The Register® — Biting the hand that feeds IT

Feeds

18th February 2004 Archive

Browse by publication date, or search the site.

  • Film makers join revulsion at Pepsi RIAA doublespeak

    Big Brother knows best

    Award-winning film maker and Apple user Brian Flemming has become the second artist to release his critique of the now notorious SuperBowl commercial, which promoted Apple's iTunes store. Documentary film maker James Saldana posted his annoted version here. Now director Flemming, who created the intriguing spoof documentary …

    Business 18 Feb 2004, 00:16

  • Slinging disks, NetApp booms in Q3

    Record profit

    Network Appliance posted fairly remarkable results in its third quarter, increasing sales well beyond marks set by other hardware vendors. NetApp pulled in $297 million in the period - a 30 per cent increase over the $229 million posted in the same quarter a year ago. The data storage equipment vendor also reported net income …

    Storage 18 Feb 2004, 00:17

  • Europe in brief The pop-up ad is dead (nearly)

    Video killed the radio star, but the Internet is killing the ads. Amsterdam-based WebAds Interactive Advertising will no longer sell pop-up ads for its European clients, citing a NFO Trendbox survey which shows that 91 per cent of (Dutch) Net users dislike these intrusive ads. For many years, pop-up ads have generated a steady …

    Media 18 Feb 2004, 08:42

  • Stafffs opens nursery for mobile computing firms

    Nice safe place to test ideas

    Staffordshire University’s Faculty of Computing Engineering and Technology has opened a lab at which businesses, large and small, can test the next generation of mobile technology. Using funding from Advantage West Midlands the university has kitted out a lab with PCs, application servers, simulated mobile location data, access …

    Mobile 18 Feb 2004, 08:46

  • Email fraud soars

    Swimming with the phishes

    Attempted email fraud and phishing attacks went up 50 per cent in January compared to the month before. There were an average of 5.7 new and unique phishing attacks each day in January, according to research by the Anti-Phishing Working Group. Phishing emails appear to come from well-known businesses but they ask for account …

    Security 18 Feb 2004, 09:15

  • AMD's ‘colourful’ chairman to step down

    Sanders to become Chairman Emeritus

    It's official: AMD CEO and President Hector Ruiz will replace company founder Jerry Sanders as Chairman on 29 April. Ruiz was today appointed as Chairman-elect, the company said. The colourful Sanders - how well we recall his bright white suit, with orange socks and tie, burned into our brain after sharing an elevator ride …

    Business 18 Feb 2004, 09:38

  • Europe to revoke Rambus memory patent

    Memory maker awaits FTC fraudruling

    Rambus' legal action against memory maker Micron appears to have had the rug pulled from under its feet this week when the European Patent Office said it will revoke one of the company's patents. According to the EPO, the ruling relates to an Access Time Register patent, number EP 0525 068, granted in 2000 to Rambus in the UK, …

    Business 18 Feb 2004, 09:38

  • Judge throws out FTC case against Rambus

    Role reversal

    Rambus has won its appeal against an anti-trust ruling by the Federal Trade Commission (FTC). Judge Stephen J. McGuire, the FTC's chief administrative law judge presiding over the case, yesterday dismissed the FTC ruling against the memory chip designer in its entirety. Rambus says it expects the publication of a 330-page …

    Business 18 Feb 2004, 10:35

  • VoIP will be US broadband killer app

    Without FCC intervention, that is

    Voice over IP is the killer app for broadband, according to a report just released from home networks research house, Parks Associates. The white paper, entitled "VoIP: At Last a Killer App?", says that if regulations stay the same, then consumers switching to a broadband line and VoIP - and throwing away their dial-up and …

    Data Networking 18 Feb 2004, 10:36

  • Irish e-voting furore hots up

    Tanaiste weighs in to debate

    Mary Harney, Ireland's deputy prime minister, weighed into the fierce debate in Ireland surrounding e-voting yesterday, expressing some sympathy with opposition complaints about the proposed system. The Irish government plans to roll out e-voting nationwide for June's local and European elections. Joint UK and Dutch partnership …

    Media 18 Feb 2004, 10:39

  • Seagate spins 10k rpm disks

    Smaller, faster

    Seagate announced a new range of 10,000rpm hard discs, called Savvio, at the Intel Developers' Forum (IDF) yesterday. The new range is based on a 2.5 inch form factor. The drives have a 40 per cent lower power requirement than their 3.5 inch counterparts, a 15 per cent faster seek time, and three interface options - Fibre …

    Storage 18 Feb 2004, 10:44

  • Channel Roundup Quantum offers full line through European channel

    Storage behemoth Quantum is to offer its complete line of products through European distributors Ideal Hardware and CMS Peripherals.This will include the DLT VS80, DLT VS160 and SDLT 320-branded tape drives. PCA Business Forum The Professional Computing Association's annual Business Forum is taking place on 26 February. The …

    Channel 18 Feb 2004, 11:14

  • Sun wins big with China Mobile Java gig

    Platform for 90m subscribers

    Sun has signed a major deal with China Unicom for the cellco to use Java Technology for the Wireless Industry (JTWI) to create a mobile Java platform - UniJa - for its 90m subscribers. Although Java is a the leading content delivery platform for mobile phones, Sun has had varying success in exploiting that in terms of building …

    Mobile 18 Feb 2004, 11:22

  • Sybase beefs up Pocket PowerBuilder

    Quicker, simpler mobile wireless apps

    Sybase has shipped a new version of its Pocket PowerBuilder development environment, specifically designed to speed up and simplify the creation of mobile and wireless applications. It's the latest move in Sybase's bid to make the mobile enterprise the centrepiece of its strategy, and to boost corporate interest in mobilisation …

    Mobile 18 Feb 2004, 11:49

  • Stob: McDosh hires Titbits

    Stob Softwron primes its legal seagull

    Stob Dateline: Two hours 37 minutes ago. US software and litigation giant Softwron Inc, has upped the stakes in the battle of its patented 'Wron number, recently stolen and released onto the 'Net. Before a packed press conference of cynical reporters who giggled and took bets on how many times he would say "going forward", …

    Bootnotes 18 Feb 2004, 11:51

  • P2P service makes beautiful music with EMI and others

    Wippit in harmony with UK majors

    UK online music service Wippit has added a second music major to its roster, hot on the heels of becoming the first P2P system to attract the attention of the industry's big boys. The company this week signed its second major contract having already shaken hands with EMI. It says it has two more deals at contract stage. Wippit …

    Media 18 Feb 2004, 12:54

  • Inova X-5 in blue, red and green

    Cash'n'Carrion New LED colours for mother of all torches

    If you're looking for some form of illumination to see you safely home through the gloom of a British February evening, or possibly just looking forward to a Summer camping trip while struggling gamefully to work though the drizzle, then now is the time to arm yourself with the right equipment. We at Cash'n'Carrion have just …

    Site News 18 Feb 2004, 14:00

  • Help! I married a Net porn star

    Man encounters wife on amateur smut site

    An unnamed 30 year-old Greek man got a bit more of an eyeful that he bargained for when he was checking out an exhibitionist porn site. While happily surfing vids of couples getting it on, he happened upon one of his wife getting jiggy with another man. A 23-year-old man was later arrested on charges of running a website that …

    Media 18 Feb 2004, 14:36

  • Cisco parades extra trade discounts

    Dealers who register deals get money off

    Cisco is offering resellers extra discounts on kit if they register potential sales before closing the deal. The deal registration is meant to stop partners who have invested a lot of time and money in the presales process being undercut by another reseller just before closing the deal. Resellers must register the deal with …

    Channel 18 Feb 2004, 14:36

  • Moon-sized diamond found in space

    Too much ice, even for J-Lo

    The biggest ever diamond has been found floating in space. The gem, estimated at close to 10 billion trillion trillion carats, is at the core of a dead star (BPM 37093) - a crystallised white dwarf. The newly-discovered diamond in the sky is a whopping great chunk of crystallised carbon 50 light-years from the Earth in the …

    Bootnotes 18 Feb 2004, 14:56

  • £48m cash infusion for JET fusion

    Profusion, not confusion or delusion

    The UK’s fusion research programme got a cash injection of £48 million today, as the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) bestowed its largest ever grant on UKAEA (United Kingdom Atomic Energy Authority) Culham Division. The grant will fund the programme for four years, starting this April. Usually, money …

    Bootnotes 18 Feb 2004, 14:56

  • Ethernet compo winner announced

    We'll put you out of your misery

    So here is the explanation of the (terrible) joke in the Intel photonic switch story (Light dawns at Intel) we ran yesterday. The answer we were looking for had to include reference to the Michelson Morley interferometer experiment, which is very similar to the description of the generation of photonic modulation in its …

    Bootnotes 18 Feb 2004, 14:56

  • Using photon momentum to trap viruses

    Cool things happen with pure research grants

    The European Commission announced the first ten projects to be granted funding as part of the NEST (New and Emerging Science and Technology) programme. Among the projects given the go-ahead is one that will develop a kind of Optical Tweezer – that is, a way of moving atoms around using the momentum associated with photons. This …

    Bootnotes 18 Feb 2004, 14:56

  • ESA probes Beagle 2 failure

    Is there life on Mars?

    The European Space Agency has launched an inquiry into the (sadly) failed Beagle 2 lander. Working in conjunction with the British Government, the ESA said that the inquiry will shed light on the craft’s inability to communicate with the mothership since it set off on its own for Mars. Lord Sainsbury, science and innovation …

    Bootnotes 18 Feb 2004, 14:56

  • Universities cash in on IP

    Spin-off companies, patents, on the rise

    Universities in the UK are generating more income from intellectual property, filing more patents and spinning out more companies than ever before. The annual Higher Education Business Interaction (HEBI) survey shows that during the 2001-02 academic year, turnover of spin-off companies increased from £212m to £289m, and the …

    Bootnotes 18 Feb 2004, 14:56

  • Oldest galaxy found behind big cluster

    Always in the last place you look

    Scientists at CalTech may have discovered the most distant object known, and thus the oldest ever seen. If the galaxy, which lies behind the Abell 2218 cluster, is as old as researchers currently think, then the light which has now reached Earth is just 750 million years younger than the universe itself. The galaxy was …

    Bootnotes 18 Feb 2004, 14:56

  • Mice grow monkey sperm

    Yes, really

    A team of US scientists has created viable monkey sperm in mice, using transplanted testicular tissue.* From the date of the transplant, it took seven months for live sperm to be produced. Amusing as the image of a mouse with monkey balls on its back is, the research is being done for a purpose, not just the entertainment of …

    Bootnotes 18 Feb 2004, 15:09

  • MS demos Jetsons' kitchen on FoodTV

    An RFID paradise

    Microsoft is hard at work solving the problems of moneyed illiterates who hate to cook. Those who can't quite manage to interpret the microwaving instructions printed on a cup of dehydrated soup no longer need to worry: the Microsoft Kitchen is alive with RFID (radio frequency identification) transponders that tell the microwave …

    Security 18 Feb 2004, 15:09

  • Nanotech researchers see the light

    Through fibres smaller than lambda

    Researchers in the Mazur group at Harvard have found a way to make nanofibres only 50nm thick; thinner than the wavelengths of light they carry. Made from silica, the nanofibres transmit the light by acting as a guide for it to flow around, rather than through; and because they can be made smooth and of uniform diameter, the …

    Data Networking 18 Feb 2004, 15:09

  • DTI's £50m bet on Nanotech

    UK firms will not miss the boat

    UK businesses have until March 26th to apply for a share of a £50 million the DTI has allocated to fund research into commercial applications of nanotechnology. The fund has been established to help ensure that the UK does not miss out on a market which the US National Science and Technology Council Nanoscale Science, …

    Small Biz 18 Feb 2004, 15:09

  • Homer Simpson let loose on US nuclear weapons facility

    OK, hand me that drill.... Doh!

    Homer Simpson has apparently relinquished his post at Springfield nuclear plant to take up a new position with US Energy Department's Pantex plant in Texas. Our suspicions are aroused because the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board has reported that workers at the Amarillo complex nearly totalled the Lone Star State twice …

    Bootnotes 18 Feb 2004, 15:10

  • Captain Cyborg issues chilling TV warning

    Jeremy Clarkson paralysed with fear by roving robopundit

    Hopes that Kevin "Captain Cyborg" Warwick might finally be towed away and broken up for scrap were dashed last night when the ubiquitous robopundit made an extended appearance on BBC TV's Jeremy Clarkson's Inventions That Changed The World. Clarkson will be familiar to UK readers as the host of the Top Gear motoring programme …

    Bootnotes 18 Feb 2004, 15:10

  • Handheld porn comes closer

    Is that a killer app in your pocket or are you just pleased to see me?

    Adult content provider MobVision is fully launching its content delivery and billing system for mobile phones. Mobile porn has long been predicted as the saviour of next generation phones and researchers at Visiongain estimate that profits from adult content could be $4b a year by 2006. MobVision offers a simple way to send …

    Mobile 18 Feb 2004, 15:31

  • Ellison appeals direct to PeopleSoft shareholders

    Oracle begging letter

    Oracle CEO Larry Ellison is going over the heads of the PeopleSoft board of directors and appealing directly to shareholders to back his offer for the company. The letter, signed by Ellison and chairman and CFO Jeff Henley, describes Oracle's offer of $26 a share as the "final price". The letter outlines the generosity of the …

    Data Center 18 Feb 2004, 15:59

  • ‘Centrino 2’ to launch next Autumn

    IDF Time's arrow narrows for Sonoma

    Intel's second-generation Centrino platform, 'Sonoma', will be launched next Autumn, the chip maker's mobile products chief, Anand Chandrasekher, said today. Sonoma incorporates 'Dothan', the 90nm Pentium M, along with 'Alviso', the next-generation Centrino chipset. The platform was unveiled at last autumn's IDF, and given a …

    Channel 18 Feb 2004, 18:24

  • Intel to ship 64-bit Pentium ‘in time for Longhorn’

    IDF Mobiles, too

    Intel confirmed it will bring 64-bit technology to the desktop when Microsoft ships the next major version of Windows, codenamed Longhorn. And it is likely to bring the recently announced AMD64-like "64-bit extensions" system to the mobile market in the same timeframe, company representatives said today. Describing the shift …

    Channel 18 Feb 2004, 19:19

  • 90nm Dothan to lead consumer Centrino drive

    IDF Volumes ramping up 'quickly' through 2004

    Intel today promised to push its Centrino notebook platform at consumers, a scheme backed by the arrival next quarter of the long-awaited 90nm Pentium M processor, 'Dothan'. Speaking at IDF today, Anand Chandrasekher, general manager of Intel's Mobile Platforms Group, confessed that he was "disappointed" that the chip maker had …

    Channel 18 Feb 2004, 19:34

  • The point of Itanium keeps floating with new chips

    IDF High-end again

    The years of Itanium preaching have taken their toll on St. Fister, and it shows. Intel's bedraggled server chief Mike Fister took the stage today at IDF to try and clean up the mess made yesterday by CEO Craig Barrett. As you are probably aware, Barrett unveiled Intel's 64-bit extensions for Xeon processors. This puts Intel in …

    Servers 18 Feb 2004, 20:02

  • Google touts stalking service

    While Yahoo! goes it alone

    The war between Yahoo! and Google has intensified, as Yahoo! introduced more of its own search engine technology for its US site yesterday. The portal has used Google's search for the past four years, but began to blend-in its own listings eighteen months ago. Google responded by sending co-founder Sergey Brin on a rare press …

    Media 18 Feb 2004, 20:07

  • Swastika still controversial, shocker

    Letters: An opinion or ten from El Reg's postbag

    Is it possible to file a story mentioning the word ‘Swastika’ vizout, sorry, without eliciting a flurry of informative, and often angry, mail from your readers? (We refer to a recent article about a patch that got rid of a couple of pictures...) It would seem not. Communication poured in from those who would educate us, those …

    Letters 18 Feb 2004, 20:21

  • EC wants biometrics on passports

    And residence permits, and visas

    The European Commission today outlined how a coherent, pan-European approach to security will mean that all citizens will need two biometric identifiers in their passports. Current rules mean that only one, a photograph, is compulsory, but the new proposal makes fingerprints’ inclusion mandatory. It also leaves scope for …

    Media 18 Feb 2004, 20:24

  • BSA software audit ‘will not trigger legal action’

    It's confidential. Really, truly, really

    The Business Software Alliance last week launched a 'software detox' initiative to help organisations check their software licenses. Today, the anti-piracy group rejected concerns that firms could incriminate themselves via the on-line audit returns. Software asset management is an integral part of good business governance. …

    Software 18 Feb 2004, 20:46

  • Microsoft's Shared-Source defeats Trustworthy Computing

    Opinion Security through obscurity only works to a point

    The recent leak of Windows source code onto the Web has made a lot of people jumpy. According to MS news blog Bink.nu, the company has already discovered at least one downloader and sent him a nastygram. If this is true, it indicates an aggressive response back in Redmond, a scrambling to plug the leaks and intimidate in the …

    Security 18 Feb 2004, 21:07

  • Home Office to centralise police intelligence

    Confused coppers struggle with DPA

    Police officers are still deleting important records because they fear prosecution under the Data Protection Act, according to the Police Federation. The organisation, which represents rank and file officers, called for clarification of the way the Act should be implemented, in a submission to the Birchard Inquiry into police …

    Data Center 18 Feb 2004, 21:46

  • HP to pump IDF full of Opteron boxes

    IDF No Yamhill love

    Shocking as it seems to us, HP looks set to announce its new line of Opteron servers on Thursday - day three of the Intel Developer Forum. A couple of sources peg tomorrow as the day HP will do the deed and chum up to Intel rival AMD. If true, the Opteron server launch would cap off a busy week for HP with it backing Intel's …

    Servers 18 Feb 2004, 21:58

  • Grantsdale DX9 support limited to pixel shader only

    IDF Geometry offloaded onto the CPU

    The integrated graphics component of Grantsdale, Intel's upcoming mainstream Pentium 4 desktop chipset, supports only half of DirectX 9's key shader functionality, it emerged today. Intel revealed earlier this week that Grantsdale's integrated graphics core will support DirectX 9's Pixel Shader 2.0 specification. However, …

    Personal 18 Feb 2004, 23:22