3rd October 2012 Archive

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University of Minnesota demos light-powered nano-relay

Photon amplification without electricity

The “light sail” – a spacecraft powered by the pressure of photons streaming from a handy star – might still be science fiction, but researchers in the US have demonstrated that photons can flip switches at the nano scale. The University of Minnesota research published in Nature Communications (abstract here) describes a nano- …

Science 3 Oct 00:02
HP previews OpenFlow virty network controller

Tie those applications to the network with flexible pipes

Everybody has their own twist and take on software-defined networks, or SDN, these days as virtualization moves on from servers and storage and into the still crufty world of networking. Server vendors who bought into networking to bolster themselves are now scrambling to be players in virtual networks when all they thought they …

Virtualization 3 Oct 00:31
Ellison says Oracle eats own dogfood for cloud apps

OpenWorld 2012 He's looking at you, Salesforce.com

Oracle CEO Larry Ellison says one of the top advantages of his company's newly announced cloudy application suite is that Oracle uses all of its own technology to build and deploy its cloud apps, and it allows its customers to do the same. "Oracle owns Java, the most popular programming language in the world," Ellison told the …

Cloud 3 Oct 00:45
Liquefied-air silos touted as enormo green 'leccy batteries

Brit engineers try to keep the juice flowing

A technology invented to use chilled air as a power source for engines has been put forward by Britain’s Institution of Mechanical Engineers as a possible solution for storing electricity generated by renewables, such as solar and wind power. One of the main criticisms levelled against renewable energy sources is their …

Science 3 Oct 01:03
Power7+ chips debut in fat IBM midrange systems

Near the top at first, trickling down to smaller boxes next year

IBM has taken the wraps off the first of its Power Systems machinery to make use of its cache-heavy Power7+ processors, and as El Reg anticipated from the hints in the announcement invitation put out two weeks ago, Big Blue is starting near the top of the line as it upgrades systems that run AIX, IBM i (formerly known as OS/400 …

Servers 3 Oct 04:01
China domain name land grab about to start

'.中国' domain ready to roll as part of ICANN's non-ASCII plan

Domain names ending with .中国 – the Chinese characters for China – will become available in mid-October and China is gearing up for the rush of expected applications. The addition of the .中国 top level domain is a result of ICANN's decision to add top level domains that don't use Latin script. When announced last January ICANN …

Hosting 3 Oct 05:19
Share your story with Reg Australia

Let's route around vendor marketing to share your success

The Register's new Asia-Pacific bureau wants to tell the world about all the clever things you do at work. Research we've conducted indicates Reg readers like to know what their peers get up to, so you can learn from one another. But you've also told us, in research and in comments on past stories, that when we run vendor- …

Site News 3 Oct 05:28
Samsung Galaxy Note 2 review

The most complete digital communications device known to man?

I’ve no idea what the Korean is for “let’s stuff everything we can into a phone and ram it up Apple’s jacksie” but it’s a fair bet the phrase was used at the inception of the Galaxy Note 2. This Android handset is the feature-packed successor to the surprisingly successful Galaxy Note that I was quite taken with late last year …

reghardware 3 Oct 07:00
HMRC: Moving our data to the cloud will make it MORE secure

Skyscape deal will net £1m savings, claims UK taxman

HM Revenue & Customs (HMRC) is to move data it currently stores in local offices to a new centralised government cloud computing depository in a move it says will save it £1m a year and improve on the security of its IT services. HMRC said it had signed a contract with Skyscape Cloud Services to enable it to store data in the …

Government 3 Oct 07:32
'Leaked' doc shock: BT denies inflating prices for rural broadband rollout

DCMS won't comment on alleged dismissal of BDUK doc's author

The government has declined to comment on the alleged leaking of a Broadband Delivery UK (BDUK) document that reportedly suggests BT has been inflating prices for the deployment of its fibre network to rural areas, which needs taxpayer-derived funds. It has also been claimed that the author of the apparently damning document …

Broadband 3 Oct 08:01
Zombie-animating malnets increase 200% in just 6 months

Cybercrooks beef up botnet-powering badness

Crybercrooks are beefing up the infrastructure behind the delivery of botnets, a move that is leading towards more potent and numerous threats, say researchers. Botnet infections are commonly spread though compromised websites seeded with malicious scripts and promoted via black hat SEO tactics such as link farms. These …

Security 3 Oct 08:18
Brighton marathon munchers banned from all-you-can-eat diner

Snouts out of trough for porker pair

A couple of voracious Brighton blokes have been banned for life from an all-you-can-eat Mongolian barbecue chow-house - after repeated attacks on the restaurant's buffet station threatened to eat the owner out of business. For two years, George Dalmon and Andy Miles, both 26, enthusiastically took up GOBi's offer to "repeat as …

Bootnotes 3 Oct 08:42
New science: SEAS WILL RISE due to CO2 ... but not for centuries

Not a problem for your children, or theirs (recurring)

A new, first-of-its-kind comprehensive scientific analysis has shown that there is little to fear from rising sea levels driven by global warming. The likelihood is that the 21st century will see rises much like those of the 20th, and even in the worst possible case sea levels in 2100 will be far below those foreseen by …

Science 3 Oct 09:03
Momentum builds for iPad Mini launch

Raising steam - or vapour?

Apple’s Taiwanese and Chinese component manufacturers have begun punching out iPad Minis, according to folk the Wall Street Journal insists are in a position to know. The moles - we think Apple PR, covertly building coverage momentum in mainstream and business media ahead of the small tablet’s formal unveiling - confirm that …

reghardware 3 Oct 09:18
Thank Freeview for UK 4G by mid-2013 - NOT the iPhone 5 nor EE

Telly retuning clears way for networks to join party early

Ofcom will clear radio frequencies allowing UK network operators to launch 4G mobile broadband months ahead of schedule - even though it hasn't moved the 4G licence auction. EE's monopoly on 4G coverage should end by June next year as a result of this, instead of the end of 2013 as first anticipated. This is thanks to phone- …

Mobile 3 Oct 09:43
Google, Microsoft spar to be tech's also-ran behind King Apple

Ads giant nicked Windows 8 biz's 2nd-place spot, but not for long

On Monday, for the first time ever, Google pushed past Microsoft to become the world's second-most valuable tech firm. Now it has fallen back to the number three spot, but with a difference of just over $1bn in market cap between the two, it may be just a matter of time before the Chocolate Factory grabs second place from …

Business 3 Oct 10:02
Now Space Station forced to DODGE flying Japanese junk

First Indian, Russian debris - next Tokyo's gear is in the way

The International Space Station is due to swerve tomorrow morning to avoid a debris cloud from a Japanese satellite, the Russian Flight Control Centre said. A Russian Zvezda service module will fire booster rockets to shift the station out of the path of the space junk if the agency is certain it's necessary. The dodge is …

Science 3 Oct 10:21
Sony PS3 sales soar on slimmer system

Numbers up 138 per cent

Punters may be peeved that Sony didn’t cut its prices when it pruned the fat from the PlayStation and released the PlayStation even-slimmer, but the decision doesn’t appear to have hindered sales. Quite the reverse, according to official UK sales data from GfK Chart-Track and released through the Association for UK Interactive …

reghardware 3 Oct 10:31
Speaking in Tech: GoDaddy kills its cloud... GoDaddy had a cloud?

Podcast Plus: Oracle Open World, Cisco switches, bad telly updates and more

We invite you to enter the Techcast Enterprise, where Captain Greg Knieriemen, Commander Ed Saipetch and Commander Sarah Vela are waiting to take you on a journey across the tech universe. This week, it's just the three of them again as they toss around the latest tech on the podcast holodeck. This week we cover... Downton …

Cloud 3 Oct 10:41
Googorola mysteriously pulls plug on ITC Apple patent probe

Does what no fanboi can do: drops the subject

Googorola has mysteriously dropped the patent infringement allegations it made against Apple at the US International Trade Commission. Google-owned Motorola filed the complaint against Apple in August, claiming the fruity firm had copied seven of its protected designs that dealing with location-based reminders, email …

Business 3 Oct 10:58
Virgin Media's 'bye-bye to buffering' ad nuked by watchdog - AGAIN

David Tennant told to take his baseball bat home

For the second time this year Virgin Media has been berated by Britain's advertising watchdog for making unsubstantiated and misleading claims about its fibre-optic broadband network. The claims in question relate to a TV ad that suggests VM's customers would not be beset by buffering delays. The ASA upheld gripes submitted by …

Broadband 3 Oct 11:19
Cash in the asset: Nokia may flog global headquarters in Espoo

As it tries to escape its economic poo

Nokia is planning to sell off its global headquarters in Espoo, Finland, to plug its $1.8bn financial losses. The mobile biz's chief financial officer Timo Ihamuotila told the Finnish daily Helsingin Sanomat that his fellow execs are investigating flogging the glass-and-metal Nokia House HQ, which was built in the 1990s. The …

Business 3 Oct 11:37
Top admen beg Microsoft to switch off 'Do Not Track' in IE 10

Browser 'blocks ~~our adverts~~ choice and competition'

Microsoft is in hot water with big-brand advertisers over its implementation of Do-Not-Track by default in the latest iteration of its Internet Explorer browser. The ad-slingers say Internet Explorer 10’s Do-Not-Track feature will hurt advertisers, consumers and competition. The Association of National Advertisers (ANA) has …

Media 3 Oct 12:01
SCH Group prepares for life after distribution

Banks double digit-hike in sales and profits for fiscal 2012

Channel giant Specialist Computer Holdings (SCH) has released a financial statement for fiscal 2012 showing double-digit gains in turnover and operating profits for the year ended 30 March. This is the last set of full year results the group, which houses reseller-cum-integrator SCC and wholesaling biz Specialist Distribution …

The Channel 3 Oct 12:14
Skype touts FREE* Wi-Fi across the UK

* If enough small biz cough up a tenner a month

For a tenner a month Skype will let a business share its Wi-Fi network with Skype customers, but the biz will get window stickers and porn filtering too, so what's not to love? Online voice-chat outfit Skype and partner Wicoms will provide a free Wi-Fi access point to plug into a broadband connection, and a website to monitor …

Small Biz 3 Oct 12:22
NIST crowns next-gen hash algorithm Keccak as official SHA-3

After six years, we have a winner

A US government agency has selected cryptographic hash function Keccak as the new official SHA-3 algorithm. The National Institute of Standards and Technology's decision to pick the nippy system as the replacement for SHA-1 and SHA-2 marks the end of a six-year competitive process. Five algorithms were left in the running at …

Security 3 Oct 12:44
US data show slump in Apple tablet share

Kindle accelerates Android uptake

It’s no great surprise, perhaps, that Google’s Android is taking tablet share from Apple, but new figures suggest the rate of catch-up has accelerated this year. A 1000-odd user survey recently carried out the US statistics gatherer the Pew Research Centre and The Economist which focused on US tablet ownership during the three …

reghardware 3 Oct 12:54
Turkish officials reach for YouTube's joystick

Vids posted in Google's vault now tightly curbed by Ankara laws

Google has given in to demands from Turkey to operate YouTube under a Turkish web domain, thus allowing the country's officials to patrol its content and the country's courts to throw out whatever is deemed objectionable. As noted by Reuters, the move not only means that Ankara can exercise more rigid control over the material …

Media 3 Oct 13:01
Hey, Third World! We know what you need: Mmm, patent wars

UK IPO signs education deal, jumps on next flight

Britain's Intellectual Property Office will "promote the understanding of IP" in developing countries after signing a deal with the head of the UN's World Intellectual Property Organisation. Brit patent specialists will be flown out around the world to give workshops and seminars, essentially educating nations on the benefits …

Government 3 Oct 13:31
EE sets October date to power up UK 4G network

Works not quite on everything, not quite everywhere

Mobile operator EE will launch its UK 4G service on 30 October. Switching on its next-gen mobile broadband network will no doubt cheer Apple iPhone 5 fanbois for whom 3G's 8Mb/sec just isn't fast enough. EE has a monopoly on 4G, at least until after Ofcom's radio frequency auction in January, so the UK's largest network …

Mobile 3 Oct 14:07
Will Elpida be gobbled by a rival or get a multi-billion cash jab?

Japanese court stalls decision on restructuring deals

A court in Tokyo has once again postponed the decision on whether to allow US firm Micron to slurp bankrupt DRAMmurai warrior Elpida Memory. Micron agreed to rescue the firm back in July, offering $2.5bn (¥200bn, £1.6bn) to take it over. But bondholders claim that the offer is totally unfair and doesn't value Elpida highly …

Business 3 Oct 14:32
Gather round, EMC's ol' man Tucci knows Big Data's 'killer app'

Oracle OpenWorld Big cheese tells a tale of real-time analysis

Joe Tucci, EMC boss and non-Oracle oracle speaking at Oracle OpenWorld, said that predictive real-time analysis would be the killer Big Data application. EMC's big kahuna was key-noting on the second day at the event, following on from Larry Ellison's opening session on the first day, where Ellison gloated over Oracle's …

Storage 3 Oct 15:02
VC plans to flog or float public sector biz Civica next year

Sugar daddies at 3i ponders exit route

Private equity backers of public sector services and software player Civica are reportedly gearing up to punt or float the business early next year. Venture capitalist 3i is reviewing its options, says the FT. This comes more than four years after 3i forked out £190m to take the one-time AIM-listed operation private. …

The Channel 3 Oct 15:33
OpenStack certification up for grabs - if you pass its Kobayashi Maru

Klingons are in your cluster, what do you do?

You know a software technology has come of age when some vendor starts trying to make some coin selling certifications for it. And thus we know that the OpenStack cloud fluffer and puffer has finally come of age now that Rackspace Hosting, which founded the OpenStack project with NASA two summers ago, wants to help you get …

Cloud 3 Oct 16:04
Punch-drunk Xyratex takes another beating, expects Q4 loss

Technical difficulties, enterprise storage droop and coming soon: crap disk drive sales

UK data-storage company Xyratex can't seem to catch a break. Yesterday it copped to a quarterly revenues slump of 24 per cent year-on-year – due to product and equipment quality issues, and weakened enterprise demand – and it also reckons that disk drive sales are heading for a fall. That's not very good news for Xyratex, …

Financial News 3 Oct 17:32
Riverbed plunks ESXi hypervisor in Steelhead WAN optimizers

Gooses performance with flash, optimizes virty desktops

Riverbed Technology's Steelhead WAN optimization appliances are growing up to be proper server citizens now that they can run VMware's ESXi bare-metal hypervisor. Riverbed is also kicking out two new Steelhead CX appliances and upgrading its RIOS operating system with some nips and tucks to help it do a better job of optimizing …

Data Networking 3 Oct 17:59
T-Mobile and MetroPCS mobile minnows merge

Taking on Sprint with LTE prowess

After failing to flog off T-Mobile USA to AT&T last year, Deutsche Telecom has gone another route, opting to absorb its smaller rival MetroPCS in a reverse-takeover. The boards of both companies have approved a reverse merger, whereby MetroPCS will take over T-Mobile to form a combined company (called T-Mobile) that is owned …

Mobile 3 Oct 19:10
Oracle nudges Sparc T5s back out to 2013

OpenWorld 2012 Solaris 11 gets an update, Sparc T4s carry on

This time last year at Oracle's OpenWorld extravaganza, John Fowler, Oracle's executive vice president of hardware, revealed a faster-paced roadmap for Sparc processors that showed the Sparc T5 chip being pulled into late 2012 from its original early 2013 delivery date. It now looks like Oracle needs a little more time to put …

Servers 3 Oct 20:57
Cloud storage exempt from Ninefold's uptime boost

Cloud company says uptime will rise yet still has all its disks in one basket

Australian public cloud company Ninefold is claiming new levels of reliability and availability but still runs its cloud storage service from a single data centre. The company has announced that it has taken up residence in the IC2 data centre owned by parent company Macquarie Telecom and claims placing its kit there means it …

Cloud 3 Oct 21:45
Pirate Bay back online as PRQ raid target confirmed

Anonymous kicks at Swedish government sites

The Pirate Bay is back online after nearly two days of downtime, which it blamed on power problems, not the raid against the Swedish hosting company PRQ that was set up by some of its founding members. The Pirate Bay told TorrentFreak that the problems were caused by a faulty power distribution unit at its main hosting site. A …

Media 3 Oct 22:17
John Key accused of Dotcom ‘brain fade’

February briefing hinted at illegal wiretaps

New Zealand opposition politicians believe they have a sniff of prime ministerial blood in the Kim Dotcom case, after PM John Key released the results of a review by that country’s Government Communications Security Bureau (GCSB). Releasing the results of the review here, the prime minister says “I received no briefing on the …

Policy 3 Oct 22:30
Oz gov to test ‘all renewable’ options

Releases base data for public scrutiny

If you happen to be a data geek with an interest in renewable energy, it’s time to get busy on the download button: Australia’s federal government has released a raft of data that will form the basis of “100 percent renewable energy” scenario planning to be conducted by the Australian Energy Market Operator (AEMO). As noted in …

Policy 3 Oct 23:41