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1st March 2007 Archive

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  • IBM heirs battle 'my mother is my girlfriend' cash claim

    Big Blues see red over pink adoption

    A lesbian woman who had a long term relationship with one of the daughters of IBM president Thomas J. Watson Jr is fighting for her right to a share of his legacy. Patricia Spado lived with Olive Watson for more than 10 years until they separated in 1992. Watson adopted Spado under Maine law in 1991. At 44 years old, Spado was …

    Law 1 Mar 2007, 00:54

  • Solaris offers fix for zero-day vuln

    Worm turns

    Sun Microsystems has urged users to update and secure their Solaris 10 installations after a recently discovered zero-day vulnerability was found in the wild. Sun has posted an online workaround to disable the Solaris 10 telnet service, while advising users to apply patches or protect user accounts using firewalls or IP …

    Enterprise Security 1 Mar 2007, 00:55

  • The Ruby Way

    Book review For advanced Ruby programmers

    It is, perhaps, inevitable that the first code you write in a new programming looks suspiciously like code from the language you already know. I can remember my own first Java applications looking suspiciously procedural and C-like. In making those first moves into object orientation, it takes a while before it all makes sense. …

    Developer 1 Mar 2007, 05:48

  • Israelis vote for Eurovision nuclear apocalypse

    'Push the Button' unlikely to top Iranian charts

    Israelis have "voted overwhelmingly" to send a song having a poke at Iran's nuclear ambitions to this year's Eurovision Song Contest, the BBC reports. In a move likely to have Mahmoud Ahmadinejad choking on his Rice Krispies this morning, Teapacks' Push the Button will wow the Helsinki crowds in May with lines such as: "The …

    Entertainment 1 Mar 2007, 09:28

  • Airbus details restructuring plan

    Major shake-up will slash 10,000 jobs

    Airbus yesterday rolled out its "Power8" restructuring programme which will see the company shed 10,000 jobs over the next four years. The shake-up comes as the company struggles to deliver its much-heralded A380 - now roughly two years behind schedule - and in the face of "US dollar weakness" and "increased competitive …

    Business 1 Mar 2007, 09:41

  • Identity brings Microsoft and Internet 2.0 together

    Is Open ID the glue we need?

    Microsoft isn't the only one taking an interest in Open ID. AOL, Yahoo! and Digg have all announced they'll accept Open ID credentials as a way of identifying users online. But for Microsoft this is more than just a technology partnership. It could be the first real step towards creating the multi-platform, multi-system …

    Applications 1 Mar 2007, 09:47

  • BEA $13m relocation sweetener

    Ticket to ride

    BEA Systems is set to receive a $13m signing bonus for moving its HQ to San Jose's sprawling downtown from city fathers eager to woo Silicon Valley based businesses. San Jose's Redevelopment Agency has agreed to pay BEA in an effort to finally fill an office development that's been empty since construction in 2003. The cash …

    Software 1 Mar 2007, 09:49

  • PowerColor readies 'no-noise' X1950 Pro board

    Passive cooling from Arctic

    Tul has extended its range of PowerColor-brand AMD ATI Radeon X1950 Pro-based graphics cards with a passively cooled "silent" version. The card's fitted with an Arctic Cooling heatsink that's bigger than it is. The PowerColor X1950 PRO SCS3 is fitted with 256MB of GDDR 3 memory clocked at 1.38GHz and connected across a 256- …

    Reg Hardware 1 Mar 2007, 10:03

  • Schools should teach typing to prevent RSI, says TUC

    Kids need keyboard life skills

    Typing should be taught in schools as a way to prevent the suffering of tens of thousands of UK workers from repetitive strain injury (RSI), according to the Trades Union Congress (TUC). The call was made to mark RSI day, which is today. Poor typing skills are responsible for many cases of RSI, said the TUC, and these cases …

    Business 1 Mar 2007, 10:12

  • Film of dead airman was listed on eBay

    Updated: Probably came from Coalition source, not insurgents

    A film showing the naked body of a British airman was offered for sale on eBay, it emerged yesterday. The distasteful footage has since been removed from the online listings, and the police alerted. The revelations came during a preliminary hearing regarding the crash of RAF Hercules transport plane near Baghdad in 2005. The …

    Security 1 Mar 2007, 10:31

  • Unseen jurisdiction clause upheld by Court of Appeal

    Ts and Cs dispute

    A German company can fight an English customer in the German courts because its terms and conditions said that German jurisdiction applied – albeit those conditions were never sent to the English firm, the Court of Appeal ruled this week. Vertex Antennentechnik makes and sells satellite antennae and related equipment. 7E …

    Law 1 Mar 2007, 10:42

  • AMD preps PCI Express 2.0 'RV630' GPU for May?

    Mountain of Light

    May will see the arrival of AMD's 'RV630' graphics chip, it has been claimed, and the company has prepared three reference card designs for the part - two of which will support PCI Express 2.0, though only the PCIe 1.1 board may make it to market for launch. According to claims made by Chinese-language site HKEPC, the RV630 …

    Reg Hardware 1 Mar 2007, 10:43

  • Online medical training application system in chaos

    BMA bemoans 'pandemonium'

    Technical problems with an online medical training system are causing "pandemonium", according to the British Medical Association (BMA). A new electronic system for recruiting junior doctors to consultant training posts is in chaos, leaving thousands without jobs. The Medical Training Application Service, an online system …

    Public Sector 1 Mar 2007, 10:45

  • Yahoo! false! alert! drama!

    Symantec snafu now sorted

    Faulty signature updates on Wednesday resulted in Symantec's anti-virus packages falsely identifying that Yahoo! mail was contaminated by malware. The webmail service, currently in beta, was wrongly labelled as being contaminated by the Feebs worm as a result of the snafu. Symantec published a signature update later on …

    Malware 1 Mar 2007, 11:08

  • Grand Theft Auto publisher tries to cool 'hot coffee' lawsuit

    Better latte than never

    Take-Two Interactive, the publisher of the controversial Grand Theft Auto series of games may be close to settling a long running legal battle with a New York granny who attempted to sue the company after it emerged one of those games contained adult content. This week, a Manhattan District Court judge order the case to be …

    Reg Hardware 1 Mar 2007, 11:24

  • Hold your breath, save the planet

    Bristol boffins answer Branson's challenge

    Somebody call Al Gore and tell him he can leave the lights on in his house for as long as he likes: some academics in Bristol have solved the climate change crisis. Oh yes, and they want their $25m prize money from Richard Branson, thankyewverymuch. Branson and Gore joined forces at the beginning of the month to offer the …

    Biology 1 Mar 2007, 12:09

  • UK researchers reveal room-temperature graphene transistor

    You electrons - one at a time, please

    Boffins at Britain's University of Manchester have created a transistor out of an atom-thick sheet of carbon. The high-speed device is so small only one electron can pass through at once. Crucially, the transistor operates at room temperature making it potentially viable for future microprocessors. Details of the breakthrough …

    Reg Hardware 1 Mar 2007, 12:20

  • Sky takes ball and goes home

    Updated: While Virgin Media promises great things on-demand

    Customers of Virgin Media sitting down to watch Ultimate Volcano on Sky One last night were shut off a minute into the programme and presented with the following message: Thanks to Sky, the Sky One channel is no longer available. They've picked up their ball and gone home. Foul play? We think so. To have your say, visit …

    Entertainment 1 Mar 2007, 12:48

  • More money for defence research, say MPs

    Government's top boffin disagrees

    The Commons defence committee today released a report on Blighty's defence-tech research efforts, warning that there are several areas of concern. Committee chairman James Arbuthnot, a long-time cheerleader for the UK's defence industry, was quoted by the BBC as saying: "The government cannot just rely on industry to fund …

    Science 1 Mar 2007, 13:13

  • Emergency meeting on phoneline screwups

    Richard & Judy and Saturday Kitchen fingered, X Factor owns up

    Premium-rate services regulator ICSTIS has asked for an emergency meeting with broadcasters, programme makers, and service providers to discuss the issues arising from the disclosures around premium-rate competitions on Richard & Judy and BBC's Saturday Kitchen. Richard & Judy were caught asking people to dial in for the chance …

    Entertainment 1 Mar 2007, 14:36

  • Video clips go corporate

    Blue Coat adds WAN acceleration to business video

    Blue Coat Systems has added video to the list of network services it can optimise over WANs. Like most others in the internet gateway business, it used to treat video as potentially unwanted network traffic, but has picked up on its increasing use in business. "In the past you either didn't want video at all, or you didn't want …

    Networks 1 Mar 2007, 14:38

  • Xbox 360 cracked

    Bug allowed gamers to run Linux on MS box

    Hardware hackers have developed a technique to hack Microsoft's Xbox 360 gaming console so that it might be possible to run alternative operating systems on the hardware. The approach, which only works given physical access to the hardware and is strictly for fun, relies on a taking advantage of a vulnerability in the Xbox …

    Security 1 Mar 2007, 14:44

  • EU warns Microsoft of new fines

    You will comply

    The European Commission has warned Microsoft it could face further penalties over what it calls "unreasonable pricing" of interoperability information. Microsoft was ordered to make details of its protocols available to rivals when it was found guilty of anti-competitive behaviour in 2004. Today, the commission sent Microsoft a …

    Software 1 Mar 2007, 15:16

  • Sapphire Radeon X1550 graphics card

    Review Groovy graphics card and a snip at £45

    Since it bought ATI last year, AMD has been busy rebranding any number of chipsets and graphics chips in its range. Some of the instances make perfect sense while others are a cynical rebranding of an old chip. In the case of the Radeon X1050, it’s an X550 under the heatsink, so it’s clear that AMD wants the customer to …

    Reg Hardware 1 Mar 2007, 15:26

  • UK braces for lunar eclipse

    Even the moon is in the red

    For the first time since 2004 the UK is set to bask in the spooky reddish light of a full lunar eclipse, so step away from your computer and hope for clear skies. This Saturday night (3 March) the Earth will move between the sun and the moon. The Earth will cast its shadow on the moon, leaving our largest natural satellite to …

    Space 1 Mar 2007, 16:19

  • 2006 Milbloggy Award winners announced

    The what awards?

    Yesterday the lucky winners of the second Milbloggies awards were announced by JP Borda, webmaster of Milblogging.com, and inventor of the awards for the best military bloggers. Winners are decided by voting among the registered users of Borda's site, which is "the world's biggest index of military blogs." The military …

    Music and Media 1 Mar 2007, 16:47

  • Botnets punt Russian dog-barking translation spam

    9 out of 10 messages are junk

    Trojan programs, particularly those designed to steal online gaming account credentials, have become the mainstay of malware authors. According to Kaspersky Labs' Malware Evolution: 2006 Trojan code formed 90 per cent of new malicious code samples seen last year, relegating internet worms, once the mainstay of internet threats …

    Spam 1 Mar 2007, 17:36

  • YouTube rules tennis highlights 'out'

    Must be kept as secret as Oscars clips

    As YouTube cleanses itself of unofficial Oscars footage, tennis fans report that home edited videos of match highlights are also being removed from the site. These homemade highlights, often the only way fans can see video from distant, smaller tournaments, are being taken down at the request of organisations such as Tennis …

    Music and Media 1 Mar 2007, 18:02

  • Pretexting not a way of life at HP - official

    Or an investigative technique - oh, wait

    HP has entered the denial phase in its legal battle with former executive Karl Kamb. The company this week denied claims made by Kamb that it used pre-texting techniques during an internal investigation into the executive's side business selling flat panel TVs. Moreover, HP whacked back at Kamb, saying pre-texting was not a way …

    Law 1 Mar 2007, 19:34

  • Lenovo recalls 200,000 Thinkpad batteries

    Updated Sanyo-made fire hazard

    Lenovo is recalling more than 200,000 Thinkpad batteries after some almost caught fire when owners dropped their laptops. The firm alerted America's Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) when it got four reports of notebooks overheating, following a forceful impact to the corner. One owner suffered "minor eye irritation" as …

    Reg Hardware 1 Mar 2007, 19:50

  • Philips offers sensory delights for gamers

    From hypnotic fireside flicker to a tranquil blue sky

    Philips will this year release its range of amBX PC gaming peripherals, the company announced at its European Range 2007 event in Marbella, Spain this week. amBX will provide gamers with a full "sensory surround experience" by empowering game developers to use light, colour, sound, vibration and even airflow during gameplay. …

    Reg Hardware 1 Mar 2007, 20:33

  • Webmaster pays $3,300 to settle malware charges

    Promises he'll never do it again

    A webmaster is to surrender $3,300 in ill-gotten gains and refrain from making misleading claims, to settle federal charges he deceived consumers into installing spyware, dialer programs and other types of malware. Nicholas C. Albert lured unwitting computer users into installing the payload by promising a file that allowed …

    Malware 1 Mar 2007, 21:40

  • Oracle buys Hyperion, turns heat on SAP

    Mixes with new crowd

    Oracle is ending its brief acquisition lull with one of its largest software deals. The database giant will buy Hyperion Solutions, also an Oracle competitor in the business intelligence market and an important partner of SAP, for $3.3bn, or $52 a share - a handsome 21 per cent premium for stockholders. In the last three …

    Financial News 1 Mar 2007, 23:04

  • Dell ends 2006 horror with $1bn drop in PC sales

    'We will be known again'

    A sedate Dell posted fourth quarter results that didn't horrify investors even though its PC and notebook sales fell in dramatic fashion. Dell reported $14.4bn in revenue – down from $15.2bn in the same period last year. The company's net income came in at $673m, which marks quite the fall from last year's haul of $1bn. …

    Financial News 1 Mar 2007, 23:11

  • Will Google come to regret getting involved in YouTube?

    Analysis Stumble and fumble

    When we said that Google overpaid for the YouTube acquisition we were loudly pilloried and reminded that it paid, after all, only in shares. But the increasing alarm that has emerged over whether or not YouTube is a genuine phenomena and whether in fact it is simply a replacement for the piracy once led by Kazaa, threatens to …

    Music and Media 1 Mar 2007, 23:50