21st September 2006 Archive

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Allchin peers into crystal ball, sees Windows Vista future

'Some of these apps are mind-bogglingly cool'

Jim Allchin, Microsoft's outgoing Windows chief, has issued a rallying call to developers to Windows Vista, in an open letter emphasizing industry support for the delayed operating system. Allchin proclaimed "tremendous" opportunities await for those moving to its latest version of Windows. Developers whose applications are not …

Operating Systems 21 Sep 2006, 03:45
ATI driver update confirms CrossFire for Intel P965 chipset

Catalyst patched for Windows, Linux

ATI has posted the latest incarnation of its Catalyst driver package for Windows and Linux, and with it official confirmation that CrossFire now works on Intel's P965 chipset - for Windows systems at least. Other tweaks include better 3DMark 06 anti-aliasing performance on the Radeon X1300, X1600 and X1900 GPUs, with the …

Reg Hardware 21 Sep 2006, 08:47
Super cops seek fixed link to town centre CCTV

Wireless makes surveillance easy in UK

The Serious Organised Crime Agency (SOCA) is seeking a permanent tap into a network of 850 CCTV cameras that look down on greater Manchester. The link, giving SOCA free access to any camera in the city at the flick of a switch, is being made possible by the gradual upgrade of Manchester's CCTV network to wireless internet …

Music and Media 21 Sep 2006, 08:51
Two more gambling chiefs arrested

Following firm's complaint that French law was anti-European

The company whose chief executives were arrested in France last week had already filed a formal complaint to the European Commission claiming that France's gambling laws conflicted with the EC Treaty. Bwin Interactive, the firm behind BetandWin, filed a formal complaint in March to the European Commission, company spokeswoman …

Music and Media 21 Sep 2006, 08:58
Japan debut for first Class 4 SDHC card

But can anything support its 4MBps speed?

Japanese memory card maker Elecom may have become the first company to announce a mid-speed high-capacity SD card. The company this week unveiled a 4GB SDHC product labelled Class 4, guaranteeing a data transfer rate of at least 4MBps and up to 7MBps, Elecom said. Elecom's MF-FSDH04G card isn't the first 4GB SDHC by a long …

Reg Hardware 21 Sep 2006, 09:01
EU threatens to apply TV standards to web media

Web media threatens to move out: take toys

Ofcom, the UK telecommunications regulator, has said that a European Union plan to regulate video risks restricting innovation and even forcing companies to relocate outside the EU to avoid compliance. Current legislation identifies as a regulated service one... “the principal purpose of which is the delivery of moving images …

Mobile 21 Sep 2006, 09:12
Imation fits Flash memory to charity wristbands

It's a wrap

Storage media specialist Imation has begun selling a USB Flash drive integrated into a wristband in a range of charity-friendly colours, the company announced in Japan today. Available in capacities ranging fromm 32MB - pah! - to 1GB, the bands can also be customised with a company logo, witty message if you're willing to buy at …

Reg Hardware 21 Sep 2006, 09:14
Two buses or one?

How many do you need for a complete SOA environment?

This question came up during Progress' recent EMEA user conference: at one point, a vendor representative put up a slide showing Sonic as an ESB (enterprise service bus) and DataXtend as a comparable bus operating at the data level. From subsequent discussions it emerged that whether these should be regarded as one bus or two …

Developer 21 Sep 2006, 09:16
MSI sounds 'stolen' GeForce 7900 GS alert

Warranty not included

Taiwanese manufacturer MSI has warned its customers to be on the guard against anyone offering low-cost MSI-branded graphics cards - the products may be stolen goods. According to the company, a stack of Nvidia GeForce 7900 GS-based graphics cards nabbed in transit have begun appearing on online auction sites around the world …

Reg Hardware 21 Sep 2006, 09:28
Top Gear's Hammond in hospital

Crashes jet-powered dragster

Top Gear presenter Richard Hammond is in intensive care today after crashing a jet-powered car while attempting to break the British land speed record. The BBC confirmed that an accident took place at an airfield near York while Hammond was filming an edition of motoring TV show Top Gear. Hammond was taken by air ambulance to …

Entertainment 21 Sep 2006, 09:42
Cane toads explode from beyond the grave

Residual fermentation ToadJus

We all know fertiliser is used by terrorists to make high explosives all the time. Now, a fertiliser made from pulverised cane toads in Australia has gardeners checking their sheds for self-detonation. ToadJus, as the the product is tastefully dubbed, was created by Northern territory environmental group FrogWatch from the …

Biology 21 Sep 2006, 09:43
ATI wins approval for RS690 launch

October introduction for HDMI-, HDCP-friendly chipset?

ATI's AMD-oriented integrated North Bridge chip, the RS690, has won the approval of the PCI SIG, which this week certified the part for PCI Express compatibility, paving the way for the part's appearance on the chipset market. The RS690 is believed to contain a Radeon X700-class graphics core which will provide it with …

Reg Hardware 21 Sep 2006, 09:52
California sues car makers

Who says they don't get irony?

California Attorney General Bill Lockyer is suing six car manufacturers for selling products which contribute to global warming and damage the environment of California. The state is seeking recompense for past and future damage being done to the its environment and water supply. California is taking the action against …

Science 21 Sep 2006, 09:54
eBay pursued by fashionistas

Vuitton, Dior sue for counterfeit auctions

Auctions of counterfeit couture on eBay have gotten the online tat bazaar into hot water with French fashion types, who are demanding it cough up €37m in a civil complaint. According to The Financial Times, ubiquitously-faked pricey bag maker Louis Vuitton is demanding €20m from eBay. Christian Dior Couture, part of the same …

Financial News 21 Sep 2006, 10:05
Astronomers ID Saturn's newest ring

Stunning snaps, Cassini style

Saturn has another, very diffuse, outer ring identified by astronomers working on the Cassini imaging data at NASA's JPL laboratory and the Space Science Institute in Boulder. The ring showed up in a photograph taken on 17 September, in what scientists are calling a "one of a kind" observation. Cassini's cameras can't look …

Space 21 Sep 2006, 10:09
US mobilises fish in war on terror

Bluegills versus al-Qaeda

The US has responded to the possible threat of terror attack against its drinking water supplies by using fish to monitor the state of the H2O, the BBC reports. New York, San Francisco and Washington now boast tanks containing small numbers of bluegills, aka sunfish, into which muncipal water is constantly pumped. A computer …

Biology 21 Sep 2006, 10:25
iSkoot brings Skype to Treo smart phones

VoIP over cellular

iSkoot the Sype-on-mobile-phones company has brought its VoIP software to Palm's Treo 650 and 700p, the firm announced this week even as it extended its network coverage to dozens of countries outside the US. iSkoot's goal is to bring Skype to a wide variety of mobile phones not running Windows Mobile 5.0, an operating system …

Reg Hardware 21 Sep 2006, 10:28
RM: nothing to see here

Steady as she goes

Education IT supplier RM has told an enthralled stock market it expects to meet expectations this year. The bumper summer buying season for schools went well, it seems. Revenue should be similar to 2005's £268m. RM CEO Tim Pearson said: "At the beginning of the year we reported that we'd put in place a plan to respond to tough …

Channel Register 21 Sep 2006, 10:44
Yahoo! guest's Dell laptop goes up in smoke

Lenovo ThinkPad burns at Los Angeles airport, too

Days after a ThinkPad decided enough spreadsheets already and committed suicide in spectacular fashion at Los Angeles airport, yet another Dell notebook has joined the list of self-immolating laptops, this time at Yahoo!'s US headquarters. The Dell machine, pictured below and taken by by Flikr user Stewart - there are many …

Reg Hardware 21 Sep 2006, 10:57
Google erases Operation Ore campaign site

Silence over Inquisition 21

Google has delisted www.inquisition21.com, the website campaigning against many of the Operation Ore child pornography convictions. The last time the search giant's crawlers checked the site out was on 10 September. Operation Ore, the UK's largest investigation into online child pornography, was the result of US authorities …

Music and Media 21 Sep 2006, 11:20
Law chief wants wiretap evidence

Takes lessons from US

Wire tap evidence should be admissible in court, attorney general Lord Goldsmith has told the Guardian newspaper after being briefed by his opposite number in the United States. His comments were made on the same day that 20 police and security chiefs were arrested over the abuse of wiretaps in Italy. "I do believe there are …

Music and Media 21 Sep 2006, 11:24
Dutch TV hounds Google Earth topless sunbather

Caught on camera

Here's a cautionary tale for those of you who like to indulge in a bit of light sunbathing in the privacy of your own patio: make sure you ring Google to see if they're planning a satellite pass-over before whipping off your top: No sooner had the poor Dutch woman pictured here popped up on Google Sightseeing, than Digg got …

Music and Media 21 Sep 2006, 11:26
Yachting blogger plagued by wind, power issues

Blog But at least the kit is cool

One of the things that makes it very easy to spot Americans who are cruising around the Med on sailing boats is the Iridium phones they seem to imagine they need. You only get two or three days to detect them, because they quickly discover that they can buy a Greek SIM card for less than the price of their next ten minutes, and …

Mobile 21 Sep 2006, 11:42
Smut sites use IE exploit to spread spyware

Drive-by downloads

Hackers are taking advantage of a new, unpatched Internet Explorer vulnerability to infect users visiting pornographic websites. There's a number of unpatched (or so called 0-day) flaws around at the moment, but this one takes advantage of a flaw within the Vector Markup Language (VML) component of IE. VML is an XML file that …

Malware 21 Sep 2006, 11:44
Airbus A380 faces further delays

Wiring woes continue

The wiring problems which earlier this year forced Airbus parent company EADS to delay delivery of its A380 by six months continue to plague the roll-out programme. According to the BBC, EADS is planning a further six month hold-up, "again linked to wiring problems". The EADS press statement says: "EADS does not confirm nor …

Science 21 Sep 2006, 11:45
HP CEO named in leak probe

Hurd dragged into snooping mess

HP chief executive Mark Hurd has been pulled into the firm's burgeoning phone snooping mess for approving an email sting operation on a reporter. Emails seen by the Washington Post suggest that Hurd was aware of the snooping campaign. Specifically, it appears he OK'd an effort to use bogus emails to trick a reporter into …

Financial News 21 Sep 2006, 12:35
Nestlé shifts Smarties production to Germany

First the hexagonal tube, now this...

It's enough to have any true patriot choking into his or her beef pie of olde England: Nestlé has announced that it has decided to shift Smarties production from York to Hamburg, in the process axing 645 jobs at the Rowntree chocolate factory which it acquired in 1988. According to The Guardian, the Swiss food and drink …

Financial News 21 Sep 2006, 12:40
AOL and Tiscali attract bidders

Update All reasonable offers considered

Consolidation in the broadband sector looks set to continue apace, as Carphone Warehouse and BSkyB fight it out for control of AOL's UK broadband business, according to reports. Earlier, Orange was understood to be interested in the buy, but pulled out last night, The Times reports. AOL announced in August that it was looking …

Telecoms 21 Sep 2006, 12:45
Belgacom pulled plug on Ouranous network

Satellite provider promises 'announcement' on Friday

Belgacom cut off satellite broadband provider Ouranous Networks the telecoms services company confirmed this week. Ouranous customers were left high and dry on Wednesday last week when their connections simply failed with no explanation from the company. The Ouranous website also vanished at the time, but is now back online. …

Telecoms 21 Sep 2006, 13:36
Hitler net cartoon ruffles German feathers

Der Bonker kerfuffle

A German satirical cartoon featuring a singing Adolf Hitler in his bunker in 1945, lamenting his fate, has proved an internet hit for illustrator Walter Moers, The Guardian reports. Der Bonker shows the dicatator sitting on the toilet moaning about Churchill, and in the bath with his dog Blondie and three Hitlerian rubber ducks …

Mobile 21 Sep 2006, 13:39
Shuttle lands, plans for next mission underway

Swedes in spaaace

The Shuttle has landed safely at the Kennedy Space Centre in Florida, a day late, but in one piece. NASA had originally planned to return to Earth on Wednesday, but the astronauts were delayed while NASA checked out some debris outside the Shuttle. Once they'd determined it posed no threat to the safety of the crew, the …

Space 21 Sep 2006, 14:01
29% of departing directors admit stealing data - survey

Clearing your desktop

Almost a third of company directors surveyed have admitted to stealing corporate information, with memory sticks making theft easier than ever. In a survey of 1,385 business people, 29 per cent of company directors admitting to stealing confidential corporate information when they left a company. The survey, conducted by …

IT Director 21 Sep 2006, 14:03
IBM's 'secret island'

Virtually a new way of doing business

It would not be the first time the suggestion has been made that games programmers hold at least one key to the future for business systems development. But IBM's latest research project - a "secret island" within the confines of Linden Labs' Second Life massively multi-player games environment - brings that possibility a whole …

Developer 21 Sep 2006, 14:07
Vendors prep 200Mbps powerline network adaptors

Netgear, Devolo step up data-over-mains efforts

Network equipment maker Netgear has extended the speed of its powerline networking system to 200Mbps, bringing the high-speed Ethernet-over-mains system to UK consumers through a new two-box starter kit, the company told Reg Hardware this week. The pack contains a pair of Netgear HDX101 powerline adaptors. Plug them into …

Reg Hardware 21 Sep 2006, 14:55
Sun investors blast fat cat greed

Pension funds call for veto

Despite losses nearing $1bn over the past year, Sun Microsystems' top executives are cashing in. CEO and president Jonathan Schwartz and chairman Scott McNealy have seen their rewards increase several hundred per cent over the past 12 months. Now two of Sun's major institutional investors have taken aim at what they call " …

Financial News 21 Sep 2006, 15:01
EU pledges €78m for grid research

Let's get connected

The European Commission has pledged €78m to fund research projects into tailoring computer grid technologies and services to meet the needs of European businesses. Grid technologies involve linking thousands of computers and devices dynamically, to provide computing power on demand more flexibly and cheaply. EU-funded research …

Data Networking 21 Sep 2006, 15:03
Thailand faces media clampdown

No news is not good news

Thai radio, television and internet operators will from tomorrow face closure if they disseminate "news and comments deemed a threat to national security and the monarchy", Reuters reports. The Information Ministry invited the companies to a get-together designed to "seek cooperation" in enforcing the order "to restrict, …

Music and Media 21 Sep 2006, 15:05
Asus exposes Nvidia physics card product

Exclusive Spills beans during mobo announcement. Whoops.

Nvidia is developing a standalone games physics processing card, motherboard maker Asus has let slip. Announcing a new mobo equipped with three PCI Express x16 slots, the Taiwanese firm said the third connector was specifically for "Nvidia's upcoming Physics card". The revelation comes days after it emerged ATI will be …

Reg Hardware 21 Sep 2006, 15:21
Virgin Trains to get Wi-Fi

On track for 2007

Virgin Trains has teamed up with Nomad Digital to provide Wi-Fi connectivity to passengers. The system, to be deployed across Virgin's network next year, will consist of a relay every few miles, allowing the train to connect to the net. The limiting factor for speed of connection will be the wired portion of the link, from the …

Wireless 21 Sep 2006, 15:37
Manta to let Apple Remote zap all Macs

Manta + Mira = Total Mac Control

Canadian company Twisted Melon has come to the rescue of Mac owners who like to make use of Apple's Remote Control but lack a suitably infrared-equipped computer. TM's Mira app has been around for a short while, but now the company is offering Manta, a $20 USB-connected IR receiver. Alas, demand is so high, the company's …

Reg Hardware 21 Sep 2006, 15:50
AMD opens Opteron to ~~all~~ some

If you pay, you can fill our slot

AMD has expanded its friends and family program in an obvious way by allowing partners to plug their CPUs, accelerators and other components directly into Opteron processor sockets. AMD's unveiling today of Torrenza 2 - aka the Torrenza Innovation Socket - builds on an existing deal that let third parties tap into the company's …

Servers 21 Sep 2006, 17:46
Intel will open server chips to partners next week

Exclusive Just like AMD

Everyone in the server world has been wondering if Intel planned a response to AMD's opening of its Opteron socket specifications. Well, The Register can reveal that Intel does indeed have a counterattack in store, and it will arrive in part at next week's Intel Developer Forum. Multiple sources have confirmed that Intel, for …

Servers 21 Sep 2006, 18:07
Lord, won't you lease me a rotary phone?

Letters My friends all use push-buttons - I must make amends

More than a few people suspect that Mrs E Strogen, the lady who rented a rotary phone for 40 years racking up thousands of pound is a made up name. "Was she married to Mr I.C Wiener?" asks Murad Talukdar But Strogens are everywhere you look. The Associated Press isn't allowed to make up stories, and in any case we read it on …

Letters 21 Sep 2006, 20:18
Botnet creators AIM high

Pipeline

A new worm spreading over AOL Instant Messenger seeks to built a botnet of zombie Windows PCs. The Pipeline worm packs an executable file disguised as a JPEG, which if executed, tries to download other strains of malware rootkits and Trojans. Pipeline uses the AIM Buddy List on infected computers to target other prospective …

Malware 21 Sep 2006, 20:22
Yahoo! wants to buy Facebook - WSJ

This social networking disease is catching

Yahoo! is in talks to buy Facebook, the social networking site for college- and schoolkids, the WSJ reports today. Facebook is looking for up to a billion dollars, the paper says. Earlier suitors include Microsoft and Viacom. The popular website has already rejected a $750m offer, Business Week wrote in March. At the time, the …

Financial News 21 Sep 2006, 20:59
One bus or two?

Comment Making sense of the SOA story

This question came up during Progress's recent EMEA (Europe, Middle East, Africa) user conference: at one point, a vendor representative showed a slide showing Sonic as an ESB (enterprise service bus) and DataXtend as a comparable bus operating at the data level. From subsequent discussions it emerged that whether these should …

Developer 21 Sep 2006, 20:59
AT&T insources 2,000 jobs

Takes one for the union

AT&T is to return 2,000 outsourced DSL broadband support jobs, based in the US and overseas, to its payroll, following a union agreement over pay rates. The telco does not say where those call center jobs are currently based or who is losing the outsourcing gigs. And it hasn't decided where in the US it will locate a presumably …

IT Director 21 Sep 2006, 22:10
HP starts printing docs for SEC

Inky upside to murky mess

The US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) doesn't want to be left out of the Big Dig into HP's spy operations. The agency has broadened its probe of the company, asking for records tied to the resignation of board member Tom Perkins and documents related to HP's already infamous mole hunt. It's lucky that HP is in the …

Financial News 21 Sep 2006, 23:18