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21st April 2006 Archive

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  • Blu-ray another Betamax - MS Xbox exec

    HD DVD support news coming at E3

    The Xbox 360 will be able to play HD DVD movies, Microsoft's European console business chief, Chris Lewis, has apparently confirmed. "It will give people access to HD DVD," said this week. In an interview with Germany's Der Spiegel, Lewis dismisses Blu-ray Disc as another Betamax. "Blu-ray right now reminds us of another …

    Reg Hardware 21 Apr 2006, 00:02

  • Toshiba tweaks Gigabeat P players

    New colours and more

    Toshiba has updated its Nano-esque Gigabeat P digital music player family, adding an tweaked FM radio, a choice of three new colours and a fancy new face to the player's clock application. The new models are available with either 512MB of 1GB of Flash memory, just like past Gigabeat P machines, though they now go by the …

    Reg Hardware 21 Apr 2006, 00:02

  • Oracle CEO gets strategic with Red Hat name calling

    Analysis Sub zero relations

    Red Hat chief executive Matthew Szulik has written an open letter to Larry Ellison, essentially accusing Oracle of being a relic of a dying enterprise software age, which has served its own interests rather than those of customers for 30 years. Szulik's mildly worded letter appeared in the Financial Times on Thursday, …

    Developer 21 Apr 2006, 00:24

  • Something might happen at Sun some day - WSJ

    Or. Maybe not

    Who says the blockbuster exclusive is dead? With rumors of Scott McNealy taking up a back seat at Sun Microsystems once again making the rounds, the Wall Street Journal armed and dispatched two reporters onto the battlefield. McNealy has long been tipped to take up the chairman's post at Sun, with Jonathan Schwartz being …

    Servers 21 Apr 2006, 00:32

  • Subversion on Demand

    Differently risky

    Selling open source software is a bit of a problem, Bas Nijjer of CollabNet UK has just told me. Seems this guy comes up to him at a show and says: “So, you’re selling Subversion…” “No, not exactly,” Bas replies, “it’s open source…” “So, what exactly are you selling?” Similar questions must come up for everyone commercially …

    Developer 21 Apr 2006, 04:55

  • Sun streaks ahead in open source DRM and CAS

    DReaM to come true?

    We can see from last week's story on Sun Microsystems DReaM DRM that it is rapidly honing in on a future open source DRM market, with a completely new vision of how DRM should work, and it's running at least six months ahead of schedule by our reckoning. Last week we revealed how one Korean IPTV service was planning to use a …

    Music and Media 21 Apr 2006, 06:02

  • US consumers pump up Nokia profits

    Bullish forecast for '06

    Nokia, the world’s biggest mobile phone maker, announced stronger than expected results for Q1 yesterday. Profits plumped up 21 per cent based largely on increasing sales in the US market. Net income for the first quarter soared to €1bn compared to €863m in 2005. Revenue at the Espoo, Finland-based company jumped 29 per cent to …

    Financial News 21 Apr 2006, 07:02

  • 'Free' txts a go go

    Hotxt rival opens doors

    Hotxt, a flat-fee SMS service backed by Dragon's Den entrepreneur Doug Richard, has a rival. The Hotxt service was launched in March and was billed as being a text version of Skype, which has helped slash the cost of making phone calls. Targeted at 16 to 25 year olds, Hotxt offers punters the chance to send as many texts as …

    Mobile 21 Apr 2006, 07:02

  • Newcastle strikes schools IT deal

    Leans on Dell

    Newcastle City Council has set up a service organisation to run the provision of IT for some of its schools. It has signed a contract with Dell to support the delivery of an IT managed service for the Building Schools for the Future programme. A spokesperson for the company told Government Computing News that the council would …

    Public Sector 21 Apr 2006, 07:02

  • Climate change outlook clarified

    New study says very large warming 'unlikely'

    A new dataset revealed today bolsters the scientific consensus on the effect of greenhouse gas emissions. A reconstruction of the Northern Hemisphere's climate over the past 700 years appearing in Nature suggests global temperatures are more robust than some reports previously indicated. "Climate sensitivity" is a defined …

    Science 21 Apr 2006, 08:24

  • Seagate readies 750GB desktop hard drive

    Barracuda boost

    Seagate is on the verge of announcing a 3.5in desktop hard drive with a capacity of 750GB - increasing the Barracuda 7200.10 line's maximum storage space by 50 per cent. Seagate hasn't formally announced the 750GB model, but it is already beginning to appear on the company's marketing material. The drive runs at 7,200rpm and …

    Reg Hardware 21 Apr 2006, 08:41

  • Japan offered micro Mac Mini rival

    Third Wave launches compact desktop

    Japanese consumers will be able to buy one of the world's smallest PCs next month when local vendor Third Wave ships what it calls the Prime Super Mini - a desktop machine smaller than a 12in notebook computer. The compact machine takes up a little more space than Apple's Mac Mini - it's 17.2 x 22.6cm to the Mini's 16.5 x …

    Reg Hardware 21 Apr 2006, 09:01

  • Microsoft and Autodesk infringed patents, jury rules

    z4 Technologies awarded $133m

    An entrepreneur has been awarded $133m by a jury in a Texas courtroom after winning his claim that two of his anti-piracy software patents were infringed by Microsoft's Office and Windows XP, and Autodesk's AutoCAD programs. David Colvin is founder of z4 Technologies Inc, a digital rights management company based in "Automation …

    Music and Media 21 Apr 2006, 09:13

  • IO Data preps pricey Blu-ray Disc writers

    Drives support all CD, DVD, BD formats, though

    Storage specialist IO Data has said it will ship internal and external Blu-ray Disc writers in just over a month's time. The company said it will launch the two products in Japan and the US simultaneously. The internal drive is dubbed the BRD-AM2B, an ATAPI unit capable of reading BD, DVD and CD media, and of writing all …

    Reg Hardware 21 Apr 2006, 09:20

  • PC market continues solid growth

    Dell still head of the pack

    Quarterly figures show global shipments of PCs rose nearly 13 per cent with Dell still leading the way among PC vendors. IDC's Worldwide Quarterly PC Tracker survey, released on Thursday, illustrates solid growth for the personal computer market, although the figures are slightly down on the headline growth of 15.9 per cent …

    Business 21 Apr 2006, 09:30

  • Sapphire renames water-cooled graphics card

    Drops 'Blizzard', adopts 'Toxic'

    Sapphire is to rename its water-cooled ATI Radeon X1900 XTX-based video cards. Out goes the 'Blizzard' moniker, replaced by the less appropriate 'Toxic', the graphics card company announced this week. Britney Spears may like it, we guess... How come? Sapphire isn't saying, but it's being whispered that games developer …

    Reg Hardware 21 Apr 2006, 09:36

  • Mobile phone shipments to hit 1bn in 2006

    Nokia and Motorola swallow even more of the market

    The number of mobile phones shipped worldwide rose by 31 per cent during the first quarter of 2006, according to new figures. Strategy Analytics' latest study reveals that 229m mobile phones were shipped in the first three months of 2006. This marks the first time sales have passed the 200m mark in the opening quarter of the …

    Reg Hardware 21 Apr 2006, 09:42

  • Enterprise software vendors jump on the Express bandwagon

    Good news for the mid market

    Two out of four ain't bad. So far, out of the big hitters in the enterprise management space, IBM and BMC have announced 'Express' versions of their products. IBM's announcements came in February of this year and BMC's in March. Neither announcement offered anything particularly innovative, not from a functionality perspective …

    Small Biz 21 Apr 2006, 10:02

  • RCA HD DVD player due 18 May

    So says Wal-Mart

    The US' second HD DVD player looks set to be a machine from RCA. According to Wal-Mart's website, RCA's HDV500 machine will ship on 18 May, almost a month after Toshiba's HD-A1 and HD-XA1 players launched in the States. RCA demo'd the HDV5000 at the Consumer Electronics Show in January, but the machine appears to have …

    Reg Hardware 21 Apr 2006, 10:02

  • US sees record jump in e-ad revenues

    How nice

    Online ad revenues in the US jumped 30 per cent in 2005 as spending on online advertising continued to grow at a "healthy rate". The latest figures from the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) and PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) showed that overall internet advertising revenues for the US hit a record $12.5bn during last year. …

    Financial News 21 Apr 2006, 10:03

  • Panasonic to ship Blu-ray writer in June

    Doesn't come cheap

    A Panasonic internal Blu-Ray Disc writer will ship in June, the electronics giant has said, but like the similarly spec'd models announced by IO Data, the LF-MB121JD isn't going to come cheap. The Panasonic unit will read BD, DVD and CD media, and be capable of writing BD-R, BD-RE, DVD±R/RW (single and dual-layer), DVD-RAM …

    Reg Hardware 21 Apr 2006, 10:20

  • BOFH: Interview with a CEO

    Episode 15 Witnesses, what witnesses?

    It's late at night and I'm in the CEO's office rifling through his correspondence for evidence of the much-rumoured budget cuts in IT. Apparently, the powers that be have decided that the IT spend isn't reducing as fast as the board would like, so they're just going to hack out a major part of the annual budget and see how we …

    BOFH 21 Apr 2006, 10:44

  • Netgear Wi-Fi Skype phone to ship June?

    US buyers get $250 pre-order offer

    Netgear's answer to Linksys' CIT200 Skype phone is due to go on sale in two months' time, according to the online supplier the company has chosen to handle pre-orders for the product. Amazon.com's website has the $250 handset down to ship on 30 June. There's no official word yet on UK and European availability, but our …

    VoIP 21 Apr 2006, 10:51

  • China poised to pinch US spam crown

    Junk mail relay countries named and shamed

    China is closing in on the USA at the top of a league of spam relaying countries. According to statistics from security firm Sophos, compiled in the first three months of 2006, China (including Hong Kong) originated 21.9 per cent of the junk mail messages captured in its spam traps compared to 23.1 per cent for the US. Two …

    Spam 21 Apr 2006, 10:54

  • Rivals want to invest in Australia's broadband network

    What's that, Skippy? Telstra not happy?

    Some of Australia's top telecoms companies want to club together with incumbent Telstra to invest in upgrading the nation's broadband network. The telcos - Internode, Macquarie, Optus, PowerTel, Primus, Soul and TransACT - believe proposals put forward by Australia's dominant telco are bad news for consumers and competitors. …

    Financial News 21 Apr 2006, 11:05

  • HTC 'Star Trek' to lift off on 10 May

    Qtek 8500 gets ship date

    HTC's 'Star Trek' handset - the Taiwanese smart-phone maker's answer to Motorola's Razr - will ship in the UK on Wednesday, 10 May, as the Qtek 8500. At least, that's what UK supplier Expansys' website says, which is offering the phone on pre-order for £360. Curiously, the same page says June is the ship date, so presumably …

    Reg Hardware 21 Apr 2006, 11:08

  • Dimension Data share deal

    R&V cash a big bond

    R&V Technology Holdings Limited has cashed in chips worth 12.3 per cent of Dimension Data. It had bonds worth $100m that on conversion, according to one report, gave R&V the largest holding of all DiData shareholders at 18.2 per cent. DiData was unavailable for comment. In a statement to the City, DiData merely gave the 12.2 …

    Channel Register 21 Apr 2006, 11:10

  • Probe reveals three ages of Mars

    Zoning in on life

    Europe's Mars Express probe has revealed new insights into the history of water on the Red Planet. The work is key to understanding the likelihood of there having been life on Mars. The findings, appearing in Science, are based on data from the orbiter's Omega spectrometer, which uses infrared and visible light to investigate …

    Space 21 Apr 2006, 11:14

  • 419ers one digit short of a conspiracy theory

    The neighbour of the beast

    Our illuminating piece yesterday on the figure 420 stirred a certain feeling of unease among some Reg hacks who noticed a chilling sequential relationship between this new number of the beast and Nigeria's favourite numeral: 419. Were, we wondered, the two in some way related? Was the dark hand of conspiracy at the the controls …

    Bootnotes 21 Apr 2006, 11:17

  • Scots founded first cybercafe in 1751

    Startling photographic evidence

    We have no doubt that there are those among you from the UK and the US who can bang on until the cows come home as to who exactly opened the world's first cybercafe, but we're about to put an end to this debate once and for all: That's right. The Scots got in there first, way back in 1751 - no mean feat since the Americans …

    Bootnotes 21 Apr 2006, 11:20

  • HP Compaq nx6125 biometric laptop

    Review AMD's Turion gets its first HP business notebook outing

    With IBM gone from the business notebook market, the old ThinkPad cachet is changing, and this seem to be an opportunity HP is trying to cash in on with its Compaq nx6125 range of ThinkPad look alikes. But it's only at first glance that the nx6125 could be mistaken for a ThinkPad - there are some major differences. The most …

    Reg Hardware 21 Apr 2006, 11:33

  • German court rules moderators liable for forum comments

    Lawyers on the edge

    A Hamburg court has ruled that moderators of internet forums are liable for content posted on their sites. The previous interpretation held that they were only accountable for illegal content they had been made aware of. The new ruling means if operators do not have enough in-house resources to monitor forums, they should " …

    Music and Media 21 Apr 2006, 12:05

  • Testing assumptions and the big stack

    Oracle hopes on testing as the SOA stack is built

    Like a number of other major vendors, Oracle is now positioning itself to offer enterprises as much of the infrastructure 'stack' of technology and services as possible. The coming of Fusion, both as products and architecture, is inevitably set to change the ground on which applications development has stood for many years, as …

    Developer 21 Apr 2006, 12:26

  • Adult film industry trials burnable content

    NSFW Pay to groan

    A leading US provider of hard-core porn plans to sell downloadable films that customers can turn into DVDs and watch on their TVs. Vivid reckons the approach will increase online sales by attracting punters who'd rather knock one off while watching TV rather than staring at a computer screen. Piracy fears and the possibility of …

    Financial News 21 Apr 2006, 13:52

  • Switching LLU ISPs to be made easier

    Easier, not easy

    A new system is due to be introduced by the end of June that should make it easier for broadband users to switch providers. The system, currently under trial by BT, is part of an automated process called the "Equivalence Management Platform" (EMP) and should help speed up migration from local loop unbundling (LLU) operators …

    Telecoms 21 Apr 2006, 14:54

  • Virus writers get into cyber-extortion

    'Pay up or you'll never see your data again'

    Incidence of cyber-blackmail attempts rose during the first three months of this year. Malicious hackers are moving away from 'stealth use' of infected computers - stealing personal data, using infected computers as part of zombie networks - to direct blackmailing of victims, according to a new report from Kaspersky Lab. The …

    Security 21 Apr 2006, 14:57

  • Readers battle botnets for control of planet Earth

    Letters Apocalypse Now

    The focus of today's letters is botnets: the threat they represent to the future happiness of our children, and how they can, and must, be stopped. The following pretty well represents a cross section of opinion on the matter, starting with your thoughts on the cunning "let's block port 25" plan: >(1 - Many ISPs now block port …

    Letters 21 Apr 2006, 15:15

  • Trekkies to enjoy 11th Star Trek film

    Kirk and Spock resurrected

    The Star Trek franchise will get a shot in the arm following last year's cancellation of spin-off TV series Enterprise with an eleventh cinema outing for the Starfleet chaps and chappesses. According to the BBC, citing New Variety, the new movie will centre on the early days of Spock and Kirk at the Starfleet Academy. It will …

    Entertainment 21 Apr 2006, 15:21

  • IBM boffins develop new, stronger name for x86 servers

    Itanic out, Opteron in

    IBM has done some spring cleaning with its x86 servers. It has rolled out a new brand for the servers, officially given Itanium the boot and welcomed Opteron to its core product line. The xSeries monicker for IBM's Xeon-based and Itanium-based boxes will be phased out over the coming year with new servers taking on the "System …

    Servers 21 Apr 2006, 15:21

  • What the hell has happened to you cretinous journalists?

    FoTW 419 + 420 = anger

    We do like a good flame down here at Vulture Central - especially when it fulfils all of the criteria for a classic. This one, we have to say, has it in spades: Dear Register chracks, What the hell has happened to you cretinous journalists? You’re recent wad of crap about 419 and 420 really is thick short of pigshit. First …

    Letters 21 Apr 2006, 15:23

  • CASE becomes ALM and consolidates

    Comment Developing on a legacy

    Ever since Rational got three development automation gurus in the same room to agree on UML (Unified Modelling Language) and put an end to those pointless arguments about what shape the boxes in an analysis/design model should be, what used to be called CASE (Computer Aided Software Engineering) has been on a bit of a roll. …

    Developer 21 Apr 2006, 15:33

  • Vendors left waiting on ID scheme details

    'Market soundings', little consultation

    Just three weeks after overcoming opposition to ID cards in the House of Lords, the Home Office has already published a "10 year plan" for implementing the scheme. Yet the 10 year plan reads like a sales brochure, and the IT industry is getting worried that the new Identity and Passport Service (IPS), whose plan it is, hasn't …

    Public Sector 21 Apr 2006, 15:51

  • Your Nokia phone catches the dog raiding the dustbin

    Mobile stealthcam

    You leave your Nokia smartphone casually lying somewhere - like, watching the unattended dinner on the table - and when you suspect the culprit is there, you send a text to the phone. And it takes a picture! And then the software sends the picture - or the video - back to you, automatically, via MMS. Of course, ICamU (designer …

    Mobile 21 Apr 2006, 16:55

  • IP telephony goes mainstream

    Ch-ch-ch-changes

    Small and medium sized enterprises are warming to hosted IP telephony services. Frost & Sullivan (F&S) reports that the North American enterprise IP Telephony end point market hit revenues of $822.8m last year. It estimates that revenues will reach $2.44bn in 2012. All this ought to spell boom times for equipment manufacturers …

    VoIP 21 Apr 2006, 18:26

  • Start-up could kick Opteron into overdrive

    Exclusive Plug in a Flip Chip

    The 2002 film Death to Smoochy reminds us that "friends come in all sizes." AMD executives must embrace this observation on a daily basis, especially when a company such as DRC Computer appears. The tiny DRC works out of a no frills Santa Clara office, producing technology that has the potential to give servers based on AMD's …

    Servers 21 Apr 2006, 19:44

  • People more drunk at weekends, researchers discover

    It's science, Jim, but not as we know it

    It's open season on Wikipedia these days. The project's culture of hatred for experts and expertise has become the subject of widespread ridicule. Nick Carr christened it "the cult of the amateur". But what has academia done for us lately? Here's a study from the University of Amsterdam to ponder. New Scientist reports that …

    Music and Media 21 Apr 2006, 23:10