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22nd August 2005 Archive

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  • Women 'undervalued' in science

    Unconscious discrimination to blame

    Women scientists can face a chilly, and sometimes overtly hostile atmosphere in the world of scientific research, according to a group of researchers in the US. In a paper published in Science the group writes that although progress has been made, women still face a "difficult trek" if they chose a career in science. Professor …

    Science 22 Aug 2005, 10:09

  • Sun pushes open-source DRM scheme

    Freedom is strength

    Sun Microsystems stepped into the fractious arena of digital copyright protection this week with plans for an open-source, royalty-free digital rights management (DRM) standard. The Open Media Commons initiative aims to address concerns that a growing number of incompatible download schemes might frustrate consumers and hold …

    Software 22 Aug 2005, 10:43

  • SAP lures ex-PeopleSoft customers

    We'll support you ever more

    SAP says that it will provide support for PeopleSoft applications for half the price quoted by Oracle, hoping to gain from uncertainty among PeopleSoft clients. Oracle, the biggest rival to the German business applications company, bought PeopleSoft last December for $10.6bn. By mid-January of this year Oracle had announced …

    Applications 22 Aug 2005, 10:56

  • Do we need Bambi?

    Deer oh deer

    Consider Business Activity Monitoring (BAM): what does it do? The short answer is that it provides real-time information about your business activities (processes). Thus, to take a simple example, you can see that you are currently processing 5,000 invoices an hour. Jolly good. But how useful is it to know that you are …

    Applications 22 Aug 2005, 11:15

  • Amazon touts short story downloads

    Exposing literary briefs

    Amazon.com is to start selling electronic downloads of short stories, single chapters of books and even single scenes from novels as part of a new section called Amazon Shorts. At the moment this looks like being a US-only deal, and each download will cost just 49 cents. The idea is that readers will be able to sample new …

    Financial News 22 Aug 2005, 11:22

  • Notebooks keep becalmed PC market going

    As competition keeps prices down

    Worldwide PC unit shipments are on pace to grow 12.7 per cent in 2005 even though revenues are set to increase by only 0.5 per cent, according to a preliminary forecast by analyst house Gartner. Gartner reckon 206.6m PCs will ship in 2005 with revenues of $202.7bn. In 2006, worldwide PC units are expected to grow 10.5 per cent …

    PCs 22 Aug 2005, 12:25

  • Bird flu fears see Holland's hens ordered inside

    Serving up chicken curfew

    Dutch authorities have ordered that all farmers must keep their poultry indoors, in a bid to prevent the country falling victim to a new infection of bird-flu. Most birds reared for food are grown in battery farms, and so are kept indoors anyway. But starting today, the Netherlands' approximately 5 million free-range chickens, …

    Science 22 Aug 2005, 12:37

  • Four sue over passenger data

    Fed air watch plan won't fly

    Four Alaskans have filed suit against the US Transportation Security Administration (TSA), seeking to prevent the agency deleting personal records that were obtained during a passenger-screening programme. The TSA has denied that it holds records on Anchorage-based Bill Beck and Sally Huntley (both travel agents) and John Davis …

    Media 22 Aug 2005, 13:08

  • WiMAX: the emperor's clothes get another wash...

    Back to the autumn

    This week has seen more scepticism than ever about Wimax as a viable wireless carrier technology, following the news from the Forum that testing and certification "could be delayed till October." The new Malaga test lab has been opened in Spain at Cetecom SA's laboratory - and testing has started, with encouraging …

    Broadband 22 Aug 2005, 13:24

  • US Air Force scrambles after privacy breach

    Stealthed

    The US Air Force has been forced to notify more than 33,000 airmen that their personal details might have been exposed following the discovery of a computer security breach. The notification comes after Air Force personnel officers discovered suspiciously high activity on one account into a careers database, called AMS ( …

    Security 22 Aug 2005, 14:18

  • Chip makers cautious with their capex

    In brief Fab gear book to bill creeps up

    The outlook for chip manufacturing gear makers improved slightly in July latest figures from trade group SEMI show. Bookings in July were $1.02bn, while billings were $1.1bn, giving a book to bill ratio of 0.93. This compared to 0.9 the previous month, when billings stood at $1.15bn and bookings at $1.04bn. Billings have been …

    Financial News 22 Aug 2005, 14:23

  • US loses another round in WTO gambling case

    Caribbean casinos get quick access to US wallets

    The World Trade Organisation has given short shrift to US foot dragging on opening up its gambling industry to international online competition. The states has been given until the end of next March to bring itself into line with an earlier WTO ruling that the US should stop blocking US gamblers and banks from using services …

    Financial News 22 Aug 2005, 14:56

  • Video games make boys feistier: study

    Oh no they don't, oh yes they do...

    A mere seven days after the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign said it could rule out a link between violence in video games and aggression in children, Saint Leo University in Florida has come to exactly the opposite conclusion. The Floridian research team says that its analysis of 20-years of research into the …

    Science 22 Aug 2005, 15:15

  • Google uses Sidebar to sideline rivals

    We own your desktop

    In an aggressive move that will pit Google against both Microsoft and Yahoo, the search giant has released an upgrade to its desktop search programme. Dubbed Sidebar, the free programme will sit on a user's desktop pulling news stories, photographs, weather reports, stock quotes and other features onto a user's computer without …

    Software 22 Aug 2005, 15:34

  • Brits happy to ditch civil liberties

    No real problem with torture either

    Three out of four Brits would happily hand over their civil liberties in exchange for better security against terrorist attacks, according figures from pollsters ICM. It is interesting to note that this is the same general public that rails against any attempts to make them drive more slowly, or with more care. This is in spite …

    Media 22 Aug 2005, 16:03

  • Hotel hacking could pump smut into every room

    Oh, err Missus

    Hotel hybrid broadband internet and TV-on-demand entertainment systems are open to attack, security researchers warn. Penetration testing firm SecureTest has identified a number of vulnerabilities in the implementation of hotel broadband systems delivered using Cisco's LRE (long-reach Ethernet) technology. Using a laptop …

    Security 22 Aug 2005, 16:11

  • Systems Union buys Equate

    How much for? It's a secret

    Systems Union in Ireland has acquired IT consultancy firm Equate Business and IT Solutions for an undisclosed sum. The transaction closed just over a year after Equate was founded. Karl O'Leary, managing director of Systems Union (SU), Ireland, said that the acquisition would allow SU to grow its services and consultancy …

    Financial News 22 Aug 2005, 16:19

  • Intel ready to begin Phase II of losing propaganda offensive

    Analysis Following edge

    You'll read a lot this week about the wonders of Intel. That's because Intel is hosting a developer conference in San Francisco, and the press can't gush enough over the processor maker's wizardry at these things. So, before the hype machine starts, it seems like an appropriate time to remind everyone how fallible Intel has …

    Servers 22 Aug 2005, 19:31

  • AMD extends 25W Turion line

    Thin'n'light

    AMD today released two further members of its Turion 64 mobile processor family. The MT-40 and MT-37 top off the company's series of 25W Turions and are clocked at 2.2GHz and 2GHz, respectively. Both chips contain 1MB of L2 cache. AMD said the two processors were available immediately, but systems based on the parts will ship …

    PCs 22 Aug 2005, 21:02

  • Intel looks to low-power, high-performance chip future

    IDF Multiple cores to square old circle

    Intel will this week detail how its multi-core strategy to square the circle of reducing processor power consumption without limiting performance. Performance will be limited, of course, at the core level, but by including more cores, the overall, chip performance will rise, Intel Senior Fellow and Digital Enterprise Group CTO …

    PCs 22 Aug 2005, 21:48