18th May 2005 Archive

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IBM: we have simplified our software

Apparently

Steve Mills, IBM's head of software, says the company has made "significant" inroads in simplifying installation and management for customers. IBM has changed the way it develops and manages its diverse set of product code bases, having bought 42 software companies - each with differing code bases - during the last 10 years, he …

Software 18 May 2005, 06:46
Politics hurting web services - Gartner

These standards 'ain't what they used to be

Vendor politics are clouding development of web services specifications and causing confusion and adding unnecessary complexity. That's according to Gartner, which has added its voice to a growing chorus of concern that the industry is moving away from simplified interoperability between different platforms - which was one of …

Software 18 May 2005, 06:59
Nokia spreads N-Gage across phone range

Console not quite dead yet?

Nokia didn't use the E3 games show to announce a third-generation N-Gage console, but it did announce that N-Gage games would be supported across its range of Series 60 smartphones. Thanks to DRM workarounds, N-Gage games are already playable on Symbian handsets, after a fashion, but this gives them the official blessing, and …

Mobile 18 May 2005, 09:49
Yahoo! tests! VoIP!

Guns for Skype with full duplex voice chat

Yahoo! has begun beta-testing its latest Messenger client, rewritten to support VoIP-quality, full duplex, voice chat over broadband. The software works around firewalls using NAT but doesn't, as yet, reach to the POTS phone network - it's PC to PC only, for now. Leader Skype offers this capability, albeit thanks to a hokey …

Telecoms 18 May 2005, 09:50
Microsoft sued over Excel

Guatemalan inventor claims $500m

A Guatemalan inventor claims Microsoft is illegally using his software to transfer information between its spreadsheet products Excel and Access. Carlos Armando Amado says he filed a patent in 1990 for software which lets users move data between Excel to Access via a spreadsheet. He tried to sell it to Microsoft two years later …

Applications 18 May 2005, 09:55
Sears sacks CSC

Pulls plug on $1.6bn contract

US retailer Sears Roebuck has pulled out of ten-year IT services agreement with CSC claiming the company is in breach of its contract. In a filing with the SEC, Sears said it was ending its contract with CSC “due to CSC's failure to perform certain of its obligations”. The contract was signed in June 2004 and gave CSC …

Channel Register 18 May 2005, 09:59
Nokia starts to shift N-Gage from console to platform

Technology to be included in smart phones

How ironic. When Nokia launched the N-Gage back in 2003, it insisted the device was a console first and a phone second. But you're a phone company, we said, of course it's a phone that plays games. No, Nokia insisted, N-Gage is a handheld games platform that just happens to allow you to make calls, send texts etc. How the world …

Consoles 18 May 2005, 10:00
UK IT bosses confused about governance

Looks good on paper

IT heads in the UK are convinced that better IT governance will impress senior management, but few of them have the money to invest in better systems. Research from the Economist Intelligence Unit, commissioned by Mercury Interactive, showed that chief information officers around the world think that better IT governance will …

IT Director 18 May 2005, 10:03
PalmOne launches LifeDrive

PDA meets iPod

PalmOne has launched its $500 hard drive-equipped LifeDrive PDA - until recently the Tungsten X - as anticipated. And it's pretty much what the leaks had suggested: the 190g unit measures 12.1 x 7.3 x 1.9cm and packs in a 4GB hard drive, 3.9GB of which is available to the user. There's 16MB of ROM, but no RAM, according to …

Mobile 18 May 2005, 10:34
Software piracy down, but piracy losses up

$33bn global shortfall, gasps BSA

More than a quarter (27 per cent) of software in use in UK last year was pirated. The figure is down two percentage points from 29 per cent in 2003, but still represents a huge loss to software developers according to a global software piracy study by IDC, sponsored by the Business Software Alliance (BSA). Thirty-five percent …

Software 18 May 2005, 10:48
Napster vows to maintain premium pricing

Won't 'discount' like Yahoo!

Napster will not cut its music subscription prices to match those of rival service Yahoo! Universal Music (YUM), company CEO Chris Gorog said this week. Napster current charges subscribers $10 and $15 for its standard and premium services, respectively. YUM, which launched last week, is charging $7 for the equivalent of Napster …

Financial News 18 May 2005, 10:52
PC prices continue to fall

Europeans enjoying more for less

Prices for desktop computers continued to fall through the first quarter of the year with three out of ten machines now selling for less than €500. Researchers at Context looked at indirect sales business and consumers in eight European countries. The trend was most advanced in Sweden where more than half of computers sold in …

Channel Register 18 May 2005, 10:56
USAF seeks space weapon mandate

Star Wars II?

The New York Times revealed yesterday that the US Air Force is lobbying president Bush to approve a national security directive which "could move the United States closer to fielding offensive and defensive space weapons". According to the paper, a senior administration official confirmed that the USAF is looking for a new …

Science 18 May 2005, 10:58
ISS oxygen generator claps out again

Hold your breath...

The oxygen generator on board the International Space Station has broken down again, according to reports. Russian news agency Interfax quotes an anonymous source at Russian Mission Control as saying that the troubled Elektron generator, designed to converts waste water into hydrogen and oxygen gases, is on the blink again: "At …

Science 18 May 2005, 11:27
Reg to BBC: we want our weather flat

3D maps? WTF?

The BBC's decision to switch from the traditional flat weather map to a so-called "virtual reality weather map" - introduced on Monday - has caused a bit of a rumpus among viewers, not least those of us at Vulture Central who like our weather flat, with fronts, pressures and wind directions clearly marked, and sun and cloud …

Bootnotes 18 May 2005, 11:30
Nintendo re-clads GBA as Game Boy Micro

Wants to look good next to an iPod

Nintendo is to re-release its Game Boy Advance SP handheld games console in a new slimline casing and re-brand it as the Game Boy Micro, the company announced yesterday. The Micro's 10 x 5 x 1.8cm silver shell is pitched at consumers who have become accustomed to stylish personal music players rather than the boxy, plastic game …

Consoles 18 May 2005, 12:01
Home PCs launch phishing attacks

Honeynet project dissects the risks

Phishing attacks are growing more sophisticated as attackers devise ever more devious means to stay at least one step ahead of banks and others fighting the contain fraudulent scams, according to a study from The Honeynet Project. The report, Know your Enemy: Phishing, draws on data collected by the German Honeynet Project and …

Spam 18 May 2005, 12:03
Kinky shopper KOed by vibrating knickers

The IT angle? Who cares?

The following cautionary tale must surely rate in the top five of "most embarrassing things that can happen to you in public - ever". According to UK tabloid the Sun, a 33-year-old Welsh housewife ended up in hospital after wearing Ann Summers vibrating Passion Pants to her local Asda supermarket in Swansea. Unfortunately, she …

Bootnotes 18 May 2005, 12:04
C++ Coding Standards at 30% off

Site offer Award winning book, big discount

Consistent, high-quality coding standards improve software quality, reduce time-to-market, promote teamwork, eliminate time wasted on inconsequential matters, and simplify maintenance. Now, in the Jolt Productivity Award winning title C++ Coding Standards, two of the world's most respected C++ experts distill the rich …

Site News 18 May 2005, 12:13
Enterprise WLAN sales fell in Q1 - again

Buyers wait for vendor merry-go-round to stop

Enterprise-oriented wireless networking equipment makers experienced their second consecutive quarterly decline in sales during the first three months of the year, market watcher Dell'Oro said today. Sales were down six per cent on the previous quarter, the researcher said. The decline centres on the changes underway among …

Data Networking 18 May 2005, 12:35
eBay hails reverse auctions success

US feature may go international

eBay is likely to extend its “Want it Now” feature because it has been so successful in the US. The feature was introduced stateside before Christmas and allows registered eBay users to put up the equivalent of a wanted ad for objects they want to buy. So punters are free to post a request for their very own likeness of Virgin …

Financial News 18 May 2005, 13:46
EDS UK cuts jobs

Calls for volunteers

EDS might have sneaked into profit for the last quarter but it doesn’t look like it's enough to safeguard jobs in the UK. The services giant sent an email earlier today to UK employees offering them voluntary redundancy. According to an internal email obtained by El Reg, EDS staff at Applications and Information Technology …

Channel Register 18 May 2005, 14:00
Captain Cyborg to write UK science funding guidelines

Mutilating expertise

Uncowed by public ridicule, attention-seeker Professor Kevin Warwick has been appointed to a panel that will determine the basis for public research funding decisions for the UK's higher education institutions. Captain Cyborg is one of twelve panelists chosen to set the criteria for public research funding in the UK's …

Science 18 May 2005, 14:24
EU takes axe to software patents directive

Substantial alterations

The European parliament has renewed it opposition to the software patents directive, by making substantial alterations to the draft. The Financial Times says it has seen a copy of the amended directive, penned by the bill's rapporteur, Michel Rocard. Under the terms of Rocard's draft, software would only be patentable if it …

Software 18 May 2005, 14:34
Google can take the web, yawn readers

Letters World domination cancelled due to lack of interest

Bad news for Google - it won't be taking over the world with its Web Accelerator any time soon. That's because the web is much less important, compared to other internet services, than the giant web search engines like to think. "If they really want to sink their brand into this," yawns one mightily-unimpressed Reg reader, " …

Letters 18 May 2005, 14:43
Coming soon: the 10-year nuclear battery

Betavoltaics a-go-go

Scientists in the US have developed a new fabrication technique that will lead to nuclear batteries that could last for decades. The researchers, based at the University of Rochester, claim that the technique is already ten times more efficient than current nuclear batteries, and has the potential to outstrip them nearly 200 …

Science 18 May 2005, 16:41
15,000 HP workers get nervous as analyst predicts massive job cuts

We miss you, Carly!

HP's new CEO Mark Hurd could order 15,000 workers canned in the very near future, according to a leading financial analyst. "We expect that CEO Hurd will likely articulate his detailed plan for improving HP sometime over the next two months, and we do expect material workforce reductions - likely numbering 5 percent to 10 …

IT Director 18 May 2005, 16:54
Over-compliance is the new compliance, says former SEC Chairman

Minimal muster is for losers

Compliance. Compliance. Compliance. You can't escape it these days. The word has been tossed about in the public domain so often that the concept it represents has lost some of its meaning. Vendors of all types have stapled "Compliance" onto whatever product they find laying around, hoping fear might generate a sale. Despite …

Public Sector 18 May 2005, 20:20
Battered HP storage staff deliver plethora of product

New EVAs and a NAS dynamo

HP this week did its best to revitalize a flagging storage line by throwing a ton of new kit out into the wild. Most significantly, HP firmed up the languishing EVA (Enterprise Virtual Array) storage line with three new systems. The EVA 4000, 6000 and 8000 will replace the EVA 3000 and 5000 boxes that have been around for ages …

Storage 18 May 2005, 21:12