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26th September 2012 Archive

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  • FTC settles spying charges on rent-to-own computers

    Software recorded 'intimate activities at home'

    The US Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has settled a case against a software vendor and seven rent-to-own PC sellers over charges that they illegally spied on customers. According to the settlement, software company DesignerWare sold an application for sellers of rent-to-own PCs that would enable them to brick computers that …

    Security 26 Sep 00:19

  • NYPD: iPhone thefts rising ten times rate of other crimes

    'Operation ID' helps take a bite out of smartphone crime

    Thefts of iPhones and iPads in New York City have increased at a rate ten times higher than other crime during this year – and the police are offering help to protect your Apple kit. New York Police Department spokesman Paul Browne told Bloomberg that iPads and iPhones are a "magnet for crime, including robberies, driving the …

    Security 26 Sep 00:20

  • Oracle offers tiny tools for pint-sized Java devices

    'Java can fit in THAT?'

    Oracle has announced two new Java products for embedded systems, with the aim of getting the object-oriented language running on as wide a range of devices as possible, including ones with very limited resources. Tuesday's new addition to the database giant's Java Platform, Micro Edition (Java ME) lineup, Oracle Java ME …

    Developer 26 Sep 00:29

  • Philippines pinches nose, averts eyes, bans cybersex

    And 12 years in the slammer for ‘comment trolls’

    The government of the Philippines – which presides over a population that’s a jewel in the Vatican crown – has passed a cybersecurity law which, among other things, outlaws cybersex. That country’s new “cybercrime act” – ostensibly a bill banning computer security attacks – also drops a maximum 12-year, no-parole prison …

    Policy 26 Sep 00:30

  • High-energy physics opens up

    SCOAP3 trumpets win with journals

    The Higgs boson isn’t the only win CERN can point to this year: the organization that runs the Large Hadron Collider has overcome a political challenge to match its physics: helping provide open access to the entire field of high-energy physics. In a deal brokered by CERN and the Sponsoring Consortium for Open Access …

    Science 26 Sep 01:30

  • New critical Java flaw claimed

    Gowdiak strikes again with tale of sandbox bypass

    Oracle's Java is making a play to wrest back the title of world's leakiest code from Internet Explorer, after Polish researcher Adam Gowdiak claimed another critical flaw exists in the product. The new claim is stated on the Full Disclosure mailing list where Gowdiak writes that the newly-found flaw impacts “all latest …

    Security 26 Sep 03:08

  • Sharp to slice 11,000 job in bid to slash losses

    Pay cuts for those who stay, plus trimmed bonuses

    Struggling Japanese electronics giant Sharp is set to cut nearly 11,000 jobs, double that originally feared, as well as offload some overseas factories and reduce wages in a desperate bid to haul itself out of the red by next April. Japanese news wire Kyodo claims to have seen the Osaka-based consumer electronics firm’s …

    Business 26 Sep 04:06

  • Google swims with the fishes

    Maps now offer FishView, intentionally

    Perhaps inspired by the tourists who followed their Satnav and drove into the sea, Google has lugged cameras beneath the waves and added the results to the StreetView service. Google Ocean, as the new service is called, allows users to swim with the fishes. And turtles. And the occasional manta ray, for good measure. …

    Networks 26 Sep 05:29

  • Barnes & Noble Nook HD and HD+ hands-on review

    Review Gorgeous screens and low prices take on Amazon, Apple

    Giant US book retailer Barnes & Noble is coming to the UK, setting up shop here to sell e-books online rather than finding a foothold in the High Street. Its weapons against established retailers and arch-rival Amazon: the Nook Simple Touch GlowLight 'backlit' E Ink e-book reader and a pair of new tablets able to take the fight …

    Tablets 26 Sep 05:30

  • UN agency didn't break North Korea tech embargo

    One server, storage array and router deemed not to arm axis of evil

    The United Nations has decided that one of its own agencies was not guilty of breaking sanctions by exporting technology to North Korea in a bid to help the axis of evil country with its burgeoning intellectual property rights. The World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO) said it had been cleared of any wrongdoing by …

    Policy 26 Sep 05:39

  • Kiwi cops forgot Kim Dotcom's visa

    Court documents reveal cockup, not conspiracy, led to unlawful arrest

    New Zealand's Organised and Financial Crime Agency New Zealand (OFCANZ) seems to have forgotten or ignored Kim Dotcom's Permanent Resident status when it asked local spooks to tap his phones, according to a document posted online detailing arguments in the case. The document (PDF) uses the same format as other New Zealand …

    Policy 26 Sep 06:24

  • If you see 'URGENT tax rebate download' in an inbox, kill it with fire

    Top spear-phishing email phrases revealed

    FireEye has put together a list of the most common words and phrases that appear in fake emails designed to infect corporate networks and steal data. The security firm said that the list spotlights the social engineering techniques that feature as a key component of so-called spear phishing attacks. Hackers tend to use words …

    Security 26 Sep 07:03

  • Toshiba leaps aboard flash-platter combo bandwagon with a wild cry

    I didn't get a hybrid drive outta that guy!

    Toshiba has produced its own hybrid drive, following Seagate's lead and WD's stated intention. A hybrid disk drive adds a flash memory cache for hot data to the spinning platters to provide a combination of speeded-up IO and disk capacity that's not as fast as a solid state drive (SSD) but a lot cheaper. The drives look to be …

    Storage 26 Sep 07:31

  • Guardian's Robin Hood plan: Steal from everyone to give to us

    Comment Enter our 'Save the Grauniad' competition!

    The brother-in-law of the Guardian's editor - the paper's investigative reporter David Leigh - has floated an idea to save the newspaper industry. Every broadband subscriber in the country would pay a tax of £2 a month, whether they wanted to or not, with the money shared amongst news organisations according to how many UK …

    Media 26 Sep 08:02

  • They said it wasn't right for biz - but Samsung unveils TLC SSD

    Can first 3-level cell flash handle big loads?

    Samsung's South Korean headquarters has announced two new 840 SSDs, one of which uses three-level cell (TLC) technology , a first for the industry, and the other a more normal two bits per cell, the 840 Pro. The 840 Pro is, according to one of several reports a SATA 6Gbit/s interface product, delivering 100,000 random read …

    Storage 26 Sep 08:16

  • Info-flinging service Nokia Life gets webby, gains a plus

    Mobile data spreads across developing world

    Nokia has extended its Life Tools selection with Life+, a web-based addition to its advice-and-information-dispensing SMS service, reflecting just how widespread basic data services are these days. Nokia Life (as the service was renamed in February) uses SMS to deliver information in a wide variety of languages to what we're …

    Mobile 26 Sep 08:27

  • UK air traffic controller lands 6,000-seater VDI on flashy Violin arrays

    Chucks XP out the Windows, makes way for Citrix Xen

    The UK's national air transportation service is basing a 6,000 seat private cloud VDI system on flash arrays from VIOLIN Memory. NATS is the UK's provider of en-route and other air navigation services. It is separate from the Civil Aviation Authority which is the UK’s aviation regulator with responsibilities for airspace …

    Virtualization 26 Sep 08:39

  • Larry couldn't, but we can: Upstart Waratek touts cloudy Java love

    You only think you hate Java - here, smell this

    A startup has pledged to deliver for Java what the brains of Larry Ellison’s mighty Oracle and the entire Java community cannot: cloud scalability - now. It also hopes to spread the love to Java-hating sysadmins. Waratek is planning the general release of its Cloud VM for Java at JavaOne next week. The Cloud VM product is a …

    Developer 26 Sep 09:01

  • NZ bloke gets eel stuck up jacksie

    'This has to be a first', admits hospital insider

    A New Zealand hospital refused to speculate last week on just how one patient managed to get an eel stuck up his backside. According to the New Zealand Herald, the unnamed bloke walked, or perhaps slithered, into Auckland City Hospital's A&E department in need of an urgent jacksie eel extraction. A swift X-ray and scan …

    Bootnotes 26 Sep 09:21

  • Yahoo! boss! boots! out! CFO! and! Google! kisses! up! for! future! search! deal!

    Schmidt urges Mayer to bin Bing

    It's easy for Google chairman Eric Schmidt to be playful about a future search deal with Yahoo! now that ex-Chocolate Factory Golden Girl Marissa Mayer is at the helm of the Purple Palace. Schmidt apparently hinted at just such a search pact on Tuesday. At present, Yahoo!'s search is powered by Microsoft's Bing – but there's …

    Media 26 Sep 09:47

  • HDS's young HUS array gets BIG new brother

    HUS VM - not actually a VM. Ha!

    HDS has merged its high-end array code with its low-end HUS hardware. The unified file, block and object storage HUS 100 array is barely two months old and now has a larger brother. The HUS VM is the enterprise version of HUS, and combines microcode from HDS's enterprise VSP array with the HUS hardware platform to create a 3- …

    Storage 26 Sep 10:02

  • Brit turns Comp Sci coursework into $100k glad-rags search biz

    Vid Soft wares software = cold hard cash

    A computer science graduate who used her final-year coursework on image processing to establish a startup has netted a $100k (£60k) prize. Jenny Griffiths, who studied at Bristol University, became interested in computer vision during the second year of her master's degree - and in her fourth year she wrote software to …

    Media 26 Sep 10:14

  • Ex-HP boss Mark Hurd's $53m gold parachute approved by judge

    Worth every penny just in entertainment value

    A US judge has dismissed a shareholder lawsuit against HP's board of directors over its bumper severance payment to ex-CEO Mark Hurd. District Judge Edward Davila said investors had failed to prove that the board's approval of Hurd's big package was not in the company's best interest. Hurd, now president of rival Oracle, left …

    Law 26 Sep 10:31

  • Azzurri sales talks with Alternative Networks 'are over' - insiders

    Channel connectivity giants couldn't agree on price

    Talks that begun months ago between biz voice and data comms firm Azzurri Communications and AIM-listed suitor Alternative Networks have reached a stalemate over price, claim sources close to negotiations. In December Azzurri's owner, Silverfleet Capital, exited the business after agreeing a debt-for-equity swap with a …

    The Channel 26 Sep 10:43

  • Populous

    Antique Code Show Conquest mode

    So I just re watched Cabin in the Woods (spoiler alert) and when the big glowing god hand explodes out of the earth in the last frame, I was left with a niggle at the back of my subconscious. Divine intervention It wasn't till later in the pub that I remembered my formative god/hand experience was playing Peter Molyneux's …

    Games 26 Sep 11:00

  • TalkTalk somehow retains most-complained-about-ISP title AGAIN

    Stiff competition for masochists-favourite title

    TalkTalk has once again been crowned the worst broadband and telephone provider by its cheesed-off customers, communications regulator Ofcom confirmed this morning. The budget ISP was plonked at the top of the gripes pile in the watchdog's latest quarterly report, which covers the period between April and June 2012. The …

    Networks 26 Sep 11:14

  • Windows Store size doubles: Now 0.3% the size of Apple's

    Developers! Developers! Developers! Not stoppin'

    The number of apps in Windows Store - Microsoft’s online software shop - has apparently doubled in 10 days. The code bazaar, Redmond's equivalent of Apple’s wildly successful App Store, distributes software for x86 and ARM-powered Windows 8 machines. On 21 September it broke the 2,000 app barrier with 2,079 available downloads …

    Developer 26 Sep 11:28

  • GiffGaff: We've got no iPhones, but here's how to cut down your SIM

    And hey, we'll give you a new one if you cock it up!

    While O2's discount wing, GiffGaff, isn't offering the iPhone 5, it is providing instructions for those willing to take up the scissors and give their existing SIM a trim. The step-by-step guide comes complete with a video, and shows how a traditional SIM can be cut down and squeezed into an iPhone 5. GiffGaff won't take …

    Phones 26 Sep 11:47

  • NetApp insists it won't drop StorageGRID

    If you have any internal objects, fling them now

    The Register's storage desk has been told by insiders that NetApp is going to drop its bought-in StorageGRID product in favour of an internal object development from its Indian operation. StorageGRID is NetApp's object storage platform, a renamed product NetApp obtained after buying Canadian firm Bycast in April 2010. It is …

    Storage 26 Sep 12:02

  • SourceForge mirror cracked: Served admin tool with gaping backdoor

    Evil Korean load befouls 400 hapless punters

    SourceForge has launched a clean-up after a backdoored copy of phpMyAdmin was served up from a Korean-based mirror maintained by the popular open source repository. Logs indicate 400 users downloaded a corrupted copy of the phpMyAdmin database admin tool before the compromised code was identified and access to the ‘cdnetworks- …

    Security 26 Sep 12:17

  • Freetard-idol rock star Trent Reznor gives up, signs to major label

    Hey, man, The Man has his good points

    When Nine Inch Nails rock star Trent Reznor decided to go into DIY music publishing in 2008, he became a freetard poster child overnight. For the project, Reznor bypassed The Man to release a long instrumental album under the NIN banner in a variety of formats: some tracks were given away for free, $5 bought you a compressed …

    Media 26 Sep 12:38

  • Samsung slaps swift patch over phone-wiping Galaxy S III vuln

    Smartmobe owners can bonk without fear again

    Samsung has whipped out a fix for an embarrassing flaw in its smartphones that allows miscreants to wipe victims' phones with a simple web link. The South Korean electronics giant is pushing out the patch right now. The Galaxy S III has a firmware update available that closes the security hole, and it can be picked up from an …

    Mobile 26 Sep 13:02

  • Google in new Maps patent row - but not with Apple

    Skyhook: Hey, Wi-Fi data slurping was OUR idea!

    Wi-Fi location database biz Skyhook has launched fresh legal action against Google, claiming the advertising giant's maps service infringes nine of its geo-location patents. Skyhook has tried before to land Google in trouble by alleging in a Massachusetts court that the web goliath's Android operating system forces mobile …

    Law 26 Sep 13:32

  • Cisco CEO wouldn't bet the farm on HP turnaround

    'Mathematically, odds are low,' says Chambers

    HP CEO Meg Whitman reckons the titan's revival won't happen overnight, but according to Cisco top dog John Chambers it might not happen at all. Chambers, who has one eye on retirement and is mulling over succession plans, told Bloomberg that he backed Whitman's political aspirations to govern California but would have warned …

    The Channel 26 Sep 13:58

  • Tesla drops veil on TOP SECRET solar Superchargers

    But only Model S motors can slurp free, super-speed sun juice

    Elon Musk's e-car company Tesla has unveiled its built-in-secret Supercharger network, which will supply free juice to Model S sedans but no other plug-in cars. The Superchargers are loaded up with solar energy and will give their charge to Model S cars for free, but other electric vehicles won't be able to use the stations. …

    Science 26 Sep 14:17

  • Google exec faces arrest after vid tears strip off Brazilian

    Judge wants YouTube mayoral brickbat removed - or else

    A judge in Brazil has ordered the arrest of a Google exec after the company refused to remove YouTube videos that hit out at a mayoral candidate in the Latin American country. Google is fighting attempts by the authorities to cuff Fabio Coelho, who lives in San Paulo and is the firm's director in Brazil. His LinkedIn profile …

    Media 26 Sep 14:42

  • Windows 8 and you – So, what's next?

    Live Chat Reg readers chew the fat on Win 8 and Windows RT

    It’s the early 2000s and Microsoft has delivered its latest versions of Visual Studio and Windows. There’s no XML or any other internet standards, no web services, modularity, a sandboxed security model and no component-based development. There is no “Java-killer” C# and no Common Language Runtime (CLR). The web passes …

    Windows 8 26 Sep 15:01

  • Vandals break into congressman's office, install Linux on PCs

    Grimm: 'Very ignorant' attack

    A US congressmen has been left incensed after miscreants installed Linux on computers at his campaign office, possibly thrashing some data in the process. Michael Grimm, a Republican who represents a district in New York covering Staten Island and parts of Brooklyn, has slammed the weekend break-in to his offices on as a " …

    Security 26 Sep 15:18

  • Tech budgets in schools heading north again

    Our children will have tabs, desktops and digital content

    The amount of money schools splash on tech is on the up despite the government putting an end to ring-fenced spending for ICT a year ago, a study by the British Educational Suppliers Association (BESA) has found. According to the UK survey of 766 primary and 551 secondary schools conducted in July, budgets are looking likely …

    The Channel 26 Sep 15:39

  • RIM shares bounce on BlackBerry 10 optimism

    But Flows and Peeks won't sell devices

    The number of BlackBerry users is up slightly, despite the aging OS and hardware, lifting RIM shares that that already been buoyed by previews of the shiny new OS10. Overall users hit 80 million, up from 78 million earlier this year, resulting in a 3 per cent jump in RIM shares, though that's also thanks to the unveiling of …

    Financial News 26 Sep 16:01

  • Connected TVs snatch online video viewing crown from PCs

    Big screen viewing preferred

    More people watch internet-sourced video on their TVs than their PCs - at least in the US. Another sign, maybe, that the PC is losing its place at the centre of consumers' digital lives, at least for video entertainment. According to NPD, a North American market watcher, during the past 12 months the proportion of folk …

    Hardware 26 Sep 16:12

  • Symantec source code leak becomes torrent

    'In the name of god! You are killing our CPUs'

    Hacktivists once again poked fun at Symantec after previously leaked source code for Symantec's Norton Utilities 2006 software was made available as a torrent on Monday. Symantec downplayed the significance of the leak, saying it only involved obsolete code that had already been exposed. AntiSec tacked a mocking note onto the …

    Security 26 Sep 16:27

  • Skydiver sets date for 'supersonic' edge-of-space PLUNGE

    Vid 'Like a parachuting Austrian tiger in a cage'

    Balls-of-steel skydiver Felix Baumgartner has set a date for his "supersonic" attempt to break the world's highest space jump record. The 43-year-old Austrian will fall out of a 22.7-mile-high capsule on the 8 October. His attempt to shatter the record was delayed after the capsule - a custom-made pressurised vehicle that …

    Bootnotes 26 Sep 16:36

  • Speaking in Tech: Watching Downton Abbey on your Kindle Fire?

    Podcast No, um, neither are we... Plus: all the latest in enterprise tech

    It's another enterprise techcast with hosts Greg Knieriemen, Ed Saipetch and Sarah Vela. This week, we slow it down with everyone together for the first time in weeks. You'll also hear about Kindle Fire fights, The New York Times data centre and what went down at the Storage Developer Conference. This week we cover... …

    Hardware 26 Sep 17:01

  • Acronis sucks up another Red Hatter

    We'll do anything to get out of the backup ghetto

    Backup software outfit Acronis wants to break out of the backup ghetto, and has recruited a Red Hat cloud business exec to help it do this. Scott Crenshaw will become its chief marketing officer, with a focus on enterprise file sync 'n' share. Crenshaw comes to the Franco-American outfit from a position as VP and general …

    Storage 26 Sep 17:28

  • Google celebrates as Android hits 25 billion downloads

    Getting within spitting distance of Apple

    Over the next five days, the Mountain View Chocolate Factory will offer a series of discounts on products and applications in its Google Play store to celebrate hitting the 25 billion–downloads mark. "Every day you'll be able to choose from a collection of apps from some of the world's top developers including Gameloft, …

    Mobile 26 Sep 18:10

  • Researcher offers quick fix for Samsung remote wipe vuln

    App blocks malicious URIs on affected phones

    Although Samsung has yet to issue patches for most of the phones affected by a recently discovered remote-wipe vulnerability, a German security researcher has released an app that he says can block the exploit. As El Reg reported on Tuesday, a flaw in Samsung's dialing software causes its phones to execute some tel protocol …

    Security 26 Sep 18:15

  • Carbon fiber MacBooks to appear soon?

    Long-running rumor gets biennial booster shot

    Those long-rumored carbon fiber MacBooks may be inching closer towards reality, if anonymous Asian sources can be trusted. According to a post on the Japanese website Macotakara (Mac お宝, or Mac Treasure), "some engineer of Apple and Foxconn Technology" has requested carbon fiber parts from an unnamed Japanese company, and "the …

    Hardware 26 Sep 19:00

  • HP pitches four-socketeer Xeon E5 borg boxes

    Consolidation is not futile

    As El Reg readers know, HP has been quietly shipping four-socket rack servers sporting Intel's Xeon E5-4600 servers since August and talking about its four-socket blade since that time, and now the company is finally getting around to formally announcing the boxes and talking up the benefits of four-socketeers for certain …

    Servers 26 Sep 19:42

  • Hobbyist star-gazer cops amazing eyeful of Jupiter's space ball

    Anyone can do it with the right kit, enthuses amateur astronomer

    An amateur astronomer has captured stunning images of Jupiter's moon Ganymede. Emmanuel Kardasis used computer kit, a "hobby" telescope, an off-the-shelf camera and his own observing skills to snap the heavenly body, and produce a rough-round-the-edges albedo map of it: Nothing amateurish about this majestic image. Pic …

    Science 26 Sep 22:04

  • Intel denies that its CEO thinks Windows 8 isn't ready

    'Unsubstantiated news reports'

    Intel has denied reports that CEO Paul Otellini believes Microsoft is releasing Windows 8 before it's "fully ready," saying instead that Chipzilla has the utmost confidence in Redmond's latest OS. On Tuesday, a Bloomberg report cited an anonymous source as saying Otellini had talked down Windows 8 during a private company …

    Software 26 Sep 22:08

  • Google charms Greenpeace with wind powered data center deal

    Oklahoma: Where the wind comes sweepin' down the plain

    Google has signed a contract to obtain 48 megawatts of wind energy from the Canadian Hills Wind Project in Oklahoma to power its data center in that state. This is the first time Google has actually bought wind power from a utility, in this case the Grand River Dam Authority (GRDA), rather than direct from a wind farm itself. …

    Data Center 26 Sep 22:19

  • Blazing new comet may OUTSHINE THE MOON in 2013

    Kohoutek's 1973 bust or Halley's 1066 superstar? Find out next November

    Astroboffins have spotted a new comet that's scheduled to make its earthly appearance in November 2013, blazing through the night skies with a brightness that could well outshine the full Moon. According to the UK's Astronomy Now, the prosaically named comet C/2012 S1 was discovered last Friday by astronomers Vitali Nevski and …

    Science 26 Sep 22:48

  • Russia blocks Monsanto corn in GM study fallout

    Rat tumour fears spark sale ban

    Monsanto’s GM corn, the centre of a storm inspired by the now-notorious French “rat tumours” study, has been banned from Russia following a decision by consumer rights regulator Rospotrebnadzor. The ban is more symbolic than anything else: Russia doesn’t allow its farmers to plant GM corn, and is a net exporter of grains. …

    Science 26 Sep 23:43