24th June 2009 Archive

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Safety wonks condemn digital TV satnav

Mio Spirit an accident waiting to happen?

The Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents (RoSPA) has hit out at Mio’s latest satnavs, which allow drivers to catch some TV while driving. Mio's TV satnav: RoSPA not pleased Mio’s 4.7in and 7in Spirit satnavs can pick up DVB-T signals, but only display a warning when TV mode is enabled, not while it's being used on …

Reg Hardware 24 Jun 00:02
Oracle razzle-dazzles Wall St with recession performance

Ellison goes War and Peace

In the musical Chicago, attorney Billy Flynn shows client Roxy Heart how to razzle dazzle a jury to prove she's the naïve victim of "liquor and jazz". Larry Ellison seems to have watched and learned. On Tuesday Oracle mounted a production of its own during a call with Wall Street, drawing on some familiar dramatic devices to …

Financial News 24 Jun 04:20
LG XD2 500GB

Review Half-a-terabyte of storage in your palm

Last year, getting 500GB out of a big desktop external hard drive was impressive. Now, you have have half-a-terabyte of storage in the palm of your hand. Literally, if you happen to have LG's new XD2 about your person. LG's XD2: certainly not a PDA Taking design cues from Samsung, its South Koran rival, LG has fashioned the …

Reg Hardware 24 Jun 08:02
Ginetta gunning for electric Goodwood

Leccy Tech Glorious!

British sportscar maker Ginetta has announced plans to enter a leccy version of its G50 vehicle into the Hill Climb race at the upcoming Goodwood Festival of Speed. A leccy version of Ginetta's G50 will race at this year's Goodwood show The Goodwood Hill Climb’s a 1.16 mile course through the grounds of Goodwood House in …

Reg Hardware 24 Jun 08:02
Euro data watchdog claims progress on data protection

Tres bon, chaps

The European Union is making good progress on data protection, with most institutions now meeting requirements - although Community agencies are doing less well. This news comes from the second European Data Protection Supervisor (EDPS) report into compliance. Peter Hustinx, supervisor at EDPS, said: "I am pleased to see that …

Government 24 Jun 09:03
El Reg commentards offered extra iconography

You see, we do care really

Last September, in the wake of a rather unpopular redesign of the El Reg comments icons (an outrage subsequently dubbed "Icongate" by shaken Vulture Central staff), we asked you, our beloved readers, to suggest possible new icons, the better for you to express your feelings on our world-class IT news coverage. We then forgot …

Site News 24 Jun 09:05
Paris Hilton in Dubai hotel spycam shocker

'Secret recording device' rattles bafflingly famous reason-vacuum

Jetsetting celebutard Paris Hilton is reportedly trembling behind a security ring of steel after a "secret recording device" was discovered in her deluxe Dubai hotel suite. Hilton, as any self-respecting El Reg reader knows, is in the sun-kissed Arab emirate to film My New Best Friend Forever. According to the Daily Express, …

Bootnotes 24 Jun 09:17
Commission investigates right to 'chip silence'

Will it help me shut these bloody yoghurt pots up?

The European Commission is to investigate whether or not people have the right to disappear from the ever-more pervasive digital networks that surround them. The Commission has expressed concern about the privacy implications of personally-identifying technologies such as radio frequency identification (RFID) chips. It said …

Wireless 24 Jun 09:30
PayPal UK titsup

Updated: Server error of all our days

PayPal UK is currently down. Although the front page seems to be working, anyone logging in is met with a server error message. Four Register readers tipped us off to the problem, which we suppose is at least a sign of its popularity. The page is currently showing: Internal Server Error The server encountered an internal …

Small Biz 24 Jun 09:35
Nokia toughens up

Rugged phone uncovered?

Nokia may have sprung a leak, because details have seeped out online about a handset that’s rumoured to be the Finnish firm’s upcoming rugged handset. Nokia's rugged 3720? Image courtesy of Mobile Cowboys The handset manufacturer has launched rugged phones before, such as the 5140i. But a mole has claimed that Nokia’s …

Reg Hardware 24 Jun 09:36
HP unwraps ultra-tough netbook

Magnesium here, spill resistance there...

On-the-go pros demand stylish, yet durable fully featured PCs, at least according to HP. So the firm has updated its Mini PC line to pander to the likes of SSD-lovers after a small laptop that’s as hard as nails. HP's Mini 5101: tough body, durable keyboard The Mini 5101 should be tougher than your average netbook, HP …

Reg Hardware 24 Jun 09:48
Designer pitches flat-pack power plug

Foldable three-pinner

Carrying power plugs - especially Britain's big ones - can be the bugbear of any gadget-laden traveller. But one designer may have come up with a solution: a folding plug. Can't see the video? Download Flash Player from Adobe.com Although still just a prototype, designer Min Kyo Choi has essentially rewired a traditional …

Reg Hardware 24 Jun 09:54
AMD preparing Centrino-esque laptop brand... again?

Vision thing

AMD will launch a new brand, Vision, in a bid to create an alternative to Intel's Centrino... just as Intel starts to downplay its long-running laptop platform brand. AMD hasn't said anything publicly, but the inevitable industry leaks indicate it's going to establish vanilla, Premium and Ultimate versions of Vision - echoes …

Reg Hardware 24 Jun 10:20
Femto cells with big ideas

Femtocell World Summit Good for coverage, bad for teenage romance

Visitors to the Femtocell forum in London this week are being deluged with demonstrations showing what a Femtocell application can do, the only problem being that they are all the same, and that none of them work. Femtocells - very small network base stations designed to sit in the living room connected to the home broadband …

Mobile 24 Jun 10:25
Spanish court in favour of topless celebs

NSFW Jubsout photographic exposés 'legitimate news'

A Spanish court has ruled that celebrities exposed by the country's jub-hungry tabloid press must accept that they're a legitimate news target for the cameras, whether they happen to be wearing a bikini top or not. According to El Mundo, the Civil Division of the High Court has overturned a 2003 decision in favour of former …

Bootnotes 24 Jun 10:31
Prof: Global windfarm could power entire human race

Analysis Provided most of it remains in misery, that is

Harvard University boffins have published an analysis of how much energy the human race could possibly produce from wind power, and we thought we'd have a bit of a play around with their numbers. Career Harvard enviro-prof Michael McElroy, assisted by Xi Lu and Juha Kiviluoma (now working in Finland) published their paper …

Environment 24 Jun 10:32
Nokia chucks Ovi combo onto desktop

One app to run them all

Nokia has spent the last few years chucking its different portals into the Ovi brand, and now it's got round to combining the various desktop package too, with Ovi Desktop Suite version 2.0. Nokia's attempts to integrate its phones into the desktop computing experience have resulted in a bewildering plethora of applications …

Mobile 24 Jun 11:16
German old timers torture financial adviser

Kidnap pensioners a bit hacked off about $4m lost savings

A gang of very disgruntled German pensioners who lost $4m in savings in a Florida property investment scheme allegedly decided the best way to get their cash back was to kidnap and torture the financial adviser responsible. German-American James Amburn, 56, was subjected to a harrowing ordeal which began last Tuesday when two …

Bootnotes 24 Jun 11:19
Mystic Met Office predicts neighbourhood Thermageddon

Modelling 'totally inadequate' last year - why trust it now?

On Thursday, the Met Office launched its new report on global warming: UK Climate Projections 2009, otherwise known as UKCP09. This is based on the output of Hadley Centre climate models that predict temperature increases of up to 6°C with wetter winters, dryer summers, more heatwaves, rising sea levels, more floods and all the …

Environment 24 Jun 11:30
Windows 7 RC downloads to end 15 August

Beta to be snuffed out soon

Microsoft has confirmed its Windows 7 release candidate download program will expire on 15 August. After that date testers won’t be able to get their hands on the download via Microsoft’s website, although it will undoubtedly be available elsewhere on the interwebs. The company is additionally advising Windows 7 guinea pigs …

Channel Register 24 Jun 11:31
'Overweight' people live longer than those of 'ideal' weight

Pie orgies sadly unlikely to increase lifespan, though

Cheerful news for those whose Body Mass Index (BMI) falls into the "overweight" range today - you will probably live longer than a person whose BMI is "ideal". Boffins in Canada and America revealed the new findings following a study of over 11,000 Canadians covering the last 12 years. Unsurprisingly, people whose BMI showed …

Biology 24 Jun 11:37
UK police chiefs mull regional cybercrime squads

We're the eSweeney son, and we ain't had any dinner

British police chiefs are drawing up plans to set up regional "cybercrime" squads along the lines of existing teams tasked to handle anti-terror operations. The idea - still in its formative stages - is the brainchild of the Association of Chief Police Officers, and reflects concern that existing efforts are not enough to keep …

Crime 24 Jun 11:55
Nokia N97

Review Mobile content creation tool, anyone?

Nokia's flagship phone for 2009, the N97 has set sail – backed by marketing expenditure the size of an African nation's health budget. But it's barely got out of port before hitting stormy waters. Some of the disappointment expressed on the web – from phone fan sites and bloggers – is fair; some of it is baffling, but much of it …

Reg Hardware 24 Jun 12:02
Disney punts hetero luuurv to wide-eyed kiddies

Children spared the magic of Snow White and the Seven Gays

Parents who'd rather hoped that sticking their brats in front of a Disney film would result in nothing more serious than whining demands for associated merchandising will be horrified to learn that such movies are punting strictly heterosexual values to impressionable minds. That's according to Emily Kazyak and Karin Martin, …

Biology 24 Jun 12:40
Bing zings, but for how long?

Paid clicks on the up

Microsoft’s Bing bubble apparently hasn’t burst yet - stats released yesterday show the firm’s revamped search engine upped its share of paid clicks by 13 per cent following its launch earlier this month. Analysis outfit Efficient Frontier spun out the data on Tuesday, but added the numbers didn’t really reveal all that much …

Applications 24 Jun 12:51
Geek demos Theremin Super Mario game controller

New use for 1920s musical gadget

Motion controlled gaming’s currently the talk of the town, thanks to the likes of Microsoft’s Project Natal. Now one enterprising Nintendo fan has turned a 1920s musical gadget into a new form of motion-based Mario controller. The unnamed 24-year-old gamer from Glasgow adapted an old Theremin so that he’s able to use it as a …

Reg Hardware 24 Jun 13:16
Vodafone has head stuck in Smoke

Wants to work nearer ~~home~~ partners

Vodafone's top brass is relocating to London, in a move that apparently has nothing to do with not liking Newbury and everything to do with being closer to business partners and shareholders. The Chief Executive Officer, Vittorio Colao, will be relocating along with 200 of his entourage in a move the company told us was part …

Mobile 24 Jun 13:27
CGI Thunderbirds sadly not go

ITV disses Gerry Anderson remake plea

Thunderbirds creator Gerry Anderson says ITV has pretty well scuppered his plans to offer a CGI remake of the classic series - despite his insistence he can raise the £15m needed to bring the Tracy family back to the screen. Anderson, 80, told the Daily Mail he's engaged in "a bitter battle" with the TV company's exec chairman …

Entertainment 24 Jun 13:35
Panda fattens up by gobbling European franchises in pre-float drive

Recession bamboo(zle)

Panda Security has bought three of its European franchise operations, taking them in-house as part of the latest phase in the Spanish security firm's international expansion strategy. The firm is racing to ramp up market share in the anti-malware market ahead of a planned floatation within five years. Panda's UK franchise has …

Channel Register 24 Jun 13:39
IT contractors demand overhaul of company transfer visas

But not concerned with immigrating ballet dancers

The Professional Contractors Group has called on the Migration Advisory Committee (MAC) to overhaul the rules regarding "intra company transfers" amidst rising concern that the system is open to abuse. The contractors' organisation is lobbying the MAC - a group of economists which advises the government on immigration policy …

IT Director 24 Jun 14:32
Homebrew Pre apps find easy install

We've got ourselves a security hole, Rubber Duck

Developers unwilling to wait for the Mojo SDK for Palm's Pre, or to be bound by its restrictions, have discovered that unsigned applications can be installed using a specially-formatted e-mail rather than any mucking about with unlocking the handset. The process, as explained at Pre Central, simply requires an e-mail …

Enterprise Security 24 Jun 14:45
Kate Moss kills Kills cuts

WSA Song-filled laptop goes for supermodel-assisted swim

Spindly, party-hopping Croydon supermodel Kate Moss is in some bother with her bloke, Kills muso Jamie Hince, after allegedly hurling his laptop - replete with new songs - into a swimming pool. The Guardian website happily reported yesterday that Moss flung Hince's bag into the pool during an argument. Hince, whose 2003 debut …

Entertainment 24 Jun 14:47
Rapidshare stung with €24m fine

German royalties collector chalks up big win

File hosting service Rapidshare has been fined €24m by a German court and ordered to filter online content more effectively. German royalties collector GEMA, which brought the case against the company, had called on the Regional Court in Hamburg to order Rapidshare to prohibit around 5,000 music tracks from being made …

Music and Media 24 Jun 14:59
US military cyberwar force will work with NSA

Priority is net 'defense'. As in Department of Defense

The long wrangle among the US military about who gets to be in charge of cyber warfare and who gets all the resulting pork appears to have been settled. Questions remain, however, regarding the level of America's readiness to take offensive military cyber action against enemies presumably overseas. Reuters reports that the …

Enterprise Security 24 Jun 15:03
L'Oreal appeals eBay ruling

Gavel meet gavel

French slap and shampoo concern L'Oreal is to appeal a recent ruling that eBay is not responsible for counterfeit or grey import goods which are available on its site. L'Oreal sued eBay both in France and the UK and lost both cases. It is the French ruling that L'Oreal is appealing today, although presumably we can expect a …

Law 24 Jun 15:15
MS no-frills security scanner gets thumbs up in early tests

Security Essentials does what it says on the tin

Microsoft's limited but free-of-extra-charge anti-malware scanner has performed creditably in early tests. Independent testing lab AV-test.org put Microsoft Security Essentials through its paces, after downloading a beta version of the software following its limited release on Tuesday. The application, which lacks personal …

Malware 24 Jun 15:21
Hero: HTC names third Android smartphone

Enough to rival the iPhone 3G S?

HTC has taken the covers off of its third smartphone based on Google’s Android OS. But does the firm’s latest phone sport sufficient features and a decent enough UI to shake the foundations at iPhone 3G S HQ? HTC's Hero: an Android phone running HTC's own Sense UI The first thing to mention about HTC’s new phone – called …

Reg Hardware 24 Jun 15:25
Vivitek readies UK debut of world’s first LED Full HD DLP projector

Impressive. Most impressive

Californian presentation and display technology company Vivitek is launching a full-frontal assault on the UK projector market, with the launch of the H9080FD, billed as the world’s first LED Full HD DLP home cinema projector. Vivitek plans to launch some 30 DLP projectors aimed at all sectors – corporate, education and …

Reg Hardware 24 Jun 15:27
Tesla cashes multi-million dollar govt cheque

Leccy Tech For expanding its e-car business

Tesla Motors has secured itself a whopping funding package from the US government which the company plans to use to further its standing in the e-car business. Under the terms of the deal, the Californian firm will receive $465m (£285m/€333m) of US federal wonga. The grant will be in the form of low interest loans from the …

Reg Hardware 24 Jun 16:01
UK mobile networks clash following HTC Hero launch

Orange and T-Mobile slug it out for Hero customers

Just hours after HTC unveiled Hero as its third Android-based smartphone, the UK arms of T-Mobile and Orange have both confirmed plans to sell the phone in Blighty. T-Mobile's G1 Touch (left) and the original G1 T-Mobile had already promised to unveil its second Android-based smartphone for the UK this week. And it turns …

Reg Hardware 24 Jun 16:02
Steve Jobs liver transplant confirmed by doc

With Steve's permission, natch

A Tennessee physician has confirmed that Steve Jobs has a new liver. With a statement posted to the web, James D. Eason, M.D. - program director at Methodist University Hospital Transplant Institute and the chief of transplantation - said that Jobs received a liver transplant at the institute in partnership with the University …

Business 24 Jun 17:01
Microsoft cuts off Security Essentials downloads

Less than a day later

Redmond has cut off access to its Microsoft Security Essentials beta, less than a day after offering the free security app to John Q. Public on a first-come, first-served basis. "Thank you for your interest in joining the Microsoft Security Essentials Beta," reads a post to the MSE website. "We are not accepting additional …

Malware 24 Jun 17:48
Eclipse worms into Apple Cocoa, iPhone

Galileo magnifico

Apple Macs, iPhones, and other mobile devices are being pulled into the open-source tools universe of Eclipse, a group whose genesis can be traced to enterprise Java and C/C++. The project today released Eclipse 3.5, codenamed Galileo, which wraps 33 projects in an integrated release. For the first time, the bundle can be …

Developer 24 Jun 18:08
Doom creator bought by Bethesda

Swallows ego, sells psyche

Id Software, the famed independent game developer behind Doom and Quake, has been sold to ZeniMax Media, the parent company of Bethesda Softworks. The acquisition marks the end of id's existence as one of the game industry's few remaining large, successful indie dev houses. Both companies, however, promise to keep the status …

Music and Media 24 Jun 18:15
HP switches to DC for telcos

Servers get their NEBS on

Phone companies got one idea right regarding switching systems and other back office kit running complex applications: stick with DC power. Many of the tier one server makers have a tidy little side business selling carrier-grade servers with DC power that meet the Network Equipment Building System (NEBS) standards that were …

Servers 24 Jun 18:23
Apple wins right to continue Hackintosh beating

A very dead horse

Erstwhile Apple clone-maker Psystar is trying to escape, but Apple won't let them. Psystar, which announced its line of Mac clones just over a year ago, filed for bankruptcy this May in order to elude Apple's legal minions - but Cupertino is having none of it. And neither is the judge. Last Friday, Judge Robert A. Mark of the …

Channel Register 24 Jun 18:45
Beijing snuffs Google.com

Two hour blockage

Chinese net censors appeared to block Google's worldwide website last night, as that country's government continues to grapple with the company over pornographic links turned up by its search engine. After 9pm local time, the The Financial Times reports, attempts to access google.com and gmail.com from separate computers in …

Government 24 Jun 19:52
AT&T punts not-free iPhone nav app

Ten bucks a month for turn-by-turn

AT&T has released a free turn-by-turn iPhone navigation app - but to actually use it, you'll have to pay ten bucks a month. AT&T Navigator (iTunes link) is being distributed - and billed - by AT&T Services, but it's powered by technology from cell-phone navigation veteran TeleNav. AT&T already offers the Navigator service for …

Mobile 24 Jun 20:56
Chrome update plugs hush-hush browser hole

As Secunia releases browser patching tool

Google has pushed out a new version of its browser that protects against a critical vulnerability as well as fixing some stability snags. Version 2.0.172.33 of Chrome patches a severe flaw involving how the browser handles particular responses from HTTP servers. The security bug creates a buffer overflow risk, implying it …

Security 24 Jun 21:03
US IT outfits slice 34,800 jobs

The lovely month of May

Stateside IT suppliers jettisoned more than 34,000 jobs last month, according to new research. Since the economic meltdown hit last summer, El Reg has been tracking the monthly jobs report put out by the U.S. Department of Labor's Bureau of Labor Statistics, looking at the overall jobs picture and trying to peel apart the IT- …

Financial News 24 Jun 21:28
Hohm - save energy the Microsoft way

More Google coat-tail obsession

Household energy conservation is a task typically handled by fathers peevishly moving from room-to-room, turning off lights and closing doors whilst grumbling over the barnyard behavior of his offspring. But now Microsoft wants a piece of the racket. The Redmond giant on Wednesday said that it's launching a free web-based …

Music and Media 24 Jun 21:45
SCO's lifesaver 'profited from Iraq war'

Dealer in cement and software

As protracted debacles go, the US-led invasion of Iraq and the SCO Group's fruitless prosecution of IBM over Linux have a few things in common. They were both ill advised. Both wasted huge amounts of money. And both draw near universal contempt and condemnation. Now they have another connection. One of two private investors …

Operating Systems 24 Jun 22:02
UK retailer apologizes for faux Iran Tweets

Habitat's Mousavi gift card

If you're among the many who've been searching Twitter for digital howls of revolution over the disputed Iranian presidential election, you may have turned up ads for UK furniture retailer Habitat. Habitat has apologized for the houseware ads, which were tagged with words like "Iran" and "Mousavi." But it's not taking the …

Music and Media 24 Jun 23:40