The Register® — Biting the hand that feeds IT

Feeds

11th October 2011 Archive

Browse by publication date, or search the site.

  • El Reg follows World Solar Challenge

    WSC Hot and bothered about electric cars

    At almost 3000km in length, the Stuart Highway is the world's longest road. The highway traverses the middle "strip" of Australia, connecting Darwin in the north with Adelaide in the south, and cuts through hostile terrain, mostly desert and mostly flat. Also it's bloody hot - with day-time temperatures hitting 38C in the …

    SPB 11 Oct 00:00

  • Get your numbers right, NBN Co tells Economist

    What’s a few million households between friends?

    The Economist Intelligence Unit, which The Register had reason to criticize back in February, is still on the attack regarding Australia’s planned National Broadband Network. Touting the latest edition of its nearly-$AU3,000 international broadband study, the EIU pulled out the “screaming red” headline stop, labeling Australia …

    Broadband 11 Oct 00:09

  • iPlayer founder launches next big TV thing-Zeebox

    Anthony Rose unveils the secret to connected TV

    The tech wizard behind Kazaa and the BBC’s iPlayer, Anthony Rose, has unveiled his long awaited next project – Zeebox. Speaking on a panel at Mipcom last week in Cannes, Rose declared that the future of television would be based on personalised recommendation, the premise of his new venture. “My starting proposition is that …

    Media 11 Oct 00:21

  • Nanotubes, sulfur expand battery storage

    Blast-proof battery boffins back

    The group that last year gave the world the unexplodable lithium battery is back, this time using a combination of nanotubes, sulfur and an electrolyte additive to achieve what they say is a tenfold improvement in capacity. In particular, the group, led by Stanford University’s Yi Cui, believes the sulfur-coated carbon …

    Science 11 Oct 01:30

  • Sony Ericsson Xperia Mini Pro Qwerty Android smartphone

    Review Small talk

    Sony Ericsson may not be churning out Android handsets in the bulk of HTC or Samsung, but its has produced some consistently good phones recently in its Xperia range. Building on last year’s X10 Mini Pro, this new version adds a slightly bigger screen, faster processor and Gingerbread, the latest version of Android for mobiles …

    reghardware 11 Oct 06:00

  • XIO tosses the dice one more time

    Comment C'mon ... virtualisation!

    Neither-fish-nor-fowl storage supplier XIO is looking to server virtualisation for growth spurt that has so far eluded it. If this fails then all XIO's bets could be off. XIO, the renamed Xiotech, makes Integrated Storage Elements (ISE): sealed enclosures of solid state and disk drives with a five-year warranty and rocket …

    Storage 11 Oct 08:00

  • Would you let your car insurer snoop on you for a better deal?

    How's my driving? Ask the box of sensors in my motor

    Having your driving style assessed by a back-seat black box of tricks sounds galling – but if it can shave money off your insurance premium, a beancounting firm reckons you'll put up with it. Particularly if you're an 18-year-old pimple-faced lad. The gadget-based insurance scheme rewards careful drivers with lower premiums, …

    Data Centre 11 Oct 08:20

  • UK patent office spawns free search site

    Hopefully no one's patented that

    The Intellectual Property Office (IPO) has launched a new online service to reduce the cost to business of requesting patent documents. Named Ipsum, the service allows users to obtain a document for free rather than pay a £5 application fee. The Department of Business, Innovation and Skills claimed the service could save UK …

    Policy 11 Oct 08:40

  • Half of Whitehall's websites axed in a year

    There are still over 400 online, though ...

    The government has claimed to have almost halved the number of Whitehall websites over the past year. Its annual Central Government Websites report, published by the Cabinet Office, says that 444 are now open compared with 820 a year ago. The closure programme is part of the government's campaign to reduce spending while …

    Policy 11 Oct 09:01

  • Smut oglers told to opt in to keep web filth flowing

    Cameron brandishes tool at ISPs to keep Britain clean

    Grubby smut gazers will be forced to "opt in" to view porn under government-backed restrictions to be imposed on ISPs. PM David Cameron will propose a raft of measures today at a Downing Street meeting with Christian charity group Mothers' Union. The restrictions are designed to protect children from sexualised content. A …

    Government 11 Oct 09:19

  • BlackBerry users back online after outage

    Quick, organise a riot while you can

    RIM has been issuing a flurry of apologies for yesterday's network outage, which knocked out connections in Europe, the Middle East and India, and assures us that everything should be tickety boo by now. The outage started yesterday morning, around 10am, with users around the world who were reliant on RIM's servers losing all …

    Broadband 11 Oct 09:34

  • YouTube ships movie rental service to UK

    Take to hire ground?

    YouTube has brought its movie rental service across the pond to Blighty. The website now offers over 1000 full-length films to stream, from golden oldies like Attack of the 50 Foot Woman and Weird Science to new releases such as Hanna and Fast Five. The majority of flicks cost either £2.50 or £3.50 for a 48-hour pass and …

    reghardware 11 Oct 09:42

  • VeriSign demands website takedown powers

    No court order necessary

    VeriSign, which manages the database of all .com internet addresses, wants powers to shut down "non-legitimate" domain names when asked to by law enforcement. The company said today it wants to be able to enforce the "denial, cancellation or transfer of any registration" in any of a laundry list of scenarios where a domain is …

    Hosting 11 Oct 09:44

  • MS kills, un-kills kills Zune player line

    WinPho to the fore

    Zune hardware really is dead. Microsoft has re-posted the end-of-life notice it put up on its website last week and then took it down a day later. "We will no longer be producing Zune players," it says. Microsoft hasn't revised its Zune hardware since 2009, which tells you all you need to know about its commitment to the …

    reghardware 11 Oct 09:54

  • Viz Profanisaurus

    Android App of the Week NSFW. 'Nuff said.

    Fist published in 1998 Roger’s Profanisaurus is a compendium of words and phrases inspired by the lexicon and philosophy of Viz comic’s foul-mouthed northern TV reporter Roger Mellie. Thirteen years later and "the man from the telly" can now spice up your descriptive and euphemistic powers through this handy app. Never before …

    reghardware 11 Oct 10:00

  • Cloudy challenge looms over networking

    Gearing up for growth

    This cloud computing thing has legs. The announcements from the Build conference confirms what we have known for a while: that Microsoft has bet the farm on it. Intel is in on it. VMware and Red Hat are fighting for their chunks. You can’t throw a proverbial rock anywhere in Silicon Valley without hitting someone whose …

    Enterprise Tech 11 Oct 10:08

  • CyanogenMod 7.1 brings 24 Android phones into fold

    Custom firmware updated

    Android smartphone owners, rejoice! CyanogenMod, one of the better custom phone firmware offerings has been updated, adding support for 24 more handsets. The list of added phones includes key recent releases from Sony Ericsson, Samsung, Motorola and HTC: HTC Desire S HTC Incredible S HTC Incredible 2 LG Optimus 2X and T- …

    reghardware 11 Oct 10:19

  • IBM preps boost for Power Systems

    Just don't call it Power7+

    Big Blue is getting ready to do a bunch of enhancements on its Power Systems lineup either this week or perhaps next week, but don't expect any kickers to the current eight-core Power7 processors, which first made their debut in February 2010 and were rolled out through the summer of last year. That's because, contrary to what …

    Hardware 11 Oct 10:23

  • The rise of the modular Cloud?

    Broadcast With a little help from JANET

    Dr Phil Richards from Loughborough University heads into The Reg studios on October 20th at 10am (BST) to tell us how he's building modular hybrid clouds. Dr Richards has recognised numerous challenges with ageing data centres, some of which you'll recognise and some of which you won't. One of them was that doing things the …

    Cloud 11 Oct 10:38

  • Spotify's rising revenues gobbled by royalties blackhole

    Spend a lot of money to make not quite as much money

    Streaming services face a brutal few months, but leader Spotify can at least point to solid revenue. Spotify UK, which was responsible for the bulk of the music company’s global business until last month, saw its revenues increase to £63.17m in 2010, up from £11.32m in 2009, the first year of its rollout. According to its …

    Financial News 11 Oct 10:42

  • Dark Souls

    Review Death awaits

    Plunging from a treacherous rampart, slowly succumbing to the poisonous bite or bludgeoned by a monstrous ice giant – Dark Souls wants you dead. And it doesn't care how. Shanking of the colossus That should come as no surprise, of course. Anyone who dared play last year's Demon's Souls knows all too well that death will be …

    reghardware 11 Oct 11:00

  • Sneak peek: Revamped Opera gets turboboost

    Pictures So much is new, but it's mostly under the hood

    Oslo: Opera has lifted the lid on a range of new technology today – and is making fresh versions of the Mobile and Mini browsers available to world+Android-using dog this afternoon. The first alpha version of version 12 for the desktop follows on Thursday. We had a sneak peek at them all in Oslo this morning. Two versions are …

    Applications 11 Oct 11:28

  • Feds slurp WikiLeaker's email with secret court order

    Message headers prised from Google, ISP

    Information about WikiLeaks volunteer Jacob Appelbaum’s emails could already be in the hands of the US government after wonks obtained secret court orders against Google and Sonic.net. The Wall Street Journal says it has seen documents showing that the two companies failed in their opposition to the court orders. However, the …

    Government 11 Oct 11:34

  • Pay Jobs due respect - by crushing the empire he created

    Open ... And Shut Real entrepreneurs don't settle for second best

    In all the eulogies dedicated to the remarkable Steve Jobs, people seem to be overlooking his legacy: the push to "think different". Rather than buying into his declaration that we should not "waste [our lives] living someone else's life" – namely, his – we see far too many products that seek to ape Apple, not beat it. In his …

    Business 11 Oct 11:48

  • Ten... Freeview HD recorders

    Product Round-up Timeshifting telly treats

    The UK’s ongoing digital switchover means that Freeview HD has probably now rolled out to a transmitter near you. If you’re using old digital TVs or set-top boxes, you won’t get the four – soon to be five – high-def channels through your aerial, alongside the standard line-up. One of the best ways to upgrade is with a new …

    reghardware 11 Oct 12:00

  • NHS IT spending: The winners and losers

    Integrators lose out as CfH budgets dive 35 per cent

    The pot of dosh dished out by NHS Connecting for Health to IT suppliers evaporated in fiscal 2011. Integration giants were the biggest losers as resellers gained ground. A Freedom of Information request by The Guardian revealed that spending by CfH – the delivery arm of the DfH's Informatics Directory – fell around 35 per cent …

    Data Centre 11 Oct 12:06

  • Royal Navy halts Highlands GPS jamming

    Exercises knocked furious fishermen off course

    Following complaints from local fishermen, the Royal Navy has suspended satnav signal jamming during its ongoing Joint Warrior naval exercises, despite making every attempt to let people know. Locals around the Western Isles say the jamming of GPS has disrupted their lives, and put the safety (and profitability) of fishermen …

    Broadband 11 Oct 12:16

  • Oracle's Sparc T4 prices mask improved value

    Analysis Similar bang, more capacity, similar bucks

    When Oracle announced the eight-core Sparc T4 processor and the four systems that make use of the new chip to run Solaris workloads two weeks ago, the one thing that was missing on announcement day was pricing for the systems. Having lived through Oracle OpenWorld, El Reg figures now is a good time to circle back and take a look …

    Servers 11 Oct 12:28

  • Trusteer rebuffs bank security bypass claims

    Smacks down Times and researchers

    Trusteer has downplayed the significance of reports that it might have been possible to bypass its anti-keylogger online banking protection technology. Digit Security presented research at the 44Con conference last month suggesting that Trusteer's Rapport technology could be ‘switched-off’ and ‘bypassed’ using functionality …

    Security 11 Oct 12:42

  • Wall Street protest app Vibe is secure enough, cries dev

    This is between you, me and any determined Feds

    That new "anonymous Twitter" app we wrote about last week? It is more anonymous than Twitter – but it isn't actually very anonymous. "Vibe isn't like BBM, which is encrypted," New York-based developer Hazem Sayed told The Reg. "This wasn't designed like BBM was for exchanging confidential market information, but we don't have …

    Security 11 Oct 13:02

  • Dubstep ringtone wins Nokia compo

    Dreadful ditty makes line noise sound like Mozart

    Nokia has selected a winning ringtone, and either we're way too old to understand what the young things are listening to these days or Nokia has lost it completely. The competition asked people to play around with the iconic Nokia tones and produce something new and interesting, and there are some really good entries, but to …

    Media 11 Oct 13:33

  • BlackBerry BBM, email offline AGAIN

    Yet another RIM job to take care of

    BlackBerry services are offline again after a burst of precious uptime that followed 20 hours of fail yesterday. Orange UK sent out an email alert to its BlackBerry-toting customers at around 13.30 BST saying it had "been made aware of interruption in some BlackBerry data services by Research in Motion". "Some users will …

    Mobile 11 Oct 13:44

  • Infosec 'needs warrior cryptoboffins' to beat hackers

    RSA Europe Drop and give me 50 better data sets, maggot

    The infosec industry needs to move beyond "faith-based security" to an evidence-based approach that takes ideas from battlefield combat if corporations are ever to get ahead of hackers and keep security spending down to manageable levels. Joshua Corman, director of security intelligence at Akamai, argued that while almost …

    Security 11 Oct 14:05

  • Hard-up OpenOffice whips out begging-cap website

    Coders seek new sugar daddy

    Hamburg-based open-source project OpenOffice will embark upon a major fundraising campaign this week to defend itself against a looming shutdown. On Wednesday a new website will be launched with many donation options, spokesperson Andreas Jäger told The Register: "The organisation will also look for a major investor, but one …

    Applications 11 Oct 14:31

  • Oak Ridge changes Jaguar's spots from CPUs to GPUs

    Nuke lab's super upgraded to a 20-petaflops Titan

    The mystery surrounding the architecture of the future "Titan" supercomputer to be installed at Oak Ridge National Laboratories and funded by the US Department of Energy is over. Oak Ridge, which is the US nuke lab most associated with open (rather than classified and often military) science, has been working with Cray and …

    Policy 11 Oct 15:03

  • 'Buggy' Facebook iPad app finally emerges

    Stalking slab smudgers are smiling, though

    Merely one year, six months and a week after the iPad was launched in April 2010, the Facebook app for iPad has finally hit the iTunes app store. Before yesterday night, fondlers of reassuringly expensive slabs either had to use a resized iPhone app or the web version of the site to stalk their way across Facebook. According …

    Applications 11 Oct 15:31

  • HP extends reseller rebate changes into fiscal 2012

    Still tough out there, vendor says

    HP is again extending its linear Pay For Results compensation model for Enterprise Server, Storage and Networking (ESSN) resellers as the economy continues to limp along. The US tech titan removed the gating metrics for back-end margin in its Q2 started February and extended it into Q3, then Q4 ... and now into the first three …

    Channel Register 11 Oct 15:31

  • Privacy watchdog: Some things just aren't personal

    Orgs get top tips on coughing complaint files

    Organisations do not have to issue all the information stored in complaint files in order to comply with individuals' personal data access requests, the UK's data protection watchdog has said. Under the Data Protection Act (DPA) individuals have the right to access all personal data organisations store about them, but …

    Policy 11 Oct 15:54

  • Android apps now playable on Windows PCs

    BlueStacks' software unleashed

    Bluestacks has released an alpha-test version of software which allows Android apps to be run on Windows machines. The start-up spoke with El Reg earlier this year about its eponymous product and how it works. Well, now you can try it for yourselves. The 117MB file creates a little widget on the desktop. When launched, it …

    reghardware 11 Oct 15:56

  • RSA defends handling of two-pronged SecurID breach

    RSA Europe 'Our adversaries left information' exec says, as FBI probe continues

    Two groups from the same country teamed up to launch a sophisticated attack against RSA Security's systems last March, EMC's security division said. Unspecified information gained during the attack paved the way towards an unsuccessful attack against a defence contractor (self-identified as Lockheed Martin), senior RSA execs …

    Security 11 Oct 16:29

  • Steve Jobs death certificate: 'respiratory arrest'

    Memorial service set for October 19

    Steve Jobs died at home from respiratory arrest and a pancreatic tumor, according to his death certificate, which was obtained by The Wall Street Journal. The certificate notes that Jobs died at 3pm on Wednesday, October 5. Shortly afterward, Apple placed his image on its home page, linked to a brief statement announcing his …

    Hardware 11 Oct 16:33

  • Sutter: C++11 kicks old-school coding into 21st century

    Language officially infused with Java-like multi-core support

    There's a new C++ in town: C++11 has been approved and published by international standards chiefs. C++11 is the first major revision to one of the world's most popular programming languages in 13 years. The update will position apps using the language for coding for the next two decades. C++11 was published by the ISO on …

    Developer 11 Oct 17:02

  • IBM nabs Platform for cloud control freakery

    HP thinking too much about Autonomy

    If you want Big Blue to buy your software company some day, you can increase the odds by moving it near Toronto – that location just did the trick for Platform Computing. The center of gravity for IBM's Software Group, excepting its operating systems, is centered around the Canadian industrial and financial capital, and has …

    Cloud Business 11 Oct 17:42

  • Microsoft flags Firefox and Chrome for security failings

    Guess what it says about IE 9

    Microsoft has unveiled a website aimed at raising awareness of browser security by comparing the ability of Internet Explorer, Mozilla Firefox, and Google Chrome to withstand attacks from malware, phishing, and other types of threats. Your Browser Matters gives the latest versions of Firefox and Chrome a paltry 2 and 2.5 points …

    Security 11 Oct 18:02

  • Overland to ring Nasdaq bell, tease products

    Gather round now, children traders

    Overland, the always-struggling-to-not-go-bust-and-not-get-delisted-from-Nasdaq storage company, is going to ring the Nasdaq opening bell on Friday, October 14. Wherefore this return to Nasdaq grace? Overland will host an investor and analyst briefing at Nasdaq's market site the day before, with prezzies from Overland's execs …

    Storage 11 Oct 18:03

  • 'iTunes in the Cloud' has arrived in iTunes 10.5 update

    Updated Start downloading all your purchased tunes today

    Apple has released iTunes 10.5, adding "iTunes in the Cloud" support in preparation for Wednesday's scheduled launch of the long-gestating iCloud service and iOS 5 mobile-device operating system – and downloading previously purchased songs is already up and running. As Apple noted in its announcement of the October 12 launch …

    Media 11 Oct 19:25

  • High-frequency traders attract regulator’s interest

    Big-iron trading systems face crackdown

    Financial authorities in the UK and US are considering a new batch of regulations to limit the use of high-frequency trading computer systems by investment houses. The chairman of the US Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), Gary Gensler, said that the UK and US are actively looking at regulations on high-frequency …

    Business 11 Oct 20:10

  • Crims prefer old exploits: Microsoft

    Zero-day threat is overrated

    While media around the world are excited by the announcement of every new zero-day vulnerabilities, attackers yawn, according to Microsoft. Presenting Volume 11 of its Security Intelligence Report at the RSA Conference in Europe on October 11, Microsoft pointed out that less than one percent of the attacks its report …

    Security 11 Oct 21:23

  • Hundreds of websites share usernames sans permission

    Photobucket, Wall Street Journal, Home Depot take liberties with your personal info

    Home Depot, The Wall Street Journal, Photobucket, and hundreds of other websites share visitor's names, usernames, or other personal information with advertisers or other third parties, often without disclosing the practice in privacy policies, academic researchers said. Sixty-one percent of websites tested by researchers from …

    Security 11 Oct 21:42

  • Billion dollar telescope snaps galactic head-on

    First images arrive from 100 square mile telescope array

    The first images are in from the immense ALMA radio-telescope array, under construction at 16,500 feet in the Chilean desert, and they reveal a galactic collision of near-unimaginable violence and equally mind-boggling beauty. The images show the collision of paired galaxies, NGC 4038/4039, which combine in what's become known …

    Space 11 Oct 21:58

  • Mnet shares mobile smarts with LA

    Opens first US office to offer cross platform solutions

    Adelaide-founded mobile development company Mnet has opened its first US office in Los Angeles to build on its existing mobile advertising business with Yahoo! and work on new mobile and multi-channel solutions. The move marks a significant evolution for the company which was launched in 2001 as a hybrid project between …

    Mobile 11 Oct 22:30

  • Australian National Broadband Network secures backhaul

    Telstra dark fibre for core transit

    The islands of access fibre* to be built for Australia’s National Broadband Network will be dark fibre provided by Telstra, at least in the first instance. Speaking to a Melbourne conference on October 11, NBN Co chief Mike Quigley announced that the company has secured agreement from Telstra for access to the carrier’s dark …

    Networks 11 Oct 22:58

  • Riverbed extends archiving to Azure, OpenStack clouds

    Die, tape arrays, die, die

    Riverbed is stretching its Whitewater appliances – which automatically back up data to online storage clouds – to cover more clouds, and increasing the number of programs on servers that can feed data to them. The Whitewater appliances were initially launched to archive data using IBM's Tivoli Backup Recovery Media Services ( …

    Infrastructure 11 Oct 23:32