2nd January 2008 Archive

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Fear and loathing in 2008 - tell us about it!

Shape of things to come

Along with each New Year comes hopes and wishes that things will change for the best. Working in IT, though, the realist inside you has a nagging suspicion management will continue to set unrealistic expectations and vendors will - once again - over promise and under deliver. With that in mind, Register Developer presents its …

Software 2 Jan 00:02
AJAX wave evades vendors

Free and independent

Ajax developers are turning away from commercial development tools and opting for free, open source alternatives. That's according to a recent Ajaxian poll that asked developers which Ajax tools they used either in development or in production. Around 75 per cent are using Ajax tools in some form or another for either …

Applications 2 Jan 00:02
California judge says Californian company can infringe patents

At least until 2009

A federal judge in California has ruled that Qualcomm is allowed to sell chips infringing the Broadcom patents, until the end of January 2009 at least, while paying a mandatory royalty to Broadcom during that period. The two companies have been at loggerheads over the patents throughout 2007, though Qualcomm has been on the …

Mobile 2 Jan 10:20
Asus to show second-gen Eee PC next week

WiMAX, bigger screen on board?

Asus is due to show off what it calls the "next generation" of its elfin Eee PC Linux-based sub-laptop at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas next week. The unit is almost certainly going to come with WiMax wireless broadband connectivity. It may come with an 8.9in screen - larger than the current model's 7in display - …

Reg Hardware 2 Jan 10:23
Saudis cuff 'outspoken' blogger

Held for 'purposes of interrogation'

The Saudi authorities have confirmed they are holding an "outspoken" blogger for "purposes of interrogation", the New York Times reports. Fouad al-Farhan, 32, was cuffed on 10 December at his offices in Jidda, apparently because he "wrote about the political prisoners here in Saudi Arabia", according to a letter posted on his …

Law 2 Jan 10:50
Nvidia's AMD-aimed nForce, GeForce chipsets due this month

Hybrid SLI, three-way SLI and more

Nvidia is expected to roll out a bumber crop of chipsets during the first three months of 2008, including AMD-oriented versions of its latest nForce 700 series. The release schedule, according to a report on Chinese-language site HKEPC, will also see the arrival of new integrated chipsets for AMD that'll go out under the …

Reg Hardware 2 Jan 10:56
World outlook worst since dot-com crash

And a very happy new year to you too...

The economic outlook for the UK is looking as bad as at any time since the dot-com crash of 2001. A survey of 55 leading economists by the Financial Times reveals low confidence in the state of the economy and fears that there is little public authorities can do to improve the situation. Almost two-thirds of those questioned …

Financial News 2 Jan 11:15
Panasonic preps slimline Blu-ray drive for laptops

Panasonic has begun sending out samples of what it claims is the world's thinnest internal Blu-ray Disc burner for notebook computers. Panasonic's slimline Blu-ray drive: sampling now The 9.5mm-thick drawer-loaded unit is capable of writing single-layer BD-R and BD-RE media at 2x speed, but dual-layer disc at just 1x. All …

Reg Hardware 2 Jan 11:19
Motorola and Metrologic lay down arms

Season of goodwill to all IT companies

Motorola and Metrologic have settled a half-decade long patent dispute, which the comms giant inherited when it bought Symbol Technologies almost a year ago. Metrologic licensed various barcode technologies from Symbol back in 1996, but by 2002 had unilaterally decided it no longer needed to pay royalties, on the basis that …

Mobile 2 Jan 11:34
Toshiba sues DVD duplicator Acme

Claims manufactured discs unlicensed

Toshiba last week launched legal action against an Italian disc duplication company it maintains has infringed its intellectual property. The complaint, filed with the Milan District Court, claims that disc replicator Acme SpA has been punching out discs that match the DVD specification even though the Italian company has not …

Reg Hardware 2 Jan 11:41
German privacy activists cry foul over data retention law

Data logging? Nein danke

Privacy activists have filed a constitutional complaint against Germany's data retention laws. The objection against the German Telecomms Data Retention Act was filed in federal court on Monday by German privacy group Arbeitskreis Vorratsdatenspeicherung (Working Group on Data Retention). The group said 30,000 people have …

Law 2 Jan 11:43
Sony models budget 7.2Mp snapper

Sony will roll-out its latest budget snapper this month: the 7.2-megapixel Cyber-shot DSC-S730. Sony Cyber-shot DSC-S730: seven million pixels The S730's not exactly cutting edge, but it's got a solid mid-range spec: 2.4in display, 3x optical zoom, Carl Zeiss optics, ISO 1250 sensitivity and anti-shake technology. There's …

Reg Hardware 2 Jan 12:14
USB Chameleon rolls eyes, bizarrely doesn't change colour

You'd have thought that everyone knows the Chameleon can change the colour of its skin. But not the designers of the latest USB gadget, it seems. "This product does not change colour," warns UK supplier Drinkstuff. The USB Chameleon: doesn't... er... change colour What, we ask, is the effin point of the thing then? Well, …

Reg Hardware 2 Jan 12:39
Thom Yorke dismisses net-only album paradigm

Idea 'stark raving mad', says Radiohead frontman

Radiohead frontman Thom Yorke has described the idea of releasing the band's In Rainbows exclusively on the net as "stark raving mad", and insists that fans want a tangible "object" - a reference to Monday's physical release of the album. He told BBC Radio 4's Today programme: "We didn't want it to be a big announcement about …

Music and Media 2 Jan 12:44
NASA denies cover-up on airline safety

Nothing to see here

NASA has denied covering up its first survey of airline pilots on safety, despite releasing the figures late on New Year's Eve and in pdf format rather than Excel files, making independent number-crunching more difficult. The National Aviation Operational Monitoring Service talked to 8,000 pilots between April 2001 and …

Space 2 Jan 13:08
Junk food ads target net

TV ban drives marketing online

New rules banning TV ads for junk food during programmes aimed at the under-16s will force firms to punt their wares to kids via mobile phones and the internet, the Children's Food Campaign has warned. The new regulations came into force yesterday, and the campaign's Richard Watts claimed that purveyors of unhealthy fare are …

Biology 2 Jan 14:08
Consumers binged on chips in November

But late rush still needed to make full year forecast

The chip industry is banking on a late surge in demand to meet its full year sales forecast, despite the public’s insatiable thirst for silicon-heavy kit in November. Figures released by the Semiconductor Industry Association late on Monday show worldwide sales in November were $23.1bn, up 2.3 per cent on the year, and up 0.7 …

Channel Register 2 Jan 14:10
FBI's 'idiot dude' fails to boost US Navy terror emails

Wiretap excerpts hint at rich vein of pointless tedium

We now return readers to the case of alleged terrorist Hassan Abu-jihaad, the former US Navy signalman banged up for sending Babar Ahmad and Azzam Publications information on when his surface action group was transiting the Strait of Hormuz in 2001. Another alleged crime was buying a few Chechen jihadi videos and tipping the web …

Law 2 Jan 14:20
Lindsay Lohan crowned 2007's worst actress

While 300 secures best movie title

Lindsay Lohan has been crowned 2007's worst actress for her chilling performance in I Know Who Killed Me by a discerning audience of almost four million AOL Moviefone pollees. Eddie Murphy also took a critical shoeing for Norbit, which was honoured as the year's worst film. 300, meanwhile, pipped Transformers into second spot …

Entertainment 2 Jan 14:21
Barcode faking for fun and profit

Mischief in black and white

The increased use of barcodes in a wider variety of applications has made them a suitable, if unlikely, target for hacking attacks. Having started out as a means to label cans of food in supermarkets, one-dimensional barcodes and two-dimensional matrix codes are now found in systems from pre-paid postage labels and airline …

Enterprise Security 2 Jan 14:23
US flight authorities tighten rules on gadget battery storage

Regulations cover what you pack and where you pack it

Travelling to the US? Make sure you've packed your gadgets' rechargeable batteries properly, as new rules governing what power cells you can take with you are now in force. The bottom line is don't keep batteries in luggage you plan to check in, unless they're installed within a device. Spare batteries must be packed in your …

Reg Hardware 2 Jan 14:24
PC scuppers NYE fireworks in Seattle

Blue touchpaper screen of death?

A computer cock-up prevented a New Year fireworks show at the Seattle Center Space Needle from firing off at the stroke of midnight, much to the chagrin of the gathered crowd. SeattlePI.com reports that in the last minute of 2007 the team responsible for the event in Microsoft's home town, spotted that the computer file …

Entertainment 2 Jan 14:29
Burma hits satellite TV where it hurts

Hikes licence fee to 'three times the average annual salary'

The fun-loving Burmese regime has apparently found a non-violent method to restrict satellite TV access to foreign news services - hiking the cost of a licence by 16,700 per cent from 6000 kyat (£2.50) to 1m kyatt (£400, or "three times the average annual salary", as the BBC explains). The move was unnanounced, and viewers …

Law 2 Jan 14:32
China link puts 3Com takeover in doubt

US government extends investigation

There is another cloud over Bain Capital and Huawei Technologies's takeover of 3Com - the US Congress committee into foreign ownership is extending its investigation into the offered buyout. In September Bain and Huawei agreed to pay $2.2bn for the networking company. Despite offering a premium of 44 per cent more than the …

Data Networking 2 Jan 15:02
Office update disables MS files

Service pack says 2003 a very bad year

Microsoft's Service Pack 3 for Office 2003 blocks you from opening certain file formats the software giant deems less secure - including its own. The service pack will block access to files including some Office Excel 2003, MS Office PowerPoint 2003 and MS Office Word 2003, it has emerged, as well as Corel Draw formats. …

Operating Systems 2 Jan 15:15
US colon cancer risk blamed on English couple

Founder genetic mutation fingered

US researchers have identified a married couple who sailed from England to the US in around 1630 as the bearers of a genetic mutation which puts their numerous descendants at higher risk of a hereditary form of colon cancer. Reuters explains that cancer researchers at the Huntsman Cancer Institute in Utah began to look into a …

Biology 2 Jan 15:21
UK gov sets rules for hacker tool ban

Consultants in frame? Definitely Maybe

The UK government has published guidelines for the application of a law that makes it illegal to create or distribute so-called "hacking tools". The controversial measure is among amendments to the Computer Misuse Act included in the Police and Justice Act 2006. However, the ban along with measures to increase the maximum …

Security 2 Jan 15:54
Rock Xtreme X770 laptop with Nvidia GeForce 8800M graphics

Review Stellar gaming performance

The basic version of the 17in laptop Xtreme X770 packed GeForce 8700M graphics. Rock recently offered GeForce 7950 Go GTX graphics with 512MB of dedicated GDDR 3 memory to give your games more oomph, but that’s history now, ‘cause the GeForce 8800M GTX is here. Rock's Xtreme X770: worth more than two grand? This new chip …

Reg Hardware 2 Jan 16:01
IBM swallows Tel Aviv storage firm

Buys privately-held XIV

Computer giant IBM said today that it has acquired Israel-based storage firm XIV for an undisclosed sum. The buy-out of the privately held company, which has around 40 staff working at its office in Tel Aviv, is the latest in a series of acquisitions IBM has made in recent months as part of a long-term strategy to help give the …

Storage 2 Jan 16:08
Highways Agency forecasts last year's traffic

2008? Never heard of it

Those of you thinking of heading out onto the UK highways and byways are advised not to bother checking out the Highways Agency's handy traffic forecaster, unless you're lucky enough to have a Back to the Future DeLorean: Yup, it looks like the Agency's staff had a very robust New Year's Eve indeed, and have evidently still …

Bootnotes 2 Jan 16:19
Information security breaches quadrupled in 2007

Slippy fingers and leaky servers

Personal information leaks reached unprecedented levels last year, according to a brace of studies out last week. Lost laptops, insecure systems and mislaid discs means problems posed by the exposure of customer records are unlikely to disappear anytime soon. As in other areas of information security organisations are often …

IT Director 2 Jan 17:27
Shell expected to slash 3,200 IT jobs

Oil firm 'loath' to confirm number

Oil giant Royal Dutch Shell has told its staff that it plans to make more than 3,000 job cuts. According to a leaked memo to its staff from Shell's vice president of IT infrastructure Goh Swee Chen, the firm has been in talks with outsourcing outfits EDS, AT&T and T-systems, and said that contracts were expected to be inked in …

IT Director 2 Jan 17:54
Google to reinvent UK newspaper biz

You knew it was coming

Google is bringing its new-age advertising know-how to the UK newspaper business. According to The Times, the world's largest search engine is chatting up "several" British newspaper publishers in the hopes of extending its Google Print Ads program across the Atlantic. When we asked Google if this is true, the company told us …

Music and Media 2 Jan 18:21
Hitachi, Fujitsu spurn miniature HDDs

Firms left unsatisfied with disks under two inches

Hitachi plans to drop production of miniature hard disk drives used in digital music players and video cameras, according to the Japanese business newspaper Nikkei. The electronics giant has reportedly already stopped making 1-inch drives and will ax shipments of 1.8-inch HDDs next summer in response to manufacturers favoring …

Storage 2 Jan 20:04
Google researcher calls for Flash flush

10,000 sites need scrubbing (or more)

A Google researcher is advising that security professionals rewrite code associated with Adobe Flash content two weeks after warning that buggy files can be exploited by attackers to gain complete control over transactions on websites belonging to banks, government agencies and other trusted organizations. The security bug …

Security 2 Jan 21:14