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26th October 2012 Archive

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  • Surface tablet's touch cover is ZX81 REBORN

    FIRST FONDLE Hands on with Redmond's Typoslab

    The Surface tablet's Touch Cover is eerily reminiscent of typing on a ZX81, The Register can report after fondling one of the elusive (to non Microsoft-adoring press) computers at the Australian launch of Windows 8. To do so, we elbowed aside other media and scored a few minutes on a Surface running Windows RT. We were able to …

    Hardware 26 Oct 00:00

  • TSA fails again with adjustable boarding passes

    Lets passengers pick their own security rating

    The reputation of possibly America's least-favorite fondlers, the Transportation Security Administration (TSA), has taken yet another hit with the discovery that its shoddy security allows passengers in its PreCheck system to pick their own security status. PreCheck allows some frequent fliers willing to pay $100 for a …

    Security 26 Oct 00:15

  • Apple CEO: Microsoft Surface 'compromised, confusing'

    But Cupertinian kit is 'incredible, amazing, fabulous, jaw-dropping,' etcetera

    Apple CEO Tim Cook hasn't got his hands on a Microsoft Surface yet – which, frankly, would have been difficult, since it was formally announced just this Thursday – but he already doesn't like it. "I haven't personally played with the Surface yet," Cook said during a conference call with reporters and analysts after Apple …

    Hardware 26 Oct 00:18

  • Australian Win 8 launch fails to mention business

    Connected to everything, except the desktop and sysadmins

    Microsoft has officially taken the wraps of Windows 8 in Australia, without ever once mentioning a reason businesses would consider an upgrade or showing a single pixel of the 'classic' desktop. Your correspondent has attended every Windows launch since the year 2001 and cannot recall one ever being so devoid of mentions about …

    Software 26 Oct 01:42

  • ITU signs off on modular power supply proposal

    Let the committee meetings begin!

    Members of the International Telecommunications Union (ITU_) have signed off on the organisation's proposal to make power supplies for electronic gadgetry more modular. As The Reg noted in September, the ITU believes billions of power supplies are made each year. Many fail because of simple problems like broken cables. The …

    Hardware 26 Oct 03:36

  • 'Huawei partner' tried to sell US tech to Iran

    Updated More fuel for the anti-China lobby

    Chinese telecoms kit maker Huawei narrowly avoided the wrath of US investigators last year after a business described by Reuters as a Huawei supplier* offered to sell American-made equipment to Iran in a deal that would have broken sanctions, it has emerged. Tehran-based Soda Gostar Persian Vista was ready to sell 36 cell …

    Policy 26 Oct 03:47

  • Brainwaves hint at gamer glory

    Alpha brains will frag faster

    Boffins in Illinois say they can predict who will do well at a new computer game by reading their brainwaves. Using the research game Space Fortress on 39 people who weren’t regular game players, the researchers say that strong alpha oscillations are a “robust predictor” of how quickly the test subjects would improve at the …

    Science 26 Oct 04:30

  • China's largest rare earth supplier halts production

    PRC suffers slump as global demand slows

    China’s stranglehold on the world’s rare earth supply appears to be relaxing, with its largest producer of light rare earths forced to halt some of its operations for a month in an attempt to stop prices slipping further. The Inner Mongolia Baotou Steel Rare Earth Hi-Tech Company is suspending its smelting and separation …

    Business 26 Oct 05:15

  • Chinese e-cars to turn London cabs green

    Boris-backed deal will see 50 electric minicabs hit the capital's streets

    Chinese car manufacturer BYD will help to make the streets of London just a little bit greener after signing a deal with the capital’s second largest minicab service to supply the city’s first fleet of electric taxis. Greentomatocars, which describe itself as “London’s second largest quality minicab service”, signed a …

    Science 26 Oct 05:30

  • WTF is... Microsoft Xbox SmartGlass?

    Feature Remote control on steroids, but not yet a Wii U beater

    Microsoft launches its Xbox 360 SmartGlass software today, a free app that allows the console's film, games and music services to be tapped from a mobile device. It becomes an informative second screen to display additional content, or simply acts as a helpful go-between twixt a user's console, mobile and PC platform. …

    Hardware 26 Oct 07:00

  • Brace yourselves, IT suppliers: You'll be squeezed HARDER next year

    It's no fun being an outsourcer

    IT law specialist Clare Murray of Pinsent Masons, the law firm behind Out-Law.com, said that cost-cutting requirements and the changing needs of organisations are behind a rise in the number of IT outsourcing contract renegotiations. She said she expects the trend to continue. "Customers are under pressure to cut costs and are …

    Management 26 Oct 07:26

  • Samsung ships two smartphones for every one Apple sells

    Galaxy giant dominates handset biz in Q3

    We already knew smartphone shipments have never been higher, and now we know that, in Q3 at least, the beneficiary is Samsung. According to ABI Research and Strategy Analytics, market watchers both, the Korean chaebol - a multi-industry colossus - took more than a third of the market. According to SA, Samsung’s share was 35.2 …

    Apps 26 Oct 07:42

  • N00bs vs Windows 8: We lock six people in a room with new OS

    'It's like they tried to make my computer a mobile phone'

    The design of Windows 8's user interface - The Interface Formerly Known as Metro (TIFKAM) - leaves non-technical users yearning for the good ol' Start button. The Reg can report that finding after some rather non-scientific tests in which we offered different folks their very first experience of Windows 8. We chose …

    Windows 8 26 Oct 08:02

  • iPad Mini vs Nexus 7: inch makes all the difference, says Apple CEO

    Tim Cook and the mild-mannered inch

    To Apple CEO Tim Cook, an inch is everything. Apple’s iPad Mini has an 8in display - its closest Android-based rivals all have 7in screens. A big difference, says Cook. "We would not make a 7in tablet," he told financial analysts and journalist eavesdroppers during a conference call last night. "We don't think they're good …

    Tablets 26 Oct 08:18

  • 4G: Bad coverage, crap battery life - but at least it's really expensive

    Comment Bonus feature: Can't handle voice calls

    Six weeks ago Everything Everywhere EE announced the UK's first 4G network. "A new era dawned over London," Daily Telegraph writer Matt Warman told us. Mourners shuffled into the streets of Leicester and Stoke, and buried an enormous dongle in a mock funeral. That weekend, travelling football supporters from those cities were …

    Mobile 26 Oct 08:30

  • Dr No, Thunderball, Casino Royale? Vote now for the best Bond film

    Poll There's got to be a Dalton fan out there somewhere

    Over the past couple of weeks, we've had an entertaining time deciding on the vilest Bond villain and the ultimate movie Bond, so the the time has come to pose perhaps the most critical 007 question: What's the best James Bond film? Sean Connery was voted your fave Bond, so we suspect one of his outings has to be in with a …

    Bond, James Bond 26 Oct 09:01

  • America mounts attempt to top the Register's world record spaceflight

    Crack Indiana boffins challenge our epic PARIS project

    It's come to our attention that a crack squad of US students is poised to make an attempt on El Reg's Guinness World Record for the highest launch of a paper plane. On 28 October 2010, our Paper Aircraft Released Into Space (PARIS) Vulture 1 spaceplane glided into the history books from a dizzying 89,591ft* (27,310m). Well, …

    SPB 26 Oct 09:28

  • Kick your computer... before it kicks you

    Something for the Weekend, Sir? Spleen to vent? Take it out on your tech

    My in-laws are a boisterous clan, or so it seems to a reserved half-Scot like myself. You see, they are French... well, more of a volatile Spanish-Italian-Latin mix with an explosive temper born from a Mediterranean climate, macho upbringing and unspeakable experiences in revolutionary Algeria. Meals are embellished with …

    Hardware 26 Oct 10:03

  • UK.gov unzips, pulls out £100m wad for its favourite suppliers

    Now if only civil servants could log into the CloudStore

    The UK Cabinet Office says as much as £100m of public-sector IT contracts are now up for grabs for the 458 cloud services providers approved by Whitehall. All the government needs to do now is teach IT buyers in the public sector how to actually use the newly launched UK.gov G-Cloud 2 CloudStore, Blighty's online procurement …

    The Channel 26 Oct 10:14

  • Surface RT: Freedom luvin' app-huggers beware

    Review A hybrid with potential for productivity types

    “It’s the ultimate expression of a Windows PC,” says Windows chief Steven Sinofsky... or “a compromised, confusing product”, according to Apple’s Tim Cook, who has not used one. This is Surface RT, Microsoft’s first own-brand tablet, which went on sale today. Along with the fact that it runs Windows 8, there are two notable …

    Tablets 26 Oct 10:29

  • Inventor sues Google Wallet over NFC loyalty patent

    More than one billygoat headed across that bridge, though

    Loyalty scheme pioneer Peter Sprogis is taking Google to court, claiming that the search engine's NFC Wallet infringes his 2007 patent on adding loyalty to pay-by-bonk apps. Sprogis is based in Florida, but the case will be heard in patent-holder-friendly Delaware and was spotted by Startups and IP Strategy. The patent in …

    Law 26 Oct 10:44

  • Better luck next time Blofeld! Five Bond plot myths busted

    Bond on Film What do you mean, 'why don't we just nuke them, boss?'

    Keep it simple – if only the villains of James Bond had learned that lesson in Evil Medical School. All too often, though, the Ernst Stavro Blofelds and Karl Strombergs of 007’s world succumb to their maniacal tendencies and plot ridiculously complicated plans to off Bond or take over the world, where a simple bullet or well- …

    Bootnotes 26 Oct 11:00

  • Cornwall chokes on £300m local gov deal with IT kingpins

    CSC doesn't like the smell of the pasty, BT eyes loot

    Cornwall Council has stalled a £300m ten-year deal to outsource its call centres and other IT systems to the private sector. The county's councillors voted 93-0, with seven abstentions, to put the brakes on the contract, snubbing BT and CSC which had each put in bids for the huge cash pot. The move came after 6,000 people …

    Government 26 Oct 11:15

  • Microsoft: Just swallow this tablet ... the rest will take care of itself

    Open ... and Shut Redmond will win on the fondletop, not software

    The clearest sign that Windows 8 may have a fighting chance has nothing to do with the software, and everything to do with hardware. Microsoft's hardware, that is. The gods must be crazy. After all, Microsoft has spent decades printing money based on a booming software business. Despite the criticism leveled by the technorati …

    Hardware 26 Oct 11:27

  • ICO fines council £120,000 for crypto email fail

    Take the money out of the bins budget

    Stoke-on-Trent City Council has been fined £120,000 for failing to use proper cryptography, resulting in the details of a child-protection case being shared with the wrong people. Last December a solicitor involved in a child-protection case sent 11 e-mails relating to the case to the wrong email address, a simple typo meaning …

    Security 26 Oct 11:44

  • Wales: Let's ban Gibraltar-crazy Wikipedians for 5 years

    Too bad you're not the boss, Jimbo

    You could be forgiven for thinking the front-page of Wikipedia is sponsored by the Gibraltar Tourist Board, with the territory given the kind of product placement large corporations can only dream of. Now Wikipedia's self-styled "spiritual leader" Jimmy Wales has publicly stated that he wants the Wikipedians' curious enthusiasm …

    Media 26 Oct 12:00

  • Amazon lends e-books free to Prime subscribers

    Better to borrow than buy?

    Amazon’s UK wing is now a lending library, albeit a private one exclusive to folk willing to cough up £49 a year. Yes, Amazon Prime subscribers with Kindles can now borrow any of 200,000 e-books for no charge other than their annual Prime sub. They can pick no more than one book a month, but there’s no digital equivalent of …

    Tablets 26 Oct 12:36

  • EDF: We'll raise bills 11% - but only 2% is due to energy costs!

    Thank carbon emissions targets for the rest

    EDF Energy is the latest of the UK's Big Six energy suppliers to announce brutal price rises, in this case an increase no less than 10.8 per cent - yet the company openly admits that energy prices would call for a 2 per cent rise at most. Why on Earth does the firm think it's OK to implement a price rise almost six times that …

    Government 26 Oct 12:42

  • APPLE: SCREW YOU, BRITS, everyone else says Samsung copied us

    But we will apologise because the judge said we had to

    Apple has complied with a UK court order by admitting on its website that Samsung's Galaxy Tab did not rip off the patented iPad design. High Court Judge Birss had instructed Apple to publish a statement online and in print after ruling that the South Korean electronics giant had not infringed Cupertino's patent. The statement …

    Hardware 26 Oct 12:57

  • Ingram's Monie on money: Murky outlook for IT world ahead

    Chief of World's Biggest Distie sees murky outlook

    Ingram Micro - the world's largest technology distributor - doesn't expect the global economy or the IT industry to pick up anytime soon. Last night the firm posted calendar Q3 numbers with a driving currency headwind almost wiping out sales growth not helped by the economy in Europe either. Turnover climbed 1 per cent year- …

    The Channel 26 Oct 13:11

  • Added flash fails to get network adapters out of QLogic's doors

    Server slump slams Biddiscombe right in the numbers

    QLogic reported revenues of $117.9m for its second fiscal 2013 quarter ending 30 September, down 13.5 per cent on the year-ago quarter, and down 9.6 per cent on the first 2013 quarter. It made a profit of $11.9m, way down on the year-ago quarter's $28.7m and the preceding quarter's $18.4m. The business is shrinking. President …

    Data Networking 26 Oct 13:54

  • GooPad's eight-incher gives Apple fans cheap relief

    Knock-off, early at work

    Knock-off iPad manufacturer GooPad has followed Apple and unveiled a mini version of its i-style slate. It packs similar specs, ish, but as you can imagine, has a far cheaper price than the real thing. The GooPad Mini may be devoid of the highly-sought fruit logo, but with an 8in display at 1080 x 768 pixels, a 1.4GHz dual- …

    Tablets 26 Oct 14:36

  • LARGEST BELCH EVER SEEN devastates gassy GIANT Saturn

    Colossal ethylene eructation 'bigger than Earth'

    A titanic storm wracking the atmosphere of Saturn, ringed giant planet of the outer Solar System, resulted in an "unprecedented belch of energy" and an associated super-enormous emission of ethylene gas "the origin of which is a mystery", according to NASA boffins. "This temperature spike is so extreme it's almost unbelievable …

    Science 26 Oct 14:36

  • EC watchdogs clear Tech Data gobble of SDG

    $350m deal gets green light, Tech Data raises funds, should all be tickety boo

    Tech Data's acquisition of Specialist Distribution Group (SDG) has been given the green light from competition regulators in the European Commission. As is customary with takeovers of large firms, the bureaucrats on the mainland wanted to consider the implications of the $350m (£217.4m) deal. "The Commission concluded that …

    The Channel 26 Oct 14:37

  • Fujitsu to resell Violin 6000-series memory arrays

    Exclusive Loose lips slip on nippy flash

    Fujitsu has signed a deal to resell Violin Memory 6000-series networked flash arrays. El Reg storage desk understands from a well-placed source that Fujitsu has a tripartite strategy for solid-state storage: It will use flash drives and caching in its Eternus storage arrays in a very fast data vault. Fusion-io PCIe flash …

    Storage 26 Oct 14:57

  • Emulex squeaks into profit: Chew on that, QLogic, 0.7 big ones

    Champagne all round! Hm, maybe cider actually

    A year ago Emulex recorded $118.4m revenues and a loss of $7.2m in its first fiscal 2012 quarter. A year later revenues are up 1 per cent to $119.3m and it has scraped a profit of $700k. Whew! Emulex makes network adapters, and more than 80 per cent of its revenues comes from products like Fibre Channel HBAs and Ethernet …

    Storage 26 Oct 15:06

  • Samsung posts record profits as Galaxy sales crush Apple

    Mobile biz powers 91% boost to Q3 bottom line

    Booming mobile sales have powered record profits at Samsung in Q3. Samsung published a preliminary statement of their financials yesterday [PDF] which shows a 91 per cent increase in net profit compared to the same three months last year. The South Korean firm drew in 6.56 trillion won profit ($5.9bn or £3.7bn) in the three …

    Hardware 26 Oct 15:31

  • REVEALED: IBM's new DS3000-killing Storwise storage beast

    Exclusive Have a peek at specs of the V3700 array

    IBM has an entry-level Storwize V3700 array coming that, we are told, effectively replaces the existing DS3500 array. IBM's Storwize V7000 is a new array with SVC SAN virtualisation capability, an XIV-style GUI and enterprise-class features (background here.) The DS3500 is a low-end array that is part of the DS8000-DS6000- …

    Storage 26 Oct 16:11

  • Tumblr and Google App Engine down as US traffic plummets

    Updated The sky is falling!

    There are a fair few people cursing their displays and tablets this morning after a series of outages took down Google's App Engine, as well as the Tumblr blogging site and a host of smaller operators. "Early this morning App Engine began experiencing slow performance and dropped connections," a spokeswoman told El Reg via …

    Networks 26 Oct 18:26

  • The new Mac mini eviscerated with ease

    Teardown Easily upgradeable Apple kit? An endangered species

    Apple's new Mac mini has been torn apart by the parts 'n' tools 'n' repair-advice folks at iFixit, who pronounce it highly repairable – a rare reversal of Apple's increasing tendency to create kit that's locked down tighter than Mitt Romney's tax records. The new mini scored an impressive eight on iFixit's one-to-10 …

    Hardware 26 Oct 19:54

  • Feds arrest Paul Ceglia over Facebook ownership claims

    Gumshoes go all Al Capone on alleged fraudster

    A wannabe billionaire who claimed to own 84 per cent of Facebook based on a contract Mark Zuckerberg signed as a student has been arrested and charged with fraud. Paul Ceglia was arrested after being indicted for two counts of fraud: one case of postal fraud and one of wire fraud. If found guilty he faces a possible 40 years …

    Law 26 Oct 21:29

  • Headaches, delays plague Windows Store, dev claims

    'Windows 8 doesn't want your app'

    Microsoft needs apps. The success of the new, touch-centric Start Screen of Windows 8 and Windows RT depends on building a thriving app ecosystem to compare with the iOS App Store or Google Play. But if one developer's experience is any indication, actually getting an app into the Windows Store is a lot harder than you might …

    Developer 26 Oct 22:38

  • Paintballs proposed as defense against ASTEROID ATTACK

    Just in time to to deflect Apophis, destroyer of worlds

    An MIT graduate student has devised a plan to save the world from destruction by an inbound asteroid using a novel weapon: interplanetary paintballs. Sung Wook Paek of the Cambridge, Massachsetts, brainiac academy's Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics – affectionately known as AeroAstro – entered his asteroid-deflecting …

    Science 26 Oct 23:38

  • Yahoo! will! ignore! 'Do! Not! Track!' from! IE10!

    Default setting 'degrades the experience'

    Yahoo! has announced that it will ignore the default "Do Not Track" (DNT) signal broadcast by Microsoft Internet Explorer 10, on grounds that it does not accurately reflect user intent. "Recently, Microsoft unilaterally decided to turn on DNT in Internet Explorer 10 by default, rather than at users' direction," a Yahoo! …

    Applications 26 Oct 23:59