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28th July 2006 Archive

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  • Investors slaughter Rackable on Q3 sales slowdown

    Intel, AMD, Dell and Sun blamed

    Rackable Systems today learned its toughest lesson since becoming a public company - imperfection doesn't cut it when you're supposed to be a darling. The server maker's rags to riches story started to rag up again after management frightened investors with a modest third quarter outlook. Executives told financial analysts that …

    Servers 28 Jul 2006, 01:09

  • DVB-H rockets ahead in Italy

    Comment Makes the world rethink its sums

    One of the few successes to come out of the World Cup fever was the Italian DVB-H service from 3 Italia, which launched for real during the run up to the Cup. Most other mobile TV services merely used the World Cup as a demonstration of what their service would look like. 3 Italia has this week filed a document at DVB …

    Mobile 28 Jul 2006, 06:02

  • News Corp and Clearwire ready to tie the knot?

    Quad play marriage could rival Sprint and cable cos

    As the four major cablecos involved in a quadruple play joint venture with Sprint get ready to launch initial services, they may face another rival apart from the incumbent telcos, themselves moving towards quad play with a combination of fiber-to-the-home, IPTV, and their cellular arms. This will come from the satellite …

    Mobile 28 Jul 2006, 07:02

  • HP eats Mercury

    It's a good match - but might stll prove indigestible.

    So, HP has paid a small fortune for “tarnished” Mercury Software, has it? Perhaps it has got a bargain, as Mercury's technology is excellent and it has a good reputation for "Business Technology Optimisation" (aka "testing", in the widest possible sense) in big companies. I was impressed recently by its latest change management …

    Developer 28 Jul 2006, 07:42

  • Happy SysAdmin Day!

    Take time to say thanks...

    We'd like to thank Reg reader Dave for emailing to thank our System Administrators for doing such a good job keeping the website up and running. Today is SysAdmin Day when for generations people have given thanks, and even small gifts, to show their appreciation of the work of the humble administrator. Get along to sysadminday …

    Management 28 Jul 2006, 07:44

  • Don't give foresight, give me luck!

    History written by winners

    And so to lunch with Martin Richmond-Coggan, VP EMEA at Applix, ostensibly to talk about its acquisition of Temtec BI visualisation software. Apparently, Applix's TM1 combined with Temtec's Executive Viewer is proving much more attractive than TM1 alone to potential customers using Essbase and wondering what its strategic future …

    Developer 28 Jul 2006, 07:56

  • Ballmer to Wall St: we always back a winner

    Microsoft Bob, who?

    An unapologetic Steve Ballmer has committed Microsoft to investments in an array of new markets, while ruling and end to monumental delays on flagship products. Microsoft's chief executive on Thursday prepared Wall St for ongoing long-term R&D and marketing spending, which will push up costs and bust margins, into already …

    Operating Systems 28 Jul 2006, 08:01

  • Rambus accepts lower damages from Hynix

    Case moves on to next phase

    Rambus has accepted the damages award granted to it by a jury following its patent clash victory over Hynix but last week slashed by the presiding judge. Hynix will pay the memory technology firm $133.6m instead of the originally awarded $306.5m. The reduction was the result of Hynix claim that the jury-decided award was …

    Hardware 28 Jul 2006, 08:55

  • Nvidia to bring SLI to Intel chipsets?

    Even as Dell's XPS 700 goes Core 2, officially

    Nvidia's SLI multi-GPU technology will soon work with Intel-made chipsets, it has been alleged. The claim came after the graphics chip company began highlighting the number of Intel Core 2 Duo-based desktops that support SLI. Nvidia's arch-rival, ATI, was also quick to shout about all the machines that contain Core 2 chips …

    Hardware 28 Jul 2006, 09:14

  • Swede can't swallow McDonald's pizza

    Golden arches weather the trademark storm

    McDonald's will keep the domain name Pizza.eu after a legal challenge to the burger giant's right was rejected this week. Torbjörn Ahlberg of Swedish domain name sellers TBA Media had challenged McDonald's registration which was sought during an initial period when the .eu space was open only to trademark owners. McDonald's …

    Media 28 Jul 2006, 09:44

  • Dell laptop goes up in smoke

    Oh no, not again

    Another Dell laptop has undergone spontaneous combustion, prompting the evacuation of the office it was situated in and the urgent intervention of the local fire brigade. Pictures of the incident point to a battery meltdown as the cause of the conflagration. Here's a picture, but there are plenty more over at Tom's Hardware …

    Hardware 28 Jul 2006, 09:46

  • Meta tag abusers face 20 years in prison

    US law to protect kids from obscene content

    The US has passed legislation which controls what website operators are allowed to put in their site meta tags. The law bans the use of words which might lead anyone to obscene content. The Adam Walsh Child Protection and Safety Act is named after a six-year-old who was abducted in 1981 and killed. His parents have since …

    Media 28 Jul 2006, 09:56

  • Sky flexes muscles for broadband deathmatch

    Media behemoth flashes financial might

    BSkyB has released its annual results, parading its weapons-grade financial clout for the upcoming triple and quadruple play tussle. Revenues were up 8 per cent to £4.15bn, while pre-tax profits were up 1 per cent to £798m. Operating profit rose 7 per cent to £877m, which was adjusted to £561m, giving earnings of 30.7 pence per …

    Broadband 28 Jul 2006, 10:06

  • Europe demands Blu-ray Disc, HD DVD licensing details

    Competition query?

    While the consumer electronics and content industries worry that the battle between Blu-ray Disc and HD DVD will set company against company to the disadvantage of all, Europe's antitrust officials appear to fear that having two rival high-definition video disc formats isn't competition enough. To whit, the European …

    Hardware 28 Jul 2006, 10:20

  • Melting technology and missing black holes

    Letters It could only be letters...

    It is hot out there. And hot is not good if you depend on bits of metal for a living. This is what Level 3 discovered this week, when its Goswell Road facility took some time out to chill. This news prompted a flurry of emails. Well, one or two. Telling tales of the heat killing technology all over the place: Level3's Goswell …

    Letters 28 Jul 2006, 10:26

  • BOFH: Office politics

    Episode 25 A disturbance in the force

    So, I'm approaching Mission Control one morning and can't help noticing a disturbance in...the force...It's almost as if a million souls were suddenly installing OS2. Ignoring the feeling, I slip inside to find the Boss and PFY discussing something heatedly. "...so if you could just reinstall Office on his machine that would …

    BOFH 28 Jul 2006, 11:02

  • Financial instrument pricing using C++

    Book review Getting into the lucrative parts of coding

    C++ is the most used language in that most lucrative of fields: financial engineering. Yet most of the people who use it for derivatives have no formal training in programming, and often use C++ as little more than C, or even as a mutant form of Fortran. The results are not always pretty. Duffy tries to show how modern OO and …

    Developer 28 Jul 2006, 11:02

  • 'Official' Vodafone 3G Treo pic spotted on web

    Originally posted by Microsoft, apparently

    Is this the face of Palm's upcoming 3G Treo smart phone for Vodafone's European networks? Euro website MSMobiles.com seems to think so, claiming to have found the snap in Microsoft document, of all places. The device in the report looks substantially like the US-only Treo 700w. There's no antenna, of course, as Europeans …

    Phones 28 Jul 2006, 11:05

  • Pulling things together as India draws near

    Imagine Cup Time is ticking on

    Time is ticking, and we're flat out working on getting the digital recovery environment finished. It seems that despite some pretty damn good project planning, for students anyway, we're only a week or so away from deadline and we're still doing some of the development. Ahh well, we're making good progress, the system looks …

    Developer 28 Jul 2006, 11:28

  • LG to ship 5Mp camera phone next month

    Two flashes and autofocus...

    LG's five megapixel camera-equipped phone, the KG920 will hit the UK's shores next month, retailer Carphone Warehouse has claimed, though it's keeping mum on how much the handset will cost. The KG920 was announced in February this year. It's set to sport a 2in, 262,144-colour, 240 x 320 display. It's no lightweight, coming …

    Phones 28 Jul 2006, 11:40

  • McAfee reports profit dip

    Security specialist warns over ongoing accounting probe

    Net security firm McAfee reported reduced quarterly profits on Thursday. The company also warned it may have to restate past financial results because of a previously announced ongoing investigation into its stock option practices. For the quarter to 30 June, McAfee reported preliminary Q2 2006 profits of $31.4m, down from $41. …

    Security 28 Jul 2006, 11:47

  • Jobless extra goes gun-crazy on Brazilian soap set

    Geek TV And Ricky Gervais quits comedy

    TV story of the week comes straight outta Rio, where a jobless Brazilian actor stormed onto the set of a soap that had once employed him as an extra. (You know where I'm going with this, don't you?) Ricardo Dualibi, who carried a loaded gun and was clad only in his swimming trunks, fired two shots and took a member of the …

    Bootnotes 28 Jul 2006, 11:58

  • Why doesn't a hangover occur the night before?

    Morning after blues

    Also in this week's column: Can you die from testing a 9V battery on your tongue? What issues are there for women in space? Why do babies always seem to have a runny nose? Why doesn't a hangover occur the night before? Asked by Anna Ro of Newtown, New South Wales, Australia This type of headache is technically called a " …

    Science 28 Jul 2006, 12:16

  • Why do babies always seem to have a runny nose?

    Contagious kids

    Also in this week's column: Can you die from testing a 9V battery on your tongue? Why doesn't a hangover occur the night before? What issues are there for women in space? Why do babies always seem to have a runny nose? Asked by Michael Woodhams of Palmerston North, New Zealand There are at least three reasons why infants …

    Science 28 Jul 2006, 12:17

  • What issues are there for women in space?

    Gender issues in the absence of gravity

    Also in this week's column: Can you die from testing a 9V battery on your tongue? Why doesn't a hangover occur the night before? Why do babies always seem to have a runny nose? What issues are there for women in space? Asked by Richard Pierce of Lincoln, United Kingdom Menstruation is not an issue in space travel. …

    Science 28 Jul 2006, 12:18

  • Can you die from testing a 9V battery on your tongue?

    Vicious voltage

    Also in this week's column: Why doesn't a hangover occur the night before? What issues are there for women in space? Why do babies always seem to have a runny nose? Can you die from testing a 9V battery on your tongue? Asked by Liam Johnson of Frankfurt, Germany Here's Liam's question in full: First the simple question …

    Science 28 Jul 2006, 12:20

  • Directors blame Dell, Intel for Elonex collapse

    Creditors' report details vendor's demise

    The directors of renowned British PC maker Elonex Plc have blamed US giant Dell and its team mate Intel for its collapse last month. Elonex went down owing nearly £18m last month. The administrator's report received by creditors this week revealed that £10.7m was owed to unsecured creditors, but only £2m of this is likely to be …

    The Channel 28 Jul 2006, 12:24

  • Industry terrifies mobile phone thieves with... 'charter'

    Teens scared back into TWOC-ing and stealing Rolexes

    The mobile industry has launched a charter aimed at tackling the source of mobile phone theft. The Mobile Industry Crime Action Forum (MICAF), which represents the five primary operators, along with BT, Virgin, Nokia, BenQ-Siemens and the biggest mobile retailers said the new code would mean 80 per cent of stolen phones would …

    Mobile 28 Jul 2006, 12:37

  • IBM's pricing hots up as data centres overheat and HP makes a sizzling buy

    To subscribe to The Register's weekly newsletter - seven days of IT in a single hit - click here

    Well, it might be nearly August, and feel even hotter, but it's been a week of big announcements from leading vendors. Microsoft talks Microsoft spent the week reassuring investors that its $2bn spending plans had been thought through. Despite taking its time to understand the impact and importance of the internet, of portable …

    Business 28 Jul 2006, 13:16

  • SCADA system makers urged to tighten security

    Utility providers support new guidelines

    Idaho National Laboratory and the New York State Office of Cyber Security and Critical Infrastructure have teamed up with utilities and makers of distributed control system software to offer advice on how to make system security a major part of the critical infrastructure. Later this week, the group will release the latest …

    Security 28 Jul 2006, 13:20

  • Google Earth reveals swastika water feature

    Belgian town scrambles to dismantle fountain

    Google Earth aficionados have created a bonfire in the quiet town of Maasmechelen in Belgium, very close to the border with the Netherlands, by revealing that the fountain at the city council office looks like a swastika from the air. The fountain has spouted happily for over 27 years, but now the mayor says he will replace it …

    Media 28 Jul 2006, 13:25

  • MS to spend big bucks and lose money pushing Zune

    Re-uses Xbox business model

    Microsoft has pledged to spend "hundreds of millions" of dollars establishing its Zune music hardware and services combo while losing money on the package for the next few years. It'll take the company 3-5 years to make a significant impact to the market, it reckons. So Robbie Bach, head of Microsoft's Entertainment and …

    Hardware 28 Jul 2006, 14:11

  • Security flap after US Navy loses laptops

    Data overboard

    A pair of laptops containing the personal data of around 31,000 US Navy personnel officers and potential recruits were separately stolen from two New Jersey recruitment offices over the last two months. The Navy said that sensitive data on the machines was password protected in both cases. Around 4,000 of the records held on …

    Security 28 Jul 2006, 14:14

  • Magic Dell desktop switches off by text

    Feature or feck up? You decide

    A big thank you to Register reader Chris who sent us an interesting email conversation between a systems administrator and Dell technical support. It concerned problems with Dell's GX520 desktop machines which were powering down unexpectedly. An exchange of emails with Dell's technical support failed to shed any light on what …

    Mobile 28 Jul 2006, 14:24

  • BenQ preps Bluetooth stereo speakers

    Pair your phone and play

    BenQ Mobile will next month ship its first set of mobile phone add-on speakers designed to be fed over a Bluetooth link. The stereo system is portable, running off batteries or an AC adaptor, and provides bass-boosting and stereo-widening, the company said. Judging from some of the publicity shots, the Benq-Siemens Mobile …

    Hardware 28 Jul 2006, 14:32

  • London borough develops own microclimate

    Islington enjoys balmy day as city endures downpour

    Those Islington residents that were sitting on their balconies enjoying the 27 degree sunshine while having a quiet post-work pint yesterday afternoon, would have been bamboozled to hear colleagues today speaking of taking shelter to escape the terrible rain and hail. So we at Vulture Central went to the fount of all weather …

    Media 28 Jul 2006, 14:51

  • Nuclear War launcher (and USB hub) heads West

    UK to get dual-control capability?

    The all-out nuclear war launch button Reg Hardware featured a couple of weeks ago - the gadget's a four-port USB hub in its spare time - is coming to the US and will be available to buy on Sunday, we've learned. US-based purveyor of products for the nerdily inclined GeekStuff4U apparently has a consignment of the red-button …

    Bootnotes 28 Jul 2006, 14:57

  • Lords Committee to debate internet security

    These Internets? Are they safe for PLUs?

    The House of Lords Science and Technology Committee is to investigate personal internet security. They are calling on members of the public with direct experience to get in touch. The Committee claims this is the first in-depth Parliamentary study of the issue. Lord Broers, chairman of Committee, said: "We are doing more and …

    Security 28 Jul 2006, 15:04

  • CA finally names a finance chief

    Item one: cut jobs?

    CA has gotten around to appointing a new permanent CFO after the last incumbent Robert Davis resigned in May following a brace of other top brass departures. The (in many ways unenviable) task goes to Nancy Cooper, an IBM alumnus who most recently occupied the same role at a healthcare market intelligence firm. CEO John …

    Financial News 28 Jul 2006, 15:13

  • Firm ships MP3 player with integrated 'iTrip'

    Time to chuck out that cassette adaptor?

    China's Netac has launched a digital music player with a built-in FM radio transmitter, pitching the product at motorists who want an MP3 machine for the car but don't want to pay extra for an iTrip. The MuStik A200 is a 1GB Flash-based unit with a 1.in "high definition" screen - 1080p, presumably... It weighs a mere 44g and …

    Hardware 28 Jul 2006, 15:25

  • Tool uses Google to hunt for open source bugs

    Call Bugle

    A new research project aims to harness search engine Google to find security flaws in open source code. Bugle identifies common vulns using a (thus far) limited set of Google queries. So far the search queries look for cross-site scripting, SQL injection and buffer overflow flaws, for example. Emmanouel Kellinis, the brains …

    Security 28 Jul 2006, 16:16

  • Developers cry foul over Windows kernel security

    Lock-out

    Recently introduced security measures by Microsoft will make it more difficult to integrate third-party security tools with Windows, according to a rival personal firewall firm. Agnitum reckons that the introduction of Kernel Patch Protection by Microsoft will force independent security software vendors to adopt the same …

    Security 28 Jul 2006, 19:02

  • The spy suit wars

    Valley Justice A nation divided

    Two United States District Court judges recently handed down decisions in high-profile cases involving wiretapping and alleged records aggregation on behalf of the National Security Agency (NSA). The suits were brought against AT&T by plaintiffs in the Northern District of California with the legal “expertise” of the Electronic …

    Media 28 Jul 2006, 19:38

  • 'Colombian Flu' takes down Mitnick

    Phreaking heart

    The headline "Famed hacker felled by the flu" makes you long for the days when the US media churned out stories that documented Kevin Mitnick's battles with the government. Sadly, the police chases, wiretaps and manhunts have indeed been replaced with stories about Mitnick's immune system. The AP this week reported that Mitnick …

    Bootnotes 28 Jul 2006, 22:42