22nd March 2004 Archive

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EC – MS talks failed ‘over Longhorn fears’

Monti launches pre-emptive strike

Fears over Longhorn, Microsoft's next big version of Windows, were responsible for last week's collapse of settlement talks with the European Commission, the FT claims. Brussels is concerned that Microsoft will bundle even more features into Longhorn and thereby exclude even more competitors. The EC is already investigating …

Music and Media 22 Mar 2004, 09:26
Oi! Yob! Blunkett wants your mobile

Mad, bad and dangerous to know (and that's just the home secretary)

David Blunkett, the increasingly angry home secretary, is calling for "lifestyle punishments" to shape Britain into a less violent society. He wants the power to confiscate mobile phones and ban people from football matches. He is also wants to counter the "increasing portrayal of violence" on television. Which sounds like …

Mobile 22 Mar 2004, 09:31
Blunkett ready to force through compulsory ID for UK

National security, the 'last refuge of a scoundrel' de nos jours...

Leaked cabinet letters reveal that British Home Secretary David Blunkett is readying the terror card to accelerate the introduction of a compulsory ID system. Blunkett secured cabinet agreement for enabling legislation last autumn, but at the price of making the scheme voluntary for the moment, with the final decision on …

Music and Media 22 Mar 2004, 09:35
Sony, Ericsson plan move to block Nokia majority at Symbian

Pre-emptive pre-emption announcement...

Sony and Ericsson are working to stop Nokia gaining more than a 50 per cent share in the Symbian consortium, Ericsson CEO Carl-Henric Svanberg tells today's Financial Times. Ericsson, which currently has 17.5 per cent, and Sony, which through Sony-Ericsson has 1.5 per cent, will 'act as a team' to raise their own shareholding, …

Mobile 22 Mar 2004, 10:17
Baltimore fights attempted coup

Major shareholder seeks to oust board

One-time e-security giant Baltimore Technologies has called an attempt by its biggest shareholder to take control of the board of directors "opportunistic". The Irish technology company, which is now a cash shell after months of asset selling, has hit back at Acquisitor Holdings after the investment company proposed that …

Business 22 Mar 2004, 10:18
Internet virgin faces police probe

Hasn't she been through enough?

Rosie Reid, the Bristol University student who tried to auction her viriginity online, is facing a police investigation after having sex with the highest bidder. Avon and Somerset police are investigating if Reid is guilty of soliciting. A London man paid £8,400 by banker's draft to sleep with the lesbian student. Reid, who …

Music and Media 22 Mar 2004, 10:32
Stopping the enemy at the gate

Intrusion prevention systems

Over the past few years, security vulnerabilities have spiralled, writes Bloor Research analyst Fran Howarth. The CERT Co-ordination Centre, a federally-funded R&D centre operated by the Carnegie Mellon University in the US, publishes statistics of security vulnerabilities that are reported to it on an annual basis. In 1995, …

Security 22 Mar 2004, 10:35
Intel confirms Pentium model numbers

Update 300, 500 and 700-series chips

Intel has apparently confirmed that it is indeed going to replace its current clock frequency-based chip naming scheme with one centring on model numbers. To date, claims that such a move is in the offing have come from sources within companies who buy processors from the chip giant. But according to a Reuters report, Intel …

Channel 22 Mar 2004, 10:39
Nintendo UK launches £10m voucher promo

Buy stuff over Easter, get more stuff free

Nintendo is planning an Easter promotion which will see purchasers of a new GameCube or Game Boy Advance console during April getting a free £250 book of vouchers redeemable against a variety of Nintendo and third-party products. Included in the vouchers is a £20 discount against another Nintendo console, along with individual …

Personal 22 Mar 2004, 11:07
Eco-friendly mice and granite PCs

CeBIT Top kit for tree-huggers

If you love the smell of timber in the morning, then Swedish company Swedx may have just the thing for you. The company unveiled its new range of wooden mice at CeBIT, where you can enjoy them in Hall 21 (stand 56) until Wednesday. Every mouse is lovingly crafted from one piece of wood - including the buttons - but somehow the …

Personal 22 Mar 2004, 11:08
Hynix, STMicro plot Chinese DRAM JV

Tackling China's chip tax?

Hynix and STMicroelectronics are negotiating on the creating of a joint venture that will see the two memory makers build a DRAM plant in China, representatives of the South Korean manufacturer said this past Friday. Little is known about the plan, other than it will churn out Flash memory in addition to DRAM. The two …

Channel 22 Mar 2004, 11:10
Carphone Warehouse in free call offer

Fixed-line punters to benefit

The Carphone Warehouse - the UK's biggest mobile phone retailer - is expected to offer free local calls to its fixed-line customers in a move that could lead to a major shake up in the UK's telephony market. Details of the new US-style tariff are expected to be announced on Thursday but it's understood that the cost of offering …

Mobile 22 Mar 2004, 11:37
The farce of federal cybersecurity

Flawed technology management to blame

Over the past several years, various Washington entities, from the General Accounting Office to assorted Congressional committees, conducted surveys and issued reports on the state of the federal government's information security posture. In each case, with few exceptions, the findings range from the scathing to the downright …

Security 22 Mar 2004, 11:39
MS co-founder funds hunt for ET

Paul Allen gives SETI a cool $13.5m

Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen has donated $13.5m to the SETI institute to fund construction of a scalable, multi-use radio telescope array. Allen said he was excited to be involved in seeking basic answers to fundamental questions about the universe and "what other civilizations may exist elsewhere". The first phase of the …

Science 22 Mar 2004, 11:49
Recordstore offers MP3 and WMA tracks

Another day, another music download service

Recordstore.co.uk, the online music and merchandise retailer, will this month give artists the opportunity to sell their own music downloads, Apple iTunes Music Store-style. Recordstore has a online retail outlet and also acts as a UK ecommerce fulfilment arm for Sony, Warner and Universal, and sundry artists. So when, say, a …

Music and Media 22 Mar 2004, 12:08
IBM ships ‘mandatory’ ThinkPad HDD patch

Fixes Hitachi Travelstar 'reliability issues'

IBM has issued a "mandatory" software update for ThinkPad notebooks equipped with Hitachi-manufactured hard drives. According the company's support web site, the firmware update fixes what it describes as "early reliability issues in some drives". The patch is pitched at ThinkPad R50, R50p, T41 and T41p models with Hitachi …

Hardware 22 Mar 2004, 12:08
AOL attacks spamvertisers

Sites punted in junk emails blocked

AOL is blocking sites advertised in spam messages. The policy, which began earlier this year, is designed to remove the rationale for sending spam messages by making it impossible for AOL members to access spamvertised sites. "Essentially, we have vastly improved AOL's ability to restrict identified spammers' sites from being …

Music and Media 22 Mar 2004, 12:18
Axe falls on Ebookers jobs

'Significant' restructuring programme

Ebookers - the online travel outfit - is to cut jobs as part of a "significant" restructuring programme to cut overheads. Staff are being told of the plans today, although the full extent of the job cuts will not be made public until May when the company reports its next round of financials. As part of the restructuring, …

Business 22 Mar 2004, 12:44
TW, MS deny AOL buyout dialogue

'Entirely inaccurate', apparently

Both AOL and Microsoft have denied reports that the pair are engaged in buyout talks. The New York Post on Friday said that Time Warner has held talks with Microsoft concerning the sale of its Internet division, AOL, to the giant software outfit. However, an AOL spokesperson has been quoted as saying that the story is " …

Business 22 Mar 2004, 13:02
UK.biz leaves door open to hackers

Fourfold increase in Web security breaches

One in three of UK corporates has suffered hacking attempts on their websites over the last year. A survey out today reveals that hackers are becoming more successful at punching holes through flimsy corporate defences. Four per cent of the 1,000 companies surveyed said their systems had been penetrated in the last 12 months, …

Security 22 Mar 2004, 13:30
Mean Fiddler flogs music downloads

Following the piper who calls the iTune

The Mean Fiddler, Britain's biggest live music organiser, is hopping onto the digital music download bandwagon. It will launch a UK-oriented service next month, ahead of roll-outs in the rest of Europe, the US and Asia. The company has formed a subsidiary, Mean Fiddler Media (MFM), to run the service, which will provide one-off …

Music and Media 22 Mar 2004, 13:56
Poweroid 1204 silent PC

Review Hear that pin drop?

Usually the beige box that houses all your PC components is the least remarkable part of a system, but not so with the Poweroid 1204. This is the first PC to hit the shores of the UK based on the Zalman TNN 500A. So why is this case so special? Well, for starters it's not beige, but much more importantly, it is completely …

Reviews 22 Mar 2004, 14:20
Macclesfield centre of universe: official

UK to host scale model of solar system

UK boffins are planning to join forces with artists to create a scale "model" of our solar system. The one to 15 million representation of the planets - called Spaced Out (website under construction) - will place Earth in Macclesfield, Saturn in Lancaster and Halley's Comet in London. Poor old Pluto is destined for Fort William …

Science 22 Mar 2004, 15:28
UK web hosts spurn illegal content

Just one per cent hosted here

Just one per cent of illegal online content reported to the Internet Watch Foundation (IWF) is hosted within the UK. In contrast, more than half (55 per cent) of child abuse content is hosted in the US while 23 per cent of illegal content is traced to Russia. The industry-funded organisation claims that its approach to …

Music and Media 22 Mar 2004, 15:35
NEC demos Big Brother biometric phonebooth

CeBIT 3D facial recognition algorithm 95.5 per cent accurate

: NEC's biometric team has developed a facial recognition algorithm they claim can match a captured image with a database with better accuracy than ever before. It uses "geodesic illumination basis" or GIB descriptors as registered data. These are calculated from a 3D facial scan and negates factors - such as lighting and pose …

Security 22 Mar 2004, 15:51
Scripting flaws threaten Norton software

ActiveX components vulnerable

Symantec has released a fix for a pair of potentially troublesome flaws that create a mechanism to turn its Norton security software packages against their owners. The vulnerabilities have not yet been coded into script-kiddie-friendly packages and Symantec is not aware of any malicious exploitation. But there's no reason for …

Security 22 Mar 2004, 17:12
Close encounters of the viral kind

Virus infection and clean-up costs rise - again

Viral outbreaks became more frequent and expensive last year, according to a study by security testing outfit ICSA Labs released today. Almost one in three (30 per cent) of 300 organisations surveyed by ICSA Labs reported a serious virus outbreak last year, compared to 15 per cent in 2002. ICSA Labs defines a serious virus …

Security 22 Mar 2004, 18:24
Cisco buys anti-DDoS firm

Adds belt to braces

Cisco is beefing up its denial of service defences through the $39m cash purchase of Riverhead Networks. Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attacks are designed to cripple websites by flooding their servers with maliciously-created, useless traffic. Cisco is buying Riverhead to act as the belt to its braces, filling in the …

Data Networking 22 Mar 2004, 21:11
Why infrastructure is not a dirty word

Back in the IT lexicon

There used to be a time when "infrastructure" was a dirty word in IT circles. It seemed every independent software vendor in this sector was loath to be associated with the moniker, preferring instead to be seen as an "applications" or "solutions" provider that sat higher up the value chain. But, like most things in IT, things …

Hardware 22 Mar 2004, 21:45
Build your own iSCSI SAN server

DataCore pitches $1200 software app against EMC's Clariion

The cost of shared storage is coming down, thanks to DataCore which this week announced software called SANmelody which turns a Windows server into a SAN storage server. Significantly, it offers iSCSI as standard, as well as offering optional Fibre Channel support. Any other server that supports iSCSI can then draw upon disk …

Storage 22 Mar 2004, 21:45