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11th August 2008 Archive

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  • Top-secret Android handset surfaces on YouTube

    A rare moment of openness for Google's open OS

    Defying Google's pathologically closed approach to its open mobile platform, someone has posted video of a top-secret Android phone to YouTube. The video's a bit blurry. And even if it wasn't, it wouldn't tell you much. But if you want a glimpse of the current Android SDK, this is the only way to get it. For more than five …

    Mobile 11 Aug 2008, 06:44

  • Intel to brand next-gen CPUs 'Core i7'

    No, not 'Core 3'

    Intel's next generation of desktop - and, undoubtedly, mobile - processors will retain the chip giant's Core brand, the company said this morning. No great surprise there, but they won't be 'Core 3' parts. No, 'Nehalem' architecture chips will be marked 'i7', instead, though Intel further muddied the waters by telling us to …

    Reg Hardware 11 Aug 2008, 08:59

  • Pirate Bay evades Italian blockade

    Blasts Italian fascists

    Italian ISPs are doing their best to block access to torrent site the Pirate Bay, but the Swedish site has already acted to help Italians evade the ban. Italy's deputy prosecutor ordered ISPs to block the site late last week. But the feisty pirates quickly fought back. The Pirate Bay recomended its Italian users switch to …

    Music and Media 11 Aug 2008, 09:03

  • The BPM Buzzword Bonanza

    Reg Technology Panel We need your help to get to the meat

    One of the rapidly evolving solution areas in the IT industry is what vendors and analysts refer to as 'Business Process Management', or BPM for short. The premise behind BPM is that operational processes in many organisations cut across departmental and system boundaries, are based on a lot of manual processing, and often don’t …

    Tech Panel 11 Aug 2008, 09:12

  • Hull falls off the internet

    Again

    KCom, previously known as Kingston Communications, lost all internet access on Saturday afternoon at 3pm and was not able to restore it until 10pm that evening. KCom, which has an effective monopoly in Hull, said it had engineers working on the problem and to ensure it does not happen again. The last time this happened the …

    Telecoms 11 Aug 2008, 09:15

  • Aussies: Eat roos, save the planet

    What's that Skippy? You go with horseradish and mint sauce?

    Australian scientists have recommended their beef-loving compatriots switch to kangaroo meat to clamp down on the methane emissions that bovine burger precursors pump out into the atmosphere. The gastro-switch will simultaneously turn what most Aussies consider a particularly large form of vermin into a profitable agricultural …

    Environment 11 Aug 2008, 10:32

  • Google maps Russian assault on Savannah

    Georgia on its mind. Just not the right one

    Google may have plans to catalogue all the world's information, but it's found itself a bit confused between the former Soviet republic of Georgia and the southern US state. An AFP report that Russian tanks were rushing into the south was accompanied on Google News by a map of the Savannah region, raising possible concern …

    Bootnotes 11 Aug 2008, 10:44

  • Ten of the Best... Bluetooth Headsets

    Round-up Our pick of the top handset accessories

    We used to laugh when Lt Uhura would sit at her station with a lump of metal in her lughole. Yet here we are, sticking our fingers in our ear so we can take calls on our teeny-tiny Bluetooth headsets. Fortunately, the headsets on offer these days are a lot more elegant than Star Trek’s clunky hardware. Obviously wary of the ‘ …

    Reg Hardware 11 Aug 2008, 10:49

  • Fake feet trip up Olympic opening coverage

    Made in China games better than reality

    Video footage of the opening ceremony of the Olympics in Beijing included CGI images because of worries that broadcasters would not be able to properly film parts of the firework display. A 55-second clip of fireworks outlining footprints in the sky was in fact created months ago and edited into live footage. The fireworks did …

    Music and Media 11 Aug 2008, 11:15

  • Samsung Tocco SGH-F480 touchscreen phone

    Review Who calls a phone Tocco, I mean really

    Samsung has been keen to tap into the touchscreen trend, with recent models like the F700, F490 and its Armani phone collaboration all following the iPhone’s lead into fingertip-tapping control. The Tocco SGH-F480 is another compact touchscreen effort, smaller than its near-namesake, the F490, and consequently packs a 2.8in …

    Reg Hardware 11 Aug 2008, 11:33

  • Freecom pitches netbook-friendly skinny DVD drive

    Light enough to carry in your pocket

    A laptop’s footprint can be dramatically reduced by removing the optical drive, so Freecom’s launched a slimline unit that it claims slides right into your pocket. Freecom's Mobile DVD RW Recorder LS Pro: ideal for Air and Eee? The Mobile DVD RW Recorder LS Pro measures 17 x 144 x 140mm and weighs in at a pocket friendly …

    Reg Hardware 11 Aug 2008, 11:38

  • UK employers sharpen job axe

    But industry still begging for science skills

    Employers expect a dismal time ahead in the jobs market because of a rise in redundancies accompanied by a downturn in recruitment. According to the latest Labour Market Outlook survey, 29 per cent of businesses expect to hire new staff before the end of September – that’s half as many compared to the same period in 2004 when …

    Business 11 Aug 2008, 11:39

  • SMS used to land plane

    Rnwy 3 clr, lndin gr dwn, prepr 4 lnding

    In what could be a world first, an air-traffic controller (ATC) in Ireland has used text messaging to successfully bring home a stricken plane. According to a report by the Irish Times, the ATC relayed landing instructions to the pilot of an aircraft that lost all electrical power shortly after taking off from Kerry, southwest …

    Reg Hardware 11 Aug 2008, 11:45

  • MessageLabs mulls float as economy sinks

    Says Saas bucking market

    MessageLabs, the utility messaging service, said it is ready for an IPO if and when market conditions improve. Chief finance officer Stephen Chandler told the Reg: "We've been preparing for an IPO for several years; we've strengthened the board, moved to International Accounting Standards and if the markets improve we'll be …

    Small Biz 11 Aug 2008, 11:46

  • Phorm papers reveal BT's backwards approach to wiretap law

    Exclusive Would you trust these men with your network security?

    BT's long-held claim that legal advice said its Phorm trials did not breach wiretapping laws came under renewed scrutiny today, as documents revealed the firm approached government experts after it had secretly co-opted 18,000 broadband customers into the advertising targeting system. Papers obtained from the Home Office under …

    Telecoms 11 Aug 2008, 11:55

  • Intel papers over remote attack chip flaws ahead of demo

    Researcher's guns spiked

    Intel has fixed a pair of flaws in its chips ahead of a planned demonstration of remote attacks on them by security researcher Kris Kaspersky. Kaspersky – no relation to the Russian security firm – was due to demonstrate the findings of his CPU malware research at the Hack in the Box conference Malaysia in October, in a …

    Enterprise Security 11 Aug 2008, 12:11

  • Video Round-up Four high-end iPod Docks

    Today on the testing bench we’re looking at speaker docks for your iPod - but not the average thing you might splash 50 quid on and stick in your kitchen. Can't see the video? Then download Flash Player from Adobe.com These docks all cost upwards of £125 and are designed for those who appreciate serious audio quality. Hailing …

    Reg Hardware 11 Aug 2008, 12:32

  • Samsung slides out Messager budget talker

    No touchscreen in sight

    Samsung has bucked the trend for keyless touchscreen mobiles and launched a handset with a slide-out Qwerty keypad. Samsung's Messager: two keypads, no touchscreen The Messager’s physical keypad will appeal to anyone that likes the comforting feeling of pressing physical keys, something that iPhone users have long since …

    Reg Hardware 11 Aug 2008, 12:35

  • Fringe organisers launch inquiry into ticketing fiasco

    Joke system leaves promoters baying for blood

    Officials at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe are to launch an independent inquiry into the failure of its box office system. Tickets for the Fringe – which runs from 3-25 August – were supposed to be available from 10 June. However the festival’s new box office system suffered several major technical cock-ups that forced …

    IT Director 11 Aug 2008, 12:54

  • Russian cybercrooks turn on Georgia

    Infamous rent-a-bot krew gets political

    Conflict between Georgia and Russia on the ground has been accompanied by the relaunch of cyber-attacks against Georgian government websites. The Georgian presidential (www.president.gov.ge) and other government websites (such as www.parliament.ge) were left inaccessible by assaults over the weekend, in a repeat of attacks in …

    Crime 11 Aug 2008, 13:26

  • Hadoop: When grownups do open source

    Fail and You On the emasculation of Twitter and Dirty Harry

    Hadoop is a library for writing distributed data processing programs using the MapReduce framework. It's got all the makings of a blogosphere hit: cluster computing, large datasets, parallelism, algorithms published by Google, and open source. Every four days or so, a nerd will discover Hadoop, write a “Basic MapReduce Tutorial …

    Servers 11 Aug 2008, 13:52

  • Teens admit to Grand Theft Auto-inspired petrol bombfest

    Kids these days...

    Three US teenagers who recently went on a Molotov Cocktail crime spree claim to have perfected their weapons manufacturing skills by playing the Grand Theft Auto games. Three teens claim to have made GTA-style Molotov cocktails Pics courtesy WSBTV Last month, the trio – all aged between 15 and 16, and as such may not be …

    Reg Hardware 11 Aug 2008, 13:53

  • Nokia readies video conferencing robot

    N800 used to control futuristic web-bot

    Nokia has designed an interactive video conferencing robot that can be controlled through its N800 internet tablet. Nokia's Jeppe video conferencing robot Although still a concept, the robot – dubbed Jeppe – has been designed to explore how people react to different forms of video conferencing hardware to traditional PC …

    Reg Hardware 11 Aug 2008, 14:20

  • Home Office lost CDs on 3,000 workers

    Details go missing in post

    The Home Office has lost the names, nationalities, passport numbers and dates of birth of 3,000 seasonal agricultural workers on two CDs in transit to the UK Borders Authority. The incident, which took place in March, was reported to the Information Commissioner's Office but has only now been publicly disclosed in the Home …

    Government 11 Aug 2008, 14:35

  • 'I've cracked Nokia S40 security', claims researcher

    Updated Gimme €20k and I'll show you how

    A lone researcher claims to have discovered a raft of security issues with Nokia's mid-range handsets, allowing him to remotely install malicious applications with unprecedented capabilities - but he's asking for €20,000 for the details. The issues are apparently with Nokia's Series 40 platform - the proprietary OS and …

    Mobile 11 Aug 2008, 14:35

  • Sun quietly sets mobile middleware bait

    Who's biting?

    Yes, Apple has a lot to answer for. Having hooked the iPhone into Microsoft's Exchange email server, so business types can now read corporate emails horizontally, more tried-and-tested enterprise vendors are revisiting the concept of mobile business computing. Sybase last week began pushing the latest version of SQL Anywhere. …

    Developer 11 Aug 2008, 15:02

  • Yes! It's Joyce McKinney, admits Joyce McKinney

    Booger cloner 'fesses up to being Mormon-cuffer

    The mystery that has gripped the world for days on end is finally resolved today as Bernann McKinney, keeper of cloned canids, admitted to being Joyce McKinney, molester of Mormon missionaries. The Daily Mail mumbles surprisingly quietly that it was right all along and that the 57-year-old, who hotly denied that she was who …

    Bootnotes 11 Aug 2008, 15:03

  • VIA heralds end of third-party PC chipset biz

    Owned by Intel and AMD now

    VIA has tacitly confirmed that it's quitting the PC chipset business, claiming that there's no longer a third-party chipset market worth the name. Richard Brown, VIA's marketing chief, told Custom PC: "We believed that ultimately the third-party chipset market would disappear... That has indeed come to pass." VIA's …

    Reg Hardware 11 Aug 2008, 15:10

  • UK to get 60GB Xbox 360 on Friday

    More storage for the same price

    Microsoft has confirmed that its much hyped 60GB Xbox 360 will be available in the UK on 15th August for £200 (€255/$400). That’s this coming Friday, folks. Neil Thompson, senior regional director for Microsoft's Entertainment and Devices Division, said: “Now the Xbox 360 has triple the space to house all your entertainment …

    Reg Hardware 11 Aug 2008, 15:12

  • iPhone apps selling like hot cakes

    As long as Apple likes the recipe

    Apple has been selling $1m worth of iPhone apps every day, Steve Jobs told the Wall Street Journal. He also confirmed Apple's ability to reach out and disappear applications previously installed on punters' iPhones. Steve informed the Journal that more than 60 million apps have been downloaded through the Application Store. …

    Mobile 11 Aug 2008, 15:17

  • Wikimadness XVII: The Return of Byrne

    Overstock CEO demands naked shorting mea culpa

    We spoke too soon. The web's longest running farce is alive and well. Earlier this summer, it seemed we had finally seen the end of the epic squabble pitting the CEO of Overstock.com against Jimmy Wales and the cult of Wikipedia. But as it turns out, more fun was on the way. Three and a half years after Overstock boss Patrick …

    Financial News 11 Aug 2008, 17:32

  • HP Procurve people buy into 802.11n

    Acquires Colubris Networks

    Hewlett-Packard's Procurve switching business plans to buy wireless access kit provider Colubris Networks for an undisclosed sum. Waltham, Massachusetts-based Colubris specializes in networking gear based on the 802.11n wi-fi standard, a technology set Procurve currently lacks. Colubris has been selling enterprise WLAN …

    Data Networking 11 Aug 2008, 18:26

  • Tiffany demands reappraisal of eBay counterfeit decision

    Doesn't want all that glitters to be sold

    Jewelry giant Tiffany & Co. is appealing a recent federal court decision that cleared eBay from responsibility for counterfeit items which appear on the online auction site. Last July, a US District Court in Manhattan ruled eBay isn't obligated to actively monitor and remove listings that infringe on the jeweler's trademarks. …

    Law 11 Aug 2008, 20:50

  • Patched DNS servers still vulnerable to cache poisoning

    But the sky won't fall just yet

    Large swaths of the internet remain at risk from a potentially crippling vulnerability in the net's address lookup system even after installing emergency patches, a researcher has warned. Russian researcher Evgeniy Polyakov posted exploit code here, which he says allowed him to poison domain-name system servers running the …

    Enterprise Security 11 Aug 2008, 21:06

  • 'Milestone' Microsoft service pack staples .NET's stomach

    Can its willpower hold?

    Microsoft's "milestone" first-service pack for Visual Studio 2008 and .NET Framework 3.5 has been released as the company shows concern over growing code bloat. SP1 certainly offers a radical diet for .NET's weight problem: it introduces the .NET Framework Client Profile for client-side applications. The Profile cuts by 85 per …

    Applications 11 Aug 2008, 21:21

  • Napster bullish on user engagement

    Investors bearish on Napster sales

    Napster continues to bumble along as one of those curious technology oddities haunting the NASDAQ exchange. The tethered download king posted revenue of $30.3m during its first quarter - an unhealthy drop from the $32.3m posted in the same period last year. Thanks to higher expenses, Napster also posted a wider net loss, …

    Financial News 11 Aug 2008, 22:44

  • Virtual Iron presses energy savings into fresh Xen-based code

    (Fe)atures power management goodies

    Virtual Iron is focusing on energy savings with the latest build of its self-titled virtual machine management software, Virtual Iron version 4.4. The refresh slated for later this month will add LivePower, a new "experimental feature" that moves virtual machines across physical servers to optimize CPU usage. When it …

    Virtualization 11 Aug 2008, 23:45