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16th November 2012 Archive

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  • Anonymous attacks Israeli websites over Gaza bombings

    Releases kit to keep Palestinians online

    Hackers operating for Anonymous have been launching DDoS attacks and defacing websites to demonstrate their displeasure at Israel's recent military action in the Gaza Strip, which is currently in its second day. According to its Twitter feed, the group claims to have taken down or defaced over 40 government and military …

    Security 16 Nov 00:37

  • Jobs biopic to focus on first Mac, NeXT, iPod

    Aaron Sorkin says plot will show Saint Steve backstage before three big launches

    Writer Aaron Sorkin has revealed his planned structure for a Steve Jobs biopic, which he currently imagines will involve three acts, each depicting the serial entrepreneur backstage before an epochal launch. Speaking at an event hosted by The Daily Beast, Sorkin said he’s attracted to a Jobs project because “there’s no point …

    Media 16 Nov 01:00

  • Ubuntu gaining ground in website deployments

    More popular on servers now than Red Hat, Suse

    Although it has chiefly been known as a desktop Linux distribution, Ubuntu has been gaining ground in data centers as well, according to the latest statistics from web survey outfit W3Techs. In figures compiled on Thursday, 7 per cent of all the world's web servers were found to be running Ubuntu, up from 5.5 per cent the …

    Operating Systems 16 Nov 01:10

  • Sun’s lost cousin may be to blame for wonky ecliptic

    Tipped over the solar system when planets yet unborn

    Sol may have had a near stellar neighbour at the time earth was formed, and its gravity could be the reason that planets in our solar system don’t orbit neatly around the Sun’s equator. That’s the thrust of a new letter in Nature, titled A primordial origin for misalignments between stellar spin axes and planetary orbits. …

    Science 16 Nov 01:11

  • Wordpress to accept Bitcoin without confirmations

    Blog platform says there's low risk in unapproved transactions

    Automattic, the company behind blogging platform WordPress.com ,has decided it will accept payment for some services through Bitcoin, the controversial open source currency. Wordpress is proudly free, but Automattic offers some paid services like custom design. Those services, code wrangler Amdy Skelton says in a blog post, …

    Business 16 Nov 03:56

  • Maybe Mars had 'warm' water after all

    UK boffins point to meteorite evidence

    UK researchers have unearthed a new argument in the yes-but-no-but-yes scientific debate about Martian water, saying that meteorite samples suggest water on the red planet was once warm enough for life. In research published in Earth and Planetary Science Letters (abstract here), Dr John Bridges (Leicester University) and Dr …

    Science 16 Nov 04:00

  • Google India slapped with £8.7 MILLION tax penalty

    Search giant accused of misleading tax office

    Google is facing more embarrassing revelations about its tax dealings after its Indian business was accused of misleading the government, violating accounting rules and slapped with a Rs76 crore (£8.7m) fine. The penalty order, which Google is appealing, relates to the tax year 2008-9 and if upheld will ensure the search giant …

    Business 16 Nov 05:10

  • Ancient vulnerability sparks world-wide hypegasm

    Radio signal jamming + hint of terror threat = lots of column inches

    A class of attack against radio networks documented as far back as the year 2000 has pulled worldwide headlines by being highlighted in a submission to the US government. The submission, here, has gained notoriety all over the world, starting with Technology Review which headlined it “One simple trick could disable a city’s 4G …

    Security 16 Nov 05:13

  • Vietnamese Google-killer searches like it's 1996

    Local search contender borrows ideas from Yahoo! circa 1996

    Google is facing another challenge to its dominance in Asia after home-grown Vietnamese search engine Wada launched with a mission to offer users there a more localised, intuitive alternative hat seems to borrow heavily from Yahoo!, circa 1996. The Mountain View giant has a huge lead in the Vietnamese search market, with …

    Business 16 Nov 05:28

  • SmartTrans pushes into China with former Aus ambassador

    Appoints our man in China as chairman

    Australian online and mobile payments systems developer SmartTrans has scored a coup in its China expansion ambitions, securing former Australian Ambassador to China Dr Geoff Raby as chairman of the company. Dr Raby remained in Beijing as a business consultant after retiring from the diplomatic corps last August and joined the …

    Business 16 Nov 05:40

  • Saucy MINX in a THONG makes GoDaddy's hy-PHWOAR-visors go

    Pics How dare they put gratuitous sexy pics on IT content?

    Web biz GoDaddy's virtual data centres are apparently best illustrated using a photo of a bootilicious young thing in a thong gazing thoughtfully at a tan-coloured bed spread. Conveying little insight into the operation of a hypervisor-powered on-demand computing warehouse, the baffling picture doesn't appear to be a temporary …

    Hosting 16 Nov 05:58

  • China's cut-price drones attract Asian and African buyers

    Zhuhai airshow the stage for military muscle-flexing

    China’s inexorable rise as a hi-tech military superpower reached another milestone this week as it showcased a range of new drone aircraft remarkably similar to US machines but pitched at a lower price point to attract buyers from the developing world. The Zhuhai airshow in southern China’s Guangdong province was the platform …

    Government 16 Nov 06:11

  • Liberals propose law to regulate social media

    Abbott's plan calls for networks to have staff thinking about the children

    Australian opposition leader Tony Abbott has floated a suite of online child safety ideas that would include legislation to regulate social media, which would become answerable to a “Children’s e-Safety Commissioner” charged with taking “a national leadership role in online safety for children.” The proposals stand a very good …

    Policy 16 Nov 06:18

  • How can UK TV product placement do better, asks report

    X Factor judges could have mugs marked 'Your ad here'?

    A new analysis of paid product placements, which have been legal on UK television since February 2011, shows that it hasn't generated all the powerful stream of new revenue the industry had been hoping for. Worse, the technique is in danger of destroying a previously successful industry. When product placements became legal, …

    Media 16 Nov 06:32

  • Dell starts up 'Top Gun' for channel hotshots, leather jackets and all

    Plus plane full of rubber dogshit for grey marketeers?

    Dell's chief storage guy, ex-fighter pilot Darren Thomas, has a new strategy to encourage the troops and get storage geeks to fly: make them Storage Top Guns with leather flying jackets to go with it. Certified Dell and channel storage folks get a leather pilot's jacket emblazoned with badges, like a Storage Domain Champion …

    Storage 16 Nov 07:01

  • Reader input required: review our reviews

    Site News Tell us what you like - and what you don't

    The Register has been running hardware and software reviews for some years now, mainly though not exclusively through its sister-site, the written-for-consumers Reg Hardware. We're planning to make some improvements, but before we put them in place, we'd like to hear what you, the reader, would like to find when you click to …

    Site News 16 Nov 07:09

  • Cisco offers pint-size cell relief, lets mobile data spurt freely

    You can pop me on the table, against a wall ...

    Cisco CEO John Chambers has confirmed that it will start making cellular base stations, just not very big ones, with a view to integrating the cellular tech into Wi-Fi access points. The detail came out during a call with investors following the company's quarterly results, which showed increasing profit and revenue but …

    Mobile 16 Nov 07:31

  • Should Microsoft merge Office into Windows - or snap it off?

    Open ... and Shut Apple might keep the .docter away one day

    Gartner research director Larry Cannell thinks Yammer gives Microsoft the impetus to "rethink Office". Cannell's point is that Microsoft needs to reshape Microsoft for the social age. He's right, but I don't think he goes nearly far enough. Microsoft Office is losing its relevance in a world that creates vast quantities of new …

    Operating Systems 16 Nov 08:00

  • Liberator: the untold story of the first British laptop part 3

    Feature Into the maelstrom

    In the early 1980s, civil servant Bernard Terry devised a 'portable text processor' to make his fellow civil servants more productive in the office and out. Electronics giant Thorn EMI designed the machine with help of a team of former Dragon Data engineers. As the Liberator, it launched in September 1985 to become the first …

    Vintage 16 Nov 08:15

  • Adobe Connect breach pops lid off 'Letmein' logins of gov, army types

    Plus: Did someone forget the salt?

    A breach of Adobe's Connectusers.com forum database has once again exposed password security foibles, as well as website security shortcomings on Adobe's part. Adobe suspended the forum on Tuesday night in response to the hack, as previously reported. The software developer stressed in a statement that its Adobe Connect web …

    Security 16 Nov 08:30

  • Dell and pals mash parts together, squeeze out first 16Gb FC stack

    Speedy shifter offers cheesy-pea mix of everyone's bits

    Dell's Compellent unit has worked with Brocade, Emulex and QLogic to offer the first end-to-end 16Gbit/s Fibre Channel storage networking setup, speeding access to SAN data. This is a good win for Brocade, especially as Dell has its own Force 10 networking competency, but that is for Ethernet, not Fibre Channel (FC). It's also …

    Storage 16 Nov 09:17

  • Credit insurance: The hidden data-driven force which killed Comet

    Money in other people's wallets can be a big asset

    A quick look at what happened to high street electronics retailer Comet when its credit insurers slammed their wallets shut should be enough to get any IT business interested in cash-flow, insurance and credit lines. But while credit and cash-flow are often seen as stale subjects, they can be the lifeblood of business - almost …

    The Channel 16 Nov 09:40

  • Long-suffering Virgin Media victims see no end to vid PURGATORY

    YouTube vids show how bad it is. Unless you're with VM

    Here on the networks desk at Vulture Central our inbox runneth over with complaints from fed-up Virgin Media customers who feel that they are being roundly ignored by the telco, which is yet to fix a network peering problem with a mysterious third party. The major buffering glitch is causing havoc with punters who are …

    Broadband 16 Nov 09:58

  • BOFH: Hasta la Vista... luser

    Episode 12 Installing Vista SP2 is like dousing a burning turd

    "But I installed Service Pack 2!" our user whines at the PFY. "Installing SP2 on Windows Vista is like putting out a burning turd. Best possible outcome, you've got a steaming turd!" the PFY snaps. "But it's so slow!" "Uh-huh." "I've got 3 gigs of memory," he sniffles "Adding memory to Vista is like adding paper to a …

    BOFH 16 Nov 10:20

  • Never mind fat-bellied tech titans, give enterprise upstarts a chance

    Sysadmin blog Why IT shoppers miss real bargains

    In the IT world, momentum is everything. The past few months of talking to various start-ups have been an eye-opener for me; but none so much as talking to Bill Karpovich of Zenoss. Zenoss's story reflects one I've heard from many other start-ups of late; they have great software and are growing rapidly, but there's always that …

    Software 16 Nov 10:42

  • Insight exec: Order-delaying ERP 'teething problems' now fixed

    UK software upgrade left us sitting on a pile of returns - customers

    Insight UK says it is now on top of "teething problems" related to its ERP upgrade that delayed some customers' orders. The reseller giant started rolling out the Microsoft Dynamix AX platform internally last year across operations in mainland Europe and has recently gone live in the UK. Some customers contacted The Channel …

    The Channel 16 Nov 10:43

  • Apple and Samsung add iPhone 5, Note, S3 to brewing law-storm

    Judge slaps fruity move to wrap jellybean in blanket

    A US judge has allowed Samsung and Apple to add some extra devices to their lists of allegedly infringing products, bringing the iPhone 5, the Galaxy Note 10.1 and the US version of the Galaxy SII into the mix. But Judge Paul Grewal partially denied Apple's attempts to tack the Jelly Bean operating system onto the end of the …

    Law 16 Nov 10:50

  • Easy to use, virus free, secure: Aaah, how I miss my MAINFRAME

    Back when installing drivers was someone else's problem

    Mention mainframe computers today and most people will conjure an image of something like an early analogue synthesiser crossed with a brontosaurus. Think a hulking, room-sized heap of metal and cables with thousands of moving parts that requires an army of people just to keep it plodding along. A no-name PC today would blow a …

    Developer 16 Nov 11:02

  • LOHAN to join mile-high club with BRITNEY or NAOMI?

    Poll Vote now to name our spaceplane control board

    The time has arrived to officially name the Low Orbit Helium Assisted Navigator (LOHAN) mission control board - the electronic heart of our audacious ballocket spaceplane mission. Ta very much to all those readers who chipped in with acronym/backronym suggestions, even if a good portion of them were unsuitable for a family …

    SPB 16 Nov 11:20

  • WiGig crew to cut DisplayPort cables

    60GHz high-speed wireless tech to support screens

    VESA, the organisation behind DisplayPort and past monitor connection technologies, must have fallen a little out of love with wireless connectivity. Two years after entering into an alliance with WiGig, the 60GHz band high-speed WLAN standard, it this week felt the need to renew its vows. Highlighting the two institutions’ “ …

    Networks 16 Nov 11:25

  • Avira antivirus patched but still not fully Windows 8 ready

    'Completely new architecture' causing BSOD struggles

    Avira has rolled out a patch that makes its popular freebie anti-virus software more compatible with Windows 8. Earlier this month the German firm admitted its products were not yet compatible with Windows 8 after users complained that attempting to run Avira's software on Microsoft's latest operating system results in the …

    Security 16 Nov 11:39

  • Google seen sniffing over a Dish of mobile spectrum

    Could we be looking at Oompa Loompas up cell towers?

    Google has been chatting to Dish about cooperatively launching a mobile phone network in the USA, using the same loophole LightSquared failed to exploit to build a national network. It's not just Google that Dish is taking to, the TV company has been looking for a partner for some time and is open to discussions with anyone, …

    Mobile 16 Nov 11:44

  • Call of Duty: Black Ops 2 game review

    Playing with fire

    The knives have been sharpened, the vitriol pumped, the maps cleared of bodies and the zombies starved. It can only mean one thing: Call of Duty: Black Op 2 is upon us. Flagging the issue It's the series where reviewers can never win, and Activision's coffers never fail to be filled. Where one wrong word can lead to …

    Games 16 Nov 12:00

  • Brits kept waiting as iPad Mini LTE arrives Stateside

    Local fondleslab fans face fortnight of envy

    The 4G LTE version of Apple's iPad Mini is set to hit US stores this weekend, and some pre-order customers are already starting to receive their slight slates. But over here buyers are being forced to wait until the end of the month. With Apple's 4G iPads and iPad Minis said to be rolling into Sprint stores Stateside even as …

    Hardware 16 Nov 12:05

  • Boffins: Proto-humans had stone spears HALF a MILLION YEARS BC

    Dead springbok riddled with flinty projectiles in tests

    An international team of boffins has shown that early proto-humans were using stone spearpoints much earlier than had been believed. Special crossbow used to shoot stone-tipped spears into a dead springbok This was achieved by demonstrating that stone points found in South Africa decades ago had been used as spear heads. " …

    Science 16 Nov 12:31

  • HP big cheese: Is the cloud even proper IT? Whoops, I said it

    Analysis Fires shot across 'romantic' Big Blue's bows

    In an industry where the number of vendors and distributors seems to be shrinking by the week, Canalys’ Channels Forum offered dealers and value-added resellers something that felt like choice. There wasn’t just the usual weary conference goer’s dilemma of regular or decaf, Alka-Seltzer or Nurofen: channel partners could also …

    The Channel 16 Nov 12:44

  • Facebook offers $10 to each of its Sponsored Stories victims

    So sorry we sold you as product. Have a peanut ... bitch

    A US judge is considering a revised settlement proposal from Facebook in the class action suit over Sponsored Stories. Facebook is trying to settle the case brought by folks ticked off that the social network publicised their "Likes" of certain companies as adverts without paying them for it or allowing them to opt out. …

    Law 16 Nov 12:57

  • Power to the people - if you can find a spare socket

    Something for the weekend, Sir? Where would you like me to insert this?

    Changing family circumstances have resulted in my need to use long-distance trains more frequently. They used to call them "InterCity" services back in "the age of the train" but the less said about that the better. InterCity trains when I was a child were horrible: dirty, uncomfortable and stinking of piss, an odour that …

    Hardware 16 Nov 13:02

  • 'You can say I'm paranoid about it, but they will kill me'

    Quotw Plus: 'You've come with nothing!'

    This was the week when Belizean police started the search for securities firm founder John McAfee, a suspect in the murder of his neighbour. McAfee appears to be on the lam from the police, hiding under sand and issuing statements to the media about his "persecution". The antivirus pioneer claimed that the police were trying …

    Security 16 Nov 13:15

  • Greenpeace, unions attack 'secret UN plans to seize the INTERNETS'

    Oh those crazy hippies

    Greenpeace and the International Trade Union Confederation are the latest to lay into the UN International Telecommunications Union for trying to grab hold of the internet, blithely unconcerned by the complete lack of any such plan on the ITU's part. In an open letter signed by the Director and Secretary respectively (pdf, …

    Networks 16 Nov 13:17

  • BBC iPlayer downloads BORKED by Adobe Air update

    'Proper fix' could be AGES away, grumbles Auntie

    An update to Adobe's Air application has crippled the BBC's iPlayer Desktop software, which is used by telly and radio fans in the UK who want to download programmes to view and listen to offline. A sorrowful Auntie is currently advising its fans to roll back Adobe Air from version 3.5 to version 3.4 in order to get the …

    Media 16 Nov 13:29

  • Dead Steve Jobs was dead wrong on Flash, bellows ColdFusion man

    Zuckerberg may be alive but he too is wrong on HTML5

    The founder of the ColdFusion markup language has lent his voice to a growing list of big names expressing concern over the death of the open web. Jeremy Allaire has called for an end to the religious wars engulfing devices that was originally sparked off in 2010, when Apple co-founder and chief executive Steve Jobs launched …

    Software 16 Nov 13:36

  • Curiosity latest: MARTIAN DUST DEVILS assail prowling robot rover

    Secrets of the Gale Crater probed

    Dust-devil tornadoes have swirled around Mars rover Curiosity during its time on the planet's surface, its weather-watching instrument reports. The nuclear truck comes equipped with the Rover Environmental Monitoring Station (REMS) that has spotted transient whirlwinds in the Gale Crater on Mars. Boffins have looked at REMS' …

    Science 16 Nov 13:51

  • Bong Broadcasting Corporation. Let ME replace Entwistle

    ¡Bong! Strictly Come Dogging means I should be Digital General

    "Our purpose is to ensure that literature and art fit well into the whole revolutionary machine as a component part, that they operate as powerful weapons for uniting and educating the people and for attacking and destroying the enemy, and that they help the people fight the enemy with one heart and one mind." - Mao Tse Tung …

    Bootnotes 16 Nov 14:17

  • Sony confesses: we can't beat iPhone... yet

    Promises New Year revolutions

    Sony has conceded that its Xperia smartphone range lacks a clear iPhone 5 beater. But it promises a contender will be unveiled at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in January 2013. "We will create in the near future a flagship Sony model that can compete with Apple's iPhone and Samsung's Galaxy S III," said Dennis Van Schie …

    Mobile 16 Nov 14:32

  • Musk to blast right of way through California with railgun Concorde

    Hyperloop plans might be easier in Martian retirement

    Elon Musk dropped a few further hints about his Hyperloops transit plan in London last night, saying it was "a cross between a Concorde and a rail gun" whose biggest hurdles included "right-of-way" issues. And it seems that the ultimate destiny of the futuristic system would be to shift aging tech entrepreneurs around their …

    Science 16 Nov 14:38

  • Sony surges past 70 million PlayStation 3 sales

    Catches up with Microsoft's Xbox 360

    Sony is commemorating the shipment of 70 million PlayStation 3 consoles this week. Reaching the milestone essentially puts it neck and neck with Microsoft's Xbox 360 in terms of overall global lifetime sales. The figures relate to the number of consoles shipped to retailers rather to than customers, so we have little idea how …

    Games 16 Nov 14:55

  • Another Microsoft Trojan? Sinofsky might just want a RIM job

    Analysis OPERATION ELOP TWO is GO! Maybe

    You are the Mussolini of Microsoft: you have the engineering operations of Windows and Office running on time, smashing their reputation for lateness. You’ve run the $18bn Windows business unit for Microsoft, the world’s largest software company, and been in charge of the division building Office, the planet’s dominant …

    Business 16 Nov 15:02

  • Boss wrong to demote man over anti-gay-marriage Facebook post

    Nobody forced workmates to read it, says judge

    A Christian man who expressed his unfavourable views about gay marriage on Facebook - and was subsequently demoted with a 40 per cent pay cut by the Manchester-based housing trust he worked for - has won a breach-of-contract case against his employer. Mr Justice Briggs ruled in London's High Court this morning that the actions …

    Law 16 Nov 15:23

  • Amazon cloud inspectors approve SAP's biz apps

    Tech giants see cloudy sky, forecast rain of doubloons

    SAP’s mighty business apps have been certified to run on the Amazon cloud. Amazon said Thursday the software giant’s Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP), Customer Relationship Management (CRM), Product Lifecycle Management (PLM), Supply Chain Management (SCM) and Supplier Relationship Management (SRM) applications had been …

    Cloud 16 Nov 15:37

  • Galapagos islands bombed with 22 tonnes of Blue Death Cornflakes

    Tortoise-scoffing rats face waves of poison gunships

    Twenty-two tonnes of cereal laced with pesticide have been dropped on the Galapagos Islands over the past week to get rid of a rat menace that has seen 10 rats pack every square meter on the island of Pinzón. In the biggest raticide in South American history, the Ecuadorian government, working with conservation groups, has …

    Science 16 Nov 15:46

  • Thought you'd escaped Twitter? Think again as Twits get email button

    Tweemail spamalanche set to beam up into Luddite inboxes

    Just to make sure that anyone who's not on Twitter knows about Twitter, understands the coolness of Twitter and sees that everyone they know is on it and that they should be on it too, Twitter has introduced sharing by email. If one of the Twitterati sees a tweet they want to share with their Luddite unstreet friends, they can …

    Networks 16 Nov 15:55

  • Facebook: Give us your credit card and pals' addresses as GIFTS

    And WE will slightly facilitate your cupcake purchase!

    Why write on a friend's Facebook wall when you could send them cupcakes and they could chose the flavour of the cupcakes? That was Facebook's big pitch to users last night as they announced the rollout of Facebook Gifts at a glitzy New York media event. In an attempt to get people using their credit cards on the social network …

    Media 16 Nov 16:12

  • Beware Instagram PERIL HOTTIES, say security bods

    Sepia loveliness riddled with scams like other portals

    Scammers are targeting Instagram users by creating fake profiles to gather personal details before attempting to trick users into signing up for premium-rate mobile services, among other ruses. Fake profiles on the social network often feature "women" with attractive profile pictures who have never posted any photos. Their …

    Security 16 Nov 16:27

  • OMG! Aaaah! Apple TV! Yes! No ... Probably! Sometime!

    Like a stuck calendar, this will be right eventually

    After the iPad Mini rumours turned out to be true, fanboys are eagerly expecting the long rumoured Apple TVs to be announced. After all, we've only been expecting a decent one since 2007 when the current box launched. Apple has been kicking around the idea of revolutionising TV since well before Steve Jobs left the company. …

    Hardware 16 Nov 16:45

  • 'Long Time Ago' and 'Far, Far Away' records broken by new GALAXY

    I remember when it was all Big Bang round here

    With the power of Hubble and Spitzer combined, NASA has spotted the most distant galaxy ever pictured, around just 420 million years after the Big Bang. A new programme, known as the Cluster Lensing and Supernova Survey with Hubble (CLASH), uses the Hubble and Spitzer space telescopes and the natural gravitational lensing in …

    Science 16 Nov 16:59

  • LIVE NOW: Speak Your Brains on Windows chief's defenestration SHOCKER

    Live Chat Join the chatstorm ... right NOW

    Steven Sinofsky, Microsoft’s Windows chief, left Microsoft suddenly and without adequate explanation a week ago. Sinofsky helped launch Windows 7, took over the Windows group in 2010 and in two years turned around an organization tainted by Windows Vista to put Microsoft on an attack vector against Apple with Windows 8, last …

    Software 16 Nov 17:14

  • Plenty more fish (and other eukaryotes) in the sea, say boffins

    Expert on enormous bottom cucumbers lays it out

    While scientists have painstakingly documented the existence of 226,000 marine species to date, there remain two to three times as many sea-dwelling creatures yet to be discovered, a new study has suggested. Researchers at the University of Florida, who worked with more than 100 taxonomists and biologists to reach their …

    Science 16 Nov 17:15

  • Black Ops 2 takes HALF A BEELLION DOLLARS in just ONE DAY

    Call of Duty whups Harry Potter and Star Wars

    Activision gloats that its Call of Duty franchise is again the "biggest entertainment launch of the year", after revealing a return of $500m (£316m) from day-one sales of Black Ops 2. The figures come compiled from three sources: Chart-Track, retail customer sell-through information, and internal company estimates. We're …

    Media 16 Nov 17:26

  • US team poised for second pop at PARIS spaceplane record

    Indiana uni boffins challenge Vulture 1 once more

    Students from the University of Southern Indiana are poised to make a second attempt on El Reg's Guinness World Record for the highest launch of a paper plane. On 27 October, a team from the uni's Engineering Design and Analysis class dispatched their Geronimo aircraft (pictured below) under a helium-filled meteorological …

    SPB 16 Nov 17:44

  • Dell inhales Gale Technologies to blow away cloud rivals

    Sets up Enterprise Solutions group, taps networker to run it

    Texan tech titan Dell is trying to turn itself into Big Blue, just like HP, Oracle, and Cisco Systems: its data center business was the one bright spot in its dismal third quarter financials reported last night. As we said at the end of our report that with $11.3bn in cash and equivalents in the bank, we would not be surprised …

    Servers 16 Nov 18:09

  • Woz: Microsoft's innovation lead 'worries me greatly'

    Apple slipping since Steve Jobs' exit – though he was a 'real rugged bastard'

    Apple cofounder Steve Wozniak worries that Microsoft may now be more innovative than the product developers at his former company. He also has a few harsh words for the management style of his fellow Cupertinian cofounder, Steve Jobs. Asked about Microsoft's innovation after he spoke at this week's TedX Brussels conference, …

    Business 16 Nov 20:15

  • Microsoft offers 60-day free trial of Office 2013

    TechNet download now available to world+dog

    Microsoft is now offering a free 60-day trial of Office 2013 Professional Plus, the next generation of its nigh-ubiquitous desktop productivity suite, via its TechNet Evaluation Center website. Office 2013 entered the Release To Manufacturing (RTM) phase in October, and the final code has been available to Microsoft Developer …

    Applications 16 Nov 20:22

  • Reefer madness blasts pot machine maker's stock sky high

    Management: 'Whoa, dude, chill out'

    The management of marijuana dispensing machine manufacturer Medbox has asked investors to chill out and get a grip after the company's stock suddenly rose 3,000 per cent to over $215. "While we are pleased by the share attention, Medbox shares have traded between $2.75 and $3.45 over the past several months," said CEO Bruce …

    Business 16 Nov 20:32

  • October global temps above average for 332nd straight month

    Not in the UK, where it's cool as the proverbial cucumber

    The US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has released its global temperature analysis for October, and – no surprise – the planet remains in a sultry mood. As NOAA explains, a bit dryly – no pun intended, and no offense meant to unfortunate Americans fleeing drought-crazed rabid skunks: "This is the 332nd …

    Science 16 Nov 22:27

  • Survey: Win8 only HALF as popular as Win7 among IT bosses

    Redmond needs BYODers to clamor for its fondleslabs

    Microsoft has staked a lot on Windows 8 being the key to its future, but preliminary numbers from analyst house Forrester suggest that business isn't too keen on the new OS. The firm's 2009 survey data for Windows 7 shows that at this point in its sales cycle, 49 per cent of firms expected to upgrade to that then-new operating …

    Windows 8 16 Nov 22:31

  • Taliban official's email blunder leaks 400+ contacts

    Cc list puts journalists, activists at risk

    Anyone in the bulk email business should know never to mix up cc: ("carbon copy") and bcc: ("blind carbon copy") – especially if the materials you're sending out are Taliban press releases. That was exactly the rookie mistake made by Taliban spokesman Qari Yousuf Ahmedi last week, ABC News reports, which resulted in Ahmedi …

    Security 16 Nov 22:39