Shareholder lawsuits settled In brief Hewlett-Packard has received the blessings of the European Commission to swallow the computer service giant Electronic Data Systems (EDS) without regulatory fuss.…

Insecure by design The vast majority of US bank websites jeopardize the security of their online customers by including design flaws that expose passwords and are susceptible to tampering by attackers, researchers say.…

Available in Windows, Mac and Linux RealNetworks has issued an update that patches four security holes in its RealPlayer jukebox program, including a critical flaw that vulnerability tracker Secunia published today.…

Only largest accounts will get a direct line Sun Microsystems plans to rapidly move its entire US customer base, short of its largest accounts, to an indirect sales model.…

Less is more OSCON The Mozilla Public License (MPL) is the latest casualty of Google's decision to remove open-source licenses from its popular code hosting service.…

New feature closes security loophole Google is adding a much-demanded feature to its email service that offers improved security by ensuring users get an encrypted connection each time they access their account via a web connection.…

Hawaiian shirt flight suits still in design phase Space tourism entrepreneurs at Virgin Galactic are poised to unveil the mothership that will launch the fabulously wealthy on ballistic arcs outside the Earth's atmosphere.…

While in possession of launch codes In the latest cockup involving nuclear arms, three ballistic missile crew members fell asleep while in possession of classified launch codes used to launch nuclear attacks, the US Air Force says.…

Music Unlimited Like Micro, like Hoo. Following in the footsteps of Steve Ballmer and company, Yahoo! plans to destroy the DRM servers propping up all those people misguided enough to purchase tunes from its failed music store.…

'No particular problems' to listening in Off the cuff remarks by Austrian government officials suggest that Skype conversations might be intercepted.…

Could Orange become the UK's second iPhone carrier? It’s already been rumoured that the iPhone 3G’s turning red, but fresh speculation has it that the must-have talker will also turn Orange within months.…

Ponies up to Apache, endorses LGPL OSCON After years of hostility towards Free Software Foundation (FSF) licensing (here and here) Microsoft has announced the first in a series of PHP patches - and it's using an FSF license.…

Haven't they heard of databases and CCTV? Sutton Police have started a scheme to get local kids to turn up to talk to community officers by being nice to them.…

'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.…

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.…

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.…

'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.…

(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.…

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:…

'Yay. No, YAY!' Comment 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.…

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.…

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.…

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.…

Hot to trot Mozilla has fixed multiple vulnerabilities in the Thunderbird email client.…

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 instead. And frankly, it goes downhill from there.…

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.…

Appliance of datawarehouse science Microsoft is buying data warehouse appliance maker DATAllegro in its latest push in the enterprise business intelligence market.…

Molecule-sized micro MP3 player Review 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.…

'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.…

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.…

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.…

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.…

Oyster falls down again Updated Commuters are travelling for free on the London Underground this morning after technical problems again brought down the Oyster ticket system.…

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.…

Give yourselves a big hug Today is Sysadmin Day - the annual celebration of all things sys.…

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.…

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.…

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 share copyright material and pointed towards legal alternatives."…

AT&T among those putting subscribers at risk Updated 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, Time Warner and Bell Canada - have yet to install a patch inoculating their subscribers against attacks, according to an informal survey of Register readers.…

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.…

'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.…

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.…

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.…

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.…

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.…

Woo FCC with $19m in 'voluntary contributions' …

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.…

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 hearing this week. In addition, Mondello was fined $220,000 in cash and his computers were confiscated by order of US District Court Judge Ann L. Aiken, the Oregonian reports.…

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.…

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.…