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4th August 2008 Archive

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  • Sage brushes off credit crunch

    Despite 'uncertain and challenging markets'

    Sage told the London Stock Exchange this morning that it expects to hit targets for the year but remains cautious of the impact of the credit crunch on its business. The accountancy and management software specialist expects to hit targets for the full year ending 30 September. Sage's business in the US, except for its …

    Small Biz 4 Aug 2008, 08:13

  • Dell files patent office application for 'cloud computing'

    Hey! You! Get off of my trademark...

    Dell is attempting to trademark the tech industry’s favourite buzzword – “cloud computing”. The Round Rock, Texas firm is trying to gain control of the ubiquitous term according to a document filed on the US Patent and Trademark Office’s website. Dell’s application has already reached the so-called “notice of allowance” stage …

    Servers 4 Aug 2008, 08:59

  • Rumour of redesigned iPhone

    Will Santa's stocking hold a new iPhone Nano?

    O2’s pay-as-you-go customers could find a remodelled iPhone under the Christmas tree this year, according to the latest word on the grapevine. An industry source has told the Daily Mail that a “nano” version of the iPhone is expected to be unveiled by Apple in time for Christmas. Although the report said nothing about where …

    reghardware 4 Aug 2008, 09:04

  • Kyocera print service gig is toner-free heaven for Midwich customers

    Service revs without the service

    Kyocera is tapping into the Midwich reseller base to flog a 'comprehensive managed print service" through the IT channel. In other words, resellers can get their mitts on ongoing service and consumable revenues, when they sign their customers up to multi-year contracts for Kyocera's roster of printers and multifunction copiers …

    Channel Register 4 Aug 2008, 09:13

  • Third time unlucky for Elon Musk's Falcon rocket

    Volcano lair rather than space station for now

    SpaceX, the commercial space launch company run by PayPal multimillionaire and tech visionary Elon Musk, has suffered another technical hitch. The third test flight of the Falcon 1 rocket has been unsuccessful, after the upper stage failed to separate properly from the lower. "It was obviously a big disappointment not to reach …

    Space 4 Aug 2008, 09:23

  • Depp for Dark Knight follow-up

    Casting riddles kick off

    With Batman behemoth The Dark Knight pleasing audiences and critics alike, it's time for some rabid speculation about the casting of the next film in the rebooted franchise. The Sun froths this morning that the incandescent Johnny Depp is in line to play the Riddler, the bodystockinged bastard last played by Jim Carrey in Batman …

    Entertainment 4 Aug 2008, 09:45

  • Thailand bans GTA after video game style murder

    Distributor imposes self-inflicted ban following robbery and murder of taxi driver

    A Thai video game distributor has stopped selling Grand Theft Auto, after a local teenager went on a self-confessed GTA style murder and robbery rampage. The 18-year old high school student, who’s now in custody, recently robbed a taxi driver and stole his car, but ended up stabbing the 54-year old driver to death when he …

    reghardware 4 Aug 2008, 10:02

  • Why flying cars are better than electric ones

    Comment Schizoid techno-piety condemns us all to misery

    Once upon a time, NASA had a flying-car programme. Then that was shut down, and a rather cheapskate annual flying-car competition was set up instead. This year there's a further downgrade: the event is no longer the "Personal Air Vehicle Challenge", but the "General Aviation Technology Challenge". It kicks off in California this …

    Science 4 Aug 2008, 10:08

  • Microsoft 'proves' six degrees of separation theory

    All corporate news is six steps away from reality

    Microsoft researchers claim to have proved the pop-social-psychology shibboleth that we are no more that six degrees of separation removed from any other human being on the planet. The six degrees of separation theory first espoused by Stanley Milgram has given students and newspaper columnists something to talk about since …

    Applications 4 Aug 2008, 10:24

  • Nvidia denies chipset farewell

    'Completely groundless'

    Nvidia has denied reports that it’s planning to exit the chipset business, saying it has “no intention of getting out of the chipset business". This follows a report late last week by Digitimes that claimed the firm was poised to leave the market. On Friday, Digitimes said an unnamed source had told it that Nvidia had called …

    Hardware 4 Aug 2008, 10:24

  • Hushmail swats code backdoor rumors

    Safe as (straw) houses

    Web-based encrypted email service Hushmail has refuted rumours it stopped using software based on the source code published on its website. Within the zip archive containing the Hush Encryption Engine is a Java executable (.jar) file called HushEncryptionEngine. But this isn't the same file found on Hushmail's mail servers, a …

    Security 4 Aug 2008, 10:29

  • Samsung NV4 multimedia camera

    Review Nice looks, shame about the handling

    This is the age of convergence, when the lines between various digital devices are blurred. Many use their mobile phone to take snaps, so it’s no surprise that camera manufacturers are fighting back. Take the Samsung NV4 for example. Now you might think that this is just another compact digital camera, but you would be wrong, …

    reghardware 4 Aug 2008, 11:06

  • Home Office bankrolls plastic plod 'documentaries'

    The Ministry of Reality TV presents:

    Ofcom is probing Home Office sponsorship of an ITV "documentary" on police community support officers. The broadcasting regulator has yet to launch a formal investigation, sort of like the PCSOs themselves. The Home Office paid £800,000 to sponsor two series of Beat: Life on the Street about police community support officers …

    Government 4 Aug 2008, 11:17

  • The James Bond C902 mobile phone

    Licence to chat?

    James Bond always has the latest hardware on hand to defeat evil-doers, but the latest crime-tackling tech in the new Quantum of Solace film is a limited edition Sony Ericsson C902. Sony Ericsson's James Bond C902 Unfortunately, the phone hasn’t been stocked with a Micro SD card that also acts as plastic explosive or …

    reghardware 4 Aug 2008, 11:18

  • Inside the tent, the best bioterrorist money could buy?

    Bruce Ivins, US government scientist, and anthrax terrorist?

    When Bruce Ivins, presumed psycho amateur juggler/church keyboardist/government scientist/bioterrorist, committed suicide by drug overdose, taking two days to die, everyone was taken by surprise by an FBI effort notable for almost complete information secrecy until the shoe was about to drop. In early July, many had commented, …

    Policing 4 Aug 2008, 11:53

  • Home radio networks: One standard to rule them all?

    Could a new one swim with the big fish?

    Radio technologies are sneaking into our homes - from wireless doorbells to Wi-Fi media streams - but as with any new market there's a plethora of standards vying for a slice of the home-automation pie. Before we can consider the various wireless technologies on offer it's necessary to understand the problems they are setting …

    Data Networking 4 Aug 2008, 11:53

  • Apple pulls posted pulled iPhone modem app

    Netshare, the iPhone App Store's fastest moving product

    The strange case of Netshare, the application that turns the iPhone into a modem - whenever it exists - became stranger still over the weekend, when it appeared and disappeared for a second time in the iPhone App Store. Apple and AT&T (widely assumed to be the bad guy here) remained tight-lipped, leaving the world trying to …

    Mobile 4 Aug 2008, 11:54

  • Microsoft harpoons Nokia to fine tune Zune

    Playing catch-up with iTunes

    Word on the street is that Microsoft and Nokia are cooking something up for Microsoft's Zune. But rumours that the result will be a Zune phone, appear wide of the mark. Quoting a “well placed source within Microsoft”, the specialist pub Zunescene reveals that joint development is focused on content delivery, rather than a …

    reghardware 4 Aug 2008, 12:26

  • FCC enforces internet anarchy

    Analysis Putting metaphors to work

    Regulators and network operators across the world will be watching events unfold in Washington DC with some astonishment today, as the US telecoms industry becomes embroiled in a bureaucratic farce. Late last week, the US regulator the Federal Communications Commission issued a landmark assertion of authority over how American …

    Telecoms 4 Aug 2008, 12:57

  • Hyperic claims XenServer 'first'

    LinuxWorld Expands VMware management circle

    Hyperic will claim a first this week when it adds support for Citrix Systems' XenServer virtualization stack to its open-source monitoring and management suite. Hyperic HQ for XenServer, due to be announced today, will provide information on performance, logs, configuration and security from host machines and virtual instances …

    Virtualization 4 Aug 2008, 13:02

  • Old ships' logs show temporary global warming in 1730s

    Records interrupted only by looting of treasure galleons

    A climate prof noted for data mining of archived ships' logs has produced further insights into global warming. Dr Dennis Wheeler of Sunderland Uni says his latest analysis shows sudden warming of the North Atlantic and Europe - much like that seen in recent times - during the 1730s. This, Wheeler believes, shows that …

    Energy 4 Aug 2008, 13:06

  • Wünderbra! German policewomen take 'Action Brassiere'

    All aboard Das Boob

    In news that gladdens the heart, not to mention the boob, German police are being issued with bullet-resistant bras*. According to the Telegraph, female cops were complaining that while bullet-proof vests did their job adequately, they had the unfortunate side-effect of pushing the treacherous underwires and fixings of normal …

    Bootnotes 4 Aug 2008, 13:14

  • P2P radio goes titsup

    Farewell then, Social.FM

    Social.fm, the company formerly known as Mercora, has closed down. The service, which allowed users to stream their music collections to each other, cites no reasons for shutting up shop. Mercora was announced in 2003 by McAfee founder Srivats Sampath, and we first covered it the following year (report here). Mercora's …

    Music and Media 4 Aug 2008, 13:21

  • Knights Templar to Vatican: Give us back our assets

    Threaten to subject Pope to an inquisition

    The Knights Templar are demanding that the Vatican give them back their good name and, possibly, billions in assets into the bargain, 700 years after the order was brutally suppressed by a joint venture between the Pope and the King of France. If the Holy See doesn’t comply, the warrior knights, renowned for liberating the …

    Bootnotes 4 Aug 2008, 13:21

  • Motorola hires Jha to get handset biz out of a pickle

    Ex-Qualcomm COO gets Moto co-CEO role

    Motorola has finally found a new CEO for its ailing handset division, after tempting Sanjay Jha away from mobile chip giant Qualcomm. Jha takes also picks up the title co-CEO of Motorola, alongside Greg Brown, who will also head up its Broadband Mobility Business. Normally any hint of democracy at the top of a company spells …

    Mobile 4 Aug 2008, 14:36

  • Anonymous relaunches fight against Scientology

    'More subtle and shocking tactics'

    The Anonymous group is calling for disillusioned former members to return to the fold ahead of a new phase in its battle against the Church of Scientology. A video posted on YouTube on Friday said it was time for the original founders of the protest movement to return in time for a "shift to more subtle and shocking tactics …

    Security 4 Aug 2008, 14:41

  • Drizzle plans to wash away DBMS past

    Cloud database says 'no' to Windows and SQL compliance

    A new database management system (DBMS) designed for web applications and cloud computing could be the start of a new direction in DBMS development and, indeed, in software as a whole. Drizzle - unveiled recently at the O'Reilly Open Source Convention (OSCON) by MySQL director of architecture Brian Aker - is described as a " …

    Applications 4 Aug 2008, 15:02

  • Google's Blogger brands users as spammers

    False positives lock blogs

    Google-owned Blogger has apologised for wrongly locking user accounts for being suspected spammers. The mistake, caused by a bug in data processing code, was uncovered on Friday and by Saturday the company said it had restored access to all accounts wrongly identified as spammers. The bug mistakenly identified blogs as …

    Applications 4 Aug 2008, 15:03

  • Claranet blames data centre for downtime

    Global Switch fingered

    Claranet has blamed data centre Global Switch for a power failure early this morning which brought down many of its customers' websites. The problem was caused by a power failure at Global Switch 2 in London - its purpose-built data centre which claims two independent power supplies. The company boasts that it's Europe's …

    Telecoms 4 Aug 2008, 15:04

  • Intel says 48 core graphics is just over the horizon

    We'll reach Larrabee by 2009...or maybe 2010

    Intel is releasing the Larrabee graphics chip for high-end PC gaming in late 2009 or 2010, but the company is already talking up the chip’s capabilities in a new paper. Depending on the model, Larrabee will feature between eight and 48 cores, each of which will have super-fast inter-communication and increase the chip's …

    reghardware 4 Aug 2008, 15:23

  • Sleazy doctors plead guilty to web drug racket

    Bad comedown

    Two doctors have pleaded guilty to involvement in an illegal pharmaceutical supply chain racket, estimated to have raked in $126m. The duo made very little for rubber-stamping drug orders that may have imperiled the health of hundreds of thousands of Americans over a period of two years. Chandresh Shah MD, 51, of Smyrna, …

    Crime 4 Aug 2008, 15:23

  • Lenovo heralds netbook PC duo

    Mini laptops for basic computing

    Lenovo has signalled its entry into the netbook market with two mini machines. Lenovo's S10 (above) and S9 are its first netbook PCs The IdeaPad S9 has an 8.9in screen, but the flagship S10 sports a more attractive 10.2in display. The netbooks weigh in at just over 2 lbs (1kg) and are designed for surfing the web, emailing …

    reghardware 4 Aug 2008, 15:43

  • Dutch botnet herders arrested

    FBI trace links to Brazil

    Dutch police have arrested two Dutch brothers suspected of running a botnet controlling 40,000 to 100,000 computers, with only a small portion (1,100 computers) based in the Netherlands. The FBI has been investigating this case for a while before contacting the Dutch authorities. The arrests were made shortly after the two …

    Crime 4 Aug 2008, 16:00

  • Olympic ticket scammers still going for gold

    Who can you trust?

    In the age of the P-p-p-p-powerbook and the ubiquitous 419 scammer, it comes as no surprise that many people have fallen for a Beijing Olympics ticketing scam that seems to have hit people all across the world. Due to the rarity of tickets for the games, and the particular setup of the scam site (and others), there was a lot of …

    Crime 4 Aug 2008, 16:10

  • Congress quizzes world+dog over data pimping

    Phorm letter

    US Congressman Ed Markey and his anti-data-pimping brigade are back on the warpath. On Friday, the chairman of the House Telecommunications and the Internet Subcommittee joined three other high-ranking US lawmakers in lobbing an open letter at thirty American ISPs, asking each if they've ever used customer browsing activity as …

    Law 4 Aug 2008, 18:14

  • Chip makers ride PC and phone sales in emerging markets

    2008 going well, thank you

    Demand for PCs and mobile phones in emerging markets gave US chip makers a solid first half of the year in sales. Growing middle-class populations in China, India, Eastern Europe and Latin America offset American economic headwinds and the plunging prices of memory, the Semiconductor Industry Association said today. Global …

    PCs & Chips 4 Aug 2008, 19:06

  • Feds accuse bank insider of massive data heist

    Thumb drive skirts subprime security

    A financial analyst for Countrywide Home Financial, one of the world's biggest and most troubled mortgage lenders, has been arrested and charged with stealing personal information concerning a breathtaking number of the company's customers. Rene Rebollo, 36, of Pasadena, California, downloaded 20,000 customer profiles …

    Crime 4 Aug 2008, 19:55

  • Rogue trader's apprentice under investigation

    'Complicit' in €4.9bn SocGen fraud

    The assistant of rogue trader Jerome Kerviel is being investigated for complicity in his former boss' trading scandal that cost one of France's largest banks billions of euros. Thomas Mougard was charged Friday as an "assisted witness," in the case — a legal status for witnesses who may be implicated themselves. He is accused …

    Crime 4 Aug 2008, 21:08

  • Google 'exploitation' protest takes to the streets

    Schmidt Mobile delivers Gentrification 2.0

    Plenty has been made of the biodiesel-powered, Wi-Fi-enabled buses that whisk San Francisco's Google serfs to and from their Mountain View jobs in comfort and style. According to most accounts, it's a win-win proposition that provides a highly desirable perk to employees while also reducing a significant number of cars in one of …

    Odds and Sods 4 Aug 2008, 22:48

  • WebLogic to open gates on Oracle rationalization

    Two weeks and counting

    Oracle's post BEA Systems acquisition roadmap hits the ground running in the next two weeks with the delivery of version 10.3 of BEA's popular application server. WebLogic Server 10.3 has been released to manufacturing with customers expected to get final CDs in the next 14 days, senior vice president of Oracle server …

    Developer 4 Aug 2008, 23:08

  • Cuil feasts on Salmon of Nonsense

    Another name for knowledge backside

    Why is Cuil called Cuil? According to the free-spending founders of this Google-battling search engine/web-wide laughing stock, cuil is an "old Irish word for knowledge." But as it turns out, this is yet another example of CEO Tom Costello and company littering the web with bogus information. In truth, cuil is an old Irish …

    Odds and Sods 4 Aug 2008, 23:14