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27th November 2006 Archive

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  • Salesforce.com integrates to get ahead

    Plays nice with Oracle

    Salesforce.com is today expected to take its latest step towards improving integration with third-parties' software, including business rival Oracle. The hosted CRM pioneer will announce an extension to its recently launched Apex platform and language called ConnectOut, which enables other applications to be notified of …

    Applications 27 Nov 2006, 05:02

  • Sony and Ericsson get loved up over mobile TV

    Aw, we work so well together

    Sony and Ericsson are to expand their partnership beyond cell phones to provide mobile television and broadband services. Ericsson, the Swedish telecoms equipment maker, announced the expansion of the Sony Ericsson partnership on Thursday. Per Nordlof, Ericsson's director of product strategy and portfolio management, told …

    Mobile 27 Nov 2006, 09:43

  • Xandros Linux conquers a hostile Sony laptop

    OS Review A little something for everyone

    I have an impressive talent for buying laptop computers hostile to Linux. Right now I'm using a Sony Vaio VGN-FS840/W, with more proprietary drivers than you can shake a stick at. It's so bad that even a retail edition of Windows XP won't run on it; you need the OEM Windows (and sure enough, Sony is too cheap to include the CD …

    Operating Systems 27 Nov 2006, 09:57

  • Costs go sky high at MoD

    £2.6bn budget blowout

    Skynet 5 and other military equipment projects are running a total of £2.6bn over budget, a report from the official spending watchdog reveals. Restructuring of Skynet 5, the Ministry of Defence PFI project to develop the next generation of military satellite communication services, will cost an extra £885m, says the National …

    Public Sector 27 Nov 2006, 10:00

  • Fujitsu Siemens challenges EMC and NetApp on virtual tape

    When is tape virtualisation true tape virtualisation?

    Fujitsu Siemens Computers is taking its CentricStor virtual tape appliance to midsize users, introducing two entry-level models with a mere 2.7TB of caching disk each and the ability to connect to one tape library and up to four physical tape drives. The CentricStor VTA 500 and 1500 appliances manage the process of disk-to-disk …

    Channel Register 27 Nov 2006, 10:02

  • Palm ships Treo 680 in UK

    Debuts at under £300, just

    Palm has formally announced the availability of the Palm OS-based Treo 680 smart phone in the UK. The handset will go on sale today for around £299 - £30 less than the company recently began taking pre-orders for. The handset sports the usual 320 x 320, 65,536-colour display, 312MHz PXA270 processor, 64MB of Flash memory, …

    Reg Hardware 27 Nov 2006, 10:11

  • Security: Is technology saint or sinner?

    Analysis Data pragmatism

    The latest problem to be thrown at us, on top of war, global warming, disease etc, is that we are "sleepwalking into a surveillance society". The worry is that, owing to all the data being collected these days, we no longer have any real privacy. We are covered by cameras, the "powers that be" have oodles of information on …

    ID 27 Nov 2006, 10:14

  • AMD's 65nm dual-core Athlons to debut 5 December?

    Remedy for recent shortages, it's suggested

    AMD will ship its 65nm dual-core Athlon 64 X2 processors a week on Tuesday, it has been claimed. If correct, the 5 December debut apparently marks an acceleration of AMD's anticipated 65nm roll-out schedule. AMD has been expected for some time to be preparing to ship the 65nm X2s, codenamed 'Brisbane', next month, with …

    Reg Hardware 27 Nov 2006, 10:34

  • Yet more free MCP training for London SMEs

    Site offer 20 places up for grabs

    London SMEs with less than 250 employees have yet again been given the chance to get their staff some free training which includes any one Microsoft Certified Professional course and one exam towards the MCDST, MCSA 2003, MCSE 2003 and MCDBA.NET. Yup, it's the (re)return of the El Reg/Exchange Group giveaway, which has in the …

    Site News 27 Nov 2006, 10:35

  • Phoenix IT results show contract pain

    Holding up

    Phoenix IT Group managed to hold up revenues and profits despite contract changes at its biggest customer. For the six months ended 30 September revenues were down to £54.4m from £54.8m for the same period last year. Profit before tax was £9.2m compared to £8.9m for the same six months of 2005. There are some delays in …

    Channel Register 27 Nov 2006, 10:35

  • NASA spies bursting supermassive blackholes

    Holy belching quasars, Batman

    NASA astronomers think they have identified a pair of supermassive black holes, or quasars, that look like they are teetering on the brink of huge explosions. Using the infrared camera on the Spitzer space telescope, the astronomers have been able to peer through obscuring dust and take a peek at the quasars at work. …

    Space 27 Nov 2006, 10:37

  • AMD 'R600' DirectX 10 GPU spied on web

    Bigger than R580 despite smaller fabrication process?

    AMD's anticipated upcoming ATI-branded, DirectX 10-supporting graphics chip, the R600, appears to have made an unscheduled and ahead-of-time stop on the web, revealing itself to be a rather larger part than its predecessor, the R580. The pics appear in a story on Chinese-language site Zol.com.cn, which claims the chip will …

    Reg Hardware 27 Nov 2006, 11:02

  • Copyright extension a no-go: BPI reacts

    Updated Not giving up

    The Gowers Review of Intellectual Property will recommend the current 50 year copyright term on sound recordings is not extended, according to reports. Though the Review's opinion is not neccessarily binding on the government, it will be a blow to the recording industry which had been lobbying to extend the term to 95 years - …

    Music and Media 27 Nov 2006, 11:37

  • RM chalks up flat revenues

    Marginised success

    RM posted its annual reults today, showing the firm had grown profits on the back of flat revenue figures. The education IT supplier operated at a pre-tax profit of £14.5m, or £0.115 per share, on revenues of £262.3m, down slightly on 2005's £262.7m. RM managed to squeeze its margins though, and profit numbers were up 26 per …

    Channel Register 27 Nov 2006, 12:13

  • LaCie ships 2TB RAID-able desktop drive

    On-board drive controller for speed

    LaCie has begun shipping its 2TB Biggest FW800 storage box, a unit that packs in four lock-in-place hot-swappable 500GB SATA drives and a dinky LCD status panel. Despite the FW800 in its name, the Biggest FW800 can also connect by USB 2.0 and FireWire 400. The system can be set to combine the four drives as a single, large …

    Reg Hardware 27 Nov 2006, 12:43

  • Samsung pitches 30in panel at content creators

    Gamers too?

    Ladies and gentlemen, will you please welcome Samsung's CX305T, the company's latest 30in monitor aimed at content creators. With a native resolution of 2,560 x 1,600 and a 1000:1 contrast ratio, the tilt-and-swivel screen may well appeal to gamers keen to take advantage of next-generation GPUs like Nvidia's GeForce 8800 GTX. …

    Reg Hardware 27 Nov 2006, 13:01

  • Korean court rebuffs Microsoft in patents case

    The old bilingual switcheroo

    Microsoft has taken another slap from the authorities in Korea, after a court decision in a patent dispure raised the prospect of Office being taken off the shelves in the country. According to the Korean Times, the country’s supreme court on Friday upheld patents held by two Korean academics over technology for automatically …

    Operating Systems 27 Nov 2006, 13:06

  • More delays as NPfIT overhaul is ordered

    Granger gets a new boss

    The NHS' new chief executive is setting the stage for further delays at the already tardy National Programme for IT (NPfIT), by ordering an overhaul of the entire programme. According to the Financial Times, David Nicholson has told Connecting for Health (CfH) to review both the scope and operation of the programme. NPfIT …

    Public Sector 27 Nov 2006, 13:19

  • 'Altair 8800' kit reaches $1,725 on eBay

    'It's only a model...'

    We could describe this eBay auction as your opportunity to own a piece of computing history, but that would be an utter lie. No, this is an eBay auction that gives you the chance to own all the bits you'll need to make something that looks like a piece of computing history. What we have on offer here is a replica of the …

    Reg Hardware 27 Nov 2006, 13:24

  • Brussels declares war on spyware and spam

    All spams must be of regulation size and weight…

    The European Commission called for stronger action against spammers and spy ware merchants today and said it may bring in further legislation to combat the problem. However, the Commission also said member states could do better in enforcing existing legislation covering illegal online activities. Trumpeting a new “ …

    Malware 27 Nov 2006, 14:12

  • Liverpool throws strop at Google Earth

    Go-ahead city shown as desolate wasteland

    Liverpool's regeneration bosses are a bit miffed at Google Earth for not showing their fine city in all its redeveloped glory, the BBC reports. The so-called "Liverpool Vision" has specifically complained about two sites where the "Paradise Project" retail and leisure development (indicated left) and the 10,000-seat "King's …

    Science 27 Nov 2006, 14:23

  • CfH report confirms confidentiality risk

    Keeping mum on care records

    Plans to upload medical records onto a central database - the so-called spine - will put patient confidentiality at risk, Connecting for Health (CfH) has been told by its own consultants. In its own risk analysis of the project, the agency responsible for centralising the country's medical records has acknowledged that GPs' …

    Public Sector 27 Nov 2006, 15:05

  • Asus W6 leather-clad laptop

    Review Mrs Peel's notebook?

    Leather, a material that calls to mind, at one extreme, Diana Rigg, tight thigh-length boots, the crack of the whip and, at the other, well-worn sofas, ancient libraries and the air of long-faded wealth. Somewhere in between sits Asus' latest leather-covered laptop, the W6Fp... Asus might like to think so, but let's not kid …

    Reg Hardware 27 Nov 2006, 15:31

  • Evesham blends Alqemi LCD HDTV line

    32-42in line

    Evesham today unveiled its Alqemi HD Ready TV line-up, five screens all equipped with HDMI ports, four with integrated Freeview digital TV tuners. Every telly in the range has an analogue tuner too. Screen sizes run from 32in to 42in, all with native resolutions of 1,366 x 768 - so you're looking at 720p for your HD …

    Reg Hardware 27 Nov 2006, 16:05

  • Bell Micro rings brand changes

    Adios Ideal...

    Bell Micro is doing away with its current three brands to embrace a unified future. From New Year's Day the names of Ideal Hardware and OpenPSL will be no more. Bell bought OpenPSL, a server specialist, in 2004. Bell also operates under the name Ideal Hardware in the UK but in the rest of Europe it is known as Bell …

    Channel Register 27 Nov 2006, 16:13

  • Heathrow kicks off 'fingerprint fast-track' security checks

    Tracking with a soupcon of fast...

    The Telegraph reveals that the UK government is plotting fingerprinting of air passengers as a matter of routine, to check the identity of departing passengers and to tighten up border controls for incoming. Which, given the firmness of the regime's plans for ID cards, is scarcely news in the long term - but in the interim, …

    Music and Media 27 Nov 2006, 16:23

  • Intelligent Design comes to Blighty

    More welcome than we'd have hoped

    More from that lovely bunch of people who we like to think of as creationists-with-a-website. Yes, the Intelligent Designers are back. Having had their bottoms soundly birched in the US, they are now determined to "educate" England's schoolkids about their utterly unscientific counter "theory" to evolution. For those who have …

    Biology 27 Nov 2006, 16:23

  • UN call to tackle landfill Africa

    12 dead in toxic waste scandal

    A United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) meeting this week will discuss the growing threat from toxic electronic waste being dumped on developing countries. Last week, UNEP reported that criminal dumping of in Abidjan, Cote D'Ivoire, had caused the deaths of at least 12 people and forced 100,000 to seek medical attention …

    IT Director 27 Nov 2006, 16:29

  • OpenSUSE 10.2 RC1 out and about

    Novell lets slip the Basilisk Lizard

    Novell is releasing Basilisk Lizard, its codename for Release Candidate 1 (RC1) of openSUSE 10.2. RC1 is intended to help Novell fix "shipment blockers" and is, says, the last development build before v10.2 of the Linux distro hits the streets in its final version. A list of download sites and hardware requirements is …

    Operating Systems 27 Nov 2006, 20:47