2nd December 2005 Archive

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Year zero for Sun's recovery . . . again

Analysis Goodbye software, goodbye revenue

Open source and subscription-based pricing are taxing the best brains of software providers. Sun Microsystems became the latest to grapple with the issues this week, announcing it would no longer charge for its software. Lucky developers can now download Sun's Java Enterprise System (JES) middleware stack, N1 grid engine and …

Applications 2 Dec 2005, 00:19
What's it all about, ALF

Serena is sponsoring a new Eclipse project called ALF

Serena is well-known for cross-platform change management but it has been expanding its offering of late, to cover more of the Application Lifecycle. Its SAFE (Serena Application Framework for Enterprises) vision centres on configuration/change management and version control but now includes business process modelling and …

Software 2 Dec 2005, 03:02
Read the letter that won the internet governance battle

Condoleezza Rice's missive to the EU

The World Summit in Tunis last month was overshadowed by the global argument over internet governance. Its biggest controversy came with the proposition put forward by the EU a month earlier that there be a new inter-governmental body that oversee ICANN. The US government - which currently enjoys unilateral control over the …

Music and Media 2 Dec 2005, 09:07
Zone Labs sued over spyware classification

180solutions on warpath

Marketing company 180solutions filed a lawsuit against desktop-security firm Zone Labs taking issue with a warning generated by the security firm's personal firewall software, which labels 180solutions advertising client as spyware. The lawsuit--filed last month but only recently came to light - cites warnings generated by Zone …

Security 2 Dec 2005, 09:10
Nvidia to out-sell ATI in 2005 - analyst

Reverses 2004 situation

Nvidia will sell more chips this year than ATI, reversing a trend established in 2004, the latest market forecast from researcher iSuppli reveals. iSuppli's numbers track semiconductor sales from all the major chip makers. Nvidia and ATI turn up at number 24 and 25, respectively, on the list of the world's biggest semiconductor …

Reg Hardware 2 Dec 2005, 10:28
SOA means change - and keep changing

SOA generates buzz phrases - some are even useful...

Most companies currently flying round the Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) candle have a buzz phrase or two to hand that they hope will help users make more sense of what might be possible with the technologies involved – especially theirs – but one of the best to emerge recently came from Shahin Khan of Azul Systems, …

Software 2 Dec 2005, 10:40
Fibernet gets a nibble

'Unlikely to lead to an offer'

Fibernet has played down speculation that it could be the latest operator to be caught up in the current round of telco consolidation. The UK firm's share price has been nudging higher recently prompting speculation that it could be latest take-over target. But in a statement today the Basingstoke telco said that while it's …

Financial News 2 Dec 2005, 10:51
IBM to be 2005's fastest-growing chip maker

PowerPC provider still a long way behind AMD, Intel

AMD may be eating into Intel's x86 processor market share, but its arch-rival will remain the world's biggest chip maker by a long margin when 2005 comes to a close. According to the latest forecast from market watcher iSuppli, Intel will sell $35.849bn worth of chips this year, including x86 processors, ARM-based CPUs, …

Financial News 2 Dec 2005, 10:57
Son of the £300 ID card - the £290 ID scheme propaganda DVD

Home Office venture rocks entertainment world...

Should the entertainment industry panic about the Home Office's shock entry into DVD production? Probably not, if figures revealed this week by Home Secretary Charles Clarke are anything to go on. In answer to a parliamentary question from Tory Home Affairs spokesman David Davis, Clarke said that so far a whopping 250 copies of …

Music and Media 2 Dec 2005, 11:09
Restructuring costs drive Novell into the red

Profit restructured off P&L

Novell has swung from profit of $15m last year to record a fourth quarter loss of $5m, despite an upsurge in revenue. For the quarter ending 31 October, Novell reported revenue of $320m, compared to revenue of $301m for Q42004. Excluding restructuring charges of $38m, the enterprise software supplier said it would have earned $ …

Financial News 2 Dec 2005, 11:19
ATI, Nvidia, SIS gain from Intel's chipset famine

Chip giant's fortunes to reverse in Q2 2006, apparently

The effect of Intel's chipset shortage is clear for all to see in the latest 2005 market data from Mercury Research: the chip giant's share of the chipset business has tumbled from a peak of 69 per cent in Q1 to an estimated 53 per cent in Q4. And the situation isn't going to improve for some time. Intel CFO Andy Bryant this …

Financial News 2 Dec 2005, 11:26
Orange unveils new 'Calling Tunes' service

Gotta pay that French fine somehow

Orange has launched a new music service that enables its punters to add more bells and whistles to their phones. Calling Tunes, as it's known, lets Orange punters choose music to play callers while they wait for the phone to be answered. So instead of the ringing tone, callers might hear Stiff Competition by Cheap Trick or Won' …

Mobile 2 Dec 2005, 11:30
US media tries to block AMD-vs-Intel gagging orders

AMD vs Intel Jumping the gun

AMD's legal battle with Intel has gained considerable media interest - to the extent that more than 24 news-gathering enterprises are no longer simply reporting the story but have become a part of it. The list of businesses includes all the usual suspects in the US: Associated Press, Reuters, ABC, CBS, Knight Ridder, the New …

Reg Hardware 2 Dec 2005, 11:35
Non-execs reject Computacenter buy-out bid

Founders offer rejected

Computacenter’s independent directors have turned down a bid by the reseller giant’s founders and senior management to take the firm private, the Daily Telegraph reported today. On Wednesday, according to reports, Sir Peter Ogden and Philip Hume and the rest of the bid team offered 255 pence per share for the shares in the …

Channel Register 2 Dec 2005, 12:03
MS anti-virus beta. Hmmm...

Letters Plus, Otto and Rotting Dog cop a shoeing

First up in this Friday's trawl of the Vulture Central mailbag are a few comments on Microsoft's launch of anti-virus public beta. Take it away, beloved readers: I just tried following your link to the Microsoft anti-virus beta and got the following error: "Wow, we must have really messed up and are currently down. Please come …

Letters 2 Dec 2005, 12:14
Sunbelt rescues Kerio Firewall from oblivion

White knight

Sunbelt Software announced plans on Thursday to acquire Kerio's personal firewall business, bolstering its core anti-spyware offering with personal firewall technology. The acquisition is expected to be finalized by the end of the month. Terms of the deal are undisclosed. Kerio Personal Firewall will be re-branded on an interim …

Enterprise Security 2 Dec 2005, 12:28
Sun wants to be the Badger in Web 2.0

Comment Why this isn't a good idea

Sun Microsystem's President and Chief Operating Officer Jonathan Schwartz wants to ally the company with one of the year's biggest marketing flops, "Web 2.0". "Sun will be the Dot in Web 2.0," he wrote this week. "No shame in saying it." We're not so sure about that. Judging by a recent survey of ours, many of Sun's …

Software 2 Dec 2005, 12:30
Alaska man plans 20-ton domestic cyclotron

Locals none too happy

A 55-year-old Alaska man has met determined local resistance to his plan to assemble a 20-ton nuclear particle accelerator in his Anchorage home, Wired reports. Albert Swank Jr - who runs an engineering firm from his house - built his first domestic cyclotron when he was 17. He now wants to upgrade to a meatier Scandiatronix …

Science 2 Dec 2005, 12:39
WidowPC races to ship first dual-core notebook

Will the Sting sing?

Will WidowPC's Sting 917X2 notebook be the world's first dual-core laptop? Certainly a number of technology websites are claiming it is, but a check on the company's own website reveals the 5.1kg beast is only available on pre-order. The 917X2 is will be based an AMD Athlon 64 X2 3800+ or above. The spec. is customisable, but …

PCs 2 Dec 2005, 12:50
Inventor deploys hoodie-busting sonic weapon

Suck on Mosquito, teen ne'er-do-well

A Welsh invention which claims to repel rowdy teenage ne'er-do-wells while leaving lawabiding fortysomethings and septuagenarian war heroes to go about their business unmolested has been creating a bit of a stir in the UK and international press this week. Howard Stapleton's "Mosquito" emits an ultrasonic sound which can be …

Bootnotes 2 Dec 2005, 12:53
UK firm fined £5k for fly-tipped computer kit

'A cavalier attitude to waste'

A UK company has been fined £5k for breaching regulations about storing computer waste. Chesterfield Magistrates Court heard how more than 200 monitors later traced back to Channel Hardware - a company which carried out computer repairs and dealt with discarded computer equipment - were found fly-tipped in Normanton in November …

IT Director 2 Dec 2005, 12:56
Warez servers in Germany confiscated

6 terabytes

German police have confiscated five warez servers with 6 terabytes of illegal copies of movies and games in the German town of Coburg on the fringes of northern Bavaria. The servers, with names as Temptation and Paradise Island, were accessible to over 1,200 people for € 30 to 120 per month. Police arrested at least one 26 year …

Music and Media 2 Dec 2005, 13:03
Griffin ships sound-isolating iPod 'phones

You what?

Another day, another Griffin Technology iPod accessory. Today it's the turn of EarThumps, a set of sound-isolating 'phones that the company claims "deliver clean transparent atmospheric highs, and deep, low bass". Said sound quality comes via the EarThumps' neodymium dynamic micro-drivers, while the sound level and enhanced …

Peripherals 2 Dec 2005, 13:04
Anti-virus scanner added to Google Gmail

Don't be evil

Google has introduced an anti-virus scanning service to Gmail. Each time users send and receive attachments, Gmail will automatically scan them for viruses. It's unclear whether Google developed the technology in-house (highly unlikely) or licensed it from a security firm, much less who that firm might be. Gmail previously …

Anti-Virus 2 Dec 2005, 13:08
BOFH: the PFY goes AWOL

Episode 33 Wasn't he just in the tape safe?

It's a quiet afternoon in Mission Control when I'm woken from my slumber by a dull banging noise coming from the Tape Library room. The sound seems so familiar and yet still so elusive, and for some reason I just can't put my finger on it... As the sounds seem to die away (die being an all too appropriate term in this case) …

BOFH 2 Dec 2005, 13:18
Podcast hijacked by 'extortionist'

Give us the dosh or the RSS feed dies

Podcaster Erik Marcus has become the latest target of an age-old crime. His RSS feed has been redirected by a "cyber-squatter" who's demanding payment as a condition for releasing the hijacked feed. Marcus who runs the Vegan.com site and produced the Erik's Diner podcasts is seeking legal redress for this new form of extortion …

Enterprise Security 2 Dec 2005, 14:20
Intel CEO goes clumping with Jobs, Charles and Camilla

Puts Grove under review too

CEO Paul Otellini has come a long way in his more than thirty years at Intel. These days he's bossing around co-founder Andy Grove and hobnobbing with royalty. Not bad for a man with a funny last name that means "little otter" in Italian. "I used to work for Andy for about 31 years, but he works for me now," Otellini said, …

Bootnotes 2 Dec 2005, 14:50
Cop cautions two-year-old driver

2.5mph speed merchant had no tax or MOT

A two-year-old lad has been cautioned by a police officer in Leyland, Lancashire for driving his 2.5mph toy car on the pavement without tax or MOT, the Mirror reports. Oliver Smith was out with his grandad Derek when the authorites moved in. Oliver's father Richard said: "My dad thought it a was joke at first - he was expecting …

Bootnotes 2 Dec 2005, 14:51
Youths strap hamster to rocket

Fatal results captured on camera phone

Police in Scotland are hunting a group of youths who strapped a hamster to a firework rocket before setting it off. The incident is believed to have happened a couple of weeks ago in the Possilpark area of Glasgow, reports the BBC. Police learned of the "horrific" incident because it had been filmed using a camera phone and …

Bootnotes 2 Dec 2005, 15:05
UK gets £100m stem cell boost

Government doubles cash injection

The UK's stem cell research programmes will benefit from £100m over the next two years after Gordon Brown doubled the government's financial committement to the technology, Reuters reports. Brown said the cash would go to "pre-commercial aspects of stem cell research" - considered high-risk by pharmaceutical companies - and the …

Science 2 Dec 2005, 15:24
Bats fingered for Ebola deaths

Central African vector

Bats could be responsible for spreading Ebola among human and ape populations in central Africa, scientists have claimed in Nature. Three species, all of which "had a geographical range that included regions where human outbreaks of Ebola had occurred", did not show any signs of infection, but offered "genetic evidence or an …

Science 2 Dec 2005, 15:46