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9th September 2009 Archive

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  • Microsoft tells US retailers Linux is rubbish

    'What most customers want' is Windows

    As the launch of Windows 7 approaches, Microsoft is distributing literature to American retailers claiming that Linux works with few peripherals or online services, offers limited software capability, affords no authorized support, does not work with games "your customers want," and cannot use video chat on any of the major IM …

    Operating Systems 9 Sep 00:40

  • Silverlight swallows off-line DRM pill

    Four's the glory

    The next version of Microsoft's Silverlight will cozy up to media giants with out-of-browser digital rights management (DRM). Microsoft said Tuesday it will provide a preview demonstration Silverlight 4.0 this weekend that will feature DRM for content delivered offline and that is powered by its PlayReady technology. The …

    Developer 9 Sep 00:42

  • Microsoft, Cisco issue patches for newfangled DoS exploit

    Updated Relief for industry-wide TCP attack

    Microsoft and Cisco have issued updates that protect against a new class of attack that requires very little bandwidth and can leave servers and routers paralyzed even after a flood of malicious data has stopped. The bug in the TCP, or transmission control protocol, was disclosed in October by security researchers Jack Louis …

    Enterprise Security 9 Sep 01:13

  • Google Maps reborn as world's largest Monopoly board

    No antitrust jokes, please

    Toymaker Hasbro is preparing to launch a world-encompassing live version of Monopoly using Google Maps as its game board. Having clearly missed the memo that both Apple and The Beatles are making a ruckus in the news Wednesday, Hasbro's Monopoly City Streets plans to dust off the dice tomorrow and will run until the end of …

    Odds and Sods 9 Sep 05:41

  • Sony Ericsson demos transparent handset

    Phone boasts see-through display

    A futuristic handset with transparent display has been caught on video. The phone, known as the Xperia Pureness, has been designed by Sony Ericsson and is set to appear in stores around the world later this year. Still images of the device first came to light late last week, but until now no one – bar a lucky few – had …

    reghardware 9 Sep 07:45

  • Xperia Pureness: The oddest mobile phone ever?

    The Strategy Boutique meets Feature backlash for Sony Ericsson

    Sony Ericsson has designed what may be the strangest phone ever. It certainly challenges the last ten years of conventional wisdom in phone design. The Xperia Pureness is a real curiosity. Functionality is as unabashedly as rock-bottom basic as you can get on a contemporary phone. It makes calls and texts, has a music player …

    Mobile 9 Sep 08:02

  • T-Orange: And then there were four

    What the new deal means for consumers and the industry

    T-Mobile and Orange reckon their merger will be good for shareholders, good for the industry and even good for the environment. But it is possible that customers might not be so enamoured. The new venture, which won't have a name until 2012, will be the largest network operator in the UK, with 37 per cent of the market. It …

    Mobile 9 Sep 08:02

  • Morse sales and profits sink in economic storm

    Claims restructuring starting to pay off

    Reseller and consultancy Morse saw revenue for the full year ended 30 June 2009 fall to £211.9m compared to £235.3m in 2008. Profit before tax and exceptional items also fell to £7.8m from £8.2m last year. It made an operating profit of £200,000 from continuing operations before exceptionals compared to a loss of £4.7m last …

    Channel Register 9 Sep 08:54

  • Director misappropriated former employer's data, court rules

    'Classic springboard operation'

    The founder of a conferencing business breached his former employer's database rights and misappropriated its confidential information, the High Court has said. Richard Braachi also attempted to 'pass off' his new business as the established company he had just left, the Court ruled. The High Court found that it was true that …

    Small Biz 9 Sep 09:11

  • Palm introduces Pré junior

    Updated Cute looks, but... Pixi?

    Rumours of a low-end alternative to the Pré were true, Palm has formally announced. The company has launched a junior version the Pré, called Pixi. It's essentially a smaller and less well-connected handset designed for the Twitter and IM generation. Palm's Pixi: for Twitter types, not Wi-Fi fans Pixi, unlike the Pré, …

    reghardware 9 Sep 09:11

  • Asus intros stylish binary-inspired monitors

    Killer looks

    Asus has come up with a series of LCD monitors. The screens' designers say the panels' sexy look was “inspired by the binary state”. Hmmm.... Asus' Designo MS: will sit well on a glass table top and beside a Herman Miller chair The luscious Designo MS series is a collection of five 16.5mm thick monitors propped up by a …

    reghardware 9 Sep 09:18

  • Dell shoots low for SMBs

    New servers, NAS box

    If you are a small and medium business getting ready to buy servers or storage, Dell wants to talk to you. Dell fancies itself as a big player to big customers in the server biz, but it really got its start among the small and medium businesses who first took a shining to its direct sales model and less expensive x86 PCs, and …

    Servers 9 Sep 10:02

  • Thermageddon? Postponed!

    It might get chilly for a bit

    Last week a UK tribunal ruled that belief in manmade global warming had the same status as a religious conviction, such as transubstantiation. True believers in the hypothesis will need mountains of faith in the years ahead. The New Scientist has given weight to the prediction that the planet is in for a cool 20 years - defying …

    Environment 9 Sep 10:13

  • Adaptec bolts SSDs onto lightning RAIDs

    Cache and hurry

    Adaptec is adding a NAND flash cache to its RAID controllers to speed up disk array read I/O. The company's MaxIQ product uses an Intel X25-E single level cell flash module which, Adaptec says, offers 1.2GB/sec throughout and 20,000 I/Os per second (IOPS) with a 3Gbit/s SAS interface and a PCIe 1.1 connection. It can be used …

    Storage 9 Sep 10:40

  • Sony writes up UK e-book viewer plan

    New Readers, e-bookshop coming to Blighty

    Sony obviously read pollster YouGov's research into the current state of the UK e-book viewer market, because the Japanese electronics giant has promised to boost its e-book efforts over here. The firm currently sells three models in the UK: the original Reader, the Reader Pocket Edition and the Touch Edition. It recently …

    reghardware 9 Sep 10:48

  • MPs meet Home Sec to urge McKinnon extradition rethink

    Another 11th hour appeal

    Home secretary Alan Johnson is due to hold talks later on Wednesday with a cross-party delegation of MPs over the possible extradition of Pentagon hacker Gary McKinnon to the US. Johnson is due to meet Labour's Michael Meacher, ex-shadow home secretary David Davis and Chris Huhne of the Lib Dems, The Daily Telegraph reports. …

    Government 9 Sep 10:49

  • 'Ring-wing' robo-sub smart swarm lands £6m oil deal

    DSEi MoD uninterested in Brit ring-bot sniffers, though

    An upstart startup founded by BAE Systems engineers, let go following a corporate reorganisation, says that it has won a large oil-industry deal for its underwater ring-wing robot swarm technology. GO Science, in its own words, was formed in 2002 by engineers who "left BAE Systems at Filton with many years of successful …

    Science 9 Sep 10:59

  • Ofcom website takes second day off

    Shot down by Colt

    Communications regulator Ofcom is mainly non-communicative today - its website is down for the second day. Surely nothing to do with problems at Colt? Colt is still keeping schtum on what caused problems yesterday, and today, but some customers are now being told it was a distributed denial of service attack rather than a …

    Telecoms 9 Sep 11:03

  • Good Housekeeping readers play hunt the G-spot

    Middle England tickles its stiff upper lips

    In a final death blow for the values which once made Blighty great - long shadows on cricket grounds, warm beer, invincible green suburbs, dog lovers, triumphant foreign wars, etc, etc - Good Housekeeping has published a reader guide to the top five vibrators. For its October issue, the "housewives' bible" (as the Telegraph …

    Bootnotes 9 Sep 11:04

  • New web filter laws questioned by top child abuse cop

    Home Office brewing pointless legislation?

    New laws reportedly planned for the Queen's Speech to force all internet providers to block access to child pornography websites have been questioned by Britain's top abuse investigator. Jim Gamble, chief executive of the Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre (CEOP), said the blacklist currently used to filter the …

    Law 9 Sep 11:05

  • Baby swing vid man cut loose

    Oz plod faces court action over web 'abuse' arrest

    A Queensland man plans to sue police who arrested and charged him for child abuse offences after he uploaded a video of a man apparently recklessly swinging a baby to a video website. Australian prosecutors have dropped all charges against Chris Illingworth, 61, opening the door to a compensation claim. A still from the clip …

    Law 9 Sep 11:12

  • First solar-powered noise-cancelling headset launched

    Carbon-free calls

    The world’s first solar-powered Bluetooth headset featuring noise cancellation technology has been launched, helping callers reduce their carbon footprint while out and about. SolarVoice: solar-powered noise cancellation Solar-powered headsets aren’t new – the first launched back in 2007 — but the SolarVoice 908 from firm i …

    reghardware 9 Sep 11:13

  • HP OfficeJet 6500 Wireless all-in-one inkjet

    Review Nice print quality, great running costs

    All inkjet makers are trying to persuade us that their printers really do offer an alternative to colour lasers. HP has been a leader in this push and, to its credit, has produced machines more likely to tempt people than most. Surprisingly, running costs are also claimed to be lower than from equivalently priced colour lasers. …

    reghardware 9 Sep 11:38

  • Scientology seeks to squash anonymity

    Anonymous attacks could backfire with tighter Aussie laws

    A little local controversy involving the Church of Scientology and its critics could lead to curbs on the right to anonymity of anyone using the web. The argument is currently raging in Australia, following the launch last November by the Australian Human Rights Commission (HREOC) of a report entitled Freedom of Religion and …

    Law 9 Sep 11:40

  • Google books deal 'bad for biz', thunders Microsoft

    Frenchies not kissing up to web giant either

    Opposition to Google’s plans to scan and punt millions of books on the interwebs has swelled in the past 24 hours, with the French government, Microsoft and privacy groups all voicing their concerns about the deal. France was the latest government to chide Google’s ambitious Book Registry proposal by saying it failed to …

    Music and Media 9 Sep 11:44

  • Sonic the Hedgehog to make 2D comeback

    Old-school Sonic fans' wish granted

    He’s blue, a hedgehog and – from next year – will be back in 2D, Sega has announced. Can't see the video? Download Flash Player from Adobe.com The videogame developer has released a teaser trailer for Sonic’s latest adventure, which will see the spiky mammal return to his two-dimensional roots in a title codenamed 'Project …

    reghardware 9 Sep 11:46

  • Pesticides fingered in UK honeybee wipeout

    Further suspicion falls on neonicotinoids

    A new study appears to have confirmed suspicions that the neonicotinoid group of pesticides is in part responsible for the dramatic decline in UK honeybee numbers, the Telegraph reports. Insect research charity Buglife and the Soil Association "brought together a number of peer-reviewed pieces of research" which demonstrate …

    Biology 9 Sep 11:49

  • BBC newsreader kidnapped by Phillip Garrido

    Forced to bear children...

    BBC newsreader Jonathan Charles has been delivered a short, sharp and very public lesson in "importance of punctuation on the autocue and breathing": The uploader responsible for this quite unfortunate comma failure is, according to the Telegraph, none other than the Beeb's economics and business unit supremo Jeremy …

    Bootnotes 9 Sep 12:06

  • Samsung launches skinny monitor, spurious marketing

    Meaningless acronyms ahoy

    Warning, meaningless acronyms ahead. Samsung today announced a new 23in monitor with "LED BLU" technology on board. Something to do with Blu-ray Disc, perhaps, or some other HD jiggery-pokery? No. 'BLU' simply stands for... er... "back light unit". Yes, Samsung could easily have said its XL2370 monitor has an LED backlight. It …

    reghardware 9 Sep 12:28

  • Intel Core i5-750 and Core i7-870

    Review 'Lynnfield' performance figures are go

    We published an in-depth look at Intel's 45nm 'Lynnfield' processors - aka the quad-core Core i7-870 and Core i5-750 - last week. Unfortunately, the chip giant's non-disclosure agreement (NDA) prevented us from including full performance figures. Intel officially launched the new chips yesterday morning, so we're now free to …

    reghardware 9 Sep 12:29

  • Flight sim site turns over hacker evidence to UK cops

    Shoot 'em down, says Avsim

    A US-based flight simulator site targeted by a debilitating hacking attack back in May has reportedly tracked its attackers back to the UK. Avsim has forwarded a dossier that provides what it reckons is “incontrovertible evidence" about the hacker's identity to Scotland Yard, the BBC reports. The May attack against Avsim …

    Enterprise Security 9 Sep 12:40

  • Good Day Sunshine as Beatles hits iTunes? Er, nope

    Rumour mill continues to Revolver

    Sky News has yanked a story that reported Yoko Ono claiming that the Beatles' catalogue was finally coming to Apple's iTunes. The story carried the headline: "The whole of the Beatles back catalog will be made to buy on iTunes, Yoko Ono has told Sky News." However, the report is no longer available online and Sky bosses …

    Music and Media 9 Sep 12:59

  • Spotify on iPhone: nice app, but no multitasking

    Review A fatal flaw?

    The Spotify application for the iPhone extends the usefulness of the service greatly - at the cost of a tenner a month. However the app has one show-stopping flaw: you can't play music when the application is in the background. This is not a hindrance shared by the iPhone or iPod Touch's default music application - and even on …

    Music and Media 9 Sep 13:16

  • Philippine fury at text tax

    F@ck off

    Filipino consumer groups have reacted with outrage to a proposed law imposing a tax on text and multimedia messages sent from mobiles. Despite attempts to include a "no-pass-it-on" proviso in the bill it passed yesterday with no such safeguard. Speaker Prospero C Nograles said: "We will not allow any such additional taxes on …

    Mobile 9 Sep 13:39

  • China Mobile embraces Symbian

    You've got a friend

    Nokia might not be as enthusiastic about Symbian as it used to be, but China Mobile is endorsing the platform to the extent of setting up its own Symbian Application Store. The deal is part of the Symbian Foundation's efforts to promote itself in China, and means China Mobile promoting the Symbian Horizon program for …

    Mobile 9 Sep 13:58

  • Blade Network nabs $10m in funding

    Shy server maker kicks in some dough

    Blade Network Technology - the blade switching business that was mercifully spun out of Nortel Networks before the Canadian firm collapsed - has locked down some Series B funding to help it bolster its business of selling switches for blade server chassis, and expand out to top-of-rack switches. In this second round of funding …

    Servers 9 Sep 14:01

  • EC to tackle 'misleading' online gadget sellers

    Over 200 'problem' websites slammed

    More than half of Europe's online gadget sellers failed to provide buyers with correct sales information or misled punters over pricing, an European Commission investigation has concluded. EC investigators visited 369 European websites selling “six of the most popular electronic goods”: compact cameras, phones, MP3 players, …

    reghardware 9 Sep 14:02

  • Philips demos specs-less 3D TV

    But may never launch it

    A Philips business partner has demoed one of the electronics giant’s 3D screens. Unlike most 3D TVs, this one can display HD content without the need for polarising or active shutter glasses. The set lacks an official name and its full specifications are a closely guarded secret. However, a spokeswoman at the Fraunhofer …

    reghardware 9 Sep 14:03

  • Ohio armed robber asked victim for a date

    'We are not exactly sure what he was thinking', admits cop

    An Ohio man who robbed a couple at gunpoint was arrested when he returned to ask his female victim for a date, the Columbus Dispatch reports. Stephfon Bennett, 20, together with two other men, relieved Daniel Martinez Batista and Diana Martinez of their wallets outside their Columbus apartment on Saturday night. A neighbour …

    Bootnotes 9 Sep 14:04

  • EMC quadruples investments in India

    An extra $1.5bn goes a lot further there

    EMC is quadrupling its investments in India, and said today that it will plunk down an incremental $1.5bn over the next five years to build up its research, development, and support operations for the Asia/Pacific region. EMC opened its first Indian office in 2000, and says that in the prior five years, it spent about a third …

    Storage 9 Sep 14:47

  • Micro Focus stock tumbles as boss quits

    Those pesky personal reasons

    Micro Focus saw its shares fall sharply today on the surprising news that its chief executive is leaving the company. Stephen Kelly cited personal reasons for the move, but then in an interview with Dow Jones he said he would be looking for new opportunities after a few months off. Micro Focus shares are down 14 per cent at …

    Channel Register 9 Sep 15:22

  • Guardian hitches ride in Mercedes Bunz

    Media überblogstress ponders 'boundaries and oligopolies'

    We're overdue a cheery Reg 'willkommen' to The Guardian's new Teutonic media and technology correspondent. Standing in for our liebling überblogstress Jemima Kiss, is the amazingly-named Mercedes Bunz. Despite the images of leather and polished wood her name might conjure, Ms Bunz was actually poached from Berlin-based …

    Music and Media 9 Sep 15:28

  • Slime-powered Toyota Prius demoed

    Leccy Tech Schwarzenegger to test motor's mettle

    With pee-powered cars a very real possibility, it shouldn't come as a shock that we may soon be driving vehicles that run on green slime. Well, algae, to be more precise. The Algaeus is a modified plug-in hybrid Toyota Prius that, instead of unleaded, uses an algal biofuel developed by Sapphire Energy. Sapphire grows the …

    reghardware 9 Sep 15:36

  • Tesco gets Flash of Silverlight in 'virtual DVD' deal

    Every little helps

    Microsoft has inked a deal with UK mega-grocer Tesco to flog a new home viewing service built on the software firm's Silverlight technology - which MS developers recently shunned at the launch of its Flash-only MSN video player. Financial terms of the agreement were kept secret. The retail giant will begin offering "digital …

    Applications 9 Sep 15:39

  • A phone in every car gains hard-won GSMA support

    Phoning while driving = £60, phoning after a crash = priceless

    The GSMA has, unsurprisingly, come out in support of the EU plan to fit a mobile phone in every car, valuing each life saved at over fourteen million quid. The eCall system dials 112 (the EU-wide emergency number) after an accident in order to summon the emergency services, and the Commission reckons that it could save 2500 …

    Mobile 9 Sep 16:02

  • Next-gen Atom gets faster sibling

    N450 to be joined by N470

    Intel's 'Pineview' processor looks set to run more quickly at launch than previously anticipated. The next-gen Atom netbook CPU, due in Q1 2010, was expected to debut at 1.66GHz as the N450. A couple of websites are now suggesting it will be accompanied by the N470, which will be clocked at 1.83GHz. The N450 was said to have …

    reghardware 9 Sep 16:06

  • Ubuntu's Koala food arrives on shelves

    Eucalyptus. Tastes great on VMware

    Eucalyptus Systems - the fledgling open source outfit that mimics Amazon's so-called compute cloud inside private data centers - has announced its first commercial product. Eucalyptus Enterprise Edition (EEE) is based on the open-source Eucalyptus "private cloud" platform originally developed by company co-founder and chief …

    Servers 9 Sep 16:41

  • AT&T (tries) to double iPhone 3G speeds

    In some cities. For some users

    AT&T - Apple's US network of choice for the iPhone - will double the speed of its 3G service in six cities by the end of this year, and it plans to extend that service to 90 percent of its current 3G coverage area by the end of 2011. In an announcement on Wednesday, AT&T said that it would deploy the upgraded service, HSPA 7.2 …

    Mobile 9 Sep 17:00

  • Word nemesis: Microsoft deliberately 'destroyed' our business

    Playing partners

    Word litigant i4i has claimed Microsoft worked to destroy its business while publicly touting its partner status. i4i said that Microsoft's inclusion of custom-XML editing in Word from 2003 usurped its own invention and relegated the company from mass-market player to mining the relatively smaller pharmaceutical sector. The …

    Applications 9 Sep 18:26

  • Sage payment processor suffers 24-hour outage

    Transaction history repeats itself (again)

    SagePay - the payments processor serving 25,000 companies in the UK and Ireland - experienced a major outage on Monday evening, and as problems dragged on late into Tuesday, one of its biggest competitors claimed a significant uptick in business. Caused by a "database-related" issue, the outage began at 7:48pm London time on …

    Financial News 9 Sep 18:41

  • Google Maps Monopoly board folds under server strain

    Hardware funds misspent on Water Works?

    There are riots in the Monopoly City Streets, after the game's debut today was utterly upended from the strain of the initial land grab. The new online incarnation of Monopoly, which uses Google Maps as its game board, has fluctuated between completely inaccessible and intolerably slow throughout the day. The game's blog has …

    Music and Media 9 Sep 18:43

  • German Pirate Party MP charged in child porn case

    Immunity lifted

    A German MP who recently quit the Social Democrats for the Pirate Party has been charged with possession and distribution of child pornography. Prosecutors in Karlsruhe said Joerg Tauss is suspected of acquiring child porn in over 100 cases between May 2007 and January of this year, and saving it to his cell phone. They also …

    Crime 9 Sep 18:47

  • Apple squeezes video camera into iPod nano

    But not the iPod touch

    Apple — in the person of CEO Steve Jobs — has announced a revamp of its iPod line, an upgrade to its iTunes Store, and a new version of the iTunes application for both Mac and Windows. Jobs took the stage this morning at an event in San Francisco, California, and according to live blogs from Macworld and AppleInsider, the …

    Music and Media 9 Sep 18:59

  • Critical bug infests newer versions of Microsoft Windows

    Redmond OS hardening has its limits

    Microsoft has promised to patch a serious flaw in newer versions of its Windows operating system after hackers released exploit code that allows them to take complete control of the underlying machines. The flaw, which affects various versions of Windows Vista, 2008, and the release candidate version of Windows 7, resides in …

    Security 9 Sep 19:23

  • Hubble back in form with stunning new images

    I spy with my massive eye...

    The Hubble Space Telescope is back to snapping pictures of the cosmos, supplying Earth with its precious allowance of desktop wallpapers. And with upgrades and repairs performed last May, the orbiting observatory is doing science even better than before. NASA shared its jubilation today with a fresh round of images featuring …

    Space 9 Sep 21:47

  • Storage hardware crawls out from under melted economy

    Software follows

    You take the good IT news where you can find it during this economic recession. The relative good news coming out of IDC is that storage hardware sales are starting to show sequential growth at some vendors and that the more profitable storage software biz is starting to recover even if sales are still down dramatically year-on- …

    Storage 9 Sep 23:42

  • US gov sites embrace GooHoo instant logins

    Obama does OpenID

    Hoping to make it easier for American citizens to log into and use federal web sites, the US government has embraced not one but two digital identity standards: OpenID and InfoCard. Today, the nation's (first) chief information officer, Vivek Kundra, announced a pilot program that will let you log into a handful of government …

    Public Sector 9 Sep 23:58