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28th October 2004 Archive

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  • Website punts caller ID spoofing to the masses

    'Hi, it's the White House here'

    A new website offer subscribers a simple web interface to a caller ID spoofing system that lets them appear to be calling from any number they choose. Called "Camophone", the service functions much like the Star38.com site that struggled with an abortive launch last month: a user types in their phone number, the number they …

    ID 28 Oct 2004, 08:52

  • Gateway readies own-brand music, photo player

    Even offers AAC support, apparently

    US PC company Gateway will finally ship its long-awaited own-brand digital music player on 15 November, more than a year after its first move on the market was planned to debut. The Gateway MP3 Photo Jukebox incorporates a 4GB hard drive and a 1.6in, 128 x 128 TFT colour display in its compact 96.4g, 9.6 x 5.9 x 1.7cm shell. …

    Mobile 28 Oct 2004, 09:11

  • US deploys F/A-22 Raptor

    A lot of bangs for an awful lot of bucks

    The United States Air Force is commissioning a fleet of 277 F/A-22 Raptor fighter jets at a cost of $260m each. The first, which was due to be completed on Wednesday this week, is to join a fighter squadron close to Washington, DC. According to Lockheed-Martin, the plane has been in theoretical development since the 1970s when …

    Science 28 Oct 2004, 09:25

  • TSMC, UMC fab utilisation to plummet in Q4

    Strong Q3 leads to weak Q4

    The world's two largest chip foundries, TSMC and UMC, posted their latest quarterly results this week, each showing solid sequential and year-on-year growth. However, both companies warned of harsher trading conditions ahead, on the back of big declines in fab capacity utilisation. TSMC said sales totalling TWD69.74bn ($2.07bn …

    Financial News 28 Oct 2004, 09:37

  • Reg Marathon Man in India t-shirt triumph

    Cash'n'Carrion Outsourcing apparel on the move

    Since we've just restocked our ever-popular "My job went to India and all I got was this lousy t-shirt", er, t-shirt, we thought that this would be a good opportunity to show the outsourcing apparel masterpiece "in the field". So, cue pic of none other than Reg Strategy Boutique head honcho Pranav J. Oza sporting said shirt …

    Site News 28 Oct 2004, 10:13

  • Forty per cent of IT workers vomit at office Xmas party

    Survey of shame

    Four in ten IT workers have been sick at their Christmas party while more than third admit to snogging their boss or a colleague, according to research from Sussex internet outfit Sigmer Technologies. The research doesn't reveal what proportion of people threw up before snogging their boss. Although the annual yuletide …

    IT Director 28 Oct 2004, 10:16

  • Net extortionists in child porn threat

    Blue Square menaced

    Extortionists have threaten to send out images of child abuse in emails in the name of Blue Square unless the online gambling site hands over €7,000 ($8,900). The sick telephone threat followed a five-hour distributed denial of service attack against the popular site earlier this week, the BBC reports. This DDoS attack was …

    Financial News 28 Oct 2004, 10:20

  • Open Source ready for prime time in UK.gov, says OGC

    Should now be viewed as serious competition

    Open Source Software is now a viable and credible alternative for government, says a report published yesterday by the UK's Office of Government Commerce. The report, detailing the verdict on a series of proof of concept trials of OSS, which were carried out in conjunction with Sun and IBM over the past year, notes that the …

    Software 28 Oct 2004, 10:54

  • Astronomers finger culprit in 1572 supernova

    Star spotted fleeing the scene

    An international team of astronomers has identified the surviving companion star to the 1572 supernova explosion witnessed by the Danish astronomer Tycho Brahe. This looks to be the first piece of direct, physical evidence that supports the long-standing theory of how this particular type of supernova explosion actually occurs …

    Science 28 Oct 2004, 11:05

  • Bush beats Gollum to Movie Villain of the Year award

    The people have spoken

    George Bush has seen off some stiff competition to win Total Film magazine's movie Villain of the Year, the London Evening Standard reports. Bush was awarded the honour for his role in Michael Moore's Fahrenheit 9/11 and in the process eclipsed the contributions of shortlisted Doctor Octopus, Leatherface (The Texas Chainsaw …

    Bootnotes 28 Oct 2004, 12:08

  • Wanadoo UK down 230k punters

    But broadband customers on the up-and-up

    Wanadoo UK - formerly Freeserve - has lost almost quarter of a million punters over the last year but insists its strategy to concentrate on broadband is delivering results. At the end of September, Wanadoo UK had 2.44m users - down from 2.67m a year ago. However, while the number of narrowband punters has dropped steadily …

    Telecoms 28 Oct 2004, 12:11

  • UK Gov open source policy gets an upgrade

    Forward motion detected

    The UK's e-Government Unit, formerly the Office of the e-Envoy, has finally published the long-awaited update to its policy on open source software in government. But if it didn't have version 2 and today's date on the cover, you might have difficulty spotting it. The new policy says first, "UK Government will consider OSS …

    Software 28 Oct 2004, 12:30

  • Tree rings show calendar of sun spot activity

    Spottiest for 8,000 years

    Sunspot activity is more intense now than at any point in the last 8,000 years, according to researchers at the Max Planck Institute in Germany. The solar scientists have constructed an 11,000 years record of solar activity based on tree ring data, and discovered that the last 70 years have been particularly spot-filled. …

    Science 28 Oct 2004, 13:20

  • Sourcefire touts 'smart' network defence

    Improved vulnerability detection technology

    Sourcefire, the company founded by the creator of the open source Snort intrusion detection system, has added improved vulnerability detection technology to help customers bolster their security defences. The real time network analysis offered by its Sourcefire 3D system can place security events in context and thereby help …

    Enterprise Security 28 Oct 2004, 13:22

  • Amstrad blows £2m plugging E3

    Video telephony for the Xmas masses

    Amstrad is to splurge £2m in the run-up to Christmas advertising its new email-enabled home videophone - the Amstrad E3. The new device was unveiled in September by boss Sir Alan Sugar in a bid to bring video telephony to the masses. The E3 provides the same voice telephony and email services as its predecessors, the em@iler …

    Personal 28 Oct 2004, 13:33

  • Danger Hiptop 2

    Reg review Why should business get all the good gadgets?

    Vodafone's massive marketing campaign for its RIM-made 7100v is proof enough that the mobile phone networks believe that businesses are desperate for mobile email and that they think most handsets' SMS-oriented keypads won't hack it. It's not just the networks - PDA vendors on both sides of the Palm OS-Windows Mobile divide are …

    Reviews 28 Oct 2004, 13:58

  • Orange passes 52m customer mark

    Good-o

    Orange - the mobilephoneco owned by France Telecom - reported strong customer growth during Q3 adding 1.3m new punters in all. France saw the biggest influx with the addition of 207,000 new customers, while the UK added 140,000 new users. Its "Rest of the World" segment (Orange, segment, geddit? [Clear your desk, you're fired - …

    Mobile 28 Oct 2004, 14:20

  • Monkey mindpower manipulates robotic arm

    Cybermacaque

    US scientists have taught a monkey to operate a robotic arm to feed itself using only the power of its thoughts. The experiment was revealed Tuesday at a meeting of neuroscientists in San Diego, The Guardian reports, and involves interception of signals from the brain by electrode probes. The signals are interpreted through an …

    Science 28 Oct 2004, 15:29

  • O2 billing probs sorted, says mobilephoneco

    And... relax

    O2 maintains that it has resolved a billing issue that is currently being examined by Ofcom after OpenAir - a former O2 reseller - had sent a 67-page report to the regulator detailing allegations that the mobile operator overcharged some of its punters. In one example, it was alleged that O2 billed a business customer £28,000 a …

    Mobile 28 Oct 2004, 15:33

  • Lexmark suffers setback in DMCA case

    Round three of ink cartridge scrap to SCC

    Static Control Corp. (SCC) has won an appeal that will allow it to resume the sale of replacement ink cartridges for Lexmark printers pending the resolution of a lawsuit between the two companies. The ruling by the US Courts of Appeals, Sixth Circuit, on Tuesday (26 October) overturns a February 2003 injunction and as is a …

    Music and Media 28 Oct 2004, 15:40

  • E-vote kit makers go 'shared source'

    Showing a little ankle

    Several of the largest makers of touch screen ballot machines are submitting at least some of their source code to the National Software Reference Library, the Associated Press reports. This is so that election officials can compare hashes of the original software to hashes of the software they've got, and detect tampering. …

    Music and Media 28 Oct 2004, 21:18

  • Politics gets messy, Vulture Central style

    Letters special USA vs. Canada vs. UK vs. France vs. Russia vs...

    Let’s just get straight to it, with a letter from a chap called Frank. Indeed, it is Frank’s letter that has prompted this particular letters special: There have been some rants in your letters pages recently about how the register should be getting out of political debate and sticking to IT. Keep the politics. First off, I …

    Letters 28 Oct 2004, 21:30

  • Google buys CIA-backed mapping startup

    Through the keyhole

    Google has acquired 3D mapping company Keyhole for an undisclosed sum, and announced that it's cutting the price of the consumer edition from $69.95 to $29.95. Keyhole's EarthViewer mapping service is a technical tour de force, making use of the 3D capabilities of modern PC graphics cards to do the heavy lifting, or rendering in …

    Music and Media 28 Oct 2004, 21:33