28th September 2005 Archive

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No2ID catches up with Home Office roadshow

All on camera, too

Those pesky activists at No2ID have been at it again: showing up at the government's biometrics charm-offensive road shows and asking difficult questions. This protest was caught on camera by the BBC, and subsequently aired on the local news. Dave Gould, No2ID's Bristol coordinator, grilled the Home Office minister, Andy …

Music and Media 28 Sep 2005, 07:21
WSIS: Who gets to run the internet?

United Nations conference ponders net future

The question over who will be granted overall control of the internet from next year is proving the most controversial part of a worldwide conference being held in Geneva as we speak. The United States, which currently has overall control of the internet, is refusing to allow other governments to take the lead role, arguing …

Financial News 28 Sep 2005, 07:31
Rolling Stones on Flash memory

Start me up

SanDisk, the memory -card manufacturer, has released the latest Rolling Stones album A Bigger Bang on a new secured mini Flash card. Available from November, the album will be offered on SanDisk's microSD (formerly TransFlash) card - named Gruvi - and can be played on any device that uses a SD card slot, such as mobile phones, …

Mobile 28 Sep 2005, 07:32
Google talks to CNET again

Sulk cancelled

Google is talking to news service CNET after refusing to speak to any of its reporters for the last two months. Elinor Mills, a reporter for News.com, earned the wrath of Google by writing a piece about privacy concerns raised by some of Google's business practises. To illustrate the point she spent half-an-hour finding some " …

Bootnotes 28 Sep 2005, 08:22
Apple coughs to iPod Nano screen flaws

...but scratches? What scratches?

The people have spoken, and Apple has heard them. Sort of. On Tuesday night the computer and music player company admitted that there are problems with the screen of the new iPod Nano, just three working days after The Register broke the story. Correction: a problem with one manufacturing batch, affecting "less than one-tenth …

Mac Channel 28 Sep 2005, 08:58
London offers relocation sweeteners to sci-tech firms

Congestion scheme

London aims to position itself as a global centre for science and technology firms with a new investment scheme. The new £3m gateway2investment (g2i) scheme aims to accelerate the growth of technology firms in the Capital and encourage more to relocate or start up. The programme is backed by mayor Ken Livingstone's London …

Small Biz 28 Sep 2005, 09:24
Game hit by PSP delays

Transitional year blamed for poor results

UK retailer Game has blamed the delayed PSP and a generally tough market for increased losses for the year. For the six months ended 31 July 2005 Game made a loss before tax of £14.7m compared to a loss of £3.5m for the six months ended 31 July 2004. Like-for-like sales were also down some 5.4 per cent thanks to the lack of …

Financial News 28 Sep 2005, 09:25
Wanadoo claims 40k VoIP users

Looks to overhaul BT

Wanadoo UK is poised to leapfrog BT in consumer broadband telephony subscribers. The France Telecom-owned ISP claims 40,000 active users of its Wireless & Talk broadband telephony service which it launched six months ago. BT has signed up 50,000 broadband users to its BT Communicator service, since launching its VoIP service in …

VoIP 28 Sep 2005, 09:29
RIM picks Intel for next-gen Blackberry

Hermon to bring 3G, EGDE, Wi-Fi to email devices

Research in Motion's future Blackberries will be based on Intel processors, the push email company said yesterday. It will be using the chip giant's XScale PXA9xx mobile phone processor, the successor to its current PXA800 "cellular processor" family. Codenamed 'Hermon', the new chip will add EDGE technology to boost the data …

Mobile 28 Sep 2005, 09:35
SAP offers JCP MkII

It's all about the community

SAP aims to emulate the success of Sun Microsystems' Java Community Process (JCP) with an organization to extend its proprietary ERP architecture. The enterprise resource planning (ERP) giant has launched the Enterprise Services Community Process, encouraging developers in hardware, software and services companies to build …

Software 28 Sep 2005, 09:57
Shuttle ships SLi-enabled SFF barebones

Post-review mods

Shuttle has tweaked its SLi-supporting small form-factor barebones PC, the XPC SN26P, just ahead of its release in coming days. The machine was unveiled earlier this year and dutifully sent out to hardware reviewers for comment. Shuttle yesterday said it had modified the machine in response to feedback. The SN26P is pitched at …

Channel Register 28 Sep 2005, 09:59
Office 2003 SP2 trashes junk mail

HTML links on phishing email filleted

Microsoft yesterday delivered a roll-up of security tweaks with the release of Service Pack 2 for Office 2003. The update is designed to improve the reliability of the latest version of Microsoft's office productivity suite along with support for upgraded applications, security improvements as well as stability and performance …

Software 28 Sep 2005, 10:01
US Army probes nude GI Janes

Porn is one thing, but corpses...

The US Army has launched an investigation into now that's fucked up, the "online trading post for amateur porn and grotesque gore pics from the front lines of freedom in Iraq", as we described it earlier this week. The website offers one open forum of explicit sexual images, mostly demonstrating what GI Jane gets up to in Iraq …

Music and Media 28 Sep 2005, 10:07
Scientists snap monstrous squid

North Pacific Leviathan caught on camera

Japanese scientists have pulled off a major coup by getting the first snaps of a live giant squid - 900 metres beneath the surface of the North Pacific. The elusive monster Architeuthis - which measures up to 18 metres - was previously known only by examples washed up on beaches or captured in fishing nets, Reuters reports. …

Science 28 Sep 2005, 10:08
Weirdly big galaxy found in young universe

How did that get there?

Astronomers have identified a very weird galaxy, floating around in space some 800m years after the Big Bang. Nothing wrong with that, except that it is much bigger, and more mature than theory predicts, prompting scientists to consider new models of galaxy formation. Bahram Mobasher of the European Space Agency and the Space …

Science 28 Sep 2005, 10:12
How Britain lost Sendo

The Chronicles of Collapsia

New filings cast light on the sad demise of Britain's only mobile phone manufacturer, Sendo. Following protracted legal battles with former partner and shareholder Microsoft and others, the group finally ran of money, and its assets were sold to Motorola in June. Motorola seems to have got rather a bargain, according to …

Mobile 28 Sep 2005, 10:18
Blogging = dogging, reckon London cabbies

A Podcast? Yer havin' a laugh

There is some very refreshing news today for those who live outside the rarified atmosphere of the internet world, and indeed for many of us struggling for breath within it - most people don't have a bloody clue what net buzzwords mean but can evidently function perfectly well in society despite this handicap. Indeed, a survey …

Music and Media 28 Sep 2005, 10:27
OneTel hurls brickbats at Freetalk, BT

VoIP spinning

Onetel - the Centrica-owned telco currently up for sale - has become the latest outfit to cut the ribbon on a VoIP service. And it has lost no time in having a pop at rival operators, while claiming its Just Dial service is head and shoulders above the competition. "Unlike Dixons' new Freetalk offering, customers will be …

VoIP 28 Sep 2005, 10:33
PSP crackers break console 'wide open'

Coders downgrade firmware

Crackers this week claimed to have successfully ripped out the latest Sony PlayStation Portable firmware and replaced it with an earlier version of the code containing fewer anti-piracy features. The procedure exploits a recently discovered buffer overflow exploit which allows code to be incorporated into image data. When the …

Consoles 28 Sep 2005, 10:36
Sun updates StarOffice

Freedom of information?

Sun Microsystems has release its latest version of StarOffice, a suite that promises to re-open the debate about the openness of Microsoft's rival Office suite. Sun said StarOffice 8.0 is the first commercial office suite to use the Open Document Format, the standard for file sharing that has been ratified by the Organization …

Software 28 Sep 2005, 10:38
Internet advertising soars in the US

Gravy train

Online advertising revenues in the first half of this year soared to a new high of around $5.8 billion in the US – up 26 per cent over the first half of 2004, according to figures released yesterday by the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) and PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC). Revenue for the second quarter of 2005 totalled $2. …

Financial News 28 Sep 2005, 10:50
ESA rattles tin for Russian space plane

Is Europe into manned spaceflight?

The European Space Agency is asking member states to fund a two-year feasibility study into joining forces with the Russians to build Kliper, a new people-carrying space plane that will take over missions to the International Space Station. The Russians have designed the plane as a replacement for their Soyuz capsules - which …

Science 28 Sep 2005, 10:51
AMD promises 64-bit stability

Disc imaging

AMD is offering disc imaging stability for its 64-bit chips- in essence a promise not to muck about with hardware so that corporates can guarantee they won't start having installation nightmares becauses of small changes to hardware. The chip maker is working with card and motherboard providers and promising no changes from 1 …

Servers 28 Sep 2005, 11:00
Secure Coding in C and C++

Site offer CERT® book at 30% off

Commonly-exploited software vulnerabilities are usually caused by avoidable software defects. Having analyzed nearly 18,000 vulnerability reports over the past ten years, the CERT/Coordination Center (CERT/CC) has determined that a relatively small number of root causes account for most of them. Secure Coding in C and C++ …

Site News 28 Sep 2005, 11:13
Bulldog preps ADSL2+ launch

That's it

Bulldog - owned by telco Cable & Wireless - is due to introduce faster speeds for its broadband punters from next month as it begins to introduce ADSL2+ technology. The local loop unbundling (LLU) ISP - which is facing an official investigation by Ofcom after the watchdog received hundreds of complaints from customers over the …

Telecoms 28 Sep 2005, 11:16
Microsoft and JBoss work together

Any port in a storm, except IBM

Microsoft and JBoss, kids from opposite sides of the open source tracks, are working together on interoperability of their server software to take on IBM. The companies will provide assistance and guidance for customers using JBoss with Microsoft's Active Directory, management of JBoss through Microsoft Operations Manager (MOM …

Servers 28 Sep 2005, 12:52
Eight charged over Star Wars leak

Dark Side of the net

Eight US residents suspected of involvement in leaking the final Star Wars film onto the net prior to its official release have been charged with copyright infringement offences. According to court documents, a copy of Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith was taken from Californian post-production firm and leaked onto the net in the …

Music and Media 28 Sep 2005, 13:39
TechScape: Friends Reunited and the embarrassment of riches

Rant Overpaid and overpriced

It is a sweet concept, isn't it? Rekindling old friendships. Rejoining old flames. Reconnecting people who used to care about each other so much. We simply must have a place to go to find long-lost pals, for without such a place our lives will be meaningless and hollow. It's all so 90s sensitive, so warm and fuzzy, and so …

Financial News 28 Sep 2005, 14:18
BT IPTV launch by summer 2006

Lovely

BT will roll out IPTV in 'late summer 2006', according to Andrew Burke, CEO, BT Entertainment, (pictured right) speaking at the Enhanced TV Show in London today. Developed in partnership with Microsoft, BT's new set-top box technology will combine a digital terrestrial television receiver with a broadband receiver, allowing the …

Telecoms 28 Sep 2005, 14:25
BT snaps up Infonet Germany

Whatever

BT is to snap up all of Infonet Germany which is majority owned by T-Systems, a subsidiary of Deutsche Telekom, the British telco announced today. Financial details were not disclosed. Earlier this year BT completed the $965m (£510m) acquisition of California-based voice and data network services outfit Infonet Services …

Telecoms 28 Sep 2005, 14:25
Germans open World Cup überbrothel

He arrives, he pays, he scores!

Ever the pragmatic nation, Germany has decided to boost replica kit, souvenir programme and meat pie revenues at next year's World Cup by opening an enormous brothel to cater for those fans who want to score but don't have David Beckham's golden balls or shooting skills. The Artemis shagging facility is just yards from the main …

Bootnotes 28 Sep 2005, 14:25
Tunis World Summit ‘in great danger’

PrepCom president urges world’s governments to pull fingers out

Check out Kieren's radio report on Prepcom 3 The first ever World Summit on the Internet is "in great danger", according to the president of its preparatory committees, unless governments pull out all stops in the next two days. Janis Karklins, who is also Latvia’s ambassador to the United Nations, convened a special meeting …

Financial News 28 Sep 2005, 14:58
Our Man in Geneva asks the WSIS questions

Podcast-aways

This week, world+dog is in Geneva debating the future of the internet. Kieren McCarthy, our man on the spot, has recorded his interviews with some of the key protagonists, broadcast in this radio report. He calls it a Podcast and so, we guess, must we. ®

Financial News 28 Sep 2005, 15:10
Motorola to flog cheap handsets for the poor

GSMA targets developing countries

Motorola has been selected by the GSM Association (GSMA) to supply the handsets for its programme to provide mobile telephony to people in developing countries. Motorola will commence delivery of these phones in the first quarter of 2006, as the second phase of the GSMA's Emerging Market Handset (EMH) programme gets underway. …

Mobile 28 Sep 2005, 15:16
eBid counters eBay price rises

Get 'em while they're hot! Free membership...

On the day that eBay increases its charges for selling items upstart rival online auctioneer eBid is putting the boot in by offering free listings for life. eBid is promising free "Gold" membership - which includes free listing of items and zero final value fees - to anyone who applies today. Gold membership is available for …

Financial News 28 Sep 2005, 15:17
Engineers tackle asteroid deflection problems

Saving the earth from extinction?

Not to be outdone by their counterparts in Europe, engineers in the UK have started a three year study into ways of intercepting or deflecting asteroids that might smash into the planet. The idea is that the engineers will only consider methods that could practically be implemented using today's technology, and to develop …

Science 28 Sep 2005, 15:22
ATI CrossFire multi-GPU platform

Review Worth the wait?

If you have even a passing interest in 3D graphics, you've probably been waiting for the appearance of ATI's dual-GPU solution. It seems like aeons ago that ATI announced that it would produce a platform to rival Nvidia's tremendously successful SLi, but now, finally I have a CrossFire system in front of me and it's time to see …

Reviews 28 Sep 2005, 15:43
More acquisitions expected from BEA

More portal, vicar?

Piper Jaffray, the US investment bank, has delivered its second cool assessment of BEA Systems' business prospects in a week, asserting BEA will continue with acquisitions to ignite growth. Piper Jaffray believes acquisition is a "reasonable strategy" to pursue, but noted the strategy indicates growth in BEA's core markets " …

Software 28 Sep 2005, 17:19
Bogus FIFA lottery scam hits the net

Offside

Fraudsters have launched a phishing campaign thattries to dupe football fans into believing they've won a FIFA-sponsored lottery in an attempt to steal bank account information. The bogus email notifications of supposed $1m winnings prey on interest in the Football World Cup tournament, scheduled to take place for the first …

Spam 28 Sep 2005, 17:20
Microsoft and Veritas start 'continuous' backup battle

EMC loves disk too

Recognizing that tape backups have fried many a storage administrator's nerves, giants Microsoft, Symantec - aka Veritas - and EMC have this week come rushing to market with a number of packages meant to make disk backups easy. The squabble at hand is a busy one as Microsoft has traditionally left more complex storage …

Storage 28 Sep 2005, 17:44
Cisco finds brand for Topspin gear, puts server switches on sale

Insert tennis pun here

Nearly five months after completing its purchase of Topspin Communications, Cisco has managed to put the acquired server networking gear up for sale. Cisco has presented the old Topspin kit as the SFS 7000 Series Infiniband Server Switches, the SFS 3000 Series Multifabric Server Switches and the Infiniband Host Channel Adapters …

Data Networking 28 Sep 2005, 19:41
Red Hat shares soar on impressive Q2

Analysts pull out their pom poms

Shares of Red Hat jumped today as the software maker revealed that strong sales pushed second quarter revenue significantly higher. Red Hat enjoyed a healthy three-month run, pulling in revenue of $65.7m. That total marks a 42 per cent year-over-year rise. In addition, Red Hat's second quarter net income reached $16.7m - a 42 …

Operating Systems 28 Sep 2005, 22:04