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30th October 2006 Archive

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  • 'Legalise home taping' - think tank shock

    Forward thinking

    The centre-left think tank the Institute of Public Policy today published its long-awaited report into intellectual property issues in the UK. The IPPR recommends that home taping (and transferring CDs to an iPod) should finally be legalized, that sound recording copyright should remain at 50 years, and that the nation's …

    Music and Media 30 Oct 2006, 03:33

  • Greek blogger arrest infuriates world

    Worst possible timing for over-zealous police

    The arrest of a blogger by Greek police just days before Athens hosts the inaugural meeting of the Internet Governance Forum has left the blogosphere in uproar and the authorities with egg on their face. Antonis Tsipropoulos was arrested at home on Tuesday by the Greek police following a complaint from a controversial Greek …

    Music and Media 30 Oct 2006, 06:46

  • NHS Scotland pools budget for Microsoft savings

    Better late than never

    NHS National Services Scotland forecasts it will save up to £8m over three years from a new procurement deal with Microsoft The deal, effective immediately, will standardise the procurement of software licences for 75,000 desktops and mobile computers in all of Scotland's 14 health boards and seven specialist centres. The …

    Public Sector 30 Oct 2006, 07:02

  • Global net forum opens its doors - online and off

    Ask not what the internet can do for you...

    Ordinary internet users will have a chance to make points and ask questions of the world's governments, not to mention business, engineers and media, over the next four days as the Internet Governance Forum (IGF) opens its doors - both physically and online - for the first time. The IGF, beginning tomorrow in Athens and …

    Music and Media 30 Oct 2006, 09:35

  • Stern outlines moral duty to tackle climate change

    Foresees shrunken global economy

    The Stern Review, a government-commissioned report on climate change, is set to warn that unchecked global warming could shrink the world economy by as much as 20 per cent, or £3.68 trillion. Sir Nicholas Stern, former chief economist of the World Bank, says one per cent of that sum must be spent, now, to combat climate change …

    Financial News 30 Oct 2006, 09:47

  • IGF: Why you should care

    Internet future lies in Athens

    The inaugural meeting of the Internet Governance Forum (IGF) will be opened today at 10am by the Greek prime minister in Athens, starting the gun on four days of discussion that many hope will provide answers to some of the internet's biggest problems. With even the speakers and moderators only agreed upon at the last minute, …

    Music and Media 30 Oct 2006, 09:58

  • Fujitsu admits its laptop 'overheated and sparked'

    Warning to other vendors

    A Fujitsu-made notebook has caught fire in Japan, the manufacturer admitted late last week. The incendiary incident is the first of its kind to be be officially recognised in a machine lacking a Dell, Apple or ThinkPad logo, and should sound a warning to other vendors caught up in this year's massive battery recall. Fujitsu …

    Reg Hardware 30 Oct 2006, 10:06

  • EMC announces raft of product updates

    Comment One size doesn't fit all

    EMC has announced new versions of its high-end Symmetrix DMX-3 system, mid-tier CLARiiON CX3 UltraScale series system, EMC Disk Library virtual tape library system, and Celerra NS series IP system, all of which seek to serve as the underpinnings of an Information Lifecycle Management (ILM) infrastructure. The updated storage …

    Channel Register 30 Oct 2006, 10:14

  • E-Ten touts 'world's thinnest' PocketPC phone

    Glofiish: do the 'i's have it?

    Taiwan's E-Ten has unwrapped what it claims is the world's thinnest Windows Mobile 5.0 device capable of squeezing in a quad-band GSM/GPRS/EDGE phone, 802.11b Wi-Fi, Bluetooth 2.0 and a SirRFstar III-based GPS receiver. Called the Glofiish X500 - no, we don't know why there are two 'i's in the name either, but there are - …

    Reg Hardware 30 Oct 2006, 10:34

  • Virgin pulls web challenge

    Boys at B3ta see off marketing muppets

    Virgin was hoping a competition on B3ta.com would bring in some funky viral advertising to get 'em down with the kids on the internet. Instead, it got a bunch of rude pictures of company founder Richard Branson. B3ta is a popular site where design types let off steam and post offensive animations and pictures. Virgin Money …

    Music and Media 30 Oct 2006, 10:35

  • O2 offers Asus-made XDA as the IQ

    'Jupiter' mission lands in UK

    O2's UK operation has already begun offering its business customers one of the new XDA smart phones that appeared on the US Federal Communications Commission website last week. There branded the XDA Graphite, here it's being sold as the XDA IQ. The carrier's website adds some extra details to the specifications that appeared …

    Reg Hardware 30 Oct 2006, 10:53

  • Decriminalise iPod users, think-tank tells UK gov't

    300-year-old copyright law needs changing

    Ripping your own CDs to transfer the songs they contain for transfer to an iPod, PMP or CD-R to keep in the car should be made legal in the UK, think-tank the Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR) has told the government. Currently, this activity is illegal under UK law. The IPPR this weekend said it wants UK copyright …

    Reg Hardware 30 Oct 2006, 11:23

  • Poker sites hold merger talks

    Surviving the US ban

    Partygaming and 888 Holdings, which runs poker and casino sites, are in talks about a possible merger. Both listed companies have watched their share price collapse after the US government banned them from providing services to US citizens. A statement to the London Stock Exchange says: "The board of 888 notes the recent press …

    Financial News 30 Oct 2006, 11:27

  • France prepares planet hunting 'scope

    Launch slated for December

    France is ramping up activity ahead of December's launch of the COROT space telescope. COROT, short for convection rotation and planetary transits, will search the skies for extra-solar planets, but unlike the hunting that has been done so far, COROT will be looking for rocky worlds, like Earth. High above the Earth's …

    Space 30 Oct 2006, 11:29

  • NetApp faces shareholder backdating suit

    Vigilante accounts scrutiny

    Despite thus far escaping the SEC's ire, NetApp announced Friday that its own shareholders had filed a suit against the firm over backdating of stock options. In a statement NetApp rubbished the lawsuit's claims of improper timing of stock grants. It said: "Management believes the lawsuit to be completely frivolous and without …

    Storage 30 Oct 2006, 11:30

  • Nokia guns for TomTom with GPS gadget

    Not-a-phone shocker

    Nokia has announced its first dedicated satellite navigation device, details of which leaked out a few weeks ago but were mistakenly interpreted as the successor to the company's 770 internet tablet. Instead, the Nokia 330 Auto Navigation is a typical TomTom-like GPS gadget. The 330 sports a 3.5in colour touch-screen and a …

    Reg Hardware 30 Oct 2006, 11:41

  • BT operator: 'What service do you require?'

    Caller: 'Er, one that works'

    If you burnt your roast chicken in the Birmingham area and needed to call out the fire brigade yesterday, you would have been stuffed. More than 35,000 Brummies were unable to make landline calls or contact emergency services after thieves cut through BT cables causing severe disruption to telephone lines, the BBC reports. …

    Networks 30 Oct 2006, 11:49

  • AMD unveils ATI Radeon X1650 XT

    80nm comes to the mid-range

    AMD's ATI operation has unveiled the Radeon X1650 XT, as expected, pitching the part at the upper reaches of the mainstream graphics card segment. Boards based on part will, like the X1950 Pro, sport an internal CrossFire connector. The reference card clocks the new GPU - aka RV560 - to 575MHz, while the 256MB of GDDR 3 …

    Reg Hardware 30 Oct 2006, 12:25

  • Nintendo Wii to get DVD playback next year?

    Only in Japan

    Nintendo is planning to release a DVD playback pack for its next-generation console, Wii, but it looks like only Japanese consumers will ever get the chance to buy it. Europe and the US, it seems, are too stuffed with cheap DVD players to make such a move worthwhile. So reports UK magazine Edge, which points to a 2007 launch …

    Reg Hardware 30 Oct 2006, 12:51

  • Meteor cracked Cornish kitchen

    Possibly

    A Cornish astronomer says that a mystery sonic boom heard in Bude last week could have been caused by a meteor. Residents in Bude reported a very loud bang at around midday on Thursday, according to the BBC. Some said the sound shook their houses, and one resident claimed a crack in her kitchen had widened by the explosive …

    Space 30 Oct 2006, 12:59

  • Online Xmas shopping costs employers £7bn

    Ho ho woe

    With Christmas just eight weeks away, the boom in online shopping could cost businesses an estimated £7bn as staff fill up their stockings and neglect work, according to the Employment Law Advisory Services (ELAS). It said that more than two million people have taken up online shopping in the past 12 months with sales expected …

    IT Director 30 Oct 2006, 13:08

  • Virgin Mobile Lobster 700TV

    Review Pocket TV over digital radio

    Portable TVs are evolving and moving into the digital age, not least with the help of 3G data streaming to push programming to mobile phones. However, Virgin has taken a different approach: a technology called DAB-IP. You might be familiar with DAB, which is a standard for digital radio, but what the heck does it have to do with …

    Reg Hardware 30 Oct 2006, 13:26

  • Psychedelic toad licking dog in rehab

    Owners tell of amphibian addiction hell

    The owners of a cocker spaniel have told how their beloved pet became addicted to licking poisonous toads for their mind-bending properties. Laura Mirsch said her dog Lady returned to their new home from one binge at the local pond "disoriented and withdrawn, soporific and glassy-eyed". Mirsch recounts Lady's nightmare plunge …

    Music and Media 30 Oct 2006, 13:28

  • Old bugs blight shiny new browsers

    IE7 and Firefox 2.0 both hit

    An old security bug provides a way to crash Firefox 2.0, security researchers have discovered. The memory corruption vulnerability involving the handling of JavaScript code has been known about since June 2006 and Firefox version 1.5.0.7 was supposed to fix the problem. Despite this, Firefox 2.0 remains vulnerable to this issue …

    Enterprise Security 30 Oct 2006, 13:35

  • B&O-Samsung designer phone to ship Stateside soon

    Black and Overpriced?

    Samsung and Bang & Olufsen are to bring their co-designed Serene mobile phone to the US, the South Korean giant revealed this weekend. Only the well-heeled need continue waiting: the handset will retail for a staggering $1,272. So claim South Korean media reports, at any rate. Serene is already available in Europe, and it's …

    Reg Hardware 30 Oct 2006, 13:55

  • Hubble snaps expanding light echo

    Echo...echo...

    Hubble's Advanced Camera for Surveys has captured another stunning image of an expanding light echo around the variable star V838 Monocerotis. In 2002, for reasons no one is entirely certain of, the star temporarily became hugely bright, throwing out 600,000 times as much light as our own sun. The light from the eruption is …

    Space 30 Oct 2006, 14:54

  • Italian spy chief eyes jail over CIA abduction

    Comment Only trying to help

    There's nothing new about governments exploiting the 9/11 atrocities for such purposes as passing draconian laws at home, or pleasing the USA enough to feast on some of its rich security pork. But there is something new about a country's top-ranked security official facing criminal charges for trying to please the Bush …

    Music and Media 30 Oct 2006, 15:10

  • Finland convicts 22 in file sharing case

    Chill wind hits 60 in total

    Twenty-two people were convicted of internet piracy in Finland last week. A judge in Turku ordered them to pay fines and more than €420,000 in damages for copyright offences - about €19,000 each. Software and media companies were seeking damages worth €3.5m in total. All 22, some of whom are still under the age of 18, were …

    Financial News 30 Oct 2006, 15:27

  • £10m VAT fraud gang jailed

    Carousel con halted

    Four members of a carousel VAT fraud gang were found guilty by Canterbury Crown Court late last week. One gang member was sentenced to 10 years in prison while three other members got eight years each. The offences were committed in 2003 and involved supposed export of mobile phones to Kiev in the Ukraine. All four men are …

    Channel Register 30 Oct 2006, 15:32

  • Phishers prey on Lik-Sang customers

    Fraudsters pounce on retailer's closure

    Cheeky email fraudsters are targeting consumers who ordered gaming goods from Lik-Sang.com, the Hong Kong-based online retailer that last week shut its doors. Emails currently doing the rounds hijack the retailer's own words in an attempt to grab the recipient's PayPal account details. The email quotes extensively from Lik- …

    Reg Hardware 30 Oct 2006, 15:38

  • DVLA email smut dragnet catches 65

    Gross misconduct

    The email porn investigation at the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency (DVLA) which saw staff get the boot earlier this year today saw a further 65 staff charged with gross misconduct. A trawl of the agency's network had fingered more staff for "inappropriate use of its email facility". A spokeswoman said: "All servers have …

    Public Sector 30 Oct 2006, 15:43

  • Ohio child hospital hack exposes 230,000 files

    Overly patient response

    Hackers broke into the systems of an Ohio hospital last month raising fears that the personal details of up to 230,000 patients or their family members, and banking information on around 12,000 financial donors, might have been compromised. News of the attack came after Akron Children's Hospital began notifying families last …

    Enterprise Security 30 Oct 2006, 16:01

  • Report warns of people-tagging madness

    Chips ain't just for dogs, you know

    Within 10 years we will all be chipped "like dogs", according to a report in the online version of London newspaper The Evening Standard. We suspect the paper (sister to reactionary rag, The Daily Mail) is upset about this because the RFID chips are expected to be implanted in everyone, not just criminals and foreigners. But …

    Music and Media 30 Oct 2006, 16:49

  • Oracle welcomes Linux users with support site crash

    So very breakable

    Oracle today dished out a rude awakening to the Linux users it hopes to support over the long-haul. Its MetaLink support site crashed. "Oracle Metalink (support website) has been virtually unusable all day," wrote in one Reg reader. And, sure enough, a trip over to Oracle's site reveals the following message: "Urgent: …

    IT Director 30 Oct 2006, 17:21