23rd May 2006 Archive

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Microsoft promises bright, complex virtualization future

Viridian lurches forward

Microsoft appears to have done the improbable and pushed forward the release of its revamped server virtualization software. Redmond is currently in the midst of reworking its virtualization wares. It will throw out the Virtual Server product it currently sells in favor of bundling a layer of virtualization software known as a …

Servers 23 May 2006, 00:53
AMD Socket AM2, Athlon 64 FX-62

Review AMD finally moves to DDR 2, but was the wait worthwhile?

Today, AMD is launching two major new products: its Socket AM2 interconnect and a faster Athlon 64 FX to go with it. A little bit later on today we'll see Nvidia's new nForce 500 series of chipsets, but let's start with AMD, as this is really its day and not Nvidia's - no matter how important a partner it is. Besides, Nvidia's …

Reg Hardware 23 May 2006, 04:02
Seagate to lay off 6,000 workers

Headcount to be cut as company absorbs Maxtor

Seagate is now the proud owner of Maxtor, but it doesn't expect to have brought the two hard disk drive operations together until next year. In the meantime, it will rid itself of half of Maxtor's worldwide workforce of 12,000 employees. The remainder will largely be made up of Maxtor's Asia-Pacific manufacturing workers, …

IT Director 23 May 2006, 06:16
AMD extends Athlon 64 CPU lines

Firm intros 4000+, 5000+, FX-62

AMD has launched its Socket AM2 desktop processors, among them the forecast Athlon 64 X2 5000+ and the X2 4000+ clocked at 2.6GHz and 2.0GHz, respectively, and priced at $696 and $328. It also introduced the $1,031, 2.8GHz Athlon 64 FX-62, and the $343, 2.4GHz Athlon 64 400+. The Socket AM2 versions of other single- and dual- …

Reg Hardware 23 May 2006, 06:50
Thirty seven build runs later...

Imagine Cup Three Pair and the development lifecycle

It occurred to us that we should put more technology related stuff in our Reg Developer blogs, after all that's what really interests us and probably what interests you too. We guess it makes sense to firstly talk about how we go about developing our application. At the moment we have 35,045 lines of code, although it's true …

Developer 23 May 2006, 08:01
HP sweeties for pet partners

That's what it says, anyway

HP has announced a sweetener for some of its most favoured resellers across Europe with some rejigging of its partner programme. The "partner for growth" programme, which has been trialled among 100 resellers carrying HP's Preferred Partner accreditation with a DataCentre or StorageWorks Solutions Specialist distinction in the …

Channel Register 23 May 2006, 08:46
Sky vs Telewest HD showdown

Tech Digest TV, TV on the wall, who's the highest def of all?

Yesterday I took delivery of my Sky HD box and naturally spent the rest of the day watching Star Wars Revenge of the Sith (it is better in HD honest) and animals mauling each other on the National Geographic HD channel. I am also lucky enough to have a Telewest TVDrive (its HD hard disk video recorder) in the home, so here are …

Entertainment 23 May 2006, 08:56
Microsoft loses South Korea appeal

Still appealing to high court though...

The South Korean Fair Trade Commission has rejected Microsoft's objection to last year's ruling that it is guilty of anti-competitive behaviour. In December 2005, South Korean regulators fined Microsoft $34m and ordered it to produce a version of Windows without bundling a media player and instant messaging software. The ruling …

Operating Systems 23 May 2006, 08:59
Intel ships dual-core Xeon DP 5000 series

Updated 'Dempsey' paves the way for 'Woodcrest'

Intel has begun shipping 'Dempsey', its Xeon DP 5000 series of dual-core server processors equipped with 4MB of cache and sporting Intel's new LGA-771 interconnect. The processors were first shown in public almost a year ago and come a month before the next-generation architecture Xeon - aka 'Woodcrest' - is due to launch. …

Servers 23 May 2006, 09:12
Scottish nationalists on privacy rap

Connery calls over the line

The Information Commissioner has given the Scottish National Party (SNP) an official reprimand for using Sir Sean Connery to violate the privacy of its constituents with a plea for their votes in the 2005 general election. The SNP had made unsolicited telephone marketing calls with a message recorded by celebrity nationalist …

Music and Media 23 May 2006, 09:27
Samsung to sell PCs with Flash drives next month

HDD-less

Samsung will early next month ship the first notebook PC and the first ultra-mobile PC fitted with 32GB of solid-state NAND Flash storage instead of a regular hard disk drive, the company announced today. The two machines - respectively, a version of Samsung's Q30 12.1in notebook and its Q1 UMPC - are both fitted with the …

Reg Hardware 23 May 2006, 09:38
Tech companies fingered by SEC share option probe

Delving deeper

Juniper Networks and Openwave Systems have said they have been contacted by regulators investigating alleged abuse of share options back in the heady days of dotcom lunacy. Juniper said it had been contacted by the US Attorney for Brooklyn asking for information about granting of stock options. Mobile software firm Openwave …

Financial News 23 May 2006, 09:42
Sage smashes into China

Buys into Malaysia too

Acquisition addict Sage has made clear its intentions in the far east with a brace of purchases. It now owns a £7m majority shareholding in top Malaysian SME software vendor UBS, and has snaffled a Chinese distributor for an undisclosed sum. Sage is making an offer, required under Malaysian law of 0.98 Ringgit to remaining UBS …

Financial News 23 May 2006, 09:54
Administrators go in at Supanet

Grant Thornton heads to Burnley ISP

Administrators have been called in to Burnley-based ISP Supanet Ltd. A notice published in the London Gazette, the official source of personal and corporate insolvency data in the UK, reports that Joint Administrators Martin Ellis, Andrew Hosking and Leslie Ross of Grant Thornton UK were appointed on 5 May. The Register has …

Financial News 23 May 2006, 09:56
VIA touts own chipsets' Socket AM2 suitability

Boards AMD's latest bandwagon

VIA pipped Nvidia to the post today by announcing the first chipsets to support AMD's Socket AM2 platform, though most motherboards launched today appear to be based on the as-yet-unannounced - officially anyway - Nvidia nForce 500 series. VIA's offerings that are ready to support Socket AM2 processors include the K8T900 and …

Reg Hardware 23 May 2006, 10:02
Chinese media culls undesirable characters

Down to a mere 900 pictographs

Foreign students of Chinese will be relieved to learn that an understanding of most of the content of the country's media will require a working knowledge of just 900 characters out of the roughly 50,000 individual pictographs available, Reuters reports. Specifically, a grasp of said 900 pictographs will allow access to 90 per …

Music and Media 23 May 2006, 10:22
BSA urges government to fight software pirates

Lobby fodder

More than a quarter (27 per cent) of PC software used in the UK is illegal, according to a survey by the Business Software Alliance (BSA). The latest edition of the industry organisation's Global Piracy Study shows the rate of illegal software in Britain is unchanged from 2004. Continued "disrespect" by UK businesses towards …

IT Director 23 May 2006, 10:24
Sony 'unlikely' to offer 20GB PS3 in UK

HDMI-equipped 60GB model only?

British buyers may only be offered the 60GB version of Sony's PlayStation 3, a senior company official has suggested. If so, the comments from the head of Sony Computer Entertainment's UK operation, Ray Maguire, appear to confirm speculation that the 20GB PS3 will not be released here officially. In an interview with UK games …

Reg Hardware 23 May 2006, 10:46
Nvidia delays GeForce 7950 GX2 debut?

Quad SLI part's launch put back a week for Computex

Nvidia is not unveiling its anticipated GeForce 7950 GX2 graphics chip until early June and the start of the Computex trade show in Taipei, an online report citing communications made by the GPU company to its distributors has claimed. According to a DailyTech report, Nvidia's note to channel partners states the 7950 GX2 will …

Reg Hardware 23 May 2006, 11:06
Judge approves Sony rootkit settlement

New Dido live CD? Yes please!

Federal courts have decided the penalty Sony BMG must suffer for exposing thousands of music fans' computers to hackers with dodgy DRM software last year. District court judge Naomi Reice Buchwald granted final approval for a settlement yesterday. Consumers will receive new malware and vulnerability-free CDs, a patch to remove …

Malware 23 May 2006, 11:13
Intel inks out India PC plans

Full steam on World Ahead

Paul Otellini, president and CEO of Intel, used a visit to India to add details to the firm's plan to sell a lower priced PC in the country. Intel will work with HCL, Millennium, PCS, Wipro and Zenith Computers to make machines which will be 20 per cent cheaper than its current entry-level machine, which sells for $220, …

Financial News 23 May 2006, 11:15
Execs back $2.4bn Eircom buy-out

Danon in line for chairman's job

The former head of BT's giant retail business in the UK is set to take a top job at Eircom after the Irish incumbent announced today that it is backing a $2.4bn (£1.64bn) bid for the business. Pierre Danon, the former chief exec of BT Retail, is due to become chairman of the Eircom once the deal is completed. In an …

Financial News 23 May 2006, 11:16
Phones4u wins passing off appeal against phone4u

Use of name 'caused deception'

An online seller of mobile phones did not infringe the trademark of John Caudwell's Phones4u chain when it used the domain name phone4u.co.uk, according to the Court of Appeal. But Friday's judgment concluded that there was passing off. The ruling reverses a High Court judgment of last year, which threw out both arguments from …

Mobile 23 May 2006, 11:29
US veterans' data exposed after burglary

Old soliders' data never dies - it just gets taken away

A PC containing the personal details of as many as 26.5m US veterans has been stolen from the home of a worker at the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA), sparking a major security alert. A thief broke into the data analyst's home earlier this month and stole the computer during the course of a burglary. The laptop shouldn't …

IT Director 23 May 2006, 13:52
ATI unveils SB600 South Bridge

Ethernet? What's Ethernet?

ATI has announced its anticipated South Bridge chip, the SB600, the chipset component designed to limit the company's dependence on ULi, the chip maker now owned by ATI's arch-rival, Nvidia. The SB600 hooks up to ATI's Xpress 3200, 1600 and 1100 North Bridge chips. It can support up to four 1.5Gbps or 3Gbps Serial ATA drives …

Reg Hardware 23 May 2006, 13:57
Nvidia nForce 500 Socket AM2 chipset series

Preview A new AMD Socket, a new Nvidia chipset...

Earlier today, AMD launched a range of new processors based on its Socket AM2 processor interconnect. Nvidia has launched a range of new chipsets to go with AMD's Socket AM2 CPUs and it's an impressive line-up. So far there has been no news about any new chipsets from ATI, although the RD580 chipset is already prepared for the …

Reg Hardware 23 May 2006, 14:02
EMI profits up on iPod factor

Digital means dollars...

EMI is crediting downloads for a 13 per cent increase in profits despite falling sales of physical products. The record giant, which only started offering music over the internet in 2003, and has Coldplay, Robbie Williams and Gorillaz on its books, increased profits to £159m on revenues which grew at just 2.1 per cent to £2.1bn …

Financial News 23 May 2006, 14:03
Scientists build caramel-powered margarine-making fuel cell

Cadbury's E. coli hydrogen fermenter

Scientists from the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) have found that waste from confectionery production could be used to produce useful amounts of hydrogen for electricity generation. The feasibility study used sugar-rich waste from a Cadbury's factory to power a fuel cell. E. coli bacteria in a five …

Science 23 May 2006, 14:31
ATI provides pointer to Intel's 'Allendale'

Conroe/Merom with half the cache, anyone?

ATI has confirmed that Intel is preparing a processor codenamed 'Allendale' in the 'Conroe' timeframe, though its reference, tucked into a description of its SB600 South Bridge, to the new chip provides no clue as to the part's features. Allendale is believed to be a version of Conroe half that chip's usual 4MB of L2 cache. …

Reg Hardware 23 May 2006, 14:32
Staff at 4uBusiness 'leaving in droves'

Caudwell Group confirms merger plans

Staff at 4uBusiness have been warned they face job losses following a decision to merge the business with Phones4u, both of which are owned by telecoms entrepreneur John Caudwell. Insiders have told The Register that staff "are leaving in droves" and that morale has hit rock bottom. They blame the impending sale of The Caudwell …

Mobile 23 May 2006, 14:52
World's most expensive mobile number is 666 6666

Beastly number auctioned for charity

The world's most expensive phone number was auctioned for charity yesterday in Qatar. The number, 666 6666, sold for 10m Qatari riyals or £1.5m. The previous record holder was Chinese number 8888 8888, which sold for £270,000. The Cantonese word for eight sounds very similar to the word for rich. It was bought by Sichuan …

Mobile 23 May 2006, 15:19
PGP creator offers VoIP crypto to Windows users

Zfone reignites privacy debate

Philip Zimmermann, best known as the developer of the Pretty Good Privacy (PGP) encryption algorithm, has released a new public beta of a software package designed to encrypt VoIP calls. Zfone uses Diffie-Helman to generate a per-session key for IP Telephony calls using a protocol called ZRTP, that Zimmermann says is superior …

ID 23 May 2006, 15:21
JavaCC: Don't talk back

Implementing a parser-analyser

In many cases, with the advent of XML, if data must be exchanged, or information read, a simple solution is to mark that document up using XML and then parse it using an XML parser. However, in some situations the documents to be processed may not be in XML format. This could be because of legacy systems, external constraints …

Developer 23 May 2006, 15:23
Vodafone gives corporate merry go-round a spin

Non-exec board member: nice work if you can get it

Vodafone is to fiddle with its top brass this summer. Paul Hazen, the firm's deputy chairman and top non-executive member of the board will retire to be replaced by a promoted John Buchanan. Hazen has been on the operator's board since 1999. Buchanan, meanwhile, retired as CFO from oil giant BP in 2002. He also serves as a non …

Mobile 23 May 2006, 15:27
HP renews Xeon server charge

ProLiants armed with Intel's latest

HP has welcomed Intel's new dual-core server chips with open arms. The company today refreshed the Xeon portion of its ProLiant server line by adding the latest processors from Intel and a host of other advances that give customers more storage and management options. The ProLiant DL140, DL360, DL380, ML150, ML350, ML370 and …

Servers 23 May 2006, 16:16
Kazaa's P2P libel suit threatens to mute Canadians

Valley Justice Silence is golden

A fresh lawsuit making its way through Canadian courts threatens to result in severe restrictions being placed on what internet users can post to message boards. It just might enhance corporate abilities to strong-arm ISPs and authors, too. In a strange new turn of events in the Kazaa saga, Sharman Networks and its CEO, Nikki …

Music and Media 23 May 2006, 17:17
Lean, mean Intel hands out race cars to the press

Cutting costs one gewgaw at a time

Intel claims to be all about fat trimming these days. So why the heck is it sending race cars to reporters? Hacks around the globe this week received model race cars from Intel's new public relations agency Burson-Marsteller. BM - as the company bravely refers to itself - won the lucrative Intel contract, becoming the first …

Bootnotes 23 May 2006, 17:58
The Novelist vs The Futurologist

Competition Steel cage match: John Updike mauls Kevin Kelly

Little has been heard of new economy prophet Kevin Kelly in the more recent era of hedge funds and the Enron trial. The world doesn't seem to be as receptive to futurists as it was in the 1990s, and here's an instructional tale why. Budding futurologists take note: the story contains one very important mistake you must never, …

Biology 23 May 2006, 21:36