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26th March 2013 Archive

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  • Cisco to acquire services management firm SolveDirect

    First partially funds, then gobbles up management toolmaker

    Cisco has announced plans to acquire SolveDirect as the company looks at adding more management tools to make it easier for businesses to manage multiple IT systems. The acquisition was announced by Cisco on Monday, and will see SolveDirect's executive team join the networking company's services division. The privately-held …

    Business 26 Mar 00:38

  • Curiosity out of safe mode, doing science again

    Next challenge: stop the Sun corrupting packets

    NASA boffins have diagnosed and corrected the glitch that forced nuclear-powered, laser-packing space tank Curiosity to rely on its spare computer. The rover is now using the spare, but the “A” computer is once again ready for duty if required. The craft has therefore resumed its analysis on the powdered samples of Martian …

    Science 26 Mar 01:03

  • Transfield scores Sydney NBN build contract

    $AU170 million for first two years

    Northern Territory partner Syntheo might be having trouble matching the pace demanded of it by NBN Co, but the builder of Australia's National Broadband Network is apparently satisfied with Transfield Services, announcing a new contract with the latter covering Sydney. In a brief statement to the Australian Securities Exchange …

    Government 26 Mar 02:18

  • Sony joins iWear face-off

    LG also puts hand up in world+dog post-smartphone melee

    The battle to secure consumers' eyeballs with as-yet-unreleased products offering not-yet-defined capabilities is set to intensify with Sony filling patent applications for – go on, guess – wearable computers. From the patent application, US 20130069850, we learn that Sony has no scant for battery life and wants to use both …

    Hardware 26 Mar 02:38

  • Mobile location data identifies individuals

    You are where you go

    One of the arguments in favour of anonymous mobile location tracking, nanely that it doesn't provide enough information to identify individuals, has been slapped down by a US-Belgian study. An anonymous trace of one phone's movements, plus a small amount of external data, can pick out one person out of millions. An analysis of …

    Security 26 Mar 03:15

  • Bill Gates offers big bucks for better condoms

    Blue screen of family planning

    The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation has rolled out a new project: a quest to find better condoms, with up to $1.1m for those who can come up with ideas that are a snug fit for some pressing problems. The quest for a better condom has become one of the Foundation's Grand Challenges in Global Health, a in order to address the …

    Science 26 Mar 03:47

  • CERN re-opens 'Animal Shelter for Computer Mice'

    Is the large hadron collector warping time?

    CERN has re-opened its “Animal Shelter for Computer Mice”, a place where CERN staff can take mice experiencing ill health and offers a warm and stimulating environment in which they can return to health. As you'll see from the screen shot below, the Shelter is really an initiative of CERN's security team, which uses it to …

    Bootnotes 26 Mar 04:25

  • US democracy activists lose case against Baidu and China

    Manhattan court is not the place to sue a country, says judge

    Chinese search giant Baidu has seen off a $US16m legal challenge from a group of pro-democracy supporters in New York The unusual lawsuit was filed in the US District Court in Manhattan back in 2011, with the plaintiffs alleging that Baidu effectively acted as an agent of the Chinese state to deliberately suppress their pro- …

    Law 26 Mar 05:09

  • Security damn well IS a dirty word, actually

    Sysadmin blog Wash your mouth out with TLS 1.2

    An interesting feature popped up on Ars Technica recently; website journo Nate Anderson discusses how he learned to crack passwords. The feature is good; good enough for to me to flag it up despite that journalistic competition thing*. That said, the feature gently nudges – but does not explore – a few important points that …

    Management 26 Mar 05:58

  • Wireless charging on the Galaxy S4: Samsung goes VHS not Betamax

    'A harmless fling', sniffs jilted Qualcomm

    Samsung's Galaxy S4 smartphone will use the Qi wireless charging standard, putting Sammy in bed with the Consortium for Wireless Power despite its avowed commitment to the Alliance for Wireless Power it founded with Qualcomm. The decision to use Qi charging in the S4, now confirmed by Samsung, could critically wound the …

    Mobile 26 Mar 07:02

  • Join us now for all the storage whispers: Heard about the XtremIO buy?

    Silicon Valley Confidential CEO cheeks positively aflame, they do say

    The Vulture has been busy listening on the storage beat to rumour, (s)innuendo, gossip and insider info, taking it from the best of sources and bringing it to you for entertainment, wonder and schadenfreude. None of this is verified or conformed by vendors but it does come from the very best of sources, top table folks. Here …

    Storage 26 Mar 07:33

  • No Skype traffic released to cops or spooks, insists Microsoft

    Analysis The numbers on Redmond's plod-spy squealing dealings

    Microsoft's Skype subsidiary didn't hand over any user content to law enforcement, according to the software giant's first ever report on how it deals with official requests for data. As previously reported), Microsoft's transparency report revealed that Redmond received 75,378 requests from law enforcement agencies worldwide …

    Security 26 Mar 07:58

  • Brocade's fat pipes a-singin' the Fibre Channel song

    And FCoE? Yes, what about it? Exactly

    Brocade is singing its Fibre Channel song with renewed vigour - aiming to double speed, get OpenStack support, push on with 16gig products and try to render Virtual Instruments diagnostic gear redundant. It has announced the 6520: a denser Fibre Channel switch with 96 16Gbit/s ports in its 2U enclosure, and it also has Brocade …

    Storage 26 Mar 08:32

  • Voda: Brit kids will drown in TIDAL WAVE of FILTH - it's all Ofcom's fault

    Make networks admit price changes? Noooo!

    Vodafone UK reckons it will be strong-armed into sending smutty text messages to kids, thanks to a new proposal by Ofcom. The watchdog wants operators to set prices for the duration of a contract in stone or ensure customers are notified ahead of any changes. Vodafone's full response to the proposal hasn't been published yet …

    Mobile 26 Mar 08:53

  • Whoops! Tiny bug in NetBSD 6.0 code ruins SSH crypto keys

    'Random numbers are too important to be left to chance'

    The brains behind NetBSD have warned a bug in the open-source OS creates weak cryptographic keys that can be cracked by attackers. Users attempting to secure sensitive communications, such as SSH terminal connections, using the dodgy keys could be easily snooped on and their data decrypted. The use of a cryptographically …

    Security 26 Mar 09:28

  • iPads in education: Not actually evil, but pretty close

    Analysis Why are we giving these playthings of the Devil to kids?

    Education in the USA has long been a stronghold of Apple, the venerable Apple II being cheap and tough enough to survive in that hostile environment, skool. But Apple’s gouging of UK consumers meant the prices were so high back in the day that it was worth flying to New York and paying air fares hotel and taxes to buy the …

    Hardware 26 Mar 10:00

  • Inside Adastral: BT's Belgium-sized broadband boffinry base

    Geek's Guide Drive-by bragging rights

    Adastral Park is BT’s global research and development centre, one of the world’s most pioneering centres of technology and telecommunications. Like other visitors to the area, I’ve gazed at the Le Corbusier-inspired building and its iconic tower cube rising out of the surrounding flat Suffolk farmland. It announces its …

    Broadband 26 Mar 10:28

  • Roomba dust-bust bot bods one step closer to ROBOBUTLERS

    GTC 2013 Crisp packets, used tissues no problem for 10-GFLOPS brain

    We know that all of the objects in the picture below are chairs, right? But show this picture to a computer and see what happens. Getting computers to recognise generic objects is a hugely difficult task that’s complicated by variations of the same object (club chairs vs. office chairs vs. folding chairs) and by other objects in …

    Hardware 26 Mar 11:00

  • The battle for control at the firm that brought SSD to the enterprise

    Analysis What have you done for us lately, moan hedgies

    It's a narrow line to have to tread and STEC chairman Kevin Daly has not kept to it in his response to the nasty letter from hedge fund Balch Hill calling for STEC CEO Mark Moshayedi's head and a new set of directors for mismanagement of STEC since the EMC OEM deal glory years. There is going to be a contested vote with a …

    Storage 26 Mar 11:31

  • Fortinet nabs wily Coyote and its slice of security appliance cake

    Or perhaps we mean pie. Made of meaty customers, anyway

    Network security firm Fortinet has agreed to to acquire application delivery, load balancing and acceleration firm Coyote Point Systems. Financial terms of the deal, structured as a merged and announced on Friday, were not disclosed. Fortinet is best known for its Unified Threat Management all-in-one security appliances, which …

    Security 26 Mar 11:56

  • Google turns South African schools into White Spaces

    Trying to get the government on-side

    Google has connected up ten Cape Town schools using unlicensed White Space radio spectrum, hoping to drive legislation permitting broader use of the technology in South Africa and the world. The deployment is billed as a technical trial, proving that database-controlled White Space radios can operate in the same band as TV …

    Mobile 26 Mar 12:23

  • Experts doubt Anonymous Mossad spy outing claims are kosher

    Tinker, tailor, soldier, cobblers

    Hacktivists claim to have published leaked data on more than 30,000 Israeli officials, including members of Israel's Mossad secret service agency. The boast by members of Anonymous follows a denial of service attack against the Mossad website (www.mossad.gov.il) over the weekend as part of the ongoing #OpIsrael protest. …

    Security 26 Mar 12:56

  • BT scores £146 meellion more UK.gov cash to fibre up Balamory

    BDUK? BTUK, more like. And no, it won't be here in 2015

    BT is the only company still bidding for Broadband Delivery UK (BDUK) government funds after Fujitsu officially walked away from the process last week: unsurprisingly the national telco has won another fibre contract. This time, it's bagged a £146m government deal to deploy broadband networks in Scotland's sprawling Highlands …

    Broadband 26 Mar 13:58

  • Are you in charge of a lot of biz computers? Got Java on them?

    Your ass is 94% hanging in the breeze, my friend

    Java security vulnerabilities - exploited to hack Apple and Facebook this month - are rife across business computers worldwide, according to new research. The overwhelming majority (94 per cent) of PCs and other endpoints running Java software and surveyed by Websense are vulnerable to at least one Java runtime exploit, …

    Management 26 Mar 14:56

  • 'End the commercial-in-confidence CROOKS' CHARTER', gov told

    Rip the cloak off the ripoff deals, advise Cabinet Office

    Secrecy in public sector contracts must be removed if government is to ever put an end to freeloading by suppliers at the taxpayers' expense, parliamentarians have been told. A Public Administration Committee probe into government procurement heard this suggestion yesterday, as the top bods within the Cabinet Office were …

    The Channel 26 Mar 15:54

  • Angry commentard mobs to feel Facebook jackboot in site tweak

    So much for free speech, eh?

    Facebook has tweaked how comments are displayed on the free-content advertising network by allowing it to effectively filter out irrelevant or possibly abusive replies on a Page. The new feature will be switched on by default on 10 July for profiles with more than 10,000 followers. And for now, it's consigned only to the …

    Media 26 Mar 17:04

  • Rivals may form alliance against Michael D in struggle for Dell

    Does beefy investor doubleteam spell a quell for el Dell?

    Hefty Dell investors Icahn Enterprises and Blackstone Group LP may join forces to clothesline the eponymous Michael and his consortium bidding to take the PC maker private again. The two lodged separate offers ahead of the "go shop period" that ended midnight on 22 March, with Icahn putting $14.25 per share on the table and …

    The Channel 26 Mar 17:36

  • Dragon capsule makes fiery entrance, safe splashdown

    Second SpaceX mission ends well

    The second Dragon capsule to visit the International Space Station has landed safely in the Pacific around 250 miles off the California coast and has been picked up by the SpaceX rescue ship. 'So long, see you later' Over the last week the astronauts on the ISS, including Strummin' Chris Hadfield, have been packing the …

    Science 26 Mar 18:34

  • Oracle's new T5 Sparcs boost scalability in chip and chassis

    Also aims brawny M4 – scratch that – M5 CPU at big-iron workloads

    Oracle is launching its much-awaited Sparc T5 processors for entry and midrange servers, along with Sparc M5 processors to effectively replace the iron it currently resells from server and chip partner Fujitsu. That Japanese supplier furnished Sun's and then Oracle's brawny-core Sparc Enterprise M midrange and big iron systems …

    Servers 26 Mar 20:00

  • Business intelligence startup tarts up Hadoop for managers

    Platfora puts lipstick on the elephant

    For the world's most lauded open source data platform, Hadoop is remarkably difficult to use, so Tuesday brings another company slinging a tool that entices managers and analysts into fiddling with the elephant. This time it's analytics startup Platfora with the general release of its in-memory business intelligence layer atop …

    Management 26 Mar 20:43

  • Foundry Networks CIO charged in $29m insider trading scam

    Loose lips sink careers

    The chief information officer of Foundry Networks, along with two other alleged perps, has been charged with both civil and criminal charges stemming from insider trading during the $3bn buyout of the company by Brocade in 2008. The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) civil charges state that David Riley – who has since …

    Management 26 Mar 20:46

  • T-Mobile US announces 'no BS' rate plans, iPhones, LTE

    New BlackBerry, HTC, Samsung mobes coming, too

    Third-ranked US wireless carrier T-Mobile has announced a radical restructuring of its rate plans that includes the elimination of annual contracts, in a move that CEO John Legere says is designed to address consumer frustration. "This is an industry filled with ridiculously confusing contracts, limits on how much data you can …

    Mobile 26 Mar 21:28

  • Slime mould mashup models fiendish computing problem

    A travelling salesman walks into a blob...

    A pair of English researchers have offered up a “virtual slime mould” as a technique for one of mathematics' – and computer science's – classic problems, the travelling salesman problem. In the travelling salesman problem, the challenge is to find the shortest possible route that includes a given set of locations or cities: as …

    Science 26 Mar 22:06

  • Ellison aims his first Oracle 'mainframe' at Big Blue

    T5 takes the lead from Power and x86, Big Larry claims

    Larry Ellison has launched the first mainframe-class machine that he can correctly say he made sure came to market, and now he is going to take a run at IBM's mainframe and Unix server businesses. What's more, it looks like he will to be able to make some credible arguments as to why customers running Oracle software – and …

    Servers 26 Mar 23:10

  • Swedish linguists nix new word after row with Google

    Online ad giant said 'nej!' to 'ogooglebar'

    The Swedish Language Council, a semi-official body aimed at regulating and advancing the Swedish language, has withdrawn a word from its annual list of neologisms for the first time in its history. Why? Pressure from Google. As Swedish newspaper The Local reports, each December the Council publishes a list of words that have …

    Bootnotes 26 Mar 23:15