The Register® — Biting the hand that feeds IT

Feeds

14th February 2005 Archive

Browse by publication date, or search the site.

  • French consumer group sues Apple, Sony

    Alleges iTunes-iPod tie-in is anti-competitive

    A French consumer group has initiated legal proceedings against Apple and Sony, claiming their online music sites violate European anti-trust legislation. We've seen this kind of silliness before. Like California resident Thomas Slattery, who filed a similar complaint against Apple in January, Paris-based UFC-Que Choisir claims …

    Music and Media 14 Feb 2005, 10:47

  • Ex-Intel sales chief joins TSMC

    Jason Chen back to work in April

    The Register is pleased to hear that the "health matters" affecting the family of former Intel sales and marketing chief Jason Chen appear rather less bothersome than they were when he quit the chip maker last month to deal with them. Chen has joinced TSMC, the world's largest chip foundry, as its VP of corporate development, …

    Channel Register 14 Feb 2005, 11:16

  • Gov.uk delves into EDS finances

    Four investigations in three years

    The British government has carried out four separate investigations into the finances of outsourcing giant EDS. EDS has been one of the big beneficiaries of the move to outsourcing government processes to private companies. It runs massive contracts for the Child Support Agency and Ministry of Defence. Deloitte, the …

    Public Sector 14 Feb 2005, 11:16

  • BT glitch severs 70k broadband users

    It's grim up North

    Some 70,000 DSL users in the North West of England and the Midlands lost their broadband connection over the weekend following a hardware failure at a key BT location in Manchester. The incident occurred at around 9.00am on Saturday morning when BT Wholesale - which serves scores of ISPs - suffered a "control card failure" at …

    Small Biz 14 Feb 2005, 11:36

  • FaxYourMP.com gets a makeover

    Now you can badger other politicians too

    A popular scheme to give UK voters access to their elected representatives has been relaunched just in time for a much-anticipated May general election. FaxYourMP.com, which won an Internet Hero gong in Future Publishing's internet awards last year, has been transformed into WriteToThem.com. It gives voters the chance to write …

    Public Sector 14 Feb 2005, 12:02

  • WiMAX turns the screw on 3G

    Cheaper networks a real possibility

    Broadband wireless gained a bad name in the US in the late 1990s when companies such as Teligent failed spectacularly. But WiMAX is ushering in a brand new economic picture for such operators. Not only will standardization push down prices by fostering competition and volume, but spectrum suited to the technology is being …

    Mobile 14 Feb 2005, 12:05

  • AMD unveils next-gen 90nm Opterons

    Shipping soon

    AMD today launched not only its latest Opteron processors, but the second generation of the 90nm server chip family, adding support for Intel's SSE 3 instruction set and a 1GHz frontside bus. The new processors are the 252 and the 852, but we note AMD has added a 152 to its price list too. The chips are clocked to 2.6GHz. The …

    Servers 14 Feb 2005, 12:24

  • AMD slashes processor prices

    Cheaper chips

    AMD today slashed prices across its product range, timed to follow the launch of its latest Opteron processors and knocking up to 35 per cent off the price of most products. The axe wasn't just taken to AMD's workstation/server chips, but to its mainstream Athlon 64 desktop and notebook products. All Athlon 64s for desktops, …

    PCs 14 Feb 2005, 12:28

  • Verizon and MCI to tie the knot

    $6.7bn marriage - and on Valentine's Day too

    Verizon and MCI are to tie the knot, according to a Valentine's Day announcement from the US. The deal is worth $6.7bn (£3.55bn) in shares and cash and Verizon has also agreed to take on board MCI's $4bn (£21.bn) debt. In a joint announcement the happy couple said the deal "adds new strength to the telecommunications services …

    Financial News 14 Feb 2005, 12:28

  • Desperate PR outfit seeks Valentine's news hook

    Love is in the air

    It will have escaped the notice of few readers that today is Valentine's Day, a celebration of romance, love and all things pink and fluffy. It is also the time of year where there is tangible strain in the air as IT PR companies try desperately to find some way of putting a cupidesque spin on their clients' product lines. It …

    Bootnotes 14 Feb 2005, 12:29

  • 3G has arrived: Official

    Comment Oh no it hasn't...

    The Authority of Reuters has announced that 3G is here, and that next week's 3GSM show will be devoted to it. Reuters is a wonderful news service, but even a casual look at the article reveals that the headlines are not saying what the story under them reveals. No, 3G is still a mess. And one reason it's a mess, is the focus on …

    Mobile 14 Feb 2005, 12:29

  • How to win friends and influence people

    Review We go networking with Plaxo and LinkedIn

    Have you ever received an email from a “colleague” or “friend” inviting you to join some online "club" or other, offering all kinds of benefits to members? Perhaps, like me, you tend to regard such messages with suspicion. However, my temptation to take a look at some of these online services eventually became too great when I …

    Reviews 14 Feb 2005, 12:34

  • Wi-Fi Alliance to beef up security

    Key issue for users

    Security remains the key issue deterring enterprise users from making major investments in Wi-Fi, despite all the improvements over the past year. Whether real or perceived, the security risks of wireless LANs are still holding deployments back. Conscious of this, the Wi-Fi Alliance is trying to beef up standard security still …

    Wireless 14 Feb 2005, 12:43

  • TechnoDepot Binary t-shirt back on the shelves

    Cash'n'Carrion There are 10 types of people in the world...

    Thanks very much to all those kit-hungry customers who wrote in to express an immediate desire to purchase the TechnoDepot Binary t-shirt which sold out during our Cash'n'Carrion pre-Xmas orgy of e-commerce. Well, you wait is over - we have fully restocked this particular item which offers: "There are 10 types of people in the …

    Site News 14 Feb 2005, 14:43

  • FCC lets cablecos off multicast hook

    Washington Roundup A blow for digital broadcasting

    Washington Roundup Cablecos cannot be forced to carry multicast streams from broadcasters, the US Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has decided. According to Chairman Michael Powell, the Commission lacks the authority to mandate such an arrangement, but would like to see voluntary deals being made. The broadcast industry …

    Public Sector 14 Feb 2005, 14:58

  • Nvidia updates GoForce phone chip

    Higher resoutions but where's the anti-aliasing?

    Nvidia has rolled out its latest mobile phone graphics chip, an upgraded version of the currently available GoForce 3D 4500. The new chip, the 4800, adds 30fps MPEG 4 decode and encode at image resolutions of up to 640 x 480 to the 4500's spec. sheet. It can also compress three megapixel images using JPEG, optimising each image …

    Mobile 14 Feb 2005, 14:59

  • How Blair high tech 'security' pledge will fix the wrong problem

    Analysis Placebo facilitates issue-ducking

    ID cards have made it onto the Labour Party's election pledge cards as a late addition, with the planned five pledges becoming six as Labour's response to the Tories' making immigration an election issue. The new pledge, unveiled at Leeds-Bradford Airport on Friday as part of Blair's 'pledge per stop' heliborne tour of the UK, …

    Music and Media 14 Feb 2005, 15:02

  • SMEs play IT fast and loose

    Neglect basic housekeeping

    When it comes to managing their IT systems, small and mid-sized businesses (SMEs) have limited resources and in some cases this leads to neglect of basic IT housekeeping and consequent risk to their businesses. A recent Quocirca report shows that one in three mid-sized businesses and 90 per cent of small businesses do not …

    Small Biz 14 Feb 2005, 15:19

  • Buyers said to favour a la carte music in 2005

    Don't understand or don't like subscription services

    Napster and co. will have to work much harder if they're to convince music buyers that subscription services are worth the money. That's the conclusion of research conducted by market watcher Parks Associates. Its Global Digital Living survey reveals that only eight per cent of people who own MP3 players and possess an Internet …

    Music and Media 14 Feb 2005, 15:35

  • Spanish cuff 19 in net paedo ring bust

    Nationwide dragnet

    Spanish police have arrested 19 people across the country in connection with alleged paedophile activites, including online grooming, sexual abuse and distributing paedophile material on the internet. According to Spain's Interior Ministry, the suspects - from locations including Madrid, Barcelona, Badajoz, Valencia, Granada, …

    Music and Media 14 Feb 2005, 15:39

  • How to isolate DNA with salad-spinner

    CodeCon 2005 With hackerly DNS exuberance

    For sheer hackerly exuberance, the best-received presentation at CodeCon 2005 was the closer by Dan Kaminsky of Doxpara, showing the progress he's made on his DNS exploit OzymanDNS since he presented it at Defcon last August. At that time he offered to archive Knoppix across 35,000 DNS caches by posting, to each cache, 80 …

    Enterprise Security 14 Feb 2005, 16:25

  • BT 2 meg punters hacked off

    Getting 'half as much twice as fast'

    BT has received a verbal kicking from punters following last week's announcement that it will up the speed of its retail broadband services to 2Mbps for all but its 'basic" services. While plenty of customers will be happy to see the speed of their service accelerated up to 2 meg, a number of BT Broadband users have spotted a …

    Telecoms 14 Feb 2005, 16:35

  • Motorola wins 'sub-$40' handset contract

    Trade body develops third world mobile

    The guardian of the GSM mobile telephony standard, the GSM Association (GSMA), today unveiled what it called the first "sub-$40" handset, its attempt to create cheap phones for developing countries. Between aggressively competitive mobile phone manufacturers and network handset subsidies, you wouldn't have thought the industry …

    Mobile 14 Feb 2005, 16:41

  • MS, Nokia in Valentine's Day headline bid

    3GSM Or suicide pact, depending on how you look at it

    Nokia and Microsoft signed two significant deals today, with Nokia's executive VP for enterprise, Mary McDowell, hinting that there would be more to come. Nokia is partnering with Loudeye to allow carriers to build branded DRM music download services. As part of the deal, Nokia phones will play back Windows Media files, but …

    Mobile 14 Feb 2005, 16:45

  • CW will text you your voicemails

    Cunning mobile plan...

    Carphone Warehouse has signed up SpinVox to convert customers' voicemail messages into text messages. Subscribers won't have to struggle to hear messages, they can simply have them texted to their phone. The company claims nine out of ten people who took up the free trial ended up paying for the service because it makes …

    Mobile 14 Feb 2005, 16:50

  • Orange shuts out adult content

    No more porn for you, sunshine

    Orange UK has started blocking the delivery of adult content to users not registered as over 18. The decision follows the launch of the official classification guidelines for adult content, as laid out by the UK's Independent Mobile Classification Body. Orange said imposing the block was the "responsible" thing to do, and that …

    Mobile 14 Feb 2005, 17:01

  • Intel ships 2MB cache 64-bit Xeon

    EM64T-equipped desktop P4s this week, too

    Intel has begun shipping its latest 64-bit Xeon DP chip, 'Irwindale', the chip maker said today. It also pledged to ship an updated 64-bit Xeon MP part, 'Potomac', "within 90 days". The new Xeon DPs contain 2MB of on-die L2 cache, up from the 1MB built into the previous version, and are clocked at 3.0, 3.2, 3.4 and 3.6GHz. The …

    Servers 14 Feb 2005, 17:04

  • UK firms avoid outsourcing tech support

    Roses are red...

    Shunting tech support to foreign countries is unpopular and a waste of time, according to new research. Even though there is a "worrying" shortage of skilled IT staff in the UK, nine out of ten UK organisations are actively trying to keep their IT support in-house. Of the 200 public and private sector organisations quizzed as …

    IT Director 14 Feb 2005, 17:15

  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux v.4 hits the streets

    Open sorcery...

    Paul Salazar, Emea director of marketing for Red Hat, came to London yesterday to launch the latest version of its enterprise software based on the 2.6 Linux kernel. He said the release marked "a dramatic change" to previous releases. The fourth version of Red Hat's software uses the 2.6 kernel for the first time. This improves …

    Operating Systems 14 Feb 2005, 17:25

  • China shuts 12,500 'illegal' cybercafes

    More of the same

    More than 12,500 internet cafes were shut down in China during the last three months of 2004, according to state media. Officials in China claim the net cafes were closed down because they were operating illegally - primarily near schools. The Beijing governmnet is concerned about the influence of the net as a conduit for new …

    Music and Media 14 Feb 2005, 17:30

  • Poor left stranded by digital divide

    Still, they've got women and old people for company

    Income, education and age as the biggest factors in creating the digital divide, according to a European Union report. It reveals that women are taking to technology in greater numbers than ever, and the over-55s are also gaining computer skills. But poor, badly educated people are still lagging behind. Just to recap: the …

    Public Sector 14 Feb 2005, 17:35

  • Nokia bends to operators

    3GSM New phones, new voice services, and a lock down OS.

    Nokia made a number of small concessions to network operators across the board at the phone industry's annual get together today. It also announced two new phone models, although for the first time a "model" in conventional parlance becomes a "range". For the first time, the phone giant will produce custom models for specific …

    Mobile 14 Feb 2005, 17:42

  • Tech industry puts phish on diet

    Anti-ID theft initiative

    Microsoft, eBay and Visa have formed the Phish Report Network to better protect consumers against identity theft attacks. Phishing attacks are usually based on scam emails that try to trick users into handing over their account details and passwords to bogus sites. The collected details are used for credit card fraud and …

    Financial News 14 Feb 2005, 17:47

  • Desktop Linux cracks Freak Mainstream

    More love needed

    Every technology publication worth its Microsoft advertisements has written a story about the rise of desktop Linux. Most of them write the story close to four times a year - once for each LinuxWorld conference, once after Sun Microsystems calls enough and once for a random vendor - insert SuSE, Red Hat, Linspire or Lycoris here …

    Operating Systems 14 Feb 2005, 20:01

  • Paradigms for Paranoids

    Codecon 2005 Off-the-record messaging

    The fourth annual CodeCon - "a workshop for developers of real-world applications that support individual liberties" - convened Friday afternoon (11 Feb) at Club NV (envy, not Nevada), amid ghostly laptop panels hovering in violet-tinted danceclub murk. First-day registrations reached a respectable 90 (at $80 each), with more …

    Developer 14 Feb 2005, 22:15