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Googorola now shipping 100,000 Moto X phones a week... from TEXAS
Motorola is now shipping 100,000 of its flagship Moto X phones a week from its factory near Dallas, Texas.
Chief exec Dennis Woodside said in an interview that the Texas manufacturing facility, operated by contractor Flextronics, was capable of producing tens of millions of phones a year, but expansion would depend on demand.
" …
Fancy a new iPhone 5C or 5S? READ THIS or you may not get 4G data
Apple might have launched two new iPhone models on Tuesday, but it launched 10 different variants as Cupertino struggles to cope with the hugely fragmented 4G market.
Where a GSM phone might be dual-band or the frequent flyer might shell out for a quad-band handset, Apple's latest phones each come in five variants: two hendeca- …
Virgin Media gives TiVo users access to Netflix
Virgin Media is planning to let Netflix subscribers watch the video-on-demand service through their set-top TiVo boxes.
The cable company announced that the Netflix app would be coming to 1.7 million TiVo homes this year, starting with a pilot rollout this week. Around 40,000 customers have been chosen for the pilot scheme, …
Should Nominet ban .uk domains that use paedo and crim-friendly words?
Nominet - currently pushing its plan to let people shell out for .uk web domains without the .co, .org and other second-level labels - now wants to know if certain words should be banned from any .uk registrations.
In July, the UK domain registry once again pushed to unleash a tidal wave of second-level domain names on the web; …
Telstra's Thodey is NBN kingmaker after Oz election
With Saturday's emphatic election result putting almost certain to put Malcolm Turnbull into the communications ministry, the business of rejigging the National Broadband Network is about to begin in earnest.
Step one, once Turnbull assumes the ministry, will be a promised “100 day” review of the NBN. This will presumably …
Ofcom set to fatten up London's White Space TV spectrum
Next year Londoners will get access to 72MHz of unlicensed radio spectrum, all in the prime sub-1GHz band, as Ofcom prepares to open the TV airwaves to anyone with a database handy.
Ofcom's new consultation on opening up White Space frequencies shows London as the biggest winner thanks to the presence of the Crystal Palace …
BAN THIS SICK FILCH: Which? demands end to £1.50-per-min 'help' lines
Consumer campaigners at Which? are calling for a ban on costly helpline and customer call-lines.
Executive director Richard Lloyd said it was "outrageous" to force people with questions or complaints to call higher-rate numbers - such as those starting with 09, 0845, 0844, and 0871 - that could charge up to £1.50 a minute.
"It' …
Facebook postpones privacy putsch: report
Facebook will wait a little while before adopting changes to its privacy policy flagged last month.
The Los Angeles Times reports that in response to hostile reaction from users The Social Network will hold off introducing new “features” that would have allowed it to use members' faces in advertisements.
Users greatly dislike …
Ofcom launches idiot's guide to traffic-shaping
UK net regulator Ofcom has published an idiots' guide to traffic shaping to try to encourage people to see how wonderful it is ahead of the inevitable battle over net neutrality.
Starting with a history of the internet, the document (PDF, as silly as it sounds) explains that in the early days there wasn't any congestion – …
Three used cheap deal to lure me into buying expensive slab, chap tells ASA
UK mobile network Three has been rapped for touting a tablet computer that customers couldn't actually buy – and then, having got the interested punters on the phone, tried flogging them a more expensive slab instead.
One outraged man told the advertising watchdog that an ad on Three's website stated that the operator's online …
China, India the key to Micr-okia's fate says IDC
The mega-markets of China and India, and more broadly the rest of the Asia Pacific region, will be key to Microsoft’s success in the handset space with its newly acquired Nokia assets, according to analyst IDC.
China is the number one market for Lumia shipments, with India in second, Vietnam in eighth and Thailand tenth globally …
Canon climbs atop Facebook with over-the-top pic wrangler
TechEd Australia Having built numerous services over the top of what used to just be the World Wide Web, Facebook is now the established platform for plenty of applications. So it pretty much had to happen that someone would find a way to create services that clamber over The Social NetworkTM to subject it to some OTT pain.
That's what Canon …
Deloitte research says NBN a winner for households
As Australia races towards a federal election likely to kill off the country's current model for a national broadband network, the (probably) outgoing government has released a report saying the annual value of the network to households will be in the order of $AU3,800.
The study, by Deloitte Access Economics, suggests that most …
Vodafone, can you get a signal at the top of your $130bn Verizon cash pile?
Verizon will buy out its UK partner Vodafone from their US joint-venture Verizon Wireless for $130bn, as expected.
But rather than pocketing or spending the cash after years of negotiations, Voda will hand most of it over to its shareholders and nothing at all to the UK taxman.
The deal - one of the biggest in corporate history …
TiVo dives into pile of cash, steely eyed investors don't blink
Analysis TiVo came out with its strongest set of figures this week, including underlying TiVo service subscribers, as well as bundling in the results of its patents settlements with Cisco and Motorola, and yet its enterprise value could not be lower, showing that investors still have no confidence in its long-term business.
TiVo has over …
ICANN destroys Google's dotless domain dream
Google's dream of “dotless domains”, already on the receiving end of a firm ”no” from the Internet Architecture Board (IAB), has been killed off by the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN).
Dotless domains would allow web addresses like “http://search”, but would be tricky to implement without DNS jiggery …
Telstra, Moto in lead for $AU450m-plus wireless contract
Telstra and Motorola have been named as the preferred tenderers for a major refresh of the Queensland Government's public safety networks.
Over the 15 year life of the contract, the government expects the network to cost $AU457.3 million, with the first $AU56.7 million allocated this year to get coverage in Brisbane, the Gold …
Nokia drives cars into the clouds: Hear HERE, you're here, hear?
Nokia will assault car manufacturers next week, using the International Motor Show to launch HERE Auto, an updated platform intended to carve Nokia a home in the dashboard.
The Finnish phone-maker will be adding an improved platform for car manufacturers willing to embed its technology – one which comes with live traffic …
Level 3 starts round 2 of layoffs: 60 UK workers to lose jobs
Major internet network operator Level 3 Communications will be axing 60 people in the UK – amounting to five per cent of its British workforce. Altogether, 700 L3 workers are being axed worldwide.
Sources told The Register that the company had failed to hit its targets in Europe and the UK and that customer satisfaction with …
China stuffs rag in mouth of biz-rumour web ring
A Chinese clampdown on online rumour-mongers has netted 27 staff at Shui Jun Shi Wan, a firm which specialises in seeding stories across its microblogging network of 220 million followers.
Spreading false rumours is illegal in China, but has been big business for companies like Shui Jun Shi Wan, which hired out its Sina Weibo ( …
China: Forget running water, bumpkins. Have some lovely broadband
The Chinese government has pledged to provide nationwide broadband coverage by 2020, an ambitious goal which should see significant extra investment in all kinds of networks, both wired and wireless, in order to reach the country’s vast rural areas.
This will almost certainly change the global supply ecosystem for all types of …
Punter strikes back at cold callers - by charging THEM to call HIM
Two years ago Lee Beaumont, fed up of receiving daily phonecalls from telemarketing agencies, connected his home landline to a premium rate phone number and started cashing in on cold callers - covering his costs in less than two months.
Beaumont splashed out £12 on an 0871 premium rate phone number, which he promptly gave to …
Steelie Neelie accused of killing €0.01-per-megabyte roaming fee cap in Europe
EU Commissioner Neelie Kroes has reportedly dropped her plan to dramatically slash wholesale mobile roaming fees, a move that could have helped drive down Europeans' phone bills.
In a fresh draft proposal for the future of telecoms on the Continent, seen by Reuters this week, Steelie Neelie did not mention the caps on charges as …
Vodafone mulls $100bn Verizon stake sale - now about that $10bn tax bill...
Vodafone is back in talks with Verizon about selling its 45 per cent stake of Verizon Wireless, US's biggest mobile network operator.
Today Voda "confirmed press speculation" that negotiations on selling out are back on. But it won't comment on the Wall Street Journal's claim that Verizon has come up with a way for Voda to …
ACCC told cable nets should offer wholesale
A submission to the ACCC's fixed line services declaration review has re-ignited an ancient debate about whether the regulator should pry open Telstra's and Optus' HFC cables.
While there's no technical reason wholesale broadband services can't be offered over HFC, retailer interest has been so muted that the competition …
Three axes data-roaming fees in SEVEN countries
Mobe operator Three has abolished roaming charges. Well, in seven countries, at least, and only on calls and texts sent homeward bound.
All Three customers who travel to Australia, Austria, Denmark, Hong Kong, Italy, the Republic of Ireland or Sweden will be able to make calls to Blighty, send texts to the UK and – crucially – …
Eggheads turn Motorola feature phone into CITYWIDE GSM jammer
Berlin boffins have spotted a procedural flaw in the long-lived GSM protocol and created an exploit around it which can knock out a mobile network or even target an individual subscriber in the same city.
The exploit, presented at the 22nd USENIX Security Symposium last week, takes advantage of the fact that GSM lets phones …
Boffins' keyboard ELECTROCUTES Facebook addicts
Cunning MIT student boffins have come up with something marvellous: a keyboard that sends a jolt of electricity into those who spend too much time on Facebook.
The Pavlov Poke is the brainchild of MIT PhD candidates Robert R. Morris and Daniel McDuff, who are trying to complete their dissertations but find obsessive Facebook is …
Intel: Our new mobile chip SoCs it to its predecessor
Hot Chips Intel has released more details about its upcoming Clovertrail+ system-on-chip (SoC) platform for smartphones, and its enhancements appear to provide a big ol' boost above and beyond the company's current smartphone chip-wannabe, Medfield.
During a Monday morning session at the at the Hot Chips conference at Stanford University …
Good Tech: Windows is as secure as a rooted Android mobe
The world's not so far away from asking “why can't our laptops be as secure as our mobiles?”, according to Good Technology's John Herrema.
Visiting Australia last week for the Gartner Security and Risk Management Summit, Herrema told The Register it's time to challenge the idea that mobiles are intrinsically less secure than …
Amazon spaffs MYSTERY private Wi-Fi waves all over Apple's orchard
Amazon has been testing its own radio network, seeing if Globalstar's private Wi-Fi technology fits the Amazon business model, and if customers would pay for better wireless networking.
The news comes from the usual "people with knowledge" who've been talking to Bloomberg about Amazon building a test network in Apple's home town …
Google testing 'Helpouts' video support service
Google has started testing “Helpouts”, a new service that it says is “a new way to connect people who need help with people who can give help, over live video, anytime, anywhere.”
The Chocolate Factory's public Helpouts sub-site doesn't offer a lot of data, but the support section does, suggesting it will be possible to make …
China's Baidu builds new type of App Store
Chinese web giant Baidu has unveiled Light App – a new distribution model for mobile applications which could eventually help international developers to better promote their wares in the world’s biggest smartphone market.
Unveiled at the firm’s annual Baidu World event on Thursday, the new system was conceived as a way for …
Nokia's PHAB-ULOUS comeback attempt: Huge WinPho 8 mobe rumoured
Nokia plans to join the phone-cum-tablet "phablet" craze from next month to add to its Lumia line-up.
Sources whispered to Reuters that the Finnish goliath's engineers have created more than one new device for a launch in late September.
The new kit will include a thin phablet - a phone with a screen more than five inches …
No signal in Seascale? Countryside Alliance wants to hook you up
Taking a break from the promotion of bloodsports, rural campaign group the Countryside Alliance is looking for help mapping mobile phone not-spots in the hope of embarrassing operators into filling them.
The wax-jacket-wearing organisation is asking those who care about rural mobile coverage to install Root Metrics on their …
Reg hack battles Margaret Thatcher's ghost to bring broadband to the Highlands
Scottish broadband remains an elusive dream for many, despite the money being poured into BT's coffers, but pigeonhole a Reg reporter and you might just get lucky.
That's what Ronny did. He grabbed your correspondent at a ward meeting where reps from Community Broadband Scotland were polling householders for their opinions – to …
Zuckerberg: I want the WHOLE WORLD in my hands
Comment Mark Zuckerberg's altruistic finger is twitching just as usage of his free content ad network appears to have plateaued.
In a post on his personal Facebook account, Zuck asked: "Is connectivity a human right?"
He thinks the answer to that question is "yes" and the copper-haired, flip-flop-wearing billionaire wants to work with …
Essential maintenance website down for, er, essential maintenance
B&Q won't let you do things for yourself at the moment, since its website, diy.com, has collapsed, presumably under the weight of pre-bank holiday DIYers.
The site is unavailable "due to essential maintenance", rather ironically, according to its landing page. Oddly enough, no-one on Twitter seems to have noticed that the site …
New BT chief gets keys to copper-encrusted door next month
BT's incoming chief exec Gavin Patterson will formally take the reins on 10 September, the telecoms giant confirmed to the City this morning.
He will replace current boss Ian Livingston, who surprisingly resigned from his job in June after Prime Minister David Cameron poached him for a front-bench trade and investment role in …
Microsoft announces execution date for failed QR code-killer
Microsoft Tag, Redmond's alternative to the QR Code which never took off, is scheduled to die on 19 August, 2015, following Old Yeller out behind the cowshed.
Launched just over three years ago, the Microsoft Tag is a proprietary version of a QR Code with some additional functionality and better colours. As QR Codes resolutely …
LinkedIn lowers age of consent to 13
LinkedIn, generally regarded as the premier social network for grown ups with jobs, has decided 13 year olds are now welcome as members.
The reason is a new creation called “University Pages” that LinkedIn feels “will be especially valuable for students making their first, big decision about where to attend college.”
As of …
IiNet creates cut-price diffusion brand 'Jiva'
iiNet has launched what looks an awful lot like the telephony market's equivalent of a budget airline.
Dubbed “Jiva”, the product is simple: “For $AUD79 per month on a 24-month plan, Jiva customers will get an ADSL2+ broadband connection, unlimited broadband data, all local and national landline calls, and a wireless modem.” All …
