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3rd January 2007 Archive

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  • Global chip sales smash record - again

    Consumer electronics drives demand

    World chip sales hit $22.7bn in November 2006, the US-centric Semiconductor Industry Association (SIA) said yesterday. The figure marks an 11.3 per cent increase over November 2005's $20.4bn total and is 3.1 per cent higher than the previous month yielded. Once again, November's numbers broke the monthly sales record. …

    Reg Hardware 3 Jan 2007, 09:24

  • HP leads laptop league

    Corners 17.7% of the notebook market

    HP is leading the way in the laptops league, with 17.7 per cent of the world notebook market, new figures have revealed. According to market research firm DisplaySearch, HP exceeded its nearest rival Dell's shipments by 50,000 units in the third quarter of 2006, reclaiming the top title. This is the first time the company has …

    Channel Register 3 Jan 2007, 09:41

  • Orange converges Wednesdays

    Cinema deal for broadband customers too

    Orange is expanding its popular Orange Wednesdays service to their broadband customers, who will be able to access the same 2-for-1-cinema-ticket offer through the Orange web site. The service has provide very popular with Orange mobile users, who can send a text to an SMS shortcode to receive a number which can be presented at …

    Mobile 3 Jan 2007, 09:54

  • Hitachi touts 1.8in HDD energy saving tech

    Lower spin speed

    Hitachi's Global Storage Technologies (HGST) division today said it has begun shipping its latest 1.8in hard drives, a line offering unformatted storage capacities of up to 80GB and based on the company's "second generation" perpendicular recording technology. The Travelstar C3K80 consumes 20 per cent less power than the …

    Reg Hardware 3 Jan 2007, 09:59

  • Prisoners to get email access

    HMP SMTP

    British prisoners could get email access if a limited Home Office trial proves successful. Inmates will be able to send and receive emails from pre-approved addresses. All messages will be stored and monitored and will be plain text only with no attachments or pictures. A spokeswoman for the Home Office told the Reg: "This …

    Public Sector 3 Jan 2007, 10:02

  • HP leads laptop league

    Corners 17.7 per cent of the notebook market

    HP is leading the way in the laptops league, with 17.7 per cent of the world notebook market, new figures have revealed. According to market research firm DisplaySearch, HP exceeded its nearest rival Dell's shipments by 50,000 units in Q3 2006, reclaiming the top title. This is the first time the company has been at the top of …

    Reg Hardware 3 Jan 2007, 10:17

  • Swedes develop fireproof goat

    Arsonists frustrated by flame-retardant coating

    The good burghers of Gavle in Sweden are celebrating the survival of their traditional Xmas straw goat - habitually targeted by arsonists. According to the BBC, the 13m caprine giant has in the past been torched on 22 occasions, as well as succumbing to ram-raid attack and general assault. In 2005, for example, "arsonists …

    Music and Media 3 Jan 2007, 10:20

  • Cambridge company raises $100m

    Plastic chips and bendy displays

    A company spun out of Cambridge University has raised $100m to start commercial production of its "plastic electronics". Plastic Logic will open a factory in Dresden, Germany to produce electronic reader displays. The flexible screens claim 150 pixels per inch. The cunning thing about the technology is that it effectively …

    Telecoms 3 Jan 2007, 10:29

  • Come try our job, say London's armed cops

    The ultimate shoot-em-up?

    Scotland Yard's specialist firearms unit is offering the public the chance to check out just how difficult its job can be, the BBC reports. Participants will not, mercifully, be asked to chase Brazilians into London Tube stations, but rather to "test how they would respond in a typical firearms scenario by using laser guns in a …

    Public Sector 3 Jan 2007, 10:32

  • Sony to sell '75m PS3s by 2010'

    Pricey box to win next-gen console war, market watcher forecasts

    Sony's PlayStation 3 may have lost the battle for pre-Christmas sales, but the machine is forecast to win the next-generation console war, beating Microsoft's Xbox 360 and Nintendo's Wii hands down by 2010. So says market watcher Datamonitor, which reckons Sony will have shipped 75m PS3s around the world by that year. The …

    Reg Hardware 3 Jan 2007, 10:41

  • LED cat's eyes may provoke epileptic fits

    Essex driver 'narrowly avoids seizure'

    The UK's Highways Agency is investigating the possibility that a new breed of LED cat's eye might provoke epileptic fits, the BBC reports. The agency was alerted to the possible problem by Rebecca Jasiczak who says that while driving along a stretch of the A12 near Witham in Essex, she "narrowly avoided a seizure" prompted by …

    Music and Media 3 Jan 2007, 10:47

  • Card-thin MP3 player planned

    Skinny

    World's slimmest MP3 player, anyone? Wallet-friendly Flash disk maker Walletex is preparing to launch a version of its slimline storage product, this time with music playback, website Krunker.com claims, a fact (tacitly at least) confirmed by the company when it sent over some pics of the product. There's no screen, but the …

    Reg Hardware 3 Jan 2007, 10:55

  • New Year's resolution: get certified

    Site offer 40% off Excel books so you don't break it

    Christmas is over, New Year has come and gone (we think! Rather too much of the merry juice to remember exactly - hic!) and now you’re facing up to the prospect of a long, cold winter with nothing in sight to ease the pain. So this must be the perfect time to take stock of your life, work out where your career is going and make …

    Site News 3 Jan 2007, 11:06

  • Dutch clamps down on Segways

    Netherlands roads un-clogged

    Dutch police have banned Segways from all "public roads, bike paths and walkways", AP reports. The ban, which came into force on New Year's Day, was provoked by the country's Royal Traffic Agency's classification of the Segway as a moped and its refusal to approve the vehicle due to its lack of a brake. Agency spokesman Hans …

    Music and Media 3 Jan 2007, 11:15

  • HTC 2007 roadmap revealed on web

    STR TRK succcessor revealed?

    Details of smart-phone maker HTC's 2007 roadmap published on the web point to a year of improvements to the company's current line-up rather than a new range of radically redesigned products. Running through the list published by Russian-language website HPC.ru, HTC's QWERTY keyboard slider phone 'Herald' - officially the …

    Reg Hardware 3 Jan 2007, 11:30

  • Venice Project would break many users' ISP conditions

    That sinking feeling

    Internet television system The Venice Project could break users' monthly internet bandwith limits in hours, according to the team behind it. It downloads 320 megabytes (MB) per hour from users' computers, meaning that users could reach their monthly download limits in hours and that it could be unusable for bandwidth-capped …

    Networks 3 Jan 2007, 11:37

  • Samsung readies Vista-friendly double-speed Flash chip

    First 50nm 16Gb part

    Samsung will put the first 50nm 16Gb NAND Flash chip into mass production later this quarter, the South Korean giant said today, having just begun sending samples to its customers. The company said the chips use a "multi-level cell" design, a way of squeezing more memory capacity into a given die size. More importantly, the …

    Reg Hardware 3 Jan 2007, 11:50

  • Unpatched bug bites QuickTime

    First release from Month of Apple Bugs

    Security researchers have uncovered a buffer overflow flaw in Apple's QuickTime media player software that creates a means for hackers to load malware onto vulnerable systems. The vulnerability - which affects both Windows and Mac OS X PCs - is the first to be published as part of the "Month of Apple Bugs" project, which …

    Security 3 Jan 2007, 11:57

  • UK's celebs offered science lessons

    'Check your facts' before backing campaigns

    A UK charity is offering free support to celelebrities who back "scientific research and campaigns" - often to the detriment of good, solid fact. Sense About Science is distributing a pamphlet to 'VIP clubs and restaurants' across Britain which contains a number A-listers can ring if "they want to discuss anything with experts …

    Science 3 Jan 2007, 12:12

  • Fayrewood shuffles board

    As Esprinet buys UMD

    Computer products distributor Fayrewood plc completed the sale of UMD, part of its Niche Distribution division, to Esprinet for €53.5m on 22 December. The sale was accompanied by a reshuffle in the Fayrewood boardroom. Chief executive Paul Griffiths and finance director David Gurr stepped down at the end of December, but will …

    Channel Register 3 Jan 2007, 12:15

  • Fatal helium balloon prank secures 2006 Darwin Award

    Out of the gene pool, into the hall of fame

    Two Florida adventurers who died after deciding it was a bright idea to climb inside a helium balloon have secured the 2006 Darwin Award - the ultimate accolade for those who have contributed to the "improvement of the human genome by accidentally removing themselves from it". The full citation reads: Two more candidates have …

    Science 3 Jan 2007, 12:24

  • Shuttle launches second-gen mini PC

    XPC Mini X200 adds TV tuner, Wi-Fi, integrated GPU to ultra-SFF barebones

    Updated Small form-factor PC specialist Shuttle has launched the successor to its XPC Mini X100 slimline media centre-oriented computer chassis. The box takes up no more desk space than a sheet of A4 paper and is a mere 5cm high. The XPC Mini X200 incorporates an Intel 945GM-based mobo ready for a Core 2 Duo CPU and up to …

    Reg Hardware 3 Jan 2007, 12:25

  • Channel 4 goes on-demand

    Video and audio content on request, eventually

    Channel 4 has announced two new services; one providing access to current and old TV shows for downloading onto a PC, the other providing 4Radio content over The Cloud’s Wi-Fi network. The deal with The Cloud will place a link to 4Radio in the home page of users connecting though a Cloud Wi-Fi hotspot. The content is optimised …

    Networks 3 Jan 2007, 12:36

  • Compel appoints managing director

    Kirby comes out of his Shell

    Compel has announced the appointment of David Clive Kirby as managing director of its business solutions division and as a main board director with effect from 2 January. Prior to accepting this appointment Kirby (47) worked at Shell International as vice president and global head for project management and application …

    Channel Register 3 Jan 2007, 13:21

  • Toyota develops drunk-busting car

    'You're pissed and I'm going nowhere'

    Car manufacturer Toyota is developing a drunk-busting car system which will, in the event of excess consumption on the part of the driver, shut down the vehicle. According to Japanese daily Asahi Shimbun, cars kitted out with the system won't start if sweat sensors incorporated into the steering wheel detect an over-the-limit …

    Music and Media 3 Jan 2007, 13:23

  • Was that the 2007 that was?

    Now let’s dumb down futurology too

    Two article formats inevitably get rolled out at this time of year: the list of predictions for the next twelve months, and the answers to the seasonal topical quiz (which was printed in late December as a filler in the absence of any news and to enable us journalists to spend a few precious Yuletide days in the environs of the …

    Verity Stob 3 Jan 2007, 13:36

  • Man held over Saddam execution video

    Government official fingered for mobile phone footage

    A spokesman for Iraqi prime minister Nuri al-Maliki confirmed today that "an official who supervised the hanging" of Saddam Hussein was being held over a graphic execution video, shot on a mobile phone and later released onto the internet. The film, as we reported yesterday, has caused a bit of a rumpus, with the UK's deputy …

    Music and Media 3 Jan 2007, 13:48

  • AMD to ship 65nm single-core Athlons this month?

    'Lima' core coming 'mid-January', moles maintain

    AMD will this month ship 'Lima', the 65nm version of its single-core Athlon 64 processor, it has been claimed by motherboard-maker moles. They allege recent AMD roadmaps show the 65nm Athlon 64 3500+ and 3800+ will appear "mid-January". Details of Lima emerged back in November 2006, but then the part was said to be scheduled …

    Reg Hardware 3 Jan 2007, 15:13

  • Sky goes VoD after shipping 2m Sky+ boxes

    But what's the difference between video-on-demand and time-shifting?

    Satellite broadcaster Sky is intending to add video-on-demand capabilities to its Sky+ boxes over the next year, allowing subscribers to pay more to record shows they failed to record first time round. Unlike offerings from Channel 4 or the Venice project, Sky isn't planning to offer video over the internet: its Sky+ VoD …

    Entertainment 3 Jan 2007, 15:27

  • Happy Beavers, Dead Saddam

    Letters ... Offended Readers

    Re: Whilst I enjoyed reading your articles and generally find myself sharing your opinion, I was rather disappointed today. Not with the article itself, but with your choice to display a rather gruesome image of an execution without warning. The Register is usually very careful to mark articles as 'Not safe for work', but …

    Letters 3 Jan 2007, 15:29

  • UK comedian plans Second Life gig

    Jimmy Carr's avatar to bring joy to Sadville

    UK stand-up comedian Jimmy Carr will next month appear on stage in Second Life, the BBC reports. Carr's 3 February gig in London will be simultaneously delivered to Sadville, with "performers tracing his movements in real-life so they can be replicated" via his avatar. Only fifty flesh-and-blood punters will enjoy the live …

    Entertainment 3 Jan 2007, 15:33

  • Apple faces US iTunes lawsuit

    iPod lock-in under fire on both sides of the Atlantic

    A US class-action lawsuit has been launched against Apple over links between its iTunes music store and iPod music players. The action follows similar charges in Europe, brought by a French consumer rights group. News of the suit, filed in California in July, came in a disclosure by Apple that formed part of its report to the …

    Law 3 Jan 2007, 15:49

  • Borland names new sales chief

    Repeat performance

    Borland Software has placed its vice president for the Americas and Asia Pacific region in charge of sales as incumbent Matthew Thompson quits for Adobe Systems. Borland today said David Packer is taking over as senior vice president of worldwide field operations, with responsibility for the company's entire sales efforts. …

    Software 3 Jan 2007, 17:31

  • Adopt and adapt better than rip and replace...

    Developing with Legacy Systems – Part 1

    If the internet has done nothing else, it has made the parochial world of proprietary systems appear outdated. Software architecture "A" now had better interoperate with software architecture "B", or risk rejection as now being unfit for purpose. And all of them need to interoperate with language "X" and application "Z". But in …

    Developer 3 Jan 2007, 17:44

  • Google's job robot weeds out puny humans

    'I'm sorry, I can't hire you Dave...'

    The Church of the Algorithm, Google, is employing a robot to select the faithful. According to the New York Times today, an algorithm scans job applications and ranks candidates on a score from 0 to 100. From next month, it will be used to screen all applications. The Times quotes Google's "Vice President of People Operations …

    Rise of the Machines 3 Jan 2007, 18:34

  • CSR slams US Bluetooth patent case

    Fighting them on the beaches

    A US University has filed a patent suit against Nokia, Samsung and Matsushita over the Bluetooth chips in their mobile phones. CSR, the Cambridge, UK supplier of the Bluetooth chips used in the phones, promised to defend its products "vigorously", slamming the legal suit as "without merit in relation to CSR's Bluetooth chips …

    Mobile 3 Jan 2007, 19:51