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6th February 2006 Archive

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  • Getting virtual clients managed

    Softricity now talking SMS

    A potential weak spot in the otherwise rather enticing offerings of Boston-based Softricity, looks like it gets filled today with the announcement the company has launched a version of its SoftGrid Virtual Application Server that integrates with Microsoft’s Systems Management Server (SMS). The ability to provide sysadmin staff …

    Servers 6 Feb 2006, 00:02

  • Kiwis craft first iPod-integrating bed

    What do you give the iPod owner who has everything? An opportunity to listen to their favourite digital music player while they sleep with none of that tangled-in-the-duvet earphone misery, that's what. And now you can, courtesy of New Zealand bed maker Design Mobel. The company's Pause bed incorporates not only an iPod dock, …

    Hardware 6 Feb 2006, 10:15

  • Go home - it's National Sickie Day

    Last one out, turn the lights off...

    If your office is looking a little empty this morning it could be because today is the most popular day of the year to take a sickie. The survey of 4,000 people from Sky Travel found almost half those questioned said they had taken a sickie to recover from a hangover, to sleep or to shop. British workers take an average of nine …

    Bootnotes 6 Feb 2006, 10:20

  • BT mum on Pipex buy-out rumours

    Telco tight-lipped over WiMAX plans

    BT has declined to comment on weekend press reports that it is planning a £350m bid for broadband ISP Pipex. The Business claims the UK's dominant fixed line telco is mulling a bid for the ISP, which is one of two operators (the other PCCW) to hold a licence to develop WiMAX networks in the UK. BT wants to use WiMAX to help …

    Financial News 6 Feb 2006, 10:48

  • Compal to fab Fujitsu-Siemens' 3G handhelds

    Pocket Loox T810, T830 production partner selected, paper claims

    Fujitsu-Siemens' (FS) pipelined pair of PDA phones, the Pocket Loox T810 and T830, will be manufactured by Taiwan's Compal, Chinese-language newspaper the Commercial Times said. There's no word yet from FS about the new devices, pictures and specifications of which surfaced on the web last month. The smart phones are believed …

    Phones 6 Feb 2006, 11:03

  • AOL and Yahoo! to charge for emails

    War against spammers

    AOL and Yahoo! are to start charging for sending emails. Both companies will still accept free emails but are offering the chance to pay to avoid their spam filters. By paying between a quarter and one cent per message companies will get preferential delivery of their messages. So a "business class" email will go straight to …

    Security 6 Feb 2006, 11:16

  • VW preps Google Earth-based in-car sat nav rig

    But will it fly?

    Volkswagen is partnering with Google to devise an in-car navigation device that plots your path using Google Earth images and points-of-interest (POI) data rather than the more basic vector graphics displayed by today's sat nav units. VW's pitch for the product - as reported by EETimes - is that it will make for a more natural …

    Hardware 6 Feb 2006, 11:17

  • Warez pirates caught by Operation Jolly Roger

    RISCISO indictment handed down

    Nineteen participants in the so-called 'warez' scene were indicted on federal charges last Tuesday for pirating more than $6.5m worth of copyrighted computer software, games, and movies and distributing it online. The charges stem from an undercover investigation, code-named Operation Jolly Roger, into a sophisticated online …

    Media 6 Feb 2006, 11:19

  • Lords restrict terror website censorship plans

    Amendment squeezes through by one vote

    The House of Lords has restricted Government plans to allow the police to order the take down of suspected terrorism-related web content by requiring that the authorities obtain the permission of a judge first. The draft Terrorism Bill was published in October, in the wake of the London bombings, and was instantly controversial …

    Media 6 Feb 2006, 11:20

  • Man torches self in Hwang Woo-suk protest

    Grisly end for stem cell supporter

    A South Korean man died on Saturday after dousing himself with paint thinner and setting himself on fire in support of disgraced stem cell scientist Hwang Woo-suk, Reuters reports. Shortly before his suicide in the centre of Seoul he distributed around 30 leaflets "calling for Hwang to carry on his studies". The truck driver …

    Science 6 Feb 2006, 11:22

  • Evesham readies RAID-enabled home music store

    Rebadges Roku network music player too

    UK PC maker Evesham will ship a music streaming system designed not only to pump your favourite tunes out across your home network, but also to protected your collection against hard drive damage. The MBox provides up to 500GB of storage, though you only get half of that because the unit has two drives, one configured to mirror …

    Broadband 6 Feb 2006, 11:47

  • Sony Ericsson to ship iPod-styled 3G email phone in Q2

    Slimline handset pitching for Blackberry business

    Sony Ericsson today launched its first device based on a new version of the UIQ user interface for the Symbian mobile phone operating system. Launched in two forms - one black, the other white - the 1.5cm-thick M600 dual-mode 3G phone is pitched directly at the iPod generation. The M600 offers tri-band GSM/GPRS for back-up …

    Phones 6 Feb 2006, 12:27

  • UK footie fans warm to Deportivo Wanka

    E-commerce shirt boost for Peruvian team

    Peruvian football team Deportivo Wanka has been giving Manchester United a run for its money in the replica kit market, although the Huancayo-based outfit has no idea why more than 1,000 British footie fans might want to sport a Deportivo Wanka shirt. The team is, according to UK tabloid The Sun, named after the Wanka tribe …

    Bootnotes 6 Feb 2006, 12:36

  • Bulldog faces uncertain future

    Retail ISP could become wholesale LLUo

    There are fears for the future of broadband ISP Bulldog amid reports that parent Cable & Wireless (C&W) could be about to undertake a massive restructuring. Despite large amounts of cash being ploughed into the business, Bulldog has only managed to attract some 80,000 users to its broadband service - way behind established ISPs …

    Networks 6 Feb 2006, 12:41

  • Linux users demand Photoshop

    And iTunes, Novell poll shows

    A Novell poll asking Linux users which Windows/Mac apps they'd most like to see running on their machines, currently names Photoshop as the software of choice. According to DestopLinux.com, the Novell CoolSolutions editor, Scott Morris, said since the poll began in the first week in January, more than 10,000 votes have been …

    Software 6 Feb 2006, 12:44

  • Dell drops out of HDD MP3 player biz

    Took a month for anyone to notice...

    Dell has dropped its line of hard drive-based MP3 players, but it's taken more than a month for anyone to notice. The absence of the Pocket Digital Jukebox players from Dell's website was spotted last week by Bloomberg. The news agency asked Dell about it and learned the products were canned late December/early January, it …

    Hardware 6 Feb 2006, 13:31

  • French cops ditch IE

    Flic off MS

    The French police force plans to ditch Microsoft's Internet Explorer as its preferred browser software and replace it with Firefox by the end of the year. Up to 70,000 desktops will be switched over to a Firefox and Thunderbird email client set-up because of the combo's "reliability, security and inter-interoperability with …

    Software 6 Feb 2006, 13:40

  • Kama Sutra a wet blanket

    Damp squib

    The much anticipated Kama Sutra worm turned out to be rather flaccid. The worm was programmed to overwrite files on infected Windows PCs on Friday (February 3), but in the event only a few people got hit - even though many machines were infected at one time or another. The Kama Sutra worm (AKA Nyxem-E or Blackworm) poses as an …

    Security 6 Feb 2006, 13:54

  • Google shifts Greenwich Meridian

    Hey, where'd my longitude go?

    We gather the official position of the Prime Meridian at Greenwich is not to the liking of the powers that be at Google, as they have decided to shift it 100 metres or so east. Yes indeed, according to the most reliable authority (The Greenwich Observatory press office - and if they don't know, who does?), the line marking …

    Science 6 Feb 2006, 14:13

  • Ergo preps pink PC for breast cancer charity

    Benefits Genesis Appeal

    You've seen the pink Motorola Razr V3 mobile phone. You've eyed the pink T-Mobile MDA Compact II PDA. Now gape at the pink Ergo Ensis S notebook - the latest item of rose-hued technology to be offered up to UK consumers. This time it's all for a good cause - ten per cent of the laptop's VAT-exclusive £575 price tag goes to the …

    Hardware 6 Feb 2006, 14:23

  • BT suspends SMS trial amid data protection fears

    Admits service 'might be a concern'

    BT is to pull the plug on a new SMS service amid fears it might breach data protection laws. The service - BT SMS Self Service - lets punters text BT to see when their phone bill was last paid or to find progress on a fault. BT began trialling the service last month as part of a new way for punters to stay in touch. Snag is, …

    Networks 6 Feb 2006, 14:42

  • Autonomy beats the Street

    Strong fourth quarter

    Search specialist Autonomy saw its shares rise slightly today after posting good results for the fourth quarter. The Cambridge-based company made revenues of $31.6m for the three months ended December 31, 2005, compared to $18.7m for the last three months of 2004. It made a net profit of $6.04m, compared with $2.9m in the last …

    Financial News 6 Feb 2006, 15:11

  • Motorola SLVR L7 music phone

    Review Where's iTunes, Moto?

    According to the 'word on the street', there are two reasons why you would want Motorola's SLVR phone over any other. The first is the dimensions of the device and the second that it's the second phone from Motorola to offer users iTunes software. The first point is very true. The SLVR is incredibly slim: it's just 1.2cm thick …

    Phones 6 Feb 2006, 15:22

  • WD offers 120GB pocket external drive

    Bus-powered

    Western Digital has upped the capacity of its Passport external hard disk drive to 120GB. The drives are based on WD's own Scorpio line of 2.5in notebook-oriented HDDs, and since they too were recently upgraded to 120GB, it's no surprise that the Passport series now offers that capacity in addition to the 40, 60, 80 and 100GB …

    Hardware 6 Feb 2006, 15:49

  • Good enough for kids

    Stob How the BBC's GCSE site makes IT up

    Sitting watching telly, a BBC trailer for its Bitesize GCSE revision programme caught my eye. This is an adjunct to the BBC website, a sort of punishment block, where young shavers are encouraged to swot up for their oncoming exams. What, I wondered idly, were our youngsters being taught about our own, dear trade? How had things …

    Verity Stob 6 Feb 2006, 15:57

  • BMW and Ricoh Germany delisted from Google

    Cloaked in suspicion

    BMW and Ricoh have had their German web pages removed from Google because they have been using deceptive means to boost ranking, according to the search engine. The delisting was announced on a blog by Google employee Matt Cutts, who warns that Google's team will continue ramping up its anti-spam efforts. It its quality …

    Financial News 6 Feb 2006, 16:17

  • Four-year 'limited patent' proposed

    But critics sceptical

    A patent lasting 20 years makes sense for some inventions, but for those in the fields of software and technology, a four-year term is often more appropriate. This is part of a new 'limited patent' proposal set out by a computing professor this month. An article by Lee Hollaar, a Professor with the School of Computing at the …

    Media 6 Feb 2006, 16:29

  • Informatica buys Similarity

    Comment Now to dominate?

    Informatica has announced the acquisition of Similarity Systems, the Dublin, Ireland-based purveyor of data quality solutions. Now, I have been asking Informatica for years about why they weren’t going beyond data profiling and into full data quality solutions and had more or less given up beating my head against this particular …

    Developer 6 Feb 2006, 16:33

  • Greece rocked by mobile phone tapping scandal

    Olympic Games-Gate

    Eavesdroppers tapped the mobile phones of Greek Prime Minister Costas Karamanlis, cabinet ministers and security officials for about a year around the time of the Athens Olympics, according to Greek ministers. The mobile phones of approximately 100 people (whose ranks include journalists and Arabs living in Greece, as well as …

    Mobile 6 Feb 2006, 16:37

  • ATI launches mobile workstation GPU with 12 pixel engines

    Mobility FireGL V5200 = Mobility Radeon X1600?

    ATI has introduced its latest graphics chip for mobile workstations, the Mobility FireGL V5200. The GPU's got five vertex engines feeding 12 pixel-shader processors. While the previous generation of the product, the FireGL V5000, had just eight pixel-shader units, it also had six vertex engines, one more than the new chip. …

    Hardware 6 Feb 2006, 17:12

  • IBM and Freescale really commit to Power

    They're not bitter

    Spurned by Apple, IBM and Freescale have stunned the technology world by announcing that PC processor technology has become boring and is a dead end. With that in mind, the pair plan to reinvigorate their partnership around the Power processor architecture. During a joint press conference, Freescale revealed that it has joined …

    Hardware 6 Feb 2006, 19:32

  • Big EMC says small is beautiful

    Insignia means cheap

    EMC, long chided as a bully of the enterprise, wants to make nice with the little guy - as evidenced by its release of a broad portfolio of new products aimed at small to medium sized businesses (SMBs). SMBs can say "hello" to the Insignia line of software and hardware. These products build on EMC's acquisitions and its …

    Storage 6 Feb 2006, 22:28

  • If Linus snubs new GPL, is that it for 'open source'?

    Analysis Torvalds doesn't care. Trouble looms...

    Linus Torvalds doesn't want to change the Linux kernel's software license, and he said so again last week. For good measure this time, he threw in some inflammatory remarks. "I literally feel," wrote Torvalds, "that we do not, as software developers, have the moral right to enforce our rules on hardware manufacturers. We are …

    Media 6 Feb 2006, 23:52