Computer Weekly articles from July 2008

Computer Weekly archives from July 2008

Business & Technology.
July 15, 2008... By the 1990s, user-friendliness had become so ubiquitous in software development that even the fictional programmers in Douglas Coupland's novel Microserfs named their two pet hamsters Look and Feel. Although Coupland was confident his readers...

News.(Brief article)
July 15, 2008... The cost of "Big Brother government" is costing almost [pounds sterling]20bn to create, says The TaxPayers Alliance in a report. This amount works out at almost [pounds sterling]800 per household and includes spending on the introduction...

News.
July 15, 2008... The UK is negotiating an international legal framework for protecting intellectual property that will criminalise copyright infringement and the use of peer-to-peer file sharing for copyright material. If agreed and implemented, the...

News.(Brief article)
July 15, 2008... Barclays bank is rolling out extra online services following the take-up of its Gemalto security reader for online transactions by 2m customers, Barclays launched the cryptographic smart card reader, called PINsentry, to customers last...

News.(Nominet UK)
July 15, 2008... Safety, security and community involvement were keynotes of winning entries to Nominet's Best Practice Challenge, which aims to encourage innovative uses of the internet. The winners were ACE IT, Barclays, Internet Watch Foundation, Get...

News.(Brief article)
July 15, 2008... Britain's comparatively slow broadband speeds are threatening business efficiency, the Communications Management Association (CMA) has warned. The CMA says a survey of 155 firms showed a lack of provision to meet the predicted demands for...

News.
July 15, 2008... Some public sector IT executives are entering a "Faustian pact" with suppliers to acquire technology and services without lengthy and complex open competitive tenders. The result is that departments and agencies obtain good initial prices...

News.(Brief article)
July 15, 2008... Cybercriminals are not only using new technologies to propagate cybercrime, but are also turning to social engineering to snare victims. According to Trend Micro's latest threat round-up and forecast report, the first six months of 2008 saw...

News.(Information Commissioner's Office)
July 15, 2008... The UK's information commissioner, Richard Thomas, is to review the European Data Protection Act. Richard Thomas said the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) was concerned the the European data protection law is out of date,...

News.(Survey)(Brief article)
July 15, 2008... One in five (21%) UK IT professionals are so dissatisfied with their role they do not want their children to follow them into IT. Recruitment consultancy Hudson questioned 1,000 employees across the IT, legal, HR and financial services...

News.(Brief article)
July 15, 2008... Marks & Spencer is to spend up to [pounds sterling]450m on IT in three years to support its push into international and online sales. The investment forms part of a three-year, company-wide IT plan, revealed in the company's annual report....

News.(Marks and Spencer PLC)(Brief article)
July 15, 2008... Marks & Spencer is to spend [pounds sterling]120m to [pounds sterling]150m a year for each of the next three years to revamp its in-store trading, supply chain, and distribution systems. Stuart Rose, Marks & Spencer's chairman, told the...

News.(International Business Machines Corp.)(Brief article)
July 15, 2008... IBM has developed radio frequency identification (RFID) tracking technology to track chickens from farms to supermarket shelves. The supplier is working with a Norwegian food producer Nortura to build a proof of concept item-level tagging...

News.(Survey)(Brief article)
July 15, 2008... Europeans who use social networking sites are increasingly concerned about their privacy. A study by Survey Sampling International (SSI) found that more than 50% of Britons, Germans, French and Spanish were worried about identity theft and...

News.(Brief article)
July 15, 2008... More than 63% of new malicious programs that appeared during the second quarter of 2008 were Trojans, according to the latest quarterly report from security outfit PandaLabs. Adware, with 22.40%, was the second most frequently created type...

News.(dismissal of Diane Greene from VMware Inc.)(Brief article)
July 15, 2008... VMware has sacked its founder and chief executive Diane Greene in a boardroom coup. The firm has also cut its sales forecast for the year, warning annual sales would likely fall "modestly below" previous predictions of 50% sales growth....

News.(Brief article)
July 15, 2008... Companies that use global virtual and dedicated private networks are battling to get best value for money in the face of widely differing prices for the same services, a study has revealed. Market analyst TeleGeography found that prices for...

News.(Brief article)
July 15, 2008... BT online gadget shop Dabs.com has joined the Canada-based Ethoca community to reduce the risk of fraud associated with its [pounds sterling]200m turnover from 5,000 transactions a day. Ethoca, in which Royal Bank of Scotland has an...

News.(Heathrow Express)(Brief article)
July 15, 2008... The Heathrow Express train service has launched a mobile ticketing system using the first implementation of Atos Origin's AVANTIXMetro platform. Passengers on the Heathrow Express between Paddington and Heathrow Airport can now have their...

News.(Survey)(Brief article)
July 15, 2008... The business potential of social networking sites remains largely untapped, says analyst Gartner. Most users of social networking websites are motivated by personal needs and a desire for entertainment, rather than business and practical...

Radar.
July 15, 2008... The sight of supercomputers in every home and office may become a reality thanks to video games such as Grand Theft Auto. High-end 3D games need the fastest graphics chips to run well. This has driven graphics cards makers to build...

Networks.
July 15, 2008... A chain is only as strong as its weakest link. In business, that link can be the length of time it takes to return a customer's call or send a response, internally or externally, to an e-mail. The problem is exacerbated by the number of...

News.
July 15, 2008... Businesses will soon no longer be limited to .com and the other 20 top-level domains when choosing how best to represent themselves on the internet. Domain name authority Icann has accepted proposals that will let companies choose their...

Career Moves.
July 15, 2008... What is it? The initial surge of Linux in the server market has settled down in recent years. But in embedded applications, particularly mobile devices, the open source operating system is soaring. Global connectivity analysts ABI...

Career Moves.(Nokia Corp.)(Trolltech)
July 15, 2008... What is it? Now owned by Nokia following the takeover of Trolltech earlier this year, Qt is a cross-platform application framework for desktop and embedded applications, with a strong history in Gui development. It is particularly...

Networks.
July 15, 2008... The board has signed off the proposal and the supplier's engineers are heading for the door, but how does a business make sure its new unified communications system delivers? Much of the advice that Computer Weekly has gleaned from industry...

News.(DreamWorks Animation SKG Inc.)(Intel Corp.)(Brief article)
July 15, 2008... Intel and DreamWorks Animation have formed an alliance designed to promote the production of stereoscopic 3-D filmmaking techniques. The partnership has already resulted in the production of the Monsters vs Aliens movie scheduled for...

News.(Microsoft Corp.)(Yahoo! Inc.)(Brief article)
July 15, 2008... Microsoft has said that it is open to the possibility of restarting acquisition discussions with Yahoo if the troubled search firm is prepared to elect a new board at its 1 August stockholder meeting. Amid a takeover bid that has produced...

News.(Brief article)
July 15, 2008... From laptops to virtual teachers, technology is becoming pervasive in American classrooms, according to a report from Reuters. Students in Boston Massachusetts are not alone among many school children across the US who regularly use a...

News.(Apple Inc.)(British Airways PLC)(Brief article)
July 15, 2008... A program for the Apple iPhone developed by British Airways to allow people to check flight departures and arrivals, could be rolled out to other mobile devices. "In principle we could roll it out to other phones. There's nothing formal...

News.(Department for Work and Pensions)(Brief article)
July 15, 2008... The Department for Work and Pensions' failure to implement management information systems contributed to [pounds sterling]2bn worth of benefit error, MPs said in a report published today. The Public Accounts Committee was looking at the...

News.(Fujitsu Services)(European Union. European Commission)(Brief article)
July 15, 2008... The European Commission is signing a four-year IT services supply contract with Fujitsu Services. The contract is with the Directorate General for External Relations (DG Relex) of the European Commission. The deal covers the supply of...

News.(Barclays PLC)(Brief article)
July 15, 2008... Barclays is expected to shed IT jobs, after announcing that it will no longer offer new loans through its FirstPlus loans business. Barclays plans to cut three quarters of the overall staff, but it has not specified which departments will...

News.(Information Commissioner's Office encourages organisations to seek recognition for good data protection practices)(Brief article)
July 15, 2008... The Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) is encouraging organisations in the public sector to seek recognition for good data protection practices by applying for a European award. The award aims to increase awareness of best practice in...

News.(selling copies of the electoral register to marketing companies must be ban says Richard Thomas )
July 15, 2008... Councils should be banned from selling copies of the electoral register to marketing companies, the UK's information watchdog has said. Information commissioner Richard Thomas said in the Data Sharing Review, published today, that selling...

News.(Brief article)
July 15, 2008... UK airlines say government plans to make airport workers the first British nationals to carry national ID cards will add to the industry's costs without improving security. The British Air Transport Association (Bata) said none of its...

News.(Brief article)
July 15, 2008... Senior management are the worst offenders when it comes to using up IT's time in dealing with personal technology problems and requests. Half of IT managers spend at least 10% of their time on personal IT queries in the office, with the...

News.(Brief article)
July 15, 2008... Demand for IT support jobs has risen by 20% in the UK compared with two years ago, despite the growth of offshore IT support centres. According to research from IT recruitment firm ReThink Recruitment IT support roles have grown to 30% of...

News.(Survey)(Brief article)
July 15, 2008... UK businesses are failing to maximise the value of their IT investments, potentially wasting [pounds sterling]3.5bn a year, says consultancy KPMG. Research among 125 IT decision workers, undertaken by Information Age magazine and KPMG,...

News.(briefs)(West Midlands Police)
July 15, 2008... Banks should be made legally liable for e-crime losses, the House of Lords Science and Technology Committee said last week. The Banking Code does not give individuals enough protection against online crime, the committee concluded in its...

News.(Royal Bank of Scotland PLC)(Brief article)
July 15, 2008... The Royal Bank of Scotland has launched a pilot of MasterCard's PayPass contactless payments system in London black cabs. Contactless cardholders will be able to pay for fares of [pounds sterling]10 or less by tapping their MasterCard...

News.(Brief article)
July 15, 2008... UK SMEs are wasting [pounds sterling]42.2m a day from using traditional paper filing instead of electronic document systems. Document management firm Invu commissioned independent research among 800 UK managers and directors at SMEs to...

News.(Survey)(Brief article)
July 15, 2008... Most UK companies have poor green credentials, according to a survey of 8,000 IT directors and business decision makers across Europe. The Brocade survey found that 60% of UK respondents rated their employers' green credentials negatively,...

News.(Simons Construction Ltd.)(Brief article)
July 15, 2008... Simons Construction has cut its paper consumption by a third in the past year by centralising printing. The company reduced its printers by 90% to 14 high-volume units that print documents only when confirmed by staff for a second time at...

News.(promotion of Ian Buchanan in Alliance and Leicester PLC)(Brief article)
July 15, 2008... Financial services company Alliance & Leicester has promoted its IT director to the board, in a move that will help the company get best out of its core banking platform due to be launched in 2010. Group IT director Ian Buchanan, who...

News.(Apple Inc.)(Brief article)
July 15, 2008... Apple has opened AppStore, the online shop for buying iPhone applications. Users running iTunes can use AppStore to download business, productivity, games and travel applications direct to the iPhone 3G. Enterprise software suppliers including...

News.(Survey)(Brief article)
July 15, 2008... A survey commissioned by Linksys shows that 59% of the UK population who have broadband at home have a wireless network. The survey questioned more than 2,000 UK adults online and found that 69% had a digital music player, 57% a DVR/PVR or...

News.(CancerResearch UK)(Groundwork)(Brief article)
July 15, 2008... Cancer Research UK Cancer Research UK is deploying Groundwork Monitor Professional, an open source systems management tool, to support its mixed MacOS and Windows desktop and server IT infrastructure. The open source product will be used to...

News.(Cisco Systems Inc.)(Microsoft Corp.)(Brief article)
July 15, 2008... Cisco plans to reshuffle its top UK management line-up. The move is expected to result in the departure of UK and Ireland boss Duncan Mitchell, says CRN, which learned of the changes through a leaked e-mail from the company CRN says...

News.(Survey)(Brief article)
July 15, 2008... Most City workers admit they'll be in contact with their office whilst away "on holiday" this summer. City employees will feel unable to completely relax on holiday, worried that their colleagues will try to muscle in on their territory...

News.(Daily Mail and General Trust)(Brief article)
July 15, 2008... Daily Mail publisher Associated Newspapers has had to tell journalists and suppliers they are at risk of identity theft after a laptop containing the personal details of thousands of employees was stolen last week. Associated Newspapers...

News.(PayPal links with Google's Gmail webmail service to protect consumers against fraudulent e-mails and phishing attacks)(Brief article)
July 15, 2008... PayPal and its owner eBay have announced a link-up with Google's Gmail webmail service to protect consumers against fraudulent e-mails and phishing attacks. Gmail account holders will receive fewer fake e-mails claiming to be sent by eBay...

News.(University of Exeter upgrades network to become a top ten United Kingdom university)(Brief article)
July 15, 2008... The University of Exeter is upgrading its network as part of its attempt to become a top ten UK university. The new 10,000 port network being built by supplier Data Integration will incorporate Juniper Networks' EX Series switches,...

News.(Faster Payments system attracts fraudsters)
July 15, 2008... By clearing bank payments in hours rather than the three days needed for Bacs, the Faster Payments system may be attracting fraudsters, who see an opportunity to get their hands on funds before they are detected. Introduced at the end of...

News.(Apple Inc.)(Brief article)
July 15, 2008... Businesses are being offered the Apple iPhone for free when it launches as a 3G device this Friday (11 July). The new iPhone, an upgrade from the GPRS device, supports Microsoft Exchange ActiveSync, delivering push email, calendar and...

News.(Brief article)
July 15, 2008... Worldwide server sales grew 2.5% in the first quarter of 2008, a smaller increase than first reported, says analyst Gartner. The year-on-year increase saw IBM take the biggest sales share of the market, while Hewlett-Packard grabbed the...

News.(Brief article)
July 15, 2008... A German court has ruled that banks are liable for phishing attacks on customers, reports Spiegel. A judgment of the Amtsgericht (lowest court) at Wiesloch says the banks are responsible for damages arising from unauthorised interception...

News.(Viacom Inc.)(Yahoo! Inc.)(Brief article)
July 15, 2008... A US court has forced Google to disclose the user details of every viewer of its YouTube video site. The ruling is a result of Viacom's multibillion-dollar lawsuit against Google, which alleges that YouTube has breached copyright rules on...

News.(International Business Machines Corp.)
July 15, 2008... Tesco is considering deploying mainframes to reduce its carbon footprint. Research shows they may well be greener than datacentres full of PC servers, but should IT directors start buying mainframes again to improve datacentre energy...

News.(Brief article)
July 15, 2008... Hillingdon Council has reduced its carbon footprint through a consolidated and enhanced IT service desk. Working with the Service Desk Institute (SDI), Hillingdon has reduced its carbon footprint by 28 tonnes in five years by consolidating...

News.(Survey)(Brief article)
July 15, 2008... Heavy workloads are forcing a third of IT executives to miss out on their full holiday entitlement, according to the Chartered Management Institute (CMI). A survey of 1,484 executives showed 34% of those missing out on holiday blame...

News.(United Kingdom. National Health Service)(Brief article)
July 15, 2008... NHS trusts should implement interim IT systems instead of waiting for the National Programme for IT (NPfIT) to deliver in 2012, a government review of health IT has concluded. The Department of Health's Health Informatics Review said...

News.(Infosys Technologies Ltd.)(Financial report)(Brief article)
July 15, 2008... Indian outsourcer Infosys Technologies saw a 24.5% increase in year-on-year sales for the quarter ended 30 June, but there are signs that its market is slowing. Infosys said sales increased to [pounds sterling]580m for the quarter, while...

News.(United States. Army)(Sophos PLC)(Brief article)
July 15, 2008... Web security firm Sophos is warning of an attempt by hackers to infect computers using the guise of a news report claiming that the US has invaded Iran. Widely spammed e-mails with subject lines including "Third World War has begun",...

News.(Irish Stock Exchange)(IronPort Systems Inc.)(Brief article)
July 15, 2008... The Irish Stock Exchange has solved its spam problems with a system from IronPort. Up to 90% of the exchange's inbound e-mail consisted of spam and the organisation wanted a self-managed and easy-to-administer solution. The IronPort...

News.(Lastminute.com PLC)(Brief article)
July 15, 2008... Online travel website Lastminute.com lost almost a day of business last week following a power failure at its communications supplier Colt. A power outage at a Colt datacentre brought down the main Lastminute website and subsidiary sites...

News.(Transoft Networks Inc.)(Reserve National)
July 15, 2008... Middleware from legacy software specialist Transoft could help businesses modernise their Cobol applications without the need to change any code. The software, called CIO, has been used by US health insurer Reserve National, to migrate a...

News.(Microsoft Corp.)(Brief article)
July 15, 2008... Microsoft will issue four security patches next week to address vulnerabilities in the SQL Server database platform, the Exchange e-mail server and the Windows operating system. The four patches will be distributed tomorrow (8 July) as part...

News.(Menzies Hotels Group Ltd.)(IDeaS)(Brief article)
July 15, 2008... The Menzies hotel group has rolled out the IDeaS revenue management system across its UK hotel chain to improve its operations and cashflow. "Having recently expanded our business, the installation of this solution from IDeaS guarantees a...

News.(Microsoft Corp.)(Brief article)
July 15, 2008... Microsoft has launched a software asset management framework, which it says can help users discover what software is running throughout their companies. Michael Beare, Director of License Compliance, Microsoft, said the SAM framework...

News.(TeleWest Communications PLC)(Brief article)
July 15, 2008... DSL broadband service provider ntl:Telewest is offering businesses a way to improve the quality of their network connection, which it says would make DSL more practical for corporate use. The download and upload speeds for home users of DSL...

News.(Brief article)
July 15, 2008... Queues began forming early this morning to get their hands on Apple's new iPhone 3G, which ships in the UK today. But with limited stock, few customers are likely to get their hands on one. There was already a queue of about 40 people...

News.(Brief article)
July 15, 2008... The UK is at the bottom of the open source adoption league, says analyst Forrester. Forrester has produced a new report evaluating the state of open source adoption across Europe and North America. The report looks into the key motivations...

News.(Poole Hospital NHS Foundation Trust)(Brief article)
July 15, 2008... Poole Hospital NHS Foundation Trust is deploying a wireless local area network (WLAN) to help improve patient care. The WLAN will be installed by Alcatel-Lucent business partner Khipu Networks. It will be used with printed patient...

News.(Brief article)
July 15, 2008... The prison service is piloting an IT-based intelligence system to tackle drug use in jails. A review on drugs in prisons, by former Inspector of Constabulary David Blakey, concluded that, "The lack of an integrated intelligence system is...

News.(Brief article)
July 15, 2008... Next month Seagate will start shipping the world's largest desktop hard disc. Designed for mainstream desktop computers, workstations, desktop RAID, gaming and high-end PCs, the 1.5-terabyte desktop PC provides 500 Gbytes more storage than the...

News.(Second Life)(Linden Lab)(International Business Machines Corp.)(Brief article)
July 15, 2008... Users of virtual world Second Life may soon be able to teleport between different virtual environments, thanks to a collaboration between Linden Lab and IBM. Second Life creator Linden Lab and IBM have demonstrated virtual world...

News.(Survey)(Brief article)
July 15, 2008... Server virtualisation is now firmly embedded in European organisations, says research from analyst IDC. IDC said that firms already using the technology were in the process of virtualising 35% of the servers they had bought in 2007, and...

News.(Survey)(Brief article)
July 15, 2008... UK online shoppers are getting far more security savvy, shows a survey of consumers by PayPoint.net. The survey found that 98% of shoppers check for some kind of online security before paying, and just 3% say they would trust a small online...

News.(Brief article)
July 15, 2008... Siemens is slashing 12,600 jobs from its global workforce as it seeks to cut [pounds sterling]1bn from its costs by 2010 in response to the economic downturn. The company intends to make job cuts primarily in administration-related...

News.(Brief article)
July 15, 2008... A widespread malicious e-mail spam campaign used the guise of the 4 July American Independence Day celebrations last week. Using the promise of an impressive video clip of fireworks, the spam was designed to steal users' private data,...

News.
July 15, 2008... IBM and scientists of the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Zurich (ETH) have demonstrated an extensive simulation of real human bone structures. The simulation was made using the IBM Blue Gene supercomputer. The method combines...

News.(Brief article)
July 15, 2008... A lack of IT funding in schools is hindering technology education, according to a survey of teachers. The survey, conducted by digital design provider Man and Machine, interviewed 100 teachers, heads of year, and ICT managers working at...

News.(Survey)
July 15, 2008... More than twice as many UK employees are using company networks to access social networking sites compared to last year, leading to increased security risks according to Trend Micro. The security firm found that 27% of UK employees visited...