Top Twenty Stories

1. Google Chrome OS - do we want another monoculture?

   Microsoft ball breakers. Strings attached

   Yes, Google has open-sourced Chrome OS, its much-discussed browser-based operating system. But as usual, the open sourcing only says so much about its openness. After all, this isn't something you can load on any PC. And it's not much of an operating system. You can't load local applications - not even one. As part of its …

2. MS denies Win 7 backdoor rumours

   Oooh, spooky!

   Microsoft has once again denied rumours that it built a backdoor into Windows 7. Long standing conspiracy theories that Redmond outfits Windows with a covert entry point for law enforcement resurfaced after a senior National Security Agency (NSA) official told Congress it had worked with Redmond on the operating system. …

3. Filesharing laws to hit websites and newsgroups too

   Mandelson to 'future-proof' P2P restrictions

   The government is planning to award itself powers to change copyright law almost at will, in expectation that new anti-peer-to-peer laws will drive infringement to other services such as Rapidshare and newsgroups. The measure, which is the most severe contained in the Digital Economy Bill published today, will be interpreted …

4. MS discovers flaw in Google plug-in for IE

   Google whacked

   Microsoft has helped discover a flaw in the Google Chome Frame plug-in for Internet Explorer users. The plug-in allows suitably coded web pages to be displayed in Internet Explorer using the Google Chrome rendering engine. Redmond warned that the plug-in made IE less secure as soon as it became available back in September, an …

5. Ubuntu in truffle shuffle with Chrome OS

   'Sloth love Chunk'

   Ubuntu’s commercial sponsor Canonical revealed late yesterday that it has been working with Google on its Chrome OS platform since before Mountain View announced its game-changing plans in July this year. The firm’s OEM veep Chris Kenyon said in a blog post on Thursday that “Canonical is contributing engineering to Google …

6. Microsoft Silverlight - now with hidden Windows bias

   PDC So much for cross-platform

   Silverlight 4.0 was the big hit at Microsoft's Professional Developer Conference (PDC) this week. "I can see that Silverlight is the future of Windows client development" one attendee told me. The basis for this enthusiasm is an array of new features that resolve many of the frustrations discovered by developers working with …

7. US immigration dodge is permanent

   Global Entry forever

   Janet Napolitano, boss of US Homeland Security, is making the Global Entry system - a quicker way through customs and border control - permanent. The voluntary scheme, for US residents, is currently being piloted at 20 airports. It allows pre-registered passengers to swerve long security lines and enter a booth, stick their …

8. Apple cult leader emails outside world

   11 words from the Messiah's Jesus phone

   Apple cult leader Steve Jobs has communicated with the outside world. As revealed by Crunchgear, Jobs recently sent an 11-word email to a longtime Mac developer who had come groveling to the cult leader after being threatened by a band of Apple lawyers. John Devor is the CEO of The Little App Factory, a tiny shareware outfit …

9. Why Microsoft's IE 9 will frustrate standards fans

   PDC Return to render

   Performance and standards look like dominating work on Microsoft's next version of Internet Explorer. As ever with Microsoft, though, it's likely to be the former that not just trips up the latter but that also continues to sour Microsoft's relationship with the rest of the industry. President of Microsoft's Windows and …

10. Firefox millions - now only 9 per cent Google free

    No banking on Microhoo

    Mozilla revenues climbed to $79m last year - and 91 per cent of that came from Google. According to the Mozilla Foundation's latest financial statements, 2008 revenue leapt 5 per cent from 2007. But they also indicate the open-sourcers are more dependent on the Mountain View Chocolate Factory than previously thought. With its …

11. ISPA slams Mandy's copyright land grab

    Someone tell Lord Sith about encryption

    Claims from minister Stephen Timms this morning that the Digital Economy Bill has widespread support have been thrown into question, after the Internet Service Providers Association insisted it is strongly opposed to aspects of the legislation. Mandelson's bill gives him power to change copyright laws as he sees fit, using a …

12. Major IE8 flaw makes 'safe' sites unsafe

    Exclusive Microsoft's XSS buster busted

    The latest version of Microsoft's Internet Explorer browser contains a bug that can enable serious security attacks against websites that are otherwise safe. The flaw in IE 8 can be exploited to introduce XSS, or cross-site scripting, errors on webpages that are otherwise safe, according to two Register sources, who discussed …

13. Mandelson to get Nominet reform powers

    Just in case

    Ministers have revealed new legislation that will allow the government to take over and reform Nominet, following a boardroom battle over the .uk registry's future. The reserve powers are included in the Digital Economy Bill, published today by Lord Mandelson's Department for Business. Officials said they believed it is …

14. Windows 7's dirty secrets revealed

    PDC Hidden work arounds and complex dependencies

    While chief technology officer Ray Ozzie was away in the clouds at Microsoft's Professional Developer Conference, technical fellow Mark Russinovich got down and dirty with the true heart of Windows - the kernel. He presented a two-hour session on changes made to the kernel used by both Windows 7 and Server 2008 R2, shedding …

15. Fedora 12 - it's a horse, not a camel

    Review Design by committee makes good

    The Fedora Project has announced the latest version of its popular open source Linux distribution. Nicknamed Constantine, Fedora 12 has quite a few impressive new features and demonstrates that the project has gained a renewed sense of direction. In the build-up to the release of Fedora 12, the Fedora community has focused its …

16. Nvidia previews next-gen Fermi GPUs

    SC09 The supermodels of HPC: hot, and worth it

    Graphics chip maker and soon-to-be big-time HPC player Nvidia raised the curtain a little higher on its next-generation of graphics co-processors at the SC09 supercomputing trade show in Portland, Oregon, this week, and it is arguable that the GPU co-processors aimed at personal supers and massive clusters alike were the star of …

17. Hackers free Snow Leopard from Jobsian cage

    Apple Atomness restored

    Snow Leopard users are once again free to run the Apple operating system on hardware with Atom processors, courtesy of hackers in Russia. A custom version of OS 10.6.2 distributed here works around changes introduced earlier this month that prevented the latest OS X version from running on the Intel netbook processor. A …

18. High Court ruled against Skype founders on day of settlement

    US eBay action scooted over Atlantic

    Skype founders Niklas Zennström and Janus Friis were told their case against Skype-owner eBay had to be conducted in the English courts on the day that they later agreed a compromise with eBay. Zennström and Friis founded the internet telephony company in 2003 and in 2005 sold it to internet auction firm eBay, which announced …

19. QinetiQ mail virus patent attracts barbs

    Looks a bit familiar

    An anti-virus expert has poured cold water on a patent from British technology firm QinetiQ that supposedly offers a new technique for tackling malicious email attachments. New Scientist reports that the researchers at the defence technology firm have patented a technique for blocking malware in email attachments without …

20. Where is server virtualisation taking us?

    Lab Crossing the virtual chasm

    No, no, not the v word...! There are few topics that have garnered as much interest recently as virtualisation. And that’s not just coming from us – the level of feedback we get on this is head and shoulders above many other areas. But let’s be realistic. As the Reg Tech Panel has informed us, the majority of workloads that …