22nd August 2007 Archive

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Real and MTV in joint bid to be crushed by iTunes

Microsoft left out in the cold

After struggling to keep pace with iTunes on their own, MTV and RealNetworks have decided they'd rather struggle as a team. Today, during a conference call with reporters, the two companies announced plans to merge their online music services - Rhapsody and Urge - forming one big market also-ran under the Rhapsody name. They've …

Music and Media 22 Aug 2007, 04:19
ES&S accused of selling uncertified evoting machines

Un-inspected ballot machines bore official approval sticker

California secretary of state Debra Bowen has ratcheted up her criticism of Election Systems & Software, accusing it of selling almost 1,000 evoting machines that have not been certified. The offense, if proven, could cost the company almost $15m. While ES&S's AutoMARK version 1.0 received the official thumbs up for use in …

Government 22 Aug 2007, 04:23
VoIP glitch leaves users cut off

Failure to communicate

Users of IP telephony service VoIP.co.uk were unable to place calls outside the company's network on Monday due to a technical glitch. A technical representative of the firm confirmed there was an issue with passing traffic to the PSTN but said the firm was able to resolve the glitch "within the working day". He declined to …

VoIP 22 Aug 2007, 08:02
Tycoon abandons £80k Maserati in London car pound

'Too busy' to collect towed supercar

A tycoon who abondoned his £80k Maserati Cambiocorsa in a London car pound for three months after running up parking and congestion zone fines of £5k told the Evening Standard he was simply "too busy" to collect the supercar. Seriously hacked-off authorities towed Bertrand Des Pallieres's motor from a Knightsbridge square back …

Bootnotes 22 Aug 2007, 08:48
NASA ponders stressful stress-test device for astronauts

I'm sorry Dave, I can't let you do that

American trick-cyclists have developed a new handheld device which they reckon will be able to tell if an astronaut is too stressed out, tired, or otherwise unfit to carry out a difficult task in space. According to an article in New Scientist, David Dinges - chief of Pennsylvania University's Unit for Experimental Psychiatry …

Space 22 Aug 2007, 08:51
Whitehall to boost identity spend by £5.2bn

Major projects propel pork binge

Public sector spending on identity management (IdM) is set to surge by £5.2bn in the next four years, according to a new Kable report. Spending on IdM is ready to leap by almost 50 per cent next year from £825m to £1.23bn, propelled by major programmes such as the National Identity Card Scheme, e-Borders, the Police National …

ID 22 Aug 2007, 09:07
Lawyer questions Tories' plan to reform Data Protection Act

Uses 'an inflated or out of date figure'

The Conservative Party has put forward proposals to reform the Data Protection Act to end what it calls "the huge regulatory burden" it places on businesses. But the figures used to justify the changes have been criticised for being almost 10 years old. A legal expert has called the figures "unreliable" and also claims it is …

Government 22 Aug 2007, 09:11
Mattel gets litigious on chinabarbie.com

Trademark lawsuit seeks unspecified damages

Mattel yesterday filed suit in Manhattan federal court against www.chinabarbie.com for "using the toymaker's famed 'Barbie' trademark as part of the name for a pornographic website", Reuters reports. The suit, which is seeking unspecified damages, says the site is operated by Florida-based Global China Networks using a New York …

Law 22 Aug 2007, 09:26
CSC cans project leaders

More compulsory redundancies

Yet more redundancies are on the way at CSC UK, managers learned on Monday. The outsourcing firm announced it would be making more compulsory cutbacks in a conference call. Senior bosses refused to confirm how many would be for the chop, saying they had not yet decided. Global execs said in a statement that the knife would fall …

Channel Register 22 Aug 2007, 09:33
ICSTIS rebrand scorned by premium rate industry

New brand frontage paradigm doubts

A row is brewing in the premium rate industry over the rebrand of its regulator ICSTIS as PhonePayPlus. Premium rate trade association the Network for Online Commerce (NOC) is touting a poll that suggests the new name should be scrapped on grounds that it's rubbish. Top brass at ICSTIS felt the slew of TV phone-in scandals had …

Business 22 Aug 2007, 09:39
Serial eBay fraudster jailed for two years

He's a bit thick, admits defence lawyer

A low-rent recidivist con man who targeted eBay customers was jailed for two years on Tuesday. Phillip Shortman, 20, from Cwmbran near Newport in south Wales, was sent to a young offenders' institution following a conviction for ripping off consumers to the tune of £14,000 and breaching the terms of his probation. Shortman …

Crime 22 Aug 2007, 09:53
IBA boomerangs back into iSoft bidding war

Germans gazumped

The battle for crocked NHS software outfit iSoft has flared up again with the news that Aussie group IBA has moved to gazump the bid from German firm CompuGroup Holding that was accepted in July. IBA has also swooped to accumulate 24 per cent of iSoft shares in the market as a spoiler. Its new bid to acquire the target …

Applications 22 Aug 2007, 10:13
Boblbee offers sunny side up music

Solar powered Apples

Lapping up the Sun’s rays to power our consumer gadgets is all the rage. The latest solar-powered device is called the Boblbee and promises to both charge and protect your iPod. You may run out of food and water whilst out and about, but the Boblbee will ensure that you never run out of enough juice to power your iPod. It …

Reg Hardware 22 Aug 2007, 10:20
T-Mobile, Orange and O2 land Europe iPhone deal

As Apple feasts on 10% of revenue

T-Mobile, Orange and O2 are to sell the iPhone in Germany, France, and the UK respectively, according to the Financial Times. The paper also reports that the operators have agreed to give Apple 10 per cent of all revenue generated from iPhone users. The companies concerned have dismissed the story as speculation and rumour, …

Mobile 22 Aug 2007, 10:23
The Apache Modules Book

Review Is this the missing Apache manual?

Subtitled Application Development With Apache, this is a book for web developers who want to take their web applications to the next level – running them inside their web servers. Apache's modular architecture makes it possible to build applications into server modules, but there's a catch: there's not much documentation, and …

Developer 22 Aug 2007, 10:29
Pentagon bins home-front threat database

Nobody in it but boring pacifists

The Pentagon moved yesterday to shut down a controversial military database used to record possible threats to the US services inside America. Reuters reports that officials gave a cutoff date of 17 September for the so-called Talon system. After this, defence personnel will still report suspicious activities around military …

Law 22 Aug 2007, 10:30
T-Mobile, Orange and O₂ land Europe iPhone deal

It'll all be over by Christmas

T-Mobile, Orange and O2 are to sell the iPhone in Germany, France, and the UK respectively, according to the Financial Times. The paper also reports that the operators have agreed to give Apple 10 per cent of all revenue generated from iPhone users. The companies concerned have dismissed the story as speculation and rumour, …

Reg Hardware 22 Aug 2007, 10:37
Google invades Outer Space

Welcome to Google Sky

Google has announced a nifty extension to its Google Earth which allows users to scan the night sky in search of constellations, planets, and other extraterrestrial wonders - Google Sky: The add-on is available on the latest version of Google Earth, and hitting the "Switch between Sky and Earth" button on the top toolbar …

Space 22 Aug 2007, 11:01
How to get TV on your Mac

Feature Watch and learn

Will Apple ever equip its Macs with TV tuners? Plenty of users have asked it to, and Apple's own Front Row software would certainly make a smart user interface for a DVR. But as Apple's Apple TV set-top box shows, the company's more interested in persuading consumers to pay to download TV shows from iTunes than watch broadcast …

Reg Hardware 22 Aug 2007, 11:02
Homer Simpson debuts in Oxford Dictionary of Modern Quotations

'The lesson is never try'

Homer Simpson has agreeably made his debut in the new edition of the Oxford Dictionary of Modern Quotations, sharing page space with other newbies including Pamela Anderson, Pope Benny 16, David Cameron, Paula Radcliffe, and Oprah Winfrey. Homer is honoured for several classics, including this now-legendary piece of wisdom: " …

Bootnotes 22 Aug 2007, 11:05
Google will carpet YouTube with 'overlay' ads

Not for user generated content....yet

Google will introduce a new advertising model for YouTube today which it reckons will be five to 10 times more effective than existing ad formats used on the video sharing website. From today, semi-transparent animated "overlay" ads will show up at the bottom fifth of the video window for a few seconds when a user views a …

Financial News 22 Aug 2007, 11:08
US pokes intelligence agencies into Web 2.0 overhaul

Facespook? Spyspace?

The US intelligence community plans to introduce an information-sharing portal for spies modelled on the operations of well-known parasite advertising operations MySpace and Facebook. The spook web forum, however, will be taxpayer-supported rather than ad-based, and instead of lists of favourite boy bands it will presumably …

Government 22 Aug 2007, 11:34
Dutch telco outsources QA

Testing times for Satyam

IT consultancy Satyam is to take responsibility for testing of KPN's fixed, mobile, and internet divisions for the next three years. Telco KPN operates in the Netherlands, Germany, and Belgium. Satyam will become a key partner in creating systems and processes for testing and QA - largely through its offshore development centre …

Channel Register 22 Aug 2007, 12:30
Crash bug blights Cisco IP phones

Firmware flaw

Cisco has advised users to update the firmware on some of its IP phones following the discovery of two security flaws. A brace of Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) vulnerabilities in Cisco 7940/7960 IP Phones create the potential for hackers to crash - but not to run exploit code - on vulnerable handsets. SIP is a signalling …

Enterprise Security 22 Aug 2007, 12:33
Livid woman torches ex-hubby's wedding tackle

'Monstrously painful', admits Moscow human candle

A Moscow man who ill-advisedly decided to sit watching telly in the nude in the flat he shared with his ex-missus earned himself a wedding-tackle-torching for his trouble, the Evening Standard reports. The unnamed man's former wife evidently took exception to his vodka-swilling TV viewing, and duly set fire to his penis. A …

Bootnotes 22 Aug 2007, 12:49
UN moves to preserve Bounty mutineers' lingo

Norfolk Island patois under threat

The United Nations has thrown its weight behind a campaign to preserve the unique patois of Norfolk Island - a legacy of the Bounty mutiny comprising a mixture of platt Deutsch, Tahitian, and 18th-century English. According to the Telegraph, "Norf'k" or "Norfuk" is spoken by around half of the South Pacific island's 2,000 …

Bootnotes 22 Aug 2007, 12:50
Li-Ion battery design 'flawed'

Careful now...

It won't come as much of a surprise to Sony, but the present design of lithium-ion cell batteries that power our consumer electronics is flawed, according to Japanese researchers. The startling announcement has been made by the Tokyo Institute of Technology, which claims that such batteries must be redesigned to avoid further …

Reg Hardware 22 Aug 2007, 13:16
Broadbandit nabbed in Wi-Fi bust

Jack the Wardriver menaces west London

A laptop user was collared by police community support officers in west London yesterday for allegedly pilfering someone else's Wi-Fi. Local rag The Richmond and Twickenham Times reports that the 39-year-old man was spotted on Tuesday morning working outside a house in Prebend Gardens, in leafy Chiswick. After admitting using …

Law 22 Aug 2007, 13:34
iRobot unveils new Roomba auto-vacuums

Never mind that - where's my bloody robot butler?

iRobot, maker of military robots and autonomous floor cleaner units, have announced a new line of "Roomba" auto-vacuums. According to the company, the latest 500 series suck-bots have "raised the IQ of home care". Roomba - now with raised IQ. Apparently. The basic Roomba 530, available now online in America for $300, can …

Physics 22 Aug 2007, 13:47
Intel shows off X7900 CPU

More grunt for your money

Intel today officially debuted its long-awaited X7900 CPU. The Core 2 Duo Extreme dual-core processor was unveiled at the 2007 Games Convention in Germany and is Intel's highest performing notebook CPU to date. The X7900 is clocked at 2.8GHz, contains 4MB of L2 cache and runs on an 800MHz FSB. Intel said the CPU also features …

Reg Hardware 22 Aug 2007, 13:51
Forensics expert sacked for DNA-testing husband's underpants

Michigan cops unimpressed by CSYfronts caper

A Michigan State Police (MSP) forensics expert has been sacked for testing her husband's underpants for DNA evidence that he was cheating on her, the Detroit News reports. Ann Chamberlain, 33, was given her marching orders on Tuesday following an internal MSP investigation "into violations of department administrative policy". …

Bootnotes 22 Aug 2007, 13:55
Skype apologises for network snafu

Offers customers a free week as restitution

Skype has apologised for the network problems it experienced last week, and offered a free week to Pro, Unlimited, SkypeIn, and Voicemail customers. The Skype network went down for several days at the end of last week, for reasons which remain obscure. Skype has blamed outage on the effects of Microsoft's Patch Tuesday. The …

VoIP 22 Aug 2007, 14:38
China charges four over Panda worm

Fujacks stole gamers' IDs

Four Chinese men have been charged with creating and spreading an internet worm in a rare example of a cybercrime prosecution in the country. Li Jun, Wang Lei, Zhang Shun, and Lei Lei faced charges in a people's court in Hubei Province on Tuesday over the alleged creation and distribution of the Fujacks worm, Shanghai Daily …

Security 22 Aug 2007, 14:51
Reed seeks project engineer at £2k per hour

Only for a month, sadly

It doesn't come with quite the astounding salary Elan recruitment agency was offering earlier this week to one lucky senior server technical analyst, but any project engineer currently at a loose end could do worse than check out this vacancy down at Reed: Nice. Sadly, the post is only for a month, but we're sure that a …

Bootnotes 22 Aug 2007, 14:54
No data protection exemption for YouTube baby battle video

'Domestic purposes' doesn't apply on internet

The woman at the centre of a battle with social services over the future of her unborn baby will not be able to claim an exemption from the Data Protection Act, a legal expert has warned. Vanessa Brookes of Leamington Spa was recently told by a social worker that the local authority would apply for an interim court order to …

Law 22 Aug 2007, 15:03
Belkin wrestles with wireless HDMI

1080p goes wireless

Belkin is pitting itself against some of the HDMI industry’s fiercest heavyweights and planning to launch a wireless version of the technology. However, Belkin doesn’t plan to base its technology over Ultra-Wideband (UWB) and is keeping its lips, well, fairly shut until CES in January. A representative from the company …

Reg Hardware 22 Aug 2007, 15:08
Numbers man to captain Salesforce.com abroad

Having your Cakebread and eating it

Salesforce.com is retaining its out-going financial officer, charging him - instead - with the role of leading expansion outside the home market. CFO Steve Cakebread has been promoted to president and chief strategy officer, to co-ordinate global strategy with a focus on international expansion, the company said. Cakebread …

Applications 22 Aug 2007, 15:28
Hear the bullets zing with Logitech's gaming speakers

Sounds good to us

If your wrists crack like an OAP’s and your back aches from hours spent in the chair, then why not go the whole hog and invest in an ear-blistering gaming speaker system. The latest set from Logitech promises to deliver an immersive gaming experience and to even identify the direction of bullet fire. The PC and Mac compatible …

Reg Hardware 22 Aug 2007, 15:28
Tech Data posts healthy Q2 profit

Beats Wall Street estimates

Shares in computer distributor Tech Data shot up eight per cent today on news that it had outshone Wall Street estimates on strong growth in the Americas. The firm, which posted a healthy quarterly profit and gave a revenue forecast for the current quarter that was above market expectations, saw shares jump $3.06 to $38.28 on …

Channel Register 22 Aug 2007, 16:58
Gunplay fingered for internet slowdown

Fibre-optic cable shot to ribbons

US ISPs were forced to reroute traffic after a stretch of fibre-optic cable was shot to bits in Ohio last Sunday night. TeliaSonera lost the northern branch of its US network as a result of the sabotage, which damaged a span of fibre optic cable near Cleveland around 1.1km (or two thirds of a mile) long. "Somebody had been …

Telecoms 22 Aug 2007, 17:01
Ukrainian jet setter in world's largest cyber heist?

Turkish nightclub bust could crack TJX case

US authorities have taken a keen interest in a recently-arrested Ukrainian man after discovering he had ties to the criminal hackers behind the colossal data breach at US retail giant TJX. Responsible for more than 45.6m stolen accounts, the infiltration has understandably landed on the top of investigators' to-do list. Their …

Crime 22 Aug 2007, 18:32
Google flirts with bid to save the American Dream

$4.6bn wireless move 'probable'

Will Google bid for a coveted portion of the U.S. wireless spectrum? "Probably" is the word from chief executive Eric Schmidt. On January 18, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) will auction off the so-called "700-MHz band," a swath of wireless spectrum recently vacated by TV stations making the switch to digital …

Wireless 22 Aug 2007, 19:20
AMD's marketing chief bails ahead of Barcelona

Update Search begins for bravado

AMD's flashy, big-talking marketing chief Henri Richard appears set to leave the building ahead of the company's biggest product launch of the year. A report from some site called Hexus pegs Richard's departing on Sept. 8. That's a real pain, since AMD will unveil its four-core Opteron (Barcelona) chip at a Sept. 10 event in …

Servers 22 Aug 2007, 19:52
CNET insists Google ads are good for you - and fun!!!

Comment Oh wait

There are times when even the most optimistic pro-business American news organs realize they've gone too far. CNET News.com, for example, published a story this week with the headline "YouTube tests viewer-friendly ad format." The piece - and we mean that literally - covered Google's decision to place ad pop-ups at the bottom …

Music and Media 22 Aug 2007, 21:30
Comcast throttles BitTorrent users

Spilling seed on barren ground

It looks like Comcast, America's biggest cable network, has put the squeeze on BitTorrent users. On Friday, the widely-read BitTorrent blog TorrentFreak reported that many Comcast users were unable to "seed" their BitTorrent downloads, which severely slows the exchange of music and video over the popular P2P protocol. Comcast …

Telecoms 22 Aug 2007, 23:00
Las Vegas crooks go mad for copper

Oops! There goes the cable

Telcos and data center operators, watch out for your copper. As the price of the metal skyrockets copper is suddenly looking very appealing to thieves. So much so that Embarq, which offers communications services in 18 states, is offering a $5,000 bounty for information leading the prosecution of people who steal its cable in …

Telecoms 22 Aug 2007, 23:42
Sun fattens up Niagara for middleware play

Hot Chips Four-sockets, 256 threads

Sun Microsystems' Niagara processors are growing up. The company this week confirmed that the third-generation Niagara chip code-named "Victoria Falls" will slot into two- and four-socket servers. (We revealed this move about 18 months ago and thank Sun for getting with the program.) When Victoria Falls ships during the …

Servers 22 Aug 2007, 23:55