28th April 2008 Archive

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Sun woos Linux distros with bundle deals

Take our software, please...

Sun Microsystems is in talks with two more Linux projects to ensure its open source software and tools are delivered straight into the hands of developers. The company is speaking to representatives of the Debian and OpenSuSE projects, having already engaged with Ubuntu and Fedora over bundling its software. The goal is for …

Operating Systems 28 Apr 06:02
Saudi blogger freed from prison after four months

No charges, no trial

A Saudi blogger imprisoned in early December has been released. Fouad al-Farhan was arrested for "purposes of interrogation" it was never clear exactly what his offence was but he was a supporter of political reform. The authorities wanted a written apology which he refused to sign. Al-Farhan was released on Saturday. He told …

Law 28 Apr 08:17
Alcatel presents rubber-key candybars

Cutting edge

Alcatel has launched three candybar handsets that feature several ‘innovations’ designed to make general phone use easier than usual. The phones are the OT-S120, OT-S210 and OT-S211, and their refinements include rubberised keypads to make texting less troublesome - your fingers shouldn't slip off of the keys during rapid …

Reg Hardware 28 Apr 09:03
China and Russia still piracy hotbeds, says US gov

'Pirates and counterfeiters'

The United States Trade Representative has slammed China and Russia as the world's worst offenders for stealing US intellectual property - again. The latest 301 report, available here as a large pdf, said China remained on the Priority Watch list because "high levels of copyright piracy and trademark counterfeiting remain …

Channel Register 28 Apr 09:13
Canadian geeks to turn off the tech

3 May is Shutdown Day

A group of Canadian self-confessed geeks is asking concerned citizens to turn off their tech on Saturday 3 May - dubbed "Shutdown Day" - in an attempt to "spread awareness about the pitfalls and dangers that lie in the extended and unnecessary use of, and exposure to television, computers and computing equipment". The press …

Bootnotes 28 Apr 09:15
Second Galileo test sat now in orbit

GIOVE-B lifts off after long delays

The second test satellite for Europe's planned Galileo satnav constellation went into orbit at the weekend. The GIOVE-B (Galileo In Orbit Validation Element B) satellite took off aboard a Soyuz rocket from Baikonur in Kazakhstan on Saturday. The GIOVE sats are intended to prove the technology which will be used in the …

Space 28 Apr 09:50
Microsoft winds down smart wristwatch

Spot watch sold out, never to be replaced

Microsoft has unwound its Spot wristwatch offering - the special timepieces used to pick up news, weather updates and other information sent out over FM radio. Late last week, Jon Canan, the MS executive in charge of Spot, told readers of the SpotStop.com fan site that Swatch's Spot watches have now "sold out" and "are no …

Reg Hardware 28 Apr 09:53
Rumour-mill rumbles on Apple, Immersion vibro iPhone pact claim

Shake-up in handset haptics?

Apple's plans for the evolution of the iPhone could be on shaky ground - in a good way. The company is said to be talking to tactile feedback firm Immersion to build haptics into the handset. Llittle-known Mac news site Palluxo.com has claimed an unnamed Apple source told it that senior executives from Immersion and Apple met …

Reg Hardware 28 Apr 10:08
Mexican press aide lifts US gov BlackBerrys

Presidential summit devices go walkabout

A press aide to Mexican president Felipe Calderon has been given his marching orders for making off with BlackBerrys belonging to US officials participating in a summit in New Orleans, AP reports. Rafael Quintero Curiel admitted removing the devices from the get-together between the heads of Canada, Mexico and the US last week …

Mobile 28 Apr 10:30
Nintendo says no to Wii price cuts

For 2008, at least

Don’t hold your breath waiting for the price of the Wii or the DS to come down this year, because Nintendo’s President has stated that the console pioneer has no plans to reduce the prices of either machine in 2008. Satoru Iwata recently told a meeting of analysts that Nintendo’s earnings projection for this year isn’t based …

Reg Hardware 28 Apr 10:35
MoD in push for alternative military energy tech

Camouflage green includes brown and black

The UK armed forces are looking to make a shift away from fossil fuels and into a range of alternative energy sources, according to reports. This is born as much from concerns over prices and security of supplies as any green motivation. The Sunday Times reports that Paul Stein, MoD science/tech honcho, outlined the new camo- …

Government 28 Apr 10:41
US lag sues over prison crash diet

'We're starved to death', moans 140kg murder suspect

A US prisoner awaiting trial on a murder rap* has filed suit against the county after losing more than 45kg in eight months on an Arkansas prison "starvation" diet, AP reports. Broderick Lloyd Laswell now tips the scales at 140kg, having weighed 187kg when he was incarcerated in Benton County jail last September. His suit, …

Bootnotes 28 Apr 10:54
Spy regs used against dogs, litterbugs

More RIPA wheezes

Local councils are using snooping laws - the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act - to follow dog walkers suspected of letting their dogs crap on public land and people suspected of littering. RIPA is meant to control how investigating bodies like the police and secret services can snoop on citizens' communications and …

Government 28 Apr 10:57
Lenovo ThinkCentre A61e green PC

Review Consumes less power than a lightbulb?

Lenovo claims that its ThinkCentre A61e laptop-as-desktop PC is the greenest ThinkCentre ever, thanks to the low power requirements of the AMD Athlon 64 X2 BE-2350 processor it uses. Does that claim have any merit? The A61e is a tiny machine that measures 275 x 242 x 81mm and weighs in at 3.72kg, although the figures are …

Reg Hardware 28 Apr 11:02
JBuilder 2008: Bold vision, rough edges

Review No assembly required

What is the point of JBuilder, when you can simply use Eclipse? That has been the marketing challenge for CodeGear ever since it decided to scrap its home-grown Java integrated development environment and replace it with a new product based on the open-source Eclipse tools platform. JBuilder 2007, released in May 2007, was the …

Applications 28 Apr 11:02
Freenet to buy debitel for $2.54bn

Redraws German mobile map

Hamburg-based internet access provider Freenet has agreed to buy telecom reseller debitel AG for €1.63bn ($2.54bn). With over 19 million customers the combined company will become the third largest mobile player on the German market, behind T-Mobile and Vodafone but outstripping E-Plus and O2. The companies had combined 2007 …

Mobile 28 Apr 11:04
VXers slap copyright notices on malware

What happened to honour among thieves?

Malware authors have lifted a page from the legit software industry's rule book and are slapping copyright notices on their Trojans. One Russian-based outfit has claimed violations of its "licensing agreement" by its underworld customers will result in samples of the knock-off code being sent to anti-virus firms. The sanction …

Anti-Virus 28 Apr 11:04
New season Prada phone coming soon to catwalk?

Next season's must have?

Unconfirmed reports claim that LG is developing a second-generation Prada handset that adds in a slide-out Qwerty keyboard to the current phone’s touchscreen. LG's 'Prada II': the pic's a fake, we'd say, but it gives the jist Numerous online sources have stated that a formal announcement from LG is due in Q4. But as we wait …

Reg Hardware 28 Apr 11:07
Nokia decks execs as it counts cost of free music

Exclusive Doing a Hoover?

Nokia faces a crippling financial bill for its strategy of bundling free music with handsets, which will give users unlimited song downloads with Nokia phones. The world's biggest label, Universal Music, joined the "Comes With Music" initiative at launch last December, and Sony BMG joined last week. The Register has learned …

Mobile 28 Apr 11:24
Asus to spin off Eee product line?

Independent brand

Asus is said to be pondering a new lease of life for its Eee PC and other Eee-brand hardware: as a subsidiary company. It's also preparing an 11in laptop too, other moles claim. News of the notion is vague, but the motivation, attributed to unnamed industry sources by DigiTimes, is to take the brand "out of the low-cost market …

Reg Hardware 28 Apr 11:54
Reaper aerial killbots enlist mobile phones against owners

'Hello... 20 seconds to comply? Who is this?'

American Predator and Reaper unmanned flying hunter-killer robots will soon be equipped to track and listen in on mobile phones. The move is sure to be greeted with fear among tinfoil-clad bunker residents, but could also lead to calls for a no-nonsense enforcement campaign against noisy cellphone users in public places. …

Government 28 Apr 11:58
AMD touts Business Class service to PC vendors

Looking for leg room in the corporate world

AMD today tried to claw corporate customers back from Intel with its first ever strictly business platform. The struggling chip maker is targeting enterprise and SMB markets with its AMD Business Class programme, intended to make it easier for PC makers to develop AMD-based machines. Under the new roadmap, AMD - which is …

Hardware 28 Apr 12:17
El Reg visits Hyderaspace and sees bullocks, giant rabbits

A whistlestop tour of India's Hitec city

Hitec City in Hyderabad is the home of Satyam, one of India’s top four IT players, and hosts offices for a raft of other Indian and international tech companies. It used to be a rocky wasteland on the edge of the city that Hyderabadis were afraid to go to – they feared you could be murdered and your body never seen again. Now …

Bootnotes 28 Apr 12:27
Coldplay in digital and vinyl giveaway

Viva La Vida freebie single

Coldplay have announced they'll be giving away a free download of Violet Hill from their forthcoming album Viva La Vida, as well as an old-school 7-inch vinyl version of the ditty with 7 May's NME. The former will, according to the BBC, be available from 12:15 BST on 29 April for one week only down at the band's online …

Music and Media 28 Apr 12:32
Nvidia launches entry-level GeForce 9 GPU

9600 GSO debuts

Nvidia has tacitly confirmed speculation about the specifications of its upcoming GeForce 9600 GSO graphics card by launching the thing. As expected, the GSO connects to 384MB of graphics memory over a 192-bit bus. The Ram runs at 800MHz, the GPU itself at 550MHz, though the chip's 96 unified shaders are clocked at 1375MHz. …

Reg Hardware 28 Apr 12:33
UK elections vulnerable to fraud - e-voting no solution

Postal votes, electoral rolls open to abuse

An investigation into the UK's electoral system has found serious failings with security ahead of London's Mayoral elections on Thursday. The Rowntree Reform Trust's report Purity of Elections in the UK: Causes for Concern highlighted weaknesses with postal voting and the inaccuracy of the electoral roll as the biggest threats …

Government 28 Apr 12:38
New attack technique threatens databases

Lateral thinking about SQL injection

Database security expert David Litchfield has published details of a new type of database attack technique. Lateral SQL injection creates a means for hackers to access database data or inject hostile code onto vulnerable systems. Exploitation is difficult and only possible in limited circumstances, Litchfield notes. …

Security 28 Apr 13:50
Skype comes to mobile (almost)

Some Voice Over The IP

Skype has launched a beta version of its VoIP client for 50 models of mobile phone - but don't expect free calls, as this VoIP isn't all that it appears. Skype has been available on special handsets from 3 for a while, but the service isn't really VoIP: it uses normal GSM for the wireless part of the call, then switches to …

Mobile 28 Apr 14:08
Western Digital's VelociRaptor primes data center charge

'We'll organic our way in'

Number two hard drive supplier Western Digital, not currently an enterprise drive supplier, appears to be readying itself to ship 2.5-inch enterprise SAS drives. Western Digital does not compete with Seagate for high-performance enterprise disk drives. But with the emergence of serial-attached SCSI (SAS) it has a way to do …

Storage 28 Apr 14:28
Nokia intros snazzy talker trio

More model numbers

Nokia has unveiled a trio of handsets that blend good old-fashioned useful features with smooth lines and nicely coloured bodies. Nokia 6600 clamshell (left) and 6600 slider First up is the 6600, which comes as either a clamshell or a slider. The clamshell model, the 6600 Fold, boasts a 2.1in internal OLED display and a “ …

Reg Hardware 28 Apr 14:28
Lightning-zapgun maker gets more US gov cash

Set phasers to 'mulct'

A US company developing laser-enhanced electric plasma lightning blaster cannons says it has received further funding from the US military. Applied Energetics (the company formerly known as Ionatron) announced today that it had landed a $4.5m contract to advance its Laser Guided Energy technology (LGE). “We thank the Army for …

Government 28 Apr 14:37
Natasha Henstridge braces for Impact

Dwarf star hits Moon, Earth has bad hair day

In what is quite possibly the most ominous sci-fi news so far this year, Variety reports that Species minx Natasha Henstridge will star in Impact - a TV two-parter featuring a dwarf star hitting the Moon, followed by the usual apocalyptic pandemonium down on Earth. Henstridge will be joined for the romp by David James Elliott …

Space 28 Apr 14:44
Apple punts 'Penryn' iMacs

Desktops get latest Core 2 Duo CPUs

Apple has updated its iMac line of consumer desktops, taking the machines' processor into the 45nm era with a set of 'Penryn' Core 2 Duo options. It upgraded the desktops' graphics too. The standard three iMac configurations again include a pair of 20in, 1680 x 1050 models and a version with a 24in, 1920 x 1200 display. Moving …

Reg Hardware 28 Apr 15:04
Supermarket offers phones for a fiver

No need to save

You don’t get much for a fiver these days, but Asda has begun connecting people with a claim that it's punting Britain’s lowest priced pay-as-you-go mobile. Asda £5 phones: Sagem's My212x (far left), My220x (left), My150x (right) and Nokia's 1112 (far right) Stroll into one of the supermarket chain's store and £5 (€7/$10) …

Reg Hardware 28 Apr 15:09
Botnet agent plays lost sheep to avoid detection

The Kraken wakes

The latest variants of Kraken have thrown up innovations in black hat stealth technology that are making botnets spawned by the malware harder to detect and dismantle. Analysis of the source code of the new variant of the Kraken (AKA Bobax) bot by Australian anti-virus firm PC Tools has revealed a domain name generation …

Security 28 Apr 15:16
Anti-virus hacking contest polarizes vendors

Race to Zero intolerance

Security firms have split over the merits of a hacking contest aimed against anti-virus packages planned for August's Defcon conference. Anti-virus firm Sophos reckons the exercise will serve only to increase the volume of malware in circulation, further taxing the resources of already hard-pressed security firms. However, net …

Anti-Virus 28 Apr 16:22
Union blasts chip industry's 'cancer risk denial'

Semiconductor bosses say no need for UK-wide study

The UK’s largest trade union has slammed the semiconductor industry after it told the British government that a national study to look into the effects of work-related cancer in the chip biz was unnecessary. Unite said today that it was perplexed by senior bosses at chip firms who insist that there was “no clear evidence” that …

Hardware 28 Apr 16:24
Intel lands Cray

AMD two-timed

Intel has busted into Cray, securing a deal with the high performance computing specialist to slot Xeon processors in future systems. Cray's latest line of hardware remains centered around AMD's Opteron processors. But now Intel will join the fold, starting in the 2010ish time frame when Cray releases a new line of hardware …

Servers 28 Apr 16:39
Canuck faces life sentence for nude girl webcam scheme

As young as 14

More charges have been filed against a Montreal man accused of fiendishly using the internet to trick or coerce girls into posing nude for him on webcams. Daniel Lesiewicz, 27, of the Montreal suburb of Dorval, was arrested in March and charged with possession and production of child pornography, uttering threats and extortion …

Crime 28 Apr 17:57
Microsoft snags Google-thrashing data pioneer

SQL Server gets cloudy

Microsoft has recruited database guru David DeWitt to head up a new database research lab. Based at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, where DeWitt was until recently professor of computing sciences, the new lab will focus on advanced data-management techniques. Working with Microsoft researchers based in Redmond, …

Applications 28 Apr 18:07
Yahoo! pimping malware from banner ads

Doesn't seem to care

Over the past three days, Yahoo has been exposing visitors to banner ads that try to trick them into installing malware, and there's no indication anyone at the company is even aware of the problem. According to Microsoft MVP Sandi Hardmeier's "Spyware Sucks" blog, the ads are displayed across a wide swath of the web portal's …

Spyware 28 Apr 20:41
Citrix scales up NetScaler

Interop 2008 Web application acceleration accelerated

Citrix is brushing the cobwebs off its NetScaler line today and introducing a new top-end to its web acceleration appliances. That's right, it's the beginning of Interop in sunny Las Vegas. Time for sun, boozing, and plenty of gambling no sorry, we're at the Mandalay Bay Convention Center covering networking gear. Citrix here …

Data Networking 28 Apr 22:09
Google trumpets PageRank for pics

Image search gets real

Nearly a decade ago, Google unveiled an algorithm called PageRank, reinventing the way we search for web pages. Now, the company says, it has a technology that can do much the same for online image search. Last week, at the International World Wide Web Conference in Beijing, two Google-affiliated researchers presented a paper …

Applications 28 Apr 22:13