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1st October 2012 Archive

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  • Oracle cranks up the flash with Exadata X3 systems

    OpenWorld 2012 Ellison: Rotating disk drives are so 20th century

    System maker Oracle is not content with the feeds and speeds of its Exadata clusters for running data warehousing and online transaction processing, so co-founder and CEO Larry Ellison announced a fourth generation of machines with substantially expanded main and flash memory. Ellison says this will allow for companies to keep …

    Servers 1 Oct 04:45

  • Svalbard overtakes medieval summers

    Fat algae suggest record temperatures

    The so-called “Medieval Warm Period” may not have been as warm – and certainly not as uniformly warm – as is commonly believed, according to research led by Columbia University’s Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory. While the research only covers a small area – Norway’s Svalbard archipelago in the north – but the researchers …

    Science 1 Oct 05:56

  • HP Spectre XT 13in Ivy Bridge Ultrabook review

    Slim, light, fast...

    The Spectre XT is HP’s third shot at an Ultrabook in less than six months. The gleaming Gorilla Glass livery of the original 14-inch Spectre was both eye-catching and rugged, but it was also very expensive and quite a bit heavier than you’d expect from an Ultrabook. That was quickly followed by the Envy 4, which was much more …

    reghardware 1 Oct 07:00

  • WD hopes biz barons will grab its new 4TB data tubs

    Drives are Western Digital's 'largest'

    WD has added two mainstream 4TB enterprise disk drives to its range, with Xyratex and Dell using them straight away. Basically it looks like the same 3.5-inch format drive mechanics with either a 6Gbit/s SAS or SATA interface. The RE SAS is available in 1TB, 4TB, 3TB and 4TB capacity points, with the RE SAS coming in 2GB, 3TB …

    Storage 1 Oct 07:28

  • Keep your Playboy mansion, Supermicro is my nerd vice palace

    Sysadmin blog I'm not ashamed to admit I was drooling over those racks

    With several clients facing refresh cycles, I've decided to poke my nose back into the tier-2 space to see what’s going on. Supermicro has been on my preferred vendor list for years, so when I was in the Bay Area this summer I stopped in to see what’s new. I left impressed with what I saw, and got a swank backpack admittedly …

    HPC 1 Oct 08:03

  • 'Replace crypto-couple Alice and Bob with Sita and Rama'

    Even their jobs are being offshored

    A computer scientist has come up with a proposal to replace cryptography's Alice and Bob with characters from Hindu mythology. For decades, techniques to encrypt and decrypt communications have been explained using two imaginary characters, Alice and Bob, and potential eavesdropper Eve. Alice sends a message to Bob, and Eve is …

    Security 1 Oct 08:22

  • Mem-giant Micron laments a doleful year despite cutting costs

    Boys from Boise didn't do good

    Memory and flash fab operator Micron has reported disappointing results for its fourth fiscal 2012 quarter and the full year. The basic revenue stats are quarterly revenues of a straight $2 billion, $172 million down on the previous quarter and $140 million down on the year ago quarter. Micron, headquartered in Boise, made a …

    Financial News 1 Oct 08:38

  • Nook pulls on backpack, heads for Europe and flings with foreigners

    Barnes & Noble deals with Dixons, Sainsburys and even Waitrose

    There are a lot of Nooks in the US, maybe 10 million, maybe more, no one is quite certain as the company only releases revenues, which are up at around $192m a quarter for the Nook, not unit numbers. But at an average purchase price of $200 including media, that‘s about 4 million devices a year, since in first launched. But all …

    Hardware 1 Oct 09:03

  • Windows 8 early-bird users still love Windows 7 more - poll

    Fast-boot basics beat fancy Metro Modern UI

    More than half of Windows 8 users prefer Windows 7 to Microsoft's new operating system, according to a community poll. Forumswindows8, which claims to be the web's largest Windows 8 help and support forum, says it conducted a poll of 50,000 people using Windows 8 and found that 53 per cent voted Windows 7 as their favorite …

    Windows 8 1 Oct 09:19

  • HP intros big biz-centric slate

    Packing Intel's Haswell, by the looks of it

    HP has announced one of the business-centric tablets it has been unintentionally - perhaps - leaking in promo photos over the past few months. Alas, would-be buyers will have to wait three more months at least before they can lay hands on it. Dubbed the ElitePad 900, HP's tablet is an Intel-based job designed to run Windows 8 …

    reghardware 1 Oct 09:28

  • Big Blue: 'New PureSystem? Madness? No, THIS IS SPARTA!'

    October date set for server family launch bash

    The details are a bit sketchy, but in a week or so IBM hopes to unveil an update for its PureSystems family of modular boxes focussed on big data and cloud computing. Big Blue is hosting an online product launch for "the new PureSystems family member" on 9 October, and the company will talk about the kit at events in major US …

    HPC 1 Oct 09:42

  • Formlabs preps first home stereolithic 3D printer

    Laser tech makes for higher-res objects

    3D printing geeks have become very excited about Formlabs' Form 1, the first home-oriented stereolithography 3D printer. While affordable 3D printers are becoming more widespread, what makes the Form 1 special is that instead of piping resin through an extruder, it uses lasers to heat and harden a point within a bath of liquid …

    reghardware 1 Oct 09:50

  • Scottish PhDs hoist kilt to reveal storage array killer

    Spare PC disk bytes poured into Scotch broth of storage

    Imagine a shared storage resource that needs no storage array hardware at all, has no central controller like a Virtual Storage Appliance (VSA), protects your data, and involves little or no system management. It's a product being developed by three graduates of Scotland's University of St Andrews, and if it takes off it might …

    Storage 1 Oct 10:11

  • Nominet mulls killing off the .co from .co.uk

    Dear Brits, you're happy to buy another domain name, right?

    Nominet is seeking Brits' views on its proposals for slightly shorter .uk domain names with some layers of security thrown in. The non-profit company, which controls the .uk domain registry, hopes to introduce a new service for businesses called direct.uk that could, by ditching the .co and the .org from .co.uk and .org.uk, …

    Hosting 1 Oct 10:34

  • Nokia offers its maps to enterprise: Deal inked with Oracle

    Hey, it's a big load of data - Big Data, right?

    Oracle has signed on the dotted line with Nokia to give its customers access to the Finnish firm's maps and location services. The deal, set to be announced later today at OracleWorld in San Francisco, gives Nokia a chance to play to its strengths at a time when its rival in the mobile world, Apple, is figuring out that map …

    Business 1 Oct 10:43

  • Climate change threatens to SHRINK FISH AND CHIP SUPPERS

    Teeny oxygen-starved cod will hit global food supplies

    Climate change could threaten the quintessential British meal, the venerable fish and chips, which will only be available in small portions or not at all if boffins are correct. The scientists have warned that the body weight of fish, including North Sea haddock and cod, will drop if oceans warm up. The theory goes that warmer …

    Science 1 Oct 10:59

  • Larry 'Shared databases are crap' Ellison reveals shared Oracle database

    'Then I saw her software interface, now I'm a believer'

    Billionaire Oracle chief Larry Ellison has announced his company's public and private cloud services and a multi-tenant version of his core database product, completing his Saul-like conversion from befuddled skeptic. The database company's chief executive opened his annual Oracle Open World (OOW) conference announcing a …

    Cloud 1 Oct 11:25

  • The Register iPhone and Android apps: Maintenance update

    Spring Clean

    We are prepping new Register apps for iPhone and Android. Unfortunately, this has taken us a little longer than anticipated, and the current apps are no longer working. The new versions will include comment functionality, among many improvements. And we aim to go live this week. In the meantime, we apologise for any …

    Site News 1 Oct 11:26

  • Euro bigwig turns heat on 'unacceptable' Apple warranties

    Justice Commish urges nations to probe Cupertino ads

    Apple's warranty ads are again under the spotlight after a European Commission big cheese blasted them as "unacceptable". In December, the Cupertino goliath was fined €900,000 by an Italian regulator for trying to flog two-year Apple Care extended cover when under Italian, and indeed EU law, customers are entitled to it as …

    Channel Register 1 Oct 11:43

  • Windows System Center 2012: The review

    Deep dive Enterprise automation software for the masses

    Microsoft's System Center suite of products is not easy to categorize as a group. The breadth of the offerings falling under the System Center moniker makes being asked to review all of System Center in a single article somewhat intimidating. System Center 2012 has already seen production deployments – and SP1 is not far away …

    Servers 1 Oct 12:01

  • O2, Vodafone allowed to hop onto each other's towers

    Watchdog approves network-sharing love-in

    The UK Office of Fair Trading has formally approved O2 and Vodafone sharing infrastructure for their 2G and 3G networks, and probably upcoming 4G networks too. The plan to share network infrastructure was announced back in June, but had to be assessed by the Office of Fair Trading, which has now announced that it can go ahead …

    Mobile 1 Oct 12:18

  • Pair face £250k fines for spamming mobes with millions of texts

    ICO gives duo a month to come up with a good excuse

    Two unnamed marketers are facing fines well over £250,000 for allegedly texting millions of spam messages. The Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) has written to both individuals to confirm that it intends to extract the cash from the pair, who are accused of breaching the UK's Privacy and Electronic Communications …

    Mobile 1 Oct 12:38

  • Google shovels more small-fry apps on Larry Page's pyre

    Keeping it skinny to make fat bucks

    Google has dumped more products as it repositions its brand as a social network in a move to shift even more adverts. Mountain View said it will kill off a number of small-fry applications over the coming months, and Google bosses want "people to have a beautifully simple experience" when using the search giant's services. …

    Networks 1 Oct 13:02

  • Kaminario's K2 data-gobbling champ squeezes out 2 million IOPS

    BuT enterprise-class storage isn't JUST about the numbers

    The performance summit of K2, Kaminario's mountainously named flash array, has been lifted to 2 million IOPS. We have the Fibre Channel-connected flash K2 listed as running at up to 600,000 IOPS and exhibiting an 8GB/sec throughput. Its capacity ranges from 3TB to 100TB. Now Kaminario has tweaked the beast and got 2 million …

    Storage 1 Oct 13:17

  • Sharp punches out über-retina phone screen

    Full HD in a 5in panel, anyone?

    Japanese smartphone screen makers keep packing in the pixels. The latest to do so is Sharp. Today it said it will put a 5in, 1920 x 1080 LCD into production later this month. A quick tap or two on the calculator reveals that's 441 pixels per inch - rather more than the 326ppi the iPhone 5 delivers. Sharp said the display is …

    reghardware 1 Oct 13:34

  • Bloke jailed for being unable to use BlackBerry Messenger freed

    Appeal court told swim coach sent saucy text to EVERY contact

    A man jailed for 18 months after accidentally sending his BlackBerry Messenger contacts a filthy text intended for just his girlfriend has been freed on appeal. Craig Evans, 24, a swimming coach from Birmingham, was imprisoned after he sent everyone in his contacts book a note asking for "skin on skin" sex and querying whether …

    Mobile 1 Oct 13:42

  • Beached whale on Suffolk coast - Reader snap

    Pic Unfortunate cetacean's final resting place

    The UK media is giving some big play to the unfortunate whale which has trapped itself on a beach in Suffolk. We can't normally spare cross-platform media operatives for tasks of this sort: but even so the Eye of the Vulture misses little, and in this case we have a picture from the scene. A sad day on the beach at Shingle …

    Science 1 Oct 13:42

  • Capita UK offshoring plan killed by customer backlash - insiders

    It wasn't the threat of strike that forced its hand

    Unite claimed victory over Capita IT Services' (ITS) decision to tear apart its offshoring blueprint, but company insiders claim that much more pressure had been imposed on management from customers who objected to the move. The union threatened industrial action in August over Capita's move, first proposed in March, to put 1, …

    Channel Register 1 Oct 13:57

  • Avnet waves farewell to John Toal ahead of Magirus gobble

    Rayat takes the helm, sets course for Ambitious-land

    Avnet Technology Solutions (TS) is starting to restructure ahead of its acquisition of Magirus with long serving director Sukh Rayat replacing John Toal at the top of the UK organisation. Distie veteran Toal, who was in charge of the operation for two years and four months, joined Avnet when it acquired Bell Microproducts in …

    Channel Register 1 Oct 14:21

  • Motorola's Germany Xbox sales ban castrated by US judges

    Appeal court puts a stop to ban on Microsoft boxen

    Motorola is not allowed to stop Microsoft Xboxes from being sold in Germany after a US appeals court agreed that the sales ban was too narrow. A court in Seattle prevented Google-owned Motorola from enforcing an injunction against the games console, and a three-judge panel at the appeals court has agreed with that decision. …

    Law 1 Oct 14:25

  • Big mainframe shops embiggen, says BMC survey

    And the small fries emsmallen or jump to other fires

    Like mainframe-makers IBM and Unisys, BMC Software gets a sizable portion of its $2.12bn in annual revenues – and presumably a disproportionately larger portion of its profits – from those venerable old card wallopers all gussied up as modern servers. This is why BMC has been conducting surveys over the past few years on the …

    Servers 1 Oct 14:36

  • Navy devs cook up Android spyware to map your location - in 3D

    Smartphone snooper stakes out the joint as you move around the room

    Indiana students working with the US Navy have demonstrated malware capable of mapping a room and creating a 3D-navigable space to help information thieves find what they're looking for. The Indiana University team, which includes a representative from the Naval Surface Warfare Center, created PlaceRaider – smartphone software …

    Applications 1 Oct 15:01

  • Better pay your taxes: The world's NOT going to end this year

    Mayan prophecy is for drought or disease, not apocalypse, say bone boffins

    Those folks counting down to the end of the world, currently scheduled for 21 December according to the Mayan calendar, are going to be disappointed, a gaggle of experts have said. Archaeologists, anthropologists and other experts in old things meeting over the weekend in Mexico have suggested that the Mayas may indeed have …

    Science 1 Oct 15:16

  • Happy birthday, Compact Disc

    First commercial release 30 years ago today

    The Compact Disc is 30 years old - at least if you work back to when the platform first went on sale to punters. The first commercially release disc and player - respectively, Billy Joel's 52nd Street and Sony's CDP-101 - were introduced in Japan on 1 October 1982. The disc was released by Sony's recorded music subsidiary, CBS …

    reghardware 1 Oct 15:23

  • Iran: Sorry for the Gmail blockade – we were trying to block YouTube

    G+ flooded with relieved Iranians after week-long blackout

    Iran has restored access to Gmail and other Google services, but a block on YouTube remains in place. The Islamic Republic blocked a wide range of Google services last week in the wake of the controversy about the Innocence of Muslims, an amateur anti-Islamic film whose trailer was uploaded to YouTube. Surfers in Iran were …

    Government 1 Oct 15:30

  • Viewsonic buries fondleslabs for punters, flogs biz tabs instead

    Bit-part kit joins list of dearly departed

    A new plot at the consumer tablet graveyard has been dug for Viewsonic after it confirmed it is laying its fondleslabs to rest. But the firm isn't quitting slabs entirely: it's planing to produce business-to-business systems aimed at less crowded vertical industries where it feels it can compete more effectively and maybe even …

    Channel Register 1 Oct 16:00

  • FREE mobile data – if you dance for our advertisers, monkeyboy

    A good reason to read the small print, especially FreedomPop's

    FreedomPop launches Monday, offering free mobile data across the US to those who have WiMAX coverage and don't look too closely at the small print. The headline promise is clear enough: "100% free high speed internet - any device, anywhere", and the name of Skype co-founder Niklas Zennstrom lends the project credibility, but …

    Mobile 1 Oct 16:24

  • Gridiron builds mutant monster using NetApp's 'other' array

    Engenio plus TurboCharger = flash-handling, data-caching beast

    SAN accelerator Gridiron has doubled the performance of its TurboCharger appliance and is building its own SAN using NetApp Engenio drive arrays twinned with the TurboCharger. The TurboCharger is a cache box sat in front of a Fibre Channel-accessed SAN which speeds up read data access. It has clever software using a set …

    Storage 1 Oct 16:58

  • Oracle customers DEMANDED infrastructure cloud

    OpenWorld 2012 Ellison's public IaaS cloud whips out private IaaS parts

    Oracle co-founder and CEO Larry Ellison didn't want to get into the infrastructure cloud business, but the company's customers have pushed for Oracle to do it. At the opening keynote at the OpenWorld customer and partner extravaganza in San Francisco on Sunday night, Ellison announced a new lineup of Exadata X3 database …

    Cloud 1 Oct 17:26

  • Yahoo! CEO! births! bouncing! baby! boy!

    Plans return to floundering web portal in '1-2 weeks'

    Yahoo! CEO Marissa Mayer added another title to her résumé last night: Mom. On Monday morning, husband Zachary Bogue, a partner in the investment group Data Collective, tweeted about the blessed event, saying "Baby boy Bogue born last night. Mom (@marissamayer) and baby are doing great--we couldn't be more excited!" A Yahoo! …

    Business 1 Oct 17:52

  • Steve Jobs resurfaces in Hong Kong

    Video Thanks to near-$200K effort by Madame Tussaud's crew

    Days before the first anniversary of his death on October 5, 2011, Steve Jobs has reappeared – albeit in waxy tribute, not reincarnated self. Madame Tussauds Hong Kong has unveiled an uncannily accurate wax figure of the man they identify as a "legendary business man, inventor and technology pioneer." The UK gadget site …

    Bootnotes 1 Oct 19:32

  • Japan enacts two-year jail terms for illegal downloading

    Draconian laws mean 10 years for uploaders

    Downloading pirated material in Japan can now earn you two years in prison and a fine of two million yen ($25,600) for each purloined file, with uploaders facing 10 years in the Big House and a fine five times as large. The laws – some of the toughest ever enacted against illegal downloaders – were passed in June after strong …

    Policy 1 Oct 19:39

  • Hackers break onto White House military network

    Spear phish hits 'unclassified' presidential system

    Hackers reportedly attempted a brazen attack on a White House military network in charge of the president’s nuclear football. US officials familiar with the incident said unidentified hackers launched an attack early last month on the network used by the White House Military Office (WHMO), an military office in charge of …

    Security 1 Oct 20:14

  • Fujitsu, Oracle pair up on future 'Athena' Sparc64 chips

    OpenWorld 2012 But Larry may not resell servers that use them

    During Sunday's opening keynote at Oracle's OpenWorld 2012 San Francisco shindig, longtime server and operating system partner Fujitsu talked about a future "Athena" Sparc64 processor and related systems using it that will run Oracle's Solaris Unix variant and sport special instructions for speeding up Oracle databases. …

    Servers 1 Oct 20:55

  • iPad mini to go on sale in one month?

    Invitations October 10, unveiling October 17 ... sounds about right

    A 'major Apple (AAPL) investor' citing 'multiple sources' says that Apple will inform world+dog next Wednesday of an event to be held on October 17 to announce the much-rumored iPad mini. So says a Monday report by Fortune, which notes that if said source is correct, and if Apple keeps to its usual announcement-to-release …

    Hardware 1 Oct 21:27

  • NBN Co nests satellites in WA

    Three groundstations for regional networks

    West Australia will house three key ground stations for the National Broadband Network’s regional satellite deployment which will begin beaming in 2015. NBN Co is making a total investment of around $AU2bn in the Long Term Satellite Service. The ground stations will be built and operated in Moonyoonooka near Geraldton, Binduli …

    Networks 1 Oct 21:50

  • Analysts slash Ultrabook sales estimate by over 50%

    Global 'meh' over overpriced laptops

    Analyst house IHS iSuppli has slashed its forecast for Ultrabook sales by more than half for this year, and the outlook for 2013 could hardly be described as rosy, as well. Earlier in the year, iSuppli predicted that 22 million of the svelte laptops would ship by the end of 2012, but it's now cut that forecast to 10.3 million …

    Hardware 1 Oct 23:08

  • Cisco fluffs up freebie Nexus virtual switch

    Big price cut, but the one with goodies still ain't free

    Cisco is poised to begin beta testing of the latest version of its Nexus 1000V virtual switches, including a new Essential Edition which it will offer for the low, low price of nothing at all. The reasoning behind this pricing policy is simplicity itself: if you are trying to take on VMware in the market for virtual switches, …

    Virtualization 1 Oct 23:24

  • Holden considers electric Commodore

    GM's Oz outpost ponders electric version of iconic muscle car

    The Australian arm of General Motors, Holden, is reportedly considering an electric production run of its venerable Commodore marque. According to the Australian Financial Review, the vehicle maker is hoping to secure a deal worth around $AU70 million – with the Federal government to kick in an unspecified contribution – that …

    Science 1 Oct 23:52