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10th September 2007 Archive

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  • Women say no to pink tech toys

    Hardware firms getting it so wrong, survey reveals

    Advertising agency Saatchi & Saatchi has put down in black and white what plenty of women around here have been thinking for ages: we want technology but we don't want it coloured pink or encrusted with fake gemstones. The company recently polled female internet users here in the UK and found that most of them believe …

    Reg Hardware 10 Sep 2007, 01:02

  • ISPs turn blind eye to million-machine malware monster

    Cablevision and Comcast coddling criminals?

    Several weeks ago, security researcher Lawrence Baldwin dispatched an urgent email to abuse handlers at OptimumOnline, the broadband provider owned by Cablevision, warning that one of its customers stood to lose more than $60,000 to cyber crooks. "He's got a keylogger on his system . . . below is a log of the miscreant …

    Security 10 Sep 2007, 06:02

  • Tor at heart of embassy passwords leak

    Popular privacy program (mis)used to spill state secrets

    Tor advertises itself as a means for people and groups to improve their privacy. And when used properly, the distributed, anonymous network does just that. But a Swedish security consultant has used the very same system to gain access to login credentials for a thousand or so individual email addresses, including those of at …

    Enterprise Security 10 Sep 2007, 06:22

  • Fossett 'may never be found'

    Search continues for missing adventurer

    A police officer involved in the search for adventurer Steve Fossett - who went missing last Monday after taking off from hotelier Barron Hilton's Flying M Ranch, roughly 70 miles southeast of Reno, Nevada - has admitted he "may never be found", the BBC reports. Forty-five aircraft have scoured an area of 10,000 square miles in …

    Science 10 Sep 2007, 08:36

  • Ratings volunteers to be spied on by mobiles

    Blowers to rat out guineapigs 24-7

    You know how you can volunteer to be a TV ratings guinea pig? And then they - Nielsen or whoever - attach kit to your telly so that they can tell everything you and all your thousands of fellow guineapigs watch, and so the ratings get compiled. Well, that system is flawed. It can't measure the telly you watch at the pub, the …

    Mobile 10 Sep 2007, 08:43

  • Team XMM-Newton on data-sharing mission

    X-ray source catalogue released

    The largest ever catalogue of X-ray sources has been released by the team behind the XMM-Newton observatory. The newly released data-set contains more than a quarter of a million entries. Professor Mike Watson, the XMM-Newton Survey Science principal investigator from the University of Leicester, explains: "The 2XMM catalogue …

    Space 10 Sep 2007, 09:12

  • Cap Gemini twins with Google to punt online apps

    Surprise pairing

    Cap Gemini is to start flogging Google Apps to its big corporate customers. The package of office applications, Google Apps Premier Edition, includes spreadsheets, documents, calendar, Gmail, instant messenger and VoIP and is delivered as a service over the internet. The software as a service (SaaS) market is predicted to …

    Applications 10 Sep 2007, 09:20

  • Intel cans first-gen Core chips

    Duo, Solo for the chop

    Intel has begun the process of ridding itself of an entire generation of 65nm Core processors, to pave the way for 45nm 'Penryn' Core 2 chips, due to begin appear in November. Marked for termination: all the Core Solo and Core Duo CPUs. The Core Duos for the chop run from the 1.66GHz T2300 up to the 2.33GHz T7200, along with …

    Reg Hardware 10 Sep 2007, 09:48

  • Intel to drop bottom-of-the-range gaming CPU

    Intel will take no further orders for the four-core Core 2 Extreme QX6700 processor on 4 January 2008, the company has told its customers. And they'll have to get orders in before 2 November 2007, if they want the right to cancel at a later date. The decision to end-of-life the $999 2.66GHz gaming processor doesn't comes …

    Reg Hardware 10 Sep 2007, 10:00

  • AMD readies DirectX 10.1, DisplayPort GPU updates

    Radeon 2400, 2600 ranges targeted

    AMD will early next year update its ATI Radeon HD 2400 and 2600 graphics chip series for DirectX 10.1's Shader Model 4.1, it has been claimed. According to Taiwanese graphics card industry moles cited by local newssite DigiTimes, the new chips will be based on two cores, the 'RV635' and the 'RV620, respectively successors of …

    Reg Hardware 10 Sep 2007, 10:11

  • 10,000 .eu names suspended amid cybersquatter allegation

    Owner files retaliatory suit

    The organisation behind the .eu domain has suspended 10,000 domain names registered by a Chinese woman whom it accuses of being a cybersquatter. The woman, in retaliation, has filed a lawsuit in Belgium. EURid, the Belgium-based registry for .eu domain names, has blocked the names and has the right to strip the woman, Zheng …

    Law 10 Sep 2007, 10:16

  • Sun launches Eco Innovation Initiative

    Extends Eco Responsibility Initiative

    Sun Microsystems has announced a comprehensive suite of programs and solutions to help customers design more energy-efficient, eco-responsible datacenters while saving money. The Eco Innovation Initiative is an extension of Sun's Eco Responsibility Initiative, which was launched in November 2005. Among the tools announced are …

    Servers 10 Sep 2007, 10:24

  • 'All-in' DNA database plan hinges on human rights case

    Updated ECHR could make DNA retention without conviction illegal

    Lord Justice Sedley's proposal to put everyone in the UK on a DNA database would be dependent on a British man's case against the UK at the European Court of Human Rights, according to a privacy law expert. Michael Marper is objecting to the retention of his DNA information on the Home Office's database, despite the fact that …

    Law 10 Sep 2007, 10:38

  • Sony rolls out roll-along music player

    Is Sony's new portable music playar an attempt to cash in on the Rugby World Cup? With its ovoid shape, the Rolly certainly has a football feel, but instead of air, this ball packs in an MP3 player, funky coloured lights and a pair of loudspeakers. And it moves. Sony's Rolly: palm sized music player The palm-sized gadget …

    Reg Hardware 10 Sep 2007, 10:38

  • Mars rovers dust-free and on the move

    Opportunity peers into crater

    After weathering the dust storms of the past two months, the Mars rovers Spirit and Opportunity have had their solar panels swept free off dust by kinder, gentler winds. With full power restored, the two explorers are now ready to renew their slow crawl over the surface of the red planet. Opportunity now stands on the crest of …

    Space 10 Sep 2007, 10:43

  • US outfit whips out mp3 vibrator

    NSFW 64 megabytes of Ram - phwoooar!

    Our female readers looking for an earth-moving experience are directed forthwith not to the San Andreas fault, but rather to the profoundly silly My Little Secret Talking Head mp3 vibrator - a "breakthrough in adult toys" that allows you to "download and listen to erotic audio fantasies or record your own for the ultimate in …

    Bootnotes 10 Sep 2007, 10:44

  • NetApp cooks up meatier low-end NAS appliance

    FAS200 line goes down low

    NetApp today announced fresh NAS kit and software as it throws itself into a low-end scrap with EMC and HP. Similar to NetApp's FAS200 product line, the new FAS2000 series is designed as a low-to-mid-end storage appliance, but still sports some high end features and protocols. The boxes can work either as a classic NAS ( …

    Storage 10 Sep 2007, 10:58

  • IT shouldn't cop all the blame for wrecking environment

    Quocirca's changing channels Green IT use by businesses matters too

    The IT industry is in danger of becoming an unnecessary apologist for environmental woes caused by the equipment it sells. While there is certainly room for improvement in the way IT procurement and infrastructure is managed, this must not be overshadowed by the more positive aspects that good use of IT can make to the overall …

    IT Director 10 Sep 2007, 11:18

  • Wednesday's Palm launch not Centro, firm claims

    Same design though?

    The wraps come off Palm's latest Euro-centric smartphone on Wednesday, and while speculation has centred on the notion the device might be the company's upcoming Centro product, Palm has claimed it isn't. Palm's Gandolf/Otto: not branded Centro? A posting on Palm's official blog stated explicitly the device due to be …

    Reg Hardware 10 Sep 2007, 11:21

  • MusicStation arrives, but will we pay for digital music?

    Vodafone thinks so

    The Great White Hope of the music business - and many network operators - has arrived in the UK. The music business hopes it will persuade people to start paying for licensed digital music, while operators hope it will persuade people to start using their expensively built, but under-utilised 3G networks. Vodafone will launch …

    Mobile 10 Sep 2007, 11:32

  • Trojan-fuelled botnet menaces UK eBay users

    Updated Auction giant guards against attack

    Security researchers have discovered a sophisticated botnet attack targeting eBay customers, particularly those in the UK. The attack, first identified last week, uses a sophisticated Trojan to infect surfers that stray onto hacked Websites. It then uses compromised computers to mount a sophisticated distributed attack on …

    Malware 10 Sep 2007, 11:34

  • Expedition to hunt Amazon 'yeti'

    Heart of barkingness

    A team of cryptozoologists is headed for the South American jungle to track down a legendary apeman said to terrorise villages and tear out cattle tongues. The Centre for Fortean Zoology (CFZ) has picked up sponsorship from a videogame firm to mount an expedition in Guyana in search of the Didi, also known as Mono Grande, …

    Biology 10 Sep 2007, 11:49

  • Icron WiRanger Wi-Fi connected USB hub

    Review USB-over-Wi-Fi, anyone?

    The whole point of wireless is the freedom to connect to something from anywhere within an area rather than from a single, specific place. Icron's WiRanger wireless USB hub system stumbles at the first hurdle. Yes, its two units - the hub and the box that connects to your computer - link wirelessly, but both need mains-power …

    Reg Hardware 10 Sep 2007, 11:53

  • Service Strategy

    Is this the missing manual for SOA?

    "Service Strategy" is part of ITIL (the IT Infrastructure Library), which is one of the, perhaps surprising, success stories of UK government computing. Originally, ITIL was a set of Operations-oriented “good practices” for IT Service Management: a non-prescriptive guide to the best way of doing things, backed up with ISO 20000 …

    Developer 10 Sep 2007, 11:54

  • LeftHand flings SAN at cash-stricken virtual servers

    Virtual SAN Appliance for VMware ESX

    LeftHand Networks is snuggling close to virtualization market leader VMware, to bring a SAN solution to that ever-elusive - and inconveniently ever-cash-conscious - market, the SMB. Some see server virtualization as a tremendous opportunity to consolidate hardware, but without shared storage, running more applications on a …

    Storage 10 Sep 2007, 12:02

  • SanDisk guns for iPod Nano with slim video viewer

    Long player

    Now that Apple's got its new, video-playing iPod Nano launched here comes SanDisk with an alternative it hopes will win over buyers with its sleeker lines and higher storage capacity. SanDisk's Sansa View: like an iPod Nano only more capacious The Sansa View comes in 8GB and 16GB versions, but both can be expanded with …

    Reg Hardware 10 Sep 2007, 12:02

  • Wyse strips down thin client computers

    Thinks PCs are a fatty, fatty 2x4

    When is a thin client computer too thin? According to Wyse, never. In fact, the company envisions a future where thin clients get thinner and thinner to a point where they are free and disposable. Madness, you say? Well, they certainly seem to be headed that way. But let's step back a moment. For those unfamiliar with the …

    PCs & Chips 10 Sep 2007, 12:05

  • Secretive FBI 'National Security Letters' to ISPs, Telcos halted

    'Legislative equivalent of breaking and entering'

    The obsessive secrecy provided by the Patriot Act for certain domestic surveillance activities suffered a severe blow yesterday, as a federal judge struck down provisions of the Act that provided for expansive and secretive use of so-called "National Security Letters" (NSL) to obtain phone and email records. NSLs predate the …

    Law 10 Sep 2007, 12:12

  • Europe's largest phone recycling centre to open in Wales

    Europe, send your unwanted mobile phone to... Wales. Well, from November, anyway. In that month, the continent's largest cellphone recycling plant will open its doors for business by logistics specialist Excel. The company said the £15m plant will be capable of dissassembling and safely disposing of some 500,000 handsets a …

    Reg Hardware 10 Sep 2007, 12:13

  • Viking ship resurfaces under Merseyside boozer

    Plans to raise unique surviving wooden hull

    A team from Nottingham University's archaeology department believes it has rediscovered the remains of an intact Viking boat under a Merseyside pub - originally unearthed in the 1930s by builders excavating the boozer's basement, but quickly reburied because they feared "an archaeological dig would disrupt their work". …

    Science 10 Sep 2007, 12:41

  • Pinwheel galaxy boasts edgy star formation

    Most unusual

    New images from the Japanese infrared space telescope AKARI have revealed giant star-forming regions on the edge of the spiral galaxy M101. The findings suggest M101 is something of a special case, since star formation more usually happens in the denser central part of spiral galaxies. The galaxy is roughly twice the size of …

    Space 10 Sep 2007, 12:53

  • OQO cuts UMPC prices, adds solid-state drive option

    UMPC maker OQO will next week launch an updated version of its Model 2 handheld in Europe, upping the Windows Vista device's processor and storage specs, and - if OQO does what it's just done in the US - a reduced price. OQO's revised Model 2: faster, more capacious The new version increases the UMPC's processor speed from …

    Reg Hardware 10 Sep 2007, 12:59

  • US municipal Wi-Fi loses its shine

    Business models followed technology too closely

    A year ago, hardly a week went by without news of a major municipal wireless project in the US, supporting free or subsidized access and a host of shiny business models. Now hardly a week goes by without news of the death of one of these plans. The San Francisco roll-out, the poster child for the free Wi-Fi movement, largely …

    Wireless 10 Sep 2007, 13:02

  • Who said the internet was getting boring?

    Reg Technology Panel For business or pleasure?

    Over the past two or three years, zanily named social networking tools such as Facebook, LinkedIn, MySpace, Flickr and Twitter seem to have come from nowhere to wheedle their way into just about every aspect of online life, both in business and pleasure. Such facilities share a handful of simple, but powerful core features: each …

    Tech Panel 10 Sep 2007, 13:35

  • Get a passport, enjoy casual sex with foreigners

    Home Office yoof campaign shocks Middle England

    Middle England is none too pleased with a Home Office campaign aimed at "reminding 'holiday virgins' to apply for their passports in good time to avoid missing out on the fun of a first parent-free holiday". The HO last month launched the initiative, with the Identity and Passport Service's Executive Director for Service …

    Bootnotes 10 Sep 2007, 13:42

  • German Government works itself up into Wi-Fi panic

    Updated We must cleanse ourselves of this electrosmog

    The German Government has told the country to avoid using Wi-Fi whenever possible, because of the possible risks to health, according to a report in UK newspaper The Independent on Sunday. According to the newspaper, Germany's radiation protection body also suggests that citizens refrain from using mobile phones, and try to …

    Wireless 10 Sep 2007, 14:17

  • New iPods need new add-ons for TV playback?

    Apple's new iPod Classic and iPod Nano will require new accessories if you plan to display the videos the players contain on your TV, it has been alleged. Apple has apparently blocked TV output from these new players when they're connected to old docks. Acccording to a report on newssite iLounge, plugging the two new iPods …

    Reg Hardware 10 Sep 2007, 15:04

  • Brussels muscles in on BT universal service rules

    Bill and Ted's Bogus Green Paper

    The European Commission has announced a review of the regulations that compel telcos to provide public call boxes that could lead to them being scrapped. The move will be celebrated at BT, which has been lobbying for years to scale back its public latrine maintenance business. Ofcom last published the results of a consultation …

    Telecoms 10 Sep 2007, 15:04

  • The Times: PLA war-hackers can switch off US navy

    Yellow Peril causes wet knickers among excited scribes

    Unnamed Pentagon figures continue to get big ink for their thesis that Chinese military cyber assault is a threat of trouser-moistening magnitude. Last week's media bandwagon, initiated after Financial Times hacks in Washington obligingly got things rolling, is now thundering along unstoppably as foaming tech-dunce scribes pile …

    Security 10 Sep 2007, 15:11

  • RFID chip implants linked to cancer in animals

    Not fit for dogs?

    You might not want to chip granny afterall. Studies on animals discovered high incidents of tumours close to the sites of RFID chip implants. The findings from studies dating from the 1990s up to last year suggesting implanted chips "induced" malignant tumors in some lab mice and rats are by no means conclusive (even in the …

    Biology 10 Sep 2007, 15:14

  • Intel hopeful for third quarter

    Earnings up...

    Chip monster Intel is upping its guidance for the third quarter - the day arch-rival AMD launches its Barcelona chip. Better than expected sales means Intel now expects to make revenues of between $9.4bn and $9.8bn compared to previous predictions of between $9.0bn and $9.4bn. Intel expects margins to be on the high side - …

    Financial News 10 Sep 2007, 15:15

  • Procurve goes for the core

    Network switch first with lifetime warranty

    HP declared its intention to fight a long war against Cisco today, when it unwrapped its 8200zl series core switch units and promise a lifetime hardware warranty on the new kit. HP’s networking operation, Procurve has been well-established as a edge switch supplier for some time, holding a grip on second place to Cisco in the …

    Data Networking 10 Sep 2007, 15:24

  • Orange to turn pink at Xmas to favour young women

    Miss Understanding

    Orange UK has shown off the pink LG Shine phone it plans to offer to UK consumers in the run up to Christmas - along with a rose-tinted Samsung F210, and salmon-hued W580i and W200i from Sony Ericsson. Orange's pink Shine: 85 per cent of young women want one The mobile phone network said the pink Shine is "sure to appeal …

    Reg Hardware 10 Sep 2007, 15:29

  • Bluetooth comes to set-top boxes

    Time to rename the zapper?

    Broadcom, manufacturer of set-top box chip sets and Qualcomm annoyer, has added Bluetooth to its set-top box reference platform; which should see the death of the infrared remote control within a couple of years. Broadcom sees non-line-of-sight remote control as just one capability Bluetooth adds. Connecting to inconveniently …

    Wireless 10 Sep 2007, 15:31

  • AOL restricts free security software to friends and members

    Updated All change

    AOL has switched technology provider for its free security service for consumers from Kaspersky to McAfee. Last year AOL began offering consumers a free anti-virus software package, dubbed Active Virus Shield, powered by technology from Kasperesky Lab. No AOL membership was required to use the service, though users are …

    Malware 10 Sep 2007, 16:02

  • Solar spyplane stays up for two nights

    Needs no fuel, only money

    British wartech-spinoff firm Qinetiq says its solar-powered robot plane has stayed up for 54 hours, surviving the hours of darkness on energy stored in lithium-sulphur batteries. Dubbed "Zephyr," the prototype High Altitude Long Endurance (Hale) flydroid airframe is made of ultra-lightweight carbon-fibre, allowing it to have an …

    Science 10 Sep 2007, 16:15

  • Google Earth mobilised in search for Fossett

    Amazon's Mechanical Turk scours latest sat images

    Amazon and Google are colloborating to try and locate adventurer Steve Fossett, missing since last Monday somewhere in Nevada. Amazon has mobilised its Mechanical Turk using the "latest" images of Nevada and parts of California just deployed on Google Earth, and is asking people to scour snippets of imagery for Fossett's …

    Science 10 Sep 2007, 16:20

  • VMware unveils 32MB version of ESX Server

    Hypervisor flash

    The rumors about VMware putting ESX Server on dietary supplements have been confirmed. The virtualization darling today revealed ESX Server 3i - a super-thin hypervisor that will be built into the memory of servers from companies such as Dell, HP and IBM. We've been writing about the so-called ESX Lite for some time now, …

    Servers 10 Sep 2007, 17:33

  • Apple 'loses' iPod calendar

    A Touch too much

    Our analysis of the prospects and possibilities for the new iPod Touch got readers very excited. Not a single reader used the words "locked-down, overpriced PDA", which would have been a natural retort. But not one person could get excited about YouTube, either. And you also sent in some excellent suggestions for trouserware …

    Mobile 10 Sep 2007, 19:17

  • AMD finally goes native with Barcelona

    Preps pair of Octals

    Entire computing platforms have come and gone* in the time that it has taken AMD to shove the four-core version of Opteron known as Barcelona into end customers' hands. AMD today will hold events in Spain and San Francisco to celebrate the release of its latest server chip. The Barcelona part - meant to arrive about six …

    Servers 10 Sep 2007, 19:17

  • Man charged over P2P ID theft scam

    $oulseek

    Police have arrested a Seattle man over allegations he used P2P networks to swipe sensitive financial data from the PCs of file sharing fans. Gregory Kopiloff, 35, allegedly used the Limewire and Soulseek P2P networks as conduits for identity theft. Investigators reckon he used the software to scour users' systems on the hunt …

    ID 10 Sep 2007, 19:19

  • Apple ponders $9bn bid for wall-busting wireless iNetwork

    Eyes Google's 'beachfront' property

    Google isn't the only tech giant mulling over a big-money bid for a prized portion of the US wireless spectrum. Apple's thinking much the same thing. With the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) set to auction off the so-called 700-MHz band this coming January, two unnamed sources told BusinessWeek that Jobs and company …

    Wireless 10 Sep 2007, 20:20

  • Dell unveils Big Mike for iSCSI storage box party

    We told you so

    Hungry for some attention, Dell will bring out the Big Man for any old thing these days. Take for instance the PowerVault MD3000i, Dell's new modular disk storage array featuring iSCSI support. Michael Dell himself was in San Francisco today to announce the new virtualization-friendly protocol option to the company's PowerVault …

    Storage 10 Sep 2007, 20:47

  • High protein diet good for boxen gurus and open sourcerers

    Site News Eat your Meat Casts

    I have an apology for all the hardware geniuses and open source software experts out there. Due to some typing errors, last week's episodes of Semi-Coherent Computing and Open Season suffered from iTunes bungling. Those of you looking for the shows on iTunes were probably unable to find them. The problem is now fixed. You can …

    Semi-Coherent 10 Sep 2007, 21:30