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14th September 2006 Archive

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  • Microsoft won't collect on web services IP

    Dispels fears?

    Microsoft today promised to never charge for its patented technology in 35 web services specifications undergoing ratification. The company say it won't enforce the patents for developers and companies either selling or distributing Microsoft-owned or Microsoft-controlled patents as part of the specifications under the Open …

    Developer 14 Sep 2006, 03:29

  • UK.gov bulks up for Microsoft savings

    1.5 million public sector users

    The government is to make further cash savings thanks to higher discounts offered by Microsoft OGCbuying.solutions said this week that "further discounts" have been delivered following the public sector's use of the licenses exceeding 1.5m. The new higher level is expected to reduce licence fees for public sector users by more …

    Public Sector 14 Sep 2006, 07:02

  • Microsoft Dynamics leader named

    Technologist takes reins

    Microsoft has drafted R&D chief Satya Nadella to take over from Doug Burgham as head of the company's growing Business Solutions unit Nadella led global development for Microsoft's Dynamics family, which includes enterprise resource planning (ERP) and customer relationship management (CRM). Nadella joined Microsoft in 1992. …

    Financial News 14 Sep 2006, 08:37

  • Commission concerned about Vista security

    Countdown faceoff

    Microsoft has fallen foul of the European Commission yet again over plans for its Vista operating system. The European Commission is concerned that the tech giant's plans to include certain security features in its new operating system goes against competition regulations, mainly that the included security features will lock …

    Developer 14 Sep 2006, 09:03

  • Hotshot to revive Gov. procurement

    OGC takes third way (BS)

    OGC Buying Solutions has replaced its chief executive with a jazzy international marketing cheese charged with reviving its bedraggled reputation. The British government's procurement agency, which handled £2bn of government business last year, has built a reputations for squeezing suppliers till they give blood, favouring …

    Public Sector 14 Sep 2006, 09:23

  • Dell launches AMD-based desktops

    Entry-level systems

    Dell has announced its first desktop PCs based on AMD chips. Both machines are pitched at entry-level business and mainstream consumer buyers. The Dimension C521 and E521 are both offered with a variety of Sempron, Athlon 64 and Athlon 64 X2 processor options, all of which clip into the machines' Nvidia integrated nForce …

    Reg Hardware 14 Sep 2006, 09:28

  • Logicalis feels Chile

    New South American offices target VoIP

    Logicalis is investing $1m in an attempt to gain a foothold in emerging South American markets. New offices are being opened by the business IT provider in Lima and Santiago. The news comes on the back of recent efforts to build vendor partnershps in the region. Its relationship with Cisco is a keystone of the plan. …

    Channel Register 14 Sep 2006, 09:39

  • Nintendo details Wii console's Japan debut

    European, US dates coming later today

    Nintendo will wheel out its Wii games console on Japan on 2 December, the videogames pioneer has confirmed. Japanese buyers should expect to pay around ¥25,000 ($213/£113/€168) for the product, Nintendo added. It is expected to announce the US and European release dates and pricing later today. Nintendo said it expects 25 …

    Reg Hardware 14 Sep 2006, 09:54

  • Progress gets SaaSy

    OK partner, go do it

    Most mainstream software vendors are still trying to work out what to do about Software as a Service (SaaS), let alone actively promoting their channel partners to get in on the act, but that is the position now being adopted by Progress Software. SaaS is the latest handle given to the re-incarnation of the Application Service …

    Developer 14 Sep 2006, 10:06

  • BT extends Fusion to corporate customers

    Companies can keep in touch through Wi-Fi hotspots

    Continuing their march towards a grand vision of an IMS future where everything is routed over IP connections, BT have announced that their Fusion product will now be available to corporate customers. Fusion combines GSM and Wireless LAN connectivity for voice calls, with calls using Voice over IP when on a data network, such as …

    Data Networking 14 Sep 2006, 10:11

  • IBM ships tape with hardware crypto

    First to market, but a pricey solution to lost tapes

    IBM has built public key encryption into its TS1120 tape drive, allowing the 500GB drive to encrypt and decrypt data on the fly in hardware. The TS1120 isn't cheap, at almost £19,000 a pop, but could be worth it if you're worried about your tapes falling off a lorry - plus it should be faster than encrypting in software on the …

    Storage 14 Sep 2006, 10:18

  • Sony pre-announces Nvidia GeForce 7600 GTL

    Media Center PC to incorporate Blu-ray, HDMI too

    Sony has extended its Vaio Digital Media Center line-up with a pair of new models pitched at European consumers keen to embrace HD content with Blu-ray Disc technology. Interestingly, the VGX-XL201 and VGX-XL202 machines both feature an as yet unannounced Nvidia graphics chip. Both models are based on Intel Core 2 Duo …

    Reg Hardware 14 Sep 2006, 10:25

  • Patch Tuesday omits critical Word fix

    Less than zero-day

    September's Patch Tuesday leaves users waiting for a fix to defend against a zero-day exploit in Microsoft Word, targeted by malware authors over recent days. Microsoft released three updates yesterday to address a critical flaw in Microsoft Publisher, an important security update for the pragmatic general multicast (PGM) …

    Security 14 Sep 2006, 10:28

  • Less British, more telecoms please

    BT sets out world-domination plans

    Last time I wrote a piece about British Telecom I was contacted by a reader who complained that the company had been operating as BT for some time and that I was revealing my lack of industry knowledge through the use of the obsolete moniker. At the time I responded that British Telecoms plc still exists and "...encompasses …

    Data Networking 14 Sep 2006, 10:41

  • Gibraltar: last outpost of the Neanderthal?

    Clinging on to the Rock

    Neanderthals clung on to existence in southern Europe as recently as 24,000 years ago, research on a cave in Gibraltar has revealed today. Carbon dating evidence from charcoal found inside Gorham's cave brings forward the timing of their extinction by almost 10,000 years. Previous studies said our closest relative probably went …

    Biology 14 Sep 2006, 10:59

  • Teachers break silence on fingerprinting children

    Jenkins, get that OFF the scanner NOW

    The National Union of Teachers has said that schools should not fingerprint children without the consent of parents. But UK teaching unions are being slow to formulate firmer policies on the issue because, it appears, teachers have not complained to their unions about the fingerprinting schemes that, according to parents' …

    Music and Media 14 Sep 2006, 11:18

  • Royal Society opens free online archive

    350 years of science available for your reading pleasure

    One of the world's most important historical records will be made available online for the first time today. All the Royal Society's journals are free for two months and include stone-cold scientific classics going back to 1665 and the foundations of modern inquiry. We're paticularly fond of the work of Robert Boyle, whose …

    Science 14 Sep 2006, 11:33

  • HTC preps candybar phone with slide-out QWERTY keyboard

    Libra's balancing act

    Smart-phone maker HTC and carrier partner UTStarcom this week took the wraps off a handset, codenamed 'Libra', that attempts to balance the need for a QWERTY keyboard with the space restrictions inherent in the candybar phone form-factor. The Windows Mobile-based device is equipped with a slide-out QWERTY keyboard …

    Reg Hardware 14 Sep 2006, 11:41

  • Creative launches widescreen Zen Vision in US

    Ready for Amazon Unbox downloads, maker says

    Creative today formally launched its second-generation Zen Vision portable media player in the US after unveiling the device in Europe and Singapore earlier this month. The new model is essentially a stretched version of its predecessor, pulled out to accommodate a 4.3in, 16:9 ratio, 480 x 272 widescreen LCD. The Zen Vision …

    Reg Hardware 14 Sep 2006, 12:02

  • EqualLogic tiers SAS for faster iSCSI

    iSCSI's still banging on the door, but it's banging faster...

    EqualLogic has brought out its first iSCSI array to use SAS (Serial Attached SCSI) drives and support tiered storage. Called the PS3000, the array - effectively an IP SAN in a box - features new software able to support multiple tiers of storage, said Paul Klinkby-Silver, EqualLogic's European VP. For highest performance, the …

    Servers 14 Sep 2006, 12:17

  • Apple iPhone slips out in Paris?

    French news mag makes a splash

    Apple's eagerly anticipated 'iPhone' may have made an unscheduled appearance in public this week - on the front page of a Paris newspaper. French publication 20 Minutes on Tuesday splashed a picture of the device on an edition of the paper timed to coincide with the opening of Apple Expo Paris. French phone-oriented website …

    Reg Hardware 14 Sep 2006, 12:28

  • Segway sounds sudden wheel reversal warning

    Upgrade your machine or risk falling off, company says

    Segway has asked its customers around the globe to return their "personal transporters" for a essential software update intended to eliminate an unfortunate glitch which, in the words of the manufacturer, "can unexpectedly reverse the direction of the wheels which can cause a rider to fall". The company said the bug affects …

    Reg Hardware 14 Sep 2006, 12:58

  • Profits and revenue up at Horizon

    The Sun always shines

    Horizon Technology has reported revenue of €131.2m for the first half of 2006, up 39.5 per cent from the €94m posted for the same period last year. The systems integration company, which announced its intention to acquire the Irish business software firm Enterprise Process Consulting (EPC) back in April, announced a gross …

    Channel Register 14 Sep 2006, 13:08

  • Holidaymaker uses laptop to nab burglars

    The long arm of the net

    A businessman on holiday in Spain was able to alert police of a raid on his home in the UK because he'd invested in an expensive net-connected CCTV system. Engineering boss John Ellison, 52, watched the attack on his Lancaster home unfold on a laptop PC he'd taken on holiday with him to Malaga, Spain. He was automatically …

    Security 14 Sep 2006, 13:11

  • Spanish police trainees cop an eyeful of smut

    Introductory video with a difference

    A training course for aspiring Spanish police sergeants got off to a lively start when, instead of the intended introductory video, the 120 participants were treated to "explicit sex between two blond adults", as El País puts it. The eager students settled into their seats at the Local Police Academy in Madrid and "the …

    Music and Media 14 Sep 2006, 13:16

  • Starbucks hit with big bucks lawsuit

    Woman demands $114m over cancelled free drink promo

    A US Starbucks customer has hit the company with a $114m lawsuit because the company refused to redeem a free drinks voucher, the BBC reports. The litigious New York woman tried to take advantage of an email offer the coffee monolith had made to employees in the south-east of the US of A, in which the company rather foolishly …

    Music and Media 14 Sep 2006, 13:25

  • Nvidia ships 'first' 80nm mobile graphics chip

    GeForce Go 7700 to debut in Asus laptop

    Nvidia has introduced what it claims is the first notebook-oriented graphics chip fabbed at 80nm, the mid-range GeForce Go 7700. It will initially feature in Asus A8 laptop family. The GPU contains 12 pixel pipelines, four more than the 90nm GeForce Go 7600, which explains the new chip's higher fill rate - 5.4bn pixels per …

    Reg Hardware 14 Sep 2006, 13:28

  • Pluto's curse named at last

    The space rock formerly known as Xena

    The distant rock which prompted astronomers to strip Pluto of its planethood has been offically named Eris, the International Astronomical Union (IAU) announced Wednesday. Eris is the Greek goddess of discord, hinting at the troubled ordination of the newly-discovered body. One of Eris' discoverers, Michael Brown of the …

    Space 14 Sep 2006, 13:30

  • Sony unveils mobile-on-desktop all-in-one media PC

    Media Centre

    Sony launched the Vaio LS1 PC-TV combo in the US last month, and now it's introduced the machine into Europe, as the Vaio LA1. Over here, the spec's better: the Euro model features an Intel 1.83GHz Core 2 Duo mobile processor, a 300GB SATA hard drive and it features a hybrid analog/digital TV tuner. The display's a 1,680 x 1, …

    Reg Hardware 14 Sep 2006, 14:09

  • Virgin tells travellers to remove Apple, Dell laptop batteries

    Pack away those power cells

    Virgin Atlantic has become the third airline to restrict the use of Apple and Dell laptop batteries on its flights. Passengers who want to take their Inspirons, Lattitudes, iBooks, PowerBooks, MacBooks or MacBook Pros onto the carrier's planes are asked to remove the battery first. Like Korean Air, which recently instituted …

    Reg Hardware 14 Sep 2006, 14:44

  • Sonos updates network music player code

    Rhapsody support added and more

    Sonos has updated the system software underpinning its Digital Music System. Following a similar move by rival network music player maker Slim Devices earlier this year, Sonos' own system will now support RealNetworks' Rhapsody music service. Echoing Apple's iTunes 7 announcement earlier this week, the Sonos software update …

    Reg Hardware 14 Sep 2006, 15:01

  • China's sub-£100 PC launches

    Unveils P4-speed successor

    A Chinese PC vendor has begun shipping a box with its homegrown Godson CPU, with a price tag of between $175 to $200. Thanks to current exchange rates, that's under £100. Eventually, though, OEM ZhongKe Menglan Electronics expects to sell the unit for $125. Processing is powered by the Godson-2 chip, also known as Longxhin, a …

    Reg Hardware 14 Sep 2006, 15:21

  • Gov spins data sharing

    Threatens Data Protection Act?

    The government has set out its "vision" for helping the disadvantaged of British society by sharing intelligence about them across the public sector. But it describes less a plan to help people or provide them with "customer-focused services" than to improve the government's powers of enforcement and control. "The government …

    Public Sector 14 Sep 2006, 15:37

  • Youth can’t do without phones, alcohol, drugs

    Too much money and too little to spend it on?

    Three studies published today show that young people seem to be drinking too much, smoking tobacco and using mobile phones a great deal. Obviously they can only afford to do this thanks to the fact that all their music is stolen these days. Psychologist Dr. David Sheffield got 100 students to fill in forms normally used to …

    Mobile 14 Sep 2006, 15:41

  • Net simul-attacks expose US security holes

    Attackers trounce defenders

    Simulated internet attacks in the US have uncovered gaps in the nation’s cybersecurity defences. In particular, cyber-defenders struggled to understand if simulated hack attacks were isolated or part of a more co-ordinated assault. The four-day cyber-war exercise, conducted in February and the biggest such exercise to date, …

    Enterprise Security 14 Sep 2006, 17:20

  • Wi-Fi Alliance bows to market need for early 802.11n products

    Analysis Standards can't keep up with market

    It is increasingly obvious that standards processes are falling hopelessly behind the real time to market needs of vendors. In WiMAX and, particularly, Wi-Fi, markets suppliers are pre-empting ratified standards by ever longer margins. Initially, as with the 54Mbps 802.11g Wi-Fi system and with 802.16d, 'pre-standard' products …

    Mobile 14 Sep 2006, 18:07

  • Fujitsu pulls out switch blade for IBM, Dell and HP

    All together now

    Fujitsu has kicked off a major effort to see its 10Gbps networking gear make its way into blade servers from the likes of HP, IBM, Dell and Sun Microsystems. More broadly, Fujitsu expects increased standardization in the blade market in the near future. In August, Fujitsu Microelectronics America (FMA) rolled out a 20-port …

    Servers 14 Sep 2006, 18:11

  • RIM faces OS rewrite headache

    Analysis Get coding - or get Symbian?

    Research in Motion may finally have put its legal battles behind it, but it still faces the biggest challenge of its career, finding a survival strategy for its famous push email devices. RIM has faced increasingly intense challenges to its market lead in corporate email-oriented mobile products for the past two years, and its …

    Mobile 14 Sep 2006, 18:18

  • MS Vista worth $40bn to EC economies

    So go easy on us, OK?

    Microsoft is touting the contribution of Windows Vista to EC economics in its latest attempt to persuade regulators to go easy on the operating system. A report by tech analyst firm IDC, sponsored by Microsoft, estimates that Windows Vista will drive $40bn in economic activity and create 100,000 new jobs in six European …

    Operating Systems 14 Sep 2006, 18:32

  • AT&T decision over MobiTV means Modeo will go it alone

    Tuner kahuna

    Modeo, the subsidiary of Crown Castle that is building out its own DVB-H mobile TV network in the US, has decided to go it alone, and launch the service anyway with, or most likely without, the endorsement of a major US cellular operator. It will now launch the service in October. As Cingular Wireless has put the finishing …

    Mobile 14 Sep 2006, 18:57

  • Justice Department defends using 'dated' laws in gambling arrests

    High Wire Act

    The US Department of Justice has admitted that the 1961 Wire Act which it uses to prosecute executives of online gambling companies is "dated". The Department insists, though, that the law is sufficient for the prosecution of gambling executives. Referring to the laws under which it prosecutes, including the controversial 1961 …

    Financial News 14 Sep 2006, 19:04

  • Forget market share, Opteron is a market cap maker

    Analysis Billions in emotion

    Even the most subjective Opteron advocates could not have predicted this. Over the past two years, AMD's flashy server chip has arguably affected the fortunes of five major technology companies in ways that extend far beyond market share and revenue swings. If so inclined, you could make a strong case that Opteron and its …

    Servers 14 Sep 2006, 19:53

  • Don't mess with Google's astroturf squad

    DC's hardcore lobbyists go to work

    The internet ad giant has hired hardcore Washington lobbyists the DCI Group to give it more clout inside the Beltway, blogger Josh Marshall reminds us today. It's actually really old news, merely resurfacing in the current edition of Beltway insider mag Roll Call. Back in March, the New York Times' Kate Phillips reported how …

    Financial News 14 Sep 2006, 19:58

  • XenSource loves Microsoft people (true)

    Friends of friends

    XenSource, the server virtualization company, has added a second former Microsoft staffer to its management ranks, recruiting the exec responsible for leading a number of big Windows products. Gordon Mangione has been named vice president of product operations for XenSource. He joins XenSource directly from Washington-State- …

    Servers 14 Sep 2006, 23:50