The Register® — Biting the hand that feeds IT

Feeds

12th February 2007 Archive

Browse by publication date, or search the site.

  • Unlimited mobile music for £1.99 a week

    Et tu, Apple?

    In what may prove to be the most far-reaching digital music launch since iTunes, Omnifone today took the wraps off its MusicStation service. The service gives mobile phone users access to the big four labels' music catalogs on-demand for £1.99 (€2.99) a week, using a player that runs on mid-range feature phones and GPRS or …

    Music and Media 12 Feb 2007, 00:02

  • Non-Humans need not apply: choosing your Agile dream team

    Matt Stephens gets to grip with people issues and team building

    “That it is people who write software is terribly obvious . . . and ignored.” So quotes Alistair Cockburn, himself quoting Gerald Weinberg, in his book Agile Software Development - catch our review of the Second Edition here. It’s easy to see the people in your project as mere commodities – not helped by MS Project’s insistence …

    Developer 12 Feb 2007, 03:04

  • NHS appeals to Lords over leukaemia ruling

    'Fraught with disagreement and difficulty'

    The House of Lords will clarify how data protection and freedom of information laws should work together if it hears an NHS appeal against an order to release clinical data. Any ruling would be a defining one for the two emerging areas of law. The NHS's Common Services Agency (CSA) has refused to hand over childhood leukaemia …

    Public Sector 12 Feb 2007, 07:02

  • 3Com is back: What next?

    Comment The Enterprise beckons once again

    Heroic comebacks are something of a rarity in the high technology industry. Companies that fall from grace disappear, either through bankruptcy or absorption into larger players. However, the switching market has a couple of interesting examples of long-established players that may be in a position to buck the trend. …

    Data Networking 12 Feb 2007, 07:02

  • AMD slashes Athlon prices by up to 45%

    Chop, chop

    AMD has followed up last week's Opteron price cuts with a round of reductions applied to its Athlon-brand processors. The latest cuts affect both single- and dual-core versions of the 64-bit CPU family. While Athlon 64 FX and Quad FX processor cost as much to buy now as they did yesterday, the 64 X2 series are now between 8.1 …

    Reg Hardware 12 Feb 2007, 09:53

  • EU Directive removes copyright exceptions for schools

    On-demand media not exempt

    Vital copyright exemptions for universities, schools and hospitals do not apply when material is provided on demand, an EU researcher says. The long-standing exemptions are relied on by teachers and researchers but do not exist in on-demand media, he said. The news will prove a worry for anyone relying on the exemptions since …

    Law 12 Feb 2007, 10:12

  • ATI R600 to ship on foot-long board?

    Some snippets have emerged regarding AMD's plan for its upcoming AT Radeon X2000-series graphics cards, better known by the codename R600. Not only that, but a leaked pic of an early version of one of the board shows it's a real biggy - it's over a foot long. The 80nm GPU will apparently ship in three versions: one XT and …

    Reg Hardware 12 Feb 2007, 10:14

  • Email insult sacking was unfair

    But blame shared, says Tribunal

    A woman whose email insults about her boss caused her to be sacked was unfairly dismissed, an Employment Tribunal has ruled. But she will not be reinstated and will only receive compensation of 12.5 per cent of her losses because she was 75 per cent to blame. Agnes Wilkie was a television producer with Scottish Television (STV …

    Small Biz 12 Feb 2007, 10:18

  • Treasury group to monitor complicated procurements

    MPRG and OGC will collaborate on difficult projects

    The Treasury is forming a Major Projects Review Group (MPRG) to assist the most difficult procurements in central government. It will work with the Office of Government Commerce (OGC) to provide more weight to its interventions in major projects, according to the chief executive of the OGC. John Oughton said at a press …

    Channel Register 12 Feb 2007, 10:23

  • Consumer demand will drive UWB regulation

    3GSM The revolution is in your hands

    The European regulatory confusion surrounding Ultra Wide Band, and thus Wireless USB, will be solved by pressure from consumers once they see what the Americans, Chinese and Japanese can do with the technology, members of the consortium said today. Wireless USB offers high-speed connections over short range, fast enough to run …

    Wireless 12 Feb 2007, 10:43

  • RIM releases Pearl-esque BlackBerry 8800

    3GSM Hops on GPS bandwagon

    Research in Motion has unveiled the eagerly anticipated BlackBerry 8800 - the first of the company's full QWERTY keyboard devices to sport a trackball-centric design based on its Pearl handset. Among the new features: integrated GPS and MicroSD memory expansion. RIM BlackBerry 8800 Key Features As expected, the 8800 is a …

    Reg Hardware 12 Feb 2007, 10:47

  • Vodafone bags Hutch Essar

    Splurges Indian ink

    Vodafone announced today it had finally netted a 67 per cent controlling interest in Indian operator Hutch Essar for $11.1bn cash. The world's biggest mobile outfit outside China won the shares in an auction, reports say, making its third largest ever deal and biggest since the $231bn Mannesman deal in 2000. During the drawn …

    Financial News 12 Feb 2007, 11:00

  • HP talks up voice-centric iPaq smart phone

    3GSM Long-running PDA line goes candybar

    HP today brought its iPaq brand into phone territory, announcing a candybar-format smart phone pitched primarily at voice usage - including not only GSM but also VoIP. It's also the company's first Windows Mobile 6 device. Dubbed the iPaq 500 Voice Messenger, the device has integrated 802.11b/g Wi-Fi, Bluetooth 1.2 and quad …

    Reg Hardware 12 Feb 2007, 11:16

  • Prediction: one day you will reduce total storage

    You'll run out of space...

    I have sometimes asked what some see as a daft question concerning storage: “When is someone going to come up with a solution that will completely stop storage growth rather than just slowing it down a little?” Usually, the response is a deafening silence. But I predict: one day your organisation WILL reduce its total storage …

    Storage 12 Feb 2007, 11:49

  • 3G gamers opt for simple gaming

    3GSM Time-filling, not compulsive playing

    Puzzles and card games are the most popular mobile phone games as users fill in time waiting for a bus or sitting on the tube, according to new research. M:Metrics and I-Play found that users prefer retro games from their youth to the kind of immersive games offered by consoles. The good news for the industry is that owners of …

    Mobile 12 Feb 2007, 11:52

  • Canadians lobby for iPod copyright tax - again

    Second attempt

    Canada's Private Copyright Collective (CPCC) is once again trying to find a way to force would-be iPod buyers to pay a copyright tax despite being told in 2004 such a levy is illegal. The CPCC said last week it wants CAD5 levied on players with up to 1GB of memory, CAD25 for up to 10GB of music storage, CAD50 for capacities …

    Reg Hardware 12 Feb 2007, 12:05

  • My ERP supplier has been acquired - now what?

    Jump ship or stay?

    Given the recent abundance of mergers and acquisitions among the mid-market ERP vendors, IT directors managing an ERP system may feel uncertain about the future of their incumbent system. Yet it is critical to be able to assure the board the product won't disappear - or at least warn them if it's time to switch vendors. The …

    Applications 12 Feb 2007, 12:09

  • Motorola launches 3G Q smart phone

    3GSM And bringing out a GSM model, after all...

    After apparently canning a GSM version of its Q BlackBerry-like smart phone back in February 2006, Motorola has now said the handset will come to market during the second half of 2007. The 3G Q believed to have played a part in nixing the GSM model - and originally due Q4 2006 - will ship sooner, the company said today. The …

    Reg Hardware 12 Feb 2007, 12:38

  • Vodafone adds Google Maps in web services blitz

    Destination advertising revenue

    In its fourth deal in a week to bring popular online services to mobile, Vodafone announced it would develop a downloadable Java application for accessing Google Maps. Last week, the operator signed up MySpace , eBay and YouTube to its Vodafone Live! walled garden internet service. Use of Google Maps will come under users' …

    Mobile 12 Feb 2007, 12:41

  • Cow poo: the building material of the future?

    Sh*tty build quality

    Researchers at Michigan State University think they have come up with a new way of disposing of some of the millions of tons of cow manure produced in the US each year: use it to build with. More specifically, they are advocating using sterilised cow manure to replace sawdust in making fibreboard. This is a most useful …

    Biology 12 Feb 2007, 12:51

  • Nokia predicts mainstream mobile TV

    3GSM Stop me if you've heard this one

    Nokia president and CEO Olli-Pekka Kallasvuo opened this year's 3GSM conference in Barcelona with a number of consumer announcements, including the prediction that four billion mobile phones would be sold in 2010, a billion more than current sales figures. Converged devices will also outstrip the shrinking market for PDAs, …

    Mobile 12 Feb 2007, 12:58

  • MS India bids for worst corporate anthem title

    'The WoW is Now!'

    Long-term readers may well remember 2005's titanic musical battle between Drupa's 2004 song, the Glaucoma Hymn and KPMG to secure the world's worst corporate anthem title. A reader poll eventually awarded the honour to KPMG for its quite astounding effort, after which corporates worldwide apparently decided to hang up their …

    Bootnotes 12 Feb 2007, 13:01

  • Motorola RIZR slider becomes 'fit-to-face' banana-phone

    3GSM SLVR, KRZR lines updated too

    Motorola today announced a heap of tweaks for its more stylish handsets, SLVR, KRZR and RIZR - the latter, for example, employs a new, curved and spring-loaded slider mechanism that creates what the company called a "fit-to-face profile". The RIZR Z8's other attributes include a sharp 2.2in, 240 x 320, 16m-colour display, …

    Reg Hardware 12 Feb 2007, 13:25

  • Nokia revamps business range with added e

    3GSM New Communicator

    Nokia said business use of mobile phones and internet access still has a long way to go as it unwrapped a slew of high-end business phones today at 3GSM. Senior veep and general manager mobile devices Antti Vasara told several hundred assembled hacks that although three billion phones were now in use, corporate usage was still …

    Mobile 12 Feb 2007, 14:00

  • Samsung shows 'world's slimmest' handset

    Hardware Widow @ 3GSM Ultra Edition Part Deux

    Samsung may have used this week's 3GSM show in Barcelona to re-announce a heap of handsets it launched around the world during the latter half of 2006, but it also showed off its Ultra Edition II line: two skinny sliders, an equally narrow-hipped clamshell and the thinnest phone in the world, Samsung claimed. The sliders are …

    Reg Hardware 12 Feb 2007, 14:15

  • Patent Office 'inventive step' report dances out the door

    Everything is just fine, thanks

    More research is needed to establish how consistently the test of inventiveness is applied in assessing patent applications from high tech fields. This is the conclusion of the The UK Patent Office's public consultation on the so-called "inventive step" test in UK patent law. But despite its concerns in this one area, the …

    Small Biz 12 Feb 2007, 14:25

  • Million-busting road pricing petition draws UK.gov shrug

    Updated Debate is good, dribbles transport secretary

    Tony Blair's latest online inclusion experiment may be in the process of backfiring*, with more than one million people signing onto his nascent petitions website to protest against the mooted introduction of road pricing. At time of writing a petition, entitled "Scrap the planned vehicle tracking and road pricing policy", had …

    Public Sector 12 Feb 2007, 14:38

  • Nokia Siemens Networks backs IP everywhere

    3GSM Rhythm method

    Technology roadmaps for the future Nokia and Siemens Networks were laid out to delegates attending the 3GSM Conference on Monday. The €20bn equal-share joint venture aims to combine the networking businesses of Nokia and Siemens to compete more effectively against Ericsson and Alcatel-Lucent in the telecoms kit business. The …

    Data Networking 12 Feb 2007, 14:49

  • How to install a Vista upgrade on any PC

    Unadvertised sale: Buy an upgrade, get a stand-alone version

    Microsoft is running an unadvertised sale on Windows Vista. For the price of an upgrade edition requiring an existing copy of Windows, anyone can have a stand-alone version of Vista that will run on any PC. Indeed, the upgrade editions are full versions, simply waiting to be told to install themselves regardless of what OS is …

    Operating Systems 12 Feb 2007, 15:02

  • 3GSM Nokia raves about new E-series phones

    Nokia today officially announced the E61i, E65 and E90 Communicator handsets, all aimed primarily at the business user but with some consumer-friendly features too. The launch confirmed images and speculation on features which began to appear on the web about a week ago, as we reported. Based on the S60 platform, the E90 is …

    Reg Hardware 12 Feb 2007, 15:26

  • Can you Imagine 'a better education for all?'

    Annual cup challenge kicks off

    OK students, off you go again. It's that time of the year when the wind-up starts to Microsoft's Imagine Cup – the annual worldwide competition to encourage comp-sci students. As usual, the battle starts with a round of some 50 national competitions, with the winners of those moving forward to the final, this year to be held …

    Developer 12 Feb 2007, 15:26

  • Bigger small firms to benefit from new VAT rules

    Government extends cash accounting

    Small and medium sized tech firms will be among those to benefit from an extension to the government's Cash Accounting Scheme. The scheme, which allows qualifying firms to defer paying VAT until they have actually been paid, rather than paying the money to the government as soon as they have invoiced for the work, has been …

    Small Biz 12 Feb 2007, 15:37

  • Parents demand mobile restrictions for kids

    3GSM Operators shrug, say 'whatever'

    Parents are demanding more control over what their children are doing with their mobiles, but phone operators are lagging in providing such services. Researchers for Comptel Corporation found 87 per cent of consumers believe parents should have more control over their child's mobile usage but only one in four operators believe …

    Mobile 12 Feb 2007, 15:59

  • 24x7 vehicle surveillance, and how road pricing helps it along

    Transport Minister's mythspeaks...

    We said they'd be sorry when the Ten Downing Street e-petitions system first opened for business. And just a few months later we are confronted by the spectacle of a 'stop road pricing' petition soaring effortlessly past the million mark, and Transport Minister Douglas Alexander trudging round the media claiming that the …

    Government 12 Feb 2007, 16:01

  • Users turn their noses up at mobile TV

    3GSM Turn on, tune in, turn off again

    It's not just the slow uptake of video services that should worry network operators, it seems that more than half of European users who've tried TV on the move decided it wasn't worth the effort. This data comes from a survey of 22,000 European users, commissioned by Tellabs and carried out by M:Metrics. Cost is the biggest …

    Mobile 12 Feb 2007, 16:04

  • TV channels demand free-to-air future for HD on Freeview

    Ofcom must act to prevent subs-service domination

    Broadcasters the BBC, ITV, Channel 4 and Five, along with manufacturers Sony, Samsung, Toshiba and Alba, and Dixons owner DSGI have begun lobbying UK regulator Ofcom to guarantee bandwidth on the Freeview digital TV system for HD broadcasts. And they want consumers to help. Centered on the HDforAll website, the campaign calls …

    Reg Hardware 12 Feb 2007, 16:07

  • Nvidia rolls out lower-priced GeForce 8800 GTS

    Yes, the 320MB version has arrived

    Nvidia has a launched the anticipated version of its GeForce 8800 GTS graphics chip capable of accessing no more than 320MB of memory. The debut comes just days after the first boards began appearing in retail. The new chip matches the GPU specs of the 640MB 8800 GTS: 500MHz core clock frequency, 96 unified shaders running at …

    Reg Hardware 12 Feb 2007, 16:37

  • Free Nokia route-planning app fails to show

    Got lost somewhere?

    Nokia has clearly been so busy making multiple announcements at 3GSM, it forgot to upload this past weekend the free route-planning software and maps it promised us last week. Then, it said the code would be available to download on "Saturday, February 10th". Alas, it wasn't. Nor was the Smart2Go software - due to be bundled …

    Reg Hardware 12 Feb 2007, 16:58

  • Mobile malware menace hits high - McAfee

    3GSM Should telcos be scared or skeptical?

    Malware attacks across mobile networks have reached an all-time high, if figures aired by McAfee today are anything to go by. Four in five mobile operators (83 per cent) were hit by mobile device infections last year, according to a study by analyst group Informa. In addition, the number of reported security incidents in 2006 …

    Security 12 Feb 2007, 17:02

  • 3GSM SanDisk readies 4GB MicroSD card

    Here's the world's highest capacity MicroSD card, according to SanDisk that is. The solid-state memory specialist today announced the product, though it would only say the 4GB unit will ship "later in 2007". It hasn't worked out the pricing yet, either. Still, the card meets the key SDHC criteria: a capacity of more than …

    Reg Hardware 12 Feb 2007, 18:02

  • Channel-happy Fujitsu Siemens denounces direct Dell

    They're killing you

    Fujitsu Siemens Computers (FSC) trumpeted its swollen channel muscle today, crowing how it will pump millions into indirect flogging of servers this year, and hinting that Dell is responsible for loss of business. The German firm's X86 range will be getting a big push, with a £1m ad campaign over the next three months. …

    Channel Register 12 Feb 2007, 18:12

  • Zero-day vuln hits Solaris

    Updated Critical flaw grants root privileges

    Solaris users who enable telnet are about as secure as a fortress with a screen door, according to reports that claim cyber crooks can use the protocol to easily gain root access. The Internet Storm Center is urging system administrators to disable or restrict telnet functionality to contain the zero-day vulnerability, which …

    Enterprise Security 12 Feb 2007, 19:40

  • TSMC threatens to conquer consumer electronics biz

    ISSCC Get big, get friendly

    TSMC, the world's biggest chip foundry, rather unsurprisingly thinks it can boost the fortunes of the semiconductor industry by making customers more dependent on the services of - chip foundries. So said the company's founder Morris Chang today, in a speech at ISSCC (International Solid State Circuits Conference). His pitch …

    Hardware 12 Feb 2007, 19:52

  • 3GSM Motorola 3GSM Gallery

    Motorola announced eight handsets at 3GSM this year. For your viewing pleasure, here they all are... Q q9   Q gsm   W205   SLVR L9   RIZR Z8   W215   KRZR K3   W510   3GSM Galleries Motorola Nokia Samsung

    Reg Hardware 12 Feb 2007, 20:13

  • Congress pushes (again) for ISP data retention

    Silicon Justice More data = more damage, when breached

    The US Congress is trying to land a one-two sucker punch on internet service providers (ISPs). A flurry of bills introduced in the House and Senate last week have resurrected data retention and data security proposals for ISPs that floundered in previous legislative sessions. The bills would create retention requirements for …

    Law 12 Feb 2007, 20:22

  • MySpace to block unauthorized videos

    Automated filter

    MySpace will use software to monitor videos posted to the site in a bid to block unauthorised use of copyrighted content. The social networking giant will use technology to analyse videos' audio tracks to identify infringing posts. The move is intended to placate the big copyright-holding music and entertainment industries, …

    Music and Media 12 Feb 2007, 21:44