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22nd May 2009 Archive

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  • Mozilla to breed prepubescent add-on developers

    Straps on Jetpack

    Mozilla has unfurled a new API designed to expand the worldwide population of Firefox add-on developers. The open-source house boasts that over the last four years, more than 8,000 developers have built more than 12,000 add-ons for its Firefox browser. But with its new API, dubbed Jetpack, it hopes to breed many more. "We …

    Developer 22 May 04:45

  • Sony eyes smile, smirk-controlled music phone

    Grin for pop, gurn for death metal

    Do you weep during Eric Clapton’s Tears in Heaven or grin from ear-to-ear when your hear The Monkees? If so then you should be using a device that changes tracks according to your facial expressions, at least according to Sony Ericsson. Sony Ericsson's expressions tech: could replace the need for buttons The firm’s applied …

    Reg Hardware 22 May 06:02

  • Kelway buys Repton

    Reseller consolidation

    Kelway has bought fellow London reseller Repton Holdings Plc for an undisclosed sum. Greg Carlow is staying on as Repton's CEO, and the firm will trade as a division of Kelway. Repton specialises in enterprise IT and has earned channel badges from IBM, Sun, Cisco and HP. The company brings £40m turnover and 70 staff to the …

    Channel Register 22 May 07:02

  • IR35 tax is a huge failure

    Opinion Tiny tax take leaves controversial system in jeopardy

    Under the Freedom of Information Act, the Professional Contractors Group has been able to find out how much tax the British government has raised from IR35. IR35 was introduced in 2000, as a means for the Government to stamp out what it considered to be "disguised employee" arrangements, which reduced tax and national …

    Small Biz 22 May 07:32

  • E-cars are a dangerous myth, says top boffin

    Bleeding science funding for useless toys?

    Politicians' obsession with electric cars is a waste of time - and costing British science and research dear. So says Richard Pike, head of the Royal Chemistry Society, in a hard-hitting contribution to Research Fortnight (pdf). Pike says the £250m tax boondoggle designed to induce us to buy electric cars would save less than …

    Environment 22 May 08:02

  • Kodak EasyShare M1093 IS

    Review Favourable features floored by fiddle factor

    “EasyShare” is a lovely name, isn’t it? It’s all soft and cuddly and suggests that your camera is friendly little thing that will let you share your images with all and sundry. Well, top marks to Kodak’s marketing bods for the name, but does the EasyShare M1093 IS deliver in terms of features, performance and ease of use? …

    Reg Hardware 22 May 08:02

  • Microsoft bails out of European competition hearing

    Cancels due to shortage of watchdogs

    Microsoft has turned down the chance to give oral evidence to the European Competition Commission - because the date clashes with a big beanfeast for regulators in Switzerland. The software giant was to present evidence at an oral hearing between 3 and 5 June. This was a chance for both sides to air issues around Microsoft's …

    Law 22 May 08:18

  • Atlantis home today, storms permitting

    NASA eyes weather at Kennedy Space Center

    Space shuttle Atlantis will today return to terra firma at the end of its successful STS-125 mission to the Hubble Space Telescope. Atlantis has two "landing opportunities" at 14:00 GMT and 15:39 GMT, but weather conditions could prove "problematic " for a return to the Kennedy Space Center. NASA forecasts indicate "a broken …

    Space 22 May 08:20

  • YouTube flooded with porn

    Hello? Is anyone still reading? Come back

    YouTube has been hit with an avalanche of smut, uploaded by users of various messageboards apparently protesting at the site's removal of music videos. The video site has a zero-tolerance to nudity on the site - footage of doctors demonstrating breast examinations have famously been removed in the past, while footage of Saddam …

    Music and Media 22 May 08:54

  • Women coppers eager to drop trousers

    Decry 'Simon Cowell sack-of-potatoes' look

    Blighty's female coppers are none too happy with their current standard-issue police strides, which they claim makes them look like a “a sack of potatoes” and, worse still, sport a Simon Cowell-style high waistband. The problem, the Times reports, is that women officers are lumbered either with trousers which were designed for …

    Bootnotes 22 May 08:57

  • BT rejects wholesale price changes

    Ofcom ain't done enough

    BT is not happy with Ofcom's changes to wholesale prices, and is complaining it will effectively make a loss on each connection. Ofcom sets prices for BT's wholesale division Openreach. From today until May 2010 BT can charge £86.40 for each unbundled line - up from £81.69. Where a broadband provider shares the line with BT, …

    Telecoms 22 May 09:38

  • DHS to field Star Trek 'Tricorder' medscanner

    'They're dead, Jim! DEAD! No, wait... flat battery'

    US federal boffins say they are well on the way to developing a Star Trek style "tricorder", able to monitor a person's medical condition from 40 feet away. The so-called Standoff Patient Triage Tool (SPTT) is described in glowing terms by the inhouse journal of the Department of Homeland Security's Science and Technology …

    Biology 22 May 09:42

  • Oz man fined for drink-drive rumpy-pumpy

    Romped 'for several kilometres', police confirm

    A Darwin man's wallet is AU$1,400 lighter after police collared him "engaged in a sexual romp with his female passenger" while under the influence, ABC News reports. Builder Bradley Dean Milne, 33, was last month spotted in his ute (pick-up truck) "veering onto the wrong side of a busy Darwin road". A concerned motorist …

    Bootnotes 22 May 09:43

  • When rip and replace is not an option

    Comment Unification doesn't have to mean blind conformity

    Today’s brochures about data centre design show pictures of row upon row of rack-mounted devices, and come with the clear message that in networking, servers and storage, conformity is the answer, efficiency is the goal and value is the inevitable result. This message is reinforced by many parties. Networking companies such as …

    Virtualization 22 May 10:02

  • London to become Europe's e-car capital, says Mayor

    Leccy Tech Boris unveils very ambitious plans

    London Mayor Boris Johnson has announced plans that he hopes will make the city the electric vehicle capital of Europe. Boris Johnson announced his EV plans for London in Seoul How will he achieve this miracle? Essentially by encouraging 100,000 EVs onto the city’s streets “as soon as possible” and by rolling out an e-car …

    Reg Hardware 22 May 10:05

  • Fusion-io bubbles away but will it erupt?

    Comment Getting into a lava about server attached SSD

    Market seismometers are detecting moves from Fusion-io, the server-attach solid state disk startup. Is it about to erupt and deliver on its potential? Fresh from a new funding round and led by a new CEO, David Bradford, Fusion has hired a new SVP for worldwide sales, Jim Dawson, who comes to the post after five years at 3PAR: …

    Storage 22 May 10:12

  • E-trade scammer pleads guilty to Office Space scam

    We're not going to white-collar resort prison. No, no, no

    A Californian man who raked in $50,000 after opening thousands of bogus accounts with online brokers, sometimes in the name of cartoon characters, has pleaded guilty to fraud. Michael Largent, 23, of Plumas Lake, California pleaded guilty to computer fraud and wire fraud charges on Thursday over a scam that ran for six months …

    Crime 22 May 10:16

  • Street View prowls the Emerald Isle

    Red the new black for Irish spymobile, reader snap confirms

    It's official: Ireland is about to fall to Street View's all-seeing eye, as this photograph from Tramore, County Waterford, proves: The sighting confirms local reports that Street View is operating in Cork, Dublin, Galway, Limerick and Waterford, and we're obliged to snapper Keith for providing evidence that Google has in …

    Bootnotes 22 May 10:36

  • Russians offer hackintosh netbook

    Desktops, laptops too, tovarisch

    Want an Asus Eee PC 1000H to run Mac OS X? New Russian hackintosh supplier RussianMac is now offering just that. It's not clear whether the Atom-based netbook - or, indeed, any of the other desktop and mobile systems RussianMac is offering - comes with the Apple operating system pre-installed or you have to do it yourself, …

    Reg Hardware 22 May 10:53

  • 32GB iPhone confirmed by T-Mobile?

    Mysterious 'Coming Soon' website post

    A 32GB iPhone category was recently added to a T-Mobile website – further fuelling speculation that an updated model is inbound. A 32GB iPhone recently appeared on T-Mobile Austria Image courtesy of SlashGear According to various online sources, T-Mobile Austria recently created a category for an “iPhone 32 GB” on its “ …

    Reg Hardware 22 May 11:08

  • Government procurement now wrapped with training red tape

    Training British workers to be cheap

    The UK government will demand that IT services suppliers have a staff development plan, if they want a slice of its £14bn annual spending on IT services. Skills secretary John Denham said: "Wherever possible Government spending should not just provide good public services, it should also ensure young people are trained in the …

    Government 22 May 11:12

  • Microsoft set to reveal Windows 7 pricing mid-June

    A midsummer night's price list

    Microsoft is expected to cough up Windows 7 price details next month. According to Windows tipster website TechArp.com, which has been bang on the money in the past with shipping dates for Microsoft products, Redmond will announce prices for its upcoming operating system in mid-June. Microsoft recently revealed that Windows 7 …

    Operating Systems 22 May 11:16

  • Virgin space mothership test details posted online

    Bottom-smack brouhaha shakes 'black' mindset?

    The firm building jet "motherships" and suborbital rocketplanes for Richard Branson's Virgin Galactic space joyride operation has begun posting flight-test results online. The move is perhaps an acknowledgement that the SpaceShipTwo programme and Virgin Galactic can only survive by maintaining high public visibility and …

    Space 22 May 11:18

  • Paris loses her BlackBerry in Cannes hotel

    Not caught on video this time

    The cream of Hollywood is living in fear of crank phonecalls and other virtual assaults after Paris Hilton lost her BlackBerry while cavorting at the Cannes film festival in the early hours of this morning. The telephonically-challenged heiress was spotted looking distraught by the Daily Mail in the immediate aftermath of the …

    Mobile 22 May 11:20

  • Fellers at Dell ditch Della?

    Updated Fluffy, female-friendly site offline

    PC giant Dell is no longer in touch with its feminine side, it seems. It has taken its female-friendly sub-site, Della, offline less than ten days after launching it online. The sub-site was dedicated to promoting the virtues of netbooks, and Dell's diminutive Inspiron Mini 10 in particular, to the fairer sex. Technology …

    Reg Hardware 22 May 11:57

  • Police chief tilts at windmills in 'porn' disk case

    Portishead in a storm

    Avon and Somerset police chief's claims that he would rather risk prison than return alleged indecent images to a computer forensic expert appear to put him at odds with his own legal team which agreed to a consent order to return the material. At the weekend, it was reported that Avon and Somerset Police Chief Colin Port was …

    Policing 22 May 11:58

  • Sony Ericsson baking Donut Android phones

    Firm to launch Android 2.0 OS handsets

    Sony Ericsson has a sweet treat in store for Android fans – confirmation that it'll launch several Android phones based on the Google OS’ Donut edition. The firm first confirmed plans to launch an Android-based phone back in December, but has kept relatively quiet on the subject until now. However, Peter Ang, head of …

    Reg Hardware 22 May 12:08

  • Sony Bravia KDL-37S5500

    Review Sony’s 'cheap' 37in Full HD telly

    Sony’s S-series HD TVs are described as "entertainment for everyone" – which is about as close as Sony ever gets to the word ‘cheap’. Priced at £829 when bought direct from Sony’s online store, the KDL-37S5500 is the cheapest 37in set currently available from the Japanese giant, so it’s worth taking a look at if you’re …

    Reg Hardware 22 May 12:08

  • Police wrong to spy on peace campaigner

    Met told to destroy pics

    Photographs of a peace campaigner taken during a surveillance operation by the Metropolitan Police should be destroyed, because the images were a disproportionate infringement of his human rights. The court of appeal ruled yesterday in favour of Andrew Wood, who had committed no offence, the Beeb reports. Wood lost his …

    Policing 22 May 12:15

  • 'Thieving' sperm whale caught on CCTV

    Cetacean crime wave hits Alaska

    Boffins working with Alaskan fishermen have used CCTV to capture unique video of a sperm whale attempting to scoff cod off fishing gear. Such behaviour is referred to as "thieving" by the fishermen. Do you know this whale? The vid, which can be viewed by clicking here, shows a longline deployed at a depth of 100m off Sitka …

    Biology 22 May 12:25

  • Chrome feels the need - the need for speed

    Google beefs up JavaScript engine

    Google has souped up Chrome by updating the web browser’s JavaScript engine. Mountain View claimed loading speed of JavaScript-heavy web pages had been improved by up to 30 per cent in Chrome’s V8 JavaScript engine, combined with a new version of the Webkit browser engine. Google additionally announced several other changes …

    Applications 22 May 12:31

  • Atlantis landing postponed

    'Real moist' weather means another night in orbit

    NASA has postponed until tomorrow the scheduled landing of space shuttle Atlantis at the end of its STS-125 mission to the Hubble Space Telescope. On the ground, Capsule Communicator Greg Johnson explained to Commander Scott Altman today that the weather was "real moist, unstable, and officially 'no go' due to thunderstorms, …

    Space 22 May 12:38

  • FBI and US Marshals laid low by mystery virus

    Tommy Lee Jones' paperwork delayed

    A mystery viral infection forced the FBI and US Marshals Service to pull the plug on parts of their respective computer networks on Thursday, AP reports. A spokesperson for the US Marshals Service explained that it had disconnected some of its computers from the wider Justice Department systems, as a precaution against …

    Malware 22 May 13:33

  • Boffins identify inherited 'werewolf' mutation

    Several packs discovered after four-year search

    Chinese boffins believe that they may have discovered the gene for "werewolf syndrome", and say that there are at least thirty people with the inherited disorder among the population of the People's Republic. Science magazine reports that the correct medical name for werewolf syndrome is not lycanthropy but congenital …

    Biology 22 May 13:37

  • British court backs eBay piracy stance

    Follows French precedent, for once

    The British High Court has backed eBay in a case brought by L'Oreal, which accused the online tat bazaar of failing to take adequate action to prevent fake items being sold on its site. The French courts took a similar line last week. eBay welcomed the verdict and also called on rights owners to join its VeRO programme which …

    Law 22 May 13:40

  • Details of Sky's music download service leak

    Exclusive Is this a bargain?

    Details of BSkyB's long awaited music collaboration with Vivendi-owned Universal Music are circulating, and have seeped into our inbox. The joint venture, between the world's biggest record label and the powerful media company which was announced with much fanfare last summer, will be branded "Sky Songs". According to …

    Music and Media 22 May 14:08

  • Dodgy McAfee update slaps viral warning on Spotify

    Was someone listening to Phil Collins again?

    Security software from McAfee wrongly identified the Spotify application as a virus, following a misfiring update published on Thursday. McAfee's nannyware repeatedly deleted the online music application, which it wrongly identified as IRCbot-Gen-Z, once the update was applied. Some users reported that they were able to get …

    Malware 22 May 14:19

  • HDS' puzzling clustered storage controller launch

    Oh you big tease

    Highlight May 27 in your diaries: Hitachi data Systems is making what chief scientist Claus Mikkelson calls "a big announcement" then. Mikkelson doesn't give the game away, but bizarrely offers an anagram clue instead, writing in his blog: "Anybody want to try to figure out what we’re announcing? Then solve this anagram: …

    Storage 22 May 14:21

  • Tasmanian devil whirling onto endangered list

    Dubious accolade hoped to help in face cancer fight

    The luckless Tasmanian devil is to be added to the official list of endangered species in a move intended to save it from extinction, The Times reports. Tasmania's top carnivore since the human-assisted wipeout of the thylacine in the 1930s is under severe threat from a communicable face cancer, unique to the species. …

    Biology 22 May 15:03

  • iTunes store Kama Sutra gives Apple warm cheeks

    It's an untenable position, you big lingamheads

    Apple has rejected an e-book reader from the iTunes store on the grounds that users might download a copy of the Kama Sutra - despite the same content being available in half a dozen other applications including Safari. Eucalyptus is an app that downloads content from Project Gutenberg, and presents it with a pretty interface …

    Mobile 22 May 15:05

  • Radio whingers find little Ofcom love

    Future apparently in floods, heavy snow, mergers

    Ed Richards cocked a sympathetic ear to the troubles of the commercial radio business yesterday - but the Ofcom chief could offer little in the way of instant pain relief. With an end-of-life government meandering to its termination, and Carter's Digital Britain review soaking up all the attention of bickering departments, he …

    Music and Media 22 May 15:24

  • IBM ships SSDs for Power Systems

    Lots of I/O and I owe

    IBM today begins selling its first solid state disks for its Power Systems boxes, the machines it uses to attack the Unix, Linux, and OS/400 installed bases. The SSDs are not the same units it announced in March for its System x and BladeCenter x64-based servers. IBM is taking a 128 GB Zeus-IOP flash drive from STEC, with whom …

    Storage 22 May 15:39

  • Would-be Jacqui whacker told to try his hand with the Met

    Judge denies application for private prosectution

    A London man who is trying to bring a private prosecution against the Home Secretary for fraud has been told to go and have a chat with the Metropolitan Police first. Anthony Weaver, from London, tried to apply for a summons before a district judge in Redditch today, the BBC reports. He is accusing Jacqui Smith of defrauding …

    Government 22 May 15:59

  • Analyst forecasts Apple Kindle-killer for 2010

    We think he's onto something

    Apple may have a downer on netbooks, but that won't stop it releasing a 7-10in tablet in the coming months, one analyst has forecast. It's some way off, though. Piper Jaffray's Gene Munster is a long time Apple watcher well known among the firms fans for his product predictions. His latest, made in a research note sent out to …

    Reg Hardware 22 May 16:21

  • Apple Schmucki to sue over fake iPods

    Sham Swiss shuffles

    International financial heavyweights attending an economic conference in Switzerland were treated in their swag bags to a bright shiny iPod shuffle. One problem: It was a Chinese counterfeit. And not even a fake talking third-generation shuffle, but instead a second-generation clip-on knock-off. And the impostor doesn't even …

    Music and Media 22 May 17:34

  • US military shows off hack-by-numbers battlefield gadget

    Cyber warfare made easier

    As the US military strives to boost its ability to wage cyber warfare, it's looking for ways to make it easier for non-expert soldiers on the front lines to wreak havoc on enemy networks. Enter a new generation of attack devices that is packaged to be brought into the battlefield and used by non-specialists to penetrate …

    Security 22 May 18:53

  • Apple 'Kindle killer' rumor gets touch-screen

    A tablet by any other name...

    More evidence has surfaced that the long-rumored Apple tablet/netbook/media-pad/ebook/whatever is on its way to a fanboi near you. Or to you yourself, if you swing that way. Taiwanese market-watching site DigiTimes reported Friday that touch-screen manufacturer Wintek has been tapped by Apple to supply display panels for …

    Mobile 22 May 19:06

  • Wikipedia lets Creative Commons into its heart

    We have seen the free culture light

    Yes, Wikipedia is moving to a Creative Commons license. After a vote by its Board of Trustees and its community at large, the Wikimedia Foundation has announced that its projects will move their primary licensing from the GNU Free Documentation License (GFDL) to the Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License (CC-BY-SA). …

    Music and Media 22 May 19:09

  • Amazon joins with TuneCore for on-demand CD pressing

    Physical love joins digital licensing

    Amazon.com is striking a deal with independent music-licensing startup TuneCore to offer artists CD-pressing on demand. TuneCore is probably best known for being tapped by Nine Inch Nails to distribute digital copies of their double-album "Ghosts" on Amazon's MP3 store. Beginning June 1, Amazon is expanding the pact to include …

    Music and Media 22 May 19:56

  • SP2 glitch renders SharePoint trial ware

    All that's old is new again

    Microsoft has disclosed a bug in the Service Pack 2 update to SharePoint Server 2007 that causes the application to expire after 180 days. The flaw improperly resets the product expiration date for the widely used program as if it was a trial installation, a SharePoint VP says here. It affects anyone who has installed SP2 on …

    Applications 22 May 21:41

  • Federal judge muzzles Craigslist-threatening AG

    Yes, this is an 'erotic services' story

    A federal judge has ruled South Carolina's attorney general must keep his mouth shut about threatening to prosecute Craigslist over ads for prostitution. US District Judge Weston Houck granted a temporary restraining order and preliminary judgment against Attorney General Henry McMaster on Friday to "refrain from initiating or …

    Music and Media 22 May 23:02

  • Amazon cloud welcomes airplanes of data

    Send 747 through mail, please

    Amazon's cloud is infinitely large. At least in theory. But bandwidth to the cloud is not. If you like, you could upload a full terabyte of data to that data center in the sky. But even over a T1 connection, it would take you a good 80 days. Amazon realizes that's a long time, so it's now giving you the option of sending your …

    Servers 22 May 23:03

  • Ex-BBC science man slams corp: 'Evangelical, shallow and sparse'

    Nonstop Thermageddon coverage risks ridicule

    The BBC's environmental coverage has come under fire from a former science correspondent. Award-winning author and journalist David Whitehouse says the corporation risks public ridicule - or worse - with what he calls "an evangelical, inconsistent climate change reporting and its narrow, shallow and sparse reporting on other …

    Science 22 May 23:24

  • Brocade loses $63.1m on record revenues

    Foundry included

    Storage networking vendor Brocade announced record half billion dollar plus revenues for its second fiscal 2009 quarter but nonetheless made a $63.1m loss. Analyst revenue expectations were comfortably exceeded. Revenues were $506.3m, up 43 per cent on the year-ago quarter, which is very gratifying, and 17 per cent higher than …

    Storage 22 May 23:31

  • Boffins teach football bots how to fall

    RonaldoBots apply lessons from martial arts

    Boffins are teaching football-playing robots how to fall properly. Traditional approaches to robotics have focused on keeping mechanical machines upright and balanced. But in the context of playing football on an uneven surface and with interaction with other robot players, that's an unrealistic goal. Robotic experts in Chile …

    Rise of the Machines 22 May 23:36

  • Boston dorm computer raid ruled illegal

    So much for the hoax email argument

    A justice from Massachusetts's highest court has ordered police to return a laptop and other gear seized from a Boston student's dorm room after rejecting prosecutors' arguments that hoax emails he was suspected of sending might be illegal under a computer crime statute. The decision, issued Thursday by Justice of the Supreme …

    Law 22 May 23:50