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25th April 2013 Archive

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  • Google's $1 fiber deal will cost Provo, Utah $1.7m

    $500,000 just to locate all the cable

    Google's sweetheart deal to take over the city of Provo, Utah's loss-making fiber network will come with hidden costs, the city's mayor has revealed. Last week, The Register reported that the Provo city council was planning to vote on a deal that would allow Google to take ownership of the city's multimillion-dollar municipal …

    Broadband 25 Apr 00:45

  • Rackspace plugs event monitoring into its servers

    Expands cloud monitoring tech with 'Virgo' agent project

    Rackspace has broadened the capabilities of its cloud monitoring technology by letting admins put an agent on their servers to get a clearer idea of how apps are using hardware resources. The upgrades to Cloud Monitoring include server monitoring, a graphing feature for viewing old data, PagerDuty integration, and multi-data …

    Cloud 25 Apr 00:46

  • Got a Windows XP end-of-life plan? Neither does anyone else

    Opinion How to negotiate migratory blind spots

    Applications are the glue that connects people with IT, that much is obvious, and in turn software has a powerful influence on business performance. Yet, to our surprise, a survey of UK enterprises revealed blind spots in the deployment of applications. We talked to 200 UK CIOs and IT leaders, and discovered that these blind …

    Applications 25 Apr 04:07

  • Mutant hybrid upstart joins pushback against storage giants

    Array-maker boasts triple-digit growth at expense of HP, NetApp and pals

    Three hybrid flash-disk array upstarts are eating away at the incumbents' market share - and El Reg has peeked under the bonnet of one to find out how. El Reg talked about Nimble Storage and Tintri a couple of weeks ago and that prompted Tegile to pull aside the curtain and show us a few more numerical goodies. Rob Commins, …

    Storage 25 Apr 04:36

  • O2 to turn your innocent nipper into Silicon Roundabout hipster

    Scout Camp for the 21st Centur- Hey wait a second...

    O2 will be running 28 UK events titled Think Big School, pushing 3,000 youngsters through two days of training so they can learn to write code and pitch business ideas like a skinny-tie-and-sneakers-wearing Shoreditch type. The first Think Big School has kicked off in London, but the two-day events, which are run in …

    Mobile 25 Apr 05:03

  • Climate-cooling effect 'stronger than volcanoes' is looking solid

    Could be time to massage those hot models again

    A newly discovered mechanism for cooling the planet - potentially, according to its discoverers, more significant even than the well-known chilling effects of volcanic eruptions - has now been further investigated. The mechanism in question is the action of difficult-to-study atmospheric molecules known as "Criegee …

    Science 25 Apr 05:29

  • Bogus gov online test tells people on dole they're just SO employable

    'Devised by sinister US TORTURE PROF' yells angry blogger

    Bloggers have discovered that the Department for Work and Pensions is using an obviously defective personality test in a bid to get jobseekers off the dole and into work. The psychometric test in question is supposedly designed to assess an unemployed person’s “signature strengths”. However, it was actually primed to give …

    Government 25 Apr 06:04

  • Tough luck, lappies: Brits favour fingersome fondleslabs, phones

    Can notebook sales survive the clamour for touchscreen tech?

    Tablets have been outselling desktop and notebook PCs combined here in Blighty, and they could well be about to generate more revenue for their manufacturers too, data from GfK, a market watcher, suggests. Slates have accounted for more than half of the sales volume of computer products in the UK since October 2012, GfK’s …

    Mobile 25 Apr 06:35

  • Crackdown looming on premium-rate phone number internet ads

    Hey, it's a way to make money off the internet!

    Time may be short for companies who make a living with internet-promoted premium phone numbers, as the UK regulator of such matters opens a second consultation aimed at denying them obscurity. Adverts will be required to state clearly that they aren't linked to the service they're promoting, and will be required to use the …

    Mobile 25 Apr 07:03

  • Review: Western Digital Sentinel DX4000

    Are WD and Trevor set to be friends at last?

    Western Digital makes Network Attached Storage (NAS) devices and recently sent a Sentinel DX4000 to El Reg for review. When I was asked to write about it I was initially unsure exactly how I would approach this: where's the novelty in a small consumer or SME device? The Sentinel stands out for me not only because it's the …

    Hardware 25 Apr 07:32

  • UK.gov coughed over £2 MEELLION in data breach fines in the past year

    Overall fines have TRIPLED from the previous year

    The total number of self-reported* data breaches in the UK increased from 730 between March 2011 and February 2012 to 1,150 in a similar period in the year up to early March 2013. The lion's share of the fines paid out originated from the public sector. A Freedom of Information (FOI) request to the Information Commissioner’s …

    Government 25 Apr 08:07

  • O2 scoffs at call-centre outsource fears, forgets to rule it out completely

    Just speculation, but it might happen

    Rumours that O2 UK plans to outsource all its telephone support work have been dismissed as speculation by the mobile network operator. The cynical among us will note that's not the same as completely ruling it out. The whisperings were enough to prompt an emergency motion from the Communication Workers Union, stating that …

    Mobile 25 Apr 08:24

  • UK faces hacking doom, but think of the money, security startups!

    Infosec 2013 Every cloud breach has a silver lining, says minister

    The UK government is hit by more than 33,000 pieces of malicious email a day, ranging from casual phishing to targeted espionage attacks. Chloe Smith, minister for political and constitutional reform at the Cabinet Office, told delegates at the Infosecurity Europe conference on Wednesday that despite this onslaught cyber …

    Security 25 Apr 08:38

  • High-rollers’ shop pitches wallet-pounding, wall-pummelling MONSTER TV

    4K x 2K whopper can now be yours, if you have 35k going spare

    Suddenly found yourself with £35,000 in your pocket and can’t think what to spend it on? Wander on down to posh shop Selfridges which says it has the answer: Samsung’s S9, an Ultra HD enormo-telly boasting 4K x 2K resolution. And you’ll get a whole penny in change. Selfridges, which describes the Samsung set as “truly a work …

    Hardware 25 Apr 09:05

  • Nick Clegg: Snooper's Charter 'isn't going to happen'

    Updated Not 'while Lib Dems remain in government', anyhow

    Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg has strongly rejected Home Office plans to massively ramp up surveillance of Brits' internet activity in a very public rebuttal of Theresa May's proposals this morning. "The 'Snooper's Charter' isn't going to happen - the idea that there would be a record kept of all your online activity," …

    Government 25 Apr 09:16

  • Wannabe ZFS rival Exablox decloaks MYSTERY NAS box

    It's managed through the cloud. That's what you wanted, right?

    Mystery storage startup Exablox has finally uncloaked its secret project - which turned out to be a simple scale-out filer managed through a cloud-based utility. The product is called OneBlox and is managed through OneSystem, a utility service in the cloud; there is no onboard management software. The OneBlox appliance, or …

    Cloud 25 Apr 09:39

  • Major Dell investor cashes in ALL of its 24.5 million shares

    The Oakmark Funds spooked by Blackstone's withdrawal from bidding

    Venture capitalist Blackstone's decision to withdraw from the bidding for Dell has spooked The Oakmark Funds into offloading its major stake in the Texan PC baron. The group of mutual funds owned 24.5 million shares or a 1.4 per cent holding in Dell, making it the seventh largest investor. Oakmark said yesterday that …

    The Channel 25 Apr 09:59

  • Ubuntu 13.04: No privacy controls as promised, but hey - photo search!

    A lot of stuff's missing, but the tweaks make a difference, honest

    First the bad news: most of the big new features planned for Ubuntu 13.04, or Raring Ringtail, haven’t made it – they’ve been pushed back to 13.10, due in October. Despite this, the Ringtail is actually rather good. Assuming you're a fan of the Unity interface and got past the privacy fiasco of last year - either because you’ …

    Operating Systems 25 Apr 10:18

  • Alibaba and the thwarted thieves: Cops, bazaar to tackle China's piracy

    Magic carpet of tat pulled from under counterfeiters

    The biggest e-shopping site in China - a nation considered the counterfeit capital of the world - has promised to help decapitate the "snake" of knockoff goods. Online bazaar Alibaba will, we're told, work closely with five government and law enforcement agencies including the Ministry of Public Security and the State …

    Government 25 Apr 10:40

  • Google's Euro antitrust offer: Fine! We'll link to our search rivals

    Competitors have a month to mull 'half-hearted' deal

    Google's rivals have been given one month to weigh up the advertising giant's now-public proposed changes to how it runs its European search business. The deadline to "test" Google's offer of commitments was set by Brussels' competition chief Joaquin Almunia, who is investigating allegations that Google unfairly promotes its …

    Cloud 25 Apr 10:59

  • Ginni blasts 'slow' IBM staff after poor Q1 results

    Rometty tells Big Blue sales bods to move faster to close deals

    IBM chief Virginia Rometty has issued a company-wide dressing-down to staff who are "too slow", after the firm's disappointing first quarter results. Rometty sent off a five-minute internal video message to IBMers, seen by the Wall Street Journal, where she blamed the company's sales staff for the results, saying they failed …

    Financial News 25 Apr 11:24

  • Outsourced space trucks battle for US middleweight lifting title

    Comment Antares and Falcon on a hike to nowhere?

    There was much popping of champagne corks and back-slapping last Sunday when Orbital Sciences Corporation's Antares rocket finally blasted off from the launch pad at NASA's new Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia. Antares soars heavenwards on 21 April Following a launch abort on 17 April due to the "premature disconnection …

    SPB 25 Apr 11:44

  • Virgin Media: SO SORRY we fined your dead dad £10 for unpaid bill

    'Being deceased, it's probably slipped his mind' says son-in-law

    Virgin Media has apologised after charging a dead man £10 for being unable to pay his broadband bill. The bloke's son-in-law Jim Boyden posted a photo of the demand for the tenner on Facebook, along with an open letter accusing the UK internet provider's staff of a "special kind of meanness". Almost 100,000 people have now …

    Broadband 25 Apr 12:05

  • Mobes' pay-by-bonk just isn't cool enough, sniffs Tesco bod

    The kids won't use it, let's stick to cards

    Tesco reckons contact-less pay-by-wave technology in phones has had its day - and the shopping giant is moving back to relying on cash and traditional payment cards. The stumbling shelf-stacking titan will continue to punt its customer loyalty schemes and vouchers on smartmobes - but bonking NFC-capable devices against tills …

    Phones 25 Apr 12:25

  • Not even Facebook, Apple's millions can halt Fusion-io's bleed

    Still, there's always next quarter for flash biz

    Storage firm Fusion-io reported ugly results for its third fiscal 2013 quarter, with revenues down - albeit higher than analysts had expected - and a thumping loss. Flash NAND customers Apple and Facebook made up a whopping 50 per cent of its revenue in the second quarter, but execs said the customers' buying patterns led to …

    Cloud 25 Apr 12:46

  • Smug Red Hat buoyed by UK gov's open-source three-line-whip

    Sir Humphreys gobble Linux subscriptions, we're told

    The UK government's love affair with open-source technology has given software house Red Hat a shot in the arm, we're told. The company boasted that its government and system integrator business has grown in the "high double-digit rates" over the last three years. Red Hat, which offers various flavours of the open-source …

    The Channel 25 Apr 13:24

  • Guess who PC-slaying tablets are killing next? Keyboard biz Logitech

    Desktop gumble-maker slumps to $228m loss

    The industry shift to slabs didn't just catch out major PC makers: peripherals builder Logitech also found life hard going, judging by the amount of red ink scrawled over its Q4 2012 financial figures. The mouse, keyboard and speaker tech purveyor reported operating losses of $37m for Q4 (ended 31 March), including $16m in …

    The Channel 25 Apr 13:39

  • Vietnamese madam cuffed after advertising girls on Facebook

    Art museum nudies NO! But prostitutes, sure

    Police in Vietnam have swooped on a prostitution ring after spotting one enterprising lady-of-the-night using Facebook to advertise her girls’ wares to potential punters. Cops in the capital Hanoi cuffed 20-year-old Do Thi Huyen, of Truong Dinh ward in the city's Hai Ba Trung district as she and a colleague were escorting two …

    Bootnotes 25 Apr 14:19

  • Peak Apple: Cupertino belatedly spends some money on R&D

    Jobsian diktat 'innovation nothing to do with R&D' binned

    Apple is ploughing more cash into research and development ahead of new product launches expected in the coming 12 months. Cupertino shelled out a hefty $1.19 billion on R&D in the first three months of this year; an increase of 41 per cent on the $841 million it spent in the same period last year. If the pattern continues, …

    Financial News 25 Apr 14:24

  • Microsoft carves out 'niche' in tablets, says numbers chap

    Windows 8 battles Apple for second place

    Apple had to watch Android match then exceed its share of the smartphone market and now it’s having to watch Google’s OS do the same thing in the tablet space. First quarter figures from Strategy Analytics show Android running in 52 per cent of the fondleslabs that shipped during the period. Apple’s iOS was in 41 per cent of …

    The Channel 25 Apr 14:58

  • Kindlevision? Amazon reportedly developing set-top tellybox

    Hey guys, maybe we could do watches too!

    Amazon will be the latest tech biz to release a set-top TV box later this year, according to the rumour mill, incorporating its video-on-demand services. The box will plug into users' tellies and bring along the LoveFilm and Instant Video services already available on connected TVs, Xboxes and Playstations, sources whispered …

    Cloud 25 Apr 15:31

  • Enormo-distie Avnet's profits nosedive FORTY PER CENT

    The bigger they are, the harder they completely go to pieces

    Avnet chief Rick Hamada said his IT distribution giant will need to cut another $40m in costs to turn itself around - after its net income dropped nearly 42 per cent in its fiscal third quarter. Hamada said the new cost reductions should be done by the end of the next quarter, bringing its entire savings for this fiscal year …

    The Channel 25 Apr 15:57

  • Opscode cooks up deals to serve Chef automation from IBM, Joyent clouds

    Already on AWS (sort of), Azure, Rackspace, and HP Cloud

    Opscode's Chef configuration, change, and cloud management tool is spreading around the clouds and has been formally adopted on the heavenly infrastructure from IBM and Joyent. The news comes as Opscode is hosting its ChefConf 2013 user and partner conference in San Francisco this week and is touting the uptake of Chef as a …

    Cloud Infrastructure 25 Apr 16:44

  • Zynga banks fluke profit - won't happen again, says CEO

    Gimme more time, says chief in Q2 woe forecast

    Top dogs at Zynga say the online gaming firm just needs a little more time to turn around its losing streak - after forecasting worse losses than expected for this year's second quarter. The struggling FarmVille maker managed to scrape together a surprise profit for the first three months of this year after cutting costs, but …

    Financial News 25 Apr 17:04

  • Google report shows record rise in government takedown requests

    Politicians can dish it out but can't take it

    Google's latest transparency report has shown requests for content removal by governments around the world rose 26 per cent in the last six months of 2012, with complaints about defamation being by far the most common reason. "As we've gathered and released more data over time, it's become increasingly clear that the scope of …

    Government 25 Apr 18:38

  • Internet freedom groups urge W3C to keep DRM out of HTML

    'Disastrous' proposals said to violate core web principles

    A coalition of organizations led by the Free Software Foundation has petitioned the Worldwide Web Consortium (W3C) to reject the Encrypted Media Extensions (EME), a proposed expansion of the HTML spec that would create a standard digital rights management (DRM) mechanism for the web. In an open letter addressed to W3C director …

    Media 25 Apr 19:09

  • Verizon sniffing around Vodafone's US stake again

    $100bn in used greenbacks would spark serious tax bill

    Verizon is putting together a $100bn bid for Vodafone's stake in its wireless business, and is ready to take the offer public if a boardroom deal can't be agreed. Half that hundred billion will come in Verizon shares, the rest in borrowed cash, Reuters tells us in its exclusive coverage. But however the money comes it will hit …

    Mobile 25 Apr 19:13

  • Smartphone and tablet displays: Reg readers weigh in

    Survey results Bigger is not always better

    In January 2012 we ran a Reg reader survey to find out what you think about your smartphones and tablets, and the results are now in. Given the diverse range of device sizes now on the market we were interested in your take on what size you like your device to be. In particular, we wanted to see whether bigger does equal …

    Hardware 25 Apr 19:43

  • The Germans are coming - Software AG borgs LongJump

    Code-free app design? Sehr gut

    Software AG has acquired LongJump, an enterprise-focused company that develops a platform-as-a-service which lets folk build applications without knowing how to code. The acquisition, whose terms were not dislosed, was announced on Thursday. It will see the MySQL-based technology be knitted into other components of Software AG …

    Software 25 Apr 19:59

  • Student falsely IDed by Reddit as Boston bomber found dead

    Online lynch mob unlikely to be responsible

    Sunil Tripathi, the 22 year-old Brown University philosophy student mistakenly identified as a suspect in the Boston bombings by amateur investigators on Reddit, has been found dead in the Providence River, his family has said. Sunil Tripathi, center, in happier times "This last month has changed our lives forever, and we …

    Media 25 Apr 20:18

  • Samsung to launch Galaxy S 4 without Knox security layer

    Container support now pushed back to summer

    After hyping it for months, Samsung has delayed the release of Knox, its new enterprise security framework for its Galaxy line of Android phones, sources claim. The South Korean mobile maker first touted the new security features at February's Mobile World Conference in Barcelona, claiming they would ship with its forthcoming …

    Phones 25 Apr 21:29

  • Actian grabs Amazon Redshift's secret sauce

    ParAccel for analysing 20TB and above data stores

    Actian has acquired database specialist ParAccel, whose technology formed the guts of Amazon's RedShift. The acquisition, whose financial terms were not disclosed, was announced by Actian on Thursday. Amazon licensed ParAccel's tech for its major AWS Redshift data warehousing service, and led funding for its series E round in …

    Business 25 Apr 22:58

  • Citrix hits turbulence, cuts profit outlook

    Order delays in Q1

    Citrix Systems is the latest big IT vendor in the Q1 earnings season to report unexpected delays in closing orders, particularly with its key XenDesktop application and desktop virtualization product. The company has cut profit expectations for Q2 and for the full year, sending shares down seven per cent to just under $63 a pop …

    Cloud Infrastructure 25 Apr 23:08

  • Oz sports discovers IPTV, just a little

    Bureaucrats look at how to get screen time for second-tier sports

    The rather-battered Australian Sports Commission has discovered the Internet and has mooted that it might be used to help put second-rank sports in front of a viewing audience. In an interview with the ABC, the commission's chair John Wylie has explained that IPTV could be considered as a distribution option, under a study …

    Policy 25 Apr 23:13

  • Neutrinos from another galaxy hit ice with black-hole force

    IceCube detector turns up energetic surprise

    If they're neutrinos – the scientists are being cautious about that, not yet having the six-sigma certainty that particle physics likes – they're rather exciting excited ones: two neutrinos believed detected at the IceCube detector in Antarctica have huge energy and probably came from outside our galaxy. The energy claimed for …

    Science 25 Apr 23:16