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20th April 2005 Archive

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  • Yahoo! growth! slows!

    Profit almost as large as CEO's bank balance

    Yahoo! cheered investors by blowing past its own estimates for its Q1 2005 period. Profits for the quarter now almost match CEO Terry Semel's annual compensation last year. Quarterly revenue excluding traffic acquisition costs rose to $821 million, up from $785 million in the preceding quarter and $540 million from the first …

    Financial News 20 Apr 2005, 00:30

  • SGI sees red

    Couldn't close the deals, says Bishop

    SGI lost $45m in the most recent quarter, and offered the same reason IBM gave for its poor results last week. Gross revenue in Q3 FY2005 was $159m, down from $212 million a year ago, when it reported an $8m loss. Product revenue was down $39m year on year to $78.7m. CEO Bob Bishop echoed IBM chief Sam Palmisano for the poor …

    Servers 20 Apr 2005, 07:07

  • Less Office, more family for Microsoft DSI program

    Microsoft outlines management roadmap

    Microsoft is switching gears on its autonomic computing strategy with plans for a suite of Windows server and systems management products. Speaking on the two-year anniversary of its Dynamic Systems Initiative (DSI), Microsoft said Tuesday the planned System Center product will now become the "overarching family name" for its …

    Applications 20 Apr 2005, 07:14

  • Microsoft patents 911

    Or 999 if you're in the UK, or...

    Microsoft was today granted a patent for accessing data used by the emergency services. "The present invention provides a method and system for maintaining emergency data in a manner that provides straightforward user access thereto via a displayed emergency page (or set of pages) or other suitable user interface," according to …

    Bootnotes 20 Apr 2005, 07:16

  • Rival web services specs destined for OASIS

    Reliability comes double

    Uncertainty surrounds the future of separate initiatives for web services reliability, after Microsoft and IBM announced they will submit a jointly authored specification to OASIS. Microsoft and IBM are to submit WS-ReliableMessaging (WS-RM) to OASIS with the backing of 14 companies and organizations. WS-RM is the latest …

    Developer 20 Apr 2005, 07:22

  • Privacy groups slam US passport technology

    American tracking

    SEATTLE - Privacy advocates took the US government to task last week for the government's plans to add a wireless chips to next-generation passports. The concerns focus on the US government's initiative to create machine-readable passports that will be rolled out to the diplomatic corps this year and to the general public …

    Music and Media 20 Apr 2005, 07:29

  • Privacy from the trenches

    How the public are inured to data breaches

    The recent string of high profile security breaches doesn't even hit the radar of the average user worried about the privacy of his personal information. Sometimes the timing of events is off... ironically, painfully off. One of the best poets to come out of World War I was Wilfred Owen, a young, sensitive Englishman who went …

    Security 20 Apr 2005, 07:30

  • Denzel Washington fights theatre mobe menace

    Verily, sirrah, thy accurs'd phone ringeth

    We've just spotted a rather strange snippet from AP which says that noted thespo Denzel Washington has devised a cunning plan to deal with mobile phones ringing during performances of the Broadway revival of Julius Caesar. Washington plays Brutus, and told CBS's 60 Minutes: "One of these days I'm going to respond in iambic …

    Bootnotes 20 Apr 2005, 09:32

  • Giant iceberg slams into glacial tongue

    Continental traffic police are en route

    An iceberg the size of Long Island has collided with the Drygalski ice tongue in Antarctica, breaking off a sizeable chunk of the glacial outflow. Maps of the continent will, they say, have to be re-drawn. The 115-kilometre-long berg crashed into the floating extension of the glacier on 15 April, tearing a five-kilometre chunk …

    Science 20 Apr 2005, 09:46

  • Computacenter issues profit warning

    Low margins to blame

    Computacenter has issued a full-year profit warning for 2005, just a month after reporting its 2004 results. The warning sent shares on an 11 per cent, or 33 pence slide early Wednesday morning. It warned that unless market conditions change, its profits would be "substantially below last year" when it reported profit of £67.3m …

    Financial News 20 Apr 2005, 10:40

  • Administrators take over at ITM Group

    Investors refuse further support

    Amersham-based reseller ITM Group Ltd went into administration last Friday (15 April) after its backers withdrew further financial support. The majority of ITM's 100 staff have been made redundant. The administrators, Andrew Duncan and Andrew Stoneman of Menzies Corporate Restructuring, said in a statement that ITM Group …

    Financial News 20 Apr 2005, 10:51

  • Tech blogger cybersquats God's Rottweiler

    BenedictXVI.com

    A Florida-based tech writer has pulled off a nice coup by acquiring BenedictXVI.com almost three weeks before Joseph Ratzinger ascended to the Papacy. Rogers Cadenhead bought a raft of potential papal domains on 1 April - including ClementXV.com, InnocentXIV.com, LeoXIV.com, PaulVII.com and PiusXII.com - but hit the jackpot by …

    Music and Media 20 Apr 2005, 11:06

  • Net ads work - sometimes

    That's what they say

    One in four net users has purchased something online after clicking through an internet ad. This piece of research - which is kinda interesting to some and, at the same time, of no interest whatsoever to many others - is just one of the findings contained in a survey conducted by internet outfit Crystal Semantics. Its probing …

    Financial News 20 Apr 2005, 11:46

  • Apple UK's Bullring store to open for Tiger

    Brum deal

    Apple's second UK High Street store will open its doors next week, timing the popping of the portals to coincide with the official release of Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger. The store, in Birmingham's rebuilt Bullring Shopping Centre, will open at 6PM on Friday, 29 April. It's on Level 3 of Upper Mall West. To tempt shoppers and Mac fans …

    Mac Channel 20 Apr 2005, 11:59

  • UK teens fail to embrace net porn

    UK's 'web-savvy' rating suffers accordingly

    A UK government survey has found that just 12 per cent of 13 to 18-year-olds avail themselves of "adult-only" websites, preferring instead to use the internet to assist in doing homework or for news. Indeed, the eight-year survey of 6,400 pupils in England - carried out by the National Foundation for Educational Research on …

    Financial News 20 Apr 2005, 12:37

  • The evolution of the data center

    We need management software that spans the common platforms

    The data center has its origins in mainframe computing - an era that had its virtues as well as its limitations. Its limitations are well known. Computer power was rationed to IT users and they were regimented in its use. They had little choice in the way business applications evolved and any kind of change to applications took …

    Servers 20 Apr 2005, 12:39

  • Nicer bosses retain more (female) staff

    What a shocker

    Supportive management is the single most important factor in retaining female staff, a global survey has found. The survey, commissioned by Dell, questioned female managers at companies in 35 countries around the world about attitudes, perceptions and triggers of female managers in big international companies. The results were …

    IT Director 20 Apr 2005, 12:47

  • Amazon books deal with Marks & Sparks

    Warning: Gag-free story, nothing funny here, promise

    Book outfit Amazon is to help Marks & Spencer flog its gear online because the UK retailer's previous stab at ecommerce hasn't been up to scratch. Amazon will host and provide all the techie stuff behind Marks & Sparks' website including in-store and telephone ordering, and customer services systems. M&S will continue to …

    Financial News 20 Apr 2005, 13:05

  • Why do people hate Oracle?

    Comment Is Oracle vulnerable?

    I have on my bookshelf a book called "Why do people hate America?" by Ziauddin Sardar and Merryl Wyn Davies, which explores the cultural and other reasons why large segments of the world - in the Middle East, the developing world and Europe - really do hate America. It occurred to me that while there are a good many people that …

    Applications 20 Apr 2005, 13:25

  • Nokia ups the heat in its battle with BREW

    Harnessing developers

    Why is Nokia hosting a party in Prague for 60 mobile operators and software writers? It's only a couple of months since Qualcomm put heavy pressure on the GSM world by announcing that BREW applications can now run on GSM phones. It's a threat Nokia can't leave unchallenged. So it has invited operators and software designers to …

    Mobile 20 Apr 2005, 14:15

  • eBayer pleads guilty to 'anthrax' scare

    Coughs to 'stupid, foolish act'

    A UK man has admitted threatening to kill an eBay trader after a DVD drive he ordered failed to show up. Daniel Finch, 31, from Humberston in Lincolnshire, was so hacked off with eBay trader David Mackie when the £40 DVD drive he ordered failed to arrived, he sent two letters to the trader both containing white powder. When …

    Bootnotes 20 Apr 2005, 14:20

  • Boffins five quarks short of a sub-atomic particle

    No joy in pentaquark hunt

    A theoretical sub-atomic particle reportedly discovered in 2003 doesn't exist after all, scientists have discovered. The elusive pentaquark - comprising five quarks - failed to put in an appearance during experiments at Thomas Jefferson National Accelerator Facility in Virginia specifically carried out to search for the little …

    Science 20 Apr 2005, 14:23

  • PC World found guilty of selling old computers as new

    'Shop worn' kit was secondhand

    PC World's parent company was left red-faced and considering its legal options this week after it was found guilty of mis-selling computer equipment. A Yorkshire court heard how buyers were fooled into thinking that they were getting new computer equipment while they were - in fact - not only getting secondhand kit, and in one …

    Financial News 20 Apr 2005, 15:39

  • Congress legalizes DVD censorship

    Child-friendly content wants to be free

    It will soon become legal to alter a motion picture so long as all the sex, profanity, and violence have been edited out, thanks to a bill called the Family Movie Act, an attachment to the Family Entertainment and Copyright Act approved Tuesday by the House. The Senate has already passed its own version, and the President is …

    Music and Media 20 Apr 2005, 15:59

  • Desktop Linux, hidden mobile phones and Prince Harry

    Letters Most mixed bag ever

    We don't like to shy away from controversy here at El Reg as regular readers will know, so let's kick off with the Linux-on-the-desktop, why-hasn't-it-taken-off-yet? debate. We have donned our flame-proof underpants, and are prepared for anything you can throw at us: I have to disagree with your comment that Linux on the …

    Letters 20 Apr 2005, 16:20

  • Macrovision DRM patents challenge fails

    Plans licences elsewhere

    It's not completely over yet, but it appears that Macrovision's challenge to the core Intertrust DRM patents, is now likely to fail. The United States Board of Patent Appeals and Interferences issued a ruling last week that concluded that key InterTrust patents have priority over the Macrovision claims. A few years ago …

    Music and Media 20 Apr 2005, 16:25

  • WiPhishing hack risk warning

    More tales of wireless security paranoia

    You've heard of war driving and phishing but now there's yet another reason to wear a tin-foil hat every time you surf the net. "WiPhishing" (pronounced why phishing) involves covertly setting up a wireless enabled laptop or access point in order to get wireless-enabled laptops to associate with it as a prelude to hacking …

    Enterprise Security 20 Apr 2005, 16:29

  • You're going to be taxed for music and love it!

    Book review The Future of Music is now

    Long before Napster existed, the music industry condemned itself to a broken sales model. It guaranteed piracy, huge online song swaps and declining revenue. Luckily, none of this has much to do with the health of music. Music is thriving like never before. It's the moguls and not the musicians who are hurting. This is the …

    Music and Media 20 Apr 2005, 19:03

  • EFF founder must be cheered for founding EFF - EFF Founder

    Letters He made it. Now it made him

    If you think that backslapping awards and honorific titles are a feudal relic - an archaic and degenerate indulgence of the old world's imperial plutocracies, think again. They're alive and well in the New World - and flourishing in the even Newer World of Cyberspace! Which, we can't help noticing, has its own self- …

    Letters 20 Apr 2005, 22:26