Friday, 25 July 2008

• Gov pulls plug on prison PlayStations — Reg Hardware
  "No videogames unless you earn it, 655321"
  Blighty’s cons soon really will be doing hard time. Because the Prison Service has issued a directive banning 18 certificate videogames from prisons, and has also pledged to reform console use inside jails. By 30 September this year, prisons in England and Wales must remove all videogames with an 18 certificate. This’ll be bad …
• Lawsuit spells trouble for Facebook's Scrabulous — The Register
  And predictable puns for journalists
  Toy omnicorp Hasbro is setting the legal dogs on Scrabulous, the Facebook-based Scrabble knock-off popular with timewasting desk jockeys worldwide. As well as suing Indian developer brothers Rajat and Jayant Agarwalla for copyright infringement, Hasbro has fired off a DMCA to Facebook demanding it remove the game from its …
• Apple seeks iPhone reverse engineering expert — The Register
  iPoacher turned gamekeeper role
  Apple wants an iPhone security engineer - to beat hackers at their own game. Applicants should develop "proof of concept" attacks and undertake risk analysis on potential security threats affecting Apple's embedded operating system products. The role, one of 35 security-related posts open at Apple, was first advertised in …
• SAP user group foments revolt over massive price hike — The Register
  'Slap SAP ASAP'
  The UK SAP user group today called on the German software giant's customers to scrutinise plans to force them to cough up almost a third more for their contract. The group wants companies affected to examine the changes in detail in the hope they'll be unhappy enough about a real-terms 30 per cent costs increase to kick up a …
• Apple sees red over iPhone 3G — Reg Hardware
  Product (RED) that is
  It’ll come as no surprise that Apple’s got yet more iPhone surprises up its sleeves. But, the latest rumour is that a charity themed red-backed iPhone 3G is on its way. Could a Product (RED) iPhone 3G be coming? According to sources unknown and reported on website iphonesavior, Apple has lined up a Product (RED) 3G model …
• Morse detects cost savings - takes £4.5m charge — Channel Register
  UK reseller Morse will take a one-off charge of up to £4.5m to slash costs this year, it told the stock market today. Executive chairman Kevin Loosemore said further details of the cuts, which will begin immediately, will be revealed with the firm's preliminary results on 9 September. The cuts follow the departure of CEO Kevin …
• Cops slap ticket on Street View spycar — The Register
  Exclusive snap of Orwellian Opel bust
  You'll enjoy this: Here's evidence that not even the might of Google permits it to park vehicles from its Orwellian Opel spycar fleet in reserved doctor spots: Good work there by a vigilant Adam Ranshaw, and indeed the Boys in Blue, who apparently slapped the search monolith with a fine and a ticking-off for the violation in …
• Inquirer celebrates spammer murder-suicide — The Register
  Comment 'Yay. No, YAY!'
  There's an air of celebration down at The Inquirer at the news that fugitive spammer Eddie Davidson decided to do the decent thing and kill himself. Here's our take on the story, but check out the opposition's view on the whole sorry affair. Well, as an opener, this takes some beating: "Not all stories have a happy ending, …
• Journey's latest hit: an MP3 player — Reg Hardware
  No. 1 calling?
  If you’re a fan of power ballads, then you can finally have an MP3 player Any Way You Want It. That’s provided you welcome Journey’s decked-out portable player with Open Arms. The Journey MP3 player Yes, the 1970’s US rockers are back with their latest hit – a Journey themed MP3 player that owes its design to the band’s …
• Who killed Three Strikes for filesharing? — The Register
  National Freetard Register cancelled - but freetards don't notice
  Rejoice! "Three strikes and you're out" is dead in the UK. Music file sharers will no longer face the threat of seeing the household broadband connection severed. The plague that is currently endemic in France won't be jumping the English Channel. For confirmation, you only need to turn to page 30 of the Government's …
• Intel knits SoCs roadmap for x86 — The Register
  TV, storage array and robot pandering
  Intel is ready to charge once more unto the breach of system-on-a-chip (SoC) devices, this time with a new line of embedded processors based on the same instruction set used in all its desktop and mobile products. The chipmaker will release eight new x86-based SoC processors targeted at security, storage, and communication …
• US Air Force may allow killbots to be flown by non-pilots — The Register
  Flyboys sick of couch-potato warfare
  The new head of the US Air Force - replacing an officer who was fired at least in part for dragging his feet on unmanned air operations - has hinted that the service may relax its rule that drone aircraft must be flown by fully qualified military pilots. Answering written questions from Senators prior to his confirmation …
• Capgemini goes Dutch — Channel Register
  Buys app firm
  Capgemini is paying €255m for a public sector applications division, Business Application Services BV, from Getronics PinkRoccade. BAS BV employs 2,200 people and turned over €300m in 2007. It makes 40 per cent of its revenues from the Dutch public sector. The deal is subject to the usual regulatory issues and needs to be …
• Buffalo burns 8x Blu-ray — Reg Hardware
  The fastest burners in the west east?
  If burning Blu-ray disks is taking you too long, then a trip to Japan could save you some time. That’s because Buffalo has unveiled two super-speedy 8x Blu-ray drives in the country. Buffalo's external 8x Blu-ray drive The 8x drive is available as either an external USB 2.0/eSATA model or an internal SATA drive. Both …
• Thunderbird patches are go — The Register
  Hot to trot
  Mozilla has fixed multiple vulnerabilities in the Thunderbird email client. Version 2.0.0.16 fixes eight vulnerabilities, six of which are rated as moderate. The moderate flaws cover code execution risks (in a CSS reference counter and ScriptLoader component of Thunderbird) and memory corruption flaws. The CSS reference …
• The FDRs of Green explain the gentle art of planet saving — The Register
  Flunking economics the Green New Deal Group way
  A "triple crunch" of financial crisis, climate change and soaring oil prices threatens the world with a new Great Depression so, 'drawing inspiration from FDR' the Green New Deal Group proposes "a modernised version" of the solution. FDR himself being unhappily unavailable, we have the newly-formed group and its eponymous report …
• HP prepping 2133 Mini-Note rival — Reg Hardware
  Less durable, but cheaper, claims HP
  Hewlett-Packard (HP) has confirmed that it’ll soon give birth to the 2133 Mini-Note’s baby brother, a cheaper alternative to recently unveiled machine. HP's original 2133 Mini-Note At an HP launch eairlier this week, Jerel Chong, HP Australia’s Market Development Manager for Notebook PCs, said that: “From a retail …
• Microsoft to fold DATAllegro into server platforms — The Register
  Appliance of datawarehouse science
  Microsoft is buying data warehouse appliance maker DATAllegro in its latest push in the enterprise business intelligence market. The software giant made the announcement yesterday. Financial details are undisclosed. Microsoft will retain most of DATAllegro’s team as well as its headquarters in Viejo, California. It will …
• Ingram's second quarter cheers — Channel Register
  But predicts tough third quarter
  Super distie Ingram Micro increased sales to $8.82bn for the quarter ended 28 June 2008 compared to $8.19bn for the same period last year. Sales were helped by a six per cent improvement in currency exchange rates. Net income in the second quarter was $58.9m, compared to $52.4m last year. Ingram spend $5.5m on reducing costs …
• Cancer doc issues mobile phone warning — Reg Hardware
  But only to his staff and based on unpublished results
  Reports have told us that mobile phones don’t increase the risk of brain cancer, others have stated the opposite. However, one doctor has issued a warning that mobile phone use should be limited, based on the findings of an unpublished medical study. According to a report by the International Herald Tribune, Dr Ronald …
• Sansa Clip MP3 player — Reg Hardware
  Review Molecule-sized micro MP3 player
  Come September, a version of the Sansa Clip with revised firmware will hit the streets in the UK, giving us an excuse to rustle one up and have a retrospective shoofty. Much of the revised firmware is actually already available from SanDisk, including support for Ogg files, but come September all new Clips will also support …
• Microsoft crowbars Live Search into Facebook — The Register
  'Hands off my ad space... bitch'
  Microsoft has traded its exclusive deal to plaster Facebook with banner advertising for the right to pump Google-style contextual search ads on the profit-lite website. The switcheroo was tossed into yesterday's attempt by Steve Ballmer to convince analysts that he's still the world's top chair-flinging sweaty software kingpin …
• Lovefilm 1, BitTorrent/iTunes/retail 0 — Reg Hardware
  Editors' Blog Why rent-by-mail DVD services are now my video collection
  I've given up buying DVDs, though I haven't stopped watching them. Quite the reverse - I'm watching more movies and TV series than ever before. Before you suggest it, I'm not downloading anything either. Last year, I took out a £13-a-month subscription with DVD rental service Lovefilm.com. I can rent as many movies as I care …
• Edinburgh Fringe ticketing chaos continues — The Register
  Standing on the shoulders of clowns
  The Edinburgh Fringe festival gets underway a week on Saturday (3-25 August) but ever since tickets went on sale the box office system has suffered several major technical cock-ups. As we previously reported, tickets were supposed to be generally available to punters on 9 June, but festival organisers admitted that they had …
• The ultimate mouse? — Reg Hardware
  Concept mouse aims to eliminate RSI and maximise operational comfort
  Stick the word concept before a product name and you’ve got yourself an instant excuse for craziness. Well, the concept Alien Mouse is no exception. The four-part Alien Mouse: comfy This four-section mouse is designed with ergonomics in mind and designer Mizanur Rehman claims that his Alien Mouse “is the solution to desktop …
• Fugitive spammer in murder-suicide — The Register
  Three dead as teenage girl escapes carnage
  Fugitive spammer Eddie Davidson shot his wife and infant daughter dead on Thursday before turning the gun on himself - four days after going AWOL from a minimum security prison. Police responding to reports of gunfire in the small town of Bennett, Colorado found Davidson along with his wife Amy Lee Ann Hill, 29, and three-year …
• Greenpeace: UK gov trying to strangle wind power — The Register
  Won't hand over nuke plants' grid connections
  The British government has been accused by Greenpeace of trying to strangle development of renewable power in Europe, and in particular in the UK. Greenpeace say they have obtained draft documents from negotiations in Brussels, which amount to a 'smoking gun' exposing the UK's anti-renewables agenda. The eco-hardliner pressure …
• Free for all on London Underground — The Register
  Updated Oyster falls down again
  Commuters are travelling for free on the London Underground this morning after technical problems again brought down the Oyster ticket system. Gates have been left open since early this morning. But at least this failure is not knackering people's cards - the downtime last time meant 35,000 people had to get their cards …
• Proof of age system moves net ID a step closer — The Register
  But gov ID may be set back
  The UK moved one step closer to online ID for all last week as the British Board of Film Classification (BBFC) decided to give accreditation to NetIDme’s age verification software. But for once this may be not cause for complete doom and gloom. Also added to the list are GB Group (with their URU product) and 192.com. In one …
• Happy Sysadmin Day! — The Register
  Give yourselves a big hug
  Today is Sysadmin Day - the annual celebration of all things sys. Just as the website says "If you can read this, thank your sysadmin". It is the day when we should all show a bit of appreciation for that oft-ignored or even maligned creature, the system administrator. So why not show yours some loving? You could have a whip- …
• Dead author's estate snatches child's domain — The Register
  Nar-nar-nar-nar-nar(nia)
  A British couple has lost the battle to keep the narnia.mobi domain name which they claimed was only registered so that their son could have a Narnia-related email address. The address will transfer to a company representing CS Lewis's estate. Richard and Fiona Saville-Smith failed to convince an arbitration panel of the World …
• MS products just too cool to comprehend, say MS geeks — The Register
  Windows Vista by any other name
  When the product sucks but you can't bring yourself to admit the horrible truth, what's the next logical step? Blame the message, the messenger or the recipient of the message. Simple. Microsoft's normally bombastic marketing has begun blaming Windows Vista's poor uptake on the modesty of its own message, while exaggerating …
• How government will save you from P2P deviance — The Register
  It's stealing, you know...
  Thousands - or to be more precise, six thousands - of lucky alleged infringers a week are to be informed of the error of their ways, according to the terms of the deal struck this week between the British government and six major ISPs. They will in the first instance be "informed when their accounts are being used unlawfully to …
• World's biggest ISPs drag feet on critical DNS patch — The Register
  Updated BT, AT&T among those putting subscribers at risk
  More than two weeks after security researchers warned of a critical defect in the net's address lookup system, some of the world's biggest internet service providers - including AT&T, BT, Time Warner and Bell Canada - have yet to install a patch inoculating their subscribers against attacks. According to an informal survey of …

Thursday, 24 July 2008

• American data pimper exposes ad equation — The Register
  26,000 tracked, 15 opt out
  How much notice did American ISPs provide when testing NebuAd's Phorm-like behavioral ad targeter? Not as much as NebuAd CEO Bob Dykes would have you believe. Responding to an open letter from three big-name US Congressman, Middle American ISP Embarq Corp. has admitted that before activating NebuAd's deep packet inspection …
• Tory leader's stolen bicycle surfaces on eBay — The Register
  'It leans oddly to the right'
  Hours after Tory leader David Cameron told the world that someone had nicked his bicycle, the much-discussed two-wheeler has turned up on eBay. Or so it seems. "This bike is not exactly new but it is nearly new because it has only been used for a couple of photo-opportunities," says the anonymous huckster offering Cameron's …
• Poker-faced Ballmer explains Google beating plans — The Register
  Send in the marines
  When you report annual revenue of $60bn you'd expect Wall St would give a little credit where credit's due. Not take your stock price outside and rough it up. Yet, a pounding it got last Friday from analysts concerned by increasing costs and ongoing losses at Microsoft's online business - MSN, Windows Live, Live Search and …
• Cancer doctor cites 'early' data on cell phone danger — The Register
  Quick! Call a doct... oh damn.
  The head of a leading US cancer research institute has sent out a warning to his staff to limit their cell phone use because of a risk of developing brain cancer. In a memo sent by University of Pittsburgh Cancer Institute director Dr. Ronald Herbman yesterday, he cautions mobile phone users should not to let a lack of …
• Apple is Fisher-Price of sound quality, says Neil Young — The Register
  The revolution will not be podcast
  Over five decades Neil Young has played a variety of roles including sixties protester, folk singer, Ronald Reagan supporter, grunge rocker and film maker. Now he's donning a new hat: Apple basher. Young says Apple, with its ubiquitous iPod and iTunes, has dumbed down sound quality to "Fisher-Price toy" levels that place …
• Court defends America's right to online smut — The Register
  First Amendment meets Groundhog Day
  Ten years after it was rubber stamped by US lawmakers, the free-speech-throttling Child Online Protection Act (COPA) remains in legal limbo, but its chances of survival took another blow this week as a federal appeals court upheld an earlier ban on the statute. “COPA cannot withstand a strict scrutiny, vagueness, or over …
• XM-Sirius merger OKd in fines plus booster-dump deal — The Register
  Woo FCC with $19m in 'voluntary contributions'
  XM Satellite Radio and Sirius Satellite Radio are nearing a final agreement with US regulators to approve their long-pending merger. The companies agreed to pay millions of dollars in fines in order to grease the wheels of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) for formal approval of their proposed monopoly. Some …
• Exploit code for Kaminsky DNS bug goes wild — The Register
  Still think threat is exaggerated?
  When Dan Kaminsky disclosed a critical flaw in the net's address lookup system earlier this month, he said it was crucial internet service providers and other organizations install patches immediately. He wasn't kidding. Security researchers have developed two working exploits that poison vulnerable domain name system servers …
• eBay auction fraudster jailed for four years — The Register
  Hammer to fall
  An Oregon man who auctioned counterfeit Adobe software on eBay under a variety of false identities has been jailed for four years. Jeremiah Mondello, 23, of Eugene, Oregon, was also sentenced to a further three years on probation following his release and 130 hours of community service a year for three years at a sentencing …
• Doctor Who fans told to lay off Hamlet — The Register
  Trekkies also unwelcome at Stratford stage door
  Fans of Doctor Who and Star Trek have been told to lay off autograph hunting at the stage door of the Courtyard Theatre in Stratford, where David Tennant and Patrick Stewart are thesping it up in a Royal Shakespeare Company production of Hamlet. The ban comes after fans apparently started turning up at the venue with "bags" of …
• iPhone Mail bug adds phishing danger — The Register
  Be careful around the net
  Flaws in the Mail and Safari applications bundled with the iPhone leave users of the device at greater risk of phishing attacks. A URL-spoofing vulnerability means that a dodgy domain pointed to by a specially crafted URL can appear to be that of a trusted brand when viewed through the iPhone's mail or Safari browser …
• HP borgs Voodoo — Reg Hardware
  High-end games join consumer unit
  HP is merging the VoodooPC business it bought two years ago into its consumer PC division. The brand will live on and Voodoo machines will be sold alongside Compaq Presarios and Pavilions. HP bought VoodooPC in 2006. The company specialised in very high-end machines for obsessive gamers. It has run as a separate unit for the …
• Ballmer upset by Apple cart — Channel Register
  Plans to compete with 'thriving' rival
  Microsoft boss Steve Ballmer yesterday openly acknowledged Apple's "thriving" success in the lucrative consumer market. Historically, Ballmer has not often taken Apple seriously as a competitor. Well, apart from dismissing the iPhone as "niche" and iPod owners being thieves of course. Ballmer outlined his “priorities” in an …
• Eye of newt: Inside Google's AdWords auction — The Register
  Analysis Or whatever it is
  When Google chief legal officer David Drummond testified before Congress last week, he didn't disappoint. He splattered Capitol Hill with the sort of shameless nonsense we've come to expect from Mountain View's number one huckster. In short, Drummond told all those Congresspeople that if Google is allowed to rule 90 per cent of …
• Dell adds multi-touch to Latitude XT — Reg Hardware
  Bigger SSD drives too
  Dell has announced it's incorporating touch-screen functionality - in the form of an easy-to-install firmware upgrade - on it's Latitude XT tablets. Tablets or convertible PCs are notebooks with a rotating screen that can be used as a flat writing surface. With the free software, users can scroll by placing two fingers on the …
• The return of Killer Chlorine — The Register
  Numberwatch Just when you thought it was safe to go back in the water
  After many mind-sapping years of trawling through the morass of health scare stories, I formulated a number of laws, one of which was the Law of Beneficial Developments: The intensity of the scaremongering attack on any new development is proportional to the level of benefit that it endows. Unbelievably, the Chlorine Scare has …
• Southeast London is card fraud cesspool — The Register
  UK danger zones named
  London is the biggest single centre for credit card fraud with southeast London - particularly Thamesmead (SE28) - becoming notorious as the place with the most fraudulent activity in the UK, according to a new survey. An analysis of over 30 million 'good' and 'bad' card transactions over the first half of 2008 by anti-fraud …
• Spanish doc cuffed for webcam in toilet — The Register
  Ronaldinho's sister caught on camera?
  A Spanish doctor was last week cuffed for installing a webcam in the toilet of his Barcelona consultancy, a nutritional centre frequented by the likes of motorcyclist Jorge Lorenzo and the sister of former Barcelona ball-worrier Ronaldinho. According to El País, the webcam was spotted by an employee of Jorge I.P's Centro …
• Facebook faker ordered to pay thousands in libel damages — The Register
  Grudge judged
  The High Court has today ordered a man who concocted a Facebook account to attack a former school friend to pay £22,000 in damages. Grant Raphael had claimed strangers at an impromptu party had used his home computer to create a fake profile in the name of Mathew Firsht. Deputy Judge Richard Parkes QC described the story as " …
• Scientists decry Bletchley Park's decline — The Register
  Demand government action to save Station X
  A group of the UK's leading computer scientists has demanded government action to save Bletchley Park from further decay, saying that “the ravages of age and a lack of investment” threaten the future of Station X. Some of the wooden codebreaking huts are in "a desperate state of decay" and, as we recently reported, the …
• Airbus A380-800: an airborne treat for gadget fans — Reg Hardware
  Editors' Blog Tech heaven at 37,000ft
  I'm writing this sitting in a Singapore Airlines double-decker Airbus A380 bound for the carrier's home city. We're at 35,320ft and I'm up in tech heaven. I have my Eee PC 900 open in front of me, its meagre battery being kept topped up from the power socket in the armrest to my right. My iPhone is sitting on the fold-out …
• Microsoft bigwig jumps ship in re-org wake — The Register
  Kevin Johnson is off to Juniper
  The man who led Microsoft’s recent failed bid to buy Yahoo! is leaving the software giant after more than 15 years with the company. Kevin Johnson, president of Microsoft’s platforms and services division, is jumping ship amid a major shake-up at the company. Redmond is splitting Johnson’s old unit into two groups – one …
• It's official: Samsung shows off i8510 8mp cameraphone — Reg Hardware
  Korean company joins cameraphone crème de la crème
  Rumours that the South Korean company was going to join the 8mp cameraphone crowd have been circulating for a while, now Samsung has confirmed it's launching the i8510 in the UK in August. Much like the iPhone, the i8510 comes in 8GB and 16GB variants, with 3G and HSDPA as well as Wi-Fi. It also features GPS and a camera …
• Cheque-red flag for Max Mosley — The Register
  News of the World organises whip-round to pay damages
  So the dust has settled, Max Mosley has won his case, and UK privacy law advances a further notch. Does this make any difference at all to the El Reg readers – apart from those few who get their jollies from dressing up in strange uniforms and whipping one another at the weekend? The answer, as with most things legal, was …
• NZ judge saves girl from bloody silly name — The Register
  Talula Does The Hula From Hawaii
  An NZ judge has done the decent thing and made a nine-year-old girl a ward of court to allow her to ditch what must rate among the most preposterous names of all time - Talula Does The Hula From Hawaii. The issue of the poor child's moniker surfaced during a custody hearing in New Plymouth back in February, the BBC reports. …
• Apple account hijacks spread to developers — The Register
  From iTunes to Apple Developer Connections
  Account hijackers have targeted Apple iTunes for months, but now they're hitting Apple developers as well. Reg reader Andrew McAuley discovered that his iTunes account was hijacked after 150 unauthorised transactions, each valued at $42, appeared on his debit card bill. McAuley, a Brit who lives in the US, noticed the attack …
• Feargal Sharkey on the ISP filesharer MoU — The Register
  Three Strikes RIP?
  The Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) between ISPs and the music business will lead to radically new "legal P2P" services, British Music Rights' Feargal Sharkey told us this morning. Licensing deals have already been signed, we reported recently. The agreement between the music business and six of the UK's biggest ISPs will …
• Norwegians demo 10cm video & GPS pocket-chopper — Reg Hardware
  Palmtop helipad aviation goes live
  "The world's smallest full authority helicopter", with rotors just 10cm across, has been successfully flight tested in Norway. Scandinavian microcopter developers hailed the debut of the prototype PD-100 Black Hornet as "a major success". Sceptical readers in possession of the small battery-powered remote-controlled …
• Sony Ericsson C702 rugged handset — Reg Hardware
  Review More Ross Kemp than Andy McNab
  The C702's moniker might give the impression that it's a stripped-down version of the 5mp camera-toting C902. But while it shares some features, the C702 is very much its own model. For a start, it's pitched as a rugged, outdoorsy sort of handset, with protection against dust and moisture. While we wouldn't recommend dunking …
• Creative continues ZEN range with Mozaic media player — Reg Hardware
  Creative today announced the launch of the ZEN Mozaic portable media player for music, photos and video, featuring a 1.8in LCD colour screen, FM radio, voice recorder and built-in speaker. Available silver, pink and black, four different memory sizes will be on sale, 2GB at £50, 4GB at £60, 8GB at £80 - all of which will be on …
• Nokia and Qualcomm end patent war — The Register
  Legal attack dogs muzzled
  Nokia and Qualcomm have agreed to end their worldwide legal battle over patents. Yesterday saw a German court throw out Qualcomm's claims but the two had pending legal action in the US, the UK, Germany, France, Italy and China. The deal therefore came as a surprise. Varied standards are covered by the deal, including GSM, …
• 'Contagious' fungus threatens videotape collections — Reg Hardware
  Bold mould
  Video digitising hardware makers are leaping for joy over news ye olde VHS tapes are becoming unwatchable thanks to an outbreak of mould. According to a Telegraph report this week, too many folk, museums, archive owners and collectors are keeping their old tapes in damp conditions. While the wet won't harm videotape, it …
• HMV lines up a few VAT-free CDs and DVDs — Reg Hardware
  How not to cannibalise your sales
  HMV is planning to put kiosks into some of its stores to allow customers to order out-of-stock CDs and DVDs which will be fulfilled VAT-free from the Channel Islands. Many online and mail order music services including Tesco and Amazon.co.uk already have warehouses in Jersey and Guernsey because EU law allows items with a …
• Cannibal's legal objection hamstrings German horror film — The Register
  Rights infringement leads to ban
  A horror film has been banned in Germany because it infringes on the personality rights of the German man who killed and ate a voluntary victim on Christmas Day in 2001. Rohtenburg is a horror film about a man who engages in very similar acts to Armin Meiwes, who was arrested in 2002 and convicted of murder in 2005. Meiwes …
• MPs probe MoD accountancy shenanigans — The Register
  Analysis 'The arms industry are your masters, aren't they?'
  The UK Ministry of Defence has taken yet another lengthy roasting from the House of Commons Public Accounts Committee, PAC, which has been examining its recently audited accounts. The MoD is accused of "masking" the costs of its biggest and most expensive equipment projects by creative accounting, and responds by pointing out …
• Perfect prints, the Wii way — Reg Hardware
  Nintendo launches console photo service
  What do you get when you combine Nintendo with Fujifilm? Why it’s the online Wii Photo Channel, of course. The Wii's Photo Channel: lets you print out pictures The service enables Wii owners to upload images through a web connection and then have them printed out and delivered by Fujifilm. Images can be loaded onto the Wii …

Wednesday, 23 July 2008

• Sun to support AMP plus Linux — The Register
  OSCON Money talks
  Sun Microsystems is putting the "L" back into LAMP with plans to support customers running the open-source Apache, MySQL and Perl or PHP (AMP) stack on Linux. The company said it plans paid, enterprise-level support for AMP on Linux in the fourth-quarter of 2008, in addition to supporting AMP on its preferred platform, of …
• Google unfurls less laughable Wikipedia — The Register
  Knol is short for knowledge - honest
  Google has unleashed its Wikipedia killer. Back in December, the search engine cum world power announced an anyone-can-edit online encyclopedia it insists on calling Knol, and this morning, with a post to The Official Google Blog, product manager Cedric Dupont and software engineer Michael McNally opened things up to world+dog …
• San Francisco sysadmin stays in jail for now — The Register
  Parts of city network still locked out
  The sysadmin accused of hijacking San Francisco's network may have surrendered the passwords needed to regain control of key parts of the system, but the move hasn't gotten anyone very far. A judge has refused to lower his $5m bail, and officials say they are still locked out of some portions of the network. The decision came …
• Amazon leaps tall buildings, scoffs at maimed economies — The Register
  'Bellwether we're not'
  Has Amazon noticed a drop in consumer confidence? Don't even ask the question. "We're probably not the best bellwether for the economy," CFO Thomas Szkutak said this afternoon during a conference call with industry analysts and reporters. "Just look at our overall growth rates for Q2." During the quarter ending June 30, …
• UK ISPs agree to menace their filesharing users — The Register
  But menace them with what?
  Six UK ISPs are to start sending out menacing letters to hundreds of thousands of suspected music pirates as part of a government plan to tackle illegal filesharing, the BBC reports. The deal and the names of the six are due to be unveiled on Thursday, and the ISPs are also said to have committed "to develop legal music services …
• EMC Q2 coffers full, but outlook half-empty — The Register
  Fights demands to spin VMware
  Storage titan EMC enjoyed a solid second quarter this year, although you wouldn't guess it by the company's mournful outlook. "The economic environment is tough and I believe it will remain tough for at least the next several quarters," said CEO Joe Tucci in the company's quarterly conference call. "Really, IT spending is …
• Seattle Spam King Dark Mailer faces 47-month sentence — The Register
  From the penthouse to the Big House
  One of the world's most prolific spammers has been sentenced to nearly four years in prison and ordered to forfeit more than $708,000 in income for blasting out tens of millions of unwanted emails. Robert Alan Soloway, 29, on Tuesday received 47 months in federal prison following a two-and-a-half-day sentencing hearing. …
• Sabre-rattling Europe threatens US diplomats with visas — The Register
  Be nice to our huddled masses, or else
  The European Commission has threatened action against US diplomats and service personnel if there's no movement from the United States on visa-free travel this year. Citizens of 12 EU member states currently require visas when travelling to the US, and according to the Commission no tangible progress has been made in talks to …
• Re-jigged Intel mobile Linux stack dumps Ubuntu — The Register
  OSCON Nothing personal, just no developers
  Intel's project to put a Linux and open source stack on mobile devices is getting overhauled to attract developer support, having failed to generate much interest. A year after launching Moblin, Intel plans a second version of its open source stack in the next three weeks, sporting a new operating system, middleware, tools and …
• North Americans just don't steal handsets, apparently... — The Register
  Rogers dodgers
  Back in 2005, when he lost his three-day-old Motorola v 635, Pete Gillespie immediately phoned his cell provider, Canada's Rogers Wireless. Among other things, he urged the cellco giant to blacklist the phone's IMEI number so that miscreants couldn't reconnect his $600 purchase to the Canadian airwaves. But the company said it …
• Western Digital shrinks VelociRaptors for enterprise duty — The Register
  2.5-inch SATA spinning at 10k RPMs
  Western Digital is making a play for the enterprise storage market today by stripping the bulky heat sink attached to its 10,000RPM VelociRaptor drives and liberating the small form-factor disk that's been locked inside all along. The number two hard drive supplier technically has offered a 2.5-inch VelociRaptor HDD since …
• Romanian phisher confesses to scam targeting financial giants — The Register
  Scammer faces five years in slammer
  A Romanian man has admitted he took part in a sophisticated phishing scam that targeted PayPal and at least nine other financial institutions by tricking their customers into giving up their account credentials. Ovidiu-Ionut Nicola-Roman, 22, of Craiova, Romania, pleaded guilty in federal court in Bridgeport, Connecticut, on …
• Steve Jobs is 'cancer-free' — The Register
  Rumours of ill health greatly exaggerated
  Apple chief exec Steve Jobs has been able to assure its board that he's cancer-free, four years after undergoing surgery to treat a rare form of pancreatic cancer. Jobs told associates that his recent weight loss is due to nutritional problems resulting from the surgery, The New York Times reports. The paper adds that he went …
• Dell challenges blades with rack workstation — The Register
  Better than a blade?
  Dell has launched a rack workstation to challenge blade workstations. The advantage is that the hardware, and data, is kept in a central server room or data centre and so is more secure. The architecture also removes heat and noise usually created by desktop machine from the working environment. Prices start at $1,869 (£936 …
• SpringSource releases application infrastructure 'alternative' — The Register
  Sniffing the enterprise glue
  Open source tools developer SpringSource yesterday announced the general availability of its new enterprise applications package. SpringSource Enterprise is bundled with software, services and tech support to help developers build and run Spring-based enterprise apps. The package includes the SpringSource Application …
• Panasonic goes back to black — Reg Hardware
  LCD offers life-like blacks and SD card support
  Anyone who demands only the blackest of on-screen blacks may have thought a Pioneer Kuro was the only option. Not so, says Panasonic, which has stepped into the darkness with rival screen. Panasonic's Viera TX-32LXD80: offers "life-like blacks" Although Pioneer’s Kuro plasma range boasts a 42in, 50in and 60in options, …
• Sony sets PS3 sales objective — Reg Hardware
  150m units worldwide
  Sony plans to have sold 150m PlayStation 3 units worldwide by the end of the console’s lifecycle, it has been revealed. Kaz Hirai, head of Sony Computer Entertainment, said that the firm eventually hopes to see sales of the PS3 outstrip the 140m PS2s it has sold in the nine years that console has been on sale. The Sony …
• Blinking to replace remote controls, claims Japanese boffin — Reg Hardware
  Total winker?
  A Japanese researcher is planning to revolutionise the humble remote control in the blink of an eye, literally. All this to skip tracks on your iPod Image courtesy AFP Kazuhiro Taniguchi, a researcher at the Osaka University Graduate School of Engineering Science, has invented a blink-operated switch called the Kome Kami …
• Cisco is moving into your house — The Register
  Buys into home networking
  Cisco is paying $120m for home networking firm Pure Networks, underscoring its desire to build a consumer brand. Pure makes network management software for home users. Now everyone can be a network manager from their own living room. Pure's software lets you manage all the devices on your home network, which Cisco imagines …
• Ubuntu man challenges open source to out-pretty Apple — The Register
  OSCON Don't need no stinkin' ads
  Billionaire, cosmonaut and founder of the fast-growing Ubuntu Linux distro Mark Shuttleworth dreams impossible dreams. No, not a return to the stars. He believes in something that's far harder for mortal open source engineers to achieve. That dream? To produce a desktop more beautiful to ordinary users than legions of Apple …
• Hardware hacker's surgery heals slow Acer Aspire One SSD — Reg Hardware
  Nip here, tuck there
  Acer's Aspire One is coming under fire from early buyers for the sluggishness of its solid-state drive, so one intrepid hardware hacker has figured out how to replace it. It's not an easy job. A poster over at JKKMobile reports that the One's 8GB SSD is tucker under the motherboard - reaching it involves completely …
• Drive-by download attacks menace UK.gov — The Register
  No one is safe
  The number of drive-by download attacks has tripled and they are beginning to affect government websites as well as small business operations. Malicious downloads from compromised websites have replaced infected email attachment as the favourite tactic for malware authors. During the first half of 2008, web security firm …
• NEC UK abandons direct sales — Channel Register
  Channel, through and through
  NEC Computers yesterday signalled its intent to become 100 per cent indirect in the UK over the next year. The Japanese firm will take on one mainline distributor in September and about 100 resellers over the next 12 months. The vendor hopes to increase its reseller base in vertical sectors that include healthcare, finance and …
• FT forgets law of small numbers in tech collapse scenario — The Register
  No spike in titsupometer
  The number of UK technology firms suffering financial problems was up 371 per cent for the second quarter of 2008 compared to last year. But the findings are all relative, according to research analyst Martin Kelway from insolvency specialist Begbies Traynor. When the numbers are put in context, the results showed that the …
• DIY SSD packs in CompactFlash card pair RAID rig — Reg Hardware
  Enclosure lets you make your own solid-state drive
  Want to replace your system hard disk with an solid-state drive? Want to take advantage of RAID? Want to use the cheapest Flash? Thanks to Taiwan's Raidon, you can. It's rolled out what it calls the "RAID ready SSD enclosure", and you can't get a more apt moniker than that. Raidon's RAID-able SSD enclosure: slip in any high- …
• Sony to bring E Ink eBook reader to UK in September — Reg Hardware
  Tome alone
  OK, call us Luddites, but we'd rather settle down with a old fashioned paperback than one of these electronic readers. But Sony believes enough UK punters want one when it brings it to the UK in September. The gadget in question is the PRS-505 Reader, the UK incarnation of the second-gen E Ink screen-equipped unit that's been …
• Lesbos climax as lesbians lick Lesbians — The Register
  Hot Athens court action backs girl-on-girl
  Lesbian activists from the sun-kissed Sapphic luuurv island of Lesbos have been roundly licked in their battle to prevent gay gals dubbing themselves lesbians, the Beeb reports. The anti-lesbian Lesbians, led by Dimitris Lambrou, back in April launched a legal action against the Greek Gay and Lesbian Union (Olke) claiming that …
• DiData placing makes two big shareholders even bigger — Channel Register
  Datacraft buy-out
  Dimension Data raised £60.2m in a new share issue yesterday to help buy out the minorities of its Asian subsidiary, Datacraft. But the placing, equivalent to eight per cent of the newly enlarged share capital, has left two investors with very big stakes in the multinational reseller. Luckily for DiData, the issue was fully …
• JVC pitches deeper driver in-ear 'phones — Reg Hardware
  These cans will be earwax magnets
  Most people know the dangers of sticking cotton buds right into their ears, but how would you feel about doing the same with a pair of headphones, even if it meant better audio clarity? In-ear 'phone drive locations: deeper with JVC Well, JVC wants you to do just that with its HP-FXC50 headphones, which actually slide …
• Tiscali sues BT for 'defamation and falsehood' — The Register
  El Reg headline kicks off legal row
  Tiscali has kicked off legal proceedings against BT, after the telecoms giant sent letters to the Italian-owned ISP’s customers earlier this month. The personalised marketing letter, a scan of which can be viewed here, referenced a story written in January this year by The Register that first highlighted that the UK arm of …
• Panasonic manufactures massive megapixeler — Reg Hardware
  Just keep cramming them in
  If megapixels are what persuade you to part with your cash for a camera, then Panasonic’s latest Lumix compact will be right up your alley. Panasonic's Lumix DMC-FX150: 14.7 million pixels The DMC-FX150 sports a massive 14.7-megapixel sensor which, provided you can get the camera’s other image capabilities set correctly, …
• AMD Radeon HD 4850 and 4870 — Reg Hardware
  Review Snatching the price:performance crown from Nvidia?
  The new AMD 'RV770' graphics chip that lies at the heart of Radeon HD 4850 and 4870 owes a great deal to the 'RV670' that we saw in HD 3850 and 3870. It uses the same 55nm fabrication process and continues to support DirectX 10.1, but the transistor count has risen from 666m to 956m. That’s a 44 per cent increase in the number …
• Wii Classic Controller faces US sales ban — Reg Hardware
  Patent case goes against Nintendo
  The fate of the Wii Classic Controller is hanging in the balance after a US judge rejected Nintendo's attempt to avoid a $21m pay-out awarded against it when a patent infringement case came to trial this year. Nintendo's Classic Wii controller Texas-based US District Court Judge Ron Clark overturned the Japanese giant's …
• CE giants pitch yet another wireless HD standard — Reg Hardware
  Will you welcome Wireless HDMI WiHD WHDI
  Just what the world needs: another consortium promoting a wireless technology for the transmission of HD content in the home. The latest is the Wireless Home Digital Interface (WHDI), launched today by Sony, Samsung, Hitachi, Motorola and Sharp. WHDI's technology comes from Israeli company Amimon. It uses the 5GHz band to …
• HP packaging madness continues apace — The Register
  Stand aside, the Enormouse cometh
  It appears techno-wastrel HP has been shamed not a jot by our previous report on its profligate packing practices - another sorry tale of conspicuous cardboard consumption has reached El Reg today. "I wanted to share the attached picture of a package we received a while ago from HP," says Reg reader Mike Cresswell. "As you …
• LG plotting autumn offensive against Eee PC? — Reg Hardware
  X110 to integrate HSDPA
  LG has a history of producing some pretty small laptops - most notably the skinny 12in Z1 - but it's yet to take on tinies like Asus' Eee PC and Acer's Aspire One. It soon will, though. According to a report by German-language site Notebook Journal, LG will be coming out with the mini machine, to be dubbed the X110, in October …
• SCC scoops up bit of French reseller — Channel Register
  Arés is worth a mass?
  SCC has bought up a bit of a loss-making French IT reseller. The bit is described as the "principal region – Île de France" - of Arés, along with 130 techies. SCC is integrating the business into SCC in France immediately. The firm claims revenues of €1.1bn in France and employs 2000 people in 24 locations. Terms of the …
• AMD to release low-end Radeon HD 4000s early? — Reg Hardware
  New GPUs now due pre-Xmas
  AMD will release its 'RV710' and 'RV730' chips early - at least two months ahead of schedule, it has been claimed. The two GPUs are, respectively, the chip maker's upcoming entry-level and mid-range graphics chips, likely to debut as the Radeon HD 4400 and 4600 series, sitting beneath the Radeon HD 4800 line AMD announced last …
• Toshiba, Panasonic partner to make mini OLEDs — Reg Hardware
  But keeping telly tech to themselves
  Toshiba and Panasonic are to together spend ¥15bn ($140m) to further develop OLED display technology. And they've formed a joint venture to handle the work. The JV, Toshiba Matsushita Display Technology, will focus on small displays for handhelds and in-car systems, specifically 2.5in screens. The partners said their offspring …
• UK comms intercepts up by half - and it isn't the council — The Register
  Wristslap for town halls' street watchers, however
  The latest reports from government surveillance watchdogs reveals that interception of communications by UK officials surged by almost 50 per cent in 2007. British public bodies including police and intelligence agencies made 519,260 requests for information to telcos and ISPs during the year. However, just 1,707 of these were …
• Rogue SF sysadmin coughs up passwords — The Register
  City regains access to its own network
  San Francisco City Council regained access to its own computer network today after Mayor Gavin Newsom convinced network administrator Terry Childs to give them the passwords. Childs is in jail until he can raise $5m in bail. He is accused of blocking all access to the city's network and routers by resetting passwords. He …
• iLuv iPod iProblem — Reg Hardware
  Q&A
  I put an iPod into the top of my iLuv 9200 and now it has no power. What should I do now to get power back in the iLuv? I had no problems until I put the iPod into it.
• Nokia: Our community is the best money can buy — The Register
  Wouldn't be here if we didn't pay 'em
  Who says there's no honesty in tech marketing? We beg to differ, and present Nokia product manager Janne Jalkanen as proof to the contrary. Speaking at a marketing website called Nokia "Conversations" ("Stories from around the neighborhood" - it says), Jalkanen gives a very frank overview of the grassroots enthusiasm for Nokia' …
• Ubuntu to get open-source Java heart implant — The Register
  OSCON: Exclusive Sun and SpringSource possible donors
  Canonical has been in talks with Sun Microsystems and SpringSource to support one of their open source Java application server stacks in the Ubuntu core, to increase Ubuntu's enterprise adoption. Canonical told The Reg that it is in the process of selecting which open source Java Enterprise Edition (Java EE) framework to make …
• VMware's fiscal roller coaster tumbles through Q2 — The Register
  Will offer ESXi for free
  Wall Street expectations have once again overshadowed VMware's financial results in its second fiscal quarter 2008. But that's really the story of its life. The virtualization giant's Q2 revenue jumped 54 per cent from a year ago. GAAP adjusted income was $61m, compared to $47m year-over-year. Total revenues for the second …

Tuesday, 22 July 2008

• RIM issues patch for serious BlackBerry flaw — The Register
  Business users: apply now
  Research in Motion has issued a patch for a serious security flaw that puts businesses using the ubiquitous BlackBerry at risk. The vulnerability affects the BlackBerry Enterprise Server versions 4.1.3 through 4.1.5 and BlackBerry Professional Software 4.1.4. It resides in a component that processes PDF files. Attackers could …
• Yahoo! profits! drop! 19! per! cent! — The Register
  Yang still smiling
  Yahoo!'s profits took a significant tumble during its last fiscal quarter, falling 19 per cent from the same quarter last year. But CEO Jerry Yang says the company's health is pretty darn good considering the turmoil that's surrounded it since Ballmer came calling back in February. "The indicators of Yahoo!'s progress are …
• Convicted spammer goes AWOL from federal prison — The Register
  Prolific pump-and-dump conman walks away
  A convicted spammer who who generated millions of dollars blasting out pump-and-dump messages has gone AWOL from the federal prison camp where he was serving a 21-month sentence. Edward "Eddie" Davidson, 35, walked away from a minimum security prison camp in Colorado on Sunday, according to news reports citing Justice …
• Intel juices parallel programming for the masses — The Register
  OSCON Affinity for threads
  A year after open sourcing its cross-platform Threaded Building Blocks (TBB), Intel has released what it called a "significant" upgrade to is parallel programming template library. Intel used the O'Reilly Open Source Convention (OSCON) to announce TBB 2.1, with improvements for building - among other things - graphical user …
• Climate protestor claims glued self to UK Prime Minister — The Register
  At least one voter still attached to Gordon?
  Downing Street today denied claims that UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown is currently super-glued to a climate action campaigner. Dan Glass, says the anti Heathrow expansion group Plane Stupid, infiltrated the State Dining Room of 10 Downing Street on Tuesday evening, then under cover of haranguing him about the third runway at …
• EMC management suite gets 'Web 2.0' makeover — The Register
  That leaves us and The Drudge Report...
  EMC's suite of enterprise content management tools are getting a massive 'Web 2.0' refresh over the next year. Version 6.5 of Documentum will include four new add-ons that introduce that well-run track of beveled interfaces, social networking, wikis, blogs, RSS feeds, and so on. The storage giant reckons it's found a healthy …
• Banking Trojan hides in fake Alonso F1 crash story — The Register
  Crash test dummies
  Fabricated news of a supposed car accident involving Formula One star Fernando Alonso is being used to distribute a new banking Trojan. The fake news story, supposedly from Spanish daily El Pais, has two-time motor racing champion seriously injured on Tuesday in an accident in the norther city of Bilbao. The bogus story, …
• Canonical hippies spread Ubuntu Launchpad love — The Register
  OSCON Join the herd
  Canonical, Ubuntu's commercial sponsor, next week plans a major update to its massive code hosting and project management platform Launchpad. Version 2.0 will introduce improved support for third-party application lifecycle tools used to find, report and fix bugs in Ubuntu - plus the applications and 6,000 projects in the …
• Texas Memory Systems makes mighty big RAM SSD — The Register
  RamSan, thank you 'mam
  Texas Memory Systems has introduced its RamSan-440 DRAM-based solid state drive (SSD), with half again as much I/O bandwidth as its predecessor and a quadrupled capacity. The previous and now entry-level RamSan-400 delivers more than 400,000 I/Os per second (IOPS) and offers 128GB capacity in a 3U chassis. The RamSan-440 …
• E-Gold cops to e-money laundering — The Register
  Knowingly served child predators, feds say
  Online payment service E-Gold and three of its principals have pleaded guilty to criminal money-laundering charges following accusations they knowingly allowed child pornographers, investment scammers and other internet-based criminals to transfer funds related to their misdeeds. In an indictment handed down in April 2007, …
• New York threatens Comcast with anti-porn suit — The Register
  'Back my empty rhetoric - or else'
  New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo has threatened Comcast with legal action if it doesn't fall in line with his quixotic campaign against online child pornography. And the American ISP is set to do exactly what he wants. Over the past several weeks, Cuomo strong-armed five stateside ISPs into signing his very own anti- …
• Drivers finger satnavs for motoring mishaps — Reg Hardware
  But the computer told me to, officer...
  Near misses and wrong turns are part of everyday driving, but new research has revealed that some drivers have taken to blaming satnavs for their motoring mishaps. 'It was the satnav, officer - it made me do it' Insurance firm Direct Line recently surveyed 2010 UK drivers, which it claims is a big enough sample size to …
• Spaniards show off touchscreen moto-computer tech — Reg Hardware
  Fully hackable iSupercar concept unveiled
  Further fuel for the touchscreen versus buttons debate was offered today at the British Motor Show, as Spanish car-tech newcomer IFR Automotive showed off its new, one-size-fits-all motocomputer kit. One of the most notable features of this, as far as the driver is concerned, is that it replaces almost all hardware controls …
• Sony Ericsson preps low-cost Walkman phone — Reg Hardware
  Not worthy of an encore
  Sony Ericsson has already announced two feature-rich Walkman music phones today, but it's also trying its luck with a third model that really scrapes the functionality barrel by comparison. Sony Ericsson's W302: has a 2Mp camera Buy a W302 and you won’t, sadly, find the five-megapixel camera or HSDPA connectivity integrated …
• Asus Eee Box UK desktop debut delayed? — Reg Hardware
  Updated Even as 10in Eee 1000 lands in Blighty
  The UK debut of Asus' Eee Box desktop PC appears to have been put back a month. Originally scheduled for an August arrival, it's now showing up on retail websites with a late September release date. Meanwhile, Asus said stocks of the Eee PC 1000 10in laptop have been taken off a ship and are speeding toward stockists even as …
• Batman cuffed over alleged assault — The Register
  Updated Christian Bale questioned following hotel incident
  Christian Bale was arrested earlier today over an alleged assault on two family members in his suite at London's Dorchester Hotel on Sunday, the BBC reports. Welsh-born Bale, in London for last night's premiere of The Dark Knight, is "alleged to have lashed out at his mother and sister". The incident was later reported to …
• Pwnie Awards celebrate best and worst of security — The Register
  Showcasing the maddest skillz
  Organisers of the security world's Oscars, the Pwnie Awards, have announced the nominees for the second annual awards. The Pwnies celebrate both the achievements and failures in security research and the wider IT security scene, so they are best thought of as a mixture of the Razzies, which recognise the worst in Hollywood, …
• Sky preps broadband music downloads with Universal — The Register
  Is it too little, too late?
  Sky is launching a new music retail company in partnership with the world's biggest record company, Universal. BSkyB and Vivendi will create a joint venture to operate the scheme; Universal will acquire equity in the company while Sky holds the majority stake. The pair said today that they hope to attract partners. The music …
• Set sail with Garmin's seafaring satnav — Reg Hardware
  Ahoy there, matey
  If you’re lucky enough to own a white Lotus Esprit like the one from 1970s Bond flick The Spy Who Loved Me, then Garmin’s latest satnav will be perfect for you. Garmin's Nüvi 500: features nautical mapping That’s because the Nüvi 500 includes – in addition to bog-standard car navigation – directional capabilities for …
• Panasonic punts thee-sensor primary colour capturing camcorder — Reg Hardware
  Not 1MOS, not 2MOS but 3MOS
  Panasonic has launched two new camcorders that it claims are the world’s first HD models to incorporate a specialist sensor for exceptionally high light sensitivity. Panasonic's HS100: has a 60GB hard drive The HDC-SD100 and HDC-HS100 camcorders feature a 1920 x 1080 video capture resolution and Panasonic’s own 3MOS sensor …
• New Symbian launches mobile free-for-all — The Register
  OSCON Cleans room, cleans house, cleans culture
  The Symbian Foundation is gagging to gain acceptance as a free and neutral mobile alternative to Windows, Linux and Apple. Symbian's John Forsyth - he's vice president of strategy - said the rapidly forming group needs a "clean-room culture" with its own offices, and populated by technical experts from handset- and service- …
• Tesco causes couple condom catastrophe — The Register
  Johnny? We're sorry
  The pitfalls of online shopping at the Evil Empire were revealed in their full horror to a monogamous South Yorkshire couple, who found 12 Mates condoms added to their Tesco.com shopping list. Lynn Newby discovered the illicit prophylactics in the Favourites list after logging on to the shopping account she shared with …
• MoD budget fiddles under fire — The Register
  Moving budgets not the same as saving money
  The Public Accounts Committee has accused the Ministry of Defence of a "culture of optimism" and of creative accountancy to make it look like it's saving money when often it's not. The MoD has moved over £1bn into different projects or budget lines in the last two years. The Committee said: "Such transfers mean that the …
• Sat nav blunder places The Rock in Skegness — The Register
  But which one has more apes?
  In an epic, multinational sat nav cock-up, a Syrian lorry driver aiming for Gibraltar left Turkey and ended up in Skegness. Only as Necdet Bakimci inched his 32-ton car transporter down a narrow Lincolnshire lane leading to Gibraltar Point nature reserve did he twig that he might have taken a wrong turn, but by this point the …
• Asus P750 Windows Mobile smartphone — Reg Hardware
  Review If a workhorse wore a suit, it would look like this
  Function over form is the name of the game with Asus' P750. No clever styling, no flash graphic user interface, just robust design, a reasonable specification and decent value for money. The P750 is a bit of a chunky monkey. It weighs 130g and measures 113 x 58 x 17.4mm, but it feels very robust and solid, and we reckon it …
• Morgan shows 'light & slippery' fuel-cell car concept — The Register
  Wood, leather and hydrogen - a fiery combo?
  Here at the Reg we aren't motoring hacks, we're technology hacks. So to us, most of the cars here at the British Motor Show are a bit boring. Internal-combustion engine? Come on. Battery car? Needs to be special. Hydrogen fuel cell? Even Nigel Tufnel has one (shared with his less famous wife, Jamie Lee Curtis). Anyway, fuel-cell …
• RSA domain glitch derails UK online retailers — The Register
  Unverified by Visa
  RSA has apologised for a domain name registration glitch, which left clients of its securesuite.co.uk payment processing service unable to process payment as normal last Thursday. Pizza purveyor Domino's, Dabs and others were hit by the snafu, which meant transactions either timed out or failed. In response to the problems, …
• Who do you think you are, knitting Mr Hitler? — The Register
  Crocheted Fuhrer bothers woolly thinkers
  There's no easy way to lead into this so we'll just come right out with it - according to The Sun one can now obtain knitting patterns to create one's very own cuddly Hitler. Everyone's favourite inflammatory informo-rag has a lovely picture of the "grotesque" yarn-based Fuhrer, who looks snug and stylish in his army-green …
• 419ers crank up the menaces — The Register
  'Your friend has paid us to kill you...'
  You know how it is - things are a bit quiet in the internet cafes of Lagos, people have sussed MARIAM ABACHA doesn't really have $30,000,000 (THIRTY MILLION DOLLARS) in gold bullion looted from Saddam Hussein's personal vault, and so it looks like it's time to up the email scam ante. Well, what about trying a line of attack …
• Lenovo stock falls as IBM retreats — The Register
  Falling market share
  Lenovo saw shares fall more than five per cent today following a sale of the PC maker's shares. JP Morgan analysts downgraded the company to neutral from overweight, citing sluggish revenue growth from weak customer demand in China and the US. The downgrade came after IBM yesterday sold off 116.19 million shares worth $77.3m …
• NASA: The Moon is not enough — The Register
  Scientists argue for a return to the lunar surface
  NASA and its international aeronautical cohorts have some serious explaining to do before they start rocketing folks to the Moon again. They better convince the public why it's so important for our species to invest hand-over-fist just to root around some boring gray orbital dust ball - a dust ball we already stuck a flag in a …
• Ten Tech Toys for Travellers — Reg Hardware
  Handy gadgets for great outdoors
  It may be hard to believe what the Met Office tells us, that we’re about to get an entire month’s rainfall in a single day, but the summer holidays are well and truly upon us. So it’s time to start packing the bags and stocking up on the latest tech toys that you can take on holiday with you. If you stay here in the soggy old …
• Sony Ericsson unwraps Walkman duo — Reg Hardware
  Latest music phones
  With the summer festival season upon us, Sony Ericsson hopes that rockers, moshers and all music lovers will start dancing to the beat of its two latest Walkman phones. When they finally go on sale... Sony Ericsson's W90:2 gig-proof, scratch-resistant screen Headlining the duo is the W902, which sports supposedly “retro” …
• Vendor touts PC's Mac OS X compatibility — Reg Hardware
  But won't sell it with Apple's OS.
  Apple Legal, we laugh in your face! Brassy computer company Open Tech is cocking just such snook Jobs-wards, though we note it's not brave enough to publish an address on its website... Undeterred by Mac clone maker Psystar's recent run-in with Apple's lawyers, Open Tech has announced Open Tech Computer 1.0, a $620 bog …
• Blighty's electro-supercar 2.0 uncloaked today — The Register
  Updated Fast-charge Lightning to bitchslap Tesla?
  Here at the British Motor Show in London, there are lots and lots of cars to see. Quite a few of them have electric or part-electric power trains. A few of these use or plan to use advanced battery technologies such as lithium-ion. Only one has moved on further still, to a technology which promises genuinely usable electric cars …
• RM buddies up with Tesco on new voucher scheme — Channel Register
  Egg and spoon race
  UK schools computer supplier RM has bagged a partnership deal with Tesco for the retail giant’s forthcoming voucher collection scheme which kicks off in 2009. Tesco has merged into one catalogue its two voucher schemes - Computers for Schools and Sport for Schools and Clubs - that were previously supported by RM. Under the …
• The Guardian's excellent Web 2.0 blog-up — The Register
  Comment If we build it, they'll shrug
  Late last month The Guardian quietly put to sleep its exercise in fighting climate change via the power of blogs, Tread Lightly. Nine months of weekly personal CO2 reduction pledges by Guardian readers had shown, Carolyn Fry wrote bravely, "that even relatively small weekly carbon savings can add up to significant amounts if …
• Watching the security landscape — The Register
  RegCast Stay safe with Vulture Vision
  It's a proud day here at El Reg - behold our first live video webcast, now snugly fitted into the archives and available for your delectation. We took an unflinching look into the evolving security landscape, and we'd like to invite you to take a good hard stare too. Headed up and moderated by our man Tim Phillips, the event …
• Divorce for shouty YouTube wife — The Register
  Belligerent blonde Broadway banshee blasted by beak
  Broadway mogul Philip Smith has been granted a divorce from the actress whose dull video rants inexplicably clocked up over 3m hits on YouTube. Tricia Walsh-Smith attained the kind of internet infamy previously only afforded to dramatic prairie dogs with her petulant marriage mitherings, in which she stomps around the couple's …
• If your SSD sucks, blame Vista, says SSD vendor — Reg Hardware
  SanDisk pledges next-gen Flash disks will be better
  It's Windows Vista's fault that solid-state storage isn't performing as well as its proponents predicted. So said SanDisk CEO Eli Harari, but at least he didn't go as far as saying it's Microsoft's problem to fix. SSDs are viewed as the heir apparent to the hard disk, particularly for laptops and other mobile computers. SSDs …
• Police told: Delete old criminal records — The Register
  Dump innocents' DNA while you're at it
  The Information Tribunal has told five police forces to remove old, minor criminal records from their databases. Some of the cases date back 30 years. They include a person under 18 who was fined £15 for stealing a 99p packet of meat in 1984; a girl under 14 cautioned for a minor assault who was told her record would not be …
• Home Office classes openness review a secret — The Register
  Silly Season opens here
  It may be a little early for the silly season, but if last week’s antics by the Home Office and the Daily Mail are anything to go by, it is already upon us. On Tuesday, the Home Office pioneered an interesting new approach to public information, by making a series of review documents available on their website – and leaving …
• Vodafone shares tumble on interims — The Register
  Economic weakness
  Vodafone, the world's largest cellco, grew revenues to £9.1bn, up by nearly 20 per cent, or 1.7 per cent organic growth, in the three months ended 30 June 2008. The company now has 269m mobile customers, an increase of 8.5m on last quarter. Data revenues grew 29.4 per cent to £664m. But Vodafone expects revenue for the year …
• Operation Sprogwatch: Keeping tabs on the kids — The Register
  No snoop for you, buddi?
  It's every parent's dream - reliable and easy-accessed information on what your offspring are up to. Electronics systems such as Spyphone II 8210 actually allow you to dial into your child's mobile, and eavesdrop on their conversations. And now, there's the "buddi", which will track wherever the brats go, showing a GPS path …
• Vultures circle over IT jobs — The Register
  Large suppliers make hay from greater pricing pressure
  Big IT firms are likely to do better from the credit crunch than smaller suppliers, as greater economies of scale allow them to offer cheaper prices. Overall IT budgets are stabilising after recording big falls in December and April. Goldman Sachs, which surveyed 100 CIOs at Fortune 1000 firms, warned that there is a risk of …
• Brocade buys Foundry Networks for $3bn — The Register
  Playing with the big boys now
  Brocade is to acquire Foundry Networks for $3bn in cash and stock. The storage networking vendor has secured a $1.5bn debt facility from Bank of America and Morgan Stanley to grease the purchase. The company says the acquisition will be accretive to Brocade's non GAAP earnings in fiscal 2009. In other words, there are cost …
• Even without 3-Jesus Phone, Apple busts revenue records — The Register
  And Wall Street is peeved
  During its last fiscal quarter, Apple shipped a record 2.49 million Macs, and even if you ignore a decent chunk of its Jesus Phone sales, it nabbed a record $7.46bn in revenues. But in typically coy fashion, the company says it has low expectations for the quarter to come. Naturally, those who play the Wall Street game sent …

Monday, 21 July 2008

• Registrars turn blind eye to sites selling illegal steroids — The Register
  Is anyone in charge around here?
  Next time you see websites brazenly pushing anabolic steroids, thank GoDaddy, Dynadot and a half-dozen other US-based registrars, which allow them to operate even though they're illegal, claims a new report. Released Monday, the report catalogs 156 websites offering steroids without a prescription or verifying that the would- …
• Scientists ponder future Moon mission activities — The Register
  One of these days, Alice...
  A clever fellow once observed that the Moon is a harsh mistress. Humanity's subsequent jaunts up to the place indicated it was a pretty solid hypothesis. The Ritz-Carlton it is not. Now NASA has the vision of not only returning astronauts back to the orbital dustball in 2020, but establishing a long-term moon base there. …
• US court sides with Janet Jackson's breast — The Register
  No fine for 'Nipplegate'
  America's puritanical streak goes only so far. Today, a US appeals court vaporized the $550,000 fine the FCC famously slapped on CBS for showing the country a majority of Janet Jackson's right breast. At halftime of the 2004 Super Bowl, as he warbled "I'm gonna have you naked by the end of this song," pop prince Justin …
• Linux on mobiles will put the squeeze on MS, says Zemlin — The Register
  OSCON Manifest destiny again
  Once it was the desktop, now mobile phones and embedded devices represent the future of Linux, according to open source fans. Jim Zemlin, executive director of the Linux Foundation, painted a future of Linux's manifest destiny - running everything from aerospace systems to the phone in your pocket. According to Zemlin, Linux …
• Researcher's hypothesis may expose uber-secret DNS flaw — The Register
  Responsible disclosure debate rages on
  Two weeks ago, when security researcher Dan Kaminsky announced a devastating flaw in the internet's address lookup system, he took the unusual step of admonishing his peers not to publicly speculate on the specifics. The concern, he said, was that online discussions about how the vulnerability worked could teach black hat …
• Intel slashes Xeon, Core 2 Duo prices — The Register
  Not to mention a Core 2 Quad
  A week after trumpeting a healthy second quarter profit leap, Intel has slashed the prices of several server and desktop processors. Yesterday, with a post (PDF) to its web site, Chipzilla announced new pricing for three Xeon chips, three Core 2 Duo models, and one Core 2 Quad. Sadly, it did not change the name of the Core 2 …
• CherryPal launches $249 mini PC into ad-backed cloud — The Register
  Buzzword chimera the size of a paperback
  Start-up CherryPal is taking pre-orders today for its partly cloudy "desktop" that mashes web-hosted computing, going green, open source, and social networking into a 10 ounce box. The (self-titled) CherryPal systems are $249, and surprisingly won't require a monthly subscription despite the fact that most of its storage …
• Researchers release 'cold boot' attack utilities — The Register
  A way around disk encryption
  The security researcher who demonstrated the 'cold boot' attack has released the source code for the hack. The attack, first demonstrated in February, uses a set of utilities to lift crypto keys from memory even after a reboot. A boon for hackers and computer forensics experts alike, the approach created a means to circumvent …
• American physicists warned not to debate global warming — The Register
  Climate row heats up
  Bureaucrats at the American Physical Society (APS) have issued a curious warning to their members about an article in one of their own publications. Don't read this, they say - we don't agree with it. But what is it about the piece that is so terrible, that like Medusa, it could make men go blind? It's an article that examines …
• Cheap chargers claimed to put gadget fans at risk — Reg Hardware
  Buyer beware!
  Buying an unbranded power adaptor may save you a few quid, but it could end up costing you dear, Trading Standards officers claimed today. Trading Standards has recalled all unbranded console chargers, including this one marked only 'DE62347066' The Buckinghamshire division of the government-backed consumer protection body …
• LG unveils 'speedy, sexy' storage — Reg Hardware
  Designer drives?
  Whoever said storage wasn’t sexy was dead wrong - at least according to LG. The firm’s launched a range of portable hard drives that are more designer than desktop. LG's XD1 drive: good looking? The XD1 2.5in range features a snakeskin-like look dubbed “Sunrise Gradient” and can be bought in either a “red wine” shade or …
• DDoS attack floors Georgia prez website — The Register
  Black deeds on the Black Sea
  A denial of service attack hit government websites in the former Soviet republic of Georgia over the weekend amid growing diplomatic tensions between the country and Russia. The DDoS assault on the website of Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili rendered it unavailable over the weekend. The attack was run via botnet networks …
• Japan kicks off electric car format war — The Register
  Prius-ray vs Dominant Volt Drive?
  Japanese motor globocorps jockeying for position in the electric car market of tomorrow will unite to present a worldwide standard for automotive Li-ion batteries and related technologies, according to reports. The alliance will include Toyota, Nissan and Matsushita, but Honda - which appears to favour hydrogen fuel cells over …
• eBay breaks bread with luxury goods firms — The Register
  Counterfeit handbags at dawn
  eBay is to pow-wow with luxury goods manufacturers which want the online tat bazaar to better police sales of fraudulent merchandise. The meeting, held in London on 28 July, brings together lawyers from eBay, along with representatives of luxury goods association the Walpole Group, which counts in its membership shoemaker Jimmy …
• Yahoo! hands Icahn board seat, ends battle — The Register
  Microhoo! No! more! letters!
  Yahoo! and Carl Icahn have agreed to settle their differences and call off their proxy battle for control of the company. Icahn had proposed an alternative slate of directors and called on shareholders to vote in his favour at a general meeting 1 August. The bazillionaire greenmailer wanted to take control of the board in …
• iPhone 3G gains battery booster — Reg Hardware
  Emergency power for your precious phone
  The arrival of a swathe of iPhone 3G accessories was inevitable after the handset's release. The latest one’s a backup battery that’ll juice up your handset when you’re away from a power socket. The Backup Battery for iPhone 3G: power in no time The 1400mAh rechargeable battery can be charged through the iPhone’s dock and …
• Intel UMPC chip enters service as server CPU — Reg Hardware
  Madness or genius?
  UK hosting company Bytemark has seen the future of servers and it's... er... a processor designed for tiny laptops and desktops. Yes, we're talking Intel's Atom, specifically the 1.6GHz 230, which Bytemark's now using as the basis for what it claimed were its lowest-cost dedicated Linux-running servers yet. An Atom-based box …
• IBM, Oracle and SAP sued over server software patents — The Register
  Implicit Networks demands royalties
  Seattle firm Implicit Networks is suing Adobe, IBM, Oracle and SAP for patent infringements. Implicit Networks accuses the four of infringing two separate patents related to speeding up security processes on servers. The company wants a royalty payment and is not seeking to stop sales of the products, which include IBM's …
• Third plutoid christened 'Makemake' — The Register
  Polynesian fertility god joins league of dwarf planets
  The International Astronomical Union (IAU) has declared that the trans-Neptunian dwarf planet formerly dubbed 2005 FY9, or "Easterbunny", will henceforth be known as the equally silly "Makemake". Makemake, discovered in 2005 by a team from the California Institute of Technology led by Mike Brown, is the fourth officially- …
• Scottish gov OKs Europe's biggest onshore wind farm — The Register
  Windbaggery
  Scottish ministers today greenlighted Europe's largest windfarm. The 152-turbine, 548MW Clyde wind farm will comprise clusters of turbines straddling the M74 motorway near Abington in South Lanarkshire, providing juice for 320,000 homes. The £600m project will create 200 jobs during construction and 30 full-time operational …
• Robotic camera mount captures panoramic wonders — Reg Hardware
  Shoot high quality wonders with ease
  A wide angle lens isn’t the only way to get a panoramic holiday snap. A robotic camera mount's been invented that promises to capture highly detailed panoramic shots with ease. A commercial GigaPan model will released this year The GigaPan robotic mount attaches to any compact camera. Users simply select the area they want …
• NASA eyes Japan's ISS supply vehicle — The Register
  'Unofficial negotiations' to buy
  NASA is reportedly negotiating to buy the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) H-II Transfer Vehicle (HTV) as a means of ensuring it can fulfil its obligation to supply the International Space Station following retirement of the space shuttle fleet in 2010. According to the Yomiuri newspaper, reported via Reuters, NASA is …
• Climate Swindle film: bruised egos, but no offence — The Register
  So says Ofcom
  British regulator Ofcom has rejected complaints that the popular polemical film, The Great Global Warming Swindle, misled viewers. The regulator said it was paramount that the public received alternative points of view - even if these were not endorsed by institutions or the major political parties. While some aspects of the …
• Asus Eee PC storms Euro PC maker chart — Reg Hardware
  Acer tightens grip too
  Asus saw its share of the European PC market more than double in Q2, and it's all thanks to the Eee PC. So show figures from market watcher IDC. In Q2 2007, Asus' share of the PC market was a mere 2.8 per cent. One year on, that figure had risen to six per cent. Its shipments rocketed from 497,000 units to 1.315m. That was …
• BAA 'invented green superjumbo' to OK Heathrow plans — The Register
  Comment Noise nimbyism doesn't equal green, people
  The BBC's renowned Panorama team - famous for breaking the "news" that Wi-Fi really does make your head explode - will tomorrow reveal that UK airport operator BAA has cynically colluded with the government to falsify the environmental impact of expanding Heathrow airport. According to early reports, BAA drove down the projected …
• Roberts solarDAB radio — Reg Hardware
  Review Here comes the sun, little darlin'
  Undeterred by the unpredictable nature of the great British summer, Roberts has released a radio that it can power itself purely by the light of the sun. Firstly, let's look at the other functions on the radio, which are pretty good. There's the detachable aerial, for instance. This can be clipped into a recess on the back of …
• Jeremy Clarkson tilts at windmills — The Register
  Speed camera avoidance is an urban myth
  Following last week’s round-up of road news by El Reg – and a number of reader comments about the new “average speed” cameras that are being rolled out across the UK - it's nice to see Jeremy Clarkson taking up the subject in his column in the Sun. (Just kidding- we know this has been a bugbear of JC since the dawn of time). …
• Dangerous mobe chargers flood UK — The Register
  Buy cheap kit and pay the price
  Cheap replacement chargers are flooding into UK shops, undercutting legitimate products while putting punters in danger from badly-made connections and low specifications. The chargers, some of which bear a forged CE mark, are sold on the cheap and branded as "Travel Chargers". Trading Standards has issued a specific warning …
• EU abolishes the acre — The Register
  Blighty bows to Johnny foreigner's 0.4047 hectares
  The European Union has provided further evidence of its sinister plan to convert this once-proud nation into nothing more than a stuffed songbird-eating satellite of the Continent by "abolishing" the British acre, the Telegraph reports. Centuries of proud history and culture were undone on 15 July when the government signalled …
• Unions line up against airline ID cards — The Register
  Airport workers join their bosses
  Unions representing airline and airport staff are to tell Home Secretary Jacqui Smith that her plan to force staff to carry ID cards will add nothing to airport security. They say she is adding complexity and expense to an already secure system. The Trade Unions Congress is to meet Smith later this week but has already written …
• Star Wars MP3 player invades the galaxy — Reg Hardware
  Take The Force with you
  The technology behind the Star Wars MP3 player is hardly light years ahead, but the unit’s kitsch value alone means it’s sure to excite some of the film’s fanatics. The Star Wars MP3 player: impressive, most impressive? Sadly, the player’s major drawback is that it only has a 512MB internal memory and there’s no mention of …
• MobileMe offers another free bite of the Apple — Reg Hardware
  'We're really sorry again'
  Apple has offered MobileMe users free month's trial to apologise for taking their money without asking, in addition to the free month they got for the misrepresentation of the service. However, users are still reporting that MobileMe keeps forgetting where they're supposed to be and when they should be there. Last week Apple …
• US PS3 sales surge — Reg Hardware
  But not enough to knock the Wii off course
  US PlayStation 3 sales almost doubled last month on the back of the latest in the Metal Gear Solid game series - but the Wii remained June's games console champion. According to figures from market watcher NPD, Sony shifted 405,500 PS3s through US retail channels in June, up 94.3 per cent on the May's total of 208,700. The …
• SpaceShipOne firm to build DARPA's Heliplane — The Register
  Auto-gyro-dyno-retro copter project lives again
  The US military's ongoing bid to revive grand old vertical lift concepts of the 1950s under the name "Heliplane" has gained a new lease of life. The financially-distressed main contractor is to be replaced by researchers at the Georgia Institute of Technology (GIT), and the airframe will now be made by renowned high-tech company …
• Brown's aide, Mata Hari and the BlackBerry — The Register
  Gov caught sleeping on data security
  One of Gordon Brown's senior advisers lost his BlackBerry on a recent trip to China after he was picked up by a woman in a disco. Downing Street is insisting the device was lost rather than stolen, but the incident is bound to raise more questions about the government's inability to look after data. The man was accompanying …
• Wii aids family togetherness, report claims — Reg Hardware
  One big whole
  If it’s quality family time you’re after, then it’s a Wii’s you want. That’s according to a new study which claims to have discovered that gamers rank the Wii as the best console for family togetherness. Pollster GfK NOP questioned 464 people aged 16 and over, and found that 83 per cent believe the Wii increases family …
• What's best advice for building an Atom-based PC? — Reg Hardware
  Q&A
  If I were to assemble a PC based on the Intel Atom for my mother to do internet browsing, how would I go about it? I'm mostly confused about the power supply requirements and the memory compatibility. I should be able to figure out the rest.
• US cyberspying fears hang over Beijing Olympics — The Register
  Dithers over threat level
  US paranoia about Chinese computer hackers has created a diplomatic dilemma about whether or not to warn visitors and business people traveling to next month's Beijing Olympics about cyber-security risks. Last month the department of Homeland Security privately warned government and key private-sector contacts of the cyber- …
• New Criminal Information Quango sighted — The Register
  Ex-mandarin hides plans for world domination behind criticism of Police
  As Parliament prepares to recess this week and MPs pack suntan lotion and head for the Tuscan hills, it's traditional for government departments to sneak out important reports and make major announcements of future initiatives on the sly. So it was no surprise last week to find the “Review of Criminal Information” (ROCI) making …
• Dell hits all the wrong keys – again — Reg Hardware
  You say tomayto, we throw tomahtoze...
  Dell isn’t having much luck with keyboards this summer. The computer giant admitted Friday that some of its XPS One machines have been wrongly shipped to the UK with US keyboards. We were alerted to Dell’s latest embarrassing keyboard blunder after El Reg reader Chris told us about a friend who recently bought a Dell XPS One …

Sunday, 20 July 2008

• iPhone 2.0 unlock tool released, tested — Reg Hardware
  Hands On Handset hacked
  Apple released the iPhone 3G on 11 July and nine days later, iPhone hacking crew the iPhone Dev Team posted the latest version of the their jailbreaking and unlocking utility, PwnageTool. First, PwnageTool 2.0 won't unlock a 3G iPhone, but it will jailbreak one to allow third-party apps to be installed through an alternative …

Saturday, 19 July 2008

• Google eats Russkie ad firm — The Register
  Begin the Begun
  As it plays catch-up in the Russian search market, Google will acquire a seasoned Russian ad firm for $140m in cash. In Russia, according to those wily net watchers over at comScore, native outfit Yandex is the leading search engine, with over 47 per cent of the market, and Google is a distant second, with about 32 per cent. …