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5th March 2013 Archive

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  • Samsung's next smartphone to scroll by watching your eyes

    Chalk up one more Galaxy trick that the iPhone can't perform

    Samsung's next Next Big Thing, the Galaxy S IV smartphone, will scroll text by watching your eyeballs. So says an unidentified Samsung employee tattling to The New York Times' Bits blog, a worthy who "spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the news media" – a time-honored custom of companies …

    Phones 5 Mar 00:14

  • NoSQL Cassandra gets SQL overlay

    Use SQL over CQL – if you've got the cash

    Another day brings another plucky company pitching a way to let a NoSQL system talk SQL. This time it's Acunu, which claimed on Monday to have cracked problems relating to querying data stored in the Facebook-blessed Cassandra NoSQL datastore. "With Cassandra the biggest problem we've seen users have was that data modelling …

    Software 5 Mar 00:39

  • Canonical announces Mir display server to replace X Windows

    Plans to rewrite Ubuntu's GUI from ground up

    Canonical has announced plans to develop new, open source Linux display-server software called Mir, in a move that it says will help further its goal of offering a unified Ubuntu user experience across PCs, smartphones, tablets, and smart TVs. Traditionally, desktop Linux distributions have rendered their GUIs using software …

    Developer 5 Mar 00:46

  • Report: Danish government hits Microsoft with $1bn tax bill

    In the old days they would have come with a longboat

    The Danish government is reportedly chasing down Microsoft for nearly a billion dollars in missing tax revenue, stemming from its purchase of Viking accountancy software firm Navision. According to local media outlet DK, the Danish authorities have begun what could be the largest tax case in the country's history, involving …

    Financial News 5 Mar 01:58

  • US lawmaker blames bicycle breath for global warming gas

    Updated 'Increased heart rate and respiration' pollutes Washington

    A Washington state representative has uncovered a previously under-reported source of greenhouse gas: huffing and puffing cyclists. Ed Orcutt, who lists "Tax relief" at the top of his legislative priorities and who was 2000's Washington Young Republican Federation Man of the Year, emailed the owner of a Tacoma, Washington, …

    Science 5 Mar 02:03

  • Oracle trowels more plaster over flawed Java browser plugin

    Emergency patches issued for two more exploits

    Oracle has issued a rare emergency patch to address two vulnerabilities in the Java plugin for web browsers that the company says are being actively exploited. "Due to the severity of these vulnerabilities, and the reported exploitation of CVE-2013-1493 'in the wild,' Oracle strongly recommends that customers apply the updates …

    Security 5 Mar 02:03

  • Microsoft acquires cloud monitor MetricsHub

    Fosters and borgs company in 5 months

    Microsoft has bought a cloud monitoring and automation company and made its technology free on Windows Azure. Redmond announced on Monday it had acquired MetricsHub, and in the same post said the company's Active Cloud Monitoring technology is immediately available for free to all Windows Azure customers. The borging of the …

    Cloud 5 Mar 02:08

  • Military-industrial patent troll demands BEEELLIONS from Cisco

    The troll versus The Borg

    Emboldened by a win against Apple that was upheld last February, VirnetX – inventor of key VPN technologies or a patent troll, depending on your point of view and understanding of its patents – has now taken up cudgels against Cisco. In a hearing in front of a Federal jury over a complaint first filed in 2010, VirnetX has said …

    Law 5 Mar 03:24

  • Open Virtualisation Format 2.0 lands, world+dog yawns

    It's as if you all want to be locked in

    Anyone contemplating a move to the cloud has, by now, paused for a moment to wonder how to escape from their chosen provider of numinous computing. They've done so because shunting a virtual machine (VM) and its workloads into the cloud may seem like a fine idea today, but there are any number of reasons one may wish to place …

    Virtualization 5 Mar 04:22

  • LHC spots mesons flipping between matter and antimatter

    Charming change a small step to explaining why matter exists

    The LHC might be inactive at the moment, but the science goes on: a group of researchers trawling the instrument's vats of data has spotted a matter-antimatter oscillation that completes their “zoo” of meson “flips”. In a paper published at Arxiv and accepted by Physical Review Letters, the researchers say they've spotted D …

    Science 5 Mar 04:23

  • Anonymous becomes peacemaker as hacktivists battle

    Malaysia vs. Philippines dispute over Borneo barney goes online, Anons hose it down

    Anonymous has assumed the unlikely role of peacemaker in a growing dispute between Malaysian and Filipino hacktivists that has seen scores of web sites on both sides defaced over a territorial tussle. Scores have already been killed in bloody clashes in the east Malaysian state of Sabah after a group of nearly 200 Filipino …

    Security 5 Mar 04:56

  • Chinese search giant Baidu launches free AV

    English language software could be a shot in domestic search stoush

    Chinese search giant Baidu has been quietly testing the waters in the security space, with the launch of a free English language AV product for Windows. Baidu Antivirus 2013 features traditional signature-based AV and cloud-based threat protection and tries to optimise PC performance along the way. Little other information …

    Security 5 Mar 05:43

  • Lynch and his Autonomy inner circle depict selves as crime kingpins

    Vid Prank vid from the past. Mike, don't give up the day ... oh

    The brash sales culture at Brit software biz Autonomy, since controversially sold to HP, was portrayed by co-founder Mike Lynch and his inner circle as being similar to organised crime in a prank corporate video which surfaced recently. The five minutes of hilarity - no honestly, it really is very tasteless funny - was quietly …

    The Channel 5 Mar 06:00

  • Plextor flash gobbles blue pill, promises some long-lasting TLC

    Triple-headed 512GB SSD chases Samsung's dragon

    Plextor is going to reveal a triple-level cell (TLC) solid-state drive, the world's second TLC SSD, at CeBIT 2013. TLC NAND stores three-bits per cell and is cheaper to make than two-bit MLC or one-bit SLC. TLC chips are also slower at accessing data and have a shorter working life. This has, so far, prevented its adoption by …

    Storage 5 Mar 07:31

  • Tesco: Every little (effort to kill Amazon, Spotify) helps

    Supermarket titan to flog ebooks, stream music

    With a £64bn turnover and £3.9bn operating profit, Tesco was always going to make a big splash when it dived into the online media delivery market. We're just going to have to wait a bit longer to find out what it will be doing. The supermarket announced some new appointments and its new branding - but much remains under wraps …

    Media 5 Mar 08:03

  • Brit comic-book-guy-vs-gangsters film goes straight to Xbox Live

    'All our audience like that sort of film' - Microsoft man

    An independent Brit movie has become the first to be debuted exclusively on Microsoft's Xbox games console. Xbox Live subscribers will get the first chance to see Pulp, a comedy about a comic book company owner who ends up working with the police to stop "a gang of Geordie criminals", from today. The film's creator Adam Hamdy …

    Games 5 Mar 08:28

  • Welsh bureaucrats busted for getting political on Twitter, Facebook

    Should have done it in Welsh, nobody would have known

    Three Welsh civil servants were slapped down last year for giving out their opinions on social media, a Freedom of Information request from the BBC has revealed. One public servant got a slapdown for posting a comment about Government policy on Twitter, a second tweeting bureaucrat criticised a government consultation and a …

    Networks 5 Mar 08:58

  • Wannabe infosec kiddies put Enigma Bombe machine to the test

    Shove off, Simon Cowell. This is the X Plus Why? Factor

    GCHQ historians will this month put the team that rebuilt the British code-cracking Bombe machine to the test in a third Enigma Challenge. The Bombe squad will race against time to break Enigma-encoded messages sent by members of the public and GCHQ’s Historical Section. The exercise is due to take place at The Big Bang Fair, …

    Security 5 Mar 09:34

  • Don't believe the IT hype: Ye cannae change the laws of physics

    Don't expect any miracles from the shiny new database you've bought (or compiled)

    It's fun to be on the receiving end of IT advertising. The vendor's ads start by promising to solve your business problems better than the competition can, and then the superlatives begin to snowball until an answer to global warming and a solution for war in Iraq are both in there among the plug-ins you can buy to make your …

    Management 5 Mar 10:03

  • Virgin Mobile coughs to choking its customers

    2Mb/sec ought to be enough for anyone

    Virgin Mobile UK has admitted it is capping mobile data at 2Mb/sec - claiming it is for the benefit of customers - as it tries to keep everyone connected. Customers started noticing the speed cap in the last few days, but as it's being applied piecemeal it has been hard to pin down. That is, until the company last night …

    Mobile 5 Mar 10:28

  • Sparkfun takes roadtrip across US in campervan full of electronics

    Forget coding, everyone should learn to solder

    Component retailer Sparkfun has bought an RV and will be touring all 50 US states to take electronics into the classroom, though the company's motivation is notably suspect. The tour will run over the summer, and the Sparkfun crew will attempt to visit at least one school in each state with three or four staffers, a …

    Hardware 5 Mar 11:03

  • MI5 test for Mandarin-speaking snoops 'just too easy'

    'I'm gonna be the first American James Bond in China!'

    British intelligence nerve-centre MI5 is recruiting fluent Chinese speakers to eavesdrop on phone calls - but it got more than it bargained for when its Mandarin comprehension test was ridiculed by Redditors. Blighty's Security Service set up an online language exam, which encourages peeps with Mandarin, Russian, Sylheti, …

    Security 5 Mar 11:18

  • One day later: EMC declares war on all-flash array, server flash card rivals

    Rolls out XtremIO array, renamed VFCache

    EMC is announcing its XtremIO all-flash array and, just 24 hours after Violin Memory's PCIe card launch, a line of XtremSF server flash cards with XtremSW Cache software that effectively expands and renames the VFCache server flash card product line. It appears that the planned Project Thunder server networked flash cache …

    Storage 5 Mar 11:47

  • What's the point of owning an SMB if you can't travel?

    Resellers: mobility, ease-of-use counts for small biz contracts

    It was obvious that the guy in the airport queue behind me was attempting to describe the whereabouts of a document, without much success. The directions being given were not being understood and after several minutes of "click this folder, then that folder" shenanigans, the gentleman gave up and tried a different tack. "Don’t …

    The Channel 5 Mar 12:00

  • Twenty classic arcade games

    Cabinet reshuffle

    I’d better say it from the outset: picking 20 all-time arcade game classics is a nightmarish task, not simply because of the almost endless array of titles available to choose from, but because of all the really good ones you have to omit. Here then, are the titles that made the cut, either because they have had a particular …

    Games 5 Mar 12:00

  • Cyber-007 MiniDuke stalked Europe for at least 21 MONTHS

    Espionage malware addicted to Twitter since 2011

    MiniDuke, the recently discovered cyber-spy malware aimed at governments and their agencies in Europe and elsewhere, has been operating for at least 21 months. A sample of the software nasty, discovered by researchers at Romanian antivirus firm Bitdefender, dates back to at least 20 June, 2011. Later variants of the spying …

    Security 5 Mar 12:17

  • Review: Toshiba Satellite U920T Ultrabook

    Windows 8 - it's not going away, people

    Whatever you might think about Windows 8, when it comes to taking the top down on the new ranges of convertible laptops, it’s certainly not boring. Every single one I’ve encountered so far has a different take on how to make the laptop-tablet duo dance work and Toshiba’s Satellite U920T Ultrabook offers yet another approach. …

    Laptops 5 Mar 12:30

  • WE CAN still be BETTER than Germany on broadband, says Ofcom

    Comment But forget about most of EU's NEED FOR SPEED

    Britain's communication watchdog has published a pathetic "scorecard" that compares this country's broadband prowess with that of only four other nations in Europe. The move comes after the British government finally caught up with the idea that it was never going to achieve the unreachable goal of having the "best" superfast …

    Broadband 5 Mar 12:52

  • Plastic Logic shows off bendy 'leccy posters: Anyone? Anyone? Bueller?

    It's great tech, surely there's a niche for it somewhere

    Still searching for an application for its innovative printed-on-plastic screen technology, Plastic Logic has teamed up with TOPPAN to showcase a 42-inch screen built for posters and displays. Forty-two inches (just over a metre) might not be the biggest of screens, but the prototype being shown off at RetailTECH Japan is 3mm …

    Hardware 5 Mar 13:08

  • Google blats bugs in Chrome - days before $560k hacking contest

    Pwn2Own 2013 Ads giant stumps up cash, then raises the bar

    Google patched 10 security vulnerabilities in its web browser Chrome on Monday - two days before the start of Pwn2Own, the annual hacking contest in which experts race to compromise software to win prizes. The latest update fixes flaws in Chrome's Windows and Linux builds. Six of the 10 holes addressed are rated as "high" risk …

    Security 5 Mar 13:24

  • UK injects £88m into Euro bid to build Hubble-thrashing 'scope

    Building work starts on world's biggest space-gazer

    The UK will bung £88m towards the European Southern Observatory's £1bn project to build the world's largest telescope. The cash injection is on top of Blighty's annual £18m contribution to the ESO. Construction of the ground-based European Extremely Large Telescope is underway and is expected to take ten years to complete. We' …

    Science 5 Mar 14:03

  • Flash-card shuffler SanDisk might shimmy up the storage stack

    Blocks and Files Own-brand flash array could be on the cards

    Tech news blog Silicon Valley Confidential has reported on rumours that SanDisk, the maker of flash camera cards, Lightning brand PCIe flash cards and SSDs, is moving up the stack. Let's step back for a moment and see if this adds up: We'll start with SanDisk partnering Toshiba in a flash foundry business Step 1 was in May …

    Storage 5 Mar 14:39

  • Dell pours Fluid Cache into PowerEdge servers

    Flash the cash for faster database and HPC cache

    RNA Networks got its start doing memory clustering across multiple server nodes, but since buying the company nearly two years ago Dell has been tweaking the memory-caching engine to speed up disk accesses. Specifically, the Fluid Cache software for PowerEdge servers that Dell is finally delivering converts Express Cache solid …

    Servers 5 Mar 15:04

  • Logicalis CEO reveals blueprint for gobbled 2e2 Euro biz

    Foothold in mainland Europe and consulting gigs

    Logicalis CEO Ian Cook says his biz will use the IT Service Management (ITSM) unit in the Dutch operation acquired from 2e2 as a consulting "centre of excellence" for the entire group. Integrator Logicalis - owned by Datatec - yesterday coughed up €24m for 2e2's businesses in Spain, the Netherlands, Ireland and the Channel …

    The Channel 5 Mar 15:04

  • Amazon CTO: Big Data? An unfortunate, 'catchy phrase'

    Technology Frontiers Beyond relational versus NoSQL

    “I love that the world is data intensive... unfortunately, it’s called 'Big Data',” says Amazon’s chief technology officer Werner Vogels, who went on to describe BD as "a nice catchy phrase". Did the CTO of a company in the top tier of those generating and storing billions of objects through retail sales and cloud service just …

    Management 5 Mar 15:32

  • Cruel Microsoft will drive us into arms of iOS, Android, warn resellers

    Axed sales rewards 'another case of Redmond moving goalposts'

    Microsoft has axed rebates paid to its distribution channel partners that flog Redmond's server and communications software. The Solutions Incentive Programme, which pays out a reward for securing sales, was announced to the Microsoft Partner Network in October 2011, giving those that are certified specialists the ability to …

    The Channel 5 Mar 16:03

  • IT'S HERE: Seagate ships 'affordable' desktop hybrid drive

    Flashy mutant for the price of normal disk?

    Seagate is developing an internal desktop hybrid hard drive with a flash cache to speed PC boot and application load times to near-SSD levels at little more than plain ordinary disk prices. It's also rebranding its Momentus XT notebook drives as Laptop SSHDs and introducing a single platter laptop Thin SSHD. This third …

    Storage 5 Mar 16:33

  • Corporates! Bring in all-purpose filler for IT skills gap, thunders Steelie Neelie

    'This is serious, people!'

    Brussels' unelected digital czar warned on Monday that the European Union's competitive strength in the media and technology markets could be weakened if people fail to continue to develop the right IT skills. Neelie Kroes said that a coalition funded by the European Commission to the tune of €1m had been created to address …

    Management 5 Mar 16:59

  • Amazon chops EC2 virty server prices – again

    Are you sure you want to be in the retail business, server makers?

    The dance of Cloudy Server Limbo continues, with Amazon Web Services, the cloud computing subsidiary of e-tailing giant Amazon.com, lowering the broomstick a little closer to the floor and dancing under it with lower EC2 compute-cloud prices. Specifically, on Tuesday AWS cut prices on compute capacity that customers reserve …

    Cloud Infrastructure 5 Mar 18:43

  • Malware linked to Chinese hackers aims at Japanese government

    Spear-phishing threat from same locale as Google attacks

    Malware researchers at Seculert say they've found two more cases of highly targeted malware coming out of China, and claim to have back-traced it to the same geographical region that was fingered as the source of the Project Aurora attacks. "It's using a similar MO – infected PDFs sent out as part of a spear-phishing campaign …

    Security 5 Mar 19:53

  • Android 4.2.2 finally coming to Verizon's Galaxy Nexus

    First update for 4G LTE Nexus mobe in six months

    Owners of Verizon's 4G LTE version of the Samsung Galaxy Nexus handset may soon receive an update to the latest version of Android, weeks after other Galaxy Nexus devices received it and fully six months after the Verizon model got its last official update. Twitter user @WinDroidGuy was the first to spot the update package on …

    Phones 5 Mar 19:56

  • iPhone 5S and lower-cost sibling coming this summer?

    Faster processor, better camera, fingerprint sensor, same display size – maybe

    The next iteration of the iPhone – likely called the iPhone 5S, according to rumor-mongers – will be released this summer and will include a fingerprint sensor, improved camera, and more-powerful processor. It will also be joined by a lower-cost, less spiffy sibling. That's the take-away from a pair of reports on Tuesday, one …

    Phones 5 Mar 20:00

  • Chinese officials wring hands over Google's Android dominance

    Shocker: Ascendant nation does not want to depend on rival country's tech

    The Chinese government is unnerved by the success of Android, and wants local firms to become more independent of Google, quelle surprise! Local mobile superstars – Baidu, Huawei, Alibaba – should prioritize the development of an independent mobile operating system, rather than depend on Google's technology, China's Ministry …

    Mobile 5 Mar 20:05

  • TI fuels up KeyStone II ARM for HP Moonshot hyperscale servers

    ARM/DSP hybrid presents data centers with interesting possibilities

    Hewlett-Packard is putting more ARM server processor options into its next-generation of "Project Moonshot" hyperscale servers - the latest one coming from Texas Instruments, which has been relatively quiet on the server front but plenty active in the ARM chip market at large. In a blog post, Tim Wesselman, senior director of …

    Servers 5 Mar 22:16

  • Incoming comet will probably miss Mars, says NASA

    Fly-by will be Earth-visible with binoculars

    Object-watchers are keenly catching observations of the orbit of an object discovered by Rob McNaught of Australia's Siding Spring Observatory, which is set for a very close Mars fly-by in October 2014. In fact, although NASA currently assigns the object a one-in-600 chance of an impact, and believes further observations will …

    Science 5 Mar 22:28

  • Google offers limited data on National Security Letters

    'Yes, we received a few ... hundred'

    Google has expanded its semiannual Transparency Report to include data about National Security Letters (NSLs) – albeit only a very small amount of data, given the strict secrecy that continues to surround the controversial documents. NSLs are letters written by US government agencies – usually the FBI, but occasionally such …

    Policy 5 Mar 22:36

  • Java malware spotted using stolen certificate

    Same day as latest patch

    If you haven't already run in the latest Java patch (issued yesterday), here's another good reason to do so: someone has turned up an exploit that uses signed code. In this post, Eric Romang looks at a malicious applet that comes with a signature using credentials stolen from Clearesult Consulting in the US. The stolen …

    Security 5 Mar 22:47

  • Microsoft embraces Android with Azure Mobile Services update

    Round hole drilled in Ballmer's big blue cloud

    Microsoft has added support for Android apps into Windows Azure Mobile Services, letting developers programmatically add authentication and push notifications. The updates were announced by Microsoft on Tuesday, and follow Google's release of a similar range of mobile updates for its cloud in mid-February. To let Azure …

    Cloud 5 Mar 23:23

  • Ex-Exel president found guilty of hacking former employers

    Turns out you really can't trust the boss

    The former president of transportation logistics firm Exel has been found guilty of hacking into the servers of his former employer to glean secrets for his new business. A federal jury found Michael Musacchio, 61, guilty of one felony count of conspiracy to make unauthorized access to a protected computer (hacking) and two …

    Security 5 Mar 23:30

  • Torvalds asks 'Why do PC manufacturers even bother any more?'

    Linux Lord may adopt Chromebook Pixel as main machine ... after proper Linux install

    Linux Lord Linus Torvalds is thinking about making Google's Chromebook Pixel his main computer – once he installs a proper Linux distribution on the machine, that is. Posting on Google+, Torvalds lauded Google's newest creation, writing "... the screen really is that nice" [his emphasis] and that "I think I can lug around this …

    Laptops 5 Mar 23:50