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Databases and the agony of choice

OSBC Red Hat will help others build clouds, but is unlikely to following operating-system rival Microsoft by becoming a cloud service provider itself.…

Offloading malware protection to the cloud

Agence France Presse:

SAN FRANCISCO — A study released on Wednesday indicated that the market for mobile device software programs should rocket to 17.5 billion dollars (US) within three years.

Downloads of mobile applications to handsets will leap from slightly more than seven billion in 2009 to nearly 50 billion in 2012, according to the independent study commissioned by GetJar, the world's second largest app store.

"It is easy to see how mobile apps will eclipse the traditional desktop Internet," GetJar chief executive Ilja Laurs told AFP.

"It makes perfect sense that mobile devices will kill the desktop."

Ah, another piece of cautiously optimistic research work from Planet Mobile

For the record, a rule of thumb we have found to be pretty reliable over 10 years of watching the mobile industry is to halve the prediction and double the time it takes. $25bn by 2014? I could live with that......

There's plenty of Star Wars nerd rage in this engaging new documentary, which lays out the case against Lucas' endless tweaks and creative decisions. But plenty of warm-and-fuzzy flashbacks to the franchise's roots soften the blow.

Sprint to punt HTC Supersonic

The first WiMAX-capable smartphone is said to be slated for introduction next week by Sprint Nextel.…

What is your recession sales strategy?

Astronomers have discovered the first exoplanet that is near habitable temperature and also crosses in front of its star, allowing it to be studied from Earth.

It's all about video

Switch maker and server wannabe Cisco Systems is making big bets that video streaming over the internet will be the next killer app - and one that will drive its revenue and profits in the new decade as voice over IP did in the prior one. Today Cisco put some new fixed-port Ethernet switches into the field to support video streaming better than current products and also to improve energy efficiency and security.…

Web threats: Why conventional protection doesn't work

The first television series with an "environmentalist" bent, Our Vanishing Wilderness, is available online in all its strange, groovy, apocalyptic glory.

As Android crowds the iPhone

The market for mobile apps - be they for smartphones, less-capable "feature phones," or carry-alongs such as Apple's iPad - will swell to $17.5bn by 2012.…

Web threats: Why conventional protection doesn't work

Zeus botnets' tangled web

Researchers at RSA have identified the network framework that endows some of the worlds most notorious botnets with always-on connections that are virtually immune from takedowns.…

Case Study: WhatsUp keeps Legoland turnstyles ringing

The General's latest science project makes the entire windshield a monitor and you a safer driver.

A former employee of an Austin, Texas, auto dealership is charged with computer intrusion, after a web-based vehicle-immobilization system is used to kill at least 100 cars and trigger their horns honking out of control.

A federal judge is approving a $9.5 million settlement requiring Facebook to spend more than $6 million funding online privacy studies amid accusations its now-defunct "Beacon" program illegally publicized video rentals and other purchases made by Facebook's millions of members. Lawyers who brought the case stand to earn about $3 million.

A warm handoff

In January, Novell released its SUSE Appliance Toolkit after nearly a year of alpha and beta testing. Now begins the difficult task of getting systems, middleware, and database software makers to rejigger their code and make it available through the online tool so companies can spin up and spit out software appliances.…

What is your recession sales strategy?

Will it SMIL? Yesnomaybe

“HTML5 will enable a new class of applications,” says Dean Hachamovitch, Microsoft's Internet Explorer general manager, speaking to the press at the company's Mix10 conference in Las Vegas.…

Case Study: WhatsUp keeps Legoland turnstyles ringing

Quantum physics is always being demonstrated at the atomic level; but what about making it work in something that's visible to the naked eye? Now scientists have.

When 25 million emails go bump in the night

While Microsoft has been failing to outfox Google in the web search and ad game, Google has - apparently - swiped a few of Redmond's customers away from MS Office.…

Or maybe just kill television

The FCC's National Broadband Plan will be largely funded through the sale of radio spectrum the FCC doesn't own: a good trick if one can pull it off.…

Web threats: Why conventional protection doesn't work

Redmondian open source library love abounds

Microsoft has put more of its considerable weight behind the open-source JQuery Javascript library, vowing to provide additional code contribution, testing resources, and integration with new versions of its own development tools.…

What is your recession sales strategy?

Botnet-ready? Excellent

Vodafone Spain has again supplied a HTC Magic smartphone that came pre-infected with the Mariposa botnet client and other malware crud.…

Offloading malware protection to the cloud

Orange masthead on St Patrick's Day? Oops...

It won't have escaped the attention of our US readers that El Reg Stateside today features an orange masthead - part of a temporary sponsored makeover.…

The power of collaboration within unified communications