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22nd September 2005 Archive

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  • First UMA roaming handset breaks cover

    From Wi-Fi to GSM and back again

    A year after the Wi-Fi-to-cellular roaming standard UMA was initially published, the first true mobile handset supporting the technology appears to be heading for the USA. LG's forthcoming LG-CL400 will support the Unlicensed Mobile Access specification, designed to allow Bluetooth and Wi-Fi devices access to GSM networks, and …

    Mobile 22 Sep 2005, 03:27

  • Police stake out bar, hoping to catch man drunk

    Traffic camera critic targeted

    Canadian cops staked out a bar in the hope of finding a journalist drunk, a court heard today. The journalist in question, Edmonton newspaper columnist Kerry Diotte, wasn't suspected of involvement in any crime. But Diotte had written a column criticizing the police force's radar and camera technology as being more of a cash …

    Media 22 Sep 2005, 04:16

  • Nokia's iPod-killer phone slips to 2006

    Finns blame Microsoft DRM

    Nokia only began to partner with Microsoft earlier this year - but already it's showing signs of catching Longhorn Syndrome. The Finnish phone giant has confirmed that its would-be iPod killer, the N91 music phone, will miss the Christmas shopping season, and won't now ship until Q1 2006. "What we basically decided is that we …

    Mobile 22 Sep 2005, 05:02

  • WinMX and eDonkey: offline, doors closed

    But gone for good?

    The "darknets" were looking a even darker today. WinMX spent the day offline and eDonkey has closed its New York office, Reuters reports. Both P2P file sharing networks WinMX and eDonkey are bearing the brunt of increased pressure on companies who encourage copyright infringement. While the US Supreme Court's June Grokster …

    Media 22 Sep 2005, 05:42

  • Siebel users: sit tight

    Comfort for the recently bequeathed

    Siebel users concerned about the possible takeover of the CRM company by Oracle should sit tight and relax. So says a panel of JD Edwards and PeopleSoft users at the Oracle OpenWorld conference in San Francisco. Oracle presented four cherry-picked users to the press, who supplied a rosy view of the convergent roads towards …

    Applications 22 Sep 2005, 06:55

  • BT to cut ribbon on new access division

    More corporate re-engineering

    BT looks set to reveal the identity of its new Access Services Division (ASD) today as part of a regulatory settlement with Ofcom. Details of the new organisation - which will be staffed by around 30,000 workers - are to be revealed today along with the organisation's name and new livery. BT agreed to create the ASD as part of …

    Broadband 22 Sep 2005, 07:09

  • Philip Green firm hijacked for ID theft

    Crooks net big phish

    Fraudsters have hijacked the identity of a firm owned by billionaire businessman Philip Green. Crooks changed the registered address of a property company the BHS boss runs with his mother to order goods on credit and run up bills under an assumed identity. The ruse takes advantage of a flaw in the Companies House registration …

    Security 22 Sep 2005, 07:12

  • Big-ticket acquisition layover for Oracle

    BEA lives to fight another day

    Oracle's chief executive has ruled out any more major acquisitions for the next year, as he tries to grow the database and application giant's annual revenue to $30bn. Larry Ellison told OracleWorld that the break would provide time to assemble the pieces of various companies' technologies and business Oracle has acquired …

    Applications 22 Sep 2005, 09:08

  • MS Hardware in nipple flash shocker

    Phwoooarrr!

    Let's face it, there's sad (unemployed man, station platform, notebook, trains); sad (Linux programmer, darkened room, slice of pizza, Natalie Portman website); and the following, which has redefined the sad paradigm for all time: Thought you might be interested in the picture at the top of this page: http://www.microsoft.com …

    Bootnotes 22 Sep 2005, 09:11

  • RM wins £37.5m Scottish schools deal

    Networking everything

    Education technology supplier RM has won a £37.5m, five-year contract with the Scottish executive to set up a national education intranet, dubbed the Scottish Schools Digital Network (SSDN). The SSDN will be accessible not only to teachers, but to each of Scotland's 32 councils, 3,000 schools, and 750,000 pupils in Scotland. …

    The Channel 22 Sep 2005, 09:12

  • Mozilla suffers growing pains

    A vulnerable age

    The Mozilla Foundation's Firefox browser successfully took market share away from software giant Microsoft's Internet Explorer over the past 18 months, but has found that popularity comes with growing pains. When Microsoft fixes problems, the public generally doesn't know about them. For Firefox, the nature of the process means …

    Security 22 Sep 2005, 09:29

  • Staying anonymous in the internet jungle

    Is it possible?

    The opening passage to True Names, a novella written by noted science fiction author Vernor Vinge nearly 25 years ago, delivers an eerily prescient summary of modern Internet usage. "In the once upon a time days of the First Age of Magic, the prudent sorcerer regarded his own true name as his most valued possession but also the …

    Security 22 Sep 2005, 09:46

  • Intel India fires 250 alleged fraudsters

    Widespread expenses fiddling, reports suggest

    Intel has sacked up to 250 workers in India after alleging they fiddled their expenses claims, reports from the sub-continent suggest. According to a story in the Times of India yesterday, the firings followed an internal audit of expenses claims. The report implies bad employee practices like "faking bills to claim your …

    Management 22 Sep 2005, 09:52

  • BT secures new deal with Ofcom

    Handshakes and smiles all round

    BT has promised never again to engage in the kind of behaviour that "restricts competition" and "discriminates" against its competitors. The "legally-binding undertakings" - 230 of them to be exact - form part of a regulatory settlement with communications watchdog Ofcom. Had BT and the regulator failed to reach agreement it …

    Broadband 22 Sep 2005, 09:55

  • Revenue apologises for bank data loss bungle

    HMRC mislaid CD with investors' details

    HM Revenue & Customs has apologised to investment management firm UBS Laing & Cruickshank for the disappearance of a computer disc containing details of some of the company’s Personal Equity Plan investors, according to the BBC. Details stored on the CD included names, addresses, account numbers and PEP values. It was sent to …

    Security 22 Sep 2005, 10:03

  • EC adopts net and phone data retention proposal

    Not law yet, though

    The European Commission this week adopted a proposal for a Directive on the retention of communications traffic data that would see internet data held for six months, phone data held for one year, and ISPs and telcos compensated for their compliance costs. But the proposal has tough competition: it needs the support of the …

    Media 22 Sep 2005, 10:45

  • BT unveils new access business

    Openreach, Overreach, Ovenready etc

    BT has released details of its new network division which will provide equal access to its phone network. BT Openreach, as it's called, will employ 30,000 people including 25,000 engineers and comes into operation in January 2006. In a bid to keep it separate from the rest of BT it will also have its own HQ and brand identity …

    Broadband 22 Sep 2005, 11:11

  • Intel cancels Pentium Exteme Edition core update

    Yields of older version 'better than expected'

    Intel has ditched plans to upgrade the cores that comprise its Pentium Extreme Edition 840 processor, company documents seen by The Register reveal. As planned, the dual-core Pentium D 820, 830 and 840 processors will get the core update, dubbed 'B-0', the documents show. However, while B-0 830s and 840s will be available from …

    System Builder 22 Sep 2005, 11:14

  • PC-hopping mobile malware sighted

    Crossing the divide

    Virus writers have created a Symbian Trojan which also attempts to infect a user's Windows PC if he tries to read a phone memory card on his computer. Cardtrap-A targets Series 60 Symbian devices and spreads via either Bluetooth or by tricking users into downloading and executive hostile code from the web. After infecting a …

    Security 22 Sep 2005, 11:16

  • UK music biz touts anti-P2P application

    Seek, locate and remove

    UK music industry organisation the BPI has launched an application to help computer users sniff out any of that nasty P2P software that might have sneaked its way on their hard drives, along with any unauthorised media files that might have appeared too. The tool, dubbed Digital File Check, is described as "a simple educational …

    Media 22 Sep 2005, 11:19

  • How Microsoft can 'kill' Google

    Simple - just buy its customers

    When Steve Ballmer yelled at a departing Microsoft employee that he would “kill Google” we had no idea just how direct a method he had in mind. Buying all or part of AOL may be the first part of the master plan, as Google relies heavily on the advertising pages that come from Yahoo!, since it now syndicates its search to Google …

    Applications 22 Sep 2005, 11:20

  • Good ship P2P burns to the waterline

    Pirates abandon ship

    In the space of one week, many of the P2P filesharing networks are on the verge of exiting the business either to offer a legal version with paid downloads, or selling up or simply closing up shop. If none of them have the stomach for a doomed legal fight, then by the end of the year millions of youngsters all over the world …

    Media 22 Sep 2005, 11:33

  • RSS goes to work in Windows

    Next stop: business applications

    RSS maybe more commonly associated with millions of blogs, but Microsoft is preparing to take the popular XML technology a step further - into the enterprise. Microsoft's decision to put Really Simple Syndication (RSS) into the next edition of its Dynamics customer relationship management (CRM) software, for business users to …

    Applications 22 Sep 2005, 11:58

  • Maxdata issues profit warning

    Seven-figure loss

    Maxdata, the German PC maker, expects to lose a seven figure (euro) sum for the full year, after posting a loss in Q2. According to reports, the company forecast a full-year profit of €5m as recently as July. In its Q2 earnings statement (pdf), the firm reports a big increase in sales volumes, but a big fall in average selling …

    The Channel 22 Sep 2005, 12:19

  • Panasonic Toughbook CF-51 semi-rugged notebook

    Review The Captain Scarlet of mobile PCs?

    Panasonic has been making notebooks for a long time, but you may not have come across the Toughbook brand before. The reason for this is that Toughbooks tend to attract a buyer who is more concerned with durability than design and performance. To get an idea of who the Toughbooks appeal to, next time you see a BT engineer …

    Reviews 22 Sep 2005, 12:26

  • Mobile phones allowed in European skies

    Trials with British Midland and Air Portugal

    British Midland and TAP Air Portugal will permit passengers to use their mobile phones in the air next year, the two European airlines said this week. Both companies will use base-station technology developed by OnAir, the Airbus-backed rival to Boeing's Connexion. OnAir uses pico-cell base-stations from Siemens, coupled with …

    Mobile 22 Sep 2005, 12:37

  • Ingram Micro Europe signs Good

    Distie round-up Also Commtech, Dream'eo, ZyXEL

    Ingram Micro is to distribute Good Technology push email software for handhelds across Europe. It kicks off next month with a reselller bundle combining the HP iPAQ hw 6515 PDA with Goodlink. The two companies already work together in the US. Commtech, the Irish security products distie, is dipping its toe in to the UK, by …

    The Channel 22 Sep 2005, 13:11

  • South Africa slams reseller corruption in public sector

    Reseller round-up Also: Horizon, Pegasus

    South Africa's government has slammed ICT vendors which sell “exorbitant, irrelevant” solutions to local government departments. Joe Mazibuko, of the State IT Agency's provincial and local government services, points to a municipality which had signed "a 50-year contract, without an exit clause, with a local service provider". …

    The Channel 22 Sep 2005, 13:13

  • Edge Telecom buys Trilogy from administrators

    LLU specialist

    Trilogy Telecom - a small local loop unbundling (LLU) operator that provides broadband in rural Cambridgeshire - has been acquired by Edge Telecom Ltd. The deal was completed earlier this week and comes after Trilogy was placed in administration on August 23. Financial details about the sale were not disclosed. However, in a …

    Broadband 22 Sep 2005, 13:31

  • BT workers must change behaviour, says boss

    For the sake of Openretch

    BT chief Ben Verwaayen has told staff that today's deal agreed with Ofcom is "historic [and the] biggest change since BT was privatised more than twenty years ago". In an email to staff seen by The Reg Verwaayen said the deal would allow companies to "concentrate on winning and serving customers, rather than arguing about …

    Broadband 22 Sep 2005, 14:19

  • BT Conferencing saves the planet

    Battling telco fights CO2 menace

    In case you didn't know, today is "World Car Free Day", during which we are all encouraged to leave our cars at home and find alternative means of transport, thereby giving Mother earth a great big hug. All well and good, if you don't mind cramming into a cattle truck disguised as a commuter train and spending 18 hours …

    Bootnotes 22 Sep 2005, 14:21

  • She's in the loo, I'll check her phone

    Swedes secretly read their partner's SMS messages

    Almost two-thirds of Swedes secretly read their partner's SMS messages, according to research by mobile portal Halebop for Swedish operator TeliaSonera. Some 64 per cent of those questioned this summer said they read their partners' text messages out of nosiness or jealousy, according to The Local. Most Swedes peek into their …

    Mobile 22 Sep 2005, 14:24

  • UK PC maker jumps the gun on Nvidia's GeForce Go 7800GTX

    Not-yet-launched graphics chip in new notebook

    Nvidia isn't expected to launch its GeForce Go 7800GTX next-generation mobile graphics chip for another week, but that hasn't stopped UK PC vendor Evesham from announcing a notebook which contains the part. Evesham today touted its upcoming Voyager C720 as the "ultimate mobile gaming machine", thanks to the Nvidia chip, which …

    PCs 22 Sep 2005, 14:59

  • BOFH books creep back into Cash'n'Carrion

    Cash'n'Carrion Volumes II and IV now in stock

    We're pleased to report that some, at least, of the magnificent BOFH books have found their way onto the shelves of the Cash'n'Carrion warehouse, namely: Book II - Son of the Bastard, and Book IV - Dummy Mode is Forever. Naturally, you're wondering "why on God's green Earth have they only got parts two and four?" A good …

    Site News 22 Sep 2005, 15:01

  • Earthlink escapes blame over phishing cock-up

    Legit bank loses case over dodgy site slur

    Earthlink, the leading US ISP, has escaped blame for distributing software that incorrectly identified the website of a legitimate bank as potentially fraudulent. Associated Bank-Corp's lawsuit against the US ISP for negligence and injury to its reputation was rejected by a US judge on the grounds that Earthink licensed the …

    Security 22 Sep 2005, 15:05

  • Grid technology stalls Wiki vandals

    If your name's not down, you're not coming in

    A Manchester scientist has developed an open source tool for the Grid Computing Project that could put an end to the vandalising of collaborative websites, known as Wikis. A Wiki, for those who have survived life online thus far without hearing about them, is a website where users can add and edit content as easily as they can …

    Servers 22 Sep 2005, 15:09

  • Sony cuts 10,000 jobs

    Nice growth strategy

    Sony is cutting 10,000 employees under a $2bn restructuring plan, to shake up operations and face increasing competition. Sony's new chief executive, Howard Stringer,announced the restructuring which is intended to save $1.8bn a year once changes are completed in 2008. Sony expects the majority of job cuts to occur …

    Financial News 22 Sep 2005, 15:24

  • Oracle and Dell snuggle up on bundles

    Promises of seamless support

    Dell and Oracle are deepening their relationship through a bundling deal and a grid project, both announced at Oracle OpenWorld in San Francisco. Dell will provide PowerEdge servers loaded with Oracle’s database, Real Application Clusters or Fusion Middleware. Alternatively, customers can choose JD Edwards applications or …

    Servers 22 Sep 2005, 16:02

  • No2ID ejected from government's ID roadshow

    'Inappropriate' leaflets provoke heave-ho

    Four No2ID campaigners were ejected from Gateshead Metro Centre yesterday, after their attempts to protest against the introduction of a national identity register and identity card were deemed "inappropriate" for local shoppers. Home Office Minister Andy Burnham was due to appear at the centre as part of his whistlestop tour …

    Security 22 Sep 2005, 16:19

  • Mashboxx appoints music industry insider as CEO

    Rosso becomes chairman

    Mashboxx, the legal P2P software provider, has appointed a former Napster and Universal Music Group executive as President and CEO. Wayne Rosso, the colourful current incumbent, will become chairman, handing over the running of the company he founded to Mike Bebel, The Register has learned. Bebel is a something of a music- …

    Media 22 Sep 2005, 16:36

  • BEA feeling open source heat?

    Wall St says, 'Yes'

    BEA Systems is feeling the pressure from open source, according to investors at Wall St institution Piper Jaffray. The analyst firm has pegged BEA's stock price at $8 per share, saying it expects potential customers to delay new application server purchases until an updated version of open source rival Gluecode is released …

    Financial News 22 Sep 2005, 16:42

  • NSA lodges geolocation patent

    IP You

    The National Security Agency - the US's ultra-secretive signals intelligence corps - has patented a geolocation system that tries to pinpoint internet users based on their IP address. US patent 6,947,978, Method for geolocating logical network addresses, uses the latency of connections together with a network topology map to …

    Media 22 Sep 2005, 18:06

  • The Hive Mind has spoken: 'I need help!'

    Bloggers blog for therapy - Official

    Half of American webloggers cite self-help as their primary motivation for maintaining their online diaries, a survey has discovered. 48.7 per cent of the sample say that blogging "serves as therapy", and it's the most popular reason for publishing an online journal. The second most popular reason, to stay in touch with family …

    Media 22 Sep 2005, 22:03

  • Lacklustre Larry takes a pop at SAP

    A more mature Ellison opens up

    Oracle CEO Larry Ellison is happy with SAP’s choice of NetWeaver as its middleware because it has “an almost non-existent market share”. In a Q&A session during his keynote speech closing Oracle OpenWorld in San Francisco, Ellison was given a golden opportunity to lambaste NetWeaver and underline the company’s new open-to-all …

    Applications 22 Sep 2005, 22:42

  • Busy Oracle leaves many questions unanswered

    Door closes quietly on expo

    Oracle OpenWorld is drawing to a close in San Francisco, and some big questions are being left unanswered. Namely, one wonders what Oracle might look like at the OpenWorld event one year from now. The company is maturing and beginning to open out and extend its products. Project Fusion is the major challenge as the company …

    Applications 22 Sep 2005, 22:54