Couldn't gain much interest even giving the stuff away

    Google is closing its free, legal music offering in China – signalling another retreat from the worlds’ biggest internet market. Google didn’t offer much of a case for closing the service, beyond admitting it wasn’t very popular. “We [have] decided to close the music search service in China, turning our focus towards more …

    Media 21 Sep 09:29

  • Japanese fanboy robbers empty shops of iPhone 5s ahead of launch

    Yoink! Now we just need a load of nano SIMs ...

    While fanbois around the world waited in line for their shiny new iToys a Japanese gang spent the early hours nicking all the iPhones they could find from three Osaka stores. Officials aren't saying that the robberies are related, but the Wall Street Journal reports that at two of the locations three chaps were seen, and the …

    Bootnotes 21 Sep 09:44

  • Microsoft drives German patent tank into Google's front room

    Joins Apple panzer in smashing up House of Android

    Microsoft has won a patent case against Google's Motorola Mobililty that is really about the Android operating system. The judge in Munich's Regional Court said that the OS infringed on part of a Microsoft patent on inputs and has banned the offending products pending a $61.4 million from Redmond, according to Munich magazine …

    Law 21 Sep 09:58

  • Pirate Bay’s neo-Nazi sugar daddy files for bankruptcy

    Crispbread heir, freetard icon doesn't fancy paying fines

    The millionaire financier of scofflaw torrent site The Pirate Bay has filed for personal bankruptcy. Carl Lundström, an heir to the Wasabröd crispbread fortune, was the most visible of the Pirate Bay four, and oversaw the internet sites' business operations, helping to funnel revenue overseas to avoid paying corporation tax, as …

    Media 21 Sep 10:13

  • Apple iPhone 5 review

    Review The thinnest, slickest, fastest iPhone yet

    Time was, smartphones did little that was actually smart. They had front-facing cameras and maybe a touchscreen, but operating systems geared more for a stylus than fingers. It wasn’t until the iPhone landed in 2007 that things changed. For the next few years Apple continued to deliver the brainiest of smartphones. No one else …

    Phones 21 Sep 10:23

  • Google 'dominance abuse' games may yet mean monster Euro smack

    'Translate words into ACTION', thunders commish

    Google could still be slapped with massive fines if it is found by Brussels officials to have violated competition rules in Europe, the EC's antitrust chief has chillingly warned. Joaquin Almunia, speaking in New York on Thursday, said he was yet to be satisfied by the apparent concessions proposed by Google. He said: As to …

    Government 21 Sep 10:30

  • LONDON iPHONE 5 MADNESS: 'You must be CRAZY to buy Apple'

    High-fiving shoppers spark bewilderment from normal folk

    Giggling Apple fanbois queuing for the new iPhone 5 in London gave Apple Store staff high-fives as a man bellowed at them: "Are you mad?!" The bewildering scene marked the start of another Apple iThing launch, and another day of eyebrow-raising antics on the streets of London and beyond. "Why are you shouting 'iPhone 5 iPhone …

    Bootnotes 21 Sep 10:51

  • Oil and gas giants' PCs polluted by new cyber-spy Trojan

    Advanced Persistent Threat 'Mirage' group is back

    Hackers bent on espionage have infiltrated a large oil company in the Philippines, an energy biz in Canada and a military organisation in Taiwan among others, claim researchers. The crooks also targeted other as yet unidentified businesses in Brazil, Israel, Egypt and Nigeria, according to the preliminary results of a probe by …

    Security 21 Sep 10:57

  • BlackBerry network goes titsup inopportunely AGAIN

    You don't want an iPhone, because >bzzert<

    RIM's BlackBerry network is down again, disconnecting users in Europe, the Middle East and Africa, but that won't come as a surprise to the socially connected. The outage started around 09.00 this morning, RIM reckons it's only affecting "some users" but the mailbox here at Vulture Central is filling up with (sadly resigned) …

    Mobile 21 Sep 11:13

  • Samsung chips evicted from iPhone 5, autopsy reveals

    The screen's a doddle to replace too

    Fans fed up of broken iPhone screens will be pleased to hear that the new model, the iPhone 5, makes it much easier to replace the glass panel placed on top of the smartphone's display. So say the gadget deconstructionists at iFixit.com after getting hold of the handset this morning Down Under. Source: iFixit.com As with …

    Phones 21 Sep 11:15

  • Hapless Kate topless, toothless law useless

    Something for the Weekend, Sir? Once it's digital, it's out of your hands

    I rush back from town mid-afternoon in order to participate in an online conference, or what they prefer me to call a "webinar". At home, I discover that my son is sitting at his computer. It’s a school day. This might not be such a bad thing: since his school doesn’t teach about computers any more - see 'Emotional Baggage' - …

    Hardware 21 Sep 11:30

  • Channel biggun 2e2 dragged to county court over £14,000 debt

    Second CCJ this year 'doesn't comfort' suppliers

    Reseller-cum-integrator 2e2 has been handed a County Court Judgment (CCJ) over the late settlement of a £14,000 debt. The CCJ lodged at the Northampton County Court's money claims centre must be resolved inside 30 days of 15 September. Failure to do so means the debt is not scratched off the register even after it's been paid …

    The Channel 21 Sep 11:44

  • Apple's brilliant plan to fix iOS Maps: Get YOU to do it

    'If more people use it, it will become less rubbish'

    Apple has finally spoken out about its new maps application that has raised howls of protest from users, who claim it is less detailed and full of mistakes. Users have been chronicling the differences between the new maps app in iOS6 and the Google maps app on iOS5 it replaces saying the user experience has worsened and the …

    Hardware 21 Sep 11:59

  • EMC: I Have A Dream - of ABBA in every HPC setup

    When you need to nuke an asteroid, take a chance on us

    EMC has had a dream, a flash appliance called ABBA that helps mega-node HPC set-ups run faster and smoother. ABBA is an acronym for the Active Burst Buffer Appliance. It's designed by Los Alamos National Labs (LANL) and EMC to help in massive tightly-coupled high-performance computing (HPC) where nodes need to interact and not …

    HPC 21 Sep 12:29

  • Space shuttle to slip surly bonds of Earth one last time over California

    Endeavour heads off on sightseeing tour of California

    Retired space shuttle Endeavour is set for a sightseeing tour of California and LA today, in a whistle-stop flyover of the state. The shuttle, piggybacking on its 747 jumbo-jet, will fly over the north of the state and a large part of the Los Angeles basin, buzzing tourist hotspots like the Golden Gate Bridge, Malibu beach …

    Science 21 Sep 12:57

  • Neil Gaiman’s saucy pop wife agrees to pay her musicians in money

    I give them 'hugs and love', they should be paying ME!

    Amanda Palmer, the often scantily clad popstrel performer who raised $1.2m from fans on Kickstarter to finance a tour, has yielded to criticism and agreed to pay her backing musicians in a recognised convertible currency - rather than embraces, T-shirts and beer. Palmer, whose most noteworthy achievement in many eyes is being …

    Media 21 Sep 13:29

  • Ig Nobels 2012: Physics of ponytails, chimp arse-cognition and more

    Calling Bruce Schneier

    The butt-loving tendencies of chimpanzees have won this year's Anatomical Ig Nobel for researchers who found that monkeys can recognise each other from pictures of each other's arses. Frans de Waal of The Netherlands and US boffin Jennifer Pokorny came along to the ceremony to lift their prize for their paper on chimps' sex …

    Bootnotes 21 Sep 14:01

  • Facebook given 4 weeks to FULLY SATISFY Irish data commissioner

    Review mainly leads to whiskey doubles all round

    Facebook has four weeks to respond favourably to the Irish data protection commissioner's demands for improved privacy controls for European users of the social network. Gary Davis - the Irish DP authority's deputy commissioner who led the initial audit and follow-up review of Facebook - said: The outcome reflects months of …

    Media 21 Sep 14:25

  • Actian daubs go-faster stripes on cheapo database kit

    Comment Code crammed into nimble x86 processor caches

    Ingres descendent Actian says its Vectorwise analytics database tech doesn't need to rely on a flash memory boost: it uses multicore x86 features so well it's more than twice as fast as Oracle and SQL Server, and uses server, storage and networking hardware up to 40 times cheaper - or so we're told. Actian is actually Ingres, …

    Storage 21 Sep 15:00

  • EU lets Universal gobble up EMI, but it must spit out certain chunks

    Also must hurl forth Cliff Richard, Coldplay and Kylie

    The European Commission has finally allowed Universal's acquisition of EMI Music to proceed. Universal Music, the world's largest record company, must shed some acquisitions as part of the deal. And so, Universal has agreed to jettison Parlophone, which is home to a list of stars including David Bowie, Pink Floyd, Duran Duran …

    Media 21 Sep 15:11

  • IBM: Last chance to load up on Power 6+

    Getting ready to lead the old girl out back with gun and spade

    With the Power7+ processors and their related Power Systems machinery looming on the horizon sometime before the end of the year – and sooner rather than later if the murmuring on the street is any indication – it is no surprise that Big Blue is beginning the process of winding down sales of new Power6+ system boards and related …

    Servers 21 Sep 15:25

  • French Skyper freed after accidentally hacking bank's phone system

    C'est le plus merde passcode dans le MONDE. Et l'espace

    A Frenchman has been cleared of wrongdoing after a court accepted he accessed the Bank of France's internal telephone systems by accident. An unnamed 37-year-old Breton longed to avoid premium-rate calls while using Skype back in 2008, and set about hunting for a cheap-rate gateway number to the public networks. But he …

    Security 21 Sep 15:54

  • Apple scrambled to hire iOS 6 maps engineers DAYS before launch

    It's almost as if Apple didn't plan this very well

    Apple posted job adverts for six iOS map engineers within the past ten days, perhaps preempting the storm of criticism over the controversial new map app in iOS 6. Any effort to boost the software's team could be seen as too little, too late after fanbois and fangrrls across the world branded the new satnav-like service as …

    Bootnotes 21 Sep 16:05

  • LSI: Flash is just another thing, not a miracle in your pants

    Use it where it makes sense, don't get all giddy

    LSI will be a major flash player because it's treating flash as just another business extension and not a dramatic, kick-the-bucket, start-over, start-up fantasy. What LSI, a supplier of silicon to the disk drive, storage and communications markets, has seen is that it can pump flash extensions of its existing products through …

    Storage 21 Sep 16:32

  • Microsoft issues emergency IE bug patch

    Zero-day flaw exploited by hackers takes six to fix

    Microsoft has released a 26.9MB patch which fixes five vulnerabilities, including the zero day flaw that is cracking Windows systems via the most common versions of Internet Explorer. The MS12-063 update provides a fix for the flaw, which is in use by hackers against some companies. The patch also has four more flaw-fixes, …

    Security 21 Sep 18:06

  • Sweating Sharp cops a boost as Intel sniffs around

    Chipzilla could be fixin' to snork up ¥30bn stake

    Struggling electronics firm Sharp got a welcome boost today from rumours that Intel was looking to invest over ¥30bn for a large stake in its business. The Japanese company's shares rose nearly five per cent in Tokyo trading to ¥212 after The Mainichi newspaper reported that it was in talks with chip giant Intel. According to …

    Financial News 21 Sep 18:38

  • Inphi: Don't skimp on memory for those virty servers

    LRDIMM versus RDIMM benchmark smackdown

    The new Xeon E5 processors from Intel pack considerable oomph, but if you want to squeeze the most performance out of them, particularly in virtualized server environments doing real transaction processing and web front-end workloads, you have to remember the oldest bit of advice for the systems racket: don't skimp on the main …

    Virtualization 21 Sep 19:02

  • W3C reveals plan to finish HTML5 and HTML 5.1

    Splitting it up to save time, headaches

    The Worldwide Web Consortium (W3C) says it's still on track to release the final HTML5 specification in 2014 – and to prove it, it's issued a tentative plan outlining the steps it will take to bring the web markup language to its next version and beyond. The plan still needs to be approved by the HTML Working Group – naturally …

    Developer 21 Sep 19:33

  • EMC puts a bullet in its XAM storage access

    Cross-vendor protocol idea goes titsup

    EMC has killed its Centera XAM development, virtually signalling the end of the road for this object storage access protocol. XAM, aka the eXtensible Access Method, is an SNIA-developed and maintained initiative that was intended to become a standard way to access fixed-content storage devices, such as EMC's Centera and Atmos …

    Storage 21 Sep 19:42

  • Shuttle Endeavour buzzes the Golden Gate Bridge

    Photos Farewell, Endeavour – and NASA's manned orbital capability

    Thousands of shuttle watchers lined the shores of San Francisco Bay on a hazy Friday morning to say goodbye to Endeavour as she circled the bay, soared above Marin County, flew across the Golden Gate, circled the City by the Bay, then buzzed the Golden Gate Bridge. The 20-year-old space shuttle was not, of course, making her …

    Science 21 Sep 20:39

  • Xamarin links mobile apps with Microsoft cloud services

    Mono-based SDK for iOS and Android

    Xamarin, the mobile app dev company founded by the creators of the open source Mono project, have partnered with Microsoft to bring support for Windows Azure Mobile Services to apps that are running on Android and iOS devices. Redmond announced its Mobile Services offering in August as a quick and easy way for mobile app …

    Developer 21 Sep 20:47

  • Verizon CFO: 'Unlimited' data is just a word

    Customers might reply that so is 'cancellation'

    Verizon Chief Financial Officer Fran Shammo has told analysts that "unlimited" when used to describe data is "just a word" and the idea of an open pipe is heading to extinction. "What customers are understanding and through our good sales routine is once you explain to a customer their usage on a monthly basis, unlimited is …

    Mobile 21 Sep 20:48