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5th February 2013 Archive

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  • Solar undercuts coal in New Mexico

    Pennies per kilowatt-hour

    Bloomberg is reporting something of a world first: a solar facility in Macho Springs, New Mexico, is planning to sell its energy to the grid substantially below the price of coal-fired power. The facility is under construction by First Solar, the news agency reports, and its customer is El Paso Electric. First Solar expects …

    Business 5 Feb 00:13

  • Fanbois rejoice: iPhone 5, iPad Mini finally jailbroken

    All devices running iOS 6 set free at last

    After a long wait – almost six months – a jailbreak method for iOS 6 is finally available, allowing the iPhone 5, the iPad Mini, and the fifth-generation iPod Touch to join the jailbreak party for the first time. The jailbreak tool is the work of a hacking team calling itself Evad3rs, which announced the release on Monday via …

    Mobile 5 Feb 00:16

  • Google, Mozilla, show off in-browser video chat

    Oh what a lovely standards war

    Google and the Mozilla foundation have teamed up to show off the WebRTC standard in their respective browsers by staging a live video chat between developers. The saccharine exchange, posted below, was made possible by RTCPeerConnection, a feature of the standard that allows browser-to-browser chat without the need for plugins …

    Software 5 Feb 03:51

  • Japan hides anti-piracy warning on P2P networks

    Latest government plan: shame the pirates into surrender

    The Japanese government has complemented its already robust digital copyright laws with the unusual practice of hiding warning notices disguised as pirated content on popular domestic peer-to-peer networks. The “copyright awareness” files contain a strongly-worded message designed to scare, shame and deter the reader into …

    Law 5 Feb 04:17

  • Big Blue takes the fight to Xeons with Power7+ entry, midrange servers

    And into emerging markets where IBM still means something

    The dateline for the Power7+ entry and midrange server launch says "Johannesburg, South Africa", and not just because Rod Adkins, general manager of IBM's Systems and Technology Group, is there meeting with about a hundred local CIOs. Big Blue also wanted to emphasize that its Power Systems business is doing better against X86 …

    Servers 5 Feb 05:19

  • HTC profits slump but Kim Jong Un's a fan

    Quietly despotic?

    Taiwanese smartphone maker HTC's profits slumped 91 per cent in the last quarter, but the firm received an unlikely endorsement after North Korean leader Kim Jong Un was apparently seen using one of its devices. The company has spent most of 2012 fighting arch rival Apple in court and trying to streamline its operations. Its …

    Business 5 Feb 05:42

  • GNOME project picks JavaScript as sole app dev language

    All the cool kids are already doing it … even Microsoft

    The GNOME project, developers of the GNOME desktop for Linux, has decided JavaScript will be the only “first class” language it will recommend for developers cooking up new apps for the platform. Developer Travis Reitter, who does some work on GNOME, has posted his account of a discussion at last weekend's GNOME Developer …

    Operating Systems 5 Feb 05:51

  • Breakaway pressures Indian industry group NASSCOM

    New think tank aims to turn India into software product hub

    India’s all-powerful IT trade association NASSCOM could be facing a period of upheaval after a group of 30 software companies decided to form their own think tank to lobby politicians, foster entrepreneurship and promote India as a global software hub. With over 1,400 members, not-for-profit NASSCOM has been the granddaddy of …

    Business 5 Feb 06:43

  • OCZ omnishambles leaves flash chippery biz on knife-edge

    What's $55m between friends?

    Flash supplier OCZ does not yet know its sales for the last two quarters nor whether it's made a profit or a loss, and had just $2 million net cash left in the bank at the end of 2012. It's an omni-shambles and it could get tossed out of Nasdaq. The memory chip company cannot make sense of its own financial records and is …

    Storage 5 Feb 07:03

  • Jammy b*stards: Admen flog chocolate bars with 'Wi-Fi-free' zones

    Have a break, have a not-spot

    A Dutch advertising company has set up Wi-Fi-free zones, promoting chocolate bars with what the UK's regulator would certainly rule to be illegal radio jamming. The zones consist of a large sign proclaiming no Wi-Fi within five metres, and a bench where users can enjoy some lack of connectivity, but the promotion begs some …

    Mobile 5 Feb 08:05

  • US diplomat: If EU allows 'right to be forgotten' ... it might spark TRADE WAR

    'Things could really explode' warns US Foreign Service man

    US diplomat warns of "trade war" if "right to be forgotten" proposals in Europe are followed through. The introduction of planned changes to EU data protection laws could herald a trans-Atlantic "trade war", a US diplomat has warned. John Rodgers, economic Officer in the US Foreign Service, said that "things could really …

    Government 5 Feb 09:04

  • 2e2 for you: Should zombies be allowed to run NHS IT?

    VAR's demise will focus investors on dealing with the undead

    The 2e2 Group finally called in the administrators to its UK ops* late on Monday 28 January, 2013, a month or two after main senior directors were released and replaced on the instructions of owners Hutton Collins. The IT services firm had recently re-stated a year’s accounts, was rumoured to have been in breach of banking …

    The Channel 5 Feb 09:32

  • Tracy brothers are back: Thunderbirds Are Go! again in 5... 4... 3...

    International Rescue in no-strings-attached comeback

    Brit television outfit ITV has announced the return of the Tracy family in Thunderbirds Are Go! - a fresh take on Gerry Anderson's classic puppet series promising "a whole new level of action-adventure animation for today's audience". Out goes Supermarionation and in comes "CGI animation", although we're promised "live-action …

    Media 5 Feb 10:03

  • What a Liberty: Virgin Media in buyout talks with telecoms giant

    Flipping 'ell!

    Virgin Media confirmed this morning that it is in buyout talks with cable giant Liberty Global. In a brief statement to the City ahead of it full-year results tomorrow, Virgin Media announced: Virgin Media confirms that it is in discussions with Liberty Global, Inc., a leading international cable company, concerning a …

    Broadband 5 Feb 10:47

  • Kids as young as FIVE need lessons in online safety - NSPCC

    And teens reckon hardcore web pr0n is 'mundane'

    Kids as young as five should be taught how to stay safe online, with tips and advice coming from their mates as well as teachers, a UK children's charity has said. The NSPCC said that online abuse was one of the major child protection issues today, as kids see more and more porn and are encouraged or coerced to make their own …

    Broadband 5 Feb 11:08

  • Out of ARM's way, Brit chip juggernaut runs over analysts again

    Been designing mobile CPUs for years, now everyone wants one

    Last year was a bumper 12 months for the chip artists at ARM: the company's revenues jumped in December above analysts' predictions as tablets and phones found their way into so many stockings, almost all of them packing ARM-designed processors. Bloomberg pegged fourth-quarter sales at £152.4m, based on averaging 18 different …

    Financial News 5 Feb 11:27

  • Bug-hunters: They're coming outta the goddamn walls, aargh!

    Security bods prep for more and more aliens bursting out of software

    The organisation that administers the industry standard for classifying computer system security vulnerabilities wants to prepare its classification system for a world with an even greater number of bugs. Mitre Corp is considering adding a 100 times more CVE (Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures) slots each year to accommodate …

    Security 5 Feb 11:44

  • Socket to 'em: It's the HomeGrid vs HomePlug powerline prizefight

    Feature Rival mains LAN standards go mano-a-mano for a place in your home network

    “Two standards, both alike in dignity, In fair Vegas, where we lay our scene, From ancient grudge break to new mutiny, Where civil blood makes civil hands unclean.” The backers of rival next-generation in-home mains power networking standards may not have come to physical blows in defence of their favoured technologies, but …

    Hardware 5 Feb 12:04

  • Twitter spends $70m to juice your tweets, tell biz what you want - report

    Said to have bought out social TV analytics upstart

    Twitter has reportedly spent big on acquiring social media analytics startup BlueFin Labs. Twitter is shelling out $70m for the firm, reports All Things D. If it's true - we've asked Twitter, but it has yet to reply - it would overshadow the site's biggest buy to date: Tweetdeck, for $40m. BlueFin Labs' speciality is "social …

    Networks 5 Feb 12:24

  • US Department of Energy: Which bright spark just hacked us?

    Data on hundreds of staffers leaked, but at least it wasn't 'classified' - report

    Personal information on several hundred employees at the the US Department of Energy has been compromised as the result of a hack attack, according to media reports. The FBI is reportedly investigating the attack, which was detected around two weeks ago. According to officials quoted in the Washington Free Beacon, the damage …

    Security 5 Feb 12:43

  • BIS, bash, bosh: El Reg solves BlackBerry 10 email bafflement

    So you've got a new Z10, what are your options?

    Is a BlackBerry that doesn't use BlackBerry's email service still a BlackBerry? The Company-Otherwise-Known-As-RIM (TCOKARIM*) hopes so. It thinks it's time to move on, and in an attempt to broaden its appeal to new punters the new BlackBerry 10 phones won't support the BlackBerry Internet Service (BIS). Instead, the devices …

    Mobile 5 Feb 13:11

  • Samsung puts Silicon Valley on a plate in $100m all-you-can-eat

    Nice tech you've got there, mind if we just gobble it all up?

    South Korean leviathan Samsung has ring-fenced $100m to snap up early startups in IT security, mobile tech and remote computing. The globe-spanning chaebol has already set aside a billion dollars for its Samsung Ventures America Fund subsidiary, which will be run along with the $100m "Catalyst Fund" at the new Samsung Strategy …

    Small Biz 5 Feb 13:38

  • Cisco joins $8m gang, shovels cash into ex-NASA OpenStack cloud upstart

    Floating in a sea of green

    Cisco has joined a trio of investors committing $8m to OpenStack startup Piston Cloud, which has a tech team led by an ex-NASA brain. The networking giant is committing the money as part of Series B funding with the Data Collective and Swisscom Ventures. They join existing investors Divergent Ventures, Hummer Winblad and True …

    Small Biz 5 Feb 14:03

  • How much for Opera's app store in my TV? A tenor, perhaps?

    HTML5 tech added to set-top box chips

    Web browser biz Opera Software will embed its HTML5 application store into chips from MediaTek, and thus into the heart of set-top boxes and smart TVs around the world. Opera's store is already to be found in Sony's Bravia range of TVs and Blu-Ray players, but being integrated into the chipset will give manufacturers an easy …

    Applications 5 Feb 14:44

  • Dell finally takes Dell private - with $24bn and help from Microsoft

    Yeehaw, ride 'em cowboy... right out of the stock market

    Stumbling computer-maker Dell Inc will leap from the stock market and go private in a $24.4bn buyout. Ever since Michael Dell founded the company in a dorm room at the University of Texas in 1984, the firm has enjoyed a fabulous ride. But it struggled this side of the year 2000 as the PC lost its lustre. The tech titan then …

    Financial News 5 Feb 15:16

  • HDS keeps filer sales ticking over, just don't mention the mid-range

    Top-end arrays doing well, relatively speaking

    Hitachi Data Systems (HDS) has sold quite a few file storage boxes and has kept its revenues more or less at the same level, with sales of its virtual storage platform (VSP) enterprise array growing strongly as well. Mid-range modular array sales look sad in comparison - newbie Hitachi Unified Storage (HUS) just isn't hustling …

    Storage 5 Feb 15:46

  • EMC channel boss cements partnerships with cold hard cash

    Sold our kit? Want a back-end rebate? Some MDF?

    EMC's channel boss for EMEA has puckered up to give channel partners a big rebate and marketing smacker. The storage behemoth staged a channel love-in during 2012 - in the wake of its dwindling Dell OEM relationship - by making resellers and integrators its primary route to market in all but the largest enterprise customer …

    The Channel 5 Feb 15:54

  • HP: Flash is better in than out. Better for us, er, our customers

    All-solid-state arrays stuffed in StoreServ, no need to buy a rival silo

    HP is going to implement its all-flash arrays inside the StoreServ (3PAR) architecture and operating environment. This sets it at odds with every other all-flash array supplier and other believers of external flash silos. Of course there's also the added benefit that this tactic may prevent HP's StoreServ customers from buying …

    Storage 5 Feb 16:14

  • Crooks, think your Trojan looks legit? This one has a DIGITAL CERTIFICATE

    Updated CA defends issuing digital seal to Brazilian swindlers

    Security researchers have discovered a banking Trojan that comes with its own built-in digital certificate. The Brazilian banking password-sniffer was signed with a valid digital certificate issued by DigiCert, MalwareBytes reports. DigiCert responded promptly to inquiries by El Reg to confirm it had a had pulled the offending …

    Security 5 Feb 16:39

  • Ravello uncloaks with $26m, fires cloud hypervisor into the heavens

    Aims high to be the VMware of fully virtualized fluffy infrastructure

    A cloudy startup called Ravello Systems raised eyebrows last March when it partially uncloaked as a bunch of techies who created the KVM hypervisor at Qumranet (now part of Red Hat) and got back together for some unknown purpose. Now we know what that purpose is. Namely, Ravello aims to create a hypervisor that spans clouds …

    Cloud 5 Feb 19:44

  • Instagram gets around to adding website galleries

    But it's still all about mobile

    Hipsters around the world are rejoicing at the news that they can now access their Instagram feeds on the web. Instead of thrusting their phones at you, now dull office time can be spent trying to think of something nice to say while examining the wonders of filtering. The company has had a website that hosted profiles and …

    Software 5 Feb 19:58

  • Telstra leak: Operation Deep Packet Inspection

    Satire Trolling like a pro

    Memo: Commercial-in-Confidence From: <REDACTED>, Telstra Social Media Market Research To: <REDACTED> It would be nice to report the unequivocal success of our first test of Twitter as a market research tool, but for reasons outlined below, I am afraid I cannot. To recap the high points of the campaign, the strategy was as …

    Networks 5 Feb 21:56

  • Kickstarter project says open source can blast Death Star costs

    Seeks £20m for plans, sets 'stretch goal' of £543qn and launch date of Dec 2015

    Barack Obama's deluded decision to deny a petition asking the USA to build a Death Star has been challenged by the wisdom of the crowd, in the form of a Kickstarter project seeking £543 quadrillion ($US850qn) to design and build the planet-destroying artificial moonlet. $US850qn is the price tag for a Death Star mentioned in …

    Bootnotes 5 Feb 22:59

  • AMD adds open source driver support for next card launch

    Good, bad or indifferent?

    Ahead of the launch of its Radon HD 8800 graphics cards, AMD has put drivers for the cards into the open source world via the Mesa graphics library. Noticed by Phoronix, the driver is simply described as a candidate for the Mesa 9.1 branch, adding support for Oland chips, and is signed off by AMD’s Alex Deucher. The HD 8800 …

    Hardware 5 Feb 23:26

  • Australia's top court says Google's iffy ads do not mislead

    Regulator smacked down in big win for ad giant

    Australia's High Court, the nation's ultimate tribunal from which no appeal is possible, has overturned lower courts' decisions that found Google misled and deceived users. At issue in the case was whether Google is responsible for the words and links its advertisers choose. The case arose after an online classifieds site …

    Law 5 Feb 23:46

  • Facebook burnout: 61% of users have needed a break

    Too busy, boring, drama, gossip, waste of time

    Around two-thirds of all online Americans use Facebook, but nearly two-thirds of those report having taken long breaks from the social network, while others have already given up on it, according to a new study from the Pew Research Center. In the study's findings published on Tuesday, 61 per cent of current Facebook users …

    Media 5 Feb 23:57