25th May 2005 Archive

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ID cards: Part II

Back to the House today

Home Secretary Charles Clarke is expected to reintroduce the government’s proposal for compulsory ID cards later today. Clarke will reintroduce legislation this afternoon. He accepted there were genuine concerns about the previous Bill and offered to meet critics concerned about civil liberties, according to the BBC. Defending …

Public Sector 25 May 2005, 08:50
IBM puts a little Tivoli in Rational

More sharing

IBM's developer tools business is adopting features from IBM's Tivoli management suite to help improve detection and resolution of problems in applications. IBM Rational announced the Problem Resolution Toolkit for IBM Rational Application Developer and the Performance Optimization Toolkit for Rational Performance tester at its …

Software 25 May 2005, 08:56
Microsoft going to JavaOne

No hidden agenda, just education. Honest

Having braved the open source faithful at LinuxWorld, Microsoft is turning its attention to Java, with plans for a formal presence at JavaOne next month. Microsoft's appearance at Sun Microsystems' annual Java jamboree in San Francisco will be the first since the companies settled their differences and agreed to work on …

Software 25 May 2005, 09:11
Intel's platform shift

Chipset-tastic

This story has expired from The Register's archive. You can now find it at its original location on the Forbes.com website: http://www.forbes.com/business/2005/05/24/cx_ah_0524intc.html?partner=theregister.

PCs 25 May 2005, 09:19
IBM, Sony: We'll open Cell

Targets specs at Linux community

IBM, Sony and Toshiba have vowed to open the specifications to the Cell processor to the world, and provide libraries for software libre developers. The news comes three days after the Wall Street Journal published a story that Apple was seriously looking at Intel chips for future systems. IBM is Apple's primary source of CPUs …

Mobile 25 May 2005, 09:30
Symbian appoints new CEO

Telecoms veteran

Symbian has selected a new CEO to replace now-departed helmsman David Levin. Nigel Clifford joins the smart-phone software developer next month. He arrives from a stint as chief executive of Tertio Telecoms, and he spent two years as a senior VP with Cable & Wireless, serving on the company's UK board. Before that, from 1992, …

Financial News 25 May 2005, 09:40
Italian police find child torture site

Nearly 200 face charges

Three Catholic priests, a police officer and a social worker are among 186 people reportedly under investigation in Italy this morning after authorities shut down a child torture website. The website hosted pictures and videos of children between four and eight being sexually abused and tortured. Police are still investigating …

Music and Media 25 May 2005, 09:50
Rambus calls on co-founder to forecast future

Horowitz' horoscope

Rambus has turned to one of its two founders to point the company in the right technological direction. The memory technology developer yesterday announced that it had appointed co-founder Mark Horowitz as its chief scientist, reporting directly to CEO Harold Hughes. The appointment appears to formalise a broader technology …

PCs 25 May 2005, 09:53
Intel EOLs Mobile P4 chips

Farewell, NetBurst-for-notebooks chips

It was always going to happen, of course, but Intel's plan to kill off the Mobile Pentium 4 processor has come slightly later than anticipated. The vendor confirmed this week the NetBurst-for-notebooks chips will only be available to order through to 19 August. The death of the chip family was heralded in February 2004, by …

PCs 25 May 2005, 09:57
Oz eBayers must pay tax

Strewth... How much?

The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission has convinced eBay Australia to alter its policy on adding Goods and Services Tax onto successful bids. From 13 June all eBay sellers will be required to include the ten per cent tax on any relevant items they are auctioning. The ACCC said it had been contacted by successful …

Financial News 25 May 2005, 10:03
AMD prints 'Pacifica' virtualisation spec

Claims best architecture to host multiple OSes

AMD has published its 'Pacifica' specification - its answer to Intel's Virtualisation Technology (VT), which is intended to allow a desktop or server to run multiple operating systems simultaneously. Intel is expected to announce VT-enabled Pentium 4 processors soon, possibly even this week, well ahead of its schedule for …

Servers 25 May 2005, 10:12
Build intelligence .NET with AI

Site offer Save 30% on .NET guides

Artificial intelligence (AI) has been in existence almost as long as computers. Most people do not realize that AI-based technologies are being utilized every day and only recently have AI techniques been widely incorporated by companies to enhance traditional business applications. Building Intelligent .NET Applications is an …

Site News 25 May 2005, 10:54
EMC Invista provokes technology race

It's all go in storage virtualisation

There is rarely a dull day in the wild and madly exciting world of storage and storage management. Those bygone days, when talking (or writing) about storage systems would fill most people’s minds with dread and thoughts of sleep, are well and truly behind us. Well, almost. Last week witnessed EMC, one of the industry’s giants, …

Storage 25 May 2005, 10:55
Wanadoo broadband - 'you can go faster for less'

Says ad watchdog

Wanadoo UK - in the good old days it used to be called Freeserve - has been ticked off for bragging about its broadband service. Its ad claiming "You can't go faster for less" just simply isn't true, according to the UK's advertising watchdog responding to a complaint from BT. Sifting through all the information available, the …

Telecoms 25 May 2005, 10:58
Yahoo! phishing attack targets Star Wars fans

Tricks beware from Dark Side

Hackers are exploiting interest in the new Star Wars film to harvest Yahoo! login credentials. The attack is initiated when a user clicks on a malicious link (yahoopremium.bravehost.com/STAR_GAMES) sent to them from a user on their buddy list. Once at the website, the user is encouraged to enter their Yahoo credentials. Upon …

Anti-Virus 25 May 2005, 11:03
Witty worm traced to 'Patient Zero'

Single European computer fingered

The Witty worm, which infected more than 12,000 servers a year ago, came from a single computer in Europe and used a US military base's vulnerable systems to kick-start the epidemic, according to an analysis released by three researchers this week. The researchers combined records from the initial spread of the Witty worm along …

Anti-Virus 25 May 2005, 11:19
Google Books under fire

Publishers complain

Google’s plan to digitise thousands of out-of-copyright text books came under fire yesterday from a group of leading US publishers. The Association of American University Presses wrote to the search behemoth on Friday outlining its concerns. The AAUP represents 125 academic publishers. At issue is Google’s right to reproduce …

Music and Media 25 May 2005, 11:26
O2 sponsors white elephant

Cheerio 'Millennium Dome', hello 'The O2'

O2 has confirmed it is to sponsor London's most prominent white elephant by renaming The Millennium Dome "The O2". The mobilephoneco - which is axing some 500 jobs including some 200 IT staff as part of a major restructuring - is spending £6m a year for its tie-up with London's big tent. Teaming up with giant entertainment …

Mobile 25 May 2005, 11:28
Government issues NHS records guarantee

New rules on security and patient rights

New rules on the security of information to be held in the NHS Care Records Service, which will start rolling out across England next year, were published by the Government yesterday. It hopes that the rules will calm fears of privacy abuses. The Service, a nationwide patient health record system, is intended to update the …

Public Sector 25 May 2005, 11:31
EU biometric visa trial opts for the tinfoil sleeve

Clash and burn for single ID dream?

The US-inspired wet dream of a single, global identity document isn't quite dead, but with the announcement of Europe's biometric visa trial this week it doesn't look well. Smartcard specialist Gemplus has got the gig, working with prime contractor Sagem, for an initial trial in France and Belgium, and the visa format to be used …

Music and Media 25 May 2005, 11:45
NetApp busts through banner Q4

Software chips in

Storage dynamo Network Appliance bounded to a stellar fourth quarter and fiscal 2005. NetApp posted 34 per cent growth during its fourth quarter with revenue of $452m. The company's net income surged as well, hitting $63m as compared to $36m in the same period one year earlier. For the full year, NetApp pushed revenue to $1. …

Financial News 25 May 2005, 11:46
NetApp opens fire on EMC

NAS wars

NetApp has opened fire on EMC with the launch of the midrange FAS3020 and 3050, its first family of storage devices to support both Serial-ATA and Fibre Channel drives as primary storage. "In the NAS market it's just us and EMC," asserts Tim Pitcher, the company's newly-promoted European strategy and business development veep. …

Storage 25 May 2005, 11:50
Big torch sale at Cash'n'Carrion

Cash'n'Carrion Top illumination, huge savings

We know how much Reg readers like their hi-tech illumination, and we've managed to secure some limited supplies of Inova LED torches at knock-down prices. Anyone on the look-out for a top-quality torch and not familiar with Inova products should certainly check out the Inova range, offering virtually indestructible aircraft- …

Site News 25 May 2005, 11:53
Galileo seeks clever uses of sat nav

Prizes worth €50k up for grabs

Now that Europe is pressing ahead with its Galileo satellite navigation system, it seems that is a bit stuck for ideas for what to do with it. Enter the Galileo Masters 2005 competition, with a prize of €50,000 of business development support for the European team that comes up with the best idea for an innovative use of the …

Science 25 May 2005, 12:08
Deleting spyware: a criminal act?

Analysis It could be...

On my computer right now I have three anti-spyware programs, three anti-virus programs, and three anti-spam programs, together with a hardware and software firewall, an IPsec VPN, and data level encryption on certain files (and no, this is not intended to be an invitation for you to try to test my security.) The anti-spyware, …

Spyware 25 May 2005, 14:41
Siemens conducts customer ejaculation survey

Come on Siemens

It appears that Siemens Business Services in Germany has developed a rather agreeable sense of humour. It is currently conducting what we reckon is a customer satisfaction survey which invites excited punters to "Come on Siemens". While we're pretty certain that the majority of Siemens' clients would prefer to keep business and …

Bootnotes 25 May 2005, 14:44
Trojan attack takes files hostage

Protection money

Virus writers have taken to extortion with malicious code that can hold documents on infected PCs hostage. The attack attempts to extort money from victims by encoding files on their PCs using a Trojan horse before requesting payment for a decoder tool. The Trojan downloader (download-aag AKA Pgpcoder) exploits a well-known …

Anti-Virus 25 May 2005, 15:19
Nokia unveils $350 Wi-Fi tablet

PAN-tastic, Linux-driven 770

Nokia took the wraps off a Wi-Fi internet tablet today at the LinuxWorld show in New York, the first in a new range of consumer devices from the phone giant. The pocket-sized device has no cellular capability, but boasts an 800x480 screen, runs the Opera browser and will retail for around $350 - less than rival PDAs and some of …

Personal 25 May 2005, 15:29
Directors disqualified for £3m internet scam

No holiday

Two businessmen behind a dodgy internet holiday scam that netted £3m have been disqualified as directors. Nigel Moore of Liverpool Road, Chester, and Paul Charleston of Las Palmeiras, Spain, agreed not to run companies for the next ten years after fleecing £3m from unwary punters over a two-year period, the DTI (Department of …

Financial News 25 May 2005, 15:31
Comet to make 'small loss'

More miserable news from the high street

There was more depressing news from the high street today as Kesa Electricals - Europe's third largest electrical retailing group - reported that its Comet chain is expected to make a small loss for the first half of the year. Sales for the three months to the end of April at UK-based Comet dipped 1.6 per cent to £316.7m with …

Financial News 25 May 2005, 15:34
Spirit reveals Mars' violent past

As Opportunity gets stuck in the sand

Mars rover Opportunity has got itself stuck in a sand trap, while its twin, Spirit, has been gazing at the debris of ancient volcanic eruptions that took place when Mars was a distinctly wetter planet than it is today. NASA scientists say that the Spirit rover has found some really interesting geology. It spent the last couple …

Science 25 May 2005, 15:34
FBI outlines new IT system

Learns $100m lesson from first failure

The FBI has learnt a costly lesson from its disastrous attempt to upgrade its IT systems in the wake of the 9/11 attacks. The "Virtual Case File" system cost $170m and was abandoned in January 2005. It aimed to give access to all FBI files from any office. The federal commission which investigated the attacks was highly …

Public Sector 25 May 2005, 15:36
Patent chief teaches children a lesson about copyrights

There's business in justice

Nothing turns a stomach foul quicker than a sixth-grader lacking sufficient knowledge about copyrights and intellectual property. So, hats off to director of the US Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) Jon Dudas, who yesterday gave a rousing speech at Legacy Elementary School in American Fork, Utah, extolling the virtues of …

Music and Media 25 May 2005, 15:51
Voyager 1: exit stage left

Humanity goes interstellar

Voyager 1 has officially left the solar system, having crossed the so-called termination shock in December last year. The craft crossed the boundary 94 astronomical units (the distance from the Earth to the sun is one AU) from the sun, according to NASA researchers based in Washington DC. The key things to look for, scientists …

Science 25 May 2005, 16:10
UK no longer OECD's broadband laggard

Reasons to be cheerful

The take-up of broadband in the UK has soared over recent years thanks to the increased availability of high-speed internet services and falling prices. Although the UK has come a long way over the last couple of years, compared to the 30 other countries that make up the OECD (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and …

Telecoms 25 May 2005, 16:13
UK ID scheme rides again, as biggest ID fraud of them all

Analysis ID theft and the £1.3bn lie

Home Secretary Charles Clarke is "aware of the genuine concerns" over the UK ID scheme, but the Bill his department reintroduced to Parliament today is, according to Home Office Minister Tony McNulty, "in essence... the same Bill" as the one that fell prior to the general election. So, it would seem that the new-look listening …

Music and Media 25 May 2005, 16:39
Qwest turns back on MCI bid

Forget about it

Qwest Communications has finally given up on its pursuit of MCI, despite having a larger bid than rival Verizon Communications. During Qwest's shareholder meeting today, CEO Richard Notebaert delivered the painful news to investors. "We're not looking at MCI," he said, according to a Reuters report. "That's over." And so ends …

Financial News 25 May 2005, 16:47
PGP use ruled relevant in child abuse case

Using crypto? You pervert

A Minnesota appeal court has ruled that a trial judge was within his rights to allow police evidence about the presence of an encryption program on a defendant's computer to be admitted in a child abuse case. The ruling came as the Minnesota State Court of Appeals rejected an appeal by David Levie against his conviction for …

Music and Media 25 May 2005, 17:01