4th February 2009 Archive

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Cybersecurity contractor warns of virus on own network

When this server's a-rockin'...

SRA International, a government contractor that provides cybersecurity and privacy services, has warned its employees their personal information may have been stolen after hackers planted a virus on its computer network. The malware was installed on the same network that stored employees' personal data including names, …

Security 4 Feb 00:52
European Parliament wants criminalization of online 'grooming'

Hosting dodgy chatrooms too

The European Parliament has asked the EU to make online "grooming" a criminal offense. Today, as part of a report adopted in Strasbourg by a vote of 591-2 in favor (with 6 abstentions), MEPs called for the criminalization of "all types of sexual abuse of children," including online grooming. Grooming refers to adults …

Government 4 Feb 01:15
Google on trial over Italian 'defamation' vid

Execs face jail time for Turin teenagers' taunt

The Privacy Trial of the Century is already waving jail time at three current Google execs and its former chief financial officer. And now there's an added complaint against the company itself. In September 2006, someone posted a three-minute cell-phone video to Google's Italian website in which four Turin teenagers make fun …

Law 4 Feb 01:26
'Infinitesimal magnetic tornadoes' set to ravage computing

Calling it qits

Treasure this fine example of scientific press release bilge: "At the human scale, the tightly wrapped spinning columns of air in a tornado contain terrifying destructive power that ravages communities. At the nanoscale, however, closely coiled magnetic vortices hold the promise of a new generation of computers." These vortices …

Storage 4 Feb 01:38
Microsoft SKUs Windows 7 clarity

Ultimate fixation

Microsoft has announced how it will package Windows Vista's successor, Windows 7. And as ever, Microsoft has put segmentation ahead of clarity. The one bright spot in Microsoft's Windows 7 news is that - contrary to some reports - it won't add a brand new edition solely for netbooks. Although even this is not that straight …

Channel Register 4 Feb 02:10
Aerielle i2i Stream 2.4GHz music streamer set

Review Wireless music streaming for dummies

While policemen may not be getting younger and British summers may not be getting colder one thing that most certainly is true is that streaming music wirelessly is getting a lot easier and a lot cheaper. California based i2i's pitch for its new Stream wireless music transceiver is straightforward: you can use it to easily send …

Reg Hardware 4 Feb 09:02
Panasonic promises slimmer, greener plasmas for 09

Less power hungry and with a thinner body

Lean and green is the way forward, at least according to Panasonic’s plasma TV division, which has announced plans to launch slimmer and more eco-friendly plasmas throughout 2009. The firm has claimed that its slimmer sets, which will reach the UK this summer, will be a quarter of the thickness of its previous plasma models …

Reg Hardware 4 Feb 09:55
US airforce to get ground refuelling robot

'Greetings, plane.' 'Greetings, fuel unit.'

The US Air Force may demonstrate a small ground robot capable of refuelling aeroplanes unassisted next year, according to reports. Flight International says that the US Air Force Research Laboratory Materials and Manufacturing Directorate is developing the robot. Initially it will refuel the much-maligned F-35 Joint Strike …

Government 4 Feb 10:22
Tazzari specs up UK-friendly electric runabout

'Leccy Tech Heir to original Mini concept to get right-hand drive

The Tazzari Zero popped up our radar late last year, but as details were few and far between we let it be. Now, however, Tazzari has a shiny new web site - complete with a Car Configurator - so we dropped them a line to see what the deal was. Tazzari's Zero: Firstly, there will be a right-hand drive model for sale in the UK …

Reg Hardware 4 Feb 10:23
Parliament probes privacy law

Could give it legislative 'nudge'

Parliament will investigate privacy law in the UK and may give the law a 'nudge', Justice Minister Jack Straw has said. A select committee of MPs will look into how the law has developed and how it is being implemented by courts, he said. Historically, the UK has not had a law of privacy, but one has emerged in recent years …

Law 4 Feb 10:26
Bluetooth message saves scousers' livers

Mobile connectivity enrolled in battle against antisocial behaviour

Hundreds of scousers downloaded an application to calculate how many units of alcohol they had drunk on New Year's eve, from Bluetooth servers supplied by Liverpool trading standards and Merseyside Police. Unlike previous campaigns, which required those carousing to have Bluetooth devices enabled and receptive, the Liverpool …

Mobile 4 Feb 10:35
Kids' sites 'must register moderators'

New checks on staff

Organisations with interactive websites likely to be used mainly by children must ensure that staff moderating the sites are not barred from working with children from October. It will be a criminal offence for an organisation to knowingly employ a barred person for a regulated role, such as moderating children's sites. The …

Law 4 Feb 10:52
MySpace fingers 90,000 nonces

That's the ones it knows about

MySpace has admitted it has found, and removed, about 90,000 registered sex offenders on the social networking site in the last two years. The Attorney General of Connecticut Richard Blumenthal hit MySpace with a subpoena demanding the information. Blumenthal said the number of profiles refuted the final US Internet Safety …

Law 4 Feb 11:06
Competition regulator kyboshes Project Kangaroo

Updated Strewth

BBC Worldwide, ITV and Channel 4's web video on demand plans were sunk by competition regulators this morning, who said their proposed joint venture "Project Kangaroo" would have too much market power. In its final report on the proposal, the Competition Commission said Project Kangaroo would have control over too much of the …

Music and Media 4 Feb 11:10
Netbook demand surge to slow next year

Acer to become Nokia of netbooks, claims researcher

Acer will extend its lead over Asus this year, as World+Dog buys even more netbooks, causing demand to surge. So claims market watcher DisplayBank. It calculates that of the of the 14.65m netbooks that shipped globally in 2008, 5.45m were Acer machines while 4.85m were produced by Asus, who's original Eee PC arguably set the …

Reg Hardware 4 Feb 11:23
Garmin and Asus partner for satnav phone series

Entire range of GPS-centric handsets en route

Garmin and Asus have officially joined forces to create an entire series of co-branded “location-centric” - that’s GPS to you and me - mobile phones. Garmin's Nüvifone: Asus and Garmin will develop several more in 2009 The two companies have already worked together to create the Nüvifone - announced back in 2008 - but …

Reg Hardware 4 Feb 11:26
Google Earthlings fly to Mars

Now enjoying extraterrestrial extras

Google earlier this week annnounced the release of Google Earth 5 - now with added bells and whistles including a detailed look at Mars: Google has availed itself of NASA mapping and imagery to create what the latter calls a "rich, immersive 3D view" of the Red Planet, packed with detail such as the five-year trek of its …

Bootnotes 4 Feb 11:36
T-Mobile to release more G phones this year

G1 follow-up to launch in 'coming weeks and months'

Rumours of a successor to the G1 Android-based phone have been doing the rounds for months. But now a T-Mobile executive’s let slip that it will launch more G-series handsets. During an interview with website Fierce Wireless, Neville Ray - senior VP of engineering and operations at T-Mobile USA – said: “We will be launching …

Reg Hardware 4 Feb 11:38
Firefox 3.0.6 fixes yet another JavaScript bug

Coffee bean counters

Mozilla has released an update to Firefox 3.0 that fixes half a dozen serious security glitches in the web browser. The group’s developers, who have been struggling to get the next version of Firefox 3.1 out the door due to problems mainly associated with Mozilla’s new TraceMonkey JavaScript engine, labelled six bug fixes in …

Applications 4 Feb 11:39
UK data breach costs swell

Updated PGP-sponsored estimates far exceed TJX reality

The cost of data breaches for UK firms has risen from an average of £47 per record in 2007 to £60 ($86) in 2008, according to a new survey. But figures from a Ponemon Institute study, sponsored by PGP, are orders of magnitude higher than losses booked following the infamous TJX security breach, raising questions over how much …

IT Director 4 Feb 11:48
Sage struggles in subdued market

Company remains upbeat despite rising debt

Software specialist for small and medium businesses Sage said the weak pound had helped offset a subdued market for its products. For the three months ended 31 December 2008 trading was in line with expectations. Sage chief executive Paul Walker said: “We are pleased to report that, despite volatile conditions in many of our …

Channel Register 4 Feb 11:57
Born Again Delphi

Stob A word in CodeGear's shell-like

Mr Nick Hodges of CodeGear and Embarcadero and not Borland blogs amusingly about the obscure corners of Delphi syntax. Delphi Pascal apparently still implements a Jensen and Wirth era feature whereby [square brackets] can simulated by the sequences (. and .). In the olden days, MyArray[5] := 0; could look like this (assuming …

Verity Stob 4 Feb 12:15
Google will tell your mates where you are

If that's what you really want

Google's Maps for Mobile just went social, with the launch of Latitude; a service that automatically shares your location with selected friends who might want to know where you are. Enrolling in Latitude is just a matter of downloading the latest Mobile Maps, or the desktop gadget for those the non-road-warrior just wants to …

Mobile 4 Feb 12:19
EMC and Microsoft ignore elephant

Don't mention the VMware

EMC and Microsoft are buddying up closer with an invited audience of CIOs enjoying or enduring a Steve Ballmer and Joe Tucci love-in this week during which they extended an existing alliance for another three years. They do compete, notably with VMware versus Hyper-V; but EMC wants to sell its information infrastructure and …

Storage 4 Feb 12:40
Police pursue crime suspect by Wii avatar

Have you seen this Mii?

Look closely at the picture below. Have you seen this man Mii before? Because Japanese police suspect its owner was involved in a recent hit and run incident. This Mii could have been in a hit and run incident Cops in the Kanagawa area of Japan have begun sticking up pictures of the Nintendo Mii in the hope that a Wii- …

Reg Hardware 4 Feb 13:01
Nokia 6600 Fold clamshell phone

Review Style over substance?

What swings it for you? First-in-class features? Terrific usability? Value for money? Or is it pure design style? While some mobile makers have been cosying up to top fashion houses for the kiss of designer cachet, Nokia has been busy doing its own thing, and the 6600 Fold is its latest model to sashay that fine line between …

Reg Hardware 4 Feb 13:02
Samsung touchphone leaked online

Memoir revealed early

Specifications for and a promotional picture of an upcoming Samsung touchscreen smartphone have been leaked online. Samsung's Memoir: no 3G? Rumoured to be called the Memoir T929, the specifications come from a mole that spoke to website Unwired View. Although everything on the list seems about right, we were surprised to …

Reg Hardware 4 Feb 13:06
Two papers about the Hell Desk

Supporting Tech Support

Two papers from the Reg Library today about housing Tech Support teams and getting the best out of them. The Virtual Support Centre: delivering support anytime, anywhere So here’s the pitch, from an outfit called SupportIndustry.com (and sponsored by Citrix). Virtual Support Centres (VSC) are tech support centres and IT help …

IT Director 4 Feb 13:09
China, India to escape carbon hair shirt?

UN's climate veggie thinks so

The Nobel Prize winning chairman of the UN's climate change committee, Rajendra K Pachauri, has said the the world's largest developing economies will be exempt from international pressure to cut carbon dioxide emissions. Pachauri's role is to reflect on the state of the science, and create a range of scenarios for politicians …

Environment 4 Feb 13:41
SkyBox cracks open as Microsoft Mobile timetable leaks

All the integration you can eat

Some details of Microsoft's SkyBox service had started to emerge, along with a schedule for Windows Mobile 7 that precludes the online competitor to MobileMe waiting for the next full version of Windows Mobile. The next version of Windows Mobile won't be here until 2010, leaving a makeover of version 6 - to be known as 6.5 - …

Mobile 4 Feb 13:51
HP says weak pound won't force a price hike - yet

Lets Dell battle alone against sagging sterling

Hewlett-Packard has no plans to jack up its UK price list despite the pound’s weak performance against the US dollar, which has already forced Dell to hike its prices. We asked HP whether it would respond to Dell’s decision to up its EMEA prices by making a similar move. “It is HP company policy to not comment on competitor …

Channel Register 4 Feb 13:56
Primary schools hit by smut hack

Sleaze merchants infiltrate kids' web pages

UK primary school sites are being targeted by sleazy hackers in an attack that has reportedly resulted in hardcore porn appearing on web pages bearing school logos. Twenty schools' sites have fallen victim to the spoofed or defaced web page porn assault, the Times Educational Supplement reports. Many of the sites use Moodle, …

Security 4 Feb 14:56
Storage vendor bloggers - losing data or losing the plot?

Comment So does EMC's Center really lose data?

Store data in EMC Centera and lose it - that's the claim of NetApp blogger Val Bercovici, and he cites a Symantec support document entitled 'Archiving items in Enterprise Vault may result in an extremely rare data loss situation' to prove it. Bercovici, who works in the office of the CTO (Chief Technology Officer) at NetApp, …

Storage 4 Feb 14:57
Half Life 2 used for ~~firefight~~ fire drill

Boffins adapt shooter to teach safety

Learning how to flee your office, apartment block or university dorm if fire breaks out could be as simple as playing Half Life 2 or Doom 3, researchers from the University of Durham have found. Durham Uni boffins used Half Life 2 to recreate a fire in its computer science department Scientists there have created a virtual …

Reg Hardware 4 Feb 15:10
Twittering Dell coughs to Latitude E4300 delays

Blames 'components issue'

Dell is suffering serious shipping delays with some of its Latitude E4300 systems due to an unresolved component supply issue, The Register has learned. The company has been telling customers unfortunate enough to have ordered the laptop to wait up to three months for the product to be delivered. One customer, who wishes to …

Channel Register 4 Feb 15:42
MP wants Welsh text on ID cards

Ddim at cela, ddim at arswyda

Llanelli MP Nia Griffiths has called for the national identity card to include Welsh text. New technologies provide many ways to make services bilingual, said the Labour MP on 3 February 2009, and using Welsh on identity cards would send a clear message that the language has equal validity with English. A supporter of …

Government 4 Feb 16:02
iPhone Nano arriving in June?

Telco lets slip possible sucessor launch date

Some careless words - or carefully planned ones, depending on how you look at it – thought to have come from a United Arab Emirates telco executive may have uncovered the launch date for the iPhone 3G’s successor. When Mark Davis, Program Director for iPhone at Etisalat, announced on Monday that the iPhone 3G would launch in …

Reg Hardware 4 Feb 16:03
BT puts the 'free' back into 'freephone'

Free calls to 0800 numbers, even from mobiles

BT Mobile customers are to get free calls to 0800 numbers, just like fixed-line users, but in stark contrast to other operators' customers who are paying up to 25 pence a minute. From this morning there is no charge for BT Mobile customers calling freephone numbers, so they can spend hours calling support to find out what …

Telecoms 4 Feb 16:38
Citrix boosts seat count for XenDesktop

The other, and shipping, virtual desktop

How many virtual desktops can you support on a server using virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI) technology? Not enough for people to do it. But the new XenDesktop from Citrix Systems could change this. The idea of running desktop applications back on host machines controlled and supported by the IT department is not new. …

Servers 4 Feb 16:58
Geekerati brace for Unix timestamp milestone

Party like it's 1234567890

In an event that's sure to bring a burst of adrenalin to computer geeks everywhere, the official Unix calendar is about to pass a milestone: exactly 1234567890 seconds since the clock first started ticking. POSIX is the official a widely used time-keeping method for Unix and is measured in the number of seconds that have …

Odds and Sods 4 Feb 18:13
Windows 7 UAC flaw silently elevates malware access

Weak links in chain of trust

Researchers have uncovered yet another flaw in Microsoft's Windows 7 beta that could allow attackers to gain full administrative privileges by bypassing the operating system's UAC, or user access control. Researcher Rafael Rivera Jr. has released proof-of-concept code that demonstrates how unauthorized third-party software can …

Security 4 Feb 20:19
SAP goes modular with Business Suite 7 launch

Smaller bites easier to swallow

SAP launched Business Suite 7 on Wednesday, saying that it's chopping the software into smaller bites for the benefit of a toothless economy. The German software maker will punt its latest flagship business management software as individual pick-and-choose bundles, such as inventory functions or payroll. SAP pitches the …

Applications 4 Feb 20:26
Microsoft search bribery machine refuses to pay up

Updated eBayers meet NoPayPal

Microsoft's search bribery machine is on the fritz. Again. Last May, in a desperate bid to catch the uncatchable Google, Redmond began bribing people to use its third-rate search engine, Live Search. If you use Live Search ads to find and buy certain stuff, Microsoft will return a portion of the purchase price. They call it …

Applications 4 Feb 20:28
Sun christens once and future Supernovas

Arise, AT7480 and AT7880

Last week, Sun Microsystems confirmed it's on track to ship its "Supernova" servers based on its "Rock" UltraSparc-RK processors before the end of 2009. And now the company has coughed up a few extra details. A link on the OpenSolaris site gives the product names for two out of what could ultimately be three or maybe four …

Servers 4 Feb 20:39
Google's AOL stake walks the plank

A $726m loss? We'll take it

Google recently stomached a $726m write-down thanks to its stake in the increasingly-irrelevant America Online. And now it looks like the search giant wants out of its AOL investment entirely. Today, during his quarterly earnings call with reporters and analysts, Time Warner CEO John Martin said that Google recently asked if …

Financial News 4 Feb 22:28
GooSoft shapes super White Space database

TV technology bits battle

The prospect of billions of dollars in online advertising revenue? It makes strange bedfellows. Joining others lobbying to cram ads into the spaces between TV channels, Google and Microsoft are advising on a massive US database that will list nationally available TV frequencies. The world's largest software and search …

Wireless 4 Feb 22:48
Man robs convenience store with Klingon sword

Revenge is a dish best served with Slurpee and microwave burrito

Colorado Springs police are on the lookout for a man who attempted to rob two 7-Eleven convenience stores early Wednesday with a Klingon bat'leth sword. The first robbery was reported at about 2:00 AM after a man described as wearing a black mask, black jacket, and blue jeans entered the store brandishing the traditional …

Odds and Sods 4 Feb 23:07
IT questions Obama's IT stimulus

Don't Buy American

As Republicans in the US Senate take their sharp knives to President Obama's stimulus plan, the Computing Technology Industry Association (CompTIA) has some free advice for America's lawmakers. CompTIA is thrilled that IT is playing such a big role in the stimulus package, accounting for $37bn of the $825bn in the House …

Channel Register 4 Feb 23:34
Open sourcey bulletin board offline after hack attack

phpBB coughs up names, addresses, passwords

The website for one of the net's more popular bulletin board software packages has been taken offline following a security breach that gave an attacker full access to a database containing names, email, address, and hashed passwords for its entire user base. In a message posted Sunday, administrators of phpBB.com said the …

Security 4 Feb 23:50