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16th May 2006 Archive

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  • IT: the world's most stressful profession

    Yeah, right

    A poll has revealed what sobbing IT operatives already know only too well: their chosen profession is the most stressful on God's Green Earth and Iraqi A&E doctors should consider themselves lucky not to spend their days at the sharp end of a relentless assault of clueless users and badgering bosses. That's the conclusion of a …

    Management 16 May 2006, 06:02

  • Government may pay for MOT chaos

    £230m system crashes

    Garages offering MOTs may receive compensation after the computer system crashed last month. Around 18,300 authorised MOT testing centres were disrupted after the UK's £230m MOT system suffered technical problems. The centres are linked to a system which was intended to replace handwritten MOT testing certificates, wipe out …

    Policy 16 May 2006, 06:02

  • Public procurement: Better rights for rejected bidders

    Remedying Remedies Directives

    The losing bidder who suspects foul play in the award of a public procurement contract has too few effective remedies and too little time to exercise them if he's to stand a chance of winning a contract. But the European Commission plans to make changes. It put forward a proposal last week to improve the national review …

    The Channel 16 May 2006, 07:02

  • Creative sues Apple, seeks iPod import ban

    Loss-making MP3 player firm alleges patent infringement

    Creative has at long last put its threats into action and slapped rival MP3 player maker Apple with a lawsuit alleging the iPod violates its intellectual property. It has also asked the US International Trade Commission to ban imports of allegedly infringing products. Apple has yet to respond to the complaint's filing. …

    Hardware 16 May 2006, 08:38

  • Skype scraps domestic call charges for US punters

    Land of the free

    US and Canadian customers of Voice over Internet Protocol phone company Skype can now make free calls to landlines and mobile phones within the two countries. Such calls previously cost 2 cents a minute. The promotion runs until the end of the year and has been taken as evidence that Skype is struggling to hit targets for new …

    VoIP 16 May 2006, 08:41

  • Copyright reforms strike a balance in Oz

    Fairer for users but tougher on pirates

    The Australian Government has announced it will introduce major changes to the Australian Copyright Act. Attorney-General Philip Ruddock said the reforms would make laws fairer for consumers and tougher on copyright pirates. "Copyright is important and should be respected," Mr Ruddock said. "That is why the Government is …

    Media 16 May 2006, 08:56

  • AMD unveils low-power, high speed desktop CPUs

    Athlons and Semprons to challenge Intel's 'Conroe'

    AMD today unveiled a range of "energy efficient" dual- and single-core Athlon and Sempron desktop processors it hopes will help it win the support of manufacturers of small form-factor PCs who might otherwise be tempted by Intel's Core Duo and upcoming Core 2 Duo chips. The list of new processors - which AMD said would ship …

    Hardware 16 May 2006, 09:02

  • Transformation time for 'Brum'

    Nine new boards to manage change

    Birmingham City Council has set up a number of internal bodies to manage its service transformation. The council has announced the establishment of nine programme boards for different service areas and a Business Transformation Advisory Group to coordinate and monitor their work. The new arrangements will be submitted to the …

    Policy 16 May 2006, 09:12

  • Sony revives mini PC line for UMPC era

    But where's the Vaio UX series' touted HDMI port?

    Sony will ship its Vaio UX UMPC on 27 May, the consumer electronics giant said today. The successor to the company's U series of handheld mini PCs will ship as the retail-oriented UX-50 and as the Sony-sold UX-90S and UX-90PS. As expected, the UX-50 will contain a 1.06GHz ultra-low voltage Intel Core Solo U1300 processor …

    Hardware 16 May 2006, 09:36

  • Corals take the heat from climate change

    Permanent ruin

    Coral reefs, some of the world's most productive and diverse ecosystems, may already be wrecked beyond repair by global warming, according to a new study. An international team, writing in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, studied how reefs in the Seychelles failed to recover after a huge bleaching event in 1998 …

    Science 16 May 2006, 09:56

  • Intel 65nm Celeron D to ship '28 May'

    Processor pair planned

    Intel has chosen 28 May as the day it will release 65nm Celeron D processor, Taiwanese motherboard maker sources have claimed. The launch date is just five days after AMD is expected to ship its Socket AM2 interconnect and compatible CPUs. According to a DigiTimes report, the moles claim the parts will consume 65W - the same …

    Hardware 16 May 2006, 09:56

  • Virgin Mobile founder steps down

    Cheerio

    The founder of Virgin Mobile is to step down as chief exec once the cellco is finally gobbled up by NTL in July. Tom Alexander is said to have "inspired the founding of Virgin Mobile" in the late 1990s by securing the backing of Richard Branson and brokering a JV deal with mobile partner T-Mobile. He was also in charge when …

    Broadband 16 May 2006, 10:02

  • Uri Geller secures Elvis's first house

    Stumps $905k for Memphis pad

    Uri Geller has stumped up a $905,100 winning bid to secure Elvis Presley's first house in Memphis, the BBC reports. Geller - described by the Beeb as "a former friend of Michael Jackson" - enthused: "We are unbelievably pleased. This is a piece of history." He says the house will now be restored and opened to Joe Public. Of …

    Bootnotes 16 May 2006, 10:03

  • AMD prunes single-core prices by up to 19.2%

    Sempron, Athlon 64 ranges rejigged

    AMD has taken the opportunity present by the launch of its energy-efficient Athlon 64 and Sempron processors to prune the prices and some of the members of its existing single-core desktop chip line-ups. So out goes the Athlon 64 4000+, for example. The 3200+ and 3500+ are still there, but they're now 12.7 per cent and 9.1 …

    Hardware 16 May 2006, 10:09

  • Sony unveils Blu-ray notebooks

    Confirms Vaio AR11S details

    Sony Japan has unveiled the Blu-ray Disc player-equipped Vaio notebook expected to ship in the UK and Europe as the AR11S, which the consumer electronics giant also announced today. The Japanese model will ship on 24 June, Sony said. It didn't provide a date for the AR11S' debut, though it too is expected to debut next month …

    Hardware 16 May 2006, 10:40

  • Wireless event to feature 'corporate 3G' installations

    Blow to Wi-Fi

    Missing (strangely) from this week's Wireless Event in London's Olympia exhibition centre will be Picochip, which is preparing to astonish the world with a home 3G base station. But corporate versions will be on show, and the news will be a big blow to Wi-Fi fans. BT has announced its "convergence" plans for "son of Fusion", …

    Mobile 16 May 2006, 10:42

  • Dutch bears in monkey murder shocker

    Posse chases macaque into electric fence

    Bears at a Dutch safari park hunted down a petrified monkey in front of horrified visitors, then ate it, AP reports. "Several" sloth bears chased a Barbary macaque into a protective electric fence, where it was stunned. The plucky Gibraltarian wasn't finished however, and recovered to retreat up a branch. That was the monkey's …

    Science 16 May 2006, 10:43

  • AMD's 65nm Athlon 64 X2 to debut December?

    Only as engineering samples, if it does

    AMD's first 65nm processors will appear late this year, online reports coming out of Taiwan's mobo-maker community have claimed. Four Athlon 64 X2s based on the 'Brisbane' core will ship in December, but don't get your hopes up: they're likely to be only available as engineering samples for hardware developers. In other words …

    Hardware 16 May 2006, 11:07

  • Performance dashboards

    Making BI part of the company culture

    Business Intelligence (BI) is a very popular idea, but it has its problems in practice. Forrester has pointed out that BI initiatives frequently only reach five per cent of the potential userbase, and many implementations aimed at delivering decision support to everyone end up being used by a few power users for a limited …

    Developer 16 May 2006, 11:15

  • Don't stifle net content, Tories warn BBC

    Public will suffer if it abuses its power

    The Tories have warned the BBC not to "stifle the growth of innovative new companies" looking to invest in the internet and new media. Speaking yesterday, shadow chancellor George Osborne said the Beeb - which doesn't know its IT experts from its elbow - "must not become the Bull in the China Shop of new media" as it follows …

    Bootnotes 16 May 2006, 11:37

  • Allofmp3.com bounces back - sort of

    Update Mysterious downtime...

    Music download site allofmp3.com lurched back into life today after almost three days of silence. However, mystery continues to surround the site's status. While it appears to have had a facelift and still offers downloads of MP3s, the ordering facility is apparently out of service, according to one Reg reader. The music site …

    Financial News 16 May 2006, 12:00

  • Search results lead to malicious sites

    McAfee warns on poisoned pointers

    Links from internet search results sometimes point to web pages harbouring spyware, a study from net security firm McAfee warns. The four month study from McAfee's SiteAdvisor team on five major search engines concludes that 285m clicks to hostile sites occurs every month as a result of search queries initiated by US net users …

    Security 16 May 2006, 12:23

  • Apple launches black, white MacBooks

    Cuts MacBook Pro prices and boosts spec, too

    Apple has introduced the long-awaited Intel-based MacBook laptop - in black and white casings. It has also dropped the 1.83GHz 15.4in MacBook Pro and made the high-end 2.16GHz 15.4in machine a standard configuration - and it cut their prices. The new MacBooks - no red version, alas - are available with either 1.83GHz or …

    Hardware 16 May 2006, 13:02

  • DARPA plots emergency man-cannon

    Launcher to lob circus SWAT team

    You'd think that with global terrorist threats and fighting two wars, the US Defense Department would have little time on its hands to start a circus troupe. However, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) has filed a patent application for a contraption designed to hurl SWAT teams and other emergency workers …

    Bootnotes 16 May 2006, 13:27

  • Poker tips site harbours Trojan

    Losing hand

    Security watchers have discovered a Trojan with built in root-kit functionality that's designed to steal the credentials of online poker players. This isn't particularly unusual in itself, but anti-virus researchers at Finnish security firm F-Secure discovered the malware was hidden in a ostensibly legitimate package offered …

    Security 16 May 2006, 14:17

  • Lancaster fingered as phone theft capital

    Safer to use it behind locked doors

    If you're planning on visiting Lancaster over the coming months, make sure you leave your mobile phone at home. That's because Lancaster has been named as the UK's number one place to have your cellphone nicked followed by Wirral, Chester and Coventry. In all, a cellphone is lifted every 12 seconds, according to a survey by …

    Mobile 16 May 2006, 14:19

  • Brentford: home of the suicidal IT professional

    Letters And badger torturers, says Google trends

    IT: the world's most stressful profession? Yes, according to the stressed IT operatives among you: It seems easy, doesn't it, to explain to someone how to do things with a computer? "Please drag the files from the zip file to the folder you created on the desktop." "Ah... how do I drag files?" In a few minutes' time, you're …

    Letters 16 May 2006, 14:27

  • Microsoft countersues Lucent

    In brief Patents at dawn

    Microsoft is countersuing Lucent, alleging the company is infringing 10 of its patents. Lucent accused Microsoft of infringing its patents last month - specifically technology in Microsoft's XBox 360 games console. After considering the claim, Microsoft is suing them back. More from the Seattle Times here. ®

    Financial News 16 May 2006, 14:41

  • US cities sue travel sites

    Tax holiday ends...

    Several big travel sites are facing legal action in the US over unpaid hotel taxes. Atlanta, Chicago, Los Angeles, San Antonio, San Diego and Philadelphia are all taking action against sites including Expedia, Orbitz, and Travelocity. The State of Texas is also getting involved. The different actions may be joined together as a …

    Financial News 16 May 2006, 14:56

  • MTV and Microsoft team for downloads

    Bill URGEs kids to download tunes, upload their cash

    Microsoft and MTV are teaming up to offer music downloads for everything except iPods. The service, called URGE, will be the default setting in the next version of Windows Media Player. It will offer over 2m songs at launch, available to download from 90 cents. As well as charging for individual tracks users will be able to …

    Financial News 16 May 2006, 15:09

  • Toshiba ships 12.1in business notebook

    Satellite Pro U200

    Apple may have dropped 12.1in notebooks from its pro-oriented notebook family, but Toshiba today stepped into the breach to offer an "ultra-portable" Centrino Duo-based machine with just such a display. The Satellite Pro U200 actually ships with a choice of single- or dual-core processor: either a Core Duo T2400 or a Core …

    Hardware 16 May 2006, 15:23

  • Supremes harry patent trolls

    Permanent injunction on eBay to be reconsidered

    Judges in the US Supreme Court pointed the finger at patent trolls, firms that milk other people's inventions, with a ruling yesterday that saved eBay from having the rug pulled from under its auction site. They also cast a cautionary eye over the controversial use of patents for business methods, which are allowed in US law …

    Media 16 May 2006, 15:25

  • Ingram lands RFID in Europe

    And rejigs stateside SMB programme

    Ingram Micro has jumped higher on the RFID bandwagon with the cash purchase of assets belonging to a Nordic retail technology distributor. The firm gave few details, not the cash it paid, nor the conditions that must be satisfied before the deal is closed in June. But it did say how wonderful its new Nordic division will find …

    The Channel 16 May 2006, 15:29

  • IBM makes superdense magnetic Lazarus

    Tapetastic

    IBM researchers have shattered the limits of how densely good ol' magnetic tape can store data, breathing new life into the technology. A team at the firm's Almaden Research Centre in San Jose crammed 6.67bn bits per square inch on new film developed by Fuji in Japan, which it says is more than fifteen times more than the most …

    Storage 16 May 2006, 15:41

  • AMD unveils 'next gen' CPU plans

    Processor Forum It's more of the same, but faster - official

    AMD confirmed details of its "Next Generation Processor Technology" today, but it's really business as usual for the company. As AMD heads to four-core country, the company will continue to improve the bandwidth of its processor package, tweak memory and rely on help from partners to compete with an upcoming line of revamped …

    Hardware 16 May 2006, 18:35

  • Sun to open source Java - eventually

    JavaOne NetBeans, Zander lend a hand

    Sun Microsystems has pledged to open source Java if individual developers, rather than corporations, sign-up to the Java Community Process (JCP) and also adopt Sun's NetBeans development environment. Sun chief executive Jonathan Schwartz and newly recruited software chief Rich Green opened the annual JavaOne developer …

    Software 16 May 2006, 20:28

  • Expand snags DiskSites

    WAFS swap

    WAN application acceleration firm Expand Networks has agreed to buy privately-held wide area file services (WAFS) firm DiskSites. The all-stock deal, which gives DiskSites shareholders a 13.5 per cent interest in Expand Networks, was announced on Monday and is expected to close within two months. The deal follows the $78m …

    Data Networking 16 May 2006, 23:02

  • New server 'space heater' benchmark in the works

    Processor Forum How hot is your box?

    The server benchmark wars will soon extend into new territory thanks to work being done to refine a standard energy consumption test. The non-profit Standard Performance Evaluation Corp. (SPEC), that has given us many of the benchmarks we all know and love, has decided to jump on the power consumption bandwagon. The …

    Servers 16 May 2006, 23:03

  • HP halfway through cull - Hurd

    Cheery Q2 earnings

    Retirement security may be a fading memory for many Hewlett Packard employees, but the company cheered Wall Street with increased revenue and profits today. Its Q2 numbers showed revenue up five per cent from a year ago, to $22.6bn, while profits rose 51 per cent from the same period to $1.46bn. The increased profits are at the …

    Financial News 16 May 2006, 23:56