Sophos antivirus classifies its own update kit as malware

Sophos users woke up to mayhem on Thursday after the business-focussed antivirus firm released an update that classified itself and any other update utility as a virus.
As a result enterprise PCs running the application went haywire, generating false positives reporting SSH/Updater-B malware. Sysadmins were bombarded with automated alerts by email about the bogus problem. The issue was resolved with a functional update, issued on Wednesday evening.

More here !

 

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/09/20/sophos_auto_immune_update_chaos/

 

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Google's Android celebrates fourth birthday

Android will be four years old on Sunday, September 23.
Google launched the first public version of the mobile OS, in the form of the Android 1.0, on 23 September 2008, though its origins go back years before that.

More here  --- http://www.reghardware.com/2012/09/20/google_android_is_four_years_old/

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First Irish-speaking virus holds bloke's computer to ransom

Crooks have created what's reckoned to be the first computer virus featuring the Irish language.
The malware – dubbed Gaeilge – is a strain of ransomware that locks up an infected computer and attempts to extort €100 from the user for an unlock code. The demand for cash reportedly appeared in poorly written Gaelic, and the software nastie was spotted on a computer in County Donegal, Ireland.

The victim wisely took his compromised machine for repairs rather than handing over money to the crooks. The virus claimed the lock-down was a result of the Irish government detecting that the user had accessed online pornography.

More here ! - http://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/09/07/irish_language_virus/

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Windows 7 passes XP, Mac OS X passes Vista

Two aging Windows operating systems slipped a ranking each in the market share race this August, with Windows 7 overtaking Windows XP as the world's most popular desktop operating system, and Apple's OS X overtaking the late, lamented Windows Vista.
This news comes to us from Net Applications' monthly Net Market Share survey, which released its Desktop Operating System Market Share rankings on Monday. Caveat emptor: these statistics are based not by counting actual installation numbers – a prohibitively difficult task – but by extrapolating from internet usage as reported by 40,000 websites worldwide. Not a perfect methodology, to be sure, but one that provides a more than merely acceptable estimation.

More here - http://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/09/03/netapplications_stats/

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Password hints easily snaffled from Windows PCs

Punters' password hints are easily extracted from the latest Microsoft Windows machines, security researchers have discovered.
TrustWave SpiderLabs uncovered a key called "UserPasswordHint" during wider research into how the Redmond operating system stores password hashes. Subsequent studies showed it was easy to extract and decode password hints from the registry on both Windows 7 and Windows 8 machines. The value stored is obscured with the addition of zeros but not encrypted.

More here - http://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/08/23/password_hint/

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It's not just crap PC sales: Dell's storage revs are also slipping down

Has the spark has gone out? Despite acquisitions Dell's storage revenues have been declining for over a year. The effort to develop synergies between the products hasn't delivered the sales goods yet. Is it time for a re-think?

Dell has just announced second fiscal 2013 quarterly results with revenues 8 per cent down year-on-year. The overall quarterly revenue picture is of a company flat-lining at the $15bn/quarter level, as the chart shows:

See more here - http://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/08/22/dell_quarterly_storage_revenues/

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Office 2013 to eat own file-format dog food

With the upcoming release of Office 2013, Microsoft is finally offering full support for the Open XML document standard, a format that Redmond itself created and has been promoting for nearly seven years.
"Microsoft continues to lead in giving customers choice and flexibility in file format standards and interoperability," writes Redmond's Jim Thatcher in a blog post announcing the change – although the actual history has been somewhat different.

More here - http://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/08/15/office_2013_strict_open_xml/

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Surface tablets rumored to ship with $199 price tag

If the latest Redmond rumors are to be believed, Microsoft's ARM-based Surface tablet models could arrive priced as low as $199, positioning them as heavyweights in the burgeoning low-cost tablet category.
Engadget reports that the $199 price point was unveiled at the recent TechReady 15 conference, an internal technical event for Microsoft employees, during a session that gave details of the Surface launch.
The $199 retail price is only said to apply to the ARM-based Windows RT version of the device, which will ship on October 26, the same day as Windows 8. Surface devices running full Windows 8 on Intel won't arrive until 2013.

More here ! http://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/08/14/surface_199_price_tag/

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Burglar steals $60,000 of computers from Steve Jobs' home

Police have arrested a man accused of breaking into the former home of Apple icon Steve Jobs and stealing over $60,000 worth of "computer equipment and personal items."
On July 17, Job's former home on Waverley Street in Palo Alto was broken into and turned over, AP reports. Santa Clara County Deputy District Attorney Tom Flattery, a member of the high-technology crimes unit, declined to say what exactly had been stolen but confirmed the police had a suspect in custody.

More here - http://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/08/14/steve_jobs_burglar/

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Acer dishing out 16,400 cheap OLYMPIC laptops to schools

Acer plans to flog 500 "Olympic" laptops to school children in North East London after the Games close.
The Taiwanese firm has also promised that the other 15,900 computers they put into London 2012 will be packaged up and sent into schools around the UK

More here - http://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/08/12/acer_olympics_school_kids/

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Oooh-la-la! 'iPhone 5' bares all, strokes tiny nano-SIM in pics

Apple's leaky supply chain has doled out pictures of the insides of what's claimed to be an iPhone 5, indicating that the forthcoming mobe will take nano-SIMs.
Photos of what appears to be the next-gen handset fresh off a Chinese assembly line appeared on French site Nowhereelse.fe, and revealed the presence of a nano-SIM drawer as well as a larger screen and new 9-pin connector for hooking the gadget up to a computer or power point

More here - http://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/08/09/iphone_5_photos_nano_sim/

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HSBC brands EVERY Apple iPhone 'an insecure PC

HSBC's iPhone app for online business banking warns customers that their reassuringly expensive Apple mobiles are in fact PCs - and insecure ones at that.

In a surprising cock-up, the bank's app incorrectly identifies the shiny phones as Windows PCs, and scolds fanbois for not having security watchdog software Rapport installed. Anyone attempting to download Rapport for PCs onto an iPhone would suffer a frustrating experience, to say the least.

More here ! http://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/08/07/ios_glitch_/

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Microsoft dumps Metro from Windows 8

Microsoft has dropped "Metro", the name given to the squaretastic user interface for Windows 8 and Windows Phone, claiming it was just a code name all along.
Litigation, though, may be the real reason as it seems the word may be owned by a European company or individual that objected to its use.

The change comes late in the day for Microsoft: just this week the software giant gave the final build of its Windows 8 operating system to computer manufacturers so it can be installed on new machines. Third-party developers are due to get the release version on 15 August, and Windows 8 PCs tablets are due to go on sale on 26 October.

A spokesperson for Microsoft confirmed the switch to The Reg. In a statement the company said: “We have used Metro style as a code name during the product development cycle across many of our product lines. As we get closer to launch and transition from industry dialog to a broad consumer dialog we will use our commercial names

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Facebook: 83 million IMPOSTERS stalk our network

Facebook is still racking up false accounts even as it continues to try and flush out imposters on the dominant social network, which is seeing its value close to being halved on Wall Street.

The Mark Zuckerberg-run company disclosed during its first public quarterly earnings report last week that it now has 955 million monthly users actively posting on the site, of which 543 million people were accessing Facebook via mobile devices.

But, tucked away in a 10-Q filing to the US Securities and Exchange Commission, the network has revealed that 83 million Facebook accounts were duplicates or fakes.

It obviously didn't provide that number q

More here !  - http://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/08/02/facebook_10q_filing_fake_accounts_shares_slide/

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Disk demand after Thai floods drains away - unlike Seagate's coffers

Seagate may not have done as well as it had hoped to do in its latest quarter, which was down on the previous three months, but its $1bn earnings are still much, much better than a year ago.

The disk drive dealer also defied industry speculation by failing to announce an OCZ acquisition. But it did say it could buy an SSD supplier.

Western Digital's revenues were higher, of course, but Seagate is still the disk drive industry leader on an annual revenue basis. Seagate has a new SSD is coming, co-developed with Samsung, and more hybrid drives will appear.

More here - http://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/07/31/seagate_q4_fy2012/

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Google adds handwriting to mobile search site

Fondleslab not getting enough love? Google has unveiled a new way to tickle your favorite shiny object, in the form of handwriting recognition for its search homepage.
With the new Handwrite feature enabled, punters who visit Google.com with their mobiles can draw with their fingers anywhere on their device screens and have their writing converted to text in the search box, the Chocolate Factory announced on Thursday.

The new feature works only on the mobile version of Google.com, and then only for handsets running Android 2.3 or later, tablets running Android 4.0 or later, and Apple devices running iOS 5 and up.

The handwriting recognition works in addition to the onscreen keyboard, rather than as a replacement for it, and it can be switched on and off via the Settings menu, located at the bottom of the homepage.
The search giant says Handwrite is good for when you're "standing on a busy street corner, in a bumpy taxi ride, talking with a friend, or sitting on the couch" – and presumably anywhere else that fondling seems more appropriate than tapping.

More here :

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/07/27/google_search_handwrite/

 

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Surface slab WILL rub our PC-making pals the wrong way – Microsoft

Microsoft’s tablet-like-laptop Surface will compete with machines from PC partners, thus jeopardising manufacturers’ commitment to Windows 8. That’s the bottom line revealed in Microsoft’s latest SEC filing for Wall St’s moneymen.
Under the Risk Factors section in Microsoft’s 10-K, here, the company states: “Our Surface devices will compete with products made by our OEM [original equipment manufacturer] partners, which may affect their commitment to our platform."

The company also concedes consumers might hold off buying Windows-based tablets.

More here - http://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/07/27/microsoft_surface_threatens_oem_relations/

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RIP Andre Hedrick: The engineer who kept the PC open

Obit Andre Hedrick, a principal engineer and operating system architect at Cisco Systems and a Linux kernel contributor, has died. He leaves behind a wife, four young children and many friends.

Andre made a significant contribution to personal computing history in a way few people fully realise.

In 2000, Andre was working for SuSE in Oakland and was looking after the Linux ATA subsystem, the operating system's interface with industry-standard hard disks. He was also a member of the ANSI sub-committee, T13, which defined the standard for ATA disks.

The committee was presented with proposals to incorporate a sophisticated piracy-thwarting system called CPRM, or Content Protection for Recordable Media, devised at IBM's Almaden Lab. The proposal was tabled by Intel and a group of three hard drive manufacturers: Toshiba, Matsushita (aka Panasonic) and IBM. The cryptographic system proposed was vastly more ambitious than the SDMI watermarking initiative for music, which by then had floundered.

More here - http://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/07/26/andre_hedrick/


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Dell uncloaks trio of muscular mobile workstations

Dell has introduced a trio of new Precision Mobile Workstations, with the 17-inch top-of-the-line models offering such goodies as Intel Core i7 Extreme processors, 32GB of 1866MHz RAM, Nvidia 3D Vision Pro technology, a raft of graphics-chippery choices hooked up via third-generation PCIe x16, and four storage bays that support RAID 0, 1, and 5.

"We claim the engineering space," Dell's Precision Workstation marketing director Greg Weir told The Reg, citing users of burly notebooks in such disciplines as automotive and aircraft design, architecture, and jet-engine design. "There's a ton of people in engineering," he said, "so I'm just hitting the highlights."

In addition to engineers, Weir told us that the Precision Workstations have also found fans among media and entertainment content creators, including "roving consultants who go from one studio to the next, plus research scientists, geologists, oil-derrick drill chiefs, and the like – anybody who needs high-performance CPUs and GPUs, but in a mobile package.

More here - http://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/07/24/dell_precision_workstations/

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Buzz: iPhone 5 arrives September 21, demand 'unprecedented'

Apple's highly anticipated iPhone 5 – or whatever the marketeers at Cupertino choose to call it – will be released on September 21, according to the iPhone rumor du jour. In addition, a new survey shows the pent-up demand for it to be "unprecedented."
A Monday article on the French-language website App4Phone (Google translation here) cites information from a Chinese source – well, en provenance d'une source chinoise, to be exact – who says its release date will be September 21.

More here !  - http://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/07/23/iphone_5_release_date/

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Lazy password reuse opens Brits to crooks' penetration

The average Brit maintains 26 online accounts but only uses five different passwords to keep them secure.

A poll of 2,000 by Experian found that one in four people uses a single password for the majority of profiles, and one in 25 stick with the same one for ALL their accounts. In addition to chronic password reuse, failing to close unused accounts poses an addition privacy risk.

Two-thirds of those surveyed (66 per cent) copped to having defunct profiles which hold valuable personal and financial information – including social network profiles (26 per cent), email addresses (18 per cent) and shopping accounts (21 per cent).

Leaked personal information opens the doors to identity fraud, a crime suffered by an estimated two million UK citizens. About 90 per cent of the 12 million pieces of personal information illegally traded online globally between January and April this year involved password and login combinations, according to figures from Experian's identity web monitoring service.

More here - http://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/07/20/password_reuse_survey/

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Microsoft picks October 26 for Windows 8 launch

Mark October 26th down in your diary: that's the day Microsoft has chosen to release Windows 8 into the wild.

Windows leader Steve Sinofsky revealed the release date at Microsoft's annual sales meeting today and Redmond quickly emitted an organic, engaging, and convincingly human blog post with the news and the image below to confirm the date.

More here !  - http://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/07/19/windows_8_general_availability_october_26th/

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iPads And Downturn Hammer Intel PC Chip Sales

Intel, the world's biggest silicon chipmaker, has reduced its growth forecast amid fears that the wavering global economy will continue to dampen computer sales.

Intel said shaky economies in Europe and the United States, and a growing consumer preference for Apple iPad tablets had been taking a toll on the PC industry.

Revenue growth forecasts for Intel have been cut from between 3 and 5%, down from a prior forecast of "high single-digit growth".

Intel chief financial officer Stacy Smith said consumer spending in Europe and the United States appeared softer than previously thought.

She said: "At the beginning of the year, we would have expected, along with most economists, that economic growth would start picking up and that would lead to an increase in consumer sales.

"Those expectations are now more muted."

More here - http://news.sky.com/story/961684/ipads-and-downturn-hammer-intel-pc-chip-sales

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'Messiah' Virus Hits Computers In Middle East

A mystery new malware campaign has infected hundreds of computers in the Middle East.

The virus is nicknamed Mahdi - a term referring to a prophesied Islamic messiah - and has hit computers in state buildings, engineering firms, financial houses and centres of academia.

Once installed, it records every move the user makes, stealing login details, taking screenshots of computer activity like email or social networking exchanges, and recording audio.

Over the past eight months, multiple gigabytes of data have been collected from at least 800 computers, according to researchers at anti-virus firm Seculert.#

More here - http://news.sky.com/story/961718/messiah-virus-hits-computers-in-middle-east

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Microsoft pops preview of 'biggest, most ambitious' Office yet

Microsoft has released the last preview of its latest build of Office – the first release of one of Redmond's biggest cash cows.

"This is the first round of Office designed from the get-go for Office to be a service," said CEO Steve Ballmer at a press conference in San Francisco. "We've transformed Office to embrace design concepts shown in Windows 8 and Phone 8 and in Metro. This wave of Office is the biggest and most ambitious we've ever done."

More here - http://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/07/16/office_2013_preview_release/

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Yahoo! fixes! password! leak! vulnerability!

Yahoo! has fixed the flaw that allowed hackers to scrape the unencrypted passwords of over 450,000 of its customers' accounts.
"We have taken swift action and have now fixed this vulnerability, deployed additional security measures for affected Yahoo! users, enhanced our underlying security controls and are in the process of notifying affected users," Yahoo! said in a statement. "In addition, we will continue to take significant measures to protect our users and their data."

More here ! http://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/07/13/yahoo_fixes_password_hole/

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O2 outage outrage blamed on new Ericsson databas

2 has fixed its poorly mobile network, so now everyone can start asking what went wrong and what the company is going to do about it.

O2's press office isn't responding to queries. However, our understanding from various sources is thatthe day-long outage was caused by the transition from using a traditional Home Location Register (which stores details of the subscribers authorised to use the network) to Ericsson's Centralized User Database (CUDB).

The CUDB is supposed to consolidate user records, supporting additional applications, and provide a single point of access – but on this occasion it appears that it also provided a single point of failure. With the database unavailable, mobiles and other devices were gradually booted off the network.


More here - http://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/07/13/o2_outage_cause/


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Anger As O2 Mobile Outage Enters Second Day

Thousands of O2 customers are unable to use their mobile phones for a second day after overnight repair teams failed to fix a fault with the network.

The problems first developed yesterday afternoon at around 1pm and O2 cannot say exactly how many of its 23 million customers are affected.

Customers reported problems with making and receiving phone calls and text messages as well as accessing data services such as the internet.

An O2 spokesperson said overnight: "We can confirm that the problem with our mobile service is due to a fault with one of our network systems, which has meant some mobile phone numbers are not registering correctly on our network.

"We, and our central supplier, have deployed all possible resources and are working through the night to restore service as soon as possible."

More here - http://news.sky.com/story/959137/anger-as-o2-mobile-outage-enters-second-day

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O2, GiffGaff network goes titsup for unlucky punters

Parts of the O2 network have fallen over leaving customers and GiffGaff punters unable to make calls, send texts or surf the web from their phones.
An O2 spokesperson told The Reg that its phones masts were having problems detecting handsets since lunchtime today.

"Our engineers are dealing with the problem as a priority and we hope to restore full service as soon as possible," he said.

The outage isn't discriminating by geography as customers as far apart as London, South Wales and Buckinghamshire were posting on O2's community boards that their phones couldn't find a signal.


More here ! - http://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/07/11/o2_giffgaff_network_issues/


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Cisco backs down on cloud control of routers

Cisco has completed its climb-down over who gets to control Linksys routers, it or the people who bought them.
At the start of this week, Cisco updated the firmware of the Linksys EA4500, EA3500, and EA2700 routers so that they could be fully configured using only its Connect Cloud service rather than via local management software, excluding functions such as parental controls and USB storage.

More here - http://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/07/06/cisco_connect_cloud_linksys/

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Seagate fscks up: Disk drive sales fall short by $500m

Seagate will miss its fourth quarter's sales target as its competitors recover faster than expected from floods that knackered hard drive supplies.

The storage biz also had a quality-control issue with an enterprise disk product, which reduced shipments by 1.5 million units to 66 million, and increased costs. It issued a preliminary set of quarterly results to prepare Wall Street for the shortfall, adding that it expects to report $4.5bn (£2.9bn) revenues instead of $5bn (£3.2bn) and a 1 per cent fall in its gross margin to 33.6 per cent.

More here ! http://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/07/06/seagate_q4_fy2012/

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NSchanger shutdown may kick 300,000 offline on Monday

An estimated 300,000 computer connections are going to get scrambled when the FBI turns off the command and control servers for the DNSChanger botnet on Monday.

The FBI took control of the botnet in November after identifying its command servers and swapping them out for their own systems – as well as arresting six Estonians accused of running the scam. But it left the botnet running, since shutting it down would have disrupted the connections of the infected systems, which at the botnet's height accounted for over four million computers.

Read more here - http://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/07/05/dnschanger_botnet_shutdown/

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Computer error triggers mass rocket launch

Americans love their fireworks on Independence Day, but it is possible to have too much of a good thing. That's what spectators got on July 4 in San Diego, California, when an errant computer triggered every rocket in the city's annual display to launch at once.

See more here ! http://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/07/05/fireworks_computer_error/

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Security boffins brew devilish Android rootkit

Computer scientists have identified a weakness in the Android mobile operating system that allows users to be tricked into silently installing hidden malware.

A research team led by Xuxian Jiang at North Carolina State University discovered that they could redirect a fandroid's touchscreen taps - a technique known as clickjacking - to inject a rootkit that can evade detection and maliciously alter the operation of the device.

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/07/04/poc_android_clickjacking_rootkit/

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Apple pays $60M for iPad trademark in China

Apple has agreed to pay $60 million for ownership of the iPad trademark in China, as part of a settlement with a little-known Chinese firm called Proview that had tried to ban sales of the tablet in the country, according to a local court.


More here - 


http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9228702/Apple_pays_60M_for_iPad_trademark_in_China


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Microsoft silently kills silent, automatic Skype install via Updates

Microsoft has pulled the plug on a Windows update that snuck Skype onto business PCs.
Corporate admins got a nasty surprise on Wednesday when Skype 5.9 was automatically and silently installed on work machines via Windows Server Update Service (WSUS) - including PCs that did not have the voice chat software previously installed.

IT bods on this microsoft.com forum complained of hundreds of computers infected by the update and scrambled to remove the VoIP client centrally from PCs.


More here ! http://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/07/02/microsoft_skype_silent_install/


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Dixons and Best Buy start selling Google Chromebooks

Google I/O Google is trying to get its Chromebook into the mainstream and is starting to push it in retail stores, signing up Best Buy in the US and Dixons in the UK to distribute the ChromeOS systems.
The Chocolate Factory's ChromeOS is the red-headed stepchild of the operating system market. Since its launch last year, the sales of Chromebooks are estimated to have been pitifully small and while Google insists Chromebooks are winning over customers in the education and enterprise spheres, it isn't releasing figures on sales

More here -

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/06/28/best_buy_dixons_chromebook/

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Half the team at the heart of the RBS disaster WERE in India

Exclusive Cost-cutting RBS management had halved the team within which the banking group's recent data disaster happened, sources have told The Register. The sacked British employees were replaced by staff in India, and there had been concerns about the quality of the work done in India for a lengthy period prior to last week's catastrophe.


More here  - http://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/06/28/rbs_job_cuts_and_offshoring_software_glitch/


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Acer bigwig sees gloomy future for Ultrabooks in Europe

Acer has downgraded sales forecasts for Ultrabooks as the relatively hefty price tag and smaller screen size continues to limit adoption in Europe.

The PC maker had expected the super skinny platform to comprise between 25 and 35 per cent of total notebook sales globally by the end of this year.

More here - http://www.channelregister.co.uk/2012/06/26/acer_on_ultrabook_adoption/

Android Firefox: Screaming, awesome, you'll go blind etc

Mozilla has galloped a new version of Firefox for Android out of the gates just ahead of the expected launch of Chrome on mobes later this week.

The open-source firm has had a version of its popular browser on little green phones since 2010, but it hasn't lit many Google-mobe-lovers' fires so far.

More here ! - http://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/06/27/firefox_for_android_upgrade/

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DDR 4 sets the pace for fast memory

Extreme Hardware Reducing the size of chips has benefits beyond those seen in CPUs and GPUs. One other key component to gain an advantage is memory.

The specification of the next generation of memory module, DDR 4 (DDR stands for 'double data rate'), is currently being finalised ahead of its anticipated launch later this year. It will use less power than today's DDR 3 and is based on a 32-36nm fabrication process, the numbers referring to the width of transistors used in the chip.

More here ! http://www.reghardware.com/2012/06/26/extreme_notebook_memory/

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'Inexperienced' RBS tech operative's blunder led to banking meltdown

Exclusive A serious error committed by an "inexperienced operative" caused the IT meltdown which crippled the RBS banks last week, a source familiar with the matter has told The Register. Job adverts show that at least some of the team responsible for the blunder were recruited earlier this year in India following IT job cuts at RBS in the UK.


More here ! http://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/06/26/rbs_natwest_ca_technologies_outsourcing/


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Microsoft's Surface plan means the world belongs to Android now

Open ... and Shut Microsoft roared onto the mobile scene last week with the unveiling of its Surface tablet, but Acer is probably right to question why Microsoft would fight premium iPads with a premium Surface.

After all, the next 10 million apps, and the next billion users, are not going to come from the developed, saturated markets of North America and Western Europe, as Vision Mobile's new research report (Developer Economics 2012: The New Mobile App Economy) points out. Rather, the next phase of mobile market development is projected to come from emerging Brazil, Russia, India, and China (BRIC) economies.

Developers in these markets? They're betting big on Android.

More here ! - http://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/06/26/brics_love_android/

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Google's Interactive TV Launching In UK

Google is launching its assault on the UK TV market with a product that lets users surf the internet, play games and watch videos on their television.

The tie-in with Sony will see Google's interactive TV service made available outside the US for the first time.
The device, which will cost around £200 when it is goes on sale on July 16, will compete with Apple's own TV box.

More here - http://news.sky.com/home/technology/article/16252856

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Powering your iPad costs $1.36 per year

If you charge your fully depleted iPad every other day, it'll cost you a buck thirty-six per year, according to a just-released study by the Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI) of Palo Alto, California.
"At less than a penny per charge these findings bring new meaning to the adage, 'A penny for your thoughts'," said the EPRI's veep for power delivery and utilization Mark McGranaghan when announcing the results.

More here ! - http://www.theregister.co./2012/06/22/wacky_power_stats/

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Natwest, RBS: When will bank glitch be fixed? Probably not today

On the fourth day of a IT systems choke-up that has left customers unable to access money and in some cases unable to buy food or travel, Natwest and RBS – which both belong to the RBS group – still have no idea when the issues will be fixed.

More Natwest misery here !

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/06/22/rbs_natwest_outage_fourth_day/

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Office printers spew reams of garbage as 2-year-old Trojan runs wild

Computer printers around the world are spewing garbage following a flare-up of a strain of malware first detected two years ago, Symantec warns.
A spike in infections by the Milicenso Trojan has hit businesses in the US, India, Europe and South America over the last two weeks or so – resulting in a massive, wasted print jobs at affected organisations.

More here ! http://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/06/22/trojan_spews_gibberish_print_runs/

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WHOOPS ! New Microsoft tablet freezes at unveiling

MICROSOFT boss Steve Sinofsky puts on a brave face as his company's rival to the iPad FREEZES at the opening presentation.

See more here ! http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/4386710/New-Microsoft-tablet-freezes-at-unveiling.html

LinkedIn, eHarmony: how to protect your PINs and passwords

Millions of passwords from social networking site LinkedIn and online dating firm eHarmony have fallen into the hands of hackers. As many as 6.5 million passwords from LinkedIn have been leaked online, with up to 1.5 million from eHarmony also available.

See here for more details - http://www.lovemoney.com/news/scams-and-rip-offs/scams/13105/i-can-crack-your-pins-and-passwords?source=1000421

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Crime Map ?

A simple app that will make plenty of people curious about their local crime figures.

More here - http://www.reghardware.com/2012/06/21/app_of_the_week_ios_crime_map/

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Storage company promises INFINITE IMMORTALITY

NetApp has announced a major minor release of its data ONTAP storage operating system, promising data immortality and infinity.

More here ! - http://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/06/20/netapp_ontap_8_1_1/

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Microsoft Unveils Touchscreen Tablet

Software giant Microsoft has joined its rival Apple in the world of touchscreen tablets with the launch of the Surface.

The Surface looks similar to the iPad - launched in 2010 - but has a more cinematic screen ratio.
The device also features an optional slimline tactile keyboard built into the tablet's case, as opposed to a standard touch keyboard.


More here ! - http://news.sky.com/home/technology/article/16249251


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Historic 14th Century school nearly burnt down by exploding laptop

HUNDREDS of pupils were forced to flee a historic 14th Century school after its was almost burnt to the ground – by an exploding laptop.

Students were evacuated from the prestigious Lichfield Cathedral School after the laptop computer exploded, causing flames to engulf the building.
Thirty firefighters scrambled to tackle the flames – to stop them spreading to the 927-year-old Lichfield cathedral which is located just metres away

More here ! http://www.newstoday.co.uk/5461/2012/03/historic-14th-century-school-nearly-burnt-down-by-exploding-lap-top/

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Intel to force lower Ultrabook prices following MacBook Air cut

Chip-manufacturer wants $699 (£450) target in second half of 2012

More here - http://www.techradar.com/news/mobile-computing/laptops/intel-to-force-lower-ultrabook-prices-following-macbook-air-cut-1085409

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Hard drive prices won't drop until 2014

Hard drive prices will not fall to a pre-disaster level until 2014, according to a report.

IHS iSuppli has made the statement despite stating that production is rapidly recovering after the floods in Thailand. The firm said that apart from the dramatic affect the flooding had, prices will remain inflated due to high demand

See more here - http://www.pcadvisor.co.uk/news/storage/3362677/hard-drive-prices-wont-drop-until-2014/

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Mystery buyer scoops working Apple 1 at auction

A working Apple 1 computer has broken records at auction, with a mystery buyer shelling out $374,500 for the system, with a handwritten memo from Steve Jobs also selling for well over the guide price.

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Skype to show ads during calls

Skype is to show ads during conversations for users who haven't paid to use the Microsoft-owned service.

Read more here - http://www.pcpro.co.uk/news/375145/skype-to-show-ads-during-calls

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Trust lawyers, not techies, when it comes to the cloud Minefield of privacy and data laws - so tread carefully

CCWF2012 CIOs thinking of shifting to the cloud or kicking off a flagship big data project would be better off talking to their lawyers than their techies before starting to leaf through glossy corporate presentations.

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/06/13/law_and_corporate_cloud/

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Q&A: Trolling And Changes To The Law

Internet trolls - people who post abusive and defamatory comments on websites - are to be stripped of their anonymity.

More here ! http://news.sky.com/home/uk-news/article/16245873

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Bye, bye Apple. Now Facebook's the global app kingmaker

Facebook is helping Apple to solve the biggest problem facing mobile app stores: sorting through the quagmire of mediocrity endemic in the industry. But more importantly Facebook has found a way to turn mobile punters into profit.

More info here ! 

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/06/12/facebook_app_center/

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Apple introduces 'Next Generation' MacBook Pro with retina display

In addition to updating its existing MacBook Air and MacBook Pro lines, Apple has introduced what it's calling the "Next Generation" MacBook Pro, complete with a 15.4-inch, 2880-by-1800 pixel, 220ppi "retina display".

More here ! http://www.reghardware.com/2012/06/11/next_gen_macbook_pro/

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