14th October 2008 Archive

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Next Windows name unveiled: Windows 7

Meet the new Windows - same as the old Windows

The name of the next Windows client operating system will be Windows 7. Microsoft vice president of Windows product management Mike Nash blogged Monday Microsoft is adopting the current codename for the final product, for reasons best explained by himself. It has something to do with not wanting to get too far away from the …

Operating Systems 14 Oct 2008, 00:20
Nokia beats rivals to steamy Britney video hotspot

Fight to the Finnish

What can we say? Money talks and bullsh|t walks, to quote Spinal Tap. Nokia's capacious pockets... er... compelling technology has beaten out the likes of Samsung and Apple to get its newest touchscreen phone a prime appearance in Britney Spears' latest raunchy pop promo. Can't see the video? Download Flash Player from Adobe …

Media 14 Oct 2008, 06:37
Sony to save planet with PS3 firmware overhaul

Talks up power conservation plan

Sony isn’t willing to drop the PlayStation 3’s price, but the electronics giant is at least keeping the console up to date with another firmware revision. The latest release – to be called version 2.50 – has been written with the future of the planet in mind - no, not another first-person shooter - because it lets gamers set …

Games 14 Oct 2008, 07:02
MoD admits data loss bigger than thought

More people, more details, more problems

The MoD has admitted that the hard drive lost by EDS contained more information, on more people than originally believed. We reported on Friday that EDS had lost the removable and unencyrpted drive containing detailed records on 100, 000 servicemen and women and names and phone numbers for 800, 000 people who had applied to …

Government 14 Oct 2008, 07:50
RIPA ruling closes encryption key loophole

No pleas against self-incrimination allowed

A landmark ruling over the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000 (RIPA) may just have reduced our rights to refuse to self-incriminate. Or not, if you accept the arguments of the judges involved. The verdict handed down in the Criminal Division of the Court of Appeal last week, relates to a plot in which the the …

Law 14 Oct 2008, 08:02
November debut for Sony Ericsson Xperia X1 on O2

Deadlines, we've heard of 'em...

Sony Ericsson's first Windows Mobile smartphone, the Xperia X1, will arrive on the O2 network next month. Sony Ericsson's Xperia X1: remember, remember the ??? of November... Although several availability dates have already been suggested X1, SE said early in early September that the phone would definitely be available on …

Mobile 14 Oct 2008, 08:02
Gamers to assemble for attempt on world record

How many Nintendo DS users can squeeze into a telephone box?

A band of self-confessed Nintendo DS addicts hope to set a world record for the most number of people playing the portable csonsole in one place, at one time. According to DS: London, a group that already regularly meets in pubs across London to drink beer and play wireless DS games, the record currently rests at 381 people. …

Phones 14 Oct 2008, 08:02
Cry havoc and let slip the SSD dogs of war

SNW Meet a disruptive technology - for storage vendors

Fusion-io has a storage technology that, if it succeeds, could wreak havoc amongst the business models of mid-range drive array storage vendors. The thinking goes like this: Fusion-io makes a solid state drive (SSD) that connects to a server's PCIe bus. It doesn't use traditional storage interfaces such as Fibre Channel (FC), …

Storage 14 Oct 2008, 08:05
NComputing pushes OLPC to one side in Indian schools deal

Microsoft climbs on board education bandwagon

NComputing says it has scored a major coup in India where it will provide virtualisation technology to 5,000 schools in Andhra Pradesh. The Silicon Valley firm has convinced the Indian state to opt for its range of computing products over Intel’s Classmate PC and One Laptop Per Child’s dinky XO machine. NComputing said 1.8 …

Hardware 14 Oct 2008, 08:42
Jacqui Smith resurrects 42-days after Lords rejection

Warns that threat is 'the severe end of severe'

Home Secretary Jacqui Smith has introduced a one-line bill* which could be rushed through Parliament against any individual the police wished to hold for 42 days. The House of Lords last night threw out her attempt to extend detention for suspected terrorists to 42 days. The clause was removed from the Counter Terrorism Bill …

Government 14 Oct 2008, 09:06
Boffins conclude machines still not quite people

Sorry Dave, give us a hand with this Turing Test?

Politicians are not quite ready to pass themselves off as human: but machines are almost there. This was the shock conclusion from a Reading University competition run at the weekend designed to sort out machines from people. Five computer programmers from across the globe competed for the $100,000 Loebner prize for Artificial …

Science 14 Oct 2008, 09:19
Dell preps software de-dupe, SSD launches

Pitches itself as bargain hunters' choice

Dell plans to incorporate block-level de-duplication and SSD drives into its storage line-up, as it banks on the credit crunch to revive its rep amongst cost-conscious corporates. Deduplication Praveen Asthana, Dell's Director of Enterprise Storage, said that the DL2000 disk-to-disk (D2D) backup appliance is a good model for …

Storage 14 Oct 2008, 09:31
US Navy also planning Cyberwar Command

An adversary for US airforce cybertroops at last?

Not to be outdone by the US Air Force with its "Cyber Force", the US Navy is now planning a uniformed cyberwar legion too. The dark blue nerd-force will be called the Naval Cyber Forces Command. Govexec.com reports on the naval moves, citing an internal document apparently passed to the news source by "an Air Force reader". …

Government 14 Oct 2008, 09:33
MacBook range revamp snippets slip out

As if by magic, pics and part numbers appear ahead of tonight's launch

Apple fans anticipating a cheap MacBook may be disappointed by the company's notebook launch tonight: possible part-number and price data suggest they won't get one. In the run up to tonight's unveiling, the rumour mill has been spinning with stomach unsettling speed. The key items flying off are a set of part numbers and …

Hardware 14 Oct 2008, 09:39
Verity's further education

Stob How the OU can restore its reputation

The story so far: I stumped up nearly £1000 for an OU computer course (M885 Analysis and design of enterprise systems: an object-oriented approach) and was surprised when the second piece of homework was based on a paper by Madanmohan and De' comprising, in part, plagiarised gibberish. I drew this to the attention of my OU tutor …

Verity Stob 14 Oct 2008, 10:00
MobUI snaps up Action Engine

Mobtop market ain't what it used to be

Interface-developer MobUI has picked up Mobile-shell development company Action Engine in something of a fire sale, though remarkably few details about the transaction are available. Action Engine was one of the more vocal companies involved in developing mobile shells - replacement interfaces for mobile phones. The market was …

Mobile 14 Oct 2008, 10:02
Dennis Hopper joins French Legion of Honour

Knighthood? F**k that shit! Sarko's Red Ribbon!

Dennis Hopper today joined other luminaries from the world of entertainment including Lord Olivier, Clint Eastwood and, ahem, Celine Dion in the ranks of France's Légion d'honneur, the BBC reports. Hopper, 72, was honoured with the rank of commandeur at a ceremony in Paris, which will until 19 January celebrate his life's work …

Bootnotes 14 Oct 2008, 10:17
MS roll out exploit prediction with Patch Tuesday

Here is the attack forecast

Microsoft plans to debut impact predictions related to vulnerabilities with the next edition of its Patch Tuesday update cycle. The 11 bulletins due to arrive later on Tuesday (14 October) will contain "weather predictions" detailing factors such as whether exploit code is likely to appear, alongside the established rating …

Security 14 Oct 2008, 10:20
Credit crunch prompts Virgin Media bid to shift debt mountain

Eases off on cable outlay

Virgin Media has persuaded banks to hold off calling in billions of pounds of debt from 1990s cable rollouts until 2012. Traders in New York, where the firm is listed, liked the plan and sent its stock up 25 per cent yesterday. Virgin Media beancounters still require permission to restructure the £4.3bn of loans from some …

Financial News 14 Oct 2008, 10:38
Windows Mobile on iPhone a cruel joke?

They did it all for the lolz

Proof that PR companies are starting to understand which techie buttons to push comes in the form of a video of Windows Mobile apparently running on an Apple iPhone, despite the insanity of such a proposition. The video is supposedly shot at the "myPhone 2008" show in Las Vegas, and while the city plays host to an awful lot of …

Mobile 14 Oct 2008, 10:43
Sony preps PSP firmware update

No cables required

Sony has confirmed that PSP users will soon be able to access the PlayStation Store directly from the console, thanks to an impending firmware update. Version 5.00 adds a PlayStation Network icon onto the XMB interface, which will allows gamers to perform all sorts of tasks, such as signing up for the PlayStation Network and …

Phones 14 Oct 2008, 11:02
Ultra-mobile devices: Atom to beat ARM... just, says analyst

Intel will not own SCC, UMPC, MID biz

Can ARM mount a serious challenge for Intel's Atom processor family? Market watcher ABI Research thinks so - it has forecast that almost half of all UMPCs, SCCs and MIDs will be ARM-based come 2013. It also reckons that for every Windows device that's sold, two more Linux machines will be snapped up, though ABI admitted that …

Hardware 14 Oct 2008, 11:03
Mozilla bets big with new R&D group

Ajaxers Almaer and Galbraith get involved

Mozilla Labs has huddled together a new group of wonks to research and develop tools for the “open web”. Dubbed Developer Tools Lab, Mozilla hopes the assemblage of developers – to be led by fresh signings to the cause Dion Almaer and Ben Galbraith – will big up open standards and make the interweb a better place for ordinary …

Developer 14 Oct 2008, 11:06
Space tourist docks with ISS

$17m, 10-day jaunt for Richard Garriott

Space tourist Richard Garriott is about to begin his 10-day stay aboard the International Space Station (ISS) following a successful docking this morning of the Soyuz TMA-13 spacecraft (see pic) which launched on Sunday from Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. Computer games designer Garriott, 47, paid Space Adventures around $ …

Science 14 Oct 2008, 11:10
Canon PowerShot SX110 IS

Review All the zoom you could ever need

Canon seems to release a new Digital Ixus camera every few months or so, but it has been more restrained when it comes to its PowerShot range. Take the PowerShot SX110 IS. It’s the successor to the PowerShot SX100 IS, which was launched back in autumn 2007. As the name suggests, the SX110 is more an evolutionary camera than a …

Hardware 14 Oct 2008, 11:30
Black widows: Coming soon to a kitchen sink near you

Arachnid invasion threatens UK

Arachnophobes look away now: The UK is becoming an attractive home for "exotic" spider species which, due to our increasingly benign climate, have decided to put down permanent roots in this Sceptred Isle. According to the BBC, the invasion forces arrive in food and plant imports and no longer have to suffer cold snaps which …

Science 14 Oct 2008, 11:46
Google in secret talks to stop Yahoo! probe

Tries to fend off DoJ anti-trust action

Google is holding secret negotiations with the US Department of Justice to head off a full investigation into its ad-sharing deal with Yahoo!. Big advertisers are worried the tie-up between the internet's two largest advertisers will mean higher prices and a restricted market, because there will be less competition. Execs …

Financial News 14 Oct 2008, 11:55
Supersonic bizjets could have windowless flight decks

'Glass cockpit' next step - no actual glass

Executive jet manufacturers, hoping to make some big money developing small supersonic bizcraft in the post-Concorde era, are seemingly undaunted by the economic climate. With the help of NASA, they are also working on some nifty tech fixes to the serious problems faced by supersonic civil aviation. Strangely perhaps, one of …

Science 14 Oct 2008, 12:01
Gartner cuts 2009 IT spending forecast

Hardware takes biggest hit as economy nosedives

IT analyst house Gartner Inc has slashed its global tech spending forecast for next year to growth of just 2.3 per cent. The research outfit was forced to significantly downgrade its previous 5.8 per cent growth prediction for 2009 because of the financial storm currently thundering across the world’s economy markets. IT …

The Channel 14 Oct 2008, 12:14
DarkMarket carder forum revealed as FBI sting

Cybercrooks bamboozled

Leaked documents have confirmed that carder forum DarkMarket was actually an FBI sting operation. For the last two years until its shutdown earlier this month DarkMarket.ws posed as a forum where identity thieves, credit card fraudsters, crackers and other ne'er do wells could hang out and exchange tips as well as trading …

Security 14 Oct 2008, 12:16
Brussels bemoans low take-up of electronic cash

It's as if the people don't trust the financial system

The European Commission has launched a new legal framework to boost the use of "electronic money" within the EU, even as we all realise we had even less real money than we thought. The Eurocrats have admitted that earlier utopian predictions that we’d all be loading cash on our mobile phones, travel cards or internet accounts …

Government 14 Oct 2008, 12:28
Storm botnet blows itself out

But will the zombie network rise again?

Security watchers Marshal claim the infamous Storm botnet is no more, after waning spam emails finally dried up altogether last month. Other security researchers have noted a similar decline, but warn that while the botnet is currently inactive it may yet return, possibly in a more potent form. Storm front The malware used …

Security 14 Oct 2008, 14:19
CPS to consider private prosecution over stealth Phorm trials

Opponents call for public interest trial

The Crown Prosecution Service will examine evidence that BT and Phorm's stealth advertising targeting trials broke wiretapping laws, despite a recent police refusal to pass the case to prosecutors. The office of the Director of Public Prosecutions told campaigner Alex Hanff that a private prosecution under section one of the …

Broadband 14 Oct 2008, 14:26
HP warns of Nvidia problems

38 Slimline models buggered

HP has offered free repairs for 38 models of its Pavillion Slimline range of desktop machines, which are having problems with Nvidia graphics units. Last week, Apple admitted similar problems with MacBook Pros and offered free repairs to affected customers. HP said on its support site that the problem was "attributable to the …

Hardware 14 Oct 2008, 14:47
Bloke knocked up kebabs close to corpse couch

Wolverhampton shop owner quickly out of the fast food business

A Wolverhampton fast food shop owner is out of the kebab business after he was busted preparing the traditional English dish while a corpse lay on a nearby sofa. Environmental health officers had been keeping an eye on Jaswinder Singh, 45, and his Pappu Sweet Centre since October 2007, the BBC explains. On 27 August, a police …

Bootnotes 14 Oct 2008, 14:49
Carphone puts £60m tag on Best Buy Europe project

Trading update says well placed to ride out downturn

Carphone Warehouse has lifted the lid on how much its cooperative deal with Best Buy is going to cost, along with a trading report on how well the year is going for it so far. CEO Charles Dunstone reckons everything's peachy this year, with subscribed mobile connections up 21 per cent and two million broadband customers now …

Mobile 14 Oct 2008, 14:56
Wikipedia plumbs the filthy depths of plumbing

NSFW 'A sexual act involving a man and a female...'

It always cheers us up when some wag gets right in there down at Wikipedia and sabotages the world's leading provider of balanced, objective and unfiddled info. It's thanks very much then to Mick McCarthy who's just spotted an nice addition to the encyclopedia's entry on plumbing: In case you've left your specs at home, the …

Bootnotes 14 Oct 2008, 15:10
Compressed-air car to go commercial next year?

~~'Leccy~~ Air Tech Taking the psssssss

One car manufacturer is readying the launch of a product which runs on nothing more than hot air. (The jokes just write themselves, don't they?) MDI's Air Pod: runs on air Motor Development International’s Air Pod, made from a mixture of fibreglass and polyurethane foam, is powered by compressed air. Essentially, air is …

Science 14 Oct 2008, 15:41
Microsoft seeds second comms server release

Get ready to party like it's 2007

Microsoft is working on an update to its unified comms software, uninspiringly dubbed Office Communications Server 2007 R2. The upcoming release is currently in private beta, and customers won’t be able to part with their hard-earned, credit-crunched cash for the software until February 2009 – if Microsoft RTMs on time, that …

Data Networking 14 Oct 2008, 15:52
Koreans create dancing droid

Who says white bots can't dance?

Korean boffins have created a robot that can, they claim, can dance. 'Your plastic pal who's fun to be with' here at last, we wonder. Mahru: play that funky music, white-bot Image courtest Daily Chosun The mechanical man's called Mahru, and it can wave its arms around while trundling around on two legs. Apparently, it does …

Hardware 14 Oct 2008, 16:28
Apple's ImageKit exposed

Mac Secrets Inside view

When Leopard arrived, a number of significant new technologies came with it, including Objective-C 2.0, Core Animation, and ImageKit. ImageKit brings together a number of classes designed to make it easy to display and edit images, view slideshows, take pictures using an attached or built-in camera, and more besides. In fact, …

Developer 14 Oct 2008, 17:01
Controversial ad serving firm Adzilla pulls out of the US

'We have stepped out for a little...'

Controversial behavioural advertising firm Adzilla has reportedly quit the US market. The move follows the resignation of chief exec Toby Gabriner. Gabriner told the New York Times that a stronger than expected backlash against the privacy implications of its Phorm-like technology derailed the firm's business plans. "It’s not …

Broadband 14 Oct 2008, 17:07
Sun, Novell, and Cray - Time to go private?

When The Meltdown is good news

For the most part, the downturn on the global stock markets is bad news for IT vendors and the institutional investors and individuals that invest in them. But for some, it might be good news. Even with the rally yesterday on Wall Street, which ricocheted around the world to other markets, there is still a chance for some …

Financial News 14 Oct 2008, 17:44
Apple takes wraps off rumour-matching MacBook Pros

Mill churns, Apple delivers

Apple today unveiled what CEO Steve Jobs claimed were "exciting" new notebooks, though we're not sure anyone who's followed the rumours will be quite so enthusiastic: they'll have heard it all before. Yes, the new MacBooks are made from bricks of aluminium, the better to make the machines not only thinner - 0.95in - but also …

Hardware 14 Oct 2008, 17:45
Apple MacBook Air stays skinny, gains beefier specs

Port array still pathetic

Apple's MacBook Air remains as skinny as ever following today's laptop launch, but buyers now get much better graphics, a faster processor and more storage space. The original Air's HDD was its key weakness, so the 80GB parallel ATA drive's gone, replaced by a bigger, faster, 120GB SATA unit. The SSD Air is now offers 128GB of …

Hardware 14 Oct 2008, 17:57
Apple revamps MacBook as 13in MacBook Pro

Same design, smaller case, shorter name

Apple today unveiled a new-look MacBook that ditches the familiar white and black plastic styling and becomes just a small-screen MacBook Pro. The 13.3in MacBook has the same look and basic specs as the 15.4in MacBook Pro, also announced today. That means an aluminium body, LED-backlit display set under a glossy black bezel …

Hardware 14 Oct 2008, 18:24
Microsoft hits DHL with $2m lost Xbox action

Crash 'N' Burn

Microsoft is suing courier DHL for $2m after more than 21,000 Xboxes were damaged and looted during a train derailment last year. The company has lodged the action (PDF) claiming breach of contact over the accident, near Duke, Texas, in October 2007, and for DHL allegedly refusing to provide any compensation. The incident saw …

Games 14 Oct 2008, 18:35
Citrix pushes portable VMs with 'Kensho' launch

One app, three hypervisors

Citrix Systems today is releasing a technical preview of its open-source toolkit that lets virtualized applications run across three major hypervisor platforms. Dubbed "Project Kensho," the kit uses the the fledgling Open Virtual Format (OVF) for making pre-configured virtual applications that are deployable on Citrix …

Virtualization 14 Oct 2008, 18:51
Airport baggage screener charged with stealing passengers' stuff

Low morals, high eBay rating

A baggage screener for the US Transportation Security Administration has confessed to brazenly stealing a trove of electronics gear from the luggage of passengers he was sworn to protect, federal prosecutors said. Pythias Brown, 48, of Maplewood, New Jersey, regularly sold the high-priced video cameras, laptop computers, and …

Security 14 Oct 2008, 19:01
Intel earnings up in Q3, uncertainty clouds Q4

Pleasure spiked with pain, Atom is an aeroplane

In uncertain economic times, techies look to big names like Intel as financial bellwethers for the industry. So it's welcome news that Intel's earnings were up during the third quarter 2008. The chip maker's outlook for Q4, however, is somewhat of a craps shoot. Chipzilla's net income for Q3 was $2bn, up from $1.8bn in the …

Financial News 14 Oct 2008, 22:53
Intel disputes EU's probing procedure

Second one's always a doozy

Intel wants a temporary time-out from its latest scrap with the European Commission to debate the way the EU is proceeding with the latest round of anti-trust charges. The chip maker said it has filed an appeal with the Court of First Instance related to a "substantive procedural dispute" with the Directorate General for …

The Channel 14 Oct 2008, 22:56
Clouds float Dell bottom line

Hyperscale saves x64 biz

It's easy to be snarky about the "cloud computing" catch phrase server makers are tossing around as they peddle their wares. It's as annoying as it is inexact. Nonetheless, there's some money to be made from companies facing complex server scalability issues. In the spring of 2006, Dell quietly set up a free-standing business …

Servers 14 Oct 2008, 23:16
Feds hamstring world's largest spam gang

FTC targets Texas-Kiwi connection

US regulators have struck a body blow at two men accused of masterminding the world's largest spam enterprise by obtaining a court order that shuts down some half-dozen companies they operated and freezing assets earned in the operation. Lance Atkinson, a New Zealand citizen living in Australia, and Jody Smith, a businessman …

Security 14 Oct 2008, 23:24