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SanDisk's faster netbook flash
Tipping point approaches? SanDisk has announced new netbook and USB thumb drive flash products at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas.?

Dell moving into GlassHouse?
Stars align for services buy Comment Back in December 2007, a confident GlassHouse Technologies, sensing good prospects in its services and consulting area, filed for an IPO. In the spring of 2008, it entered a strategic partnership with Dell, made another acquisition - and then the recession happened. The company has started firing people as it cuts costs and drives towards profitability in th...

IBMers hear sound of axe being sharpened
Up to 16,000 jobs could go The rumor mill, being stoked by IBM employees talking on a pro-union web site, has it that Big Blue is getting ready to lay off up to 16,000 employees, or about four per cent of its 400,000-strong global workforce, thanks to the slowing of the economies in the United States and Western Europe.?

Bogus LinkedIn profiles punt malware to fools
Beyoncé's not your friend, you berk Bogus profiles on social networking website LinkedIn are punting malware to the credulous and starstruck.?

UK scientists hit by lack of brains
Donors required to combat 'dire' research shortage UK scientists have appealed for people to donate their brains to researchers facing a "dire" shortage of grey matter, the BBC reports.?

'First algae-fuelled airliner flight' takes off tomorrow
Scum-burning 737 to debut in Texas US airline Continental says it will carry out "the first biofuel flight by a commercial carrier using algae as a fuel source" tomorrow. Previous airliner biofuel trials have used controversial "first-generation" feedstocks, seen as contributing to world hunger and deforestation, apart from a recent New Zealand test involving jatropha nuts.?

Xobni gets $7m cash injection from Cisco and co
I'll be your email mirror Silicon Valley startup Xobni, which develops MS Outlook plug-ins, has raised a $7m series B round of funding led by network giant Cisco.?

Google picks up third spot in spam-friendly shame list
Blogspot exploits and Gmail scams slammed Google has leapfrogged Microsoft to reach third place in a blacklist of spam-friendly ISPs, compiled by anti-spam organisation Spamhaus.org.?

Online crime maps go live
Scareyourself.com All 43 police forces across England and Wales are now offering online crime maps showing offences broken down by area.?

Mobiles finally admitted to English hospitals
Hello? I'm on the trolley England is catching up with Scotland and Wales in liberalising mobile phone use in hospitals, a mere five years after it was established that such use didn't present a significant risk to medical equipment.?

Tories pledge high speed broadband for all in 10 years
Cameron to do what civil servants decide David Cameron has pledged that a Conservative government would seek connections to high speed broadband networks for all parts of the country within ten years.?

Vikings' bleeding-edge tech came from Afghanistan
Bouncing-bomb boffins probe ancient weapons trade Boffins at the UK's famous National Physical Laboratory (NPL) - birthplace of the Dambusters' bouncing bomb and perhaps the internet - say they have used an electron microscope to analyse Viking swords. In a surprise twist, it turns out that the old-time Scandinavian pests, many of whom moved to England to become our ancestors, actually imported...

Mattel bemuses gamers with 'brainwave' toy
Neuroheadsets for Barbie and Ken to follow As Emotiv Systems? Epoc neuroheadset is currently going through a rocky patch, Barbie maker Mattel has stepped in with what's rumoured to be a similar type of brainwave toy.?

Late bets on new Who hit Paddy Power's pocket
Ten punts around Matt Smith's home town The largely unexpected announcement that 26-year-old Matt Smith will become the next Doctor Who was possibly not quite as unexpected in the actor's home town of Northampton, according to bookmakers Paddy Power.?Free Download - The Reg Guide to Storage and Storage Platforms

Ballmer backslaps server veteran Muglia
Gets presidential treatment for doing same job Microsoft has promoted Bob Muglia to president of the firm?s server and tools biz.?

Israel hacks Arab TV station
Cyberspace becomes battleground in Gaza conflict Israeli military forces have reportedly hacked into a Hamas-run TV station to broadcast propaganda.?

IPhone gets Office docs
Had to happen Soonr or latr 2009 will finally see Microsoft Office documents arrive on the iPhone, it seems, with Soonr allowing access to documents stored in the cloud while QuickOffice makes good on its promise of local editing.?

Logitech cuts jobs and dumps guidance
Mousey misery Logitech has withdrawn financial guidance for the year and will cut 15 per cent of salaried staff.?

Three Regcasts about software and productivity
Reg tech panel surveys made flesh Now on demand In December, The Register ran three live webcasts about software-driven productivity gains.?

Motorola parades touchscreen talker
Dare we say it? The latest iPhone killer? The touchscreen mobile market has expanded yet again, following Motorola?s introduction of the MotoSurf A3100.?Free Download - The Reg Guide to Storage and Storage Platforms

<em>Dark Knight</em> eyes Producers Guild award
Up for best picture The Producers Guild of America has announced the nominations for its annual awards, which will see The Dark Knight battle Frost/Nixon for the best picture crown.?

Remaining UK plods to get mobile-data gadgets
Every copper hooked up to Home Office's blue cloud The government has announced further funding for police mobile data devices, intended to equip those forces which received no funding in the initial push announced last year.?

Hubble probes Milky Way's turbulent core
Fetching new infrared mosaic A newly-released composite colour infrared image of our galaxy's core has revealed the Milky Way's centre in all its turbulent glory.?

2GB MP3 player head-to-head test
Samsung's YP-U4 vs Sony's Walkman NWZ-B135F Review The relentless march of the iPod into the price bracket known as 'Good God! How much?' makes the near simultaneous release by Sony and Samsung of the new runts of their MP3 player litters more interesting than would otherwise be the case. A couple of 2GB USB stick-style MP3 players with FM radios and screens each for under £40? Can't be bad... ...

Picasa for fanboys arrives
Google dishes up free photo-editing tool to Mac faithful Google has finally released a version of its Picasa software for the Apple Mac.?

Anonymous celebrates first anniversary of Scientology protests
Still plugging away Bemasked protest group Anonymous is marking the first anniversary of its campaign against the Church of Scientology with a round of further demos.?

Seagate dishes up 1TB drive, looks ahead to 2TB
But big Barracuda has others on its tail Seagate says it's the first HDD manufacturer to ship 500GB 3.5-inch disk platters with its 1TB, 2-platter Barracuda 7200.12 HD product.?

Siemens patent snafu sees Seagate slip away
Oi, that idea ain't yours Siemens went to the US courts to try and get Seagate to cough up patent royalties - only to be told its patents were invalid.?

Taiwan moves to save chipmakers
$6bn bailout ahoy The Taiwanese government is moving closer to a $6bn bailout of the country's chipmakers who are suffering from the credit crunch and falling prices for DRAM despite production cuts.?

Skype pops up on Mac
Beta release of scrummy new features Skype will be launching a new client tomorrow just for Mac users, which provides screen sharing, bigger avatars and Wi-Fi hotspot access to the ubiquitous VoIP service.?

Ofcom warns telcos over hidden customer penalties
Embiggen that small print, you Telecoms companies must be clearer about additional charges they levy and must help customers to understand them better, telecoms regulator Ofcom has said.?

<em>Nature</em> moves into 3D publishing
Articles finally catch up with ads Astronomers, publishers and computing experts claimed a "significant milestone" in the New Year's Day edition of heavyweight boffinry journal Nature, saying it is "the first time a major scientific journal has used a 3-D PDF of graphics in an article".?

Freesat signs up LG
Tuner-integrated TVs first. Set-top boxes to follow? LG is to follow Panasonic and release a series of TVs with integrated Freesat tuners later this year.?

Twitter's veracity chewed up by Britney's four-foot vagina
Attack of the Tweats Micro-blogging site Twitter had to temporarily suspend accounts belonging to Barack Obama, Britney Spears and other celebrities after they were hijacked by miscreants and used to spread scandalous and false information that appeared to come from their owners.?

Former eBay CEO preps for California power post?
She'll be back Former eBay chief executive Meg Whitman has reportedly cleared the way for taking a pop at Arnold Schwarzenegger's job of California governor in 2010.?

Microsoft and Apple: 25 years of couples therapy
Saved by a giant head Macworld Expo Microsoft wants you to know that it's not just the Mac that's holding a 25th birthday party: 2009 marks the 25th year that Redmond has developed software for Apple's quarter-centarian computer.?

Sun offers free GlassFish education
Repeats download model The secret to business according to Sun Microsystems' chief executive Jonathan Schwartz is to first build volume and then figure out how to make money from the audience you've created.?

VCs still pump dough into green tech, renewable energy
Q4 takes a bit of a haircut The economic meltdown has put a damper on a lot of things, but it seems to have been less of a wet blanket for investors in startups in the green technology and renewable energy in 2008 - if you exclude the final quarter of the unusually dismal year.?

PS2 the most played console of 2008
Xbox beats PS3 to second slot Nintendo may have cleaned up in console sales in 2008, but more US gamers spent their free time time playing Sony's "last-gen" Playstation 2, according to Nielsen Media Research.?

Companies burying themselves in IT gear
Doesn't virtualization fix this? The religion of virtualization may be all over the IT trade press, but apparently the data centers of the world haven't heard the good news yet and have been buying up PCs, servers, and storage gear like crazy to support their application and data loads. And if data from British IT consultancy Compass is any guide, IT budget growth over the past four years has b...

IT salary survey says: ?You?ve never had it so bad?
Dot-com crash a 'cake walk' Compared to the current job market, IT professionals should recall the collapse of the dot-com bubble with a fondness for the good ol' days.?

Linux: this year's silver lining?
Watch out Windows and Solaris, says Zemlin With the new year under way and all of the problems in the old year still largely unsolved, people in the IT sector are looking around for a little good news and some prospects for growth. There are a lot of clouds out there right now, and Jim Zemlin, executive director of the Linux Foundation, thinks the rain is going to be good, particularly for Linux.?

Boffin brings 'write once, run anywhere' to Cisco hijacks
Curse of the ROMmon A researcher has discovered a way to reliably exploit a known security vulnerability in a wide class of Cisco System routers, a finding that for the first time allows attackers to hijack millions of devices with a single piece of code.?

Safari enjoys 'unusually residential' December boost
Suggests OS X adoption Use of Apple's Safari browser grew in December to 7.93 per cent, up from 7.13 per cent in November, suggesting a parallel growth in adoption of Mac OS X, according to browser-usage figures released today by internet-analyst Net Applications.?

Iomega aims at TVs with home server
Backs up PCs and plays digital media files Iomega has announced a home storage and media server that backs up files on connected PCs and plays digital media content to connected output devices.?

$400m US space interceptor deal inked
Last orders at the Missile Defence saloon? Rumour suggests that some parts at least of the controversial US missile-defence programme are doomed, with the axe set to fall as soon as President-Elect Obama takes office. Nonetheless, the last days of 2008 saw a $400m contract award to one of the most controversial missile-defence weapons of them all - the Groundbased Midcourse Defence (GMD) rocket...

UIQ 'files for bankruptcy' in Sweden
First tech casualty of 2009? UIQ has finally thrown in the towel and reportedly applied for bankruptcy in the Swedish courts.?

Steve Jobs dismisses death rumours
Letter explains hormone imbalance Ever since Steve Jobs said he would not be giving the keynote speech at MacWorld, there have been lurid rumours that his health had taken a serious turn for the worse - but the Apple bigwig has finally had a go at putting the world straight.?

ITV to write down Friends Reunited value, says report
There's no such thing as a free, chummy lunch Friends Reunited could see its carrying value slashed by ITV when the television channel releases its year-end review of past acquisitions.?

Home Office denies remote snooping plan
No change to police rules...yet The Home Office has denied it has made any change to rules governing how police can remotely snoop on people's computers.?