8th May 2007 Archive

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Sun makes Java mobile triple play

Adobe, Apple, Microsoft line up

Sun Microsystems is today expected to launch a media platform targeting consumer devices, pitting itself against Microsoft, Apple, and Adobe Systems. Sun plans to raise the curtain on its annual JavaOne conference by releasing the Java FX Script scripting language and Java FX family, consisting of a kernel and libraries …

Mobile 8 May 2007, 09:32
Who do you think you are?

Computers, Freedom and Privacy A week at CFP draws to a close

At the beginning of the last day of the ACM conference on Computers, Freedom, and Privacy I thought I knew who I was. Now, after a couple of panels on identity management, I'm less sure. Web 2.0 (rounded corners and all) brings a new twist to an old problem: more IDs, more passwords, more economic transactions, and many more …

ID 8 May 2007, 09:45
Corporate wireless and alphabet soup

Column 11n for business

It's always been a bit of a mystery to the average corporate PC user: why, if Wi-Fi runs at nearly 60 megabits per second, can you still plug several Wi-Fi access points into a 100 megabit Ethernet socket and drive it from your 8 megabit broadband ADSL router? Shouldn't you need several 100 megabit lines - one for each access …

Data Networking 8 May 2007, 10:20
Currys to cease stocking cassettes

Mix-tape romance wiped out by MP3s and teledildonics

The end of the road for cassette tapes has been widely heralded as Currys, the UK high street electrical heayweight, announced today that it will no longer be dealing in the classic storage format. Woolworths and HMV have already made the move. Cassettes were something of a cultural icon to many, though perhaps never as …

Storage 8 May 2007, 10:21
EU postpones roaming cap decision

As negotiations continue

The Brussels vote on capping mobile phone roaming charges has been postponed until the next plenary session, scheduled for 21 to 24 May. The vote was due to take place today, but negotiations between the commission, European Parliament, and council are still ongoing. The basic concept, that the EU will cap the amount operators …

Mobile 8 May 2007, 10:28
Up for the count

Comment Hove's my Rita, meter maid...

I recorded the interiors, exteriors, and ballot boxes (etc) for about seven polling stations on Thursday; one further refused me permission to photograph out of caution, specifically in case the public would be upset by the photography. Fair enough: I'd certainly rather election officials err on the side of safety. As the polls …

Government 8 May 2007, 10:37
Premium rate TV quizzes subject to new, strict rules

Real-time display and £10 cap to restore viewer trust

Callers to television programmes which use premium rate phone lines must now be told how many others are calling the programme and must be told when their charges reach £10 in a single day. A new set of rules came into effect this week governing how the expensive television quiz shows can operate. Premium rate phone regulator …

Entertainment 8 May 2007, 10:48
Aussies make offer for iSoft

Shares suspended

iSoft shares are up over six per cent this morning on news that it could be taken over by Australian health specialist IBA Healthcare. IBA has suspended dealing in its own shares on the Australian Securities Exchange while the company talks to investors about raising funds to pay for the takeover. iSoft confirmed in February …

Channel Register 8 May 2007, 10:48
MS launches 'unlimited potential' campaign

Comment The big picture on the 'next five billion'

Microsoft has announced its Unlimited Potential campaign - with a sub headline of "The Next Five Billion". This number points to the number of people as yet untouched by general computer technology, with only around 1.2 billion people on the planet currently having such technology available to them. With multiple offerings …

IT Director 8 May 2007, 11:04
Virgin throttles national cable network

Tens of thousands choked

Virgin Media has quietly rolled out bandwidth throttling nationwide, after successful technical trials in the North West, which the ISP says means a group of heavy users will sacrifice high speeds for the benefit of the majority. Speeds on the cable network will be limited between 4pm and midnight for traffic which Virgin …

Telecoms 8 May 2007, 11:36
EU funding to save Galileo?

Could be more a strategic issue than a commercial one

Stalled Euro sat-nav project Galileo could be set to receive more extensive backing from the European Union (EU) in order to get it moving again. Galileo was supposed to be more than half funded by private investors, principally AENA, Alcatel, EADS, Finmeccanica, Hispasat, Inmarsat, TeleOp, and Thales. The idea was that the new …

Space 8 May 2007, 11:42
Eighties throwback worm spreads via memory sticks

Danger USB

Miscreants have created a strain of malware which uses memory sticks as a vector for infection. The SillyFD-AA worm spreads by copying itself from infected machines onto removable drives such as USB memory sticks before automatically running when the device is next connected to a computer. The malware, which is also capable …

Anti-Virus 8 May 2007, 11:55
SlouchPod gaming chair

Exclusive Review Park your posterior on this puppy, plug in and play

If your home entertainment system is almost complete - Sky Plus is set, the games console is comfortable and the HD DVD player is in place - but getting down to an hour or two of some serious gameplay means rearranging the furniture, then the aptly named SlouchPod could be the solution. It is, in essence, a glorified bean …

Reg Hardware 8 May 2007, 13:28
Oregon boy in double spider ear blockage horror

Arachnophonia

A doctor in Oregon flushed out the aching lughole of a nine-year-old boy to find two spiders had set up home inside his ear canal. The Albany Democrat-Herald reports that one of the arachnids was still alive. Traumatised juvenile aural spider blockage victim Jesse Courtney said: "They were walking on my eardrum and I kept …

Bootnotes 8 May 2007, 13:47
Sage makes British buy

Snaps up Snowdrop

Accountancy and small business specialist Sage has bought UK firm Snowdrop Systems Limited. Sage is paying £17m in cash for the company which made sales of £7.5m in the year ended December 2006. Snowdrop has headquarters in Witney, Oxfordshire as well as offices in Australia, Barcelona, and Glasgow. Snowdrop makes systems …

Channel Register 8 May 2007, 13:49
Pioneer pitches cut-price Blu-ray Disc drive

Read only

Pioneer has launched its bid to dominate the Blu-ray Disc drive business with a drive set to retail for just €250 ($340/£170) including taxes. The catch: it's a read-only drive, at least as far as HD media go. The Japanese giant said it would offer two versions of the drive, one for computer manufacturers, the other for …

Reg Hardware 8 May 2007, 13:57
RFID mirror automatically insults your fashion sense

Trinny and Susannah redundant*?

Not content with tracking our children and getting under the skin of cattle; RFID readers are now being embedded in mirrors so the changing room can insult your selection of outfits as you try them on. Being demonstrated by the Paxar Corporation at the Material World show in Miami Beach, the magicmirror is intended to read the …

Wireless 8 May 2007, 13:58
Glastonbury data all at See

Booking firm blames human error

See Tickets, the booking firm at the centre of the Latitude festival spam outrage, has admitted that an "error of judgement" led to data on applications for Glastonbury tickets being carelessly shared. Martin Fitzgerald, general manager at See confirmed to The Register that the booking agency had sent out an email urging …

Spam 8 May 2007, 14:06
Moduslink blames OEMs for Vista upgrade delays

'We're just the middle-men'

ModusLink has said it regrets the lengthy delay experienced by customers awaiting Vista upgrades, but has pointed the finger of blame squarely at PC manufacturers. As we reported previously, customers who had purchased computers before the release of Microsoft's long-awaited operating system on 31 January had been promised …

Channel Register 8 May 2007, 14:15
Nvidia guns for integrated GPUs with $50 GeForce 7 board

Nvidia has rolled out its latest entry-level graphics chip, a GeForce 7 series product it hopes will win business back PC vendors choosing to stick with GPUs integrated into chipsets, and to persuade punters with low-cost PCs to do the same. The GeForce 7200 GS is only a DirectX 9-class GPU, but it's Windows Vista Premium …

Reg Hardware 8 May 2007, 14:21
BAE puffs troubled submarines, Spanish export order

A triumph for American engineering

BAE Systems, the UK's principal arms firm, is having a good media week in its submarine-building incarnation. Firstly, the troubled Astute-class project is finally getting some positive press, though it's hard to see why. The BBC notes that three Astute boats are now at different stages of construction and "a huge, red neon …

Science 8 May 2007, 14:44
Apple LED backlight order points to MacBook Pro make-over?

Sooner than expected

Apple's anticipated line of displays fitted with LED backlights could be turned on sooner than expected: next month, if testimony from industry insiders is to be believed, and quite possibly for an update to the 15in MacBook Pro laptop, we'd add. According to a Think Secret report, Apple ordered 100,000 15.4in LED-backlit LCD …

Reg Hardware 8 May 2007, 14:45
Russian teacher fined for MS piracy

Justice DLLs not found

A Russian headteacher has been fined half a month's wages after being controversially found guilty of buying school PCs that ran unauthorised copies of Microsoft software. Alexander Ponosov, who was fined $195, plans to appeal following his conviction on Monday at the end of his second trial for software piracy offences. He …

Software 8 May 2007, 15:12
YouTube under fire from footballers, Thailand

Copyright cases continue

The UK's Premier League is suing YouTube for showing clips of football matches. The soccer body has filed for "a copyright infringement class action" to stop YouTube showing its clips and those of other rights holders. Music publisher Bourne and Co is joining the case, which has been filed in New York. For anyone else keen to …

Law 8 May 2007, 15:32
Yahoo! launches! mobile! search!

Impressive, but not that impressive

Last week Yahoo!'s new mobile search, oneSearch, was launched, promising a "...unique and revolutionary mobile internet search facility". It's not easy to see how presenting a list of internet sites can be made unique and revolutionary, but Yahoo! has made the attempt, with some success. One of features promised back in March …

Mobile 8 May 2007, 15:57
HP raises outlook

Sells PCs, buys back shares

HP has found another billion dollars of sales and another seven pennies profit a share to boost forecast figures for its second quarter financial results. Originally expecting to be reporting something like $24.5bn in sales for its second 2007 quarter next Wednesday, it said today it would instead report about a billion more …

Financial News 8 May 2007, 16:01
Sony Ericsson waxes lyrical over 'nature-inspired' handset

It's alive with energy. Apparently

Inspired by its "design team's love for the materials and colours found in the natural world", purple prose merchant and occasional phone supplier Sony Ericsson has thrust a new, gold-coloured slider, the S500, on the unsuspecting American phone-buying public. That said, the S500 is a quad-band GSM/GPRS/EDGE handset, so it …

Reg Hardware 8 May 2007, 16:34
Yahoo! Shouldn't! Sell! To! Microsoft?

Analysis Divide and ad broker

As The New York Post's "Microsoft eyes search giant in proposed takeover" splash rapidly evaporated over the weekend, you couldn't help but muster some sympathy for the seemingly confused Yahoo!. A quick recap: the tabloid's "scoop" on Friday sent Yahoo! stock into an unaccustomed rapid climb, until Reuters, Bloomberg and the …

Applications 8 May 2007, 17:11
Cerf seeks acolytes to carry the ICANN torch

Internet kool-aid acid test

Internet legend and ICANN Chairman Vint Cerf is finally hanging up his spurs, according to ICANN’s website. ICANN posted a video interview with Cerf on its website, as well as on YouTube and Google video. The interview is a swansong of sorts – both a paean to his tenure as chairman, and a plea for others to take up the mantle …

Telecoms 8 May 2007, 17:35
Buttons and sliders go wild with Sun's Java FX

JavaOne Jumping the Web 2.0 shark?

Sun Microsystems has jumped in headfirst into Web 2.0, urging developers to change the world with cell phones and online services powered by its Java software. Using inspirational statements and not always functioning software demonstrations, Sun executives opened JavaOne outlining a world where Sun's open source and Java …

Software 8 May 2007, 20:06
RapidMind lets old dogs code for Cell and GPGPUs

Same tricks, faster software

Some people in the software industry say coders will fail miserably at writing multi-threaded applications capable of running on multi-core graphics processors, accelerators and x86 chips. RapidMind couldn't agree more with such cynicism. The start-up this week released Version 2.0 of its RapidMind Platform. This product lets …

Servers 8 May 2007, 20:08
Feds to treat bloggers as journos?

Latest in a long line of failed legislation

Try not to get your hopes up too much, Blogosphere, but twin bills introduced in the US House and Senate recently could make all your wildest federal reporter shield dreams come true. If the bills pass. Which, as history shows us, ain't bloody likely. Right now, 32 states and the District of Columbia have reporter shield …

Law 8 May 2007, 21:28
Dell reinvents the cardboard box

R&D team now eying glue

Dell will revitalize its server business by, er, shifting fewer boxes. The strategy may seem counterintuitive until you realize that we're quite literally talking about boxes - those cardboard things that go around the servers. Dell today revealed - a liberal use of the word - project Multipack. This initiative - still liberal …

Servers 8 May 2007, 21:38
Rackable and Supermicro settle over server IP

Front-mounted I/O connectors safe again

Low-cost server makers Rackable Systems and Supermicro have settled a patent dispute over system designs. The companies have reached a confidential agreement covering the two troublesome patents - Rackable's 6,496,366 and 6,850,408. These patents were tied to Rackable's back-to-back server configuration in a custom chassis and …

Servers 8 May 2007, 22:23