2nd February 2006 Archive

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More on Wildpackets

Chris Bell of WildPackets dropped me some feeedback a day or so back: "Here is a challenge. At WildPackets we have spent the last 16 years designing and developing tools to help network engineers isolate problems in application flows. How could you use real-time data from OSI layers 2-7 to improve what you do and gain a head- …

Developer 2 Feb 2006, 00:10
Mark Cuban and the Chicken Little Netheads

Net Futures Who will deliver me Video on Demand?

Do Martians pay late fees? And why, in 2006, do Earthlings need to go to Blockbusters in the rain? These are questions we need to bear in mind as background to one of the most contentious debates in US telecommunications policy today. Our visiting, hypothetical Martian would be astonished to discover that with so much cable …

Data Networking 2 Feb 2006, 01:17
Embedded HSDPA for notebooks

Wi-Fi complement or competitor?

Dell announced last week that it is planning to launch embedded Vodafone HSDPA access as a build-to-order option for notebook PCs in France, Germany and the UK. This extended wireless capability should be available in the first half of this year. The news comes hot on the heels of other announcements of HSDPA connectivity based …

Mobile 2 Feb 2006, 08:16
Sony to ship dual-GPU, dual-core Vaio mid-March

Plus carbon fibre chassis, Trusted Platform biometric security

Sony has announced its Vaio SZ notebook range in the UK, boasting the laptop's carbon-fibre chassis, biometric security and the ability to flip between two graphics engines to boost either 3D performance or battery life. The SZ series take in Intel's Core Duo dual-core processor line, and ships with 512MB or 1GB of 533MHz DDR 2 …

Reg Hardware 2 Feb 2006, 09:48
ASA slams anonymous 'tell a friend' email

Channel for viral marketing

Viral marketing is open to abuse. So when a website that emulates Friends Reunited offered a 'tell a friend' service, UK advertising watchdog the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) decided it was too great a risk to allow emails to be sent to strangers without naming the friend. The adjudication is possibly the first ruling …

Spam 2 Feb 2006, 10:12
UK goes shopping for tech firms

Domestic deal-making on the rise

The UK went against tradition last year and became a net investor in technology companies, according to a new report. Year-end figures for technology mergers and acquisitions from PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) Corporate Finance show that UK companies acquired 33 technology businesses worldwide in 2005, while just 24 UK companies …

Financial News 2 Feb 2006, 10:33
OLED keyboard maker touts mini keypad

Three-button pad in May, full keyboard by year's end

Russian hardware designer Artemy Lebedev has announced his second OLED-illuminated keyboard, a three-key unit designed to sit alongside a regular keyboard or one of his own picture-key jobs. Lebedev's product, the Optimus Mini, comprises three large buttons, each with its own colour OLED screen. The idea is the buttons show a …

Reg Hardware 2 Feb 2006, 10:46
Nvidia to unveil AGP-enabled GeForce 7 series GPU

Part pitched at behind-the-times PCs

Nvidia will today announce an AGP version of its GeForce 7800 chip featuring 16 pixel-processing pipelines fed by six vertex shaders and clocked to 375MHz. It supports up to 256MB of DDR SDRAM clocked to 600MHz (1.2GHz effective). So claims DailyTech, which notes the GeForce 7800 GS is fabbed at 110nm. It also has a selection …

Reg Hardware 2 Feb 2006, 11:08
ATI updates Catalyst for Windows Vista

New driver release for build 5270

ATI has updated it Catalyst graphics card driver software to improve its GPU's ability to work with Windows Vista Build 5270. Among the products supported by the update, which remains a beta release, are ATI's Radeon Xpress 200 and 200M chips; its Radeon X1000-series, X100-series, 9000-series and FireGL GPUs; and its Mobility …

Reg Hardware 2 Feb 2006, 11:25
Chris Deering looks back at Sony

Techscape Ex-Sony exec dodges PS paternity test

"Sony is like Disney without the devices," Chris Deering told me not long ago. Known to some as "The Father of the PlayStation", Deering stepped down from Sony recently, where he was president of Sony Europe and chairman/CEO of Sony Computer Entertainment (SCE). At last count, Sony Europe accounted for 24 per cent of Sony …

Business 2 Feb 2006, 11:30
Survey maps UK's broadband 'notspots'

Mind the gap

The Community Broadband Network (CBN) wants to map all the areas in the UK currently unable to access a decent broadband service. The group, which has already helped more than 80 communities set up their own high-speed net services using satellite and wireless services, wants to locate all the broadband "notspots" to see if …

Telecoms 2 Feb 2006, 11:32
20,000 videos available for PSP, iPod

Videos anywhere, any time

More than 20,000 independently produced, user-published videos are now available to be pushed to Sony's PSP portable videogame console and Apple's iPod. They're from Veoh Networks, which claims to be "the first internet television peercasting network". Veoh automatically downloads videos of interest to a PSP owner's device each …

Reg Hardware 2 Feb 2006, 11:34
Bertelsmann P2P service dubbed 'In2Movies'

March launch for Arvato-controlled biz

Bertelsmann fledgling Arvato is now moving through the gears on a Europe wide assault on legal video delivery using a peer to peer filesharing system. Last week it added EMI music content, now has its first official video partner in Warner Brothers, and has a name for the service, In2Movies. Warner Brothers has contributed …

Financial News 2 Feb 2006, 11:37
Kama Sutra: the final countdown

Da-da-da-da, da-da-da-da-daaaa...

The destructive Kama Sutra worm has begun thrashing files on infected machines with incorrectly set system clocks. Even though the worm is programmed to first delete files on infected machines on Friday (February 3), its deadline is based on the clock of infected Windows PCs. Finnish anti-virus firm F-Secure says it has already …

Anti-Virus 2 Feb 2006, 11:38
Thus to axe 280 jobs

Buys telcos, zaps staff

Some 280 jobs are to be axed following Thus' announcement that it plans to buy Your Communications (YC) and Legend Communications. Yesterday, Thus' spinmeisters were unable to put a figure on job losses although they did admit that cuts were likely. Now, though, it's emerged that 15 per cent of the 1,850-strong workforce of the …

Telecoms 2 Feb 2006, 11:43
O2 hops on Blackberry 8700g bandwagon

Second UK cellco to offer EDGE-equipped device

O2 has become the latest cellco to offer the Blackberry 8700 - Research in Motion's (RIM) latest offering - in the UK. Like T-Mobile, O2 will offer the device as the 8700g. The machine is the first Blackberry based on an Intel processor, the XScale PXA901, and includes 64MB of Flash memory and 16MB of SDRAM. Crucially, the 8700 …

Reg Hardware 2 Feb 2006, 12:02
Christians turn on to nipple dust and vibros

New online shop for horny believers

Some enterprising Christians have plugged a gap in the burgeoning online sex emporium market by opening a shop for those whose love of the Lord is matched by their love of rumpy-pumpy. Yes indeed, the Wholly Love blurb declares: "Sex is a great gift from God – we stock products to enhance your sex life with your spouse!" …

Financial News 2 Feb 2006, 12:24
Security glitch bites IE7 beta

Crash test dummy

Researchers have discovered a security vulnerability in a preview version of Microsoft's Internet Explorer 7 (IE7) browser just days after its release. A denial of service bug in IE 7 beta 2 creates a means for a hacker to crash the software and potentially execute arbitrary malware on PCs running the code, according to security …

Enterprise Security 2 Feb 2006, 12:34
Google cops more flak over China

MS, Cisco and Yahoo! also under fire

Google, Microsoft, Cisco, and Yahoo! were yesterday roundly condemned for "collaborating with China to censor the internet", Reuters reports. During a briefing by the Congressional Human Rights Caucus, representative Tim Ryan said: "They should not let profits take precedence over traditional democratic values such as freedom of …

Music and Media 2 Feb 2006, 12:45
Kingston signs Avnet

Deal to push ValueRAM and Flash to system builders

Kingston Technology has added Avnet Computing Components Europe (ACCE) to its team of EMEA distributors. ACCE will focus on Kingston's ValueRAM and Flash memory products, pitching them to VARs, system builders and PC manufacturers. Kingston head of European sales and marketing Thomas Marschner said the deal would allow the two …

Channel Register 2 Feb 2006, 13:51
Punters continue to flee AOL

Bysey bye peeps

AOL is still failing to stop punters from fleeing the service, the monster ISP confirmed yesterday. Publishing the latest set of results, it reported that as of the end of December, it had 19.5m subscribers in the US - down 2.8m on the previous 12 months. The decline in user numbers is also mirrored in Europe. Over the last …

Telecoms 2 Feb 2006, 14:04
RIM defeats InPro - again

One less lawsuit in motion, apparently

Research in Motion (RIM) appeared to have one less lawsuit in motion today after the English High Court effectively chucked out a patent infringement action brought against the Blackberry maker by Luxembourg-based intellectual property holding company InPro. The move comes a week after Germany's Federal Patent Court declared …

Reg Hardware 2 Feb 2006, 14:05
Asus unwraps 19in rotating LCD

Landscape? Portrait? Both!

Asus has announced its first 19in LCD monitor - pitching its 'zero bright dot' replacement policy and the screen's 90° landscape-to-portrait swivel feature. The screen has a 16:10 aspect ratio and a native resolution of 1400 x 900. The image is enhanced with Asus' Splendid video technology, the company said, and there are twin …

Reg Hardware 2 Feb 2006, 14:28
Wanadoo's VoIP service falls over

Ooops!

Wanadoo, which claims to be the UK's largest VoIP outfit with more than 80,000 users, has apologised to punters after its broadband telephony service went on the blink. Its Wireless & Talk VoIP product went titsup on Tuesday morning resulting in calls from landlines or mobiles being unable to connect to Wanadoo's internet …

VoIP 2 Feb 2006, 14:48
Police bust £500k fake DVD operation

Three cuffed during London raids

Kent police and the Federation Against Copyright Theft (FACT) seized 100,000 fake DVDs and arrested three men during an operation yesterday, the BBC reports. Two Chinese men were arrested in Burnt Oak, north London, and another in Peckham, south of the river. The raids came at the end of "several months of intelligence and …

Music and Media 2 Feb 2006, 15:25
Nvidia GeForce 7800 GS AGP

Review One last gasp for AGP?

Hands-up who remembers AGP? Ah, just the two of you, thought as much. You'd be forgiven for thinking that'd be the way such a conversation with four million geeks would go, given all the coverage of PCI Express graphics cards and platforms since PCI Express became the kind of slot you'd most want to plug stuff into... The …

Reg Hardware 2 Feb 2006, 15:29
Harmless Watmore to get rubber stamped

Government IT strategy says little, offends no one

Consultation over the government IT strategy was rumoured last month to have been a little lacklustre. Was nobody interested in having their say on such a contentious subject as mending the public sector's broken record on IT? Three months after consultation opened and just a day before it closes, there are signs that responses …

Public Sector 2 Feb 2006, 15:31
Samsung ships 2GB motion-controlled MP3 player

Shake that thang...

Samsung has upped the storage capacity of its YP-T8Q and YP-U1Q Flash-based digital music players to 2GB, the company said today. The YP-T8Q has a 1.8in colour display for photos and MPEG 4 videos. It has five games built in, too, some of which are controlled by jiggling the player around in your hand. Ahem. If all these …

Reg Hardware 2 Feb 2006, 16:08
IBM and BMC team up in service management push

Remedy of IT woes?

Two of the four major players in enterprise management are teaming up to make it easier for their mutual customers to match IT resources to business needs, so-called IT service management. Building on a existing relationship between IBM Global Services and BMC Software, IBM will integrate its change and configuration management …

Hardware 2 Feb 2006, 16:17
Doctor converts surgery into brothel

Funding row provokes drastic action

A New Zealand doctor forced to close his surgery over a funding dispute has bounced back into employment - by converting his medical centre into a "high-class bordello", New Zealand Herald reports. Neil Benson, of the Far North's Coopers Beach, closed his facility last April as a result of a dispute with the local primary …

Bootnotes 2 Feb 2006, 16:24
Boston Globe in clueless security breach

Extra, extra - read our customers' credit card numbers

Two Massachusetts papers - the Boston Globe and the Worcester Telegram & Gazette - have apologised after exposing the credit card details of up to 240,000 subscribers. Most of those affected were Globe readers. Information security breaches by major US corporations are becoming an almost weekly event but the breach involving the …

ID 2 Feb 2006, 16:30
Shuttle preps even smaller form-factor PC design

ESFF™ kit to be aimed at living rooms everywhere

Small form-factor PC pioneer Shuttle is to unveil a new computer casing design next month, the Taiwanese firm said today. It's keeping mum about the design's finer points, but it did claim the new look will shrink its Shuttle XPC range "even smaller and even more quiet" - the better to put them in living rooms. "We introduced …

Reg Hardware 2 Feb 2006, 16:34
Parliament committee hears DRM rights and wrongs

Oral evidence

The All Party Parliamentary Internet Group met today to hear oral evidence to help it prepare a report into Digital Rights Management. Chaired by MP Derek Wyatt, the packed meeting heard evidence from the Society for Computers and Law, the British Library, Open Rights Group, British Music Rights, AIM, the Publishers Association …

Music and Media 2 Feb 2006, 16:44
Here's Europe's solution to global warming

Siesta!

Summary of the opening speech by Janez POTOČNIK, European Commissioner for Science and Research, at the International Symposium on Climate Change, Brussels, 2 February: There's no ignoring it. There's less ice, more disasters and more dead people. It's our fault for polluting the environ and we had better watch it because it's …

Science 2 Feb 2006, 16:52
Xena is bigger than Pluto, Germans show

'Planet X' controversy grows

The controversial body mooted as a possible tenth planet orbiting our sun is around a third larger than Pluto, German astrophysicists claim. 2003 UB313 - aka Xena - was spotted last January by Caltech's Michael Brown, Chad Trujillo from the Gemini Observatory in Hawaii, and David Rabinowitz from Yale University. The German team …

Science 2 Feb 2006, 16:57
Palm eyes Ides of March for Treo 800p availability?

Hoax or 'Hollywood'?

Palm's next Palm OS-based Treo smart phone will be called the 800p, sport an new, slim Motorola Q-style design with an "enhanced" bright 320 x 320 display, offer Wi-Fi as an option and EVDO as standard, and ship with 128MB of RAM and a 3.2-megapixel camera. That, at least, is what a poster on a TreoCentral forum would have us …

Reg Hardware 2 Feb 2006, 17:35
Mobile phone tracking, girlfriend stalking and the law

All in a day's work

A service has launched in the UK which allows you to track any mobile phone around the globe and follow its movements from your own computer. The Guardian ran a feature on it yesterday called 'How I stalked my girlfriend'. It painted a scary picture. The service is run by World-Tracker, a company based on the Isle of Man. When …

Mobile 2 Feb 2006, 23:09