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2nd January 2013 Archive

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  • Ever had to register to buy online - and been PELTED with SPAM?

    Way to thank me for being a customer, man...

    Spam has been a fact of life, on a par with death and taxes, for many years now. To be blunt, spammers don’t particularly care about us. They don’t have any sense of reason or shame that we can appeal to, and they have no incentive to be accommodating. We’re not their customers. In fact they make their money from selling us, not …

    Security 2 Jan 06:20

  • It takes all sorts to build a cloud

    The magic of teamwork

    The warning came through loud and clear in our recent Regcast, Future-Proofing the Data Centre: if you want to build a private cloud, your teams must work together. That, HP’s David Chalmers told us, means creating a service delivery team: some of you from the server team need to work with a small group from the storage team, …

    Cloud 2 Jan 08:31

  • I tried to buy a satellite and all I got was this lousy $67,000

    Web-for-all chief tells El Reg of life after doomed space grab

    Back in 2010 a hugely optimistic plan to buy a satellite raised $67,000 in donations, way short of the needed $1.3bn, but as media interest faded the founder has kept himself busy spending the cash. The plan was to buy US comms satellite TerraStar-1, which bankrupted its owner TerreStar Corp after it tried to offer satellite …

    Networks 2 Jan 10:07

  • Merde! Paris Apple Store in €1m armed raid on New Year's Eve

    Bonne année, Tim Cook!

    Apple's flagship Paris store was raided on New Year's Eve by armed robbers, who made off with iThings worth up to one million euros. The four crooks broke into the shop at 9pm - three hours after it closed and just hours before French revellers celebrated the start of 2013 - le Plod told daily newspaper Le Figaro. Neither the …

    Security 2 Jan 10:47

  • Microsoft scrambles to thwart new Internet Explorer 0-day attack

    Patch Tuesday can't come soon enough

    Microsoft has pushed out a temporary fix to defend against a zero-day vulnerability that surfaced in attacks launched last week. The security flaw (CVE-2012-4792) - which affects IE 6, 7 and 8 but not the latest versions of Microsoft's web browser software - allows malware to be dropped onto Windows PCs running the vulnerable …

    Security 2 Jan 11:48

  • Thunderbolt interface strikes YOUR PC: What's the damage?

    10Gbps, you say? Now for the reality check

    Thunderbolt has been available on Intel-based motherboards for around six months and although Apple has featured it on its computers since 2011, peripherals with this interface have appeared at a glacial pace. But the ice appears to be melting now. Besides a range of hubs and adapters that take advantage of Thunderbolt's …

    Hardware 2 Jan 12:01

  • UK games market clutches chest, bleeds out sales in 2012

    'Developers need to do better'

    Retailers have blamed a lack of good video games in the summer of 2012 along with a patchy, uneven release schedule for the 17 per cent shrinkage in the value of the UK games market last year. Worth £1.9bn in 2011, the sector brought in £1.6bn in 2012 according to stats released today by the Entertainment Retailers Association ( …

    Games 2 Jan 12:32

  • Making MACH 1: Can we build a cranial computer today?

    Monitor How SF gets it right by getting it (mostly) wrong

    is an occasional column written at the crossroads where the arts, popular culture and technology intersect. Here, we look back at 2000AD's MACH 1 - the first secret agent with his own, in-body computer. In 1977, Pat Mills, the first Editor of 2000AD comic, created MACH 1, a strip telling the story of John Probe, a super- …

    Hardware 2 Jan 12:43

  • What's THAT, you say? Apple MIGHT be making a NEW iPHONE, iOS?

    App logs prove it - shocked, shocked, we tell you

    Apple is now testing the next version of its iPhone and accompanying software, according to developers or anyone with an ounce of common sense. Third-party programmers have claimed a gadget identifying itself as an "iPhone 6.1" running "iOS 7" has turned up in usage log files, which record information about the devices used to …

    Developer 2 Jan 13:19

  • HP itching to flog flaccid biz units: Are Autonomy, PSG in firing line?

    Titan wants cash for dead men walking

    Hewlett-Packard is considering selling or spinning out its weak business units but warned investors that any deals may not go smoothly. The troubled tech titan stated in its latest paperwork filed to US financial regulator the SEC: “We continue to evaluate the potential disposition of assets and businesses that may no longer …

    Financial News 2 Jan 13:58

  • Facebook fixes 'Peeping Tom' webcam bug - AFTER 5 MONTHS

    While Zuck's little sister lectures world+dog on privacy

    Facebook had a busy time over the holiday period fixing several security flaws, including a webcam-related vulnerability that allowed hackers to record video from a user's web camera and post it on their timeline. "An attacker could trick a user to silently record his webcam video and publish it to his Facebook wall, without …

    Security 2 Jan 15:03

  • SECRET RIM patent cheque to Nokia revealed at last - and it's a big 'un

    Hard-up BlackBerry biz vows to dole out more cash too

    RIM handed Nokia a first payment of €50m to put an end to the companies' patent disputes, and plans to pay ongoing royalty payments, the firm revealed in a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The Canadian BlackBerry-maker settled with one-time mobile leader Nokia just before Christmas, but both companies …

    Financial News 2 Jan 16:02

  • How an Amazon engineer's slip-up started a 20-hour Netflix cock-up

    Xmas cloud outage sparked by fumbled delete op

    An Amazon engineer hit the wrong button on Christmas Eve, deleting critical data in its load balancers and ultimately knackering vid streaming biz Netflix for 20 hours. The Netflix outage hit customers in the US, Canada and Latin America on 24 December, particularly those using games consoles and mobiles to watch films, while …

    Cloud 2 Jan 16:51

  • Samsung ordered to cough mobe sales figures to world+dog

    'We've been over this already!' cries judge

    Samsung has failed to keep under wraps sales totals for its Android-powered phones that are locked in a patent dispute with Apple. In a particularly snippy filing from long-suffering Judge Lucy Koh, she made it clear that she did not think the South Korean electronics behemoth had a good reason to keep the info secret. Sammy …

    Mobile 2 Jan 18:04

  • Firms 'coughed $39 BEEELLION' for system software in 2012

    Steady OS sales, ramping virtualization and security revenues

    The system infrastructure software racket is a steady business and a profit center for the IT industry, and according to projections from IDC, this space is on track to grow steadily over the next few years. IDC just finished taking a snapshot of this hairball segment of the IT racket, examining the sales of 220 vendors across …

    Software 2 Jan 19:06

  • Intel's set-top TV effort snags on cable

    Inspiration hits immovable force

    Intel's plans for a set-top box that would provide US television viewers' nirvana – being able to subscribe to the good stuff and not a bundle of useless channels – is being delayed by, amazingly enough, the cable industry. Sources within Chipzilla had talked about a release of the devices early this year, with beta units …

    Hardware 2 Jan 19:31

  • Movie oldsters FAIL at internet: Online Oscar voting 'too complex'

    Silver-haired members 'don't know how to use computers'

    Attempts to introduce electronic voting for the Oscars are going awry. Both the Hollywood Reporter and Deadline report that the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences' new online voting system is too complex to use for an increasingly ageing electorate. The Academy reportedly worked with Everyone Counts, an electronic …

    Media 2 Jan 20:07

  • Ubuntu for smartphones aims to replace today's mobes, laptops

    Linux-based OS targeting high-end handsets

    Canonical, the company behind the Ubuntu Linux operating system, has announced a new version of Ubuntu designed specifically for smartphones. Ubuntu for phones is based on the Linux kernel and uses the same Unity user interface that Canonical has developed for the desktop, which the company says should make it immediately …

    Operating Systems 2 Jan 20:49

  • Leaping hedgehog probes planned for Martian moon Phobos

    Spiky systems use flywheels for low-gravity scouting

    Researchers at Stanford University and NASA are designing spiky spherical probes to bounce across the Martian moon Phobos and prepare the way for possible astronaut colonization. The plan calls for an orbital control satellite, a coffee table–sized unit dubbed Phobos Surveyor, which would scan the moon's surface using gamma …

    Science 2 Jan 21:12

  • Apple to upgrade to '5G WiFi' this year?

    One-gig-and-above wireless, coming to a Mac near you – maybe

    Apple will reportedly upgrade its Macs this year to include "5G WiFi", a technology that will increase wireless connectivity to speeds "in excess of a gigabit per second," according to Cupertino's purported chip partner, Broadcom. This news comes courtesy of The Next Web, which reports that "[s]ources familiar with Apple's …

    Hardware 2 Jan 21:19

  • Israel taps teens to become 'interceptors' in cyberwarfare

    New training program to create youth hacking force

    Israel has launched a new nationwide program aimed at training teenagers to carry out cyberwarfare operations. Speaking at the opening ceremony of the program at the Ashkelon Academic College, Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu described the students who will receive the training as "future interceptors for the State of …

    Government 2 Jan 22:12

  • Mellanox trips on faulty InfiniBand cables in Q4

    Revenues whacked, but gross margins apparently hold

    InfiniBand and Ethernet switch and adapter maker Mellanox Technologies said after the market closed on Wednesday that the company was not going to make its revenue targets for the fourth quarter and full 2012 year – in part because of the jittery economy but mostly because of a bug in InfiniBand cables. In a statement, …

    HPC 2 Jan 22:20

  • Delay climate mitigation, escalate the costs: study

    Costs would escalate five-fold in next seven years

    Which would hurt less: a global carbon price of $US20 now, or a $US100 carbon price in 2020? That’s the stark choice offered by a new study by the International Institute of Applied Systems Analysis in Austria, published in Nature (abstract here). The paper, Probabilistic cost estimates for climate change mitigation, seeks to …

    Policy 2 Jan 22:45

  • ARM server hype ramps faster than ARM server chips

    Analysis All the more time for Intel to get a leg up

    If I didn't have to man El Reg's systems desk for a paycheck and had a little venture capital to blow, I might start a company called Leg Systems, headquartered on the Isle of Man – not because of its tax haven status (which is eroding), but because my company would sell ARM-based systems and say that we wouldn't charge an arm …

    Servers 2 Jan 23:01

  • Exploding stars drive Galactic geysers

    Fortunate Earth isn’t in the firing line

    The truly enormous jets of matter flung out from the centre of the Milky Way galaxy are not, as previously believed, the detritus of a supermassive black hole. Rather, the “galactic geysers” are caused by stars forming and exploding at the centre of the galaxy. The new study combined observations from NASA in 2010 with a …

    Science 2 Jan 23:30