18th April 2007 Archive

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Hitachi woos mid-sized Americans with new blade

560 cores, 110 volts

Hitachi's North American arm has (insert knife-themed verb here) a fresh blade box meant for mid-sized businesses. Those of you with medium builds can say "hello" to the BladeSymphony 320 – a 6U high chassis that holds 10 two-socket servers. Should those sockets be filled with Intel's quad-core Xeon chip, then you're talking …

Servers 18 Apr 2007, 00:05
Curl back with Web 2.0 punch

Web 2.0 Expo Style and substance

Curl, the Rich internet programming language specialist, is re-launching into the North American market having succumbed to the post dotcom crash. Curl is recruiting developers, sales and marketing staff, and expanding its marketing budget after the last North American push dried up with its VC funding. Additionally, Curl …

Developer 18 Apr 2007, 00:32
University admins lend phishers a hand

Hacked cluster serves up addresses

Lax security at Indiana University appears to have played a key role in highly targeted phishing attack last year that hauled in confidential information on as many as 80 account holders of the school's credit union. The finding, gleaned through public records unearthed by a university student, provides an interesting case study …

Enterprise Security 18 Apr 2007, 00:35
IBM fires on some cylinders in Q1

Software and services good

IBM fired on some cylinders in Q1, growing revenues seven per cent to $22bn and net income eight per cent to $1.8bn. A good performance in EMEA (Europe, Middle East and Africa) and a very good performance in Asia-Pac compensated for flat revenues in the Americas. Services - outsourcing and the like - and software did well, …

Financial News 18 Apr 2007, 00:53
Yahoo! profits nothing to shout about!

Panama fails to cap sales

Yahoo! first-quarter profit fell 11 per cent from last year, with the company falling short of analyst expectations for its new advertising platform, Panama. Q1 profit was listed as $142.4m or 10 cents per share, down from $159.9m or 11 cents per share at the same quarter last year. Analysts had expected a profit of 11 cents …

Financial News 18 Apr 2007, 00:55
Intel introduces ultra-mobile PC platform

IDF 'Stealy' revealed as Centrino for UMPCs

Intel's Ultra Mobile Platform (UMP) came out of the shadows today and with it the A100 series of processors for UMPCs and internet access devices. So did its successor, codenamed 'Menlow', set to ship less than a year from now. UMP links the A100 and A110 CPUs with the 945GU and ICH7U north and south bridges. As the names …

Reg Hardware 18 Apr 2007, 02:36
Chip giant pledges integrated graphics boost

IDF Render mender

Intel's mobile integrated graphics technology is just going to keep on getting better, the chip giant effused today, pledging its next-but-one built-in GPU will deliver a 25 per cent improvement over the one inside the upcoming 965GM chipset. Beyond that, future chipsets will boost IGP performance by 50 per cent, Intel's …

Reg Hardware 18 Apr 2007, 03:52
$1m concept PC contest winners named

IDF But neither of them on the public shortlist

Korean combine TriGem this week pocketed $700,000 of chip giant Intel's money for designing what a panel of experts have voted the world's coolest Viiv box. Norway's Mesiro walked away with the $300,000 runner-up prize. Black Crystal by B&O TriGem TriGem's Lluon 'Black Crystal' machine restyles the media centre machine as …

Reg Hardware 18 Apr 2007, 04:31
Woven threatens to make 10Gig E cheap and stable

Fibre Channel? Infiniband? Forget it

Networking start-up Woven Systems has reminded us that great ideas can come in small, cost-conscious packages. The 26-person firm has developed a 10-Gbit/s Ethernet switch that outperforms Fibre Channel, while undercutting the price of rival Ethernet hardware. Woven expects its switch, due out in the third quarter, will find a …

Data Networking 18 Apr 2007, 04:58
Quote of the Day

IDF What tickles Intel veep Steve Smith

"Having enthusiasts play with our parts is our goal here..." Steve Smith, Vice President and Director, Digital Enterprise Group, Intel Make this man happy - play with his parts, now

Reg Hardware 18 Apr 2007, 06:27
C2000 projects high hopes for AV biz

Targets SMEs and education

Computer 2000, which recently ramped up its audiovisual business, has confirmed that more deals with manufacturers can be expected over the coming weeks. C2000, the UK arm of technology distributing giant Tech Data, has already signed European deals with two AV accessory manufacturers (Ergotron and Vogels) over the past few …

Channel Register 18 Apr 2007, 08:02
Finance managers top company fraud list

Absolute power corrupts absolutely

Company fraudsters often get away with their crimes for five years, committing as many as 50 undetected frauds, according to the forensic department of audit firm KPMG. The firm has analysed 360 cases in which its forensic department has been involved and found that a third of cases involve more than 50 acts of fraud, while two …

Small Biz 18 Apr 2007, 08:57
Delusional thoroughbred chief wants US out of GATS

House of Cards Horseracing head keeps head in sand

In a bizarrely rambling and ill-informed interview with Interactive Gaming News last week, National Thoroughbred Racing Association (NTRA) head Alex Waldrop advocated that the United States try to remove gambling services from the General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS), thereby circumventing a string of negative rulings …

Law 18 Apr 2007, 09:10
Orange and Vodafone cripple Nokia's flagship

N95 comes with VoIP disabled

Nokia N95 handsets supplied by Orange and Vodafone, in the UK, have had their VoIP capability removed in what looks like a desperate move by the network operators to defend their voice revenue. Each operator has their own variant of the software pre-installed on a phone handset to allow them to pre-load branding or particular …

Mobile 18 Apr 2007, 09:19
'Please read this important email: you are being shot'

Analysis Are you Twittering this?

These days, no major tragedy is complete without ambulance-chasing technology boosters muscling in on the aftermath. The Asian tsunami and the London 7/7 attacks both provided a tasteless excuse for evangelists to hype their favourite cause: instant real-time communications in general, and blogging in particular. But with the …

Government 18 Apr 2007, 09:33
Intel inserts hack into Celebrity

IDF Cast aside like Monday's mat

The word on the Beijing streets is that Bill Gates will appear Thursday at a downtown hotel to tout something. As of this writing, Microsoft has decided it would be best for us not to attend that event. The same cannot be said for Sun Microsystems, which has spared some time with Chairman Scott McNealy. And we're not sure what’s …

PCs & Chips 18 Apr 2007, 09:42
Google grants webmasters the power of China

Deindexing for the masses

Google will let webmasters remove sites it has indexed from search results more easily by using a long-demanded new tool. It's already very easy to avoid being indexed in the first place by Google, by editing the standard robots.txt file or by using meta tagging, but until now it was tricky for Joe Webmaster to have a listing …

IT Director 18 Apr 2007, 09:43
US Navy malware infection risked submarine prang

Disgruntled contractor donned black hat after losing business

An American contractor holding top-level security clearance has been convicted of sabotaging critical US Navy computers used for submarine traffic control. Richard F Sylvestre, from Massachusetts, installed malware on a computer network at the Italian HQ of the US 6th Fleet, America's standing taskforce in the Mediterranean …

Enterprise Security 18 Apr 2007, 09:46
HP ProCurve gets the NAC

The enforcer at the edge

HP ProCurve has dived into NAC (network access control), announcing an endpoint security appliance and Network Immunity - software that ties into a threat-detection appliance on one side and the network switches on the other, and uses 802.1X port control to lock out miscreants and network threats as they are detected. The two …

Hardware 18 Apr 2007, 09:49
BlackBerry network squashed

Email-push pushed over in USA and Canada

Users of the BlackBerry email-push service have found themselves disconnected and unable to send or receive messages because of a "critical infrastructure outage" which seems to be affecting people across the western hemisphere. Problems have been reported in RIM's home country, Canada, as well as the USA. Calls to the …

Mobile 18 Apr 2007, 09:51
MS Office versus the browser

Reg Reader Workshop What's the centre of your desktop?

The death of the PC and an end to the running of applications on the desktop has been predicted constantly for at least 10 years. From Larry Ellison's high profile advocacy of the Network Computer in the 90s, through modern day web delivery methods, to the latest software as a service (SaaS) plays, there has always been …

Business 18 Apr 2007, 10:13
Spanish flag flies over Gibraltar

British sovereign territory violated, military action likely

True patriots prepare to choke on your beef and oyster pie of olde England because, by the Lord Harry and Saint George, the Spanish flag today flies over the sacred Rock of Gibraltar: This outrage against British sovereign territory is the work of one "alvarITO", aided and abetted by Google's 3D Warehouse utility. The …

Bootnotes 18 Apr 2007, 10:15
Austrian OAPs in crazed hare terror ordeal

Police shoot would-be leporine assassin

Austrian police have defended their decision to shoot a "crazed" hare which savaged a Linz pensioner before laying into her husband and subsequently battling with officers called to the scene. According to Spiegel Online, the elderly target of the assault was hanging out her washing in her garden on Monday when the leporine …

Bootnotes 18 Apr 2007, 10:19
Fast trekkin' to requirements

Who's afraid of requirements management?

Many people in IT are scared of managing requirements, especially in smaller companies, according to Andy Gurd, director of product marketing at Telelogic (which sells the excellent DOORS requirements management tool). Some of this is understandable, since requirements management is sometimes associated with "high ceremony" …

Developer 18 Apr 2007, 10:59
UK crematoria eye heavyweight incinerators

Coffins growing with the nation's waistlines

The UK's crematoria are struggling to cope with the nation's oversized corpses, the BBC reports. According to the Local Government Association, the nation's growing levels of obesity mean many cremators simply cannot accomodate the wider coffins required to dispatch the deceased to the hereafter, and local councils are footing …

Bootnotes 18 Apr 2007, 11:57
Dual- and quad-core 'Penryn' CPUs benchmarked

IDF Smokin'

How might processors based on Intel's upcoming 45nm 'Penryn' architecture perform when compared to today's 65nm CPUs? The chip giant today posted test results to give us an indication of what to expect the Core 2 upgrade hits the market. The tests were carried out on a pre-production Intel D975XBX2 motheerboard with a pre- …

Reg Hardware 18 Apr 2007, 12:02
Data chief does a Bronson over Grange Hill firm's CV exposé

You boy!

The independent body responsible for enforcing the Data Protection Act has expressed concern about Lime Pictures' monumental technical cock-up which exposed thousands of individuals' personal details on its website. A spokesperson at the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) told The Register: "It is a matter of concern if a …

Enterprise Security 18 Apr 2007, 12:02
'Smart dust' to explore alien worlds

Or assemble itself into shapeshifting android vampire assassins

A high-ranking British boffin has proposed that other planets might be explored by "smart dust", clouds of tiny electronic devices which would drift intelligently on alien atmosphere currents while communicating by Wi-Fi. John Barker, professor of electronics at the University of Glasgow, outlined his ideas at the Royal …

Space 18 Apr 2007, 12:16
Goldsmiths appoints professor of games

Ex-IBMer joins Brit art's alma mater

Goldsmiths, University of London, has appointed a professor of computer games. William Latham, an ex-IBMer, joins the Department of Computing this month. He will work on developing a Masters in Computer Gaming and Entertainment as well as working on the Mutator2 Procedural Modelling Project. The course may start this September …

Public Sector 18 Apr 2007, 12:16
Orange broadband trials error hijacking

ASP: advertising service provider

Orange broadband is trialling taking advantage of address bar spelling mistakes and server errors to serve sponsored search results and contextual ads to its customers. An Orange spokesman said the move had been made "in order to deliver a better experience to our customers". The changes, which customers have not been informed …

Networks 18 Apr 2007, 12:17
China fails to ban nude web chats

No basis in law for a cover-up

The Chinese have dismally failed to clamp down on nude web chats after discovering "there was no basis in law to bring charges" against a housewife who arranged such online fleshfests, Reuters reports. The 36-year-old woman, known only by her surname Li, was charged with "organising pornographic activities", viz: using a webcam …

Law 18 Apr 2007, 12:18
Midlands police cuff war driving duo

Cardboard camouflage ruse fails Wi-Fi 'thief'

Two people have been arrested and cautioned by UK police in the midlands this month after they were caught "war driving", in a rare example of prosecutions of this kind in the UK. Last Saturday a man in Redditch, Worcestershire, was arrested while using a laptop in a parked car after attracting the suspicion of neighbours. …

Enterprise Security 18 Apr 2007, 13:08
Workplace smut runs rampant

Security policies honoured in the breach

Audits of workplace PCs by security firm PixAlert discovered that more than a quarter (25.8 per cent) of the 10,000 PCs scanned contained pornography or other inappropriate images. Authorised scans of around 125 corporate and public sector networks by PixAlert over the last nine months also found 12.4 per cent of 12,000 email …

Enterprise Security 18 Apr 2007, 13:10
The VoIP wars: air supply is an optional feature

Mobile carriers seek to choke new market

Truphone boss James Tagg says his fledgling company will ask Ofcom to intervene if mobile networks continue to cripple VoIP-capable handsets. Another VoIP provider told us today that Orange has been crippling its E61 handsets for SIP telephony "for several weeks". As we reported earlier today, Vodafone and Orange have released …

Networks 18 Apr 2007, 13:51
MPs give Ofcom a high def battering

Ofcomwatch Don't mess with Chorley

Ofcom received a battering before a joint Trade and Industry and Culture, Media and Sport select committee yesterday. The session, which was scheduled to grill the telecoms regulator on its Annual Plan 2007/08 focused mainly on a number of topical, high profile issues and highlighted the ever-political nature of "independent" …

Networks 18 Apr 2007, 13:53
UK's 'elitist' immigration rules billed for January

Byrne gets tough on border control

Home Office minister Liam Byrne has announced he is to introduce "tough new Australian-style" migration controls intended, from January next year, to make it tougher for all but "elite" migrants to get into Britain. He also opened discussions with Australia, Canada and the US on how technology might make it easier for them to …

Law 18 Apr 2007, 14:29
Rookie plumber torches £5m mansion

First day on the job goes up in smoke

A fire which ravaged a £5m Georgian mansion was likely caused by an unfortunate meeting between a plumbing apprentice bearing a blow torch and polystyrene roof installation, The Daily Mail reports. More than 60 firemen fought the blaze at Kittery Court, in Kingswear, Devon - owned by "Forever Friends" greeting cards millionaire …

Bootnotes 18 Apr 2007, 14:31
Barclays deploys PINsentry to fight fraud

Chip-and-PIN marches into the home

Barclays has announced plans to send out handheld chip and PIN card readers to their online banking customers in a bid to combat online fraud. The bank is to provide chip-and-PIN 'PINsentry' card readers to half a million customers in the UK, starting later this year. Barclays online customers will be required to use the …

ID 18 Apr 2007, 14:42
LG launches first foray into dual-format HD arena

UK release of Blu-ray/HD DVD high-definition player

Yesterday in London LG announced the UK launch of its dual-format, high-definition player. As we reported in January, the Blu-ray / HD DVD device, known as the BH100, was first shown at CES in Las Vegas, earlier this year. It supports various A/V formats, including playback of existing DVDs with 1080i up-scaling resolution …

Reg Hardware 18 Apr 2007, 14:49
Ethanol cars unhealthier than petrol ones?

Quixotic Californian boffin favours windmill-powered motors

An American academic has published research (pdf) suggesting that bio-ethanol vehicles could be more damaging to human health than ordinary fossil-fuelled ones. Mark Jacobson of Stanford University in California used two computer models to predict American air quality in the year 2020. In the first scenario, it was taken that …

Science 18 Apr 2007, 14:50
HD DVD player sales pass 100k mark in US

Rising demand

US consumers have bought more than 100,000 HD DVD players, the next-gen optical disc format's backers claim. The figure doesn't include HD DVD drives built into PCs, nor the external HD DVD drive for the Xbox 360, leaving the 100,000 units almost entirely comprised of Toshiba's three players. Back in January, Toshiba said it …

Reg Hardware 18 Apr 2007, 15:02
Afghanistan succumbs to killer virus hoax

Mobile message of death crosses border

The killer mobile phone virus panic which last week gripped Pakistan had by Monday spread to Afghanistan, with rumours circulating that several people in Kabul had succumbed to the message of death over the weekend. Pakistan's mobile operators were inundated with calls from concerned customers after they received a hoax message …

Bootnotes 18 Apr 2007, 15:27
Reg readers admit to faking it

Reg Reader Studies Poll results: The frustrations of front line support

A Reg reader poll looking at power users and their experiences with customer technical support flushed out a lot of opinions. The exercise focused particularly on support situations in which IT literate users are calling publicly facing help desks as private individuals, rather than on behalf of their company. In all, we …

Reg Technology Panel 18 Apr 2007, 16:12
Heavy competition hits Motorola's bottom line

Slumping phone sales

Weak handset sales hit Motorola's results in the first quarter, as the mobile manufacturer revealed a loss for the three-month period. The world's second biggest mobile phone manufacturer just managed to hit analysts' expectations with a loss of $181 million, or $0.08 a share, as increased competition in the market hit home. …

Financial News 18 Apr 2007, 18:01
Study: Users pay for Microsoft patent woes

'Patent tax' of $21.50 each

Each copy of Windows cost users an additional $21.50 "patent tax" to cover Microsoft litigation bills, the Software Freedom Law Center claims. The SFLC, which provides legal representation and services to promote free and open source software, said customers are the ones splitting the bill for Microsoft's ceaseless patent- …

Operating Systems 18 Apr 2007, 21:28
eBay profits jump 52 per cent

More, more, more

eBay beat Wall Street expectations with a net profit jump of 52 per cent. The online auction leader's first quarter net income hit $377m this quarter compared with $248.3m last year. Revenue grew 27 per cent to $1.77bn (Q1' 06: $1.39bn). Analyst expectations had ranged from $1.69bn to $1.77bn. "This first quarter of 2007 was a …

Financial News 18 Apr 2007, 23:21
ICANN gets restraining order against RegisterFly

$6000 chihuahua brought to heel at last

In a welcome victory for RegisterFly customers, ICANN announced yesterday that it had been granted a Temporary Restraining Order (TRO) against RegisterFly, the ICANN-accredited domain registrar accused of allowing tens of thousands of domains to lapse unlawfully. The TRO orders RegisterFly to provide copies of all current …

Law 18 Apr 2007, 23:26
Role-players amok in Second Life

Column Games within a game

A woman did something to me not long ago. At least I believe so; I'm not certain, because think I blacked out at one point. I'm not really sure what I remember; maybe I hallucinated when I blacked out. If I blacked out. I think I saw her suffer a ghastly injury to her leg during a fight, and when it was over, she asked me to …

Music and Media 18 Apr 2007, 23:34