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11th October 2012 Archive

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  • HP says Gartner's wrong, IDC's right, on PC sales data

    Workstation sales matter, says HP, as Gartner awards Lenovo PC sales crown

    HP has taken the very unusual step of issuing commentary on IDC's latest PC sales data, which says the PC market is now nearly a tie between HP and Lenovo. That assessment is in marked contrast to Gartner's most recent effort on the same topic, which has Lenovo at number one. Both analysts' data make for ugly reading. IDC's …

    Business 11 Oct 00:40

  • Ubuntu goes fishing for donations with new download page

    'Spare us a quarter for an ISO, sir?'

    From now on, for every download of the popular Ubuntu desktop Linux distribution, parent company Canonical will be passing the hat. Beginning on Tuesday, the download process for the open source OS includes a new screen that gives users the opportunity to donate – or rather, contribute – to the project via PayPal, with a …

    Software 11 Oct 00:53

  • Parliamentary report details German police snoop-spend

    Skype, mail, chat all on the intercept list

    Blogger Anna Roth has accused German police of monitoring Skype, Facebook chat and Google Mail, following an examination of expenditures by the country’s Ministry of Home Affairs. In the wake of last year’s notorious discovery that police were using a Trojan to spy on criminal suspects – legal in limited cases, but according …

    Policy 11 Oct 01:30

  • It’s official: Google shrinks the world!

    To the size of a London bus, roughly

    An anonymous reader has pointed us to this slip in Google Calculator: someone – or something – picked the wrong units for Earth’s escape velocity. If you ask Google – using the search term "Earth Escape Velocity" – and you’ll get the result in the shot below. Is that a comma or a decimal? Google's response to a search for …

    Science 11 Oct 04:47

  • Microsoft really is watching us from above

    The 260-megapixel cameras behind Bing Maps can be yours

    Microsoft really is watching us all from above and even has a new way of doing so, thanks to this week's release of the UltraCam Falcon, a camera dedicated to aerial photography. The UltraCam comes from an Austrian Microsoft outpost that Redmond says “brings more than two decades of photogrammetry expertise to Microsoft’s Bing …

    Hardware 11 Oct 05:20

  • China wants more hi-tech importers

    Beijing's deep pockets to the rescue again

    The wobbly global economy is set to further stunt growth in China’s domestic technology market, leading Beijing to offer even greater financial incentives to encourage more hi-tech imports to the country. The Chinese government will offer 2.5bn yuan (£249m) in loan subsidies to importers of unspecified advanced technologies …

    Business 11 Oct 06:04

  • Jaws restored Blu-ray disc set review

    The great white is back in Blu

    Jaws is back, and the old shark’s gnashers are looking sharper than ever thanks to a painstaking remastering job by Universal’s backroom boffins. The title is being released as part of the studio’s centenary classics program for Blu-ray, which also includes E.T The Extra Terrestrial, The Birds and Frankenstein. The timing couldn …

    reghardware 11 Oct 07:00

  • Reds in the Routers is routine, not rare

    Communists operate freely in US outfits' China operations, not just at Huawei

    Critics of a recent report by US lawmakers highlighting serious national security concerns with Huawei and ZTE have argued that their internal Communist Party committees, which are slammed in the report, are actually a feature of most foreign firms in China. The House of Representatives Intelligence Committee finally released …

    Business 11 Oct 07:13

  • ICO tries to justify hefty NHS data breach fines

    Money 'effectively' comes straight from patient care pot

    The UK's data protection watchdog has defended its civil monetary penalty regime after it was criticised for the amounts of fines levied on public health bodies. Earlier this week Christopher Fincken, the chairman of the UK Council of Caldicott Guardians, said that the money NHS bodies were using to pay fines levied on them by …

    Government 11 Oct 07:28

  • Russian Christians boosted by Pussy Riot law spank 'sinful' Apple logo

    Nuts replace fruit with crosses

    Apple has been criticised before - but never for promoting original sin. Seemingly emboldened by upcoming national legislation on blasphemy, Russian Orthodox Christians have defaced the logos on Apple products because they consider the bitten Apple to be anti-Christian, says Russian news agency Interfax (in Russian). The …

    Bootnotes 11 Oct 08:02

  • Skype worm chats up victims - then holds PCs to ransom

    U mad lol?!

    A worm that locks Windows PC users out of their computers unless they pay a $200 ransom is rapidly spreading via Skype. Once it has secreted itself into a machine, the malware tricks further victims into installing it by using the Microsoft-owned VoIP software to send messages that read "lol is this your new profile pic?" The …

    Security 11 Oct 08:22

  • Stick punters' mugs on e-banking pages, that'll end fraud - Schneier

    RSA Europe Crypto guru urges creative thinking from security pros

    Cryptography guru Bruce Schneier called for more creative thinking and a broader perspective as a means to tackle security problems. For example, the music industry, faced with an explosion in online file-sharing, hired security pros to develop anti-piracy measures, such as digital rights management technology. But these …

    Security 11 Oct 08:39

  • November election sends chill down Valley shareholders' necks

    Open... and Shut Obama victory + end of Facebook lock in = share flood

    Across Silicon Valley, internet biz stocks are taking a beating as the market reacts to serious challenges at Zynga and elsewhere. Unfortunately, it may well get worse. Due to the expected rise in US long-term capital gains tax rates under President Obama, the pressure on all technology stocks may hit new highs from the …

    Financial News 11 Oct 09:05

  • Teachers get earful of racy XXX chat in Capita IT cock-up

    'Hello, helpdesk? I need to put my joystick WHERE?'

    Capita's school IT wing is on the naughty step after putting teachers and administrators through to advertisements for adult chat lines. Anyone trying to get through to the support helpdesk for the Capita School Information Management System in the last few days has instead been transferred to wrong numbers, including some XXX …

    Government 11 Oct 09:23

  • New broom at OCZ: But can Schmitt sweep up this dirtpile?

    'Talking less and hitting harder', says CEO in a talk

    After having pre-announced a revenue shortfall OCZ has now pre-announced an even worse revenue shortfall - and has got a new CEO to drag itself out of the hole in which it currently resides. As expected ex-PLX president and OCZ board member Ralph Schmitt becomes the new OCZ CEO, and he comes in as the second quarter FY2012 …

    Storage 11 Oct 09:39

  • World+Dog hails 50th birthday of the LED

    But this now commonplace technology is much, much older

    The Light Emitting Diode (LED) is 50 years old. Well, kind of... It’s certainly 50 years since Nick Holonyak, working at GEC’s Syracuse, New York facility, developed what is considered the first LED capable of generating visible light. Holonyak’s LED was also the first to be in form ready for commercial usage. He wrote up his …

    reghardware 11 Oct 09:46

  • Serenading mice can sing along if you hum a few bars

    Disney didn't lie after all

    Neuroboffins are claiming that mice can not only sing, serenading at ultrasonic melodies high above soprano, but they can also change their tune. The study has found certain brain features, associated with human and song-learning birds' brains, that show they may be able to learn new songs from each other. Scientists have …

    Science 11 Oct 10:07

  • Schmidt: Google deathmatch with Apple is 'defining' for the tech biz

    Advertiser vs mega-brand ... that's depressing

    Google and Apple are in the "defining fight" of the tech industry today, the advertising firm's chief modestly reckons. Mountain View chairman Eric Schmidt is expecting more than a billion smartphones running Android around the world within a year and he reckons that's gonna tick the fruity firm off even more than it is …

    Media 11 Oct 10:14

  • Tintri's VDI flash disk mix: The kit that booted 1,000 virtual desktops

    VMWorld Barcelona Legion of clones spawned in just 9 seconds each

    Tintri and VMware showed the virtualisation players how it's done at VMWorld today when they tested a Tintri hybrid storage array booting 1,000 virtual desktops in two-and-a-half hours – nine seconds per desktop. Tintri hybrid flash and disk drive arrays are purpose-designed to support virtual server operations. The test set …

    Virtualization 11 Oct 10:31

  • Facebook says it's LOSING money in the UK ... pays hardly any tax

    90 costly employees put ads firm in the red

    Facebook's UK operation plunged to a £13.9m pre-tax loss in 2011, compared with a £1.1m profit a year earlier, accounts filed with Companies House revealed. The dominant social network blamed a "share based payment charge" of more than £15m last year. It said that profit before tax that excluded that payment stood at £1.5m for …

    Media 11 Oct 10:43

  • Six months under water and iPhone 4 STILL WORKS

    Immersion, lake and palm 'er

    If you submerged a phone in two metres of water for any serious period of time, you'd never expect to see it work again, right? So imagine the surprise when one iPhone owner recovered his handset from a lake six months after it fell in - only to find it still works. iPhone owners are well known for dropping their blowers in …

    reghardware 11 Oct 10:44

  • HP's PC boss caught napping by Lenovo raid

    Channel Forum Printer accessories don't keep Cador awake

    HP knew Lenovo was coming up quickly from behind, but its EMEA PC chief clearly thought HP had a little more breathing space at the top of the PC market. Last night Gartner crowned Lenovo as the world's largest box-shifter into the channel during Q3, capturing 15.7 per cent of global sales-in to distributors and retailers …

    The Channel 11 Oct 11:02

  • Siemens expected to announce job cuts, closures

    Six hundred suits summoned by chief to hear the news

    Siemens chief Peter Loescher will outline a plan today on how the industrial tech giant will attempt to save up to €4bn ($5.2bn, £3.2bn), one that is widely expected to include jobs cuts and office closures. Despite the German economy's strength compared to the rest of Europe - or even arguably most of the world - global hard …

    Business 11 Oct 11:37

  • Government Digital Service to live in 'multi-tenanted' cloud from SCC

    Martha Lane Fox's baby to deliver digital drizzle

    Reseller-cum-integrator SCC has bagged a G-Cloud contract to provide hosting and IT services to the Government Digital Service (GDS). This deal comes less than two months after the Midlands-based firm was the first to be given clearance to punt its nine cloudy services, under the OptimizeCloud banner, to all gov departments. …

    The Channel 11 Oct 11:58

  • Sites can slurp browser history right out of Firefox 16

    Plug promised today for leaky hole

    A hole in Firefox 16 makes it possible for a malicious site to access a user's browsing history, Mozilla security chief Michael Coates revealed in a blog yesterday. Coates promised a patch today for the vulnerability in the latest version of the browser. Mozilla 16 was released on Tuesday but pulled a day later because of the …

    Security 11 Oct 12:27

  • Big Blue: Future of our sales - and the channel - lies in ... MSPs

    Channels Forum 'Erm , what exactly do you mean by "MSP"?'

    IBM’s mid-market boss told the Canalys Channels Forum this week that the share of the vendor's business going through the channel will increase by a quarter in the next couple of years as companies move their IT spending to managed services. But some of the mega vendor’s traditional partners at the event seemed unsure about …

    The Channel 11 Oct 12:36

  • O2 overlord looking to push payments-via-mobile-bill model

    Hard to flog a horse if you've skinned it alive

    Telefonica is gunning for carrier billing, publicly declaring that its UK operation, O2, will give merchants a bigger cut, and signing a deal integrating its BlueVia API with Telenor for cross-operating billing. The increased cut should encourage more transactions to be processed through the mobile-phone billing platform, as …

    Mobile 11 Oct 12:58

  • Avnet 'evaluating resource commitments' as times stay tough

    'Resource commitments' means your job

    Avnet is looking to cut up to $50m off its expenses bill and reduce the workforce after releasing preliminary results for fiscal Q1 that show a near double digit sales slide. The distributor says turnover will be approximately $5.85bn, down nine per cent year-on-year for the period ended 29 September, and it's the Technology …

    The Channel 11 Oct 13:03

  • Steelie Neelie: Settle your Do-No-Track squabbles or else

    I will call in the politicians

    Regulators may impose a Do-Not-Track standard on squabbling tech vendors and web businesses after they missed a deadline to develop their own proposal. EU member states are looking at how to enforce DNT under ePrivacy rules, the vice president responsible for the Digital Agenda Neelie Kroes said Wednesday. Kroes also hinted …

    Government 11 Oct 13:34

  • Sony pops pastries as PS3 sales pass 5m

    A bun dance?

    Sony sent us baked goodies today in celebration of selling five million PlayStation 3s here in the UK. Following last month's PS3 Super Slim launch, the Japanese firm enjoyed a huge jump in sales and this week surpassed the 5m mark in Blighty, a figure confirmed by GfK Chart-Track. A second Super Slim edition with a 12GB …

    reghardware 11 Oct 13:50

  • Ballmer's lightened pay packet is the least of his problems

    Open ... and Shut What's that smell around Windows 8?

    Citing "slower than planned progress" at Microsoft's online services division and a 3 per cent decline in Windows revenue, Microsoft's board cut chief executive Steve Ballmer's pay to 91 per cent of his plan, or $1.3m. But that's the least of his concerns. Microsoft is about to embark on the biggest shift in its Windows …

    Developer 11 Oct 14:00

  • Wanted! 4m-plus PC purchases to halt industry decline

    Stop taking the tablets, punters told

    The PC industry needs YOUR help! Dell, HP, Acer, Asus, Sony, Apple, Lenovo, Toshiba and co. require stout - and well-heeled - lads and lasses to pop out and buy just over four million machines before the end of December 2012 and prevent world PC sales slipping year-on-year for the first time in more than a decade. That is …

    reghardware 11 Oct 14:17

  • How Nokia managed to drive its in-house Linux train off the rails

    Special Report When Meego lost its mojo

    Nokia's strategy to revive its fortunes with its home-grown Linux was derailed by academic theory, bureaucratic in-fighting and a misguided partnership with Intel, a new report reveals. Finnish publication Taskumuro has published an extensive history of the Meego project which contains a mixture of old and new: some …

    Developer 11 Oct 14:25

  • NetApp and Cisco waggle shrunken ExpressPod at Hitachi and friends

    VMworld Get a load of our converged convergement

    It looks like the vendors are sizing each other up for battle in the converged systems world at VMworld: NetApp and Cisco have announced ExpressPod, a pre-packed and tested and downsized FlexPod. Storage clustering has been added into the FlexPod mix and Oracle has announced an RAC/VMware FlexPod. Just one day after Hitachi's …

    Storage 11 Oct 15:02

  • Woz labels Apple 'arrogant' over iPhone size inadequacy

    Thumbs down from co-founder

    Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak has called Apple "arrogant" and wishes the Cupertino firm would produce bigger phones. The bearded innovator offers familiar criticism of the company he helped to form in a podcast session with TalkCentral. Woz says the only reason the iPhone 5 doesn't have a bigger screen is due to Apple's …

    Hardware 11 Oct 15:19

  • Foxconn: Worker who lost half his brain in accident must leave hospital

    'Commies made us do it', insists fondleslabricator

    iDevice-maker Foxconn has confirmed to the media that it has been pushing for a Chinese worker with brain damage caused by a factory accident to leave the hospital. Zhang Tingzhen's family said the manufacturer, which makes kit for Apple and other tech firms, has been sending text messages to them since July, demanding that he …

    Bootnotes 11 Oct 15:21

  • Archos Android update said to brick G9 slates

    Ice Cream creates freeze

    An Archos firmware update - supposed to take the company's budget G9 Android tablet up to Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich - has been pulled after users complained that it bricks their hardware. The Archos G9 - which can now be picked up for as low as £115 - actually comes equipped with Android 3.2 Honeycomb, but promises an …

    reghardware 11 Oct 15:21

  • TLC NAND could penetrate biz with flash-to-flash backup

    VMworld Barcelona Who'll lead the dash to flashedy-flash?

    Violin co-founder and CTO Jon Bennett identified a potential enterprise role for three-level cell (TLC) flash at VMworld Barcelona today: flash-to-flash backup. TLC is currently seen as pure consumer technology. The first TLC NAND SSD has been announced by Samsung. But TLC NAND has a short working life, with 500 - 750 phase/ …

    Storage 11 Oct 16:03

  • Compuware puffs up Outage Analyzer to fight performance anxiety

    Ad serving and web analytics services have high failure rate... who knew?

    Compuware is taking another stab at making the data gathered from users of its Gomez performance monitoring network available on a freebie basis in a bid to get IT shops hooked on using the more sophisticated and definitely not free tools. The company has also upgraded its application performance monitoring tools for …

    Servers 11 Oct 16:57

  • Experts split over regulation for bounty-hunting bug sniffers

    RSA Europe Exploit vuln marketplace grows rapidly

    Security researchers attending the RSA Europe conference are split over regulating the controversial exploit vulnerability marketplace. In recent years several vendors, including Google, Firefox and later Facebook and PayPal have offered bug bounties for security researchers who find flaws in their products or services. …

    Security 11 Oct 18:02

  • Sprint confirms buyout offer from Japan's Softbank

    Rumored $12.8bn deal would give controlling stake

    Sprint Nextel, the third-largest US mobile carrier, has confirmed that it is in talks that could result in its takeover by Japanese mobile carrier Softbank. The Wall Street Journal was first to report on the negotiations, based on a tip by an inside source. Details of the talks were not clear, though it's estimated that the …

    Financial News 11 Oct 19:00

  • Apple files disappearing-feature iPhone patent

    The ultimate in 'aesthetic appeal' – a featureless slab

    Apple has filed a patent application for the ability to hide some of a device's components – such as its camera, biometric sensors, or even its entire display – until they are needed. "Electronic devices are becoming more and more sophisticated, capable of performing a multitude of tasks from image capture to identity …

    Hardware 11 Oct 20:21

  • Google updates Street View with 250,000 miles of footage

    Rubbing salt in Apple's wounds

    Google has released its biggest-ever update to Street View, adding 250,000 miles of updated photography and double the number of image collections from notable spots around the world. "We're increasing Street View coverage in Macau, Singapore, Sweden, the US, Thailand, Taiwan, Italy, Great Britain, Denmark, Norway and Canada …

    Applications 11 Oct 20:21

  • Facebook, Twitter, ordered not to spoil MURDER trial

    Social networks challenged by Oz Magistrate, but show little sign of compliance

    The Deputy Chief Magistrate in the Australian State of Victoria, Felicity Broughton, has ordered Facebook and Twitter must remove material that may prejudice a murder trial. The future trial of Adrian Ernest Bayley will be watched with exceptionally keen interest in Australia, as Bailey's alleged crimes – the rape and murder …

    Law 11 Oct 20:22

  • Reg hack spares blushes at Infrastructure NSW, Cisco

    Wrong document on website means we may have dropped a sysadmin in it

    Here at Vulture South we're always trying to cook up story ideas, and this week one that wormed its way into our cerebellum was whether the recently-released 'First Things First' plan from Infrastructure New South Wales included any thinking on technology's role in infrastructure planning. The plan is a centrepiece of the new- …

    Policy 11 Oct 20:30

  • AMD lowers revenue expectations in run up to Q3 report

    It's that darn 'challenging macroeconomic environment' again

    AMD has announced lowered expectations for its third-quarter financial results, with revenues declining 10 per cent from the previous quarter, down from the 1 per cent – give or take 3 per cent – that it had previously projected. "The lower than anticipated preliminary revenue results are primarily due to weaker than expected …

    Financial News 11 Oct 20:59

  • Yale finds second diamond planet

    An astronomer’s best friend

    Astronomy has turned up a second diamond planet, and it’s a relative neighbor to the solar system – a mere 40 light-years distant, circling 55 Cancri. Unlike the diamond planet discovered by Australian astronomers last year, this one didn’t even need a pulsar’s gravity to give it the squeeze. It inherited its mostly-carbon …

    Science 11 Oct 22:21

  • Galaxy Nexus cleared for sale by US court

    Lawyers’ roadshow grinds on and on and on and on

    The patent pendulum has taken a small swing in Samsung’s direction, with a US court clearing the company’s ageing Galaxy Nexus phone for sale in the US. The decision, by the US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, follows a ruling earlier this month that allowed the Galaxy Tab 10.1 to go on sale. District judge Lucy Koh …

    Business 11 Oct 22:26

  • Apple bags chippery guru from rival Samsung

    Move unlikely to deepen Korean love for Cupertino

    There's already no love lost between Seoul and Cupertino, but that rivalry has surely racheted up another notch now that Apple has reportedly bagged one of the Korean electronics giant's top chip designers. The Wall Street Journal reported on Thursday that Apple has hired Jim Mergard, who joined Samsung last June as one of a …

    Business 11 Oct 23:11

  • Curiosity finds . . . wait for it . . . a ROCK on MARS!

    Tales of an Earth-like igneous rock named Jake

    NASA reports that the first Martian rock it has examined with the Curiosity's arm-mounted Alpha Particle X-Ray Spectrometer (APXS) shows curious similarities to a rare form of mineral found on Earth. The rock, named "Jake Matijevic" after a JPL engineer who died just after Curiosity landed on Mars, was lasered 30 times on 14 …

    Science 11 Oct 23:14

  • Cisco lobbied telco customers to steer clear of Huawei

    Marketing campaign painted Chinese firm as a threat

    Lawmakers aren't the only ones who have been pushing to block Chinese networking companies, including Huawei and ZTE, from bidding on US telecom contracts. According to The Washington Post, some of the strongest pressure has come from the Chinese firms' US-based competitors, in particular Cisco. The networking giant has been …

    Data Networking 11 Oct 23:21

  • Cloud company foraged for hard drives to stay afloat

    Backblaze employees banned by COSTCO after PLUNDERING stores

    When floods hit Thailand last year and crimped the global supply of hard drives, US-based cloud storage company Backblaze feared it would run out of storage. The company's fears weren't unfounded - it uses 50TB a day – so it sensibly tried to buy up as many drives as possible to build a buffer against the shortage. That effort …

    Storage 11 Oct 23:51