29th June 2012 Archive

Browse by publication date, or search the site.

• ↑ June 2012
• ← 28th June 2012
• 30th June 2012 →

• Pigment powered gadgets

  Queensland Uni trailblazers in melanin infused electronics

  The natural pigment, melanin, which endows humans and animals eye, skin and hair colour is set to be the driving force behind a new generation of bio-powered gadgets.

  Science 29 03:32

• Lego Batman 2: DC Super Heroes

  Gotham bricky

  The only Batman I have ever cared about is the cynical desperate anti-hero of Frank Miller's The Dark Night Returns but Lego Batman 2: DC Super Heroes may have just changed my mind.

  Games 29 07:00

• Free tool inspects all your personal 'ware automatically

  Can't tell your wife you're doing updates any more

  Secunia has taken the wraps off a new version of its consumer patch management tool, Secunia Personal Software Inspector (PSI) version 3.0.

  Security 29 07:17

• DataCore orchestra tunes up for the Ninth SANsymphony

  Thats SANsymphony, not sans symphony

  DataCore has pushed out its ninth SANsymphony release, which is orchestrated for the cloud, large data centre deployments, and storage-as-a-service.

  Storage 29 07:38

• The Open Rights Group gets rights wrong again

  Defender of parody is becoming a self-parody

  When Open Rights Group executive director Jim Killock opens his mouth, his foot soon disappears inside. The UK's leading digital rights advocate has just demonstrated still more difficulty understanding the "rights" the group campaigns about.

  Media 29 08:00

• UK spectrum row: What we need is more national disasters

  Only that way will there be proper emergency comms

  The problem with UK radio spectrum policy, apparently, is that we have too much competition and not enough proper disasters, which means our emergency services won't get enough radio spectrum until people start dying.

  Broadband 29 08:14

• PS3 fans buy more digital content than Xbox buffs do

  Sony supporters splash out

  British PS3 owners are more willing to splash the cash on digital content than their Xbox 360 counterparts, it has been claimed.

  Games 29 08:22

• 'Backing out of a failed update really ought to be a trivial matter...'

  Plus: 'I'm not panicking AT ALL about Surface. No'

  This was the week when there was an almighty tech disaster at RBS and Natwest that froze millions out of their bank accounts. Stories abounded of houses lost because sales hadn't gone through, people stuck in prison because their bail hadn't been paid and legions of folks just plain old p***ed off because they couldn't put their hands on their own money.

  Business 29 08:30

• BPM today, tomorrow and beyond

  Embrace and evolve

  Are you tough enough to take on Business Process Management (BPM) and win? Someone has to. It has never been more important to handle workflow efficiently.

  Business 29 08:40

• Teleconferencing 'shifts hundreds of NHS bed-blockers out the door'

  Virtual meeting re-ablement triumph saves £150m

  The Whittington hospital NHS trust is speeding its discharge rates and saving about £150,000 a year by using teleconferencing, according to Jar O'Brien, team leader for Islington's community rehabilitation services.

  Government 29 08:47

• Nexus 7 and Surface: A bonanza for landfill miners

  The fish aren't going to get on the bicycles

  It would be charitable (that is, untrue) to call the consumer electronics strategies of Microsoft and Google coherent today. But what they lack in coherence they make up for in er, … sheer recklessness. That's OK, then.

  Hardware 29 08:56

• Half-Life 3 concept art leaves fans wanting more

  Valve gets sketchy

  Concept art for Half-Life 3 has leaked onto the web, whetting fans appetites for what might be in store if Valve ever releases the long-awaited followup.

  Games 29 09:10

• Join the gov consultation on net porn ... and have your identity revealed

  Tick 'confidential' if you like: it means simply nothing

  A parental internet controls consultation document released by the Department for Education yesterday is currently exposing the email addresses, unencrypted passwords and sensitive answers of members of the public who fill in the associated form.

  Security 29 09:14

• Reg hack attempts gutsiest expenses claim EVER

  Napkin hieroglyphs leave top beancounter ROFLing in tears

  We're certain that plenty of Reg readers have at one time or another been given short shrift by the company finance department for presenting a dodgy receipt as part of an expenses claim.

  Bootnotes 29 09:28

• Vodafone to let you roam in Europe at UK prices

  Plus, of course, a small daily consideration

  New European Commission-imposed EU mobile data roaming price regulations kick in on Sunday, and Vodafone has announced a modification of its European roaming package.

  Mobile 29 09:41

• First lady taikonaut and pals plunge into the dirt after space mating

  Smack down after withdrawing from Heavenly Palace

  The three taikonauts aboard Shenzhou-9 have returned safely to Earth, touching down in northern China's Inner Mongolia autonomous region as planned.

  Science 29 09:43

• B&O Beoplay A3

  iPad entertainment centre

  Stick an iPad in B&O’s Beoplay A3, take a step or two back and look at it square on. It looks like a mini B&O TV. Put it down on a kitchen worktop or office shelf and you have a video player or jukebox capable of producing rich, full-bodied audio which does iPad far more justice than its own tiny speaker.

  Hardware 29 10:00

• Open-source password keeper to get 'minor' weekend security fix

  You'd need to make several dumbass moves to get bitten

  The developer of KeePass, the popular open-source password management utility, has promised an update this weekend following the discovery of a "minor" security bug in the tool.

  Security 29 10:14

• Apple patent may foretell an end to iPhone autocorrect Tourette's

  Intriguing new special asshole filing

  An Apple patent application just published by the US Patent Office shows that the masterminds of Cupertino have figured out (or hope to figure out) a cunning way to work out what words you're going to tap into your little Jesus mobe before you type it.

  Applications 29 10:31

• Governments probe domain land-snatch: many.gTLDs.suck

  Patagonia? You mean that's a place?

  Governments have started to put ICANN's massive top-level domain name expansion under scrutiny, after the revelation of 1,930 applications for new naming suffixes two weeks ago.

  Hosting 29 10:48

• Dimming the lights on smart(arse) TV

  When consumer devices go bzzzt

  "The TV has stopped working."

  Hardware 29 11:00

• Just how do you build the perfect Olympic stadium?

  What have the Romans ever done for us....

  On 27 July, London will be transformed as the biggest celebration of sports in the world kicks off in the newly built Olympic Stadium in Stratford.

  Science 29 11:15

• BMW, Toyota to build fuel cells for sports cars

  Next-gen e-car tech partnership struck

  BMW and Toyota are to work together on the development of fuel cell and electric powertrains, the two automotive giants said today.

  Science 29 11:19

• Android Jelly Bean won't get Flash Player

  Never mind, there's lots of HTML5 porn content now

  As part of the slow death of Adobe's Flash Player, the company has announced it won't be making a certified version for Android's new 4.1 OS – aka Jelly Bean.

  Operating Systems 29 11:38

• War On Standby: Do the figures actually stack up?

  Will you stop turning the TV off at the wall

  The War On Standby rumbles on: this week, courtesy of the UK government and "third sector" quangocracy, we heard yet again that gadgets left on standby suck vast, planet-wrecking, expensive amounts of energy from our electricity sockets.

  Science 29 12:00

• Ultrabook demand soars Stateside

  But they're still a tiny percentage of the market

  That Ultrabooks have grabbed almost 11 per cent of the $700-and-up Windows notebook market in the US during the first five months of the year sounds impressive, until you realise how small that market segment is.

  Laptops 29 12:08

• Tsinghua, NUDT flatten rivals in ISC cluster smackdown

  Teraflop barrier busted across the board

  The 2012 ISC Student Cluster Challenge ended last week, and it’s high time we take a look at the winners, the awards and some of the results.

  HPC 29 12:29

• Resellers: Cloud is BIG, but it's a sales commission minefield

  Maybe that's why market has been slow to pick up?

  We’ve all read about how cloud computing is "more than just a buzzword" or a passing phase. And we’re all well-versed in selling the benefits of cloud and managed services in terms of cost-savings, flexibility, managing complex tasks and only paying for what you use.

  The Channel 29 12:38

• Chrome hits iPhone and iPad, storms to top of download chart

  Google slips new tentacle into fanbois' walled garden

  Google's new Chrome browser for iOS has stormed the iTunes download charts - hitting the top spot for free apps worldwide. Announced at a dev meeting yesterday, the mobile browser was quietly released in Apple's App Store on 26 June.

  Phones 29 12:43

• Gouged by cloud - but it's so convenient

  Last to know, first to pay

  Most everyone believes that cloud computing is taking off in a big way. Finding agreement on why it's booming is a bit more problematic. The issue becomes particularly nettlesome for private cloud adoption, which is either heavily driven by public cloud cost management... or the exact opposite, depending on whom you ask.

  Cloud 29 13:00

• Do you work in IT at RBS? Or at the next place to get hit ...?

  Here's a handy guide to riding out the storm

  Those nice people at RBS have provided me with a worked example for how you can best get through fan-hitting situations without having to take up minicab driving or going to work in local government.

  Jobs 29 13:15

• Apple's Mountain Lion to offer automatic security updates

  Crikey - now there's a thought

  Apple is building in automatic update checking into the next version of Mac OS X – Mountain Lion.

  Security 29 13:27

• HPC cloud belches from top UK universities

  Rent yourself a rack at the (tera)FLOPhouse

  At last, one can rent tens of thousands of cores-worth of HPC teraFLOPS on demand from an HPC cloud.

  Cloud 29 14:02

• Ethiopia: we are not jailing Skype users

  Western media 'mistaken'

  The Ethiopian government has refuted reports that anyone caught using Skype in the country will go to jail. It insists the claims publicised by western media are completely groundless.

  Phones 29 14:02

• Berkshire bigboy 2e2 in the pink - apart from crushing debt burden

  Amphibious workforce gets its feet wet

  Integrator 2e2 recorded steep losses in calendar 2011 caused by crippling interest repayments, discontinued operations and restructuring costs, but despite all this, some progress was made in the underlying operations.

  The Channel 29 14:14

• Mad fan-fitted mouse keeps mitts moisture-free

  Play for hours, no sweat

  Suffer from excessively sweaty palms when you're gaming on your PC? Accessory maker Thermaltake has a - rather bizarre, IMHO - answer: a mouse with its own tiny clip-on fan.

  Hardware 29 14:23

• Stratfor settles class-action over Anon megahack with freebies

  You want fries with that bucket-o-geopolitical-intel?

  Stratfor has agreed to forgo $1.75m in income to settle a class action lawsuit arising from a high-profile hack by hacktivist group Anonymous against the global intelligence firm's systems last December.

  Security 29 14:31

• Behold: Today marks Year Five of the iPhone Era

  Fire. The Wheel. Steam engines. Just trinkets

  Apple has been credited with the first smartphone, with creating the mobile application business and pioneering touch interfacing. None of these things are true: but actually the launch of the iPhone, five years ago, was a much bigger revolution than that.

  Phones 29 15:00

• IBM chiefs order pay freeze at US services tentacle

  Big Blue shivers - rumours that even bosses will be hit

  The employees at the Global Technology Services unit of Big Blue got some unwelcome but probably not unexpected news that there would not be a broad-based salary increase at the unit this year. There are also reports that IBM has frozen salaries of higher-level executives across the company, which the company has not confirmed.

  Management 29 15:29

• Gov IT buying body: Mega hardware gig to save £6.5m in 2013

  Margins driven to the bone, claims GPS

  The forthcoming mega IT Hardware & Services public sector framework is expected to yield savings of £6.5m this year, according to Government Procurement Services (GPS).

  The Channel 29 15:37

• Capita ITS asks to-be-axed staffers to pose for marketing pic

  Want to present realistic image of company

  Capita IT Services staff waiting to hear if they have a future at the integrator-cum-reseller have been invited to attend a photo shoot to be used in marketing material.

  The Channel 29 15:41

• Jaw-jaw no more-more as calls fall down tally of phone tasks

  Talk to people on it? Don't make me laugh

  You think phones are for making calls? No longer, if a poll conducted by O2 is anything to go by. Talking to people is not even in the top three activities folk spend most time doing on their handsets.

  Phones 29 15:48

• Two weeks 'til the internet disappears, for 58 Fortune 500 companies

  Stand by for 4 per cent of the US gov to go dark, too

  Even though the DNSChanger safety net deadline expires in just two weeks, 12 per cent of Fortune 500 firms still have at least one infected machine on their network, according to a new survey.

  Security 29 15:52

• Mac-based Trojan targets Uyghur activists

  Human rights attacked online

  Security researchers have intercepted a Mac-based Trojan attack targeting Uyghur human rights activists.

  Security 29 16:27

• Apple hardware fixer Bob Mansfield retires from Cupertino

  Walks away from fortune in share options

  Bob Mansfield, Apple's senior vice president of hardware engineering, has announced his retirement from the company after 13 years in situ, and it seems he's also walking away from tens of millions in unclaimed share options.

  Business 29 19:58

• Texan team paints batteries onto beer steins

  Flexible future power storage in the offing

  Researchers in Texas have discovered a way to break down the components of a battery into liquid form and paint power cells onto everyday objects.

  Science 29 21:55

• ↑ June 2012
• ← 28th June 2012
• 30th June 2012 →