15th June 2005 Archive

Browse by publication date, or search the site.

eBay bows to Saint Bob over Live 8

'Fundamental right' goes wrong

EBay has decided that the capitalist highroad might not be the best path to take in the debate over online Live 8 concert ticket sales. The auction site has worked to pull all sales of Live 8 tickets after first saying it was a consumer's right to try and get the best price for such a possession. People sent in more than 2m …

Financial News 15 Jun 2005, 00:03
Yahoo! buys! Dialpad!

Tell us how this VoIP thing works, exactly

Yahoo! has bought Dialpad, a VoIP net telephony provider, for an undisclosed sum. Launched in 1999, Dialpad offers either prepaid or monthly subscriptions for US customers to make budget calls to the POTS network. Its expertise is billing, something that isn't a strong point for runaway leader Skype, which uses a cobbled …

VoIP 15 Jun 2005, 08:40
Nokia N91: an iPod-class contender?

Preview Hard-disk phone scores high on sociability

Although it's still four to five months away from release, the N91 is shaping up as Nokia's first serious challenge to the booming iPod business: a hard-disk based phone optimized for music playback. We took it through its paces. It's undoubtedly a fine piece of engineering, and feels as robust as anything Nokia has produced. …

Mobile 15 Jun 2005, 08:58
REALbasic 2005 ships for Mac, WinXP, Linux

Linux version free, other OS users to pay

REAL Software has begun shipping the latest incarnation of its cross-platform programming tool, the company said yesterday. Alongside Mac OS X and Windows versions comes the first public beta release of a Linux-hosted version of the IDE. REALbasic 2005 - REAL is dropping standard version numbers for Microsoft-style date-related …

Developer 15 Jun 2005, 09:19
BT unveils Bluephone - finally

Now it's called BT Fusion

BT has finally cut the ribbon on its much-hyped BluePhone - the mobile that thinks it's a landline phone. The telco's creative boutique has also been hard at work and renamed it BT Fusion. Or should that be BT Confusion? When in range of a user's broadband connection (it has to be a BT broadband connection btw), BT Confusion, …

Telecoms 15 Jun 2005, 09:24
Nokia: BenQ, Siemens 'turkeys will not make an eagle'

Gobble, gobble

The folks at Nokia certainly know how to give good quote. Here's the mobile phone giant's take on Siemens' sale of its handset division to Taiwan's BenQ: "Two turkeys won't make an eagle," the company believes. So sayeth one Anssi Vanjoki, head of multimedia at Nokia and a company executive VP, according to a DigiTimes report …

Mobile 15 Jun 2005, 09:33
Poker site cuts IPO price

I'll see you at £1.27 a share

Online poker site PartyGaming is cutting the price of its Initial Public Offering because of concerns that its business may be stymied by US regulators. The majority of PartyGaming's £600m annual turnover comes from US gamblers but the law there is unclear. European investors believe the company is priced too high considering …

Financial News 15 Jun 2005, 09:50
Euro police in child abuse raids

Operation Icebreaker

Police across Europe raided 150 different addresses on Tuesday in a co-ordinated operation targeting individuals suspected of distributing child abuse images online. Large quantities of equipment including computers, laptops, videos and other material containing images of child abuse were seized in raids spanning 13 European …

Music and Media 15 Jun 2005, 10:05
Intel ships 'multi-threading friendly' compilers

Gears up for multi-core software development

Intel has released updated compilers designed to help developers create software tuned to multi-core processors, the company said yesterday. Intel Compilers 9.0 for C++ and Fortran are geared toward multi-thread programming, with appropriate upgrades to the debugging tools needed to polish such complex coding, even after the …

PCs 15 Jun 2005, 10:13
Vodafone Germany goes wireless Lan

Picks The Cloud

Vodafone Germany has done a deal with The Cloud to offer its subscribers access to their wireless Lans across the country. The Cloud will have 1,000 hotspots in Germany ready for Vodafone customers by July and plans to have 10,000 up and running within four years. The service is only available to Vodafone's German subscribers …

Mobile 15 Jun 2005, 10:16
O2 workers set to strike over pay

Bare claws at 'fat cat' bosses

O2 workers look set to strike over a pay dispute with the mobile phone outfit after delegates at a conference voted unanimously for "any action necessary up to and including industrial action in order to receive a fair and just settlement". The Communications Workers Union (CWU) claims some staff haven't received a pay rise for …

Mobile 15 Jun 2005, 10:30
Ericsson allies with Napster on mobile music

Tempts network operators

Ericsson has inked a deal with digital music provider Napster to create an online music service it can pitch to mobile phone network operators. The service will carry the Napster brand and essentially amounts to an upgrade to Ericsson's existing music service. The system supports both over-the-air downloads and transfers made …

Mobile 15 Jun 2005, 10:38
NHJ VTV-201 wrist TV

Review Never miss a thing

Nothing says 'gadget' quite like a watch that does more than tell the time. Yet nothing wastes time like watching TV. So a watch that's a TV too makes for a rather interesting paradox, writes Charlie Brewer. Newly arrived in the UK, Japanese consumer technology company NHJ is treating us to the next generation of mobile media …

Reviews 15 Jun 2005, 11:43
Google finds web-only video clips

Don't mention the porn

Google is finalising a service for searching online video clips. This is different to Google Video which lets you search the subtitles of last night's US TV. The new service will search for relevant video clips online and show you a ten second preview. Browsers will then be sent onto the relevant website to pay for the whole …

Financial News 15 Jun 2005, 11:49
Xbox 360 will 'win' in Japan, MS pledges

Better than last time round

Microsoft will ship its next-generation Xbox 360 console in Japan before the year is out, the company has re-iterated, and it expects to trounce the competition. Speaking to reporters in Asia, Microsoft Japan's Xbox boss, Yoshihiro Maruyama, said the 360 will "enter the Japanese market around December". Microsoft said as much …

Consoles 15 Jun 2005, 11:54
Voda suffers nightime network wobble

It's OK, sleep easy

Vodafone's UK network wobbled a bit last night after scheduled maintenance work took longer than expected. Parts of Voda's mobile network were down between 1am this morning and 8.45am affecting several hundred thousand of the operator's punters. However, since most people would have been tucked up in bed at the time and …

Mobile 15 Jun 2005, 11:56
10 vulns - three critical - in MS patch batch

It's that time of the month again

Microsoft's patch bandwagon rolled into town yesterday loaded with three critical updates and seven other new bulletins. A cumulative security update for Internet Explorer (MS05-025), a vulnerability in Windows HTML Help that could allow hackers to inject hostile code into vulnerable systems (MS05-026) and a security bug in …

Security 15 Jun 2005, 12:12
Robot runs riot at California hospital

Drug dealing dalek driven to distraction

Staff and patients at San Francisco’s UCSF Medical Center were left fearful and shaken last week, when a robotic nurse threw off its shackles and went on the rampage. “Waldo”, a robot used to dispense pills and potions to medical stations at the top notch medical facility, refused to return to the pharmacy to pick up a fresh …

Bootnotes 15 Jun 2005, 13:45
VoiP phones get warning 911 sticker

Warning: this phone may not save your life

The Federal Communications Commission has decided what to do about VoIP phones - it wants manufacuturers to put warning stickers on them. The FCC has been struggling with how to warn people that VoIP phones cannot always be used to make emergency 911 calls. There have been a couple of high profile cases where people trying to …

VoIP 15 Jun 2005, 13:53
Cisco shells out $1m+ a worker for VPN firm

Roman Abramovitch of networking buys talent

Cisco announced a deal on Tuesday to buy VPN start-up M. I. Secure for $13m cash. M. I. Secure must have either super clever technology or smart negotiators because the agreement values the 11 person firm - which has only been operating for eight months - at over $1m per worker. "M.I. Secure has no products or revenue," a Cisco …

Data Networking 15 Jun 2005, 14:20
TalkTalk TemptsTempts SMEsSMEs

Landlines for small biz

The Carphone Warehouse is promising UK firms cheaper calls after confirming that its TalkTalk fixed line phone service is to be made available to small businesses (SMEs). The telco says its phone service is cheaper than business products from BT as it looks to punt TalkTalk Business to the UK's 1.1 million SMEs. A typical …

Small Biz 15 Jun 2005, 14:28
BT 'BluePhone' Fusion is better than Skype because...?

Analysis Heck, beats me...

BT has gone and done it: launched BluePhone under the new name of BT Fusion, even though it still doesn't have a WiFi version, or any way of selling this product. Why? Probably, because it wants to preserve the concept of phone numbers. Fusion is a system which does exactly what the world's phone manufacturers could have done …

Mobile 15 Jun 2005, 14:58
Liberty goes after phishers

Don't take my ID

The Liberty Alliance Project, working on XML-based specifications for federated identity, is extending its remit to tackle the threat to digital identity posed by phishing. Liberty has launched the Identity Theft Protection Group to establish a set of best practices for technology and policy, while also educating businesses and …

ID 15 Jun 2005, 15:06
Don't flog Live 8 tickets on eBay, pleads eBay

Tickets still up for grabs

Live 8 tickets are still being offered for sale on eBay despite the stink kicked up by Bob Geldof. The auction site performed a startling U-turn yesterday after first insisting that it would not pull the sale of tickets and stating "it is a fundamental right for someone to be able to sell something that is theirs whether they …

Financial News 15 Jun 2005, 15:09
Fujitsu recalls 250,000 notebook batteries

Flaming hell...

Fujitsu Siemens is recalling quarter of a million notebook batteries which might just burst into flames. The recall, sorry "proactive exchange program", concerns Amilo notebook computers with a battery model number ending G1L1. There are problems with batteries on Amilo O, A and Pro machines. Anyone with such a machine should …

PCs 15 Jun 2005, 15:11
Pharming casts shadow over rising ecommerce sales

Reason to be fearful?

Online sales jumped 31 per cent in the 12 months prior to March 2005, according to a study by net infrastructure firm VeriSign. Transactions settled by VeriSign Payment Services, which accounts for roughly 37 percent of North American ecommerce, reached $10.69bn between 1 January and 31 March 2005, a new record. The average …

Security 15 Jun 2005, 15:50
IBM goes compute crazy with bladed Opteron cluster

Got horsepower?

IBM's on again, off again relationship with AMD's Opteron processor turned on again this week with word that servers using new dual-core versions of the chip will be placed in large, pre-built clusters. In July, IBM will include both single core and dual-core based Opteron servers in its Cluster 1350 system. Big Blue had …

Servers 15 Jun 2005, 15:59
Make ID cards foolproof pleads Met chief

ITs got to work

The technology behind the UK government's controversial ID card must be "almost foolproof" for the scheme to be effective, the head of the Metropolitan Police has warned. Metropolitan Police Commissioner Sir Ian Blair defended his pre-election support for ID cards in an appearance at the London Assembly while expressing …

ID 15 Jun 2005, 16:31
JBoss goes to Washington

Ministry of application servers

JBoss Inc is sharpening its focus on government spenders by creating the JBoss Government Group, while also promising public sector partners in coming months. JBoss said Wednesday it is making a "long-term commitment" to public sector organizations to help them "avoid proprietary lock-in" and to "save scarce taxpayer dollars" …

Applications 15 Jun 2005, 19:05
Xen grows up with SMP server slicer

Power, Itanium, Solaris x86 and Windows coming

The story is pretty familiar. Software start-up begins selling product for running numerous operating systems on a single server. Big server vendors back the product. Large companies pick up product for use in their data centers. That's the simplistic version of how VMware - now a subsidiary of EMC - came into being. It's also …

Servers 15 Jun 2005, 22:26
Users remain married to Windows 2000

For better or for worse

Microsoft's Windows 2000 client operating system is doing well for its age, a little too well it seems on corporate desktops, according to the latest figures. Forty eight percent of PCs are still running Windows 2000 five years after it was launched and just weeks before Microsoft takes its first steps towards end-of-lifeing …

Operating Systems 15 Jun 2005, 22:37