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15th June 2009 Archive

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  • Microsoft downloads drive by Dell site

    All above board

    Dell has secured download reselling rights for Microsoft Office, the first time Microsoft has allowed a third party to do this. That's what Dell says, at any rate. The deal looks like a toe-dipping exercise on both sides. For starters, Dell is a download minnow, only opening its download store in January, with lines from …

    Business 15 Jun 07:30

  • Acer Tempo X960 Windows Mobile smartphone

    Review Sound but samey satnav smartphone

    Currently, only the second Acer smartphone to actually make it to market, the Tempo X960 comes with 2.8in touch screen, HSDPA 3G, Wi-Fi, 3.2Mp camera, A-GPS and an all-new user interface. Acer's Tempo X960 Windows Mobile smartphone PC manufacturer Acer made its bid to secure a place in the smart phone market earlier this …

    Reg Hardware 15 Jun 08:02

  • Swine flu eclipsed by new fruity, full-bodied menace

    Stuff pig plague, this is serious

    Be afraid, be very afraid: The BBC's News 24 has announced the first victim of a terrifying new influenza strain which seems poised to hit the UK's licensed victuallers very hard indeed: Wine flu is, of course, a hideous variant of the traditional pub flu which annually accounts for one or two Reg cub hacks. The mutated …

    Bootnotes 15 Jun 08:13

  • MacBooks afflicted with SATA 'degrade'

    Flash no longer quick as a flash

    Apple may have switched to a slower SATA interface with some new MacBook Pros. Apple had used SATA II for its MacBooks but appears to have reverted to the older and slower SATA I for some new MacBooks. The affected models are the 13in and 15in screen MacBook Pros. The 13in white MacBook and MacBook Air and the 17in MacBook …

    PCs & Chips 15 Jun 08:42

  • Johnson shuffle returns ID cards to the table

    U-turn ahoy?

    The fate of the UK's national ID card project is looking increasingly doubtful, although new Home Secretary Alan Johnson is unwilling to plunge the knife. Not yet. Johnson has begun a review of the multi-billion pound scheme and wants to look at it from "first principles". The new Home Secretary is apparently more open-minded …

    Government 15 Jun 08:58

  • What's the best NAS-to-TV box?

    I have a Western Digital MyBook network drive on which I keep videos, music and documents that are linked into iTunes and Windows Media Player on the handful of machines I, my partner and our kids have here. Even the Linux netbook can access it and play back content. But now I want to do make the next step and access it …

    Reg Hardware 15 Jun 09:02

  • Orthodox Jews tuck into kosher Koogle

    New kvetch engine for 'vital services'

    Orthodox Jews - whose religious beliefs have previously kept them a safe distance from the internet - can now avail themselves of a "kosher" search engine, suitably tuned to satisfy even the most demanding rabbi. According to Reuters, Koogle "omits religiously objectionable material, such as most photographs of women which …

    Bootnotes 15 Jun 09:15

  • EMC could dig deeper for Data Domain

    $5 a share bid raise on the cards

    EMC intends to raise its Data Domain bid as the storage giant's poker game with NetApp drags on. It has made an unwanted $30/share all cash takeover bid valued at $1.8bn for deduplication market leader Data Domain. That company's management, led by Frank Slootman, prefers a takeover by NetApp, which has offered a part-stock, …

    Storage 15 Jun 09:18

  • Shoppers demand 'try before you buy' phone stores

    Plastic dummies not sufficient, survey finds

    Most consumers think the ability to play with a working handset in-store would help them decide which model to buy, a YouGov survey has discovered. The organisation questioned almost 10,000 people who were actively shopping for a mobile phone earlier this year and found that 91 per cent thought a ‘try before you buy’ policy …

    Reg Hardware 15 Jun 09:41

  • 'Alien' lifeform wakened from 120,000 year Arctic slumber

    Meddling boffins refuse to heed sci-fi common sense

    American scientists, showing the reckless disregard for the warnings implicit in quality science fiction that is so regrettably common in the boffinry community, have revived an ancient lifeform which has been slumbering beneath the Arctic ice pack for 120,000 years. To add insult to injury, the scientists believe that their …

    Biology 15 Jun 09:52

  • Microsofties lose their iPhones

    iForfeit my non-Windows Mobile

    Microsoft's cost-cutting measures are costing more than just jobs at the software giant - staff are also having to give up their iPhones and BlackBerries. If employees want to hang onto the devices they'll have to pay for their own data subscriptions. Redmond will only pick up the bill for a Windows Mobile device - not Palm, …

    Mobile 15 Jun 10:26

  • UK.gov to create central cybersecurity agency

    A job for Jim Hacker

    Secret operations currently carried out by parts of the intelligence and security services will be centralised in Whitehall as part of an ongoing major review of cybersecurity, according to a report. The Cabinet Office is due to publish the UK's version of Barack Obama's cybersecurity stategy before the summer Parliamentary …

    Enterprise Security 15 Jun 10:28

  • Worst of recession is past but tech jobs harder to find

    Possibly due to techies relying on ads in newsagent windows

    The Confederation of British industry has declared the worst of the recession to be over, but techies are still finding it a struggle to find work, with unemployment not set to peak until next year. The CBI, which represents almost a quarter of a million companies, said that UK GDP should flatten out in the coming months, with …

    Financial News 15 Jun 10:39

  • Bing boxes off mucky vids

    Finally fixes filth threat

    Bing has altered the way it serves up video content to counter criticism that it was making it too easy to see unsavoury material. We know - unsavoury material on the internet? Who knew? But the difference with Bing is that it serves up preview windows when you do a video search. If your mouse passes over one of these windows …

    Applications 15 Jun 11:12

  • Jaguar said to have electric XE in pipeline

    Leccy Tech E-sportscar to have battery boosting engine?

    Is Jaguar working on an electric version of its much anticipated XE sports car? Speculation is rife that the Coventry-based car maker is planning a leccy version of the two-door roadster. It will be powered by a combination of a plug-in battery pack and a small, high performance three-cylinder petrol engine. Jaguar's 2000 F- …

    Reg Hardware 15 Jun 11:13

  • Nokia posts then pulls E-series phone vid

    Movie showed unannounced E72 in action

    Nokia has let the cat out of the bag by accidentally posting a video on YouTube showing a new handset. The video, now pulled, centres on the E72, an updated E71 that sports the same basic BlackBerry-like look but with some minor design tweaks. That said, the camera has been upped from 3.2Mp to 5Mp, and the new model will …

    Reg Hardware 15 Jun 11:13

  • Nurse Lovelace gives hardened lag 55-hour stiffy

    Ex-con sues for 'irreparable' todger injuries

    A US former convict is suing for unspecified damages after prison nurse Judith Lovelace's tender ministrations provoked a 55-hour erection which left his todger "irreparably injured", the New York Post reports. Career crim Dawud Yaduallah, formerly David Hanley, claims the unsolicited hardening happened in March 2006 at the …

    Bootnotes 15 Jun 11:35

  • DataSlide reinvents hard drive

    64 parallel read-write heads

    UK-based data storage start-up DataSlide has announced potentially revolutionary hard drive technology, and a Partnership Network agreement with Oracle for the Berkeley Data Base to be embedded into the device. DataSlide's Hard Rectangular Drive (HRD) does not use read-write heads moving across the recording surface of a …

    Storage 15 Jun 12:02

  • Toshiba Regza 37AV615DB

    Review Big screen, small price

    Many of you will no doubt throw up your hands in horror at the thought of buying a mere ‘HD Ready’ television, rather than a ‘Full HD’ model. However, the fact of the matter is that most owners of HD televisions still spend most of their time watching ordinary SD television programmes or DVDs, so it doesn’t make a huge …

    Reg Hardware 15 Jun 12:02

  • Adobe begins to charge in online apps battle

    Adds spreadsheet to its Google Docs rival

    Adobe has moved its online software suite out of beta and will ask US customers to pay for the privilege of using its the combined productivity and collaboration offering, as of today. Adobeacrobat.com provides the ability to create and work on documents online, junking the need to bounce updates around organisations. The …

    Channel Register 15 Jun 12:07

  • Race to pinpoint VoIP callers in emergencies

    999 system developed to locate net phones

    Phone companies are developing a system to allow 999 operators to pinpoint the location of internet callers, amid concerns that the increasing use of VoIP could mean police, paramedics and fire crews are unable to attend emergencies promptly. It is hoped that the technology could be in place in some ISPs next year, according …

    Telecoms 15 Jun 12:32

  • GPS-guided wreckers flatten wrong house

    Errant crew have 'paperwork', but no address or common sense

    A Georgia man is none too happy that his memory-filled family home, lovingly hand built "brick by brick" by Pop, is now a scene of rubble-strewn desolation after a demolition firm used a GPS to identify its victim and moved in for the kill. Al Byrd of Sandy Springs got a bit of a shock earlier this month when someone called to …

    Bootnotes 15 Jun 12:35

  • Virgin to offer unlimited, DRM-free music

    But freetards may experience a temporary disconnection

    Virgin Media is to launch the world's first unlimited, DRM-free music download service in the UK by Christmas. It's signed the world's biggest label - the Vivendi-owned Universal Music Group - for the launch, and says it's talking to publishers and other labels. The service will be priced at "a couple of albums per month", …

    Music and Media 15 Jun 12:37

  • Nokia launches second music-centric touchphone

    5530 to join 5800

    The follow-up to Nokia's touchscreen-based music phone, the 5800, will arrive in Q3, the Finnish phone giant said today. The 5530 ExpressMusic is based around a 2.9in display. Song and video storage is provided by a 4GB memory card Nokia will be bundling with the handset. Nokia's 5530 XpressMusic: touchscreen based …

    Reg Hardware 15 Jun 12:51

  • More holes open up in Green Dam Youth Escort

    US firm claims China stole its filters

    A US software firm claims that China's already infamous Green Dam Youth Escort censorship software has liberally lifted code from its own cyber-filtering product. Solid Oak Software of Santa Barbara claims that the Green Dam package - which Beijing has declared must be installed on all PCs shipped in the People's Republic as …

    Government 15 Jun 12:56

  • HP slims down extreme filer

    Downsize my turnkey box

    HP is offering a downsized turnkey configuration of its big-ass filer, the ExDS9100, and says DreamWorks Animation is using a bigger version to archive and back up its movies. The Extreme Data System 9100 was announced just over a year ago as a high-capacity filer that scaled to 820TB. It had three components: HP's acquired …

    Servers 15 Jun 13:00

  • Nvidia rolls out latest laptop graphics chip

    GeForce 200Ms offer more performance, less power hungry than 100Ms

    Nvidia has introduced a quintet of 40nm mobile graphics processors to fill out its GeForce 200M series. Spreading across almost the full range of market segments, with parts targeting Mainstream, Performance and Enthusiast buyers, all replacing older, 55nm GeForce 100M chippery. The Mainstream part is the G210M, a 16-core GPU …

    Reg Hardware 15 Jun 13:02

  • Palm politely cuts Pre tether

    Bigger boys made them do it

    Palm has requested that the Pre Dev Wiki refrain from discussions about how to use a Pre for tethered internet access, explaining that such discussions risk upsetting Sprint. In a posting on the Wiki, the owner said that Palm has been in touch and politely explained that for the duration of Sprint's exclusivity, and perhaps …

    Mobile 15 Jun 14:02

  • Buying Solutions plans £600m managed services deal

    All ur infrastructures are belong to us

    The Treasury's purchasing agency is looking for up to 10 suppliers for a pan-government managed IT services framework. Buying Solutions said the two-year procurement agreement will provide public sector and associated organisations with end to end IT managed services. This will include the management of servers, desktops, …

    Channel Register 15 Jun 14:47

  • Dell and the Cloud: Can it hack it as a services company?

    Reg Webcast Live interactive debate and expert answers

    The Register's expert panel is quizzing Dell on its move into services with cloud-optimised SaaS offerings live and online. Whether you are considering the cloud for your business or have a requirement to increase efficiency and reduce cost, join in and get answers and advice from 11am PT, 2pm ET, 7pm BST tomorrow (16 June). …

    Tech Panel 15 Jun 15:34

  • Mobile internet? It ain't just for the iPhone

    'Dumb' handsets involved in half of sessions

    Statistics released by mobile software company Novarra show that it's not just owners of status-symbol handsets who are surfing the internet these days, with around half the mobile sessions coming from "dumb" handsets. The figures only cover networks that have deployed Novarra's software, which pre-loads content and optimises …

    Mobile 15 Jun 15:52

  • Data Domain to EMC: What part of 'no' do you not get?

    DD scours EMC proposals for reasons not to sign

    Data Domain's board has found four reasons to say no a second time to EMC, and to recommend that its shareholders reject EMC's tender offer. NetApp is making an agreed takeover bid for Data Domain with a $1.9bn part-stock, part-cash bid valued at $30/share. The raising of its original $1.5bn offer was prompted by an unexpected …

    Storage 15 Jun 16:01

  • IBM churns up CloudBurst clouds

    Not raining on Google and Amazon parades

    Cloud computing must be real - IBM is going to try to start making real money selling pre-configured clouds to enterprises for their internal use, targeting very specific workloads running on x64 servers to start and eventually encompassing its Power and mainframe systems. IBM has been dabbling in and doing research on cloud …

    Servers 15 Jun 16:08

  • Intel to play hi-lo in 2009

    New Celerons, Core i7 on the way

    Rumor has it that Intel will beef up both the bottom and top of its desktop-processor lines in the second half of this year with the release of new Celeron and Core i7 processors. According to a report by the market-watchers at Taiwan's DigiTimes, the Celeron E1000 series will be retired and replaced by in the third quarter of …

    Reg Hardware 15 Jun 18:46

  • Google prepping Web2.0rhea search?

    But of course

    Google has hinted it may launch a search tool specifically for Twitter and other services dedicated to Web2.0rhea. The Google Operating System blog - a site unaffiliated with the Mountain View Chocolate Factory - recently noticed that the company's localization service was alluding to some sort of Google "MicroBlogsearch" tool …

    Music and Media 15 Jun 18:50

  • Microsoft fans call for Opera boycott

    Don't pick on little ol' Redmond

    Windows enthusiast site JCXP.net is asking fellow fans to delete the Opera web browser from PCs and devices in an act of solidarity against European antitrust action. "Today we are proposing a complete boycott of all Opera software," David Taraso, editor of the JCXP group, wrote in a blog post late on Friday. Taraso blames …

    Applications 15 Jun 19:03

  • Former top Sun exec mourns end of a franchise

    Watermelons, Elton John, and killing SGI

    Scott McNealy's one time right-hand man at Sun has expressed his dismay over the impending acquisition of a company he helped build. Masood Jabbar, Sun Microsystems' former head of sales, told a Silicon Valley conference he was "deeply, deeply" saddened by the prospect of Sun's acquisition by database giant Oracle. "We built …

    Servers 15 Jun 19:58

  • AT&T's iPhone MMS to be free

    Internet tethering silence

    AT&T has dribbled out a bit more information about its support for Apple's new iPhone 3.0 software. The good news is that MMS support will be free. The bad news is that Big Phone hasn't made any changes in their controversial iPhone 3G S early-upgrade pricing. In a new FAQ released by the telecom giant, news comes that MMS …

    Mobile 15 Jun 20:33

  • Chinese Green Dam pilfers open source too

    No filth, no BSD license

    After claims that China's "Green Dam" filtering app includes code pirated from an American software maker, it should come as no surprise that the People's Republic censorshipware is also using open-source code without displaying the proper license. According to multiple coders at Sourceforge, the Green Dam Youth Escort package …

    Applications 15 Jun 20:37

  • HP servers still half-cold to Ubuntu

    No high-end love

    No one can watch everything all the time in the fast-paced IT sector. But it's pretty hard to do something - or not do it - and get it past the readers of El Reg. Recently, a reader told us that server maker Hewlett-Packard was no longer offering support for the Debian distribution of Linux on its servers. And according to HP's …

    Channel Register 15 Jun 21:44

  • EMC pushes services for virtual servers

    Like physical, like virtual

    VMware might be treated by its parent company, storage vendor EMC, as a free-standing subsidiary, but when it comes to services relating to VMware's server virtualization stack, those services get the EMC brand and the money ends up on the EMC books. Thanks to the Symmetrix Remote Data Facility (SRDF), TimeFinder, and other …

    Virtualization 15 Jun 21:50

  • Salesforce turns website host

    First hit is free

    Salesforce.com is offering another layer of wrapping for its core customer relationship management (CRM) software-as-a-service, hoping to expand its role as a service provider. The company has announced official availability of Force.com Sites, which lets you build websites using Salesforce.com's Apex programming language and …

    Applications 15 Jun 22:04

  • NASA bumps lunar 'bots for Endeavour launch

    Humans call 'cutsies'

    NASA is bumping its robotic mission to the moon in favor of a rescheduled Endeavour launch on Wednesday. The US space agency said today the human-staffed excursion to the International Space Station will take priority June 17 over the launch of NASA's unmanned Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) and Lunar Crater Observation and …

    Space 15 Jun 22:10

  • Sun killing 'Rock' Sparc chip?

    House cleaning before Ellison move-in

    The word on the street today is that server maker Sun Microsystems - which is in the midst of being eaten by software giant Oracle for $5.6bn - has formally killed off the 16-core "Rock" UltraSparc-RK processor that has been in development for more than five years. The official response from Michelle Parkinson, the …

    Channel Register 15 Jun 22:24