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2nd July 2007 Archive

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  • Femto Forum promises very small cells

    Tiny technology, tiny industry, tiny forum

    Hot on the heels of news from Netgear, that it is to produce a home gateway with a built-in 3G femtocell, comes the formation of the Femto Forum. The group, which holds its first plenary meeting in Heathrow, London today, has been set up to prevent fragmentation of a decidedly immature industry. Early members include the …

    Mobile 2 Jul 2007, 07:02

  • Top popped on can-tastic memory card reader

    If you're a little worried that someone, at some point, may break into your house and try to steal your memory cards, then worry no more, because the USB can-shaped card reader has thieves licked. This "ingenious" little device measures about half as high as a Coca Cola tin and, although it doesn't sport a spaghetti hoops …

    Reg Hardware 2 Jul 2007, 07:02

  • Quocirca's changing channels Of Microsoft Forefront security

    With the launch of its Forefront security product range this week, Microsoft has deployed its tanks on the lawns of Symantec, McAfee and many other IT security vendors. So is it time for resellers to entrust Microsoft with all their customers’ IT security needs and kiss goodbye to their current security partners? Not quite. …

    Channel Register 2 Jul 2007, 07:02

  • C&W kicks Bulldog rump into touch

    Amputates vestigial home broadband tentacle

    Cable and Wireless has fired off letters to Bulldog broadband customers telling them they will be cut off in less than a month because it doesn't want them dangling around anymore. Most of Bulldog's customer base was sold to Pipex last year for £12m. C&W refused to tell us why some subscribers remained on its network, saying it …

    Telecoms 2 Jul 2007, 07:02

  • Another damned thick survey

    HP seems to be continuing and expanding on Mercury's approach

    There are two sorts of people in the world: those that divide the world into two sorts of people and those that don..... No, those who measure what they do; and those (probably a larger group) who trust to luck and public opinion and love the dangerous life. I think the first group should be running businesses people (customers …

    Developer 2 Jul 2007, 08:02

  • US court says just viewing child porn is not a crime

    Cached images not evidence

    A US court has said the existence of child pornography images in the cache of a man's computer did not mean that man had committed a crime under state law. The Court of Appeals in Georgia has reversed the man's conviction. A forensic computer analyst for the US Secret Service had testified in court that Edward Ray Barton's …

    Law 2 Jul 2007, 09:23

  • Conservapedia wades into Inverness

    'An unequalled miasma of debauchery and ignorance'

    We're delighted to report that Conservapedia - the "conservative encyclopedia you can trust" - is maintaining its hard line on liberal bias. Try its entry on Inverness, a frank analysis containing not one iota of wishy-washy pinko PC dogma: Inverness A city and former royal burgh in the Highlands of Scotland, Inverness is …

    Bootnotes 2 Jul 2007, 09:30

  • Virgin Media mulls takeover approach

    Cable network on the block again

    Virgin Media, bowed by its protracted legal tussle with Sky, has again become the target of a takeover approach by private equity carpetbaggers. Reports say the Virgin Media board is considering a $10bn (about £4.9bn) punt from the Carlyle Group, a consortium which also made an approach last year, but was rebuffed. This time …

    Networks 2 Jul 2007, 09:54

  • WIPO broadcast treaty defeated by web activists

    Copyright add-on fails to find consensus

    A controversial new intellectual property right due to be created by the World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO) has been successfully opposed by a coalition of web activists and the technology industry. WIPO has spent nearly 10 years gathering international agreement over a new deal for broadcasters which would give …

    Law 2 Jul 2007, 09:57

  • Run free little root zone

    ICANN San Juan 2007 Hard core for core neutrality

    The fight over trademark rights got a welcome rematch last week, as the "free expression" contingency took the stage. Tuesday's intellectual property constituency (IPC) was dominated by American trademark attorneys, and an opposing group of attorneys and assorted other interested parties hit the ground running on Wednesday. …

    Telecoms 2 Jul 2007, 10:07

  • Piranhas actually scaredycats, boffins claim

    'Safety in numbers' for Amazonian legend

    Visitors to the Royal Society's Summer Science Exhibition will be greeted with the rather disagreeable news that the feared piranha - legendary for hanging around in ferocious packs dedicated to reducing their prey to skeletal remains in seconds - actually congregate for fear of themselves ending up on the menu. That's …

    Biology 2 Jul 2007, 10:09

  • Intel quad-core sales surpass 1m, chip maker claims

    And that's just the ones for servers

    Intel has sold more than a million quad-core processors, the company claimed late last week, making good a pledge made in September 2006 to beat that target before arch-rival AMD sells just one quad-core server chip. AMD's four-core 'Barcelona' processor' won't appear until August, the chip maker said last week. Intel …

    Reg Hardware 2 Jul 2007, 10:11

  • Harry Potter worm claims death of teen wizard

    Danger USB

    Hackers are attempting to exploit Potter-mania with the release of a worm that attempts to infect USB memory drives. The Hairy-A worm poses as a file containing a copy of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, the eagerly-anticipated final novel in the Harry Potter series, due out on 21 July. The infected file normally comes …

    Security 2 Jul 2007, 10:30

  • World's biggest label kneecaps iTunes store

    Not so Universal any more

    Universal Music Group (UMG) has dealt a serious blow to Apple's music ambitions by refusing to renew its contract with the iTunes Store. The New York Times reports that the decision not to continue the annual contract was made by UMG executives last week. It appears likely that Universal's repertory will disappear from the …

    Music and Media 2 Jul 2007, 10:34

  • NASA snaps mysterious night-shining clouds

    Noctilucent, no less

    A NASA satellite has captured its first images of noctilucent clouds, brightly lit night-time clouds that form high in Earth's atmosphere during each hemisphere's summer. The night-shining clouds form between May and September in the northern hemisphere. Very little is known about how they form, or why they are appearing more …

    Space 2 Jul 2007, 10:42

  • AMD denies further Phenom delays

    Not out until Q1 '08, mobo-maker moles allege

    AMD has rebutted allegations that the launch date of its long-awaited Phenom processor has been delayed to Q1 2008 after the chip company fell behind on its original Q4 2007 release schedule. A DigiTimes report says sources at unnamed motherboard makers maintained the delay is due to AMD's wish to increase the yield rate and …

    Reg Hardware 2 Jul 2007, 10:53

  • iPhone autopsies conducted

    What makes it tick?

    It hasn't taken long for many of the Apple iPhones acquired over the weekend to be taken home and taken to bits as hardware fans and chip analysts alike try to find out what kind of kit the "revolutionary" handset is packing. Perhaps the most complete set of disassembly pics have been provided by Mac repair and upgrade …

    Reg Hardware 2 Jul 2007, 11:05

  • 'I Go Chop Your Dollar' star arrested

    419 spoof turns real

    Nigerian comedian and actor Nkem Owoh was one of the 111 suspected 419 scammers arrested in Amsterdam recently as part of a seven month investigation, dubbed Operation Apollo. Owoh became a well known star within the Nigerian film industry, sometimes colloquially known as Nollywood because of its trite plots, poor dialogue, …

    ID 2 Jul 2007, 11:10

  • Doctor Who recruits new sidekick

    Martha Jones off to Torchwood

    Doctor Who will gain a new companion for the next 13-episode series of the cult show, the BBC reports. Freema Agyeman, whose Martha Jones replaced Billy Piper's Rose Tyler as Who's sidekick, is off to shoot three episodes of Torchwood, and will accordingly miss the first half of series four. However, she will return for the …

    Entertainment 2 Jul 2007, 11:14

  • Mobile phones should include airbags, says Sony

    Liquid cushion

    Although some claim airbags can actually be quite harmful in a crash, Sony clearly thinks they're the perfect thing to protect your other life-support machine: your mobile phone. The electronics giant has applied to the US Patent and Trademark Office for a patent to take the airbag concept a stage further and develop a …

    Reg Hardware 2 Jul 2007, 12:16

  • Google in Sicko storm

    'Advertising is democracy'

    "Fire the publicist. Go off message. Let all your employees blab and blog!" fantasised the writer Clive Thompson in a recent Wired magazine cover story. "The name of this new game is RADICAL TRANSPARENCY, and it's sweeping boardrooms across the nation," burbled the mag. But the perils of allowing employees to "blab and blog!" …

    Networks 2 Jul 2007, 12:23

  • Belkin calls up iPhone accessories

    Accessory specialist Belkin has been quick to hop on the iPhone bandwagon following the handset's arrival late last week and the launch of Apple's own accessory line-up. Belkin's acrylic iPhone case Apple's decision to equip the iPhone with a glass-fronted screen may limit the need for the wide array of protective cases …

    Reg Hardware 2 Jul 2007, 12:23

  • HMRC arrests 10 carousel fraud suspects

    Government clampdown on VAT-free mobile phone racket

    HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) officers arrested 10 suspected multi-million pound "carousel" fraudsters last week in a nationwide swoop. It said arrests were made across the UK including in Birmingham, Slough, and Maidenhead, with 20 premises being searched in connection with a suspected missing trader intra community (MTIC), …

    Crime 2 Jul 2007, 12:32

  • Senior execs targeted in 'precision' malware attacks

    Spear phishers prey on friends and family of top managers

    Hackers are targeting senior managers of large firms - along with members of their families - in a new wave of highly-focused email attacks. On 26 June, net security services firm MessageLabs intercepted more than 500 individual email attacks targeted against individuals in senior management positions. The attack email often …

    Security 2 Jul 2007, 12:36

  • Toshiba HD DVD to offer 'true cinema' frame rate

    24fps

    To get that true cinema experience, simply ditch your microwave popcorn and download Toshiba's latest HD DVD firmware update that support film's 24 frames per second (fps) playback speed. Toshiba's HD-A20 Although not set to become available in the US until September and only suitable for two of its HD DVD players, the HD- …

    Reg Hardware 2 Jul 2007, 12:44

  • 'Unusually frisky' deer blow lid on marijuana plantation

    Italian mountaintop cervine dopefest

    Italian police busted two would-be marijuana cultivators after "unusually frisky" deer alerted the authorities as to the presence of their mountaintop dope plantation, UPI reports. Locals in Trento began telling tales of the abnormally high-spirited animals, while forest rangers began to wonder why the normally shy and straight …

    Bootnotes 2 Jul 2007, 13:35

  • Fooling around at the less glamorous end of mobility

    Mobile workshop What is sexy?

    We spent some time last week discussing requirements for mobile devices and got quite a bit of feedback on how to select and deploy the right kit for professional users. This culminated in a poll towards the end of the week in which we learned, perhaps not surprisingly, that while many with smaller installations offer their …

    Workshop 2 Jul 2007, 13:49

  • Chinese clone iPhone looks for media player

    Where can China's I-Fighting Industrial have got the idea for its FT4021 MP4 player from? The cheeky company has packed in almost all the Apple iPhone's features minus the wireless connectivity, though unlike its inspiration, the FT4021 has a memory card slot. I-Fighting's FT4021: Apple scented? What else, apart from those …

    Reg Hardware 2 Jul 2007, 13:56

  • Loopy quantums reveal successive universes

    Big Bang was Big Bounce

    So it turns out that the universe didn't begin with a big bang, after all. No. It was a big boing, the result of a previous universe contracting before bouncing back out to become ours. This is the latest news from the mutantly clever quantum cosmologists at Penn State university. Spreading through a bounce: A state that …

    Space 2 Jul 2007, 14:25

  • UK.biz: recruiting talent the number one IT problem

    Fail to put two and two together on flexible working

    IT directors say their number one problem is recruiting and retaining talent. Despite this, they put flexible teleworking at the bottom of their list of priorities. That's the finding of a survey of 600 UK businesses with up to 1,000 staff by Cisco. Firms which had boosted their turnover by 15 per cent or more in the last year …

    Small Biz 2 Jul 2007, 14:30

  • 'al-Qaeda' puts on big shoes, red nose, takes custard pie

    Analysis Journos join Krazy Klown jihadis in slapstick idiocy

    The "car bomber" hysteria gripping much of the British and international media over the weekend has had a bucket of cold water from the Reg already, but just one bucket doesn't seem enough for this kind of outbreak. To recap: an exceptionally incompetent group of troublemakers, unknown to the plods or spooks, decided to bring …

    Crime 2 Jul 2007, 14:53

  • EU mashes GM potato plan

    BASF's Amflora off the menu

    The European Union's Council of Ministers last week delivered a serious blow to biotech companies' ambitions to roll out GM crops across the region by postponing a decision on the "commercial optimisation" of BASF's Amflora "genetically optimised potato". According to the Telegraph, the German EU presidency canned a European …

    Biology 2 Jul 2007, 14:55

  • I saw aliens at Roswell, claims dead PR man

    Who to believe?

    The public relations officer at the Roswell air base in 1947 has released claims that he saw a crashed spacecraft and the bodies of aliens at the site, despite a lifetime spent denying any such things. In the affidavit, Lieutenant Walter Haut says the weather balloon was a cover story, and that the real crashed object had been …

    Space 2 Jul 2007, 14:58

  • N-Gage games to equal PC games

    Nokia eyes cross-platform titles

    Nokia has started development on at least one cross-platform game, codenamed "Project White Rock", which will offer an identical experience on PCs and N-Gage mobile phones, Pocket Gamer reports. RedLynx is, apparently, developing the title, which will run at the same resolution on both devices, and features over 1,000 lines of …

    Mobile 2 Jul 2007, 15:13

  • Facing up to parallelism

    Multicore means today's HPC is tomorrow's general purpose

    It is, perhaps, one of those forgotten facts that computing is still a relatively young technology, made all the more poignant by the realisation that many of the people driving the High Performance Computing (HPC) business, like Burton Smith, Microsoft's technical fellow in charge of advanced strategies and policies for the …

    Developer 2 Jul 2007, 15:38

  • Saudi hackers scalp MS UK

    Defacement video tutorial pulled after attack

    Saudi hackers manged to deface a page on Microsoft's UK web site last week, recording the techniques they used in an online video. The software giant's sites are periodically hit by acts of digital graffiti. In this case, however, the defacement gang unusually decided to document its attack. A video illustrating SQL …

    Enterprise Security 2 Jul 2007, 15:53

  • IBM becomes nuclear tutor

    Lesson 1: radioactive decay and you

    IBM plans to open a nuclear consultancy center in France to take advantage of the increased competition in a newly-opened European energy market. Big Blue's Global Center of Excellence for Nuclear Power sits in southern France, near Cadarache, the site of the International Thermonuclear Experimental reactor fusion project. …

    Servers 2 Jul 2007, 18:28

  • NetSuite goes for IPO

    Online auction

    The long-rumoured and speculated Initial Public Offering (IPO) by Netsuite, the software as a service (SaaS) specialist, is at last underway. and it looks like it will use a novel way to determine the share price and the volume of shares to be issued. The company has taken the first step in the IPO process by filling out a Form …

    Financial News 2 Jul 2007, 19:13

  • Storage firm Compellent registers IPO

    Expects to raise $60m from shares

    Network storage firm Compellent Technologies seeks to sell up to $60m of common stock in the company's initial public offering. Compellent has not provided the number of shares or price range, but indicated it plans to sell in the third quarter of this year under the ticker symbol "CPLT." The business-class storage provider …

    Storage 2 Jul 2007, 19:58

  • Feds fiddle as cybertopia burns

    Gum shoes case porno peddler that sent smut through the US Mail

    At a time when phishing, malware and other cyber crime is hitting unprecedented levels, a federal grand jury has indicted two Ohio men who ran a website that used the US mail to distribute DVDs prosecutors claim are obscene. There are no claims the men - 42-year-old Sami R. Harb and 33-year-old Michael Harb - sold to minors or …

    Law 2 Jul 2007, 20:44

  • Google slapped with libel claim

    Because it's a search engine

    Google links to more than 11.5bn web pages - and it's responsible for the content posted to every single one them. At least, Brian Retkin thinks so. The 48-year-old Londoner has filed a defamation action against the American search giant, claiming that Google refuses to remove links to sites that libel his company, dotWORLDS. …

    Law 2 Jul 2007, 21:27

  • IBM hits software with 20 per cent Power6 tax hike

    Einstein needed for next DB2 deployment

    IBM this week reached out to customers and reminded them that its software pricing model is bat-shit crazy. In a letter to customers, IBM detailed the software pricing scheme for its new Power6-based servers. We're going to do our best to walk you through the pricing structure. Please remove all sharp objects from your desk and …

    Servers 2 Jul 2007, 21:33

  • SoundExchange offers royalty compromise to Net radio stations

    $2,500 limit on multi-stream stations

    Music industry taxman SoundExchange is offering a new deal to internet radio broadcasters who say upcoming royalty hikes will kill online broadcasting. The proposed compromise puts a ceiling on the new set of hefty royalty rate hikes that takes effect July 15. Previously, the fee increase called for webcasters to be charged $ …

    Music and Media 2 Jul 2007, 23:15