21st October 2008 Archive

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Motorola's navel gazing Android delayed

'Social smart phone' due 2009

Motorola's first Android-based phone won't arrive in the US until the second quarter of next year. Europe will have to wait until the third quarter. To compensate, the company's going for a novelty twofer. What's more fatuously chic than yet another touch screen smartphone? Social networking, naturally. Motorola is spending $ …

Mobile 21 Oct 2008, 00:33
Wikia layoffs ground Jimbo's imaginary jet

Google not dead

Sad news for Jimbo Wales: He may not get that personal jet. Back in February, when Wikipedia's self-styled Spiritual Leader used his free online encyclopedia to seduce an overzealous eBay user, he confessed the true motivation behind his for-profit Wikia venture. A day before she perused his Willypedia, Wales told onetime Fox …

Financial News 21 Oct 2008, 00:34
Big names, big claims, on AJAX interop

AJAXWorld Scripted response?

A group pushing interoperability between competing AJAX tools and widgets has claimed a wave of certification, although results are far from clear. The OpenAjax Alliance Monday claimed the "successful interoperability of two key technologies with more than a dozen AJAX products". The technologies in question are an Alliance …

Developer 21 Oct 2008, 02:38
Sun unsheathes shiny new blades

Three for serving, one for storage

If a broad server product line guaranteed sales, then the server business of Sun Microsystems would be as large as that of IBM and Hewlett-Packard - and considerably larger than that of rival Dell. But breadth and depth of product, while necessary, is not sufficient for a healthy and growing server biz. You need a good sales …

Servers 21 Oct 2008, 04:02
PGP takes disk encryption management into the cloud

Lost laptops disabled remotely

PGP is aiming to exploit concern about the security implications of lost laptops with the launch via its resellers of a managed service for the administration of whole disk encryption. Partners ANI Direct, Aurora Enterprises in the US and Gradian Systems in the UK will be the first to offer a pay-as-you-go laptop security …

Channel Register 21 Oct 2008, 05:02
Amazon UK downplays Kindle Christmas

E-Book may come here next year

If you ask for an e-book this Christmas, don’t be disappointed if you get a paperback instead. Because it seems that Amazon is unlikely to launch its Kindle over here this year. The online retail giant’s UK managing director, Brian McBride, recently told trade publication The Bookseller that the e-book reader is more likely to …

Reg Hardware 21 Oct 2008, 06:02
Ofcom denies lifeboat spectrum squeeze

'We're not evil, honest'

UK regulator Ofcom has published an update to its consultation on spectrum management for the maritime and aeronautical sectors, explaining that it has no intention to charge lifeboats a quarter of a million quid to use radios. The clarification follows a deluge of bad publicity and vitriolic feedback received when various …

Mobile 21 Oct 2008, 07:02
Sun undershoots again

It's the Economy wot done it

Sun has been hit by the recession and thinks its quarterly earnings to end-September will be below estimates. Its goodwill may have to be written down too. Wall Street anticipated quarterly revenues of $3.143bn for Sun's first fiscal 2009 quarter. The company thinks it will report $2.95bn - $3.05bn. Wachovia analyst Aaron …

Servers 21 Oct 2008, 07:06
Paris ups sticks to London

'I'm much happier here', coos talented heiress

Here's some excellent news for El Reg's enormous Paris Hilton fanbase: The extravagantly talented heiress has declared she's decamping to London, having already spent a month here slumming it in a £7,500-a-month Hampstead pad while filming a show for MTV. Ms Hilton cooed to the Daily Mail: "I love it here, I am going to move …

Bootnotes 21 Oct 2008, 08:47
UK-IPO backs international prosecutors' network

Calls for anti-cyber crime training

The UK Intellectual Property Office (UK-IPO) has given its backing to an international group of prosecutors in a bid to help fight cross-border intellectual property related crime. The UK Intellectual Property Office (UK-IPO) has said that it will work with the Crown Prosecution Service to provide intellectual property (IP)- …

Law 21 Oct 2008, 08:50
Seagate picks LSI for flash controller

SSD System-on-Chip designs

Aspiring solid state drive (SSD) shipper Seagate has picked LSI to supply it with controller silicon for its SSDs. LSI supplies System-on-Chip (SoC) technology - custom silicon chips - to Seagate and others to control hard disk drives and their I/O (pictured below). They are placed inside the drive enclosure. They read signals …

Storage 21 Oct 2008, 09:08
BBC clarifies location of England

Ah, so that's where it is...

The cartographically-challenged among you who might have been wondering just where England is in relation to Wales can thank the BBC for setting the record straight right here. Yes indeed, if the inset map doesn't give you a clue as to what bit of the UK Wales occupies, the zoom reveals that it's to the west of England - …

Bootnotes 21 Oct 2008, 09:09
Nvidia intros GPU-boosting integrated chipsets

GeForce 9300 and 9400 debut

Nvidia has rolled out desktop versions of the laptop-friendly chipset Apple last week introduced in the new MacBook standard, Air and Pro notebooks. Enter the GeForce 9300 and 9400, integrated chipsets both - hence the GeForce brand rather than Nvidia's usual mobo logo, nForce. The two chipsets are designed for Intel-oriented …

Reg Hardware 21 Oct 2008, 09:16
Putin's dog gets satnav tracker collar

Russia big! Find dog without Yankee meddling

Russian prime minister Vladimir Putin has equipped his dog with a satnav tracker collar, according to reports. The device is linked to the Russian national nav-sat constellation, GLONASS, rather than the more commonly used American-run GPS. Deputy first prime minister Sergei Ivanov, who was tasked with obtaining the canine …

Bootnotes 21 Oct 2008, 09:34
Top prosecutor warns against growing state power

Urges caution on new surveillance powers

The country's most senior prosecutor has intervened in the gathering storm over the forthcoming Communications Data Bill by urging "legislative restraint" in coming months. Home Secretary Jacqui Smith announced last week that laws will be open to consultation in the new year. The security services are demanding massively …

Law 21 Oct 2008, 09:43
Microsoft raises anti-piracy posse

Don't talk like a pirate day

Microsoft is banging the drum for its anti-piracy message, claiming the trade in dodgy software is costing the US 32,000 jobs and billions of dollars in income. The scheme takes a snapshot of what Microsoft is doing every day to counter trade in illegal copies of its software around the world. These range from civil lawsuits …

Channel Register 21 Oct 2008, 09:48
i-Mate has no friends

You can't play at the Alternative Investment Market

i-Mate, the Windows Mobile handset manufacturer, will be delisted from the Alternative Investment Market as the share price sinks below a penny and the CEO takes back control of the company. The Financial Times reports that Jim Morrison, the colourful CEO who still owns more than three quarters of i-Mate, will take full …

Mobile 21 Oct 2008, 09:55
Fujitsu intros gesture-control laptop line

Multi-touch LifeBook P8020 debuts in US

Fujitsu has expanded its LifeBook laptop line with a touchy-feely model that sports a gesture-enabled touchpad. Fujitsu's P8020 LifeBook: The P8020’s touchpad lets you zoom in and out by moving two fingers closer or further apart. It also lets you perform a continuous scroll – something that Fujitsu’s called “ChiralMotion …

Reg Hardware 21 Oct 2008, 10:29
This SSD thing is really catching

SNW round-up Everyone but 3PAR has an SSD adoption strategy

SNW showed that there are three flash storage plays emerging: flash in the shelf, flash in the controller and flash in the server. Only 3PAR out of the top 12 or so storage vendors does not have a flash strategy. EMC started the flash storage ball rolling by announcing its Enterprise Flash Drives for Symmetrix in January this …

Storage 21 Oct 2008, 10:33
Link spammers set up shop on GMTV ~~sofa~~ website

Breakfast station briefly pwned after domain name snafu

The website of breakfast TV station GMTV was colonised by spammers over the weekend after its domain lapsed. Enough to make you choke on your cornflakes Instead of offering information on presenters or topics to be covered on the show the site became a showcase for links to dating and debt consolidation websites. GMTV - …

Enterprise Security 21 Oct 2008, 10:52
Asus P6T Deluxe Intel Core i7 motherboard

Preview Intel's X58 chipset makes an early appearance

Intel won’t be launching its new Core i7 'Nehalem' processors and X58 - aka - 'Tylersburg' - chipset until some time in November, so we’ve got to tread carefully with this preview of the Asus P6T Deluxe motherboard. Register Hardware has reported on both the processor and chipset - however, we can’t reveal processor performance …

Reg Hardware 21 Oct 2008, 11:02
HP pops out iPaq pair

Data Messenger and Voice Messenger

Hewlett Packard has set its sights on tech-obsessed and always-on businesspeople, with the launch of two additions to its iPaq smartphone series. HP's iPaq Voice Messenger: not touch-sensitive... The iPaq Voice Messenger (VM) and iPaq Data Messenger (DM) are both quad-band GSM/GPRS/Edge enabled and support HSDPA 3G …

Reg Hardware 21 Oct 2008, 11:08
Germans seduce Jacqui over remote hacking of disks

Trojanised Home Sec comes home to infect Parliament

Is the UK Government about to turn world class hacker? It's going to have to if the Germans succeed in getting their domestic programme of planting Trojans onto suspects computers adopted by the EU. Let’s rewind, because this one is a little tricky. A written statement before parliament last week revealed that our Jacqui Smith …

Government 21 Oct 2008, 11:19
Yahoo!, Google delay ad-sharing deal

While DoJ deliberates

Yahoo! and Google have agreed to delay the start of their ad-sharing deal, due to start 22 October, while it's being investigated by the Department of Justice. The DoJ was meant to have decided on the legality of the deal by Wednesday, so Google and Yahoo! had agreed not to start the ad-sharing scheme until prosecutors had …

Financial News 21 Oct 2008, 11:22
El Reg launches Bletchley fundraising t-shirt

Cash'n'Carrion Enigmatic apparel

We're delighted to announce today the launch of a Bletchley Park fundraising t-shirt, in response to reader demands that El Reg do something to lend its support to Station X: All profits from the sale of our Enigmatic apparel are split between the the Bletchley Park Trust and The National Museum of Computing. The latter is, …

Site News 21 Oct 2008, 11:29
Merrill Lynch confirms IT job cuts

How many coders can you get for $7bn?

Merrill Lynch CEO John Thain has confirmed that the search for $7bn in cost cutting was likely to mean thousands of job cuts at the firm following its takeover by Bank of America. Thain said the integration process had already begun after the $50bn bail-out. "Most jobs will go on the infrastructure side - IT, finance and …

Financial News 21 Oct 2008, 11:43
Mandelson puts reassuring arm around small firms

Hopes to give 'backbone of economy' government leg-up

Comeback kid Lord Peter Mandelson will tell MPs later today that he is attempting to speed up the release of £1bn of European Investment Bank money for small businesses. The government has also pledged to pay small businesses within 10 days by working closely with NHS trusts in England, local authorities and other public …

Small Biz 21 Oct 2008, 11:45
Prof: 'Taser-proof vests put cops in danger'

Tinfoil waistcoat could have someone's eye out

An Arizona inventor has been granted a patent on his Taser-proof fabric, which he intends to sell to police officers to protect them from villains toting electric stunguns. However, it has been argued that protective garments of this sort will in fact endanger policemen's lives. News of the patent for Greg Schultz's Thor …

Policing 21 Oct 2008, 11:55
Dawkins' atheist ad campaign hits fundraising target

All aboard the 'there's probably no God' bus

An atheist bid to counter religious advertising, backed by the evolutionary theorist and anti-religion firebrand Richard Dawkins, has hit its £11,000 fundraising target. The money will pay for the UK's first "atheist bus campaign", which see will the slogan "THERE'S PROBABLY NO GOD. NOW STOP WORRYING AND ENJOY YOUR LIFE" …

Biology 21 Oct 2008, 12:00
Trainee teachers score F all in maths tests

LibDems: Force unemployed city workers into the classroom

The LibDems have proposed that the government take advantage of mass layoffs in the City to boost the country’s increasingly innumerate teaching profession. The third party has uncovered government figures that show “increasing numbers of trainee teachers are having to resit basic maths tests” which are a pre-requisite for …

Government 21 Oct 2008, 12:57
Hands on with Sony's slimline Vaio TT

First Look Air beater? No question

Sony brought its skinny Vaio TT 11.in laptop to the UK today, and Register Hardware had the chance to try it out. There's no question, the TT is impressively thin and light - though it doesn't have that float-away, helium-filled feel that Toshiba's new Portégé R600 does. Or - perhaps thanks to its carbon-fibre construction - a …

Reg Hardware 21 Oct 2008, 13:03
London cabs to go 'lectric in 2009

'Leccy Tech I 'ad that Liffium Ion in the back once...

While denizens of New York and California will soon see the recently announced Mini E gliding down their streets, Londoners will have to make do with a 'leccy version of the city's famous black cab. The Financial Times has reported that Chinese car maker Geely - which owns 23 per cent of Manganese Bronze, the UK-based maker ( …

Reg Hardware 21 Oct 2008, 13:32
Thieves snatch PS2 pile while courier kips

D'oh!

US gamers could be in for a PlayStation 2 supply shortage, because thieves have stolen a truckload of the consoles in Florida. According to a report by website Sony Insider, police in the city have begun investigating how thieves managed to steal 28 pallettes of the console from a tractor-trailer while the driver was grabbing …

Reg Hardware 21 Oct 2008, 13:35
Retailer roots out humping-hound USB drive

Shagging dog story?

We never thought we’d get the opportunity to say this, but quirky online retailer Brando really does love to do it doggy style. Can't see the video? Download Flash Player from Adobe.com The firm has launched a USB Humping Dog Flash Drive featuring an animated plastic pup that pumps away while sucking up your data. The …

Reg Hardware 21 Oct 2008, 13:52
Judge tells Oracle and SAP to sort it out

Website snooping case

US Judge Joseph Spero has told Oracle to tell SAP exactly how much it is seeking in damages if it is proved that an SAP subsidiary wrongly downloaded material from Oracle's website. Oracle has accused SAP subsidiary, TomorrowNow, of illegally accessing Oracle copyright material. It has previously said it wanted at least $1bn …

Law 21 Oct 2008, 14:09
A Blu-ray Christmas? Don't bank on it

Credit crunch to hurt HD format's sales

There’s little point in dreaming of a Blu Christmas this year, because the credit crunch looks set to sap consumer spending on the format, one market analyst fears. In a report by the San Francisco Chronicle, Russ Crupnick, senior industry analyst at market watcher NPD, said that sales of premium-priced electronics, including …

Reg Hardware 21 Oct 2008, 15:02
TapRoot gives up on Walking Hotspot subs

Tries flat-rate temptation

TapRoot, creator of the Walking Hotspot, has given up trying to take subscriptions or do deals with network operators in favour of simply charging punters $25 for the product. Walking Hotspot turns a Symbian or Windows Mobile handset into a Wi-Fi access point, allowing a Wi-Fi-equipped laptop to access the internet over the …

Wireless 21 Oct 2008, 15:03
US Navy robot kill-choppers to drop auto-snort podules

Suspect sailors' crack sniffed out by droids

The US Navy has awarded funds to develop a self-contained remote electronic sniffer unit which could be delivered to the holds of suspect vessels by a robot helicopter to detect "chemical, explosive, and illegal drug residues". Soon with droppable remote drug-sniffer bugs. VIASPACE Inc, which spins off technologies from …

Government 21 Oct 2008, 15:08
MS to ban freedom of speech?

Tech for changing rude words into Shakespeare

Microsoft has come over all PC - gedddit?!?!? - by filing a patent application for technology that’ll stop you from swearing online. In its “Automatic censorship of audio data for broadcast” patent application, the firm describes how a real-time or batch-mode automatic censor could be employed to filter out “undesired words or …

Reg Hardware 21 Oct 2008, 15:25
McAfee update classifies Vista component as a Trojan

Another fine mess

McAfee has fixed an update glitch that wrongly slapped a Trojan classification on components of Microsoft Vista. As a result of a misfiring update, published on Monday, the Windows Vista console IME executable was treated as a password-stealing Trojan. Depending on their setup, McAfee users applying would have typically found …

Enterprise Security 21 Oct 2008, 15:59
Google frees Android from code of secrecy

Closed open platform now open

When Google calls Android an open mobile platform, it's no longer stretching the truth. This morning, a day before the debut of the inaugural Android phone, the world's largest ad broker finally released the platform's source code to world+dog. "Today is a big day for Android, the Open Handset Alliance, and the open-source …

Mobile 21 Oct 2008, 17:13
Lala sells 'streaming rights' at 10c a song

Any takers?

If you thought you've heard of every digital music idea going, try this one on for size. Lala, the former CD-swapping site, is offering you the chance to "buy" the right to be streamed a song for life for 10 cents. For that, you'll never get a licence to an actual copy - physical, or digital. Lala calls it a "Websong". Like …

Music and Media 21 Oct 2008, 17:25
IBM chills mainframe New Coke

Sweeter formula runs Linux cheaper

IBM today is taking the wraps off a new line of entry-level mainframes, the System z10 Business Class server. The z10 BC is a cut-down version of the existing z10 Enterprise Class machine, which launched in March 2008 using Big Blue's quad-core z6 CISC mainframe processor. It has been a long time since most IT people have …

Servers 21 Oct 2008, 17:52
Global meltdown endangers terabytes

Could storage sales sag?

We consumers are cracking. We don't trust the banks. The banks aren't lending to businesses. The businesses are firing workers and buying less. So we consumers are spending less. It's a mess. The economy is in an almost certain recession and storage sales could head south. Forecasts of terabytes shipped have consistently shown …

Financial News 21 Oct 2008, 18:01
CommVault and McAfee team to fight gorilla

The 800-pound Symantec silverback

These days, David wouldn't stand a chance against Goliath. Slingshot-only attacks against an armoured giant carrying a big club will get you nowhere. Goliath, you see, has gone and bought Norton armour. So David has to go looking for a partner. This is why CommVault and McAfee are partnering to sell a backup/archive and …

Software 21 Oct 2008, 18:07
Bang&Olufsen slices 300 jobs

Exits mp3 player, phone biz

Following another quarterly loss, Danish luxury digi-goods maker Bang & Olufsen will cut 300 jobs and remove itself from both the mobile phone and mp3 player markets. "We will focus on further developing the core audio and video product portfolio which has made the company what it is today. We will, however, also focus on the …

Financial News 21 Oct 2008, 19:15
Adobe Flashes open credentials for RIA

AJAXWorld AIR on an iPhone

Adobe Systems' technology chief has made a play for open-source hearts and minds with Flash Player and AIR. Chief technology officer Kevin Lynch cited moves this year to make Flash Player more palatable to open source while pointing to the imminent release of AIR 1.5 and HTML 5 tags to run Flash video consistently in different …

Developer 21 Oct 2008, 19:27
Taliban extends mobile shutdown order

Militant gunmen still battery removal challenged

The Taliban has now ordered mobile operators to shutdown daytime access to their networks in the Afghan province of Ghazni. The hard-line Islamic militia says it's annoyed that wireless signals are being used to locate its insurgent gunmen. "We have informed mobile companies operating in Ghazni to turn off their signals during …

Telecoms 21 Oct 2008, 20:05
Skype (kinda, sorta) shields Mac kiddies from VoIP smut

Comment The missing 'sexy dirty b*tch' filter

When Alan Scully switched from a PC to a Mac earlier this year, he thought it would bolster his online security. For the most part, it has - with one notable exception. His Skype client, which he relies on for international calls, has churned out a demonstrable increase in obscene messages that he's powerless to stop. Skype for …

Security 21 Oct 2008, 20:14
Rackable stays horizontal with x64 servers

Now with more density

Rackable Systems might be a niche player in the server racket, but the company's server engineering has allowed it to stay in business since 1999 and still, in many ways, set the pace for density in the data center. Today, the company revved its 2U rack servers, dubbed the C2005. Unlike the commercial blade server and chassis …

Servers 21 Oct 2008, 20:39
Yahoo! axes! (at least)! 1,400! workers!

Profits plummet 64 per cent

Yahoo! profits plummeted 64 per cent in its latest fiscal quarter - yes, 64 per cent - and the company says it will jettison at least 10 per cent of its workforce by the end of the year. "As we saw the online ad market decline in the third quarter, I decided that Yahoo! needed to accelerate the process of becoming more …

Financial News 21 Oct 2008, 22:48
Jobs not dead as Jesus Phone outsells CrackBerry

Cult leader declares Apple third largest handset maker

Apple reported a stronger-than-expected 26 per cent rise in quarterly net profit as the gadget maker sold a record number of Macs, iPods, and iPhones and - for the first time - outsold Research in Motion's addictive CrackBerry. For the three months ending in late September, Apple sold a whopping 6.9 million iPhones and …

Financial News 21 Oct 2008, 23:44