Articles about Cgi
The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies – Thin plot, great CGI effects
Film review
Peter Jackson returns to Middle Earth to eke out the last of his money-making franchise over the space of 144 minutes. Sadly, it's a shameless cash-in.
Don't get me wrong, I loved the Lord of the Rings films, but the decision to extend The Hobbit out over three instalments always smacked of profiteering. Sadly this last film …
Former Gov.UK sweetheart Logica evaporates after CGI swills it down
CGI's completion of its acquisition of Logica will see the departure of the company from the Stock Exchange at the end of this week and effectively the end of the Logica brand.
CGI recently announced that it has completed the £1.7bn acquisition after Logica shareholders voted 99.54% in favour of CGI's offer at a shareholders …
CGI Group beds Logica in £1.7bn cash deal
Anglo-Dutch tech group Logica is being scooped up by Canada's CGI Group in a £1.7bn cash deal.
The acquisition, expected to complete in September this year, was agreed by the European wing of IT outsourcing company CGI.
Shares in Reading-headquartered Logica rocketed more than 60 per cent following the news, with an opening …
London CGI firm scores DON'T-HIT-the-PEDESTRIAN test contract
The Driving Standards Agency (DSA) has awarded animation firm Jelly a contract for CGI technology.
DSA said it met with the SME last October to identify new technologies that could be used to refresh its hazard perception test. The agency started a formal procurement process in January and two early examples of CGI clips were …
PHP devs lob second patch at super-critical CGI bug
The developers of PHP have released updates to thwart fresh attacks against systems that use the scripting language to dynamically generate web pages.
All users are encouraged to upgrade to PHP 5.4.3 or PHP 5.3.13, as appropriate, after a serious security bug in PHP-CGI-based setups was disclosed. Developers attempted to fix …
Pension quango's £18.5m project FINALLY goes live... 2 months late
Exclusive
An £18.5m project carried out on behalf of the UK's Pension Protection Fund (PPF) has finally gone live - two months late.
A comprehensive IT infrastructure overhaul and modernisation of hardware and software was due to be installed and running by 28 February. However, The Register has learned that CGI missed both the February …
Classic telly FX tech: How the Tardis flew before the CGI era
Doctor Who @ 50
These days it’s all done with computers, of course.
CGI – short for Computer-Generated Images, or Imagery – was a well established visual effects technique long before Doctor Who was rebooted in 2005, so it was never in doubt that on-set mechanical effects would be duly combined with CGI visuals during post-production. Both the …
Belkin flings out patch after Metasploit module turns guests to admins
Belkin has patched a vulnerability in a dual band router that allowed attackers on guest networks to gain root access using an automated tool.
The flaw reported overnight targeted the Belkin N750 dual-band router – which was launched in 2011 and is still sold by the company and other commerce sites.
IntegrityPT consultant Marco …
Bob the Builder slapped with CGI rendering
Fans of traditional stop-motion animation and whose kids have been raised on Bob the Builder may wish to lament the forthcoming Heavy Duty Diggers outing for Bob, delivered in "full-power CGI".
According to Home Media Magazine, the DVD features "five episodes of the new, computer-generated Bob and friends... following them hard …
Britain's HUMAN DNA-strewing Moon mission rakes in £200k
The UK-backed attempt to crowdfund a mission to the Moon has got off to a roaring start, raising over a third of its £600,000 goal in just three days.
CGI image of Lunar Mission One on the Moon
Lunar Mission One, which wants to get a new lander on the Moon in 2024 to give the space rock a deep drilling (and drop off some …
Not really very live at all from London - It's the Vulture News videocast
Vid
Youtube Video
Here it is! The debut of inestimable news anchor Regina Eggbert - bringing you the top headlines of this week in a style that only The Reg would approve of, generated by our pioneering inhouse lean-CGI technology.
The full story behind Regina's headlines this week can be found here, here, here and here. ® …
Bash bug: Shellshocked yet? You will be ... when this goes WORM
Much of the impact of the Shellshock vulnerability is unknown and will surface in the coming months as researchers, admins and attackers (natch) find new avenues of exploitation.
The vulnerability, called Shellshock by researcher Robert Graham, existed in the Bash command interpreter up to version 4.3 and affected scores of …
Report: Prez Obama kicks Healthcare.gov contractor to curb for web disaster
The Obama administration has reportedly patted CGI Federal on the back, forced it to pick up its various toys, and led it away from the fail-filled Healthcare.gov site it created and subsequently tried to repair.
It's not usually this easy to get out of procurement contracts, but per the Washington Post, which made the claims …
MoJ hands £125m to outsourcing giant Atos
The Ministry of Justice (MoJ) has handed a £125m five-year contract for End User Computing (EUC) services to outsourcer Atos.
The deal includes PCs, fondleslabs and related software, peripherals, storage, services, training and management across 2,300 MoJ sites.
It forms one of the last components of the department's Future IT …
HUMAN HAIR will soon be FOUND on MOON: Brit 'nauts aim for SPAAAACE
Blighty-backed moonshot Lunar Mission One has managed to hit its Kickstarter goal of £600,000 in crowdfunding, just a day and a half ahead of the cut-off point.
After a fast-paced start, helped by media coverage and endorsements from the likes of celebrity rockstar physicist Brian Cox, raised £200,000 in three days, things …
Patch Bash NOW: 'Shellshock' bug blasts OS X, Linux systems wide open
Updated
A bug discovered in the widely used Bash command interpreter poses a critical security risk to Unix and Linux systems – and, thanks to their ubiquity, the internet at large.
It lands countless websites, servers, PCs, OS X Macs, various home routers, and more, in danger of hijacking by hackers.
The vulnerability is present in …
ICANN creates 'UN Security Council for the internet', installs itself as a permanent member
In the same week that the United Nations finally gave up trying to grab control of the internet, a group of three organizations led by domain-name overseer ICANN have launched an effort to become the internet's UN.
The "NetMundial Initiative" will be an "open source platform" and a "shared public resource" that will enable " …
HUMAN DNA 'will be FOUND ON MOON' – rockin' boffin Brian Cox
A UK nonprofit, funded via Kickstarter – and endorsed by famous rockstar TV boffin Brian Cox – aims to land a robot probe (a probot, as some call them) on the Moon: one with an unusual purpose.
And the team is sure that if the mission is a success, there will be human DNA at the site.
CGI image of Lunar Mission One on the Moon …
UK Cabinet Office's £200m IT bonanza: I got 999 contracts but a pitch ain't won (yet)
The UK government is seeking as many as 999 firms to provide a raft of tech services across the public sector, according to a contract notice in the Official Journal of the European Union.
The Cabinet Office, acting via government procurement body Crown Commercial Services, is splitting the Technology Services framework into 11 …
IPMI in Supermicro servers vulnerable says HD Moore
Metasploit's HD Moore is gnawing at the security of the The Intelligent Platform Management Interface (IPMI) again, this time zeroing in on the firmware implementation from vendor Supermicro.
Moore had looked at IPMI in general in July, at which time he pointed to vulnerabilities in Supermicro's uPNP implementation.
His latest …
ICANN and co U-turn on permanent seats for 'net 'UN Security Council'
The people behind a plan to create a sort-of UN Security Council for the internet have backed down from giving themselves permanent seats on the panel.
Domain-names overlord ICANN, the World Economic Forum (WEF) and Brazilian internet body CGI.br – which are behind what's called the NetMundial Initiative – announced the …
Deckchairs shifted aboard tech liner HP's services biz
An EMEA-wide overhaul dreamed up by HP execs to lift the fortunes of the Enterprise Services division — and cut out costs — will be implemented in time for the fiscal New Year starting next month.
Under the new-look biz, ES has consolidated from nine sub-regions into four ‘super’ clusters including North (Benelux and Nordics), …
Split could force NetMundial Initiative back to the drawing board
The controversial NetMundial Initiative (NMI) may be heading back to the drawing board following a meeting of the internet's big cheeses in Washington last week.
Following a "very constructive, frank, and candid discussion" between ICANN, the Internet Society (ISoc), Internet Architecture Board (IAB) and Internet Engineering …
Stunned by Shellshock Bash bug? Patch all you can – or be punished
Updated
The UK's privacy watchdog is urging organisations to protect their systems against the infamous Shellshock vulnerability in Bash – even though the full scope of the security bug remains unclear.
The Shellshock flaw affects Bash up to and including version 4.3. It's a vital component of many Linux and Unix systems, as well as …
Internet Society slams online 'UN Security Council' plan, snubs permanent seat offer
The Internet Society has blasted efforts from some quarters to create a "UN Security Council" for the internet – which would rule over the online world.
The society (ISoc) is a non-profit organization that, among other things, runs the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF), which develops and publishes crucial internet's …
CGI Thunderbirds sadly not go
Thunderbirds creator Gerry Anderson says ITV has pretty well scuppered his plans to offer a CGI remake of the classic series - despite his insistence he can raise the £15m needed to bring the Tracy family back to the screen.
Gerry Anderson and Lady Penelope. Pic: BBC Anderson, 80, told the Daily Mail he's engaged in "a bitter …
Internet governance group pushes on without, er, internet organizations
The controversial internet governance group NetMundial has rejected calls to delay the creation of its "coordination council" – and launched without the support of the technical community nor the International Chamber of Commerce.
NetMundial was born out of a meeting in April between the governments of Brazil, Russia, China, …
Hackers thrash Bash Shellshock bug: World races to cover hole
Sysadmins and users have been urged to patch the severe Shellshock vulnerability in Bash on Linux and Unix systems – as hackers ruthlessly exploit the flaw to compromise or crash computers.
But as "millions" of servers, PCs and devices lay vulnerable or are being updated, it's emerged the fix is incomplete.
The flaw affects the …
James Bond doesn't do CGI: Inside 007's amazing real-world action
Bond on Film
The Aston Martin; a martini, shaken not stirred; the Walther PPK; cool one-liners. These are the four elements of the James Bond films that have become established in our collective psyche as trademarks of Ian Fleming’s secret agent.
But there’s something else that’s also become a Bond trademark, and transformed what could have …
Bad boy builds beastly Bash bug botnet, boxen battered
Mere hours after its discovery, the Shell Shock Bash vulnerability was exploited by an attacker to build a botnet.
The bot was discovered by researcher known as Yinette, who reported it on her Github account and said it appeared to be remotely controlled by miscreants.
Rapid 7 researcher Jen Ellis noted in a blog the discovery …
Internet cash-point boss says 'no thanks' to ICANN's web power grab
Internet Society CEO Kathy Brown has rebuffed efforts to get her onside a controversial new body that plans to steer the internet.
Despite a series of private meetings with the ICANN-backed NetMundial Initiative (NMI), Brown noted in a blog post on Monday: "It is fair to say that issues, including the need for the NMI Council, …
Researcher details nasty XSS flaw in popular web editor
A tool that's popular with Microsoft's in-house developers, the RadEditor HTML editor, contains a dangerous cross-site scripting (XSS) vulnerability, researcher GS McNamara says.
The editor was developed by Telerik and used in trusted in-house code in many big enterprises and across Redmond products including MSDN, CodePlex, …
Cameras leak credentials, live video
D-Link and Vivotek have submitted their entries for “dumbest security vulnerability of 2013”, with Core Security turning up a variety of daft bugs in their IP cameras, including hard-coded backdoor passwords.
The advisories are here for Vivotek and here for D-Link. D-Link has told Core Security it is preparing a fix, but the …
'I'm begging you to join' – ICANN's NetMundial Initiative gets desperate
Plans to create a new internet governance body have grown increasingly desperate … and confusing.
A conference call [MP3] between the organizers of the "NetMundial Initiative" and business organization the International Chamber of Commerce (ICC) earlier this week saw ICANN's CEO Fadi Chehade pleading with the group to withdraw …
Yahoo servers? SHELLSHOCKED? by Bash?
Updated
Yahoo! said "a handful" of its servers fell to hackers who may have been trying to exploit the Shellshock vulnerability in Bash.
The miscreants took control of the web servers to build a botnet out of them, it is claimed.
"As soon as we became aware of the issue, we began patching our systems and have been closely monitoring …
'Cloned' CGI faces mimic people 'better than skilled actors'
Government-funded boffins have collaborated with others from famous movie industry labs to produce software which can "clone" a person's facial mannerisms. The cloned data can then be applied to a CGI head, either to let a computer masquerade as a real person or to enhance the realism of animated characters.
“Spoken words are …
CGI furnishes filmstar with fur
Film fans are reeling from the latest Sienna Miller outrage, as studio sources reveal that technical wizardry is bestowing upon the actress a CGI-merkin.
With the whole Getty-nabbing furore so totally 30 seconds ago, the world is now agog (or at least so her agent would no doubt prefer) for details of the post-production pelvis- …
The Register to boldly go where no Vulture has gone before: The WEEKEND
On the internet there are certain things you can be pretty sure of. Nubile young women lusting after you probably aren't (any of those things); free stuff almost certainly isn't free, and may not even be stuff; and after 5pm San Francisco time on Friday there probably won't be anything decent published on the Register until the …
El Reg spends One Night in Hell with Queen's Brian May
Pics
The sight of rock stars indulging their interests can sometimes leave onlookers feeling a little queasy – remember McCartney's fondness for Rupert Bear? No? Well let's not go there… However, Brian May, yes he of Queen fame, appeared at Dolby’s private Atmos cinema in London yesterday to tell of where one of his abiding passions …
Former BT and IBM GS president rocks up at Logicalis
Logicalis Group has brought in former Logica and BT exec Gary Bullard as CEO to replace outgoing boss Ian Cooke, who is set to retire from the role and become the firm's non-exec chairman.
The network integrator will usher in the new big cheese from next month as "CEO designate" but Cooke does not leave until 1 March.
The head …
MEDIC! Google, Oracle, Red Hat docs race to save crippled Healthcare.gov
Techies from Google, Red Hat, Oracle and other unnamed firms have parachuted in to fix the disastrous rollout of the United States' healthcare.gov website.
Google and Oracle confirmed on Thursday that staff have been deployed to help fix the healthcare marketplace's ongoing mega-bork, although Google stressed this is not a …
Tracy brothers are back: Thunderbirds Are Go! again in 5... 4... 3...
Brit television outfit ITV has announced the return of the Tracy family in Thunderbirds Are Go! - a fresh take on Gerry Anderson's classic puppet series promising "a whole new level of action-adventure animation for today's audience".
Out goes Supermarionation and in comes "CGI animation", although we're promised "live-action …
Ultimate Doctor Tom Baker REGENERATES, RETURNS to WHO
Doctor Who @ 50
Tom Baker is reportedly breaking his legendary Who hiatus to appear in tomorrow’s BBC TV special, the Day of the Doctor - marking Doctor Who’s 50th anniversary. And you'll be able to check El Reg tomorrow for coverage.
With his flowing scarf, 1970s ‘fro and pockets full of jelly babies, Baker left an iconic mark on the sci-fi …
London Tube has new stop at Azure Station
Microsoft has claimed that while the rest of the industry is falling for or projecting Internet of Things (IoT) hype, it is quietly delivering on the concept's promise right under many Reg readers' feet in the form of a new Azure-powered monitoring rig for the London Underground.
Speaking at a press event in Sydney today, …
MoD and tech, arms giants start super-duper cyber fight club
The UK Ministry of Defence has enlisted the help of nine weapons firms, tech companies and telcos to beef up the country's cyber defences and fend off hacking and other attacks.
The alliance, aptly named the Defence Cyber Protection Partnership (DCPP), will share intelligence on the threats that the government and firms are …
Microsoft follows Amazon in gaining critical US gov certification
Microsoft has gained a US federal government certification that makes it easier for agencies to buy cloud services from Redmond.
The company announced on Monday that the platform-as-a-service and infrastructure-as-a-service components of its Windows Azure cloud have been given a Joint Authorization Board (JAB) provisional …
Future imperfect: A UK broadband retrospective
Feature
It's astonishing how fast the world changes. It's not so long ago that my internet connection at home was a 64k KiloStream, with an ISDN line that was used for backup, or channel bonding if I wanted to download something at a whopping 128kbps. It was fearsomely expensive, but since I was writing about the net a lot back then, it …
Gold meddler: Doctor Who is 50 years old TODAY
Doctor Who @ 50
Doctor Who, the longest running sci-fi show on telly, is 50 years old TODAY.
The very first episode was broadcast just after a quarter past five on 23 November, 1963 - years before a fair few Reg readers were thought of let alone thrust a-wailing into the world.
It hasn’t been a continuous run. What fans now call the Classic …
Oracle spins-up public sector 'Cloud'
Oracle has fired up its big red branding machine and coated some of its software-as-a-service products with a cloud label as it tries to create a suite of tech for public-sector organizations.
Just as Amazon, Dell, and others have forged their own dedicated cloud services for the US public sector, so too has Oracle. But there's …
Sony and Panasonic plan 300GB Blu-Ray replacement for 2015
Sony and Panasonic have announced a partnership to develop a new format of optical storage disc for data archiving to replace Blu-Ray, and plan to get a 300GB disc in the market by the end of 2015.
In a canned statement the two companies said they had "a proven track record in developing Blu-ray Disc format technologies, and by …
