31st December 2007 Archive

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Sony renounces rear-projection TVs

RIP RPT

Sony has decided to drop its rear-projection TV business worldwide in order to focus instead on two flat-panel technologies - liquid crystal display (LCD) and organic light-emitting diode (OLED). Sales of rear-projection TVs had been declining recently as LCD TVs gain in popularity and grow in size. Sony showed off a series of …

Reg Hardware 31 Dec 09:02
Santa brings 3 more sats for Putin's GPS rival

Father Frost predicts GLONASS dog-collars for '08

Russia's rival to the American Global Positioning System (GPS) satnav constellation successfully launched three more satellites on Xmas day, which will bring it to a total of 18 operational spacecraft. Mirroring the popularity of consumer GPS-enabled devices in the West, Russian developers demonstrated GLONASS based car satnav …

Science 31 Dec 11:30
Antarctic Xmas punch-up airlift cost £45k

Expensive Yule fisticuffs

The bill for airlifting two belligerents from the US-run Amundsen-Scott South Pole station which on Xmas Day hosted some decidedly unseasonal fisticuffs is "at least" £45k, according to the Telegraph. One of the men allegedly suffered a broken jaw during the punch-up, and was subsequently whisked to Christchurch Hospital in …

Bootnotes 31 Dec 11:38
Fujitsu pulls plug on low-profit plasma

Euthanasia performed on its PDP TV range

Japan-based Fujitsu has announced that it will end production of plasma screens due to poor profitability. The company was the first to commercially introduce this technology in 1992, but sales of plasma TVs have been falling behind those for LCDs. Fujitsu General, a subsidiary of Fujitsu Ltd, has already stopped most …

Reg Hardware 31 Dec 11:42
Nintendo Wii hack opens door to homebrew games

Jeux sans frontier

Security researchers have hacked into a Nintendo Wii game console to run their own code in a move that makes it far easier to develop homebrew games for the popular gaming device. Up to now developers have only been able to write homebrew games for the Gamecube, not the Wii. That meant these homebrew games could be run on a …

Reg Hardware 31 Dec 11:44
Game throws out bullish forecast

Wii very happy, awaits CC decision

Game Group Plc has ratcheted up its profit expectations for the fiscal year ended 31 January 2008 buoyed by strong sales in the run up to Christmas. The computer and video games retailer said in a statement today that it now expects to see pre-tax profit before one-off costs of at least £70m compared with £29.5m for 2007, …

Channel Register 31 Dec 12:28
UK gov backs Trading Places DNA study

Dan Ackroyd, Eddie Murphy unavailable for comment

Government-backed sociologists are aiming to pin economic status, crime and beliefs on our genes in a new £15m survey of 100,000 Britons. The "UK Household Longitudinal Study" will replace and expand on the DNA analysis-free British Household Panel Survey, which began in 1991. Each year the Panel Survey has interviewed a …

Public Sector 31 Dec 12:30
UK shamed in world privacy league

We beat China though! Go team!

Former world power and current CCTV capital of the universe the UK has been fingered as the worst place in Europe if you fancy a little bit of privacy. The legions of shopping centre cyclopses, together with teeth-gnashing government incompetence on data, and the funny-if-it-weren't-so-scary ID card wheeze mean that Blighty is …

Law 31 Dec 13:14
Oz govt pushes mandatory net filters

Yellow brick road blocks

Australia's newly elected Labor government is pushing plans that would make it mandatory for local ISPs to install porn-blocking filters, offering "clean" internet feeds as a preferred option. Telecomms Minister Stephen Conroy said the policy would protect children from online pornography and violent websites, ABC News reports …

Law 31 Dec 13:23
Japan confirms world's fastest maglev plan

310mph, $45bn project

Japanese rail operator Central Japan Railway Co. (JR Central) has announced it will build the world's fastest maglev system, with 310mph (500km/h) vehicles running along a 180-mile (290km) track between Tokyo and central Japan. According to Reuters, the 5.1 trillion yen ($44.7bn) project will be completed by 2025, and while JR …

Science 31 Dec 13:28
Car crash driver blames pterodactyl

Washington man in audacious dino-defence

A 29-year-old Washington driver who last Thursday night drifted into the oncoming lane before crashing into a light pole failed to convince police officers that flying dinosaurs were to blame, HeraldNet reports. The 29-year-old Wenatchee man apparently wandered off course "for less than a block" while oncoming traffic …

Bootnotes 31 Dec 14:11
UK.gov New Year resolution: must build nuke powerplants

Greenpeace feels it has stronger mandate

British ministers will approve plans for a new generation of UK nuclear power plants in the new year, according to a report in the Independent newspaper. The broadsheet quotes a "senior source" in the new UK gov Department for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform (DBERR*) as saying that Gordon Brown's first cabinet …

Science 31 Dec 14:23
CA issues false warning on JavaScript apps

Updated Pete Tong on New Year's eve

This story was updated with a statement from CA on 2 January A mis-firing anti-virus update from CA issued on Monday wrongly identified legitimate JavaScript files as a virus. The eTrust signature update wrongly identified JSQuery (a JavaScript AJAX library) and Mootools (a JavaScript web 2.0 library) as being contaminated …

Enterprise Security 31 Dec 14:26
Now RIAA says copying your own CDs is illegal

Updated Infringes even if only for personal use

The Recording Industry Ass. of America (RIAA) has began a legal spat with a man who copied CDs he had bought onto his computer. Jeffery Howell of Scottsdale, Arizon has taken his case to court after he received a letter from the RIAA, reports the Washington Post. The RIAA, which lobbies on behalf of a music industry hammered …

Law 31 Dec 15:19
NYC hit by bedbug epidemic

Rich or poor, they're after your blood

New York City is suffering a bedbug epidemic which has provoked a huge rise in reports of the nocturnal bloodsuckers, the New York Daily News reports. The onslaught of the harmless but unpleasant creatures has seen complaints to 311 (the number for government information and non-emergency services) rise from 537 calls in 2004 …

Biology 31 Dec 15:24
More woe for SCO as Nasdaq says 'go'

Patent lawyers' benevolent fund 86'd in ticker bicker

Battered unix patent warrior SCO has been booted from the Nasdaq after it lost an appeal against delisiting by the New York technology market. SCO told the SEC on Thursday about its latest defeat in regulatory filing. Nasdaq first showed SCO the door when it filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in September. The firm …

Operating Systems 31 Dec 15:28
Voda boss could reap £45m for just hanging on

Worth waiting for summer 2009

Vodafone boss Arun Sarin could be cashing in £45m, in shares and options, if he can keep Vodafone on an even keel until summer 2009. Even if he jumps ship now he could sell off what he already owns for a tidy £10m. The figures come from The Sunday Times, which has worked out that the 33 per cent rise in Vodafone shares over …

Mobile 31 Dec 15:48
Red Dwarf even more dwarfish

Old clips glued together to make mobisodes

For only three quid a shot over-excited Red Dwarf fans can see 25-second cartoons of their favourite bits, newly animated by Pitch Entertainment, and packaged with three ring tones comprised of quotes from the series. Quite why the original video needs to be replaced with brightly-coloured animation isn't clear, it could be to …

Mobile 31 Dec 15:55
Old school VXers calling it quits

Grownup, shutdown

The old School Virus writers (VXers) scene is dying a death, according to Symantec. Key members of long-established VXers groups are drifting away while others are struggling to get enough material together for underground malware magazines. "There should be no question anymore that the VX scene is dying," Symantec reports. …

Anti-Virus 31 Dec 16:02
Vonage shakes off patent disputes

Annus horribilis ends with Nortel agreement

Vonage and Nortel have agreed to settle their patent differences with an exchange of licenses, and no money changing hands, ending a year of litigation for Vonage and clearing the decks before 2008. Claims of damages, lodged during the dispute, have also been dropped. The patents involved were originally owned by Digital …

VoIP 31 Dec 16:19
Kid's 'new' MP3 player was preloaded with smut

'I wish I could take the thoughts out of her head'

A US father got a lot more than he bargained for when he bought each of his three kids an MP3 player from Walmart for Christmas. One of the devices was preloaded with pornography and explicit songs. "Within ten minutes, my daughter was crying," Daryl Hill, the ten-year-old's father, told AP. "I wish I could take the thoughts …

Music and Media 31 Dec 16:25
US Army loads up on Apples for 'better security'

Mac users to suffer Chinese backdoor invasion?

In a development which may mean good or bad news for the partly-eaten-fruit-themed prestige computer firm, it has been revealed over the festive season that the US Army is increasing its use of Apple Macs. An article in Forbes magazine revealed the military's (rather limited) newfound passion for Steve Jobs' high-priced Unix …

Servers 31 Dec 16:32
Microsoft warns on Home Server bug

This year the turkey came late

Microsoft has confirmed that its recently released Windows Home Server OS can corrupt data if users are reckless enough to put it under extreme loads. The company first warned last week that it had received reports of data being corrupted when certain Microsoft programs, and a few other apps, were used to write files. However …

Operating Systems 31 Dec 17:10