23rd July 2008 Archive

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VMware's fiscal roller coaster tumbles through Q2

Will offer ESXi for free

Wall Street expectations have once again overshadowed VMware's financial results in its second fiscal quarter 2008. But that's really the story of its life. The virtualization giant's Q2 revenue jumped 54 per cent from a year ago. GAAP adjusted income was $61m, compared to $47m year-over-year. Total revenues for the second …

Financial News 23 Jul 2008, 00:07
Ubuntu to get open-source Java heart implant

OSCON: Exclusive Sun and SpringSource possible donors

Canonical has been in talks with Sun Microsystems and SpringSource to support one of their open source Java application server stacks in the Ubuntu core, to increase Ubuntu's enterprise adoption. Canonical told The Reg that it is in the process of selecting which open source Java Enterprise Edition (Java EE) framework to make …

Operating Systems 23 Jul 2008, 04:09
iLuv iPod iProblem

I put an iPod into the top of my iLuv 9200 and now it has no power. What should I do now to get power back in the iLuv? I had no problems until I put the iPod into it.

Hardware 23 Jul 2008, 07:02
Nokia: Our community is the best money can buy

Wouldn't be here if we didn't pay 'em

Who says there's no honesty in tech marketing? We beg to differ, and present Nokia product manager Janne Jalkanen as proof to the contrary. Speaking at a marketing website called Nokia "Conversations" ("Stories from around the neighborhood" - it says), Jalkanen gives a very frank overview of the grassroots enthusiasm for Nokia' …

Mobile 23 Jul 2008, 07:02
Rogue SF sysadmin coughs up passwords

City regains access to its own network

San Francisco City Council regained access to its own computer network today after Mayor Gavin Newsom convinced network administrator Terry Childs to give them the passwords. Childs is in jail until he can raise $5m in bail. He is accused of blocking all access to the city's network and routers by resetting passwords. He …

Security 23 Jul 2008, 08:49
UK comms intercepts up by half - and it isn't the council

Wristslap for town halls' street watchers, however

The latest reports from government surveillance watchdogs reveals that interception of communications by UK officials surged by almost 50 per cent in 2007. British public bodies including police and intelligence agencies made 519,260 requests for information to telcos and ISPs during the year. However, just 1,707 of these were …

Government 23 Jul 2008, 08:52
Toshiba, Panasonic partner to make mini OLEDs

But keeping telly tech to themselves

Toshiba and Panasonic are to together spend ¥15bn ($140m) to further develop OLED display technology. And they've formed a joint venture to handle the work. The JV, Toshiba Matsushita Display Technology, will focus on small displays for handhelds and in-car systems, specifically 2.5in screens. The partners said their offspring …

Financial News 23 Jul 2008, 09:24
AMD to release low-end Radeon HD 4000s early?

New GPUs now due pre-Xmas

AMD will release its 'RV710' and 'RV730' chips early - at least two months ahead of schedule, it has been claimed. The two GPUs are, respectively, the chip maker's upcoming entry-level and mid-range graphics chips, likely to debut as the Radeon HD 4400 and 4600 series, sitting beneath the Radeon HD 4800 line AMD announced last …

Hardware 23 Jul 2008, 09:34
SCC scoops up bit of French reseller

Arés is worth a mass?

SCC has bought up a bit of a loss-making French IT reseller. The bit is described as the "principal region – Île de France" - of Arés, along with 130 techies. SCC is integrating the business into SCC in France immediately. The firm claims revenues of €1.1bn in France and employs 2000 people in 24 locations. Terms of the …

The Channel 23 Jul 2008, 09:38
LG plotting autumn offensive against Eee PC?

X110 to integrate HSDPA

LG has a history of producing some pretty small laptops - most notably the skinny 12in Z1 - but it's yet to take on tinies like Asus' Eee PC and Acer's Aspire One. It soon will, though. According to a report by German-language site Notebook Journal, LG will be coming out with the mini machine, to be dubbed the X110, in October …

Hardware 23 Jul 2008, 09:51
HP packaging madness continues apace

Stand aside, the Enormouse cometh

It appears techno-wastrel HP has been shamed not a jot by our previous report on its profligate packing practices - another sorry tale of conspicuous cardboard consumption has reached El Reg today. "I wanted to share the attached picture of a package we received a while ago from HP," says Reg reader Mike Cresswell. "As you …

Bootnotes 23 Jul 2008, 10:02
CE giants pitch yet another wireless HD standard

Will you welcome ~~Wireless HDMI~~ ~~WiHD~~ WHDI

Just what the world needs: another consortium promoting a wireless technology for the transmission of HD content in the home. The latest is the Wireless Home Digital Interface (WHDI), launched today by Sony, Samsung, Hitachi, Motorola and Sharp. WHDI's technology comes from Israeli company Amimon. It uses the 5GHz band to …

Hardware 23 Jul 2008, 10:39
Wii Classic Controller faces US sales ban

Patent case goes against Nintendo

The fate of the Wii Classic Controller is hanging in the balance after a US judge rejected Nintendo's attempt to avoid a $21m pay-out awarded against it when a patent infringement case came to trial this year. Nintendo's Classic Wii controller Texas-based US District Court Judge Ron Clark overturned the Japanese giant's …

Games 23 Jul 2008, 10:55
AMD Radeon HD 4850 and 4870

Review Snatching the price:performance crown from Nvidia?

The new AMD 'RV770' graphics chip that lies at the heart of Radeon HD 4850 and 4870 owes a great deal to the 'RV670' that we saw in HD 3850 and 3870. It uses the same 55nm fabrication process and continues to support DirectX 10.1, but the transistor count has risen from 666m to 956m. That’s a 44 per cent increase in the number …

Hardware 23 Jul 2008, 11:02
Panasonic manufactures massive megapixeler

Just keep cramming them in

If megapixels are what persuade you to part with your cash for a camera, then Panasonic’s latest Lumix compact will be right up your alley. Panasonic's Lumix DMC-FX150: 14.7 million pixels The DMC-FX150 sports a massive 14.7-megapixel sensor which, provided you can get the camera’s other image capabilities set correctly, …

Hardware 23 Jul 2008, 11:05
Tiscali sues BT for 'defamation and falsehood'

El Reg headline kicks off legal row

Tiscali has kicked off legal proceedings against BT, after the telecoms giant sent letters to the Italian-owned ISP’s customers earlier this month. The personalised marketing letter, a scan of which can be viewed here, referenced a story written in January this year by The Register that first highlighted that the UK arm of …

Broadband 23 Jul 2008, 11:07
JVC pitches deeper driver in-ear 'phones

These cans will be earwax magnets

Most people know the dangers of sticking cotton buds right into their ears, but how would you feel about doing the same with a pair of headphones, even if it meant better audio clarity? In-ear 'phone drive locations: deeper with JVC Well, JVC wants you to do just that with its HP-FXC50 headphones, which actually slide …

Hardware 23 Jul 2008, 11:20
DiData placing makes two big shareholders even bigger

Datacraft buy-out

Dimension Data raised £60.2m in a new share issue yesterday to help buy out the minorities of its Asian subsidiary, Datacraft. But the placing, equivalent to eight per cent of the newly enlarged share capital, has left two investors with very big stakes in the multinational reseller. Luckily for DiData, the issue was fully …

The Channel 23 Jul 2008, 11:38
Lesbos climax as lesbians lick Lesbians

Hot Athens court action backs girl-on-girl

Lesbian activists from the sun-kissed Sapphic luuurv island of Lesbos have been roundly licked in their battle to prevent gay gals dubbing themselves lesbians, the Beeb reports. The anti-lesbian Lesbians, led by Dimitris Lambrou, back in April launched a legal action against the Greek Gay and Lesbian Union (Olke) claiming that …

Bootnotes 23 Jul 2008, 11:39
Sony to bring E Ink eBook reader to UK in September

Tome alone

OK, call us Luddites, but we'd rather settle down with a old fashioned paperback than one of these electronic readers. But Sony believes enough UK punters want one when it brings it to the UK in September. The gadget in question is the PRS-505 Reader, the UK incarnation of the second-gen E Ink screen-equipped unit that's been …

Hardware 23 Jul 2008, 11:51
DIY SSD packs in CompactFlash card pair RAID rig

Enclosure lets you make your own solid-state drive

Want to replace your system hard disk with an solid-state drive? Want to take advantage of RAID? Want to use the cheapest Flash? Thanks to Taiwan's Raidon, you can. It's rolled out what it calls the "RAID ready SSD enclosure", and you can't get a more apt moniker than that. Raidon's RAID-able SSD enclosure: slip in any high- …

Storage 23 Jul 2008, 12:25
FT forgets law of small numbers in tech collapse scenario

No spike in titsupometer

The number of UK technology firms suffering financial problems was up 371 per cent for the second quarter of 2008 compared to last year. But the findings are all relative, according to research analyst Martin Kelway from insolvency specialist Begbies Traynor. When the numbers are put in context, the results showed that the …

Small Biz 23 Jul 2008, 12:38
NEC UK abandons direct sales

Channel, through and through

NEC Computers yesterday signalled its intent to become 100 per cent indirect in the UK over the next year. The Japanese firm will take on one mainline distributor in September and about 100 resellers over the next 12 months. The vendor hopes to increase its reseller base in vertical sectors that include healthcare, finance and …

The Channel 23 Jul 2008, 12:41
Drive-by download attacks menace UK.gov

No one is safe

The number of drive-by download attacks has tripled and they are beginning to affect government websites as well as small business operations. Malicious downloads from compromised websites have replaced infected email attachment as the favourite tactic for malware authors. During the first half of 2008, web security firm …

Security 23 Jul 2008, 12:47
Hardware hacker's surgery heals slow Acer Aspire One SSD

Nip here, tuck there

Acer's Aspire One is coming under fire from early buyers for the sluggishness of its solid-state drive, so one intrepid hardware hacker has figured out how to replace it. It's not an easy job. A poster over at JKKMobile reports that the One's 8GB SSD is tucker under the motherboard - reaching it involves completely …

Hardware 23 Jul 2008, 12:52
Ubuntu man challenges open source to out-pretty Apple

OSCON Don't need no stinkin' ads

Billionaire, cosmonaut and founder of the fast-growing Ubuntu Linux distro Mark Shuttleworth dreams impossible dreams. No, not a return to the stars. He believes in something that's far harder for mortal open source engineers to achieve. That dream? To produce a desktop more beautiful to ordinary users than legions of Apple …

Applications 23 Jul 2008, 12:52
Cisco is moving into your house

Buys into home networking

Cisco is paying $120m for home networking firm Pure Networks, underscoring its desire to build a consumer brand. Pure makes network management software for home users. Now everyone can be a network manager from their own living room. Pure's software lets you manage all the devices on your home network, which Cisco imagines …

Data Networking 23 Jul 2008, 13:45
Blinking to replace remote controls, claims Japanese boffin

Total winker?

A Japanese researcher is planning to revolutionise the humble remote control in the blink of an eye, literally. All this to skip tracks on your iPod Image courtesy AFP Kazuhiro Taniguchi, a researcher at the Osaka University Graduate School of Engineering Science, has invented a blink-operated switch called the Kome Kami …

Hardware 23 Jul 2008, 14:24
Sony sets PS3 sales objective

150m units worldwide

Sony plans to have sold 150m PlayStation 3 units worldwide by the end of the console’s lifecycle, it has been revealed. Kaz Hirai, head of Sony Computer Entertainment, said that the firm eventually hopes to see sales of the PS3 outstrip the 140m PS2s it has sold in the nine years that console has been on sale. The Sony …

Games 23 Jul 2008, 14:35
Panasonic goes back to black

LCD offers life-like blacks and SD card support

Anyone who demands only the blackest of on-screen blacks may have thought a Pioneer Kuro was the only option. Not so, says Panasonic, which has stepped into the darkness with rival screen. Panasonic's Viera TX-32LXD80: offers "life-like blacks" Although Pioneer’s Kuro plasma range boasts a 42in, 50in and 60in options, …

Hardware 23 Jul 2008, 14:43
SpringSource releases application infrastructure 'alternative'

Sniffing the enterprise glue

Open source tools developer SpringSource yesterday announced the general availability of its new enterprise applications package. SpringSource Enterprise is bundled with software, services and tech support to help developers build and run Spring-based enterprise apps. The package includes the SpringSource Application …

Developer 23 Jul 2008, 15:19
Dell challenges blades with rack workstation

Better than a blade?

Dell has launched a rack workstation to challenge blade workstations. The advantage is that the hardware, and data, is kept in a central server room or data centre and so is more secure. The architecture also removes heat and noise usually created by desktop machine from the working environment. Prices start at $1,869 (£936 …

Hardware 23 Jul 2008, 15:22
Steve Jobs is 'cancer-free'

Rumours of ill health greatly exaggerated

Apple chief exec Steve Jobs has been able to assure its board that he's cancer-free, four years after undergoing surgery to treat a rare form of pancreatic cancer. Jobs told associates that his recent weight loss is due to nutritional problems resulting from the surgery, The New York Times reports. The paper adds that he went …

Business 23 Jul 2008, 16:00
Romanian phisher confesses to scam targeting financial giants

Scammer faces five years in slammer

A Romanian man has admitted he took part in a sophisticated phishing scam that targeted PayPal and at least nine other financial institutions by tricking their customers into giving up their account credentials. Ovidiu-Ionut Nicola-Roman, 22, of Craiova, Romania, pleaded guilty in federal court in Bridgeport, Connecticut, on …

Security 23 Jul 2008, 18:14
Western Digital shrinks VelociRaptors for enterprise duty

2.5-inch SATA spinning at 10k RPMs

Western Digital is making a play for the enterprise storage market today by stripping the bulky heat sink attached to its 10,000RPM VelociRaptor drives and liberating the small form-factor disk that's been locked inside all along. The number two hard drive supplier technically has offered a 2.5-inch VelociRaptor HDD since …

Storage 23 Jul 2008, 18:55
North Americans just don't steal handsets, apparently...

Rogers dodgers

Back in 2005, when he lost his three-day-old Motorola v 635, Pete Gillespie immediately phoned his cell provider, Canada's Rogers Wireless. Among other things, he urged the cellco giant to blacklist the phone's IMEI number so that miscreants couldn't reconnect his $600 purchase to the Canadian airwaves. But the company said it …

Broadband 23 Jul 2008, 19:20
Re-jigged Intel mobile Linux stack dumps Ubuntu

OSCON Nothing personal, just no developers

Intel's project to put a Linux and open source stack on mobile devices is getting overhauled to attract developer support, having failed to generate much interest. A year after launching Moblin, Intel plans a second version of its open source stack in the next three weeks, sporting a new operating system, middleware, tools and …

Developer 23 Jul 2008, 19:34
Sabre-rattling Europe threatens US diplomats with visas

Be nice to our huddled masses, or else

The European Commission has threatened action against US diplomats and service personnel if there's no movement from the United States on visa-free travel this year. Citizens of 12 EU member states currently require visas when travelling to the US, and according to the Commission no tangible progress has been made in talks to …

Government 23 Jul 2008, 19:50
Seattle ~~Spam King~~ Dark Mailer faces 47-month sentence

From the penthouse to the Big House

One of the world's most prolific spammers has been sentenced to nearly four years in prison and ordered to forfeit more than $708,000 in income for blasting out tens of millions of unwanted emails. Robert Alan Soloway, 29, on Tuesday received 47 months in federal prison following a two-and-a-half-day sentencing hearing. …

Security 23 Jul 2008, 20:43
EMC Q2 coffers full, but outlook half-empty

Fights demands to spin VMware

Storage titan EMC enjoyed a solid second quarter this year, although you wouldn't guess it by the company's mournful outlook. "The economic environment is tough and I believe it will remain tough for at least the next several quarters," said CEO Joe Tucci in the company's quarterly conference call. "Really, IT spending is …

Financial News 23 Jul 2008, 21:49
UK ISPs agree to menace their filesharing users

But menace them with what?

Six UK ISPs are to start sending out menacing letters to hundreds of thousands of suspected music pirates as part of a government plan to tackle illegal filesharing, the BBC reports. The deal and the names of the six are due to be unveiled on Thursday, and the ISPs are also said to have committed "to develop legal music services …

Media 23 Jul 2008, 22:00
Amazon leaps tall buildings, scoffs at maimed economies

'Bellwether we're not'

Has Amazon noticed a drop in consumer confidence? Don't even ask the question. "We're probably not the best bellwether for the economy," CFO Thomas Szkutak said this afternoon during a conference call with industry analysts and reporters. "Just look at our overall growth rates for Q2." During the quarter ending June 30, …

Financial News 23 Jul 2008, 22:34
San Francisco sysadmin stays in jail for now

Parts of city network still locked out

The sysadmin accused of hijacking San Francisco's network may have surrendered the passwords needed to regain control of key parts of the system, but the move hasn't gotten anyone very far. A judge has refused to lower his $5m bail, and officials say they are still locked out of some portions of the network. The decision came …

Security 23 Jul 2008, 23:05
Google unfurls less laughable Wikipedia

Knol is short for knowledge - honest

Google has unleashed its Wikipedia killer. Back in December, the search engine cum world power announced an anyone-can-edit online encyclopedia it insists on calling Knol, and this morning, with a post to The Official Google Blog, product manager Cedric Dupont and software engineer Michael McNally opened things up to world+dog …

Developer 23 Jul 2008, 23:42
Sun to support AMP plus Linux

OSCON Money talks

Sun Microsystems is putting the "L" back into LAMP with plans to support customers running the open-source Apache, MySQL and Perl or PHP (AMP) stack on Linux. The company said it plans paid, enterprise-level support for AMP on Linux in the fourth-quarter of 2008, in addition to supporting AMP on its preferred platform, of …

Developer 23 Jul 2008, 23:54