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22nd March 2010 Archive

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  • WIN a 16GB Nokia X6 from Phones 4u

    Competition And tune into the world's hottest DJs

    Phones 4u currently has the UK exclusive on Nokia's 16GB X6 music phone, and it has generously given one of these gorgeous handsets to Reg Hardware to give away. The X6 - we reviewed it here - delivers a great music playback experience, and with 16GB of on-board storage, it has plenty to space for tunes and videos. Its 3.2in, …

    Reg Hardware 22 Mar 08:02

  • EU approves on-board GSM for cruisers

    But no 3G on the high seas

    The EU has approved the use of on-boat GSM base stations, but users will have to remain below decks once they're within a couple of miles of the shore. The agreement covers all ships in European waters. Those on board will be able to run GSM services at 900 and 1800MHz as long as they stay below decks once they vessel is …

    Mobile 22 Mar 08:02

  • Mandy quango says Apple, Amazon are too obscure

    'Music biz should pay to tell them'

    A group sponsored by Lord Mandelson’s Department for Business, Innovation and Skills says more money should be spent telling Britons about iTunes and Amazon, because not enough people know about them. It says the music business should pick up the tab, though. Last week Consumer Focus released the results of a poll that showed …

    Music and Media 22 Mar 09:02

  • Siemens union threatens BBC strike

    Planes, trains and now the telly?

    Members of media union Bectu have voted in favour of strike action to oppose a BBC pay freeze for tech staff. Siemens staff working at the BBC voted for action unless talks on Wednesday prove successful, after a giant outsourcing deal. Bectu told the BBC the result on Friday and the two sides will meet again on Wednesday. …

    IT Director 22 Mar 09:02

  • Challenging accepted ERP wisdom

    Workshop Don’t get hung up on traditional priorities

    So you've been through an ERP implementation before and you know how it's all done? That’s good to hear, but if your experience was a few years ago, it might be worth taking a look at the way things have been changing. The truth is that anyone reviewing their ERP requirements today won't be doing themselves any favours if they …

    ERP 22 Mar 09:23

  • Loud sex ASBO woman back on the job

    Cuffed again for raucous rumpy-pumpy

    The Tyne and Wear woman earlier this year spared jail for breaching an ASBO requiring her to refrain from unnaturally loud sex has been cuffed after once again failing to put a sock in it. Caroline Cartwright, 49, was handed an eight-week sentence, suspended for 12 months, for three breaches of the order designed to protect …

    Bootnotes 22 Mar 10:21

  • DfT scraps IT projects worth £15.4m

    That can't be good for the brakes

    The Department for Transport has cancelled three major IT projects in the last year prior to their completion. The three projects scrapped by the department were known as TVTTT, VINI and ISYS. TVTTT, which involved tracking vehicles through the trade, had cost £7.8m when cancelled. It was ended "as another project was found to …

    Channel Register 22 Mar 10:23

  • Dodgy BitDefender update bricks systems

    BullGuard also bitten by borked box balls-up

    A dodgy update from BitDefender on Saturday bricked Win 64-Bit systems after it was applied. Rogue signature updates meant that multiple Windows and BullGuard files were falsely flagged as infected with a Trojan (now identified as Trojan-FakeAlert-5) and quarantined. Affected systems were subsequently left with applications …

    Malware 22 Mar 10:25

  • Office IT: One size doesn't fit all?

    Workshop Can everyone get what they need?

    “We are all individuals” – Brian “I’m not” – computer user 'One size fits all' might be preferable for IT departments, but from an end-user perspective, everybody thinks they have different needs. But choice can be a two-edged sword. I remember way back when, having been put in charge of IT, I was surprised that desktop …

    Desktop Management 22 Mar 11:01

  • Pirates of the Caribbean say 'narrr' to Bulgarian airbags

    Fourth film to be an entirely natural affair

    The director of the fourth Pirates of the Caribbean outing has decreed that actresses with breast implants will not be welcome to swash their buckles alongside the 100 per cent natural and impressive pirate's chest of Penelope Cruz. Rob Marshall has instructed Los Angeles casting agents that he's after "beautiful female fit …

    Entertainment 22 Mar 11:16

  • SpinVox consumer service croaks

    You are being disconnected

    Readers have let us know that SpinVox's UK consumer service will soon be croaking its last voicemail. The company translates voice messages to text. Last Thursday UK customers received the following text messages: Dear customer, we regret to inform you that SpinVox is no longer supporting individual user accounts.  Your …

    Mobile 22 Mar 11:27

  • Novell snubs hedge fund's $1bn takeover bid

    Struggling software vendor says it's worth more than that

    Novell has spurned an unsolicited $1bn cash takeover bid from Elliot Associates. It said on Saturday that it had considered the company's offer to acquire Novell for $5.75 per share in cash, but concluded such a deal was "inadequate" and "undervalued" Novell's "franchise and growth prospects". Earlier this month New York- …

    Operating Systems 22 Mar 11:31

  • Pandora plus Endor: Multi hab-moon motherworld discovered

    Vids Ewok v Na'vi space wars at faraway giant planet?

    Top astro boffins have announced the discovery of the first planet which could be the real-life parent world of fictional habitable moons Pandora and Endor. According to Blighty's top exomoonologist, there might even be more than one inhabited moon circling the newly discovered gas giant. Corot-9b orbits a G3 star not …

    Space 22 Mar 11:37

  • Acer Aspire One 532

    Review The best 2G Atom machine?

    If you thought the netbook market was already flooded, Intel’s recently-launched 'Pine Trail' platform means you can expect another new batch to come through. We’ve already seen Asus’ take on Pine Trail with the Eee PC 1005PE - reviewed here. Now we have Acer’s Aspire One 532h. Acer's Aspire One 532: 'Pine Trail' pioneer? …

    Reg Hardware 22 Mar 12:02

  • Brown creates one UK.gov website to rule them all

    Centralised 'dashboard' to save lots of money

    The government has announced plans for a personalised web page for every UK citizen to access all public services online in a single location. Gordon Brown announced this morning "Mygov", a new centralised "dashboard" to act as a successor to Directgov, which was originally designed to achieve the same thing. Emphasising the …

    Government 22 Mar 12:11

  • WiMAX Forum begs for speedy spectrum release

    Just give us some UK airwaves

    The WiMAX Forum has called for speedy disposal of the UK's allocated TDD spectrum, so it can take advantage of the standard's ever-decreasing technical lead. Digital Britain calls for 50MHz of spectrum at 2.57GHz to be effectively earmarked for WiMAX, but that plan releases the spectrum as part of the Digital Dividend mega- …

    Mobile 22 Mar 12:19

  • The art of optimising VM performance

    Lab Physical and virtual hiccups

    While it is unfair to say (as many vendors do), that server virtualisation will take over the world during the course of the next fifteen minutes, we know from the readers of The Register that ever-expanding numbers of virtual machines (VMs) are being spun up by organisations large and small. A primary driver for early server …

    Virtualisation Lab 22 Mar 12:27

  • Sophos sorry for blog comment spam campaign

    Marketing agency gets up to mischief

    Sophos has apologised after a third-party marketing agency hired by the anti-virus and anti-spam specialist sprayed link spam on the blog of security expert Gunter Ollmann. Multiple auto-generated comments submitted to Ollmann's technicalinfo.net blog containing hyperlinks to the anti-malware portal on the Sophos website. The …

    Spam 22 Mar 12:59

  • Windows XP Mode skips virtualisation hardware requirements

    All about wooing the small guy

    Microsoft pushed out a software update late last week that strips away some hardware requirements for running Windows XP Mode on Windows 7 computers, in a move designed to convince more SMBs to upgrade their operating systems. The software maker said Windows XP Mode no longer needed hardware virtualisation technology to run …

    Channel Register 22 Mar 13:03

  • Orange claims Xperia X10 exclusive

    Check the small print

    Orange has said that it has won the exclusive on Sony Ericsson's eagerly anticipated Android-based smartphone, the Xperia X10. That claim came as some surprise to Virgin Media, which announced last week that it will be offering the X10 in April. Sony Ericsson's Xperia X10: if you want the white one, you'll have to turn …

    Reg Hardware 22 Mar 13:16

  • Man could face prison over six second 'extreme porn' clip

    Oh, grrrrreat

    A man has been warned he faces a custodial sentence after pleading guilty to possession of what prosecutors described as "extreme porn" at Mold Crown Court last week. Campaigners against the extreme porn law are now waiting with some concern to see what the court decides when the accused, Andrew Robert Holland, of Coedpoeth, …

    Law 22 Mar 13:44

  • Greatest Living Briton gets £30m for 'web science'

    We are all Twittercrats now

    As an alliance of the desperate, this one takes some beating. The Greatest Living Briton (Sir Timothy Berners Lee) has been thrown £30m of taxpayers' money for a new institute to research "web science". Meanwhile the Prime Minister waxed lyrical today about the semantic web - how "data" would replace files, with machine …

    Government 22 Mar 14:08

  • Germany warns surfers against Firefox

    Achtung browser

    German's official cyber-security response team is advising surfers not to use Firefox pending the release of a patch to defend against a critical unpatched vulnerability. BürgerCERT, a division of the German federal government's security in information technology (BSI) department, warned surfers to steer clear of the open …

    Malware 22 Mar 14:13

  • Victorinox offers hackers £100,000 challenge

    Ballad of hack the knife

    Swiss Army Knife maker Victorinox is asking the best of Britain's hackers to try and beat the biometric security built into its latest USB Flash drive-fitted penknife. If you manage it, you stand to win £100,000. The company will be holding trials at its New Bond Street, London shop this coming Thursday and Friday, 25 and 26 …

    Reg Hardware 22 Mar 14:17

  • Sony grows Vaio E notebook range

    Colourful 14in, 17in models added

    Hot on the heels of last week's Vaio M netbook introduction, Sony has today taken the wraps off another Vaio range: the colourful E series. The line-up comprises a 14in model and a 17in notebook, both of which join the 15in Vaio E launched in February. Sony's Vaio E: bubblegum laptop? It did reveal that the new machines …

    Reg Hardware 22 Mar 14:54

  • Tory 'Cash Gordon' campaign suffers Web2.0rhea bum rush

    Updated Lesson in how not to 'trend' on Twitter

    The Tories, in their enthusiasm for all things Web2.0rhea, launched an ill-conceived Facebook Connect campaign over the weekend that they hoped would encourage people to gripe about Labour's ties to the Unite union. As is the norm in these, er, web-enlightened days, the Conservative Party hoped to turn "#cashgordon" into a " …

    Government 22 Mar 15:07

  • Geezer eBays 'bastardised, chaved up Skippy mobile'

    Renault Clio pitch acclaimed 'best advert eva', innit

    The seller of a 2005 Renault Clio has brightened a few days with his novel description of the "proper bastardised, chaved up Skippy mobile". The vehicle in question is apparently ideal for "Teenage Drug Dealers/Low Life & Oxygen Thieves" and represents "a fantastic opportunity to increase 3 fold your class A drug selling …

    Bootnotes 22 Mar 15:09

  • 'Smart roof' coating made of old takeaway fryer oil

    Super chipfat cladding slashes bills, says inventor

    Eco-friendly boffinry entrepreneurs have proposed a radical new scheme to reduce energy consumption in the home. Rooftops should, they say, be coated with a revolutionary "smart roof" temperature-sensitive material made out of used cooking oil. "This bio-based intelligent roof coating, compared with a traditional cool roof, …

    Environment 22 Mar 15:21

  • Outlook bleak for NHS IT

    There's nothing more we can do

    The NHS's National Programme for IT - supposedly the world's largest civilian technology project - is looking increasingly unwell. But now, with weeks until the general election, the NHS and its suppliers are desperate to score some victories. Pressure is mounting on Morecambe Bay - which is meant to be the first place to …

    Government 22 Mar 15:32

  • Mickos new CEO at cloud manager Eucalyptus

    Time for a RightScale merger?

    If you had any hopes that Marten Mickos might lead the charge to commercialize a fork of the open source MySQL database with MySQL founder Michael "Monty" Widenius, forget it. Mickos has a new job as chief executive officer at cloudy infrastructure management software maker Eucalyptus Systems, and has moved on. Mickos was the …

    Applications 22 Mar 15:57

  • Telegraph trips over the Large Hardon Collider

    Sub-atomic cock-up

    The Daily Telegraph last Friday showed particle boffins the potentially disastrous effects of meddling with things you don't fully understand - in this case just what "LHC" stands for: This being the interwebs, the paper was able to move with almost light speed to correct the outrage - an electronic benefit not available to …

    Bootnotes 22 Mar 15:59

  • Russia arrests three over $9m RBS WorldPay scam

    Alleged looters face lots of questions

    Three men suspected of orchestrating a massive $9m cyber-raid on RBS WorldPay involving cloned payroll cards and hacking have been arrested by Russian's FSB internal security service. Viktor Pleshchuk, the alleged ringleader, and two accomplices, Sergei Tsurikov and Oleg Covelin, were arrested on suspicion of masterminding the …

    Crime 22 Mar 16:30

  • Pirate Party UK launches manifesto

    Freetards, unite!

    The Pirate Party UK is launching its manifesto tonight, under embargo: but since we don't believe in antiquated and oppressive IP laws - we're setting it free. Move over, Mondeo Man: the Pirates are firmly targeting the bloke in the garden shed, with his trousers around his ankles. The Party plans lots of new laws. Laws on " …

    Music and Media 22 Mar 16:42

  • Amazon brews Kindleware for Apple's iPad

    ibooks without the iBooks

    Amazon said on Monday that it plans to introduce a new version of its Kindle software for the Apple iPad, going head-to-head with the iBooks ereader Apple intends to bundle with the much-discussed device. According to an Amazon web post, the company will also offer similar software for other tablet computers, but this …

    Music and Media 22 Mar 17:45

  • Unisys gooses ClearPath mainframes

    New Libra in the middle

    Mainframe maker Unisys has boosted the process capacity of its ClearPath Libra mainframes, shooting the gap between high-end Libra models based on Unisys' homegrown mainframe engines and entry Libra models based on Intel's quad-core and six-core Xeon MP processors. The new ClearPath Libra 750 machine announced today runs the …

    Servers 22 Mar 18:36

  • Botnet pierces Microsoft Live through audio captchas

    'Look at these delineations!'

    The prolific Pushdo spam botnet has found a new way to penetrate Microsoft's Live.com by exploiting weaknesses in the audio captchas designed to prevent automated scripts from accessing the popular email service. A new version of the bot causes infected PCs to pull down Live.com audio captchas and return the correct response …

    Security 22 Mar 18:39

  • Google redirects China to uncensored Hong Kong servers

    Warns Chinese may block 'entirely legal' move

    Google has shut down its Chinese search engine, Google.cn, and is now redirecting site visitors to its Hong Kong-based engine, Google.com.hk, where it will provide uncensored search results in simplified Chinese designed specifically for users in mainland China. The move comes just over two months after the company said it had …

    Music and Media 22 Mar 21:32

  • Russians approve, um, Sunacle deal

    Oligarch Ellison

    I guess we all know what Larry Ellison thinks of the Federal Antimonopoly Service, the antitrust regulatory body in Russia. While the European Union was credited with holding up the $7.4bn acquisition of Sun Microsystems by Oracle, the FAS was supposed to have a say in whether or not the deal went through too. But about one …

    Applications 22 Mar 21:56

  • Russia to crack down on abuse of .ru addresses

    Passport or registration papers required

    The organization that administers Russia's .ru top-level domain names will soon begin verifying the identity of its customers in an attempt to crack down on cybercrime, according to reports. Starting April 1, Russia's Coordination Center for will require individuals and businesses applying for a .ru domain address to provide a …

    ID 22 Mar 23:17