28th June 2004 Archive

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Kids, cancer and mobile phones

It was five years ago today... 28 June 1999

It's (sort of) official: mobile phones fry your brain and, what's more, they are particularly fond of unstabilised children's brains: Kids, cancer and mobile phones By Lucy Sherriff Published Monday 28th June 1999 16:00 GMT Concerns have been raised over the safety of mobile phone masts as education minister David Blunkett …

Mobile 28 Jun 2004, 08:14
Egg attracts interest from Capital One

E-bank sale drags on

The long-running saga concerning the sale of Egg has taken a new twist with yet another company emerging as favourite to buy the UK Internet bank. Capital One, the US credit card giant, has offered £1.4bn for the Prudential's 79 per cent share in Egg, according to The Sunday Telegraph. The emergence of Capital One as a …

Financial News 28 Jun 2004, 08:18
Sony may test hybrid DVD/CDs in UK

DualDisc trial to follow broader US roll-out

Sony Music International is deciding whether to test-launch DualDisc DVD/CD hybrids in the UK following a successful trial in the US and the formal approval of the format by the DVD Forum. DualDisc essentially involves sticking a CD onto the back of the DVD Video or DVD Audio disc. The CD Audio layer is thinner than a Compact …

Music and Media 28 Jun 2004, 08:46
Sun open sources Looking Glass

and updates Java tools and platform

Sun will kick off its annual JavaOne developer event by releasing its Looking Glass window manager under the GPL. It's basically a crude compositor for X11, but it gives the ancient windowing system a fresh lick of paint, and makes for a stunning demo. Sun hasn't often been able to show off eye-candy, so it's great publicity. ( …

Developer 28 Jun 2004, 09:01
MS expands WinCE 5.0 'shared' source licence

Commercial code derivatives can stay closed

Microsoft will begin shipping the latest version of Windows CE, version 5.0, on 9 July, the company said today. And in a bid to better position its embedded OS against open source alternatives - "eliminate many of the barriers to entry found in traditional embedded development", as Microsoft puts it - the software behemoth said …

Operating Systems 28 Jun 2004, 09:20
EC suspends Microsoft sanctions

Pending appeal

The European Commission has suspended sanctions against Microsoft. The software giant should have started offering a version of Windows without its media player from today. The EC ruled in March that Microsoft had abused its monopoly position and levied a fine of €497m and ordered the company to offer a media player-free version …

Operating Systems 28 Jun 2004, 09:21
Intel shaves a buck off certain Centrinos

Generous or what?

Intel only unveiled Centrino bundles based on its 90nm 'Dothan' Pentium M and its ProWireless 2000BG Wi-Fi add-in card last week, but it has cut those packages' prices already. That said, the reduction isn't worth getting too enthusiastic about. It amounts to shaving a single US dollar off the previous price. That comes to a …

Channel 28 Jun 2004, 10:03
Mobile phones rot your balls

Hello Moto. Goodbye Mojo

Carrying a mobile phone can reduce a man's sperm count by as much as 30 per cent, according to Hungarian scientists. The study suggests that the radiation from a phone on a belt or in their pocket, even on standby, is enough to have an effect on both sperm count, and the mobility of surviving sperm. The study, which looked at …

Mobile 28 Jun 2004, 10:18
Intel preps i925XE chipset with gigahertz FSB

Pitched at Pentium 4 Extreme Edition

Intel will later this year offer an updated version of its recently released i925X 'Alderwood' that supports a 1066MHz frontside bus. The chipset, to be called the i925XE, is set to ship in the Q4 2004 timeframe, according to roadmaps shown by motherboard maker ABIT at its 2004 Technology Talk last week. The i925XE will be …

Channel 28 Jun 2004, 10:32
Singaporean sets SMS world speed record

26 words in 43 seconds

A Singaporean woman yesterday thumbed her way into the record books by winning the SingTel SMS Shootout - a competition to find the world's fastest texter. Kimberly Yeo, 23, entered 26 words in just 43.24 seconds to claim the title at Singapore's Ngee Ann City Civic Plaza against 125 rival quick-thumb artists. The impressive - …

Mobile 28 Jun 2004, 10:49
iTunes users hijack iMixes to demand indie content

Activists co-opt Apple's own technology

Apple's incorporation of "dozens" of independent record labels into its UK iTunes Music Store catalogue is not enough for a number of the company's customers who are using Apple's own technology to petition the iPod maker to reach a deal with UK indies. And it's clear other customers are responding to confirm their support for …

Financial News 28 Jun 2004, 11:25
Virgin Mobile edges closer to IPO

Not good to talk right now, though

Virgin Mobile has declined to comment on a Reuters report that it plans to confirm a float this week. The Daily Telegraph reports that the company is sounding out big City spenders regarding the possible £1bn flotation on the London Stock Exchange. T-Mobile, which supplies Virgin's network infrastructure, will pocket up to £100m …

Financial News 28 Jun 2004, 11:50
CERT recommends anything but IE

Safer surfing

US CERT (the US Computer Emergency Readiness Team), is advising people to ditch Internet Explorer and use a different browser after the latest security vulnerability in the software was exposed. A statement on the CERT site said: "There are a number of significant vulnerabilities in technologies relating to the IE domain/zone …

Enterprise Security 28 Jun 2004, 11:50
Email use survey results: report now in

Reg Reader Studies Data collated, conclusions drawn

We recently announced the five lucky readers who - having completed our email use survey - were picked from the hat for some Cash'n'Carrion goodies. Well, the survey results (based on a healthy 1793 respondents) have been collated and perused and assembled into a PDF report which you can obtain here. The findings can be …

Reg Technology Panel 28 Jun 2004, 12:24
Kent pubs win rural broadband award

Pub's the hub

Locals in three pubs in Kent are celebrating after their wireless broadband scheme netted a local business award. Kent-based firm Telabria - which used the pubs as the "hub" of its RuralMesh wireless broadband project - won the technology award for demonstrating the best use of IT in Kent's annual Business Awards. The judges …

Telecoms 28 Jun 2004, 12:27
UK IT departments waste £165m a year

Back to basics, and back to India...

IT departments are wasting £165m a year by failing to keep control of IT projects, under-using existing offshore resources and not keeping strategy in line with overall business strategy. So says Business Engine, a supplier of IT project portfolio management software. It commissioned researchers to investigate return on …

Developer 28 Jun 2004, 12:37
Killer cyberappliances: Satan implicated

The Devil is in the wiring

Inhabitants of the Italian village of Canneto di Caronia - previously evacuated after domestic appliances staged an inflammatory uprising - have made a fearful return to their homes. The tiny hamlet earlier this year became the front line of the war of annihilation between man and machine when normally docile equipment - …

Rise of the Machines 28 Jun 2004, 12:39
European betting sites brace for attack

Euro 2004 extortion bonanza?

European soccer betting sites are increasingly targeted by cyber extortionists, German computer magazine c't reports. Sites are flooded with spurious requests (distributed denial of service (DDoS) attack) in an attempt to force online bookmakers to cough up or face shutdown. Criminals may turn up the heat in preparation for the …

Enterprise Security 28 Jun 2004, 12:41
Astronomers uncover mystery at galactic core

How did it get so hot?

A group of astronomers has come up with a new theory to explain the X-ray glow in the centre of our galaxy. The only problem is that in their search for answers, they've stumbled on a bigger mystery. After gathering data on the region for 170 days with the Chandra X-ray telescope, the researchers eliminated all of the 2,357 …

Science 28 Jun 2004, 12:44
Hotel calls disgruntled punter a 'tw*t'

Email customer service, Nottingham style

A Nottingham hotel manageress who accidently hit "reply" instead of "forward" when dealing with a disgruntled punter's email complaint set a new standard in customer service - by calling him a "twat". According to the Sun, Helen Key intended to forward Paul Whydall's claim for £100 compensation - duly submitted electronically …

Bootnotes 28 Jun 2004, 13:19
Red Hat, Novell back Real Linux player

With no iTunes, what else?

Real Networks has persuaded Red Hat and Novell to bundle its open source Helix Player ahead of the release of a Linux version of its partially open source Real Player 10 later this summer, the companies said today. Helix Player itself will soon - within 30 days - be placed under the GPL, Real said. However, it will continue to …

Music and Media 28 Jun 2004, 15:08
EC gets embedded in systems

Chips with everything

The European Commission has launched a new initiative, in partnership with industry, aimed a securing Europe a leading position in the developing embedded systems market. European Technology Platform in Advanced R&D on Embedded Intelligent Systems (ARTEMIS), is a public/private collaboration, comprised of EC officials and 17 …

Science 28 Jun 2004, 15:17
T-Mobile unveils Wi-Fi PDA-phone

Sports slide out keyboard too

T-Mobile has revealed that it is indeed planning to offer a third incarnation of its MDA (Mobile Digital Assistant) PocketPC-based phone that will feature a QWERTY keyboard and Wi-Fi support. The MDA series is currently offered by T-Mobile's German operation, but given the noises the company has made this year about integrating …

Mobile 28 Jun 2004, 15:23
Pixies top UK download chart

Fully live on 1 September

The Phonographic Industry (BPI) official chart for downloaded singles is going live from the 1 September. The chart is compiled from paid-for downloads from the likes of HMV, OD2 and iTunes. It counts singles sold to UK consumers and takes information from 7 Digital Media, iTunes, Metacharge, OD2 and Playlouder.com. The BPI …

Financial News 28 Jun 2004, 15:26
Hutchison 3G on road to break-even

Just round corner, claims CEO

Canning Fok, chief executive of Hutchison Wampoa, believes 3G phone services could break even sooner than he predicted. Hutchison recently launched 3G services in Italy, and Fok told Italian paper Corriere della Sera: "I have always said that the break-even at the EBITDA (core earnings) level will be reached in 2005, and break- …

Mobile 28 Jun 2004, 15:30
MPs slam premium-rate 'criminal scams'

Tough talking at £1.50 a minute

MPs have warned that some premium rate phone services are little more than a "criminal scam" designed to rip off innocent people. What's more, they're concerned that premium rate regulator, ICSTIS, might not be up to the task of regulating an industry that continues to allow people to be conned. Sir George Young, Conservative …

Telecoms 28 Jun 2004, 15:33
MS, open source, The Facts and the fit-ups

We explain How It Works

Microsoft is now nearing the end of its "Get the Facts" UK roadshow on Open Source. and we at The Register think it's high time we looked at whether or not the company is getting value for its money, and indeed at the way it's spending that money. We've already produced a report of the London gig, but in order for you to …

Software 28 Jun 2004, 16:25
Fujitsu and Microsoft cement Itanium future

Making Windows mission critical

Fujitsu has sweetened its relationship with Microsoft at the high end of the server market with the two companies announcing today a long range shared development plan. Specifically, Fujitsu has turned to Microsoft for help tuning Windows Server 2003 and the future "Longhorn" Server OS on its Itanium-based servers. Fujitsu …

Servers 28 Jun 2004, 16:46
Dutch downplay 3G health scare study

Results require verification, says Health Council

The Dutch Health Council says that a study by research institute TNO which linked UMTS or 3G base stations to complaints about nausea and headaches in people close to them needs to be replicated. The study caused quite a stir last year. TNO reported that some subjects felt tingling sensations, got headaches and felt nauseous …

Mobile 28 Jun 2004, 17:24
Brain Academy 2: Calling all students

Fancy doing a comp sci degree?

The organisers of Brain Academy - the computer science competition in which A-level students compete for a place at Queen Mary's University, London - have opened the contest to all-comers in a bid to encourage more people to consider computer science as a career option. This year there will be three winners instead of one. Each …

Science 28 Jun 2004, 17:26
Intel feels more 'complete' with release of 64-bit Xeon

Opteron-capable, don't you know

Intel today officially ended its x86-64-bit denial, rolling out the first Opteron-capable Xeon processor for workstations. As has been the case since it first confirmed "Nocona," Intel played down the 64-bitness of the processor. The ability to address more memory is just one feature along with a new chipset, 800MHz front side …

Servers 28 Jun 2004, 18:38
WSIS II warm-up degenerates into human rights punch-up

Tantrums in Tunisia

The first preparatory conference (PrepCom I) for the forthcoming second World Summit of the Information Society (WSIS II) managed to agree a roadmap for next year's Tunisian get-together, despite an unseemly human rights row which held up the conference's plenary session in Hammamet, Tunisia, for an hour on Saturday night. The …

Music and Media 28 Jun 2004, 18:43
Apple 'launches Longhorn' with better search, graphics

While Redmond blogs, Cupertino codes

Many of the features due to appear Microsoft's Longhorn will appear a year early in Mac OS X "Tiger", Apple claimed today. The next major revision does indeed offer some benefits that OS vendors have been talking about for more than a decade, such as real-time content retrieval, and point and click scripting. But there are other …

Mac Channel 28 Jun 2004, 20:46
Gates defends Microsoft patch efforts

Sydney 'We are absolutely doing our best'

Microsoft chairman Bill Gates defended the company's handling of security patches Monday following widespread attacks on the Internet by suspected Russian organized crime gangs. Last week's attacks used unpatched vulnerabilities in Internet Explorer to deploy a Trojan horse program on the victim's machine, which could capture …

Enterprise Security 28 Jun 2004, 22:06
Internet Explorer. Quick, call security!

Opinion The Redmond Butterfly Effect

Most of you have heard of a reportedly widespread compromise of an unknown number of clients through an unpatched vulnerability in Internet Explorer. The clients were owned by visiting commercial websites that had previously been compromised by a yet undetermined method; the attackers dropping code onto those servers that …

Enterprise Security 28 Jun 2004, 22:27
Beastie Boys claim no virus on crippled CD

We'll be the judge of that

The Beastie Boys website claims that the copy-control mechanism on the DRM-crippled CD "To the 5 Boroughs" does not install any files on the victim's computer. According to the notice, the disks use "Macrovision's CDS-200 technology, the same technology being used for the past several months around the world for all of EMI's …

Music and Media 28 Jun 2004, 22:31
Sun's HPTC chief becomes loosely coupled

Khan to hunt Beowulf elsewhere

Sun Microsystems' high performance computing chief Shahin Khan is leaving the company and heading for a realm unknown. The Register confirmed Khan's departure earlier today courtesy of a Sun spokeswoman. The Sun staffer, however, said that an exact date for his exit has not been set. She also declined to say where he will end …

Servers 28 Jun 2004, 22:39