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8th March 2007 Archive

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  • Playtech parties on, hooks up with the Chinese Communist Youth League

    House of Cards Party off for Partygaming

    Reds see green Leading gaming software provider Playtech announced in a press release that it has signed an agreement with Hong Kong-based Foundation Group Ltd. to provide P2P gaming software to the Chinese Communist Youth League (CYL). The CYL has apparently been given responsibility for implementing a “Green Internet Policy” …

    Law 8 Mar 2007, 00:09

  • eBay goes hacker hunting in Romania

    Exclusive Fraud rising at internet speed

    More than two months after breaching eBay's employee servers, a hacker who calls himself Vladuz remains at large, despite the best efforts of the online auctioneer's security team and officials with law enforcement agencies in the US and eastern Europe. So far, little public information is known for sure about Vladuz, who on …

    Crime 8 Mar 2007, 01:11

  • Cuban gets stuck into YouTube, demands it squeals

    'Talk, morons'

    Attention-seeking tech billionaire Mark Cuban has set the legal dogs on YouTube, demanding it snitch on users who uploaded video which one of his investments owns the rights to. When Google bought YouTube last year, Cuban famously sniped the $1.65bn swoop was "moronic". The attention deficit disorder-pleasing video vault's …

    Music and Media 8 Mar 2007, 01:18

  • Developers tell Eclipse why it sucks

    EclipseCon Respond to call

    Eclipse spent today weathering criticism from developers when it dared ask: "What sucks about Eclipse?" A day after unveiling plans for tools to help build Web 2.0 applications, Eclipse was dinged by developers for giving them a dated and confusing interface. Developers attending an EclipseCon open mic session in Santa Clara …

    Developer 8 Mar 2007, 03:04

  • Adobe edits the development cycle

    Interview Less bugs, more weekends off

    For years the Adobe Photoshop team has been trying to get away from the traditional death march to a more agile development style. For its CS3 release, it made the jump, with the help of VP Dave Story. The result? More weekends off, and a third fewer bugs to fix. Mary Branscombe quizzed co-architect Russell Williams on how they …

    Developer 8 Mar 2007, 09:24

  • Valentine's Day SMS refund nipped in the bud

    Complaint line dealing with other complaints

    Punters who paid £1.50 to send an anonymous Valentine's Day message to the object of their affections (assuming they had a suitably equipped and configured handset) were disappointed to find that a technical fault prevented its delivery. They were also disappointed to find that Eckoh, the operator currently taking flack for its …

    Telecoms 8 Mar 2007, 10:00

  • Italian gambling ban breaks EU law, rules European Court

    'Incompatible with community principles'

    Italy cannot use criminal law to stop gaming companies licensed in another EU nation from taking bets in the country, the European Court of Justice (ECJ) ruled Tuesday. Italian restrictions are incompatible with Community principles, the court said. The ruling has been welcomed by gaming operators as a sign that European …

    Law 8 Mar 2007, 10:08

  • NASA ejects nappy-wearing astronaut

    Back to the Navy for you, Nowak

    NASA has fired Lisa Nowak, the astronaut who was charged last month with the attempted kidnapping of a woman she saw as a rival for the affections of fellow astronaut Bill Oefelein. Nowak is reported to have driven 1,000 miles to confront Colleen Shipman. According to the BBC, she wore a nappy to avoid having to make toilet …

    Space 8 Mar 2007, 10:24

  • EADS wins fire contract

    £200m system upgrade

    Communities and Local Government (CLG) has awarded the contract to supply the Fire and Rescue Service with the infrastructure for nine regional control centres to EADS Defence & Security Systems. Announcing the contract, fire minister Angela Smith said it is worth £200m over eight years, and that it marks a major step in the …

    Public Sector 8 Mar 2007, 10:24

  • NEC nears laptop-friendly natural light LCD

    Screens you can use in the sunshine, anyone?

    NEC has extended its range of LCD panels that can be read even in bright sunlight even closer to standard notebook screen sizes, bringing closer, we hope, the day when we can use laptops outdoors without having to squint like crazy. The Japanese company claims its "super-transmissive natural light TFT" technology can still …

    Reg Hardware 8 Mar 2007, 10:41

  • Digital data will increase sixfold by 2010: study

    988 billion gigabytes to be stored

    Imagine 12 stacks of Harry Potter books reaching from Earth to the Sun - that's equivalent to the amount of data stored on digital devices within three years. New research suggests digital information will occupy a staggering 988 billion gigabytes of storage space in 2010 - more than six times its current quantity. It seems …

    Channel Register 8 Mar 2007, 10:48

  • MPs: UK defence project was crap

    Bowman skewered

    Another UK defence procurement project has been excoriated in yet another damning Parliamentary report. The project under fire this time is the Bowman military communications infrastructure, a perennial favourite among connoisseurs of arms-procurement cockups. The finger-pointing group of MPs today is the Commons Public …

    Public Sector 8 Mar 2007, 11:07

  • Intel outlines PRAM production plan

    Flash-beater less than a year away?

    Intel could begin punching out Flash-busting phase-change memory chips by the end of the year, the processor giant has announced. Its customers could get sample 128Mb chips as early as Q1 2008, it added. Phase-change memory uses a material called chalcogenide glass to record data. Applying heat to the substance causes it to …

    Reg Hardware 8 Mar 2007, 11:08

  • Turkey blocks YouTube

    And France bans happy slapping

    Turkey has taken steps to prevent access to YouTube after a video insulting Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, the founder of modern Turkey, was posted on the site. Turk Telecom took the action on orders from a court. The telco said it would lift the ban, with the approval of the court, if the offending video was removed. YouTube has seen …

    Bootnotes 8 Mar 2007, 11:14

  • Best Buy and Microsoft target SMBs

    Online ecommerce? No sweat

    Microsoft and Best Buy have announced a partnership to meet the needs of small business customers who would like to establish a web presence but are reluctant to create sites on their own. Best Buy for Business will enable small businesses to purchase subscription cards for Microsoft Office Live services - designed to help …

    Small Biz 8 Mar 2007, 11:18

  • Game sends arcade enemies into the real world

    But only Treo owners can see 'em...

    Palm OS games developer ToySpring has updated its novel shoot-'em-up Arcade Reality - a game that superimposed alien attackers onto the output of a Palm Treo's digicam. Not so much virtual reality as altered reality, ToySpring's title uses the real world as a backdrop for its arcade action. The game detects changes in the …

    Reg Hardware 8 Mar 2007, 11:39

  • Samsung upgrades UMPC for Vista

    Samsung has tweaked its Q1 ultra-mobile PC (UMPC) for Microsoft's Windows Vista operating system, boosting the handheld computer's specs to increase its processing performance. The new model, the Q1P, sports a 1GHz ultra-low voltage Intel Pentium M processor in place of the original Q1's 900MHz Celeron M. It's also got 1GB …

    Reg Hardware 8 Mar 2007, 12:11

  • NPfIT champion suspended after speaking out

    Fujitsu suspends 'folk hero'

    A prime mover in the much maligned National Programme for IT has been suspended from his job at its lead supplier after speaking openly about its problems. Andrew Rollerson, healthcare head for Fujitsu, which has the lion's share of contracts to supply the £12.4bn NPfIT, was suspended on 13 February after Computer Weekly …

    Public Sector 8 Mar 2007, 13:06

  • Godless coins released in US mint cock-up

    Golden dollars

    America is braced for a nationwide treasure hunt as the Philadelphia mint confirmed it had made a mistake when minting some of a new batch of dollar coins. The coins were supposed to have the traditional "E Pluribus Unum" inscription, along with "In God We Trust" around the edges. But due to an unholy error, both inscriptions …

    Bootnotes 8 Mar 2007, 13:07

  • Borat's human rights restricted in Kazakhstan, US says

    No, really

    The forced closure of Sacha AliG Baron Borat Cohen's Borat.kz website has been listed by the US State Department as an example of the Kazakhstani government's restrictions on freedom of speech and other human rights abuses. The department issued strong criticism of the country's administration, pointing out that it has no …

    Bootnotes 8 Mar 2007, 13:10

  • Police investigate e-tailer as site goes off air

    Exclusive PCPartsAndMore No More?

    Shortlived ecommerce outfit PCPartsandMore.co.uk disappeared from the web yesterday afternoon as Dabs.com accused the site of lifting its HTML and Trading Standards and police both confirmed they were investigating the operation. The site's disappearance followed days of mounting concern about the firm in forums. Posters …

    Channel Register 8 Mar 2007, 14:25

  • Who classifies the bugs?

    Management tricks that work for developers

    I enjoyed Mary Branscombe's piece on Adobe development practices (here). However, one point that occurred to me (after a misspent past life in software QA) is how do you stop coders marking bugs as closed (or reclassifying them as "features" or "enhancement requests") in order to get back to the fun stuff? How much power does …

    Developer 8 Mar 2007, 14:27

  • 3 starts giving away content

    Advertising-supported video from April

    Mobile media company (aka: network operator) 3 will start giving away video content in April, paying for it with carefully-placed advertisements from companies such as Microsoft and Unilever. In the past, 3 has been accused of giving away network services in a desperate attempt to gain customers - an expensive strategy, but one …

    Mobile 8 Mar 2007, 14:28

  • Smut spam drops to all-time low

    Pr0n pwned

    Spam messages punting pornographic websites dropped in frequency to reach an all time low last month. Adult spam represented only three per cent of the total amount of spam sent, while overall junk mail levels remained virtually unchanged, according to a study by net security firm Symantec. Health, financial and product spam …

    Spam 8 Mar 2007, 14:52

  • South Korea to detail robot etiquette

    Seoul writes for automatons

    The South Korean government is working on a set of guiding principles to outline how people and robots should interact. A panel is working on the commandments Robots Ethics Charter and is due to report back later this year. The five member team includes a science fiction writer and could well mirror Isaac Asimov's three laws of …

    Law 8 Mar 2007, 14:58

  • Carphone Warehouse hangs up on Big Brother

    Omniscient entity seeks commercial backer

    Carphone Warehouse has pulled its sponsorship of Big Brother after the racism allegations which plagued the last series of the celebrity-obsessed voyeurfest. While choreographed fist fights, on-screen nudity, and under the covers blow jobs failed to raise the national ire, a few ill-judged comments have caused a national outcry …

    Mobile 8 Mar 2007, 15:01

  • Volunteers sought to scrutinise UK e-voting trials

    Under the microscope

    A campaign group is seeking volunteers to scrutinse e-voting trials during May's local elections in the UK. The Open Rights Group (ORG) is looking for people prepared to "devote their day to democracy" and become an Electoral Commission accredited election observer for the e-voting pilots on Thursday 3 May. The ORG will provide …

    Public Sector 8 Mar 2007, 15:06

  • Unhelpful Microsoft help denies helpless millions help

    Stob What does this button do?

    Here is a little contest, to which all fellow Windows programmers are invited. What is the API function LockWindowUpdate for? How might you use it? You are definitely allowed, nay encouraged, to use the official Microsoft documentation. Here is the function description on MSDN, and here is the same documentation on the …

    Verity Stob 8 Mar 2007, 15:16

  • ICSTIS denies it's a watchdog without teeth

    Phone-ins to be licensed

    Icstis chairman Sir Alistair Graham denied he was running a watchdog which had lost its bite at a press conference today. He denied Icstis was reactive rather than proactive, pointing to the investigation into Call TV Quiz Services as an example. He said the regulator could impose fines of up to £250,000 as well as other …

    Telecoms 8 Mar 2007, 16:19

  • Biscit goes titsup

    Crumbles into administration

    Company insolvency specialist Piper Thompson has confirmed it is handling the administration of broadband provider Biscit. The London-based ISP has been busy denying speculation it is having financial problems after refund cheques to customers bounced, and staff were laid off in January. The firm also lost executive director …

    Telecoms 8 Mar 2007, 16:48

  • Zicplay out to wow with Ewoo wireless iPod remote

    Here's Ewoo, the distinctly iPod-like iPod remote control unit from Swiss accessory maker Zicplay. The remote communicates by 2.4GHz radio to the docked iPod, sending commands one way and picking up what's on the iPod to allow you to navigate through songs, pics and videos. You could just bung a Bluetooth adaptor on the end …

    Reg Hardware 8 Mar 2007, 17:44

  • Skype founder's high-flying hanky-panky

    Antics run into turbulence

    As an entrepreneur, Janus Friis fancies himself a disrupter. But that term could just as aptly apply to his high-flying hanky-panky aboard a recent transatlantic flight with the stepdaughter of one-time 007 actor Roger Moore. According to the Mail on Sunday, the billionaire founder of Kazaa, Skype and Joost, with the help of …

    Bootnotes 8 Mar 2007, 18:56

  • LexisNexis hacker jailed and fined

    Celebrity snoop caged

    A Massachusetts hacker who pleaded guilty to conspiring to commit computer fraud and identity theft has been jailed for a year. Justin A Perras, 20, of New Bedford, was one of five co-defendants who confessed to hacking into the systems of LexisNexis, the law database giant. A combination of social-engineering tricks and …

    Crime 8 Mar 2007, 19:19

  • OpenPGP presentation bug unscrambled

    Signature verification vuln

    A flaw in the way encryption programs present data to users makes it possible for a block of unsigned and unencrypted data to appear no different to users from encrypted data in a message. The bug does not stem from a flaw in encryption but in the way in which OpenPGP, the standard for transmitting PGP-encrypted data, is …

    Enterprise Security 8 Mar 2007, 19:32

  • Israelis produce miniature Terminator

    Pint sized robo-assassin talks the talk, can't walk the walk

    Israeli killer-robot maker Elbit Systems today unveiled the "Viper," a small ground-crawling combat machine "roughly the size of a small television". The tiny war-bot is said to capable of engaging enemies with bursts of laser-sighted automatic fire, or even grenades. In what can only be a remarkable, chilling coincidence …

    Science 8 Mar 2007, 19:32

  • Electric cars may not be solution to all world problems

    Flame storm fails to alter reality

    Recent Reg coverage of the green motoring field has been sternly criticised by some for too brusquely dismissing the fully-electric car, so we're back today with a look at battery-powered wheels. Yesterday's piece said: "Unfortunately, the limits of current battery technology mean fully-electric vehicles with petrol-car …

    Science 8 Mar 2007, 19:42

  • Blu-ray provides price cut agony to HD DVD device sales

    Sony’s announcement this week of a new Blu-ray device in time for the Summer season in the US is more about stopping people going out and buying a HD DVD player, than making more sales of its existing device. In pictures shown of the device on various gadget websites, it’s like someone took the original and just shrunk it …

    Reg Hardware 8 Mar 2007, 20:24

  • Microsoft turns its guns to IPTV surveys and statistics

    Analysis Ominous leaks

    Microsoft may have continuing problems on the home front where AT&T slowly grinds out its IPTV rollout, but in France it is winning plaudits. T-Online France has been installing IPTV at its Club Internet subsidiary using Microsoft software and says it has been ranked number one in features by both benchmarking organizations …

    Telecoms 8 Mar 2007, 22:29

  • SEC bars trading in 35 spam-touted companies

    Rampages through the Pink Sheets

    The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) today hit back at 'pump and dump' fraudsters by suspending trading in 35 companies that have been the "subject of recent and repeated spam email campaigns". Next step of its pleasingly named "Operation Spamalot", is to find the perpetrators and bring them to justice. All the …

    Spam 8 Mar 2007, 23:42

  • Vonage ordered to pay $58m in Verizon patent flap

    Vonage 'delighted' damage wasn't more

    A US District Court jury said Vonage Holdings violated three patents held by Verizon Communications and ordered the VoIP telephony company to pay $58m in damages and annual royalties. If upheld on appeal, the award could represent a considerable crimp in operations for Vonage, which last year racked up a net loss of $286m on …

    VoIP 8 Mar 2007, 23:49