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2nd May 2007 Archive

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  • IBM cuts 1,300 jobs

    Pink slipping in the USA

    More than 1,300 jobs were pencilled for elimination at IBM. Alliance@IBM, a group working to form a union at the company, reports that 1,135 employees and an unknown number of contractors have been notified their job will be eliminated. The job cuts are at IBM sites in New York, Connecticut, Colorado and Kentucky and home-based …

    Business 2 May 2007, 02:01

  • Apple patches security hole in QuickTime

    QuickTime one of four popular apps currently at risk

    Apple has patched a high-profile vulnerability in QuickTime eleven days after the flaw allowed a hacker to publicly hijack a brand new MacBook Pro. The Apple media player is just one of four popular applications suffering from security defects that currently require the urgent attention of those who use them. The three other …

    Security 2 May 2007, 02:04

  • The Economist de-rails Microsoft media love in

    MIX07 Content or Diss content?

    It could have been so different. Thinkers and creatives from publishing and advertising – Coke, The Economist and others - met for a Microsoft MIX07 panel, to debate and generally conclude that technology is a great way for reaching consumers. After two days of Microsoft extolling the joys of convergence and multimedia content …

    Music and Media 2 May 2007, 03:56

  • Info chief voices doubts over surveillance tech

    Airs scepticism at Westminster hearing

    Information Commissioner Richard Thomas yesterday told members of the Home Affairs Select Committee on the Surveillance Society that a proliferation of surveillance technologies were being turned on society in the hope of curing its ills - even though the jury was still out on whether it was effective. This stance followed the …

    Law 2 May 2007, 05:02

  • ISPA to members: play fair on fair use

    Savaged by a dead sheep

    Internet providers' trade association ISPA has told its members to stop advertising "unlimited" broadband unless they are explicit and transparent about their fair use policies. Over recent months public calls have grown louder for action against ISPs who hawk "unlimited" services, without monthly download limits or bandwidth …

    Telecoms 2 May 2007, 06:02

  • Nvidia whups Intel in Q1 desktop graphics

    But a poor quarter for the biz as a whole

    Chip maker Nvidia can be seen striding around the graphics arena, arms raised, muscles flexed after giving Intel a mighty thrashing in the first-quarter contest. Nvidia wrested leadership of the desktop graphics market from the chip giant, Jon Peddie Research (JPR) revealed today. Intel quit Q4 2006 with a share of 37.5 per …

    Reg Hardware 2 May 2007, 09:21

  • VXers push small coc Trojan on unwilling world

    It's not the size that matters

    Virus writer toolkits and the general ease of creating new variants of established malware strains mean anti-virus firms have begun to need three alphabetical letters for some Trojan families. It's tough at the coalface, fighting the never-ending malware in email menace, so it's understandable that techies chuckled when they …

    Malware 2 May 2007, 09:25

  • Sony says public to test Home for PS3 this summer

    Console fans get Sad Life all of their own

    Sony will open its Home to guests this summer, the consumer electronics giant has said. No, we're not talking some tedious Hello-esque celebrity fawn-a-thon, but the Second Life-style alternative world for the PS3. Home is currently in pre-release testing. At the moment, only Sony insiders are getting a look-in, but the beta …

    Reg Hardware 2 May 2007, 09:54

  • Survey: open source shows progress in public sector

    Firm foothold established

    Open source technology now has a firm foothold in the public sector, according to a new survey. A snapshot survey organised by Kable and sponsored by Red Hat shows just over a third of respondents are actually using open source, and close to another third are giving it consideration in their plans for the future. The results …

    Operating Systems 2 May 2007, 09:58

  • Defence firm loses domain case against cannabis site

    Lockheed Martin's appeal for ukskunkworks.co.uk fails

    Defence company Lockheed Martin Corporation has lost its attempt to gain control of a web address currently hosting a site devoted to cannabis paraphernalia. The ruling (pdf) on the .co.uk domain was an appeal from an earlier ruling. The case was heard by one panelist under the dispute resolution process of Nominet, the …

    Law 2 May 2007, 10:13

  • Moto gives thumbs-up to 'imperial purple' RAZR

    Those about to dial, salute you

    Who can Motorola have in mind for its limited edition purple RAZR V3i handset? Roman emperors? Catholic cardinals? Prince fans? Bloggers with a particularly florid prose style? Whoever, it's offering the beetroot-hued handset to Stateside buyers. We've seen the specs before - little has changed since the RAZR's debut in …

    Reg Hardware 2 May 2007, 10:22

  • iGoogle launch fingered in user data loss furore

    Hiccup may have eaten your data

    After thousands of Google users lost their calendar and digital sticky notes when personalised settings mysteriously disappeared last week, the explanation seems to be "iGoogle". According to the Google blog, staff at the search giant call their customised Google homepages iGoogle, and the functions of iGoogle were released to …

    Applications 2 May 2007, 10:25

  • The Pirate Bay launches music sharing site

    Promises online musical treasure chest

    The Pirate Bay, the controversial Swedish piracy torrent tracker, is launching a music site where users can share as much music as they want. Playable.com is a collaboration between The Pirate Bay, members of the Swedish rock band Lamont, and their manager Kristopher S Wilbur. A statement said: "The shared insight that the …

    Music and Media 2 May 2007, 10:39

  • Sky customers spending more than £400 a year

    Updated HD and Sky+ promote growth

    Sky has announced its figures for the first three months of 2007, and things are looking rosy. Critically, the ARPU (Average Revenue Per User) is up to £406 per year (from £394 over the last quarter) - very good news for Sky, which also saw customer numbers rise by 51,000 to just under 8.5 million. High Definition has been …

    Telecoms 2 May 2007, 10:45

  • Boo.com back from the dead

    Web 2.0 lives

    Anyone concerned that Web 2.0 is beginning to resemble the bubble of the late 90s, will be heartened by the return of boo.com. The fashion website was a poster child for all that was wrong with overly optimistic start-ups of the period us old timers call the first internet boom. The company raised £100m, some of it from public …

    Small Biz 2 May 2007, 10:47

  • IBM markets up-beat service under legacy brand

    Comment Lotus - what's in a name?

    Are you looking to change your core email, calendar, and contacts system in the near future? Probably not. While there is a little movement in the market if you are a Microsoft Exchange site, the chances are you will remain so for a while to come, and it is the same for Lotus Notes/Domino shops and others. No one needs the …

    Applications 2 May 2007, 10:58

  • Intel slices chip workers in New Mexico

    As SIA confirms industry sales falling short

    Intel is to cease production of obsolete 200mm wafers at its New Mexico outpost – meaning obsolete workers will also be dumped. The firm will ditch around 1,000 of the 5,000 workers at its Rio Rancho plant when it switches the plant entirely over to production of the newer 300mm technology by the end of August, the Associated …

    PCs & Chips 2 May 2007, 11:20

  • CA gets new UK channel boss

    Ex-Dell man takes on 'indirect route to market'

    Software provider CA has appointed a former Dell executive to head up its channel business in the UK. Mike Feltwell, who worked at Dell as public sector sales manager, government and defence, steps into a newly created role which CA hopes will help the firm drive business growth in the UK channel. CA UK and Ireland regional …

    Channel Register 2 May 2007, 11:21

  • Jesus appears in Samsung Flash memory chip

    Electron microscopy reveals 4-gig Messiah

    True believers and Golden Palace Casino take note: we have just received news that Our Lord has manifested himself in a four-gig Samsung Flash memory chip - complete with beard and ethereal "flower petal halo" effect. Yay verily, as the Bible sayeth (Luke 21:27): "At that time they will see the Son of Man coming in a cloud …

    Bootnotes 2 May 2007, 11:27

  • Ballmer: Apple's iPhone will be a niche player

    Analysis That's right, Steve - and it's a good thing too

    So did Microsoft CEO Steve 'Monkey Boy' Ballmer actually claim Apple's iPhone strategy is "flawed" or "bust", as a fair few bloggers picking up on his USA Today interview suggested? Not quite. In fact, Ballmer admitted the iPhone will make Apple "a lot of money". Which is the whole point, isn't it? However, it's an …

    Reg Hardware 2 May 2007, 11:27

  • Electrode hats to exploit soldiers' subconscious powers

    Helmet mind-probe madness at DARPA

    Those wacky boffins at the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) have outdone themselves. The US military researchers are engaged in an effort to produce "soldier portable" digital imaging systems which can pick out "vehicle and dismount" threats 1-10 km away over a 120-degree or greater field of view, by scanning …

    Science 2 May 2007, 11:31

  • Digg buried by users in piracy face-down

    The mob rules

    Social news aggregator Digg was repeatedly brought down yesterday by users angry that it had bowed to the anti-piracy lobby. The firestorm began when Digg's administrators acted on a Advance Access Content System (AACS) cease and desist order, which demanded it remove the link to an article revealing the encryption key for HD- …

    Music and Media 2 May 2007, 11:39

  • Cambridge gives e-marking a tick

    RM plugs markers into hive mind

    Cambridge Assessment, the non-profit exam marking offshoot of Cambridge University, has signed RM Plc to hook its freelance markers into a computerised assessment tool. RM will be paid at least £21m over five years to install and manage the system, dealing with exam papers submitted by about eight million candidates in 150 …

    Channel Register 2 May 2007, 11:45

  • Russians tell aliens to suck on a fat one

    хуй to you too, mate

    Doubtless inspired by the UK's huge farmer's arse, Russian wags recently decided to send a message of their own to visiting aliens, and have succeeded in getting their greeting onto Yahoo! Maps: For those of you not up to speed on Russian sexual slang, хуй translates as "cock". And what a collossal cock it is too, as these …

    Bootnotes 2 May 2007, 11:46

  • ION USB turntable

    Review The vinyl countdown

    The next generation of DJs are forsaking traditional 12-inchers in favour of digital means to create their sounds. If you think today's tunes could benefit from some seasoned samples, or even if you want to transfer your vintage vinyl to a digital music player, then this could be a worthwhile investment. The ION USB turntable …

    Reg Hardware 2 May 2007, 12:04

  • E-voting as secure as an insecure thing

    No hostages to fortune here

    Twelve councils are piloting voting over the internet in the local elections on Thursday, and the government has accepted there may be security problems with the system. The Department of Constitutional Affairs (DCA) says it is aware of security holes, but still reckons it will be secure enough. A briefing note from the DCA …

    Public Sector 2 May 2007, 12:11

  • Woman serves hubby really crap curry

    Dog excrement stunt ends in court

    A Scottish woman has pleaded guilty to "culpable and reckless conduct" after serving her estranged husband a curry laced with dog excrement, the BBC reports. Jill Martin, 47, admitted that on 13 March she served up the novel dish to Donald Martin and "burst out laughing" when he started to eat it. At first she "claimed she had …

    Bootnotes 2 May 2007, 12:12

  • Tessa Jowell stands up for blogging code of conduct

    Let's have a worthless debate

    Regular readers will remember a couple of weeks back, when we wrote about how Tim 2.0'Reilly was quietly aborting his blogging code of conduct. His attempt to stand up for marketing guru Kathy Sierra, who cancelled a conference appearance because people were being mean about her on the internet, was mostly just misguided. …

    Public Sector 2 May 2007, 13:02

  • 60% of laptops to have Flash storage by 2010, claims researcher

    Notebook vendors cache in

    "More than half of new notebooks to use Flash drives by Q4 2009," shouts the headline on market watcher iSuppli's latest missive, before admitting soon after that, actually, it's counting not just solid-state drives but also regular HDDs with integrated Flash cache and separate caches like Intel's Turbo Memory module. Still, …

    Reg Hardware 2 May 2007, 13:18

  • Poisoned MP4 files threaten Winamp users

    Play it again, hacker

    Hackers have crafted an exploit based on an unpatched vulnerability in Winamp, the popular media player package. Security bugs within Winamp's MP4 decoding allow miscreants to slip malware onto the PCs of users running Winamp version 5.34. The vulnerability has been coded into a script kiddie friendly exploit, however a …

    Security 2 May 2007, 13:24

  • Blockbuster says Game Over on Game Station UK

    Hopes sell-off will bust debt

    Movie retail giant Blockbuster Inc has said it has sold Game Station Ltd, the UK video game arm of its business, to Game Group Plc in a $150m deal. Dallas-based Blockbuster said it hopes proceeds from the sale will help pay off outstanding debt. Blockbuster bought Game Station in October 2004, and the sale is the latest in a …

    Channel Register 2 May 2007, 13:26

  • Hot-air powered railway to harvest energy from cars

    'Solve problems by building stuff,' says architect

    An American architect has come up with a scheme, now picked up on Slashdot, to harvest the wind generated by fast-moving motor vehicles and use it to power a light-rail network running alongside the highway. The idea is that sections of dividing barriers would be replaced by rows of Darius turbines, which would whirl in the …

    Science 2 May 2007, 13:30

  • Nvidia GeForce 8800 Ultra card available in two weeks' time

    It's the "world's fastest GPU", Nvidia claims, though it may not be long before AMD's ATI Radeon HD 2900 XT grabs the title from the GeForce 8800 Ultra, released today as forecast. Actually, the Nvidia chip may even have the edge even then, if early tests of the 2900 XT and 2900 XTX are anything to go by. We'd have liked to …

    Reg Hardware 2 May 2007, 13:44

  • The surveillance arms race

    Computers, Freedom, and Privacy Just what is excessive?

    Surveillance breeds more surveillance. That seems to be the primary message from the first day of this year's Computers, Freedom, and Privacy conference, held this week in Montreal. The theme of the conference is "autonomy", one of those vanishing luxuries. Lawyer Eugene Oscapella uses the war on drugs as an example. This …

    Law 2 May 2007, 13:56

  • O2 re-embraces HTC with XDA Argon launch

    O2 has shown is second XDA smart phone to be made by Taiwanese phone manufacturer HTC since the two companies kissed and made up after their mid-2006 falling out. The latest model, the Argon, sports a 3.5in display. The 240 x 320, 65,536-colour screen is the Argon's stand-out feature - the rest is standard fare: tri-band …

    Reg Hardware 2 May 2007, 14:11

  • DDoS attacks fall as crackers turn to spam

    Baron Samedi and chums redeploy zombie armies

    Denial of service attacks are falling out of favour with black hat hackers because using compromised machines to send spam is a more lucrative - and less risky - way of making money illicitly. Networks of compromised PCs can be used for purposes including relaying junk mail or flooding targeted websites with spurious traffic …

    Spam 2 May 2007, 14:20

  • ITV plays catch-up

    Last will be first

    ITV might be the last major broadcaster to jump aboard the video-on-demand bandwagon, but it has done so with both feet. Although not yet launched, a rejigged itv.com promises a 30 day archive of programmes, live streaming of all ITV channels, user-generated content, and exclusive "made for broadband" commissions. It will also …

    Telecoms 2 May 2007, 14:59

  • Mobile Spy ups mobile snooping powers

    Big Brother calling

    Mobile Spy, a new application from Retina-X Studios, monitors calls and text messages and reports them back to a central server. When installed on a Windows Mobile device, Mobile Spy allows parents to keep watch on their child's phone, or enables employers to enforce an acceptable use policy on their staff - though the legality …

    Mobile 2 May 2007, 15:18

  • Month of ActiveX bugs yields results

    On the up and up after all

    Yet another blog promising a month of bugs has surfaced, this time poking security holes in ActiveX, and lo and behold, it has disclosed two important security holes in as many days. After hoaxsters promised but failed to deliver several "month of" sites in recent weeks, we dismissed such campaigns as a desperate cry for …

    Enterprise Security 2 May 2007, 18:48

  • Judge in MP3 case to Microsoft: time to pay up

    $1.5bn, please

    Microsoft has been ordered to stump up $1.5bn for violating MP3 patents owned by Alcatel and Lucent Technologies. US federal judge Rudi Brewster told the software giant that it's time to pay damages, after a trial jury found Microsoft guilty in February. The judge ordered the $1.5bn to be split between Lucent and Alcatel - …

    Law 2 May 2007, 21:37

  • How a Rock started the venture capital biz in the Valley

    Money monopoly

    Arthur Rock once savored a monopoly over the minds and money flowing through Silicon Valley. One struggles these days to imagine anything less than a steel cage, death match as myriad venture capital firms rush to fund the latest and greatest start-ups. Investors fall all over each other, hoping to strike it rich in a flash. …

    Business 2 May 2007, 21:58

  • Vonage wants retrial of Verizon patent case

    Supreme Court ruling to the rescue

    Vonage has asked for a retrial in the patent case which the VoIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) phone company lost to telco giant Verizon. The company wants the trial reheard in the light of a new Supreme Court ruling on patent law. Earlier this week the Supreme Court issued new guidance on what 'obviousness' means. A patent …

    VoIP 2 May 2007, 22:43

  • Fujitsu swoops on GFI Informatique

    But does GFI want to be bought?

    Fujitsu Services wants to buy GFI Informatique, the French reseller which wants to be bought by the private equity group Apax. So it is bypassing GFI's reseller's board to appeal directly to the company's shareholders. Yesterday, it confirmed its intention to launch a counter-offer for the company at a price of €8.50 per share …

    Channel Register 2 May 2007, 23:29

  • Dell's dance with Ubuntu: True love or farce?

    Here we go again

    Where Dell 1.0 had Red Hat, Dell 2.0 sports Ubuntu. Can you really tell the difference? Dell 1.0 had Michael Dell brag in 2000 about being "the first major manufacturer to offer Linux across its full product line." Dell made these comments at the LinuxWorld conference, where he also promoted Dell investments in open source …

    PCs & Chips 2 May 2007, 23:33