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27th March 2013 Archive

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  • Tibetan and Uyghur activists targeted with Android malware

    Hmm ... who'd want to do that?

    Researchers at Kaspersky Lab are reporting that Tibetan activists are being hit by a highly targeted form of Android malware that seeks to record their contacts, call logs, SMS messages, geolocation, and phone data. The attack started with the March 24 hacking of an email account belonging to an activist seeking national …

    Security 27 Mar 00:13

  • Spanish Linux group files antitrust complaint against Microsoft

    Claims UEFI Secure Boot is anticompetitive

    A Spanish open source software users' association has filed an antitrust complaint against Microsoft with the European Commission, claiming that the company's implementation of UEFI Secure Boot stifles competition. Hispalinux, an 8,000-member organization that advocates for and facilitates Linux use in Spain, filed the …

    Operating Systems 27 Mar 01:03

  • Want faster fibre? Get rid of the glass

    Hollow fibre propagates optics near speed of light

    One of the most irritating expressions people can use, “broadband at the speed of light”, is a little closer to coming true thanks to researchers from the University of Southampton, who have demonstrated air-filled fibres with propagation happening at 99.7 percent of c. In a conventional fibre, the glass acts as a waveguide: …

    Networks 27 Mar 01:09

  • Oz shop slaps browsers with $5 just looking fee

    Sign of the times cashes in on comparison shoppers who buy online

    A specialty food store in the Australian city of Brisbane has erected a sign insisting it will charge $AUD5.00 ($US5.25, £3.46) to enter the store, refundable if you buy something. But if you leave the store without buying the store assumes you may be comparing prices to those available online and keeps the cash. The store in …

    Business 27 Mar 02:06

  • Google improves Chrom’s spel checkr

    El Reg's Grammar Lab feeds it teasing typos

    The new stable version of Chrome, 26.0.1410.43 m for those of you still counting, has baked in the spell check tech The Chocolate Factory uses when you type in its search dialog. The results, depicted below, add an “ask Google for suggestions” option. Google’s blog announcing the feature shows that feature helping to explain …

    Software 27 Mar 02:38

  • Amazon adds crypto modules to AWS cloud

    Psst, enterprises: Get a load of this

    Amazon is plugging ultra-secure key management appliances into its cloud to calm enterprise security admins while locking them into its way of doing things. The AWS CloudHSM Service lets cloud customers that need to follow stringent data regulations move secure data into AWS by giving them access to dedicated hardware security …

    Cloud 27 Mar 02:45

  • NORKS switch off 3G data for tourists

    Kim Jong-un giveth and then he taketh away...

    Portly peoples' hero dictator Kim Jong-un has put the brakes on North Korea’s efforts to haul itself into the 21st century after appearing to ban mobile internet services for tourists less than a month after a historic decision was taken to relax 3G data restrictions. The news came in the form of a brief update posted by …

    Government 27 Mar 05:02

  • Telstra issues report on Warrnambool exchange fire

    Disaster recovery 'designed in real time'

    Telstra has determined that the catastrophic fire in its Warrnambool Exchange, which in late 2012 took 100,000 Victorians offline, was an accident. The carrier has issued a report on the incident, the summary of which says an unspecified electrical fault was the cause of the fire, either in the roof of the exchange's control …

    Networks 27 Mar 05:12

  • Off-the-shelf optics kit tweaked for bonkers performance

    Radio tricks applied to light

    A couple of Australian optics labs have joined up with vendor Finisar to demonstrate an energy-efficient optical system transmitting 10 Tbps over 850 km. On its own, 10 Tbps isn't anything to crow about: terabit systems are, after all, routine in the long-haul market. However, doing it on one fibre and cutting down the energy …

    Networks 27 Mar 05:34

  • Printed electronics firm prints more money in quest for safer poultry

    Their opinion of contact with chickens? It's unprintable

    Printed electronics pioneer Thinfim successfully squeezed shareholders for another 26.8m Norwegian Kroner yesterday, following the announcement of a real customer for its printed memory circuits. The money was raised through a warrant issue to existing shareholders; despite its current size of around 20 people Thinfim is …

    Small Biz 27 Mar 05:57

  • Experts agree: Your next car will be smarter than you

    Feature Google's dream car? Nope. Head-up displays, parking-spot search, 'platoons', and more

    Forget Google's self-driving car – for a few years, at least. Today's real action in the computer-meets-car arena is in the development of advanced driver assistance systems (ADAS), as was made abundantly clear at last week's GPU Technology Conference. "We're not going to find ourselves driving in an autonomous car tomorrow," …

    Hardware 27 Mar 06:03

  • India’s outsourcers battle for customers in a cloudy universe

    Analysis Still on top but heeeere comes China ...

    The rumblings started in the late 1990s. Indian services companies were getting into outsourcing. Almost before the news broke, deals followed. Before long, India was a destination for all manner of serious jobs and a byword for getting things done well and at a price western nations struggled to match. Fast forward a decade …

    Management 27 Mar 06:31

  • Rubbish IT means DEATH for UK Border Agency, announces May

    Only a bullet can end the monster's blundering misery

    The UK Border Agency's hopeless IT systems are among the reasons why the Home Secretary Theresa May, in an unscheduled statement to MPs yesterday afternoon, confirmed that the UKBA will be axed. She told the House of Commons that the agency would be replaced with two entities: an immigration and visa service and a separate law …

    Government 27 Mar 07:03

  • Flasheteer Nimbus breathes on its HALO, gives it a rub

    Rival Pure hits it with double bod nab

    Nimbus Data has updated its all-flash array operating system, HALO, adding analytics, a REST API, and mobile phone access with HALO Mobile. HALO is Nimbus' OS that powers its Gemini, E-CLass and S-Class all-flash arrays. The analytics features include: - Real-time and historical monitoring and reporting capabilities with 200 …

    Storage 27 Mar 07:36

  • NEC could ditch telecoms services unit

    Japanese giant slimming down

    Ailing Japanese IT giant NEC could be set to jettison yet more of its business and move further from the mobile space after reports suggested its ready to sell subsidiary NEC Mobiling for up to $850 million. NEC Mobiling designs and builds telecoms infrastructure equipment, operates a repair and maintenance service for mobile …

    Business 27 Mar 07:49

  • Microsoft LOVES YOU: Free Wi-Fi on the British railways for a month

    Hey, you know what'd go great with that? Office 365

    Waiting for a train could be a marginally more interesting experience next month: Microsoft will provide free Wi-Fi on platforms to tempt commuters into buying an Office 365 subscription. The wireless internet access comes from The Cloud and will cover the larger UK stations. Travellers can already bag 15 minutes of free …

    Cloud Infrastructure 27 Mar 08:03

  • GCHQ attempts to downplay amazing plaintext password blunder

    IDs of all our future spooks get pwned? No big deal

    Red-faced crypto and intercept intelligence agency GCHQ has admitted emailing plain text password reminders to people who register on its careers micro-site. The issue came to light after prospective job applicant Dan Farrall blogged about his experience of receiving a plain text reminder of his GCHQ recruitment site password …

    Security 27 Mar 08:28

  • After Leveson: The UK gets an Orwellian Ministry of Truth for real

    Analysis Cause, an untrue news report. Guardian, though, not NotW

    Ever wondered what a British coup d’état might look like? You’ll have to bring your own visuals, but the soundtrack would probably go like this ... “Other than an Index of Censorship press release, where is your evidence for '300 years' of freedom?” demands one Reg comment-poster after your correspondent suggested MPs had …

    Media 27 Mar 09:00

  • Televisions in living rooms now the fastest-growing internet platform

    Focus gradually shifts away from porn? Presumably

    The humble television holds the future of the interwebs, we're told: New numbers from Netbiscuits shows the lean-back experience more than doubled over the last six months and put other platforms into the shade. Tablet use is also up, by more than 50 per cent, while smartphones have - it seems - plateaued with a meagre four …

    Media 27 Mar 09:29

  • Scan your branes LIVE IN REAL-TIME, thanks to GPU-surfin' boffins

    GTC 2013 3D MRI videos bashed out by monster box and open-source code

    Let’s say you’re at a gathering – maybe a cocktail party or a crowded club – and some buff athlete shows up on crutches. He immediately becomes the center of attention as he recounts the story of his injury. “Dude, it was gnarly," he bellows so that everyone can hear. "A totally sick shred. Now I’m waitin’ on the MRI results. …

    HPC 27 Mar 10:00

  • Not got 4G? There's a reason we aren't called 'Four', sniffs Three

    Want 4G and battery life? It's called HSDPA+, and it's 3 G

    Ofcom designed its 4G auction so there would be four winners - but the UK's fourth player is in no rush to turn on 4G-LTE. In fact, it thinks 3G connectivity is not all that different from 4G. Three UK says its 4G mobile broadband service will go live later rather than soon. UK CEO David Dyson said today that the upgrade …

    Mobile 27 Mar 10:26

  • I've got a super free multi-petabyte storage box for you: /dev/null

    Storage Bod Tape archives can't grow forever, so try our solution*

    As data volumes increase in all industries and the challenges of information management continue to grow, we look for places to store our hoarded bytes. Inevitably the subject of archiving and tape comes up. It is the cheapest place to archive data by some way; my calculations give tape a four-year cost of something in the …

    Storage 27 Mar 11:04

  • British spooks chum up with IT-related biz to battle cyber threats

    Will your firm have someone in the secret London ops room?

    The UK government has launched a scheme designed to promote greater information sharing on cyber threats between businesses and government. Francis Maude, the Cabinet Office minister responsible for the UK national cyber security strategy, is due to launch the Cyber Security Information Sharing Partnership (CISP) later today ( …

    Management 27 Mar 11:26

  • Forget the invisibility cloak: Boffins invent INVISIBILITY FISHNETS

    Embarrassed how your legs look on radar? Fixed

    Boffins have developed the thinnest invisibility fabric ever made, just 0.15mm thick, great for carrying around Harry Potter-style. Unfortunately the miracle "fishnet" copper-polycarbonate textile doesn't work in the visible spectrum. The device scores points for its slim silhouette and the fact that it's not made of tricky …

    Science 27 Mar 11:53

  • Wealthy London NIMBYs grit teeth, welcome 'ugly' fibre cabinets

    Six foot high boxes-o-infrastructure crush opposition

    BT has convinced residents of Kensington and Chelsea that they can live with "ugly" fibre optic cabling cabinets on their streets. The move comes after the Royal Borough rejected 96 of the installation proposals submitted by the national telco in May last year. Opposition to the cabinets has now collapsed, however, with the …

    Broadband 27 Mar 12:26

  • Cyberwar playbook says Stuxnet may have been 'armed attack'

    Would you rather be shot, blown up, stabbed - or hacked?

    The Stuxnet attack on Iran was an illegal "act of force", according to at least some of the legal experts who helped draw up a NATO-commissioned Geneva Convention-style rules of cyberwarfare document. "Acts that kill or injure persons or destroy or damage objects are unambiguously uses of force," and are likely to violate …

    Law 27 Mar 13:04

  • Blighty's revolutionary Cold War teashop computer - and Nigella Lawson

    Geek's Guide Nuclear missile with your sponge finger, sir?

    The Victorian offices were bulldozed long ago for a stack of flats and mirrored offices, and there's not a single indication to the significance of this site - or what happened here. This isn't the scene of a lost battle, and the bones of a missing Plantagenet king do not slumber beneath the car park serving the offices. …

    Vintage 27 Mar 13:27

  • Torygraph and Currant Bun stand by to repel freeloaders

    It's a paywall - like the one at the grocer

    The Daily Telegraph is to begin charging regular web readers for web access. The Telegraph doesn't use the term 'paywall' in its announcement, which is fair enough, really. The P-word is really a propaganda word, as the FT's M B Christie has pointed out: "Why don't we call it paying for content, just like paying for milk or …

    Media 27 Mar 13:55

  • Avnet sales bigwig Bryant to hop off after Easter

    Magirus slurp out of the way, now she's on her way out

    Avnet Technology Solutions sales director Denise Bryant will up sticks and leave the biz next month. Bryant was UK boss at distie Magirus until it was acquired by Avnet last year. She joined her new employer as one of four sales directors, focusing on the EMC, VCE and NetApp vendor franchises. It seems the corporate world of …

    The Channel 27 Mar 14:55

  • Free speechers want into Apple and Samsung sealed court filings

    Want everything but the formula for Coke, complains beak

    A coalition of media and free speech advocates have tried to convince a US court that sealed documents in Apple and Samsung's patent smackdown should be made public. The group, which includes news outlets like the New York Times and Bloomberg along with nonprofits like the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, told the …

    Business 27 Mar 15:08

  • Foxconn master fails to sink teeth into tasty Sharp stake

    Bleeding display biz is the one that got away

    The deadline for Foxconn daddy Hon Hai to come up with a new deal for a stake in wheezing monitor biz Sharp has passed without the companies coming to any arrangement. Hon Hai was in talks to take as much as 9.9 per cent of the Japanese firm and a deal was first signed this time last year for ¥66.9bn ($806m, £507m). But the …

    Financial News 27 Mar 16:04

  • BIGGEST DDoS ATTACK IN HISTORY hammers Spamhaus

    Plucky mail scrubbers battle internet carpet bombers

    Anti-spam organisation Spamhaus has recovered from possibly the largest ‪DDoS‬ attack in history. A massive 300Gbps was thrown against Spamhaus' website but the anti-spam organisation was able to recover from the attack and get its core services back up and running. CloudFlare, the content delivery firm hired by Spamhaus last …

    Security 27 Mar 17:03

  • Are the PCs all getting a bit old at your office? You're not alone

    Bye desktop, bye desk. Hello 'slab and a mat on the floor

    Business PC refresh cycles are set to stretch even further, according to IDC analysis - heaping more strain on vendors and channel partners. This comes against a backdrop of declining global sales of desktops and notebooks, which fell by 4.1 per cent and 3.4 per cent respectively in 2012 compared to 2011. No near-term uptick …

    Management 27 Mar 17:47

  • Apple in Chinese court over patent rights for Siri

    Cupertino's troubles worsen in China

    A Chinese court has heard claims that Apple's Siri personal assistant infringes a patent owned by a local firm that makes similar voice-activated software for both iOS and Android, in just the latest setback for Cupertino in the country. Shanghai's Zhizhen Network Technology Co. first patented its "Xiao i Robot" software in …

    Business 27 Mar 20:04

  • Citrix moves into SaaS management

    Control your apps, users, clouds

    Citrix is moving into application management as part of the company's continued shift away from merely delivering virtualized Windows apps. With a new software package named the CloudPortal Business Manager 2.0, the company hopes to woo enterprises to the mythical (and expensive) lands of consolidated app management. The …

    Cloud 27 Mar 20:13

  • Lots more virtualisation, cloud, added to TAFE courses

    Students will learn reading data, writing cloud strategies, ‘rithmetic of VDI

    Several new subjects on virtualisation and cloud computing will shortly be added to ICA 11, Australia’s national curriculum for vocational education and training in information and communications technology. ICA 11 defines the curriculum used for courses taught at colleges of technical and further education (TAFEs, a tier of …

    Government 27 Mar 21:04

  • Microsoft's 'Gemini' project will be the Windows Blue of Office

    Rolling wave of updates, beginning later this year

    Even as Microsoft has publicly acknowledged the existence of Windows "Blue," the much-buzzed-about Service Pack reworking of Windows 8 due later this year, the rumor mill is already churning with rumblings about a similar update project underway for Office 2013. According to Redmond-watcher Mary-Jo Foley's sources, that …

    Applications 27 Mar 21:37

  • EMC, Carbonite fight off patent pursuer

    Troll kicked off the backup cloud

    It may be too soon to say that the tide is turning, but EMC and Carbonite have become the latest IT companies to beat off a high-profile patent lawsuit. Law360 reports that EMC and Carbonite had their win on the basis of the validity of the patents. The suit started in August 2010 when Oasis Research accused 17 companies of …

    Law 27 Mar 21:51

  • Red Hat revenues rise but not enough for Wall Street

    Q4 figures show growth everywhere, but not quite enough

    Red Hat is growing like a weed, and thinks that in a few years open source cloud computing could be worth more to it than the entire Linux market. The open source firm reported revenues of $348m on Wednesday for its fiscal Q4 2013, up 17 per cent year over year. Though the earnings saw big increases year-over-year, they were …

    Financial News 27 Mar 22:20

  • IBM unfurls SDN network manager

    If you've got it, Big Blue will manage it

    First virtualization chewed up processors and regurgitated them as a pile of fungible compute resources, then it started gobbling storage, and now it's turned its hungry eye to networks, and IBM wants to help VMware, OpenStack, and others, do the chewing. IBM gave details on Tuesday of its Software Defined Networking for …

    Data Networking 27 Mar 23:11

  • Revealed: Vendors’ worst sales fluff

    Gartner's ‘Non-differentiators rarely substantiated with credible evidence’

    Reg readers often show little love for analysts, labelling them over-priced prognosticators with tenuous ties to reality. But a new Gartner blog post on "Useless Sales Pitch Slides" may win back some favour, as it reveals the six worst pieces of meaningless marketing messaging vendors put before the firm, and those to whom …

    Management 27 Mar 23:37

  • Google Glass to carry 'Made in USA' label

    Sergey's space-specs to be built by Foxconn in California

    You had to be a US resident to sign up for the Google Glass Explorer competition, and now it looks as though it could be quite a while before Google's sci-fi headgear is spotted outside US soil, because the headsets will reportedly be American-made, too. According to a report in the Financial Times, the Chocolate Factory is …

    Hardware 27 Mar 23:54

  • Egyptian navy captures divers trying to cut undersea internet cables

    Telecom Egypt connections targeted for termination

    A spokesman for the Egyptian military has reported that three scuba divers have been arrested in the Mediterranean as they tried to cut a submarine data cable owned by local telco Telecom Egypt. Looks like a pretty low-tech operation Col. Ahmed Mohammed Ali said on his Facebook page that the three men had been caught diving …

    Networks 27 Mar 23:55