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28th March 2013 Archive

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  • Google Translate for Android adds offline translation option

    Not quite as handy as a Babel Fish, but almost

    The latest update to the Google Translate app for Android aims to solve one of its trickier issues: how to use the app when you're traveling abroad without incurring expensive overseas data roaming charges or fiddling with foreign SIMs. Previous versions of the app required you to be connected to the internet, and all of the …

    Applications 28 Mar 01:25

  • Microsoft says WinPhone outselling iPhone, BlackBerry

    Things are looking bad for Apple in Ukraine and Poland

    Windows Phone is outselling the iPhone in seven nations, says Microsoft mouthpiece corporate vice president of corporate communications Frank X Shaw. “Windows Phone has reached 10 percent market share in a number of countries, and according to IDC’s latest report, has shipped more than Blackberry in 26 markets and more than …

    Mobile 28 Mar 01:35

  • Boffins brew eyes on bugs' wings

    Surface 'rips bacteria to shreds'

    Scientists at an Australian university have grown eye cells on Cicadas' wings, after noticing that the nano-structures on that part of the insects' bodies have anti-bacterial properties. The James Cook University researchers chose retinal cells as their test case because, as they said to AAP, these cells “won't grow just …

    Science 28 Mar 02:44

  • Oz states count cars using Bluetooth

    Traffic studies bring out tinfoil hats

    The government of Australia's Capital Territory (ACT) has issued a statement about the use of Bluetooth-sniffing technology for traffic studies. The issue arose as the result of grassroots activism from Canberra-centric news service The-RiotACT, which has its take on events here. RiotACT considers the Bluetooth collection to …

    Security 28 Mar 03:58

  • Indonesia: e-commerce firms must have local domain

    Show me some .ID, says Ministry

    Indonesia will effectively ban cross-border e-commerce and make it harder for foreign firms looking to invest in the country, by mandating that anyone wanting to sell goods online must register a local .ID domain. The Communication and Information Ministry made the announcement as part of new rules for “electronic system …

    Hosting 28 Mar 04:40

  • Chinese game addict MURDERS girlfriend after she leaves him

    Creep steals her credit card to fund all-night game binge

    A Chinese man with a gaming addiction has been convicted of murdering his girlfriend in a jealous rage and, after doing the deed, using her credit card to buy more time playing games. Guangzhou Daily last week reported the case of one Xie Huachang, a Guangdong resident whose girlfriend decided to leave him after she found he …

    Games 28 Mar 05:04

  • Entire internet credits snapper for taking great pic while actually dead

    He was good, says bloke who really took it, but come on

    One of the web's best loved classic photographs - universally credited to the great photojournalist Henri Cartier-Bresson - was taken just six years ago, quite some time after Cartier-Bresson's death. Let's meet the bloke who snapped it. It's an atmospheric image of a girl and a dog on a beach, with a storm brewing in …

    Media 28 Mar 06:03

  • Watchdog warns UK.gov not to create 'them and us' digital divide

    Want some welfare payouts? Buy a computer

    The National Audit Office has warned that the British government's fixation with its digital-by-default agenda could create a "them and us" mentality that excludes more vulnerable members of society who don't access the internet. In a report entitled Digital Britain 2: Putting users at the heart of government’s digital …

    Broadband 28 Mar 06:25

  • Cloud chairwoman crashes down through glass ceiling, grabs the CEO helm

    Needs to be Wonder Woman to beat AWS, Google and MS

    Storage-in-the-cloud startup Nirvanix has joined HP and Yahoo! in appointing a female CEO. Debra Chrapaty adds the CEO role to her existing executive chairwoman position, having joined Nirvanix' board in November last year following on from a $25 million C-round of funding led by Khosla Ventures in May 2012. She came to that …

    Cloud Infrastructure 28 Mar 07:04

  • US bill prohibits state use of tech linked to Chinese government

    Has anyone on Capitol Hill heard of the global supply chain?

    In one of the first clear signs of a tougher stance on China, a new US spending bill has banned government agencies from buying any technology from companies thought to be “owned, operated or subsidised” by the People’s Republic. The Consolidated and Further Continuing Appropriations Act of 2013, signed by president Obama on …

    Policy 28 Mar 07:26

  • Motorola minimum-wage sheriffs ride in to SAVE the HIGH STREET

    These steenkin' Smart Badges ... do we need them?

    Ready to save the high street comes a smart badge from Motorola, promising to turn physical shopping into a connected experience designed to lure back the Amazon generation. The SB1 Smart Badge isn't the only technology Motorola reckons can save physical shopping, but it’s a key component in the push to bring the convenience …

    Small Biz 28 Mar 08:03

  • ASA says 'unlimited' broadband can have 'moderate' limits on it

    Virgin choking wasn't moderate, so its wrist is smacked

    Britain's advertising regulator has upheld complaints brought against Virgin Media by BSkyB and BT over the cable company's "unlimited" broadband claims. The Advertising Standards Authority ruled that Virgin Media had misled customers with an ad on the ISP's website that claimed punters could "get unlimited downloads". But BT …

    Broadband 28 Mar 08:28

  • Review: Lenovo ThinkPad Tablet 2

    Win8 Pro, Atom powered fondleslab for grown-ups

    I’ve tried out quite a few variations on the Windows 8 theme just lately – touchscreen notebooks mainly – but I’ve been dabbling with Boot Camp and virtual machine incarnations on the desktop too but without the finger friendliness. So trying out Lenovo’s business-centric ThinkPad Tablet 2 seemed like it would be an easy …

    Tablets 28 Mar 09:00

  • Speaking in Tech: In-flight fondling, hands-free servers, what could go wrong?

    Podcast And suspect stains - all on this week's sysadmin confab

    Another seven days in tech, and another banter-packed instalment of El Reg's one-and-only podcast. Join your your hosts, Greg Knieriemen, Ed Saipetch and Sarah Vela for everything you need to know about business-grade IT. This week, the gang is together again, and their special guest is Mark Thiele, executive veep of data …

    Business 28 Mar 09:29

  • Reg man bested in geek-to-geek combat - in World War 3 nerve centre

    Geeks' Guide Dom Connor and the cool Cold Warriors

    During the Cold War, Neatishead in Norfolk was theoretically the worst place in the UK to live: the nearby RAF base would be target Number One if the Russians nuked us. This was brought home to me in a guided tour by a retired officer, whose old job was to run Blighty’s air defence. Standing in the 1980s-era Cold War control …

    Vintage 28 Mar 10:00

  • You know how your energy bills are SO much worse than they were?

    Analysis Green.gov: It was gas prices! <Cough>Actuallyitwasmainlyus

    The government's Department of Energy and Climate Change, with the current minister as mouthpiece, has just pushed out a report claiming that its green policies are saving us money now and will save us even more in coming decades. Can it be true? We can save the planet - or anyway reduce carbon emissions - and it not only costs …

    Small Biz 28 Mar 10:38

  • Paypal struggles free of VMware lock-in, goes with OpenStack

    Deed heeds its need for speed

    Paypal is floating thousands of its servers on open-source OpenStack and sidelining VMware to become faster than smaller competitors at building payment apps for the cloud. eBay’s payment arm hopes for tens of thousands of nodes – half its current total - running on OpenStack by the summer. Paypal is understood to be replacing …

    Cloud 28 Mar 10:59

  • Pyongyang Photoshop tomfoolery shows wet Norks, skirts blown up

    Virtual hover armada storms beach in propaganda pic

    North Korea's official press agency has been caught with its hands in the Photoshop copy-and-paste jar, in a hopelessly bodged attempt to big up the amphibious-landing capability of the country's hovercraft. A couple of days ago, the Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) released a snap showing operations by the KPA (Korean People …

    Bootnotes 28 Mar 11:18

  • MI5 undercover spies: People are falsely claiming to be us

    We, of course, are not us either. We 'work at the Home Office'

    British spook hive MI5 has taken the unusual step of placing a front-page warning on its website about a financial scam carried out by people pretending to be spies or the agency's director general. The online alert was prominently posted on mi5.gov.uk, and occupies more space than the UK security threat level indicator, which …

    Security 28 Mar 11:39

  • Orange is the new TalkTalk of the broadband complaints league

    Outstrips all competitors in race to the bottom. Again

    Orange is once again the most whinged about telco in the UK, the communications watchdog Ofcom confirmed today. The ISP provoked a barrage of gripes from bellyaching customers when it yanked its free broadband service away from punters who refused to pay line rental to the company. Ofcom, which has compiled and published its …

    Broadband 28 Mar 11:59

  • Man's 'I own half of Facebook' claim branded 'fabrication' by judge

    Testy beak writes 155-page book, throws it at him

    A US judge has recommended that the lawsuit of Paul Ceglia, the New York wood-pellet salesman who claimed he owned half of Facebook, be thrown out because it's a pack of lies. Magistrate Judge Leslie Foschio said that the alleged 2003 contract with Facebook boss Mark Zuckerberg - which Ceglia claimed entitled him to half of …

    Media 28 Mar 12:24

  • Boffins probe into moons – and associated rings – 'beyond snow line'

    They were here when this was all fields – of protonebula

    Saturn's rings have been knocking around the galaxy since around the time our Solar System was born, NASA's Cassini spacecraft has shown. Though not in ring form the whole time, obviously. The extreme brightness dichotomy of Saturn moon Iapetus. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Space Science Institute The moons and rings around the …

    Science 28 Mar 12:48

  • Spotting a Big Data faker as you set up Big Data for someone

    It says here on your CV....

    Having read my last Big Data piece, I fear that some of you will try to blag your way out of the declining Oracle/Java/VB market without the legs to support what’s on your CV. This article is not for you: it’s for the poor souls who have to catch you out whilst trying to get in someone who’s at least mildly competent. There …

    Management 28 Mar 13:09

  • BlackBerry results not as bad as they possibly could have been

    Not even time for a beer yet though, far less champagne

    Year-end financial results from BlackBerry appear to show a company stemming the losses and slowly gaining ground, but with a very long climb ahead and no proof it's going to make it. Revenue for the year ending March 2 was $11.1bn, resulting in a loss of $646m, which is grim compared to last years' profit of $1.1bn - but wasn …

    Financial News 28 Mar 13:35

  • Rackspace gobbles Exceptional Cloud Services for Redis smarts

    A little Redis to go with your MongoDB, sir?

    Just a month after chowing down on MongoDB provider ObjectRocket Rackspace is announcing plans to devour another company, this time gobbling up a Redis hoster Exceptional Cloud Services. The folks at the Texan cloud company just can't get enough NoSQL, and Thursday's acquisition sees them absorb a team familiar with both Redis …

    Cloud 28 Mar 14:04

  • IT Pro confession: How I helped in the BIGGEST DDoS OF ALL TIME

    Sysadmin blog Oh Trevor, how could you? Like this

    I contributed to the massive DDoS attack against Spamhaus. What flowed through my network wasn't huge - it averaged 500Kbit/sec – but it contributed. This occurred because I made a simple configuration error when setting up a DNS server; it's fixed now, so let's do an autopsy. The problem I should start off by apologizing to …

    Cloud 28 Mar 14:24

  • Living in the middle of a big city? Your broadband may still be crap

    No cloud movies for you if you lose the postcode lottery

    Living in a city centre is no guarantee of nimble broadband speeds in Blighty, as download rates are a postcode lottery. A new study by uSwitch revealed that folks living in the Barbican area of London have internet connections as slow as 5.3Mbps, while users in Charlton in Greenwich are zipping along four times as fast with …

    Broadband 28 Mar 15:04

  • Lost CASSiE search moves up a gear

    Choppers rise after swelling twin orbs leave 'nauty knitwear adrift

    Elite teams of Warwick University quadcopter operatives will take to the skies this weekend in search of CASSiE the Cosmic Hedgehog, missing since a high-altitude ballooning (HAB) mission went off the radar somewhere over Oxfordshire or Warwickshire. Missing: CASSiE the cosmic hedgehog Following a public appeal for …

    SPB 28 Mar 16:04

  • Gartner's gurus forecast future tech spending splurge

    2014 IT dollars in a line would go to the Sun and back. Twice

    Gartner's analysts have used their highly-tuned abdominal sensing units and cerebral computing powers to forecast worldwide IT spending will rise to a whopping $3.92 trillion come 2014. During 2012, global IT spend hit $3.62 trillion. This year, it will reach $3.78 trillion, reckon the Gartner market boffins, a rise of 4.1 per …

    Financial News 28 Mar 17:05

  • BIGGEST DDoS in history FAILS to slash interweb arteries

    Analysis Bombardment without collateral damage - amazing

    The massive 300Gbit-a-second DDoS attack against anti-spam non-profit Spamhaus this week didn't actually break the internet's backbone, contrary to many early reports. The largest distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) assault in history began on 18 March, and initially hit the Spamhaus website and CloudFlare, the networking biz …

    Security 28 Mar 17:13

  • Google vows no patent prosecution for open source cloud tech

    Protects Hadoop community, perhaps others in the future

    Google has vowed to not sue users, distributors, or developers of technologies covered by some of its key patents, and has started out by protecting the cloudy Hadoop community. The Open Patent Non-Assertion (OPN) Pledge was announced by Google on Thursday, and will initially see 10 MapReduce patents receive protection from …

    Cloud 28 Mar 18:12

  • Wisconsin man cuffed over Koch-blocking DDoS attack

    Lawmen respond to Anonymous attack on right-wing moneymen

    A 37-year-old Wisconsin man has been charged over his alleged involvement in denial-of-service attacks against Koch Industries. Eric J. Rosol of Black Creek, Wisconsin, has been charged with damaging a protected computer and conspiring to damage a protected computer in the February 2011 attacks. At the time of the attacks, …

    Security 28 Mar 18:25

  • Congress plans to make computer crime law much, much worse

    Comment Learning the wrong lesson from Swartz suicide

    In the wake of the tragic suicide of Aaron Swartz, there have been many calls to reform the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act used to prosecute him. Work is currently afoot for "Aarons Law" legislation, which simplifies and brings a measure of sense to the law, but now the House Judiciary Committee has begun circulating an update …

    Policy 28 Mar 18:49

  • Texas judge sends Uniloc packing in Rackspace patent suit

    Turns out floating-point numbers aren't patentable

    In a rare move, the US District Court for the Eastern District of Texas has granted early dismissal of a patent lawsuit filed by Uniloc against Rackspace, having found that Uniloc's patent described nothing more than a mathematical formula and was therefore invalid. "The early dismissal of this case delivers a clear message …

    Law 28 Mar 20:51

  • Google Shopping Express dips toe in same-day home delivery

    Wants to ape Amazon and eBay, not Webvan or Kozmo

    Google will try to beat Amazon and eBay at their own games with a trial same-day home delivery service for online shoppers that will see Google-branded vans dropping off goods down the length of Silicon Valley. Dubbed Shopping Express, the service will allow consumers to order goods from national retailers such as Target, …

    Business 28 Mar 21:10

  • Apple files patent for iPhone with wraparound display

    'Twould be a sad day for smartphone case designers

    Apple, whose iPhone has been criticized for having a display that's relatively small when compared with smartphones such as the Samsung S4 and HTC One, has filed a patent application that proposes a novel solution: a display that wraps around the entire handset. Well, not "wraps around," per se, but rather "wraps within." …

    Phones 28 Mar 22:14