3rd October 2007 Archive

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Levanta freshens up Linux server cure-all

Like soap for your penguins

Linux specialist Levanta has issued a fresh release of its flagship software that brings a host of new high-end management tools. Before we dig in to the new features in Levanta 6.0, let's travel over to the company's press release for the product. "Levanta today announced a family of no–compromise data center automation …

Servers 3 Oct 00:14
First RIAA file-sharing trial begins

Accused mom gets jury of her peer-to-peers

30-year-old single mother of two Jammie Thomas appeared in court today in Minnesota to answer allegations that she illegally shared 1,702 songs on the Kazaa file-sharing network. Thomas is the first of approximately 26,000 US citizens accused by the Recording Industry of America of illegal file-sharing to reach a civil judge …

Music and Media 3 Oct 00:23
SAP licenses NetWeaver to developers

Consulting play

Four years into its NetWeaver strategy, SAP is finally putting its middleware in the hands of individual developers through a subscription-based licensing package. The world's largest business applications vendor said Tuesday it's making the full NetWeaver stack available to individual developers for the first time under a one- …

Software 3 Oct 00:36
eBay: Botnets are Linux-happy

Security chief goes to the bank

eBay may soon offer online banking. It would seem. This afternoon, while fielding questions about PayPal at Santa Clara University conference obsessed with "trust online," chief information security officer Dave Cullinane seemed to indicate eBay is interested in extending the popular online payment system to its logical …

Security 3 Oct 03:30
UK police can now force you to reveal decryption keys

Refuseniks face jail time

Users of encryption technology can no longer refuse to reveal keys to UK authorities after amendments to the powers of the state to intercept communications took effect on Monday (Oct 1). The Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act (RIPA) has had a clause activated which allows a person to be compelled to reveal a decryption key …

Crime 3 Oct 04:43
EC takes aim at Qualcomm

Chip off the anti-trust block

The European Commission has launched an anti-trust investigation into chip maker Qualcomm. It is the third chip or memory competition case launched by the commission since July and follows a recent commission competition court victory over Microsoft. A competition law expert has said that the case highlights how confident the …

Financial News 3 Oct 08:57
Panasonic strengthens Blu-ray recorder range

More worry for HD-DVD supporters

Panasonic yesterday unveiled its latest Blu-ray recorders, pitching the three Diga-brand models as the 'world's slimmest' machines of their kind. Panasonic's latest Blu-ray recorders The DMR-BW900 will ship with a 1TB hard drive, the DMR-BW800 with a lesser 500GB capacity and the DMR-BW700 with a 250GB drive. All three can …

Reg Hardware 3 Oct 09:11
Gov Gateway upgrade allows for growth

Room for more traffic and online services

The roll out of a new version of the Government Gateway will allow for increased traffic and more e-enabled public services. A partnership comprising the Cabinet Office e-Delivery Team, Atos Origin, and Microsoft have launched Version 2.0 of the Government Gateway. Called enGage, the partnership has upgraded the Gateway to …

Government 3 Oct 09:12
Sky's ITV stake anti-competitive, says regulator

Competition Commission could force sale of shares

Sky's purchase of 17.9 per cent of ITV was anti-competitive and against the public interest, the Competition Commission has ruled. It could force the broadcaster to sell the shares which are now worth over £200m less than Sky paid in 2006. A competition law expert said a crucial factor in the Competition Commission's …

Business 3 Oct 09:19
Sony's 40GB PS3 due 28 October?

Evidence mounts for cut-price console

Rumours that Sony is preparing a cut-price 40GB PlayStation 3 may have been dismissed by the consumer electronics giant as "speculation", but evidence is mounting that just such a box is indeed coming later this month. UK online retailer Play.com, for instance, is listing an unspecified PS3, clearly separate from the other …

Reg Hardware 3 Oct 09:32
Data retention law makes little difference to telcos, says trade body

Move along. Nothing to see here

UK telecoms firms must keep phone call logs for a year under legislation which comes into force today. But an industry trade association said the new rules will make "little practical difference" to telecoms providers that already store such data for billing purposes. The Data Retention (EC Directive) Regulations 2007 are …

Networks 3 Oct 09:36
3Com - a company built on ether

Master of technologies that vanished

3Com's sale to Huawei Technologies and Bain Capital for $2.2bn marks the end of a company which pioneered Ethernet and network computing, and once owned Palm. 3Com was named for "computers, communication and compatibility" by one of its founders, Robert Metcalfe, who had come up with Ethernet as a networking technology while …

Data Networking 3 Oct 09:58
Apple to dial x86 for iPhone?

Claimed shift to Intel could explain downer on third-party apps

Suddenly, Apple's apparent downer on third-party iPhone software development becomes much clearer. Taiwanese moles claim the company is considering founding future iPhones on the next generation of Intel's Ultra Mobile Platform. Today's iPhones are based on ARM processor technology. Intel abandoned its ARM chip line in …

Reg Hardware 3 Oct 10:05
Microsoft revamps Zune with Flash

Steve Jobs' nighttime uninterrupted?

Microsoft has restyled and expanded its Zune portable media player collection with three new models, including a pair of Flash-based players. MS' Zune family: now also available in 4 or 8GB (left), 80GB (centre) and 30GB models The 80GB hard-drive model has a 3.2in glass-fronted display - taking a lead from the iPhone …

Reg Hardware 3 Oct 10:40
Fraud abroad drives up card losses

As phishermen pull in a meagre haul

A doubling of overseas card fraud is pushing up industry losses even as domestic fraud decreases. Total credit card fraud losses increased by 26 per cent in the six months to June 2007 to £263.6m compared with £209m in the first half of 2006, according to figures from UK banking industry association APACS. The increase was …

ID 3 Oct 10:48
Toshiba pledges 30in OLED TV will ship in 2009

Rather bigger than Sony's latest

Toshiba has cocked a snook at the 11in OLED TV Sony announced this week and pledged to bring a 30in model to market effectively within the next two years. A company spokeswoman yesterday told IDG that the screen would go on sale in 2009. Sony unveiled its XEL-1 OLED TV in Japan - an ultraslim screen that contains a display …

Reg Hardware 3 Oct 10:50
Data: It's gotta have meaning, man

Opinion A context for everything and everything in its context

How often have you heard the excuse of blaming blown project budgets on unanticipated systems integration costs? For good reason, nobody wants to do customised point-to-point integrations if they can help it - it's difficult if not impossible to leverage the work. But in one respect, such integrations contained one …

Developer 3 Oct 10:54
DLO TuneStik with Remote FM iPod transmitter

Review Driver-friendly iPod controller

Thanks to a recent and long overdue amendment to the UK's 1949 Wireless Telegraphy Act, it's now possible for those of us living in these sometimes benighted islands to use an in-car FM transmitter iPod adapter without fear of the long arm of the law feeling our collars for impinging on someone else's spectrum by running a …

Reg Hardware 3 Oct 11:02
Terror police lock down Soho to smoke out 9lbs of chillis

Cooking ring bust wide open

Police sealed off three streets in central London on Monday as they investigated a suspected chemical terror attack that turned out to be a Thai chef brewing up a particularly pungent burnt chilli sauce. The three hour lockdown in Soho saw a Hazardous Area Response Team Unit and firefighters wearing breathing apparatus engaging …

Bootnotes 3 Oct 11:04
Sony buddies up with Qimonda

Creates DRAM team

Japanese electronics giant Sony has teamed up with German-based chip maker Qimonda to design dynamic random access memory (DRAM) chips for consumer and graphics applications. The new Tokyo-based 50:50 joint venture has been dubbed Qreatic Design with work expected to kick off by the end of this year, the two companies said in …

PCs & Chips 3 Oct 11:14
Palm admits new OS 18 months away

Another day, another delay

Palm CEO Ed Colligan has confirmed the new Palm OS won't be finished until the end of 2008. Originally scheduled for release by the end of this year, the operating system's launch date has continued to be pushed back, despite the added attention of the engineers freed up by the scrapping of Foleo last month. The new OS will …

Software 3 Oct 11:39
Kiwi boffins prove that booze makes you clever

Two or three a day for a healthy brain, like it or not

At last, scientists have delivered conclusive proof of what many people instinctively knew - booze makes you clever. Top boffins at the University of Auckland, New Zealand, by studying the mental performance of specially-created transgenic rats well supplied with drink, have found that moderate daily alcohol intake conferred " …

Biology 3 Oct 11:44
Google Apps digests Postini, doubles enterprise email inboxes

How you like me now?

Google has assimilated the hosted security and compliance features it picked up in its $625m acquisition of Postini into its corporate email service and more than doubled the capacity of inboxes to 25GB. The free Gmail inbox offered to common webplebs remains at 3GB. The Postini deal completed last month and today Google …

Applications 3 Oct 11:46
Nintendo to dish out free Wiimote 'condoms'

Nintendo's taking better care of Wii remotes by issuing them with protectives. The company is offering free silicone Wii Remote Jackets to existing customers and will, from 15 October, include the protective slips with new consoles. The Wii Remote's new silicone jacket The Jacket is designed to provide impact cushioning …

Reg Hardware 3 Oct 13:02
Sony sells pink kit to benefit Breast Cancer research

Pink products may be a downer for many women, but Sony has at least a good reason for releasing a selection of salmon-hued hardware: it's all in aid of Breast Cancer Awareness Month over in the States. Sony's Vaio CR: buy one, Sony give $75 to Breast Cancer Research Buy a pink Vaio CR notebook, a rose-tinted NWZ-A816 …

Reg Hardware 3 Oct 13:04
Alleged CastleCops DDoS botmaster busted

Resident weevil

US police have arrested a man suspected of launching a distributed denial of service attack against volunteer security community CastleCops earlier this year. Greg King, 21, of Fairfield, California, stands charged with four counts of hacking over attacks against CastleCops and KillaNet, a Canadian graphics and web design …

Crime 3 Oct 13:25
Blokey atmos drives women away from sci/tech

Too much test-tube waving

A PhD student at Stanford has published research indicating that the low numbers of women in science, maths and engineering-related fields is not caused by any gender-related tendency to be bad at hard sums. Rather, the ladies avoid these fields of endeavour simply because there are so few females already present, and because of …

Science 3 Oct 13:28
Italian website names 40GB PS3 price

Dollar-Euro exchange rate rewritten

Sony's 40GB PlayStation 3 will cost €400 ($566/£277) in Europe, if a product page posted on an Italian retail chain's website is to be believed. It's expected to cost $400 (€283/£196) in the US. The website, Se-Dici Film, claims the console is available to buy immediately, which seems unlikely given the anticipated US release …

Reg Hardware 3 Oct 13:42
Hackers hit back at iPhone update

'Bricked' phones get some functions restored

The war between Apple and the hackers is heating up, after a 'fix' for the recent iPhone update was posted online. Apple's recent update for the iPhone's firmware rendered unlocked iPhones - those that had been modified either through software or other means to work outside of AT&T's network - unusable, and the firm has so far …

Mobile 3 Oct 13:44
Hollywood mobile TV chip is alive (just) in Texas

Interview TI predicts market surge

Rumors of the demise of Texas Instruments' (TI) Hollywood mobile TV chip are exaggerated, according to Yoram Solomon, director of strategic marketing, industry, and standards at the company. "I don't think the development of the chip is on hold, it's just that the market is on hold," Solomon told us at the recent IBC show. …

Networks 3 Oct 13:46
Novell punts world's most expensive Linux distro

You could get 18.4 copies of Vista Home Premium for that

One of the favourite public refrains of the FOSS movement is that Windows is too expensive, and that Microsoft swindles consumers, governments, taxpayers, penguins, and orphans. In the interests of balance, we'd like to draw attention to Novell's forthcoming release of openSUSE 10.3, available for pre-order on its website …

Operating Systems 3 Oct 14:34
UK, Germans, Dutch slam EC Galileo plan

Those who pay the piper want to call the tune

The long-delayed European sat nav project Galileo was plunged into fresh controversy last night, as a plan by Brussels officials to solve funding problems met political opposition. Galileo has been bogged down for some time now due to lack of funds for its construction. Originally this cash was to have been supplied by industry …

Space 3 Oct 14:38
Halo 3 misses 'UK's fastest selling game' slot

Guns, police chases and 'hot coffee' still favourite

Microsoft's Halo 3 is only the UK's second fastest selling game ever. Analysis by sales monitor Chart Track has positioned it behind Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas, despite Microsoft's shoot-'em-up being bought by one in three UK Xbox 360 owners during its first week on sale. Do you prefer this type of game... Chart Track …

Reg Hardware 3 Oct 15:02
Braindead obituarists hoaxed by Wikipedia

Only fools and journos

The veteran BBC TV composer and arranger Ronnie Hazlehurst died on Monday night. His long career at the corporation produced some of the most (irritatingly) memorable theme tunes: including The Two Ronnies, Reggie Perrin, Last Of The Summer Wine, Blankety Blank and the Morse Code theme for Some Mothers Do 'Ave 'Em. But when his …

Music and Media 3 Oct 15:19
Cisco WiMAX acquisition rumors resurface

Cisco licking its chops?

The persistent rumors that Cisco is close to making a WiMAX infrastructure acquisition resurfaced at WiMAX World last month, with most of the independent WiMAX vendors in the frame. Aperto, Airspan and Navini were all mentioned, though Alvarion and Redline were generally considered the frontrunners, since both already work …

Data Networking 3 Oct 15:26
Jan Baan slices through the 'bullsh*t'

Interview Passionate, crazy old guy takes on BPM

Database legend Jan Baan is a man on a mission to kill old software business models and shake up IT departments everywhere. But how is the self-proclaimed "passionate, crazy old guy" going to do that? Baan reckons the answer is through simplifying business process management (BPM) software, not by building it to last but …

Applications 3 Oct 15:40
Microsoft chiefs at odds on Google-DoubleClick

International boss puts faith in Antitrust regulators

Microsoft has been sending out mixed messages about its antitrust stance against Google's swallow of online ad broker DoubleClick. Reuters reports that Jean-Philippe Courtois, head of Microsoft International, said in Paris yesterday: "The question is not for Microsoft to have specific views... as in all markets, it is for the …

Applications 3 Oct 15:44
Utah gives up new dino species

Duck billed, and a danger to all plants

Paleontological digging among the rocks of Utah has revealed a new species of dinosaur. The beast, dubbed Gryposaurus monumentensis, is a duck-billed creature dating back 75m years to the late Cretaceous period. It would have been a vegetarian, able to consume just about anything that could grow. According to Terry Gates, lead …

Biology 3 Oct 16:02
Check Point plays down FireWall-1 bug reports

Privilege escalation

Security giant Check Point has played down the seriousness of reports of multiple vulnerabilities in a supposedly locked-down version of its flagship FireWall-1/VPN-1 security software. Spanish security firm Pentest discovered multiple buffer overflow vulnerabilities during the course of a comprehensive security evaluation of …

Enterprise Security 3 Oct 16:13
AT&T to deliver IBM services for $1bn a year

Mutual back scratch fest

AT&T will provide telecommunications and network management services to IBM and its customers in a pact that will generate $1bn a year for AT&T over the next five years. AT&T will also buy more technology services from Big Blue. In a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission, AT&T said it would transition an …

Financial News 3 Oct 17:47
Email still king on wireless handhelds

Reg Technology Panel One size fits very few

According to a new report from UK research firm Freeform Dynamics, mobile operator Orange, and your very own El Reg, email is still the dominant application on wireless handhelds, and that's unlikely to change for at least two years. "While interest in mobile access to a range of corporate systems such as CRM and ERP is …

Mobile 3 Oct 19:50
Boy beats Reaper at 20,000 feet

How not to board a Boeing 737

Perhaps you heard this story bouncing around the internet a couple days ago: a kid in Russia survived a two-hour flight from Perm to Moscow by hanging on to the wing of a Boeing 737. If your bullshit meter didn't go off, we're here to correct that. Take our hand. Surely someone would have noticed. The boy, of course, didn't …

Biology 3 Oct 20:22
Microsoft and LogicaCMG open Factory 2.0 doors

But where are the Campbell soup prints?

Microsoft and IT services firm LogicaCMG have teamed up to dish out their own version of The Factory. But don’t worry, they haven’t gone all 1960s, artsy-fartsy Warholian on you, it’s just a bit of marketing spin from the software mammoth and its "strategic" partner LogicaCMG. Dubbed the Service Factory, the new program has …

Networks 3 Oct 20:23
Message storm turns DHS email list into social networking utility

'May the fleas of a thousand camels infest your armpits'

A misfired attempt by one subscriber to change the email address he used for receiving messages caused a storm in the a US Department of Homeland Security's mailing list today. Instead of sending a message to the list administrators, job-changing security consultant Alex hit the reply-to-all button. His message was sent to …

Enterprise Security 3 Oct 20:28
What do you call a convention of European ISVs?

To pose the question is to know the answer

Yes, that's right. You call it the European ISV Convention. IT Europa, the UK-based channel newsletter-cum-research org, has named the date for its second annual gig for European ISVs - it runs from 6-8 February 2008 in Frankfurt. Qualifying ISVs get to go free of charge and can listen to speakers on topics such has the " …

Channel Register 3 Oct 20:55
Vista Business sales soar like leaping dachshund

Say XP, XP won't you die for me

August numbers are in from Context, the European PC market watcher, and they show that the Vista is anything but Buena for Microsoft. Vista Business, the, um, business version of Vista, Microsoft's new operating system, slowed during the month, to grab a measly 13 per cent of unit PC sales through Europe's top IT disties. …

Channel Register 3 Oct 21:32
US men wrangle over three-year-old amputated leg

America, Halloween, and the mighty dollar

Two U.S. men are fighting over an amputated leg that was stowed in a barbecue smoker. One man says he purchased the leg when the smoker was auctioned off by a storage facility in Maiden, North Carolina. The other says the leg was once attached to his body. When doctors amputated John Wood's leg following a 2004 plane crash, The …

Biology 3 Oct 21:59
ARM to bash 'non-issue' Intel with multi-core chip

Cortex-A9 joins the collective

ARM’s big reveal today of its latest processor design came with the clear message that the company will use its market weight and mobile heritage to fend off challenges from Intel. Speaking here at the ARM Developers Conference, CEO Warren East began the hyping exercise around the Cortex-A9 processors. ARM plans to provide …

Bits 'n' Chips 3 Oct 22:43
MySQL loses joint custody of SAP database

Gains visiting rights for Netweaver

MySQL today stopped being a reseller for MaxDB, the database formerly known as SAP DB. MySQL, best known for its eponymous open source database software, had been a reseller and developer of MaxDB since 2003. Presumably this was at a time when SAP didn't consider the product to be so very important. SAP now wants everything …

Applications 3 Oct 23:50
Texas patent holder sues Google, Yahoo!, and Microsoft

And (yawn) AOL

A Texas company has sued AOL, Google, Microsoft, and Yahoo, claiming that all four web giants have infringed its patent "for conducting business transactions over the Internet". Performance Pricing Inc. filed suit last week in the Eastern District of Texas, Marshall Division, a popular place for patent infringement suits. The …

Law 3 Oct 23:56