3rd April 2008 Archive

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By the Power of Power, IBM goes Power System

P and I letter makers saddened

IBM's long-standing lurch toward unifying the System i and System p server lines reached another, um, milestone this week. The vendor dished out the Power System servers which share the same innards and component nomenclature. In addition, IBM chucked out i5/OS, revealing "i." We'll pause for the appropriate awe to set in. For …

Servers 3 Apr 00:00
Symantec drops Microsoft lawsuit

Best storage buddies all over again

Microsoft and Symantec have agreed to settle a lawsuit filed two years ago over the use of Veritas code in Microsoft products, including Windows Vista. Symantec sued Microsoft in May 2006, accusing Redmond of wrongly incorporating the Volume Manager software Symantec acquired in its purchase of Veritas the previous year. …

Storage 3 Apr 00:11
Intel confirms Centrino 2 brand

IDF Even though it's actually version 5

It's official: Intel's 'Montevina' incarnation of Centrino will indeed be branded Centrino 2, as expected. Up to the release of Montevina, due this coming May, there have been four versions of Centrino. But apart from briefly adding the word 'Duo' to the brand, Intel hasn't to date offered any clear indication to consumers …

Reg Hardware 3 Apr 01:00
Intel demos 'Nehalem' chips clocked to 3.2GHz

IDF Penryn beater?

Intel's next-generation processor, 'Nehalem', will be made available running at 3.2GHz - if demos of the chip at Intel Developer Forum this week are anything to go by. Officially, the chip giant won't comment on the clock frequencies it will release the initial desktop and sever Nehalems - codenamed 'Bloomfield' and ' …

Reg Hardware 3 Apr 02:31
XtremeData swaps precious modily fluids between FPGAs and Xeons

IDF Preps data warehouse appliance too

FPGAs sitting in Xeon sockets. Boring, right? Well, not if you meet the XtremeData crew who tell us they party to the Xtreme every chance they get. As we understand it, that means drinking a six-pack while watching Monte Carlo simulations. The boys from XtremeData – if a woman works at the company we'll be shocked – were here …

Servers 3 Apr 03:53
Intel still telling Yorker corker

IDF Leap into the queue

When pushed to tell us where its missing 'Yorkfield' wonder chips are, Intel's spin staff told us to "check our favorite e-tailer." W did, probing a number of stores, and found nothing but more delay notices. Last month, a couple of hacks noticed that the quad-core Yorkfield chips were missing. At that time, Intel vowed that …

Hardware 3 Apr 04:49
Intel enrols second-gen Classmate PC

IDF OLPC rival revamped

Intel today introduced a new version of its Classmate PC education-oriented sub-laptop. Dubbed the second-generation CPC, the new model tweaks the specs of the original and features a bigger display. Intel's second-generation Classmate PC: bigger screen Like its predecessor, the 2G CPC is based on a 900MHz ultra-low voltage …

Reg Hardware 3 Apr 05:30
Vodafone chief tells mobile users he knows where they live

CTIA Wireless Brings WiMAX attack stateside

Vodafone CEO Arun Sarin believes that wireless users will happily opt-in to mobile advertising. And he plans to reward them by reducing their monthly bill. Either that or he's found a diplomatic way of saying that users won't opt-in unless they get their money up front. We can't quite tell. "In a few years, mobile advertising …

Mobile 3 Apr 07:02
Yahoo! brings speech rec to mobile search

CTIA Wireless A swan song before death

Yahoo! has released a nifty BlackBerry app that lets you search the web with voice commands. Today, at the CTIA wireless trade show in Las Vegas, the big-name web company unveiled version 2.0 of oneSearch, the mobile search service it launched in January 2007. Version 2 won't hit phones until sometime this summer, but Yahoo! …

Mobile 3 Apr 07:02
DDoS packets soak up to 3 per cent of net traffic

That's 1,300 attacks per day

To appreciate the strain online miscreants are putting on internet infrastructure, consider this: As much as three per cent of the net's traffic is malicious garbage designed to inflict damage one party or another, Arbor Networks estimates. The endless barrage of malicious packets comprise about 1,300 distributed denial of …

Security 3 Apr 07:02
Rock rolls out 12in, 1kg sub-notebook

MacBook Air beater?

UK notebook specialist Rock has begun punting an alternative to Apple's MacBook Air and Toshiba's Portégé R500: a 12in Windows Vista-running laptop that weighs just a kilo. Rock's Pegasus P210: ultra-portable The Pegasus P210 is based on Intel's A110 processor, last year's precursor to the Atom CPU family launched at Intel …

Reg Hardware 3 Apr 08:02
Welsh couple cop Mosquito flak

Neighbours demand buzz off

A Welsh couple who installed a Mosquito device outside their house have found themselves at the centre of the ethical debate on the youth-repelling gadget. Colin Martin installed the Compound Security device, which uses high-pitched noise to stop teenagers hanging around, after suffering all manner of abuse. The teens smashed …

Policing 3 Apr 08:53
'Diamondville' to shine as Intel's next Atom

IDF Inside the 'Silverthorne' architecture

Having launched the first batch of 45nm Atom-brand processors yesterday, Intel today began touting the next set, these ones aimed at sub-laptops and small form-factor desktops rather than Mobile Internet Devices (MIDs). Codename watchers will be wondering where 'Diamondville' fits into Intel's Atom family, and now we know for …

Reg Hardware 3 Apr 08:55
BBC tells ISPs to get stuffed

Sealed with a loving threat

Relationships between the BBC and internet industry have plunged to an all-time low, after the BBC's internet chief Ashley Highfield used a blog post yesterday to tell ISPs to get stuffed - and even threatened to name and shame them. The cost of carrying iPlayer traffic has been a sore point for ISPs, who must absorb steeply …

Telecoms 3 Apr 08:58
Aussie laser-pointer dazzle attacks on airliners: Bad

Politicos talk ban after six Sydney flights delayed

Australian politicians are demanding restrictions on the ownership of laser pointers in the land down under. The banning calls follow a series of widely-reported incidents in which individuals on the ground have attempted to dazzle pilots of commercial aircraft making approaches to landing. A particularly troublesome dazzling …

Government 3 Apr 09:21
Dead wife contacts Lancs man via SMS

Texts from the Other Side

A Lancashire man whose house has a chilling reputation for poltergeist activity claims he is being haunted by text messages from his dead wife, the Blackpool Gazette reports. Frank Jones, 59, was obliged 12 years ago to have his home in Windsor Avenue, Thornton, exorcised after a malevolent spirit dubbed "The Thing", which had …

Mobile 3 Apr 09:29
Intel forces server chums to fend for themselves

IDF Have you heard about Tukwila?

Server aficionados were left wanting at this year's China-flavored Intel Developer Forum. The company kept banging on and on and on about something called a MID, which is neither a PDA nor an ultra mobile PC. The important difference between a MID and something else, according to Intel, is new usage models. Whatever. They're …

Servers 3 Apr 10:02
BlackBerry delivers bumper spring harvest

Nowt grim for RIM

BlackBerry maker Research in Motion (RIM) has pulled some exceedingly rare positive news out of the hat in the middle of a grim month for the mobile sector. While the rest of the mobile sector is ailing as consumers hold back from buying high-end handsets, RIM's latest figures show it milking it big time. Reporting its year- …

Financial News 3 Apr 10:19
Upgrade outage hits Protx merchants (again)

Transaction history repeating

A botched upgrade at UK payment processing firm Protx left thousands of online merchants unable to take payments earlier this week. An update applied in the early hours of Tuesday morning is being blamed for problems in processing payments over two periods on Wednesday lasting a total of about 90 minutes. Protx apologised for …

Channel Register 3 Apr 10:22
DHS reckons US cops' access to sat-surveillance is go

Chertoff feeling ready for warm standup

US Homeland Security overlord Michael Chertoff has told reporters that he believes plans for increased use of satellite surveillance by American law-enforcement agencies are ready to move forward. However, Democratic politicians remain unconvinced that adequate privacy and civil liberties safeguards are in place. "I think the …

Law 3 Apr 10:24
Thailand cracks down on cut-price castrations

Juvenile ladyboys drawn to £65 quickies

Thailand yesterday imposed a countrywide temporary ban on castrations "for cosmetic purposes" which are advertised on the internet and promise to relieve ladyboys of their testicles for as little as 4,000 baht (£65). According to the Times, the health ministry has written to 16,000 hospitals amid concerns that boys below the …

Bootnotes 3 Apr 10:31
Microsoft denies Lite-On Blu-ray rumour

We did not have relations with Blu-ray

Microsoft has officially denied that it’s working with a Taiwanese manufacturer to develop a Blu-ray drive for the Xbox 360. On Tuesday Register Hardware reported that the software giant had inked a deal with Lite-On for the development of Xbox 360 Blu-ray drives. It was claimed the drives would be integrated into a smaller …

Reg Hardware 3 Apr 10:39
BT: 'We did not let anyone down over Phorm... it was not illegal'

Updated Director escapes grilling on BBC Breakfast

BT Retail wheeled out Emma Sanderson, its "director of value added services", on BBC Breakfast today to account for its secret profiling and targeting of credit card advertising to 18,000 of its customers using Phorm technology in 2006. She parroted the same line we've been hearing from BT since the 2007 secret trial was …

Telecoms 3 Apr 10:54
Rogue trader sues SocGen for unfair dismissal

Bank 'failed to prove he did anything wrong'

Rogue trader Jérôme Kerviel, accused of losing Société Générale €4.9bn (£3.8bn), is to sue his former employer for unfair dismissal, the Times reports. The 31-year-old, who was last month released on bail from prison after 37 days incarceration on breach of trust, fabricating documents, and illegally accessing computers raps, …

Financial News 3 Apr 10:56
Micron burned by cooling chip market in Q2

Revenue falls 11% amid price attrition

Micron Technology Inc yesterday posted a second quarter decline in revenue brought on by the current price erosion in memory chips and a painful "goodwill" write-off. The firm, which is the biggest memory maker in the US, saw total sales drop 11 per cent to $1.36bn for its second quarter, ended 28 February this year. Boise, …

Channel Register 3 Apr 11:18
Boeing's Honda-FCX-style fuel cell glider 'success'

Electric plane in Spain seems mainly inane

US aerospace colossus Boeing has at last successfully trialled a manned fuel-cell hybrid electric plane produced by its Spanish research facility, according to reports. The company told Flight International that it had carried out several test flights in the vicinity of Ocaña airfield south of Madrid. A modified motor-glider …

Environment 3 Apr 11:32
Sony's dinky camcorder sets the bar

Size zero films

Sony has unveiled a sexy titanium-clad camcorder, which the electronics giant claims is the world’s smallest, slimmest and lightest 1920 x 1080 resolution camcorder available. Sony's HDR-TG3E camcorder: small, light and slim The Handycam HDR-TG3E measures about 33 x 119 x 63mm, dimensions that Sony claims allows the …

Reg Hardware 3 Apr 11:34
James Bond menaced by red hot Chilean

Motorised protest shakes Quantum of Solace

The mayor of a small Chilean town has expressed his displeasure at the hoisting of the Bolivian flag over his home by mounting a motorised disruption of filming of next Bond outing Quantum of Solace. Carlos Lopez drove a small saloon car straight onto the set at the railway station in Baquedano, in the process reportedly …

Entertainment 3 Apr 12:30
Carphone Warehouse mulls Tiscali bid, report claims

Come on down

Carphone Warehouse is mulling a bid for Tiscali's UK broadband user base, according to a report. The Italian group is running for the exit from the low-margin consumer ISP market. A Times source confirmed CPW is considering swallowing Tiscali's two million-plus customers if they're on the block "at the right price". The six …

Telecoms 3 Apr 12:36
UK.gov delay means hacking laws are so last century

Confusion reigns everywhere but Scotland

The government has suspended legislation to update the outdated Computer Misuse Act in England, Wales and Northern Ireland, leaving Scotland the only part of the UK with laws to tackle 21st century hackers. Amendments to the CMA - which was passed in 1990 before the widespread use of the internet - were due to come into force …

Government 3 Apr 12:55
Coming soon: classifications for movie downloads

Web-based films are the future

The British Board of Film Classification (BBFC) will launch cinema-style age ratings for film downloads within a couple of months. A spokeswoman at the BBFC told Register Hardware that the online classifications are designed to give movie download fans the same understanding of a film’s content as they currently get when …

Reg Hardware 3 Apr 12:57
Third time lucky? Google seeks open access in white spaces

Money in unexpected places

The results of the US 700MHz auction were far from fulfilling Google’s dreams of an open wireless network that would significantly boost unfettered internet usage across the airwaves, and so its own revenues. The search and advertising leader is not giving up on its quest for spectrum to support the expansion of its business …

Wireless 3 Apr 13:02
AT&T demos Microsoft Surface 'table'

Use a coaster

AT&T has demonstrated Microsoft’s Surface, prior to the US network operator’s rollout of the futuristic table into several stores later this month. Can't see the video? Download Flash Player from Adobe.com In a YouTube video, an executive places Samsung’s BlackJack II handset onto the 30in table. Information about the phone …

Reg Hardware 3 Apr 13:58
Wicker Man sequel goes up in smoke

'Financing problems' hit Cowboys For Christ

In a major blow for the UK film industry and fans of 1973 cult movie The Wicker Man, a planned sequel to the virgin-roasting horror classic has been cancelled due to "financing problems". The film, entitled Cowboys For Christ, was to have been directed by original helmsman Robin Hardy, based on his 2006 novel of the same name …

Entertainment 3 Apr 14:13
Dave Cameron pledges to Open Source UK.gov

It's conservatism 2.0.1

The UK’s two major political parties have demonstrated the benefits of bringing the open source ethos into government, by getting into a punch-up over who thought of the idea in the first place. David Cameron embraced Linux, open source and bottoms-up decision-making today as he detailed his vision of a Tory innovation policy …

Government 3 Apr 14:24
Blu-ray awareness rising

HD DVD dead...

If you still haven’t made the switch from VHS to DVD, then chances are you’re not up to speed on Blu-ray either. But research has found that over half of UK film fans are at least aware of the HD format. The study was conducted by research firm Interpret and questioned people aged between 18 and 54. Although the study was done …

Reg Hardware 3 Apr 15:29
Nokia 8800 Arte and Sapphire Arte handsets

Review Aimed squarely at the money-is-no-object mobile buyer

If you want to put your money where your mouth is, the Nokia 8800 Arte is a luxury sliderphone with a eyebrow-raising price tag that says more about you than your average Nokia ever could. This pair of high-class handsets demand you splash the cash not for the latest smartphone functionality, GPS receiver technology or video …

Reg Hardware 3 Apr 15:55
Let there be light, and music

Shine on you crazy cats

Some people claim music lightens a gloomy mood, but the iHome iPod docking station lamp is guaranteed to shed some light on the subject – literally. iHome: crank up the volume and the brightness The iHome is an iPod docking station at heart, but a desktop lamp also sprouts out of the dock’s top to help illuminate your iPod …

Reg Hardware 3 Apr 16:11
China promises censor-free Olympic media

Unmolested net and TV for foreign agencies

The International Olympic Committee (IOC) has confirmed that international media will have "access to uncensored internet" during the 8-24 August sportsfest in Beijing and that TV transmission of the games will not be subject to a delay. According to Reuters, the IOC's chief inspector said that, despite the Chinese regime's …

Government 3 Apr 16:24
Jules Verne mates with ISS

ESA hails successful docking

The European Space Agency’s "Jules Verne" Automated Transfer Vehicle this afternoon successfully docked with the International Space Station at 16:45 CEST (14:45 GMT) following a cautious approach monitored by both ground-based teams and the ISS's crew. The ESA explains: "The 19-ton unmanned spaceship manoeuvred from a holding …

Security 3 Apr 16:46
Trend, Sophos and McAfee flunk Vista SP1 anti-virus tests

That would be a FAIL, then

Top tier anti-virus vendors including McAfee, Trend Micro, and Sophos all failed to secure Windows Vista SP1 in recent independent tests. Virus Bulletin, the independent security certification body, said 17 of 37 anti-virus products tested failed to reach the VB100 certification standard. McAfee VirusScan, Trend Micro Internet …

Anti-Virus 3 Apr 16:52
Android alternative delivers partial Linux package

CTIA '08 Supporters spread bets

The LiMo Foundation has announced the first version of its Linux based mobile alternative to Google's Android is "complete". Except that it isn't. Although release 1.0 - announced at CTIA in Las Vegas, Nevada - provides a basic mobile Linux platform, it comes with limitations. It includes C and C++ versions of the middleware …

Mobile 3 Apr 18:03
EDS buys Brit security shop

Vistorm in an EDS teacup

EDS has bought Vistorm, a private UK business that flogs IT security and information assurance services to large companies. Terms are undisclosed. Vistorm is based in Cheshire, employs 220 people and claims revs of $100m a year. Royal Bank of Scotland, Nationwide and Balfour Beatty are outed as customers. The business retains …

Channel Register 3 Apr 18:26
Naomi Campbell cuffed in Heathrow Terminal 5

WSA - Updated Arrested 'on suspicion of assaulting a police officer'

Battling Streatham clotheshorse Naomi "Fuck off and respect my privacy" Campbell is being held at Heathrow airport having been arrested "on suspicion of assaulting a police officer", the BBC reports. Details are as yet scarce, but a police spokesman said: "At 17:11 police were called after a disturbance at Heathrow Airport …

Entertainment 3 Apr 18:54
MySpace trumpets music service

Sony, Universal, and Warner sign on

News Corp's social networking heavyweight Myspace has taken its inevitable plunge into the commercial music businesses. MySpace announced today it is launching MySpace Music, a joint venture with three of the four biggest music labels backing its new service. Sony BMG, Universal Music Group, and Warner Music Group will …

Financial News 3 Apr 19:29
iPhone unlock team strikes again

SDK for unofficial code

A hotly anticipated development kit for hacking your iPhone and bypassing Apple's official application store has been released. The PwnageTool is a Mac OS-X-based SDK from the iPhone Dev Team that lets you add "unsigned code" to the iPhone and iPod Touch. This means you don't have to wait for Apple's approval on what you can …

Mobile 3 Apr 19:38
WiMAX is more of a crawl than a Sprint

CTIA Wireless Trials still not performing

Sprint is running late on its WiMAX network, which will now go commercial in the summer, and not this month, as originally pencilled. Sprint's WiMAX service, branded Xohm, has been in trials in Chicago, Baltimore and Washington, where it's apparently performing less well than anticipated. Analysts had expected Xohm network …

Wireless 3 Apr 20:24
'Bullying' Aussie high school stops fingerprinting kids

Pressganged into submission

An Australian high school has stopped fingerprinting its children, on receiving a caning from the country’s press. Ku-ring-gai High, in Sydney’s prosperous North Shore, is accused of bullying its charges into scanning their fingerprints for an attendance monitoring system it is trialing. Under New South Wales rules, parents …

Law 3 Apr 20:47
Wikipedia-reading boffins jimmy keyless door to entire universe

Your car, your garage, and your office unlocked

A team of German scientists say they have cracked the encryption of a device widely used in keyless entry systems that electronically secure cars, garages and office buildings. The finding by the scientists from Ruhr University in Bochum, Germany, means it is now relatively straightforward to clone the remote control devices …

Security 3 Apr 21:55
Google's Android 'designed to drive fragmentation'

CTIA Wireless Qualcomm COO highlights Google strategy

Google's Android platform is designed to drive fragmentation of mobile operating systems, creating an industry in which Google's cross-platform applications will thrive. Why? The search-engine giant wants to ensure there's no equivalent of Microsoft Office in the mobile phone world. So says Sanjay Jha, chief operating officer …

Mobile 3 Apr 22:32
Microsoft gives XP an extra two years to live (kinda)

For bargain basement PCs only

Microsoft said today it will continue to sell Windows XP Home beyond its scheduled June 30 kill-date for the emerging class of "ultra-low-cost PCs," or ULCPCs. The operating system has been granted a reprieve until mid-2010, but only for the diminutive laptops such as the Asus Eee PC and Intel Classmate PC which lack the …

Operating Systems 3 Apr 23:14