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9th January 2013 Archive

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  • Actifio claims it is the 'fastest growing enterprise storage firm' – ever

    Thin copying, fat juicy revenues

    Actifio, a privately held storage startup founded in 2008, is crowing like a chanticleer that business was booming last year for its funky Copy Data Storage arrays. Probably in the hopes of either raking in more venture funding or setting itself up to go public at some point in the future. Copy Data Storage is the brain child …

    Storage 9 Jan 00:04

  • Apple may debut low-cost iPhone for emerging markets in 2013

    Our poorer pals = potentially 'billions of customers'

    Apple has made a name for itself by marketing high-end gadgets to affluent, design-conscious consumers, but it could be planning a move down-market as early as this year, if industry scuttlebutt proves correct. On Tuesday, Taiwanese tech news outlet DigiTimes was the first to report on rumors that Apple may be readying a new, …

    Mobile 9 Jan 00:22

  • Microsoft pats self on back over Windows 8 sales

    Analysis The figures are trending upward, but what do they mean?

    Think Windows 8 isn't performing as well as Microsoft expected? Think again! The software giant says sales of its new OS are chugging along quite nicely, thank you very much, in much the same fashion as Windows 7 before it. Speaking at the J.P. Morgan Tech Forum at CES 2013 on Tuesday, Tami Reller, one of the two newly minted …

    Operating Systems 9 Jan 02:14

  • Boffins hide messages in Skype ‘silence packets’

    Careful, someone might hear you

    A Warsaw-based security researcher says the packets that Skype sends during silence can be used to carry secret messages in a conversation. When participants in a call are speaking, Skype sends the audio in 130-byte packets, while during silence it sends 70-byte packets. According to New Scientist, Wojciech Mazurczyk of Warsaw …

    Security 9 Jan 02:21

  • Mozilla claims 25 per cent JavaScript speed boost with Firefox 18

    Retina display support and Android malware checking included

    Mozilla has released its latest Firefox build, version 18, and claims the new version offers a 25 per cent speed boost thanks to a new JavaScript compiler dubbed IonMonkey. "IonMonkey is a huge step forward for our JavaScript performance and our compiler architecture," said compiling engineer David Anderson. "But also, it's …

    Software 9 Jan 03:30

  • 'Physical pressure' from Iran’s cyber cops killed blogger

    Police chief fired after illegally-held man found dead in cell

    Iranian cyber police have been fingered in a parliamentary report for the death in custody of a blogger who was arrested late last year for criticising the regime and posing a national security risk. A special committee found that although the arrest of Sattar Beheshti was lawful, he was then detained by the cyber police (FATA …

    Government 9 Jan 03:46

  • 2012 was warmest year ever recorded in USA

    Also 'second most extreme' year according to US National Climatic Data Centre

    Earth’s surface area is 510 million km2, but the State of the Climate report from the USA's National Climatic Data Center at the nation’s National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration says the contiguous USA’s 7.664 million km2 experienced its hottest year ever recorded during 2012, which it also ranked the second most “ …

    Science 9 Jan 04:15

  • Twitter's real time data cruncher is made of people

    Crowdsourcing advocates will be in your ear about this forever

    Twitter has revealed that real, live, flesh-and-blood people are one of its key tools for analysing data in real time, and that it finds the people it needs with an unconventional approach to crowdsourcing. The micro-blog’s engineering team has published a post in which it explains that trending topics post a tricky challenge …

    Networks 9 Jan 05:25

  • India asks Nokia for £340 million in tax

    Handset maker could be set for bill shock

    India has added itself to the growing list of nations putting extra pressure on global tech titans over tax-related matters, after reportedly tapping Nokia on the shoulder regarding irregularities which could total 30bn Rs (£340m). A spokesman for the Finnish phone maker told The Hindu it was “visited” by tax officials at the …

    Law 9 Jan 05:35

  • Japanese cops cuff cat carrying remote control virus

    Anonymous hacker still at large, pulling strings

    An anonymous cyber villain has led Japanese police on a merry dance over the past few months, culminating in the capture on Monday of a cat said to be carrying a computer virus on a memory card attached to its collar. Detectives with the country’s National Police Agency (NPA) nabbed the creature on an island near Tokyo after a …

    Security 9 Jan 06:10

  • Making apps for touchscreen mobes? YAWN. Try a car instead

    CES 2013 Ford pops bonnet on open dashboard APIs

    Phone app developers who fancy expanding onto car dashboards can now create programs for Ford cars, utilising the voice control and connectivity built into the vehicle through open software interfaces (APIs). Those APIs are SYNC and AppLink, which provide access to the dashboard display and buttons, and voice control, …

    Developer 9 Jan 07:02

  • Nuisance calls DOUBLE, Ofcom vows to hunt down offenders

    Not that easy when you only regulate UK firms, eh?

    Ofcom has outlined yet another plan to target annoying phones calls, which according to its latest report have doubled. It is hoping that imposing a few fines, writing several stern letters and doing more research will stem the flow - despite remaining entirely powerless to prevent calls that originate outside the UK. Many of …

    Mobile 9 Jan 07:34

  • Big Brother is prosecuting you: More cops to use court vid chats

    Plod, witnesses, defendants beamed into hearings via webcam

    Coppers will soon give evidence in almost half the courts in England and Wales from their police stations via video-conferencing links. Justice minister Damian Green announced the government will triple the number of installed video connections to further free up officers' time and potentially save taxpayers some cash. The …

    Government 9 Jan 08:04

  • HMRC hops back into bed with Microsoft, finds purse £10m lighter

    Computacenter puts couple right after four-year split

    IT reseller Computacenter has brokered an Enterprise Agreement (EA) between Microsoft and HMRC valued at roughly £10m. The agreement entitles Blighty's taxmen to volume discounts on Redmond gear, upgrades and more over the next three years. It is understood Computacenter will take a small cut for hooking up the two …

    The Channel 9 Jan 08:29

  • Guess who'll grab Facebook Sponsored Stories payout? (Hint: Not the victims)

    Comment It's not like you'll ALL come calling for measly $10... bitch

    Because of a quirk of the US legal system, the bulk of the $20m from Facebook's class action privacy settlement meant for people affected by its Sponsored Stories privacy gaffe* will likely go to "citizens' groups" - and concerns have been raised over the relationship between the beneficiaries and powerful corporations they …

    Law 9 Jan 09:02

  • Buying a petabyte of storage for YOURSELF? First, you'll need a fridge

    StorageBod Plus a few hundred thousand quid, a reinforced floor...

    A good friend of mine recently got in contact to ask my professional opinion on something for a book he was writing. He asked me how much a petabyte of storage would cost today and whether I thought it would affordable for an individual. Both parts of the question are interesting in their own way. How much would a petabyte of …

    Storage 9 Jan 09:28

  • €1.5bn swiped from EU cards: Fraud mainly takes place in the US

    Euro cops: We've got chip-and-PIN, but they don't...

    Most of the credit and debit card fraud in Europe can be pinpointed to criminal transactions in the US, a police report has said. EU police service Europol said that the European Union had invested heavily in the 3-D secure protocol, offered by Visa as Verified by Visa and by MasterCard as Mastercard SecureCode, as well as on …

    Security 9 Jan 10:02

  • The dream of the automated data centre

    Regcast Can you build it, do you want it?

    On paper the benefits of data centre automation are easy to see. But we don't build data centres on paper. That is why our Regcast on 23 January at 11:00 GMT examines how to build a data centre and maintain it throughout its life in the private cloud environment. What, if anything, has the cloud changed? What are the costs of …

    Datacenter 9 Jan 10:04

  • Crypto boffins smuggle secret messages in silent Skype calls

    Masquerades as normal VoIP traffic

    Polish security researchers have come up with a cunning method to transmit hidden messages using the silence packets transmitted during a Skype call. The VoIP service transmits voice data in 130-byte packets, and silences in 70-byte packets, a difference that creates a potential means to conceal a hidden encrypted message in …

    Security 9 Jan 10:27

  • Speaking in Tech: It's not a CLOUD fail, it's a cloud FIRM fail

    Podcast C'mon, Netflix, own up...

    Pop on your headphones: Greg Knieriemen and co-host Ed Saipetch are back with another enterprise tech-cast and this week they've bagged a very special guest in the form of George Reese, co-founder and CTO of enStratus. It's fair to say he knows a little bit about cloud computing and storage. The guys discuss media doom-and- …

    Cloud 9 Jan 11:03

  • Bletchley Park boffins start trailblazer EDSAC computer rebuild

    First replica parts go into production

    Physical production of a replica of EDSAC, aka the Electronic Delay Storage Automatic Calculator, has at last begun at The National Museum of Computing, located at World War II crypto centre Bletchley Park. EDSAC is an early computer originally put together at Cambridge University in the late 1940s. The initial work on the …

    Vintage 9 Jan 11:14

  • Toy train company bids for West Coast Mainline

    Miniature wooden rolling stock will deliver excellent service, no delays and seats for all

    We offer the Vulture Central tip of the hat today to toy train outfit Bigjigs for its audacious bid to run the UK's West Coast Mainline rail franchise. For those of you not up to speed on the West Coast Mainline fiasco, entertain yourselves with this blow-by-blow account down at the Beeb as to how the nation that invented the …

    Bootnotes 9 Jan 11:28

  • Hellish XML demon exorcised from Windows, IE bug stays

    Patch Tuesday Plus Adobe, Mozilla drive out their own security horrors

    Microsoft released two "critical" patches and five "important" security updates on Tuesday - but none of the fixes address a zero-day vulnerability in Internet Explorer discovered two weeks ago. The two critical patches tackle a remote-code execution vulnerability in the Windows Print Spooler (MS13-001) and similarly serious …

    Operating Systems 9 Jan 11:47

  • Review: Vodafone Smart Tab II 7 budget 3G tablet

    Mobile broadband capability at a lower price than the Nexus 7 - surely not?

    Tablets with 3G connectivity continue to command what I think is an unreasonable premium over their Wi-Fi only siblings. Granted, the 3G Google Nexus 7 is only 40 quid more than the equivalent Wi-Fi model but you can’t have 3G at all with the cheaper, 16GB tablet. The 3G iPad Mini, meanwhile, carries a £100 mark-up. Vodafone' …

    Tablets 9 Jan 12:00

  • 'Leccy-starved Reg hack: 'How I survive on 1.5kW'

    Make microwave popcorn and watch the plasma telly? Forget it

    Here's a provocative question for readers in these power-hungry times: could you survive in a house where the total power draw of all your electrical appliances and fittings at any one time can't exceed 1.5kW? Preposterous, we hear you cry. Stick a load in the washing machine and put the kettle on for a nice cuppa while …

    SPB 9 Jan 12:15

  • BT in ad slapdown after 'misleading' punters on fibre deployment dates

    Updated Online checker checkmated by ad watchdog

    BT has been rapped by the UK's advertising watchdog, which found that the national telco had "misled" customers about when its broadband products would be available in their areas. The Advertising Standards Authority upheld complaints submitted by 15 people, who griped about BT because its "availability checker" website for …

    Broadband 9 Jan 12:38

  • Razer uncages Core i7, GeForce megaslab for hardcore gamers

    CES 2013 Ten-inch play slate gets green light for sales

    Games peripherals specialist Razer is finally bringing to market the concept gaming tablet it introduced at last year’s Consumer Electronics Show (CES). A year after unveiling "Project Fiona" at CES 2012, Razer used CES 2013 to unveil the Edge - geddit?! - a 1.7GHz Intel Core i5-based 10.1in, 1366 x 768 pixel megaslab. It's …

    Tablets 9 Jan 12:55

  • Hey, tech titans! Those smartmobe sales bans? Give it a rest. NOW

    US Patent Office, DoJ fed up with Apple, Samsung, Moto battles

    Companies can only ban the sales of rival products using patents essential to communications standards in rare and specific cases. That's the latest common-sense thinking from the US Justice Department and the US Patent Office. The two bodies have taken the unusual step of releasing a joint policy statement on standards- …

    Law 9 Jan 13:16

  • UK armed forces could be 'fatally compromised’ by cyber attack

    Say MPs, after gang-briefing from cyber-military complex

    UK armed forces’ dependence on information and communication technology could leave the nation vulnerable in the event of a cyber attack, according to a study by a committee of MPs. A report by the Commons' Defence Committee suggests that the UK Government still has some ground to cover in its approach to the nation’s cyber …

    Security 9 Jan 13:39

  • Standards sultan sanctifies 60GHz wireless LAN tech

    IEEE blesses WiGig's HDMI-over-the-air, publishes 802.11ad

    The IEEE has published a 60GHz wireless networking standard, 802.11ad, much to the joy of the WiGig Alliance: its 60GHz "USB/PCI/HDMI/DisplayPort" technology sits on top of the radio-based communications spec. WiGig’s everything-over-the-air system is expected to deliver up to 7Gbit of data per second, albeit only over a …

    Broadband 9 Jan 14:02

  • Integrator-reseller 2e2 'broke banking covenant', hits credit buffers

    Crushing debt repayments drive firm to its knees

    The future of integrator-cum-reseller 2e2 is unclear amid claims from sources close to the firm that it broke a banking covenant in December and is running up to its credit limits in distribution. The Berkshire-based business has been a cause for concern among many wholesalers and vendors due to its massive debt and has …

    The Channel 9 Jan 14:06

  • Faster-than-disk 1TB USB on sale soon... but if you lose it, you've lost £2k+

    CES 2013 Plus: SanDisk and Tosh add crypto flash dash to SSD ranges

    CES is the time to introduce new gadget gizmos and Kingston, SanDisk and Toshiba have stepped up to the flash front to parade their latest gear. SanDisk has updated two of its SSDs with Toshiba 19nm NAND and increased performance. Kingston has introduced a terabyte USB memory stick - damned expensive if you lose it - and …

    Storage 9 Jan 14:26

  • Don't shoot the Windows Live Messenger, cry IM users

    Execution set for 15 March despite Skype migration complaints

    Microsoft has confirmed it will shut Windows Live Messenger on 15 March - and has already started merging its users' contacts into the voice-chat service Skype. The software giant warned as early as November that changes were afoot to the service formerly known as MSN Messenger. A new Skype app will become the default chat app …

    Developer 9 Jan 14:42

  • At last! A REAL use for NFC: Bonking butler bots and oven-puters

    CES 2013 Control fridges, speakers, TVs, servers from a pocket-stroker fondle

    Upstart wireless data-transfer tech NFC is finally coming to some interesting devices. Not smartphones or shopping tills but TVs, speakers, washing machines and fridges, thanks to LG and Sony. LG announced this week at the CES tech extravaganza an NFC-equipped oven, fridge and robot vacuum-cleaner as part of its "Smart Thinq" …

    Mobile 9 Jan 15:07

  • Devs: 'Pirates are flogging OUR stuff on BlackBerry's App World'

    Android coders say their gear has been stripped out and RIMmed

    In its enthusiasm to stock its App World shelves, RIM has reportedly inadvertently invited in the pirates, according to Android developers who've said they have seen their work replicated at the burgeoning store. Android devs said they had seen their apps turning up in RIM's App World despite their lack of interest in the …

    Developer 9 Jan 15:32

  • IBM Euro channel bigwig made Tech Data account daddy

    And Big Blue's UK boss goes global too

    A senior management reshuffle at IBM has seen European channel partner boss David Cornick take up a newly created global role within Big Blue as managing executive for distributor Tech Data. As a result, David Kay, formerly sales veep at IBM UK and was effectively second in command for the operation, has replaced Cornick as …

    The Channel 9 Jan 15:56

  • Panasonic pitches Ultra HD 4K x 2K monster tablet

    CES 2013 Pixeltastic, and makes your hands look really dainty

    Asus has an 18.4-inch tablet-cum-all-in-one-desktop-PC on display this year’s Consumer Electronics Show (CES), but Panasonic has it beat: the Japanese giant is showing off a Windows 8 slate that not only packs a 20-inch display but sports an Ultra HD resolution. Yes, Panasonic’s mammoth fondleslab contains 9.8 million pixels …

    Tablets 9 Jan 16:29

  • Google drops standards-essential patent claims in Xbox slap fight

    Video-compression tech claims binned

    Googorola is giving up on getting loads of Microsoft gear kicked off the shelves for infringing patents used in the video compression H.264 standard. Things were looking good for Google in its various suits back in May, when it won an injunction in Germany that applied to Xboxes, Windows 7, Internet Explorer and Windows Media …

    Law 9 Jan 17:05

  • Dish charges into Sprint-Clearwire hotel room waving cash

    But there can be no ménage à trois here

    Dish Networks continues its mobile aspirations with a bid for Clearwire, offering more cash than the existing offer from Sprint, but with more strings attached. The offer from Dish, which Clearwire describes as "unsolicited" and "non-binding", amounts to $2.2bn for a significant slice of Clearwire radio spectrum and an ongoing …

    Mobile 9 Jan 18:11

  • Texas schoolgirl loses case over RFID tag suspension

    Unchipped card somehow still 'the mark of the beast'

    A federal court has ruled against the Texan teenager who was challenging her suspension for refusing to wear an RFID tag, despite objections on religious and privacy grounds. Last November, Andrea Hernandez, 15, was expelled from the John Jay Science and Engineering Academy in San Antonio, Texas after refusing to take part in …

    Law 9 Jan 18:40

  • GlobalFoundries plunks $2bn into New York fab

    Cooking up 3D chips and extreme ultraviolet etching

    GlobalFoundries, the amalgamation of AMD and Chartered Semiconductor's fabs and the world's second largest independent wafer baker, is taking a $2bn pile of cash and building a new research center that hangs off its flagship Fab 8 plant in Malta, New York in an effort to keep pace with rival Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing …

    Financial News 9 Jan 18:42

  • Silly Rabbit! Like Trix, color e-readers are for kids

    CES 2013 Laws of physics keep saturated e-paper color from grown-ups

    If you're expecting rich, vibrant colors on your next ebook reader, you're going to be disappointed – the laws of physics are against you. "Somebody like the National Geographic is still not going to be happy with our product," Sriram Peruvemba, chief marketing officer of E Ink, the company that creates the e-paper displays …

    Tablets 9 Jan 18:55

  • US gov blames Iran for cyberattacks on American banks

    Itsoknoproblembro and the bRobots

    Denial-of-service attacks against US banks' web systems were the work of Iran rather than Islamic activists, says a former American government official. A group called the Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Cyber Fighters claimed responsibility for two waves of cyber-attacks against US banks including US Bancorp, Bank of America, Citigroup …

    Security 9 Jan 19:02

  • Stratus: Virtualization drives demand for ftServers

    Mirror, mirror in the glass house, who is the fairest hypervisor of all?

    In some ways, server virtualization makes disaster recovery easier, less costly, and more approachable for a wider range of companies. And in others, it makes disaster recovery more important than ever because more virtual server eggs are running in a single physical server basket. No matter which way server virtualization cuts …

    Servers 9 Jan 21:13

  • 'Doomsday' asteroid Apophis more massive than first thought

    Watch its Earth flyby live tonight at 0100 UTC

    Astronomers following the so-called doomsday asteroid Apophis, which will be whizzing past Earth on Thursday morning, have found the rock is much larger than had previously been assumed. Since the asteroid could hit Earth in 2036, that's a problem. The asteroid, named after an Egyptian god of chaos, darkness and destruction, …

    Science 9 Jan 22:19

  • Potty-mouthed Watson supercomputer needed filth filter

    Urban Dictionary blew its digital mind

    IBM's Watson supercomputer was smart enough to beat two human opponents on US quiz show Jeopardy!, but there is apparently some knowledge that the system is still too immature to handle – namely, the contents of the Urban Dictionary. Watson is perhaps the most sophisticated artificial intelligence computer system developed to …

    HPC 9 Jan 22:58

  • IBM grafts old AIX 5.3 onto shiny new Power7+ servers

    Legacy wine in new bottles – just what some customers want

    Big Blue stopped selling the venerable AIX 5.3 release of its Unix operating system nearly two years ago and pulled the plug on normal support nearly a year ago, but it lives on atop the new Power7+ servers that the company launched as 2012 came to a close. AIX 5.3, which was probably the most popular release of AIX in the …

    Servers 9 Jan 23:47