The Register® — Biting the hand that feeds IT

Feeds

24th September 2008 Archive

Browse by publication date, or search the site.

  • 'Malware-friendly' Intercage back among the living

    Net provider in deathbed conversion

    A day after security experts celebrated the death of a network provider accused of hosting a large concentration of the world's cybercrime, California-based Intercage appeared to be among the living again. IP transit provider UnitedLayer agreed to provide upstream service to Intercage about 36 hours after its last transit …

    Security 24 Sep 2008, 00:33

  • Sun jilted in Oracle big-systems love

    OpenWorld 08 Intel inside the cloud

    Oracle will partner with Intel in the ever-nebulous cloud computing arena, in the latest straining of Oracle's relationship with one-time big-systems pall Sun Microsystems. Oracle and Intel pledged Tuesday they'd work together on standards and integration in virtualization and security to help organizations move from private …

    Applications 24 Sep 2008, 00:37

  • Mayor Boris wants 'WiFi London'

    Scoffs at PM's PC 'bribe'

    London should become a "WiFi city," Mayor Boris Johnson told a local radio station Tuesday morning. Speaking to BBC London 94.9, Johnson said he envisions providing every Londoner with access to the web. The comment was in response to Prime Minister Gordon Brown's £300m re-announced proposal to provide computers and cheap …

    Wireless 24 Sep 2008, 03:46

  • Oracle promises more cloud love

    OpenWorld 08 Prepping own hardware?

    Oracle is planning partnerships with more cloud computing providers while suggesting it could also deliver cloud services as part of its existing ondemand business. Executive vice president of product development Chuck Rozwat said Tuesday Oracle's database and software infrastructure sack would "definitely" be updated to work …

    Applications 24 Sep 2008, 03:51

  • MEPs demand privacy safeguards on cross-border policing

    Slate ministers' 'lowest common denominator deal'

    MEPs have voted to insert data protection provisions into a proposed framework on police and judicial cooperation, meaning the European Commission will be required to pay as much lip service to the proposals as it can be bothered to. The provisions included a stipulation that authorities should only have access to data held by …

    Government 24 Sep 2008, 05:02

  • Sony Ericsson presses play on Play Now music services

    We have a music store too you know... two of them

    Sony Ericsson has updated its music, and content, offering with a piecemeal service direct from the manufacturer, and a subscription service that will only be available via network operators. Both variations on the service will initially be available on the Walkman W902 handset, with support for the full range of SE handsets …

    Reg Hardware 24 Sep 2008, 06:36

  • Googlephone unworthy of Satan tag

    Comment Where's the temptation?

    If this is The Satan Phone, then Beelzebub has lost his mojo. For more than a year, the world has breathlessly anticipated Google's foray into mobile handsets, and today, the waiting ended with the arrival of a phone that tops the rest of the market only in its ability to promote applications from Google. Google says it …

    Mobile 24 Sep 2008, 06:40

  • Hands on with the T-Mobile G1

    First Look An in-depth and hands-on look at the phone everyone's talking about

    The G1’s looks, specifications and, crucially, launch date have already been widely reported. So, that just leaves one question on everyone’s lips: what’s the Android-based talker actually like to use? The home screen on T-Mobile's G1 At yesterday’s launch, Register Hardware tested the phone and we quickly found ourselves …

    Reg Hardware 24 Sep 2008, 09:08

  • LHC downed until after Xmas - Boo

    Atomsmash off season delays Higgs-Hawking deathmatch

    Proton-punishing boffins at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) have confirmed that a recent technical mishap will down the colossal particle-masher until well into next year. The various treats promised once the LHC began living up to its name will not, now, arrive in time for Christmas. Physicists had hoped that the tremendous …

    Physics 24 Sep 2008, 09:17

  • Net Suicide Bill would breathe life into government censorship

    Protecting us from ourselves

    Government moves to reduce the availability of suicide sites on the internet may herald a new era of online censorship in the UK. Last week, Justice Minister Maria Eagle announced a review of the law on suicide. Citing the usual suspect – "public concern" – she said: "Protecting vulnerable and young people must be a priority …

    Law 24 Sep 2008, 09:25

  • Firefox update fixes critical bug brace

    Just off the production line

    Mozilla published a new version of its Firefox web browser on Tuesday that fixes five security vulnerabilities, two of which it rates as critical. Firefox version 3.0.2 fixes a memory corruption bug and a separate critical bug involving privilege escalation and the XPCnativeWrapper component of the browser. Both create …

    Applications 24 Sep 2008, 09:29

  • BBFC bite back at ELSPA

    KAPOW! OOMPH! WACK!

    The British Board of Film Classification has bitten back at recent negative comments made by the Director General of the European Leisure Software Publishers Association, which claimed that the Board isn’t fit for purpose. The British Board of Film Classification (BBFC) said that the the European Leisure Software Publishers …

    Reg Hardware 24 Sep 2008, 09:37

  • Boffin brews up 'Jurassic Park' beer

    Extracts yeast from amber-clad ancient weevil

    A scientist at California Polytechnic State University has answered that most pressing of questions for would-be time travellers - assuming you survive the journey through the wormhole vortex back to the Eocene epoch, what's the beer going to be like when you get there? The answer is "smooth and spicy" with "a weird spiciness …

    Biology 24 Sep 2008, 10:00

  • Dell debuts 'world's first' electronic privacy filter for laptops

    No more plastic tape-on screens

    Dell has introduced what it claims is the world's first fully electronic screen filter - digital version of the clip-on sheets offered by the likes of 3M to shield screens from prying eyes. Implemented in software and hardware, the electronic filter effectively reduces the viewing angle of the display, ensuring, Dell claimed, …

    Reg Hardware 24 Sep 2008, 10:01

  • HTC Touch Pro smartphone

    Review HTC's best handset yet?

    HTC brought out its iPod-bothering Touch Diamond back in May, but four months can sometimes seem like a lifetime in mobile phone terms. We've been promised the Pro since then, but while the newest kid on the HTC block has many similarities to its predecessor, there have also been several improvements, all of which go to make …

    Reg Hardware 24 Sep 2008, 10:02

  • Oz woman held hostage by pugnacious porker

    Authorities move to contain 80kg porcine menace

    An animal-loving New South Wales vegetarian has been shown why the only good porker is one sliced into rashers and shoved between two thick slices of bread after being held hostage in her home by an 80kg bald pig, the BBC reports. Caroline Hayes, 63, recounted to Oz media: "It started knocking on my door at 4am, head-butting …

    Bootnotes 24 Sep 2008, 10:12

  • World's largest digital photo frame displayed

    Super size scenery

    Digital photo frames are nice to look at in the corner of your room, but Smartpart’s latest frame will need more space than that because it’s claimed to be the world’s largest. Smartpart's digital photo frame measures 32in At 32in the frame will likely be best displayed on a wall, making it look like an LCD telly. The …

    Reg Hardware 24 Sep 2008, 10:35

  • Northamber balks at forecasts amidst market uncertainty

    Boosts profits despite sales slip

    Northamber illustrated the fragility of the tech market today with results that showed a slip in sales, increasing credit insurance costs and a refusal to give guidance on its future performance. The distributor managed to boost its profits for the year to June 30, which were up 5.9 per cent to £627,000, despite sales slipping …

    Channel Register 24 Sep 2008, 10:59

  • Daily Mail hacks get emergency bird flu jabs

    Swan-roasting Albanian H5N1 threat: What every parent should know

    There's some good news today for those of you concerned that as the impending bird flu pandemic apocalypse sweeps the UK - decimating the population in scenes of horror not witnessed since the last visitation of the Black Death - you might not be able to expend your dying breath expressing your anger that swan-roasting Albanian …

    Bootnotes 24 Sep 2008, 11:00

  • El Reg dresses The IT Crowd

    Cash'n'Carrion Fancy meeting the cast? Click here

    We're delighted to announce today that, following a request from Talkback Thames, El Reg's merchandising tentacle has dispatched a load of apparel and other paraphernalia to act as cast and set dressing for the forthcoming new series of Channel 4's The IT Crowd. Thames got in touch after writer Graham Linehan posted a request …

    Site News 24 Sep 2008, 11:02

  • Brocade encryption won't stretch to tape for months

    Brocade provides next-gen DataFort

    Brocade's encrypting switch and blade will be the performance migration path for NetApp's DataFort encrypting appliances, with tape fans having to sit tight until the end of the year. Brocade announced its Encryption switch and blade strategy on Monday, but was ambivalent about tape support. Jose Carreon, a Brocade director …

    Storage 24 Sep 2008, 11:19

  • Grand jury fails to level charges in Palin hack case

    Investigation continues

    A Tennessee grand jury considering the Sarah Palin webmail hacking case completed its meeting on Tuesday without returning charges against the key suspect in the case, the student son of a state politician. Prosecutors said an investigation into the case remains ongoing. Law enforcement officials carried out a search on an …

    Crime 24 Sep 2008, 11:23

  • BitTorrent crackdown cops fail to pay music copyright fees

    Six OiNK accused in court today

    Cleveland Police, the force that will today bring six people to court for alleged involvement in the OiNK BitTorrent network, does not pay licensing fees to legally play music in its canteens, it has emerged. Rumours that Cleveland Police was infringing copyright law have been circulating for several months. Yesterday the …

    Music and Media 24 Sep 2008, 11:30

  • ASA: Publishers must vet AdSense ads

    Auto-generated bad taste

    Publishers must take responsibility for the suitability of published adverts, even if the ads are chosen by an automated system like Google's AdSense, the advertising regulator has said. Many online publishers use AdSense or Yahoo!'s Publisher Network to associate adverts with keywords contained in articles. Such systems can …

    Music and Media 24 Sep 2008, 11:40

  • IBM raises standards bar, bitchslaps Microsoft

    Open sesame

    Big Blue has issued a thinly-veiled threat to the international standards body ISO following its approval of Microsoft’s contentious Office Open XML document format. IBM yesterday released a new set of open standards principles in which it warned the International Organisation for Standardisation (ISO) and other standards …

    Software 24 Sep 2008, 11:51

  • Cisco eyeballs IBM and Microsoft with SaaS conferencing

    Meet without meeting

    Cisco is offering a new collaboration portfolio and offering to whup IBM and Microsoft's collaborative asses with a software-as-a-service WebEx-based offering. The company is once again moving up from network stack into network-based applications and updating its Unified Communications System platform to release 7.0 to support …

    Data Networking 24 Sep 2008, 12:08

  • Finns develop mobe sleep-cycle alarm app

    'Arousal Clock™' wakes you up when ready to go-go

    Finnish academics have developed a mobile phone app which monitors sleep patterns and delivers a morning alarm when the user is naturally ready to wake up. The "Arousal Phone" in action. Pic: Smart Valley Software. Called "HappyWakeUp®", the tech uses the phone's microphone to monitor noises made by a sleeper and so …

    Mobile 24 Sep 2008, 12:14

  • TalkTalk ad slapped for misleading on LLU

    No unbundled cheapness for country folk

    TalkTalk's latest TV ad has fallen foul of advertising regulators, who received complaints from would-be customers who contacted the firm only to be told they had to pay extra because they lived outside its unbundled network. The ad punted "free" broadband with line rental for £10.50 per month. The cost of connectivity from BT …

    Telecoms 24 Sep 2008, 12:36

  • Coming soon: Spider-Man - The Musical!

    Peter Parker in eight-legged theatrical extravaganza

    Forget Amanda Donohoe and Emmerdale - this week's hot hot hot showbiz news is that Peter Parker could be donning his eight tap shoes as soon as 2009 for Spider-Man - The Musical!. That's according to IESB.net which says Marvel big cheese David Maisel earlier this week confirmed the exciting news, on the proviso he can find a …

    Entertainment 24 Sep 2008, 12:37

  • Dell launches monster quad-core notebook

    Big and bigger

    Dell today introduced its stylish Precision M6400 quad-core "mobile workstation", the beefy specced desktop replacement it first talked about back in August. It also debut a variant, the M6400 Covet, which is the one with the blazing orange aluminium cover. Dell Precision M6400: covetable? Both models are based on a 17in, …

    Reg Hardware 24 Sep 2008, 12:53

  • Blockbuster: DVD to Blu-ray shift slower than VHS to DVD

    Consumer adoption still slow

    Film rental firm Blockbuster has said that consumers will be slow at swapping their DVD libraries over to Blu-ray. According to a report by Home Media magazine, Thomas Casey, CFO of Blockbuster said at a recent investor conference in New York that he doesn’t think Blu-ray’s replacement of DVD is “going to be nearly like DVD …

    Reg Hardware 24 Sep 2008, 13:02

  • iPhone users get BBC radio downloads

    On demand radio shows

    The BBC has confirmed that its radio programmes can now be accessed on-demand through the iPhone and iPod Touch. Radio fans can listen to radio shows up to seven days after they were broadcast. Shows come in MP3 format and are compressed to 128kb/s. Mark Friend of the BBC said in offcial blog that punters must download the …

    Reg Hardware 24 Sep 2008, 13:21

  • Dell intros compact DLP projector

    It fits in your pocket, and it throws your laptop's screen output up onto the wall. It's Dell's M109S "on-the-go" projector. Dell's M109S projector: connect The compact unit weighs just 360g. The resolution's 858 x 600 and the mercury-free LED light source is capable of projecting the image up to 2.4m. One-port box The …

    Reg Hardware 24 Sep 2008, 13:49

  • Official Tube shot leaked?

    Polished Nokia talker shows up online

    Nokia has teased consumers with a blurred picture of the Tube handset already. But what’s believed to be the world’s first official shot of the upcoming phone has been leaked online. Is this Nokia's Tube handset? Image courtesy of Idnes.cz The image, which comes from sources unknown, shows the talker in a very different …

    Reg Hardware 24 Sep 2008, 13:53

  • MS wields price cutlass at Chinese pirates

    Slashes Office prices in the People's Republic

    Microsoft has slashed the retail price of its Office 2007 suite in China by over 70 per cent for versions to counter widespread piracy in the country. The software giant has cut the selling price for Office 2007 Home and Student Edition to 199 yuan ($29) from 699 yuan ($102) as a special promotional offer that kicked off on …

    Channel Register 24 Sep 2008, 14:21

  • Sun's solar wind hits 50-year low

    'Our protective shields are failing, captain'

    The Sun's solar wind output has fallen to the lowest level since "accurate readings" became available, and the drop may have an effect on the natural shielding which protects the solar system from cosmic rays, NASA reports. The data comes from the venerable Ulysses spacecraft, the joint NASA-European Space Agency mission …

    Space 24 Sep 2008, 14:26

  • So what is the perfect working environment for developers?

    Reg Reader Workshop Have your say

    The latest Reg Reader Workshop on Agile Development has got off to a flying start with some lively discussion of whether today’s developers are more creative than their counterparts of 20 years ago. Quite a few angles and viewpoints have emerged, but there appears to be a feeling amongst the old timers in particular that …

    Workshop 24 Sep 2008, 14:30

  • Get your PHP on the right Trax

    Hands on Framework flattery

    Ruby on Rails has become a popular framework for developing database-based web applications using the Model-View-Controller (MVC) pattern. Before Ruby on Rails, though, PHP was hogging the web-development limelight. Problem was, there was no Model-View-Controller (MVC) framework for PHP. With Ruby on Rails, though, PHP …

    Developer 24 Sep 2008, 15:02

  • Ryanair dial into mid-air mobile calls

    Flight firm to launch in-plane mobile calls

    Ryanair is just weeks away from letting its passengers make in-flight calls using mobile phones. Although the company’s yet to make a formal announcement, a spokesman for OnAir – the firm providing the technology behind Ryanair’s service - told Register Hardware that the operator will initially equip 14 Dublin-based planes …

    Reg Hardware 24 Sep 2008, 15:31

  • Unisys splits with CEO McGrath

    Banks on financial help from...Goldman Sachs

    Enough of that, then. The board of directors at server and services company Unisys has come to the conclusion that Joe McGrath, its president and chief executive officer since 2005, is not the right guy to lead the company forward. And as such, Unisys has begun a search for a new CEO. McGrath agreed to step down effective at …

    Financial News 24 Sep 2008, 16:41

  • Fujitsu and Sun arm juttejutsu server with quad-core processor

    Sword not included

    Earlier this week, John Fowler, the executive vice president of the Systems group at Sun Microsystems, hinted that Sun and server partner Fujitsu would be bringing a new "gap filling" server to market based on the new quad-core Sparc64-VII processor. Turns out, it is indeed an entry server, even if it might compete against Sun's …

    Servers 24 Sep 2008, 17:49

  • Net sleuths spot poker site cheat code

    UltimateBet.com bares hole card

    The former operator of a popular online poker site faces a $75m claim after internet sleuths presented evidence that for more than three years it offered rigged games that allowed cheaters to win hands at astronomically unlikely odds. According to a special report published last week on msnbc.com, scammers were able to …

    Crime 24 Sep 2008, 18:59

  • Windows HPC server courts supercomputing greenhorns

    Analysis The Empire aims low

    What do you get when an $11 billion Windows server business from Microsoft collides with a $10 billion market for supercomputers? You get a chance for Microsoft to get a little extra money for a little extra work, which is about as good as it gets for Redmond these days. The cross-platform nature of Linux, and its resemblance …

    Servers 24 Sep 2008, 19:22

  • US Senate rubberstamps R&D tax credit

    'Investment in the future'

    The US Senate has approved extending an expired tax credit for business research and development, a spending incentive that many American tech companies have come to rely on. The R&D credit was renewed late Tuesday after being attached to the Renewable Energy and Job Creation Act, which earlier was passed by the US House of …

    Government 24 Sep 2008, 21:34

  • Google spills Satan Phone dev kit

    (Belated) coder love

    As it tells the world that unnamed developers will fill the gaping holes in its inaugural Android phone, Google has released version 1.0 of the Android SDK. Applications developed using this version of the kit, Google says, will be compatible with mobile devices running version 1.0 of Android platform. This includes the T- …

    Mobile 24 Sep 2008, 21:51

  • Mars Lander shows rock who's boss

    For it's work all day for the sugar in your tay

    In case you've been living under a rock on some distant planet, NASA apologizes for the intrusion. Image courtesy of NASA The Phoenix Mars Lander has completed the tricky task of nudging aside a Martian rock roughly the size and shape of a VHS tape so that curious Earthling scientists could peer underneath. The lander's …

    Space 24 Sep 2008, 22:16

  • Apple bans App Store heartbreak chatter

    'If we censor you, no one must know'

    Apparently, Steve Jobs has taken his App Store despotism to new heights. In sending rejection letters to developers applying for a spot on the virtual shelves of the iPhone App Store, Jobs is now including a caps-happy warning designed to prevent them from discussing the letter with anyone else on the planet. At least, that's …

    Mobile 24 Sep 2008, 23:37