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13th February 2013 Archive

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  • $195 BEEELLION asteroid approaching Earth

    Too bad it's in an INCONVEEENIENT orbit

    The pint-sized – in astronomical terms – asteroid that's scheduled to buzz the Earth this Friday may have a street space value of about $195bn. "Unfortunately, the path of asteroid 2012 DA14 is tilted relative to Earth, requiring too much energy to chase it down for mining," say the wannabe space prospectors at Deep Space …

    Science 13 Feb 00:27

  • TransLattice inks partnership with Amazon's AWS cloud

    Flavors Bezos's cloud with Google-esque database tech

    Distributed-database company TransLattice has sailed into Amazon's AWS Partner Network, giving developers confidence that they'll get the most out of their database when running it on the AWS cloud. The company announced on Tuesday that it had gained AWS Partner Network Standard Technology Partner certification (snappy acronym …

    Cloud 13 Feb 00:39

  • Spotted: Android 4.2.2 update for Google Nexus devices

    Minor over-the-air release to arrive in waves

    Owners of Google Nexus devices have reason to hover anxiously over their System Updates screens once again, with reports surfacing that the Chocolate Factory has slowly begun rolling out the latest update to Android 4.2 "Jelly Bean". A Reddit user going by the handle "WeeManFoo" was among the first to report receiving the over …

    Mobile 13 Feb 00:56

  • Canada cans net surveillance law

    'Protecting Children from Internet Predators Act' is no more

    Canada’s Conservative government has decided not to proceed with its attempt to pass the Protecting Children from Internet Predators Act, also known as Bill-C30, after community opposition to the proposed law’s surveillance measures. The Bill (PDF) describes its purpose as follows: “The purpose of this Act is to ensure that …

    Policy 13 Feb 02:12

  • Vertu-alised Android revealed at an all-too-real €7,900

    Luxury brand’s first smartphone can repel ball bearings

    Vertu, the luxury phone brand Nokia last year sold to a private outfit EQT, has revealed its first Android-powered smartphone. The €7,900 ($US10,624 or £6,778) handset runs Ice Cream Sandwich, aka Android 4.0, boasts a “sapphire screen” said to be astoundingly scratch resistant and “four times stronger than other smart phones …

    Hardware 13 Feb 03:46

  • Love in the time of the internet: A personal memoir

    Feature The tongue-in-cheek (or elsewhere) guide to internet dating

    Another year, another Valentine's Day – that annual event when restaurant, retail, and romance businesses try to make every uncoupled person feel wretched about themselves, and put otherwise successful relationships under enormous pressure to make February 14 a "special" day. As such, a lot of people will be looking for new …

    Media 13 Feb 04:57

  • Lenovo, PayPal, launch post-password plan

    Token effort ‘FIDO’ offers open two-factor web authentication scheme

    Lenovo, PayPal and lesser-known fellow travellers Agnitio, Infineon Technologies, Nok Nok Labs and Validity, have cooked up a new authentication standard for websites and an alliance to push it to the world. The Fast Identity Online Alliance (aka FIDO), as the group and proposed standard are both known, advances a two-factor …

    Security 13 Feb 05:54

  • Home Depot pulls out of newly-named RIM, gets in bed with Apple

    10,000 devices, another big drop in a growing ocean

    Home Depot is the latest US company to drop BlackBerry, handing out 10,000 iPhones to executives and other management staff and wiping out 3 per cent of BlackBerry's share price in the process. News of the decision left BlackBerry shares down, but it remains unclear if Home Depot made its decision before or after the launch of …

    Phones 13 Feb 06:02

  • Google Play privacy SNAFU sends app buyers' details to devs

    Australian coder says if you buy his Android app he'll know where you live

    Dan Nolan, an Australian software developer, has claimed that Google Play sends those who sell apps in the online bazaar personal details of app buyers. Nolan rose to notoriety late in 2012 by launching "The Paul Keating Insult Generator". Keating was Prime Minister of Australia between 1991 and 1996 and had a famously acid …

    Security 13 Feb 07:03

  • Hands off my disk! VMware gobbles Virsto for software-ruled arrays

    Compute clusters, networks, now storage is going automatic

    Virtualisation leviathan VMware has bought storage hypervisor maker Virsto. It means VMware can now aggregate servers, networks (thanks to its Nicira acquisition) and now storage into an abstracted pool of resources - providing the three pillars VMware needs to build software-defined data centres that can run themselves. …

    Storage 13 Feb 07:07

  • LIVE NOW: Never mind Windows 8, speak your brains on Server 2012

    Live Chat 6 months on... how is it for you?

    Windows Server 2012 was part of a Microsoft launch wave that included Windows 8 and Office 2013. While the benefits of the latter two are debatable, on server Microsoft has delivered a solid performer that’s completely surpassed Windows Server 2008 and deserves attention. Among the biggest changes are advances in Hyper-V, …

    Servers 13 Feb 07:33

  • Intel serves flashy speed to penguins after eating Nevex's cache

    Flash cache for Linux servers

    Intel has launched its Cache Acceleration Software (CAS), the renamed Nevex CacheWorks software, integrating it with its DC S3700 SSD and and 910 Series server flash card. CacheWorks and now CAS provides a policy-based flash cache for application data stored on disk drives, utilising a server's SSD or PCIe flash card, and then …

    Storage 13 Feb 08:04

  • Recipe for a bad day: 'State-backed hackers are attacking your PC'

    The chilling Google warning greeting journos in Burma

    Several Burmese journalists and foreign correspondents have been warned by Google that their Gmail accounts may have been compromised by “state-sponsored attackers”. The writers, when logging into the webmail service, were confronted with a warning message stating “we believe state-sponsored attackers may be attempting to …

    Security 13 Feb 08:26

  • Speaking in Tech: VMware plots to build data centre that RUNS ITSELF

    Podcast Virty vendor's Virsto slurp, virtualised vomit, Dell and more...

    It's another recap of the week in tech, all ready to download to your phone or tablet to make your commute home that much more informative and funny. Join your hosts, consumer and enterprise tech gurus Greg Knieriemen and Ed Saipetch - guru number three, Sarah Vela, is ill this week - for everything you need to know about the …

    Datacenter 13 Feb 09:03

  • Eager students, huge racks - yes, undergrad cluster wrestling is back

    Why 2013 is going to be THE year for HPC battles

    2013 promises to be the breakout year for student cluster-building competitions – the most popular high-performance-computing-related sport in the entire world. As an indication that pitting undergraduates against the clock to construct powerful number-crunchers is now a credible event, last year the International …

    HPC 13 Feb 09:27

  • 'Strong basis' to claims Nominet board breached duties - legal top gun

    Registry's members hire barrister in row over running of UK's web overseer

    Directors of UK domain-name registry Nominet have come under fire from a group of Nominet members who have also threatened to take legal action against the board. The group commissioned a legal opinion in connection to claims that certain recommended changes to the non-profit's governance had been deleted from an "independent" …

    Hosting 13 Feb 10:00

  • Data scientists: Do they even exist?

    Open ... and Shut Data data everywhere, but not a drop to shrink

    Big Data is all the rage. Now if only someone had to clue what to do with it. According to a new survey of senior executives by Big data consultantancy NewVantage, Big Data is "top of mind for leading industry executives," but these same executives struggle to find the right people to analyse their data. In fact, while 70 per …

    Management 13 Feb 10:24

  • Capita bosses defend £30m migrant-poking IT deal with Border Agency

    Sending texts from a db sounds like 'money for old rope' to MPs

    Outsourcing giant Capita's CEO has defended his company's £30m migrant-chasing contract with the UK Border Agency - and insisted it is not, as one MP delicately put it, "money for old rope". Paul Pindar, the London-headquartered plc's top boss, and two of his high-ranking lieutenants were told to justify the new four-year IT …

    Government 13 Feb 10:49

  • Register reader Ray revs radio-controlled Raspberry Pi race rover

    Pics and vid Frikkin' laser armament planned for US invasion

    As geeks worldwide continue to come up with inventive ways to deploy the hit Brit minikit Raspberry Pi, and the publication of a 101 uses for a...* guide is surely just a matter of time, Reg reader Ray Brooks has been in touch to show off his prototype carbot powered by the diminutive ARM-compatible computer. Ray is a …

    SPB 13 Feb 11:08

  • Intel's new TV box to point creepy spy camera at YOUR FACE

    One day we're gonna watch you like it's 1984

    Intel has confirmed it will be selling a set-top box direct to the public later this year, along with a streaming TV service designed to watch you while you're watching it. The device will come from Intel Media, a new group populated with staff nicked from Netflix/Apple/Google and so forth. Subscribers will get live and catch- …

    Hardware 13 Feb 11:24

  • Get up, shake off the hangover: These 57 Microsoft holes won't fix themselves

    This month's fat security Patch Tuesday has landed

    A bumper Microsoft Patch Tuesday has rolled out 12 security bulletins that collectively address a hefty 57 vulnerabilities. Five of these bulletins reveal critical holes in the software giant's products: one bulletin (MS13-009) covers 13 bugs found in Internet Explorer, while another (MS13-016) tackles a privilege-escalation …

    Security 13 Feb 11:44

  • Perky smartphone figures can't stop droop of worldwide mobe sales

    Total sales shrink 1.7% in 2012

    Worldwide mobile phone sales fell 1.7 per cent in 2012, a shrinkage of 30 million units from 2011. Increasing smartphone sales were not enough to compensate for the fall in feature phone sales, according to a Gartner report. Total global sales to end users for 2012 were down 30 million units to 1.75 billion from 1.78 billion in …

    Phones 13 Feb 12:11

  • Microsoft! Bing! must! make! Yahoo! more! money! moans! Mayer!

    And Yahoo! apps face cull (yes, Yahoo! has apps)

    Yahoo! chief exec Marissa Mayer has complained that cosying up to Microsoft to use its Bing search engine hasn't given her company the market share or money she was hoping for. Speaking at the Goldman Sachs Technology and Internet Conference in San Francisco - her first investor gathering appearance since she took over at …

    Business 13 Feb 12:24

  • Micron glues DDR4 RAM to flash, animates the 256GB franken-DIMM

    If only there was an operating system to support it

    Micron is developing a DDR4-compatible hybrid DRAM-NAND stick to blast data at processors faster than the PCIe bus used by rival flash cache products. DDR4 is a JEDEC standard and can move at least 2.1 billion blocks per second - the block size is set by the memory chip's word length in bits - and it beats the pants off DDR3. …

    Storage 13 Feb 12:48

  • Stroppy investor tries to rip 'n' replace STEC's entire board

    Fallen flash star's CEO: You're just trying to auction us off

    It's a proxy war: activist investor Balch Hill wants to bounce troubled SSD supplier STEC's board - which includes its CEO and its founder - and populate the boardroom with seven of its own nominees. STEC is the former leading enterprise SSD supplier which has fallen on hard times and is now partway through a strategic …

    Business 13 Feb 13:06

  • Rivals to Brussels: Google labelling its own stuff won't help us

    'Could mean more people sucked in, not less'

    A Microsoft-backed lobby group that is fighting Google's alleged dominance of the search market in Europe has claimed that any concession by Brussels competition officials that involves labelling could do more harm than good for the ad giant's rivals. ICOMP's legal counsel David Wood argued today that Google's proposed remedy …

    Media 13 Feb 13:27

  • Opera joins Google/Apple in-crowd with shift to WebKit and Chromium

    Only Redmond left drinking out of own browser plumbing

    Opera Software is throwing in with Apple, Google and open-sourcers by dumping its browser’s proprietary HTML rendering engine for WebKit and Chromium. Opera is killing Presto in favour of the open-source WebKit 'ware used in Apple’s Safari and iOS plus Google’s Chrome, among other browsers and runtimes. New versions of Opera …

    Software 13 Feb 13:57

  • Big Data: Why it's not always that big nor even that clever

    And as for data scientists being sexy, well...

    You may not realize it, but data is far and away the most critical element in any computer system. Data is all-important. It’s the center of the universe. A managing director at JPMorgan Chase was quoted as calling data “the lifeblood of the company.” A major tech conference held recently (with data as its primary focus) …

    Management 13 Feb 14:31

  • Cambridge White Space boffins cook up Weightless chips

    White Space networking takes a spin into silicon

    UK White Space pioneer Neul has got its Weightless protocol into silicon, ready for devices which will then drain batteries as slowly as they'd leak energy when not in use. That's the promise of Weightless, a radio protocol designed to operate in White Space frequencies that are empty of local TV broadcasts. The idea is that …

    Networks 13 Feb 15:13

  • Pan-eurozone distie Exclusive Group sets eyes on €1bn prize

    French-run biz banks a fat 2012, plans to grow

    Exclusive Networks, a pan-European IT distie, has announced fat revenue growth of 30 percent in its annual report for 2012. The French company said its revenue of €279m (£240m) for the year gone beat expectations, and claimed it was up a third on 2011's revenue of €214m (£184m). Yearly profits were said to be up by 22 percent …

    The Channel 13 Feb 15:52

  • Android? Like Marvin the robot? Samsung eclipses Google OS - Gartner

    Sammy Galaxy 'a synonym' for Android mobes

    Samsung's soaraway successful Galaxy smartphones are starting to overshadow their Google-built Android operating system. That's in the mind of the public at least, who can't tell the difference between an Android mobe and a Samsung Galaxy, according to Gartner. Gartner Analyst Anshul Gupta explained in the report Mobile Phones …

    Phones 13 Feb 16:12

  • Review finds Wikipedia UK board needs major leadership overhaul

    Transparency? Isn't that a pub in Gibraltar?

    A Wikimedia UK board member who had only been in the role for four months resigned late last year after raising conflict-of-interest issues at the organisation, which is one of the 39 local chapters founded to support and promote the projects of the San Francisco-based Wikimedia Foundation*. But it was only weeks after the …

    Media 13 Feb 17:10

  • Boffins make bio-chip breakthrough

    Cancer-detecting yogurt now possible

    MIT boffins have made a breakthrough in biological computing that paves the way for cancer-detecting yogurts and other gloopy marvels. The advance, which saw the researchers combine logic and memory within a single living cell, was published in the "Synthetic circuits integrating logic and memory in living cells" paper in …

    Science 13 Feb 18:30

  • Official: America now a nation of broadband whingers

    Analysis It's no utopia, but at least you don't get shot for chewing gum

    In popular mythology, the British are a nation of whingers, while Americans get on and fix things. This was certainly my experience of crossing the Atlantic to live in the USA. When a London Tube train came to an unexpected halt, you would brace yourself for a malevolent explosion of spittle. The exhalation was a short hand for …

    Networks 13 Feb 19:30

  • Ericsson readies carrier-grade OpenStack for telcos and SPs

    All your mobile service are belong to us

    Ericsson is going with OpenStack, and in fact joined the consortium that is steering its development a year ago. The company and now previewing a tweaked version of OpenStack that will run on its network iron. Network equipment providers created carrier-grade versions of Unix and Linux operating systems, or worked with …

    Cloud 13 Feb 20:30

  • More naysayers pour cold water on Dell LBO

    Dell and Silver Lake rumored to contemplate higher bid

    Dell, the company, might want to be more like IBM, but this leveraged buyout takeover bid that Michael Dell and Silver Lake Partners have put together is starting to smell more like the Hewlett-Packard acquisition of beleaguered Compaq more than a decade ago. Southeastern Asset Management, which owns an 8.4 per cent stake in …

    Business 13 Feb 21:34

  • Oracle wants another go at Google over Android Java copyrights

    'You wouldn't steal a Harry Potter book...'

    Oracle has asked a US Federal Circuit Appeals Court to overturn an earlier decision in the database giant's billion-dollar intellectual property lawsuit against Google, with an audacious brief that compares Google's use of Java in its Android smartphone OS to an author selling counterfeit Harry Potter books. Oracle's appeal …

    Law 13 Feb 22:08

  • USA sinks Atlantic cable plan over Huawei worries

    Huawei not wanted on the voyage

    The planned trans-Atlantic Hibernia Networks cable project is in limbo due to American concerns at the involvement of Chinese government-linked vendor Huawei. According to the paywalled Capacity magazine, Project Express – which was to run between New York and London, serving the world of high-frequency trading with sub-60 ms …

    Networks 13 Feb 22:23

  • Soak up CO2 with sponges, says CSIRO

    A football field in a gram

    Australian science outfit the CSIRO is claiming a win, demonstrating a material it says offers a new approach to carbon capture: a sponge. The idea of the “sponge” – really a material called a metal-organic framework – is very straightforward. It absorbs gases at the point of release, such as capturing flue gases in a power …

    Science 13 Feb 22:28

  • Obama signs Executive Order on critical cybersecurity

    Tells Congress to get its act together

    President Obama made space in his State of the Union address to mention online security and revealed that he has signed an executive order named "Improving Critical Infrastructure Cybersecurity." "We cannot look back years from now and wonder why we did nothing in the face of real threats to our security and our economy," the …

    Policy 13 Feb 22:57

  • NSW may fire 610 school tech support officers in March

    Jobs in peril if digital education revolution funding not renewed

    The New South Wales Department of Education and Communities has written to staff, advising them that 610 Technical Support Officers (TSOs) in the State's schools may lose their jobs in March if the federal Digital Education Revolution program is not offered renewed funding. The Reg has obtained an email sent by Greg Prior, the …

    Government 13 Feb 23:43