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26th June 2008 Archive

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  • Yahoo! counts! the! reasons! it's better! off! without! Microsoft!

    Defends right to sell itself

    Tired of taking it on the chin from bully activist investors, Yahoo! executives are counting the reasons why they're better off forging a advertising partnership Google rather than selling the company's search business to Microsoft. In a letter to shareholders CEO Jerry Yang and chairman Roy Bostock said the Microsoft plan " …

    Financial News 26 Jun 2008, 00:21

  • Google ends marathon search for new financial chief

    I'm feeling lucky

    Google has finally found a new chief financial officer, ending a nearly year-long search to replace its current CFO, George Reyes. The ad broker tapped telecommunications executive Patrick Pichette. He'll start punching the clock at Google on August 1 and take the CFO chair August 12. Pichette was previously the president of …

    Financial News 26 Jun 2008, 00:27

  • Femto forum gets big ideas

    Who needs a macro network anyway?

    The Femto Forum has hooked up with the Next Generation Mobile Network alliance to push femtocells into network planning for 4G deployments, potentially cutting costs and allowing a more phased roll-out. The two bodies have agreed to work together developing the necessary standards to allow network operators, whether using …

    Mobile 26 Jun 2008, 08:02

  • Byron Review will create videogame delays, warns EA

    Certification process could slow games releases

    If changes to the classification of videogames in the UK - as proposed by the Byron Review - get the go-ahead, then gamers will be forced to wait longer for titles to hit the shops, Electronic Arts has warned. In a report by Gamesindustry.biz, Keith Ramsdale, general manager for EA in the UK, Ireland and Nordic regions, said …

    Reg Hardware 26 Jun 2008, 08:02

  • Spain plans 'human rights' for great apes

    'Fundamental moral and legal protections'

    Spain yesterday laid the groundwork for legislation which would grant great apes the right to life and freedom, Reuters reports. The Spanish parliament's environmental committee approved resolutions that the country comply with the Great Apes Project, which "seeks to end the unconscionable treatment of our nearest living …

    Law 26 Jun 2008, 09:40

  • Orange prices up iPhone en France

    Quelle surprise

    Orange has priced up the 3G iPhone: it'll cost French folk €149 ($234/£118) for the 8GB model, or €199 ($312/£158) for the 16GB version. The handset will go on sale in France on 17 July, and those prices apply to new Orange customers who take out one of its dedicated iPhone airtime packages, or one of its Origimi Star, First …

    Reg Hardware 26 Jun 2008, 09:49

  • DSGi profit plummets 30%

    Outlook 'challenging'

    DSG International (DSGi) saw annual profit tumble 30 per cent today, after the struggling electrical retailer was forced to cut prices to shift stock amidst a tightening of consumer spending. The firm, whose stores include Currys and PC World in the UK, Elkjop in Nordic countries and UniEuro in Italy, reported pre-tax profit …

    Channel Register 26 Jun 2008, 09:55

  • Knight Rider satnav spied in the wild

    Video It's real and it's coming soon

    The Knight Rider satnav won global acclaim after being spotted earlier this week. But anyone doubting its authenticity can now rest easy, as maker Mio has confirmed it's existence. And a demo video has surfaced. Can't see the video? Download Flash Player from Adobe.com A video posted onto YouTube shows the KITT-inspired …

    Reg Hardware 26 Jun 2008, 09:58

  • Legal, British P2P 'by end of year'

    Exclusive ISP-music talks get serious

    Legal broadband subscription services that permit file sharing may appear on the market by the year's end, according to music industry sources - after government intervention brought both music suppliers and ISPs to the table. The UK would become the second country after South Korea where the music business has agreed to offer …

    Music and Media 26 Jun 2008, 10:04

  • Intel says 'no' to Windows Vista

    Can't find a 'compelling' reason to upgrade, says IT dept. insider

    Windows Vista is not for Intel, it has been claimed. The chip giant will not be installing the new operating systems on its many thousands of desktop PCs. It has "no compelling case" to do so. So claims an insider cited by the New York Times yesterday. A company spokesman admitted the OS was not being rolled out across the …

    Reg Hardware 26 Jun 2008, 10:22

  • Brits confused by digital TV switchover, report claims

    Half of TVs sold in UK last year were analogue

    You’d be forgiven for thinking that analogue TV sales had gone the way of the valve radio and the Ford Capri. But half of the TVs sold in the UK last year were analogue, and most buyers still don’t realise that the sets will soon become obsolete. Roughly £200m has already been spent on advertising the fact that, by 2012, the …

    Reg Hardware 26 Jun 2008, 10:30

  • Think tank slams paedophile paranoia culture

    Guilty until proven innocent

    An independent think tank has today blamed the government's increasing reliance on "anti-paedophile" criminal record checks for making UK adults scared to have any contact with other people's children. Civitas' report Licensed to Hug claims the checks have driven suspiscion of all adults, which has led in turn to a breakdown …

    Government 26 Jun 2008, 10:41

  • Asda declares baby's arse 'pornographic'

    Censors mum's birthday cake surprise

    Mum Gail Jordan's amusing plan to celebrate her son's 21st birthday by presenting him with a cake sporting a snap of him as a bare-cheeked bouncing baby came off the rails when Asda staff declared the image "pornographic", the Telegraph reports. Jordan, 41, went to the supermarket chain's branch in Liscard, Wirral to avail …

    Bootnotes 26 Jun 2008, 10:43

  • Family visa sponsors face ID, credit and CRB checks

    Plus large fines and jail if grannie scarpers...

    People who sponsor visits to the UK by relatives from overseas under new visa rules will be required to undergo Criminal Records Bureau checks, and will be liable for penalties of up to £5,000 or even a prison sentence if the relative goes AWOL, immigration minister Liam Byrne announced this week. It will still be possible to …

    Government 26 Jun 2008, 10:44

  • Ohio table-shag man gets six months

    Hard time for hardened furniture worrier

    The Ohio man caught on camera having sex with a picnic table has been jailed for six months, NBC reports. Art Price Jr, 40, of Bellvue, molested the round metal table on four occasions. The last garden furniture liaison was on 12 March, a day before an unnamed informant dropped off DVD video evidence with cops, showing the …

    Bootnotes 26 Jun 2008, 12:04

  • Security: Protect and survive with El Reg

    Reg security debates Get involved with the experts

    El Reg invites you to tighten up your security as we hook up with some of the industry's biggest names and you - the UK's biggest technology community - for two live and fully interactive events exploring the latest menaces and threat-busting initiatives. Whether you're a CTO, developer, consultant or home user, if the security …

    Security 26 Jun 2008, 12:06

  • Sony Ericsson Cyber-shot C902 cameraphone

    Review Happy snapping

    It's clear that the design of Sony Ericsson's C902 is far more conventional than the likes of the K810 or K850. Gone is the 'small key' design, the keypad now being a sort of cross between that of a W960 and a K800. The new look works without any major drama, but hardly pushes back the boundary of design and we certainly …

    Reg Hardware 26 Jun 2008, 12:08

  • LiPS Forum climbs into LiMO

    Read my... oh

    Having lasted less than three years, the Linux Phone Standards (LiPS) Forum is folding itself into the Linux Mobile (LiMO) Foundation. The closure comes a scant six months after the completion of version one of its standard. LiPS was always something of a second fiddle to LiMO, though the Forum strove to distinguish itself …

    Operating Systems 26 Jun 2008, 12:13

  • Few gamers claim Grand Theft Auto 'hot coffee' cash

    $35? Nah, you keep it

    $93,660 (£47,201/€59,631) can’t be much to the publisher of Grand Theft Auto. But that’s the paltry maximum amount it could've paid out so far over the infamous ‘hot coffee’ incident in GTA: San Andreas, simply because hardly anyone’s filed a claim. To refresh your memory, ‘hot coffee’ was the name given to a sequence within …

    Reg Hardware 26 Jun 2008, 12:16

  • Mars whacked by object bigger than Pluto

    'We've found the crater to prove it,' boffins claim

    New data from NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter and Mars Global Surveyor backs a theory that the Red Planet's huge northern hemisphere Borealis basin was created by an impact 3.9bn years ago by a body some 1,900km (1,200 miles) in diameter, or larger than Pluto. The impact theory was rolled out in 1984 to explain why Mars …

    Space 26 Jun 2008, 12:58

  • Nvidia releases PhysX code for latest GeForce GPUs

    Physics for GTX

    Nvidia has posted a version of its PhysX software that enables the physics-on-GPU technology on its GeForce GTX 200-series and 9800 GTX graphics chips. The new release, version 8.06.12, was posted last night, builds on software Nvidia acquired when it bought physics chip specialist Ageia in February this year. Like past …

    Reg Hardware 26 Jun 2008, 13:33

  • Summertime movie downloads for PS3 fans

    But only in the US, sigh

    Sony has confirmed that it’ll launch its movie downloads service for the PlayStation 3 in the US this summer. However, European film fans will have to wait a little longer. In the firm’s Corporate Strategy Update (CSU) FY2008-2010 document, Sony said it plans to “roll out video services across key Sony products by FY2010, …

    Reg Hardware 26 Jun 2008, 13:36

  • Gas crunch: Jatropha, kudzu, algae and magic to rescue

    American ingenuity and exceptionalism transforms weeds into, er, pork

    Read the daily reports on what to do to counter high gas prices, and you'll see the importance of magic in US energy strategy. A rich variety of schemes have been put forward, literally within weeks of the gas crunch, delivered with the traditional slogan that occurs to every editorial writer who believes children's fairy tales …

    Environment 26 Jun 2008, 13:38

  • UK gov publishes 'kids and videogames' action plan

    Internet safety scheme too

    The Byron Review, it seems, was just the beginning. The UK government has unveiled a comprehensive action plan designed to develop ways of making videogames and the internet safer for children. The action plan has six key objectives: four concerning child safety online and two regarding the impact of videogames on young gamers …

    Reg Hardware 26 Jun 2008, 13:45

  • CentOS updates Red Hat Enterprise clone

    Flattering release

    Love Red Hat Enterprise Linux and want the latest edition, but can't stand the company and refuse to give it a single red cent? You're in luck. The open source CentOS project has released its latest RHEL clone in the wake of Red Hat's recent release of RHEL version 5.2. CentOS 5.2 features stability improvements to the open …

    Servers 26 Jun 2008, 14:47

  • UK abandons train and tube scanners

    Too slow and too invasive

    The Brown government has changed its mind on placing security scanners at every London tube station and mainline train stations across the country, because the technology does not work and the public would not tolerate the long delays such scanning would require. Despite doubts from London Underground after the original trials …

    Government 26 Jun 2008, 15:42

  • Amazon thinks Cloud will conquer Man by 2010

    Structure 08 Like a mainframe but closer to angels

    Amazon CTO Werner Vogels believes that cloud computing will be commonplace within two years. Before delivering his Wednesday morning keynote at Structure 08 here in San Francisco, Vogels looked ahead to a future incarnation of this cloud-obsessed mini-conference. "At Structure 10, the whole discussion will be different," he …

    Servers 26 Jun 2008, 15:51

  • BT starts threatening music downloaders with internet cut-off

    Updated BPI wins another ISP ally

    BT, the UK's largest broadband provider, has begun threatening subscribers with disconnection from the internet if it is told they are sharing copyright music over peer-to-peer networks, The Register has learned. The firm recently sent an email to one of its four million retail broadband customers, who asked not to be named, …

    Law 26 Jun 2008, 16:10

  • Hyper-V climbs into Windows

    Better late than never, eh?

    Microsoft today hustled its delayed Hyper-V hypervisor software out the door. The software giant’s virtualisation technology, originally codenamed Viridian, should have been bundled with Microsoft's latest server product which was released in February. But a number of “challenges and bugs” in Hyper-V forced the company to …

    Software 26 Jun 2008, 16:15

  • Dreamer calls for revolution of the algorithm

    Fat cats and bourgeoisie called to action

    Fresh from challenging Silicon Valley to invest in ethical Web 2.0 efforts, a blogger-cum-consultant has proclaimed a "manifesto" for the next industrial revolution using Web 2.0. Umair Haque, director of the Havas Media Lab think tank and founder of Web 2.0 consultant Bubblegeneration - seriously is this post-modern irony, or …

    Software 26 Jun 2008, 17:25

  • Brocade releases second wave of HBAs

    Sees itself at the center of everything

    Meeting the deadlines set with its original Host Bus Adapter (HBA) roadmap, Brocade today is rolling out a second-generation of devices with more respectable performance. The networking equipment maker now sells two speeds of HBAs - 4Gb/s and 8Gb/s in single-port and dual-port variations. The 415 (single port) and 425 (dual …

    Data Networking 26 Jun 2008, 19:50

  • ICANN approves customized top-level domains

    Don't like .com? How about .thispagerocks?

    ICANN, the organization that oversees internet addresses, will soon allow anyone to apply for his very own generic top-level domain (gTLD). In other words, you'll soon have the power to put almost anything at the end of your url, eschewing existing top-level domains such as ".com" or ".edu." "This is a historic resolution," …

    Law 26 Jun 2008, 19:54

  • Fired IT manager accused of venting spleen on organ bank

    $70,000 tissue tussle

    A technology director who was fired from her job has been accused of hacking in to the organ donation company where she worked and deleting donor information and accounting files. According to a federal indictment, Danielle Duann, 50, of Houston, illegally accessed the database belonging to Life Gift Organ Donation Center over …

    Crime 26 Jun 2008, 19:59

  • Dell ready to judge and repair your storage shop

    'You could use some more DR over here, Jim'

    You may not be a Fortune 100 company, but you deserve tiered storage too, right? Right?!?! Dell certainly thinks so. The Texas-based hardware house this week rolled out a new fleet of storage services that focus on the needs of mid-sized companies. The fresh services arrive alongside Dell's larger services pitch, which is …

    Storage 26 Jun 2008, 20:08

  • Maven and Eclipse strive for Visual Studio 'power'

    Take a number

    Call it the impossible dream. Every so often, somebody - usually from the Java side of the tracks - wants to best Microsoft's Visual Studio. Macromedia, BEA Systems and Sun Microsystems are just three who've tried - and failed - to bring Visual Studio's drag-and-drop tooling to Java and lure those using Visual Basic into the …

    Developer 26 Jun 2008, 21:45

  • Microsoft and HP tackle SQL-injection scourge

    A modest proposal

    With successful attacks against websites reaching epidemic levels, Microsoft and HP have released a free set of tools that help developers check their web applications for the mistakes that leave them open to exploits that can steal sensitive information and harm visitors. The tools are designed to scan websites for …

    Security 26 Jun 2008, 23:05

  • AVG disguises fake traffic as IE6

    Exclusive Where's the ham and cheese?

    AVG has rejiggered the fake traffic it's spewing across the internet, causing new headaches for the world's webmasters. In late February, AVG paired its updated anti-virus engine with a real-time malware scanner that vets search engine results before you click on them. If you search Google, for instance, this LinkScanner …

    Telecoms 26 Jun 2008, 23:36