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15th March 2007 Archive

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  • Red Hat to pack punch on Oracle clustering?

    Analysis More than just a Linux distro

    Red Hat's Enterprise Linux (RHEL) 5 event Wednesday was something of a formality, given how long it has kept the world waiting for an update. The real news today is in the services Red Hat plans around RHEL - particularly on virtualization - in response to increased competitive pressures from Oracle, Microsoft, Novell and Sun …

    Servers 15 Mar 2007, 00:36

  • Google to anonymize user data

    It's about time

    Google is to discard some of the information it stores about user search requests in an effort to address concerns by privacy watchdogs and defend itself against government demands for data. The search giant will scrub personal information from cookies and remove some of the bits in IP addresses after that information has been …

    Security 15 Mar 2007, 00:40

  • Smut set still teaching retail crowd

    SXSW Pay to play

    The likes of Amazon.com and the Gap still have plenty to learn from pornographers, starting with lesson number one – pay your associate chums well. Many traditional retailers and even online types like Amazon hand associates who send sales their way a small percentage of the good sold as a result of a link. Pornographers, by …

    Media 15 Mar 2007, 00:47

  • Douglas Coupland on bloggers, YouTube and Bubble 2.0

    SXSW Generation X, Microserfs author spooked

    When Douglas Coupland published his seminal pre-dotcom tech satire Microserfs in 1995, based on time spent around an adolescent Microsoft it was, as he puts it, "still OK to like them". The laconic Canadian returned to overtly tech-related subjects last year with the quasi-sequel J-Pod, which chronicled the adventures of a …

    Media 15 Mar 2007, 01:20

  • Lego, Superman and the US Army

    SXSW Reg done messing with Texas

    Technology conferences are not where you would normally expect to find the US Army scouting for new recruits, but sure enough, among the web developers and at SXSW Interactive, a lone officer stood handing out pamphlets from Uncle Sam's very own booth. Doubtless the US Army will take anyone they can get, including pencil-armed …

    Media 15 Mar 2007, 04:47

  • Vodafone moves to flat-rate data on roaming

    €12 per day for 50MB of data

    Vodafone has introduced a flat rate for data in Europe; at least in the parts of Europe where Vodafone operates, of €12 for 24 hours connectivity. Squarely aimed at business users connecting their laptop computers when roaming, the service is intended to make billing simpler, as well as offering a cheaper option for data-heavy …

    Broadband 15 Mar 2007, 07:02

  • Linksys side-steps Wi-Fi limits with powerline kit

    CeBIT Backs HomePlug AV standard

    Linksys today gave tacit support to the notion that wireless networking has its limits by introducing a mains power networking adaptor based on the HomePlug AV standard. The adaptor, the PLE200 PowerLine AV, plugs into a power socket and quickly connects to other such devices forming a bridge between, say, a desktop …

    Hardware 15 Mar 2007, 09:36

  • Amazon 1-Click to rule 'em all? Not if Kiwi has his way

    The prior art of shopping

    The campaigner behind attempts to invalidate Amazon.com's controversial '1-Click' payment patent has gained access to Amazon's filings at the US Patent Office and still believes he has a case. New Zealander Peter Calveley is pursuing a reexamination of the 1-Click patent granted to Amazon. The US Patent and Trade marks Office ( …

    Law 15 Mar 2007, 09:46

  • SOA key to survival for businesses

    Adoption will make you stronger and faster, expert says

    Service oriented architecture (SOA) will make businesses faster and stronger, according to Accenture. David Nichols, global practice leader for SOA with Accenture, said companies would become more athletic if they implement SOA. "Everyone wants to have the most agile business," said Nichols. "There's an evolution under way in …

    Business 15 Mar 2007, 10:03

  • Regulator gives 'home-zone' services the go-ahead

    Mobile calls at cheaper, fixed-line rates

    Mobile customers could soon be able to take and make cheaper calls with ComReg giving the green light to operators to offer "home-zone" services. As part of the new services, callers will be able to use their mobile phone handsets to make and receive calls in or near their homes at cheaper fixed-line rates. Standard mobile call …

    Mobile 15 Mar 2007, 10:31

  • Samsung unveils usable UMPC

    CeBIT Q1 Ultra adds keyboard, decent screen

    Samsung has introduced its second-generation ultra-mobile PC - in one go addressing many of the key criticism of its first UMPC, the Q1. Crucially, the new model, the Q1 Ultra, delivers a higher resolution display and incorporates a thumb-operated QWERTY keyboard. The handheld runs Windows Vista Home Premium, given room to …

    Hardware 15 Mar 2007, 10:48

  • Samsung tight-lipped about UMPC's 'new' Intel CPU

    CeBIT Core 2 Duo ULV or 'Steeley'

    Does Samsung's Q1 Ultra second-generation UMPC incorporate a new, as-yet-unannounced Intel mobile processor? Certainly, certain Samsung marketing material describes the CPU as a "UMPC Intel New Technology". Others documents describe it as a "ultra-low voltage Intel processor", suggesting a Core product or, like the original …

    Hardware 15 Mar 2007, 11:01

  • ICANN: we can help Registerfly mess

    ICANN shows its frownie face as carnage continues

    The landslide of bad news from Registerfly has continued, as ICANN created a forum for dispute resolution for this mess, and Registerfly customers desperately tried to shift their domains to other registrars before they vanished into cyberspace. The romantic and professional break up between Kevin Medina and John Narusewicz, …

    Management 15 Mar 2007, 11:05

  • Galileo PFI delayed by revenue fears

    Euro satnav project wanders off track

    Galileo, the planned European rival to America's Global Positioning System (GPS), is in trouble. Much of the ambitious project's construction is supposed to be privately funded, and plans call for a united pan-European company to oversee the set-up and running of the Galileo network. But the various private companies involved …

    Science 15 Mar 2007, 11:16

  • Rare flaw sighted in OpenBSD kernel

    Thar she overflows

    Security researchers have discovered a critical flaw in the OpenBSD kernel. The rare vulnerability - only the second severe kernel bug in the history of the development of OpenBSD - involves a flaw in OpenBSD's IPv6 stack that potentially lends itself to remote exploitation by hackers. Fortunately, source code patches are …

    Security 15 Mar 2007, 11:23

  • Agencies mull global plans for space exploration

    A United Federation of, er, Planet?

    Fourteen space agencies around the world have agreed to coordinate their space exploration efforts, paving the way for truly planet-wide collaboration in space science. The meeting last week was the first since the group of fourteen first met at a NASA hosted do in April last year and formed the informal Global Explorations …

    Science 15 Mar 2007, 11:26

  • Work permit fears doused

    Still smouldering

    Work Permits UK (WPUK) has quelled industry fears that British IT workers are being undercut by immigrants employed on work permits on lower salaries. The ITCE Sector Advisory Panel, which guides WPUK in its administration of the work permits system, has long disagreed with the way the agency calculates the going market rate to …

    Business 15 Mar 2007, 11:56

  • EC chucks RFID regs back to industry

    CeBIT Smart chips too hot to handle

    The European Commission effectively handed regulation of RFID to the RFID industry today when it announced the results of last year's consultation on the technology. Commissioner for information society and media Viviane Reding said: "Today I'm going to tell you no regulation." After announcing a consultation on the …

    Law 15 Mar 2007, 12:01

  • Commodore specs up Cxx games machine

    CeBIT C64 emulator on board

    Commodore's eagerly anticipated Cxx gaming PC will sport an Intel Core 2 Extreme four-core processor, a pair of 768MB Nvidia GeForce 8800 GTX graphics card and a Creative X-Fi soundcard, the company revealed today. What it didn't say up front was how much all this gaming hardware - fitted inside a casing covered with one of a …

    Hardware 15 Mar 2007, 12:04

  • Brits dubious of UK data sharing plans

    They don't have all the information

    A week before the complete findings are due to be published, more details of the Citizens Forum's fluctuating views have been revealed by Ipsos MORI, the polling firm, and the Cabinet Office. In February, participants in the forum were asked what they thought of the government sharing data between departments in order to better …

    Business 15 Mar 2007, 12:30

  • AMD steams into world chip maker top ten

    ATI purchase lifts chart position

    AMD stormed up the charts last year as a string of hits - and its decision to form a 'supergroup' with ATI - pushed it from number 15 in the league of most successful global semiconductor companies straight into eighth place. AMD chart position was driven by a 91.6 per cent increase in sales revenue between 2005 and 2006, new …

    Hardware 15 Mar 2007, 12:34

  • Microsoft gives pirates thumbs up, and open source gets thumbs down

    To subscribe to Channel Register's weekly digest newsletter - seven days of channel news in a single hit - click here.

    To subscribe to Channel Register's weekly digest newsletter - seven days of channel news in a single hit - click here. Back up and archiving sales opportunity Anyone interested in making a quick buck in the back up and archiving sector should give Intel a call. It may be one of the world's biggest technology companies, but …

    The Channel 15 Mar 2007, 13:03

  • Biofuels plant announced for Teesside

    As US boffins reckon to turn industry upside down

    The UK biofuels industry is to invest £250m in a new ethanol production plant on Teesside. Ensus, the concern building the facility, has secured the funds from private equity groups the Carlyle Group and Riverstone Holdings. There is also £150m of debt finance. Building work is to commence this spring at the Wilton …

    Science 15 Mar 2007, 14:05

  • Who needs a PC? 'Amazon Unbox on TiVo' debuts

    Comment Sticks everything on your telly

    You know that little warning on cars' passenger side mirrors - the one that says things may be closer than they look? Well, when looking at a TiVo announcement, there should be a warning that the installed base of non-DirecTV TiVos, the only ones that TiVo controls, is smaller than you think. DirecTV was responsible for most of …

    Media 15 Mar 2007, 14:05

  • Yahoo! can! help! jail! Chinese! dissidents!

    Chinese journalists still in jail

    Yahoo! has avoided prosecution for grassing up a dissident journalist in China because of a lack of evidence. The Hong Kong Office of the Information Commissioner reported yesterday that its investigation of Yahoo! Hong Kong Limited could go no further. Journalist Shi Tao was sentenced to 10 years in prison in 2005 with the …

    Law 15 Mar 2007, 14:22

  • Reding puts roaming cuts on ministers' conference table

    CeBIT You can't trust the industry to do it itself...

    CebIT is set for an even more chaotic Friday than usual this week as EU telecoms ministers descend on the show to discuss cuts in mobile phone roaming fees. Many consumers see the current tariffs as excessive, and it looks like both voice and data charges are in the minister's cross hairs. The EC has already railed against the …

    Mobile 15 Mar 2007, 14:33

  • Galactic fog cloaks magnificent fossil stars

    Unofficially...

    Astronomers working at the European Southern Observatory have identified what appears to be a previously unknown globular cluster. The candidate cluster is known as FSR 1735, and is located in the inner part of our galaxy, around 30,000 light years away from us, close to the galactic plane. It is shrouded in dust, along with …

    Science 15 Mar 2007, 14:50

  • CeBIT Toshiba to bring 'budget' 1080p HD DVD player to Europe

    Toshiba will bring its mid-range, 1080p HD DVD player to Europe in May, the consumer electronics giant said today. Dubbed the HD-EP10 over here, the box was launched in the US in January as the HD-A20. The HD-EP10 builds on the already available base-line model, the HD-E1 with support for the highest HD resolution but …

    Hardware 15 Mar 2007, 15:05

  • MoD opens urban-warfare compo

    Design ambush-sniffing tech and win a barrel of pork

    The UK Ministry of Defence (MoD) yesterday opened its "Grand Challenge", an inventors' competition designed "to create a system with a high degree of autonomy that can detect, identify, monitor, and report a comprehensive range of military threats in an urban environment". As if this wasn't difficult enough, "its use should …

    Data Center 15 Mar 2007, 15:13

  • Mail widget bug stumps MS

    Live.com and Let Die

    Problems with the gadget functionality of Microsoft's mail applications have extended well into their third week. A mail widget component of Microsoft Live web services portfolio has been unavailable since 20 February, and there's little sign of an imminent fix. In a statement posted on the Live.com blog, Microsoft's …

    Applications 15 Mar 2007, 15:16

  • Fujitsu Siemens chief predicts the empty desktop

    CeBIT Is that a virtualised environment in your pocket?

    PC companies need to start planning their escape from the desktop, the CTO of Fujitsu Siemens Computers warned today. Joseph Reger told journalists at CeBIT that virtualised client PC environments which could be carried on small devices were likely to take a big bite out of traditional client PCs. Technologies are emerging …

    Data Center 15 Mar 2007, 15:22

  • Cisco Borgs WebEx

    $3.2bn conferencing play

    Cisco is to acquire web conferencing leader WebEx, the companies announced in a joint release today. Cisco will pay $3.2bn, though WebEx has $300m cash in the bank, so the real cost is nearer $2.9bn. WebEx has technology to manage online conferences; sharing slides and streaming content from a presenter to an audience, as …

    Networks 15 Mar 2007, 16:04

  • Blogger.com 'riddled' with malware

    RSS SOS

    Blogger.com, home of the weblog publishing system owned by Google, has been infiltrated by a number of phishing sites, security watchers report. In some cases, the Stration mass mailer is being used to drive traffic to these fraudulent sites. One such scam is a "storefront" for Pharmacy Express, which redirects from a Blogspot. …

    Security 15 Mar 2007, 16:06

  • NASA boffin outlines asteroid mission

    Early stages, but possible

    Humans might soon head to the asteroids, if a NASA scientist gets his way. Dr Paul Abell has proposed sending a manned mission to a relatively small near-Earth asteroid once the Crew Explorations Vehicle (CEV) - the replacement for Shuttle - is in service. Abell says the plan would be to send two or three people on a mission …

    Science 15 Mar 2007, 16:10

  • T-Mobile sings to My Opera

    Incorporates online community to web 'n' walk

    T-Mobile will be offering a customised version of the My Opera online community service to its Web 'n' Walk customers, providing them with 300MB of space to record their innermost thoughts, and the tools to do so on the move. My Opera is already available to anyone who takes the time to sign up, and offers blogging, …

    Mobile 15 Mar 2007, 16:22

  • Architectual insights

    A second postcard from Microsoft's Architect Insight conference

    OK, after my first postcard from Architect Insight I promised something a bit longer and more low-level from Microsoft's Welsh conference (you can find the programme here). I chose, largely, to follow the lifecycle track – and, a note to Microsoft, seven concurrent tracks is too many. Almost by definition architects have …

    Developer 15 Mar 2007, 16:41

  • DWP told to come clean on IT

    'We've told you before'

    The Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) has been told it should be more open about its development and use of IT systems if it wants to avoid another costly cock-up like the CSA. The recommendation was made today in the House of Commons Select Committee on Work and Pensions' report on plans to replace the problematic Child …

    Policy 15 Mar 2007, 16:46

  • AOL flees TradeDoubler

    Shareholders snub offer

    AOL has walked away from TradeDoubler, after failing to get enough acceptances for its $900m all-cash offer for the Swedish company. In January, the Time Warner subsidiary sweet-talked Tradedoubler's board in to recommending the offer, which was worth around four times annual sales. We thought that this was an over-generous …

    Financial News 15 Mar 2007, 18:30

  • Truths, half-truths and Wikipedia

    Comment Journalists play with loose facts

    Wikipedia comes in for a fair amount of criticism these days from El Reg and other publications, but I can't help wondering if we're missing the real point regarding its status as an encyclopedia. Most of the arguments hinge on its accuracy, or lack of it. But if our criteria for an encyclopedia is a guarantee of 100 per cent …

    Media 15 Mar 2007, 18:31

  • Congressman Frank slams online gambling ban

    Calls for repeal

    Congressman Barney Frank (D. Mass) is mooting a bill to repeal America's online gambling ban enacted last year. He told the FT yesterday that the ban of online gambling established by the Unlawful Enforcement Gambling Act (UIGEA) was one of the "stupidest laws" ever passed. A spokesman for Frank, who is chairman of the House …

    Government 15 Mar 2007, 18:39

  • IBM cuts up HP's cool blade claims

    Your air flow is, like, so unflowy

    With no one else to beat up in the blade server market, HP and IBM have decided to make a sport of bashing each other. Last week, HP highlighted a report from Sine Nomine Associates – your guess is as good as ours – that gave HP's blade servers a major power consumption edge over IBM's gear with larger configurations. It has …

    Servers 15 Mar 2007, 18:49

  • Homicide trial delayed by lost remote control

    Weary cops unable to copy CCTV footage

    A homicide trial in Stamford, Connecticut was delayed by up to eight months by incompatible CCTV videos and a lost remote control, The Advocate reported today. Benton Dawes, 46, stands accused of killing 34-year-old Vaness "Boo-Boo" Ford in a Stamford bodega (or corner-shop) last July. According to Stamford cops, the two had …

    Security 15 Mar 2007, 18:51

  • Man used S&M website to incite rape of former mistress

    Ordered to stand trial in fiendish plot

    A former hedge fund manager man has been ordered to stand trial in superior court for an alleged plot involving an S&M site that can only be described as diabolical. The father of two and former cub scout leader is accused of posing as his estranged mistress and asking that she be abducted and raped to satisfy her sexual- …

    Security 15 Mar 2007, 21:05

  • Informatica glues new and old data for salesforce.com

    Sticky

    Technologies like Software as a Service (SaaS) and the like may be very trendy, but there can be problems when the real world impinges, such as integrating the data generated by SaaS systems and legacy applications into some form of meaningful whole. This is the market spotted by data integration software specialist, Informatica …

    Developer 15 Mar 2007, 21:41

  • Folding@home comes to the PS3

    Help frag cancer

    Sony is to let Playstation 3 users run Folding@home on their consoles, helping the study of Parkinson's, Alzheimer's, cystic fibrosis and many cancers. Folding@home is a popular distributed computing app from Stanford University. It uses the downtime of many thousands of internet-connected PCs volunteered for the project by …

    Games 15 Mar 2007, 22:45