Global Tech News
From: The Register
Source: http://www.theregister.co.uk/
Aussie broadband is slower than a slow thing in a slow town
Slower than New Zealand
So Australia is building a superfast fibre to the home (FTTH) national broadband network and not a minute too soon.…
Reg Hardware Reviews Digest
Another chance to see our reviews from the last week
In the past seven days, Reg Hardware reviewed many products from the worlds of consumer electronics, photography, gaming, mobile communications and information technology.…
iPhone 4: And now we are 3 (Mobile)
Cheap deals for all
3 Mobile is shipping iPhone 4 today - along with T-Mobile UK, it was the last UK network to announce availability.…
Sony Bravia KDL-32NX503 32in LCD TV
Smaller sized set with big screen extras
Review Monolithic is a desirable word, unless it’s applied to small things like a mobile phone, a peanut, a shrew. So does it fit a flatscreen TV, especially one at the lower end of screen sizes deemed suitable for a living room?…
Disney throws $763m at social gaming
Getting animated about Facebook
Disney has thrown over three quarters of a billion dollars to bring it up to Goliath status in the online gaming world, acquiring two and a half year old Playdom, which offers games for social networks – the new buzzword in gaming that has all the VCs on the planet hopping onto investments.…
Social-engineering contest reveals secret BP info
Hacking human gullibility at Defcon
Defcon A hacker competition that challenges contestants to trick employees of large companies into divulging potentially sensitive information aims to show how human gullibility is the biggest security vulnerability of all. During its first day at the Defcon hacker contest in Las Vegas, it had clearly achieved its goal.…
'Death to browsers!' cries Apple mobile-app patent
The camel's nose under Google's tent
A trio of Apple filings seek to patent mobile-application "systems and methods" for travel and online shopping — and to move us three steps closer to a Google-free world.…
Microsoft gets dirty with Gmail cloud cash fight
Dressing up what you kill
Microsoft is so committed to the cloud that it's throwing everything at rivals like Google to crack open the door on sales and gain momentum online.…
RIM answers Apple iPad with...The BlackPad*
* - offensive humor may vary
BlackBerry maker Research in Motion is preparing to launch an iPad competitor in November, and it will be called the BlackPad, according to a report citing two people familiar with the company's plans.…
AMD, GlobalFoundries, and the Intel gap
Gate not closing
When AMD spin-off GlobalFoundries broke ground on its fab in upstate New York last year, the chip manufacturer boasted it was "closing the gap" on Intel. "We were a year behind Intel at the 45nm node, and that difference will be cut significantly at the 32nm generation," said vice president of manufacturing systems technology Tom Sonderman. "By 22nm, there will be no difference. It will be in the noise level."…
Boffins authenticate Apple 'Antennagate'
Judas Phone 'death grip' proven fatal
More evidence has surfaced that Apple's beleaguered Judas Phone does, indeed, have serious reception challenges — and today's facts and figures come from a sophisticated source.…
MS preps emergency patch for Windows shortcut peril
Attacks on rise
Warning of an uptick in attacks, Microsoft plans to issue an emergency update to patch a critical Windows vulnerability that hackers are exploiting to seize control of PCs.…
Microsoft cries foul on Yahoo!-Google Japan deal
Hunts down Japanese FTC
Microsoft will try to stop Yahoo! from hooking up with Google in Japan.…
3D Dot Game Heroes
The closest you’ll get to Zelda without dusting off your NES?
Review Feeling nostalgic for 8-bit gaming? Then 3D Dot Game Heroes will, no doubt, satisfy. There’s no need to drag out your NES as this square-edged upstart hails from the land of Sony and is exclusive to Playstation 3. With fervour for the 1980s increasingly present in popular culture (Hot Tub Time Machine, anyone?), 3D Dot Game Heroes buys into this sentimentalism and looks, plays and sounds like nothing else around since 1986.…
Microsoft Street Slide: Street View done properly
Take a peep
Leaving aside the creepy privacy aspects, Street View is one of Google's most valuable services. The ability to familiarise yourself with somewhere strange, before you arrive, is genuinely useful.…
Futurologist defends 'malevolent dust' warning
Dust up over supposed evil particles
A futurologist has defended his controversial warning that "smart dust" is liable to become a future information stealing threat.…
Unisys floats mainframe cloud
A ClearPath to the development skies
A mainframe cloud may seem oxymoronic like a lead Zeppelin ("a" included on purpose), or intuitively obvious (given the virtualization and metering capabilities that have been in mainframes for decades). But Unisys has nonetheless fluffed up a mainframe cloud for its ClearPath mainframe customers.…
BlueArc gets extra greenbacks
$20 million
BlueArc, the hardware-accelerated NAS array supplier startup, has pocketed another $20m in a seventh funding round, taking total funding to around $225m.…
US law to neuter libel tourism
Render foreign beatdowns unenforceable
The US House of Representatives has passed a law which will render libel rulings from the English courts unenforceable there. The bill has already been passed by the Senate and will go to US President Barack Obama to be signed into law.…
UK supermarket starts contactless payments
No touching
Spar is going contactless, attracted by the four pence per transaction the company could save by not asking shoppers for their PINs.…
Microsoft should starve on radical penguin diet
Capitalism and open source
Open...and Shut When the mouthpiece of American capitalism calls a company a dog, it's time to re-evaluate that company's chances.…
Mozy insists: It's not a bug...
...it's a... yes, one of those!
Mozy says that the bugs reported by users concerning repeated full backups were not bugs at all, instead reflecting a feature of the product.…
Delegate hacks into Black Hat streaming video
What happens in Vegas...
Security shortcomings in Black Hat's newly established streaming media service allowed a security consultant to hack into the system and see presentations for free.…
Czechs toast Bud-beating beer win
Na zdraví!
Beer drinkers in the Czech Republic, and that's most of country, will be raising a glass today to celebrate a local victory against Anheuser-Busch, the maker of US "beer" Budweiser.…
Xiotech forging secret Katana project
HDD & SSD hybrid craftsmanship?
Word has reached us of a development project codenamed Katana inside Xiotech, with hints that the project involves HDD and SSD hybrid craftsmanship.…
Cyber Security Challenge winner announced
Quickest crypto off the mark
The UK's Cyber Security Challenge has announced the winner of its prologue crypto puzzle, as well as the solution - for anyone still struggling to find an answer.…
TalkTalk talks up SIM only mobile deals
Signs Voda UK for heavy lifting
TalkTalk is to launch its own mobile phone service, thanks to a deal with Vodafone UK.…
UK.gov sticks to IE 6 cos it's more 'cost effective', innit
Stunned web developers die a little inside
Computers in Whitehall will largely continue to run Microsoft’s Internet Explorer 6, which will make web coders spit out their cheese‘n’pickle sarnies this lunchtime.…
T-Mobile UK pumps out the iPhone 4
Shaves tariffs
Last month, we reported T-Mobile UK's price-plans for the iPhone 4. Today the telco start shipping the iphone, and has come in with lower tariffs .…
Polaroid 300 instant print camera
Fun retro-snapper revived
Review The news that Polaroid has a new instant camera, after we thought it was done with all that frivolity, is likely to be greeted with squeals of nostalgic joy. While digital is superior in almost every sense there's a real warmth about those 80s prints that we remember adorning fridges and noticeboards. The Polaroid 300 (tsk, these unwieldy techie names) takes you straight back to your childhood, making a spontaneity-encouraging break from all that DSLR refinement.…
NatWest dumps O2 Money
So who gets the DVD collection?
A year after leaping into bed with O2, NatWest is no longer backing the operator's pre-paid credit card offering, citing differences in strategic goals as the cause of the breakup.…
YouTube ups video time limit
Generosity knows no bounds
YouTube has bumped its upload limit to 15 minutes for users of the Google-owned video sharing website.…
Alleged expenses fiddlers to face justice
Parliamentary privilege claim kicked out
The four politicians facing fraud charges over their expenses today failed in their bid to avoid prosecution by using ancient Parliamentary privilege laws.…
Nude trampolinist bounces free from court
Hey, Mr Trampoline Man... what's that in your hand?
A 55-year-old described by the BBC as a 'man' and by Scotland's Daily Record as a 'pervert' has avoided jail after being spotted by neighbours having too much fun with too few clothes on a trampoline.…
Nexus One phone rockets to 28,000ft
Android in spaaace
If you've ever wondered what happens when you stick a Google Nexus One phone in a rocket and blast it to 28,000ft from the Nevada desert, then here's your answer:…
UK.gov drops £6m on Google
Fat dollar spent on health advice sites
Four Whitehall departments gave Google and similar search engines more than £6m in two years to encourage web users to do more exercise, emit less CO2 and stop smoking, among other initiatives.…
Fake Firefox update used to sling scareware
Watch where you click
Online con artists have developed a strain of scareware that poses as a Firefox update.…
Happy Sysadmin Day!
Today's the day to pat yourselves on the back
It’s the last Friday in July, so that can mean only one thing - happy SysAdmin Day!…
Chaos surrounds New Zealand iPhone 4 day
Launch? What launch!
Apple's iPhone 4 went on sale today in New Zealand. But Vodafone NZ's handling of the launch left much to be desired, with hundreds of customers left in the lurch.…
Nvidia and HPC's second act
Sitting pretty - but for how long?
In a lot of ways, Nvidia is the belle of the GPU/accelerator ball these days. (Make your reservations early for the upcoming "GPU Fancy Dress Cotillion" later on this year; tuxedo t-shirts encouraged.) Intel withdrew Larrabee, IBM isn't pushing Cell, FPGAs aren't gaining a lot of traction yet, and AMD is late to the party with Fusion.…
French operator pooh-poohs iOS4
Dismissed with a 'non' and a Gallic shrug
Updated French network operator SFR is thumbing its nose at Apple by telling customers to think carefully before upgrading to iOS 4.…
Beware the blizzard of torrents of Starcraft 2
Expense accounts
Starcraft 2 was released this week and at the hefty RRP of £45. Many games sites are hopping mad at this, although typically retailers are selling Blizzard's strategy game at £10 less than RRP.…
Street View spooked by 10 Rillington Place?
Orwellian black Opel scoots past infamous murder site
Until now, we at El Reg have assumed that Google's Street View spymobiles are as fearless as they are all-seeing, but it appears this may not be entirely true.…
Gaming sites bet on merger
In time for US welcome?
PartyGaming and Bwin have agreed to merge, just as moves to make online gambling legal in the US get a little closer.…
Hitachi details unified management
Running the stack from one screen
Hitachi's Unified Compute Platform (UCP) integrated IT stack idea is gathering momentum.…
Data.gov.uk chief admits transparency concerns
Raw info may be too confusing
The head of the government's website for the release of public sector data has said it is a challenge to ensure that users can understand the statistics.…
Pioneer BDP-330 Blu-ray player
Pure and simple
Review If a recent survey for HP is to be believed, Britons remain committed to packaged media, with 75 percent wanting hard copies of films in a box. So despite the advance of video streaming and downloading, perhaps it’s not yet time to write off conventional disc players, like Pioneer’s latest Blu-ray offering, the BDP-330.…
Google site fools interwebs into China blockage scare
It's fully blocked!
Google's China search is working just fine, despite breathless claims from countless news organizations that it's "fully blocked."…
'Suspicious' Android wallpaper app nabs user data
Up to 4 million downloads
An Android wallpaper application that collected data from users' phones and uploaded it to a site in China was downloaded "millions of times", according to mobile security firm Lookout.…
Data for 100m Facebook accounts published to BitTorrent
Forever is a mighty long time
Underscoring the permanence of data published on the internet, a security researcher has compiled the names and URLs of more than 100 million Facebook users and made them available as a BitTorrent download.…