7th May 2008 Archive

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White House admits non-existent email backups

'We can restore without backup'

The Dubya White House has admitted that it has no backup tapes for administration emails sent and received between March 1, 2003 and May 22, 2003. But it says that's not a problem. Last October, two separate government watchdogs sued the George W. Bush administration in an effort to recover millions of messages that seem to …

Government 7 May 00:35
Citrix's XenDesktop can fly you to the moon

If you have a space shuttle

There are a few software makers out there who are excited about desktop virtualization - damned excited. And sometimes that excitement takes us into rather confusing territory where jubilation overpowers technical reality. Confused? Yeah, e were too when Citrix announced XenDesktop last month. The company told us flat out that …

Virtualization 7 May 02:49
Ofcom confirms Freeview will get HD next year

Depending on where you live

Free-to-air satellite broadcasting system Freesat may have only just launched in the UK as an outlet for BBC and - soon - ITV HD programming, but regulator Ofcom has confirmed that some Brits will get HD over Freeview next year. The service will allow UK users to receive up to four HD channels through a regular television …

Reg Hardware 7 May 07:02
QXL.co.uk shuts up shop

All bids are off

QXL.co.uk - the online auction site that isn't eBay - is closing. It is accepting bids for two more days, until 9 May, before closing completely at midday on 30 May. The site was started by ex-journalist Tim Jackson in 1997. It bought rival German site Ricardo in 2000. It survived the bursting of the dotcom bubble in 2001, …

Financial News 7 May 08:02
Cisco hits lowered targets

Pessimism pays off

Cisco hit its lowered targets for the third quarter of 2008, increasing sales by 10.4 per cent ahead of targeted growth of 10 per cent. Sales in the three months ended 26 April were $9.8bn, up from $8.9bn in the same period of 2007. Net income was $1.8bn, down 5.4 per cent on the third quarter of 2007. Earnings per share came …

Data Networking 7 May 08:15
Air France pilot in white-knuckle near miss

Showing off to boy, shaken passengers claim

Air France is investigating a pilot who provoked a near miss at 33,000ft after allegedly "showing off" his control of the aircraft to a boy in the cockpit, the Times reports. Shaun Robinson, 40, an IT manager from Lancashire and one of 143 passengers aboard the Manchester-Paris flight on Saturday, recounted: “The pilot made a …

Bootnotes 7 May 08:38
What did happen to all those London mayoral votes?

We observe the election count

Last week, the nation turned out in record numbers (45 per cent) to decide who would run their local councils. In London, that meant voting Boris Johnson into what Ken Livingstone probably thought was his office for life. Some time earlier, the Open Rights Group had called for volunteers to be part of an election observation …

Government 7 May 08:51
Intel delays next-gen integrated chipsets to fix video bug

Eaglelake to get Computex launch

When does an Intel chipset launch? When it's first mentioned by the company in public? The next time? The time after that? The 'Eaglelake' chipset family has been discussed by Intel on several occasions, but it'll apparently be truly launched next month. The Eaglelake line - aka the 4 series - comprises the P45, P43, G45, G43 …

Reg Hardware 7 May 09:31
Sony launches 'Freeview HD'-ready LCD TV line

Future proof

With the UK launch of terrestrial HD pencilled in for 2009, Sony has jumped onto the bandwagon and unveiled a Bravia LCD TV series featuring an integrated MPEG 4 AVC HD-capable tuner. The 26in, 32in and 37in models in the V4500 series each have one of the tuners that let you watch HD TV programmes over Freeview – a service …

Reg Hardware 7 May 09:36
Ofcom plays precog on tomorrow's wireless world

Nuke war, meteorite hit could disrupt your signal

Ofcom put healthcare and transport at the top of the agenda in its annual research and development report, released today. Most of the report, entitled The Wireless World of Tomorrow, is concerned with the technical details of frequencies and allocations, but Ofcom can't resist a gaze into the crystal ball with predictions of …

Mobile 7 May 09:38
MS UK kills mystery 'Live to Code' site

Misconfigured marketing offshoot pulled

Microsoft has pulled an apparently rogue internal marketing project that sat quietly, but not unnoticed, on the same servers as its main UK website for at least a fortnight. For at least two weeks leading up to Tuesday (6 May) surfers visiting http://microsoft.co.uk got a somewhat minimalist "Live to Code" page, rather than …

Enterprise Security 7 May 09:47
Grand Theft Auto IV misses week one million sales mark

But still shatters records for Xbox 360 and PS3 sales

Grand Theft Auto IV sold almost 1m copies during its first five days on sale in the UK, according to local market watcher Chart-Track and the European Leisure Software Publishers Assocation. A total of 926,000 copies of the game were sold between 28 April and 3 May – despite the game only going on sale on 29 April. Nonetheless …

Reg Hardware 7 May 09:48
Two arrested over piracy at computer fair

Goods valued at £1m seized

Police and trading standards officers in Yorkshire have seized counterfeit goods and equipment at a Bradford computer fair. The full retail value of the goods would have been £1m, they said. The raid was carried out at a weekend computer fair in Bradford and involved the seizure of counterfeit software and machinery to 'chip' …

Channel Register 7 May 09:50
Capgemini Q1 sinks on weak dollar, pound

Mid-atlantic low

IT services firm Capgemini today blamed the weak US dollar and British pound for a 1.4 per cent drop in its first quarter revenues. The company, which pulls in nearly half (41 per cent) of its group revenues from North America and Blighty, saw sales for the quarter sink to €2.185bn compared to €2.214bn a year ago. Excluding …

Channel Register 7 May 10:07
Private sector saviours wanted for desperate ID scheme

Home Office chucks in the cards?

Plans for the widespread introduction of fingerprint passports and ID cards, already delayed until 2012, have receded further into the distance with the publication of the latest Identity & Passport Service cost report for the ID scheme. This effectively pulls the plugs on the network of IPS-run interview centres, and lobs …

Government 7 May 10:22
Palm's 'Skywriter' smartphone spied on web?

Slab-like

Palm's anticipated Treo 800w is thought to be what the company's calling 'Zeppelin' - a very unfortunate codename, given the originals' tendency to crash and burn. But what about its 'Skywriter' product? An email allegedly sent by Palm to software developers - and from one of them to blog TamsPPC - confirms both the Zeppelin …

Reg Hardware 7 May 10:28
Get your Windows Server Online training guides here

Cost-effective training for your systems analysts

As Microsoft encourages the shift towards Windows Server 2008, you might think that the previous versions immediately become obsolete. But demand has shown this to be false, and this is why we at Reg Books have decided to package together the key Windows Server 2003 MCSE and MCSA Online Learning products into cost-effective …

Developer 7 May 10:36
Dope-crazed Canadians sledgehammer iPhone

Reefer madness

The fanboys among you of delicate sensibilities are advised to look away now, because it's just come to our attention that dope-crazed Canadians last Saturday used the Toronto Freedom Festival as a platform to lay into an iPhone with a sledgehammer: We're not quite sure what provoked this act of mindless violence, but those …

Bootnotes 7 May 10:37
Scientists create Chewbotca robot muncher

Om nom nom nom 2.0

During private and quieter moments, it does a person good to assess the present threat of robots. Robots may betray you, shoot you, or even seduce and break your fragile human heart. But at least there's only a small fraction of a chance that a robot will eat you. But hold that comfort close while you can. Some French …

Rise of the Machines 7 May 11:02
SAP don't want to get SaaSy afterall

We never said we would...

SAP has signaled a retreat from full, on-demand versions of its enterprise resource planning (ERP) products, just as Google and Microsoft up their game in the software-as-a-service (SaaS) market. The firm’s co chief exec Henning Kagermann said at a press conference in Florida yesterday that there was "no reason" to dish up …

Applications 7 May 11:19
US boffins puff off 'living nose on a chip' tech

Stink feared over Smelltard digi-nostril bootlegs

American boffins have revealed that they are working to perfect a new technology in which "living olfactory cells" would be placed on electronic chips, offering an accurate sense of smell as an option for portable devices. The catchily named "cell-based sensors on a chip" technology is funded by the US National Science …

Biology 7 May 11:25
Opera Dragonfly emerges from pupa

Debug tool aims to metamorphise web development

Browser maker Opera has released an early version of a tool to help developers debug web pages. It hopes Opera Dragonfly will assist developers in making the experience of surfing the net consistent across web-enabled mobiles, desktops, and consoles while prompting the adoption of open standards. Opera Dragonfly is designed to …

Applications 7 May 11:27
Ruckus kicks off over directional Wi-Fi

Netgear slapped with patent suit

Wi-fi co Ruckus reckons Netgear has been fitting its directional Wi-Fi technology to more routers than it ought, and has slapped the company with a patent-infringement suit. Netgear did have a licence for Ruckus's BeamFlex technology, but only for use in some of its RangeMax routers. Ruckus considers that the RangeMax WPN …

Data Networking 7 May 11:30
Peter Gabriel's website is back

Womad is safe...

Peter Gabriel's website and the website and ticket buying site for Womad, the world music festival he founded, are back online today after their servers and routers were stolen at the weekend. Opal Telecom, which hosts the servers in High Wycombe, was unwilling to comment, but a spokesman for Gabriel's music company Real World …

Crime 7 May 11:31
Canon gets a handle on portable printing - literally

Print on the run

Canon's Selphy CP770 may look like a portable cooler box for keeping beer chilled, but the unit’s actually a portable photo printer. Canon's Selphy CP770: not a cooler... The CP770 is the best-specced machine out of two new printer models, the other being the smaller CP760. Both printers expand Canon’s existing photo-output …

Reg Hardware 7 May 11:37
Sony details PS3 DVR pricing, launch date

PlayTV incoming

Sony has confirmed that the PlayStation 3’s PlayTV digital video recorder (DVR) add-on will be available in four months' time. Last month, a sales page for the product appeared on Amazon UK. It stated PlayTV would be available from the end of July for £70. Sony swiftly dismissed Amazon’s details as “erroneous and speculative …

Reg Hardware 7 May 11:48
Wikipedia goes to court to defend defamation immunity

It needs a win

Wikipedia, the free, user-generated online encyclopedia, faces a court battle to protect itself from liability for everything that users post on the site. The company behind the site will argue that it should be granted immunity under US law. A literary agent is suing Wikipedia owner the Wikimedia Foundation over a comment …

Law 7 May 12:02
Panasonic Lumix DMC-FS20 compact camera

Review Dark horse delivers decent digital camera

Think of digital cameras and names like Canon, Sony and Pentax come to mind. But Panasonic is proving to be a dark horse, releasing models with impressive looks and good performance. A case in point: the DMC-FS20. It has an all-metal body available in silver or black. It looks neat, compact and stylish and feels good to hold, …

Reg Hardware 7 May 12:17
Sky plays the victim over Ofcom pay TV rights probe

Clinging on to Premiership and movies

Sky has complained to Ofcom that a probe of its dominance of UK pay TV is too one-sided, ahead of a decision that could see the market for football and movie rights opened up to more competition. The communications watchdog is due to publish all submissions to its pay TV market consultation next week, but the Financial Times …

Music and Media 7 May 12:20
Unicaresoft loses ~~MSNLock~~ case against Microsoft

David and Goliath

Microsoft has won its case against Dutch 46-year-old mother of three Carola Eppink, who wanted to restrict her children's use of the internet by using a self-made program she'd dubbed MSNLock. Microsoft sued her company Unicaresoft to prevent the letters MSN being used in the name of the product. Although the product name had …

Applications 7 May 12:25
Jacqui Smith un-downgrades cannabis

And wants to ban pipes, bongs... Hendrix albums

Home Secretary Jacqui Smith, standing in front of a tired-looking Gordon Brown, told the House of Commons today she would ignore advice from the government's scientific advisors and upgrade the classification of cannabis from C to B. Smith decided to ignore advice from the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs which has …

Government 7 May 12:27
Japan to tax MP3 players

Price hike to compensate copyright holders

MP3 players and DVRs could soon become more expensive in Japan, if the country’s government successfully introduces a levy on sales of these devices. According to a report in the Asahi Shimbun newspaper, Japan's Agency for Cultural Affairs wants to force MP3 player manufacturers to pay a royalty charge to copyright holders …

Reg Hardware 7 May 12:32
T-Mobile takes a shine to HTC's Diamond

MDA Compact IV launched

HTC may have only officially announced its new Diamond handset yesterday, but T-Mobile hasn’t wasted any time in rebranding the phone and preparing it for UK sale. The network operator has renamed the would-be iPhone killer the MDA Compact IV. Despite HTC telling Register Hardware yesterday that the 7.2Mb/s HSDPA 3G handset …

Reg Hardware 7 May 12:50
Rogue MP3 Trojan streaks across P2P networks

Worst viral outbreak in three years

Hundreds of thousands of examples of a new Trojan that poses as a media file have flooded onto P2P networks. Since Friday 2 May more than half a million instances of the Trojan have been detected on consumer PCs, according to net security firm McAfee. The anti-virus firm reports the spread of the Downloader-UA.h Trojan as the …

Anti-Virus 7 May 12:54
Dell issues virtualization wonder box despite AMD

Veso happy to see the light of day

As long promised, Dell has gone hog wild with virtualization. The company today dished out a couple of new boxes geared toward running VMware and Citrix's virtualization wares, tuned its iSCSI storage gear for virtual servers and produced a couple new services bobs as well. The real show-stopper here is probably the R805 …

Servers 7 May 14:11
BT Fusion rises again

This time it's about data

Son of Fusion is here - BT has launched what it's calling "Total Broadband Anywhere", with Windows Mobile handsets from HTC and membership of BT's FON network. Last time we discussed Fusion with BT they told us it was far from dead, and while this new offering might lack the Fusion branding, it's clearly offering much the same …

Mobile 7 May 14:27
Yahoo? We don't need no stinkin' Yahoo!

Gates says Microsoft can go it alone

Bill Gates says Microsoft is quite capable of sorting out its internet strategy all on its own if Yahoo! refuses to play ball. Gates, who stops full-time work for the company in June, ceded it was no longer really his decision. He said, according to reports: "The key decisions on that will be made by Microsoft CEO Steve …

Financial News 7 May 14:54
Boris Johnson bans boozing on London transport

Sobriety to reign from 1 June

Newly-elected London mayor Boris Johnson has gone straight into attack mode and carried out his election pledge to ban boozing from London's public transport system, the BBC reports. The blonde Tory bombshell declared: "I firmly believe that if we drive out so-called minor crime then we will be able to get a firm grip on more …

Bootnotes 7 May 14:56
Mobile roaming in Europe: Have your say

Don't tell us, tell the EU

The European Union is launching a public consultation on European roaming regulations. The British government infamously tried to stop the EU putting a cap on roaming prices which came into force in June last year. These introduced caps of €0.49 per minute for making calls and €0.24 cents per minute for receiving calls within …

Mobile 7 May 15:13
AT&T halts holidays during 3G iPhone launch window

'Exciting summer promotional launch', promises leaked memo

AT&T staffers have once again been told they can't take any time off work next month because of an anticipated "heavy selling period" resulting from "an exciting Summer Promotional Launch", a leaked memo reveals. No prizes for guessing that the carrier is referring to the 3G iPhone and to its plan to offer the handset with a $ …

Reg Hardware 7 May 15:32
DARPA wants Matrix style virtual world for cybergeddon

To feature human 'replicants', time-machine mode

The US military's famed scientific wingnut farm, DARPA*, has released full details of its planned "National Cyber Range" - a mighty network which could be configured to simulate the cyberspace battlefields of the future. This would allow America's fighting nerds to train for the net conflicts of tomorrow, mounting attacks on …

Government 7 May 15:42
Embarcadero snaps up Borland's CodeGear for $23m

Resources for courses

Database tools vendor Embarcadero Technologies has snapped up Borland Software's unwanted tools subsidiary CodeGear for $23m - $127m less than initially sought. Embarcadero said the deal provides a "significantly larger footprint" to serve millions of software developers. The deal appears timed to capitalize on the growing …

Applications 7 May 17:21
NASA confirms manned mission to 10 Petaflops

'Our Xeon binge is named Pleiades'

Well, well, well. It would seem that the 20,000-core supercomputer announced yesterday by NASA will just be the first course in an ongoing relationship between the space folk, SGI and Intel. The three organizations have revealed a project dubbed Pleiades that will see them build Petaflop-class machines in the coming years. …

Servers 7 May 17:30
Chipzilla funds Sprint-Clearwire snog

One WiMAX to rule who knows how many

Sprint's on-again, off-again relationship with Clearwire is on again. This morning, the two beleaguered operations announced the creation of a new company that combines their respective WiMAX networks. You know, WiMAX - the new-fangled wireless broadband standard that may or may not qualify as 4G. Backed by $3.2bn from Intel, …

Networks 7 May 20:07
AMD plans 12-core server chip for 2010

First 6-core offering due next year

AMD today shed light on its upcoming server workstation roadmap, revealing details on its first six-core processor, expected to be released next year, and a 12-core offering, due by 2010. The upcoming dodeca-core chip will use AMD's next generation socket platform, dubbed "Maranello." In the second half of '09, AMD plans to …

Servers 7 May 20:41
FBI withdraws secret Internet Archive probe

Abuse of power alleged

The FBI has withdrawn a secret order that used new anti-terrorism powers to demand information about a user of the Internet Archive without a court order after attorneys challenged it as an unconstitutional abuse of power. The victory for the San Francisco-based digital library meant that its founder was able to speak publicly …

Security 7 May 22:08
Yahoo! banks on the power of !

Must! Love! The! Reg!

Sue Decker wants you to know that Yahoo! is the only Fortune 500 company with an exclamation point in its name. "It's an incredible, exciting opportunity to work at Yahoo!, in the things that we're doing, the way we're changing lives - living life with an exclamation point," the Yahoo! president tells Yahoo!'s very own …

IT Director 7 May 23:25
Hollywood awarded $110m against TorrentSpy

Once beaten, twice fined

Operators of the once-popular TorrentSpy tracker have been ordered to pay more than $110m to Hollywood for facilitating illegal downloads of movies and television shows. U.S. District Judge Florence-Marie Cooper awarded the Motion Picture Association of America maximum damages of $30,000 per movie, for each of the 3,699 …

Music and Media 7 May 23:25
Comcast mulls overage fees for bandwidth lovers

250GB monthly cap

Comcast is considering monthly download caps for all those people on its cable-based internet service. According to a report from Broadband Reports, America's second largest ISP is mulling a plan that would cap user downloads at 250GB a month. Under the plan, users would not be penalized if they crossed that 250GB threshold …

Telecoms 7 May 23:47