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26th March 2007 Archive

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  • Rackable goes after Sun's white trash data center biz

    Meet Concentro

    Rackable Systems has signed on as a willing participant in the white trash data center movement. CTOs everywhere can slap on their wife beaters, hop in a flatbed truck, and head over to Rackable's Milpitas headquarters to pick up a Concentro. Rackable's new system packs up to 1,200 two-socket servers into a standard 40' x 8' …

    Servers 26 Mar 2007, 08:39

  • Satnav plunges £96k Merc into river

    Lucky escape for misguided woman driver

    The driver of a £96k Mercedes SL500 had a lucky escape after her satnav directed her down a winding track and straight into the River Sence in Sheepy Magna, Leicestershire, the Leicester Mercury reports. The 28-year-old woman - apparently on her way to a Christening on 3 March - ignored signposts indicating the track was …

    Bootnotes 26 Mar 2007, 08:53

  • Dispute resolution procedures are failing, says DTI

    'Well intentioned, but flawed'

    Workplace dispute resolution procedures are flawed and have caused poor results, according to a review (pdf) commissioned by the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI). The review has called for the complete repeal of the current procedures. Though Michael Gibbons, who conducted the review commissioned by DTI minister Alistair …

    Small Biz 26 Mar 2007, 09:10

  • Experts dampen mobile mast health fears

    Tinfoil hats unnecessary

    Electromagnetic fields generated by mobile phones and base stations don't cause cancer or have adverse effects on health - yet. That's the finding of a government-appointed expert group which examined the issue in detail, taking into account the fields generated by electricity lines as well as those emitted by mobiles and phone …

    Mobile 26 Mar 2007, 09:15

  • Tiny moon ruining Saturn's day

    Measuring it, anyway

    If you were trying to work out how long a day on Saturn is, you wouldn't expect to find your best efforts scuppered by a tiny moon. After all, you can still see the planet, right? The problem lies in the technique traditionally used to discover how fast a gas giant is rotating. The radio technique measures the rotation of the …

    Space 26 Mar 2007, 09:26

  • US lifts lid on world's largest toilet

    33-metre convenience spotted from space

    We all know that everything in the good old US of A is bigger, but surely this is dragging the concept of supersize to hitherto unplumbed depths: We suppose that the Florida übercrapper (click here to enjoy on Google Earth or here to peruse on Google Maps) indicates that America has thrown in the towel on its burgeoning …

    Bootnotes 26 Mar 2007, 09:28

  • How green is my vendor?

    Not very, in many cases

    Environmental issues are becoming a big concern for those involved in managing IT and communications. You can tell this because just about every other supplier is touting their green credentials. Often they have only reduced their power consumption by a fraction of a megawatt, run an electric shuttle bus to their out of town …

    Business 26 Mar 2007, 09:50

  • Relisys has stopped trading, administrator confirms

    Went into administration on 21 March

    Begbies Traynor released a statement late on Friday confirming that monitor maker Relisys Digital went into administration on 21 March 2007. Simon Thomas of Begbies Traynor, joint administrator alongside David Hudson working on the Relisys case, said: "It has not been possible to continue to trade the business due to its …

    Channel Register 26 Mar 2007, 09:57

  • WIN a Sony PlayStation 3

    Competition Your chance to win with Register Hardware

    Sony's PlayStation 3 - possibly the most eagerly anticipated games console yet - has arrived in the UK. You can read Register Hardware's review here - then try and win one of your own. Register Hardware has one PAL-region Sony PlayStation 3 worth £425 to give away right here, right now. It's sitting under the Editor's desk, …

    Reg Hardware 26 Mar 2007, 09:57

  • Laptop-lob 'paparazzi scum' sue Denise Richards

    Claim 'emotional stress' over Canada rumpus

    Two paparazzi who allegedly got on the wrong side of former Bond girl Denise Richards are suing the highly-talented actress and Playboy model, the BBC reports. In November last year, there was a bit of a rumpus at a casino near Vancouver during filming for Blonde and Blonder, when Richards reportedly got into a scrap with the …

    Entertainment 26 Mar 2007, 09:59

  • Centagenarian secures 25-year mortgage

    Last payment due at a venerable 127

    A 102-year-old UK man has secured a £200,000 interest-only mortgage which will cost him £958 a month until he makes the final payment at 127, Ananova reports. The East Sussex old timer, who intends to use the cash to move into the buy-to-let market, is the oldest person in Britain to be granted a new mortgage. Jonathan Moore, …

    Bootnotes 26 Mar 2007, 10:02

  • Canada puts its mounted booties down

    House of Cards To give the Chinese a run for their virtual money

    Canuckia gets tough The controversy in Canada surrounding the expansion of online gambling took another turn this week as the attorney general of Alberta weighed in on the recent attempt by the Alexander First Nation to begin offering the same online gambling services as the Kahnawake tribe in Quebec. The Kahnawake of Quebec …

    Law 26 Mar 2007, 10:23

  • Tiny iRiver media player flows into UK

    It's been some time since digital music player maker iRiver made a splash in the UK, but its Flash-based X20 might just be the device to make waves in this iPod-dominated nation. The X20 sports a 2.2in, 320 x 240 LCD to display photos, video and song details. The control's a rotary dial linked to a neat-looking circular …

    Reg Hardware 26 Mar 2007, 10:34

  • Blunkett cashes in on ID card experience

    Kerching!

    David Blunkett, the man who pioneered the UK government's ID cards proposals, has taken a job with a security company which works on Spain's ID card and could even be in the bidding for UK contracts. However, Blunkett is officially forbidden from working on government contracts for two years after leaving government. This …

    Public Sector 26 Mar 2007, 10:37

  • iTrip updated for second-gen iPod Nano

    The latest incarnation of accessory maker Griffin Technology's iPod-friendly FM radio transmitter, iTrip, is now available to buy. The new model is designed to work with the second-generation iPod Nano. The iTrip clips on the bottom and back of the diminutive DAP, flush with the iPod's all-metal casing. The transmitter's …

    Reg Hardware 26 Mar 2007, 10:57

  • Aussie boffins warn on glacial melting

    Invest in wellie boots

    Australian scientists are warning that the planet is nearing a tipping point beyond which polar melting will be irreversible in some areas, triggering a rise in sea levels of metres. John Church, a marine scientist at the Australian CSIRO Marine and Atmospheric Research, told news agency Reuters: "Observations are at the very …

    Science 26 Mar 2007, 11:09

  • Fire marshal quits over psychic emails

    Didn't see that coming...

    A Wisconsin fire marshal has resigned after 22 years of service after admitting that he consulted psychics to advise with office politics. Tom Weber was accused of working against his boss, fire chief Aaron Harris, and of sending emails to psychics asking whether or not he and his colleagues would succeed in their bid to push …

    Business 26 Mar 2007, 11:13

  • UK gov to control the causes of crime

    Surveillance society as panacea

    Ten years since the Prime Minister suggested that social inequality would have to be addressed in order to prevent crime, he is expected to propose a technology-led programme of rehabilitation, intervention and control to tackle the causes of crime. The leaked proposals were published in The Independent following another leak …

    Law 26 Mar 2007, 11:18

  • Dragon's Lair revamped for Blu-ray play

    Laserdisc de nos jours

    Dragon's Lair, the now 24-year-old animated video game developed by one-time Disney animator Don Bluth for laserdisc players, is back, remastered for the HD era and now available to buy on Bluth-ray Disc - sorry, Blu-ray Disc. Canadian software company Digital Leisure (DL) has been keeping the fires of Dragon's Lair burning …

    Reg Hardware 26 Mar 2007, 11:20

  • Symbian speeds up smartphone OS

    Version 9.5 apps load 75% faster

    Symbian gave public details of a major new version of its eponymous phone OS today, touting significant performance improvements. Version 9.5 should appear in phones beginning in the second half of next year or the first half of 2009, Symbian executive VP of marketing Jørgen Behrens told us. New features include improvements …

    Mobile 26 Mar 2007, 12:06

  • LG Prada KE850 touchscreen phone

    Review Ab fab - or drab?

    You can tell a lot about a device from the state it arrives in after its been pawed over by heaven knows how many sweaty-palmed handset hacks. It's clear LG's KE850, co-designed by Italian fashion house Prada, has not had an elegant time of it. Think bright, innocent debutante dropped unexpectedly into a nest of vipers. Not a …

    Reg Hardware 26 Mar 2007, 12:27

  • PC World repair job leaves family seeing blue

    'Brand-spanking new' hard-drive contained animal porn

    PC World is at the centre of a row after animal porn was found on a hard drive installed during a repair to an 11 year-old's laptop According to a report in the Dundee-based Courier, Kenneth Morris was playing games on his repaired Philips laptop when graphic images of a woman and a dog popped up on the screen. Kenneth's …

    Channel Register 26 Mar 2007, 12:39

  • BT 'secures regulatory approval' in Pipex carve-up

    While others circle

    More Pipex sell-off rumours squeaked out of the over the weekend, but provided little clue as to which of the big players will scoop up its punters. The Sunday Times reported that BT has been given the go-ahead by regulators to bid for the 570,000 served by Pipex's brands. BT's interest in AOL's million-strong customer base …

    Telecoms 26 Mar 2007, 12:45

  • Mozilla: security researchers have too much power

    Time ain't on their side

    Mozilla's security chief has stepped into the debate about the disclosure of security bugs by saying that software developers are at the mercy of bug hunters. Mozilla security chief Window Snyder called on security researchers to follow responsible disclosure guidelines, giving vendors a reasonable amount of time to fix bugs …

    Security 26 Mar 2007, 12:55

  • Foundry launches high density WLANs

    Forges capacity and security boost

    Foundry Networks has launched wireless Lan (WLAN) access points and software to help increase the capacity and security of enterprise wireless networks, and has added a new location management offering. This combination is aimed to help run services such as VoIP and location tracking on a single 802.11 infrastructure. …

    Data Networking 26 Mar 2007, 13:01

  • Ericsson deals blow to unified 4G dream

    Comment Pulls out of WiMAX

    Ericsson was never going to welcome WiMAX, given its potential cannibalisation of the Swedish giant's strongest market, UMTS/HSPA, but it was mellowing towards the technology last year as it sought to diversify its customer base and be less dependent on cellcos, moving towards multi-network convergence and managed services for …

    Data Networking 26 Mar 2007, 13:37

  • IPS explains plan to make copied biometric passports useful

    Not deliberately or as such, of course...

    The Home Office has repeatedly disputed claims that the new biometric passport has been 'cracked', and spokespeople have argued that in any event, none of the exploits so far reported has compromised security. Last week, however, Identity & Passport Service executive director Bernard Herdan inadvertently revealed that the UK was …

    Government 26 Mar 2007, 13:51

  • CMMI, practically speaking

    Process improvement conference keeps it real

    London was recently host to a conference showcasing CMMI process improvement. Primarily sponsored by the consultancy Lamri, the conference was held on 19-20 March. To some extent, it's a marketing exercise, but the presence of representatives from the Software Engineering Institute (SEI) at Carnegie Mellon and truly independent …

    Developer 26 Mar 2007, 14:01

  • Intel chooses China for new chip plant

    Washington chooses howls of protest

    Intel has announced plans to build a $2.5bn wafer fabrication plant in China. In what is seen by many as a politically significant shift in strategy towards high-tech exports, the move into the growing Chinese market looks set to ruffle some feathers in Washington. The Financial Times reports that Congress is said to be …

    Financial News 26 Mar 2007, 14:29

  • DMCA architect lambasts music moguls

    It's your fault we're back to the Mozart era

    Bruce Lehman, key architect of the controversial Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), has admitted that copyright protection law is failing. The Clinton-era assistant secretary of commerce and commissioner of patents and trademarks put most of the blame for the DMCA's shortcomings on the recording industry. He said music …

    Law 26 Mar 2007, 14:35

  • Verizon wins injunction against Vonage over patent battle

    Vonage must stop using tech covered by Verizon's patents

    US phone company Vonage has been ordered to stop using technology which a court has ruled violates patents held by mobile phone company Verizon. Vonage, which operates voice over internet protocol (VOIP) phone systems, recently lost a court battle over the technology, which it said did not violate Verizon's patents. The judge …

    VoIP 26 Mar 2007, 14:46

  • Researchers link human skull size and climate

    Hot head v cool head v Mr Potato Head

    Humans grew bigger brains as the climate they lived in got cooler, according to researchers at the University at Albany, New York. The researchers concluded that humans got brainier because they had to adapt to a more challenging environment. They base this assertion on a plot of cranial capacity of 109 fossilised human skulls …

    Biology 26 Mar 2007, 14:58

  • UK kids to get free calls and texts in return for ads

    No sir, I don't believe you are 16

    A mobile phone start-up will offer UK teenagers free phone calls and texts in return for listening to adverts from this summer. Blyk, the company behind the scheme, has already signed Buena Vista, Coca-Cola, L'Oreal Paris, and Yell.com for the British launch. It is rumoured to be close to a network deal with Orange. The …

    Mobile 26 Mar 2007, 15:11

  • Compuware launches overseas model factory

    Heading offshore for a little Q&A

    Offshore applications testing is already big business, but for the client of such services there is always concern about whether they are getting the best possible mix of service level and cost. It is, of course, the latter that has pushed many applications development operations to look abroad for testing services, but the …

    Developer 26 Mar 2007, 15:17

  • Image spam fattens junk mail

    Does my bum look big in this?

    The bandwidth occupied by spam is increasing as spammers punt products with pictures or graphics instead of just text. Email filtering firm SoftScan said on Monday that the average size of a spam message has increased from 6.62Kb to 11.76Kb (a rise of 77 per cent) since September last year with no sign of a let-up. Although …

    Spam 26 Mar 2007, 15:19

  • Nvidia launches nForce 680i LT SLI chipset

    Nvidia has rolled out a cut-down version of its nForce 680i SLI top-of-the-line chipset for Intel processors. The new logic's key differentiator from its parent product: Nvidia's reduced the maximum clock speed of SLI-specific memory. The nForce 680i SLI can automatically overclock SLI-certified memory modules to 1,200MHz. …

    Reg Hardware 26 Mar 2007, 15:28

  • Fayrewood sells shares in ComputerLinks

    Expects healthy proceeds

    Computer hardware and software distributor Fayrewood plc has today sold its shares in ComputerLinks AG. Fayrewood owned 27.47 per cent of ComputerLinks AG, a European value-added distributor of computer security products. The firm said that the net proceeds from the sale are expected to be €27.4m, having traded at €13.55 …

    Channel Register 26 Mar 2007, 15:59

  • SRS confirms unannounced O2 media player handset

    XDA Flame on

    Sound enhancement technology developer SRS has confirmed mobile phone network O2 is to release the XDA Flame portable media player style phone in the coming months - even though the carrier has yet to announce the product. SRS said today its Wow HD 3D audio technology would be incorporated in the Flame when the handset ships …

    Reg Hardware 26 Mar 2007, 16:24

  • Rival bid forced EMC to 'pay too much' for RSA - CEO

    How do you define gouged?

    After devouring more than 20 companies since 2003, storage company EMC has a half-billion dollar tummy-ache. At a media briefing in Sydney, EMC CEO Joe Tucci admitted last week to overspending on the company's $2.1bn acquisition of RSA. When pushed on the RSA buy, Tucci said, "Well I probably did (overspend), but what’s the …

    Storage 26 Mar 2007, 19:09

  • SANS to certify programmers for security nous

    SANS of time

    The SANS Institute has assembled a coalition of security vendors to create a secure coding assessment and certification exam for programmers. Several specialist computer security courses has been established on either side of the Atlantic but the SANS scheme has a different aim, helping general programmers to avoid common …

    Security 26 Mar 2007, 19:49

  • NEC and Stratus find fault tolerance with each other

    Four-core Xeon box gets hard

    NEC and Stratus have made good on their intellectual property marriage, pumping out a new, beefier fault-tolerant server. Starting in June, customers can purchase the NEC Express5800/320Fc and the Stratus ftServer 6200 systems. The two-socket servers will run on Intel's four-core version of Xeon code-named 'Clovertown' and work …

    Servers 26 Mar 2007, 20:51

  • California cuts off aid to ID thieves

    Other states continue

    The California secretary of state's office has shut down portions of its website after it was discovered it had been selling hundreds of thousands of public documents containing social security numbers and signatures, a practice that lasted for years. Several other states have also made available materials that reveal personal …

    ID 26 Mar 2007, 21:27

  • As gold fever hits Macau, Ho's still in the money

    MGM Mirage sees the green as evangelicals see red

    The prohibitionist cult in America that has wreaked havoc on foreign gambling companies recently turned its guns on one of America’s own – casino behemoth MGM Mirage, the second largest gambling company in the world. The Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act (UIGEA), which was snuck onto an unrelated port security bill …

    Law 26 Mar 2007, 21:51

  • RIAA invites students to settlement barn dance

    One-stop-shopping for lawsuit avoidance

    Like a Bizzaro World Ed McMahon, the RIAA pursues colleges across the US with pre-litigation settlement letters. The Recording Industry Association of America has begun its second wave of unfriendly correspondence, offering easy settlements at "discounted" prices to college students they suspect of sharing music online. Four …

    Music and Media 26 Mar 2007, 22:30

  • Of ICANN and the registrar zombies

    ICANN Lisbon Or, how I stopped worrying and learned to love our internet overlords

    ICANN Lisbon 2007 officially opened today, although in true ICANN style work has been going on all weekend - it's just the public part began today, with the usual welcoming speeches by Chairman Vint Cerf and CEO Paul Twomey. The opening speeches provided a glimpse into some recent ICANN accomplishments - Libya got its own Top …

    Law 26 Mar 2007, 22:54

  • Sun's dim grid a developer thang now

    Clickle me, Elmo

    Three years into its grand supercomputer rental experiment, Sun Microsystems has found that developers, developers, developers have more interest in the program than big spending businesses. Sun indicated as much two weeks ago by announcing so-called “click and run” support for its Network.com service. Customers can select …

    Servers 26 Mar 2007, 22:58

  • Vista's long goodbye

    Deleting files can take forever

    Windows Vista suffers from a bug that causes many machines to stall while deleting, copying and moving files, a flaw that has provoked consternation in online forums. "I've seen this bug in action, and trust me, it's as if you're copying over a 64k link using only 256mb of RAM," one Reg reader complained. "To add to the problem …

    Operating Systems 26 Mar 2007, 23:57