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18th February 2013 Archive

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  • Apple design bloke Ive finally honoured properly - with Blue Peter badge

    Yeah not you, Scott Forstall

    The Apple products he designs have high-cost premium components, but Jony Ive fondly remembers making a paintbrush holder out of an old detergent bottle after watching a Blue Peter episode during his childhood in Essex. Sir Jony told Blue Peter presenter Barney Harwood in a show to be aired this Saturday that he "remembered …

    Media 18 Feb 05:59

  • ICANN boss Chehade in China charm offensive

    He wants an open and fair internet ... in China?

    The new CEO of internet oversight body the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) is in China this week as part of on-going efforts to reach out to the world’s biggest online population at a time when the country’s crackdown on web freedoms has reached new heights. RosettaNet founder Fadi Chehade, who …

    Hosting 18 Feb 06:15

  • Singaporean men in naked web cam extortion scam

    Pants down with bulging wallets out

    Singaporean police have warned men in the city state of a five-fold increase in extortion cases in which they are coaxed into a state of undress, secretly filmed and then asked to hand over cash to prevent release of the resulting video. Cops in the island nation said the number of such incidents has shot up from 11 in 2011 to …

    Security 18 Feb 06:45

  • Investors toss another $96m into Violin's instrument case

    Forget the gold standard, give us paper backed by Flash

    Violin Memory, the flash array startup, has filed an SEC document showing it's looking for more cash. The form D filing describes a $130 million securities offering by Violin. This filing amends a previous filing which described an $80 million funding round, with the amended form's total being $50 million more at $130 million …

    Financial News 18 Feb 06:58

  • Online crims are getting away with it down under

    Just eight per cent of perps charged, five per cent of attacks come from foreign powers

    Law enforcement agencies charged with investigating online crime might actually be sitting at their desks gorging on donuts in Australia, if the nation's Computer Emergency Response Team' survey of stakeholders is to be trusted. The results of that survey, published today, states that “Out of those respondents who did report a …

    Security 18 Feb 07:05

  • John Lennon's lesson for public-domain innovation

    Open ... and Shut IP protection hurting, not helping, US and UK

    While I've never thought John Lennon's Imagine offered a particularly useful prescription for peace, I am starting to wonder if it might not suggest something better than free and open-source software. When Lennon sings that if we can just "imagine no possessions" we'll end up with "all the people sharing all the world," he's …

    Developer 18 Feb 08:03

  • Wikipedia's Gibraltar 'moratorium' - how's it going?

    World's most interesting territory just gets more interesting

    Last October Wikipedia's supreme leader Jimmy Wales called for a "strong moratorium" on the online project's strange obsession with promoting Gibraltar - even suggesting a five-year ban on Gibraltar-loving Did You Know... posts on Wikipedia's front page. "I think it is clear that there should be a strong moratorium on any …

    Media 18 Feb 08:32

  • Phone-bonker Bump tells desktop users: We swing both ways now

    Just press that button and your PC will give up the goods

    Bump, the utility for transferring files between phones with a tap, can now invite desktop computers into the bilateral relationship by bashing the space bar to swap data. To swap files with a PC it will need an open browser, but then you just select the file to be shared in either direction and transfer starts with a tap of …

    Mobile 18 Feb 08:58

  • Twitter row goes to court, beak says man must cough £17,500

    And say he's sorry. On Twitter of course

    A Twitter user has been ordered to delete tweets, tweet an apology and pay £7,500 to another Twitter user in a judgment handed down by the High Court of Justice, Leeds Queens Bench Division last week. Judge Gosnell ordered Toby Pedley to delete all tweets relating to racing boss Carl Harris and his partner, and to pay a hefty …

    Media 18 Feb 10:03

  • Ex-pats take note: China IT salaries set to jump 40 per cent

    It's a tough market but riches await some tech specialists

    Salary hikes of up to 40 per cent could be on offer for IT pros in China this year as the surging demand for specialised skills offers certain ex-pat professionals some new opportunities for a change of scene in 2013. International recruiter Michael Page’s annual Salary & Employment Forecast (PDF) for China reveals a booming …

    Jobs 18 Feb 10:28

  • Inside Microsoft's 'Cloud OS'

    Live video Does Windows Server 2012 deliver on its promise?

    Microsoft claims that Windows Server 2012 is the "Cloud OS", but is that a serious statement or just marketing hype? We know that thousands of you who are Windows Server users are planning to migrate to private cloud in 2013, so the answer matters as much to you as it does to us. Join The Reg's Tim Phillips for a live …

    Datacenter 18 Feb 10:31

  • Crucial question after asteroid near-miss: How big was rock in Olympic pools?

    BBC gets the measure of space boulder 2012 DA14

    The services of Bruce Willis were mercifully not required over the weekend as asteroid 2012 DA14 came to within 27,700km of Earth. As we reported on Friday, the space rock measures 45 metres across and weighs in at 130,000 metric tonnes, although it fell to the BBC to put that into proper perspective. The corporation described …

    SPB 18 Feb 10:59

  • Brace for MORE ZOMBIE ATTACK ALERT pranks, warns security bod

    Passwords left on default, kit facing the web, and worse

    Vulnerabilities in America's TV emergency alert system - exploited last week by pranksters to put out fake warnings of a zombie apocalypse - remain widespread, it is claimed. And that's after station bosses remember to change the default passwords on their broadcast equipment. Mischievous miscreants managed to hack into a …

    Security 18 Feb 11:45

  • Ubuntu? Fedora? Mint? Debian? We'll find you the right Linux to swallow

    Distro guide Go on: Stick a toothpick in the Penguin platter

    Linux, it is said, is all about choice. Indeed, the ability to choose, well, pretty much everything, is probably the best thing about Linux. But the huge variety from which you can choose - ranging from distro and desktop to window manager - can also be overwhelming for newcomers. If you've ever thought about abandoning …

    Operating Systems 18 Feb 12:13

  • Own a drone: Fine. But fly a drone with a cam: Year in the clink

    Vid Eggheads furious as US state mulls ban on 'peeping-tom' craft

    Anyone in Oregon owning a drone fitted with a camera could be jailed for six months, or a year if it's caught flying, if a new state law is passed. The rules were proposed to tackle, among other things, peeping toms gazing into bedroom windows. Draft legislation before the Oregon State Senate would, if put into the statute …

    Law 18 Feb 12:35

  • Barclays: So sorry about LIBOR... How about some free Wi-Fi?

    1,500 branches to become coffee shops minus the coffee, food and tables

    BT is putting free Wi-Fi into 1,500 branches of Barclays Bank - presumably so that impatient customers can do some online banking while queuing for a teller. Barclays can easily afford its £290m fine for attempting to rig the global borrowing-rate benchmark LIBOR, and thus it can easily pay for the new wireless service. …

    Networks 18 Feb 13:23

  • What do YOU look for in a tech CEO: Smart, sales savvy, his own hair?

    From Apotheker to Ballmer - our guide to who's in charge and who should be in charge

    Channel player would like to meet tech CEO with solid sales background, understanding of the IT distribution channel, and no commitment issues. Relaxed attitude to rebates an advantage. Smokers, short-arses and visionaries need not apply. Is that too much to ask? Many industry veterans might tell you it is. Most channel …

    Management 18 Feb 13:48

  • Top Firefox OS bloke flames Opera for WebKit surrender

    Why we'll never switch from Gecko, says Mozilla CTO

    A top bod at Firefox-maker Mozilla has ruled out replacing its web browser's brains with WebKit - and lamented Opera’s surrender to the web engine favoured by Apple and Google. Opera revealed last week that it will eventually dump its own web browser's engine Presto after 18 years for the one-two-punch of WebKit - the open- …

    Applications 18 Feb 14:24

  • Amazon, eBay, banks snub anti-fraud DNS tech, sniff securo bods

    'Other defences' available, they'll move when they're good and ready - Nominum

    Despite the best attempts of security vendors, neither online stores nor the financial industry seem particularly keen to adopt DNSSEC tech - an anti-fraud mechanism that makes it difficult for fraudsters to spoof legitimate websites. DNSSEC (DNS Security Extensions) uses public-key encryption and authentication to guard …

    Security 18 Feb 14:43

  • Iceland thinks long and hard over extreme smut web ban law

    IP-address blocking and filters proposed to cull violent vids

    Iceland is mulling a new law banning access to violent internet porn following research into the effect of extreme grumble-flicks on kids. The proposed rules, which were put forward by interior minister Ögmundur Jónasson, are being scrutinised by the country's parliament. It is access to violent pornography - rather than …

    Government 18 Feb 15:19

  • Russian boffins race to meteorite crash lake as shard prices go sky-high

    Space rock hunters flog fragments at $10,000 a piece

    Russian boffins have struck out on their own to find fragments of the meteorite that exploded in the sky over Chelyabinsk on Friday morning - amid reports that pieces are fetching as much $10,000. An expedition found a crater in the ice over Lake Chebarkul, where the scientists believe pieces of the space rock landed. "The …

    Science 18 Feb 15:28

  • Mega-rotund Dotcom's Mega gobbles up Bitcoin payments

    Virtual currency'll do for premium file-swap accounts

    Kim Dotcom has said his new Mega file-sharing website will take payment in Bitcoins, the virtual currency, from anyone who needs 500GB or more of online storage. The erstwhile boss of Megaupload, which was shut down by the Feds last year, launched its privacy-focussed sequel Mega in January; it offers a range of premium …

    Bootnotes 18 Feb 16:06

  • Acer's Wang: Size of PC shipments to shrink month after month

    'Bottom out' prediction for Q1

    Acer's boss expects the vendor's PC shipments to slump up to 15 per cent sequentially in the first quarter, but insists the firm has a "good chance" of scraping back to black this year. The prediction illustrates the massive challenges faced by Acer, given the massive year-on-year slump in shipments it showed for the fourth …

    The Channel 18 Feb 17:03

  • Hard Man of Facebook: We might just eat those cheap TLC flash chips

    Micron's teensy 3-bit NAND chips could feed FB data centre beast

    Micron has built the world's smallest 3-bits per cell NAND chip, targeting USB stick memory and the like, while Facebook's open source hardware guru has indicated such chips could be used in its cloud's data centres providing ultra-cheap flash storage. TLC (Triple-Level Cell) NAND Technology has 3 bits per cell, one more than …

    Cloud 18 Feb 18:04

  • VMTurbo 'invisible hand' control freak grabs more virty servers

    Economic engine to be applied to networks, storage, and public clouds

    There are a lot of tools out there to allow system administrators to monitor the various aspects of virtual computing capacity and help them figure out how to manage its use. But VMTurbo wants to get humans out of the way and automate the allocation of resources using the "invisible hand" of market economics - pushing the admins …

    Cloud 18 Feb 19:03

  • Telstra opens up footy app

    AFL for Optus, Voda customers as well

    Telstra has surprised “Aussie rules” football fans by announcing that its mobile app will be available to viewers on all carriers for the 2013 season. Readers may recall a not-so-veiled threat by Australian Football League boss Andrew Demetriou, who in 2011 pitched the idea of sports codes bypassing telecommunications carriers …

    Networks 18 Feb 21:15

  • Incumbents plan new trans-Tasman cable

    30 Tbps for TNZ, Telstra, Vodafone

    Telecom New Zealand, Vodafone New Zealand and Telstra have inked a memorandum of understanding for a $US60 million trans-Tasman submarine cable to ease pressure on the limited, crowded links between the two countries. Announcing the cable, TNZ noted that about 40 percent of its traffic is between Australia and New Zealand, a …

    Networks 18 Feb 22:33

  • Bill Gates: Windows Phone strategy was 'a mistake'

    'Not satisfied' that Microsoft isn't leading in phones

    Microsoft chairman Bill Gates may be devoting more time to running his philanthropic foundation than to day-to-day operations in Redmond these days, but that doesn't mean he's satisfied with how things are going at the company he founded, particularly where mobility is concerned. In an interview with CBS This Morning's Charlie …

    Management 18 Feb 22:39

  • AMD: Star Trek holodecks within reach

    ISSCC Exec explains heterogeneous computing to Geordi La Forge

    Twenty-five years ago, Star Trek: The Next Generation introduced the holodeck, a chamber aboard the USS Enterprise NCC-1701-D that could transform itself into any environment. In a decade or two, however, that sci-fi fantasy could be real. So said the general manager of AMD's global business units, Lisa Su, speaking at the …

    Hardware 18 Feb 23:53