11th August 2004 Archive

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321 Studios gives movie makers going away payout

Thanks for the memories

The MPAA has managed to give 321 Studios one last kick where it counts. The software maker has agreed to settle a copyright infringement suit with the Motion Picture Association of America for an undisclosed sum just days after ongoing court battles forced it to close shop. Neither party had much to add about the deal other than …

Music and Media 11 Aug 2004, 01:42
BOFH: Tripping the mangelfreuzer switch

Episode 25 Crash, bang, wallop

BOFH 2004 "..and so the point of this meeting is to decide on the service level for your equipment, so we know what you're expecting when we purchase your new box." "Well, 24 by 7 obviously," one of the assembled beancounters responds. It never, EVER, amazes me at how a box in the throes of dying sharpens the minds of the …

BOFH 11 Aug 2004, 08:24
The case for open source Java

Evolution, innovation

If you look at the progress of open source products you can gradually see a complete software stack coming in to place. However, a quick analysis will reveal that there are currently many gaps in the stack (as there are in every software stack) - most of them are happily filled with good proprietary products. The pressure that …

Developer 11 Aug 2004, 09:00
Bosses warned on employment 'myths'

Check first, fire later

Small firms have been warned that there are now so many different employment laws that they may be risking court cases by failing to keep pace with new rules. Croner Consulting said that that due to a number of misconceptions, many employers are breaking the law when taking on and dismissing staff. The consultancy firm …

Small Biz 11 Aug 2004, 09:11
Tablet PCs gain ground

But many resellers still think the format will fail

Some 35,000 Tablet PCs shipped in Europe, the Middle East and Africa (EMEA) during Q2 2004, market watcher Canalys has reported. Sound a lot? Well, it's certainly 25 per cent more than were shipped in Q2 2003, though 12 per cent fewer than Q1 2004's total. But despite that year-on-year growth - higher than that experienced in …

Channel 11 Aug 2004, 09:28
Enraged readers pile into Reg hacks

Letters Regarding what? Take your pick...

The theme of this week's mailbag is definitely anger. Not all the letters below are from people with steam coming out of their ears, but quite a few are... As we have come to expect, the writings of Vance and Haines especially seem to have hit a special spot with the easily riled. Yes, we are talking about Segways. Again. …

Letters 11 Aug 2004, 09:48
Ashlee Vance: The Mother of all Polls

Poll Hero or Zero? The readers must decide

Our stateside correspondent Ashlee Vance has been taking a bit of a pasting recently from irate readers who objected to ongoing coverage of the American Dream on wheels - the Segway. One tirade of abuse stood out above the howling mob of opprobrium because it raised an interesting question which we believe demands clarification …

Bootnotes 11 Aug 2004, 09:48
Wanadoo comes a cropper for 'full speed' broadband ad

Slapped by watchdog

The thorny subject of what is - and is not - broadband has raised its ugly head again after Wanadoo UK was ordered to pull an ad claiming that its 512 kbps ADSL service was "full speed broadband". Both BT and cableco Telewest complained that an ad urging people to sign up to "full speed broadband for just £17.99 a month" was …

Telecoms 11 Aug 2004, 10:07
MS plugs 'moderate' Exchange vuln

DEFCON 0.02 or thereabouts

Microsoft's patch train rolled into town last night with one solitary occupant. After the release of XP SP2 last Friday it's just as well that the only extra thing sysadmins have to contend with is a not-especially devastating vulnerability involving Exchange. Microsoft has issued a patch which aims to address a cross-site …

Enterprise Security 11 Aug 2004, 10:12
AMD to overtake Intel in 2017...

...but only if you read too much into the market share stats

Since time immemorial - at least that's what it feels like - Intel has dominated the PC chip market and the latest figures from market watcher Mercury Research offer no sign of a change to the status quo. AMD fanboys will be tickled to know that the chip giant saw its market share slide from 83.5 per cent in Q1 to just 82.7 per …

Channel 11 Aug 2004, 10:33
NASA green lights robotic Hubble fix

$1bn rescue mission in three years

NASA's top boss has given engineers the go ahead to start planning a robotic fix for Hubble. The mission will repair the telescope's broken imaging equipment as well as carrying out general maintenance and repairs. Chief administrator Sean O'Keefe pulled the plug on all Hubble missions after the Columbia Shuttle disaster. Since …

Science 11 Aug 2004, 10:56
Windows pricing begins to buckle

Cheapo, crippled XP for Asia

Faced with the popularity of low-cost open source alternatives, Microsoft will launch a cut-price version of Windows XP in five Asian countries, priced at $36. Windows XP "Starter Edition" is limited to running only three applications at once and will appear in five countries including Thailand, Malaysia and Singapore in …

Operating Systems 11 Aug 2004, 10:59
Get your Blunkett-bashing NO2ID shirt here

Cash'n'Carrion Campaigning apparel back in stock

We're delighted to announce that the NO2ID t-shirt is back in stock as of right now. This top piece of campaigning apparel is the work of www.NO2ID.net, the group committed to seeing the back of UK home secretary David Blunkett's voluntary/compulsory ID card scheme. The shirt is available in two schemes - on black, as seen …

Site News 11 Aug 2004, 11:04
WinXP Starter Edition - MS spins an ecosystem from crippleware

Takes you back to Dos, doesn't it?

Picture Bill Gates or any other senior Microsoft exec holding forth in a keynote about the limitless possibilities of ever-faster hardware, ever more powerful software. Then cut to this week's Windows XP Starter Edition announcement and read "users can have up to three programs and three windows per program running concurrently …

Operating Systems 11 Aug 2004, 11:18
Brazilians to brew supercoffee

Genome cracked, kettle on

A breakthrough in genetic research could have huge implications for sysadmins the world over: boffins in Brazil have cracked the genome of the coffee bean. As well as paving the way for a better understanding of why some coffee beans are naturally violent, and others are musically gifted, [Have you been overdoing the espressos …

Science 11 Aug 2004, 11:48
Punters to enjoy Olympics online

A veritable Netathlon

This month's Athens Olympics will become the first to be broadcast live over the Net. Streaming video will be offered by more than 12 broadcasters (mainly in Europe) via the Internet but International Olympic Committee rules mean that this content can only be offered to users in each TV station's home country. So BBC coverage, …

Telecoms 11 Aug 2004, 11:53
Mosquitos smartphone 'Trojan' there by design

An urban myth is born

The Mosquitos Symbian dialler Trojan is not really a Trojan horse after all. Many news outlets, including ourselves, reported that a "trojanised" version of Mosquitos game for Symbian Series 60 smartphones was circulating online and across P2P networks. Cracked versions of the game secretly sends SMS messages to premium rate …

Mobile 11 Aug 2004, 13:31
Small.biz loves online banking

Gagging for it, apparently

Small.biz love banking online, according to a survey by financial outfit Xbridge. In a poll of 300 small businesses carried out in the first half of July, two thirds said they expected to source most of their financial services online over the next five years, while just a third said they expected to still be popping down to …

Small Biz 11 Aug 2004, 13:33
Nvidia GeForce 6600GT pics pop up on Web

Mid-range PCI Express-native parts

Nvidia's upcoming GeForce 6600 series - based on the NV43 chip - has made another unscheduled appeared on the Web, this time in a series of chip and board shots obtained by Chinese-language site GZEasy.com. Two mid-range parts are on display: the plain 6600 and the 6600GT, the former clocked at 300MHz, the latter at 500MHz. …

Channel 11 Aug 2004, 13:35
Napster offers cut-price grooves to grunts

US armed forces get legal digital music service

US troops fed up of taking too many pot shots from Iraqi guerrillas will soon be able to escape the tedium of another patrol by plugging into digital music heaven courtesy of Napster, which has just agreed to offer cut-price songs to the US military. The deal, announced today, will link Napster's online service to the Army and …

Financial News 11 Aug 2004, 14:00
London schoolkids drown in spam tsunami

Drugs, smut and viruses on the curriculum

Figures released this week indicate that UK schoolkids receive more spam than actual email, with three quarters of messages arriving in inboxes coming from junk mailers. Just like the rest of the world, then. Also just like the rest of the world, most of the spam is trying to sell Viagra or Valium, pornography or suspiciously …

Spam 11 Aug 2004, 14:03
Vodafone seeks punters for UK consumer 3G trial

Register your interest in faster ringtone downloads

Vodafone is to offer several thousand individuals access to the 3G version of its Live! service in a bid to give the network's consumer 3G offering a shakedown before its full commercial launch later this year. The network launched its first 3G service, pitched at businesspeople and centred on its Mobile Connect notebook data …

Mobile 11 Aug 2004, 14:19
70 UK ISPs in anti-BT uprising

ADSL prices threaten small operators

Seventy UK ISPs are rebelling against recent rises in the wholesale cost of business broadband claiming they could go bust, unable to compete with large service providers. United under the umbrella of a new organisation - UKIF (UK Internet Federation) - the ISPs claim that regulatory intervention and recent price hikes by BT …

Small Biz 11 Aug 2004, 14:28
AOL AIMs to fix security flaw

Buffer the IM Slayer

AOL has acknowledged a potentially serious security vulnerability affecting users of its popular AOL Instant Messenger (AIM) software. It has promised a fix within days. In the meantime, the media giant is advising concerned punters to try a beta version of its forthcoming update. The vulnerability in current version of the IM …

Security 11 Aug 2004, 14:54
Sharp launches '3D' LCD screen

With a price tag so big it has its own stand

Sharp has launched a new flat screen monitor that produces the illusion of a three-dimensional image without the need for special glasses. As you would expect, the 15-inch LCD screen is not cheap, carrying a hefty $1,499 retail price tag. Despite this, it is aimed squarely at the consumer market, although admittedly at the …

Peripherals 11 Aug 2004, 15:01
Apple UK launches business Mac trade-in deal

Up to £540 for your old machine, apparently

In a bid to get British businesses buying more Macs, Apple Europe has launched a trade-in scheme offering up to £540 ($986) for old machines. Given the overwhelming preference for Wintel machines within the UK business community, it's surprising that Apple doesn't include kit from Dell, HP, IBM et al among the trade-in offers, …

Small Biz 11 Aug 2004, 15:11
Datatec buys Analysys for £12.8m

Brace for 'synergistic accretive business'

Datatec International - the global arm of South Africa-based Datatec - has acquired UK-based telecoms analysts Analysys for £12.8m. As part of the deal a new company called Analysys Mason Group (AMG) is to be created combining Analysys and Datatec's existing telecoms consultancy, Mason Group Limited. According to the blurb, …

Financial News 11 Aug 2004, 15:32
eBay UK goes mobile

Anytime, Anyplace, eBay Anywhere

eBay UK has launched a service designed to make auctions accessible to mobile phones subscribers. Technology from software development firm Volantis will allow eBay users to control auctions from handsets through a service dubbed eBay Anywhere. The service is billed as a way for users to keep track of their transactions – or …

Financial News 11 Aug 2004, 16:14
Al-Qaeda computer geek nearly overthrew US

Update A close shave, the Bushies claim

A White House with a clear determination to draw paranoid conclusions from ambiguous data has finally gone over the top. It has now implied that the al-Qaeda computer geek arrested last month in Pakistan was involved in a plot to destabilize the USA around election time. Two and two is five As we reported here and here, so- …

Music and Media 11 Aug 2004, 16:45
You can lose a job by buying Cisco

SAP in the dog house too

The old saying goes that you can't be fired for picking IBM in a major IT rollout. This theory, however, does not seem to apply to other vendors of elevated status - namely Cisco and SAP. A Cisco purchase gone wrong has cost San Jose, California's CIO Wandzia Grycz her job. Grycz exited her CIO post earlier this week just ahead …

Data Networking 11 Aug 2004, 16:48
Bush gets soverized on the Web

Words are words and people are people

One of our favorite George Bush blunders has found a home on the Web courtesy of Democracy Now. The web site has captured audio and video feeds of Bush answering questions in front of a Unity conference held last weekend. The gaffe of note took place when Bush was asked about his views on the tribal sovereignty of Native …

Music and Media 11 Aug 2004, 17:33
Dell nabs HP notebook exec

HP counters with Gateway ex

Dell has poached a longtime Compaq/HP PC executive in a bid to boost its notebook and consumer electronics divisions. Alex Gruzen resigned from HP on Monday, leaving his post as SVP of the mobile computing global business unit. In Round Rock, he will head up Dell's strong notebook business and oversee Dell's fledgling effort in …

PCs 11 Aug 2004, 20:09
Armadillo rocket spread over Texas

X-Prize coated in diller droppins

Another team hoping to send a privately-funded rocket into space saw its craft crash and burn this weekend, littering the Texas plains with armadillo droppings. Armadillo Aerospace lost a $35,000 rocket when the machine ran out of propellant at close to 600 feet and came tumbling back to earth. The small team has been working …

Science 11 Aug 2004, 22:28