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18th December 2012 Archive

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  • DARPA planning 100 Gbps wireless

    Seeks interest in development and demonstrations

    DARPA (the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency) has decided that the 200-276 Mbps wireless technology currently used for military communications, known as the Common Data Link, is not going to live forever, and is inviting companies to submit proposals to boost battlefield wireless to an impressive-if-achieved 100 Gbps. …

    Networks 18 Dec 00:34

  • GRAIL orbiters make DEATH DIVE into lunar mountain

    Impact point honors first female US astronaut

    The two orbiters that make made up NASA's Gravity Recovery and Interior Laboratory (GRAIL) have smashed into a lunar mountain at a speed of 3,760 mph as part of the mission's last experiment. The two craft, named Ebb and Flow, have spent the last year building a map of the gravitational forces within the moon. They also …

    Science 18 Dec 00:54

  • Fish grow ‘hands’ in genetic experiment

    Don’t let them near the lasers

    It’s a pretty safe presumption that hands evolved from fins, since fish evolved long before anything remotely resembling an opposable thumb. Now, a group of Spanish researchers has demonstrated a genetic expression that hints at how it happened. The group, led by Dr José Luis Gómez-Skarmeta of Spain’s CSIC-Universidad Pablo de …

    Science 18 Dec 01:09

  • Iran's Ayatollah Khamenei 'likes' Facebook despite ban

    Supreme Leader dodges filters to post status, photos

    Iran is a nation known for its heavy-handed censorship of the internet, but it is still possible to access Facebook from within its borders – particularly, that is, if you happen to be the country's Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. The Ayatollah set up his new Facebook profile on Friday, and it has already garnered …

    Bootnotes 18 Dec 02:04

  • Football club catches, then punts, Kaspersky name

    Anger on the terraces sees Russians' role reduced

    Australian Rugby League team the Manly Warringah Sea Eagles has changed its name to the Kaspersky Sea Eagles, only to retract the name change hours later after a backlash from fans. Rugby League is a 13-a-side version of rugby. The sport is popular in northern England and the east coast of Australia, where interest is …

    Business 18 Dec 02:45

  • VCDX: The elite certification just 105 people hold

    Recruiters don't know about it, but one bloke who got it now drives a Porsche

    On 28 February next year in Las Vegas, a group of brave IT professionals will go before a jury of their peers and spend half a day defending themselves and their technical skills. The inquisitors will pull no punches and the process will be brutal. Many of those on trial will be defeated, rejected and fly home chastened. Others …

    Jobs 18 Dec 03:54

  • Shh! Proxima Centauri can hear us!

    Australian researchers test Earth's outbound radio noise

    In the unlikely case that Proxima Centauri is inhabited, that its inhabitants are technologically developed ahead of Earth, and its inhabitants actually care about us, its media might is just catching up with the stories of 2008. Nearby and more contemporaneously, an ANU researcher, Ben McKinley, has run a calculation for …

    Science 18 Dec 04:07

  • Siri: Can you make a Raspberry Pi open a garage door?

    Vid Here I am, brain the size of a planet and you ask me to open a motorised door

    A clever coder who goes by the name DarkTherapy has created an iPhone app and interface for the Raspberry Pi that allows it to open a door. Not just any door, mind you, but a motorised garage door. As you'll see in the video below, an iPhone is a far snappier remote control than your average door zapper. The project works …

    Hardware 18 Dec 06:16

  • Why is SanDisk joining whip-round for Whiptail?

    Storage players prepare for coming flash array wars

    USB and camera/phone flash chip vendor SanDisk has bought into flash array startup Whiptail. Now why exactly, and how, is SanDisk doing this? A Wall Street Journal blog gave the game way. SanDisk is announcing a $75m venture fund to buy stock in companies that help SanDisk's strategic interests. The first buy is stock in …

    Storage 18 Dec 06:58

  • Conmen DID use leaked info of sporty civil servants... to attack HMRC

    But why did gov only tell data's owners 3 years later?

    Criminals used the personal data of 100,000 civil servants that was swiped in early 2010 in an attack on HMRC around the same time, The Register has discovered. Now, almost three years later, the government is still scrabbling around trying to work out whodunnit... and only recently 'fessed up to the individuals concerned that …

    Security 18 Dec 08:04

  • Data-centre procurement ain't what it used to be

    Adjust your funding models

    The cost of supplying IT services inside businesses has never been more visible, with much marketing attention focusing on the question “Why aren’t you using cloud-based services instead of running your own systems?” More than ever, IT departments are having to justify their funding and show they are doing a good job. Just how …

    Datacenter 18 Dec 08:32

  • Forget about fondling that slab... within 2 years, it'll fondle YOU

    IBM predicts computers that can eat, smell, taste, hear, see

    IBM has released its annual predictions for the next five years of technology, including phones that sniff you for germs and actual fondling through fondleslabs. Big Blue reckons that the future holds tiny sensors embedded in computers or mobes that will "smell" if you're coming down with a cold. The sensors will be tuned into …

    Hardware 18 Dec 09:02

  • Google unlikely to get kid-glove treatment THIS side of pond - Euro biz players

    All in Almunia's hands... now

    European web businesses are unlikely to give up the fight against Google's business practices, according to sources involved in the case. Reports at the weekend suggest that Google was close to reaching a closed door settlement with the FTC which would require it only to make voluntary presentational changes, and relieve it from …

    Government 18 Dec 09:33

  • BT wins another HUGE gov-funded rural broadband deal

    2016 waiting game for 140k homes, biz in Herefordshire and Gloucestershire

    Multi-billion pound telecoms giant BT has landed another broadband government subsidy to lay fibre in the countryside: this time for a £56.6m joint local authority project between Herefordshire and Gloucestershire that won't be completed until 2016. That's a whole year behind Whitehall's 2015 "challenging target". The fibre- …

    Broadband 18 Dec 10:02

  • Search engines we have known ... before Google crushed them

    Feature Dot.coms of the past slurped themselves into oblivion

    Remember when the internet was young, moving your bulky monitor was a two-person job and 1.4MB disks didn't look like a typo? Back then (most) people didn't have to choose which web search engine they were going to use: it came prepared by the operating system maker, such as Microsoft and MSN Search, or the folks you got your …

    Applications 18 Dec 10:28

  • Hard-up Brit bankers bag endless free Wi-Fi during cig breaks

    Slickers know how to spend other people's money

    The City of London will get free unlimited Wi-Fi internet access from The Cloud following a successful six-month trial. The wireless connectivity biz blanketed the capital's financial district with Wi-Fi in 2007 but limited city slickers to 15 minutes of free use before it started charging for the service. But in March this …

    Mobile 18 Dec 10:58

  • END OF THE WORLD IS NIGH: TalkTalk no longer worst ISP in UK

    This just in... Mayans really were onto something

    Even Ofcom was surprised to report today that TalkTalk is no longer the UK's number one most bitched about broadband provider. In a sign that the world may actually end this Friday, TalkTalk was ingloriously pushed into second place by Orange. TalkTalk, headed up by one-time jockey Dido Harding, saw its horse finish second in …

    Broadband 18 Dec 11:29

  • Judge: There'll be no US Samsung ban, BUT no new trial with Apple either

    Lucy 'the Enforcer' Koh - Now you kids behave yourselves now...

    Apple has failed in its attempt to obtain a permanent ban on several Samsung products in the US, but Samsung's accusations of jury misconduct have also been rejected. As she has so many times before, Judge Lucy Koh kept things even between Apple and Samsung by rejecting most of their requests. After Apple won $1bn in its …

    Mobile 18 Dec 12:02

  • How to put the data centre back together again

    Sharing brings harmony

    The world of business is becoming faster, more competitive and ever more dependent on IT. Transactions and interactions that used to be handled manually between suppliers, the channel and customers are now largely electronic. Most of the day-to-day operations and communications of the business rely on IT services and any …

    Datacenter 18 Dec 12:16

  • What did Capita ITS staff get for Xmas? Elf 'n' safety training

    All Hands on deck: ELEVEN mandatory courses by 31 Dec

    Capita IT Services boss Peter Hands has handed his staff a joyful end-of-year gift: an order to complete about a dozen mandatory training courses by 31 December. The big cheese's memo caps off a year in which Capita froze bonuses and pay rises, threatened to outsource jobs to India, and went head to head with Unite over …

    The Channel 18 Dec 12:39

  • New Year's resolution: Don't use Instagram, it'll sell YOUR photos

    New T&Cs allow admen to flog tat using your snaps

    Social network Instagram has provoked uproar among its latte-photographing users: it has changed its terms and conditions to grant itself licensing rights to sell all photographs taken by the app. The amendment in the Ts&Cs will come into effect from 16 January. The firm will not technically "own" the images but will be able …

    Law 18 Dec 13:03

  • Morgan Stanley cops $5m fine over Facebook IPOcalypse

    Lead bank buddy settles improper conduct claims

    Morgan Stanley has been fined $5m for allegedly coaching Facebook on how to selectively release its financial information before its market debut. The lead underwriter for Facebook's IPO has settled with the Massachusetts securities regulator, William Galvin, neither admitting or denying the allegations. The banks that …

    Networks 18 Dec 13:31

  • Dutch operators: Ugh, we really overdid it on the 4G last night...

    Punters wake up with empty wallets after spectrum auction

    Dutch operators are waking with something of a hangover following panicked bidding on 4G telephony licences in the overcrowded Netherlands market. The country’s 4G spectrum auction altogether generated nearly €3.8bn. Vodafone shares tumbled 2.8 per cent and KPN said it wouldn't be able pay its promised end-of-year dividend as …

    Mobile 18 Dec 14:02

  • Plasma boffins' POWERFUL wind now a key clue to fiery Sun

    Astrophysical turbulence experienced in lab hotbox

    Boffins have attempted to recreate astrophysical turbulence in the laboratory, so they can study the force that forms stars, carries heat across galaxies and troubles the edge of the Earth's magnetosphere. Using the Large Plasma Device at UCLA, physicists took high resolution images of turbulent plasma in the chamber and were …

    Science 18 Dec 14:29

  • UK gov probes Comet crash: Public, private sectors LOST £257m

    But VC will pull £50m from flaming wreckage

    The Department for Business, Innovation and Skills plans to probe the administration of Comet, whose collapse has left the private and public sector out of pocket to the tune of £257m. The Insolvency Service is to launch the investigation after receiving numerous complaints from MPs just as the doors close on Comet's last 49 …

    The Channel 18 Dec 14:58

  • Facebook: 'No merit' to claim we broke German privacy law

    You don't like our real-names rule? Tough cookies, bitch

    Facebook has hit back at a watchdog that claimed the website broke German law by requiring users to reveal their real names. The independent privacy protection agency ULD in Kiel, north Germany, yesterday ordered an end to the social network's policy on real names. But a Facebook spokeswoman today told The Register: "It is the …

    Networks 18 Dec 15:34

  • Naked Scarlett Johansson pic snatch bloke gets 10 YEARS

    Saucy celeb snap plunderer: 'What a relief'

    A US man who hacked into the email accounts of celebrities including Scarlett Johansson and Mila Kunis and later leaked their nude photos has been sentenced to 10 years in prison. Former office clerk Christopher Chaney, who claims he was "addicted" to spying on celebrities' private lives, leaked naked pictures of the shlebs to …

    Security 18 Dec 16:04

  • So, you want to get closer to the workers with social media?

    Well, close enough...

    We often hear how social networking has the potential to revolutionise the way we communicate and collaborate in business. People like to gossip, to share information, to argue and to chat, and will use whichever media are available to do so. For proof, we need only consider the inexorable rise of services such as Facebook and …

    Management 18 Dec 16:15

  • Microsoft to Moto: We'll give you $1m a year for your patents

    Googorola to Microsoft: How about $100m instead?

    Microsoft and Googorola are having a slight difference of opinion when it comes to how much Redmond should pay for Motorola Mobility's video and Wi-Fi patents. Microsoft reckons that no more than $502,000 a year is fair for Moto's H.264 video patent - which is used in Xboxes and other MS gear - and $736,000 a year is a fair …

    Business 18 Dec 16:31

  • Big bad boxes drive explosive growth for HPC in Q3

    For supercomputers, they FIND the money

    The server market as a whole is having its issues, with both virtualization and the jittery global economy holding down physical box counts – and therefore revenues – more than they might otherwise be. But the supercomputer market is chugging right along. Networks keep getting faster, virtualization has yet to touch its boxes, …

    HPC 18 Dec 17:03

  • Samsung drops five European anti-Apple injunction requests

    Legal maneuvers circle $346bn pie

    Samsung has withdrawn its request for injunctions to ban sales of Apple's iDevices in five European countries. "Samsung remains committed to licensing our technologies on fair, reasonable and non-discriminatory terms, and we strongly believe it is better when companies compete fairly in the marketplace, rather than in court," …

    Mobile 18 Dec 17:55

  • Secrets of an ad broker: NoSQL, millisecond auctions and FLASH ARRAYS

    Ad-slinger powers up with Big Data flash rocket fuel

    Typically a web page featuring online ads is built with space set aside for the ad. A user clicks on the page's URL and it's presented to that user in real time and the spaces are populated with pre-built and stored ads. So far so ordinary, only with online ad-broker Tapad the ads are not pre-stored at all. What happens is that …

    Storage 18 Dec 18:10

  • Facebook to debut auto-play video ads in 2013

    Full-motion clips for both desktop and mobile apps

    Facebook users have a new form of advertising to look forward to in 2013, when the social network will begin inserting full-motion video ads into their news feeds. According to a report by Ad Age, Zuck & Co are so hell-bent on pulling in big bucks from TV admen that they plan to debut the dubious new feature no later than …

    Media 18 Dec 19:42

  • Twitter passes 200 million monthly users

    'The pulse of the planet' beats 177.3 billion times per year

    Microblogging site Twitter has passed a major milestone: it now has over 200 million monthly active users. The announcement came, fittingly enough, via a tweet from the company's account that referred to those 200 million users as "the pulse of the planet." There are now more than 200M monthly active @twitter users. You are …

    Media 18 Dec 20:31

  • Report: US telcos cashing in on data caps and poor competition

    Internet development hurt by artificial scarcity

    The increasing use of data-capping and high data charges on US networks is less about easing network congestion or funding investment and more about increasing profits, according to a new analysis by the non-partisan New America Foundation think tank. "Data caps encourage a climate of scarcity in an increasingly data-driven …

    Networks 18 Dec 20:57

  • AMD plunks custom Opteron into SM15000 microservers

    Looked at Centerton Atom, wasn't impressed

    AMD's SeaMicro microserver and fabric unit has started shipping the "Piledriver" Opteron server nodes for its new SM15000 machines, announced in September sporting quad-core "Ivy Bridge" Xeon E3 processors as well as promising the then-impending Piledrivers. At the time, AMD did not divulge what Piledriver part it would use, …

    Servers 18 Dec 21:17

  • EU launches formal Microsoft privacy policy probe

    Wants proof that Redmond's terms are better than Google's

    The European Union has opened a formal investigation into whether recent changes to Microsoft's Services Agreement are in violation of EU data privacy law. Privacy regulators informed the software giant of the probe in a letter sent to Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer and the head of the company's Luxembourg division, dated …

    Law 18 Dec 23:09

  • Yahoo!'s Mayer, Apple's Cook 'Person of the Year' finalists

    Don't blame 4chan, they were picked by Time editors

    Time magazine has revealed its "shortlist" for its annual Person of the Year award – the honoree to be revealed this Wednesday morning – and for reasons known only to the editors of that 89-year-old clarion of democracy, Yahoo! CEO Marissa Mayer and Apple CEO Tim Cook are among the eight finalists. We don't wish to be …

    Bootnotes 18 Dec 23:22

  • Instagram back-pedals in face of user outrage

    Seeks to stem flood of users from the service

    Instagram has responded to the storm of protests from its users over proposed changes to its terms and conditions by promising to alter the language it uses and guaranteeing that it won't sell user's photos. "Instagram users own their content and Instagram does not claim any ownership rights over your photos. Nothing about …

    Media 18 Dec 23:31

  • Ellison: Oracle will grow hardware biz soon

    Sun was among 'most profitable and strategic acquisitions'

    It is hard to watch the continuing decline in the Oracle systems business and not be concerned, but that is precisely what Oracle co-founder and CEO Larry Ellison wants you to do. Oracle is focusing on making the Sun businesses it has pruned (as distinct from the ones it has culled) profitable, and will worry about growth later …

    Servers 18 Dec 23:37