10th January 2005 Archive

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Post Office delivers phone service

Hooks up with C&W

The Post Office today returned to the telecoms sector with its HomePhone service. The organisation, which ran the UK's telecoms network until BT was spun out in 1981, is gunning for one in 20 of BT's residential fixed line customers by 2008. Following in the footsteps of other operators (Tesco, Carphone Warehouse, British Gas, …

Telecoms 10 Jan 2005, 10:42
BETT hosts finals of F1 in Schools design challenge

The glamorous side of engineering

The finals of a nationwide design and engineering competition will be held in London this week at the BETT Educational Technology show. More than 300 schools have submitted entries to the National Jaguar F1 Team in Schools competition, but only one team can emerge victorious. As well as catching the race, visitors to BETT will …

Science 10 Jan 2005, 11:33
UK leads Europe in VoD

Consumer choice a-go-go

With the most developed digital and pay TV market in Europe, it is hardly surprising that the UK also ranks as the most diverse and developed market for on-demand services. The UK is home to examples of every form of on-demand delivery, from standard cable near-video-on-demand services, through satellite Personal Video Recorders …

Personal 10 Jan 2005, 12:03
Consultant 'army' already busy on UK ID card scheme

Parliamentary rubber stamp to follow

The UK's ID scheme, which the Government intends to railroad through its commons committee stage within the next three weeks, already has more than 80 people working on it, according to figures obtained by the Liberal Democrats and published in the Daily Telegraph today. The total has more than doubled since last March, and the …

Music and Media 10 Jan 2005, 12:07
Exploit code attacks unpatched IE bug

Help! SP2 security breached

Code which exploits a vulnerability in the HTML Help control of Internet Explorer has been released onto the net. Secunia has upgraded the vulnerability, uncovered in October 2004, to "extremely critical". Even users who have upgraded to Windows XP SP2 with all available patches are affected, the security reporting firm warns …

Enterprise Security 10 Jan 2005, 12:08
Canadian net pharmacies wait for dotcom diagnosis

Open wide and say 'Aaaaaah'

Canada's thriving online drugs industry could be forced to swallow a bitter pill if the Government proceeds with plans to choke the sale of prescription drugs to the US. Last year, Some C$1bn (£435m) of prescription drugs are sold to US patients, who are keen to pocket the discounts offered by Canada's drug etailers. But now …

Financial News 10 Jan 2005, 12:13
Blair bumps Brown to schmooze with Gates at Davos

Will he be Queening it?

UK Prime Minister Tony Blair elbowed aside Chancellor Gordon Brown in order to star alongside Bill Gates and Thabo Mbeki at a Davos World Economic Forum session on Poverty, reports the Sunday Times. Blair, who is currently engaged in an absurdly squalid succession-related battle with Brown in the public prints, even arranged for …

Bootnotes 10 Jan 2005, 12:47
Super 3G group flexes its muscles

DoCoMo takes on WiMAX

NTT DoCoMo and Vodafone, the carriers that are most reliant on the survival of the GSM technologies into a fourth generation, have formed the Super 3G group to develop upgrades for W-CDMA. Although its roadmap is vague and its work may well be redundant, given the number of other 4G developments, it shows DoCoMo seeking to …

Mobile 10 Jan 2005, 13:41
Make-or-break year for WiMAX

Critical success factors

It's clear that 2005 will be the make or break year for WiMAX. Every wireless chip and equipment maker of note bar Qualcomm is now part of the WiMAX Forum; the planned harmonization of 802.16e with Korea’s Wi-Bro could create the first unified global standard for both fixed and mobile communications; WiMAX could quite …

Wireless 10 Jan 2005, 13:42
Wobble bottoms get mobile boost

Fat-busting tips on the move

If you're struggling - in common with millions of other Xmas overindulgers - to shed a few pounds in anticipation of hitting the beaches of Rio de Janeiro this summer without being ridiculed as the lardy wobble-bottom you currently are, then look no further than a mobile innovation from Weightwatchers and mobile platform and …

Mobile 10 Jan 2005, 14:24
US software pirate jailed for 18 months

Copyright infringement rap

A US software pirate has been sentenced to 18 months' jail by a Virginia court for punting illicit programmes via a pay-for-access website, Australian IT reports. Over six months, Kishan Singh, 33 of Lanham, Maryland, sold thousands of cracked copies of Adobe, Autodesk, Macromedia, and Microsoft programmes with an estimated ( …

Software 10 Jan 2005, 14:26
IBM exports Liverpool jobs to India

Exclusive Not talking numbers

IBM is exporting more UK jobs to India under "strategic" changes to an outsourcing contract with insurer Royal & SunAlliance (RSA). Helpdesk staff based in Liverpool were told of the move last week. Due to be completed within the next five or six months, the jobs will be taken up by staff working in Bangalore, India. According …

IT Director 10 Jan 2005, 14:35
Southampton Uni goes Open Access

All academic output free on the web

Southampton University has made all of its academic and scientific research output available for free on the web. The University said the decision marks a new era in Open Access to research in the UK; it will host workshops for other academic institutions thinking of making a similar transition. Southampton describes the self- …

Music and Media 10 Jan 2005, 14:39
Stamping Passport

Column Good in parts

Online auction house eBay recently announced that it would discontinue support for Microsoft's Passport authentication service, touching off lively discussions on Slashdot and other forums where anti-Microsoft sentiment runs strong. Passport has long been plagued with criticism and concerns over privacy and security, and for …

Enterprise Security 10 Jan 2005, 15:44
BT attacks Post Office 'dark ages' service

Stick to stamps, says telco

BT has thrown a strop because Postman Pat is muscling in on its telecoms business. Earlier today the Post Office announced its return to the telecoms sector with the launch of its HomePhone service. The organisation, which ran the UK's telecoms network until BT was spun out in 1981, is gunning for a million BT residential fixed …

Telecoms 10 Jan 2005, 15:45
BeCrypt acquires Data Sentry from Serco

Scrambling for safety

Serco today sold the rights to its Data Sentry security software to BeCrypt, a UK encryption specialist. BeCrypt is an established provider of encryption software to UK police forces and will used Data Sentry to offer higher security for government and defence contractors’ mobile devices. BeCrypt has acquired the intellectual …

Enterprise Security 10 Jan 2005, 17:37
Skype VoIP threat to Euro telcos

Ringing the changes

Broadband telephony outfit Skype looks set to become a major threat to Europe's traditional telcos as more and people use the net to make phone calls. According to research outfit Evalueserve, the European telecoms market is more vulnerable to Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) providers because of per minute tariffs and high …

Telecoms 10 Jan 2005, 17:40
Spammers tax DNS infrastructures

Net blueprints in need of revision?

Spammers are straining the world's Domain Name System (DNS) infrastructure. eWeek reports that emerging tactics - such as sending bulk mailings at night from very-recently registered domains - are placing a heavy load on DNS servers attempting to look-up non-existent domains. Bulk mailers are adopting the 'registration after …

Spam 10 Jan 2005, 17:44
The MS spyware experiment, moving calendars...

Letters ...and the cyber appliance nightmare continues

There is a wide range of opinion out there on Microsoft's entry into the anti-spyware market...we wouldn't have it any other way: As long as the anti-spyware firms were external to MS, MS had an incentive to fix the holes in its OS. But with updates by paid-for subscription, MS loses the incentive and in fact profits by holes …

Letters 10 Jan 2005, 17:46
Scientists watch matter fall into black hole

Like flushing a cosmic toilet

An international team of astronomers has made direct observations of clumps of gas, orbiting a black hole at ten per cent of the speed of light. This is the first time scientists have been able to see individual X-ray- emitting lumps of matter go all the way round a black hole. The data provide an insight into previously …

Science 10 Jan 2005, 19:10
Oracle shy about new mobile database

This is what others are saying

Oracle has freshened up its database built for mobile devices, adding a couple of new tools that make downloading updates and managing the software easier. Oracle typically babbles on at length about all the amazing features built into a new version of its software. So, its statement for Database Lite 10g comes as a bit of …

Applications 10 Jan 2005, 19:12