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15th April 2013 Archive

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  • Google preps for Brussels wrist-slap

    'Say ouch like you mean it!'

    Reports are emerging that European regulators have won a small victory over Google in their dispute about the impartiality or otherwise of the Chocolate Factory's search results. According to the New York Times, the antitrust investigation will end in the next couple of days with the European Commission accepting a settlement …

    Government 15 Apr 02:23

  • Rackspace attacks Amazon with new cloudy clones

    AWS spies clone army advancing on service provider, telco fronts

    Look out, Amazon Web Services. Rackspace is cloning its own cloudy service – and to quote Jimi Hendrix's Foxy Lady, it's "comin' to getcha." Way back when, Rackspace Hosting teamed up with NASA to create the OpenStack community precisely to leverage the smarts and excitement of the open source community to take on the closed …

    Cloud Infrastructure 15 Apr 04:02

  • Ofcom: Parents, here's how to keep grubby tots from buying Smurfberries

    Shame it didn't notice the PREMIUM RATE click-to-call ads

    Ofcom has posted video guides to turning off in-app purchasing on all the popular mobile platforms, but ads serving premium-rate numbers continue to proliferate uncontrolled. Users, and regulators - the OFT today launched a probe into whether kids were being pressured into buying in-game goodies - are getting wise to in-app …

    Mobile 15 Apr 05:00

  • Apple the victim after Chinese scammers exploit returns policy

    Fakers exchanged phony parts for real to build 'new' iPhones

    The on-going saga over Apple’s “unfair” after-sales service in China has taken another twist after it was revealed that scammers exploited its returns policy to exchange fake parts for real ones, enabling them to build and sell new devices. Five employees at an electronics store selling Apple goods were arrested in the Chinese …

    Phones 15 Apr 05:37

  • Baidu muscles in on Google’s turf with Silicon Valley deep learning lab

    Chinese search giant beds down next to Apple in Cupertino

    Chinese search giant Baidu has opened the doors to a new research facility in Google’s back yard where it’s hoping to tap the local talent to consolidate early mover advantage in the burgeoning field of “deep learning”. The Cupertino-based Institute of Deep Learning (IDL) is the Silicon Valley counterpart of another facility …

    Business 15 Apr 06:00

  • Wales slams Amazon over lack of Kindle support

    Anger after giant doesn't 'recognise' land of song language

    A publisher has attacked Amazon over its failure to offer books in Welsh on the Kindle e-reading device. More than 1,500 people have also signed a petition demanding the all-conquering badboy of bookselling change its policy after the imprint attacked it in the Welsh press. Y Lolfa, a small publisher based near Aberystwyth, …

    Media 15 Apr 06:00

  • Now draft biz guillotine law triggers info privacy watchdog

    Data revealed during insolvencies sparks Euro ire

    There are insufficient data protection safeguards built in to proposed reforms to the EU's insolvency law framework, a privacy watchdog has said. In a recently issued opinion into the European Commission's draft Insolvency Regulation, the European Data Protection Supervisor (EDPS) raised concerns about the mandatory …

    Law 15 Apr 07:00

  • Twitter buys music firm We Are Hunted, preps soundtrack for 200m twits

    What do you mean you don't like what EVERYONE ELSE is listening to...

    Twitter is set to finally make some noise as it prepares to launch a new music service. The microblogging behemoth has snapped up a music-search service called We Are Hunted which scours the internet to identify what people are listening to and then makes recommendations based upon its findings. We Are Hunted confirmed the …

    Media 15 Apr 07:30

  • IBM pours $1 BEELLION into flash SSDs

    Should help IT monolith crush flashy upstarts

    Say goodbye to TMS RamSan and hello to IBM FlashSystem. Back in 2001, IBM CEO Lou Gerstner said IBM would spend a billion dollars to boost its Linux business and that billion paid itself off within two years. In 2002, the firm splurged the same amount on Java tools, and in 2006, pumped $1bn into information management. Fast- …

    Storage 15 Apr 08:03

  • Under the microscope: The bug that caught PayPal with its pants down

    Payment giant suffers textbook SQL injection flaw

    Security researchers have published a more complete rundown of a recently patched SQL injection flaw on PayPal's website. The Vulnerability Laboratory research team received a $3,000 reward after discovering a remote SQL injection web vulnerability in the official PayPal GP+ Web Application Service. The critical flaw, which …

    Security 15 Apr 08:28

  • Thatcher’s data protection legacy: Just fill out this 16-page form

    Comment From 'the least of Blighty's worries' to vital, essential right

    Successive UK governments have seen data protection more as a cost overhead to be minimised than as an essential protection for the individual in an electronic age. This view started with Margaret Thatcher’s first government and has endured for over three decades. During the 1970s, there were a number of white papers and …

    Government 15 Apr 08:57

  • 63 TRILLION maths ops a second - in 5 inches? Mm, show me

    3U rack box is a $70,000 clown car of GPUs

    If you need lots of compute power, you’re either already using GPU accelerators or taking a close look at them. And if you’re serious about tapping into the full processing power of the GPU, perhaps this gear will fit the bill. Dubbed the ioMillennia, it’s a 3U, PCIe Gen3 switch from One Stop Systems that can handle sixteen …

    HPC 15 Apr 09:38

  • Ban drones taking snaps of homes, rages Google boss... That's HIS job, right?

    Damn it, we're gonna need a new irony detector

    Google supremo Eric Schmidt has demanded tough rules on civilians flying surveillance drones, branding the tech a threat to privacy. The executive chairman of the internet advertising giant that snaps photos of millions of front doors worldwide is upset that cheap camera-toting aircraft can be used by anyone from terrorists to …

    Government 15 Apr 10:31

  • Dell crams modular hybrid server and storage switch into 1U pizza box

    Wraps switches in Active Fabric Manager v1.5

    One of the bright spots in Dell's business these days is its networking unit, which doubled its sales last year thanks in large part to the acquisition of Force10 Networks nearly two years ago. Now Dell has to keep pace with its many competitors in the networking racket – which it has just done with the launch of a new modular …

    Data Networking 15 Apr 11:00

  • Antarctic ice sheet melt 'not that unusual', latest ice core shows

    Warm slushy spells like the 1990s have happened before

    The latest ice-core analysis from the Antarctic shows that nothing unusual in terms of melting is occurring. In research published yesterday, a large team of scientists used a deep ice core from the Western Antarctic Ice Sheet Divide to produce records going back some 2,000 years. Their analysis shown that recent melting in …

    Science 15 Apr 11:14

  • HP uses OpenStack to glue CloudSystems to public clouds

    Gradually rolling out Grizzly code on the HP Cloud

    Before OpenStack was even an idea, HP had cooked up an all-blade system strategy and some utility computing control software that it merged together into the BladeSystem Matrix. The software in that automated cloud-in-a-box has now evolved. BladeSystem Matrix now includes some elements of the OpenStack cloud controller and is …

    Cloud Infrastructure 15 Apr 11:45

  • Still pitching to CIOs? You're living in the PAST

    Sales directors, office managers should be your new BFFs

    Within the next year, almost half of the cloud deals negotiated by value-added resellers will not have an IT team representative present when the technology decision is made, according to the latest predictions from top IT biz analysts Gartner and Forrester. The consumerisation of IT - where biz bods introduce cutting edge …

    The Channel 15 Apr 12:24

  • Bitcoins: A GIANT BUBBLE? Maybe, but currency could still be worthwhile

    Lessons from tulip-hoarding Dutch speculators of 1634

    The Bitcoin economy is a bubble and it'll all end in tears. Bitcoin is the greatest thing since sliced bread and will change the world forever. What might surprise some of you is that there's no contradiction between these two statements. Whether the internet currency is in a bubble or not, and whether that bubble bursts and …

    Financial News 15 Apr 13:04

  • Google's 'power to switch off the lights in Europe' has 'chilling effect' - rivals

    Competitors demand cosy negotiation texts from antitrust commish

    Google has the "chilling" ability to "switch off the lights" at web companies, claim rivals lobbying against the dominant search giant. They highlighted Google's decision last week to suddenly yank adverts from a popular price-comparison website, and argued such moves stall online innovation. And they want European …

    Government 15 Apr 13:39

  • IDC: Biz to splurge $70bn on 'analytics services' by 2016

    Big Data = big bucks for channel bods

    A dearth of heavy-duty analytics talent means enterprise customers are turning to channel folk to make sense of their data. So say bean-counters IDC, who forecast that by 2016 some $70.8bn will be spent on analytics services, a compound annual growth rate of 14.3 per cent for the next half a decade. And IT service providers …

    The Channel 15 Apr 14:04

  • Credit insurer sets up 'task force' in wake of enormo UK IT biz failures

    Comet crash and 2e2 meltdown are making people twitchy

    Trade credit insurer Atradius is setting up a specialist task force to analyse UK channel companies that have a high debt-to-assets ratio or have VC backing in the wake of recent high-profile and costly failures. As world + dog knows, High Street giant Comet hit the wall in December owing creditors £257m, costing the UK …

    The Channel 15 Apr 14:18

  • Building a private cloud? Better sort your storage first

    Establish a bridgehead, parachute in SSD stacks

    The final HP Regcast of our short series on how to build a private cloud covered the usual afterthought of any IT project: storage migration. Much of the conversation dealt with the problems of translating good intentions into action. The research conducted by Freeform Dynamics at the end of 2012 showed that those IT …

    Storage 15 Apr 14:24

  • Brussels clears Liberty Global's £15bn Virgin Media takeover

    Move along, no competition concerns here

    US billionaire John Malone's company Liberty Global saw its £15bn bid to buy UK telco Virgin Media cleared by competition officials in Europe today. The takeover was waved through completely unchallenged by the European Commission, after the cable giant confirmed it wanted to acquire Virgin Media in February. The antitrust …

    Financial News 15 Apr 15:10

  • Red Hat emulates Fedora Linux project with RDO OpenStack community

    Gearing up for RHEL, KVM, and Red Hat OpenStack triple whammy for clouds

    OpenStack is sometimes called the Linux for clouds, and Red Hat, the dominant Linux distributor, seems to be all over that. The firm is now working to bring its Red Hat OpenStack distribution into the ever-crowding field of companies that want to peddle supported distributions of this cloud control freak. Red Hat Open Stack, or …

    Cloud Infrastructure 15 Apr 15:30

  • Cutting CO2 too difficult? Try these 4 simple tricks instead

    There ARE other factors, admits Wendy Schmidt statistician

    Climate researchers - including one working for Wendy Schmidt, the campaigning wife of Google overlord Eric - have published research suggesting that there are other things apart from cutting CO2 emissions which would help to avoid disastrous rises in sea levels this century. According to Dr Claudia Tebaldi: "Without …

    Science 15 Apr 16:00

  • Quantum lays off fifty – prepping for a sale?

    'Excited about increased market opportunities'

    Fifty people have been let go by Quantum with some insiders thinking the company is being groomed for a sale, either in whole or in parts. Affected company staff were given the news on Thursday, April 11th. Christine Bachmayer, Quantum's senior manager for marketing in EMEA, said: As we begin our new fiscal year (started …

    Storage 15 Apr 17:51

  • DataDirect in job slash bloodbath

    'Natural hygiene' washes people away

    Times are tough. HPC and big data storage array supplier DataDirect Networks has laid off 65 people, decimating its workforce, after six months of lousy sales. This news is not yet public. The lay-offs follow a poor final 2012 quarter. We asked DDN about this, about morale problems, and also if there were product-quality …

    Storage 15 Apr 18:08

  • Four Apple execs among US top five best-paid in 2012

    And no, Tim Cook wasn't one of them – he earned a mere 3.2 'Ballmers'

    Four the top five highest-paid executives in the S&P 500 last fiscal year were Apple senior managers – and CEO Tim Cook was not among them. According to a Bloomberg report on Monday, Apple's board of directors are apparently quite eager to keep their top team members happy – and, more importantly, to keep them from straying …

    Management 15 Apr 20:05

  • Sprint/Softbank mobile merger in doubt after Dish bids $25.5bn

    Analysis Clearwire complications add to financial fandango

    Dish Network has thrown a counter-offer into the ring to buy Sprint-Nextel, the third-biggest mobile provider in the US, in a $25.5bn cash and stock bid that outspends rival Softbank by well over 10 per cent. "The DISH proposal clearly presents Sprint shareholders with a superior alternative to the pending Softbank proposal," …

    Networks 15 Apr 20:16

  • Xen hypervisor leaps into Linux Foundation

    Amazon Web Services, Google to exert cloudy influence

    The Linux Foundation is embracing the Xen hypervisor, giving major clouds such as Google and Amazon a greater influence in the development of the open source technology. The announcement was made at the Linux Foundation Collaboration Summit in San Francisco on Sunday, and sees the Xen project become a Linux Foundation …

    Cloud 15 Apr 20:28

  • ExxonMobil's oil spill rids neighborhood of 'venomous snakes'

    There's a silver spin lining to every disaster

    On March 29, ExxonMobil's Pegasus pipeline – built in the late 1940s – ruptured in Mayflower, Arkansas, sending at least a million liters of Canadian crude oil and water into a residential neighborhood. That's the bad news. The good news? According to an ExxonMobil update, that crude cockup is channeling Saint Patrick, ridding …

    Science 15 Apr 22:24

  • British designer builds $15m iPhone for Hong Kong mogul

    Home button is a 26-carat black diamond

    Conspicuous consumption is a sign of booming times, and a Hong Kong businessman may have broken records for it after buying a custom-built "iPhone 5 Black Diamond" encrusted in gold and precious stones. The tab? An eye-popping $15.3m (£10m). For the man who has everything – except taste "This beautiful handset took 9 weeks …

    Phones 15 Apr 22:36

  • Cellular architectures not great for TV: study

    Terrestrial broadcast still the winner for now

    A study by the KTH Royal Institute of Technology in Sweden has found that cell-based distribution of broadcast TV content can be a glutton for spectrum. Around the world, mobile network owners have their eyes on spectrum being vacated by the move to digital TV, and the received wisdom is that video is going to keep driving …

    Networks 15 Apr 22:45

  • 'Charge memory' boffins: Hungover Li-Ion batts tell fat whoppers

    Better software needed to tackle electrical comedown

    The widespread belief that lithium-ion batteries don't suffer from “charge memory” might be mistaken, according to new research out of Japan and Switzerland. The research, published in Nature Materials (abstract), finds that “charge memory” can emerge in the common electrode material lithium-iron phosphate (LiFePO4). As a …

    Science 15 Apr 23:35