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24th December 2008 Archive

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  • EA punts SecuROM-less games on Steam

    And in ('most of') Europe, too

    Electronic Arts is now offering Spore and several other 2008 titles without SecuROM, the shady embedded third-party digital rights management software largely responsible for making Spore the most pirated game of the year. But the DRM restriction relief won't come from boxed copies or even EA's own online distribution service …

    Applications 24 Dec 00:00

  • Global notebook sales finally beat desktops

    PCs are up, Macs are down

    Global sales of notebooks in the third quarter exceeded desktops for the first time in history, according to market watcher iSuppli. "History," in this case, is of course a rather short period of time, what with the dawn of the personal computer era generally considered to have begun with the release of the MITS Altair 8800 in …

    PCs & Chips 24 Dec 00:18

  • Microsoft staff cuts due next month?

    Justify-your-job treadmill rolling

    Microsoft is rumored to be preparing for redundancies, with staff expected to be cut on January 15. MiniMicrosoft, a blog dedicated to watching the company, has reported snippets of reports talking of internal reorganizations amid budget cuts and staff interviewing for their jobs in the server and tools business and in the …

    Financial News 24 Dec 00:57

  • Seven MPs go a Twittering

    I'm on the front bench...er, no I'm not

    Government ministers Tom Watson and David Lammy are among MPs who have signed up to a portal of parliamentarians' Twitter feeds Tweetminster was launched on 18 December 2008, with four MPs: Cabinet Office minister Watson, the Labour MP Andy Reed, Grant Shapps of the Conservative Party and Liberal Democrat Jo Swinson, who …

    Mobile 24 Dec 08:59

  • Cowon iAudio S9 PMP

    Review Step forward, first real iPod Touch beater

    Monopolies are never a good thing and, frankly, Apple's iPod Touch has had things its own way for rather too long. Yes, there are better MP3 players and better PMPs, but the former are all too small to realistically watch movies on while the latter are just too big to be easily slipped into a pocket. Direct competition, such …

    Reg Hardware 24 Dec 09:02

  • Mattress maker can no longer spring for SAP roll-out

    Made bed, doesn't want to sleep on it

    With the economy presently being the pits nearly everywhere you look, many folks are warily eying the IT sector for signs of disaster. Will IT spending take further hits in 2009? An announcement today from the US-based mattress maker Select Comfort could be a sign of tech spending on the chopping board – but it also could just …

    Software 24 Dec 09:29

  • Software copyright inspection powers used for first time

    Trading standards picks through firm's systems

    A forensic examination of the software used by a Welsh business has been conducted under powers recently granted to Trading Standards officers under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Software copyright activist body the Federation Against Software Theft (FAST) said that it was the first time that the new powers of inspection …

    Channel Register 24 Dec 10:13

  • Deutsche Telekom to share fibre with Vodafone

    German monopoly rules in Christmas rewrite

    Deutsche Telekom (DT), Germany's incumbent telco, has agreed to cooperate with at least one rival on next generation broadband investment, following political pressure from Brussels. The European Commission has argued for years that DT's plan not to allow competitors wholesale access to new internet infrastructure - a …

    Telecoms 24 Dec 10:23

  • Verity Stob's Big Fat Geek Yuletide Quiz of the Year Part 2

    A treat for Quizlings everywhere

    Note: Ms Stob claims to have sent in her only copy of Part 1 of her Quiz of the Year (The Questions) many weeks ago. However, nothing ever arrived here. But we do at least have the answers, so we thought we might as well make the best of a bad situation. 1. InstallShield Update Manager, which was yet again the winner of this …

    Verity Stob 24 Dec 11:02

  • Chinese walls come down for video calling

    Still no reason for video calling, though

    Chinese silicon providers Spreadtrum and Rahotech have announced a new chipset that brings video calling to handsets that straddle the TD-SCDMA/GSM divide. China has only just started deploying its 3G network, based on an internally developed technology called TD-SCDMA, the country having decided against paying royalties to …

    Mobile 24 Dec 11:25

  • OMTP opens up to new members

    Updated But some members are more equal than others?

    The Open Mobile Terminal Platform chose the day before Christmas Eve to announce five new members from the mobile industry, despite the fact that previously one had to be a network operator to hold "member" status. The new members are all involved in mobile development: Purple Labs, Nexperience, Huawei, Comverse and …

    Mobile 24 Dec 11:29

  • NASA inks commercial ISS cargo deals

    Going rate - $87,000 per kilo

    NASA has announced the award of two multibillion dollar contracts for commercial companies to lift cargo to the International Space Station (ISS) in the post-Shuttle era. Deals have been inked with former PayPal kingpin Elon Musk's SpaceX venture, and with Orbital Sciences Corporation of Virginia. That will be $133 million …

    Space 24 Dec 12:04

  • 2008: The year the little people walked the Earth

    A year in review, in miniature

    2008 will be remembered for many things - the credit crunch, a reshaping of the High St, the iBoob - but most of all for El Reg's innovative approach to illustrating the key stories of the day. So, pull a cracker, pour yourself a glass of port, and peer closely at our review of the year. It's the only macro-economy you need to …

    Bootnotes 24 Dec 12:04

  • Zavvi goes titsup

    The artist formerly known as Virgin Megastores

    Music, DVD and game retailer Zavvi UK called in administrators this morning, confirming itself as the latest high street name seriously threatened by the slide into recession. The firm called in Ernst and Young to run a refinancing bid two weeks ago, but today announced it had formally gone into administration. Zavvi was hit …

    Channel Register 24 Dec 12:14

  • Redmond security guru explains IE vuln miss

    The one that got away

    A Microsoft insider has posted an explanation for the firm's failure to spot a critical flaw in Internet Explorer that obliged the firm to publish an out-of-sequence patch earlier this month. Michael Howard, a principal security program manager with the software giant, explains that the flaw cropped up in a blind-spot …

    Developer 24 Dec 12:18

  • That’s cloud computing. But not as we know it, Jim

    Reg Reader Workshop Reg readers see emptier skies ahead

    Our thanks to the readers who recently took the poll which completed the Register's workshop on "cloud computing". Since the term is a bit of a marketing catch-all, we parsed it into software as a service, utility computing and online platform provision. We further broke down SaaS into generic, vertical and core applications. …

    Productivity 24 Dec 12:44

  • Crash survivor Twitters from burning plane (false)

    Geek micro-blogged from safety

    Having survived a plane crash the first thing most people might do is phone their loved ones, or run straight to the nearest bar for a stiff drink. Mike Wilson became a notable in social networking by deciding to Twitter instead after coming through unscathed from a brush with death. Wilson was a passenger of a Continental …

    Mobile 24 Dec 14:22

  • Tips from the top: cracking Christmas and New-Year books

    Experts and pundits weigh in

    Looking for that last-minute stocking filler? Expecting a book token of some kind during the next few days? Or do you just want to hide behind something impenetrable as the relatives descend for the Christmas holidays? What luck! The Reg has asked a bunch of experts spanning Java, .NET, security and agile what they’d been …

    Software 24 Dec 16:02

  • Data center budgets to stay course in 2009?

    Post-Meltdown rethink

    The global economy didn't start getting bad in September, but it did start getting worse. That said, if you believe a set of surveys done by AFCOM - an association of data center professionals that collectively represents over 4,400 data centers - failing banks and various bailouts have not made the situation much worse than it …

    IT Director 24 Dec 16:46

  • World Bank bans India outsourcer Satyam for 8 years

    No longer friends with 'improper benefits'

    The World Bank has barred India's Satyam Computer Services – the aid institution's largest software vendor and India's fourth-largest outsourcing company – from doing business with it for eight years. On Tuesday, World Bank confirmed earlier reports of the ban in a statement that said Satyam had provided "improper benefits" to …

    Financial News 24 Dec 19:07

  • Sony teases netbook fans with 'new mobile' Vaio promo

    PictureBook revival?

    Sony is now teasing Japanese punters about what could be a new, tiny Vaio notebook, having begun baiting New Zealanders earlier this week. Sony Japan's website now shows a statuesque young woman whip a long, thin package out of her handbag. The box slims down to an envelope and out slides an 'invite' for the forthcoming "New …

    Reg Hardware 24 Dec 20:47

  • Accused Scareware mongers held in contempt of court

    Fined $8,000 a day

    A federal judge has fined a Belize-based company $8,000 for each day it continues to flout his order to halt a major internet operation alleged to have duped more than 1 million computer users into buying bogus malware protection. US District Judge Richard D. Bennett wrote in a ruling late last week that Innovative Marketing …

    Security 24 Dec 20:48