19th March 2007 Archive

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Adobe targets developers with Apollo

Golden age for desktop

Adobe Systems is opening a new phase in the rich client wars, releasing code that could help developers change notions of what a PC interface looks like. The company is posting early code and a software development kit (SDK) for Apollo, its runtime engine for web-like applications running on a desktop without a browser. Apollo …

Developer 19 Mar 2007, 00:02
Black Duck floats GPL 3 safety line

Here comes the code

Black Duck software today announces the latest edition of its license sniffing software, primed and ready for General Public License Version 3.0. The company next month launches protexIP 4.3, updating its interface and underlying knowledge base to help developers find and compare code in products they are building, which is …

Developer 19 Mar 2007, 00:02
China displaces Britain as botnet epicentre

Zero-day attacks, phishing scams star in Symantec scorecard

China has displaced Britain as the home of the greatest concentration of compromised (zombie) PCs. The world's most populous country accounted for 26 per cent of the world's bot-infected computers, a higher density than any other country. Beijing was the city with the most bot-infected computers in the world, accounting for …

Security 19 Mar 2007, 10:05
IE7 phishing bug nets concern

Fishy

Security researchers have discovered a vulnerability in Internet Explorer 7.0 that might lend itself towards the creation of more convincing phishing attacks. The cross-site scripting (XSS) bug creates a means to replace local page displaying a "Navigation to the webpage was canceled" message with a "Refresh the page" link. " …

Enterprise Security 19 Mar 2007, 10:06
Oz policewoman in topless mobile snap shocker

Jubs flashed across force's internal email

The Victoria arm of Oz's boys in blue has been enjoying a topless snap of a female officer apparently distributed by her copper boyf through the internal email system, The Age reports. The paper believes the photo - featuring Constable Melissa Scannell "in her police uniform with her name badge visible, her shirt undone and her …

Bootnotes 19 Mar 2007, 10:09
UK boffins uncover more secrets of the gamma ray burst

Optical afterglow shedding some light

New observations of one of the largest and most violent explosions in the universe have provided valuable clues for intergalactic sleuths seeking to understand the physics of Gamma Ray Bursts. Scientists at the Liverpool John Moores University were able to begin observing the burst just 203 seconds after it had begun, thanks to …

Space 19 Mar 2007, 10:11
BA upgrades corpse

First class seat for dead passenger

A first class British Airways passenger got short shrift from cabin crew after expressing his displeasure at waking up to find them manoeuvering a corpse into the seat next to him, the Daily Mirror reports. The elderly woman had apparently died shortly after take-off, and was quickly upgraded from economy to first class …

Bootnotes 19 Mar 2007, 10:17
Nvidia to unveil line-leading gaming GPU next month?

GeForce 8800 Ultra, anyone?

Next month will see the arrival of a new top-of-the-line Nvidia GeForce 8 series GPU, the 8800 Ultra, along with a host of lesser products, it has been claimed. The 8800 Ultra's speeds and feeds aren't yet known, but it will represent an "overclocked 8800 GTX", according to a report at NGOHQ.com, citing Nvidia partner sources …

Reg Hardware 19 Mar 2007, 10:42
Google confirms Adscape buy

In-game adverts

Google has confirmed it has bought in-game advertising company Adscape Media. The deal was first reported in February. Financial terms were not disclosed and the deal is now closed. Google isn't releasing any figures on how it sees the market growing but said: "...we think there is great value in video game advertising. As …

Financial News 19 Mar 2007, 11:04
Intel names 'Bearlake' gaming PC chipset

Intel launched its next-generation performance desktop chipsets last week, announcing version of the platform codenamed 'Bearlake' for games machines, mainstream PCs and budget systems. The top-of-the-line X38 is designed to connect to Intel's four-core Core 2 Extreme processor. Like the other chipsets in the series, the X38 …

Reg Hardware 19 Mar 2007, 11:08
Gentleman thief takes Dutch bank for £15m

Charmed his way to 120k carat diamond haul

A "smooth-talking" thief has taken ABN Amro bank in Antwerp for £15m worth of diamonds, making off with 120,000 carats despite using nothing more than chocolates and charm in the audacious blag. The grey-haired man posed as Argentinian businessman Carlos Hector Flomenbaum, the Daily Telegraph reports. The heist was clearly …

Crime 19 Mar 2007, 11:14
T-Mobile UK prices up Ameo UMPC-style communicator

From under £120...

HTC's UMPC-like smart phone, Athena, is now available in the UK in its guise as the T-Mobile Ameo priced at a mere £120 - provided you pick the right airtime package, of course. Pay less up front for connectivity and the Ameo itself will set you back £430. Even that's not bad for a 3G UMTS/HSDPA machine with a QWERTY …

Reg Hardware 19 Mar 2007, 11:36
German Gmail blocker wouldn't sell up for millions

Thorn in Google's side set to remain in place

The German businessman behind trade mark cases that could wreck Google's email branding across Europe would refuse millions of dollars for the G-Mail trade mark he owns, according to his lawyer. The man has already turned down a Google offer of $250,000. Daniel Giersch is a venture capitalist who also owns and runs a physical …

Law 19 Mar 2007, 12:36
Sony Vaio VGN-TX5XN laptop

Review Small, but perfectly formed...

If you like the idea of a laptop that you can cart about with you, but want something with a bigger screen and keyboard than the tiny Sony UX1XN, then the TX5XN could be just what you're looking for. It's small enough to accompany you most places you go, but still has a decent sized screen and keyboard so you can get some proper …

Reg Hardware 19 Mar 2007, 12:37
Reding threatens Euro TV regulations

CeBIT Backs DVB-H for mobile television

Viviane Reding sent a chunk of the mobile TV industry reeling when she threatened to impose standards on the industry and publicly backed the DVB-H standard. Speaking at a conference at Cebit last week, the European Commissioner for Information Society and Media, said the Commission had backed the industry in setting up the …

Mobile 19 Mar 2007, 12:37
Channel rumours round-up

Takeovertastic

Atos Origin and Getronics are the targets of rumoured takeovers this morning sending shares in both soaring. Dutch company Getronics was up five per cent late last week on rumours that KPN, the Dutch telco, was lining it up for a takeover. Getronics shares were steady this morning. Dutch newspaper De Telegraaf said the …

Channel Register 19 Mar 2007, 12:45
EPO says UK patent law is clear enough

No questions to appeal board

The president of the European Patent Office has turned down a request by three English judges to have the EPO clarify a tricky section of European and UK patent law. In October last year the judges took the very unusual step of asking for clarification of the scope of Article 52. They made the request in their judgement in the …

Law 19 Mar 2007, 12:54
A380 heads for US of A

Superjumbos touch down today at JFK and LAX

Airbus A380s will later today touch down at New York's John F. Kennedy International Airport (JFK) and Los Angeles International Airport (LAX), marking the maiden transatlantic flights for the troubled superjumbo. The JFK-bound aircraft was due to depart at 0830 GMT this morning from Frankfurt as "part of the Commercial Route …

Science 19 Mar 2007, 12:58
Toshiba to bring HD DVD to Satellite laptops

And HD DVD-R to other machines

Toshiba will begin adding HD DVD drives to its mainstream laptop line-up, the Satellite series, in Q3, the notebook maker revealed last week. Toshiba already offers the Qosmio Q30 with a built-in HD DVD drive, a machine it launched in May 2006. Speaking at the CeBIT show last week, a Toshiba spokesman said the Q30 will get a …

Reg Hardware 19 Mar 2007, 13:13
MPs guide Fujitsu workers back to talks

The commons touch

Fujitsu is to return to talks with disgruntled IT staff after MPs offered to mediate in the long-running dispute and staff called off strike action. IT workers at Fujistu's Manchester offices had planned a national picket of an un-named Fujitsu customer on Saturday 17 March and another strike tomorrow, Tuesday. Both were called …

Financial News 19 Mar 2007, 13:17
Average Brit scoffs 2,960 spag bols

Lifetime tally of UK 'staple'

The average Brit will work his or her way through 2,960 portions of spaghetti bolognese in a lifetime - "the equivalent of a plateful every day for more than eight years", as the Evening Standard puts it. A study by the makers of Loyd Grossman Sauces also revealed that we'll scoff our way through 2,264 doses of sausage and mash …

Bootnotes 19 Mar 2007, 13:31
Page after page on the QCon Conference

Books support the theory

March 12-16, 2007, saw the Qcon Conference take place at The Queen Elizabeth II Conference Centre in Westminster, London. Yours truly, here at El Reg, sponsored the event that was advertised as "organized by the community, for the community." Covering areas such as .Net Enterprise Foundations, Agile Development, Java Emerging …

Site News 19 Mar 2007, 13:47
Samsung shiny laptops to sport next-gen Nvidia GPU

Unannounced product... er... announced

Samsung has announced a pair of glossy black laptops, the South Korean giant's bid to build a look as iconic as Apple's MacBook machines and the original IBM - now Lenovo - ThinkPad. Into the bargain, it let slip Nvidia's GeForce Go 8000 GPU. Whoops. Both notebooks - the Q45 and the R70 - contain Intel Core 2 Duo processors …

Reg Hardware 19 Mar 2007, 13:53
Naomi Campbell hits the mop and bucket

Battling supermodel scrubs NY warehouse

Naomi Campbell this morning began her five-day stint mopping New York floors as punishment for chucking a mobile phone at housekeeper Ana Scolavino, AFP reports. The battling Streatham clotheshorse ignored the gloating press-pack who'd gathered outside the "run-down" Lower East Side Sanitation Department warehouse to welcome …

Entertainment 19 Mar 2007, 14:37
BT hit by St Patrick's Day system failure

Shamrocked to its foundations

BT's UK billing service was halted nationwide for 24 hours on St Patrick's Day due to a major system failure. Customers were prevented from paying bills or amending their details with the UK's telecoms giant. One Reg reader told us on Saturday that "the systems have crashed, nobody can pay bills online, the staff can't get …

Servers 19 Mar 2007, 14:58
Racing games increase real world crashes

Only if you are a bloke

German researchers reckon that playing computer driving games encourages people men to take more risks when driving in the real world. Researchers carried out three studies using three racing games - Burnout, Midnight Racer, Need for Speed - and three non-racing control games - Tak, Crash Bandicoot and Fifa 2005. All games were …

Science 19 Mar 2007, 15:15
TPC debuts brokerage benchmark

Engineers gear up for optimization frenzy

The Transaction Processing Performance Council (TPC) has announced a new set of benchmarks to measure the speed of servers. The TPC has various tests for evaluating different servers and the software they run. TPC-E is the "much anticipated successor" to TPC-C which is used for comparing online transaction processing. The …

Servers 19 Mar 2007, 16:05
Father's smallpox jab puts son in hospital

A rare reaction

A two-year old boy is in hospital today having become critically ill after his father received a smallpox vaccination. According to reports, the boy's father is a US soldier, who was was due to deploy to Iraq, but was unexpectedly kept home after having his vaccination. Doctors say the child must have touched the site of the …

Biology 19 Mar 2007, 16:13
Breathe rescues some Biscit customers

V21 punters get saved

Internet Service Provider Breathe is taking over V21 customers from crashed ISP Biscit. Originally Breathe was going to pick up all of London-based Biscit's customers but legal disputes put the kybosh on that deal. Breathe has done a deal with EurISP and will now migrate the V21 punters onto its network. About 1,500 customers …

Telecoms 19 Mar 2007, 16:29
HMRC gets new tool to battle VAT fraud

'Reverse charge' gets green light

Computer chips and mobile phones will be subjected to a "reverse charge" VAT regime from June 1 this year in a bid to slash missing trader fraud. Her Majesty's Revenue and Customs (HMRC) said the reverse charge system should remove the ability "to steal VAT on business-to-business transactions", effectively preventing Missing …

Channel Register 19 Mar 2007, 16:42
Sunspots linked to Aussie droughts?

A boffin speculates

An Australian scientist has proposed a link between the solar cycle of sunspots, and rainfall in the eastern region of his native land. He says that data going back 100-years show a correlation between solar activity, the polarity of the sun's magnetic field, and periods of drought. If he is right, this winter (summer, up here …

Space 19 Mar 2007, 16:44
Secure64 taunts hackers with 'DNS immunity'

Embiggened by Itanium

Like most vendors in the Itanium realm, Secure64 has come to market slowly and with scaled back ambitions. Nonetheless, the start-up’s initial play - a super-fast, super-secure DNS (domain name service) server - looks promising. The company this week released Secure64 DNS – the first commercial package available for its …

Servers 19 Mar 2007, 20:00
Overland makes low-end REO grand

Faster and more virtual

Overland Storage today launched an upgrade for the entry-level REO series of disk-based backup and virtual tape library systems. The new REO 1500, which takes the place of the 1000 series box, sports a five-times faster performance boost than its predecessor - from 20Mbps to 100Mbps - as well as snappier restores of up to 2TB …

Storage 19 Mar 2007, 20:30
Debian founder crowned Sun King of OS

Murdock joins Sun for Solaris- Linux love-in

Ian Murdock, the father of Debian, is joining Sun Microsystems, to head up the company's operating systems platform strategy. He says in his blog that "everything I know about computing I learned on those Sun workstations" in the computer science building at Purdue University in Indiana. Murdock is leaving the Linux …

Servers 19 Mar 2007, 22:14
Red Hat and Intel channels beat as one

Server savvy

Red Hat is fast-tracking reseller accreditation to anyone with an Intel Premier or Associate badge. It's free of charge too and it means that system builders don't have to spend months to qualify for Red Hat approval. This is a long-tail, be-nice-to-the-little-guys initiative, supporting white-box builders who slap RHEL (Red …

Channel Register 19 Mar 2007, 23:31
FBI: Internet crime pays

Your money or your life...

Cyber-crime is alive and kicking in the USA, and playfully swimming through its riches like Scrooge McDuck in a money vault, the FBI's Internet Crime Complaint Center annual report reveals today. In 2006 US consumers filed 207,492 complaints about internet crime and reported record losses of $198.4m. Online auction fraud, such …

Crime 19 Mar 2007, 23:40