20th June 2008 Archive

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How the iPhone puts a bomb under mobile networks

Jesus Phone scarier than anyone thought - analysts

If you think everything that could have been written about the iPhone already has been written, prepare to be surprised. One vital aspect of Apple's strategy has been overlooked - with multi-billion consequences for complacent network operators. Over at Telco 2.0, the blog of analysts STL Partners, we learn that networks who …

Telecoms 20 Jun 07:02
Oracle hikes middleware license fees

The spoils of more

Oracle customers are starting to pay the price for its $23bn plus acquisition spree, with licensing hikes across all core middleware products. The database giant is hitting users of its databases and application server software with increases of between 15 per cent and 20 per cent in licensing. Users of the recently acquired …

Developer 20 Jun 07:02
What I learned from a dumb terminal

D'oh! Economy of language meets an excess of context

There is a (probably apocryphal) entry in a naval officer's fitness report that reads: "This officer never makes the same mistake twice. However, he appears to be attempting to make them all once." As developers we should try to avoid collecting the full set, but making some mistakes are inevitable; the trick is to learn from …

Developer 20 Jun 07:02
Flirty texting could land Scots in jail for 10 years

Go too far and you're nicked

Scots face up to 10 years in jail for sending text messages or emails with sexual content. Scotland's just-published Sexual Offences Bill contains stiff penalties for any sexual messages whose intent is to humiliate the recipient. The Bill is a radical revision of sex crime law in Scotland and broadly follows last December's …

Mobile 20 Jun 09:03
Snoop bill opponents post Swedish spy IDs on net

Even Google condemns eavesdropping bill

The chief of Sweden's defense intelligence agency admitted Thursday that about 20 of its staff members have had personal information about themselves posted on the internet as part of a mud-slinging campaign. According to Swedish blog Politikerbloggen the information included addresses, phone numbers and even credit card numbers …

Government 20 Jun 09:17
Nvidia moves to 55nm with GeForce 9800 GTX re-spin

GTX+

Nvidia's first 55nm GPU will be the GeForce 9800 GTX+, the chip maker has confirmed. Arch-rival AMD launched its first 55nm GPU back in November 2007. Due to debut on 14 July, the GTX+ will run at 738MHz, up from the existing, 65nm 9800 GTX's 675MHz. Like the current part, the new GPU will connect to 512MB of GDDR 3 memory …

Reg Hardware 20 Jun 09:50
Yahoo! exec! exodus! continues!

Last one to leave, please turn out the lights

Delicious founder Joshua Schacter yesterday joined the swelling ranks of executives quitting Yahoo!. The firm said in a statement yesterday: "Joshua Schachter has contributed greatly to Delicious' success and Yahoo's success in our social search efforts...Yahoo wishes him well in his next endeavor." It added that he will leave …

Financial News 20 Jun 09:51
Yes! It's the RC beer delivery system!

Beer, direct to your seat

Fridges are a great invention, but the major drawback is that you’ve got to get out of the armchair and walk all the way across to them for an ice-cold beer. Well, not any more, because an remote-control booze cooler’s rolled onto the scene. Beer comes to you, within 30ft The R/C Drinks Cooler looks no different from …

Reg Hardware 20 Jun 10:00
Sony confirms major PS3 firmware update features

Version 2.40 to add in-game XMB

It’s been rumoured that Sony’s set to overhaul the PlayStation 3 with a grand-scale firmware release in the near future, and now the electronics giant has gone on record and confirmed the juicy features gamers can expect. Eric Lempel, director of PlayStation network operations, recently wrote on the PS3 official blog that …

Reg Hardware 20 Jun 10:21
E-food crisis abates as Sainsbury's online sparks into life

Netizens scramble to replenish frozen pizza stockpiles

The UK’s net population narrowly escaped starvation today as Sainsbury’s finally got its e-commerce site up and running again. The UK’s favourite supermarket for people who can’t always afford Waitrose and are a bit sniffy about Tesco announced last night that its online ordering system would be back up and running from 6pm …

Servers 20 Jun 10:22
Liberty director threatens to sue Burnham over 'tawdry smear'

When I hear the words culture secretary I reach for my lawyers...

Liberty director Shami Chakrabarti has demanded a grovelling apology from culture secretary Andy Burnham, following a bizarre reference by the latter to "late night, handwringing, heart-melting phone calls" between Chakrabarti and David Davis, formerly Tory home affairs spokesman, latterly libertarian pin-up. This, says …

Law 20 Jun 10:26
Brando attempts to get climbers hooked to storage

USB Carabineer flash drives, for data-dependent hikers

Register Hardware never have thought you’d need much storage half-way up a craggy rockface, but quirky online retailer Brando thinks differently. Brando's USB Carabiner Flash drive The company has launched the USB Carabiner Flash drive, which not only provides a way for mountain rescue teams, hikers and thrill-seekers to …

Reg Hardware 20 Jun 10:56
MSI Wind Windows XP Edition sub-notebook

Review Size, it seems, is everything

Nothing has caught the imagination of techies of late as much as the Asus Eee PC has. Its tiny dimensions, unique design and true bargain-basement price has rocked the laptop business to the core. The first-generation Eee PC had more than its fair share of critics. The most common complains centred on its poor battery life and …

Reg Hardware 20 Jun 11:02
BOFH: The all-clicking, all-whirring Roboboss

Episode 23 Logic can be a wonderful thing

I've got a particularly vexing game of multiplayer Enemy Territory on my hands when the new Boss rolls in and spoils everything. I say new Boss, as the previous one that everyone liked left for greener pastures and then his replacement left on medical grounds after accidentally pushing a paperclip into the live pin of a power …

BOFH 20 Jun 11:06
UK.gov ready to get muddy again on GM foods

Analysis 'Frankenstein's monster may be ugly, but at least he's well fed'

Advocates of genetically modified crops are growing more confident that the problems facing the world will soon override "Frankenstein food" fears, and now they appear to have convinced the government to once again brave the controversy. The political pages were excited yesterday as environment minister Phil Woolas stuck his …

Biology 20 Jun 11:31
Shopper connects to Jesus via Denon link cable

Constructs shrine to $500 miracle

There's plenty of merriment on offer down at Amazon this week, where net wags have been having a bit of a field day with the Denon AKDL1 Dedicated Link Cable - modestly priced at $499.99: In case you're wondering why on God's Green Earth you'd want to pay 500 bucks for a cable, here's why: If I could use a rusty boxcutter …

Bootnotes 20 Jun 11:32
Naomi Campbell pleads guilty to assault

WSA Court adjourns to consider sentence

Naomi Campell this morning pleaded guilty to "three counts of assaulting a constable and one count of disorderly conduct likely to cause harassment, alarm or distress" at Uxbridge Magistrates' Court, the BBC reports. The battling Streatham clotheshorse was hauled before the beak following a 3 April incident at Heathrow's …

Entertainment 20 Jun 11:42
MS tries again after faulty Bluetooth security fix

Second time's the charm

Microsoft has pushed out a revised version of a security update issued earlier this month after realising its first attempt at cracking a Bluetooth security bug failed to do the business. Redmond's first go at resolving a vulnerability in its Bluetooth stack failed to properly protect machines running either Windows XP Service …

Enterprise Security 20 Jun 11:42
Post Office aims to collect ID card fingerprints?

Large branch network begs for biometric protection

Ministers are in talks with the Post Office over proposals for the latter to handle biometric enrolment and distribution for ID cards and biometric passports, reports the Guardian. The Post Office already operates a 'check and send' service for passports, and there is therefore some logic to extending this to the collection of …

Government 20 Jun 11:53
Heavyweight physics prof weighs into climate/energy scrap

Analysis Zero-carbon UK plans for all: Greens, nimbys, even Libs

A topflight science brainbox at Cambridge University has weighed into the ever-louder and more unruly climate/energy debate with several things that so far have been mostly lacking: hard numbers, willingness to upset all sides, and an attempt to see whether the various agendas put forward would actually stack up. Professor …

Environment 20 Jun 12:01
Congress bails out telcos for illegal snooping

Political compromise leaves civil liberties in the dust

Congress has largely capitulated to White House demands for widespread immunity for the telecoms industry, the New York Times reported on Thursday. Although Congressional Democrats claimed the compromise reached between Democrats and Republicans as a victory for the rule of law, the real winners in this action are the telecoms …

Government 20 Jun 12:02
Sixth British Columbia stray foot a hoax

'Reprehensible and disrespectful'

The sixth "foot" discovered wearing an Adidas trainer on the shores of British Columbia earlier this week was not human, but rather "a skeletonised animal paw ... inserted into the shoe with a sock and packed with dried seaweed", the BC Coroners Service (BCCS) reports (pdf). The BCCS slammed the hoax as "reprehensible and very …

Bootnotes 20 Jun 12:26
Virgin Media collects customer banking details on CD, then loses it

If only they had some sort of network instead...

Virgin Media is conducting an internal inquiry into why 3,000 customers' bank details were burned to a CD which was then lost, it emerged today. The incident came to light inside the company on 29 May. Virgin Media is part way through individually contacting the people affected, who all signed up in Carphone Warehouse stores …

Telecoms 20 Jun 12:30
Circuit City reports Q1 loss as US shoppers unplug

Sales tumble more than 7%

Ailing US electronics retailer Circuit City yesterday posted a first quarter loss and another slide in revenues. The Richmond, Virginia-based firm reported that net loss widened to $164.8m, or $1 a share, for the period ended 31 May 2008, compared to $54.6m, or 33 cents, a year earlier. Sales at Circuit City dropped a painful …

Channel Register 20 Jun 12:36
Croydon devil dog execution: Exclusive photo

Woof, woof, bang, thud

The shocking case earlier this week of the Croydon devil dog - shot dead by armed officers after unsportingly failing to succumb to a robust tasering - provoked a flurry of reader emails demanding El Reg provide the now traditional CCTV evidence of the incident. Well, it took us a while, but we did manage to track down this …

Bootnotes 20 Jun 12:40
Third Brigade annexes open source intrusion detection tech

GPL security project goes under commercial management

OSSEC, the open source host-based intrusion detection project, has been snapped up by Third Brigade, a commercial firm in the same information security sub-market. Terms of the deal, announced on Tuesday, were undisclosed. Daniel Cid, creator and primary developer for OSSEC, has become the principal researcher at Third Brigade …

Security 20 Jun 13:58
EU Commission plots to end rip-off Britain online

One consumer law regime to rule them all

The EU will impose a single system of consumer laws across the bloc in a bid to encourage cross-border shopping online, Commissioner Meglena Kuneva said today. She reckons that differences in laws on guarantees, cooling off periods and refunds deter retailers from selling to customers outside their home country, and consumers …

Government 20 Jun 14:14
Limbo of the Lost music not stolen, claims composer

Game's alleged plagiarism doesn't extend to the tunes

The composer of the music used in controversial adventure game Limbo of the Lost has confirmed that his music was used within the title legitimately. In an email to Register Hardware, Germany-based freelance composer Marko Hautamäki said: "I composed all the game level background music you hear in the game itself, as well as …

Reg Hardware 20 Jun 14:46
Samsung gets some pink Soul

Magic Touch phone changes shades

Dress a product in pink and it’s pretty clear who the target audience is. So, here you are ladies, get yourself a feminine Samsung Soul. Samsung's Soul: now available in pink The pink edition phone is being sold exclusivity through Phones4U and is described as, ahem, “strutting a striking sugary pink shell”. One for the …

Reg Hardware 20 Jun 14:51
Enraged devil dog lover locks on to Reg photo team

Double FoTW 'Staffys are not devils... I've seen them sharing crisps with babies!'

Our photographer's unprecedented access to the world's trouble spots and glamorous events has been a big hit with Reg readers in recent weeks. He's brought us powerful images from Heathrow, amazing shock celebrity snaps, and terrifying scenes from the battle of Lesbos (all potentially NSFW). Not everyone's happy at seeing …

Bootnotes 20 Jun 15:11
A.M.P - the ultimate musical robot?

"I am a freak-a-zoid, come on and wind me up"

If you can’t convince your partner to go to salsa lessons with you, why not trade them in for a robot? Or, to be more specific, an Automated Music Personality (AMP) that knows all the moves. AMP: plays music, dances and follows you around AMP is the result of a joint initiative between Tiger Electronics and Sega Toys to …

Reg Hardware 20 Jun 15:35
Gumshoes fined for debt collection pretexting blag

BT fooled

Two private investigators have been slapped with fines for unlawfully obtaining and selling personal information by a court in south London today. Christopher Hackett, trading as Swift Investigations, and Darren Whalley of Managed Credit Services Ltd were prosecuted by the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) at Wimbledon …

Law 20 Jun 16:04
Mandriva's Linux on a stick will wow all the ladies this Summer

Review Windows? No prob. I can tool you

Mandriva Linux recently announced the Mandriva Flash 2008 Spring operating system, the latest version of its Linux-on-a-USB-stick distro. The Flash sticks come with a complete, bootable version of Mandriva Linux and make it dead simple to take your Linux with you wherever you go - a huge help when you're trying to impress the …

Operating Systems 20 Jun 17:00
Fujitsu preps 700 redundancies in NHS IT debacle

Unite tells UK.gov to get a move on

Fujitsu could make up to 700 people working on the NHS IT contract redundant, the company told workers today. Fujitsu withdrew, or was sacked, from the £1.1bn contract covering the south of England after failing to agree improved terms with the Government and must now return £67m in fees. It employs about 1000 people on the …

Government 20 Jun 17:41
Microsoft should buy Rackable instead of building custom computers

Comment Out-acquiring Google

We're in the midst of some very strange times. An online book seller owns the leading utility computing service. An advertising company manufactures its own servers and switches. And spots in rural America best known for being, well, rural are turning into technology heavyweights because they have access to cheap power and …

Servers 20 Jun 19:07
NebuAd looks to 'spyware' firm for recruits

'Typical of the Valley'

In Silicon Valley, the world's tech capital, the job market is tight, with sales people and engineers in short supply. So what's an ambitious startup like NebuAd to do? One option: Recruit some folk from the nearby ad outfit that's fallen on hard times. After all, NebuAd's in the ad business too. Much like Phorm, it uses deep …

Music and Media 20 Jun 20:16