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9th March 2007 Archive

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  • Former Wipro salesman sues for £1m in commission

    Says it didn't shell out for outsourcing deal

    A salesman who helped Wipro, India's largest outsourcing firm, win the "mother of all outsourcing deals" to supply IT services to Shell is suing the firm for unpaid commission on the deal. Paul van den Berg, a business development manager at Wipro Limited in the UK between July 2003 and February 2005, is suing Wipro Ltd, the …

    Law 9 Mar 2007, 00:02

  • Vultures circle South by Southwest

    SXSW The internet, like, rocks

    For the first time in its esteemed history, The Register has deigned it appropriate to despatch journalists to cover the South By Southwest interactive, film and music conference in Austin, Texas. Over the next week, a SWAT team comprising this reporter and Austin native Ashlee Vance will be sniffing out all that's current, …

    Music and Media 9 Mar 2007, 00:43

  • Driving on the right side of the code

    Column Test-driven development

    Perhaps one of the most interesting things about TDD is not the specification-oriented and design-centred role in which testing is employed, but the amount of explanation it requires as a term. And I don't just mean expanding the abbreviation to Test-Driven Development or Test-Driven Design, as opposed to, say, …

    Developer 9 Mar 2007, 01:08

  • Last month's root-server attack revisited

    Net safe thanks to technology called Anycast

    Last month's attack on at least six of the net's root servers was formidable, but thanks to the implementation of a technology designed to protect the infrastructure, only two were affected, according to a factsheet issued today by ICANN. The DDoS attack flooded the servers with a stunning amount of data, as much as 1 Gbps at …

    Telecoms 9 Mar 2007, 01:57

  • Gateway duo found guilty of ancient securities fraud

    How not to hit the numbers

    Two senior beancounters at Gateway cooked the books in 2000 in an attempt to keep Wall Street analysts happy. John Todd, the ex-chief financial officer, and Robert Manza, the PC maker's fomer controller, also illegally swept bad news about the company under the carpet. Yesterday they were found guilty of engaging in a …

    Law 9 Mar 2007, 02:09

  • Britain's Tories love open source (true)

    All aboard the Osbornesource bandwagon!

    George Osborne, Britain's shadow chancellor of the exchequer, has stuck the Conservative Party's banner firmly on the internet bandwagon. Speaking at the Royal Society of Arts yesterday, he applauded the "democratisation of information" brought about by the internet. And he championed the Open Source movement by stating how …

    Government 9 Mar 2007, 05:21

  • Yahoo! red-faced! over! curry! blog! ripoff!

    Blames its out-saucer

    Yahoo was left mumbling apologies in multiple languages this week after it emerged that it had lifted curry recipes from the blog of an Indian housewife. The search and info megalith launched its Malayalam language portal last month. The language is mainly spoken in the Southern Indian state of Kerala. As any curry afficianado …

    Bootnotes 9 Mar 2007, 10:10

  • SanDisk downplays SDHC card speed ratings

    SanDisk is to add a 8GB SDHC memory card to its Ultra II line-up in June, but it's already sowing the seeds of confusion by claiming a range of speeds for the card in addition to the standard SDHC rating. SanDisk said the card's SDHC speed Class is 4, guaranteeing a 4MBps sustained data transfer rate. The company claimed …

    Reg Hardware 9 Mar 2007, 10:14

  • Management 'scared' by open source

    EclipseCon Suits petrified of covert open-source developers

    Fear is stalking the corridors of corporate power, as executives sweat over the legal exposure caused by developers using open source software. And the suits are resorting to play-it-safe legal advice and draconian management techniques in a vain attempt to stop open source crossing their frontier. Tactics include blocking …

    Developer 9 Mar 2007, 10:17

  • Microsoft admits WGA update phones home

    Click cancel to continue

    Microsoft has admitted that the latest update to its Windows Genuine Advantage program will phone back to Redmond even if the user clicks cancel. WGA is meant to help Redmond fight piracy, but has been criticised on privacy grounds and because previous versions have incorrectly labelled people with genuine software as pirates …

    Software 9 Mar 2007, 10:23

  • Employers liable for workplace homophobic abuse

    Company stumps up £118,000 after 'cream puff' slur

    Employers are liable for the effects that homophobic abuse masquerading as banter has on workers, according to an Employment Tribunal ruling. The Scottish ruling came just after a US case in which name calling was also penalised. Three weeks ago, a Glasgow Employment Tribunal ruled against a firm in which an employee was …

    Business 9 Mar 2007, 10:29

  • MedTab fulfils Xerox predictions

    It's not a tablet, OK, it's a pad

    Emanotec's newly launched MedTab has at long last realised the predictions of the future of mobile computing made years ago by Xerox Parc. Tabs, such as a watch or pager; pads, for working heads-down; and screens, for displaying or viewing data, all made up Xerox's vision. And while the screen and the tab have been with us …

    Reg Hardware 9 Mar 2007, 10:31

  • Tech industry outlines women's day initiatives

    Launches F_email

    Cisco has jumped on Thursday's International Women's Day bandwagon with the launch of F_email - a project to improve women's technology skills. The network and communications giant believes women, particularly in the Middle East, Africa, Eastern Europe, and Latin America "all have one thing in common: a desire to improve their …

    Business 9 Mar 2007, 10:36

  • IT outsourcing not catching on with small.biz

    Why are they missing the boat?

    Small firms are falling behind in outsourcing IT functions, a new survey has revealed. According to research by the Irish Computer Society (ICS), IT outsourcing has become common practice in Irish organisations, with some 72 per cent taking advantage of the services. Smaller IT departments, however, appear to be holding on to …

    Small Biz 9 Mar 2007, 10:52

  • O2 offers smart-phone buyers Graphite

    O2 has begun selling the XDA Graphite, the Asus-made Wi-Fi and 3G Windows Mobile smart phone that emerged way back in October 2006 in US Federal Communications Commission filings.   Graphite packs in a tri-band GSM/GPRS radio in addition to its 3G link. Bluetooth too. It has a 65,536-colour display and a two-megapixel …

    Reg Hardware 9 Mar 2007, 11:00

  • EC agrees to cut carbon, fumbles renewables deal

    Making progress

    The European Commission has agreed to reduce carbon emissions by 20 per cent below 1990 levels by 2020. The agreement was announced at a climate change summit in Brussels. EU president Angela Merkel said Europe would cut its emissions even further, to 30 per cent below 1990 levels, if the bigger global producers of CO2 such as …

    Science 9 Mar 2007, 11:03

  • Act on accessibility now, before it hurts

    Comment You could be next in the firing line

    There are two cases, that I am aware of, moving through the courts in the US relating to accessibility of IT solutions. The first is being brought by a customer of target.com. Target.com is the ecommerce arm of Target that has a US-wide chain of department stores. The design of the website makes it inaccessible to the blind, …

    Business 9 Mar 2007, 11:08

  • Symantec buys compliance firm

    Brit-run start-up snapped up

    Symantec is buying 4FrontSecurity, a small compliance company based in Reston, Virginia, which was started by British-educated Christopher Parker and Steve Crutchley. The firm makes software which conducts questionnaires with security staff to ensure companies are complying with necessary privacy and compliance regulations. …

    Security 9 Mar 2007, 11:20

  • Palm hires iPod guru

    Take that, Apple

    Three weeks ago, Palm CEO Ed Colligan described Apple's iPhone as "a highly developed media player, which happens to include a phone". But that doesn't mean he's being complacent. According to the New York Times, Palm has hired former Apple alumini Paul Mercer to work on a new line of products. In 2001, Mercer's Pixo design …

    Mobile 9 Mar 2007, 11:27

  • MS skips March Patch Tuesday

    Nothing to see here, please move along

    Microsoft announced on Thursday that doesn't plan to issue any security updates next week in a rare break from its regular monthly Patch Tuesday update cycle. Redmond will, however, be making its regular monthly update to the Microsoft Windows Malicious Software Removal Tool and issuing a number of non-security related high- …

    Security 9 Mar 2007, 11:39

  • BOFH: The wild smut chase

    Episode 9 Ensuring data safety

    Scene: The rooftop of the building at dusk "Ahhhh smell that," I say to the PFY as we look out at the London skyline. "The fresh London air tinged with a touch of diesel, a hint of autumn chill, and a liberal dash of the kebab shop down the road." "Greatest city in the world!" the PFY says. "And you know, standing up here, …

    BOFH 9 Mar 2007, 11:43

  • Aliens shun GM crops

    Lizards love organic

    The reason why visiting aliens tend to abduct American citizens but only trample on corn fields in Europe has been blamed on genetically modified crops. It seems the grey lizards are worried about carrying contaminated genetic material back to their own worlds. Aliens are avoiding creating crop circles in fields containing GM …

    Biology 9 Mar 2007, 12:01

  • New OpenSolaris distribution for developers

    Comment Sun launches products for web infrastructure on Solaris 10

    Sun Microsystems has announced a new set of products and services targeting developers, startups, and internet companies seeking to build and deploy their web infrastructure on Solaris 10. The three offerings are Solaris Express, Developer Edition, Solaris + AMP (Apache/MySQL/PERL or PHP), and an expanded Sun Startup Essentials …

    Servers 9 Mar 2007, 12:06

  • Russians ready Tsar-studded Nokia 8800

    I'm Lenin on a lampost at the corner of the street...

    And what mobile telephone will Moscow's most fashionable oligarchs be clasping to their ears this spring? If Russian handset supplier Isse has its way, its re-styled Nokia 8800, the Monaco, that's what. The two models strutting out on Isse's website reveal a pair of regal designs that hark back to a former era of the Tsar, St …

    Reg Hardware 9 Mar 2007, 12:10

  • School email's out across UK

    School's been blown to pieces

    7,500 UK schools using the email services of RM Plc, the UK's largest education technology supplier, have been without communications this week. RM's EasyMail Plus service collapsed last weekend during an upgrade it was performing to deal with mushrooming levels of spam. Billy McNeil, development director of RM Plc, said the …

    Public Sector 9 Mar 2007, 12:27

  • Beam-me-up-Scotty's home town plans memorial

    It's a still life Jim, but not as we know it

    The Scottish town of Linlithgow is building a memorial to its most famous, albeit fictional, resident. For Linlithgow is the birthplace of Montgomery Scott, more usually known as "Scotty", the Star Trek engineer. The exhibition will showcase actor James Doohan's original costume, various personal items his family has donated, …

    Entertainment 9 Mar 2007, 12:39

  • Friendly fire mixup: MS identifies Windows as Mac

    Updated Virtual intruder disarmed

    In what might be described as a "Friendly Fire" incident, Microsoft software has identified a copy of Windows as a hostile operating system - belonging to enemy Apple forces. The host software, Virtual PC 2007, promptly disabled the intruder. It's not the first time Microsoft has incorrectly identified its own software - and …

    Software 9 Mar 2007, 12:54

  • Apple 'MacBook Mini' to lose HDD, gain Flash?

    Premium product

    Rumours that Apple is working on a sub-notebook computer were given weight this week when a Wall Street analyst claimed the ultra-compact MacBook will use Flash storage. American Technology Research analyst Shaw Wu wrote and told investors: "This is a new sub-notebook form factor that will use NAND Flash as primary storage. …

    Reg Hardware 9 Mar 2007, 13:00

  • F5 expands DevCentral

    Free up developer communities

    Social software tools seem to be fast becoming the communications medium of choice when it comes to companies getting mindshare within the developer community. So much so that it will be interesting to see how many of them move in that direction in their approach to developing applications for others. F5 Networks has been …

    Developer 9 Mar 2007, 13:02

  • Sony to bring 'PS2-less' PS3 to US, Japan?

    Europe just the first step, newspaper suggests

    Europe may be the first region to get PlayStation 3 consoles that lack the PlayStation 2 Emotion Engine chip. It has been claimed other territories will also get the machine later this year as Sony strives to boost its profitability. So says a Nikkei newspaper report, by way of Reuters. It alleged the move was being made to …

    Reg Hardware 9 Mar 2007, 13:24

  • Man claims to have made love to over 30 cars

    Website shows how to really pop the trunk

    A British man has confessed to making love to over 30 different cars and setting up a website to explain his techniques to the masses. It was British tabloid The Sun which today lifted the bonnet on people who love cars – a little too much. It quoted the story of Chris, apparently a 38 year old from the West Country, who …

    Bootnotes 9 Mar 2007, 13:49

  • Trio suspended for putting 'vagina' into Monologues

    Talking out of your..oh, wait

    Three high school students in the US have been suspended from school for saying "vagina". This sounds silly, but gets even sillier when you learn that they said the word during a reading of "The Vagina Monologues". The John Jay High School in New York state says that the girls have not been punished for using the word, but …

    Bootnotes 9 Mar 2007, 13:57

  • Hauppauge WinTV Nova-TD USB TV tuner

    Review Digital telly on the move

    Digital TV isn't that easy to pick up on the go, but Hauppauge's Nova-TD has a trick up its sleeve to improve reception. It crams two tuners into its USB-connected casing and can draw on the inputs from both to create a better signal. If your coverage is fine, however, you can just use it as a twin-tuner, and as it's …

    Reg Hardware 9 Mar 2007, 14:20

  • HP crosses blades with IBM

    Not so much a Cold War, more a Cooling War

    The server performance battle has shifted to power dissipation. HP now claims not that its latest blade servers run database benchmarks or whatever faster than IBM, but that they put out less heat and require less airflow, thanks to "zoned cooling" and "thermal logic". The company is also touting numbers from market …

    Servers 9 Mar 2007, 14:49

  • Virgin threatens Sky while Skype founder goes mile high

    To subscribe to The Register's weekly newsletter - seven days of IT in a single hit - click here

    Tory boy's techie meander Have you heard the one about the Tory who got a bit techie? George Osborne, Britain's shadow chancellor of the exchequer has expressed his love of the open source movement by stating how the British government should save money by ditching its conventional software licenses. WorldCom repercussions …

    Business 9 Mar 2007, 15:09

  • Sony unwraps shot-sharing Wi-Fi digicam

    Sony has brought the wonder of wireless to its Cyber-shot digital camera family. This week it showed off the six-megapixel DSC-G1 with built-in 802.11b/g Wi-Fi. The other features are impressive too: 3.5in LCD, 2GB of on-board memory, Zeiss 3x optical zoom lens, anti-blur technology, ISO 1000 sensetivity and a new shooting …

    Reg Hardware 9 Mar 2007, 15:11

  • Google Earth raises hell with Mount Hitler name slip

    Technical accident enrages local mayor

    The mayor of the German town of Bad Toelz, Germany, is angry with Google Earth for its reference to a nearby "Mount Hitler". The official name for the 1,205 metre peak near the Bavarian town is Heigelkopf. But for a short time during the Third Reich it was named Mount Hitler. The municipality of Wackersberg, like many other …

    Science 9 Mar 2007, 15:18

  • Airbus falls to first ever loss

    Delayed A380 blamed

    Airbus has posted the first loss in its corporate history, blaming delays to the A380 superjumbo. Joint chief executive Louis Gallois told the BBC it was the worst year in Airbus's life. The company has already announced 10,000 job losses to cope with the two year delay to its primary project. Although Airbus sold a record …

    Financial News 9 Mar 2007, 15:37

  • Orange votes for Big Brother sponsorship

    It's a phone-in vote on phone-in voting

    There's been a lot of controversy about dubious premium rate phone-ins connected to TV shows this week, but that hasn't stopped Orange setting up a telephone vote for staff to decide whether or not it should sponsor the mother and father of all telephone voting shows - Big Brother. We were tipped off via premium rate email by a …

    Mobile 9 Mar 2007, 16:17

  • Borat scares foreigners with text messages

    Letters While making love to his car

    Before we kick off this week's musings, a couple more thoughts on the UK's plans to scrap the mooted ID card for youths. "It seems that the UK's IT folks doesn't have the MacGyver-like skills that it takes to survive a simple US helpdesk position, much less design and build systems on time and under budget. Tony" Easy there …

    Letters 9 Mar 2007, 16:18

  • Wife of Chinese cyber-dissident sues Yahoo!

    Cyber-lick spittle urged to apologise

    The wife of a jailed Chinese cyber-dissident has travelled to the US to sue Yahoo! for its role in facilitating his prosecution. Wang Xianoning was sentenced to 10 years imprisonment in 2003 for posting what Beijing claimed were subversive materials on the net. His wife, Yu Ling, flew into the US this week with the aim of suing …

    Law 9 Mar 2007, 16:20

  • Arcam announces audiophile iPod dock

    UK hi-fi specialist Arcam has come up with an iPod dock that has a novel way of maximising the diminutive player's sound quality - it doesn't charge the battery unless it really has to. 'Madness,' I hear you cry. But there's method too. Arcam claimed its research showed a dip in sound quality while the iPod's battery is being …

    Reg Hardware 9 Mar 2007, 16:41

  • HP goes lifecycle modelling

    The model behind SAP's SOA

    The close relationship between HP and SAP, which led to the joint announcement of the latter's Enterprise SOA effort, has spawned a new applications development and deployment lifecycle model from HP's Bristol Labs – where much of the development work for SAP was carried out. It now looks ready for a wider public. There are …

    Developer 9 Mar 2007, 16:54

  • PC World Wintel boxes suffer from Mac envy

    Even the Vista-friendly ones

    UK computer superstore chain PC World clearly thinks its customers are suffering on the sly from Mac envy. How else can we explain how the pictures of PCs on its online store and in its catalogues all show Mac OS X screenshots? Register Hardware reader Matt Kyte sent us a pic he took of a PC World catalogue page. On offer, a …

    Reg Hardware 9 Mar 2007, 17:13

  • If surgery was like Wikipedia...

    And other Cult Horrors...

    Re: Farewell, Wikipedia? You may have seen this parody dotted about the web in the past couple of days. What better to lead off our postbag. It was submitted by Marco, who explains below how he came to compose it. What better way to lead off the Wikipedia corner of the postbag. If surgery was like Wikipedia: Surgipedia. …

    Letters 9 Mar 2007, 17:53

  • Daylight saving bug in Java eclipses Sun

    Déjà vu

    Sun has warned of a bug in its Java software platforms stemming from problems involving an update module designed to address the earlier start of Daylight Saving Time in the US this year. As part of the Energy Policy Act in August 2005, Congress moved the start of Daylight Saving Time to the second Sunday in March, roughly …

    Software 9 Mar 2007, 18:38

  • How to Save Internet Radio

    Opinion Start transmission...

    Consumers and webcasters are outraged at the license fees that the Copyright Royalty Board (the CRB) has determined will be charged under the webcasting statutory license in the United States. Everyone except spokespeople for the record labels expect that these fees will drive nearly all independent webcasters out of business …

    Music and Media 9 Mar 2007, 19:28

  • Breathe scoops up Biscit assets

    Smooth migration promised

    Breathe Networks has bought the business of the collapsed UK ISP Biscit Internet. In other words, it is taking on the customers, but not the debts of the company which went into administration earlier this week. Terms are undisclosed, but Breathe says the acquisition represents a "significant investment" for the company. …

    Telecoms 9 Mar 2007, 20:30

  • How many VMs are on your LAN – and how sure are you?

    Server sprawl is virtually back

    Server virtualisation is taking companies back to the bad old days when they had no idea how many PCs and servers they had, because employees were buying them unchecked. Now it is all too easy to run up a new virtual Windows server, without realising that under Microsoft's rules, each virtual machine (VM) needs its own software …

    Servers 9 Mar 2007, 21:48

  • Blog boy Scoble crippled by BBQ crisis

    SXSW Phone loss induced twittering

    People with little to do collapsed in a panic earlier this week when cat-feeding diarist Robert Scoble revealed that he's given up blogging for barbeque. The Scobelizer has instituted a one-week blogging ban due to fears that the SXSW music, movie and technology festival in Austin will prove too demanding. "I’m just snowed …

    Music and Media 9 Mar 2007, 21:54

  • Intel powers down four-core Xeon

    Sun stroked

    Proving that it no longer aspires to making chips hotter than the surface of the sun, Intel has pushed out new, low-voltage versions of its best Xeon chip. Server customers will now have access to a pair of 50W Xeon chips. The products consume between 35 per cent and 60 per cent less power than existing four-core Xeons which …

    PCs & Chips 9 Mar 2007, 22:17