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21st November 2006 Archive

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  • Vodafone Mobile Connect 'super 3G' USB modem

    First Review HSDPA connectivity for the PCMCIA-less

    Announced last August and shipping today, Vodafone's Mobile Connect Modem is pitched at anyone who owns an Apple MacBook, MacBook Pro or, indeed, any other modern notebook made by a manufacturer whose products don't have old-style PC Card slots. ExpressCard is all very well, but it won't accept Vodafone's 3G Broadband data card …

    Reg Hardware 21 Nov 2006, 09:02

  • Vodafone UK gets serious about mobile remote access

    Column A significant step forward

    Back in 2000, I was recruited into Nortel Networks as part of an initiative to provide advice and guidance to its mobile operator clients on how best to exploit emerging mobile data networks in the business sector. At the time, I knew pretty much zilch about the telecommunications industry, but was hired because Nortel had the …

    Mobile 21 Nov 2006, 09:35

  • Met police to do the beat with head-mounted cameras

    ASBO crackdown

    Police officers in London have begun to use a camera mounted on their headgear in an effort to tackle anti-social behaviour. Officers in the 19 safer neighbourhood teams in the Haringey area have been issued with eight cameras, each the size of an AA battery, that record video images to a special utility belt. They are …

    Public Sector 21 Nov 2006, 09:39

  • Pump and dump blues

    Why stock scammers are losing the game

    Spammers seem to be having little luck pushing up prices of thinly traded stocks. The idea of so-called "pump and dump" scams is to buy stock at low prices and then try to drum up excitement in order to inflate the price. Penny stock promotions have tripled in the last few months, according to estimates. One internet security …

    Spam 21 Nov 2006, 09:49

  • Eircom gives leccy board an IT upgrade

    Revamps 90 sites

    Eircom has completed an upgrade of the ESB's IT network giving the public utility a fully digital internet protocol (IP) platform. The upgrade is part of a multi-million euro five-year contract between the two companies and means Eircom now provides all data communication services to the Electricity Supply Board (ESB). The …

    Telecoms 21 Nov 2006, 09:52

  • AJAX and 2.0 madness

    Comment Does every new generation need the 2.0 tag?

    Web 2.0 has a lot to answer for. Why, incidentally, is it not simply Web 2? In any case, I have no quarrel with Web 2.0: what I do have a quarrel with is all the other 2dotohs that keep springing up. There is SaaS (software as a service) 2.0 for example and, most recently, Business Objects has been talking about BI 2.0. This …

    Developer 21 Nov 2006, 10:31

  • Nintendo Wii given sledgehammer treatment

    Canadian console craziness captured on video

    Well, they did it. The crazy guys who last week spent CAD550 on a brand new Sony PlayStation 3 only to smash it to bits with a sledgehammer right outside the store have made good on their pledge to do exactly the same with a Nintendo Wii. You can watch the whole torid affair here: Victor Moukhortov and pal Ben Lovatt …

    Reg Hardware 21 Nov 2006, 10:31

  • Websites not liable for third party posts - court

    Lawyers stunned by common sense ruling

    The California Supreme Court issued a unanimous ruling on Monday stating that websites can't be sued over third-party content, the Associated Press reports. The court found that, according to the Communications Decency Act of 1996, only the person responsible for creating libellous content can be pursued. At issue was a San …

    Financial News 21 Nov 2006, 10:41

  • OCZ pumps up liquid-cooled DDR 2 DIMMs

    Memory clocked at 1,150MHz

    Memory specialist OCZ has launched a line of 1,150MHz DDR 2 memory modules - PC2-9200, in other words - that not only incorporate their own heatsink but also sport a tiny liquid-cooling rig too. Dubbed FlexXLC, the memory will ship in a kit comprising two 1GB unbuffered 240-pin DIMMs for dual-channel set-ups, OCZ said. The …

    Reg Hardware 21 Nov 2006, 10:59

  • T-Mobile UK to ship Sidekick 3 in December

    Consumer email gadget coming in time for Xmas

    T-Mobile is to bring the Sidekick 3 consumer-oriented mobile email gadget to the UK next month, the carrier confirmed today. The device will ship here just over a year after T-Mobile UK released the Sidekick II and six months after the third-generation Sidekick's US debut. The Sidekick 3 sports the same spin-open screen as …

    Reg Hardware 21 Nov 2006, 11:25

  • 30 nations sign international fusion reactor deal

    ITER moves forward

    More than 30 countries today signed a deal greenlighting the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER) - a €10bn project to be built in Cadarache, near Marseille, Reuters reports. Those attending the signing ceremony at the Elysee Palace in Paris, hosted by Jacques Chirac, were China, European Union members, India …

    Physics 21 Nov 2006, 11:28

  • Analyst dissects Nintendo Wii... on camera

    Console's bits in their mitts

    Market watcher Semiconductor Insights has taken Nintendo's Wii to bits - a little more carefully, we presume, than the sledgehammer-wielding Canadians - to expose the next-generation console's internal workings. Handily, it filmed the process. SI's investigation revealed IBM's custom PowerPC processor codenamed 'Broadway' and …

    Reg Hardware 21 Nov 2006, 11:56

  • TSYS dials Dimension Data for financial support

    Call centre partnership targets EMEA

    Dimension Data and payment services firm TSYS have teamed up to target financial institutions in Europe, the Middle East, and Asia with improved managed services. Dimension Data's call centre subsidary Merchants will support TSYS' managed services division to provide back-office, cross-selling, and up-selling functions to …

    Channel Register 21 Nov 2006, 12:04

  • Robbers drug victims in Malaysian chip heist

    $12m nicked in country's biggest ever raid

    Robbers subdued victims with chloroform before making off with 585 cartons and 18 pallets of CPUs and motherboards in a daring heist in the Malaysian city of Penang. The manufacturer of the parts, worth more than $12m, was a "multinational firm" in Bayan Lapas, an economic development area that hosts factories run by Intel, …

    Channel Register 21 Nov 2006, 12:06

  • Palm Europe prices up Treo 680 smart phone

    Taking pre-orders

    Palm has begun taking orders from Europeans for its upcoming Treo 680 Palm OS-based smart phone. The updated stubless and RoHS-compliant version of the Treo 650 will retail for £329 inc VAT if you want one unallied to any specific mobile phone network. Alas, while Palm launched the 680 in a variety of bright colours, the …

    Reg Hardware 21 Nov 2006, 12:18

  • Doctors ambivalent about NHS IT

    All very well, but is it worth the fuss?

    Doctors are still worried that patient confidentiality will be broken if treatment records are loaded onto the patient information network, the care records system, that is intended to span the country as the keystone of the late and great £12.4bn National Programme for IT (NPfIT). They are also still narked about not being …

    Public Sector 21 Nov 2006, 12:19

  • Samsung shaves slimmer phone display panel

    LCD's thick as a credit card

    Samsung has shown off what it claims is the world's thinnest LCD panel for mobile phones and handheld devices: a credit card-thick unit that measures a mere 0.82mm deep. That, the company said, is 0.07mm thinner than the previous, unnamed record holder. Samsung said the panel will be available in 2.1in and 2.2in screens, both …

    Reg Hardware 21 Nov 2006, 12:54

  • Microsoft to Novell: Respect

    Ballmer in a china shop

    Statements yesterday from Novell and Microsoft sought to clarify and repair relations between the new friends, damaged by Steve Ballmer's comments last week. Ballmer said Microsoft had signed its recent support and development alliance with Linux distributor Novell because it "uses our intellectual property". The comments drew …

    Software 21 Nov 2006, 13:16

  • NTL/Telewest admits limiting unlimited web access

    Heavy users on trial

    Telewest is introducing network throttling on its "unlimited" Blueyonder broadband product. News groups and chatrooms have had complaints of bandwidth problems from NTL customers since early November. NTL/Telewest has now admitted that it is restricting traffic. Effectively the company is introducing "sin bins" for heavy users …

    Telecoms 21 Nov 2006, 13:19

  • Renting IT more cost effective, bank says

    Pay as you go

    AIB's IT financing wing has said companies are choosing leasing over buying computer equipment in order to rein in their budgets. "It makes sense to pay for technology as you use it," said Cathal O'Connor, senior product manager with AIB Corporate Banking Ireland. "Businesses are starting to treat IT as a utility bill." The …

    Channel Register 21 Nov 2006, 14:13

  • VXers suffering from 'writer's block'

    Same old, same old

    Virus writers have run out of fresh ideas for the creation of malware, according to a study by Russian anti-virus firm Kaspersky Lab. Kaspersky reckons that while the hacking community is developing "proof of concept" code for new platforms, it is unlikely that this work will result in malware capable of causing much damage. " …

    Malware 21 Nov 2006, 14:19

  • Surf Kitchen patents customised phone downloads

    Like MMS...only different

    Mobile phone interface provider Surf Kitchen has been granted a UK patent for what at first glance appears to be the delivery mechanism used for the Multimedia Messaging Service (MMS). What the patent actually covers, however, is the method by which content is selected. UK patent GB2408658 talks a great deal about notifying …

    Mobile 21 Nov 2006, 14:38

  • Handango pays off Omnisoft

    But refuses to host its applications

    Handango has agreed to compensate Omnisoft to the tune of $4,250 for kicking the small development company off its site when it attempted to make use of $5,000 of free advertising won in a raffle. Quite how the figure was reached isn't known, though it must reflect the fact that a couple of advertisements for Omnisoft products …

    Mobile 21 Nov 2006, 15:02

  • Dell touts servers based on Xeon-brand Opterons

    Confusion in PowerEdge-land

    Who makes the Opteron processors going into Dell's latest rackable servers? AMD, you'd think, but a casual glance at the PC giant's website might leave you with the impression that the processors were produced by AMD's arch-rival, Intel. Check out Dell UK's PowerEdge SC1435 customise-and-buy page. What's that logo alongside the …

    Channel Register 21 Nov 2006, 15:13

  • Verisign Scrooges envisage £4.86bn festive forfeit

    Ghost of insecure Christmases past for etailers?

    Online retailers have rubbished claims from the security industry they stand to miss out on billions of pounds of trade this Christmas because of lingering public mistrust in internet transactions. According to Verisign's 2006 online shopping research, 54 per cent of UK consumers have abandoned a transaction because of security …

    Security 21 Nov 2006, 15:15

  • ITV rejects NTL

    The Digger strikes again

    ITV has formally rejected a £4.7bn takeover bid by cable operator NTL. The combined stock and cash offer valued ITV at about £1.20 per share. On Friday BSkyB swooped to swallow nearly 18 per cent of ITV at £1.35 per share. An ITV statement to the stock exchange said: "The board believes that whereas there is obvious appeal to …

    Financial News 21 Nov 2006, 15:27

  • Intel beats drum for energy efficiency

    The greening of IT

    In the wake of the Stern Report, businesses are starting to take energy efficiency seriously as an economic issue, but research from Intel suggests there is still some way to go before this concern filters down to the IT department. This might seem something of a contradiction when you consider just how much it costs businesses …

    IT Director 21 Nov 2006, 15:40

  • AVG anti-virus stays free (true)

    Pop-up confusion

    Users of a free version of GRISoft's AVG anti-virus software have begun receiving pop-up messages this week warning that their package would no longer be supported from 15 January. This prompted concerns among a number of Reg readers that GRISoft was ditching the free version of its security software. Actually, the firm is …

    Malware 21 Nov 2006, 15:42

  • Stone Computers and Compusys merge

    Marriage in the channel

    Stone Computers and Compusys, two large public sector resellers, are merging their businesses. Stone Computers sales director Jamie Russell told the Reg: "One of the charms of this deal is that despite similar technologies we have different customers. We're very strong in further education colleges and schools. Compusys are …

    Channel Register 21 Nov 2006, 15:48

  • Nvidia opens online SLI kit bazaar

    Buy new multi-GPU parts, sell your old ones

    Nvidia today launched a platform to help US PC users not only spec up multi-GPU equipped systems, buy the key components and then build the machine, but also sell their old kit to help cover the costs. Called the Nvidia SLI Marketplace, the site provides interactive buying tools that allow users to specify GPUs, motherboards …

    Reg Hardware 21 Nov 2006, 16:13

  • Tiny Antigua grabs the US by its illegal, online dice

    Analysis Fighting for survival and poker

    The Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act of 2006 was rammed through Congress by the Republican leadership in the final minutes before the election period recess. According to Sen. Frank R. Lautenberg (D-NJ), no one on the Senate-House Conference Committee had even seen the final language of the bill. The Act is title VIII …

    Music and Media 21 Nov 2006, 16:59

  • PGP creator: Net is like 'downtown Bagdad'

    Interview The internet depends on strong crypto, Zimmerman says

    PGP (Pretty Good Privacy), the encryption software package created by privacy advocate Phil Zimmermann, celebrated its fifteenth birthday last week. Developed to help human rights activists to communicate safely via the net, Zimmermann’s software is deployed by more than 35,000 businesses and millions of individuals. In the …

    Enterprise Security 21 Nov 2006, 18:40

  • Record labels lose against Chinese search engine

    'If the music companies had won, the whole search engine sector would have ground to a halt'

    A group of international record companies has lost a case against Chinese search engine Baidu over allegations about illegally downloaded music. A Chinese court has ruled in Baidu's favour. Seven international companies, including the big four – Sony BMG, Warner, Universal and EMI – lost a case in which they accused Baidu of …

    Financial News 21 Nov 2006, 19:00

  • Cisco bids low with SAN switch

    Aiming 4Gig Fibre Channel at the SME sweet-spot

    Cisco is hoping to break Brocade's grasp on the small and mid-sized SAN market with a low-end but expandable 4Gig Fibre Channel switch. The MDS 9124 is Cisco's first 4Gig fabric switch - an earlier 4Gig release, the MDS 9020, was bought in from QLogic - and it arrives as 4Gig becomes to the sweet-spot of the Fibre Channel …

    Channel Register 21 Nov 2006, 20:25

  • Free WebSphere wins over Java developers

    What a surprise - give it away free, and people will use it

    IBM says that its open source WebSphere Java application server is grabbing support from developers faster than any of its rivals. In a survey of Eclipse developers by US research firm Evans Data, 16 per cent said they used IBM's WebSphere Application Server Community Edition to deploy their apps, up from almost nothing a year …

    Developer 21 Nov 2006, 20:27

  • Itanium vendors spanked by IBM, Sun and Dell

    Rough going for the Itanic in Q3

    The curse of the Itanic continued to haunt HP in the third quarter. The server maker suffered through the period as the only Tier 1 unable to post a significant uptick in sales. Most of HP's woes appear to have resulted from flagging high-end server sales, as some customers side with Itanium, while others move to IBM and Sun …

    Servers 21 Nov 2006, 21:05

  • Red Hat answers big boys with middleware

    New bedfellows

    Red Hat is answering competitors in the Linux world with an SOA alliance that potentially unites JBoss with an open source rival. Systems integrator Bull is expanding an alliance with Red Hat by joining the JBoss community, where Bull will contribute to development of the middleware stack, and by becoming a strategic partner on …

    Developer 21 Nov 2006, 21:27

  • Dell's PC sales keep falling in Q3

    But only on a preliminary basis

    After pulling all-nighters over the weekend, Dell's crack team of accounting nerds managed to finish off the company's third quarter results - well, almost. Dell today dished out "preliminary" third quarter results that showed revenue rising to $14.4bn from $13.9bn in the same period last year. The hardware maker's net income …

    Financial News 21 Nov 2006, 22:19

  • IBM and Cray win $500m DARPA handout

    Sun left to think about what it's done

    IBM and Cray have come out as the big winners in DARPA's massive supercomputing contest, leaving Sun Microsystems out as the unlucky loser. The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) today revealed that Cray will take home $250m in funding, while IBM has earned $244m. These stunning handouts will go towards DARPA's …

    Servers 21 Nov 2006, 22:26