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8th November 2012 Archive

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  • Adobe switches Flash fix schedule to Patch Tuesdays

    Takes security marching orders from Redmond

    Users of Adobe Flash Player have grown accustomed to frequent security patches, but beginning with its next batch of bugfixes, Adobe says it will release updates on a new, more predictable schedule – one that just happens to coincide with Microsoft's "Patch Tuesday." "The alignment of the release cycle to Patch Tuesdays will …

    Security 8 Nov 00:10

  • Android adware capability a vulnerability, claim boffins

    Ad push code can spoof SMSs

    North Carolina State University researchers have revealed a vulnerability in Android that allows SMS messages to be sent from one app to another without going over the air, something they say could be used for SMS phishing attacks. The Xuxian Jiang-led team is the same group that gave the world the Android click-jacking …

    Security 8 Nov 00:15

  • Orc Assassin Rogue wins Senate seat

    WoW-playing candidate triumphs over campaign criticising “bizarre double life”

    Colleen Lachowicz, aka Rogue Orc Assassin Santiaga in World of Warcraft, has won a seat in Maine's State Senate. Lachowiz became one of the weirder stories of the US election when her Republican opponents decided to pick on the fact she's an avid WoW player. Lachowiz's character, Santiaga, has reached the 85th level. Maine's …

    Games 8 Nov 00:25

  • Singaporeans get hard token baked into credit card

    What happens when you sit on it?

    Two-factor authentication just got a whole lot more convenient for residents of Singapore, after Standard Chartered Bank's local outfit teamed with MasterCard to offer account-holders a credit card that is also a one-time-password-generating hard token. MasterCard calls the device a 'Display Card' and says it includes “an …

    Security 8 Nov 00:38

  • Verizon stakes claim as global cloud mobiliser

    Asian push fuels ambitions for global services with all the buzzwords that matter

    Armed with an expensive war chest of high end acquisitions in cloud and telematics assets, Verizon is re-positioning itself as “one of the handful” of global players that will survive in the enterprise sector. “Not every species or company makes it to the next era,” said Verizon Enterprise Solutions chief marketing officer …

    Business 8 Nov 01:03

  • Twitter survives election after Ruby-to-Java move

    Peak traffic of 874,560 Tweets per minute without Fail Whale coming up for air

    Micro-blogging site Twitter experienced record traffic as the results of the 2012 US Presidential election were announced on Tuesday night, but the service never faltered despite the increased load – something Twitter engineers credit to the company's move from Ruby to Java for its backend software. According to a blog post by …

    Networks 8 Nov 01:44

  • Apple is Superman's digital Kryptonite

    DC Comics' finest come to top e-bookstores, with villainous restrictions

    DC Comics, home to Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman and Watchmen, has started to sell individual issues of its comics on Amazon's Kindle, the iDevice menagerie and the Nook e-reader. DC has previously sold graphic novels on the three electronic bookstores, but only offered individual issues through third-party apps. The comics …

    Media 8 Nov 02:13

  • Japan Display cranks up ultra low power colour LCD panels

    No backlight means power draw of just 3mW

    Japanese electronics giants Sony, Toshiba and Hitachi have been showing off new low-power LCD display technology which seems to combine the best of LCD and e-ink by dispensing with the backlight and instead relying on reflected light. The firms formed their joint venture, Japan Display, earlier this year and appear to have …

    Hardware 8 Nov 04:45

  • BBC in secret trial to see if you care about thing you plainly don't

    What broadcast tech won't be missed? No, not DAB

    In the last month the BBC quietly switched off AM radio transmitters to see if anyone noticed - and it seems not a lot of people did. Four local radio stations had their medium-wave transmissions axed in the last few weeks. Essex and Hereford are now back on while Nottingham and Kent remain absent in the interest of seeing if …

    Media 8 Nov 06:01

  • Edible iPhone case goes on sale in Japan

    Rice cracker case suggested as survivalist snack

    Japan’s never-ending quest to fulfil stereotypes about its slightly eccentric approach to technology continued this week after reports emerged of an iPhone 5 case made entirely of edible rice crackers. The “Survival Senbei iPhone 5 case” is produced from toasted brown rice and salt, moulded to the sleek contours of the brand …

    Hardware 8 Nov 06:11

  • Psst: Heard the one about the National Pupil Database? Thought not

    Analysis Minister hopes to 'maximise the value' of kiddie data 'resource'

    The Tories were big fans - in opposition - of labelling the then-Labour government a "database state" as it lumbered from one ID card disaster to another. But now that the Conservative Party is heading towards the mid-term point of its coalition with the Lib Dems, the notion of hoarding ever-more information about British …

    Government 8 Nov 06:30

  • EMC offers biz barons tools to manipulate their digital assets

    Bring down the rain by furtling that cloud

    EMC has clearly cottoned on to the security and management problems posed by the growing enterprise cloud as well as BYOD in business, and clearly thinks it is going to sell quite a bit of content management software, if its latest barrage of announcements are anything to go by. The new gear includes updated kit from …

    Storage 8 Nov 07:05

  • ALIEN DETECTION was SUPPRESSED by the BBC - top boffin

    What if they start swearing? What about health & safety?

    The BBC tried to put the kibosh on rock-star physicist Brian Cox's plan to eavesdrop on a planet with a radio telescope - because the corporation was apparently afraid the discovery of alien life could violate the Beeb's editorial guidelines. Perhaps Auntie feared the little green men, if found, would drop a very large swear …

    Media 8 Nov 07:29

  • Apple iPad 4 Wi-Fi only tablet review

    Better slate than never

    I didn’t get the iPad at first. When the tablet was first announced, I was interested but couldn’t see the value to me. I had an e-book reader, I had a phone on which I could watch films while travelling and listen to music, and I had a laptop for everything else. Why, I wondered, did I need a tablet too? I was happy to take …

    Tablets 8 Nov 08:00

  • Cray scales to over 100 petaflops with 'Cascade' XC30 behemoth

    Aries interconnect, Dragonfly topology crush Gemini toruses

    Hot on the heels of the delivery of the 20-plus petaflops "Titan" CPU-GPU hybrid supercomputer to Oak Ridge National Laboratory last week, Cray has launched what is unquestionably a much better machine, the long-awaited "Cascade" system developed in conjunction with the US Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency and sporting …

    HPC 8 Nov 08:02

  • Wave of the Future? Smartphone NFC used to buy stuff ONLINE

    Like pay-bonking but across great distances

    Mastercard has started trials of online payments using the secure element in an NFC handset in France, and it looks like it could quickly become the standard way to buy stuff on the internet. The trial involves 160 staff at ING Bank in Paris, who've been given Galaxy SIII handsets and a PayPass account to play with. When …

    Mobile 8 Nov 09:01

  • London council £1bn outsourcing plan survives vote

    One Barnet under God, indivisible, with IT for all

    An eleventh-hour attempt to kill London Barnet Council's billion-pound outsourcing plan has failed. The "One Barnet" plan to commission government services from private companies - potentially including BT and Capita - will roll on after the Conservative Council leader of the London borough survived a no-confidence vote last …

    Government 8 Nov 09:18

  • Microsoft offers cut-price Win 8 PCs and fondletops to UK schools

    Someone is thinking of the children

    British schoolkids and teachers are to be offered discounted Windows 8 laptops and tabs in a Microsoft programme to close the digital divide. Government-funded schools have become eligible to receive Windows 8 Intel-based laptops and tablets from Asus, Acer and RM Education that are loaded with software and that have had 30 …

    The Channel 8 Nov 09:36

  • Skype accused of ratting out user to private security without warrant

    VoIP P2P biz probes route its data took to Dutch fuzz

    Skype is investigating claims it handed over personal information on a teenager implicated in an attack on PayPal without asking to see a warrant. PayPal contracted Dutch security firm iSIGHT Partners to get to the bottom of assaults launched last year against the web payment firm. The distributed denial-of-service attacks …

    Security 8 Nov 09:54

  • App designed for safe sending of naughty selfies is rife with risks

    Teenager subtitles: App makes selfies safe BLAH BLAH BLAH

    A smartphone app touted as a safe way to exchange naked pictures and saucy texts poses a huge privacy risk. Snapchat is available for both iPhone and Android devices, and is marketed towards teenagers and young adults. The app lets senders control how long a message or picture can be viewed, before it expires after a maximum …

    Security 8 Nov 10:15

  • Judge denies move to ban ad-skipping DVR

    Court Dishes it to Murdoch's Fox

    US satellite broadcaster Dish Networks can continue providing its subscribers with a DVR capable of automatically skipping adverts, a US District Court judge has ruled. Judge Dolly Gee in the Central District of California court this week refused News International’s Fox Broadcasting subsidiary a preliminary injunction to …

    Media 8 Nov 10:23

  • Gaping hole in Google service exposes thousands to ID theft

    Exclusive Vast number of car insurance hunters at risk by flaw

    A security flaw accessible via Google's UK motor insurance aggregator Google Compare has potentially exposed vast numbers of drivers to identity theft. The vulnerability, the existence of which has been verified by The Register, made it possible for comprehensive personal details - including names, addresses, phone numbers and …

    Security 8 Nov 10:32

  • Desperate broadband minister in Brussels cash splash dash

    Miller to wrangle with Eurocrats over BDUK competition

    Culture Secretary Maria Miller, chief of UK broadband policy, has raced to Brussels this morning to have crisis talks with the European Commission's competition boss, Joaquin Almunia, in a move to get state aid clearance for the £530m rollout of broadband networks in rural parts of the UK. The Department for Media, Culture and …

    Broadband 8 Nov 10:46

  • Stob on Quatermass: Was this British TV's finest sci-fi hour?

    Stob Special Let's shake the dead fly out of the DVD

    In the pub, with my editor. "Those sci-fi classics of the fifties," he mused. "Not the Hammer remakes - the originals. Are they really classics? How do they compare with modern Doctor Who? Are they even watchable?" [Dissolve to Stob's flat. A portable computing machine is displaying the Amazon website's DVD section. Pan to a …

    Verity Stob 8 Nov 11:00

  • Researcher names world's favourite smartphone

    Apple, Samsung or... Huawei?

    And the world’s best-selling smartphone during July, August and September was... According to market watcher Strategy Analytics, it was Samsung’s Galaxy S III, which beat Apple’s iPhone 4S by a healthy 1.8 million units. The S III accounted for 10.7 per cent of smartphone shipments during Q3 2012, with volumes hitting 18.0m …

    Mobile 8 Nov 11:05

  • Sellafield's nuclear waste measured in El Reg units

    How many Swatches per Jub is intermediate level, again?

    A National Audit Office report into cleaning up Sellafield nuclear plant - described as Blighty's "largest and most hazardous nuclear site" - has concluded there is "considerable uncertainty over the time required and cost of completing facilities to treat and store highly radioactive material held in deteriorating legacy ponds …

    SPB 8 Nov 11:17

  • Nokia Lumia 920 Windows Phone 8 handset review

    Microsoft's mobile OS refresh – is it more of the same?

    If you ever go down the pub and let slip you’re a tech writer, you’re invariably asked for recommendations. With smartphones, this is pretty difficult these days because they’re all pretty good. No, scrap that, today’s devices are just amazing compared to what you could get a few years ago. They all do a job; you can’t really …

    Apps 8 Nov 11:30

  • Box shifters cram UK market with crusty PCs to make room for Win 8

    'Cripes, boss, what about this old stuff?' 'FLOG IT!'

    PC shipments into the UK channel declined in the last quarter as vendors focussed on lobbing out Windows 7 machines ahead of the Windows 8 launch. However, in the midst of a recession, no one really noticed any shortages of computers. Abacus-fondling Gartner reckons 2.98 million desktops and notebooks were pushed into the UK …

    The Channel 8 Nov 11:44

  • Apple kicked out of China smartphone top 5 by, er, Yulong and pals

    Yu-who? no, we hadn't heard of them either

    Chinese smartphone makers managed to force Apple out of the top five in their domestic market in Q3 and account for an increasingly sizeable chunk of global shipments, according to the latest stats from analyst Canalys. The firm’s soon-to-be-released Q3 2012 country-level estimates saw the fruity tech titan displaced, with …

    Mobile 8 Nov 11:59

  • Medical scan record that the NHS says will cost £2k to retrieve: Detail

    DSR-TIFF file, unique software, MOD drive no longer made

    A hospital trust says it will cost the NHS £2,000 to dig out a copy of a patient's ultrasound scan of his heart and hand it over to him. The steep bill is, we're told, due to the data being held on a magneto-optical disc, and Worcestershire Acute Hospitals NHS Trust would need to fly in kit from America to access it. The …

    Government 8 Nov 12:16

  • What made us human? Being ARMED with lethal ranged weapons

    Early kill-tech let us beat Neanderthals, dominate world

    Boffins investigating a find of ancient stone blades over 70 thousand years old argue that it was possession of advanced ranged weapons - and the organisation to make and use them - which allowed humanity to defeat its early rivals and spread out to conquer the world. Don't bring a knife to a spear fight The small stone …

    Science 8 Nov 12:29

  • Revealed! Prime Minister's iPad 'dashboard' for controlling Britain

    No shark-tank-dump button for ministers :(

    Undoubtedly the biggest IT story of the day - if not the year - is the news that David Cameron's custom "iPad app" is now in testing. All credit to the BBC for breaking this sensational development. Furious exchanges took place on Twitter this morning as both the Beeb and the Daily Telegraph claimed credit for the scoop. Fair …

    Government 8 Nov 12:49

  • Smartphone biz shocker: Nokia sells fewer devices than Lenovo

    And Sony outshipped HTC and RIM

    More upsets from the world of smartphone manufacturing: Sony has been selling more phones than HTC, and they’re both shipping more smartphones then either RIM or Nokia - which has plunged toward the bottom of the world vendor rankings. The latest data presented by market watcher Canalys - covering Q3 2012 - holds no surprises …

    Hardware 8 Nov 12:58

  • Amazon Kindle Fire HD 7in Android tablet review

    Perfect bind?

    Carl Jung once wrote that a beautiful woman is a terrible disappointment. And so it is with Amazon's long awaited (it's been a year) British release of its Kindle Fire 7in tablets. Having pre-ordered the top-end 32GB Fire HD model, I was thrilled when I found it waiting for me at home and excited as I tore open the box, but grew …

    Tablets 8 Nov 13:15

  • Lenovo insists it is NOT world's largest PC maker

    'It is totally our dream to be though,' says CEO

    If Gartner is right and Lenovo has indeed become the largest PC maker on the planet, someone forgot to tell the Chinese juggernaut's top brass. Talking at the release of Q2 numbers that showed a double-digit spike in sales and turnover, albeit slower than recent growth rates, CEO Yang Yuanqing seemed oblivious to last month's …

    The Channel 8 Nov 13:37

  • Habitable HEAVY GRAVITY WORLD found just 42 light-years away

    EE 'Doc' Smith's Valeria, or Larry Niven's Jinx perhaps

    Astroboffins have found another super-Earth planet orbiting a star just 42 light years away from home, but this one could support life as we know it. Super-Earth HD40307g alongside its host star. Credit: J. Pinfield, RoPACS, Uni of Hertfordshire Star HD40307 has been checked out before, and in the first investigation, three …

    Science 8 Nov 13:46

  • Adobe Reader 0-day exploit surfaces on underground bazaars

    Malformed pdf horrors prowl the internet sewers

    Miscreants have reportedly discovered a zero-day vulnerability in latest version of Adobe Reader. Exploits based on the vulnerability, which circumvents sandbox protection technology incorporated into Adobe X and Adobe XI, are on sale in underground forums. Pricing starts at a hefty $30,000 but the exploit has already made its …

    Security 8 Nov 14:02

  • RIM good for secret jobs: BlackBerry 10 cleared for Restricted data

    No backdoor action here, feds reckon

    BlackBerry 10 has passed the US Federal Information Processing Standard (FIPS) certification, meaning devices based on the platform can be used to send classified data between government agents. Despite a drop in US government uptake of its kit, this is still something unique to RIM. Apple and Android have both made huge …

    Security 8 Nov 14:19

  • Scotland Yard arrests female computer hacking suspect

    Plods continue Op Tuleta against Fleet Street trickery

    Scotland Yard officers arrested a 45-year-old woman this morning over alleged breaches of privacy. The unnamed suspect is being quizzed by Operation Tuleta officers at a South London cop shop while her home is searched. She was cuffed on suspicion of conspiring to commit offences under Sections 1 and 3 of the Computer Misuse …

    Security 8 Nov 14:44

  • Bradley Manning submits partially-guilty plea in WikiLeaks case

    Says he did things, doesn't admit to specific crimes

    US army private Bradley Manning has asked the court to accept a partially guilty plea that takes responsibility for leaking government documents to WikiLeaks. Manning's lawyer David Coombs said on his blog that Manning was willing to plead "by exceptions and substitutions", where he doesn't admit he's guilty of the specific …

    Security 8 Nov 15:02

  • Patent troll sues just about the whole tech biz over 4 years

    Lots and lots of billygoats you know went over its bridge

    A patent holding firm has made it its business to sue just about every tech firm anyone has heard of in its quest to make money from an encryption patent, it has emerged. In the last four years, TQP Development has kept its lawyers busy with complaints against hundreds of companies, including big boys of tech like Google, …

    Law 8 Nov 15:28

  • Angry Birds Star Wars game review

    Rovio joins the galactic empire

    Rovio expanded its most popular franchise yet again today, transforming Angry Birds for sci-fi fans with a Star Wars theme. While the game is essentially Angry Birds Space with a dollop of Jedi and a mix of the previous games in the series, those yet to find themselves bored of flinging feathers will love it. Fans of George …

    Games 8 Nov 15:46

  • Diablo trousers $28m to create a flash-in-the-DRAM technology

    Mix me a storage cocktail, barkeep - but hold the fab

    Diablo Technologies, a Canadian start-up founded 10 years ago, has just been given $28m to develop its flash-based in-memory technology. The MemoryChannel Storage technology involves fusing flash and DRAM together, with executing apps getting fast access to data in both DRAM and NAND through the memory subsystem - think …

    Storage 8 Nov 15:56

  • Obama win may mean NASA 'nauts to Deep Space as soon as 2021

    Earth-Moon L2 jaunt would see them beyond lunar farside

    NASA could be getting ready to set up a manned space outpost now that President Barack Obama is back in the White House. A space policy expert told Space.com that the agency has been thinking about sending astronauts to the far side of the Moon so it can establish a human presence in deep space and so to help with a planned …

    Science 8 Nov 16:22

  • Prime Minister on Twitter: Me and Obama, we're like THAT

    Pic You mind if I call you Barack? Oh, OK. Sorry

    British Prime Minister David Cameron couldn't resist tweeting a cheesy picture of him apparently having a telephone conversation with the re-elected US president Barack Obama on Thursday afternoon. So, Barry-o, tell me about this Reddit thing. Where does one read it? How does one write it? The frankly embarrassing image was …

    Government 8 Nov 16:52

  • Apple's Cue gets parking space on Ferrari board

    From iTunes to iZooms

    Eddy Cue, Apple’s Mr Fixit - he was recently tasked with putting the firm’s Maps app and Siri on track - and head of Cupertino’s iTunes operation, has won a place on Ferrari’s board of directors. Cue has been a Ferrari customer for five years, he said, adding: “I continue to be awed by the world-class design and engineering …

    Hardware 8 Nov 17:03

  • Apple is granted a patent on the rectangle. No, really

    Hey, you can still make one if it has sharp corners

    Thinking of making a thing that is portable, has a display and is rectangular with rounded corners? Well, DON'T! You'll be infringing Apple's new design patent. Apple already owns a design that describes an iPad-like slab with rounded corners, patent US D627,777. Now it's got another one and it's much simpler: behold US D670, …

    Law 8 Nov 17:31

  • Twitter: WHOOPS we've broken ourselves. Sorr-ee!

    Update Twit accidentally pressed wrong button

    Twitter has apologised for "unintentionally" resetting the passwords for a large number of its user accounts. In normal circumstances the social network resets the login details for any account feared to have been hijacked. But it appears someone in Twitter today overreacted and pushed the reset button on a lot of accounts, …

    Media 8 Nov 18:06

  • iPhone maker Foxconn hatching US factory expansion plan?

    Updated US plants won't build Apple kit – that's too complex for Americans

    Foxconn, the employee-infuriating, child-employing, and brain-damaging manufacturer of kit for Apple, Amazon, Sony, Nintendo, and others, is exploring the possibility of building plants in the US – Detroit and Los Angeles, to be specific. At least that's what unnamed "market watchers" have told DigiTimes, the Taiwanese online …

    Business 8 Nov 18:26

  • Storage upstart Huawei snatches NFS filer crown

    From the NFS filer crown jewels in the Tower

    Chinese storage interloper Huawei has shattered standards body SPEC's sfs2008 Network File System (NFS) benchmark by scoring 3,064,602 IOPS. That's roughly twice as fast as rival Avere and NetApp 6240 clusters. Read about the Avere and NetApp results here. The Huawei result came from a 24-node cluster of OceanStore N8500 nodes …

    Storage 8 Nov 18:29

  • Egypt takes hard line on internet pr0n, calls for total ban

    EFF warns of more censorship to come

    Egyptian Prosecutor General Abdel Maguid Mahmoud has called for a total ban on internet pornography to be strictly enforced, and says that he intends to crack the whip on the purveyors of smut. After considering the issue, Mahmoud said in a statement to government departments that his ruling requires they "take the necessary …

    Media 8 Nov 18:42

  • Crafty app lets phones send data by ultrasound with speakers, mics

    Vid Could be used as pay-by-screech. Or to annoy kids

    A Singapore firm is punting ultrasonic sound as an alternative to NFC for short-range wireless communications, pointing out that it works with existing hardware and provides a demo app to prove it. The software, which is on Google Play and iTunes (search for SSCconnect) in both free and ad-supported versions, allows devices to …

    Mobile 8 Nov 18:55

  • Australia backs down from Internet filter plan

    Only the vilest smut from Interpol's lists to be blocked

    Australia will not proceed with its plan to filter the Internet on behalf of its citizens. Stephen Conroy, the nation's Minister for Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy, has issued a statement saying that internet service providers will be required to block some content – child abuse sites listed by Interpol – …

    Government 8 Nov 20:07

  • Intel to slip future Xeon E7s, Itaniums into common socket

    Chipzilla debuts Poulson, plots convergence for Kittson

    They may be coming a little bit later than expected, but the next generation of Intel's server processors, code-named "Poulson" and sold under the Itanium 9500 brand, are out. Intel has also finally disclosed its plans to more fully converge the Itanium and Xeon server platforms, giving Itanium a more secure footing in the data …

    Servers 8 Nov 20:27

  • HP warns consumers: Don't downgrade Win8 PCs to Win7

    Updated 'You won't get any help from us'

    Windows 8 got you down? Don't worry; even if you buy a new machine with Windows 8 preinstalled, you should be able to downgrade it to Windows 7, if you prefer – that is, unless you bought a new consumer PC or laptop from HP. It's a little-known fact that Windows licenses include the right to downgrade to earlier versions of …

    Hardware 8 Nov 21:44

  • Apple removes apology-hiding JavaScript from UK website

    Non-apologetic link to non-apologetic apology now visible – on large displays

    Apple has removed from its UK website the JavaScript code that caused its court-mandated apology to always be displayed "below the fold" – meaning that you had to scroll down the web page to find it. If you launched Apple's UK website earlier this week and resized your browser window, a bit of JavaScript code called " …

    Law 8 Nov 22:30

  • Microsoft demos real-time English to Chinese translation

    Digital babel fish comes closer

    In fiction Douglas Adams had his babel fish and Star Trek had the communicator, but Microsoft Research has been demoing an actual real-time English to Mandarin translation engine that works within seconds. Microsoft's chief research officer Rick Rashid showed off the technology at the company's Asian 21st Century Computing …

    Software 8 Nov 22:36