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16th November 2006 Archive

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  • The spy - or thief - in your pocket

    Smartphones ripe for non-viral attack, claims Symantec

    Security attacks on smartphones have taken off this year, but many have gone unnoticed because they were not the familiar virus or Trojan attacks that grab headlines, according to a senior Symantec exec. Paul Miller, the boss of Symantec's wireless & mobile security group, said that although there have been Bluetooth-enabled …

    Mobile 16 Nov 2006, 00:00

  • Zune and Vista 'not compatible'

    Zune, the new digital music player from Microsoft, is not compatible with the software giant's new Vista operating system. Buried in the Zune website, Microsoft admits that the player is not compatible with Vista and gives no information as to when it will introduce a patch or update enabling the player to do so. Instead, …

    Operating Systems 16 Nov 2006, 00:08

  • US superpower status challenged - Gates

    Microsoft bit wobbly, too

    The rise of China combined with failing US education and tough visa systems means the US must surrender its superpower status and adopt a more multicultural worldview. That's according to Bill Gates, Microsoft chairman, who said the US is failing to turn out sufficient numbers of computer science graduates or to attract …

    IT Director 16 Nov 2006, 04:04

  • Dell knocks back Q3 results as SEC probe turns formal

    HP gets all the glory

    Dell today delivered a last minute disappointment to investors by delaying the release of its third quarter financial results. The delay comes as Dell tries to deal with an ongoing SEC (Securities and Exchange Commission) investigation into the company's financial reporting. In a statement, Dell revealed that the SEC has …

    Financial News 16 Nov 2006, 04:08

  • Evergrid ships 'little blue pill' for clusters

    SC06 Don't let CD get you down

    A small software start-up thinks it might have "the little blue pill" necessary to keep massive clusters up and running at all times. Evergrid this week unveiled something called the Availability Management Suite, but you might as well call it cluster Viagra. The company’s software works to make sure that minor – or major – …

    Servers 16 Nov 2006, 04:38

  • Sun puts blade chassis on a diet

    SC06 P is for petite

    Sun Microsystems has birthed a smaller blade server chassis meant to appease the high performance computing crowd. The Sun Blade 8000 P takes up 14 standard rack units, as compared to the existing 19U Sun Blade 8000. The smaller size means that customers can pack three of the systems in a full rack and reach 1.2 Tflops of total …

    Servers 16 Nov 2006, 06:36

  • BT bids for PlusNet

    Consolidation a-go-go

    BT has offered £67m to buy internet service provider PlusNet. The offer values PlusNet shares at 210 pence each - they've been trading recently at about 200 pence. The shares have had a rollercoaster year - they've been as low as 100 pence and as high as 400 pence. BT said it was buying the company because "broadband is …

    Financial News 16 Nov 2006, 09:41

  • BMA kicks off patient awareness campaign

    What's up Doc?

    The British Medical Association (BMA) is urging doctors to begin telling their patients about the new electronic health record. It published guidance stating patients should be made aware soon about how the record, a core element of England's NHS National Programme for IT (NPfIT), will hold information about their health and …

    Public Sector 16 Nov 2006, 10:11

  • Firing up the Erudine engine

    Building with behaviour

    This is the next article in our occasional series on new, more formal (mathematically-based) approaches to system development. The first article (here), looked at Bayesian analysis and formal methods (which are only "new" to the general development space, of course). This article looks at a tool, the Erudine executable …

    Developer 16 Nov 2006, 10:14

  • Orange and BBC World announce global deal

    News at your fingertips

    Orange and BBC World have extended their current mobile distribution offering by signing a ground-breaking global deal which will allow Orange mobile phone customers in eight new countries to watch the channel live. BBC World, the BBC's 24-hour international news information service will be the only English language news …

    Mobile 16 Nov 2006, 10:21

  • Malware goes to the movies

    Dangerous liaisons

    Online attackers have started to experiment with embedding malicious code or links to such code in different video formats. On Tuesday, anti-virus firm McAfee warned Windows users that the company had discovered a worm, dubbed W32/Realor, actively infecting Real Media files. The infected video files do not contain an exploit …

    Malware 16 Nov 2006, 10:34

  • O2: risks are for losers

    Outlines cagey approach, snubs WiMAX

    Supersexy mobile operator O2 revealed its glamourous secret to growing a dynamic converged communications operation: proceed with caution. O2 UK execs have watched with glee as Orange and TalkTalk's "free" broadband offerings have been widely reported as backfiring. Since it bought small ISP Be in June, O2 says it has been …

    Mobile 16 Nov 2006, 10:37

  • Apple developing AMD-based laptop?

    Unexpected sources claim

    Apple is preparing a notebook computer based on an AMD microprocessor, it has been claimed by - of all people - sources from within Taiwan's high-capacitance multi-layer ceramic capacitor (MLCC) manufacturing community, though the reasoning behind the claim isn't entirely clear-cut. The claim - cited by DigiTimes - appears to …

    Reg Hardware 16 Nov 2006, 10:41

  • DiData ups profits

    UK lets the side down...

    South African reseller DiData increased profits by 50 per cent in the year ended 30 September 2006. Turnover grew 15.9 per cent to $3.1bn and operating profit was up by 50 per cent to $85m. The company said network integration, converged communications, and security all helped it bring in a profit. Profits grew in Africa, …

    Channel Register 16 Nov 2006, 10:50

  • FCC delivers a swift kick in the Mass(port)

    Comment Rules for Wi-Fi freedom

    In a decision with significant ramifications for the travelling public, the FCC has ruled that the Massachusetts Port Authority (Massport) cannot block a Wi-Fi access point in the Continental Airlines lounge at Boston's Logan International Airport. In its ruling, the FCC stated that the rules governing Over The Air Reception …

    Wireless 16 Nov 2006, 10:56

  • Ajax Hacks

    Book review Playing with AJAX

    Everybody loves Ajax. Javaists, Rubyists, Pythonistas; even Microsofties get to play with Ajax in the form of Atlas. Book publishers love Ajax too, judging by the stack of new titles coming hot off the presses. O'Reilly has added to the pile with a new title in their long-running "Hacks" series. The aim of the series is to …

    Developer 16 Nov 2006, 11:02

  • Chilly users defrosted with heated USB mousemat

    Gloves and slippers too

    We can only conclude some Japanese employers are as parsimonious as their British counterparts and refuse to turn the heat up in offices during winter. How else to explain this trio of choice items designed to prevent computer users' getting chilblains? First up, we have the heated mousepad. It looks like a dolphin, sort of …

    Reg Hardware 16 Nov 2006, 11:09

  • HTC to combine UMPC, smart phone in 2007?

    Could be planning to use Intel's 'Steeley'

    HTC, manufacturer of rather a lot of the world's Windows Mobile-based smart phones, may be looking to break into the ultra-mobile PC market next year, according to a senior company executive. Unlike today's UMPCs, HTC's product would include full phone functionality. So indicated HTC's North American marketing VP, Todd …

    Reg Hardware 16 Nov 2006, 11:39

  • ESA adds stunning satellite images to Google Earth

    Space views of natural phenomena

    Google Earth users can now view stunning satellite images of volcanic eruptions, dust storms, colliding icebergs, and other natural phenomena, thanks to a deal between Google and the European Space Agency (ESA). ESA announced that it has made 130 satellite images available to Google Earth to create a new layer of content. As …

    Science 16 Nov 2006, 11:43

  • Sony PS3 'costs at least $805-840' to make

    Analyst prices up console's production

    Sony's PlayStation 3 games console costs the consumer electronics giant at least $840 to make, $241 more than the $599 asking price, market watcher iSuppli has claimed. Its figure is its estimate for the cost of the materials and manufacturing, but Sony's R&D and marketing expenditure will surely push the console's unit cost …

    Reg Hardware 16 Nov 2006, 12:00

  • Naomi Campbell a 'racist', claims former maid

    WSA 'Dumb Romanian' sues battling supermodel

    Naomi Campbell's former maid is suing the battling supermodel over claims that she called her a "dumb Romanian", the New York Times reports. Gaby Gibson, 40, filed papers on Tuesday in a New York court which allege Campbell subjected her to "repeated discriminatory assaults based on national origin". Specifically, Gibson claims …

    Entertainment 16 Nov 2006, 12:03

  • Facial recognition firm pulls in seed funding

    A tool for all the family

    A Swedish firm has secured $5.1m of funding to produce software that uses facial recognition to sort images on the internet with people's photo libraries. Polar Rose AB, of Malmö, Sweden, said in a statement it should release a beta version of its software in early 2007 after getting the money (worth €4m, or SEK37m) from …

    Financial News 16 Nov 2006, 12:12

  • Microsoft provokes London Tube crash

    iexplore.exe outrage

    We're obliged to reader Harvey for forwarding the following chilling image of a London Underground monitor at Baker Street station at around 8am on Tuesday morning: Nasty. According to this thread in MS's forums, the possible causes of the crash are "Yahoo Toolbar add on" or spyware. Our resident security guru John Leyden …

    Malware 16 Nov 2006, 12:14

  • 3 signs Symbian SlingPlayer exclusive

    TV-to-Net box maker ships Mac software too

    Slingbox maker Sling Media has completed the Symbian version of its SlingPlayer Mobile application, and today announced UK mobile phone network 3 will bundle the software with two 3G handsets when they ship on 1 December. 3 said it will give a copy of SlingPlayer Mobile to customers who buy either a Sony Ericsson W950i …

    Reg Hardware 16 Nov 2006, 12:34

  • VoIP and IE risks star in SANS' threat list

    Protect and survive

    The SANS Institute released its annual Top 20 internet security risk list on Wednesday. Unlike previous editions of the long-running list, many security risks highlighted in the run-down are not dependent on operating system security bugs. VoIP service and phones, threats posed by fraudulent phishing emails, and web …

    Security 16 Nov 2006, 12:36

  • Small biz stumped on tech adoption

    BT looks at SMEs

    Small and medium businesses (SMEs) in the UK want to adopt new technologies but aren't sure where to go for information and often lack the skills to manage and implement projects, according to a BT report. The report found that the majority of SMEs don't have dedicated technology staff but rely on friends and family for help …

    Small Biz 16 Nov 2006, 12:53

  • AMD touts Radeon X1000 series' Zune friendliness

    Posts latest Catalyst driver update too

    AMD is pitching its ATI Radeon X1000-series graphics cards as the ideal add-on for anyone who buys Microsoft's Zune media player. Separately, the company updated its Catalyst drivers package to version 6.11. The graphics cards' Zune friendliness arises from AMD's Avivo video processing system, which uses the GPUs pixel …

    Reg Hardware 16 Nov 2006, 12:55

  • FFII face-to-face to solve patent problems

    Get together, sort it out

    In the debate on software patenting, there is one point on which almost everyone is agreed: the current system is not working well. How to solve the problem and fix the system is where opinions tend to diverge. The latest attempt to find a new way forward comes from the Foundation for a Free Information Infrastructure (FFII …

    Developer 16 Nov 2006, 13:15

  • China develops flying aircraft carrier

    Hyperdrive-levitated vessel lands on Google Earth

    As any defence expert will tell you, the aircraft carrier if one of the most potent weapons available to the modern international superpower - capable of raining fiery death on less well-endowed nations from a safe distance. They do have one shortcoming, however: getting close enough to launch swarms of angry aircraft can takes …

    Music and Media 16 Nov 2006, 13:16

  • Nvidia GeForce 8800 GTS graphics card

    Review Cheaper than the GTX, but more bangs per buck?

    Plonk a Sparkle card based on Nvidia's GeForce 8800 GTS graphics chip next to its bigger brother, the GeForce 8800 GTX - reviewed here - and you can quickly spot a couple of differences. The GTS is visibly shorter than the GTX - 23cm against 24cm - and it has a single six-pin PCI Express power connector sticking off the end, …

    Reg Hardware 16 Nov 2006, 14:28

  • Dunn enters plea in HP spy case

    Ain't Dunn nothing

    Former HP chair Patricia Dunn surprised no-one yesterday when she pleaded not guilty to four felony charges relating to the spying scandal at her former employer. Dunn, who faces charges covering fraud, identity theft and conspiracy, entered her plea at the Santa Clara County Superior Court. Four other execs also implicated in …

    Financial News 16 Nov 2006, 14:30

  • NetSuite gets TalkTalk

    Another bit of Carphone Warehouse takes the online road

    NetSuite is putting itself to something of a public test with the recent announcement that TalkTalk Direct, the Carphone Warehouse-owned communications and free broadband provider, is using NetSuite CRM+ as the management platform for customer support. This gives NetSuite another tranche of the Carphone Warehouse portfolio, …

    Developer 16 Nov 2006, 14:31

  • Microsoft Universal deal sure to be challenged

    Anti-trust ahoy

    We suppose we have to record the big news story of the week, covered by everyone from the New York Times down, that Microsoft is letting Universal Music Group get some revenue every time it sells a Zune player. The record labels have made it very clear that they resent Apple's success with its iPods, which they see as being …

    Music and Media 16 Nov 2006, 15:05

  • Four cuffed over webcam Trojan scam

    Spanish flies

    Four people have been arrested in Spain over their suspected involvement in linked credit card theft and virus writing offences. Two 17-year-olds were arrested in Alicante on Wednesday and charged with writing a Trojan horse that allowed them to control the webcams of compromised machines at a local college. The duo allegedly …

    Malware 16 Nov 2006, 15:07

  • IT 'should be entrepreneurial'

    It's about money, stooopid

    Money...nasty stuff, I know, and it seems sad to think that the fine arts of application development should be sullied by association with the denizens of Mammon. But that is also a key part of the real world that IT departments have to live in and, in the view of Daniel Magid, CEO of Application Lifecycle Management tools …

    Developer 16 Nov 2006, 15:13

  • Jedi petition UN for religious rights

    Can you feel the force?

    Two Jedi this morning turned up at the UN's London HQ to demand official recognition of their religion, The Sun reports. "Umada" and "Yunyun" - aka 27-year-old John Wilkinson and 24-year-old Charlotte Law - timed their "protest" to coincide with today's UN International Day of Tolerance, which they'd like renamed "Interstellar …

    Music and Media 16 Nov 2006, 15:25

  • How will Windows survive the death of the PC?

    Samsung and Runcom show Microsoft how

    Last week, Samsung held the official launch of its Mobile WiMAX product range - formerly known as Wi-Bro and now rechristened to emphasise its harmonisation with the international standard. Apart from an array of trialists and potential customers - including, significantly, NTT DoCoMo and Clearwire - the spotlight was largely …

    Mobile 16 Nov 2006, 15:37

  • Saturday night is Leonid night

    Hitting the dusty comet trail

    Put a note in your diaries: this weekend the Leonids are coming to town. Although the meteor shower won't be as spectacular as it was in 1998, or in 2002, it should still be worth watching. The only down side is that the most intense part of the show will only last for a few hours, reaching its peak at the utterly horrible time …

    Space 16 Nov 2006, 16:16

  • UK internet throws a wobbly

    Who kicked the plug out?

    Several major corporate websites in the UK and parts of Microsoft’s MSN service and Hotmail have been down today. A spokeswoman for Natwest said: “Yes, we’ve been having DNS (domain name server) problems today which have stopped access to the website. We’re still working on fixing the problem.” Sky.com, skybroadband.com and …

    Networks 16 Nov 2006, 16:25

  • UCLA cops taser ID-less student

    Library outrage video surfaces on YouTube

    A video apparently showing a UCLA student being tasered by University of California Police Department (UCPD) officers has found its way onto YouTube. According to a report on the university's Daily Bruin, the incident occured at around 11.30 pm on Tuesday when security officers at the Powell Library CLICC computer lab "asked a …

    Music and Media 16 Nov 2006, 16:28

  • 3 calls in internet big guns for mobile credibility

    Sell-off of loss-maker ruled out

    Hong Kong-owned mobile outfit 3 is having another crack at convincing everyone mobile internet will take off by abandoning the traditional operator pricing blueprint. At a flashy launch in London today, 3 said it was marking a "historic day" for the mobile internet. Canning Fok, MD of parent company Hutchison, vowed 3 would …

    Mobile 16 Nov 2006, 16:48

  • Oracle survey versus Oracle survey

    You spend ages waiting for a survey and then...

    I found the Reg Technology Panel survey especially interesting as I've just been discussing a similar survey made by the UK Oracle User Group (UKOUG), with almost double the number of respondents, with Ronan Miles, UKOUG chairman. Both surveys are professionally carried out, yet they have different results. This is almost …

    Developer 16 Nov 2006, 17:01

  • Humble Mercury hurls out more Cell kit

    SC06 Promises big wins

    Mercury Computer Systems continues to astound us with its pragmatic, humble approach to the high performance computing market. Many of you likely only know Mercury because of its Cell processor partnership with IBM. Mercury has been selling a dual-socket Cell-based blade server that slots into IBM's Blade Center chassis, and …

    Servers 16 Nov 2006, 20:59

  • Virtually developed

    When you need it’s there and then it’s gone

    You know how these things happen. A representative from a customer is wheeled in by some major vendor to demonstrate the efficacy of their wondrous technology, while the assembled audience smile politely and pray for the coffee. That’s what happened recently in Raleigh, North Carolina, where IBM was demonstrating the efficacy …

    Servers 16 Nov 2006, 21:02

  • BEA shares slide

    'Evidence of decelerating license growth'

    BEA Systems is out of favor on Wall Street amid growing concern it's losing business to IBM and Oracle and growth is being fluffed out by services. The company's shares tumbled 17 per cent by early afternoon trading the day after reporting preliminary results that narrowly missed analysts' expectations. Merrill Lynch cut BEA's …

    Financial News 16 Nov 2006, 21:05

  • Oracle: a surveyor speaks

    How can two similar surveys of the similar people produce different results?

    I'm no survey enthusiast (in fact, as readers must realise by now, I'm pretty cynical about survey usage in the PR industry) so I thought I'd ask Dale Vile, our resident survey guru, about some of the points I raised about a recent UKOUG (UK Oracle User Group) survey here. How might the Oracle user sample in the UKOUG survey …

    Developer 16 Nov 2006, 21:07

  • Borland tools buyer MIA

    Keeps ownership at distance

    Borland Software will retain control of its tools operation after failing to find a buyer during an eight-month search. JBuilder, Developer Studio, Turbo and Interbase are to be consigned to a new operation named CodeGear that will become a wholly owned subsidiary in "early" 2007. CodeGear and its 300 staff will be led by …

    Financial News 16 Nov 2006, 21:11

  • Former IT boss faces hacking charges

    Psst, they're about to sack you too

    An IT boss, dismissed from a firm years earlier, faces hacking charges after he allegedly snooped on email traffic at the company before passing on messages to workers whose jobs were in jeopardy. Stevan Hoffacker, 53, was arrested in New York on Wednesday and charged with a computer-hacking offence against Source Media, a …

    Enterprise Security 16 Nov 2006, 21:13