23rd May 2002 Archive

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Plaid Cymru pulls Queen Mum Web spoof

Star Wars Yoda dressed as departed Royal

Plaid Cymru has apologised for poking fun at the late Queen Mother and local residents on one of its Web sites. A site run by activists from the South Merthyr and Rhymni branch of the Welsh nationalist party contained a "a photograph of Star Wars character Yoda dressed as the Queen Mother", the Western Mail reports. The image …

Bootnotes 23 May 2002, 05:38
Biometric sensors beaten senseless in tests

c't foils fingerprint, iris and face recognition scanners

Have biometric systems developed to the point where theycould be a viable alternative to passwords and PINs? The answer is a resounding "nein", according to comprehensive tests of 11 consumer-orientated biometric products by German technology magazine c't . The results are timely - the biometric security (which includes …

Security 23 May 2002, 05:44
Salmon Days: Episode 2

Sick children, healthy comedy

OK so it took us longer than planned: but at last, another episode of Salmon Days, our pay-per-view-live action comedy streaming epic. You can check it out at www.salmondays.tv. There's a few changes too: One: the reverse SMS billing option is junked, unless you're a Vodafone customer (in which you can use M-Pay). This is for …

Bootnotes 23 May 2002, 06:04
Classic Reg logo shirt goes all Ally McBeal

Firm favorite now available in medium

Well, it's official - black is the new black and black is back. Yes, it's a welcome return for the Vulture Central classic black logo t-shirt. And, in response to mass protestations that not all Reg readers are pizza-gorged man-mountains, this item is now available in a lithe medium. Calista Flockhart take note. There's …

Site News 23 May 2002, 06:04
Reg Reader Research Reborn

Site News We want you for a new recruit

As 8,000 or so of you are already aware, Reg Reader Research, our adventure in online polling, has a new name - MetriNets, with its very own web site. This is a joint venture with Metafacts and Tom's Hardware, and we want you to join the MetriNets Experts panel. Registration takes around 15 minutes - less, if you're quicker. …

Site News 23 May 2002, 06:04
Reg ‘Hacker’ shirt is go

Spring has sprung at Cash'n'Carrion

As promised, our sensational new 'Hacker No.1' polo shirt is available for immediate purchase at our Cash'n'Carrion merchandising outlet. This new line is a top-quality 100 per cent cotton Kustom Kit polo shirt, adorned with a big "1" on the left sleeve and back, "Hacker" slogan across the chest and Reg union jack logo on …

Site News 23 May 2002, 06:05
Bluefin surfaces on wave of storage interoperability

The Big Mo

The storage industry's only non-proprietary attempt at cross-vendor interoperability picked up major momentum yesterday with the surprise surfacing of Bluefin, a hitherto undercover effort to create a universal storage management specification. Based on the emerging storage extensions to the existing CIM/WEBM standard, …

Hardware 23 May 2002, 06:53
Hynix woes heightened by DRAM price dip

Where's the exit?

Samsung Corp and Hynix Semiconductor Inc have been forced to cut their 128Mb DRAM contract prices by between 16% and 20% according to Korean media reports. The price cuts, forced on them by their largest customers, push the 128Mb DRAM part price below $4 again, heightening fears that there could yet be a sting in the tail …

Channel 23 May 2002, 06:54
Yahoo! Europe! to! can! auction! ops!

UPDATE: Oh!

Yahoo! is to close a number of its European auction sites within the next six weeks as part of its plan to make more money. Yahoo!'s auction sites in the UK and Ireland, France, Germany, Italy and Spain are to be folded and replaced by services run by eBay instead. The two Internet giants have also signed an advertising deal …

e-Business 23 May 2002, 09:23
UK firms confident about future

Puts a smile on your face

UK businesses are positively giddy with excitement about future economic growth prospects over the next 12 months. It seems they're so full of the joys of late spring, that many are preparing to invest in IT now so that they are ready to cash-in on this future growth. So says a survey by IDC and Microsoft which reveals that …

Business 23 May 2002, 10:54
Windows debugger is, er, buggy

Quelle surprise

Microsoft has admitted that its Windows debugging facility is itself subject to a security bug. In an advisory issued yesterday, Microsoft admitted the authentication mechanism for the debugging facility is flawed in a way that allows unauthorised programs to gain access to the debugger. The upshot of this is, providing an …

Security 23 May 2002, 11:51
India struggles to close PC gap

Taxes don't help

The growth in sales of personal computers in India will outstrip the global average this year, a local market research company predicts, but the growth is still too low to suggest that India is realizing its ambition to become an IT empowered country. Delhi-based Skoch Consultancy Services said in its lastest market study …

Personal 23 May 2002, 12:34
Channel partners cool on the new HP

A spirit of de-emphasis is abroad...

More than a third of Hewlett-Packard's and Compaq's authorised channel partners plan to scale down their involvement with the post-merger company. That's one of the key findings of a survey of channel attitudes to the mega-merger by channel consulting firm Global Touch, which found mixed attitudes to the deal among distributors …

Channel 23 May 2002, 12:37
Tiscali plugs porn for cash

'Commercial reality'

Tiscali UK is plugging adult entertainment in a bid to help generate some much-needed revenue. Recently, the ISP has been running late at night a series of X-rated ads on its portal. But the move has proved unpopular with some Tiscali punters who claim this is simply not on. One reader told The Register that requests for the …

Music and Media 23 May 2002, 12:39
Chatham Girls go down too quick

Reg romeos left unfulfilled

It's official: The Reg is the new slashdot, having brought down Geocities hosted Chatham Girls in a matter of minutes yesterday. Thousands of readers clicked through from our illuminating piece, hoping to find their ideal mate among the Medway Towns' finest. Sadly, it was not to be. Chatham Girls has exceeded its bandwidth and …

Bootnotes 23 May 2002, 12:39
AMD's Hammer goes graphics crazy

Where's Nvidia, then?

AMD is spinning up the sales story for its bifurcated 64-bit chip brands, the Opteron and the Athlon (as its uniprocessor version is to be called). It'll be several months before any of the damn things reach the public, but that won't stop AMD's PR bunnies from teasing out the announcements. Today, for example is graphics …

Channel 23 May 2002, 13:04
S Korea handed ‘broadband World Cup’

It's worse than you think

The bunnies at Telewest are over the moon with their latest trick to link broadband with the up and coming World Cup. You'll never believe it, but they've only gone and bleedin' presented a South Korean Government minister with his own "World Cup" in recognition of the country's place as the global leader in high speed Net …

Music and Media 23 May 2002, 20:30
KaZaA collapses under Rambo-style lawsuits

But file sharing networks it spawned carry on

KaZaA, the Dutch software and products company which founded KaZaA.com, is to shut down because it can't afford to defend copyright infringement charges brought against it by the entertainment industry. In a court filing last Friday, KaZaA accused major studios and labels of engaging in "Rambo-style litigation," AP reports . …

Music and Media 23 May 2002, 20:42
Google Labs passes Borges test

Considered experimental

Google has opened its kimono on some new labs work, soliciting feedback for four experimental features. "These are experiments, we want people to play with them," Google's Nathan Tyler told us. An accompany FAQ stresses that the projects are in rough works-in-progress, suppported only by Google staff in their own time, and may …

Music and Media 23 May 2002, 22:10