Site News

• How US sanctions slugged Huawei and helped Apple top China's Q4 smartphone sales

  Cupertino cut prices and cleaned up
  Simon Sharwood, APAC Editor Thu 27 Jan 2022 // 04:45 UTC

  Huawei's share of China's smartphone market fell by 68 per cent year over year, and Apple took advantage to become the Middle Kingdom's most ubiquitous smartphone vendor in 2021's final quarter.

  So says analyst firm Counterpoint, which on Wednesday published its Market Pulse for January 2022.

  Apple's Q4 ascent saw it score an all-time high 23 per cent of the market. That figure was up 32 per cent year on year and 79 per cent quarter on quarter.

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• China orders web operators to spring clean its entire internet

  Purveyors of rumours, flirty teens, dodgy infomercials, or bloody violence all told to get in the bin – yet again
  Simon Sharwood, APAC Editor Thu 27 Jan 2022 // 03:01 UTC 3

  The Cyberspace Administration of China (CAC) has shared its spring-cleaning plans with the world – and suggested it's time to make the Middle Kingdom's web sites sparkle with wholesome content.

  The Admin's edict lists many net nasties that it wants removed. But there's not much new on the list – most of the items have already been the subject of warnings or bans.

  At the top of the list is violent content, which China has never wanted online.

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• Indian government floats idea of home-grown challenger for Android and iOS

  May not be the smartest move seeing as alternative OSes crater – and Google promised to spend billions in India
  Simon Sharwood, APAC Editor Thu 27 Jan 2022 // 01:19 UTC 1

  India's minister of state for Electronics and IT Rajeev Chandrasekhar has revealed the nation's government intends to develop a policy that will encourage development of an "indigenous mobile operating system".

  Speaking at the launch of a policy vision for Indian tech manufacturing, Chandrasekhar said India's Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology believes the market could benefit from an alternative to Android and iOS and could "even create a new handset operating system" to improve competition, according to the Press Trust of India.

  "We are talking to people. We are looking at a policy for that," Chandrasekhar told local media, adding that start-ups and academia are being considered as likely sources of talent and expertise to build the OS.

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• In a first, FTC extracts millions of dollars from online store accused of blocking bad reviews on its website

  Glad rags merchandiser denies wrongdoing, says it coughed up $4.2m to 'avoid distraction'
  Katyanna Quach Thu 27 Jan 2022 // 00:28 UTC 6

  Internet garment slinger Fashion Nova will cough up $4.2m to shut down accusations that it censored negative reviews left by customers on its website.

  The flash clobber biz allegedly used third-party software to screen product reviews before they appeared on its site. Product ratings of four and five stars were automatically published on the e-tailer's website, while lower-starred, negative reviews were withheld, according to the US Federal Trade Commission [PDF]. Hundreds of thousands of bad reviews were concealed between 2015 and 2019, it was claimed.

  As part of its settlement with the FTC, Fashion Nova will cough up millions of dollars, and must allow all customer reviews to be posted online unless they contain obscene or unlawful content. It's the first time the American watchdog has extracted dosh from a company for suppressing online negative product reviews.

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• 5nm? Pah. Texas Instruments focuses on 45nm+ analog, embedded electronics – and makes bank

  Most electronics in the things you use are on old-school-gen process nodes, after all
  Agam Shah Wed 26 Jan 2022 // 23:32 UTC 1

  Texas Instruments is focusing its fabrication efforts on analog chips and embedded processors – and seeing growing revenue from the components – amid an insatiable demand for the electronics by automakers, industrial system manufacturers, and others.

  "Our industrial and automotive customers are increasingly turning to analog and embedded technology to make their end products smarter, safer, more connected and more efficient," said Dave Pahl, company veep and head of investor relations in a fourth-quarter earnings call with analysts this week.

  Analog chips were identified by the US Department of Commerce in a report this week as a weak link in semiconductor supply chain. The department said manufacturers hit hardest by the ongoing component supply crunch included buyers of analog chips made using process nodes from 40nm to 800nm.

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• Alert: Let's Encrypt to revoke about 2 million HTTPS certificates in two days

  Relatively small number of certs issued using a verification method that doesn't comply with policy
  Thomas Claburn in San Francisco Wed 26 Jan 2022 // 21:26 UTC

  Let's Encrypt, a non-profit organization that helps people obtain free SSL/TLS certificates for websites, plans to revoke a non-trivial number of its certs on Friday because they were improperly issued.

  In a post to the Let's Encrypt discussion community forum, site reliability engineer Jillian Tessa explained that on Tuesday, a third party reported "two irregularities" in the code implementing the "TLS Using ALPN" validation method (BRs 3.2.2.4.20, RFC 8737) in Boulder, its Automatic Certificate Management Environment (ACME) software.

  "All active certificates that were issued and validated with the TLS-ALPN-01 challenge before 0048 UTC on 26 January 2022 when our fix was deployed are considered mis-issued," explained Tessa. "In compliance with the Let's Encrypt CP [Certificate Policy], we have 5-days to revoke and will begin to revoke certificates at 1600 UTC on 28 January 2022." 

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• Windows boss Panos Panay talks up 'new era of the PC' – translation: An era of new PCs

  1.4 billion devices running Redmond's OS, Android apps coming, and more
  Richard Speed Wed 26 Jan 2022 // 20:21 UTC 5

  In the wake of Microsoft's latest set of financial results, Windows boss Panos Panay today gave an update on what he's dubbed a "new era of the PC."

  Or as we see it, an era of new PCs being bought that meet the requirements of Microsoft's latest OS.

  Panay boasted of 1.4 billion monthly active devices (a figure less than half that of active Android kit numbers last year) running Redmond's operating systems, though stopped short of revealing what was actually running on what.

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• Refresh? No, F5 says supply of networking chips is still awful, getting worse...

  More than 400 orders for components cancelled by suppliers, says CEO
  Dan Robinson Wed 26 Jan 2022 // 18:45 UTC 1

  The artist formerly know as F5 Networks – it moved to plain old F5 in November – is clipping revenue forecasts for fiscal '22 by $30m to $90m because it can't source enough specialised chips to produce systems.

  The continued impact of the shortfall was outlined in F5's Q1 results to 31 December and subsequent earnings conference call, during which chief exec François Locoh-Donou opened up on the challenge of suppliers cancelling orders because they can't meet demand.

  "As a result of persistent strong system demand, our systems backlog continued to grow in Q1," he said. "Over the last 30 days, suppliers of critical components that span a number of our platforms have informed us of significant increases in decommits.

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• ESA's Solar Orbiter sneaks in bonus science by choking on the dust of a comet tail (again)

  Plucky probe due to make closest pass to the Sun in March
  Richard Speed Wed 26 Jan 2022 // 17:59 UTC 1

  The European Space Agency's Solar Orbiter followed up its whizz past Earth as 2021 drew to a close by passing through the tail of a comet. Again.

  While eyes were turned to French Guiana and the impending launch of the James Webb Space Telescope, for a few days around 17 December the spacecraft flew through the tail of Comet C/2021 A1 Leonard.

  It's not the first time; the spacecraft also passed through the tail of the fragmenting comet C/2019 Y4 ATLAS in May and June 2020, a few short months after its launch.

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• US President Joe Biden reminds the White House he is serious about repairability

  Tech giants will voluntarily do the right thing because of course they always do
  Richard Speed Wed 26 Jan 2022 // 17:04 UTC 10

  US President Joe Biden has weighed into the Right to Repair furore once more as sueballs fly over some alleged monopolistic practises by a well-known farming equipment manufacturer.

  While Biden did not mention John Deere by name in his tweet on the matter (preferring instead to offer plaudits to Apple and Microsoft for changing their policies on punters getting kit fixed by third parties), he did not shy away from other areas in his remarks on the topic.

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• How to polish the bottom line? Microsoft makes it really hard to claim expenses, say staffers

  If even Captain PowerShell can't automate this, what hope is there for the rest of us?
  Richard Speed Wed 26 Jan 2022 // 16:17 UTC 27

  As Microsoft toasts another quarter of soaring profits, The Reg can't help but wonder if the bottom line is being ever so gently assisted by something that seems to be blighting its staff: difficulty claiming expenses.

  Jeffrey Snover, Microsoft Technical Fellow, beloved by administrators for PowerShell and stockholders for the likes of Azure Stack, kicked things off last night by airing niggles in that most measured of places – Twitter.

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