17th August 2007 Archive

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Has i-mate dumped three Ultimate handsets?

A cloud of confusion is surrounding i-mate today. One online source has claimed that the handset manufacturer has canned three of its forthcoming Ultimate Collection handsets, while another has reported that it has simply delayed manufacture until a later date. The rumours began when online retailer and handhelds specialist …

Reg Hardware 17 Aug 2007, 00:02
Travelocity accidentally books 1,458 trips between US and Cuba

'Technical glitches' keep communism alive

From January 1998 to April 2004, Travelocity booked nearly 1,500 trips between the US and Cuba, violating a trade embargo first laid down by the American government at the height of the Cold War. The online travel site has agreed to pay a $182,750 fine to the US Treasury, but communism is still alive in the Western Hemisphere …

Law 17 Aug 2007, 00:09
NSA surveillance and the reality-based community

Cheney to awake as oversized roach...err..wait

If I had a world of my own, everything would be nonsense. Nothing would be what it is, because everything would be what it isn't. And contrary wise, what is, it wouldn't be. And what it wouldn't be, it would. You see? - Alice in Wonderland I have to confess, the oral arguments in the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in San …

Law 17 Aug 2007, 00:54
Compact Disc: 25 years old today

Forgotten Tech First commercial disc pressed on 17 August 1982

The Compact Disc is 25 years old. Though the digital audio format's development stretches back many years before 17 August 1982, that was the date on which the world's first CD pressing plant punched out its very first disc. According to Philips - with Sony, the format's co-developer - the first disc off the Hanover, Germany …

Reg Hardware 17 Aug 2007, 00:54
Sony US launches 'free' recycling programme

What cost driving to a drop-off point?

Sony will next month allow US consumers to drop off unwanted Sony-branded electronics products for recycling. The service is free of charge, but many eco-conscious Americans will still have to drive big distances to drop-off sites. The Sony Take Back Recycling Program will kick off on 15 September, and will operate at 75 of …

Reg Hardware 17 Aug 2007, 01:54
Palm directs Sprint to Centro

New smartphone line revealed

Palm has confirmed its next-gen smartphone is to be called the Centro and that it's due to hit North American store shelves this coming autumn, initially courtesy of carrier Sprint. It was Sprint that prompted the admission. The carrier spilled the beans on the Centro yesterday at a technology conference. It revealed the …

Reg Hardware 17 Aug 2007, 04:22
Elgato TV-on-Mac box tunes into hardware encoding

Hardware for the MPEG compression

TV-on-a-Mac specialist Elgato has released its first USB-connected tuner that also takes the heavy work of encoding analogue video away from the host computer. Elgato's EyeTV 250 Plus: MPEG encoding hardware built in The EyeTV 250 Plus incorporates two tuners: a digital one that's compatible with Freeview and other DVB-T …

Reg Hardware 17 Aug 2007, 05:16
Planned Wii production boost blocked?

Electronic component shortage blamed

Nintendo may not be able to boost Wii production as planned, it has been alleged - and it's all thanks to the industry-wide components shortage that appears to be hindering notebook production. Unnamed Taiwanese component makers today told DigiTimes that Nintendo has been forced to delay its plan to ramp up Wii output, a …

Reg Hardware 17 Aug 2007, 06:30
Universities warned of Storm Worm attacks

Covering fire

Colleges and universities have come under attack by Storm Worm botnets following attempts to detect infections through vulnerability scanning, a response centre for academic networks stated last week. The Research and Education Networking Information Sharing and Analysis Centre (REN-ISAC) sent out the warning last Thursday …

Anti-Virus 17 Aug 2007, 07:02
Fujitsu Services seals £500m Reuters outsourcing gig

Big cost savings claimed

Fujitsu Services has won a major contract with Reuters worldwide. Under the 10-year deal, which is valued at around £500m, Fujitsu will provide IT services, such as desktop PC maintenance and email services, for 17,500 Reuters employees in more than 100 countries. In addition, more than 300 Reuters staff will transfer to Fujitsu …

Channel Register 17 Aug 2007, 07:02
Motorcycle News in shot M40 biker ad gaffe

'No-one ever wished they'd stayed in more'

The UK's Motorcycle News earlier this week contributed a cracking example to the "unfortunate juxtaposition of content and advertisement" genre with this piece on murdered biker Gerard Michael Tobin: Given that Tobin was riding a Harley-Davidson FXSTB Night Train when shot on the M40 on Sunday, it's hard to see how this could …

Bootnotes 17 Aug 2007, 08:31
Click here for the UK's highest-paid IT post

Cash-flush financial outfit seeks senior server technical analyst

The server technical analysts among you who could do with a bit of extra cash are directed forthwith to recruiting firm Elan, which is making an offer you really can't refuse: Crikey. We'll leave you to do the maths on the annual salary for this demanding post, but suffice it to say it exceeds even the extravagant paypacket …

IT Director 17 Aug 2007, 08:33
Microsoft launches PC-rebuilding scheme

Schools and charities get old biz PCs

Microsoft Ireland has launched a scheme aimed at keeping PCs out of landfills and re-building them for use by schools and charities. The Microsoft Authorised Refurbisher (MAR) programme, which was officially launched at the Rehab Recycle facility in Tallaght on Thursday, provides companies with a means of disposing of unused …

IT Director 17 Aug 2007, 08:51
Bluetooth music while on four wheels

Rock and Roll

With the UK ban on driving with a mobile phone in your hand, hordes of manufacturers have rushed to fill car cigarette lighters with hands-free calling kits. Venturi is the latest, offering wireless Bluetooth music streaming from a mobile phone to your car stereo. Venturi's Mini: promises ease of use The Venturi Mini grabs …

Reg Hardware 17 Aug 2007, 09:02
UK cops auction off Remington Shite Straighteners

Straight-talking on force's net fencing operation

We're not quite sure what's going on down at Torquay Police Property Office, but it appears one of the Boys in Blue has taken exception to Remington's fine range of electrical hair care products: This admirable piece of straight-talking can be found on Bumblebee, the force's online fencing operation for unclaimed stolen goods …

Bootnotes 17 Aug 2007, 09:13
Could Linux become the dominant OS?

Comment Gradual triumph

Open source moves at a different speed to commercial software. This has become apparent over the last decade as Linux and its open source fellow travellers (Apache, Open Office, MySQL, Firefox ,et al) gradually established their position in the software world. It may have been frustrating for the open source activists, more …

Operating Systems 17 Aug 2007, 09:15
NASA: no fix needed for shuttle

Brief Come back as you are

After a week of hmm-ing and haa-ing, NASA has elected not to repair the hole in the Shuttle Endeavour before it returns to Earth. Mission chief John Shannon said the decision had not been unanimous, but had been "pretty overwhelming", according to the Houston Chronicle. Mission controllers were worried that the three and a …

Space 17 Aug 2007, 09:16
Kingston hides Hull roots with KCom rebrand

Once a codhead, always a codhead

Hull-based telco and IT firm Kingston Communications Group has decided it doesn't want to be so closely associated with East Yorkshire, and whipped out the joss-sticks to reimagine itself as KCom Group. The rebrand has presumably taken four years to be brainstormed, tendered, commissioned, created, put out to focus groups, …

Telecoms 17 Aug 2007, 09:17
Disintermangling use case scenarios from requirements

Yes, it is a word...

It turns out that my co-author Doug Rosenberg has a few things to say on the subject of use case style. So this week I'm going to leap in the back of the Dodge Ram pick-up truck and let him drive. Over to Doug: There's often a fair bit of confusion in the early stages of a software project about what exactly needs to be …

Developer 17 Aug 2007, 09:51
Cowon squeezes DAB into PMP

World first for UK

The world's 'first' portable media player (PMP) with DAB digital radio will hit UK shelves later this month. The Cowon iAudio D2 portable media player (PMP) player is also set to feature a meaty multimedia line-up inside its slim-line casing. The PMP supports full UK band three digital DAB, alongside an FM radio with …

Reg Hardware 17 Aug 2007, 10:28
Boffins issue speeding ticket for FTL photons

Photons will appeal, citing Hartman

Two German scientists claim to have broken the speed of light with a tunnelling photon, a pair of prisms and a gap of about three feet. According to New Scientist, Günter Nimtz and Alfons Stahlhofen from the University of Koblenz claim to have made the photon jump "instantaneously" across a barrier ranging from a few …

Physics 17 Aug 2007, 10:59
BOFH: New toys

Episode 29 And how to keep them

"What's the timeframe on the install of that videoconferencing device?" the Boss asks, bowling into Mission Control, dressed, as the saying goes, like a pox doctor's clerk. "Yeah, good," the PFY says looking up from the assorted pieces of hardware on his desk. "No, I wanted the timeframe till it's in place, not a status." " …

BOFH 17 Aug 2007, 11:02
Worn out your vibrator? Relief is at hand

NSFW Recycle now for planet-hugging ecogasms

During a recent Vulture Central editorial brainstorm it was reluctantly decided that, in the face of mounting reader criticism that El Reg was becoming the IT equivalent of the Sunday Sport, we should forthwith return to our core news values and never more darken the internet with tales of Bulgarian airbags, black cocks, and …

Bootnotes 17 Aug 2007, 12:02
IBM revamps mainframe OS

A machine for all workloads

IBM has taken the wraps off a new version of its mainframe operating system, which has been designed to make it easier to port Unix applications onto Big Iron servers. The upgrade also includes scalability and security improvements. The update, z/OS V1.9, will ship generally from 28 September, and includes the ability for a …

Servers 17 Aug 2007, 12:09
Warner Bros to remake Enter the Dragon

Form these words into a sentence: Lee/Bruce/grave/spinning

Warner Bros has announced it will remake 1973 Kung Fu classic Enter the Dragon, AP chillingly reports. The rehash - cunningly entitled Awaken the Dragon - will be directed by The Shield's Kurt Sutter and will feature "an FBI agent who investigates a Shaolin monk and underground kung fu fight clubs", according to Warner Bros …

Entertainment 17 Aug 2007, 12:25
Spam drizzled in mixed source served up on virtual machines

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Virtual servers virtually take over the world Server virtualisation was bigger than big this week - or at any rate there were those readying for bigness. Citrix splashed out half a billion to acquire virtualisation firm XenSource, which it plans to team with Redmond's upcoming virtual server code-named Viridian. This combo …

Business 17 Aug 2007, 13:02
Designer breaks up trad PC design

Three pin plug and play

If a small form factor PC is still too large for your liking or offers more functionality than you need, then one designer has created a more manageable solution. Uni is a PC concept where operating units are designed as separate white-box units which can then be connected together via three-pin plugs, as and when required. …

Reg Hardware 17 Aug 2007, 13:19
Some Skypers get reconnected, but most still offline

Trad telcos laugh all the way to the weekend

Some users, albeit far from a majority, are happily reporting they're now able to successfully reconnect to Skype following a problem which earlier this week floored the VoIP service. The company is keen to stress that their servers didn't crash, and that there's no security issue, just an error in their client software which …

VoIP 17 Aug 2007, 14:06
Diebold rebrands evoting business, revises forecasts

A bad day to Diebold

Diebold has re-branded its electronic voting subsidiary as "Premier Election Solutions" after attempts to offload the business failed. The firm also had to rein in its performance predictions, as uncertainty about the security of the machines starts to bite. The firm said: "Efforts to sell this company... have proven …

Government 17 Aug 2007, 14:07
Daytime debut for UK Xbox 360 Elite?

No midnight misadventure for this console launch

With the UK launch of Microsoft's Xbox 360 Elite (previously codenamed "Zephyr") only days away now, the general mood in most of the high street stores seems to be one of...somewhat reserved excitement. Granted this isn’t the launch of a brand new games platform as such the PS3 – the Elite is in essence only adding a 120GB …

Reg Hardware 17 Aug 2007, 14:37
Denon cues up USB DJ kit

Last night a CD saved my life...

As DJs opt for more increasingly sophisticated equipment for their ‘sets’, it’s no surprise to see manufacturers adopting their hardware to suit. Denon is the latest manufacturer to have a spin with a PC and Mac compatible USB MIDI/audio interface and controller, designed for computer-backed performances by club and mobile DJs …

Reg Hardware 17 Aug 2007, 14:43
Nokia seeks Qualcomm import ban

Worked for Broadcom, might work for Nokia

Nokia has requested that the US International Trade Commission (ITC) investigate Qualcomm's importing of products infringing Nokia patents, with a view to getting such imports banned. Qualcomm is already banned from importing, to the US, chips (or handsets containing chips) which infringe a patent owned by Broadcom. The company …

Mobile 17 Aug 2007, 15:17
Patientline looks for debt help

Nice time to be raising money

Patientline, which provides telephone and TV services to patients in UK hospitals, is looking for ways to ease the burden of its £80m debt pile. Given the current credit crisis in world markets, this may prove difficult. Patientline today released an Interim Management Statement for the period from 1 April 2007 to 17 August …

Telecoms 17 Aug 2007, 15:29
We can hear you now, Audible.com

Aural satisfaction

Audible.com's Don Katz wasn't gloating when he visited London recently - but he had a very good reason to feel pleased with himself. The spoken books company was crucified by investors when, two years ago, it announced it was launching a UK operation, knocking a third off the value of the business. Now two years on from the …

Music and Media 17 Aug 2007, 15:33
Man loses leg in bathtub romp

Comments And dead men buy no ringtones

Friday is here again, and we begin on a pious note. Good news for the ostentatiously religious among you: Gold River Productions has come out with a Christian ringtones service. Fellow commuters can be treated to a reading of a bible verse or a Christian rock ditty, among other choices, and you might want to hold off answering …

Letters 17 Aug 2007, 15:40
Survey vindicates outsourcers' green press release bombardment

Quick, hide the technoslops

Outsourcing clients have caught the green bug big time, and will force the faceless global omnicorps they employ to clean up their act or slide into oblivion. That's according to a report sexily entitled The Black Book of Outsourcing. Outsourcing consultancy Brown-Wilson Group reckons the vogue for mincing around a yurt with an …

IT Director 17 Aug 2007, 15:47
Oono Transmita Vii wireless music system

Review Wireless music - just don't go into a different room

'Wireless' is a wonderful word that creates beautiful images in the minds of the gadget-obsessed masses. We imagine headphones and MP3 players working together in cable-free harmony, or desktop peripherals resting comfortably with our PCs, without constantly being pulled out of place by connection cords. Manufacturer Oono has …

Reg Hardware 17 Aug 2007, 16:33
Gentoo cuts key parts of itself from net for its own good

Semicolon-ectomy

Admins with the Gentoo Project say they have disconnected major parts of its website a week after discovering it could be vulnerable to a command injection attack that allows bad guys to remotely execute code on the machine. At time of writing, users trying to access Gentoo Archives and at least seven other areas of Gentoo.org …

Enterprise Security 17 Aug 2007, 19:25
RIAA gets some class

...action lawsuit

The RIAA has been slapped by a class action lawsuit, filed by Tanya Anderson, a single mom from Oregon who claims the organization's goons impersonated her 10-year-old daughter's grandmother over the phone to extract evidence. Charges filed against the RIAA include — deep breath now — counts of negligence, fraud and …

Music and Media 17 Aug 2007, 19:53
Google Adwords dive-bombed by American Airlines

'We do not bring this suit lightly'

Yet another trademark owner has gone to war over Google's keyword advertising. But this time it's a name everyone knows: American Airlines. Yesterday, the world's largest airline slapped a federal suit on the world's largest search engine, claiming that Google's cash-cow of an ad system infringes on American's rather extensive …

Music and Media 17 Aug 2007, 20:09