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18th May 2009 Archive

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  • Credit Management meets computer automation

    A necessary balancing act. A risky business

    Shortly after Easter, a newly installed computer system sent out red letters to over 3,000 Derby City residents who had already paid their Council Tax. There were howls of outrage, and an obligatory computer error excuse from the Council. Matters were then compounded as angry residents tried contacting the Council to put the …

    Financial News 18 May 2009, 03:02

  • Hippus HandshoeMouse

    Review It's a saddle for your hand

    Using a mouse in the wrong way for long periods of time will gradually and unremittingly put strain on your forearm. If you are unlucky, the damage may be permanent, leaving you in constant pain. So while you chuckle away at this funny looking mouse, bear in mind that it might just prevent years of suffering and save your …

    Hardware 18 May 2009, 08:02

  • Intel rattles sabre over AMD licence deal

    Processor giants get chippy

    Intel is still making noises about its licensing deal with AMD, which it claims is invalidated by AMD's corporate restructuring. AMD has spun out its foundry business, with the help of cash from Abu Dhabi, into GLOBALFOUNDRIES. But Intel alleges this means its licensing agreement with Intel is null and void. Intel said back in …

    Hardware 18 May 2009, 08:51

  • 'Bolt removal issue' hits Hubble spacewalk

    Stubborn handrail? Break it off

    Astronaut Mike Massimino yesterday used some good, old-fashioned brute force to resolve a "bolt removal issue" during the fourth STS-125 mission spacewalk on the Hubble Space Telescope. Massimo and Mike Good (see pic) were tasked with replacing a low-voltage power supply board on the orbiting 'scope's Space Telescope Imaging …

    Science 18 May 2009, 09:03

  • DARPA in useful, easily-achievable project shocker

    System likely to actually work: Sackings expected

    Renowned Pentagon crazytech agency DARPA, which normally wouldn't touch a piece of low-hanging fruit with a bargepole, has announced a new plan which seems strangely practical and achievable. The idea is to develop a backup for satnav location systems using radio "signals of opportunity". DARPA refers to the plan as "Robust …

    Science 18 May 2009, 09:50

  • Please kill this cookie monster to save Europe's websites

    Opinion Crummy cookie cutting law really takes the biscuit

    Visit any website and there's a good chance that it will send a cookie to your computer. But unless that cookie is essential, its delivery could become illegal under a strange new plan that has, very quietly, won EU support. Cookies are small text files that websites send to visitors' computers. Websites struggle to recognise …

    Law 18 May 2009, 10:02

  • Twitterer cuffed for provoking 'financial panic'

    Possible jail time for Guatemalan twittero

    A Guatemalan who apparently threatened his country's financial stability by posting a provocative tweet regarding the Banrural bank faces up to three years in jail, Chile's El Mercurio reports. Jean Anléu Fernández last week said: "First concrete action, withdraw cash from Banrural, bring down this corrupt bank." Police …

    Government 18 May 2009, 10:16

  • Boffin builds better display from... a cuttlefish

    Ultra low-power reflective display

    Cuttlefish have inspired boffins from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) to develop a screen that uses less than one-hundredth the power of an LCD TV. The mollusc’s ability to change its skin colour extremely quickly prompted Edwin Thomas, an MIT professor, to create a prototype screen that displays images by …

    Hardware 18 May 2009, 10:33

  • ToysRus unleashes Devil's Whore on innocent kiddies

    Mephistophelean strumpet heads suggested kids' viewing

    We reckon that ToysRus had better have a quick word with its parter Lovefilm about the DVD rental outfit's recommended viewing algorithm: We're obliged to reader Jack Lear for bringing this outrage to our attention, and have of course made our dossier available to the relevant authorities. For the record, The Devil's Whore …

    Bootnotes 18 May 2009, 10:48

  • Beardie cuts Virgin Media stake

    Credit Suisse takes a shave

    Richard Branson has cut his stake in Virgin Media by more than a third. Virgin Group, Branson's investment vehicle which licences the Virgin brand to Virgin Media, now owns 6.5 per cent of the UK cable network, The Financial Times reports. It had owned 10.5 per cent. Virgin Group transferred the shares to Credit Suisse, after …

    Broadband 18 May 2009, 11:01

  • Green GT rolls out sexy e-supercar

    Leccy Tech LMPE2011 set for race and road debuts

    Hot on the heels of its recent leccy racing car announcement, Swiss car maker Green GT has unveiled designs for its next-generation Le Mans Prototype (LMP) racer that could also, potentially, become a road car. Green GT's LMPE2011: sexy and leccy Designed by a team of students from the International School of Design at …

    Science 18 May 2009, 11:08

  • Microsoft promises summer lovin' for test heads

    Radio Reg Loses to Apple this autumn

    A funny thing can happen to tech and business people on their holidays. Faced with the prospect of spending hours of free time with their families they find excuses to fire up the PC or get online, to make a head start on that project or to finally sort through their emails. Well, Microsoft lovers, you don't have to fake it …

    Microbite 18 May 2009, 11:14

  • Sony simplifies DSLR snapping

    Alpha trio unveiled, including 'world's lightest DSLR'

    Sony has launched three “easy-to-use” Alpha digital SLRs, including what it claimed is the world’s lightest DSLR with an integrated Advanced Photo System Type C image sensor and image stabilisation. Sony's a380: the trio's 14.2Mp flagship model Leading the threesome is the a380, which sports a 14.2Mp sensor and a 2.7in …

    Hardware 18 May 2009, 11:25

  • Facebook eliminates parts of Wales

    Welcome to Pontypridd, England

    Welsh users of Facebook have got themselves into a bit of a tizz since the social networking site decided it coudn't be arsed with Wales and shifted a large percentage of its population to England. According to the BBC, those whose home towns were previously listed as Aberystwyth, Bridgend, Cardiff, Pontypridd and Swansea - …

    Bootnotes 18 May 2009, 11:26

  • Canon LV-8300

    Review It is big, it is clever, it is portable

    Some portable projectors are intended for home cinema enthusiasts. Others are targetted at business users, trainers and travelling presenters. With the LV-8300, Canon could well be having a creditable crack at satisfying the needs of both types of buyer. Moving pictures: Canon's LV-8300 comes complete with its own shoulder …

    Hardware 18 May 2009, 11:52

  • Hunt for MPs' expenses leaker hots up

    Damaging data flogged around Fleet Street

    More details have emerged about how confidential information on MPs' expenses might have found its way into the hands of journalists. The information, which has led to a string of articles that exposed how elected representatives made a series of questionable claims, was purchased by the Daily Telegraph from a seller who …

    Government 18 May 2009, 11:54

  • The ROI on hosted solutions

    Three papers get onto the cloud

    How many companies can buy bandwidth as cheaply as Amazon, say, can sell it? Or source servers as cheaply as Yahoo!, or can build data centres in energy-cheap places, like Microsoft? Then again, how many companies would store mission critical data on Amazon's EC2, or sensitive data in Google Apps? C'mon guys, we're not …

    Applications 18 May 2009, 12:00

  • Red Hat throws business rules at IBM and Oracle

    Turns the JBoss advantage

    Red Hat's going up against business-rules giants IBM and Oracle with a management system that builds on its popular JBoss application server. The company is today expected to announce the JBoss Enterprise Business Rules Management System to separate code from business rules in a system. The idea is to let you build and …

    Developer 18 May 2009, 12:02

  • Office 2010 tech preview leaks onto interwebs

    Word up

    A technical preview version of Microsoft’s forthcoming Office 2010 has popped up on several BitTorrent sites, just days after the company released it to a select bunch of testers. The software was supposed to be dished out on an invite-only basis. However, both 32-bit and 64-bit versions of the Office 2010 Technical Preview …

    Applications 18 May 2009, 12:06

  • MSI cracks open 'Red Bull effect' laptop

    Boost button ups CPU performance, but won't give you wings

    Everyone needs a boost now and again. And so do laptops, at least according to MSI, which has launched a 17in gaming machine with a turbo boost button. The MSI GX723: its 2GHz CPU can be boosted by 16 per cent at the flick of a switch The GX723 is fitted with a 2GHz Intel Core 2 Duo T5800 processor, but MSI’s promised that …

    Hardware 18 May 2009, 12:17

  • Bates: Cops to defy courts over return of indecent material

    Who really defines 'public interest'?

    A police chief would rather face the prospect of jail than obey a court order requiring his force to return computer hard drives to their owner. At issue is the big question of who ultimately makes the law in the UK: the police or the courts. The story began in June last year when former computer forensics expert Jim Bates …

    Law 18 May 2009, 12:22

  • London cops extend virtual justice trial

    Trial of trial by video conferencing

    A pilot of virtual courts which use video conferencing technology to put suspects on trial without leaving the police stations is being extended. Fifteen London police stations will now be linked to Camberwell Green Magistrates Court by secure video communication and a secure document transfer system. The original trial ran …

    Law 18 May 2009, 12:25

  • Boeing to build prototype pulsed-microwave robomissile

    Fly-by sky fry

    Intriguing news from the worlds of electropulse circuitry-zapper bombs and microwave raygun blasters, as US megacorp Boeing announces that it will build a "high power microwave (HPM) airborne demonstrator". According to Boeing, the company's "Phantom Works" advanced projects facility will develop a special prototype aircraft …

    Science 18 May 2009, 12:32

  • Chinese screw sex theme park

    'Vulgar' Love Land demolished

    The good burghers of Chongqing will not now be able to enjoy the delights of China's first sex theme park, since the powers that be have demolished it before it even opened its legs for business. According to the BBC, "Love Land" would have wowed the crowds with "giant genitalia, naked bodies and an exhibition on the history …

    Bootnotes 18 May 2009, 12:37

  • Franco had one ball: Official

    Monorchic European dictators: Part II

    It's becoming increasingly evident that a prerequisite for establishing a European dictatorship is that the candidate surrender a testicle in the heat of battle. Following last year's revelation that Hitler lost a 'nad in 1916 during the Battle of the Somme, a historian has now claimed that Franco was similarly monorchic - the …

    Bootnotes 18 May 2009, 13:17

  • McAfee buys whitelisting firm Solidcore

    If you're not on the list, we're not going in

    Net security firm McAfee has bought whitelisting firm Solidcore for approximately $33m in cash, rising to $47m if sales targets are met. The deal was announced Friday, and is expected to close by the end of Q2 2009. It will allow MCafee to offer endpoint security technology to a broader range of embedded devices, including …

    Security 18 May 2009, 13:37

  • Nortel and BT ink enterprise deal

    Financial basketcases of the world unite

    Despite filing for protection from bankruptcy earlier this year, Canadian manufacturer Nortel today announced a four year deal to supply BT's enterprise customers with networking gear. Nortel's precarious financial position doesn't seem to bother BT Global Services convergence chief Lewis Lyell, who described the deal as "very …

    The Channel 18 May 2009, 13:40

  • Patent app points to Xbox 360 Wiimote

    The Newton project's controller?

    A Microsoft patent application for a "Magic Wand" has come to light, fuelling speculation that the firm’s 'Newton' videogame motion controller project’s still kicking. Not much to look at, but this could be Microsoft's answer to the Wiimote It’s been rumoured for some time now that Microsoft’s Xbox 360 division is working …

    Games 18 May 2009, 14:05

  • STEC wins Fujitsu for its SSDs

    A relationship for all ETERNUS

    Fujitsu has chosen STEC as its solid state drive supplier, leaving NetApp the only enterprise storage array supplier not dealing with the SSD vendor. The company will deploy STEC's ZEUS-IOPS drives in its ETERNUS storage arrays, replacing Fibre Channel hard drives. STEC said it had worked with Fujitsu to tailor a product …

    Storage 18 May 2009, 14:27

  • University emails 'blocked from Hotmail'

    And BT. And Comcast. And Yahoo!

    Thousands of students and university staff have been unable to contact Hotmail users because of an unidentified network fault. According to Oxford Brookes university on Friday, Microsoft was blocking email originating in its network and those of other universities "on what appears to be a random basis". UK universities connect …

    Data Networking 18 May 2009, 14:28

  • Proliferating mobile app stores polish their windows

    Qualcomm opens up, Microsoft shares, Nokia gears up

    Qualcomm is to support alternative platforms in its application store, Plaza Retail, while details of Microsoft's Marketplace emerge and Nokia's Ovi starts acting suspiciously. Qualcomm is to allow apps for competing platforms to be sold through its store in a move that acknowledges Brew's failure to conquer the world, while …

    Mobile 18 May 2009, 14:54

  • AMD to imprint 'Caspian' laptop CPU at Computex?

    We'd really like to see the Fusion-class 'Llano'

    AMD's 45nm die-shrink Turion X2 Ultra processor and the next major incarnation of the chip maker's Socket S1 interconnect will be demo'd at Computex early next month. So claims Chinese-language newspaper the Commercial Times, putting a date to the appearance of chippery that first saw light of day in AMD roadmaps that surfaced …

    Hardware 18 May 2009, 15:40

  • The Great Spotify Mystery

    Part One: Who's really running this show?

    The music business has set up a lemonade stand outside its house and it's giving away lemonade for free. Not surprisingly, people love the free lemonade, and the stall has drawn a large and enthusiastic crowd. The stand is called Spotify. The business justifies this because it's so easy for us to get their music for free …

    Media 18 May 2009, 15:46

  • Swivel-shed v polar stilt-scope in Big Bang boffinry clash

    Quest for the cosmic grav-wave afterglow 'gunsmoke'

    International brainboxes operating a fiendishly cunning probe contained in a small rotating shed on a pole situated in the arid high-altitude desert of Chile are in a race against rival boffins with a telescope on stilts at the South Pole to discover how the universe was born. The two crews of elite brains are looking to …

    Science 18 May 2009, 15:50

  • Software pirate convicted of DMCA offences

    Unwisely punts pirate codes to US Marine Corp

    A US man has been convicted of offences against the Digital Millennium Copyright Act over the sale of counterfeit Microsoft product activation keys. Adonis Gladney, 24, is reportedly the first person to be convicted under provisions in the law that ban the circumvention of security controls in software. Following his …

    The Channel 18 May 2009, 16:14

  • Taking a first bite out of Wolfram Alpha

    The knowledge engine that knows the answer is 42

    Is it the newest rival to Google, likely to knock Google off the top spot? No it isn’t. Does it provides a single answer to complex questions – unlike traditional search engines? Nope. Could it possibly be "a natural search engine"? Not quite. The newest game in town, if Twitter is anything to go by, is the Wolfram Alpha …

    Applications 18 May 2009, 16:28

  • Apple to look to software to differentiate multiple iPhone models

    Exclusive Execs talk about 'segmentation by software'

    Apple is considering launching multiple iPhone models each differentiated by software, rather than hardware capabilities, company executives have hinted. Yair Reiner, an analyst at Oppenheimer, recently met with several unnamed Apple executives who, he claimed, said: “[The] iPhone is still in its early days and could gain …

    Phones 18 May 2009, 17:10

  • Microsoft IIS6 bug exposes sensitive files sans password

    Server pilfering made easy

    Security experts are urging administrators using Microsoft's Internet Information Services version 6 to exercise extreme care following the discovery that the popular web server is vulnerable to a simple attack that exposes password-protected files and folders. The vulnerability resides in the part of IIS6 that processes …

    Security 18 May 2009, 17:42

  • Canonical hooks Ubuntu Landscape into Amazon EC2

    Pre-Koala cloud management

    Commercial Linux distributor Canonical has launched the third release of its Landscape systems management and monitoring service for the Ubuntu Linux distribution. And with Landscape 1.3, the tool can now reach out and manage Ubuntu images on Amazon's Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2) utility. Up until now, the Landscape tool, which …

    Applications 18 May 2009, 17:54

  • Craigslist boss wants apology for 'erotic services' attack

    Fully-clothed person not erotic

    Craigslist chief executive Jim Buckmaster is demanding an apology from South Carolina attorney general Henry McMaster for continuing to threaten legal action against the classifieds website over prostitution listings. Last week, Buckmaster bowed to demands from McMaster and several other US law officials to shutter Craigslist' …

    Media 18 May 2009, 18:10

  • Final Hubble spacewalk done and dusted

    Venerable 'scope in good shape

    Astronauts Andrew Feustel and John Grunsfeld ealier today completed the fifth and final spacewalk of the STS-125 mission to the Hubble Space Telescope. The mission specialists (see pic: Grunsfeld at left preparing to ride the shuttle's robotic arm) exited Atlantis at 12:20 GMT, armed with the final set of replacement batteries …

    Science 18 May 2009, 19:22

  • Amazon teaches cloud self-growth trick

    Automatic elasticity

    Amazon has unveiled a trio of new services designed to make life easier for anyone parking applications atop its famous cloud. As expected, the company is now offering tools for monitoring resources on its Amazon Web Services (AWS) cloud, automatically boosting or reducing resources as they're needed, and seamlessly …

    Servers 18 May 2009, 20:48

  • AT&T mulls cut-rate iPhone data plan

    $10 butter on Cupertino's bread

    AT&T is considering a cut-rate data plan for US iPhones. Citing "people with knowledge of the company's thinking," BusinessWeek says that the iPhone exclusive US carrier is pondering a limited data plan for $10 (£6.50) less than its current offering. AT&T currently sells only an unlimited data plan for $30 (£19.50) per month …

    Broadband 18 May 2009, 21:54

  • Sims 3 leaked two weeks before release

    Digital dollhouse bootleg

    The newest addition to Electronic Arts' mega-franchise The Sims has reportedly been leaked online two weeks before the video game's official release. It certainly didn't take long for EA's The Sims 3, one of the game publisher's flagship titles for 2009, to be shanghaied by interweb pirates. We've identified a number of …

    Games 18 May 2009, 21:56

  • Sophos punts anti-virus for Klingons

    No more Betazoid sub-ether porn diallers

    Sophos is now offering anti-virus protection for Klingon speakers. According to the company, you can use Klingon Anti-Virus from Sophos to "quickly perform an on-demand scan and find viruses, spyware, adware, zero-day threats, Betazoid sub-ether porn diallers, and Tribbles that your existing protection might have missed." But …

    Bootnotes 18 May 2009, 23:18