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23rd April 2013 Archive

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  • New poll says Assange could win Australian Senate seat

    26 per cent of Aussies “likely” to vote for Leaker-In-Chief

    Julian Assange's bid for a seat in Australia's Senate may not be just a stunt, with a new poll revealing 26 per cent of Australians consider themselves “likely” to vote for the Leaker-In-Chief. Assange has repeatedly announced his candidacy for a seat in the Senate, the upper chamber of Australia's national Parliament which …

    Government 23 Apr 00:34

  • Spies catch Acer's Windows 8-incher before it hides

    Smaller unit should be less intimidating to punters

    Acer will be the first of Microsoft's hardware partners to release a small-screened tablet running Windows 8, if photos purportedly leaked from the PC maker are any indication. French technology site Minimachines was the first to reveal photos and specs of the sub-sized device, which it claims will have an 8-inch screen and …

    Tablets 23 Apr 00:39

  • US Air Force beats off competition in NSA hacking fight

    Training to defend, and attack

    A four-day hacking competition run by the National Security Agency (NSA) to find the top military system designers and administrators has awarded the 13th annual Cyber Defense Exercise (CDX) prize to a team from the US Air Force Academy. "CDX offers an unparalleled opportunity for some of the nation's top students to showcase …

    Security 23 Apr 00:43

  • Voda wants NBN access to boost regional 4G spread

    Country Oz needs a fibre diet to suck nutrients out of wireless broadband

    Vodafone has said it's hoping that the rollout of the National Broadband Network will give it the chance to improve country mobile services. In evidence to the Joint Parliamentary Inquiry into the National Broadband Network on Friday April 19, the junior member of Australia's three-strong mobile carrier club identified Telstra …

    Broadband 23 Apr 01:10

  • Java still vulnerable despite recent patches

    Sun rises in the East

    Just days after the latest fix, another Java vulnerability has emerged. Described in this Full Disclosure post, the Reflection API flaw affects all versions of Java SE 7 and, according to researcher Adam Gowdiak, “can be used to achieve a complete Java security sandbox bypass on a target system”. As always, the victim would …

    Security 23 Apr 01:35

  • Lenovo's mobile push stalls in China

    Samsung steamrolls everyone, including Apple and Gartner

    Lenovo's emergence as a smartphone player has stalled in China, where Samsung is eating everyone else alive, as indeed it is also doing around the world. Lenovo last year entered the burgeoning Chinese smartphone market with Android-powered budget models priced at under $US200, the sweet spot for smartphones in the Middle …

    Business 23 Apr 02:34

  • Chinese IEEE members want MAC control for cognitive radio

    Spectrum licences? Who needs 'em when radios can find their own airspace

    For those in the mood for deep wireless communication geekery, a group of Chinese researchers has released a proposed protocol for MAC layer behaviour of cognitive radio systems. The idea is to increase spectrum efficiency by allowing wireless systems to be opportunistic in their use of spectrum: that is, to use whatever …

    Networks 23 Apr 03:18

  • Nudge nudge, wink wink interface may drive Google Glass

    Two-finger salutes also come in handy, as may patent lawyers

    The user interface for Google's forthcoming tech specs, aka Google Glass, may feature a two-fingered salute and a wink. The source for this supposition is a Redditor by the name of Fodawim who says he or she has peered into the code of the Google Glass companion app and found the following text: "BROWSER_TWO_FINGER_ZOOM" " …

    Hardware 23 Apr 04:28

  • AMD pins future growth to embedded marketplace

    G-Series SoCs to turn sliver of revenues into wedge

    AMD has announced a new range chips for embedded devices, and said it hopes that 20 per cent of its revenues in Q4 2013 will come from that market, rather than the 5 per cent currently. Embedded chips are one prong of AMD's new pitchfork of profitability along with servers and ultra-low power tablet chips. The chip giant is …

    Business 23 Apr 04:52

  • BlackBerry OS 10.1 leaks its secret goo over all the web

    Half-baked next version to try, if you're mad enough

    A work-in-progress build of the next BlackBerry OS, version 10.1, has leaked onto the interwebs. This latest update is due to ship this month to coincide with the planned launch of the BlackBerry Q10, a touchscreen phone with a QWERTY physical keyboard. This model follows its all-touchscreen cousin the Z10, which went on sale …

    Mobile 23 Apr 05:03

  • Array makers, what's that noise? It's the hungry Amazonian horde

    Blocks and Files ...And they're here to swipe you and your lunch

    Storage in the cloud is going to start stripping legacy storage suppliers of their value and prompt an era of vertical disintegration in the storage business. This is assuming storage in the cloud starts savaging storage supplier revenues. Assume away, on the basis that Amazon, Google and Microsoft's storage-in-the-cloud …

    Cloud 23 Apr 06:04

  • Firewall tech pioneer Gil Shwed: Former teen sysadmin on today's infosec biz

    Feature Prince of State(ful) inspection 20 years on

    Twenty years after the technology behind FireWall-1 was first developed, the teenage coding prodigy who founded Check Point says that "IT security is [still] very hot". Shwed, 44, is the co-founder, chief exec and chairman of Check Point, whose FireWall-1 software, according to the firm, is installed at every Fortune 100 …

    Security 23 Apr 06:19

  • Diagnostics tools ARE useful, but more for the vendor than me

    Storagebod Some add-ons should be set free...

    It never ceases to amaze me that vendors believe that they can charge an additional fee for something which makes their product work properly, as it should have done in the first place. I believe certain products should be free and I struggle in many ways to understand why they're not. I can’t imagine they are sold an awful …

    Storage 23 Apr 07:03

  • Weak iPad, iPhone demand hits LG Display in the wallet

    Apple shares below $400 for first time in 2 years

    LG Display's profits have been hit by falling demand from Apple, forcing the firm to turn in its smallest profit since clawing its way out of debt in Q2 2012. Apple shares are trading steadily under $400 for the first time since December 2011 (following a brief blip earlier this month) as investors sense a shift in the firm's …

    Financial News 23 Apr 07:28

  • Big money in Big Data: SGI debuts petabyte-juggling archiving tool

    Watch out, Quantum...

    The tidal wave that is unstructured file-based data is lumbering towards data centres. SGI is hoping the Big Data trend means that file access storage will become a hot property. Meanwhile, customers love the idea of all file locations being stored in a single virtual silo, instead of multiple different silos with differing …

    Storage 23 Apr 08:03

  • Retailers: You could get the chance to TEAR UP Penguin ebook contracts

    EU competition commitments opened up to market testing

    Retailers could be offered the chance to terminate some agreements formed with Penguin over the sale of electronic books as part of the UK publishing company's bid to resolve European Commission concerns about the nature of those agreements. Penguin has formed an informal agreement with the Commission over its practices in …

    Law 23 Apr 08:38

  • Sord drawn: The story of the M5 micro

    Feature The 1983 Japanese home computer that tried to cut it in the UK

    It took Japanese micro maker Sord more than six months to launch its M5 home computer in the UK, but in April 1983, the company said the Z80A-based machine would finally go on sale during the following month - half a year after it was originally scheduled to arrive over here. It was a bold move. Even in November 1982, when the …

    Vintage 23 Apr 09:00

  • You got your Tintri hat, beermat and cat: But what does it all mean?

    Hands-on Hype begone: Is this storage management for dummies or what?

    Virtual storage upstart Tintri is a great example of a company I would never normally care about: when it comes to storage area networks (SANs) these folks are building the data vault equivalent of Falcon 9 rockets while I'm scraping together spare change for a Vespa. If you have an astounding offering that is aimed at a …

    Virtualization 23 Apr 09:18

  • Astute: Hey small biz, you too can afford speedy flashy goodness

    Array biz claims 3-5x speed boost from cheap accelerator

    Astute has announced a lower-cost MLC flash version of its ViSX flash-based storage accelerator, saying it's good for small and medium enterprises because it costs about the same as the disk drive arrays they're buying on a $/GB basis. The ViSX Performance Storage Appliance uses hardware TCP/IP and iSCSI acceleration with its …

    Storage 23 Apr 09:44

  • 8 in 10 small UK firms hacked last year - at £65k a pop: Report

    Infosec 2013 Poor security practices blamed, according to gov survey

    Over 80 per cent of small businesses in the UK suffered a computer security breach last year, according to new government research. And the proportion of large firms that reported attacks has reached a whopping 93 per cent. The Department for Business, Innovation and Skills' 2013 hacking survey found that 87 per cent of small …

    Management 23 Apr 10:13

  • Privacy crusaders: ISPs in 'conspiracy of silence' over Snoop Charter

    They're keeping negotiations with gov PRIVATE!

    Well-known pro-privacy organisations in the UK have accused internet providers of failing to respond sufficiently critically to the government's plans to massively increase surveillance of Brits' online activity. In a joint letter - penned by individuals representing Privacy International, the Open Rights Group, Big Brother …

    Government 23 Apr 10:28

  • CFO warns IBM's 'underperforming' storage crew: We'll take 'substantial action'

    Analysis Legacy mid-range and entry arrays look unsafe

    IBM's first quarter 2013 results were disappointing, and if you're in storage and servers at Big Blue, it appears the numbers guys are focusing on some of your product lines. In the earnings call, CFO Mark Loughridge said: "There are parts of our business that are in transition or have been under-performing like elements of our …

    Storage 23 Apr 10:45

  • Google's teeny UK tax bill 'just not right', thunders senior MP

    Hodge on Schmidt: Aiding the economy and paying corp tax is NOT an 'either/or'

    Top Labour MP Margaret Hodge has told The Register that it's "just not right" for Google to get away with paying so little corporation tax in the UK. Hodge, who heads up Parliament's influential Public Accounts Select Committee, rejected the advertising giant's executive chairman Eric Schmidt's defence of his company's tax …

    Management 23 Apr 11:09

  • Looking for a new role? Check out these IT jobs

    Promo Recruitment call

    Twice a month The Register will showcase some tech vacancies gleaned from the jobs board of reed.co.uk, our UK recruitment partner. In our first outing we kick off with four permie open positions, two based in London, one in Newcastle and the fourth, with The Army, which could mean anywhere. ASOS, the online fashion retailer …

    Jobs 23 Apr 11:25

  • Turn off the mic: Nokia gets injunction on 'key' HTC One component

    Dutch court stops Taiwanese firm from using microphones

    Nokia has said it bagged a court injunction in Amsterdam that effectively prevents HTC from using the microphones that are a "key" component of its HTC One smartphone. The Finnish phone maker won a preliminary ban on the mikes, made by ST Microelectronics, stopping the firm from selling them on to HTC or anyone else. "In its …

    Phones 23 Apr 11:26

  • Peak Apple: First 'profit slip' in a decade - and, boy, it's gonna be BIG

    Clammy hand of Steve Jobs felt on cold Q2 numbers, say analysts

    Apple will reveal its first profit fall in a decade when it unveils its quarterly earnings later today, analysts say. According to Bloomberg, Apple's fiscal second-quarter income will probably have declined by 18 percent, year on year, to $9.53 billion. And even though revenue may be up 8 percent to $42.4 billion, this is the …

    Financial News 23 Apr 11:46

  • Review: Nokia's Windows Phone 8-powered Lumia 720

    Ah, a battery life just like the old days

    Nokia completed its Windows 8 range with two new models recently, including this midrange offering the 720. With a choice of five Lumias it's now clearer to see what Nokia hopes to achieve. The 720 strikes me as the Ford Cortina of the Lumias, a well made mass market compact. The 720 has everything going for it except, perhaps …

    Phones 23 Apr 11:59

  • UK's dead monster iPad gumble-maker COMES BACK TO LIFE

    Ditches workforce, relocates in Far East

    It's been quite a post-Easter week for the Brit firm behind iPhone and iPad accessories maker GEAR4: it went into administration, axed most of its UK workforce, and has risen again in Hong Kong. Disruptive Ltd, which makes wireless speakers, docks and a range of Angry Birds accessories stocked at all major UK consumer …

    The Channel 23 Apr 12:24

  • Data centre networks are getting flatter and fitter

    Shed the layers

    We have all come across the traditional corporate network with three distinct layers: the core layer dealing with heavy-duty switching and routing, which runs on socking big switches and routers; the distribution layer dealing with lighter (but still intelligent) tasks such as packet filtering and some routing; and the access …

    Data Networking 23 Apr 12:38

  • Make cool shows, make money: Netflix's SHOCKING TV strategy

    'Internet TV' biz counts House of Cards gamble winnings

    Netflix added 2 million US subscribers and made a profit of $2.69m (£1.77m) in the first quarter of 2013, buoyed by its critically acclaimed exclusive drama House of Cards. The DVDs-by-post company now bills itself as an “internet television network” and is edging up in US customer numbers - its subscribers now almost equal …

    Media 23 Apr 13:04

  • Verizon: 96 PER CENT of state-backed cyber-spying traced to China

    Lock up your data, folks

    Spooks carrying out state-sponsored cyber-espionage were responsible for one in five data breaches last year, researchers have claimed. New statistics contained in Verizon’s Data Breach Investigation Report 2012 found that 19 per cent of all attacks were carried out by agents acting on behalf of their government. Researchers …

    Security 23 Apr 13:33

  • Nvidia Tesla bigwig: Why you REALLY won't need x86 chips soon

    Interview Find out where Intel, AMD, ARM stand in GPU giant's roadmap

    Life is what happens when you are trying to do other things, as the old saying goes. Jen-Hsun Huang, co-founder and CEO of Nvidia has been perfectly honest about the fact that the graphics chip maker didn't intend to get into the supercomputing business. Rather, it was founded by a bunch of gamers who wanted better graphics …

    Cloud Infrastructure 23 Apr 14:04

  • Apple fanbois' accidental bonking ruled too obvious by watchdog

    Googorola touchscreen fumble patent cry rejected by ITC

    A US trade watchdog says Apple iPhones do not infringe a patent that described the detection of fanbois accidentally touching the screen. The ITC agreed with a judge who ruled that the technology, patented by Google-owned Motorola Mobility, was too obvious. Specifically, the patent covered the accidental pressing of one's head …

    Law 23 Apr 14:29

  • Crypto guru: Don't blame users, get coders security training instead

    Infosec 2013 Murdoch's infosec man adds 'arrogant' techies also 'vulnerable'

    Experts on both sides of the vendor-customer divide in the UK and a US cryptographer are at odds over whether or not security training is a waste of time. American crypto guru Bruce Schneier says the fact that "we still have trouble teaching people to wash their hands" means the dosh splurged on staff training is likely better …

    Security 23 Apr 15:04

  • Twitter signs ad deal for MEELLIONS with marketing bods

    Telly-watching tweeters targeted by dosh-generating deal

    Twitter is well on its way to becoming an advertising giant after signing one of its biggest deals so far with media agency Starcom MediaVest Group (SMG). The partnership, which could be worth hundreds of millions of dollars over several years, will give SMG clients like Microsoft and Coca-Cola preferred advertising slots on …

    Media 23 Apr 15:33

  • CISPA row: Slurped citizen data is ENORMO HACK TARGET - infosec boss

    US cyber-spook hub ultimate trophy for miscreants

    The ability to identify common patterns in real-world attacks makes crowd-sourcing threat intelligence extremely useful, according to a study from security tools firm Imperva. The report arrives just as a privacy row rages over the new Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act (CISPA) law in the US. But the head of the …

    Security 23 Apr 16:05

  • Yelling at mobes while driving just as bad as texting

    GODDAMMIT I JUST WANT TO WRITE 'ROUNDABOUT'

    Using voice-to-text tech to send messages while driving is just as dangerous as regular texting, a new study has found. Drivers' response times doubled regardless of whether they were speaking or typing their messages, compared to when they weren't texting, the Texas Transportation Institute at Texas A&M University said. The …

    Phones 23 Apr 16:34

  • Mellanox adds VM-flitting to ConnectX-3 server adapters

    Going Pro with VXLAN and NVGRE to stretch across Layer 3 nets

    Switch and adapter maker Mellanox Technologies added support for virtual LAN overlays to its Ethernet switches late last year and now it is building in support for the two primary overlays into its ConnectX-3 server adapters to match. Virtual LAN overlays make Layer 3 routing between networks invisible to those networks and …

    Cloud Infrastructure 23 Apr 16:49

  • White House backs US web sales tax - eBay hits panic alarm

    Think about what you're doing here, wails net bazaar

    The White House has backed a bill that would give US states the ability to demand sales tax from online retailers, while the Senate clears the law for formal voting. The senators voted 74 to 20, with six abstaining, to limit debate on the Marketplace Fairness Act and get on with final vote on the legislation. The MFA, …

    Cloud 23 Apr 16:53

  • Huawei: 'We're not interested in US market'

    Cuts enterprise sales projections by one-third

    Chinese telecoms equipment maker Huawei has revised its enterprise sales projections downward after admitting that it has given up on plans to expand into the US market. "We are not interested in the U.S. market anymore," Huawei executive vice president Eric Xu told Reuters. "Generally speaking, it's not a market that we pay …

    Data Networking 23 Apr 18:24

  • Salesforce: Internet of Things is 'third wave of computing'

    Benioff & Co dive into social networks, connected devices

    Salesforce is desperate for more of the world to get wired up with little sensors, so it can get at this data and hook it into its suite of technologies, then sell companies on the benefits of an increasingly data-led sales strategy. This lust for an instrumented world was outlined by Salesforce chief executive Marc Benioff in …

    Business 23 Apr 18:39

  • Hacked AP tweet claiming White House explosion causes Dow dip

    Pro-Assad Syrian Electronic Army claims responsibility

    A group calling itself the Syrian Electronic Army is claiming that it successfully hacked the official Twitter account of the Associated Press and is responsible for a tweet that briefly wiped billions off the Dow Jones Industrial Average on Tuesday. The tweet, issued from AP's main account, warned that there had been two …

    Security 23 Apr 19:27

  • Human rights groups rally humanity against killer robots

    Call for ban on fully autonomous weapons systems

    An international coalition of nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) has formed the Campaign to Stop Killer Robots, a lobbying organization aimed at securing a worldwide ban on fully autonomous weapons. "Lethal armed robots that could target and kill without any human intervention should never be built," Steve Goose, director of …

    Policy 23 Apr 20:15

  • Facebook plans vast data center in Iowa

    Plonks FarmVille into farm land

    Facebook's fourth gigantic data center will be in Iowa, a state already favored by major infrastructure operators due to its renewable utility options. The new data center in Altoona, Iowa, will be the company's fourth dedicated bit barn, along with facilities in Prineville, Oregon; Forest City, North Carolina; and Luleå, …

    Cloud Infrastructure 23 Apr 20:39

  • Apple beats revenue estimates but margins are falling

    Plans $100bn share buy-back bonanza for investors

    Apple has beaten some of the gloomier analyst expectations in its second quarter's results filing, with revenues of $43.6bn for the quarter generating $9.5bn in profits. But margins are falling and the company warned that next quarter it may clear only $33.5bn to $35.5bn in revenues – its biggest fall in a decade. The company …

    Financial News 23 Apr 21:08

  • First batch of Firefox OS phones sells out in hours

    Experimental handsets a hot item among developers

    The first batch of phones based on the Mozilla Foundation's open source Firefox OS has sold out, mere hours after they were announced for sale. As we press the big, red Publish button on this story, Geeksphone, the Spanish startup that designed and built the devices, has shut down its online store, replacing it with a notice …

    Phones 23 Apr 21:16

  • VMware profits flat-line even as services revenues grow

    Virtzilla launches Project Zephyr vCloud Hybrid Service on May 21

    Say what you will about VMware, but it has been brilliant about extracting the most amount of profit possible out of what used to be a virtual monopoly on x86 server virtualization in the data center. But competition from Microsoft and various open source alternatives, particularly the OpenStack-KVM combo, is putting the squeeze …

    Cloud 23 Apr 23:23

  • Oz broadband speeds collapsed in 2012

    Bottomless thirst for downloads chokes the tubes

    Akamai's State of the Internet report reveals a sharp slowdown in Australian Internet download speeds to the end of 2012. According to the report, which is gathered by analysing traffic through Akamai's content distribution networks, global connections got faster, with 2.9 Mbps on average and 16.6 Mbps average peak connection …

    Broadband 23 Apr 23:24

  • Australian Federal Police claim arrest of 'LulzSec leader'

    Updated Suspect is IT pro with access to government data at work

    The Australian Federal Police (AFP) has arrested a man described "a self-proclaimed leader of the group ‘Lulz Security’ (Lulzsec), a computer hacking group that has existed since 2011." The as-yet-unnamed 24-year-old man was apprehended in the coastal town of Point Clare was arrested after using a known exploit to last month …

    Law 23 Apr 23:25

  • TPG might bid for spectrum: reports

    Junior telco dons the 'red underpants'

    Australia's spectrum auction may have had a dark horse entry, with reports emerging that TPG has registered as a bidder. The junior telco claims more than 600,000 broadband subscribers and is already a mobile reseller with 300,000 subscribers. According to the Sydney Morning Herald, a “senior telco industry executive” named …

    Networks 23 Apr 23:29