The Register

R-acle 11g, Quant Edition

Relational database juggernaut Oracle has embedded the R programming language used by more than 2 million statisticians and quants the world over into its 11g relational database. Call it R-acle 11g, Quant Edition.?

Microsoft aims for separate but equal

Windows boss Stephen Sinofsky has ended months of speculation with the first (fairly) detailed drilldown into Windows 8 on ARM (WOA) platform, and says it should be ready for a simultaneous launch with its x86/64 counterpart.?

Because it?s Friday?

It?s one of those wonderful discrepancies that happens when a site has to wait a year or so between visits from the Google StreetView photo-harvesters.?

Low or no interest rates

It's a new year and a new first quarter and a new and somewhat challenging economy in North America, and therefore IBM is offering financing deals in the United States and Canada.?

Asia Pac enjoys a satellite bonanza

Hong Kong satellite operator AsiaSat and space launch company Space Exploration Technologies (SpaceX) will launch two new communications satellites in 2014 servicing the Asia Pacific region.?

Big data = big bucks

Data warehousing pioneer and big data playa Teradata has just turned in the best fourth quarter and full year in the company's 33 year history, thanks to the big data wave and a number of key acquisitions that the company that have moved it beyond its core data warehousing biz.?

Google grins at Adobe jury?s verdict

A jury in Texas has ruled against Eolas Technologies in its patent battle to lay claim to the concept of in-browser applications and most plug-ins.?

Also Asia, Europe and Africa

It?s going to be a heck of a reunion: the Pangea supercontinent that broke up to create the atlas we know today will one day reform in the Northern hemisphere.?

Aus tech entrprenuers back new publishing house

Internode founder Simon Hackett is behind the launch of Australia?s newest cross-platform book publishing house, MidnightSun Publishing.?

Blows it onto the Fusion app cloud

Only two months ago, Taleo, the seller of online talent management software, was saying that it intended to remain independent despite the cloud software feeding frenzy. But today, Larry Ellison, CEO and co-founder of Oracle, made Taleo CEO Mike Gregoire an offer he couldn't refuse: $1.9bn.?

Sex, drugs and bomb threats

Steve Jobs' drug use, court cases and personality flaws were all investigated by the FBI, as a file released on Thursday reveals.?

What lurks inside the Windows admin's toolkit...

Sysadmin blog Windows is a powerful and complex Operating System (OS). As with any modern OS, it comes equipped with numerous features, utilities, and applications. But Windows' default tools are not always the best widget for the job at hand.?

They do it with mirrors

Access Optical Networks says it has developed a 1.2TB holographic storage cube that can transfer data at 155MB/sec and last longer than 50 years. Oh, and it's done using mirrors ? but no smoke.?

Moto patents at heart of latest fair licensing row

Analysis Google's outline of how it will use Motorola Mobility's intellectual property ? should regulators allow the buyout ? has sparked fierce debate as pundits worry about how the smartphone patent wars will pan out.?

End in sight for snappers, camcorders

Kodak is knocking its line of budget digital cameras on the head, part of its plan to revive the fortunes of the troubled firm.?

Intel's new NAND

Hitachi GST has birthed a boosted Ultrastar SSD using Intel's latest 25nm NAND. Intel launched its own 520 just a few days ago.?

I like backends and I cannot lie

Mobile platform developer Appcelerator has completed its second purchase of the last year, snapping up Cocoafish to gets its APIs and server backend system.?

Or anything else from Amazon for $25 if you agree to be stalked

Google has revealed exactly how little cash it thinks a user who is willing to "sell" their data to the search giant is actually worth.?

Judges deliberating whether or not to quash conviction

Paul Chambers, the Twitter joker turned misdemeanour conviction martyr, returned to court on Wednesday to launch a second appeal against a conviction over a "threatening message" to blow Doncaster's Robin Hood Airport "sky high".?

Spain, Italy disappointing - Turkey, India a pleasant surprise

Vodafone's numbers for the tail-end of 2011 show the network doing pretty well, though it admitted husbanding cash back to the UK nightly just to be on the safe side.?

World's number 2 PC maker buoyed by China performance

Lenovo Group is one of the few PC makers still in the pink, beating market expectations with a fat third-quarter net profit.?

But could middleman plan jack up prices?

Broadband and landline customers could soon find it a lot simpler to ditch one telco in favour of another, after Ofcom published its proposals on cutting the hassle out of switching providers for punters in the UK.?

Chinese biz counts readies to buy back web biz's share

Alibaba.com has suspended its shares on the Hong Kong market, pending news from its parent company Alibaba Group, which reportedly wants to buy back Yahoo!'s stake in the company.?

Barcelona, it was the first time that we met

Microsoft will unveil Windows 8 at Mobile World Congress, says an invitation sent out today.?

CEO's voting rights and package exposed

Mark Zuckerberg's effortless swagger into the business world got an airing in public yesterday when Facebook filed more documents to the US Securities and Exchange Commission ahead of the company going public in a few months' time.?

Always just over the horizon

What if the largest Ethernet networks we see today are just precursors, initial steps on the path to what's been called hyper-scale cloud networking??

Weak Euro consumer biz and challenged Oz operation blamed

Ingram Micro's new chief exec has set out three strategic priorities as he gets to grips with the challenges facing the world's largest distributor and looks to bolster bottom line goodness.?

Hang on to your coupons, we'll make a profit next quarter

Groupon (GRPN) has posted a net loss of $42.7m for the last three months of 2011, disappointing Wall Street's expectation that the coupon-pushers would make a small profit. Groupon stocks closed the day at $24.58 but in after-hours trading stocks tumbled 15 per cent to $20.75 ? suggesting that Groupon shareholders might want to brace themselves for a rocky ride when Thursday trading opens in New York.?

They're proper champion e-bobbies

The UK is to establish three regional policing e-crime hubs as part of efforts to boost the capability of British police to tackle the growing problem of cybercrime.?

Results 'really were a surprise', say climate profs

New scientific analysis of satellite gravity measurements has shown that ice is melting from glaciers around the world much less quickly than had been thought. The new research is important as worldwide glacier melt is thought to be one of the main factors which could drive rising sea levels in future.?

Luckily no one important is using it

A researcher at website categoriser zvelo has discovered Google Wallet's PIN protection is open to a brute-force attack that takes seconds to complete. And Google is powerless to fix the problem, it seems.?

'Nuclear biz is screwed, chill out about carcinogens'

"In politics the urgent seems to trump the important," venerable astro-boffin Lord Martin Rees told a committee of MPs yesterday, saying that it there needed to be "bipartisan consensus on long-term issues" such as energy and the environment if Britain is to haul its sorry ass into the next century.?

Hit and myth

Review Like a mage's potion, Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning is based on a tried and tested formula: the essence of Fable II, a dash of Oblivion, the gizzards of God of War. And let's not forget the vital binding agent, of course: a liberal dose of Tolkien's legendarium.?

Snaps point to bigger battery. Possibly

Snaps are circulating Apple and iPad fansites revealing that the upcoming iPad 3 will hold a larger battery than its predecessor? probably.?

Web giant has our email and docs, might as well hand over everything else

Never one to miss out on an up-and-coming tech trend, Google is all set to launch its very own cloud storage service, competing with the likes of Dropbox, Microsoft and Apple.?

Tablet's auto-restart glitch fixed

Asus UK has posted a firmware update for its Android tablet, the Eee Pad Transformer Prime.?

Will 10 gaijin really make a difference?

The Japanese government is trying to get foreign bloggers to do PR for it by inviting them to earthquake- and tsunami-hit areas to write compassionately about the progress being made in reconstructing the ravaged north-east of the country.?

Hole in the wall

Despite the fact they generally sit on the mantlepiece as a decorative reminder of where one's interest lies, replica weapons are a big business and gaming enthusiasts are an eager audience to target.?

Allowing bosses to spy on staff was wrong, says security biz

Certificate Authority Trustwave has revoked a digital certificate that allowed one of its clients to issue valid certificates for any server, thereby allowing one of its customers to intercept their employees' private email communication.?

Developed as a WebOS fall-back plan?

Top marks to HP for handing over an Android kernel it once coded for its TouchPad tablet to fondleslab hackers.?

Mandarin lessons going well too, says Apple dev mole

Apple is already testing Chinese, Japanese and Russian language support for its voice-activated personal assistant technology Siri - and will roll out the new functionality next month as its efforts to cosy up to customers in these lucrative markets gathers pace.?

Failure to halt imminent changes makes EPIC angry

The Electronic Privacy Information Center is suing the US Federal Trade Commission for failing to take action against Google's plans to change its terms of service on 1 March.?

Unlock your fondleslab with your face

Lenovo will update its ThinkPad Android-based tablet to Ice Cream Sandwich in May, the PC giant said last night.?

In case of emergency, break out app...

iOS App of the Week The Red Cross was in the news recently when it issued new guidelines for performing CPR - Cardiopulmonary Resuscitation - and it has followed this up with a free First Aid app that's worth downloading in case of emergencies.?

One toasting too many for NoSQL?

To NoSQLers he's the Devil who flames their work. Bring up his name while interviewing the CEO or founder of any NoSQL start-up, as I have, and the interviewee withers to a tight smile.?

We don't care about iPhones or workers, only lulz

It had to happen eventually. Controversial hardware manufacturer Foxconn was reportedly hacked late on Wednesday and a heap of staff email log-ins and intranet credentials posted online which could allow third parties to lodge fraudulent orders.?

Don't forget the secret power of BBM

Analysis RIM's fortunes have taken a catastrophic, Nokia-style nosedive in the past year - but it has a chance of pulling up. Admittedly, the odds are long, but this week the Canadian company began its fightback.?

Big Blue puts pedal to the metal

IBM has pressed the gas pedal to the floor with its third generation XIV array and given it up to 6TB of solid state drive cache storage.?

Should help community care workers cut down on desk-time

The Northern Devon Healthcare NHS Trust is piloting mobile devices for its community care nurses and therapists to enable them to access files, capture data and update back office systems remotely.?

Thin! Small! Mad! Gorgeous!

Review Having already reviewed the slightly larger Asus UX31E Zenbook for El Reg, and quite liking it, I whinged that sending me the UX21E model would be a waste of time. It wasn?t, obviously, because you?re reading this. I loved it. In fact, I preferred it.?