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14th December 2007 Archive

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  • IBM digs in with Eclipse for weapons

    It's... 'complex'

    IBM Rational has released an Eclipse-based tools package taking the unit back to its roots serving embedded software in an area it's calling “complex” systems – otherwise known as weapons systems. Launching the clumsily titled Rational System Development Solution (SDS) IBM put it more euphemistically, of course. "In the …

    Software 14 Dec 2007, 09:10

  • Police give up on lost CDs

    Maybe Santa will bring them

    UK police are to stop searching for the missing child benefit CDs early next week. Chancellor Alistair Darling is to announce measures on Monday to prevent a repeat performance of the data loss, and will call a halt to the search. The search was downgraded last week from 47 detectives to 32. At the same time, a £20,000 reward …

    Public Sector 14 Dec 2007, 09:42

  • AMD confirms short-term GPU roadmap

    Dual-GPU 3950 X2 monster planned

    AMD has confirmed its graphics chip release plans, including the launch of the mainstream-oriented 'RV620' and 'RV635' GPUs, and the high-end 'R680'. The RV620 and RV635 are "planned" to appear in January, AMD said yesterday, which is what industry moles have been saying for some time. The company confirmer they are DirectX 10 …

    Reg Hardware 14 Dec 2007, 10:52

  • Wii shortage costs Nintendo dear, analyst claims

    Demand - supply = profit lost

    The global Christmas Wii shortage may have saved individual gamers a few quid, but one analyst thinks it’s cost Nintendo up to $1.3bn (£637m/€888m). MDB Capital Group’s senior analyst, James Lin, told the New York Times that the volume of unsatisfied demand is "staggering" and that “Nintendo is leaving $1.3bn on the table” by …

    Reg Hardware 14 Dec 2007, 11:05

  • Microsoft surprises itself with six-month late Hyper-V beta

    Easy to impress

    Microsoft surprised itself this week by delivering a delayed beta of its Hyper-V virtualization software, less late than once expected. Confused? Don't feel bad - even Microsoft is struggling to get to grips with what's going on. In a press release earlier this week, Microsoft bragged: Microsoft Corp. this morning delivered …

    Virtualization 14 Dec 2007, 11:13

  • Close the gap between analysis and design

    Book extract, part 3 Get robust

    To get from use cases to detailed design (and then to code), you need to link your use cases to objects. The technique we describe in this chapter, robustness analysis, helps you to bridge the gap from analysis to design by doing exactly that. As in our first two extracts (here and here), let's start by mapping where we are in …

    Software 14 Dec 2007, 11:14

  • Nvidia rolls out 'tri-SLI'

    Not quite 3x performance

    Nvidia has launched its anticipated 'Tri-SLI' technology as "3-way SLI", allowing gamers to connect not one, not two but three graphics cards in co-operative rendering harmony. They have to be Nvidia GeForce cards, natch, but when connected deliver up to 2.8 times the performance of a single GPU. That, the company claimed, is …

    Reg Hardware 14 Dec 2007, 11:31

  • Microsoft unveils Xbox 360 HD DVD drive emulator

    To the HD disc format what IE is to the web?

    Microsoft yesterday launched software that emulates on a PC HD DVDs played on its Xbox 360 add-in drive. It's a move that could give the software giant de facto control of the next-gen optical disc format. The emulator software essentially allows companies mastering new HD DVDs to test them for compatibility with the Microsoft …

    Reg Hardware 14 Dec 2007, 11:56

  • BBC pinches hot new columnist from Microsoft

    Sizzling secrets with Billy G

    Bill Gates has used his own column at the BBC to unlock the secrets of how you too can become an unimaginably wealthy nerd whose sperm is craved by Chinese women. You can read the full recipe here. It's insightful stuff, as the Microsoft chairman - who's being put out to stud next year - spreads his nuggets of wisdom before us …

    IT Director 14 Dec 2007, 11:58

  • Sun's Rock chip waves goodbye to 2008 ship date

    Shaky silicon eyes 2009

    You'll all be shocked to learn that Sun Microsystems appears set to delay the release of the Rock processor. Word reached Vulture Central this week of troubles in the land of Rock. Sun hoped to ship the 16-core SPARC dynamo by the end of next year. Now, however, we're hearing that early versions of Rock have struggled to …

    Servers 14 Dec 2007, 12:02

  • BOFH: Balancing the budget...

    Episode 42 With an end-of-year purchasing frenzy

    "Got a bit of work on I see," the Boss says, peering around the large mound of cartons clogging up Mission Control. "No, no, things are very quiet at the moment." "So what's all this then?" "This," I say, tapping on a carton. "is a... laptop, one of a batch of... nine, while this >tap< is a top-of-the-line workstation, one …

    BOFH 14 Dec 2007, 12:02

  • Warner Bros to remake Clash of the Titans

    New ideas? We've heard of 'em

    Further evidence, were it needed, that Hollywood is increasingly incapable, or unwilling, to invest in original material comes with the announcement that Warner Bros is to remake 1981 adventure Clash of the Titans. According to Variety, Steve Norrington will take the helm in his first directorial role since League of …

    Entertainment 14 Dec 2007, 12:03

  • Update glitch derails Kaspersky

    Update 2 Lock-up issues

    Problems in updating Kaspersky Lab anti-virus software led to some machines locking up.The Russian anti-virus firm said the problem was due to an error in a threat signature update issued on Thursday, which are now resolved. It apologised for problems caused by the SNAFU, which were severe for those affected. "This error led …

    Security 14 Dec 2007, 12:05

  • UGC Renegade gaming chair

    Review We only quite liked it

    Want to feel closer to the action? Want to feel like you're parked in a Pontiac, engine purring, poised, ready to burn rubber, racing through the streets of some still-asleep city? Then the racing-style Renegade games chair could be the console accessory you're looking for. A minimum amount of assembly is required upon opening …

    Reg Hardware 14 Dec 2007, 12:14

  • German air passenger quaffs litre of vodka

    Let's see, I can't take the bottle on the plane, so...

    A 64-year-old German air passenger almost popped his clogs earlier this week after quaffing a litre of vodka officials told him he couldn't take on the aircraft. According to Spiegel, the man was switching planes at Nuremberg airport en route from Egypt to Dresden. Security operatives informed him that, according to the terror …

    Bootnotes 14 Dec 2007, 12:25

  • UK anthrax victim infected by drum skin

    West African percussion of death

    The 50-year-old man who died in 2006 from anthrax probably caught the disease while "playing or handling West African drums", the BBC reports. Christopher Norris worked with untreated animal hides at his home at Black Lodge in Stobs in the Scottish Borders. An inquiry has concluded he succumbed to the first case of "inhalation …

    Biology 14 Dec 2007, 12:29

  • The transistor turns 60

    Forgotten Tech Birthday on Sunday

    The transistor, the ubiquitous building block of all electronic circuits, will be 60 years old on Sunday. The device is jointly credited to William Shockley (1910-1989), John Bardeen (1908-1991) and Walter Brattain (1902-1987), and it was Bardeen and Brattain who made the first working point-contact transistor on 16 December …

    Reg Hardware 14 Dec 2007, 12:41

  • New Jersey scraps death penalty

    'Had not deterred murder'

    New Jersey's state assembly yesterday voted 44-36 to abolish the death penalty - the first state to do so since Iowa and West Virginia scrapped the punishment in 1965. The move was prompted by a special state commission's findings that the death penalty was "a more expensive sentence than life in prison, had not deterred …

    Law 14 Dec 2007, 12:58

  • Traffic snags on Juniper router glitch

    'Interface flapping'

    Juniper has published a security update designed to fix a bug involving its router software. The glitch in JUNOS creates problems for networking kit from Juniper in processing Border Gateway Protocol (BGP) traffic. BGP is a core routing protocol of the internet that's widely used by ISPs and others to (put simply) map the best …

    Enterprise Security 14 Dec 2007, 13:01

  • Yes! It's the the wireless USB Missile Launcher

    Fire! Fire! Fire! Fire!

    Good news, office warfare fans - the USB Missile Launcher is back, in a new, flashier wireless version that makes for the strategic siting of remote batteries. The USB Missile Launcher: can now be deployed remotely Like the wired version, the new launcher is controlled by a little targetting app running on a Windows PC. …

    Reg Hardware 14 Dec 2007, 13:52

  • Microsoft delays reduced, Dell goes to the High Street and all is well with AMD

    To subscribe to The Register's weekly newsletter - seven days of IT in a single hit - click here

    Microsoft regifts Hyper-V delay When Microsoft promises a "holiday surprise", you want to pay attention. Will Redmond dish out a massive patch that will keep admins working overtime on Christmas Eve? Or perhaps we'll all find a gaping security hole in the stocking this year. As it turns out, Microsoft's self-proclaimed " …

    Business 14 Dec 2007, 14:27

  • BBC redesigns and 'widgetizes' homepage

    What would Lord Reith make of The Daily Me?

    The BBC has launched the first redesign of its homepage in five years, and it's gone well web 2.0. You can try it yourself here, in beta, naturally. At the moment only the home page has been swept up in the web 2.0 tide. The BBC's news pages are set for a redesign in the new year once the consolidation of web and TV news …

    Music and Media 14 Dec 2007, 14:56

  • Brit workers: The Xmas skive starts today

    Work? Stuff that

    A poll of 2,500 Brit workers has confirmed what most of us already knew: the Xmas holiday starts tonight at 5pm as a third of the UK's workforce will "mentally switch off" in advance of next week's pre-Yule skive. That's according to Teletext holidays, which estimates that nine million people will from Monday fill their …

    Bootnotes 14 Dec 2007, 14:58

  • Botnets linked to political hacking in Russia

    Traceroute

    Security researcher Jose Nazario has uncovered circumstantial evidence of the use of botnets in politically-motivated denial of service attacks. Political events in the wider world are sometimes accompanied by hacking incidents in cyberspace, such as defacements and the like. Nobody paid much attention to the issue until the …

    Security 14 Dec 2007, 16:00

  • Nintendo Wii said to 'attract cockroaches'

    Cue predictable gag from PS3/Xbox fanboys

    If you’re not a fan of creepy crawlies then you may want to turn your Wii off. The latest theory crawling through the gaming world is that the console actively attracts cockroaches. Is your Wii attracting cockroaches? Image courtesy Foureyesjokeshop.com The theory can be traced back to Japanese-language gaming website …

    Reg Hardware 14 Dec 2007, 16:02

  • Google kicks Wikipedia in the googlies

    Move over, Jimbo - we're in the content biz now

    Whatever you think about the kooks at Wikipedia - the crazed Goths banning chunks of Utah, a COO prone to drunken rampages and embezzlement, and a Roi Soleil answering to himself - one thing is in no doubt. The project has saved Google's original business. Two years ago, the advertising giant's search engine was fighting a …

    Applications 14 Dec 2007, 16:31

  • Groovy: XML without the bloat

    Hands on, part 1 Flexible strings

    You may find this hard to believe, but there was a time before XML hell, when the idea was that XML was going to solve just about every tricky problem in software development. From swapping data between applications or platforms, to storing complex data structures in a portable format - XML was the answer. Growing up around …

    Applications 14 Dec 2007, 16:44

  • Paris Hilton goes for gold while crims are pretty in pink

    Comments w00t!

    Hello and welcome to the last comments roundup of the year. It's been a good one, with many wits and twits showing how wise or otherwise they are. We start with the latest news on a person who has become something of an institution around here (no, not amanfromMars). Everyone's favourite heiress is reaching for new heights of …

    Letters 14 Dec 2007, 17:18

  • Americans can swear at toilets, judge rules

    First Amendment protects Pennsylvania bog-cuss woman

    In what will undoubtedly be viewed by future generations as an landmark ruling, the Pennsylvania housewife charged with disorderly conduct for letting forth a stream of abuse during an overflowing toilet emergency has been acquitted, AP reports. For those of you not up to speed on the Dawn Herb toilet-cuss outrage, the 33-year …

    Law 14 Dec 2007, 18:01

  • Skills shortage: it's mind over matter

    Aptitude beats experience

    The IT skills shortage is like global warming - you either believe it exists or you don't. Either way, one thing's for certain - the debate refuses to lay down and die. For those who believe there is a shortage, there is plenty of evidence to support their argument. And for those who believe the shortage is a myth that's …

    Software 14 Dec 2007, 21:15

  • S&M blogger outs web host malware attack

    When Google meets kink

    A moment of narcissism by a blogger who covers kink, multiple sex partners and other topics has uncovered a sophisticated attack that secretly installed malware on end user machines by compromising thousands of websites maintained by a large webhost and ginning search results on Google. Ipower, a US-based webhost at the center …

    Crime 14 Dec 2007, 23:24