21st June 2005 Archive

Browse by publication date, or search the site.

Employment Practices Data Protection Code: now consolidated

Manual for employers

The Information Commissioner’s Office has published the first complete volume of the Employment Practices Data Protection Code, providing guidance for employers when dealing with data protection issues affecting their workers. “Developments in technology, changes in the law and new working practices are putting the spotlight on …

Small Biz 21 Jun 2005, 09:33
SOA ready for the masses?

The jury's in

Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) is the Big Thing of the moment – taking the last Big Thing of Web Services and moving towards the next Big Thing of Utility / Grid Computing. Well, that’s what the vendors want you to believe, anyway – and with the majority of vendors agreeing on one thing – that SOA can be spun to their …

Developer 21 Jun 2005, 09:33
Moseley mops up Proxim’s assets

Distress sale

Once a top three wireless LAN player and with a peak share price of $250, Proxim filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection last week with its shares down at 32 cents, less than three per cent share of the Wi-Fi market, and facing delisting from the Nasdaq exchange. Its first action was to sell “substantially all assets” to …

Wireless 21 Jun 2005, 09:33
Nokia shifting to Linux as it joins with Apple to challenge Windows 2

Analysis Who's riding on whose coat-tails?

Nokia’s ambitious bid to make the mobile phone as important a client device for business and leisure as the notebook PC took another important turn last week with news that it has created a browser in collaboration with Apple, which will be managed under the open source process. This starts to address awkward web browsing, a …

Mobile 21 Jun 2005, 09:33
Airline passengers love inflight SMS, hate voice calls

HELLO! I'M ON A PLANE!

The ban on mobile phones on airplanes may soon be lifted, but most people are opposed to their use in-flight for voice calls. That's according to a worldwide survey by IDC which indicated that far from supporting a lifting of the ban by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) in the US, a number of consumer groups claim the …

Mobile 21 Jun 2005, 09:33
Microsoft sues German spammer

For you deplored one, the spam war is over

Microsoft is taking legal action against an alleged spammer now resident in Germany. The company has not been named but it is based in North Rhine-Westphalia. Microsoft accuses it, and its managing director, of sending millions of spam emails advertising web design companies, online casinos and porn sites. Some Hotmail …

Spam 21 Jun 2005, 09:42
Rats fingered for knocking out NZ's phone network

Pesky things

Rats are being blamed for crippling New Zealand's telecoms network yesterday leaving thousands of punters without phone or internet access. Rodents are now thought to have been responsible for severing a fibre on a bridge in the Rimutaka area on New Zealand's North Island. "Services through that fibre were able to be routed …

Telecoms 21 Jun 2005, 09:58
Apple sued over iTunes - again

Patent infringement claim

Apple has been accused of infringing a patent that is claimed to cover the design of its popular iTunes music jukebox software. Earlier this month, US-based Contois Music and Technology filed a lawsuit with the Vermont District Court alleging that iTunes infringes US patent number 5,864,868, according to an AppleInsider report …

Financial News 21 Jun 2005, 10:37
PayPal goes after small biz

PayPal for pros

Online payment specialist PayPal is going after small business customers with a package of services called Website Payments Pro. The service offers three levels of service for different businesses - Express Checkout, Direct Payment API and Virtual Terminal. Express Checkout is for PayPal account holders who will be able to pay …

Small Biz 21 Jun 2005, 10:49
Sky readies 'on-demand' PC content service

You'll need your own broadband connection though

Sky viewers are to get the chance to download movies and sports via their PCs when the British satellite outfit unveils a new "on-demand" service later this year. Subscribers to Sky Sports will be able to download match highlights, interviews, Sky Sports News bulletins and other footage while Sky Movies punters will have the …

Telecoms 21 Jun 2005, 10:52
Blu-ray, HD DVD merger talks scrapped

Parties can't agree

The two, rival blue-laser optical storage formats, Blu-ray Disc and HD DVD, will not be coming together, Sony Computer Entertainment president Ken Kutaragi admitted yesterday. Talks between the BD-backing Sony and HD DVD cheerleader Toshiba have ended, he said, in an interview with Nikkei Electronics. Surprise, surprise. …

Peripherals 21 Jun 2005, 11:01
EU jettisons software patent amendments

Big business happy

The European Directive on Computer Implemented Inventions edged closer to becoming law, yesterday, when the Parliamentary JURI committee voted to scrap most of the amendments to the directive put in place to restrict the patentability of pure software inventions. Some of the changes proposed by Michel Roccard, the bill's …

Software 21 Jun 2005, 11:40
Open Source lab for local councils

Testing, testing...

Local councils looking to move to Open Source software will find it easier to test possible solutions with the opening of a dedicated lab in Manchester. The National Computing Centre has opened the Open Source Laboratory as part of the Open Source Academy funded by the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister. The lab has already …

Public Sector 21 Jun 2005, 11:45
Even Bigger Brother

ID card critics stage public meeting

No2ID, the national coalition against ID cards, is to hold a free public meeting about the UK government's controversial ID card plans next week. The seminar will be held at 7pm on 29 June, the day after the second reading in the Commons of the ID Cards Bill at the Old Cinema of the University of Westminster on Regents Street in …

ID 21 Jun 2005, 11:50
Medea gains UK solus for HP optical media

Also, new franchises for Azlan and Target

Medea International, the Dundee-based IT products wholesaler, has secured exclusive UK rights to distribute HP’s new line of optical storage media. Customers can burn their own designs on to the HP-branded DVD and CDD optical media, thanks to Lightscribe, a special coating used on the upper surface of the discs. Of course you …

Channel Register 21 Jun 2005, 11:52
Navicore GPS for Symbian

Review Take a trip with your smart phone

Selling PDAs on the back of GPS-based navigation systems has proved so successful in Western Europe, it was only a matter of time before suppliers turned to phones as the next platform for their route-planning software. It's a slightly different proposition, of course. PDA-based navigation kits are sold as complete packages, …

Reviews 21 Jun 2005, 12:52
Cisco branches out into middleware

Climbs up the application stack

Cisco announced plans on Tuesday to expand out of its core routing business into messaging middleware. The first product from Cisco's Application-Oriented Network (AON) initiative, which aims to embed application aware traffic management into network infrastructures, are due to become generally available by the end of the year …

Data Networking 21 Jun 2005, 14:00
Blast off for solar-sail test craft

Sun blows

A privately-funded spacecraft powered by a solar sail is set for launch this evening. The Cosmos-1 mission will be launched into orbit from a Russian submarine in the Barents Sea, in the Arctic Ocean, this evening at 8:46pm, UK time. The craft will power its way to a 500 mile-high orbit atop a modified Volna intercontinental …

Science 21 Jun 2005, 14:22
Freedom2Surf unveils 8meg service

LLU at work

Independent UK ISP Freedom2Surf has cut the ribbon on a new 8 meg ADSL package delivered courtesy of local loop unbundling (LLU) outfit EasyNet. The service - "8Mbit Connect Package" - costs from just £14.99 a month (usage limits apply) although availability is restricted to a handful of telephone exchanges to start with. …

Telecoms 21 Jun 2005, 14:40
Telewest trials webcast TV

TV or not TV, that is the question

Broadband users can now access a web-based TV service as part of trial by UK cableco Telewest. The service is currently made up of four channels and includes content such as entertainment, films and sports. And unlike "on-demand" services such as those announced by UK satellite TV outfit Sky, these channels are "broadcast" in …

Telecoms 21 Jun 2005, 14:50
LogicaCMG goes down the Tube

Metronet's IT is outsourced

Metronet, one of London Underground's private partners responsible for maintaining large portions of the tube network, has outsourced its IT service and support to LogicaCMG in a six-year deal worth £18m. LogicaCMG will provide a service desk for all end users, remote management of Metronet's IT infrastructure, and desktop, …

IT Director 21 Jun 2005, 15:35
HP's Mr Blade opens Intel's power envelope to all

More Watts than you can shake an Opteron at

Many of you probably don't know HP's Mr Blade. You should. He's one cool character and full of information on Intel's upcoming Xeon processors. Mr Blade - aka Ken Baker, an Infrastructure Technologist at HP - gives a vague outline of the TDP (thermal design power) figures on the Xeons, in a presentation that has leaked to the …

Servers 21 Jun 2005, 16:20
Unauthorised research opened door to MasterCard breach

Comedy of errors

The head of the card processing firm blamed for a security breach affecting anything up to 40m credit card numbers has admitted it wasn't supposed to hold the compromised data. John M. Perry, chief exec of CardSystems Solutions, told the New York Times that the data was being kept for "research purposes". MasterCard said that …

ID 21 Jun 2005, 16:28
No more mister nice guy: EMI, Sony-BMG revisit CD copy protection

Lack of Fairplay

Both Sony-BMG and EMI have made statements this week that most of their CDs for their major markets will have copy protection placed on them. Sony BMG is a customer for SunnComm while EMI is using the Macrovision CDS 300 technology. But Sony-BMG also used the opportunity to seed anti-Apple sentiment among the US press, …

Personal 21 Jun 2005, 16:44
Orlando axes free muni Wi-Fi

Not enough bloggers

The city of Orlando in Florida has pulled the plug on the city's free Wi-Fi service. Although the city has a population of over 1.8m, only around 27 people a day were using the service, which was costing the district $1,800 a month. Metropolitan Wi-Fi has become the new cause for the internet lobby ever since the short-lived …

Data Networking 21 Jun 2005, 20:08