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11th January 2013 Archive

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  • Help a US gov't agency switch to open source, win $3 million

    Veterans Affairs holding contest to upgrade systems

    The US Department of Veterans Affairs is looking to upgrade the 25-year-old software that powers its nationwide health care system, and it's betting real money that open source is the way to do it. To that end, the agency is sponsoring a contest in which three entrants will be awarded prizes of up to $3m each, provided they …

    Developer 11 Jan 00:44

  • Nokia decrypts browser traffic, assures public not to worry

    It’s acceleration, not snooping, say Finns

    Just as Nokia announces numbers that look like it may avoid irrelevance, the mobile supplier has become embroiled in a privacy row centered on the behavior of its browsers. The brouhaha hit the wires when Unisys Global Services India security architect Gaurang Pandya wrote up his investigations into the behavior of his Nokia …

    Mobile 11 Jan 01:02

  • ST-Ericsson uncloaks 2.5GHz Jekyll & Hyde smartphone chip

    CES 2013 First out of the gate with FD-SOI and power-saving eQuad tech

    The CES 2013 show floor may be crammed with smartphones, tablets, and other ARM-powered gadgets, but there's more news from the show than just the gadgets themselves. There's also a new chip that can power them – namely a new 2.5GHz part from ST-Ericsson. "Building on the architecture of our first generation NovaThor L8540 LTE …

    Phones 11 Jan 01:11

  • IBM scales down PureApplication cloudy boxes

    Fewer nodes and less storage, and presumably at a lower price

    If you are looking for a low-end pre-configured, automated, application-ready cloud in a box but you don't need a big behemoth of a machine, then IBM finally has a configuration of its PureApplication systems that might be appealing to you. Everybody wants to peddle pre-configured, automated, application-ready systems. At …

    Servers 11 Jan 01:16

  • Boffins develop microwave weed-zapper

    Backyard Triffid exterminator could be yours in five years

    Reg readers frustrated by the never-ending presence of weeds in their veggie patches may find salvation in the next few years in the form of a microwave device that can pick out garden invaders and blast them into mulch. The device is the brainchild of Australia's Rural Industries Research and Development Corporation , which …

    Science 11 Jan 01:53

  • Nokia's Q4 'beat expectations' despite ongoing sales slump

    Investors desperate for good news got some

    Nokia announced preliminary financial results for its fourth quarter of 2012 on Thursday, claiming that its smartphone business had "exceeded expectations," despite the fact that overall sales are still trending downward. The struggling mobile maker said its Devices & Services division sold 86.3 million devices in the quarter …

    Financial News 11 Jan 02:50

  • SAP plans HANA education push to channel partners

    Business Suite for all

    SAP is planning a serious education push to the channel about its super-fast Business Suite based around its HANA in-memory database software, which will be the basis for all of the company's future apps and development projects. "This is going to be an ongoing process," Ken Tsai, VP of HANA product marketing, told The …

    Software 11 Jan 03:03

  • Mozilla to Adobe: PDFs don't need no more steenking plugins

    Firefox beta renders PDFs with HTML 5

    Mozilla's come right out and said what plenty of people think about PDF-reading browser plugins: they're often woefully insecure, generally replicate things browsers can already do and rely on proprietary technology. Mozilla's answer is HTML 5 allied with the pdf.js project, which together allow a newly-released beta of …

    Software 11 Jan 04:15

  • Hackers deface Indonesian president’s website

    It’s payback time for SBY

    Indonesian president Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono (SBY) has come under cyber attack after hackers defaced the homepage of his website for several hours, apparently in protest at growing corruption and wealth inequality in the country. The website is now back to normal but those responsible have posted an image of the defacement …

    Security 11 Jan 05:09

  • Time has already run out for smart watches

    Ugly, limited, devices are a wind up

    It's been a big year for smart watches. First, rumours that Apple glanced at its wrist and imagined what an iWatch might look like hit the web. This week at CES Toshiba showed off a smart watch, as did a clutch of aspiring watchmakers like Cookoo, Martian and I'm Watch. Then the long-awaited Pebble watch with ePaper for a face …

    Hardware 11 Jan 05:47

  • China censors chat users outside China

    report says messages discussing press freedom campaign blocked

    China’s largest internet firm, Tencent, is reportedly now censoring messages sent by international users of its popular WeChat service. The Shenzhen-based web giant, which accrued $US1.8bn in revenues in the last quarter, is one of the few Chinese online companies trying to expand its footprint overseas. Although its QQ …

    Government 11 Jan 06:01

  • Razzies set to torpedo pop minx Rihanna's Battleship

    Twilight also in crap movie awards' sights

    This year's Razzies look set to be a head-to-head between Battleship and Twilight: Breaking Dawn Part 2 to see which movie can walk away with the most gongs for serious celluloid undertainment. Rihanna: Good Girl Gone Bad, Bad Actress The annual celebration of the cinematically dire sees seven nominations for Battleship, …

    Bootnotes 11 Jan 07:04

  • Raise a beer: Titans of tech fill out 'Worst CEOs' list

    Hoodied honcho Zuck gets shout-out, Zinga man comes third

    Tech bosses were rapped for drinking beer during conference calls, wearing hoodies in the boardroom and losing huge amounts of money in a round-up of 2012's worst CEOs. The list was compiled by Professor Sydney Finkelstein of the Tuck School of Business at US Ivy League school Dartmouth College. Speaking to Bloomberg TV, Prof …

    Management 11 Jan 07:32

  • Forget 3D: 13,000 UK homes still watch TV in black and white

    Manchester surprising hotspot for greyscale telly

    13,000 households in the UK still watch TV in black and white, telly licence fee collectors have revealed. In an age when TV sets are often internet-enabled with high-def plasma screens and 3D capabilities, some people obviously like to keep it simple. And cheap too. At £49, a black-and-white TV licence is cheaper than the …

    Media 11 Jan 08:02

  • Happy now? Mobiles, cloud, big data now 'a growing security risk'

    Wheels are about to fall off those bandwagons, warn EU advisors

    Innovations in mobile and cloud computing, social technology and the use of "big data" present an emerging risk to organisations' IT security, experts have warned. The European Network and Information Security Agency (ENISA), which is an EU advisory body, said that those technologies would increasingly provide the platform for …

    Security 11 Jan 08:19

  • Blighty's schools shake on new 3-year deal with Microsoft

    Freeware and new prices to 'save £10m' for UK says DfE

    The Department for Education claims a three-year Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with Microsoft will save schools £10m on licensing over the next three years, in part by "factoring freeware" into the deal. The agreement began 1 January and runs until the end of 2015 giving schools across the UK the option to buy Microsoft …

    The Channel 11 Jan 08:38

  • Nipper's toy train enjoys journey to edge of SPAAAAACE

    Video Brit-built locomotive smiles its way heavenwards

    Toy train stories are like number 13 buses - you wait ages for one and then two turn up at once. Following our report earlier this week on wooden train outfit Bigjigs' audacious bid to run the West Coast Mainline franchise, we received news of a US dad who dispatched his young son's model locomotive to the stratosphere. It …

    SPB 11 Jan 08:57

  • Which sneaky storage upstart is drilling into software-network craze?

    PernixData: Do you think they'll notice us slipping in?

    PernixData is a startup in stealth mode developing a data platform for the software-defined data centre (SDDC). Stealth mode means the company has talked to angel or seed investors about its basic proposition and the money people like it well enough to pump in initial startup cash. A founding company organisation is then set …

    Storage 11 Jan 09:31

  • Fatty French Kilogram needs a new-year diet, say Brit boffins

    Methanol, Soxhlet and an ozone detox is what's needed

    The world's official kilogram has put on weight according to boffins who fear the mass needs a new-year diet. Researchers at the University of Newcastle reckon the reference kilogram artefact, kept at the International Bureau of Weights and Measures (BIPM) in Paris and used to calibrate the world's weights, has put on less …

    Science 11 Jan 10:02

  • Ten stars of CES 2013: Who made the biggest splash?

    CES 2013 Las Vegas eye-catchers

    As the 2013 Consumer Electronics Shows (CES) wraps up in Las Vegas, we’re left to ponder whether it as was a good show this time round. In 2012, IT vendors, buoyed by Intel encouragement and marketing money, were keen to show off their first Ultrabooks. A year on, and the chip giant’s skinny laptop brand has largely failed to …

    Hardware 11 Jan 10:22

  • Is this possibly the worst broadband in the world?

    Web crawler

    Four kilometres to the north of here, in semi-rural Kent, the pavements are stuffed with fibre-optic cable and the streets are lined with drab green cabinets, all nicely tooled up for superfast broadband. But here, we rely on plain old ADSL piped in from a small BT exchange, 1.7km to our south (as the crow flies). You can see it …

    Broadband 11 Jan 10:30

  • Why mergers LOSE money, but are GOOD for the economy

    Takeovers never deliver... and disties are no different

    So the distribution sector has had yet another round of consolidation. Mergers, takeovers - these are the things that make an M&A banker's heart* thumpety-thump with joy. The big question, though, is whether this actually does any good for the shareholders of the various companies - you know, the people who actually own them? …

    Financial News 11 Jan 11:02

  • O2 refuses to deny plans to offload home broadband product

    Exclusive Sale may happen after converged core migration completes, source tells El Reg

    UK telecoms provider O2 has refused to deny that it is planning to offload its fixed line home broadband product later this year. According to a source close to the situation, O2 - which is currently undergoing an upgrade of its broadband service over to a single core network - is mulling over a sale of its local-loop …

    Broadband 11 Jan 11:16

  • 'Mauro, SHUT THE F**K UP!'

    Quotw Plus: 'We firmly believe that it is our Hell Fire Belief'

    The week's chatter has provided fewer gems than usual and a lot more "Look at this great new product I launched at CES", but luckily you can always rely on Linus Torvalds to come out with a zinger. The Linux kernel developer pulled no punches when Red Hat's Mauro Carvalho Chehab tried to pass off a bug in the kernel as …

    Developer 11 Jan 11:33

  • 'Better than Adobe' Foxit PDF plugin hit by worse-than-Adobe 0-day

    New security hole: How an evil URL will ruin your day

    A new security bug in the popular Foxit PDF reader plugin for web browsers allows miscreants to compromise computers and install malware. There's no patch for this zero-day vulnerability. Italian security researcher Andrea Micalizzi discovered that the latest version of the software crashes if users are tricked into clicking …

    Security 11 Jan 11:46

  • Review: Lenovo IdeaPad Yoga 13 Windows 8 convertible Ultrabook

    A meditation on the portable PC

    To be fair to Lenovo, reviewing the IdeaPad Yoga shouldn't really be all about Windows 8. After all, this touchscreen Ultrabook – that bends over backwards to become a fully fledged tablet – is a well crafted piece of hardware with engineering merits of its own. So what, if it runs Windows 8? So do a lot of PCs these days. The …

    Laptops 11 Jan 12:00

  • EU floats growth plan: Aim power hose of cash at oldsters, web start-ups

    You'd best make your own jobs, folks...

    The European Commission's new action plan that encourages entrepreneurship in order to boost economic growth says that member states should target their support at the sections of society least likely to be sitting on beanbags in Shoreditch. Groups such as seniors, migrants, the unemployed and women should be encouraged into …

    Government 11 Jan 12:18

  • New tool jailbreaks Microsoft Surface slabs in 20 SECONDS

    Bam! Run any desktop app. Pow! Samsung kills Win 8 tab

    Microsoft was quick to brush off the debugging hack that allows locked-down Windows RT Surface slabs to run any unauthorised desktop software. But now the exploit has been packaged into a slick jailbreaking tool that can unlock a Redmond fondleslab in seconds. A programmer going by the name of Netham45 has released RT …

    Security 11 Jan 12:37

  • iPhones, tablets... Pah: By 2020, we'll froth over hot new SOFTWEAR

    Sysadmin blog Cyborg me up - I'm ready and waiting for it, says El Reg's Trevor

    Within some admittedly fuzzy error bars, computing adoption seems to work in decade-long phases over the course of about 50 years. By my reckoning, those decades roughly work out to precursor technologies, niche adoption, commercialisation, mass market and eventual displacement. Within my lifetime, I have seen the rise of the PC …

    Developer 11 Jan 13:04

  • Apple rubbishes rumours of iPhone for the masses

    What are we, Samsung?

    Apple has denied that it is considering increasing its market share and beating off competitors with a cheaper iPhone. Rumours went around earlier this week that the fruity firm was getting a cheap mobile ready for market, but marketing chief Phil Schiller told a Chinese newspaper that Apple was doing no such thing. "We are …

    Mobile 11 Jan 13:22

  • EU antitrust chief growls at Google, hopes to avoid sanctions

    Ignores 'noise and fury' from cymbal-clashing Microsoft camp

    Brussels' competition chief Joaquin Almunia has sniffed at any suggestion that the European Commission would follow the US consumer watchdog by allowing Google to avoid a tough settlement over its alleged "abuse of dominance" in the online search market. Speaking with the Financial Times, the commissioner said that the …

    Government 11 Jan 13:38

  • British armed forces get first new pistol since World War II

    Finally catch up with US drug dealers of the 1990s

    The British regular forces are to receive their first new pistol since World War II, as the long-serving Browning 9mm sidearm is replaced by a new weapon from the well-known Austrian firm Glock. Out with the old, in with the new The new pistol is the Glock 17 Gen4, which fires the same NATO standard 9x19mm cartridge as its …

    Government 11 Jan 13:59

  • Vodafone goes titsup for BlackBerrys in mobile data outage

    Yet another reason to down tools and head to the pub on Friday afternoon

    BlackBerry users on Vodafone have had another long day, or perhaps a relaxing one, as data services for many users dropped out this morning and are still on the fritz. The outage was caused by a router failure, and hit BlackBerry users on Vodafone's network across Europe, the Middle East and Africa. Services are now being …

    Mobile 11 Jan 14:06

  • Europe's cybercrime fighters get new digs... complete with Faraday room

    Europol coppers set up shop in The Hague

    The EU’s new European Cybercrime Centre (EC3) will be inaugurated at Europol in The Hague later today. The facility will act as the "focal point" in the EU’s fight against cybercrime, against both businesses and private citizens. The centre is designed to provide greater international co-ordination in the fight against online …

    Security 11 Jan 14:33

  • Nokia: Ship's now stable, all we need is passengers

    Analysis Everything's rosy except Lumia

    Europe's biggest technology company Nokia caught a few people by surprise with its outlook yesterday. Nokia released far more information than a company typical discloses in a preview - an unusual amount. Ratings agencies may regard Nokia as "junk", and the fallen industry leader has flogged off and leased back its glittering …

    Mobile 11 Jan 15:04

  • Biz users, hard-up punters: Nobody loves Windows 8

    Touch is for consumers but consumers won't touch lonely Microsoft OS

    Windows 8 was never expected to set the business world alight in the short term - maybe not even in the long term - and indeed it hasn't, official sales figures from distributors reveal. In the consumer PC space Microsoft and its hardware adversaries mates did a quick job of transitioning from Windows 7 kit, with roughly three …

    The Channel 11 Jan 15:18

  • Largest ever spiral galaxy spotted - may give birth to dwarf baby

    'Youngest, hottest stars' helped boffins realise how massive NGC6872 is

    The universe's largest known spiral galaxy and its nearest neighbouring galaxy have been interacting for some time, say astrophysicists. And all of this canoodling may result in the birth of a new tidal dwarf galaxy system 212 million light years from Earth. Astroboffins using NASA's Galaxy Evolution Explorer (GALEX) …

    Science 11 Jan 15:36

  • Next-gen H.265 video baked into Broadcom's monster TV brain

    Vid March to MPEG-5 for mobes, 4K screens reaches silicon

    720p video at 30 frames per second and less than half a megabit a second: that's the promise of the H.265 vid compression tech, which is up for ratification any day now and already has chips ready to decode it. The codec scales from bandwidth-starved mobiles, allowing one to watch streamed TV in the park, to monster 4K Ultra …

    Developer 11 Jan 15:57

  • Bad news: PC slump worse than feared. Good news: It's Friday

    Blame Windows 8, BYOD, smartphones, and tablets

    Sales of personal computers – fat workstations, clunky desktops and laptops not running Android or iOS – took a bigger dive as 2012 wound down than the box counters at IDC had expected. People are not necessarily shifting from PCs to smartphones and tablets, but these new devices continue to lengthen the time between PC …

    Hardware 11 Jan 16:34

  • Vibrator guru on pleasure tech: 'Of all the places you'd want a quality UI....'

    CES 2013 Former bomb suit maker on how he saw an opening and... filled the need

    CES is the world's premier gadget-fest, so it's perhaps unsurprising that this year it would devote a keynote at its Digital Health Summit conference track dedicated to a device owned by over 50 per cent of Americans: the vibrator. "Why shouldn't the same high-level thinking like that used in technology and other industries be …

    Mobile 11 Jan 17:04

  • Forrester: IT spending facing challenges in 2013

    Particularly in Europe, and in servers and storage

    The prognosticators have been reading their tea leaves, analyzing entrails, and gazing into their balls to try to figure out what the IT spending picture will look like, and the news from Forrester Research is much the same as El Reg is seeing elsewhere: growth will be a bit slow in the current year, and improving out beyond …

    Management 11 Jan 21:23

  • Reuters rubbishes report rubbishing cheap iPhone rumor

    Chinese paper changed tune at Apple's request

    So is Apple planning to release a cheaper iPhone or isn't it? The answer seems to depend on whom you believe – and Reuters, for one, says it doesn't believe the Shanghai Evening Post. Reuters was one of many news outlets – The Reg included – to note a story featured in the Chinese newspaper on Wednesday that claimed Apple …

    Mobile 11 Jan 21:49

  • Oracle management tools top critical list in quarterly patch party

    No sign of a Java fix however

    As part of its quarterly patch release cycle, Oracle will be unleashing 86 of the things on Tuesday, January 15, over half of them critical enough to allow full remote code execution without piffling details like a password. Roll 'em out "Due to the threat posed by a successful attack, Oracle strongly recommends that …

    Security 11 Jan 22:53