29th November 2011 Archive
Browse by publication date, or search the site.
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Call recording cloud gets funding and ex-Telstra exec
'Your call may be recorded for quality control purposes'
Australian cloud based phone call recording company, 1300 Record, has secured $AU1.5 million in first tranche funding from Innovation Capital, ahead of a marketing push. 1300 Record has developed a platform that allows businesses and individuals to record and store phone calls without the need for equipment or software. The …
Business 29 Nov 00:02
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YaCy takes on Google with open source search engine
Good idea, stupid name
A project calling itself YaCy – pronounced "ya see" – aims to break Google’s headlock on the search market by giving away an open source search engine that can be used both online and within an intranet. The YaCy engine is based on peer-to-peer connections rather than search queries being run thorough a central server. Users …
Software 29 Nov 00:03
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Global server sales cool a smidgen
Waiting for Opteron 6200, Xeon E5, and the EU to stabilize
Peddlers and pushers of server tin had a tough time in the third quarter of this year, according to statistics from Gartner, with shipments rising only 7.2 per cent to 2.37 million units and revenues rising only 5.2 per cent to just under $13bn. That said, the quarter was without a doubt one of the best third quarters in …
Servers 29 Nov 00:29
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CSIRO software tapped for e-health transition
Translating records in a snap
CSIRO has announced that it is to supply software to Australia’s National E-Health Transition Authority (NEHTA) to support the transition to Personally Controlled Electronic Health Records. Its Snapper software is designed to help translate old health records into the standard terminology used in e-health systems, known as …
Law 29 Nov 00:30
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Sth Korean gamers suffer joystick curfew shock
Under 16s suffer Cinderella shutdown
A ban restricting all South Korean gamers under 16 from playing online games between midnight and 6am is now in full affect. South Korea, boasting the fifth largest broadband penetration rate, is the first country to implement the controversial initiative under the Youth Protection Revision bill. The bill, variously known as …
Odds and Sods 29 Nov 01:00
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Malls suspend plan to track shoppers' cellphones
Privacy concerns rain on retailer's snoop fest
Two shopping malls have dropped plans to track shopper's movements after a US senator voiced privacy concerns about the practice, which involves monitoring individuals' cellphone signals. The Footpath tracking system will no longer be used at the Promenade Temecula mall in southern California or the Short Pump Town Center mall …
ID 29 Nov 01:07
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Kinect 2 said to read lips, sense mood
'Read my lips, Xbox: Halo sucks'
The next version of Microsoft’s Kinect motion-sensing platform is reportedly so advanced that it will be able to read your lips and sense your mood. According to Eurogamer, a member of the Kinect development team claims that the next version of Kinect will be able to read lips to interpret what you are saying, as well as take …
Entertainment 29 Nov 01:13
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Using virtual particles to get real random numbers
Bouncing photons off ‘empty space’
number generator, by bouncing photons off empty space. As regular readers know, empty space isn’t actually empty – it’s home to “quantum fluctuations”, one of the stranger manifestations of quantum theory, in which particles and anti-particles spontaneously come into existence and annihilate so as to preserve the uncertainty …
Physics 29 Nov 01:30
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Facebook IPO said to set value at $100bn
Find out in April. Or May. Or June – unless the eurozone implodes
Facebook is planning to go public sometime between April and June of next year in an IPO that would value the company at over $100bn. So say The Wall Street Journal's ever-chatty "people familiar with the matter". The same worthies told the WSJ that Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg hasn't yet finalized the IPO, that the date for …
Financial News 29 Nov 01:48
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Backyard astronomer snaps Beta Pictoris dust disk
Stars on webcam Kiwi claims ‘first amateur’ to catch exo-solar system
In what is being hailed as a first, a New Zealand amateur backyard astronomer has produced images of the protoplanetary disk surrounding a star that’s 63.4 light-years distant - on a webcam. Beta Pictoris, a star that’s dated at just 12 million years ago – a whippersnapper, really – is easy enough to capture, but its light is …
Space 29 Nov 05:57
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Ice Cream Sandwich
Review Just how tasty is Android 4.0?
No new version of the Android mobile operating system has been quite so eagerly awaited as v4.0 or Ice Cream Sandwich as it’s more colourfully known. The reason is not hard to explain: Android has streaked ahead of iOS in the bums-on-seats stakes but there is still the feeling that the user interface lacks the polish and grace …
reghardware 29 Nov 07:00
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EU can't discriminate between public and private personal data
Organisations can lawfully process personal data without consent
EU member states cannot generally prohibit organisations' legitimate and necessary but unauthorised processing of personal data where the information is not stored in specified public sources, the European Court of Justice (ECJ) has said. The ECJ said that national rules that broadly exclude data processing in non-specified …
Government 29 Nov 08:01
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NetApp team tags Iron Mountain for cloudy medical archiving
Healthcare play
Iron Mountain is rebuilding its remnant cloud medical records archiving business with a dose of NetApp's StorageGRID.. Iron Mountain sold the bulk of its cloud business, meaning eDiscovery, archiving and online backup, to Autonomy in May this year for $380m. Autonomy was bought by HP later this year. Iron Mountain's cloud …
Storage 29 Nov 08:32
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Osborne to SAVE ECONOMY with help from Media 2.0 websluts
Analysis Open data mashups, that's exactly what UK needs
Since the Tories came to power courtesy of a Coalition deal with the Lib Dems in May 2010, two words continue to be bounced around the walls of Whitehall: open and transparency. Later today, Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne will detail his painful plans to grow Britain's deflated economy. His autumn statement to the …
Government 29 Nov 09:04
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Councils emailed vulnerable people's data to strangers
ICO fines Worcestershire and North Somerset for breaches
Two local authorities have been hit by financial penalties from the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) after sending highly sensitive personal information to the wrong recipients. The penalties have been imposed on North Somerset council and Worcestershire county council as the ICO is pressing for stronger powers to audit …
Government 29 Nov 09:16
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Strap-on thruster daredevil shows off Swiss peak formation
Pics Pocket rocket man can't get enough high-altitude Alps antics
A man strapped to small jet pack has flown over the Alps - again. It's the second time that Yves Rossy, known as the Jet Man, has propelled himself over the famous mountain range with a four-engine rig bolted onto a 6ft 6in wing. This time round he flew in formation with two Albatross aircraft and managed a soft landing with a …
Science 29 Nov 09:33
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How to stop network traffic fighting like cat and dog
Sysadmin blog Picking the right route for the right packets
Bandwidth and latency are two separate but equally important network considerations. An ideal network will have high bandwidth and low latency. The real world is rarely so obliging. For some applications, we don't care about latency. It doesn't really matter how long the packets in an FTP file transfer take to get from A to B …
Sysadmin blog 29 Nov 09:46
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Seagate embiggens hybrid drive, won't say how...
Fast flash software for added oomph
Seagate has speeded up its Momentus XT flash/disk hybrid, making it nearly 70 per cent faster than the existing model. The Momentus XT, a 2.5-inch, solid state hybrid drive (SSHD), had a 4GB NAND cache and Adaptive Memory technology to track often-used files and move them into flash, thus facilitating faster O/S boot and …
Storage 29 Nov 10:01
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CamScanner
Android App of the Week (NSFW) Is that a page scanner in your pocket?
My other job as the manager of a small record label frequently requires me to circulate press clippings and other bumf to everyone connected with a particular project. One option is to do this when I get back to the office but a better and faster one is to use CamScanner. CamScanner will take, crop, enhance and convert a …
reghardware 29 Nov 10:02
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RIM server upgrade draws Android and iOS into the fold
BES takes on non-Blackberry enterprise server rivals
RIM is reaching out to iOS and Android devices, dragging them into the BlackBerry Enterprise Server fold with BlackBerry Mobile Fusion. Mobile Fusion will sit alongside a BlackBerry Enterprise Server (BES), managing devices running iOS and Android as well as BlackBerry's own PlayBook tablet (once the PlayBook gets a software …
Channel Register 29 Nov 10:11
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Best Buy fires parting shot at Dixons with closing down sale
If we're going down, you're coming with us
Best Buy may be retreating to its homeland with a bloody nose, but it could yet ruin Dixons Retail's margins this Christmas before it turns off the lights. The American electronics retailer's costly flirtation with UK consumers is coming to an end and the firm admitted last month that one of the reasons why its entry had not …
Channel Register 29 Nov 10:23
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Don't buy my new £210 box set - Elvis Costello
Brutal truth from the Brutal Youth
Elvis Costello wants fans to shun a limited edition box-set of his music priced at over £200 when it goes on sale next month. “Unfortunately, we at www.elviscostello.com find ourselves unable to recommend this lovely item to you as the price appears to be either a misprint or a satire,” wrote Costello on the aforementioned …
Small Biz 29 Nov 10:32
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Symbian users: Prove you exist with NFC Foursquare check-ins
Dying service embraces dead OS with latest wireless tech
Symbian users who like to check in to Foursquare, but hate having to run the application, can now just tap their handset to let the world know where they are. Checking in to locations using Near Field Communications is already possible using Android handsets, applications exist for Google Places as well as the industry-pioneer …
Small Biz 29 Nov 10:41
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Web smut oglers accosted by bogus pop-up plod fines
Relax, it's just a scam, say cops
Strathclyde Police are not levying fines on punters watching internet porn, the force has been obliged to explain. Scam messages, that often appear as pop-ups and pose as messages from the plod, claim a user's machine has been locked for showing adult content. Marks are told they need to pay a £100 fine over the phone in order …
Malware 29 Nov 10:52
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Open-source skills best hope for landing a good job
But don't rip up your Microsoft Certified IT Professional papers yet
In the midst of a weakening global economy and rampant uncertainty as to when the recession will lift from North America and Western Europe, one thing is certain: open-source technology skills may be the best hope for landing a good job. As reported by The Wall Street Journal, open source claims five of the top 10 keywords in …
Developer 29 Nov 11:00
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Jarmageddon: Marmite spill sparks biohazard threat
Lorry crash jams M1, leaves cops in the brown stuff
A flood of yeast extract has blocked the M1 motorway in South Yorkshire after a truck containing the Marmite ingredient crashed and spilled its load. The road is still closed this morning, according to the latest traffic information, as cleanup workers scoop 23.2 tonnes of the gloopy brown stuff off the road surface. South …
Bootnotes 29 Nov 11:12
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HTC insists German 3G mobe sales ban is kaput
Android handset maker and IPCom spar over injunction
German patent firm IPCom has hit back at HTC's claim that an injunction granted in a Mannheim court will have no effect on its sales. IPCom won a banning order in Germany against HTC's mobiles after claiming the handsets use patented 3G technology. The Taiwanese firm had logded an appeal against the particular IPCom patent, …
Mobile 29 Nov 11:21
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HP's fraught union with Autonomy bears first fruit
IDOL 10 turns big biz data chaos into some sort of sense
HP has announced the first offspring of its mammoth $10.24bn (£6.6bn) union with British software firm Autonomy. The progeny, Autonomy IDOL 10, is a platform that pulls data from various sources including phone calls, email, social media and the web together with a company's data – such as customer logs – so it can be …
Storage 29 Nov 11:32
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British Library sprinkles digital dust on dusty newsprint
Online archive opens up – at a cost
The British Library and its commercial partner brightsolid opened up a pay-per-view online archive of newspapers today, after a crack team scanned 4 million searchable pages that mainly date from out-of-copyright papers published in the 19th century. It was confirmed in May 2010 that the British Library and brightsolid – which …
Small Biz 29 Nov 11:43
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UK's top tech startup: Glasgow's tiny circle of animation wizards
Comment The world of Muvizu
Tech startups that can truly be considered game-changers are rare - especially in Shoreditch. The more hype that the Silicon Roundabout "leisure startup" scene receives, the more painfully apparent it is that the emperor has no clothes – see these comments for example. Which is a pity, for less attention is paid to genuinely …
Small Biz 29 Nov 11:51
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Smart TV shootout
Review The major players go head-to-head
It’s about 18 months since I last rounded up internet-connected TVs - or "Smart TVs" as they’re now being named by all the manufacturers these days. Since then, all the brands have upped their game considerably, and just about all of their offerings are much more powerful than the 2009 models I looked at last time. As before, …
reghardware 29 Nov 12:00
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Virtually indestructible robostarfish penetrates tiny cracks
Wriggling flexi-bot created by Harvard boffins
A squishy robot based on a starfish has pushed the frontiers of robotic movement by proving bots can wriggle. Built out of elastomers and powered by pneumatics, the soft robot successfully squeezed itself through a 2cm gap in a test by the Harvard engineers who created it. The boffins have cunningly worked air chambers into …
Rise of the Machines 29 Nov 12:11
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Toshiba readies zero Watt standby mode telly
Hero and zero
With the price of electricity always on the rise, the juice consumed by kit kept on standby can nibble away at the pennies. Now Toshiba has addressed this issue with a new chip said to create standby modes that require no power whatsoever. Zilch. Zip. Nada. The first telly to feature the new chip is the 32in Regza 32BE3, …
reghardware 29 Nov 12:13
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13 MILLION gamers in ID theft scare after Nexon breach
Game items offered to punters who change their passwords
An estimated 13 million gamers have been left at greater risk of ID theft following a breach at gaming firm Nexon. Data including names, usernames, encrypted resident registration numbers and password hashes was exposed as a result of the breach at Nexon, which maintains the popular online role-playing game, Maple Story. The …
ID 29 Nov 12:22
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iOS 5.1 name-checks next-gen iPad, iPhone
Apple's upcoming telly too?
Apple released iOS 5.1 to app developers yesterday, and already coders are poring over the update in search of references to future products. Guess what: they found some. XML files buried within the release point to the next generation of iPhone and iPad, mentioned as, respectively, iPhone5,1 and iPad3,2. The iPhone 4S is …
reghardware 29 Nov 12:24
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MPs: This plan for proper navy carriers and jets is crazy!
Analysis Quite simply not a clue what they're on about
Today sees the release of two new reports into the UK's plans for its future aircraft carriers and their aircraft. As is common practice, a National Audit Office document is accompanied by one from the MPs of the Commons Public Accounts Committee. What we're getting now - and a good thing too. The event that has inspired …
Bootnotes 29 Nov 12:32
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Brit security biz Clearswift pockets £30m from sugar daddies
Email and web guardian bought by Lyceum
Investment house Lyceum Capital has bought UK-based content security firm Clearswift. Financial terms of the deal, announced on Tuesday, were imprecise but a spokeswoman said that around £30m will be ploughed into the business. Clearswift, which plays in the email and web gateway segment of the security software market, also …
Small Biz 29 Nov 12:43
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Schneier: Teens and treaties - our cyber-war saviors
We're all going to die! Er, no, we're not...
We can expect at least another 10 years of unbridled and irrational fear about the threat of cyber war before things calm down. That's according to security expert Bruce Schneier, who reckons it will be people's attitudes to the threat of hackers, terrorists and rogue nations that will grow up first, and essentially help make …
Developer 29 Nov 12:51
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How digital audio ate itself ... and the music biz
Special Report Part Two: The attack of the clones
In the first part of this series, we looked at how digital audio emerged in the studio, going beyond its Compact Disc domestic debut. As Moore’s law impacted on the cost of digital audio recording, studio techniques were emerging to add colour to this transparent medium – first in hardware, then in software. Digital signal …
Music and Media 29 Nov 13:00
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Sky's mobile movies move leaves Apple, Amazon gasping
It actually produces content, too...
It has been five years since Apple unveiled its TV tuner – and it increasingly looks like Cupertino missed the boat. Sky this week added on-demand movies to its Sky Go service, which means anyone already on the platform can view shows from the couch on a mobile or a tablet. Sky’s 11 live linear channels are also available for …
Entertainment 29 Nov 13:12
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Driving customer focus with information
Broadcast Big data to the rescue?
Given today's economic background, organisations of all shapes and sizes are recognising they can no longer just spend money on new technology. While prevalent in the past, this approach has led to information and process silos that can be a long way from optimal. With quantities of information continuing to increase, but with …
CIO 29 Nov 13:26
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Give Osborne a shovel: UK economy stuck in deep hole
Blames Eurozone, Labour, ANYONE but govt for 'debt storm'
The "debt storm" currently circling above the Eurozone is to blame for the gloomy state of the British economy, said the Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne, who delivered his autumn statement to the House of Commons today. "Borrowing is falling, debt will come down, it's not happening as quickly as we wished... but we …
Small Biz 29 Nov 13:32
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Groupon shares plunge: Drain in sight
Cyber Monday not a good day for coupon site
On Cyber Monday, a day when tech firms are supposed to be doing quite well, Groupon saw its shares take another tumble on the Nasdaq, landing firmly below the IPO price at $15.24. The daily deals site has seen its stock plummet in the last 10 days, dropping 41 per cent from $26.19 on 18 November, including a 9 per cent fall …
Small Biz 29 Nov 13:41
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Lone! sugar! daddy! yearns! to! seduce! Yahoo! US!
Single investment firm just wants American biz
Private equity firm Thomas H Lee Partners is looking into slurping Yahoo!'s US operations, rather than taking a minority stake or teaming up with Asian firms. Sources told Reuters that THL wants to do a leveraged buyout of web firm's US biz, likely worth $5bn to $6bn. The private equity firm already has experience with media …
Business 29 Nov 13:52
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Revealed: Full specs on Mars rover's nuclear laser heat ray
Megawatt beam to disintegrate the red planet's pinheads
The Register rayguns desk is pleased to report that we have now obtained full specifications on the powerful laser heat-ray disintegrator blaster fitted to the NASA Mars rover Curiosity, which departed planet Earth on Saturday and is even now hurtling through the void of space towards a rendezvous with destiny in the red planet' …
Science 29 Nov 13:56
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Ten... top Xbox Live game downloads
Product Round-up Match points
After looking at ten top videogames for PlayStation Network last week, it's Microsoft's turn to step up to the table. As mentioned in the PSN round-up, forking out for the latest triple-A titles is unnecessary if you're prepared to live without the over-the-top graphics and the 200+ hour gameplay of epics like Skyrim. Spend a …
reghardware 29 Nov 14:00
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Distie-loving cloud kingpin beds Ingram Micro
'Distributors are future cloud brokers'
Ingram Micro has become the first distributor to join the Cloud Industry Forum (CIF), the not-for-profit organisation trying to promote a Code of Code and open debate among suppliers. The cloud is set to dramatically alter the IT product supply chain, but CIF chairman Andy Burton said he did not believe the role of …
Channel Register 29 Nov 14:29
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Iran bans Tehran invasion first-person shooter
Shopkeepers arrested for stocking Battlefield 3
EA's Battlefield 3 has been outlawed in Iran, with police allegedly arresting shop owners that secretly stock the game. If reports are to be believed, Iranian cops are cracking down with a vengeance, raiding shops and arresting owners found to be selling pirated or imported copies of Battlefield 3, Agence France-Presse reports …
reghardware 29 Nov 14:35
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Gone in a Flash: Adobe's long march to HTML5
Analysis Rise and fall of the Player
Surf the web and it's ubiquitous. Ask most web developers building media content what runtime stack tools set they should – or do – target. The answer is simple: Flash. Or it has been until recently. For the better part of a decade, Adobe's media player plug-in has dominated everything from modest web animations to films and …
Developer 29 Nov 14:46
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Danger worm hijacks Facebook accounts to inject banking Trojan
Beware of poisoned photo links
A dangerous worm is using Facebook to spread itself by posting malicious links on the social networking website that point to malware-tainted sites loaded with a variant of the Zeus banking Trojan as well as other nasties. The malware uses stolen Facebook account credentials to log into compromised accounts and post links, …
Malware 29 Nov 15:02
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UK.gov slaps £100m on broadband investment pile for urbanites
'Super-connected cities' planned. But no extra cash for rural areas
The government will take £100m from the £5bn national infrastructure investment pot over the course of this Parliament in a move to speed up broadband networks in selected urban areas. Rural areas, meanwhile, have been passed over. George Osborne announced the extra cash that the likes of BT and Virgin Media will be able to …
Government 29 Nov 15:17
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Duff Mars probe team sweats under Medvedev menaces
Phobos-Grunt relapses into silence
Lost Martian probe Phobos-Grunt has gone back to its silent orbiting again, remaining unresponsive to Russian space agency attempts to contact it on Monday night. Roscosmos was trying to order the module to raise its orbit, but the probe didn't respond, state news agency RIA Novosti reported. "The sessions, which have been …
Space 29 Nov 15:20
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LOHAN: Reader vacuum pump plans really suck
Top quality amateur boffinry from El Reg spaceplane fans
We at El Reg's Special Projects Bureau are, as ever, grateful to all those readers who offered suggestions for the low-cost, garden-shed vacuum pump rig we need for our Rocketry Experimental High Altitude Barosimulator (REHAB) experiment. Our bold plan is to stick the proposed power plant for our Low Orbit Helium Assisted …
SPB 29 Nov 15:31
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Grooveshark bunged staff bonuses 'for pirating music'
Universal Music accuses streaming site in court docs
Music streaming site Grooveshark paid employees by the amount of music they illegally uploaded to the site, filings in a lawsuit allege. Universal Music says Grooveshark's own staff submitted at least 100,000 sound recordings "to boost [owner] Escape's library of infringing content and to make the service more attractive to …
Music and Media 29 Nov 15:46
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Consumer interest in Windows 8 tablets slumps
Too late to market?
Punters appear to be turning away from the Windows 8 tablets Microsoft hopes will get it back into the fondleslab game. Back in January, Forrester Research, a market watcher, asked consumers which tablets they favoured. Some 46 per cent said they'd prefer a Windows device. Asking the same question afresh later in the year, …
reghardware 29 Nov 15:46
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Supply snitches: 4in iPhone 5 screens shipping now
'Sharp, Hitachi making big hi-res LCD screens'
Don't spit your coffee out, but further rumours today make it more likely that the iPhone 5 will have a 4in screen. Hitachi Displays and Sony Mobile Display Corporation are already shipping 4in LCD touch screens destined for next-gen iPhones, say "sources within Apple's Far Eastern supply chain", according to AppleInsider. …
Mobile 29 Nov 16:03
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Desktop Virtualisation for highly legislated environments
Interview Legal eagles tap into desktop
Implementing virtual desktops across a whole enterprise is rarely as easy as it sounds in vendor white papers. Rich Raether, IT manager, and Dan Putnam, published systems architect at large US law firm Quarles & Brady faced a unique set of challenges when they decided to roll out virtual desktops as a means of improving the firm …
Enterprise Tech 29 Nov 16:16
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Acer, Samsung, Lenovo line up behind Nvidia Tegra 3
Five-core fondleslabs from the three of 'em
Add the names Acer, Lenovo and Samsung to that of Asus as members of the list of manufacturers who'll be offering Android tablets based on Nvidia's five-core Tegra 3 chip. So say the inevitable Taiwanese notebook maker moles cited, as always, by local newssite DigiTimes. They also express some scepticism that any of these …
reghardware 29 Nov 16:20
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HP invites just its best friends to 2012 partner bash
'We couldn't invite everybody'
HP's worldwide partner shindig in back on the agenda for 2012 but the event is likely to be a more cosy affair with fewer resellers invited. The last global conference was held in San Francisco in April 2008 and resellers were keen to see the knees-up reinstated on the calendar on top of local events. Now it's back in the …
Channel Register 29 Nov 16:42
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Apple, Google apps face smut and violence ratings
Five-point scale to separate PG from adult-only filth
Apps could be scored on sex and violence if Apple and Google approve a voluntary rating system proposed by the American Wireless Association, the CITA, and the Entertainment Software Rating Board (ESRB). The rating grades apps on a sliding scale of one to five – from “everyone” to “adults only”. Intended for parental guidance …
Developer 29 Nov 17:06
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US boffins unleash piezoelectric insect cyborg
'Leccy-generating beetle for hazardous missions
Scientists from the University of Michigan's College of Engineering have developed a prototype insect cyborg with an eye to one day using electricity-generating six-legged critters to venture forth into potentially hazardous environments. Professor Khalil Najafi and doctoral student Erkan Aktakka mounted a couple of spiral …
Rise of the Machines 29 Nov 17:34
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Red Hat sales chief tapped as Acronis CEO
Pinchev to push growth
Backup company Acronis has changed its CEO: Jason Donahue has been replaced by Alex Pinchev, who has been an Acronis board member since November 2010. Before that he had been at Red Hat for nine years, most recently as president for global sales, services and field marketing. Privately-owned Acronis reckons Pinchev brings …
Operating Systems 29 Nov 18:04
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Mint Linux freshens up web searches
We've got our own engine. Swallow that, Google and Microsoft
Tired of having your search habits hoarded by Microsoft and Google and want a little anonymity online? Linux Mint could be your answer. Linux Mint 12, just released, has been delivered with an independent search option: DuckDuckGo. It's Mint's default search engine under a partnership with the makers of the distro, also just …
Developer 29 Nov 18:32
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Cisco salivates over exploding data center traffic
Transmuting gigabits per second into dollars per quarter
Switch and router powerhouse Cisco Systems has released its data center traffic forecast – the "Global Cloud Index" – which shows data center traffic growing in leaps and bounds, and set to explode in coming years. Cisco puts a lot of effort into casing and analyzing trends in data center networking, which is why it has bought …
Data Networking 29 Nov 19:02
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Intel sneaks out low-power microserver chip
Dusts off Pentium brand for one more go
Intel has not made a big fuss about it, but the chip maker has kicked out a promised 15 watt processor aimed at the fledgling and sometimes cloudy microserver market. The chip, which is paradoxically called the Pentium 350, was promised back in March when Intel pre-launched the "Sandy Bridge-DT" Xeon E3-1200 series of chips …
Servers 29 Nov 19:10
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European court advisor slams software copyrights
SAS loses round in World Programming case
A senior court advisor has issued an opinion to the European Court of Justice that software functions cannot be copyrighted. "If it were accepted that a functionality of a computer program can be protected as such, that would amount to making it possible to monopolize ideas, to the detriment of technological progress and …
Developer 29 Nov 20:24
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Microsoft issues first upgrade to Office 365
SkyDrive updated, support for Lync and OS X Lion added
Microsoft has issued its first update to the Office 365 cloud portfolio, adding support for the Windows Phone 7.5 Mango release and Apple’s OS X Lion operating system, and updating storage and sharing services. The update contains over 30 new features (although some of these stretch the term "new"), including major revisions …
Applications 29 Nov 20:30
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Facebook, FTC settle over privacy ‘deception’
All Friends again - for 20 years at least
“It is ordered”, says the FTC’s proposed settlement with Facebook, that the social network “shall not misrepresent in any manner … the extent to which it maintains the privacy or security” of its users. And with that order, the battle between the FTC and Facebook has reached a settlement, as was foreshadowed earlier this month …
ID 29 Nov 20:55
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Oz robo-soldiers in US Marines' firing line
Take out the dummy on the Segway, sarge!
Sydney based robotics manufacturer Marathon Targets has delivered its first cyber troops to the US Marine Corp as part of a multi-million dollar contract. Marathon Targets won the $AU57 million contract last year with the US Marine Corps Systems Command to trial its advanced robot technology. Following certification, eight …
Rise of the Machines 29 Nov 21:00
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HP confident on HPC future
Blog Wants to be the ‘HP’ in HPC, not the ‘dot’ in dot-matrix
A quick meeting with HP at SC11 confirmed that the company is feeling good about their HPC achievements and prospects for the future. HP is the second biggest HPC vendor on the most recent Top 500 list with 141 systems (28 per cent). However, they’re still behind market leader IBM, which has a 44 per cent share with 223 total …
HPC Blog 29 Nov 21:38
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Insanely great PCIe 4.0 bit rate locked in
'Boutique' spec aimed at rarified speedsters
The PCI-SIG has settled on a bit rate for its next-generation PCIe 4.0 interconnect specification, and the winner is – insert drumroll – 16 gigatransfers per second, as expected. "Experts in the PCIe Electrical Workgroup carefully analyzed a number of target bit rates for the next generation of PCIe architecture, taking into …
Hardware 29 Nov 21:53
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Google researchers propose fix for ailing SSL system
Changes would overhaul net's foundation of trust
Security researchers from Google have proposed an overhaul to improve the security of the Secure Sockets Layer encryption protocol that millions of websites use to protect communications against eavesdropping and counterfeiting. The changes are designed to fix a structural flaw that allows any one of the more than 600 bodies …
Enterprise Security 29 Nov 21:57
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WordPress’ Google potshot: users deserve better
AdSense state of the art? ‘Sad’
WordPress is in a tie-up with Federated Media to try and offer it users something better than what it calls Google’s ‘sad’ AdSense. Its new WordAds program is now open for registrations, with advertisements provided by Federated Media. However, the new program isn’t a free-for-all: it’s only open to “publicly visible” blogs …
Music and Media 29 Nov 22:00
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Cray notches another XE6-Cascades super deal
Dancing the Japanese two-step
Cray's future "Cascade" family of supercomputers, which sport a new interconnect and means of linking into processors and coprocessors, are not even fully developed yet and the company has inked another deal for one of the boxes. After Wall Street closed for business on Tuesday, Cray said that Kyoto University will install an …
HPC 29 Nov 22:49
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Down under climate messages get more strident
Southern ocean warming worries scientists, heatwaves terrify government
Australia’s government has warned that rising global temperatures already represent a health risk – one that’s going to get worse as the country records more heatwave days. Saying that “climate change must be considered a health priority”, the federal government’s Climate Commission believes the increase in hot days over the …
Environment 29 Nov 23:00
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System crash briefly grounds Qantas boarding passes
Mile-high pilot romp doesn’t help rep, either
In just another workday in the perpetual crisis-management of Qantas PR, a system crash at Sydney airport had check-in staff issuing handwritten boarding passes. It’s yet more bad publicity for an airline that early in November grounded its entire fleet to teach a lesson to unions; then last week nominated itself for “world’s …
Odds and Sods 29 Nov 23:30
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Siri gets Android rival as Cluzee goes live
Apple was first, but is Android better?
Apple’s Siri now has an Android rival in the form of Cluzee, a voice-controlled personal assistant, which – who? – is now available as a free download. Cluzee, built by startup Tronton, comes as a 9.42MB download and can run on Android 2.1 and above. In potential scope it’s slightly more ambitious than Siri, since it aims to …
Mobile 29 Nov 23:47
