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24th November 2008 Archive

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  • Vuzix iWear AV230 XL video glasses

    Review Give your iPod or games console specs appeal

    Today, we're looking at - literally - the Vuzix AV230 XL headset, a set of video specs that create a picture that's the equivalent of a 44in screen 2.7m away. Yet the goggles are small and light enough they'll slip into your pocket, begging the question – is that a 44in telly in your pocket, or are you just pleased to see me? …

    Reg Hardware 24 Nov 2008, 09:02

  • IBM gets damages for Plasmon poaching

    Claims Steve Murphy broke holder agreement

    IBM is receiving undisclosed damages after it and Plasmon CEO Steve Murphy settled a dispute about Plasmon's apparent poaching of ex-Softek employees working for IBM. IBM bought Softek, a storage array data migration company headed by Steve Murphy, in January 2007. It arranged a holder agreement with Murphy, who left at that …

    Storage 24 Nov 2008, 09:29

  • VAT fraudster must repay £26m

    Gold plated carousel fraud

    A convicted VAT fraudster has been ordered to pay Her Majesty's Revenue and Customs £26m or serve an extra ten years in prison. Craig Johnson is already serving 12-and-a-half years for his part in a missing trader or carousel fraud which defrauded the Revenue of £138m. The confiscation order means Johnson must cough up £8m …

    Channel Register 24 Nov 2008, 09:31

  • IBM authorizes OpenSolaris on mainframes

    Step one comes after step two

    A month ago, Sine Nomine Associates, the mainframe consultancy that has done most of the porting work on the "Sirius" variant of Solaris Unix to IBM's mainframe platform, said that the code was available for people to try out on the OpenSolaris project site. And now IBM has come around to actually authorize the use of …

    Servers 24 Nov 2008, 09:46

  • Home Office to hand out more Tasers to police

    1 in 5 English/Welsh cops to be trained

    The Home Office has announced plans to issue Taser electric stunguns much more widely across the police services of England and Wales. Once plans are complete, approximately 20 per cent of officers south of the border will be authorised to carry the weapons. Home Office Minister Alan Campbell told the BBC this morning that the …

    Policing 24 Nov 2008, 10:05

  • DWP shaves £50m off major projects

    Costs drop 3.1%

    The Department for Work and Pensions has cut 3.1 per cent from the cost of nine of its largest IT programmes since March. The nine projects now have total estimated costs of £1.56bn, £50m less than the £1.61bn when the department last reported their budgets in May. However, that still leaves them 17.9 per cent above their …

    Government 24 Nov 2008, 10:14

  • Verizon sacks Obama snoopers

    What did the snoopers see, and when did they see it?

    Verizon Wireless has sacked the workers who had a cheeky look at president-elect Barack Obama's mobile phone records. The company originally suspended all the staff it suspected of having access to the records. The workers had access to call logs, times and phone numbers dialled but could not read text messages or listen to …

    Mobile 24 Nov 2008, 10:21

  • RM profits dip in 'resilient' market

    Education, education, education

    RM saw profit drop by nearly £3m for the year ended 30 September 2008, but the company said its results were in line with expectations for the year. The IT education supplier announced its prelims today in which it said pre-tax profit declined to £15.39m from £18.43m in 2007. It pulled in total revenue for the year of £289. …

    Channel Register 24 Nov 2008, 10:58

  • Welcome to the world of collaboration by stealth

    Infectious enthusiasm

    You know what it's like, some some bright spark from da management decides that "more effective collaboration is needed"? Whose door do they knock on first? Because it involves software, probably the IT department's. But is IT equipped for the task? And does it want the responsibility? Collaboration is a human process, in …

    Productivity 24 Nov 2008, 11:08

  • Samsung demos amazing folding phone

    Interior OLED screen folds in half

    A video has appeared online of what’s claimed to be an OLED display able to fold itself in half to become a mobile phone. Can't see the video? Download Flash Player from Adobe.com Initially, the phone - which it’s thought was recently seen on a Samsung stand at a display tech trade show in Japan - looks more like a …

    Reg Hardware 24 Nov 2008, 11:14

  • Palm purges staff, chops products

    But new OS still due next year

    Palm is laying off up to ten per cent of its staff and cutting some product offerings as the company faces increasing competition in the smartphone market. The ten per cent figure comes from a tip-off received by Valleywag, who were able to confirm that the company is indeed laying off staff and would be dropping some projects …

    Mobile 24 Nov 2008, 11:22

  • US couple sue over McNudes

    You can be the bun, and I can be the burger, girl

    A US woman who sent some nude snaps of herself to her hubby's mobe got a nasty shock when they turned up online - complete with her name, address and telephone number. According to the BBC, Phillip Sherman accidently left his phone at a McDonald's in Fayetteville, Arkansas, on 5 July. Staff helpfully promised to hold onto the …

    Bootnotes 24 Nov 2008, 11:32

  • Domain hijack fears over Gmail exploit

    Undead multi-part exploit walks again

    A Gmail exploit which might be abused to allow domain hijacking has reared its ugly head once more. The reported vulnerability revolves around the potential ability for hackers to create a malicious filter without needing to obtain the login credentials for a Gmail account. A flaw of this type hit web designer David Airey back …

    ID 24 Nov 2008, 11:36

  • Honda whips out fuel-cell sci-fi style sportster

    Only thing missing is a roving red light at the front

    Honda surprised everyone by whipping the dust cover off of its FC Sport Design Study fuel-cell concept car at the 'subdued' Los Angeles Motor Show last week. The three-seat FC Sport uses the same V Flow hydrogen fuel-cell found in the Honda FCX Clarity saloon, which went on limited sale in Southern California back in July – …

    Reg Hardware 24 Nov 2008, 11:38

  • Spin-down Copan spins itself down some

    Comment Battens down the hatches

    Persistent data storage supplier Copan is downsizing with staff layoffs, unpaid leave and staff paycuts. The startup company's board heeded the Sequoia Capital recession slide deck and prompted CEO Mark Ward to revise his plans for the company, whose main product is the Revolution MAID array with up to 75 per cent of its …

    Storage 24 Nov 2008, 11:48

  • ISS urinal/drinks-machine combo still buggy

    Piss off, sweat & tears only at space minibar

    Tanks aboard the International Space Station are filling up fast with urine, according to reports, as efforts to repair the orbital outpost's troublesome piss-recycling plant over the weekend failed. The current boss of the space station, US airforce colonel Michael Fincke, showed he wasn't afraid to get his hands dirty as he …

    Space 24 Nov 2008, 12:07

  • Small biz demands some relief from Darling

    Mandelson voices support for precision engineers

    Alistair Darling's much-leaked cut in VAT from 17.5 per cent to 15 per cent has been welcomed by the small business community - although there are worries about how it will be implemented. Darling is expected to unveil the plan this afternoon in a pre-budget statement, along with a raft of other measures to help individuals …

    Small Biz 24 Nov 2008, 12:18

  • Phoenix IT sucks up the recession

    Trend bucked

    Phoenix IT has managed good growth across its whole business in the last six months and although it's seen some impact from the economic crisis its order book is still looking good. Revenues are up 25.4 per cent to £127.8m and profit before tax is up 23.4 per cent to £11.5m. Net debt is down to £100.5m. The company increased …

    Channel Register 24 Nov 2008, 12:22

  • Nokia to become virtual network for Vertu

    New biz model for luxury phone wing

    Nokia will this month announce its intention to launch a network services division in 2009, it has been claimed. Japanese-language website Yomiuri Shimbun has reported that the Finnish phone giant will initially launch the service in Japan during February 2009. The country currently has three main network providers: NTT …

    Reg Hardware 24 Nov 2008, 12:33

  • US rolls out 'Vicinity RFID' to check IDs in moving vehicles

    From 20-30 feet. But your data is safe, honest...

    RFID technology that allows the remote identification of travellers in moving vehicles is being rolled out at US land border crossings this month. Crossing points with Canada at Blaine, and with Mexico at Nogales, came online last week, with Buffalo, Detroit and San Ysidro to follow, and a total of 39 planned. The system uses …

    Government 24 Nov 2008, 12:50

  • Will Microsoft spin its way into the cloud with Kumo?

    Windows Live Search jumps on fluffy bandwagon

    Microsoft has sown confusion across the blogosphere after it registered the domain name Kumo.com and redirected it to several Windows Live servers late last week. The firm has scored big ink over the weekend with bloggers speculating what the registration means. Many have concluded that Microsoft must be rebranding its little …

    Applications 24 Nov 2008, 12:54

  • Software update nobbles Sky+ boxes

    Updated Sky-

    A software update to Sky+ set-top boxes has left subscribers frozen out of the planner system, leaving them unable to record shows. On Tuesday morning posters at the Digitalspy forums noticed the OS version number had changed overnight. One subscriber who rang Sky customer services to complain was told to carry out this …

    Music and Media 24 Nov 2008, 12:56

  • Virtualization: A quick reality check

    Dynamic IT vs dynamic mess

    Last week we talked about what lies around the corner in virtualization land. Many indicators suggest a quick reality check is in order. Leave to one side for a moment the evangelists who predict the imminent death of the enterprise data centre and take a step back to survey the scene. If we set off down the road to …

    Infrastructure 24 Nov 2008, 13:00

  • Jerry Yang - Slugworth to Google's Willy Wonka

    Fail and You Yahoo! How did it come to this?

    Ever since Wonka's Chocolate Factory in Mountain View started serving queries, it has been a living monument to the failure of Sunnyvale's Slugworth - and just about everything that has gone wrong can be blamed on Jerry Yang. From the days of Jerry and David's Guide to the World Wide Web, Yang has been a constant pain in the …

    Software 24 Nov 2008, 13:02

  • Shuttle SG45H7 desktop PC barebones

    Review Fly me to the moon

    In appearance, the Shuttle SG45H7 is very similar to the SN68PTG6 that we reviewed earlier this year. But, under the skin, it could hardly be more different. The SN68PTG6 supports an AMD processor with an Nvidia chipset and graphics, while the new model is Intel all the way. The CPU socket is LGA775 for Core 2 Duo or Quad, or …

    Reg Hardware 24 Nov 2008, 13:02

  • Social workers sacked over Gary Glitter email

    Circulated 'inappropriate' image

    Fifteen social workers from South Lanarkshire Council have been given their marching orders for circulating an email featuring a picture of convicted paedophile Gary Glitter "carrying a bag with a child's head superimposed on it", Sky reports. The council was alerted to the email by a "disgusted" worker. Most of those sacked …

    IT Director 24 Nov 2008, 13:08

  • Parallels 4 users want their money back

    Updated Macs slowed to a crawl, users bent out of shape

    Parallels v4.0, billed as speeding Windows virtualisation on Macs, has been slated by some users for slowing their systems to a crawl instead. Some are demanding their money back. Parallels software enables Macs to run Windows concurrently with Mac OS X as an application alongside other Mac OS X applications. Files can be …

    Virtualization 24 Nov 2008, 13:35

  • When does a system become legacy?

    The hero to zero of IT systems

    Last time we were interested in understanding a bit more about the state of our IT systems, and whether we were being held back by what we could loosely term 'legacy'. Perhaps a trickier question to answer however, is how we decide whether a system is legacy or not. In the ideal world, when we built IT systems, we'd do so with …

    Systems 24 Nov 2008, 13:42

  • Booming cybercrime economy sucks in recruits

    Eastern European milk run

    The underground economy is booming even as the rest of the economy lurches towards recession, according to a new study by Symantec. The net security giant reports that the cybercrime economy has grown into an efficient, global marketplace to handle the trade in stolen goods and fraud-related services. It estimates the combined …

    Crime 24 Nov 2008, 13:47

  • Net pedants dismantle Quantum of Solace

    Bolivian number plate experts move in for the kill

    They did it to Casino Royale and now the net pedants have moved with lightning speed to finger the howlers which blight latest Bond outing Quantum of Solace. Yup, it's a bit of a continuity/fact bloodbath down at moviemistakes.com, where sharp-eyed critics have wasted no time in revealing, for example, that while "cars in …

    Entertainment 24 Nov 2008, 14:34

  • YouTube virals must play by US ad rules

    UK advertising rules may change to close loophole

    Advertising claims made in videos on YouTube are subject to the same standards of truth and accuracy as ads that appear in traditional media, according to a US advertising watchdog. Such ads can escape the UK regulator's remit, though. A group of advertising industry stakeholders is reviewing UK advertising rules. Its …

    Music and Media 24 Nov 2008, 14:48

  • Ballmer's bid to swerve 'Vista Capable' row comes unstuck

    Judge orders Microsoft boss to testify

    MS CEO Steve Ballmer has been ordered by a federal judge to testify in a class action lawsuit over the ongoing “Vista Capable” debacle. In September Ballmer tried to distance himself from the row by claiming he had no direct involvement in Microsoft’s marketing campaign for the operating system. But US District Judge Marsha …

    PCs & Chips 24 Nov 2008, 14:57

  • The Netbook Newbie's Guide to Linux

    Episode Three The Big Easy

    Considering that Linux netbooks are designed to present a simplified interface that can be used by complete newbies, it's amazing how buzzy hackers have become about them. Even people who wouldn't consider themselves hardcore techies love to tinker under these machines' hoods. Yes, from the hardended hacker's point of view, …

    Reg Hardware 24 Nov 2008, 15:17

  • Tech firms too slow to go green, says Greenpeace

    Latest Guide to Greener Electronics report

    Nintendo and Microsoft have once again failed to find favour with eco-watcher Greenpeace, both scoring the lowest marks in the NGO's latest Guide to Greener Electronics report. But they're not the only consumer electronics firms criticised for being too slow to get serious about climate change. The Guide – now on its tenth …

    Reg Hardware 24 Nov 2008, 15:24

  • Sun readies entry Sparc T2 kicker

    Cheaper networking for the server

    The details are a bit sketchy, but server maker Sun Microsystems is apparently getting ready to launch a rejiggered version of its Sparc T2 server platform that will implement an external network interface instead of using the on-chip (and very fast) networking in original Sparc T2 servers. Presumably, this engineering change …

    Servers 24 Nov 2008, 15:55

  • Darling's budget targets small business

    VAT down, booze, ciggies and petrol up

    Chancellor of the Exchequer Alistair Darling's pre-Budget report promised more help for small businesses in order to make sure the first recession of the new millennium "is slower and shallower". He expects the UK economy will shrink in 2009 somewhere between 0.75 per cent and 1.25 per cent. This time last year, Darling …

    Small Biz 24 Nov 2008, 16:42

  • Tories, retail ISVs decry Darling's VAT cut

    There's no pleasing some people

    George Osborne has described Alistair Darling's pre-budget report as the largest ever borrowing by a British government and leaving a tax bombshell timed to explode as the economy recovers. He proclaimed that "prudence is dead", and said PM Gordon Brown's claims to have abolished boom and bust were ludicrous. He said the …

    Small Biz 24 Nov 2008, 17:33

  • Indonesian HIV/AIDS patients face microchip tagging

    UN expresses 'grave concerns'

    A controversial bill requiring some HIV/AIDS patients to be implanted with microchips has gained support from lawmakers in Indonesia’s remote province of Papua. Associated Press reports that legislator John Manangsang welcomed the plan to insert small computer chips beneath the skin of what he described as “sexually aggressive …

    Government 24 Nov 2008, 17:53

  • Smut pop-up teacher case finally resolved with misdemeanor plea

    Campaigners vindicated but has justice been served?

    The long-running prosecution of substitute teacher Julie Amero on spyware smut-serving charges finally came to an end on Friday. Prosecutors agreed to drop four felony charges of endangering minors in exchange for a guilty plea to a lesser misdemeanor charge of disorderly conduct. The case stems from an incident in 2004 when …

    Crime 24 Nov 2008, 19:22

  • 'MS rep' claims he predicted NXE RRoD woes

    Told you so...

    A Microsoft customer service representative (CSR) predicted that the New Xbox Experience (NXE) would cause downloaders Red Ring of Death (RRoD) woes, it has been claimed. Earlier this month, blog Gaming Confidential published a quote from the unnamed CSR - said by the site to be a "trusted source" - who alleged: “Our …

    Reg Hardware 24 Nov 2008, 19:39

  • IBM readies cloud 'validation' program

    Stamps in the sky

    IBM wants to use the power of its stamp to lull businesses into cloud computing complacency. Big Blue is today launching a "Resilient Cloud Validation" program, where third-party cloud services undergo a certification gauntlet to use IBM's seal of approval in their marketing material. The business of leasing applications and …

    Servers 24 Nov 2008, 19:58

  • SCO ordered to pay Novell $2.5m in Unix royalties (again)

    Is the final judgment the final judgment?

    Once again, a federal judge has ruled that SCO owes Novell over $2.5m, insisting that the Utah shell-of-a-software-company was unjustly enriched by a 2003 licensing agreement with Sun Microsystems. On Thursday, as reported by Groklaw, judge Dale Kimball issued his final judgment (PDF warning) in the seemingly-endless legal …

    Servers 24 Nov 2008, 21:00

  • Security breach gives PayPal phish the personal touch

    Real names, thanks to Pamela

    Skype users who use a piece of software dubbed Pamela to manage their online phone accounts should be on the lookout for customized phishing attacks following revelations that one or more user databases containing names and email addresses have been breached. The attack, which took place last week, has already led to one …

    Security 24 Nov 2008, 21:36

  • NASA's lost toolbag filmed from Earth

    First grease gun I see tonight...

    The tool bag lost by NASA astronaut Heide Stefanyshyn-Piper during an ISS space walk has been filmed sailing over Earth by a veteran satellite observer over the weekend. SpaceWeather.com has a video recording of the backpack-sized bag's extended lesson in basic Newtonian physics made by Kevin Fetter from his backyard …

    Space 24 Nov 2008, 21:38

  • HP missionaries paddled over mainframe convert claims

    Big Blue in server stats spat

    Sometimes, the server business reminds me of driving in a car on a long trip with a lot of kids in the backseat. You just want to reach back and start slapping and tell everyone to shut up and stop talking nonsense. But fathers today are more civilized (at least outwardly) and don't do the things their fathers did (judge for …

    Servers 24 Nov 2008, 22:05

  • The Apple Armada - Still worthy of the Jolly Roger?

    Mac Report Card, Part Two Steve gets his F

    In August 1983, Steve Capps of Apple's original Macintosh Division famously hoisted a pirate flag over his team's Cupertino building to embody Steve Jobs's dictum that "It's better to be a pirate than join the navy." From that day forward, members of the Mac community have been a little feistier, a little more insular, a little …

    Hardware 24 Nov 2008, 23:00