The Register® — Biting the hand that feeds IT

Feeds

25th May 2007 Archive

Browse by publication date, or search the site.

  • HP marries Cisco's Infiniband switches with clusters and blades

    And clusters made of blades

    HP has added more Cisco networking gear options to its pre-packaged cluster product line. First off, HP's customers can now pick up Cisco's double data rate (DDR) InfiniBand-based Server Fabric Switches (SFS). Many of you will know this Cisco kit as the hardware once sold by start-up Topspin, which Cisco swallowed in 2005. The …

    Servers 25 May 2007, 01:03

  • Strange spoofing technique evades anti-phishing filters

    Targets include PayPal, eBay and others

    A Reg reader has produced screen shots that demonstrate a powerful phishing technique that's able to spoof eBay, PayPal and other top web destinations without triggering antiphishing filters in IE 7 or Norton 360. Plenty of other PayPal users are experiencing the same ruse, according to search engine results. Matty Hall, a …

    Enterprise Security 25 May 2007, 03:30

  • Revenues up at C&W

    No, we're not for sale. No, really, we're not

    Cable & Wireless has played down suggestions of a planned takeover as the firm announced that it more than doubled its annual pre-tax profits to £249m. The telecoms group, which has been dogged by takeover rumours for the past few months, said on Thursday that it had achieved 'better-than-expected' progress in the turnaround of …

    Financial News 25 May 2007, 07:02

  • CMSG gets ITIL

    Editor's blog A belated postcard from the BCS CMSG Conference

    The British Computer Society Configuration Management special interest group (the BCS CMSG) has rather an oxymoronic name perhaps - who's interested in CM? Well, I am. I was interested enough to go to its bi-annual conference last week, and so, probably, is anyone actually involved in doing CM. CM can be defined as: "The …

    Developer 25 May 2007, 09:25

  • 'Partial nudity' said to hinder M-rated Halo 2 release

    'When we asked for exciting Vistas, this is not what we meant...'

    An "obscure content error which includes partial nudity" is allegedly behind the set-back Microsoft this week made to the Windows Vista version of Halo 2, originally due 8 May, then 22 May and now 31 May. Microsoft doesn't appear to have stated outright the reason for the latest delay, but in an email website Next-Gen claims …

    Reg Hardware 25 May 2007, 09:45

  • EU extends TV law to the internet

    Laws get converged

    The European Council has passed a law which extends the laws governing television broadcasters to companies providing video content online regardless of how it is transmitted. The Audiovisual Media Services Without Frontiers Directive broadens broadcast rules introduced in 1997 to encompass content on the internet, mobile …

    Music and Media 25 May 2007, 09:56

  • Vodafone claims Spanish ISP in quad play push

    Comment Will it beat Orange to the punch?

    One story that sneaked past us at the end of last week was the fact that Vodafone has managed to outbid other mobile operators for the Spanish ISP Ya.com. We feel the deal presages a quadruple play move by Vodafone within the year. So Vodafone continues to build up fixed line stakes in all of the largest markets in Europe and …

    Networks 25 May 2007, 10:06

  • Brown dwarf cools its jets

    Cool pic too...

    Astronomers at the European Southern Observatory (ESO) VLT have found jets coming out from a 24 Jupiter-mass brown dwarf, or failed star, similar to the jets that are found coming out of young, but fully fledged stars. These jets, or "outflows" as they are known, are ubiquitous in the universe, having been seen on everything …

    Space 25 May 2007, 10:10

  • QWERTY keypad, HSDPA Walkman phone surfaces

    GSM Association spills Sony Ericsson beans

    Sony Ericsson's as yet unannounced W999 Walkman slider phone has appeared on the web in an official capacity, turning up among the GSM Association's list of HSDPA-compatible handsets. Sony Ericsson's W999 (left) appearing on the GSMA website The site also mentions the Z750, an HSDPA-enabled clamshell handset Sony Ericssion …

    Reg Hardware 25 May 2007, 10:13

  • A primer on SOA governance

    Interview The ground rules

    TIBCO's Stefan Farestam talks with Reg Developer about the ground rules of SOA governance. What do you understand by SOA governance? Surely, it's just a question of corporate governance generally – automated business processes should be subject to the same controls as are applied to any business process? On a high level …

    Developer 25 May 2007, 10:15

  • Attack of the terror casinos, volume 2

    House of Cards Please step away from the slides

    The second and final day of The Growth of Gambling and Prediction Markets: Economic and Financial Implications began with a very interesting session led by Ricardo Siu of of the University of Macau about whether or not gaming markets are a productive economic sector in the purely economic sense of that word: namely, are they …

    Financial News 25 May 2007, 10:23

  • Apple set to axe Mac Mini?

    Apple's diminutive Mac Mini is due to be discontinued, it has been claimed, quite possibly the victim of the even smaller but no less Mac OS X friendly Apple TV. According to an AppleInsider report, Apple sources claim the Mini's for the chop - maybe after a near-term upgrade, or maybe sooner. If the allegation is true, it's …

    Reg Hardware 25 May 2007, 10:30

  • MySQL chief: being open source is not enough

    Scandinavian, socialist, party people

    Open source startups can hit profitability sooner than it took closed source incumbents, as long as they steer clear of rivals' costly business practices. That's according to MySQL chief executive Marten Mickos, who told vendors and venture capitalists open source companies could cut their costs by not ploughing money into …

    Applications 25 May 2007, 10:33

  • Info chief to clamp down on silly FOI requests

    'No, we won't tell you how much toilet paper is used at Number 10'

    Information Commissioner Richard Thomas is to announce plans to deter vexatious requests made under the Freedom of Information Act. At a conference in London, he will say that such cases can waste public money and jeopardise the reputation of the Act. Speaking on BBC Radio Four's Today progamme, Thomas said that examples were …

    IT Director 25 May 2007, 10:36

  • Internet users unfazed by spam: study

    Are we bovvered? No, we're not

    The volume of spam arriving in Americans' personal and workplace inboxes is rising, but email users are less bothered by it than they once were. That's according to a new study from the Pew Internet Project, which reveals that American internet users have become more sophisticated at dealing with unsolicited emails. Asked if …

    Spam 25 May 2007, 10:40

  • Mobile phone rays paralyse cars

    If that's not sinister, we don't know what is

    Nissan has warned its customers not to let their keyless-entry devices touch cellphones, according to reports. The company has found that RF emissions during an incoming or outgoing call can wipe the memory of the electronic "I-keys" supplied with two of its flagship models. "We discovered that if the I-Key touches a cellphone …

    Mobile 25 May 2007, 10:41

  • Facebook taunts MySpace with open book policy

    Social operating system

    Facebook, the mainstream media web darling du jour, has opened up its development platform to allow other firms to develop applications to run on top of the site, broadening the range of features available to users. The news should allow the network's 23 million claimed monthly visitors to integrate their profile with other …

    Applications 25 May 2007, 10:47

  • Hitachi Deskstar 7K1000 hard drive

    Review Hitachi unleashes TB on the world - that's terabyte

    Hitachi's 'world's first' 3.5in terabyte desktop hard drive looks much like any other hard drive currently available, but it packs in five platters and ten read/write heads for an exceptional data storage capacity. In the event you don't want or need an enormous amount of storage, you can still buy a Deskstar 7K500 between …

    Reg Hardware 25 May 2007, 11:02

  • BOFH: Lost licences

    Episode 18 Now, if we all just work together...

    "I've lost some documents!" the Head of IT gasps, bounding into Mission Control with beads of sweat dotting his puffy red brow. "Documents?" the PFY asks. "Yes, I scanned our licence agreements into the computer and now they're gone!" "Gone from your computer?" the PFY sighs, firing up the backup software. "No, no, I put …

    BOFH 25 May 2007, 11:02

  • Sonos slims multi-room digital music bundle price

    Multi-room music system specialist Sonos has cut the price of its introductory hardware bundle by ten per cent to £699 from £779. The deal's better than it sounds, as the package now includes a ZonePlayer ZP100, which incorporates a 50W amplifier. The new bundle comprises the ZP100; the smaller ZP80, which connects to a …

    Reg Hardware 25 May 2007, 11:02

  • Vista upgrade revisited

    Comment The good, the bad, and the ugly

    It's been a while since I decided to be brave and upgrade my ThinkPad laptop from Windows XP to Vista Ultimate, along with upgrading Office XP to Office 2007. The upgrade to Vista was covered in an earlier article, but I thought now would be the time to provide an update on Microsoft's operating system and the Office suite. …

    Operating Systems 25 May 2007, 11:02

  • Father of LCD dies at 74

    Obituary Tribute to the 'modern day Isaac Newton'

    French Nobel laureate Pierre-Gilles de Gennes, a pioneer of the liquid crystal display (LCD), died last week at the age of 74. De Gennes, dubbed the Isaac Newton of our time, won the 1991 Nobel Prize for Physics for his groundbreaking work in liquid crystals and polymers. After graduating from the Ecole Normale Superieure, he …

    Physics 25 May 2007, 11:17

  • Sage names new chair

    Hobson gets the nod

    Software vendor Sage has appointed Tony Hobson as its new chairman. The UK-based business management software firm had been looking to fill the chair, which was left vacant by Sir Julian Horn-Smith who unexpectedly quit the post last month citing irreconcilable differences. Hobson, who is also chairman of Northern Foods plc …

    Applications 25 May 2007, 11:35

  • Toshiba, Canon delay SED TV debut - again

    Canon can't produce the panels in time?

    Toshiba has put back the debut of SED (Surface-conduction Electron-emitter Display) TVs. Most recently earmarked for a Q4 introduction, when the TVs will now appear is anyone's guess - Toshiba certainly isn't saying. The Japanese giant blamed the delay on Canon, which is developing the SED panels due to be used in Toshiba's …

    Reg Hardware 25 May 2007, 11:42

  • BetonSports pleads to racketeering

    House of Cards Sells executives down river

    BetonSports pleaded guilty earlier today to racketeering charges. BetonSports admitted to a "pattern of racketeering acts". The plea encompasses a variety of activities, including mail and wire fraud, operating an illegal gambling business, and money-laundering, US Attorney Catherine Hanaway said. The deal provides some cover …

    Law 25 May 2007, 11:50

  • G8 ministers call for IT biz help against child porn

    Interpol reveals enormous database of illegal images

    G8 justice and interior ministers meeting in Munich have called for private sector assistance in battling online child porn. UK, US, French, German, Canadian, Italian, Japanese, and Russian delegations issued a joint statement yesterday in which they said that "ISPs, IT professionals and financial institutions...should be …

    Law 25 May 2007, 11:55

  • The flaws in the control order 'fantasy prison' mind game

    No bars, no release date, no point staying

    In the wake of three more escapes from control order regimes, Home Secretary John Reid has been coming under fire for failure to keep closer tabs on supposedly dangerous terror suspects. And returning fire with threats to abandon more freedoms in order to keep us free. But a reality check of control orders is long overdue here …

    Law 25 May 2007, 11:58

  • Your space, MySpace, everybody's space

    A closer look at the privacy issue

    It has recently been reported that Attorneys General from about a dozen US States, including Connecticut, Georgia, Hawaii, Idaho, Mississippi, Maryland, New Hampshire, North Carolina, Ohio and Pennsylvania have demanded that News Corporation's social networking site MySpace voluntarily deliver a list of all sex offenders who …

    Law 25 May 2007, 12:04

  • Microsoft vouchers, Cisco security, and throttling Branson

    To subscribe to The Register's weekly newsletter - seven days of IT in a single hit - click here

    This voucher is not redeemable Businesses using Linux were warned this week that Microsoft and Novell's legal protection program isn't worth the trouble. The indemnity vouchers on offer to SuSE Linux users promise a safe haven if the patent wars between Microsoft and free software turn nasty (only last week Microsoft executives …

    Business 25 May 2007, 13:07

  • Oz cops cuff Darth Vader on his 30th birthday

    While LA celebrates Star Wars anniversary

    Fans of Star Wars were treated earlier this week to a marathon 17-hour screening of all six films in celebration of the franchise's 30th birthday. Several thousand diehards packed the Los Angeles Convention Centre on Wednesday to kick off "Star Wars Celebration IV", which runs until Monday. Attractions for the paying public …

    Entertainment 25 May 2007, 13:11

  • Abbey in bank holiday meltdown

    Taking 'bank holiday' too literally

    Abbey's business banking systems have taken an extra long weekend and been completely unavailable since yesterday, leaving customers unable to fulfil critical payments ahead of the spring bank holiday. The bank's systems suffered a less severe technical problem earlier in the week, which affected only moving money via online …

    IT Director 25 May 2007, 13:24

  • MS update patches patching

    A stitch in time...

    Microsoft this week pushed out a patch to resolve a flaw in its patching system. The update resolves a nagging issue that meant some PCs slowed to a crawl when either Microsoft Update or Windows Update carried out scans prior to downloads. Systems of the problem included the process svchost consuming the majority of CPU …

    Security 25 May 2007, 14:15

  • Dragon marauds London, escapes arrest

    Voice recognition mascot no threat

    Software company Nuance's dragon mascot narrowly escaped arrest this morning. The fanged and winged - but very green and fluffy - creature was prancing around London's Leicester Square when two police officers approached, asking: "You're not with Fathers-4-Justice, are you sir?" Reassured that the dragon was merely …

    Applications 25 May 2007, 14:21

  • Phoenix shareholders say yes to ICM bid

    Thunderbirds are go?

    Phoenix shareholders have given the proposed acquisition of ICM Computer Group an enthusiastic thumbs up. All resolutions were passed by the firm's shareholders. The total number of votes cast was 45,478,689 on three resolutions, of which less than one per cent objected to the take-over of the business continuity firm. …

    Channel Register 25 May 2007, 14:24

  • 'Last man standing' flees AOL Europe exec team

    LLU pioneer Sky-bound?

    AOL Europe's CTO Colin McQuade, described by one insider as "the last man standing", has quit the firm, which is struggling for a niche after flogging its broadband customers to Carphone Warehouse. The rumour within what is left of AOL Europe is that McQuade has followed former UK MD Andy Joesco to Sky, which is aggressively …

    Telecoms 25 May 2007, 14:28

  • Florida battles rats the size of cats

    Gambian pouched rat menaces Keys

    US authorites have just begun the final phase of a two-year offensive to eliminate the non-native Gambian pouched rat from the Florida Keys, Reuters reports. The cat-sized rodent has for the last eight years been breeding in Grassy Key, 60 miles north of Key West, after an exotic pet breeder "allowed the critters to escape". …

    Biology 25 May 2007, 14:32

  • Telstra in Second Life 'Ayers Rock' kerfuffle

    Aboriginal owners probe virtual Uluru

    The administrators of Uluru - the sacred rock formerly known as Ayers - are "investigating" images of the outcrop which Oz telecoms outfit Telstra has slapped on its Second Life island, news.com.au reports. Telstra opened its virtual presence, The Pond, back in March. It features a "scaled-down" Uluru which, although protected …

    Bootnotes 25 May 2007, 14:36

  • Intel shows skinny laptop, world's media goes ape a month later

    Keep up, you lot at the back...

    The world's media today began falling over themselves to point their readers to BusinessWeek's report on the Intel-sponsored 'Metro' laptop, a 0.7in thick, low-weight concept design with an E Ink sub-display. Sound familiar? Reg Hardware had the skinny on the slimline notebook more than a month ago...

    Reg Hardware 25 May 2007, 14:39

  • Oz Big Brother in dead dad ding-dong

    Contestant unaware father has died

    The Oz version of human zoo Big Brother has copped flack for not telling a contestant her dad has died, the BBC reports. Emma Cornell has been in the BB house for a month, and is unaware her father Raymond succumbed to cancer last week. The show has moved quickly to stem criticism of the decision not to inform her by publishing …

    Entertainment 25 May 2007, 14:41

  • Google plays cat and mouse with regulators

    Privacy questioned

    Google has faced down one European probe into what it does with people's personal information, only to be challenged with another. Last October, privacy watchdogs in Norway, which is not part of the European Union but has identical data protection laws, asked Google to justify why it retains people's search histories for up to …

    Law 25 May 2007, 14:41

  • RegisterFly domain transfer imminent, ICANN reports

    Unnamed registrar rides to rescue

    ICANN has finally found a registrar with a track record to take over renegade registrar RegisterFly's domains. RegisterFly, which lost its ICANN accreditation after repeated violations of the Registrar Accreditation Agreement (RAA), has been embroiled in litigation with former customers, ICANN, and even with itself. The …

    Law 25 May 2007, 14:50

  • IBM flaunts green credentials

    Cool, but efficiently so

    As part of its sustained PR campaign to persuade the IT industry that it is greener than David Cameron, IBM invited a bunch of tech journalists to see its new, tree-loving data centre at its London HQ this week. A quick recap: earlier this month, IBM announced that it was going to spend a billion dollars to double its own …

    Servers 25 May 2007, 14:58

  • Notorious car clamper facing Asbo

    Due in court for immobilisation

    An employee of a car-clamping outfit which has "brought misery to visitors to a Yorkshire tourist village" looks likely to be immobilised himself - by an Asbo. According to the Yorkshire Post, George Albert McDicken, 38, of Wilsden, near Bradford, is due in Leeds magistrates court today accused of "intimidating and aggressive …

    Crime 25 May 2007, 15:00

  • Mercury astronauts join al-Qaeda?

    Rather unflattering NASA Image of the Day

    We're not sure what John Glenn will make of it, but NASA's Image of the Day is currently showing a rather unflattering 1960 snap of the seven original Mercury astronauts: Well, it's hardly the sort of space apparel available to the modern space jockey, but things were a bit more belt-and-braces back in the 60s. So much so, …

    Space 25 May 2007, 15:03

  • Tide goes all out for New Orleans with soap-styled iPod

    Surf's up? Omo it isn't...

    Washing powder buffs, rejoice. Buy a Tide-brand T-shirt before 25 June and you could win a Tide-brand iPod Nano and $50 worth of iTunes content. Oh yes. The Tide is high but I'm holding on... Not a fan of detergent through the ages? Then you can at least cough up $10 in the knowledge that the proceeds will go to the St. …

    Reg Hardware 25 May 2007, 15:06

  • Home Office discusses thief-proof phones

    Solution for problem that doesn't exist

    The UK Home Office yesterday met with handset manufacturers and mobile networks to identify ways in which mobile phones could be "secured by design". This follows John Reid's comments last month. Despite virtually eliminating mobile phone crime as recently as six weeks ago, the Home Office has been in discussions with the …

    Mobile 25 May 2007, 15:30

  • Son of Star Wars tests this weekend

    Analysis US missile defence gets serious

    The US intends a further test of its ballistic-missile defence system, as haggling over budgets and where ground stations will be based continues. According to reports, the Pentagon's Missile Defence Agency (MDA) planned its latest test for Thursday, but bad weather near the Alaskan launch site of the target rocket has caused …

    Government 25 May 2007, 15:47

  • Technorati knocks itself out. Again

    Restart the dot.com Dead Pool

    Technorati, the comically inept search engine, has redesigned itself again - knocking itself out in the process. The site was down when bloggers checked in yesterday. More importantly, the latest redesign is a tacit admission that it's given up on its original mission - indexing the world's weblogs. Technorati now claims to …

    Applications 25 May 2007, 15:53

  • Interoute sells virtual servers

    Even virtualisation's gone virtual

    European telco and managed services provider Interoute has launched a hosted virtual server service - but unlike smaller hosting companies which use the likes of Virtuozzo to generate virtual webservers, it's using a full VMware ESX set-up. It allows customers to have a virtual machine (VM) of their own, complete with its own …

    Storage 25 May 2007, 16:00

  • YouTube pulls London rooftop shag vid

    Al fresco rumpy-pumpy caught on camera

    YouTube has pulled a "steamy" vid of a London couple indulging in rooftop rumpy-pumpy. According to The Sun, staff at Soho production company MJZ caught the pair on camera on Wednesday and promptly posted the 30-second shagfest on YouTube. An MJZ producer said: "I was working away and looked up and saw this bloke and a girl in …

    Bootnotes 25 May 2007, 16:05

  • Don't Forget The 'C' in Objective-C

    Part 2: Runtime efficiency issues in Mac Cocoa programming

    Last time round, we looked at the way an unnamed developer had used Cocoa routines to chop up a simple C-string in order to determine whether or not it contained a particular, named OpenGL extension name. A few folks pointed out that if, hypothetically speaking, some new extension name gets devised that happens to be a …

    Developer 25 May 2007, 16:07

  • Missing German doctor reappears after 22 years

    Dead, in his garage roof

    A German doctor who went missing 22 years ago has been found - as a mummified skeleton under the rafters of his garage roof, The Guardian reports. Father of two Siegfried B went awol shortly after his 50th birthday back in May 1985. He told his wife he was going out and duly exited his house in Bergholz-Rehbrücke, south of …

    Bootnotes 25 May 2007, 16:35

  • Dominatrix steals 'Sex Hacks' show with live demo

    NNNNSFW Taking the innuendo out of back-end IT

    San Francisco - birthplace of the gangbuster "startup" culture - also breeds alternative sexual communities and practices. Where better to host a small symposium on Sex Hacks? (And where better to encounter loyal Register fans crawling out of the woodwork to introduce themselves?). The Center for Sex and Culture, a modest …

    Entertainment 25 May 2007, 20:21

  • Pirates Trojan keel-hauls surfers

    Thar she blows

    Spam messages exploiting the publicity surrounding the release of the latest instalment of the Pirates of the Caribbean film franchise are being used to trick users into installing Trojan horse malware. The junk mails feature a message that resembles promotional material for the film alongside links that supposedly point users …

    Malware 25 May 2007, 20:39

  • HP, er, raids partner Hitachi for storage chief

    Here's to you, Mr. Roberson

    HP has corralled a new storage chief in the form of David Roberson. Roberson comes to HP from Hitachi Data Systems, where he worked for a whopping 26 years - most recently as CEO. He'll take on the SVP and GM titles as head of HP's storage business. Former storage guardian Bob Schultz will continue on has SVP and GM of HP's …

    Storage 25 May 2007, 22:30

  • Linux fans go nuclear over Microsoft's patent teasing

    Comments And illicit Wi-Fi use can get you nicked

    A week has passed and we're back with another Best of Comments feature. You've been busy, and as a consequence, so have we. So let's get started. Microsoft announced that Linux violates 235 of its patents, and then declined to reveal which patents this covered. The reason? The paperwork. You didn't buy it: "I could be wrong …

    Letters 25 May 2007, 22:36

  • Gone phishing with eBay

    Why is there a naked woman in that Bentley?

    There I was, on Monday night, scanning eBay for car bits. This is not a problem. I have this under complete control. I can give up buying worn out parts and rusty bits of bodywork at any time. Really. Anyway, I spotted a real bargain, a 2007 Bentley Continental for 0.01 GBP. Since these usually retail for something in the …

    Security 25 May 2007, 22:38

  • Apple patches more than a dozen holes in OS X

    Five uber updates in as many months

    Apple has released an update that patches more than a dozen OS X vulnerabilities, several of which can lead to the remote execution of malicious code. The most serious vulnerability resides in an OS X feature called mDNSResponder, which enables computers to locate and connect to devices such as printers and webcams on a local …

    Enterprise Security 25 May 2007, 22:42

  • Why do robot experts build such lousy robots?

    We meet the nerds with the world's cleanest floors

    In Silicon Valley, any conference calling itself the "Best of the Best" promises more fluff than stuff. But a recent Churchill Club event which promised the cream of the robotics industry confirmed the sceptics' worst fears. Consumer robotics is a business built mostly on play, hope and tinkering - rather than profit or …

    Rise of the Machines 25 May 2007, 23:19