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24th November 2006 Archive

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  • eBay software pirates stump up $100,000

    Auction monitoring pays off

    Two eBay traders agreed this week to pay a total of $100,000 in damages after they were caught selling illegal copies of Norton security software. The Software and Information Industry Association (SIIA), working on behalf of its member companies, settled the case against Kevin Liu and GT Tian who also agreed to stop selling …

    Music and Media 24 Nov 2006, 00:02

  • eBayer offers 60GB PS3 for less than a dollar

    Ticked the wrong box?

    Want an 60GB Sony PlayStation 3, a pile of games, a Blu-ray Disc and an extra game controller for a mere 99 cents? or would you rather take pity on the poor eBay who - apparently - set his 'Buy Now' price to $0.99 rather than his starting price. It's an easy mistake to make, we suppose. But then the seller should beware just …

    Reg Hardware 24 Nov 2006, 09:27

  • You heartless, soulless bastard

    FoTW A Peruvian guinea pig owner writes

    Back in 2004, we ran a revealing piece on the new, improved dining experience which is the "Peruvian Breed" guinea pig. And absolutely delicious it is too, as our Peruvian cuisine correspondent confirms. Mind you, not everyone with a Peruvian guinea pig is fattening the little blighter up for the pot. It's taken her a while, …

    Letters 24 Nov 2006, 09:44

  • Yes! It's the gold ingot USB hub

    Pieces of eight. Piece of eight

    At a mere ¥5,980 ($52/£27/€40), it wouldn't be too hard to snap up a stack of these Japanese gold ingot-styled eight-port USB hubs to re-create that robbing the Bank of England and/or Fort Knox experience in your own living room. The manufacturer's smartly weighed each block down with enough metal to yield a gold-like weight …

    Reg Hardware 24 Nov 2006, 09:57

  • Fitfone wins innovation award

    Top of the podium for fitness phone

    A new mobile-based health and fitness assessment aid has scooped the top prize at the NovaUCD Campus Company Development Programme. The FitFone Exercise Physiology System is embedded into a mobile phone and facilitates remote health and fitness assessment. It measures an individual's fitness level using personal statistics such …

    Mobile 24 Nov 2006, 10:01

  • Care Records conference opens and closes debate

    Questions, questions, questions

    The third annual Care Record Development Board get-together got underway yesterday (Thursday), bringing together "key stakeholders" in the government's proposed digitising of the UK's medical records. Key stakeholders, of course, just means anyone who has any kind of interest in medical records, so attendees included patients, …

    Public Sector 24 Nov 2006, 10:02

  • Second life plagued by 'grey goo' attack

    Viruses go virtual

    For about two hours, the virtual landscape of Second Life filled with golden rings and the distinctive two-tone ding of Sega's popular Sonic the Hedgehog games. The rings' listed creator was the fictional "Dr Robotnik," a character from the Sonic games. However, the deluge of rings was not some form of cross promotion, but a …

    Malware 24 Nov 2006, 10:15

  • Sapphire unveils 'ultimate' ATI graphics card

    Zalman cooling on board

    Graphics card maker Sapphire has announced an AMD ATI Radeon X1950 Pro-based board that it pledged was not only on average five per cent faster than cards fitted with the same GPU but also much quieter too. The Ultimate Edition X1950 Pro clocks the GPU to 580MHz and its 256MB of GDDR 3 video memory to 1.6GHz. Cooling comes …

    Reg Hardware 24 Nov 2006, 10:21

  • UK sets iTrip FM transmitter legalisation date

    Gadgets must still meet CE-set specs

    Griffin Technology's iTrip and other iPod-oriented FM transmitters will become legal on 8 December, the UK's wireless regulator, Ofcom, has confirmed. On that date, extensions to the Wireless Telegraphy Act, which currently bans the use of iTrip-like devices, will be updated for the iPod era. There's a catch: the only such …

    Reg Hardware 24 Nov 2006, 10:38

  • Aussies cry foul on giant Colonel Sanders

    We had world's biggest logo in 1965, mate

    Aliens take note: reader Gordon Milne has written in to point out that the Aussies actually created the world's biggest logo years before KFC decided it was a good idea to plonk a 65,000-square-foot Colonel Sanders mosaic in the Nevada desert. Yes indeed, look on in awe and wonder at DownUnder's 3.2km-long Readymix monster: …

    Music and Media 24 Nov 2006, 11:02

  • HTC's HSDPA 'BlackBerry beater' appears on web

    Cavalier rides in

    HTC's 3G-enabled follow-up to its S620 - aka 'Excalibur', aka Dash - BlackBerry-like Windows Mobile smart phone has made an early, unscheduled appearance on the web as a pair of piccies and details of its specification. According to a mole cited by Italian-language site SoloPalmari.com, the new device, codenamed 'Cavalier', …

    Reg Hardware 24 Nov 2006, 11:28

  • Work begins on merging Health and Social care records

    Floating ideas at the CRDB

    Work has begun on a social care equivalent of the care records guarantee for medical records, paving the way for merging health and social care records. The plans were disclosed as part of a debate at the annual Care Records Development Board meeting in London, yesterday. The work is still at a very eary stage, and no final …

    Public Sector 24 Nov 2006, 11:42

  • RSA Conference heads for Docklands

    That'll thrill the Americans....

    After this year's visit to the south of France and last year's to the greenery of Vienna's Stadtpark, RSA Conference Europe is moving to east London next year, more specifically to the fleshpots of Docklands and the ExCel exhibition centre. ExCel is famed for only being accessible via the tiny driverless trains of the Docklands …

    Security 24 Nov 2006, 11:47

  • Britain's unluckiest man falls down manhole

    16 major accidents during lifetime of mishaps

    A 54-year-old Doncaster unfortunate - dubbed "Britain's unluckiest man" - has continued a lifelong tradition of mishaps by falling down a manhole, Ananova reports. John Lyne, of Stainforth, near Doncaster suffered injuries to his back, left leg and both knees as a result of the tumble, and will be out of action for 32 weeks, …

    Music and Media 24 Nov 2006, 11:49

  • Pico GSM cells, what's the fuss all about?

    Analysis We won a spectrum, now what do we do with it?

    What if you built a network, and nobody came? In May this year, the frequencies 1781.7-1785MHz paired with 1876.7-1880MHz (known as the GSM Guard bands) were made available to 12 licensees under the Wireless Telegraphy Act (WTA). They are known as the Guard bands as they separate parts of GSM spectrum from DECT spectrum. In …

    Mobile 24 Nov 2006, 12:34

  • Hackers debut Mac OS X adware

    iNuisance

    Miscreants have created a proof-of-concept sample of adware that targets Apple Mac OS X users. iAdware might, in theory at least, be silently installed onto Macs, running itself each time an application is loaded, anti-virus firm F-Secure reports. The malware takes advantage of unspecified security weaknesses in the OS to load …

    Malware 24 Nov 2006, 12:36

  • Aigo F029 digital video wristwatch

    First Review The world's first wearable PMP?

    How small can personal media players go? Right down to the size of a wristwatch if you believe Chinese manufacturer Aigo, which this month launched a PMP that matches its large-screen siblings on features yet is designed to be worn on your wrist. Heck, it'll even tell you the time. A case of miniaturisation gone mad? Maybe not …

    Reg Hardware 24 Nov 2006, 13:27

  • IGN turns games site into film and TV portal

    'Download to own'

    We went to press just too early last week to pick up yet another film download front that News Corp has opened, this time with its Fox owned IGN Entertainment, the gaming portal that reaches around 30 million people a month. The films come from Direct2Drive, IGN's online store, which has signed deals with 20th Century Fox ( …

    Financial News 24 Nov 2006, 13:30

  • Qualcomm plays to its strengths with Snapdragon launch

    Comment And Motorola deal

    On a financial analyst tour in the UK last week, Qualcomm CEO Paul Jacobs lamented that, on a day when the chipmaker made a string of major announcements, the commentators were only interested in asking about the licensing disputes with Nokia. Important as that relationship is to Qualcomm's future performance, analysts would …

    Mobile 24 Nov 2006, 13:54

  • Vista licenses, police fingerprints, Zimmermann speaks

    To subscribe to The Register's weekly newsletter - seven days of IT in a single hit - click here

    IBM settles overtime issue Big Blue has paid $65m to settle a long-running case over overtime. Some 32,000 US-based IT workers are in line for payments. The boys and girls in blue suits will get paid for working more than 40 hours a week. The computer giant is not admitting any liability, but paying up anyway. Share option …

    Business 24 Nov 2006, 14:35

  • Sony sounds clammy Cyber-shot warning

    Cameras may not cope with steamy environments, apparently

    Kindly refrain from snapping steamy, passionate piccies of your partner with certain older Sony Cyber-shot digital cameras, the consumer electronics giant has asked buyers this week. It turns out the cameras' LCDs may run into trouble in warm, humid environments. According to Sony, the problem may affect more than 1m cameras …

    Reg Hardware 24 Nov 2006, 15:22

  • Does garlic ward off the common cold?

    And can it cure diabetes?

    Also in this week's column: Is an artificial eye close to reality? Will sweets really rot your teeth? Does garlic ward off the common cold? Asked by Charli Tricase of Amherst, Massachusetts, USA Historically, garlic (Allium sativum) has been used as a folk medicine for at least 4,000 years. Cloves of garlic were found by …

    Biology 24 Nov 2006, 15:50

  • Will sweets really rot your teeth?

    Grandma was right!

    Also in this week's column: Does garlic ward off the common cold? Is an artificial eye close to reality? Will sweets really rot your teeth? Asked by Katy O’Brien, age 11, of San Mateo, California Sugar and sweets can be eaten without inviting tooth decay if the sugar is removed from tooth surface promptly by brushing. …

    Biology 24 Nov 2006, 15:50

  • Is an artificial eye close to reality?

    And can blind people see colour by touch?

    Also in this week's column: Does garlic ward off the common cold? Will sweets really rot your teeth? Is an artificial eye close to reality? Asked by Leo Sanualio of Green Acre, New South Wales, Australia A California researcher predicts that an artificial eye is "in sight" in the near future. Dr Armand Tanguay Jr, …

    Biology 24 Nov 2006, 15:52

  • Carphone says SOA delivers apps faster

    Telco ties business processes to modular software services

    Carphone Warehouse claims that its move to service-oriented architecture (SOA) has enabled it to deliver applications two to three times faster than before. The mobile phone retailer-turned-telco is adopting SOA as a way to pull together the IT systems of its various operating groups, reducing duplication and making software …

    IT Director 24 Nov 2006, 16:24

  • Risk managers baulk at ID cards risk management post

    Ooh, too risky...

    Experienced risk management professionals seem reluctant, for some strange reason, to sign up with the Identity & Passport Service for a job risk-managing the ID cards programme. Too risky? Well, if that's what they reckon, they're the people you'd expect to know. According to Register sources IPS has been hawking the role of " …

    Music and Media 24 Nov 2006, 16:49

  • Euro commissioners swap slaps in video game row

    Updated Italians all in a lather over "perversity"

    The EC's media commissioner has attempted to sedate a colleague who became outraged over the Italian launch of a Gothic horror computer game he feared would corrupt the continent's children. Franco Frattini, the EC's justice commissioner, had become alarmed about Rule of Rose, a Japanese-produced computer game that is suspected …

    Music and Media 24 Nov 2006, 17:00

  • DBAs brace for week of Oracle bugs

    Incoming

    Security researchers irked at Oracle's tardiness at releasing patches for security bugs plan to name a different vulnerability in Oracle's enterprise software every day for a week in December. Oracle's quarterly security bulletins typically produce scores of bugs but yet more known bugs lay dormant and unfixed, according to …

    Enterprise Security 24 Nov 2006, 17:04