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13th October 2005 Archive

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  • Bulldog teams up with 'my-bulldog-hell' site

    Online help

    Bulldog has enlisted the help of the "my-bulldog-hell" website to help resolve customer service issues. The Cable & Wireless-owned ISP faces an Ofcom investigation after the regulator received hundreds of complaints about the service. A statement on the my-bulldog-hell website reads: "The team are proud to announce that we're …

    Telecoms 13 Oct 2005, 07:49

  • Lie detector tests for UK benefits claimants

    No wires - voice stress analysis

    Benefit applicants will be subject to lie detector tests under new plans annouced by Work and Pensions Secretary David Blunkett to crack down on fraud. The announcement comes as an influential government report reveals that errors and fraud in the benefits system cost the taxpayers £3bn last year. The anti-fraud strategy, to …

    Public Sector 13 Oct 2005, 07:51

  • Arrests 'unlikely' to impact botnet threat

    Bot herders galore!

    The recent arrests of three men in The Netherlands who allegedly controlled a network of more than 100,000 compromised computers will not likely curtail the criminal economy surrounding so-called bot nets, security experts said this week. The arrests, announced last week by The Netherlands' National Prosecution Service, follow …

    Spam 13 Oct 2005, 08:05

  • Sky plans broadband assault

    Targets BT, NTL-Telewest

    BSkyB is considering plans to buy a broadband telco so that it can go head-to-head with BT and NTL/Telewest. The Rupert Murdoch-owned satellite broadcaster is also prepared to invest up to £200m in local loop unbundling in a bid to provide phone and broadband services direct to end users, reports The Guardian. Should BSkyB go …

    Telecoms 13 Oct 2005, 09:46

  • Stuff the internet, say Peruvian farmers

    We want irrigation

    Peruvian farmers living around a huge copper mining site at Las Bambas in the Southern Andes are to stage a two-day protest against the government's plan to blow part of the cash generated by the project on internet infrastucture. Swiss-based Xstrata has stumped up £26m to a poverty-busting fund as part of its concession deal …

    Music and Media 13 Oct 2005, 09:47

  • Intel-led fast Wi-Fi group menaces IEEE

    Enhanced Wireless Consortium revs up

    A month ago, Intel and three other chipmakers formed a breakaway group to develop their own specification for fast Wi-Fi, just as it seemed that the two factions warring to produce the official IEEE 802.11n standard in this area were approaching a truce. Those consortia, TGn Sync and WWise, claim to be close to arriving at a …

    Data Networking 13 Oct 2005, 10:18

  • Vodafone biffed in 'best bar none' scrap

    Best, bestest, most bestest

    Vodafone has been shamed for calling its service "the best...bar none". Rival operator O2 got the hump with two poster ads which stated that Vodafone had the "best call success rate of any mobile GSM network" and was the "Best in Britain bar none". O2 challenged Vodafone's claim believing that the call success rate on which …

    Mobile 13 Oct 2005, 10:23

  • Novell and IBM offer per chassis Linux deal for blades

    Sweet

    Novell and IBM have struck a deal to offer customers the option of switching to per chassis subscription for SuSE Linux Enterprise Server 9, rather than paying per server. The subscription will cover all blades within an IBM BladeCenter chassis, the companies said, regardless of CPU type or quantity. IBM's BladeCenter chassis …

    Servers 13 Oct 2005, 10:24

  • Pirates set sail to Darknet island

    Or is it the Grouper archipelago?

    There was a semi-hysterical piece that ran this week in the New York Times, proposing that Darknets are likely to replace the collapsing P2P file exchange businesses, but the logic doesn’t quite seem to be thought through. Darknets are sub-networks, which have no public face to the world, where a small group can swap whatever …

    Music and Media 13 Oct 2005, 10:38

  • Desktop search and malware: friend or foe?

    Double-edged sword

    Anti-virus experts are experimenting with desktop search as a way of scanning for viral code. Both Google Search and Apple's Spotlight technology come with programming hooks (APIs) that allow their functions to be extended. Using these APIs, executable files might be scanned for malicious signatures. Andy Payne and Oliver …

    Malware 13 Oct 2005, 10:44

  • Coming soon: the mp3 breast implant

    BT bod moots musical mams

    Here's an appealing thought: an mp3 breast implant which will allow surgically-enhanced girls to store and play back their entire music collections from their 36DD assets. We kid you not. According to UK tabloid the Sun - ever watchful for life-enhancing technology, especially when it's got a big jubs angle - BT Laboratories …

    Bootnotes 13 Oct 2005, 10:46

  • Avanquest takes StarOffice to European retailers

    Downloads too

    Avanquest, the French-owned software publisher, has added Sun's StarOffice 8 to its roster. The company will flog the desktop office suite through download stores on its sundry European country websites. And it will wholesale the boxed version to "more than 5,000 retail outlets" accross Europe, kicking off at the end of the …

    Channel Register 13 Oct 2005, 10:56

  • Roll up folks, it's barometer tapping time

    Reg Reader Studies Testing the IT air pressure

    We know just how much you, our beloved and tech-savvy readers, enjoy a good survey. That's just as well, since it's that time of the year again when we give the IT barometer a light tap to see how the air pressure's holding up in the tech world. The latest probe has a mixed bag of questions - 14 in all, so it shouldn't take too …

    Tech Panel 13 Oct 2005, 10:57

  • EC moots pan-European music licensing

    Good governance

    The European Commission today set out measures for updating the management of online rights in musical works, recommending that an EU-wide copyright licensing system be established. The Commission published a study on the current position in July, concluding that the absence of pan-European copyright licences makes it difficult …

    Financial News 13 Oct 2005, 11:09

  • Mannheim starts Linux migration

    Desktops will follow later

    The German City of Mannheim this week outlined its migration plan to the Linux platform. Or, as the town in the grand-duchy of Baden puts it, “we are aiming to become fit for the future." A year ago, the German town at the junction of the Rhine and Neckar Rivers already got the go-ahead of the project. In the current quarter, …

    Operating Systems 13 Oct 2005, 11:10

  • New 007 licenced tomorrow

    Daniel Craig favourite for latest Bond

    Daniel Craig is the favourite to be named the new James Bond tomorrow, taking up Pierce Brosnan's Walther PPK* for the 21st 007 outing, Casino Royale, the BBC reports. Although Colin Farrell, Jude Law, Ewan McGregor and Clive Owen have all been mooted as possible Bonds, the press is backing 37-year-old Craig - star of films …

    Bootnotes 13 Oct 2005, 11:11

  • NASA to fund new X-Prize competitions

    Lunar vehicles and big rockets

    NASA wants to team up with the X-Prize foundation to fund two new competitions to develop technology for sub-orbital space vehicles, as part of its Centennial Challenges program. Subject to statutory budget approval, NASA will stump up prize money of more than $250,000 for each competition, while the X-Prize Foundation will …

    Science 13 Oct 2005, 11:22

  • Bell Micro to trim 'disappointing' European ops

    'Shortfall in sales and profits'

    Bell Microproducts is to wield the axe on its European operations, following a "shortfall in sales and profits". The computer distie expects to take a pre-tax charge of between $7m and $12m to cover restructuring costs over over the next few quarters. European sales fell 13 per cent year-on-year in the third quarter ended …

    Channel Register 13 Oct 2005, 11:37

  • Google, Comcast court AOL

    Oh to be popular

    Google and US cableco Comcast are reportedly interested in paying up to $5bn for a slice of AOL, according to a flurry of reports from the US. Time Warner is already holding talks with Microsoft about possible joint venture between AOL and MSN. Now it's emerged that Google and Comcast have their own ideas for a possible tie-up …

    Financial News 13 Oct 2005, 11:49

  • Of Citrix roadmaps and other things

    Access Suite Vision

    So off we went to the Agile Enterprise Seminar late last month, organised by Citrix-specialist consultancy Centralis, to catch-up on the Citrix roadmap and some new, related, technologies. Citrix started as a simple terminal server for Windows, doing what Microsoft couldn't quite manage - even now, Microsoft's terminal server …

    Servers 13 Oct 2005, 12:08

  • Yahoo! clamps down on predatory chat

    I am 16, going on 60

    Yahoo! has agreed to ban the creation of new chatrooms with names that promote sex between adults and minors. The announcement follows the company's decision to suspend all user-created chatrooms in June this year, following complaints that some of them were being used by child predators to groom minors. Yahoo! says it has now …

    Music and Media 13 Oct 2005, 12:10

  • US cybersecurity all at sea

    ... without a paddle

    US cybersecurity risks are being poorly managed by the Department of Homeland Security, according to a former US presidential information security advisor. Peter Tippett, who recently served a two-year term on the President’s Information Technology Advisory Committee, said a lack of leadership on electronic security left the US …

    Enterprise Security 13 Oct 2005, 12:46

  • Study reveals gaps in UK system to track criminal and terror finance

    Lots of data, but police can't or won't use it fully

    As you prove your identity ("I'm sorry sir, but it's a legal requirement") to your bank for the umpteenth time, no doubt you wonder whether the mountain of data that money laundering rules produce is of the slightest use to the people with access to it. Well, wonder no more - the second critical study on the use of Suspicious …

    Public Sector 13 Oct 2005, 13:26

  • Looming crisis prompts prison governors' call for electronic tagging

    They're having a laugh, right?

    An "unexpected" surge in the UK prison population has led to the Prison Governor's Association calling for early release of inmates under electronic tagging. News that prisons had hit a population of 77,600 and were close to running out of space came just weeks after Charles Clarke announced the abandonment of the target of …

    Music and Media 13 Oct 2005, 13:36

  • Video iPod plus Front Row: Media Center killer, or shoulder-shrug?

    Are you content with the content?

    OK, we've got a lot of things to get through today, so let's get started. As Steve Jobs usually says, introducing another load of, um, stuff. So on Wednesday he unveiled a desktop computer with a remote control; iPods that can play video; and an updated iTunes Music Store that will sell you videos, and if you live in the US, …

    Mac Channel 13 Oct 2005, 14:06

  • Deadly bird flu strain confirmed in Turkey (the country)

    Coming soon to a flock near you

    A small outbreak of avian flu found in Turkish poultry has been confirmed as the deadly H5N1 strain, prompting EU health officials to warn of an impending pandemic. Meanwhile, bird flu has also been confirmed in ducks in Romania, although the strain has yet to be identified, according to the European Commission. The EU has …

    Science 13 Oct 2005, 14:25

  • BSA wants 'private copy levies' scrapped

    Europeans paying twice

    The BSA is calling on European governments to scrap so-called private copy levies on digital hardware and media, branding them outmoded and unfair to the consumer in a world with digital rights management (DRM) software. Francisco Mingorance, director of public policy, Europe for the BSA argues that private copy levies mean …

    Music and Media 13 Oct 2005, 16:06

  • Samsung pays $300m to settle DRAM cartel case

    Guilty as charged

    Samsung has agreed to pay $300m to settle criminal charges that it squeezed PC manufacturers by artificially fixing chip prices. The world's largest manufacturer of memory chips will plead guilty for fixing the price of dynamic random access memory (DRAM) chips and says it will cooperate with the continuing US Department of …

    Channel Register 13 Oct 2005, 19:34

  • JBoss takes SOA step closer to IBM

    It's all about the process

    When IBM bought JBoss's application server rival Gluecode earlier this year, JBoss's chief executive, Marc Fleury, was characteristically unphased. he took time out to ensure there was no hasty response to IBM's predatory move. Now he's back with plans to take JBoss further away from its original incarnation as an "open source …

    Developer 13 Oct 2005, 23:24

  • Nokia E-phones might finally mean business

    Analysis Campus VoIP and OMA DM aren't sexy, but matter

    When Nokia launched its most serious business phone yet, the 9210 Communicator four years ago, TV adverts to promote the device showed executives in suits doing stunts on pedal scooters. Leaping executives. On pedal scooters. Why? We still haven't been able to figure that one out, but it suggested Nokia was really rather …

    Mobile 13 Oct 2005, 23:57