18th August 2006 Archive

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Free mobile gaming for all

Jump to it

Newly launched website GameJump.com is to provide mobile games free of charge. The service, which went live on Wednesday, makes money from pop-up adverts that appear for a couple of seconds when the game starts and ends. Select a game on the site and you'll receive an SMS with a link to the download (if you're in the US). …

Mobile 18 Aug 2006, 07:57
FaithMobile: providing inspiration on the move

Portable sanctuary

Most Register readers will be aware of Good News Holdings, and its Christian-based content portal for mobile phones. Since January this year FaithMobile (slogan: "Have you talked to God today?") has pumped out Bible verses, ringtones, and inspirational audio and video to mobile phone-carrying Christians. It has now teamed up …

Mobile 18 Aug 2006, 08:05
Federal judge axes Bush mass surveillance

Ruled 'unconstitutional'

A Detroit federal judge has declared the Bush administration's warrantless wiretap scheme unconstitutional. Ruling on a case brought by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) against the government, US District Judge Anna Taylor said that the electronic dragnet violates the First Amendment, the Fourth Amendment, and the …

Broadband 18 Aug 2006, 08:20
OSDL accepts GPL proliferation

LinuxWorld FSF hopes for Torvalds compromise

Delegates to this week's open source love-in left San Francisco pondering a a split over the next proposed version of GPL, which governs Linux. Stuart Cohen, chief executive of the Open Source Development Labs (OSDL), has conceded developers will end up using two versions of GPL - the proposed version 3 license and existing GPL …

Software 18 Aug 2006, 09:13
Cowboy DNA testers face prison terms

And you can't flog your kidney on eBay

A law that could send eBay directors to prison if they fail to remove listings for body parts will next month extend to anyone holding saliva or hair samples for paternity testing or other DNA analysis if they do not have proper consent. The Human Tissue Act of 2004 regulates the removal, storage and use of materials that …

Media 18 Aug 2006, 09:20
Do IT vendors gamble with their marketing budgets?

Well-targeted strategies better the odds

There are plenty of opportunities to "invest" a marketing budget - advertising, mailshots, events, executive influence programs - but few guides to measure their relative value to a comparison of where best to place bets. Defining or demonstrating the success of a marketing program, except perhaps by the end result - how many …

The Channel 18 Aug 2006, 09:54
Websites 'leaked' Microsoft Zune details, blurry pics

No better than iPod, no worse either

Details of Microsoft's Zune digital music player leaked out overnight to a variety of websites hot on the heels of EMI's announcement it will supply music and video content for the software giant to pre-install on the player. A number of websites - most notably Gizmodo and iLounge were sent blurry pics of the now-familiar …

Hardware 18 Aug 2006, 10:15
Shuttle launches 'fastest' SFF PC

World's first Core 2 Duo-friendly small form-factor box, too

Shuttle today announced what it said is the first ever small form-factor PC chassis designed for Intel's Core 2 Duo desktop processor family. It's also the fastest machine of its kind, the company claimed. The XPC Barebone SD37P2 is fitted with a motherboard based on Intel's 975X chipset, enabling it to host a 1,066MHz …

Hardware 18 Aug 2006, 10:41
NTL:Telewest offers free broadband for mobile users

Virgin offer

British consumers are being offered a pair of Virgins to satisfy most of, if not all, their communications needs. Customers signing up for Virgin Mobile's SIM-only pay monthly tariffs are being offered a year's worth of up to 8Mbps broadband. The broadband service would normally cost £17.99, the two Virgins say. The deal is on …

Broadband 18 Aug 2006, 10:52
Boeing departs in-flight broadband market

Failure to take off as scheduled

Boeing is ditching its in-flight broadband service, Connexion by Boeing, after failing to interest enough airlines in the scheme. The firm makes no mention of the recent ban on carry-on laptops on flights prompted by this month's arrest of liquid-explosive terror suspects in the UK. But this policy would surely have hit the …

Broadband 18 Aug 2006, 10:54
BOFH: The computer whisperer

Episode 28 Hex-eptional sense

"I can't believe it, I've been trying to get that thing to boot for hours!" the Boss says, shaking his head as the PFY steps back from his desktop. "Yes," I respond. "I have to admit the PFY has a bit of a silicon thumb when it comes to dodgy hardware - in fact, we call him the computer whisperer." "The computer whisperer …

BOFH 18 Aug 2006, 11:02
Samsung turns out music-friendly pivot phone

Rotation nation

You've seen clamshell phones and you've spied slider phones. But how about a pivot phone? Come October, you'll be able to get your hands on Samsung's latest rotator, the GSM-connected, music-oriented X830 handset with 1GB of on-board memory. It'll play all the usual music formats and the Linux-friendly Ogg. There's a 1.3 …

Phones 18 Aug 2006, 11:25
Salesforce.com shares jump as it turns in a loss

'Ave that, Microsoft, Oracle

Depite posting a loss for its second quarter, shares in Salesforce.com surged 19 per cent on Thursday, as the sales software firm beat Wall Street revenue estimates. Salesforce.com lost $145,000 on a GAAP basis, compared to a profit of $5m for the same period a year earlier. The firm's P&L shows that the sales surge was outrun …

Financial News 18 Aug 2006, 11:30
What fluids should you drink when it's hot?

Hot or cold?

Also in this week's column: Will eating spinach make me strong? Do you feed a cold and starve a fever? What is amniotic fluid? What fluids should you drink when it's hot? Asked by Andrew Wiseman of Cambridge, United Kingdom The claim is that drinking a cold drink is better as the cold drink comes in contact with the …

Science 18 Aug 2006, 11:31
Do you feed a cold and starve a fever?

Or feed a fever and starve a cold?

Also in this week's column: Will eating spinach make me strong? What fluids should you drink when it's hot? What is amniotic fluid? Do you feed a cold and starve a fever? Asked by Elektra Filipo of Apia, Samoa Many people are confused about this. According to Dr Andrew Lloyd, an infectious disease physician in Sydney, …

Science 18 Aug 2006, 11:31
What is amniotic fluid?

It used to be all around us, man

Also in this week's column: Will eating spinach make me strong? Do you feed a cold and starve a fever? What fluids should you drink when it's hot? What is amniotic fluid? Asked by Giulia Rossi, age 13, of Rome, Italy As any baby could tell you (if they could talk), amniotic fluid is the clear, yellowish liquid that …

Science 18 Aug 2006, 11:32
Will eating spinach make me strong?

The Popeye effect

Also in this week's column: Do you feed a cold and starve a fever? What fluids should you drink when it's hot? What is amniotic fluid? Will eating spinach make me strong? Asked by Thomas Glass of Hartford, Connecticut, USA The Popeye Effect is the belief that eating spinach will give you big muscles. Unfortunately, this …

Science 18 Aug 2006, 11:37
Censorship, planets and ~~googling~~ searching the net

Letters What you can, and cannot say

A parliamentary committee (that ever useful beast) published a report this week denouncing net censorship as "morally unacceptable". The cries of "hypocrite" could be heard across the net almost as soon as the ink on the pdf was dry... The whole issue of Net censorship runs straight into the ancient dichotomy of law and ethics …

Letters 18 Aug 2006, 11:38
Florida man indicted over Katrina phishing scam

Hurricane season

A Florida man has been charged with setting up a phishing website that sought to cash-in on the victims of Hurricane Katrina. Instead of collecting money for victims, Jovany Desir, 20, of Miami, Florida, allegedly tried to trick sympathetic marks into handing over banking details through a bogus American Red Cross website. …

Security 18 Aug 2006, 11:46
Elgato equips Macs with digital, analogue USB TV tuner

DVR-on-a-dongle

Mac-friendly TV tuner maker Elgato has announced EyeTV Hybrid, a twin-tuner - digital and analogue - dongle that pops into a USB port to deliver television programmes straight to your Mac's display. The hardware ships the with company's EyeTV 2 software which not only allows you to choose your channel, but provides a range …

Hardware 18 Aug 2006, 11:57
Thomson hires computers to write news

The man-machine

To date, advances in automation have favoured journalists and generally made our jobs easier. Voice recorders mean we don't have to learn shorthand, wordprocessors mean we don't have to be good typists...or spellers...and voicemail means that some of us can, allegedly, tap into the messages of others. But today my technological …

Media 18 Aug 2006, 12:04
Brocade raises expectations for Q4

Climbing Mount Profitability

Execs at storage switch maker Brocade took a break from dealing with the company's high-profile stock option woes by reporting some decent Q3 results. Revenues reached a record $188.9m, up 55 per cent on the same period a year ago. Brocade had previously told Wall Street it expected to beat its previous revenue expectation of …

Storage 18 Aug 2006, 12:55
Losing stuff but finding buried treasure

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Keep it safe out there This week we learnt the importance of backing up data. A boring task, but you don't half feel clever if it all goes wrong and you need it. But sometimes stuff gets lost. We've all lost photos of holidays, given mobile phones to the great pub gods, and parted company with sets of keys. But if you went …

Business 18 Aug 2006, 13:45
Google mislays Tibet

Richard Gere reportedly furious as black helicopters circle

We don't think Richard Gere is going to like this one bit: Google appears to have rather carelessly mislaid the whole of Tibet, the once independent state turned autonomous region of China. As a quick query on Google Earth confirms, Tibet is conspicuously absent from the search monolith's database, which comes as something of …

Science 18 Aug 2006, 14:14
Twister unearths archaeologists

Rips through Lincolnshire

Five archaeologists were ripped from terra firma by a freak tornado that whipped its way through Lincolnshire yesterday. The archaeologists and archaeology students, working at a sand and gravel pit at Baston, were sheltering from the thunderstorm in a temporary canteen when the building was picked up and tossed 70 feet by the …

Science 18 Aug 2006, 14:16
eBay UK gets mobile with O2

Pocket auctions are go

Users of O2's Active service are able to access eBay using their mobile phones for the first time today. O2 Active subscribers can login to the auction site, search, bid, and keep an eye on items they are selling or considering bidding for. eBay has been available on i-mode since January this year, but will now be accessible …

Mobile 18 Aug 2006, 14:20
Apple patches MacBook 'fan behaviour'

So they won't be so vociferous from now on?

Apple has posted a firmware update for its MacBook consumer-oriented laptops, the latest in a series of "fan behaviour" adjustments made to the company's Intel-based computers. The patch adjusts the machine's System Management Controller (SMC), a device that monitors and manages Intel-based Macs' power-related functions. …

Hardware 18 Aug 2006, 14:24
PayPal freezes out British user in 'terror' list snafu

To verify you are not a terrorist, fax this number...

PayPal has frozen Brit Mohammed Hassan's account and banned him from using the service if he refuses to fax the company a raft of personal information. The online payments service told him his name is "similar to or a match to" a name on the US government's anti-terror assets freezing list. The Office of Foreign Assets Control …

Media 18 Aug 2006, 14:58
AllofMP3 suffers mysterious downtime

Again

Controversial Russian music site AllofMP3.com has suffered more unexplained downtime. Back in May the site all but disappeared for three days, leading to fears it had been crushed by Russian authorities stung into action by the US. A group of US senators asked George Bush to block Russian entry to the World Trade Organisation …

Financial News 18 Aug 2006, 15:44
Vista joins MS patch treadmill

Brace of flaws in beta code

Microsoft has released a couple of patches for Windows Vista after realising that the pre-release OS is vulnerable to some of the security bugs addressed in its last (mammoth) Patch Tuesday update cycle. Of the seven critical Windows updates released in August, two (MS06-042 and MS06-051) also affect Windows Vista Beta 2 or …

Operating Systems 18 Aug 2006, 15:45
Terror charges axed in 2nd cellphone bomb plot

Update People do resell them after all

The spirit of Barney Fife is alive and well in small-town America, but that will hardly amuse the three men recently accused of terrorist crimes in the redneck backwater of Caro, Michigan. Adham Abdelhamid Othman, Louai Abdelhamied Othman, and Maruan Awad Muhareb, who were rumbled by a watchful Wal-Mart clerk when they bought …

Security 18 Aug 2006, 17:15
NASA hands out $500m for space wagons

Hired help

Only NASA could award a $500m contract and bill the handout as "doing things on the cheap." The US space agency today announced that two companies - SpaceX and Rocketplane Kistler - will split a first-of-its-kind $500m grant. The companies have been tasked with creating systems capable of delivering cargo and personnel to the …

Science 18 Aug 2006, 22:33