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  1. Friday, 24 May 2013arrow_down

    Investor Icahn needs a loan of $7bn to tick off Mike Dell

    I do not like it, SAM-I-am. I do not like Michael's big plan

    Activist investor Carl Icahn will need as much as $7bn to carry off his plan to pull Dell out from under Mike Dell's nose, banking sources have said. The shareholder and his partner Southeastern Asset Management (SAM) have started talks with banks and financial firms to get bridge loans of up to $7bn for their plan to plough …

    Computacenter: We've so much cash we're GIVING AWAY MEELLIONS

    One-off 'return of value' to lucky shareholders

    One of Europe's largest resellers, London-based Computacenter, has helped investors get the Bank Holiday weekend off to a good start by confirming plans to return £75m to them. Computacenter said in a statement to the City that it is proposing a one-off "return of value" to shareholders of 48.7 pence per ordinary share. The £ …

    World's richest hobo (Apple) has worked 'tax-free' in Ireland since '80s

    Ex-veep lifts lid on homeless fondleslab maker's finances

    Apple has been operating practically tax-free in Ireland since 1980, a former exec has claimed. The ex-Cupertino veep spoke out as the fruity firm was accused of being a "tax resident nowhere in the world" by Senator John McCain (R-AZ) during a hearing of the US Senate's Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations. The iPhone …

    Total Computer Networks latest to cock a snook at downturn

    Double-digit sales jump, profit rises less dramatic

    Total Computer Networks (TCN) booked another double-digit sales hike in calendar 2012 on the back of a surge in consolidation projects from mid-market customers. The Northampton-based HP- and Microsoft-Gold accredited partner saw turnover bounce 22 per cent, year on year, to a little over £20m - during the worst recessionary …

    Security Twitteratti: Twitter's 2FA does sweet FA for biz

    Shared accounts? #FacebookIsBetter

    Security-watchers don't appear overly impressed with Twitter's introduction of two-factor authentication (2FA) to its service. While some infosec experts welcomed the move, others argued that while it might help protect the accounts of individuals, it is ill-suited to the safeguarding of shared accounts of organisations - many …

    Westcon bidding farewell to chief bean counter

    John O'Malley set to exit next month

    Westcon has waved goodbye to long serving chief abacus stroker John O'Malley who resigned after nearly 14 years service The industry veteran was made CFO in 1999 and added exec veep to his title in 2006. He leaves on 3 June to "pursue other business opportunities", parent company Datatec has confirmed. Group president and CEO …

    Judge: Evidence will likely show Apple DID fix ebook prices

    Reckons DoJ can prove Cupertino 'knowingly participated in... conspiracy'

    The US judge who will decide the ebook price fixing case has suggested the government will be able to show that Apple was part of the conspiracy, before the trial has even begun. In a somewhat unusual move, US District Judge Denise Cote said at a pretrial hearing that she thought the Department of Justice would be able to show …

    Jumping on the ethernet bandwagon? You should!

    Cloud, virtualisation, mobile tech require fatter pipes

    Like many technologies making waves in the industry today, 10Gbps Ethernet has actually been with us for quite a long time. It was first introduced around a decade ago but, to be honest, it had jumped the gun a little because back then there were no real drivers for its adoption. Virtualisation was in its infancy, the business …

    ServiceKey, Oracle end 'grey market' code spat without bloodshed

    No damages, no tears, just a shedload of paperwork to fill

    US managed services provider ServiceKey has walked away from legal action brought by Oracle over an alleged "grey market conspiracy" without having to cough a bean in compensation. The software titan's legal eagles filed a lawsuit against two US channel firms in February 2012, including Georgia-based ServiceKey and Delaware- …

    BBC suspends CTO after it spaffs £100m on doomed IT system

    Revealed: The digital monster that ate Shepherd's Bush

    The BBC has suspended its chief technology officer on full pay - after it spunked almost £100m on a "tapeless" digital content management system that didn't deliver. The £98.4m figure attributed to the failed Digital Media Initiative (DMI) may be a conservative estimate: the BBC Trust has commissioned an external technical …

    Open wide, Google: Here comes an advertising antitrust probe

    Can one ever escape the Choc Factory, FTC 'ponders'

    Ad giant Google is facing an antitrust probe intended to establish whether it exploits its dominance in the advertising trade to steer customers away from rivals' products. According to a Bloomberg report, the US Federal Trade Commission is in the preliminary stages of an investigation, which may not develop into a full-blown …

    El Reg drills into Office 365: Email migration

    Video Mail bonding with sysadmin Trevor

    Spinning up a new instance of Office 365 to provide email for a brand new domain is easy; migrating email from existing domains is not. If you're a systems administrator who can count to 10 more or less accurately you're probably okay to dive in, but the everyday non-technical user will still find it a bit of a struggle. In …

    Daft tweet by Speaker Bercow's loquacious wife DID libel lord

    Why is Sally feeling so very sorry? *innocent face*

    Sally Bercow, the wife of Commons Speaker John Bercow, libelled a peer in her infamous "innocent face" tweet, a judge ruled today. At a hearing in London's High Court, Mr Justice Tugendhat said she wrongly identified Lord McAlpine as a paedophile through innuendo. The ruling prompted Mrs Bercow to issue a public apology and …

    Paul Allen buys lovingly restored vintage V-2 Nazi ballistic missile

    First space rocket of humanity, used to bomb London

    Ex-Microsoft gazillionaire Paul Allen has acquired a V2 rocket for his Flying Heritage Collection. First human artifact into outer space ... en route to London or Antwerp with a one-tonne warhead The Microsoft co-founder stumped an undisclosed amount for the Mittelwerk GmbH Vergeltungswaffe 2, having found himself with a …

    Hey, you, dev. What do you mean, storage is BORING?

    Storagebod Listen, codemonkey, do you want to take this outside...

    Many years ago, as an entry-level systems programmer, I decided there were two teams that I was never going to join: the test team and the storage team - because they were boring.* A fellow blogger has a habit of referring to storage as snorage and I suspect that is the attitude of many. So why do I keep doing storage? Well, …

    Curse you, old person, for inventing computers!

    Something for the Weekend, Sir? Too sexy for my (night)shirt

    Since being allowed back into public places without causing the skin of those nearby to melt or for Jurassic sealife to shuffle out of the Pacific and sneeze fire at Tokyo Tower, Half Life Wife has enjoyed several evenings out at the theatre with yours truly. My love for theatre has only recently returned, having been beaten …

    Feds slam hacker-friendly backdoors in jalopy, grub factories

    Kit easily violated by miscreants with 'minimal skill'

    Security researchers have uncovered hard-coded user accounts that could act as backdoors into food, car, and agricultural production systems across the world. The flaw, which allows attackers to launch remote exploits, was found in a pair of industrial control devices. The security hole was found in the BL20 and BL67 …

    4G LTE: Good for tweets and watching Dr Who. Crap at saving lives

    Critical Communications World Why cops, medics must stick to walkie talkies

    High-speed mobile broadband standard LTE, the preferred 4G technology around the world, isn't good enough for critical networks and won't be up to scratch until at least 2018. That's according to the TETRA + Critical Communications Association (TCCA) which promotes the development of communications tech and has been lobbying …

    Microsoft exposes green users' privates in web quiz snafu

    Web design 101 guys, this is basic stuff

    Microsoft has plugged a flaw in its Greener IT Challenge website that leaked the names and email addresses of users who took a quiz on the site. Users who passed the quiz by demonstrating their knowledge of buying environmentally sensitive PCs, choosing minimal power use options for new computers and how to dispose of obsolete …

    Woolwich beheading sparks call to REVIVE UK Snoopers' Charter

    What? You don't agree? What are you, a terrorist?

    Nick Clegg has been warned that his opposition to the controversial Communications Data Bill could leave Britain "at risk" after a soldier was beheaded in Woolwich, London. The deputy prime minister is coming under increased pressure to rethink his stance on the draft law, dubbed the Snoopers' Charter. The bill, if passed by …

    Is the next-gen console war already One?

    Game Theory Microsoft’s new Xbox - and more

    How else to start a Game Theory column other than with the Xbox One? With the dust starting to settle on news reports, I’ve gone for a rather more devil’s advocate approach to Microsoft’s unveiling. There’s also room for a review of Metro: Last Light, and a quick look at the splendid The Last of Us to whet the appetite for next …

    Internet advertising giant (Google) 'mulls' map app Waze gobble

    Gonna offer anything less than $1bn? No Waze, Jose

    Ad giant Google is also considering snapping up mapping software firm Waze, which could spark a bidding war with Facebook over the business. Sources whispered to Bloomberg that Google was interested in the navigation firm - which is, of course, seeking a price tag of more than $1bn. What kind of tech company are you these days …

    Did Kim Dotcom invent 2-factor authentication? Er, not exactly...

    Pull out your pagers and your Hammer pants, we're going back to the '90s

    Twitter is the latest major web service to beef up its security two-factor authentication (2FA). The security feature is a pretty simple and effective approach - and one the notorious Mega kingpin Kim Dotcom claims today to have invented back in the '90s. Two-factor auth is a simple process for verifying that the user …

    'Google IS a capitalist country... er, company'

    QuoTW Plus: 'Apple execs, I apologise for this theatre of the absurd'

    This was the week when the tax row shifted into high gear, with politicos on both sides of the pond railing at Google and Apple, while respective chiefs Eric Schmidt and Tim Cook presented defences that amounted to yelling "If you don't like it, you fix it" and running away. Schmidt started it off with an op ed at the start of …

    The BOFH is BACK: And it's cloudy with a 90% chance of beatings

    Episode 3 So you deleted my advice? By accident? THREE times?

    "I just need you to go through it for me once," the user whines down the line at me. "You mean once more?" I reply. "Once more?" he snivels. "Yes, as I already went through this with you a few weeks ago. You said you understood, you even wrote something down." "Really - are you sure that was me?" "Positive." "How can …

    Grim outlook for Big Storage as revenues dip across board

    Snapping up the minnows only keeps the wolf at bay for so long

    Mainstream storage vendors seem to be in trouble as Dell, HP and IBM's storage revenues have tanked over the past two years. Stifel Nicolaus analyst Aaron Rakers created a spreadsheet comparing his records of how these vendors' storage revenues changed quarter by quarter. El Reg's storage desk charted the numbers: Storage …

    INSIDE GCHQ: Welcome to Cheltenham's cottage industry

    Geek's Guide to Britain 'If this nerve centre didn't exist, neither would I' says Reg man

    For staff at the Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ) in Cheltenham, there’s an air of Fight Club about the place. The first rule about GCHQ is you don’t talk about GCHQ. It’s a well observed tradition, even though there are road signs and a bus route directing you to this highly secret establishment, the nerve centre …

    China’s state-run rags brand Mars One mission a scam

    Beijing doesn't like the idea of its citizens visiting RED planet

    Chinese state-run media has branded the Mars One mission designed to land successful applicants on the Red Planet in 2023 a “hoax” and probable “scam”, in what appears to be a co-ordinated attempt to undermine the non-profit behind the project. In a “news” article titled Settlement on Mars a hoax? Over 10,000 Chinese people …

    US Senator introduces 'Patent Abuse Reduction Act'

    Rackspace and industry groups like it, trolls maybe not so much

    US Senator John Cornyn, who represents Texas, has introduced the “Patent Abuse Reduction Act of 2013”. Cornyn says the Bill (PDF, brace for legalese) is intended to have the following effects: “This bill would require plaintiffs to disclose the substance of their claim and reveal their identities when they file their lawsuit …

    'Catastrophic failure' of 3D-printed gun in Oz Police test

    Panic on the streets of Sydney, as US says printed guns 'unstoppable'

    The New South Wales Police Force, guardians of Australia's most-populous state, have gotten themselves into a panic over the Liberator, the 3D-printable pistol. The Force's Commissioner Andrew Schipione today appeared at a press conference to denounce the Liberator and urge residents of the State not to download plans for the …

    Peak Facebook: British users lose their Liking for Zuck's ad empire

    One in 10 UK Facebookers: I quit this... bitch

    Facebook's popularity is slumping in the UK as users become fed up with being bombarded with advertising, a YouGov survey has revealed. In a report examining social media use among web-savvy Brits, the market research firm found a 9 per cent drop in Facebook usage since April 2012. Among the people who had quit Facebook, 23 …

    SoftBank gives Washington veto over Sprint board job

    The things you do to stop spooks worrying about Huawei

    Japanese company SoftBank, currently wrapping a deal to buy 70 per cent of US mobile carrier Sprint, has taken the unusual step of giving the US government veto power over one member to be elected to the board of its acquisition target. SoftBank’s bid to take over America’s third largest operator was delayed for months while …

    STROKE this mouse to make apps POP, says Microsoft

    Windows 8 Start button comes to Redmond's rodents

    Microsoft has unveiled two mice that for the first time pack a button that sends users straight to the Windows 8 Start screen, the unloved abode of The interface Formerly Known As Metro (TIFKAM). The Sculpt Comfort Mouse and Sculpt Mobile Mouse are both unremarkable rodents, unless you get excited about wireless connections …

    Oz shared services collapse looks bad for NetApp

    Central IT agency didn't deliver, likely to quit storage-as-a-service caper

    Opponents of shared IT services in government have a new case study they point to, and NetApp's busy executives have another tricky item to consider after a major Australian shared services organisation failed. That agency is CenITex, created in 2008 by the government of Australian state Victoria. CenITex's original vision …

    Googorola loses bid to ban US Xbox sales after ITC slapdown

    Microsoft escapes $4bn payout

    The International Trade Commission (ITC) has denied an attempt by Google to impose a US-wide sales ban on Microsoft's Xbox by rejecting the claim that might have cost Redmond $US4bn in royalties. "This is a win for Xbox customers and confirms our view that Google had no grounds to block our products," David Howard, Microsoft …

    Samsung, carriers tout first Tizen mobes for late 2013

    TDC2013 HTML5 seen as key to open source smartphone success

    You could be forgiven for thinking there's not much going on with Tizen, the Linux Foundation's open source mobile OS. It's been two years since the project was launched and there still are no Tizen devices on the market. But that's about to change – and there has been a lot happening behind the scenes, as well. "Tizen-based …

  2. Thursday, 23 May 2013arrow_down

    Google to double encryption key lengths for SSL certs by year's end

    2048-bit keys will be the norm

    Google is about to start the first upgrade to its SSL certification system in recent memory, and will move to 2048-bit encryption keys by the end of 2013. The first tranche of changes is planned for August 1. The new requirements are laid out in a blog post and a FAQ on the topic. The upgrade, based on the guidelines from …

    Facebook Home phone plans canned in the UK

    Support for new devices put on ice as well

    The HTC First "Facebook phone" is not coming to the UK after its frigid reception in the US, and the social networking company is going back to work on the app after mass user apathy. Neither EE or Orange plan to offer the HTC First, Mobile News reported on Thursday (and El Reg subsequentially confirmed), which begs the …

    Joyent cuts prices on cloudy infrastructure

    Aligns with AWS instances, and offers the same or lower prices

    Joyent, one of the upstart cloudy infrastructure providers that is taking a custom software stack to market to peddle virty server and storage, has done a major revamp of the way it carves up slices on its Joyent Compute Service cloud. With the rejiggering of its cloud, Joyent is not only cutting prices, it is also forging …

    Yahoo! continues quest for youth with yet another acquisition

    PlayerScale purchase gives foothold in gaming market

    Marissa Mayer has continued her acquisitions spree with the purchase of gaming software house PlayerScale for an undisclosed sum. "We are happy to announce the next big step toward our goal of building the best possible gaming infrastructure platform: we have been acquired by Yahoo!" said PlayerScale's CEO Jesper Jensen. "And …

    Internet2 superfast-boffinry network peers with Azure cloud

    Microsoft waives data egress rates for researchers

    Ultra-fast US academic network Internet2 is going to peer with Microsoft's cloud to give researchers from over 200 institutions high-speed reliable access to Azure at a discounted rate. The peering arrangement with Microsoft was announced on Thursday and will initially see Internet2's 220 plus member institutions gain " …

    Google slashes App Engine NoSQL data storage prices by 25 per cent

    Amazon cuts DynamoDB costs, and Google follows suit

    Amazon doesn't care much about profits and both Google and Microsoft have monopolies that give them deep pockets. And so it is no surprise that the three companies will be engaged in a cloud price war that will very likely leave a lot of smaller cloud providers dead by the side of the road in the coming years. Google launched …

    Orange customer clobbered with SIX-FIGURE phone bill

    If your handset's overheating, check your data connection

    EE's Orange arm managed to bill a customer £163,000 for a month's data use, thanks to a dodgy handset which was opening a data connection every 20 minutes. Alan Mazkouri had a business deal with mobile telco Orange. Last summer his phone began overheating and draining the battery, so much so that Mazkouri took the dodgy …

    Tipsters exposed after South Africa's national police force hacked

    Whistleblowers, crime victims laid bare by 'Anon splinter group'

    The identities of more than 15,000 South Africans who reported crimes or provided tip-offs to the police have been exposed following an attack on a SAPS (South African Police Service) website. The names and personal details of whistleblowers and crime victims were lifted from www.saps.gov.za and uploaded to a bullet-proof …

    Samsung flogs slim, flashy new model: Protection included

    Server-level SSD gets endurance, capacity upgrade

    Samsung has upgraded its SM843 server-level SSD, doubling its capacity and tripling its endurance. The new SM843T SSD also has power-loss protection for the most recent data and AES-256 bit encryption. This is a 2.5in form factor SSD using 2-bit MLC flash. As server and data centre SSDs, the SM843 has capacities of 120GB, …

    Northamber now lacks Mack, who will take up AV boss's slack?

    Channel doyen Allan legs it from stumbling distie giant

    Northamber's audio-visual general manager Allan Mack has left after less than three years at the shrinking tech distributor, The Channel can reveal. According to company insiders, Louise Honeywill - a product manager at the Surrey-based wholesaler - is filling in for Mack until a full-time successor is found. Mack, a channel …

    Another Chinese thing you can see from space: Lenovo's sales

    'Lenovo', or 'what we call PCs now'

    PC maker Lenovo appears to drawing ever closer to its goal of seizing the global box-shifting crown from giant HP. The Chinese dragon's momentum, built up over the last few years, shows no sign of slowing. The company had to sort out some small integration issues of swallowing IBM's PC business in 2004, but after six years of …

    New York cop in alleged love-polyhedron email hack spree

    Veteran plod 'blew $4k on romanta-rival logins'

    A New York detective allegedly hired hackers to spy on 19 fellow cops and at least 11 others - apparently in a bid to discover if any of them were sleeping with his ex. Edwin Vargas, a 42-year-old Bronx investigator, is accused of spending $4,050 on an email-hacking service to obtain the usernames and passwords for 43 message …

    Penguin pays $75m to settle ebook price-fixing case

    Apple left to swing it out with DoJ

    Penguin has agreed to hand over $75m along with costs to sort out US antitrust allegations over ebook price fixing. The publisher had already agreed to settle with the Department of Justice and has put the price tag on the deal to pave the way for its merger with Random House. Penguin is the last publisher to settle the case …

    'Leccy car biz baron Elon Musk: Thanks for the $500m, taxpayers...

    Tesla repays the Feds nine years early

    Electric car manufacturer Tesla has paid back a government loan of half a billion dollars almost a decade earlier than expected. Tesla CEO and co-founder Elon Musk said: “I would like to thank the Department of Energy and the members of Congress and their staffs that worked hard to create the [Advanced Technology Vehicle …

    Apple cored: Samsung sells 10 million Galaxy S4 in a month

    Beware of South Koreans bearing Android

    Samsung's Galaxy S4 has become the South Korean firm's fastest selling smartphone after shifting some 10 million units since its launch in April. By way of comparison, Apple's 21 September 2012 launch of the iPhone 5 yielded over five million in sales in the opening weekend - although Cupertino did not reveal how many had sold …

    Brit spooks bugged Edward VIII's phones, records reveal

    Plus Churchill and Stalin had a massive drinkathon in Moscow

    Intelligence files kept hidden for nearly 80 years have shown that the British government was bugging King Edward VIII's phones in the days leading up to his abdication. Neil Forbes Grant's telegram confirming the King's abdication. Government officials were clearly panicking about what Edward would do and how the news …

    Virgin Media slides fat 10Gbps pipes into Murdoch's BSkyB

    I wanna be your backhaul man

    The business end of Virgin Media has revealed more details about a £49m deal to beef up BSkyB's broadband network. Virgin Media announced last month - in what is likely to be its final quarterly report to the City before being acquired by US cable giant Liberty Global - that it had bagged "major backhaul contract wins" from …

    China's exposed crack cyberspy crew dumps 'most' of its kit

    APT1 team 'retooling' as they lick their wounds - report

    The infamous APT1 cyberespionage crew is diminished but not defeated following its public exposure three months ago. Mandiant, the cyber security intelligence firm that d0xed APT1, detailing its tools and tactics as well as its affiliation to a Chinese People's Liberation Army unit, has published a follow-up report this week …

    SAP in search of autistic software engineers who 'think different'

    Pilot scheme goes global after team productivity boost

    SAP wants to hire engineers diagnosed with autism - or people who "think differently" in the words of the enterprise software giant. In a big push to fill out its ranks of developers, testers and bods involved in data quality assurance, SAP has turned to Specialisterne, a group dedicated to finding work for those with autism …

    George Soros pumps £50m into fibre-gobbling ISP Hyperoptic

    Wants to sign up 500k UK homes by 2018

    Hyperoptic - a relatively new player in the UK's ISP market - confirmed today that it had received a massive cash injection of £50m from investors to help the company expand its fibre-to-the-home business. The telco, which currently offers 1 Gbit/s fibre-to-the-home (FTTH) technology to Londoners, was founded in 2010 by Boris …

    Microsoft and pals: Save the global economy by NOT ripping us off

    World to get $73bn if it would only use licensed software - survey

    Ditching dodgy software can rescue not just the UK from its financial worries, but the entire world, or so says the latest study from the Business Software Alliance. The BSA, comprising vendors including Microsoft, CA, Adobe, Apple and others, commissioned biz school INSEAD (once known as the Institut Européen d'Administration …

    Aha, I see you switched on your mobile Wi-Fi. YOU FOOL!

    PNL bug still leaving door open to hackers - security bod

    Security expert Raul Siles has warned that years after it was first identified, the Preferred Networks List (PNL) Wi-Fi bug remains unaddressed on many an iPhone, Android phone, and Windows or BlackBerry handset. The problem itself is simple enough, reports HelpNet Security. When searching for networks, a poor Wi-Fi …

    What's that Dell? You're out? HDS punts pay-per-use cloud storage

    Pay us, pay the other guy, we're not fussed

    Hitachi Data Services will begin offering pay-per-use cloud storage services to its customers and for use by service providers to build their own services as part of its Cloud Service Provider programme. This move by HDS comes as Dell withdraws from public cloud services and after its cancellation of its DX6000 object storage …

    Spam and the Byzantine Empire: How Bitcoin tech REALLY works

    Analysis Everything you wanted to know but were afraid to ask

    Why does Bitcoin work? Fraudsters should have left it in cinders years ago, and might have done, if it wasn’t for two things: spam and the Byzantine Empire. A Bitcoin is basically an entry in a ledger that is distributed across a network of computers. Bitcoins are transferred between parties by noting the transaction in the …

    IBM gets ready to push more UK and Irish bods overboard

    Exclusive Big Blue set to become Somewhat Smaller Blue

    IBM has started a 45-day consultation on letting up to 270 people go from its UK and Ireland operations. Sources have told The Register that Big Blue is once more readying the axe for employees in Blighty, adding to rounds of layoffs that have seen over 6,000 workers sacked globally since 2009. An IBM spokesperson confirmed …

    Backup bods Veeam quietly gobbling up ever-greater market share

    Slow and steady really does win the race

    Backup software supplier Veeam is quietly doing extraordinary things; it's growing its backup business while touting their latest software as a means to continue growing its market share. Veeam is privately-owned and focusses on virtual machine backup. It has no venture capital funding as far as we can tell. Despite that, it's …

    LOHAN is GO! Reg spaceplane BLASTS OFF on 14 September

    Pocket ballocket to go ballistic - but where?

    We're absolutely delighted to announce that our Low Orbit Helium Assisted Navigator (LOHAN) spaceplane mission is cleared for blastoff on 14 September. Yes indeed, ballocket fans, the time is almost nigh to dispatch the Vulture 2 heavenwards towards its date with aeronautical destiny. If all goes according to plan, the …

    Happy 23rd birthday, Windows 3.0

    The OS with three different memory modes chalks up another anniversary

    This week marks the 23rd birthday of Windows 3.0, which came into this world on May 22nd, 1990, and gave the world improved colour graphics and the infamous File Manager. Windows 3.0 was all about getting closer to Apple’s Macintosh after Windows 1.0 and 2.0 fell a long way short of Jobs and Co's WIMPy UI. The MSDOS Executive …

    Microsoft melds SkyDrive Pro and SharePoint

    Local access still matters

    Microsoft has released a new SkyDrive Pro client that offers users of Office 365 and SharePoint the chance to store files locally. The application is the heir to the My Site feature from previous incarnations of Office 365. SkyDrive Pro has most of the the same functions as the consumer version of the service, which is one of …

    Yahoo! Oz! PAYS! Punters! Pittance! To! Search!

    Toolbar tie-up with supermarket yields 50 cents a month

    Yahoo!'s Australian outpost, a joint venture with the Seven Television Network dubbed Yahoo!7, has teamed with a local supermarket chain in a scheme that pays punters to use its search engine. The supermarket outfit is Coles, which has for years operated a loyalty scheme called Fly Buys that was doing Big Data before anyone …

    AMD's three new low-power chips pose potent challenge to Intel

    Is AMD (finally) getting its groove back?

    AMD is showing off its latest round of APUs – accelerated processing units that combine compute and graphics cores on the same slice o' silicon – that it hopes will be reinforcements in its battle for the consumer market against its main competitor, Intel, especially at the low-power end of the market. "We're working to …

    Social network bins Beijing's banned buzzwords

    Japan's 'Line' scares international users by complying with Chinese law

    Japanese Whatsapp-like service Line has come under uncomfortable scrutiny by international users after appearing to prepare self-censorship capabilities for its Chinese service Lian wo. Twitter user @hirakujira spotted a chunk of code in the social messaging app including “<key>warning.badwords<key>” which would trigger a user …

    Footy lovers hit in Wembley playoff card snatch scam

    Man on - in the middle, claims club

    Provider Ticket Zone is continuing a joint investigation with Brentford Football Club after it emerged that card details used to buy tickets for the League One playoff final last weekend were subsequently used for fraudulent purchases. Yeovil beat Brentford 2-1 to reach The Championship on Sunday, piling on further misery for …

    Fairphone goes on sale to all

    The Android handset that's PC can be yours

    When is a phone PC? When it's a Fairphone, the smartphone “that puts social values first” and has a rather politically-correct (PC) attitude. The Android-powered mobe went on sale a couple of weeks ago to Fairphone's 17,000-odd email subscribers, around 2,000 of whom pledged €325 to acquire one of the handsets, which promise …

    SCADA security is better and worse than we think

    AUSCERT 2013 'Kill chains' are long and attack-stopping weak links are many

    First the good news: for all the known vulnerabilities that exist in the SCADA world, exploiting them in a way that can actually “shut down a power plant” is harder than most people (particularly including media) realise. That's the reassuring view put forward by Mark Fabro of Lofty Perch, in his spot at this year's AusCERT …

    Herschel Space Observatory spots galaxies merging

    VIDEO A long time ago in a galaxy far, far, away

    The European Space Agency's Herschel Space Observatory has beamed home pictures of two galaxies inexorably moving towards each other and boffins offered simulations of what happens next. The galaxies concerned are known as HXMM01, the name given to a bright spot in the sky. Closer examination of HXMM01 tells us it is very old …

    Tea, Earl Grey, hot! NASA blows $125k on Star Trek 3D FOOD PRINTER

    We all know it'll really be 'Press Control-P for pizza'

    A small company in Austin, Texas, has received a $US125,000 grant from NASA to develop 3D printed food for astronauts. The challenges are multifold – not least among them producing something palatable out of a printer – but the idea is that with enough development, NASA might be able to come up with something that beats the …

    Report: China IP theft now equal in value to US exports to Asia

    Stricter security testing, sanctions and legal counterhacking needed

    China is responsible up to 80 per cent of US intellectual property theft, which a government report has estimated accounts for $300bn in lost exports, roughly the equivalent of the current American trade balance with Asia. "Unless current trends are reversed, there is a risk of stifling innovation, with adverse consequences …

    Kim Dotcom claims invention of two-factor authentication

    Mega-patent from Megaupload baron

    Kim Dotcom has claimed the invention of two-factor authentication, and says he has the patent to prove it. The loquacious baron of internet cloud locker Mega announced in a tweet on Wednesday that he is the inventor of two-factor authentication, just hours after Twitter announced support for the security measure. Dotcom …

    US power grid the target of 'numerous and daily' cyber-attacks

    Report finds utilities vulnerable, threatened

    The US electricity grid is under near constant attack from malware and cyber-criminals, yet most utility companies implement only the barest minimum of security standards, according to a new report released by Congressmen Ed Markey (D-MA) and Henry Waxman (D-CA). "National security experts say that cyber attacks on America's …

    Prenda lawyers miss sanctions deadline

    $US1k per day extra penalty - each

    Lawyers ordered to pay more than $US81,000 in the Prenda Law copyright trolling smackdown are now racking up new liabilities at the rate of $US1,000 a day. The four had been sanctioned by Judge Otis Wright when their legal strategy finally came unstuck earlier this month. As part of that judgement, the four were required to …

    HP: Hey, it could easily have been so much worse

    'Turnaround won't be linear' - did I really say that?

    If you were expecting HP to bring good news to the IT industry when it reported its financial results for the fiscal second quarter, you are no doubt sorely disappointed. Well, unless you consider that in terms of profit declines it could have been a lot worse. In the quarter ended April 30, HP was down on all fronts, and CEO …

  3. Wednesday, 22 May 2013arrow_down

    Microsoft floats Azure cloud into China

    Redmond meets Red Dragon via 21Vianet

    Microsoft is bringing its Azure cloud to China, although the management of the data center will be done by a local firm. Azure will become available in a public beta within a month, Microsoft chief Steve Ballmer said at a speech in Beijing on Monday, according to Bloomberg. As a condition of bringing Azure into China, …

    Twitter locks down logins by adding two-factor authentication

    Now please lock out the Syrians!

    Twitter has joined the growing number of companies offering two-factor authentication to prevent logins being stolen – a fate several high-profile users of its service have suffered recently. A new checkbox is being added to the Settings pages of Twitter accounts to enable the new feature. When checked, an SMS message …

    IiNet offloads fibre network to NBN Co

    Exits Canberra FTTP market

    In a bit of a game of pass-the-parcel, the fibre-to-the-home network assets that iiNet bought when it acquired TransACT Communications last year has been passed on to NBN Co for a minimum of $AU9 million. The FTTH was a relatively small part of TransACT's network assets: it also had (through its own acquisition of Neighborhood …

    Microsoft tweaks WinPhone YouTube app to fix Google gripes

    Vid downloads blocked, but ads still not possible

    Microsoft has issued an update to its YouTube app for Windows Phone 8 that addresses some of Google's concerns over the earlier version, but not all of them. Google's streaming-video division sent Microsoft a takedown request for the earlier version of the app last week, claiming that it violated YouTube's terms of use by …

    Ethernet daddy: online education poised to transform the world

    MOOCs to be as transformative as 'BOOCs'

    During an interview at the Ethernet Innovation Summit in Mountain View, California, Ethernet inventor Robert Metcalfe was asked what surprises were on the horizon due to the ever more pervasive advance of the internet. "The most exciting surprise, I think, is going to be MOOCs," said Metcalfe on Wednesday, referring to online …

    More than half of Windows 8 users just treat it like Windows 7

    Almost nobody using Windows Store apps, survey finds

    For all Microsoft's hype about The Interface Formerly Known As Metro (TIFKAM), more than half of all Windows 8 users ignore the new Start Screen and treat the OS as if it were Windows 7, according to a study by PC management firm Soluto. How many Windows 8 users launch a Windows Store app less than once per day? Most of them …

    Press exposure of Federal data security hole leads to legal threats

    Hacks accused of hacking, are researchers next?

    An investigation into a security slip that left the identity information for over 170,000 users of a US federal government program publicly available online has led to accusations of hacking and legal threats. The Scripps News investigative team spent the last month studying companies running Lifeline, a federal program to …

    Big Brother security tech gets $20m

    Skyhigh Networks takes VC cash to patrol corporate networks

    Skyhigh Networks has trousered $20m from VC firms keen on the security company's tech for snooping on corporate networks and locking down banned apps. The $20 megabuck Series E investment round was led by Sequoia Capital along with pre-existing investors Greylock Partners, the company announced on Tuesday. By scanning …

    Speaking in Tech: Portland hipsters gagging for yesterday's web tool

    Podcast Someone came in two years ago and set up our Drupal instance... what NOW?

    For El Reg's latest Speaking in Tech podcast, Ed Saipetch is hosting the chat live from DrupalCon 2013, which is in hipster central Portland this year, while co-hosts Greg Knieriemen and Sarah Vela put out fires elsewhere. Eddie is joined by special guests Joaquin Lippincott, president of Metal Toad Media and Holly Ross, …

    Citrix halfway to Avalon with XenDesktop 7 desktop and app virtualizer

    New edition just for app streaming

    Citrix Systems is just as eager to cloudify its installed base of customers as is VMware. And so it has taken one step closer to accomplishing that goal with the launch of XenDesktop 7 at its Synergy customer and partner event in Anaheim. Both companies have vast installed bases: VMware has 500,000 customers with around 38 …

    Sony's board debates breaking up with Spider-Man

    Firm considers investor plan to make its movie and music division public

    Sony has said that it will consider a proposal from activist investor Daniel Loeb that the group should sell off parts of its music and movies business, which includes popular franchises Spider-Man and Resident Evil and the weepy ballads of Brit crooner Adele. Chief exec Kazuo Hirai told reporters from the Financial Times, …

    Skyscape bags biggest deal on G-Cloud EVER

    Actually just a £3m PaaS gig for background check services. But it's progress

    Skyscape Cloud Services has fired the first shot into the hearts of large tech integrators that have grown fat off the public sector purse after signing £3m two-year Platform-as-a-Service contract worth £1.5m a year. The PaaS gig - the biggest deal on the G-Cloud framework to date - is to provide a cloudy, utility-based …

    Watch out, chaps, it's another storage sync 'n' share produ-ARRRGH

    HDS chucks new contender onto teetering heap

    Object-storage flogger HDS has upgraded its object storage platform to provide firewall-guarded file sync 'n' share access to BYOD users. The Hitachi Content Platform Anywhere product is the sync 'n' share version of the original Hitachi Content Platform (HCP). With the Anywhere product, data is kept on HCP, where it is …

    Eric Schmidt: 'Google IS a capitalist country... er, company'

    Big Tent Also - ad giant ISN'T as powerful as governments

    Google is just conforming to the way the global tax system works, the company's executive chairman Eric Schmidt said today as he rejected the criticism levelled at the ad giant by Labour leader Ed Miliband. "We're trying to do the right thing, not the wrong thing," Schmidt said. He was speaking at Google's annual Big Tent …

    Juniper, Seagate stuff cash down Cloudscaling's OpenStack trousers

    Randy Bias's biz bags $10m in new round

    The founders at Cloudscaling - one of the myriad companies trying to become the "Linux of the cloud" by enhancing and commercializingthe OpenStack cloud control freak - have just landed a second wad of cash from investors. Cloudscaling was founded in the middle of 2009 by Randy Bias, the company's CTO, and Adam Waters, the COO …

    FLABBER-JASTED: It's 'jif', NOT '.gif', says man who should know

    Jood Jod, jrumble disjruntled Tumblr hardlinrs

    The internet - and especially the recently-sold content sausage machine Tumblr, epicentre of the animated gif rebirth - is reeling today at the news that when referring to image files formatted as .gifs one should pronounce it "jif". That's according to no less an authority than Steve Wilhite, the man who invented the Graphics …

    Bunging servers in disk arrays achieves nothing. There, I said it

    Blocks and Files If you disagree with the Reg storage desk, explain yourself

    A while ago in-array compute was going to be a big thing, with apps running inside VMAX and VNX arrays using spare controller engines and getting rid of network-lagged data access latency. DataDirect Networks went down the same development avenue, and Lustre and the GPFS stack certified to run in its storage arrays. Bringing …

    BMW offers in-car streaming music for cross-Europe road trips

    It was nice knowing you, radio - thanks for all the jingles

    BMW is to offer access to Brit streaming music service Rara in its new Series 5 motors. Is this the beginning of the end for broadcast radio? What's unusual and interesting about the deal is that it includes 3G access to the music - via Vodafone's mobile network - across Europe. So, wherever you can get a signal, you can get …

    NetApp: We laid off 100s, profits dived - and it's all YOUR fault

    Analysis 'Constrained' IT budgets blamed as sales growth flatlines

    Storage giant NetApp has reported unremarkable revenue growth and falling profit for its 2013 financial year. It signals that NetApp is now a mature company and not a high-growth stock. But, behind the numbers, the firm has laid off hundreds of employees to help it stay in the black and keep investors at bay. The recently …

    Ed Miliband brands Google's UK tax avoidance 'WRONG'

    Big Tent Pfft. 'Just capitalism? I disagree!'

    Ed Miliband launched a caustic attack on Google today, saying: "When Google goes to extraordinary lengths to avoid paying its taxes, I say it’s wrong." The Labour party leader - who was speaking at Google's annual Big Tent event in Watford - accused the "biggest companies" of having a "culture of irresponsibility" when it …

    Yahoo 'won't screw Tumblr'? Then Tumblr will screw its balance sheet

    Comment Mayer attempts to saddle up the web-ad unicorn

    Famously, Yahoo! has promised during its $1.1bn buy of hipster blog site Tumblr not to "screw it up". If I was a Yahoo! shareholder, I should hope not - given the head-spinning number of dollars. But not screwing up is like Google’s promise to “not do Evil” – impossible to comply with, and something people throw back at you. …

    Slim Shady wannabe Zuck's Facebook 'STOLE' MY SONG - Eminem

    Rap star's publisher slaps copyright claim on Home ad

    Rapper Eminem's song publisher Eight Mile Style is accusing Facebook and its ad agency of (slim) shady dealings with one of his songs. Eminem ... laugh all you want, but this man is worth millions The publisher filed a copyright lawsuit this week alleging that a short Facebook advert broadcast during the social network's …

    Stand back, everyone! Dragons' Den ace HAS FOUND THE CLOUD

    Outsourcery lost £10m, floats for £34m. For that reason, I'm out

    The wait is almost over for any Brit wanting to take a punt on a homegrown cloud services firm: the UK-based Outsourcery is poised to list on the Alternative Investment Market (AIM)* this Friday. The Manchester-headquartered business is placing a little more than 11.5 million Ordinary Shares at 110 pence giving it a market …

    Blue Coat gobbles CCTV-for-network-traffic maker Solera

    Packet inspector to aisle two, please

    Web security outfit Blue Coat Systems is buying Big Data security, intelligence and analytics firm Solera Networks. Solera's DeepSee platform offers security analytics and forensic capabilities to help defend against advanced persistent threats (APTs) and targeted malware attacks. Solera has created a type of CCTV system for …

    Word 2 to Office 365 and beyond: The good, the bad and the Ribbon

    Live Chat Discuss Microsoft's past and future here, Friday, 24 May, 14:00

    Since the pioneering work of Word and Excel daddy Charles Simonyi, Microsoft has set the gold standard on productivity applications on the PC. With the Office software suite, Microsoft built a moneymaker worth billions of dollars that has been further sustained by a network of devs who’ve reinforced the cash machine with add- …

    If you've bought DRM'd film files from Acetrax, here's the bad news

    We hope you have plenty of spare time, you'll need it

    Sky will next month shut down Acetrax, a website that streams movies and offers downloads of DRM-encrypted films to paying punters. The closure has highlighted yet again one of the many flaws inherent in Digital Rights Management (DRM) technology. In this case, users must go through the hassle of downloading all of their …

    New Big Blue UK, Ireland exec to give kiss o' life to server sales

    Q1 down by more than 40 per cent, claim sources

    It's all change in the upper echelons of IBM's UK and Ireland Systems Technology Group: its vice-president Shaun Coulson has handed control of the unit to Tosca Colangeli amid channel talk of collapsing server sales. Colangeli is a ten-year-plus IBM veteran who most recently served as veep for Big Blue's Computer Services …

    Smartwatch face off: Pebble, MetaWatch and new hi-tech timepieces

    Product Round-up Tick, tock, Tweet

    If the rumours are to be believed, Apple and Microsoft are both developing "smartwatches" - wrist-worn gadgets that do rather more than simply display the time. The Apple rumours kicked off after smartwatch-pioneer Pebble’s Kickstarter campaign generated kilometres of column-inches, and with Cupertino on the case, it wasn’t …

    EU boffins in plan for 'more nutritious' horsemeat ice cream

    'Disused' animal products ideal for sick, elderly

    Brussels-funded boffins say they have hit upon a brilliant method of creating "enriched" ice-cream, fortified with "disused" animal products which are normally thrown away by the meat industry as being unfit for human consumption. A press release issued by an EU-funded "research media centre" breaks the news of the stunning …

    The bunker at the end of the world - in Essex

    Geek's Guide to Britain Open for 40 years, pointless for 39 of them...

    Kelvedon Hatch is a superb example of absurdist geek life. Not only is the site technically very impressive, it is also completely useless and frequently prompts the question “what on earth were they thinking?”... A tour reinforces this view as the experience now is as enjoyably peculiar as the history behind the place. The …

    Camby cash crypto-coders Cronto chomped on pronto by Vasco

    Anti-banking-malware Brit biz gobbled in £15m deal

    Swiss software firm Vasco has bought Cambridge-based banking security specialist Cronto in a deal valued at up to £14.5m. Vasco will pay $19.3m (€15m, £12.7m), and a further $2.6m (€2m, £1.8m) depending on future earnings, to get its hands on the British upstart's malware-defeating technology. Its software attempts to shield …

    Facebook teens' kimonos - basically never closed

    Adolescents overshare, astonishing survey finds

    Teenaged kids are handing out more private information on social media than ever before, with little thought for the consequences, a not-so-surprising survey has found. Teens are carelessly giving away phone numbers, pictures and other sensitive data using their Facebook accounts, the report by the Pew Foundation pointed out …

    HTC woes prompts 'leave now' tweet from former staffer

    Chief product officer latest to bail from sinking mobe-maker

    Life just got even harder for struggling Taiwanese mobe-maker HTC, with chief product officer Kouji Kodera walking out the door and another former staffer posting nasties to Twitter. Kodera, who held a similar position at previous employer Sony Ericsson, joins recent departees VP of global comms Jason Gordon, global retail …

    Japan uses big data to map cultural climate change

    Cool Japannica learns where Manga and Anime are hot

    Big data boffins at Tokyo University have found a novel way to help Japan’s faltering economy: by producing an interactive trending map for manga, gaming and other content producers to see where in Asia their products are most popular. The Asia Trend Map was developed by Tokyo University associate professor Matsuo Yutaka with …

    WW II U-boat attacks prompt new US response

    Rusting wrecks poised to pollute

    May 1943 is held by many to have been the turning point in the Battle of the Atlantic. “Black May”, as it has come to be known, saw 43 U-boats destroyed by allied forces. That number that reduced the size of the German submarine fleet to levels that meant later convoys stood a far better chance of successful Atlantic crossings …

    Garden fertilised by Twitter output wins Gold at Chelsea

    Larger than the hashtag of my aunt

    A garden conceived by an alliance of trick-cyclists, architects and professors of "social computing" - and enabled by the wondrous power of Twitter - has won a gold medal at the Chelsea Flower Show. This is how the garden goes: The garden is divided diagonally by an autonomous-panelled screen which separates the planting of …

    Aurora attack tried to pinch secret list of Chinese spies

    Oops...looks like another US intelligence FAIL

    The Chinese hackers involved in the Operation Aurora attacks revealed by Google in 2010 may have accessed top secret information on US surveillance targets in the country including suspected foreign spies and terrorists, it has emerged. Speaking anonymously to the Washington Post, “US officials” familiar with the infamous data …

    Embedded systems vendors careless says Metasploit author

    AusCERT 2013 'Own five percent of the Internet without even blinking'

    One of the reasons we can't have nice things like a secure Internet is that vendors of consumer kit can't be bothered. That's the conclusion The Register reaches after listening to a presentation by HD Moore, author of Metasploit and now chief research officer at Rapid7, at the AusCERT 2013 security conference today. Moore …

    Stand aside, Wi-Fi - these boffins are doing 40Gbps over the air

    Wildly fast on the 240GHz band

    It won't make fibre-optic networking obsolete anytime soon, but it's still an impressive achievement: German researchers have demonstrated a one-kilometre point-to-point wireless transmission at 40Gbps. The Fraunhofer Institute for Applied Solid State Physics and the Karlsruhe Institute for Technology researchers used 240GHz …

    Anonymous threat shutters Gitmo WiFi

    Legal black hole becomes internet black hole

    Guantanamo Bay Naval Base, the enclave of Cuban territory leased by the US government, has switched off its WiFi service and cut access to social networks for fear of attack by Anonymous. The hacktivist group recently set #OpGTMO in train, pledging to “shut down Guantanamo”. That's probably not a reference to the whole of the …

    Dev writes comments as limericks and other coding secrets

    Coders confess their crimes, like the spam-bots they write in spare moments

    An anonymous developer has admitted to writing comments in code as limericks. The confession can be found at codingconfessional.com, a site devoted entirely to divulgements of developers' depravities. Here, for example, is the limerick chap's work: “I write most comments in limerick It makes all my coworkers sick My …

    Opera rewrite comes to Android

    Fat lady singing

    Norway's gift to the world of technology, the Opera browser, is now available for Android in an entirely new version. This cut of Opera for Android has been in beta for a while and has apparently done sufficiently well to be pushed out of the door and into the cold, hard world that is Google Play. There it will find itself in …

    James Bond inspires US bill to require smart guns for all

    Second Amendment meets 007

    American gun manufacturers will have to fit smart technology to their products if a new bill from US Representative John Tierney (D-MA) comes into force. The Personalized Handgun Safety Act of 2013 would give gun manufacturers two years to fit all guns with technology that would allow only the owner (or an authorized user) to …

    COLD FUSION is BACK with 'anomalous heat' claim

    Andrea Rossi's E-Cat rig tested by boffins

    Italian entrepreneur Andrea Rossi has surfaced again to restate his claim that his E-Cat low energy nuclear reaction kit puts out more energy than goes in. And so it is that the “cold fusion” debate will be re-ignited – this time with new voices in Rossi's corner. Giuseppe Levi and Evelyn Foschi (Bologna University, Italy); …

    Startup hires 'cyborg' Mann for Google Glass–killer project

    3D augmented reality specs coming your way this year

    Watch out, Sergey! A new startup is hard at work on a device that's far more ambitious than Google Glass, and it has just signed on wearable-computing maven Steve Mann as its chief scientist. Meta, founded by Columbia University computer and neurological science student Meron Gribetz, has developed a prototype of a wearable …

  4. Tuesday, 21 May 2013arrow_down

    Soylent Corporation prepares to DEFEAT FOOD

    Geeks order over $100,000 of startup's 'default meal' powder

    Credulous geeks have poured over $130,000 into a fantastic food replacement named "Soylent," a substance whose creators aim to "free your body" from the need to eat solids ever again. The ludicrously ambitious and suspiciously under-skilled Soylent Corporation announced its crowdfunding campaign on Tuesday and within hours had …

    VMware public cloud aims at ESXi customers, not AWS

    And the prices will reflect that, don't doubt it

    A few months back, when VMware let the cat out of the bag that it would be building its own public cloud, it said that it had 480,000 customers with an estimated 36 million virtual machines running in their data centers. On Tuesday it officially launched the the Hybrid Cloud Service at its Palo Alto headquarters and explained …

    Microsoft reveals Xbox One, the console that can read your heartbeat

    Upgrades Live service – and no always-on requirement

    Microsoft has shown off its next-generation gaming console, the Xbox One, with an upgraded Kinect and voice-recognition system, Skype integration, seamless switching between viewing modes, and a massive ramp-up in server support for the Live online community. One console to rule them all "We've designed an all-in-one system …

    New Intel CEO Krzanich takes reins of core product groups

    Management shakeup, new devices division launched

    Newly minted Intel CEO Brian Krzanich has hit the ground running, having already begun a sweeping reorganization that reshuffles Chipzilla's leadership and sees the launch of a new mobile devices division. Reuters was first to report the shakeup on Tuesday, based on details of a leaked companywide email that an Intel spokesman …

    CSIRO scales up solar cell printing

    Five yards of electricity, please

    One of the big problems in the world of printed solar cells is scale: it's much easier to print a cell the size of a fingernail than one of useful size. Australia's Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO) believes a process announced last week changes all that. Doing the hard work is a $AUD200,000 …

    Cook: Apple has 'no current plan' to pull profits out of Ireland

    Tells Senate he'd need a single-digit tax rate for that

    Apple CEO Tim Cook has doubled down on his earlier defense of Cupertino's accounting practices in testimony before a US Senate subcommittee on Tuesday, describing the company as "America's largest corporate income taxpayer." "Apple complies fully with both the laws and spirit of the laws," Cook said in his prepared remarks, …

    AWS cloud gains critical federal security certification

    Beats off Rackspace, Microsoft, Google, for government jobs

    The more people you have to go through to get approval for an IT project, the less likely it is to happen, so when Amazon announces another security certification it's not just about compliance, it's about releasing pent-up cloud demand. With the company's announcement on Tuesday that both its US West and East data center hubs …

    IBM puts supercomputer Watson to work in ROBOT CALL CENTRE

    AI goes to war with angry customers human staffers

    It's clever enough to beat humans on quiz shows and diagnose illnesses, but is IBM's artificially intelligent supercomputer tough enough to cope with angry consumers who've been on hold for three hours? IBM certainly seems to think so, as it has just given Watson a new job as a customer service manager. Rather than phoning a …

    Irish deputy PM: You want more tax from Apple? Your problem, not ours

    Póg mo thóin, you crazy Yanks

    Ireland has denied its liberal tax laws helped Apple avoid dropping dollars into the American taxpayers' purse by funnelling billions through subsidiaries based in the country. Eamon Gilmore, Ireland's Tánaiste (deputy prime minister), said that Apple's legal tax-dodging was down to rules in other countries. A US Senate …

    Private equity firm coughs £1bn for Websense

    Almost as much as Yahoo! spent on Tumblr

    NASDAQ-listed web content filtering player Websense is going private again after the board approved a deal with venture capitalist Vista Equity Partners (VEP). Under the terms of the transaction, VEP will cough $24.75 per share valuing the online security business at close to $1bn. This equates to a 29 per cent premium on the …

    Recession? Pah! Check out our swollen digits - CCS Media

    Reports massive profit rise in midst of economic gloom... sales growth not bad either

    CCS Media is laughing all the way to the bank after reporting soaring profits for calendar 2012 in spite of rocketing costs and biting economic conditions. The Chesterfield-headquartered reseller reported operating profit of £1.38m compared to £669,000 in the previous year, and net profit moved up to £1.07m from £468,000. …

    Violin welcomes new grand master flash flogger

    Steven Rose to help shift upstart's arrays in EMEA, Latin America

    Flash array startup Violin Memory has hired Steven Rose to head up both the EMEA and Latin America operations. Rose's appointment was announced on 16 May, and he will, Violin said, "lead regional market awareness [and] go-to-market strategies". Rose comes to Violin from Informatica, where he was the SVP for EMEA and LATAM. …

    O2 brushed off outsourcing 'rumour' - but it's happening ... to THOUSANDS

    Plus 600 call-centre bods face 'voluntary redundancies', says union

    More than 3,000 helpdesk staff at mobile network O2 will be transferred to outsourcing giant Capita and around 600 made redundant by August, according to the Communications Workers Union. The trade union described the move as "a betrayal". O2 owner Telefonica, meanwhile, told the Telegraph that only 2,000 positions would be …

    David Cameron asks UK biz to pay their low, low taxes

    Oi, Dave, less of this 'political point-scoring'

    UK Prime Minister David Cameron has told a quarterly meeting of the government's business advisory group that in return for lower taxes, companies should really pay the tax they do owe, while business leaders have accused the government of "political point-scoring". A government source whispered to Reuters that Cameron had …

    Syrian hacktivists hijack Telegraph's Facebook, Twitter accounts

    Updated Why social media needs 2-factor authentication... part VIII

    Twitter accounts run by the Daily Telegraph were hijacked by pro-Assad hacktivists from the Syrian Electronic Army briefly on Monday evening. The UK broadsheet's Facebook account was also purloined by group in the latest in a growing line of similar attacks against high-profile media outlets including the FT, The Guardian, …

    Review: Sony Xperia SP

    The new mid-range marvel? Oh yes.

    Sony’s flagship Android smartphones have been a bit of a disappointment to me. But if the Xperia S and Xperia T didn’t quite cut the Colman’s, the cheaper follow-ups, the Xperias P and V, were more convincing. Sony, it seems, is better in the middle than at the top. Now the new Xperia Z - another high-end Sony that didn't …

    BT Tower is just a relic? Wrong: It relays 18,000hrs of telly daily

    Geek's Guide to Britain Reg goes inside and up Blighty's telecoms spire

    The Post Office Tower in London, adorned with microwave dishes and resembling a gigantic Star Trek gadget, symbolised the UK's white heat for technology in the 1960s. The tower in 2009 before the dishes were removed (Credit: David Castor) In an era of transistor radios as a fashion accessory, the space race, and the …

    Curiosity plunges its drill into Mars AGAIN, seeks life-giving sample

    Crew hopes results from second stone will back up wet Mars theory

    Intrepid Mars rover Curiosity has bored into its second stone on the surface of the Red Planet, taking a sample from the interior of a rock called "Cumberland". The Martian nuclear truck drilled into Cumberland on Sunday, making an impression 1.6cm in diameter and 6.6cm deep, and is expected to deliver the resulting powder …

    Our new 1.5TB lappie drive isn't thick, it's just the densest - HGST

    WD biz stakes claim on highest megabytes per mm cube

    Western Digital subsidiary HGST is touting a 1.5TB notebook drive with three platters inside a standard 9.5mm-thick 2.5in form factor. HGST claims the drive has the highest storage density of any hard disk drive available, in terms of megabytes per cubic millimetre. Generally 9.5mm-tall, 2.5in drives have two platters, not …

    A backdoor into Skype for the Feds? You're joking...

    Gov-enhanced hacking capability is bad, says PGP dude

    Heavyweights of the cryptographic world have lined up behind a campaign against proposed US wiretapping laws that could require IT vendors to place new backdoors in digital communications services. Technical details are vague at present, but the planned law could mandate putting wiretap capabilities in endpoints to cover …

    BYOD beyond the noise

    Webcast Don’t think about it, build it

    A lot has been said about the strategic advantages (and problems) of BYOD, but much less about how to build a wireless infrastructure for it. Good job we're here to put that right. Join Trevor Kelly and Andy Cooper from HP, and Dale Vile from Freeform Dynamics, as they set out the essentials of what will make BYOD work: the …

    Six things you should know before you roll out Office 365

    It's all in the planning

    Let’s discuss some of the reasons for embarking on an Office 365 project. You might have found yourself at that particular point in your Microsoft upgrade cycle. Or maybe you want to allow staff to work just as efficiently away from the office as at their desks and like the collaboration tools offered by SharePoint. …

    Vodafone revenues hit as customers in Europe hang onto their cash

    Verizon buy in the US saved it from posting even more dire results

    The end of Vodafone's financial year saw the company writing down £7.7bn in assets, leaving it with a profit of only £673m based on annual revenue which declined 4.4 per cent to £44.4bn. The revenue drop was the largest ever for the telecommunications giant, it said. The bright spot in the Vodafone numbers was again Verizon, …

    Space dogs and Dragons: A brief history of reentry tech

    How a flying Frenchman paved the way for space exploration

    In August 1960, Soviet dogs Belka and Strelka1 - accompanied by several mice - became the first animals to travel into space and return alive. Belka and Strelka seen inside the Vostok capsule Packed into their Vostok spacecraft, the space canines relied on some venerable technology to return to terra firma - technology …

    Your hot peer-on-peer code wrestling could net $800k from Samsung

    App beauty contest encourages gizmos to hook up

    Samsung's annual round of carrot-on-a-stick waving at developers has been extended this year with an additional $800,000 to push the electronics giant's peer-to-peer networking. The Samsung Smart App Challenge has the usual categories for Smart TV, Mobile and Convergence software, each dishing out $55,000 in prizes to the …

    Win a Nexus 7 with reed.co.uk and The Register

    Competition And kick-start your career too...

    reed.co.uk and The Register have teamed again up to offer Reg readers in the UK another opportunity to win a shiny Nexus 7 tablet. To enter, all you need to do is sign up for reed.co.uk’s jobs by email service using the short form below. reed.co.uk will then send you only the jobs you're interested in as and when new …

    WTF is... LTE Advanced?

    Feature Data download speeds up to 1Gbps and 500Mbps uploads - but how is it done...

    Britain now has a 4G network, run by EE, and others are being rolled out. We’re behind the curve, though. The world’s first 4G network, based on the LTE (Long-Term Evolution) specification defined by mobile telecommunications standards-setter 3GPP (Third-Generation Partnership Project), went live at the very end of 2009, and …

    'Lab-smashing' Stuxnet HELPED Iran's nuke effort, says brainiac

    'No, it didn't' says former Foreign Secretary

    The Stuxnet worm may have actually pushed forward Iran's controversial nuclear programme over the long term. That's according to a report published by the Royal United Services Institute, an influential defence think tank in the UK. The infamous worm infected systems at Iran's uranium enrichment facility at Natanz in 2009 and …

    MYSTERY Nokia Lumia with gazillion-pixel camera 'spotted'

    With 20Mp sensor - NOW will you try Windows Phone 8?

    Nokia will plug the boffinry behind the 41-megapixel camera in its 808 PureView phone into a new Lumia smartmobe, it is rumoured. The technology involves a gigantic sensor capable of taking gazillion-pixel photographs and clever software to refine the image into a sharp 3MP, 5MP or 8MP shot. The results can match the output of …

    Machine learning climbs atop Hadoop

    Pattern hoists machine-learning models onto HDFS

    Hadoop whisperer Concurrent has released a free tool for porting machine-learning models over to Hadoop. The Pattern tool lets you run machine-learning models on top of the Hadoop compute and storage framework via either exported Predictive Model Markup Language (PMML) files or a Pattern Java API. Designing machine-learning …

    New 4TB drive spaffs half a telly season into your eyes AT ONCE

    You like porn Game of Thrones, right? How about 16 eps simultaneously?

    Seagate has a new 4TB 3.5in hard disk for digital video recorders, TV set-top boxes and other such entertainment gear. The Video 3.5 HDD can operate 24 hours a day, seven days a week, with an initial 0.55 per cent chance of drive failure per year. It has a wide range of capacity points - 250GB, 320GB, 500GB, 1TB, 2TB, 3TB and …

    Buff American beauties keen to dominate Euro youth in tech tussle

    HPC blog High-performance cluster battle goes global

    Competition at the ISC’13 Student Cluster Challenge will be the fiercest yet. Nine university teams from five continents are building, testing and optimising their own multi-node HPC clusters in preparation for the live face-off that will take place on the ISC’13 show floor in mid-June. During the show, the students will be …

    Indian 'attacks' Norwegian telco to get at Pakistan, China

    A tale of twisted IP tracks

    Security researchers have uncovered what appears to be a sophisticated targeted attack launched from India and designed to steal information from a range of government and private enterprise victims in Pakistan, China and elsewhere. What began as an investigation into an attack on Norwegian operator Telenor soon uncovered …

    German robots sent to Oz to make GPS millimetre-perfect

    Auto-builders get a home in the great outdoors

    Industrial robots from Germany will be spending their life in Australia's great outdoors, helping to improve the accuracy of the country's Global Navigation Satellite System positioning knowledge. The project, a GNSS robotic calibration facility, has been switched on in Canberra, and will ultimately be part of a nationwide …

    Dell's PC-on-a-stick landing in July: report

    Wyse up, suckers, could this be a new set-side-stick?

    Dell's project Ophelia, an Android-PC-on-a-stick effort revealed at CES last January, is apparently set to debut in July. PC World brings us news that Dell will bring the product to the world in a few short weeks at around $US100. The idea behind the device is to offer user a very lightweight client device that users can …

    Global perils of dirt, glaciers and lizardocalypse overblown, say boffins

    Another three ways the world isn't ending right now

    A trio of new studies out this week have undermined three of the basic ideas underpinning the belief that the world is facing imminent doom as a result of human carbon emissions and perhaps-associated global warming in past decades. It would seem that the menaces of a runaway feedback loop driven by carbon belching from …

    Infosys vows to fight Indian tax claim

    Domestic bill lands with a thud

    It’s not just Western technology giants that are being targeted by the Indian government, now local IT services behemoth Infosys has been forced to challenge a Rs.5.77 billion (£68.7m) tax demand by the authorities. India’s second biggest outsourcer was hit with the tax bill for the 2009-10 year last month. The demand relates …

    Blogger better be a billionaire, says 'open access' publisher lawsuit

    OMICS offended by 'Beall's List'

    Blogger Jeffrey Beall, who tries to separate the wheat from the chaff in the world of academic publishing, is being threatened with a billion-dollar lawsuit from OMICS Publishing Group in India. According to this report from The Chronicle of Higher Education, at issue is Beall's list identifying his assessment of the worth of …

    Computer use irrelevant to education outcomes, says US study

    Reading, writing and redundancy

    The accepted wisdom that computers are an indispensable tool of modern education is under challenge in a study conducted for Germany's Centre for Economic Studies IFO (CESifo). The study, published by the University of California Santa Cruz's Robert Fairlie and Johnathan Robertson, detected no difference between computer- …

    Chocolate Factory chucks out Checkout

    Stick your stuff in our Wallet

    Google Checkout is the latest product to check into the Chocolate Factory's hospice, with merchants told it will be farewelled in six months. Merchants using the service are being encouraged to switch to Google Wallet Instant Buy or find another payment processor – a move which involves a lot more disruption to the small …

    AT&T to relax restrictions on FaceTime, video chat

    New contractual shenanigans to arrive in June?

    AT&T Wireless plans to lift some of its restrictions on the use of mobile video chat apps by the end of this year, according to a statement the carrier released on Monday. AT&T started limiting its customers' access to bandwidth-heavy chat apps in 2012, when Apple first enabled the use of its FaceTime video chat over mobile …

    China breaks ceasefire, restarts hacking US government

    Officials say it's time to move beyond 'jaw jaw'

    After a three-month hiatus, Chinese hackers are once again targeting US government sites, according to government officials and the security firm that first uncovered the attacks. "They dialed it back for a little while, though other groups that also wear uniforms didn't even bother to do that," Kevin Mandia, the chief …

    Alteryx grabs cash to simplify analytics

    Lets pointy-haired bosses think they're 'data artisans'

    Analytics startup Alteryx has grabbed another round of funding to help it get its big-data analysis tools in front of more non-techies at more enterprises with tangled data. The $12m in cash will be used to add sales and marketing roles, fund international expansion, and make further investments into its Strategic Analytics …

    VMware taps ex-Ciscoer as channel chief

    The channel is the key to Virtzilla's impending vCloud Hybrid Service

    Just ahead of the formal launch of VMware's "Project Zephyr" vCloud Hybrid Service public cloud on Tuesday, the company has appointed a new channel chief. And the timing is not accidental, with VMware's channel being a key component of its hybrid cloud strategy. It's easy to see why VMware wants to build its own public cloud …

  5. Monday, 20 May 2013arrow_down

    Amazon cloud soars far above Google and Microsoft

    Analysis Bezos & Co's feature-rich cloud casts long shadow

    With last week's gale of Google cloud announcements, it'd be easy to think that the Chocolate Factory has a competitive offering compared with Amazon Web Services. But when you look at the number of services Google fields versus Amazon, that is simply not the case. For all the announcements last week – and there were several …

    Supreme Court sides with FCC in NIMBY wireless tower spat

    Local governments must follow agency's rules

    The US Supreme Court has sided with the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) that local governments must act within a "reasonable period" – as defined by the FCC – to approve or deny requests by telcos to build new wireless towers. The ruling upholds an earlier decision by the Federal Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals, which …

    Yahoo! adds 1TB of free storage to Flickr in site revamp

    Enough space to store every photo ever taken, apparently

    Not content with its $1.1bn acquisition of Tumblr, Marissa Mayer took to a New York stage on Monday evening to debut a redesigned Flickr photo site that includes 1TB free storage for each user – enough room to store 537,731 photos in "full original quality," meaning 6.5 megapixels. "If you took all the photos ever shot in the …

    US Congress excoriates Apple's tax-avoidance shenanigans

    Cook to defend 'an American success story' – and billions in unpaid taxes – on Tuesday

    A US Senate investigation has found that Apple avoided billions of dollars in taxes through a complex scheme of subsidiaries scattered around the globe, some with no employees and run by top execs back in its Cupertino headquarters. "Apple wasn't satisfied with shifting its profits to a low-tax offshore tax haven," said …

    Stephen Hawking nixes Intel voice upgrade plan

    Physics luminary 'quite upset'

    Stephen Hawking scuppered an Intel plan to upgrade his voice, sending researchers at the chip giant into a desperate effort to emulate a defunct speech-synthesis chip. The A Brief History of Time author's nixing of Intel efforts to bring his robotic voice up-to-date was revealed at an innovation awards ceremony hosted by the …

    Azure hops into Australia

    Redmond promises a 'major region' real soon now

    Microsoft has announced "the planned expansion of a new Windows Azure major region for Australia" Details are scanty: Redmond is saying only that the "Windows Azure major region in Australia will consist of two sub-regions located in New South Wales and Victoria. These two locations will be geo-redundant, offering our …

    UTS Business School bakes SAP into courses

    Standalone and Masters units at Oz uni get SAP's take on accounting

    The University of Technology Sydney (UTS) is poised to offer courses in SAP. The courses will be offered as either standalone subjects or as part of a Master of Business in Accounting. Bean-counting is the focus on the new courses, two of which are “foundation” level affairs consisting of a “Certificate 1 in Accounting with …

    Don't Panic! Google FCC filing reveals mystery media device

    Nexus Q replacement, or something more Guide-y?

    Google has filed paperwork with the US Federal Communications Commission (FCC) for a mysterious new media player device, leading to widespread speculation that a successor to the ill-fated Nexus Q may be forthcoming. But if that's true, what's with the Douglas Adams references? The paperwork, published on the FCC's site on …

    The iWatch is coming! The iWatch is coming!

    Reports: Apple's wrister to have 1.5-inch OLED, test units being built

    The Apple iWatch rumor mill has rumbled to life yet again, with one report that Apple is sampling 1.5-inch OLED displays for the li'l fellow, and a second that long-time iKit assembler Foxconn has received orders for a test batch of the "wearable computing" device. On Monday, MacRumors spotted an article in the Japanese Apple- …

    Dell JUNKS public cloud in favor of partner tech

    'Freedom from lock-in' through product cancellation

    Dell is discontinuing its infrastructure-as-a-service cloud and instead dealing tech to partners as it looks to make some money in the cut-throat world of cloud computing. The Round Rock, Texas, company announced on Monday that it was discontinuing sales of its multi-tenant public cloud IaaS "in favor of best-in-class partner …

    WordPress warns of mass Tumblr defections after Yahoo! deal

    Hipster smut is safe for now, says Mayer

    News of Tumblr's purchase by Yahoo! has prompted a flood of established users to flee that social-media site, according to WordPress founder Matt Mullenweg. In a blog post, Mullenweg said that around 400 to 600 Tumblr users typically import their content into WordPress every hour, with 67 exports per hour exiting the blogging …

    Flailing QLogic's boss gives up CEO, president gigs

    That seat on the board? You can have that too...

    Simon Biddiscombe, server adapter maker QLogic's CEO and the driver of its Mount Rainier flash-enhanced HBA program, has resigned "to pursue other opportunities," with a search for a new CEO underway. Biddiscombe's departure comes after two years of falling revenue and a decline in profitability. He has also left his position …

    Rogue Nokia splinter cell drops its Jolla phone A-BOMB

    Ota tuo, vihreä robotti Google!

    Smartphone upstart Jolla - founded by a bunch of ex-Nokia engineers - has finally unveiled a device. The gadget's technical details are few and far between at this moment. The handset itself won't be available until the end of the year, but anyone willing to plonk down €100 can get get in line early for the €399 phone and bag …

    They WANT to EAT YOUR COMPUTER - welcome your ANT overlords

    Whole corner of America faces life without computers

    A massive horde of computer-killing "crazy ants" are invading the southeastern US, killing other species as they go. New research released today in the journal Biological Invasions warns the aliens have wiped out at least one other ant invader, the exotic fire ant, but are also targeting local ants with deadly precision. More …

    Canadian regulators welcome US Bitcoin refugees with open arms

    Money laundering not a problem here, eh

    Canadian Bitcoin traders will not be clobbered by laws similar to those being used to target virtual currency exchanges in America, according to a leaked letter from the country's financial investigations unit. The Register has seen a letter from the Financial Transactions and Reports Analysis Centre of Canada (FINTRAC) which …

    Securo-boffins uncover new GLOBAL cyber-espionage operation

    Two-pronged attack hits victims in 100 countries

    Government ministries, technology firms, media outlets, academic research institutions and non-governmental organisations have all fallen victim to an ongoing cyberespionage operation with tendrils all over the world, according to researchers. Infosec researchers have uncovered SafeNet in as many as 100 countries. SafeNet …

    It! Started! With! A! GIF!... Yahoo! Actually! Buys! Tumblr! for! $1bn!

    Mayer gets animated, 'promises not to screw it up'

    Yahoo! has "promised not to screw it up" after agreeing to acquire cat'n'porn blogging site Tumblr for about $1.1bn. The Purple Palace is sticking to a hands-off approach to try to keep its square taint off the cool vibe of GIF-heavy Tumblr and stop users abandoning it in droves. Yahoo! said the blogging site would continue …

    Petshop iPad fanboi charged with filming up young model's skirt

    LAPD throws book at fondleslabber

    A Los Angeles fanboi has been charged (PDF) with using an iPad to take upskirt footage of an underwear model. Julio Mario Medal, 38, stands accused of using his big shiny fondleslab to gaze up 22-year-old Brittanie Weaver's skirt and shoot a film about her naughty bits. Brittanie Weaver The blonde beauty claimed he had …

    Microsoft: We need a pro to flog our Surface slabs in UK

    New bod to tackle Apple, Samsung, twitchy channel partners, skint consumers...

    Microsoft UK is seeking a captain to steer the good ship Surface. The candidate will need a sturdy pair of sea legs to navigate potentially choppy waters and prevent it from running aground. Ten-year Microsoft veteran and senior Windows consumer marketing man Rob Epstein is currently moonlighting as Microsoft's lead on the UK …

    Amazon cloud-watcher shows some love for Microsoft's Azure

    Cloudy beancounter Newvem: 'We're not trying to do 50 clouds ... half-way'

    Newvem has been peddling its Cloud Care monitoring and costing tools for virty public infrastructure since it uncloaked last November for Amazon Web Services. Now the company is expanding Cloud Care so it can control-freak Microsoft's Windows Azure heavenly server and storage slices. Support for Cloud Care plugging into …

    Crack Army pilot to be first PROPER British astronaut IN SPAAAACE

    Ground control to Major Tim, countdown commencing, engines on

    Ex-Apache helicopter pilot Tim Peake will become the first bona fide British astronaut in space - and live and work on the International Space Station. Peake performance ... Tim trains in a Soyuz simulator (Credit: ESA) The former army major, and a serving member of the European Space Agency's astronaut corps, said today …

    UK.gov STILL wants to tout pupil data - don't use the word 'product'

    Is that a screeching U-turn we hear from Gove? Oh, no

    At the end of 2012, Education Secretary Michael Gove told Parliament that he wanted "to share extracts of data held in the National Pupil Database for a wider range of purposes than possible in order to maximise the value of this rich dataset". Ultimately, the government wants the private sector to tout "tools and services …

    Marks & Sparks accused of silently bonking punters over the tills

    Analysis Bank cards bought stuff ALL BY THEMSELVES, say shoppers

    High-street socks'n'frocks chain Marks and Spencer is accused of quietly taking money from shoppers' contactless bank cards at the tills. The accusations come from Radio 4's Money Box listeners, who called in to report that M&S had billed cards in purses and handbags over the air, unbeknownst to customers who had intended to …

    Schmidt: Don't like our tiny tax bills? Google this... 'Change the law'

    Ad biz chairman says he can't wait for reform

    Google chief Eric Schmidt has once more defended his advertising giant for its pitiful UK tax bills: the search supremo said his biz abides by the rules, and claims he can't wait for the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development to reform those rules. Schmidt said in an op-ed for The Observer that Google "has …

    Biz bods: Tile-tastic Windows 8? NOOO. We lust after 'mature' Win 7

    Tired corporates prefer predecessor, says analyst

    Windows 8 won't become an enterprise IT standard as customers dump Microsoft's legacy PC operating system XP. Instead, corporate IT departments will stick to what they know and install Windows 7. That’s according to technology analyst Forrester, which reckoned Windows 7 is fast becoming the de-facto PC operating system for big …

    So you want to be a contractor? Well, here's how it works

    Free advice from Reg headhunter Dominic Connor

    Back in the heady days of 1984, working on the development of Microsoft Unix (yes, that was a real product, AKA Xenix), we needed to write an Ethernet driver, but none of us really felt up to that. We needed to hire an expensive specialist. And so I met my first contractor, who turned up in a far better car than anyone else …

    Give porno danger classes to Brit kids as young as FIVE - parents

    Sex ed must cover web smut, families tell heads

    Schoolteachers should warn British children as young as five about the "dangers" of finding pornography online, say families. The National Association of Head Teachers (NAHT) asked parents to suggest what schools should be doing to protect kids from smutty websites: nearly half (42 per cent) of 1,009 respondents believed …

    Bumbling fraudsters fail to dupe 'Westcost' customers

    But channel warned of spike in more sophisticated scams

    Fraudsters masquerading as British distie giant Westcoast failed in their attempts to convince resellers to redirect their payments for products and services to a dodgy bank account, the company has confirmed. The scam was initially spotted by some of Westcoast's customers, who then contacted the distributor. The company has …

    Cameron's Tech City: Desks? Yes. Cash? Yes. Coders? Nope

    Silicon Roundabout's stovepipe-hat-wearers can't find the staff

    Lack of skilled staff is hampering the growth of almost half of all tech businesses based around East London's Silicon Roundabout, a survey has found. Research firm GfK asked top-ranking staff from than a hundred companies based within Shoreditch's Tech City cluster about the problems faced by their businesses. 77 per cent of …

    Gay marriage? We'll put a stop to that 'human BUG', says Nintendo

    Sayōnara, Mr and Mr Robotto

    A bug that permitted same-sex marriage in a Nintendo game was a mistake by the developer rather than a victory for equality, we're told. Gamers playing Tomodachi Collection: New Life - the latest version of The Sims-like role-playing game for the 3DS handheld - noticed they had the option of allowing male characters to marry …

    Hello, Goodbye ... to $408,000: John Lennon axe under the hammer

    Not much Vox for an awful lot of bucks

    A guitar played by both John Lennon and George Harrison has sold at auction for a cool $408k. One Vox, yours for $408k The custom Vox was build for Lennon in 1966 by Mike Bennett and Dick Denney, who handled the instrument's mahogany body and electronics, respectively. In September 1967, it appeared in Harrison's hands …

    Intel's answer to ARM: Customisable x86 chips with HIDDEN POWERS

    Let's all play find the secret hardware register

    With new CEO Brian Krzanich and new president Renée James in control of Intel, all kinds of changes are very likely in store: the chip giant wants to expand beyond its dominance in PCs (a declining market) and servers (one that is profitable but not growing very much) to other aspects of the computing landscape. And one such …

    NetApp boffins first to go in 'WORKFORCE DECIMATION' plan

    300 R&D bods out the door in proposed cull of 1,300, say insiders

    Storage array biz NetApp has laid off 300 people at a research and development centre in India and “hundreds” more in the US, according to industry sources. The Times of India reports that anonymous insiders at NetApp's Bangalore operation - which is the company's largest R&D facility outside of the US - have been given their …

    'Untidy' Shoreditch just CONFUSES American techies - Olympic hub team

    Come join the tech mall in Stratford instead, US firms told

    A leading American tech incubator is considering opening a British outpost on the site of the Stratford Olympics, The Register can reveal. Cambridge Innovations Center, once home to part of the Google team that designed Android, is in top-secret preliminary discussions with iCity, the company building a digital hub in a …

    Is it time for the great Jihad against networked storage?

    Blocks and Files Big boys look wide open with eyes wide shut

    Dheeraj Pandy is running Nutanix as if the company is on a crusade against networked storage. Data delivery latency from networked storage is plain unacceptable, it seems, and clustered virtualised servers should run and present their local storage as part of a pool. There's more of course with big-iron converged systems being …

    Streaming music works for us, say US and UK indie labels

    Analysis Not clear it does for the musician, however

    Are legal music streaming services just Kim Dotcom on a diet, with a lawyer? The debate has raged amongst musicians for years now, and really ignited when Cracker and Camper Van Beethoven frontman David Lowery took issue with the “new music economy” two years ago. In what became known as the “Letter to Emily” storm last year, …

    Look behind you, NetApp: Angry investor is coming for YOU

    First Xyratex, then Emulex and Brocade... now Elliot's stalking a storage giant

    Activist investor Eliott Management, of Emulex fame, always pushes to have its voice heard - especially when it thinks bosses of its "investment companies" don't put shareholders first. Now the fund has actually taken on storage giant NetApp. According to a Bloomberg report, Elliott is pushing NetApp to change its board. We …

    Last time CO2 was this high, the world was underwater? NO, actually

    Ice sheets DIDN'T melt 3 million years B.C., say boffins

    OK, so levels of atmospheric CO2 are rising through 0.0004 (or 400 parts per million) at the moment. Disaster, right? The last time the world saw carbon levels like this, some three million years ago, the mighty ice sheets of Greenland and the Antarctic had melted from the heat and the seas were 35 metres higher than they are …

    Boffins find 'scary radio attack'* against pacemakers

    *Attack is actually 'very difficult in real world'

    It's a little difficult to credit as a discovery the fact that analogue receivers – whether they be on a bluetooth device or a pacemaker – are vulnerable to radio interference. That, however, is what's going to be presented at an IEEE conference later this week. Here's an excerpt of a story from America's Institution of …

    Pakistan signs up for China's GPS rival

    Doesn't want no steenking US military tech

    China’s home-grown sat-nav system Beidou (BDS) is expected to add yet another customer after Pakistan signed up to host ground stations for the service. Pakistan will follow Thailand, Laos and Brunei in becoming a Beidou customer later this month, according to China Daily. Huang Lei, international business director of Beijing …

    Intel releases 'Beacon Mountain' Android-on-Atom dev tool

    Indroid Inside

    Indroid Inside Intel has released “Beacon Mountain” a development environment for Android apps on both its own Atom silicon and ARM chippery. Beacon Mountain emerged over the weekend, promising “productivity-oriented design, coding, and debugging tools for apps targeting … smartphones and tablets.” The software's in version 0 …

    US boffin builds 32-way Raspberry Pi cluster

    Beowulf cluster built for the price of a single PC

    Boise University PhD candidate Joshua Kiepert has built a 32-way Beowulf cluster from Raspberry Pis. Kiepert says his research focuses on “developing a novel data sharing system for wireless sensor networks to facilitate in-network collaborative processing of sensor data.” To study that field Kipert figured he would need a …

    Massive EXPLOSION visible to naked eye SEEN ON MOON

    Vid 'Equivalent to 5 TONNES of TNT going off', says NASA

    Sensational news today from the Moon, as skywatchers say a huge explosion - as bright as a star, and visible from Earth with the naked eye - has been seen on the lunar surface. "It exploded in a flash nearly 10 times as bright as anything we've ever seen before," splutters Bill Cooke, a top NASA boffin. According to NASA, …

    Yahoo! Japan says 22 MEELLION User IDs may have been nabbed

    Suspected breach didn't nab passwords but resets nonetheless recommended

    Yahoo! Japan has told its 200 million customers to change their passwords after revealing that 22 million user IDs may have been exposed in a suspected intrusion last week. The attack was detected at around 9:00 PM local time on Thursday night, with the internet giant apparently cutting access while it checked what had …

    Nintendo throws flaming legal barrel at YouTubing fans

    All your walk-through vid revenue are belong to us

    Nintendo has contacted fans who post walk-through videos of its games to YouTube, claiming all revenue from their efforts. Gamer Zack Scott brought the practice to light in a Facebook post. Scott is a member of Let's Play, a community in which folks post "videos in which the author records the complete gameplay of a video game …

    Optus outlines its 4G future

    Canberra first for TD-LTE rollout

    Optus is hoping to shed its bridesmaid status, unveiling plans for a major rollout across four frequency bands, announcing its first TD-LTE deployment, and adding a bunch of cities and regional centres to its rollout. Managing director of Optus Networks Guenther Ottendorfer told a press conference today that the aim is to use …

    Hold our tiny silicon spheres, say gravity wave detection scientists

    Nano-sensors in optical trap for more sensitive instrument

    A group of scientists from the University of Nevada at Reno says tiny sensors – small enough to be suspended in an optical trap – could pave the way for a new kind of ultra-sensitive gravity wave sensor. That is, of course, if gravity waves exist: predicted by Einstein's general theory of relativity, gravity waves have proven …

  6. Sunday, 19 May 2013arrow_down

    EMC vuln gives mere sysadmins the power of storage admins

    Time to patch VNX and Celerra software before non-experts do something silly

    EMC has warned a flaw in the Control Station software for its VNX and Celerra arrays could allow just about anyone logged into them to do just about anything. EMC's described the fault as stemming from “Script files in affected products exist with ownership permissions for the nasadmin group account.” The nasadmin group is …

    Four Anons cuffed in Italy

    Postal Police go postal

    Four individuals accused of being members of Anonymous and participating in “Operation Tango Down” have been arrested in Italy. According to AFP, the four are being accused of various attacks in Italy, including a DDoS against the Vatican and the parliamentary Website. The Postal Police – responsible for enforcement of …

    IBM gives a cloudy outlook for COBOL

    Zombie language gets XML, Java support

    IBM is giving its COBOL environment a cloudy flavour with an update to the ancient venerable and unkillable language. To the cool kids, COBOL probably looks like a zombie, complete with loose bits of decaying flesh. However it still accounts for a vast amount of operational enterprise code that's too expensive to replace all …

    Bureau of Stats releases educational SimClone game

    Hey kids! Why bother with Minecraft when you could play an evidence-based policy sim?

    Australia's Bureau of Statistics (ABS) has released a game, Run That Town, that borrows heavily form SimCity to give players the chance to learn about the way statistics are used to shape policy. The iOS-only game, offers the chance to pick an Australian postcode, then assume a quasi-mayoral role and juggle competing fiscal …

    I know identity of Bitcoin's SECRET mastermind, says Ted Nelson

    Coiner of 'hypertext' claims to identify the links

    Sociologist, philosopher, computer industry pioneer and inventor of the term “hypertext” Ted Nelson is claiming that he knows the identity of Bitcoin inventor “Satoshi Nakamoto”. In a rambling – and, let's face it, odd – 12-minute post on YouTube, Nelson spins out the suspense, throws in a dialogue with himself as Sherlock …

  7. Saturday, 18 May 2013arrow_down

    Google builds crowdsourcing into new Maps code stack

    Google I/O Wants a unique map for every user

    Google has been giving more details about how it has redesigned its Maps software by adding in crowd-sourced photographic and driving directions to its coding scheme. The new Maps package is a ground-up rewrite of the code and the algorithms it uses, with the aim of generating personalized maps for each user that are suitable …

    Google's Native Code browser tech goes cross-platform

    Google I/O Write web modules in C/C++ that run on both Intel and ARM

    At its annual I/O conference in San Francisco this week, Google unveiled a new version of its Native Client technology that allows developers to deploy binary code for web applications in an architecture-independent way. With the original version of Native Client (NaCl), developers could write modules in C or C++ and compile …