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17th December 2012 Archive

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  • Chinese spacecraft JUUUUST avoids smashing into Toutatis

    Chang'e-2 snaps pics during close shave with spud-shaped space rock

    Chinese probe Chang'e-2 has successfully flown by Toutatis, an asteroid named for the Celtic deity often invoked by cartoon characters Asterix and Obelix. 4179 Toutatis, to give the object its full name, has an orbit that brings it very close to Earth's, before swinging out into Jupiter's neighbourhood. Last week that orbit …

    Science 17 Dec 00:38

  • Report says Cisco offloading Linksys

    Barclays hired to do the deed

    Cisco's long and inglorious retreat from the consumer business may be about to reach another miserable milestone, after Bloomberg reported Linksys is up for sale. Cisco scooped up Linksys back in 2003 and used the brand to offer consumer and small business products. Cisco has done reasonably well in the latter market, but the …

    Financial News 17 Dec 02:34

  • Ocean seeding a dead duck as carbon solution

    Plankton won’t save the world

    Seeding the ocean with iron to encourage plankton blooms works – kind of – but as a carbon sequestration approach, it’s hugely expensive, inefficient and probably ineffective, according to a Sydney University researcher. The geo-engineering idea hit the headlines earlier this year when American Russ George dumped 200,000 …

    Science 17 Dec 03:03

  • Samsung mobes pwned by ANY APP, thanks to chip code hole

    Cluster of Exynos-powered Galaxies and other gear at risk

    A member of an XDA developers forum who calls him-or-herself Alephzain claims to have found a flaw in several Samsung handsets and tablets that could allow attackers to enjoy full access to their RAM. Alephzain posted news of the embarrassing bug here, stating: “The security hole is in [the] kernel, exactly with the device / …

    Security 17 Dec 06:19

  • 'Metadatagate' fails to bring down Oz pollie

    Sysadmins in the news after time stamps become key to political scandal

    Time stamps in Adobe Acrobat and Microsoft Word documents briefly became the centre of Australia's political agenda today, after seemingly dodgy dates in a press release were said to point to a conspiracy. To understand the sudden political import of metadata, you need to know that Australia currently has a minority government …

    Government 17 Dec 06:36

  • WIN! A Viewsonic Pro9000 HD projector worth £1600

    Competition Start 2013 with a big-screen home cinema

    WIN! A Viewsonic Pro9000 HD projector featuring the latest LED lamp tech that's cool running, energy saving and outlasts them all. ViewSonic has given us one of its first to market, state-of-the-art laser hybrid LED projectors for you to win. Simply answer the three questions below, and if you're looking for clues, check out …

    Hardware 17 Dec 07:00

  • NetApp to build MARS waystation from flash dev's kit

    Exclusive Will spit out top secret February product after swallowing CacheIQ

    El Reg hears that NetApp has a CacheIQ SSD product coming out in February next year, which will act as an ONTAP accelerator, like the Avere products. This info comes to us indirectly from a person directly associated with NetApp's plans. Such a product could be a stopgap before the MARS flash array - background here - or a …

    Storage 17 Dec 08:02

  • 'We are screwed!' Fonts eat a bullet in Microsoft security patch

    Updated Eternal vigilance is the price of wingdings

    Windows users were surprised to find that a Microsoft security update stopped fonts from working on their PCs. Security update KB2753842 has killed certain fonts on PCs where it has been installed, rendering many of them unusable, and causing problems for designers and businesses who rely on using the types in their work. …

    Security 17 Dec 09:01

  • Seagate slips out super-silent 2.5in video hard drive

    Bespoke drive holds up to 38 hours of media

    Seagate has decided the set-top box and digital video recorder market is now big enough to warrant having its own special drive - and the Video 2.5 HDD is it. It's chosen a 2.5-inch format because it holds enough video - 250, 320 or 500GB of the stuff - is barely audible at 22dB, and draws niggardly amounts of power. The new …

    Hardware 17 Dec 09:31

  • First Mac OS X fake installer pops up, racks up your mobe bill

    Russian music app? Nope, it's an SMS trojan

    Crooks have developed a new Mac OS X-specific Trojan that mimics the behaviour of a legitimate software installer. Trojan-SMSSend-3666, which poses as an application for listening to music on a popular Russian social networking site, attempts to hoodwink marks into handing their mobile number to activate the radio app. Users …

    Software 17 Dec 10:03

  • Huawei feeds up flash fish, offers juicy Dorado to storage-munchers

    Gen 2 flash array triples in size

    Huawei, the Chinese networking and storage supplier, has tripled the performance and capacity of its OceanStor Dorado 2100 flash array as well as adding 10 gig E and QDR InfiniBand access and thin provisioning. Deduplication is not included though. The first gen Dorado, which we described here, was a Huawei Symantec box - at …

    Storage 17 Dec 10:32

  • Taxpayers to cough for Comet staff redundo

    Last of stores to close tomorrow

    The last stores of the once mighty High Street giant Comet are to close by tomorrow but the saga looks set to continue, with taxpayers potentially having to step in to cover redundancy costs. Administrative receiver Deloitte, called in by the ailing retailer's parent Hailey Acquisitions Ltd on 2 November, had been holding …

    The Channel 17 Dec 10:55

  • What Reg readers are planning for their datacentre

    Expanding the beach head

    When 481 Reg Readers were asked to rate their IT delivery capability in terms of responsiveness, service level management, cost control and business alignment, only a quarter claimed a good level of performance across all areas. Furthermore, a wholesale move to the public cloud was not felt to be the answer. This puts the …

    Datacenter 17 Dec 11:03

  • Hackers warn: We'll hit US banks... again

    Insecure PHP web apps powering zombie DDoS assault

    Hackers who claimed responsibility for a series of denial of service attacks against US banks in September have warned the US they plan to renew their assault shortly. The Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Cyber Fighters named US Bancorp, JP Morgan Chase, Bank of America, PNC Financial Services Group and SunTrust as possible attack targets …

    Security 17 Dec 11:19

  • Musos blast US copyright bods: 'ARTISTS MAKE LOUSY SLAVES!'

    Michelle Shocked shocks - You don't want sausage grinder to do WHAT?

    The workings of the US Copyright Office rarely provoke a smile let alone a laugh, so brace yourself for this. The agency is shuffling some of its rules, thrown its doors open to the public for comment, and has been livened up by possibly the best submission ever made to any quango. The office is inviting responses to changes …

    Government 17 Dec 11:43

  • Review: Eurocom Monster W110ER gaming netbook

    High-end gaming condensed into an 11.6in notebook

    It’s hard to see quite who Eurocom thinks will buy its Monster W110ER “gaming netbook”. Surely any gamer sufficiently hardcore to feel the need to be able to take a high-end gaming system around with them - and the W110ER is a high-end machine - will want to play on a larger screen than an 11.6-incher, especially when it’s …

    Hardware 17 Dec 12:00

  • Mobile devices bring back that old client-server feeling

    It's deja vu all over again

    If you see the phrase “any time, any place, anywhere” in relation to mobile access, and are tempted to point out the language redundancy (any place, anywhere), then you are probably not old enough to remember the birth of client-server in the late '80s and early '90s. If, however, cheesy music from a Martini ad is now running …

    Management 17 Dec 12:18

  • Google close to deal with FTC: May fob off probe with 'tweaks' - report

    Eric Schmidt's eleventh-hour horse-trading may just have paid off

    A lengthy regulatory Stateside investigation of Google's search business practices is reportedly coming to an end with the outcome expected to be favourable for the company and bitterly disappointing for its rivals. On Saturday, Politico cited people familiar with the probe currently being carried out by the US Federal Trade …

    Government 17 Dec 12:24

  • Polar drilling effort hits snag: Boffins' search for life put on ice

    Ancient Antarctic lake won't get another drilling for at least a few days

    The British boffinry team hunting for life under the Antarctic ice-sheet over ancient Lake Ellsworth have run into trouble. The scientists said today that they have a "serious problem" with the main boiler, used to generate hot water for the drill. The drill works with 90°C water, blasting a hole through the two-mile (3.4km) …

    Science 17 Dec 12:40

  • ITU to treaty haters: Enjoy your pricey roaming, boatloads of spam... suckers

    WCIT2012 You'll be back, just you wait, say telecoms charter bods

    According to UN agency the ITU, more than half the world's population will enjoy cheaper international roaming, faster connectivity, less spam and an improved economy. This is all thanks to a new treaty of global telecoms regulations 89 countries have signed up to, the same one firmly rejected by America and its pals, who felt …

    Networks 17 Dec 13:03

  • Samsung gobbles flash upstart for starters ... Servers for main?

    Mmmm, we'll have a side order of 64bit ARM blades

    Memory and NAND foundry owner Samsung has bought a flash caching software startup called NVELO. The South Korean giant has gobbled up NVELO's technology, its products and its staff for an undisclosed amount and without revealing whether it is paying cash or using stock to do so. NVELO is privately owned and headquartered in …

    Storage 17 Dec 13:35

  • Qualcomm bucks global chip biz slump - report

    But Intel and Samsung don't need to panic just yet

    Phone chip-maker Qualcomm defied the semiconductor industry decline to show double-digit year-on-year growth at a time when almost all of its rivals saw their sales slide, and the market as a whole dipped. Or it will have done if a forecast made today by Gartner, a market watcher, proves correct. Gartner today said it expects …

    Financial News 17 Dec 13:57

  • 2012 in the channel: The year we sold EVERYTHING as a service

    HP, Eurozone, Olympics - how the year shaped up for channel players

    Few people would argue that this year has been one of very big highs and lows. From a personal perspective, 2012 will be remembered for the Olympics and Ryder Cup (great), weather (expletive deleted!) and the continued challenges of the economy, especially in the Eurozone. It’s been pretty interesting in the IT space too. We' …

    The Channel 17 Dec 14:05

  • Apotheker: HP board was just as culpable for Autonomy buy

    I didn't get chance to 'implement strategy in its totality'

    Leo Apotheker reckons he shouldn't be forced to single-handedly carry the can for HP's calamitous acquisition of Autonomy when there are a bunch of board members that were equally at fault. The man spent 11 short months at the Silicon Valley giant, but this was more than enough to make an indelible mark - his tenure included …

    Financial News 17 Dec 14:29

  • Micro-computer bakers open Raspberry Pi shop

    Mmmm, tasty apps

    The Raspberry Pi Foundation has opened an online software shop tied to its cheap-as-chips micro-computer. The Pi Store - not, alas, "the Pi Shop", which Brits will surely agree sounds better - is intended to provide a port of call for users seeking apps, games, tools and guidance to help them make the most of their wee, ARM- …

    Applications 17 Dec 15:02

  • Coming soon to a theme park near you: Shocking ANTI-PIRACY NAG ADS

    UK's ho-hum copyright, patent shakeup revealed

    While the world's economic powerhouse China uses the muscle of the state to strengthen its intellectual property industries, Britain is apologetic and embarrassed about its own. This was plainly evident in a dog and pony show this morning starring Business Secretary Vince Cable. The event was staged by officials at the much- …

    Government 17 Dec 15:24

  • Samsung, LG 'lose confidence' in OLED TV tech

    Waiting for an organic telly? Be prepared to wait some more

    Don’t expect reasonably priced OLED TVs to hit the market for a fair few years yet. Do, however, expect 4K x 2K Ultra HD LCD TVs to be all the rage in 2013. So suggests David Hsieh, an analyst at NPD DisplaySearch, a market watcher. He claims to have detected a change in the mood of those two major display manufacturers, …

    Hardware 17 Dec 16:03

  • Look out, Flash! Phase-change RAM IS HERE ... in Nokia mobiles

    I, for one, welcome our new amorphous blob overlords

    Micron is shipping phase-change memory to Nokia for use in its Asha smartphones. Phase-change memory (PCM) stores each binary bit using the electrical resistance of a chalcogenide chemical: when the material is an amorphous blob, its resistance is high and it represents a 0; in its poly-crystalline state, its resistance is low …

    Mobile 17 Dec 16:29

  • Sorry, Apple - China's just not that into your iPhone 5

    Still, 2 million sales in 3 days nothing to sneer at

    Apple sold 2 million iPhone 5s in the three days in China after the device went on official sale on Friday. It's a sales figure that is solid, but will not see buyers in the east Asian country replacing Apple's lucrative markets of Europe and the US in a hurry. iPhone 5s in China achieved a market penetration that was just 25 …

    Mobile 17 Dec 17:04

  • Germany sets date for Google vs newspapers smackdown

    Sie haben schlürfte uns zum letzten Mal

    Google and the German newspaper industry will fight it out in a public hearing on 30 January, Angela Merkel's government announced today. The two sides will battle over whether Google should pay copyright fees to newspapers for linking to their content and publishing excerpts on Google news in a open session in the Bundestag …

    Media 17 Dec 17:27

  • BEELLIONAIRE Paul Singer slings $2.3bn into Compuware

    Updated Hedge fund hot on the heels of Covisint subsidiary IPO plan

    New York-based hedge fund Elliott Management has been on the hunt for undervalued software companies in which to invest. A few years back, it tried to buy Novell and failed in the attempt. But last month Elliott started amassing shares in Compuware, a systems and application management software maker, and now it wants the whole …

    Cloud 17 Dec 17:42

  • Here's a free tip, Cisco: DON'T buy NetApp unless you're crazy

    Blocks and Files Lest you raid the festive booze and wake up with regret

    Hungry Cisco may gobble Citrix, NetApp and Rackspace, according to Bloomberg. But why on Earth would Cisco buy NetApp? We'll tell you why that's a crazy idea. Bloomberg quotes Thrivent Financial’s analyst Peter Karazeris, who said: "Financially, it’s a good transaction. Strategically, it’s not crazy. [NetApp] does fit.” …

    Storage 17 Dec 18:02

  • It's official: Mac users are morally superior to Windows users

    Well, they're more generous, at least

    The online donation–management company Qgiv has analyzed the charitable-giving patterns of 165,000 people and found that Mac users are far more benevolent than Windows users. Qgiv analyzed 320,000 donations given through their donation platform from November 2011 through November 2012, and discovered that the average donation …

    Tablets 17 Dec 19:01

  • Anonymous hacks Westboro Baptists over Sandy Hook protests

    Other hackers join the fray

    Anonymous has posted personal data of many members of the Westboro Baptist Church and is promising to shut down the religious sect after it announced plans to protest the funerals of those killed at Sandy Hook Elementary School last week. "We have unanimously deemed your organization to be harmful to the population of the USA …

    Security 17 Dec 19:14

  • Quadriplegic woman demos advanced mind-control of robot arm

    Achieves personal goal: feeds herself chocolate

    Scientists from the University of Pittsburg report amazing success with a new kind of brain interface that allows a quadriplegic woman to demonstrate fine motor controls with a robot arm. Guinea pig Jan Scheuermann, who has been paralyzed for nearly a decade, had two 4mm-by-4mm chips implanted in her brain, one in the area …

    Science 17 Dec 21:01

  • Oracle upgrades Big Data Appliance with Xeon E5s

    Berkeley DB NoSQL database gets 2.0 rev

    Database giant Oracle is trying to keep the myriad NoSQL and alternative data stores and big data munchers like Hadoop at bay by commercializing and integrating a bunch of proprietary and open source software onto preconfigured x86-based servers that it sells in appliance fashion. Oracle has not talked about how well or poorly …

    Servers 17 Dec 21:10

  • North Korea's satellite a dud, say US astroboffins

    Tumbling out of control – just like the country that built it

    North Korea may have successfully launched a satellite into orbit, as reported last week, but it might as well have deployed a pile of scrap metal, US-based astroboffins say. "It's clear that the rocket part of this mission worked very well for the North Koreans," Harvard astronomer John McDowell told The New York Times. "They …

    Science 17 Dec 21:18

  • Australia gets new CIO and CTO

    New CTO role created as AGIMO splits itself in two

    Australia’s Government Information Management Office (AGIMO), the nation's top technology policy body, is splitting into distinct policy and services delivery arms, after the departure of Australian Government Chief Information Officer Ann Steward led to a restructure. Steward announced her departure from the top CIO job late …

    Government 17 Dec 22:08

  • Sprint offers $2.2bn to acquire second half of Clearwire

    But will minority shareholders accept buyout? Mebbe so, mebbe not

    Sprint, which already owns 51.7 per cent of wireless broadband service provider Clearwire, has announced a deal to acquire the remaining (nearly) half in a deal that would pay $2.97 per share to that company's minority shareholders – a deal that is in no way a slam dunk. "Today we are announcing that the boards of directors of …

    Business 17 Dec 23:01

  • Web devs gasp: HTML5 takes big step toward standardization

    HTML 5.1, Canvas 2D specs also announced

    The Worldwide Web Consortium (W3C) has moved ahead with plans to develop the next two versions of the HTML web markup language, having released new draft specifications of HTML5, HTML 5.1, and related standards. On Monday, the web standards body published the first "candidate recommendation" of HTML5, bringing the standard to …

    Developer 17 Dec 23:18