8th September 2005 Archive

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SuSE reaps open development rewards in 10.0

The road away from MS goes through you

Novell is claiming gains in management and ease of use for SuSE Linux as a result of its decision to throw open the doors to its development process. The company bragged Wednesday that the forthcoming SuSE Linux 10.0 will establish benchmarks in ease of installation, configuration and use thanks to feedback from developers that …

Operating Systems 8 Sep 2005, 00:34
AMD loses 64-bit CTO

Finds fanboy replacement

After working so hard to create and promote AMD's 64-bit chip technology, CTO Fred Weber will leave the company just as his effort begins to pay off. AMD today delivered a mild shocker to the chip industry by revealing that Weber will ride off into the venture capital sunset that eventually captures the hearts of so many …

IT Director 8 Sep 2005, 00:49
Student flogs pixels to fund education

Wants to raise $1m

A UK student is flogging pixels on a web page to help raise $1m to fund his way through university. Alex Tew, 21, who will be reading Business Management, says people can buy the pixels to display an ad or a logo on his Million Dollar Homepage which in turn can create a link to their website. The pixels are sold in squares of …

Music and Media 8 Sep 2005, 07:58
Sony relaunches Walkman to challenge iPod

Nano-what?

Sony today took its Walkman brand into the MP3 era, launching a pair of digital music players without the 'Network' prefix to the famous portable player moniker. The players come in a slick, stylish casing and are pitched at the mid-range and high-end segments, typified by the now defunct iPod Mini and the still-rocking iPod, …

Mobile 8 Sep 2005, 08:48
Arctic shrubs join global warming effort

Like a blanket for the planet

Global warming could be accelerated by an increase of plant cover in the arctic region, according to research published in the Journal of Geophysical Research-Biogeosciences. The arctic region is already warming more quickly than anywhere else on Earth, and higher temperatures have stimulated winter plant growth on the tundra. …

Science 8 Sep 2005, 08:50
Parental software to detect Dutch illegal file sharing

Trust me, I'm a copyright lawyer

Dutch anti piracy organisation BREIN is to release free parental software on 22 September, that will detect file sharing programs such as Kazaa or illegal media files on PCs. The software will not be able to remove those files - parents have to do this manually if they wish. BREIN says that the software is basically a public …

Music and Media 8 Sep 2005, 08:58
Playing the phishing blame game

Comment The buck stops ... somewhere over there

In 2004, I came across an empirical study published by the CERT/CC that indicated a diminishing correlation between the number of vendor-issued vulnerabilities and the number of reported security incidents. In the years prior to 2002, the number of reported security breaches had always been proportional to the number of vendor- …

Spam 8 Sep 2005, 09:11
Big debate over small packets

Attacking the internet through ICMP vulns

Fernando Gont is nothing if not tenacious. Earlier this year, the Argentinian researcher highlighted several attacks that could disrupt network connections using the Internet control message protocol, or ICMP, and proposed four changes to the structure and handling of network-data packets that would essentially eliminate the …

Enterprise Security 8 Sep 2005, 09:13
NASA's crash comet made of clay

Tempel-1 gives up its secrets

Initial results from NASA's crash landing on Comet Tempel-1 could spell disaster for the European Space Agency's Rosetta mission to Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko, NASA scientists say. In addition, the findings about the composition of the comet are not entirely as expected, and could shed new light on the earliest days of our …

Science 8 Sep 2005, 09:38
Intel to 'cut Pentium D prices' next January

Celeron too

Intel will trim its dual-core Pentium D and single-core Celeron processor prices in January 2006, Taiwanese sources have alleged. The cuts come as no great surprise. Intel has announced it will ship 65nm Pentium D processors in Q1 2006, so we'd expect it to cut the prices of the current 8xx line-up to make way for the 9xx ' …

System Builder 8 Sep 2005, 09:41
EU backs plans for .kid TLD

Let's be careful out there

The European Parliament is backing proposals to introduce a new .kid top level domain (TLD) just for children to "protect them from inappropriate content on the internet". The new TLD - similar to .com or .org - would be restricted to sites especially tailored for youngsters with content regularly vetted and approved by an …

Music and Media 8 Sep 2005, 10:02
PostgreSQL application development

Site offer Save 30% on comprehensive guides

Over the last few years PostgreSQL has emerged as a viable, even preferable, alternative to high-cost enterprise database systems such as Oracle. Korry Douglas' PostgreSQL is the definitive, comprehensive reference on PostgreSQL for both programmers and database administrators. PostgreSQL, second edition leads the reader through …

Site News 8 Sep 2005, 10:02
Suspected child abuser nabbed in London cybercafe

No hiding place

Police arrested a suspected child abuser in a central London cyber cafe on Wednesday. The unnamed 54 year-old man is suspected of inciting the rape of a youngster, inciting the distribution of child abuse images and of facilitating a child for the purpose of sex. The operation at an online cybercafe on the Strand was led by …

Music and Media 8 Sep 2005, 10:30
Mars volcanoes not dead, just resting

Like that parrot?

Reports of Mars' geological death might have been greatly exaggerated, according to researchers working on the European Space Agency's Mars Express mission. Images from the orbiter reveal volcanic cones at the planet's north pole that are unmarked by craters, suggesting that they erupted relatively recently, the BBC reports. …

Science 8 Sep 2005, 10:35
Oz email catfight secretaries walk plank

Missing ham sandwich provokes cyberbrawl

Top Oz legal outfit Allens Arthur Robinson has been "rocked" by an email flame war provoked by a missing ham sandwich which has resulted in two secretaries being given their marching orders, news.com.au reports. The rumpus kicked off last Thursday when Katrina Nugent dispatched this email to colleagues at the firm's Sydney …

Bootnotes 8 Sep 2005, 10:45
eBay sniffing around Skype - report

VoIP service going, going...

eBay is holding talks with internet telephony outfit Skype concerning a possible deal, according to a report by the Wall Street Journal. Discussions are still at an early stage with insiders warning that they could end up amounting to nothing. Even so, both Internet companies are reportedly chatting in a deal that would value …

Financial News 8 Sep 2005, 10:50
S3's Chrome 20 chip to feature SLi-style tech

High clock speed, low power consumption too, apparently

VIA subsidiary S3 Graphics is planning to take the multi-GPU fight to ATI and Nvidia with its own SLi-style solution. According to an alleged company training-presentation slide made in August and posted this week by Chinese-language site HKEPC, S3's Multi-G system will be part of the company's upcoming Chrome 20. Separately, …

Peripherals 8 Sep 2005, 10:55
SNIA plots data policy specs

Welcome to the Frankfurt f-ILM festival.

Storage networking body SNIA Europe has formed a group to get out and spread the data management mantra to those few of us not already suffering from ILM overload. The Data Management Initiative will be the Euro arm of SNIA's Data Management Forum, the body charged with developing specs and standards. Chairing the DMI is Per …

Storage 8 Sep 2005, 11:18
EU commissioner outlines e-inclusion plans

Zimmer frames for all

The European Information Society Commissioner has outlined plans for three new major initiatives to accelerate a Europe-wide e-inclusion drive. Addressing the i2010 conference in London,Viviane Reding said the "flagship" projects would give "critical mass to our work in three and important and visible areas where ICT has a …

Public Sector 8 Sep 2005, 11:22
Cisco warns over serious authentication bug

Who goes there?

Cisco has warned of a vulnerability in its IOS Firewall Authentication Proxy which might be used by hackers to launch denial of service attacks against vulnerable systems. The vulnerability stems from a software bug in processing user authentication credentials which might be exploited to cause a buffer overflow. Successful …

Enterprise Security 8 Sep 2005, 11:23
Apple touts iTunes customer total

Online userbase second only to Amazon.com's?

Around 10m people have opened iTunes Music Store accounts, Apple revealed yesterday. That, CEO Steve Jobs claimed, makes ITMS "one of the largest Internet stores around" - indeed, he added, "iTunes may be the second largest Internet store behind Amazon.com". Jobs' comments, made at the company's music event yesterday, mark the …

Financial News 8 Sep 2005, 11:37
Pipex gears up for 24 meg broadband

That's LLU for ya

Pipex is gearing up to offer punters 24 meg broadband as part of the ISP's investment in local loop unbundling (LLU). The ISP - which has 215,000 broadband punters at the end of June - is to wire up 60 BT exchanges to provide broadband direct to punters. "We have selected those exchanges where we have at least 400 customers …

Networks 8 Sep 2005, 12:23
Pearl Jam open Pandora's box

Own-label downloads cut out the middle man

It is a small enough thing for one major band, in this case Pearl Jam, to begin selling its own songs on its own website, and we’re not surprised that this has happened and was reported a few weeks back. Most attention went on the band's decision to offer their live performances without encryption or any other form of Digital …

Financial News 8 Sep 2005, 12:25
Indian company creates 600 UK jobs

Outsourcing goes full circle

Indian technology company HCL has outsourced 600 contact centre jobs to Belfast with the support of a £4.68m grant from Invest Northern Ireland, the region's economic development organisation. The deal was announced early this morning by the prime minister, who is currently visiting India. He said that the UK could be an …

Financial News 8 Sep 2005, 12:28
No withdrawal for battling Big Easy web outfit

New Orleans' finest dig in

We're pleased to report that battling web hosting outfit directNIC will not have to stage a strategic withdrawal from the Big Easy since it is "exempt" from the mayoral order to haul ass out of the city. That, at least, is according to the epic disater blog which has been chronicling the team's efforts to maintain a little …

Bootnotes 8 Sep 2005, 13:32
Asteroid may carry more water than Earth

Splashy

New Hubble Space Telescope images of Ceres, the largest known asteroid, suggest that the body could hold more fresh* water than the planet Earth. Analysis of 267 photographs of the asteroid indicate that it could be mostly ice, wrapped around a rocky core and coated with a thin dusty crust. With a diameter of around 930km, …

Science 8 Sep 2005, 13:36
Superman has small todger: official

No super powers in the trouser department

It's official: Superman may be able to leap a tall building with a single bound but he's completely lacking super powers in the trouser department. That, at least, is according to those charged with costuming Brandon Routh who will play the Man of Steel in next year's Superman Returns. According to MSNBC, costume designer …

Bootnotes 8 Sep 2005, 13:39
Smut-free GTA: San Andreas coming next week

Hot Coffee-exposed exploits excised

Games publisher Take-Two Interactive will next week re-release Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas having culled the controversial game of its naughty bits. GTA:SA hit the headlines in July after it emerged that the game contains x-rated content, although it takes a special 'Hot Coffee' modification code to open the software's …

Consoles 8 Sep 2005, 13:49
Bird flu pandemic inevitable, says WHO

Asia menaced as winter approaches

The World Health Organisation (WHO) yesterday warned that a pandemic of the bird flu strain lethal to humans is inevitable, and would likely kill between one and seven million people worldwide, Reuters reports. Dr. Jai P. Narain, Director of WHO's communicable diseases department, took time out from a Southeast Asia health …

Science 8 Sep 2005, 14:14
Cricket hits football for six on the net

lbwww

Cricket has overtaken football as the UK’s favourite sport online, at least according to internet search queries as monitored by Hitwise. Search Intelligence data for the past two months shows searches for 'cricket' overtook 'football' searches during the first Ashes test, in the week ending 23 July (a period outside the …

Financial News 8 Sep 2005, 14:34
Suspected volcano forming in Oregon

Geological acne

A new volcano might be forming in Oregon, according to reports. The US Geological Survey (USGS) says that a bulge in the Earth's crust, covering an area of around 100 square miles, seems to be getting bigger, suggesting that a large quantity of magma is on the move. The bulge is in the vicinity of the Three Sisters, three now …

Science 8 Sep 2005, 14:45
Intel to bring full AMD64-compatibility to Xeon

Exclusive LAHF-a-minute

Intel is upgrading its Xeon DP processor line-up to introduce a pair of extra EM64T instructions. The move will finally bring the 64-bit server chips into full compatibility with AMD's AMD64 technology. The chip giant this week revealed it will update the Xeon DP's core from stepping E-0 to G-1, according to company documents …

PCs 8 Sep 2005, 15:08
Dixons plays down The Link sale speculation

Not interested

Dixons has played down reports that it would be happy to flog its majority stake in mobile phone outfit The Link. The Link is owned by Dixons (60 per cent) and mobile operator O2 (40 per cent). Press reports today suggested that chief exec John Clare would be "open to offers" for someone to buy Dixons' 60 per cent stake in the …

Financial News 8 Sep 2005, 15:10
Tesco packs teen's mobile with porn

Apologises for repair cock-up

UK supermarket chain Tesco has apologised to a 14-year-old boy after returning his repaired mobile phone packed with hard-core porn, UK tabloid the Sun reports. Callum George's new Sagem clapped out after just two weeks, prompting the lad to return it for repair. It duly found its way back to him in the post, complete with …

Bootnotes 8 Sep 2005, 15:32
Researcher halves 2005 chip biz growth forecast

Weak Q4 followed by 'very slow' H1 2006

Market watcher iSuppli has cut its 2005 global chip sales forecast, halving its year-on-year growth prediction from 5.9 per cent to just 2.4 per cent. The upshot: the world's chip makers will sell $232.7bn worth of kit this year, rather than the $240.6bn iSuppli suggested earlier this year. iSuppli noted it reckons next year's …

Financial News 8 Sep 2005, 15:39
Murdoch buys into online lads' mags

Games and babes

Rupert Murdoch has been shopping again this time blowing $650m on gaming and entertainment outfit IGN Entertainment. The deal gives Murdoch's giant News Corp access to 28m punters (mostly young blokes) who log into IGN's network of sites that cover video games and other entertainment stuff such as films, music, sports, cars and …

Financial News 8 Sep 2005, 15:57
HP's Chief Accountant preaches 'accountability'

Hurd bores Wall Street into submission

HP's CEO Mark Hurd went to Wall Street yesterday, hoping to convince investors that he'd learned something about the company during his first six months on the job. Most accounts record Hurd's New York Stock Exchange performance as a sobering affair. The former NCR frontman gave off a boring yet capable air, as expected. To …

Financial News 8 Sep 2005, 18:08
Google hires 'Astro' Cerf

Better equipped to beat the Borg

Vint Cerf, co-author of the TCP/IP protocol, has become Google's latest trophy hire. The ad broker must be hoping that Cerf, hired for the PR position of "chief evangelist", can add some gravitas to the operation after weeks of bad publicity. A poorly judged flounce saw Google vow to shun CNet's reporters for a year, and the …

IT Director 8 Sep 2005, 19:09
SCO's Unix and IP revenue dwindles

Q3 not kind

Declining Unix revenue and falling "Mr Clean" sales continue to blight The SCO Group. During its third quarter, SCO posted just $9.4m in revenue - down from $11.2m in the same period last year. SCO then showed a net loss of $2.4m or a loss of 13 cents per share versus a net loss of $7.4m last year. SCO now has $12.6m in cash …

Financial News 8 Sep 2005, 19:53
Salesforce CEO knocks Microsoft's hosted CRM bluster

Once, twice, three times a failure

Salesforce.com's chief executive is talking tough after Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer pledged to give its smaller rival a "run for its money" with a planned hosted CRM service. Marc Benioff is confident his company can see-off Microsoft's hosted customer relationship management (CRM) service, based on the companies' competitive …

Applications 8 Sep 2005, 20:20
DTrace ready to leave Solaris nest for FreeBSD

Port Aid

DTrace, considered one of the finest features in the Solaris 10 operating system, is being ported to FreeBSD following Sun Microsystems' decision to open source its software. Developer Devon O'Dell has committed to port Sun's Dynamic Tracing tool, used by systems administrators to debug applications and optimize performance of …

Operating Systems 8 Sep 2005, 22:20