17th November 2005 Archive

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Beyond the web, Google opens Base

All your classifieds will soon be ours

A Google executive has denied that its new Base service, unveiled as a beta today, was "a play in any kind of e-commerce space", but only the foolish would take Salar Kamangar, vice president of product management at Google, at his word. Google Base significantly expands the Google index beyond web pages: allowing businesses to …

Music and Media 17 Nov 2005, 00:25
Sun giving away Studio

Take my tools. Please

Studio 11 has become Sun Microsystems' latest application development environment to break the price barrier and be given away for free. Studio 11, released Wednesday, is Sun's C, C++ and Fortran development environment for building applications on Solaris and Linux, Sparc, x86 and x64 hardware. Previous editions of Sun Studio …

Software 17 Nov 2005, 01:00
iTunes price rise a cert - EMI boss

A dollar too short

EMI Music's chief executive Alain Levy has said that there's now a consensus that the price of hit songs will rise on digital download sites. Apple charges 99 cents per song on its iTunes Music Store regardless of the song's popularity - something that the industry is keen to change. "There is a common understanding that we …

Music and Media 17 Nov 2005, 01:43
Nokia buys Intellisync

Belt and braces

Nokia is paying $430m to acquire Intellisync, or $5.25 per share - $100m more than the company's market valuation. The San Jose-based company offers email and PIM synchronization, and device management software with enterprises and OEM as its primary customers. But over the past two years Intellisync has pushed hard into mobile …

Mobile 17 Nov 2005, 01:53
GoogleNet conquers Mountain View

One lamp post at a time

Google's first foray into providing blanket wireless internet coverage has proved victorious, with its home town of Mountain View giving the local company a five-year monopoly on providing Wi-Fi access. Google will rent 400 street posts in Mountain View, California, for $12,600 a year, on which it will erect 802.11 hubs at a …

Mobile 17 Nov 2005, 01:55
iPod wrist controller

Tech Digest ...and loads more gadget essentials

Certified gadget obsessives Tech Digest and Shiny Shiny scour Gizmoville for the oddest digital goodies, Bayraider keeps tabs on the best and worst of eBay and Games Digest has the latest gaming news. iPod remote control wrist band There’s not been many particularly innovative iPod accessories for a while now, so it’s good …

Peripherals 17 Nov 2005, 10:02
Apple to intro Intel iBook 'with big price cut'

January debut?

Apple will announce new iBook consumer notebooks at Macworld Expo in January 2006 - just over a month from now - and they will be based on Intel processors. So allege "highly reliable" sources, ThinkSecret reports, mentioning the same sources have proved correct on quite a few other occasions. The moles don't provide any …

Mac Channel 17 Nov 2005, 10:05
Intel to 'revise' Pentium M naming scheme

Indicates performance and wattage

Intel is to introduce a new processor numbering scheme when its 65nm 'Yonah' chip debuts early next year, sources from within Taiwan's motherboard maker community have claimed. Every Yonah's model number will be prefixed with an E, T, L or U, determined by the chip's thermal design power (TDP) stats. That's followed by a 1 or a …

Reg Hardware 17 Nov 2005, 10:48
UK's first 'most wanted' website goes titsup

Burgled perhaps?

An FBI-style website listing some of the UK's 'most wanted' crims has gone titsup within hours of going live. The site - www.mostwanted-uk.org - enables vulture-eyed citizens to tip-off police if they spot any villains. The site was launched today by charity Crimestoppers and has been described by Nick Ross, presenter of the …

Bootnotes 17 Nov 2005, 11:02
Sony in USB lead porn punt shocker

Hey babe, try plugging this in...

Pity if you will poor old Sony. First they get themselves into all sorts of trouble with the rootkit DRM CDs fiasco, then incur the wrath of the e-tailing community by ramping up wholesale kit prices for online stores, then, well, how can it get any worse? Here's how: yesterday, anyone popping down to sonystyle.com and typing " …

Bootnotes 17 Nov 2005, 11:10
Tesco targets incest demographic

Bold marketing initiative

Its motto may be "Every Little Helps", but surely there are depths which UK supermarket monolith Tesco will not trawl in order to squeeze a smidge more cash from the shopping public? We'd like to think so but, sadly, the truth is dark indeed. Following Asda's highly-successful TV ad campaign, which featured a young mum patting …

Bootnotes 17 Nov 2005, 11:13
Microsoft may look again at virus notification

Customers want more info

Customer feedback over the last few days of Microsoft's IT Forum in Barcelona has prompted the vendor to look again at the early notification process for vulnerabilities. Microsoft releases monthly patch updates on the second Tuesday of the month but gives some customers a heads-up on the previous Thursday. Stephen Toulouse, …

Security 17 Nov 2005, 11:28
Club 3D completes UK distie set-up with Enta signing

Now to build brand recognition

Enta is to distribute graphics card maker Club 3D's ATI-based boards in the UK, the two companies announced today. Enta will take in Club 3D's Radeon X800 GT-based X800RX card, which will form the core of its pre-Christmas sales drive. It will also offer Club-3D's X300 and X550 PCI Express boards, alongside the AGP-based 9250 …

Channel Register 17 Nov 2005, 11:35
RIM touts 'NTP-beating' Blackberry update

Company 'comfortable' with workaround

Research in Motion (RIM) is close to shipping a software update which, it believes, will free it from the threat of an injunction banning the sale of its Blackberry email devices in the US. "It's a software upgrade that we're very, very comfortable with and... we're just finishing testing," RIM Joint-CEO Jim Balsillie told …

Mobile 17 Nov 2005, 11:38
Counterfeiters send jammed printer for repair

Forgers cuffed after blonde moment

Arizona authorities this week charged suspected members of a criminal ring thought responsible for 10 per cent of all fake money in the state after some members sent a printer, jammed with counterfeit bills, out for repair. A three-month investigation by the U.S. Secret Service and the local sheriff's office nabbed 10 suspects …

Bootnotes 17 Nov 2005, 11:45
UK manufacturer coughs £10k for unlicensed software

Settles with BSA

A Nottingham-based maker of tags that deter shoplifters has made an out-of-court settlement with the Business Software Alliance for £10,000 following an investigation into its unlawful use of unlicensed Adobe, Apple and Microsoft products. Shore to Shore Ltd has produced over four billion tags and labels this year for Tesco, …

Applications 17 Nov 2005, 11:49
Users don't trust websites with personal info

Big concerns, survey finds

Only 16 per cent of people are confident that internet sites will treat their personal information properly, according to a new survey by the Information Commissioner's Office that found widespread concern about data protection laws and practices. Four out of five of us are concerned about how our finances or health and safety …

ID 17 Nov 2005, 12:09
Europe's heavy lifter takes to the sky

Cool

Europe's heavy lifting rocket, Ariane 5 ECA, has successfully blasted off from French Guiana with two telecoms satellites on board. It is only the launcher's third outing, after it was lost on its maiden voyage. The American operator DirecTV's Spaceway 2 satellite masses over 6,000 kilograms, and is one of the largest telecoms …

Science 17 Nov 2005, 12:12
Wanadoo 'UK's number one' VoIP outfit, says Wanadoo

My VoIP's bigger than your VoIP

Wanadoo - which was humiliated by BT yesterday following a spat over an ad - reckons it's the UK's top broadband telephony outfit with more than 80,000 registered users. And with numbers growing by some 5,000 a week the ISP looks set to break through the 100,000 barrier by Christmas. The France Telecom-owned ISP says its …

Telecoms 17 Nov 2005, 12:18
T-Mobile brings Sidekick II to UK

Danger's 'Blackberry for consumers' arrives at last

T-Mobile has finally launched Danger's Blackberry-for-consumers second-generation Hiptop device in the UK, branding the machine the Sidekick II and bundling it with the carrier's new Web'n'Walk GPRS tariff. It's taken quite a while for the Hiptop 2 to arrive here - T-Mobile launched it in the US back in August 2004, followed …

Mobile 17 Nov 2005, 12:29
Intel 975X multi-GPU chipset slips out

One 16x or two 8x PCI-E slots, anyone?

Intel this week quietly launched its anticipated 975X Express desktop chipset, pitched at the dual-core Pentium Extreme Edition processor. As expected, the 975X builds on the company's existing PEE chipset, the 955X. Like its predecessor, it has support for twin graphics cards, this time connecting to the North Bridge across …

Reg Hardware 17 Nov 2005, 12:29
Dimension Data’s 'very good year'

Except for Europe

Dimension Data gave itself a pat on the back yesterday for a “very good year”, which saw it return to the black. Sales at the networking reseller group advanced 13.8 per cent to $2.83bn for the 12 months to 30 September 2005, and net income was $17.764m (2004: -$37.803m). The South African-domiciled firm notes a “favourable …

Channel Register 17 Nov 2005, 13:22
'Vindictive' UK spammer jailed for six years

Guilty of £1.6m .eu scam

A 23-year-old man branded the UK's worst spammer has been jailed for six years for a string of offences including blackmail and threatening to kill. Peter Francis-Macrae, of St Neots, Cambridgeshire, was also found guilty of orchestrating a £1.6m European domain name scam even though he had no right to flog .eu domains. And …

Spam 17 Nov 2005, 13:25
Private enterprise needed in space: NASA

And 2006's $17bn space budget is approved

NASA has said commercial investment will prove vital to its future efforts in space exploration. Ex-staffers backed the sentiment, saying NASA has too much on its plate to go it alone. The agency needs to fill a funding black hole of between £3bn and $5bn. It has already cannibalised the research budget of the International …

Science 17 Nov 2005, 13:29
World Summit blog: Buses, toilets and fear

WSIS Tunis The flipside of an authoritarian government

Was there ever a more evil form of transport than a bus? They are so convincing. You can carry a lot of people and they can go wherever you want. Trains and trams are on tracks, cars are too small and cramped. But don't be fooled. Having lots of people means lots of stopping as each person tries to save themselves those vital …

Music and Media 17 Nov 2005, 14:02
Blu-ray backer HP threatens to back HD DVD too

It's my party and I'll cry if I want to

When Blu-ray Disc debuts next Spring, long-time supporter HP may not be among the companies heralding the launch because the format ships without a technology the PC vendor wants included. This week, the Blu-ray Ray Disc Association (BDA) said the next-generation optical disc format's copy-protection system would allow users to …

Peripherals 17 Nov 2005, 14:43
Review Leadtek DTV1000 T digital TV tuner

There have always been TV tuner cards for PCs but it's fair to say that Microsoft's Windows XP Media Center Edition has given them a new lease of life. So much so, in fact, that if a card isn't compatible with MCE, it's hardly worth mentioning. Leadtek's DTV1000 T digital tuner card is certainly MCE 2005 compatible but …

Reviews 17 Nov 2005, 14:44
Welcome to the Rotting Dog Blog

Utopian distemper and other musings

Welcome to the Rotting Dog Blog November 13, 2005 - 12:15 pm Welcome indeed. I don't know about you, but I've found that the blogosphere has really opened my mind to a whole new world of personal freedom. Before Linus Torvalds invented the blog, I had pretty much nothing to say about anything. It's just like the news went in …

Music and Media 17 Nov 2005, 14:44
Ofcom warned not to relax BT regulation just yet

Says UK trade group

Ofcom has been warned not to relax the rules that governs BT just yet despite its recent regulatory settlement with the UK's dominant telco. UKCTA - the telecoms trade group that includes operators including Cable & Wireless, Colt, NTL and Thus - says that competition in the sector will be put at risk if regulatory constraints …

Networks 17 Nov 2005, 14:54
Classics suffer death by SMS

2b? Nt2b? ???

This has got a sort of horrible inevitability about it: student mobile service dot.mobile has compressed some of the great works of literature into a few lines of SMS so that time-strapped students can revised Hamlet, for example, without the inconvenience of having to carry a book around with them. According to the Beeb, …

Bootnotes 17 Nov 2005, 15:01
Man flogs debt on eBay

Updated Debt Free? Then buy some!!

If you, like the average Reg hack, live a life of opulence and excess fuelled by limitless supplies of cash, then you have undoubtedly wondered how it would be to owe money for a short, experimental period. Nothing too serious, mind. Around £22k ought to get that real-life poverty feeling until the novelty wears off and you jet …

Bootnotes 17 Nov 2005, 15:07
Biometrics push passport fees past £50

Not so small price to pay

Passport fees are set to soar to £51, thanks to a 21 per cent (£9) increase to pay for the inclusion of biometrics and other security measures. The increase will come into effect as of 1 December, the Home Office said. The money will be used to fund better background checks and face-to-face interviews with first time adult …

ID 17 Nov 2005, 15:34
Sony unveils video VoIP service

Oh goody...

Sony has unveiled a free video and voice service that could spell disaster for blind dates and spouses lying to their loved ones. According to the PR blurb, Sony's Instant Video Everywhere (IVE and pronounced "ivy") means that "late-working or travelling parents can check in on their kids at home using real-time, high-quality …

VoIP 17 Nov 2005, 16:23
Patriot Act 'compromise' makes matters worse

Updated While some on the Hill try to obstruct it

First, the good news. Revisions to the so-called "Patriot" Act now circulating on Capitol Hill will give Congress some limited oversight on the use of national security letters, by requiring the FBI to report periodically on their use. Now the bad news. The gag rules have been enhanced on these letters, which allow surveillance …

Music and Media 17 Nov 2005, 16:33
Sony DRM uninstaller 'worse than rootkit'

Double jeopardy

Hacker websites are using Sony's DRM uninstaller in an attempt to take over Windows PCs. Under pressure, Sony recently released a tool to remove the rootkit technology installed when users play Sony BMG CDs on Windows PCs. This happened after it was shown Sony's DRM code (First4Internet XCP program) created a handy means for …

Security 17 Nov 2005, 16:38
'Most wanted' site still floored

Best if villains just hand themselves in

The UK's first "FBI-style" web site listing some of the nation's most wanted villains is still down after going titsup early this morning. The site collapsed under the strain of 208,000 "hits" before 9.00am this morning turning the launch of the "biggest advance since the 'Wanted' poster" into a laughing stock. "We weren't …

Public Sector 17 Nov 2005, 16:39
SIA slashes chip sales forecast

For '06 and '07

The Semiconductor Industry Association (SIA) yesterday warned that the global chip industry will perform less well in 2006 and 2007 than the organisation had previously forecast. However, it said 2005 will prove slightly more successful than anticipated. The SIA now believes $227.6bn worth of semiconductors will have been sold …

Channel Register 17 Nov 2005, 16:57
Ex-MI5 boss, House of Lords give ID cards thumbs down

Not a good day for the database builders

The House of Lords voted to reject the ID cards bill yesterday. The second house wants the draft legislation amended so that restrictions are placed on who would be allowed to use the cards to check a person's identity. Peers were also unhappy that Home Office ministers said that they could not reveal the full cost of the plans …

ID 17 Nov 2005, 17:01
PathScale promises major Opteron cluster boost

SC05 Trendiest start-up ever

PathScale may well be the trendiest company in the server market. It has bet on Linux clusters, Opteron and Infiniband. And its technology sits at the intersection of these three popular and growing segments of the hardware industry. Up to this point, PathScale has relied on sales of its EKOPath compiler suite to stay afloat. …

Data Networking 17 Nov 2005, 19:39
Microsoft goes limited with Office 12 beta

New Office or same old suite?

After months of teasing previews, Microsoft has finally given the next version of its desktop productivity suite its first, if limited, outing. Microsoft has released a beta of Office 12, called a technical beta, to 10,000 pre-screened developers working at partner companies and customers. A general beta is due next spring with …

Applications 17 Nov 2005, 21:43
CMP Media dons Black Hat

Spurs debate on future of security show

Tradeshow and publishing firm CMP Media has acquired Black Hat, the company behind the incisive Black Hat briefings and conferences, in a deal valued at around $10m. Black Hat's flagship conference, Black Hat USA, has been the venue for the unveiling of hard hitting security research over many years such as a presentation on …

Security 17 Nov 2005, 22:02
Rackable makes x86 SMP charge

SC05 Rise of the 8-way

Rackable Systems – the little server start-up that could – is shipping a new SMP-like system and a fresh line of "green computing" gear. If you're looking for flash, then Rackable won't be your vendor of choice. The company makes plain, thin gear and does well in the cluster market. So far, it has ridden a solid Opteron-based …

Servers 17 Nov 2005, 22:32
Sun brings open source database to Solaris 10

Postgres first, more promised

Sun Microsystems has jumped feet first into the increasingly crowded open source database market by integrating and distributing Postgres with Solaris 10. Postgres will be bundled with Solaris 10 in the first half of 2006. It will tap into Solaris 10 features such as Dynamic Tracing (DTrace) for performance turning, predictive …

Operating Systems 17 Nov 2005, 22:58
Penguin gets personal with Linux clusters

SC05 Heavy beast slides under your desk

Penguin Computing has joined the deskside cluster movement with a new box that packs tons of horsepower in a package meant to be convenient for engineers. The Penguin Portable Cluster stacks numerous blade servers in a vertical, tower-like configuration. Customers can fill the system with anywhere between 6 and 24 low voltage …

Servers 17 Nov 2005, 23:16