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8th October 2012 Archive

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  • Deep-sea worm recalls Star Wars favourite

    This Yoda, no spine has

    A deep-ocean research mission along the Mid-Atlantic Ridge has yielded up an oddity: an invertebrate that called to mind the venerable Jedi, Yoda. Yoda purpurata – that is, purple Yoda – is one of three new species of acorn worm the mission discovered, as reported in the current issue of Invertebrate Biology. Don't whisper …

    Science 8 Oct 00:01

  • WoW cities wiped out by 'exploit'

    Blizzard pounces after thousands 'die'

    World of Warcraft players in Europe experienced an unpleasant Sunday afternoon, after an "exploit" resulted in the death of every character in several cities. Within hours of the incident, the game's publisher Blizzard issued a statement declaring it an “exploit” that has “has ... been hotfixed, so it should not be repeatable …

    Security 8 Oct 00:47

  • IT shops boycott Bangalore strike

    Wipro office targeted by protestors as dispute over water rights rages

    India's IT capital, Bangalore, ground to a halt on Saturday after protests over the allocation of water. The reason for the protests is a decision that one Indian State, Karnataka, must allocate water from the Kaveri river to another State, Tamil Nadu. Karanatakans think that's a bad idea as the State has a water shortage. The …

    Business 8 Oct 03:14

  • Google launches credit card in UK

    Business-only Barclaycard-in-disguise will encourage AdWords purchase

    Businesses in the United Kingdom have become the first in the world to have the chance of obtaining a Google credit card. The Google AdWords Business Credit card” to give the plastic its formal name, is a tool the Chocolate Factory hopes small business will use to rack up big bills for online ads they don't have the cash to …

    Small Biz 8 Oct 04:09

  • EU green-lights 'copyright land grab' law on orphan work

    Euro states ordered to join free-for-all

    EU ministers backed new laws to allow libraries, museums and universities - among other organisations - to digitise works that have become "orphaned" from their creators. The Council of Minister's formal adoption of the EU's Directive on orphan works [29-page 154KB PDF] means that member states will now have to implement the …

    Media 8 Oct 07:02

  • Psst! Don't tell anyone, but HP is silently improving its IBRIX filer

    This is strictly between us

    HP has quietly released a three-times faster IBRIX filer, the X9730, replacing the previous model. HP bought IBRIX and its parallelised scale-out file server technology for an unrevealed price in July 2009. The technology appeared in HP's X9000 line of products. These compete with EMC's Isilon scale-out filers, and also with …

    Storage 8 Oct 07:29

  • Don't panic, but UK faces BLACKOUTS BY 2015

    Spare electricity supply dwindling - Ofgem

    The UK risks energy shortages by 2015 or 2016, energy regulator Ofgem has predicted. The shortages will primarily be caused by EU environmental legislation forcing the early closure of coal and oil-fired power stations, it said. Its first annual Capacity Assessment [93-page / 1.9MB PDF] projects that electricity margins, or …

    Government 8 Oct 08:01

  • The Big Data revolution: Big Bang or loud noise?

    Analysis Reg survey looks at data analytics, 'magic software'... and much more

    Anyone currently employed in any area of the IT business will be aware, however reluctantly, of the considerable amount of effort being put into marketing ‘Big Data’. Well brace yourselves, there's more of this to come. During August and September of 2012 Freeform Dynamics surveyed 502 IT professional readers of The Register …

    CIO 8 Oct 08:31

  • Sony Vaio T13 Ultrabook review

    Sony making ultrabooks more affordable? Remarkable!

    It’s only natural that manufacturers want to show off their biggest (or in this case, smallest) and best but Sony has spotted the flaw in this plan. By thrusting their fabulously lean but powerful sexy bits in your face all the time, Ultrabooks have gained a reputation for being the Page 3 girls of computing: naughty, vigorous …

    reghardware 8 Oct 08:34

  • Target Silicon Valley: Why A View to a Kill actually made sense

    Bond on Film Bond villain Zorin's plan wouldn't work today, though

    A View to a Kill is generally regarded as one of the least successful Bond movies. Yet it stands out for two things: a suave villain who is deranged in an entirely believable way, and a villainous plot that appeared both logical and plausible. While its box office performance was passable at $152m, on a budget of $30m, even …

    Bond, James Bond 8 Oct 09:00

  • Windows 7 overruns NHS Scotland

    Open sourcers sent homeward to think again

    NHS Scotland has snubbed open source alternatives to re-engage with Microsoft after signing an Enterprise Agreement covering the deployment of Windows 7 on nearly 100,000 desktops. The three year contract penned this summer is estimated to be worth around £5m in total with 17 of the 22 health boards in Scotland signing up. …

    The Channel 8 Oct 09:18

  • Amazon to buy its Seattle HQ from Paul Allen for over $1bn

    'Most expensive single office purchase EVER'

    Colossal etailer Amazon is going to buy its corporate headquarters in Seattle for $1.16bn, according to a company filing. The internet giant told the Securities and Exchange Commission that it's planning to snap up the complex of 11 buildings, around 1.8m square feet of office space, by the end of this year. The property is …

    Financial News 8 Oct 09:39

  • Stars spotted dancing superfast tango around black hole handbag

    'Whoa, look at 'em go,' applaud excited boffins

    Astroboffins have found a star whipping around our galaxy's central supermassive black hole so fast that it completes a circuit in just 11.5 years, which could help test Albert Einstein's theory of relativity. The orbit is the shortest known orbit of any star near a black hole, taking the star close enough to help figure out …

    Science 8 Oct 09:56

  • Man charged over alleged April Jones Facebook trolling

    Prosecutors still unsure where red line lies

    Lancashire police arrested a man on Saturday for allegedly offensive remarks he posted on Facebook about missing five-year-old April Jones from Machynlleth, Wales. Officers said they had arrested and later charged Matthew Wood, 20, of Eaves Lane, Chorley, "with sending by means of a public electronic communications network a …

    Law 8 Oct 10:14

  • Iran X.25 terrorists actually BANKERS

    Venerable network protocol probe bumble rumbled

    An innocent explanation has emerged after a security expert linked a group of Islamic extremists to Iran after supposedly discovering the crew on a list of state-sanctioned leased telephone lines in the Middle East nation. Mike Kemp, a co-founder of UK-based Xiphos Research, found two entries for "Ansar Al-Mujahideen" in a …

    Security 8 Oct 10:30

  • Motorola whacks laptop-like phone dock

    Webtop topped

    No one wants laptop-style keyboard accessories for their phones. Or, rather, no one wants Motorola Mobility’s version. The Google-owned handset maker last week admitted it had canned the product. The system debuted in 2011 as an add-on for Motorola’s Atrix smartphone. The handset docks into the accessory to provide processor, …

    reghardware 8 Oct 10:35

  • Brussels 'set to clear' state cash for UK broadband deployment

    Loads of competition going on in rural broadband, seemingly

    Europe's competition commissioner has reportedly signalled that he will allow state investment by the UK to improve rural broadband within the next few weeks. According to the Financial Times, only "minor changes" are required by Joaquin Almunia before the plan is granted approval from officials in Brussels. Other …

    Broadband 8 Oct 10:51

  • UK's first 4G network just switched on - and it's not from EE

    Southwark, Reading and Swindon leapfrog rest of Blighty

    While EE's 4G mobile network won't be switched on until the end of October, Blighty's other 4G network went live over the weekend. ISP UK Broadband uses 4G LTE to beam high-speed internet connectivity wirelessly to homes and offices. However its coverage is limited to Southwark, Reading and Swindon, so the plan is to compete …

    Broadband 8 Oct 10:58

  • Skydiver Baumgartner's 120,000ft spacesuit leap delayed by bad wind

    'Sorry chaps, we'll try again tomorrow, eh?'

    Titanium-testicled skydiver Felix Baumgartner is poised to make his attempt on the world's highest free-fall record. The Austrian - who described himself as "like a tiger in a cage waiting to get out" - was due to leap from his Red Bull Stratos space capsule today at a planned altitude of 36,576m (120,000ft) over the New …

    Bootnotes 8 Oct 11:28

  • Zynga cracks open can-o-gloom all over 2012 outlook

    OMG, OMGPOP went pop

    Zynga's shares took a dive after the social gamer announced that it was writing off half the value of OMGPOP, the developer of Draw Something acquired earlier this year. The social gaming firm cut its outlook for the year for the second time and said it expects a loss in the third quarter while also slashing up to $95m off …

    Financial News 8 Oct 11:52

  • Red Hat stalks VMware in field sport ambush

    Pic Gets message out to VMworld via grassroots channels

    Red Hat, you cheeky, cheeky monkeys Red Hat wants to grab the attention of delegates to VMworld Europe in Barcelona with a guerrilla marketing stunt that deploys the biggest hashtag we have seen. For its "Red Hat welcome", the vendor daubed the Shadowman logo, measuring 60x60 metres, in a massive field located directly …

    Virtualization 8 Oct 11:54

  • Crazed Microsoft robot accuses BBC kids' channel of Win8 piracy

    DMCA autocannon tries to blast HuffPo, CNN off Google

    Microsoft falsely branded BBC CBeebies, CNN.com and other websites as Windows 8 piracy haunts - and ordered Google to remove them from search results. Pages belonging to the Beeb's children’s telly service CBeebies, film reviews site Rottentomatoes and US cinema chain AMC Theaters - as well as web articles by the BBC's …

    Media 8 Oct 12:28

  • Register SPB hacks mull chopping off feet

    Should SI Units rule supreme in the Reg space programme?

    Weary special-projects-bureau operatives at El Reg have decided the time has come to consider exclusively adopting the International System of Units (aka SI Units), and ditching the mile, pound and related measurements. It's a royal pain in the backside working with two systems, which results in sentences such as "Baumgartner …

    SPB 8 Oct 13:01

  • Assange chums must cough up £93,500 bail over embassy lurk

    Wikileakster still living on sofa in small diplo flat

    While Julian Assange™ continues to sun himself under a SAD lamp in London's Ecuadorian Embassy, the supporters who put up his bail money - and so kept him out of British custody and free to hole up in the embassy - have been ordered to cough their cash up. Nine supporters of Assange have been told by judicial authorities to …

    Media 8 Oct 13:33

  • I can't wait for Pano to thrust some hard 3D love into size-zero models

    Sysadmin Blog Trevor Pott turns on latest super-thin clients

    Around this time last year I reviewed Pano Logic's Zero Client Solution, a sort of super-thin-client set of kit. I was test-driving the company's first-generation hardware and a software suite two versions behind the latest release. I've now had a chance to review the second-generation hardware with its latest software, and I …

    Virtualization 8 Oct 13:57

  • Guidelines issued for Qi wireless gadget charging in cars

    Worries over drivers stunned by flying plugless mobes

    The Wireless Power Consortium has published its recommendations for plugless in-car charging, primarily aimed at ensuring key fobs don't warm up and that phones don't become projectiles. Guidelines (pdf, as dull as one would imagine) from the custodian of the Qi wireless-charging standard require physical restraints on the …

    Hardware 8 Oct 14:36

  • Only buy Huawei or ZTE if you like being SPIED ON - US politicos

    Exhibitionists needn't listen to protectionists

    Huawei and ZTE, China's top makers of telecoms kit, should be locked out of the US market because their technology poses a security risk, a US House of Representatives group said today. The Intelligence Committee believes there is a threat of Chinese state influence on the two companies that would make them a liability in the …

    Data Networking 8 Oct 15:07

  • Lancashire man JAILED over April Jones Facebook posts

    Three months' porridge for 'grossly offensive' trolling

    A young man was jailed for 12 weeks today, after confessing to posting "grossly offensive" comments on Facebook about missing five-year-old April Jones. He posted some bad taste jokes culled from Sickipedia on a support group for April Jones's family and friends, according to press reports. Among the comments was: "I woke up …

    Law 8 Oct 15:52

  • Swivelling Eye-of-Sauron style WiFi maker preps $100m IPO

    Crazy fools are making and selling actual stuff

    Wi-Fi signal booster biz Ruckus Wireless has set in motion a $100m stock market debut, and hopes to be listed early next year. The company requested the stock symbol RKUS but didn't specify how many shares will be sold nor which exchange will host the listing - the fields are blank in the initial public offering paperwork …

    Business 8 Oct 15:53

  • VMware brings out new madly complicated enterprise buyer plan

    EPPic rulebook on Monopoly-money token scheme pops out

    VMware wants to leverage its dominance in server virtualization inside of corporate data centers into juggernaut status for enterprise private clouds, and to help that process along the company is rolling out a new enterprise purchasing agreement that will presumably get some grease to the skids and the palms as companies look …

    Virtualization 8 Oct 17:01

  • Stem cell discoveries land Nobel gong for Brit, Japanese boffins

    Top brains jingling with cash after Stockholm decision

    Blighty's Sir John Gurdon and Shinya Yamanaka of Japan have won this year's Nobel Prize for medicine or physiology for reprogramming adult cells. The boffins bagged the award and the £744,00 winnings for their research into nuclear rejigging, where adult cells are told to form early stem cells that can then be used to form any …

    Science 8 Oct 17:29

  • Bing is the most heavily poisoned search engine, study says

    Man, this Kool-Aid is chock full of payday loans

    Bing search results are more affected by poisoning than those of other search engines, according to a study by SophosLabs. Search engine poisoning attacks are designed to skew results so that dodgy sites - anything from malware infected websites to payday loan sites - appear prominently in the index of sites related to popular …

    Security 8 Oct 17:53

  • Foxconn denies factory labor strike reports

    Says iPhone production not at risk – honest!

    Foxconn has denied reports that a mass strike last week shut down its Zhengzhou, China factory, one of two Chinese plants where the Taiwanese manufacturing giant assembles Apple's latest iPhone. On Friday, New York–based labor rights group China Labor Watch had claimed that as many as 4,000 workers had walked off the job at …

    Business 8 Oct 18:07

  • 10 million iPad minis to 'outshine' their big brother this quarter

    Will we learn more on October 17? Maybe so, maybe not

    Reports have surfaced that Apple is planning for over 10 million iPad minis – or whatever they'll be called – to be available in the fourth quarter of this year, and that the design of the new 7.85-inch fondleslab could "outshine" its bigger brother, the iPad itself. The Wall Street Jounal reported on Sunday that sources among …

    Hardware 8 Oct 18:24

  • Cisco drops ZTE after claims of sanction-busting Iran sales

    Ruckus over reselling to the wrong people

    Cisco has confirmed that is has ended all sales agreements with ZTE, reportedly in response to an internal investigation into whether the Chinese firm was selling American hardware to Iran in defiance of sanctions. According to Reuters, an investigation by Cisco determined that its hardware was being shipped to Iran illegally …

    Data Networking 8 Oct 18:34

  • SpaceX confirms Falcon rocket suffered engine flame-out

    Video Kept calm, then corrected, and carried on

    SpaceX has confirmed that one of the engines on its Falcon rocket flamed out mid-flight during the launch of its resupply mission to the International Space Station. Around one minute after takeoff, the SpaceX team noted an anomaly on one of the first stage Merlin engines and shut it down. The Falcon is equipped with nine …

    Science 8 Oct 19:29

  • Tech rivals team up for free web dev docs

    Wiki site aims to be 'comprehensive and authoritative' – but don't we all?

    Apple, Facebook, Google, and Microsoft may seem like strange bedfellows, but the four have joined forces with six other organizations to create Web Platform Docs, a community-driven site that aims to be a one-stop shop for free web-developer documentation. "When you want to build something for the web, it's surprisingly …

    Developer 8 Oct 21:10

  • Turnbull upends bucket on data retention proposal

    Escaping the ‘digital dungeon’

    Australia’s opposition communications spokesman Malcolm Turnbull has made his strongest statement yet against the proposed data retention regime, asking an audience in Melbourne whether people are casting themselves into a “digital dungeon”. Delivering the Alfred Deakin lecture, Turnbull has created a poser for Australia’s …

    Policy 8 Oct 21:55

  • Lunar water-prospecting rover rolls closer towards launch

    Company seeks the $20m Google Lunar X Prize with two candidate craft

    Astrobotic Technology, a privately funded spacecraft developer, has announced that its has completed a full-size prototype of its second Moon rover, Polaris, which is scheduled to fly in October 2015 aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket. Polaris is one of two Moon rovers under development by Astrobotic in competition for the Google …

    Science 8 Oct 22:55

  • 40,000 sign petition to oust Rep. Paul 'pit of hell' Broun

    Politician applies Bible to science, space, and technology

    A petition asking from the removal of Representative Paul Broun (R-GA) from the House Science, Space and Technology Committee has garnered well over 40,000 signatures in the two days since a video of his views on the topics he oversees was made public. "All that stuff I was taught about evolution, embryology, Big Bang theory, …

    Government 8 Oct 23:59