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19th February 2013 Archive

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  • The cheap 3D craft pen that scribbles over 3D printing hype

    $75 tool turns doodles into actual things

    How many printers do you have in your house? And how many pens? I would bet the ratio is at least a dozen pens to every printer, if not more. So is there any reason the ratio of 3D-pens-to-printers is going to be significantly different? A US startup has come up with a 3D-model-making pen that allows you to "draw" plastic …

    Hardware 19 Feb 00:03

  • Turnbull says NBN Co could offer FTTN with optional fibre-for-cash

    Coalition comms spokesman cites BT Openreach's FoD as decent model

    Australia's shadow Communications minister Malcolm Turnbull has said he sees no reason NBN Co could not offer a “fibre-on-demand” (FoD) service that would see those offered xDSL connections under a fibre-to-the-node (FTTN) scheme offered the chance to pay for a fibre optic cable to be connected to their premises. Turnbull's …

    Broadband 19 Feb 00:09

  • Google misses privacy-policy deadline, incurs EU wrath

    Regulators plan "coordinated repressive action" before summer

    Google has been told by a group of EU regulators that it faces "a coordinated repressive action" before this summer, due to the fact that the online search advertising giant has ignored their order to make changes to and provide information about its privacy policies. Last January, Google unified 60 of its products' individual …

    Policy 19 Feb 01:11

  • Intel pits QDR-80 InfiniBand against Mellanox FDR

    And hints at integrated networking on future CPUs

    As Joe Yaworski, fabric product marketing manager at Intel, put it to El Reg, the next frontier of system innovation will be in fabrics. As we see it, that frontier may also be the front line of the InfiniBand war between Mellanox and Intel – with one upcoming battle being the former's 56Gb/sec interconnects versus Intel's new …

    Data Networking 19 Feb 01:58

  • Dell's Ubuntu dev laptop gets much-needed display boost

    Cranked up to Full HD, with better viewing angles

    Proving that last year's skunkworks Project Sputnik effort wasn't a one-off experiment, Dell has upgraded its Ubuntu Linux–powered XPS 13 Developer Edition laptop to include a new, higher-resolution screen. When the Developer Edition XPS 13 first shipped in November 2012, it came with a 13.3-inch panel with a 1366-by-768 pixel …

    Laptops 19 Feb 02:27

  • LogMeIn uncloaks cloud storage bypass

    'Cubby' offers peer-to-peer syncing through, but not always on, a cloud

    By now you know the prosumer cloud storage schtick: an agent on your device monitors a designated folder and copies everything in it to the cloud, from where any other device running the service's agent and logged in with the same account sucks down that file so it is available locally. The likes of DropBox, Google, Microsoft …

    Cloud 19 Feb 04:00

  • Higgs data shows alternate reality will SWALLOW UNIVERSE

    Goodbye

    That Higgs Boson we all got excited about last year because it would reveal the mysteries of the universe? One boffin now says his analysis of the data suggests the Higgs is, in fact, an obituary for the universe. Speaking at the American Association for the Advancement of Science meeting in Boston yesterday, Joseph Lykken of …

    Science 19 Feb 05:23

  • Indian government censors own web site after court order

    ISPs given blacklist in wake of defamation case

    The Indian government has effectively censored one of its own web sites after its Department of Telecommunications told ISPs to block access to over 70 URLs in response to a court ruling that they contained defamatory content. The bizarre turn of events began last Thursday after controversial business school the Indian …

    Government 19 Feb 05:33

  • Baby-boulder bowling burglar breaks Boulder Apple Store's $100k glass door

    Nicked kit surprisingly worth LESS than knackered entrance

    An intruder stole Apple kit worth over $60,000 from the Apple Store in Boulder, Colorado, but caused more financial damage by breaking the door, reports ABC News Denver. The custom-made glass door of the Apple Store on 29th Street in Boulder cost $100K. The Apple burglar - described by cops as a hooded man armed with three …

    Law 19 Feb 06:02

  • You can help fix patent laws … now!

    International patent harmonisation effort wants your input

    While Barack Obama frets about patent law and trolls attack even helpful government e-health initiatives, IP experts around the world are quietly working on something that might just help: a survey! Not just any survey, mind. This one was created by Tegernsee Experts Group, an entity composed of representatives from patent …

    Law 19 Feb 06:52

  • iPad? Pah. Behold the EYEPAD, patented by Sony for the 'PS4'

    Totally different from Apple because it glows

    Sony has filed for a patent in Europe on the EyePad, a fondleslab with glowing edges that could be a controller for the PlayStation 4. The fresh paperwork, which was published this month after Sony submitted it last July, "is typically a panel, tablet or slab-like device comprising one or more illuminated regions, two …

    Games 19 Feb 07:04

  • Nursing watchdog fined £150k for confidential unencrypted DVD loss

    'Highly sensitive' discs for 'fitness to practise' hearing vanish

    The UK's data protection watchdog has fined the Nursing and Midwifery Council (NMC) £150,000 after it deemed its failure to encrypt sensitive personal data stored on DVDs that were lost to be a serious breach of the Data Protection Act. The nursing and midwifery regulator had arranged for the DVDs, which contained confidential …

    Security 19 Feb 08:03

  • Virtual Instruments plans probe 'n' sniff tools for Ethernet networks

    But Arista bloodhounds are hot on its heels - analyst

    Fibre Channel networking probester Virtual Instruments is going to expand into Ethernet-based file network probing and analysis, according to the 451 analysis group. The analysts also reckon an IPO is coming but said that Ethernet switching speed freak Arista is set on entering Ethernet network analysis too, giving VI real …

    Data Networking 19 Feb 08:29

  • Dutch MP must cough €750 for hacking into medical lab

    'Public interest was served' but he didn't need to access so many files

    A Dutch MP has been fined €750 (£650, $1,000) after he was convicted of illegally accessing the systems of a Dutch medical laboratory. Henk Krol claims he only accessed the systems of Diagnostics for You in order to expose sloppy security practices. The MP, who is the leader of Dutch minority pensioners party, 50plus, used a …

    Security 19 Feb 09:04

  • GreenBytes rips code from virtual-desktop array's chest, serves to small biz

    vIO is VDI for SMEs in 100-seat bundles

    Thin-client accelerator GreenBytes has separated its software from its virtual desktop appliance hardware so customers can use anybody's flash to store machine images. The company's IO Offload Engine is a dedicated solid-state disk array that stores virtual desktop images and feeds them to users' computers at blistering speed …

    Virtualization 19 Feb 09:33

  • Wind-up bloke Baylis winds up broke, turns to UK gov for help

    Africa radio man says Brit inventors need more patent protection

    Trevor Baylis, the brains behind the wind-up radio and a shoe-powered phone charger, has called on the UK government to back Blighty's inventors. And he is reported to be selling his one-bedroom self-designed house on a River Thames island in Twickenham after failing to convert his creations into a mountain of money. He told …

    Government 19 Feb 10:05

  • Burger King's tweets fried after hijackers pimp Big Macs

    Who knew 'whopper123' wasn't a secure password?

    Pranksters hijacked Burger King's official Twitter feed on Monday and turned it into a advertising stream for arch-rival McDonald's. The usual promotional content on @BurgerKing was replaced by updates referencing McDonald's, rap videos, Anonymous and lax password security at the fast food giant. "Somebody needs to tell …

    Media 19 Feb 10:27

  • Cameron to ink cyber deal with India, protect Brit outsourced data

    UK will also share infosec expertise and threat intelligence

    Prime Minister David Cameron will step up UK co-operation with India on cyber security on Tuesday in a bid to better protect data stored on Indian servers as well as share intelligence on breaking threats. Cameron is in India as part of a three-day trade trip designed to build stronger business ties with the vast emerging …

    Security 19 Feb 10:55

  • Tesco dials 999 after Clubcard vouchers are 'nicked' online

    Detectives put on scent of alleged account breachers

    Tesco has called the cops after Clubcard vouchers were allegedly swiped from its customers' online accounts. It is feared the money-off coupons, which are earned by using the chain's loyalty card, were stolen after miscreants compromised victims' accounts. Tesco found out about the missing vouchers, thought to be worth …

    Law 19 Feb 11:18

  • Alibaba takes ANOTHER swing at Google with search engine launch

    Round two of the Android - Aliyun ding dong

    Google’s odds of clinging onto market share in the hugely competitive China search market just got longer after local e-commerce giant Alibaba entered the fray with a search engine under the banner of its Aliyun cloud division. Responding to an El Reg request for more info on breaking news reports, an Alibaba Group spokeswoman …

    Applications 19 Feb 11:46

  • Review: The ultimate Chromebook challenge

    Google laptops from Acer and Samsung go head to head

    Too slow, too expensive, too limited. That was the verdict of most hacks and punters on the early Google Chromebook laptops. Google has kept its shoulder to the wheel, though, and recently announced that 2000 schools are now using Chromebooks. Lenovo and HP have both recently jumped on the Chromebook bandwagon too, joining …

    Laptops 19 Feb 12:03

  • EE's revenues dip, but smartphones lure in 200k new contracts

    4G not the promised goldmine, though

    UK telecoms giant EE's first annual results are in, showing cost savings and revenue growth wiped out by regulatory changes, but customer numbers are up - even if it's not 4G that's attracting them. The UK's biggest network operator posted full-year earnings of £1.41bn for 2012 before the numbers for tax and depreciation ( …

    Financial News 19 Feb 12:43

  • MIT boffin teases space-station probe's DARK MATTER DISCOVERY

    Just double-checking the numbers, says Nobel-prize winner

    A top astroboffin has hinted that an upcoming paper will reveal a major breakthrough in dark matter research. The AMS installed on the S3 truss of the ISS MIT scientist and Nobel Laureate in Physics Samuel Ting told reporters at the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) that the first results from the …

    Science 19 Feb 12:54

  • TransLattice 3.0 dreams of multi-cloud nirvana

    All these clouds are yours – except Azure, Oracle, Google...

    Distributed database TransLattice has a dream of scalable multi-cloud data for all, but competition among providers may quash it. With the release of the TransLattice Elastic Database (TED) 3.0 on Monday, the company is trumpeting its ability to run across multiple public clouds. At launch, TED can run across Amazon Web …

    Cloud 19 Feb 13:25

  • Tilera etches '*ss-kicking' 72-core system-on-chip for network gear

    Current Tile-Gx Plan B fits market needs better than Plan A

    It is not just difficult to design and manufacture a chip for workloads that will be run many years in the future, it is damned near impossible. This is because so many shifting alternative technologies will materialize between the time you make your plan and when it is executed. Any chipmaker has to be both flexible and patient …

    Servers 19 Feb 14:03

  • Microsoft: You want Office for Mac, fanboi? You'll pay Windows prices

    Hikes up prices by 17% to push users towards Office 365

    Microsoft has increased the price of Office for Mac by up to 17 per cent, another move in the software giant's territory battle with Apple in the personal computing market. The new pricing structure, which was not officially announced by Redmond, asks Mac users to hand over around the same amount as users of Office 2013 for …

    Applications 19 Feb 14:46

  • Python-lovers sling 'death threats' at UK ISP in trademark row

    Cops called after venomous vigilantes 'DDoS site, scream down phone at staff'

    UK webhosting outfit Veber has called the police after fending off abuse in the wake of its attempt to trademark "python" in Europe. The small biz said it came under fire from fans of the popular Python programming language. The firestorm appeared to have been ignited by a Python Software Foundation (PSF) blog post on 14 …

    Hosting 19 Feb 15:33

  • Chinese PLA soldiers 'mastermind cyber-espionage Cold War'

    NYT-hired security biz claims scores of US corps hacked by state-sponsored crew

    Chinese military spies, holed up in ho-hum Shanghai tower blocks surrounded by restaurants and massage parlours, have siphoned hundreds of terabytes of data from computers at scores of US corporations. We're assured that, rather than being a work of fiction, this is the conclusion of a new study by Mandiant that claims a unit …

    Security 19 Feb 16:04

  • Amazon ditches 'neo-Nazi' security firm over alleged harassment of workers

    Etailer ends contract after documentary about guards at 'holiday camps'

    Amazon has ditched a security firm accused of mistreating temporary workers at one of the etailer's German warehouses in Bad Hersfeld. The web bazaar said it took the allegations against the warehouse guards "very seriously" and said it was terminating its contract with the company in question, Hensel European Security …

    Law 19 Feb 16:36

  • HP cranks up bandwidth on BladeSystem sheaths, adds pretty platinum stripe

    Three-rank memory and 40GE downlinks for blades to match

    When Hewlett-Packard launched the BladeSystem blade enclosures nearly seven years ago alongside its "blade everything" strategy, no one but Google was doing custom, high-density machines and it looked like blade servers would be the corporate platform of choice. And so HP built the c7000 chassis, and its smaller "Shorty" c3000 …

    Servers 19 Feb 16:44

  • Software update knocks out Space Station communications

    And you thought Patch Tuesday was bad

    A software update took down the main communications system for the International Space Station on Tuesday, leaving astronauts reliant on 1960s technology to phone home to systems administrators. "Flight controllers were in the process of updating the station’s command and control software and were transitioning from the …

    Science 19 Feb 19:03

  • Amazon releases OpsWorks, muscles into cloud management

    'Do not be alarmed, cherished partners'

    Amazon has launched a free add-on for its fleet of cloud services that lets developers better manage and automate their application stacks – a move that stabs at the heart of many of Amazon's technology partners and some of rivals. The 'AWS OpsWorks' control-freak tech was announced in a blog post by Amazon on Tuesday. The …

    Cloud 19 Feb 19:35

  • HP brings wired and wireless nets under single SDN umbrella

    Shiny stackable OpenFlow and hybrid wired/wireless switches

    Wireless networks are becoming as important as wired ones for companies, and if you want to manage both and provide both wireless and wired functionality, it makes sense to mash up a hybrid switch that has physical and ethereal ports and is all managed by the same software stack. If you can slap a "software-defined networking" …

    Data Networking 19 Feb 19:53

  • Canonical unveils fondleslab-friendly Ubuntu 'experience'

    Claims single OS running across all client form factors

    Furthering its plans to broaden the reach of the Ubuntu Linux distribution from PCs and servers to mobile devices, Canonical on Tuesday unveiled its new user "experience" layer for tablets. The fondleslab-friendly UI follows on from the version of Ubuntu for smartphones, which Canonical announced last week. "Our family of …

    Operating Systems 19 Feb 20:27

  • Apple and world HACKED by Facebook plunderers

    Use a Mac? Have Java? You might have been pwned

    Apple, Facebook and "hundreds of other companies" have had their Mac computers hacked in a sophisticated campaign mounted by an unknown adversary. Attackers were able to infect Apple, along with other businesses around the world with Mac malware delivered via a Java zero-day vulnerability, Reuters reported on Tuesday, after …

    Security 19 Feb 20:32

  • Pirate Bay reports pirating anti-piracy group to police

    'Bring it on,' say the accused

    The Pirate Bay has lodged an official police complaint against the anti-piracy group that copied its famous pirate ship logo. Last week the Pirate crew warned that they were considering action against the Finnish Copyright Information and Anti-Piracy Centre (CIAPC) after that organization copied the CSS style sheet to get the …

    Media 19 Feb 21:50

  • Telstra shed fried in fire

    Oh, yes, it was an exchange

    A bushfire on Kangaroo Island in South Australia has destroyed a Telstra street-side exchange. While the South Australian Country Fire Service says the fire has now been contained, the 70-hectare fire burned through grass and scrub, causing extensive smoke and fire damage to this exchange building: The Cygnet River Exchange …

    Networks 19 Feb 22:17

  • ACCC consulting on NBN POIs, again

    Who is using what, where

    Having determined during 2012 the suburbs and towns in which Australia's National Broadband Network (NBN) POIs – points of interconnect – would be located, the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) is now delving deeper into POI locations as well as interconnect procedures. The competition regulator has issued …

    Networks 19 Feb 22:35

  • Apple updates iOS, does not fix passcode-bypass hack

    Version 6.1.2 should fix battery-draining Exchange bug, however

    Apple released iOS 6.1.2 on Tuesday, an update that it says will fix the battery-draining Exchange bug — which it very well may do – but the update does not fix the finger-dancing hack that allows you to bypass an iPhone's passcode, launch the Phone app, and access all of its contacts, phone-history information, and the like. …

    Phones 19 Feb 22:48

  • FlashRay shines out from Sunnyvale

    NetApp's journey to Mars

    NetApp has unveiled FlashRay, its all-flash array work-in-progress that is the focus of its Mars project. The product should become available some time in 2014 and will enter beta test in the middle of this year. The Sunnyvale-headquartered company made three announcements today. It is producing the EF540, an all-flash array …

    Storage 19 Feb 22:54

  • Amazon preparing 'disruptive' big data AWS service?

    Exclusive Seattle hunts for folk comfortable with exabyte-scale analytics

    Amazon Web Services looks set to launch a "disruptive" big data service that is sure to put the frighteners on traditional IT vendors. The as-yet-unnamed product will be run within AWS Data Services – an internal cloud product team that also handles the AWS Data Pipeline, AWS RDS and AWS RedShift, among others – according to …

    Cloud 19 Feb 23:09

  • Nature pulls ‘North Korean radioactivity’ story

    Streisand Effect anyone?

    Prestigious science journal Nature has had to scramble to kill a story that it says turned out to be mistaken. The piece – posted as “news” rather than peer-reviewed science – made the claim that measurements of Xenon-133 provided further evidence, if that was needed, that North Korea had indeed detonated a nuclear device as …

    Science 19 Feb 23:10

  • Dell's PC biz craters as servers and networking chug along

    Enterprise: More than a third of sales, more than half of margins

    If you want a proxy for what people think about the proposed $24.4bn buyout deal of Dell by company founder Michael Dell and private equity firm Silver Lake Partners, don't look at the company's stock price, look at its financial results for its fourth quarter. Wall Street is worried about what Dell is going to do with the PC …

    Datacenter 19 Feb 23:26

  • Microsoft to link Lync voice and IM to Skype by June

    Mobile apps with voice and video over IP coming soon(ish)

    Microsoft kicked off its first-ever Lync Conference in San Diego, California, on Tuesday by announcing a series of planned upgrades for its Lync unified communications platform, including new mobile apps and interoperability with Skype. In a statement, Tony Bates, president of Microsoft's Skype division, said that all Lync …

    Software 19 Feb 23:33