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17th August 2005 Archive

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  • Microsoft switches on to LAMP

    More secure than open source?

    Microsoft is positioning planned "express" editions of its next developer tools suite and database as "lightweight" alternatives to the open source LAMP stack. Martin Taylor, Microsoft's platform strategy general manager, told The Register SQL Server 2005 Express would allow tables and files to be stored on a web page to …

    Developer 17 Aug 2005, 02:49

  • JBoss welcomes BEA immigrants

    Migrate here

    JBoss has re-packaged its middleware migration services to encourage customers to dump incumbent application servers from rivals like BEA Systems. JBoss said Tuesday it is providing a set of standardized methodologies for customers to create a migration roadmap along with standardized migration tools and training materials for …

    Applications 17 Aug 2005, 02:54

  • Apple scraps 'Return Of The Twitchers' ad campaign

    Remake cancelled

    History has repeated itself - and this time the farce has blown a hole in Apple's advertising strategy. Apple spent a year planning and shooting a sequel to its much mocked "Switchers" ad campaign from three years ago, employing the same agency Moxie, and the same director, Errol Morris, only to can the venture in the post- …

    Mac Channel 17 Aug 2005, 02:57

  • Customers slap Dell for lousy support

    Almost as bad as HP - survey

    Dell customers have struck back following the company's decision to close its Customer Support Forums, by giving Dell's customer support the thumbs down. The volume PC manufacturer was given a decidedly average ranking by customers in a survey of satisfaction ratings, down from the company's second-place position last year and …

    PCs 17 Aug 2005, 03:13

  • HP takes tax hit, but sales up

    No nasty surprises

    Hewlett Packard swallowed hard and took a tax adjustment of almost a billion dollars in its Q3 earnings announced today. HP's cash repatriation on foreign earnings will amount to $14 billion. The tax adjustment of $988 million was required by the American Jobs Creation Act. Excluding the charge, however, HP would have recorded …

    Financial News 17 Aug 2005, 03:56

  • Four found guilty of £40m VAT fraud

    Mobile phone scam

    Four people were found guilty at Maidstone Crown Court on Friday of involvement in a “carousel” VAT fraud that is estimated to have cost HM Revenue & Customs (HMRC) over £40 million over two years. The four – Stephen Michael Pigott from Dubai, Stacey Haber-Hofberg from Hampshire, Joanna Cynthia Harris of London and Theresa …

    Channel Register 17 Aug 2005, 07:55

  • Techscape: RFP is not the one for me

    Jumping through the hoops

    Any salesperson who hasn’t felt the adversarial friction with a corporate procurement officer hasn’t lived. Or hasn’t really sold. CEOs look to their procurement guys for big savings: and these tough-as-nails negotiators want to make their bosses happy. They are obsessed with getting the most for the company in return for the …

    Small Biz 17 Aug 2005, 08:33

  • Evesham goes a bundle with Bullguard

    Security package

    Evesham is to bundle BullGuard Internet security with all its PCs. The software, from London-based BullGuard, incorporates anti-virus, firewall and online back-up protection. Evesham customers get free initial software and support. ®

    Channel Register 17 Aug 2005, 09:16

  • UK.gov IT procurement to be discrimination-free

    Vendor- or platform-specific IT tenders nixed

    The British government has brought its IT procurement procedures into line with European directives that demand technology projects must not specify specific brands of microprocessor. The directive was issued after a European Commission investigation revealed a number of EU member states were mandating the use of Intel …

    PCs 17 Aug 2005, 09:16

  • ATI R520 to debut 'early September'

    Higher-end parts due October, report claims

    ATI will launch its first R520-based graphics chip early next month if a report on Anandtech is to be believed. Citing ATI roadmaps, the report claims the single-slot boards based on the R520 XL chip will be launched early September 2005. A month later, ATI will announce dual-slot boards based on the R520 XT chip. A version of …

    Peripherals 17 Aug 2005, 09:48

  • Sprint + Nextel = golden age of broadband?

    High hopes for big merger

    The Sprint Nextel Merger went through last week with a key decision by the FCC that is likely to create a major "third" broadband route into the home and perhaps finally achieve the FCC's desire to see genuine competition in the provision of US broadband lines. That key decision was the way the FCC not only allowed the combined …

    Wireless 17 Aug 2005, 09:51

  • Avid trumpets facial animation breakthrough

    Immediate empathy for less

    Avid subsidiary SoftImage believes it has a breakthrough in automating the animation of human facial characteristics for video-quality programming. The company believes its Face Robot can dramatically drop the costs of giving animated characters facial expressions that humans can instantly, empathically, interpret. Avid …

    Applications 17 Aug 2005, 09:56

  • Toshiba unveils 1GHz 65nm media processor

    Can be customised into a million varieties, apparently

    Toshiba today announced what it claims is the world's first 1GHz configurable microprocessor - and probably the first of its kind to be fabbed at 65nm. The MeP (Media Embedded Processor) chip family is aimed at digital consumer electronics kit and is designed to support a high level of customisation - including the addition of …

    Personal 17 Aug 2005, 10:20

  • Harvard goes hunting for life's origins

    Causes a ruckus, stateside

    Harvard University has set aside an annual million dollar budget for research into the origins of life. The project will bring together physicists, chemists and biologists to take a multi-disciplinary approach to unraveling exactly how life arose on Earth. Creationists and proponents of the "intelligent design" hypothesis in …

    Science 17 Aug 2005, 10:21

  • US iBook sale ends in pandemonium

    Sobbing children crushed in laptop stampede

    A sale of second-hand iBook laptops in Richmond, Virginia, yesterday ended in complete pandemonium as thousands of bargain-hungry punters stormed Richmond International Raceway in a desperate scramble to get their hands on the $50 machines. Up to 10,000 Henrico County residents queued for hours outside the RIR's gates where 1, …

    Mac Channel 17 Aug 2005, 10:25

  • Symantec snaps up compliance specialist Sygate

    All about endpoints

    Symantec has announced a deal to acquire compliance specialist Sygate Technologies. Financial terms of the deal, announced Tuesday (16 August), were not disclosed but Symantec said it expects the deal to close shortly following customary regulatory approvals. Sygate's technology helps enterprises enforce security policies on …

    Financial News 17 Aug 2005, 10:32

  • Toshiba is latest to claim perpendicular HDD first

    Just in time for the fifth-generation iPod

    Toshiba has begun shipping what it claims is the world's first perpendicular hard disk drive. The 1.8in unit is pitched at consumer electronics products - think iPod and Toshiba's own Gigabeat player - and provides 40GB of storage on a single platter, the largest single-platter capacity yet achieved on a 1.8in drive, Toshiba …

    Mobile 17 Aug 2005, 10:35

  • Software Testing: a practical insight

    Site offer 30% off this and other titles

    Software testing is one of the invisible jobs in the software industry. Everyone has heard of computer programmers but few people realise there are nearly as many people behind the scenes testing the software the programmers have created. Software Testing provides practical insight into the world of software testing and …

    Site News 17 Aug 2005, 10:39

  • Man builds Viking longboat from 15 million lolly sticks

    All good charitable fun

    In a truly laudable piece of silliness, a former stuntman from Jacksonville, Florida, yesterday launched a 15m replica Viking longship constructed entirely from 15 million ice cream sticks. "It's a dream come true. It's truly worth all the hard work," a delighted Rob McDonald told Reuters after the maiden voyage in Amsterdam …

    Bootnotes 17 Aug 2005, 11:04

  • Greenpeace calls for technology detox

    Electronic waste is polluting China, India

    Greenpeace has called on the technology industry to clean up its act after it found toxic chemicals and heavy metals are routinely released into the environment during the recycling of electronic waste in India and China. In a new report, Toxic Tech: Recycling of electronic wastes in China and India: workplace and environmental …

    PCs 17 Aug 2005, 11:21

  • Cosmonaut clocks up record 748 days in space

    Cumulative, not all in one go

    A Russian man has broken the record for the longest (cumulative) stay in space, having been in orbit for a massive 748 days, this Tuesday. Cosmonaut Sergei Krikalev is currently onboard the International Space Station, but has also spent time aboard Mir during his career. Krikalev was born in Leningrad, now known as St …

    Science 17 Aug 2005, 11:41

  • Blu-ray secures Universal Music backing

    Sony's would-be standard endorsed by BenQ too

    Universal Music Group is backing Blu-ray Disc, the company said this week. And Taiwanese hardware company BenQ has also said it will back the next-generation optical format. Universal - the world's largest music recording company, according to trade body IFPI - will join the Blu-ray Disc Association (BDA), and while it didn't …

    Peripherals 17 Aug 2005, 12:06

  • Plug and Play pandemonium

    Worms based on MS vuln attack world+dog

    Media outlets have been hard hit by computer worms based on a recently discovered Microsoft Plug and Play vulnerability (MS05-039). Computer systems at CNN, ABC, The Financial Times, and the New York Times have all been disrupted. General Electric, United Parcel Service and Caterpillar were also affected by the attack. Virus …

    Malware 17 Aug 2005, 12:19

  • Nintendo's Game Boy Micro to arrive early November

    US debut in September

    Nintendo's Game Boy Micro will ship in Europe on 4 November, the video-game pioneer has revealed. The European launch will come less than two months after the handheld's US debut, on 19 September. But while Nintendo has yet to announce a US price, it did say the Micro will cost £69 in the UK. The device is expected to be …

    Consoles 17 Aug 2005, 12:27

  • Cockney suits abuse f**king email

    Gawd blimey guv'nor, yer firm's a bleedin' mess

    It's taken 'em a while, but email security firm Clearswift has discovered that Londoners are the worst in the UK when it comes to effing and blinding in emails, using email to slag people off and binning emails they want to keep the lid on. In fact yer average corporate Cockney Sparra comes out worse in every single email …

    Security 17 Aug 2005, 13:41

  • Adobe warns over PDF peril

    In brief Cross platform vuln menaces mankind

    Adobe has issued updates to guard against a buffer overflow vulnerability in various versions of its popular Acrobat and Reader software packages. The security bug, which stems from an unspecified boundary error in the core application plug-in, might be used to inject hostile code into vulnerable systems by tricking potential …

    Malware 17 Aug 2005, 14:41

  • Relationships like atomic nuclei, says physicist

    Weak partnerships decay. Sigh

    A physicist has built a computer model of the dating world, which he says shows people behave like decaying atomic nuclei, when it comes to finding love. Richard Ecob, a postgraduate student, noticed similarities between the histories of people's relationships and the decay histories of atomic nuclei, the BBC reports. For …

    Science 17 Aug 2005, 14:47

  • Volcanic activity did for the dinosaurs

    Asteroid simply the last straw, study suggests

    The dinosaurs might have been wiped out by a huge volcanic eruption, a new study suggests, rather than an asteroid strike 65m years ago, as is widely believed. The possibility of a volcanic catastrophe being behind the fall of the great reptiles has long been mooted: the Deccan Traps in India are evidence of a series of huge …

    Science 17 Aug 2005, 16:02

  • Reg science and telecoms move house

    Site news New sections for your reading pleasure

    As of right now, El Reg science and telecoms stories can be found in their own, dedicated sections. This audacious reshuffle is to address two issues - the increasingly unwieldy internet channel where telecoms stuff used to live, and the burgeoning popularity of our science coverage. So, you can now find VoIP, broadband and …

    Site News 17 Aug 2005, 16:25