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22nd April 2013 Archive

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  • Report: Apple returned 8M shoddy iPhones to Foxconn

    Manufacturer feeling financial pain after botching a batch

    Foxconn has apparently botched a batch of iPhones, which Apple returned to the contract manufacturer because they were not fit for sale. Details of just what went wrong are sketchy, as the source for this tale is an anonymous Foxconn staffer chatting to China Business. That report, after being forced through a couple of …

    Phones 22 Apr 00:18

  • 787 battery fix approved

    Plastic planes still grounded as operators await repair manuals

    Boeing's beleaguered 787 is a little closer to flying again after the USA's Federal Aviation Administration (FAA). approved the plane-makers new battery system plans. The 787 was grounded earlier this year after battery packs on two craft overheated and produced lots of smoke. Boeing revealed the details of the two incidents …

    Hardware 22 Apr 02:33

  • Japanese Feds urge ISPs to support Tor ban plan

    Updated Anonymous on the internet? You must be up to no good

    Japan’s technology-illiterate police have put themselves in the firing line once again after recommending what amounts to a blanket ban on the use of the Tor anonymiser network in the country. The FBI-like National Police Agency is set to ask ISPs to "help site administrators" to block communications if the customer is found …

    Policy 22 Apr 04:34

  • DDOS strikes BitCoin exchange Mt.Gox

    Virtual currency in real trouble

    Bitcoin exchange Mt.Gox has been attacked and its servers briefly taken offline. The service confirmed the attack at 2:00 AM Japan time on April 22nd, posting a tweet to warn users of the outage. UPDATE: This again appears to be another strong DDos attack. We are working hard to overcome it and will update... fb.me/14J8rINhm …

    Security 22 Apr 05:24

  • Harassed Oracle employee wins case, cops huge legal bill

    'A very high price to pay for her victory' says Judge

    Rebecca Richardson, the former Oracle employee who recently won a case against the company over sexual harassment committed by a former colleague, found out late last week that it was a pyrrhic victory after being hit with a monster legal bill. Richardson's case against Oracle, which was liable for the actions of a harassing …

    Law 22 Apr 05:58

  • More and more likely that double CO2 means <2°C: New study

    Yes, it warms the planet - just not as much as thought

    The results of a new approach to calculating the effect of CO2 - using empirical observations - suggest it has a lower impact on the climate than previously thought, and its effects are being over-estimated by the IPCC. Publishing in the American Meterological Society's Journal of Climate, a new paper called An improved, …

    Science 22 Apr 06:03

  • Are you being robbed of sleep by badly designed servers?

    Sysadmin Blog Mornings, nights, they all blur into one for our man Trevor

    How should we design the servers and end-user computers of the future? The construction of my testlab has given me the opportunity to play with technologies I normally wouldn't be able to get my hands on. The "advanced" features in them – standard fare by now for large enterprises – have caused a measure of introspection …

    Cloud Infrastructure 22 Apr 06:31

  • Web minister Maria Miller: UK WILL hit 2015 broadband target

    Fibre to reach 10m households by end of Parliament, she insists

    Culture Secretary Maria Miller insisted during parliamentary questioning that the government's £680m Broadband Delivery UK (BDUK) project will hit its target of bringing download speeds of at least 2Mbit/s to almost every Brit by 2015. Meanwhile, her department's rhetoric has changed to reflect the fact that many of the rural …

    Broadband 22 Apr 07:03

  • Amazon: We're expanding into TWO HUNDRED countries

    Merrily piggybacking off Android

    Amazon's Android software store will soon be available across 200 countries - many of which don't have official access to Amazon's Android hardware - as the bookstore continues its quest for world domination. While Google limits itself to selling apps across 134 countries (and even the UN only boasts 193 members) Amazon will …

    Applications 22 Apr 07:26

  • SanDisk '2-3 years' away from mass-producing 3D flash chips

    19nm NAND wafers ready by Q3 2013

    Enterprise flash storage is proceeding inexorably down the process-shrinking road. But what happens when the shrinkage stops and flash devices evolve from using 2D to 3D chips? SanDisk thinks it might have the answer. SanDisk makes consumer and enterprise flash. Its CEO and co-founder, Sanjay Mehrotra, gave a glimpse into …

    Storage 22 Apr 08:05

  • Fed up with database speed? Meet Big Blue's BLU-eyed boy

    Analysis El Reg drills into 10TB/s acceleration tech

    Like other system vendors with their own software stacks, IBM is trying to boost the processing speed of its database software so it can take on larger and larger data munching jobs. The company launched its BLU Acceleration feature for several of its databases a few weeks ago as part of a broader big data blitzkrieg, saying …

    Software 22 Apr 08:29

  • Ten Windows 8 Ultrabooks

    Product Roundup A selection of sexy slimline laptops for your mobile computing pleasure

    Stop anyone on the street and ask them for a definition of the term ‘Ultrabook’ and I suspect they will look at you with utter incomprehension. Hardly surprising, since Intel’s effort to create a popular brand for thin’n’light notebooks hasn’t really been a roaring success. To me, the Ultrabook is the logical evolution of the …

    Laptops 22 Apr 09:00

  • Ready for the car 2.0? Nvidia preps UPGRADABLE car system

    'K.I.T.T., you try something like that again, I'll put sugar in your gas tank'

    What’s your next car dashboard going to look like? The answer may well be: however you want it to look. If Nvidia has its way, car manufacturers and owners will have a much wider range of choices when it comes to dashboard displays, navigation sophistication, and personalising the car to the owner. The computer hardware …

    Hardware 22 Apr 09:35

  • Facebook to plonk $1.5bn data centre in Iowa - report

    FarmVille for realsies... bitch

    Facebook is reportedly building a $1.5bn data centre in the US state of Iowa - but for now the company is remaining quiet about its plans. According to local newspaper, the Des Moines Register - which cited legislative sources - the free content ad network is apparently behind "the most technologically advanced data centre in …

    Cloud 22 Apr 10:04

  • Eric Schmidt defends Google's teeny UK tax payouts - again

    Brit firms in US do the same, sniffs Choc Factory chief

    Eric Schmidt has once again said that it was totally fine for Google to pay just £6m in UK corporation tax - even though it's a multi-billion dollar company. Google was one of several big multinationals, including Starbucks and Amazon, that were singled out for criticism over how little tax they pay in Blighty. With regular …

    Financial News 22 Apr 10:31

  • First the PCs, now System X: Is IBM ready to flog server biz to Lenovo?

    HPC blog Speculation mounts over elective X86-ectomy...

    Is IBM selling all or part of its x86 server biz to PC giant Lenovo? Nothing has been confirmed by either party, but it sure looks like there’s something in the works. So what might this deal look like? I don’t see IBM selling off the entire System x division to Lenovo. What they’ll sell is the most commoditised and least …

    The Channel 22 Apr 10:46

  • Blogger, activist pals answer Anons' CISPA website blackout call

    Oh noes, I can't access filmsuck.net

    Almost 400 websites around the world have shut down services as part of a protest against new US cybersecurity laws. The blackout was organised by hacktivist collective Anonymous in protest against the Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act (CISPA) - in a similar way to the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) blackout last …

    Security 22 Apr 11:19

  • ICO probes Home Office refusal to reveal Snooper's Charter details

    Data watchdog demands answers about Orwellian-sounding Request Filter

    The Home Office could face legal action over its failure to explain the "Request Filter" system buried in its Communications Data Bill. That's the draft law that allows spooks and cops to massively ramp up surveillance of British citizens online. Critics have already lambasted the cryptically named “Request Filter” agency, …

    Government 22 Apr 11:38

  • Platform clouds can make enterprises all teeth and no tail

    Red Hat and VMware want to be your private parts

    The cloud is at the same point in its history that proprietary minicomputers were at four decades ago. Back then, everybody was trying to figure out how to use this new technology, which offered substantial economic and ease-of-programming benefits compared to the big iron systems they replaced. At the time it was not obvious …

    Cloud 22 Apr 11:40

  • The software industry: So efficient, we invented shelfware

    Have you considered helping customers to stop overspending?

    It has always amused me that we work in an industry that has built up such a bad reputation for overselling that we actually coined the phrase "Shelfware". To be fair and accurate about it, buyers are just as guilty as sellers here, and they often bulk-buy licences for software and services with little consideration, seldom …

    The Channel 22 Apr 12:06

  • And they're off: Hubble, Herschel race for hot pics of space filly

    Pics Scopes trot out new snaps of Horsehead Nebula

    Orbiting space telescopes Herschel and Hubble have both snapped new infrared images of interstellar spectacle the Horsehead Nebula. The Herschel far-infrared snap of the Orion B cloud - look closely for the Horsehead The European Space Agency's Herschel Space Observatory captured the famous dark nebula in a fresh image of …

    Science 22 Apr 12:15

  • BadNews, fandroids: MILLIONS of Google Play downloads riddled with malware

    Dodgy apps spaff premium-rate txts, lol

    At least two million Google Play downloads gave Android users an unwanted freebie in the form of BadNews, a piece of malware which masqueraded as a legitimate advertising network. The malware was integrated into 32 different apps in the Google Store, according to mobile security specialist Lookout. Those apps have been …

    Security 22 Apr 12:37

  • iPhone too heavy? Volkswagen brings out motorised ride-on dock

    Forget swapping batteries! Just plug in a petrol engine

    Apple and Volkswagen have joined forces to produce a new version of the iconic Beetle enhanced with all sort of Cupertino-inspired bells and whistles. Teams from both firms worked together on the iBeetle, which looks pretty much like the car which used to be produced without a lower case 'i' inserted in front of its name. It …

    Hardware 22 Apr 13:04

  • EC sends antitrust complaint to smart chip cartel suspects

    Fireside chat fails to satisfy

    With settlement talks stalled, the European Commission has launched a formal investigation into whether suppliers of cryptographic chips conspired to fix prices across Europe. The commission announced today that it had sent out a warning to several smart card chip suppliers that it was investigating allegations that they had …

    Government 22 Apr 13:36

  • Review: Disgo 8400G 7.9in Android tablet

    A 3G fondleslab for £150, where's the catch?

    A 7.9in Jelly Bean Android tablet with 3G connectivity for £150? There has to be a catch, right? Absolutely. The catch with the Disgo 8400G is that you’ve probably never heard of the company before... Now, this could mean you’ll be ahead of the game with the next big thing in affordable fondleslabs if you bought one. However, …

    Tablets 22 Apr 14:04

  • Securing the Internet of Things - or how light bulbs can spy on you

    Analysis Fifty billion hackable devices batten down the hatches

    It's going to be a tough task securing the Internet of Things, an upcoming massive global network of web-connected fridges, freezers and pacemakers. But according to experts gathered in Cambridge last week we can't even start locking it down until we know who's going to make money from it. The meeting was run by Cambridge …

    Cloud 22 Apr 14:26

  • German watchdog whacks Google with PIDDLING FINE over Street View slurp

    'Discount rate' punishment won't deter ad giant, rages Hamburg commish

    Google has been fined just €145,000 for the unauthorised, "negligent" slurp of payload data its fleet of Street View cars captured from unencrypted Wi-Fi networks in Hamburg, Germany. Regulatory offence proceedings were undertaken by the Hamburg data watchdog in November last year leading to a penalty being imposed on the ad …

    Law 22 Apr 14:59

  • How long will it take Facebook Home to hit 1bn downloads? 76 years

    Android app installed 500,000 times since its release

    Facebook Home has been downloaded 500,000 times from Google's Play store since it was released by the free content ad network earlier this month. If the app was to continue to be downloaded at that pace then it would roughly take 76 Gregorian years for Facebook to have 1 billion Android users running the software, which skins …

    Applications 22 Apr 16:04

  • Microsoft: Worried about web privacy? Tell us everything...

    Redmond wants to look at your privates

    Microsoft has launched a drive to stop people splurging their personal information all over the internet - by asking them to splurge their personal information all over the internet. As well as series of telly commercials, Microsoft have designed a special questionnaire designed to discover whether visitors are “carefree …

    Security 22 Apr 16:38

  • Red Hat renames JBoss application server as WildFly

    New effort to focus on Java EE 7 certification

    After tallying the votes in a naming contest that kicked off in October 2012, leading Linux vendor Red Hat has announced that the product formerly known as the JBoss Application Server (AS) will henceforth be known as WildFly. "WildFly represents both a brand refresh for the project and a renewal of its vision to drive the …

    Developer 22 Apr 19:52

  • US Senate vote to add internet sales tax this week

    Foreign companies prepare to cash in

    The US Senate is set to vote on the Marketplace Fairness Act (MFA) on Monday, legislation that would force internet retailers to collect state and local sales taxes while giving overseas online sellers a financial leg-up. MFA, a bill (for once) not tortuously reworded to a snappy acronym, gives businesses 90 days to set up …

    Policy 22 Apr 20:00

  • The enterprise software gravy train stalled in 2012

    Big data, analytics, and cloud build up a head of steam

    The world spends about twice as much dough on enterprise software as it does on data center hardware, and that software is also where a lot of the profit for the IT sector comes from. So when enterprise software revenues don't grow as fast as they have in prior years, it has ripple effects on the IT industry as a whole. The …

    Cloud 22 Apr 20:25

  • CA piles into API management with Layer 7 acquisition

    If stuff is moving to the cloud, you might as well own the transfer point

    CA Technologies has hopped into API management via the acquisition of Layer 7 technologies as the company continues to reinvent itself for the software-as-a-service era. The acquisition follows a similar move by Intel to acquire Mashery last week, and API Management company Mulesoft's announcement it had trousered a further $ …

    Cloud 22 Apr 20:32

  • First Firefox OS developer phones to launch on Tuesday

    Spanish-made mobes in basic and advanced models

    Developers who are interested in building apps for the Mozilla Foundation's web standards–based Firefox OS will be able to get their hands on the first handsets running the open source platform beginning on Tuesday. As The Reg has previously reported, the phones will be manufactured by Spanish startup Geeksphone and will be …

    Phones 22 Apr 21:48

  • Cloudmeter pulls big data from the network, not the servers

    Adds Insight app nanny to Stream data siphoner

    Last year, Atomic Labs, the creator of the Pion web analytics tool, changed its name to Cloudmeter, raised some money, and set above to make its analytics tool more broadly useful for enterprises. Pion has been transformed into a broader tool called Stream, which runs on premises, and Cloudmeter has cooked up an adjunct …

    Cloud Infrastructure 22 Apr 22:52

  • Hedge fund invests $2bn in Microsoft, thinks Redmond is undervalued

    'Microsoft could be the largest cloud company in the world'

    Microsoft's quarterly earnings report last week did little to reassure the markets that the company is on track to regain its former stock valuation, but a $2bn buying spree by a US hedge fund prompted an uptick in its share price on Monday. At an investor conference Jeffrey Ubben, founder ValueAct Capital Management, said …

    Business 22 Apr 22:58

  • Brussels accuses chip makers of collusion

    Smart card silicon market under investigation

    A five-year investigation in Europe into collusion into the smart card market is heating up, with the European Commission issuing a 90-page “statement of objections” to big-name vendors including Philips and Infineon. The European Commission complaint centres around the silicon used for SIMs, chipped passports, bank cards and …

    Law 22 Apr 23:56