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19th October 2006 Archive

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  • MacBooks, iPods power Apple's fourth quarter

    Intel effect due any day

    Apple has broken yet another quarterly sales record thanks to the power of Mac and customer demand for Intel-based MacBooks outstripping supply. Apple shipped 1.6m Macs in its Q4, besting its previous record of 1.3m in Q1 2000. For the three months to September 30, Mac sales rose 37 per cent to $2.21bn, and accounted for 58 per …

    Hardware 19 Oct 2006, 00:04

  • Tech-dependence turns humans into pets - prediction

    Fat, anti-social, and over here

    Bad news for believers in the "singularity". Instead of accelerating us into a race of cosmic superbeings, our reliance on technology will turn humans into a species of domesticated pets: docile and anti-social. So says Oliver Curry, a sociobiologist attached to the London School of Economics. A technology-dependent human race …

    Science 19 Oct 2006, 00:08

  • UK.gov conference centre goes VoIP

    Free calls to other Verizon customers too

    The Queen Elizabeth II Conference Centre in London's Westminster has hooked up to Verizon's VoIP service, giving users discounted calling and free connections to other Verizon VoIP customers. The conference centre is an executive agency of the Department for Communities and Local Government and is among the first UK government …

    VoIP 19 Oct 2006, 05:02

  • Logitech picks up Slim Devices for $20m

    Squeezebox acquired by mouse maker

    Slim Devices, maker of the Squeezebox networked digital music player, has been plugged into mouse manufacturer Logitech, the two firms announced last night. Logitech will pay $20m in cash for the firm - maybe more if the new subsidiary hits undisclosed future revenue targets. Slim Devices portrayed the acquisition as a …

    Hardware 19 Oct 2006, 08:43

  • Universal sues video sharing sites

    But YouTube escapes action

    Universal Music Group (UMG) said it has filed law suits against two online video sharing websites, Grouper and Bolt, alleging copyright infringement. The biggest sharing site, YouTube, escaped the writ because of a recent deal agreed with Universal. The suit will stake a claim to damages of up to $150,000 for each example of …

    Media 19 Oct 2006, 08:47

  • Ofcom changes premium rate rules

    Clears up 'ambiguities' by creating more confusion

    Telecoms and media regulator Ofcom will change the rules governing premium rate phone services to include mobile based services next month, it has said. It is making the change to clear up what it calls "ambiguity" in the current rules. Premium rate phone services are regulated by the Independent Committee for the Supervision …

    Networks 19 Oct 2006, 08:59

  • eBay/PayPal ring up profit

    Skype revs up too

    Online auctioneer eBay grew revenues by 31 per cent to $1.45bn in the third quarter ended 30 September 2006. Net income for the three months was $281m. The site posted 584m new listings in the period, up 27 per cent on the same period last year. In total the successfully closed auctions raised $12.6bn in Gross Merchandise …

    VoIP 19 Oct 2006, 09:06

  • Risk management that deals with the imperfect world

    Introducing the intangible element

    In comment and analysis on the energy market losses experienced by the hedge fund Aramanth, a number of market commentators have remarked that the losses occurred from what was termed "a ninth sigma" event — "an event with a probability so low that such events simply do not happen". Whether this was or was not the reason for …

    Business 19 Oct 2006, 09:21

  • ATI: all our GPUs will be 80nm by July 2007

    And then it'll release 65nm parts...

    ATI may have only just shipped its first 80nm graphics chip - the Radeon X1950 Pro, reviewed here - but it's already talking about the 45nm node. It's out to adopt such a process by 2008, a senior staffer has revealed. Speaking at the Taiwanese launch of the X1950 Pro earlier this week, Edward Chou, marketing chief at ATI's …

    Hardware 19 Oct 2006, 09:21

  • HP knocks Dell off PC pedestal without trying

    Round Rock's shame

    HP has snatched the PC crown from Dell's barely coherent clutches. It has taken HP close to three years to once again lead the market in worldwide PC sales. Under CEO Carly Fiorina and post Compaq, the company largely gave up on the tit-for-tat struggle with Dell for the PC top spot that had been so important to it over the …

    Financial News 19 Oct 2006, 09:27

  • Feds allege Samsung, Hynix execs fixed DRAM prices

    Hefty fines, jail terms if convicted

    Two Samsung executives and a senior Hynix employee have been formally charged with conspiring to fix DRAM prices worldwide between 1 April 2001 and 15 June 2002, US antitrust investigators with the Department of Justice announced yesterday. The three defendants are charged with violating the US Sherman Act. If convicted, they …

    Hardware 19 Oct 2006, 09:56

  • Swedish file sharers fined

    No house searches needed

    Two men who made music and films available for download over the internet have been fined by courts in two separate cases in Sweden on Wednesday, according to Swedish site The Local. A 44-year-old man from Borås who was prosecuted for making four recordings available of Roxette, Eurythmics, Mauro Scocco and Jakob Hellman, is …

    Media 19 Oct 2006, 10:11

  • IE7 unleashed

    ...as researchers identify first bug

    Microsoft's much-anticipated IE7 browser is finally available for download, 18 months after Bill Gates announced plans to deliver Redmond's first major upgrade to its browser software since the release of IE6 in August 2001. Key enhancements to IE 7 over IE 6 include anti-phishing features and improved ActiveX controls among …

    Applications 19 Oct 2006, 10:13

  • Scientists stitch up cloaking device

    Romulan? Or maybe Harry Potter?

    A transatlantic team of researchers has taken a big step towards their cloak of invisibility by successfully hiding a cylinder from microwaves, according to the journal Science and tabloid, The Sun. Professor Sir John Pendry, winner of the Institute of Physics's Dirac medal in 1996, and chair in Theoretical Solid State Physics …

    Science 19 Oct 2006, 10:15

  • Lizard Alliance targets Turkish PM

    RoTM While Germans field test pig-gutting robot

    What must be the most high-profile Lizard Alliance attempt yet to wrest control of Planet Earth from its current human masters came earlier this week when Turkish prime minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan was temporarily captured by his armoured limo. According to local neoLuddite Resistance Army (NRA) operative H Turgut Uyar, …

    Science 19 Oct 2006, 10:18

  • ModSecurity 2.0 hits the streets

    Interview Ivan Ristic explains what's hot about the new release

    ModSecurity is an open source web application firewall that runs as an Apache module, and version 2.0 offers many new features and improvements. Federico Biancuzzi interviewed Ivan Ristic to discuss the new logging system, events tracking and correlation, filtering AJAX or AFLAX applications, and just-in-time patching for closed …

    Applications 19 Oct 2006, 10:22

  • Information disclosure bug blights IE7 release

    Plus ça change

    Security researchers have already discovered an information disclosure vulnerability in IE7 hours after the release (story here) of Microsoft's long-awaited browser software upgrade. The flaw stems from error in the handling of redirections for URLs with the "mhtml:" URI handler. Security notification firm Secunia reports that …

    Security 19 Oct 2006, 10:25

  • PS3 delays, burning batteries undermine Sony profits

    Giant slashes full-year earnings forecast

    Sony has slashed its annual earnings forecast by 38 per cent. The consumer electronics giant blamed the cut on its worldwide laptop battery recall, the need to reduce the launch price of the PlayStation 3 in Japan and delay its European release, and below-expectations sales of the PlayStation Portable. The upshot? Sony will …

    Games 19 Oct 2006, 10:25

  • Juniper's Q3 profit remains a mystery

    Prefers to discuss modest revenue hike

    Juniper Networks managed a ho-hum third quarter, as far as we can tell. The company continues to play hide-and-seek with profit figures, while it tries to sort out some accounting, er, issues. The networking company saw third quarter revenue rise a humble 5 per cent to $574m, which compares to $546m in the same period last year …

    Data Networking 19 Oct 2006, 10:29

  • Highways Agency deploys giant street-cleaning magnet

    Road users spared metallic waste hazard

    Travis Bickle has finally got his wish. As the mohicaned vigilante said in Taxi Driver: "Someday a real rain will come and wash all this scum off the streets. And, hopefully, someday a really big magnet will come and pick up all the potentially hazardous metallic waste from the hard shoulder of the M4..." Well, Mr Bickle can …

    Media 19 Oct 2006, 10:33

  • Intel cans second-generation Centrino chips

    'Sonoma' demise signalled

    Intel has reportedly told customers they will no longer be able to buy 'Dothan' Pentium M processors come January 2007. These processors - and, indeed, other components of the 'Sonoma' generation of the company's Centrino platform - now have a December deadline for orders. Given we're already onto the second incarnation of ' …

    Hardware 19 Oct 2006, 10:40

  • Intel to bring vPro tech to laptops with Centrino Pro?

    Business-friendly 'Santa Rosa' strand

    We've seen Centrino and, more recently, Centrino Duo, but will you now please welcome Centrino Pro, said to be the go-to-market brand for upcoming business-oriented laptops incorporating Intel's vPro technologies. So claim industry sources cited by Chinese-language website HKEPC, at any rate. Intel announced vPro earlier this …

    Hardware 19 Oct 2006, 11:12

  • Silver Peak climbs to new record

    Storage Expo It's ice-axes at dawn for WAN acceleration rivals

    Silver Peak claims it's retaken the high ground in WAN optimisation by adding a model which it says is capable of processing up to 500Mbit/s with all its acceleration features turned on. Previously, its range topped out at 155Mbit/s. The NX-8500, which costs around £70,000, uses the same software as Silver Peak's other boxes …

    Data Networking 19 Oct 2006, 11:17

  • Researchers launch digital Darwin archive

    A natural selection

    The complete works of Charles Darwin have been digitised and made available online. The project was originally intended to aid researchers, but now everyone will be able to read the notebooks of the man credited with developing the theory of evolution. The project, run from Cambridge University, has involved collecting and …

    Science 19 Oct 2006, 11:19

  • Ugandan demonstrates how not to recycle munitions

    Hey, let's melt this shell down for scrap...

    An attempt last Saturday by a Uganda man to recycle an unexploded artillery shell ended rather badly when he ill-advisedly decided to melt it down for scrap, Reuters reports. Francis Agwoka, acting police chief for the "once war-ravaged eastern Teso region", pretty well summed it up when he told the news agency: "We understand …

    Media 19 Oct 2006, 11:20

  • Storage Expo: who's excited?

    Blog ZZ Top on snowboards

    At times, the show floor at Storage Expo looks beardier than the biennial Taliban ZZ Top fan club dinner and no dancing. We've come to terms with it though: this is the fugly end of IT, rampant hirsutism is to be expected. The show is the UK's only dedicated storage event. And it shows: every vendor is represented one way or …

    Storage 19 Oct 2006, 11:32

  • Ryan's ID express still waiting for a platform

    Chuffing away

    The British government is still trying to work out how it will implement the ID scheme, six months after it was approved by Parliament. Bear with us, parliamentary under secretary of state and MP Joan Ryan said today to an industry audience, which has been snapping at any scrap of information that would suggest where they'll …

    Policy 19 Oct 2006, 11:48

  • Sony Ericsson kit in demand as world phone sales surge

    Beats Nokia et al on growth, profitability

    World+dog bought 256.2m mobile phones during Q3 - 21.9 per more than they bought in the year-ago quarter. Most of the handsets acquired during the three-month period were made by Nokia, but fourth-placed Sony Ericsson showed the highest year-on-year growth, market watcher Strategy Analytics (SA) said today. Nokia's market …

    Phones 19 Oct 2006, 12:02

  • Microsoft promises more info for security firms

    Battle by briefing continues

    Microsoft has promised McAfee and Symantec that it will provide more API information during online briefings later today. Both firms rejected Microsoft's earlier offer of interoperability information as insufficient. Microsoft says Vista takes its security more seriously than previous releases and blocks access to the Windows …

    Security 19 Oct 2006, 12:06

  • Hard drives get even harder

    Storage Expo Baydel flashes it, Texas Mem Sys RAMs it home

    If your applications are slow even on Fibre Channel hard disks, Baydel reckons it has the answer - a 3.5-inch 4Gbit Fibre Channel drive full of Flash memory. The devices are called Maracite and run up to 146GB each. Baydel's also offering four of them in a 1U rackmount chassis called FlashStor, so you can have half a terabyte …

    Storage 19 Oct 2006, 13:01

  • US stakes claim on space

    New policy just slightly territorial

    The US has claimed "dibs" on the Universe with its new space policy. The document, signed by President Bush, was released on a Friday, just before a long weekend in the States. This, in itself has caused a bit of a stir, but not more so than the tone and content of the document. In it, the US government allocates itself rights …

    Science 19 Oct 2006, 13:06

  • Vertu talks up mobile telephone for toffs

    If you have to ask how much it is, you're too common to own one

    Posh people's phone maker Vertu has announced its latest handset, Constellation, details of which emerged back in August through an unofficial posting on the web. Apparently bothered by the leak, Vertu has post-dated its announcement back to May 2006 to ensure it was first with the news. The release certainly wasn't there …

    Hardware 19 Oct 2006, 13:21

  • No, not that Boston

    Storage Expo Fat iSCSI, Flashy NAS, and it's British too. Kind of...

    Sometimes at shows like this - especially with the US vendors mostly saving up for SNW in Orlando in a fortnight's time - it's the smaller British companies that have the interesting gear. Take for example Boston, a disti and system builder - not from Lincolnshire or Massachussetts as one might expect, but from the wilds of …

    Storage 19 Oct 2006, 13:53

  • IP phone man's Vonage hell

    Number carousel let user see other punters' credit details

    Vonage has apologised after coding slip-ups caused one of its customers to be billed 80 times - at a cost £5.99 per occasion - for changes to accounts that didn't belong to him. Reg reader and UK-based small businessman Tom came to us with his problems last week after he found out he was able to see other customers' account …

    VoIP 19 Oct 2006, 14:09

  • Web 2.0 vs mobile phones

    Symbian Show Sketch Dad drunk at Disco

    Hoping some Californian magic pixie dust might fall upon the sleepy world of telephony, the Symbian Smartphone Show organisers devoted an afternoon of presentations to the topic of "Social Media". Would Web 2.0 make it to the phone? It had a bit of your Dad at the Disco about it, and even Symbian's no-nonsense research VP, …

    Mobile 19 Oct 2006, 14:22

  • Brits keep it simple in Somerset

    Storage Expo Tape libraries with no fuss

    If you reckon storage is getting way too complicated and layered, you're not alone. It's the rationale behind M5 Data, a Somerset-based start-up which claims its upcoming Richmond tape libraries will provide high density and scalability, with no added fuss. "Other library players are trying to add value - disk caches and so on …

    Storage 19 Oct 2006, 14:46

  • Nokia maintains spot as mobile top dog

    Bounds along in spite of profit dips

    Nokia has consolidated its position as the world's leading mobile phone maker and announced a 20 per cent rise in net sales during its fiscal third quarter. The Finnish giant said on Thursday that sales rose to €10.1bn from €8.4bn in the same three month period a year ago. However, the company reported a four per cent fall in …

    Mobile 19 Oct 2006, 14:52

  • O2 cuts roaming charges ahead of regulation

    But only to Spain...for now

    O2 customers roaming to Spain can receive free calls, and make them for 25 pence a minute, by paying £5 up front for a month's discount. Next year, O2 will extend the deal to cover the rest of Europe. O2 says it is initially only covering Spain because more of its customers go there than any other country, but even someone not …

    Mobile 19 Oct 2006, 14:54

  • Flying stingray stabs Florida man

    One-foot barb in chest after boat attack

    A Florida man is in a critical condition after a 5ft-wide, 30lb stingray "jumped onto his boat and stabbed him in the chest", AP reports. The attack on 81-year-old James Bertakis, of Lighthouse Point, occured on Wednesday when he was boating with his granddaughter and her friend. The assault left Berkatis with a foot-long barb …

    Science 19 Oct 2006, 15:01

  • BT Vision gains speed with new content deal

    Drops tasters to encourage punters to bite

    BT has signed deals with MTV, Paramount Comedy, and Nickelodeon UK to provide content for the BT Vision service due to be launched this autumn. Shows such as Sponge Bob Squarepants, Pimp My Ride and South Park will join with already-sourced content from Dreamworks, Sony BMG, Paramount, and Universal, not to mention all the …

    Networks 19 Oct 2006, 15:14

  • Death threats force art website to close

    A dangerous business

    The website of Michel van Rijn, the self-styled inkslinger investigating and reporting on the global illicit art trade, has closed up shop. Regular readers may remember our report about van Rijn's site back in 2004, when he was embroiled in a legal battle with James E Ferrell, founder of propane distributor FerrellGas, and …

    Media 19 Oct 2006, 15:28

  • UK police share data to foil child abuse

    Track and trace

    UK police have begun trials of a system that makes it easier for investigators to share information on online child abuse cases. The information-sharing system has already assisted in two investigations into suspect paedophiles and will help improve detection rates, according to Jim Gamble, chief executive of the UK's Child …

    Media 19 Oct 2006, 15:50

  • CNET hack severs ties with Second Life CEO after Reg probe

    Off resume but still puffing

    Proof has emerged this week that making too much of your Second Life can have very real consequences on your First – rather more real – Life. CNET's chief Second Life correspondent Daniel Terdiman has removed a reference from Second Life parent Linden Lab's CEO on his resume after being confronted by The Register. Terdiman has …

    Media 19 Oct 2006, 16:08

  • Opera hit by buffer overflow glitch

    Big links crash browser

    Opera users are being urged to upgrade to a new version of the browser following the discovery of a potentially serious security bug. The flaw means that vulnerable versions of the browsers will crash when visiting maliciously constructed web sites containing overly long (more than 256 bytes) URLs. Successful exploitation of …

    Security 19 Oct 2006, 16:17

  • Hitachi pays out in patent dispute with employee

    Optical disillusion

    A Japanese inventor has won a patent dispute with his employer which will net him 163 million yen (£733,000) in compensation for his research on optical disks. The Supreme Court in Japan made the ruling, backing the decision of a lower court. The money to be paid by Hitachi to Seiji Yonezawa is a share of overseas royalties on …

    The Channel 19 Oct 2006, 18:03

  • Mobiboo UTstarcom F3000 Wi-Fi VoIP phone

    Review It flips, it SIPs

    Most Wi-Fi VoIP phones on the market today are designed to work with Skype, and almost all of them a candybar handsets. Not so the UTstarcom F3000, which UK VoIP company Mobiboo is pitching as the Mobiboo 3000. It not only works with the standard SIP VoIP protocol but it's also a clamshell handset... If you haven't heard of …

    Phones 19 Oct 2006, 19:46

  • Ex-Gizmondo exec on trial for Ferrari theft

    Embezzlement and drunken driving too

    A Swedish former executive of Gizmondo, the crash and burn handheld games firm, was in a Los Angeles court today, standing trial for drunken driving, car theft and embezzlement. Bo Stefan Eriksson's world came crashing down on 21 February, one month after Gizmondo went bust with $200m debts, when he wrapped a $1m Ferrari Enzo …

    Games 19 Oct 2006, 20:37

  • Rivers of gold flow through Google's Q3

    Fattens up on ads bonanza

    The Google ad steamroller shows no sign of slowing down, with the company reporting a huge increase in net income in Q3. The search advertising firm posted net income of $733.4m - 92 per cent on Q3 '05 - on net sales of $1.86bn (70 per cent up on last year). Gross revenues, including traffic acquisition costs (the commission …

    Financial News 19 Oct 2006, 21:34

  • Fiorina plays ingenue in media show trial

    Je ne regrette rien... well, maybe just one thing

    Carly Fiorina has pleaded naïvety in handling fame as Hewlett-Packard Co's boss, but justified her actions saying she was revitalizing HP's flagging brand - not promoting herself. Fiorina, named Fortune Magazine's most powerful woman in business for six successive years, claimed Thursday she'd been unprepared for the media …

    Management 19 Oct 2006, 23:16

  • Blacklisted AllofMP3 slams 'capricious' Visa and Mastercard

    'Patently erroneous and without legal merit'

    Mediaservices, the owner of the controversial music download site AllofMP3, will pursue "every avenue" to overturn the decisions of Visa and Mastercard to stop processing payments to the company. In a statement today, the Russian company said the blacklisting was "arbitrary, capricious and discriminatory". Visa and Mastercard …

    Financial News 19 Oct 2006, 23:45