The Register® — Biting the hand that feeds IT

Feeds

24th November 2004 Archive

Browse by publication date, or search the site.

  • DIY fingerprint idea thwarts ID thieves

    Thumbs up

    The Home Office is touting ID cards as a solution to ID theft in today's Queen's Speech but a Yorkshire man has taken matters into his own hands. Jamie Jameson, a civil servant from Scarborough in North Yorkshire, insists that credit can only be extended in his name on production of a thumbprint. Jameson hit on the idea of …

    ID 24 Nov 2004, 07:59

  • Fraudsters recruit phishing middlemen

    Bogus job offers

    Fraudsters are trying to recruit phishing mules with bogus job offers. Email filtering firm MessageLabs reports more than 20,000 copies of this scam email have been intercepted to date, following the emergence of the fraud over the weekend. The bogus messages pose as offers for regional representative and general assistant …

    Spam 24 Nov 2004, 08:00

  • New round of HP firings to cost $200m

    Eyes on the server and storage teams

    HP revealed on Tuesday that its latest round of job cuts will cost the company $200m through the first half of 2005. During HP's fourth quarter earnings announcement, the company said it would continue to cut costs in its server and storage units with layoffs being the main cost-cutting tool. Such cuts have been commonplace …

    Financial News 24 Nov 2004, 08:01

  • Deregulation lobby scores UK KO

    Spectrum free-for-all

    The UK's Ofcom has become the first telecoms regulator to spark a spectrum free-for-all, opening up the airwaves to "market forces". License holders will be able to do what they want with 70 per cent of the spectrum and exchange it with other holders: effectively giving the green light for massive media and telecomms …

    Mobile 24 Nov 2004, 08:03

  • ATI rolls out X300, X800 mobile GPUs

    Both PCI-E, but only one is a latest-generation part

    ATI has extended its PCI Express-based mobile graphics processor line-up further upmarket and downward with the addition of high- and low-end chips to its Mobility Radeon X series. The X800 tops off the range, providing 12 pixel processing pipelines and six vertex shaders. The part is fabbed at 130nm using low-k dielectric …

    System Builder 24 Nov 2004, 09:16

  • MS rewards reformed critic with $10m

    CCIA president trousers a packet

    Microsoft has paid almost $10m directly to the top official of the Computer and Communications Industry Association as part of its settlement with the trade group. The CCIA has been a longtime critic of Microsoft but the two reached agreement earlier this month. Microsoft paid $19.75m to the group which promised to drop its …

    Business 24 Nov 2004, 09:30

  • Get yer draconian Blunkett rhetoric here

    The home secretary gives forth

    Those readers who are following the magnificent meanderings of UK home secretary David Blunkett as he moves the UK inexorably towards voluntary/compulsory ID cards in an attempt to stem the tide of swan-roasting illegal immigrant members of al-Qaeda who threaten the very fabric of our society will certainly enjoy Chris Applegate …

    Bootnotes 24 Nov 2004, 09:31

  • Cingular lays off 7,000

    Jobs cuts follow merger

    US mobile firm Cingular is laying off 7,000 people, or ten per cent of its workforce, as part of its integration of AT&T's wireless unit. The firm was expected to cut jobs as part of the integration and large numbers of AT&T execs have been busy tidying up their CVs, according to the FT. Cingular has already merged the firm's …

    Mobile 24 Nov 2004, 09:54

  • Intel to retain top chip maker title on 04...

    ...but rivals are catching up fast

    Don't expect to see a major shake-up among the world's ten biggest chip makers this year, market watcher IC Insights forecast this week, but do anticipate lesser players to get ever closer to market leader Intel, the researcher warned. Yes, the chip giant remains at the top of totem pole with calendar 2004 sales coming in at $ …

    Servers 24 Nov 2004, 09:54

  • How good is UK.gov at its own security agenda?

    Comment Joined-up thinker wanted

    Yesterday Peter Hain, the Leader of the Commons, was happily telling journalists that the Government's security-heavy legislative programme was intended to frustrate the opposition by "crowding out any place for them on the security agenda". Which one might think a remarkably cynical thing to say on its own, but he went a step …

    Music and Media 24 Nov 2004, 10:30

  • Yahoo! - the thinking corporate's email solution

    No, really

    Google, which doesn't quite seem to be able to get its GMail service into service, has nevertheless changed the email world forever. The threat of its new 1GB service caused other public players like MSN and Yahoo! to up the stakes. Yahoo!, I now contend, should be regarded as a potential corporate IT email solution, having …

    Hardware 24 Nov 2004, 10:39

  • Business Serve posts profit

    Eyes VoIP for future growth

    Business Serve PLC - the acquisitive Lancaster-based ISP - has posted a profit after seeing a sizeable jump in turnover. The increase in revenue for the six months to the end of September was down to a string of acquisitions underpinned by organic growth. As a result, turnover jumped 67 per cent to £6.8m compared to £4m a year …

    Telecoms 24 Nov 2004, 10:46

  • Cisco market share slipping

    Juniper Networks on the up-and-up

    Networking giant Cisco is losing market share in its core router market to rival Juniper Networks. Figures from Infonetics Research show Cisco market share slipping from 72 per cent in the third quarter of 2003 to 58 per cent in the third quarter of 2004. Over the same period Juniper grew its market share from 20 per cent to 36 …

    Financial News 24 Nov 2004, 10:47

  • Group voices concerns over synthetic technology

    Nanotech in the biological world

    A Canadian advocacy group has called for a tighter regulation of nanotech's spread into the biological world. It has published a consultation document, Down on the Farm, which examines how nano-scale technologies will affect farmers, food and agriculture. The ETC group (Erosion, Technology and Concentration) has called for a …

    Science 24 Nov 2004, 11:02

  • UK prof pioneers new LCD screen system

    Promises significantly cheaper flat displays

    A Cambridge UK academic has come up with a completely new flat TV concept that relies on total internal reflection in a wedge shaped piece of clear plastic, fed by the same LCD video projectors that drive rear-projection televisions. The technique promises to cost about a fiftieth of the price of current plasma screens and yet …

    Peripherals 24 Nov 2004, 11:10

  • Group Sense ships Palm slider-phone

    Xplore M28 targets Chinese market

    Far Eastern Palm OS-based smart phone maker Group Sense PDA (GSPDA) formally launched its latest handset this week, two months after revealing the device in a series of sneak previews. The Xplore M28 is based on Palm OS 5.4 - aka 'Garnet' - and contains 64MB of RAM and 32MB of integrated Flash storage. An SD card slot provides …

    Mobile 24 Nov 2004, 11:36

  • Sony Network Walkman NW-HD1

    Review Beauty merely skin deep?

    Sony knows a thing or two about design, but when it came to portable digital audio, Apple stole the crown that Sony had worn since the launch of the original Walkman, writes Riyad Emeran. The iPod has been around since 2001, and there have been competing products launched from a host of other manufacturers, but Sony was …

    Reviews 24 Nov 2004, 11:53

  • ID scheme, IT the key to Blunkett's new terror laws

    It all hangs together (cross fingers)

    The pile of security legislation the Government unveiled yesterday is disturbingly large but, as Peter Hain has to all intents and purposes confessed, most of it is window-dressing this side of the election. A couple of Bills will get through before May, with ID cards and SOCA, the 'British FBI', among the most likely to do so. …

    Music and Media 24 Nov 2004, 12:00

  • Telstra appoints itself Oz net censor

    Hijacks requests for gay porn website

    Australian telco Telstra has appointed itself guardian of the Lucky Country's net morals after an embarrassing advertising blunder directed fans of Australian Idol winner Casey Donovan to a US gay porn site. The company's internet tentacle - BigPond - earlier this week placed an ad in Melbourne's Herald Sun and Sydney's Daily …

    Business 24 Nov 2004, 12:13

  • HP confirms plans for Blu-ray

    Drives in PCs and media centres from 2005

    HP has firmed up its plans for Blu-ray DVD disk drives and said the format would begin going into many of its product lines, including select consumer desktop and notebook PCs, personal workstations and digital entertainment centers. The company adds it will continue to work with the other companies of the Blu-Ray Disc (we say …

    Storage 24 Nov 2004, 12:29

  • Citrix buys Net6

    SSL VPN play

    Server-based computing firm Citrix yesterday announced a deal to acquire SSL VPN vendor Net6 for approximately $50m cash. The deal is expected to close by the end of the year. Along with an SSL (Secure Sockets Layer) Access Gateway the deal lets Citrix expand its portfolio with an Application Gateway and VoIP Application Suite …

    Security 24 Nov 2004, 12:37

  • Dixons to offer Philips Wi-Fi PCs

    Freeline range to serve content to Streamium AV kit

    UK consumer electronics retail chain Dixons has partnered with Philips to bring the Dutch manufacturer's Freeline range of home wireless PCs to the High Street. The move will see Philips return to the UK PC market after many years absence. The initial Freeline line-up comprises a pair of notebooks and four slimline desktops. …

    Wireless 24 Nov 2004, 12:38

  • Stelios to hop into bed with T-Mobile

    Serial entrepreneur plans discount mobilephoneco

    The launch of a new discount mobile phone service from serial entrepreneur Stelios Haji-Ioannou could be just weeks away according to the Financial Times. It reports that T-Mobile and Stelios' Easy Group are set to ink a deal within the next fortnight or so that would see the Deutsche Telekom's mobile division provide a …

    Mobile 24 Nov 2004, 12:41

  • Tony Blair to face SMS inquisition

    Live mobe chat room session tomorrow

    Tomorrow marks a significant first in UK politics when O2 Active hosts a live "mobile phone chat room session" with British prime minister Tony Blair. The online love-in offers ordinary people the chance to text their pressing questions of the day in advance to our Tone, who will then dispense wisdom to a selected cross-section …

    Mobile 24 Nov 2004, 12:42

  • Scientists spot really, really big black hole

    More energy than 20 trillion suns

    The discovery of a 12.7bn light-year distant supermassive black hole has challenged astronomers' understanding of star and galaxy formation. NASA's Chandra X-Ray observatory spotted the object, which is generating energy at the rate of twenty trillion suns, at the heart of a quasar formed less than a billion years after the big …

    Science 24 Nov 2004, 12:47

  • Telefónica UK ditches narrowband

    It's broadband or nada from 16 Dec

    Telefónica UK is to stop providing wholesale narrowband services to ISPs because of dwindling demand from end users. Instead, the UK subsidiary of the Spanish telco intends to focus on the provision of broadband services to the ISP and corporate marketplace. From 16 December Telefónica UK will no longer supply unmetered and …

    Telecoms 24 Nov 2004, 13:07

  • How MS will end the Dell - Intel love-in

    Analysis Mr Bill delivers AMD

    Here's a prediction you don't see everyday. Microsoft will be responsible for ending the monogamous relationship between Dell and Intel. Microsoft will deliver Dell to AMD. Over the past three years, Dell has hinted time and again that it will pick up AMD's 64-bit Opteron processor. Dell, however, has never actually made the …

    Servers 24 Nov 2004, 13:37

  • Italian Senate in gay porn worm attack outrage

    Mamma Mia!

    Proceedings in the Italian Senate were disrupted this week after hackers used a computer worm to display hardcore gay porn on computer monitors. Computers in the Senate chamber, and Senator's office, were affected by the attack which used variants of the Rbot worm to disseminate smut across the upper house of the Italian …

    Enterprise Security 24 Nov 2004, 13:40

  • UK wireless watchdog to 'open' 72% of public spectrum

    Few new frequencies to be de-regulated, though

    UK telecoms regulator Ofcom is to put over 70 per cent of the nation's public airwaves under the influence of market forces in a bid to eliminate inefficiencies in spectrum management that have, it claims, "limited the innovation and development of higher-value services". Its plan will see licensees not only able to develop new …

    Mobile 24 Nov 2004, 13:44

  • Dutch actress to authenticate breasts online

    No implants up top, insists Playboy model

    Outraged Dutch actress Georgina Verbaan is to publish x-rays of her assets online after speculation that she underwent a breast augmentation in advance of a €200,000 appearance in the December issue of Dutch Playboy. The implant-free mams will reportedly appear sometime this week on her website. The all-natural 25-year-old rose …

    Music and Media 24 Nov 2004, 14:03

  • No winding-up order for Gio Internet

    So claims NetServices amid ongoing dispute

    NetServices has denied reports that it has issued a winding-up notice against Gio Internet over a disputed unpaid bill. A spokesman for the Manchester-based network distributor told The Register: "A winding-up order has not been issued. However, I can confirm that NetServices have now handed over all responsibility for recovery …

    Telecoms 24 Nov 2004, 16:08

  • UK.gov in scrap over school e-register patent

    Confusion reigns despite court ruling

    The UK government is embroiled in legal wrangling over the validity of a patent covering an electronic registration system for schools. Far from settling the dispute, a high court ruling on 17 June prompted both sides to claim victory. The continuing dispute, and contradictory advice from the Department for Education and Skills …

    Public Sector 24 Nov 2004, 16:09

  • iPod gains ghettoblaster accessory

    And Dension updates its in-car iPod adaptor

    North American iPod users can now blast the music collections to the whole street courtesy of accessory maker Digital Lifestyle Outfitters (DLO)'s latest add-on for the digital music device. Actually, 'add-on' seems too small a word. The iBoom is an entire ghettoblaster with a handy slot in which to drop Apple's miniscule MP3 …

    Mac Channel 24 Nov 2004, 16:23

  • Career database 'wide open' to hijacking

    22 million profiles allegedly at risk

    An on-line database containing the career and contact details of over 22 million business people can be edited by anyone. The database - put together by US company Eliyon - is extracted from information published on the net (press releases, electronic news services, SEC filings and other online sources etc.) and complied into a …

    ID 24 Nov 2004, 16:25

  • Huygens probe gets clean bill of health

    Fit and ready for Titan

    The European Space Agency's Huygens probe, carried millions of miles to Saturn on board the NASA Cassini space craft, has completed its final series of checks before separation. The check up, its sixteenth, found the probe in good health, according to the ESA. The Huygens probe will detach from Cassini on Christmas day, and …

    Science 24 Nov 2004, 16:49

  • Poison applet peril affects IE, Opera and Firefox

    Java security unplugged

    A vulnerability in a Java plug-in from Sun Microsystems used by most web browsers poses a risk for users of IE and alternative browsers alike. Because of the flaw, malicious applets can escape the safe confines of a sandbox and damage vulnerable systems. Java Runtime version 1.4.2_05 and older are vulnerable. According to …

    Security 24 Nov 2004, 17:03