17th July 2007 Archive

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Iran's 'Rescue Nuke Scientist' game battles US game studio

Punctuating political discourse with a sweet headshot

A curious geopolitical video game developer arms race has entered the next stage with a group of Iranian students unveiling a game that depicts the rescuing of Iranian nuclear scientists from the clutches of US and Israeli troops. The new title is described by its creators as a response to a game by US-based episodic game …

Entertainment 17 Jul 2007, 00:24
IBM relinquishes IP for the sake of open standards

Unless you use it to sue

Computer giant IBM is handing over a portfolio of intellectual property to any other developers that want to use it in the name of furthering interoperability and open standards. The firm will grant "universal and perpetual access" to IP related to over 150 open standards. Open standards are technical agreements that help …

Law 17 Jul 2007, 07:02
Ministry of Sound goes mobile

Considered by many to once upon a time represent the epitome of clubbing culture, the Ministry of Sound has launched its latest digital music player, pitching it against the epitome of MP3 gadgets, the iPod. Ministry of Sound's MP3 player: fit for some bangin' tunes The MoS machine comes with the slightly less cool name of …

Reg Hardware 17 Jul 2007, 08:02
Buffy and Neighbours thesps join Torchwood

'I'm a huge fan', gushes former vampire

Former vampire James Marsters has joined Kylie Minogue among the burgeoning roster of foreign thespos selected to appear in Doctor Who and its spin-offs, the BBC has announced. Marsters, who played Spike in Buffy the Vampire Slayer and subsequently Angel, will appear in the first episode of the next series of Torchwood, and has …

Entertainment 17 Jul 2007, 08:17
Google in cookie concession to dead people

Privacy in the hereafter

Hoping to appease privacy advocates who've come down hard on its data retention policies, Google has made a practically meaningless change to its cookie policy. The world's most popular search engine will soon issue browser cookies that automatically expire if you don't come back to the site for two years. El Reg estimates …

Applications 17 Jul 2007, 08:56
Intel intros fast FSB dual, quad-core CPUs

Competitively priced, too

Intel has followed the launch of its first mobile Core 2 Extreme processor with a handful of desktop CPUs that support the chip giant's 1333MHz frontside bus upgrade. As expected, the line-up of new processors comprises three dual-core chips and a pair of quad-cores. The quads are the 2.66GHz Core 2 Quad Q6700 and the Core 2 …

Reg Hardware 17 Jul 2007, 08:56
John Lennon's specs provoke online bidding frenzy

$1.5m and rising, reports claim

A pair of John Lennon's trademark specs, given by the Beatle to a Japanese TV producer back in 1966 and up for sale on 991.com, have reportedly attracted bids as high as $1.5m, Reuters reports. The wire-framed glasses came into the possession of Junishi Yore when he was acting as interpreter for the band. The splendidly …

Bootnotes 17 Jul 2007, 09:00
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Stob Ignore Diogenes, he's just trolling

'What if,' said a friend down the pub the other day, when the conversation was circling uneasily for take off at that tricky third round mark, 'what if those old Greek philosophers - you know, the ones that used to sit around all day gassing - what if they had had the benefit of modern social website software, like Facebook? …

Bootnotes 17 Jul 2007, 09:02
Arrests from e-borders pilot pass 1,000

Bang-up job

Alerts issued by the Joint Border Operations Centre (JBOC) have resulted in more than 1,000 arrests. The Home Office said the JBOC, set up in January 2005 to fight illegal immigration, terrorism and other crimes, has issued 12,044 alerts to relevant agencies, resulting in 1,047 arrests and other interventions. Information …

Government 17 Jul 2007, 09:04
BT's IPTV aims to lure footie fans

Cut price game access

UK customers of BT's IPTV service will be able to avail of cut-price access to English Premier League football matches for the coming season. The BT Vision Sport standard service costs £4 a month and will provide subscribers with access to delayed coverage of 242 games from the Barclays Premier League. A pay-per-view option is …

Entertainment 17 Jul 2007, 09:14
Strict copyright laws do not always benefit authors

And they could even increase risk, study says

A stricter, more author-friendly copyright regime does not guarantee higher pay for authors, according to a new study which surveyed the earnings of 25,000 writers. In fact, it found that copyright law could exacerbate risk for authors. Writers in Germany earned less than those in the UK, despite the fact the country's …

Law 17 Jul 2007, 09:25
Asus announces 'super 3G' add-in card

ExpressCard 34 slot essential

Asus wants to connect ExpressCard-equipped laptops to 3G networks, and to that end this week launched the T500, an add-in card with cellular connectivity capable of downloading data at up to 3.6Mbps. Asus' T500: high speed downloads in black... The download speed is network dependent, of course, but many carriers are now …

Reg Hardware 17 Jul 2007, 09:46
Curry may combat Alzheimer's

Here you go, grandad, get your laughing gear round this phal

US researchers have isolated a compound in turmeric - commonly used in the UK's national dish chicken tikka masala and other more deadly curry concoctions - which "may help stimulate immune system cells that gobble up the brain-clogging proteins that mark Alzheimer's disease", Reuters reports. Dr Milan Fiala of the University …

Biology 17 Jul 2007, 09:52
Iowa plans audacious Harry Potter butter sculpture

State Fair jumps on boy wizard bandwagon

Iowa State Fair has jumped firmly on the JK Rowling bandwagon in the run-up to this week's release of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows by announcing an audacious butter sculpture of the boy wizard, the Des Moines Register reports. Sculptor Sarah Pratt, who apparently took the helm as the fair's lead butter sculptress last …

Bootnotes 17 Jul 2007, 09:54
Pilots get electronic flight bag

Everything but the sandwiches

Considering the technical complexity of modern commercial aircraft and the operational complexities of running any airline service, it may seem surprising - especially to anyone steeped in the ways of business and/or operational automation - to consider the level to which a commitment to paper is maintained. Most of the …

Developer 17 Jul 2007, 09:59
Nintendo yanks Mario Party 8 - offensive language to blame?

Updated Pic seems to suggest as much...

Nintendo has pulled its new Wii console game Mario Party 8 from UK shops just days after its release and during a massive TV advertising campaign for the title. All UK copies of the game will be withdrawn from sale, the games console pioneer said, adding that it had decided to take this drastic measure because "small number …

Reg Hardware 17 Jul 2007, 10:09
China aims artillery for a blue-sky Olympics

A silver bullet, not a silver lining

The Chinese government's weather-control programme, more accustomed to bringing down rains on parched crops, has announced a new and ambitious mission. The People's Republic is due to host the Summer Olympics next year, and if the weather dares to defy the commies it will be brought into line by force. The Asia Times reports …

Physics 17 Jul 2007, 10:38
Trolltech pushes Qtopia and Qt

Editors' Blog Capturing developers' hearts and minds

I'm just contemplating my notes from a roundtable hosted by Trolltech product director Naren Karattup, entitled Unleashing the creative power of the developer – you unleash wild animals, don't you? I think I'm bit nervous. What's interesting about Trolltech, apart from its cross-platform development tools, is its dual-licensing …

Developer 17 Jul 2007, 10:41
iPhone 2.0 screen-maker rumour really points to video iPod?

Coming too soon at too low a price

Apple will release a second-generation, lower cost iPhone in September for an iPod-like price of $249-299 - if a Chinese-language newspaper report citing Taiwanese industry moles is to be believed, that is. The story - relayed by local newssite DigiTimes - goes along these lines: supplier Wintek has been contracted to make …

Reg Hardware 17 Jul 2007, 10:51
Chinese fight rat plague with giant saucepan

Culinary solution to Three Gorges Dam rodent disaster

Residents downstream of China's controversial Three Gorges Dam in Hunan province have responded in traditional fashion to a plague of two billion rats forced into farmland by rising water levels - by offering them to restaurants in neighbouring Guangdong province, the home of "if it's edible, we'll eat it" Cantonese cuisine. …

Biology 17 Jul 2007, 10:56
German bus driver objects to passenger's breasts

'Your cleavage is distracting me'

A German bus driver demonstrated exemplary concern for his passengers' safety when he ordered a 20-year-old sales clerk to shift her mammary assets or vacate the vehicle, Bild reports. A shocked Debora C of Lindau recounted: "Suddenly he stopped the bus. He opened the door and shouted at me 'Your cleavage is distracting me …

Bootnotes 17 Jul 2007, 11:03
AppleStore shut for 'update' - new kit coming?

Watch this space

Apple's online AppleStore - it's US incarnation, at least - has temporarily shut its doors to customers pending an update. This typically happens when the Mac maker's just about to announce new products. As we wrote earlier, it's unlikely to be a new, smaller, cheaper iPhone, but in this business you never say never. The …

Reg Hardware 17 Jul 2007, 11:09
US: GPS-Galileo agreement to be inked this week

Eurocrats not quite as enthusiastic

US negotiators in Brussels expect to reach agreement with the European Union within a week regarding cooperative use of the American Global Positioning System (GPS) and the EU's proposed Galileo sat-nav constellations. Reuters reports that the American plan is for GPS and Galileo satellites to employ the same frequencies, …

Space 17 Jul 2007, 11:31
Norton labels Nasa app as adware

Cupertino, we have a problem

Symantec has updated its anti-virus definition files after a duff update falsely identified two open source packages as adware. Norton Anti-Virus updates issued on Sunday falsely detected both Filezilla, open source FTP client, and NASA World Wind, an open source virtual globe developed by NASA and others, as the parasitic …

Security 17 Jul 2007, 11:34
T-Mobile forced to connect Truphone numbers

Spat headed for court

T-Mobile will be forced to connect calls to Truphone numbers, by court injunction granted yesterday. However, the spat between the companies is far from over as T-Mobile will be paying a rate which makes Truphone's business unsustainable. T-Mobile has been refusing to connect calls made to Truphone numbers starting 079788 as …

Networks 17 Jul 2007, 13:10
O2 serves notice on i-mode service

Only room for one offering with an i?

O2 has hit the red button on its i-mode service less than two years after it brought the Japanese mobile web technology to Europe. The Spanish-owned telco says "a limited range of devices has restricted its growth and we don't see that changing". It will support the service for another couple of years, but won't launch any more …

Mobile 17 Jul 2007, 13:12
$20K in prizes for best Symbian open source apps

'Industry bragging rights' also up for grabs

The Forum Nokia Open C Challenge, which offers $20,000 in prizes for the best application developed using Nokia's Open C libraries for Series 60 programming, along with POSIX for the Symbian bits, is now open to registrations. Porting of existing applications is encouraged, as is developing something completely new. The best …

Developer 17 Jul 2007, 13:16
Fasthosts 'electrical issue' halts service for four hours

Where's the fire?

Fasthosts, the UK's largest web hosting company, suffered a four hour outage to its service yesterday evening. However, the web-hosting firm was being a little coy about answering the phone this morning to explain what had happened. But it did issue an apology to customers: We apologise unreservedly to those of our …

Hardware 17 Jul 2007, 13:45
MPs call for British manned space flight

But no need for UK Space Agency

MPs have called on the government to give the lead to the UK's space industry and expand its vision to include funding launches and even manned spaceflight. The Science and Technology Select Committee, in a report amusingly entitled Space 2007: A Space Policy, says: "We have been impressed and often surprised during the course …

Space 17 Jul 2007, 13:58
Google goes mobile, small biz

A busy day at the plex

Google is ramping up its assault on the mobile internet with tests of its AdSense service and rumours of product search aimed at the mobile phone screen. AdSense allows websites to allocate space to Google, which then provides context-sensitive advertisements and splits the revenue those ads generate with the site owner. …

Mobile 17 Jul 2007, 14:00
Fujitsu fetes world's slimmest waterproof mobile

No Japanese bathroom should be without one, apparently

Sometimes you suddenly come to your senses and ask yourself what in the world you are doing. This happened to me today, as I was taking pictures of a bikini-clad beauty who was brandishing a mobile phone while standing up to her knees in a swimming pool on the roof of a nine-storey building in central Tokyo. Fujitsu's F704i …

Reg Hardware 17 Jul 2007, 14:07
Romanian cops cuff drunk, naked, handless driver

No licence, naturally

Romanian traffic cops in the seaside town of Constanta were rather surprised to discover that the driver of a BMW they pulled for zigzagging across the road had no licence, no hands, no clothes, and was figuratively legless, evz.ro reports. Aurel Olteanu, 23, tested positive for twice the drink-drive limit, and put his lack of …

Bootnotes 17 Jul 2007, 14:10
Intel Core 2 Extreme QX6850 & MSI P35 Diamond mobo

Review Intel's fastest desktop quad-core

Intel is getting ready to move to a new generation of processors on a 45nm fabrication process, but that hasn't stopped it from squeezing some more performance out of its existing, 65nm chips. So, ladies and gentlemen, please welcome the 3GHz Core 2 Extreme QX6850 with the chip giant's brand new 1333MHz frontside bus. MSI's …

Reg Hardware 17 Jul 2007, 14:39
Domain name scammers target uk.biz

Warning over 'gazzumping' ruse

Domain name scammers are once again targeting UK firms. Typically, the scam, which is still under investigation, starts with calls to domain owners warning them that a variant of the domain they own has been bought by a third party. Prospective marks are invited to outbid these third parties by placing higher bids with domain …

IT Director 17 Jul 2007, 14:40
European Court schedules Microsoft verdict

9.30am, 17 September

The European Court of First Instance has confirmed it will deliver its verdict on the Microsoft case on 17 September. The verdict will be delivered in the Grande Salle of the Court of Justice at 9.30am. Microsoft is appealing a decision made in 2004 which found it guilty of abusing its dominant position and fined the company …

Software 17 Jul 2007, 14:43
Pepper Pad 3 Linux UMPC arrives in UK

It may not be the most attractive portable device on the market, but the Linux-based Pepper Pad 3 internet tablet has been given a technical makeover that includes faster Wi-Fi connectivity and a much needed slimmer body. The Pepper Pad 3: additional capabilities The Pepper Pad 3 sports a 7in, 800 x 480 (WVGA) stylus- …

Reg Hardware 17 Jul 2007, 15:11
Boeing shows automated spying, flying drone

Robot spyplanes deliver on Cingular

US death-tech'n'airliners giant Boeing has carried out a spy-fi-esque demonstration of military surveillance technology. During tests in Oregon, flying robot mini-planes stalked suspect vehicles from above without human input, took orders via a mobile phone, and sent video back to the mobile as well. Then they fingered the …

Hardware 17 Jul 2007, 15:14
Behind the Apple vs Universal breakup

Column Taxing the hardware?

Earlier this month, Universal Music Group (UMG) - the world's largest record company with acts like U2 and Jay-Z - decided not to renew its contract with Apple's iTunes music store. Universal will continue to supply iTunes its vast catalogue but may cancel that supply at any time. In the company's own words, "Universal Music …

Music and Media 17 Jul 2007, 15:23
Popbitch launches BB betting website

Odds aplenty for reality TV saddos to get their gambling kicks

Does anyone really care about who will win this years' UK version of Big Brother? Well, apparently enough of you do to warrant a new website that combines the latest reality TV gossip with betting. Popbet.com blends reality TV show forums with detailed historical and current voting and betting odds about the housemates. The …

Entertainment 17 Jul 2007, 15:46
iPhone becomes phisherman's friend

Embedded scam risk unearthed

Security shortcomings in the design of Apple's iPhone might make it easier to mount phishing and cross-site scripting attacks. The iPhone's email client only displays the first few characters of a weblink, a factor researchers at Fortify Software warn makes it easier to hide a fraudulent URL at the end of a link without …

Security 17 Jul 2007, 15:48
C&W says trading is sunny side up

Grey clouds in Jamaica, though

Cable and Wireless (C&W) said it is trading in line with expectations and that it is on track to increase annual profit to between 16 and 24 per cent. The British telecoms firm said it hoped to see group earnings before interest, tax, deprecation and amortisation (EBITDA) for its current financial year to 31 March 2008 of …

Financial News 17 Jul 2007, 16:17
Vodafone to offer Samsung slider smartphone

Samsung's anticipated i620 Windows Mobile smartphone - a skinny slider phone with a drop-down BlackBerry-style QWERTY keypad - is to go on sale in the UK through Vodafone. Samsung's i620: offspring of U600 and BlackBerry? The 11.3 x 5.9 x 1.1cm, 95g handset sports a 320 x 240 display above a standard array of shortcut keys …

Reg Hardware 17 Jul 2007, 17:02
NEC and Stratus in fault-tolerant server threesome

Uptime Goldilocks could love

NEC and Stratus promised you new, beefy fault tolerant servers would ship in June. But the boxes ended up shipping in July. We'll forgive the vendors a wee, one-month lapse, especially since they've tossed out some new, low-end additions as well. As of this week, customers will find a two-socket box centered on Intel's quad- …

Servers 17 Jul 2007, 19:53
Oklahoma woman takes sue happy RIAA to the bank

$68,685.23 to cover three year case

In what appears to be the first known case of its kind, the RIAA has been ordered to pay a defendant nearly $70,000 in attorney fees and costs after unsuccessfully suing for copyright infringement. According to court documents, the Recording Industry Association of America first contacted Oklahoma resident Deborah Foster by …

Music and Media 17 Jul 2007, 20:30
Microsoft product groups back off February 'big bang'

Bang another day

Microsoft's product groups are quietly distancing themselves from next February's big-bang major launch event, unveiled by COO Kevin Turner last week. While paying lip service to Turner's Feb. 27, 2008 planned Los Angeles launch for Visual Studio 2008, Windows Server 2008 and SQL Server 2008, various Microsoft teams have …

Applications 17 Jul 2007, 20:40
Google tells TV execs where they've gone wrong

iTV Con Don't worry. We'll fix you right up

With his opening keynote at iTV Con, a trade conference dedicated to, yes, internet television, Google’s head of boob tube technology Vincent Dureau told industry players and reporters that traditional television is pretty close to dead. Of course, he’s confident that the latest internet technologies can drive a new breed of TV …

Music and Media 17 Jul 2007, 21:27
Yahoo! profits! drop! slightly!

But the market expected it!

Yahoo! today reported a slight drop in quarterly profits from last year, but a figure in line with previously lowered expectations. The company's second quarter results are the first dose of earnings to arrive since co-founder Jerry Yang replaced Terry Semel as CEO. Yahoo!'s net Q2 income was $161m, matching market estimates …

Financial News 17 Jul 2007, 22:56
Intel rides laptop chips and lower costs during Q2

Investors not impressed

Strong notebook and server chip sales carried Intel to a second quarter that neared the high end of previous forecasts. Investors, however, seemed unmoved by the results, as Intel noted strong pricing competition in the desktop market and a reliance on cost-cutting measures to gloss its results. Intel reported second quarter …

Financial News 17 Jul 2007, 23:00
Xbox chief abandons Microsoft for EA Sports

There's a Red Ring of Death joke in here somewhere

Microsoft Xbox division chief Peter Moore will be leaving his position in Redmond to join game developer Electronic Arts as president of the EA Sports label. Moore's position as vice president of Microsoft's Entertainment and Devices division will be filled by Don Mattrick, a former president at Electronic Arts who more …

Financial News 17 Jul 2007, 23:46