Old News
Old news items are listed here.
-
European institute 'to rival MIT'
The European commission unveils plans to establish a rival to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
- from The Guardian -
City of London goes Wi-Fi
City Corporation appoints The Cloud to install Wi-Fi across the Square Mile.
- from The Cloud -
Boo.com dusts down website for June relaunch
Boo.com - the high profile fashion flop... - could be about to make a dotcom comeback.
- from The Register -
Power could cost more than servers
A Google engineer has warned that... the electrical costs of running servers could end up far greater than the initial hardware price tag.
- from News.com -
Public beta of IE7 is close
Windows XP users may get the chance to try out the new features in IE7 early next year.
- from ZDNet UK -
Internet battle ends in stalemate
Expected fight over governance of internet looks to have been averted as tentative deal is struck allowing US government to retain overall control for the foreseeable future.
- from The Guardian -
Amazon users campaign against Sony's copy-restriction technology
'I won't buy media that treats me like a criminal', says one Amazon customer.
- from ZDNet UK -
Political challenge to state's Office ruling
Microsoft - in or out?
- from The Register -
Euro email storage scheme 'illegal', warns official
Proposal fails to impress Data Protection Supervisor.
- from The Register -
Music exec: quit whining and dump Mac, Linux
'Get a decent CD player', folks.
- from The Register -
Unhappiness drives open source adoption
A common reason why more governments and enterprises around the world are moving to open source software is unhappiness.
- from Computer Business Review -
New IE flaw details published
All versions of Internet Explorer 6 are affected by a vulnerability that could allow for arbitrary code execution. A patch is not yet available.
- from ZDNet UK -
Norway says yes to Open Source
No more proprietary formats
- from The Register -
Oz court case exposes lack of fairness
Teenager charged over website linking
- from The Register -
Patent absurdity
If patent law had been applied to novels in the 1880s, great books would not have been written. If the EU applies it to software, every computer user will be restricted, says Richard Stallman.
- from The Guardian -
Hackers bombard UK financial networks
Hackers are being blamed for “industrial-strength” attacks on vital computer networks aimed at stealing commercially and economically sensitive information.
- from FT.com -
PC vendors snub antitrust altered Windows
PC vendors such as HP and Dell are ignoring a version of Windows without a bundled media player, raising questions about the effectiveness of the Europe's antitrust ruling.
- from ZDNet UK -
Beethoven joins iPod generation
The BBC is making the complete cycle of Beethoven's symphonies - more than six hours of listening - available for free.
- from The Guardian -
Browser-based attacks increase as viruses decrease
Browser-based attacks are increasing, according to a technology trade organisation.
- from ZDNet UK -
Don't publish and be doomed
Last week, a group of German publishers got themselves in a bit of a tizz over Google Print. Paul Carr reveals why.
- from The Guardian -
Supreme battle
File-sharing legal fight will shape future tech.
- from BBC News -
MS locks in UK schools via 'special terms' sponsorship deal
DfES takes relaxed view of 'commercial interest'.
- from The Register -
EC: We'd accept software patent defeat
The European Commission says it would let the software patent directive die if enough support was mustered against it in the European Parliament. But some see this as a veiled threat.
- from ZDNet UK -
Virgin makes podcast debut
Virgin Radio is taking its breakfast show directly to the iPod generation by launching a daily 'podcast'.
- from The Guardian -
Opera, the Forgotten Browser
Firefox gets all the attention these days, but it wasn't the first to fight the Internet Explorer hegemony. Nor is it alone: Opera is still plugging away.
- from Wired -
Linux: Fewer Bugs Than Rivals
An analysis of the 5.7 million lines of Linux source code shows that it contains fewer bugs per thousand lines of code than commercial counterparts.
- from Wired -
Bill Gates gets 4 million emails a day
The Microsoft founder is the most spammed man in the world, with 4m emails arriving in his inbox each day.
from The Guardian -
EMI boosted by digital music sales
The music group EMI today said the music industry was bouncing back from the effects of internet piracy.
from The Guardian
-
Spilling the beans
Revelations about public services are exploding in anonymous weblogs. Jim McClellan reports on the rise of 'personal media'
from The Guardian -
HP unveils Linux-based Centrino laptop
HP is set to launch an Intel Centrino-based notebook preloaded with SuSE Linux
from ZDNet News UK -
UK.gov stuck in 'old economy' mindset
Time to wake up and smell coffee, says Intellect.
from The Register Blind Get Earful of Spam Daily
It's annoying to read spam. It's even worse to hear it. Blind users rely on text-to-speech programs to hear what's on their screens, and they face an aural assault daily.
from WiredSpam poetry reaches new artistic heights
Crestfallen, thousand years waiting.
from The RegisterManchester honours Alan Turing
Computer pioneer died 50 years ago today.
from The RegisterYou, Too, Can Be a Comics Whiz
Like video games? Can't draw? Want to start a Web comic anyway? Join the throngs creating new comics from classic video-game graphics. Just don't expect the game companies to approve.
from Wired-
Filesharing Is Not the Enemy
The RIAA would have you believe that downloading is single-handedly destroying the music business. A new study refutes the claim, saying that filesharing has no negative effect on CD sales.
from AlterNet Big Brother to Watch Over Island
The developer of Ayers Island in Maine will place every visitor under surveillance by cameras, sensors and computers. Why? To keep out "suspicious" people, of course.
from WiredBill Gates 'can't stop spam'
More than 80 percent of security professionals do not believe that Bill Gates' crusade against spam will solve the problem, according to a survey.
from ZDnet News
Archive
[11th of January 2006 - 29th of March 2006]
Welcome to the kevinbeynon.com archive.
Wednesday, 29th of March, 2006
Internet Explorer 7 Will Not Be Integrated into Windows
The first transport is away! YAAAY!
Monday, 27th of March, 2006
With recent questions regarding Google's apparent monopolistic situation some coders have come up with an alternative using distibuted computing.
Another question is how much control do, or should, they have over the content of their index.
Tuesday, 14th of March, 2006
Some items for your consideration this week include:
Geekcorps. A kind of IT Red Cross that work to install IT infastructure and Radio stations in 3rd World countries.
Computer Aid International, who refurbish old PCs and ship them to developing countries for a fraction of the cost of a new computer. You can donate your old kit. A similar outfit to Extended Life Computers.
Magnatune is a music label that allows you to try music before you buy. It makes sense and gives you a warm fuzzy feeling inside when you know that 50% of the sale price goes to the artist.
And finally,
The British Standards Institution recently published "guidelines" for commissioning accessible websites. Time to take another look at those AAA ratings then...
Friday, 22nd of February, 2006
The humble IBM Compatible PC hasn't changed a great deal since it first appeared all those decades ago.
The latest concept PC by Asus shows how things could change. It uses a modular approach with wireless connectivity between components and an induction based power system. A big step forward, but unfortunately, not something they'll be developing any time in the near future.
And where did these little beauties come from? 8.9" Laptops with GPRS, Bluetooth and Wi-Fi connectivity and touchscreens!
I'm starting to wonder if a PDA is really what I need...
Addendum: After discovering that the above Linux PDA does, in fact, have a touchscreen, I am reconsidering my rather rash consideration that it might not be the Open-Source hardware for me.
Wednesday, 22nd of February, 2006
I've finally gotten around to reading Quicksilver by Neal Stephenson - a prequel of sorts to his superb Cryptonomicon.
It's a kind of 'classical cyberpunk', if such a thing could exist, set in the 16th-17th Century.
Nominet, those in charge of the .uk registry, are at it again. A Register article details the latest round of disagreemnts that could lead to Nominet taking a more commercial stance.
Wednesday, 25th of January, 2006
Human rights lose out to potential profit as Google ignores outcries and agrees to block certain pages from the Chinese public.
It would also not like people to know that it records personal data.
While, in relation to China, a number of attacks seem to originate from the Far East and target, for example, ministries working to stop Human Rights abuses.
Wednesday, 11th of January, 2006
A new year and a whole new slew of Web 2.0 web apps.
Writely is a free (for now) online word processor. It can load and save word files, share between users and contains basic formatting tools.
Num Sum is a "FREE bite-sized, sharable social spreadsheet". Open a free account to be able to save your spreadsheets or simply use it as a quick, "throwaway" sheet.
Splunk, while not online, is spawned from similar technology. It's a downloadable server that tracks and helps in the investigation of server logs. Installed on your network or machine it will collect and index any configured data source, allowing you to intuitively search through a host of files to create a picture of what's going on.
Older stuff? You sure? Okay... 2003, 2002 or 2001?
